Nationalism and capitalism (2025)

From the October 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Pedants like to distinguish between ‘patriotism’ and ‘nationalism’. The former signifies love for one´s country; the latter, while meaning that too, also means not being particularly tolerant of other countries (or cultures). In practice, though, ‘patriots’ can very easily become ‘nationalists’ even without knowing it. These are just two points along the same spectrum.

What that spectrum is based upon is an emotional attachment to the rather fuzzy concept of ‘national identity’. This is supposed to provide a kind of social glue that holds together large-scale, culturally diverse societies and allows them to function reasonably well.

National states

Benedict Anderson´s seminal work, Imagined Communities (1983), discusses the way ‘print capitalism’ and the growth of literacy aided the spread of national consciousness. Other factors, like improvements in transport and increased mobility, also helped to widen the social horizons of what were once relatively isolated communities that characterised a feudal society.

Before the rise of capitalism, nation-states did not really exist. Though there are strong grounds for saying that capitalism originated in England (specifically, in the English countryside, where the practice of wage labour became universalised), the first prominent individual to put nationalism on the map was, arguably, a Frenchman – Napoleon. Napoleon explicitly appealed to the idea of the nation as the basis of legitimate political power, where his predecessors had relied instead on such arcane notions as the ‘divine right of kings’ to govern.

However, we should not infer from this that nationalism is the indispensable precondition for a large-scale society to exist. Long before the nation-state existed, large multi-ethnic empires with extremely porous borders existed in the ancient world.

In Europe in 1500, there were approximately 500 more or less autonomous political units – an intricate patchwork ranging from Italian city states (many of which subsequently fell victim to conquest) to numerous principalities (often themselves the product of dynastic quarrels within aristocratic families) and a scattering of relatively consolidated kingdoms. Some of these were nominally part of one or other, much larger, ramshackle, sprawling entities, such as the Holy Roman Empire, which, as Voltaire once scornfully remarked, was ‘neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire’.

By 1900, however, the political landscape looked very different indeed. The number of self-governing units involved had been drastically whittled down to a mere twenty-odd nation-states having jurisdiction over the entire European landmass. Napoleon´s armies, which conquered much of Europe in the early nineteenth century, contributed to this development in the sense that they helped to create circumstances that eventually led to the rise of nationalist movements later on in that century.

Pseudo-traditions

Then there is the thorny question of nationalism and cultural diversity. Though it is claimed that nationalism enabled the emergence of large-scale culturally diverse societies, the fact of the matter is that cultural or ethnic differentiation has often presented a serious challenge to the nationalist project. If anything, the rise of nationalism has brought about the erosion of local cultures and languages and, in general, has had a flattening effect on the cultural landscape.

What is called the ‘national culture’ is not always what it seems. In The Invention of Tradition (1983), edited by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, the claim that certain national traditions or institutions have their origins in some mist-enveloped remote past (something that is supposed to invest a tradition with more authenticity) was critically scrutinised and found to be often false. Many of these traditions are pseudo-traditions only recently invented for the express purpose of trying to fashion a national identity – in more concrete terms to facilitate nationalist sentiment.

In short, the basic thrust of nationalist ideology tends towards cultural homogenisation. The more culturally homogenised a population is, the easier it is for the state to manipulate it and elicit its support. Standardisation also enables more effective bureaucratisation.

Taken to an extreme, this homogenising thrust can manifest itself in the form of genocide. As Ernest Gellner points out, where ethnic pluralism exists, ‘a territorial political unit can only become ethnically homogeneous… if it either kills, or expels, or assimilates all non-nationals’ (Nations and Nationalism, 2009).

However, one should note that this is only a tendency within nationalist ideology; in the real world, most nationalisms have had to opt for some kind of pragmatic or more inclusive compromise in the form of ‘multiculturalism’.

Globalisation

Factors curbing nationalism´s tendency towards cultural homogenisation within the confines of a given nation-state include not only the resilience of ethnic subcultures and the inward migration of ‘foreigners’, bringing with them their own cultural beliefs and practices, but also the impact of what might be called ‘global culture’:

Back in 1848, the Communist Manifesto had something to say about that:

‘In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature’.

Big business is, today, a major purveyor of this global culture. One thinks of the role of big tech companies in providing social media platforms or the impact of global chains like McDonald’s in shaping our culinary tastes. Wherever you go in the world, cities are getting more and more alike with the same monotonously predictable selection of High Street stores.

There is a certain irony in all this. Capitalism, which gave birth to the ideology of nationalism, has also unleashed powerful forces that tend towards the erosion of national distinctiveness.

Backlash

In some ways, this contradiction has brought us to the fraught times we are living in today. The unravelling of the Neoliberal project that has been the dominant paradigm since the 1970s has prompted a backlash against globalisation and the resurgence of virulent nationalism. Far-right movements are on the rise in many parts of the world. Their animus is mainly directed at that most emblematic aspect of globalisation – the movement of migrants across those imaginary borders that define the capitalist nation state.

Such migrations are often fuelled by wars and the devastation inflicted by military action undertaken by the very countries which now have some citizens bitterly complaining about the ensuing blowback in the form of desperately impoverished boat people arriving on their shores.

It’s not just war that is to blame; there is also the economic devastation wrought on people´s lives and livelihoods. For instance, the traditional Senegalese fishing industry has been virtually decimated by overfishing and the use of destructive methods, like bottom trawling, by industrial fleets from Europe and China. This has been a major factor in the increase in Senegalese migrants risking their lives to reach the Canary Islands in the hope of being relocated to mainland Spain.

Robin Cox

Tit-bits from the Capitalist Stewpot (1941)

From the June 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard 

What Mr. Ford thinks.

“Making his annual visit to his plantation here (in Georgia), Mr. Henry Ford again gave expression to his peculiar view of the war, saying that the United States should supply both sides until they collapsed.

Voicing the ‘sincere hope’ that neither side would win, he declared that the suggestion that Germany might one day attack the United States was ‘pure nonsense—a hoax with the sole purpose of getting us into the war.’

‘There is no righteousness in either cause,’ said Mr. Ford. ‘Both are motivated by the same evil impulse, which is greed’.”—(Daily Telegraph, February 17th, 1941.)

Mr. Ford should know something about capitalist greed, for in times of depression he has been quite unscrupulous in discharging workers or putting them on half-time. And to supply both sides—at a profit—is that not also greed ?

* * *

Rowton Houses make a Dividend.

People who think of Rowton Houses as philanthropic institutions, providing cheap beds for extra-poor workers, may have had a shock on reading in The Times (April i7th, 1941) that for 1940 a net profit of £5,455 was made, permitting a dividend of 4 per cent. This compares unfavourably with the previous year, when a £14,621 profit enabled a 4 per cent, tax free dividend to be declared. Though Rowton Houses have evidently been hit by the war, it is clear that there are still plenty of people who are too poor to be able to afford more luxurious accommodation.

* * *

Business in the Far East.

Despite an all-embracing censorship, company reports are still worth reading, and that of the Hong-kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (The Times, March 26th, 1941) is of particular interest. We quote the following extracts: —

“In view of their bearing on exchange and trade balances, I should here mention the various credits and loans which China has received during the year from foreign sources. Detailed particulars have not been made public, but you must be aware that such loans were made chiefly for political reasons. The published announcement dealing with the most recent of the United States loans showed that the donors were desirous that ‘arrangements for purposes of monetary protection and management’ [the words actually used] should be completed. That is satisfactory so far as it goes, but that is all the information which is at present available.”

“As regards Japan, recent regulations issued there seem to be designed to restrict or to drive foreign banks out of business altogether in the same way as banks in Manchuria have already been restricted and, in some cases, driven out. The position awaits further clarification, but in the meantime we have notified our diplomatic authorities, as their intervention seems to be the only action now possible. I will, therefore, say no more about this, nor will I deal with trade in Japan, since it is now under very comprehensive Governmental control.”

