From the October 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard
Copies of the above four-part song S., A, T,. B. — complete with pianoforte accompaniment and Tonic-Solfa setting may be obtained, price 3d., or post free 3½d., through the branches or from the Head Office.
Blogger's Notes:
The lyrics for Hans Neumann's party song were reproduced in the April 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard.
Last year a SPGB member put the lyrics — and the S., A, T,. B. musical description — through one of those A.I. software programmes that I neither understand nor particularly like (A.I. brings out my inner Ned Ludd) and brought Hans Neumann's song to 'life'. You can check it out below:
I won't lie: it's not really my cup of tea. Sounds a bit too much like a Runrig album track. I could imagine an accompanying video which would have lots of sweeping shots of Britain's green and pleasant land, which is ironic as Hans Neumann was a German émigré revolutionary socialist.
In fairness to the SPGB member who put this together, they took another shot with the lyric and came up with a jauntier, folkier version entitled the 'Fitzy version', which is obviously a hat tip to the SPGB stalwart, Jack Fitzgerald. You can check it out below:
I'm not saying it completely works but it's got a certain something. If the more traditional version had a Runrig flavour, this reminds me of the 1980s British folk punk band The Men They Couldn't Hang, and that's not a bad thing. The decision to turn it into a more upbeat song is reminiscent of Billy Bragg, with Dick Gaughan, recording Jim Connell's Red Flag with the 'White Cockade' tune.
A socialist song shouldn't be a dirge. (No scoffing at the back, please.)
Letter to the Editors from the October 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard
Seeing red
Dear Editors,
Ivan’s article, “Keeping Their Hair On”, in the July Socialist Standard made some interesting points about party colours and the image of politicians. But why are certain organisations or institutions associated with particular colours?
For example, royalty has traditionally been represented by the colour blue and yet there is no certainty as to how or why this originated. I am not even sure if there is a reason for the left being traditionally represented by the colour red.
Whatever the reason for the association of the left with red, why does the Socialist Party still use this colour too—at least for its publicity and stationery? The Socialist Party is not left-wing (or any “wing”, for that matter) as it is advocating an entirely different system. Red, in the context of socialism smacks of Commies, Reds, Lefties, Militant, “Keep the Red Flag Flying” and all that other nonsense we are trying to distance ourselves from. Think of the old Soviet Union or China and what comes to mind? Red flags!
If we are to change people’s stereotypical perception of socialism and socialists—which is difficult enough as it is—then we need to change how people view us rather than reinforcing what they already believe. It is a question of image.
Sadly, capitalism has made image a more important quality than substance but as long as we have to operate within capitalism we will be judged on petty points such as our Party colour, just as much as we can be judged on our ethos. Perhaps we should use the colour blue (or a strain of it) ourselves; that would really give people something to think about!
Simon Montfalcon,
Romsey, Hampshire
Reply:
The red flag was first used as a revolutionary emblem in the French Revolution, in 1792 when the monarchy was overthrown. Apparently, up till then it had signified that martial law was in force and of course is still a danger signal (for the ruling class?). In the following century it became the flag of those in France who wanted a social as well as a political revolution.
Thus, in one of his articles on the revolutionary events in France in 1848 (Class Struggles in France 1848-1850) Marx referred to the red flag as being the flag of “the most extreme subversive party”. So too, the first English translation of the Communist Manifesto appeared in an extreme Chartist paper, the Red Republican. The Paris Commune of 1871 adopted the red flag as its official flag, so again Marx wrote about “the Red Flag, symbol of the Republic of Labour, flying over the Hotel de Ville” (Civil War in France).
