The Great War and the Greater Wars that are coming. (1924)

From the October 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the world turned wearily from the battlefield there has been a gradual slump in the literature of war, and the tide has set towards the “Problems of the Peace.” All who could wield a facile pen have rushed to their ink-pots and boldly covered reams of white paper with explanations of why the New World that was expected to follow the war looks so dreadfully like the old one. Most people can see that the rich are still with us, and apparently richer than ever. None will deny that the poor are still here, and relatively if not absolutely, poorer than ever. What has happened? Fortunately the scribes will tell us this also. Unhappily, they have so many explanations of the same phenomena that a process of cancelling out takes place, and the only voice that emerges is that of the one who tells us to get ready for another war. Certainly the facts seem to support that view. There are more bayonets and more armed preparations in Europe to-day than ever before. Recourse to the League of Nations has simply added to them. Every barracks is full of soldiers, drilling and training for the next great struggle. Fleets are being overhauled and provided with deadlier guns than ever. Every week we are informed of a new development in aerial terror, whilst placid bands of assiduous chemists have added seventy new poisonous gases to the weapons of the next war. The joke about the “War to End War” has become too hackneyed for repetition, but few seem to have learned the lesson.

The latest addition to the literature of the Peace is a two volume, 1,400 page work, entitled “These Eventful Years: The Twentieth Century in the Making, as Told by Many of its Makers.” Rather a mouthful, isn’t it? Such an expressive title ! obviously chosen for its slight poetic flavour. These Eventful Years ! One can almost hear it being mournfully intoned to the evening congregation. And thus it is called a Pisgah book. This is possibly more apposite than the originators thought. They have intended, doubtless, to convey that they were surveying the world and its affairs from a sublime height. Why Pisgah, and not the Matterhorn or Everest should have been chosen is not clear. We can only assume their choice was influenced by the knowledge that Pisgah stands near the head of the Dead Sea.

It remains but to add that the price of the work being only a paltry fifty shillings, there can be little excuse for non-possession. Think of the contributors, too ! Von Tirpitz and H. G. Wells, Sir Oliver Lodge and Phillip Snowden, Lady Rhondda and Wellington Koo, Admiral von Scheer and Admiral Jellicoe, Ludendorff and Bertrand Russell; and seventy others including J. L. Garvin. We do not intend to review this stupendous work, owing to our having been unfortunately overlooked on the free list. J. L. Garvin, with that native modesty that so well becomes him, has partially remedied this by using up three columns of his “Observer” (August 24th) in boosting his own contribution to the book.

He explains that he was asked to contribute the first four chapters entitled a “Introduction to the History of Our Own Times,” and they trace the steady approach of the war through the preceding twenty-five years. Their measure may be taken when one notes that the fall of Bismarck is taken as the catastrophic starting-point, and that the interval is filled up with proper names. The Kaiser and the Tsar, variously referred to as William II and Nicholas II, or the German Emperor and the last of the Tsars, are the villains of the piece. What those two men have to answer for ! Curiously enough, the name George the Fifth nowhere appears. This seems to be a grave omission. Surely if our late redoubtable antagonist and our former ally were epitomised or symbolically expressed in the occupant of the throne, a like service should be performed for our own monarch. And we all know what he did in the Great War. If the Kaiser lost his war, obviously George the Fifth won it. Let justice be done.

But to resume. The story of the war itself occupies 50 pages. He suggests the temper of that account by a brief extract describing the turning point of the conflict, July 18th, 1918. It is a forceful piece of writing, quite in the vein of the militant arm-chair strategist. “Machine guns flashed over the standing corn”; troops “gathered under those far-ranging tree-tops”; the French force “thrust like a sword” into the “flank of the exposed German salient”; the enemy “lost 15,000 prisoners, 300 guns and broad positions that were vital,” etc., etc. But not a word of a dead man. The monarchs previously so much in the limelight also appear to have been elsewhere.

And then we get to the Peace. It is recognised and admitted that the Peace is a frost.

“What the Germans forgot in 1871, the Allies did not remember at the end of June, 1919.” Yes, the Peace is a frost. And what will happen when the thaw sets in?

“Europe is slowly drifting towards another catastrophe.” The map of Europe as re-drawn under the Peace Treaties cannot endure. The existing League of Nations is described as utterly inadequate. The exclusion of Germany is described as “one of the most fantastic travesties of human purpose”; the banning of Russia as timid and parochial.

And what is the lesson mankind is to learn from all this? What practical steps are formulated that we may avoid another Armageddon? What must we do to be saved?

Mr. Garvin’s own summary may do him less than justice, but apparently there are but two things to be done to avert the threatened holocaust. First revise the Peace Treaties by peaceful means, and next enlarge the League of Nations by the inclusion of Germany and Russia, followed later by America.

Is it possible that a man of education, and some width of outlook can fob his readers off with that stuff? Does he really believe it himself? Unfortunately there is no reason for doubting it. Mr. Garvin and those of his school look upon the present system of society as final, and for all useful purposes, eternal. Modification there may be, but fundamental change—no. Just as slavery was justified and defended in former times, even by men of culture and feeling, so wage-slavery under capitalism is justified and apologised for by those who profit by it. This attitude may result from a lack of imagination, but more probably from a comfortable feeling that the working class is a special dispensation of Providence, designed to do the necessary work of the world, in order that a smaller aristocratic class may cultivate the finer side of life.

With this view of human society it is not to be wondered at that the re-drawing of frontiers appears to them as epochal; that the stage-play of international leagues assumes a solemn profundity. When the working class realises its true position, it will view an arbitrary line drawn across a country as of equal validity with a chalk mark across the Atlantic. If Alsace were restored to Germany to-morrow, the Alsatian would still remain a peasant or a worker. If the Germans, Austrians, Poles, Rumanians, Czechs, Tyrolese, etc., were all re-shuffled to-morrow, the workers of those areas would still remain workers. Differences of comfort or amenity, custom and language there might be, but working men would remain working men, and that is the essence of the matter. The Irish workers are finding out that a difference in political bosses is not such a vital matter as they once thought. Where capitalism is, there is wage-slavery, and the colour of the flag that floats over the factory makes no real difference to the worker. The great nations of the world are capitalist nations. The League of Nations can be nought else but a league of capitalists. Capitalists live solely and entirely upon the robbery of the working class. How then can we get enthusiastic over a league of our exploiters?

