Leaves from the diary of a philanthropist. (1911)

A Short Story from the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

Oct. 16, 1908.—This day is the thirtieth anniversary of my marriage and the fortieth of my business career. I remember well even now, how I calculated that my ten-year-old business warranted the step. I always opined that £1,000 per year was the minimum sum upon which a cultivated man could take the step of holy matrimony. My wife’s dowry, of course, helped. As I look calmly back over the forty years I can estimate the relative values of various incidents and personal qualities which have contributed to my successful career. Minor factors in that success have been the building of a railroad near my native town, the growth of population in the district creating a market for my products ; a plentiful supply of cheap labour ; my good fortune in obtaining capable foremen at reasonable wages ; and, last of all, the use of my recognised mental qualities, famed business foresight, and a determination to find regular employment for my beloved workpeople. My native town has indeed prospered : its population must have quadrupled during the last fifty years.

Jan. 9, 1909.—The granting of a commission on sales (usually called profit-sharing) to my shop managers has been a remarkable success, resulting in a large increase in trade. At a dinner which I gave to my staff a few days ago, several of the men spoke in eulogy of the commission scheme. They said, speaking with much feeling, that it had been a continual stimulus to increased exertion, and that without it their efforts to increase trade could not have been so determined. Some of the managers of my retail shops who proved incapable of response to this reasonable stimulus I have been compelled to dismiss.

I received to-day an acknowledgment of the cheque sent to the Guild of Help. It is with deep humility that I thank the Giver of All Blessings for such opportunities to succour the fallen. I notice that the receipt was signed by the chairman of the I.L.P., who is, I hear, chairman of the Guild.

July 9, 1909.—Following the example of my competitors, I twelve months ago placed a suggestion box in each department of my works. This was my scheme. If an idea occurred to any employee which he or she thought would conduce to the more economical working of the department, it was to be written down and placed in this box. For any adopted suggestion I promised a reward of 10s. The scheme has been fruitful—it is one more example of the value of that Mutual Aid which philanthropists see existing throughout all time.

Dec. 3. 1909.—I have been invited to woo the constituency in which I reside, in the Liberal interest. The city is an industrial one and important enough to warrant any expenditure. Have given my political agent £10,000 for charitable purposes, but I am on the horns of a dilemma as regards its distribution. If I give to both Liberal and Tory I shall be accused of trying to change Tory votes to Liberal ; if I give to Liberal alone I shall also be suspected of corruption. It is not my aim to debauch a constituency, but merely to help poor people with whom I hope to stand in intimate relationship.

The Trades Union Congress is being held here this year. I have invited the delegates to a dinner at my place, and also to visit my model factory and see how well-ventilated rooms make the girls work merrily and briskly. The local Liberal paper is sending a reporter to write up the delegates’ speeches. Have arranged for a series of whole page adverts in this paper—the proprietor is an earnest and useful man.

Feb. 6, 1910.—I learnt the value of sobriety and thrift at a Wesleyan Methodist Band of Hope. These cardinal virtues, having stood with me all possible tests, deserve wider recognition and acceptance, so, with this object in view, I purpose building a Wesleyan chapel. A suitable site, about half a mile from my factory, has been secured. It is in the centre of the city, between the Corporation Gas Works and Messrs. Tanquick’s large tanyard.

Hearing that about a dozen capable youths in this town, connected with the various religious bodies, were becoming infected with Socialism, and that in the ordinary way they may, perchance, become eloquent expositors of the Word, I have made arrangements to subsidise them and so allow them to attend a theological seminary. I often wonder why those Enemies of the Red Flag and similar organisations insist upon brazenly purchasing working-class talent : the bargain is too apparent. Clever working lads can be diverted from red ruin in far less ostentatious ways.

May 28, 1911.—I have to-day been pondering over the position I am placed in by recent legislation—I mean of the type of Workmen’s Compensation and State Insurance. Certainly I cannot oppose such legislation, although the new insurance scheme will cost me £500 per year. I readily allow that an employer of labour ought to stand in a moral relationship to his “hands.” He ought not to think always of buying cheap and selling dear, and overlook human duties.

