Memories of a Lovely War (1963)

From the November 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

In A few month's time we are going to be submerged in an orgiastic flood of journalism to mark the fiftieth anniversary of one of the formative experiences of modern history. Already, hardly a week goes by without some promise of the coming deluge of words. This, in itself, is an indication of the enormous effect which the First World War has had upon the world.

Without wishing to anticipate any of the articles which are going to pour out of Fleet Street we can see, looking back, that 1914 marked a stage in the growing up of modern war. It was a terrifyingly new, different war, which gathered the strands of the wars of the previous fifty years and plaited them into a rope which noosed in millions of people. It flattened and mangled beyond recognition an immense area of the Franco/German frontier. It terrorised civilian populations who, behind the firing lines, had previously thought themselves safe from danger. It subjected its combatants, in the liquid trenches of the Western Front, to agonies of fear and endurance such as they had never conceived of in their worst nightmares.

We can see evidence of the massive death roll of that war, in the poignantly long list of names on the memorials of the tiniest English villages. We can stand before these memorials and picture what life was like there before 1914. And we can imagine what life was like, after the war had purged the world of its dream that its forty-year-old tranquility was to go on forever. The First World War was, as we have said, one of the formative experiences of modern history. When its bloodshed and horror had stopped rolling backwards and forwards across Europe, those who had eyes to see knew that life could never be the same again.

And what did all this achieve? The soldiers of both sides were promised that they were suffering and sacrificing in a great enterprise to build a better, safer world. But the events which followed 1918 justified those people who, for one reason or another, had maintained that war was futile. 1914-18 solved no problems—it only lined up the world for the next great conflict, which in its turn created the problems over which another world war has so often threatened to break out. What war does, very effectively, is to debase and to brutalise human beings, to encourage the worst aspects of human behaviour, to turn the world into a charnel house in which worthwhile human values are battered down and overridden in the general glorification of violence, lies and prejudice.

These reflections have been provoked by one of the more fatuous of the ceremonies connected with the fiftieth anniversary of 1914. Last September, the Green Howards’ Old Comrades Association decided that this year their annual reunion should be something special. They were expecting to get about a hundred of their 1914-18 veterans along and for them, instead of a beer-up and a sing-song in the barracks gym, they wanted a little touch of authentic nostalgia. So they dug out a trench on a piece of waste land in Yorkshire. They lit a brazier fire there. They provided beer and sausages and they put up signs, just like those in the old trenches, which said “ Blighty 300 miles, Paris 79.” And in that trench, on a Saturday afternoon in late September, the old soldiers of the Green Howards remembered their experiences of fifty years ago.

They made a touching picture, although perhaps not in the way they intended. They all wore their best suits, one or two with watch chains. They drank their beer, of course, out of bottles—after all, this was the trenches. One of them sat on the parapet and, his leg cocked on the sandbags, played the old favourites on a mouth organ. They sang. Some of thorn even wore tin hats, to make it more like the real thing. They seemed to enjoy it, if a little self-consciously.

In its way, this was an interesting event. Those old soldiers cannot have forgotten what happened in the real trenches. They cannot have forgotten the mud, the shellfire, the fear and the sudden death. They cannot, either, have been amused by their memories. So why the clowning about? Perhaps their powers of endurance have been working overtime, perhaps that old human ability to make light of the most crushing burdens, to pass off a paralysing experience with a joke, was blanketing the events which are unpleasant to recall. Perhaps they were remembering only the feeling of comradeship, of being in a mess together and helping each other through it.

Or were they remembering their war as a job well done, and taking the credit for their part in it? Was their fun really so harmless?

They were, after all, members of an Old Comrades Association and the object of their exercise, as the military types like to put it, was to open a big campaign to recruit old solders of the Green Howards. To the working class at large this is probably unobjectionable enough—perhaps even laudable. Nobody summons up sympathy like an ex-serviceman who is in difficulties; apparently the working class swallowed all that wartime propaganda about a grateful country. That is why they look with such an indulgent, kindly eye upon the Old Comrades. But like most of the popular attitudes which do their bit to keep capitalist society in being, this one is based on a number of glaring fallacies.

Old Comrades’ Associations, it is true, do a certain amount to help their members who are in difficulties. An ex-serviceman whose body has been smashed up in a war will often turn to them in desperation for help in putting his case for a pension or some other equally paltry benefit. The fallacy behind this soft of charitable activity is that it is quite useless to support capitalism on one hand while trying to patch up its victims on the other. The Old Comrades’ Associations who weep over the hardships of old soldiers at the same time do their best to perpetuate the militaristic attitudes which are so essential to a country’s war effort. Is there not a contradiction here? To put it mildly, it is a little too late after a war to feel sorry for the pain and suffering and the wrecked lives which the war inevitably produces.

