Proper Gander: Tell A Vision In Turkmenistan (2025)

The Proper Gander column from the August 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

In The Common Good, Noam Chomsky said that ‘The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum’ (p.43). Applied to television, this principle still holds widely today, perhaps more than when Chomsky was writing in 1998. Not so, though, in countries such as Turkmenistan, which has only adopted the first half of the maxim in their TV broadcasts. Whether this makes their way less ‘smart’ is presumably shown in how effective it is in engineering a limited ‘spectrum of acceptable opinion’.

Turkmenistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, was part of the Soviet Union, and when this collapsed, its government became even more autocratic. The current President, Serdar Berdimuhamedow, succeeded his father in 2022 as the head of the regime. Any opposition to the government is considered to be treason and can be punishable by life imprisonment. Concurrently, the state controls what information its subjects are given, partly to exclude any conflicting viewpoints. Most citizens have no access to the World Wide Web, and instead can only use the Turkmenet, a restricted version of the internet. There is little opportunity for independent journalists: Turkmenistan ranks among the countries with the least ‘freedom of the press’ at 174th out of 180 in Reporters Without Borders’ 2025 World Press Freedom Index. Similarly, television broadcasts are subject to stringent controls, more than in other authoritarian regimes; the range of channels and content available in Afghanistan and Myanmar is very diverse in comparison. All eight channels broadcast in Turkmenistan are run by the state. The main channel is Altyn Asar, which shows news and reports on agriculture and technology, extolling how the country is supposedly constantly improving under the President’s rule, the ‘Golden Age’ referred to by its name. The only news programme – called Watan – broadcasts simultaneously on multiple channels, including Türkmen Owazy, dedicated to music and Ýaşlyk (‘Youth’ in English), an entertainment channel, with dramas and comedies missing from the schedules. Foreign content and influences are not allowed, although the game show Ondan Bir has taken the format of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, with the twist that the winner isn’t shown receiving a prize.

Commodities such as rugs, stationery and jewellery are displayed in reports about well-stocked market stalls or even during music performances. This isn’t as ‘product placement’ to advertise them, though; what’s being promoted is the nation as bountiful and industrious. The same motivation is behind the footage of the capital city, which presents Ashgabat as slick and brightly lit, with crisp skyscrapers, fountains, statues and arches in white and gold, streamlined streets for cars to glide along, and no litter or graffiti. Few people are seen outside unless they’re participating in dance routines or military parades, both tightly choreographed and polished. Music is especially prominent across the channels, from power ballads to jingoistic anthems to folk music, although some suspiciously looks dubbed. Particularly striking is an up-tempo song performed by women in camouflage skirts in front of weaponry.

The channels are mouthpieces of the state, intended to promote its preferred vision of the nation to the populace. The meticulously-arranged performances and pristine buildings are supposed to reflect a meticulously-arranged and pristine nation.

While the propaganda is obvious, an indicator of this is that smiles are rarely seen. Most people on the parades or in game shows or recitals, and notably their audiences too, have a flat expression. They don’t smile because they live in fear and have very little to smile about, according to Joshua Perry Parker in his video on YouTube: TV in Turkmenistan is Insane. When the state machine is as oppressive as in Turkmenistan, being an ‘appendage to the machine’ makes people behave in machine-like ways. Those in the marches or music performances look dehumanised, not just in how they run through their routines but also by their starchy uniforms. Even the traditional national dress, which is colourful and decoratively-patterned, manages to look hollow in the context of the programmes. Homogeneity is plainly presented as a virtue. Minority groups are unseen on TV and also face persecution, with gay relationships between men being illegal, for example. Workers living their lives, whether in the city or beyond, are never shown. Rural areas are only represented as backdrops to music videos or as abundant fields of wheat or cotton.

It’s hard to gauge how successful Turkmenistan’s TV output is with shaping mindsets or limiting the ‘spectrum of acceptable opinion’; its viewers don’t have the opportunity to give feedback. The content is supposed to instil a sense of pride and loyalty towards the country, whether through news reports announcing a fleet of tractors or through the frequent songs and music. The emphasis on culture demonstrates that patriotism is the preferred angle used by the state, although nationalism is also pushed through the military displays. The social conservatism exhorted by the state isn’t as directly expressed on TV, as it doesn’t feature many social situations, although the regimented people who are allowed in front of the cameras reflect the repressive norms. While the TV in Turkmenistan shows us little about the lives of those struggling there, it shows us a lot about the approach of the country’s rulers. The class divide is depressingly stark, with the President as the figurehead of a wealthy capitalist class, outnumbered by the poorer vast majority who rely on what their wages can afford. The broadcasts try to disguise this divide by only presenting what the capitalist class wants to be seen. Any indoctrination is probably less successful outside the main city of Ashgabat, where workers can see clearer that their reality doesn’t match that portrayed on screen. Also, those living in rural areas often pick up satellite channels from Russia, Turkey and Uzbekistan, opening them up to other forms of propaganda.

Mike Foster

Politics in Africa (2010)

From the November 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Political leaders in Africa are reluctant to relinquish power through the medium of the ballot box.

Africa is a vast continent comprised of nations which because of their colonial past have different histories, just as they have variegated geographical landmarks that distinguish them. Thus African nations do not share many things in common except the forcible grouping together of tribes regardless of the interaction that existed before colonialisation.

 In the attempt to create nations, different ethnic groups have been split between boundaries and the expression of nationalism has therefore not been through the medium of cultural or ethnic identity, but defined within the context of the country in which the language of the colonial master became the lingua franca.

 It is imperative to note, therefore, that such a situation in which countries find themselves has made nation building and African unity a difficult task.

 The political developments taking place in Zambia today are African in nature and therefore similar and comparable to political events taking place elsewhere. In Africa, parliamentary democracy defined through multi-party politics still remains a test case today. Political leaders in Africa are finding it hard to relinquish power through the medium of the ballot box. The current political scenario in Zambia may easily degenerate into political violence if left unabated. The Catholic church and some western NGOs have kept on to criticise the ruling MMD government both through the press and privately-owned radio stations. Radio ICENGELO – owned by the Catholic church has become the mouthpiece of the voiceless people on the Copperbelt.

 The widening gap between the rich and poor is something the ruling MMD government of President Rupiah Banda does not seem to be concerned about. Indeed, privatisation of the Zambian economic sector can only succeed by strengthening the private- and profit-making social sector, otherwise than defending and safeguarding the economic upkeep of the peasants and workers.

 Massive and periodic job losses in the formal and informal sectors of the economy have come to characterise the economic policy of Zambia’s economic liberation ever since the MMD came to power in 1991 to date.  During the leadership of Dr. Kenneth Kaunda education was subsidised by the state and every child had a right to free education from primary school to university level. Every year the UNIP government carried out massive recruitments of teachers, doctors, nurses, policemen and soldiers.

 The change from Kaunda’s “one-party participating democracy” to multi-party democracy saw the implementation of economic liberalism (defined as privatisation) under the MMD government of President Fredrick Chiluba. This entailed the liquidation of state-owned mining, industrial and financial companies. The privatisation of state-owned companies led to massive job losses – in most cases the retrenched workers have not yet received their retirement salaries.

 But we cannot mop up the fact that the UNIP government had experienced economic decline from 1980 to 1991 – the MMD inherited a bankrupt economy as the case may be. But it must be emphasised that the manner in which privatisation was carried out by the MMD was less than transparent.

 It was in an attempt to monopolise power that Kaunda introduced a one-party state in 1973 on the excuse that Zambia was facing tribalism under multi-party politics. He introduced the philosophy of humanism  in order to weld the different ethnic groups together under “One Zambia One Nation”. He declared a state of emergency – political detentions without trial (political criticism was banned). It is a fact that both the ruling MMD and political opposition have shown no restraint in manipulating the masses through feeding them with prejudices against other tribes in order to win their support. Thus tribalistic sentiments in Zambia originate from politicians or political parties. The voting patterns that emerged from the previous three general elections depict tribal and regional allegiances in the sense that people voted on the basis of ethnic patronage.