Well-meaning persons say that an increase in the price of my commodities must be the result of this legislation, but they speak rashly. The price I receive for my goods is not just what I desire, not any price I please to ask, but it is defined by well-known economic laws. If I am to save the £500 I must act on different lines. For instance, I buy labour-power, and as a check upon it I intend to purchase an Automatic Time Register. I check other commodities which I purchase, and there is no legitimate reason why I should not rigidly check labour-power. I also intend to economise in the office, first by purchasing an Addressing Machine and a Calculating Machine. I can now obtain an addressing Machine which will address 3,000 customers an hour. This is the track I must follow—economise so that I may ultimately be a helpful citizen. I have given instructions to the head of each department to keep a watchful eye on the machinery market, and to be in touch with all new mechanical improvements. If Lloyd George does not lessen my income he has certainly succeeded in quickening my faculties. But let us not forget the apostolic instruction : “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” If we strive to carry out this great teaching we shall help forward that greater and nobler day when it shall be said of us:

Then in no were for the Party ;

   Then all were for the State ;

Then the great man helped the poor,

    And the poor man loved the great.

John A. Dawson

Editorial: Marx, Methodism and the Labour Party (1950)

Editorial from the July 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Morgan Phillips, Secretary of the Labour Party has caused a stir by the way he has restated the outlook of his Party. In a speech to a gathering of European Labour Parties at Copenhagen he elaborated the proposition that the philosophy and method of the British organisation is “Methodist rather than Marxist.” Here are some of his statements.

“British socialism owes little to Karl Marx, either in theory or practice, or in its methods of organising the working classes. Marx’s economics as well as his politics were challenged and finally renounced by the founders and teachers of the British Labour Party.” 

“Marx’s conception of the political organisation required for waging the class war was not accepted by the British Labour movement.”

". . . Marxism as a philosophy of materialism, as an economic theory, and as a form of political organisation with revolutionary intention and aim, is historically an aberrant tendency in the development of British Socialism.”

“British Socialists do not consider it at all a reproach or a source of weakness in their intellectual and political positions that their movement has been profoundly influenced by religious thought. The very organisation of our British working-class movement embodies methods we have taken over from religious institutions.” (Manchester Guardian, 3/6/50).

Among the religious influences he mentioned particularly is Methodism. There is nothing new in this. It was said by many of the early leaders of the Labour Party and was a commonplace criticism of them in S.P.G.B. propaganda forty years ago.

In 1922 the late Phillip Snowden wrote of his Party:—“The British Labour Party is certainly not Socialist in the sense in which socialism is understood upon the Continent. It is not based upon the recognition of the class struggle; it does not accept the teachings of Marx.” (Manchester Guardian Reconstruction Supplement, October 26, 1922).

But though it is not new it has a significance now that it did not have years ago. When the British Labour Party was younger, before it had had experience as a government, and before the Communists seized power in Russia, the lead among the Labour Parties of Europe was taken by the German Party. It was the German Social Democratic Party that was largest and seemed to be most successful and nearest to becoming the government. The future of Labourism throughout Europe was thought to be bound up with the fate of the German party. Like all of the continental parties the German S.D.P. was traditionally hostile towards religion and the church and paid lip service to Marxism.

Now several new factors have brought the British Labour Party into greater prominence and influence. The German S.D.P. was greatly weakened by the war and by the rise of the Communists; Marxism has been brought into popular disrepute by the distortion of it associated with the Russian dictatorship; the new balance of world capitalism has produced the line-up of America, Britain and Western Europe on the one side against Russia and her satellites on the other; and lastly the British Labour Party is now almost alone among the Labour parties of Europe in holding governmental power. In these circumstances the lead among the Labour Parties has been taken by the British Party, and the prospect is that the traditional lip service paid to Marxism by the Continental parties will be allowed to fall into the background.

This development represents a certain change; but no progress towards a greater understanding of socialism. It exposes the fundamental lack of socialist principle that characterises all the Labour parties, and shows the extent to which their policies are in fact bound up with the requirements of capitalism in the various countries. It needs to be studied in relation to another pronouncement made by Morgan Phillips at the same conference. Because the West European Trade Unions and Labour parties are now backing Marshall Aid and the tie-up with U.S.A., and the American trade unions play an increasingly influential role in the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in its fight with the Communist World Federation of Trade Unions, it becomes expedient to whitewash American capitalism, hence the following from Mr. Phillips: —

“Socialist prejudice against the United States must be exposed as out of date. For more than two decades the United States has been the most progressive country in the world outside Britain and Scandinavia. . . . At present most European Governments are less progressive than the Truman administration. I hope you will forgive me if I say that we must not be too smug about European traditions. It must not be forgotten that in the period between the two world wars America reacted to the world crisis by producing Roosevelt and the New Deal while Europe produced Hitler and Mussolini. Totalitarianism is in fact a European product.”

