Party News Briefs (1955)

Party News from the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Autumn Delegate Meeting is being held at Denison House, Vauxhall Bridge Road (near Victoria Station) on Saturday and Sunday, October 8th and 9th, commencing each day at 11 a.m. A Social will be held at Head Office on the Saturday evening from 7.30 p.m. when members will be assured of a happy evening.

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Films at Head Office. As mentioned in the September Standard a programme of documentary films has been arranged and will be shown every Sunday from October 2nd at 52, Clapham High Street, at 7.30 each Sunday. These films will each be followed by a short talk by a Party lecturer and time will be given for questions and discussions.

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Bloomsbury Branch has again arranged to hold Sunday evening meetings this winter at the Forum Club, 32, Percy Street, Tottenham Court Road. The first meeting commences on October 2nd, at 7.30 p.m. Owing to the fact that the Delegate meeting will be held on October 9th, it has been decided to exclude this date from the syllabus. Details of titles of lectures will be given elsewhere in this issue.

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Dundee. Comrades Coster and Wilmot spent two weeks in Dundee during August and held some very good propaganda meetings in the City Square. In all ten meetings were held, despite the fact that our members were advised that meetings would be impossible without the aid of loudspeakers (on Sundays) as other organisations used them. With the support of local comrades, one of whom acted as chairman, very successful meetings were held, with audiences averaging 300 people at the Sunday meetings. The mid-week evening meetings were also successful. There was opposition from the Communist Party, Scots Nationalists and Labour Party supporters. Our speakers presentation of facts soon quelled their opposition. Our speakers gathered that local tradition at these meetings had it that no questions were permitted until a speaker had completed his talk—many speakers used most of the time available by talking, leaving very little time available for questions. However, our Comrades followed the procedure usual at our meetings, and asked for, and obtained questions during the meetings which were lively and interesting. Good literature sales resulted. It is hoped that before long the Group will become another branch of the Party.

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Ealing Branch report that branch meetings have now been resumed after the summer break, and we have a fairly heavy programme of activity before us. The first series of lectures have been arranged, and all members should by now be in possession of full details.

A visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum has been fixed for Sunday, 16th October, under the guidance of Comrade Coster. The usual social will be held in the evening afterwards. All branch members wishing to join the party are asked to notify the organising committee as soon as possible, for there is a limit to the numbers who can be taken on such a visit, and the committee must be given an idea of the numbers attending the social in order to arrange for the catering.

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Swansea Branch. In the last week of August the branch held three outdoor propaganda meetings. On Sunday evening, August 28, Comrade Ambridge addressed a large crowd in the “Forum” near Swansea Guildhall. A religious group attempting to heckle the speaker were ably dealt with and the Labour Party supporters were easily defeated—a lucid definition of “ nationalisation ” and its part in the machinations of Capitalism holding the interest of the crowd. Some Socialist Standards were sold and back numbers were given away. Altogether a successful visit, auguring well for the future of Socialist activities in the Swansea Area.

Phyllis Howard

50 Years Ago: T.U.C. Resolutions (1955)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

The resolutions passed by the Congress consisted in the main of the usual appeals to the Capitalists to make a few concessions to their ever humble and obedient servants, the “organised workers” of the Kingdom, and their petitioners will ever pray. Of course they will, just as the petitioned will refuse to answer the prayer until they have become convinced that their class interests demand, that concessions, for what little they are worth, shall be, and can safely be, made.

There was the resolution concerning fiscal policy, in which it was declared that “any departure from the principles of Free Trade would be detrimental to the interests of the working-classes . . . and injurious to the prosperity of the national as a whole.”

This was ultimately carried by 1,253,000 votes to 26,000 and alleged Socialists, prominent members of organisations claiming to be Socialist, spoke and voted for it, despite the manifestoes issued by their organisations in which it has been rightly pointed out that under Capitalism the working-class must be plundered by either Free Trade Crows or Protectionist Kites. For those claiming intimate and first-hand acquaintanceship with the condition of the people, to talk of the “prosperity of the people" is bad enough, but what can be thought of those claiming to be out for independent and anti-Capitalist political action deliberately playing into the hands of the Liberals as they did. If the maintenance of Free Trade is of such vital importance to the working-class, then it is of vital importance that those who are in favour of altering our Fiscal System should be kept out of the House of Commons, and that those who are against “any departure from the principles of Free Trade” should be put in. The Trade Unionists are therefore bound, in honour, to support Free Traders, i.e.—the Liberals—as against Tariff Reformers— the Conservatives. No wonder the Liberal Press was-so jubilant at the voting.

