The Decline of May Day (1951)

From the May 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism pollutes almost every institution with which it comes into contact. Whether such institutions are absorbed from a previous social system or whether they grow from the foundations of the capitalist system itself, they are either moulded to suit the interests of the capitalist class or are deflected from their original purpose to meet the needs of capital May Day is no exception.

From time immemorial men have adopted the practice of setting aside a day in each year to celebrate or commemorate some event. In earliest recorded times such days usually had a religious significance. Prior to the rise of the modern religions when men imagined that supernatural agencies were at work in everything around them, they set aside annual days for the worship of their various gods. With the spread of Christianity and other religions that accepted the central theme of “the one god," the annual days of pagan worship disappeared, but their place was taken by a considerable number of saints' days. On the days dedicated to the greater of the saints men rested from their work. G. M. Trevelyan in his "English Social History" tells us that:

  “But men rested on Sundays and an indefinite number of greater saints' days. Custom enforced this rule, and the church courts did useful service in exacting penance or fine for work on Sundays and Holy Days."—(Longmans Edition, p. 88).

The urge to produce wealth for an ever expanding market gave rise to the determination to keep men, and women, at work for as many days and hours as possible. Nothing could be allowed to interfere with a workers right to work and to create profit for his employer. If religious custom stood in the way, then religious custom must be overthrown. The saints days, as holidays, disappeared until today the only religious days of significance that remain as customary holidays, in an emaciated form, are Good Friday and Christmas Day.

Capitalism in its turn adopted the practice of days of celebration, although not in the form of days of rest. In different countries the day selected for flag-wagging and fireworks, patriotic speech making and military parades, is a day to commemorate the emancipation of the national capitalist class, either from the yoke of Feudalism or from the domination of a foreign capitalist power.

In America, the Fourth of July is the anniversary of American independence from British domination-independence Day. In France, the Fourteenth of July is a day to celebrate the acquisition of political power by the French capitalist class in 1789. It was the day of the fall of the Bastille. In Russia, the Seventh of November, the day of the fall of the Provisional Government and the seizure of power by the Bolshevik party, is a day of national celebration. In Britain, a day is earmarked on the 24th of May, the anniversary of the birth of Queen Victoria, to enable children to parade and rejoice over the “Glorious British Empire." These celebrations, like the empire, are dwindling. So on at length. New Zealand and Canada have Dominion Days on September 26th and July 1st respectively, whilst Northern Ireland has its Orangeman's Day.

In July 1889 the First Congress of the Second International met in Paris. This was a second attempt to form an international organisation of working class political parties, many calling themselves Socialist parties, in an endeavour to achieve international working class solidarity. The issue of an eight hour working day was foremost. In many countries, with varying degrees of success, the struggle for a reduction of the working day to eight hours had been carried on for the past decade. The Congress set about the task to make the eight hour day international and legal.

To this end the representatives of workers of 22 countries carried a resolution:

   “.. . There shall be organised a great International Demonstration on a fixed date, so that in all countries and towns simultaneously on the given day the workers shall demand of the authorities the legal reduction of the working day to eight hours.”-(Quoted in “Labour's Turning Point,” edited by E. J. Hobsbawm.)

The day selected was May 1st and the first May Day Demonstrations were held in 1890.

This was not a day of celebration or commemoration but a day of demonstration; not a day of rejoicing or puerile sentiment but a day of demand with determination. It was to be a day on which the workers in all lands should cease work in order that they might congregate in some local, central place to evince their solidarity with one another. It was the beginning of a new kind of annual day—the workers’ day— a day of prominence in the class struggle.

The leaders of the reformist, self-styled “Socialist parties," had little conception of the class struggle. At the outset they altered the date of the demonstrations to avoid any question of strike action. Instead of the 1st of May they chose the first Sunday in May. The Congress carried a further resolution urging:

   “. . . to hold a single demonstration for the workers in every country and that this demonstration should take place on the First of May, and recommends strike action everywhere where such action is not impossible.”—(Quoted by Emile Burns in “Labour Monthly,” April 1932) 

The Amsterdam Congress of the Second International in 1904, also found it necessary to resolve on the matter.

   “Whereas the unity of the demonstration only exists in some countries, and in others not the First of May, but the first Sunday in the month is celebrated, the Amsterdam Congress reaffirms the resolution (of proceeding Congresses) and asks all socialist parties and trade unions of all countries to organise energetically for working-class demonstrations on the first of May . . . but this demonstration can be most effective only through the suspension of work on the 1st of May.”— (Quoted by Emile Burns in “Labour Monthly.” April 1932.)