The words of the song The Red Flag (which used to be sung at pre-WWI Socialist Party meetings such as those to commemorate the Paris Commune, before the song got hijacked by the Labour Party) were written by James Connell in 1889. One line reads “we must not change its colour now”– Editors
From the August 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard
In December, 2022 a music video entitled Hi Ren appeared on YouTube. The name of the singer-songwriter-guitarist was Ren. The video was over nine minutes long, virtually an epic by music industry standards. It was a live recording made on a shoestring budget. The song vividly dramatised the singer’s mental health issues and state of inner conflict, conditions which many can relate to. Within two months Hi Ren had gone viral, gathering nearly seven million views and coming to the attention of a host of online music reactors – people who post videos of themselves reacting to other people’s music. Few of those reacting to Hi Ren for the first time had ever heard of its creator, and many were clearly unprepared for what they were to witness.
Intrigued and eager for more, they began reacting to Ren’s extensive back catalogue of online music videos, and to new songs that he continued to drop over the following months. It soon became clear to everyone that here was a musician of exceptional skill and versatility. Ren was an accomplished singer, rapper, guitarist, songwriter and keyboard player. He was also a superb storyteller, performer and producer of his own music videos. His songs were never predictable. They broke convention and they defied genre. Musicians, film makers, videographers, and music lovers enthused online about the way he was breaking open the moulds into which commercial interests had been pouring popular music in recent years.
Dirty-grey average
Capitalism is often praised for innovation and choice, yet the logic of its drive to maximise profit induces companies to turn out products with the widest possible appeal, thereby reducing them to a dirty-grey average. In the popular music industry this tendency to sameness has deepened in recent years thanks to the availability of sophisticated data-analysis tools. Recording companies are now increasingly able to identify and predict the kind of hooks and singing styles that make hit songs. Having once established a winning formula, they mobilise teams of in-house songwriters to churn out pattern-book songs which big-name singers and musicians are then contracted to record and convert into cash. New post-production technology is used to ‘optimise’ the product by electronically removing glitches and correcting imperfections in studio performances. It is now possible electronically to adjust a wobbly vocal line, repair an off-key note, or smooth out an uneven beat. The result is another glossily perfect musical product tumbling off the production line. Commercial radio stations help to magnify this tendency to sameness by demanding songs which fit neatly into their time slots, deal with the right kind of easy-going and uncontroversial themes, and have catchy ‘hooks’ designed to snag listeners.
The music industry as a whole is notoriously ruthless and litigious. Capitalism’s property system makes it prone to scams and money grubbing. Often this involves the murky legal world of copyright. Ren appears recently to have himself fallen foul of just such a scam. Typically, he has responded to it by speaking openly online and making a music video about it. Such openness is unusual and has attracted support from other musicians who have suffered in the same way. Uploaded music videos are themselves often targets for online scammers. In one such fraud, recently exposed, scammers have been using a green screen to remove video images of original artists from videos of Britain’s Got Talent and similar TV shows, and then insert video images of themselves lip synching to the vocals. By uploading the manipulated videos onto their own platforms and attracting an audience they are able to obtain money from the advertising revenue generated.
It’s a dog-eat-dog world. Yet every so often a creative artist comes along who is able to communicate with music of such originality and directness that they can bypass the big companies and attract their own audience. Ten months after Hi Ren went viral, Ren dropped a self-produced album of his own music called Sick Boi. Without corporate backing, with almost no radio exposure, and without the publicity of live shows, the album floated serenely up the British top 40 chart to take the number one position. Ren had arrived – much to his own apparent surprise.
Who is Ren?
So, who is this man? Ren is the professional name of Ren Eryn Gill, an open, generous and appealingly boyish musician, now aged 34, hailing from a remote Welsh village on the Isle of Anglesey. His personal story is studded with drama and tragedy. Signed up to Sony Records at the age of 19, he was forced to abandon the recording of his first album by the onset of severe ill health. He returned home to Anglesey where he became bed-ridden and suffered excruciating pain for eight years. He developed auto-immune disease and experienced a stress-induced psychotic breakdown. During this time, his best friend committed suicide on the Menai Bridge. His illness was repeatedly misdiagnosed until, after years of useless therapy and medication, a private physician in Brussels identified his condition as Lyme disease. Treatment for the disease has now partially restored his health, but having harboured the infection for so long, it is likely that his body will never fully recover.
