Editorial: Looking Back and Looking Forward (1945)

Editorial from the March 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

We may reasonably hope that our Party Conference at the end of March will be the last to be held while the war in Europe is still in progress. It is an appropriate moment to take stock and glance back to the time when the last world war was nearing its end. The columns of the Socialist Standard in 1918 contain plenty of material to provoke useful contrasts and to enable us to weigh up our prospects in the future.

There are likenesses as well as contrasts in the two situations. First the cynical observer may provisionally conclude that “wars to end war” tend to get longer and worse, and to leave the world in ever greater disorder. He may observe, too, that the active and increasing opposition to war that asserted itself in all countries in the later phases of the last one is missing now. This can be explained by the surface changes that have taken place in the administration of capitalism and by the enormous advance made by the ruling class in their technique for keeping the working class quiet. Thirty years ago the ruling class, with their figureheads of kings, czars and kaisers, were only beginners at the craft of using labour leaders and the phraseology of the labour movement as means of allaying and blunting working class discontent. Under the strain of that war, masses of war-weary soldiers and workers came to feel hatred, mistrust and contempt for the ruling class politicians in their respective countries. This time it is all looked after. No capitalist government that knows the tricks of the trade would now try to rule in times of stress without its ministers drawn from labour ranks, and its contacts with the trade unions and political labour organisations. By this means and by bountiful promises of social reforms (not to mention the official adoption in some countries of the title “Socialist”) the ruling class have delayed the storm of discontent. But have they weathered it finally? We are confident they have not. Capitalist exploitation and capitalist contradictions have not been eliminated merely because the iniquitous system has been labelled “Socialism” or because labour leaders grace it with their presence in Cabinets and with their blessing.

One aspect of this change is that no events have occurred this time capable of stimulating the working class and giving them new (if illusory) hope such as the war-time revolts in Germany and the overthrow of Russian Czardom. A sign of the times is that with Russia a first-class Power. represented at “Big Three” conferences, the Communist Party falls into line as defender of the Allied capitalisms (including, of course, Russian State Capitalism). Last time it was the “right wing” labour leaders (denounced by those who later formed the Communist Party) who supported capitalist campaigns to get the workers to work harder and join in the scramble for more trade. Now it is Mr. Harry Pollitt who “has sent an appeal to all his mining members to speed up coal production” (Daily Express, February 19th). The Express report continues: —

“His [Pollitt’s] more serious concern, however, is that lack of British coal supplies for devastated European countries will delay the fruits of victory, and substitution of American and South African coal supplies may permanently injure British export markets.“

In France it is the same. The Observer Paris correspondent reports (February 18th):—

“Temporarily at least, Conservatism has triumphed in France. The Provisional Government of General De Gaulle is to-day eminently Conservative. It is a Coalition Cabinet based solidly on the support of moderate Roman Catholic elements on the Right and of the Communists on the Left, for the catchword of politics in France just now is the new conservative role being played at present by the Communists.”

As if to clinch the matter, the French Communist leader Maurice Thorez recently gave an interview to a French Catholic journal Temps, in which he is quoted as declaring that Marxism “is only a dogma,” and that he is “infinitely respectful of religion.” His present slogan is “One army, one police force, one administration.” (Quoted by L’Humanité.)

Russia now, with its restored Greek Orthodox Church, its nationalist propaganda and worship of military success and pre-revolutionary national heroes, its great and growing inequality of wealth, is not the Russia that gave fire to working class discontent all over Europe at the end of the last war. A country in which, even before the Russo-German war, there were said to be 30 rouble millionaires in Moscow alone, as well as rouble multi-millionaires, is not the country to encourage the uprising of the dispossessed !

Other items in the news in 1918 strike a familiar note. The Labour Party was reconstructing itself with an eye on gaining office. The Liberals were trying to stage a comeback. The Tories were getting ready by an education bill and by their propaganda for cheaper production, to reap the fruits of victory. “Intervention” was an issue—but intervention in Russia, not in Greece.

Here are two quotations from the Socialist Standard that are as applicable to-day. The first was on the glaring deficiencies of the Trades Union Congress : —

“If the rank and file of the trade unions desire the Congress to become a useful gathering, they must drop their apathy, take an interest in its actions, and, above all, send representatives from their own ranks instead of the case-hardened officials with their dirty tricks and old ambitious, who use the Congress to crawl further into the graces—and the jobs—of the master class.” (Socialist Standard, September, 1918.)

The other concerned the urgent efforts of the Party to get funds to carry on and expand its work:—

“The failure of the capitalist system to properly meet the requirements of human society—clear to us in times of “peace”—is now, in the course of the struggle on the bloody battlefield, faintly dawning on many others of our class, and a greater opportunity, as well as a greater need, for Socialist propaganda may speedily present itself.” (Socialist Standard, May, 1918).

What about the condition of the S.P.G.B.? Our membership, small though it is, yet is very much greater than it was in the difficult period at the end of the last war. Our production of propaganda material has been likewise greater, though now we are crippled by the paper restrictions, which were far less stringent then. We have a larger head office and larger income and expenditure. We have made a beginning with the appointment of a full-time Provincial Propagandist Organiser, and hope to be able to put others in the field. Above all, we have many more young speakers and writers acquiring the experience that will make them efficient workers to spread the Party’s influence in the years to come. The harvest is there—for, despite superficial appearances to the contrary, the workers are more and more recognising the need for fundamental social change—let us therefore all resolve to do our best to reap the hardest without delay. Down with capitalism—forward to Socialism.