* * *

The “Classical” Doctrine.

Writing from Berlin six months before the start of the war, the French Ambassador, M. Coulondre, is quoted as stating, in a despatch to M. Bonnet, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs: —

“In other words, will the Führer be tempted to return to the idea expressed by the author of ‘Mein Kampf’ which, be it said, is identical with the classic doctrine held by the German General Staff, according to which Germany cannot accomplish her high destiny in the East until France has been crushed and, as a consequence, Britain reduced to impotence on the Continent?—(French Yellow Book, Hutchinson, page 91.)

* * *

A Baron’s Romance.

The Star (March 7th, 1941) reports the interesting case of a wealthy baron who induced a young woman to live with him on the understanding that if she did so, he would further her stage ambitions. She was about 18 at the time, and at first refused, so then the baron lived with a more complaisant lady. The young woman, however, subsequently changed her mind, and the union was a fruitful one. The really interesting point about his case, however, is that the newspaper report refers to it as a “romance.” If an affair on somewhat similar lines had occurred in a lower strata of society, we can imagine that it may well have been described in less rosy terms.

* * *

Paint white—Paint black.

For some reason known only to themselves, Graham and Gillies, the advertising agents, republished in The Times (March 1st, 1941) and other papers an advertisement issued by J. Hatchard, of Piccadilly, in 1805, when Bonaparte, not Hitler, was the enemy. The advertisement takes the form of a supposed dialogue between John Bull and Boney. Space forbids us to quote the advertisement in full, but after implying that John Bull wished to remain at peace and that Bonaparte was an enemy of the liberty of the Press and of religion, the dialogue continued : —

“John Bull: Why have you suffered your soldiers to burn so many towns, shed so much innocent blood, destroy cottages as well as palaces so indiscriminately, murder in cold blood thousands of poor men, and ravish thousands of poor women in Italy, in Egypt, in Syria, and lately in Hanover?

Bonaparte: Foolish again, John. I did not merely suffer it—I encouraged it. My object has always been to strike terror. I don’t mince matters. Witness the deliberate massacre of four thousand Turks at Jaffa, who were my prisoners; and my poisoning several hundred of my own soldiers, who were of no use to me.”

To say the least of this advertisement, it is surely a rather indelicate compliment to General de Gaulle and the “Free French Forces.”

R. M.

Notes by the Way: The Little Corporal: Then and Now (1941)

The Notes by the Way Column from the March 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Little Corporal: Then and Now

One of the curious by-products of the rise of Hitler has been the revision of formerly accepted views of his predecessor, Napoleon. Typical of this swing-over are the following: —

On August 12th, 1940, the Daily Telegraph published an article by Mr. E. C. Bentley entitled “Hitler’s Mirror can reflect no Napoleon”; with the sub-heading “The Corsican, for instance, was a gifted and constructive despot: To his vassal states he brought order, not a gang wielding whips of persecution.”

Then on December 15th, 1940, 100 years after the ceremonial burial of Napoleon’s ashes brought home from St. Helena, The Times wrote similarly, saying: ”English historians have assessed scarcely less highly than French the value of Napoleon’s contribution to the structure of European civilisation.” The Times finds the following distinction between Buonaparte and Hitler: —

“The difference is that, whereas the opinions that Napoleon’s arms carried across the Continent were in their origin noble, and only became debased by the manner of their propagation ; we fight to-day against opinions that are evil in their very conception.”

If this is true it prompts the two-fold reflection that the British ruling class contemporary with the French Revolution and Napoleon held very different views, and that quite a number of their successors who witnessed the progress of Nazi brutality in our time were convinced that there was a lot of merit in Nazism.

On February 13th, 1941, the Manchester Guardian also explained that “in a great many cases his [Napoleon’s] own ideas were, of course, more enlightened and more just than the arrangements in force in old Europe.”

Now contrast these views with the abuse heaped on “Boney” by all and sundry when he was rampaging across Europe and Russia and threatening invasion of England. Not much then about his “enlightened” views.

Mr. Seymour Cocks, M.P., speaking in the House of Commons on December 19th, 1940, recalled the words applied to Napoleon by the Allied Powers which defeated the French armies over 100 years ago—”having broken every pledge and treaty, had placed himself outside the bounds of civil and social relations and, as the general enemy and disturber of the peace of the world, was abandoned to public justice.” Mr. Cocks wants the British and Allied Governments now to issue a similar declaration about Hitler.

William Cobbett, in his letter written in 1803 urging the Government to issue an appeal to the British public to resist Napoleon’s invasion, used words curiously like those now applied to the Nazis : 

“Now, like gaunt and hungry wolves, they are looking towards the rich pastures of Britain; already we hear their threatening howl, and if, like sheep, we stand bleating for mercy, neither our innocence nor our timidity will save us from being torn to pieces and devoured. The robberies, the barbarities, the brutalities they have committed in other countries, though, at the thought of them the heart sinks, will be mere trifles to what they will commit here … no man, woman, or child would escape violence of some kind or other. . . .”

If the capitalist historians could wash off all those blemishes from Napoleon it looks as if the principal qualification required of them is a capacity to wield a whitewash brush. What will they be doing with Hitler 20 years ahead ?

Merchant of Death

In years past the Communists have been among those who have expressed their horror at the spectacle of munition firms making profit by supplying weapons and materials of war to both sides engaged in a war. Now it seems that circumstances alter cases. The Russian Government is interested in the profits to be made out off international trade, including trade in essential war materials, and when the Russian Government cynically supplies such materials to those whom it denounces as the enemies of the working class and of democracy its apologists can see nothing wrong. A case in point is a letter written to the Manchester Guardian by Mr. Albert Inkpin, Secretary of the Russia To-day Society. Here is what Mr. Inkpin says:—

“Germany is importing oil products, raw materials, and grain from the U.S.S.R. Commenting on the recent new agreement, the official Soviet newspaper, “Izvestia,” states the willingness of the Soviet Union to trade “with other States, both belligerent and non-belligerent,” thus showing its readiness to trade also with Britain.” (Manchester Guardian, January 21st, 1941.)

A somewhat similar line is taken by Mr. Pat Sloan, though he was dealing with the fact that while the Italian Government was destroying Abyssinian troops and civilians by aerial bombardment the Russian Government went on supplying Italy with the necessary oil fuel for their aeroplanes. (It will be recalled that at the time the Communists were very indignant at the suggestion that this was happening.) This is Mr. Sloan’s statement, in a letter to Reynolds News (February 16th, 1941): —

“According to your book review, “Nazi Ways in Russia,” Arthur Koestler has written a novel the U.S.S.R. in which an “Old Revolutionary” goes anti-Soviet because the U.S.S.R. sold oil to Italy during the Abyssinian war and trades with Germany to-day.

As one who was in U.S.S.R. during the Abyssinian war, I may say that the Soviet people were proud that their Government was the first to apply sanctions against Italy, and that it proposed the application of further sanctions. I never met a single individual who advocated unilateral sanctions without the cooperation of the other States.

I may also say that nobody I ever met in the U.S.S.R. objected to trading with Britain so soon as the British Government adopted a reasonable attitude to the U.S.S.R.”

Now it is quite true that the Russian Government offered to support international action to stop oil supplies reaching Italy, but how does the refusal of other states to take action relieve the Russian Government of its responsibility in the matter ? Take the parallel case of the munition firms, they use precisely the same argument and excuse. British and American munition firms have repeatedly excused their action in selling arms (in peace-time) to all and sundry on the ground that if they did not get the trade somebody else would. The one difference between the Russian Government and the munition makers is not in their action but in their professions. The “merchants of death” admitted that they were concerned with trade and profit; the Russian Government affects to be guided by loftier motives.

