May Day and the Heritage of the Past (1953)

From the May 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the early years of this century there was a ferment of co-operative ideas in the International Labour Movement that two world wars since appear to have killed. 

In those years mass meetings attended by thousands of workers were held on the 1st of May. At a conference of the 2nd International in 1889 this day was set aside for international demonstrations in favour of the eight-hour day; subsequently they became demonstrations in favour of working class international solidarity and from numerous platforms, attended by crowds in holiday dress complete with the banners of different groups, a varied assortment of speakers delivered passionate orations condemning the actions against strikes, the subjection of nations and groups, and glorifying the martyrdom of individuals. Speakers representing all sorts of groups took part, including Indians, Chinese, Russians and Negroes.

Over the years changing national and internal lineups have so altered the aspect of affairs that the passion of May Day and its misguided hopes have departed. All, all are gone. The story of them must come as a tale from a strange world to the young generation of today. Even the passion that inspired the misguided ranter against wrongs has departed with them, converted into the acceptance of privilege. Impassioned radicals became bulwarks of governments based upon privilege; fiery denouncers of imperialist oppression took their places amongst the privilege supporting a new imperialism in the erstwhile subject nations; bitter spokesmen of subject groups came to the top and in their turn exercised as ruthless an oppression as their privileged forebears. Underneath it all, and cutting across all frontiers as of yore, there still remained the fundamental class cleavage between propertied and propertyless, between the relatively small section of the world's population which occupies the seat of privilege, reaping power, leisure and luxury, and the vast mass which remains the pedestal upon which power and privilege rest; labouring that others may enjoy.

The budding international solidarity of the past has been swallowed up by the armed and antagonistic camps of to-day, but our independent May Day message still remains as urgent and as alive as when it was first delivered, the message of Socialism, the only message of hope, of solidarity, of certainty in a world of hatred, strife and uncertainty.

This message has its roots far back in the past. The germs of communistic ideas go back centuries, but the germs of socialistic ideas, as we know them to-day, were synonymous with the growth of capitalism. Their vague beginnings are to be found amongst a group of French writers who were raising a ferment in the 18th century, when Capitalism was rising to its feet. Borrowing from Hobbes, Locke and their contemporaries, these writers put forward ideas some of which fit the present in spite of their somewhat confused context.

The earliest of these French writers appears to have been Jean Meslier, who, in “The Testament of Jean Meslier," at the beginning of the 18th century, used phrases that sound singularly modern. These are some of his ideas: He was opposed to property, believing in the common control of the wealth of society. He argued that among the evils which oppressed mankind and called for reform the worst was private property. Property meant inequality; Inequality led to injustice and oppression. The rich were respected and honoured, while the poor must toil in neglect. Property was a cause of idleness; the idle rich class found its complement in an idle poor class. This latter class was made up of the unemployed, who, because of the existing system, had nothing to do and were hence in poverty. Cupidity and its attendants, ambition and greed, are the evils in a society based upon property. Property does not unite people; but through jealousy tends to break up social harmony, and hence destroys social unity. Fraud, deception, theft and murder find their cause in property. Society might be happy were goods made common and equality secured. The basis of equality is equality of economic condition.

Later on another writer, Morelly, carried some of the ideas further. He had a definite plan for the future in which each would labour according to his ability and share according to need. He argued that it was not labour but the conditions of labour that people objected to. That there would be no exchange as goods would be stored and distributed according to needs. On property he made the following remarks

  “From the sceptre to the shepherd's crook, from the tiara to the meanest monk's frock, if one asks who governs men, the answer is simple; personal interest or the interest of others which vanity makes one adopt and which is always dependent on the first. But where do these monsters get power? From property.” P. 100-101 “Code de la Nature,” 1755.

He denied the existence of innate ideas as also did his contemporary (Helvétius), who said:

  “The ideas supposed to be innate are those that are familiar to and as it were incorporated with us; they are the effect of education, example, and habit.” P.15 “System of Nature.”

Barnave, another of Morelly’s contemporaries, saw a bit farther than the rest. He could see the rise of classes and considered the part which economic changes played in history.

Morelly laid down definite plans for a new social order based on natural rights, the heritage of everyone born into society. There was no room for historical development in the systems of those who thought like him; history and its results had no value. Society did not grow out of the past, the present had to be obliterated root and branch, to make way for the future. This form of thought, together with the revolutionary tradition, dominated radical movements until the publication of the Communist Manifesto in 1848. Morelly’s merit was that he looked for the cause of social evils in society as organised in his day; the environmental theory later pressed so vigorously by Robert Owen.

The Babuef “Conspiracy of the Equals" at the end of the French Revolution drew from these early French sources, justifying their rising, like the Trotzkyists, on the ground that the Revolution had got off the track. They advocated the conspiratorial seizure of power.

One of the members of the “Society of Equals" who escaped from France formed the Babouvist movement after the Fall of Napoleon. The object of the movement was to carry on where Babuef had left off. This movement became tied more and more closely to the workers' movement in France, finally becoming a definite working-class party under Blanqui and exercising a considerable influence upon the French risings of February and June, 1848.

In the beginning of the 19th Century the Revolutionary tradition was carried on, associated with the Utopian experiments of Owen, Fourier, Cabet and Weitling, but in a less turbulent fashion than formerly. Weitling studied in Western Germany, where working men’s clubs were being formed for reading and discussion. At these clubs radical literature was available to those who otherwise would not have had the means to obtain it. Weitling had considerable influence on those who founded the “League of the Just”—a secret society with communistic ideas that eventually merged into the Communist League, that published the Communist Manifesto.

In England machine production brought ruin to masses of hand workers and by simplifying productive operations, introduced women and children into factories and mines to work under conditions that were appalling. It was the hand workers who were the prime movers in the revolt against the new world of industry, and who sought a way out of their difficulties; first, by incendiarism and machine breaking, and later by vague visions of some sort of co-operative world based upon small proprietorships.

Some of the earliest reactions to the industrial revolution were political reform associations, the Utopian schemes of Robert Owen, and the land reform ideas of Thomas Spence and William Qgilvie. Owen argued that abundance was the cause of crises and misery. This turned the attention of some writers to an examination of economics. They came to the conclusion that as “labour was the source of all wealth” the labourer was entitled to the fruits of industry. Ricardo's book, “Principles of Political Economy,” published in 1817, established that labour was the source of value and, working on his conclusions, writers like Thompson, Hodgskin and Bray demanded that all products should belong to the labourer.

Under the inspiration of the American War of Independence, a corresponding society was formed in 1780 under the title of “ The Society for Constitutional Information.” Its formation was mainly through the instrumentality of Major Cartwright and Horne Tooke. It had a programme that included the Six Points that later formed the basis of the “People's Charter.” The French Revolution gave a fillip to the movement for reform and corresponding societies sprang up all over the country, engaging in bitter and thinly-veiled attacks on the government. In 1792 the first genuinely working-class movement commenced with the formation of the “London Corresponding Society'' by Thomas Hardy, Robert Boyd and George Walne, holding its first meeting in January of that year. The motto of the Society was “Unite, Persevere and Be Free.” It was formed for the purpose of corresponding with other societies that had the same ends in view. It only lasted a few years and repressive action compelled it to disperse, but agitation continued to simmer, finding expression in various ways, in lectures, Utopian writings, the publication of the “Gorgon,” the first trade union paper, in 1818, and eventually the formation of a new London Corresponding Society, “The London Working Men's Association, in 1836. Members of this Association, such as Lovett, Cleave, Hetherington, Watson, Vincent and Harney, were afterwards active in the Chartist Movement. The Association published an address to Workingmen’s Associations that concluded with the words, “Be assured that the good that is to be must be begun by ourselves.” It also started the practice of sending addresses to working men of different countries, beginning with Belgium in November, 1836. One of its members, Lovett, drafted the “ People’s Charter,” that started the Chartist Movement, and another, Harney, formed the “Fraternal Democrats,” which brought the English movement in contact with the Continental.

