Editorial: 1904 -1934 and Progressing (1934)

Editorial from the November 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

The first number of the Socialist Standard appeared in September, 1904. From that month to this it has appeared regularly every month, advocating the same policy and aiming at the same objective. It is the only paper left of those in 1904 claiming to represent the interests of the working class.

Incidentally, it is interesting to notice that the old organisations have also gone along with the papers they published, for, now that the I.L.P. has become practically a limb of the Communist Party, it would hardly be fair to saddle it with the views of its parent.

The members who saw the first issue of our paper in print were young and hopeful. In spite of the difficulties of the time they expected to see Socialism here during their life-time. Progress has been slower than they anticipated, but for all that it has been solid and greater than appears from a first glance.

The standard of education of the workers is higher than in those earlier times, and Socialist ideas are widespread. In fact, Socialism is no longer the view of cranks, hut is something to be reckoned with. Dictatorships are partly efforts to kill the dragon.

As reform movements collapse and the Labour Party, with its satellites, reap the whirlwind that eventually reaches the discredited reformer, the prospects for Socialism will become brighter.

Russia is steadily proceeding with its industrialisation programme and, unless anything unforeseen happens, will one day take its place as a first-class capitalist power. It will eventually destroy its alien Communist supporters and bring to an end the Communist movement that has spread a blight over the movement for Socialism since the war.

One thing above all is essential to ensure the triumph of Socialism, and that is the enthusiastic advocacy of our principles and policy by those who accept them. Given this enthusiastic support then there is every reason to believe that Socialism will be a matter of our life-time. It is just because Socialism is a practical question of to-day, and not an ideal of a hundred years ahead, that we are organised in the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Consequently, we urge all really practical workers to give our principles and our policy their serious consideration. The more convinced and enthusiastic advocates we have the sooner will Socialism be here, and with it an end to our economic troubles.

It should be an inducement to waverers to know that here is a Party whose principles are so soundly based on facts that they have been a safe political anchorage for thirty years, through peace and war and post-war troubles.

Letter: The S.L.P. and the Conduct of Meetings. (1934)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received the following letter from a reader in Vancouver : —

“Vancouver, B.C.,

“Canada.

“ September 21st, 1934.

"Comrades,

“In the September issue of the Socialist Standard, in reference to conduct of public meetings, you publish a statement of the Secretary of the British Section of the Socialist Labour Party, quoting that they allow questions and open discussion at all propaganda meetings.

“In this respect the British Section are ahead of the American Section, as last month (Thursday, August 16th), at the Victory Hall, Vancouver, I attended a meeting of the S.L.P., addressed by Eric Hass. Questions were allowed, but discussion was not allowed, and when the Chairman’s decision was protested from the floor he adjourned the meeting.

“I might add, the speaker was in difficulty over a question of the Communists dealing with the ‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat,’ but the meeting was orderly, and the attitude of the Chairman could only be construed as evidence of the weakness of the position of the S.L.P.

What They Were Fighting For. (1934)

From the November 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Lloyd George’s “War Memories” (Vol. Ill) recall the wartime controversies about the secret treaties in which the Allied Governments set down their real war aims, which were in violent contrast with their published ones. General Smuts, at one time beloved of the “peace-by-negotiation” groups, wrote a report for Mr. Lloyd George when the latter was Premier. It contained the aims for which he thought the War should be waged and hundreds of thousands of workers’ lives should be thrown away. Here are the first two aims:

 (a) Destruction of the German Colonial System, with a view to the future security of all communications vital to the British Empire. This has already been done—an achievement of enormous value which ought not to be endangered at the peace negotiations. 

(b) Tearing off from the Turkish Empire all parts that may afford Germany opportunity of expansion to the Far East and of endangering our own position as an Asiatic Power. This has essentially been achieved, although the additional conquest of Palestine may be necessary to complete the task.

Woe to the Victors (1934)