From the October 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Peace, Perfect Peace! (1955)

From the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Story of the Nobel Peace Prize

Most people are aware of the existence of the Nobel Peace prize. They read, or hear, a news bulletin every year, giving the names of the fortunate recipients. 

Rather fewer know that the founder of this bequest was Alfred Nobel, the millionaire explosives manufacturer. In 1896,  £1,750,000 was left by him to. endow a trust fund divided to produce five prizes of about £8,000 each annually to a chosen physicist, chemist, medical man, writer and/or Pacifist who, in the opinion of the selectors, had best served the cause of peace. 

Same may find it rather surprising that Alfred Nobel, who made a fortune from war, should donate a large sum to what might be considered the pursuit of Peace. 

The facts show that, whatever his intentions, the Nobel Peace Prize has not had the slightest effect in preventing or lessening the incidence of War. Indeed, Alfred Nobel is but one of a number of paradoxical figures of this modem topsy-turvey world. 

No less so is Albert Einstein, a Nobel Prize winner, who wrote to President Roosevelt in 1939 drawing attention to the power of the Atom Bomb, and urging him to set science working on it in case the Nazi's got in first; only to say afterwards that "if World War III is fought with atom-armed missiles then World War IV will be fought with clubs," and sign the famous scientists declaration with Bertrand Russell, in July 1955, predicting that radio-active dust could end the human race. 

Alfred was the second son of Immanuel Nobel, who had a small chemical works in Stockholm in the sixties of the last century.

The family managed to land a contract for the Russian Navy in the Crimean War and for mines to be sown in the Baltic. These in fact did no harm, as they never went off. 

In 1870 Alfred took over and moved to Hamburg. During this period the firm invented a powerful new explosive, which he christened "Dynamite." This material was the atomic bomb of that day, compared to kid's stuff like gunpowder. He later founded the British Dynamite Co., which made 1,000 per cent. profit in six years. 

The first dynamite weapons were shells poured into densely populated Montmartre, by the German Army during the siege of Paris, in the time of the Commune. 

"Surely," said those who witnessed the devastating power of the high-explosive shells, "this must make war impossible, for who would dare to use such a means of wholesale extermination. Fear of reprisals would prevent it." 

But fear of reprisals did not prevent it being used, among others, by the Russian Anarchists who seized the new weapon with enthusiasm, and assassinated the Czar with it. This, and a number of disastrous accidents in factories and mines, placed its manufacture and sale under control. 

Same years later, Alfred Nobel, now, like so many millionaires, lonely and thoroughly miserable, established in an office in that same city of Paris he had helped to  batter down, advertised for a personal secretary for a few days work, The advertisement was answered 'by an Austrian countess, who needed money because she had been cut off for marrying a journalist called Arthur von Suttner. Subsequently she went into exile with her husband, to the Caucasus during the Russian annexation. Her experiences there made her an ardent Pacifist. With her husband's help she published a book, in the form or a personal diary; an impassioned protest against the injustice, corruption, and bestiality of war. 

The hero of the story is a conscientious objector, who is shot by the Germans as a French spy during the 1870  war. It was called "Die Waffen Nieder", or "Lay down the Arms." The Baroness became world famous. The book rocketed through Europe. The Third World Peace Congress in Rome elected her World President. 

Previously, Nobel had told the Countess that he liked "novels with a message," "propaganda novels," so she sent him one—her own. Nobel replied that he liked the book, and sent a donation to the Peace League's funds, and a suggested "peace plan." 

