Snobbery (1953)

From the June 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Do you want a smart and attractive “mother” for the evening ? If so, there is a London model agency which will supply you with “escorts for all occasions”; and this includes “mothers” as chaperons—at two guineas a night! Or would you like to adopt an elephant at the Zoo for a pound a week ? You can’t take the elephant home with you, but you can have your name inscribed on the cage. Perhaps you would like your favourite cigarettes monogramed for 24s. a hundred; or maybe, you’d like to take lessons at a swank dancing salon, in court manners—how to curtsy and open and shut doors in the correct way. Cost? Anything from a guinea upwards. Remember, you might meet a real live duke one day, and if you haven’t learnt to curtsy the right way you will be in the cart. You can also hire a butler for an evening’s booze-up (sorry, cocktail party); and if you are going to have dinner you can hire a cook, a kitchen full of waiters and flunkeys—and all the silver and gold plate. . . .

These are just a few of the things that our “betters ” and aspiring betters get up to, according to The Weekly Overseas Mail (April 23rd-27th, 1953). But it is not only the rich and not-so-rich who are smitten by this disease of snobbery. How many workers are there living in sweet suburbia who spend their lives trying to “keep up with the Joneses”? How many clerks and white-collar workers, earning about eight or nine pounds a week, are there who pretend that they belong to the “middle-class”? How many workers are there with T.V. aerials above “their” houses—and no television sets inside ? How many young fellows kid their girl friends that they have got “good” jobs, and then have to admit, after they are married, that their jobs are not so good, after all ? How many young couples are there who say that they don’t like kids, but are not prepared to admit that they cannot afford to have children ?

The world of to-day is a world of make-believe. Where the cash nexus and “getting on” is the “thing,” both workers and capitalists are forced to put on a show; where the vast majority of mankind live in perpetual poverty, insecurity, worry—yes, and loneliness—people are forced to pretend that things are not so bad as they are. If you are wealthy, but your relations or friends are wealthier, then you have to hire a butler, a cook and flunkeys—and the gold plate, for the evening party; if you are a worker you have to pretend you’ve got a television set or you own a house—even if its mortgaged to a building society.

Whilst this system—which we in the Socialist Party call capitalism—continues, people, both rich and poor, will continue this snobbery, pretence and make-believe. Unfortunately, most people do not yet see that only by getting rid of the existing social system and replacing it by a sane one, based on cooperation, equality and common ownership, will they not only get rid of the evils of poverty and insecurity, but also that of snobbery and pretence.

Peter E. Newell

Letter: Race question (2002)

Letter to the Editors from the June 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Race question

Dear Editors

I am a member of the trade union UNISON. I have just received, as have other members, a questionnaire asking me my name, address, telephone number, whether I am male or female, all of which, including other information, is necessary for UNISON’s records. I was, however, asked to state whether I am “white”, “black”, Irish, of Pakistani origin, or “other”. I wrote after ticking “other”, that I was “a member of the human race”, as I had on the recent government census form. While I accept that UNISON has good intentions (it has always opposed racism in the trade union movement), I feel that stating one’s alleged “racial” or ethnic origins is from a working-class viewpoint divisive.

I was also asked to state if I was a member of the Labour Party. I stated that I was not. I added in the small amount of space provided that I was a member of the Socialist Party (of G.B.). Did I do the right thing?

Peter E. Newell, 

Colchester, Essex

Reply: 

Yes—Editors.

John Keracher and the Michigan Marxists (1996)

From the Jul-Aug 1996 issue of the Discussion Bulletin

John Keracher was born in Scotland in 1880. In 1909, be emigrated to the United States, settled in Detroit and. some time later, became a shoe salesman. Early in 1910. he came into contact with the Socialist Party of America, founded in 1901. In April, he joined the Party.

Despite its name, the Socialist Party of America did not have as its objective—its sole objective—the establishment of socialism. It was a basically left-wing, social democratic, reformist Party with, at that time, hundreds of thousands of members and supporters. And prior to the First World War, almost every kind of radical and reformer could be found in its ranks. Of the Party, and the various publications which supported it. Keracher observed:

. . . I heard some of its members speaking about the Materialist Conception of History. 1 had never heard the term before and was curious to know just what it meant. 

Approaching those members, 1 asked for an explanation. Soon, I discovered, as it seemed to me then, that there was something mysterious about it. They told me that they believed in it and were sure that it was quite scientific . . . 

meanwhile, I had subscribed to a number of socialist papers and started to read socialist books and pamphlets. Soon I noticed that there was much contradiction existing on socialist theory. The authors and editors held different views, often quite opposite, on important questions of principle. This was explained to me as a permissible difference of opinion on the part of the writers’. I was assured that everything was all right, that in a democratic movement, such as ours, much allowance must be made for individual opinion'. (How The Gods Were Made)

Keracher was not satisfied with such answers. Directly opposite views could not both be correct Something must be wrong, he felt which permitted such a wide tinge of opinion on the principles of socialism. John Keracher decided to find out for himself.

Among the books which I had bought were some by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels . . . I turned my attention to their writings and after a time began to grasp what was meant by the Materialist Conception of History. The more I read of their writings the clearer it became to me. I began to overcome my former indefinite position on religion, and upon other questions, such as social reforms, the function of industrial organizations (i.e. the unions), the State, and other institutions. I came to the conclusion that if Marx and Engels were correct, a great many others calling themselves socialists, must be wrong. (How The Gods Were Made)

Soon after, Keracher initiated an ambitious education programme, throughout Michigan, based on the study of the writings of Marx and Engels. Out of this grew what was termed the proletarian University, in which Keracher was its most popular lecturer Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the Socialist Party of Great Britain had published, in 1910, a pamphlet titled Socialism and Religion, an analysis of religion based on the very Materialist Conception of History which had concerned John Keracher when he joined the Socialist Party of America. Copies of Socialism and Religion soon found their way to North America, and began to circulate within both the Socialist Party of Canada and sections of the SPA. such as Michigan and Detroit.

War and the Revolutionary Tea Drinkers

The First World War came is a great shock to the Socialist Party of America. At first. America was not involved, but many American workers had relatives in Europe. So, reluctantly, many took sides in what was their masters’ quarrel. Many Socialist Party members did likewise. Not so in Detroit, however.

In Britain, right from the start, the Socialist Party of Great Britain opposed the war. But, because of its opposition, and the harassment of many of its members, some went on the run or escaped abroad. This was to affect the already militant Michigan section of the SPA under the influence of Keracher and others such as Dennis Batt.

Detroit was the centre of the automobile industry, and the auto workers suffered intense exploitation which tended to make them more militant, and sympathetic towards socialist ideas, than elsewhere in the United States. Not surprisingly, therefore, the SPA in that city began to look towards anti-war Marxists in Europe in general, and Britain in particular. The Michigan section soon came under the influence of the SPGB.

