Letter: Lifting a phrase (1975)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lifting a phrase

Readers may be amused to know that at the beginning of an editorial in the Guardian (Feb. 24) there was a reference to “some people” talking about “the Footbill”. I suppose it was too much to expect that the paper would mention that the “some people” were the Socialist Standard (article on the Freedom of the Press, Feb.) but at least it is nice to know that they read the complimentary copy of the paper we sent them. At any rate we need not feel inhibited about sending them another copy. Who knows, one day they may even feel like dealing with our socialist criticism.

L. E. Weidberg 

London, N.W.3

Letter: Our attitude on Hungary (1957)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our attitude on Hungary

Salford, 7,


December 18, 1956.

Dear Comrades,

I think the Party’s attitude on this subject needs further elucidation. In this month’s S.S. it is considered that the revolt is not worth the shedding of a drop of working-class blood.

This seems to conflict with previous statements that the Hungarian workers were trying to improve their miserable condition. In my view it also differs from the position on the first Russian revolution recently quoted in “50 years ago.” There it was stated that the workers and Capitalists have a short way to travel together. But not in Hungary!

In any case it needs to be made clear what the workers are supposed to do under a Communist dictatorship. It won’t be smashed without the shedding of working class blood; and there won’t be any Socialism or even propaganda for Socialism till it is smashed.

It has often been said that the Capitalists will never let themselves be ousted but if defeated on the Parliamentary field would form a dictatorship. I should have thought the original success of the Hungarians against their own national dictatorship (before overwhelming Russian intervention) was a good case for the Party in that respect. I think it also might have been mentioned that the working class, even those who had been schooled only on “Communism,” showed that objective conditions still prevailed over ’phoney propaganda.

In general I did feel the S.S. was less than generous to the heroic effort which wrested power, “with bare hands” from a police state.

Yours truly,

L. E. Weidberg.

Having said the above, may I add that the general excellence of the articles in the S.S. over the years is not unappreciated by one who has left the work to others.

Reply

The article in the December S.S. to which the critic refers made it clear that, whilst expressing sympathy with the victims of the “Communist” savagery, the Hungarian revolt was fundamentally a movement in favour of Hungarian Capitalist rule, and therefore was not worth the shedding of a drop of working class blood. One reason for this is that the removal of Russian Capitalist oppression is no guarantee that Hungarian Capitalist rule would be any better in the long run.

We have learnt from experience during the last 50 years. We were urged to support the Russian armed rising against the Czarist Police State 40 years ago. The result of that rising has been the establishment of one of the most savage and oppressive police states in the history of the world. We were urged to support the German rising about the same time and the result was another form of police state equally savage. Austria and China have had similar experiences.

However much we may desire to see freedom of expression where it is denied, armed uprising is not the way to accomplish it. Once guns enter into the dispute then guns continue to be be arbiters in internal clashes of ideas afterwards, until either economic development or organised working class action compels the powers that rule to make concessions. That has been the lesson repeatedly driven home, but not wholly appreciated, during toe last 100 years of working class activity. However much we may desire to make progress there is no quicker way than this organised working class action to clear the road to working class emancipation.

Thus, although we appreciate the courage of those who were prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice rather than continue to suffer Russian domination, it is our duty as Socialists to tell the bitter truth. Firstly, that it was not a rising aimed at bringing toe workers freedom; secondly, that armed uprisings may bring a change of rulers but will not bring freedom from class rule; thirdly, that the success of toe uprising would not necessarily have put an end to the police state.

It is not true that there cannot be any Socialist propaganda until a “Communist” dictatorship is smashed. The critic himself suggests that there can be Socialist propaganda when he writes that “the working class, even those who had been schooled on 'Communism' showed that objective conditions still prevailed over phoney propaganda” The revolt was not a bolt out of toe blue. It had been discussed and organised. There is, and has been. Socialist propaganda in all “Communist” and other police states.

It is worth while bearing in mind that, according to the information so far available the peaceful agitation of the Hungarian workers by stopping work has accomplished more, at far less cost in human life, than the armed uprising did. Thus, it certainly appears that the sounder attitude for the Hungarian workers would have been to stick to that method from the beginning in order to accomplish the limited objectives they were after. Sooner than see the whole social fabric collapse into confusion the rulers would have conceded some at least of their demands. However, once an armed revolt was embarked upon bloody conflict was inevitable, with savage reprisals and the use of Russian armed might; and now the atmosphere is still there for further savage reprisals.

Another advantage strike action alone would have achieved would be this. Attacks on peaceful strikers by the police, the militia, and the army, would have made the savagery of the Russian overlords more obvious to the world of Labour. The Russian rulers would not then be able to pat forward the pretence that they were quelling an armed rising against the government.

We are surprised at the last paragraph of the critic’s letter. Over and over again we have expressed our admiration for the courage and devotion of those who took part in the rising; we have, however, been truthful in regretting that it was not done in a better cause, the freedom from all oppression. To be generous without being truthful is to invite cheap praise. We have done our best to be helpful to the working class cause by pointing out realities in order to minimise, as far as possible, useless heroism in the future. We are also mindful of the bitter fact that the victims of today are so often the oppressors of tomorrow.

The revolt did not, as our critic puts it “wrest power, ‘with bare hands,’ from a police state.” The repressive action from outside was a foregone conclusion, and the power remains where it was. Furthermore, the action was not taken “with bare hands.” A portion of the Hungarian army took part in it and arms were in the the hands of the revolters.

Finally, let us consider the reference to the extract from the Socialist Standard of “Fifty Years Ago” that appeared in the November number. It concerns the attitude of the Socialist movement in a country where there is a revolt against a particular form of repression. We would urge the critic to look at the whole extract again in order to get a clear picture of what the writer was driving at. We would particularly urge him to take note of the following selections from the extract:—

“Hence, in the other nations of Western Europe a straight fight is possible between the proletariat and the capitalist ruling class, whilst in Russia the rising capitalist class has yet its emancipation from autocracy to accomplish: so that, in contrast with practically the whole of civilised nations, the working class and the capitalist class in Russia have, in the abolition of Tzardom's tyranny, a step to go together. This historical circumstance, which is at once the strength and weakness of the Russian movement, distinguishes it from that of all capitalist countries." . . .

“ Let us then do all in our power to help our Socialist comrades in Russia in the hope that they will not be deceived as to the outcome of the present upheaval: in the hope. also, that they will sternly keep their separate identity, and distinct aim. so that the Russian bourgeoise State of tomorrow may find a militant class-organisation of Socialist workers leading the final struggle against the Capitalist class, whose defeat must herald the Triumph of Humanity."

It will be seen from the above that the struggle in Russia 50 years ago was to get rid of the semi-feudal barriers, and the Socialist movement there was urged to keep their independence and their Socialist policy. As far as Capitalist Hungary is concerned that is still the attitude for the Socialist to take. Socialists there, just as under autocratic Russia in days gone by, should stand by their Socialist objective and do what propaganda they can under existing conditions, just as, for instance, an Austrian comrade of ours did under the Nazi and Russian occupations.

Editorial Committee.

To Sir, Without Love (1976)

The Lavender List

From the July 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

There has been a lot of noise about your choice of peers for your last Honours List but before we deal with this vital subject perhaps we can ask you a question which I think has not been put to you: Sir, Oh Sir, wherefore art thou Sir? After all, you have so often proclaimed yourself an “egalitarian socialist” (whatever that is supposed to mean) who didn’t believe in titles. (We know you believed in other things. Like money. And translated your sincere belief into practice.) So what on earth has your hand been doing on the royal garter? It makes one doubt your honesty!