In 1848 the genuinely Socialist movement began with the publication of the “Communist Manifesto.” A brief history of the working-class movement from that time onwards will be found in the Introduction to our pamphlet, “The Communist Manifesto and the Last Hundred Years.” An examination of this history will reveal how wayward the movement has been, and how ready to chase after will-o’-the-wisps. But the movement goes on and understanding is growing, although the struggle has been long and die disappointments bitter.

So this May Day we again call attention to the only bright gleam in the heavy clouds that hover over us—our message of hope. The determination to establish a new form of society in which everything that is in and on the earth shall be the common heritage of all mankind; where security, comfort and harmony will be the lot of all. All that is necessary for the establishment of this society is understanding and the will to achieve it.

Gilmac.

Slings and Arrows: Time off for Apes! (1953)

The Slings and Arrows column from the May 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Time off for Apes!

So often is man's inhumanity commented upon by critics of the present social system, that it becomes a pleasure—if not a duty—to bring to our readers' attention an incident which will show that the milk of human kindness runs warm in the veins of one man and a great man at that!

We all know that during the late war the efforts of every politician and military leader were devoted to finding the quickest, most efficient and. of course, the cheapest method of killing the greatest number of people in the shortest space of time. The Germans developed flying bombs, rockets, and human incinerators. The Allies added atom bombs. During this destruction and loss of life appeared a light “no bigger than a man’s hand," but nevertheless, still offering hope to suffering humanity. Who was the man who thus illuminated the world, who, while making wonderful speeches and organising battle-fronts where thousands lost their lives, still found time to perform an act of mercy ? None other than Mr. Churchill

The story about to be unfolded will touch the hearts and minds of our readers and if there is a dry eye left when this has been read, there must be harder hearts than we thought possible. On the Rock of Gibraltar depends, to some extent, the safe keeping of sea routes and strategic points for the British Commonwealth. Legend has it that if a certain species inhabiting the Rock were to become extinct, British ownership of Gibraltar would come to an end. In 1943, while Mr. Churchill was convalescing in Morocco after a severe illness, news was brought to him of a startling fall in the population of Gibraltar. In spite of his convalescence, Mr. Churchill was not disposed to view the matter with equanimity. In wartime falls of population were to be expected. But our gallant leader was not to be daunted. He went into action immediately. One can only imagine, for history has not yet recorded, the rolling prose, the fine sounding sentences, with which Mr. Churchill addressed himself to the problem. Within a short time and due to his exertions the situation was rapidly transformed, and readers will be relieved to learn that this species is now flourishing again on the Rock of Gibraltar, and Mr. Churchill is personally informed of any "happy event" that occurs there.

It is good to know that our Mr. Churchill, bowed down, as he was, with cares of State, could take time off to save life—even if it was only that of monkeys! 

* * *

Time off for Mourning

When King George VI passed away, and again on the recent death of Queen Mary, journalists, politicians and the like assured us that it would be in line with the wishes of Their Majesties for us to go on working as usual. It is true, however, that in the case of King George we were expected and, indeed, allowed to take two minutes off to stand in silence on the day of the funeral. We cannot complain. No employer likes giving time off and even though Kings and great men pass away life must go on. But all this takes place in capitalist Britain, and that is all one should reasonably expect

In other lands, however, we are told that “Socialism" exists under a label marked “People’s Democracy." In these lands things are vastly different, as they should be, since Socialism is not Capitalism. When a great man passes “over” in Russia or Czechoslovakia, the obsequies and public mourning are on a much vaster scale. The body of the departed “Father," or, if in a smaller “People’s Democracy," “little father," is embalmed so that not only this, but succeeding generations may gaze upon and contemplate the glory that has departed. If in capitalist London the queue to see the lying-in-state stretches for two miles, in the “Land of Socialism” they stretch for ten. If in capitalist Britain the dead ruler is laid to rest and then almost forgotten, in Russia he is embalmed, canonised, and almost turned into a God . . . But this is not all. In the “land of Socialism" poets compose odes of love and praise to the qualities of the dead man, while in Britain Mr. Pollitt tells us that our eyes are “ dimmed with tears,” and Mr. Campbell in the Daily Worker, rebukes the British Press for not observing the decencies expected when the great ones pass into the Great Beyond.

But of all the distinctions that mark off life here from life in the People’s democracies, one stands out most prominent of all. True that when Stalin and later Gottwald died, we were told that they would have wished the workers to go on working. And so far, it would appear to be no different from capitalist Britain. But, and here is the great distinction, in Moscow and in all the villages and towns of Russia and the “people's democracies" from East Germany to China and Mongolia, every worker was allowed to take time off for mourning to the tune of five minutes. How different from those greedy capitalists of the Western world, who only allowed us two minutes. It's almost worth emigrating for.

* * *

Profound thought dept.

“Raise level of honesty and we can smash crime, says Fyfe” (headline, Evening Standard, 14/3/53). Who would ever have thought of it ? Such genius must obviously be preserved and applied in other spheres. For example, “Raise level of health and smash disease, says Health Minister"; "Raise level of bank balance and smash overdraft, says Bank Manager.” The permutations are inexhaustible and no prizes are offered for any submitted to us.

* * *

“Enough, no more!”

Since the accession to the throne of Queen Elizabeth not a newspaper has been published without some mention of the Queen, her husband, her children and the rest of the Royal Family. Journalists have tripped over each other in their efforts to boost circulation by publishing highly-coloured stories of Royal doings. The articles are written in such obsequiously nauseating terms that one can only turn from them in disgust. No effort is spared to convince everybody that the Queen is the repository of every human virtue, that she smiles, is sad, has dignity and poise, and yet is modern and even advanced. We are told that this will be a new and glorious Elizabethan Era for Great Britain. Playwrights will become Shakespeares, musicians Purcells, and adventurers Drakes or Raleighs.

It would appear, if these scribblers are to be believed, that the Queen has no faults whatsoever. We are not disposed to dispute that assertion. As we are not personally acquainted with Her Majesty we are unable to pass judgment. But now that this publicity is reaching its zenith with the approach of the Coronation, is it too much to ask that it should come to an end ?

So that these Fleet Street hacks may be assured that their message has reached us all we hereby declare that we believe every word they tell us about the Royal Family, that we accept every tale of the indomitable courage with which Her Majesty faces her duties, and that we believe that under the inspiration of the Queen this country will become Glorious again. Having issued that declaration, we hope that these inane drivellings will cease and that journalists will now devote themselves to other and more serious matters, that is, provided always that they are capable of anything other than Society chit-chat

* * *

Threat or Promise?

The Sunday Pictorial (5/4/53) tells us that American scientists are far advanced in experiments which, if successful, will enable men to live for ever. " What could this mean in everyday language?" asks the Pictorial, and proceeds to tell us. “It would mean that outstanding men like Winston Churchill and President Eisenhower could still be conducting affairs on either side of the Atlantic in the year A.D. 2953.” Cripes!

Here at last is what we Socialists have been looking for. Here at last is the short cut to Socialism that we all want. War, poverty, hunger and all the other evils of capitalism do not constitute so telling an indictment as the threat that Eisenhower and Churchill might still be in control in a thousand years' time.

