Socialism, One World, One People (1958)

From the November 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Address to the Cosmo Debating Society, Nottingham, by Comrade Willmott

We have often been reproached for having a black and white case for Socialism and in the light of the recent race riots, both in London and Nottingham, we can say that from a particular standpoint—we have, and if you will permit a mild pleasantry I shall from the viewpoint of the S.P.G.B. attempt to shed some light on a rather dark subject.

To begin, it is an error to think that race prejudice is itself a black and white question. It is not The worst race riots in the British Commonwealth took place in South Africa between Indians and Negroes. That was rioting between brown and black. The worst race riots perhaps in the U.S.A. were not in the Southern States but in the north—Detroit. While the most tragic example of race prejudice in Europe, the persecution and slaughter of the Jews was man’s inhumanity to man in the form of whites’ inhumanity to whites. And who knows, the next showdown may at least in part be presented as a struggle between white and yellow, and so we arrive at the paradox that race prejudice knows no colour bar.

Now one of the myths of our times is that race feelings are somehow associated with differences in blood stock. Now scientists agree that there are different types of blood, which are enumerated as A, B and O, but whatever group the blood in the human body belongs to, is independent of race, clime, or country. A white man may belong to the same blood group as a coloured man and the white man’s own brother belong to a different blood group.

So if at any time you have to undergo a blood transfusion and perhaps unbeknown to you your blood donor is a coloured person, you will be none the wiser, and if you had colour prejudices before the transfusion you will have them after transfusion, and the coloured man’s blood inside you won’t make any bloody difference.

Even the term race has no real meaning. It is true there appear in certain human groups inherited features like woolly or straight hair, colour of skin, shape of head, and so on, but such things are found in other groups, like red hair and blue eyes, they are physical characteristics and have nothing to do with a person’s mentality. And seeing all these ethnological groups, black, brown, white, yellow, have all intermingled and got mixed up for thousands of years to look for something called race in any real sense, is like looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn’t there.

What ethnologists stress is that between the various ethnological groups there is so far as mental capacity is concerned, complete equality.

Class and Race

There are, of course, whites and coloured in the social top drawer, just as there are whites and coloured in the bottom drawer, and the whites and coloured in the top drawer have much more in common than they have with white and coloured folk in the bottom one. Those in the top drawer never indulge in race rioting with each other. Being more civilised they will often share the same exclusive hotel, or a bottle of champagne, even the same yacht Their good breeding also prevents them from being antagonistic about who's going to fill a job vacancy or occupy a basement flat. All of which shows how one's racial views are coloured by one's class conditioning.

While there are social divisions among men there is no biological division. Differences in ideas and attitudes arise from differences in their socio-economic environment. A negro who has lived all his life in Stepney will be a cockney and a white child reared by Africans in the Congo. will be a product of Congo culture.

Yet in this age of jets, sputniks, rockets and television, the superstition and ignorance on the question of race is such that one wonders whether we have made any real progress over our witch burning, rackrending, thumb-twisting, forefathers, and after the recent racial riots we might look less superciliously at the Philistines across the Atlantic with their Ku Klux Klan tradition and Little Rock problem and remember that people who live in prefabs shouldn't throw atom bombs.

Before the recent racial outburst there have been outcries against Poles, Italians, Lithuanians, even the Irish. While before the war there were organised protests about keeping the Welsh miners out of London and other cities. Given a recession and a big increase in unemployment, many who think of themselves as British subjects may find that they have become foreigners overnight.

Apart from racial antagonisms there are all sorts of other antagonisms in this society. There are antagonisms between the young and old in the Civil Service, commerce and elsewhere, on the matter of retirement and promotion. The antagonism of married men about other married men whose wives go out to work. The antagonism about policemen who retire fairly young with a pension and are regarded as unfair competitors for certain jobs. The antagonism between miners and agricultural workers when miners work on the land in times of unemployment or trade disputes, and so one could go on and on and on.

National Antagonisms

Then over and above all these are the national antagonisms resulting from the economic rivalry of world Capitalism. In this case, whites feel antagonistic to whites. Have we not been taught at various times to feel hostile to Germans, Italians, Japanese, and others, and they in turn have been taught to feel the same about us. We are now told by press, pundits and politicians that it is wrong for whites to feel hostile to blacks. Although at other times they have held that it is right for whites to feel hostile to whites.

But we shall not see the antagonisms of the present set up in real perspective, unless we realise that it is based itself on an antagonistic class division of income, producing an antagonism of class interests. This arises because a small minority of the population own the means of living and the rest own nothing but their ability to work. This ownership allows the Capitalists to appropriate profit or unpaid labour over and above what is necessary for the working class to efficiently reproduce their productive energies.

The Capitalists in order to realise this unpaid labour or profit compete with each other on a world-wide market and this international rivalry in turn brings about preparation for war and sometimes war itself.

Worker versus Worker

Given such an antagonistic set up small wonder that racial and other antagonisms are present in a latent or active form. Again in a competitive system where workers compete for jobs and houses, the coloured person who is a worker must become a competitor too. And in a social system where ruling groups exploit race prejudice along with other prejudices to play one set of workers off against other workers, it becomes easy for the coloured person to become a scapegoat for all sorts of social evils.

It is claimed that race prejudice has never been actively promoted in England. Well, if it has not, the English ruling class have certainly actively promoted it outside of England under the slogan of “the white man's burden." As the centre of a vast colonial empire, the empire builders here, made the colonies with their exploitation, oppression and appalling poverty, a prolific breeding ground for national and racial prejudices.

The coloured workers are victims of race propaganda. Native Capitalist groups have sought to gain their support by presenting the white as the common enemy of all coloured people and so using it as means of sharing with the whites or ousting white exploiters, in favour of coloured exploiters. If the coloured emigrant meets with adverse conditions in a hostile environment, race prejudice can be let up.

A lot of left wing sentiment has been shown over the colour question. Yet many of these left wingers give support to all sorts of national Capitalist movements. Only a short time ago they were backing that greatest of national and racial demagogues, Nasser, who is demanding expulsion of whites from the Arab world.

Housing and Armaments

Then there is the left wing, right wing, centrist. Mr. Bevan. In the News of the World a few weeks back he said that the Labour Government of which he was a member was worried in 1946 about West Indian immigration. They thought it would lead to increased pressure on houses then, as now, in short supply. Mr. Bevan’s Government could have begun extensive housing schemes, but they had much more important things. They had a vast rearmament programme on hand. So there were no houses for black or white. It was the same old story, guns before butter and howitzers before houses. Mr. Bevan and his kind might shed tears over the plight of the immigrants, but they are crocodile tears.

With increasing unemployment there is a lot of talk about last hired first fired. Many white workers have consigned the immigrants to that category. But workers don’t control their own jobs, the employer or his manager on his behalf does that. It's no good saying to the employers you must displace coloured workers for white ones should the occasion arise, or you must only employ blacks when whites are not available, otherwise you will create colour prejudice. The employer will take on or sack as he thinks fit regardless of race prejudice.

Back to Jamaica?

One wonders what might happen if the Government decided to build big atomic power stations in Jamaica. In that case many white workers might leave here to go there. Would they in view of what has happened here raise the cry “Keep Jamaica black.” So given a change of economic circumstances and it would be emigration in reverse. 

There is no real solution to the colour question in Capitalism. Unrestricted emigration with its increased pressure on employment and house accommodation provides fertile breeding grounds for race prejudice. Even restricted emigration or no emigration at all would not do away with the competition for jobs and houses in which coloured workers are involved. Race prejudice would still remain.

How much better if white and coloured workers realised they have a common class interest. That poverty, unemployment, housing shortages, are not a colour issue but a class issue, and while white and coloured workers are enchained to Capitalism, neither are free. How much better off if white and coloured workers realised that the vast sprawling slums of London and other cities are not products of immigration but Capitalism. How much better if white and coloured workers united to bring pressure on the authorities, that it is housing shortages and bad living conditions which are the cause of it all and not be side-tracked by red herrings or black and white propaganda. That, of course, would presuppose that black and white workers have added to their class understanding and how much better that would be as well.

