Irish Odds and Ends (1957)

The Odds and Ends column from the October 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Writing in the Dublin Evening Press (19/8/57), Fr. Robert Nash, S.J., says that somebody showed him a leaflet recommending Catholics to pray for the Communists; the idea being that each Catholic should “adopt” a special Communist in order to convert him to the faith. He continues: “Who he or she is will be known to God. For this precise person we are invited to pray much, to do penance, to commend him or her constantly to Our Lady”

Many prominent Communists, like Douglas Hyde, he continues, have found their way into the Church; but for those converted, millions are still “blinded and hardened, goaded to an insane hatred of God and His Church.” But, says Fr. Nash, “Suppose you entered into a pact with Our Lord to devote your life to the conversion of one of these? ”

Yes, suppose every Communist was converted to the Catholic Church. What good would that do for humanity? How would it, for example, solve the terrible poverty of thousands of Irish workers? As we see it, it would only mean that the Communists were exchanging one set of wrong ideas and attitudes for another lot— those of the Catholic Church, an organisation equally dictatorial intolerant and dogmatic as the Communist Party.

The solution to the problems facing working people, in Ireland as elsewhere in this life—the only one we Socialists know of—will not be solved by joining or putting faith in either the Communist Party or the Catholic Church. Neither warrants working-class support.

* * *

Nationalised Industries compete in England

Nationalised concerns, like private ones, are run to make a profit—and to make as large a one as possible, even if this means one State concern having to wage war on another. And this is now happening in England.

Under the heading: “Shock for the British Post Office,” an Irish Independent (20/8/57) editorial comments:—

"A novel revolt against the Post Office has broken out amongst the nationalised industries in Britain. Two of the regional electricity boards have decided that the cost, under the new increased postal rates, of sending out bills to customers would be so high that the bills will be delivered by the board’s own employees. The campaign is still in the experimental stage; but there is no doubt that it can effect substantial economies. The North Western Electricity Board will save £10,000 a year by having 250,000 quarterly bills delivered by the meter-readers. One can only guess at what the London Electricity Board, which has begun to deliver accounts by hand to 1,300,000 customers, will save.”

And later in the editorial the writer says:—

"Trade Unions will be quick to realise that their members (in Eire) would be the first to suffer if a campaign of the kind in Britain were to spread to this country."

For our part, we hope that English meter-readers in the British Electrical Trades Union will have something to say about this move by the Electricity Board to save money by making them more work.

It is about time that workers everywhere—in Britain, Ireland, Russia and elsewhere—realised that Nationalisation is no use to them, whether they work for the nationalised concerns or not.

* * *

Economic decline in Eire

According to the Irish Statistical Survey for 1956, issued by the Central Statistics Office on August 21, 1957, and published in The Irish Press, there was a decline in the national income last year. The drop was three per cent. on the 1955 figure.

The total national income in 1955 was £462 million—last year it was £449 million. Profits from agriculture, forestry and fishing fell by £11½ million in 1956; other domestic profits declined by £2½ million. Industry’s percentage of the national income, at 25.2 per cent., showed little change since 1954.

Personal expenditure on consumer goods and services dropped 3 per cent. on the 1955 figure. During the year the number of cattle on the farms dropped by 1.2 per cent.; poultry by 3.2 per cent.; sheep increased by 3 per cent., and pigs by 10.3 per cent But industrial production declined during the year by 4 per cent.—this decline in industrial production was most pronounced in construction and repair of vehicles, in distilling, boat building and repairing, furniture, sugar and mineral waters.

The Survey states that the total labour force was down by 13,000. The direct drop in the numbers working was 19,000, with an increase of 6,000 unemployed. The decline was made up of 10,000 in agriculture, 4,000 in the manufacturing industries, and 4,000 in construction. Compared with 1951 the total at work is down by 59,000. Of course, many of these workers are now abroad, in England and elsewhere; but the annual percentage unemployed was 7.7 last year compared to 6.8 per cent, in 1955.

From this statistical survey it can be seen that the Irish economy, which is predominantly agricultural, is a capitalist one, and is not in very good shape. Life for the Irish worker, whether he works in industry or on the land, is indeed an insecure one.

* * *

Sinn Fein policy is futile

Speaking against the internment and the “jailing of Irishmen” by the authorities at Curragh, Mr. Seamus South “appealed to the people to join Sinn Fein, which, he said, was a lawfully constituted organisation . . . Their aim was the re-unification of Ireland as a thirty-two county republic and the re-establishment of an All-Ireland 'Parliament. They had been accused of wanting to create a civil war, but they did not want that” (Mr. South was speaking at a Sinn Fein meeting at Listowel, and was reported in The Kerryman (24/8/57).

Whether Sinn Fein achieved their aim of re-uniting Ireland and re-establishing an All-Ireland Parliament, they would not solve the problems facing the Irish people—the problems of poverty and general insecurity.

