The Position. (1919)

From the May 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Old Tale Retold. 

The major portion of the population of the earth have to put up with lives of slavery and the never-ending struggle against starvation, yet a life of ease and freedom is within their reach if they will stretch oat their hands and grasp it.

Here are food, clothing, and shelter in abundance, and yet poverty, misery, and destitution are here in super-abundance. Here are people who spend their lives working or looking for work—these are members of the working class. Here are other who spend their lives in one long round of pleasure— these are the Capitalist Class.

Broadly Speaking, the inhabitants of the civilised parts of the earth belong to one or other of these two classes.

All wealth that is produced, no matter what form it takes, is the result of the application of human labour power to nature-given material. This material and the finished product are owned by one group of the people—the international capitalists—those people whom we are told advance the money to carry on industry. The labour power is supplied by the miner, bricklayer, carpenter, manager, dustman, office boy, and other members of the working class. The brains and manual powers of the workers are utilised to produce articles that belong to the capitalists.

The statement that the capitalists, by advancing the money, have a right to the result, collapses as soon as the case is investigated. The particular function of the money as means of exchange has a tendency to confuse and cover the process of production with a mystical cloud. It is a matter of fact that it does not require money to dig for coal. It requires food, clothes, shelter, and the other things necessary to the maintenance of the miner while getting the coal. The capitalists have the monopoly of the necessaries of life, and they advance these necessaries of life to the workers with a view of obtaining a profit. The fact that these necessaries take the form of a sum of money in the first place is due to an historic development which lack of space prevents us describing in this article.

In these circumstances, therefore, the capitalists are the employing class and the workers the employed class. The interests of these two classes are directly opposite.

It is the interest of the employers to get work done as quickly and as cheaply as possible, for the cheaper the production the greater the profit— other things remaining equal.

But the interest of the workers as workers is the provision of work: the more work there is the fewer will there be in the unemployed army. Consequently it is to the interest of the workers to produce in as wasteful a manner as possible —digging holes and filling them up again is the ideal condition.

The energies of the employers are centred upon obtaining up-to-date machinery and institituting improved methods ; but this means less work for the employees— a greater number of unemployed to fight for the jobs that are going.

Now why does this state of affairs exist ? Why is work the all absorbing interest of the working class? It is because the workers do not own the product of their labour power. Yet all wealth is produced by the working class—even the very gold and paper that function as money are obtained by the workers.

The more the capitalists take from the total wealth produced the less there is left for the workers, and conversely, the more the workers take from it the less there is for the capitalists. This is the centre of the whole business. The interests of the capitalists are opposed to the interests of the workers, and consequently a struggle is always going on as to who shall get most out of the pile. This is what the Socialist calls the class war.

Who gains most in this struggle is obvious. As the years roll on the wealth of the masters grows into colossal proportions, although vast quantities are recklessly expended. On the other hand, the lot of the workers grows worse from year to year. The toil and anxiety of making ends meet brings grey hairs sooner than formerly. Rarely is a member of the working class to be found hale and hearty at an advanced age. The saying, "Only the good die young," could almost be converted into "Only the workers die young."

Improved machinery and improved organisation displaces more workers and the competition for jobs keeps wages at the level of subsistence. Even the draughtsman, the mathematician, the chemist, the doctor, and similar "professional" men, who need long and careful training to render them efficient, can only command a wage that means toil from the earliest days of manhood to the end. The capitalist buys abilities as he buys potatoes and other merchandise. Numberless are the instances where those employed in these professions have chosen the suicide's grave in preference to the grim and forbidding prospect ahead of them.

To swell their self-esteem these workers, together with the struggling small shopkeeper (who is but a salesman for the capitalist), are given the honorary title of "Middle Class." Though exploited by the capitalist the same as other workers, they are too swelled out by a sense of their own importance to allow themselves to be classed as workers. In actual fact, however, the are, in the last analysis, but wage workers like the rest of us.

Workers attempt to alleviate their lot by combining in unions to keep up wages and improve their conditions. By this act they recognise in a subconscious way the opposition of their interests to those of their masteis. Unfortunately the recognition is only subconscious, and the masters take every opportunity of blinding workers to their real interests and dangle before them illusive reforms on which workers employ their time and waste their energy.

For years the workers have attempted to alleviate their lot by trade union action, but at the end of it all the sorry truth must be faced that to-day their position is more insecure and their poverty greater than ever. The claim that they might have been worse off had they not been organised is beside the point, and cannot explain away the fact that trade union action has been a failure as far as improving conditions is concerned. The general condition of the workers is growing steadily worse. At the best trade union action but slows the worsening process—it cannot stop it.

The fight between the possessing class and the working class has always resulted in the advantage going to the former. So long as one class owns the means and instruments for producing wealth,, the other class must in the long run be beaten by the pistol of starvation. This being the position of affairs, reform is useless—revolution is the only remedy.

Those who deny the class war and seek to harmonise master and worker are the enemies of the working class, whether their intentions be good or evil. By their attempt to cloud the issue they take sides with the masters and must be treated as enemies, no matter what particular garments they dress their arguments in.

The capitalist class keeps its position as the owner of all wealth by its control of the political machinery. This is the impassable barrier between it and the working class ; and yet the workers themselves put the capitalists behind the barrier by voting them into power at election time.

The workers must first realise their identity of interests as wage workers, and the opposition of their interests as a class to those of the capitalists—the owners of wealth. In other words they must become class conscious.

Having arrived at that knowledge they must understand that the capitalists keep their position through their control of the political machinery, and that in order to overthrow the capitalist class they must vote themselves, and not their masters, into power. They must organise into a political party which has for its sole object the conquest of political power in order to usher in the Socialist Commonwealth. That party is the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Graham May

Lest We Forget. (1919)

From the May 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

How the capitalists suppressed the Parisian workers in 1871.

At last the smell of the carnage began to choke even the most frantic. The pest, if not pity, was coming. Myriads of flesh-flies flew up from the putrefied corpses. The streets were full of dead birds. The "Avenir Libéral" singing the praises of MacMahon’s proclamations, applied the words of Flechier; ‘He hides himself, but his glory finds him out.’ The glory of the Turenne of 1871 betrayed him even up to the Seine. In certain streets the corpses encumbered the pathway, looking at the passers-by from out of their dead eyes. In the Faubourg St. Antoine they were to be seen everywhere in heaps, half white with chloride of lime. At the Polytechnic School they occupied a space of 100 yards long and three deep. At Passy, which was not one of the great centres of execution, there were 1,100 near the Trocadero. These, covered over by a thin shroud of earth, also showed their ghastly profiles. ‘Who does not recollect,’ said the Temps, ‘even though he had seen it but one moment, the square, no, the charnel of the Tour St. Jacques? From the midst of this moist soil, recently turned up by the spade, here and there look out heads, arms, feet, and hands. The profiles of corpses, dressed in the uniform of National Guards, were seen impressed against the ground. It was hideous. A decayed, sickening odour arose from this garden, and occasionally at some places it became fetid.’ The rain and heat having precipitated the putrefaction, the swollen bodies reappeared. The glory of MacMahon displayed itself too well. The journals were taking fright. ‘These wretches,’ said one of them, ‘who have done us so much harm during their lives, must not be allowed to do so still after their death.’ And those that had instigated the massacre cried ‘Enough!’

