Editorial: Marx and Hardie. (1908)

Editorial from the December 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the Labour Leader, October 23rd, 1908, under the title “Is there to be discord?” Mr. J. Keir Hardie makes a lengthy endeavour to justify the position of the Labour Party in its relation to Socialism. His criticism of the S.D.P. attitude as representing an altogether needless sect is plainly correct, as that body, while holding aloof from the Labour Party nationally, allows its members to work with the Labour Party locally. If the Labour Party is to be considered as an opponent nationally, surely it is equally so locally. To us there appears no reason whatever for thus attempting to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, except either an altogether mistaken notion of Socialist tactics, or an endeavour to play the political game.

But Mr. Hardie, in building his case for the Labour Party, invokes the blessing of Marx, Engels and Liebknecht, and for that purpose quotes two or three sentences from a letter Marx is said to have written in 1871. The rest of the letter is excluded on the plea that it would occupy too much space. Yet one column on the leader page is occupied in announcing and repeating Hardie’s statements, and could easily have been dispensed with to make room for the whole letter ; and if one column was not sufficient, a whole page could have been made available by omitting tlie advertisements of soothing syrup, ointment, pills, boot polish, etc. with which pages are filled. As it is the quotation is by no means satisfactory, and cannot be made to bear the construction Hardie labours to put upon it. As he himself says, “Marx’s great point was the organisation of the working class as a separate political party, apart and distinct from all other political parties.” Despite his assertion, Marx’s great point is emphatically not met by the Labour Party, which is, as we have demonstrated time and time again, a wing of the capitalist Liberal Party, and has its present footing in the “House” only with the consent of that party. Although political prophecy is a dangerous pastime, it is safe to say that the Labour Party will go out on the ebb of the Liberal tide that carried it in.

That portion of the quotation referring to sects which Hardie throws at us is equally inapplicable. “When the working class becomes ripe (for an independent historical movement) all sects are essentially retrograde.” The whole point is, therefore, whether the working class is yet ripe, or in other words, whether the working class is yet Socialist. There; can be no two opinions about it ; indeed, it is not a matter of opinion, but one of fact. The working class has to be converted to Socialism, and when that has been accomplished, the movement necessarily set up precludes the possibility ot sectional differences so far as the course of action is concerned. The present trouble, the exacerbation of which has called forth the pronouncement which forms the subject of this note, arises from the fact that the workers are not Socialist and cannot be driven or led or otherwise persuaded to take a line of action in accordance with the wishes of Hardie & Co. The fact that Hardie & Co’s, line of action is not the Socialist one is not the point for the present. It is not good enough for Hardie to put the thermometer in the furnace and then persuade himself that it registers the temperature outside.

The independent movement of the working class for its emancipation, admittedly necessarily Socialist, must be the work of a Socialist party, and the Labour Party is not the Socialist Party. Hardie has already explained that the I.L.P., as a political factor, has completely sunk its identity in the Labour Party, so that it is wih the latter alone that we have to deal.

The Socialist party has first of all, therefore, to convert the working class—has, in a word, to be a propagandist body. During its work as a proselytising force it is bound to take political action. The question which constitutes the rock of offence is whether that political action shall be merely an item in the general work of propaganda, or whether it will play down to the unconverted to win. The I.L.P., the S.D.P., and every other political party outside the S.P.G.B,, has chosen the latter course, and thereby ceased to be Socialist propagandists—fallen out of the Socialist movement. That they stole the Socialist thunder, used the enthusiasm of the rank and file, and prostituted the name and the cause of Socialism does not matter—they won. But the cost of their election is the hindering of the development of class consciousness and the hampering of the work of the Socialist movement. The greatest set-back, the most powerful opponent Socialism can possibly have, is, as Liebknecht has said, the man who comes into our ranks as a friend and a comrade and betrays us.

Letter: Actions speak louder than words (1995)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

Whilst agreeing with some of your reply to Tom Paine (October Socialist Standard), I also have some rather serious reservations/questions.

I accept that a socialist majority is vital for the establishment of socialism but do you feel that a socialist majority of seats in Parliament will invoke a reaction from the ruling classes along the lines of: “Oh dear, the majority wants socialism and despite the fact that this involves the loss of our power and property we’d better go quietly"? I think not, for to assume the ruling classes will not use any means available (in the case probably violence and oppression on a colossal scale) to protect their class interests is not only extremely naive, but lethal. Whilst despising violence myself, I refuse to delude myself into thinking it will not be part and parcel of a truly revolutionary change: of course it will; in self-defence if nothing else.

Secondly, by playing bourgeois politicians at their own game and standing for election. are you not merely doing what supposedly revolutionary groups have tried in the past and failed? If we accept, as Marx stated, that bourgeois democracy is the means by which the ruling class maintains its position of dominance, then by subscribing to it we merely legitimise it and fatally compromise ourselves to a game which they are far better at playing.

