News in Review: China's Bomb (1964)

The News in Review column from the November 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Abroad

China's Bomb

Sir Alec Douglas-Home always stood up for an independent British nuclear armoury on the grounds that it gave the British capitalist class a place at the top negotiating table.

There may be something in this. The disputes of capitalism are finally settled by force, or by the threat of force—even when the amiable, wise-cracking Lord Home was Foreign Secretary. It is reasonable to suppose that the power with the biggest bomb will be the power with the biggest say in international affairs.

That is why the three first nuclear powers once hoped to keep the Bomb's secret to themselves, so that world capitalism was an orderly affair of just two big power blocs with Britain as a buffer between them.

This was a forlorn hope. Many other nations have been trying to develop their own bomb. The French were the first to succeed and now, in spite of a certain amount of hindrance from Russia, it seems that China has also arrived as a nuclear power.

The top table is getting rather crowded. 

The prospects are that it will get more crowded still. The Indian government, which always reserved the right to reconsider its original decision not to manufacture nuclear weapons, greeted the news that China had the Bomb with the announcement that India could also develop one if it wanted to.

All of this should please those who hold the theory of the deterrent, because the more nations that get the Bomb the more they can all frighten each other into peaceful intentions. Or is the opposite true?

In fact, wars are not caused by armaments, or by the lack of them. Capitalism is like a jungle, with any number of competing nations clawing and savaging each other in the ruthless struggle for advantage.

No humane considerations, no moral concepts, come into this. A government will coldly take the decision to manufacture a weapon which it knows is capable of literally atomising tens of millions of people in the blink of an eye. And having so decided, the members of the government will go home placidly, play with the dog, bath the baby and themselves sleep innocent sleep.

There is no sanity in this. To the requirements of property society, the human race is deliberately making the means of perhaps wiping itself out.

Capitalism marches on. It expands into places where it has not been before. It develops its productive abilities in fantastic leaps and bounds. At the same time it deprives, exploits, degrades and terrorises its people to an undreamt of intensity.

Politics

Immigration

Today the Communist Party is posing as the friend and champion of the interests of the immigrant worker. But, as with most other matters, it has not always taken up this position. Seventeen years ago, for instance, the Communist Party was engaged in an anti-Polish campaign. In 1947 the two Communist members of the House of Commons were continually asking questions about the Poles in Britain. Some of the comments then made by Willie Gallacher indicate the level to which the Communist Party was prepared to stoop. On February 4, 1947, the following exchange took place during question time:

Mr. Lennox Boyd: Is it not a fact that the vast majority of Poles are desperately seeking employment in this country?

Mr. Gallacher: Let them get employment in their own country. (Hansard, Vol. 432, Col. 1555.)

On July 29 again:

Vice-Admiral Taylor: Can the right hon. gentleman give us an assurance that none of them will be forcibly sent back, and can he tell us how many have refused to accept work?

Mr. Bellenger: I cannot give an assurance of that kind, but these Poles cannot remain on British benevolence indefinitely.

Mr. Gallacher: We do not want them. (Hansard, Vol. 441, Col. 251.)

In the same year the Communist Party published a book by their leader, Harry Pollit, under the title Looking Ahead. In here we read:

I ask you, does it make sense that we allow 500,000 of our best young people to put their names down for emigration abroad, when at the same time we employ Poles who ought to be back in their own country, and bring to work to Britain displaced persons who ought also to be sent back to their own countries? We want our own workers to have confidence in their own land, to take a pride in building it up. (p. 72.)

Who was it said, “the working men have no country? ”

Business

Dahlia affair

Could there be anything less offensive than a dedicated dahlia grower?

Just listen to his endless talk of ray and disk florets. Look at those sensitive, earthy hands caressing the prize blooms. A very perfect gentle chap, it seems.

Yet behind that placid exterior lurks a desire to undermine the basis of society. What happened when dahlia growers in the Midlands organised a cheap air trip to the United States?

Why, they invited other dahlia fans to go as well and if that is not subversive, antisocial and plain criminal, what is?

Fortunately, virtue triumphed. The Midland Dahlia Society booked their flight with B.O.A.C. but they broke the rules of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) when they advertised it as open to non-members. Virtue was a spy employed by rival airline Alitalia, who reported the matter to the IATA and so got the trip called off.

But virtue was not unreservedly rewarded. The Alitalia man—their Manchester manager—came back from holiday to a doormat load of poison pen letters, which shows how much people hate a wrecker of dahlia growers' outings.

Nobody seems to have got upset with the real culprit. The IATA does not only lay down rules about economy fares. It also governs all other aspects of flying freight and passengers all over the world, and the charges which are made for this.

In other words, it is an international organisation which tries to regulate the markets in air traffic. Quite often this means that the IATA restricts traffic, as it has in the Dahlia Society affair.

Such carve-ups are quite common under capitalism; they exist in all manner of enterprises and their object is to safeguard the profitability of those enterprises. This—the profit motive which underlies all capitalism's operations—is where the disappointed dahlia growers should vent their frustration.

And so should all those poison pen writers, who perhaps see something particularly mean and degrading in useful men wasting their time spying upon other useful men wasting their time thinking up ways of avoiding commercial restrictions.

At Home

The Sun

The International Publishing Corporation—the Daily Mirror group to most people—are noted for their mastery of the technique of ballyhoo. At one time, no newspaper had its finger so sensitively upon the pulse of public ignorance as did the Mirror—and none exploited that ignorance so cynically nor so remuneratively.

But recently there have been new scents in the wind. Is the Mirror losing its grip, as the IPC gets larger? The group's latest paper—the Sun—is trying, among other things, to prove that the finger is still unerringly there, still knows how fast or how slow beats the reader’s pulse.

“The only newspaper,” claimed the Sun, “born of the age we live in.” Self consciously, the paper detailed the type of person it is confident of attracting. The New Young Men with the Hardy Ames suit, with the open plan bungalow on the new estate, the foot on the second or even the third rung of the ladder. The people with a conscience—and, naturally, with the big buying power.

All of this splurge was really aimed at potential advertisers, to persuade them that space booked in the Sun would pay off. It is the advertising revenue, and not the circulation figures, which now decide whether a paper lives or dies.

The Daily Herald, when International put it to sleep, had a daily sale of well over a million copies, but couldn’t attract enough advertising to pay its way. In contrast, the colour supplement of the Sunday Times, which is virtually given away, is a money-spinner—and is therefore being widely imitated—because it attracts some rich advertising.

What this adds up to is that in the newspaper world it is only the really Big’uns who now stand a chance. This may mean that the Sun, backed by IPC’s massive resources and under the practised and ruthless control of Hugh Cudlipp, may eventually survive.

Which would merely add another mouthpiece of capitalist propaganda to the rest. And if the Sun lives up to its promise to be a “radical” paper, a paper with a “conscience,” a particularly unctuous and nauseating mouthpiece it will be. “The only newspaper born of the age we live in.” Ugh.

50 Years Ago: The Purpose and Method of Colonisation. (1964)

The 

50 Years Ago column from the November 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

If one thing emerges more strikingly than another from the history of the efforts by which the capitalistically backward countries have been and are being brought into the range of modern civilisation, it is the fact that the fundamental condition of such enterprises is the expropriation of the mass of the people from the land and their conversion into wage workers. The much-vaunted “education of the savage races” is really only a high-sounding phrase used by some to hide this awkward fact of expropriation. We only need again refer to the obstinate resistance which the “aggressive advance” (the term is in itself significant) of “civilisation” meets everywhere on the part of the aboriginal populations, and to the difficulty of obtaining a sufficient supply of workers, to illustrate this fact. Deprivation of free access to the means of subsistence is, in fact, the only way to convert free men into wage slaves.

The lesson is obvious and should not be lost upon the modern working class, who labour under the delusion that they still have “a stake in the country.” It is that “civilisation” pre-supposes the completed expropriation of the mass of the people from the land and the means of wealth production.