From the November 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Labour Party Conference this year was held in an atmosphere of expectancy and confidence of triumphs to come. Rightly or wrongly, the delegates felt that the rule of the National Government, coming to a close, is not to be renewed, and that the defeats and desertions of 1931 will be forgotten in a sweeping electoral victory not far ahead. Then, with a majority to back up its decisions, a Labour Government will inaugurate a new era in British politics. That is the belief, but Socialists do not share it. Electoral victory maybe—though improbable without a Labour-Liberal alliance of some sort or other—but that victory will be more than perilous; it may well be one of the most disastrous episodes in working-class history, comparable with the post-war “victories” of the Social-Democrats in Germany and Austria, with all their aftermath of violence, despair and savage reaction. Such victory will be not a development towards Socialism, but yet another check to the growth of the Socialist movement. These are hard words. Let us justify them in the light of what was by far the most instructive of the resolutions of the Conference. It was a resolution which the Labour Party's official organ, the Daily Herald, regarded as of such importance as to merit being featured on the front page. It was carried “by the largest majority that has been polled at the present Conference" (Daily Herald, October 5th). What was this question which divided the votes into a stupendous majority of 2,118,000 on the one side and the tiny minority of 149,000 on the other? Surprising as it may appear to those who regard the Labour Party as a party of Socialists, this huge majority came together in order to demonstrate the Labour Party's abhorrence of anything smacking of Socialism. It was, to be explicit, a recommendation of the Executive Committee in favour of “fair compensation" for owners and shareholders whose property is nationalised by a Labour Government, the compensation to be based roughly on the present valuation of the property. The proposal which the majority rejected was one put forward by the Socialist League which would have meant depriving the owners of one-half to two-thirds of their property.

Let us, first of all, make it perfectly clear that the Socialist League’s proposal is not Socialism, and that the League, in our view, is almost as muddled in its views as the I.L.P., from which it sprang, and as the Labour Party, to which it is uneasily affiliated. Socialism does not mean State industries run on capitalist lines, either with or without compensation of the existing owners. Socialism means a system of society in which the means of production are owned by society as a whole, a system in which goods will really be produced for use, not for sale and profit-making, and in which there will be no such thing as an income from the ownership of property, whether as land, buildings, plant, shares or Government bonds. These things are plain enough to Socialists, but at present utterly beyond the comprehension of the great majority of members of the Socialist League and Labour Party.

It follows that Socialists are not at all interested in the issue which divides the Socialist League and the Labour Party, as to whether or not the owners should receive full or only part compensation. There can be no such thing as compensation if Socialism is to replace Capitalism. What the owners now possess is the right to an income from property, the right to live without working, the right to exploit the labour of the working-class. There can be no Socialism unless and until the means of production and distribution are taken from them and made over to society for the use of all. The former owners will then enjoy the fruits of associated labour on an equal footing with all other members of society, neither privileged nor suppressed, but as equals. But there can be no compensation. You cannot abolish exploitation and at the same time give the exploiters something equivalent to their former right of exploitation. A slave-owner, deprived of his slaves, could be given property rights of another kind under capitalism. But abolish capitalist wage-slavery and you end exploitation for all time and for all persons.

These elementary truths of Socialism are, of course, unknown to the delegates at Labour Party Conferences, but in their groping, muddle-headed way the Socialist League members feel that there must be some catch in the Labour Party's bland assurance that there is going to be more of the cake for the workers without decreasing the share of the capitalists—hence their attempt at revolt, which was crushed with such devastating completeness.

It means that the Labour Party has reiterated its belief in “compensation," that is, in capitalism. It will take office if opportunity arises, determined to apply its numerous and complicated schemes for reorganising industry, raising wages, abolishing unemployment, etc., while retaining all the essentials of capitalism. It will retain rent, interest and profit, the wages system, buying and selling, and the struggle for foreign markets, and will leave the capitalist class still possessed of their property rights, their right to exploit the working class.

The result will be another tragic collapse, tragic because many workers will believe it to be a collapse of Socialism, or proof that political methods are useless. Every individual who lends a hand in the establishment of the Labour Party in power is contributing to that collapse, and is helping to ensure a further lease of life for capitalism, with the likelihood that the subsequent Government may be one of iron-handed, panic-stricken repression.

