Twenty Years On ! (1942)

From the November 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

We live in times of revolutionary change. The Second World War predicted by Socialists is now three years old. The tank, the bomber and the long-range submarine are re-drafting the political map of the world. Colossal forces, employing war engines that would have amazed Jules Verne himself, are deciding which group are to control the world’s wealth.

World-famous organisations have been swept into limbo. Dictators have appeared as heaven-sent “leaders” of war-like nations. Politicians, statesmen of long standing, have performed miracles of agility. One-time conscientious objectors become Ministers of Home Security. Strike leaders, Ministers of Labour; leaders of “Socialist Leagues,” who desired to utilise war time to “overthrow capitalism,” Deputy Prime Ministers.

Overnight, when Russia was drawn in, “the enigma, wrapped in mystery” became a “brave and noble ally.” Now Communism (so-called) so far from making a nation “abject and miserable in peace and beaten and humiliated in war,” is the explanation of the Red Army’s courage.

Oh ! unhappy politicians ! who sent a hundred thousand uniforms and greatcoats as well as arms, ammunition and guns, tanks and aeroplanes to Finland for use against Russia in 1940. Oh! unfortunate Sir Walter ! who proved how much superior Finnish democracy is to Russian dictatorship in his “My Finnish Diary.” With what alacrity they have run the Red Flag of Russia up on public buildings (except the Bank of England).

The Socialist, who keeps a cool head and sticks to plain facts, is hotly denounced by Communists. Large numbers of workers, knowing little about the subject, feel the effects of twenty years’ propaganda of “Socialism” in Russia. Once again the Communist Party is able to delude a fair number of temporary dupes, on the grounds that second fronts may speedily terminate the war, and usher in some social improvements. For this is now, they say, a war between Socialist Workers’ Russia and Capitalist Fascist Germany.

How utterly different this is from every anticipation of all Communists of the past, from Lenin downwards, is quite unknown to these latter-day converts.

Still further proof of the complete correctness of the Socialist Party’s stand on the Russian upheaval, its definition of the Russian system, and the present impossibility of Socialism there, is supplied by one of the best-known ex-Communist leaders, Mr. J. T. Murphy, in his autobiographical account of some twenty years’ activity, fifteen of which were spent as a Communist International official.—(“New Horizons.”)

Amid the reams of paper, gallons of ink, and tons of lead used in printing thousands of books on Russia, the short, plain, straight statements appearing in the Socialist Standard in 1918, 1919, and especially in 1920, stand out like the proverbial searchlight, casting a brilliant beam through a cloud of murky confusion.

More astounding still, twenty-two years later, when each and every party has performed a somersault, the Socialist Party statement does not require alteration.

The time will surely come when the obscure, self-taught, proletarian contributor to the Socialist Standard, “J.F.”, [Jack Fitzgerald] will receive due recognition for the merit of his remarkable analysis of the Russian revolutionary drama and the realisation of his clear firm anticipations.

Writing in the Socialist Standard for 1920 on the Russian Dictatorship, he declared : —

“This controversy (between Kautsky and Lenin), along with the events that have taken place since it occurred, adds considerable evidence of the correctness of the deduction we drew from the situation in 1918.

In the midst of the special conditions and chaos caused by the war, when the old exploiting regime had broken down and the new exploiting class were too weak to take hold of power, a small but resolute minority seized the political machinery and took control of affairs. The mass of the workers in Russia are not Socialists, neither do they understand the principles of Socialism, nor desire to see Socialism established. . . .

. . . . rule by a minority—even a Marxist minority—is not Socialism. Not until the instruments and methods of production have reached the stage of large machinery and mass organisation is it possible for social production to develop. . . When the workers. . . reach. . . an understanding of their slave position, and decide to supplement social production by social ownership, through the seizure of political power, then, and not till then, will Socialism be established.

The Bolsheviks may try to save as much of their system as possible, but the events will prove the correctness of Marx’s views on the failure of attempts to jump the stages in social evolution. 

Their failure, however, will not be all disaster. They will have shown the workers of the world that the capitalist class is a useless and parasitic class in modern society.— (“Socialist Standard,” July, 1920.)

Did the Bolsheviks base their hopes on a Western rising. Let J. T. Murphy, delegate to the 1920 Congress of the Communist International, testify, writing in 1941 :

“It is as certain as anything can be that the delegates who arrived in Moscow in 1920 were too emotionally overwhelmed to estimate calmly . . . The World Revolution had begun and it would quickly sweep Europe.