Convinced that his chance of a major career in music was over, Ren went back to busking on the streets of Brighton, and producing low (or zero) budget videos of his own music. These rapidly gathered a following of loyal fans. And then, in 2022, he dropped Hi Ren and his world exploded. He now has almost 2.2 million YouTube subscribers and Hi Ren has 56 million views worldwide. Those numbers continue to climb.
Ren has taken the experience of his personal tragedy and his struggle to fulfil himself as a creative musician and universalised it into something highly relatable. In his own words, ‘I owe much of my success to the most destructive force in my life, which has been the turbulence of my physical and mental illness’. His music addresses difficult social issues such as mental health, suicide, and the cycle of child abuse. It communicates with raw emotion enhanced by his habit of recording his songs live, in a single take, and with minimal post-production work, a procedure almost unheard of today. Minor glitches in performance are left unedited. This side of his art has touched people of all ages. Comment sections of his online videos are flooded with accounts of how listening to his music has given new hope and even saved lives. Yet, not all of his music deals with difficult subjects. He has a strong sense of humour coupled with an apparent lack of inhibition. His songs vary from the cheeky to the deeply serious. And interwoven into many of them is yet another theme: the nature of capitalist violence and our own complicity in maintaining the system. A trilogy of music videos entitled Money Game, Parts 1, 2 and 3, tackles this theme head on.
Portrait of capitalism
Ren’s music and story-telling skills find particularly powerful expression in Money Game 3, which focuses on the life and career of ‘Jimmy’, who is driven to win his father’s approval by seeking success in business. By his late teens he is already amassing capital. On his way up the financial ladder, he discovers the potency of the lie and the capacity of capitalism’s money game to translate wealth into political power. His business dealings become increasingly risky and illegal. When his father dies of a heart attack his obsessive search for wealth and power become both socially and personally destructive. As the lyrics of Money Game 3 put it, ‘he followed the code in the land of the free: put your hand in the cookie jar and take more than you need’. Jimmy eventually overreaches, is injured in a shootout between drug cartels, and becomes confined to a wheelchair. Too late, he comes face to face with the consequences of his actions and values.
Ren’s exceptional story-telling ability has left a huge impression on his audience. As Money Game 3 tells us, Jimmy is an ‘exaggerated version’ of you and me. He is an Everyman, both complicit with, and a victim of, the system. One reactor responding to Ren’s message nailed it: ‘When you talk to people individually, it seems like everybody gets it, but then we kinda go right back to that lifestyle, because that’s just the way that the world works. It sucks, but it only works that way because of us.’ (Duane Reacts). We are all indoctrinated into the capitalist system and its ideologies from an early age through our parents, through an organised system of schooling which denies children control over their lives, and through the ideologically driven media. The message drummed into Jimmy’s head is that financial success is the only meaningful kind.
Money Game 3 is a punch in the guts, a dramatic piece of musical theatre which won Ren and his friend/videographer, Samuel Perry-Flavey, an award for the best Independent European music video of 2024. Together, the three Money Game videos deal with the violence arising from the profit system, and as well as its impact on attitudes to immigration. They show how we uncritically adopt and reproduce the values promoted by capitalism. It is a fact of life that we can no more stand outside our own society than we can stand outside our own skin, and yet we are not robots: we can step back, reflect on our experience and identify where it clashes with the conventional values and practices of our world. Socialism is, in part, a process of learning to overcome our indoctrination.
The three Money Game videos paint a picture of our world that many recognise. Recognition, however, is insufficient to provide a secure insight into how the system works or how it can be addressed. Ren describes himself as an anti-capitalist, someone who rejects a society that puts profits above people. He has all but denied that he is a socialist. Nevertheless, as socialists we can recognise the portrait of capitalism that he gives us. We can unpack the clues in his work to show that the only way to reject ‘profit over people’ is to reject profit and the money game altogether.
Now that Ren’s star is rising will he continue to resist the blandishments of the music industry or sign up with a record label? If he signs up, he will have greater resources to put into the music he is so passionate about making, but unless he becomes such a highly bankable commodity that he is capable of dictating his own terms it would almost certainly mean a loss of creative freedom. The money game would soon consume him.
