Socialism and Industrial Organisation (1932)

From the May 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

A reader asks : 

“What is the attitude of the S.P.G.B. to the industrial organisations of the workers. All the other parties claiming to represent the interests of the workers have always had some policy in this matter. The S.P.G.B. appears to lack one. The I.L.P. support the Trade Unions, the Communists back the Minority Movement, the S.L.P. advocated Industrial Unionism, and the B.S.P. favoured certain forms of syndicalism. Where does the S.P.G.B. Stand ?”

Towards the end of last century the work that had been done in placing the workers’ slave position in a clearer light and inducing them to organise on this basis was diverted by trade-union leaders into narrow trade-union channels, and the political parties that arose, such as the S.D.F. and I.L.P. felt compelled to pander to this side in order to attract membership.

When the Industrial Unionist movement first came into existence its appeal on the surface appeared to be so strong that the established parties anticipated that it would sweep the board. Consequently they modified their policy to prevent the feared landslide in membership and to attract more members by appealing directly on the ground of helping the workers in their immediate demands.

The ideas of syndicalists are a survival from conditions in the early days of the capitalist system before improved means of transport and communication and the extension of the franchise had made it possible for a class organisation of the workers to be established. Such ideas arose in countries where capitalism was still immature and where the ranks of the factory workers were still being recruited from among the small producers, i.e., peasants and handicraftsmen. These people carry their old ideas of property relations with them into the new conditions of life. They were accustomed to owning their instruments of production, small plots of land, small workshops and simple tools, either as individuals or as small groups, and when brought into contact with capitalist exploitation they readily adopted the idea that the factory should belong to the group working in it.

At the same time the State appears to these people as a power apart which must be overthrown, but which they cannot hope to control.

In England the developments of international commercial and financial relations have long ago shown such ideas to be obsolete. The mass of the workers have accepted the notion that they cannot do without capital, and that, therefore, the workers in any particular factory are dependent (through the capitalists) upon the rest of the workers in capitalist society. The wage contract hides from them the fact that the capitalists are a parasitical class.

The struggle between the industrial workers and their employers takes, therefore, the form of collective bargaining which requires organisation of a wider scope than that of a factory group. Hence we have Trade Unions accepting the capitalist system of production and trying to obtain for their members the full market price of their labour-power. Socialists organised in the S.P.G.B. recognise that these efforts are necessary under capitalism, but we also recognise that the establishment of adult suffrage provided the workers with a weapon with which they can end capitalism. We regard Trade Unions as insufficient in any case and, in so far as they are composed of non-Socialists, their actions are frequently found to be reactionary, both upon the industrial and the political fields. We do not, however, regard this as a reason for advocating and supporting policies which prove upon examination to be even more reactionary.

Policies which encourage the workers in different industries to entertain the idea that they have interests distinct from those of other sections of the workers, or that incite them to attempt to defy the forces of the State, only result in the weakening of their existing organisations and delay the time when they will organise as a class. Actual history demonstrates that the Trade Unions are superior to alleged alternative forms of organisation as a means of dealing with capitalist conditions, and that in spite of their weaknesses the former survive where the latter are either absorbed or entirely disappear.

Our critic mentions the S.L.P. Its attempts to found an industrial union in this country were a complete failure, and the same may be said of the syndicalist movement with which certain members of the B.S.P., such as Tom Mann, were associated. Towards the latter end of the War, however, leaders of these bodies acquired temporary prominence through their association with the shop stewards and factory committees movement. The comb-out for military needs placed a premium upon skilled workers, and as the employing concerns were making abnormal profits, minor concessions were made to keep the industries working smoothly. An illusory “Workers’ control” became the slogan of the day, misleading many into believing that their emancipation was at hand.

The termination of the War reversed these conditions. The return of millions of workers from the army coupled with the shutting down of munition works and other sources of military supplies, weighted the scale more heavily in favour of the employers in relation to their employees. Leaders of factory committees became leaders of the unemployed, and began to turn their attention from specifically industrial matters to political agitation.

The S.L.P. and B.S.P. went to pieces, and from the confusion arose the Communist Party. The tactics of this body have varied from support of men like A. J. Cook in 1928 (with his policy of nationalisation) to the support of breakaway leaders, such as Allan, of the United Mineworkers of Scotland. Futility has invariably been the outcome and the leaders of the Minority Movement have frequently confessed their failure. (See Daily Worker, Jan. 25th.)

It is instructive to turn to the history of similar movements in other countries. In his “Works Councils in Germany,” Mr. C. W. Guillebaud gives an interesting and detailed account of post-war industrial movements in that country. While the end of hostilities produced somewhat similar results there as in Britain, there was a difference which became more marked as time went on. The German industrial capitalists had to turn from the supply of war materials to the indemnifying of the Allied Powers, which involved a considerable maintenance of production. It was deemed expedient, therefore, to give to the factory committees or works councils a definite legal standing, which, combined with other minor concessions, secured what the masters wanted, i.e., a certain measure of industrial peace. As the author puts it :—

“In 1922 and, indeed, throughout the first four years after the War the councils were often able to extract concessions from the employers by virtue of their bargaining strength and that of organised labour in general. Prices were rising continuously, trade was brisk, and while a strike meant a considerable sacrifice of profits the inflationary process lessened the importance of elements of cost which would have bulked much larger in the eyes of the employers in a period of industrial depression.” (pp. 97-8.)

The boom collapsed towards the end of 1923. The number of those in receipt of unemployment benefit rose from a quarter of a million in September to a million and-a-half in February, 1921 (p. 108). The effect of this upon the position of the workers can be readily guessed.

“(It) placed the employers in a position of unqualified strength within the factory and business undertaking. The Works Councils found themselves forced to remain strictly on the defensive, and became, in fact, more concerned with the question whether they themselves would join the unemployed and have to subsist on the mere pittance given in the form of unemployment benefit, than with the stalwart upholding of their rights and privileges.” (pp. 109, 110.)

