At Home and Abroad . . . (1971)

The Home and Abroad Column from the October 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

At Home

In the thirties (which were, of course, the bad old days which will never return) there was something called the intractable million. This was an economist’s phrase for the figure of a million unemployed which, no matter what the government or the experts did, would not be eliminated. Well now, in the good new days, the figure for the out-of-work is rising steadily towards the million and, when we make allowances for the defects of official statistics, has probably passed that ominous water mark. It is also clear that the politicians and the economists have no more idea of how to deal with this problem today than they had in the thirties, although now, as then, they do their best to sound confident when they produce their pet schemes. And this is what is called progress. Since the war, as unemployment has kept to a comparatively low level, working class poverty has taken some new, less traditional forms. It seems we are about to witness a return of the old, established forms of poverty as well.

And in case anyone thought that the old forms of poverty had completely disappeared. Shelter produced a report on slums which estimated that they will not be cleared in England and Wales for 204 years. At all events, this is a more realistic estimate than the drivel we get from Housing Ministers who promise to deal with the problem within the next few years. Yet perhaps even Shelter are being optimistic; they base their estimate on the present rate of clearance as against that of the decline of houses into slumdom. Capitalism has an established reputation for producing crises which destroy optimistic forecasts. So anyone who thinks that in the year 2176 they will be moving out of their slum had better not make any firm plans.

In any case by that time, if we are to believe some of the panic-stricken interpretations of the crime statistics and of recent events in the criminal scene, we shall all be murdered in our beds. The gunning down of the police inspector in Blackpool, with other highly-publicised cases and some angry statements by high ranking policemen, have fed the popular appetite for retribution against the criminal. Murder, indeed most violence, is an intensely emotional business so it is predictable, that there should be the same sort of reaction when a newsworthy killing happens. In this atmosphere there is little chance of the acceptance of a more rational approach; and certainly almost none of a hearing for the argument that it is capitalism, in one way or another and whatever other factors are influential, which makes our outlaws.

Politics

One of the peripheral battles about the Ulster situation has been on whether Parliament should be recalled. This is good stuff for all the comedians who thrive on apolitical jokes; what a shame to bring the M.P.s back from their labours on the Riviera, and so on and so on. Much more amusing is the notion that recalling Parliament would have any effect on the problem. It would be very difficult to prove from experience that this is likely to happen, since at present Parliament is an organ which administers the affairs of capitalism. As such it is impotent to get rid of the effects of the system; that can only come when Parliaments all over the world are composed of socialists with a mandate to abolish capitalism and with it all its inhumane and murderous offsprings. So as far as socialists are concerned (and if it's any consolation to them) the M.P.s can stay on the Riviera.

Abroad

When Khrushchev was deposed, on the day in 1964 that the British working class were returning the Labour Party to power (there were some theories that if Khrushchev had gone 24 hours earlier Wilson would not have won) a distinct chill of apprehension went around the world. In his years of power over Russian capitalism, Khrushchev had come to be accepted as a politician who was prepared to work towards a more comfortable phase in the Cold War and to ease the grip of the Russian dictatorship at home. One thing to be said about this is that none of this policy was a brilliant idea which sprang out of Khrushchev’s head. As he came to power there were changes in the world power structure of capitalism, with the rising threat of Chinese capitalism becoming ever more menacing. Within Russia, there had been signs of cracks in the dictatorship before Stalin died. As in other capitalist countries, Khrushchev was very much a man of his times, expressing and personalising the needs of his ruling class. It was clear at the time that he was under some political pressure at home, and that this went some way to explain such incidents as the Cuba missiles and Khrushchev’s apparent fondness for shoe-banging, raucous belligerence in public. What was happening was that he was saying one thing in.public while in fact doing the opposite — a common enough experience for capitalist leaders.

In Russia, we are told, we must expect barbarism and terror. But recent events in other countries have confirmed — if it were needed that this does not apply only to Russia. Events like the massacre at Attica prison, N.Y. Like the killings at the new airport in Tokyo. And so far we have not even mentioned Ulster. All the evidence points to the conclusion that capitalism is rotten and should be replaced by a society where people are precious.

Blogger's Note:

From the same issue of the Socialist Standard, see 'The Death of Khrushchev'.

The trade war hots up (1971)

From the October 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard 

One of the myths in the economic textbooks is that the purpose of trade is to provide everyone amicably with the things he wants at the lowest possible prices, and that as restrictions on trade, whether in the form of protective tariffs and quotas on imports, or subsidies on exports, or of unstable currencies, prevent goods from being produced where and by whom they can be turned out most cheaply it is the duty of all ‘good governments’ to favour freedom of trade.

The myth was given official approval some thirty years ago with the establishment under United Nations auspices of the International Monetary Fund and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (G.A.T.T.), through which the nations were to co-operate to their mutual advantage in securing currency stability, promoting trade and employment and working towards the removal of all trade barriers.

The reality is nothing like this. Trade is a war in which capitalists, alone or associated groups, try to turn their products into cash at maximum profit, and to this end seek to capture markets from rivals by any means that will serve, including government action to protect home markets, subsidised exports and putting pressure on rival governments.

Outside the Russian and Chinese blocs (which have their own systems of trade imperialism) nearly all governments pay lip-service to free trade, but it is a principle they support or reject in practice just as their changing needs require.

Marx was pointing out more than a century ago that the free-traders of one generation become the protectionists of the next. The classic example was the mid-nineteenth century English manufacturers to whom free trade was a religion. They had been protectionist in the eighteenth century, against the free-trade landed interests, but when developed British industry had the world at its feet their slogan was free-trade, with its accompaniment of cheap imported food which meant lower wages and higher profits. It was the landed interest which then became protectionist.

Later on, when British industry was successfully challenged by foreign rivals, the manufacturers reverted to protection.

After World War II it was American exports which were penetrating into world markets, and the dominant sections of American industry and food production wanted to impose free trade on the rest of the world. But, following the re-emergence of powerful industries in Europe and the spectacular expansion of Japan with its cheap ship building and steel production and the flooding of the American and other markets with cheap textiles, motor cycles, cars, cameras, TV sets etc., the protectionist interests in USA increased their influence on American trade and currency policy. Hence the Nixon move of imposing a ten per cent surcharge on imports, to be used as a means of putting pressure on other countries, particularly Japan, into up-valuing their currency in terms of dollars. This enabled America to get the results flowing from a dollar devaluation while technically avoiding direct devaluation (but also with suspension of the already much restricted convertibility of dollars into gold at $35 an ounce).

Simply as an arithmetic calculation, if the Japanese Yen is up-valued by say ten per cent, this would enable Japanese importers of American goods to get them nine per cent cheaper and would force American importers of Japanese goods to pay ten per cent more for them, thus stimulating American exports and discouraging imports. In practice the effect is likely to be modified by both buyers and sellers being willing to adjust their prices, even at the cost of lowered profit margins. The same applies to the ten per cent surcharge on American imports which in any event is likely to be a temporary measure.