If mankind will not rouse themselves for their own sakes, surely they will hear the cry of generations yet unborn and establish Socialism before it is too late.

S. A.

Elections in Austria (1953)

From the May 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Value of the Vote

Parliamentary Elections in any part of the world are ever watched with keen attention and invariably occupy much space in the press. This is understandable since with the world-wide interests and ramifications of capital, investors in every civilised country depend for the security of their holdings on stable governments and the continued acquiescence of the mass of the people in things as they are, i.e., wealth and a comfortable life without the necessity to work for a favoured few, and a life of poverty and insecurtiy for the mass of the workers not only at home but also abroad. In a class society such as ours, any upsetting of the government or any upheaval with the ever-present danger of the flouting of established authority by the poverty-stricken masses, strikes apprehension and fear into the hearts of property-holders; the cry goes up that “law and order" must be maintained at all costs. When, for example, Germany collapsed and Austria found herself without a government, the Viennese populace joined wherever they could the invading military forces in plundering to their hearts' content since there was nothing to stop them. Shops and warehouses were stripped bare—the sacred rights of property thrown to the winds, forgotten for the time being, until a government and law and order had been re-established. The old staunch upholders of capitalism, with the late Dr. Renner at their head, assisted by the occupying Powers, saved the situation and the beloved fatherland for the exploiters, as they had done before at the end of World War I. Since then the Austrian statesmen have so thoroughly convinced the foreign investors of their capability of safeguarding their private interests that, but for the distrust of one occupying Power, the other three would probably long have withdrawn their troops.

The general election in February (consequent on the resignation of the coalition government after some discord between the Conservatives and the "Socialists”) with the big and costly propaganda efforts made by a medley of parties, the specious promises of better times, the long lists of reforms dangled before the eyes of the people and dinned into their ears by the radio, bear witness to the concern of the propertied class and their State to get its subjects (mark the term "subjects') to vote for the peaceful continuation of their social order which guaranteed them their privileges. The election over, great satisfaction was expressed by the press of what is now called the free world, over the return of a new government that, whatever its eventual composition, guarantees the continuance of the Trinity of rent, interest and profit in Austria.

While the Austrian electors were extravagantly thanked by the home press for their good sense, the foreign press, with the exception of that behind the iron curtain, joined in the great chorus of praise for the political wisdom and maturity shown by the people. If Socialists cannot join in this eulogising concert and sing-song of the Austrian workers’ political ripeness, our reasons are, of course, very different from those prompting the attitude behind the iron curtain and their agents regarding the Austrian elections. Unlike Socialists, the Russians are not concerned with the workers’ understanding or lack of class-consciousness; all they are concerned with is commercial interest, to maintain the strategic position and control of the rich provinces which they have attained as a result of the war. And this is where they fall out with the other thieves.

It is true that Austrian workers have often fought and suffered for the democratic ideal, i.e., at least for freedom of organisation and association, free discussion, freedom of the press, etc. Who has forgotten the Austrian workers’ tragic heroism in 1934? (see Socialist Standard for March, 1934). But, withall, can one say that the workers of Austria are politically enlightened and mature any more than the mass of the workers in other lands? The answer must, unfortunately, be no. The fact alone that the numerically huge S.D.P. collapsed like a house of cards at the outbreak of World War I, and again even in times of peace, in 1934, at the hands of a mediocre clique led by a political dwarf like Dollfuss, proves their political backwardness. One can reasonably agree with the Austrian S.P. member who wistfully said to this writer at the time of the 1934 defeat: “ If only 10 per cent, of our members had understood and been imbued with the democratic and Socialist ideal, we would have had more fighters than we needed to crush the Schuschnigg-Dollfuss gang.” To which one might add that, if there had been 10 per cent class-conscious workers in the party, such a clique of usurpers could never even have raised its ugly head, and the working-class would have been spared the awful sacrifice and punishment that was inflicted upon it.

Political maturity! What with all the past promises of better times remaining unfulfilled, with the promise of full employment having turned out to be mass unemployment, and yet the people continuing to vote for the bankrupt upholders of a social order that produces all the misery and conflicts—one may well ask: Where does die political enlightenment and maturity come in? Were it not so tragically serious, one might consider it a joke. Why, a ripe and alert working class would surely not waste their time and energy listening to the worn-out platitudes and piffle of capitalist politicians and being taken in by their cliche programmes, which invariably include, of course, a "fight for the country’s freedom and independence,” “securing its economic future,” "increased production,” "social justice,” "peace, the rights of man” and so on, ad nauseam.

With some 300,000 men and women on the dole in a country of only about 6 million people, and with the problem of the unemployed youth, which will add another quarter-million to those seeking work, and knowing, on the other hand, as people must by now, the utter impotence of the existing political parties to effect any improvement in this dreary picture and appalling outlook, a people politically ripe and understanding the Socialist message, would consider that the time had come for revolutionary political action to end the sorry farce of capitalism instead of keeping on supporting and inflicting it on their children. As it is, however, about half of the electors were probably quite at a loss to know how to vote, since there is nowadays hardly any difference between the various political set-ups.

Even the much-vaunted improvements in housing conditions must be viewed against the background of the dreary picture of the general position of the workers. Does anyone imagine that there is happiness and a sense of security behind the facades of these huge blocks of council houses ? Gone is the time of the low rents; the screw has been put on, and anybody thinking that the “red city administration” and their banks, who control this property like everything else, have softer hearts than other capitalist overlords, is woefully mistaken. Even when in work, the tenants have to fight their life long to keep the wolf from the door, but woe betide when the breadwinner falls on evil days and becomes even less able to face the bills for gas and electricity and the rent collector! He will then discover how much of all this “public property“ belongs to him.

Political maturity! Only those are mature who have realised that the present social order has come to a hopeless impasse and that all attempts by the existing political parties and their spokesmen and statesmen to improve conditions, or avoid the terrible conflicts engendered by and raging within the framework of that competitive system, are doomed to failure; only those who have realised that what is needed is a fundamental change in the constitution of present-day society, as advocated by the S.P.G.B., their companion parties and by the great pioneers of scientific Socialism, Marx and Engels; only those who have the will and who will work for that fundamental change; only such people can lay claim to political maturity. All else is quackery and confusion and illusion.

Until the people have succeeded in overthrowing the present grotesquely stupid and inhuman social order, the mass of the people will remain what they are—heirs to the slavery of ages, exposed to all the evils and vicissitudes of a system based on property and production for profit. It is the height of folly on the part of the working class to continue placing their trust in mealy-mouthed professional politicians and glib-tongued “personalities,” and to fall again and again for their propaganda, despite all past disillusions and these leaders' glaring failure everywhere to deliver the goods. With the technical achievements and mass production that the last 100 years have brought to mankind, the social adjustment to this technical development, i.e. the fundamental change in the constitution of society as taught and advocated by scientific socialism, is now the only thing that matters. That teaching is that the means and instruments of wealth production and distribution must be converted from private and state control to the common property of the whole people, if poverty, insecurity, class-conflict and war is to be effaced from the face of the earth. It's as simple as that.

Rudolf Frank

Editorial: Electoral Activity (1953)

Editorial from the May 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the Party’s recent Annual Conference it was decided that, in the event of a by-election in North Paddington, we should contest the constituency. A by-election in a constituency which we have previously contested affords us a splendid opportunity to conduct an all-out concentrated propaganda drive, and to bring the Party’s case into greater prominence.