Of course, we Socialists understand the noble reason you have always given for creating nobles. You had to put “socialists” in the House of Lords so as to smooth the way for the introduction of “socialism”. Couldn’t expect those Tory backwoodsmen to bring in “socialism,” could we? And if you had to make Lords for the sake of the cause, what more natural than that you should choose your friends? So you created Lord Jumbojet, your solicitor. He was already President of everything in sight so he was well suited to Lord it (or to lard the lean earth, like the original Falstaff). True, he jumbojetted to the villainous Smithie for Sir Alec Whom? who does not claim to be a socialist (about the only one who doesn’t, I think). But it would be ignoble to quibble. He did it all for “socialism”. Noblesse oblige.

Then you made a Lady of your chef de cabinet (and about time too, I’m sure). Lady Marcia, the Virgin of the Slagheaps. Such a pity that your kitchenmaid had to have a flutter in the property sewers when you had been going out of your way to denounce such ways of making money under capitalism — though why the acquisition of wealth from slagheaps is any worse than from any other heaps — e.g. memoirs — is a bit puzzling. It’s all coming from the same source, the exploitation of the working class, isn’t it? Or did you find your five houses in a slagheap, perhaps? Still, we won’t be unkind to the Lady; as she explained, she only did it to have something put by for her old age. True, some villainous Socialist in the Socialist Standard was a bit caustic about this excuse, saying something about you having used your power to arrange pittances for the old age of real workers and why isn’t that good enough for my Lady? No satisfying these Socialists, is there?

In the light of all that sort of thing, the furore over your parting gift to a bunch of rather obvious capitalists, is really unfair to you. But now your hard stint at the coalface is over, what did you achieve for the workers? They did plenty for you didn’t they? And where is the socialism you got the power for? Somehow, I don’t think you’ll answer that one.

L. E. Weidberg

The Socialist-Myth Countries (1974)

From the June 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Among the: many factors which have contributed to the undoubtedly disappointing speed (if that is the word) at which the working class have progressed towards an understanding of Socialism in the years since the Socialist Party was formed, one which has undoubtedly had a serious effect is the emergence of the so-called socialist countries, commencing in 1917 with Russia and continuing with many others in more recent years. The effect has been pernicious in two ways. First, the picture of life as it affects the working class in those lands has been of sufficient grimness as to cause those workers who think at all about these things to say: if that is Socialism (and only the tiniest handful realise that it is isn’t), you can keep it.

Secondly, and perhaps of even greater importance, large numbers of workers who are dissatisfied with capitalism as they experience it in their daily lives, especially the younger and more idealistically-inclined elements, have been taken in by the propaganda put cut by these countries from Lenin’s time onwards, the mouthing of pseudo-Marxist phrases, the glib misuse of the terms Socialism and Communism for realities which were so different, often horrifically so. If all the youthful energy and enthusiasm which have been wasted on these false dawns had been channelled into genuinely Socialist effort, it is reasonable to suppose that the cause would have been materially advanced. The damage done to Socialist progress by Lenin and his ilk hardly bears thinking about.

It is of course no coincidence that the Socialist Party was never taken in by the spurious talk about the creation of Socialism in Russia. Our party was from the first anchored to the doctrine that there can be no Socialism until the material conditions for a society of abundance have been achieved (this, ironically or not, being the task of capitalism); and, equally important, till the majority of the working class understand and want the new system of common ownership. We stood behind Marx’s dictum that the establishment of the new society must be the work of the working class itself. And we therefore regarded with contempt Lenin’s completely opposite teaching (in What is to be done ? and other works) that the workers were not equipped to understand Socialism, which must be brought about by an élite Bolshevik leadership who were so equipped (presumably either by God or by nature). (It should be noted here that with Marx and Lenin having two mutually exclusive attitudes on this fundamental aspect, the very phrase “Marxism-Leninism”, always on the lips of the so-called Communists, is about as meaningful as square circles or black snowflakes.)

The rest of the world expressed puzzlement in 1917 (still does) that, contrary to Marx’s ideas, Socialism should come first not in the industrialised west but in backward Russia. We had no bother in dealing with this puzzle; we knew it was just a figment of the imagination. Lenin kept talking about Socialism. To many people that proved it existed. It didn’t. And doesn’t. The vast majority of Russians are propertyless workers who are forced to allow themselves to be exploited just as in the west. Marx’s “abolition of the wages system” is not even on the horizon in Russia. Any more than it is here. And the Russian workers are not even permitted the luxury of being allowed to talk about the idea or to publish papers like this one to propagate the idea of Socialism.

Since the Hitler war ended, the plague of fake socialist countries has spread widely. The countries of eastern Europe fell under the control of the military might of the state-capitalist giant in Moscow. The feelings of the workers who live under those pernicious régimes show through from time to time in the form of uprisings in Berlin, Budapest, Prague or Danzig (where Polish workers who merely protested against a massive increase in prices were mowed down by tanks sent by their “Communist” masters in Warsaw).

In China, a tiny gang of Maoists have imposed their iron grip over 800 million workers who are exploited without mercy and without the slightest vestige of trade union rights and other freedoms. And a British Labour Peeress, Lady Wootton, who has the nerve to call herself a Socialist, actually wrote in Encounter that it was quite right that these millions should not be allowed trade unions ! While in The Observer, an ignorant intellectual, Professor Galbraith, actually wrote: “It works for the Chinese” (this echoing a previous-generation American intellectual who returned from Moscow with the infamous remark : “I have seen the future and it works”). Of course it works well enough for these impudent carpet-baggers who enjoy VIP trips to see the exploitation of the Chinese workers and then return to their home comforts to get paid for writing lies about it. But it is a sad fact that many young workers and students, who apparently now see through the Russian fraud, have simply switched not to studying Marx but to bootlicking Mao.

The rash has now spread so that every tin-pot black dictatorship in Africa has the nerve to call itself Socialist. And of course, so-called radical papers like the Guardian play their ignoble part in fostering the myths and the confusion by conning their readers into thinking that Socialism exists in such unlikely places as Zambia, Tanzania or Cuba. It never seems to worry these western apostles of freedom that all these places have one thing in common — prisons crammed with poor wretches whose only crime is to have fallen foul of the tyrannies run by Kaunda, Nyerere or Castro. Perhaps they have a great deal to learn, but many of them must be already learning it.

L. E. Weidberg

Letter: The Falklands War (1982)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors.

L. Weidberg's letter on the total lack of economic motive in the British sending of a Task Force to the Falklands is not supported by available evidence. It is true that for some twenty years, Tory and Labour governments have been dubious about holding on to the Falklands. but there is also much evidence that capitalist interests in Britain were dubious about letting the islands go. The following extracts from a Sunday Times (13 June 1982) article are not without significance:

Looking to the future. economic development of the islands will be based on a complete reversal of previous neglect. Lord Shackleton, author of a largely ignored report on the islands' potential in 1976, is working on a new version at Mrs. Thatcher's request.

Whitehall has been reawakened to the importance of Antarctica's resources and the strategic possibilities of Britain's South Georgia Dependencies . . . This triangular sector . . . contains more than one million square miles. Over this area a large amount of revenue has been expended on maintaining a chain of meteorological and scientific bases. The surveyor's reports reveal some interesting facts. The mineral deposits in the East (soft coal seams) are known to extend over an area of many thousands of square miles, and it is likely that Uranium, gold, iron and manganese are also present.

Many states have claimed sovereignty over wide areas; Britain's being called the Falkland Island Dependencies. Argentinian and Chilean claims in 1949 overlapped the British area. The US and USSR had made no claims up to 1954. but the US would not recognise the claims of other powers and made abortive attempts to induce the interested powers to accept some form of international sovereignty.

. . . the difficulty of defending the Falklands has been recognised for some time, and British policy has been based on that reality . . . On the other hand the island base is conveniently close to the Antarctic scene of operations — some 9,000 miles nearer than Britain.

Is it likely that British interests would give up this strategic link with the FID without more sacrifices of working class blood? L. Weidberg says that Mrs. Thatcher "knows that the working class, who comprise the bulk of the electorate, would like to think that "we" were going to get some material benefits in addition to saving the world from a fascist dictator " This is turning reality upside down. More often than not the workers have been mugged into believing that wars are fought to uphold great moral principles, while the economic causes are played down.