Thus the factory committees came up against the same economic forces which placed severe limits upon the activities of trades unions. So far from supplanting these bodies, the works councils were absorbed by degrees in the general movement. Still more striking is the evidence provided by Mr. Maurice Dobb concerning the fate of the factory committee movement in Russia. Describing the situation during the few months prior to the Bolshevik seizure of power, he says :—

“Already under Kerensky factory committees had been given certain powers, and in some cases had assumed or tried to assume more powers than they were actually given so that the industrialists were loudly clamouring for the suppression of the committees within reasonable bounds and the restoration of workshop discipline. Cases of actual seizure of factories were not unknown, though still exceptional ; but quite considerable interference with the management was more general and seems to have been prompted in most cases by the desire of the workers to prevent the closing down of the work and their own dismissal.” (Russian Economic Developments, p. 35.)

For tactical reasons the Bolsheviks supported this movement, but their assumption of power in 1917 led to a conflict between them and the factory committees, in which the latter eventually got the worst of it. As Dobb puts it :—

“After the taking of the political key positions in October, the question of factory committees and workers’ control was still regarded from a tactical standpoint. . . . Industry still remained predominantly under the command of the capitalist, and an extensive system of workers’ control, backed by the political influence of the new Bolshevik State, was regarded as the best way of ensuring that the continued rule of the capitalist in the industrial sphere should be no more than that of a limited monarch.” (p. 38.)

The Bolsheviks were in no position to dispossess the capitalists entirely and establish Socialism. Hence they soon found themselves under the necessity of supporting them against the factory committees.

“What the new government principally feared was that the owners of the factories would bring pressure to bear by closing the factories and locking out the workers. These fears considerably influenced the Decree on Workers’ Control of November 14th, 1917.”

Whilst this gave the committees the right to inspect accounts and maintain discipline,

“Article 7 reserved to the proprietor the sole executive right of giving orders as to the running of the concern, and expressly forbade the factory committees to interfere.” (p. 39.)

The development of the civil war made centralised control of immediate importance to the new State. Thus we read that :—

“In cases of essential industries Vesenha (Supreme Economic Council) elaborated plans of organisation and itself sent officials from the centre to cajole or override the factory committees, conciliate the technical staffs and start production again upon some more satisfactory basis. At the same time the anarchism of the factory committees themselves was curbed by merging them with the trades unions. . . . Trade union influence could now be exercised to secure a uniform policy and observance of government orders and decrees on the part of the factory committees.” (p. 46.)

So that in the very country where it reached the peak of its development, the movement for “workers’ control” eventually became merely a means for securing the survival and smoother running of capitalism. The productive forces cannot be permanently fettered anywhere by such utopian and reactionary conceptions.

Only the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production can emancipate the workers from capitalist control. The establishment of society upon this basis can be accomplished only by the conscious political action of the workers as a class. Workers who grasp these facts are not to be hypnotised by claims made on behalf of any so-called “revolutionary” industrial organisation.

Eric Boden

Blogger's Note:

See the article 'Socialism and Industrial Unionism' in the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Rationalisation or Socialism. (1928)

From the October 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

The capitalist system of society is based upon the private ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution, by a minority of the population. The majority of the population, being property-less, are compelled to offer their services for sale to the capitalists, and receive in return sufficient to enable them to live and keep on working. Only the working class engage in the work necessary to production, but the wealth that results from the workers’ labour-power belongs to the capitalists, and therefore the system is an excellent one—for the capitalists.

This being so, any proposals which have for their object the smoother working of the present system should be welcomed— by the capitalists.

The system is essentially a competitive one, and though the capitalists’ interests are identical as against working-class interests, they are not identical in the struggle to secure the greater proportion of the profit accruing from the workers’ labour-power. This results in a tremendous waste. In most industries there is more plant and machinery in being than is necessary to produce sufficient to supply the markets; consequently many works are on short time, not working to their full capacity, or are actually closed down.

Thoroughly up-to-date and efficient methods of production exist side by side with inefficient, almost obsolete, methods.

These facts are fairly obvious, and attempts are being made to meet the problem, but we are concerned about it being clearly understood whose problem it is.

To increase the difference between the total wealth the workers produce and the amount they receive in the form of wages has always been the object of the capitalists, and what is referred to as rationalisation is only a phase of that estimable object.

In an article in the Daily Herald (August 24th), Mr. Citrine attempts to justify the action of the T.U.C. in acting in conjunction with a group of employers to secure “the maximum efficiency of labour with the minimum of effort,” to avoid “waste of raw materials and power” and “unnecessary transport, burdensome financial charges, and the useless interposition of middlemen.” As the General Council of the T.U.C. is supposed to represent the interests of the wage workers, it was up to Mr. Citrine to demonstrate that the object of these proposals is not to increase the difference between total wages and total profits.

Instead of doing this he proceeds to ignore the class division in society and indulge in vague talk about the “community,” and increasing the standard of living of the “people.”

As the article was a reply to a previous one by Mr. Hicks, he brings forward evidence to show that his attitude is quite in accordance with Trade Union policy both here and abroad, instancing a report published by the T.U.C. and the Labour Party in 1924 on the Waste of Capitalism, which, as he says, “was, in effect, a demand for the rational organisation of industry.” He also points out that the German Trade Union movement took the initiative in demanding the institution of Rationalisation in 1926.

To be able to give evidence of other suicidal policies is regarded as sufficient justification of the present one. We have some indication of how Rationalisation works in Germany in an article in the Manchester Guardian Industrial Relations Supplement (30/11/27), by C. W. Guillebaud. One of the “concessions” to the workers is the institution of Works Councils, on which both workers and employers sit; and the writer points out that

“One most significant feature of the development of the Works Councils has been the great decline in the number of those willing to submit themselves for election or re-election. . . . The chief causes of this tendency are, first, the power of employers to get rid of Works Councillors, . . . despite the protective provisions of the Act.”