The mass of the people suffer from these problems because they own little or no property in the means of life. They are either propertyless industrial or farm workers—when they are not unemployed—or their farms are too small to enable them to make sufficient money to live a comfortable life.*

Only when Irish workers and poverty-stricken small farmers unite together to make the land and the other means of life the common property of all, together with the workers of other lands, will they be able to solve their problems. Emigration is not the solution—only Socialism is!

* * *

* Sixty per cent, of the farms are under thirty acres; and the recent survey, carried out by the Central Statistics Office, showed that the income level on the majority of these farms was too low to create incentives for young folk to stay on the land.

“This factor is the main cause of our rural exodus.” —The Sunday Press, 25/8/57. Emphasis theirs.

Peter E. Newell,

Co. Kerry, Eire.

Odds and Ends: Wicked Materialists? (1957)

The Odds and Ends column from the April 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Wicked Materialists?

Speaking recently (News Chronicle, 22/2/57), as chairman of the Church Assembly, Dr. Fisher, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said: “On so many bodies I belong to, really the business is ruined by these constant discussions about salaries, stipends, and superannuations, and all the rest. . . . I have come to the conclusion that it is an insidious form of pure materialism. It is a disease running through the community.”

Poor Dr. Fisher! He seems so upset at those wicked materialists, i.e. parsons, with average pay, £650 a year: and, of course, all those railwayman, clerks, dockers and the like, who all seem so materialistic in their desire for a better life—in this world. But then our dear Archbishop need not worry himself unduly about his own material well-being. He only receives £7,500 a year as Archbishop of Canterbury.

£400 for a Slave

Fairly recently King Saud of Saudi Arabia visited “the land of the free’’—the United States of America, where he was fêted by President Eisenhower, and other American politicians. Little is known of his country except that there is sand—and more important—oil, in Saudi Arabia. But a recent United Nations report (News Chronicle, 22/2/57) gives us some idea just how “free” and democratic King Saud’s oil-soaked land is. According to the report Saudi Arabia has 450,000 slaves— just 20% of the population. Prices on the Jeddah slave market were said to be between £200 and £400 for a girl under 15; £150 for a man under 40 and £40 for an old woman.

Like Christian Archbishops who also live quite well, Moslem Kings, such as King Saud, do not condemn slavery—chattel slavery in Arabia, and wage-slavery in Britain 1

Human Nature ?

A most startling recent discover was a tribe of Honest Men! It goes without saying that they were not found in Christian lands. They were found in the jungles of Venezuela by Prof. Tenton, an ethnologist. He reports that these uncivilised people never lie, never make war, never kill and never rob.

They have no politicians, no advertisers, no crooks, and are so used to each other’s honesty that they have no locks and keys, no monetary systems and don’t even wear clothes.

All that remains is to protect these Maora Indians from the Christian missionaries, with their civilising influences.” (Freethinker, 14/12/56).

Women in Antiquity

"Women In Antiquity" by Charles Seltman (PAN Books, price 2/6d.), is quite an interesting and provocative little book, although the author has a number of axes to grind. Much of what he has written of women “in antiquity” will be challenged. For example, in his first chapter on Palaeolithic and Neolithic society he sees a situation where from 20 to 50 people live “comfortably” in a cave owned by the biggest male. And, further, after dealing with the activities of the women (such as scavenging for nuts, roots and fruit), he writes:—

“When one tries to imagine the structure of such a cave-family, one can think of two possibilities : firstly, the senior male (whose property the cave was) might have a series of wives from the oldest at twenty-four to the youngest at twelve, among whom there would inevitably exist a kind of harem-like jealousy productive of much unhappiness; secondly, the whole cave-family group may have lived in what zoologists call a 'clone,' in which the women were shared in common by the men." (p. 14.)

Of course, all of this, is purely speculative, and in contradiction to the findings of other anthropologists, who often see an absence of jealousy in primitive communities and who write not of a dominant male but of sexual equality—"sexual communism”—and “group marriage” during this early period of pre-history. Seltman’s ideas on this period seem to be much akin to those of Freud with his dominant father, the jealous sons and the “Primal Horde.” Still, in the main our author is on the side of the women! He generally sees the position of women “in antiquity” as a favourable one compared to their position m some countries today. And he has little sympathy for the Church’s views on women and sexual relations in general. 

“Freedom's Foe—The Vatican"

This book is by a "free-thinking” protestant, and is a counter-blast to Catholic Action. In the main it reiterates the views put forward in greater detail by Avro Manhattan in The Catholic Church Against The Twentieth Century.

