SPGB Bloomsbury Branch (1933)

Party News from the September 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

History proves the soundness of our position. (1911)

From the August 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, of all the political organisations in this country, is the only one which stands solidly and consistently for the attainment of the Socialist system of society. Others (meaning, of course, political organisations) have displayed that compromise and trading resulting either from ignorance of the worker’s status under the present system, or from the fact that certain persons preferred personal aggrandisement to the straight path of a revolutionary party.

The innumerable instances quoted in the Socialist Standard and the S.P.G.B. Manifesto are sufficient evidence of the treacherous nature of parties who parade as Socialists. But the S.P.G.B., since the day it was formed, has ever insisted upon this basis as the essential to working-class salvation—the imperative necessity of

THE CONTROL OF THE POLITICAL MACHINERY.

The constant use by the capitalist class of that power to quell any semblance of revolt on the part of the workers; the endeavour to terrorise our class with demonstrations of military force, must be an indication of the value of the armed forces to the master class.

We of the S.P.G.B. realise, then, that the primary function of a Socialist party is to capture political power. What transpires after that will depend upon the democratic decision of an enlightened proletariat.

The record of incidents in the development of society should be a means of assisting the workers to realise how powerful, how necessary, is political control. History is a formidable foe to those who harbour Anarchist and reformist ideas. Generally speaking, the history of most countries, according to the majority of historians, is a record of the likes and dislikes of kings and queens and their favourites and paramours. Interesting as all this may be, it is not, and from a scientific standpoint cannot be considered to be, the history of the race. History to is is but

A SERIES OF DEVELOPMENTS

of all mankind, in which process one nation plays but a small part.

Further, unless we realise that the records of one epoch result from the actions of a previous state, and that our actions are but the inevitable growth from a condition in society precedent to us ; unless we clearly grasp that fact, a correct view of history cannot be obtained. Moreover, the keener the investigation into history, the clearer becomes the position we, as a party, occupy in this country. For by historical reference we are more than fortified in our position. In fact, the Socialist Party are the only party who can justify their attitude by history.

To us every method of government, whether it be monarchical, autocratic, plutocratic, theocratic or “democratic,” is tyrannical, since government implies a subject class in society. Let us get to the Athenian ascendancy for proof of this contention.

Athenian society originally was tribal. Later on the citizens were divided into classes principally on a private-property basis. Each section had political power corresponding to the volume of property it possessed. In Athens there existed a large population of propertyless slaves, who had no political rights of expression.

A remedy for such conditions being necessary, the famous constitutionalist and law-giver, Solon, so organised the political State that though the democracy had a voice, the aristocracy

WERE ALWAYS THE DOMINANT FACTOR

in Athenian political life. Nor was Athens the only State where such happenings were recorded, for after the expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus—the last of the seven Kings—from Rome in 509 B.C., the Romans swore they would never have another monarch.

Admirable as that may have appeared, it was in reality a further means for the nobility to suppress the “lower orders.” The Patricians and the Plebians were really the Aristocracy and the Commoners of the time. The latter had a split, and threatened to withdraw from the State unless there was some modification of the laws.

The masters (that is the controllers) of the political machinery, thereupon permitted a tribunate to be appointed, who were invested with power to veto certain actions of the Patricians. Then came the “Licinian Rogations,” due to combined action by the tribunes Licinius and Sextiud.

From the economic standpoint those laws, passed about 367 B.C., had no great value, and were purposely introduced to give the aristocracy greater power. It caused discontent to be stifled by grants of land to the plebians in all new territory conquered by the Romans. A later result of those laws was the extension of citizenship to the occupants of conquered cities, but with no political rights in the way of voting. The idea of the rulers in Rome was, “Keep what you like but let us have the political dominance.”

With the development in Rome came, too, the intermarrying of wealthy Plebians with the Patricians, with the result that the two sections became, socially and politically, a combination, and monopolised the public offices,

ALL AGAINST THE PROLETARIAT

of the day. Further, the constant usage of the political power had caused many acts which had been passed to become dormant. An instance is the Hortensian law of 287 B.C., which finally permitted the Plebian tribes to make laws without the assistance of the Comitia Centuriata.

Another interesting matter is that though each city conquered by Rome was given local autonomy, in most cases they were subordinate to the officials appointed from Rome. That had a tendency to give loyalty to the Romans, who, as are the British with regard to Egypt and India, were simply inspired by the possession of private property in the interest of the ruling class.

After the futile endeavours of Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, still another incident transpired that proves our contention conclusively. It was the reorganisation of the army by Marius, and after his death the actions of Sulla in using that army. The latter proved master of the situation because he had control of the army.

Let it be clearly understood that Rome was in a state of anarchy at this time. She was unable to master her possessions owing to the

GROWTH OF CORRUPTION

amongst the propertied classes.

Another fact illustrating the strength of the political power is afforded us by a reference to the actions of Constantine when he was at war with Maxeratius and Licinius for control of both the Eastern and Western Empires. Maxentius was defeated at Myvern Bridge, and Licinius, who hated Christianity intensely, was anxious to become emperor. Constantine, knowing full well that Licinius had great power, made Christianity a State religion, by which means he got greater support than ever. But for that incident Licinius would have defeated him, and Constantine would have become a cypher. The political exigences caused Constantine to extend his protection to the Christian or his power would have gone. With the support given him by converts to his curious mixture of Christianity and paganism he was enabled to overwhelm his rival and retain his throne.

Coming still nearer to the present time, we find that the wisdom of Charlemagne gives a voice in the government to the people. That voice was the bi-annual conferences he presided at “to hear the opinion of his people.” His control was so great that at his coronation the pope paid homage to him.

Perhaps the history of England may be viewed profitably to show that, whatever economic power any class possessed, they were always at the mercy of those who possessed the political power. If it was economic power that was the prime factor, how was it the Roman Catholic dominance was destroyed by Henry VIII ?

Perhaps it is unlikely that any Direct Actionist or other individual displaying

ANARCHISTIC TENDENCIES

would deny that the control of Parliament by Halifax and Cromwell caused a change in the British Constitution in 1649. A fact ever illuminating in history is that a class that had acquired great wealth were never free to utilise that wealth to its fullest advantage unless it had first the control of the political machinery. The severest impediment to the capitalist in this country was the control and monopoly by the landlords prior to the Reform Bill of 1832. 

In order to give free and full development to industry ; in order to sanction and legalise the. robbery of the working class ; in order to cheapen the cost of production, the present capitalist class were compelled to get political control. But that was simply the act in the final development of capitalism. Then our capitalist went to Parliament himself, but now he is leaving his work to paid hacks, lawyers, solicitors, and professional politicians.

The increasing productivity of the working class has solved the problem of production. Prior to the capitalist system the periodic panics and financial catastrophes were unheard of. Now we have them frequently, showing that even the ingenuity of the capitalist cannot avoid the ever intensifying control capital has over the capitalist. No longer can he control the profit system—the latter completely dominates him, and that is why the working class will have to take control of the political force. That this is evident one can see from the way the capitalist uses the political machinery. Strikes and economic eruptions,

“RIOTOUS OUTBREAKS”

as they call them, are squelched (where the starvation process is not sufficient) by sending armed forces into the disaffected districts.

We desire to obtain immediately a condition of society wherein we will enjoy all the means of life to the utmost advantage, and our fellow-slaves must be made conscious of it. The naval and military section of the working class can be made to understand that; and surely, when intelligence becomes uppermost in their minds, they will see that life under democratic control is much better than the rigorous discipline under which they exist at present.

Those who hold political power dominate the country in which they live. Therefore we strongly appeal to the working class to exercise their intelligence and to examine this question from the historical standpoint. The Socialist Party of Great Britain have never deviated from the scientific position such an examination logically leads to. It remains for you to put yourself in agreement with that position and to join us, and to assist in the spreading of working-class enlightenment.

Moses Baritz

SPGB Meetings. (1908)

Party News from the February 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

 

Our Comrade Overseas (1974)

From the June 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Over the years since the formation of the SPGB, parties with the same Object and Declaration of Principles as ourselves have been established in other parts of the world. We have close contact with these parties in our efforts to put to the working class the necessity for world common ownership and free access. Like the SPGB our companion parties are small, but they are keeping to the fore the aim which can transform the world from its present crisis-ridden state. The contradiction between great wealth and the possibility of production in abundance on one hand, and mass deprivation on the other, grows more startling daily. These contradictions will one day throw up Socialist consciousness in the minds of the working class, like a world-wide volcano.

For this consciousness to arise, the working class will have to drop its adherence to reformist movements which come forward with their bankrupt promises to slay the dragon of capitalism, bit by bit. Capitalism must either be abolished by the deliberate action of workers, or it will remain. It cannot be reformed to work in the interests of the majority. It is up to the working class to free itself from the degradations of capitalism and establish Socialism. The function of the SPGB and its companion parties is to explain to the working class what capitalism is, what Socialism will be, and how workers themselves are the instruments for effecting the transformation. As Engels put it in his Socialism: Utopian and Scientific—

“To thoroughly comprehend the historical conditions and thus the very nature of this act, to impart to the now oppressed proletarian class a full knowledge of the conditions and of the meaning of the momentous act it is called upon to accomplish, this is the task of the theoretical expression of the proletarian movement, scientific Socialism.”

Below is a brief history and guide to our companion parties.