(Manchester Guardian 5/6/50).

There is nothing at all illogical in the British Labour Party, which stands for the reform of capitalism, looking with a sympathetic eye on Roosevelt’s and Truman’s reforms of American capitalism. It does not surprise Socialists though it may be a bitter pill for those Labourites to swallow who have liked to cherish the delusion that the Labour Party stands for something distinctive. Like Morgan Phillips they will seek comfort in the notion that at least they have been consistent in abhorring totalitarianism. But even here they are doomed to disappointment. Just now Mr. Phillips is asking them to admire the progressiveness of democratic American capitalism under Truman but not so long ago—before the opening of the “cold war”—Mr. Phillips was equally admiring of totalitarian capitalism in Russia., He visited Russia in 1946 and wrote up his observations in the Daily Herald (20 August, 1946). This is one of his remarks: —

“In Britain we are only just beginning our Socialist planning; in Russia it has been going on for 28 years. In some ways British social standards are well ahead of the Russian, and in others the Russians can teach us a lot.”

Before leaving Mr. Phillips and his views on Socialism we may usefully quote what he has to say of the aim the British.Labour Party sets before itself:—“It promises . . .  the attainment of a planned economy in which proletarian exploitation is not tolerated, and where the fundamental freedoms of the individual citizens, worker and wage-earner are safeguarded ” Marx showed conclusively that the exploitation of the working class cannot be ended while the workers continue to be a wage-earning class, hence his insistence that the unions should see the need to aim at the abolition of the wages system. Morgan Phillips, lacking Marx’s understanding of capitalism and socialism, cannot even perceive that the continued existence of the wages system in Russia and Britain makes nonsense of the claim in both countries to have ended exploitation and introduced socialism. He glories in the fact that the Labour Party rejected Marxism but cannot see that in so doing it was rejecting Socialism.

Halo, Halo! (2025)

The Halo Halo Column from the March 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Babies don’t enter the world going ‘Yay, I’m an [insert one of the 4000 religions here]’. Children growing up believing all sorts of that nonsense is down to nurture, not nature. Fortunate are the children whose carers doesn’t indoctrinate them into hokum.

My parents were not religious. My mother grew up in a Methodist household and her sister was devoted all of her life. Time has made me regret not having a conversation with them both to ascertain the difference in their views and why both my parents eschewed religion.

There was a small chapel about a quarter of mile from where we lived. Given its size I surmise that it may have belonged to a small sect. A neighbour’s daughter, I’m guessing aged around 19, somehow persuaded my parents to send me, around eight or nine years old, to the Sunday School there. I don’t blame my parents. Perhaps they wanted a little peace and quiet from a demanding child.

Time has dimmed the recollection as to how long I endured this. I do recall that after a number of weeks children there were given a religious book. A bribe? I was a bibliophile even at that age. It was upon the receipt of my second ‘gift’ that I informed my parents I would no longer be wasting my Sundays by sitting through such nonsense.

The reason? Having been given the same book twice. I still can remember the outrage I felt. A similar outrage remains with me for having unfairly been given a detention in senior school. Speaking of which, not even the compulsory daily school assemblies consisting of hymns and a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer changed my views of religion. Perhaps nature imbues individuals with a natural disinclination toward fairy tales after all.

I once had a partner who, like me, wasn’t religious, but who liked the spectacle of church theatre on occasions such as Christmas. Her best friend, known since childhood days, had a boyfriend who was also, like her, of a Christian bent. My nature towards other people always having been of a non-discriminatory sort this didn’t prevent a social relationship developing.

At Christmas time, after spending a long convivial evening in a pub, we would go to the midnight service at the non-Catholic church which these two individuals attended. My non-religious partner enjoyed the theatre of the occasion. Keep your partner happy, right? Now it would be different.

