Notes by the Way: Another Communist Travesty of Socialism A Flaw in the Russian Constitution (1936)

The Notes by the Way Column from the July 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

Another Communist Travesty of Socialism A Flaw in the Russian Constitution

The Daily Worker of June 16th published in full the new Constitution of Soviet Russia. It is a lengthy document containing much that will interest those who wish to follow developments in that country. Two small paragraphs, however, will tell Socialists almost as much as the rest of the Constitution. They are articles 12 and 118. The first contains the statement: —

In the U.S.S.R. the principle of Socialism is being realised: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.”

The second says that “Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to work—the right to receive guaranteed work with payment for their work in accordance with its quantity and quality.” 

Those who know nothing of Socialist principles and who (like the Daily Worker) can see nothing strange in describing the Labour Party as "socialist,” will find these principles in no way remarkable; payment in accordance with the quantity and quality of work is, after all, the declared principle of every capitalist undertaking. Socialists, however, can only be amazed at the impudence of the Communists in trying to pass off as a principle of Socialism "to each according to the quantity and quality of his work.”

We have heard of another, quite different, principle: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

Perhaps the Daily Worker will tell us why they have produced this corrupted version and on what ground they describe it as socialist.

Pigs “Better Housed and Fed” than Proletarians

Sir Benjamin Dawson, Bt., Chairman of the Bradford Central Division Conservative Association, recently alarmed his political associates by making a speech on the condition of the workers in Bradford. It happened thus: he read an advertisement asking for “coals for the poor and aged,” and he was surprised that such things could be necessary in view of the progress we are supposed to have made in the past forty years. So he made a tour of inspection.

“When I had finished my tour, I felt thoroughly ashamed of my country, thoroughly ashamed of the National Government, and thoroughly ashamed of the Conservative Party.

“The pigs on my farm are better housed and fed than some of the people I saw that day.’’—(From a pamphlet reproducing the speech.)

Sir Benjamin, as a mark of his sincerity, rushed off to the Conservative Association, told them what he had seen and what he felt, and offered to resign his chairmanship.

He went on to make some other pertinent remarks about the fact that poverty exists in the midst of plenty, and that those who have money can get what they want and where they want it— on top of Mount Snowdon if they so desire.

Nevertheless. Sir B. Dawson makes a common error in saying that "the cause of these terrible conditions is poverty, and poverty arises from unemployment.''

For years the S.P.G.B. has combated the false doctrine that only the unemployed are poor. Poverty exists for the employed worker as well. Consequently, Sir B. Dawson's remedy—shorter hours, so that the unemployed can be absorbed into employment—is no remedy at all, even if it achieved its first purpose of removing unemployment. Even if all the workers were got back to work, they would still be poor. Moreover, capitalism would continue to create more unemployment by introducing still more labour-displacing machinery.

A Hero of the Home Front

Mr. J. H. Thomas, war-supporter, did all of his fighting on the home-front, which gives an odd flavour to a remark in the Times editorial on the passing of Thomas: “He faced the emergency of war without flinching . . ." (Times, June 3rd, 1936.)

Quite a lot of us can face other people's wars without flinching.

A Question to a Labour Councillor

Speaking at a Conference of the Socialist League on June 1st, a Mr. F. R. Levy, of Stepney, said that he is a member of a council with sixty-five Labour members out of seventy.

The majority of them do not know the first little thing about Socialism or what it stands for. They are either out for a career or are there because some friend of theirs wants a job.—(Manchester Guardian, June 2nd, 1936.)

Mr. Levy went on to urge greater care in the selection of Labour candidates, which misses the most important point about the whole matter, that is, the character of the vote behind the elected delegate. There will be no progress towards the conquest of power for Socialism until the electorate is Socialist, when it will give a mandate for Socialism. If Mr. Levy desired to help Socialism on he could begin now by fighting elections on one demand only—Socialism. We know it is safe to say that the whole of the Labour candidates, at Stepney and elsewhere, do nothing of the kind. Instead they solicit votes on a programme of reforms of capitalism, thus delaying the day when the workers will realise that their only salvation is in Socialism.

Mr. Chamberlain*s Understanding of Capitalism

Mr. Neville Chamberlain, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a speech in Parliament on May 20th, made two admissions of interest to Socialists. The first was an admission that capitalism will in due course produce another trade depression.

. . . . I accept the broad principle that these things do work in cycles, and I have to look forward to the time when we may expect in the natural course of things that trade activity will diminish instead of increase.—(Hansard, col. 1266, May 20th, 1936.)

(It is worth noticing how Mr. Chamberlain unconsciously identifies capitalism with nature, and says “in the natural course of things" when he should say “in the capitalist course of things.")

The second point (col. 1,263) discloses the way in which a capitalist financial expert views expenditure on old-age pensions, unemployment, etc. Another M.P. had said, “Why not raise wages and scrap the expenditure on the social services ?" Mr. Chamberlain replied as follows:—

I did not quite apprehend how my hon. Friend thought it would be possible to provide that the rise in the wages of the workers could be so general, widespread and universal as to give them the equivalent for the social services they would lose.

Mr. Chamberlain here admits the Socialist contention that social services are an alternative to wage increases, and his references to "spreading" explain why the capitalists prefer the method of social services. A wage increase will be largely spent by the workers on satisfying the immediate needs of themselves and their families, and still leave the capitalists to provide for the destitute and for the big increase of unemployment during times of crisis. In other words, the social service method is cheaper.

French Capitalists Provide German Armaments

The following is taken from an article in the American Industrial Worker (April 18th, 1936), written by Pierre van Paassen: —

France is arming Germany! Her munitions makers, like those of other lands, know no fatherland but profit.

If Herr Hitler felt strong enough March 7th to defy the world, tear the Locarno Treaty to shreds and install himself on the Rhine with heavy artillery, monster tanks, mobile forts of steel and bombing planes, this was made possible by the French mining trusts.

Seventy-five per cent. of the steel in Germany’s artillery and other war equipment comes from France. Seventy-five per cent, of the shells and bullets which are going to kill French soldiers or the soldiers of nations allied with France in an eventual war with Germany are of French origin.

An average of 60 freight trains loaded with iron ore left France every day in 1933, 1934, and 1935 for Germany. The rate of export is even higher in 1936.

An expert, Paul Allard, has figured out that of every two shells Germany fires off in the next war, one will be of French origin. That is to say, one out of every two shells fired by Germans to kill Frenchmen in the next war will represent a profit to the Comite des Forges, the great French steel trust.

The Co-Operative Movement Admits Defeat

The Co-operative movement is not only fundamentally different from the conceptions of such pioneers as Robert Owen, but even the restricted aims it set itself are now seen to be unattainable. The latter-day notion was that the co-operative trading and manufacturing organisations could beat the private capitalist traders on their own field and thus gradually drive them out of business.

The controllers of the movement now know that this is impossible. At the recent congress of the Co-operative Union a delegate stated that “after ninety years of co-operation they still had only ten per cent. of the retail trade in the country and only half of that trade was placed with the Cooperative Wholesale Society. Only one-third of that was manufactured in their own factories." (Daily Herald, June 4th, 1936.)

A still more amazing confession of failure is an advertisement issued by the C.W.S. itself, in the June issue of The Clerk. It is an appeal to readers when shopping at Co-operative stores to insist that articles purchased came originally from the Co-operative Wholesale Society, and not from a private wholesaler or manufacturer. In other words, the retail Co-operative stores are refusing to buy Co-operative goods themselves, doubtless to a great extent because they can make a bigger profit by handling the better-known products of private manufacturers.

Illusions about Russia, Sweden and France

For years the Bolsheviks complained, with good reason, that the capitalist Press was filled with reckless or deliberately lying statements about conditions in Russia. It would appear that many Communists decided that the best answer to one lie is another. Consider, for example, the following utterly untrue assertion about Russia, which appeared in the Daily Worker (June 1st, 1936), from their own Moscow correspondent: —

In the U.S.S.R. Socialist society has been built.