Thirdly, what of the repercussions of a socialist majority in Parliament? Will we not see the seizure and control of the State machinery and, as has happened for time immemorial, the replacement of one set of leaders by another with all the coercive power of the state at their disposal? (this happens whether you claim to be a vanguard or not: I’ve spoken to SWP members who claim their party doesn’t intend to "lead” the revolution!)

Fourthly, if we also accept that the political superstructure is not really where power lies anyway, why would a socialist majority in Parliament actually facilitate in any way the coming of socialism (apart from “representing" people who should really be acting for themselves)? Do you really feel an Act of Parliament could inaugurate our socialist society?

Your reply to Tom Paine also demonstrates considerable ignorance of what is deemed the “Green Movement". To characterise green activists en masse as people who want to reopen footpaths is one of many ridiculous distortions which demonstrate this clearly. Admittedly some Green activists are naive and unclear about why environmental destruction takes place but these people should not be dismissed out of hand for this; surely they can be “educated"? Many others do perceive underlying factors and see their struggle against one manifestation of these factors as demonstrating opposition to the system in its entirety. The Direct Action movement in Britain now is not a "palliative” but a movement which scares the Establishment to its very core— and rightly so. This is your "DIY revolution": people organising themselves at grass roots level to take back control of their lives and this is the means by which socialism (and I fully agree with your definition of it) will come about: not by elite majorities in bourgeois Parliaments.

What the vast majority of those involved in Direct Action (be it anti-Roads campaigns or whatever) and progressive forms of non-exploitative production do is give an example of how people can organise together to achieve their aims in contrast to the divisive and destructive nature of capitalism. This is surely a phenomenally more potent force for convincing people of the validity and practicality, as well as vital necessity of socialism than theorising and the odd leafleting session. (The SPGB has been around since 1904; I only heard about its existence last week!)

Actions really do speak louder than words and I am disappointed that the SPGB seems to adopt a highly blinkered and reactionary (not to mention sickeningly arrogant) view of what many deem highly important developments. Interaction and exchange of ideas between socialist and Environmental groups can only serve the positive end of educating and informing both sides. Sectarianism, as has been aptly demonstrated by you, is ignorance. It is also weakness.

R. Sydney, 

Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Reply:

Your two criticisms of us contradict each other. First, you say that the capitalist class are so powerful that they would be able to unleash violence on a colossal scale against a clear majority decision to establish socialism. On the other hand, you say that they will give in to pressure from weak grassroots groups who are not united in organisation and have not shown that they represent the majority view. Which is it, then, are they all-powerful or are they amenable to pressure from below?

Under modern industrial conditions, where the actual work involved in running both production and administration (and, for that matter, the armed forces) is entirely performed by people paid a wage or salary to do so, the ruling class is dependent for the continuation of its rule on the acceptance of this rule by the useful majority in society.

They don't rule by brute force but with the consent (unfortunately) of the majority. What maintains capitalism in existence is not the power of the armed forces at the disposal of the capitalist state, but the ideas—the pro-capitalist ideas about needing rulers, governments. countries, armies, money, wages, profits, and so on—held by the majority of the population.

This is why we say that those who want socialism should concentrate on the battle of ideas, on combating capitalist ideologies and spreading socialist ideas. In our view, this is a much more effective way of undermining capitalism than your suggestion of supporting single-issue piecemeal struggles. It hurts capitalism where it matters—in the ideas that sustain it—while what you propose isn't even effective on its own terms. When have any direct action protests ever stopped a road under construction from being built?

Once we, the useful majority, withdraw our consent to capitalist rule it cannot continue, and the question then arises: what is the best way for the socialist majority to proceed so as to ensure that the by then inevitable change-over from capitalism to socialism takes place as peaceably as possible? It is in this context that our advocacy of contesting elections and sending mandated socialist delegates into Parliament and other bodies should be seen. Incidentally, we are not absolute pacifists. If a pro-capitalist minority were to take up arms to try to resist the majority's wish to establish socialism, the majority would be fully entitled to use force against them, if necessary as a last resort

Marx (since you mention him) also supported sending socialist delegates to Parliament urging workers to convert universal suffrage "from the instrument of fraud that it has been up till now into an instrument of emancipation". So, he for one saw no contradiction between analysing the democratic state as the ideal political form for capitalist class rule and urging the working class to organise to win control of it. Nor did he share your view that this would merely lead to a change of rulers rather than to a classless society.

In our view, he was right and you are wrong. It is true that all examples up to now of supposedly revolutionary groups winning control of power (whether by armed insurrection or through the ballot box) have resulted in the imposition of new sets of leaders. This is for the obvious reason that there was no majority desire to establish socialism on the part of the workers. There was no conscious effort on their part to change society—only to ameliorate the immediate problems of the day. and trusting in leaders to do it for them.