 Every economic gain achieved under the late President Levy Mwanawasa has been dissipated by the global economic downturn of 2009, making it possible for the PF leader Michael Sata to increase votes in the coming 2011 elections. General elections in urban areas of Zambia are determined by economic factors, especially for food prices, the cost of education and availability of employment. The ruling MMD has concentrated on building roads, hospitals, schools and subsiding peasant farmers in rural areas where the party received massive votes. Working class political consciousness is visibly absent in rural village communities. The failure of African leaders to relinquish power through the medium of the ballot box means that elections in Africa are conducted in a win-or-die situation. The experience of many African nations with regard to their armed forces have been sad in that they have stifled democracy with their intervention, purportedly in their attempt to correct the mistakes of  their political bosses also had failed to adhere to the principle of democracy through perceived violations of the constitution. When military leaders come into power, they not only breach the constitution, they become traitors to the oath of allegiance they swore to the nation.

The reluctance of the ruling MMD to accept the PF and UPND as viable future political options is a bad omen for multi-party politics in Zambia.

Socialism is the only practical political alternative to capitalism and our message to the workers of Zambia remains the same – the creation of a classless moneyless and stateless society.

Kephas Mulenga

Despatch from Singapore (1973)

From issue number 4 (1973) of The Western Socialist

Edit. Comm. note:

The new little nation of Singapore has been (and will continue to be) more and more in the international news. A former member of our Companion Party in Great Britain has been living in Singapore for the last four years.  The Western Socialist takes pleasure in presenting to its readers the following despatch which has much of interest for those who would [like to] know what goes on in that sparkling city-state (as it is often designated) of 2.5 millions.

"In Singapore, we are trying to modernise and industrialise ourselves by stimulating men's natural desire for material gratification . . ."

This statement by a government minister expresses with typical bluntness. the no-nonsense pragmatism of which the ruling People’s Action Party are so proud. Singapore, small by any standards, is experiencing capitalist development at a hectic pace and the socialist, with his historical perspective, can find a very close duplication of British capitalist development.

For the greater part of its 150-year history, Singapore has been a colonial outpost. With few natural resources its revenue has been derived from trading, carried out with a largely immigrant work force, mostly Chinese and Indian. Since 1965 the stress has been on manufacturing Industries.

Poorly paid work force 

As in all capitalist states the chief concern of the government Is to expand industrially. With a large, poorly paid work force the pickings are profitable and capital from a host of countries is avidly solicited by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and is just as avidly forthcoming. mostly through multinational companies. At home, the PAP theoretician, Rajaratnam, justifies the exploitation — “Let them come to exploit us now with superprofit on their part" — with an aplomb that indicates the degree of political apathy of a working class as yet little aware of its powers either as a value-producing or a revolutionary force.

The appallingly low wages are a result both of the lack of trade union action and the surplus labour force. The government’s self righteous declaration of intention to absorb this surplus with labour-intensive industries has suffered a reversal, owing partly to the importation of ready made machine processes and the need for fewer skilled as against many unskilled workers. As in mid-19th Century Britain, capital-intensive industry is developing, with the stress on greater worker productivity. Henceforth it is to be expected that trade union struggle will centre increasingly around the problem of machine made redundancies.

One-third of the population is housed on gigantic estates. At Jurong, one of the largest industrial complexes in Southeast Asia outside Japan has been constructed, and also a number of council estates of high-rise flats, including one incredible jungle housing 130,000 persons. These flats, one unit of which is completed every 14 minutes, are inferior to those in Britain, but the social amenities are vastly better.

New image needed

One of the most pressing problems faced by the PAP government is the creation of a national ideology. This must grow, not as in Britain, from centuries of history strengthened by tradition and education, but from the dire, immediate need for a viable work-force owing allegiance to none but the new republic of 1965. Chinese, Indians. Malays — all are being enjoined to dissociate themselves from their cultural background and develop loyalty to the state only. The once derided figure of the colonialist Raffles now has an honoured place in the mythology as the founder of Singapore, a combination of St. George and King Arthur! The government has stated that he has been rehabilitated, as, being a European, no racial jealousies are likely to arise among the work-force. It has justified its multi-racial policy in hard-headed economic terms. Preference and prejudice on a racial basis is seen as being likely to misuse the full range of workers’ talents. The role of the mass media in this process is blatant and naive in the extreme and is the cause for some embarassment to the more sophisticated Singaporeans concerned for their national image.

Weak dissent

The political situation is ambiguous. Opposition parties can legally start up, although members of the Barisan Socialist and others with Communist Party sympathies are arrested and held without trial. It is declared PAP policy to imprison them until they recant, relent and make abject confession, whereupon they are rehabilitated in the ex-political detainees Association’s shoe factory set up by the government in order to more effectively supervise them.

Most people take the ’practical’ approach. “As an efficient business unit it works so leave the government alone” — an attitude that is encouraged by the PAP. Nevertheless, political discontent exists, but most of this simply consists of claims to be able to run Singapore capitalism more smoothly than the government.

These attempts to forge, in hothouse fashion, a nation with a loyal working class out of disparate cultural elements have resulted in problems in many aspects of social life.

On the industrial field strikes have been few — but the penalties are great. A go-slow by a group of port workers in protest against provisions of the Employment Act limiting overtime working brought vicious reaction. Dismissal, deprivation of citizenship and deportation were threatened by Lew Kuan Yew. This was in sharp contrast to his recent plea to employers to give a little of the extra profits made by the increased exploitation of the workers back to them. The legislation on overtime was itself a recognition of the unemployment problem, which in some fields is very high and likely to increase with the British rundown.

Virtues & suicides 

Calls for the practice of the puritan virtues of self-denial, thrift and hard work for the workers contrast with the tawdry opulence of the many new skyscraper tourist hotels and penetrate every walk of life. Schoolchildren, their paramilitary training and flag ceremonies over for the day. face a heavy homework schedule. The increase in student neuroses and drug addiction is attributed by a senior psychiatrist to the stress of modern living. Lee warns continually against "permissiveness” and drugs and warns "Bring in alien fads at your peril.” Over half of Singapore’s population is under 20, and the student population is high. Education represents a large investment in the human raw material needed for the new industrial society and the government is concerned about the economic wastage due to drug addiction. Caught between the pressures of a highly competitive educational system and the fear of losing one's acceptability (which permits of higher education) through political or cultural nonconformity, student suicides have increased. Among the young, the expression “taking a flyer” has found a sombre significance in the city’s high rise jungles; in recent months cases have occurred of mothers jumping with children in their arms. With suicide running as seventh highest cause of death throughout the age groups, Rajaratnam can say of the Singaporean with pride:

"His diseases today are those of a civilized and progressive society . . . from heart disease and a variety of neuroses. He can leave this planet in style and his choice of exits is wide.”

Perhaps. But not as wide as the gulf separating the workers' conditions from those of the Singapore capitalists and their office-boys in government.

Poverty & prostitution

The uprooting of communities for rehousing has led to much social unrest and in many cases a worsening of poverty. Inability to meet newly increased rents has resulted in many tenants quitting their flats. Particularly for the ex-village Malays this poverty has been compounded by their inability to supplement their income and diet from poultry and backyard produce. With the GNP growth of around 15%, malnutrition in Singapore is still very high. About 20% of child hospital attendees are suffering from this aspect of poverty. Increased organized prostitution in the industrial estates has drawn from one police official a condemnation of the factory girls for lowering the image of Singapore’s womanhood. Some of these same girls earn a total daily wage that would just about buy a small beer in one of the new hotels.

Government employees, even more than those of private capitalists, suffer insulting restrictions on their freedom. The maximum length of hair permitted for civil servants is gazetted (with diagrams!) and their instructions manual forbids them to speak disparagingly of the government. They were even forbidden to read on government premises the English-language newspaper, “The Herald,” before it was banned.