The Bogey Man (1945)

F

rom the March 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

The ruling classes of all time have used in their armoury of weapons the powerful one of leadership. In order that the workers may be prevented from discovering their own strength and power, priests, politicians and teachers have saturated the workers’ minds with awe, fear and reliance upon some great deliverer, spiritual and otherwise. In times of stress, social, economic or political, the workers’ thoughts (skilfully prepared) turn to a “leader” or “saviour.” This mental condition enables the ruling class to canalise the thought-tendencies of the workers away from the emergent growing class concept of events to one of individualist responsibility, all dependent upon a “good” or “bad” leader. Parents having been trained that way themselves, continue on the same lines with their children.

In order to curb the ardent spirits of their unruly progeny, mothers call to their aid their own childhood teachings, and threaten their offspring with fears of a “bogey man.” The ruling class do the same. In the first years of the nineteenth century British capitalism had as its challenger the new youthful capitalism of France, and in order to harness the common people to their war machine, preached fear of the French through the medium of “bogey man” number one—Napoleon. Whilst the common people were dying at Waterloo to prevent “their” country from being stolen, three million acres of “common” land was filched by various enclosure acts. Four years after (August, 1819) the men who had won Waterloo were peacefully assembled in Peter’s Fields, Manchester, listening to orator Hunt, when the Yeomanry charged them, and the subsequent massacre became known as Peterloo. Half a century after (the Peterloo and Waterloo heroes being safely dead) British capitalism was in danger at its Empire gateway in the Mediterranean, so the workers had to be frightened by “bogey man” number two. This was the Czar of Russia, who on behalf of his own ruling class was seeking a warm-water port. The bones of British working men lay bleaching on the Crimean snows in a war waged so that “Russia shall not have Constantinople.” Half a century later we fought a war to see that she should have it. For fifty years after the Crimean war decent sized “bogey men” were scarce, and only practice matches were played against small-timers learning the trade, such as Dinizulu, Charka, Lobengula, the Mahdi, the Mad Mullah, etc., but the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the present century brought us “bogey man” number three—the Boer Kruger. Now here were the ingredients for a “just and righteous” war. We fought it to free the “outlander,” give “equal rights to all whites,” and at the same time collar the gold of the Rand and the diamonds of Kimberley. The net result being—two independent republics lost their “independence,” cheaper Chinese labour introduced into the mines, and a big slice of Africa marked red on the map. The workers of Britain got an extra dose of unemployment, but had laid low “that” bogey man. Another dozen years passed, and “bogey man” number four appeared on the scene. Not a Frenchman, not a Russian, not a Boer, but a German—the Kaiser. Once again the workers, true to their training, determined to lay him low, and fear of the “bogey man” became most pronounced in such questions as “What would you do if the Germans came?” This time there was to be no nonsense. We would make Germany pay and hang the Kaiser. Alas! the workers paid in blood and tears and intensified toil for some and unemployment for millions, and they didn’t even hang the Kaiser; he settled in Doorn, doing well until he went to his hall in Valhalla. Will the workers always fall for a “bogey man,” or will they learn Socialism?

Lew.

Do We Need a Bigger Population? (1945)

From the March 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

A revolution in ideas regarding population has taken place since 1798, when Malthus wrote his coldblooded “Essay on Principles of Population.” It had a favourable reception from the ruling class of the day, but the passing of time has shown his ideas to be fallacious, and they have been superseded by ideas which are quite contrary to his conclusions. His doctrine, which declared that there is a universal tendency for population to outrun the means of subsistence, expressed the ignorance of his time.

The only solution Malthus saw to the poverty of his day was to get a decrease in the population and so raise the standard of living among the remainder. He does not seem to have been quite so heartless as some of his contemporaries, who regarded the lower class as a variety of animals requiring even less care than domestic animals. Commenting on one of them, the notorious Count Rumford, who had concocted recipes for cheap soups as a suitable diet for the common people, Malthus writes:

“They (the soups) are excellent inventions for the public institutions and as occasional resources; but if they were once universally adopted by the poor, it would be impossible to prevent the price of labour from being regulated by them . . . perhaps some cold politician might propose to adopt the system with a view of underselling the foreigners in the markets of Europe. … I really cannot conceive anything much more detestable than the idea of knowingly condemning the labourers of this country to the rags and wretched cabins of Ireland, for the purpose of selling a few more broadcloths and calicoes.” (Essay on the Principles of Population, page 232-233.)

So Malthus was not completely unaware of the trend of wages, although he knew nothing of surplus value !

The housing problem was then, as always, acute among the poor, but Malthus saw in it a weapon for keeping down the population.

“One of the most salutary and least pernicious checks to the frequency of early marriages in this is the difficulty of procuring a cottage, and the laudable habits which prompt a labourer rather to defer his marriage some years in the expectation of a vacancy, than to content himself with a wretched mud cabin like those in Ireland.” (Ibid, page 250.)

Portal houses are now to be produced for precisely the opposite reason.