Zinoviev concluded his speech in Moscow with these words: ‘I happened to say (a year ago) somewhat enthusiastically that after one year we shall forget there had been a struggle for a Soviet Government. We were over-enthusiastic, indeed it is likely that we shall require two or even three years before the whole of Europe becomes Soviet.'”

Murphy, after explaining the circumstances of the day, goes on : 

“The Russian revolution was victorious but the European revolution was in retreat. These things did not stand out clearly before us. We thought of ourselves as the centre of the revolution which would spread wave on wave. We were playing leap-frog with history and did not know it.”

One may ask whether any party in history has been so absolutely right, when so many others have been completely wrong.

Even to-day, Mr. Murphy, after admitting twenty years of mistakes, still persists in them, and devotes his time to footling antics with “Popular Fronts” and “People’s Fronts,” now so rapidly discredited.

He recounts how, at the Conference of the short-lived “Socialist League” before the war, “Sir Stafford Cripps ‘swept the Conference’ and secured a unanimous vote.”

“He argued that we would have nothing to do with a war led by a capitalist government, and stated that the issue before us was ‘ War or Socialism.’ Our job was first and foremost to get rid of the capitalist government.”

To-day that same Cripps is Deputy Prime Minister of the capitalist government.

The most politically backward elements of the working-class are now pro-Russian. This experience will justify the prophesy of the Socialist Standard in 1920.

“When the workers awaken to an understanding of their class position . . . and begin to fight the class-war consciously in numbers that count, the rule of the Russian Bolsheviks will be a splendid lesson . . . on the ability of the working-class to manage its own affairs. It will have done its share in shortening and lessening the birth-pangs of Socialism.”

Horatio.

A Labour Leader Who Misreads the Signs of the Times (1942)

From the November 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

Periodically we are informed by those who occupy high places and enjoy high incomes that we cannot expect any further sacrifices from the rich; that they have been literally mulct of their vast incomes and reduced almost to poverty. In fact to have an income of over £4,000 a year, after paying tax, is now really unique and unusual; some of us thought that before the war. It is implied by them, that this shows that an equalitarian society is gradually evolving out of present society and that there will be no need to dispossess the capitalists as they, forced by the exigencies of war, are doing it for us.

An enlightening addition to this idea was in the “Forward” of May 16th, Mr. A. Woodburn, M.P., makes the following statement: —

“I mention these matters because I have been impressed recently at meeting with the almost doleful type of propaganda. One would think that there was no story of progress and accomplishment to tell.

When we think that in 1847 Marx’s Communist Manifesto put forward a “revolutionary programme” which in some cases is now entirely achieved and in other cases partly achieved, we begin to realise what has happened in the last century.

We have achieved a “heavily progressive income tax” (up to 19s. 1d. out of every £1 for the very rich) ; “the obligation of all to labour has come with a vengeance.”

How anyone can imagine that the first item is a sign of gain for Socialism passes all understanding. The tax, however heavy, is not a measure directed against the private property institution. It leaves intact the great fortunes and estates of the capitalist class. However much they pay in tax for the time being, it still remains a basic feature of society that they derive their incomes from their ownership of the means of living. Clearly as it leaves the basis of society untouched, it is not a gain for Socialism, neither is it revolutionary.

There were many seemingly drastic changes advocated at that time (1847), including the Chartist struggle and the Trade Union fight for legal recognition. The practical achievement of these aims is not comparable to the tremendous economic change that Socialism implies.

As a counter to Mr. Woodburn, let us look at society as it is. It still rests on the basis of capitalist private ownership. A small section of society own the lands, factories and machines for producing wealth, and are able by this ownership to live without working. The workers who possess nothing but their energy are forced to sell themselves piecemeal to the capitalists for wages. Each day they produce goods of all descriptions which belong to their masters, who desire neither to consume these goods nor keep them, only to sell them. Failure to sell generally means that the workers are thrown on the streets to search for alternative employment. At this point we can see the ultimate value of the “obligation to labour” that Woodburn proudly exhibits as a gain.