There was a time when the Communists were demanding a world boycott of the Fascist countries and condemning the international trade union movement for its failure to make such a boycott effective, but we have not heard what reply, if any, the Communists and the Russian Government have given to the appeal made by the Greek trade unions (reported in The Times, November 2nd, 1940) asking workers in Russia and other countries to insist that their governments forbid exports of raw materials to Italy.

A Labour Peer on Profit

Writing to the Picture Post (January 11th, 1941), Lord Strabolgi, a Labour Peer, put in its briefest form the attitude of mind of the Labour Party as a whole on the subject of Capitalism and Socialism. He wrote: —

“I agree with Douglas Jay that monopolies should be broken ; but we are not ripe for the complete abolition of the profit motive.”

It is true enough that the majority of the workers are not yet ripe for Socialism, but whose fault is that ? What has the Labour Party been doing to make them ripe ?

Graziani Flatters Them

When Marshal Graziani, Italian Commander-in-Chief in Libya, retired with his defeated army from a village near Cyrene, he is reported to have told the village priest that the Italian settlers had nothing to fear : —

“The British are gentlemen. . . . They will treat you kindly and leave you to work in peace. . . .” (Daily Herald, February 7th, 1941.)

This was all right but we cannot help feeling that Graziani’s final words betray a slightly wrong idea if they are intended to apply to the British “gentry” as a whole. What he told the priest was: “If you want anything, ask them for it.”

Graziani cannot have seen the stony glare that some of the very best people in this country can put on when their workers ask them for another few bob a week.

“The Niceties of Civilization”

Fears have been expressed that tribesmen in Abyssinia may exact a savage revenge on the Italian settlers in Abyssinia when Italian control of the country breaks down. The tribesmen have bitter memories of the way the Italian invaders, armed with all the latest weapons of the modern arsenal, treated them five years ago. But what exactly did the Daily Mail Services Correspondent have in mind when he wrote (February 5th, 1941) that some of the tribesmen have “little regard for the niceties of civilisation” ? Niceties is hardly the word we would apply to modern war between “civilised” countries.

What is “Economic Democracy”?

The Labour Party has always fought shy of committing itself to any explicit proposal for the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by Socialism. That is why in the last 20 years Labour speakers and writers have made so much use of the term “economic democracy” as a description of their aim. It appeared to say a great deal but was capable of any number of interpretations.

Now comes Mr. J. A. Cecil Wright, M.P., writing to The Times (February 5th, 1941) to say that he, too, is all in favour of it. But before jumping to the conclusion that Mr. Wright is declaring for Socialism read the following: —

“If we are going to retain a capitalist system, and I hope we shall, because with safeguards it is the fullest system of life in an industrialised world (in fact it is economic democracy), then we must see to it that the essential ingredients of capitalism and democracy are there . . . .”

Edgar Hardcastle

Greatness and Crime (1941)

From the February 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

A significant passage in Mr. Churchill’s Italian message has been uniformly ignored. Denouncing Mussolini as a “criminal,” he nevertheless conceded that he “is a great man.” A more illuminating exhibition of the outlook of public men could hardly have been recorded in so few words.

Look through Carlyle’s gallery of “heroes”—Mahomet, Frederick “the Great,” and, in a minor order of “greatness,” Governor Eyre, of Jamaica: “Women were stripped and scourged with all the delight which a savage village population might have felt in torturing witches. . . .” (“History of Our Own Times,” by Justin McCarthy. Vol. 3, p. 273.)

Holland Rose, preceptor of ‘Varsity youth and Newnham beauty, wrote a “Life of Napoleon.” On page 204 (single volume edition) we read : “Considered from the military point of view, the massacre at Jaffa is perhaps defensible.” Murderer (of D’Enghien), petty cheat, repulsive amorist, all are duly recorded by Holland Rose; but the “true man” (read “great man” in light of general tone of the Life) is revealed when his hero points to the stars, and stuns his doubting servants with the priceless irrelevance (“Who Made All That?” (p. 186).

One of the most amazingly brazen associations of greatness and crime is made by Mary Bell (“A Short History of the Papacy”). The reference is to the Borgian Pope, Alexander VI, who probably vies with an earlier John XXII, in the commission of gaudy and unnameable crimes. “If we exonerate him from the deepest guilt, he must also forfeit the admiration which we cannot withhold from daring criminality” (p. 297). Mary’s hero falls a wee bit short, however. “His Vatican orgies lacked the inspired touch of splendid sin.”

From Mary to George Lansbury. “I think history will record Herr Hitler as one of the great men of our time” (“My Quest for Peace”), quoted by Daily Herald, April 26th, 1938. But then Lansbury was among the “Labour” crowd who stated that they derived their caricature of “Socialism” from the Bible.

One of the more open and visible signs of the capitalist system is gangsterdom, and its “great men” within the prescribed limits of criminality the system legalises cannot escape the fundamental Al Capone mark. A system based upon varying degrees of exploitation of men, women, and children breeds its own system of values. True, there have always been poets and dreamers, Isaiahs and Shelleys, who have genuinely, passionately urged an ethic transcending the system, beating ineffectual angelic wings in an unresponsive void.

Socialism alone can create an entirely new outlook. Complete social freedom alone can create an unaffacted, indissoluble brotherhood. Shelley’s noble aspiration, expressed in “I wish no living thing to suffer pain,” will be implemented, as far as the cessation of “Man’s inhumanity to man” is concerned.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, despised and neglected to-day, knows that its message is even now helping to speed the day. It has no use for great men, it has no “leaders,” its simple philosophy, based upon the impregnable facts of history and its economic causation, looks to the day when genial kindliness will govern social relations.

Peter Gog.

Notes by the Way: No Labour or Materials for Deep Bomb-Proof Shelters (1940)

The Notes by the Way Column from the October 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

No Labour or Materials for Deep Bomb-Proof Shelters

Long before the war was entered into Professor Haldane and others were warning the Government that air raids on the scale witnessed in Abyssinia and Spain would necessitate deep bomb-proof shelters being built. On various grounds those whose job it was supposed to be to provide protection rejected the demand. Now that the raids are here and people who can find no safety or sleep aboveground are crowding into the underground railways at night the Government finds that in any event “we have not the materials or labour for effectual burrowing.”—(Manchester Guardian, September 24th, 1940.)

Some pertinent comments have been made on this belated discovery, one by Mr. Lloyd George and others by the City Editor of the Daily Herald, and Mr. R. R. Stokes, Labour M.P. for Ipswich : —

“In a newspaper article to-day Mr. Lloyd George describes as “sheer nonsense” the Government view that deep shelters cannot be provided at present. He points out that the Spaniards dug their deep shelters at the time when they were actually being bombed, that we have 800,000 unemployed to meet the labour problem, and that we have enough material to make the roofs of the shelters able to bear the pressure upon them. Mr. Lloyd George is too old a campaigner to make such statements without sound evidence up his sleeve.

Nor is he the only one. Mr. R. R. Stokes, the Labour member for Ipswich, himself an engineer, is to ask Sir John Anderson whether he is aware that competent engineers believe we could dig deep bombproof tunnels for the whole of London’s population at a cost of £120,000,000. If such statements can be substantiated, and particularly if it can be shown that we have enough materials, the Government will find itself in a weak position, for it has already abandoned by implication its view that the principle of deep shelters is wrong. It did that when it countenanced the closing of the Holborn-Aldwych Underground line, which ran its last train last night. If it is right to turn this tunnel over to the public as a deep shelter, why not make others ?”—(Manchester Guardian, September 23rd.)

This is what the City Editor of the Daily Herald has to say about the scarcity of cement: —

“One of the authorities’ professed reasons for not supplying London with more underground shelters is an alleged shortage of building materials, particularly cement.