This is untrue, and the Daily Worker knows it.

Another ridiculous statement, this time about Sweden, was made by the City Editor of the Daily Herald on June 8th, 1936. Mr. Francis Williams there tells us that the administration of capitalism in Sweden by a Labour Government is an instance of “ Socialism in action."

There is this difference between Mr. Williams and the Daily Worker, that Mr. Williams just does not know any better.

A third statement, about France, was made by Major Attlee, leader of the Labour Party. Writing in the Daily Herald (June 15th, 1936), he said: —

There are many people who have maintained until now that Socialism could not be introduced without bloodshed. The French Government is showing that it can.

All three statements are entirely without foundation, and such lies or ignorance do untold harm to Socialism.

The Friends of J. H. Thomas

The Daily Worker (May 25th, 1936) celebrates the eclipse of Mr. J. H. Thomas by telling us that they always knew he was a friend of the ruling class and an enemy of the workers, right back to 1926, 1921, 1919 and 1911—the dates of various noteworthy betrayals.

All of this may be true, but will the Communists now tell us why they persisted in playing Thomas’s game by telling the workers he was a fit and proper person to have their votes and represent their interests in Parliament after 1911, after 1919, after 1921 and after 1926? Even after the General Strike the Communists continued this policy, and mentioned J. H. Thomas by name as one of the Labour M.P.s they would not oppose. (See Communist Review, February, 1928.)

Saving the Girls from Vice

Reynolds' News, advocate of the stupid policy of trying to improve capitalism with reforms instead of abolishing it, neatly gave its whole case away in its issue of May 17th, 1936. It published an article on “Soho’s Vice Racketeers,” and demanded instant action to stop landlords from drawing high rents from brothels. This is how the article ends: —

Fifty years have passed since W. T. Stead aroused the sleeping conscience of the nation by his Pall Mall revelations of “The Maiden Tribute." The M.P. who takes the lid off Soho now will startle the British nation even more.

So fifty years after one reformer reformed London, the position is more startling than ever. So let’s pretend to reform it again.

In reformist circles this is known as progress! 

The Half-Brotherhood of the Sea

The building of luxury liners for plutocrats, while the bulk of the population is underfed and miserably housed and clothed, is a mark of the rottenness of capitalist civilisation, and the way the reformists from Labour to Fascist have rushed in to praise it is a mark of their essentially reactionary attitude. The maiden voyage of the “Queen Mary” led the Daily Herald to publish a sticky editorial about the “comradeship of the sea which transcends national boundaries.” (May 28th, 1936.)

So little does the sea differ from the other i fields of competitive profit-seeking that the very next day the Herald published a fierce attack on the Russian Government for carrying timber in Russian and other non-British ships, "in which wages are lower than those of the British and Scandinavian ships which used 'to handle most of the trade.” (Daily Herald, May 29th, 1936.) The Herald calls it “blacklegging on British shipping and undermining its wage standards,” and adds that it “is not going to be quietly tolerated.”

Surely this is not comradely language to use towards fellow seafarers?

And while we are on the subject, what about the T.U.C.’s policy of excluding coloured seamen from British ships, even coloured seamen who are British subjects? The Indian Labour movement has long protested against this still less comradely attitude.

This Jewish Business

The attempt by German Nazis and British Fascists to explain everything under the sun by reference to the 400,000 Jews in Germany and the 350,000 in Britain (fewer than one per cent. of the population) leads them into curious situations. The German doctrine of a pure, noble, non-Jewish, Nordic race, made even Mussolini laugh. He pointed out that the originators of the idea of a “chosen race” were the Jews themselves. Mussolini has never hesitated to employ Jews as his Ministers and assistants. In Austria, where he finances and controls the "Heimwehr,” a Fascist movement, one of his principal allies and friends is Otto Mandl, who is also political adviser to Fascist Prince Starhemberg and owner of the great Hirtenberg Arms Factory. Mandl is a Jew. (See Evening Standard, October 21st, 1935.) Not for that reason, but because he is a typical capitalist, he supplied arms and munitions both to the Nazis and to the Heimwehr, although they were fighting each other.

In England, Sir Oswald Mosley’s organisation attacks the Jews, and is in turn attacked by Lieut.-Col. Hutchison’s organisation for being the friend of Jews. Truth, published by Hutchison's “National Workers’ Party of Great Britain,” shows a photograph of Mosley speaking at Birmingham Town Hall on September 25th, 1931, at a meeting of the New Party. “ On Mosley’s left is Kid Lewis, Jew boxer. . . . Forming a trio, arm-in-arm, is Mr. W. E. D. Allen, son of David and Sarah Allen, nephew of Samuel Allen; some time M.P. for Belfast. . . . Behind Allen is Peter Cheney, another Jew. . . . The lawyer employed by Sir Oswald Mosley and the Blackshirts is Mr. St. John Hutchinson, whose daughter, in 1935, was converted to Judaism, and married a Rothschild.”

One of the queer errors into which such nonsense betrays its adherents was illustrated in a recent issue of the Blackshirt, which saw fit to comment on The Socialist Standard being sold at a meeting by an individual in whose features the sharp-eyed Fascist thought he discerned Jewish characteristics. As it happens, the individual in question is indeed of mixed stock—pure British “aryan” mixed with Italian; not a trace of Jewish  blood!

But enough of all this rubbish. Individuals are the product of a variety of moulding forces, and the environment of a segregated Jewish group doubtless plays an important part, but dominating all sectional environments is capitalism, with its class divisions and the exploitation of one class by another. The struggles of the exploited to compete with each other for employment, and at the same time to resist the employers, are more important in determining the individual’s conduct than the fact of being Jewish or Gentile.

The only really useful contribution towards ridding society of the unpleasant characteristics of exploiters and exploited is to strive for the abolition of class ownership of the means of production and distribution, and this the Fascists are not doing. What they are doing is to provide a political cloak (or rather, a shirt) under which individuals can promote private vendettas and commercial rivalries against Jews. Most of the anti-Jewish activity is' of the kind mentioned by the Manchester Guardian's Warsaw correspondent: “Many peasants attack Jews merely for looting their shops rather than for other reasons." (Manchester Guardian, February 10th, 1936.) The remainder is mainly blind discontent with capitalism misdirected by Fascists into these useless channels.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Reaction in Europe and the S.P.G.B. (1934)

From the July 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

Observers of political events since 1918 cannot fail to have noticed the change that has come over the general tone and attitude of the various so- called “left” elements among the workers. For the first few years after the war these elements were jubilantly proclaiming the imminence of the end of the present social order upon the strength of a few beggarly political and other reforms on the Continent. Because sections of the ruling-class lost their grip of things in the defeated countries (giving way to others who were prepared to provide safety-valves for working class discontent and place certain belated limits on their exploitation) we were asked to believe that our masters were at the end of their tether and would be surrendering the earth in a few short years.

Now we are asked to believe a very different story by these self-same elements. In their eyes now there are no limits to the powers of the master-class to impose what is commonly termed Fascism and to interfere with the general development of the working-class. Why? Because, forsooth, these reforms are being filched from the workers within a few years of being won. To crown all, instead of realising the futility of reform policies, these elements proclaim ever more loudly the need for still bigger and better reforms.

What is the attitude of the S.P.G.B. towards this change of front on the part of such bodies as the Communist Party and I.L.P. ? Briefly, it is to maintain unchanged our hostility to these bodies and to demonstrate that the capitalist system remains essentially unchanged, in spite of the manifold forms assumed by the different national States which uphold it.

Having had experience of partial suppression during the War, we are far from holding that it is a matter of indifference to the workers whether they are allowed political expression or not. The Socialist movement, which is the supreme expression of their needs, cannot arrive at maturity under conditions of political reaction. In Engels' phrase, the Socialist movement needs elbow-room.