For all this, Singapore is an interesting and exciting city. Many traditions, languages, racial types and religions form a colourful cross-cultural complex in what must be one of the cleanest of cities, with the friendliest of people, who show, when they are not worked upon by external and internal divisive interests, how tolerantly human beings with different cultures can live together.

To watch the Singapore working class being created and then subjected to a continuous barrage of propaganda by a government intent on developing a world of capitalist values is a frightful experience for those who know something about such values. But the rapid industrialization within a newly created national ideology has obliged the government to justify its actions in a blend of plausible political theory, practical expediency and pure apologetics. In some areas such as the University, where a certain political sophistication is claimed, government policy, particularly its undemocratic actions, is severely criticised.

Prospects for Socialists

Whether diverse political opinions lie below the surface of this society, we have no way of knowing yet, but in his four years in Singapore, this writer has been struck forcibly by one thing. Unlike Britain, the workers of Singapore are not plagued by a 150-year history of reformist agitation. Apart from those who view things natlonalistlcally. and want to do the government’s job of running capitalism for them, and those who, often more for cultural reasons than political. lean towards China, discussions on socialism are fairly straightforward and generally sympathetically received. Rarely does one hear a counter-argument about “transitional demands” or reforms leading to socialism. The effects of capitalism as it impacts upon a newly formed society, and the de-humanising effects upon the working class, are perfectly plain to the workers in Singapore, unsure though they may be at present about its precise cause or solution. Short shrift would be given to those self-elected leaders of the revolution so often found in Britain, who have such a low opinion of the workers that they urge them to embrace capitalist institutions in order to demonstrate that they won’t work.

Lack of what passes for political sophistication may well be a factor In keeping the issue clear, and might well lead to readier acceptance of socialism as the only alternative to what they are forced to suffer, in spite of the retarding effects of still strong religions. Already a group of workers has expressed interest and enthusiasm for the Party’s case. Literature is being circulated under the most trying circumstances, and they have requested permission to print extracts from our publications. It may be too soon to call them socialists; perhaps they never will be. But the Party may, even so, find a lesson to be learned here.

Bill Robertson

Notes by the Way: The Workers’ Share of the Product of Industry (1952)

The Notes by the Way Column from the August 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Workers’ Share of the Product of Industry

In the “ Times Review of Industry ” (April, 1952) Dr. L. Rostas examines the preliminary results of the 1948 Census of Production. One piece of information brought out by the Census of Production figures is the total value of the net output of workers in manufacturing, mining, building, etc., and the amount of wages and salaries paid.

The figures show that in 1948 the average net output per employee was £543. Wages represented 48.1 per cent, of that figure and salaries 11.8 per cent., so that wages and salaries together represented 59.9 per cent, of net output.

Dr. Rostas quotes for comparison the corresponding figures shown by the 1935 Census of Production, which was 60 per cent. While therefore the position in 1948 was almost identical with that in 1935 earlier figures showed that the workers' share had risen between 1906-7 and 1924. These figures were published in the Report of the Committee on Finance and Industry (1931, Page 312), and were 52 per cent. in 1906-7 and 55 per cent. in 1924.

The above figures relate to manufacturing industries, mining, building, etc., but do not include transport, finance, civil service, etc. The figures covering all workers are published each year in the Government booklet “ National Income and Expenditure.” For 1948 the division of the total national income (before deducting taxes on income) were: wages 45 per cent., salaries (largely clerks, shop assistants, etc.) 23 per cent., making a total of 68 per cent. In that year the pay of the armed forces represented 3 per cent., and Rent, Dividends and Interest 29 per cent.

The wages and salaries figure for 1951 is also 68 per cent, but in 1938 it was rather smaller, 61 per cent. The main reason why the later figures for wages and salaries have been higher than before the war is that owing to the fall of unemployment more workers have been receiving wages.

* * *

Increase of Output per Employee

Dr. Rostas also shows the increase of physical output per employee in the 13 years 1935 to 1948. Total output of manufacturing industry increased in the 13 years by about 32 per cent., but as the number of workers had increased by 25 per cent., the physical output per worker had increased by about 6 per cent. This is less than half of one per cent a year and is below the normal annual increase over long periods. Undoubtedly the rate of increase will have been somewhat larger in the years since 1948.

In the five years 1924 to 1929 it increased by 11.6 per cent., representing over 2 per cent. a year. (Report of Committee on Finance and Industry, 1931. Page 310.)

An elaborate inquiry by the economist Colin Clark covering the 80 years 1870 to 1950 shows that the product per worker increased by 76 per cent., or rather less than 1 per cent, a year. (Published in Review of Economic Progress, July-August, 1951, Brisbane. Australia.)

During the same period, 1870-1950. the amount produced per head of the population increased by a larger percentage than did the increase of output per worker. This was because a larger proportion of the population were employed in 1950 than in 1870. The amount produced per head of the population was a little over twice as much in 1950 as in 1870.

* * *

Innocents in Russia

Mr. Emrys Hughes, Labour M.P. for South Ayrshire, is best known for his near-pacifism and his constant efforts to get the world's governments to get together to avoid war. He recently visited Russia and published his observations in “ Forward." He has one advantage over many visitors to Russia that he speaks Russian and he claimed that nothing was done to prevent him from entering into conversation with people he met.

Nevertheless he does on one issue betray a certain amount of simplicity. Writing in “Forward” (3rd May, 1952) he claims that “the Communist Dictatorship not only survives but is generally accepted," and that “there is a stable government to which there is no discernible or organised opposition.”

Now Mr. Hughes knows that it is illegal in Russia to attempt to form any political party other than the Communist Party and that all journals and news reports are censored. If he were in Russia and tried to form a party like the one of which he is a member, or tried to make his customary pacifist speeches, or tried to publish a journal like “Forward," of which he was formerly editor, or tried to run as a Labour Party candidate, he would be breaking the law and would incur speedy and drastic penalties. Knowing all this he nevertheless can say that there is in Russia no discernible or organised opposition!

It may be correct that there is little opposition and that what underground opposition does exist is not organised, but when Mr. Hughes says that the opposition is not discernible he is being a little naive. Does he really expect anti-Communists in Russia to disclose themselves? If he had visited Germany under Hitler he would have found the same absence of individuals anxious to become “discerned” and consequently jailed.

Or to come nearer home, if Mr. Hughes had six months ago visited the anti-trade union establishments of Mr. Thomson of Dundee he would have failed to discern on that dictatorial individual's premises even the smallest sign of “ discernible and organised opposition.”

It is, of course, very difficult to tell what opposition exists under any dictatorship and perhaps later events may show that Mr. Hughes was as much misled about Russia in 1952 as was the British Ambassador in Russia in 1917 who was quite unaware until it broke out into open revolt that there was widespread opposition to the Czarist regime.

* * *

How to Muzzle the Press

In Russia the Government openly exercises a censorship on what news comes into the country and on the reports sent out by foreign journalists, and, of course, on what is printed in the Russian Press. Also there is the widespread Russian jamming of foreign broadcasts.

When challenged on the subject Mr. Stalin used the defence that whenever the censorship had been lifted the statements made about the members of the Russian Government by foreign reporters were such that the Russian people became "very indignant," and the censorship had to be re-introduced (Soviet Weekly, 15th May, 1947.) It is a very curious excuse in face of the way in which much of the Russian Government's own internal propaganda is designed to stir up popular indignation against foreigners.

However, a crude censorship is not the only way of preventing publication. It will be recalled how for months the events leading up to the abdication of Edward Vm (the Duke of Windsor) were kept out of the British Press though widely discussed in other countries. More recently we have seen how a request to the British Press not to publish an indiscreet statement made by Lord Alexander at a dinner at the Canada Club was generally observed. Here the reason given was that “security” was involved though in fact a very similar statement had been made by him shortly before and had been published. The Evening Standard (4/7/52) published a letter by Mr. Beverley Baxter saying that as the request not to publish was made by Lord Alexander on grounds of “security" the editors of the morning newspapers were right to accede to the request. The editor of the Evening Standard took the opposite line. He wrote:

"No question of security was involved. The editors were therefore wrong to accept a request for suppression on security grounds.”