To tell the public flatly that cement supplies cannot be obtained is highly misleading. Our cement output is large, and the Government itself can and does decide how much should be used for what purpose.

If it wished to use a certain quota for shelters, it could do so.

Secondly, the public should realise that our cement manufacturing capacity has been restricted for years past by the Cement Ring—which includes the great combine, Associated Portland Cement. The Chamberlain Government allowed this ring persistently to limit our output capacity in the interests of high prices and profits.

For instance, in the summer of 1939 Associated Portland Cement bought a cement factory at Hartlepool and closed it down on the ground that its capacity was “redundant.”

In the previous November Lord Wolmer, chairman of the Cement Makers’ Federation, made a speech loudly lamenting the “surplus capacity” in the industry, and the “influx of newcomers.” This speech was believed to have succeeded in preventing a big new cement plant being put up.

And now the people are told that there is not enough cement for proper shelters.

Apologists for the ring, though admitting its restriction policy, argue that the industry would have greatly increased its capacity before the war if Mr. Chamberlain and Sir John Anderson had been willing to place firm long-term contracts for cement to be used for shelter purposes. Even this our pre-war Government refused to do.”—(Daily Herald, September 24th, 1940.)

* * *

The Land of “Socialism”— Russia

“The first sentences under the recent decree making directors, engineers and others liable to imprisonment for defective production were announced here to-day. Three men were sentenced to five, six and eight years respectively on charges of producing faulty condensers.

A decree provides that persons charged with loafing or leaving work will be tried by a judge alone, not, as hitherto, by a judge and a factory delegate.”— Reuter.—(News Chronicle, August 17th, 1940.)

* * *

“Intelligent Life”

From an interview with the Astronomer Royal:

“The Astronomer Royal declares that vegetation exists on Mars. He affirms that intelligent life may have been there in the past, but there is no indication of it now.

So the conclusion of the Astronomer Royal is this. Conditions in which intelligent life was possible have existed on Mars. They will exist in Venus. But in all our planetary system at this moment, the Earth is the only place where we can be sure intelligent life does exist”.—(Sunday Express, September, 1940.)

* * *

Two Views of “Hospitality”

From the London Correspondent of the Manchester Guardian : —

“Meanwhile Londoners continue to use the Underground stations as shelters in spite of official discouragement. There is really strong feeling behind this, and not only in East London, where the lack of deep public shelters is most felt. Everybody with whom I discuss the matter is filled with admiration and pity for the people who come so far and endure such discomfort to sleep in peace.

I cannot remember any time for years when there has been among the luckier section of the population here such a vivid realisation of the social injustice which gives the less lucky section rickety houses in which no safety can be found and rickety incomes which give them no hope of escape to something safer. Middle-class indifference to working-class hardship has always been mostly a matter of ignorance, but there is no ignorance in this case. All of us know now what it feels like to be lonely and exposed in air raids. The demand for deep shelters and decent shelters comes from us all.”— (Manchester Guardian, September 23rd.)

From a letter to the News Chronicle: —

“On Wednesday at 2 a.m., with a party of about 30 people, mostly women residents and servants from a neighbouring street, I was evacuated at a moment’s notice to a luxury hotel in Park Lane. Many of us were in night clothes ; all of us had had a shock. The hotel lounge was crowded with people in evening dress, smoking, eating and drinking. No one took the slightest notice of us except a hall porter who, when approached, told us to sit on the staircase. No comfort or refreshment of any kind was offered, and it was with difficulty, after half an hour’s insistence, that I was able to buy some cigarettes.

What would have been our reception in an East End home ?

Mary Glasgow. S.W.3.

P.S.—I was wrong in saying “no comfort or refreshment was offered.” At one point a gentle elderly lady came with a bag of dog biscuits asking whether there was any animal with us.

—(News Chronicle, September 23rd.)

* * *

Dean Inge on Hitler and Napoleon

“There is a delicious story in John Bailey’s Diaries. An old don was presented to Napoleon during the Peace of Amiens. On his return his friends asked him what he thought of the Emperor.

“Oh,” he replied, “you could see that he is not a University man!” That was the donnish way of saying that he was not a gentleman ; Wellington said the same.

Napoleon, though a genius, was certainly a cad. He was utterly unscrupulous and immoral. His soldiers admired him, but he never made a friend. The two men with whom he could not dispense, Talleyrand and Fouché, both betrayed him, as he knew they would. His two wives were as unfaithful to him as he was to them. He left a legacy to a man who tried to kill Wellington. “A shabby thing to do,” said the Duke.

Nevertheless, he never descended to such depths of villainy as Hitler. For he was Emperor of the French, and the French, though they have their faults like other people, are not savages.

Hitler, whose real name, if he has a name, for his father was a bastard, is Schicklgruber, is a criminal of a rather uncommon type.

He is an absolutely shameless liar, but he is also a wholesale murderer. On June 30th, 1934, he organised a massacre of inconvenient friends, who had raised him to power. It is believed that about 700 were killed. Since then, he is responsible for the deaths of innumerable Jews, Communists, Poles, and others. He is the perfect criminal.”

— (Evening Standard, September 23rd, 1940.)

Napoleon, we notice, was immoral. The Dean curiously does not mention Napoleon’s conqueror, Nelson, in this connection. Incidentally, it may be observed that it has pleased various prominent men in recent times to gloss over the vices of Hitler and his ally, Mussolini. Lord Rothermere, for example, was for years an admirer of and apologist for Hitler. In 1933 (Daily Mail, July 10th, 1933), Rothermere was saying : —

“The world’s greatest need to-day is realism. Hitler is a realist. He has saved his country from the ineffectual leadership of hesitating, half-hearted politicians. He has infused into its national life the unconquerable spirit of triumphant youth.”

Six months later when he was running his “Hurrah! for the Blackshirts” campaign, and telling Daily Mail readers to join Mosley’s organisation (Daily Mail, January 15th, 1934), Germany and Italy were held out as models to be followed.

* * *

Pointed Remarks about Lord Rothermere

A correspondent, writing to the News Chronicle (September 20th, 1940), makes some telling observations : —

“In view of the fuss raised about Gracie Fields one notes with interest the fact that Viscount Rothermere is residing quietly in America. Was it not this reactionary who proclaimed not so long ago that Hitler was “no ogre” but, on the contrary, “exuded good fellowship,” and oh that there was “no man in Europe in whose judgment he (Rothermere) would sooner trust ?”

Did not his Lordship, on one famous occasion instruct his readers to vote for Mosley ? Funny, that the noble Viscount should not happen to be in England in these exhilarating days !

* * *

Constructive Franco and Generous Balbo

This game of praising the dictators still goes on. When Marshal Balbo died in an air battle in Lybia (or was got out of the way by Mussolini as other reports have it) Mr. Ward Price, in the Daily Mail (July 1st, 1940), ended a flattering article on him with the words: —

“A frank, generous spirit, who lived dangerously, Marshal Italo Balbo was an adversary of the kind that Britons instinctively respect.”

and the Times (September 25th, 1940), could write about Franco’s “wise policy of reconstruction” in Spain.

The Manchester Guardian (July 1st, 1940), had this comment to make about “chivalrous” Balbo : —

“He was, in fact, one of those Fascist Rases, or “bosses,” who in the period of the “March to Rome” fought for Fascism and carried it to success by the most brutal and unscrupulous means against its political opponents. Cesare Rossi and Finzi said that Balbo organised the bludgeoning of the dissident Fascist deputy Misuri when he tried to expose abuses in the Fascist party. Certainly it was Balbo, the Ras of Ferrara and head of the Fascist Militia, who in August, 1923, sent the notorious order to the Fascist Secretary of his city about how to deal with some Socialists who had been acquitted after being kept in prison without trial for two and a half years. They were to be got out of Ferrara, but if they persist in remaining, thus causing unrest, they must be bludgeoned, not to excess, but methodically, until they make up their minds to go. . . . The police will do well to persecute them by frequent arrests, every week at least, … if there should be any beatings (which will be conducted “in style”) there is no desire to see prosecutions instituted.”

