Letter: More About Marcos (1987)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

Your reply to my criticism of your Editorial in your April 1986 issue, “Lessons of the Fall of Marcos”, is in fact an admission that my criticism was on the target, despite your seeming defense of the Editorial.

I contended that the ruling class will not allow the revolutionary socialist majority to take political power, unless the working class was organised with an economic power (Socialist Industrial Unions) that could enforce their decision at the ballot box by taking possession of the industrial establishments of the land and assuming the conduct of the nation's production, thereby locking out the capitalist class.

Now, you contradict yourself again. Your Editorial stated that, "You have always argued that it is possible to establish socialism by peaceful, democratic means, through the working class organising into a mass political movement and using existing elective institutions, imperfect as they are from the standpoint of pure democracy". I agree that you have always argued this thesis. Your Declaration of Principles confirms this. However, you now hedge on this programme when you say, "It is absurd to imagine that all the workers need to do to achieve socialism, is to vote for it. Certainly this is not and never has been our position". However, that is not the statement that you made in your Editorial which I criticised and which you say is a position you always argued. Now, you are amending it. Your Statement of Principles does not include your amendment.

You say I am labouring under a misapprehension because you did not say Marcos' downfall was a "socialist electoral victory". That is true. You did state that it was an example of "What is likely to happen when a government enjoying minority support, tries to defy a majority movement". You did not refute my charge that the ruling class did not give up power despite the majority movement. Actually, they did defy the majority because only the figure heads were changed!

I did not imply that Allende was a socialist or that he won by a majority vote. Why quibble? I stated that the ruling class did not accept the decision at the ballot box!

You are moving toward the DeLeonist position when you say, "It is not the socialist victory at the polls as such that would lead to the last capitalist government relinquishing power, but the fact that this victory would be a reflection of the determination and, naturally, organisation of a vast majority of workers. This organisation for socialism will also extend to the places of work (the existing trade unions will obviously be completely transformed when a majority of their members are conscious, determined socialists) but it will be essentially political". (My emphasis.) An organisation of class conscious socialists in their places of work and the transformation of the existing trade unions as you state, implies the organisation of the workers' economic power that you criticise the DeLeonists for advocating.

You admit that the capitalist class possesses immense economic power that enabled it to attain political power. Now, you say that evolution led to the disappearance of their original economic power entirely as a result of the fact that they possess political power! Your argument that the substance (economic power) reflected the shadow (political power) you now reverse. You say the shadow now reflects the substance! This is an impossibility!

You say, "DeLeon and Sam Brandon have simply got it the wrong way around: the capitalists' economic power depends on their control of political power rather than vice-versa". Your thesis was demolished years ago by Frederick Engels in Anti-Duhring in the chapter dealing with the "Force Theory". It is also in conflict with the Materialist Conception of History.

You seem convinced that the ruling class will abide by a majority at the ballot box and allow the socialist majority to take power. Suppose they will not abide by this legal and peaceful process? What does the SPGB propose that the workers do?

I am not continuing this discussion in order to win points. I sincerely believe the questions I raise are important to our movement. I trust that you agree that they are.

Sincerely,

Sam Brandon

Riverdale, 

New York. USA

Reply:

1. The Materialist Conception of History does not regard political power as a mere "shadow" of economic power which must faithfully reflect, at every moment and any given time, economic (productive) conditions. It merely says that economic factors are in the end decisive. It is people that make history as the members of different social classes strive to protect and promote their class interests and. as Engels points out in the chapter of Anti-Duhring to which Sam Brandon refers, political power can be used to work either with or against the trend of economic development:

  . . . after the political force has made itself independent in relation to society, and has transformed itself from its servant into its master, it can work in two different directions. Either it works in the sense and in the direction of the natural economic development, in which case no conflict arises between them, the economic development being accelerated. Or it works against economic development, in which case, as a rule, with but few exceptions, force succumbs to it.

In other words, although economic factors win out in the end. political power can accelerate or retard this. This is why, as Marx and Engels noted in the Communist Manifesto, "every class struggle is a political struggle". Who controls political power is important for the actual course of any class struggle because such control can allow a class whose social position has been increased as a result of a change in productive conditions to speed up the reshaping of society in its interest — but, equally, it can allow a class that has become economically weak or redundant to prolong, for a longer or shorter period, its privileged position in society. In this latter case it can be legitimately said, as we did in our reply to Sam Brandon's last letter in the September 1986 Socialist Standard, that the ruling class in question only dominates society because it controls political power, even if it originally came into possession of this power through having played a key role in an earlier stage of economic development. Incidentally, we never said, as Sam Brandon claims, that the capitalist class had lost "their original economic power entirely as a result of the fact that they possess political power". What we said was that they now have economic power, despite the disappearance of their original economic role in production, entirely because they possess political power. Which is not at all the same thing.

Far from such a situation being in conflict with the Materialist Conception of History as Sam Brandon suggests, it is one which the MCH, with its theory of class struggles as the motor of history, implies must inevitably occur from time to time:

  While it is true that in the long run the social system is determined by the stage of development of the means of producing wealth, the social system and this stage of development may, nevertheless, at a given period be totally out of harmony. Indeed, at recurring periods it must be, at least so long as society is divided into classes. The reason is that while the development of the means of production is not under control, the social system, within certain limits, is. The industrial development, which men cannot arrest, is ever shifting the social centre of gravity. Thus, at one time, whoever controlled the land controlled society. As industry developed, however, the implements and machinery became of greater importance. This change of values brought another class to the surface — the owners of the factories, machinery and raw materials. But the industrial development which brought to light this new class did not arrange a social system under which they could reach their highest pinnacle of power. It gave them strength by altering the relative importance of the sources of wealth; it prepared the way for a social change by making the stage of development of industry out of harmony with the social base, but the actual work of bringing the social base into line with the method of production was left to the initiative of the factory owning class whose interest demanded it. And at the same time the old ruling class, whose interest lay in maintaining the system under which they were paramount, opposed the attack on that system to the utmost” (The Socialist Party. Its Principles and Policy, 1956 reprint; pp24-5).

Our contention is that society is now again in such a period where the development of industry is out of harmony with the social base. As we explained in our last reply, the development of the means of production has made the capitalist class economically redundant and socially useless. It is now only their control of political power, reflecting the absence of socialist political consciousness on the part of the workers who now run society from top to bottom, that enables them to continue to control production. It is therefore vitally necessary that, before attempting to reorganise society on a new social base corresponding to the changed productive conditions, the working class should organise into a political party with a view to depriving the capitalist class of their political, and so economic and social, control. At the same time they should also organise themselves with a view to keeping production going when once the capitalist class has been deprived of political control.

2. That the working class should organise economically as well as politically for socialism has always been our position:

  . . . the Socialist Party never asserted that Socialist society would result from the actions of parliamentary delegates alone. It is completely illogical to imagine that Socialist understanding could grow to the point of political victory without simultaneously resulting in a growth of understanding and hence organisation to prepare for the taking over of industry. The Socialist Party in fact knows well that organisation is necessary for the running of industry in the new-born Socialist society. It holds also that a sizeable spread of political clear-sightedness will lead to the growth of such organisations, for when many workers want socialism they will begin to organise and plan for the rebuilding of society prior to the capture of political power (Socialist Standard, May 1966). 