‘Let us not kill any more,’ said the Paris Journal of the 2nd June, ‘even the assassins, even the incendiaries. Let us not kill any more. It is not their pardon we ask for, but a respite.’ ‘Enough executions, enough blood, enough victims,’ said the Nationale of the 1st June. And the Opinion Nationale of the same day: ‘A serious examination of the accused is imperative. One would like to see only the really guilty die.’

The executions abated, and the sweeping off began. Carriages of all kinds, vans, omnibuses, came to pick up the corpses and traversed the town. Since the great plagues of London and Marseilles, such cart-loads of human flesh had not been seen. These exhumations proved that a great number of people had been buried alive. Imperfectly shot, and thrown with the heaps of dead into the common grave, they had eaten earth, and showed the contortions of their violent agony. Certain corpses were taken up in pieces. It was necessary to shut them as soon as possible into closed wagons, and to take them with the utmost speed to the cemeteries, where immense graves of lime swallowed up these putrid masses.

The cemetries of Paris absorbed all they could. The victims, placed side by side, without any other covering than their clothes, filled enormous ditches at the Père Lachaise, Montmartre, Mont-Parnasse, where the people in pious rememberance will annually come as pilgrims. Others, more unfortunate, were carried out of the town. At Charonne, Bagnolet, Bicêtre, etc. the trenches dug during the first siege were utilized. ‘There nothing is to be feared of the cadaverous emanations,’ said La Liberté ‘an impure blood will water the soil of the labourer, fecundating it. The deceased delegate at war will be able to pass a review of his faithful followers at the hour of midnight; the watchword will be ‘Incendiarism and assassination.’ Women by the side of the lugubrious trench endeavoured to recognize these remains. The police waited that their grief should betray them, in order to arrest those ‘females of insurgents.’

The burying of such a large number of corpses soon became too difficult, and they were burnt in the casemates of the fortifications; but for want of draught the combustion was incomplete, and the bodies were reduced to a pulp. At the Buttes Chaumont the corpses, piled up in enormous heaps, inundated with petroleum, were burnt in the open air.

The wholesale massacres lasted up to the first days of June, and the summary executions up to the middle of that month. For a long time mysterious dramas were enacted in the Bois de Boulogne. Never will the exact number of the victims of the Bloody Week be known. The chief of military justice admitted 17,000 shot, the municipal council of Paris paid the expenses of burial of 17,000 corpses; but a great number were killed out of Paris or burnt. There is no exaggeration in saying 20,000 at least.

Many battlefields have numbered more dead, but these at least had fallen in the fury of the combat. The century has not witnessed such a slaughtering after the battle; there is nothing to equal it in the history of our civil struggles. St. Bartholomew’s Day, June 1848, the 2nd December, would form but an episode of the massacres of May. Even the great executioners of Rome and modern times pale before the Duke of Magenta. The hecatombs of the Asiatic victors, the fetes of Dahomey alone could give some idea of this butchery of proletarians.

Such was the repression ‘by the laws, with the laws.’ And during these atrocities of incomparably worse than Bulgarian type, the bourgeoisie, raising to heaven its bloody hands, undertook to incite the whole world against this people, who, after two months of domination and the massacre of thousands of their own, had shed the blood of sixty-three prisoners.

– “History of the Paris Commune.” Lissagary

Editorial: May-Day Talk. (1919)

Editorial from the May 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the eve of May-day, in probably the most momentous times in history, it is meet that we should have a glance about us, a little stock-taking, a summing-up of the general situation as it affects "Labour," and as viewed through the eyes of those who have made a special study of the needs and interests of the working class over many years.

Our masters are talking now of peace. But what significance has such a word for those— we were going to say who work, but we must use the more expressive term—who toil ? During the great "Business War" the horrors of the industrial strife have been largely removed to the military cockpits. The burying alive of men in mines has found its counterpart in the burying alive of men in trenches ; the gassing of men in the bleaching powder factories has been paraleled in the gassing of men at "the front" ; the tragedy of the Titanic has been reproduced in the "atrocity" of the Lusitania; the crime of the abolition of the Plimsoll line has found its twin brother in the villiany of mined seas. These things, done in "war," and between race and race, have attracted to themselves tense attention, but there is nothing, nothing, in the whole range of battlefield horrors, that is not matched in the everyday struggle of the workers for bread and of the masters for profit, an almost common-place occurrence of toe everyday existence of those who toil.

And now we are to exchange again the horrors of war for the sevenfold horrors of peace. Our masters' "gratitude" to their "heroes" has already reached the vanishing point. In little open spaces in the London suburbs, and on the ugly blank walls of London slums, ugly little wooden shrines have been erected to the "honour" of those same "heroes"—the cheapest of cheap carpenter's jobs, but neatly varnished and glazed, and "eye-washed" with a picture of Christ or a Mons angel looking upon cannon fodder, and provided with a shelf for other people to leave floral offerings on. And inscribed upon the page of fame behind the glass behold the names of the local warriors, with here and there blank spaces where the names of the fallen had been written in in red ink, and have long since faded from the sight of man. The symbolism of the whole thing is perfect. The shoddy show, the superstitious dope, the appeal to private charity—and nothing could better have stood for the transient nature of capitalist "gratitude" than that ironic, contemptuous, fleeting red ink.

The "gratitude" of the class for whom the war was "fought and won" is already dead. The Lord Derbies, who sweated so profusely in the khaki of the labour battalion, are, it is true, now "hard at it" on the work of reconstructing—the Turf. The rich find no great problem (for themselves) in the transition from war to peace. But in other directions the work of "reconstruction" goes on about as fast, probably, as those to whom a great unemployment crisis would present a welcome opportunity to put the screw on wages desire. The shortage and consequent high price materials of every description has a fatally deterrent effect on the resumption of the ordinary productive processes of peace time, and this applies with greatest force in that most important industry where the increased cost must be saddled on a relatively permanent product—the house-building industry. There is, therefore, looming ahead, the prospect of such a time of suffering for those who toil as will indeed cause them to ask themselves what signify those little wooden shrines to working-class agony and capitalist greed.

The vampire class are getting ready for the inevitable result of the world conflict. Already the chiefs among the thugs are denouncing the victims of their blood-orgy who have the indecency to claim the out-of-work dole as lazy impostors. Pledges are being given by the Government, who got their present places and power upon lying promises to carry the working-class safely through the "transition period," that those doles (already reduced to ludicrous inadequacy) will cease to be paid in November. The Army is being strengthened with men whose pay is sufficient to claim their heartfelt allegiance to any duty; the police are having their grievances settled with a lavishness that is eloquent testimony to their future usefulness to the exploiting class. "Public opinion" has been sounded on and broken to the patrol of "tanks," armed against the workers, through "our" city streets, and the filling of "our" municipal buildings with soldiers armed with rifles and bayonets and machine guns and bombs. Oh, yes, the masters have made their preparations.

And how about the workers ? What will they do when desperation seizes them ? In what direction will they seek surcease of their torment when they find themselves workless and wage-less in the face of high prices ? If failure has not utterly discredited Bolshevism by that time there will doubtless not be lacking those in this country those who will make an attempt to lure the desperate into "living dangerously" in the Bolshevik way. Soldiers returned from hell to find themselves displaced by women or supplanted by machinery, to learn that all they have suffered for is the right to starve, and used as they are to reckless and violent methods, may prove to be fertile ground for such appeal to fall on. A rude awakening awaits those who participate in any such attempt.