We agree with you: socialism won’t come through the action of "elite majorities in bourgeois parliaments”; it will only come through the mass democratic action of a socialist-minded majority amongst the population generally, of which the socialist majority in Parliament will be a mere reflection. But you haven't answered the question of what you think this majority, once it has come into existence, should then do.

We say it should do the obvious: use the electoral system which is the historically-evolved (partly due to pressure on the ruling class from below, incidentally) and socially-accepted means for registering what actually is the majority view and for giving that majority the political authority to put their view into practice.

Ignoring parliament would be an option, but not one that would minimise the risks of violence. But why take this risky and more roundabout about way when a more direct and less risky one exists? You tell us.

Editors.

Socialism and the Labour Movement. (1924)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Critic Answered.

15, Grenville Street,

Dublin.

Dear Comrade,

As a member of the working class, I am very interested in your party and the Socialist Standard. Some months ago a member of your party was in this town and he left a few of us thinking. For myself I must say that the Socialist Party of Great Britain has very little chance of ever making the working-class Socialists. First, because they do not definitely take their place among the workers and engage in the struggle between the workers and the capitalist class which is unceasing, rather do they preach that nothing except the political battle matter, forgetting that without the economic and the defence forces of the working class movement parliaments, or political institutions are valueless as the capitalist could afford to laugh at the attempts of a band of politicians trying to control the implements that are in his hands. The only hope that Socialism may be achieved is in a combination of all the industrial workers organised as a class together with the defence forces that it will have to fashion in its own defence, and lastly the use, if necessary, as a supplement political action. Propaganda for political action will be helped as the struggle of the class conscious and organised workers goes on.

My chief idea in writing was to urge that sectarianism inside the working class should cease and that small bodies like the S.P.G.B. ought to get into the Labour movement and put their influence on the side of unity, otherwise there will be doubts as to their sincerity. In this town the S.P.G.B. has one individual as a member, and there are intelligent young men calling themselves Communists. He and they are a group who unite in their refusal to assist the mass of the workers who are out for the Workers’ Republic. Why do such people, Communists and Socialists, anger the working class by their hair-splitting differences? Why is it that capitalists whom we are trying to down manage to keep united while we are divided, yet we are all out for working class control of the means and instruments of production and distribution? Therefore I would urge that inside the working class is your place.

Yours fraternally,

P. Cunningham.

Reply to P. Cunningham.

Your letter has been passed on to me for reply, but I find reply difficult because your letter contains only baseless assertions and muddled ideas.

In the first place, capitalist conditions make socialists; we only assist the educational work of conditions.

You say that we do not take our place among the workers in the struggle. I don’t know where you get your information from, but you are evidently badly misinformed. The members of the S.P.G.B. are working men and working women. They work in factories, mills and workshops, and take part with their fellow workers in the daily and weekly struggle for the best conditions of labour that can be obtained. But while doing so they point out the limits of this struggle and the impossibility of overthrowing capitalism by industrial methods. They therefore agitate among their fellows for political action. In the S.P.G.B. they are organised for the political struggle; class-conscious revolutionary action for the establishment of Socialism.

What do you mean by “the economic and the defence forces of the working-class movement”? There is only one force that is worthy of a moment’s consideration—the force that operates as powder and shot, bombs, poison gas, and so forth; the force that is bottled up in aeroplanes, battleships, and tanks; the murderous force that can blow thousands of us to bits and spread ruin and desolation over large territories in the wink of an eye. Have the experiences of war, of strikes, and of battering of native populations taught you nothing? And this mighty death-dealing machine is operated from parliament—in Britain, from the House of Commons. They can crush any working-class uprising almost before the workers have begun to move, as many a man, eating his heart out in prison, has learnt to his sorrow.

Now what can the workers bring to combat this political machine? Nothing but empty stomachs and brickbats. Their wages are not sufficient to enable them to purchase anything beyond a few rifles, and any attempt to manufacture munitions (which could only be done on such a small scale as to be valueless) or to tamper with the soldiers or sailors would, and has been, rapidly met with a term of imprisonment. Up against the political machinery the workers are helpless, and yet, the irony of it, they can obtain control of this machinery as soon as they wish.

On the industrial field the workers are faced with the misery and demoralisation produced by repeated failures. On the political field they are faced with complete success as soon as they are clear about the objective and the way to obtain it. It is easier to organise workers effectively for sound political action than it is to organise them for industrial action alone, because in the one direction complete success is within their grasp, whilst in the other ultimate defeat is certain. The two positions can easily be demonstrated by illustrations that will satisfy the average worker, who is not either a blind worshipper of idols or empty phrases, or whose head is not filled with the fatal delusions of the communist.

To take another of your points. The implements of production are in the possession of the capitalist because he can resist by force any attempt made by the workers to take them. That is why the capitalist laughs. But when the workers, through delegates they control, take possession of the force the laugh will disappear, as it disappeared from the faces of the people composing each class that in the past lost political power and with it economic ownership. Space is too limited for me to give illustrations of this fact here, but you have only to ask and you will receive plenty of illustrations in a future number of this paper.

