SPGB Meetings (1979)

Party News from the December 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Passing Show: Young—in a hurry—going nowhere (1964)

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

Young—in a hurry—going nowhere

Old age is no criterion of wisdom. Neither is youth. This point at least is worth noting from the fourth national conference of The Young Socialists—a misnomer to start with—the Labour Party's second offspring, and somewhat more bad tempered and difficult to bring up than the old League of Youth ever was.

Held appropriately enough at the Corn Exchange, Brighton, over the Easter weekend, the conference had before it an agenda of no less than one hundred and sixty-six resolutions and forty-five amendments. The subjects ranged far and wide, from a plea to change the parent party's name to “The Social Democratic Party'’ to attract middle class support (Resn. 9), to a demand that May Day be legislated a public holiday by the next Labour government (Resn. 166).

If we are to judge by the press reports it was a stormy conference indeed, with Mrs. Braddock at one stage pitting her mighty lungs against jeers from the floor. The results of the voting on all the resolutions is neither here nor there; the agenda itself is fitting evidence of the hotchpotch of confusion which the Labour Party has sired in its young. “Let us nationalize the arms industry," is the plea from a number of branches—cold comfort to the poor devil whose life is ended by a government-made bullet instead of one made in a private arms factory (under government contract). And of course, we are treated to the usual stuff about support for U.N.O. and world government, both of them conspicuous non-starters from the word “go!"

Nationalize banks, building societies, land, basic industries; don’t go to Spain for your holidays (your tourist revenue helps bolster the Franco oppression, they say); review the penal system; abolish capital punishment, blood sports, the Monarchy, House of Lords, and smoking in public places. The list is formidable as these boys and girls lay about them with misguided ferocity. Just about everything comes under the hammer—everything except the Capitalist system, the thing which really matters. According to press reports, the Trotskyist element was prominent at the conference, and the only result of their efforts at “boring from within’’ has been the addition of their own ignorance and confusion to that already existing.

Futility of the Welfare State

Socialists were never impressed by the extravagant claims made for the ideas of the Welfare State by the various parties in 1945. By then, we had already issued a couple of pamphlets analysing the Beveridge plan and the proposals for family allowances, and we said that they would make no essential difference to the workers' position as the exploited section of the population. Because of this, we felt sure that the worry and insecurity that is life for most of us, would continue. Social security was in fact a gigantic misnomer.

Nineteen years and almost five elections later, we still see no need to alter our claim. The Labour Government’s measures were pushed quickly through parliament and have been the basic structure on which later governments have worked. Yet here was deputy Labour leader George Brown telling us, in a radio broadcast on April 7th, of the insufficiency of hospitals and other vital things (he blamed the Tories of course), The plight of the old age pensioners has been a scandal for years, and the housing problem weighs as oppressively as ever on workers. The welfare state has not—could not—change the basic poverty position of the working class, although this would perhaps, be contested by the superficial observer.

He would point proudly to the four million new houses, forgetting that old ones are decaying faster than they can be replaced. He mentions the millions of car users, disregarding the enormity of the traffic problem and the fact that for many workers cars are more of a necessity than a luxury. He might agree with Conservative assurances of how well-off we all are, but then he could not surely have read the Gallup Poll results (Sunday Telegraph 5/4/64), which estimated that nearly |our million workers do spare time jobs and another five millions would like the chance.

The antics of the modern teenager hurt and bewilder him; he is disturbed by the Clacton punch-ups, but cannot see that violence is a commonplace of capitalism, and that other countries have the same problem. And that anyway teenage fights are symptomatic of the dreary unfulfilling life which the welfare state has not altered. Drug taking is another aspect and that has increased alarmingly among youngsters to recent years.

Multiply, then, our superficial observer by many millions and you have the reason for the continuation of the swindle of the welfare state, in fact the whole of capitalism.

Eddie Critchfield

Blogger's Note:

See also 'Labour's young lions' (May 1964, Socialist Standard.)

So They Say: Prospective Candidates (1977)

The So They Say Column from the May 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Prospective Candidates

Labour’s by-election defeats have led to some soul-searching by its supporters and most notably the Labour Party Young Socialists. This ill-named assortment of nibbling sprats held a conference recently at which they made the following astonishing discovery :

  The Government is losing support because it is not implementing genuine socialist policies. Instead it is doing the Tories’ job for them and betraying the working class.

The Times, 11th April 77

That the Government has not implemented “genuine socialist policies” is not in doubt; what the LPYS have overlooked is that their heroes had never promised or intended this. The word Socialism applies, for example, to a society in which there will be no means of exchange because there will be no private property. Put that proposition to a member of the Government, or of the LPYS, and watch them shy away. The junior careerists have already learned that such ideas are not the way to win office. They have learned to be “realistic.” On one hand a succession of delegates to their conference blamed “the failure of capitalism for virtually all of society’s main problems” and yet:

  The Labour Party, which as Sir Harold Wilson said, is a broad church, tolerates criticisms from its youth movement, knowing that many of their best people become important members of the main party.

We draw LPYS members’ attention to the fact that it is not the “failure of capitalism” which is to blame for social problems—this suggests capitalism could behave in another way—it is the existence of capitalism which brings on and perpetuates social problems. LPYS members will note that the Labour Party is committed to perpetuating capitalism.

Ever the Twain shall meet

The Federation of Conservative Students were addressed by Mrs. Margaret Thatcher on the 4th of April, when she told them:

  Many people were deeply anti-socialist and were horrified that the Liberals had joined forces with the most socialist government in our history.

The Times, 5th April 77

Such stirring words must have had her supporters bristling in their tweeds with self-righteous fervour. However, Mrs. Thatcher is a busy woman and has other things to attend to: three days later she arrived in China and is currently hob-nobbing with the blood-red Chinese leaders. We could do no more than guess at the kind of justifications which the true blues are inventing to bridge the contradiction. One newspaper made an interesting point:

  . . . at a deeper level the politics of China are beginning to show distant but real parallels with those of Britain and other Western societies.

Guardian, 9th April 77

For all the mumbo-jumbo and smoke screens raised around their "ideology”, the Chinese leaders have been determinedly running their own particular brand of capitalism in practice. Goods are produced for sale at a profit, and exploitation of the working class takes place through a wages system. Certainly Mrs. Thatcher has not been baffled at any imaginary or superficial differences, nor have the Chinese leaders. The “real parallels” which may surprise some who have been taken in by all the waffling, is that both the Conservatives and the Chinese leaders have the interests of their respective portions of the ruling class in mind and meet each other solely on this basis.

Thing big

In general, as unemployment rises so too do the platitudes of “our betters” increase in velocity. The Chancellor of the Exchequer however seems to have developed a new line during his budget speech. He now sounds completely resigned to being led by the nose through capitalism’s chaos, albeit without actually resigning from office, while telling the working class that there is nothing better to be done in any event. In fact the present high unemployment may be viewed as “the good old days” of tomorrow.

  The most disturbing feature of the world scene is that for the last two or three years every major industrial country has seen the unemployment level rising to what had been regarded in the post-war years as an unacceptable level for a well-managed economy. Mr. Healey added: I would not expect any fall in the level of unemployment—in fact some rise may be likely because demand and production are expected to continue to grow slowly.

London Evening Standard, 29th March 77

Interesting to note that Healey’s view of “unacceptable” has an infinitely variable interpretation according to the height of the particular slagheap he is standing on at the time.