There is only one remedy for working-class misery and that is to overthrow the present social system, based upon the private ownership of the means of living, and to set up in its stead a system based upon the common ownership of those things. Since this involves the abolition of the capitalist claes, they will certainly resist it to the utmost extremity of their power. They who have hurled millions of their slaves to death in a mere trade squabble would turn the very world into a charnel house to maintain their robber privileges. Hence the essential first step in the working-class revolt is for the toilers to get control of the armed forces of the nation. These armed forces, as we are continually pointing out, are controlled by Parliament. It is therefore necessary for the workers to organise in a political party for the capture through the ballot of the Parliament. When they have captured this capitalist stronghold they will have control of the machinery of government, and will be able to proceed to their emancipation secure in the control of the means of dealing with any capitalist rebellion.

Such political party already exists in the Socialist Party of Great Britain. The S.P.G.B., is founded upon sound principles, principles which have stood the searching test of the last five years, and have proved sufficient to keep the organisation true to working-class interests. Those principles are set out on the back page of every issue of this journal. We invite every working man and woman to study them in a critical, a challenging spirit, and to proclaim any flaw he or she may find in them. If they are sound the worker's duty is dear.

Correspondence. Concerning the Russian Constituent Assembly. (1919)

Letter to the Editors from the May 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

To The Editor.

Sir,—The editorial reply (in your April issue) to "A Wage Slave" states that the Bolsheviks "squashed the Kerensky crowd by suppressing the Constituent Assembly." The assumption that the Kerenskyites were in a majority in the Constituent Assembly is a very prevalent one— the Liberal weekly ''The Nation," for instance, once held it—but it is quite erroneous, as I showed in the "Cambridge Magazine" of 26th October. The Kerenskyites and the Kadets— in fact all the "Oborontsi" (the "defenders") as they were called during the Provisional Government era—were numerically quite negligible in the Constituent. The majority was composed of Social Revolutionaries of the Centre "led" by Tchernov, who as an individual stood for peace and also, at one time at least, for a revolutionary land policy (as I pointed out in another of my letters to the "Cambridge Magazine," see issue 11th January), but by resigning from the Provisional Government during July 1917 (in face of the hostility of Kerensky and the Kadets) when it was a question of carrying out that land policy, he showed his weakness and his activities ceased, except in so far as they were employed in heaping abuse on the heads of the Bolsheviks week alter week in his paper "Dielo Naroda."

As the Russian working classes—with the exception, perhaps, of the Italians the most class-conscious in Europe, in spite of your assertion to the contrary—already held power in the Soviets and in the workshops, they acted quite rightly, in my opinion, in sending Tchernov and his majority about their business. What could Tchernov give by Parliamentary methods (so beloved by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald) that the Bolsheviks had not already given or that large numbers of the Russian masses had not already taken, for a considerable number of peasant labourers (I am not referring here to peasant owners) had already seized land—and committed "atrocities" into the bargain of which WE NEVER HEARD, OF COURSE—during the latter months of the Kerensky regime, when it became obvious to them that nothing was to be expected from "constitutional" methods under Provisional Governments!

As your space is, I know, limited, I shall now close, although I should like to have said something about the socialisation of land, the Lenin and Spiradonova ideas with regard to same, and the "chaos" to which this has led. Perhaps I may again be allowed to occupy a little of your space in a future issue.—

Yours, A, P. L.

Reply:

It is not easy to grasp the point of our correspondent's letter. We did not say or imply that the Kerenskyites were in a majority in the Constituent Assembly. Our first critic, "A Wage Slave," challenged us to explain how it was that "the workers of Russia overthrew the Czarist and then the Kerensky Government if they were not class-conscious." Our reply was not that the workers had returned a Kerenskyite majority to the Constituent Assembly, but that they had elected a "bourgeois majority"—"the working class voted the bourgeoisie into power." The Kerensky crowd were included in the Constituent Assembly, and when the Bolsheviks suppressed the Constituent Assembly they "squashed the Kerengky crowd" with it. We do not profess to know what was the numerical strength of the Kerensky party in the Constituent Assembly. We have (and do again) frankly confessed our ignorance on the subject of the situation in Russia, more particularly as to details, and we have ordered our policy in accordance with that ignorance. Of course, if we cared to accept every unsupported rumour that is bandied about we could make good copy in plenty, as others are doing. But the number of Kerenskite noses in the Constituent Assembly did not concern us in the least. The point is that they were bourgeois noses, and were put in the Assembly by the vote of what "A Wage Slave" claimed was a class-conscious working class, and overthrown—by whom ? By the "class conscious" proletariat who had a few weeks previously shown their "class-conscious^-ness by electing them? Only "A Wage Slave" has dared to tell us so yet.

And we notice that, whatever may have been the numerical strength of the Kerenskyites in the Assembly, "A.P.L." speaks of the "Kerensky regime."

"The Russian working classes," says our correspondent, "with the exception, perhaps, of the Italians, the most class-conscious in Europe, in spite of your assertion to the contrary—already held power in the Soviets and in the workshops, they acted quite rightly, in my opinion, in sending Tchernov and his majority about their business." In the first place we should be glad if "A.P.L." would point out where we have, made the "assertion to the contrary" he refers to. Comparing the degree of class-consciousness of one race with that of another is a pastime we leave to correspondents who know all about it. But what does it matter whether the Russian working class are more or less class-conscious than other proletarians ? Goodness knows it is not saying much to say that they are more class-conscious tham the workers of this country !

The point is, of course, were they sufficiently class-conscious to seize their opportunity and make the most of it. Our correspondent seems to think that they were. Will he tell us, then, why they elected their worst enemies to the Constituent Assembly? He will doubtless be among the first to admit that this folly, giving the ruling class of other countries the excuse that the Bolsheviks were mere usurpers, who had overthrown the chosen authority — the democratically elected representatives—of the people, more perhaps than anything else ruined their cause among the workers of other lands, and strengthened the hands of foreign capitalists in providing a screen for the Russian bourgeoisie to organise behind.

"A.P.L." need not fear that we shall weep for the dismissal of the bourgeois Constituent Assembly as such—as a bourgeois instrument, that is. As against the workers we have no atom of sympathy with the bourgeoisie, and recoognise no duties toward them, no privileges attaching to them, no rights claimed by them. Our hatred of them is unutterable, and removes them entirely beyond any other and softer emotion within us. But there is another aspect of the case. Besides being an instrument of bourgeois tyranny the Assembly was the expression of the will of the Russian people. At least, we understand the basis of the election to have been such as would make it so, and even "A.P.L.," in his search for an excuse for the Bolshevik suppression of the Assembly, does not say that it was not democratically elected. Without claiming anything more sacred than working-class expediency for the democratic principle, this was a reason for suffering the Assembly. For as Socialists we hold that the franchise presents to the workers the way to their emancipation. Until the workers learn to use this instrument properly they are not fit or ready for Socialism. To suppress the Assembly was simply to try to force on an unready and unwilling people a social system for which their economic conditions were no more ripe than their mental state—to challenge, in the face of that mentally and economically unready people, the organised might of the whole capitalist world. Even complete success in that challenge could not, as far as our information shows, justify the adventure. For to successfully establish Bolshevism, on the evidence to hand so far, is a step backward. It is a reversion to peasant-proprietorship on the land. As the products of the soil must therefore belong to the peasant propietors, the products of the factories cannot belong to the community without fatal social discord. Our reasons for making this statement have been given before. The inevitable result must be the strangulation and final death of manufacture and the lapse of Russia into a state of barbaric agrarianism, a state under which Russia cannot develop into a Socialist commonwealth.