. . . the trade unions must inevitably accept the Socialist theory as the logical outcome of their own existence, and as such will provide the basis of the economic organisation of the working class to manipulate the means and instruments of wealth production when the capitalist class have first been dislodged from political power. The essential conditions for obtaining Socialism must never be underestimated. At the very moment that the workers have gained control of the State machine provision must be made simultaneously for the economic requirements of the community (Socialist Standard, November 1937).

Our disagreement with Daniel De Leon (an American socialist who had some influence on those who founded the Socialist Party in Britain, taking up the same basic position as we do on the ballot box and reforms, for instance) was not over his advocacy of both political and economic organisation for socialism but over other aspects of this question. He was in favour of the immediate setting up of a socialist economic organisation to rival the existing "pure and simple” trade unions. We saw no point in this since such an organisation would either be as small as the socialist political organisation and so ineffective against employers or, to be effective, would have to accept non-socialists and so come to be no different from ordinary unions; in which case why not join the existing unions and work within them? These will inevitably become socialist when more and more workers come to embrace the socialist position.

We also rejected De Leon's blueprint for "socialist industrial government'. Making the industrial union the basic unit of future society would be to carry over into socialism the sectional divisions imposed on workers under capitalism. Nor did we consider the word government as appropriate to describe the administrative machinery of socialist society (De Leon meant in fact administration, so why cause confusion by using a word associated with political coercion and class rule?). Finally, as can be seen from the way Sam Brandon expresses himself in the second paragraph of his letter, this was essentially a plan for establishing socialism in one country.

3. We do not see how saying that "it is absurd to imagine that all the workers need to do to achieve socialism is to vote for it" constitutes an amendment to the statement that socialism should be established 'through the working class organising into a mass political movement and using existing elective institutions". The two statements are not contradictory. Far from it. Organising into a political movement itself involves much more than simply putting a cross on a ballot paper and then expecting the person you voted for to act on your behalf. Given the nature of socialism as a democratic society based on voluntary co-operation, workers must play an active role in its establishment; they must participate in the mass socialist political party, both to mandate and control its delegates and because unity is strength on the political as well as on the industrial field This active participation in the struggle for socialism is precisely what we mean in our Declaration of Principles when we talk about workers organising "consciously and politically". Socialism cannot be established by workers merely voting for political delegates and then leaving them to get on with the job; it can only be established by workers themselves consciously participating in the political movement for socialism.

4. Finally, how should the workers react if the capitalist minority refuse to accept the democratically-expressed will for socialism? This would be up to them to decide, through their political and economic organisations, in the light of the exact circumstances. A number of possibilities would be open to them. If the capitalist minority were to resort to violence and sabotage to try to impede the establishment of socialism then the socialist majority, through its political control of the state could use force if necessary to deal with them. If, on the other hand, the last capitalist government were to attempt a coup d'Etat and refuse to release the reins of power, they would rapidly discover that they had taken the shadow for the substance. The armed forces, being composed of workers who would also have been affected by socialist ideas, would refuse to obey them and might even turn on them. Mass demonstrations and strikes (including perhaps of the kind Sam Brandon envisages) would break out. In the end the capitalist class, or those acting in its name, would be compelled to surrender since, as we have been saying all along, no government enjoying only minority support (and the last capitalist government would enjoy only minimal support) can survive in the face of the active opposition of the majority (which, in the case of the establishment of socialism, would be the immense majority) of the population.

Editors

Are Socialists for War? (1987)

From the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Q. I can understand socialists being opposed to war — everybody hates war. But you must admit that there are times when it is necessary.

A. No, I don’t accept that at all. Every war has been justified with that sort of argument.

Q. So socialists would just let the Russians walk into this country without doing anything to stop them?

A. It’s the Russians now, is it? Look, socialists realise — better than most people — that they don’t have any say in the matter. Neither have you. We are not the ones who decide whether this nation will go to war — or who the enemy will be.

Q. Oh, well, of course. That’s true in every country. The government decides.

A. That’s right. The majority of the Russian people, or Americans or Germans or Japanese are conscripted — forced — to do the fighting, whether they want to or not, like us.

Q. Yes, but the government represents the interests of the whole country, doesn’t it?

A. No.

Q. But it is elected by a majority of the population.

A. Oh, yes, I agree. But I don’t think that the majority of the people realise what their real interests are. They gain nothing out of a war and many of them lose a very great deal.

Q. It’s bound to involve sacrifices when we’re defending our country.

A. “Our country”? Most of us don’t own a scrap of it. Virtually all the land and all the buildings and other wealth on it belong to a small number of extremely wealthy people. It’s their country — not ours.

Q. You know what I mean — we’re all British. We’ve got a common cause when we are threatened by a foreign power.

A. I know that’s how a lot of people feel about it, but it just doesn’t square with the facts. For a start, many of the owners of factories and so on in this country aren’t British at all. They’re American or Japanese or German or Arabs. So I don’t know what you feel about fighting to protect their wealth.

Q. Well, all right. But they give us British jobs, don’t they?

A. Look, I think you’d better get this “jobs” business sussed out. Firms don’t give us jobs out of the kindness of their hearts. Only if they can make a profit out of us. When they can’t, they sack us. And the lower they can keep our wages, the more profit they make.

Q. I know that. That’s what they’re in business for — to make a profit.

A. And it’s out of their profits that they pay the enormous amounts of money needed to run the government and all the other paraphernalia of the state — including the fighting services.

Q. So?

A. That’s why governments — whatever political party — always operate in the interests of business — capital. And when governments go to war, it’s for their interests — not ours.

Q. What do you mean, “their interests”? Surely everybody has got an interest in freedom and democracy?

A. Wars are not about freedom and democracy. That’s just a slogan. Wars are the more violent episodes in the ongoing competition for profit and power in the world. When negotiations finally break down, the ultimate form of competition is war. The only war — if you want to call it that — for freedom and democracy that British people have been involved in was against our own ruling class. And pretty vicious they were when working men and women were campaigning and organising to form trade unions or get the vote.

Q. You say wars are not about freedom, but what about the war against Hitler? Britain couldn’t let the Germans go on slaughtering millions of Jews.

A. But Britain did! The Nazis had been exterminating Jews — and Gypsies and Communists — for years before Britain declared war in 1939. And all that time British statesmen and newspapers had been saying what a great man “Mr Hitler” was. It was Germany’s territorial expansion and growing industrial and military strength which finally made them see Germany as a dangerous competitor.

Q. Just a minute. You’re not trying to say that all the stories about German atrocities were just British propaganda?

A. No, of course not. Those things happened. But atrocities are going on all the time in different countries, and other nations do little or nothing about them — unless they want to use them as propaganda. For instance, Britain did virtually nothing about the thousands of Argentinians who were tortured and murdered under the military regime. But when that government tried to take possession of the Falkland Islands — then the build-up of propaganda was almost as rapid as the deployment of the armed forces.

Q. You make it sound a very callous, ruthless business.

A. Do 1? I’m glad. Because that’s exactly what it is. Governments talk about human rights and freedom when it suits them, but if you look at their actions it’s just eyewash. They are completely devoted to protecting and expanding possessions and profits and power — utterly regardless of human beings. How can any genuine human interests be served by the huge stocks of chemical and biological and nuclear weapons that the major nations are building up? They are all designed to kill human beings in millions.