Experience shows, however, that reform organisations, no matter how numerous their members and supporters may be, cannot guarantee to the workers these essential political conditions of development. So far from their being able to check reaction their inability when they become the Government to solve the economic problem, has provided reaction with its greatest political stimulus. Helpless before the economic blizzard, they are equally helpless in the face of its political reflexion.

The progress of scientific organisation under capitalism results in the weeding out of the smaller capitalists and, as a result, anti-scientific notions, such as Fascism, readily find acceptance among such groups during a period of economic depression.

Socialism alone can free the productive forces from restrictions imposed upon them by different sections of the capitalist class. In the meantime, these sections strive each to impose the amount and kind of restriction suited to its own interest. The small capitalists, faced with impending bankruptcy, strive to hamper the large-scale concerns, but neither Hitler nor Mussolini has discovered how to save these obsolete little “captains of industry." The big fish continue to swallow up the little fish.

Every national State, no matter how it may describe itself, endeavours to utilise science to the maximum degree in perfecting its instruments of aggression and defence. Hence, for this reason, if for no other, it encourages the development of large-scale industry, which alone can provide these instruments. This applies equally to Bolshevist Russia, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany—and to Britain, whether under “Labour” or "National” Governments. Large-scale industry progresses, in its turn, upon the ruins of small-scale industry.

This results in the development of the working-class, i.e., in the increase of its numbers, and in the growth of its organisation upon the industrial field. The intensity and scope of the class-struggle increase simultaneously.

The “dictators," Fascist and Bolshevist alike, attempt to repress this struggle by suppressing all political parties save one. The result is that discontented elements find their way into the one legal party, and are a constant menace to its unity. The “Dictator” preserves his authority over the different factions among his followers by avoiding going too far in any one direction. Hitler and Mussolini, Stalin and Pilsudski owe their positions to compromise just as surely as does Ramsay MacDonald, or any other Parliamentary politician.

In Britain, however, the capitalist class has long ago learned how to sink its internal struggles in critical moments, as a result of its more advanced economic development. It finds its solution, not in dictatorships, but in Coalitions or “National” Governments. The essential compromise is achieved by less violent means.

Under such conditions Fascists, so-called, are as little likely as Communists to become anything more than a thorn in the side of some larger party. Just as the Communists imported Russian jargon, but were utterly unable to bring over Russian conditions along with it, so the British Fascists will find that the novelty of teaching their political grandmothers to suck eggs will soon wear off. It is not necessary to credit Baldwin and Company with supernatural sagacity in order to anticipate that they will always be at least one move ahead of Sir Oswald Mosley.

The followers of this volatile politician may conceivably eclipse the Communists and I.L.P., but Socialists need not get excited about that. If the workers are still in the dark as to the direction to take, these latter bodies must accept a large measure of responsibility. They have induced the workers to support policies for which there was no chance of success. Disillusionment and apathy have, therefore, provided the material from which Mosley may build up a temporary alternative movement.

The S.P.G.B. is not a party of prophets, but whatever the immediate future may hold, we see no reason to deviate from the policy consistently pursued by us for thirty years. Just as we refused to be duped by Moscow, so we decline to be scared by what is happening in other Continental centres.

We realise that the master-class of this country possess means of intimidation as formidable as any that exist. We also realise that they control them through the support which they receive from the non-Socialist members of our class. By all means in our power, therefore, we strive to make Socialists.

Eric Boden

Blogger's Note:

See also the editorial, 'Reason or Violence', from this month's Socialist Standard.

A Socialist Searchlight. (1931)

From the May 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is British Capitalism played out? 

Since the War, politicians from Conservative to Communist have joined with business men and economic experts to harp on the theme that British capitalism was on the verge of collapse. They pointed to growing unemployment and the decline in the volume of exports and imports as proof that the industries of this country were being strangled. The Communists assured us that the end was only a matter of time. They repeatedly prophesied the early outbreak of the revolution at the “psychological moment.” Like Bottomley, who always promised that the War would be over by Christmas, the Communists pinned their faith each year to the cold weather which would drive the unemployed to desperation when winter came. In the meantime they went on sharpening up the knuckle-dusters with which they were going to attack the armed forces. We of the Socialist Party said all along that the “facts” on which they based their case were largely fiction, and that their theories were all nonsense. A consideration of the growth of the total income of the country year by year, side by side with declining exports, shows in unmistakable fashion that we were right.

The figures in Column (1) are taken from the Economist Budget Supplement of April. 18th, 1931. It may be remarked, however, that, according to a rough estimate by Professor Bowley, communicated in a letter to The Times written by Sir Herbert Samuel (Dec. 1st, 1930), the 1930 National Income might be as much, as £100,000,000 above the 1924 level; at the worst, it would not fall below 1921 by more than £200 millions.

The figures in Columns (2) and (3) are taken from the Statistical Abstract, 74th number, 1931, page 312. The figure for 1930 is taken from an official summary published in The Times, Feb. 26th, 1931.

It will be observed that although exports are now down to the pre-war level (after having been well above it owing to the increase in prices), the total national income is not far short of double the amount it was in 1914. During the last two or three years, especially in 1930, the volume of goods and services represented by the national income has grown larger without the money value growing proportionately, this being due to the heavy fall in prices. Sir Walter Layton, Editor of the Economist, says that the national production increased nearly 12 per cent. between 1924 and 1929 (Times, March 31st, 1931).

It is evident that technical changes and new tariff policies in the different countries have altered the conditions of world trade. The mistake the Communists made was in assuming that the British and other capitalists would not be able to adjust their industries accordingly. They have made the adjustments and, in this country at least, are richer than ever they have been, and still securely fixed in the saddle. Capitalism has its problems now, just as it had them before the War, but so long as the workers are content to put up with the capitalist system and go on voting the control of the political machinery into the hands of the parties which will use that control for the purpose of guarding capitalism, just so long will capitalism continue in being. Even had the Communists been right about the decline of the British capitalists, they overlooked the fact that the decline of Britain as a capitalist power would only mean the rise of other capitalist powers in its place. So lacking in a correct understanding were the Communists, that they helped to make that alternative more likely by lending their aid to the capitalist movements in India, China, Egypt, and elsewhere, under the mistaken impression that the native capitalists who control the “nationalist” movements desire to work or can be compelled to work for Socialism.

* * *

Mr. Hicks solves the unemployment problem.

In his election address (see Daily Herald, April 1st), Mr. George Hicks, the successful Labour candidate at the recent by-election in East Woolwich, claimed with pride that the Labour Government are employing more men at the Arsenal than had been employed there by the Tory Government ! But it is disclosed that this “increase” had been achieved simply by having more Government work done at the Arsenal, and less done at private yards. So that the employment of more men in one place will have been balanced by the dismissal of a similar number elsewhere. Mr. Hicks’s solution for unemployment is in line with the Cabinet’s attempt last year to boost the sale of cotton fabrics (at the expense of artificial silk), and the suggestion that the over-production of wheat can be met by persuading Orientals to eat more wheat (and less rice).

If the reports of his speeches in the Daily Herald are to be believed, Mr. Hicks talked more nonsense than one is accustomed to receive even from the most ill-informed or insincere of Labour candidates. In view of the fact that Mr. Hicks (once a member of the S.P.G.B.) claimed in public debate with a Communist, in 1921, that he still accepted the principles of this Party, it would be instructive if we could be told what events have sufficed since 1921 to cause Mr. Hicks to abandon the position he then held. There is a vast gulf between the belief that only Socialism can solve the workers’ problems, and Mr. Hicks’s present desire “to maintain the high traditions set by Will Crooks” (Daily Herald, April 1st). Perhaps Mr. Hicks was combining the serious personal business of getting into Parliament at all costs with a misplaced April fool joke at the expense of the electorate.

* * *

Getting with the masses.