But it is by no means necessary to go to the Colonies to discover the basis of “our civilisation.” Does not the fact stare one constantly in the face that the people have been deprived of their heritage? What other explanation is there for the “terrible social difficulties” and stupid anomalies surrounding us? What other cause is there of this awful and degrading poverty in the midst of plenty? What else could turn every technical progress into a calamity? What other factor could turn every labour saving device into a means of increasing the unemployment and poverty of the many? Is it, or is it not, the fact that the few (the capitalist class) have confiscated the land and the instruments of wealth production, and that they allow these things to be used only when it suits their interests—their pockets?

Thus we see that the policy of colonisation that is being carried out before our eyes and has been described in these columns— the robbery of the land from the native and the destruction of his own means of living —is nothing more or less than the policy which has successfully reduced us—“the heirs of civilisation to a class of wage- slaves labouring our whole lives in poverty in order that others may enjoy lives of riotous luxury.

The white labourer, like the black, is forced to toil for capitalist profit by force or fraud, and it is more than ever clearly true that the working class of all countries are the wage-slaves of a class that makes its country synonymous solely with its profit. This all-important fact the workers must end by seeing clearly, and then they will stand surely together as one man on the freedom of humanity, by the overthrow of this worldwide capitalist class. This must be so, for economic development fights for us and, to use again the well-worn but fundamentally true words of Marx, the workers have nothing to lose but their chains, while they have a world to win.

From the Socialist Standard, November, 1914.

After the Election (1964)

From the November 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

A favourite story of the First World War concerns two high born young officers in the thick of a desperate battle. All around them the shells scream and roar, the soldiers claw their way through the lethal mud. One of the officers turns to the other: "I say, Fanshawe, won't you be awfully glad when this horrid war is over and we can get back to some proper soldiering?"

Now that the election battle has subsided, now that the politicians's roars have been stilled, now that the smokescreens of promises have cleared, a certain fact can be discerned. All the while, capitalism has been waiting for the nonsense to stop. Now it can get back to some proper soldiering.

What does that mean? Even while the battle was raging, calm voices could be heard indicating that capitalism would be largely unaffected by the result. Here, for example, is the City Editor of the Evening Standard, writing on September 24th about the similarities of both Labour and Conservative policy on the capital gains tax:

It now seems certain that a new Capital gains tax will be introduced next year—whoever wins the Election. . . .

The Stock Exchange, the Institute of Directors, and the top brass of the Labour Party have all said that they want changes. . . . 

From what 1 hear . . . a re-elected Tory Government would tackle the subject pretty soon.

Other voices could also be heard, some of them not so calm. Mr. Khrushchev forgot that elections are times when everybody should be studying how good capitalist society is for us, and announced that Russia had a "monstrous new terrible weapon” which could destroy humanity. Of course, the Russian Ex Premier said afterwards that he had not meant that, that he had never said it and even if he had he had been misreported. Everyone had misunderstood him. Russia has only a "terrible weapon”—non nuclear.

The shock waves from this announcement duly arrived at Washington, where the military have for some time been worried about the offensive potential of bomb carrying space-satellites. President Johnson felt it part of his duty as President—and perhaps part of his election campaign—to claim that the United States has new defensive installations, in place, operational and on the alert, which could destroy hostile satellites. These installations—if they exist—are there because the other side has developed the means of penetrating the old defences. Presumably, the latest defence installations will cause the other side to work out new, more penetrative, more powerful weapons. This is a two-way process—the Americans are also working on missiles to get through the latest Russian defences. This all goes under the name of the policy of the deterrent and it is supposed to make us happy and secure.

It is reasonable to suppose that the up-bidding by Johnson and Khrushchev in the game of international nuclear poker did not influence many voters in the British election. How many voters were appalled at the fact that capitalist society spends so much of its time and talents on trying to blow itself up? How many asked themselves why the richest nations in the world are so anxious to have the world’s most fearsome weapons?

The answer to that question is easy enough to come by. Consider this example, so normal to capitalism that it passed almost unnoticed.

Not very long ago, nobody bothered very much about the North Sea. You could sail across it, fly over it, you could fish in it. And then a funny thing happened. The Dutch discovered a rich field of natural gas, which is now thought to be the second largest of its kind in the world, and capable of supplying Europe's needs for many years. It did not take a lot of elaborate detective work to connect this discovery with the small British oilfields in the Midlands and to surmise' that oil and gas bearing rocks might stretch right under the North Sea.

Then everyone became interested in ending the arrangement which allowed the North Sea to be a free area. Ah international conference parcelled out the seabed between the interested powers. By this solemnly legal method the British government stoic 100,000 square miles of seabed and they shared this out, in the shape of licences to drill for oil and gas, to firms like Shell, Esso, British Petroleum and the Gas Council. All the capitalist parties were agreed that this was a fit and proper way of settling the affair:

Mr. Erroll said the Bill under which the licences were issued had been thoroughly discussed in the House of Commons this year and nobody had suggested matters should be handled differently. (The Guardian, 18/9/64.)

It is obvious that there will be some changes, now, in the North Sea. A rich supply of oil or gas, or both, will be especially interesting to British industry, which at present is so precariously dependent upon oil from abroad. But there could be other effects, equally interesting. The British interest in the oilfields of the Middle East has been responsible for many clashes of arms there. The Suez invasion, the refusal to get out of Cyprus, were only two recent examples of this. In the same way, the French hung on in Algeria, and prolonged the bloodshed there, because of the discovery of oil and gas in the Sahara.

It is obvious that British capitalism would be equally determined to protect its investments in the North Sea. At the moment the area is all allocated. But what if some other capitalist group, which was not in on the original carve-up, decides that it also needs to get hold of some of the North Sea resources?

This is not a fanciful question. At the end of the last century the expanding capitalism of Germany was faced with a similar situation. They had arrived too late to get their share of the colonial and commercial loot from the ruthless scramble of a little earlier. They tried to catch up by diplomatic and trading bargains. They tried threats and military adventures. But the end was inevitable and we saw what it was in 1914 and 1939.

If the same sort of dispute arises over the North Sea, the capitalist powers will probably try to bargain it out of existence. They may even succeed, for a time. But in the end, if the conferences fail, the good old final solution of a head on, armed clash will follow. No holds will be barred and the side with the biggest bangers will win.

And that, to return to our original point, is why the Russian ruling class have their monstrous weapons, why the Americans have theirs and why both sides—indeed all sides—are in the arms race. Capitalism is a world divided by conflicting economic interests, which are asserted by the armed forces of the rival nations. These forces must always be ready, must always have the most up-to-date weapons—even if this means that they have the means of destroying the human race.

This is all quite normal to capitalism. It goes on during elections, and when the dust of battle has cleared it is still there. Proper soldiering, in fact.

On the home front it is the same story. Both Labour and Conservative parties were clear that a major preoccupation of the next government would be their “incomes policy"—more accurately known as their method of controlling wages. "Labour," said The Guardian, "would demand from the unions cooperation in an incomes policy.” The Tory manifesto put it: "an effective and fair incomes policy is crucial to the achievement of sustained growth without inflation."

What this means is that the struggle between the employers and the workers, over wages and working conditions, will continue. The working class will continue to depend upon their wages for their life. They will continue trying to improve those wages and conditions and the government will continue trying to hold the improvements in some sort of check.

The working class freely voted for capitalism in the election and in doing that they freely voted for the system which compels them to struggle and which so often reduces any temporary advantage they may gain.

These sombre facts do not prevent the politicians promising that some day, in some mysterious way, things are going to get better. The politicians’ airy promise is an established part of proper soldiering. Some have been foolish enough to have passed into political history, to stand as monumental warnings against verbal extravagance. (One old time Labour minister was so famous for the generosity of his promises that be was called “the greatest blatherer alive.”)

Consider these two statements:

. . . the long, dark night is over and . . . a better day is dawning for Great Britain and the world. The wonderful recovery of trade and finance in the last seven years is the most marvellous miracle in the history of the world.

And the other:

It is a time for action, for decision, for exciting changes It is a time for opportunity, opportunity for all our people, all our children, to break through man-made barriers of privilege and snobbery, and be free to give their talents and energies in service to their country.

The authors of those two statements were Phillip Snowden, in 1926, and Harold Wilson in 1964 (neither of whom were ever called "the greatest blatherer alive"). There is no reason to reveal who said which, because both statements are equally meaningless. The point is that the blathering of capitalism is an enduring as the system itself.