Before concluding, we may usefully devote a little space to the arguments of those who opposed the Socialist League. Mr. Herbert Morrison, an astute Labour politician, put the case cogently from a Labour Party standpoint when he said that to adopt the Socialist League amendment would frighten the electors, and "You would keep yourself out of political power " (Daily Herald, October 5th). Mr. Morrison here, as elsewhere, shows himself a clever exponent of half-truths. He will say, as we do, that there can be no Socialism without political power, and no political power without the support of the electors. He knows, too (but is very careful not to proclaim it at times and in places where it may prove embarrassing to the electoral prospects of the Labour Party), that there is no solution to the poverty problem other than Socialism, that all the highfalutin schemes of his Party will leave the problem unsolved. That is where the Morrisons— those who are interested in political careers—necessarily part company from the Socialist. We face up to the logic of the situation. Mr. Morrison and his Party dare not do so. They dare not proclaim from the public platform that there can be no Socialism without an organised majority of Socialists, with its logical corollary that any acquirement of political power before that organised Socialist majority exists is a snare and delusion to the working class. Mr. Morrison knows, and admits, that a Government cannot go beyond the mandate and understanding of the electorate. He knows that a Labour Government cannot introduce Socialism, which the electorate and the bulk of its own members neither want nor understand. He knows that the reform measures the electorate will permit and endorse are not Socialism, and will not solve the problems facing the working class, who form the overwhelming majority of the electorate. He knows, therefore, that a Labour Government cannot do the one thing which alone can solve the problems it is promising to solve. Only Mr. Morrison and his colleagues can say why they play this double game. Is it vaulting ambition, reckless of consequences? Is it the insane over-confidence of the “leader," persuading himself against his own knowledge and experience, that his god-like gifts will enable him to lead the "mob" to impossible victory ? Is it, after all, merely that underneath the surface-smartness of the successful Labour politician there is a profound stupidity and ignorance about the realities of capitalism and Socialism?

Whatever the answer, the penalty for the working class is appalling to contemplate. Let the leaders and followers alike stop and consider the spectacle of savage Hitlerite capitalism before launching out blindly on the path which led the German Social-Democrats to destruction, and may lead to a similar end in this country.

Edgar Hardcastle

Poor Little — (1934)

From the November 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1914 it was “Poor Little Belgium.” Now it is “Poor Little Austria,” “Poor Little Hungary,” “ Poor Little Ireland,” according to taste. Fifty years ago it was “Poor Little Bulgaria,” and fifty years before that “Poor Little Italy” and “Poor Little Greece.” It is always “Poor Little” some country or other. “ Poor Little X—, “Poor Little Y—,” or “Poor Little A B C.”

Always there are sentimentalists ready to respond to this trick of personifying countries, ready to give sympathy and assistance to the weak or small nation bullied or downtrodden by the great and powerful. Yet it is all a sham. Countries are not persons, but geographical units of the all-embracing capitalist system of society. In the small, just as much as in the large, there is oppression of the weak by the strong, coercion of the poor and dispossessed by the rich and powerful who control the State, the organ of coercion. Those who help the Austrian State against the encroachments of neighbouring Powers are helping nobody but the Austrian ruling class. Those who strove to “free” Poland from the Powers which had shared its territory, and who gloried in having helped to reconstitute the Polish State were only giving the Polish workers and peasants a different set of masters. Those who fancied they were fighting for “Poor Little Belgium” were only fighting for the interests of the British and Belgian capitalists, which happened at that time to coincide.

The history of the struggles of subject nations to be free is full of the most ironical changes. The victims of one year are the bullies and assassins of the next. Poland, dismembered and annexed by Russia, Germany and Austria, has been re-created under the Versailles Treaty. Now it is the Germans, Russians, Jews and other minorities imploring help and protection against Polish tyranny. Italy, in the 19th century had all the Liberal sentimentalists shedding tears over her wrongs at the hands of the Austrian tyrants. Now Austria, the pre-war Empire itself dismembered, sorrows for her children, tyrannised by Italy in provinces annexed in 1918. For nearly 50 years, from 1871 to 1918, France mourned her lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. Now Germany mourns the same reconquered provinces. In 1905 all the Labourites in the world sympathised with “Poor Little Japan” in the war with the great imperialist Russia. Now the same sentimentalists side with “Poor Little Russia” against the big Japanese Bully. Sometimes, as in the case of Saar Territory and Austria, the sentimentalists are divided, or forced to perform a quick right-about-face. From 1918 to 1933 the British “Poor Little Nation” busybodies demanded the right of the populations in Saar Territory and Austria to be united with Germany, and roundly condemned French and British Governments for their alleged opposition. Now that Hitler is in power they are demanding that Austria and the Saar be prevented from joining Germany. Germany, of course, is working the same appeal to sentiment, in the reverse direction, and is asking the German workers to shed tears (and, if need be, go to war) in order to bestow on Saar Territory and Austria the honour and privilege of being restored to the great family of Germans.

It is all a gigantic racket, worked by the forces of capitalism, using muddle-headed sentimentalists as their tools and dupes. When the avowed enemies of Socialism, or its false friends, tell you that Socialists have a hand in this business you will know that they are lying. Socialists are not supporters of capitalist Nationalism anywhere or at any time.