Such an effort does, of course, require money. Special literature, meeting halls, advertising, etc. are needed, and the initial outlay is much more than the Party has in hand at the moment

If we are to make a success of such a campaign we must prepare for it NOW. We therefore appeal to every member and sympathiser to raise the necessary money. At the time of going to press it seems possible that we shall shortly have the chance of contesting a by-election at N. Paddington. So this is our immediate objective. Therefore we must have all the money we can get for the purpose immediately.

Please send us as much as you can for this purpose AT ONCE. We will announce in the June number the amount of money we have received and what we can do.

Send donations marked “ Parliamentary Fund ” to: E. Lake, S.P.G.B., 52, Clapham High Street, S.W.4.

Human Nature and Socialism (1953)

From the May 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

I—Introduction

In this and five succeeding articles we shall outline the socialist view of the human aspect of society. In doing so we hope to make it clear why we believe that a new form of society, more in harmony with human needs and desires, is within the bounds of possible achievement. We may also be able to dispel some of the prejudices that exist concerning the aim of the socialist movement.

It is no exaggeration to say that most objections to Socialism are basically forms of asserting “it’s against human nature.” We do not underestimate the difficulties of overcoming the comforting feeling that the present system, despite its shortcomings, is “natural” and incapable of being fundamentally changed. The real defence of capitalism consists in perpetuating the myth (which need not be explicit to have its effect) that no other system is possible.

To the casual observer it seems strange that such great strides should have been made by science in the non-human or material side of nature and so few in the essentially human side. The explanation of this is to be found in the fact that the motor of history within private property society has been the development of the means of production. Under the stimulus of the need to increase productivity in order to compete successfully with rivals, capitalists have spent much money on research into all branches of science that aid this. Small wonder that the sciences of society—sociology, history, anthropology, etc.—have shown such meagre advances in comparison. Other fields of study, e.g. psychology and ethics, hardly rank as sciences because they have remained chained to idealism and religion.

We must not, however, underestimate the changes that are being brought about in the climate of ideas. The declining power of religion and the scientific (if not political) death of the dogmas of racism are evidence that man's knowledge of himself in society is growing rapidly. Old prejudices and false ideas are being swept away because they do not fit into the pattern of knowledge generated by the complex society in which we live. 

Every Individual Counts

The essence of the socialist case is that man can have the sort of world that will solve his present problems, by accepting the ideas necessary to bring it into being and to sustain it. But it is not merely a question of getting a majority of people to say—“ Yes, Socialism is a good idea—let’s have it.” With the changing of the ideas that predominate now must come a changing of the ways in which people are accustomed to look at every aspect of life.

So long as people believe that as things are so they have always been, they will not be in a position to take the requisite action to change them to achieve desired ends. They may agree with us when we point out the need for change, but will excuse themselves from taking any action by making some such remark as “ it's a good idea, but it will never come in my lifetime so what’s the use? ”

The reduction of the worker to the status of a cog in a vast machine helps to foster the feeling that the views of one individual make no difference to the total, and therefore no difference to what is “bound” to happen. Yet those who, at election times, seek support for the continuation of capitalism do not take this view—they stress that every vote counts, which, of course, it does. They know that there is nothing inevitable about the electorate choosing one of the parties of capitalism. It is only when trying to combat the case for Socialism that they seek to deny the effect of individual views.

We are concerned not merely with explaining Socialism but also with overcoming all the factors that hinder the growth of socialist ideas. Not the least of these is the false concept of his own nature that man has built up within property society. From time to time he has believed himself to be the plaything of the gods, the victim of a predestined fate, or the product of a mathematical mind behind the universe. All such views have had the effect (usually, but not necessarily, intended) of making him resigned to his lot, and of turning him away from any constructive action to change it. “It’s human nature” has been more often used in extenuation of the avoidable ills, malpractices, injustices and cruelties of men than any other phrase in the language.

Meaning of Human Nature

There is probably no more misused and misunderstood term in the language than ‘human nature.’ Everyone has used it, but few have understood it. In order to dear away some of the confusion, let us refer to the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, which takes over 500 words to define ‘nature.’ In connection with ‘human’ it gives:

The general inherent character or disposition of mankind.

More fully human nature.

e.g. Modern. It’s only human nature to do that.

The compilers of the dictionary must be congratulated upon choosing an example that illustrates well the looseness and vagueness of the term. They might have chosen a commoner example, such as ‘it’s only human nature to be selfish’—but then they would have been in the position of saying that selfishness is the general inherent character of mankind. Caution is indicated to all who would enlarge upon what it is ‘human nature’ to do.

We are, however, safe in saying that human nature is the nature (as defined above) of human beings. That being so, it must obviously only apply (even with the qualifying adjective ‘general ’) to the vast mass of all human beings. It is not the nature of all Britons, or of all the people in the world at present, that is under discussion, but what is common to the natures of human beings, as a species, since they first inhabited the earth. Since this is generally agreed to have been anything between 50,000 and 500,000 years ago, care must be taken lest a character is wrongly attributed to human nature. Love of money, for example, could only have arisen when money did (about 5,000 years ago) and is therefore not “natural” to human beings.

“Human nature” only applies to those characters which all human beings share. It is reasonable to include among these such universal needs as shelter, clothing, work, play, companionship and love. Human life can exist, at least for a time, without these things, but they may be regarded for all practical purposes, as universal and basic.

But the term “human nature” is seldom applied in this way. When used correctly, it usually supports some other statement that is fully capable of standing on its own merits, such as “ he needs to be loved—it’s only human nature.” Only when an attempt is being made to prove a doubtful assertion is it extended beyond its true meaning. Take the example quoted earlier, “it’s only human nature to be selfish.” If it is possible to show that any significant number of men have not been selfish, then “human nature” is not applicable. Some other phrase, such as “human behaviour,” must be used to indicate that selfishness is the attribute of only some men under certain conditions.

Heredity and Environment

We must now introduce a concept that is of the greatest importance to an understanding of the socialist view of human nature. It concerns the parts that heredity and environment play in human evolution.

The first thing to recognise is that man’s bodily structure has had little to do with his progress. For all practical purposes, modern men have the same physiological organs as the earliest men. But the products of human evolution—ideas, theories, social organisations and the like—do change, and are, in effect, what distinguish men of one period of history from those of another.

Physical characteristics, such as colour of eyes, skin and shape of head are inherited through the genes, according to certain reasonably well-defined laws, the details of which need not concern us here. But the characteristics which count in the field of human endeavour are not, and cannot be transmitted by physiological reproduction. Each individual must acquire them anew from the human environment in which he is born and develops. Ideas, ways of thinking, habits, motives—in short, the psychological features as distinct from the anatomical—are given to the individual by all the influences of the human world, by the state of society in which his development proceeds.

  “Humanity, as a whole, is the only organism which transmits the products of human evolution. A man does not derive them from his parents; they contribute almost nothing in that respect. Every man is born a wild little animal, susceptible of developing into a howling savage, a man of the fifth century, of the fifteenth century, of the twentieth or of the twenty-fifth. It is the vast organism, the human world, which makes him what he is, and determines to what stage of human evolution he shall belong.” (‘‘The Making of Humanity,” by Robert Briffault, p. 64.)

From this, it follows that there is nothing in the biological make-up of man that makes one system of society possible and another impossible. What determines this is the behaviour of people, which is the product of all the environmental influences.

Social anthropologists point out that had any one of us been reared among Hottentots his behaviour would be that of a Hottentot. And if we were to be transferred, even as adults, to a social culture radically different from the one in which we grew up, our behaviour would, in time, begin to resemble that of the people in the new surroundings more so than our former habits. It is only because we remain in the environment in which our habits originally arose that our behaviour stays fairly constant.