The idea of a day of working class idleness was abhorent to the employers. Their toadies and cronies in the reformist political parties set to work to render May Day harmless. The Second International was not an alliance of Socialist parties but of parties akin to the British Labour Party; parties which neither accepted nor recognised the class struggle; parties which were nationalist in outlook and reformist m character. The International was powerless to enforce its will on its component parties. Gradually the class character of the May Day demonstrations evaporated. Not only were the demonstrations organised for the first Sunday in May instead of May the First, but where any demonstration was held on May the First it was invariably in the evening, so as to avoid dislocation to trade and stoppage of work. In 1927 the London Labour Party, soon followed by the Labour Party and trade union officials throughout the country, set out to boycott the “single demonstration of the workers in every country" by organising a series of local demonstrations in preference to the main demonstration that had always been held in Hyde Park, London and in similar open spaces in other cities and towns.

May Day today has little of its original character left. It is not taken seriously by many workers. Whereas it was once an opportunity for an outing with a definite purpose in view, it is now merely an opportunity for an outing, which few are prepared to take.

The national political parties that formed the Second International lined up with their respective capitalist gangs in the 1914-1918 war and urged their members at each others throats in a war they said would end war. No May Day demonstrations were held in this country during that war. The discontent amongst the workers following that war caused a brief revival of the May Day demonstration spirit. On May 2nd, 1920, the Daily Herald estimated that "not less than 8,000,000 workers took a full day's holiday” and the London demonstration was estimated at nearly one million. Similar demonstrations were held throughout the capitalist world and demonstrations were held in Japan, China, India and other eastern and colonial countries where they had not been previously organised. 1926, the year of the General Strike in this country, was another year of large May Day demonstrations, but, apart from these occasional bursts of enthusiasm, May Day as a day of demonstration of working class solidarity has steadily declined. The labour and trade union leaders have assisted this decline and helped to ensure that May Day shall not embarrass the capitalist class by providing an opportunity for international working class activity. Because, if the workers can act in world wide co-operation on one day in the year, there is no reason to suppose that they will not do so on the other 364 days.

As class consciousness grows amongst the workers in all lands, co-operative action will be planned. It will not stop at the organisation of marches and demonstrations to the parks and squares of the great cities. It wifi be co-operation to speed the abolition of capitalism.

Until then we will use May Day to re-emphasise our very real and genuine expression of solidarity with our fellow workers all over the world and to reiterate our pledge to oppose all capitalist wars and to work for the emancipation of our class without distinction of race or sex.

W. Waters

"Dear Sir —" (1951)

From the May 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are all familiar with the "write-to-the-news-paper-about-it” fiends. Any particular bee that is buzzing around their bonnets at the time is given a whirl, either in the daily paper or the local rag, more often than not bringing forth a counter blast of opposing opinions couched in varying degrees of heat from others of the same species. The most common type dashes off in high dudgeon a sulphurous epistle registering deep disapproval of the government's foreign policy or blisters the paper with an attack on the local street fighting or the unreliability of the 9 a.m. train. There is also the "is-this-a-record” type, lying in wait, ears pinned back and pen poised for the first notes of the cuckoo, or to record the remarkable age at which Grandmother finally handed in her dinner pail. For 24 weeks up to and including the 5th April the B.B.C. opened up a new and exciting "happy hunting ground” for these scribes in their programme “Dear Sir," broadcast every Thursday at 8 p.m. for 30 minutes. It comprised a very mixed bag of letters written to the B.B.C. by the public on an infinite variety of subjects, edited and introduced, by Leslie Baily. The letters came over the air with what was apparently considered suitable voices and inflections. Some letters from children were piped up as such. The women's voices were vibrant and trembling with emotion or indignation. The men, bullying or frightfully refined according to the subject matter of the letter. (Obviously fugitives from a repertory company.) Taken all in all it was an innocuous collection of letters and it is a matter for conjecture as to what precisely was the "open sesame” to the air. The letters were hand picked, as in the short time at their disposal only a very small percentage could be broadcast. Many letters were representative of dozens on the same theme. One correspondent wrote to say "Au revoir” to the series and mentioned plaintively that his 15 previous letters had not received publicity. The subjects ranged through self government for colonies, the recent Tory tactics in the house, water divining, the proposed alteration in Divorce laws, the Census, lack of women geniuses and should the Welsh language be taught in schools? Someone posed the question, "why is it that Welsh people can always sing”? A rather rude reply denied that they sang but said, "they just lament in unison,” which brought forth highly indignant letters in the come-back of the following week. A few letters turned the searchlight of publicity on some present day evils, the frightful conditions for the slaughtering of animals, some facts regarding T.B. and the starvation wage of £3 8s. weekly for waitresses who stated they could not exist without “tips.” A controversy raged for several weeks regarding the Christian attitude to war and rearmament, and it was interesting to note that only a small minority came out on the side of pacifism. The majority wallowed in a spate of words and while re-assuring us that "God is love,” were not against rearmament. Some of the letters called for "laws of war” or counselled restraint and discrimination in waging war. One Christian correspondent wrote to say that according to the New Testament the state has God's permission to make war. (Church and state have always foraged amicably together as purple patches in past history testify.) An ex-service man thought housing shortage caused labour troubles and someone else said that the worker who had a large family should have increased wages instead of family allowances.