In 1915, an active and charismatic member of the SPGB, Moses Baritz, arrived in Detroit, to be followed some time later by another member, Adolph Kohn. Baritz was soon holding lectures in Duffield Hall and elsewhere, and was joined by members of the Socialist Party of Canada. By 1916, Moses Baritz had moved on (and was later jailed for his anti-war activities when America became involved) but Adolph Kohn continued propagating socialist ideas. Meanwhile, a small group in Toronto, across the border to north-east in Canada, had organized themselves as the Socialist Party of North America, and had adopted the object and declaration of principles of the SPGB. A number of members of the SPA in Detroit felt that it was time that Marxist socialists in the United States should break away from the reformist Socialist Party, and form a new revolutionary Party, also basing itself on the object and principles of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

John Keracher and Dennis Batt were themselves very sympathetic towards the 'revolutionary tea drinkers’, as the pro-SPGB group was called; but they thought that for the time being, Marxists should remain within the SPA, and try to influence it towards socialism, rather than organize a new, separate, political party

Workers and Proletarian Parties

Nevertheless, particularly at the urging of Adolph Kohn. a small group finally decided to organize a new Socialist Party. And on July 7 I916, the Socialist Party of the United States, adopting the Object and Declaration of principles of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, was formed in Detroit. About 20 members of the SPA resigned immediately, including a young socialist named I. Rab. But due to the fact that the organization was unable to make effective contact with socialists outside Michigan, and was without funds, they only began with 42 members Bill Davenport became the first secretary, Bill Gribble the first organizer and Lawrence Beardsley wrote the Party's manifesto The writer, Jack London just before his death, resigned from the SPA. and wrote the new party "I congratulate you and wish you well in your adventure." Meanwhile, the SPA in Detroit went from strength to strength, although the new Party's influence remained strong. Indeed, in August 1918, the SPA in Michigan, under John Keracher. founded a new journal, The Proletarian, and like the new Party adopted the Object and Declaration of Principles of the SPGB. The new Socialist Party of the United States, however, was informed that the SPA had copyrighted the name “Socialist Party” and so, for legal reasons, renamed their party the Workers' Socialist Party of the United States (WSP/US). (In 1947, it was renamed a second time as the World Socialist Party.)

John Keracher and the Michigan Socialist Party, which had become among the largest of the Socialist Party's state organizations, came more and more in conflict with the national leadership. In 1917, revolution broke out in Russia, followed by the Bolshevik coup d'etat. Although John Keracher was well aware that a socialist revolution had not occurred in Russia, he and most of the SPA members in Detroit, like many, workers and radicals elsewhere, became a vehement supporter of Bolshevism. Not only did this mean the parting of the ways between Keracher and the "revolutionary tea drinkers" of the WSP and the SPGB, but also, in May 1919, the expulsion of the Michigan section of the Socialist Party of America, ostensibly for the Michigan section's anti-religious stance, in violation of the Party's statutes.

At an emergency meeting of the expelled Michigan members in June 1919, a resolution was passed calling for a new revolutionary party, to be formed in Chicago on September 1; and on that date, Keracher, Dennis Batt and others from the expelled Michigan section of the SPA, took part in the founding of a Communist Party. (At two simultaneous conventions, in Chicago, two Communist parties were formed!); fundamental disagreements, however, soon made it impossible for Keracher and the Michigan group to remain in the newly-formed Communist Party. Almost alone (except for the WSP), Keracher, Batt and their comrades were the only "communists" who did not believe that a proletarian revolution as imminent in the United States. Keracher also opposed the Communist Party's clandestine and anti-electoral orientation, its dual unionism, its "federation of federations" and its reformism. So, within a few months, in January 1920, the so-called Communists first tried unsuccessfully to take over Keracher's Proletarian University by force and, then, charged him and the other Michigan members, with Menshevism, and expelled them.

Six months later, in June 1920, the expelled members and several others, founded the Proletarian Party.

Union activists

The membership of the Proletarian Party was never more than 500 at the most; its stronghold remaining in the industrial midwest, especially in Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Flint and Rochester. It sent a delegate to the third congress of the Communist International, in Moscow, in June 1921, yet despite efforts by CI officials to get the "Proletarians" to re-enter the American Communist Party, the Proletarian Party stubbornly refused to, and pursued its own course while still supporting the Communist International globally. Indeed, not until the mid-1930s, when Keracher opposed the Popular Front, particularly during the Spanish Civil War, did the Proletarian Party actually challenge the authority of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union internationally.

Notwithstanding the Proletarian Party's support for Bolshevism internationally, the Proletarian Party remained a "Menshevik" organization, with a kind of Marxism that owed much to Engels, and little or nothing to Lenin. Its members were, like Keracher himself, deeply influenced by not only Marx and Engels, but also by Darwin, Lewis Henry Morgan and Joseph Dietzgen. And, in this very much like the WSP and SPGB, its activities consisted almost exclusively of study classes, forums, debates, lectures and outdoor "soapbox" meetings. Many of its members, however, were active Trade Unionists.

During the 1933 Briggs Auto Body strike in Detroit, Proletarian Party members were very active; and, later, they were involved in sit-downs in Flint and elsewhere. In the early days of the United Auto Workers, their speakers spoke to large crowds, and for a small organization, the Proletarian Party provided the UAW with a large number of its best organizers, such as Frank Marquart who was initially influenced by I. Rab and Emil Mazey. Many other members of the Proletarian Party became top officials of other unions, including Carl Berreitter of the International Typographical Union, Al Renner of the Restaurant Workers, and Sam Meyers of the Retail Clerks. And many others. Yet the Party suffered a large turnover of membership. By 1940, it had lost much of its membership. And by 1971, the Proletarian Party just faded away. Nevertheless, John Keracher left his mark, not only in Michigan but even as far away as Britain.

He wrote countless leaflets, as well as articles for the Proletarian News. And some of his pamphlets, such as Producers and Parasites (1935), Crime—its Causes and Consequences (1937) and particularly How The Gods Were Made (1929), all of which were published, not by the Proletarian Party, but by Charles H. Kerr and Company of Chicago, which Keracher had taken over from an ageing Charles Kerr in 1928, found their way to Britain, and into the hands of members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain including this writer.

John Keracher left Detroit for Chicago in the late 1920s and remained there until about 1950, when he retired to Los Angeles. He died in 1958.

The World Socialist Party

Following the entry of the United States into the First World War in 1917, and the subsequent persecutions of radicals, socialists and anti-war groups, the members of the WSP were forced to go underground, curtail their activities or to move away from Detroit, to other parts of the United States. And, like Keracher some members of the WSP supported the Bolsheviks, at least for a time. During the infamous Palmer Red Raids of 1919, thousands of workers, including socialists, were arrested.

Nevertheless, despite the difficulties, members of the WSP in Detroit carried on as the Detroit Socialist Educational Society between 1919 and 1922. In 1921, I. Rab moved from Detroit to Boston where he worked tireless for socialism, for many more decades. The Detroit Local of the WSP came and went over the years; and at one period, during the 1950s, it took over the functions of the WSP National Headquarters. At the moment of writing, there is no active local of the World Socialist Party in Detroit.

Peter E. Newell, 

Colchester, England

Sources:

The Monument, Robert Barltrop.

Jack London, Robert Barltrop.

Encyclopaedia of the American Left, edited by Mari Jo Buhle and others. 

The Western Socialist, No.4,1966.