Patriotism is another of the Old Comrades' pet themes. See them in the parades, proudly wearing their medals, loyally saluting whoever happens to be representing the British ruling class at the march past. Yet patriotism is another enormous fallacy. Apart from the fact that nobody has any right to be proud of something — like nationality — over which he has no control, it is also true that patriotism denies the essential interests of the working class. It splits the British workers from those abroad and in other countries it works in the same way. It ignores the fact that all workers everywhere have the common interest of abolishing capitalism and all its wars and other conflicts. There is indeed little hope for human society as long as it is divided into disputing nations, whose ruling classes are sustained by the fallacious patriotism of their respective working people.

The Old Comrades are recruiting people for the wrong reasons and they are bringing them together to remember the wrong things. They are part, in fact, of the machinery of war and they do their bit in fostering the illusion that there is something clean and manly in being a soldier and exposing yourself to danger in the protection of your master's interests. (One of the Green Howards Old Comrades knows a lot about exposing himself to danger — he is the most decorated private soldier in the British Army). They are part of the Big Lie that war is glorious and useful.

But war is neither of these things. There is nothing glorious in quick, violent death nor in the reactions of the people who witness it. (Ask any old sweat of 1914-18 how the youngsters fresh into the trenches took their first bombardment.) Nor is there anything glorious in the unhappiness of those who suffer from the absence and the death of those they love. This is how Siegfried Sassoon, in his Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, saw it in 1916:

   . . .  at Waterloo Station I was visibly reminded that going back for the Push was rather rough on one’s relations, however incapable they might be of sharing the experience. There were two leave trains and I watched the people coming away after the first one had gone out. Some sauntered away with assumed unconcern; they chatted and smiled. Others hurried past me with a crucified look; I noticed a well-dressed woman biting her gloved fingers; her eyes stared fixedly; she was returning alone to a silent house on a tine Sunday afternoon.

There was nothing glorious about that woman; grief is one of the most distressing and therefore one of the ugliest of human emotions. And war is grief. Yet of all the tragedies of war, perhaps the greatest is that it need never happen. Although it is true that modern war is a product of capitalist society, it does not follow that war is unavoidable. War can only be carried on—and capitalism can only continue—as long as the working class support it. The people who fight and suffer in wartime—and in peacetime, in a different way—are the very people, the only people, who can do something about it. The supreme irony, the supreme tragedy, is that at present they choose to do nothing. They prefer to dress up in their medals, to look affectionately upon the ex-serviceman and to teach their children to serve their masters as they have done.

The future of human society rests with the world working class. If they want to, they can make a world of peace and happiness, in which men can live in freedom. This is more than a dream; it could so easily become reality. But at present even our dreams are dull, especially if we dream them from the bottom of a mock trench in Yorkshire on a chilly afternoon in late September.

Ivan

Business as usual (1963)

Editorial from the November 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the last few months, the Tory Party has been rent by internal squabbles and has staggered from one crisis to another, culminating in the Profumo affair. No longer the arrogantly confident party who won the 1959 election, it was perhaps inevitable that they (or at least some of them) would thrown some pretty hefty brickbats at Mr. Macmillan, and make strong demands for his resignation. Nevertheless, it did seem that he had weathered the immediate storm and would survive long enough at least to lead the Conservatives at the next general election.

His sudden illness on the eve of the Tory conference changed all that. Within a matter of hours it was know that his resignation was imminent, and almost as quickly the flimsy facade of unity was whipped away and the undignified scramble between the contenders for his position was there for all to see. According to most pressmen present, the conference was gripped with near-hysteria when it was known that the leadership was vacant. Four candidates were in the lists straight away—Butler, Hailsham, Home and Maudling—and touting for support began. Undignified indeed: as bad in that respect as the Labour Party ever was.

Now that the fight is over and Douglas Home has emerged as the Tories' new leader, we may expect frantic efforts to paper over the cracks and present a single face to the electorate, in much the same way that their Labour rivals have done since Wilson took over. When the next election comes it will at least be interesting to see which of them is the more successful in keeping the cracks covered.

And while comparing the two parties, it has been said that the Tory method of choosing a leader is less democratic than Labour's. Be that as it may the thing which matters to both organisations is that the new man will be a sure vote catcher at the next poll, one who can convince working class voters that his party can solve their problems for them. He is the one who will get the rank-and-file support, never mind for the time being the method of appointing him. Here it is that the new Tory leader will not differ very much from his predecessor. Like Macmillan he will tell us that his party will cure our social ills. And just like Macmillan they will fail to do so.

Does it really matter, then , who gas got the Conservative leadership laurel now? There was certainly plenty of furore and speculation both in and out of the Tory Party at the time, and we were constantly reminded of this man's qualities as against that man's faults. But we seem to remember that "bright boys" have held the reins in the past, and the ills of capitalism have still been there when they were gone. So we will answer our own question. No, it doesn't really matter very much. For the Capitalist Class it will be business as usual. For the Working class exploitation as usual.