Socialist Party of Canada

The party’s origins go back to 1905, shortly after the inception of the SPGB. However it was a false start. The party, whilst containing Socialists, also attracted a large group of social reformers and its relationship with the SPGB had to be severed. The Russian Revolution exploded the apparent unity of the party, and the few remaining members only managed to struggle on until 1926. However, in 1931 another group of Socialists got together and formed the present party based on the uncompromising demand for immediate world Socialism. In 1933 the party started the journal The Western Socialist. Because of pressure by the wartime government in October 1939 the Western was handed over to the WSP of the US, who have since published it on behalf of both parties. The party is now working overtime in its efforts to spread Socialist understanding in North America. In 1970, having acquired an old offset press, the branch in Victoria started to publish its own leaflets, and their own journal Fulcrum now appears regularly. Recently the French-speaking area of Quebec has been subjected to a battery of Socialist propaganda. The results have been encouraging. In 1973 Socialisme Mondial first appeared; written in French, it is now available in France and Belgium as well as Canada.

World Socialist Party of the United States

The party was founded in Detroit in 1916 and then called, “The Workers’ Socialist Party of the United States”. The party was helped into existence by two members of the SPGB, Moses Baritz and Adolph Kohn, on the run from the British government’s war machine; their energy and drive forced those Socialists in the Detroit area to break away from the Socialist Party of America to form a party based on the Socialist platform only. Because of wartime conditions and the great distances between American cities they reverted to being a “Socialist Education Society” and continued — doing valuable work — in this form until they could re-start the WSP on a solid basis.

In 1929 their first publication appeared, and the present-day WSP was founded on 8th September 1930, with headquarters in New York. It was not until 1939 that a party journal was established on a firm footing. This was the Western Socialist, which the party took over from the Socialist Party of Canada. It is still going strong today. In the 1940s the party’s name was changed to its present name to avoid confusion with one of the numerous Trotskyist organizations in the USA. The party’s main activity now is publishing and distributing The Western Socialist (it goes to libraries and colleges throughout the US), and regular radio and occasional television broadcasts.

Socialist Party of New Zealand

The party was founded in 1930, although prior to that date there had been considerable Socialist propaganda in the country. In 1919 the party’s forefathers, The New Zealand Marxian Association, invited Moses Baritz to the country to do a series of talks. Baritz took the movement over there by storm; in a series of devastating lectures Baritz put the whole pseudo-socialist and pro-Russia movement to flight. Baritz was deported for his pains, but he had given the Socialist movement in New Zealand a great fillip. In 1934 the party’s first journal was produced which ran for five issues, and again in 1944 another journal came out which lasted four years. Now the party’s journal Socialist Viewpoint comes out bi-monthly. The party’s activity apart from Viewpoint is now concentrated round elections. In 1972 the party entered its first candidate in the New Zealand general elections, and intends to contest the 1975 general elections with, it is hoped, at least two candidates.

Socialist Party of Australia

The party was founded in 1928. However, a considerable amount of Socialist activity had taken place before then. Several seamen who had contact with the SPGB were active in Australia. Bill Casey and Barney Kelly, who were among those sailors and others propounding the Socialist analysis after the first World War in Australia, were sent to the Red Trade Union International in Moscow (in about 1921) as delegates of the seamen’s union. On their return the seamen’s journal refused to publish their report because it pointed out that what had taken place in Russia in 1917 was not a Socialist revolution. Moses Baritz (he seemed to get everywhere) also showed up in Australia in the early 1920’s like a Socialist tornado. By the time the party was formed, there was a certain amount of experience of activity to go on. Shortly after the party’s formation, members began to distribute the Socialist Standard. The Labour government of the day demonstrated its commitment to democracy by banning it for some time. In recent years it has been a struggle for the party to keep going. Vast distances between individual members make concerted party action difficult. However, the party distributes companion party journals and issues and distributes leaflets wherever possible. Individual members, as with members of all the Socialist parties, do all they can to put forward the Socialist case.

Bund Demokratischer Sozialisten of Austria

The party was formed in 1959. It emerged out of a loosely-knit group that had previously been operating in Vienna. Almost immediately the party began publishing a stencilled paper then called Das Freie Wort. In 1966 it officially adopted the SPGB Object and Declaration of Principles; now, as Internationales Freies Wort the paper is well established on a quarterly basis. A major influence on the Bund was Rudolf Frank. He had come under the spell of what he called “the SPGB university” prior to 1914 and his enormous experience helped greatly. Until his death, he played a large part in the writing and editing of the party’s publications. As well as distributing their paper, the party has good contacts with youth organizations and tries to spread Socialist understanding in every area possible.

World Socialist Party of Ireland

Formed in 1959, the party had an active and healthy existence until the recent outbreak of violence in north and south Ireland. The branches in Belfast and Dublin which had been doing stirring work distributing the socialist standard and generally pricking the political balloons of the apologists for capitalism, a task begun years earlier by Mick Cullen, (a thorn in the side of all anti-Socialists), have largely gone quiet since the start of the recent troubles. Socialists can only hope that the “normality” of British capitalism’s conditions will soon return to Ireland, to allow our comrades there the chance to take up again the cudgels of Socialism.

Socialist Group in Jamaica

The group was formed in the early 1960s almost entirely as a result of the pioneering efforts of a comrade who had been living in England for some time and having come into contact with the party’s Birmingham branch became a Socialist. When he returned to his home in Jamaica he devoted himself to spreading Socialist understanding. After a considerable struggle, the group managed to obtain a duplicating machine. Their journal Socialist Review now appears whenever possible, and is a credit to the devoted band of Socialists over there. 

Ronnie Warrington

John Keracher and the Michigan Marxists (1996)

From the Jul-Aug 1996 issue of the Discussion Bulletin

John Keracher was born in Scotland in 1880. In 1909, be emigrated to the United States, settled in Detroit and. some time later, became a shoe salesman. Early in 1910. he came into contact with the Socialist Party of America, founded in 1901. In April, he joined the Party.

Despite its name, the Socialist Party of America did not have as its objective—its sole objective—the establishment of socialism. It was a basically left-wing, social democratic, reformist Party with, at that time, hundreds of thousands of members and supporters. And prior to the First World War, almost every kind of radical and reformer could be found in its ranks. Of the Party, and the various publications which supported it. Keracher observed:

. . . I heard some of its members speaking about the Materialist Conception of History. 1 had never heard the term before and was curious to know just what it meant. 

Approaching those members, 1 asked for an explanation. Soon, I discovered, as it seemed to me then, that there was something mysterious about it. They told me that they believed in it and were sure that it was quite scientific . . . 

meanwhile, I had subscribed to a number of socialist papers and started to read socialist books and pamphlets. Soon I noticed that there was much contradiction existing on socialist theory. The authors and editors held different views, often quite opposite, on important questions of principle. This was explained to me as a permissible difference of opinion on the part of the writers’. I was assured that everything was all right, that in a democratic movement, such as ours, much allowance must be made for individual opinion'. (How The Gods Were Made)

Keracher was not satisfied with such answers. Directly opposite views could not both be correct Something must be wrong, he felt which permitted such a wide tinge of opinion on the principles of socialism. John Keracher decided to find out for himself.

Among the books which I had bought were some by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels . . . I turned my attention to their writings and after a time began to grasp what was meant by the Materialist Conception of History. The more I read of their writings the clearer it became to me. I began to overcome my former indefinite position on religion, and upon other questions, such as social reforms, the function of industrial organizations (i.e. the unions), the State, and other institutions. I came to the conclusion that if Marx and Engels were correct, a great many others calling themselves socialists, must be wrong. (How The Gods Were Made)

Soon after, Keracher initiated an ambitious education programme, throughout Michigan, based on the study of the writings of Marx and Engels. Out of this grew what was termed the proletarian University, in which Keracher was its most popular lecturer Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the Socialist Party of Great Britain had published, in 1910, a pamphlet titled Socialism and Religion, an analysis of religion based on the very Materialist Conception of History which had concerned John Keracher when he joined the Socialist Party of America. Copies of Socialism and Religion soon found their way to North America, and began to circulate within both the Socialist Party of Canada and sections of the SPA. such as Michigan and Detroit.

War and the Revolutionary Tea Drinkers

The First World War came is a great shock to the Socialist Party of America. At first. America was not involved, but many American workers had relatives in Europe. So, reluctantly, many took sides in what was their masters’ quarrel. Many Socialist Party members did likewise. Not so in Detroit, however.

In Britain, right from the start, the Socialist Party of Great Britain opposed the war. But, because of its opposition, and the harassment of many of its members, some went on the run or escaped abroad. This was to affect the already militant Michigan section of the SPA under the influence of Keracher and others such as Dennis Batt.

Detroit was the centre of the automobile industry, and the auto workers suffered intense exploitation which tended to make them more militant, and sympathetic towards socialist ideas, than elsewhere in the United States. Not surprisingly, therefore, the SPA in that city began to look towards anti-war Marxists in Europe in general, and Britain in particular. The Michigan section soon came under the influence of the SPGB.

In 1915, an active and charismatic member of the SPGB, Moses Baritz, arrived in Detroit, to be followed some time later by another member, Adolph Kohn. Baritz was soon holding lectures in Duffield Hall and elsewhere, and was joined by members of the Socialist Party of Canada. By 1916, Moses Baritz had moved on (and was later jailed for his anti-war activities when America became involved) but Adolph Kohn continued propagating socialist ideas. Meanwhile, a small group in Toronto, across the border to north-east in Canada, had organized themselves as the Socialist Party of North America, and had adopted the object and declaration of principles of the SPGB. A number of members of the SPA in Detroit felt that it was time that Marxist socialists in the United States should break away from the reformist Socialist Party, and form a new revolutionary Party, also basing itself on the object and principles of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

John Keracher and Dennis Batt were themselves very sympathetic towards the 'revolutionary tea drinkers’, as the pro-SPGB group was called; but they thought that for the time being, Marxists should remain within the SPA, and try to influence it towards socialism, rather than organize a new, separate, political party

Workers and Proletarian Parties

Nevertheless, particularly at the urging of Adolph Kohn. a small group finally decided to organize a new Socialist Party. And on July 7 I916, the Socialist Party of the United States, adopting the Object and Declaration of principles of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, was formed in Detroit. About 20 members of the SPA resigned immediately, including a young socialist named I. Rab. But due to the fact that the organization was unable to make effective contact with socialists outside Michigan, and was without funds, they only began with 42 members Bill Davenport became the first secretary, Bill Gribble the first organizer and Lawrence Beardsley wrote the Party's manifesto The writer, Jack London just before his death, resigned from the SPA. and wrote the new party "I congratulate you and wish you well in your adventure." Meanwhile, the SPA in Detroit went from strength to strength, although the new Party's influence remained strong. Indeed, in August 1918, the SPA in Michigan, under John Keracher. founded a new journal, The Proletarian, and like the new Party adopted the Object and Declaration of Principles of the SPGB. The new Socialist Party of the United States, however, was informed that the SPA had copyrighted the name “Socialist Party” and so, for legal reasons, renamed their party the Workers' Socialist Party of the United States (WSP/US). (In 1947, it was renamed a second time as the World Socialist Party.)