The Communists have always talked a great deal about the necessity of getting with the masses, and have criticised the Socialist Party because, as they truly allege, we have attached more importance to the preaching of sound principles than to attracting the support of non-Socialists. It is instructive to learn from one of their prominent members, Mr. Arthur Horner, that the Communist tactics secure for them not the approval, but the hostility of the workers. Horner, in a letter to Moscow (see Daily Worker, March 10, 1931), states that the setting up of Communist strike committees during the recent mining dispute in South Wales resulted “only in our isolation,” the miners preferring their own elected officials and committees. He says that the Communist movement showed itself, both nationally and in South Wales, “effectively bankrupt from every angle.” Horner was called sharply to order, and it was at first reported that he and Mr. J. Tanner were to form a new Communist Party, less given to wrecking tactics. It now appears that they are to be received back into the Communist Party.

* * *

Comic relief at the I.L.P. Conference.

The National Council of the I.L.P. decided that their members must not belong to the Mosley Party, and the Conference passed a resolution rejecting “with disdain the quack remedies of the Labour Government and Messrs. Lloyd George and Oswald Mosley” (Manchester Guardian, April 7th). Yet Mr. John Paton, Secretary of the I.L.P., writing to the New Statesman about a fortnight earlier, said that the Mosley programme had been borrowed to a large extent from the living wage programme of the I.L.P. At least three of the M.P.’s who drafted the Mosley programme were members of the I.L.P. at the time. And although the I.L.P. Conference thus repudiates the quack remedies of the Labour Government and of Mr. Lloyd George, it is I.L.P. members in the House of Commons who form a majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party and permit these “quack remedies,” and permit the holding of office on terms satisfactory to Lloyd George.

One of the funniest incidents was a protest by a delegate (Mr. Southall) against Gandhi entering into negotiations “with the Imperialist leaders whilst still leaving so many of the Indian leaders in prison” (Manchester Guardian, April 8th). The joke of it is that the “Imperialist leaders” are all of them the nominees of the Labour Government, which is kept in office by I.L.P. members in Parliament. The Secretary for India, Mr. Wedgwood Benn, is one of the I.L.P.’s own M.P.’s. How was Mr. Gandhi to know that Mr. Southall did not want him to enter into negotiations with the people who are elected to Parliament with the assistance of Mr. Southall and his party?

* * *

Forward and the S.P.G.B.

Mr. Emrys Hughes, who edits the Scottish I.L.P. journal, Forward, has been warning the I.L.P. to avoid becoming “an anti everybody and everything organisation like the S.P.G.B.” Mr. Hughes has fallen into error through taking a superficial view of things. He notices that we oppose the Liberals and Tories, the Labour Party, the I.L.P., and the Communists, but he has not noticed that one reason applies to each of these parties. We do not pretend that they are alike in all respects, but we do claim that each of them is prepared to retain capitalism, either as it now is or reformed to a greater or less degree. Since each of the three so-called Labour organisations find themselves advocating similar reforms and voting at elections for the same candidates, our opposition to one naturally involves our opposition to the others also. We have only one object, which is the replacement of capitalism by Socialism.

If Mr. Hughes would study the question further from another angle, he would recall one or two respects in which our capacity for being anti-everything falls short of the I.L.P.’s capacities in the same direction. For example, the S.P.G.B. has not achieved the distinction of being opposed to itself, whereas Mr. Hughes is constantly pointing out to his own opponents inside his own party that it is absurd for them to go on denouncing the Labour Government (including the I.L.P. members of it) and yet remain affiliated. He has also ridiculed the absurdity of there being three I.L.P. Parliamentary parties—first the group of 140 I.L.P. members in Parliament, then the group of about 30 M.P.’s for whom the I.L.P. was responsible at the last election, and lastly the group of about a dozen who have consented to accept the rulings of the Maxtonites. Mr. Hughes would recall that the S.P.G.B. remained Socialist during the War, instead of following MacDonald, Keir Hardie, and other prominent members of the I.L.P. into the anti-German recruiting campaign. Mr. Hughes will remember, too, that readers of Forward during the War were treated to the entertaining spectacle week by week of fervid anti-German articles from one jingoistic regular contributor, while the Editor attacked him and apologised for him in other columns.

Lastly, we would remind Mr. Hughes that, however anti-everything we may be, Forward has taken care that its readers shall not learn in its columns our justification for attacks we make. On July 14th, 1928, Forward described as “nonsense” our assertion that Keir Hardie boasted in 1914 of the number of recruits he had enrolled for the capitalist war. We promptly asked Forward to allow us space to give our evidence for the assertion. We are still waiting for Forward’s reply.

* * *

The promise of Empire Free Trade.

It is worth recording that the destitution which now exists in Protectionist America is what the Empire Free Traders promise to copy.

Viscount Rothermere, writing in the Sunday Dispatch on February 23rd, 1930, gave an undertaking that five years after the achievement of Empire Free Trade, “Great Britain will be as prosperous as the Unites States.”

On December 17th, 1929, the Evening News, Rothermere’s paper, in an editorial said :—

“The world has never been without poverty . . . in the U.S.A., to-day, the richest nation in material wealth that the world has ever known, there is plenty of it—not relative poverty merely, but want and destitution.”

On February 2nd, 1931, the Telegraph’s special correspondent in New York, Mr. Percy S. Bullen, gave a review of unemployment in U.S.A. He said :—

“In all my experience I have never seen such want as exists here to-day. . . There is more misery to the square mile to-day in the great American Metropolis than in any city abroad.”

He thought 9,000,000 unemployed an exaggeration, but put it at between 4 million and 6 million.

He quoted Senator T. H. Caraway as saying that 1,000 persons die of starvation every day in the U.S.A.

* * *

The co-operators set an example.

We are often told that the Co-operative dividend hunters set an example to the other employers. This is true. The Co-operative Societies in the North-Western Area are asking for the following alterations in their agreements with their 20,000 employees : —

Ten percent. reduction for juniors.

Five per cent. reduction for adults.

A still heavier lowering of the minimum for branch managers.

Alteration of the period of payment for sickness from three weeks on full pay and three weeks on half pay to two weeks on full pay and two weeks on half pay in one full year.

Co-operative Societies in the North-Eastern Area, employing nearly another 10,000 workpeople, have also asked for the termination of the existing agreement.

The report is taken from the Daily Herald, April 10th. It will be recalled that Mr. Maxton wants the Co-operators to have a share in fixing a “living wage” for the workers.

* * *

Straws in the wind.

The Daily Herald, has lately begun the practice of describing Lloyd George and his Party as “Radicals,” instead of “Liberals.” Is it that an alliance with the Liberal Party is intolerable, while an alliance with the same party under another name is more likely to be accepted by the Labour rank and file?

Edgar Hardcastle

Blogger's Note:

The mention in the column that the ex-SPGBer, George Hicks, stated as late as 1921 " . . .  in public debate with a Communist . . .  that he still accepted the principles of this Party" is referred to — and expanded upon — in this passage from an article in the June 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard:

"George Hicks, after leaving the SPGB became an official of a building workers union and was President of the TUC in 1927. He also joined the Labour Party and remained in it for the rest of his life. In spite of this he continued to take an interest in the SPGB and on occasions declared that he still agreed with the SPGB case. Early in the 1920's he debated with Palme Dutt and not only put the SPGB case against the Communist Party but frankly stated that it was the SPGB case he was putting."

" . . . as late as 1921" because Hicks actually finally left the SPGB in 1910.

The ILPer Southall who is mentioned in the column could have been the famous painter, Joseph Southall. I can't be 100% certain. Just an educated guess at my end.

A Socialist Searchlight. (1931)

From the June 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Can a Catholic be a Socialist?

Pope Pius XI, addressing a gathering of “pilgrims” on Friday, May 15th, declared that “no good Catholic can be a good Socialist.” This is, of course, the familiar and natural view of the Catholic Church, and one with which the Socialist fully agrees.