Around the third year of this ritual, she told me that we wouldn’t be doing the same that year as her friend had informed her that the presence of two atheists, as we were known to be, was ‘upsetting’ to the two Christians at such a ‘sacred’ event. Outrage kicked in again. I was indifferent as to whether we went or not but ‘friends’ don’t behave like that to one another. She was more forgiving and remained friends with them. Love god or else!

DC

Letters: Christianity (1982)

Letters to the Editors from the July 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Christianity

Dear Editors,

Having purchased my first ever copy of the Socialist Standard, I was dismayed to find “Socialists Against Religion” on the first inside page. What a philosophical and social disaster! As socialists we do not want to alienate the Christians; for a start, 1 aspire to be both a socialist and a Christian. I agree with socialist principles on all levels and I am not politically illiterate or 1 would not have purchased a copy of your journal.

You have probably heard the suggestion before, but I will repeat it anyway as it has a bearing upon my argument: Marx who was after all, along with the Levellers and such like, a father of socialism, gained much of his fraternal and communal theories from the influence of early Christian life. We know early Christians lived a communal life, sharing goods and work in common. My opinion remains that Christ was a socialist — the faults and greeds of men have corrupted this fraternity ever since. You confuse the ultimate equality and egalitarian message of many of the world’s religions with the rotten and corrupt uses made of less powerful peoples by the owners within society. After all, as a female, I have more to gripe about in a subservient role still imposed on me by the corrupted values of a so-called Christian society.

Furthermore, you must be aware that the Methodist movement was founded by a strong Tory and that several socialists specialising in the sociology of religion and that of work, have attempted to prove the Wesleys were involved in stopping a labourers’ revolution in the eighteenth century. Therefore, to cite Methodism (which I do know something about) as reformist is not really true. Also remember that the Quakers, during the time of the Hundred Years War refused to make gun metal, material for making military uniforms, or to sell timber. Instead they turned to food manufacture and suffered very much for it.

It is also irresponsible to deal only with a man’s physical needs. Even if you take a functionalist view of religion it has important spiritual uses. The loss of a son or daughter in an accident, a home due to an earthquake, or the gaining of a much desired child, all need spiritual or mental help and understanding. I will admit to having a vested interest as I begin university in October to sit Psychology (seen, incidentally, by HM Government as a subversive subject, as I was reliably informed), but R D Laing, “left wing” as he is, says the unconscious is very important to the whole self.

Let us have a social revolution, political revolution, by all means, but let us also have a religious revolution—use it to free us from spiritual oppression as well as physical oppression. Do not be like the capitalists and discourage free thought. Bear in mind that John Paul II, much as the writer of the article might dislike him, is the first Pope ever to have laboured by the work of his hands and to have spoken on the true dignity of the worker and his right to work as he wishes.
Your fellow in Socialism

Y. E. Garwood 

Kent

Reply:
While it is not the function of socialist propaganda to “alienate" any worker, it is essential that we expose all anti-socialist ideas, and one of the most powerful of these is religion. As we pointed out in the article “Socialists Against Religion” in the Socialist Standard (May 1982), religion attempts to divert the working class from the task of establishing socialism by the delusion that the problems of capitalism can be solved by making some moral adjustments. Socialists must oppose such an idea; only a revolution will rid us of capitalist society’s inadequacies and social ills.

Marx’s historic role was to place socialism, as far as it is possible, onto a scientific footing. He drew on the work of a mass of historians, philosophers, economists and the like, many of them religious. But this did not make him religious; indeed, it led him to formulate the Materialist Conception of History, which explains historical development in terms directly opposed to religious idealism. This conception sees capitalism as the logical development from former social systems, arising from revolutionary changes in the mode of wealth production. Ms. Garwood’s idea, that capitalism is a corruption of a long-ago purity in human affairs, is a typical religious misconception: it simply does not fit in with the facts. The article described many (not all) Methodists and Quakers as reformist, because they readily became involved in movements like CND and Anti Apartheid, which try to eliminate some problems of capitalism while leaving the system in being. Quakers are commonly pacifists; they have a moral objection to war—which is an inevitable product of capitalism—but, illogically, no objection to capitalism. Socialists argue that the nature of capitalism cannot be changed; those who object to its effects should work for its abolition.