C. Kincaid

Milton Keynes

South Africa—chrome and cricket (1975)

From the September 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is the perennial cry of Socialists that as long as the capitalist system remains intact it will, by and large, dictate the course of events and politicians find they cannot implement promises and policies; and find themselves doing things different from or even utterly opposed to all they are supposed to stand for. The Labour Party, in common with most leftist types such as those represented by The Guardian, has for years been screaming about the iniquity of apartheid in South Africa. And quite right too. It is an abominable system.

So at times they try and do something that will make a big noise and at the same time do nothing to upset the real objective of all governments — to make the system work as efficiently and profitably as possible for the capitalist owners of the country. A convenient opportunity along these lines occurred to the last Wilson government in 1970. Wilson and his henchmen joined with the Hainites and The Guardian to strike a mortal blow at apartheid. They actually succeeded in stopping a cricket tour — and by all the sound and fury generated, one could have been forgiven for thinking that this blow had brought down apartheid, the racialist government of Vorster, and perhaps the whole evil capitalist system into the bargain. Of course apartheid has gone on just the same and as long as governments, Labour, Tory or east of the Curtain, were prepared to carry on trading and investing, Vorster and Co. would survive the loss of a cricket tour.

However, among the promises which Labour’s election manifesto poured out, was one about the iniquity of investing in South Africa. Fresh investments that is: there was no question of throwing away the vast sums already invested, or of ceasing to trade with Britain’s third biggest customer. That would worry Vorster and his apartheidists, but it would worry British capitalism even more, so such real gestures were out. The name of the game is to kid the leftists (such of them, that is, who believe their own claptrap). Not to hurt British capitalism. As though that lot isn’t in deep enough trouble already!

And so again, the needs of running the system fly in the face of all the leftists are supposed to stand for. I cannot do better than quote from a long and almost literate letter from a Labour MP called Kinnock (Guardian, July 31):

“Last October all Labour candidates fought in support of a manifesto which said that a Labour government would take urgent steps to reduce drastically British economic involvement in South Africa . . . End all financial links . . . Bring about the withdrawal of all or part of existing investment and establish machinery to prevent any further investment . . . Now, ten months later, the government permits the British Steel Corporation to invest heavily in a chrome plant in S. Africa”.

Well said, Kinnock! You have in fact exposed the Labour government as a bunch of hypocrites who would not tell a black man the time if it conflicted with the interests of the British capitalist class. Only one trouble: these people are your kith and Kinnock. You can’t accuse the government without accusing yourself at the same time. You are a Labour MP (masquerading as a socialist like all your swindling clan), and you keep that government in power for the privilege of riding to the cushy jobs at Westminster on the bandwagon. So what does that make you?

In the leading article on the same subject in The Guardian (July 29) the humbugs of Grays Inn Road give their own views: “Chrome: the only decision.” Unlike Kinnock, who denounces his own Fuehrer, the great leftist mouthpiece tells us that Wilson and his gang were quite right to rat on the manifesto. “The Labour Left may not like the idea of giving aid and comfort to South Africa”: it is “making an unnecessary fuss.” Among the reasons for this remark from the paper which made such a screaming fuss over a blasted game of cricket is:— “British Steel is among the companies with better reputations as employers of black labour. It claims it has gone to some lengths to make sure that the 184 black workers it will employ will be paid a reasonable wage, above the poverty datum line.”

Now isn’t that just ducky? It’s all right to break your word and give aid and comfort to the apartheidists if you “claim” to . . . do what? To pay the blacks good screws for working in the chrome mines? Equal to those earned by those who write hypocritical leading articles? Not quite: “Above the poverty datum line.” An extra handful of mealy, from the mealy mouths of our do-gooder Press.

But that’s only half of it. The editorial goes on to say: “It is hard to believe that what the British Steel Corporation does with its blocked funds is going to make any difference to apartheid.” So the same creeps who fooled the idiot wicket-sitters that they were striking a blow at apartheid, who endorsed the Labour manifesto without demur, now have the impudence to tell us that investment in chrome is neither here nor there as far as Vorster is concerned. They may be right. Maybe Vorster doesn’t give a monkey’s whatever Wilson and his capitalist lackeys do or do not do. But for The Guardian to say so beggars belief.

The main reason for Wilson’s decision is that South African chrome is cheaper than the rest. The editorial keeps to capitalist basics on this. If the chrome is dearer in South Africa it is right to honour your principles and buy elsewhere. But if it is cheaper, why, then you are right to say: Let the blacks go hang, we are buying in the cheapest market. There is a delightful bit at the end. In the case of another precious commodity, uranium, Tony Benn (the sanctimonious twit who wants to shed his name — but not the wealth that derives from it) wrote a letter to The Guardian in Sept. ’73 (when he was not yet in power and talk was therefore cheap) “pledging himself to end Britain’s contract to buy uranium from the Republic”. But when his lot came to power, they found: what? Why, that it would cost more to buy elsewhere. So they have not honoured this rat’s pledge to end the contract at all. Money talks louder than principles with Labour leaders — and with Guardian leader-writers.

Last, in the New Statesman, that other rag which stands for Labourite capitalism masquerading as socialism, around the same date there was a leading article on the same subject. But they objected to the betrayal of the blacks. How nice of them. The blacks will be very pleased to see them denounce the Labour Party at the next election. (A likely story.) But they actually say that something or other that Wedgbenn has done has “fastened the chains of slavery still tighter” round the victims of racialism in South Africa. I wonder what the sages of Great Turnstile will say about Benn at the next election? Workers beware? He is another twister who will sell the workers down the river (white ones as well as black)? Another likely story. One can only conclude by borrowing a pun from Marx. Es lebe der wurst! Es lebe der Hanwurst ! Long live the sausage! Long live the clown!

L E Weidberg

SPGB Lectures and Meetings (1977)

Party News from the July 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

The guest speaker at the Westminster Branch of the SPGB, Tony Bunyan, speaking on the subject of 'The Political Police in Britain', was the author of the book of the same name. It was reviewed in the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard.

The liberation of Africa (1978)

From the October 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

It might as well be made clear at once. The title of this article is black humour. In the whole of this mighty continent (Europe would fit into a corner), from Cairo to the Cape, there is hardly a square mile of liberty—even of the capitalist brand such as exists in places like Britain where the proletariat is at least able to organise itself into trade unions and political parties (and where the SPGB can publish, and you can read, this journal).

For a hundred years and more, almost the entire continent was carved up among the powers of Europe, mainly England and France but also including Portugal, Belgium, Italy and pre-1914 Germany). The European imperialists had little difficulty in ousting the native rulers who were in many cases barely out of the Stone Age—but who, like all ruling classes, had treated the subject classes with horrifying oppression and exploitation. It would be anybody’s guess whether the mass of the African peoples were subjected to more vicious exploitation under the Europeans than they were under their own native rulers (some of whom, among other delights, were always ready to sell their subjects for transportation to slavery). However, there grew up in the African countries (just as in India and South America) a movement to liberate the Africans from the European capitalists—a movement which was eagerly supported by European leftists of the Fenner Brockway ilk (it may be news to some readers that this ancient ILPer, a colleague of such as Maxton whose names sound like history lessons, is alive and well in the Lords where he occasionally pontificates about Africa without the slightest sign of realising that he spent his life helping to con the Africans from a white-ruled hell to the black-ruled hell that they have to endure now). We in the SPGB always did our best to point out that nationalism, whether in Ireland or India or Africa, was simply a trap for the working class and that those who laid down their lives for this cause were merely substituting a native ruling class for a foreign one. With the kind of "benefits” that are made so horrifyingly clear every time you open a paper or switch on the news.