John Keracher and the Michigan Socialist Party, which had become among the largest of the Socialist Party's state organizations, came more and more in conflict with the national leadership. In 1917, revolution broke out in Russia, followed by the Bolshevik coup d'etat. Although John Keracher was well aware that a socialist revolution had not occurred in Russia, he and most of the SPA members in Detroit, like many, workers and radicals elsewhere, became a vehement supporter of Bolshevism. Not only did this mean the parting of the ways between Keracher and the "revolutionary tea drinkers" of the WSP and the SPGB, but also, in May 1919, the expulsion of the Michigan section of the Socialist Party of America, ostensibly for the Michigan section's anti-religious stance, in violation of the Party's statutes.

At an emergency meeting of the expelled Michigan members in June 1919, a resolution was passed calling for a new revolutionary party, to be formed in Chicago on September 1; and on that date, Keracher, Dennis Batt and others from the expelled Michigan section of the SPA, took part in the founding of a Communist Party. (At two simultaneous conventions, in Chicago, two Communist parties were formed!); fundamental disagreements, however, soon made it impossible for Keracher and the Michigan group to remain in the newly-formed Communist Party. Almost alone (except for the WSP), Keracher, Batt and their comrades were the only "communists" who did not believe that a proletarian revolution as imminent in the United States. Keracher also opposed the Communist Party's clandestine and anti-electoral orientation, its dual unionism, its "federation of federations" and its reformism. So, within a few months, in January 1920, the so-called Communists first tried unsuccessfully to take over Keracher's Proletarian University by force and, then, charged him and the other Michigan members, with Menshevism, and expelled them.

Six months later, in June 1920, the expelled members and several others, founded the Proletarian Party.

Union activists

The membership of the Proletarian Party was never more than 500 at the most; its stronghold remaining in the industrial midwest, especially in Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Flint and Rochester. It sent a delegate to the third congress of the Communist International, in Moscow, in June 1921, yet despite efforts by CI officials to get the "Proletarians" to re-enter the American Communist Party, the Proletarian Party stubbornly refused to, and pursued its own course while still supporting the Communist International globally. Indeed, not until the mid-1930s, when Keracher opposed the Popular Front, particularly during the Spanish Civil War, did the Proletarian Party actually challenge the authority of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union internationally.

Notwithstanding the Proletarian Party's support for Bolshevism internationally, the Proletarian Party remained a "Menshevik" organization, with a kind of Marxism that owed much to Engels, and little or nothing to Lenin. Its members were, like Keracher himself, deeply influenced by not only Marx and Engels, but also by Darwin, Lewis Henry Morgan and Joseph Dietzgen. And, in this very much like the WSP and SPGB, its activities consisted almost exclusively of study classes, forums, debates, lectures and outdoor "soapbox" meetings. Many of its members, however, were active Trade Unionists.

During the 1933 Briggs Auto Body strike in Detroit, Proletarian Party members were very active; and, later, they were involved in sit-downs in Flint and elsewhere. In the early days of the United Auto Workers, their speakers spoke to large crowds, and for a small organization, the Proletarian Party provided the UAW with a large number of its best organizers, such as Frank Marquart who was initially influenced by I. Rab and Emil Mazey. Many other members of the Proletarian Party became top officials of other unions, including Carl Berreitter of the International Typographical Union, Al Renner of the Restaurant Workers, and Sam Meyers of the Retail Clerks. And many others. Yet the Party suffered a large turnover of membership. By 1940, it had lost much of its membership. And by 1971, the Proletarian Party just faded away. Nevertheless, John Keracher left his mark, not only in Michigan but even as far away as Britain.

He wrote countless leaflets, as well as articles for the Proletarian News. And some of his pamphlets, such as Producers and Parasites (1935), Crime—its Causes and Consequences (1937) and particularly How The Gods Were Made (1929), all of which were published, not by the Proletarian Party, but by Charles H. Kerr and Company of Chicago, which Keracher had taken over from an ageing Charles Kerr in 1928, found their way to Britain, and into the hands of members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain including this writer.

John Keracher left Detroit for Chicago in the late 1920s and remained there until about 1950, when he retired to Los Angeles. He died in 1958.

The World Socialist Party

Following the entry of the United States into the First World War in 1917, and the subsequent persecutions of radicals, socialists and anti-war groups, the members of the WSP were forced to go underground, curtail their activities or to move away from Detroit, to other parts of the United States. And, like Keracher some members of the WSP supported the Bolsheviks, at least for a time. During the infamous Palmer Red Raids of 1919, thousands of workers, including socialists, were arrested.

Nevertheless, despite the difficulties, members of the WSP in Detroit carried on as the Detroit Socialist Educational Society between 1919 and 1922. In 1921, I. Rab moved from Detroit to Boston where he worked tireless for socialism, for many more decades. The Detroit Local of the WSP came and went over the years; and at one period, during the 1950s, it took over the functions of the WSP National Headquarters. At the moment of writing, there is no active local of the World Socialist Party in Detroit.

Peter E. Newell, 

Colchester, England

Sources:

The Monument, Robert Barltrop.

Jack London, Robert Barltrop.

Encyclopaedia of the American Left, edited by Mari Jo Buhle and others. 

The Western Socialist, No.4,1966.

Crime—Its Causes and Consequences, John Keracher.

Producers and Parasites, John Keracher.

How The Gods Were Made, John Keracher.

Letter from Ronald Elbert, 30 March 1996.

World Communism: A Handbook, edited by Witold S. Sworakowski.

Blogger's Note:

I thought this short historical article from Frank Girard's Discussion Bulletin would be of interest to readers of the blog. The author of the article, the late Peter E. Newell, was a member of the SPGB in the '50s and '60s, and rejoined the party in the 1990s after long period in-between involved in anarchist politics. Peter had a longstanding interest in the history of radical movements in the Americas, and as well as writing a biography of Zapata in the 1970s, he also wrote a history of Canadian impossibilism in 2008.

Frank Girard's reasons for originally publishing the article are worth reposting:

"The DB isn't a socialist history magazine, but Peter Newell's article on John Keracher and Revolutionary Perspective's article on the British SLP both relate to a key period, 1918-20, when Lenin and the Bolsheviks were using worldwide enthusiasm among workers for the Russian Revolution and the unlimited cash they came into when they grabbed power in Russia to establish their hegemony over the revolutionary wing of the international socialist movement. I never met Keracher, but I knew one of his admirers, Clarence Ford, in Grand Rapids in the early fifties. Like many working class revolutionaries he was shockingly—to me in those days—uninterested in the relative doctrinal purity of socialist organizations and had been a member of both the SLP and Keracher's Proletarian Party, and from reading Newell's article I gather that the refusal of Keracher and his party to become a part of the CP was based on principle and not just personal antagonisms as I had assumed."

SPGB Meetings (1936)

Party News from the December 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

'Raj Hansa' was the pseudonym of Ayana Deva Angadi. More details about 'Raj Hansa' are available at the following link.

Obituary: Moses Baritz (1938)

Moses Baritz (circa 1912)

From the May 1938 issue of The Western Socialist 

It is with the deepest regret that I have to write the obituary of one who was so well known among the old-timers of the Socialist movement. I first met Moses in 1914 in those stirring early days of the war, and remember so well his huge meetings on Winnipeg Market Square in the weeks preceding August 4th.

He died at the age of fifty-four in the Manchester Victoria Memorial Jewish Hospital, and the “Manchester Guardian,’’ of March 31st, 1938, in a lengthy obituary, tells of his “vast store of knowledge of opera and particularly of Wagnerian music dramas. . . . He was one of the first to give radio talks on music and gramophone lecture recitals.” Again, they say: “He was for many years lecturer and musical adviser to the Columbia Graphophone Company, but he steadfastly refused to live in London, maintaining that the cultural facilities were better in Manchester.”

Of him personally they say: “As a man he hid a very generous disposition under a certain brusqueness of manner.”

Of particular interest to Socialists is the following quotation: “His interests were not only musical. He lectured in the United States, for instance, on economics as well as on music. He will be remembered as a leading figure in the lively debates of the Manchester County Forum before the war, and he was known on many platforms as a forceful advocate of Socialism. Research into the associations of Marx and Engels with Manchester was a particular hobby of his, and until recently he had been collecting material for a book on the subject.”

His mother, who is still alive, and is now ninety-two years old, was interviewed by one of the newspapers, and claimed Moses was not a success because he “got this Socialism,” while her other sons were becoming fairly successful business men.

As a debater, his like was never heard in Winnipeg, and his debate with Mr. Mobius, a clever German reformer who used to live here, is still remembered by all who were present.