A Denunciation of Nationalism

The  Indian, M. N. Roy, who was at one time prominent in the Communist International, but later broke away and took a line of his own, recently wrote for the Manchester Guardian (21/6/52) an article “Asian Nationalism. Its Roots in Race Hatred."

In it he puts the case that the Asiatic nationalist movements are not just movements to secure independence from the foreign governments that kept them in colonial subjection, for even after achieving independence they continue to preach the same anti-foreign doctrines as before. He quotes Mr. Nehru, Prime Minister of India, and advocate of Indian nationalism, as having admitted that he does not know what nationalism is:

“What exactly is nationalism? I do not know, and it is extremely difficult to define. In the case of a country under foreign domination it is easy to define what nationalism is. It is anti-foreign power. But in a free country it is something positive. Even so, I think that a large element of it is negative or anti-, and so sometimes we find that nationalism, which is a healthy force, becomes—maybe after liberation—unhealthy, retrogressive, reactionary, or expansive."

Yet though Mr. Nehru could not define nationalism he went on to declare that it “warms the heart of every Asian" and that “any other force that may seek to function must define itself in terms of this nationalism.” Mr. Roy says this is nonsense and that what Mr. Nehru's explanation really means is that nationalism is “race hatred kept alive artificially.”

“ Asia nationalism is an unmixed evil. It has not got the saving grace of a cultural and idealist origin as in the case of earlier European nationalism."

Although Mr. Roy notices that between the wars European nationalism developed into fascism, and quotes the statement of the late Lord Acton that nationality sacrifices everything “to the imperative necessity of making the nation the mould and measure of the State,” he does not appreciate the simple fact that nationalism has been and is everywhere the form in which each capitalist group tries to carve out a place for itself in the world of warring capitalist states. If he did he would not be at all surprised that the politicians who have used nationalism to gain independence from a colonial power need it just as much afterwards in order to persuade the workers to go on fighting capitalism’s battles.

If it is an illusion to think that nations can be friendly in a capitalist world provided that they are all “independent,” it is equally an illusion on the part of Mr. Roy to think that the Powers, great and small, could dispense with nationalism.

At least one thing Mr. Roy has correctly summed up. Discussing the disappointing results of national independence from the worker’s point of view, he says that when India and other countries achieved independence, “absolutely nothing changed except the personnel of the State machinery.”

On one thing we can put Mr. Roy right He says of the “reforming Liberals and the revolutionary Left in the Western countries” that disregarding the bitter experience and irony of history which had shown them nationalist movements starting with men like Mazzini and ending with regimes like Mussolini’s, they “vied with each other in patronising colonial nationalism.” Whatever the Liberals and Labourites did, the S.P.G.B. certainly did not fell into this error but always condemned nationalist propaganda whether at home or abroad, in Europe or in Asia.

Edgar Hardcastle

Blogger's Note:

The piece on M. N. Roy and the perniciousness of nationalism was previously posted on the blog as a standalone article in September 2011. I'm not sure what happened there. Maybe I copied it from the SPGB website, not knowing that it was part of a larger Notes by the Way column. No worries.

Life and Times: Romance and Reality (2023)

The Life and Times column from the August 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

I have a friend who rarely misses the opportunity to tell those around him that he would like to bring his children up in ‘a socialist country’. He makes it clear that the country he has in mind is Cuba. And he’s not alone in regarding Cuba as ‘socialist’. We see this in some of the people who apply online to join the Socialist Party and fill in our short questionnaire. The idea of the questionnaire isn’t to catch people out but rather to make sure they understand and are in agreement with what the Party stands for. So to the question ‘Has socialism been established in any part of the world?’, most applicants answer ‘no’. These already know enough about the organisation to understand that we see socialism as a world society without money and wages, without buying and selling and based on economic equality and free access for all to all goods and services. But a few answer in the affirmative and then give examples – perhaps Norway or Sweden (the Scandinavian so-called ‘social-democratic’ countries), or Venezuela (especially under Chavez), or one-party states like China, Vietnam and, most often, Cuba, the country that my aforementioned friend holds in the highest possible esteem and, more generally, seems to be an endless source of fascination for what might be called the ‘left-wing mind’. Why should this be?

Fidel

When Fidel Castro led an armed uprising in 1958 against the repressive US-backed dictatorial regime of Fulgensio Batista and then gained the support and backing of the Soviet Union, it was hailed by many in the West as a successful ‘socialist’ revolution. But it soon became clear that, rhetoric aside, what had happened was that one dictator had been replaced by another, the only difference being that the new one was supported and sustained by the Soviet Union rather than the US. Not that this prevented the romance that attached itself to Cuba throughout the left-wing world from continuing. That romance has, it’s true, become somewhat tarnished since the death of Castro and the accession to power initially of his brother Raul, but for many the country still somehow remains a living example of socialism in action.

In reality, of course, the widespread poverty for the majority alongside massive privilege for a tiny ruling clique that existed both before Castro and under him still exists, as does a one-party state, suppression of independent thought and harsh punishment for dissent, including the death sentence. As recently as 2021 Human Rights Watch ranked Cuba as 19th out of all nations by the number of imprisoned journalists and the 2020 World Press Freedom Index placed it 171st out of 180.

Elections without choice

As for elections, despite being an authoritarian one-party state, Cuba does hold them, the most recent one being in March this year. But these are elections only in a manner of speaking, more of a ritual than a genuine vehicle for the democratic choosing of representatives. Though the regime tries to present itself as a superior form of democracy, with people summoned to vote to appoint members of the ‘National Assembly of People’s Power’, those people do not choose who those members shall be but are simply asked to ratify those selected to stand by the single legally authorised party, the Communist Party. So the country and its people are in effect simply going through empty motions, a process referred to by one commentator as ‘elections without choices’.

State capitalism

Despite this, Cuba continues to call itself a ‘socialist’ country, But what it means by this is adherence to a largely state-controlled economy with most of the means of production owned and run by the government and most of the workforce employed by the state. This is not of course socialism in our terms but just another form of capitalism – state capitalism – even if it is, unfortunately as I see it, what many people, including both my friend who would like to live in Cuba and some of those who fill in our joining questionnaire, mean when they talk about ‘socialism’. And what’s certain is that, whatever they choose to call it, it’s a million miles away from the cooperative stateless society of free access and democratic organisation that we call socialism.

So, given what’s known about Cuba and the way people live there, why does my friend like the idea that it would be good for his children to be brought up there? And why do some applicants for membership of the Socialist Party see Cuba as some form of socialism in action? The only answer I can think of is that myths die hard. Long after irrefutable evidence shows a political system not to be what it purports to be or what people thought it was, some of those people still find it too hard to look that evidence in the face. Instead they just carry on believing what they’ve always believed. In the case of Cuba, as in other cases, romance trumps reality.

Howard Moss

World View: New times for Syria? (2000)

From the July 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Rarely are constitutions changed so quickly. On 10 June, the corpse of President Hafez al-Assad had hardly cooled when the powers that be in Syria changed the age at which ministers are allowed to hold office from 40 to 34, thus enabling his son Bashar to be named as perhaps the sole presidential candidate in a referendum to be held within 90 days.

As is the norm when a president dies, the condolences and tributes flow in. Whilst Israel newspaper Yedioth Abronoth could announce they were “not too sorry over Assad’s death . . . we are happy”, the Western line was that he had been “a great statesman”, and whilst Hafez al-Assad was remembered as “the Lion of Damascus”, the obstinate stance he maintained in the Middle East peace process and the missed opportunities he notched up over thirty years of autocratic rule were enough to earn himself the title “the Donkey of Damascus”.