Adrian Pigott, the author of Freedom's Foe, deals with the Catholic Church’s alleged former collaboration with Fascism and Nazism, with the “evils of priest craft," the misdeeds of some of the Popes, the "cruelty of the Catholic Church," the extreme poverty to be found in some Catholic countries such as Spain and Ireland (he tells us that “Protestant countries have little discontent or poverty .. ."!!) and the activities of the Church in Britain and the United States.

No doubt many of his criticisms are valid—but what can the Protestant critics of Catholicism, such as our author, offer the working class of Britain and elsewhere? The Church of England, of whom Marx once said, that it would rather give up its Thirty-nine Articles of Faith than give up one thirty-ninth of its property? Neither Protestants nor Catholics, Moslems or Buddhists, have a solution to the problems confronting ordinary people. Only Socialism has an answer to those problems. All the same this little book is worth l/6d.

Freedom's Foe—The Vatican, is published by the Wickliffe Press, Fleet Street.

Are you Fed-up ?

Do you dislike the Foreman or the Chief Clerk? And when you get home from work at night, do you feel tired, frustrated and fed-up?,

Do you find life worrying, insecure and purposeless?

Do you find it a job to "make ends meet" to save enough money for a holiday, or a new suit?

Do you get fed up with the threat of war with the promises of the politicians?

Do you? Well, then, isn’t it about time you did something about it. No!—don’t take ". . .'s ” little liver pills, or "H. . .’s" just before you go to bed, because, ten-to-one, whilst this present system of society remains you will fed much the same the next day. So why not get to grips with society itself ? Begin to study the world m which you live. And when you understand it, your position in it, the causes of the problems that worry you, and make you insecure, join with others who know about our present system—capitalism—and with them help to change it to a society free from insecurity, poverty, the threat of war; to establish a Socialist wood—a classless, moneyless system of society. Why not start now?

Peter E. Newell.

Odds and Ends: What They Said (1957)

The Odds and Ends column from the March 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

What They Said

Looking through old pamphlets and journals can be quite an interesting pastime. For example, the Communist Review for April, 1953, wherein Harry Pollitt refers to “ Comrade Beria,” Andrew Rothstein writes of Beria as “Stalin’s old comrade-in-arms ” and John Eaton tells us that Stalin “through a period of three decades showed himself to be the greatest economist of our times,” and that he was “. . . the most profound, most creative thinker of our time in the science of political economy . . ." etc.

Unfortunately, for the Communist Party, it now appears that Stalin was a terrorist who murdered Russian Army officers, and who “made serious mistakes in connection with agricultural policy . . .” (Harry Pollitt, Daily Worker, 24/3/56). And Beria turned out to be an agent of British Imperialism after all! All this must be very hard even for Communists to swallow. But, then, if one puts faith in leaders what can one expect?

The Socialist—who knows what he wants, and how to get it—needs no leaders to think for him: he thinks for himself. There can be no Stalins, Berias—or Kruschevs in the Socialist movement

Communist Party Opposes Strikes

It is believed by many that the Communists always advocate and support strikes; that the Communist Party consistently support the workers in their struggles for higher wages and better working conditions. But this is not so. During the last war (after Germany attacked Russia) the Communists opposed all attempts by workers to improve their wages or conditions.

In a pamphlet by W. Wainwright entitled Clear Out Hitler's Agents, published by the Communist Party, he writes:—

 “ Again they [‘left wing’ opponents of the Communist Party] use the trick of waving a red flag. They talk about the boss’ profit. They try to take the heart out of the work. ’Why slave when you are only piling up money for the boss?” they say.

“They want you to go slow, not to give your best work, to be misled by their talk of strikes and the boss' profits into sabotaging our troops and the Red Army.” (Page 9.)

And in March, 1944, the South Wales miners came out on strike. Although the Communist paper, The Daily Worker, admitted that the miners “have a powerful case ” it told them to “go back to work.” (11/3/44).

The Communist Party is not a working-class party, it is. in fact, a not very successful mouthpiece for the Soviet Government in this country.

Has Socialism Failed?

In the 1951 General Election the Conservative candidate in North Battersea was one Ian Percival, and in his Election News he wrote:—

“Britain has tried Socialism, and it has failed. At home it has meant shortages, rising prices, high taxation, and one financial crisis after another. Abroad it hat meant a lowering of our prestige, and therefore a weakening of our influences for peace."

Of course, Socialism has not failed. It has not been tried. During the period that Mr. Percival writes of Britain was ruled by a Labour Government—and the system was a Capitalist one; not Socialist. It is Capitalism that has failed—failed to solve the problems of war poverty and crises. And it is only Socialism that can solve these problems. Labour Government has nothing in common with Socialism.

Wives or Automobiles—or Both

Middle East potentates used to collect scores of wives for their harems—some still do; but it appears that civilization (and oil companies) are coming to the desert King Saud of Saudi-Arabia has ordered more than 60 Cadillac cars. The King's order will only cost a mere £357,140 or so. Some of the cars will be fitted with jewelled cigarette-lighters. Some will be air-conditioned; some will have one-way window glass, so that the passengers can see without being seen. And others have armour-plate and special machine gun mountings. . . .