Proper soldiering. Massively destructive machines, the deadly rivalry between opposing capitalist blocs, poverty and strife, all covered by an enormous blanket of politicians’ nonsense. The working class may vote for all of this, although they are the people who suffer most acutely under it. But a few of us will have no part of the soldiering. We have our eyes and thoughts on the better world and you will not find us on parade in the morning.

Ivan.

Sheharazad's thousand and second tale or would you let your daughter marry a green hair? (1964)

A Short Story from the November 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Know then, oh glorious king! that in days of yore and in times and tides long since gone there existed a strange and wonderful land known as Vespucci. The inhabitants of that country, as was universally the case even in those days, were divided into rich and poor, but this fact was not that which made Vespucci a strange and wonderful land. There was a different sort of division among the people that cut across economic status and which, confusing as it may seem to us, was the cause of much more confusion than it is easy for us to imagine. For the Vespuccians were also divided according to the colour of their hair.

Not that they had as many divisions as there are colours! No! There were but two general divisions—those with green hair (the minority) and all the others regardless of colour and combination of colour. A Vespuccian might have but a faint tint of green in his hair against a background of any other colour or combination of colours, but the green tinge officially stamped him as a Green Hair. He might have no green hair visible whatsoever yet he was classified as a Green Hair if both or either of his parents were officially Green Hairs. Only if he chose to hide the fact that there were Green Hairs in his background could he pass as a Normal Hair when, of course, the green in his hair was not visible. There were a few of the Green Hairs who disappeared from the census each year but by and large the divisions were constant.

Vespucci was also divided geographically into Upper Vespucci and Lower Vespucci and although there was a common law for all citizens which was inscribed in a book and interpreted, from time to time, by a group of nine old Cadis in the capital city—a town named Dryington— the separate sections of the country also had sectional laws pertaining to Green Hairs, written laws in Lower Vespucci, unwritten laws in Upper Vespucci. In Upper Vespucci the Green Hairs were, for the most part, segregated in housing and schools in a de facto manner while in Lower Vespucci the segregation was maintained as a matter of law. And this arrangement lasted for many generations with segregation carried out fairly generally and even in the armed forces and the prisons.

But certain developments began to take place in the economic life of the nation, developments which caused a great stir throughout the length and breadth of Vespucci. On the one hand a growing number of Green Hairs began to earn more money than had been the case hitherto and, at the same time, to get more education. On the other hand the larger manufacturers and merchants of the land found it expedient to expand into the more backward areas where more underprivileged Green Hairs were to be found and these big moneyed interests felt that a greater degree of stability among the working population (Green Hairs and Normal Hairs alike) was in order.

The wealthy Vespuccians, like the rich of our own times, were altruistic and never had other than the general welfare at heart. And so the group of top-ranking Cadis decreed in their wisdom that the arrangement that had, up until now, been legal was no longer legal and that all Vespuccians regardless of the colour of their hair were equal under the law, the only inequality , henceforth, to be that which is natural and normal and fitting—the inequality caused by the possession or non-possession of money in large quantities.

There was no great rush, however, to obey the new law on the part of the Lower Vespuccians and several years passed with no more than a token breakdown in the segregation pattern and even this in a restricted area of the Lower section. So great discontent became generated among the Green Hairs of Lower Vespucci while, in the other part of the nation, their fellow Green Hairs decided that de facto segregation would also have to go. They felt that their children were getting an unequal education and they resented the social inequality which was their lot despite there being no written laws on the matter in their area. And so they, too, began to demonstrate and to demand rights.

As of now, Your Highness, the affair should not seem to be too confusing. The Green Hairs were discriminated against in every manner and they were organizing to do something about it with the help, let me add hastily, of a number of Normal Hairs. They demonstrated in the streets, they picketed places of employment, they argued with school boards and with politicians, they boycotted stores, and many of them were subjected to various degrees of brutality by the forces of law and order. All of this is understandable. The Green Hairs wanted “Freedom” and they shouted to the rooftops that they wanted it now. But despite the fact that everything seems to have been quite in order, a certain confusion begins to develop in the story and seems to hinge around the meaning of the word Freedom, and also of the word Equality.

The Green Hairs were by no means united in their fight for Civil Rights. There were a number of organizations which represented them and which ran, in attitudes, all the way from conservative advocates of passive resistance—meek and humble followers of Christianity in its meek and humble forms, down through the more militant sects of that Infidel Religion, and even to the followers of the one, true, faith, the Muslims (Green Hair Muslims). And even the chosen of Allah were to become divided on the basis of militancy and action between the followers of the old leader, Mustapha Prophet, and the adherents of a younger and more fiery leader, Roderick Zee. But despite the divisions and differing attitudes there seemed to be one thing in common among the organizations of the Green Hairs and that was their universal agreement in a “practical” interpretation of the meaning of the terms Freedom and Equality. And this will best be explained by recounting the following adventure of a colour-blind Vespuccian who spent much time among the Green Hairs.

Our hero, who we will call Ali McKhan, chanced one day to step into the office of the largest of the Civil Rights groups, the National Brotherhood for the Aid of Green Hairs. He felt impelled to have a look at some of the literature of this organization and he entered into conversation with an official named Emmanuel Prince. “ Right at this moment,” he was told, “ Our main concern is in breaking down discrimination in housing. We are attempting to compel landlords in all neighbourhoods to rent to Green Hairs, and real-estate brokers to sell to them regardless of how snooty the neighbourhood.”—“ Very interesting,” remarked McKhan, “but tell me something. I know a lot of Green Hairs in the Ghetto and I'm certain that most of those I know can't afford to pay the rents in the better neighbourhoods and certainly don't have enough money saved for a down payment on a house in the swank sections. What about them? ”

Prince waved a deprecating hand, “ We can't be concerned with those people. The trouble with a lot of my fellow Green Hairs is that they just don't have the initiative to better themselves. Let them stay where they are.”

“ But,” argued McKhan, “ It is my understanding that there are some new and wonderful machines on the scene today that make it possible to produce an abundance of food, and clothing, and houses, and everything else. Don't you think it would be better if your organization tried to get all Vespuccians, regardless of colour, to see that it is now easy to produce enough for everybody and that something should be done to change the present basis of production for sale — change it to a system where everybody can have free access to their needs? Don't you think that nobody would pay any attention to colour of hair under such conditions? That all Vespuccians would become colour blind? ”

“My dear fellow,” snapped Prince, “ You arc obviously some sort of Red. What we want is freedom and equality. The freedom to rise on the economic ladder and an equal chance with Normal Hairs to compete for his freedom. How can you have freedom if you do away with poverty? And we don't want everyone to become colour-blind. We’re proud of our colour. We are a rich mixture of great ancestors and we have a glorious history. Furthermore, we are loyal Vespuccians and we demand nothing more than our rights under the Constitution of our glorious nation.”

So McKhan sadly bowed his way out and went down the street in the direction of the Green Hairs Freedom Now Society. “They’re a militant bunch, not like that other gang of phonies,” he muttered. But on the way he suddenly noticed a bright sign with a star and crescent over the doorway of a building. He straightened his shoulders and pounded fist in palm. “ The devil with the rest of them. This is the real McKhoy, the headquarters of Roderick Zee, the New Muslim Leader. (The name was formerly Zed, but the new arrangement called for a revolutionary change.) This bunch will really understand what freedom and equality mean.” And he went in.

Fortunately for McKhan, Roderick Zee had overcome the old dislike of being friendly with Normal Hairs and he found the young Green Hair Muslim to be not only enthusiastic but affable. “ \Yes, my friend. What we Green Hairs need in order to attain freedom is a country of our own. We demand that the Vespuccian Government give us an area where we can set up our own government and produce and distribute for ourselves. We want Separation, and we want it now, even if we have to organize rifle clubs among the Green Hairs "

McKhan was dubious about the separation bit and even more dubious about the rifle clubs. “Seems to me," he interposed, “ that it will take more than rifles to offset the weapons of the Vespuccian Government. And what's this business about separation into your own country? I like the idea of producing and distributing for yourselves, but why restrict this to Green Hairs? Don't you think it is possible to produce enough for everybody, regardless of colour of hair, to have all they want if we stop holding back the machinery and produce for use?  Of course, we would have to abolish private property universally, though, and not just for Green Hairs"

Roderick Zee's eyes bulged in horror. “ Get rid of private property? ” he screamed. “ What in the devil are you talking about? ” Didn’t you hear me say we want Freedom Now? How can we have freedom if we don’t have the freedom to own private property and hire other people to work for us - Green Hairs, of course. We don’t want any Normal Hairs in our factories.”