Crime—Its Causes and Consequences, John Keracher.

Producers and Parasites, John Keracher.

How The Gods Were Made, John Keracher.

Letter from Ronald Elbert, 30 March 1996.

World Communism: A Handbook, edited by Witold S. Sworakowski.

Blogger's Note:

I thought this short historical article from Frank Girard's Discussion Bulletin would be of interest to readers of the blog. The author of the article, the late Peter E. Newell, was a member of the SPGB in the '50s and '60s, and rejoined the party in the 1990s after long period in-between involved in anarchist politics. Peter had a longstanding interest in the history of radical movements in the Americas, and as well as writing a biography of Zapata in the 1970s, he also wrote a history of Canadian impossibilism in 2008.

Frank Girard's reasons for originally publishing the article are worth reposting:

"The DB isn't a socialist history magazine, but Peter Newell's article on John Keracher and Revolutionary Perspective's article on the British SLP both relate to a key period, 1918-20, when Lenin and the Bolsheviks were using worldwide enthusiasm among workers for the Russian Revolution and the unlimited cash they came into when they grabbed power in Russia to establish their hegemony over the revolutionary wing of the international socialist movement. I never met Keracher, but I knew one of his admirers, Clarence Ford, in Grand Rapids in the early fifties. Like many working class revolutionaries he was shockingly—to me in those days—uninterested in the relative doctrinal purity of socialist organizations and had been a member of both the SLP and Keracher's Proletarian Party, and from reading Newell's article I gather that the refusal of Keracher and his party to become a part of the CP was based on principle and not just personal antagonisms as I had assumed."

Letter: Vanguardism (2002)

Letter to the Editors from the January 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Vanguardism

Dear Editors,

We in the Socialist Party have often been accused by members of various Leninist parties and groups, from the defunct Communist Party to the nearly defunct Militant Tendency, of being irrelevant, and not being, like them, in the vanguard of the working class.

Certainly we are not “in the vanguard”, have no intention of being; as this could not lead to the establishment of a world socialist society. But what of the so-called vanguard of the working class here in Britain? Have they achieved more with their “transitional demands” and ever-changing reform programmes?

Prior to the last election, a ragbag of Leninist, Stalinist and Trotskyist parties and sects, dominated largely by the thoroughly undemocratic Socialist Workers Party, but also including the also completely dishonest remnants of Militant, came together to form, for electoral purposes (despite most of them claiming that socialism would not be established by democratic means) the “Socialist (sic) Alliance”.

Not surprisingly, despite their boasts and disdain for genuine socialists, they received no more, and often fewer, votes than socialists who advocated socialism and not numerous reforms and demands.

Here in Colchester, the SA fielded no candidate. But in Ipswich, a few miles to the north, they had a candidate, Peter Leech. On a turnout of 57 percent, he received 305 votes (0.78 percent). At the by-election held in Ipswich on Thursday, 22 October, on a turnout of 40.16 percent, Leech managed to come eighth out of nine candidates, with a grand total of 152 votes (0.55 percent).

So much for the vanguard of the working class!

Peter E. Newell, 

Colchester

World View: Australia - in defence of profits (2001)

From the February 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Australian government is to boost its “defence” spending by an estimated $500 to $600 million. Prime Minister, John Howard told a Liberal Party dinner in Sydney on 4 November last year that Australia “needed more resources to fulfil its role at home and in the Asia-Pacific region”, as well as in East Timor (West Australian, 6 November).

Continued Howard: 

“The Government does set a very high priority on maintaining a strong defence capability. We do need as a nation to spend more money on defence.”

Howard said he wanted to make the Collins-class submarine project work, despite “its litany of cost blowouts and delays”. The reasons for Howard’s concerns are not difficult to find.

Brian Toohey says (West Australian, 6 November) that “Indonesia is playing an ugly and dangerous game”. It has apparently upset both Australia and the United States recently, its patrol boats challenged a US destroyer delivering aid to East Timor, claiming that it believed that the American destroyer was, in fact, delivering arms to separatists on the trouble-torn Indonesian island of Ambon.

Toohey claims that the Indonesian government has failed to disarm the militia in West Timor. It, he says, harassed not only East Timor, but also Papua New Guinea, and even Australia. It cancelled the visit of a top-level ministerial delegation to Canberra at the last minute; at the same time, it expected Australia to stop a South Pacific Forum meeting in Kiribati from mentioning the Indonesian army’s brutal activities in West Papua. Tourist and investment dollars are at risk. And, horror of horrors, the governor of Bali has made it plain that Australian tourists are no longer welcome. Brian Toohey, echoing the views of others in Australia, argues that “Australia has little to gain from trying to curry favour in Djakarta by insisting that the Javanese empire should last for ever.” An Indonesia, even more weakened by the loss of former Dutch colonies, and various islands such as Ambon and Bali, could be welcome news in Canberra.

Christmas Island, an Australian possession 250 miles south of the Indonesian capital of Djakarta, is also in the news. Australia bought it from Britain in 1958, because it feared that the newly-independent state of Singapore, the island’s former administrators on Britain’s behalf, would nationalise the phosphate reserves run by the Australian and New Zealand governments, who needed its cheap fertiliser for their farmers.

Because it is so close to Indonesia, Christmas Island serves as a useful base for Australia’s northernmost radar over-the-horizon beacon, which is linked to the United States/Australian Joint Defense Research facility at Pine Gap, south-west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.

Moreover, Australia’s “Asia Pacific Centre” plan to build a satellite launching facility, with roll-on-roll-off port facilities to deliver large rocket components, as well as hazardous materials, such as satellite and rocket fuels. Says Vanessa Gould (West Australian, 17 June): “At 10 degrees south of the equator, Christmas Island was ideal to place satellites into geostationary or polar orbits.” As well as being yet another small, but important, part of Australia’s “defence” of its capitalist class and their increasing investments in the area.

Peter E. Newell

Down your way (1954)

From the December 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

What’s happening down your way? What are you talking about in the office? Football Pools? T.V.? The cost of living? Marilyn Monroe? Probably. Workers are apathetic about most social questions; and the political parties are finding it increasingly difficult to attract audiences to their meetings.

But are the workers really satisfied with present-day conditions? Are you satisfied? Surely not. You’re fed-up with hydrogen bombs, the talk of war, the cost of living, the Labour Party—and the Tories. They both promised to solve your housing problems, rising prices. They promised you peace—whilst preparing for war. Is it surprising that you are cynical and apathetic? That you are fed-up with “politics?” Most people think there can be no solution to all these evils that beset us; and that the present order—or “ disorder ” of society will always be with us.

Yes, you are quite right “Politics,” that is the politics of running this present system, is a “dirty game.” And we, as Socialists, are not interested in playing the game. We know that the various political parties that promise to solve your problems for you are incapable of doing so. We know that the present system of society—capitalism—cannot be run in your interest. That is why we propose that you change it. That is why we want to get you interested, not so much in “politics,” but in society as it is; and in society as it could be, as it must be, in the future. We want you to desire and work for an entirely new way of life.