Who says that kings are not useful to the community? Do they not provide work for automobile workers? And are not 60 cars more useful to a King than 60 wives—or are they?

Rock, Everybody, Rock

At the time of writing Bill Haley and his Comets have arrived triumphantly in Britain; his latest film, “Don’t Knock the Rock,” is being shown on the circuits and the Rock ’n’ Roll craze seems to be at its zenith. Scores of Bill Haley Concerts are being held up and down the country; and some newspapers, particularly the Daily Mirror and the Daily Sketch, are giving more space to Bill Haley than to Prince Charles, Princess Grace or Jayne Mansfield’s vital statistics—for the time being.

Still, it’s all good fun. The “cats” are happy; the newspapers are happy with their new gimmick; and Bill Haley and his backers and agents should be happy “coining the loot.” For is not Rock ’n* Roll the greatest money-maker that “Pop” music has produced in a couple of decades?

So while it lasts . . . Rock, everybody, rock!!

God's Own Country!

“Baby Doll: Elia Kazan film, bated on a typical Tennessee Williams play about sex, seen against a brutal background of an illiterate, run-down colour-conscious community in the Southern United States. The characters are mostly brutal, ignorant and animal and the story is about a mentally arrested girl, her repressed husband and the Sicilian who seduces her for revenge.”—(What's On In London, 25/1/57.)

Peter E. Newell

Odds and Ends: 5,000 Roubles to Win (1957)

The Odds and Ends column from the December 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

5,000 Roubles to Win

Rumour has it that another Purge is on the way in Soviet Russia. No! It’s not likely to be Khruschev or Gromyko. Its going to be those wicked jockeys at the Moscow race course.

According to Sovetskoya Kultura not only are students and young workers losing their money—and, more important—taking time off from work and study, but it appears, some of the jockeys have been "fixing” the races and making fortunes by betting on certain winners. But this is not all! Some of toe Muscovite tipsters have been tipping losers, much to toe consternation of the punters. And besides that the officials at the Moscow race course, it seems, have been violating the law by selling “hard liquor.”

Such wicked “bourgeois” goings-on! And in a “Socialist” country!—so the Communists tell us. Like workers in Britain who think they can emancipate themselves by having a little “flutter" on the 2.30 or filling in a football coupon, the Russian workers also think that betting will get them out of their poverty position.

It looks as though Russia will soon be going to the dogs!

Where do they find the cash?

In this fairy-land of the Welfare State, the News Chronicle has discovered a class of people who can afford to pay between £5 and £10 at the hairdressers; who live in apartments where the rent is between £5,000 and £10,000 a year—plus ground rent and service costs of £600 to £7,000 a year; and who own a Rolls Royce or a Jaguar costing £5,600.

The News Chronicle then tells us that “of around 23 million working-people in Britain, nearly 20 million are wage-earning. And as most of us know, on a pay-as-you-earn tax system, wage-earners never see quite a whack of their pay packets.” (21/10/57.) '

After discovering the rich—the class that enjoys all these luxuries—the Chronicle asks :—

  "Now where do the rich people who keep these markets going get their money? And how?"

Now this is where the Socially can help the News Chronicle. We have been explaining how, and where, the rich—the capitalist class—get their money for a long time. The rich get their money through the exploitation of the working-class; from the unpaid labour of the workers. In a given period the workers produce more than they receive back in wages or salaries. They produce a surplus—what Marx called “surplus value” which is the basis of rent, interest and profit. And because the rich own the means of living—i.e„ the land, factories, etc., through share and stock holding, and the workers own little or nothing of these means of life, they remain the rich, become more and more prosperous during boom periods, and are able to afford all the luxuries that the News Chronicle speaks of; whilst most of us have to put up with the 10 guinea suits or a cheap 'perm.'

One wonders how long the workers will let this state of affairs remain as it is.

Marx and Christianity

The somewhat lengthy correspondence in the Socialist Standard on religion has prompted this writer to read again the early writings of Marx on Christianity. Although he had far from developed his ideas and attitudes towards the then developing capitalist society, and although today his writings read a little archaic, his views on the Christian religion are more than valid today. In 1847, writing in the Deutsche Brüsseler Zeitung, he says: “The social principles of Christianity justified slavery in the classic world and they glorified mediaeval serfdom, and if necessary they are quite willing to defend the oppression of the proletariat even if they should wear a somewhat crestfallen appearance the while. The social principles of Christianity preach the necessity of a ruling and an oppressed class, and all they have to offer to the latter is the pious wish that the former be charitable. The social principles of Christianity transfer the reparation of all infamies to the realms of heaven and thus they justify the perpetuation of these infamies on earth. The social principles of Christianity declare that all the villanies of the oppressors against the oppressed are either the just punishment for original or other sin, or tribulations which God in his inscrutable wisdom causes the elect to suffer. The social principles of Christianity preach cowardice, self-abasement, resignation, submission and humility—” (quoted from Karl Marx by Franz Mehring, p. 131.)