“But,” argued McKhan, “why would anybody want to work for you if they were producing for themselves? I thought people worked for other people just because they have to in order to eat, because they don’t own the means for producing things. And you say they—all of the Green Hairs—will own their own factories and workshops and still most of them will go to work for some of them? Its all quite confusing.” He was still mumbling as he was led out the door.

And so you see. Oh Illustrious King, that the Vespuccians, regardless of the colour of their hair and regardless of the animosities between the Green Hairs and the Normal Hairs, did have a common belief in the meaning of freedom and equality. They understood that unless one could rise above his fellows, climb over the bodies that form the broad base on the bottom of the economic pyramid toward the narrow apex at the top, there can be no freedom. This was the basis of Vespuccian Ethics and Vespuccian Religion and Vespuccian Morality and Vespuccian Law, and it was written in a big book in the capital city of Dryington and interpreted, from time to time, by nine old Cadis.

H. Morrison.

Nationalism and Communism by Hugh Seton-Watson (1964)

Book Review from the November 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nationalism and Communism, by Hugh Seton-Watson, Methuen, 36s. 

One of the minor effects of the many years of political tension between the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union, that has become known as the Cold War, is a widespread ignorance of those European countries that are within the Russian bloc. Occupied by Russian troops at the end of the second world war, and kept in military and economic subjection ever since, they tend to be dismissed as of no importance.

People with extensive knowledge of West European or American politics and their economic problems, know nothing of the affairs of Eastern Europe. Only when, as in 1956 in Hungary, the scene erupts into violence, do they receive much attention. Yet a hundred million people live here in an area of nearly half a million square miles. We buy food and manufactured articles, gramophone records and books from them in ever increasing numbers, but most of us have a very scanty knowledge of the countries themselves.

Nationalism and Communism is a collection of essays written between 1946 and 1963, and first published in a wide variety of newspapers and periodicals. It contains interesting and detailed reports from the Eastern European States, of the ruthless and cynical methods used by the Communist parties of those countries to gain and hold power.

The book contains also an excellent potted history of the rise of Nationalism. The conceptions of “nation” and “race” that have played so large, and so destructive, a part in recent history, are modern.

The idea of the “nation” was largely unknown before the 18th century, and it first became a major political issue in the French Revolution. As late as 1815 Metternich and Alexander 1 of Russia regarded nationalism as a subversive idea. It was in the 19th century that nationalistic theories spread throughout the world. Not only the major powers, but economic groups seeking independence from domination by a greater power, began to build up theories about their origins to prove that they were a race apart.

Les Dale

Political Parties by Maurice Duverger (1964)

Book Review from the November 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Political Parties, by Maurice Duverger. (University Paperbacks, 16s.)

During the past few weeks we have had every opportunity to watch modern political parties in action. We have witnessed these parties using every possible method, both ancient and modern, to draw the voters to the polling booth, and to flatter, cajole or panic them into putting their crosses against the right names.

The performances of the two main parties in the last election were worth examining. They knew that scares must not be overdone and no drum must be banged for too long, less the public get bored. Because if they get bored they might not turn out to vote, and however stupid or ill-informed the voters may be, it is their vote that decides the election. The ultimate power rests in the hands of the mass of the people, the working class, and it is the tragedy of the age that they use this power—not to end their bondage, but to perpetuate it.

It is to secure the votes of the electorate, and to ensure that the power, both national and local, stays in the hands of the party caucus, that modern parties exist.

Although many of the present day parties, such as the Liberal and Conservative parties in Britain, have a long history and still retain their old names, they have changed so much in their organisation as to be really different bodies. The twentieth century party system is modern, and has little in common with the parties of the 18th and 19th centuries.

The parties that existed before universal suffrage were mere Parliamentary groupings with the object of getting a working majority in Parliament, to enable a group to operate as a government. They had little real existence outside of Parliament.

With the coming of the 19th century and a wider but still limited franchise the so-called “middle class” parties came into being. These were based on groups or caucuses, composed of influential or well-known people. Narrowly recruited and with a rather exclusive membership, they did not want the masses to join and made no effort to recruit them. Each party was very decentralised, with their local groups largely independent of the others. Often these groups centred round the leading family in an area.

Those who remember the late 1940’s will recall the frantic and, as it turned out, successful efforts of the Conservative Party to shed the last remnants of the 19th century, and to transform themselves into a modern party. Modern parties, with their mass membership, their constant drives for new members, and their high degree of centralisation, are products of a world in which the masses can no longer be ignored.

Political Parties, by Maurice Duverger, recently published as a paper back, is a very useful text-book. A trifle heavy going, it is nevertheless well worth reading. It deals with Political Parties throughout the world, and describes in detail the Parties and electoral systems of all the more highly developed countries, including totalitarian, one-party states.

Les Dale.

In the midst of plenty (1964)

From the November 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the People recently there appeared an article written by Michael Gabbert under the heading “30,000,000 Americans Go Hungry.” In heavy type were references to “Children often are sent out to work on the land";  “In poverty-ridden tenements life is one long struggle against rats"; “ And eight out of ten of the hungry ones are white.”

We are told that one-sixth of America’s population live below the minimum acceptable standards of health, housing, food and education. According to official figures thirty million men, women and children are living in poverty and squalor in America’s slums, migratory labour camps, depressed areas or Indian “reservations.”

In his new study, researcher Ben H. Bagdikian examines poverty at the level on which the poor see it themselves. He uses individual cases—individual cries for help—to illustrate the great American paradox of poverty amidst plenty: a paradox in which the poor, though without electricity, scrabble for junk-heap refrigerators so that they may use them to keep food safe from marauding rats . . . in which every major city from the East coast to the West coast has its own “Skid-row” of human derelicts . . . in which automation has brought untold misery to once proud workers.

Thus Bagdikjan destroys a couple of beliefs comfortably held by the well-off.

It has been assumed by many that the poor are mainly negroes and half-castes; in fact, 78 out of every 100 are whites. It has also been assumed that most of the American poor are in the agricultural South, when, in fact, 57 out of every 100 live in the more industrialised North. The writer continues by saying: “The answer to poverty is jobs, and in America six men out of every 100 are jobless.” Even that is not a true picture, men in work live in poverty.

The effect of poverty is seen in the schools. At one Chicago elementary school 1,000 students enrol every autumn and most of them leave before the following June because their parents have been evicted, have left the district to seek work elsewhere, or have given up and returned in desperation to the land.

So illiteracy goes on. The parents prefer—or are forced—to put their children to labour on the land in order to eke out a miserable existence. One recent survey showed that nearly half a million children between the ages of ten and fifteen worked on the land. It also showed that in 20 out of every 100 accidents on the farm it was children who suffered injuries. The desperate march away from the land is reproduced in most of the major cities—New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland' and Washington. In the last decade a vast migration of 27 million men, women and children have left the land; many of them to find equal poverty in the towns.

J. E. Roe

The Passing Show: Day to Day Struggle—Matches Front. (1964)

The Passing Show Column from the November 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Day to Day Struggle—Matches Front.

Under this heading we featured a news snippet in the August, 1949 Standard. Willie Gallacher, then Communist M.P. for East Fife, was asking the Chancellor of the Exchequer not to allow a halfpenny increase in the cost of a box of matches. He suggested “some other way of assisting the manufacturers to meet the cost of production ” (a subsidy perhaps?).

That was not very long after the end of the war and we wonder what he would be saying about that today, because the Russian and other Eastern bloc countries are now exporting matches to this country in quite huge quantities. According to The Guardian of September 14, a large proportion of the extra 28,800,000 boxes arriving from abroad last year came from Russia, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. And that's not all, for these matches are being sold to the trade at prices lower than the cost price of their British counterparts.