The Russian working classes, "A.P.L." declares, held power in the Soviets and in the workshops. If that were entirely true the sequel (when we reach it) would only furnish one more proof of the truth of our contention that only by the capture of the political machinery, indicative as that event must be of the readiness of the people for the social revolution, can the working class proceed. If the workers hold power in the Soviets and workshops it appears pretty clear that their power on the military field is fiercely challenged. And after all it is there in the first place that they must be confirmed in their power.

But our correspondent's remark that "a considerable number of peasant labourers bad already seized land . . . during the latter months of the Kerensky regime, when it became obvious to them that nothing was to be expected from 'constitutional' methods under Provisional Government!" illuminates the whole landscape in one vivid lightning flash. It reveals the "class-conscious" Russian worker expecting something from a Bourgeois government; lays bare the true foundation of much of the Bolshevik "power in the Soviets," at least in the rural districts; and it shows, with its context, how little our correspondent understands the real object of the Socialist determination to capture the machinery of government.

Not to hand out parcels of land to "peasant labourers" (our correspondent's term, not ours) or factories to the workers therein do we aspire get possession of machinery of State, but in order to gain control of the civil and military forces, so that we shall be in a position to make the land and other means of living the property of the whole people. The ''peasant labourers," disappointed in the bourgeois representatives they had so foolishly returned to a bourgeois parliament, may not have found it difficult to seize the land they wanted, but the methods they have embraced do not help them any more than did those they have abandoned if they prove unable to hold the land they have seized.

Whatever may be the outcome of the Russian revolt (and we have no doubt as to that) it may be pointed out that, just as her backward industrial development makes Russia about the least fit for Socialism of all European countries, those very conditions make her about the only one of them all where Bolshevism stood even the ghost of a chance. For people to advocate similar methods in this country is extravagant folly, with no advantages to compensate its perils.

Editorial Committee.

Past Class Struggles. (1919)

From the May 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

As was pointed out in a previous article, early England was Feudal, and under the Manorial system rural England was composed of estates divided among villeins (a particular kind of peasant proprietors), who owed certain services to their lords.

The growth of commercialism broke up the Manorial system and introduced the Capitalist system. The foundation of the Capitalist system was laid by divorcing the labourer from the soil, i.e., converting the peasant into a "free" labourer.

Feudalism rested upon the reciprocal duties of lord and peasant or villein. The rise of the trading and manufacturing class brought about the need for a large number of labourers who could be exploited without restriction. In order that the commercial or capitalist class could become the supreme class in society the serf had to be converted into a free labourer—free of all feudal ties and relying only on wages for his living.

The commercial class, who had acquired money through trade, had steadily grown and permeated the existing system to such an extent that it was gradually breaking the bonds of Feudalism. In this the trading class were assisted by the great feudal lords themselves, who, while despising trade as vulgar, coveted its riches.

But the starting-point of capitalism was the free labourer. The landed proprietors, to get money, leased their lands and commuted labour rents into money rents. The rise of woollen manufacture on the Continent brought about a corresponding rise in the English wool trade. Then the great landowners commenced enclosing the common lands and evicting the peasants to make room for sheep. At the same time the suppression of the monastries and the break-up of the bands of feudal retainers, drove thousands of other people to seek employment under the growing new conditions.

In these various ways the principle raw material of capitalism—the free labourer, who must work for wages or starve—was produced.

The whole system of government, however, was built upon the feudal organisation and the Court was in control. As the capitalist organisation was breaking up the feudal, it became necessary for the moneyed class to obtain supreme control of social affairs in order to sweep away the privileges and restrictions that were hampering its development. Society had to be reorganised, politically and religiously, to conform with the new economic organisation.

The religious change took the form of the Protestant Reformation, Catholicism, with its many fast days and ceremonials, was inimical to commercialism, hence the fight of the commercial class for political power was suffused with the glamour of a new religion. Freedom of contract in earthly affairs was bolstered up by the plea of freedom of judgment in affairs spiritual.

During feudal times a struggle had been going on between the Court party and the great nobles. In 1215 the nobles forced from John the concession of the "Great Charter," the gist of which was that the sovereign could not levy taxes himself, payments having to be granted by a council of barons and bishops. In 1265 the town element (representatives of shires and boroughs) was introduced into this council of Parliament. The succeeding history is that of the struggle for supremacy of Parliament against the royal power.

The merchants, embittered by the harassing and interrupting of commerce by enemy ships and the waste of money on foreign wars, time and again refused to grant the necessary subsidies and Parliament was dissolved. But the emptiness of the regal treasury always compelled the sovereigns to re-assemble Parliament.

By the time the bourgeois had arrived at wealth, then, and desired to become the ruling power, the Crown had secured the powers of government into its own hands, but at the same time, the necessities of the regal exchequer had compelled the feudal party to concede certain privileges and powers to the new class, and in this way the former helped to dig its own grave.

At the outbreak of the Revolution the parties taking part were : The Court Party, the lords and large landed proprietors ; the merchants ; the small farmers or country squires ; the town shop-keepers ; the political adventurers or opportunists ; and underneath all the poor of town and country.

The actual struggle commenced in 1642, when the Commons strove for the right to control the militia, and so take the military power out of the royal hands. In spite of the refusal of Charles to grant this request the militia were rapidly enrolled and lord lieutenants appointed.

The Lords desired to limit kingly power, the Commons to abolish it. In the early part of the war the Lords or Presbyterian party predominated and the policy of compromise was adopted. Underneath the Lords, however, were the Independents, growing daily in strength, menacing the policy and position of the Lords, and eventually compelling them to go over to the Court.

The Independents appealed only to Reason. Institutions, laws, customs everything, was by them brought before the bar of Reason and called upon to order itself according to the will of man, i.e., mercantile man. Equality of Rights, the "just" distribution of social property, was their cry. Let us hear Guizot speak of them.

"There was no contradiction between their religious and political systems ; no secret struggle between the leaders and their men ; no exclusive creed, no rigorous test rendered access to the party difficult; like the sect from which they had taken their name, they held liberty of conscience a fundamental maxim, and the immensity of the Reforms they proposed, the vast uncertainty of their designs, allowed men of the most various objects to range beneath their banners ; lawyers joined them in hopes of depriving the ecclesiastics, their rivals, of all jurisdiction and power; liberal publicists contemplated by their aid the formation of anew, clear, simple plan of legislation, which should take from lawyers their enormous profits and their immoderate power. Hanington could dream among them of a society of sages; Sidney of the liberty of Sparta or Rome; Lilburne of the restoration of the old Saxon laws; Hanison of the coming of Christ; even the non-principle of Henry Martyn and Peter Wentworth were tolerated in consideration of its daring ; republicans or levellers, reasoners or visionaries, fanatics or men of ambition, all were admitted to make a common stock of their anger, their theories, their ecstatic dreams, their intrigues ; it was enough that all were animated with equal hatred against the cavaliers and against the presbyterians, would rush on with the same fervour towards that unknown futurity which was to satisfy so many expectations."

"History of the English Revolution," Guizot, p. 216.

The principal figure in this party was Oliver Cromwell, a country squire of Hundingdonshire. Cromwell was a descendant of the unprincipled adventurer chosen by Henry VIII. as his chief instrument in the confiscation of the monastic lands, in which, process Cromwell the elder succeeded, by embezzlement, in amassing an enormous amount of wealth. Cromwell's parents had further augmented the monastic spoils by the profits derived from a lucrative brewery business. Such were the origin and connections of the man who was to lead the wealthier merchants to victory.