As Socialists profiting by the work of Karl Marx, we realise that workers are short of the means of life, not because production falls short of demand, but because the present anarchy of production is concerned merely with profit-making and not with supplying people’s needs the latter being incidental.

Turning to recent writers on population, we find them arguing in the opposite direction to Malthus. The writers and investigators on the subject—Glass, Carr Saunders of the Eugenic Society, Titmuss, Charles and Ginsberg, to mention just a few—are full of woe and gloomy prognostications. They foresee something like extinction for the Western nations in 200 years time, and for the near future they predict more old people in bathchairs than infants in prams.

They relate it to economics too. D. V. Glass states :

“The population will suffer from a much higher degree of invalidity and the burden of State health insurance will be greater. So, too, will the relative cost of old age benefits. On the other hand, this large section of aged and therefore unemployed people will have to be supported by a relatively much smaller proportion of able-bodied persons. That is, proportionately the amount of taxation per head will rise, while the ability to bear it will fall. Moreover, the position of industry is likely to be more difficult. In the last century the industrial system recovered fairly easily from the depressions through which it passed, and one of the major factors in this case of recovery was undoubtedly the growth of the population. An increase in the numbers of people meant an increase in the demand for the products of industry, and with it the slump period of the trade cycle was shortened. The much reduced rate of the increase of the population of the world since the war has no doubt helped to intensify and prolong the economic crisis, and if population actually falls in the future, the effect of the trade cycle upon economic prosperity is likely to be much more severe.” (“The Struggle for Population,” pages 14-15.)

To a Socialist such fears appear fantastic; to the orthodox economist, however, they are very real : immersed in a vain effort to reform and prevent the worst trends of capitalism, the real solution escapes them. Under Socialism people would not deny themselves the pleasures of children and the play of their normal instincts. Generally speaking, contraception is practised because would-be parents either cannot afford children or wish to do better for the ones they have. The working class, possessing only their power to labour, possessing no resources of wealth on which they can draw in bad times, find the inclination is not strong to procreate merely to create a reserve army of unemployed for the capitalist to draw upon in boom periods and that will languish on the dole during slumps. The worker is not interested in falling populations, but he is well aware that after successful strikes or negotiations for a rise in wages, a usual practice in the times called peace is to turn off many workers and instal bigger and better machines to do their work, and thus reduce the wages bill.

In an effort to stem the falling birth rate (rising temporarily in the present war), the Government of this country are about to institute some form of family allowances. As an inducement to parenthood it does not bear the stamp of originality. Family allowances were first given in France in 1854 but did not become general until 1916, when rising prices were making it increasingly difficult for the parents of children to maintain their standard of living. It was resisted by the trade unions, who claimed that it would reduce real wages. Until 1932, when the Equalisation Fund was set up, the scheme was a voluntary one run on contributions obtained only from employers. We dismiss at once any suggestion that it might be due to their innate generosity or love of little children (for it is not characteristic of employers as a class), and look for a more likely reason. Possibly the following quote fills the bill:

“Among other factors which may have influenced employers is the one given by the Director of the Fund for the Stephanoise Region. He believes that the granting of allowances has effectively withdrawn the family man from the ‘class struggle.’ If this is true, the employers had very strong grounds for extending the system.” (D. V. Glass, “The Struggle for Population,” page 52.)

The Fascist powers, in their rise to domination, in Italy and Germany, made a determined attempt to increase the birth rate. The Nazis made loans free of interest to young couples, cancelling repayments at the birth of each child. Promotion was also given to fathers of families, together with opportunities to obtain the best houses or flats.

The Italian plan, though on the same principle, had different features. A bachelor tax was levied, and financial burdens decreased in large families, by means of tax exemptions. The large family, however, consisted of seven children among State employees and ten children among other workers! In both countries improvements were made in maternity and child welfare.

Methods employed in Russia are akin to the Fascist powers in this as in other matters. A 50 per cent. increase has been made in maternity benefit and endowments given to mothers of six or more children, whilst the mother of ten qualifies for a medal. L. Ginsberg, in a Fabian pamphlet, “Parenthood and Poverty”, thinks, in the Fabian manner, that it is merely an extension of the social services and an attempt to raise the standard of living; we prefer to view them in a more realist manner. The anti-abortion law of 1936 marked the commencement of a new policy regarding population which finds expression in the more recent changes.

A method used by these countries is discouragement of birth control propaganda and sale of appliances. In Italy the latter became illegal, but was avoided in a truly commercial manner by selling certain articles under the heading of preventatives of disease.

Individual capitalists are not concerned with the state of the population in a hundred years’ time; they want their profits now.

Sweden, claimed as one of the most democratic countries, has adopted a saner method. Deciding that wanted children thrive best, birth control information is disseminated, whilst granting allowances and improving maternity and child welfare.

Most Western countries now grant allowances for children. These include Spain, Hungary, Holland and Belgium. So also do Australia and New Zealand. The Baltic countries and Switzerland, Austria and Bulgaria grant them to State employees.

The latter grants seem to indicate the desire of these countries to keep State servants loyal to the government and to induce them to refrain from following their class aspirations. We find Britain only recently tackling her problem. The proposed allowance for each child (after the first) is to be 5s. and not the 8s. suggested by Beveridge.