Whatever the distinction between “conscious” and "unconscious” thought, neither can operate without material support and nutrition. Neither can they exist outside the material world; all human thought is fashioned by that world and works in material terms to change it. In human social development it is the mode of production which is the motivating force and which, by stimulating changes in ideas, drives society towards socialism.

Although Catholics may like to put emphasis on it, the Pope’s personal background is irrelevant. Whether he once laboured physically or not, he is the purveyor of a false idea which has no reasoned basis, and as such he powerfully helps to keep the world working class in their wage slavery.

It is important to the spread of socialist ideas that the working class are able freely to discuss all theories, including religious ones. We should, of course, remember how many dictatorships have been and are being aided in their repression by the Church in their country.

Editors.

Legal freedoms

Dear Editors,

The dogmatic stance of the SPGB is to some extent counter-productive in the struggle to achieve socialism. I refer essentially to the Party’s position on social reforms.

Reforms need not always be categorised as anti-revolutionary, because they do not solve problems, since some reforms are nevertheless necessary stages in the workers’ struggle. It is true that the Labour Party’s efforts throughout their history have been futile (welfare state, state owned housing schemes, nationalisation, etc.) and have merely served to create a more hard-line Tory Party and to distract the working class from activity in its real interests. However, how is the “intellectual revolution" to be achieved through the parliamentary process when most of the world does not have a parliamentary process? Surely a prerequisite to the revolution is the establishment of some significant degree of democracy and freedom of expression throughout the world.

When the majority of Poles, Turks, Chileans, Iranians, South Africans, Eastern Bloc citizens, to name but the obvious few, have little or no real education or legal rights to control their political destinies, is it not pompous for the SPGB to pledge support for "liberation movements” only when they unite for socialism? Such reforms will be beneficial to the people as being not just useful, but necessary steps towards the establishment of a world of free access.

Or does the SPGB envisage a miraculous short cut?

Andy Spencer

Berlin 39 

West Germany

Reply:
That a socialist party should not advocate reforms has always been our policy, although we do not hold that reforms of capitalism can never benefit the working class—some can and do, while many are futile and harmful. Similarly, while we do not support non-socialist organisations which claim to be fighting for or defending democracy, we certainly do not minimise the importance of certain legalised freedoms for the working class and socialist movement. This position may appear ambivalent or dogmatic; in fact, it is a consequence of the recognition that workers’ political struggles must be waged along class lines.

The political activities of non-socialists necessarily express capitalist interests, for the simple reason that they are helping—however unwittingly—to maintain the existing order of society. Andy Spencer believes that our stand is counter-productive, that by failing to support those who demand limited political freedoms in authoritarian states we are weakening our case. But how can we, on the one hand, urge British workers to pursue their class interests and, on the other, tell those abroad to ally themselves with any political Tomas, Ricardo or Henri? We call upon workers everywhere to organise to defend their interests on the industrial field, but we don’t urge British workers to support the TUC’s political and industrial policies. Likewise, while the struggle of, for example, Polish workers to achieve a degree of freedom of political expression (a "necessary stage”, if you like) is warmly to be welcomed, we cannot support Solidarity because of its manifestly pro-capitalist, nationalist outlook. Doubtless, many of its members would endorse Ronald Reagan’s view (expressed to British MPs last month) that in Eastern Europe we should “foster the infrastructure of democracy, the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities, which allow a people to decide their own way”.

Democracy is a weapon, politically valuable, it is true; but like every other weapon it can be used for self-preservation or self-destruction (in 1933, for example, a majority of the German electorate voted for its abolition). Unemployment, poverty, insecurity, militarism and the other evils of capitalism will remain, no matter whether the form of its political administration be democratic or dictatorial. This is why we stress that the limited freedoms of expression obtainable under capitalism can only be consolidated and expanded to the extent that workers also adopt a socialist standpoint.

Editors.

About Books (1953)

Book Reviews from the January 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Spartacus was the leader of the third, and greatest, slave revolt against Rome (about 73 B.C.). A Thracian by birth and a gladiator, he rallied an army of slaves and, over a period of years, by adroit generalship, he defeated army after army of Roman soldiers sent against him, until the revolt was finally suppressed with great cruelty.