He organised a band of religious zealots drawn from the ranks of farmers and tradesmen, who contributed much to the earlier successes of the Parliamentary forces and also considerably exalted the power of their commander.

As the war progressed the Independents gradually gained the ascendant, and Charles I. was executed Jan. 30, 1648.

By 1649 the Independents had become strong enough to declare a commonwealth with a single House of Commons and Council of State, Cromwell managing to manoeuvre himself into the position of Lord Protector. The final working out of this was that all the executive power was centred in his hands. Then commenced the much desired epoch of the Merchants.

The commercial wars of Cromwell are described by Gibbins as follows :

"He (Cromwell) demanded trade with the Spanish colonies, and religious freedom for English settlers in such colonies. Of course his demands were refused, as well he knew they would be. Whereupon he seized Jamaica (1655) and intended to seize Cuba; and at any rate succeeded in giving the English a secure footing in the West Indies. He seized Dunkirk also from Spain (then at war with France, with a view of securing England a monopoly of the Channel to the exclusion of our old friends the Dutch. . . . Not content with victory in the West, Cromwell, with the full consent of mercantile England, declared war against the Dutch, who were now more our rivals than our friends. It would have been perfectly possible for the English and Dutch to have remained on good terms ; but the great idea of the statesmen and merchants of the 17th and 18th centuries was to gain a sole market and monopoly of trade, and so the Dutch had to be crushed. . . . Cromwell succeeded in his object. He defeated the Dutch and broke their prestige in the war of 1652-54, and designed to win their trade by the Navigation Acts of 1651. The contest between the English and Dutch for the mastery of the seas was already practically decided by the capture of New Amsterdam (New York), and the subsequent wars of Charles II. reign, completed the discomfiture of Holland."—"Industrial History of England," p. 123.

The defeat of the Dutch gave the English merchants the carrying trade of the Baltic and the Mediterranean. The Navigation Acts of 1651 referred to above set forth that all goods brought to England must be carried in ships of the actual country manufacturing the goods. As the Dutch had been previously the principal carrying nation, this was a direct blow at their supremacy, and also an indication of the growing power of the English mercantile marine.

Cromwell died in 1658, and shortly after the Royalist element began to regain a little power and succeeded in obtaining the recall of Charles II., but with greatly reduced royal power. This sovereign, more wily than his father, played into the hands of the wealthy class and was thereby enabled to enjoy a life of luxury. He pursued a foreign policy similar to that of Cromwell, enlarging the sphere of action of the merchants. He died in 1685, and his successor, James II., too thick headed to recognise the trend of the times, tried to restore the old supremacy of the Court.

In the meantime the French had grown in power and began to threaten the commercial position of England. William of Orange drew the attention of the English on account of the skilful way in which he harassed France. In consequence of this, and of the dissatisfaction aroused by the conduct of James, William was invited to the English throne in 1688. He landed with a force of Dutch, and with the help of the merchants and landowners defeated the Royalist forces.

William was presented with the "Declaration of Rights," after signing which his coronation was celebrated.

In the "Declaration of Rights" was incorporated the principles of the now all powerful capitalist class. The two chief points were—

"The raising and maintenance of a standing army to be the prerogative solely of Parliament.
Levying of taxes or loans without consent of Parliament to be illegal."

The early part of the Revolution had witnessed the desire of the revolutionary Bourgeois to abolish kingly power, but they soon found that such a measure was not entirely in their own interests. The mass of the people, seeing old habits and customs so ruthlessly jettisoned, began to question even the right of private property! During the expedition for the conquest of Ireland undertaken by Cromwell in 1629, a body known as the Levellers broke out into open insurrection, demanding "true and perfect freedom in all things." This outbreak was crushed, but it frightened some of the "eternal laws of reason" out of the capitalists, hence their acquiescence in the restoration of the shadow of kingship.

The successful culmination of the rebellion put the rising capitalists in a position to reap to the full the advantages of the new system of colonisation and unlimited competition. It brought to the English working class a depth of misery and slavery hitherto unknown.

Gilmac.

By The Way. (1919)

The By The Way column from the May 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

That the war has indeed been a good thing to the capitalist is overwhelmingly shown by even a most cursory perusal of the daily Press. A glance at any company meeting notice, or a study of the Excess Profits Tax, will tell the same tale—swollen profits. Another instance recently afforded I append here. The Secretary of the Grocers' Federation, addressing a special meeting of the Grocery and Provision Trade Section of the Balham, Tooting and District Traders Assn. Said :

  The Food Controller had been the grocers' real friend for the last four or five years, in enabling them to dispose of all their surplus stock, much of which the public would not look at prior to the war, but which during the last year or two they gladly bought.
That was one of the good things that the war had accomplished. It had been a veritable spring cleaning for them, and in other ways, such as the extra halfpenny profit on cheese, lard, and margarine, the Food Controller had done the grocers good service, as it meant that nearly nine millions sterling had been given to the trade during the year.—"Daily News," Feb. 24, 1919.

The good work done by the Food Controller (from Lord Devonport to the latest Labour occupant of the office) for the benefit of the capitalist is here testified to by one who is an interested party. Truly they who pay the piper cali the tune.

--0--

In spite of the nonsense frequently indulged in by "labour leaders" and others during the past few years, that there is no such thing as a CLASS war, strange to say, signs are not wanting to show that this ever-pressing fact becomes clearer to those who have eyes to see. Recently Lord Claud Hamilton presided at the annual meeting of the G.E.Ry. Judging by the remarks he then made and the applause with which they were received, it is abundantly clear that he and those who listened to him are in no way mistaken about the matter. Enter Lord Claud—

  What had happened during the last nine months? One concession following upon another on the part of the Government: concessions not to reasoned argument, not in reply to private grievances, not in the interests of justice and fair play, but to brute force. (Hear, hear.) Brute force in any shape was contrary to the instincts of the British nation. (Applause.)
We have disposed of it on the Continent. We are surely not going to allow it—fostered by those who have not risked their lives nor suffered the unspeakable miseries of trench life—to raise its obnoxious head at home (Hear, hear.)
The time is arriving when the Government must take off the velvet gloves which they have worn too long. (Hear, hear)"—"Evening Standard." Feb., 1919.

So there you are, fellow wage-slave, it's up to you. He (Lord Claud) realises the bitter fight between the haves and the have-nots. Think it over. Then join the ranks of the workers who are organised for the war against capitalist oppression.

--0--

A few days before the House of Commons adjourned for the Easter recess a motion was introduced by the Labour Party having for its object the provision of

  Pensions adequate for a healthy and useful life to be paid to all widows with children or mothers whose breadwinner has become incapacitated, such pension to be provided by the State.

Some discussion ensued, and then Mr. Shortt pointed out what this involved, namely: It means that any widow with children, however rich she may be, or any wife of a husband who cannot work, even though she is extremely well off, would have the pension.

Now this may pass for serious criticism in the House, but to me the point has no substance whatever. In the first place the pension proposed to be paid to widows with children "adequate for a healthy and useful life" would and should preclude those "rich" widows whom Mr. Shortt had in mind. If they are "rich" then they have the wherewithal to obtain those social amenities which go to make up a healthy life. And regarding the other part of the qualification, i.e., "useful," then up to the present I am unaware of any evidence existing that the rich are useful.