In principle we assert the right of people to go anywhere at any time but the conditions are lacking in present society to operate it.

The very term emigrants meant they arc not free people able to move in a free world. They leave their country generally because of the pressure of poverty or lack of economic opportunity. They do not move into an integrated society, but in a world of high national barriers where man is against man, class against class, and nation against nation. A jungle of competition and acquisition where the undergrowth of fear, ignorance and superstition chokes all healthy social growth.

To blame teddy boys for the recent racial disturbances is to evade the problem by seeking a scapegoat To act on the sadistic advice of the Daily Herald, who wanted to mow them down is to incite race prejudice and an open invitation to group warfare.

Just as proposed legislation for revoking the licences of dance hall proprietors who operate the colour bar or taking away leases from house-owners who refuse rooms to coloured people would make people feel they are being discriminated against in favour of other groups. This would have the effect of further inciting race prejudice. You can’t legislate emotion or prejudice.

Our Socialist Stand

We ourselves are not emotionally uncommitted on the question of race prejudice. But we refuse to be so emotionally committed that we lose sight of our own aim and object—Socialism. Emotion is only a positive and constructive force when it is controlled and directed. When it is misdirected its effects are negative and pernicious. We do not put forward our diagnosis of society merely because it is right, but because in the conclusions we draw from it are the humanitarian assumptions of remedying the ills of extant society. We are keenly sensitive to social suffering, but we refuse in lieu of our own remedy to accept what we hold to be harmful soporifics based on a faulty diagnosis. To act other than we do would be to impugn our own humanitarian aims and falsify the reason for our last 50 odd years’ existence.

The Brotherhood of Man

Tb the ideals of other parties we offer the ideal of the universal brotherhood of man. Others have paid lip service to this ideal. We have acted upon it and not to act on what you believe is not really to believe it at all.

We do not only say the vast mass must come to terms with the problems of their time: our very existence is an attempt to help bring it to fruition. For us, man is the measure of all things, and how well or badly he measures up to things is the final arbiter of social change.

Man has the biological prerequisites for co-operation but being a social animal he can only exercise them in and through society. But it is only in a cooperative society can he become a truly co-operative individual. Only where he can equally and freely participate in the community can his own personality become harmoniously enriched.

That is why in answer to this antagonism ridden, man divided, class divided, nation divided society, we proclaim the alternative, Socialism, one world, one people.

Ted Wilmott

50 Years Ago: Socialism versus Religion (1958)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Clericalism, high church, low church, Roman church, “Labour” church, and tin Bethelism of any calibre, are all in the ruck of reaction. Their power for evil depends, so far as we are concerned, upon the measure of working-class ignorance prevailing. Given that change in social conditions that will free men economically, the religious forms and influences which have been built up and maintained upon economic subjection must go. Our business, therefore, is to direct the working-class mind toward that changed social condition.”

[From an article rejecting the view that attack should be concentrated on the Catholic Church. Socialist Standard, November, 1908.]

Editorial: The Tory Pension Plan (1958)

Editorial from the November 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

People live longer than they did a generation or two ago. So there are more voters who are old and the big political parties are more concerned than formerly about having in their electoral shop window something to offer to the pensioners.

Last year, with unlucky timing, the Labour Party put out their pension scheme and thought they had found a good vote-catcher. Mr. Crossman, M.P., said at the Labour Party Conference: "I believe you will find the electorate will want it. At least, I have noticed that the Tories seem a little alarmed at the idea.” (Report, p. 124.) Of course, the Tories, being the government and therefore in a position to know when they proposed to have the next general election, had time to study the reception given to the Labour plan and then to produce one of their own. They have done so and have put the Labour Party in a dilemma. The Labour Party and Mr. Crossman call it a “shoddy copy” of their own plan, but now they do not know whether they dare oppose it or not. The Tories have pinched Mr. Crossman’s plan and, as the Manchester Guardian puts it, have trimmed down the original to make it more acceptable to the voters. The Labour Party are naturally annoyed about this, because it reduces a little more their prospects of winning the next election—prospects generally rated to be rather dim at the present time.

We have no sympathy to offer them in their distress. Rather we would rub it in by saying we told you so. We have been telling the Labour Party reformists for years that the avowed defenders of Capitalism are at least as astute as the Labour Party reformers of Capitalism. Every time the Labour Party has conceived and worked up a good vote-catching reform, the Tories (or the Liberals) have come along and made it their own.

Is there any way of stopping this? Indeed there is. If the Labour Party did not put forward schemes that are good for Capitalism the avowed defenders of Capitalism would not steal them; anything not good for Capitalism they would not want to steal.

If the Labour Party stood for Socialism and fought elections on that issue there would never be the slightest danger of Tories and Liberals taking it over.

Which brings us to a remark made by the Editor of the Manchester Guardian (October 15th, 1958) that perhaps neither the Labour Pensions Scheme nor the Tory Pensions Scheme is the last word. “It may be, indeed, that a fresh approach—different from those of Government and Labour alike—will have to be tried.”

How right the Guardian is for once—but how accidentally! When the workers ultimately get tired of trying alternately the Tory and Labour plans for tinkering with Capitalism, they will try a fresh approach—Socialism, with whose inauguration there will be no need for any pension scheme because all people, young and old, well and sick, will possess free access to the means of living.

One other observation needs to be made. The Labour Party, from force of long habit, will maintain that the basic idea of the plan is sound, the idea of having unequal rates of pension; a small pension for the worst paid workers and a larger pension for those who earn more and who pay larger contributions. At last year’s Labour Party Conference the Executive had to defend this against a minority who held that such inequality is a betrayal of earlier views of their party. These critics were right, for at one time their policy was that there should be adequate flat rate pension for all. They also held that it should be non-contributory. That also has been abandoned; the financial purists are appalled at the notion that workers should be “improvident” and spend all their wages without making provision for old age. Another “principle” they have jettisoned is that of aiming at a “shorter working life,” an earlier retirement age. Now 55 has been forgotten, 60 has already given place to 65 and it is by no means impossible that before long they will be wanting to make it 70.

Those who still have faith in the policy of reforms might also note that this new plan (and Labour’s plan) by having unequal pensions finally buries the principle of the Beveridge Report embodied in the present National Insurance scheme. Only ten years ago they were telling us how the Beveridge plan had abolished poverty and ushered in a new era. We risk the confident prophecy that it will be less than ten years ahead that the Labour Party or the Tory Party will be introducing another new era to win the votes of the workers for the continuance of the Capitalist system that exploits them.

The Passing Show: ’Ardies’ ’At (1958)

The Passing Show Column from the November 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

’Ardies’ ’At

At the Labour Party conference the executive only narrowly escaped defeat on a motion which advocated the integration of the public schools in the state system. This would mean the end of public schools as we know them, and the speakers who called for this won the applause of the conference. The executive finally succeeded in getting the motion rejected only because the majority of those old props of the platform, the union block votes, was behind them.

But what difference would it make to our society, which rests on the exploitation of the many by the few, if every public school was closed down tomorrow? Some Labourites seem to come near to believing in this connection that if we all dropped our H's and spoke with provincial accents we should have taken a stride forward towards Socialism. It reminds one of the people who, when asked why the Labour Party claims to be Socialist, recall that Keir Hardie turned up at the House of Commons in a cloth cap, and seem to think that it clinches the argument. But the important thing is not how you dress, but what you do; not how you speak, but what you say.



Miss Bacon’s Dislikes

Even the speakers from the platform had to join in the general denunciation. Alice Bacon, M.P., who replied to the debate for the executive, said, “we all detest and dislike the public schools.” If by “all” she meant all the people in the Labour Party, the statement is not true. Many leading Labourites not only went to public schools themselves, but send their children there as well. The reason is simple and obvious—they think that children get a better education at public schools than they do at state schools. The equipment and accommodation at the average public school is much better than it is at the average state school, teachers at public schools get more social prestige and higher pay, so teachers with the highest academic qualifications tend to go to them, and most important of all, a teacher at a state secondary or grammar school often has to take a class of thirty-five or forty, while his public school colleague can concentrate on a much smaller number. Naturally those Labour leaders who can afford it send their children to public schools.