Q. Well, all right. Suppose we agree that the big nations are only quarrelling about carving up the world between them — what about the struggles of small nations to break free from the domination of the big nations — Afghanistan or Mozambique or Vietnam? I thought socialists supported wars for independence.

A. No. If you look at nations that have gained their independence from the old colonial powers it is pretty obvious that the ordinary people, the peasants and the working class, are no better off under their home-grown ruling class than they were under the British or the Portuguese or whatever.

Q. But a lot of these countries have Marxist governments.

A. So they say. What does it mean? That they think they can get a better deal by linking themselves with Russia than with the USA or European nations? Anyway, you wouldn’t say that the average Russian worker was particularly free or well off, would you? Labels like Marxist don’t mean very much. They are part of the steady diet of propaganda. The real test is the living and working conditions of the majority of the population.

Q. Well, I agree with all that. But I thought that Karl Marx was in favour of wars of independence.

A Yes, you are quite right. That was over a hundred years ago, though.

Q. Are you saying that he was right then, but he’d be wrong now?

A. No, Marx and Engels were both wrong about it. It’s easy to see that, with hindsight. Experience has proved it. But it was an understandable mistake.

Q. Well, I don’t understand it. Why do you say they were mistaken?

A. Probably wishful thinking. They expected a much faster development of working-class understanding and solidarity than in fact happened. Much of Europe was still under the domination of the old feudal empires in the first half of the nineteenth century. They thought that the defeat of the Austrian and Russian Regimes and the emergence of capitalist nation states like Germany would quickly lead to a working class movement to overthrow the capitalist regimes. It didn’t happen. The workers got caught up in the surge of nationalist feeling fostered by their new masters. They still do, don’t they?

Q. I suppose so. So socialists reckon that our own employers are bigger enemies than foreign soldiers?

A. That’s one way of putting it — if you apply it to every country. You and I have got no quarrel with Russian workers or German workers or any other workers. They’re in the same position as we are — being milked all their lives by their bosses. It doesn’t do us a scrap of good to nuke them.

Q. No, that’s true. Whoever wins a war, the working class always loses — on both sides.

Ron Cook

Running Commentary: Property-Owning Democracy? (1987)

The Running Commentary Column from the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Property-Owning Democracy?

Remember the Tories' 1983 election promise of turning Britain into a "property-owning democracy"? The prospect of "owning” their own house was undoubtedly an attractive proposition to many workers fed up with the insecurity of renting their homes from unscrupulous landlords or penny-pinching councils. However for many the dream has turned into a nightmare. As fewer council houses are built and fewer properties are available to rent, many people have been forced to "choose" a mortgage, which the building societies have been only too pleased to give them.

But having encouraged people to become home owners, the government has now decided to punish those home-owners who have the misfortune to become unemployed. New rules have just been introduced which will mean that anyone who becomes unemployed will have only half their mortgage interest paid while they are in receipt of Supplementary Benefit and only for the first four months of unemployment. Under the old rules all the interest (but not the capital) was paid. This is bound to increase the rate of repossessions. Already one in ten homeless families are homeless because their home has been repossessed due to mortgage default.

Families faced with the prospect of unemployment and inability to pay their mortgage may decide to sell up to avoid arrears and repossession. If they do, however, the local authority would have no obligation to rehouse them since they would be deemed to be "intentionally homeless”.

For workers in this situation the security promised by the slogan "property-owning democracy" has turned out to be as illusory as it is for those who depend on paying rent in order to keep a roof over their heads.

It Pays to Advertise

It is even more profitable if you can get someone who has nothing to gain to pay you for the privilege of so doing!!

Strange as it may seem, the same person who objects strongly to paying a few pence for a carrier bag printed with the name of a supermarket, will pay pounds to advertise something else.

Guinness started the fashion years ago. In return for a cheque made out to them for the correct amount (something like 20 guineas if memory serves) you would receive a sweater with 'GUINNESS' — not even the toucan —  emblazoned across the front. Today for £18.95 you may buy a plain wool sweater by post; this price is already considerably higher than for a similar garment bought across the counter. However, for only an extra £ 1, you can have' The Times' discreetly embroidered on the left-hand side. Of course, if you don't have the odd £20 to spare, you can go downmarket and buy a Coca Cola — or if you prefer, a Pepsi — T-shirt. Slightly upmarket again, you could, in gold on black, advertise Biba. If you really want to dredge the bottom, feature the Sun with the screaming front page headline 'SID VICIOUS DEAD. Punk Star Killed By Overdose'.

One T-shirt we have not yet seen is the one advertising the fact that we are all being killed by an overdose — of capitalism!


Gorbachev the democrat?

"We need democracy like we need air to breathe", said Gorbachev in a speech to the ruling Central Committee. What he means by "democracy" is that there will be more than one candidate standing for office in elections and a bit more public debate with officials prepared to admit from time to time that things occasionally go wrong, that there are shortages and production quotas aren't always fulfilled.

Well it's better than nothing. But no-one should be conned into believing that the new, reforming Russian leadership is really concerned about giving ordinary Russian workers a voice in decision-making. What Gorbachev is undoubtedly concerned about is the failure of the Russian economy. Giving people a little in relatively unimportant areas is a time-honoured way of getting them to give back a lot more.

If Russian workers are made to feel that they do have a voice, that they are listened to, then it is quite possible they will be conned into working harder and producing more wealth for the Russian ruling class. A little bit of political liberalisation will not affect the fundamental division of Russian society into those with wealth and power and those without, unless Russian workers recognise that fundamental division and then exploit the small window of opportunity that Gorbachev has opened for their own political ends.


Bullets on the beat

Officially Britain has an unarmed police force. Unofficially things are rather different. A curious incident involving a car chase down the M1 which ended when the car being pursued ran out of petrol and shots were fired, led to revelations that for the past eight years traffic police patrolling the Nottinghamshire section of the M1 motorway, the A1 and Nottingham city centre have been carrying guns.

Charles McLachlan, Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire, said at a press conference:

  The vehicles are double-manned and weapons are carried in a locked container in the vehicle. They are two pistols, a pump-action shotgun and body armour. They are not allowed to take these weapons from the container which is permanently locked, without approval from a senior police officer.

No doubt this was meant to reassure people. But these words sound rather hollow given the trigger-happy mentality of certain armed police as shown by a series of tragic incidents over the last six years in which people have been "accidentally” shot by armed police.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the militarisation of the police is that the decision to arm police officers is not taken in public after debate and discussion but instead is made behind closed doors by the police themselves. As such decisions are deemed to be "operational" even the elected police authorities, to whom the police are nominally responsible, do not have to be consulted or even informed.

To All Readers (1987)

Party News from the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

You may be aware that Islington branch of the Socialist Party are putting forward a candidate for the forthcoming general election. Obviously an immense amount of background work is necessary if we are to seize this chance of putting our case across.

This is an ideal opportunity for people who are unable to attend branch meetings regularly to get involved. Volunteers are urgently needed to help in any way they can — envelope addressing, leaflet distribution, door-to-door canvassing and so on,


Even if you can only spare an hour or two a month, or are unable to get out and about in the constituency, please get in touch with Cliff Begley at head office to offer your services. Your support and help will seldom be of greater value than during this pre-election period.