At the moment, it looks like he is strongly resisting. True to character, though, he has spoken openly about his own inner conflicts on the matter. We can empathise. These are the inner conflicts and compromises familiar to anyone caught in the contradiction of advocating for a world beyond the destructiveness and repression of the capitalist system, but who, for now, has to live and survive within it. While capitalism persists, however, a socialist perspective helps us to focus on the goal of achieving a world which is more social, more humane and more satisfying than the one we have at present.
From the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard
Copies of the above four-part song S., A, T,. B. — complete with pianoforte accompaniment and Tonic-Solfa setting may be obtained, price 3d., or post free 3½d., through the branches or from the Head Office.
Blogger's Note:
The lyrics for Hans Neumann's party song were reproduced in the April 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard.
From issue number 1 (1975) of The Western Socialist
In a democratic society, art is politics in the widest sense, a celebration of common values which sweep away the old and clears the way for the new needs of man.
Victor Jara, Chilean play producer, singer guitarist, was a supporter of the Allende regime. In the military coup that followed he was assassinated on 15th September 1973. They broke his guitar fingers before breaking his spine. Bullets were then shot into his body.
He is one more addition to the many creative people in history who have become too dangerous to live. For the arts are not amusements, ornamental skills, diversions, comforts for tired businessmen or social polish for the pretentious. At least, not to the men who wield political power. The arts communicate and communication is the most potent force for progress and change.
History is full of the power of the arts, not the overt expression of dissatisfaction nor the blatant clarion call to rise and fight but the uniquely potent expression of ideas which show that man is ready for change. Art is a barometer and a celebration, a mirror to the emotional and intellectual development of man. The artist says, “This is man, how he feels, how we feel,” and once said, it can never be repealed. The ideas catch fire in the minds of men, not because they are new and logical but because they express clearly what people feel but cannot quite themselves make known.
George Bernard Shaw provocatively said that art is propaganda. It is this but far more. In a democratic society, art is politics in the widest sense, a celebration of common values which sweeps away the old and clears the way for the new needs of man.
This does not mean that artists are consciously political in the modern use of the term. In fact, the moment an art becomes consciously political, it usually ceases to be art. The pamphleteer is not an artist because he knows rationally exactly what he wants to say before saying it. He may express new values but they are communicated on a mechanically logical level. There is no bridge of feeling between the old and the new for the mass of the people, still struggling to understand their own feelings, to make the crossing. Art does not lead the needs of man; it expresses them and man, whose evolution is on a social and economic level rather than a physical one, can develop further because he then knows clearly where he is. He recognizes as his the values expressed by the artist.
But some artists do not communicate in their own time. They may lead the way for other artists to follow but they themselves may be a little too far ahead of their time. These artists are sometimes called “important” as distinct from “great”, the universally recognized artists who signify a whole epoch or “celebrate” a common feeling.
Both kinds of artists can be dangerous to the established powers but the “important” artists are more easily destroyed than the “great” ones. They are less supported, less recognized and their deaths provoke less reaction.
The Un-American Activities Committee could not destroy Charles Chaplin or Arthur Miller nor could the Soviets destroy Yevtushenko but artists with less recognition, ahead of their time and people, are frequently destroyed in the power struggles of the world.
President Allende did not have the control of the Chilean parliament or of the army and his own political programme did not have the understanding of the peasants. He was supported as a leader and all this suggests that he was not really the spokesman for the people. The intellectuals and artists who supported him were therefore not truly representative of the people; they were a little before their time. Victor Jara died because his death meant a delay in his ideas developing among the people. Had he been expressing true national feelings, his martyrdom would have been too dangerous because of the possible reaction. More importantly, his martyrdom would have been irrelevant because his values would already be held by the majority of people anyway.