Would Mr. Gallacher be so concerned about the British Match industry now that the Soviet countries are beginning to compete so effectively? If British match Corporation Chairman, Lord Portal, were to announce a price increase now, our “ Communist ” friends would probably oppose it and demand bigger imports of the Eastern European brands to keep prices down. They are not, you see, opposed to trade competition as such, but only when it jeopardises Russian capitalist interests.

In 1964 Russian goods are being pushed onto the world’s markets and while the quantities are still comparatively small in some cases, it is a sign of the times. The Soviets are trying to find outlets for timber and oil. A few years ago, Russian watches were barely known in England whereas today they compete with British and Swiss watches and can be seen in practically any jeweller’s shop window.

Just how successful the Russians will be in the future is anybody’s guess, but we may be sure that they will keep on trying wherever they see the chance. We have always maintained that Soviet Russia is a capitalist power and it is news like this that adds just a little extra tit-bit to the impressive weight of evidence supporting our view. Like any capitalist country, she must sooner or later start looking to outside markets and do battle with the other giants. This will doubtless be welcomed by the slavish C.P. membership, but we can see it only as an addition to the sum total of already fierce competition and the conflicts which are the breeding ground of war.

New Robbers for Old.

Since the end of the last war, many of the old colonies have won independence, and amidst the cheers and celebrations, we have been the only ones to point out that one set of masters has merely been replaced by another, and that for workers it was certainly not a time for cheering. Time is once again proving the soundness of our claim. India, Ghana, and Indonesia, to name only three, have their ruling class well in the saddle, and striking workers are discovering that a crack on the head from a native policeman’s truncheon is just as unpleasant as one from his white predecessor.

And when the new capitalists take over, they follow the usual course of building up their industries, attracting the necessary capital and getting their workers trained to produce the all-important surplus value. In some cases, they cast greedy eyes in the direction of assets owned by foreign capitalists, particularly where a well developed industry is involved; then they move in and take over "in the name of the people.” This has happened, for instance, in Indonesia, and much of the squabbling in the Congo has centred round the mineral exploitation rights held formerly by Belgian capitalists.

The latest example to make news has been Zambia—or Northern Rhodesia as it was known until October 24th. There has been an almighty row over the mineral rights of the British South Africa Company (BSA). Apparently these are worth about £7 millions a year at present and with the approach of independence, the N. Rhodesian Government lost no time in challenging the treaties under which the rights are guaranteed. They have got together an impressive band of lawyers and economists to prove that many of the sixty years old concessions by the tribal chiefs to Cecil Rhodes’ company are “illegal.” In the words of the N. Rhodesian Government’s white paper of September 21st:—

There are certainly areas of Northern Rhodesia . . . where the authority of the Paramount Chief of Barotseland, on which the mineral rights in the western part of the territory are based, never ran. . . . They include the Nkana and Nchanga mines, representing not far short of half the copper production of the territory.

The British Government has tried to safeguard the interests of this company, among others, by putting a protective clause into the independence agreement, but at the time of writing it looks as if this is something that Kaunda’s boys will not wear. If they do not get agreement in London they promise to take the necessary political measures at home after the new state has been established.

Now it is undeniable that the British South Africa Company have made huge profits out of this area, from which is produced about fourteen per cent. of the world’s annual copper output. Since 1889 they have received £135 millions, and stand to get another £154 millions before the royalty agreement expires in 1986. Compare this with the £10 per year “enjoyed” by most African families in the rural areas. No wonder BSA are so anxious to hold on to what they have. No wonder, too, that other British mining and commercial interests are worried.. They fear antagonism and perhaps expropriation if the matter is not settled quickly.

But having said all this, we are back once again to our opening remarks. Whoever wins this battle, it will make precious little difference to those £10 a year families, or to any other Zambian worker. For them, it will still mean exploitation as usual. For their masters, business as usual—perhaps the profits will go into new pockets, that’s all.

New Club Member.

China is about to join the nuclear club. By the time you read this, she may well have exploded her first atom bomb. To the man in the street this does not make very happy reading, for no one in his right mind can view other than with horror the fact that yet another threat to his life is looming on the horizon. The press and politicians have not unexpectedly tried to play down the whole business. “Western experts believe the bomb will be a primitive affair,” says Peter Fairley in the Evening Standard of September 30. “Nobody expects the Chinese A-device to be a viable military threat for at least four years.”

Well perhaps you can get a crumb of comfort from the thought that you will have at least four years before you are atomised by a Chinese bomb—that’s if somebody else doesn’t start something beforehand. And, of course, it takes no account of the dangers of fall-out from the Chinese tests occurring in the meantime. It is interesting to note, incidentally, one of the ways in which the Chinese preparations were discovered—American Camera carrying Samos satellites were orbited over China, so those of you who thought that satellites were a “peaceful" project will have to think again.

When the test ban treaty was signed, we were not very popular for saying then that it would make no essential difference and that the threat of war was in no way lessened. While Pat Arrowsmith and other misguided CND’ers were welcoming it with sighs of relief, China was quietly developing her own bomb. Fast on the heels of France, she is the fifth capitalist power to do so. Who will be next? Perhaps Western Germany will have a go. Some of her politicians have been in favour of it for some time.

Just like the other nuclear powers, China will lose no time in wielding her bomb as a diplomatic weapon. Maybe we shall hear renewed demands from Peking for her government’s recognition and a seat at the United Nations. And this time the UJS. will have to think twice before refusing. Almost certainly the parleys of the future will include Mao's men and the conference tables will be that much bigger. So will the squabbles.

Some of the facts are now known about the exploding of the first U.S.A. Bomb at Hiroshima, of the cold-blooded calculations which went into its production, of the chicanery and double dealing between the so-called allies, and of the alleged deliberate prolongation of .the war to enable it to be used against the Japanese. Perhaps some day we will learn something also of the intrigues which have undoubtedly taken place since then, as one power after another has got its own bomb and intensified the frightful prospect of obliteration.

The futility and tragic waste of it all are glaringly obvious despite the hollow hypocrisy of capitalist statesmen. This is all that capitalism can offer us in the world where the potential for human welfare is immense.

Eddie Critchfield

What's happening in East Germany (1964)

From the November 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

The information contained in this article is taken from the Democratic German Report (DGR) which is published and printed in East Germany. Its general theme is anti Bonn Government, but in most issues there is an article on some aspect of life in East Germany. Recent articles have dealt with Agriculture, Gambling, Women, Religion and Education.

If East Germany were a Socialist Society as claimed one would expect the economic and social conditions in East Germany to differ from those in Britain. However, a perusal of the articles in the DGR show that the aims of their society, the problems and the suggested solutions are the same as in Britain.

I. Agriculture (Quotes from D.G.R., Vol. XIII No. 6. 20/3/64.)
Having split the land into small units after the war to hand to the peasants they are now .

  “having a big drive to get all farmers , to join co-operatives” and “the final aim is to transform them into enterprises run like industrial enterprises; ”
  “the choice of specialisation will depend on the region, the type of soil or grazing land, and on the traditional farming carried out in a particular part of the country."

Further,

   “Labour productivity must be vastly increased through rationalisation and mechanisation of farm work.”
    “Investments will have to be channelled into the most important projects.”

Note that this is the pattern of agricultural development in the “Western World.” Farmers in the U.K. and U.S.A. specialise; they attempt to raise the productivity of labour (i.e., raise the value of the output of the labourer proportionately more than any percentage increase in wages); they are mechanising and enlarging their holdings.

Why do they do this? Capitalism has only one God—profit, and the aim in farming, as in any other enterprise, is to increase the opportunities for maximising profit. It is no different in East Germany. Commenting on the larger cooperatives the D.G.R. states they

  “now had their own machinery and were trying out new farming methods on their larger fields; their bigger herds of livestock were better housed, could be looked after with proportionately less labour power and were more profitable.” (Our italics.)

In this “desirable Socialist” society there is a “steady drain of young people away from the land and into better paid, more comfortable jobs in industry.”