His historical lectures on the French Revolution and like subjects were attended by students and faculty from our local colleges and his encyclopaedic knowledge often was marvelled at. His memory was sponge-like in its absorbent qualities, and what he read he knew and could quote readily from, after one perusal.

He conducted classes for the Winnipeg Local one winter and left his mark in the memory of all who attended.

The I.W.W. was a potent force on this continent in those days and his opposition to that organization had an amusing sequel, as he was held by the authorities in Seattle during the war years as an I.W.W., and some respectable citizens of Winnipeg as well as others of us had to give lengthy evidence on his behalf before the U.S. consul before he was released.

He was widely travelled, having lectured in practically every city in Canada, most parts of the U.S.A. and also in Australia.

He had a biting and bitter tongue, was feared by his opponents, but highly respected for his vast fund of knowledge, his honest Socialist convictions and the lucidity of the presentation of his views.

When visiting London in the summer of 1934 he came down from Manchester to see me. His rotund figure more pronounced, his shortsighted eyes more short-sighted, but his voice not quite so loud. We lived the old days over, “do you remember” being repeated again and again, old battles re-fought, old bitternesses laughed at, old memories, old friends, old enemies all recalled. That day was to be repeated later in Manchester or Glasgow, but an attack of the illness that ultimately finished him made that meeting our last.

His hatred of Russian Communist trickery and double dealing made him keep valuable information about Engels and his life in Manchester from them, and I hope his material which he was collecting at that time and up to his death can yet be edited and published.

He was essentially a product of his city and his time — the youth of today turned out of schools machine-like and with ideas, clothes and mannerisms so much in common and so respectable could never produce a Baritz.

The Socialist movement is poorer by his loss. We pay honor to him, whose like we may never see again.

A.P.

Our Fourth Annual Conference. (1908)

Party News from the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

The fourth Annual Conference of the S.P.G.B. was held at the Communist Club on Friday and Saturday, 17th and 18th April, 1908. Comrade Fitzgerald presided, supported by Snellgrove. Comrades Neumann and Anderson acted as Stewards, and Pearson, Hopley and Bigby as as Credentials Committee.

The Report of the 4th Executive Committee to the Conference contained the following: “We are pleased to report a steady increase in the membership and influence of the Party. Over 170 new members have been enrolled during the year, and propaganda has been well maintained; a special feature being the large number of debates held with representatives of all sections of the enemy. . . The Manchester Branch formed during the year is especially active, and promises to prove a splendid base for provincial work. . . . The Socialist Standard has appeared regularly. . . . The first 36 numbers bound in one volume has sold well. The 2nd Edition of the Manifesto has been sold out and the 3rd Edition is selling equally well. The issue of ‘Art, Labour and Socialism’ in pamphlet form has also proved very successful. A 2nd Edition of ‘From Handicraft to Capitalism’ has been issued and the second of the series is in course of production. . . . Leaflets replying to the attacks of the anti Socialists and advertising The Socialist Standard have been extensively circulated.’’

The report was very fully discussed by the delegates, and finally adopted. Fitzgerald raised the question of the reorganisation of the Peckham Branch, questioning the wisdom of the E.C. in not excluding certain elements which had in the past made for disorganisation. During this discussion, Moses Baritz, the delegate from Manchester, presided, the vice-chairman being a member of the Peckham Branch.

The financial Statement was adopted after being fully discussed. Snellgrove and Rose (Tooting) moved a resolution suggesting that branches guarantee to take quantities of the Party Organ proportionately to their membership. This was carried.

The Manchester delegate raised the question, on a motion of urgency, of sending speakers to take part in the campaign at Manchester. It was agreed to send representatives, and a collection to assist in defraying their expenses was taken up which realised £1 5s. 6d.

The two amendments to the Rules from the Tottenham Branch were carried. The resolution from Wood Green urging the appointment of an Organiser was carried, the amendment from Manchester calling for a provincial organiser, being defeated. Two other resolutions, one calling for the appointment of a paid organiser, and the other suggesting the insertion of a summary of the minutes of the E.C. meetings in the Party Organ, were defeated.

The Socialist Standard will, in future, appear on the last Saturday of every month, instead of on the first of the month as heretofore, the resolution to that effect from Tooting being carried by a large majority. All pamphlets issued by the Party are to be, in future, of a uniform size, the Conference agreeing to the resolution from Tooting to that effect.

The Conference then adjourned for tea and to make way for the Social to be held.

The Social proved to be an unqualified success. Comrade Anderson presided and from 8 o'clock until 1 o’clock next morning the revolutionary representatives of the working class danced and sang to their hearts' content. The quantity of talent in the ranks of the Party surprised everyone. Financially, also, the concert should be a great success.

The Conference reassembled at two o’clock on Saturday and proceeded to tackle the remainder of the Agenda. It was first decided to take the item second on the agenda, standing in the name of the Battersea Branch: “That no Candidate of the Party, if elected, shall take the Oath of Allegiance to the Constitution.” The discussion was opened on behalf of the Battersea Branch in a brief speech. Hopley (Paddington) opposed on the ground of triviality. Hutchings (Tooting), Neumann, Snellgrove (Peckham), Denford, Wren supported the proposition, while R. H. Kent, A. Barker and Fitzgerald opposed. The Conference agreed to proceed to the next item which was to the effect that all Party business on which a vote is taken, voting shall be for and against. This was agreed to. 'The discussion placed on the Agenda by the Edmonton Branch, on the question of “Socialism And Religion” served to again bring into strong contrast the position of our Party as against that of any other party professing to be Socialist. In the discussion it was made plain that while it was unnecessary and undesirable to impose a test of membership on the subject, it must be clearly recognised that active Christianity was incompatible with the active participation in the Socialist movement. Pearson (Edmonton), Anderson, Neumann, Snellgrove, Jackson, Watts and Fitzgerald contributed, and the Conference agreed to request the E.C. to make the Relation between Religion and Socialism the subject of an early pamphlet.

The important subject remaining, viz, “The attitude of candidates of the Party if elected to any public body,” was deemed too large to be adequately dealt with in the time then remaining and it was agreed to call a Party Meeting to discuss it.

The Conference was the most successful yet held by the Party and bodes well for the future.

Correspondence. (1908)

Letter to the Editors from the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Comrade,

As an instance of I.L.P. valour, the following facts may be interesting.

Mr. A. Woolerton (I.L.P.) having informed me that he was willing to debate his position against that of the S.P.G.B “with the best man” we had, “in any hall, at any time,” I introduced the matter at our branch meeting.

I, as secretary, wrote accepting his challenge, and asking him to lay the matter before the branch of the I.L.P. to which he belonged. The E.C. of our party gave permission to Comrade Baritz to debate with Woolerton.

I saw Mr. Woolerton at the Coal Exchange on Jan. 5th, when he wished to inform me verbally of his decision. I asked him, however, to communicate by letter as it was branch business. Having enclosed a stamped envelope in my letter, I wrote a post-card on Jan. 27, asking when I could expect an answer.

Comrade Baritz, having been informed by Mr. Woolerton that he had replied to my letter, I sent the following letter to Mr. Woolerton : — 

 Our Comrade Baritz informs me that you told him you had replied to my letters asking you to debate with our organisation.
  As no such letter has reached me, I enclose a missing letter form which, when completed, can be forwarded free of postage to The Secretary, G.P.O., London. You only can fill in the particulars required as to time and place of posting. On receipt of this form at the G.P.O. they will forward an acknowledgement to you of receipt on a form used for this purpose
  If you will kindly show or send me the form of acknowledgement I will consider the letter has been posted. Failing this, of a copy of your letter, I can only conclude you have not posted same and act accordingly.

Yours sincerely,

Jim Brough.

I can only conclude that Mr. Woolerton has not sent any letter to me, or that the letter (if sent has miscarried). If the latter be the ease he is either not sufficiently interested his missive to make enquiries concerning it, or not man enough to send a copy of the original.

Thanking you in anticipation of insertion. 

Yours fraternally,

Jim Brough.

A valueless contribution (1996)

Book Review from the March 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Feminist Challenge to 
the Canadian Left 1900-18 by Janice Newton
 (McGill-Queen’s University
Press.)

The Canadian Left from 1900-1918 consisted essentially of the Socialist Party of Canada and the Social Democratic Party. The SPC was the Canadian equivalent of the SDF in Britain at the same time, but there was an important difference. Whereas the SDF had a reformist majority and an “impossiblist" minority (some of whom broke away in 1904 to form the SPGB), the SPC had an impossiblist majority and a reformist minority. The Canadian Social Democratic Party was formed when this reformist minority broke away in 1911.

"Impossiblism" was a term of abuse invented by the reformists in the SDF to describe their opponents. Basically, it was the view that a socialist party should only seek support on the basis of Socialism and the abolition of the wages system and so should not have any programme of immediate demands. It also involved the view that socialism could only come about when a majority of workers wanted and understood it The task of a socialist party was seen as being educational—with a view to get workers to become socialist then eventually, when there was a socialist majority winning control of political power — as opposed to advocating reforms to be achieved within capitalism.

However, this refusal to advocate reforms did not mean that impossiblists thought a socialist party should oppose them. On the contrary, it was recognised that any Socialist elected to a parliament or a local council should vote for any measure considered to be in the interest of the working class.

The SPC, for instance, in its platform (which it published in every issue of its paper the Western Clarion and in its pamphlets) declared:

  "The Socialist Party, when in office, shall always and everywhere until the present system is abolished, make the answer to this question its guiding rule of conduct: will this legislation advance the interest of the working doss and aid the workers in their class struggle against capitalism? If it will, the Socialist Party is for it; if it will not, the Socialist Party is absolutely opposed to it. In accordance where this principle the Socialist Party pledges itself to conduct all the public affairs placed in its hands in such a manner as to promote the interests of the working class alone.”