The Pope’s words were reported in all of the London daily papers on May 16th, with one exception—the Daily Herald. The reason for this deliberate omission of a piece of news is obvious. The Labour Party has a large number of Catholic supporters whom it does not wish to offend, but at the same time it does not wish to make a formal declaration of opposition to Socialism. The Herald’s line, therefore, is to pretend that Socialism and Catholicism are not incompatible. On a previous occasion when the Socialist Party’s attitude on the question had been misrepresented by the Editor of the Herald, he declined to allow us to state our position in his columns. The Herald under its new Editor and new proprietors evidently follows the same policy of avoiding discussion.

But although the Herald did not publish the Pope’s statement at the time when it was made, they published some comments on it. On May 22nd their Rome correspondent sent a reassuring message, in which he quoted the Pope’s Under-Secretary for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs as saying that the Pope quite understood the position of the British Labour Party and had no intention of attacking them. The Under-Secretary said :—

“For instance, we know there are bishops and many Catholics in England who belong to the Labour Party.

This fact may be easily explained by the special situation of the Labour Party, many points of whose programme coincide with those of Catholic Syndicates, and which also admits in the political field class collaboration, as is proved by the present Government.”

In other words, the Catholic Church is not opposed to the Labour Party because that party is not a Socialist party. This point of view received confirmation from Sir James Sexton, a Labour M.P. who is also a Catholic. He explained (Daily Telegraph, May 18th) that the Labour Party’s aim is not Socialism, but “what I might call the nationalisation of essential commodities, such as water, gas, the railways, mines, and so on.”

It is because Socialists do not want nationalisation or state capitalism that they do not support the Labour Party. For the same reason, Catholics who are opposed to Socialism can, and do, join the Labour Party. Readers who are interested in the whole question should read our pamphlet, “Socialism and Religion.”

* * *

The Bank Rate and the Workers. 

On September 26th, 1929, the bank rate was raised from 5½ to 6½ per cent. This meant that the industrial capitalists who had to borrow money from the banks would have to pay a higher rate of interest, and it was only to be expected that they should howl with rage. By pretending that the question was one that concerned the workers, they were able to get many influential members of the Labour Party and the I.L.P. to join the chorus of protest. Maxton and Tillett were two of the decoy ducks; and the late Lord Melchett was particularly vociferous among the employers. The protest was based on the claim that a high bank rate would mean more unemployment and less money for wages. If the theory were a sound one from a working-class standpoint, a fall in the bank rate ought to cause a reduction in unemployment and an increase in wages. It has not caused either.

The bank rate was reduced on May 1st, 1930, to 3 per cent., and on May 1st, 1931, to 2½ per cent., but unemployment, instead of going down during 1930 and the early part of 1931, mounted up to 2½ millions—upwards of a million more than it was when the bank rate was at 5½ or 6½. The same period has witnessed a rapidly growing volume of wage reductions. One case is of special interest. The late Lord Melchett was chairman, and his son (the present Lord Melchett) a director, of Amalgamated Anthracite Collieries, Ltd. This company, helped, no doubt, by the fall in the bank rate, increased its profit from £289,000 in 1929 to £443,000 in 1930. Did it then increase the wages of the miners it employs? On the contrary, it reduced their pay, in keeping with the lowered pay of South Wales miners generally. What have Messrs. Maxton and Tillett to say to that?

Another point of interest is that the present 2½ per cent. rate is the lowest since 1909. Was unemployment low in 1909, and were the workers well off? On the contrary, the rate of unemployment in 1909 was 7.7 per cent., which (except for 1908, when the unemployment rate was 7.8 per cent.) was the highest rate of unemployment since 1886, and was higher than in any succeeding year until 1921. It was also about this time that Mr. Lloyd George endorsed the statement that about a third of the population were in a state of perpetual poverty.

The bank rate is a question which matters a great deal to the industrial and financial capitalists in their mutual relations, but one which matters nothing to the workers, who by one section of the capitalists no more and no less than by other sections.

* * *

The pot calls the kettle. 

The Labour Party’s Secret Funds.

For years the Labour Party has denounced the Liberals and Tories for having secret funds and for soliciting donations from wealthy men. As soon as the Mosley Party was launched, some of the Labour Party ministers used this line of attack against Sir Oswald Mosley. Mr. Tom Johnston, Lord Privy Seal, said that the Mosley Party had spent from £30,000 to £40,000 on a poster display, and that the money came from secret sources. But while Johnston is only a recent recruit to the inner circle of the Labour Party, and possibly did not know very much about its affairs, Mosley is an old hand, and promptly replied with a similar attack on the Labour Party. Speaking in the Drill Hall, Ashton, on Monday, April 27th, he said (Manchester Guardian, April 28th) :—

"Now I am going to say something about the cant and humbug talked by the Labour party. They say I refuse to publish a list of my individual subscribers. I do, and the Labour party also refuses to publish their list. I refuse because if I published it subscribers might be subject to intimidation.

Would you like to see the appeal sent to me and other rich men by the Labour party for their secret funds? It is sent out to rich men, and rich men alone. That private and secret fund is never published. I don’t blame the Labour party for it, but I do blame them for coming on the platform and pretending they get their funds only from the workers.”

The Labour Party has not replied to Mosley on this point.

The political correspondent of the Daily Mail wrote as follows (April 29th, 1931) :—

“Socialist leaders are unwilling to reply to an allegation made by Sir Oswald Mosley in a speech at Ashton-under-Lyne that the party has a secret political fund which is replenished by subscriptions obtained from rich men, and details of which are never published.

Why should we advertise that man? was the only reply of one leader, when asked to confirm or deny the statement.

The late Mr. Bernhard Baron, the tobacco millionaire, was a regular and generous contributor to Socialist election funds. Wealthy and titled members of the party also make substantial gifts.

In the Lobby yesterday the absence of a reply to the direct charge was accepted as confirmation of a general suspicion that, like other parties, the Socialist party in office is not so hard up as it used to be when in opposition.”

Of course., when the Daily Mail writes “Socialist” it means the Labour Party.

* * *

The value of insurance shares. 

In the midst of the investors’ complaints about the hard times they are going through, the Economist (May 2nd) publishes a list showing the current values of the shares of 25 insurance companies.

£1,000 invested in insurance company ordinary shares in 1913, after receiving high rates of dividend in the intervening period, would now, if sold, fetch, on the average, £3,207, i.e., more than three times the original sum invested. One thousand pounds invested in the General Accident Insurance Co. would now fetch £8,000 ! In the company whose shares have risen least of all, the original investor could sell out and receive more than 30s. for every £1 invested in 1913.

* * *

Religion is the opium of the people.

Did Kingsley Forestall Marx?

A writer in the Freethinker (March 22nd, 1931) claims that the Reverend Charles Kingsley, Canon of Westminster, preceded Marx in describing religion as the opium of the people. The writer in the Freethinker appears to be mistaken.

This is the passage in which Kingsley deals with the subject :—

“We have used the Bible as if it were an opium dose for keeping beasts of burden patient while they were being overloaded–a mere book to keep the poor in order.”

The above occurs in “Politics for the People,” published in 1848.

Marx’s famous phrase was published four or five years earlier. It was as follows :—

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the feelings of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of unspiritual conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

This passage is taken from an article entitled “Introduction to a Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy of Right,” published in 1844 in the “Franco-German Year Book.” The translation is by Eden and Cedar Paul, and is given on pages 57 and 58 of “Karl Marx,” by Otto Ruhle (Allen & Unwin).

It will be noticed that the two writers, Marx and Kingsley, used the same telling comparison, but in rather different senses. Kingsley appears to be protesting against the use to which religion has been put; while Marx was accounting for the hold that religion has on the minds of the oppressed.

* * *

Miss Jennie Lee on the uses of trade unions. 