Another brain wave suggested enclosing rabbits in wired-off tracts of land like the monks of olden days, and leave nature to remedy that blot on the escutcheon of the Labour government, the meat shortage. Another suggestion was to utilise the interior heat of the earth for mechanical purposes, and a plea was put in that crooners, male and female, should celebrate the festival of Britain by using their own language instead of that ghastly "Americanese.”

The foregoing very sketchy review does not cover the whole range of letters but listening to this programme week by week the writer was struck by the infinite number and variety of subjects with which a large section of the public concern themselves. The thought occurs, is it possible for all these widely differing people to ever think alike on one subject and act in harmony to establish socialism? Add to this the language difficulties and prejudices fostered between workers in different lands and the odds against a genuine world socialist understanding seem almost too formidable to contemplate. Last, but not least, is the absolute dependence of the workers for their picture of world affairs on the press and radio tainted with incessant and almost unconscious propaganda.

The scales are heavily weighted but the workers of the world share the common denominator of a desire to live in peace and security. This happens to be a desire to which the acquisitive nature of capitalism renders it powerless to accede. International rivalries, rearmament, the threat of war, bring in their wake steadily deteriorating conditions for the workers which should hasten their enlightenment. Here then we have the ingredients for a snowball growth of genuine socialist ideas. When the majority of the workers revise that there is no other alternative and vote for socialism, it will be “curtains” for Capitalism and no regrets.

F. M. Robins

Obituary: Death of Harry Martin (1951)

Obituary from the May 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Through the medium of a correspondent we have learnt with regret of the death of Harry Martin, who was a familiar speaker to those in London who attended meetings at Tower Hill and similar spots.

He was one of the small group that took part in the foundation of our party forty-seven years ago and fought out the problems the solution of which helped to clear our vision and reinforce the soundness of our general attitude.

In the early years of the Party he came into conflict with the majority on the question of the attitude to be adopted by a delegate if elected to Parliament. He held the view that such a member should be so unswerving in his hostility that he must vote against every measure, from whatever source, that came before parliament—except of course the measure to introduce Socialism. He held that whatever the nature of such a measure voting for it or even abstaining from voting would constitute pandering to reformism. Thus, according to his view, a Party Delegate would be committed, without examination, to voting against any measures designed to improve educational facilities, safety facilities in mines and factories, the removal of disabilities on trade unionism. and even a proposal, however fatuous it might be. to abandon the prosecution of a war.

As the Party would not accept his view he resigned his membership and never rejoined although, in his propaganda, he supported the Party’s outlook, sold our literature and urged listeners to join with us. Those who knew him well believed that his reason for not rejoining was simply that he preferred to remain a free-lance speaker.

He propagated socialist ideas sedulously, during a long life-time, on the outdoor platform in all weathers and was a familiar figure to those interested in change. Though his knowledge was not wide he had a firm grasp of the essentials, of the socialist position and was indefatigable in pounding away with rough humour and a fierce scorn of all that was put forward to patch up and support the system that exploited the workers. He was the means of helping many workers to an understanding of Socialism and there are many, including some who opposed his ideas, that will be genuinely sorry to hear of his passing.

He died in St. James’ Hospital, Balham, on the 2nd February at the age of 87 and was buried in Garret Lane Cemetery. Up to the last he remained what he had always been—a fierce and resolute opponent of Capitalism and a staunch advocate of Socialism.