From Malthus to his modern counterparts, no solution to the so-called population problem along their lines can be effective!. Malthus advised continence among the “lower orders,” the moderns advise the opposite, and neither solves any real problems for the working class.

In a world torn and bleeding by a ruthless and brutal war, it is sheer humbug, cant and hypocrisy to talk of a population problem. Capitalism, which dooms millions to hunger in a world of plenty, wastes the lives of millions in useless toil, and periodically sends millions to their death in futile wars in every part of the globe, will appeal in vain to the working class to solve capitalism’s future population problems. There can be only one answer to such appeals-— a determined purpose to change the basis of society on the part of the workers, and to win a world with natural resources so vast and with productive forces so great that the needs of all can and will be supplied. Intelligent men and women will not then deny themselves the joys that children can give, and no special incentives need be offered to induce unwilling people to procreate. Family allowances and medals are devices of a ruling class endeavouring to solve its particular problems.

Workers should cease looking to family allowances and social services for the solution to their present troubles. Why ask for paltry sums when the world is yours to win ?

W. P.

New Leagues for Old (1945)

From the March 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

The only political organisation in this country to consistently hold and propagate the view, during the peace interval 1919-1939, that the League of Nations would inevitably fail in its professed purpose ot preventing war was the S.P.G.B. We knew that peace would not come merely from the setting up of “right” machinery, nor would war come because we may lack this machinery. We knew that, given the capitalist system, with the competitive struggle for markets and its conflicts over spheres of influence, etc., war was inevitable. As a result of our analysis we did not welcome the League in an exultant mood—our attitude was sceptical. We asked this question : —

“Is this pact an admission that the League is a mere phantasm, a spineless, parchment entity which can have no power or influence in the real world—the world of strife for economic interests?” (Socialist Standard, July, 1919.)

The question posed by us was answered during the next twenty years. Workers, however, did not question the League as we did; they took an opposite view. They believed in the League and its work, and they supported parties that “stood by the League.” Thousands of sincere and earnest workers devoted their time and energy building up the organisation which they thought would help to establish peace. Probably the supreme effort of the League of Nations Union was the organisation of the Peace Ballot in 1935. 12,000,000 voting papers were issued and over 11,500,000 people voted on the questions asked. One of the questions was: “Do you consider that if a nation insists on attacking another, the other nations should combine to compel it to stop by, if necessary, military measures?” 6,784,368 voted in favour of military measures and 2,351,981 voted against. Most of the remainder abstained. Our masters were, however, not disturbed. Fifteen years of “peace” talk from the League had brought this result—that given certain conditions a majority of the workers were willing to fight. When the story of the Ballot was written, Viscount Cecil added a chapter in which he said:—

“Nor must we forget that a second object of the Ballot was to convey to foreign countries the assurance that the British people stood firmly behind the League . . .  in recent years too many people have been ready to suggest that, contrary to the best traditions of their history, the British people would not be ready to fulfil their obligations under the covenant; that they would never be ready to risk their money, and less their lives, in the repression of lawless breaches of international peace. It is satisfactory to know that there is no justification for such a slander on our people. By immense majorities they have declared themselves ready to restrain an aggressor by economic action and, with more reluctance and by smaller but still important majorities, to follow this up, if necessary, by military measures.” (“The Peace Ballot,” page 62. Gollancz.)

The way was now clear to ruling-class representatives. They had useful information to guide them. War under the auspices of the League would gain the support of the working class. Few politicians failed in their week-end “perorations” for peace to speak strongly in favour of collective security and the League. But our rulers were not alone in speaking like this; the Labour leaders excelled at it. At week-end meetings, divisional meetings and conferences workers were told that it was essential that we stood by our “obligations under the covenant.” They who for years had advocated disarmament were now demanding strong action by the League (action which obviously required arms), claiming that this was the way to ensure peace. So belligerent did Labour leaders become that Miss Ellen Wilkinson was moved to remonstrate:—

“Is the Labour Party leadership trying to commit the Party to suicide? Must they always make the same kind of mistakes? For ten years they have been the head and front of the peace and disarmament movement. In the eleventh hour they clamour for sanctions that if meant seriously will lead to war. . . . There are even innocents who imagine that we can close the Suez Canal without an immediate state of war ! British Labour leaders have been trapped by cleverer men than themselves into sharing responsibility for a possible war, in the conduct and on the terms of settlement of which they in all likelihood will have no say whatever.“ (The Plebs, October, 1935.) .

The flood of pro-League and anti-aggressor propaganda could have but one ending. When it was considered necessary war was declared on Germany.

The League had failed to prevent war. Workers who had toiled hard for the League, imagining that it was an answer to international conflicts, had toiled in vain. The prize of peace was not theirs—the prize of working-class support for war was their masters’. The League had fulfilled that purpose. Thus were we justified in the view we had held for twenty years.

Now the League is starting again, only with a different name. The “peace-loving” nations have held a conference at Dumbarton Oaks and issued various proposals for a new organisation, the “United Nations Organistion.” Should this unity break, they want disputes between adherent members to be settled amicably. It is intended to have a “serviceable set of teeth” to deal with recalcitrant or aggressor nations, it is to have a Military Staff Committee, a sort of United Nations General Staff. Its armed strength is to be contributed by the various members. Will the British ruling class hand over the Navy ? In the old League any member charged as an aggressor was not allowed to vote on the matter in dispute; Russia proposes that such member should have this right. The Economist was right when it described it as a blood-brother to the old League. What are the chances of this League succeeding where the last League failed?