The Nixon move was received with cries of rage from the affected capitalist groups, with charges and counter charges of ‘selfishness’, ‘bad faith’, ‘callous disregard of world interests’ and so on.

There are seventy seven countries which are members of G.A.T.T. but they found that when it came to vital question of American interests their numbers did not count for much. A typical bitter comment was published in the Evening Standard (20 August): -

Now G.A.T.T. finds who calls the tune. Today it is the turn of G.A.T.T. to find that when the pinching starts to hurt the boss, suddenly all the rules are changed. These last few days very eminent economic set-ups like the International Monetary Fund and the Common Market Commission have been waking up to the fact that it is the U.S. government and not they who call the tune when world monetary problems get too close to home.

Doubtless very true, but it is only a repetition of what every government has tried to do from time to time. A case in point was the sudden decision of the Wilson government in November 1964 to slam a fifteen per cent surcharge on all manufactured and semi-manufactured imports. (Later reduced to ten per cent and abolished in 1966). This was received with similar howls of rage. It was strongly denounced in G.A.T.T., in the European Free Trade Association, the Council of Europe, and the Common Market. The British government was condemned for lack of consultation, even with its E.F.T.A. partners, charged with breaking G.A.T.T. rules and with action contrary to the spirit of international co-operation. A Swiss spokesman at E.F.T.A. asked what was the use of making international agreements when the British government could so flagrantly violate them.

As usual the economic ‘experts’ are all at sixes and sevens in their efforts to assess the Nixon move and its consequences. At one extreme was Joe Rogaly in the Financial Times (1 September) and at the other Nigel Lawson in The Times of the same date. Rogaly sees hope that the road will be open ‘to a long term future’ in which there were no balance of payments crises and in which each nation produced the goods that it was best at producing, thus increasing the efficiency of the world as a whole and raising the general prosperity of us all’.

Nigel Lawson regards it as a disaster.

in the course of an essentially domestic economic initiative designed to secure his re-election next year . . . the President gratuitously, and almost as an aside, gave the world a bloody nose — and the commentators, nearly to a man, squealed with delight. At one blow Mr. Nixon has destroyed the international monetary order on which the post-war prosperity of the West has been based and created the biggest threat to world trade since the thirties and everyone marvels at his sagacity.

Lawson is wrong in thinking that if things get worse it will simply be the fault of the American government. Nixon was responding to a hotting up of the trade war which was already taking place and was affecting in greater or less degree all the capitalist world. While capitalism lasts there is no contracting out of its evil effects.

Edgar Hardcastle

Ted’s all at sea but does it matter ? (1971)

From the October 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard 

If we accept their own evaluation of themselves, there can be no doubt that our politicians do a wonderful job. Toiling night and day, they control the economy to a hair’s breadth accuracy — stimulating here, damping there, so that we all enjoy the most marvellous prosperity ever known to man. And if anything goes wrong with their control, if they stimulate when they should dampen, or vice versa, they are ready with a number of amazingly generous schemes of social security which ensure that even when we are out of work we are almost as prosperous as before.

Then there is the matter of defence. We all know that we live in an extremely dangerous world where everything we hold dear, like our motor car and our back garden and the Royal Family, is under the threat from Russia and China and Egypt and many other uncivilised countries. To ward off this threat the politicians have arranged a fantastic armoury of weapons which are enough to frighten away the most insensitive Oriental ever born. Of course at the same time as they claim the credit for the production of these weapons the politicians also tell us that they have attended numerous conferences and signed numerous treaties with the professed object of ensuring that the weapons are never used, But that apparent contradiction should prove to everyone except the most cynical what wonderful men our leaders are.

With all these tremendously good, and time consuming, works being done for us the wonder is that the politicians ever have any time spare for anything else. Yet many of them are active in all sorts of other fields. Churchill, for example, used to spend a great deal of time eating and drinking; Attlee was clever enough to be able to doodle silently while the great affairs of state were being fought out all around him; Macmillan and Douglas-Home were both fond of the grouse moors. But now we have a Prime Minister who is better than all of them because he is an international sportsman.

It is possible that some sport fans will he misled by that description into thinking that Ted Heath has been recruited into Alf Ramsay’s squad and will shortly be taking on George Best for the glory and honour of Old England. But before any of them have a heart attack at this idea, it should be made clear that Heath’s international sporting is confined to yachting, in which he has represented Great Britain.

Perhaps Heath’s public relations men think that his hobby — if that is what it can be called — fits in well with his image of the small seaside town grammar school boy who made the top. This, you see, is the age of the Daily Mirror dinghy, when almost any worker who is not actually out of work can probably afford to buy or build his own sailing ship for a fairly modest outlay. Unfortunately Heath’s rather elephantine publicists seem to have overlooked the vital fact that his boat is larger and more expensive — something like £20,000 more expensive — than all those little do-it-yourself boats.

In addition the Prime Minister is providing the Labour opposition with some handy ammunition, because as he has been absorbedly sailing backwards and forwards there has been an escalation of the current problems of British capitalism which he as the top politician should be able to solve. In Ulster the violence flares even higher, with more and more deaths. The world is in the throes of yet another currency crisis. At home, among the usual poverty problems like housing, unemployment has become an issue and is likely to reach the dreaded million mark this winter.

The Labour Party have always been adept at picturing leisured Tory ministers callously at their sports while the workers are suffering. On the face of it, it seems reasonable to expect, politicians to be energetic and committed to their work. But it needs only a little probing beneath the surface to put this assumption in a very different light.

Of the men who have held the job of Prime Minister since the First World War, one who provoked a lot of criticism by his apparent inertia and lack of concern was Stanley Baldwin. He was a man who was always ready to make a sentimental speech about the beauty of the English countryside but who preferred to spend his holidays in Southern France. He exploited the image of the comfortable, fatherly, pipe-smoking leader talking to the people like a family doctor — which he rather spoiled by being photographed looking affectionately at a pig. Chamberlain referred sarcastically to his ‘‘poetic temperament” and whatever truth there was in this sneer, Baldwin was capable of coining some memorable phrases — like his slogan of ‘‘Safety First” for the election of 1929, when there were a couple of million unemployed in this country who might have been expected to want anything but a policy of caution. Nevertheless the workers were so fascinated by Baldwin’s promise of tranquility that they gave him almost enough votes to get back into power.

Just after he got back to the Premiership in 1932 he

. . . declared himself by no means overwhelmed by his responsibilities ... He was going to the theatre tonight!

(Neville Chamberlain’s diaries; 23.5.1932).

And while Baldwin was so gay and carefree Sir John Orr was telling the world, which included the politicians, that the cost of an adequate diet — nine or ten shillings a week — was beyond the purchasing power of one third of the people. A little before this Baldwin had announced to the Junior Imperial League that “This is a glorious age in which we live . . . the whole world is sick” but he did not mean the same thing.