It is true that in a Socialist society all able-bodied people would be expected to do their share of the necessary work of society, but this has no relation to the present enforced labour laws. Because war on such a gigantic scale can be won only by the concentrated effort of the whole of society, the Industrial Reserve Army of nearly 2,000,000 has been absorbed in the production of useful armaments. There is no guarantee that they will have work at the end of the war. The “Economist” (2/5/42) briefly summarised toe Unemployment Insurance Committee’s report for 1941 and contained the following :

“Since no measures have been announced for the prevention of an unpredictable increase in unemployment after the war, there is at present no basis for calculating the expenditure which the fund may be liable to meet.”

The “Economist” suggested that by planned demobilisation” it should be possible “to maintain employment far more successfully than after the last war.” Even were this true it ignores the fact that many representatives of the ruling class have shown that they do not want state control or interference and that what they want is the free play of economic forces. Mr. Harcourt Johnstone stated at Bristol last year—

“We shall have to increase our export trade by £50,000,000 a year. . . . That will involve a tremendous effort. Competition will have been increased in many directions. … It is no part of the Government’s policy to promote an artificially high level of costs in this country as against our export competitors.” (“Daily Herald,” November 24th, 1941.)

In this struggle for markets the need for cheap production will be greater than ever, and more machinery will be installed of a labour-saving nature, thus cheapening goods produced but throwing many workers on the labour market. There will not be any labour laws then forcing all to work; in fact, we may again read of miners sent to prison for working mines that do not belong to them (“Barnsley Chronicle,” September 14th, 1935). We shall probably count the unemployed in millions again and our masters will count their wealth in millions.

Because we state these facts, does this mean that our propaganda is doleful or pessimistic. No, it means that we realise that the economic laws running through society, not a few abstract “revolutionary” measures will determine what kind of a world will emerge following this conflict. Failing Socialism it will be a world where the capitalist class will be still in control; where the struggle for markets, jobs and an existence will be even more fierce than the days of 1930 to 1939. It cannot be altered by a few ameliorative laws passed in Parliament. They can modify or remedy a few glaring anomalies, but so far as the general trend of events arc concerned the “great” statesmen are helpless. The political somersaults since the beginning of this war show only too clearly how incapable our masters are of discerning the future, even from day to day.

We cannot do that either, but we can and have shown that so long as wealth is produced for profit, certain evils must exist. We have shown that reforms cannot alter the basis of society, but merely remedy some defects of capitalism; they have failed to deal with any major evil such as unemployment, poverty, slums, crises and wars. These were with us 150 years ago, and are still with us to-day. All the reforms and planning that is suggested will not alter that. The “Economist” (May 16th, 1942) neatly put it—

“The point is not that capitalism has collapsed or failed to deliver the goods, as all sorts of planners have wrongly argued. It is rather that, for all its technical successes, unemployment, malnutrition and poverty have remained in evidence.”

This is the candid admission of an authoritative capitalist journal, a realisation that capitalism can produce wealth in great quantities but leaves untouched the widespread distress amongst the population. Wealth is produced fairly easily, but often is destroyed because the markets are incapable of absorbing such quantities. Millions live in want, suffer from malnutrition, exist in unhealthy hovels, despite the massive wealth producing machinery of the present day, because in this society the object is not to produce solely for use but for profit.

However progress is being made in the gradual enlightenment of members of our class, and in the growing political knowledge of the worker. Capitalism will throw up such obvious contradictions that the limited nature of their present-day aims will strike the workers as a strange contrast to the task that they will have to tackle, the establishment of Socialism. This is our message to the workers; study the Socialist case, understand why we stand for social revolution and not reform. Knowing these things you will realise that only through the workers possessing Socialist understanding and gaining political control can Socialism be established and human progress guaranteed.

D. J.

SPGB Meetings (1942)

Party News from the November 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

Editorial: The Ugly Reality of Indian Nationalism (1942)

Editorial from the November 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received a request to give our support to a joint manifesto in favour of the Indian Nationalist movement, and the following resolution has been sent in reply to it : —

“We are not willing to give our support to a joint manifesto in conjunction with other political parties endorsing the Indian Nationalist movement. As Socialists we are opposed to the exploitation of the toilers either by foreign or native exploiters. As that exploitation can be ended only by the achievement of Socialism, through international working-class action, we are opposed to the Indian Nationalist movement which has capitalist aims and is not deserving of working-class support. We are also not prepared to associate with non-Socialist political parties.”