As for Franco’s wise policy of reconstruction in Spain, Mr. William Munday, for many years Daily Mail correspondent in Spain, writes as follows : —

“It is dangerous to think aloud in the cafés, and Franco has carried out a big political clean-up. Spies are everywhere, ready to inform on the indiscreet. There is no room in the gaols for all the political prisoners, so they are left at large and collected as wanted.

All roads out of Madrid are well policed, and travellers are closely scrutinised by keen-eyed Civil Guards, who stop cars and demand papers. Railway tickets are only sold against safe conduct permits.

The result of all this is that Madrid is a vast rabbit warren in which are hidden hundreds of enemies of the regime, unable to escape. The police drag-net makes its daily haul.

That is Spain to-day. Spaniard against Spaniard. Families split up.”—(Daily Mail, August 6th, 1940.)

If Franco is trying to improve this desperate situation in Spain he certainly ought to; he waged civil war, and was largely responsible for causing it.

* * *

Russian Oil and German Bombers

Although it is reported (News Chronicle, September 4th, 1940) that Russian shipyards are building numerous tankers for transporting Russian oil from Black Sea ports into Germany, it may be that so far comparatively little Russian oil has been supplied to Germany. On the other hand, the Russo-German Pact was partly designed to increase the supply of materials to Germany, and it was said that on the anniversary of the Pact the Russian Press emphasised the value of the Pact “as a weapon against Britain’s blockade.”-(Daily Herald, August 24th, 1940.)

While this is going on the Communists indignantly protest when British oil firms go on supplying oil to Japan to be used in the war against China. The principle is the same in both cases, the sordid capitalist principle that all trade, including trade in means of destruction, is legitimate. This is not a principle that Socialists have ever adopted or condoned.

* * *

The Future of Gold

The Nazi Minister of National Economy, Funk, in a recent speech in Berlin, boasted that “gold will play no role in future as a basis for European currencies,” and again “a currency does not depend on its gold cover, but on the value which the State gives it,” but the Nazi Government’s actions show how little it believes in Funk’s doctrine, for Gerrmany has gone to extreme lengths in the past year to seize gold in all the occupied countries.

Similarly the Russian Government is now disputing with the British and American Governments the possession of gold held in London and New York on behalf of the Baltic countries overrun by Russia. Molotov, in a recent speech, addressed angry words to both Governments about “these illegal acts.”— (Daily Worker, August 2nd, 1940.)

It all shows how little the Russian and German Governments believe in the possibility of capitalism being overthrown as a result of the war, and how little they believe even in the likelihood that a better basis can be found for capitalist trade than the gold basis.

* * *

Further Progress of the Red Army

“Marshals of the Red Army are in future to wear a five-pointed star consisting of 31 diamonds in a gold and platinum mounting. The largest of the diamonds will be one of 2.62 carats.”—Reuter.—(Manchester Guardian, September 4th, 1940.)

* * *

From a Communist Manifesto Secretly Circulated in Italy

The Daily Worker (July 8th, 1940), published a manifesto of the Italian Communists. It is interesting to see that they at least have not been taken in by Nazi-Fascist talk of the need for “Lebensraum.”

“The Fascist potentates declare that we must win supremacy in the Mediterranean, that we must defeat British plutocracy so as to put an end to our poverty and tribulations. What a brazen lie ! Our country possesses sufficient natural riches to satisfy the lives of our people.

The overthrow of British plutocracy is the job of the British people. Our job is to overthrow the Italian Fascist plutocracy who, like vampires, suck the blood of our people.”

The manifesto does not contain any of the specious doctrines by which the Communists here and in Russia justified the invasion of Finland and the Baltic States.

* * *

What is Happening in France? A Question to the Communists

The Communist Party is in rather a dilemma about happenings in France. On the one side the Communists declare that the Communist movement in unoccupied France is strong and popular, and on the other that the Petain Government is very weak. Why then do not the French Communists put their “mass movement” theories into practice and seize power ? Who is there to stop them? Not Petain, for “the Petain Government’s authority is extremely weak” (World News and Views, August 24th, 1940), while “there is widespread opposition to the Petain regime, especially among the industrial workers, demobilised soldiers and unemployed, in those areas where the Communist Party’s influence was strong before the war, e.g., Toulouse, Lyons and Marseilles.”

Similar information of “serious and widespread popular unrest” is reported in the Daily Worker (August 16th, 1940).

If, then, Petain could not stop such widespread unrest, who is stopping it ? Who is preventing the Communists from carrying out their usual plan of taking over the Government. Can it be Stalin or Stalin’s friend, Hitler?

Truly a curious situation.

Edgar Hardcastle

Hero Worship: A Conversation With a Visitor from Mars. (Part 2) (1927)

From the December 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard 

(Continued from last month.)

“However, Marty, I think Wells hits the right nail on the head when he explains Napoleon’s amazing popularity with his troops by the fact that they never saw him save on a few theatrical and emotional occasions, and that his soldiers idolised not Napoleon, but 'a carefully fostered legend of a little pet of a man, who was devoted to France and to them all.’ Napoleon, it seems to me, was both 'the child of the Revolution’ and the embodiment of the reaction against it. Society in the 18th and 19th century was crying aloud for 'reform,’ but was not ready for a system of society based on common ownership. Napoleon represents the rejection of the theories of Anacharsis Cloots and the beginnings of the Capitalistic State; whilst the French bank, the University and the 'Code Napoleon' were the result not so much of his 'original genius,’ as of the evident social and economic need for them.”

"There must have been, I suppose, in your planet’s history,” remarked the Martian, “many 'great men’ who have attempted to change the course of social or economic development. Have any succeeded?” "Well,” I replied, "I do not know of any individual who has changed the course, but a few have stemmed it for a while. In Roman history, Sulla attempted to re-establish the lost power of the Senate and to crush the rising Equestrian order, which consisted of wealthy traders. To effect this he framed a constitution. In a few years, however, his constitution was practically disregarded, and all that remained of his labours were his administrative and judicial reforms, which, although secondary considerations with Sulla, yet satisfied the social need for better organisation, and thus endured. Strangely enough, Marty, a comic-operatic 'Sulla,’ is operating in Rome to-day, and with the puffed-up pride mediocrity fondly hopes to achieve the success denied to his more illustrious predecessor. How truly Marx interpreted history when he wrote, 'Great historicaL facts and personages appear twice—once as tragedy and again- as farce.” (From 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon.)

Many more examples, however, could be given, Marty, of men whose desire and aims have been thwarted by economic conditions, but time prevents me from doing anything save naming a few, such as Cromwell, Charles XII of Sweden, and (possibly) Lenin of Russia. Spencer has ably summarised the conclusions just arrived at in his essay, "The Social Organism,” portions of which, with your permission, I will “inflict” upon you:—

  “It is not by the 'hero as king’ any more than by collective wisdom that men have been segregated into producers, wholesale distributors, and retail distributors. The whole of our industrial organisation, from its main outlines down to its minutest details has become what it is not simply without legislative guidance but, to a considerable extent in spite of legislative hindrances. . . .  By steps so small that year after year the industrial arrangements have seemed to men just what they were before—by changes as insensible as those through which a seed passes into a tree; society has become the complex body of mutually-dependent workers we now see.  . . . The failure of Cromwell permanently to establish a new social condition and the rapid revival of suppressed institutions and practices after his death show how powerless is a monarch to change the type of a society he governs. He may disturb, he may retard, or he may aid the natural process of organisation; but the general course of this process is beyond his control. . . . Thus, that which is obviously true of the industrial structure of society, is true of its whole structure. The fact that constitutions are not made but grow is simply a fragment of the much larger fact that under all its aspects and through all its ramifications, society is a growth, and not a manufacture.”