The principles of Socialism teach courage, confidence, pride and the understanding of capitalism and the need for a new system of society—Socialism.

Marx and the Trade Unions

The following merits repetition:

 “ . . . the very development of modern industry must progressively turn the scale in favour of the capitalist against the working man, and that consequently the general tendency of capitalist production is not to raise but to sink the average standard of wages, or to push the value of labour more or less to its minimum limit. Such being the tendency of things in this system, is this saying that the working class ought to renounce their insistence against the encroachments of capital,, and abandon their attempts of making the best of the occasional chances for their temporary improvement? If they did, they would be degraded to one level mass of broken wretches past salvation. .. . 

At the same time, and quite apart from the general servitude involved in the wages system, the working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate workings of these every-day struggles. They ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects; that they are retarding the downward movement, but not changing the direction; that they are applying palliatives, not curing the malady. They ought, therefore, not to be exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly springing up from the never-ceasing encroachments of capital or changes of the market. They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms necessary for an economical reconstruction of society. Instead of the Conservative motto, “A fair day's wages for a fair day’s work” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword, “Abolition of the wages system! ” . . .  

Trade unions work well as centres of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organised forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class, that is to say, the ultimate abolition of the wages system.” (Value. Price and Profit, pp. 92-94.)

Peter E. Newell

Odds and Ends: Stalinists and Trotskyists Unite? (1957)

The Odds and Ends column from the August 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Stalinists and Trotskyists Unite?

When one of Stalin’s agents split open the head of Trotsky with an axe in [Coyoacán], a suburb of Mexico City, on August 20th, 1940, who would have thought that, in 1957, four avowed and unrepentant followers of the late Leon Trotsky would have been invited to visit the Soviet Union, and would be féted by Stalin's former collaborators? But it has happened.

On the 21st April of this year four Trotskyist M.P.s from Ceylon were among a party of Ceylonese Members of Parliament who landed by airplane (a Soviet airplane) at Tashkent airport in the Soviet Republic of Usbekistan.

On April 22nd, which was the anniversary of Lenin’s birthday, one of the Trotskyist M.P.s, Colvin de Silva, gave a lecture on the Life of Lenin, "which was greatly appreciated by the Russian and Usbek comrades.” (Samasamajist, 16th May, 1957.)

No doubt our Ceylon Trotskyists enjoyed their stay with their Soviet “comrades.” But we wonder if they gave any thought to the hundreds of Trotskyists and other oppositionist Communists murdered by the Soviet rulers in the Soviet Union and elsewhere; and whether they mentioned this to their Soviet "comrades.” All this makes us wonder if there are any real differences between the Stalinist "Communists” and the Trotskyist “Communists” after all.

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Reform or Revolution

Like the "orthodox” Communists, the Trotskyists claim to be "revolutionaries” and Marxists. Untike Labour politicians who advocate political and social reforms, the Trotskyists claim to be opposed to reformism; but all of the resolutions passed by the Samasamaja May Day Rally in Ceylon belie this claim. Among other things, the Trotskyists demanded "a national minimum wage” and "full employment—work or maintenance.” And on pages 2 and 3 of Samasamajist (1st May, 1957) we find the following slogans: "Keep Ceylon Out of War!” "Take Back Our War Bases.”

And these they call revolutionary slogans! They’re about as revolutionary as those of the British Labour Party!

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A Revolutionary Policy?

What, then, is a revolutionary policy? It is one that recognises that since the capitalist system gives rise to, and perpetuates the problems of war, poverty, and insecurity; and that these and many other problems are inherent in the system itself, the only solution to these problems is the abolition of the system itself and replacement by another—a Socialist one.

Programmes of social reform cannot solve these problems; they only help to perpetuate the system that causes them. Therefore one would expect a "revolutionary” not to advocate, say, a national minimum wage, but the abolition of the wages system altogether. But, then, one cannot expect such a policy from a Communist, Stalinist, Trotskyist, or any other of the fifty-seven varieties.

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Socialism—What is it?

Like Labour politicians, the Communists of both the "Stalinist” and Trotskyist varieties claim to stand for Socialism—sometime in the future. But what do they mean by Socialism? Do they mean by Socialism—or for that matter, Communism—what Marx and Engels meant by Socialism or Communism? Socialism to Marx and Engels and Socialism to the Socialist Party means a world-wide universal system of society based on the common ownership of the means of wealth production. It will be a classless society, democratic throughout—a free society, where the coercive forces of the state will have disappeared, and where production will be solely in order to satisfy the needs of the people. When a Socialist society "gets on its feet” the watchword will be: "From each according to his or her ability, to each according to his or her needs.”