You ask us to unite with others in “the Labour movement.” But for what are we to unite? Mere unity is meaningless by itself. Are we to unite with the Labour Party to help the capitalists to obtain more profits and the workers to become more docile slaves? Are we to unite with people like J. R. Clynes? He is president of the League of the British Commonwealth that has issued a leaflet stating :

   “The ‘League of the British Commonwealth’ demands, therefore, the nationalisation of our principal banks as the only permanent remedy for unemployment ; but this does not imply or involve the nationalisation of land, industry, or anything else.”

Masses of workers are Liberals, masses are Conservatives; do you want us to unite with either or both of these? You see, unity depends upon the objective and the means to obtain the objective. But I am forgetting, you consider political action to be useless, therefore I presume you are not in favour of uniting with bodies that urge the workers to action you consider useless?

If this is so, take care you are not throwing a boomerang. Take care some members of the Labour Party may not be accusing you of “splitting the ranks.”

From your letter it would appear that the fraction you favour is that rapidly diminishing quantity going under the name of Communist. But it is difficult to find out on what policy one could unite with the Communists, except on the policy of finding out that one is constantly making mistakes and must start again with a new shibboleth—rather a barren outlook you must admit.

You say the mass of the workers are out for the Workers’ Republic. Wake up, friend, your blissful dreams are far, far away from the truth. The mass of the workers are, alas, supporters of capitalism, and your foolish statement suggests to me that you mix very little with your fellow workers. Come down from your attic ot dreams and learn the realities of life before tendering advice to those who are engaged in the struggle for Socialism.

You wind up with the absurd statement that “we are all out for working-class control of the means and instruments of production and distribution.” If this is so, why all the fuss and propaganda? And why, above all, isn’t Socialism here now? Anyhow who are the “we” to whom you refer?

Finally people may be “out for” many things but the point is are they acting in a way that will obtain for them the object of their desires? I might be “out” to visit France but if I started from the North of England to swim there via Greenland there would not be much likelihood of my arrival. The means cannot be separated from the end. There are many people who claim to be “out for” Socialism, but their actions give the lie to the claim and push farther into the future the wished-for objective. The Labour Party, for instance, who urged the workers to take part in the late war, and who engage the attention of workers upon a multitude of questions that are of no value. Then there are also the Communists, who change their minds every few weeks; continually find out that they have been making mistakes; ask the workers to trust them completely, and then work might and main to drive the workers into the shambles.

We are of the working class, inside the working class, and working our hardest to assist our fellow workers to understand that in Socialism lies their only salvation; and that the only way to obtain Socialism, once understanding and desiring it, is to capture the political machinery from the capitalist so that we can dispossess them of the power they wield and the wealth they have stolen.

Gilmac.

Exposed — Northern Ireland protectors (1987)

From the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Life in Northern Ireland has changed considerably over the past year. There has been an uncomfortable return to the fear, mistrust and general apprehension remembered from the early seventies, when the troubles were at their height. The cause of this retrogressive step is that a small group of people, from both sides of the community, have successfully resurrected old hatreds, re-inculcated old fears and brought again to the fore the myths and misconceptions which falsely divide the workers of this province. That small group of people are the politicians of Northern Ireland.

In such an insane political environment it is difficult for these politicians to sustain the promise to represent the electorate, as the poverty and general deprivation of our existence exposes that nonsense. Their only other promise is to protect the electorate, protect them from some other group or ideology which threatens their lives, their culture. or their nationality. Just as Thatcher protects Britain from socialism and Kinnock promises to protect it from Thatcherism, so too in Northern Ireland we have our own band of "protectors". Paisley protects us against Republicanism and Catholicism as Adams protects us against Imperialism and Unionism. When the images we were protected against started to become less obvious and more obscured by our normal lives, then these politicians, in order to protect their own positions, had to focus the picture anew.

Relative Normality
To understand this, something must be said of what had been happening in Northern Ireland over the past few years. Socially, things had been returning to relative normality. Belfast has experienced, particularly over the past three years, something of a social renaissance as the city centre began to open up again. For the previous ten years that centre had. after six o’clock in the evening, all the hallmarks of a ghost town, with empty streets, dimly lit as a security precaution, and the traditional social attractions such as pubs and cinemas being conspicuously absent of people. This was the result of a decade of terror. the terror of the IRA bombs, of Loyalist murder squads, of trigger-happy British soldiers and of an abusive and vicious police force.

In this environment it didn't matter what side you were on, or even if you had no side at all, the safest place to be was with your "own sort", in your "own district". Why take the chance of going to a city centre bar when you could stay protected in your own area? This was the ghetto mentality that led to the establishment of ghettoes and Belfast is a city of ghettoes. where people will pay higher prices for poorer housing, just to stay with their own sort hoping for safety in numbers.