After a time his lethargy and stone-walling became a liability. In addition he once made the statement that “You cannot palter with the truth for the sake of votes”, which must have seriously unnerved his fellow' politicians and, more than anything else, convinced them that he had to go.

Baldwin was succeeded by the scrawny Neville Chamberlain, who may have been the most unpopular Prime Minister of recent times. So old fashioned was he that he regarded the fountain pen as a new fangled instrument of torture. Chamberlain belied his appearance because, apart from recurrent gout, he was a robust and physically tireless man. He took the chair of every Cabinet committee dealing with major domestic policies; he was the one minister in his government who could always be relied on to read and digest every paper before the Cabinet; when he was seventy and would tire out his police bodyguard by dragging him on long, hard hikes over the Chiltern Hills. And of course there were those famous flights to meet Hitler — in those days quite an adventure for a man of 69.

Although Chamberlain championed many of the methods of running British capitalism which might have been put forward by the Labour Party — for example state welfare schemes and what he called a “managed economy” — he was the image of the stiff, grim faced Tory. Yet none of his opponents could accuse him of lethargy; indeed, when he later became damned with the memory of Munich the Tories must have wished miserably that he had not been so energetic. Perhaps a bit more of Baldwin’s casualness would have saved something from the wreck which emerged as Labour’s victory of 1945.

But in the nature of capitalism’s politics the Tories recovered and after Attlee’s men, many of whom were so energetic in their efforts to defend the interests of the British capitalist class that they worked themselves into an early grave, came the Age of the Grouse Moor. As it happened Macmillan was a one-time admirer of Baldwin’s and shared many of his characteristics as a slick performer on the political tightrope. He too made slushy speeches, once persuading a deputation of railwaymen to call off a strike by tearful reminiscences of the 1917 battle of Passchendaele.

Macmillan was a man who presented strongly contrasting images. He liked to affect the “effortless superiority” of one who had gone to a posh Oxford college yet he could also sponsor policies like the Premium Bonds which some Tories thought were vulgar. One of the many surprises he sprung was to become energised by taking on the job of Prime Minister. Before that he was thought to be worn out by his time as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer. But as Premier he blossomed; crisis suited his acting talent and he quickly dominated his party, stifling any gestures of opposition with elaborate yawns and deliberately boring speeches.

Nevertheless, behind the facade of the dandy in a fashionable play Macmillan was doing a tricky political job. He played a large part in recognising the necessity of, and organising, the retreat of British capitalism from the old Empire so dear to Tory hearts. He signalled this policy in a speech which passed a new catch phrase — the Wind of Change — into common usage and which infuriated those Tories whom Macmillan had allowed to believe that he would carry on with Eden’s policies in areas like the Middle East. Years later, in an interview with Nigel Lawson (Listener 8/9/66), he described the process of this trickery:

Lawson: Would you say it is easier for a Prime Minister in this country to do one thing if he says he is doing something else?

Macmillan: It is a very common method, yes.

As in the case of Baldwin, Macmillan’s popularity waned and his grip on his party weakened, with the growing impression that he pursued too casual a style while crisis mounted all around him. In the end he panicked, he came to admit in the Profumo debate that he was out of touch with the times and, after one last effort, he retired from the Premiership. Even his influence on the choice of his successor Douglas- Home provoked such a split in the Tories that they never used that method again.

After Douglas-Home, Wilson came roaring into office with a reputation for crushingly hard work. He was another grammar school boy made good — in fact the original, authentic article with his simple life style and comfortable family. Wilson was said never to relax, giving up even his Sundays to reading and to preparing his speeches. He said he thrived on work; only boredom made him tired and the most responsibility he had the more relaxed he became.

For a time this was effective; we all remember how pleased the voters were with their new, bustling Prime Minister after those thirteen years of Tory snobbishness and lethargy. It was only as reality forced its way into the picture (yet again, for the umpteenth time) that Wilson was discredited. He himself probably helped in this process, by persisting with the image long after it had been exposed as a sham and the man of action written down as a slick purveyor of empty clap-trap and blatant trickery. It will need a massive confidence trick now to reestablish him as a creditable politician worth any of the millions of votes which will be cast for capitalism at the next election.

It would be possible to go on like this for some time, but every example would lead us back to the same conclusion. The personalities of our politicians — whether they are stupid or clever, energetic or lazy — have absolutely no effect upon the world they are supposed to control and improve. The tragedy is that, as political leaders are necessary to capitalism, the working class assume that they will always be necessary in any society. In fact, a successful politician needs many of the talents and qualities of a good actor, which means that he cannot represent reality. It is not uncommon, when a play is no good, for the customers to enforce its shut-down by the simple method of not supporting it. In the same way the working class could bring down the curtain on the destructive farce of capitalism.

Ivan

For New Readers (1971)

From the October 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard 

What we are not

The Socialist Party of Great Britain is not the Labour Party, nor do we support the Labour Party. In our view the Labour Party used to be an organization with confused and vague ideas about changing society and improving the lot of working people. It has now become little different from the Conservative Party — another “team” to administer capitalism.

We are also opposed to the so-called “Communist" Party and to the Trotskyists.

We have to explain these points because unfortunately the word “Socialism” has been used in many different ways, often very woolly, whereas we are quite clear about what we mean by Socialism, and about how to get it.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain is connected with parties and groups in other countries. It is democratically run, with all members having an equal say, and no secrecy.

What we mean by "Capitalism"

By capitalism we mean commercial society, society based on buying and selling. This exists all over the world, with the exception of pre-capitalist societies which still survive, for instance tribal communism, and subsistence-level peasant societies. Capitalism rules in Russia, China, Cuba, and other countries falsely claimed to be “Socialist” or “Communist.”

Capitalism has not always existed, and it will not exist for ever. Capitalism is not an evil conspiracy (though as a matter of fact, it is fertile ground for evil conspiracies) but a type of social order which has been necessary for the progress of our species.

The function of capitalism was to put human beings through a great deal of anxiety, loneliness, boring work, shoddy food and housing — a generally insecure and frustrated existence — in order to screw wealth out of them. Capitalism developed science and technology with brilliant success, united the world (for communications purposes) into a “global village” and trained more people than ever before to a high level of knowhow and adaptability.

But capitalism has not, in the main, fully applied its science and technology for the benefit of the majority of the population, and in our view it cannot. Capitalism has not united the world politically — wars go on all the time, and a Big War which would exterminate the lot of us gets steadily less unlikely. Capitalism has not employed its knowledge and expertise in useful, dignified and happy productive activity, but has put a curse on work.

Capitalism has created a potential abundance of wealth, capable of satisfying human wants on a scale heretofore undreamed of. But capitalism cannot realize its own potential. This is because the capitalist economic system is best suited to rationing scarcity by means of the market. It goes haywire at the threat of abundance — as witness the “problem” of millions of tons of “surplus” food in a world where over ten per cent of the population is starving.