It should be obvious that a worker with orthodox views will be a useful man for the employers, but one who realises the direct cleavage of interests between the two sides, and says so, will be given his cards and shown the gate.

Although the Trade Unions arose from the antagonism of interests between the property-owning employers and the property-less wage workers, they frequently function in the interests of the capitalists. The railway workers’ unions have recently successfully negotiated a 2½ per cent. reduction in their members’ wages, without the trouble and expense of a lock-out. While having a clear idea of the purpose of “rationalisation,” it is necessary to point out to the self-styled “left-wingers” that it is not something to be fought separately. At the annual conference of the National Minority Movement, Mr. Harry Pollitt moved a resolution which declared that “the chief issue before the working class was to fight Rationalisation” (Daily Herald, August 27).

Certain phrases seem to knock these shallow pates off their balance; “Mondism” and “Imperialism” are manifestations of capitalism. One is reminded of 1914, when the counterparts of the present left-wingers considered it “progressive” to fight against Prussianism.

The opening paragraph of this article being correct, the only problem the workers need concern themselves about is their non-possession of the means of wealth production, the solution of which is in their own hands, by organising as a class, politically, to take possession of them. The Socialist Party is the only organisation which concentrates the workers’ attention on that problem. Labour right-wingers, who urge the workers to take an interest in their masters’ problems, and left-wingers, who urge them to attack separate features of capitalism, are equally side-tracking them from the thing that matters.

J. L.

The “Daily Herald”—and Truth. (1926)

From the November 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “Daily Herald” of August 30th last contained an editorial in reply to a letter from a railwayman, which is published on the same date under the heading, “Tell us the Truth.” Here is the letter, with certain irrelevancies deleted :—

“. . . I know that the miners’ cause is a just one and wants fighting for, but for goodness’ sake, why are we kept in the dark about the calling off of the General Strike? We railwaymen are looked down upon as Scabs by a large majority of miners. I was at a large meeting at Dewsbury last Sunday, and the speakers were frequently interrupted by the miners calling Mr. Thomas and Mr. Bromley _____, and blaming them for the extension of the present lock-out. Now, in my opinion, the leaders are keeping something back from the workers, and the “Daily Herald” being the workers’ paper, why cannot you let us know what is behind it all? …. The railwaymen are blamed for handling coal. Now how can we help it? … Cannot we be informed as to the whole of the facts concerning the calling off of the General Strike, and the true reason for calling it off ?”

Now let us appraise the “points” contained in the railwayman’s letter ; they may be summarised as follows :—

(1) He feels acutely the invidious position into which he and his fellow workers have been forced by the abrupt termination of the strike ; (2) He considers the reasons already advanced for calling off the strike to be spurious ones; (3) He suspects that the leaders in whom he has reposed his trust are “keeping something back” ; and (4) he appeals to the “workers’ paper “to inform himself and his fellow-workers of ” the whole of the facts concerning the calling-off of the “General” strike, and the true reason for calling it off.”

Doubtless to the surprise of the railwayman, and in the face of all precedent, the “Herald” actually deigns to “deal with” the letter in a leading article, which is headed “Nothing but the Truth.” Letters of criticism from the Socialist Party or Manifestoes from the Miners’ Federation will, of course, continue to receive the attention of the waste-paper basket, but as we can very well believe, the letter in question is “typical of many that have reached us,” and hence the leading article.

“Nothing but the Truth.” Here then, we shall find the long-looked-for facts, honestly stated, free from omissions and interpolations! Now we shall learn why thousands of workers of all callings were abandoned by their “leaders,” and the compensating advantages to the workers in leaving the million miners to struggle and starve alone! We shall find no attempts to divert attention from the sole point at issue! No mis-statements; no evasions; no adroit twisting and equivocation ! Clear, blunt, and candid exposition of the facts ! Here, at last, we will find the truth and nothing but the truth, shall we not? WE SHALL NOT !

In the opening paragraph of the article, the “Herald” indicates its dislike for methods of abuse:—

At the Minority Movement Conference on Saturday, a great deal was said about the calling off of the General Strike, and the “traitorous” conduct of Trade Union leaders. This is the stock-in-trade of Communists. As we know from published documents, abuse and detraction of those who hold official positions in the Labour Movement have been commanded from Moscow as a means of breaking that movement up. 

Here we find once again the “Communists” (so soon, too, after the advocacy by the “Herald” of the “United Front” !) playing the part of a bogey, a part which has been assigned in succession “to Chartists, Atheists, Radicals, Fenians, and Anarchists.” The word Moscow, it would appear, has now become the “stock-in-trade” of political charlatans, and to possess a potency only equalled by the “mystic” word “Abracadabra,” which was so essential to the mediaeval “sorcerers” who preyed upon the credulous aristocracy. The paragraph is obviously intended to divert attention from the weakness of the case put forward.

If the object of the passage quoted is not to distract attention from a weak case, the only other inference we are able to draw is that a “Communist” must never be believed because he is a “Communist,” and not because he can be proved to be in the wrong.

The article continues :—

Unfortunately, such tactics, transparent and discreditable as they are, have an effect upon simple minds. Anything that is constantly repeated gets a lodging in numberless minds. . . . Our comrade wants to know what is the dark and gruesome mystery surrounding the General Council’s action. Why don’t the “Daily Herald,” he asks pathetically, tell its readers the truth? 

In the excerpt below, which follows immediately after the last paragraph quoted, the “Herald” comes tardily to the point at issue :—

The ”Daily Herald’ has done that all through. The truth is simple. No mystery ! Nothing gruesome or sinister ! The General Council ended the Strike because they believed that the Samuel Memorandum offered the best chance of settling the coal dispute which the miners were likely to get; and events are now proving that the Council were right.” (Their italics.)