First, will the war end with the causes that gave rise to the war being swept away ? Recently Turkey became a “benevolent collaborator” of the British Empire. This prompted Mr. Hore-Belisha, M.P., to write a short survey of Turkish history showing the importance of the Dardanelles and Constantinople to the British Empire. He mentioned how in 1878 Britain agreed to defend the Asiatic dominions of the Turkish Sultan by force of arms because they feared the proximity of Russia to Constantinople. He also pointed out that as the Straits of Dardanelles are as vital an interest to-day as a hundred years ago, they must be kept in friendly hands. (News of the World, August 6th, 1944.) Two months later, when Greece was invaded by the Allied forces, Belisha stressed that just as Britain, as an island, had to prevent the domination of the Low Countries, so was it necessary, as an Empire, to prevent the domination of Greece. (News of the World, October 15th, 1944.) (He did not show how these matters are vital to the working class in these affairs, so “vital” to British interest, the working class is neither considered nor consulted.)

What will happen should Russia become an “aggressor” in these parts? Who will settle the disputes then? Does anyone imagine that the British ruling class will allow such matters to be settled outside their jurisdiction? Will they await an “impartial” and perhaps unfavourable verdict from other capitalist powers ? Also, who will settle the present dispute between the Russian and the Polish rulers? So we could continue enumerating the problems that the League may and will have to face, but “enough is a feast,” so we will leave them the task. The problems still remain because the causes of war are not removed. When the capitalists are faced with threats to their interests they will not stop to consider the “rights” or “justice” of the case. They will not forfeit their “right” to act in their own interests. They will move to defend these, “with the League or against the League.” As a force for peace this new organisation promises to be as innocuous as the old.

It has been said that we must see that the new organisation has “a serviceable set of teeth.” We want workers to get their teeth into the problem. What is to be their attitude ? Let them ask themselves this question : Is the next twenty years to be a mere interval between wars? We will answer, “Yes, unless workers show a considerable advance in Socialist understanding.” Capitalist Leagues and organisations exist to maintain that which now exists—capitalism. Those who help to maintain capitalism are helping to maintain a “cellarful of explosives.” Has the Labour Party any alternative to this prospect? During a debate on foreign affairs, Mr. A. Greenwood stated, “We yield to none in our admiration of the British Commonwealth and Empire.” (Official report, House of Commons, 25.5.44.) If in the future areas in close proximity to Empire bases or routes are attacked, the Labour Party will join in the struggle to defend those areas.

Socialists alone have an alternative. It is not sufficient to work simply for peace. Our task is to work for a new social order where, because articles will be produced solely for use, conflicts such as those we are now witnessing will become things of the past. Not new Leagues for old, but Socialism is the solution.

Lew Jones

By the Way: Unfaithful Wives of Soldiers (1945)

The By The Way Column from the March 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Unfaithful Wives of Soldiers

Dr. Percy Herbert, the Bishop of Norwich, is very worried about unfaithful wives of soldiers.

He says unfaithful wives “are very widespread” (News-Chronicle, January 4th)—(presumably this means there are a lot of ’em, not that they are broad in the beam)—as high as one in ten, in some units in the Mediterranean.

The chaplain who gives him this information adds : “It is impossible to describe the mental and moral devastation caused to a husband when he hears of his wife’s infidelity.”

The Bishop is very concerned about the men who are engaged in “tearing the guts out” of the Germans (Mr. Churchill’s elegant phrase) being “morally devastated.” It really is difficult for a man to be “a combination of gangster, poacher, cat-burgler and footpad,” as Lord Wavell has defined a modern soldier, if he’s worrying about his wife’s fidelity.

Wives should remember that soldier husbands will stab, shoot, roast, blast and throttle the enemy much more efficiently if they are not “morally devastated.”

* * *

Medals and Principles

Mr. Jos. Shelley has refused to accept the M.B.E. awarded him, saying:—

“I am an active member of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, in which I serve on two of its important committees. If I accepted it questions regarding my principles might be raised and a false interpretation drawn. Principles matter; medals don’t.” —(Daily Herald, January 11th.)

Good for you, Joe!—this is only the beginning of the end of Sir Walter Citrine. Sir Mark Hodgson, Lord Ammon, Lord Latham, etc.

* * *

Privates, Infantry, Discharged : for the Information of :

“In Sunny Bahamas.—Opportunity to acquire Land and Building Sites now being developed in the most beautiful part of the Bahamas Islands, near Nassau. Suitable either for retirement or investment. Ideal climate, fishing, bathing, golf, etc. Low taxation and living costs. Regular air and shipping services after the war. . . .”—(Advert. in Evening Standard, January 13th. 1945.)

* * *

Paris—and London

The Daily Herald sent a British housewife, Mrs. Barker, to Paris to find out how the housewives are faring there after the liberation.