The SPGB adopted a similar position, but in Canada this was not just an academic matter since the SPC did succeed in getting a few of its members elected to local and provincial councils.

Despite reproducing the SPC’s platform in full on page 23 of her book, Newton persists in equating not advocating some reform measure with being opposed to it. For instance, she claims that the SPC was opposed to giving the vote to women and attributes this to the party supposedly being a men’s organisation. But even the quotes she gives from the Western Clarion show that the SPC was not opposed to this measure, but merely that it did not seek support on the basis of favouring it.

She herself mentions that an SPC member of the British Columbia Legislative Assembly brought into a bill to give votes to women. She also mentions a debate between the SPC and the Political Equality League on the subject of "Will Woman Suffrage Solve the Economic Problem?” in which the Suffragette speaker complained that her SPC opponent (also a woman, incidentally) wasn't really opposed to giving votes to women. Of course she wasn’t as the SPC wasn’t. What the SPC was opposed to was the argument that the granting of votes to women would somehow solve the economic problems faced by working class women; in a socialist society women would of course have an equal say with men in the way things were run. As the Western Clarion (as quoted by Newton) put it “every Socialist as a matter of course stands for the enfranchisement of women and equal rights for the sexes in every department of life".

What Newton, as a reformist herself, fails to understand is the logic of the impossiblist position adopted by the SPC. This involved not advocating any reforms to be achieved within capitalism on the grounds that Socialism was the only solution and that absolute priority should be given to trying to achieve it. So the fact that the SPC did not advocate woman’s suffrage is not to be attributed it being against women any more than the fact that it didn’t advocate old-age pensions is to be attributed to it being against retired people. It sprang from a more general position.

To tell the truth, not only does Newton not understand the impossiblist position (she expresses a preference for the confused reformism, where Christianity and temperance reform were mixed up with some socialist ideas, of the Social Democratic Party) but she is profoundly prejudiced against the SPC. She paints a picture of it as a male organisation composed of lumberjacks and miners who smoked, drank, swore, told dirty jokes, used prostitutes and whose conception of Socialism was one where men would continue to go out to work but where women would be confined to working at home, cooking their meals, washing their clothes, darning their socks and serving as objects of their sexual desires.

Needless to say, this is pure prejudice. No doubt the fact that some SPC members smoked and drank at party meetings would have put off women (in those days). It is true also that the rhetoric sometimes used—calling on working men to show their "manhood” and stand up to the bosses who were exploiting them—wrongly suggested that the class struggle was exclusively a male affair. There will also have been individual SPC members who were prejudiced against women. But to claim that the SPC’s conception of socialism was a male-dominated one is an absurd fabrication. We have already quoted (re-quoted from Newton herself, in fact) the statement from the Western Clarion to the effect that “every Socialist, as a matter of course, stands for the enfranchisement of women and equal rights for the sexes in every department of life".

So what evidence does Newton produce to back up her case? Her first line of argument is the same mistaken one as over votes for women. The SPC didn’t advocate it, therefore it was against it. Thus Moses Baritz is quoted as arguing against the view that birth control would allay poverty; Newton twists this into saying that he and the SPC were against birth control. Similarly, just because the SPC did not seek support on the basis of sex reform (abolition of marriage, etc.), she claims this meant it was against this even though the passages she quotes from the Western Clarion make it clear that SPC members had "individual opinions" as to what will happen to relationships between the sexes in a socialist society.

But the biggest distortion comes over the concept of the "family wage", i.e. a wage paid to a man providing him with enough to maintain a wife and family at home. Newton quotes Kautsky and the Western Clarion to the effect that one of the consequences of the entry of women and children on to the labour market is to exert a downward pressure on men’s wages, since, whereas previously employers were obliged by market forces to include in men’s wages an element to cover the cost of maintaining a family, with women and children earning something too this was no longer necessary. Kautsky and the Western Clarion stated this as a matter of fact (a fact, we would have thought, that can’t be contested). But Newton interprets this as a complaint and as a call to keep women out of the labour market so as to maintain male wages.

Some male trade unionists did take up this position, but not the SPC as can be shown, yet again, by quotes from their literature which Newton herself gives. The SPC stood not for a family wage, nor equal wages, nor any kind of wages but for the abolition of the whole wages system. As the Western Clarion put in 1910 (quoted by Newton on p. 68) "for the she worker there is only one issue, the destruction of the wages system". She also records (p. 97) that an SPC candidate in Ontario was called to order by the SPC’s executive committee for including a proposal for equal pay in his election manifesto and "was told he should stand only for the abolition of the wages system".

So how can she claim that the SPC’s vision of the "socialist future" was one where "the working man earned sufficient wages to support a wife and family" (p. 101) and which “would reverse the effects of capitalism on family life, return women to the home and re-establish the male wage earner’s position as head of the household” (p. 155)?

Such patent distortions— there are many others too regarding the SPC—make the book valueless as a contribution to feminist let alone working class history.

Adam Buick

Bradlaugh’s Slanders on Marx (1934)

From the December 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

Secularists Condone Murder of the Communards
In his superficial and prejudiced life of Marx (“ Karl Marx : A Study in Fanaticism," reviewed in our July issue), Mr. E. H. Carr attempted to escape responsibility for his inadequate knowledge and preparation by pleading the inaccessibility of documents. He complained of his inability to get hold of periodicals containing “Marx's letters and lesser-known writings," and wrote: —

  To quote one example, I have been completely unable to trace in this country any copy of a short-lived journal called the “Eastern Post," which contained in 1871 a spirited controversy between Marx and Bradlaugh on the Paris Commune.

Why Mr. Carr was “completely unable to trace" the “Eastern Post" is hard to explain, except on the assumption that he did not seriously try. So far from being short-lived, the “Eastern Post" is still in existence, and has been since its first issue on October 18th, 1868. Mr. Carr could have found this out with surpassing ease, and at the British Museum he could have gleaned all the information he required instantly. However, we can be grateful to Mr. Carr's negligence since it has led the present writer to look up the interesting controversy referred to. Here we see Marx, the mental giant, at grips with Bradlaugh and others of the individualists, who, while asserting their loyalty to the cause of “freedom," were enemies of the working-class movement. These men, Bradlaugh, G. J. Holyoake, and G. W. Foote were the personification of bourgeois reaction.

Marx’s “Civil War in France.”
The cause of the dispute between Bradlaugh and Marx was Marx's “Address on the Civil War in France." After the suppression of the Commune in 1871, “Republicans" and “Secularists” fell over one another to express their sympathy for the victims of the cold-blooded slaughter, carried out by the French Government, but while G. W. Foote, for example (“National Reformer," June 11th, 1871, page 378) was condemning the Communards for having endeavoured “forcibly to organise a regular Government in the name of a new social order," it was in reality the idea of the new social order itself—the idea of Socialism, to which they were opposed.

Marx delivered his address, and it was ordered to be published by the General Council of the International Working Men's Association. It described the terror; the slaughter of defenceless women and children in their thousands, so horrifying, in fact, that the correspondents of the English Press exposed the actions of the “government" of France. “The Times," “Daily News,” and other papers, were condemnatory in every way against the butchers of the workers. Marx, in his address, singled out—one of several instances— the bloody guilt of Jules Favre, the Foreign Minister in the Thiers Government—which was, by the way, sanctioned by Bismarck. The Government left Paris, but due to an oversight, some of the private correspondence that passed between the Ministers was overlooked. Favre, in a private letter to Gambetta, admitted that they were NOT defending Paris from the Prussian soldiers, but against the working class, this after his public assertion that we “will not cede an inch of your territory, nor a stone of your fortresses." As a consequence of the seizure of these letters, M. Milliere published a series of legal documents proving that Jules Favre, “living in concubinage with the wife of a drunkard resident in Algiers, had, by a most daring concoction of forgeries, spread over many years, contrived to grasp in the name of the children of his adultery, a large succession, which made him a rich man, and that, in a lawsuit undertaken by the legitimate heirs, he only escaped exposure by the connivance of the Bonapartist tribunals." When Favre returned to Paris after the suppression of the Commune, Milliere was shot!

On July 9th, 1871, on page 1 of the “National Reformer," Charles Bradlaugh, in a review of Marx*s address,

  Deeply regretted that a strong case had been weakened, as we believe it to be, by the introduction into the address of coarse and useless personalities. Surely the reference to Jules Favre’s domestic relations can have but. . ., etc.

In the following issue of the “National Reformer" a reply appeared from George Harris, Joint Secretary of the “ International," in which Harris said: —

  Now, sir, I hold ... it was of the highest importance and imperatively necessary to refer to Jules Favre’s domestic relations, because without such reference his forgery and crime could not have been exposed. Therefore, instead of repeating the real burden of Dr. Marx’s charge, Mr. Bradlaugh simply misleads his readers by speaking only of “reference to Jules Favre’s domestic relations.” Is “forgery,” I would ask, a domestic relation?

This attack produced neither apology nor reply from Bradlaugh. Nothing else was to be expected from him, for his attitude throughout the Commune—and after—was that of a steady supporter of the vile and treacherous Jules Favre. Bradlaugh tried to get out of this mess by saying it was a terrible thing, and asked for pity for the murderer, Favre. He attempted, under the guise of being a "lover of freedom," to protect Favre, who, apart from arranging the cold-blooded murder of Milliere, betrayed the Parisians to Bismarck, carried out Bismarck's instructions, and was also responsible for the massacre of thousands of women and children. This was Favre's friend! No wonder Bradlaugh—after the Franco-Prussian War —hated Marx. Marx had exposed his (Bradlaugh's) friends.

Bradlaugh, no doubt, realised the growing power of the International in European affairs, and the increasing importance of Marx. Bradlaugh had lived on his reputation as a reformer, and saw how his “Republican" propaganda was fizzling out. He therefore began attacking the International and Marx.