A number of factors started to indicate a change in this. Most importantly, things had actually quietened down a good deal. From ’82 to the end of '85. the incidents of violence in this war were becoming less frequent and less obvious. It seemed as though the day of the street riot had finished, with young people preferring an evening at the disco to a cold night out throwing stones. There was also a reduction in so-called terrorist violence with fewer bombings and fewer assassinations. Even the state violence, as dished out by the army and police, was less frequent, not only because there were less troops on the ground but, more importantly, because the government was attempting to establish a feeling of everyday normality to the province; this war was proving bad for business.

There was however another factor in the equation which, although not designed, was just as significant. The war in Northern Ireland has been going on in its present phase since 1969. Inevitably, over such a long period a whole generation has emerged, aged from sixteen to twenty-five, whose only experience is that of a violent political crisis. Not having the comparison of more peaceful times, their fear is not as stark; this is their normality and they don’t share the apprehensions of their parents; in a word they don't really give a damn. They are prepared to go into the town centre, prepared to go to the dances, to the clubs and to the restaurants.

Seeing this new market, the business community responded and in a relatively short period the city centre of Belfast began to come alive, as people started to leave their own districts to seek entertainment elsewhere. There is a similar pattern in many other towns throughout the province. This was not the answer to the problems of Northern Ireland, but at least it was a more palatable existence than that which we had come to accept.

Anglo-Irish Agreement
In November 1985 we witnessed, to much media attention, the signing of a document called the Anglo-Irish Agreement which heralded a new phase in the history of this war and again provided a stage for the voices of fear and intimidation from those representatives of sectarian politics. When Thatcher and Fitzgerald put their signatures to this document they seemed unaware of the response it would get and the violence that would be caused. They knew they were putting their names to an innocuous little document of meaningless solutions which would actually make no difference to the political basis of the war and would certainly have no basis of change for the lives of those on either side of the border. The Agreement was nothing less than a publicity stunt to show that two governments sit down together and talk. It was to gain public acceptance for a dialogue which had already been established for many years. Although naive, the civil servants who drafted the paper and the politicians who signed it, had no idea that their ineffectual little document would provoke such a back-lash.

Typically, the Agreement was rejected by the two extremes: the Unionists branded it "Dublin Rule by the Back Door" and the Nationalists dismissed it as a sell-out by the Southern government who had, for the first time, recognised the right of British control over Ulster. A peculiar unity of action was established from seemingly different quarters. a unity of opposition to the Accord and a commitment to ensure that it would prove ineffective. If this agreement was meant to bring greater peace to the province, then the best answer was to ensure that there would be greater unrest and greater violence. That was the conclusion drawn by both extremes and that was the menu they served.

The past year has shown the effects of that policy; we have suffered a staple diet of intimidation, terror, hatred and death. The IRA and INLA have answered the call of nationalism by blowing up buildings in public places and murdering workers who were foolish enough to join the police or army. The Loyalist thugs under the title of Ulster Freedom Fighters have targetted individual Catholics, particularly those living in Protestant districts, as victims of their murder squads.

Hypocrisy and Lunacy
The Unionist politicians have excelled in displays of indignation. No news story is now complete without a comment on the foolishness of these fascists. Adjourning council meetings, refusing to pay their rates, disrupting Thatcher's speech to the European Parliament — the list seems endless. Even poor old Peter Robinson (or Adolf as he is affectionately known) had to face trial in Dublin for the minor misdemeanour of leading a gang of baton-wielding, gun-toting democrats on an invasion of a sleepy Southern town.

The hypocrisy and lunacy displayed by both sides would be riotously funny were it not for its cost in human suffering and loss of life. The politicians attempted again to establish themselves as the protectors, standing guard over the ignorance and division which they hold sacred. If we didn't have division we wouldn't need these leaders to lead the divided factions. Unfortunately for the politicians. their attempts at confusion didn't quite pay off as they may have expected. Granted, they got a large degree of support, but even that is starting to break up with people questioning these leaders and starting to see through their thinly disguised motives.

The important observation however, is that a large percentage of people didn't get sucked into the whole hype at all. Those people, mostly young, who had successfully broken from the tribal politics of their parents, who had mixed in the new social climate with those of opposite religion and. because of these experiences, realised that their "protectors'' had been conning them. The swelling ranks of the disillusioned are seeking other answers to those offered by generations past. Their social adventure has allowed them to consider adventurous political answers — if nothing else they are now asking the correct questions. To them the answers are not found in the Paramilitaries, Unionist or Nationalist Parties, all of whom are finding it difficult to recruit.

This is proving to be a crucial factor for Northern Irish politics. Not only does it mean that the traditional political and religious divides have become exposed, it also means that growing numbers are considering rational political alternatives. For that reason the World Socialist Party in Ireland is experiencing an unparalleled level of interest and even finding it difficult to meet the demand for our paper, The Socialist View.