The Indian population consists of a small wealthy class at the top and a vast mass, numbering over two hundred millions, of poverty stricken workers and peasants at the bottom. If the Nationalist movement becomes successful an indication has already been given of what the mass of the population may expect from native rulers.

When for a short time the Congress Party was in control of the government of Bombay, the home of Indian industrial millionaires, they immediately took the opportunity to introduce a Trades Disputes Bill which made strikes illegal, thus taking away from the worker the only industrial weapon he can use against the exactions of employers. When Indian workers were on strike the real leader of the Congress Party, Gandhi, sided with the employers and forsook his much advertised peaceful persuasion principles to give his blessing to the use of force against workers who engaged in the picketing of factories. In all his agitation in India there has been one constant feature of Gandhi’s position : he has been a friend and supporter of Indian capitalists.

In the industrial centres of India, irrespective of the nationality of those in control of industry, working conditions are deplorable, wages are poor, and unemployment flourishes. This is true where the mill-owners are generally native Indians. Religious differences are exploited by local parasites who turn the worker’s attention from the real source of his misery to religious riots. The fact that British capitalists may also have used these religious differences to further their own ends does not absolve the Indian capitalists from responsibility for the economic conditions out of which the riots spring. The real core of the matter is the exploitation of the Indian workers and peasants.

The Nationalist movement is financed by Indian capitalists and, as only a small percentage of Indians are literate, its prominent officials are either capitalists themselves or intimately connected with the upper strata of wealthy people. As landlords, factory owners, and legislators they have shown they are as determined to live on the backs of the Indian toilers as are the British capitalists whom they wish to eliminate.

It is of no real consequence to the Indian worker whether he toils for the profit of an Indian or a British capitalist concern. His real problem is the fact that the means of production are controlled by a class that forces him to labour and suffer in greater or less degree the miseries suffered by his fellow toilers in other lands.

The present position in India is an indication of the differences that would split Indian society if Indians obtain control of their own affairs. One section there, including the Communists, is supporting the war and another section is opposing it. The different sectional interests of landlords, factory owners and traders will also be a fruitful source of strife. The struggle for markets against Chinese, Japanese and other international interests will add further fuel to the fire. And all the time the Indian worker will toil and suffer, his needs forgotten under the new regime, unless he asserts himself in the only direction that will serve his interests.

Many Indian workers and peasants attribute their miseries to foreign rule rather than to the private ownership of the means of production, but the Indian Nationalist movement will not help the Indian worker to emancipate himself from his subject condition. It draws support from wealthy Indian financiers and manufacturers who inflame national prejudice with the object of climbing upon the backs of the workers to positions of greater wealth and power. Too often have the workers’ aspirations for a better life been diverted into the chase after a national independence which has gained them only a different flag to wave over their misery.

The fact that we are opposed to the Indian Nationalist movement does not mean that we acquiesce in the brutal suppression of which the Indians have been victims. We are opposed to the capitalist system wherever it raises its ugly head, but we know that the solution to the workers’ subjective position under it is the same everywhere.

The only road to salvation for the Indian worker is the road to Socialism, and he must travel along that road in brotherly harmony with the members of his class throughout the world.

Executive Committee, S.P.G.B.

China takes up the White Man’s Burden (1942)

From the November 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

What is at the End of the Road?

The long-term results of war are notoriously difficult to predict. Each side sees post-war events as they would be shaped by their own victory, but even when the victory of one side is decisive the result is rarely the same as the expectation. War destroys an existing balance of power and gives rise to more or less drastic adjustments, but it is beyond the capacity of most of the actors in the war-drama to see what will happen after the curtain falls on the military combat.

At present the thinking of most of those who plan the future world is clouded by wishes born of their class interests. One group want capitalism to be restored just as it was in 1939. Others, the Labour Party for example, vaguely hope and believe that capitalism will have disappeared, or will be “different.” Both groups will be disappointed. Capitalism will remain after the war, but it will not be the capitalist world envisaged by British and American capitalists. The failure of the German-Japanese-Italian gamble for dominance will not leave things just as they were, and some observers are already uneasily aware of this. A Japanese officer who told a Daily Mail correspondent (Daily Mail, September 10th) that ”if Hitler won this war every man in Japan knew they would have to fight the Germans to retain their empire,” was doubtless right, but likewise when the Axis Powers fail the East will show some developments little regarded at the moment. Only the Manchester Guardian among British newspapers appears to have interested itself in the problems that will arise then:

“China can expect to emerge from the war as one of the world’s Great Powers with all the scope and responsibility which the status entails.”— (“Manchester Guardian,” October 12th, 1942.)