Such a society is beyond the ken of the Kruschevs, Pollitts, Titos, and the Trotskyist M.P.s who visited their "Stalinist” comrades in the Soviet Union earlier this year. Their concept of Socialism is our old "enemy” —Nationalisation!

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Dictatorship in the Soviet Union

Since arriving back in Ceylon one of the Trotskyist M.P.s, Colvin de Silva, has written a number of articles giving his impression of Soviet society today. He points out that the single party dictatorship is openly upheld by the Soviet rulers as a correct system. And although he does not quote from it, he says that: "The Soviet constitution itself gives to the Communist Party this dictatorial position, and so long as the Stalinists are in power they will not allow any other party to function in the Soviet Union.” (Samasamajist, 23rd May, 1957.)

(The Articles in the Soviet Constitution (1936) making the Communist Party the only legal party are numbers 126 and 141—see Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation, by S. and B. Webb, pp. 428 and 430).

#    #    #    #

"Democracy” in the Soviet Union

However, within the framework of the one-party system the Soviet rulers attempt to give the impression that there is democracy in Soviet Russia.

Colvin de Silva writes that they have relaxed the terror that existed throughout the years of Stalin’s rule. The reason for this, in de Silva’s view, is “that the economically privileged strata of the population are pressing upon the Government to make concessions to them,” and “that the masses are pressing upon the ruling bureaucracy for concessions” also.

The Soviet authorities laid great stress on the claim that the members of the Soviets are elected. But “This is, of course, absurd, when no opposition parties are allowed and when all that a Soviet citizen can do is to vote for or against the candidate put up by the government party.”

The Soviet Government also stress that not only is criticism of the government permitted, but is even encouraged. But, of course, only criticism and self- criticism is allowed—never opposition!

Inequality—greater than in Britain

Social equality has always been stigmatised by Stalin as a “petty bourgeois prejudice,” but very few people realise just how great social inequalities are in the Soviet Union. The following short quotation from Colvin de Silva’s article will give them some idea of the inequalities of income in Soviet society today:—

  "Another aspect of the Trotskyist analysis which I found confirmed is the prevalence of gross inequality in wages and incomes among the Soviet workers and collective farmers. In the first place, probably fully one-fifth of the Soviet workers receive only 350 rubles per month as wages. As against this, there are higher paid workers who earn as much as three thousand to three thousand and five hundred rubles a month, that is ten times as much as the lower paid workers. Secondly, a factory manager receives as much as twelve to fifteen thousand rubles a month and even more. He therefore receives forty times the amount of the lowest paid worker. There are scientists, writers, administrators, who have even larger incomes than the manager, so that the inequality is even greater than one to forty. [The monthly stipend of the Patriarch of the Russian orthodox church is 50,000 rubles a month! P.E.N.] This kind of inequality, which creates a gulf between rich and poor, has nothing to do with Socialism. Indeed, you do not get such wage and salary inequality even in capitalist England today." (Samasamajist, 23/5/57.)

Of course, the Trotskyist writer is quite correct when he says that this has nothing to do with Socialism. But, unfortunately, he does not know what Socialism is himself. In another article (“The Collective Farm System And The Class Struggle,” Samasamajist, 30th May, 1957) he writes:—

  "The basic form of a Socialist agriculture is therefore the State-farm, that is, the farm owned and run by the State; just as the basic Socialist form in industry is the factory—owned and run by the State.”

Does not Colvin de Silva, M.P., know that Socialism will have no need of the state apparatus? That the state will have “died out"; and that the state ownership of the land, farms and the factories is in fact State Capitalism, which is the form of society existing in the Soviet Union today—not Socialism, or a “degenerated workers’ state,” whatever that may be? Colvin and the other Trotskyist M.P.s have learnt quite a lot about Soviet Russia—now they have got quite a lot to learn about Socialism!

Peter E. Newell

Odds and Ends: The Workers’ Paradise in Russia (1957)

The Odds and Ends column from the May 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Workers’ Paradise in Russia

When a Communist or Communist-dominated delegation visits the Soviet Union they generally publish a report containing much praise and wonderment at the marvels of the Moscow Underground, the Kremlin Palace, the Church of St. Basil, and the new Moscow University building; but they say very little about the life—and living conditions—of the ordinary workers and peasants of Russia. When a non-Communist delegation visits the Soviet Union the position is often reversed.

Last year an official Mineworkers’ delegation went to Russia. They have just published their report, summarised in the Manchester Guardian (15/3/57). They visited Moscow and a number of other towns, where they found that “an average of sixteen people are housed in a living space equal to a British council house.”