The working class will organise itself to expropriate those who live parasitically upon it. It will link itself with the workers of every country, to achieve this internationally, when the workers understand their class-interests.

W. T. Hopley

Socialism and the Labour Movement. (1924)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Critic Answered.

15, Grenville Street,

Dublin.

Dear Comrade,

As a member of the working class, I am very interested in your party and the Socialist Standard. Some months ago a member of your party was in this town and he left a few of us thinking. For myself I must say that the Socialist Party of Great Britain has very little chance of ever making the working-class Socialists. First, because they do not definitely take their place among the workers and engage in the struggle between the workers and the capitalist class which is unceasing, rather do they preach that nothing except the political battle matter, forgetting that without the economic and the defence forces of the working class movement parliaments, or political institutions are valueless as the capitalist could afford to laugh at the attempts of a band of politicians trying to control the implements that are in his hands. The only hope that Socialism may be achieved is in a combination of all the industrial workers organised as a class together with the defence forces that it will have to fashion in its own defence, and lastly the use, if necessary, as a supplement political action. Propaganda for political action will be helped as the struggle of the class conscious and organised workers goes on.

My chief idea in writing was to urge that sectarianism inside the working class should cease and that small bodies like the S.P.G.B. ought to get into the Labour movement and put their influence on the side of unity, otherwise there will be doubts as to their sincerity. In this town the S.P.G.B. has one individual as a member, and there are intelligent young men calling themselves Communists. He and they are a group who unite in their refusal to assist the mass of the workers who are out for the Workers’ Republic. Why do such people, Communists and Socialists, anger the working class by their hair-splitting differences? Why is it that capitalists whom we are trying to down manage to keep united while we are divided, yet we are all out for working class control of the means and instruments of production and distribution? Therefore I would urge that inside the working class is your place.

Yours fraternally,

P. Cunningham.

Reply to P. Cunningham.

Your letter has been passed on to me for reply, but I find reply difficult because your letter contains only baseless assertions and muddled ideas.

In the first place, capitalist conditions make socialists; we only assist the educational work of conditions.

You say that we do not take our place among the workers in the struggle. I don’t know where you get your information from, but you are evidently badly misinformed. The members of the S.P.G.B. are working men and working women. They work in factories, mills and workshops, and take part with their fellow workers in the daily and weekly struggle for the best conditions of labour that can be obtained. But while doing so they point out the limits of this struggle and the impossibility of overthrowing capitalism by industrial methods. They therefore agitate among their fellows for political action. In the S.P.G.B. they are organised for the political struggle; class-conscious revolutionary action for the establishment of Socialism.

What do you mean by “the economic and the defence forces of the working-class movement”? There is only one force that is worthy of a moment’s consideration—the force that operates as powder and shot, bombs, poison gas, and so forth; the force that is bottled up in aeroplanes, battleships, and tanks; the murderous force that can blow thousands of us to bits and spread ruin and desolation over large territories in the wink of an eye. Have the experiences of war, of strikes, and of battering of native populations taught you nothing? And this mighty death-dealing machine is operated from parliament—in Britain, from the House of Commons. They can crush any working-class uprising almost before the workers have begun to move, as many a man, eating his heart out in prison, has learnt to his sorrow.

Now what can the workers bring to combat this political machine? Nothing but empty stomachs and brickbats. Their wages are not sufficient to enable them to purchase anything beyond a few rifles, and any attempt to manufacture munitions (which could only be done on such a small scale as to be valueless) or to tamper with the soldiers or sailors would, and has been, rapidly met with a term of imprisonment. Up against the political machinery the workers are helpless, and yet, the irony of it, they can obtain control of this machinery as soon as they wish.

On the industrial field the workers are faced with the misery and demoralisation produced by repeated failures. On the political field they are faced with complete success as soon as they are clear about the objective and the way to obtain it. It is easier to organise workers effectively for sound political action than it is to organise them for industrial action alone, because in the one direction complete success is within their grasp, whilst in the other ultimate defeat is certain. The two positions can easily be demonstrated by illustrations that will satisfy the average worker, who is not either a blind worshipper of idols or empty phrases, or whose head is not filled with the fatal delusions of the communist.

To take another of your points. The implements of production are in the possession of the capitalist because he can resist by force any attempt made by the workers to take them. That is why the capitalist laughs. But when the workers, through delegates they control, take possession of the force the laugh will disappear, as it disappeared from the faces of the people composing each class that in the past lost political power and with it economic ownership. Space is too limited for me to give illustrations of this fact here, but you have only to ask and you will receive plenty of illustrations in a future number of this paper.

You ask us to unite with others in “the Labour movement.” But for what are we to unite? Mere unity is meaningless by itself. Are we to unite with the Labour Party to help the capitalists to obtain more profits and the workers to become more docile slaves? Are we to unite with people like J. R. Clynes? He is president of the League of the British Commonwealth that has issued a leaflet stating :

   “The ‘League of the British Commonwealth’ demands, therefore, the nationalisation of our principal banks as the only permanent remedy for unemployment ; but this does not imply or involve the nationalisation of land, industry, or anything else.”

Masses of workers are Liberals, masses are Conservatives; do you want us to unite with either or both of these? You see, unity depends upon the objective and the means to obtain the objective. But I am forgetting, you consider political action to be useless, therefore I presume you are not in favour of uniting with bodies that urge the workers to action you consider useless?

If this is so, take care you are not throwing a boomerang. Take care some members of the Labour Party may not be accusing you of “splitting the ranks.”

From your letter it would appear that the fraction you favour is that rapidly diminishing quantity going under the name of Communist. But it is difficult to find out on what policy one could unite with the Communists, except on the policy of finding out that one is constantly making mistakes and must start again with a new shibboleth—rather a barren outlook you must admit.

You say the mass of the workers are out for the Workers’ Republic. Wake up, friend, your blissful dreams are far, far away from the truth. The mass of the workers are, alas, supporters of capitalism, and your foolish statement suggests to me that you mix very little with your fellow workers. Come down from your attic ot dreams and learn the realities of life before tendering advice to those who are engaged in the struggle for Socialism.

You wind up with the absurd statement that “we are all out for working-class control of the means and instruments of production and distribution.” If this is so, why all the fuss and propaganda? And why, above all, isn’t Socialism here now? Anyhow who are the “we” to whom you refer?