One politician, Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, Britain’s High Commissioner in Canada, would not be aware of any problem. Speaking about the great 1,500 mile Alaska Highway which links up U.S.A., across Canada, with Alaska, he dealt with its present purpose as a “springboard for attack on Japan,” and then spoke customary soothing words about the important part the highway and its defence system will play

“When the war is won, in bringing our friends in the Orient, the Chinese, the Russians, the Americans, and ourselves, into much closer communication and harmony.”— (“Daily Mail,” October 17th, 1942.)

Capitalist politicians always talk in this way about the development of means of transport and communications, as if closer contact in a world given over to capitalist rivalries necessarily produces harmony. (Incidentally Mr. MacDonald is a member of the government which still, under the 1927 Trade Disputes Act, forbids British Civil servants who handle some of the international means of communication, the posts, telegraphs and telephones, to come into contact with their fellows in the Dominion, Allied and other countries in an international association, for fear, no doubt, that closer contact might produce too much working-class harmony.)

The Manchester Guardian, however, comes closer to reality in its report of discussions that are going on about China’s war aims. The principle laid down by Madame Chiang Kai-shek is that in the relations between West and East there must be absolute equality, there “must be no thought of superiors and inferiors”; but, as the Guardian adds, “To translate those simple phrases into political action is a process that will demand all the statesmanship that the United Nations can discover” (Manchester Guardian, August 25th, 1942). In the same editorial the Guardian quotes Mrs. Pearl Buck, the writer on China, as saying that unless the problem is solved “the end will be a war in which China will not be on our side,” and Mr. Owen Lattimore, Political Adviser to General Chiang Kai-shek, says that, it is taken for granted in China and the rest of Asia “though perhaps not yet … so decidedly taken for granted in the Western democracies,” that “colonies lost in battle by countries unable to defend them and unwilling to grant them the full right of self-defence can never be subjected or returned to the status quo of December 7th, 1941.”

Mr. Lattimore envisages a great danger that will arise if Japan can one day present herself “as the defender of colonial Asia against white reconquest.”

Mr. Wendell Wilkie has added his view that “no foot of Chinese soil should be or can be ruled from now on except by the people who live on it” (Daily Telegraph, October 7th, 1942).

Up to this point the problem looks a comparatively simple one of the renunciation of territory held in China, but those who so view it forget that we live in a capitalist world which inexorably drives on each capitalist group to strengthen its commercial competitive power and to strive for expansion. Will the new Pacific Power, China, escape from this law of capitalism ? The Guardian, returning to the subject in an editorial on October 12th, 1942, is apprehensive that it will not. The following passage shows the potentialities and dangers of the situation : —

“Discussion about post-war plans seems to be as lively in Chungking as it is in Washington or London. . . . The general trend of ideas, both official and private, has just been described in an American publication by Gunther Stein, who stresses that much of it remains highly controversial in Chungking. There is agreement on one point. Japan must be disarmed, freed from militaristic rule, and effectually prevented from re-arming. Some Chinese wish to see Japanese industrial equipment and industrial skill used to aid in the development of the countries ravaged by the invaders. Territorial aims seem to vary; while the return of all territories lost since the war of 1894-5 is taken for granted unofficial ambitions go far beyond that. Korea is to have independence, but there is a desire to make Siam a Chinese protectorate, and among the areas expected to return to full Chinese rule are Outer Mongolia and Tibet, as well as Sinkiang, Manchuria and Formosa. The independence of all other nations of East Asia from colonial rule is considered essential. This includes Indian sovereignty and close Sino-Indian collaboration for the protection and development of the backward Eastern peoples”.— (“Manchester Guardian,” October 12th, 1942.)

The reader who takes in the vast implications of the above official and unofficial ambitions of the ruling class of the China that is becoming a Great Power may well ask whether they are different from the ideas of expansion of all the other powers that have aspired in the past to build up empires. The Chinese, it seems, along with India, are even to take on the “white man’s burden” of protecting “backward peoples” ! As the Manchester Guardian tactfully remarks, China expects to take a leading part in the development of an East Asiatic economic group, “and some enthusiasts seem to push this reasonable desire rather far.”