Alan D'Arcy

Letter: Wages and Prices (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Wages and Prices

In the Socialist Standard (January), you stated in your reply to Derek Clarke: “There is no wages fund” in which one Union dips at the expense of others. If say, the engineers gain a pay rise, that does not obstruct agricultural workers from gaining one; in each case it is obtained from their respective employers, and no one else”.

This is simply not true. If we take miners’ wages as an example it can be seen at once that though the extra “raise” is paid by the employer in the first place, it is recouped through higher charges to the consumer. Try telling the people paying higher prices for their coal, that the extra money the miners got was from their employers and no one else! Of course there isn’t a wages fund as such: but there is a deal of truth in the statement by the late Stafford Cripps: “that the National cake is a certain size, and those who carve themselves a bigger slice, do so at the expense of others.” It is also true of course that extra wages can come out of profits if the profits are big enough, and there is pressure on the employer against raising prices.

The fact that the capitalist system restricts production is accepted in the context of this argument, but the fact that the cake can expand with an expansion of the economy, doesn’t invalidate the point. At any time, the size of this “National cake” is limited. Wages can increase in one or more industries at the expense of other wages! Do you believe that the relatively better placing of miners’ earnings today has come from the pockets of the rich? Is it not also true that a drop in purchasing power caused through higher prices is equivalent to a reduction in wages? You constantly reiterate that the only people who produce wealth are the workers. This is of course an absolute truth. But it follows that the workers’ wages plus the surplus-value the employers take is, in total, the price that the community as a whole has to pay for those goods or services. This is putting the whole interplay of wage rises and prices and the relative changes in the positions of groups of workers in the wages scale too simply, but I think it is sufficient for the point.

May I congratulate you on your open and frank approach in printing the debate “Socialism or Reformism.” I found myself more in agreement with the viewpoint put by LPYS than with that of the SPGB.  I feel that the leaders of the SPGB live in an ivory tower. It is a sad reflection on the policies followed by the SPGB that as L. E. Weidberg remarked in his article “Why I joined the SPGB”:

“And sadly one must confess that the real Socialists in the great working class city of Manchester could still meet in the Atkin’s parlour.” All together in one little room — after nearly forty years or so? 

S. Costin

 Essex 

Reply:

We are pleased to see you agree that the working class is the wealth-producing class in society. Wealth today is represented by vast numbers of commodities and on average these are bought and sold at their values. When a capitalist employs workers, he pays a wage which is again, on average, the value of their particular commodity, i.e. Labour-Power. Their labour is something different, this is what they leave behind them at their places of work in the form of commodities belonging to their employers. The capitalist is able to sell his commodities at a profit by selling them at their value because of the unpaid labour contained in them.

In a given industry — whether privately or State owned — the owners must immediately meet any increase in wages at the expense of profits. But it is wrong to assume that a capitalist can automatically and immediately recover this reduction in profit by increasing his prices. In the first instance he is in competition with other capitalist concerns, and an arbitrary increase would give his competitors the edge in undercutting him. In fact, in normal market conditions, the seller of a commodity will always ask as much as he thinks the market will stand. Even in monopoly conditions, where prices can be kept artificially high, there comes a point when buyers seek alternatives, or will cut down. Look for example at the increase in oil prices after the 1973/4 shortage, followed by a reduction in consumption, and currently, a petrol price war. If, as you assume, an increase in wages can be covered simply by increasing prices, consider why the capitalist did not put up his prices before granting a wage increase. The fact is that capitalists keep a close watch on their markets and try to keep their prices in line with market conditions. Although you direct your comments to price-rises as they affect the “consumer”, it should be borne in mind that the capitalist class themselves are huge consumers of commodities, and the example you give of coal serves to underline this.

Similarly, when workers sell their commodity labour-power, they will seek the highest possible price and in general this will be equal to the value of the labour-power, corresponding to the amount required to feed, clothe, shelter and generally maintain the worker and his family in accordance with traditional standards. Whether individual groups of workers can enforce a rise in wages in order to maintain or improve these standards will depend on the circumstances at the time, but it must be noted that they cannot be depressed very far. In general the most favourable condition for achieving wage increases is when production is expanding and the capitalist is therefore unwilling to risk stoppages. The owners will view wage demands in the light of their increased profits.

Inflation (the excess issue of paper currency) complicates the whole picture by generally pushing up all prices (remember here that wages are prices). Since 1938 prices have risen approximately eight times, while the “national cake” has only doubled. As Socialists we are not impressed by the size of the “national cake” nor the crumbs that the workers are likely to get from it. Rather it is the bakery which we are interested in. We refer you to Value, Price and Profit by Karl Marx where you will find your proposition, and Marx’s reply to it, in much greater detail than we can go into here. Instead of cakes, he deals with a bowl of soup and spoons of various sizes.

We are sorry that you find the LPYS point of view more agreeable than our analysis of society. To us, it is a nonsense to tell people to vote for the Labour Party and then spend most of the time criticizing it. The SPGB has no leaders and the fact that the Party is small does not detract from the accuracy of our case. We maintain that it is better small and Socialist, than large and steeped in reformist nonsense.

Editors

Party News (1967)

Party News from the November 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Swansea Debate

On September 13th, Swansea Branch held a successful debate with the Young Socialists.

Our comrade Ambridge represented the Socialist Party of Great Britain and Mr. Powell represented the Young Socialists. Swansea Branch members were present and also 20 Young Socialists. Plenty of questions were put and the audience appeared to be most interested. Literature sales were 6/-.

Black Power Debunked

Our comrade P. Lawrence spoke on Black Power at the meeting of the Camden Group in the Enterprise, Chalk Farm, on October 2. He pointed out that, when it came down to it, so-called Negroes had no problems that were not those of the working class generally. Certainly there was no specifically “Negro solution” to their problems. Black nationalism, like all nationalism, was a delusion and a snare and quite incompatible with socialist principles. A world of harmony and plenty could only be created by the actions of workers the world over, no matter what their language, colour, sex or ethnic group.

Half-a-dozen members of a Black Power group, the Universal Coloured Peoples Association, who had been invited to take part in the discussion, turned up. They were surprised to find that we as Socialists did not, as they no doubt expected, sympathise with their views but exposed them for the dangerous nonsense they were. They left after it was suggested that they were just another group of demagogues that wished to climb to power on the backs of discontented workers.

Sting in the Tail: 30 Wasted Years (1991)

The Sting in the Tail column from the October 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

30 Wasted Years

The Labour Party is often described as "the mass party of the working class" yet the national membership of its youth wing, the Young Socialists, is now only 350.

When the YS was formed 30 years ago various Trotskyist groups moved in to control it. Recently it has been dominated by Militant but in earlier days It was Keep Left, another group of Trots who were dominant

This Trotskyist influence has been such an embarrassment to the Labour Party that it will probably be glad when the YS finally dies.

So it's goodbye to those bear-garden conferences where the YS passed all those resolutions denouncing the party leaders along with just about every bit of Labour Party policy.

And what did all the rebelliousness mean? Absolutely nothing. Indeed many YS are now staid Labour Party officials, councillors and even MPs, the same kind of people they once spent so much time attacking. It would be laughable if it wasn't so tragic.

Shop Steward's Dream

Tommy is a typical shop steward we know. When he speaks about "bread and butter" issues like overtime, sick pay and holidays he makes good sense, but on most other subjects he is a fount of prejudice and ignorance.

Prejudice? Jews are his pet hate although the Arabs ran them close during the Gulf war and you should hear him on about "Darkies"! By the way, Tommy always votes Labour.

Ignorance? The other day he was on about health -

  The rich aren't any healthier than us. You're either born with good health or you aren't. Money doesn't come into it.