Finally people may be “out for” many things but the point is are they acting in a way that will obtain for them the object of their desires? I might be “out” to visit France but if I started from the North of England to swim there via Greenland there would not be much likelihood of my arrival. The means cannot be separated from the end. There are many people who claim to be “out for” Socialism, but their actions give the lie to the claim and push farther into the future the wished-for objective. The Labour Party, for instance, who urged the workers to take part in the late war, and who engage the attention of workers upon a multitude of questions that are of no value. Then there are also the Communists, who change their minds every few weeks; continually find out that they have been making mistakes; ask the workers to trust them completely, and then work might and main to drive the workers into the shambles.

We are of the working class, inside the working class, and working our hardest to assist our fellow workers to understand that in Socialism lies their only salvation; and that the only way to obtain Socialism, once understanding and desiring it, is to capture the political machinery from the capitalist so that we can dispossess them of the power they wield and the wealth they have stolen.

Gilmac.

Editorial: The Decay of the Communist Party. (1924)

Editorial from the October 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard 

After a meteoric career lasting no more than 3 or 4 years the Communist Party in this country finds itself trying with ever less success to stem the tide of members drifting away to the Labour Party or into apathy. In spite of the blundering ineptitude of its leaders in a sphere which they thought peculiarly their own—the sphere of stunts and political intrigue—they had at first a small measure of success. That they were able to achieve this was due partly to the money received by them from Moscow and thrown away in advocating futile insurrectionary policies which were always promptly disavowed whenever the authorities threatened suppression, but chiefly due to the chaos of trade and production after the world war, and the consequent weakened hold on the workers’ minds of pre-war political ideas and allegiances. But even in ground apparently so fertile the fruit of their labours was ridiculously small in comparison to the cost in money and energy.

Although they began with a flourish and reported frequent huge accessions of new members, they have in fact failed to grow and even to hold their initial position. Their total present membership is less than the 5,000 who were alleged to have joined them from the I.L.P. in 1922. Weaker numerically, they are weaker too in the respect they can demand from the class-conscious worker. From vigorous if somewhat hysterical hostility towards the Labour Party, they turned in 1921 to the United Front policy. They then claimed that support of anti-working-class candidates was not incompatible with the continuation ot communist propaganda and the denunciation of the very men they were asking the workers to vote into power. Incredible as it may seem, it required considerable experience to convince them that the communist rank and file would always in this dilemma be compelled to suppress their own views in order not to offend the Labour Party’s capitalist sympathisers. While the job seekers and the light-minded intellectual riff-raff which had been drawn in by the cash and glitter of the Communist movement saw in the new policy only the promise of elevation to the House of Commons. The boasted thousands of “communist” votes given to communist Labour candidates showed, not the strength but the weakness of the Communist Party; the dependence of a so-called independent organisation on Labour votes and the Labour Party machine. So soon as they found this out the careerists and the “intellectuals” began to desert the sinking ship, following, of course, the ancient custom of their kind of giving every excuse but the true one. Meynell, Malone, Windsor and later, Walton Newbold, Ellen Wilkinson and Philips Price are some of those who have left because of the call of ambition, the passing of the excitement of the earlier months, or simply because they had learned through experience that the fundamental ideas on which Communist Policy had been built were partly false and wholly inapplicable except in the peculiar conditions which gave them birth in Russia.

The disgust and confusion which follow these “betrayals” add point to our criticism of leader worship; the workers lose more than they can possibly gain from the magnifying of the individual and dependence on his leadership. Having foolishly overrated, they now, spitefully belittle the ability of their late members. What is however of rather more importance is the opportunity that offers here of justifying the position of the Socialist Party.

When the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia we alone of the organisations claiming to be socialist in this country, refused to be swept off our feet either by hostile prejudice or by misguided enthusiasm. We never lent ourselves to capitalist condemnation of Bolshevik “violence,” a pastime which was very popular with Labour men who had been preaching murder for the capitalist class during the war, nor did we deceive ourselves with unfounded hopes and mistake intentions for performances. We held that economic backwardness and the anti-socialist peasants would forbid the establishment of Socialism in Russia, and we held that the seizure of power by a minority could not succeed, and need not be attempted in Great Britain where political traditions, institutions and development had been so different. We were told that we were wrong, and the C.P.G.B. came into being to show how it could be done. Now, seven years after the initial success of the Bolsheviks, their too servile imitators are having to confess failure.

Walton Newbold writes (“Forward,” Sept. 13th) :—

   “From the autumn of 1920, although it was almost impossible to see it at the time, Capitalism had won, not only the advantage, but the decisive advantage, here in Britain as elsewhere. . . .

   There will be no further revolution in Europe for many a long year.”

This is strange talk from one who discoursed then so glibly and learnedly on the “collapse of capitalism.”

Philips Price, in whose judgment the communists were used to express the utmost confidence, takes up a similar attitude. He chides the communists with assuming

   “that the same process must be gone through in Western Europe as in Russia, where there never was a Parliamentary machine elected in geographical constituencies and on a democratic franchise. (Forward, August 30th.)

The editor of the “Workers’ Weekly” tries to minimise the force of his argument by offering evidence to show that Newbold had for long been expressing more or less clearly the views on which he based his resignation. But what are we to think of a party which discovers only when a member resigns that the opinions be held years before are incompatible with the party’s position ?

In December, 1922, Newbold wrote this :

  “I, like my comrade Saklatvala, am a member of the Labour Party. Either as a member of the Fabian Society or of the I.L.P. or otherwise, I have been a member of that party without intermission since the autumn of 1908. I have never had any cause to disagree with the Labour Party as such.” (“Manchester Guardian,” Dec. 7, 1922.)

And as a matter of fact, in December, 1923, the C.P.G.B.’s official attitude was to give unqualified support to all Labour candidates.

The Manifesto issued by the Executive Committee of the C.P.G.B. during the election contained an appeal to the workers to “Support the Labour and Communist candidates” without any kind of qualification. They themselves in the same issue of the “Communist Daily” which printed the appeal, boasted of the help their members were giving to such men as Jack Mills and John Hodge. Harry Pollitt, Communist candidate, withdrew in favour of the latter and spoke on his platform, although Hodge refused to give a satisfactory answer to the questions put by the unemployed. (“Communist Daily,” 13th November, 1923.)