In the world today the means of producing the things we need and desire do not belong to society as a whole: they are owned by quite a small section of the community—the capitalist class. Most of us own none of these things. All that we as workers possess is our ability to work. And our employers only employ us in order that 'they make a profit. After all, that is why they are in business. Such is the nature of capitalism. Now, without going into a great deal of detail at the moment, we can say that it is this state of affairs—the private ownership of the means of living and production for profit—that is the basic cause of most of present-day problems. That is why we want you to get interested in our ideas; why we want you to cease being cynical and apathetic. Instead of putting your trust in politicians and leaders—until you get fed-up with them!—we suggest you do a little thinking for yourselves.

We Socialists are ordinary people. We have studied our society and have come to the conclusion that whilst the present profit-making system remains we will never get rid of the evils of war, insecurity and the rest. We think that only by changing the whole structure of society will we get rid of these problems. Only by making the means of life—the factories, offices, railways, etc.—the common possession of all people, and producing the things necessary to satisfy people’s needs and desires solely for use and not for profit will we eradicate these evils.

This, briefly, is our alternative to “ politics,” football pools, the  "dogs’’—and apathy.

Think it over.

Peter E. Newell

How a Russian factory is run (1956)

From the November 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

To those people who think that the status of the Soviet worker is different from that of hi British counterpart, or that the motive for production in the Soviet Union is not the same as in capitalist Britain, a recent article in the Soviet Weekly should dispel any illusions.

A certain Mr. Mick Akerman, chairman of the Finsbury Area Committee of the National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers, asked the Soviet Weekly the question: “How is a Soviet clothing factory run?” And in the Soviet Weekly of September 20th, 1956, V. Segalov answered him. In his reply Segalov shows that, despite the fact that Russia is supposed to be a “Socialist” country, its factories are run on good, sound capitalist lines. Segalov gives as his example “ The Red Seamstress” clothing factory.

The Director

In the early days of the Soviet regime, in many factories the workers, through their “workers’ committees” or Soviets, appointed not only their foremen, but also their managers and directors. Even on ships of the Soviet Mercantile Marine the captain often took orders from the committee elected by the ship’s company. But within six months of the Revolution Lenin decreed that, there must be in every case a manager appointed by, and responsible to, the appropriate organ of the government. Still, for a long time the “workers’ committees” in the factories retained a large measure of control. Today the picture is a different one. As Segalov says: "The factory is managed by a director appointed by the Minister”; much in the same way as is done in nationalised industries elsewhere. The director’s duty, in a Soviet factory, is to fulfil the government’s production plan and to make the most effective use of the machinery and materials allocated to him.

The article by Segalov continues:

"He has complete control of the factory he is managing. He is the responsible head, and his orders are obligatory for the whole staff. He has two managerial assistants—the chief engineer and the assistant of business transactions."

Production Councils and Workers' Participation

The Production Council at the “Red Seamstress” factory is composed of seventeen people, chosen by the director from the engineers, technicians and foremen, and is headed by the chief engineer. Its main function is to examine technical problems, the introduction of new technology and mechanisation—and suggestions made by ordinary workers in the factory! And, says' Segalov, “On the basis of the council's recommendations the director makes a final decision in each case." The factory has three shops, each headed by a shop superintendent, who bears full responsibility for the fulfilment of the quota of goods that his shop must turn out during a given month.

The factory works in two shifts. Each shift in the main shops is headed by a chief foreman, and the foremen heading the different teams of between 25 and 40 workers are subordinate to their chief shift foreman.

“Before each shift the foreman holds a five-minute conference with his or her team, at which the workers are told about the day's quotas and production processes which should be the object of particular care.”

And if you think that the running of a Soviet factory is completely undemocratic, you are wrong. For the Soviet Weekly tells us that:

"The workers also have a say: they ask for clarifications or make their own suggestions." (!).

They also participate in regular production meetings arranged by the factory trade union committee in all shops. The object of these meetings is to get the workers to increase their productivity, and thereby to increase the profits.

Profits in the Soviet Factory

For those who think that the basis of production in the Soviet Union is a Socialist one—that is, production solely to satisfy human needs—be surprised to hear that u Profits make up an important factor in the production plan." And:

“Naturally,” writes Segalov, “the greater the economy in the consumption of textiles, the higher the labour efficiency, the better the management of the enterprise, the lower will be the production costs of each item and the higher the profits."

Part of the profits are turned over to the state budget and the balance remains at the manager’s disposal. “Out of the share of profits earmarked for the factory in 1955, many of the best workers and officials received bonuses." The article also tells us that the management paid for the accommodation of 400 workers in health and holiday centres—but does not tell us what proportion of the staff received these benefits.

The Function of the Trade Unions

Every year a collective agreement is negotiated between the management and the trade union. The draft agreement is discussed in the shops.

“After the draft has been discussed the factory trade union committee examines jointly with the management all the proposals made by the staff, and they draw up the final text, which is signed by the director and the chairman of the trade union committee."

But, of course, if the trade union or the workers themselves are not satisfied with the agreement, they cannot legally call a strike. Except for this, life in a Soviet factory is very much the same as it is in Britain or any other avowedly capitalist country, and has nothing in common with the administration of a factory—or anything else—in a Socialist society.

Peter E. Newell

Letters: Religion and Socialism (1957)

Letters to the Editors from the October 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Views put in letters in the correspondence column do not necessarily represent the Party's attitude).

Religion and Socialism.

If the existence of religion is not enough proof for God's existence, does Mr. Jarvis hope to find any more powerful evidence than this? If so, I would like to hear it. Mr. Jarvis's own proposition, that religion could not exist without a belief in God proves this right up to the hilt. For the logic of this proposition could only mean that a belief in God determines the existence of God and religion, for without this belief neither God nor religion would exist. Now when Mr. Jarvis asked his religious opponent for further proof of God's existence, than his own boomerang proposition, I claimed he was talking in riddles. And now he asks me: “What's wrong with this?" I answer: “The logic of your own proposition." It is true that the belief in Socialism does not prove that Socialism exists, but who said it did? Socialist Parties could exist knowing full well that a Socialist society did not exist, but a God-religion could not exist while knowing full well that God did not exist. Therefore, from this it would be true to say that the Socialist believes in a society that does not exist, while the religious man, on the contrary (if belonging to the Christian or Islam religion), must believe in a God who does exist. Socialists believe that man must go through a purgatory of historical periods before he can finally reach his salvation, while the religious man believes that men could be saved in any historical period, if they carry out the will of God.

R. Smith.

Dundee

It is a sheer waste of time to discuss religion, as there are so many facets to the subject. One man says that Jesus was a poor man and condemned the rich, but the churches seem to have made a good business out of it, especially in our own time, when it is investing its assets in stocks and shares on the Stock Exchange.

I would like to know what is the value of his religious experience to us. As far as I can ascertain it consists of a confusion of ideas, much of which is illusion and wish fulfilment. Millions of people have such delusions, he says, and that may well be the case.

Surely our task is not to concentrate on dispelling illusions, but in spreading a knowledge of Socialism, for light dispels darkness, and both ignorance and illusions will fade away when enlightenment is achieved. How many people now believe that the world was created four thousand years ago, or that it is flat, and down below there is hell and up in the sky, somewhere, there is a heaven. Very few now, so why worry about illusions. Spread Socialism.