Of course the left-wing with their absurdly idealised view of shop stewards would see Tommy as part of the "industrial vanguard in the struggle against capitalism".

But Tommy’s ideas are little different from those of most other workers or even shop stewards. His vision of a better world goes no further than society as it is but with more job security, a few pence extra on the hourly rate and Neil Kinnock in Downing Street

You Dirty Rat

Alastair Cooke, in his "Letter from America", (Radio 4) told an interesting story about the mayor of New York who, faced with a massive deficit, announced the probable slashing of public spending (surprise, surprise).

Among the possible casualties could be the sanitation department, which could result, according to experts, in an increase in the rat population of one million.

The mayor, who is either a shrewd vote-catcher or very naive, came up with what he undoubtedly thought was a unique proposal. He invited the "ordinary" people to come and tell him the solution to the city's problems. So for one week they queued up outside his office to lay it on him.

However, since there have been no reported cries of "Eureka" or the hip equivalent emanating from the inner sanctum, we can safely assume that none of the queuing hopefuls came up with the only solution; the abolition of the buying and selling system. All of which must have come as a relief to the capitalist class, not to mention the rats.

Caring Capitalism

Nowadays when capitalism is widely regarded as the altruistic saviour of mankind it comes as a pleasant surprise when someone sees it in its true colours.

Writing in The Independent (5 September) Suzanne Moore observes that while Gerald Ratner honestly described the cheap jewellery his shops sell as "crap", Anita Roddick of the Body Shop wraps her products in a haze of mysticism, 1960’s idealism and 1980's green awareness. By using her products you can, apparently, be healthier and do some ecological good at the same time.

Suzanne Moore sees Anita Roddick's guff as part of the growing trend to portray 1990's capitalism as a marriage of material values and spiritual good. Believe that, she says, and ". . . you'll believe that capitalism really can be "caring." and warns that behind this newer, softer, gentler-on-the-skin approach "business Is still basically about buying and selling."

She is mistaken, however, In thinking that — "any idea of a genuine alternative to capitalism is collapsing."

Socialists propose that capitalism be replaced by a classless, moneyless, worldwide society of production for use. Now, Suzanne Moore that really would be a genuine alternative, wouldn’t it?

Cold Comfort

The thermal underwear company Damart in conjunction with the organisation Help the Aged recently produced a little leaflet entitled Hypothermia - The Chilling Facts.

Chilling facts indeed; the leaflet points out that compared with the number of summer time deaths an extra 40,000 elderly persons will die in a mild winter and in a harsh winter this will rise to 80,000.

In a section entitled So, Who Is At Risk? it has this to say:

  We know that two groups of older people are particularly 'at risk'. They are the very elderly — from late seventies onwards — who are more likely, because of the ageing process, to have low body temperatures.
  And they are the pensioners who receive supplementary benefits — studies show that they are more likely to be living alone, less likely to have central heating, less likely to use electric blankets and more likely to be underweight — all these factors can lead to a lower body temperature.

Among the proposed solutions to the problem the leaflet lists warm clothing, adequate domestic heating systems and a better diet. All of which isn't much consolation for those who are on supplementary benefit. The fact is that it is poor people who are dying from hypothermia.

It is not more legislation or better hand-outs the elderly poor need. What they must have if this scandalous state of affairs is to be ended is World Socialism.

That is the only society in which everyone young and elderly can have unrestricted access to all the food, clothing and heating that society can provide.

A Racist Utopia?

There Is a sunny utopia called Oranla. Scores of workers have gone there on the promise of a better life and hundreds more are expected soon.

In case any reader is tempted to follow them we should explain that Orania is a small "white homeland" in South Africa. It is owned by some rich Afrikaners who have ejected all the black people and imported unemployed white South Africans to do the menial jobs previously done by the blacks.

These white workers now complain that, besides being underpaid, their bosses, regard them as "white kaffirs"-

  "We can’t even sit down and have a smoke break or a chat. It's just work, work and more work all day long"

The Sunday Times (1 September) 

The bosses answer to this is a familiar one — there is no room for laziness in creating the new white nation. The Sunday Times says of Orania -

  It has a lot of appeal for blue-collar workers who have the most to lose from the new South Africa but what they don't realise is that they are going to have to do for the well-off, upper-class Afrikaners what the blacks used to do. A system of servitude based on race is being replaced by one based on class.

The Hoary Illusions of Youth (1933)

From the December 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Jack Edwards, Chairman of the League of Youth Advisory Committee, in an article in the Daily Herald of September 21st, 1933, states the case, as he sees it, for youth.

He says: “Modern youth is in fact better, brainier and more inquisitive.” He ascribes the terrible effects of war upon the mothers of that period as being due to “The blunderings of a generation tied to antiquated traditions.” He goes on to say that youth now is different, opposes war and, instead of marching off to the next war, will pause and ask why!

He says: “The more whys we ask, the more unsatisfactory becomes the answer.”

“We do not believe that there is no work amidst such want. Given the opportunity now we would free the world from the misery, want and suffering caused by uneconomic management and bolstered up by armed force. Peace is our object.” 

He suggests a world parliament, where “Men of heart and will, men and women of knowledge, doctors, teachers and mothers,” could all come together and thrash out the world’s problems. Then as to practical measures for settling these problems, he suggests that if youth had the power, it would do the following:—

   “A drastic cut in working hours, without reduction in pay; wider and greater opportunities in education; a new and adequate pension scheme; compulsory retirement from industry for those on pensions; directions to local authorities to speed up housing and public works, with public finance to aid them; Government control of the banks and the closing of the Stock Exchange, the establishment of a national investment board to direct money into the channels most advantageous 1o the community.”

This seems a tall enough order, but Mr. Edwards then airily says: “These are but some of youth’s plans to grapple with poverty at home.” To plan seems the only indulgence which the L.L.Y. is allowed. It is not allowed representation on the E.C. of the Labour Party at the moment, and much as its members resent this, their “plans” certainly prove that they will need to ask more whys and get a sounder understanding of the position before they can be given serious consideration.

From the point of view of soundness, however, the parent body can certainly not teach its child anything worth knowing.

The rest of the article is devoted to obvious facts of the capitalist system which need not be repeated, but it is rather amusing to hear Mr. Edwards cite the civil servants as being those who work for OUR common good, and deploring the fact that THESE should be subject to wage attacks.

Why these any more than any other worker, and if they are workers for the “common good,” how about all the rest of us, who are producing all the necessaries of life, not for use, but for the profit of our masters ? Mr. Edwards evidently has not asked enough whys yet.

It is now time for us to ask a few whys of Mr. Edwards.

First of all, then: Why does he give us a rigmarole about antiquated traditions being the cause of war?

Economic conditions are not antiquated traditions. They are the natural workings and outcome of the existing system of society. The economic conditions of capitalist society are such that production for profit, which is commodity productions, demands an outlet for the goods produced. When a market cannot be obtained through ordinary trade treaties, etc., then the capitalists have to engage in war in order to put their rivals out of action on the productive field, and so that the agreements after the war can be arranged advantageously for the victor; which, of course, they hope to be themselves.

Disarmament Conferences, to which Labour politicians can be invited, are the scratching grounds upon which the capitalists can sort out the tit-bits. The Labour politicians give the assemblies an air of realism and serve to keep the workers quiet. When war occurs during a Conference, such as the Chino-Japanese affray recently, the family gathering breaks up to allow the fight to continue; when it is over, the naughty children are scolded and the happy family is once more reunited. No, we are not dealing with antiquated traditions, but the very much up-to-date methods of modern capitalism.