Swords into swords (1987)

From the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last December the Labour Party unveiled its new military policy in the form of a glossy pamphlet bearing its new symbol — what seems to be a rather pinkish rose — and the appropriately patriotic title The Power to Defend our Country.

For those harbouring any last illusions about the Labour Party's anti-militarism, it's a revealing document in which the Tories are accused of being "disarmers by stealth" who have "crucially weakened" the "core of our armed strength". The Royal Navy, the Labour Party complains, "now has no ship dedicated to carrying large numbers of Royal Marines and their helicopters" while the Army "is set to lose a terminally guided anti-tank rocket, a scatterable mine rocket, a battlefield electronic warfare system as well as improvements to existing tanks and, possibly a new tank".

All this, we are told, because of Thatcher's fixation on nuclear weapons and decisions to buy the "appallingly expensive" Trident intercontinental missiles from America to replace the outdated Polaris missiles currently carried by Britain's four nuclear-armed submarines. Labour, the document says, intends to "cancel Trident, de-commission Polaris and remove all American nuclear weapons in this country". The money saved on Trident will be used to enhance NATO's "conventional capacity" of destruction:

  Britain will contribute towards that enhancement by committing the sums saved on Trident towards additional conventional strength.

The message is clear enough: Labour intends to maintain, indeed increase, Britain's "armed strength" by building up its arsenal of so-called conventional weapons. Or. more brutally, Britain's military power of destruction will be maintained but will be composed of conventional rather than nuclear weapons and the money wasted on Trident will be wasted instead on ordinary warships and warplanes, on bombs, rockets, missiles, tanks and battlefield electronic warfare systems.

This contrasts of course with what CND, and many Labour Party members and supporters, want: to spend the money saved on Trident on schools, hospitals and peacetime industries. The Labour Party's current military policy is, however, a literal if somewhat cynical interpretation of what CND demands: mere nuclear disarmament.

When CND was formed in 1958 they told us that nuclear weapons were so dangerous that we should drop everything else and join their single-issue campaign to get rid of them. The Socialist Party replied that, although we too were appalled by nuclear weapons, it was a waste of time to drop campaigning for socialism so as to campaign just for nuclear disarmament. We pointed out that arms, including nuclear weapons, only existed because capitalism was a war-prone society and that the only solution to the threat of nuclear destruction was to replace world capitalism with a socialist world of common ownership and democratic control. We added that, even in the unlikely event of nuclear weapons being abolished on a world scale, conventional weapons would still remain and that these too were capable of wreaking mass destruction and of killing millions and millions of people as the first and second world wars had shown; that, in fact, to accept capitalism while opposing nuclear weapons (as CND was in effect advocating) was to favour conventional weapons since the very nature of capitalism meant armed states squabbling over markets, trade routes and other economic matters and therefore the need for some kind of armaments as long as capitalism lasted.

As we put it in an early article on CND. "to campaign for nuclear disarmament implies acceptance of so-called conventional armaments" (Socialist Standard, August 1960). Some CND supporters replied that this was unfair, but the revived CND of the 1980s took up precisely this position, as the Labour Party has now done with a vengeance, not only accepting conventional weapons but even praising them as more effective than nuclear ones.

It should not be thought, however, that the Labour Party is against all nuclear weapons. Its new policy document commits it only to abandoning Britain's submarine-carried intercontinental nuclear missiles. It does not propose the abandonment of nuclear weapons by the NATO military alliance, which the post-war Labour government took Britain into and full support for which is reaffirmed in the document. Nor does it say what it intends to do about Britain's tactical, or battlefield, nuclear weapons such as what might be called the conventional H-bombs carried by RAF Strike Command and the nuclear depth charges carried on some Royal Navy ships (some of which were being transported by the convoy involved in the road accident in Wiltshire in January).

The Labour Party merely commits itself to trying to end "NATO's over emphasis on nuclear weapons" and to bring about "less reliance on nuclear weapons in the NATO alliance". In other words, the Labour Party accepts that NATO — in effect, the United States — should retain nuclear weapons:

  The Americans also understand that we are not asking them to dismantle their strategic nuclear weapons.

So American, but not British, submarines armed with Polaris and Trident missiles can continue their patrolling with the blessing of the Labour Party.

As to the American cruise missiles, it is true that Labour now says it will "remove" them from Britain but this is easier said than done since the decision to install them was a NATO decision and the other NATO members, especially those that have already accepted such missiles (Norway. Germany. Holland. Belgium and Italy), are likely to bring enormous pressure to keep them in Britain too. Already Labour's shadow Foreign Secretary. Denis Healey, has started to hedge on this issue, saying that it is “not inconceivable" that some American nuclear missiles could remain in Britain under a future Labour government.

In any event, where would these cruise missiles be removed to? To Germany, Norway, Belgium, Holland and Italy? In which case the Labour government would be taking up the same hypocritical position as their fellow partisan of the pink rose, President Mitterrand of France, who supported the deployment of US cruise missiles in Europe — as long as none went to France.

That the Labour Party should have a — to say the least — ambiguous policy on nuclear weapons should come as no surprise in view of their past record:

• In 1945 when the first atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a Labour government was in office in Britain and the Labour Prime Minister Attlee had a personal representative at the Nagasaki massacre.
• It was the same post-war Labour government that took the decision to develop the British Bomb.
• At the 1957 Labour Party Conference the deputy leader and shadow Foreign Minister, Nye Bevan, pleaded, in a speech opposing the abandoning of the British Bomb, not to be sent "naked into the conference chamber".
• When the 1960 Labour Party Conference voted in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament the leader of the Party, Hugh Gaitskell,  refused point-blank to accept this decision (like David Steel after a similar decision at the Liberal Assembly last autumn), pledging himself to "fight, fight and fight again" to reverse it; which after much wheeling and dealing to fix the trade union bloc vote the 1961 Labour Conference duly did.
• The Wilson Labour government elected in 1964 took the decision to modernise the nuclear warheads on the Polaris missiles.

If the present Labour leadership has chosen not to fight, fight and fight again to change conference decisions against the British Bomb, this is because they know they have no chance of winning as in the 1960s. Some of them may even be genuinely convinced that British capitalism has no need to possess the independent power to annihilate Moscow in order to be able to negotiate from a position of strength in conflicts with other capitalist states, but that an enhanced conventional strength would be sufficient. They may well be right but that's not our problem so we'll let the parties aspiring to run the affairs of British capitalism — Labour, the Tories and the Alliance — settle this issue among themselves.

But one thing is clear. Anybody who may be tempted to vote for the Labour Party as being in some way less militaristic than Rambo Reagan, David Owen and the Iron Lady have been forewarned by the Labour Party itself. Labour fully accepts the logic of capitalism that states must arm themselves with the most destructive weapons they can afford in order to be "credible" in the international conflicts that arise all the time under capitalism over markets, trade routes, sources of raw materials, investment outlets and the strategic points to protect these.

Labour has no intention of sending Denis Healey naked into the conference chamber. Those the pamphlet calls "our potential enemies" will be spared that horrible sight, because Healey will be fully clothed with all the deadly conventional weapons needed to uphold the bargaining position of the British capitalist class whose interests he would be representing.