Lord Beaverbrook, who supported the last Great War, is now using his newspapers to popularise the policy of isolation from European entanglements. He says that Britain should never again go to war because of the quarrels of Continental nations. If Germany wants to eat up Austria, Poland wants Danzig, and France wants Saar Territory, let them do whatever they please. It is, he says, none of “our” business. So far so good. Socialists will heartily agree. We can also agree with his ridicule of the contrary position taken up by the Labour Party (which Lord Beaverbrook's newspapers, with studied dishonesty, refer to as the “Socialist Party”). But even so, Lord Beaverbrook's own position is every bit as ridiculous and anti-working class, for while telling the workers not to fight in the quarrels of the Continental Governments, his papers are insisting on the maintenance of a “strong central Government" under British control in India. In other words, English workers should not fight to prevent Austria going over to Germany, but should fight in order to prevent the Indian capitalists from obtaining undivided control in India. Why, Lord Beaverbrook? What does it matter to English workers which group of capitalists gets the loot, the wealth extracted from the exploitation of the workers? It is the job of the workers in each country to deal with the capitalist class in that country. The Indian workers will some day deal with the Indian section as we shall with the English. But Lord Beaverbrook, anxious for the investments of British capitalists in India, in effect wants English workers to fight defending those investments against Indian capitalist interests.

An authority on the subject of small nations is Mr. Vernon Bartlett. Writing in the News-Chronicle on October 5th, he told us all about the Saar, all, that is, except the one thing which really determines the issue. He told us what were the chances of Saar Territory going to France, or Germany, or remaining under League of Nations control. He told us that the French and German Governments are pouring millions of marks into the Saar each month, in order to influence the voting. What he did not tell us was what are the chances of Saar Territory going neither to the Germans, nor the French, nor the League of Nations, but to the population who live there. He left it out, if he thought of it at all, because he knows it is not even dreamed of. None of the interests concerned would permit such a thing. If there were any possibility of the Saarland workers! (and English workers) voting for taking over the mines, land, factories, etc., for the use of the community as a whole, and thus dispossessing the French and German and English capitalists, who own them, not only France and Germany, but the whole capitalist world, including Lord Beaverbrook, would be aghast. Whether in the Saar or in England they would all rush forward to stop such infamy.

The capitalist interests, which use patriotism, religion, national independence, and love of the scenes and traditions of particular geographical areas as a means of provoking national hatreds, are not concerned at all with the interests or convenience of the working class, but only with protecting their own property, markets, investments, and so on. Fighting to gain or protect national independence serves no interest, except that of the capitalist class. It solves no problem, not even that of nationality, for each success by one nationalist movement creates other similar problems. Socialism alone can solve the real problem of the working class, the poverty problem, and will in so doing restore national differences to a position in which they will cease to be a danger to the world.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Match that did not bring the Explosion (1934)

From the November 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

An incident which happened on October 8th in Marseilles brings to mind, somewhat vividly, the assassination at Sarajevo, in July, 1914, of the Archduke Ferdinand, Crown Prince of Austria. On October 8th King Alexander of Jugoslavia was assassinated whilst on an official visit (a peace mission, so it is said) to Paris.

The news of the assassination came with dramatic suddenness, and the Press, which was caught unawares, commented on the news with restraint. Later, however, the Press generally went to some trouble to assure its readers that "History was not repeating itself." Candidus, in the Daily Sketch on October 10th said : "The mind of everyone will instinctively go back to the murder of the Archduke at Sarajevo, which led to the Great War. But I do not apprehend any political results from this murder, except that it certainly will not encourage a more liberal policy in Croatia.” He goes on to say : "The trouble of Sarajevo arose out of the fact that one nation was anxious to make an excuse for war. No nation has any such interest in this murder."

What is surprising in the above statement is that at the moment an "excuse” for war is not wanted and the implicit suggestion that if an "excuse" were necessary the convenient assassin and assassinated would appear.

There arc still some workers who believe that the last war was caused by the murder of Ferdinand, Crown Prince of Austria, at Sarajevo, and who would perhaps have believed the same regarding the assassination of Alexander had another excuse for war been needed. Indeed, our masters would foster the illusion that nations become engaged in war with each other, involving death and injury to millions of workers, because of such an incident.

At present the whole Press reminds us with frequency that there is a state of tension existing between certain countries in Europe, and that at any moment some incident such as the assassination of King Alexander would result in another European war. In fact, some newspapers, such as the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, are almost every day urging the Government to drastically increase armaments (to preserve peace, of course!).

The answer of the Socialist to war or the threat of war, is clear and unambiguous: summed up in a phrase in our manifesto to the workers, issued in September, 1914, it is: " hat there is no interest at stake justifying the shedding of one drop of working-class blood."

A. G. A.