Why is it that there isn’t employment for some workers under capitalism? Mr. Edwards proves clearly why, later in his article, when he says “Youth bids its elders no longer to tolerate a world in which people cannot buy bread because there is too much wheat; where crops from the tea plantations must be restricted, while people cannot buy tea ”; etc., etc.

We Socialists do not cry out for more work. Many workers do far too much, and needlessly unpleasant work; become, in fact, merely beasts of burden, knowing nothing of the delights of living. Art, music and literature are only fine-sounding words to them.

Mr. Edwards only states a half-truth in the previously quoted passage.

It is not only because there is too much tea, wheat, etc., but because the goods produced are privately owned. Unless they can be sold at a profit, further production is stopped or restricted; hence unemployment. This is the necessary outcome of capitalist society, and neither Mr. Edwards, with his youthful demands, nor the Labour Party can abolish it without first of all abolishing capitalism, which is the cause of it.

But this Mr. Edwards does not want to do. Otherwise there is only need for him to advocate one policy instead of the many plans laid down by him and previously quoted. That policy is Socialism.

Let us examine his plans.

First of all, then, who pays the wages? The capitalist, obviously.

Higher wages with less hours means a reduction in capitalist profit, unless output per head can be increased. This gives the capitalists an added inducement to speed up production, and instal labour-saving machinery.

Who advances the money for the State to take over or nationalise the essential services? The capitalists. In other words, people with money to invest, would-be bond holders. Who is it who runs the Stock Exchange? The same people. We see, then, in order to do any of the things which Mr. Edwards suggests the first thing to do is to dispossess those who now own and control the wealth. This is the only measure that needs enforcing. It is, in fact, the key to the situation. Although Mr. Edwards gives lip service to this idea, he goes on to deal with all the ramifications of capitalist society. Why, when the workers are in control and the capitalists dispossessed, Mr. Edwards still wants a National Investment Board is beyond us.

If Mr. Edwards thinks that the workers and the capitalists can work together advantageously to both, then there is no need to render lip service to Socialism. He is quite in order in trying to get support for his plans to rejuvenate capitalism, but he and other confusionists do the cause of Socialism incalculable harm by tacking its name upon their projects.

The point which stands out clearest in the whole article is Mr. Edwards' lack of knowledge of the fundamentals of Socialism. The end of the workers' troubles must and will come with the dawn of Socialism.

Socialism means the abolition of the private ownership of the means of production and distribution that goes with investment boards, public finance, Government control, money, in fact, everything which Mr. Edwards has taken such pains to impress upon his Daily Herald readers that they must build up under youth's guidance.

As Socialists, we know that our job is to teach Socialism in every possible place and way we can. We can only do that when we understand it ourselves, and we can only get it when the majority of the workers understand it and are prepared to work for it.

Mr. Edwards is either a very muddled thinker or a deliberate confusionist.

May Otway

"Young Guard is Misguided" (1963)

From the November 1963 issue of the Young Guard

The purpose of this article is to show readers why the Socialist Party of Gt. Britain considers ‘Young Guard’ as just another well meaning but misguided group who aim, whether they realise it or not, to make the running of capitalism more efficient, or supporting various reforms which they misname socialism.

In contrast the SPGB holds that the present social system, capitalism, is the cause of working class poverty and will only be abolished when the majority of the international working class understands and wants socialism.

First must be explained what we mean by the two terms.

Capitalism is a system of buying and selling, where wealth is produced for sale on the market with the idea of producing a profit for those who own and control the means of production and distribution. Socialism on the other hand, is a system where wealth is produced for use, with the means of production and distribution being commonly owned and democratically controlled by the whole society.

Anything short of this—no matter how desirable it may seem—is not Socialism. For instance there will be no money in the socialist society, therefore no need of banks and insurance companies; no armed forces, for in society there will exist for the first time a harmony of interests: where the watchword will be— from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

We say that all reformists— whether so-called leftists or rightists—who tell the workers that their administration of capitalism is Socialism are directly retarding workers realising that Socialism is their interests. Thanks to the antics of Labour Parties the world over. Socialism is now equated with shortages, controls, high rates and taxes, nationalisation and so on.

Young Socialists and Young Guard in particular are perpetuating these myths by supporting the party which, during its last term of office, initiated the production of nuclear weapons in Britain, used troops to break strikes, imposed a wage freeze on trade unionists (and intends to do so again with your help no doubt) became the first party to impose conscription in peace time and started the germ warfare establishment at Porton although your contributor ‘Fianna!, seems to think this was a devilish Tory creation (see Y. G. Aug.).

No doubt Young Guardites hold the absurd view that they can help convert the Labour Party to Socialism, though they might just as well try doing this with the Catholic Church, but even if this were possible who are they to play the educators?

Take a look at the ‘aims’ of YG (which can be changed anytime!) to see what we mean. For example, nationalisation has nothing to do with Socialism and we challenge YG or anyone else to give just one example of nationalisation having benefited workers anywhere.

Again worker’s control is a meaningless term as the abolition of capitalism means the abolition of all classes, so where do these workers come in? Workers control is merely another method of running capitalism which even Mr. Khrushchev is now looking upon with favour. Indeed Mark Frankland, writing in the Observer (Sept. 1st) hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that Mr K’s recent speech to Yugoslav workers, on which he extolled the virtues of workers control, was a waste of breath as they—“Know quite well that their wages depend on profits from their factories.”

We also know that Young Guardites envisage profits under Socialism. Where will these come from? Will workers extract surplus-value from themselves?

To sum up; Young Guardites have as much idea of Socialism as any other reformist group. What they call ‘Socialism’ is merely a Utopian rag-bag of ideas none of which, if implemented, would fundamentally alter the wage slavery of the working class. The interests of that class lie in the abolition of capitalism and this, we repeat, they will do when and only when they understand and want Socialism.

“Fair enough” you may say, ‘But how will they get this understanding?” Our reply is that they certainly will not get it by being told that Labour administration of capitalism is Socialism. This simply draws the antagonism of the workers for the failures of that Party onto Socialism and produces a working class which, by its many disappointments at the hands of Labour, is disillusioned and more confused than ever as to what Socialism is, let alone how to achieve it.

The only way is for Socialists to preach Socialism and nothing else, at all times. The more the workers hear expounded a revolutionary alternative to the present set up, the quicker will they demonstrate that they are just as capable of latching-on as anyone else.

Vic Vanni

Ex-Secretary of Woodside Constituency Labour Party

Wood's Failings (1963)

Report from the October 1963 issue of the Young Guard

Middlesbrough

On Sunday, 8th September, a conference was held for N.E. YS. Each branch was asked to send five delegates. It had no terms of reference and nobody yet knows what it was really about.

There were three speakers, Geoff Foster recently appointed youth officer, Roland Boyce a Young Socialist and lastly the prospective candidate for Sunderland.

Comrade Boyce excels in self control, a fact that he himself pointed out repeatedly, and only once declared he was getting annoyed.

He was, quite justifiably getting annoyed at comrade Foster who opposed a suggestion that the YS should get down into the dole queues. Comrade Boyce quoted the example of Peterlee (Durham) where an unemployment committee had greatly helped in a council by-election.

Unemployment in the N.E. is not only a Tory headache but seems to cause the Labour Party much embarrassment. The Unemployed Men’s Association in West Hartlepool was almost used by its President as a means of getting him elected against a Labour candidate as an SPGB candidate (it shows how contemptuous of the Labour Party many working people are when they turn to two ends of nothing like the SPGB).