Under new management
But the question goes much deeper than this. Even supposing that we had absolute equality of opportunity—which is impossible in a Capitalist society—even supposing that no member of the ruling class could give money or shares or a better education to his children, and that while the Smiths and Browns provided the Capitalists of this generation, the Joneses and the Robinsons provided the Capitalists of the next (again, impossible, but let it pass) even supposing all this, we should have exactly the same society that we have now. So long as we have a Capitalist society—part private and part state, like the Conservatives want, or a little-less-private and a little-more-state like the Labourites want—we will have the exploitation of the mass of people, the working class, by a small minority, the ruling class. To support Capitalism while demanding equality of opportunity is like supporting burglary, provided everyone has an equal chance to become a burglar. Equality of opportunity in our present society simply means that each generation of Capitalists would have different names from the last lot. But who in the world cares what they are called? To alter a familiar line, a sewer by any other name would smell as foul.


The Socialist Answer

Of course, there would be no public schools in a Socialist society. It would be impossible for one child to be huddled with forty others in a badly-ventilated room opposite a soap factory, with the teacher wondering how he can keep up the instalments, while another is in a class of ten or twelve, in an airy room in pleasant surroundings. In a Socialist society, the members of it would determine what education would best fit children for living, and the children would have equal opportunities to benefit by it. But those Labourites who call for the abolition of public schools in our present society are confusing, as they so often do. the effects with the cause.


The Methods of Colonel Grivas

There are some facts about Cyprus which seem to have been forgotten.

Colonel Grivas, who is the head of Eoka, has a long history of extreme right wing activity, and of willingness to resort to violence to achieve his ends. It would not strain an over-used word to call him a Fascist.

Grivas took the opportunity of the feeling aroused by the announcement by a member of the British Government in the House of Commons that Cyprus could “never” be given its independence to begin a campaign of terrorism in the island, which still continues. This campaign is directed not only against the British, but also against Grivas's political opponents among the Greeks, who make up more than eighty per cent, of the island's population. Grivas has killed more Greeks than he has Britons. This fact has been repeatedly stressed by the British authorities. Some of the Greeks have been killed by shooting, others by being beaten or hacked to death in circumstances of revolting brutality: both men and women have been murdered.

A Death in Famagusta

In early October a British woman, the wife of a soldier, was shot dead in the streets of Famagusta. At the time of writing it is not known who did it. Eoka have issued leaflets denying responsibly, and the authorities say that if it was an Eoka gunman, this is the first British woman killed by Eoka. However, it seems more likely to have been done by Eoka than by anyone else.

This was a most deplorable crime. The woman had five children, the youngest being still in arms. What happens to the children now? Inevitably the crime must have a terrible effect on them. There is a saying that if you educate a woman, you educate a family: and there is a grim sense in which it is true to say, if you kill a woman, you kill a family.

More Deaths in Famagusta

As soon as the crime was known, a body of British troops descended on the district of the town where the murder, as it happened, had taken place. Famagusta is not a large town, and in it numbers of Greeks have been killed by Eoka because Grivas did not like their politics. No doubt in this district there were many Greeks who have had friends or relatives shot or otherwise brutally done to death by Eoka.

The British troops cordoned off the district, and proceeded to arrest every young man they could find. Within hours a thirty-year-old Greek was dead from suffocation, having been thrust into an army lorry with many others who had the misfortune to live in the area; an eighteen-year-old Greek was also dead, in circumstances which have not yet been revealed; a British soldier had been accidentally shot dead by one of his own comrades; ambulances were running shuttle services carrying injured Greeks from the temporary compounds where they were being “questioned" by British troops; no less than two hundred and fifty Greeks had been treated for injuries (“only" sixteen had been retained in hospital, said an official spokesman—"only" is an interesting word to use in this connection); and a twelve-year-old girl, having seen the “questioning” in progress, ran away in terror and died of shock. Apart from this the material damage, such as car-windows and shop-windows smashed in, was considerable.

These figures of casualties are those given by British official sources: unofficial sources put the numbers of dead and injured higher. (At first even an official spokesman said five Greeks had died during the operations, according to The Observer. October 5th, 1958, but subsequently he admitted less.)

Revenge—on whom?

If the dead and wounded Greeks, down to the twelve-year-old girl, had all been proved members or supporters of Eoka, then the British ruling class could claim that their soldiers were taking revenge—assuming that revenge, rather than the usual claim of “justice,” is to be the British aim in Cyprus. But the victims of this military brutality were simply those Greeks who happened to live in the area—people who, the British authorities admit, are terrorised by Grivas and have suffered more in the way of Eoka killings than the British themselves.

Broken heads, but no violence

Sir Hugh Foot, the Governor of Cyprus, one of whose duties theoretically is to look after the welfare of the citizens under him, issued a statement after these events saying “Our first obligation is to stand against violence,” but made not even the most perfunctory expression of regret for the activities of the British troops. Presumably death and injury do not come within his definition of violence when the sufferers are only Greek Cypriots. The War Minister, Mr. Soames, has denied that the troops concerned were out of control; for which one can only conclude that the things they did were not objected to by their officers and commanders. Mr. Soames said that he was very satisfied with the conduct of our troops in Cyprus (Manchester Guardian, October 7th, 1958). According to a BBC broadcast, Mr. Duncan Sandys, the Defence Minister, claimed that he was proud of the way the British troops had behaved.

Pride—and prejudice

Couldn't you have said, Mr. Soames, that you would have been even more satisfied if the British troops had injured only two hundred, say, of the local inhabitants, instead of two hundred and fifty? Couldn't you have said, Mr. Sandys, that you would have been even more proud if the soldiers during these operations had caused the deaths of only three people, say, instead of four?

How satisfied, how proud, can you get?

Alwyn Edgar

Reflections on a Mirror (1958)

TV Review from the November 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Can there be any point or purpose in reviewing television in a Socialist journal? This one-eyed monster, instrument of abomination and ruin, heap bad electronic ju-ju—is there anything to be said for giving it notice and space?

Of course there is. The alternative, in fact, is to take no notice and pretend it doesn't exist: a hopeless pretence, since it exists now in the majority of people's lives. True, its place in our culture is still a suspect, parvenu one; but that is only because the grown-up generations still remember the world without it.

The same thing happened and the same things were said about the cinema, the radio and the novel. Indeed, the history of those and other art-forms suggests that the primitive pot-boilers of early years are the classics of later ones. The ’seventies may even see the U-boys queueing at the National Telly Theatre, Observers under arms, to drink in early Dragnets or vintage Spot the Tunes.

The television is here to stay, at least until the feelies arrive; and while it stays it is making its own contribution to disseminating knowledge, stylizing thought and formulating ideals. It is doing those and other things now, today, this moment—and that surely makes it worth observation. What better time to start than at the beginning of, as it were, a new season? For the winter programmes are upon us; the image in the home is, reputedly, at its brightest.

It would be nice initially to he able to comment on some late masterpiece, another 1984 or Look Back in Anger, as drawing attention to what T.V. can do. Alas, there has been none and nothing approaching one; certainly not the production of Arms and the Man, which showed only the datedness of this, as many another, Shaw piece.

The most interesting things at the moment, in fact, are two trends in the lesser televisual spheres. One is the increasing amount of petty-drama space given over to the cops. Currently there are no less than three weekly series about policemen; Dixon of Dock Green, Dial 999, and Murder Bag. Will this affect the crime wave? Well, a curious fact about the present young delinquent generation is that they were reared under an educational obsession that a policeman is a friend. If he is now to become a fireside figure as well, there is no knowing what may happen.