Who the workers are

To many people “the working class” is defined by occupation or education, or even by trivialities like accent or table manners. These may be useful classifications for some purposes, but to the Socialist “working class” has quite a different meaning, based on the analysis of Karl Marx. By this definition, the working class is composed of those who do not own enough to live off their possessions, and therefore have to sell themselves. The working class is a class of wage-slaves. This includes the great majority of the population, if we count dependents (such as housewives and babies) and trainee wage-slaves (such as schoolchildren, apprentices and students).

Capitalism has tidied up classes. All other classes apart from capitalists and workers (such as peasants) readily dwindle away under capitalism — usually by their members being recruited into the working class. Workers are exploited. By this we don’t mean that they always live in Dickensian conditions, or that foremen stride about brandishing whips. We mean simply that workers are a source of wealth, which is taken from them. This may seem fairly obvious, but many people appear to live in a make-believe world in which captains of industry” or “financial wizards” or (increasingly) “the authorities” somehow “give” workers employment.” The fact is that the world’s wealth produced by the working class, but does not belong to them. In Britain, for example, 10 per cent of the population own over 90 per cent of the wealth and get 99 per cent of the property income. The rich and powerful (the capitalist class) have interests opposed to those of the workers. They gain where workers lose: if wages rise, profits fall. And of course, the capitalists will lose their privileged position in Socialism, where all men and women will be social equals.

It is the working class which must establish Socialism, because they are the majority of the population, because they do all the essential work of operating capitalism and are therefore trained to a high degree, and because they are driven by their conditions of life to challenge the status quo — though to date it has usually been fairly easy for workers’ discontent to be channelled in a reformist, rather than revolutionary, direction.

Defeatists and self-styled “realists” are apt to point at that the majority of workers are “contented” or apathetic” — though of many workers it might be truer to say that they are worried so sick that they do not care. What the pessimists forget is that capitalism is a dynamic society, indeed a revolutionary society, of perpetual agitation and change.

Many workers adopt the motto: “Anything for a quiet life.” But most of them find this impossible, capitalism takes them by the scruff of the neck, gives them a good shaking, and says: “You cannot have a quiet life.” Just as we are about to close our teeth upon the dangling carrot, it is whisked away by war, slump, job re-organization or other arbitrary authority. There is of course no guarantee that workers will turn to Socialism as the answer to their problems. All we can say is that certain long-term trends in capitalism make it increasingly likely that they will. For the moment they may take refuge in television, drugs, mental and psychosomatic illness, feelings of personal guilt and feverish pursuit of “success.” It is up to the Socialist to dis-illusion people.

What unions can do

As long as capitalism stays, there will be class struggle. Workers don’t ask for it. Socialists don’t delight in it. Strikes, and other forms of “industrial action” are unavoidable if workers are to defend their living standards, and occasionally raise them.

We advise workers to be “militant” in the sense that they should press for the highest wages they can get, and should not soft-pedal this struggle because capitalism has started one of its wars or because the government says there is a crisis. But trade union militancy in itself does nothing to threaten the continued existence of capitalism, though it may threaten particular regimes or schemes of capitalism.

Strikes are necessary for our defence, but severely limited even for this. The general level of wages is largely fixed by the pattern of capital investment, and negotiable only within relatively narrow limits. The operation of capitalism’s trade (and employment) cycle is a running tide in relation to which the militant trade unionist is little more than a King Canute. In addition, trade unionism by itself may set one group of workers against another.

One of the immediate consequences of the growth of a mass Socialist movement will be a more effective trade union movement, which will take no notice of hallucinations like “the national interest” or “inflationary spirals.”

In keeping with our opposition to leadership, we say that the people best qualified to decide the tactics of a particular strike are the workers directly involved, who have to live with the consequences. It is not the function of our Party to lay down a detailed trade union strategy — indeed our trade unionist members may have differences of opinion about this. There are however two general aims which Socialists pursue: working class democracy and unity. Whereas governments of capitalism worry themselves about “giving unions more power over their members”. Socialists are more concerned with giving the members more power over their unions. Parochial craft or regional interests should be subordinated to the interests of all the workers.

The Conservative government’s Industrial Relations Bill could not have been killed by trade union action, because such a large number of workers were either in favour of it, or indifferent. (Many of those opposed quibble only about details, and would support anti-union measures by a different ruling party). If this were not so, the government would not have dared introduce the measure in the first place. Lacking Socialist understanding, workers find scapegoats for their problems. Union-bashing wins working class votes. Enforcing the Act is another matter. Whether the mass of workers will remain so docile then remains to be seen. In any case, we see here an example of the trade union struggle being hampered by the lack of a strong Socialist movement, based on widespread Socialist understanding.

Reforms?

Capitalism never runs out of reforms. On the contrary, it needs perpetual reforming. Capitalist political parties do not declare that the existing state of affairs is fine. On the contrary, they use words like “radical,” “dynamic,” "revolutionary” etc. to describe the reforms they advocate.

A Socialist party does not, of course, oppose all reforms any more than it advocates them. On the contrary, Socialists recognize that reforms inside capitalism may sometimes benefit the working class — though never by as much as one per cent of what is claimed for them!

But it is not the function of a Socialist party to campaign for reforms, or to seek support on the basis of reforms. Historically, we have seen parties which started out with Socialism as an aim, converted into run-of-the-mill capitalist parties (for instance, the German Social-Democratic Party) because they fell for the easy line: "Why not advocate revolution and reform — just in the meantime?” This must attract the support of those who want reform, but aren’t too interested in revolution. A “Socialist” party which grows in strength ahead of the real extent of Socialist understanding among the workers, is likely to be placed in a position where it is forced to administer capitalism, or go in for political trading with capitalist parties. For a party to canvass the support of non-Socialists is the first step to becoming a party of non-Socialists.

A Socialist party analyses closely the likely effects of reform measures, and gives a sober assessment of the extent to which they will benefit or injure the majority of the population.

Revolution?

Because Socialism will be a democratic society, in which the majority will get its way, with full rights of dissent and arguments for minorities, it follows that Socialism can only be set up democratically. That is to say, Socialism cannot be handed to the majority of people by an elite which thinks it knows what’s good for them.

Although Socialism is the culmination of trends within capitalism, this does not mean that Socialism will somehow come about irrespective of people’s wishes. On the contrary, one of the ways in which capitalism tends towards Socialism is by creating a large organized, informed working class. It is these people (i.e. it is we, the workers) who will establish Socialism, but we will not do it by accident or improvization: we will do it consciously, because we want it and see the necessity for it.