She tells a harrowing story of the terrible privations now being suffered by the population as a result of an artificial famine created by the war, and concludes: —

“Till then, it means unhappily that the larger your purse, the better you fare. The poor are often hungry. The middle class get by. The rich do very well indeed.”—(Daily Herald, January 12th, 1945.)

The same issue of the Herald (January 12th) carries a special Black Market story on how Inspector Yandell is cleaning up the Black Market—(Yes! Again!)—by Gordon Cummings, which states that: —

“Trafficking in coupons is a serious problem. On top of actual private deals, some retailers are getting supplies to cover their ‘off-the-coupon’ sales at fancy prices.”

And who, dear Mrs. Barker, are the people in London, as well as Paris, who can pay “fancy” (read high) prices? Who will always outbid the poor man?—i.e., the working man ! The question has only to be asked to be answered. Rationing has little or no significance for the rich. There are always plenty of really good substitutes, or rather alternatives, to be had.

If you can’t run a car. you can always take a cab or engage a private car. If there are no oranges—there are hot-house grapes and peaches. No cloth coats?—always one or two fur ones, at a price. Always grouse in season, or venison for a change—if you can afford it. No central heating at home? There are always good hotels for the best (richest) people.

In London, as in Paris, Berlin as New York or Moscow. “The poor are often hungry. . . . The rich do very well indeed”–in peace or war time. That’s capitalism, Mrs Barker. The only way out is Socialism.

* * *

Tailpiece

Racket No. 3—Coupons.

“Clothes coupon traffickers are getting bold. They are now openly offering coupons to strangers in public houses, night clubs, hotels, and even in the streets. 

“Their supplies are stolen, forged or ‘traded’ coupons. 

“Large numbers of the ‘traded’ coupons are bought from people who cannot use their quotas.”—(Daily Herald, January 16th.)

* * *

Wrong to Kill

Private George E. Smith, US. soldier, was on trial for murder of Diplomat Sir Eric Teichman by shooting him in his own grounds on December 3rd.

Three psychiatrists, two American Army officers and one British civilian, testified about the mental state of the prisoner.

Questioned about Smith’s mental age being only nine, Dr. Alexander, Colonel in the American Army and chief neuro-psychiatrist for this part of Britain (Norfolk), replied to the question, “Does Smith know it is wrong to kill?“—”Yes, he does.”—(Daily Express, January 12th, 1945.)

Poor George, if he could only have waited another month or two, till he got to the European mainland, he might have been given a medal. It’s the first time we’ve heard that it’s wrong for a soldier to kill; we thought it was his trade.

* * *

Fraternising with the ” Enemy “

“U.S. Troops Seek Kin in Europe. 

The American soldier, when not fighting, is anxious to find relatives who may be in Europe, reports Associated Press from Paris. At least 2,000 requests for help in tracing kith and kin have been received by the Red Cross in the last ten weeks. 

Doughboys whose roots may be French, Dutch, Polish—and in many cases German—are getting every possible help in their quest”.—(Evening Standard, December 30th, 1944.)

This sheds a little more light on the £15 fine on Allied troops for fraternising with Germans.

It must be rather difficult to inspire hatred and ferocity for “the enemy” when they are not only “class-brothers,” but sometimes even blood-brothers, as with many German-Americans.

Horatio

SPGB Meetings (1945)

Party News from the March 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

With regards to the debate with the Labour Party in Manchester, I wonder if the Labour Party representative, 'C. Allaun', was any relation to Frank Allaun? He was a longstanding Labour MP in Salford from the 1950s onwards and was a leading member of the Labour Left in the 60s and 70s? Who knows, maybe it was a typo in the Standard and it was in fact Frank Allaun debating the Party. Allaun is quite a unique surname.

Welsh Workers See Storms Ahead (1945)

From the March 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

A typical piece of modem capitalist industrial development—affecting principally the Swansea-Llanelly area this time—was announced towards the end of January by Mr. Hugh Dalton, President of the Board of Trade (South Wales Evening Post, January 29, 1945). It is an occasion with some useful lessons for Socialists.

It followed closely upon arrangements for merging two of Britain's largest steel and tinplate concerns—Richard Thomas's and Baldwins—and was dead in line with the modern capitalist tendency to concentrate wealth and prosperity in fewer and fewer hands. Now Mr. Dalton, with a pontifical gravity well suited to a political administrator of grand imperial capitalism, proclaimed that Richard Thomas’s, Baldwins, Quest, Keen, Nettlefolds, Briton Ferry Steel and Llanelly Steel were collaborating with a view .to the erection of a hot-strip mill for tinplates and sheets at Port Talbot. This was heralded by the local evening paper with the sort of gravely respectful headlines that it uses for royal visits. The renovation of archbishoprics, and sensations in stocks-and-shares adventures. “Four companies combining to modernise industry,” it commences, quite moderate, rising crescendo to a perfect paean of worshipful ecstasy—'‘Passing of bad old days.”

Before we allow ourselves to be lifted into the blue by the angelic upsurge of adoration for those modern saints, the captains of industry, let us look at some of the cold sober facts that are always related to this sort of capitalist attainment (which is, of course, the usual, inevitable flowering of Big Business).