Miss Jennie Lee, M.P. at the I.L.P. Annual Conference at Scarborough on April 5th, spoke against a resolution which proposed that the I.L.P. should leave the Labour Party. The Labour Government, she said (Times, April 6th), “stood for Imperialism and capitalism, and rested on an amalgamation of Conservative and Liberal elements,” and she was “sick and tired of being entangled in Liberalism and compromise” (Manchester Guardian, April 6th). Yet, in face of that, she thought that the I.L.P. ought to keep in with the party of Imperialism and capitalism and go on making her sick and tired, because “at present the Labour movement had strong Trade Union backing, and they (the I.L.P.) had not” (Manchester Guardian, April 6th).

It is, of course, very noble of Miss Lee to go on sacrificing her feelings in this way, but it is not entirely irrelevant to point out that Miss Lee is very much dependent in her constituency on the support of the Miners’ Federation. If she were to oppose the capitalist programme of the Labour Party and lose its support and that of the Miners’ Federation, she would have to say good-bye to her Parliamentary seat and her present prospects of a political career. But it is no new thing for Miss Lee to oppose Socialism for the sake of cadging votes and support. She had chosen that path when first she set eyes on Westminster. When she was elected at North Lanark in March, 1929, her election address contained no reference whatever, direct or indirect, to Socialism. It even contained no mention that she was the nominee of the I.L.P. She fought as official Labour Party candidate and gave prominence to the fact that she accepted the programme of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain, thus committing herself, incidentally, to the queer doctrine that while the royalty-owning capitalist is an exploiter, his brother capitalist who invests in mining shares is not ! She backed all of the silly—and in some cases harmful—reforms of the Labour Party, and it was admitted by one of her prominent supporters that there was little to choose between her programme and that of her Liberal opponent. Mr. P. J. Dollan, of the I.L.P. National Administrative Council, writing up the election campaign in the New Leader on March 15th, 1929, said of the Liberal candidate (also a woman), “She is advocating a Radical programme which would have horrified the late Lord Oxford because of its similarity to most of the Labour reforms now commonly advocated.” What, in fact, won Miss Lee the election was the backing of the Miners’ Federation. Hence Miss Lee’s determination to “sacrifice” herself by staying in the Labour Party, with the Trade Union votes and Trade Union funds, rather than oppose the party of “Imperialism and capitalism” and lose her seat in Parliament.

The delegates at the I.L.P. Conference overwhelmingly endorsed the official policy, urged by all sections of their National Administrative Council, of staying in the Labour Party. The motion to disaffiliate was rejected by 173 to 37 (see News-Chronicle, April 6th).

* * *

The Over-Population Myth.

Professor T. E. Gregory gave an address at Manchester University on February 2nd, 1931, on the subject of population and production. The following extracts are from a report published on February 3rd by the Manchester Guardian : —

“He pointed out that up to the war we had all been largely influenced by the teaching of Malthus, and had feared that our era of prosperity could not last if the population continued to increase. In 1920, after the war, this pessimism had greatly increased. “I confess,” he said, “I was a “pessimist of that kind myself. Indeed, we were all pessimists in those days, from Mr. Keynes to the editor of the Manchester Guardian.”

But since 1920 there had been a curious alteration in theory and in the facts. Great importance as a social factor could be placed upon the birth control movement and its increasing recognition. Again we were clearly caught up in a phase of expanding production. Production was increasing more rapidly than the population of the world. Between 1913 and 1928 the world’s population increased by about 10 per cent., the world’s production of food-stuffs by 16 per cent., and the world’s production of raw materials by no less than 40 per cent. Thirdly, there was every chance that the population of this and other European countries would become stationary and even decline. We were, approaching the ideal postulated by John Stuart Mill—the ideal of a stationary state in which there would be no further increase in population”

The Editor of the Manchester Guardian made the belatedly wise comment that the “more production” campaign engineered after the War by the Government, the employers, and the Labour leaders, was apparently unnecessary.

We would draw particular attention to the fact that while all the economists and newspapers and politicians, including Professor Gregory, were flatly wrong on the question of over-population and the need for more production, the Socialist Party, correctly guided by its Marxian theories, ridiculed the Malthusian nonsense over 20 years ago and showed up at the time the true nature of the post-war campaign to get the workers to work harder.

Just to show that experience does not teach him anything, the Editor of the Guardian complacently dismisses capitalism’s constant over-production in relation to the demands of the market as “growing pains”!

Edgar Hardcastle

50 Years Ago: The Mosley Movement Today (2006)

The 50 Years Ago column from the June 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

British Fascism’s New Look

1932 saw the birth of the “British Union of Fascists,” with their black shirts and uniforms, armoured cars, their provocative marches through the East End of London, and their Mass rallies. To-day, over 20 years later, the movement is still with us. They still hold out-door meetings, and recently Sir Oswald Mosley, held a number of indoor meetings in Birmingham, Kensington, Brixton, and elsewhere. True, it does not have the membership it had in the ‘thirties. No longer are members allowed to wear uniforms.

Since the war, when over 800 of its members spent a number of years in prison, the movement has been re-organised and renamed. The B.U.F. is now “Union Movement.” The word “Fascism” has – for the time being? – been dropped; no doubt because of its unpopularity. But the British Fascists continue to call themselves “Blackshirt.” At the London County Council Elections 1955, their candidates in Shoreditch and Finsbury urged electors to “Vote Blackshirt.” And “Wake ’Em Up at County Hall.”

“Union Movement” retains its pre-war “Flash” sign on its literature, banners, flags and badges.

To-day we no longer see “British for the British,” or “Britain First,” chalked or whitewashed on walls; although such slogans as “Slump or Mosley,” or the letter “K.B.W.” (Keep Britain White) can sometimes be seen in Kensington, Hackney, Brixton, and elsewhere.

“National Socialism,” the phrase under which the German Nazis operated, has given way to Mosley’s latest: European Socialism”—yet another contradiction! British Fascism wears a New Look!

(From an article by “PEN”, Socialist Standard, June 1956) 

A Look Round. (1924)

From the August 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Glories of the Empire.

  “I can see nothing but progress in the British Empire and nothing but progress in the British race.” (Lord Leverhulme, Daily Sketch, May 3rd, 1924.)

Our noble Lord, including his “directive ability,” has returned from a world tour; in the meantime the production of soap and margarine had proceeded undisturbed. One lesson the workers have yet to learn is that had Leverhulme taken the whole of the Capitalist class with him the production and distribution of wealth would have been unhindered as far as their absence is concerned.

The results of his observations appear to be as mythical as his directive ability, or perhaps he has peculiar notions of progress. According to that organ of Empire (Observer, May 4, 1924) the number of persons in Great Britain in receipt of poor law relief for the year ending 1923, had reached a proportion higher than at any period since 1879. One town within the “Empire,” namely Glasgow, sheltered within its police cells, not as prisoners, but as “destitute persons,” 51,598 people within that same year (Parl. Debates, February 19, 1924). Pages could be filled with similar items of starvation, disease and despair, touching every phase of working-class life. Space only permits of one further item, illustrative, in an indirect manner, of the sanctity of family life (Capitalist variety) on which we are for ever told the greatness of our Empire was built :—

  “Before the Royal Commission upon Venereal Disease, a witness estimated that in the British Isles there are about 850,000 fresh cases of venereal disease every year.” (Pamphlet issued by the National Council for Combating Venereal Disease.)

The Meaning of the Housing Bill.

“The Wheatley method of presentation of the Housing Bill has not conduced to its ready acceptance, except by those who hate Capitalism in whatever shape or manner it may be presented.” (Democrat, July 11, 1924).