“Well,” said the Martian, I have learned a great deal from your discourse; in the first place my conviction that human societies are not jig-saw puzzles, the parts of which have been contributed by 'great men,' but are living and ever-changing organisms in which both 'great' and 'little' men play their respective parts, has been doubly strengthened, whilst it seems evident that 'hero worship’ varies in its form and function according to the state of the community in which it exists. Thus, I gather that, early man was too self-occupied and practical to be carried away by sentimental personal idolatry, and individual control was sanctioned simply because it was the only positive control known. Later, with the evolution of abstract ideas and ideals, moral civilization came into being with the resultant glamour that attached itself to the governing members of society. In the past, my friend, ‘hero worship' seemed to have fulfilled at least one useful purpose—it provided a control over what would be, I assume (compared with your present machines for mass production), crude and strangely miscellaneous instruments of production; that is to say, society, fearing anarchy, submitted to the subordination of efficient individuals. But what of the utility of 'hero worship' at the present time?”

W. J.

(To be continued.)

Hero Worship: A Conversation With a Visitor from Mars. (Part 1) (1927)

From the November 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The first Friday in every month, I receive in my small suburban house a distinguished and eminently intellectual visitor from Mars. Where I met this worthy gentleman, in what contrivance he effects his journey to Earth, and how he mastered the English tongue, I must not divulge for I am bound to secrecy on all these points. Yet I cannot forbear from recording the conversations which have taken place between us. My friend’s remarkable criticisms of worldly institutions concerning which his mind is free from prejudices and accepted opinions, his sage interpellations and remarks, and, above all, his insatiable curiosity which has prompted me to explore and examine many aspects and phases of human life, have changed me from a meek peruser of a daily paper (the name of which rhymes with “Wail") to an eager and regular reader of a certain Socialist monthly journal.

However, on Friday, August —, the Martian entered my study, and after inquiring as to the state of my feet (in the usual Martian way), proceeded to make himself comfortable in my best arm-chair, and fixed me with his relentless inquisitive gaze. I groaned inwardly for I realised that I was doomed to the usual merciless inquisition; nevertheless, batting him playfully over the bean, I exclaimed, “Marty, old son, your little top-knot must be full of vague wonderings and misgivings again; pray unload them to your kind uncle.” He did so to the following effect—

"Esteemed and respected friend, in the course of my peregrinations and observations here below, I have noticed with astonishment that there are always various and differing individuals exalted above their fellows, and that these individuals either through accident of birth, ridiculous actions, criminal deeds or (occasionally) illustrious achievements, are regarded with almost divine reverence by their fellow-men. Now I plainly see that the conditions on this wretched planet foster and nourish this primitive "hero-worship"; ignorance, of course, induces men to believe in the superhuman powers of others higher up in the social scale, and the ignorant, aware of their own pitiful mental condition and limitations, behold with awe and amazement the petty achievements of a slightly more developed brain, moreover, 'hero-worship' is certainly aroused and nourished by your noxious newspapers. Sir, in a solitary issue of one of your vile dope-sheets I read glowing eulogies of individuals dubbed ‘princes,’ ‘duchesses,’ and 'ladies,’ sticky journalese accounts of ‘the world’s greatest cricketer,’ ‘the greatest soldier of to-day,’ ‘Hollywood’s daintiest actress,’ and even longer accounts of poor miserable wretches, who, warped by environment and damned by heredity, have committed atrocious crimes.

“But —” here the Martian jumped to his feet in his excitement and indignation, “I hear not a word except of detraction or abuse about the great masses of manual and brain workers by whose labour alone the social machinery is kept going, and I laugh aloud when I hear the results of economic conditions attributed to the ‘energy’ or the ‘wisdom' of great men. Now, sir," continued the Martian, looking at me dubiously. "I assume you know something concerning the origin, development, and effects of this hero-worship cult—pray enlighten me.”

Gracefully placing a lozenge in my mouth and coughing importantly, I spoke as follows :—

“Mankind, Marty, until quite recently, was in the main unaware of the quantitative or qualitative laws of physical causation, and natural phenomena were invariably attributed to supernatural agencies: and, sad to relate, even in the year A.D. 1927, very few mortals can interpret sociological phenomena scientifically. Thus it is not strange that the course of civilisation is considered as little else than a mere story of remarkable individuals and their actions. Last century, a rhetorical wind-bag by the name of Thomas Carlyle, expressed this opinion in the following words:—

  “ ‘As I take it, universal history, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the history of the^great men who have lived here.'

“Marty, old boy, pass me Spencer’s 'Study of Sociology’.”

The Martian did so, and I read aloud the following:—

"Round the camp-fires assembled savages tell the events of the day’s chase; and he among them who has done some feat of skill or agility is duly lauded. On a return from the war-path the sagacity of the chief and the strength or courage of this or that warrior, are the all-absorbing themes. When the day or the immediate past affords no remarkable deed, the topic is the achievement of some noted leader recently dead . . .”

"That is a rather vague idea of the origin of ‘hero-worship,' ” remarked the Martian ; "would you favour me with a more detailed account?”

  

“In primitive human societies of the ‘totemistic ’ or ‘savage' type,” I began, “private property, except for small personal belongings, was, in the main, unknown, and land, boats, fishing-nets,, tents, etc., were generally the property of the tribe in common. Such societies provided little scope for 'heroes’; nevertheless, the germ of ‘hero-worship' was in being, as is shown by the fact that among the aborigines of Australia at certain times, ceremonial dances and songs are indulged in (under the direction of the 'Biraark' or witch-doctor), in which great events in the 'Alcheringa’ or distant past are commemorated, and ancient heroes are extolled. Moreover, the witchdoctor in these savage organisations often encourages hero-worship and plays upon the supernatural dreads of the tribesmen.”

At this juncture, I noticed that Marty seemed to be dozing.

“Are you asleep?” I exclaimed peevishly. “Not at all,” rejoined the Martian, blandly. “I can always think better with my eyes closed.”

I continued:—

"The second stage of social development is called the Patriarchal society, and in this social organisation ‘hero-worship' was much practised and encouraged. In the Patriarchal stage, paternity is the leading fact, and men are counted relatives because they are descended from the same male ancestor. This fact led to the adoration of, and the glamour of, romance, which gradually enveloped the ancestors of the different tribes; in fact, Marty, even now, in the East, ancestor-worship is the basis of religion. In the Patriarchal stage, hero-worship is essentially the common root of music, of drama, of poetry, and other miscellaneous types of literature. This is evident whether you scan the Bible, the Iliad, or the old Keltic legends. The Old Testament, Marty, is a wonderful galaxy of personalities—many of whom, incidentally, are not the patterns of virtue so regularly assumed. We are told how Abraham (after the necessary precaution of girding up his loins) journeyed to such and such a place according to the Master’s orders, and how Daniel (without the aid of a saucer of milk) showed his prowess as a lion-tamer. Jewish institutions and customs on the whole merely creep in to add colour to the biographies of the 'great men.' The old heroes were certainly revered and scoffers at the 'great men' were summarily dealt with. In Homer’s ‘Iliad,’ one Thersites, addicted to the dangerous habit of thinking for himself, foolishly questions the orders and opinions of the chiefs — his answer comes in the form of a lusty swipe from the sceptre of Ulysses.”

“But,” asked the Martian, "were there no writers or thinkers who saw that the 'worship’ of the heroes was due to the accumulation of false and supernatural tales?”