The other is the sad documentary significance of Six-Five Special. For some time now the cameramen have been breaking this programme’s continuum of rock and skiffle with shots of faces in the crowd (possibly as calculated relief from the star turns, most of whom would once have got the raspberry on amateur night at the Queen’s, Poplar).

This fragmentary portrait gallery is one of the most melancholy commentaries yet made upon our way of life. Any eighteenth- or nineteenth-century artist’s record of an audience or a crowd shows rich variety of expression and character; Six-Five exhibits a hundred identical adolescent pans with the same glaze on the eyes and the same round-the-clock movement with the chewing gum.

And to think, as one watches, that some people still fear Socialism would lead to everyone being alike.

Robert Barltrop

Advertising by Stealth (1958)

From the November 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Slight Subliminal
There is proverbially no sentiment in business, and obviously no conscience in advertising. There is, however, a curious ethic of "fair play” which picks on one way of victimizing people among a thousand and demands that it be stopped. Thus at the present time “subliminal” advertising seems likely to be banned as too mean a method of what in any case is achieved in plenty of other ways.

The “subliminal” technique is a visual one, devised for the cinema and TV. In Chamber’s Dictionary it means “beneath the threshold of consciousness"; it consists of flashing a word or a symbol so swiftly that the brain registers without awareness that the eye has seen. Its first test in a cinema in America involved the words “ice cream,” and according to the Sunday Pictorial, which sounded a furious alarm (“Home Office Must Act”) on its front page on October 5th: “Ice cream sales in the interval took a tremendous upward leap, and the customers did not know why.”

It was announced in the House of Commons earlier this year that advertisers are forbidden to use subliminal suggestion on television in this country. There is, however, the promise of an American horror film in which nasty symbols and words like “blood” and “death” are flashed. Calling this "rape of the mind,” the Pictorial reported that "screams of horror are almost doubled when the symbols are used” because "without realizing it, the sub-conscious mind of the audience is flooded with thoughts of death.”

That this is low and objectionable could not be contested: what, one wonders, will future social historians make of the twentieth century? The suggestions made about it, however, extend far beyond those simple considerations. Through the subliminal technique, it is said, ideas and fears may be planted in the mind by stealth—it means, in fact, the beginning of thought-control. “Advisers to the Pictorial” made the demand for a ban indisputable by saying: “This is the sort of terror that George Orwell visualized in his book '1984.’ This is Big Brother’.”

Orwell’s earnest, mistaken book: what a lot it has to answer for! And, curiously enough, it never succeeded in showing any such terror. For all Orwell’s efforts, its horror lies chiefly in physical brutality; its Thought Police are simply plug-uglies, its hero hectored into seeing two and two as five ultimately not by suggestion but in fact by pain, privation and fear. One wonders, again, what the future could show the past in obtaining conformity, acquiescence, and self-deception. The Roman Catholic Church held millions in subjection for centuries without a single subliminal symbol; the Kaiser’s picture in the papers roused fury equal to anything in Orwell’s “hate week.”

Subliminal suggestion is undesirable, but there is no evidence to date—discounting the somewhat naive “tests” described in the Pictorial—that it is anything more than a new way of advertising. True, it carries the stigma of unfairness, of invading the person’s mind while his back, so to speak, is turned. Is that any more unfair or any more undesirable, however, than browbeating him into submission, which is what much modern advertising does? It is hard to see the difference between slipping a name into the subconscious and imprinting it by nagging repetition: few of us today will not carry the news of the New Blue Whitener to our graves.

Advertising has for many years employed techniques of suggestion; if the subliminal is rape of the mind, then these may be said to have tried taking liberties with it. The implications, for example, of all the symbols of masculinity and female desirability: Twice the Man on Whatsaname. What Makes a Woman Magnetic, Handsome Men are Slightly Sunbronzed. Where all suggestion techniques founder is on their own basis of competition. Presumably it is not difficult to rouse anyone’s wishes for strength, security, health or charm: what no advertiser has discovered, however, is how to make conflicting and contradictory claims effective on the subconscious.

It is all very well to find that more people bought ice cream after a subliminal flash, but the same effect could have been produced by any of half a dozen others means (overheating the cinema, for example). The real test is not whether they can be persuaded to buy more ice cream, but whether it will mean anything at all when they are told to buy four brands simultaneously, each one in preference to the others.

Every person in our society must always be on his guard against attempts to regulate his thoughts: government. press, church, school and advertisement are at it all the time. The facile common picture—Orwell’s one—of twentieth-century man as having less and less autonomy of thought is, however, completely untrue. It is the opposite which is true. For all the black patches, all the prejudice and cruelty and acceptance of things which ought not to be, man today is far more knowledgeable than ever before. That is not man in the abstract, typified by a few; it means man everywhere, walking the streets and going to work and reading the paper and watching the television. Knowing more, he is more critical and altogether more sensible than he has ever been.

The only really effective means of subjecting people’s minds is ignorance. The Catholic Church has already been mentioned; there are innumerable other examples— kingship, war propaganda, every persecution in history, including that of the Jews. While on the one hand new techniques of mass communication are developed and put into the hands of the few against the many, every day man grows in knowledge and so in ability to think for himself. It is worth reverting to advertising for a moment to point out that after forty years of mass commercial advertising a great many people remain more or less immune to it, and the growth of ventures for “consumer research” suggests that knowledge is far more effective than symbols.

“1984” has not come yet; nor will it This is not the trouble with the modem world. Much of its technical development points the way to the kind of world that could be; as things are, it is the organization of society now and nothing else which stands in the way of man’s full development. For that only a little more knowledge is needed. The enemy is ignorance.

Robert Barltrop

Party News Briefs (1958)

Party News from the November 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Indoor Propaganda. A number of meetings have been arranged by Branches and the Propaganda Committee during the winter months, details of the November meetings are shown in this issue. The Sunday Films at Head Office are also listed and a number of interesting titles have been chosen.

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The Racial Riots. During the racial riots in West London, Fulham and Chelsea Branch issued a statement to the Press. The Branch said that it was opposed to all racial prejudice, and abhorred the rioting, it stated that the basic cause of prejudice was economic, mentioning the bad housing conditions, unemployment, in Britain and the West Indies, etc. The Branch also exposed the activities of the Mosleyites during the disturbances, and the fact that they have been fanning the flames of race hatred for some years—one of their slogans being “Keep Britain White"; an obvious attempt to split one section of the working-class from another, that only Socialism would finally irradicate all racial prejudice and hatred from the World. The statement concluded: “Workers of ALL lands, Unite for a better World! For a Socialist World!" The letter was printed in full in The Kensington Post; in “A Forum of Local Opinion,” The Kensington News and West London Times, together with the typical reformist statements by the Labour Party, the Communist Party, Tenants' Association and the Union Movement. The Westminster and Pimlico News and the West London Press (both owned by the same firm) gave some prominence to the statement printing it together with a statement by a representative of Union Movement, denying our contention that they had stirred up trouble in the area. Mr. Hamm said: "It is too silly for words," but admitted that the Union Movement had held outdoor meetings in the troubled areas. The Fulham Chronicle also published our statement, but in a slightly shortened form. The Fulham and Chelsea Branch Organiser estimates that over 100,000 people will have read our statement in the above mentioned newspapers. At the time of writing. The South London Press, The West London Observer, The Manchester Guardian and The Socialist Leader, have not seen fit to publish our Socialist viewpoint on the rioting.

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Bloomsbury Branch Discussions. “The Trade Union Movement” is the item for discussion on Thursday, November 6th, at 8.30 p.m., in the Branch Room at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square.

Phyllis Howard

Subject Normal (1958)

From the November 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Pan Books have recently republished E. S. Turner’s History of Courting in pocket form at 3s. 6d. Mr. Turner has achieved a considerable reputation for the writing of light, informative books on subjects that lend themselves to a humorous, somewhat ironical approach. This, first published in 1954, is his most recent one; earlier successes were Boys Will be Boys, a study of blood-and-thunder literature, The Shocking History of Advertising and Roads to Ruin.