Adam Buick

The Socialist Peace Policy (1987)

From the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

The next general election might well be the last one before the next world war. Within five years from the date when you cast your next vote you, your family, your friends and all of the surrounding environment could be victims of this system's ultimate madness: the mass annihilation of modern war.

It requires no crystal ball, no advanced degree in foreign policy, to observe that the "healthy competition" of capitalist rivalry is becoming more vicious and ruthless as the weeks go by. In 1986 the governments of the world spent a record £634 billion on armaments. That amounts to £1.2 million every sixty seconds of the day and night. The increase in militarist expenditure last year was greater than in any previous year — ever. The foolish and the fearful might delude themselves that these weapons will never be used. The reality is that they are being built for use, the reasons for their use are increasing and it is only a matter of time before capitalism blows us up. Such a holocaust may not be the intention of the superpowers. But new superpowers, armed with their own weapons of mass destruction, are fast arriving on the scene. Militarist accidents are ever more likely. The ticking of the clock as the moments lead up to the next war is all too audible to those whose fingers are not placed tightly in their ears.

All of the major parties have "defence" policies which are really war policies. Or. to be blunt about it. they are strategies for killing large numbers of people. That is what they are doing when they ask you to vote for their "defence" policy: choose their strategy for murdering people you have never even met in preference to that of the next party. To vote for these parties is to become a willing accomplice in the preparations for mass murder. The absurd deterrence strategy is best described by the dictum. "If you want peace prepare for war". That is the policy accepted by most of the parties aiming to run capitalism. It is like saying if you want virginity among teenagers build brothels in the schools. You do not achieve peace by preparing for its opposite: if you prepare for war there will be a war.

Nobody should be taken in for one minute by the Labour lie that they are presenting a more peaceful policy. On the contrary. theirs is an alternative war policy — a policy dependent on conventional methods of murder being used by Britain, while at the same time remaining in loyal alliance with the NATO nuclear murder gang. It is like a gang of muggers saying that in future they will give up using knives and will rely on beating people up with wooden sticks. But at the same time they will remind their victims that their friends in the bigger gang still have knives. If anyone votes Labour in the belief that conventional weapons are about decent warfare they should go and talk to the conscript soldiers of Iran and Iraq, or the victims of the Falklands war. In their document. Modern Britain in a Modem World, the Labour Party states that

  . . . we must defend ourselves effectively by land, sea and air. And fully participate in NATO. The best defence relies upon troops, ships, aircraft and tanks.

If that is peace talk they have a perverse conception of peace. The next election will be the first one ever in which the Labour Party has competed for power against the Tories on a manifesto of promising to spend more on weapons than its opponents. Labour concedes that its war policy will cost more than that of the Tories. Would you vote for that as a means towards achieving peace?

Wars are not the result of workers in Russia failing out with workers in the USA. Most of the British workers who unthinkingly accept Labour’s line that "we must defend ourselves effectively" do not have any enemies in Moscow or Prague or Berlin or Tripoli. Most workers in Britain have never met a Russian, let alone fallen out with one sufficiently to want to blow them up. Most Russians have never met an American. If you repeat a lie often enough people may begin to believe it and so they keep on telling us that we must be defended against the Russians. After a while "Russians" are seen as monstrous, threatening, inhumane beings, fit only for nuclear attack. And to Russian workers, indoctrinated by the same lies from their owning class, we are perceived similarly as a wicked enemy. What you must never forget — because when you have finally forgotten it you are finally brainwashed — is that there is nobody out there you need to kill and there are no enemies out there with a grievance against you. War is not about our interests, but those of the bosses who rob us so that they can be rich and powerful. War is about the competition between capitalists. If we are to die it will be for them. Ponder that as you are asked to cast your vote for one of the " defence"" policies.

The Socialist Party is the only party in Britain standing in the next election on a policy for peace. Not peace by means of building more bombs or building nice bombs or painting the bombs red or negotiating with capitalists for a delay in the moment of war. The Socialist Party stands for the abolition of all of the weapons of war: Cruise missiles. SS20s. plastic bullets. Exocets, the lot. We present ourselves to our fellow workers in the next election on the basis of the following propositions:

Capitalism is the cause of war in the modem world. The Socialist Party is unequivocally opposed to the worldwide capitalist system. We are opposed to it in Russia and China just as much as in Britain and the USA. The rivalry over profits, trade routes, markets and raw materials which is generated by capitalism makes war inevitable. It follows from this that you cannot seriously oppose war unless you are out to end capitalism. It is futile to attempt to remove an effect without removing its cause. The Socialist Party calls for votes from workers who want to end the capitalist system. There can be no other starting point for removing the threat of war.

Workers have no country. Nationalism is based on the lie that workers have their own country: that the British have an obligation to Britain and the French to France. Workers who do not own or control Britain have no obligation to the bosses who do own and control it. Our sole interest is in co-operating with our fellow workers across the world who also have no country. Why should we die defending what is not ours? On the contrary. our object is to obtain what is not ours: the world and its resources. The class war — between the parasites who possess and the workers who produce — is the real struggle that need concern us. And to win that we need not initiate the violence which is characteristic of capitalism. The workers are the majority and once we unite there is no force that will stop us taking the earth into our common possession.

Socialism will allow humankind to co-exist in peace. There is nothing natural about war. In fact, peaceful co-operation is more fitting for human beings who are conscious and potentially rational beings. Once we live in a world of common ownership and democratic control of resources there will simply be no reason to kill each other. No Empires to build or markets to expand or profits to increase. Socialism will be a social system in which war will be pointless, peace will be the norm. There will be no socialism without socialists to bring it about, just as there will be no capitalism or war without workers to support such insanity.

Stop and think when you cast your next vote. Think of the peace which could come about and think of the screams which are the human sound effects of war. Think — for your own sake, think hard.

Steve Coleman

Exposed — Northern Ireland protectors (1987)

From the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Life in Northern Ireland has changed considerably over the past year. There has been an uncomfortable return to the fear, mistrust and general apprehension remembered from the early seventies, when the troubles were at their height. The cause of this retrogressive step is that a small group of people, from both sides of the community, have successfully resurrected old hatreds, re-inculcated old fears and brought again to the fore the myths and misconceptions which falsely divide the workers of this province. That small group of people are the politicians of Northern Ireland.

In such an insane political environment it is difficult for these politicians to sustain the promise to represent the electorate, as the poverty and general deprivation of our existence exposes that nonsense. Their only other promise is to protect the electorate, protect them from some other group or ideology which threatens their lives, their culture. or their nationality. Just as Thatcher protects Britain from socialism and Kinnock promises to protect it from Thatcherism, so too in Northern Ireland we have our own band of "protectors". Paisley protects us against Republicanism and Catholicism as Adams protects us against Imperialism and Unionism. When the images we were protected against started to become less obvious and more obscured by our normal lives, then these politicians, in order to protect their own positions, had to focus the picture anew.

Relative Normality
To understand this, something must be said of what had been happening in Northern Ireland over the past few years. Socially, things had been returning to relative normality. Belfast has experienced, particularly over the past three years, something of a social renaissance as the city centre began to open up again. For the previous ten years that centre had. after six o’clock in the evening, all the hallmarks of a ghost town, with empty streets, dimly lit as a security precaution, and the traditional social attractions such as pubs and cinemas being conspicuously absent of people. This was the result of a decade of terror. the terror of the IRA bombs, of Loyalist murder squads, of trigger-happy British soldiers and of an abusive and vicious police force.