All things considered, Hassad was no first-rate statesman. Never democratically elected, he came to power during a bloodless coup d’état in 1970, was the leader of a quasi-military dictatorship, with a corrupt Ba’athist political faction—religiously an Alawite minority elite who dominated all aspects of Syrian society—whilst overseeing a parlous command economy and a country noted for internal repression and scant civil rights.

In the perennial game of Middle Eastern politics, Hassad upset as many Arab states as he won friends, whilst siding with both superpowers as needs dictated. As well as Israel, neighbouring Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Egypt and Turkey came to view Hassad’s Syria as a thorn in the side of Middle Eastern peace. His implacable position on the US brokered round of talks resulted in constant hold-ups with the present round of discussions having been on the back burner since January, with Syria demanding land at the foot of Golan and access to Lake Galilee. Whilst Israel might have contemplated such a move, it was widely viewed in Israel to be part of a wider Syrian game plan to get Israel to withdraw beyond the 1967 borders, and in this respect Israel could no more sell the idea of a Golan withdrawal to its people than Hassad could coerce the Alawite elite into accepting they had no hopes of retrieving this strategic gem.

What path Bashar heads down remains to be seen. Up until now he has held no official party post, though he has been delegated policy briefs such as Lebanon and the rooting out of high-ranking corruption. Whilst he can generally depend upon the support of the military, it is probable his anti-corruption drive against those in power—the chief culprits being those loyal to his father—will make him enemies. Studying ophthalmology in Britain before he was called back to Syria to begin his grooming for leadership, he is said to be “modest, considerate and intelligent”, keen on new technology and with ideas on reform and political change, such as more representative forms of government, that will undoubtedly sicken Syria’s old guard—an elite made up of the security services, the army and the Ba’athist party hierarchy.

And it remains to be seen just how much of his father’s baggage Bashar will inherit. Hafez was after all a staunch anti-zionist, still maintaining 35,000 troops in Lebanon—in which he held sway over the guerrilla movement Hizbullah—after the Israeli withdrawal, reluctant to concede Israel an inch, cautious about investing in new civil and military technology or to reform the country’s clannish hierarchy.

Bashar, though, comes with the full backing of British Foreign Minister Peter Hain—which perhaps amounts to little, bearing in mind Britain’s track record on giving its support to bloodstained dictators for 30 years—and with hopes in Washington that he can make some headway in the Middle East peace process and in time for the US Presidential elections in which the Clinton clique will be aiming to present some foreign policy success to US voters.

Waiting in the wings—though at a distance—is uncle Rifaat, younger brother to Hafez and the former vice-president; the same disgraced vice-president who once ordered the bombardment of the town of Hama (a Sunni Muslim Brotherhood haven) killing 40,000 inhabitants and who attempted a coup d’état when Hafez was ill in 1983. Presently in exile in France with an entourage of 30 bodyguards and threatened with arrest the moment he enters Syria with presidential ambitions, Rifaat has a fortune of $2—$4 billion, looks after 100 companies, controls two newspapers and is therefore more than capable of buying many strategically placed allies. Rifaat maintains that Bashar’s ascension to the throne of Syrian power will be “illegal” and many anticipate he will mount some challenge.

Safeguarding interests

The chances are, however, that Bashar will be the sole presidential candidate, if for no other reason than his father’s Alawite cronies will close ranks to ease his political ascendancy and safeguard their own interests. And whilst some equate his reformist ambitions with an Israeli/Syrian peace, it does seem unlikely that in the foreseeable future he will advocate the concessions that Middle Eastern peace is claimed to necessitate. If politics is difficult to predict in the West, then it is nigh on impossible to make any forecast as to how events will unfold in this part of the world, where the number of competing factions is only matched by the number of religions, where there are numerous strategic and mineral interests to be fought over and in which the West continue to manoeuvre their pawns as if playing on a gigantic chess board.

No leaders

Of course, as socialists, we side with no leaders or any Middle Eastern faction, taking no sides in their wars over territory; for we have the insight to see where disagreements over resources, such as oil and water, and artificial borders lead and in whose interests such conflicts are waged. Our thoughts lie with the exploited majority of the Middle East—the common folk—who continue to pay the price of power politics, and eagerly await the day when they have the chance, along with their counterparts the world over, to at last vote for themselves and, more, in their own interests, a world devoid of Assads, Saddams and Ayaltollahs and the misery their games bring.

John Bissett

Black nationalism in Africa (1965)

From the June 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nationalism as a political theory originated in Germany around the beginning of the 19th century, when the German nationalists put forward the theory that those who speak the same language form a natural community which ought to govern itself.

This was to develop into racialism and to give rise to talk of the “Anglo-Saxon race ” and the “German race".

Despite the fact that nationalism has no scientific basis for its claims, it has been a powerful force in the world. Of course, it was not something which suddenly appeared out of the blue; its roots are to be found in the beginnings of capitalist development in Britain and France and the effect this had on intellectual life in Germany. This put Germany in a peculiar historical position.

Germans who had absorbed ideas developed in Britain and France turned to nationalism—the unity of all German speaking people—as part of the drive to modernise their country. Similar nationalist movements and theories appeared in Poland, Italy and Hungry, though only in Italy was the movement to have success in the nineteenth century. Here the achievement of national unity and independence was the equivalent of France’s revolution of 1789; it created the political conditions in which the evolution of capitalist society could continue.

In short in many of those countries which underwent capitalist development after Britain and France, the overthrow of the old order was represented as a form of national revolution—in some cases as a move for national unity, in others for national independence and in others for national regeneration. To refer to nationalism as a weapon of the social revolution from feudal society to capitalism is not to say that the nationalist movements were composed of traders and small factory owners. In fact the relationship is not as simple as this.

Capitalism created the social conditions for the spread of nationalism by alienating sections of the population from the old order. It is among this section—students, past and present, modern army officers and wage workers — that nationalists were to be found. These set about agitating among those they considered their fellow nationals in order to awaken their national consciousness.

From Europe, nationalism spread out during the twentieth century to the Middle East and Asia. Today it is spreading through Africa—Macmillan’s wind of change. The outward form of this nationalism varies from country to country depending on historical circumstances, but its essential remains the same; it is an instrument of the capitalist social revolution in relatively backward countries

In Europe the nationalist theories were based on language. In Africa they are based on colour and “race”. For this reason African nationalism is sometimes referred to as “racist ”. This use is permissible in so far as African nationalism does claim to champion the interests of the black people or “race”. Perhaps a better term would be Black Nationalism; this however should not obscure the fact that there are groups working among Africans which do preach race hatred and race domination. These can be called Black Racialist groups.

The intellectual roots of African nationalism go back to the Negro nationalist movements which appeared in America and the West Indies in the first part of this century. These ranged from openly black racialist organisations such as that of Marcus Garvey — the forerunner of the present day Black Muslims in America and the Rastafarians in Jamaica — to the cultural nationalism, so-called negritude, of the poet Aimé Césaire.

From this developed the doctrine of Pan-Africanism, which proclaimed the unity of interest of all Africans and those of African descent. Educated Africans and African students abroad joined in this movement. On returning to Africa, the students set about agitating for national independence. They would have had no success had not social conditions been ripe for the spread of their ideas.

As in Europe and Asia, nationalism in Africa spread only to the degree that the old order was breaking up. The colonial powers, in training Africans as soldiers and priests and civil servants, in employing them in the mines and on the plantations, undermined their own position. For these detribalised Africans formed the social base of the anti-colonialist struggle. Since the war the further break-up of the old order has proceeded apace. So has nationalism. It is only nine years since the first black African state, Ghana, became independent from colonial rule. Now, with the important exceptions of parts of central and southern Africa, most of black Africa has achieved independence.

The regimes that have taken over from the colonial governments have been various. Some have consisted of a motley collection of tribal leaders and opportunist and corrupt politicians. Others have an iron handed industrialising clique. Ghana provides the model of this last type; there the administrative techniques of Russia have been combined with the doctrine of Pan-Africanism to get what Nkrumah calls "African socialism ”.