The book succeeds in what appears to be the chief object in all Mr. Turner’s writing—it is highly entertaining. It contains many very funny quotations, the style is without any of the pomposity associated with many books on history, and the points are made very neatly. Many of Mr. Turner’s own comments are shrewd, and he has made a very good selection of other authors’ comments as well.

There is so much enjoyment to be got from reading this book that any criticism may appear unkind. However, the jokes being told and appreciated, some reflections on the real nature of the subject are not out of place; for though no subject gives rise to so much mirth, perhaps no subject is taken so seriously by so many people. Courting has played an increasingly important part in people’s lives from the 12th century onwards. Any analysis of courting should also be an analysis of the development of society. This is not to suggest that a history of courting should attempt to be a history of social development; but the background should be sketched in and be implicit in what is written.

Mr. Turner does not attempt a comprehensive survey, but this, of course, is not a criticism; what can be said is that the book does not make any important generalizations about the subject. Mr. Turner’s conclusions, where he arrives at any, are somewhat commonplace. There is a continual shifting of the survey in time and place in order to take in those countries and times providing the most entertaining material.

One important point seems to have escaped him completely. The history of courting is not simply the history of techniques whereby men have sought to gain wives and mistresses; it is also the history of woman’s subordination to man. The ideals prevailing in any society, about courting, are those of societies dominated by men. All societies, at least since the rise of civilization, have created certain standards in the methods of obtaining wives, and women are expected to conform to those standards. Further, there have always been different techniques among different sections of society. Courting among the lower classes is always simpler and cheaper than among their superiors. Mr. Turner has made the latter point but does not give it the importance it deserves.

The book does contain a wealth of information; particularly effective are the sections dealing with romantic love in mediaeval Europe. As Mr. Turner has pointed out, the poetry, songs, fantastic dresses and gaudy battles between rival suitors in twelfth-century Europe were attempts by knights and nobles to render life in castle and manor house more interesting. An important factor here perhaps was the tedious length of a northern winter, with poor lighting and meals made dull by lack of fresh food; there was nothing for a man to do on a dull day except make love, sing songs or listen to the ardent troubadours. Although the courting of the 12th century appears to us to be filled with hypocrisy and vain, useless elaboration, human experience in what is a very important activity was permanently enriched.

The rise of modem society led to a further development of the ideals of romantic love. Courting, in mediaeval Europe the pastime of bored nobles seeking interesting experiences in seducing other men’s wives, became under Capitalism the most usual method of obtaining a wife. The idea of marrying for love is the product of a society that proclaims loudly the freedom of the individual. From this individuality there grew also the idea that women were the equals of men. socially and economically, though this freeing of woman from man’s domination is still not complete even in the limited context of Capitalist freedom.

In the 20th century the breakdown of the prudish moral standards of the 19th, together with the increasing conviction of the importance of sex, has led to new freedom in courting habits. Alongside this has gone some decline in courting. Courting has frequently been limited by economic factors; people are usually limited to their own class and even their particular group in their choice of mates.

At the present time the nature of our society is tending to disintegrate social life, and thereby people's individual lives as well. Everyone watches his own TV, minds his own business, makes his own way in the world, drives his own car, has—or wants to have—his own little suburban castle. There is little getting-together: the modern slick pub and dance halls seem poor substitutes for the communal gatherings of earlier times. Parties today often degenerate into that most unsocial of activities, watching the television. Entertainment is secondhand, and much of modern courting technique seems secondhand, too. Courting is declining into something altogether more flippant, casual—and unrewarding.

Mr. Turner sheds light on these and many other points. It is a pity that he does not adopt a more serious approach; as it is, this book could perhaps best be described as a humorous anthology of facts, opinions and quotations. It hardly achieves the purpose professed in the introduction; "to trace the progress of courting in the western world from the day of the troubadour to the day of the crooner.” Perhaps, too, a little less quotation and a little more generalization would have made a more interesting book. Not to be ungrateful; Mr. Turner has provided a gold-mine of interesting and amusing stories.

F. R. Ivimey

News From Wales (1958)

From the November 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

The principality once again, after a lapse of years, has been given a Prince of its own, though the traditional investiture is yet to come. This recognition of Wales’ historic status has been welcomed by some, deplored— though in a genteel way—by others, especially the Nationalists. But on the whole the news has been met with an indifference by the majority. The fact is that Wales, despite a certain air of “glamour" that has enveloped it during the past months, is rather depressed.

Unemployment is high especially among the steel and tinplate workers of Glamorgan, due to the recent concentration of the industry into fewer factories where Automation, and other streamlined techniques, have resulted in the need for less personnel. Trade Unions and local Government bodies are now exerting as much pressure as they can to bring the Government along to the idea of building another, and the biggest ever, Strip Steel Mill, on a site in South Wales. No one, it seems, can see that even if they built a dozen mills, the evils of Capitalism would remain.

The situation in the agricultural areas is also far from bright. Attempts are to be made to “revitalise” the country-side and “stop the drift” by afforestation and other schemes.

Perhaps the biggest shock of all has been the recent exposure of the danger of radiation due to “fall-out.” It is said that Wales has the highest rate of “fall-out” in Britain; that the Strontium 90 content in the bones of Welsh children is higher than elsewhere in the British Isles. This, it is claimed, is due to a combination of high rainfall and high ground. Of course, here again no one has said that it is really due to Capitalism, and that it would be far easier to remove Capitalism than to level the mountain ranges or shift the direction of the prevailing winds. Speaking in such vein may seem ridiculously futile, but it is a fact that a serious suggestion has been made that Wales should be covered with LIME in order to offset the radiation effects! We presume this is an attempt by Capitalism to whitewash its activities!

We, for our part, can only continue to point out the remedy, in the meantime hoping that we won’t be recruited into a lime-spreading Brigade or spend the coming winter preparing the bleak Welsh mountains for pine forests.

As if it were not enough that the workers should be haunted by the fore-runners of things to come; as well as the difficulties of the moment, the scene is made ridiculously nauseating by a violent quarrel over religion, reminding one of the Religious Persecutions of the past (though in those times people did not have to contend with the added evils of Capitalism).

Recently, a young Swansea soldier died a hero’s death (according to some) in Morriston Hospital. He had been present at a bomb test on Christmas Island and was sent home with Blood Leukemia, brought about, says the British Legion and others, direct participation in the tests. This has created quite a stir. It seems that in future it will be a waste of time sending boys abroad for a radiation “dose.” It will be delivered in larger and larger doses every morning with the milk on our doorsteps.

The report as a whole makes gloomy reading we admit, but it is really difficult to brighten it up in any way unless we add the following:—

The National Eisteddfod was a thumping success; reams of poetry; days of singing: culture writ large across the face of Wales. The British Commonwealth Games held in Cardiff (now given the dignity of a Capital City) paid off well. Welsh footballers brought fame and glory to “Yr Hen Wlad ” (The Old Country) by virtue of their performance during the World Cup Series. The Welsh Nationalists have turned out another pamphlet and the miners have been offered a couple of bob more (if they agree to work on Saturdays).

We must add that in our estimation the overall picture as reported above is a grim one, especially exasperating to Socialists in Wales who are eager to end it all.

This, then, concludes our report from Wales—Land of Festivals and “ Fall-Out.” We are hoping that more of our fellow workers will decide to “fall in” in the near future—not to spread lime, but to spread Socialism, not to kick footballs, but to kick the system out of existence. We feel that the future will then enable us to create monuments of culture such as will dwarf those grim old sentinels—the Cambrian Hills. Wales, will, for the first time, be in the position to give a real welcome to the world’s visitors—with no charge made!

W. Brain

Aladdin Safes for Everyone (1958)

From the November 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

The press had an unusual story of a locked safe which was bought for 30s. and when opened, out tumbled a jewelled tiara, a collection of antique silver and plate, gems mounted in gold and other jewellery, very much like the contents of Aladdin’s cave. Many newspapers throughout the world spread the news and some published photographs of this unique find. The news obviously caught the imagination of the public and the lucky purchaser was seen on two television programmes, and the whole process was featured in a Gaumont-British film, and even broadcast over the French radio.

