50 Years Ago: The Political Organisation of the Working Class (1955)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Political Organisation of the Working Class

When the worker has learnt his lesson; when be knows he must rely upon himself and upon his fellows what is he to do? How is he to apply his knowledge to matters of everyday importance to him? It is evidently futile for him to assert his independence of the other political factions if he is independently to strive for measures which those factions advocate. It is also useless for him to organise himself into a party which is unable to agree upon a working programme and a common line of action.

To us as Socialists it is clear that, the Liberals and the Tories having been thrown over as parties, the principles for which they work must also be thrown over, and that, therefore, anyone holding the opinions either of Liberalism or of Toryism must be left outside the workers’ party. The party of the workers has interests which have no common bond with Liberalism or Toryism, and the party of the workers must, therefore, steer clear of anything which is in any way allied with these parties.

The political party of the workers must be the reflex of the economic interests of the workers who are the propertyless class, in the same way as the other parties reflect the economic interests of the propertied class. We are then driven to the necessity of searching for the economic interest of the worker. And this we find in the principle that the working-class having created all the wealth of society are the rightful owners of that wealth. Every man should receive the product of his own labour, but as in modern society it is impossible to determine the portion which any individual adds to the value of the articles he helps to create, we must be content to let all those who labour remain joint owners of the aggregate product.

This, however, is not what obtains in modern society where the reverse is the case. In modern society to-day the non-producers of wealth are the joint owners of the aggregate amount of wealth produced. In this fact we have surely the true differentiation of the party of the workers from the party of the property-owners. And the first object of the political party of the workers, therefore, should be the securing for workers as a class the fruits of their own labour.

If they can only secure this they will have no need to worry about limiting the hours of work, securing a legal law of minimum, or returning to the status quo ante Taff Vale. These trifling matters will soon adjust themselves when the workers take as their own the product of their own labour. And resulting from this would come the necessity of the present property-owners, unable longer to live on the fruits of other men’s labour, working so as to secure their own livelihood.

English Hypocrisy and Russian Outrages

The huge wave of indignation that has lately been sweeping over the country on account of the massacres in Russia is typical of the hypocrisy of the capitalist-class and the ignorance of the man in the street. Big headlines and stirring articles have proved effective in arousing a strong and quite unjustified feeling against Russia. The English attitude towards Russian affairs has for long been intensely pharisaical, and its real origin, imperial and commercial jealousy in Asia, has been quite lost sight of by the public. . . .

This feeling is quite unjustified from a capitalist point of view, and further it is only hypocritical, for no one, except a Socialist, can with honesty support the working-class in its efforts towards freedom. Yet we find the same people that would cheerfully starve out English strikers or shoot them down if more convenient that ignored the fearful outrages in Colorado, and that approved the recent shooting of strikers in Italy, pretending to be horrified at the actions of their fellow-capitalists in Russia!

(From the "Socialist Standard," March, 1905)

Atheism On The Air (1955)

From the March 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

It would appear that in over 30 years of its existence the B.B.C. has never once permitted anybody to voice an opinion in favour of Atheism in any shape or form, until one evening in January when Mrs. Margaret Knight (lecturer in Psychology at Aberdeen University), was permitted to state in her broadcast on “Morality without Religion” that we should tell our children that we no longer believed in God although some people still do. She compared God with Santa Claus and referred to the Christian myths as useless for moral instruction. In her opinion if we taught children these biblical myths, when they grew up and learnt that they were at variance with the facts, they would be easy bait for Communism. The problem of evil was one point which she dealt with by declaring that an infinitely wise and all powerful God would not create evil. “If God cannot prevent evil then he is not all powerful, and if he will not, then he is not all Good.” The answer that many Christians give is that evil is man-made and nothing to do with God, or that its existence proves that man has departed from God. But here she said that there are a lot of evil things among the animals for which mankind certainly is not responsible. “The cat,” she said, “takes delight in playing with a mouse and inflicting torture on it until the mouse dies after a long drawn out and painful death.” The rest of the talk was about what she called “scientific humanism” and the education of children without the traditional religious beliefs.

The next day the Press was shocked and upset. The News Chronicle's leading article was headed “Atheism on the Air” in which it declared “Should she have been allowed to put and press her points without a balancing exposition of Christian beliefs? That is where we think the B.B.C. went wrong .” (14/1/55.)

Why this wonderful tolerant idea of a balancing exposition? Has not the B.B.C. been broadcasting religious beliefs for 30 years every day and often several times a day on all programmes and by thousands of exponents? Have they not a committee that on religious broadcasts see that we are all well soaked in traditional religious ideology?