--0--

Concerning the remainder, referred to as "any wife of a husband who cannot work, even though she is extremely well off," then in this case also the resolution is sufficiently clear, for no pension is necessary to that section of the community Mr. Shortt describes as "extremely well off," to ensure them the means of obtaining the essentials of life.

--0--

The financial aspect of the case was also mentioned, and it is distinctly good, coming from a member of a government that has been spending very close upon eight million pounds a day in the butchery of the world's working class. It was as follows : "One has to take into consideration the amount of money which the State possesses." Now all this chatter in the House is mere camouflage. The Government had no intention of favourably considering the resolution, notwithstanding all the flowery talk of making England "a land fit for heroes," and other meaningless phrases. In conclusion, let me quote from a paper which is an avowed supporter of the Government, and from which source the previous extracts are taken—

  . . . the House has done what it has often done before when dealing with a subject which requires big thinking and real courage. It has talked it out. Fearful to vote for such a big reform, and yet not willing to be charged with voting against it, the issue has been dodged."—"Reynolds's," April 13th, 1919.

--0--

A little more than a month ago an important event took place—that is, for the leisured class. While the "sporting" members of the working class were studying the noon papers and endeavouring to find some winners, those who toil not neither do they spin were assembling to witness the Victory Grand National. I read that the attendance was a record one, and the Commander-in-Chief of the British Navy, together with the Earl of Derby, Lord Sefton, Lord Lonsdale, and a host of other titled people, were there to celebrate the event. But a short time ago we were being told by the Leverhulmes that in the new world after the war all would have to take part in the process of wealth production, and thereby make good the deficiency caused by the war. Pardon my inquisitiveness, but when are these people going to commence? 

--0--

"The 'New York Times' correspondent in Washington states that Major-General Graves, who is in command of the United States forces in Siberia, has sent a report to the War Department, in which he states that the reason for not assisting the Japanese at Habarovik was that the Japanese shot woman and children and also that he did not recognise the Russians in this fight as the real enemy.

"When General March was questioned on the subject he said the Chief of Staff had nothing to say at present."—Central News. — "Daily News," April 17th, 1919.

--0--

When Lloyd George addressed the National Industrial Conference at the Central Hall, Westminster on the 27th of February last on the subject of Labour Unrest, he stated that one of the factors contributing to unrest was the high cost of living. He then went on to say—

  We will get back gradually. I do not say that you will get back soon or for some years to the condition of living that you had before the war; but within the next few week there will be a reduction in the cost of some of the essential necessities of life. By the summer I hope that the cost of living in a working man's household will have gone down by about 4s. a week in the cost of certain necessities. By the end of March you will have achieved about half of that"—"Daily News," February 28th, 1919.

We have now reached the period when, according to Lloyd George, we should be about two shillings a week to the good. From enquiries which I have made it would appear that this is another to be added to the long list of unredeemed pledges.

--0--

Five months after the signing of the armistice find the newspaper folk waxing eloquent on "Shall the Ex-Kaiser Hang ?" To-day he is reprieved ; to-morrow he is to be tried. Personally I do not think he will suffer the death penalty. It would be establishing a horrible precedent. And one never knows what might follow. The conflicting statements made concerning this august person will be illustrated by the following items of news :—

  "Paris. Wednesday.—It is understood that the "Big Four" have decided to eliminate the idea of the capital punishment of the Kaiser, but they will provide some means of bringing him under the control of the Allies.
In addition there will be a strong indictment pointing out the responsibility of his leaders."—"Globe," 10.4.1919. 

  "Paris. Tuesday.—The Paris edition of the "Chicago Tribune," under a page-wide heading "Kaiser to be Tried for War Crimes," declares it is in a position to state that the Kaiser and other Germans will be tried before a tribunal formed by the League of Nations for violating treaties and for crimes committed during the war.
It states that the report of the Responsibilities Commission specifically indicts the Kaiser, the Crown Prince, Hindenburg, Ludendorff, Tirpitz, and others, and that it is believed the death penalty will be inflicted upon the German leaders responsible for cruelties and crimes committed during the war."—"Daily News," 16.4.1919.

The Scout.

Finance Again. (1919)

Party News from the May 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

Any reader who has followed the fortunes of the Socialist Party in this country through the 16 or so years of its existence will not need to be told that it is not our custom to make appeals for funds through the columns of the Socialist Standard. At our propaganda meetings in the highways and byeways, at street corners and in open spaces, we have, of course, commonly afforded those in sympathy with our aims, but who, for various reasons, find it expedient to remain outside our Party, opportunity to do their bit for the cause through the medium of our ordinary collection ; but, rightly or wrongly, it was only under direst stress that we determined to depart from our custom and ask those to whom the "S.S." mattered and the activities of the Socialist Party were of consequence, to signify the same by coming to our assistance in a time of crisis.

We do not desire to express any opinion as to whether or not the response has been satisfactory. We trust we are not so void of imagination as to see nothing beyond the "face value" of the little contributions that have reached us. Every coin, we believe, that has gone to make up the £300 we have acknowledged, represents an earnest and fervid longing for the triumph of Socialism, and most of them, the smallest not less than the largest, a real sacrifice for Socialist principles.

So far so good. But what we desire to point out now is that the need for cash ia still as urgent as ever. Those to whom it means anything will be glad to see that the present issue of this journal consists of 16 pages instead of 8. This event is not altogether unconnected with our £1,000 Fund; neither is its continuance altogether independent of that fund. For, notwithstanding that larger supplies of paper are now available, the time is not yet when we can supply a 16 pp. "S.S." for a penny without incurring financial loss. In other ways also the cause calls aloud for money. Those who are able and willing to work for Socialism find their efforts stultified by lack of means. At a time when almost every worker, sick at heart of the awful plight to which capitalism has reduced the world, is asking "What is Socialism ?" and when so many, interested in obscuring the truth, are giving lying, misleading, and travestying answers to that question, we who alone in this country are qualified to explain what Socialism is, are unable to spread the enlightenment abroad as we desire because we are poor and propaganda, in any phase, costs money.

We wish, therefore, to correct the idea that the need for giving money to the Socialist movement is a mere temporary matter, or that when a "Longer for Socialism" has given one contribution he or she has done all that is needed or has paid his or her share of the PRICE of Socialism. The need for money contributions is as permanent as capitalism— just exactly. Money is the very foundation of efficient personal effort. A soldier may pull a trigger for nothing, but the cost of the cartridges must come out of somebody's pocket. In like manner, a soldier in the Socialist army may be doing good work for the cause every day of his life, but in order to make his labour truly efficient his tongue must be well backed up with suitable literature, and with a sound and virile organisation, and with a progressive battle on the political field. The personal effort, in this sense, must necessarily wait on the Party's income. Therefore we can never have enough money until the struggle ends, and an increment to our funds, inasmuch as it enables our members to do more and better work, is just as surely an increase in our strength as is an increment in our numbers.

We would urge, therefore, that what is most vitally needed is that those who think with us (and this applies with increased force to those who for the present can find little other opportunity to join in the battle) should make up their minds to give a contribution at regular periods. If we can establish our fund upon some such basis as that we shall soon be able to do great things for Socialism.

And now will friends kindly note that we far prefer to devote our space to other subjects than this, and that the absence of lengthy appeals by no means indicates that the need for finance is over.

We acknowledge tribute as under.