One newspaper, using a clue found in the safe, was able to locate an old retainer of the family which had once owned these jewels. He remembered the splendour of their regency home, the big parties they held and the magnificent silver laid for dinner. Also that the mistress would drive along the front at Brighton with her coachman in livery.

They had a large house in fashionable Bryanston Square, London, and would spend two months of the year there. She was a fine regal woman and when she visited the Theatre Royal she would be magnificently dressed with diamonds at her throat and a gleaming tiara.

This was clearly a ruling-class family and it might be both interesting and useful at this point to discuss why it is that jewellery and plate are so closely connected with the lives of these people.

Of what use are gems?

That class who live by the exploitation of working people, have, from historical times, been proud of their privileged position in society which they advertised by displaying the insignia of their wealth, the ownership of which sets them apart from the mere plebians.

Employing workers to wear livery is one method of display, for livery indicates that the wearer is unable to take part in industrial money-making employment, and this, in turn, indicates the wealth and therefore the reputable degree of the employer on whom is conferred blameless social standing.

Jewellery has also played its part for centuries as a distinguishing badge of the upper-class. Gratification derived from the use and contemplation of costly and supposedly beautiful products, is, in great measure, a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty. The fact that some precious metals and gems do have a measure of intrinsic beauty is incidental. Great as their sensuous beauty may be, their rarity and price adds an expression of distinction which they would never have if they were cheap. The chief purpose of valuable jewellery is to add distinction to the person of the wearer by comparison with those who cannot afford such things and have to do without. The marks of expensiveness come to be accepted as beautiful features of expensive jewellery.

And, incidentally, this display sets an example to those in lower stations of life and acts like a carrot before a donkey’s nose, goading him on to ever greater effort. This, in turn, rebounds to the benefit of those who own the means of profit-making and thus is completed the happy circle for those who own the means whereby we live.

Indianapolis Star, 12 Sep 1958, Friday

How mad can capitalism get ?

A little reflection will reveal the waste of human labour used in spreading the news of this find, which is of no real help or use to any of the readers. The national press employ large staffs of reporters, on duty day and night, to sift the items of news coming in, with the idea of blowing some of them up enough to hit the headlines, which have to be filled if the papers are to fulfil their main function of profit making. These individuals, though they are professional writers, fritter away most of their time, not on straightforward writing, but on the tricks of their trade, waiting all night outside the house of someone in the news, in order to get a little more information, usually of a senseless but highly personal nature, or, as in the Aladdin Safe story, taking infinite pains in trying to trace the family mentioned on the flyleaf of the bible found in the safe, just to get those people’s reactions to the news. Then there is the paper-pulp for the newspaper itself and its transport across the world and the vast army of photographers, engravers and printers, to say nothing of the fleets of motor-vans racing round the streets delivering the papers to those who have the job of selling them.

Following our particular item of news through, there is the waste of schooling and training of the lawyers engaged in sorting out the ownership of the find—whether it should be the old bedridden lady of 77 who should have the tiara and other jewels, or the man who found them, or the firm that sold the locked safe. The more we consider it, all the more glimpses we get of how mad and wasteful this Capitalist society is.

Why the story of Aladdin is so popular

The question also arises of why the story of Aladdin is so popular. Aladdin was a poor boy who found a cave of jewels and through these riches was able to care for his poor mother and who eventually married a beautiful princess. Any man who suffers from insecurity (and who doesn’t in a class-dominated society) can easily put himself in the position of Aladdin. Any woman can put herself into the position of Aladdin’s bride or mother. No wonder the story has become a hardy annual for the pantomime season. There does not seem to be any reason why the popularity of this story is likely to diminish, at any rate, not for the time being.

The tragedy behind the story

But behind the story of this modem Aladdin there should also be tragedy. While the great moguls of the press, cinema and television are prepared to devote plenty of publicity to an irrelevant story of a purely chance find, where no intelligence, forethought or imagination is involved, there is no space available, whether in the so-called Labour Press or elsewhere, for a sensible analysis of a society which enables an individual to come into possession of wealth produced by others in society. For such an analysis of the news would contain revolutionary implications.

But what should be the greatest news item in the world today gets no publicity, except in the columns of the Socialist Standard and companion papers. And that is that Socialism, a system of society where all wealth is owned and controlled in common, by eliminating war and insecurity, can confer on everyone even greater benefits than can be obtained from safes full of jewels.

Frank Offord

The Labour Party Conference (1958)

From the November 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Labourites went to Scarborough this year, but having arrived, they had nowhere else to go. Why should they? Apparently Labourites have not yet grasped the fact that after the 1945 term of office they had no claim to be considered in the eyes of the voters as an alternative government. In 1945 they went in on a wave of post-war enthusiasm. They put into effect what was for Capitalism a necessary reorganisation of certain sectors of British industry via nationalisation. They initiated the necessary policies for restoring the debilitated condition of the post-war economy and bringing the social services in line with the requirements of Capitalism.

What else was left in their political ragbag? Only dull odd remnants which did not show up so well with the more brightly coloured Tory jumble sale, and now to vary the metaphor the Labour Party’s only appeal to the voters: “Play the game, you chaps, you’ve put the other side in twice, let us have a turn at batting.”

Nationalisation, which was once the great plank of the Labour Party, is now a heap of sawdust and shavings which was quietly swept up. Even the 50 odd year Labour project, land nationalisation was rejected. Nationalisation, which once helped to float S.S. “Labour,” is now in danger of sinking it. Nationalisation rouses no enthusiasm among electors and is a source of disillusionment to the Labour rank and file.

The slogan of the Labour Party should be. “Divided we stand—United we fall,” for it is only when there are internal conflicts within the Labour Party is it at one with itself. It is only when it has a vociferously organised element demanding a more militant approach and offering vague threats about storming the citadels of privilege, which give the Labour Party the semblance if not the reality of being different from the Tories. It is only this which raises the pulse and tingles the blood of the hard core of the rank and file and makes them believe that the movement has not yet lost its ideals. Without this there is despondency and gloom and the Labour Party is divided against itself.

At Scarborough there was no Mr. Bevan riding cap- a-pie against Mr. Gaitskell. Instead, they sat on the same steed with Mr. Gaitskell in front holding the reins and Mr. Bevan behind, not even pulling the horse's tail. The Bevanites without their leader and shepherd would only utter a few piteous sheep-like bleats.

Mr. Driberg, the conference chairman, wanted a new public face—he called it an image—different from the public face of the Tories. But there was nothing at the conference which could lead anyone to any other view than that the parties were “ identical twins.” And even if the Labour Party went in for political plastic surgery or whitewashed their “public face,” it would still have the same old dirty Capitalist look.

On Education the Labourites were at one with the Tories. They want smaller classes and more teachers. So do the Tories. If and when they were returned to office Labourites said they would take steps to overcome the teacher famine. But they never concretised what these steps would be. The one thing it seemed was not mentioned in order to overcome the shortage was improved conditions and wages. Labourites want the “ best education,” it’s only the educators they want on the cheap.

They proposed to abolish the 11-plus, but were still going to keep the rat race of competitive scholarships going. They, like the Tories, are anxious to scoop off what they call the cream of working class children essential for the technical and commercial needs of Capitalism, their so-called educational proposals simply want to make the cream scooping more efficient and bigger.

The conference also voted against the abolition of Public schools. Many moons ago Labourites used to refer to them as seminaries of ruling class education. Now it seems they are of some value to the community. Perhaps if only for the reason that many prominent Labourites have gone there in the past and many more future Labour leaders might take advantage of them at the present. It may be that “On the playing fields of Eton the elections of England are won.”

The debate on the Hydrogen Bomb was not as explosive as the year before and as a result there was less political fall-out. That the Hydrogen Bomb would be an issue was fairly obvious because as there were no domestic issues which really divided them from the Tories, whatever differences there were had to be exploited in other fields.