Letters to the Press poured in by the thousand; such an hysterical outburst of injured religious pride has not been seen for a long time. Dr. Garbett (Archbishop of York) said that the B.B.C. had been used as a "nationwide channel through which the speaker attempted to persuade parents to teach their children that belief in God might be compared to belief in Santa Claus” He told his congregation that “Christians had the right to demand that they be answered as soon as possible by some competent layman.” Another divine, Father Joseph Christie, declared, “The primary reason for uneasiness is that the B.B.C. is a monopoly which has the power to sponsor this type of anti-religious propaganda without allowing the other side to be heard. Unless the corporation is prepared to allow competent speakers the, same opportunities as Mrs. Knight, it must appear as favouring attacks of this nature. ” Dr. Matthews, Dean of St. Paul's, a tolerant voice rather eclipsed by reaction stated, “It is surely a welcome sign that freedom of speech is still a reality.” (News Chronicle, 17/1/55.) The facts have now proved that freedom of speech is not much to be seen.

What happened after this outburst? It resulted in a broadcast of a discussion between Mrs. Knight and Mrs. Morton instead of only two talks which Mrs. Knight had arranged to give. In this latter discussion it must have been obvious to all who heard it that Mrs. Knight was rather like the aged Galileo who, in order to save his own life, had to go down on his knees before the Pope and inform him that he earth did not go round the sun as he first supposed. Mrs. Morton opened with a long harangue of the usual sentimental religious slush devoid of any reason. Mrs. Knight’s defence was a climb down where she could have knocked her opponent for six, but did not. Such meaningless statements as “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son,” were passed unchallenged. Did God love the world when, if we are to believe the Bible, he drowned almost the whole of mankind and also millions of innocent animals? That Christ came to bring peace to the world was also unchallenged. Christ himself said “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth, for I come not to send peace but a sword, for I am come to set a man at variance against his father Slid a daughter against her mother.” Matt. Ch X, ver 34. To which any scientific humanist might have added, “then how much better for humanity would it have been if he had stayed away!”

Mrs. Morton said that the whole teaching of the Bible was concerned with the teachings of this world and not the next world. This went unanswered by Mrs. Knight, when she might have declared that life after death, heaven and hell, is the main theme of the Bible.

What was it that caused the promising start of the first talk to be followed by such a dismal failure to answer the easy material of a religious devotee? Can it be that Mrs. Knight was victimised? After all she has a job as a member of the working class even if she is a professor of psychology. She lives by the sale of her labour power to impart knowledge of psychology. She has to go to the senate, or governors of the university, cap in hand for employment, and so face the same economic conditions of all school teachers. Among those who are in a position to engage teachers are many hide bound orthodox conservative die hards restricted by Victorian prejudices. If it be true that “He controls my life who controls the means by which I live” then the explanation is clear. Universities teach theology and grant degrees in divinity, and it must have been very disturbing to the theological professors to hear that another university lecturer was debunking God. If many started to do this, then theology would rapidly decline and their jobs melt away. This, of course, is an important motive in the opposition. The church screamed out through its loudest mouthpiece, the Archbishops because they have the most to lose. Donald Soper reacted in a different way by declaring that Christians have the answer to all this, they need not be afraid. By capitalising this line he could score points against his competitors in the more orthodox sects.

The Materialist Conception of History can find wonderful examples in such religious conflicts on the air, and no doubt if we ever got so far as to get access to the air we should have to be replied to by the Labour Party, Communist Party, Liberal Party, Conservative Party, and several sections of the church. Religious intolerance is not dead, nor is there much freedom of speech on the air. With all the millions of words broadcast favouring these Biblical myths, it needs only a few sentences of honest doubt to cause an outburst of religious revivalism.

Horace Jarvis

The Vitalising Principle of the Socialist Party of Great Britain (1955)

From the March 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain was organised in 1904 in order to achieve the emancipation of the working class. That was the reason for its founding.

The people who formed our party were working men and working women. They had learnt that there was only one way by which the workers could gain their emancipation. That way was by establishing Socialism, and that there were no short cuts to this objective. Bitter experience had taught them that the fatuous policies of "progressives," the blissful dreams of humanitarians, the patronising philosophysing of "intellectuals," and the prolonged agony of reformism, were all alike delusions and snares. Their experiences and studies in an earlier organisation had taught them three things: The Socialism could only be established by a working class that understood what it involved and wanted it; that before Socialism could be established the working class must take the powers of government out of the hands of the possessing class; and, finally, that the Socialist Party must follow an unswerving course based upon an understanding of the class struggle and its implications.