It may be worthwhile to have a very brief look at a few of the dozens of countries where nationalism has won the day. In the north there is Egypt where the lot of the mass of the people is at least as degraded as it was in British days and where, only a year ago, President Sadat rewarded the poor devils who crossed the Suez Canal in the teeth of Israeli guns in the Yom Kippur War by decreeing a massive increase in the prices of the poor basic foods that they subsisted on—with no comparable increase in wages. As these workers were already only just about subsisting, there were riots in Cairo and Alexandria which were put down with at least as much brutality as was used by the British. And the "ring-leaders” (the name the ruling class always gives to workers who have the cheek to kick against the pricks) are still rotting in gaol—as though rotting in the normal poverty of Cairo’s slums is not bad enough. That should teach the Egyptian workers to fight their masters’ wars against Israel. (Sadly, there is no reason to think it will. Any more than in the case of British workers.)

Sadat recently had the impudence to hold a referendum where the voters were given the chance to say they thought there was too much political freedom! And, according to Sadat, said it. There is of course no freedom whatsoever in the land of Egyptian “Socialism”. (Almost all these countries now have the nerve to call themselves socialist.) Except the freedom of a small ruling class to get inordinately rich while the people who produce the wealth live in abject poverty.

Similar conditions obtain in the other countries of the north of the continent, in the former French colonies, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Senegal, all of which have divested themselves of European rulers since the war. In all of them the position of the working-class is one of wage slavery compounded by the opposition of the native rulers to the formation of trade unions or independent political parties. One day, the workers will no doubt succeed in getting them. But meanwhile, their fate is deplorable. And as we move south of the Sahara, conditions are even more appalling. The very names of places like Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the “Central African Empire” (ruled by a murderous megalomaniac called Bokassa, formerly a soldier in the French army, another General Amin) are enough to give nightmares to anyone with the slightest knowledge of the excesses that are perpetrated there. Then we have Zaire, formerly the Belgian Congo. One might have thought that the atrocities committed by King Leopold in pre-1914 days—his speciality was to cut off the hands of natives who impeded his quest for profits—would be unequalled. But the former Belgian soldier, Mobutu, who now rules in Kinshasa (formerly Leopoldville) can compare with the worst of them. And to some purpose. The fortune that he has spirited out of the country (against the day when he may have to get out in a hurry) is reputed to make him one of the richest men in the world. And this brings us to Angola with whose president, Netto, Mobutu has apparently come to terms recently after the wars and massacres that have taken place in the copper-rich province of Zaire, twice invaded recently by rebel forces stationed in Angola. Angola, like all the worst hell-holes, is now a "Marxist” state if you please. Marx repudiated Marxists in his time, but he could never have dreamt that his name would be purloined by the kind of regimes that exist in Angola and Ethiopia where mass murder and constant terror—against their own subjects, as well as against neighbouring black countries—are worthy of Genghiz Khan.

In Nigeria, the largest and potentially the richest country in the continent, once again there is not a vestige of freedom and the lot of the workers can be gauged by an item which was mentioned in the Socialist Standard some years ago but is worth repeating in the present context. The government of this rich country, which had recently finished off a war attempted secession by Biafra (and finished off around a million people by guns and starvation) had the effrontery to put an advert in that well-known liberal paper, the Guardian, calling on British capitalists to invest in factories in Nigeria where the main advantage was “the cheapest wages in Africa”—seven cents an hour. Just enough to keep a monkey in peanuts. So much for black workers in independent Africa. The black capitalists make royalty look like beggars. At the very time when Biafran workers were literally starving to death (and when all fighting had ended) the Nigerian chief, General Gowon, got married. The papers were full of the stories about planes coming in from France carrying tons of the most delectable foods—and French chefs to deal with them for the delectation of the ruling class wedding guests. Yet only a few days before this article was written, there was an article by the editor-in-chief of the Observer, Conor Cruise O’Brien, saying what a nice chap Gowon is and how graciously he accepted the coup that kicked him out—so that he could live in Hampstead on the millions he had salted away!

We can only just glance in passing at such details as the war between “Marxist” Somalia (formerly backed by “Marxist” Russia but now armed by America) and “Marxist” Ethiopia (formerly backed by America and now backed by “Marxist” Russia). Suffice it to say that thousands of poor people fight and die in places like the Danakil desert where, in temperatures that go up to 150F in the shade, life is just about on the margin even in peace time. And Kenya. Here, we have just ben regaled with the story of the funeral of M’zee, the Grand Old Man and Father of the People, Jomo Kenyatta. Some of us knew Kenyatta in the ’40s when he was in Manchester; our word for him was “four-flusher”. He played the leading rôle in getting rid of the British in Kenya so that now there is, as always, a small, exceedingly rich, black capitalist class and a mass of liberated black workers who are suffering at least as much poverty, unemployment etc. as they ever did. And let anyone who criticises the leadership beware. Even an MP who had the nerve to open his mouth in Parliament was kidnapped by Kenyatta’s guards and his body found dumped in a ravine. The Commission of Enquiry is still sitting!

Still, these poor Third World countries do get aid from places like Sweden; a herd of magnificent Swedish cattle, each beast being worth a hundred men in hard cash, was donated to improve the Kenyan stock. No doubt it improved the stock on the farm belonging to Kenyatta’s sister where the entire herd ended up. Then, a year or two later, a proud announcement was made by Tiny Rowland the chairman of Lonhro, the British firm trading mainly in Africa (the actual “unacceptable face of capitalism”—Heath): "We have appointed the first black man onto our Board”. Great news for the downtrodden proletariat. Especially when the new director was the son of the same Kenyatta’s same sister. How many African workers, conned by leftists of all colours, were made to suffer privation and even death in rebellions like the Mau Mau so that a few blacks should own the country instead of a few whites? And who will win the election to succeed Kenyatta? Nobody. No election, see.

All of which leaves us but little space to deal with the appalling state of affairs in Rhodesia which is now filling the papers (not to mention the cemeteries). The white capitalists have undoubtedly treated the black people in unspeakable fashion ever since the days of the unspeakable Rhodes. And now there are massacres of blacks and whites so as to sort out which black leaders will come out on top in the struggle for power when the whites are dethroned. Which will get the black Mercedes and which the hearses. There is no more principle involved than in the struggle between A1 Capone and Jack Diamond —or Stalin and Trotsky. At the time of writing, the favourite for the role of Stalin is a gang-leader called Mugabe, backed by Nyerere of Tanzania (another black “socialist” dictator who has an enormous number of political prisoners rotting away in his gaols). Mugabe has been most honest for a politician. He has made it perfectly clear that there will be no freedom to oppose him once he gets power. One man one vote —for Mugabe, or else. He has also made it clear that there is a grisly fate awaiting those who are now opposing him—which means huge numbers of ordinary blacks as well as leaders (and ordinary whites). And when there was a debate in the Commons about a dreadful massacre of missionaries and their families, a loud-mouthed leftie, a former actor called Faulds, blamed the massacre on those who failed to give “one man one vote”. Knowing full well Mugabe and Co have declined to take part in elections. Saying in effect: We have got the guns. We are going to take power on our terms and to hell with democracy. And if a lot of “our" blacks are going to get killed in the process, who cares?

And while on that note it is apposite to mention the role of our former “socialist” Premier, Sir Harold Wilson. When sanctions were first proclaimed against the Smith regime many years ago, he boasted they would bring down the white regime “in weeks, not months". And the British navy have mounted a blockade outside Beira ever since. And now even a paper like the Observer (Sep 3) calls Wilson a hypocrite because he was at that very time conniving in supplies of oil—the heart of the matter—being pumped into Rhodesia by British government-owned BP in order to defeat those very sanctions. Still, as the paper says, some hypocrisy is essential in government; it is merely a matter of how much! Wilson went too far! And the dreadful thing is that the majority of workers, of all colours, just swallow the hypocrisy of capitalism as though no other system is possible.