The Communist Party did and does support reactionary Labour men, but because Newbold wanted the criticism of these people to be confined to private meetings, and wrote that “the moment they came out there was to be no difference between the most extreme right men and left wingers, like himself,” he is denounced by the editor of the “Workers’ Weekly” as “favouring the enemy” (12th Sept.). The charge is surely more damaging to the accuser than to the accused, for how does Newbold’s policy differ from their own of denouncing Labour men at private Communist meetings and then going out to ask workers to vote for a Thomas or a “monstrous gnome” like Stephen Walsh, or allowing their members to appeal for votes on the strength of a letter from MacDonald, as did Paul in Manchester?

And it was the “Workers’ Weekly” itself under Palme Dutt’s editorship which published after the election an article by Newbold which contained the following :—

  “If we are not proud of Thomas as Thomas we shall be proud of him as a Labour Minister. Our business is to make him feel, the responsibility, putting the stress on the first, word “Labour,” rather than the second word “Minister.” . . .

   In the next few months we shall have to do a great deal of barking back at the “boss” class, and as little as possible, I hope, of snapping at our leaders.”

When, therefore, Palme Dutt goes on to say that in spite of Newbold’s defection the Communist party “has no reason to revise its attitude to the Labour Party,” we cannot refrain from asking what on earth he means. Which of its half-dozen policies is the C.P. determined to persist in? The policy of 1921 of open hostility in theory, coupled in fact with the opposition to some (MacDonald) and the support of others (Naylor), or the policy of 1922 and 1923 of supporting them all where they needed support at election times, and keeping the denunciation where it could do no harm? Or the policy of support on the political field and opposition to the same persons and policies in the Trade Unions?

Palme Dutt can only reply that they will “persist in their policy.” The fact is that the “tacticians” blundered again. They might themselves be proud of J. H. Thomas, but they soon found that the only people from whom they could expect to win support were not proud of him at all, and this explains why T. Johnston, who in January they considered to be a staunch fighter for the proletariat, is described in September as a “capitalist lackey” as are the ministers and other supporters of the Labour Government (“Workers’ Weekly,” 12th Sept.).

And it seems that Newbold and the rest of the “traitors” have the laugh after all. After they have been ridiculed for ignorance and denounced for their cowardice and treachery, they will still as Labour candidates receive the votes and assistance of C.P. members !

They cannot even condemn Newbold for his imperialist tendencies, for it was while he was “Communist” member for Motherwell in 1923 that he admits having defended the Navy as essential for the protection of “our food ships,” and no public condemnation of him was made by his party. (“Forward,” 30th August, 1924.)

It would also be interesting to know what is now supposed to be the attitude of the Communists on the question of minority revolution. Do they hold with Trotsky (“Communist,” 6th Aug., 1921) that the victory of the working class “can only be achieved by the capacity to conduct battles, and above all by gaining over the majority of the working class.” Or do they still believe that an “intellectual minority” can do the work? It was as recently as the end of 1923 that the German Communists made a futile attempt, in spite of the fact that their strength, as shown by the Reichstag elections, was only about 12 per cent. of the votes cast. And the left wing who dominated the party (980 delegates to 369 of the others combined), referring to this rising, were still able to declare, in April, 1924, that “victory—the seizure of power by the workers—was not only possible, but historically necessary.” (“Workers’ Weekly,” May 16th, 1924.)

In all this welter of confusion the S.P.G.B. stands alone and unshaken. I.L.P. pacifists join hands with Labour jingoes building cruisers to solve unemployment, and joyfully endorse in the Dawes Report a new attempt to intensify the slavery of the European working class; while Communists call them knaves, and vote them into Parliament.

The Communists, trying to emulate their fellow confusionists in the I.L.P., just hug themselves with delight because MacDonald has agreed to give a State guarantee of interest payments on a £40,000,000 loan to Russia, for the benefit of certain financial circles. One of their amusing arguments is that it will make work for the unemployed. They have doubtless overlooked the detail that even if work is provided for engineers now, the ultimate result when Russian agriculture has been reorganised and brought up to date by the imported machinery, is that this and other countries will have to face the competition of cheap Russian wheat. This will be good news for the unemployed agricultural workers. While the Communist propagates futile “solutions” of insoluble problems, the Socialist goes on propagating socialism.

We extend an urgent invitation to those who have seen the Socialist Party stand the test of war and would-be revolution and yet maintain the intellectual strength of its position, to come forward and give us their active assistance.

Socialism and the Mental Revolution. (1924)

From the October 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

The human mind, like all things organic and otherwise, undergoes a process of change due to the continual change in its environment, that is to say, in the conditions determining its development. This simple fact is continually ignored by the opponents of Socialist education of all shades of thought, from the crusted Tory to the impatient Communist, who believes in ”revolution” by means of an “intelligent minority.”

If we glance over human history we discover that the growth of knowledge and mental activity has been by no means uniform or smoothly regular. There have been long periods in which certain ideas, expressing themselves in various social customs and institutions, have reigned supreme only to be swept aside in a comparatively short space of time by ideas, customs and institutions of an opposite character. As instances, we may cite the downfall of paganism and the triumph of Christianity within the Roman Empire, which marked the passing of the ancient patriarchal order of society and the rise of feudalism; likewise the break-up of Catholicism before the onslaught of Protestant and Rationalist criticism which coincided with the decay of feudalism, the seizure of estates of the Church, and the development of modern capitalist society.

Up till the last century the human mind was wrapped in the swaddling clothes of religion; therefore changes in the general mental outlook of mankind have appeared to be simply religious changes. As above indicated, however, these changes have been closely connected with social and political revolutions and the various factions in the religious world are found on examination to be practically identical with certain organised class interests. These interests have fought their battles with a ferocity which is by no means attributable simply to fanaticism on speculative or ethical questions. Conflicting “faiths” have merely sanctified in the eyes of their respective holders the greed which has been the real basis of their hostility.

In other words, the various classes which have in succession arisen and dominated society, while in a very large measure conscious of their material interests, have not understood the forces whose development has provided them with their position and the opportunity of satisfying their ambitions. Before these forces could be understood in a scientific manner they had first to develop to maturity. They had to shake off the fetters of “individualism” and become social in character.

This event commenced a century and a half ago and is known as the industrial revolution. The death of handicraft and the birth of machine industry set free productive powers latent in society which revealed for the first time the existence of economic law. Various thinkers from the ancients downwards had speculated and arrived at half-truths concerning the material basis of society; but to make a science of economics, and therefore of history, the economic forces themselves had to seize upon society, as it were, and beat their own lessons into the heads of men. “Control us or perish !” is the insistent demand these forces make to-day; but to control requires understanding. Hence the attempt to control the economic resources of society is identified with the shedding of all superstition concerning the nature of these resources.