Brian Montague,

Belfast.

Letter: Sectarianism (1960)

Letter to the Editors from the January 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

While I appreciate your aims and your consistency in the struggle for Socialism, I must tell you that your party makes one fatal mistake. Since your formation when you broke away from the Communist wing just before the formation of the Communist Party you have failed to distinguish between a reformist Workers’ Party and a bourgeois party. Albeit that the leaders of the British Labour Party have as much in common with Socialism as chalk has with cheese, the Labour Party is the mass party of the workers. Every true Socialist who is working for Socialism in Britain should be an active member of the British Labour Party and fighting from within to turn that party to the way of Socialism. A Socialist organisation must be an integral part of the workers' movement. I accuse the

S.P.G.B. with the deadly sin of sectarianism.

R. Lennark.

London, N.16.

Reply

First let us correct our correspondent’s statement regarding the origin of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Our Party was formed in 1904 by a group of Socialists who had left the Social Democratic Federation after its acceptance of a policy of reformism. The British Communist Party was founded in 1920 and at no time has the S.P.G.B. been connected with it.

Our predecessors saw the complete futility of the position our correspondent propounds. Further, our record shows quite clearly the distinction we make between the bourgeois and workers' reformist parties. At the same time we point out that attempts by the working class to realise their true interests through such parties must fail.

Such organisations, in being wholly concerned with and committed to capitalism. inevitably must abandon or reject any Socialist aims and principles. Being a reformist party it must accept the values of Capitalism. The Labour Party in fact sees no alternative to the State, private property, or the profit motive in society. In office it must seek to further the interests of British Capitalism, regardless of whether such action is detrimental to workers in this and other lands.

The ludicrous position of a Socialist inside such an organisation can only result in his loss of identity as a Socialist and his being carried further away from his objective. If a majority of non-Socialist workers choose to support the Labour Party, or any other party, it is no justification for Socialists to do the same.

It must be obvious that there is only one party for the true Socialist and it is this party alone that is worthy of his support. For, as far as we are concerned with ’’deadly sins,” we consider deadliest of all that which betrays the cause of Socialism by supporting non Socialist organisations, and by doing so, supports Capitalism.

Editorial Committee.

50 Years Ago: "Communists" & the Labour Party (1974)

The 50 Years Ago column from April 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

The alleged “Communist” believes in his ability to capture the Labour Party and “lead” it. So he alternately condemns that Party’s present “leaders” and supports them at election times.

He endeavours to justify this attitude by referring to a phrase in the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels, to wit — “The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working-class parties”. In this he shows his lack of logic and historical knowledge.

In the first place the present-day “Communists” do form a separate party and the alleged “Labour” Party has opposed their admission into its ranks. Secondly the phrase quoted above is, in its practical application, “antiquated because”, in Engels' own words, “the political situation has been entirely changed and the progress of history has swept from off the earth” the working class parties referred to. (See Engels’ Preface 1888).

What was the political situation at the time Marx and Engels penned their historic document ? Briefly, the open political arena was confined to the representatives of the various sections of the master-class. The workers were not enfranchised and were reduced to a fight for political elbow room. Under such conditions it was practically impossible for the Communists to form an independent political party.

They stood for the conquest of political power by the workers as the means of achieving the social revolution, but the technical means of this conquest, i.e. the franchise, had yet to be acquired. Hence the Communists supported, in England, the Chartists and similar bodies on the Continent. This in itself is a significant fact which the workers would do well to bear in mind when latter-day “Communists” pretend to ridicule the franchise as a political weapon, what time they are not urging the workers to use it to put in office the traitors of the Labour Party.

Since that day the modern socialist tactics have been both a possibility and a necessity. Nothing now prevents a revolutionary party openly proclaiming its objective and calling upon the workers to organise for its establishment. While, on the other hand, every political party seeks the support of the workers only one party can represent their interests. That party is the Socialist Party.

[From an article “Socialist Tactics” by Eric Boden, in the Socialist Standard, April 1924.]

Letters: Sectarian Semantics (1979)

Letters to the Editors from the January 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sectarian Semantics

You defend your party’s policy of allowing only, as you term it, “conscious socialists” into membership. Really, this is not unlike the practices of the religious sect, the Exclusive Brethren. They only allow their members to partake of the rites peculiar to that body.

Your pamphlet, “The Communist Manifesto and the Last Hundred Years” is, one assumes, a faithful exposition of your party’s policy. Anyway, it is complete with the secular nihil obstat of your Head Office address.

Tenet No. 8 says:

The SPGB, therefore, enters the field of political action, determined to wage war against all other political parties.

How differently did Marx and Engels view the way Communists should behave towards their own class members.

In Section II of “The Communist Manifesto” they wrote:

The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working-class parties.
    They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.
  They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.