Gilmac.

Crime—What Is It? (1951)

From the May 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

An expert cracksman who, it was stated, was called in by Scotland Yard during the war for secret safe-blowing missions behind the enemy lines was sentenced to five years' imprisonment at the High Court here today. He was John Rawsey, 45, and he pleaded guilty to having blown open a safe in a Glasgow sub-post office and having stolen £410 and a number of savings stamps. Mr. Ross Maclean, K.C., defending, urged that Rawsey's war-time exploits merited a special judgment. 

  “Counsel said that Rawsey's life of crime began when he was sent to Borstal at 16. In 1938 he was sent to prison for five years in Aberdeen for opening a safe by explosives.
  “He came out in 1942 and after he had been at home for a short period was asked to go to Scotland Yard. There he was told that a Commando unit had need of someone with his experience in the use of explosives. Rawsey volunteered. He eventually became an instructor. He was sent on several missions behind enemy lines, sometimes being dropped by parachute, to blow open safes containing enemy confidential documents and secret records.
  “His release book had the word ‘exemplary' under the heading 'military conduct.' On his return to civil life Rawsey tried to reform. He became a bookmaker, and it was when he ran into financial difficulties that he turned again to his old profession of blowing safes. He served another five years penal servitude and was discharged only six or seven weeks before being caught by police climbing down from the roof of the post office.
  “Lord Russell said that he had listened with a certain amount of respect to the qualities which Rawsey possessed and had demonstrated during the war. But for his record a heavier sentence would have been imposed."

The above is a news item printed in the Daily Telegraph (21/2/51).

Such are the ways of capitalism, to open “Nazi" safes during the war was an act of “exemplary” conduct. To use this skill to feather one's own nest is a Crime. Still the theologians preach about an absolute right and wrong, even the “sacred'' rights of property may occasionally be flaunted to one's advantage. Now we hear that the “Nazi” war criminals are to be released, apparently their “sins” are now forgiven.

What a maze of contradictions, today a hero tomorrow a criminal, or vice-versa, everything depending on the policy of those who are in control.

P. J. Mellor

The World and the Vegans (1951)

From the May 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the 1st of March in the Daily Mirror, appeared an article on the Vegan Society, a body of people described by the writer, Eric Wainwright, as a “red-hot splinter group” which spun away from the vegetarian movement in 1944. According to the article the main object of the Vegan Society is to live without exploitation, and a number of instances are given where this 600 strong group go without or find substitutes for some of life's necessities, on the ground that to be produced, somebody, human or animal, has had to be exploited. Eggs, milk, silk, wool, coal, rubber and leathers are some of the things deemed wrong to use by Vegans because in their production someone is being exploited. The thing which struck us as rather stranger was the fact that nowhere in the article do they tell us what exploitation is, or how it takes place.

Of course to take the argument literally would be impossible, because to avoid exploitation they could not stop at eggs, coal, rubber, etc., they would have to give up living in houses or wearing any clothes, stop sending or receiving letters, walking on roads or anything else produced by social labour. Even the plastic substitute for leather, although it may stop the slaughter of animals, would not stop the workers from being exploited in the production process. It must then be understood that these well-meaning people cannot stop exploitation just by seeing it as something undesirable in life and seeking to isolate themselves from it. Surely exploitation, in common with all other social problems such as poverty, hunger and war, can only be abolished when their cause is understood. It is of little use to tinker with effects whilst the cause remains untouched and unchanged due to the fact that those who tinker with the effects are ignorant of the cause. When, and only when, a majority of the world's workers understand that ownership by the world capitalist class of the means and instruments of producing and distributing wealth, means perpetual poverty, shortages and wars for those who have to humble themselves for wages, will they be able to replace class ownership with common ownership, produce goods for use instead of profit and see that people receive in accordance with their needs instead of the limited confines of their wages packets.

To turn our eyes away from a problem is no solution, for the problem still remains. A leader of the Vegan Society is quoted as saying they are “a group of persons who have come together in response to. an intuitive stimulus which has not yet crystallised into words." Well, when it does, we hope they will let us know because we socialists have the answer to man’s major social problems. Exploitation takes place whilst workers throughout the world are earning wages for themselves to exist on, and profits for their masters to live on, and unless they see that their interests can only be served by unity on a basis of understanding they cannot put the solution Socialism into practice.

Harry Baldwin