Greatness and Crime (1941)

From the February 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

A significant passage in Mr. Churchill’s Italian message has been uniformly ignored. Denouncing Mussolini as a “criminal,” he nevertheless conceded that he “is a great man.” A more illuminating exhibition of the outlook of public men could hardly have been recorded in so few words.

Look through Carlyle’s gallery of “heroes”—Mahomet, Frederick “the Great,” and, in a minor order of “greatness,” Governor Eyre, of Jamaica: “Women were stripped and scourged with all the delight which a savage village population might have felt in torturing witches. . . .” (“History of Our Own Times,” by Justin McCarthy. Vol. 3, p. 273.)

Holland Rose, preceptor of ‘Varsity youth and Newnham beauty, wrote a “Life of Napoleon.” On page 204 (single volume edition) we read : “Considered from the military point of view, the massacre at Jaffa is perhaps defensible.” Murderer (of D’Enghien), petty cheat, repulsive amorist, all are duly recorded by Holland Rose; but the “true man” (read “great man” in light of general tone of the Life) is revealed when his hero points to the stars, and stuns his doubting servants with the priceless irrelevance (“Who Made All That?” (p. 186).

One of the most amazingly brazen associations of greatness and crime is made by Mary Bell (“A Short History of the Papacy”). The reference is to the Borgian Pope, Alexander VI, who probably vies with an earlier John XXII, in the commission of gaudy and unnameable crimes. “If we exonerate him from the deepest guilt, he must also forfeit the admiration which we cannot withhold from daring criminality” (p. 297). Mary’s hero falls a wee bit short, however. “His Vatican orgies lacked the inspired touch of splendid sin.”

From Mary to George Lansbury. “I think history will record Herr Hitler as one of the great men of our time” (“My Quest for Peace”), quoted by Daily Herald, April 26th, 1938. But then Lansbury was among the “Labour” crowd who stated that they derived their caricature of “Socialism” from the Bible.

One of the more open and visible signs of the capitalist system is gangsterdom, and its “great men” within the prescribed limits of criminality the system legalises cannot escape the fundamental Al Capone mark. A system based upon varying degrees of exploitation of men, women, and children breeds its own system of values. True, there have always been poets and dreamers, Isaiahs and Shelleys, who have genuinely, passionately urged an ethic transcending the system, beating ineffectual angelic wings in an unresponsive void.

Socialism alone can create an entirely new outlook. Complete social freedom alone can create an unaffacted, indissoluble brotherhood. Shelley’s noble aspiration, expressed in “I wish no living thing to suffer pain,” will be implemented, as far as the cessation of “Man’s inhumanity to man” is concerned.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, despised and neglected to-day, knows that its message is even now helping to speed the day. It has no use for great men, it has no “leaders,” its simple philosophy, based upon the impregnable facts of history and its economic causation, looks to the day when genial kindliness will govern social relations.

Peter Gog.

A Burning Question (1939)

From the April 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is pretty generally admitted that the relatively considerable personal liberty, particularly in freedom of expression in the political field, prevalent in this country, should be strenuously conserved. Political careerists of all colours “ Right " or “ Left " notwithstanding, who would be prepared to compromise to a point not easily distinguishable from Hitlerism or Stalinism, the rank and file are sound on this momentous issue.

Where does the Socialist Party of Great Britain stand on this issue? Alone among political parties, it faces the position fairly and squarely; it has an answer to the questions: “What would your party do in case of overwhelming evidence that any ‘democracy' attaching to the present constitution would go by the board in case of a smashing ‘Fascist' victory? Would it not be the duty of your party to definitely assist in averting such a catastrophe?"—the implication being a greater or less adhesion to a “Popular" Front.

The answer is implicit in the policy which the party has consistently adopted towards war generally, and exemplified specifically by word and deed during the Great War.

Applied to the specific question under consideration (for argument's sake alone, admit possibility of an overwhelming “Fascist  victory), the answer may be stated in fairly precise terms:

(a) The contingent and certain consequences of war to the working-class (war horrors of all kinds, including shooting of frightened boys acquiesced in by “Labour" ministers), and immediate deprivation of civil liberties (D.O.R.A. a lustier and thrice-brazen wench than in 1914), these considerations alone would weigh against the party receding one inch from its clearly expressed principle that no conceivable group of non-Socialists fighting one another are worthy of support of any kind from the Socialists.

It may be noted, incidentally, that history (ancient and modern) is pretty emphatic in its verdict that a dominant conquering power will always find willing tools to impose its regime among the conquered governing clique; history can afford more ironical instances than a fire-eating Labour “leader" doing the dirty work of a Hitler or Stalin—native “Hospodars" of the old Balkan States were frequently more oppressive than the Turk (see Encyclopaedia Britannica, 13th edition).

War is but one of the curses arising from the capitalist system; peace is ardently desired by the Socialist Party of Great Britain; the Party, while deprecating a “Pacifism" based ultimately upon disputed utterances of a problematical “youth with patient looks nailed to a crucifix," appreciates the kindly sentiment and decent outlook of the young men and women of the “Peace Pledge Union," for instance; it welcomes the recent I.L.P. approach to the same question, but “joining hands" on that particular issue, the Party would find itself out of step on fundamental issues.

One way only to conserve the “Democracy" of to-day and to attain Socialist Democracy eventually. Irritating, perhaps, to ardent but misguided souls who think the capitalist Jericho can fall by shouting, who pin their faith to “slogans" and fussy demonstrations. The immediate task is: make Socialists, and that is the work of the S.P.G.B.

Peter Gog.