Throughout the world, the fate of the Allende administration has been hailed by the left and the right wings as an illustration that a majority of people cannot change society by democratic and constitutional methods. In actual fact it merely illustrates the futility of a vanguard group trying to lead an ignorant mass of followers into a change which the majority do not understand. When you can destroy a leader and destroy a cause, destroying a leader is obviously the best solution.
A second moral can be drawn. We must learn to respect and protect our artists whatever their political opinions. A society which neglects them is destroying its capacity to change.
Letter to the Editors from the September 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard
Pete Seeger again
Dear Editors
For a nonagenarian, Pete Seeger sure possesses some staying power. First Roy Beat and now Stephen Shenfield (June and August issues) have gone into print, both missing the main thrust of the March article. Instead, they laser-in on my flippant swipe at the Left’s perennial practice of hijacking every convenient bandwaggon –”good cause” – to promote itself.
In no way was I “dismissing” or “belittling” the Civil Rights Movement as they suggest; merely noting its inbuilt shortcomings. A southern negro could, of course, be summarily lynched for much less than displaying revolutionary tendencies; a reluctance to step into the gutter or an admiring glance (“rape”) sufficing.
All of us abhor Capitalism’s myriad injustices and obscenities but recognise that the solution begins with a rational understanding of the root causes rather than an emotional piecemeal assault on their effects. Is this “Sectarian”? Having pored long and hard over my dictionary, I can only conclude that in commonsense everyday terms it’s nothing of the sort. Personally I’m happier with “Socialist”.
The Proper Gander TV column from the June 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard
Even more than in previous years, 2024’s Eurovision Song Contest was less about the songs than the political arena in which the show took place. The war in Ukraine has been the backdrop for the last couple of competitions, with the country’s win in 2022 reflecting the sympathy for its plight. But this year’s event barely acknowledged the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, instead being shaped and overshadowed by the Israeli state’s war with Hamas. Unlike Russia, which was excluded from the contest in 2022, Israel hasn’t broken any of Eurovision’s rules by being at war, and so was allowed to compete. Consequently, its participation became a focus of anger and criticism from the pro-Palestinian movement, online and around the venue. Eurovision’s slogan is ‘United By Music’, but this sentiment ended up sounding either naïvely optimistic or sarcastically hollow.
Protests leading up to the final on 11 May were expected, and so security in the host city of Malmö in Sweden was tightened. The area was designated a ‘no fly zone’ to deter any drone attacks, additional police were drafted in from Denmark and Norway, and Israel’s contestant Eden Golan was closely guarded due to death threats. Thousands of pro-Palestinian and anti-war demonstrators gathered in Malmö, not that this was featured in the polished official coverage. The broadcasters also downplayed the booing in the auditorium which accompanied Golan’s performance by disguising it with amplified cheering. It could be argued that this censorship is to keep the event as a celebration of kitsch, an escape from the depressingly real tragedies happening daily. But because the political situation in and around Europe is so volatile, Eurovision can’t exist in its own glitzy bubble. The stated aim of the event’s organisers at the European Broadcasting Union is that Eurovision is ‘non-political’, even though censoring coverage does suggest political motives. The audience members who booed EBU Executive Supervisor Martin Österdahl during the final were making a political point about his perceived politics. To put the EBU’s stance into practice, officials requested Israel change its song, originally called October Rain, to cut out references to the 7th October attacks. Ireland’s singer was asked to remove the word ‘ceasefire’ in body paint, and Portugal’s performance wasn’t initially uploaded after broadcast, apparently because its contestant wore nail art featuring Palestinian symbols. How the death and destruction in the Middle East gets filtered through the spectacle of Eurovision goes beyond disorientating to trivialising the slaughter.