The only comment Socialists have to make is that the outlines of the new order as sketched in Chungking look remarkably like all other capitalist imperialisms, except that there is a drastic change in the cast. The remedy is not new empires for old but the abolition everywhere of capitalism, which engenders these ambitions.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Christian Party (1942)

From the November 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received for comment a leaflet called “A Christian Party,” and described on the front cover as “A Call to the Church and the World’s People by a Company of Priests in North Staffordshire,” by whom the leaflet presumably is published, and who say (inside cover) : ”You would be doing us and the cause of truth a service by your comments, criticism and advice which will be really welcomed and fully considered.”

The priests of the Christian Party (eleven of them) would appear to be cast in a different mould from many of the political divines who grace “left” political parties. They aim at an order of things where “each shall be the owner, or with his fellows the joint owner, of land and industry, subject to the autonomous economic corporations to which he belongs.” They say further : —

“We shall be called Socialists. We do not repudiate, but we are not eager to accept this label : for the Socialist parties of the day look for State control of all departments of life. Nationalisation is their cry. We see lurking in this the tyranny of German National Socialism or Russian State Socialism with its inevitable suppression of all free spiritual activity.”

And …

”We shall be labelled anarchist and syndicalist. We have to refuse this label too.”

But : 

“We would call ourselves communists only that we do not wish to be regarded as cynical and unscrupulous agents of the Stalin tyranny in Russia.”

The eleven priests of North Staffordshire would call themselves Communists. But if Christianism stands for what they say it does, Communism (the “Kingdom of God on earth”), there is no need to describe themselves in any way but as Christians. The fact that they describe themselves as Communists (reservations noted) and claim to stand for Communism is a measure of the extent that Christianism has nothing to do with Communism. They aptly illustrate the fact that man’s ideas and the objects he struggles for are governed by the world in which he lives. “Gross materialism,” perhaps, the suggestion of which might incline the Communist priests to draw in their cassocks. Nevertheless, when they want to explain what they stand for they do so by economic definitions (quoted above), by comparisons with Anarchism, Communism, and so on, and not by quotation from textual Christianism. It is true that they give extracts from biblical texts such ingenious interpretations that in their minds they make Christianity equal Socialism. Nevertheless it cannot escape notice that in nearly two thousand years of Christianity such interpretations are of modern origin. In fact, Socialism as an idea, as a science, even the words Capitalism and Socialism, are less than two hundred years old. There could have been no conception of the idea of Socialism three hundred years ago because the Capitalist system of society out of which the idea arose had not come into being. Still less could it be argued that the idea of “Christian Socialism” (or Communism) is two thousand years old.

The truth is that, whether these priests like it or not, the influence behind their ideas and the objects for which they stand, spring out of the material world in which we live and not from Christian inspiration. The attempt to square the material world with the religious conception of life in this way is but evidence of the process of the whittling away of the religious view of life which has been going on for two hundred years under pressure of the progress of the material world. Moreover, it would be reasonable to ask for support from Christian writings for the expressed attitude of the pamphlet to Nationalisation, Stalinism, and so on.

And why is a bishop who took sides with the Abyssinians in the war with Italy a “progressive bishop”? Need for some criterion—Christian or Socialist—seems to have escaped attention.

On the last page of the pamphlet the reader sustains as what comes as a shock from these “revolutionary Christians.

“Because of our sins this war is upon us, and for a penance we have to wade through mud and blood. We cannot contract out of it.”

Because of our sins !

Bunyan was more “revolutionary” than this—and certainly not less pious.

Is it the sins of the workers that condemn them to suffer capitalism ? Can they contract out of that ? Why should they not have to endure capitalism as a penance too ? How and why do these pietists distinguish between the one and the other?

One would tremble tor the future of the working class movement if there were any evidence that the muddled ideas of these well-intentioned moralists and noble “idealists” were likely to spread among the workers. Fortunately, the evidence is all the other way. None of the parsonic eleven are ever likely to play a part more than as an extra at any Labour or Communist meeting that found them useful.