When the founder members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain realised that the party to which they formerly belonged, the Social Democratic Federation, was leading the workers into a morass, they then decided to form a new party with the aim of emancipating the workers by establishing Socialism, and cleaving to this as their sole object. Hence they set down their object and formulated a set of principles which summarised the existing social system, its implications and the course that must be followed.

Since 1904 the other parties have come and gone, chimerical hopes have been raised, but the basic position has not changed, nor are there any indications that it is ever likely to change before the accomplishment of the Party's objective. Hence the only course the workers can follow in order to achieve their emancipation from the capitalist system of exploitation is to work for the establishment of Socialism and to ignore all the alluring and much trodden byways which only lead to frustration and despair. No amount of word spinning, verbal juggling, or hairsplitting, can get around this position or surmount the obstacles that stand in the workers' path to emancipation. To no longer be solely concerned with the emancipation of the working class would be to abandon the outlook that brought our party into existence, inspired those who have continued to press forward its outlook and policy, and what has kept the Party on a sound Socialist course through 50 years of tribulation and opposition.

The fact that the emancipation of the working class by the establishment of Socialism will have beneficial effects on groups of people, whether they be workers or not, who suffer other forms of discriminations is entirely incidental and has no bearing on our intentions or procedure, though it helps to support our case.

The class cleavage between workers and capitalists is universal; it cuts across all national, colour and religious distinctions. It overrides and swamps all other distinctions in the final analysis and the final reckoning. When the class distinction between the working class and the capitalist class has been abolished by the establishment of Socialism all other distinctions that set people at variance today will go with it.

Finally, our exclusive aim is the emancipation of the working class by the establishment of Socialism, and we welcome to our ranks all who are prepared to help us in this work.

Gilmac.

More on Orwell (1955)

From the March 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

George Orwell is in the news. "1984," written in 1949 just before his death, and "Animal Farm" which he wrote in 1945—and for which he could not find a publisher whilst the war was still on—are now "best sellers." Quite recently T.V. audiences were subjected to the horrors of "Big Brother" and the torture chambers of the Ministry of Love (Miniluv in "Newspeak") on their telescreens; and a film of "Animal Farm" is now running at a cinema in the West-End of London—complete with a less despairing ending! Other books by Orwell such as "The Road to Wigan Pier" and "Down and Out in Paris and London" have sold regularly for many years; although perhaps his best book, "Homage to Catalonia" is less well known. The reason for this is, no doubt, because he puts a view on the Spanish Civil War unpopular both to the Communists and the politicians of the Western Powers of the time.

Why, then, is Orwell in vogue? Partly because he has a message for working people, and partly because his writings, particularly "1984" and "Animal Farm" can be used by the Western ruling class in its propaganda war with the Soviet Union, China and the Iron Curtain countries. To our local propagandists "Big Brother" and "Comrade Napoleon" represent a Stalin or Malenkiv. But surely Orwell's message is that these totalitarian tendencies can and do exist in Britain, America, Spain and elsewhere. In fact anywhere that capitalist society with its coercive state structure exists; anywhere that private property, exploitation, and our so-called "welfare-warfare" system prevails.

Not only Soviet Russia but all countries have their secret and state police, their jails, and their laws protecting private property and exploitation of man by man. Russia has its M.V.D., Britain its M.I.5., America its F.B.I.— and "1984" its Ministry of Love!

Orwell's telescreens and Party informers are not so fantastic either. Soviet Russia has long been the classic home of the informer; although the Soviet authorities have recently attacked the abuses of the system. And McCarthyism and the Un-American Activities Committee are well known to all Americans.

An important aspect of "1984" society is the three slogans of the Inner Party: -

WAR IS PEACE.
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

This is the "double-think" of "1984." But is it much different from the double-think of 1955? Are we not fighting for "democracy" in Malaya? Is not Spain one of the "free" nations of the West? Are not the Communists "fighting" for Peace? Is not "New China" a "Democratic" dictatorship? And so on.

George Orwell may not have been a Socialist but he understood more of the contradictions and tendencies of our present society than most people. And although not a "great" writer he was able to pin-point these problems and tendencies in an interesting and popular way. In "1984" and "Animal Farm" he gives a warning to the apathetic "couldn't care less" masses; unfortunately he has no answer to these problems and totalitarian tendencies in capitalist society. Only the Socialist has that.

Peter E. Newell