In this environment it didn't matter what side you were on, or even if you had no side at all, the safest place to be was with your "own sort", in your "own district". Why take the chance of going to a city centre bar when you could stay protected in your own area? This was the ghetto mentality that led to the establishment of ghettoes and Belfast is a city of ghettoes. where people will pay higher prices for poorer housing, just to stay with their own sort hoping for safety in numbers.

A number of factors started to indicate a change in this. Most importantly, things had actually quietened down a good deal. From ’82 to the end of '85. the incidents of violence in this war were becoming less frequent and less obvious. It seemed as though the day of the street riot had finished, with young people preferring an evening at the disco to a cold night out throwing stones. There was also a reduction in so-called terrorist violence with fewer bombings and fewer assassinations. Even the state violence, as dished out by the army and police, was less frequent, not only because there were less troops on the ground but, more importantly, because the government was attempting to establish a feeling of everyday normality to the province; this war was proving bad for business.

There was however another factor in the equation which, although not designed, was just as significant. The war in Northern Ireland has been going on in its present phase since 1969. Inevitably, over such a long period a whole generation has emerged, aged from sixteen to twenty-five, whose only experience is that of a violent political crisis. Not having the comparison of more peaceful times, their fear is not as stark; this is their normality and they don’t share the apprehensions of their parents; in a word they don't really give a damn. They are prepared to go into the town centre, prepared to go to the dances, to the clubs and to the restaurants.

Seeing this new market, the business community responded and in a relatively short period the city centre of Belfast began to come alive, as people started to leave their own districts to seek entertainment elsewhere. There is a similar pattern in many other towns throughout the province. This was not the answer to the problems of Northern Ireland, but at least it was a more palatable existence than that which we had come to accept.

Anglo-Irish Agreement
In November 1985 we witnessed, to much media attention, the signing of a document called the Anglo-Irish Agreement which heralded a new phase in the history of this war and again provided a stage for the voices of fear and intimidation from those representatives of sectarian politics. When Thatcher and Fitzgerald put their signatures to this document they seemed unaware of the response it would get and the violence that would be caused. They knew they were putting their names to an innocuous little document of meaningless solutions which would actually make no difference to the political basis of the war and would certainly have no basis of change for the lives of those on either side of the border. The Agreement was nothing less than a publicity stunt to show that two governments sit down together and talk. It was to gain public acceptance for a dialogue which had already been established for many years. Although naive, the civil servants who drafted the paper and the politicians who signed it, had no idea that their ineffectual little document would provoke such a back-lash.

Typically, the Agreement was rejected by the two extremes: the Unionists branded it "Dublin Rule by the Back Door" and the Nationalists dismissed it as a sell-out by the Southern government who had, for the first time, recognised the right of British control over Ulster. A peculiar unity of action was established from seemingly different quarters. a unity of opposition to the Accord and a commitment to ensure that it would prove ineffective. If this agreement was meant to bring greater peace to the province, then the best answer was to ensure that there would be greater unrest and greater violence. That was the conclusion drawn by both extremes and that was the menu they served.

The past year has shown the effects of that policy; we have suffered a staple diet of intimidation, terror, hatred and death. The IRA and INLA have answered the call of nationalism by blowing up buildings in public places and murdering workers who were foolish enough to join the police or army. The Loyalist thugs under the title of Ulster Freedom Fighters have targetted individual Catholics, particularly those living in Protestant districts, as victims of their murder squads.

Hypocrisy and Lunacy
The Unionist politicians have excelled in displays of indignation. No news story is now complete without a comment on the foolishness of these fascists. Adjourning council meetings, refusing to pay their rates, disrupting Thatcher's speech to the European Parliament — the list seems endless. Even poor old Peter Robinson (or Adolf as he is affectionately known) had to face trial in Dublin for the minor misdemeanour of leading a gang of baton-wielding, gun-toting democrats on an invasion of a sleepy Southern town.

The hypocrisy and lunacy displayed by both sides would be riotously funny were it not for its cost in human suffering and loss of life. The politicians attempted again to establish themselves as the protectors, standing guard over the ignorance and division which they hold sacred. If we didn't have division we wouldn't need these leaders to lead the divided factions. Unfortunately for the politicians. their attempts at confusion didn't quite pay off as they may have expected. Granted, they got a large degree of support, but even that is starting to break up with people questioning these leaders and starting to see through their thinly disguised motives.

The important observation however, is that a large percentage of people didn't get sucked into the whole hype at all. Those people, mostly young, who had successfully broken from the tribal politics of their parents, who had mixed in the new social climate with those of opposite religion and. because of these experiences, realised that their "protectors'' had been conning them. The swelling ranks of the disillusioned are seeking other answers to those offered by generations past. Their social adventure has allowed them to consider adventurous political answers — if nothing else they are now asking the correct questions. To them the answers are not found in the Paramilitaries, Unionist or Nationalist Parties, all of whom are finding it difficult to recruit.

This is proving to be a crucial factor for Northern Irish politics. Not only does it mean that the traditional political and religious divides have become exposed, it also means that growing numbers are considering rational political alternatives. For that reason the World Socialist Party in Ireland is experiencing an unparalleled level of interest and even finding it difficult to meet the demand for our paper, The Socialist View.

Brian Montague,

Belfast.

Conquering mountains (1987)

From the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Amid great publicity and jubilation the EEC has slashed more than £1 billion off its farm budget. It has done this by cutting future Common Market milk production by 9.5 per cent and reducing the minimum price guaranteed to beef producers by 13 per cent. "EEC conquers food mountain" was how the Daily Telegraph put it (17 December) and the junior Farm Minister in parliament. John Selwyn Gummer, described the cuts as "a historic step forward".

The mountain at present consists of 1½ million tons of butter, one million tons of skimmed milk powder, 600.000 tons of beef, and 18 million tons of cereals. The British Agriculture Minister responsible for engineering the deal, Michael Jopling, was described as tired but triumphant after the talks. Calling the agreement an epic victory, he stated that the milk cuts alone would constitute "considerably more than the entire production of New Zealand". The ministers of the other countries were just as jubilant and at the end of the talks they all celebrated with champagne.

What did they have to celebrate? Not a reduction in food prices, for it was made clear that the cuts would not make food cheaper. Not an increase in their popularity with the farmers, for despite the provision of compensation for loss of earnings, many will lose money or go out of business. What then? Well, not much, other than managing to agree among themselves. Because what posed as a victory actually represents a capitulation — a capitulation to the market. The market decrees that money and resources shouldn't go into producing goods and services there isn't a buyer for. And when governments — in this case the EEC governments through the Common Agricultural Policy — try to control the market or at least direct it along their own channels, the market will, sooner or later, channel governments back along its own no buyer no production path. This is what's happened here.

But what's wrong with market forces reasserting themselves? What's wrong with not producing food for which there obviously isn't a buyer? Well, there is another way of looking at it and it starts to show up if we look at two words that are often used to describe the EEC food stocks — "excess" and “surplus". Are the stocks really in excess of people's needs? Are they surplus to requirements? It's true that if they were put on the market at the same price as already existing food, they wouldn't be bought. But is this because people don't need them? Or isn't it rather because people haven't got the money to buy them? Clearly many of the 30 million people on or below the official poverty line in the EEC don't get all the milk, butter and beef they need — and some get very little indeed. The determining factor isn't their need but the amount of cash they've got in their pockets. Seen in these terms, the EEC ministers' "food coup" is an application of the fundamental economic law of the society we live in — the law that goods and services are produced to be sold to people who have money to buy them, not to satisfy the requirements of people who need them.