Other nations which are modelled on Ghana — Guinea, Kenya, Tanzania — are one party states in which a vanguard party is used to mobilise the population for carrying through the capitalist social revolution. Because of the role of the state —and the influence of Russia—it was perhaps inevitable that these regimes would label themselves socialist. In fact they are totalitarian state capitalist regimes in which an élite uses the state power to try to extend capitalism rapidly throughout the area under their political control.

The situation in central and southern Africa is complicated by the presence of a not inconsiderable minority of persons of European descent. These—the whites—once enjoyed certain political and economic privileges at the expense of the Africans. It is in these circumstances that ugly black-white clashes have occurred and will almost certainly occur again. Among both white people and black there are groups preaching race hatred and intolerance. Many of the white workers are under the impression that they can preserve their security through discriminatory legislation. The African workers, on the other hand, see the solution to their miseries in African nationalism. The murders of Mau Mau in Kenya, and those of the Congo rebels, are examples of nationalism in action, just as the terrorist tactics employed by European nationalists in the past were. In Africa, however, they are now complicated as a clash between black and white.

African nationalism and the one party regimes it tends to set up are respectively the theory and practice of the capitalist social revolution in Africa. The spread of African nationalism together with the attempt by the Whites to maintain their privileges, is almost .certain to lead to further inter-racial violence and terror. Nationalism, with its talk of equality, may not at first sight appear as repugnant as racialism pure and simple. It often however, has the same results: bloodshed in which members of the working class are killed—not for their own interests but for those of their masters present and future.

Adam Buick

World View: Seychelles: the strategic stakes (1998)

From the September 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Seychelles comprise 115 islands and atolls scattered over the western Indian Ocean, with Malé the largest island, 1,000 miles east of the Kenyan port of Mombassa. More than 90 percent of the population of 75,000 live on Malé.

The Seychelles were seized as a French colony in 1768, but were captured by Britain in 1794 and were incorporated as a dependency of Mauritius in 1814. They became a separate colony in 1903, achieved internal self-government in 1975, and gained independence as a republic within the British Commonwealth the following year.

Unlike many other British colonies, the Seychelles never had a strong nationalist movement before independence. The first political party, the Seychelles Democratic Party (SDP), was formed by a flamboyant lawyer, James Mancham, in 1963; two years later, another lawyer, Albert René, formed the People’s United Party (PUP). Mancham campaigned for integration with Britain, whilst Rene argued for independence.The SDP was considered to be left-wing, the PUP right-wing. Both were thoroughly reformist.

By the early 1970s, Mancham was persuaded, on advice from Britain, that integration with Britain was not acceptable, as it would not be tolerated by the former British colonies in East Africa, and would cause friction within the Seychelles. Mancham therefore opted for independence, but demanded that Britain help with the formation of the Seychelles’ security forces.The United States was allowed to construct a nuclear detonation monitoring satellite station on Malé island.

In 1976 James Mancham (who was to be knighted) became President and Albert René became Prime Minister of the newly independent Republic of the Seychelles. Meanwhile Mancham had forged strong links with South Africa and René with Tanzania. Within months of Marcham’s election as president, René began plotting his overthrow.

When, at the beginning of June 1977, Mancham departed for the British Commonwealth Leaders’ Conference in London, René’s supporters, armed with AK-47 rifles and accompanied by 500 Tanzanian soldiers who had secretly entered the country, seized control of the principal government buildings, including the barracks and the police station in the capital,Victoria, on Malé. It was a walkover. By the following morning Albert René had complete control of the Seychelles.

René became president in place of Mancham. News was strictly controlled by the Ministry of Information; all residents were obliged to register their personal details with the government. President René took extreme precautions to ensure that he was not ousted from power. He initially recruited a small force of Tanzanian troops to protect the principal buildings and then later, acting on advice from his new Defence Minister, he replaced the Tanzanians with an elite detachment of North Korean guards. The Russian embassy increased its staff, of whom some were KGB and GRU officers, to about 50 “diplomats”. In 1979 René introduced a new constitution under which a People’s Progressive Front declared itself to the 23-member People’s Assembly of the Seychelles to be the sole legal party.

There have been numerous attempts to overthrow René and his government. Two plots involving French mercenaries were uncovered, in 1978 and 1979. In 1981 the infamous Mike Hoare, with a group of South African mercenaries posing as a rugby team, planned an attack on the Seychelles, but were pre-empted by the Seychelles security forces. Hoare and some of his men arrived at the airport of Malé but, after a fierce gun-battle, managed to escape back to South Africa.

In 1992, after the collapse of state capitalism in Russia, René recycled himself as a “democrat” and Sir James Mancham was allowed to return, protected by military bodyguards and, it has been alleged, members of the British SAS.

The strategic position of the Seychelles is the main reason why so many governments interfere and try to control the islands. Their value lies in their proximity to numerous trade routes in the Indian Ocean. Moreover, there are more than 80 islands with coves, harbours and mountains that have great military and naval uses. The islanders are mainly concerned with small-scale agriculture and fishing. Many of them, over the last 30 years or so, have been employed in hotels and the ever-increasing tourist industry but, at the moment, due to the recent economic problems across the Indian Ocean to the east, there has been something of a downturn in tourism in the Seychelles as elsewhere.The future is uncertain.

Peter E. Newell

Can there be Freedom of the Press? (1941)

From the April 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The suppression of the Daily Worker by the Home Secretary has led to lively arguments about the whole question of the freedom of the Press, freedom of meetings and freedom of discussion, and it is something on which the S.P.G.B. has a unique contribution to make. The attitude taken up by the various persons concerned can be briefly summarised as follows. The Home Secretary, Mr. Herbert Morrison, says that while he wishes to interfere as little as possible with the freedom of the Press, a line has to be drawn when there is “systematic publication of matter calculated to foment opposition to the prosecution of the war to a successful issue.” The Liberal Manchester Guardian, while recalling John Stuart Mill’s famous defence of freedom of the Press, nevertheless finds itself in agreement with the suppression. To the extent that there is criticism of the Home Secretary it has, in the main, turned only on the method, not the suppression itself. These critics would have preferred that the Daily Worker, instead of being suppressed by order of the Home Secretary, should have been charged with some specific offence and brought before the Courts, where it could have defended itself. The News Chronicle went so far as to say that “if it had been any other paper …. suppression without proceedings would have raised a storm of protest” (News Chronicle, January 29th, 1941). The Daily Worker itself, through its editor, Mr. W. Rust, retorted that though quite prepared to face a Court of Law, “for our part we object to the assassination of liberty whatever the method employed” (News Chronicle, January 28th, 1941).

Since there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of the Home Secretary, the Manchester Guardian and the News Chronicle, when they say that they have not wanted a policy of suppression but have been led by circumstances to support it in a particular case, it is at once apparent that they find it in practice impossible to apply their professed principle of freedom. Is it the principle that is wrong or must the circumstances be changed? In other words, is the S.P.G.B. right in its claim that there is not and never can be unfettered freedom of expression until Socialism has been established?

John Stuart Mill on Liberty

John Stuart Mill, in his essay “On Liberty,” written in 1849, stated the classic case for freedom of discussion, etc. He considered all the arguments for and against suppression and firmly declared his conclusion that “There ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered.” (See Everyman edition—”Utilitarianism, Liberty and Representative Government.” Page 78.)

“We can never be sure,” he wrote, “that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still” (p. 79).

His argument was not concerned primarily with the right of the individual, but with the loss to society, for, he said, it is in the interest of mankind that every view should be freely stated and every criticism of accepted opinions heard and considered. Only by such a clash of views can the truth be established. Among many interesting points in his essay is his demonstration of the falsity of the sentimental opinion that “truth always triumphs over persecution” (p. 89). With many examples, he shows that history “teems with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not suppressed for ever, it may be thrown back for centuries.”