Concentration of capital—fewer capitalists owning more—is the integral factor. Second aspect is that of a major offensive in the perpetual war between contending capitalist interests. In this case, the war for markets between the American and British steel and tinplate industries. The Americans won a great initial advantage by their early adoption of the "strip mill ” system, whereby the whole process of production, from raw material to finished bulk product, is carried out on one site, like the introduction of a pig into one end of a machine and its emergence as neatly labelled sausages at the other. American steel and tinplates, produced more cheaply than their British competitor, bade fair to dominate the markets of the world. All the blood shed on the Western Front could not damp the ardour of the coming battle on the industrial field. To-day the hand is grasped, to-morrow the throat:, what does it matter to the industrial princes? This hungry, frustrated unemployed are unspectacular casualties. . . . 

But here comes the British counter-blow: British interests, too, adopt the strip mill. A strategic victory! But before we cheer ourselves hoarse, let us look at the probable cost. It is not peculiar; it always happens on grand occasions of this sort: it has happened before, or other things like it, in our rough island story, and it will happen again. In this case, one single huge highly economical concern will be able to dominate Britain's share of a great world industry from Port Talbot. To the West, in places like the Dulais and Llwchwr districts, the older-fashioned methods will be unable to compete: unemployment will increase in those areas astronomically, and only a small number of the displaced could be absorbed in the new strip mill. There will be many slender post-war wage packets (or dole packets!) in West Glamorgan, but "these things, you know, must be in every famous victory."

Yet, goodness knows, there is enough need for things made of steel and tinned plate to keep a dozen Port Talbots and a lot more Gorseinons, Loughors, etc., working full-pelt for ever; and it could be that way, too, if only we had Socialism, and things were produced solely for use instead of as commodities to bring profits for the owner class. Under capitalism improved methods of production, such as strip mill, mean higher and safer profits for the owner class. They also threaten many workers, often whole communities, with poverty, insecurity, ruin. Under Socialism such improvements will mean a higher standard of living for the whole community.

John Jennings

The Workers' Internationals (1945)

From the March 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Much has been written on the "lessons" to be learned from the efforts to set up an international organisation that would co-ordinate the national straggles of the workers against capitalism.

The first experiment arose out of a visit of Parisian workers to the London International Exhibition of 1862. when during the visitors' reception the London trades union officials, Odger and Applegarth, proposed that international congresses of workers be regularly held.

Thus was formed the International Working-Men's Association, whose committee invited Karl Marx to draft their "Inaugural Address," which was delivered at St. Martin's Hall, London, in September, 1864. While in the main dealing with the industrial struggles of Europe’s workers who became affiliated to it, the International essayed to shed light on the steps to be taken by the workers towards their emancipation. For instance, the second part of the Geneva resolution, dealing with the trade unions, might be written to-day. It states:

The trade unions hitherto concentrated their attention too exclusively to the local and direct struggle against capital. They ’have not completely realised their power to attack the very system of wage slavery and present-day methods of production. That is why they keep aloof from social and political movements. 

Born in the period of the turmoil of the bourgeois revolutions, feared and hated by European governments during its life, the International became the debating ground for the working-class thinkers of the day, the main cleavage being that of Marx and his supporters, who held that the workers must gain political power for Socialism, as against the Anarchist section led by Bakunin, which, while acknowledging the economic theories of Marx, argued that only by the forcible smashing of the state by direct action could the workers get their freedom.

Basically the division was that of the industrial workers whose mission is the remoulding of a complex capitalist society where the franchise can be the instrument to effect the economic change, as opposed to those who still had to fight against a despotic feudalistic state, as in Spain and Russia, where suppression led to assassination, insurrection and minority action.

Theoretically expressing these conditions, the anarchists, though hating capitalism, could only visualise a decentralised agrarian economy of individual owners relieved entirely of state interference.

Torn by these ideological differences, together with the reaction arising from the crushing of the workers of the Paris Commune, the General Council decided to remove to New York, where after some activity in workers' organisation, the I.W.A. died a quiet death in 1875.

The First International, though providing a valuable apprenticeship for the workers, and in spite of being guided by thinkers as brilliant as Marx and Engels, was premature in face of the political immaturity of the workers themselves. It nevertheless taught the world's workers how to "walk by themselves" tactically and theoretically in their struggles against capitalism.

With the growth in Europe of parties whose declared intention was the seeking of political power in the name of Socialism, a second International was set up at the Paris Congress in 1880, and by 1907 at Stuttgart 26 nationalities were represented: the British Labour Party joining in 1908.

While without doubt Marx’s Socialism meant the abolition of the wage system and the uncompromising class struggle, these parties very soon abandoned their "Marxism," or, like the Labour Party and Fabians, initially denied it altogether for reformism and revisionism. A brief survey of the principal parties will make this apparent.

At the German Erfurt Congress of 1891, which ratified the merging of the Marxists and Lassallians, William Liebknecht, who had effected this fusion, held the following view :—

The possessor of the means of production expropriates the man who has none, and must work for him for a wage; he pays in the wage only a part of the work performed; the surplus value, the unpaid performance, becomes in his hand (the hand of the possessor of the means of work) capital, and enables him to draw tighter and firmer the worker's chains. . . .  Nothing in the process can be altered by pious wishes. . . . All attempts to remove the "excrescences" of capitalism, while maintaining its basis, are Utopian. These “excrescences" are the logical results, the inevitable consequence of the capitalistic system; whoever wants to remove them must remove it, their cause. By this demand the social democracy distinguishes itself from all other parties, and stamps itself a revolutionary party, while all other parties, without exception, take their stand upon the private ownership of the means of production. ("Modern Socialism," A. C. K. Ensor, 1904, p. 7.)