Stan Parker

(Next Article: “ You Can’t Change Human Nature ”)

Correspondence: Engels on the relationship of landlord and tenant (1953)

From the May 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent, Mr. C. E. Berry, Torquay, draws our attention to a statement made by Frederick Engels in his “The Housing Question.” Mr. Berry writes:—

  “It appears that a landlord confronted by a tenant is not, per se a capitalist nor engaged in exaction of surplus value.”

Mr. Berry refers to the mention of “land ” in our Declaration of Principles and asks:—

  “Does this mean that ownership of houses apart from land, such as leaseholds, is not contrary to Socialism? Where does common ownership of property divide off from property in personal ownership, i.e. personal property, under Socialism?”

Reply

1. The relationship of landlord and tenant

The passage referred to is one in which Engels criticises the statement of a German follower of Proudhon who had written:—

   “As the wage worker is in relation to the capitalist, so is the tenant in relation to the house owner.”

Engels points out that the above statement is incorrect. People who rent houses (whether they are workers or capitalists) are buying a commodity (the use of a house) from the house-owner. They are not in the position of worker to capitalist, for in this relationship the worker is the seller of a commodity (labour-power) and the capitalist is buying it

The capitalist exacts surplus value when he buys labour-power. He does not exact surplus value when he sells commodities, though it is in the act of selling commodities that he realises surplus value. If the Proudhonist argument were correct then all sales, not only sales of accommodation, would be an act of exacting surplus value—which would produce the odd result that the capitalists exploit each other, and also that the workers are exploited in production and everybody, capitalists and workers alike, is again exploited in the act of buying commodities.

2. That the landlord is not per se a capitalist

Our correspondent’s conclusion from Engel’s statement is that “ a landlord confronted by a tenant is not, per se, a capitalist.”

This overlooks the fact that the capitalist is still a capitalist after he has exploited the workers in production; he is still a capitalist when, as a seller of commodities, he confronts workers or other capitalists—but in the latter act he is a capitalist who is realising surplus value by turning commodities into money.

3. Landlords mid Socialism

Our correspondent’s further conclusion is in the form of asking whether the ownership of houses is compatible with Socialism.

Socialism requires that the means of production and distribution shall cease to be privately owned and become the common property of society. This relates to the means of production and distribution and the consequence of their common ownership will be that the products will be freely accessible to the members of society.

In those circumstances the members of society will take the products in order to consume them. They will consume the accommodation by living in houses and will of course not do so by permission of an individual house owner any more than they will eat bread by permission of a bread owner. There will be no such owners.

Nothing that Engels wrote in “The Housing Question” is in conflict with this. Engels was merely correcting an erroneous statement. He did not draw or imply any conclusion such as these in the question.

Editorial Committee

Mr. Aldred intervenes (1953)

From the May 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

The February issue of “The Word” published in Glasgow by Mr. Guy A. Aldred and enigmatically describing itself as “organ of the United Socialist Movement,” contains two articles attacking the S.P.G.B. The one with which we are concerned here contains letters sent to us by H. Fullarton and John Robertson which were not published by us. In publishing them Aldred claims that he is “rendering a service to the Socialist Movement”

The facts are as follows. In the October, 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard we published and replied to a letter from John Robertson under the heading “ Organisation—Industrial or Political. A second letter from John Robertson was published and replied to in March, 1952 and a third letter in June, 1952.

We then received a fourth letter from him. also a letter from H. Fullarton and a letter from W. T. Fielding all dealing with the same controversy.

As these three further letters largely went over again the ground that had already been covered and as our space is limited we decided to have an article drafted dealing with all three together and the correspondence was handed over to a member who was to draft the reply. For various reasons the reply was not written and eventually the whole matter was forgotten. For this we express our regrets to the three correspondents.

Readers who are interested in the discussion can see the opposing points of view in the issues referred to.

We are still of opinion that the unpublished letters are largely a repetition of what went before, and after this lapse of time there is no point in pursuing the matter.

We note that in his fourth letter John Robertson holds that our reply to his third letter misrepresents what he wrote. Readers can see his letter and our reply in the issue for June, 1952.

We also observe that though Mr. Aldred says that he thinks he is rendering a service by publishing two of the letters he does not reproduce any of the earlier letters or our replies to them.

Editorial Committee

Piece Work, Bonus and the Psychologist (1953)

From the May 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

The problem of how to get more out of the working class has been one which has perplexed capitalist society ever since its inception. The field over which discussion on this subject has ranged has been an unlimited one. Defenders of private property, the Church, the Press, the politician and the professor, indeed most of the stout hearted apologists for Capitalism in its various forms, have all had something to say on the matter. More recently this field has been invaded by the Trade Union leaders and at the moment of writing Mr. A. Horner (Communist) is joining together with Sir William Lawther, a labourite, and Sir Herbert Holdsworth of the National Coal Board, in an appeal to the miners to increase output.

One of the plots that is so often hatched to force us to work harder is piece work or a bonus scheme in some form or another.

The older established forms of piece work are well known. The idea of paying an employee a certain rate for a piece of work turned out has long been established in certain industries and workers have learnt from bitter experience how the system is operated by the employers. Often just when they seem to be gaining a little, the employer declares it to be “uneconomical” and alters the rate for the job. Of course, the results are often quite beneficial to the capitalist The Daily Herald of 9th November, 1950, reported that workers on piecework in the women’s shoe industry produced double the output of those on day wages, although the earnings of the piece workers were only just over £2 per week more.

Another variation of the same theme is to introduce an incentive bonus which is paid in addition to the weekly or hourly rates. During and since the war this has become a popular method of avoiding large wage increases, particularly in the building and civil engineering industries.

A report appeared in the Manchester Guardian of February 23rd, 1953, headed “ Failings of the Group Bonus Scheme” dealing with some research into this subject carried out by a Dr. Norah M. Davis of the Medical Research Councils' Group in Industrial Psychology.

The function of “psychologists” in general has always been something of a puzzle to the writer but an “industrial psychologist” is a bird somewhat easier to define. In general their object seems to be to try and iron out the mental difficulties of the workers in order to make them more contented in their work. Indeed, throughout her report Dr. Davis seems to refer to “the workers” in a similar manner to that of the biologist dealing with the life and habits of some lower specie of animals.

The report states “Over 60% felt a sense of injustice which expressed itself either in aggression or resigned helplessness. This was because the bonus they received each week varies in an unpredictable manner. Although pay was related to work done, the relationship was so complicated that no one understood it and working harder in fact seemed to make no difference to money at the end of the week.”

To the socialist this is by no means an amazing revelation and one wonders why capitalists have to call on their “industrial psychologists” to tell them this. It is a fact that most of us have this feeling at the end of a week’s work, with or without a group bonus scheme. The reason for it has nothing to do with “psychology” but arises directly from the fact that, under capitalism, the wealth we produce belongs to the ruling class. The attitudes of “resigned helplessness” or “aggression” are but the reflection of the very real grievances of the workers. Dr. Davis has a very difficult task ahead of her if she and her fellow “industrial psychologists” hope to create the illusion in the minds of the workers that their sole object should be to work harder and co-operate more together in the interests of the capitalists.

The report does well to mention the “social disunity” of the group bonus scheme, the conflict it created within the group and states that some workers thought it “evil” and that it produced “tragic results.” Those of us who have experienced this sort of scheme at work will know what it is to see one worker against another, the more “diligent” member of the group acting as a sort of unpaid foreman, chasing his fellow workers and blaming them for every fall in his earnings. This must make the employers very happy and no doubt they would be even happier if only the workers would take up the right “psychological attitude."