Who paid them so badly in farming? The state farms? The Cooperative Farmers? Or the 50 per cent. of farmers who are not in cooperatives? In the U.K. we all witness the drain away from the land. In the USA the farm population is falling by nearly a million people every year, It seems that in East Germany, the UK and the USA, workers have the same need—“better paid, more comfortable jobs,” and these are not to be found easily on the land.

The subsidisation of farming in the UK has long been a cause of argument between the reformist political parties. Not for, or against, but how much and in what manner. The Presidential Election in the USA was in part fought over the farm programmes of the major political parties, and as in the past subsidies will be one of the central themes. But in East Germany, of course; “Walter Ulbricht, Chairman of the German Democratic Republic State Council gave some examples of how subsidising would work in the future”;

It is well said that one can know a leopard by its spots. The spots of East German farming—Profit, lowly paid labour, productivity not production, subsidies—place it fair and square with its capitalist counterparts in the U.K. and the U.S.A.

II. Gambling. (Quotes from D.G.R., Vol. XIII, No. 9 1/5/64.)

The article in the D.G.R. was in response to a letter from a Miss M.B. of Birmingham, who asked: “Are there any football pools, betting or gambling in the German Democratic Republic(G.D.R.)?"

The following quotes state briefly the situation;

   “There is quite a lot of betting and gambling in the D.G.R., but no overall figures are available on the sums spent on these pastimes. You can lose your money on the horses at two race courses near Berlin, but the most popular forms of betting are football pools, similar to those in Britain, and various forms of “Lotto” in which you pick your numbers which you hope may come up in a weekly draw. In addition, there is the old fashioned lottery in which you just buy a ticket and hope for the best.”
  “All these various forms of taking a chance are nationally owned or municipally owned and nobody makes a fortune out of betting with the exception of a very few winners who may get pay outs ranging up to about 500,000 marks (about £45,000).”
   “What happens to the winnings? They are not subject to income or/and property tax so long as they remain in the bank and are not re-invested, and they accumulate the usual 3 per cent, interest paid on bank savings."
   “Some (winners) say they must go home and think. . . .”
  “Others say they want to buy a car or a house first. Most winners take out the odd thousands and deposit larger sums. Older people sometimes decide to settle sums on their children or open savings accounts for their grandchildren, and many give quite large sums to various good causes, including the Society for the Protection of Animals.”
 “People very seldom seem to give up their jobs on the spur of the moment and go on the spree, although some cases have come to light. . . .”

These quotes (emphasis ours) are of interest. Much of them could apply with equal validity to Britain.

It is evident that despite the claim that gambling is a “pastime,” many gamblers in East Germany, as in Britain, “hope for the best.” Why? Because “they want to buy a car or a house,” “settle sums on their children,” “go on the spree.” As in Britain they seek release from the struggle within society, the need to seek “better paid, more comfortable jobs". Gambling is widespread in East Germany for the same reason as it is in Britain—it may be a short cut to greater social and economic security.

Note that in Britain also, winnings are not subject to income or property tax, and here the only tax free investment that you can make is the first £15 in the Post Office Savings Bank, where the interest is 2½ per cent., not 3 per cent. as in East Germany.

The most significant thing, however, is that some people in East Germany own more property than others, and there are ways in which this property can be passed on to their heirs. Property owners can invest, and not only in savings accounts. The interest on these investments can be met only out of the unpaid labour time of the workers. Workers are exploited in East Germany just as in Britain, or if we believe their propaganda that all their citizens are workers, some are obviously more “worker” than others!

Gambling occurs in East Germany because workers there, as in Britain, are looking for something more in life, and have the desire to change their social and economic situation. They can do the same thing with their winnings as here, including investing them and thereby exploiting the working class and perhaps sopping their consciences by making a donation to a “good cause.”

Only Socialism will change this. In a Socialist society people will be engaged in useful, fruitful pursuits. The property basis of capitalist society will be gone. There will be no need to gamble, nor will be so monotonous that it will require something like gambling to give it a kick.

The "spots" of East German society look even more like those in Britain. There is only one reason—it suffers from the same disease—capitalism!

Ken Knight

Political Organisation (1964)

From the November 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why must the working class organise as a political party to achieve Socialism? The answer to this question is to be found in an examination of the nature and role of the modem State.

At present the capitalist class control society through their possession of political power, through their control of the machinery of government. They did not construct this machine for this purpose, as the anarchist claim; the machinery of government evolved along with the evolution of society as a whole. It is one of the facts of social life that the government machine is the centre of social control. The working class must base its policy on a recognition of this. If the working class is to become the master of society—which it must do in order to change it—then it too must recognise itself as a class, and organise itself politically. This political party must be Socialist expressing workers’ recognition that their emancipation can only be achieved by the expropriation of the capitalist class and the establishment of Socialism.

Given the need for a Socialist political party, on what lines should it be organised? A movement which aims at the establishment of a social democracy in which human instead of commercial values can flourish cannot employ means which are in conflict with this end. It must to a certain extent reflect the new society it aims to create. This means that it must be organised on democratic lines. Its membership, even when it is only a small group, must have complete control over policy; all its officials must be responsible to the membership; there must be complete freedom of discussion within the party; there must be no division into leaders and led; there must be no secret meetings from which any section of the membership is excluded. But not only must the party be democratic, it must also be open in its methods.

It must hold no meetings from which members of the working class are excluded. A Socialist political party can have nothing to hide from the working class. No gain can ever accrue to a Socialist party from seeking and getting support by subterfuges. Nor can it gain from using political dishonesty or terrorism. Such tactics would fail in their object. It's not a question of the end justifying the means. The end just cannot be reached by such means. Workers cannot be tricked or coerced into booming conscious of their position as a subject class. They can only come to such an understanding through their collective experiences as a class.

The Socialist political party will not appear ready-made. Like other social phenomena, it will grow out of social conditions. This raises the whole question of the role of a Socialist party in the class struggle. At present there are two obstacles which stand in the way of achieving Socialism: the political ignorance of the working class and the control of the machinery of government by the capitalist class. To overcome these obstacles Socialist understanding must come first. For this reason the main activity of a Socialist party in its early days must be propaganda. It must seek to dispel the political ignorance of the working class.

This does not mean that the relation between the party and the working class is to be that of teacher and pupil. Socialist understanding is not something that can be constructed out of nowhere; it must grow out of social conditions. Such understanding—or class consciousness—will not arise purely as a result of the propaganda of the Socialist party. Ideas only grip the masses when they are relevant to social conditions. There are any number of cranks around with utopian schemes for social reconstruction. What distinguishes Socialists from them is that Socialism is in the material interest of the working class. Socialists have social evolution on their side. The cranks have not—that’s why they’re cranks.

Education is not just a question of learning from books and pamphlets; that is just one aspect of learning from experience. The class experiences of the working class under capitalism will teach it that Socialism is the answer to its problems. The party can help this development of Socialist understanding by storing up and propagating the past experiences of the working class so that these are easily accessible. The principles of the Socialist party will be based on these experiences and will serve as a guide to social issues, being used to expose useless remedies. To carry out this task its members must necessarily have a fairly high degree of political knowledge, know their opponents’ case and be able to expose the flaws in their arguments. In its educational phase, precisely because it is such a phase, a higher degree of political understanding must be required of the members of the party than the working class need have to establish Socialism. As Socialist understanding spreads the number and importance of its opponents, and hence also of the need of a knowledge of their arguments, may well decline.

Once Socialist understanding grows to any appreciable extent, political conditions will completely change. Socialism will become a political issue. The comparative trivialities of present-day politics will be cast aside. The issue will be Capitalism or Socialism. With the changed conditions will come a change in the role of the party. It will become the political organisation of the working class which they can use to capture political power.

It is decidedly not the function of a Socialist party to lead the working class either in the struggle to live under capitalism or in the struggle for Socialism. The working class cannot be led to Socialism; it must emancipate itself. A Socialist working class will require no leadership; all it requires is organisation to put its aim into effect.