The results of the ‘non-political’ contest were also politically charged. The final score awarded to each competitor is derived from the number of votes from juries of ‘music professionals’ in each country and phone-in votes from viewers, with countries unable to vote for themselves. Jurors are supposed to vote for a song without considering the identity of its singer, a stipulation which the viewers at home have no need to follow. The UK’s effort scored nul points from the public vote and ended up in 18th place, while the winning entry from Switzerland was one of the better songs, most of which were interchangeable power ballads or dance bangers, slickly performed. Israel’s mid-table scoring from the juries was boosted considerably by having the second largest number of public votes, meaning that the country finished in fifth place. Israel’s surprise high ranking suggests that the pro-Palestinian or pro-peace protests and online campaigns had little impact on voters’ views, and leftist activists are presumably wondering where they went wrong. Given the unavoidable political climate around the competition, it’s probable that more people voted for Israel as some kind of statement than because they favoured the song regardless. Whether the result could be called ‘democratic’ depends on how far its definition can be stretched. Still, as a framework to gather votes across a wide area, this is about as good as global democracy in capitalism gets. So, without having the ability to directly influence the war, some people have felt that Eurovision can be an outlet for views they hold passionately, whether by voting for Israel (for some reason) or protesting against its inclusion. The relevance of a song competition as a barometer of international politics highlights the lack of other ways people can collectively voice an opinion or act upon it in capitalist society. The result wouldn’t have been affected by anyone joining the boycott of the event promoted by the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. It would be hard to determine whether this campaign, apathy about the overblown circus or sunny weather contributed most to the BBC’s coverage having around two million fewer viewers than last year. But the numbers and scores don’t have any influence on the war. How and how much the event reflects public opinion in Europe is likely to be of little concern to the families struggling to survive the horrors of the war-torn Middle East.
Video Review from the January 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard
In 2019 the German band Rammstein released a single and video entitled Deutschland and to anyone interested in popular culture and its relationship with politics this has to rate as one of the most powerful and revealing pieces of work. Rather like this band’s relationship with Germany my relationship with their music is very mixed. As a lover of power guitar riffs I find them matchless but the grotesque nature of some of their imagery I could do without. However, the insights into German culture that they provide are interesting and show an understanding of the popular zeitgeist. I searched the internet for English subtitles but failed to find a suitable version but this may be an advantage for English viewers because in the ignorance of the German language we can focus on the imagery – which is primarily the subject of this essay.
Here are some of the visual references used in the video. We had the aftermath of the battle of the Teutoburg Forest where the Roman legions were famously stopped from expanding the empire further into Germany; the knights of the Holy Roman Empire and the Teutonic knights; the savage Lutheran monks of the Reformation; the 30 Years War; the Hindenburg disaster; the inflation and decadence of the Weimar republic; the Nazis and the V2 rocket; the East Germans in space; the East German ‘communist’ regime; the Red Army Faction in the West and lastly the birth of a Leonberger puppy. A typically (in the context of this essay) Germanic bleak view of their own ‘history’.
It will be noticed that there are no ‘great men’ like Frederick the Great, Arminius, Bismarck or Hitler but only a succession of disasters with the implication that these were caused by some inherent characteristic of the German culture and people. A nice touch is that ‘Germania’ herself is portrayed by a famous black German actress and is the only woman to make an appearance. I say that there were no actual historical characters portrayed but there was one important exception – Karl Marx. He is identified with the East German Bolshevik puppet regime in the form of a looming statue and this is an anachronism to which I will return. Lastly the closing credits sequence is one of the most poignant I have ever seen with a beautiful piano version of another Rammstein song based on the German fairytale of Snow White.
Many of these myths and images were devised by the nationalist intelligentsia of the new German state in an effort to create a ‘German’ historical identity. Of course Rammstein has subverted this project by rejecting any heroic or romantic elements but there remains an acknowledgement of just how powerful the myth is by their embracing an antithetical version of it. Like the children of abusive parents there is still a need to love them – as they say in the lyrics: ‘Germany, your love is a curse and a blessing. Germany, my love I cannot give you.’ I suspect this is how many Germans feel about themselves and their cultural identity. They suspect that they have a darkness of the soul.