As usual, there were those who opposed the manufacture of the Hydrogen Bomb and wanted this country to join up with other countries in a sort of non-nuclear club. Their motives like their thinking were confused. They don't want to abolish armaments, they merely want the time-honoured, decent and humane armaments, like tanks and bombers, liquid fire and atomic artillery.

Apparently none of the anti-H. B’ers. were prepared to cut all N.A.T.O. commitments. And so, in the event of this country going to war in alliance with the U.S.A., Hydrogen Bombs might still be dropped on “our behalf,” but at least we would not have made them. Surely this is a piece of moral perversion.

 

It was left to Mr. Gaitskell to say what we had ourselves said a year ago, that if America and Russia went it alone, no one could predict the outcome. And even if there was an attempt on the part of British Capitalism to isolate and get other countries to isolate themselves from military commitments with U.S.A. Capitalism, its effects might initiate an even more ruthless policy by American Capitalism, and in turn by Russia, and with it increased strain and tension. The notion that this country could escape a possible holocaust is a piece of dangerous and delusive thinking.

The left wing idealists might also ponder the fact that the abolition of the H.B., if it were possible, might well increase the probability of war.

And if some of the same well-meaning idealistic left-wingers were to take the ideas to their logical conclusion and opt for military isolation from America that, it is pretty certain, would lead to economic isolation, too, and its effects on British Capitalism would be quite disastrous. Such is the unreal world in which many of the would-be militants of the Labour Party live.

The Labour Conference agreed then by a big majority to go on manufacturing the Hydrogen Bomb. But with a broad sweeping humanitarian gesture it decided to suspend testing them. And in this way they sought to assuage their guilt

But at the very moment certain people raise their cry for the abolition of the H.B., other countries have decided to have a bash. France, Sweden, Switzerland and China have derided to take steps towards joining the nuclear as against the non-nuclear group. Soon it will be unfashionable for a country not to have an Hydrogen Bomb.

Perhaps the U.S.A will give a small Hydrogen Bomb to Israel as a token of friendly relations and Russia might do the same for Nasser, and Nasser with an Hydrogen Bomb can hardly be conducive to one's peace of mind. No doubt the Hydrogen Bomb chickens are coming home to roost with a vengeance, and there's nothing the Labour Party can do about it.

The Conference at the end went through their usual emotional purging by singing the Red Flag. Then the delegates went home, but why did they ever leave their homes in the first place?

Ted Wilmott

"The Defiant Ones" (1958)

Film Review from the November 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Defiant Ones (Directed by Stanley Kramer)

In 1948 Stanley Kramer formed his own film company with Carl Foreman. He produced a number of films that were, to quote “Sight and Sound"—“courageously off-beat.” In 1950, under agreement with Columbia, he produced more “off-beat” pictures, among them “Death of a Salesman.” The critics began to take notice. Eight years later, film-goers are catching up, and his latest film “The Defiant Ones,” which he produced and directed, has not yet received an adverse review.

Kramer has now become one of America’s leading producers with an eye to controversial subjects and new methods. Posters for “The Defiant Ones” carry a list of newspaper blurbs that would make Cecil B. De Mille envious. The film has in fact even been serialised in the Daily Express, so setting the seal on success. It seems that Kramer is now established after an erratic beginning. Audiences now know him and want for more.

“The Defiant Ones” is a story of two convicts, one a negro and the other white, who defy the written and unwritten laws of the land (The American South) by making for freedom and making for friendship. They are Joker Jackson (Tony Curtis), a brash white youth whose aggressive attitude results from being pushed around by rich men, and whose bigoted hostility to Noah Cullen, the negro, is a result of being brought up in America; and the negro (played by Sidney Poitier). an embittered, cynical man whose bitterness lies in the whole racial issue.

Chained together, they both escape from the state police after a road accident. Moving through rough country they are pursued' by a sheriff with state police and sworn-in deputies from surrounding farms. The convicts flee to the North, all the time with their antagonism graving. Though it is the general opinion that they won’t go five miles without killing each other, they manage to stay on the loose, narrowly avoiding a lynching party and ending up with a lovesick woman and her son. The woman takes a fancy to Jackson and suggests they both escape in her car to the big city. Her husband has left her and she is full of get-away-and-go-places dreams (which have no place for the negro). Finally, they all agree upon it, and Cullen makes his own way North, leaving Jackson with the woman and her son. Later. Jackson discovers that the woman has given the negro directions that will lead him into a treacherous swamp.

Negro and white are together again when Jackson realises the friendship that he has for his companion. They both travel towards the railroad and wait at a bridge to jump a freight to freedom. Cullen scrambles on to the train, but Jackson, who was shot by the woman’s son when he ran from their house, has no strength left, but grasp’s the negro’s hand (as in earlier shots of the two hands chained together) and tries to pull himself on. They end up by toppling down an embankment to be captured by the police.

The film is from beginning to end an allegory. A scratching upon the surface of the race problem that gets nowhere, but shows that both black and white workers are pushed around all their lives. In the dialogue, the two convicts are discussing their ideas of the world. The white is bitter about his old job as a garage attendant where he had to say “thank you" for a living. The negro talks of the land he once tended with his wife, dispelling Jackson’s ideas of “a farm of your own.” Cullen worked hard all day, but was still hungry. They argue and Jackson, slighted by this, makes believe that when they are free he will go into a large hotel, but throws at Cullen, “you will have to go in the back door,” with Cullen rejoinding, “while you go in the front door just low enough to collect your tip.” This sums up the situation that both black and white workers have to work all the time or starve. Race prejudice on the part of white workers towards black or Jewish or Chinese workers is but a reflection of their own insecurity and ignorance of Capitalism.

No film has been made that shows racialism for what it is, one of the group antagonisms of Capitalism, but “The Defiant Ones” is about as far as any film maker can get with the colour problem. It is, though, a film of great qualities. Kramer is a director of merit, with ideas and techniques that make this film, which could easily have been a flop, a success. The handling of the posse sequences, with police, hounds and rock 'n' roll from a portable radio accurately give the atmosphere of the lawful hunting the convicts, the dangers to society. The superficial aspects of race prejudice are expertly presented with feeling and understanding. The episode of the lovesick woman also indicates this.

“The Defiant Ones” contrives real tension and suspense in a record of a pathetic attempt by two men to escape from the law. and their success in defying the prejudice that they have always known. Their escape is summed up by a character who lets them free after they have been captured by a lynching mob. He watches them escape with the words. ‘‘Run chicken . . .  run! ” The racial issue is summed up by Cullen and Jackson just before they are captured. They both lay exhausted, and the negro sings a bitter blues that has run throughout the film at intervals. Gun in hand the sheriff of the posse approaches then puts it away when he sees the fugitives together nursing their wounds and thinking they have had a good run for their money. He stares quizzically and the negro spits out the final line of the song at him, smiling contemptuously.

Robert Jarvis

A Propaganda Tour In America (1958)

From the November 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

The writer was appointed by the E.C. as fraternal delegate of the Socialist Party of Great Britain to the World Socialist Party Conference, held in Boston on 30th and 31st August, 1958.

A propaganda tour of North America was arranged in conjunction with the World Socialist Party, the Socialist Party of Canada, and a number of sympathisers in Vancouver.

On arrival at Boston, on Friday, 29th August, a warm welcome was given, Comrades Rab and Gloss having stayed up all night to meet the plane. Saturday and Sunday was spent at the World Socialist Party Conference, and at one stage it did not seem likely that the writer would ever leave Boston, such was the hospitality shown. A meeting was held on Boston Common on Labour Day, Monday, 1st September, at which Comrade Gloss (Boston local), Comrade Miller (Detroit local), and the writer spoke. The meeting last three hours, and gave me my first experience of speaking to American audiences. This was the first meeting held on the Common for some years, and was attended by approximately 200 people. Over £2 of literature was sold.