A solution to this might seem to be to distribute the "surpluses" free or at lower prices to those who can't afford them. But within the market system this isn't a solution, definitely not a long-term solution, as it would inevitably force the current prices down, cut profits and cause economic chaos with producers, suppliers and retailers going out of business and making their workers unemployed too. As Gummer said in reply to a suggestion in parliament that beef and butter in the EEC stores be given free to pensioners: "Those who usually bought butter would not buy it if it was given away" (Guardian, 19 December 1986).

For just such a reason, this "solution" is not applied in the Third World, where many people do not simply go short of certain things they need through lack of money in their pockets but actually die of starvation and disease for that reason. Food supplied to them "free" from the economically advanced countries would upset the home markets. So it happens only on a very small scale and usually during what are called emergencies. Actually there's no country in the world that couldn't satisfy the food needs of its people if production were not geared to the market and sale at a profit. As it is, much of what is produced in Third World countries (and indeed in others too) goes abroad in search of those who can buy it rather than stay at home for those who need it.

What emerges from this picture of unsatisfied needs among vast "surplus" is that humans have got the knowledge, the techniques and the skills to produce food (and everything else) on an absolutely massive scale but we're not using them in the interests of humanity as a whole. Instead we're channelling them through a system of production and distribution that isn't geared to meeting those interests. It's geared solely to finding buyers on the market with a view to making profit and this means starvation, misery and destitution for many, the bare necessities for others and for most of us in countries like Britain, a life in which, whether we're in or out of work, we just about scrape by.

It seems a daft way to live when all we need to do is get together and organise the resources the earth offers, the technology we've developed and the skills and energies we possess, to produce everything directly for use without the obstacle of the market and the buying and selling system. Not even the rationing regime we choose to live under at present can hide the potential that exists for abundance. We need only look at the EEC food mountains and the surpluses in so many other parts of the world. The step we need to take now is to establish common ownership and control over those resources and technology and free access to the abundance they will be able to produce when we put our energies to work on them voluntarily and co-operatively. That is the real mountain we have to conquer.

Howard Moss

50 Years Ago: The Strenuous Life of the Rich (1987)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

If you. fellow-worker in the docks, pushing your truck or wrenching with your hook — if you. fellow-worker, driving, stopping and starting that bus. which is larger than many a worker's house — if you. fellow-worker, staring and tapping at that adding machine until your eyes feel as though they will drop out — if you feel that your job is sapping your energy, robbing your manhood, your womanhood of a fuller enjoyment of life, then ponder over the difficulties of "our betters", who, though "they toil not", bravely face the rigours of their pleasures.

  One winter sports holiday in a season is strenuous enough to satisfy most us.
  But Mr and Mrs Vincent Paravicini are made of sterner stuff.
 They came back from Switzerland at the beginning of last month, and are shortly off again for another skiing holiday, this time at Kitzbtibel.
  Mrs Paravicini's mother. Mrs Maugham, is also going to Austria, to join some friends at Mittersill. —(Evening Standard, February 3rd, 1937.)

Having pondered, fellow-worker, it is possible that your sympathy will be aroused. If, however, you are still a man you will ask the reason why these idlers can live on your back.

[From the Socialist Standard March 1937.]

Health Care: The Socialist Alternative (1987)

From the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

What would health care in socialism be like? The Socialist Party can't give a blueprint; we can't conjure it out of thin air. But we can consider it in comparison with present-day society.

In socialism, no nurses or doctors would be prevented from contributing their different skills and energies by the dictat of the dole queue. Hospitals would be run in accordance with the wishes of the wider community and not, as at present, by some Health Board and balance sheet, or by some manager just out of the army.

Hospitals wouldn't need sponsored events and charity cans to fund the new kidney machine or body scanner. A system of production for use would unleash the productive capacities of women and men who would voluntarily co-operate to meet needs.

Health care wouldn't mean patching people up to stick them back in factories that poison their lungs, or back to the jobs and pressures that needlessly cause stress. It wouldn't involve leaving hospital just to return to cramped, damp, cold housing. In short, health care in socialism wouldn't just mean the absence of disease. it would mean taking full control of our lives.

These are just some ideas. Much more could be discussed — we're not short of arguments in favour of a sane society without money or wages, leaders or states. What we are short of. though, are socialists.

Between the Lines: Raiders of Zircon (1987)

The Between the Lines Column from the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Raiders of Zircon

When I was a little boy (not all that long ago; never all that little) Zircon was the sort of thing that made you sit on the edge of your seat in sci-fi movies. They Came From Zircon. Not to worry: the inter-galactic space warriors (always Americans with traffic warden uniforms) will beat off the alien enemies. The lesson of all those science fiction films was clear enough: us traffic wardens fight hard when it comes to defending Planet Earth against hostile beasties from the Outer Cosmos. It was not until I grew a few hairs on my chest that I discovered that Planet Earth is already occupied by hostile beasties called capitalists whose function in life is to rob blind the majority of earthlings who produce all the wealth.

Last month agents of the capitalists raided the offices of BBC Glasgow for the purpose of confiscating the film of a series of programmes called The Secret Society. You see, the series was made to show that Britain is becoming a dangerously secretive society in which almost anything worth knowing is being declared by law to be secret. How dare the BBC sponsor such subversive untruths? Britain, a police state — where do they get these ideas from? So Special Branch sent the boys down to do over the studio and confiscate the film and make sure that viewers will never see just how many secrets they're missing. Puts your mind at rest, doesn't it?

One of the programmes was about the Zircon project, a spy satellite which none of us are supposed to know about — which is funny really, because it is supposed to be spying on our behalf. Now, had the programme been shown it is doubtful whether many workers would have been much the wiser about Zircon. But with the aid of that idiot cunning for which the present government now has a Reagan-grade reputation, the police raid had the effect of making large numbers of workers want to know what it is that the state is so eager to hide from us. Censorship will not succeed in stopping people wanting to find out what is happening in the world. Back in the good old days the men from Zircon would have exterminated Malcolm Rifkind with a laser gun but last month all we got was a mundane emergency debate in the House of Commons in which Gerald Kaufman (whose jackets might well have been designed by the firm which used to produce laser guns) said that the whole affair was intolerable.


News From the Nozzers

If Zircon doesn't make you think of creepy things in black and white movies nozzers certainly should. Nozzers are skinheads with legal permits: trainee members of the Royal Navy BBC2's four-part series (Mondays. 10.15pm) was called Nozzers and about what it is like to suffer the misfortune of becoming one.

A nozzer s life is not a happy one. Most of them joined to see the sea; instead they spent their first week's training learning how to straighten the pillows on their beds and shine their boots and march up and down like clockwork Nazis. No wonder they all felt homesick. This was one of those films in which the producer allows the viewer to relish the suffering of some other sucker. What can be better after a day at Dagenham screwing bits onto Ford Fiestas than watching a bunch of nozzers being sent on an assault course which involves crawling through mud-filled pipes and running through cold water? At least someone else is having it worse than you.