The thoughtful reader, thus, is forced to question the standpoint of tiny, impotent organisations like the SPGB. SWP, IMG, and similar small bodies calling themselves Communist/Socialist. It seems evident that they are mere sectarian organisations and, therefore, anti-Marxist.

If we are to accept what Marx and Engels said in the above passage, we should be a member of the main working-class party of this country, the British Labour Party. Any refusal to do so means sectarians have interests separate and apart from the proletariat as a whole. What is that? Big fish in small streams?

H. C. Mullin 

Glasgow

Reply:
A Socialist party must admit only conscious Socialists to membership for the simple reason that to do otherwise would attract people of all sorts of political opinions; people interested in anything but Socialism. To do this would destroy our character as a Socialist party. And we don’t have any rites—our sole reason for membership is to propagate the idea of Socialism.

Clause 8 of our Declaration of Principles is, in fact, in line with the passages quoted from the Communist Manifesto (although if it were not, this would not make it wrong; we don’t accept everything which Marx and Engels wrote, which would be pure dogmatism.)

There are no other working class parties in this country if by that term we mean parties which stand for the interests of the working class. A working class party must have as its object the only political object in the workers’ interest — the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by Socialism.

To describe the Labour Party as a “working class party” is to ignore their long record of opposition to working class interests—wage restraint and inflated currency (which, in effect, means a fall in real wages), racist immigration laws, production of nuclear weapons, fighting British capitalism’s wars in Korea, Malaya and the like. The list of Labour’s attacks on the working class is very long.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain and its companion parties abroad stand in direct contrast to this miserable record. We have always kept our object clear. This is not sectarian—it is consistent and principled.

Guilty By Association

The profound truths of the Socialist Standard are legion, whilst the humour, quite rightly, is rare. It was however with some amusement that I learn from “Question and answer” page 227 Dec '78 that the Railway Clerks Association (RCA) later became the Russian news agency TASS, instead of the Transport Salaried Staffs association, (TSSA) or Tessa.

No wonder Railway men have been called a bunch of Commies.

Yours fraternally

R. A. Hale 

London E.10

AB of Leeds
We are still happy to publish readers’ letters, with our reply—see this issue. Recently, for some reason, fewer people have been writing to us. We don’t publish anonymous letters, though —nor, of course, can we reply to them. If you will let us know your name and address we will reply to your points.

Editorial Committee

Against the Left (Part 4) (1978)

From the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

SECTARIANISM AND PRINCIPLES

That as all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class, the party seeking working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party (Socialist Party of Great Britain Declaration of Principles, Clause 7)

The first articles in this series charted the history of the main currents of the British Left: the Labour Party, the Communist Party and the Trotskyists. We have tried to show how each of these movements has failed to represent the true interest of the working class; that however well intentioned a particular group of leaders may have been, their policies led to the continued exploitation of the working class. The only party in Britain with a principled commitment to socialism is the Socialist Party of Great Britain. To understand why this is so we need to examine its origin.

The founders of the Socialist Party in June 1904 were former members of the Social Democratic Federation. They had learnt their Marxism from the SDF which at least paid lip service to the ideas developed by Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels. The SDF programme aimed at

The Establishment of a free condition of society, with equal social rights for all, and the complete emancipation of labour.

Its revolutionary object was subordinated, however, to a programme of palliatives (a minimum programme) to be enacted while the long-term aim was realised. This dual programme was the reason for the SDFs failure as a workers' party. Advocacy of social revolution and demands for social reform cannot go hand in hand. Once you begin to sacrifice immediate abolition of capitalism for immediate amelioration of its evils and socialism is rejected. A 'reformist revolutionary' party is like a team of workers sent to demolish a building who set about their work by painting over the cracks in the wall and mending the holes in the ceiling. The women and men who left the SDF to form the SPGB were the first to learn this lesson; in doing so they even rejected Marx's lifelong belief that socialists should give their support to certain legislative reforms.

These women and men began to make their voices heard within the SDF but were dismissed as Impossibilists and a number were expelled. Early in 1904 they formed a Protest Committee and held a conference at Shoreditch Town Hall to fully discuss their disagreements with the SDF. They issued a leaflet on their disagreements which was signed by eighty eight members and ex-members of the SDF. In May a meeting in Battersea resolved to form a new party committed solely to socialism. On Sunday 12 June, at the Printers' Hall in Bartlett's Passage, off Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, the inaugural meeting of the new party was held, at which was adopted the Declaration of Principles still adhered to today. A leaflet issued in 1905 (reproduced in the June 1974 Socialist Standard) gives a clear indication of the position taken by the new party:

NO COMPROMISE! NO VOTE SNATCHING! NO POLITICAL TRADING! Not so-called reforms. Not alleged half-loaves. These are of no serious account from a working class standpoint. The parties that are endeavouring to secure support for "reforms" and "half loaves" are deluding the working class, wasting its strength, delaying its development. They are all working class enemies, however they call themselves — Liberal party, Social Democratic Party, Tory Party, Independent Labour Party, Labour Church or what not.