I. Flower,

Battersea.

In his letter answering John Wyatt and R. Smith on “Socialism versus Religion," H. Jarvis makes a number "of telling points, but his reference to ". . . the pacifism of the New Testament" needs some elaboration.

True, Socialists are not pacifists; that is they do not “turn the other cheek" when the employer attempts a wage reduction, neither do they tell workers to "resist not evil." But Socialists are opposed to war and violence —all wars! But what of the alleged “pacifism" of the New Testament?

Much is made by Christian pacifists of the alleged sayings of Jesus concerning the love of enemies and the blessing of peacemakers, but little or nothing is said about those sayings attributed to Jesus which are the complete opposite of these sayings, such as:

"But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.” (Luke XIX, 27.)

* * *

“ Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. (Matt, x, 34.)

* * *

“ Suppose ye that 1 come to give peace on earth? 1 tell you, Nay; but rather division.** (Luke XII, 51.)

* * *

“And he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy." (Luke XXII, 36.)

* * *

And was there not war in heaven, when "Michael and his angels fought against the dragon." (Revelation, XII, 7). And have not the Christians been fighting each other, and supporting their masters' wars ever since?

So much for Christian pacifism!

Yours fraternally,

“PEN."

The Editor.

Dear Sir,—Being a subscriber to Socialist Standard, I must comment on articles in the June 1957 issue on pages 86-7.

I am a Catholic and have long been a believer in Socialism. I will remain both, despite Comrade Jarvis and others of his ilk who will confuse religious with economic and political problems.

Established Socialism would, I believe, constitute that Kingdom. He spoke of and showed us how to achieve. The lessons of His crucifixion and "popping back to life again" need not be gone into here.

To say He is admired as a “great man" is so much bull-dust. In the eyes of the world He was a weakling as a man. As St. Paul puts it: “The weakness of man is the strength of God." He condemned the "great man" idea as much as you. Such "great man" egotism as Comrade Jarvis showed in trying to make an enemy of a friendly Mr. Barr, was absent from His character. He was a friend to all and loved all, even His murderers. A lesson to be learned and an example to be followed by Socialists, Catholics, and all who hope for a better way of life.

The greatest, in my opinion, of the Holy Fathers, who, incidentally, was a father and never denied it, speaks of the ideal of owning all things in common and explains why it cannot be as yet. Namely, St. Augustine in “City of God.”

Finally, please convey comradely greetings’ to Comrade Jarvis, who, despite his total ignorance of Christianity and its message, is no doubt a good and honest worker for the common cause of humanity, albeit in vain.

Yours sincerely,

C. W. Reilly.

Harbord, 

N.S.W., Australia.

Dear Sir,—I don't know where your correspondent, Henry Myers, gets his information from, but the plain records of the Gospels state that Christ was hounded to death by the chief priests and scribes of that time. (Mark, 14-1). They paid Judas, a disciple of Christ, to betray him, and he was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Being occupied by the Romans, the scribes and chief priests had to hand Christ over to the occupying power. But the Roman Governors, Herod and Pilate, both saw that they were dealing with an innocent man and attempted to free him. The people, however, whipped into a frenzy by the church authorities, declared that Christ was not the long expected Messiah, and clamoured for his death. Can any story be plainer?

As for Mr. Myers’ contention that Christ’s last words: “Why hast Thou forsaken me?” are blasphemous, is just plain silly—besides being in bad taste, as these were the words of a dying man.

By the way, if Mr. Myers will consult a dictionary (as well as the New Testament), he will find that the word “ambiguous” means having two meanings—not necessarily untruthful.

Yours truly,

Geoffrey Sharpe,

S.E.3.

P.S.—May I add a word in favour of your correspondent, Mr. John Wyatt, who stated that the New Testament could be found to support a better economic system than our present one?

Other Letters.

Letters are in hand from C. Luff, Canada; R. L. Rhodes, Trowbridge; and D. Anderson, Glasgow.

Editorial Committee

Irish Odds and Ends (1957)

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

Nationalised Industries compete in England

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

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

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

And later in the editorial the writer says:—

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

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

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

* * *

Economic decline in Eire

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

Sinn Fein policy is futile

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

Peter E. Newell,

Co. Kerry, Eire.

Party News Briefs (1957)

Party News from the October 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bradford Branch report a most successful outdoor meeting last month by Comrade Baldwin, at which two dozen S.S. were sold and some pamphlets. They express the hope of a repeat visit by Comrade Baldwin.

Comrade Gilmac in America. Comrade Gilmac has sent his first brief report from America, where he attended the Annual Conference of the W.S.P. in Boston. He reports that our comrades out there have been experiencing rather a thin time, but that this year’s Conference is the best they have had. The members are full of enthusiasm, and their hospitality to him has been overwhelming.

The Socialist Party of Ireland. Socialists in large cities such as London, Glasgow, Sydney or Boston—where there are often quite a number of Socialists—know how difficult it is to get workers to listen to, and accept, the Socialist case. But for Socialists where there are only small groups or even single individuals, it is much more difficult—particularly in countries like Austria or Ireland, where the Catholic Church is very powerful.

Our comrades in Dublin and Belfast have an extremely difficult task, but putting the Socialist case in Co. Kerry is almost impossible.

During August two members of Fulham Branch, Comrades Newell and Garnham, visited Ireland, and whilst there visited our only comrade in Co. Kerry, Comrade Tim O’Sullivan, of Coolcorcoron, a tiny village about two miles out of Killarney. Comrade O’Sullivan told our comrades that the only politically conscious people in the whole of Co. Kerry are the Sinn Feiners; and they are fanatical nationalists, living mainly in the past! But still our S.P.I. comrades, such as O’Sullivan and others in Ireland, are able to get something across. Besides their tongues they are armed with The Manifesto of the Socialist Party of Ireland, and copies of a free leaflet, Introducing the Socialist Party of Ireland.

The “Daily Herald” and the S.P.G.B. In reply to a letter previously published from a Labour Party reader, who enquired why it was that the Labour Party did not call itself the Socialist Party, the Daily Herald printed the following letter from a reader in Margate:

“It would be confusing and dangerous to re-name the Labour Party the Socialist Party, as this is the usual way in which people refer to a body already in existence —the Socialist Party of Great Britain.”

To which the Daily Herald thought it fit to add the following explanatory comment:

The S.P.G.B., which broke away from the Social Democratic Federation in 1904, has a membership of 1,100. It is sometimes called the Small Party of Good Boys. It stands for “uncompromising opposition to all forms of capitalism, including that in the Soviet Union.”

Phyllis Howard

Blogger's Note:

There is fuller report of 'Comrade Gilmac's' visit to North America in the November 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard.

The Manifesto of the Socialist Party of Ireland is available at the following link.

Letters: Ted Grant (2006)

Letters to the Editors from the October 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ted Grant

Dear Editors

Following on from your obituary of Ted Grant, the Trotskyist founder of the “entryist” Militant Tendency (September Socialist Standard), I agree that he was never a revolutionary; but just another reformer masquerading as a revolutionary.