The chief job of Socialists at this stage is therefore to spread Socialist ideas, and expose the false remedies of capitalism. At present Socialists are in a tiny minority, but as we have pointed out, capitalism is unlike previous societies in that it is a system of constant agitation and rapid change in which nothing is sacred and no ideas are safe.

“Revolution” to the Socialist is not a violent thing, with street fights and barricades. Such a view of revolution is nineteenth-century. Today, no barricades could possibly stand up to the might of the modern state, and in any case there is no need, because in the advanced countries, where workers are most numerous and highly-trained, capitalism, is forced to give them certain political rights. We can see in the present-day Russian Empire what happens when an increasingly advanced form of capitalism is lumbered with an outdated political apparatus; more and more unrest and instability, which can only result in the granting of democratic reforms.

Socialists are not pacifists, and we are in no position to guarantee that the Socialist revolution will be altogether free from violence. Violence is improbable, but will depend upon the behaviour of the minority who are still opposed to Socialism. If there are people reactionary, desperate and foolish enough to use violence to obstruct the plans of the Socialist majority, then defensive action of some sort might have to be taken against them.

What we mean by Socialism

Socialism means the end of buying and selling, the end of money and the wages system. As long as these things remain, there will be economic crises, wars, bitter class struggle and day-to-day violence. In our opinion these problems cannot be cured by charities, social reforms or a personal “change of heart” on the part of individuals. Neither can they be solved by nationalization or "workers’ control” — since these are merely different ways of administering the same economic system.

Socialism will mean sweeping changes in many spheres of life: education, the family, social administration — but these will all be based on the abolition of production for sale (what Marx called “commodity production”), and the introduction of democratically planned production according to people’s wants.

Socialism will be a society of voluntary co-operation. There will be sexual freedom and equality. Work will be voluntary, and people will take freely what they need to consume. This is technically feasible because capitalism has already developed the potential for abundance.

Socialism will be a fully democratic society, with complete freedom of expression for everyone. And, of course, Socialism will be a society without economic classes — there will be no capitalist class and no working class.

Socialism can only be world-wide. “British Socialism” is a flat contradiction. Attempts to set up Socialism in one part of the world would have to fail — the remaining capitalist powers would see to that, if nothing else. On the other hand, the world is now so closely united in terms of communications, fashions and the rapid flow of ideas, that if the people in one place were ready for Socialism, the rest of the world could not be far behind.

A world community founded on common ownership, and democratic control — in our view this is the only solution to the major problems of modern life. We ask you to give it serious consideration if you desire an end to war, poverty and oppression.

Is this possible? The revolution begins when you decide that it is.

David Ramsay Steele

Workers Councils (1971)

From the October 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The policy adopted by the Labour and Social-Democratic parties in Europe has generally been described as “parliamentarianism”. By which is meant the idea that a parliament dominated by working-class representatives can, through various types of legislation, control the existing system of society in the interests of the community as a whole. Whilst workers have made some gains this way, more and more people are becoming aware that such a path offers no solution to any of the major problems they face, because it leaves untouched the basic structure of society which is their root cause. (Which is why the Socialist Party of Great Britain has always opposed any policy of social reformism).

In many radical political circles, especially those that have originated in or worked in conjunction with the Labour Party, the failure of this policy has been attributed, as much to the mechanism of parliamentary elections as to the nature of social reformism itself. It has been argued that the experience of Labour and Social-Democratic governments proves the uselessness of parliamentary institutions to the workers. The alternative form of organisation offered has usually been “workers’ councils”, or factory committees along the lines of the early Russian Soviets. These are said to be more democratic and responsive to the needs of workers. Obviously a council made up of revocable delegates is more democratic than one composed of individuals elected for a fixed period of time, but in other ways the typical workers’ council or factory committee is less democratic. It is organised on a narrower base and excludes those not employed such as the unemployed, old and young people, housewives and the disabled.

Despite their shortcomings, elections to a parliament based on universal suffrage are still the best method available for workers to express a majority desire for Socialism. Furthermore, although parliament run by Labour or Tory politicians is incapable of controlling the economic system in a rational and humane way, it is the centre of political control in the advanced industrial countries. The minority of people who now monopolise the ownership of wealth do so through their control of parliament by capitalist parties elected by workers. Control of parliament by representatives of a conscious revolutionary movement will enable the bureaucratic-military apparatus to be dismantled and the oppressive forces of the state to be neutralised, so that Socialism may be introduced with the least possible violence and disruption.

Parliament and local councils, to the extent that their functions are administrative and not governmental, can also be used to co-ordinate the emergency measures when Socialism is established.

We are not saying that workers councils are therefore quite useless. On the contrary; like trade unions they can often play a useful role under capitalism in the struggle of workers to maintain or improve working conditions and wages, and to resist capitalist authority at work. Factory or workplace committees, or something similar, would also play an important part in the democratic management of production inside Socialism.

Representatives elected by workers to parliament have continually compromised to the needs of capitalism, but then so have representatives on the industrial field. The institution is not here at fault; it is just that people’s ideas have not yet developed beyond belief in leaders and dependence on a political elite.

M. B.

50 Years Ago: The Problem of Unemployment (1971)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Notwithstanding the claims advanced by the daily press, that trade shows signs of revival, the unemployment figures are still in the neighbourhood of one and a half millions.

In fact, the workers of every country are unemployed to an extent never yet experienced, with one exception. We are told that Germany is the exception and that unemployment there is scarcely known . . . Some people might argue from this that the way to fuller employment for any country was to have a good war with a neighbouring country and lose it!

Such an argument, however, is on a par with the general capitalist principle that working-class prosperity in one country can only be built up on the unemployment and impoverishment of the workers of other countries.

That is necessarily the outcome of the contention that unemployment can only be reduced by the capture of foreign trade.

(From the Socialist Standard October 1921. Article by Fred Foan.)

Aspect: Engels: The Man and His Work - Part Two (1971)

The Aspect column from the October 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

The second and concluding part of a tribute to Marx co-worker

The writings of Friedrich Engels are indispensable for the study of the growth and development of Scientific Socialism. His writings derive their importance from the fact that even when they were not produced jointly with Marx (as was the case with the Communist Manifesto), they were (until Marx’s death) produced in collaboration with Marx in the sense that the whole plan was discussed by them jointly before the works of either were written The result in each case was submitted for the critical revision of the other.

Engels capacity to explain in a popular manner the ideas and theories of Marx have probably never been excelled. The proof is to be found in the worldwide circulation of Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. Originally this consisted of portions of certain chapters in his polemic against Eugen Dühring. At the request (or suggestion) of Paul Lafargue, Marx’s son-in-law, a separate pamphlet was made out of these sections, which, with Engels’ approval he translated into French and issued in 1880. Translations into other languages and re-prints in the original German text were followed in 1892 by an English translation for which Engels wrote an Introduction which is probably one of his best essays. It has been translated and undergone re-prints in many languages. In 1892 Engels commented upon its great popularity. It remains to this day the best approach to the study of Marxism.