Hales, who was Corresponding Secretary of the International, also replied to Bradlaugh. A week later the latter notified his friends through the “National Reformer" (September 30th, 1871), that he was not a member of the International, and that the organisation had few members, and had little influence.

During the second week in December Bradlaugh again attacked the Communards. He protested against class government; he wanted an aristocracy of intellect! On December 16th, 1871, in the “Eastern Post," Bradlaugh, replying to a charge of poking his nose into the private domestic circumstances of a lady refugee from Paris, sought to obscure the issue by ending his letter as follows: —

  I feel indebted to Karl Marx for his enmity. If I were one of his own countrymen he might betray me to his government, here he can only calumniate.

As this letter has never been issued in any work on Marx we take pleasure in giving it the necessary publicity. (Perhaps the Director of Marx/Engels/Lenin/Stalin Institute will note and see to it that the index of the "Karl Marx; Chronik Seines Lebens" is altered accordingly?) Marx replied as follows: —

   Sir,—In his last epistle to you, Mr. Charles Bradlaugh makes the report of the sitting of the General Council of December 12th—a sitting from which I was absent in consequence of illness—the pretext for discharging on me his ruffianism. He says, “I feel indebted to Karl Marx for his enmity.” My enmity to Mr. Charles Bradlaugh! Ever since the publication of the “Address on the Civil War in France” Mr. Bradlaugh’s voice has chimed in with world-wide chorus of slander against the “International” and myself. I treated him like the other revilers, with contemptuous silence. This was more than the grotesque vanity of that huge self-idolator could stand. I “calumniated” him because I took no notice of his calumnies. My silence drove him mad; in a public meeting he denounced me as a Bonapartist because in the “Address on the Civil War” I had forsooth laid bare the historic circumstances that gave birth to the Second Empire. He now goes a step further and transforms me into a police agent of Bismarck. Poor man! He must needs show that the lessons he has recently received at Paris from the infamous Emile de Gerardin and his clique are not lost upon him. For the present, I shall “betray him” to the German public by giving the greatest possible circulation to his epistle. If he is kind enough to clothe his libels in a more tangible shape I shall “betray him” to an English law court.

I am, Sir,

Yours obediently,

Karl Marx.

John Hales, Secretary of the International, supplemented this letter with another: —

  With reference to Mr. Bradlaugh’s insinuation against Dr. Marx, I say that it is as lying as it is malicious, and with that I leave the matter, knowing that Dr. Marx needs no vindicator. But I would make one remark about Mr. Bradlaugh, “Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.” Mr. Bradlaugh has been on one or two missions to Paris lately. I know of no workmen’s organisations which employ secret emissaries, and as Mr. Bradlaugh has not a reputation for working for nothing, I would ask whether there was any connection between his visits and the recent Bonapartist intrigues. Dirty tools are usually employed to do dirty work, and it is well known that the Bonapartists are not particular as to what instruments they use.

Bradlaugh’s Hostility towards Socialism.

A few days later, on December 19th, Marx was present at a meeting of the International, and called attention to these facts, and also the fact that Bradlaugh, to “prove” a case against Marx, had stripped a quotation from its context. This falsification, said Marx, “was deliberate and intentional.” Marx pointed out that when in Paris, Bradlaugh resorted and dined with the most infamous men in France. Referring to Bradlaugh’s political attitude, Marx said: —

   He could understand the secret of the man’s malignity; he was opposed to a labour movement; he only wished to see a little shuffling of the cards, a little re-distribution of political power, just sufficient to enable him to rise to a higher position, and that he knew he (Marx) represented the labour struggle, a struggle that would effect the emancipation of the people by abolishing classes and class distinctions; that was not what Bradlaugh wanted; hence his opposition.

Following this, "Le Soir,” the reactionary Parisian paper, deemed it necessary to aid Bradlaugh, and circulated a feeble apology for him, as he was a contributor to its columns. The attitude of Bradlaugh’s friends in Paris might be understood when the reader is reminded that when Victor Hugo stood as candidate he demanded a political amnesty for the Communards. Victor Hugo polled 93,423 votes. Bradlaugh’s paper, “Le Soir," opposed Hugo solely on the grounds that he favoured the amnesty. The voters were called “brigands and assassins” by “Le Soir.” 

Marx, on January 20th, 1872, enters the lists once more, and writes to the Editor of the “Eastern Post” : —

   Sir,—In the- “National Reformer” of January 10th, Mr. Bradlaugh says : “We only meant to allege that Dr. Marx had, in former times, given information to his own Government.”
    I simply declare that is calumny as ridiculous as it is infamous. I call upon Mr. Bradlaugh to publish any fact that could afford him even the slightest pretext for his statement. For his personal tranquillity I add that he shall not be challenged 

                                                                                                                Yours, etc.,

January 16th, 1872.                                                                                 Karl Marx.

Bradlaugh realised the trouncing he had received and was anxious to call off the hostilities, and on January 22nd, 1872, was desirous of “submitting the whole question between myself on the one hand and Dr. Marx and the International on the other to a Council of Honour. . . .”

Marx’s final word after the request of Bradlaugh was as follows : —

To the Editor of the “Eastern Post,” February 3rd, 1872.
Sir,
   [Owing to printing errors the opening is omitted.] . . . lous as it is infamous. I did so in order not to justify myself, but to expose him. With the low cunning of a solicitor’s clerk he tries to escape this liability by inviting me to a “ Court of Honour.” Does he really fancy that a Bradlaugh or the editors of the Paris demi-monde Press, or those of the Bismarckian papers at Berlin, or the “Tages Presse” at Vienna, or the “ Kriminal Zeitung” at New York, or the “ Moscow Gazette,” have only to slander me, in order to make me amenable to clear my public character, and even do so before a “Council of Honour ” of which the friends of these “ honourable ” gentlemen must form part.
  I have done with Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, and leave him to all the comforts he may derive from the quite contemplation of his own self.

I am,

Yours obediently,

Karl Marx.

So ended the heroics of the “great” Bradlaugh. We need only add in conclusion a word about one of his supporters, another trickster—George Jacob Holyoake, who, because of Marx’s address, repudiated and attacked the International in a letter to “The Daily News.” This was after Holyoake had tried to enter the organisation, but the General Council refused him membership. This Holyoake denied, but the minutes proved the truth. Weston, who moved the acceptance of Holyoake’s membership, was compelled to withdraw it, and Holyoake was so informed by Weston himself.

Moses Baritz

Another "Life" of Marx (1934)

Book Review from the July 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

Karl Marx: A Study in Fanaticism by E. H. Carr (Dent)

It has generally been accepted when quoting from a book—or books—containing a considerable number of letters, to give the date, number of the letter, the page and volume from which it or they are taken. This facilitates verification. The author of any book, provided he has faith in his ability to present an accurate survey of his subject, would disdain to make assertions unsupported by evidence. When an author undertakes to write a “life” of a man like Karl Marx, he should at least pay a tribute to the well-known sincerity of Marx, who always gave the source of his information, and was punctilious to the extreme. His painstaking sincerity is patent. It is well known that Eleanor Marx, in verifying the quotations in the first volume of “Capital,” was unable in only one single instance to discover the origin. Marx’s assertions were rightly always backed up by evidence. These preliminary observations are necessary because a Mr. E. H. Carr has recently written a “ life ” of Marx, published by Dent’s (“Karl Marx: A Study in Fanaticism.” 327 pages. 12/6). In this book innumerable quotations are made and attributed to Marx and others, but in no instance has Mr. Carr given page, date or volume, to indicate the origin of the quotation. No documentation whatsoever is provided to guide the reader to the source of the information. This is procedure of an ignoble character, because in the progress of the book Mr. Carr has misinterpreted not only the words of Marx, but the sense, too. He has been disingenuous and has violated the principles of good taste. His interpretations are derived—so says the writer—from the volumes recently issued and sponsored by the Marx-Engels Institute, of Moscow. These four volumes contain the original letters that passed between Marx and Engels. Most of the letters are in German, but there are numerous digressions into French, English and Italian. These volumes form the basis of Mr. Carr’s “life” of Marx.

In the book there is an unending series of quotations, but whatever the nature of these quotations, on no occasion is the specific source given to allow an opportunity for verification. In my view there can only be one reason for this policy. It is that Mr. Carr has not read the four volumes: or if he has, is totally unfamiliar with the contents. Even before one reads a word of the preface, one is confronted with a piece of false information. Opposite the title page a photograph of Marx is inset, under which appears the following note: —

From an unpublished photograph.

Actually the same photograph was published in an official work issued some time ago by the Marx- Engels Institute, of Moscow. On page 304 of his book, Mr. Carr informs the reader, when dealing with the volumes issued by the Marx-Engels Institute, that—

  The first version, the so-called Gesamtausgabe, prints the works in the languages in which they were written, and was, until March, 1933, in course of publication at Berlin. The second version is a Russian translation published at Moscow.

On page 305, Mr. Carr adds—

    In a few passages originally written in English, I have been compelled by the inaccessibility of the English originals to re-translate from German or Russian versions.

But had Mr. Carr read the Gesamtausgabe, the German original version, he would know that there was no necessity to retranslate into English, because an English passage written by either Marx or Engels—or anyone else—is retained in its original form, therefore needing no retranslation. Thus, for example, a passage of 11 words taken from a letter from Marx to Engels (line 33, letter 143, dated January 20th, 1852, on page 308 of Vol. I) appears as follows, written in German, English and French!—

   Louis kann den Louis Philippe by no means nachmachen. Et alors ?

In some letters there are additional phrases from other languages. The statement re “inaccessibility” is mere bluff and pretence, for though Mr. Carr later informs us of letters which are written in English, three of which will be specified later, in no instance has Mr. Carr given an accurate reproduction of these letters, though in the Gesamtausgabe they are printed in English..