On Tuesday, 2nd September, I left for Los Angeles, California, a distance of about 3,000 miles, and was met on arrival by Comrade Evans and his wife. Again, the same warm hospitality was shown me. The Los Angeles and district programme was a very full one. September 4th, Long Beach University by the sea, 192 present; September 5th, Monteray Park, discussion with Socialist Party of America (Reformist), 28 present; September 6th, return visit to Long Beach University by the sea, open-air Debate 190 present. Saturday evening, 6th September, guest on Tom Duggan's T.V. programme, Channel 13, 10.30 p.m. This was a 20-minute interview, which covered a wide range of subjects relating to Socialism. This was the first time a Socialist speaker appeared on television there. This television station caters for some two million viewers. Some of the questions referred to "Money under Socialism," "Is the American worker better off?", "Is Russia Socialist?", 'Has the S. P. G. B. any connection with the Communist Party?", "The object of the Socialist Party," "The international character of Socialism," and numerous other questions. Unsuccessful attempts were made to get a tape recording of the interview from the T.V. studio. Sunday, 7th September, 10 a.m., Santa Monica Forum, Lincoln Park, a meeting dealing with the failure of the British Labour Party. Sixty people attended this meeting, which terminated at 12.30 p.m. On the same day in the afternoon there was an an outdoor meeting in McArthur Park, Los Angeles; 200 present and approximately 30s. literature sold. This gave the writer his first baptism of American Communists, who interrupted in the beginning, but finally listened. The meeting lasted two hours, Comrade Fred Evans being the chairman. The stay in Los Angeles came to an end with a dinner, which was attended by a number of Comrades and their wives. After the dinner, tape recordings were played, conveying greeting from Comrades in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Scotland, England, and Canada.

On to Vancouver from Los Angeles, a distance of something like 1,200 miles, flying up the American Western seaboard. An hour's halt at San Francisco gave me the opportunity to telephone Comrade J. McDonald, for years one of the stalwarts of the Pacific Coast. Arriving at Vancouver via Seattle, seven Comrades provided a reception committee at the airport. Tuesday, 9th September, a radio broadcast was arranged at 5.30 p.m. on C.B.C Radio. This was an interview with Mr. Ian Errol in a programme entitled "On the Scene." The main points covered in the interview were the difference between the Socialist Party and Reformist organisations, like the C.C.F. of Canada, Social Democrats, Germany, British Labour Party, etc., and "Was Russia Socialist?" We were given a tape recording of this interview, and it was played to the recent Autumn Delegate Meeting. Wednesday 10th September, a meeting was held at the C.C.F. Hall, North Vancouver, on "The British Labour Party." About 40 people were present. The next day I was able to take a six-hour boat trip for a change and landed at Victoria, Vancouver Island. Comrades Luff, Broomfield, and other Comrades, real old-timers of the movement, met me at the pier. The same hospitable reception, and concern for my personal comfort was shown. Later in the evening a meeting was held in a local C.C.F. hall, 45 being present. A very good collection was taken up, and four members of the audience, including a Dutch seaman on a visit to Victoria, became yearly subscribers to the SOCIALIST STANDARD. I returned by boat to Vancouver on the Friday evening. Saturday, 13th September, an informal discussion was held at the home of two young Comrades. This was most interesting and some tape recordings were played. Three further subscriptions were received for the SOCIALIST STANDARD for two years. In the evening a meeting was held at the Moose Hall, Vancouver, at which 150 people attended. This was an outstanding meeting, and the energy and resource employed by those Comrades who organised it is well worthy of mention. Practically every parked car and cafe in Vancouver was adorned with the handbill advertising the meeting, usually without the consent of the owner. The title of the meeting, chosen by the Canadian Comrades, was "World Unrest—Why?" The meeting never flagged; it started prompt at 7.30 p.m. and finished at 10.50 p.m. It could have gone on until midnight. Comrade Ray McLeod was chairman. The S.P.G.B. Propaganda Committee are repeating this meeting at Denison House, Victoria, S.W., on Sunday 30th, at 7.30 p.m. The writer met many members of the old Socialist Party of Canada, one of whom had travelled 80 miles to attend the meeting, and reckoned it was worth it. Sunday, 14th September, concluding meeting in Vancouver, Stanley Park Forum; again, an outstanding meeting, subject "Socialist Theory and Practice." The hall was overcrowded, over  100 being there. The bulk of the meeting was taken up with discussion, and no less than eight opponents took the platform in opposition. After the meeting the writer had to catch a plane for Winnipeg, leaving Vancouver 11.30 p.m. A rush to the Airport, and a night flight over the Rockies, and the World's Breadbasket, arriving early morning at Winnipeg about 1,200 miles away.

Comrade Shepherd was there, and took me as a guest to his house. A little social was arranged that evening, and I was introduced to pretty well every Winnipeg member of the Socialist Party of Canada. Tuesday evening, September 16th, an address was given to the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council, 62 delegates were present, and we received quite a good write-up in the Winnipeg Free Press under the heading "Socialist Raps Labour." Next evening we held a meeting in the Market Square, and an average audience of 40 people listened. This was the first meeting held there for eight years. On Sunday afternoon, 21st September, a meeting was held at the Labour Temple, Winnipeg, on the subject "Problems of British Workers." Approximately 45 attended, Comrade J. Milne was chairman. A number of social gatherings were arranged for my benefit, and a tape recording of greetings was made at one of these socials. Comrade Love, who is over 80, starting the proceedings. The Socialist Party of Canada still discuss the impact which Comrade Gilmac's visit made last year, and how he redoubled their enthusiasm. The late Charlie Lestor, who spent many years in Canada, Moses Baritz, and Adolph Kohn, were all held in high regard. The tales and tribulations of these early pioneers were amusing and refreshing to listen to, as told by their contemporaries.

I left on Monday, the 22nd, early in the morning, for New York, via Toronto. Flew over the Great Lakes and Niagara Falls, arriving New York 4.30 p.m. Another dinner and social was provided by members: again, great hospitality.

Two meetings were arranged, one at Union Square, 14th Street (nicknamed Red Square during depression), and 85th Street. The latter meeting was not proceeded with, although police permission had been received. Instead, we held both meetings at Union Square, at which we distributed about 200 copies of the Western Socialist. Attendance was very good, ranging from 250 to 350. Outdoor speaking in America is pretty well the same as in England, except that the weather is more reliable. There is no special police difficulty unless you cause obstruction. After a tour of New York, including Harlem, Stock Exchange, I left for Boston on the 25th September, renewed old acquaintances, and a meeting was arranged for Friday, September 26th, at the W.S.P. headquarters, Nathaniel Hall, subject "Socialism and Atomic Extinction." About 40 people attended this meeting. A meeting arranged for Saturday afternoon, Boston Common, had to be abandoned because of rain. On Sunday afternoon, September 28th, a meeting was held on Boston Common, the last meeting of the tour, at which Comrade Gloss and myself were the speakers. There was an average audience of 200. Sunday night I said farewell to the American Comrades, and caught a plane back to Britain at 10.20 p.m.

In all, the tour covered 15,200 miles. Apart from the radio broadcast and television appearance, a total of 18 meetings and lectures were held.

It is not our normal practice in the Socialist movement to mention individual names, but the writer feels it would be less than human if we did not appreciate the efforts of Comrades Rab, Gloss, Morrison, and numerous others in Boston; Comrade Fred Evans in Los Angeles, Comrades Roddy McLeod, Eve Smith, Ahrens and Holtby in Vancouver, Comrades Luff, George Jenkins and others in Victoria, Comrades Milne, Shepherd, Jenkins and many others in Winnipeg; and Comrades Davies, Coombs, Kilgour, in New York, Without the organisation on this inter-Continental scale, the tour as such would not have been possible. It is gratifying to note that the Socialist movement is the only movement which has a common message between the Continents, and contains people who are actively organising and have the ability to organise such an ambitious project. That it was done once means it will be done again and again.

The writer hopes that he may be privileged again in future to renew his acquaintance with his Comrades on the American Continent. They are a grand bunch.

J. D'Arcy.