In my own town the unemployed men’s association meets, believe it or not, in the Conservative Party headquarters. How the hell that happened I just do not know. But this may be partly explained by a remark made by the prospective Labour Party candidate for Sunderland. “The Labour Party must be careful that people do not believe it gets into power only on the backs of the unemployed.”

Vic Wood

Middlesbrough Y.S.

Letter to the Editor from the November 1963 issue of the Young Guard

Wood's Failings

Comrades,

As a member of the SPGB (and also a reader of Young Guard) may I draw your readers’ attention to the complete inaccuracy of the part of your report from Middlesbrough YS (October 1963) which refers to the SPGB.

The Chairman of the Unemployed Workers’ Committee in West Hartlepools, a Mr. W. Aves, is in no way connected with the SPGB. The facts are that Mr. Aves announced his intention to stand at the next General Election as an unofficial Labourite against the official Labour Party candidate. He has since changed his mind. Mr. Aves also tried to get adopted as Liberal candidate—but they wouldn’t have him. If Vic Wood can confuse this gentleman with the SPGB then it can only be assumed that he is unaware of the SPGB position. Despite this he feels competent to direct two sneers at the SPGB.

First, he suggests that our members are the type who climb to prominence on the backs of unemployed workers after the fashion of ILP and CP labour bleeders in the 1930’s. As a matter of fact the SPGB regards such activity as reformism.

Second, he refers to the SPGB as “two ends of nothing”. This is a very ungenerous way to refer to the group which pioneered the view that Russia is a form of State capitalism; which has since its foundation rejected the idea of “leadership” declaring that the workers must emancipate themselves; which has always exposed the fraud of nationalisation and which, finally, has always emphasised the democratic nature of Socialism. I say ungenerous because today all these ideas are circulating amongst sections of the YS and particularly amongst Young Guard supporters.

I trust that Vic Wood will have the decency to apologise and withdraw his inaccurate statements.

Adam Buick

Newport (Mon) SPGB

Socialism or Reformism? (1976)

From the January 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Summary of a debate between the SPGB and the Labour Party Young Socialists —

Greenford Co-op Hall, Greenford Road. Tuesday 2nd December
For SPGB : T. D’Arcy. For LPYS : M. Brooks, Acton Labour Party.

SPGB Opening Statement
The title of the debate is: “Which party should the working class support, the SPGB or LPYS?” Today we live under a system called capitalism. The basis of this society is division into two classes: the working class virtually propertyless, having only their labour-power to sell, and the capitalist class, the tiny minority who own the wealth of society. There exists therefore a class antagonism between wage-labour and capital which is irreconcilable. We say Socialism is in working-class interests and by Socialism we mean our object, contained in all our literature. This is not what exists in Russia and other places and as yet it does not exist. The LPYS do not advocate this system which implies abolition of the wages system, private property and its relationships, banks, trade unions etc. Socialism means a fundamentally different kind of society where the means of production are owned and controlled by society as a whole.

The LPYS make socialist noises but there is a world of difference. They want capitalism run in working-class interests — this is nonsense, capitalism cannot benefit workers; only the capitalist class. One outstanding disagreement is on reforms. The LPYS have a list of reforms: Free Spanish political prisoners, oppose cuts in social services, Rent Act, nationalization, abolition of the House of Lords, etc.

The SPGB is opposed to reformism because: (a) it makes capitalism run more smoothly (b) it is the capitalists who pay for reforms and decide which ones, and (c) we have had them for 150 years and they have not led to Socialism and never will. At most they are a temporary appeasement to some sections of the working class and can be withdrawn, e.g. free milk for schoolchildren. Why do the LPYS need [a] “radical Labour Government” to push a reformist programme? Surely the Tories and Liberals have a better record on that count? Can you imagine the fury of the left if we had a Tory government now with a £6 limit and 1¼ million unemployed?

Nationalization is a main part of the Labour programme but it is irrelevant to the working class. Are workers for British Rail any better off because they are exploited by the state? Nor does nationalization bring Socialism any nearer. Lenin admitted that what existed in Russia was state capitalism. The LPYS have misconceptions about the state. To them it is something which, if you push hard, will do what you want. But it is a coercive body to maintain the rule of law, i.e. protect private property society. I refer you to Engels’ Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. The LPYS have the idea that with good leadership and 10 million trade unionists you can combat capital and take it over, leading to the promised land. The SPGB rejects leadership and insists on the majority understanding Socialism before it can be established. No need for intellectuals, vanguardists, élitists, Trots etc. Understanding is the key.

The LPYS hold that inflation is caused by rising prices; but a wage is a price. It is caused by the depreciation of the currency — printing paper money. Unemployment is a normal part of capitalism but the LPYS want to fight it. How? It provides a reserve industrial army for when production picks up again, and it tends to keep wages down. Taxation is not a concern of the working class; it is a levy on wealth and the burden of taxation falls on the owners of wealth, the capitalists. LPYS ideas are not new. They should learn the lessons of history. The SPGB holds that Socialism is not only possible but the essential step if mankind is to progress.

LPYS Opening Statement

The SPGB rejects leadership yet goes to some lengths to put forward its ideas — this is playing with words. Leadership means offering a way forward; we have no ability to enchain the working class, only ideas and a political programme to offer them. The Labour government has false policies and is on the wrong course — we try to change these policies within the Labour movement. The LPYS have their own conferences, programmes and policymaking bodies.

The LYPS believe themselves to be socialist. We believe unemployment, rising prices, poverty, can only be solved by a fundamental transformation of society, in the direction of socialism. What’s stopping us? The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself and there is only a minority of socialists. It is absolutely true that the Labour Party has not led to socialism. Nor has the SPGB. It is necessary for the socialist movement to work within the labour movement putting forward the day-to-day interests of the working class, but it is necessary both to build understanding and to relate this to the struggles of workers. The LPYS attempt to do this. We don’t talk of solving unemployment in the framework of capitalism, we explain the need to take over the means of production and run them in the interests of the working class. SPGB history shows they have done service to the labour movement in the field of propaganda if in no other. The method of Marxism shows that during times of capitalist boom (the 1950s) workers aren’t interested in revolution, but they are in desperate economic crisis (e.g. 1848). The present crisis gives some hope of the working class questioning the basis of society but there is no certainty of this.

The SPGB contradicts itself by supporting trade-union action and not reform action. The trade unions are not revolutionary and yet Socialists work in them. In the same way the Labour Party is not revolutionary yet we work within it. Labour Party policies are no different from Tory policies, but radicalization will multiply as the crisis deepens. To cut yourself off from the Labour Party and the trade unions is to cut yourself off from the organized working class.

The SPGB likens reforms to crumbs from the capitalist table; if capitalists had infinite ability to give crumbs, socialism would be forever a dream. Marx hailed the 10-hour-day as a political reform, it was an indication to the working class of how to act. Would the SPGB support the 7-hour-day if brought about by trade-union action and oppose it if legislated? The 7-hour-day would be one of the first steps of a socialist government. The workers should take over industry and run it in their own interests, and this only leads to socialism when workers have control of the state.

The SPGB denies need for transition period but the level of production is not high enough to do away with money, and workers will need a period of training. The SPGB says it wants the democratic way. Who doesn’t? but most workers live under dictatorships and capitalists stop democracy when they want to, e.g. Chile. Capitalists will behave like wild beasts when they see their interests threatened. We must warn workers of the tricks and guiles capitalists will use in a country. As Guthrie says "Take it easy, but take it”.