It was almost inevitable that a writer like Mr. Howard Fast, who selects the subjects for his novels from the struggles of exploited peoples against their oppressors, should eventually write a book about this revolt. His latest book, “Spartacus,” published by The Bodley Head (13/6) may not be such a gripping story as some of his earlier writings, but it is splendid reading and is to be recommended.

This story is not a chronological history of the slave rebellion. It is more in the nature of a symposium, the story being told through the mouths of a variety of characters each of whom views the revolt from a different angle. Licinius Crassus, the Roman general who led the army that eventually defeated the slaves; Lentulus Gracchus, a shrewd, successful Roman politician; Lentulus Batiatus, who kept the school for gladiators at Capua from which Spartacus escaped; Marcus Tullius Cicero, who later became the famous Roman philosopher, writer, politician, orator and consul; David, a fictitious Jewish rebel slave who in the book was closely associated with Spartacus from beginning to end of the revolt; these are some of the characters who tell the story and discuss the problems of chattel slave society.

A number of these problems have their parallel in present day capitalism, as, no doubt, Mr. Fast intends us to realise. Instance, unless the slaves could destroy the chattel slave system there was nowhere for them to go and nothing for them to do but to struggle until they were either killed or driven back into slavery. So it is with wage workers. Unless they abolish capitalism, struggle how they may, they will remain an exploited class.

The author gives a clear analysis of the Roman republic. It was a world in which the majority had nothing whilst a few had almost everything. Those who owned so much, needed protection from the slaves who produced it for them. The Roman soldiers, in the main, were peasants who had been driven from their land in order that slave plantations could be developed. The slave plantation had turned them into landless paupers. They had no more to defend than the rebel slaves whom they were sent to fight against. Those who owned nothing, who possessed no slaves, had to march their feet off, live in filth and squalor, wallow in blood and die fighting the slaves, in order that the slave owners could live in comfort and luxury. Had the Roman soldier but realised it, he had more to gain from a slave victory than from a slave defeat.

The job of the Roman politician was to be an illusionist, to convince the landless Romans that they had power, that they were the strength and glory of Rome, that they were free and that their freedom was precious, that they controlled their civilisation by their vote, to make them feel proud and superior because they were not slaves. Then, no matter how they stank, how hungry they were or where they slept, they felt proud and ready to defend the society that kept them in that condition against those who were their companions in misery—the slaves.

The horrors of crucifixion and gladiatorial combat, the depraved morality of the Roman leisure class, the comradeship within the many-tongued slave army and the hopes and fears of the slave leaders are splendidly dealt with in this book. It is well worth reading.

In an introductory note the author tells that, with the help of friends, he had to publish this book himself in America. Owing to the political temper of the times no commercial publisher would undertake the publication and distribution of such a book in the U.S.A.

Penguin Books are publishing a new series on the development of English society. It is to comprise eight “Pelican” books with the following titles:

1. Roman Britain.
2. The Beginnings of English Society (From the Anglo-Saxon Invasion).
3. English Society in the Early Middle Ages.
4. England in the Late Middle Ages.
5. Tudor England.
6. England in the Seventeenth Century.
7. England in the Eighteenth Century.
8. England in the Nineteenth Century.

All except the first of this series have been published. Each book is by a separate author and each author is a specialist in the period about which he, or she, writes.

The authors have had a free hand with their work, with the consequence that each has put his own emphasis on different aspects of social development, but, in general, the series is good.

Certain chapters in these books are complete essays in themselves and very useful essays, too. Instance the chapter “John Wesley and the Road to Salvation,” in “England in the Eighteenth Century,” by J. H. Plumb.

The influence of Wesley’s early life and his parents is dealt with. When, after 1738, he started to preach his Methodism and to build the organisation of Methodist chapels he was helped by the fact that the newly developed industry in this country was creating a number of new towns which had no churches. The tie-up between the Anglican church organisation and the state was such that the Anglican church ignored the new towns and so Wesley had a clear field. He had a violent dislike for radicalism and preached that the people should have no share in government. For him, the way to reform the evils of society was to transform the will of the individual. He preached thrift, abstinence, hard work and concentration. It was the Puritanism of the previous century shorn of its political radicalism. To an embryo capitalist class, striving by thrift and frugality to accumulate greater capital this teaching had a great appeal.