L. E. Weidberg

The Mandarin (1974)

From the October 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

The papers have had rather a lot to tell us about the wonderful welcome given by Maoist China to that well-known communist and faithful servant of the workers of the world, Comrade Ted Heath. One wonders what on earth the many thousands of workers who call themselves Marxists and Maoists can really think of the antics of the Chinese red-fascists who go out of their way to fête such an obvious and clumsy anti-worker as Heath. The same people who shouted “Heath Out” and “Long live Chairman Mao” can somehow bring themselves to swallow the spectacle of tens of thousands of workers being dragooned into turning out to stand by the wayside to cheer and march and dance in order to impress this capitalist buffoon.

What would the same people say if the workers here were called out to march like cheering automata to celebrate the arrival of “Former Prime Minister Heath”? It was hilarious, as well as tragic, that this was the only title they could greet him with because his present rôle, as distinct from his former one, is of course Leader of the Opposition. Somehow, it was regarded as unsuitable to use such a title in Maoist China. The workers may not have quite understood what a leader of the opposition could be in a land where there is no opposition, except in the cemetery. Or maybe it was feared that they would have understood too well; so even Heath’s title has to be twisted.

Of course, Heath was immensely bucked by this splendid reception which made him feel so much more important than he would be in England where he would be more likely to be greeted with a chorus of raspberries if he were to flaunt himself before the proletariat. And it goes without saying that when he returned he was full of praise for the rulers of China whose system he is supposed to hate. And did he say how abhorrent it was for workers to be drilled into clapping and waving flags and the rest of the disgusting charade? You must be joking. He enjoyed every minute of it. He and Mao are brothers under their skins. Like a couple of Orwell’s pigs.

L. E. Weidberg

The Cynicism of Capitalism: 1. Come and exploit our Africans (1972)

From the October 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has always made clear that nationalism, whether in Africa, Israel, Ireland or wherever, is a snare and a delusion for the working class of the country concerned. National independence may well be a good thing for the native capitalist class who are naturally concerned at seeing the fruits of the exploitation of the local working class going into the pockets of the British Imperialists or whoever the alien ruling class might be. But for workers to risk imprisonment or even death in a struggle for independence which will ensure for them nothing more than the joy of being exploited by their very own capitalists instead of foreign ones is clearly the height of folly.

A rather lurid light on this subject has recently been displayed in an advertisement in The Guardian by the Nigerian Government:

People are earning

HUGE PROFITS

in Nigeria


Huge domestic market of 55 millions


Abundant manpower is available at a rate
as low as 7 U.S. cents an hour.

You can get your investment back in
less than 3 years.

It should be pointed out that the words Huge Profits are printed in gigantic capitals in the advert, and are repeated at the end — People are earning huge profits in Nigeria: why don’t YOU ! The word “people” is itself a misleading term beloved of capitalist propagandists. It made nice capital, for example, when Nigeria was part of the British Empire, for the national capitalists to appeal to the Nigerian workers: People of Nigeria, fight to throw out the British Imperialist Exploiters. But nobody can be deceived by the present rallying-cry in the advert. The “people” who are “earning” these huge profits are not the African workers. They are earning something less. 7 cents an hour, in fact.

So the Nigerian government is setting out to get British capitalists to come and exploit African workers. Which means, of course, that a lot of these workers are going to find themselves in the ironical position of once again being exploited by the same white capitalists from whom they had fought and won their alleged independence. It is not sure, what with devaluations of the pound and revaluations of the dollar, exactly what 7 cents is worth these days but a tanner (two-and-a-half new pence to younger readers) would be somewhere near it. “In less than three years” gives an effective rate of exploitation to show a net return on capital of between 30 and 40 per cent, per annum. That’s really mouth-watering exploitation — far better than you would find in England or America. Or far worse, of course. Depending on whether you are a worker or a capitalist. That makes all the difference. Black or white clearly makes none.

Naked and unashamed, the Nigerian capitalists are boasting to Guardian readers (those poor devils who are fed each day on a diet of anti-racialism as though that were the only cause that mattered and anti-South-Africanism as though the natives of that unhappy land were living on even less than a tanner an hour) about what shockingly low wages they are getting away with. These are the people that the other people, the Nigerian workers, have put in power. “Come and exploit our blacks. They are the cheapest wage-slaves you can get.” We are not saying that the wage-slaves were better off under British rule. It is clear that they could hardly have been worse off. Even the worst capitalists must pay wages sufficient to live on. And they could hardly live on less than 7 miserable U.S. cents. And it is doubtful if such brutally cynical advertising would have happened. British capitalists are a bit too sophisticated to advertise “Our workers are paid less than other wage-slaves”. It certainly adds insult to injury to know that your exploiters are actually boasting about your slavery in the columns of the world’s leading do-gooder paper, god help us.

One wonders what that old do-gooder, the Labour peer Lord Fenner Brockway, thinks of the result of his efforts on behalf of African nationalism. No-one was more scathing in days gone by about the Socialist Party’s contention that nationalism was nothing to do with Socialism and was a trap for the working class. Brockway and the other leading Labourites of those days were all great friends of people like Nkrumah, Banda and Kenyatta. All of whom, when in power, have treated the African workers to an adaptation of the Biblical phrase: the British rules you with whips, we will rule you with scorpions. Which of course did not stop Brockway and other lefties from supporting people like Nkrumah who could fairly be described as Black Hitlers in the making (and the last little phrase would be omitted by the victims of the Nkrumah dictatorship which Brockway upheld).

Only a couple of years ago, the Nigerian government which had achieved independence had a spot of bother. It seems that some of their fellow black capitalists who lived in a part of the country they called Biafra wanted independence from their own black capitalist brothers. There was a lot of oil in the Port Harcourt area where they came from and they didn’t see why they should share the swag with the other black capitalists in Lagos. So there was another little fracas which resulted in hundreds of thousands of Africans, Nigerians and Biafran workers and their wives and children, being caught in a most murderous bloodbath or starved to death. But it seems that this was independence that the Labourites didn’t approve of. You see, these were the days of the Wilson government, and the fake socialists who were then managing British capitalism preferred to pay ball with the Nigerian government because this was in the interests of British Business (as a searing article in, of all places, The Guardian made clear when it was all over). And now that Nigerian independence has been finally won and defended against black and white alike, the net result of all the suffering and carnage is that African workers get a tanner an hour.

L. E. Weidberg

Demonstration For Socialism (1963)

Party News from the September 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Prison in "Socialist" England (1969)

From issue number 1 (1969) of The Western Socialist

Among the various reform movements in the countries of the so-called free world, there is one which is devoted to improving the lot of prisoners. It is, by its very nature, doomed to be a Cinderella among reforms. After all, only a small minority of people are liable to be in gaol and so most people don't tend to get too worked up about the matter. “If they don't like prison conditions, let them go straight” is the view of the average “free” worker when taxed with the matter. Still more important, no doubt. is the sad fact that there are not enough people in gaol at any one time to make them into a sizeable vote for politicians to woo with promises of better things to come. In England, for example, the various parties vie with one another from time to time in wooing tenants and sometimes bring in legislation which may well make life difficult for landlords whose votes are naturally less important than those of tenants. (It is a well-known feature of capitalism that from time to time, the interests of one group of capitalists will be sacrificed for the common good of the capitalists as a whole). But in most countries, prisoners, besides being few in numbers, do not even have a vote to sell.

The press cries out 

Every so often, however, the papers have a splash about the degrading hardships of prison conditions. There has recently been not so much an amelioration of conditions as a distinct worsening largely due to the tightening of security in many prisons owing to the increasing number of escapes. This feature has itself been caused partly by the increasingly technical organization of crime which can sometimes engineer spectacular escapes and partly because of the desperate need to escape felt by prisoners who are the victims of savage thirty-year sentences now handed out by the courts for crimes like espionage, or the “Great Train Robbery,” where capitalist society felt the need to avenge itself on workers who aped their betters by stealing a couple of million pounds in one go.