Even were the above statement true it could still be shown that the Labour Party’s Housing scheme is not only a necessary Capitalist reform, but that it will confer a much greater benefit upon that class than upon the workers. Every reform, whether it has been the franchise, the factory Acts, or old age pensions (all reforms equally essential to advancing Capitalism) has met with sectional opposition from the master class, an opposition always more or less fraudulent, and calculated to convey the impression that the opponents’ only thoughts are for their wage slaves. A peep behind the Capitalist scenes reveals the truth of the above and shows the lying nature of the statement that the Labour Party are Socialists. Introducing the Housing Bill Mr. Wheatley said :—

   “I notice that the right Honourable member for Twickenham in criticising my proposals the other day, said : ‘This is real Socialism.’ . . . I am going to remind them as the representatives in this house of the great industrialists of the country. . . for the sake of their pockets, to recognise that it is impossible to produce in the housing conditions of to-day workers who can successfully compete in the world’s markets of to-morrow. The proposals which I am submitting are real Capitalism—an attempt to patch up in the interests of humanity, a capitalist ordered society.” (‘”Parliamentary Debates,” Vol. 174, June 3rd, 1924.)

Fellow workers, you voted for Capitalism either avowed or masquerading as “Labour.” Now, in order that you may be made more efficient workers to compete for your masters’ markets, they will “patch you up,” giving you “real Capitalism” for “the sake of their pockets.”

The Labour Party's "Socialism."

  “Many years of study had overwhelmingly convinced him that in the gradual application of Socialist Principles lay the future hope of the world. . . . The police force, Courts of Justice, the army and navy, and our civil administration were Socialist and collective institutions”(Oswald Mosley, Manchester Guardian, May 6th, 1924).

Some hope ! No wonder Ramsay MacDonald welcomed this recruit to “Socialism,” whose years of study convinced him that Socialism would be a sort of international police force. Definitions, as such, can have little bearing on Socialism as a science, but even a shilling Capitalist dictionary gets nearer than our “overwhelmed” student. Cassell’s pocket edition says :—

  “Socialism is the theory that the materials from which labour produces wealth should be the property of the community.”

And providing the “community” be the whole people we agree. To-day we live in Capitalist society, in which those materials are the property of Capitalists, including, of course, the form into which the workers’ industry has changed such materials, i.e., railways, machinery, warehouses, etc. Such wealth is called Capital, and is used to exploit the workers for profit. An analysis of the above mentioned institutions will show their primary purpose to be the continuance of that exploitation, and whether it takes the collective form of the trust, the combine, or nationalisation as in the Post Office, Capitalism it remains, and it is indeed in such forms that we see the present system in its highest form of Capitalist ownership. There is no gradual transition to Socialism within the present system. We claim that all the industrial forms of to-day are ripe for social change BUT for the understanding of a majority of the workers. Only social revolution can bring that change and as the Labour Party stand as “a bulwark against revolution” (L.P. Manifesto. Oct. 24, 1922, General Election), they are anti- Socialists.

Advertising God.

  “The suggestion that advertising should be applied to popularise religion was discussed by Father Knox, who preached at Westminster Cathedral yesterday, his subject being, “Truth in Advertising,” the slogan of the Advertising Convention” (Morning Post, July 14th, 1924.)

The subordination of art, literature, drama, etc., to the mercenary requirements of capitalism has long been a recognised fact. The artist must embody his art in the poster of the adulterated provisions purveyor, the journalist must meet the mentality of a war-mad world, or the ethics and ideas of our masters’ so-called peace, the cinema star must in devious ways serve up the carefully prepared and censored material that portrays working-class poverty as incidental and romantic. The scientist, the priest, all must, if they would bid for Capitalist patronage, bring their services to the buyers. Small wonder that the awakening of the workers alarms the religionists, and suggests to them the methods of the soap boiler, or the medicinal quack. The ever increasing number of workers who despise the promise of a heavenly reward in a world in which they provide material comfort for an idle few, drives religion to the last ditch. It is as Marx says, “The opium of the people.” Socialism is its antidote.

W. E. MacHaffie

50 Years Ago: Old Fake Cure for Unemployment (1985)

The 50 Years Ago column from the May 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Every time unemployment rises to high levels some feather-brained political genius is sure to rush into print and speech with a brand-new proposal for solving the problem by setting the unemployed at work constructing public works, roads and bridges, and so on. The funny thing is that they all believe they are the first ever to have thought of such schemes. Mr. Lloyd George's “New Deal” plan is at bottom nothing more than this, and his predecessors are legion. The ILP and Labour Party have been trotting it out for forty years. Sir Oswald Mosley, when he propounds it for the British Union of Fascists, has doubtless forgotten that Mr. John Strachey borrowed it for him from Bishop Berkeley, who recommended it 200 years ago, coupled with what was, in effect, slave-labour for the unemployed.

Earlier still, when Henry VIII was first contemplating the seizure of the lands and property of the monasteries, a plan was put forward for using some of the plunder “for aiding the poor and unfortunate, building up new towns, restoring decayed manors, reclaiming unprofitable parks, and constructing new roads throughout the kingdom”. (Economic Causes of the Reformation in England, Oscar Marti. Macmillan & Co. 1929. Page 195.)

(From the Socialist Standard, May 1935.)

Tories win again (1970)

Party News from the May 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Tories retained control of the Greater London Council in the elections on 9 April. Once again over three-quarters of a million electors had a chance to vote directly for Socialist candidates. As expected, in a low poll, only a thousand or so did.

This was the first large-scale election in Britain where Party names appear (not loo prominently however) on the ballot papers. Our 14 candidates used the description “The Socialist Party of Great Britain". We were in fact the only people to use the word “socialist" at all, a fact which should help our campaign to stop the Press and Tories referring to the Labour Party as such. A Party spokesman was also interviewed for three minutes on Thames Television on 24 March. This was the first time the Party case has been presented on television in London, though it had been put a number of times in other regional programmes. We have yet to be allowed a formal Party Political Broadcast or even an appearance on a national television programme.

Two other incidents are worth recording. In Camden, at a meeting on transport held on 23 March, the Labour candidate, Luke O'Connor, was the first to protest when he was mistakenly introduced by the chairman as the candidate of "the socialist party". At another meeting in Ealing on 2 April, in which all the parties in the election there took part, the candidates of the so-called Communist Party and Oswald Mosley’s Union Movement sat next to each other. This contrasts with the attitude the Communist Party adopted towards a meeting at Bristol University on 23 January which their candidate at the Swindon parliamentary by-election refused to attend on the grounds that the general secretary of the Union Movement had also been invited. It would seem to show that the Communist Party has come to realise that, as our speaker at the Bristol meeting pointed out, debating with fascists in no way condones their views but is in fact a way of opposing them.

In Haringey a group of anarchists put up six candidates for the three seats under such labels as the “Bread and Circus Party” and the "All Night Party" in order to demonstrate their mistaken view that elections are a fraud and a farce. Their candidates are shown as A in the results below; HBR means “Homes Before Roads", a single-issue reform group:

CAMDEN: O'Connor (Lab) 26,265, Collins (Lab) 26,140, Kazantzis (Lab) 25,731, Lemkin (C) 24,416, Townsend (C) 24,346, Mansel (C) 24,047, Calmann (L) 2,565, Peacock (L) 2,252, Benad (L) 2,208, McLennan (Comm) 1,692, Peacock (HBR) 1,311, Walker (HBR) 1,249, Jacka (HBR) 1,037, Cox (Soc) 391, Davies (Soc) 323, Grant (Soc) 299, Elliott (UM) 195.

EALING: Dobson (C) 43,219, Farrow (C) 43,130, Patterson (C) 42,904, Young (C) 41,608, Hughes (Lab) 35,206, Eckles (Lab) 34,983, Mason (Lab) 34,955, Newson (Lab) 34,299, Lewisohn (L) 3,195, Davies (L) 3,165, Hankinson (L) 3,026, Bailey (L) 2,804, Foley (HBR) 2,010, Greeves (HBR) 1,683, St. George (HBR) 1,626, Spence (HBR) 1,594, Tank (Comm) 1,190, George (Soc) 735, Wilson (UM) 708, Buchanan (Soc) 695, Rose (Soc) 392, Sawyer (Soc) 293.