I first heard Ted Grant speak at a meeting in High Holborn, of the so-called Revolutionary Communist Party, just before its demise probably in 1947. At this meeting, I heard for the first time the claim that the Soviet Union was not socialist, or even a “degenerated workers’ state”, but in fact a dictatorial form of state capitalism. A member of the audience (of about 100) got up and forcefully, as well as persistently, much to the annoyance of Grant and the other Trotskyist speakers, and argued that the economy of the USSR was state capitalist, and that the workers and peasants there were exploited in much the same way as elsewhere. Shortly after, two of the leaders who were at the meeting, Jock Haston and Tony Cliff, both accepted the claim that Soviet Russia was state capitalist.

And who was the speaker from the audience? I learned later, when I knew the SPGB (from meetings on Clapham Common), that it was a man named Sammy Cash, a well-known and active member of the Socialist Party.

As you noted, Ted Grant was ousted from the Militant Tendency by a man called Peter Taaffe, a thoroughly dishonest individual who claims that his existing group is the “socialist party”, known by the most appropriate acronym of SPEW.

Peter E. Newell, 

Colchester, Essex

A frustrated priest

Dear Editors,

The obituary on Ted Grant by DAP rather impressed me with its honesty and, even, generosity. I met Grant and Haston in 1948 at the RCP HQ on the Harrow Road. Haston was a fun fellow; Grant seemed a bit like a frustrated priest.

Richard Montague, 

Ballymena, Co. Antrim.

World View: Sliding into the Economic Mire (1995)

From the September 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the moment of writing, there is something of a stalemate between the Mexican government and the Zapatista Liberation Army in Chiapas. It could, of course, be the calm before the storm. Nevertheless, Mexico is far from tranquil. And throughout this year, the economy has gone from bad to worse.

Negotiations between the United States and the Mexican government, in an attempt by the Clinton administration to bail Mexico out of its economic crisis, began in the middle of February, and lasted six days before an agreement was reached. The Americans offered Mexico a loan of $20 billion in an attempt to stabilise the peso. At least that was the idea. Mexico promptly raised short-term interest rates by 10 percent and the rate on some government debts to 50 percent.

The Americans naturally drove a hard bargain. They insisted that PEMEX, the state-owned Mexican oil company, must deposit payment into an account of the US Federal Reserve Bank, where it can be withdrawn if the Mexican government defaults on the loan. Instead of American companies and corporations paying Mexico directly for oil, American companies would deposit payments with the Federal Reserve Bank, which would transfer them to Mexico at a later date. Hopefully, Mexico would receive an international rescue package of up to $50 billion.

Slashing living standards

As always, the ordinary people, the workers and peasants, were the first to suffer the consequences of the agreement. Guillermo Ortiz, the Finance Minister, said that Mexico "had been living beyond its means and running up debts it could not pay”. And continued: "It will be difficult for all Mexicans . . . There are no easy solutions." Instead of the 4 percent economic growth which President Zedillo had promised for 1995, he now expected a recession. The economy would, in fact, decline by 2 percent, and prices would rise by more than 40 percent. But Mr Ortiz had a plan; he also called for “extraordinary efforts" from citizens (i.e. the workers and peasants) "to make the plan work”.

Most workers would get only a 4 percent rise in wages, with the minimum salary, on which large sections of the Mexican working class depend, up by 10 percent from April. Indeed, there had already been a 100 percent increase in public transport fares and a 56 percent fall in purchasing power since December 1994. Fuel prices were to rise 35 percent, and the sales tax (like VAT) would be increased from ten to fifteen percent In March, a survey showed that 46 percent of companies expected to sack at least some of their workforce; and 16 percent expected to close down altogether. About 750,000 workers were expected to lose their jobs before September.

At the end of May. however, Michel Camdessus, the director-general of the International Monetary Fund, said that he was confident that the economy in Mexico was "headed for recovery”. But Guillermo Ortiz admitted that the worst of the crisis was yet to come; and Jose Luis Romero of Canancintra, which represents small and medium-sized businesses, predicted that job losses could reach 1.2 million by the end of December. And, indeed, unemployment had risen by 800,000 by the middle of July, and by more than one million by early August. The suicide rate has also risen sharply since the end of last year. Writing in the Guardian (10 July), Edward Balls, editor of the 1995 World Development Report, said: “the recession is expected to last into next year and living standards continue to plunge". He added: "In today's world of fast-moving, global capital markets, it is the workers who bear the brunt of financial crises.” Of course! But it has always been thus. Controlling capitalism’s crises is an impossible task, as Mexico's politicians, and so-called economists, have discovered.

Further unrest

Mexico's workers and peasants have lot entirely taken the worsening situation lying down although, as workers elsewhere, they tend to react to effects rather than organise to get rid of the cause—capitalism itself—of their misery.

In March, more than 100,000 people converged on the Zocalo, in the centre of Mexico City, to demand the withdrawal of the Army from Chiapas. The army is still there. In recent local elections, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) which, under various names, has governed Mexico for more than six decades, has been losing out to the right-wing National Action Party (PAN) and, to a lesser extent, the left-wing Party of Democratic Revolution (PRD), both of which, despite their "revolutionary” tag. are thoroughly reformist

And away from Chiapas, in the adjoining state of Guerrero to the west, guerrilla activity has, once again, flared up. In June, 17 peasants on their way to a protest meeting, were killed in Coyuca dc Benitez by armed police; and at the beginning of July five policemen were ambushed and killed, and two wounded, near Cualiac, north-cast of Acapulco. This was almost certainly in revenge for the killing of the peasants. Indeed, armed insurrections in Guerrero against agents of the Mexican state have occurred on and off since 1910.

Peter E. Newell

To dream the impossibilist dream (2008)

Book Review from the September 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Impossibilists. A Brief Profile of the Socialist Party of Canada. By Peter E. Newell. Athena Press. 2008.

The SDF in Britain was a reformist organisation with a revolutionary minority (which eventually broke away). The Socialist Party of Canada was the opposite: a revolutionary party with a reformist minority. Formed in 1905 as an amalgamation of parties from the different provinces of Canada, it sought to be “impossibilist”, i.e. not to seek reforms of capitalism but to advocate only the capture of political power for socialism.

However, it couldn’t avoid the reform issue as it won a few seats in elections. It therefore had to decide what these elected socialists should do. inevitably (and sensibly) it decided that they should use their position not just to propagate socialist views, but also to try to “advance the interests of the working class and aid workers in their class struggle against capitalism”. the trouble was the SPC’s councillors had not been elected by socialist votes alone but, precisely, as people workers considered would stand up and speak for them. When the reformists broke away from the SPC in 1911 (to form the Social democratic Party of Canada) the SPC’s three British Columbia legislative assembly members left to join them. One, Charles O’Brien in Alberta, stayed. One of his speeches in the legislature was published as a pamphlet (which can be found at the following link), but he lost the next election.

The similar position taken up by the SPGB on this issue was undoubtedly influenced by that of the SPC (even though a minority of SPGB members disagreed, arguing that Socialist MPs should never vote for any reform measure). The Canadian party probably also influenced the SPGB’s policy of writing “Socialism” across the ballot paper when there was no socialist candidate standing. this was already being advocated in 1903 by the Socialist Party of British Columbia.