When the papers are in this mood it is natural that publicity will be given to the few prisoners who are able to express articulately their opinions of the conditions they endured whilst serving their sentences. Equally naturally, such educated prisoners are readily found in the ranks of those convicted of political crimes. (It would, perhaps, be a little misleading to use the term “political prisoners” as this conjures up the image of people like Sinyavsky and Daniel in Russia, serving savage terms and being treated with rigorous harshness, not for defying the law of the land but merely for daring to exercise so-called constitutional rights.) So that one readily expected a paper like the liberal “Guardian” to feature letters from ex-convicts of this ilk when the subject was in fashion a few months ago. And it is perhaps worth studying some features of two letters which were prominently featured in that paper.

Don't say "hypocrite" in Church 

The writers were Nicolas Walter and George Clark, both of them well-known members of Protest Movements, a side of reformism that has become prominent in many countries in recent years. Walter's imprisonment is worth a mention in itself as the conviction in his case was a particularly nasty business. He attended a church service where the lesson (on the subject of peace) was read by Harold Wilson, the pseudo-socialist Prime Minister and George Brown, at that time his deputy. Being concerned at their government's continued support of the American war effort in Vietnam, they felt that it was rather hypocritical of these gentlemen to preach peace in church on the eve of a Labour Party conference. And in England, the mother-country of free speech, Walter and his friends were convicted and sentenced merely for calling hypocrites by their proper names, in church. Even Labour leaders could not have secured convictions if they had been called such names in the street. (Nor could they have sued for damages in a civil court because Walter would have no difficulty in convincing a jury that “hypocrite" was a true description. And truth is a good defence to slander In law.) But it seems there is some ancient law regarding sacrilege which is almost never used; and this was good enough for Labour leaders to get their revenge. It is doubtful if avowed capitalist leaders, like the Conservatives, would have dared to proceed on such lines.

The letters themselves follow the usual pattern that one knows so well. All reformers have no difficulty in showing the evils of their pet aversion. Walter himself, a well-known Campaigner for Nuclear Disarmament, would have no difficulty in telling a tale of horror about Hiroshima any more than here about prison life. But in the letter from Clark there was a passage which would be of particular interest to socialists. “Since working in Notting Hill (a slummy area of London), I am struck by the similarity of conditions which exist . . . People are living in rooms scarcely larger than a cell in the Scrubs. The general atmosphere is one of all-pervasive horror . . ."

The Prison of Capitalism 

So here is one prisoner who has spotted that, for many workers, the harsh conditions of ordinary working class life, even in a great modern capital city like London (so much for the theory now so fashionable that the harshness of poverty belongs only to the so-called under-developed countries), are but a reflection of life in prison. Needless to say, there is nothing new or surprising in all this. It would indeed be surprising were things other than they are under capitalism. Where the mass of humanity is regarded as primarily raw material for producing profits for a small minority, it follows naturally that their living conditions should be less than pleasant in the great prison which capitalism makes of the world.

Unfortunately, the conclusion that Clark comes to as a result of his experience is rather less than convincing. He appeals to the Home Secretary Mr. Callaghan (in whose sphere prison administration lies) to consider: “What kind of life are they going to return to?" Can anyone really imagine that the very man who was recently, as Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of devaluation, one of the foremost managers of the interests of the British capitalist class and who had the whole population following the monthly trade returns, balance of payments, gold stock etc. with as avid interest as football pools (the workers' key to the gates of paradise), could such an obviously fraudulent socialist possibly do anything to alter the conditions of life which are part and parcel of the present system of society? One has merely to ask the question for the very notion to seem ludicrous. And it is sad to see an articulate, feeling member of the working class seemingly getting near to the heart of the matter and then waffling away into such hopelessly unrealistic attempts at solution. And to think that we socialists are the ones who are often called unrealistic or utopian. Could anything be more utopian than to hope for sweetness and light among the animals whilst leaving the jungle intact? And how ironically futile to appeal to the humanitarianism of these “socialist" managers of capitalism to alleviate conditions in prisons when it is precisely under their rule that the conditions have been made so much worse.

Contrary to the opinions of some misguided critics, we socialists are as pleased as the next man when reforms are instituted which achieve some amelioration in the conditions of capitalism. It makes us a little happier if we hear that the powers that be are less brutal in their treatment of prisoners, for example. But the pathetic attitude of people like Clark who fondly imagine that it is possible, while retaining the degrading social set-up which he himself sees produces conditions for “free” workers that are little better than those endured by prisoners, to achieve anything but the merest superficial advantage (usually illusory, invariably transitory and liable to be swept away by the next government or even the same one), this attitude sometimes makes even a case-hardened socialist scratch his head and wonder if it is possible for people to see the simple, glaring truth: which is that a society whose whole ethos is the production of profit out of the sweat and degradation of most human beings, can never be reformed into a human society. Humanity is imprisoned by capitalism. When that prison is broken down, then, and only then, will the prisons within the prison themselves disappear.

L. E. Weidberg, 

S.P.G.B.

The Communist Party isn't (1979)

From the October 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

The chief thing to realise about the Communist Party is that it isn’t. Whatever the party stands for (and it is not exactly easy to know), communism simply does not figure. You can go through reams of their paper, the daily Morning Star, and among the thousands of words you will be lucky if you find a mention of the word. Can you imagine reading an issue of the Socialist Standard which says nothing about socialism? Quite unthinkable. And also quite impossible, because we print our definition of socialism in every issue, irrespective of what the articles happen to be discussing in any particular month. What, you may ask, would be the point of a journal of the Socialist Party which kept quiet about socialism? What, then, can be the point of a communist party which keeps quiet about communism?

So let us make it clear from the outset that there really is only one communist party in this country, and that is the SPGB. We are, and always have been, the only party that stands for one thing only — the common ownership of the means of production. It makes not a scrap of difference whether you call that socialism or communism. Conversely, the form of ownership in the world today is capitalism, call it what you will. So another question that the so-called Communist Party has to answer (and this article will contain quite a number) is: why did you form your party at all? After all, your founders in the early 1920s were fully aware that there had been a party preaching communism in the country since 1904. One or two of them, like T.A. Jackson, had actually been members of the SPGB, so they couldn’t plead ignorance of the fact that a genuine communist party was already in being. It stands to sense that if you think that socialism/communism is the only answer to the evils that afflict society, then you join the party that stands for the establishment of that system. (The same applies, of course, to the proliferation of parties like the SWP and the IMG. Their founders did not join the already existing socialist/communist party, and there could only be one possible reason for that. They did not really stand for communism at all. They just paid lip service to a name. Their real objective must have been something else.)

The Communist Party’s raison d'etre was clear from the outset, and had nothing to do with communism. It was simply to act as the propaganda mouthpiece of the gang who had seized power in Russia and who called themselves communists. (They even changed the name of the country by adopting the equally fraudulent title, the USSR. One of the two ‘esses’ stands for Socialist; which one it is doesn’t matter because the name Lenin should have adopted was the Union of Soviet Capitalist Republics. But honesty was not one of Lenin’s most outstanding characteristics.) The new Russian ruling class, who had crushed the people who had crushed the Tsar, felt they needed parties who would support them in the various countries of Europe (and in the other continents too, soon enough). They founded them and funded them. And, paying the piper, they called the tune to which the spurious communist parties, including our own dear CPGB, danced.

When Moscow said form ‘united fronts’ with Labourites and Social Democrats, they enthusiastically did so. When their masters said that Labourites were ‘social fascists’ who should be physically smashed, they did that just as enthusiastically. When Stalin apparently wanted the Western powers to join him in an alliance against Hitler, our communists were there leading the red thugs who attacked the blackshirt thugs. And when Stalin made his infamous pact with Hitler in 1939 and so gave the green light for the outbreak of World War II, the communists denounced the war as an imperialist adventure and forgot to smash Hitler. When Hitler obliged his ally by launching his attack on Russia in 1941, the British ruling class had no more fervent supporters than the communists, who actually denounced trade unionists who went on strike as traitors to the great People’s War (it had changed to that overnight, you see).