I pondered for a moment, and then answered—

"Yes, much later in the early 2nd century A.D., Lucian held up to ridicule the gods and the old heroes in witty little burlesques, in which Jupiter, Hercules and the like, become little more than buffoons. But the voice of Lucian was 'drowned in the hubbub of the book market,’ where the hero, boosting works of Pausanias, Ovid, Pindar and Euhemerus held undisputed sway encouraged by the ruling class and their literary sycophants.”

"By the way, my friend,” said the Martian, "here’s a little thought about these 'great men’ of your world. The origin of a 'great man’ is, I suppose, natural, and thus I submit he should be placed with the other phenomena which brought him forth, as the product of environment and heredity, that is the product of conditions. The offspring of two Chinese is never a Red Indian, and the son of a black reared in darkest Africa is hardly likely; to become a great philosopher or dramatist. I mean, my friend, that the 'great man’ only arrives under conditions favourable to his appearance. But please continue about the development of hero-worship after the Patriarchal stage.”

I did so.

"Sad to say, Marty, the origin of the State or Political Society coincides with the development of the art of warfare. Centuries before the decline of the Roman Empire, the drying-up of the lakes and rivers in Central Asia compelled the inhabitants of N.W. Mongolia and E. Turkestan to press westward into the broad valleys and push forward the original inhabitants of the plains; thus stems upon stems were thrown into Europe. Later, the increase of population and the desire to plunder the riches of the husbandman and the craftsman led these numerous Germanic tribes to wage war upon the more civilised societies. Thus a society dependent on great war-lords arose, and the fighting units of the society became bound by bonds of loyalty and obedience to their chief. This form of society gave a great impetus to 'Hero-worship,’ because the examples of former warriors were cited in order to stir the spirits of the youths, the adventurous life itself gave abundant opportunities for mighty deeds of valour, and, moreover, after a time, the causes of the wars seemed in the eyes of the wagers to be romantic and noble rather than economic. Then, when the host-leaders obtained permanent control of a definite territory, states evolved, while the life of the community remained essentially one of military allegiance. This is the age of Chivalric Romance. The alleged deeds of the great warlords in the earlier period were made into songs which were sung at the courts of great nobles by wandering minstrels.”

Then, taking "Romance and Legend of Chivalry,” by Hope Moncrieff, from my book-case, I read aloud the following:—

  

"Chivalry which found an organisation in the feudal system and a consecration in the wars of the Crusade, had its origin in the robust Teuton stock that mainly overspread the downfall of the Roman Empire. Tales of chivalry abounded everywhere,” I continued, "and in particular the legends connected with Arthur and Charlemagne increased and spread all over Europe. It was Cervantes in 'Don Quixote’ who gave the death-blow to the last lingering regard for romances of heroes which had become truly pitiful in their total disregard for worldly possibilities.”

"Surely they were never so ridiculously idealistic and false to worldly life as are the ‘best-sellers ’ of to-day?” interposed the Martian.

"More so, Marty, my lad. Our Ethel M. Dell’s could learn much from these later romances! However, the 'hero cult’ thus fostered by literature and encouraged at the courts became enveloped in innumerable conventions, and not a few hypocrisies, and thus the Middle Ages became the epoch of chivalry. The 'ennobling’ hero-worship and theoretical condescending regard for women ('high-born’) which were the two leading features of chivalry, did not prevent the scions of 'noble’ families from dealing with insubordinate peasants in the way Ullyses dealt with Thersites, and in France particularly, the 'chivalrous'  nobles maintained this attitude towards their providers till the Revolution of 1789. In the 'epoch of Chivalry,' also, Marty, occurred what is popularly assumed to be an essentially romantic and 'heroic’ war—the Hundred Years’ War. But this war was fought primarily not because of the heroic qualities of Edward III, the Black Prince, Henry V or Joan of Arc, but owed its origin to economic reasons. In short, the Hundred Years’ War was the struggle of England to prevent Flanders from falling under French domination, and thus ruining England’s wool trade with the Flemish manufacturing towns; as Thorold Rogers says, "From the 13th to the 16th century, wool was King." (From 'Economic Interpretation of History.)

"Now in modern times, Marty, a very curious conception of a 'hero’ has arisen. In the chivalric period, the 'hero’ was necessarily a man of 'renowned’ and 'noble’ stock, with 100 per cent. blue blood in his veins, and a son of the soil, who took it into his head to perform deeds of valour, would never be regarded as more than a 'good common soldier.’ Traces of the adoration of the 'high-born hero’ can still be seen in the enthusiasm awakened in childish minds by the movements of ’aristocratic’ nonentities, whilst in rubbishy literature, the story of the brave penniless youth who turns out to be the heir of a piffling kingdom, of which the geographical locality is not specified, still has a considerable though declining popularity; But, Marty, the rise of the bourgeois state gave birth to a 'hero’ of a different type. He is the man who is 'master of his fate'; he is the man who sweeps aside all obstacles that stand in his way to success; he scoffs at prejudices and customs; often he performs his 'wonders’ by proxy, but in that case his is the 'organising brain’; always he emerges victorious from the fight with circumstances: in short, Marty, the 'hero’ of our time is the 'self-made man.’ By far the greatest of this modern type of 'hero’ is Napoleon Bonaparte. H. G. Wells, with his typical bourgeios self-satisfaction, pours wholesale contempt upon the mental and social qualities of Bonaparte. He points out that his notebooks, crammed full with miscellaneous and unconnected observations, show little of a great brain; he states that Napoleon is not known to have had a single genuine friend, and he asserts (with considerable justification) that historical evidence points to the fact that all his actions primarily sprung from egotistical impulses. The very success of Napoleon’s career, however, gives the answer to Wells' unwritten insinuation that Bonaparte compared with the talented writer of 'The Outline of History' would cut a very insignificant intellectual figure. Also we must distrust Wells’ valuations of the abilities of others, when we consider his condescending attitude towards Lenin in an interview generously granted by the Russian in the busy time of the winter of 1920-21. (See Trotsky's "Lenin," chapter 8.) 

W. J.

To be continued.

Link to Part 2.

The Outline of History by H. G. Wells. A Criticism. (1921)

Book Review from the January 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1

Mr. Wells misses completely the transition of society in Greece and Rome from the tribal or kinship form to the political or territorial and class form of organisation. The striking social achievements associated with the names of Draco, Solon, and Cleisthenes are, for instance, passed over in silence. This is a serious omission and one that is difficult to explain. How Mr. Wells can sum up Athenian history without even mentioning the so-called "reforms of Solon" passes comprehension. The student who seeks information as to the social revolution from the tribal to the political phase as it occurred In the concrete both in Attica and in Rome cannot do better than consult Morgan's "Ancient Society" or the "Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State" by Engels. These works may be supplemented by that instructive but less scientific account— "The City-State of the Greeks and Romans," by W. Warde Fowler.

Mr. Wells' history of Rome contains some of the finest work in the whole book, much of it showing real historical penetration. The following except from his account of the later years of the Roman Republic is typical of the best passages:

  The rich grew richer and the poor poorer. It was impossible to stifle the consequences of that for ever by political trickery. The Italian people were still unenfranchised. Two extreme democratic leaders, Saturninus and Glaucia, were assassinated, but that familiar senatorial remedy failed to assuage the populace on this occasion. . . . In 91 B.C. Livius Drusus, a recently elected tribunal of the people, . . . was assassinated. He had proposed a general enfranchisement of the Italians, and he had foreshadowed not only another land law, but a general abolition of debts. Yet for all this vigour on the part of the senatorial usurers, landgrabbers and forestallers, the hungry and the anxious were still insurgent. The murder of Drusus was the last drop in the popular cup ; Italy blazed into a desperate insurrection.  (Chap. XXVIII. S. 3.)

In the next chapter the author treats of the Empire, of its miseries, corruptions, and debaucheries, and gives the real reason for the easy success of the "barbarian invaders" against the one-time "impregnable."