He did not forget to stress the obligation of minorities to state their unpopular views temperately and with restraint if they wish them to make their way against prejudice and inertia.

Communists always against Freedom of Speech

When the editor of the Daily Worker stated that the Communists’ “object to the assassination of liberty, whatever the method employed,” he must have been counting on the ignorance of those who read his statement. It is utterly untrue. From first to last, and in every place where they have had the opportunity, the Communists have sought to prevent their opponents, of whatever kind, from expressing their views. In the early days Lenin was frankly contemptuous of the facilities that exist under capitalist democracy for workers’ organisations to exist and to express their views. In a document presented to the First Congress of the Communist International at Moscow, March 6th, 1919, Lenin describes “freedom of meeting” as “an empty phrase,” “Liberty of the Press” as “a delusion,” and roundly declared that “even in the most democratic republics there reigns in practice the terrorism and dictatorship ol the bourgeoisie.” (“The Bolshevik Theory,” Postgate, 1920, pages 205-207). He was able to reach these conclusions by taking the handicaps that actually do exist for workers’ organisations under capitalist democracy and exaggerating and distorting them to the degree necessary to fit his description. It all helped to justify his and Trotsky’s defence of terrorism and dictatorship in Russia. It was only in later years that the Communists in Great Britain quietly shelved their talk of dictatorship, civil war, etc., and posed as defenders of the workers’ “democratic rights.” In 1920, however, when the Communist, Mr. R. Palme Dutt, wrote his “The Two Internationals,” he had no hesitation in saying that the Communist theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat meant the exclusion of any conceptions of ‘liberty’ which militate against it and therefore capitalist interests.”

He went on to say: —

“Against the “ideologies” of “liberty,” “democracy,” individual rights,” etc., which have always formed the historical cover of capitalist activity . . . must be set the concrete principle of the proletarian state . . .” (Page 32.)

The Communists nowadays talk a different language and do not openly avow their preference for dictatorship and suppression and contempt for democratic methods and tolerance. Posing as democrats and as representatives of working-class interests, they put forward a more cautiously phrased policy. To start with, they are in favour of suppressing Fascist papers and organisations on the ground that the Fascists are “enemies of the people”; but, as Mr. Frank Owen records, when Mr. Rust, editor of the Daily Worker was asked to be more explicit about this, he replied “that he regarded all capitalist newspapers as enemies of the people, too ” (Evening Standard, January 28th, 1941). So, it appears, as Mr. Frank Owen puts it, “my colleagues and I are due for a short, sharp ride if ever Comrade Rust comes to sit in Home Secretary Morrison’s seat.”

Then Mr. Harry Pollitt has on occasion amplified the scope of “enemies of the people.” In his election address, when he stood as Parliamentary candidate at Whitechapel a few years ago, he lumped the Labour Party along with Liberals, Tories and Fascists. His cry was: “Away with these enemies of the workers !”

And in the Daily Worker of January 29th, 1930, Mr. Pollitt issued a stirring call to action He urged the workers to smash up meetings of the Labour Party.

“. . . The mere passing uf resolutions is not enough. There should not be a Labour meeting held anywhere but what the revolutionary workers in that district attend such meetings and fight against the speakers whoever they are, so-called “left,”‘ “right,” or “centre.”

They should never be allowed to address the workers. This will bring us into conflict with the authorities, but this must be done. The fight can no longer be conducted in a passive manner.”

Needless to say, Communists have often told us that if they got power the Socialist Standard would naturally be “dealt with.”

In short, the Communist idea of freedom of the Press is the suppression of every journal except those approved by themselves, all on the model of the Soviet dictatorship.

The Socialist Point of View

While accepting broadly the arguments of John Stuart Mill, Socialists point out how impossible it is to expect his case to be accepted under capitalism. The S.P.G.B. has always taken its stand on the method of argument and persuasion to gain acceptance of the Socialist case. Knowing that there can be no Socialism except through the use of democratic methods, we need to win over the majority to our side. The Socialist case is true and can be shown to be true. It is in line with the discernible facts of the modern world, and what has convinced us will in due time convince the majority of the workers. It is for this reason that the S.P.G.B. allows and invites opposition and discussion on our platform and at our meetings. We do not believe, as do the Communists, that Socialism can be attained by a minority who do understand Socialism acting as guides and leaders to a majority who do not understand. We reject as dangerous and impracticable the Communist policy enunciated in 1920 by Mr. Palme Dutt: —

“The workers as a whole rebel against a regime of which they feel the pricks, without any pre-conceived doctrinaire theory. It is the business of the communist to guide their movement into its realisation in the dictatorship of the proletariat.”—(“Two Internationals,” page 32.)

For the Communist, the idea of suppression and controlling the ideas of the workers fits in naturally with the idea of the “intelligent minority” who lead the non-Socialist masses. Rejecting the latter policy, the Socialist likewise rejects the doctrine of suppression and control of ideas.

But what chance have Mill’s principles of being applied under capitalism ? Obviously no Government at war (and no Government which holds Communist views of political struggle being of the nature of “heavy civil war”) will ever consent to completely unfettered freedom of the Press in wartime. To do so would be to risk endangering war effort. Even in peace-time it is unthinkable that all the various restrictions on publication and utterance in the shape of laws against libel, blasphemy, publication of official secrets, etc., could be removed ; if only for the reason that the libel laws are based on property rights, and capitalism is a system in which property rights are of supreme importance. Moreover, no amendment of laws directly affecting the Press can serve to redress the inequality that must exist between the propertied class, who can go to any expenditure to finance the publication of journals representing their interests and point of view, and the propertyless working-class, who must make do with publishing organs of opinion within the limit of their meagre resources.

Socialism alone will bring about conditions in which all will enjoy the rights and obligations of free utterance and discussion, and the human race will gain to the full the benefits of such freedom.

Edgar Hardcastle

What’s in a word? (2022)

From the March 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

The word ‘socialism’ peppers current political discussion. When Boris Johnson was seeking respite from his well-known recent setbacks by announcing a limit to rises in people’s energy bills, a Tory MP got up in the parliament to say that the Conservative Party should not be supporting socialist policies. In the United States, right-wing opponents of Joe Biden never cease to refer to his policies as ‘socialism’. And when we hear reference to what happened over much of the 20th century in Russia and Eastern Europe and still very much happens in countries like Cuba and China, the word ‘socialism’ is often used as a quick and convenient way to describe it, whether coming from detractors or supporters. Clearly, when people use the word in these different cases to characterise a form of government or government policy, they do not all have the same idea in their mind. But what unites all these uses is the idea that the state is taking charge of economic matters and attempting to control what would otherwise be determined by market forces.

Giant Ponzi scam

It’s also a word that pops up almost as a matter of course when people are trying to describe not just state control of an economy but also state dictatorship over people’s everyday lives. This has happened recently, for example, in two quite separate BBC Radio 4 programmes on Albania. A documentary entitled The Great Pyramids of Albania looked back to 1996 when a large proportion of the Albanian population fell victim to a giant ‘Ponzi’ scheme. People sold their houses, land and livestock to buy into pyramid schemes that were doomed to fail. By the end of that year, what was basically a rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul scheme had swallowed up almost 50 per cent of the country’s annual income and affected the lives of most of its population. The programme’s presenter tried to explain the psychology which hooked people into trusting this scheme, how the mass delusion evolved and then what were its dire consequences (a violent civil war in fact) once it became clear that no one was getting their money back and some had lost everything. But he did not do this without referring on a number of occasions to what had preceded this in the period from the end of the second world war to 1991 as ‘socialism’ and its end as ‘the fall of socialism’. During most of that time, what had happened was that Albania had been ruled in a direly oppressive way by a ruthless Stalin-style dictator, Enver Hoxha, who succeeded in establishing personal control not only over the economy but also over the country’s political system.