This stand gave place later to the "revisionism" of Bernstein, within the party, and though countered by Kautsky, Germany's foremost Marxist, opened the door to a huge membership of elements which made it a shade paler than the British Labour Party. It had gathered numbers and votes at the expense of its former concept of Socialism.

While forming a Republican Government after the last war, its ministers Ebert and Noske were responsible for the murder by Government troops of such Marxists as Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg.

M. Beer, in "Fifty Years of International Socialism," says: "Ebert and Noske saved Germany for the Nazis by exterminating all determined men and women of the Socialist movement! Thousands were killed by their mercenaries, thousands maimed and driven into exile." (p. 192.)

Britain's Social Democratic Federation, like the German, began with a display of "Marxism" by its founder, H. M. Hyndman. in 1881. The movement suffered several splits, William Morris breaking away and forming the Socialist League, an anti-parliamentary sect which was finally captured by the anarchists.

Max Beer, in his "History of British Socialism," makes clear how the S.D.F. tried to ride two horses, one the advocacy of "Marxism," the other the more popular one of vote-catching reforms and arrangements with capitalist candidates.

It was on this issue that Scottish members split away and formed the S.L.P., leaning towards syndicalism, while the London secessionists formed the Socialist Party of Great Britain to advocate Socialism in 1904.

The I.L P.. Labour Party and Fabian Societv had all by then been formed with the “practical" policy of reforming capitalism, thus leaving the S.P.G.B. the only party in the field advocating straight Socialism.

The German and British Labour Parties held the largest representation at the Copenhagen Congress of 1910, which confirmed an oft-repeated pledge in a resolution which ran: "If war threatens to break out, it is the duty of the working class to use every effort to prevent war by all means that seem to them appropriate. Should, nevertheless, the war break out, it is their duty to intervene to bring it promptly to an end, and use the political and economic crisis to rouse the masses from their slumbers and hasten the downfall of capitalist domination." ("Everybody's Book of Politics," Odhams Press, Ltd.)

Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik section of the Russian Social Democratic Party, declared that this resolution had been betrayed, and in his "War and the Second International’’ wrote a scathing indictment describing how the "Socialists” had placed themselves behind their capitalist governments, voted for war credits, and made a patriotic case for doing so.

This onslaught on the Second International virtually declared dead by Lenin, together with the apparent success of Bolshevik methods in bringing "Socialism" to Russia, heralded the formation of the Third "Communist" International in 1919. The Leninists built up their organisation on the basis of an elite of professional revolutionaries who were to lead the slow-witted masses to revolution.

Disdaining democratic parliamentary methods as "bourgeois," and only to be used as a "platform," their main urge was to civil war, through which in a crisis such as a war the government would be thrust aside, the "Communists" assume the state power and establish the "dictatorship of the proletariat," as in Russia.

For years the respective national sections disciplined by the "Comintern" talked civil war or supported the Tories in turn, according to the needs of the foreign policy of Russia, even dissolving . completely, as in America. Eventually with Russia's state capitalistic development and its arrival as a “great power," the need for international "reds" fell away and was even an embarrassment to Russia's diplomatic concert with her allies in World War 2, whereby the Third International was formally dissolved by Stalin. Russia's national leader, in February, 1944.

History had played a cruel trick on Lenin's international, for it was killed by a capitalist war, as surely as the Second which he himself declared dead—a war which it declared to be imperialistic, only to change to one for freedom when Russia itself was attacked.

There is left to mention the “Trotskyists," who have declared a Fourth International based on the tactics and doctrines of Lenin. Believing that Socialism would have been established in Russia but for its betrayal by the Stalinists, they perpetuate the illusion that Socialism can yet be won by Bolshevik methods. With a logic all their own, they have demanded “Immediate despatch of arms and material to the Soviet Union," while at the same time stating the war to be imperialistic. The Trotskyists are but the faint echo of the Third International in its Lenin's heyday, and while they think that slogans and leadership can take the place of a majority of convinced Socialist workers in ending capitalism, they are on the same road as their predecessors.

The ruins of the "Internationals" testify to the workers’ urge to put into effect Marx’s injunction, “Workers of all lands, unite." But for what? The S.P.G.B., with its companion parties in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and America, have stood outside the "Internationals" on the grounds that they were non-Socialist bodies, and the failure of Labourism, Fabianism and Sovietism to achieve Socialism is proof of the correctness of our position. We state this in no sectarian spirit, but as a part of the workers' movement struggling for emancipation. Meanwhile capitalism is still here, with its wage system, its national struggles for trade, armed or “peaceful," and the workers have but mentally reached the stage of thinking that state control of capitalism by “labour” is Socialism in practice.

That the workers must challenge the basis of capitalism and end this vicious circle is apparent to many, and we make no apologies to the organised workers in asking them to examine our record and fitness to form the nucleus of a true Socialist Workers’ International.

Frank Dawe