The day-to-day struggle of the working class, the economic phase of the class struggle, goes on in the place of work. To carry out this struggle is the task of the trade unions. In so far as they carry out this task they are class weapons. The task of bargaining with the employers is not one for which a Socialist party is at all suited. Of course, the members of a Socialist party, precisely because they are class conscious workers, will be active trade unionists, desirous of getting the highest possible price for their labour power.

Some workers are today organised in various political parties, in this country mostly in the Labour Party, but to a smaller extent also in the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party, the so-called Communist Party and the various Nationalist parties. But they are not organised as a class, they are not organised for Socialism. Those who make a political principle of joining and trying to lead the trade unions frequently also make a principle of joining such pro-capitalist workers' organisations as the Labour Parties. But here they overlook the essential difference between the political and the economic organisations the working class need. Trade unions are class organisations when they are used correctly in the economic phase of the class struggle. They cease to be such when, for instance, they back productivity drives or finance politicians and political parties. In no sense are Labour Parties class parties, working class parties. They can correctly be said to be organisations serving the interests of the capitalist class since they are an expression of the fact that the working class are still imbued with capitalist prejudices. As it is one of the functions of a Socialist party to dispel such prejudices its members cannot work within such parties which only stand in the way of Socialist understanding and organisation.

These Labour parties frequently struggle for reforms within capitalism. A Socialist party struggles to end capitalism. It is no part of the role of a Socialist party to campaign for reforms. To do so is to invite degeneration into a pro-capitalist party by attracting politically ignorant workers who are only interested in reforms. When the Socialist political party is small a reform programme is futile, indeed farcical. When it becomes large enough to have some effect it doesn’t need such a programme anyway. For when the Socialist party is the working class organised politically for Socialism the capitalist class will no doubt be only too eager to offer concessions in a bid to ward off their expropriation.

To sum up, the movement for Socialism must be open and democratic. At present its role is largely restricted to propaganda, but in the future it will be the working class organised consciously and politically for Socialism. It will be the instrument they will use to capture political power. The Socialist Party of Great Britain offers itself for this task.

Adam Buick

Cyprus Report (1964)

From the November 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is now almost a year since Cyprus’ Black Christmas erupted into the headlines. Since then, frequent murders and incidents of vandalism have kept the inter-communal mistrust simmering; a lasting settlement between the Greek and Turkish populations seems almost impossible.

The dispute between the Greek and Turkish factions centres round the island’s Constitution. This, in its first article, prohibits activities aimed at promoting the union of Cyprus with any other country or at the partition of the island. The Turks have insisted on the inviolability of the Constitution as their best hope of defeating enosis; by the same token, the Greeks have tried to amend it. In fact, in a population openly divided by national allegiances, the Constitution has proved unworkable.

Whichever side started the fighting last December, it is a fact that both had been spoiling for it for a long time. The Turkish underground (TMT) had secretly landed arms and EOKA was still in organised existence. When the flare-up came, nobody should have been surprised.

The Turks probably erred in walking out of the Cypriot government. Although in theory this made illegal any decision by the Greek side, in fact it left the Greeks to perform all the necessary state business, including sending a delegation to UNO. This in turn made the Turkish Cypriots appear to be an insurgent minority; the whole weight of the state forces was turned against them. The police force (minus its disaffected Turkish members), the Army and the Greek vigilante groups (transformed by some propaganda alchemy into “Security Forces”) were used in the fighting.

The Greeks also took over the organs of propaganda. Mr. Yiorgadjis took charge at the Ministry of Defence and in his other capacity of Minister of the Interior dictated policy to the press, radio and Public Information Office. The Turks erected their “Bayrak" radio station but this was quickly jammed. Revolting atrocities committed by the “legally established State Security Forces” lighting the “insurgent illegally armed Turks’’ were either not mentioned, or reported only when given prominent publicity in the foreign press. This is not to say that the Turks were innocent of committing atrocities, but the Greeks' control of the official propaganda channels enabled them to distort the news in their own favour.

Television and radio appeals by Makarios and Küçük for an end to the fighting were ignored. The arrival of the British troops and the Red Cross workers brought a lull, but. the fighting soon broke out again on the news of more atrocities. A press campaign against the British troops (who were themselves guilty of acts of vandalism) was supported by demonstrations of school children shouting for the return of General Grivas. Such demonstrations, with their inculcation of nationalism into young minds, were one of the most frightening and disgusting aspects of the crisis. I saw the logical consequences of it all, as a small group of young Greeks watched with callous disregard the shot and still bleeding body of an unarmed Turkish driver, lying beside his NAAFI vehicle.

What is the background to the bloody struggle? in Cyprus the class structure has not yet hardened into the classical capitalist form. The majority of the subject part of the islands’ population are not proletariat, landless and propertyless in the means of production. Agriculture accounts for over half the labour force and in both Greek and Turkish communities there are many peasant farmers, often struggling in debt. In this situation official decisions on matters like the provision of irrigation become not only a subject of husbandry but also of politics, with many only too ready to suspect officialdom of partisan bias. This makes the nationalists’ exhortations more readily accepted.

The official Turkish attitude, according to the press, lay in conformity to the strict letter of the Constitution. But that was not the whole story. The Turkish Cypriot aim, based on their claims to be a separate community, is Taksim, or perhaps federation. The statement of their leaders Küçük and Denktash, backed by the voice of Ankara, leave no doubt on this point. The Turkish suffering at the hands of Greek terrorists created sympathy for their aims but should not persuade anyone that these are any better than the other so-called solutions to the Cyprus crisis.

The apparent Greek aim of a unitary and independent state can see nothing strange in a strategically important island of half a million people trying to steer its own course through the tortuous channels of big power line ups. American intervention now seems to indicate that, if enosis comes, it will do so on some sort of compromise. For sure, the Turkish desire for partition would cut across the complex Cypriot landholding system, since most of the land, livestock and industry is in Greek hands.

The Greeks, who make up 80 per cent, of Cyprus’ population, say that they will not be thwarted. They make much play of what they call ancient Greek democracy, overlooking the fact that 80 per cent. of that society's population—the chattel slaves—were ruled by the other 20 per cent. Enosis remains the real object of the Greek struggle; their spokesmen have often referred to the London and Zurich agreements as stepping stones to this end. The demands for enosis were noticeably absent from Cypriot government functions after the Spring of 1963, which led some people to conclude that the idea had been shelved. Now all that is changed.

The Greek faction in Cyprus is now faced with a considerable problem, of its own making. Legalising the bands of gunmen in the “Security Force” meant condoning the private armies of men like Nicos Samson. These men had wielded considerable power, and caused the Greek Cypriot leaders much embarrassment. The Conscription Bill passed in June, ostensibly “to defend the country from aggression from without, or subversion . . .  was in fact designed to regularise the State Forces and to disarm and outlaw the volunteers.” In this way, apprehensive Greek ministers hoped to neutralise the power of the private armies.

Inevitably, the businessmen of Cyprus are concerned to procure political and economic stability. Some have suffered heavy financial losses and in private will admit indifference to enosis. For them, self determination is one thing, enosis another. Characteristically, the Cyprus Employers Consultative Association, during the crisis, called on all employers and workers to return to work, as the best way of solving the problem.

If only because it is numerically strong, and stands an outside chance of coming to power, we should mention the Communist Party. Almost exclusively Greek, and not having studied such foreign vote-catching plans as Home Rule for Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, etc., it regards the Turkish advocacy of partition as subversive. As usual, the Communists are hunting with the hounds while also being prepared to run with the hare.

But hypocrisy does not end with the Communist Party. With the return of Grivas—now probably on his way back to respectability—and the apparent United States support for enosis, things seem to be going Athens’ way. Behind the cloak of legal arguments, and in the name of self-determination, enosis, federation, taksim and the rest, thousands of people have been killed, have been made homeless, have suffered in a multitude of ways.

That is not the end of the tragedy. The young man next door who takes up a gun in the Cyprus struggle is not a barbarian. He exists, in one way or another, all over the world. Ignorant as yet of the real nature of the inhuman society of sovereign states, political and economic blocs, nationalism and the rest, be blindly follows his leader, if necessary to kill and be killed.

In that fact, and in no other, is to be found the ultimate cause of the suffering in Cyprus and in the rest of the world.