Wesley was intensely superstitious. He believed in witches and the possession by devils. His teaching called for no exercise of the intellect and appealed to his uneducated working class audiences. The owners of the workshops and factories that were growing up all over England, following the inventions of Savery and Newcomen, Arkwright and Hargreaves, the Darby’s of Coalbrookdale and others, were demanding more and more child labour. Poverty stricken workers had need of the few pence that their children could earn. Wesley taught that play was unworthy of a Christian child, that a child’s sole education need be only a knowledge of the Bible and the Catechism, that for the sake of its everlasting life a child should be at work. So, a Methodist could regard his overworked children with complacency. Methodism flourished through discipline and toil in the ugliness of suburbs and the industrial villages of England.

But the Methodist teaching destroyed its own objective. Wesley himself wrote, at the age of 84. that, through diligence and frugality many of his disciples were increasing their wealth and, as their wealth increased so did their pride, their anger and their desires of the flesh. Although the form of Methodism remained, the spirit was vanishing.

This Pelican History of England is, in total, very useful. There is another Pelican book entitled “Pre-historic Britain” which, although not one of this series, is a useful addition to it as a prelude to the series proper.

W. Waters

From Methodism to Marxism (1994)

From the May 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Socialism? Nice idea. But too much like hard work!"

I used to be a Christian, once upon a time. A Methodist, no less, and a preacher to boot.

This is not some kind of confession or personal testimony – we have all had to make some sort of intellectual journey to call ourselves socialists. It is just that I called myself a Methodist – and yet I enjoyed a drink then, as I still do, regularly indulging myself, sometimes to excess.

The time at which John and Charles Wesley, the founders of Methodism, were preaching – the mid-18th century – was one in which there was widespread disquiet among the chattering (and, more importantly, the employing) classes of the day about the effects of the "demon drink" on society. Thus, Methodists were, for many years, encouraged to sign the pledge, and constantly railed against alcohol and those who consumed it. It was a theme that other sects picked up on. including, in the 19th century, the Salvation Army.

But it did not worry me that abstinence was – or had been – one of the central planks of Methodism. Indeed, it did not seem to worry many Methodists of my generation. "Well, we understand that there used to be a point to it." they would say, "but alcohol's OK in moderation, the problem's not the same now!" – ignoring the fact that there are many more alcoholics, and alcohol-related deaths, now than there ever were in the Wesley s' day.

That kind of selectiveness with ideas or creeds is common enough in Methodism, but it is by no means exclusive to it.

Many die-hard cold warriors, and sundry other tinpot armchair militarists, still sit in churches, praying to their god, in spite of the fact that, according to the New Testament, their god had enjoined his followers to "love their enemies" and to "turn the other cheek" when wronged.

The Queen – the richest woman in the world, or thereabouts – apparently has her god to thank for her position. Yet Jesus told his disciples that it was "harder for a rich man to enter through the gates of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle"; called the love of money the root of all evil; and instructed his disciples to give away all that they owned before they could follow him. (Anyone tempted to think, at this point, of Jesus as some sort of proto-communist would be well advised to remember his injunction to "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's").

Various apologists for the exploiters in our society have tried to soften the blow of Jesus' apparent rejection of the rich. I remember reading one "explanation" which argued that the Eye of the Needle was, in fact, a small gate in Jerusalem's city wall; and that while it was difficult for a camel to get through, it was not impossible. But the fact remains that Jesus apparently took the view that one could not serve two masters at once: to serve the interests of one's personal fortune detracted from one's service to, and contemplation of, God.

I spent a lot of time making that kind of point from the pulpit. But in truth I was just as guilty of ignoring inconvenient parts of the doctrine. The Bishop of Durham and I both questioned the literal truth of the biblical miracles, the Virgin Birth, and the Resurrection. In my case I rejected them completely. I even came to the conclusion that Jesus was not the Son of God – an idea which, while it may not be central to the Gospels, is certainly central to the Nicene Creed, the statement of faith adopted by all the Western Christian churches.

And yet, for quite a time, I still continued to consider myself a Christian.