Rebellious classes in the past attributed their success to the favour of gods or the superiority of their moral codes; but the revolutionary section, of the subject class of to-day, the wage-slave class, has no use for religion or ethics. Science, organised knowledge, is its only weapon, its only means of self-fortification in the struggle for emancipation. “Study and learn!” is therefore the keynote of Socialist propaganda.

“Ha !” says our opponent, “but the masses will never study, they will never learn!” and he points to the well-known lethargy which sometimes appears to be the principal mental characteristic of the modern slave. He seizes upon a half-truth and makes of it a lie !

In spite of all the apathy and apparent indifference the masses slowly, but none the less surely, are studying and learning. Indeed it would be nothing less than a miracle if they were not. Face to face with an environment which is changing more rapidly than at any previous period in history, each succeeding generation of workers sheds something of the superstition of its forbears. One by one the links in the mental chains are snapping and the workers’ minds strain towards the light.

Those who assert that the workers will never learn attempt to make the workers’ minds an exception to the general law of adaptation so apparent everywhere in the universe. They postulate a supernatural density on the part of the slave and treat his ignorance as though it was a basic cause instead of an effect of his poverty. When one considers the exhausting and, brutalising nature of the toil exacted from the modern slave the wonder, if any must be, that there is any. mental energy with which to think at all.

In addition to this physical factor there is the deliberately reactionary “education” with which the workers are crammed during childhood and the similar influence of the daily press. Yet in spite of every such effort on the part of the ruling class to preserve their mental grip upon their slaves, what do we find?

The Churches have long ago confessed their inability to hold their own against popular indifference and the effects of increasing technical knowledge. The numbers of the workers who willingly absorb the dope of religion steadily declines.

In the realm of politics, we find a similar process of disintegration on the part ol accepted beliefs and institutions. While the Socialist does not share the illusions current concerning the rise of the Labour Party, this much at least is evident, viz., that the parties openly standing for the existing social order are rapidly losing their grip of the workers’ minds. Social changes are desired, although their necessary character is far from being, correctly understood. Thus in both fields of traditional thought and popular activity, i.e., religion and politics, we find a growing scepticism concerning things as they are.

The industrial upheaval has resulted in a growth of positive knowledge difficult to estimate to its full extent, because of the inherent tendency of mental forms to survive for some considerable time the steady change in their inner content. The process can perhaps best be described as one of undermining. On the surface the present structure appears as it was, but the forces beneath are none the less preparing its collapse.

It is the function of the Socialist Party to organise the workers as rapidly as the change in their environment compels them to recognise the social character of the process of production, and consequently the necessity of its being controlled in the interests of society at large if exploitation and poverty for the workers are to be abolished.

Eric Boden

£1000 Fund. (1924)

Party News from the October 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Letter: Some questions on Socialist policy. (1924)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent (F. L. Rimington, of Leicester) in sending us his views on current politics, asks some questions relative to Socialist policy. These matters have been dealt with in the Socialist Standard before, but as they may be of interest at the present time we are replying to the questions here.

(1) Does the S.P.G.B. take part in Municipal Politics?

The answer to this question is contained in our Declaration of Principles, which declares for the conquest of the powers of government, local and national.

The master class spend huge sums to control local bodies, as these are a sub-division of the government of capitalism. It is important for the masters to control these councils, etc., and therefore it is equally important to dislodge the capitalists from power wherever they control.

The waging of the class struggle involves the conquest by the workers of the institutions of control, and hence Socialists must fight for conquest of local and national machinery of government. We do not take part in municipal elections to administer capitalism, but to advance the, interests of Socialism. The Socialist Party municipal election address tells the workers how little could be gained in improvements while capitalism lasts, and therefore in local as well as national elections we ask for votes from those alone who realise that the abolition of the present system and replacement by Socialism is the only hope of the working class. Socialists if elected to municipal bodies would use them as vantage points in the class struggle and to sound the message of Socialism to the unconverted workers.

(2) What is our opposition to the S.L.P.? 

The answer is contained in our Party Manifesto, and in many articles in the Socialist Standard during the years when the S.L.P. was an active body. Our opposition to the S.L.P. may be summarised thus : (1) Their lack of understanding of the class struggle shown by their reliance on industrial action as the workers’ remedy. (2) Their muddle-headed and continually changing views on fundamental points of policy, such as war, soviets, unity stunts, etc. (3) Lacking sound views on Socialist policy, they have simply followed the ups and downs of the American S.L.P., and are not evidently able to take up a consistent and firmly grounded Socialist position.

(3) What about taking the oath of allegiance in the House of Commons?

The answer to that question is implied in the Socialist need for getting political control. If we are to refuse to take oaths, then there is no chance for controlling parliament. The questioner does not fully realise the implications of the class struggle. Socialists are not simply waging war against detail grievances in the system. They are fighting against the system as a whole. As political action is necessary to workers’ triumph, Socialists cannot stop at taking oaths imposed upon them by the ruling class. There is nothing revolutionary in fighting against oaths, and by concentrating the electorates’ attention on the oath, Socialism is left aside as the issue. Republicans and Atheists like Bradlaugh can refuse* to take oaths, although they are bitter anti-Socialists.

The taking of oaths imposed by ruling classes has never prevented them being ignored when interest dictated it. The English Revolution of the 17th century was carried through in Parliament by men who took oaths to Kings they beheaded or drove from the throne.

Constitutionalists in Russia took oaths to the Czar and his Government in several Dumas, but that did not prevent them from breaking their oaths when opportunity presented itself, and so abolishing the Czar’s rule. In times of revolution in every country oaths have been broken by those who have been compelled to swear allegiance to the ruling power of the time. If Socialists are to keep out of Parliament because of formal matters of procedure, then the ruling class can keep on imposing conditions which they think you will refuse.

Our correspondent’s idea is that the propaganda value of refusing to take the Oath would be great. Possibly he is correct in this. But it would not be propaganda for Socialism or for the working class. It would be propaganda against the oath, and would not rouse or involve a class issue.

It would appeal to reformers, anti-monarchists, anarchists, and atheists, etc., people generally who are busy fighting effects or dealing with one aspect of capitalism.

The Editorial Committee

* Bradlaugh refused to take the oath at first but was willing afterwards. Then, however, the Government refused to let him take the oath.