Economics at Central Labour College. (1919)

From the May 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the Central Labour College was established in 1909, the working-class movement, according to its founders, was about to be placed on a sound educational basis. Young men from the trade unions were to be thoroughly equipped with the necessary knowledge to leaven the whole labour movement with revolutionary principles. Classes were to be formed all over the country, and the "Plebs' Magazine" was to be published monthly, in order that the workers might be instructed in Politics, History, Sociology and Economics.

The founders of the college advertised their wares so effectually among the trade unions that they have reduced the debt they started out with almost to zero, and are now completely subsidised by the South Wales Miners' Federation and the National Union of Railwaymen—the college being owned and controlled by these two unions. This fact accounts for the almost purely trade-union propaganda of the magazine: those who pay the piper call the tune, and the C.L.C. tune is trade unionism, industrial unionism, labourism, or any other ism where its pupils can find jobs after they have gained their "degree" at this "Clark's College" of the labour world.

In its curriculum the college advertises economics according to Marx. But in the columns of the "Plebs" the readers are treated to the same economics they get from Municipal Reform candidates at County Counoil elections. In the current number, for instance, Mr. George Barker (Miners' Agent, Abertillery), says: "There are about fifty millions of debt hanging round the necks of the workers of Europe. The worker cannot pay huge dividends to the capitalist class and pay the interest on this colossal debt."

Of course not ! as wage slaves they can only pay away what they receive as wages, and wages —even according to the "Plebs"—being barely sufficient to supply the worker with necessaries, must be spent on necessaries. If they were able to do more there would be something wrong with the capitalist system, which, generally speaking, operates in favour of the ruling class by compelling the workers to accept wages that only provide them with the wherewithal to live and propagate their kind.

In the same number Mr. W. W. Craik, dealing with the Coal Commission, asks a simple question in economics : "What is capital ?" But although economics is an important subject at the college, and a correct definition of "capital" is very essential to that subject, the writer seems quite unable to give one. "What is capital ?" he asks. "Wealth used to produce more wealth," he replies, quite ignoring the fact that, thousands of years before Capitalism evolved, men used weapons and tools to "produce more wealth," and no one—either then or now—with the exception, perhaps, of avowed anti-socialists, would think of describing such things as capital.

Of course, the anti-socialist uses this more general definition to cover up or mask the true one. Capital is wealth used for exploitation. But Mr. Craik is not obliged to accept the anti-socialist definftion, and, to do him justice, he does not seem satisfied with it; and as there appears to be no limit to the number of guesses allowed, he tries again. "Capital is the ownership of labour, the ownership of the labour of yesterday and of to-day," and further on still he refers to capital as "i.e., ownership."

Now, it must be obvious that capital is something that is owned, and not the act of ownership, and Mr. Craik is only adding to the confusion that already prevails when he tells the "Plebs" readers that capital is the ownership of pit props, winding gear, machinery, etc. Adam Smith's definition that capital is "wealth used for the production of profit" is a far more scientific one, and always good enough for the Socialist, because it can easily be shown that there are no profits without exploitation.

When the Central Labour College was established its object was stated as follows: "The Central Labour College is founded to train men and women for the industrial, political and social work of the organised Labour Movement, under the supreme control of the Labour organisations in the United Kingdom, and to assist in the establishment of similar institutions elsewhere."

The founders declared for independence in the three fields—educational, industrial and political. The so called independence of the Labour Party is, therefore, the measure of Labour College independence—no more and no less. The mistaken notions of the South Wales miners, and the Liberal politics of the Labour Party, form the basis of the college instruction, which is carried back to the trade union and I.L.P. branches as independent and scientific knowledge of the working-class position. Thus neither the college nor the unions can get beyond the compromising and reform attitude of the Labour Party.

Notwithstandingall their frothy denunciations of Capitalism, and their continued affirmation that they are travelling the right road toward the emancipation of the working class, they are merely supporting and countenancing a movement that opposes the ruling class within the basis of its own system, and with no definite or settled principles for carrying through the revolution for which they admit the necessity.

They ruled themselves out of the revolutionary movement right from the first, when they said: "Just as the needs of the individual correspond to his environment, growing in complexity with his development, so the needs of the working class change and become more complex with industrial evolution. Industrial, Political and Educational organisation are each in their turn called into existence by the development of productive forces."

Thus, instead of learning from Marx that the workers can achieve their emancipation as soon aa they acquire the knowledge of their class position, and see clearly that the source of capitalist power is the political machinery, the C.L.C. waits on industrial evolution—to instruct them in a new philosophy for each epoch—and marks time with the political and industrial labour leaders until the rank and file shall have marched past to achieve their own emancipation.

F. Foan

Too Long. (1919)

From the May 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

Too long they have been harnessed to the mill
That of ten thousand lives grinds life for one ;
Too long denied an hour of blessed sun,
From dark ere dawning sweating blood until
Again the dark of night. So did they fill
Your coffers to the brim with gold fine spun
Of brain and tissue ; and their labour done,
Found grudged rest beneath a lone grass hill. 

And dare they hope, ye ask, the break of day,
Whom we accorded leisure of the night ?
Presume to harvest any they have sown ?
Aye, do they dare ! And who shall them gainsay,
Or ban a little hour of waning light ?
Aye, they do dare to hope and have their own !

Edmund B. Fitzgerald.

All friends and sympathisers . . . (1919)

From the May 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

All friends and sympathisers are asked to do their utmost to extend the sale of the Socialist Standard in the immediate future. In particular every effort should be made to justify the present enlargement by selling out this issue. Much depends upon this being achieved. Nuff said.

#    #    #    #

CHANGE  OF ADDRESS.
Please note that the Head Office address is now:

17, MOUNT PLEASANT,
LONDON, W.C.I.,

where   all   communications   should   be sent.

A Few Words To Those About To Celebrate "Peace." (1919)

From the May 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

Six months now have the dogs of war been leashed, yet still their snarling is the most audible sound throughout the world to-day. Orlando has gone back to Italy, and the jingo Press of Allied Europe foams ink at the mouth at Wilson, the Peace with honour—the clean Peace—indeed all those Peaces of which we have heard are still in the balance. For as the war was confined to this unhappy planet alone the dogs of War have only one bone between them.

Yet what is this Peace of which you talk so much? How will it effect the Working Class? ("How absurd the writer is," you are saying, “everyone; knows that Peace is the cessation of War.") Will Peace then resuscitate the dead? Will it restore sight to the blind, limbs to the limbless? Will it strike off the shackles of slavery that bind the proletariat? Will it demolish the sunless slums of Bethnal Green or make it possible for women to obtain bread without selling their bodies? Will it prevent future War? If it will not do these things it is no Peace for me.

Peace to me means the end of wage-slavery. The abolition of private ownership of the means of production and the passing of them into the hands of those who produce. It means the creation of a new and beautiful world by the overthrow of the system of society which makes wars and widows and blind men.

But, perhaps, I am exacting, think you. Maybe I am not satisfied to remain a slave on the promise of a Peace which affects my slave position not at all. You are. Ah, well, perhaps I am only a Socialist after all, and you are—well, what are you, friend ? I have heard you call yourself a Free Citizen. What are you free to do? Can you exist without selling your labour to a master? Have you access to those very tools even with which you manufacture the wealth of the world? What proportion of that wealth do you receive back in exchange for your labour power? Is it enough to satisfy you; does it suffice to clothe, feed, and educate your children, as you would wish them to be clothed, fed, and educated? Or are you not forced to send them out on the labour market at the very earliest moment? And suppose you cannot find a master to employ you, does not your boasted freedom resolve itself into the freedom to starve?