Most, if not all, Christians down the ages have tended to ignore bits of the creed that did not suit them. To a great extent this is because whole chunks of the Christian bible, at any rate, are contradictory, so a Christian has to decide what kind of Christian he or she is going to be. But also it is, in part, because many people's religious beliefs are inherited, rather than considered. As they get older, if they retain any religious faith at all, it is likely to be in a bastardized, even unorthodox, form.

Socialists, on the other hand, one might expect to be rather clearer about what principles they hold dear. People calling themselves socialists, or Marxists, should have no difficulty in thinking through logically what their credo is.

And yet, ostensibly socialist/Marxist groupings and political parties seem to have real problems with identifying their principles and sticking to them.

The Labour Party, taken as a whole, has never really had any principles, at least none that it was not prepared to sell in exchange for public office. It has long been what it calls a "broad church" of reformists, opportunists, and sundry ideologically-challenged bleeding hearts. As such, it has never really known where it wants to go, or how to get there. For a while, a majority of the party thought that nationalization was the way forward. But it was never clear where that way was supposed to go, whether public ownership was a means to an end or an end in itself. And now in practice, even Clause 4 has been abandoned in a bid to make the policy-less party attractive to voters.

But one thing that the Labour Party has always maintained is that it is a socialist party, albeit that the word has stuck in the throat of some of those party leaders using it. Socialism, in the Labour Party dictionary, is a vague, woolly catch-all word: anyone can be a socialist in the Labour Party. There are no central ideas there to embarrass voters or activists, be they never so egotistical, opportunistic, or venal. Or indeed as rich as Croesus. This non-definition of "socialism" is deliberate. The main objective of the Labour Party is to get elected, not to change society. So the fact that nothing substantive ever gets done to justify the use of the word "socialism" – that the Labour Party has not advanced the cause of the working class one jot, despite several terms of parliamentary office – is viewed as unimportant.

Marx existed

It is, perhaps, possible to view the word "socialism" as a nebulous term that can mean a variety of things. But not the word "Marxism". After all, unlike with Jesus, we can be sure that Marx existed. We know much of what he did and said. And, again unlike Jesus, we have books, letters and articles that we know he wrote himself. So there should be no problem with deciding what may legitimately be termed Marxism, and what may not.

And yet, astoundingly, there are groups, inside and outside the Labour Party, who call themselves Marxist and Trotskyist simultaneously, despite the fact that the two words are a complete contradiction in terms. These include Militant, Socialist Organizer and the SWP, to name but a few.

It does not take a genius to work out that, however Trotsky himself defined his political views, his ideas were fundamentally at odds with those of Marx.

For instance, Marx took the view that the liberation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself. The implication of which is that the transition from capitalism to socialism will be, and must be, a democratic process. A good Trotskyist, on the other hand, will say that the revolution will be brought about by a dedicated (for which read "small") band of professional revolutionaries, who will educate the working class to want socialism after it has supposedly been established. Trying to persuade the majority of workers to understand and want and work for socialism, in order that it may – as it must – be established democratically, is impossible in the eyes of the Trotskyist.

Far too difficult, too much like hard work. So the Trotskyist falls into the trap of the "revolutionary vanguard" concept, an apparently easier route to socialism which is, in fact, a cul-de-sac, a route only to dictatorship.

All Trotskyist sects thus fall at the first fence of the route to a Marxian socialist/communist society (and Trotsky distinguished between socialism and communism in a way that Marx never did).

But they also seem to have problems with what it is exactly that they are striving for.

Marx defined socialism as a society wherein wages and money, private property and profit had all been abolished. But I remember talking to a member of Socialist Organizer who scoffed at the Socialist Party's vision of society as pie-in-the-sky idealism, at best only to be seen centuries from now.

The Socialist Party does not, of course, believe that Marx was a god, or a Pope, there to be infallible. He was a man, whose thought developed over the years, and who quite often was wrong. But with others, drawing on earlier ideas and on observation, he came to an understanding of capitalism and its alternative, which is clear and logical – and which, as a whole, the Socialist Party believes to be correct. The Socialist Party, like Marx, holds that a moneyless, propertyless society is feasible and desirable. It also holds that the only way to achieve such a society is democratically, by persuasion. There is no substitute for hard work, for "making socialists".

Marx said that we have a world to win. He never said it would be easy.

Paul Burroughs