One essential factor for a clear insight into, and an appreciation of, the correspondence between Marx and Engels, is a knowledge of its chronology and history. One must know that there have been two versions of this series of correspondence. The' previous issue was—

   Der Briefwechsel zwischen Friedrich Engels und Karl Marx. Herausgegeben von A. Bebel und Ed. Bernstein. Bd. I-IV Stuttgart, J. H. W. Dietz, 1913.

Engels made Edward Bernstein his literary executor, on whom devolved the responsibility for issuing the works of both Marx and Engels. (Engels had long begun to arrange and edit the literary works of Marx.)

Bernstein manipulated the correspondence, expunging passages at his discretion, and leaving letters entirely unmentioned. Many of the passages are momentous in the history of Marxism, as we shall see later.

That Mr. Carr makes no reference to the early version is surprising, for it appears to indicate his ignorance of its existence, and, what is more interesting, that he has not read the four volumes issued by the Marx-Engels Institute, of Moscow. All Mr. Carr's protestations are unavailing, for there are scores of instances that prove his ignorance of the letters he is supposed to have read, and upon which he has written this “biography” of Marx. Mr. Carr’s sublime silence about the two versions is interesting. If his “life” of Marx is based upon the correspondence issued by the Marx-Engels Institute, what are we to make of the mysterious fact that there are no less than 110 pages of valuable introductory material in the correspondence—yet Mr. Carr has not made the slightest reference to it!

Moreover, it is difficult to accept assurance from a "biographer" who gives neither page, date, letter, nor volume, when writing of correspondence between Marx and Engels—dating from October 8th—10th, 1844, to January 10th, 1883— in which there are no less than 1,569 letters.

Mr. Carr gives words incorrectly and inserts others not in the original version. Take page 97 of his book, for example. On this page Mr. Carr refers to the letter written by Engels to Marx announcing the death of his sweetheart, Mary Burns. Mr. Carr does not inform the reader that Engels wrote the letter on January 7th, 1863. If he had read it he would have discovered that Engels forgot the turn of the year, and inserted 1862.

Marx replied on the following day (letter 814, page 117, of Vol. 3) in a curt manner. Engels was rather upset, and, on January 13th, sent Marx a severe letter, the ONLY one of its kind that ever passed between the two friends. Let us read Mr. Carr's account. He says:—

   This “frosty” letter, received before Mary was in her grave, struck Engels dumb for four days.
   All my friends (he wrote at length), including bourgeois acquaintances. . . .

Mr. Carr puts the word "bourgeois" in italics. The word "bourgeois" is NOT in italics in the correspondence. The words are in letter 816, second paragraph, page 118, of Vol 3. They begin on line 21, and are as follows: —

   Alle meine Freunde, einschliesslich Philisterbekannte. . . .

In the Marx-Engels Institute version the words are as above. If italics had been used by Engels (or Marx), this is the way it would have been printed—P h i 1 i s t e rbekannte. 

So much for Mr. Carr's literary rectitude!!

Perhaps the survey of another episode may help in elucidating the mysteries of Mr. Carr's qualifications to write as an “authority" on Marx. On page 67, Mr. Carr indulges speculatively anent the activities of Marx in Paris, and the decision to go to England. As usual, he displays his ignorance of the correspondence, and makes statements that are the reverse of fact. In the last paragraph Mr. Carr states that the decision to emigrate was "the most important landmark in Marx's career."

If this decision is the most important landmark in Marx's career, such observation, interpretation, and justification should be sustained by evidence. But Mr. Carr tenders nothing to prove the great landmark. There are reasons for the serious omission—for Mr. Carr again evidently knows little or nothing of the correspondence of this period. His review on page 67 is deficient in that the exact relations between Marx and the French police are not clearly detailed, and Mr. Carr's "disclosures" are inadequate. In letter No. 40, dated June 7th, 1849 (page 107, Vol. 1), Marx wrote to Engels that his [Marx's] correspondence was being tampered with, and advised Engels to write to him under the pseudonym of Monsieur Ramboz, 45, Rue de Lille. In the letter No. 43, pp. 111-2, Vol. 1, dated August 17th, Marx again refers to the pseudonym.

In the next letter, No. 44, dated August 23rd 1849, p. 113, Vol. 1, Marx makes the vital and final decision concerning his future, which Mr. Carr calls the “most important landmark of Marx's career." But once more we discover that Mr. Carr is ignorant of the full contents of these letters. Actually, Marx's decision did not involve him, alone, for it changed the whole course of Engel's life, too.. “The most important landmark" referred to by Mr. Carr, depended entirely upon the letters referred to above. In the August 23rd letter (No. 44), Marx writes to Engels in Lausanne to inform him that he will not submit to the surveillance of the French police, who desire him to take up residence in the isolated Department of Mobihan (Brittany).

In his fulsome ignorance, Mr. Carr states that "Marx thought of joining Engels in Switzerland." This is a piece of invincible ignorance on the part of Mr. Carr for had he read Marx's letter, he would have found that Marx says (line 14, paragraph 2): —

   Nach der Schweiz gibt man mir keinen Pass. (I can get no passport for Switzerland.)

Marx impresses upon Engels to leave Lausanne and go right through to London, where he will join him. Marx is certain of being able to start a literary journal, for which one portion of the money is already available. He tells Engels it seems impossible for him to remain in Switzerland any longer.

    Du kannst nicht in der Schweiz bleiben. In London werden wir Geschäfte maen. . (You cannot remain in Switzerland. We will do business in London.)

This last sentence is of the utmost importance, for, along with the letter No. 43, dated August 17th, 1849, it showed that Marx was certain that the starting of a journal would provide a living for both Marx and Engels. But the sting is in the tail. Marx appends a footnote to the letter, showing that he had no thought of going to Switzerland. He writes—

   Lupus ist bei Dr. Lüning, Zürich. Schreib ihm auch von meinem Plan. (Lupus is with Dr. Lüning in Zurich. Write him also about my plan.)
   (Lupus was the famous Wilhelm Wolff to whom Marx dedicated the first volume of “Capital.”)

Not one word of this is tendered, explained, or referred to by Mr. Carr on page 67 of his book. Obviously, Mr. Carr does not know of its existence. But there is more than that to it. It suggests the source of Mr. Carr's information, too, i.e., the 1913 edition. In his preface, on page VIII, Mr. Carr tenders thanks “to a friend who desires to remain anonymous, but who, while differing from many of my conclusions, has generously placed at my disposal a rich stock of Marxist lore.” It was in the 1913 edition of the letters that the passage in letter 43, and the sentence from letter 44, “In London werden wir Geschäfte machen,” were deliberately omitted. Specific attention is called thereto in the 50-page introduction to Vol 1 of the correspondence issued by the Marx-Engels Institute.

If Mr. Carr had regard for the truth, nothing could have deterred him from giving the page, date, number, and volume from which he was quoting. Let us test Mr. Carr's credentials once more. It concerns an episode of which he writes with exceeding enthusiasm, for which he tenders Marx a surprising encomium. The very instance arouses suspicion. It provides more evidence of Mr. Carr's patent superficiality, and invincible shallowness. On page 109 he refers to Marx's “Eighteenth Brumaire," and says that it

   demands quotations not so much for its political importance as for its literary merits. The contorted antithetical style of Marx’s early period has been left behind. The “Eighteenth Brumaire” contains some of the simplest and raciest of Marx’s writing; and the fierceness of the invective (for Marx always shines at invective) gives it a high place among political broadsides. It may be heartily recommended to anyone who thinks Marx is a dull writer.

Then follows the opening section of the first paragraph of the “Brumaire.” Once again his bluff is exposed. For had Mr. Carr read letter No. 134, which Engels wrote to Marx from Manchester on December 3rd, 1851, he would have seen the origin of the passage which was afterwards incorporated into the “Brumaire" by Marx. It is on page 292 of Vol 1. Let any reader examine the opening of the “Brumaire,” and he can easily follow the quotation.

   alles sich zweimal anspinnen liesse, einmal als grosse Tragödie, und das zweite Mai als lausige Farce, Caussidiere für Danton, L. Blanc für Robespierre, Barthelemy für Saint-Just, Flocon für Carnot, . . etc. (these things occur twice, first as great tragedy and secondly as paltry farce . . . etc.)

Now, Engels wrote that note to Marx within 24 hours of the coup d'état, and yet later accorded the credit to Marx for the analysis. Knowing the miserable proclivities of Mr. Carr in traducing and reviling Marx on the slightest provocation, he missed here his greatest opportunity of calling Marx a plagiarist, etc. But his lost opportunity is entirely due to Mr. Carr not having read the correspondence; an opportunity he surely would have used to bolster his case against Marx; if he had known of it.

The International.

The importance of the “International” is recognised by Mr. Carr, who uses about a quarter of the space of his book to expatiate upon this interesting aspect of Marx’s activities.

On page 184 he bursts forth with this serious diatribe: —

   The origin of the momentous decision to invite Marx—a decision which determined the whole course of the International from its inception to its death— is wrapped in strange obscurity. It is a depressing commentary on the nature of the evidence on which history is based that, in this comparatively straightforward matter, the historian has before him two mutually contradictory accounts from persons who participated, or purport to have participated, in the transaction. Each of these accounts is demonstrably, or almost demonstrably, false: and each has clearly been distorted by the desire of the narrator to exaggerate the importance of his own role.