They report that hours of work exceed those worked in the mining industry in Britain; and “women in the Soviet Union are in many cases required to do work that is the hardest of manual work—to work in the pits, to do the heaviest types of jobs, including the handling of heavy materials and the mixing of concrete on the surface.”

And this the Communists call “Socialism.” Some Socialism!

Smash ’em up!

Socialists have always claimed that things are not produced to satisfy people’s needs, or to last long—if it can be helped. Most things today are cheap and shoddy. But if it was not for the fact that things are produced primarily for profit, some things if desired, could last virtually for ever. For example. The New Scientist (14/3/57) brings us an interesting story about glass—and tableware.

A leading glass manufacturer is producing some tableware which is very strong: plates can be crashed together like cymbals, and nails knocked into wood with the bottom of a glass with little or no damage done. But, continues the New Scientist, even stronger glasses and plates could be produced. But this would be uneconomical for the producers.

During the last war drinking glasses used by the American marines had a life of only seven trips to and from the kitchen. A specially strengthened glass was then produced which lasted nearly one hundred trips. But, alas, the manufacturers found this unprofitable. Eventually, a glass was made toughened only round the rim which lasted an average of twenty-three trips. Such are the workings of our present society. A sane society would produce glassware—and everything else—solely for people's use. because they wanted it; and only the best would be made.

The Perversion of Science

It has often been claimed that scientific discovery and development is misused and perverted in our modern capitalist society. The following passage from The New Scientist (14/3/57) bears this out.

  "In Europe, the search for better navigational methods arose from the desire for trading and from the warfare that ensued. Harrison's famous chronometer, which he perfected in the eighteenth century, was made in order to win an Admiralty prize of £20,000 for a method of determining longitude at sea. Even today progress in navigation is usually to meet military needs, and now it is the development of guided missiles which is throwing up the commercial navigation of the future."

Calypsos Next?

According to the people who are supposed to know—in Archer Street and Fleet Street—Rock 'n' Roll is on the way out, and the Calypso is in. But, so far, those who have cashed in on “Rock”—Tommy Steele, Winnie Atwell and others—are still “coining the loot,” and very few Calypsos have been heard yet on the radio. This writer does not think that the Calypso will be such a money-maker as Rock Y Roll with its simpler beat and lyric, its noise and gimmicks. Anyway, if the Calypso is going to take the place of Rock 'n' Roll it will have to be “cleaned up” a bit, since many of its lyrics are hardly suitable for the B.B.C., or the record companies. For example, “Chinese Children Calling Me Daddy”:—

“Since I am small I am living with women
And all I can get from them is false children.
Some with blue eyes and some like Chinese,
Any kind of child my girl make she stick me.
But I'm waiting on her patiently.
Its about ten months now she aim't kissed me.
And you know the bold-faced woman is telling me.
Any kind of child that born in my house. I'm the daddy.
I'm so ashamed I don't tell nobody
Chinese children calling me daddy.
You know my mother does want to beat me when
Chinese children calling me daddy.
For I black as jet and she just like Tar Baby, still
Chinese children calling me daddy.
Left, right, in front and behind,
Chinese children calling me daddy. ”

For the time being it looks as though we shall be stuck with Elvis Presley’s Hound Dog or Bill Haley's Don't Knock the Rock. There's more money in it; and it won't upset anyone's moral susceptibilities!

The Church and Socialism

In Britain only about 10 per cent. of the population regularly go to Church, although many more say they believe in some sort of a god or Creator, whereas in the United States about 60 per cent. are Churchgoers. The American workers, it seems, are more superstitious than their British counterparts. But even in Britain, one Church—the Catholic Church—claims 3,000,000 members (including the backsliders?). All the various Christian churches and sects oppose Socialism, but the Catholic Church is possibly the most vociferous in its opposition (and misrepresentation) of Socialism.

In a pamphlet called Socialisation, and “published with the authority of the Archbishop and Bishops of the Catholic Church of Australia,” we are told that “Socialism, in its strict sense, is a theory which advocates that the State should take over and operate the entire machinery of production, distribution and exchange.” That this statement is a complete lie from beginning to end does not worry our Catholic Bishops and Archbishops. For the information of any Catholic who may read this column, Socialism means the common possession of the means of life; an absence of a state apparatus, and no machinery, or means of exchange.

Man will no longer pray for his daily bread; he will just make it and consume what he requires!

It is not only the Catholic Church which propagates the figment that State ownership of the means of production is Socialism. Political parties, such as the Labour and Communist Parties, also make the same claim. The Communist Party, which, when it suits, boasts of its support of the theories of Marx and Engels, is perhaps the most shamefaced. For did not Engels explode this hoary old idea for all to read. In his book, Socialism : Utopian and Scientific (which all workers should read), he writes:—

   "But the transformation . . .  into State ownership does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. . . . The modem State, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage workers—proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head. But, brought to a head, it topples over. State-ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution” (pp. 71-72)

With the establishment of Socialism the State dies out. “State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and by the conduct of processes of production” (pp. 76-77).