Engels qualities as a writer were shown no less well in his Ludwig Feuerbach. In this essay he shows the connection between the Marxian world-outlook and that of German classical philosophy which came to an end with Feuerbach. Engels skilfully compresses the most profound implications of the Marxian world-outlook into terms that are clear and at the same time carefully guarded against any possibility of over-statement.

In one sense, the essay on Ludwig Feuerbach is a summary of the main theme of Engels’ longest work, his Anti-Dühring. The two works differ in tone and temper; the larger work is a point by point argument against a pretentious, badly-built theory of Socialism while the shorter essay is a straight-forward exposition of the historical origin of the Marxian world-outlook. But while the essay gives that outlook in a summarised form, the Anti-Dühring reaches it in a succession of arguments in which the proposition of Dühring is fully exposed and finally the whole field of philosophical thinking is established for the Marxian view of historical materialism and of revolutionary class-struggle.

The most specialised work of Engels can be placed under three heads:— (a) Military studies, (b) Historical and Political Essays, (c) the completion of Marx’s Capital. Of the works in the first category we need not here concern ourselves.

Engels’s Historical and Political Studies form the largest single section of his writing. For convenience of characterisation they may be sub-classified as (a) the group dealing with the German Revolution, (b) social theory group, and (c) the group dealing with the English working class struggle.

In the first category is his The Peasant War In Germany (one of his neglected writings and now almost forgotten) dealing with events of the early 16th century. Engels traces the historical causation which led to the outbreak in 1515, from which he draws the moral expressed by Marx as “The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself”, The Peasant War is valuable for its handling of the historical causes of the alliance between peasantry and the working class. During 1851 and 1852 Engels also wrote a series of articles under Marx’s name on the events of 1848 in Germany for The New York Daily Tribune. These were later published as a book, Revolution and Counter Revolution in Germany and still erroneously attributed to Marx.

The social theory group consists of one polemic volume The Housing Question, a study of The Origin the Family, Private Property and the State and an essay The Mark dealing with the form in which tribal communal land ownership, all necessitating a consideration of the nature of the State.

The Origin of the Family deals, in method, with the sociological discoveries of Lewis Henry Morgan, who was the first to prove that human society had undergone a process of historical transformation before even the most ancient of historical records began. At the time when Engels wrote, the notion of a ‘history before history begins’ had barely been discussed. Today the amount of literature on anthropology and related subjects is so vast that the significance of Engels’s work tends to be overlooked. Engels did what modern writers are careful to avoid; he drew a moral from the lessons of the past. Just as Man existed for great lengths of time without developing the idea of such thing as a frontier, so it was possible to envisage a future in which frontiers had disappeared and mankind had become united into a co-operating whole. So with private property; as this, too, was an institution which had evolved by degrees, so it was possible to conceive it passing out of existence and giving place to a form of common ownership on a higher plane. So with the family. As this had its history in the past, it could not he doubted that its future form would change. On all counts the “necessary conditions” of human society — the State with its frontiers, property and the family — which were often regarded as sacred and fixed, were shown to be transitory products of social development and not its immutable causes.

Engels not only draws these Socialist conclusions from his subject matter in a general form; he draws them concretely in his analysis of the State, expounded Anti-Dühring as well as the Origin.

This he shows to be likewise a transitory phenomenon and the product of class divisions based upon property differentiation. He concludes here, that the working class will constitute itself a State force as the capitalists did before them, but under radically different conditions. Since the essence of the State is to coerce and since, further, the essential object of the working class struggle is to abolish class differences, the working class organised as a State, and using its State force, will eliminate all class divisions and must in the end achieve a result in which the State has ceased to be a State at all. So far as the working class eliminates all privileges based upon private property in the means of production and makes the means of production the common property of society, it converts all members of society into workers who are also collective owners. But in doing so, the working class will have abolished distinctly its own working class status. Its own class character will have disappeared with the disappearance of the property relations and the privileges by reference to which it was a class. Its State will therefore cease to be a State since there no longer exists any subjects over whom it can exercise coercion. “The function of the organisation of society will change”, Government over persons will be replaced by administration over things”, the State will die out.

It is extremely difficult to place Engels’s works in any precise order of merit and having in mind the undoubted pre-eminence of the Anti-Dühring, it can be said categorically that Origin of the Family is very necessary for a proper grasp of the ideas expressed by Marx.

The essay, The Mark, is in one sense a foot-note to the Origin. It is useful, however, as showing Engels’ grasp of the various changes and exchanges possible in the ownership of land during its transformation from primitive forms of common ownership to private ownership.

The ‘English’ sub-group contains two works. Engels’ first work The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, and a later work, a series of articles which appeared in the Labour Standard in 1881 (since re-published under the title of The British Labour Movement.)

In the decade after the Paris Commune of 1871 the independent labour press had practically disappeared but the London Trades Council produced their paper the Labour Standard. Its editor, George Shipton, invited Engels to contribute a series of articles. From May to August Engels wrote ten articles, in which by means of current events he demonstrated that old style trade unionism whose objectives were summed up in the slogan “A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work” was absurd. It is in the article “Trade Union of May 28, 1881, that he stresses the need for a movement for the “Abolition of the wages system altogether”. Simply worded, quietly and carefully reasoned, these articles are as readable today and as rewarding as when they were written.

These articles, along with the Condition bear testimony to the fact which a perusal of the Marx-Engels correspondence will verify, that Engels’s association with the working class in Britain continued from the time of his contribution to Owen’s New Moral World and O’Connor’s Northern Star down to the date of his death. To the last, he showed pleasure at the memory of the Chartists’ struggle and he never lost his conviction that the British working class would sooner or later find its place in the forefront of the world revolutionary movement of the working class.

The final group of Engels’s writings consists in his completion of volumes II and III of Capital. It was characteristic of him, that with the death of Marx, he should undertake as a matter of course, the completion of the immense work which illness had compelled Marx to leave unfinished. Engels realised and understood that the full importance of Marx’s analysis of the laws which underlie capitalist society could not be appreciated from the first volume alone. Volume I looks at the process of capitalist production only in a general and abstract form. The work of Volumes II and III is to carry forward the analysis to a study of the concrete process which links together production, circulation and consumption. It is these later studies that show the contradiction of capitalist society as a developing whole. In order that Marx’s scientific discovery (The Law of motion of capitalist society) should be presented to the world complete, Engels, at sixty five years of age undertook a task whose immensity can be appreciated by all who have studied the result and compared it with what had been done before in the field of economics.