If it is demonstrably false, why does Mr. Carr use the curious qualification “almost.” If it is “almost” demonstrably false, it isn't quite false. And if it isn't quite false, why worry? The fact is, Mr. Carr has not quite relished his job, and he was in a position of mental suspense in dealing with the matter. Besides, it is clear that he did not appreciate the whole story attributed to Marx. Had Mr. Carr quoted from Marx's letter (No. 876) he might have understood the matter. Had he read the correspondence, he might have quoted the facts, for, in this case, opposite page 196 of Vol 3, Marx's letter is produced in facsimile. Marx tells Engels that a young Frenchman, Le Lubez, about 30 years of age, brought up in Jersey and London, asked Marx if he would care to represent the German workers at the first meeting of the International. Mr. Carr suggests that this story is “demonstrably, or almost demonstrably, false.”

If it is demonstrably false, where is the evidence? Mr. Carr produces none. He produces the other version, this time by Marx's old friend, Frederick Lessner.

We will leave it to our readers as to whether there are contradictions. Mr. Carr quotes Lessner, but from what book or pamphlet, he declines to say. Let us, however, quote from Lessner's “Sixty Years of the Social Democratic Movement" (p. 33):

  The English committee invited also the “Communistische Arbeiterbildungsverein” to this meeting, and at the same time expressed a wish that Marx should attend this international fraternisation of the working men. The “Communistische Arbeiterbildungsverein” sent me to Marx. I informed him of the wish of the English workmen, and after some inquiries as to the conveners and the object of the meeting, Marx consented to come.

Is that contradictory? What authority Le Lubez had to approach Marx is not discussed by Mr. Carr. Mr. Carr's method of presenting material which cannot be immediately identified from its source, ill-befits him to accuse any person, and then submit no evidence to substantiate the accusations.

Not only is there no contradiction, but there is overwhelming evidence that shows how much Marx's presence was desired and required at the first meeting of the International. Both the Marx version and that of Lessner suggest that steps were being taken by various parties to have Marx’s assistance. It is clear there is no mystery at all about Marx’s presence. There is no “strange obscurity” regarding the decision to invite him. True, it is obscure and mysterious to Mr. Carr. Despite all his own trumpetings regarding his firsthand information, in this respect he succeeds in displaying his woeful ignorance and utter unfamiliarity with the accurate sources of information. Mr. Carr does not know that Marx received an official invitation to the first meeting. It proves once more that he has no great knowledge of the literature issued by the Marx-Engels Institute of Moscow, for on page 146 of “Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels,” by D. Riazanov, the story is given officially. There it is asked:—

   How did he [Marx] happen to be there? A little note found among Marx’s miscellaneous papers supplies the answer. It reads:—
    Mr. Marx,
    Dear Sir,
      The committee who have organised the meeting as announced in the enclosed bill respectfully request the favour of your attendance. The production of this will admit you to the Committee Room where the Committee will meet at half past 7.
                                                                                         Yours respectfully,

(Signed) W. R. CREMER. 

W. R. Cremer was the Organising Secretary for the first meeting of the International. He invited Marx. So the statement on page 184 of Carr’s book is only “wrapped in strange obscurity” because of the inadequate qualifications possessed by Mr. Carr. In matters historical, Mr. Carr is woefully and abysmally ignorant. Take for example the statement he makes on page 185, concerning Lessner, of whom he writes: —

Lessner had lived in London since the early fifties. . . .

What has Mr. Carr read of the activities of Lessner? He pretends to have quoted from a book of Lessner, but Mr. Carr is as ignorant as an unborn babe of the life of Lessner. Let us deal with this “early fifties” rubbish.

Lessner left London in July, 1848, for Cologne to carry on propaganda in association with Marx and Engels in the Rhineland. After the failure of the insurrectionary movement, Lessner was expelled from Wiesbaden on June 18th, 1850, whereafter he proceeded to Mainz to organise the few revolutionary elements left in the League of Communists. For this same purpose he went to Nuremberg. In June, 1851, he was arrested in Mainz, and detained in custody until a bill of indictment was entered against him 15 months later. His trial commenced on October 4th, 1852. The verdict was given on November 12th, and Lessner was condemned to imprisonment in a fortress for three years. On January 27th, 1856, he was released, making his way to London, where he arrived in May, 1856.

THAT, dear Mr. Carr,.was how Lessner spent the ”early fifties” in London!

Another elementary example of Mr. Carr's “authority” is the reference to Disraeli, in the first paragraph on page 201. He writes : —

   Disraeli, when he dished the Whigs, had gone a long way towards dishing the International—a body of which he had probably never heard.

That is a priceless gem from Mr. Carr, who pretends to possess something akin to universal knowledge of the working-class movement.

Mr. Carr’s assertion means that Disraeli did NOT read the “Times,” or other daily papers. But may we deal with the “Times”?

When the International Congress was held at Lausanne, Marx was able to push his friend, Eccarius, into receiving the sum of 2½ guineas per column for reporting the Congress. On Friday, September 6th, 1867, “The Times” had this head-line:—

    International Working Men’s Congress.
(From a correspondent.) Lausanne, Sept. 2nd. 

Then followed the article. To suggest that Disraeli would not read this is absurd.

Because of the reports that had percolated through Lausanne, “The Times,” on September 12th, published a leading article, dealing with the International Working Men’s Association (page 6, columns 5 and 6). A year later, Wednesday, September 9th, 1868, “The Times,” in its leading article, delivered an attack upon the International (page 6, columns 3 and 4).

Disraeli, who was always pretending to be on the side of the working class, knew all about the International, and aided the organisation to deal a nasty blow at the French Government. Had Mr. Carr read the correspondence between Marx and Engels, he would have known of this, for it is to be found in Vol. 3, page 372 (Letter 1011), December 21st, 1866. In that letter Marx wrote to Engels,. pointing out that the French authorities had confiscated some letters and documents belonging to the I.W.M.A., after the Geneva Congress. These papers were obtained at the border. Many demands were made in Paris for their return, without any success. Thereupon Marx claimed them through the British Foreign Office (Lord Stanley was Minister for Foreign Affairs), as the documents were “British Property.” As Marx says in the letter, poor Napoleon, through the Foreign Office, is to return all. When action by the Cabinet is necessary it means that at least SOME of England’s greatest politicians were aware of the organisations important enough to instigate such action.

There are other cases to show Mr. Carr’s ignorance. On page 201, he refers to the Fenian activity during 1867, and that the International held two meetings., “The Dublin papers were well represented,” says Mr. Carr. What does that mean? Were the newspaper representatives at both meetings? Mr. Carr does not make it clear at all. There is a reason. Mr. Carr has obviously not read the letters that passed between Marx and Engels.

Only TWO Dublin papers were present at the FIRST meeting, i.e., “The Irishman" and the “Nation." At the second meeting none of the Irish reporters turned up at all. At least, so Marx says, in letter 1079, dated November 30th, 1867, page 456, Vol. 3.

We had better not dismiss this Irish business without a further reference to Mr. Carr and the bluff about his translations from Marx’s works(?). On page 305 of his book, we are given an insight into the fine linguistic abilities of Mr. Carr. Says this oracle: —

   . . . In quoting from Marx’s other writings I have made my own translations. In a few passages originally written in English, I have been compelled by the inaccessibility of the English originals to re-translate from German or Russian versions.

So that’s it, is it? On page 202, when dealing with the Fenian movement, Mr. Carr writes of Jenny Marx—as usual he gives no source of origin: —

   Young Jenny Marx in the emotional enthusiasm of the early twenties “went in black since the Manchester execution and wore her Polish cross on a green ribbon.”

Mr. Carr’s quotation is clearly a “translation,” for he uses the words “went” and “wore.” The reader’s attention should be given to this important fact. The changed words predicate the “inaccessibility of the English originals.” Once more Mr. Carr proves his unfamiliarity with the Marx-Engels letters. There would have been no difficulty in printing the correct words, for the whole of the passage which Mr. Carr has had to “translate” is—and was—written by Marx in English. This can be found as a footnote to letter 1075, and is on page 453 of Vol. 3, dated November 28th, 1867. These are the words in the footnote: —

    My compliments to Mrs. Burns. Jenny goes in black since the Manchester execution, and wears her Polish cross on a green ribbon.

Had Mr. Carr seen the letter, would he have made the blunder of introducing inaccurate words?

We have noted many instances wherein he has falsified quotations. We have had abundant evidence of the meagre and deficient qualifications he possesses to adventure upon a “life” of Marx.

Mr. Carr not only persists in misquoting Marx, but, as might be expected, demonstrates that he does not understand Marxism. Space prevents dealing with other aspects of his book in detail. It may, however, be recorded that' he misinterprets the Materialist Conception of History. In one case he expounds it in the very maimer to which both Marx and Engels took objection, and warned their “followers’’ that if their interpretation was Marxism, they (Marx and Engels) were no Marxists. Like most Marx-critics, Mr. Carr dispenses with the knowledge, efforts and abilities of those preceding him, suggesting that his work is, at last! the only correct estimate of Marx and his life. The presumptuousness of Mr. Carr is amazing. Marx’s system of political economy is brushed aside by asserting that Bohm-Bawerk’s “Marx and the Close of his System” is the “classical exposure.” (I wonder if Mr. Carr has ever heard of Hilferding’s reply?) Mr. Carr shows himself incapable of understanding the purpose of Marx’s “Capital,” by stating that Marx wanted to

   demonstrate that the class-hatred of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie is explained and justified by the “exploitation” of the former by the latter.

In conclusion, it ought to be brought to the notice of the reader that not a single one of the large number of reviews of Mr. Carr’s book seen by the writer has shown any evidence of a critical faculty. Not one of these individuals has made the slightest endeavour to examine the book thoroughly. They have accepted Mr. Carr’s errors, misquotations and mistranslations without challenge. This is deplorable for one or two of the reviewers profess “to be” advocates of the proletariat, and ”advanced” thinkers! It is hard indeed to distinguish between the ignorance of the reviewers and that of Mr. Carr.

Moses Baritz