What these “events” are the “Herald” does not enlighten us, and our imagination is unequal to the task of conjuring up what is meant. Perhaps the passing of the Eight Hours Act or the repudiation of the Samuel Memorandum by the Government are the “events” alluded to? Or is the Government’s backing of the coalowners in their desire for district settlements the culminating proof of the tightness of the action taken by the General Council ? We would like so much to be informed of these “events” which prove that the miners are in a better position through the withdrawal of the backing of the other unions. But perhaps the transcendental sagacity of the General Council is beyond the ken of ordinary minds! We note that the General Council ended the strike because they “believed” the Samuel Memorandum “offered,” etc. Blessed are they that believe! Verily the General Council must have mistaken this Samuel for his biblical namesake, whom we are told was “called of God,” for he appears to have been a god-send to the Council in their anxiety to find a pretext for ending the strike. Indeed, despite the fact that neither the Government nor the coalowners had accepted the Samuel Memorandum (and both have since repudiated it) and also in spite of Samuel’s own declaration that he was acting entirely on his own initiative and without authority from the Government, the “Herald” would have its readers to infer (if we take the statements in this article in conjunction with others previously made by the General Council) that the General Council “believed” that the Samuel Memorandum “offered” the best chance to honour their repeated promises,

to stand firmly and unitedly against any attempt to degrade further the standards of life in the coalfields.” (General Council Industrial Committee, Feb. 26.)

On April 14th, the T.U.C. Negotiating Committee re-affirmed their declaration of February 26th :—

This Committee reiterates its previous declaration to render the miners the fullest support in resisting the degradation of the standard of life, and to obtain an equitable settlement of the case with regard to wages, hours, and national agreements.

And again on May 1st, the “Daily Herald” informs us :—

A firm declaration was presented to the Premier by a joint Sub-Committee reiterating the original declaration that there must be no reduction of wages, no lengthening of hours, and insisting on a National Agreement with a national minimum percentage.

Further, in the “British Worker” of May 11th, Mr. A. Pugh declares that :—

From the moment the mineowners issued lockout notices to their workpeople the question at issue, so far as the General Council was concerned, was the withdrawal of those notices as a condition preliminary to the conduct of negotiations. From that we have never receded.

Such firmness and unity. Such eagerness to “believe” in the good faith of capitalist emissaries—such reluctance to vindicate their own ! The “Herald” says “the truth is simple,” but from our experience of its component parts we are unable to classify the General Council with the truth in relation to simplicity.

In the portion of the article which follows, the “Herald” endorses the validity of its claim to be the Paper with the Punch (especially for the workers !) :—

If the miners’ representatives had agreed to accept that Memorandum as a basis for negotiations, work could have been resumed three-and-a-half months ago, and no mineworker would have got less than 50s. a week. The only men who would have had to sacrifice anything would have been those who were most highly paid. This, as Mr. Bromley explained to the locomotive men, seemed a reasonable settlement.

O Truth, how many falsehoods are broadcast in thy name! In our September issue, we published particulars from pay-tickets, promiscuously selected, of a South Wales coal-hewer, and the amounts received weekly demonstrate clearly that even before the lock-out the highest paid grade of miner was not guaranteed a wage even approximating to 50s. a week. Mr. A. J. Cook, the Miners’ Secretary, in the course of a cutting reply to the same leading article we are analysing, also riddles the 50s. myth :—

All we were ever offered was that wages should not be reduced to less than 7s. 6d. a day, and all wages below that were still to remain the same. No weekly guarantee has ever been given at all. (“Daily Herald,” August 31.)

For reasons easily comprehended, the “Herald” has kept a wise silence with regard to criticism of its erroneous statement. In the passage “work could have been resumed three-and-a-half months ago,” the “Herald” unwittingly discloses that the anxiety of the General Council was not so much to secure the withdrawal of the lock-out notices (one of the declared objects of the strike) as to induce or coerce the miners to accept a compromise which would further reduce their appalling standard of existence. Additional confirmation of the “firmness,” and “determination” of the General Council to fulfil their pledges to the miners may be noted in the remarks of their Parliamentary spokesman and Privy Councillor Mr. J. H. Thomas, who appealed to capitalist M.P.’s “to avert what I believe to be the greatest calamity for this country.” (Hansard, May 3rd.) If an early resumption of work by the miners was the sole desire of the General Council, we are at a loss to understand how the continuance of support from the unions involved in the strike could have prolonged the miners’ struggle more than it has been by leaving them in isolation. But the “Herald” has a logic of its own ! We might also inform the “Herald” that the miners could have resumed work more than three-and-a-half months ago, nay, they need not have been locked out at all, had they agreed to any terms of employment that might be offered by the mine-owners ! After all, it is not the miners who determine when and how they shall work, and the “Herald” seems to overlook the fact that such trivial matters are the prerogative of the employing class, who will only relinquish those rights when they are wrested from them by a class-conscious working-class, politically organised to achieve emancipation.

The final quotation from the article follows on directly from the previous extract.

When it (the “offer”) was finally rejected by the Miners’ representatives, the General Council felt that it would be “futile” to ask the Unions to continue their sacrifice for another day. . . . That is the reason why the Strike was called off. There is no other. The truth is plain to everyone who looks for it. We have restated it here in response to our railway comrade’s appeal, and because it is necessary to point out once more that the Minority Movement’s attack is not honest criticism offered in the interest of the Labour Movement, but deliberate venom intended to help on the destruction of that Movement, and the substitution of Communism for it.

So we see now that when the offer that was not made was rejected by the miners, the General Council felt (not thought) that it would be futile to ask the unions to continue their “sacrifice” for another day. They therefore most benevolently decided upon the sacrifice of thousands of members of the constituent unions, and complacently provided the conditions for a future massacre of the remainder when the deserted miners are finally pulverised. The further reference to the Minority Movement does not assist the case advanced by the “Herald.” As we have persistently stated it is not possible for the Minority Movement or any other freakish body to introduce Communism merely by changing the leadership of the General Council.