In connection with his completion of Capital must be considered the number of prefaces written by Engels to new editions of his own works and those of Marx. During the later years of his life, he congratulated himself upon the fact “That there is but a limited number of languages that he could be called upon to assist translators” (Preface to Volume III of Capital). Added to this mass of work of a uniformly high quality must be the enormous amount of correspondence. Nothing Engels wrote ever failed to be interesting and informative. Without the work of Engels, the theories of Marx would be much less known than most people realise. Marx and Engels both stressed the importance of correct theory arising out of historical development as a preliminary to any revolutionary activity. A last quote from Engels’s 1880 preface to The Communist Manifesto is a fitting end to a tribute of this character:

The proletariat cannot obtain its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class — the bourgeoisie — without at the same time, and once and for all emancipating society at large from all exploitation, oppression, class-distinction and class struggles.

Bob Ambridge

Squaring the Circle (1971)

Book Review from the October 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

Society of the Future, by August Bebel. Progress Publishers. Moscow.

To mark their government’s false claim to be in the process of establishing “Communism” in Russia by the 1980s a Russian State publishing house has brought out under this title an edited version of Bebel’s Woman under Socialism.

Bebel speculates on the possibilities of Socialism (which he sees as an international, Stateless, moneyless society based on the common ownership of the means of production) and produces evidence to show that the productive forces were sufficiently developed, even in 1910, to go over to Socialism.

Bebel was a Social Democrat and the Russian editor is forced to disown precisely those of his views which we in the Socialist Party of Great Britain endorse, namely, his refusal to distinguish between "Socialism” and “Communism”; his conclusion that the abolition of capitalism necessarily involves the immediate disappearance of the State and of money; and his belief in the “more or less simultaneous triumph of the socialist revolution in all or most capitalist countries”. The Preface where the editor tries to explain away the undeniable fact that Bebel, unlike Lenin but like Marx, understood Socialism to be a moneyless, Stateless world society rather than the kind of national state capitalism that exists in Russia has to be read to be believed.

Our criticisms of Bebel, apart from his role as one of the leaders of the German Social Democratic Party who tried to disguise its reformist practice with revolutionary phrases, would be somewhat different. He here follows Marx and speaks of labour-time vouchers as the substitute for money and some of his ideas on education and sex now seem dated. All the same, this work is a useful addition to the range of old pamphlets now available.

Adam Buick

Northern Ireland after internment (1971)

From the October 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

It started on Saturday morning the 7 August, though the scene was being set with progressively accelerating vigour over the weeks and even months before then and, unknown even to his cabinet, the Northern Ireland Prime Minister had returned from London the previous week, after discussions with his political principals, with a package of political dynamite that was to be precipitously cast on the flames of Saturday’s events and create the terror of what has already become known as "Bloody Monday" — or even, according to some, the date of commencement of the Irish Civil War.

Saturday morning commenced with the British Army’s killing of a young man whose car had back-fired as he passed a military post. The killing was carried out while the young man sat in a stationary motor van at traffic lights. The moronic heroes of this latest chapter of growing military homicide issued a series of conflicting reports that did nothing to placate the growing riotous reaction and when, in the afternoon of the same day, the dead man’s workmate, who had been with him in the van, was released from a police station showing on his face and body the grim marks of brutality inflicted by the miiltary and police — attended, of course, by another casual and callous army statement to "look into the matter" another chapter of violence was opened.

Within forty-eight hours the British Military Governor, General Tuzo, unleashed his "security forces" into the Catholic slums to apprehend and intern, without evidence or trial, people whom, for one reason or another, had earned the hatred of the political gangsters running the Northern Ireland statelet. It would be easy to believe that some of those arrested were IRA activists; some were simply members of the Civil Rights Movement and spokesmen for the ghetto Catholics while others were members of the Peoples’ Democracy — a "left-wing" political group whose spokesmen, including some of those arrested, have repeatedly pledged themselves to non-violent action and, indeed, have many times taken issue with the militant Republicans on the question of violence.

The move to intern without trial, involving all the old devices of beating and terror plus a few of the more recent sophisticated ploys developed by the Americans in Vietnam, was obviously aimed not simply at the IRA but at all opposition groups in Northern Ireland. The openly brutal methods of arrest and torture were calculated not only to "punish" those arrested but to terrify those who were not and no one who has subsequently visited the areas where the terror was carried out, and watched and listened to the officer-encouraged arrogance of the soldiers can be left in much doubt that the military have been instructed to see that "law and order" is enforced, if necessary with the boot, the club, the torture chamber and the bullet.

"Bloody Monday" commenced a week that will become a historical milestone in Northern Irish affairs. To those doubting the character of the man, it revealed Brian Faulkner as a power-maniac prepared to unleash the most terrible violence and murder in order to placate the Brutus’s of his own party so that he would not follow the inglorious Ceasars of the last two years. It gave evidence sufficient to indict the British Army’s "supremo", General Tuzo, and his command of many of the vilenesses that occupied and still does, the War Crimes Commission. It exposed the military baloney of the IRA. It showed the hierarchy of the Protestant churches defending the most vicious assaults on their Catholic neighbours — while the Catholic cardinal blethered innocuously! Politically it broke any last hope that Northern Ireland might, some time in the future, be capable of civil government by the Unionists. Finally, and most importantly, it wrote a lesson for the working class; it said "Stop! Look! Think!”

The situation lends itself to the heady patriotic prose that is the stock-in-trade of revolutionary romantics; it creates the background for vitriolic bitterness and dreams of revenge; in its intricacies, it is food for the analytical journalists and “experts”; in its totality it is sadness, tragedy and despair for the working class who are again called upon to offer their dead, their slums, their days of wretched living, for the cause of a Unionist Ulster or a United Ireland.

The question “Why” must not be asked — even of our fellow members of the working class. It is a treason easily adduced from the ravage and conflict by either ’‘side” of the politico-religious divide. Only the struggle, the bitterness, the prayers for revenge are relevant! ‘‘A Fenian burnt out . . .!” ‘‘A fucking soldier got it! ” . . . “We knocked the shit out of them!” But Why? Why? Why? . . . Always the same group answers: “We were burnt out!” . . . “The bastards shot one of our chaps!” . . . "They knocked the shit out of us!”

If we were preaching religion we should perhaps say, and maybe with less inhibition than those preaching religion, “Look, we all have this in common . . .” and use the rhetoric of Shylock to prove that misery, grief and tears, like happiness, love and joy are common to all men — but that has been said from a million pulpits to a thousand wars and there is no record of it ever having retarded the armament industry.

If we were mere politicians we should promise a wholly subdued Unionist Ulster or, perhaps, an “Ulster” where the unionist is written with a small “u” and administration undertaken by a political concoction of orange and green, or, again, we might offer you an “Ulster that is a Province in a ‘Workers’ Republic’, “where the State became the principal employer — but these schemes, like the prayers, have all been tried, here or elsewhere, by myriad politicians in a hundred states and there is no evidence of any of them ending poverty, slumdom, insecurity and violence.

So let’s look again at the Northern Ireland problem. Let’s see if we could wave a magic political wand and bring about conditions in which our particular problem of violence would not exist. Better still, let’s examine the social topography, so to speak, of violence; see where we find it and, equally important, where we don’t find it.