It is necessary to point out here that when communists talk about their heroic deeds in smashing the British fascists in the heady days before the outbreak of the war, it was by no means only fascists that they smashed up. They were equally enthusiastic smashers of socialist meetings too. All this is quite understandable. After all, the state which has oppressed the Russian working class ever since Lenin seized power would not stop at breaking up socialist meetings. Anyone trying to make socialist propaganda in the so-called workers’ state would soon find themselves dealt with by the KGB and put into prison, or a labour camp, or the grave. The Communist Party of Great Britain merely aped their masters — and their paymasters too.

Anyone who doubts that can get some revealing information from the memoirs of the late Bessie Braddock who, before becoming a Labour MP after the war, was a leading member of the Liverpool communists. Yet even now there is precious little attempt to hide the fact that the Russian party subsidises the party here. It is only thus that the party can cope with the enormous expense of running the Morning Star. The bulk of its circulation goes to Russia and the satellite countries of Eastern Europe, where the ruling class pays well for the pleasure of filling their libraries (and doubtless their dustbins) with the rag. These days the majority of the Communist Parties of Western Europe call themselves Euro-communists and pretend to criticise (but rather quietly, of course; no demos, no breaking the windows of the Russian Embassy, nothing vulgar like that: that sort of thing is only for the American Embassy) such things as the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

If the CPGB has really ended its role as the puppets of their Moscow paymasters, can they — can anyone — say what they are supposed to exist for? To advocate reforms of capitalism while pretending to be communists who want to end capitalism? But there is a party called the Labour Party which is vastly bigger, much older, and has been doing that rather well ever since it started. The real truth is that without Russia, the communists would simply disappear. Their paymasters go on funding them because they realise that their Euro-communism is merely a veil to enable the CPGB (like their fellows in France and Italy and Spain) to appear to be not too close to the oppressive regime in Moscow.

Let us end with a couple more questions to the CPGB (our columns are open to them to reply — not that theirs would ever be to us, of course). In all the millions of words in the Daily Worker until Stalin’s death in 1953, can you show us one single word denouncing the red monster who slaughtered millions of innocent Russian workers (quite apart from those killed in the Hitler war)? Can you show us one single word in the Morning Star denouncing Russia as a capitalist police state which denies even basic trade union rights such as are available to workers here? And finally, why did you change the name of your paper? Was there some sudden feeling of guilt, some realisation that it was not a workers’ paper after all? It seems a small question. But it has never been answered.

L. E. Weidberg

Workers in Russia v. The Rest (1974)

From the August 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

It might be as well to ensure that readers are not puzzled by the above title because although the Communists were always fond of boasting that Russia covered one-sixth of the earth’s surface, it seems that the name Russia has almost disappeared from the map and we must now deal with a place called the USSR which stands for the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics; or it could be that the middle two words should read the other way round. No matter. Whichever way round, the term “Socialism” in the title is an outrageous piece of trickery.

This little outburst was occasioned by a report on that most wonderful of all unnatural phenomena, a general election in Russia, which took place (if a non-event can be said to take place) in mid-June. Of course, it is by no means the first time that we have read about these charades where the workers are generously permitted to choose between one person. And that one person is put up by the ruling gangsters who call themselves the Communist Party (instead of their correct title — Red Fascists), who are thus saying to their two hundred million political prisoners: 

“Look, comrades (it should really be ‘comrades’ but I don’t think they go in for inverted commas in Pravda), we know that we have ruled you with a rod of iron ever since Lenin’s Red Army thugs kicked out the Constituent Assembly in January 1918, and we intend to keep on your backs for the remainder of this century and next century too, if you let us.

“This may not be what Marx and Engels meant by the Dictatorship of the Proletariat but it’s what we mean. It really means that you, the proletariat, the alleged dictators, are treated worse than the wage slaves of England, America, etc., where they at least have reasonably free trade unions and elections. But it would be wrong if we did not insult you from time to time — sorry (Freudian slip, comrades), that should read ‘consult you’.

“And so, every so often, we have an election according to the democratic procedure laid down in the Stalin Constitution. Well, not quite. We don’t have a period of five years, whatever the constitution says. We hold one when the time is good — for us. Just as they do in Mao’s China and similar proletarian paradises. And it’s a slanderous lie if you are told by people like the SPGB that you are being insulted by being given no choice.

“It’s true you are given no choice of candidates. SPGB types — if there are any — are not allowed to open their mouths let alone put up at elections. We don’t permit opposition. We are not such fools as to give you the chance of kicking us out of our gloriously privileged positions. But you do have a choice. If you don’t like the CP candidate — who is damn well going to represent you whether you like him or hate him — you can vote NO. And you can then place your vote in the special urn provided for scum like you. And you can at the same time place your ashes in the next urn.”

Of course, none of the above is hot news. These circuses have taken place at intervals and many’s the time readers in the west have gawped to see such magnificent results in 99 per cent. majorities coming in. If the Gallup Poll was allowed to operate in Russia, they would be able to make a fortune — and none of those unfortunate boobs. But there was something in the Guardian account of this year’s charade which made the matter worthy of note in the Socialist Standard. The article was by their Eastern Europe expert (god help us) Jonathan Steele. Towards the end of his piece he gave us certain figures which quite clearly had no significance to this “expert” but which were of blinding importance to a Socialist — or even to a non-Socialist who is not brainwashed.

He gave us the figures for the composition of the outgoing Supreme Soviet (ostensibly the ruling parliament of the land, although in reality they are themselves just stooges and the power remains in the hands of the Politbureau which is in turn dominated by the likes of Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Capone, etc.) It is important to note that the figures were given to Steele by the Russians themselves — there is nobody else who could have supplied them. The ruling body of the Workers’ Paradise consists of some 1200 “MPs” and it was stated (round figures only) that 200 are Collective Farm workers and 50 other workers.

It did not occur to Steele to work out that nearly 1,000 of the rulers of the Workers’ Paradise are — well, what? The answer can only be — non-workers. So here we have the admission, by the rulers of the land themselves, that Russia is a Soviet Socialist Republic divided into two classes. Workers and others. Workers and non-workers. Just like a Soviet Capitalist Republic. Just like England, in fact. But how can you expect a Steele to spot this devastating admission when clearly the Politbureau themselves couldn’t see it? And what can non-workers be doing there?

The only answer possible is what non-workers do everywhere else; they live high off the hog, as the Yanks say, on the proceeds of the surplus-value squeezed out of the workers. No other source of wealth is possible anywhere on earth. And there is something else these people do, besides non-working. They Rule. They do so in the Supreme Soviet as we have seen. They are the ruling class as in all capitalist societies even though a small clique sits on top of the pile in Moscow. The SPGB has been saying this since 1917. It is nice to see it confirmed in the columns of the leftist press, and above all out of the horses’ mouths in Moscow.

Finally, the matter of the privileges briefly mentioned earlier. These gangsters don’t rule for fun or for the sake of some twisted Marxist ideology although no doubt they enjoy the use of power like rulers everywhere. On the morning I write these lines, I heard on the radio about one member of the Russian ruling class, Mme. Furtseva, the Minister of Culture (ugh!), who has occupied such a position since the days of Stalin, being criticized for spending £75,000 on building herself a country home. The point to note is that the argument, such as it is, is over whether she had filched the money, not over whether it would be right for her to build such a mansion for herself at a time when living space for the mass of the people is measured out like gold dust. After all, she could not build her mansion surreptitiously and live in it in secret.

The right of the rulers to lord it over the ruled and wallow in luxury in the midst of proletarian squalor is as well-defined in Russia as it is in Animal Farm. So for those who may be still in doubt, let us make it clear that in a Socialist world we will not be divided into pigs and others, into non-workers and workers. In a classless society, there will, by definition, be no working class. We will just be human beings living in harmony because the welfare of each will be the welfare of all. A state of things which manifestly does not obtain in the land of spurious socialism called Russia.