This was not always the case. After unification in the nineteenth century Germans were full of optimism for the future as is evidenced by the mass membership of the Second International. But this was to be fatally undermined by the nationalism that destroyed it and made the descent into the madness of the First World War possible. The socialism of Marx and the First International was lost. Many reasons are given for this including the theory that it was the failure of the German revolution of 1848 that enabled the slide back into autocracy and militarism which was to last, with the exception of the short-lived and failed Weimar Republic, until the Nazi defeat in 1945. With the partition after the war the Bolshevik puppet state of East Germany was identified with socialism and since this is where Rammstein originated it’s not surprising that we see Marx identified with this state in the video.
This identification with a cultural past is one of the main aspects of nationalist politics and is an important obstacle to socialist consciousness. Of course we are all created by the historical context into which we are born and there are many positive aspects of all cultures that should be celebrated but the danger is that political elites use them to create myths of superiority and exclusivity that form the foundations of reactionary nationalist ideology. Cultural development depends on the intersection of human communities and a flourishing delight in the novelty and ingenuity of invention and imagination of other people and their language and myths – it is the enemy of the fear caused by ignorance and the political manipulation and creation of suspicion that elites use to protect their wealth and power when they feel under threat.
There has been a long and celebrated aesthetic contrast between the Europe of the north and that of the south. The Mediterranean cultures of Greece and Rome have represented light, logic and democracy whereas the dark forests of the north represent the brooding aesthetic of the Romantic and the Gothic. It was the Goths who destroyed the Western Roman Empire and inaugurated the European ‘Dark Ages’ where the material culture and intellectual progress of the classical age was lost for hundreds of years until it flickered back into life during the Renaissance. We can enjoy both aesthetic traditions but the political consequences of Romanticism have always been highly problematic. Can we make cultural connections with political evolution? The Enlightenment was the inheritor of the classical tradition of reason and logic but in the hands of the bourgeoisie it became an oppressive and inhuman transition from quality to quantity – everything had to have a numerical equivalent before it was considered to be a ‘science’.
From what cultural inheritance does socialism emerge? Perhaps, like capitalism, socialism has primarily European origins – certainly the Marxian tradition is steeped in the tradition of French politics, German philosophy and British economics. German culture gave birth to both Nietzsche and Marx whose legacies still combat each other today. German nihilism still haunts us and perhaps, after Auschwitz, always will. As socialists we must never ignore cultural myths and realities. As this video shows, such identification still runs deep within the working class.
The Between the Lines column from the October 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard
Land of Dopes and Tories
Three cheers for Mark Elder, the conductor who refused to include Rule Britannia! and Land of Hope and Glory in The Last Night of the Proms (shown on BBC1 and BBC2 on 15 September) Elder was of the view that:
"the words of those songs come from an age that was able and happy to celebrate Britain's irresistible march across the world. Now if we are actually engaged in combat I would not be happy to proceed. It would seem callous in the extreme. "
The Guardian 8 September
The BBC's response to Elder's sensitivity was in the best tradition of imperial callousness. They sacked him.
Elgar'sLand of Hope and Glory, the words of which express English imperial arrogance in all of its declining folly, was first promoted by the British ruling class as workers were being slaughtered during tho First World War. At the time Elgar had issued a Manifesto of National Service which called for an:
"organised effort to carry on the war. Every fit man must be made available . . . for the fighting line or . . . for National Service at home."
Elgar himself spent tho war living in his mansion in Hampstoad, while at the same time German and Austrian musicians were being persecuted by the British state.
The Last Night at the Proms is a ridiculous, anachronistic celebration of a Great Britain, which was a land of no hope and little glory for the vast majority in its finest hour, and is now an appendage of American imperial foreign policy.
'The horror . . . the horror.'
Speaking of Dopes . . .
What is the most popular TV programme in Britain today? The twice daily Neighbours (BBC1. 1.35 pm and 5.35pm) which is brought to us by one Reg Watson, the man who 'created' Crossroads. It is staggeringly bad: awful acting, incredible plots, cliched scripts, a disgusting view of what human beings are all about. Millions of workers love to watch it. The BBC celebrated its one thousandth episode last month (BBC1 13 September).