When nozzers go down to the pool for a swim it does not involve a few lengths and a bit of splashing about: in Nozzers we were shown them being poked with sticks by the swimming instructress to test their readiness to drown in icy water. Alas, most of them were all too ready. How can human beings descend to such undignified thuggery? But watching Nozzers they seemed more pathetic than contemptible: wage slaves driven into a sick institution as an alternative to unemployment or other forms of dullness. Prince Edward was no fool. (Well, perhaps that is something of an overstatement). Not for him was the life of a nozzer — or whatever the marine equivalent may be. He decided to retire while the going was bad. But the poor kids shown in this series — what is the alternative for them?


Plague-Ads

While it may or may not be the case that all the nice girls like a nozzer, if they have been watching the TV ads carefully they will be insisting that he wears a condom. TV ads have travelled a long way since they used to just advertise Omo and going to work on an egg. In recent times ads have been used to mould public morality, warning us about smoking and drinking and now "unsafe sex”. The symbolism of the AIDS ad is about as subtle as a Bernard Manning gag. Rocks, hammers chipping away at them, darkness — why can't they just come out with it and tell us what's naughty instead of all these laboured hints?


The Tabun and Sarin Show

A scientist holds up a cube of sugar: "A piece of tabun or sarin of just this size kills 2,500 people when it is dropped on them". Tabun and sarin are chemical weapons, a means of murdering vast numbers of people which is just as deadly as nuclear weapons. These weapons are currently possessed by Russia, the USA. France, Iraq, Syria, Israel and South Africa. As many as fifteen countries might possess such weapons and many more soon will.

Iraq has been using these weapons in its war against Iran and that was the subject of Panorama (Monday, 2 February. 9.30pm. BBC1). Chemical weapons have been outlawed internationally for some years, just like CND would like nuclear weapons to be. But that has not stopped them being used. As Tim Renton, the British Foreign Minister, admitted, no law can stop "unscrupulous" companies making profits out of selling chemicals to governments intending to use them for weapons.

Now what can Mr Renton mean about profit making being an unscrupulous pursuit? After all, was it not Norman Tebbit who, as Minister of Industry, defended in the House of Commons the sale of torture equipment by British companies to foreign dictatorships on the grounds that such trade was part of the usual competitive process? In fact, Panorama showed that Iraq's chemical weapons production complex at Samarra was constructed partly by German, British, Australian and Indian firms.

If, by the most remote possibility, there was ever an international decision to outlaw nuclear weapons it would be as wholly unenforceable as that concerning chemical warfare. And even if it was enforced, what would stop governments which had previously used nuclear weapons threatening the world by converting to chemical weapons? There will be no solution to the hideous weaponry of modern warfare — all too clearly depicted in its awful effects on the Iranian casualties shown in Panorama — until the war-producing system is abolished, together with its Zircon Project, its nozzers. its moral sermonising and the rest of its blemishes which pop out like sores from our TV screens.

 Steve Coleman

China — Hu departs (1987)

From the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

The student demonstrations which began in various parts of China in December have culminated in the resignation (which means dismissal) of Hu Yaobang, General Secretary of the "Communist" Party. It is clear, though, that top political bosses are not sacked because of a few thousand demonstrators, and that there has been a power struggle behind the scenes in Beijing.

The students demonstrated under the banner of "freedom and democracy". For some this meant a proper system of elections to local political bodies, for others a multi-party political system, while for yet others it was just a slogan with no specific content. Wall posters went up at university campuses, attacking Party leaders. The government warned that sticking up such posters was illegal and banned all demonstrations that did not have official permission. On New Year's Day, several thousand students flouted this ban and demonstrated in the main square in the centre of Beijing; two dozen students were arrested. Later the same day, students returned to the square and obtained the release of those arrested earlier.

Despite this climb-down, the government tried to discredit the student movement by pointing out that only one per cent of the country's students had been involved and claiming that these had been misled by agitators who were not even students. A factory-worker from Shanghai was arrested for founding a new political party. Academics who had supposedly encouraged the protests were attacked in the press, especially Fang Lizhi, deputy head of a college in Hefei. Despite the evidence of some more general support — Beijing bus passengers cheered the marching student demonstrators — it clearly was very much a minority movement. confined to a few big cities and with vague and sometimes contradictory aims.

It is hardly likely, then, that Party leaders really had anything concrete to fear from the student movement. It was on a much smaller scale than previous activities along such lines, like the Democracy Wall events of 1978-9. One Shanghai poster harked back to the late seventies and showed that the memory of past dissent and struggle lingers on: "If you want to know what freedom is, just go and ask Wei Jingsheng." (Wei was jailed in 1979 for writing a long wall-poster attacking the Communist Party). What seems to have happened is that the demonstrations were seized on by some members of the top leadership as a pretext for attacking their opponents.

Since 1978, under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese economy has undergone major changes. Main reforms have included setting up a large number of joint ventures with other capitalist countries, greater powers for factory managers to fix their own prices and products, and opening the way for individuals to make large private fortunes. Generally, there has been a rejection of the old Maoist emphasis on centralisation, national self-sufficiency and narrow political dogma. The fundamental nature of Chinese capitalism has not altered at all — society remains divided into haves and have-nots — but some members of the ruling class have long objected to the new policies, on the grounds that they opened doors to such dangerous notions as freedom of speech, democracy and decentralisation.

It was these "conservative'' leaders who used the student demonstrations to attack the economic reforms as being responsible for the unacceptable demands for democracy to be extended. The government's giving way to the students on New Year's Day was seen as an unmistakeable sign of weakness. Although Deng had apparently at first encouraged — or at least supported — Fang Lizhi's remarks, he was able to deflect the attacks onto Hu Yaobang. Though very much Deng's man, Hu has never really presented himself as an outspoken advocate of reform. He turned out, however, to be primarily a Deng loyalist with no independent power-base of his own. So he was forced to resign, making abject confession of, and apology for, his own past mistakes.

All the things the conservatives dislike about the last decade's policies have been lumped together under the label "bourgeois liberalisation". It is only people like Fang (now sacked from his job and expelled from the Party) who have been accused of supporting this deviation. Hu has simply been charged with being soft on repressing it. It is also being revealed now that he has for years been in disagreement with Deng — part of a time-honoured ritual when Chinese leaders are kicked out.

The Chinese press is now full of attacks on bourgeois liberalisation and how and why to combat it. It is defined as "an idea negating the socialist system in favour of capitalism'. Its advocates do not just want economic reform, they want to "take the capitalist road". Rather than political reform, they want to copy capitalist practices. A particular manifestation of bourgeois liberalism is the theory of "complete Westernisation", taking over the features of Western capitalism lock, stock and barrel; this is what Fang is accused of. This is all to be combatted by strengthening the Party's control.

In the writings of the newly-ascendant clique, the policy of opening the country to the outside world is endorsed, but with limits. Certainly China is undergoing economic difficulties, with rising inflation and a decrease in overseas investment. The reforms have not delivered all that was promised and have produced problems of their own. Trying to administer capitalism — whether state or private or a mixture of the two — without encountering ups and downs is just impossible. But it should not be forgotten that the real victims of the vicissitudes of Chinese capitalism are not Hu and Fang but the working people.

Paul Bennett