When they write their next pamphlet we recommend they do not write of nationalisation, or State capitalism, (which the S.P.G.B. has opposed consistently) as being synonymous with Socialism : or describe parties whose policy is nationalisation as Socialist parties. It is a habit among wily politicians who find it expedient to erect their own Aunt Sallies. But the Christian Party should know better than to copy such an example. A few of their number certainly do know better.

A new Christian Party, but the old, old story.

Harry Waite

Are We “Proud” of our Class? (1942)

From the November 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

A controversy is raging in the columns of the “New Leader” on the burning question of Keir Hardie’s famous Cloth Cap. Two rival theories clash, one, that the hat (variety doubtful) originally intended to grace his temples was inadvertently left at home; the other theory, stoutly maintained by a relative, is that the rock of offence to a scandalised House was in the nature of a grand gesture, a proletarian signal of defiance of the “Here stands a Post” pattern.

There is an alternative explanation. The ostentatious adoption of a badge of social inferiority savours at best of theatricality and at worst of inverted vanity. The man who could publicly announce “My experience of the Labour movement in all its phases is second to that of no other man alive in England” (5/5/1910, at Browning Settlement) was hardly a model of modesty. His insistence on the importance of the text, “Come unto me all ye that labour,” was subconsciously an exaltation of his one-story Cap into the Triple Tiara of Labour’s Pope. Hardie’s mental outlook was typical of the Labour leader; the last war revealed the Hodges and the Barnes for what they were worth to the working class movement. Will the present war undeceive the worker ? The ruling clique has hired abler men from the workers’ ranks than in 1914, and a decisive Allied victory will probably effectually blur recollection of their slaps in the face to factory, field and mine worker. There is a faint hope that some of the latter will remember the solid backing their Trade Union bosses have accorded the “Go To It”-ers. The Chairman of the T.U.C. Conference kicks off with a hymn of praise to Churchill.

Much sentimental nonsense goes around in Labour circles about “pride” in belonging to the working class. The informed Socialist finds no reason for “pride” in his quite involuntary membership of that class. A consoling satisfaction, perhaps, is the reflection that his class is the sole instrument which can eventually deliver the world from the horrors of capitalism. An aspect of this “pride” business is the blether summed up in the word “Proletcult.” Broadly speaking, the ruling class in any given society and age dictate “culture,” and until comparatively recent times has alone been able to command the means for expression of that culture, whether in song or verse, in marble or paint on rostrurn, pulpit or stage. In “democratic” Athens an Aeschylus owed his just fame to a rich citizen. Virgil’s genius was hired by the astutest politician of his age to act as his propaganda minister and literary high priest. The black specks of sycophancy which tarnish the glory of a Shakespeare in later ages were the product of a fundamentally similar social basis and resultant outlook; (“Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed”).

Attempts have been made by the Cloth Hat Brigade of critics to exhibit ballads and “folk-songs” as emanating from the “great heart of the people” ; the simplicity of diction deceives. The “artiness” of the best ballads is hard to beat. As to “folk-songs,” the genuine articles to-day are the products of the music hall, and these can hardly be ranked as high art.

Hobbes dismissed the life of the savage as “poor, nasty, brutish and short”—an accurate description of the life of a huge mass of the working class, and under conditions which amply justify the description, what kind of “culture” can arise? The lewd dance, jazz, dreary tom-tom “spirituals”—these are some of the contributions to modern “culture” by which ages of negro slavery revenges itself on society. Augustus banished his daughter for a way of life contracted in a Rome saturated by the worst vices of gladiator and slave.

True, modern capitalism has evolved a section of relatively better placed “black-coated” workers, and the more far-seeing of the governing class have made it possible by scholarships to utilise the abilities of this section. But pay piper, call tune. How they dance to the tune !

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has never boasted of its proletarian origin and membership; it is so “proud” of its class that it is out for its abolition. “Spite of the gloomy days made for our searching,” there are glimmers of sunshine. In the party itself, there is a growing spirit of sober hope. We shall continue to pursue our immediate task—political education, never swerving from our adherence to the principle of delegation of executive work and abhorence of leadership; in short, to the principles of Socialism and all that Socialism implies.

Augustus Snellgrove

Soviet Socialism (1942)

From the November 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the saddest things in the whole business of Soviet Russia is the recurring note in the organ of the I.L.P. (“New Leader “) that in economics the Russians have “achieved Socialism.” The Socialist Party of Great Britain can understand the fluffy minded Brockways and the worshippers of Saint Hardie talking such rubbish, but it defies the McNairs and the Ridleys to substantiate the statement. They must know better.