What, then, if Italy does have Fiume? Will you or the Italian worker be any better off? If the German colonies be divided between the Allies, will the German workers be the losers and the Allied workers be the gainers proportionately ? Not a bit of it! The capture of foreign markets as the result of War means nothing more to you and me than the continued exploitation of the working' class. You wear two gold bars and four service chevrons, you have fought, and captured cities, in all theatres of war, but if you cannot find a master to employ you, you must starve. But was not that your position before the war? If, therefore, the division of territory, the readjustment of national boundaries, the “reparations, indemnities, and effectual guarantees" do not alter one iota the slave position of the international proletariat of which you are a member, why in the name of Reason do you worry yourself about them?

In conclusion, if you are interested in Wars, why not take an interest in your own War—the Class War—and join up in the ranks of the Socialist Party, organise with your fellows consciously and politically to overthrow Capitalism with its bloody wars and hollow peaces, and to erect in its place the Socialist Commonwealth.

Stanley H. Steele

The Bottom Dog. (1919)

From the May 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

He loved his master dearly in the days of long ago ;
   His dirty kennel and his scanty food
To him were blessings, and he sought no other things to know,
   And all the world looked on and called it good.
But now, because this canine dares to bark for something more,
   The masters curse him for a greedy hog,
And wish that they could kick him as they did in days of yore,
   To teach him he is but the Bottom Dog. 

In days of old when foreign thieves his master’s house would spoil,
   He thought it but his duty and his "bis,"
To guard his master's property—the fruits of others' toil,
   With life and limb as though these things were his.
To-day he views his master with distrust and e'en with scorn,
   Much as the Bull looked on the bloated frog.
His faithfulness has vanished through the terrors he has borne,
   And now they call him "Bolshie Bottom Dog." 

Ungrateful whelp! hast thou forgot thy master's loving care ?
   Regardless of your puny puppy’s whine,
To shield you from the wintry blast, and summer heat and glare,
   Consigned you to the comforts of the mine.
Hast thou not learned in all these years the dignity of work?
   The pride of being just a human cog
In those vast wheels of industry that grind for those who shirk ?
   Oh! bad, unpatriotic Bottom Dog! 

Now just because some dogs have lost an eye, a paw, or leg,
   They snarl and growl at Barnes and Clynes and Hodge—
The master's friends—who tell them if they’ll just sit up and beg
   There’ll be more offal for the Bottom Dog.
But these are signs the mongrel, who is not devoid of pluck,
   With instinct clearing of its mental fog,
Will seize the thieves who rob him and I wish the bounder luck
   To end the days of Top and Bottom Dog.

F. G. Thompson

Class-Consciousness - Its meaning and value. (1919)

From the May 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the terms most frequently in use in Socialist propaganda, and one which may prove most mystifying to the uninitiated, is the term "class-consciousness."

What do we mean when we speak of "class consciousness"? We mean simply a thorough knowledge of the position in society of the class to which the class-conscious subject belongs.

Socialists claim that class-consciousness is a mental condition which must necessarily precede working-class emancipation. The reason is because, owing to the peculiarly complex nature of the modern social system, the interest of the classes is obscured, and only a clear understanding of the working-class place in the social system can enable the workers to see in what direction their interests lie, and therefore what they have to fight for.

The chattel-slave, who was the property of his owner, was never in any doubt as to his place in society. His relation to his master, and his class to his master's class, were too simple to allow of obscurity. He knew that he was mere property, and hence he was in no danger of identifying his master's interest with his own. That is is true is proved by the fact that those ruling races of antiquity whose States were based on chattel-slavery could never get their slaves to fight for them—or trust them to do so—except under pledge of granting them their freedom.

With the modern wage slave the case is entirely different. He has the freedom of selling his labour power, not where he will, but where he can. He may enter into "free" contracts. These things make him think there is no essential difference between his class and his master's save such has has arisen from difference of ability. He sees, occasionally, one of his own class rise into the ranks above, so he knows there is no impassable barrier. He finds he cannot live without wages, therefore the class who own the money which provides wages have their useful place in society. He finds he cannot get wages without work, hence it is no less to his interest, he reasons, than to his master's, to follow the policy which will provide most work. So the complexity of the relations of modern society hide from the worker the fact that he is just as much a slave as the old chattel slave, working to produce wealth for his master, and getting for himself just enough to enable him to do it.

Class-consciousness, the knowledge of his slave status, makes clear the opposition of class interests, and fits the worker for the class struggle.

A. E. Jacomb.

"Liberty and Peace" in Canada. (1919)

From the May 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recently the writer received several copies of "The Red Flag," a journal published, as it announces, "when circumstances and finances permit, by the Socialist Party of Canada." Their previous organ, the "Western Clarion," was suppressed by the authorities some months ago.

The first number of "The Red Flag" (Jan, 11th, 1919) contains in its editorial evidence of the freedom-loving nature of the Canadian government. It says: "The official organ of this party has been suppressed, and representations to Ottawa (chief press censor) are so far without results. Leaflets mailed have been confiscated and complaints ignored. Almost every letter which arrives at this office bears unmistakable signs of having been opened, though no censorship mark to that effect is on them. All such letters are unduly delayed, being some four, five and six weeks in the mails before delivery. Most of such letters contain remittances for dues or for literature, etc."

"Moreover, letters and parcels which we have despatched have failed to reach their destination. The mail of individual members of the party also suffers from the same despicable secret censorship. Our protests and complaints to heads of departments result only in officially equivocal and evasive replies. The greeting the writer received from the postmaster in Vancouver on making a personal representation to him was, 'You are a Bolshevik,' and that was all he would vouchsafe of definite character in his replies to questions."

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By an "Order in Council" the Canadian Government has made it an offence punishable with 5,000dols. fine, or five years' imprisonment, to be in possession of any of the Socialist (or, other) literature published by C. H. Kerr and Co. of Chicago.

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I take the following from a letter of a Winnipeg comrade, dated Jan. 31st: "Two Sundays ago our Local pulled off a meeting, took in 80dols. collection and sold 35dols. of literature . . . We decided to hold another meeting last Sunday, but owing to threats by returned soldiers could not rent a theatre and had to try the market square. We were to start at 2.30, but at 2 o'clock a parade of veterans started out to see that no meeting was held. We refused to allow our speakers to try to talk as we smelt trouble, so they cleared out our headquarters, threw our furniture out of the windows, etc., and stole all our literature - which, I hope, they read."

Then, under the pretext and cry of "Down with Bolshevism," the mob of deluded fools raided and looted all the German and Austrian clubs and "murdered about half-a-dozen foreigners by the simple expedient of beating them to death."

The following incidents are related in the report of the "Winnipeg Telegram" (Jan. 28th, 1919): "One German was captured in Main Street, broke away, and ran into a store. Both the storekeeper and the fugitive were dragged out and given a warm five minutes. The German refused to kiss the flag, and broke away again. He was outdistancing a soldier - who yelled to an officer who was out for a stroll, 'Stop him'; the officer immediately swatted the fugitive with his cane, felling him to the sidewalk. 'I guess that'll hold him Scottie,' coolly remarked the officer, who then proceeded on his stroll quite as though he had accomplished the most matter-of-fact thing in life. Ten minutes later the fugitive picked himself up from the devilstrip of Main Street, and like the Arab, silently stole away, leaving behind a large pool of blood." Several similar incidents are recorded.

R.W. Housley