A Brief Sketch of the Materialist Conception of History - Part 4 (1924)

From the October 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 3.

Part 4
Before proceeding to touch upon the question of class struggles as a feature of historical development, we must point out to new students of our theory of history the necessity of them holding in mind a few important points hitherto not mentioned in this sketch. It is the nature of the Socialist philosophy, based upon the firm ground of positive science, to be thoroughly comprehensive. Hence the historical aspect of that philosophy, which we are here considering, embraces the findings of science as generally applied to man. Thus all ideas concerning the duration of man’s existence upon the earth which are derived from Biblical teachings, must be put on one side as being contrary to facts.

Generally speaking, until the early part of the 19th century the idea that man was created some 6,000 years ago by a supernatural power held undisputed sway over the minds of the great bulk of the people. So certain was the idea of creation held to be true that one eminent divine, Dr. Lightfoot, at one time Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University, went so far as to fix the “precise date” of man’s creation. According to him man was created on the 23rd of October, 4004 B.C. at 9 o’clock in the morning. A similar utterance nowadays might impel rude people to call him Dr. Lighthead. As the historian, Buckle, satirically remarked when another eminent divine fixed the “date” of Noah’s entry into the Ark, “theologians have always been remarkable for the exactness of their knowledge on subjects respecting which nothing is known.” Nowadays, of course, these ideas are no longer considered as serious contributions to the study of man and his history. The principle of evolution has largely superseded the dogmas of theology, and it is more and more becoming acknowledged, even by theologians themselves, that man is a product of a process of evolution from lower forms of life—“a process of evolution going on through millions of years.” Hence the life history of the human race cannot be confined within the narrow limits of the more or less orthodox historians, who would lead us to believe that the history of Britain began with the invasion of the Romans, or that the history of America began with the arrival of the Puritan fathers from England.

The same method of enquiry which is employed in natural history, as far as origins are concerned, must be employed in human history, as it has been during the last hundred years with great success. The labours of many investigators into human origins have brought to light a mass of evidence showing that, not for 6,000 years, but for more than 100,000 years have human beings inhabited the earth. The view expressed by Lewis Henry Morgan that the existence of mankind extends backwards immeasurably and loses itself in a vast and profound antiquity, is shared by practically all the scientists who have investigated the history of mankind. Though opinions vary among geologists, those who study the general structure of the earth, and among anthropologists, those who study the physical and certain aspects of the social history of man, concerning the extent of human existence, it is generally agreed that any estimate which falls short of 100,000 years may be ignored.

History as commonly understood merely refers to the period of human existence during which we have written records of . human activities, but the term "pre-historic” has now become quite common, and is generally applied to that vast period of man’s existence about which the ordinary written records tell us nothing.

The evidence of man’s antiquity is not merely confined to the discoveries of human skulls, but is also to be gathered from the relics and tools unearthed from ancient river-beds, limestone caverns, lake bottoms, rude sepulchres and stone structures in many parts of the world.

As Paul Lafargue points out in his “Evolution of Property” the fact of man being a tool-making animal, "the discovery of a stone implement in a cavern or geological stratum is proof as positive of the presence of a human being as the human skeleton itself."

Throughout the immense period of time that men have roamed “our planet," they have pushed forward in their conquest of the forces of nature unaided by any power other than that of their own mental and physical abilities. No supernatural power has guided the footsteps of mankind in their long and painful journey from savagery to civilisation. Thus must working-class students look to the doings and surroundings of man alone in order to understand the movements of history.

And now about the struggle of classes. The Socialist is often reproached for declaring the existence of the class struggle as though he created the struggle. As well might our opponents reproach Copernicus for the earth’s motion round the sun, or Sir Isaac Newton for the law of gravitation. The Socialist does not create the struggle, he but points to its existence and to the lessons to be learned therefrom. The class struggle arises from the private or class-ownership of the means .of living, the land and the other resources of wealth production and distribution. Private property in the means of life necessarily implies a social system composed of masters and slaves, the former living on the proceeds of the exploitation of the latter.

Now how did these different social classes come into existence? It was an idea of some of the 18th-century philosophers that human society was held together by some sort of contract which was originally entered into between those who governed and those who were governed, but this idea is not a correct one, as the existence of an armed force in all class societies throughout history bears ample testimony.

Nor does the so-called “physiological differences,” as suggested by certain biologists, account for class distinctions. Class distinctions between men are to be found, not by making physiological comparisons between human beings, but in the way in which they get their living. “A beggar,” says Untermann “has the same physiological organisation as a king.” Class differences are not biological, they are fundamentally economic in character. If natural differences accounted for class distinctions, class societies would meet us in every phase of human history, and such is not the case.

Morgan points out that, assuming 100,000 years to be the extent of man’s existence upon the earth, something like 95 thousand years of this period must have been spent by mankind under savagery and barbarism. Now since classes did not arise until the higher stage of barbarism, it will be gathered that classless society existed for by far the greater portion of the period of human existence. As Marx observes on the questions of classes in modern society :

   One thing, however, is clear, nature does not produce on the one side owners of money or commodities, and on the other men possessing nothing but their own labour-power. This relation has no natural basis, neither is its social basis one that is common to all historical periods. It is clearly the result of a past historical development, the product of many economical revolutions, of the extinction of a whole series of older forms of social production.—(Capital, pp. 147-148.)

Now the use of private property in the means of life did not take place as a result of a process of reasoning on the part of human beings, that is to say, men did not debate the question as to whether they would establish the institution of private property. In fact, much historical evidence exists to show that strenuous efforts were made by early man to prevent the break up of their communal institutions. Private property worked its way into the conditions of human existence by way of necessity, and had to be adopted by mankind as a means of their social advancement. The rise of classes, with their conflicting interests and struggles, is to be traced to the economic development we have mentioned, namely, the development of the tools of wealth production, aided by certain discoveries.

Whilst the productive powers of primitive society yielded no more wealth than was required for mere existence, all members of that society who were able would be compelled to devote the whole of their time in producing the wherewithal to live. "No idlers can be maintained at the cost of society.” But when the.productive powers of society increased to the extent that a surplus above that which is necessary for maintenance is produced, a change in social relations is made possible. The path is opened for the formation of distinct social classes. We cannot here enter into the question of the many conditions contributing to the rise of class society, as our main theme concerns the main factor of historical development. Only a few historical examples can be given by way of showing the truth of our theory of history, and in giving these examples it must be understood that they are taken from the Eastern part of the world, called the Old World, where, with certain natural advantages, the course of economic development first facilitated the rise of private property. The domestication of animals, unquestionably one of the great discoveries of the world, appears to have been one of the main contributions to the growth of private property in the means of life.