Augustus Snellgrove

The Unemployed are Tough (1942)

From the November 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

Writing of the commando raid on Dieppe, the News Chronicle reporter says: “… These boys from the prairies—their average age is only about 23—had waited a year and a half for this chance to fight. Fighting is part of their character. They had grown up in hard times—the great depression and the prairie dust storms had meant long unemployment for many of them.”—-(News-Chronicle, 21/8/42.)

This is the first time we had heard that unemployment made workers “tough.” With this important discovery before them, capitalists will now no longer worry about the effect of unemployment on the morale of the workers. That is, of course, if there is going to be any unemployment in the wonderful post-war world, which has already half been built up—in words.

R. M.

Obituary: H. E. Hutchins (1942)

Obituary from the November 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is with deep regret that we record the death of the late Comrade H. E. Hutchins, of Colchester, on September 26th. A foundation member of the S.P.G.B., Comrade Hutchins maintained his work and interest in the party to the end.

“Old Hutch,” as he was affectionately known amongst a wide circle of comrades and friends, was always a hard worker. For a large number of years he was a member of the Tooting Branch, and when Tooting Broadway was a strong propaganda station, “Old Hutch” was always there with the platform and literature, ready to assist in any way he was able. Sometimes he would act as chairman, occasionally he would address a meeting, but always he would have a keen interest in the literature sales.

He was a persistent and most successful seller of the party’s literature, and built up a large circle of readers for THE SOCIALIST STANDARD. At meetings and demonstrations, he was always on the spot with bundles of SOCIALIST STANDARDS and pamphlets.

Throughout his membership, he displayed a great interest in the internal organisation of the party, and many suggestions for the betterment of the organisation was contributed by him. At Conference Delegate Meetings, and other party gatherings, there was cause for comment if he was absent, so familiar a figure had he become.

During the past few years he lived away from London, but despite old age and distance, his interest in the party never flagged. He set about the task of introducing the STANDARD to many readers in that district with the zeal of a young man.

His efforts for Socialism merit our sincere appreciation, and our regret for the loss of a hardworking comrade.

To his widow we offer our sincere condolences.

H. G. Holt

Can the Scramble for Markets be Ended? (1942)

From the November 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dr. Lang, at a recent debate on world reconstruction in the House of Lords, made the statement "We must by international co-operation bring to an end the old accepted scramble for markets."

How, in this age of fierce competition, nations are to be made to co-operate Dr. Lang does not propose.

Having forsaken his position as Archbishop of Canterbury for a pension of a mere £1,500 per year, and sympathising with himself for having (in his own words) "to face the restraints and inconvenience of very slender means," it is most unlikely that Dr. Lang advocates the abolition of the social system that pays him this welcome, though allegedly meagre, pension. Thus Dr. Lang must be advocating international co-operation within the framework of capitalism.

Socialists know that such an achievement impossible.

'

The nationalistic capitalism of any particular country is composed of the capitalist activities of individual capitalists or groups of capitalists within that country.

The fierce competition between capitalists compels them to secure as great an amount as possible of commodities, and to find ever-increasing markets for the transforming of these commodities into cash. Without such markets the surplus value produced by the workers could not he converted into profits.

Within each capitalist country the sum total of this production and scrambling for markets is identified as the capitalism of the country from which it emanates.

The whole of the exploiting of labour power and the grabbing of markets by, for example, American, German, or British capitalists, is recognised as American, German, or British capitalism.

Thus we see that behind the separate entities of American, German, or British capitalism (or whatever nationalist capitalism it be) are individual capitalists who must ever maintain competitive equality or supremacy—or be ousted from their privileged positions as capitalists.

The expansion of individual capitalism within a country, therefore, brings an expansion of that particular country's capitalism.

This law prevails in all capitalist countries with the result that the capitalism of such nations finds itself in fierce competition with the capitalism of other nations.

As long as we live in a society wherein there exists commodity production, and the urgent capitalist need to sell widely the commodities produced, there can be no possibility of removing a world-wide scramble for markets.

Dr. Lang may be sincere in his seeking of a New Order that has no place for market-grabbing, but in his long life he has failed to learn that this can only be done by establishing a social system in which commodity production and commodity selling cannot exist.

F. Hawkins