We have dealt with this leading article of the “Daily Herald” at some length only as a specimen of the fustian that is passed off by that journal as being : “From the workers’ point of view.” As a medium for disseminating news, the “Herald” is behind its Capitalist competitors; as an exponent of Socialist ideas, it is worthless and of more value to the Capitalists in bemusing and mis-teaching the workers than many other journals which do not claim to speak wholly on behalf of the working-class. Until a larger number of the workers understand and desire Socialism, a daily paper devoted to the propaganda of Socialist principles remains a project for the future. In the meantime, the Socialist Standard will continue to advance the object of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, which seeks to organise all workers who desire to replace the present system of capitalism by a system based upon the possession and administration by the whole community of the means necessary to produce and apportion wealth to the full needs of all.

W. J.

A Reader Discovers a Mare’s Nest (1933)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Editor,                                                                                                                                                        Tottenham.

Dear Sir,

Being a regular reader of the Socialist Standard I observe the continual change of its policy towards Marxian Socialism and can only come to one conclusion, that there is a mental mix-up of those who form the Editorial Committee of the Party. To state a definite case for Socialism in previous Socialist Standards and then to contradict it in a following issue certainly needs an explanation, for to continue such tactics is certainly not in the interests of the working class.

Having made my charge I will now proceed to substantiate it. Firstly, in the Socialist Standard, March, 1925, page 297, after criticising the Minority Movement and condemning its reformist policy, it states: “To appeal, therefore, to Capitalists and their Labour agents to pass certain legislation, is to support the present system and those who rule it.” This is the policy that Marx always advocated, and never did he modify his views in favour of accepting capitalist reforms. This cannot be said for the S.P.G.B., who—as I will prove—now show a complete disregard for Marx on this point.

For in the Socialist Standard, April, 1926, page 122, there appears the following: “The Socialist Party is out to obtain all that can be obtained for the workers under capitalism.” Thus we see that after criticising both Communist and Labour Parties for advocating and accepting capitalist reforms, the S.P.G.B. are doing exactly the same thing. I wonder what Marx would have said and whether he would recognise the S.P.G.B. as a genuine Socialist movement?

I could continue giving examples of the inconsistency of this party from more recent issues of the Socialist Standard, but I consider that the above facts are quite sufficient to warrant a justification for the S.P.G.B.’s criticism of other political parties, if such is possible.

Finally. I shall look forward to a reply in the Socialist Standard.

I am,

                    Yours, etc.,

                                  H. Timmins.

Reply.

Our correspondent describes himself as a “regular reader," but his letter could not have been written if he had read the two articles with reasonable care. Had he done so he would have seen that there is no contradiction whatever. The two articles express exactly the same viewpoint. This can easily be made clear by giving some further quotations.

The first article (March, 1925) dealt with the fallacies underlying the so-called Minority Movement. The article pointed out that a minority is in the hopeless position that if it demands something which the capitalist ruling class do not wish to give, then its demands are ignored and the minority is helpless to enforce them. This would apply to a demand for Socialism made by a minority. Consequently, minorities which wish to appear effective (the Minority Movement, for example), put forward programmes which the capitalists may be willing to agree to and able to agree to without injury to capitalism. In other words a majority movement can enforce its demands, while a minority movement can only appeal to the Capitalist Government to do something.

The article runs as follows: —

   The fact that they call themselves a Minority Movement damns them from the start, for, on the economic field, numbers count when a contest is on for obtaining some advance. Not minorities, but majorities, are then required, and a minority left to fight for some demand is doomed. The mass of the workers must be united in support of a national advance before we can expect them to obtain it.

After criticising the specific demands put forward by the Minority Movement, the article continues:—

  The political proposals of this movement could only be carried out if those in control of Government passed the demands into law. To appeal, therefore, to capitalists and their Labour agents to pass certain legislation is to support the present system and those who rule it. It is to ask the workers to prolong capitalism by voting for those politicians who have a programme of properly selected reforms. 

The other article referred to by our correspondent (April, 1926) puts forward precisely the same argument. Our correspondent by quoting three lines and ignoring what goes before and after discovers an entirely imaginary difference.

This is the whole relevant passage:—

   It is characteristic of the Communist and “Minority Movers” that in one breath they avow their contempt for Parliamentary procedure, and, in the next, call upon the workers to send in petitions to the House of Commons.
   The Socialist Party is out to obtain all that can be obtained for the workers under capitalism. We know sufficient of capitalism, however, to realise that the only way to obtain the smallest advantage is to oppose the enemy, both on the economic and political fields.

It will be seen that the two articles are identical in condemning the policy of petitioning or appealing to the capitalists, and identical in urging the very opposite policy of coming out in complete opposition to the capitalists.

So much for the the first of our correspondent’s mare’s nests. We await the others he promises.

Before concluding, we cannot pass over the inaccurate and illogical references to Marx.

Our correspondent quotes the passage beginning, “To appeal therefore to capitalists . . . .” and says (quite correctly), “This is the policy that Marx always advocated,” i.e., the policy of opposing the capitalists instead of appealing to them.

Then our correspondent concludes his reference to Marx with the words, “Never did he modify his views in favour of accepting capitalist reforms.” Now the first statement about Marx is correct. The second is false. Our correspondent, however, seeks to convey the impression that the two statements are really identical, which they are not. What he has done is to use the word “appeal” in the first, only to replace it by “accept” in the second.

So far from telling the workers to refuse to accept reforms (how they could do so our correspondent does not explain), Marx welcomed such reforms as the shorter working day and valued them highly (probably more highly than they deserved). But he never advocated the useless policy of appealing to the capitalists for such reforms.

Ed. Comm.

Editorial: The Fallacies of the "Minority Movement." (1925)

Editorial from the March 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

The very people who always shout "Be with the masses" and "Form a Mass Party" are now busy pushing forward a body called "The National Minority Movement." The utter stupidity of the title should strike even the doubly-dense Communists who are promoting it.