(Several questions were asked by the audience, for the speakers to answer in summing up).

SPGB Second Speech

My opponent says he agrees that he wants Socialism as I defined it, yet LPYS propaganda is full only of “real issues”. If you don’t take Socialism seriously, of course it will seem years away. The SPGB is not prepared to water down its case by pushing reform programmes as the LPYS do. If we did this we could increase our membership with the support of non-socialists. On trade unions I refer you to Value, Price and Profit, where Marx calls for the abolition of the wages system. Workers organize under capitalism to try to safeguard their wages whether or not the SPGB urges them to.

A Socialist party must maintain independence and have no compromise with capitalism. It neither supports nor opposes reforms even if they appear to benefit workers at some time. Personally I have no objection to free milk for schoolchildren but it is not the task of a Socialist party to advocate such things.

The transition to Socialism takes place in capitalist society whilst men’s ideas are changing. The LPYS do not talk of abolishing the wages system, they talk of a £40 minimum wage.

Aim must be linked to method. Socialists in countries like Spain put forward the Socialist case as best they can alongside propaganda for political democracy for Socialism and not anything else. Socialist ideas, when they start spreading, will go to all parts of the world. Democracy will realize its true meaning in Socialist society. Capitalists cannot stop a vast social movement when it gets going, especially as the working class run capitalism from top to bottom.

The policy of boring from within is dishonest. I submit that the LPYS have no separate identity from the Labour Party and that they carry out their own rule “to secure the support of young people for the principles and policy of the Labour Party.”

LPYS Second Speech

We try to relate our programme to the day-to-day needs of working people. The SPGB reacted against the split in the 19th century socialist movement by resorting to preaching the final end without involving themselves in the mass movement.

On the question of taxation when VAT was introduced the retail price index did go up and this obviously would cause hardship to workers who could not get increases in wages. You have to support the working class on such issues.

The LPYS demand ‘“Work Or Full Pay” is not achievable within capitalism. It requires a transformation of society, but it is a reform attractive to workers who have no conception of Socialism. We base ourselves on not forming a party away from the main movement. Otherwise, no-one listens to you.

We agree that nationalization is state capitalism and that capitalists get their income in the same way as if they owned shares, but if the commanding heights of the economy were taken over that situation would be transformed. We would be prepared to give a better deal at the Social Security to poor workers with a few shares, say in ICI, to supplement their income. Nationalization is a necessary first step. There are just not enough resources available to immediately abolish money, and there will have to be a transition period with certain inequalities.

With the deepening economic crisis the working class is going to move to the left, and you have to be there explaining the need for the transformation of society. If not then you’re writing off the working-class movement.

As regards boring from within, the Labour Party has capitalist-minded leaders but the working class don’t regard it as such and that will be the cause of the radicalization of that party. During elections we don’t stress the bad points of Labour Party policy but instead put the LPYS programme and ask workers to get involved.

It is an admission of failure to say that the SPGB could not exist in Spain. Most workers live under dictatorships. It’s all very well to talk of taking over the state but what if the generals etc. don’t let you? The need to change society will not be realized in a flash of light. You must prepare against the reactionary violence the ruling class are likely to use in defence of their privilege and profits.

Tony D'Arcy

"Young Socialists" in Conference (1968)

From the April 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the trotskyist “Young Socialists" gather in Morecambe for their annual conference this month they will be voting on a proposal from their national committee that they should put forward their own parliamentary candidates in future elections. This would be a clear break from their previous stand of critical support for the Labour party and it is worth taking a look at these new contenders for the workers’ votes.

The "Young Socialists" were originally organised by the Labour party as its youth section in 1960, to replace the defunct Labour League of Youth. As always, tension rapidly built up between the idealist young people who formed its rank and file and the Labour party bureaucracy which wanted to keep them firmly in hand. The spineless policies of the Labour leaders grated on the “Young Socialists” and they were also incensed by the arbitrary control of their organisation by Transport House. This, then, was a classical situation for the trotskyists to move in on and the “Socialist" Labour League played the same role as the “Communist” party had done in the previous takeover in the thirties. The break from the Labour party came in 1964 when a wave of expulsions ended in a complete split in the movement. Those who left retained the name “Young Socialists” and formed a nominally independent organisation, while the rump which remained in the Labour party now operates under the clumsy title of “Labour Party Young Socialists".

If the plans of the national committee ever get off the ground and the “Young Socialists” do run candidates for political office, they will present themselves to the working class on a platform of transitional demands. These can be anything from “Victory to the Vietcong" to the call for “Nationalisation of the basic industries, banks and insurance”. They are intended as a minimum programme (socialism being relegated to some indefinite, doomsday status) but are supposed to have a long-term effect as well. As the original Transitional Programme of the Fourth International put it: 

the Fourth International advances a system of transitional demands, the essence of which is contained in the fact that ever more openly and decisively they will be directed against the very bases of the bourgeois regime.

Obviously this process of progressively phased revolution has not advanced very far since the Transitional Programme was first adopted in 1938, as the demands at present being touted clearly show. Just what benefits the victory of the Vietnamese ruling class over the American capitalists would bring for workers anywhere remains obscure, to say the least, while nationalisation of industry — even if total, as in Russia — merely enables the ruling class to tighten its grip on the means of production. If all the supposedly revolutionary, transitional demands of the “Young Socialists” were enforced, the working class would remain in exactly the same position as it started out — propertyless and exploited. The slogans of the “Young Socialists” are a far cry from Marx’s — and the Socialists Party’s — revolutionary demand of abolition of the wages system.

The need for the so-called transitional demands arises in the theoretical framework of the “Young Socialists" parent body (the “Socialist” Labour League) because they take it as axiomatic that the working class cannot possibly grasp the case for socialism if it is presented to them in simple, uncompromising terms — without some form of bait. In fact, the pivot of all their arguments is the conviction that the workers can never arrive at an understanding of socialism by their own efforts and that they must therefore be controlled from above by a leadership. The only useful purpose the working class serves is that it provides the mass basis which the trotskyists hope to make use of in their attempt to gain political power.

This line of thinking is in direct conflict with Marxism. While Marxists have always argued that the socialist revolution must be the result of a united effort by the workers of the world, the followers of Lenin and Trotsky maintain that action by a determined minority, with passive or blindly following masses at the back of them, is all that is necessary. In the case of the Russian Bolsheviks there was perhaps some justification for this attitude, operating as they were in a backward, peasant country. But, however sincere their intentions to build socialism might have been, the historical obstacles were insurmountable and they found themselves leading a bourgeois revolution which conformed in all essentials to the characteristics which, as Engels pointed out, typify the rise to power of capital. They were the “small conscious minorities at the head of unconscious masses” who lead every revolution which merely replaces one ruling class by another.

A socialist revolution is something entirely different, however.

If the conditions have changed in the case of war between nations, this is no less true in the case of the class struggle. The time of surprise attacks, of revolutions carried through by small conscious minorities at the head of unconscious masses, is past. Where it is a question of a complete transformation of the social organisation, the masses themselves must also be in it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are going in for with body and soul. The history of the last fifty years has taught us that. But in order that the masses may understand what is to be done, long persistent work is required, and it is just this work which we are now pursuing, and with a success which drives the enemy to despair.