W. Robertson

A Stretch of Hard Labour (1964)

Editorial from the November 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

The noise and the ballyhoo are over for the time being, and another Labour government has scraped into power. The opinion pollsters can sit back with a sigh and claim vindication for their sampling methods, while Tory ex ministers can take the rest which, some of them have been unkindly hinting, their colleagues need so badly.

There is not much doubt that under Wilson's leadership the Labour Party has managed to paper over some of the cracks between its various factions and fight generally as a well planned and disciplined force. By comparison, the Conservative morale sank lower as the campaign went on and the foolish remarks of such political clowns as Quintin Hogg must have been like so many plums dropping right into the Labour leader's lap.

Just like their Tory and Liberal opponents, the Labour Party fought the election on a mass of promises; promises to solve the problems which they promised to solve when they last rose to power nearly twenty years ago. Housing and health, pensions and peace, education and unemployment, all those things which workers are so sensitive about, were given a merciless hammering by Labour spokesmen up and down the country. It was an astute campaign, and it just succeeded.

But now that the pendulum has swung a little, let us ask ourselves how much Wilson's promises are really worth. Does he really stand much chance of remedying the countless ills which so many politicians before him have failed to remedy? The Guardian of October 12th called him "a man with a heart full of indignation and humanity" but what will they call him when we get the multitude of excuses when his government fails to deliver the goods? We have had excuses from the Labour Party before. We had them in 1924 and again in 1931, when they blamed their failures on to the lack of a working majority. Will they try the same line this time, when their majority is so small? Let us prick that particular balloon before it leaves the ground. The Labour Party have taken power in the full knowledge of their standing in Parliament. They say that they intend to give "strong" government and to carry out their full programme. They are confident now. Let them remember this when the time comes for apologies and excuses.

In fact, the evils from which we suffer, and which political parties are always promising to cure, spring directly from the very social system of capitalism which statesmen seek to administer. In a world of minority ownership of the means of life and the production of goods for profit, it is inevitable that the non-owning majority will be the ones to suffer, in spite of all the politicians' promises.

The Labour Party does not want the abolition of this setup. However much Wilson may prattle about "government of the people, by the whole people, and for the whole people" the fact remains that his government will administer British capitalism in the only way open to them—in the interests of the British capitalist class. Take a look at the salient points in Labour's election programme. Up with production, increase exports, reduce imports, make British goods more competitive, work harder and keep wages in check. No capitalist would seriously quarrel with such a policy, and it does not differ in essentials from those of the other two parties.

Under the new Labour government, then, it will be very much business as usual for the ruling class—and for the man in the street as well. Workers will still have to struggle to make both ends meet amidst the increasing strains of a competitive world. They will have to put up with the inferior standards associated with working class existence, and when they come out on strike, they will be opposed just as much by Wilson as they have been by Home. That much we can gather from the Labour leader's words only two days before the poll, when he promised "much tougher action" from his government in dealing with such matters as the London Underground strike.

And just as surely the real issue—capitalism or Socialism—will still be as urgent as ever. The Socialist Party of Great Britain will continue to draw attention to it.

Reminiscences of an old member (1964)

From the November 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

To escape from the narrow and limited conditions of existence in my home town in northern Bohemia (now Czechoslovakia), where I was apprenticed for three years in a textile factory's office and received private English lessons, I left home in 1902 for a bigger industrial centre in Germany. I worked in Plauen (Saxony) famous for its lace industry, and found excellent contacts there with English, French and American students working and learning in the factories.

As one could in those days travel right across the whole European Continent without let or hindrance, without passports or labour permits, I went a year later to Switzerland, to Lyon in France and eventually to Paris, where I worked during 1904 and 1905. One of the great advantages of my stay in Paris was that I was able to get certified at the Austro-Hungarian Embassy as exempt from military service.

Returning to Austria in 1905, I worked in Vienna for four years as foreign correspondent with a large export firm, and in 1909 went to try my luck in England. After a three week search, I found a job in an important commercial concern in London, where I soon felt securely enough established to get married. Before I made that plunge I made another, to join the Socialist Party of Great Britain in 1910. I was a member till 1919 and have kept in happy and close contact to the present day, with the exception of the second world war years. It has been my great ambition from the very day I set foot on the Continent again to found here a companion Socialist organisation. If greater success has so far been denied us, the stalwarts of the SPGB will, in view of their sixty years' experience, readily understand our difficulties.

My contact with Socialism really dates back to the turn of the Century when, in 1898, my father had already taken me to a Sunday afternoon meeting of the Social Democratic Party, going in our home town under the name of Lichstrahl (Sunbeam). Teenager as I still was, I hardly knew what they were talking about. I remember that evening lectures on Darwin and Marx were often advertised in the local party press, but my mind at that time was bent on my job, on learning English, going dancing, enjoying cycling and skating, etc. No political contact worth mentioning was made afterwards in Germany or in France. In Vienna from 1905 to 1909 contact with people interested in Socialism had been quite by accident, not by design. Occasional talks with party members there were not stimulating. I went to "Socialist" meetings but their propaganda also was far from arousing sufficient interest even to envisage joining the movement. It is then remarkable that within a few months of my arrival in London, my views and interest in social affairs should have undergone so swift and radical a change that by 1910 I felt impelled to join the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Living near Finsbury Park, I strolled on one of the first Sunday mornings over to where public meetings were in progress. My particular attention fell on the political platforms—the Labour Party, Social Democratic Federation, Christian Commonwealth, etc. I found the speakers lustily criticising and attacking each others' policies for which I had at first little understanding. My interest had, however, been so deeply aroused that I went again in the afternoon, when I discovered an additional platform with the name SPGB. No sooner  had a speaker mounted the platform than the bulk of the audience of most of the other speakers rushed over. Listening attentively, I was surprised to hear the speaker showing up not just one or the other opponent, but the lot of them for misleading and confusing the people on vital issues concerning their lives. In my bewilderment, and anxious to better understand, I bought all the papers I could get hold of—Labour Leader, Justice, Christian Commonwealth, and the Socialist Standard. At home I began studying them all, and on the following Sunday I was early around the platform of the SPGB again. Much wiser, I now enjoyed even more what the speaker out for. I also go to know his name—it was Anderson—and it was evident that the impact of what this speaker had to say, in his rare and convincing way, was as decisive on many listeners as it was on me. I heard other speakers from that platform on many following Sundays, with the result, as I have already mentioned, that I applied for membership of the party they represented, and was enrolled in the Islington branch.

At Head Office I joined a class on economics with Comrade F. C. Watts as teacher. I met there young comrade Gilmac, who remains my life-long friend to this day. Soon I knew a great number of equally inestimable and unforgettable comrades, among them Fitzgerald, Adolf Kohn, Jacobs, Jacomb. Gostick and wife, Sandy Pearson.

Anderson sometimes came to my home. I remember a Christmas party my wife gave to some children, including Anderson's. At the end of the party Anderson (an inveterate teetotaller) thanked us very much, especially for the "wonderful lemonade"—the "best he had ever drunk in his life." My wife afterwards smilingly confessed to me that, of course, she had mixed some spirit with it, as she invariably did.

Anderson was a born speaker and an eminently able man, invaluable for the only cause that is worthy of the fervour and devotion of such a rare and unforgettable character. He was evidently happy on the platform and excelled in ready and witty answers to questioners. "What about the missing link?" somebody once shouted from the audience. "The missing link," promptly retorted Anderson, "is not far away."

Becoming a Socialist meant that I rapidly changed my whole outlook and attitude on such questions as "earning your living" by a "fair day's work for a fair day's wage," on "social justice," ethical and moral codes, religion, etc. What I had been taught about history had to go by the board, to be irremediably replaced by the Materialist Conception—the scientific theory of the evolution of society. Words like value, price, the source of interest and profit, and the true role of money and capital; why wealth was produced for sale at a profit instead for the sole purpose of satisfying human wants and desires, etc.—things I had never explained at school—all received thorough attention. The knock-out blow was delivered to falsehoods and fallacies. And all this, be it noted, before the two world wars, during which churchmen were doing overtime blessing the guns and the fratricide.

(To be concluded)

R. Frank