The aims of the "movement” are in no sense revolutionary. A minimum wage of £4 per week and a 44-hour week is their modest slogan, and if carried out by the capitalists generally would create no real alteration in the system.

With the present cost of living and the growing intensity of labour demanded by employers, these "Minority” aims are just a stabilising of capitalist conditions. Demands like these have been adopted by capitalists who have increased their profits by so doing.

General practice has shown that Minimum Wage Laws and Trade Boards act generally to make the minimum wage the maximum. Our "four pound a week revolutionists" would be compelled to fight against their own aims as carried out by employers, just as miners were compelled to strike against the much-fought-for Eight Hour Law when it was put into action.

Forty-four hours a week is another ridiculous demand for a movement supposed to be militant. Modern highly-developed exploitation can skin the workers quite well at 44 hours, as is shown by employers like Ford and Leverhulme who boast of their rising profits from reduced hours of employees. In fact the exhausting effect of modern industrial methods and machinery is such that the employers are often compelled to shorten hours to avoid having reduced output from tired workers. The miners have long since found this out, and a 44-hour week for them is as reactionary a proposal as a Tory could invent. The miners have made continual protests against the League of Nations' 8-hour statute being adopted.

Another demand is Nationalisation of Mines, Minerals, Banks, Land and Railways without compensation, and with workers' control. With all the lessons of the effects of Government ownership upon the workers, these Communists are still busy with such anti-Socialist proposals. Workers' control without worker ownership is an empty thing in practice. "Those who own control," and unless the workers are in possession of the State power, and therefore the ruling class, their so-called control could never be made effective. When the workers are in possession of the State machine and are revolutionary, the time for nationalisation would be gone, for then common ownership would be in order and possible.

They further demand "An Adequate Housing Scheme” without telling the workers that such a thing is impossible under Capitalism, for even if houses are plentiful, sufficient and regular wages are not. The fact that plenty of rooms were available before the war did not make it any easier for poverty-stricken workers to rent them. The capitalists will give the workers barracks, huts and iron boxes to live in when it suits their purpose.

A curious demand is the "Repudiation of the Dawes Report." Seeing that the party most of these minority men belong to is the Labour Party, it is rather sad that they have to demand the repudiation of the Report adopted by their own Party when in office : A very curious demand to make in view of the action of the leader of the Minority Movement during the General Election. Mr. Cook, the Secretary of the Miners, then came to the support of the Labour Party who were defending their action in carrying out the Dawes Report. Practically all of the Communists in the Minority Movement were then busy supporting the Labour Party which had adopted the infamous Dawes plan they are now demanding the repeal of.

In general, all the items on the “charter” of this Minority Movement are worthless. The fact that they call themselves a Minority Movement damns them from the start, for on the economic field numbers count when a contest is on for obtaining some advance. Not minorities, but majorities, are then required, and a minority movement left to fight for some demand is doomed. The mass of the workers must be united in support of a national advance before we can expect them to obtain it.

The nature of the demands we have shown above to be capitalist in their nature, and they can all be carried out without making any radical change for the better in workers’ conditions.

These demands take no account of the vastly accelerating rate of exploitation in modern industry. They ignore the increasing power of capitalists combined in federations and rings to defeat the efforts of labour on the economic field and their growing financial strength to conquer the puny purses of working men in times of strikes and lock-outs.

Such demands in terms of a set rate of wages and length of working day are reactionary in face of the ever-growing need of workers to struggle  on the economic field for increase of wages and shortening of working day.

The political proposals of this movement could only be carried out if those in control of government passed the demands into law. To appeal therefore to capitalists and their Labour agents to pass certain legislation is to support the present system and those who rule it. It is to ask the workers to prolong capitalism by voting for those politicians who have a programme of properly selected reforms. The Minority schemers thus ignore the class nature of modern society and its resulting class rule in the interests of the class who rule capitalism—the employers.

The Communists largely run this “movement” with its conferences of “delegates” who are supposed to represent large numbers. What is the real nature of the Communists’ efforts in it? Are they arousing the workers to a knowledge of Socialism and spreading an understanding of the social revolution and its necessity? The answer is “No.” The Communists are spreading reform programmes like nationalisation, etc., and advocating support of the reactionary Labour Party. They are carrying out the 21 points and theses of Moscow in getting the jobs in trade unions and similar bodies. In other words they are trying to capture the jobs, but they do not attempt to win the workers’ minds for Socialism. That is too long and too unremunerative a job. It is easier to plank down some demands which are suitable to Capitalist rule and get support for that and become prominent in such an agitation. Then it is easy to get adopted as a Labour candidate.

Displacing a trade-union leader and putting in his place a so-called advanced man is a matter which in itself achieves small results. The lesson of Cramp and Hodges and dozens of other “forward” men should show that. The fundamental thing is to displace the ignorance of the rank and file and then their growing knowledge will express itself in their choice of and control of officers. Otherwise with an ignorant membership the same game of betrayal can be played by the new “leader” they choose as played by the previous one.

The replacing of one official by Robert Williams, the Communist, did not make any difference on “Black Friday” or on the workers’ support of the leaders who smashed the alliance on that classic occasion.

The Socialist policy is one of spreading revolutionary ideas amongst the workers, organised and unorganised, in order that capitalism shall be abolished and Socialism established. That is the work of a mass movement, not a Minority Movement.

The Pendulum Swings Back (1972)

From the April 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

The fourth in our series on the early history and ideas of the British Communist Party

The Communist International, or Comintern, was a valuable political asset to the rulers of state capitalist Russia. It was also a financial investment since they spent considerable sums subsidising Communist parties abroad. The Comintern was useful to them because it could be used as an adjunct to Russian foreign policy. But to do this it had to have some following in the countries Russia wanted to influence. So, although there were very real political reasons for the policy of "independent leadership", its disastrous effect on the membership and influence of Communist Parties throughout the world was bound to lead sooner or later to a re-assessment of the whole policy.