Forced Labour Camps In Russia (1963)

Book Review from the November 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

So there were forced labour camps in Soviet Russia after all. Remember those days during Stalin's reign when this was hotly denied by the servile Communist parties, when even to suggest it was to get yourself called a liar, social fascist, reactionary imperialist, or whatever other term of abuse happened to be fashionable at the time? Well, that's all gone now that Alexander Solzhenitsyn has told his story.

His novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Gollancz, 18s.), describes the appalling conditions in one such camp, where the prisoners were made to toil over twelve hours a day outdoors despite the sub-zero temperatures of the Siberian winter, Their food rations were utterly inadequate, their clothing pitifully thin and ragged. It was indeed an achievement merely to survive from one day to the next.

This was one of many "special" camps, as they were known, set up by Stalin's Security Chief Beria (who was later executed when Khrushchev rose to power). It was organised for those serving from eight to twenty-five years under the notorious Article 58 of the old Criminal Code, but lucky was the man who served only the sentence originally imposed on him. For the authorities had a very convenient habit of adding another term quite arbitrarily, just as soon as the first one has expired. And then perhaps there was exile after that, if he was still alive.

There were many "crimes" for which he could be incarcerated. The hero—not really an inappropriate term—is sent for a ten year stretch on a trumped up charge of spying. Solzhenitsyn himself can speak with some authority here, because he spent eight years in a camp in Kazakhstan. His offence? Making remarks derogatory to Stalin.

This story first appeared in the Russian literary journal Novy Mir (New World) in November last year, and this in itself is significant of a trend in the Soviet Union since the death of Stalin. There has been a tendency to relax the iron fist somewhat, but although thousands of prisoners have been released and allowed to return home, it seems to be the first time that such writing has been allowed to be published. One might almost call it a tacit official admission of the existence of the labour camps.

But more than that, Khrushchev has striven to destroy the image of Stalin for ever, something he had to do if he was to consolidate his own power and gain support for the economic and political changes he knew must come. In the light of this, it was not surprising that Solzhenitsyn was allowed to publish his novel, although it was a sensation when it appeared and caused heated discussion and controversy throughout Russia.

Perhaps there will now be other such novels to push the lid a little further off the Soviet cauldron. Who knows, we may even get a glimpse of life in some of the camps which exist now in that unhappy country. Where else, we wonder, would the thousands of youngsters have gone after being torn from their homes and forcibly transported eastwards, following the 1956 Hungarian revolt? The Russian ruling class can be just as ruthless under Khrushchev, when their interests demand.

For the time being though, it is well to read this book and reflect on the horrors which capitalism is capable of inflicting on us. Solzhenitsyn is a promising writer who has a direct and simple, yet telling style, which even in the first few pages gives us a fair picture of the brutality and degradation of camp life. But perhaps the outstanding tragedy is that it has all been perpetrated in the name of Socialism so that, welcome though the truth now is, the job of the real Socialist is just as hard as ever.

E. T. C.

Marx and the Sunday Times (1963)

From the November 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some readers of the George Schwartz column in the Sunday Times of September 15th will have been surprised to see a headline “But Marx didn’t say so” and still more surprised at the opening paragraph:

“The process of enlightenment goes on apace, and at such a pace that one is apt to be bedazzled. I say this somewhat ruefully because an article in the current number of the Economica on “Marxian Value Reconsidered” almost persuades me to become a Marxian.”

Schwartz quoted extensively from the article in question to show, among other things, that Marx never believed capitalism would collapse through breakdown in a crisis; on the contrary, as Marx himself put it: “There are no permanent crises,” and that Marx did not accept a theory of general over-production.

“The trouble arises,” says Schwartz, in his paraphrase of Marx, “because the economy does not progress evenly. The very dynamism of capitalist enterprise brings about miscalculations and disproportionalities. The respective equilibriums of the various lines of production are constantly being disturbed and the conflict periodically leads to a crises which necessitates a transformation of the system.”

At this point Mr. Schwartz draws back from his passing feeling of affinity with Marx and offers to discuss amicably with the ghost of Karl the problem of seeking corrective action for capitalism’s maladjustments.

The article from which Schwartz quotes is by Thomas Sowell of Rutgers University USA, and in the August issue of Economica (London School of Economics, 10s) Sowell sets out to explain (with numerous quotations and references to sources) the meaning of Marx’s law of value and its place in the general framework of his analysis of capitalism, and to show how Marx’s approach to economics differed from that of other economists. Sowell also examines Marx’s views on crises and disposes of some common misconceptions-to the surprise of Mr. Schwartz. It may surprise both Sowell and Schwartz to know that recognition of the wrongness of the “collapse” theories is not new for the SPGB. In the 1932 crisis, for example, in a short pamphlet “Why capitalism will not collapse,” earlier crises were examined and the conclusion drawn:

. . . there is no simple way out of capitalism by leaving the system to collapse of its own accord. Until a sufficient number of workers are prepared to organize politically for the conscious purpose of ending capitalism, that system will stagger on indefinitely from one crisis to another.

At that time leaders of the ILP and the Communist Party were hysterically proclaiming the imminent collapse of capitalism.

Edgar Hardcastle