SOCIALISM and socialism alone, offers a way of escape from the insecurity and penury and misery that result from the robbery of the working class. Nothing else will avail.

For three quarters of a century that has been the position of the SPGB. The Left have advocated reforms, they have advised workers to accept 'compromise' with their class enemies and to vote for Labour.

The Left have bitterly opposed the consistent principles of the SPGB. We have been called 'Utopians' for envisaging a future based upon an entirely new set of social relationships; we have been called 'armchair philosophers' for advising workers to think and not merely to follow; and we have been called 'sectarians' for refusing to join in the various reformist campaigns of the Left. Let us examine this term, sectarianism.

Shortly before the formation of the SPGB Lenin was writing his What Is To Be Done? in which he stated that only through professional leadership by the educated intelligentsia could the working class develop the consciousness required for socialism. Thus, Lenin saw the revolutionary party as a vanguard, possessing the knowledge which would emancipate the politically ignorant proletariat. This concept of the party was inherited from the nineteenth century Russian Narodniks whom Plekhanov and Engels, as Marxists, had opposed. The Leninist concept of the revolutionary vanguard has been a common characteristic of Left wing parties.

The SPGBs view of the party is radically different. Our role is not to lead, but to be used as an instrument to establish socialism by a politically conscious working class. It must be democratic, without leaders; it must consist of conscious socialists, not sheeplike followers; it must be principled, not opportunist. However, the function of the Socialist Party is not that of a sect. Party members must not stand outside the affairs of society like an enlightened elite but must put the socialist case to fellow workers in every possible situation. A trade unionist who explains the exploitation inherent in the wages system, a member of a tenants association who argues that local councils are powerless to solve the shortage and inadequacy of housing within the profit system, the member of a debating society who puts forward the case for revolution, these are the true revolutionaries, not the "men of action" who are always running and never leaving the same spot.

The SPGB is not a sect, but a revolutionary party which adheres rigidly to principles. This, the Left mistake for sectarianism. How many times in our history have we been asked to join this or that campaign for one or another urgent reform. 'United we stand, divided we fall', we are told. 'Let's forget our differences. We all want the same end. If we all join together think how effective we could be'.

To those who don't understand the nature of capitalism there are no end of urgent problems demanding immediate solutions. Let us consider one which is currently fashionable: The Right To Work Campaign which has mainly been organised by the super-opportunist Socialist Workers' Party. Capitalism is in a crisis. There are 1 1/2 million unemployed workers. Life for the unemployed is tough. So ... demand the right to work, to be exploited by a capitalist. To the non-Marxist the logic and the urgency of this demand are beyond challenge. "How can the SPGB be so pessimistic as to tell us that capitalism only employs workers when it's profitable. At least we're trying to do something about the unemployed" cry our indignant opponents. What they fail to recognise is that we are doing something about unemployment — the only thing which Socialists can do; advocating the abolition of wage labour. "But", retorts our employment-lover, "that will take far too long to achieve. In the meantime . . ." But, we remind our opponents on the Left, reform legislation has not eradicated one single working class problem in the last seventy years. Instead of fighting for what is impossible, why not join us and make the achievement of Socialism an immediate practicality? "You're just sectarians", reply the Left, "More interested in your party than in the unemployed". And then we're back to square one. Can it be that the Left have turned language upside down so that those who support sections of the working class in futile reformist campaigns often setting worker against worker, are revolutionaries, while those who stand for the unity of ail workers are sectarians? Marx, in The Communist Manifesto distinguishes Communists (or Socialists) from other parties supported by the working class in that

1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.

2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the

interests of the movement as a whole.

If we will not join specific reform campaigns, why, we are asked, will we not bury our differences with the 'other' Left parties and form a single mass organisation. The question is based on a misunderstanding, as the SPGB is not Left wing. Why should we, a Socialist party with a clear object of destroying capitalism, unite with those who want to make the system work effectively? We might just as well be asked to unite with the Tories and the National Front. When the policies of our opponents are scrutinised it can be seen that Left and Right are united in a fundamental acceptance of the wages system, profits, class property and government.

We reject any offers from the Left to join with us on any issue. Certainly, we are in favour of continuous political debate between all political parties and groups but there can be no question of a united platform. Only those workers who share our understand¬ing of Socialism, including the democratic method of its establishment, will be admitted to membership of this party.

Capitalism is not a system of society which depends upon human beings acting in accordance with honest principles. On the contrary, politics under capitalism is associated with elitism, deception and criminality. Political principles are to be nominally subscribed to and then tossed aside in the name of pragmatism. Only the movement for Socialism depends absolutely upon a rigid acceptance of political principles. Examine the record of the parties of the Left and then consider that of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. It will then be clear why the SPGB maintains its hostility to all other parties. 

Steve Coleman