This is what did happen though gradually and it was not until the end of 1934 that the pre-1928 position was again reached. Though this time it did not stop there but kept on going to the right till by 1939 the CPGB was a chauvinist body calling for an alliance of all anti-fascist elements including those in the Tory party.

Using the word in its Bolshevik sense the CPGB was at its most "sectarian" in the years 1930 and 1931 following the Leeds Conference in December 1929. This was during the depth of the slump with a helpless Labour government in power. The Communists' denunciations of the Labour Party and the trade unions as anti-working class found a ready hearing amongst some of the unemployed, who provided the bulk of the members and supporters of the party in this period.

During this period the Communists were, literally, violently opposed to the Labour Party. The Daily Worker, which was launched in January 1930, carried that very same month a call from Harry Pollitt to physically break-up Labour meetings:

“There should not be a Labour meeting held anywhere, but what the revolutionary workers in that district attend such meetings and fight against the speakers, whoever they are, so-called 'left', 'right' or 'centre'. They should never be allowed to address the workers. This will bring us into conflict with the authorities, but this must be done. The fight can no longer be conducted in a passive manner” (29 January).

This kind of talk and action earned the Communists the reputation of being anti-trade union also. This was a valid criticism, not in the sense that the Communists were opposed to workers putting up a fight on the industrial field but in that of urging workers to conduct this fight outside the unions and under the leadership of rival bodies set up and led by the Communists. For the policy of “independent leadership" was to apply on the industrial as well as on the political field.

The Comintern's policy involved withdrawing not only from the Labour Party but also from the reformist trade unions whose bureaucracy was said to be actively aiding the capitalists to crush the workers. Instead the Communists were supposed to set up rival "red unions". This policy may have made some sense in Europe where the workers had a tradition of being organised on political or religious lines but in Britain it was madness. For one lesson the workers of Britain had learned was trade union unity, a lesson embodied in the slogans "Unity is Strength" and "United We Stand, Divided We Fall". Trade and occupation, rather than politics or religion, were recognised as the proper bases for organisation on the industrial field.

But faced with the Comintern instructions the CPGB had to make a show. They did manage to set up two "red" unions -the United Mineworkers of Scotland and the United Clothing Workers Union. The Scottish coalfield had a tradition of splits and breakaways which the Communists were able to draw on. The clothing workers' union was a breakaway of the London members of the Garment Workers Union under the popular Sam Elsbury who were dissatisfied with the timid attitude of the union's national leaders.

For the rest the policy of "independent leadership" relied on what was left of the Minority Movement and on so-called Workers' Committees the Communists set up in the factories and mines and during strikes as would-be rivals to the established unions.

The MM, which had been the vehicle of Communist pressure on the TUC in the mid-twenties, issued its own membership cards and so could be regarded as a kind of union, though it was never involved in negotiations with employers or in calling strikes. In any event, this was how the Communists chose to regard it. For instance, the Seamen's Minority Movement was an attempt to organise a rival to the National Union of Seamen. When in the summer of 1930 the CPGB decided to launch a "Workers' Charter" in a bid to gain a mass following the MM was used. The Charter, with obvious historical significance, had six points such as higher unemployment pay, against speed-up, against increased national insurance contributions, repeal of the Trades Disputes Act - ordinary reforms. Actually the Party's own programme went further forClass Against Class called for a national minimum wage of £4 a week while the Charter only demanded £3. But then consistency was not something the Communist Party could ever be accused of.

The other expedient, workers' councils or committees, were set up especially during strikes. So, for instance, when the textile workers of Lancashire and Yorkshire or the South Wales miners went on strike there were two strike committees - the official union one and its Communist rival. Needless to say, the Communists represented no-one but themselves. The result was the dread "isolation from the masses" and an unenviable reputation for wrecking tactics.

As we saw, it was not as wreckers that Communist trade unionists had built up their following, but as militant union members. They were thus in a difficult position, torn between loyalty to the Party's wrecking line and loyalty to their fellow workers in the unions. The fates of Arthur Horner and Sam Elsbury illustrate this dilemma.

Horner was a prominent and very active member of the South Wales Miners Federation. Up until 1929 he was on the Central Committee of the CPGB, being one of those excluded for refusing to wholeheartedly endorse the "left" turn. It was clear that after the line was changed Homer was going to be singled out as an example of how a Communist should not behave. In 1929 he opposed continuing unofficially a strike which the SWMF had decided to call off because it had no chance of success. For this he was accused of capitulating to the union bureaucrats, a heresy that was labelled "Hornerism". Homer, however, was not the sort of man to take this lying down. He appealed to the Political Bureau and then to the Central Committee and finally, as the dispute dragged on into 1930, to the Communist International. Anxious not to lose so popular an industrial leader, the Comintern ruled that Horner was wrong but that the CPGB was also wrong to inflate this into “Hornerism". Horner was satisfied, or at least he stayed in the Party. But the policy of "independent leadership" was again to try his patience in March 1931. During a strike of Welsh miners the Communists had applied their policy of setting up their own strike committees. Horner wrote to Moscow denouncing this saying it resulted "only in our isolation". The Communist Party, he went on, was "effectively bankrupt from every angle" (Daily Worker, 10 March, 1931). Strong words! Hornerism was rearing its head again. By now the Comintern had had time to see the disastrous effects of their 1928 policy and Homer's letter must have played a part in bringing about the relaxation of "independent leadership" that was allowed at the end of 1931. There was speculation at the time that Homer would set up a rival Communist Party less given to wrecking tactics but in the end he again stayed a member.