(Engels' introduction to Marx’s Class Struggles in France)

It is this “long persistent work” which socialists take on in their efforts to convince other workers like themselves of the urgent need for establishing a socialist society based on the principle of “to each according to his needs, from each according to his ability”. Trotskyists, on the other hand, shirk this job. Falling back on idealism or, to use their own language, “petty bourgeois impressionism”, they try to sidestep the task of spreading socialist ideas among the working class as a whole and retain the archaic notion that only a conscious minority is needed. Thus, in the “Socialist” Labour League’s pamphlet — The death agony of capitalism and the tasks of the 4th International:

The turn is now to the proletariat, i.e., chiefly to its revolutionary vanguard. The historical crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of the revolutionary leadership (our emphasis).

This is nothing but the view which Engels was attacking as already outdated in 1895. It belongs to a different era; to the era of capitalist revolutions.

We might add that there are, of course, no prizes for guessing who the “revolutionary leaders” will be. With customary modesty, Gerry Healy et al. announce themselves as God’s latest gift to the working class.

Apart from the leadership issue, once the slogans and pamphlets of the “Socialist” Labour League are stripped of their mock-revolutionary verbiage, what remains is a thoroughly reactionary programme. Socialists maintain that a class-conscious working class has the ability right now to build a society of abundance, based on free access to wealth—what Marx called the “higher phase of communist society" in his Critique of the Gotha Programme. Any need for possible preliminary stages is a thing of the past. What Marx saw as necessary in 1875 — an initial period during which the productive forces would be rapidly increased — is obviously an outdated concept, when we consider the gigantic strides that have been made in all branches of industry in the last hundred years. Like other socialists, Marx’s suggestions were based on an over-optimistic prediction of the imminent overthrow of capitalism in the closing years of the nineteenth century. The “Socialist” Labour League, however, is still committed to maintaining the wages system in the second half of the twentieth century and its members talk in terms of “generations” before it could possibly be done away with. Supporters of the trotskyists in the trade unions should bear this in mind when they back organisations like the SLL — and it wouldn’t do them any harm either to remember just what happened to the unions in Russia when the Bolsheviks, under Lenin and Trotsky, gained power. It would be interesting to learn how many of the trade unionists and “young socialists” who look to the SLL. for political guidance would be prepared to submit to Lenin's maxim “of unquestioningly obeying the will of the Soviet leader, of the dictator, during the work.”

Another completely reactionary role which the “Socialist" Labour League has taken on itself is that of calling on the workers to vote Labour in past elections. Their national secretary, Healy, advances a sophisticated argument to justify this;

  During the general elections of October 1964 and March 1966 we urged trade unionists to vote Labour and at the same time fight within the labour movement for a socialist policy to be adopted by the government.
  The Socialist Labour League advocated this policy knowing that the vast majority would vote labour as part of their experiences.
   It was our responsibility to go through this experience with the working class. Likewise it is our responsibility today to outline ways and means to fight Wilson within the labour movement, not to desert this fight through abstention at the polls.
   Hence we call on the 'left' MPs to fight him in the Parliamentary Labour Party at the forthcoming conference at Scarborough in order to take the working class through the experience of political struggle in relation to the Labour Party.
  Our job is to expose these 'left’ MPs, just as Wilson is being exposed, and at the same time demonstrate to the working class the need for alternative revolutionary leadership within the labour movement.

The weak points in this would be obvious to any thoughtful worker. If, as Healy admits, the workers were going to vote Labour anyway what was the point of the SLL adding to the confusion! Wouldn’t it have been far better to have taken a stand on socialist principles, as the Socialist Party did, and to have called on the working class to oppose capitalism and all the capitalist parties (including the Labour and “Communist” parties)? Despite Healy’s grandiose plans to “take the workers through the experience of political struggle in relation to the Labour party”, objectively all he has achieved is to help to keep the workers on the Labour-Tory pendulum. Many of those who voted in a Labour government at the last general election will, on present evidence, be voting in a Conservative administration at the next. One sign of hope, to be sure, is the sizeable proportion who seem to have abstained in recent by-elections and, if their present mood of disillusionment and apathy could be replaced by socialist understanding, this indeed would be a breakthrough. But, if for a moment we go along with Healy’s rather paranoiac dreams and assume that they were ready to support the “Socialist” Labour League, where would it get them? Healy’s message is simple:

We say that the labour movement has had enough from such traitors, on the left and the right — a new, alternative leadership has to be built.

Far better for the working class to realise that all leaders, whatever their pretensions, are the political enemies of the workers. There is no substitute for socialist working men and women. What is needed above all are self-reliant workers equipped with a thorough understanding of Socialism, not abject followers cringing and praying that this time they will not be betrayed and compromised.

In any case, the Socialist Party of Gt. Britain does not subscribe to the narrow interpretation of “experience" which is common to all varieties of trotskyist theory. We do not think that the only way to learn is by burning one’s fingers. Applying this to the young workers in the “Young Socialists", we say — why wait until bitter experience forces you to see through “Socialist" Labour League? Why not examine its programme from the standpoint of Marxian Socialism now? Why not come over to the side of the revolution?

John Crump

Labour's young lions (1964)

From the May 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent conference of the youth section of the Labour Party, the so-called Young Socialists, at Brighton, has again rejected the official party policy on many important issues. There are signs that the young Socialists have now become an embarrassment to the Labour Party as was the League of Youth in the past. The Labour Party has always been unfortunate with its youth section. They have always been captured by extremists. In the thirties it was the Communists; today it is the Trotskyists.

Trotskyist theory places great emphasis on leadership and slogans. It is their policy to take up the demands of any discontented group and to try and lead their struggle. The Young Socialists have been an easy target for them. In fact it is only here that their policy of boring from within has had any success. The youth sections of all "left-wing" parties tend to be more "radical" than the main party.

When the blatant vote-catching manoeuvres of the leadership of the Labour Party are considered it is not really surprising that the Young Socialists have gone the way they have. They don't like what they see but have not the political experience to explain it. It is young people in this frame of mind that the Trotskyist approach with criticism and an alternative policy. They move in and organise the discontented members.

There are at present four or five Trotskyist and similar groups operating in the Young Socialist movement. This in itself is noteworthy. For Young Socialist branches have tended to back the group which approached them first, though changes occur through the process of splitting to which the Trotskyist groupings are particularly liable. The most influential of these is Keep Left which the Labour Party has already proscribed. This takes the same line as the Socialist Labour League, the main British Trotskyist group, and has a clandestine organisation within the Young Socialists. There are other Trotskyist groups opposed to Keep Left in Liverpool, Nottingham, Glasgow and South Wales. Then there is Young Guard, which has a following in London and amongst students. Strictly speaking, this is not Trotskyist—its Trotskyist wing recently broke away—but it has the same technique of "boring from within."

An amusing aspect of all this is the factionalism and the disagreements between the various groups. The leaders of the boring-from-within groups—Healy, Grant, and others—are all older men who have been on the Trotskyist movement for twenty to thirty years. They fell out with each other soon after the Revolutionary Communist Party was dissolved in the late 1940s. The basic differences were over the nature of the Russian system and various theses of Pablo, a leader of the Fourth International, on Eastern Europe. These quarrels have been transferred lock, stock and barrel to the Young Socialist organisation. Wherever their branches meet these obscure differences are aired and the whole Trotskyist library of abuse is brought out—centrist, revisionist, Pabloite, elitist, Stalinist, Krondstadt, etc., etc. Added to this are stories and rumours of how the members of the groups have behaved at various conferences; how they allied themselves with the Right Wing; how particular groups have organised too many socials and dances. All this together with secret meetings and visions of armed uprisings may be good for laughs but has nothing to do with Socialism.