On another issue the very early SPC took up a position that was never that of the SPGB. The editor of its paper, the Western Clarion, E. T. Kingsley, argued that the trade union struggle was not part of the class struggle, but only a “commodity struggle”. this was not the view of all SPC members many of whom were active unionists. Later, some were to be jailed for their part in organising the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike. Other SPC members were instrumental in founding the One Big Union in 1919; which was not, as its name might suggest, a “syndicalist” union as the SPC was always strongly insistent on the imperative need for the working class to win control of political power before trying to change society.

Like the SPGB, the SPC had no hesitation in opposing the First World War from day one – and the SPC, with some 2000 to 3000 members would have been ten times bigger than the SPGB – but the Russian Revolution unhinged it. The members of the party’s Dominion Executive committee took the view that the working class had won control of political power in Russia in november 1917 (even though they recognised that socialism could not be the outcome, conditions not being ripe for this). This was a view shared by most members; which made them an easy prey for Bolshevik propagandists who deliberately set out, on orders from Moscow, to win over the SPC. They did not succeed, as a referendum rejected the 21 conditions laid down by Lenin for affiliation to the Third international. Those in favour of this then formed the Workers Party which many former SPC members joined (including the future Leader of the Canadian Communist Party, Tim Buck, who had even also been a member of the short-lived Socialist Party of North America whose declaration of principles Newell mentions was based on that of the SPGB). The SPC staggered on for a few more years but disbanded itself in 1925.

Newell records all these events, basing himself on secondary sources which he usefully summarises.

In 1931 some former members of the SPC decided to reconstitute it, accepting as its platform the object and declaration of the SPGB. There has been some controversy as to whether the new SPC was a continuation of the old. Newell argues that it was, even though other ex-SPC members went into the Communist Party and various Labour parties. Most of the members of the new SPC had been members of the old one, including a former editor of the Western Clarion and a former member of the Manitoba Legislative Assembly. However, two other ex-members more well known on this side of the Atlantic – Charlie Lestor and Bill Pritchard – got involved in reformist politics and did not become impossibilists again till they left Canada, the one for Britain and the other for the US.

The new party was much smaller and had far less impact than the old SPC, but it continued to publish a journal (the present one is Imagine) and to contest elections (the last in 1978). Newell describes not just the SPC’s external activity from 1931 but also its internal life and controversies. These happened and shouldn’t be disguised, but a whole chapter on an organisational dispute in the 1960s, which raised no question of theory or policy, is possibly too much in a “brief profile”.

Newell’s book is not just a chronicle of events. it also covers such matters as reforms, religion, Russia, war, trade unionism and so also gets across the socialist case as well as bringing together historical research.

Adam Buick

World View: We have been here before (2001)

From the September 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

A look at what lies behind the recent protest and police killings in Jamaica

Jamaica, with a population of just over 2.5 million, has witnessed 550 murders and 75 killings by the police between January and the end of June this year. At least 40 people have died in the last three months.

The recent spate of killings began on Saturday evening, 7 July, after police searched homes for guns in the Tivoli Gardens district of Kingston. The police said that their officers came under attack from snipers and people throwing homemade bombs. Initially, two policemen were said to have been killed. On Monday, the Prime Minister, PJ Patterson, the leader of the People’s National Party, announced that he was calling out the whole of the island’s army, adding that he might seek reinforcements from neighbouring countries.

Troops in trucks and armoured cars, backed by helicopter gunships overhead, patrolled the streets of mainly the Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town, impoverished areas of west Kingston, strongholds of the opposition Labour Party, led by Edward Seaga, the local MP for almost 40 years. Within three days at least 20 people had been killed and 30 injured. Protesters blocked the roads with burned-out cars, while gunmen strafed some streets with automatic weapons. The violence, however, also spread to other areas.

Politics of violence

Patterson said that “the government cannot stand by and allow criminal elements to hold the country to ransom”. He denied that the confrontations were politically motivated. But Seaga, the leader of the Labour Party, said that the trouble had been deliberately instigated by Patterson and the People’s National Party in advance of next year’s planned elections. “This is a ploy to turn popular opinion against us,” he said. The Labour Party currently has a large lead in the opinion polls.

The police commissioner, Francis Forbes, denied any political motivation for the raids in west Kingston. And he hinted that the attacks on the police has been centrally organised. “There’s someone there who can turn it off,” he said. That there are criminal gangs, and that drugs are involved, no one denies. But, as Julian Borger observed in the Guardian (11 July), “Jamaica’s political parties have fought a proxy civil war through street gangs” over the past 30 years, adding that “gang violence is epidemic in Kingston, now one of the most violent cities in the world”. The Times (11 July) commented that “Jamaica’s two main political parties are blamed for helping to set up and arm rival gangs 30 years ago in poor neighbourhoods of Kingston”. Indeed, Patterson’s predecessor, Michael Manley, turned the Jamaican political system during the 1980 election into a low-level civil war, in which more than 700 people were killed. But the People’s National Party and the Jamaica Labour Party have not been the only villains of the piece.

American involvement

During the 1972 election campaign the United States ambassador, Vincent de Roulet, warned Manley not to make the US-owned bauxite industry a nationalisation issue, otherwise he would “oblige” the opposition Labour Party to take up the issue. Manley kept quiet. He had, however, upset the American government by supporting the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which the United States government was attempting to destroy, and had established diplomatic relations with Cuba and the Soviet Union.

In December 1975 US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, arrived in Jamaica to “suggest” that unless Manley change his policies Jamaica’s request for a $100 million trade credit “would be reviewed”. The Jamaican Prime Minister chose not to toe the Kissinger line, and continued to support the Cuban army presence in Angola. The Americans moved into action. By 1976, prior to the election in Jamaica, the CIA station chief in Kingston, Norman Descoteaux, drew up a destabilisation programme. Covert shipments of arms were sent to the Jamaica Labour Party. In one shipment alone, which was aborted by the Manley government, there were 500 submachine guns. Pro-Labour gangs began to use such tactics as arson, bombing and assassinations. And a wave of strikes in the transport, electrical and telephone industries hit the island, provoked largely by the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), the CIA’s principle labour “front” in Latin America and the Caribbean. The AIFLD also provided covert financial support the Labour Party, as well as infiltrating the Jamaican government’s security service.

Propagandists also arrived from the United States, including evangelists and faith healers, preaching against the “evils of communism”. Locally, the Daily Gleaner poured out a stream of anti-Manley propaganda, who, in the October 1980 elections, was defeated mainly due to the continuing deterioration in the standard of living of the workers, but, in no short measure, due to the intervention by the United States.

Problems for the Jamaican working class did not, however, begin in 1980 or 1975. Writing in 1969 (World Socialism 69), George Dolphy, a member of the then Kingston socialist group, stated that while 20,000 kids leave school every year, it was estimated that there were 150,000 unemployed on the island. Factories were closing, and the sugar industry, one of the chief users of labour, was in decline. Moreover, an emerging Black Power movement was preaching violence, particularly against “Chinese and people of a fair complexion”. He concluded: “The situation in undeveloped countries like Jamaica is tense, changing, and difficult to forecast. One thing is certain: their development need not be a transition period as often believed, but can be a permanent state. Looking around, the task that faces a socialist seems overwhelming. With communication so advanced, however, who can tell how people will react to events throughout the developed world? The restriction and waste of capitalism will become obvious to them. Spreading socialist knowledge may not be so difficult after this.”