The Hoxha dictatorship

And it was the Hoxha period of Albanian history that the second recent BBC programme on that country focused on, via a recently published memoir entitled Coming of Age at the End of History, written by a woman who had lived through it. In it the author, Lea Ypi, describes how people were conditioned to believe that the one-party rule they were living under was ‘freedom and democracy’, and that this was what ‘socialism’ was. She describes reinforcing mechanisms such as the loyalty to Hoxha and the Party sworn by pupils in school every morning. But prying ears were everywhere and any hint of non-adherence to the system could lead to dire consequences ranging from dismissal from work, to ‘re-education’, to prison or to execution, and such things happened frequently. The title of the Albanian song accompanying the programme, A Pickaxe in One Hand, a Rifle in the Other, used as a signature tune by Albanian state radio, captures well the tenor of a regime characterised in the author’s memoir as ‘an open-air prison’. Once she had finished her schooldays, Ypi tells how she left Albania, studied philosophy and politics and ended up as what she is today, a Professor of Political Theory at the London School of Economics. Yet her memoir suggests that she is teaching her students that what happened under Hoxha was socialism, even though one might think that, with her knowledge of political theory, she would know that to label what happened in Albania in that way is an outright perversion of the word’s original meaning.

Was Albania socialist?

Of course, no one has a patent on words, especially those describing ideas rather than concrete objects. Yet, when the word ‘socialism’ was popularised in the 19th century by such writers as Marx and Engels, it clearly meant an entirely different society from the one that existed then and still exists now based on buying and selling and private or state ownership of the means of living. It meant a society of free access to all goods and services based on the concept of from each according to ability to each according to need and presupposed the abolition of the wages system. Yet the dictatorial regimes, run along state-capitalist lines, that later called themselves socialist (and/or Marxist) were the polar opposite of anything Marx and Engels would have recognised as the society of ‘freedom from necessity’ which they described as ‘socialism’ or ‘communism’ (they used the terms more or less synonymously). While we must recognise that many people do not want to see the kind of society advocated by Marx and Engels but instead prefer one of the many slightly different varieties of capitalism that exist at present (‘free market’ capitalism, state capitalism, ‘mixed’ economy, etc), it does not seem unreasonable to expect them, if only to achieve some kind of clarity of thought for themselves, not to throw the word ‘socialism’ around willy-nilly. If the title of ‘socialism’ is given to any of these varieties, it betrays a lack of understanding of the concept historically and can only serve to mislead those looking for genuine solutions to the many-faceted problems perpetually thrown up by the capitalist organisation of society.

Howard Moss

Editorial: The Concealed Aim of the Communist Party (1948)

Editorial from the March 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

A battle royal is in progress between the Labour party and the Communists for the leadership of the trade unions. The Socialist Party, being concerned with the spreading of socialist understanding and the destruction of the idea that leaders can solve the workers’ problems for them, is not on either side. But we are not lookers-on for we are directly concerned with the task of exposing the non-Socialist aims and activities of both of the combatants. On this occasion we are interested in a charge made against the Communists that it is their intention to set up here a totalitarian state. The charge was made in a Daily Herald editorial on December 23rd, 1947.

“Communism wants to establish in Britain a system under which no Party except the Communist Party is allowed to appeal for votes, and under which no man dare open his mouth on political subjects except in praise of the One Permitted Party,”

The Daily Worker could not afford to let such a grave charge pass unanswered and the next day it published a leading article accusing the Herald of deliberate lies. “Communism in Britain,” said the Daily Worker, ”does not advocate a One-Party system as the Daily Herald pretends.”

The Worker concluded its article by quoting from Marx’s and Engel’s ‘‘Communist Manifesto” of 1848 the words: ‘‘Communists, scorn to hide their views and aims,” and fiercely declared that “with these words . . . we fling back the monstrous charges of the Daily Herald. . . ”

It will be noticed on examination that the denial does not squarely meet the charge. The Worker denies that the Communists "advocate” a one-party system; but the Herald's charge was not that they openly advocate it but that they want it, a very different proposition when you are dealing with a Party that habitually conceals its real aims. After all, are they not good disciples of Lenin who in his "Left-Wing Communism” told them that the way to carry on Communist, propaganda in the trade unions was to resort to “strategy and adroitness, illegal proceedings, reticence and subterfuge, to anything in order to penetrate into the trade unions, remain in them, and carry on Communist work inside them, at any cost.” ("Left-Wing Communism" by N. Lenin. Published by the Communist Party of Great Britain. P.39.) Is it not legitimate to suspect that the political jesuits may adopt the subterfuge of being ”reticent” about their real aims?

Next it will be noticed that the Worker only makes the denial on behalf of Communism "in Britain.” If we find a Party defending the suppression of all other political parties by the Communists in Eastern Europe, may we not be more than suspicious when they beg us to believe that they do not intend to do the same thing here?

We can also find enlightenment by observing what the Communists in Russia said on this question before they got power and what they did after they got power.

For years the Russian Communists agitated for the setting up of a democratically elected Constituent Assembly in place of the Czarist Autocracy. They were still agitating for it a few weeks before they actually got power. They took part in the elections along with the other parties (” We participated in the elections to the Russian bourgeois parliament, the Constituent Assembly, in September-November, 1917.” Lenin, in Left-Wing Communism,” p.42.) But when the Assembly met the Communists discovered to their consternation that the delegates of the Social Revolutionary Party, representing the peasants, were in a large majority. So the Communist Government dissolved the Assembly by force. Stalin in his “The October Revolution” remarks about it: “At the beginning of 1917, the slogan of the Constituent Assembly was progressive and the Bolsheviks espoused it. At the end of 1917, after the October insurrection, the slogan of the Constituent Assembly became reactionary, for it ceased to correspond to the relationship of the contending political forces in the country.” (Martin Lawrence edition, p,22.)

Another Communist writer, Maxim Litvinoff, defended the suppression on the ground that the views of the peasants had changed between the time they voted and the time the Assembly met—“had the Constituent Assembly been elected a couple of months later it would have shown a large majority for the Bolshevik policy.” (“The Bolshevik Revolution.” Maxim Litvinoff, 1918, p.49.) Mr. Litvinoff’s guess may possibly have been correct but on that assumption why did not the Communists put it to a test by holding another election? No election to the Assembly was ever held again and the Communists, soon carried out the suppression of all political parties except their own; so that today, in Stalin’s words, ”Only one party, the party of the workers, the Communist Party, enjoys legality.” (Stalin, Interviews with Foreign Worker’s Delegations. Published in Moscow, 1934. P.13.)

In the course of defending the act of dispersing the Assembly Litvinoff himself summed up the case against it. We can hardly improve upon his statement.

“It may certainly appear as a monstrous crime against democracy on the part of a regime which regards itself as Socialist to have suppressed an institution which had been the dream of generations, which the Bolsheviks themselves had been championing ever since the first revolution of 1905 with more enthusiasm than any other party . . . . What better proof could have been furnished that the Bolsheviks were trampling on the people’s will in a manner hitherto exhibited by the worst tyrants in history, that they were afraid of the verdict of the nation gathered through its representatives in the highest assembly known to democracy . . . ?” (The Bolshevik Revolution.” P.15.)

The British Communists, who defend every suppressive act of the Russian Party, deny now that they intend to suppress all other parties; but the Russian Communists who did, in fact, suppress all other parties likewise waited until they had got power before they showed their hand. At present in their efforts to gain popularity the British Communists pose as friends of democracy and parliamentary government. They were not always so reticent about their real aim. In a report to the 12th Congress of the Communist Party in 1932 they said: “ Any party which accepts parliamentary democracy, however revolutionary its phrases, is an instrument of the capitalists.” Another passage read: "We must expose the sham of parliamentary democracy, and show the positive results of the workers’ dictatorship based upon the Workers’ Councils.” (Report on the Crisis Policy of the Labour Party. Published by the C.P.G.B.)

We therefore repeat the charge that the Communist Party always intended, if they got the chance, to suppress all other political parties, though at present they choose to conceal their aim.