As the number of domesticated animals grew the more did it become necessary to find grounds for them to graze upon. Consequently, from taming and rearing animals, men were sooner or later compelled to turn their attention to agricultural pursuits, and to give up their habits of roaming from place to place and settle down to a more or less fixed habitation. Further, the division of labour in tribal society, hitherto confined to the sexes, the men engaged in war, hunting, fishing and the production of the raw materials for these occupations, whilst the women were in charge of the household, and cooked, sewed and weaved, was now extended to men themselves. Different professions or trades arose within the tribal organisation, and consequent upon the increase of wealth production which followed, the more did wealth fall into the possession of certain families within the tribe, which in turn created the desire for more wealth. But this could only be obtained by the employment of more labour power, and to get this was not possible within the tribe itself. The equality which prevailed under the conditions of life of tribal communism did not allow of men being pressed into the service of others. The required labour power had to be introduced from outside the tribal organisation. The solution to the problem of finding this labour power was found in war. It must be noted that tribal man did not extend the same feeling of comradeship to the members of other tribes as he did to those of his own tribe. For other tribes were regarded as enemies, and theoretically as well as practically every tribe was at war with other tribes, as in our own times people of other nations are regarded with suspicion, as though they are destined to endanger our existence.

Hitherto wars had been carried on between neighbouring tribes largely on account of the scarcity of food. In fact, so precarious were the conditions of human existence that cannibalism was often resorted to as a means of averting starvation.

A tribe which possessed a good hunting territory was at all times subject to attack from those tribes in a less fortunate position. But the all-round progress made in cattle raising and agriculture, which was later facilitated by the production of iron, altered all this. Wars between tribes were now undertaken with other objects in view. The captured enemies, instead of being killed and eaten as formerly, were now pressed into the service of their conquerors by being set to work in the interests of the latter; in other words, they were enslaved. Says Engels in his work, “The Origin of the Family” :—

  Under the given historical conditions, the first great division of social labour, by increasing the productivity of labour, adding to the wealth, and enlarging the field of productivity, necessarily carried slavery in its wake. Out of the first great division of social labour arose the first great division of society into two classes: masters and servants, exploiters and exploited.

From this time onwards down to the present day the evolution of society has produced different ruling and subject classes, slavery, though different in degree from that of earlier times, still exists as a feature of human society. For, slavery it must be understood, does not merely mean an intensified form of work, which is the popular notion, slavery is political and economic subjection—political in the sense that an armed force. exists to conserve the monopoly of the wealth produced by and stolen from the slave class, and economic in that the slave class is divorced from the means of life. The question of whether the work of the slaves is laborious or otherwise is irrelevant to the real meaning of slavery. As common experience shows, the vast resources of wealth production in modern society are privately owned, the owners of these taking no part in wealth production, yet enjoying the wealth produced by those who have to seek their permission in order to live, which is the very essence of slavery.

However, what is important for the working-class student of history to note is that, class society with its consequent enslavement of the wealth producers is the result of economic development, and further that it was when first established, a step forward in the advancement of human society.

"We must not forget,” says Engels, in his work, "Anti-Duhring,” "that our entire economic, political and intellectual development has its foundations in a state of society in which slavery was regarded universally as necessary. In this sense we may say that without the ancient slavery there would have been no modern Socialism.”

What is also of importance is that the use of force was required to establish class society, as the use of force has been necessary to its existence ever since. "Force,” says Marx, "is the midwife of the old society pregnant with the new.”

Robert Reynolds

(To be continued.)

Link to Part 5.

Ramsay MacDonald's Attack on the Workers' Struggle Against Capital. (1924)

From the October 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

MacDonald has written a new preface to a new edition of his book, “Socialism: Critical, and Constructive.” Its denunciation of the workers because they attempt resistance to the encroachments of the employing class has pleased the latter and correspondingly startled many who had never before found cause to doubt the integrity of their leader.

Below are some extracts :—

  Profiteering has become universal and action has shown a deplorable tendency to centre in self. The evil has not been confined to the classes generally designated as “profiteers,” but has infected all sections   The trade unionist has the same limitation imposed upon him in this respect as the capitalist— he cannot advance his interests at the expense of his society. No system of thought except Socialism not only makes these limitations of wise action clear, but indicates the method by which Labour may obtain justice.
  It cannot be over-emphasised that public doles, Poplarism, strikes for increased wages, limitation of output, not only are not Socialism, but may mislead the spirit and the policy of the Socialist movement.
  Socialism calls men to give unstinted service in return for a reasonable reward measured in terms of life, and no one should be more impatient than the Socialist with the fallacy that a man cannot be expected to give the service before he gets the reward.
  The Socialist, therefore, looks with some misgivings upon some recent developments in the conflicts between Capital and Labour. They are contrary to his spirit; he believes they are both immoral and uneconomic and will lead to disaster.
   It is only when the worker by brain or by hand does his best for society that he will create in society that sympathy and support without which the Labour movement will never attain its goal. 

There is no need to criticise these extracts in detail. The worker will recognise in them the arguments used by every exploiter and defender of exploiters, as usual cleverly mixed up with an element of indisputable truth. Of course, no one supposes that strikes, doles and relief, and limitation of output are either Socialism or are in themselves desirable. They are not Socialism any more than they are capitalism. Doles and relief are merely part of the industrial “red cross service"which the capitalists are compelled to organise in order to deal with the increasing number of destitute victims of the capitalist system. Strikes and ca'canny are defensive weapons used by the workers against the employing class. They are difficult, costly, and sometimes dangerous to those who use them, but they are justified if, on the whole, the gains, in the shape of concessions from the masters, are greater than the cost to the workers in loss of wages, hardship, etc.

Capitalism is a system of society in which the wealthy property-owner lives without working, and the poverty-stricken worker toils to provide the wealth of the propertied class. The capitalist to maintain so delightful a situation, makes use of the lockout, limitation of output, and, if need be, the open legal violence of the armed forces. The workers, driven to desperation, make such feeble resistance as they are able, not because the action is in itself something desirable but because it is necessary. It is this which MacDonald sees fit to condemn.