The policy of "independent leadership" succeeded in wrecking one of the two "red" unions - the United Clothing Workers Union under Sam Elsbury. Elsbury, who had been London organiser of the old union, was the secretary of the new union but had to take his orders from the CPGB. Those orders involved calling strikes whenever the slightest excuse arose with little or no regard for the chances of success or for the finances of the union. This led to one of the more sordid episodes in the history of the British Communist Party. In order to get Elsbury to call a strike on one occasion in 1930 the Party promised £400 for union funds which otherwise could not have borne the burden. Promised such financial support the men went on strike, but the money was not forthcoming and they had to return to work defeated with their union organisation at the factory in ruins. This was too much for Elsbury. He resigned from the Communist Party denouncing its methods. This the Party was not prepared to accept - nobody resigned from a Bolshevik party! - and expelled him instead, using the childish trick of backdating his expulsion to the day before he wrote his letter of resignation. Elsbury was viciously denounced and, needless to say, was driven out of his union job also. While Horner remained a lifelong Communist and went on to become General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, Elsbury later became a Labour councillor in the east end of London. He was able to get his own back on the CPGB for its shabby treatment of him when in 1937 he won a libel action that caused the withdrawal of an official history of the Party written by Tom Bell.

The 11th Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) that met at the end of 1931 decided to call a halt to this disastrous policy. "Sectarianism" and the "isolation" it caused were denounced. The sort of reputation the CPGB had got can be gathered from comments made at the 12th Plenum in September 1932 when the beneficial results, influence-wise, of the new turn were discussed. .'Our party", declared Comintern-man Gusev, "was not popular amongst the organised workers because it had obtained a firm reputation for being against the trade unions". Pollitt admitted:

“Wrong formulations on this question of the trade union movement have given the impression that we are out to smash and disrupt the trade union movement.”

The British Party began the process of picking up the pieces with its 1932 "January Resolution" which echoed the new Comintern line. As described by Bell (Communist historians are not reliable except as a guide to what at the time of writing the Party wanted people to think, but on this he happened to be right):

“This Resolution demanded a complete transformation in the direction of revolutionary mass work in the trade unions; a fight against 'Left' sectarianism, which interpreted independent leadership as the abandonment of all work in the reformist trade unions; at the same time it demanded a struggle against trade union legalism, for persistent recruiting to the party, for improving the con- tent and increasing the sales of the Daily Worker, and, finally insisted on the need for tirelessly explaining to the workers the revolutionary way out of the crisis.” (The British Communist Party, A Short History, 1937, p. 150).

The reference to a “way out” of the crisis reflected another chance in the line. Up till 1932 the CPGB held that capitalism was collapsing. Palme Dutt, as the Party theorist, was the main spokesman for this viewpoint.

In Capitalism or Socialism in Britain? (March 1931), he declared:

“Capitalism or Socialism in Britain - capitalist collapse or Workers' Revolution - this is no longer a debating issue of the future, it is a life and death issue, a fight for life that draws close”

and, in The Workers' Answer to the Crisis (August 1931):

“The final issue is: Workers’ Revolution or final collapse and mass starvation.”

So Dutt, and the Communist Party, were committed in these pamphlets to the view that capitalism was collapsing and that, without a socialist revolution, the workers would starve. In effect the reason the communists were giving the workers for rising up was to avoid mass starvation. It wasn't a very encouraging message but it did provide a sort of justification for the desperate wrecking tactics the Communists had been engaging in: the situation was urgent; the Labour and trade union bureaucrats were blocking the way; to avoid mass starvation they must be smashed.

After January 1932 this was not the attitude of mind the Communists wanted the workers to have. They wanted them to fight for reforms so that the Communists by leading them in such struggles could regain some of their lost influence. They had thus to pander to reformist illusions. This was done in two ways: the harsh doctrine of "Revolt or Starve" was abandoned and the "united front" tactic was revived to a small extent.

"Revolt or Starve" was a doctrine that might have stirred the Communists to do desperate things they wouldn't normally do, but it was also by implication a declaration that it was futile to struggle for reforms. As the Communists now wanted to lead such struggles with some chance of winning a following this doctrine had to go. It was done in an ingenious way. The Communists now said that Socialism or Starvation were not the only two alternatives but that there was a "capitalist way out of the crisis" involving attacks from various sides on the workers' standard of living. This served a dual purpose for the Communists could now claim that the "revolutionary way out" of the crisis could be found in struggling against the capitalist way out. They had done it again: Reform could be justified in terms of Revolution without offending too much the illusions of pro-Labour workers.

Dutt recanted at the earliest possible moment. In the February 1932 issue of Labour Monthly he wrote:

“Until the proletarian revolution overthrows capitalism, it is inevitable that capitalism, whatever the extremity of its chaos and breakdown, will drag on, will of necessity find its own 'way out', from form to form from stage to stage, with increasing misery and renewed contradictions-until the proletariat acts.”

Earlier in the same article Dutt had written that until there was the necessary "action, organisation and victory of the working class . . . capitalism will still drag on from crisis to crisis." This in fact was the classic Marxist position - that capitalism would go on from crisis to crisis until the workers consciously organised to end it. A few months later in April, as we saw, Pollitt was brazenly denouncing the ILP for being defeatist in preaching the collapse of capitalism, though, it is true, the ILP went further than the CPGB ever did. Maxton once gave capitalism only six weeks!

The second concession was the revival of "united front" tactics, "but only from below". This proviso nullified the effect since it ruled out united action between Communist and Labour and Social Democrat organisations. Which was what the united front was supposed to be. So it would be inaccurate to say that after 1931 the Communists were again wooing the Social Democrats. Far from it, they were still "social fascists" pre- paring the way for fascism proper. The new formula did, however, represent a significant departure from the previous line. In calling for Labour and Communist workers to undertake joint activity it was a concession to the pro-Labour sentiments of the workers. It was a slight move from the previous rigid anti-Labour position. And was recognised as such by some members. For as Pollitt told the 12th Plenum in September 1932:

“the tactic of the united front with the workers who be- longed to the Labour Party was looked on, by a large portion of the Party members, as a step back from the tactic of 'class against class'.”

Adam Buick

Next month: (The concluding article): The Communist Party continues to move in the direction of full support for a Labour Government.