Generally speaking the members of these factions spend more time arguing against each other and Party officials than anything else. Such is the experience of boring from within. If Socialists were to join the Labour Party they too would be forced into petty disputes to the detriment of Socialist propaganda even if this were allowed. The Young Socialist Movement may have been easy to infiltrate but it has no power to do anything. When its members face the working class they do so as members of the Labour Party and on its programme. They do not control their own journal. They cannot campaign on their own programme. They have to campaign for a Western nuclear deterrent and for immigration control and for other policies which their conference has rejected. To campaign on any other programme is to render themselves liable to expulsion. This is the whole futility of boring from within. Inside the supposedly mass party your time is taken up with quarrels with bureaucrats; outside you campaign on their programme.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain holds that Socialism can only be established by a Socialist working class. hence the chief task of Socialists can only be to make their fellow workers Socialist. We hold that this can best be done by campaigning for Socialism and Socialism alone. To do otherwise is to get the support of non-Socialists and eventually to cease to be a Socialist party altogether. We accept the doctrine of the class struggle and base our policy on it. Thus we refuse to compromise with other political parties which, including the Labour Party, can only stand for Capitalism.

It is sometimes argued that the way to make Socialists is to back the demands of politically ignorant workers and show then that these demands can't be realised without getting rid of Capitalism. But this is an odd way of going about things. Why not tell the workers straight off that they're going down a blind alley? Why bother to lead them down it just to show them it is a blind alley? The logic of this is that the working class should try out all wrong policies just to see that they are wrong. We reject such nonsensical doctrine. But once this doctrine is rejected then the case for entryism falls to the ground. There is no longer any need to make a principle of leading workers down blind alleys because you think it will benefit them.

Nor does it make sense to argue that Socialists should work within the Labour Party because it is "the mass party of the working class." If the Labour Party is a mass working class party then so is the Conservative Party for just as many workers vote Conservative as Labour. But even if the Labour Party were supposed by the vast majority of workers this would still be no reason for joining it. Such workers would not be Socialists. It would still be the duty of Socialists to oppose the Labour Party and to point out its non-Socialist character. An independent Socialist party would still be necessary to spread Socialist ideas.

Basically, however, the Trotskyists don't accept the need for Socialist understanding. They are more interested in leading ignorant masses. This is perhaps why have been successful among the Young Socialists. The ordinary Young Socialist member has little knowledge of politics. He is merely discontented. The Trotskyists have channelled and assumed the leadership of this discontent. Thus arguments which we have heard many times before appear in Marxist and Trotskyist terms. But behind the words there is no understanding. The ordinary Trotskyist follower does not understand the principles of Socialism—some are even religious—he does not realise he is being used by a bunch of experienced political manipulators who have failed to gain a following elsewhere.

Some good may yet come from this confusion and ignorance. Some young people may be led to study the principles of Socialism and to think beyond the slogan level. Already ideas on Russia, nationalization and leadership which we have been expressing for decades are being discussed in some sections of the Young Socialists. We have something to contribute to these discussions. After all, we pioneered the view that Russia is State capitalist; we said even before nationalization was implemented that it would not benefit the working class; it has been a principle of our organization from its foundation in 1904 that the working class doesn't ned any leaders and must emancipate itself. It is not boasting, but a historical fact, that we have been consistently correct in our attitude to political issues. Those who are interested in politics do themselves a disservice if they ignore our case.

Adam Buick

Breaking them in (1967)

From the June 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Labour Party has always been unlucky with its youth sections. Before the war it lost control to the so-called Communists and, more recently, to assorted Trotskyists.

By 1960 the leaders of the Labour Party had regained enough courage to set up a national youth section again, this time called the "Young Socialists". That they lost control of this within two or three years was partly their own fault. The Labour Party has no principles or theory. Its policy is shaped entirely by electoral considerations. Indeed party officials tend to be suspicious of anything that smacks of theory. Hence the emptiness of their appeals for support.

Consider this passage from a leaflet now given out by Labour to new electors:

"The Labour Party provides commonsense government with an eye on the future. Modern government, with the conviction and determination to press ahead, making all the changes essential in today's fast moving world. Government with a heart, conscious of the problems of the young and the old, the weak and the needy".

How could this appeal to anybody?

But, worse, the Labour leaders were determined to give no power to the YS in deciding party policy. They tried instead to harness the time and energy of its members to going around cadging for votes. The position is well summed up in a study on "Young Activists in British Politics" by Philip Abrams and Alan Little in the British Journal of Sociology for December 1965:

The Young Socialists, then, are expected to be political but powerless; 'servants of the party' who will carry the burden of constituency work without presuming to meddle with policy. The movement is not allowed to edit its own journal. Its national committee has little contact with Labour leaders and that it has is usually formal and to do with matters of discipline. No notice is taken by the Party of resolutions passed by the Young Socialist Conference unless, again, they are felt to be an occasion for discipline. At the same time, little positive effort is made to supervise the political education of the Young Socialists. The political work wanted from the movement is practical not speculative.

It was against this background that the trotskyists moved in. They filled the theoretical vacuum and gave the YS members a practical purpose beyond vote-catching. Their papers such as Keep Left, Rally, Rebel, Young Guard and Militant—all save Keep Left really produced by YS members—were lively and interesting compared with the stodgy and little read publications of Transport House New Advance and now Focus.

But to give the Labour youth managers their due, they didn't stand a chance against the so-called Socialist Labour League, the premier trotskyist group in Britain. It is no exaggeration to say that for a number of years the national committee of the YS was controlled by the SLL through its nominees. The SLL had a secret organisation, complete with membership cards, within the YS. In other words, in true Bolshevik fashion, it was out to control the YS. The other trotskyist groups didn't stand a chance either. However much they might envy the success of the SLL they could not match its conspiratorial methods (which included violence and intimidation). It os doubtful if they really wanted to for their supporters were, and still are, loose groupings without central discipline or outside control.

Naturally the Labour Party was not going to put up with this for long. They proscribed Keep Left and later, after the 1964 YC Conference, launched an attack on the SLL nominees. Many were expelled. The rest, taking many of the YS branches with them, broke away and held a conference of their own at Morecambe in 1965. The Labour leaders must have been relieved but they still faced the problem of what to do with the remains of their youth section. They forced the unofficial papers to swear allegiance to the Labour Party, further weakened the powers of the YS and change the name to "Labour Party Young Socialists". (It is important to realise that now there are two bodies calling themselves "Young Socialists". One, the YS, is the youth section of the SLL. The other is the LPYS).

However, YS conferences since 1964, even without Keep Left, have continued to reject Party policies and to call for more nationalisation, ban the bomb, support the Vietcong and the like. But the Labour leaders are not worried. They know that there is no closely-knit Bolshevik-type organisation trying to take over. They know, in fact, that slowly but surely they are winning the battle to break in their unruly young members to the ways of Labourism. Abrams and Little well describes how it works:

The Young Socialist movement thus functions as a school of conservatism. It takes the raw material of a new generation of activists—people eager to re-define the terms of political conflict—and teaches them to walk in the established paths. If one agrees to work 'within the Party' one quickly agrees also to accept the Party's terms on policy and procedure. The alternative is a return to the wilderness of sectarian impotence. As he learns to prefer the possible to the ideal the young activist tends to move away from the Young Socialists and to devote his energies directly to the Party.

The sad thing is that, while Labour is changing them, they think they are changing the Labour Party.

Adam Buick

This article was part of a special issue of the Socialist Standard. Other articles in the special issue include:

• Young Communist League: The YCL's Land of Hope and Glory
• Young Conservatives: Dances, Jumble Sales, Table Tennis
• Young Liberals: Britain's "Red Guards"