If these actions were in addition, the means of attaining Socialism they would be more than justified from a working-class standpoint, however obnoxious to MacDonald and his masters. Our criticism is that the real way out of the evils of capitalism is simpler and easier than strikes or ca'canny. Given socialist knowledge, the workers have within their grasp the power to control Parliament and the rest of the political machinery, and that control would enable them to establish Socialism. In the meantime they ought and must struggle to defend their standard of living against the employers' attacks. This and the struggle for power is the class struggle which the socialist recognises as the basis of the political parties and political disputes of modern society.

Even Brailsford, editor of the “New Leader" (19th Sept.), had to protest against MacDonald’s words, and was reduced to offering the paltry excuse that MacDonald is a "very tired man." If MacDonald only writes anti-socialist drivel when he is "tired," then he cannot be the man of vigour his biographers represent him to be. But Brailsford deserves our thanks for a delicious little story he tells illustrating the mentality of the I.L.P. membership.

In his youth he once made the almost fatal mistake of referring to the "class struggle " at an l.L.P.- meeting. Then "one of our veteran leaders came to me when I sat down, and whispered in his kindly fatherly' way (though I had shocked him deeply) ‘We never speak.of.the class struggle in the I.L.P.' "

But to be serious again, what MacDonald writes is indeed a piece of staggering impudence. He forgets that he has enjoyed a standard of comfort far above that of the trade unionists whom he charges with profiteering, and it does not fall to their lot to receive the Cabinet Minister's salary granted by a grateful ruling class to treacherous Labour leaders.

And while we are on the subject of “profiteering," we suggest that MacDonald might fittingly offer his advice to his generous friend Sir A. Grant. He it was who endowed a library, open-heartedly made MacDonald a gift of £ 1,500 a year for life, and received a Baronetcy.

He also it is whose firm has the reputation of being one of the most grinding exploiters in the biscuit-making industry.

R.

"The Class Struggles in France." (1924)

Book Review from the October 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The Class Struggles in France." (1848-1850). by Karl Marx. (Published by the New York Labor News Co: $2.00.) Translated by Henry Kuhn

A melancholy significance attaches to this volume, as the long preface was the last thing Engels wrote for publication before his death in 1895.

The work consists of four articles, originally published in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in 1850, or just after the events recorded had taken place. The masterly analysis of the course of those events, with the penetration into the causes of the defeat of the working class, are all in Marx’s best style. While he was the first to recognise this defeat and its causes, the wide area of the revolution occurring in the principal countries of Europe, misled both himself and Engels as to the period when the working class would march to victory.

In this volume are given the details and materials, that were again briefly surveyed and summed up, after the coup d'état of Louis Bonaparte, in the famous “Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.”

“The Class Struggles in France’’ form an introduction to the Eighteenth Brumaire, while the latter sums up the whole period 1848-1851 in the light of the later developments. The two works are thus complementary and should be studied together for a full understanding of that exciting period.

To-day this study is of special importance in view of the claims made by certain self-styled “leaders” of the working class for the use of methods and tactics that these volumes show to be completely useless in present day conditions.

It is here that Engels' splendid preface is so valuable. Written 45 years after the events referred to above, Engels could show how true were the main sections of the analysis, while admitting the errors in forecast made by Marx and himself. But it is on the question of the tactics to be used by the working class that the greatest lessons are to be learnt. The view held by the Independent Labour Party and the Communist Party that Socialism will be established by an “intelligent minority’’ leading the masses of the workers, looks curious in face of the following statement on p. 9:—

The proletarian masses themselves, even after their Paris victory, were absolutely at sea as to the course to be pursued. And yet there was the movement—instinctive, spontaneous, irrepressible. Was not that just the situation wherein the revolution must succeed, led by a minority it is true, but this time not in the interests of that minority but in the most specific interests of the majority.

This statement might have been taken today from one of the papers of the two organisations mentioned. But with pitiless logic Engels points out on p. 10:—

History has proved us wrong and all others who thought similarly. It has made clear that the status of economic development on the Continent was then by mo means ripe for the abolition of capitalist production.

Yet some who claim to have studied Marx’s teachings try to argue that it is possible to establish Socialism under economic conditions far less ripe than those existing in 1848, and with a working class much inferior in knowledge to those of France in that day.

Equally crushing is Engels' exposure of the absurdity of supposing that the working class can oppose the Army and Navy with weapons of physical force, in street fights, as advocated by many Communists and Anarchists, After analysing the revolts in the various capitals of Europe, and showing why temporary successes in some places was followed by defeat in all of them, he says :—

Since then much more has been changed, all in favour of. the military. If the cities have become larger, so have the armies. Paris and Berlin, since 1848, have quadrupled, but their garrisons have grown more than that: These garrisons, by means of the railroads, may be doubled inside of twenty-four hours, and in forty-eight hours may swell to gigantic armies. The armament of these enormously augmented troops has become incomparably more effective. In 1848 the smooth bore, muzzle-loaded percussion rifle, to-day the small calibre, magazine breech loader, shooting four times as far, ten times as accurately, and ten times as quickly as the former. At that time the solid projectiles and case shot of the artillery with relatively weak effect, to-day the percussion shell, one of which suffices to shatter the best barricade. . . . . Even if on the side of the insurrection there be more trained soldiers, it will become more difficult to arm them. The hunting and sporting rifles of the warehouses—even if the police has not rendered them useless by the removal of a part of the mechanism—are no match for the magazine rifle of the soldier, even at close quarters.—(Pages 22-23.)

If this was true twenty-nine years ago, how much more does it apply to-day when in addition to all the above advantages, the modern army possesses poison gas, aeroplanes and bombs. What was considered by Engels as a lunatic’s action then, can only be considered as quite brainless to-day. Yet such action still has its advocates!

The final view of the veteran who had lived and taken part in so many stirring events, whose immense knowledge and great intellect were combined in a calm survey of the conditions around him, is given on page 24 :—

The time is past for revolutions carried through by small minorities at the head of unconscious masses. When' it gets to be a matter of the complete transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must participate, must understand what is at stake and why they are to act. That much the history of the last fifty years has taught us. But so that the masses may understand what is to be done, long and persistent work is required, and it is this work that we are now performing with results that drive our enemies to despair.

Such is the lesson this volume drives home. In view of its value to the workers, it is a great pity it has not been produced in a cheaper form. The price, at the present rate of exchange, is about 10/-, a sum beyond the power of most workers to pay for a book of 200 pages.

Jack Fitzgerald