Dr. Davis notices some further tragic results of the system when she mentions the question of the nervous exhaustion and strain felt by the people working in the factories she visited. One departmental manager said, for example, that his men were “extraordinarily difficult to handle, touchy and liable to flare up over any trifle."

This is capitalism at its modem stage of development, the age of speed, the race for greater and greater production and the struggle for world markets. The roundabout goes faster and ever faster, the more speedy the worker and the more concentrated his work, the greater is production bringing with it ever mounting riches for a privileged minority. As for the workers, they are but the losers of the race, the tragic, fallen victims, nervous and neurotic, of an age of racing production and rocketing profits.

To these problems the “industrial psychologist” has no answer. True Dr. Davis tells us that doctors and personnel managers as well as the management and the “time-study” engineer should be called in to settle the “payment systems.” But we rest assured, that whoever is called in to settle how much wages the workers should receive they will get no more than is necessary to keep them alive and able to work.

The problems dealt with by Dr. Davis have very little to do with that which is called “psychology" but arise from the social conditions of the modern world. Harmonious relationships within industry cannot be created within the framework of capitalism. It may be possible to foster the illusion in the minds of the workers that greater productivity under this system is in their interests, but it will be an illusion that will be finally shattered by the ever-pressing problems of the capitalist world.

D. M.

During the East Coast Floods (1953)

From the May 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

When Socialists outline the society that could be established with the present productive equipment, non-socialists argue that it wouldn’t work. They say it would be against human nature, that men are by nature lazy and greedy and wont work unless they are forced on with the whip or incited by some economic advantage.

The Observer in an editorial refuted those arguments.

The Observer wrote:—

  "When the floods broke, people showed exactly the virtues and the spirit needed in a modern industrial society. Machines and materials had to be moved quickly to the coast, and so had a labour force of many thousands. There had to be a service of engineers and technicians, and a system of administrative control. Everything was done in a hurry; there was a good deal of excited confusion and some ill-directed endeavour. But the total organisation worked well, mainly because so many people worked willingly and in relative harmony.
   "The motive force was enthusiasm, sweeping away the inhibitions and protective restrictions which persist in many of our industries. Engineers on the flooded coast were sometimes embarrassed by lorry-drivers who, foregoing all their rest-periods along the road, arrived with thousands of sandbags in the middle of the night. One of the gangs working with fortitude and persistence, under conditions of unrelieved hardship, did so almost within sight of a building site where not long ago thousands of men struck work partly because they were denied a tea-break. And on the professional and administrative sides, many people hitherto rutted deep in the easy routine of their lives gave themselves up to days and nights of revolutionary discomfort.
   "Moreover, once the tragic side of the disaster had receded, people scarcely bothered to disguise the fact that they were enjoying themselves. They seemed to welcome the chance to work without sparing themselves, in cooperation with others, and for the good of an obviously stricken community." (April 5th, 1953.)

The Observer compared the zeal shown by the workers during the East Coast floods with that shown in ordinary everyday work and implied that if the workers worked with the same zeal in their everyday jobs as they did during the floods British capitalism could be extricated from its difficulties.

But, of course, the Observer realised that there are 

    " . . . differences between an emergency of this kind and the routine of ordinary working life. Nobody on the East Coast was afraid of working too hard or of working himself out of a job; the effort required was intense, but everyone knew it was not going to last long. Nobody was worried by the thought that he was working to make profits for someone else."

In their ordinary everyday life the workers sell their labour power to the capitalist class who own the means and instruments of production. The wages they receive in return are very often not enough to live on. What the workers produce over their wages enables the capitalist class to live in luxury and idleness and increase their investments, and is the primary purpose of capitalist production. To increase their profits the capitalist class use every device; they instal labour-saving machinery, appeal to social feelings and national prejudices to get as much work as possible from the workers at as low a wage as possible. To improve their standard of living, even maintain it, the workers must struggle continually. Between the working class and the capitalist class there is a fundamental conflict of interest

To sell their goods the different sections of the capitalist class come into conflict over markets. They also come into conflict over sources of raw materials and strategic points controlling trade routes.

The non-Socialists who argue that men must be “forced” to work should take note of the following words from the Observer although they are coloured by an appeal to patriotic sentiments:—

   "The experience of the floods has shown that the country has not lost its energy, its co-operative impulses or its adventurous spirit. The problem is to harness these forces to the everyday jobs."

These forces can be harnessed to everyday jobs by abolishing the private ownership of the means of production—the source of the conflict of interest in modern industrial society—and establishing the common property of the means of living. Then there would be a community of interest: the many would not work in the interest of the few; everyone would be working for the benefit of all—as during the floods—for the benefit of humanity.

J. T.

The Floods — Another Solution (1953)

From the May 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is claimed by Anarchists and Anarcho-Syndicalists that they are revolutionaries not reformists; that they are opposed to the various politicians' schemes for patching up the present social system. A recent editorial of The Syndicalist (February, 1953), however, shows that this is not so.

Under the title “A Floodworkers’ Scheme,” The Syndicalist deals with the condition of the sea walls and dykes around the British Coast. “It is a disgrace,” says the writer, "that the people of Canvey Island should have been relying for their safety on dykes built by Dutchmen two hundred years ago, and that elsewhere clay walls built in the time of Henry VIII were relied upon to keep back the relentless sea." After castigating the authorities for not having tackled the task of strengthening the sea defences before, and merely waiting for disaster and then bringing in the Army, The Syndicalist puts forward its own “revolutionary” solution. “What is needed is a national scheme for flood and tempest.” And, continues our Anarchist writer :—

   "The country can afford to keep a few old men as watchmen for such a job . . .  and the possibility of lookout posts, with sirens, on a job modelled on that of the lighthouse-keeper is something that will at the very least help out a few pensioners while remaining a surety for warning if not for safety.
   "A flood labour scheme could continue throughout the year, but particularly employing unskilled labour in slacker periods of the year. That there is vast pool of foreign labour which would be only too anxious to come over and participate in such a scheme is undisputable. But a national scheme is required, and proper rates should be paid, for it is impossible to conceive that Army and volunteer help such as at present exists in the flood areas can continue indefinitely."

Need we comment on this Anarcho-Syndicalist "solution?”

Peter E. Newell

About Books (1953)

Book Reviews from the May 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

A number of novelists, from time to time, have written books that revolve around some particular industry. The stories, if they are the product of a knowledge of the industry plus good writing, can be both informative and entertaining.

A really first-class book of this kind is “The Weeping Wood,” by Vicki Baum, published in cheap edition by Michael Joseph for 6s. Here is the story of rubber from the days before the discovery of America, when the Amazon Indians found the tree which they called Cahuchu, meaning weeping wood, up to recent times, when the German I.G. Company and the American Standard Oil Company competed and cooperated to produce a synthetic rubber. 

Each chapter of this story is a separate episode in the history of rubber; each chapter is a separate story linked by this main historical theme. Only in a few instances do the same characters appear in the different chapters. In the introduction the author tells us that the story,

". . .  contains as much fact as if contains play and make-believe; . . . All the facts and figures, the details of history and background, all notations pertaining to rubber are authentic, as are, evidently, the documentary fragments scattered about. On the other hand, all the characters are inventions, bubbles of fantasy; all save the few historical ones which appear briefly in the course of these tales, but are also presented in more or less fictitious situations."