HARINGEY: Bains (C) 26,716, Gilbey (C) 26,471, Malynn (C) 26,156, Chaplin (Lab) 25.625. Morrisey (Lab) 24.949. Gurr (Lab) 24,890, Fox (L) 1.997, Parker (L) 1,928, Edwards (L) 1,910. Morris (Comm) 1,337. Ramsay (Comm) 982. Hicklin (HBR) 461. Phillips (HBR) 458, Carter (Soc) 443, Buick (Soc) 374. Thompson (HBR) 353, Cooper (A) 234, Waite (Soc) 212, Borowski (A) 212, Whittaker (A) 154, Kibble (A) 149, Summers (UM) 145, Kerner (A) 133, Hood (A) 77.

LAMBETH: Geddes (C) 34,111. Grieves (Lab) 33,936, Crofton (C) 33,918, Livingston (C) 33,868. Gumbel (C) 33,774, Jones (Lab) 33,738, Chesworth (Lab) 33.645. Ponsonby (Lab) 33,045, Delaney (L) 1,952. Beaven (L) 1,847, Larkin (L) 1,784, Barker (L) 1,781, Grier (HBR) 1,186, Keelan (HBR) 1,100, Luckett (HBR) 1,004, Thomas (HBR) 956. Hope (Comm) 888, Styles (Comm) 745, Garnham (Soc) 620, Phillips (Soc) 536, Boaks (Ind) 366, Sansum (Soc) 337, Simkins (Soc) 295. Archer (UM) 293.

Letters: More on Mosley (1970)

Letters to the Editors from the December 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

More on Mosley

Dear Sirs,

I have just seen Socialist Standard for July, in which my pamphlet on West Indian immigration was discussed and your reply published. I trust you will allow me to reply to this in return, even if belated.

I would certainly agree with you when you say it is not immigration itself which causes friction over housing and other problems. since these existed in Britain long before the first West Indian set foot here. Action and Union Movement say that mass immigration has aggravated the already existing problems, which have arisen mainly through the failings of the present economic and social system in Britain.

Our answer is to treat the original problem and the aggravation of it in separate ways, because they arc separate questions. We stand for the humane repatriation of immigrants, creating better jobs and conditions in their homelands to which they can return, through buying their sugar and other produce at good guaranteed prices and otherwise helping them develop their resources. Meanwhile the clearing of all bad housing in Britain, and large-scale rebuilding, will go ahead on mass production lines.

We certainly disagree with you when you say there must be “a social system in which human beings would be able to move freely all over the earth, in which there will be none of the false national barriers and patriotisms of capitalism". There is little likelihood of this utopian state of affairs being established for a very long time to come. Since, as you state, the first requirement is the world-wide abolition of capitalism, the first question is : How long will this take? It is now well over a century since Karl Marx published his Capital, yet capitalism is going as strong as ever, if not more so. Most of the world is dominated today either by the finance capitalism of New York or the state capitalism of Moscow. How much longer must we wait for these bastions to crumble?

Action and Union Movement do not believe in waiting for the socialist millennium, but in doing something now for the present generations, who have seen enough political pledges betrayed. Put very shortly, we stand for a "third force" between the American and Russian varieties of capitalism, which will be neither capitalist or "fascist” itself. Instead of trying to change the system all over the world we confine the change to Europe and its associated lands overseas. The rest of the world can then follow our lead if they think we have made a success of it.

You ask why Mosley “did not object" to British workers being exploited by British capitalists? — the answer is, he did! In pre-war issues of his newspapers there were attacks on sweating in the furniture trade, in the clothing trade, in the cinemas and in the cotton industry. Also there were many exposures (which are just as important) of the cut-price undercutting at home and abroad which British firms had to face. Mosley had his policies then; today they arc to give government power, through the vote of the people, to fix high wages throughout industry, not only in Britain but throughout Europe. That will effectively cook the capitalist goose in Europe!

As for trade unions being "ruthlessly suppressed", nothing could be more remote from Mosley’s aims. The very reverse is true: they would be asked to co-operate with the government and assist in planning its high wages policy, industry by industry. That will give them a far greater role than they have today.

Robert Row

Editor Action.

Reply:
Robert Row refers to "creating better jobs and conditions in (the immigrants’) homelands", “clearing of all bad housing" and so on, as if the solution to capitalism's problems was so simple. These empty words — for that is what they are — are of the kind which are always found in the propaganda of capitalist parties. Reality is much sterner: the economic anarchy of capitalism and its poverty (expressed in mass migration, bad housing, etc.) cannot be touched by promises. Only the abolition of the social system can be effective.

Of course nobody will be misled into thinking that members of Union Movement support Socialism and are in a racist party only because they arc too impatient to join the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Neither will they be impressed with such a phrase as "humane repatriation of immigrants”. But to answer the question; the establishment of Socialism will not be delayed, once the working class understand and want it. And the process of understanding is hindered by the many organisations which advocate capitalism. Union Movement is especially to blame here; they preach the false, divisive doctrines of racism — and may even call their policy Socialism.

The "third force” policy is of course not original. What have the workers to gain from a capitalist state which conducts its international disputes independent of the great power blocs? The blocs are an effect of, not the cause of, the wars of capitalism and the experience of the “neutral” countries in the world line-up is no encouragement to support this policy.

Most of the objections to sweated labour by the pre-war BUF were disguised racist attacks on Jewish employers, with the implied conclusion that British workers would have been better off under a master of their own “nationality". Mosley never attacked the principle of exploitation; much of his policy was aimed at organising a more disciplined labour force for British capitalism. And as for Union Movement wanting trade unions to co-operate with them in government — what was the fate of the unions in those countries where similar organisations got into power?

Editorial Committee

No Demos

I should like to oppose an argument I have come across in your excellent magazine the Socialist Standard. It is the one where you state reasons for refraining from demonstrations against particular injustices in society such as racial prejudice, sale of arms. etc., etc. I would agree with you that this is attacking the symptoms of a disease rather than changing the cause. Anybody who has opportunity and intellectual understanding should by all means attack the cause.

Please however take into account that many people are unable to grasp the meaning of the word “socialism", but are able to see fairly obvious injustices. Demonstrations are valuable in so much that they develop people’s interests in their environment. Further analysis will always reveal capitalism to be the root of the evil, but many are unable as yet to have the time and opportunity to reach this conclusion. Particular issues are a stepping stone! So please do not discourage these activities. Student demonstrations have, I’m sure, aroused interest and this is valuable. Those who are able to make a more dedicated and intellectual commitment should do so, but please do not discourage others.

John Kirby, 

London, W.2.

Reply: 

First of all the Socialist Party of Great Britain is not opposed to demonstrations. Demonstrations in favour of Socialism (or even to express the attitude of socialists to a particular issue) are useful in certain circumstances. Besides drawing people’s attention to our ideas (and for that matter our existence) they can boost the morale and confidence of our members and supporters.

But we do say that a socialist party should not participate in demonstrations alongside organisations to which we are opposed, although we have always taken the opportunity to make contact with people on such multi-organisation demonstrations by distributing leaflets and selling the Socialist Standard.

Since we maintain that capitalism cannot be reformed so as to work in the interests of the majority we do not take part in demonstrations that demand reforms of the capitalist system. We point out to such demonstrators that the proposed reforms would not in fact solve the problems they were aimed at.

Further, the Socialist Party does not advocate reforms since we wish to attract revolutionaries rather than radical reformists. This has not stopped us from analysing the developments in ideas which often express themselves at certain stages in demands for reforms, and showing how these point towards Socialism.

In our propaganda we often point to demonstrations (including strikes) to show that the working class is not prepared to sit back and take all that is handed out to it. We are therefore to a certain extent encouraged by the activity of others in demonstrations against such matters as war and racism. At least this is better than nothing.

Editorial Committee.