In Jamaica, as elsewhere? We hope so.

Peter E. Newell

The Bilderberg Group (2002)

From the July 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the beginning of June the Bilderberg Group met for its 2002 conference in Chantilly, Virginia, USA. They met in secret, as always – but are they really ‘the secret rulers of the world’, as many contend?

The activities and meetings of the Bilderberg Group, or Bilderbergers as they have been called, are shrouded in mystery, not unlike the rituals of Masonic lodges. The lengths to which the organisers have gone to keep the press and public away, and their deliberations secret, are even by capitalist standards astounding. Very little has been reported even in the so-called quality newspapers. The political left has shown little real interest; indeed, about the only people interested in the Bilderbergers have been the “conspiracy theorists” of the far right, including the magazine The Spotlight in the United States and the journal of the Freedom Association Freedom Today in this country.

Who, then, are the Bilderberg Group, and do they really rule the world as the conspiracists assert?

Hôtel de Bilderberg

The Bilderberg Group takes its name from the Hôtel de Bilderberg in the small Dutch town of Oosterbeekat near Arnhem, owned by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, where in May 1954, the first formal meeting or conference was held. while the name has persisted, its meetings are held in different locations and countries.

The initiative for the first meeting came from Jozef Ritinger, a Polish émigré said to be “a compulsive intriguer and behind-the-scenes political wheeler-dealer”, Prince Bernhard and Paul Rijkens, President of the giant Anglo-Dutch corporation, Unilever, following a visit by Prince Bernhard to his friend, Bedell Smith, in America in 1952. Smith put the organisation in the US into the hands of Charles D Jackson, who was President of the Committee for a Free Europe. The first meeting was, however, a European initiative. Young Labour MP Denis Healey was invited to that meeting as convenor of the British delegation, which also included Hugh Gaitskell, Robert Boothy and Sir Colin Gubbins, whose expenses were covered by the British Foreign Office. Prince Bernhard was appointed chairman, a position he held until 1976, when he was forced to resign because of his involvement in the Lockheed bribery scandal. Representing France were Guy Mollet, the “socialist” leader, and Antoine Pinay the right-wing Prime Minister. The Americans included George Ball of Lehman Brothers, David Rockefeller and Dean Rusk, President of the Rockefeller Foundation and, later, US Secretary of State.

The participants at Bilderberg meetings are not elected by governments, corporations or, in fact, anyone. They are selected by a small core of administrators, constituted as a Steering Committee consisting of a permanent chair, European and North American secretaries and a treasurer. Invitations are only sent to “important and generally respected” businessmen, politicians and others, “through their special knowledge or experience”, and their personal contacts and influence in national and international circles.

Essentially, discussion and the names of participants are kept out of the public sphere. In 1967, for example, Cecil King, the then chair of the International Publishing Corporation, and also chair of the Newspaper Proprietors Association, formally requested fellow newspaper proprietors to see that “on no account should any report or even speculation about the content of the (Bilderberg) conferences be printed”. And on both sides of the Atlantic, for many years, they weren’t.

One journalists, Gordon Tether, the “Lombard” columnist of the Financial Times, wrote on 6 May 1975, “If the Bilderberg Group is not a conspiracy of some sort, it is conducted in such a way as to give a remarkably good imitation of one.” In an article he wrote for the paper on 3 March 1976 he returned to the subject of Bilderberg secrecy. It never appeared, and Tether was dismissed from the “Lombard” column August of that year.

In the last year or two, following stories about the Bilderbergers on the internet, the Group has been just a shade less secretive. In late 1999, for the first time in its existence, the minutes of that year’s meeting were leaked (presumably by someone within the Group), and extracts were published in the Big Issue and the whole document was posted on the Internet.

Participants

One of the participants at Bilderberg meetings who has attempted to conceal his attendances is the former Prime Minister, Edward Heath. Asked if he had attended any he replied vaguely that he may have “about 20 years ago”. In fact, US Congressional records reveal that he had attended meetings in 1963, 1964 and 1967 at least.

Asked in 1998 by the Conservative MP, Christopher Gill which members of the Labour government had attended meetings of the Bilderberg Group, Tony Blair replied in a written answer on 16 March 1998, “none”. In fact, Blair, Gordon Brown, George Robertson, Peter Mandelson and the late John Smith had all attended meetings at some time. Indeed, John Smith was said to have been on the Bilderberg Steering Group from 1989 to 1992. Another well-known figure to have attended a Bilderberg meeting, this time in Canada in 1996, and reported in the Toronto Star, was the General Secretary of the British TUC, John Monks.

Most participants, however, for instance at the 45th meeting held near Atlanta, Georgia, in the US in June 1997, appear to have been directors of large companies, corporations and international banks. They included: Conrad Black, the media tycoon, John Brown, chief executive of BP, Maarten A van der Bergh, managing director of Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Companies, Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands, William J McDonough, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller and Colin Powell. Will Hutton, editor of the Observer was also in attendance.

Rulers of the world?

Are the Bilderbergers the rulers of the world? No, not at least in the way the conspiracy theorists of the far right claim. The Bilderberg Group is not an all-embracing totalitarian organisation, imposing a World Order on all of its citizens. But many of its participants are, or may become, powerful nationally and/or internationally and they represent powerful interests even if some, like Peter Mandelson, may have fallen by the wayside.

The Bilderberg Group emerged, in the view of author Stephen Dorrill:

“In an effort to cement western co-operation in the midst of the Cold War . . . It was seen as an opportunity for shapers of opinion among elite groups in Europe to speak with one voice to their counterparts in the United States, who feared that differences over European integration and eastern Europe would create misunderstandings” (MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations, p508).

The objective was to prevent divergences among the participants of the meetings “by working through consensus rather than any formal procedure”. Yet during the first conference “sparks flew” between the two main groups over the possible threat of “communist infiltration”. Again, during the Suez crisis, in 1956, “sparks flew” between the Europeans and the Americans, when the British and the French almost “came to blows” with the US participants.

Of the Bilderbergers, Mike Peters comments:

“. . . the membership comprises those individuals who would, on most definitions, be regarded as members of the ‘ruling class’ in Western Europe and North America. In particular, the conferences brought together important figures in most of the largest international corporations with leading politicians and prominent intellectuals” (“The Bilderberg Group and the project of European unifications”, Lobster, December 1996).

He adds that virtually all the European institutions we take for granted today were conceived, designed and brought into existence through the agency of people involved in Bilderberg.

Nevertheless, because of the anarchic, competitive and contradictory nature of capitalism in Europe, the United States and worldwide, and the fact that many capitalists and opinion-shapers in such countries as Japan and Russia have not participated in Bilderberg activities, a conflict-free “New World Order”, ruled by the Bilderbergers is practically impossible.

Peter E. Newell