The story portrays for us how the Amazon Indians used Cahuchu gum to make toys for their children and how a Jesuit missionary brought a pair of sticky, smelly, moulded shoes to a high priest of his order, only to be outwitted and robbed of his discovery by an unscrupulous church financier and a native boy.

It then swings to the middle of the 19th century to tell of the struggles of Charles Goodyear to raise enough money to carry on his experiments to improve rubber fabrics, to make them impervious to heat and cold and to remove their evil smell whilst still retaining their elasticity.

We learn of the intense exploitation of men and women who lived tough and lonely lives in the Brazilian jungles gathering the gum; how seeds of the rubber tree were illegally exported from Brazil and sent to Kew, where seedlings were raised and shipped to Ceylon to start rubber plantations. The story then transports us to the rubber plantations of Sumatra to tell of planters and native workers; back again to America to show the methods used to intensify the labours of the workers in the rubber tyre factories at Akron and of the workers' struggles to organise in unions to resist their employers; return to Brazil after the crude rubber monopoly was lost to that country to see the effect of the one crop system on the native population; then to Germany during the last world war to tell of the frantic efforts to discover a synthetic substitute. The story ends in Washington, where efforts are still being made to find the perfect synthetic substitute, and where there is political manoeuvring to make America independent of world supplies of crude rubber.

Here is a story that reveals every unscrupulous trick and dirty device that has been conjured from the mind of man to wring profit from the exploited rubber workers, whether in the jungle, on the plantation, in the factory, or in the laboratory; it reveals the total indifference to human suffering in the scramble for profit from rubber; it shows how the booms and the slumps of capitalist trade, as well as its wars, have affected the rubber industry and the lives of the workers employed in it

This is a good six shillings' worth. It is the only book of its kind that Vicki Baum has written. Her other novels may be good, but they have not the same social significance as "The Weeping Wood," they are as different from it as chalk is from cheese.

One of the foremost writers of this type of novel, perhaps THE foremost, was Upton Sinclair. In his early days he wrote magnificent stories round a number of different American industries. Some of them have recently been republished by Werner Laurie.

“The Jungle" (10s. 6d.), originally published in 1906, was the first of these books and the one that made Upton Sinclair famous. It caused an international sensation by revealing the horrible conditions that prevailed in the American meat canning industry. It caused an investigation to be made, followed by a revision of the Federal meat inspection laws by the U.S.A. Congress. It is a gruesome page in working-class industry and, despite its date, is still worth reading.

“Oil” (10s. 6d.) was first published in 1927 and, as the title implies, it deals with the oil industry.

“Little Steel" (8s. 6d.) has as its theme the struggle between workers' and employers in the iron industry. First published in 1938.

“The Flivver King” (7s. 6d.) tells the story of Henry Ford and the workers in the American automobile industry. This is a particularly good story. First published in 1938.

These books by Upton Sinclair should not be confused with his “World's End Stories," which he has written in recent years. In our opinion the books in this series do not compare with his earlier work. There are many other books that Sinclair has written which have not been republished in late years, but which may sometimes be found on secondhand bookstalls. “Boston" is one. It narrates the story of Nicola Sacco and Bartelomeo Vanzetti, who were condemned to the electric chair in 1927. The “Socialist Standard" for September, 1927, had this to say of the Sacco and Vanzetti case

“The workers, generally speaking, have assumed their innocence, and have seen in the case the vindictiveness of a ruling class which manipulates the machinery of the law against property-less wage-earners.”

“Mountain City" deals with the coal industry; “The Wet Parade" deals with prohibition in America, and “Sylvia's Marriage" deals with venereal disease. There are many more of Sinclair's books that we have never read and some that we have read but cannot recommend.

A more recent author who takes an industry for the theme of a novel is Thomas Armstrong. His first book, “The Crowthers of Bankdam," published by Collins for 10s. 6d., is outstandingly his best. He gives us the history of the English woollen industry during the past hundred years. The story opens at the time of the Crimean War, when hand looms were almost extinct, having been ousted by power-operated ones. Prior to that time many Yorkshire Cottages had boasted a hand loom, but with the application of steam power, those who could muster a little capital brought small numbers of workers under a common roof to produce woollen cloth with the new power looms. Soon the hand looms were discarded and left cluttering up back gardens and waste plots of land where they were thrown, not worth their weight as junk.

This was the period in the woollen industry when small capitalists were laying the foundations of the vast fortunes that were later required to expand their mills and their trade and enable their descendants of today to survive in a world where gigantic amounts of capital are required to launch and maintain an industry.

Simeon Crowther was one of those early capitalists, a hardworking, frugal-living, astute business man who, with his wife and family, worked in his mill beside his employees, building for the future the firm of Crowther and Sons, of Bankdam Mills.

Ben Pickersgill was a weaver, the father of a dozen children. As a sickly creature of four years of age he had been brought to Yorkshire amongst hundreds of other pauper babies.

“In the mill, he with rows of other wizened tots, had slept miserably under coarse brown blankets and horse covers until before the dawn during the greater part of the year, the brats' overseer had clattered down the long, chill room, to rouse again to toil overstrained little bodies which often, so mercilessly driven, wilted and died . before there had been an adequate return on the capital outlay.” (page-48) .

But Ben survived and we find him in his kitchen, where,

“Abysmal poverty cried aloud from everything in it, from cracked pottery to makeshifts of all kinds. Poor tattered rags of underwear hung from a line over the fireplace. A torn strip of rug, a pitiable ameliorative striving to give some warmth to the damp stone floor, served but as a danger to the unwary walker.”

Out of child labour and the long hours of toil of the poverty stricken workers, the early capitalists were enabled to amass wealth and accumulate. That is where the story of the Crowthers starts and it proceeds down the years from generation to generation. Trade slumps and booms, wars, tariffs, bankruptcies—all play their part in determining the vicissitudes of the Crowther family fortunes. By the end of the story the firm owns a number of huge woollen mills, various subsidiary works and factories and has offices and representatives in many parts of the world.

The story, in the main, centres on the capitalist family, not on the workers. It shows the sharp practice, the double-dealing and the downright fraud that capitalists use to exterminate one another, even friends and relatives, in the cut-throat competition born of capitalism.

Mr. Armstrong has also written a lengthy novel on the cotton industry called “King Cotton.” We must confess, having had two bites at this book, we have given it up as indigestible. It fails to hold our interest, despite the loud acclaim of the critics when it was first published.

No matter what any of these authors claim for themselves, they are not Socialists. It has not been their task to find remedies for the evils that they have depicted or solutions for the problems that they have revealed. But in very entertaining form they have shown us the evils and brought us face to face with the problems! They have something to teach, we have much to learn.

W. Waters.

Cracks in the Russian Dictatorship (1953)

From the May 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

The signs that the stranglehold of the Communist Party dictatorship is faltering are the most heartening news out of Russia for a generation. The nature of the urgent pressures compelling the changes of policy has yet to be revealed, but whatever they are they give ground for hope that the Russian workers may before long begin to acquire the elementary rights of organisation and propaganda so long denied them. In the early days—before they became so mealy-mouthed about it—the Communists admitted and defended the dictatorship and decried “bourgeois democracy.” Their text-book was Trotsky’s “Defence of Terrorism"—this of course in the days before a new party group moved into control, exiled Trotsky and found that he was a “capitalist agent".