L. E. Weidberg

GLC Election Campaign Results (1973)

Party News from the June 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Party’s GLC election campaign was a success in terms of activity, publicity and literature sales. Some 60 to 70 London members were involved in one way or another to distribute 50,000 leaflets, sell 500 Socialist Standards and hold a number of outdoor meetings. Publicity included, besides local and London evening press reports, a brief television appearance during which our spokesman was able to make the point that we were contesting the election to put over the case for Socialism, oppose the parties of capitalism and demonstrate our view that Socialism can be established democratically through the ballot box. There were also two even briefer interviews on Radio London. These broadcasts were a start, but came nowhere near our demand, as a matter of democratic principle, that all parties contesting elections should have equal time on radio and television to present their views in their own way under their own control. No doubt if this had been allowed we would have had many more enquiries. The results accurately reflect the present low level of Socialist consciousness amongst the working class and demonstrate the need for increased Socialist activity to overcome this. For the record the detailed results for the 11 constituencies where there were Socialist candidates are set out below:

Hackney North and Stoke Newington:

Pitt (Lab) 6529, House (C) 2524, Goldman (Comm) 621, Carter (Soc) 250. 

Hampstead: 

Wistrich (Lab) 12458, Clarke (C) 9823, Benad (L) 2824, Champion (Comm) 466, Cox (Soc) 191. 

Holborn and St. Pancras South: 

Kazantis (Lab) 7437, Weeks (C) 3520, Elithorn (L) 1085, Davies (Soc) 99, Fierz (Ind) 72, Goulstone (Ind) 60. 

Hornsey: 

Bains (C) 10,361, Warren (Lab) 10,078, O’Brien (L) 3450, Van den Berg (Comm) 483, Porter (Soc) 144. 

Islington North: 

Bondy (Lab) 7463, Yeo (C) 2798, Buick (Soc) 284. 

Lambeth Central: 

Grieves (Lab) 9231, Pritchard (C) 2707, Kane (L) 1026. Jackson (Ind) 143, Baldwin (Soc) 115, Solomon (Ind) 103.

Norwood: 

Livingstone (Lab) 11,622, Malynn (C) 8007, Drake (L) 1819, Young (Soc) 95.

St. Marylebone: 

Plummer (C) 7930, Gordon (Lab) 4971, Darvas (Ind C) 485, Temple (Comm) 276, Weidberg (Soc) 84. 

Streatham: 

Geddes (C) 10,492, Walker (Lab) 9426, Mitchell (L) 2114, Simkins (Soc) 120, Boaks (Ind) 57.

Tottenham: 

McIntosh (Lab) 8043, Croft (C) 3360, Conev (Ind) 2924, Young (Soc) 109.

Vauxhall: 

Carr (Lab) 10821, Bottomley (C) 3396, Henry (Comm) 365, Sansum (Soc) 121.

The Voice of Indira (1975)

From the May 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

India is a pretty grim place for the vast majority of its millions. It is good to note that they — at least some of them — retain a wry sense of humour. Which they demonstrate by using the above punning title for the radio station “Voice of India” and thereby show they know only too well that Mrs. Ghandi, with her Congress buddies, exercises a pervasive influence on the affairs of the sub-continent.

Her second name is as confusing as her first. She is not related to the Mahatma, “the naked fakir” as he was called in the days of the British Raj. He conducted the “Civil Disobedience” campaigns which helped to establish the movement which eventually brought the joys of independence to India. But when the goal was achieved and the British got out after the war (they couldn’t get out fast enough. The great diamond of the British crown was by then a hopeless burden, and Attlee’s government got out so fast that they almost made sure that there would be the most appalling massacres of Sikhs, Moslems, etc. to celebrate the coming of “freedom”), when this took place, Ghandi himself did not take over the reins. He was by then thoroughly disillusioned himself, and was shortly to be murdered. The boss of the show was then and up to his death (natural causes, this time), Pandit Nehru, Ghandi’s lieutenant, a wealthy darling of the British left and father of Indira, who in the fullness of time, inherited his wealth and power. And, of course, his impudent nerve in calling himself a socialist.

When we see how slowly the majority of workers the world over learn the facts of capitalist life and the need to end the system and establish a worldwide classless society in its place, we can take comfort in the fact that there must be magic in the very name of Socialism. Even if it is used up to now only to cloak the hideous reality of capitalism, there are many rulers who realize that the time has come to pay lip-service. (It’s true that the other side of the coin is that many workers, seeing what passes for Socialism or Communism, must shy away from the very idea. You can’t win ’em all.) One thing sure, is that many countries which masquerade as Socialist seem to prove their point by the most naked repression of the working class. A few years ago, when the Polish dockers in Danzig and Stettin were faced with sharp rises in prices of necessary commodities and decided that they simply had to go on strike, they were mown down by Communist tanks. More recently, when the workers of Cairo, realizing that after they had performed their deeds of heroism in the teeth of the wicked Israelis they were still living at the bottom of the social pyramid, decided to demonstrate in the streets, their guardian of Egyptian “socialism” President Sadat followed suit, sent the troops in and flung hundreds of workers in gaol. And Indira Ghandi shows that she is of the same vicious stuff. Despite the alleged gentleness of the Indian nature, and despite the fact that she had learnt her “socialism” and her "democracy” from her leftist father who in turn had learned it at Harrow — no starving peasant he — when the railwaymen found that the pressures were too great and the prices too high (it’s the same the whole world over) and decided to strike, Madam Prime Minister lost no time in using troops to flatten the strikers and bang those who fancied standing out into prison.

It should be noted that Mrs. Ghandi took this step in a country which is nominally a democracy and where freedoms including the right to strike are supposed to be taken for granted. In proper police states, there is no such pretence. The place for strikers is not the picket lines but the gaol or the cemetery. So after a long campaign for the glories of Ghandi’s Swaraj (home rule), and after much sacrifice in achieving it, the Indian workers, like so many others who have not appreciated the socialist warning about the trap that is nationalism, find that their own beloved native rulers treat them as badly as the hated imperialists (or even worse).

But perhaps the way the masses are now treated in India by their rulers can be best illustrated in all its horror by a matter concerned with cricket. A certain love of this game is one of the legacies which the British left behind them. When Test matches are played there are enormous crowds and thousands watching TV in shop windows, though it may well be that most of the millions in the villages, eking out subsistence, neither know nor care about cricket. But a worker in a dreadful town like Calcutta will find the prospect of a day watching a game played by white-flannelled players on green grass the equivalent of a package fortnight in Majorca. It is also relevant to mention that in the latest Test team there was only one player (and he the son of a groundsman) who was a normal worker. The rest were upper-class university types who could afford to belong to clubs and pay for clothes, bats etc.

During the winter India were playing a touring side from the West Indies. And at the same time large areas of the country were suffering from famine so that thousands were literally starving. This latter problem was up for debate in the Lokh Sabbah when something happened. The MPs in a body refused to consider the debate until they had got their allocation of Test match tickets (this is one of the perks with the job). One MP was quoted as saying: “We come for Test match tickets and you offer us famine.” The sheer brutality of this attitude is probably unparalleled anywhere as a public utterance. Marie Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake” is nothing at all — and she never even said it. But these MPs are elected ostensibly to look after the interests of the masses whom they allegedly represent. And the salaries that these heirs of Ghandi draw are incredible in any circumstances but utterly unbelievable in the context of peasants having an income of less than £100 a year to keep their families (some as little as £20 a year). The MPs draw £20,000 a year — plus Test match tickets. Imagination boggles at what Indira must get. Not that she needs the money. She’s all right, Pandit.

This is the pattern in all the countries where the glories of Independence have been won. The grab-all tactics of the Kenyan socialist Kenyatta and his family ought to be a scandal — but it is commonplace throughout black Africa. And as in India, the masses of workers who were duped into the struggle for nationalism, are rewarded with the merest pittance while their native rulers wax fat. Possibly with the issue of nationalism out of the way, the workers will begin to see a little light and think about the real issue, which is their class position in society.

L. E. Weidberg