Peter E. Newell

Odds and Ends: Totalitarian Hungary (1957)

From the February 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Totalitarian Hungary

Under the heading “Hungary to Have Only One Party,” the Sunday Observer reports from Vienna a statement of a Mr. Marosan, Minister of State in the Kadar Government, that:—

   “The Government will try to broaden itself by including non-Communist Party representatives of other former parties”
      “This does not mean that other parties will be admitted in Hungary” (6:1:57.)

There is to be only one legal party—the so-called Hungarian Communist Party. And this the Communists call a “ People’s Democracy!” After one of the bloodiest national revolts in recent years, and the greatest anti-communist rebellion in a Soviet controlled country, the Communists still carry on as though nothing had ever happened.

Shake, Rattle and Rock

Following the tremendous success (both from the entertainment and financial point of view) of the film “Rock Around the Clock,” another Rock 'n Roll film has been widely shown on the circuits. It is called “Shake, Rattle and Rock." It is fairly light-hearted and includes numerous Rock 'n Roll hits. But it also gives some background to the craze, its influence on teenagers and the attitude of the T.V. and Radio tycoons.

The “hero” of “Shake, Rattle and Rock" is a young disc jockey and youth club organiser in a slum area. His boss at the T.V. studio looks upon Rock n' Roll solely as a money-making gimmick, something to push and push ... and then drop when the public is no longer interested; when it is no longer a money-maker. To the young disc jockey Rock n' Roll is an art-form; a form of teenage expression like the “Charleston" and the “Blackbottom” of a couple of decades or so ago. But more important Rock n' Roll is a means of keeping the kids off the streets; of preventing them from becoming hoodlums in the pay of local gangsters.

The film comes to an end with a mock trial, at which a local “anti-Rock” vigilante committee claims that Rock n' Roll is decadent, savage and causes crime. But Rock n’ Roll emerges triumphant.... It is a harmless outlet for youthful energy—and, more important, a good money-maker.

Eating Out?

How pleasant it is to eat out. No need to cook an evening meal.

On Monday evening one can visit the Latin Quarter—Dinner, Cabaret and Dance—featuring Mimi Pearse and 20 beautiful girls, all for 21/- plus “booze.” And on Tuesday evening there is always the Pigalle with Dinner-de-Luxe at 27/6 (Saturdays à la carte, only 35/-!) And Wednesday evening finds one at the Green Street Club—“ The Club in Mayfair for the Connoisseur.” . .

And so on through the week.

Life can be so interesting and easy ... so long as you are “well loaded" with money. Of course, if you are just a clerk, ’bus driver, a school teacher, or a shop keeper; if, in fact, you are a worker like the majority of people, then you will have to go to Lyons Corner House, the A.B.C., or the Caff round the corner—or go home and cook the spaghetti yourself!!

Fact or Fiction

A book that this writer read just over ten years ago makes quite interesting re-reading. It is The Great Conspiracy Against Russia by Sayers and Kahn, two pro-Russian American writers.

On re-reading this book one can understand how so many young Communists were taken-in by it ten years ago. Much of Book I (section I that is) dealing with Western interference in Russian affairs, the activities of White Russian émigré organisation, etc., after the Revolution in Russia in 1917, is no doubt correct But much of the “Treason Trials” propaganda, the anti-Trotskyist tirades and the like in this book have now been exploded for ever. One example will suffice:—

“At the time of the Axis-supported Franco uprising in Spain, 1936-1938, Andreas Nin headed an ultra-leftist, pro-Trotsky Spanish organization called the Portido Obrero de Unificiacion Marxista, or P.O.U.M. . . .  when the P.O.UM. staged an abortive revolt in Barcelona behind the loyalist lines in the crucial summer of 1937 and called for 'resolute action to overthrow the Government,' it was discovered that Nin and the other P.O.U.M. leaders were actually fascist agents working with France and that they had been carrying on a systematic campaign of sabotage, espionage and terrorism against the Spanish Government. . . . Secret documents seized by the Barcelona Police established that P.O.U.M. members had been carrying on extensive espionage for the fascists; .. . ” (p. 296.)

That the P.O.U.M. wanted a different government no one will deny but to say, as do Sayers and Kahn, that the P.O.U.M.ists were a pro-Fascist organisation is typical of the pro-Stalinist fiction in this book. George Orwell in his book Homage To Catalonia, and Hugo Dewar in Assassins at Large, have both shown conclusively that the Communist allegations against not only the P.O.U.M., but also the Anarchists, in Spain, are pure fabrication's, having no basis in fact.

The Great Conspiracy is interesting reading . . . as fiction!

Peter E. Newell