Later on, with an eye on votes at elections, the British Communists denied that the Russian regime is a dictatorship and claimed it to be “true democracy.” For evidence they pointed to the embodiment of numerous rights in the Constitution; as if similar paper “rights” are not the stock-in-trade of all dictatorships from Franco’s to Peron’s and Tito’s. Since, in Russia, only one political party is allowed by law and only a very small minority of the population were able to belong to a political party at all; since there are no democratic elections, only the “right” to vote in each constituency for the one candidate approved by the Communists; and since nobody can publish political propaganda or hold meetings except under Communist Party control, the Constitutional rights are not worth the paper they are written on.

Now there is this sudden change of attitude, including permission to American journalists to visit Russia, move about freely, take photographs and report more or less what they liked.

At the same time Russian foreign policy has likewise undergone a drastic change.

The Case of the Doctors.

The other outstanding reversal of policy was the announcement that the nine doctors arrested for murder and attempted murder of Russian leaders had been released and their accusers arrested instead.

The Russian official announcement of the release of 15 doctors (hitherto the existence of six of them had not been disclosed, only nine having been mentioned as having been arrested), read as follows:—

   “As a result of verification it has been established that Professors [here followed 15 names] implicated in the case were wrongfully arrested by the former Ministry of State Security of the U.S.S.R. without any legal grounds.
    “The verification has shown that the charges against the above-mentioned persons were false and the documentary data on which the investigation workers based themselves were unfounded.
    “It has been established that the testimony of the arrested men, allegedly confirming the charges made against them was obtained by workers of the investigating section of the former Ministry of State Security through the use of methods of investigation which are inadmissible and most strictly forbidden by the Soviet law."

(Daily Worker, 6 April, 1953.) 

Naturally the Daily Worker tried to make the best of this acutely embarrassing disclosure by presenting it as proof of the “justice and strength" of the new government. What they were not able to show, because it did not and could not happen under the Russian dictatorship, was that at any time between the arrests and the release, any journal in Russia, or any public figure, or any political party, or any member of the Russian “parliament," or any lawyer, publicly stated inside Russia that there were doubts about the guilt of the arrested doctors. From the moment of the first announcement the men were treated as guilty, both in Russia and in the columns of the Daily Worker, yet there must have been many people in Russia well aware of the kind of methods used to obtain admissions of guilt—and in any event the arrested doctors had never even been tried.

It is this latter circumstance that makes nonsense of the line now taken by the Daily Worker of pretending that the doctors never were held to be guilty, but only charged and awaiting trial. Replying to an article in which the Daily Mail had said that the men "were found guilty of crimes they had not committed," the Daily Worker in an editorial on 8 April, 1953, wrote:—

     “As is frequent in matters concerning the Soviet Union the Mail is quite wrong. The doctors had not been found guilty, for the simple reason that at the time of their release they had not yet been brought to trial."

As it happens we need only look back over issues of the Daily Worker to see whether it is true that the men were held by that journal merely to have been persons arrested on a charge but not yet deemed to be guilty.

The Daily Worker of 14 January not only reproduced the Russian Tass Agency report which referred to them as “guilty" and “criminals" but the Worker added, on the authority of its own Foreign Editor, that “five of the nine doctors . . .  got their orders from 'Joint’—the American Joint Distribution Committee." Another report in the same issue described them as "medical killers who became monsters of the human race, who trampled the holy banner of science, who dishonoured science, were paid agents of a foreign intelligence service."

In the issue of 28 January the report of a speech by Mr. Harry Pollitt contained a jibe at the capitalist Press and the “Right Wing Labour statesmen’’ for their attitude to the case of the doctors. He said:—

       “We understand their fury at seeing their pals caught red-handed before they have been able to do all they were ordered to do."

The Communist excuse for holding them guilty before their trial was that they had "confessed.” Thus an article in the Daily Worker of 23 January replied to a criticism made by Vernon Bartlett by saying :—

       ". . .  the Moscow doctors are being denounced for crimes which they have confessed to committing" (Italics are the Daily Worker’s).

It went on to say that Vernon Bartlett’s paper does not accept evidence given at such trials anyway.

Now the admission by the Russian Government that the "confessions” were extorted and were false not only destroys the validity of confessions in this case but casts doubts on the confessions and on the "evidence" in all the long series of trials under the dictatorship,

Of course we still do not know the whole truth about the doctor case. They were made to confess that they were paid agents of a foreign organisation but now their accusers are arrested. Will these accusers now be tried in public and tell the whole story about the source from which they got their orders, and about the circumstances under which Ministry of State Security officials regarded it as part of their job to extort false confessions? And shall we be told why six of the doctors now released were not reported to have been arrested? Can it be that they had not confessed?

With the decision to release the doctors the Russian authorities also gave a declaration that

     “Every Soviet citizen can so assured that his personal freedom and civic rights are fully guaranteed under the Constitution of the U.S.S.R.—and Soviet law will strictly observe and defend these rights."

(Daily Worker, 7 April). 

Such assurances are worth nothing. They could become more of a reality if the Russian workers were allowed to form political parties of their own choice— but this will involve a more drastic change in Russia than any so far reported.

Edgar Hardcastle

Sidelight on the U.S.A. (1953)

From the May 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

The American Magazine "Time" of February 23rd, 1953, paints a revealing picture of the mercenary struggle that goes on behind the scenes when the big record companies of the United States decide that they have a vocal "hit" personality. "Time" spotlights Rosemary Clooney the latest best seller of the revolving disc and tells us that the reason for her success is because to the trade "her voice is both 'barrel house' and blue, i.e., robust and fresh with an undercurrent of seductiveness . . . it has a cinnamon flavour that tends to remind fans of happier days gone by—or soon to come." "Time" continues "Moreover thanks to a maloclusion of the Clooney jaw her voice carries just the hint of a lisp. A word like 'kiss' comes out 'kish' and 'caress' like 'carest' . . . Clooney gets a sound that no other competitor quite duplicates."

We are then told of one Mitch Miller who chooses the songs for Columbia records, who employs both himself and Rosemary Clooney. In four or five hours he may listen to as many as fifty songs any of which will possibly be sung by one or more of Columbia's best selling warblers. Keeping in mind the age group 14-22 years that buys most of these records Mr. Miller has an infallible formula "Keep it simple, keep it sexy, keep it sad." Whilst giving auditions to these new ballads that are soon to rend the hearts and moisten the eyes of American and British youth, Mr. Miller will pass the time "spooning yoghourt or munching hard boiled eggs."

And what does all this add up to for Miss Clooney the girl wit the maloclusion (whatever that may mean) of the jaw? "Time" tells us "a jungly world of high pressure pluggers struggling songsmiths and all important disc jockeys. It was a world where she came to own only 75 per cent. of herself with her managers and booking agents owning the other 25 per cent. Above all it was a world where click or smash hit was the ultimate goal where clearance (by payment to publishing societies) was necessary for permission to plug a song on the air; a world where cut-ins (giving a performer a share of song profits), hot stones (open bribes), and other forms of payola were standing operating procedure; a world of concern . . . of romance (a verb meaning to shower disc jockeys and musicians with attention in return for performances)," and now apparently she is on her way to Hollywood and stardom.

While one may not wish the young woman of our story anything but good (it is not often that members of the working class get such quick and relatively easy money) we would venture to suggest that within a socialist society people will be much more able and much freer to create their own music alongside and in harmony with their other activities and to be able to appreciate a better standard from those who can excel. This of course does not mean the howlers, echo box and crying performers that seem to be necessary to give youth a shot in the arm today. It would also mean an end to the parasites who, like leeches, fasten on to any new success as long as they can take a cut or a rake off.

Incidentally Columbia with six other recording companies shared 100,000,000 dollars worth of business last year and business is still booming.

S.E.K.