Where are the richest recruiting areas of the battalions of IRA, UVF, Paisleyite militants, etc? Not Belfast’s Malone Road, to be sure! Not even the comfortable semi-“D’s” of better-off workers with above-average wages and a modicum of job security. To be sure, they may be affected with the current hatreds but their bigotries, like their family scandals, are rarely publicly displayed. Like the master class, who they ape, they don’t put out flags or bunting to commemorate some garbled version of history. Theirs might be some indefinite pandering to some shade of orange or green but it comes low in their order of priorities; below “getting on”, having the kids “educated” or the garden tidy. It might reach the level of the Protestant Telegraph or the United Irishman but only in the concealment of the Newsletter or The Irish Times. Never does it achieve a vigour that necessitates the rumble of armoured cars and raucousness of ill-kempt soldiery.

The “extremists” come from the slums; from the back-to-back houses of the Falls, the Shankill, Ballymacarrett and all the other areas of miserable existence whose names have become “Hill 60’s” in the present struggle. They come, too, from the estates of “working class dwellings” where food, clothing and peace of mind are mortgaged for the frugal comforts of electric heaters, Great Universal shoddiness and Woolworth culture. And they come from the small farms where the age-old problems of bare existence are accentuated by the progress of agricultural capitalism.

These are the addresses of the political “extremists”, the felons, the internees and the rioters. This is the geography of misery where live and die, the victims of a rottenness that now condemns them.

While Unionism can be blamed for facilitating the easy identification of capitalism’s problems with religious bigotry, it certainly can not be blamed for the fact that, like all the other political parties throughout the world, it has failed to eliminate, or even make tolerable, the basic poverty features of the system and, in the Northern Ireland context, provide the social and economic conditions conducive to peace and community harmony. Given the fact that the system of social organisation operating in Northern Ireland is capitalism, and allowing for the competitive disadvantages of local geography and lack of indigenous raw materials, the record of the Unionist Party was as good, or as bad, as most other parties operating capitalism elsewhere and certainly no worse than the “Republican” capitalism of the south of Ireland.

The big question now is, what is to be done? Obviously British capitalism, already subsidising Unionism to the tune of some £200 million annually, will not be prepared to increase that subsidy with the presence of thousands of troops indefinitely and, with the mounting casualties among British servicement, an already-unpopular British government must fear the back-lash of British public opinion. Again, local capitalism, an immediate casualty of the conflict, is becoming increasingly anxious for peace.

Sooner or later the politicians will get around the table to work out a “political solution”; yesterday’s angry words will be forgotten, today’s “unacceptable” will become “reasonable compromises”, undertakings will be given and received, smiling photographs will be taken, peace will be restored and the workers will go back to work or to the dole.

If it stops murder, arson and intimidation it will, of course be good and the politicians will not be slow to take credit for ending what they, and the system they serve, began. But beyond that, as far as the working class are concerned, what will it all mean?

Only the establishment of a society in which the productive resources are owned in common by all and harnessed to the function of producing an abundance of the material requirements of a full and happy life for all, will eliminate finally and for ever the material basis of conflict and social discontent among people. Essentially, such a condition must be world-wide but the promotion of its need among the working class in Northern Ireland now reveals the hollowness of those conflicts to which workers presently lend themselves and speeds the day of its universal application.

The “practical” men of politics will, of course, say “It doesn’t do anything about the situation we now find ourselves in”. Such “practical” men have always been looking for a quick patch-up answer to rescue us from the repetitive problems of capitalism and capitalism keeps them constantly supplied with problems requiring “immediate" solutions! In Northern Ireland it is painfully obvious — and this is sometimes alleged by enemies of Unionism and sometimes offered as an excuse by Unionism — that it is the shortcomings of the system, and the system is capitalism, — the poverty, slums, joblessness, etc. — that forms the basis of friction and fratracidal strife. The actuality of violence, on the other hand, is provided by the programmes and schemes of the “practical” men with ideas for planning capitalism — and capitalism is production for the market and the wages and money systems whether ownership is vested in individuals or the national state — in such a way as will make that system run contrary to its nature.

To such “practical” men we have nothing to say; we would not attempt to tempt them away from the reality or the promise of privilege and political office with a vision of a world where the “Northern Ireland Problem” could not exist. To the working class we say: the schemes of the politicians and the generals, real and imagined, are irrelevant; they contain nothing new; they are but the old failed notion that capitalism administered by the “right” people can function in the interests of all — each, of course in "his station” — or the newer, but equally failed, notion that capitalism, despite its production for profit motive, its wages exploitation and money trick, can be tolerable under the direct aegis of the national State.

Richard Montague

The Death of Khrushchev (1971)

From the October 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

The former director of Russia, who died last month. was not a member of the SPGB so this is not that kind of an obituary. Nor is it a salute to the passing of a "great man" in the manner of the capitalist press (whether so-called left or right). Rather do we take the opportunity of the passing of the former despot (one of the rare cases in the Soviet Union of an ousted top man who managed to die of old age), to point out that this man, who started to climb the ladder of Russian power nearly fifty years ago, has contrived to die with his country as far from justifying its assumed title of socialist as ever it was. In fact it is probably true to any that nowadays there are far more people around who fail to register shocked surprise at our contention that Russia is a capitalist country, like all other countries in the modern world. The fact that it is state-capitalist (instead of only partly thus and partly private enterprise capitalist like England) is a matter almost of indifference compared with the salient fact that it is not socialist and has never remotely justified its claim to that title. Khrushchev's country is just as much a wage-slave economy as the USA.

The capitalist papers (such as the Morning Star and the New Statesman) can safely be left to recount the career of the Stalinist today who danced the gopak for his master (and also acted as his henchman in the slaughter of untold thousands of his fellow countrymen).

The most illuminating incident in his career was one which does not appear to have been noticed in the obituaries. This was the argument with Molotov at the time when Khrushchev was establishing his power which involved smashing the "anti-party group". His rival had just gone on record as saying that Russia had by then (some forty odd years after the revolution) laid the foundations of Socialism. Khrushchev seized the opportunity to slam into him. Foundation be damned. We have built Socialism. And as Molotov was the one who was exiled into Outer Mongolia (a welcome change from Outer Space, of course, where previous failed leaders went), it was Khrushchev's version which carried the day. It was an argument which had a lot of fascination but it attracted little or no interest in the papers. What can you think of a house when two people can look at it and one says it's a fine house and the other says it's a fine foundation? (And not just lay people mark you. These were a couple of architects of this kind of edifice.) The only possible answer is that Lenin and his heirs were frauds. There is no Socialism in Russia and all the millions of deaths have been merely to establish a capitalist tyranny where, pre-Khrushchev and post-Khrushchev, the propagation of Socialism is punished as treason. A grisly and tragic story.

L. E. Weidberg