By this time his Head Office was in Zurich. Baroness Bertha hurried there to try to gain his full support for the Peace League. According to Egon Larsen, from whose interesting book "Men Who Shaped the Future" (Phoenix House, London), these details are culled, the following discussion took place: 

Dr. Alfred Nobel: "Perhaps my explosive factories will end war sooner than your Congresses. On the day when two army corps will be able to annihilate each other in a flash all civilised nations will recoil in horror - and disband their armies."
"No! they will not, cried Bertha, for each of them will rely on its bigger and better bombs, each of them will try to annihilate the enemy first. We, the peoples of 'the world, must force our governments to lay down arms."
"I wish I could prove my theory to you here and now, Baroness," smiled Nobel. "I wish I could produce some material . . . some machine of terrible power of annihilation and devastation that would make wars altogether impossible."
"It would not make them impossible Mr. Nobel, that is the horrible truth we must face. People will go on slaughtering one another, and you armament kings will increase the efficiency of their arms, because that's your profitable business."
Alfred Nobel: "I don't think a mere increase in the deadliest of weapons would bring world peace, Baroness. A few more soldiers on the battlefields will die - that's all. No, I am thinking of something more efficient; weapons that will make war as deadly for the civilians at home as for the troops in the front line.
Let the sword of Damocles hang over every head and you will witness a miracle; they will all clamour for peace.
But perhaps dynamite is not sufficient to achieve that result, even if one day it will be dropped from the air on the capitals of the world. I think we need something more powerful. Perhaps war would stop instantly if that weapon were Bacteria.
And there, for the time being, the matter was left.
Subsequently, after considerable illness, Nobel wrote the following to the Baroness in November, 1895.
"I should like to allot part of my fortune to the formation of a Prize Fund. This prize would be awarded to the man or woman who had done most to advance the idea of general peace in Europe. If we have failed, at the end of 30 years, to reform the present system of international relations, we shall inevitably revert to barbarism." 

He died in San Remo in 1896. In 1953 the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Sir Winston Churchill.

Horatio

Five Minutes On Socialism - Conclusion (1955)

From the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

In our last three talks we have discussed some of the problems of the present day world together with the attitudes and methods adopted as attempts to combat the evils of our own making. We have, in the course of 15 minutes discussion, sought to point the remedy to the common ailments that afflict mankind at the present time. We have, of necessity, only been able to point at salient problems well know to all and to state very briefly the Socialist answer. In this concluding talk we would like to discuss Nationalism, of which there are many examples arising around us at the present time.

It will be evident that at the present stage of capitalist organization, the efforts of the world's governments are towards greater protective power in the face of outside rivalry. Thus, legislation is saddling the economy of these countries into greater burdens of armament production. It is just another of the inconsistencies of capitalism that we have groups of countries combining for military strength and at the same time confronting each other, within the same group, on the commodity market; that there exists within these countries, movements, open and otherwise, striving to loosen the power of their respective governments in favour of some other set-up more in keeping with their own group interests. (Capitalism contains, of course, within its body of class interest, various antagonisms such as group interests present.)

Socialists recognise that in the world there are two classes—Workers and Capitalists—the between them lies the Class Struggle and that the liberation of the world's toilers is not a question of changing forms of government from Totalitarian to something "more democratic" or even modifying the democracy of Capitalism where it exists in some measure. Socialists are not concerned with making Capitalism continue more palatably but with the eradication of the world wide common system of exploitation.

Thus, Socialists are not interested in Nationalistic "Liberation" movements of factions or the larger groupings of powers. Socialists strive for the elimination of capitalism and its replacement by a nation-less world devoid of frontiers, caste systems, religious barriers and strangle-hold of the monetary system over the production and distribution of goods.

The S.P.G.B., being a Socialist organization in Britain, draws attention to the nationalistic movements in the British Isles—all of whom suggest various modifications of capitalism. (In Wales there are two groups, one advocating Dominion Status, the other Republicanism). The workers of the Irish Republic are learning the hard lesson; that working class problems are not solved by Republicanism, which is simply a devolution of British Capitalism. In Wales the status of "Plaid Cymru" has been rather inflated since their increased poll at the recent General Election. This has induced many members of the Tory and Labour Party to join its ranks.

Our message to the Welsh worker is the same as that to the world working class: "Study the case for Socialism and, if convinced, join the "Liberation Movement," which really counts—the Struggle for Socialism."

W. Brain