  It is manifest that to the bulk of its inhabitants the Roman Empire did not seem a thing worth fighting for. To the slaves and common people the barbarian probably seemed to promise more freedom and less indignity than the pompous rule of the imperial official and grinding employment by the rich. The looting and burning of palaces and an occasional massacre did not shock the folk of the Roman underworld as it shocked the wealthy and cultured people to whom we owe such accounts as we have of the breaking down of the imperial system. Great numbers of slaves and of the common people probably joined the barbarians, who knew little of racial or patriotic prejudices and were open-handed to any promising recruit. No doubt in many cases the population found that the barbarian was a worse infliction even than the tax-gatherer and the slave-driver. But that discovery came too late for resistance or the restoration of the old order. Chap. XXIX., s. 2.)

Mr. Wells lays great stress, and rightly so, upon the fact that settled, cultured, and prosperous communities are apt to be overrun by warlike, nomadic peoples. The process and its effects are well described by Prof. Myres in his "Dawn of History." The conquerors first subdue and plunder the conquered but are eventually absorbed in or by them and their culture. This process, as Mr. Wells puts it, "in a thousand variations has been one of the main stories in history for the last seventy centuries or more." But the recognition of this fact leads the author to amazing conclusions. In his chapter on the "Renascence of Western Civilization" he introduces to our notice his third type of community, which turns out to be a compound of or hybrid between his first two.

  Essentially this modern state, as we see it growing under our eyes to-day, is a tentative combination of two apparently contradictory ideas, the idea of a community of faith and obedience, such as the earliest civilizations undoubtedly were, and the idea of a community of will, such as were the primitive political groupings of the Nordic and Hunnish peoples. For thousands of years the settled civilized peoples, . . . seem to have developed their ideas and habits along the line of worship and personal subjection, and the nomadic peoples theirs along the line of personal self-reliance and self assertion. . . . It was only after thousands of years of cyclic changes between refreshment by nomadic conquest, civilization, decadence, and fresh conquest that the present process of a mutual blending of 'civilized' and 'free' tendencies into a new type of community, that now demands our attention and which is the substance of contemporary history, began. (Chap. XXXV s. 1)

Now for the result of this "blending."

   . . . constantly recurring nomadic injections have steadily altered the primordial civilization both in blood and spirit; . . . the world religion of today, and what we now call democracy, the boldness of modern scientific enquiry, and a universal restlessness are due to this ''nomadization" of civilization. The old civilization created tradition, and lived by tradition. To-day the power of tradition is destroyed. The body of our state is civilization still, but its spirit is the spirit of the nomadic world. It is the spirit of the great plains and the high seas." (Chap. XLI. s. 4.)

Surely no more fantastic theory as an explanation of modern society and its mental reflex was ever conceived. To show all its absurd implications would take more space than we can spare on such ridiculous nonsense. The confusion of Mr. Wells is shown by the way he brackets as effects of a common cause the "world religions," all of which are over a thousand years old, with modern scientific "enquiry" and "democracy," the achievements so to speak of the day before yesterday. The old civilization did not create tradition. Tradition as a social force existed ten thousand years before any civilisation was dreamt of. It is in fact more potent by far among barbaric peoples than in any form of civilization. The old civilization used tradition and modified it for class purposes. It is so used to day, and is far from being "destroyed."

If Mr. Wells can find no adequate explanation other than the above of the modern developments he mentions we can provide him with one. The economic conditions of the primitive civilizations preserved in a modified form, and in fact were built upon, the old-established institutions of the patriarchal stage—the village community and the guilds—the very embodiments of tradition. Such indeed is the condition to-day in China and India, and such was largely the case in the manorial system of mediaeval Europe.

But economic developments undermined the manorial system. Commerce and money payment freed the serf, destroyed the "village" and put in its place the free peasant and the capitalist farmer, produced eventually the propertyless wage working class on the one hand and the capitalist "manufacturer" on the other. Then the machine revolution in industry and transport brought us to the fully fledged capitalist system of to-day. These broadly were the factors, real concrete factors, not the Wellsian myth of "Nomadization," which smashed the fetters of feudal tradition and created modern science and "democracy." As a matter of fact in other parts of his book Mr. Wells to a certain extent actually shows the part which these economic developments played in bringing about the above ideological effects. Throughout the book the narrative of history is very much superior to the author's generalizations about it.

There have been no incursions of nomadic invaders into Western Europe for well over a thousand years. Would Mr. Wells then have us believe that this "spirit of Nomadism" has persisted through hereditary transmission and in an adverse environment during all these centuries and has actually increased beyond measure in the past hundred years !

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Mr. Wells's account of the French Revolution makes good dramatic reading, here and there getting down to realities, but for the most part it is superficial. He gives a sympathetic account of the Jacobins and a fairly rational account of the "Terror." He is particularly to be commended upon his repudiation of the malicious lies with which most "historians" have slandered the fine personality of Marat. But nowhere does he tell us that the paramount factor which determined the nature, course and outcome of the revolution was the class interests of the bourgeoisie. The present writer strongly recommends to the student what is easily the best recent and popular contribution to this subject — "The French Revolution," by H. Packwood Adams, a book with a viewpoint almost Marxist. In it we read—

  the only clear and ruthless purpose existed in the brains of the middle class. . . . The removal of seigneurial oppressions and of administrative chaos were a necessary part of the economic plans of the men of commerce ; . . . the main advantage of the Revolution went to those long-headed capitalists whose destiny it has since been to make the nineteenth-century Europe the factory of the world, and indirectly and unwillingly forge what may well become the iron cradle of a more gigantic democracy than the world has known. These people knew what they wanted and got what they wanted, but the getting was harder than they knew. (P. 27-27.)

Those who have read that remarkable little book "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte," will remember how Marx states in his opening paragraphs that all great historic personages occur twice—once as tragedy and once as farce—and that when men are engaged in revolutionising things and themselves they conjure up the spirits of the past, assume their names and costumes to enact a new historic scene in a time-honoured disguise and with borrowed language.

No better illustration of Marx's generalisation could be forthcoming than that Mr. Wells gives when dealing with Napoleon Bonaparte.

  His coronation was the most extraordinary revival of stale history it |is possible to imagine; Caesar was no longer the model; Napoleon was playing now at being Charlemagne. . . . the Pope had been brought from Rome to perform the ceremony ; and at the climax Napoleon I. seized the crown, waved the Pope aside, and crowned himself. The attentive reader of this Outline will know that a thousand years before this would have had considerable significance ; in 1804 it was just a ridiculous scene. In 1806 Napoleon revived another venerable antiquity, and, following still the footsteps of Charlemagne, crowned himself with the iron crown of Lombardy. (Chap. XXXX1II. s. 4.)

Mr. Wells gives two useful quotations from Napoleon's writings on the political use of religion : 

  "How can you have order in a State without religion ? Society cannot exist without inequality o£ fortunes, which cannot endure apart from religion. When one man is dying of hunger near another who is ill of surfeit, he cannot resign himself to this difference, unless there is an authority which declares—'God wills it thus : there must be rich and poor in the world ; but hereafter and during all eternity the division of things will take place differently.’"
  "It is my wish to re establish the institution for foreign missions ; for the religious missionaries may be very useful to me in Asia, Africa, and America, as I shall make them reconnoitre all the lands they visit. The sanctity of their dress will not only protect them, but serve to conceal their political and commercial investigations." (Ibid, s. 3.)

Napoleon, like all intelligent rulers and politicians, knew the value of superstition as an instrument of class subjection, but few of his kind have stated it so clearly. For this very reason, as Mr. Wells points out, he had opposed religion as a freethinker when he was a youthful revolutionary Jacobin.

R. W. Housley. 

To be continued.