It has been argued that Neighbours represents a poor man's wish for what it would be like to live in a real community, rather than the alienated heaps in which most of us find ourselves; a sort of late capitalist News From Nowhere. Others argue that the programme's success is the fresh good looks of its actors. Or maybe its success is thanks to its popularity with the under-twelves who regard it as truly great drama. Who knows?
But has anyone thought that a period of cultural history which will be remembered for the acting of Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan is not one in which songs celebrating hope and glory are appropriate?
Speaking of Tories . . .
By far the funniest TV moment of the last month was watching Enoch Powell (Talking to Myself, BBC2, 10.20pm. 7.9.90). This new series allows famous people to both ask and answer the questions in a ten-minute interview. Powell sounded like a dishwasher on the blink having a pompous talk with an air-raid siren Of course, he is not to be blamed for his strangely whining voice, even if it is hideously full of affectations.
One Powell is a slightly barmy fanatic in the cause of capitalism. Two Powells are totally round the bend. Powell told Powell that the greatest moment in his life had been when he had been asked to join the British army and give unqualified and unquestioning loyalty to the British Empire. We know what Powell will have been doing on The Last Night of the Proms — singing Rule Britannia! as a duet.
Speaking of Dopey Tories . . .
There are times when video machines come in very handy. A politician says something and you can't quite believe that anyone can be that stupid. And then you play it back and the wonder of technology allows you to see that you were wrong to doubt.
Such a moment came in The Walden Interview (ITV. 1pm. 9 September) when Walden asked William Waldergrave. the British Foreign Office Minister, when the government would consider that Iraq had been defeated.
The first requirement, said Waldergrave. is that "liberty must be restored in Kuwait". It was the "restored" that led my finger to the play-back button. Since when has there been "liberty" in Kuwait?
It is a country ruled by unelected, semi-feudal dictators, put in power by the British. It is a country where only 60,000 people out of a population of 2 million have the vote. It is a country where women have no political rights, including voting. Is that the "liberty" which Waldergrave seeks to restore? Is that why British and American workers in uniform will die? Land of hope and glory? Hang your heads in shame, those who have been foolish enough to fall for the absurdities of nationalism.
From the August 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard
John Lennon’s 1971 song Imagine is often hailed as the encapsulation of a true socialist society. It depicts unswervingly and melodically a world where the resources of the earth are shared between its populace with everyone having enough to eat, living cooperative lives and no longer being plagued by war, religion or national divisions. Yet there’s no shortage of criticism of it from those who have a different view of the best way for humans to live or from those who just don’t like John Lennon.
A recent example of this is in an article – ’10 revered classic rock songs that are actually awful’ – which recently appeared in Far Out Magazine. It places ‘Imagine’ among those ‘actually awful’ songs (tinyurl.com/4wpuam45). It describes its words as ‘cliched’ and says that Lennon ‘treated the populace as idiots’. The article then goes on to describe the song as ‘so insipidly idealist that even school kids can see through the lack of sincerity and humanised realism’. It also alludes to Lennon’s well-known ‘sugar-coated’ comment, that is to his having himself said of the song: ‘Anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalistic, but because it is sugar-coated it is accepted. Now I understand what you have to do. Put your political message across with a little honey’ (quoted in Geoffrey Giuliani’s 2000 biography Lennon in America).
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peaceYou may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
It’s easy to see why someone might see the words of Lennon’s song as ‘idealistic’. After all, the future world he describes and advocates is, in just about all its features, the direct opposite of what exists today. ‘No countries to live or die for’, ‘no religion’ (‘above us only sky’), ‘no need for greed or hunger’, ‘all the people sharing all the world’. How far away can you get from the nationalistic, religion-besmirched world that is modern capitalism, a system in which greed is lauded and personal wealth is looked up to while around 286 million people wake up every day not knowing where their next meal will come from? But is Lennon’s ‘idealistic’ vision here something to be scorned as lacking ‘realism’ simply because it yearns for something different and better?
As for the idea that it is something that school kids will ‘see through’, will they in fact not be more likely to see the sense in it? After all school kids have spent less time than others living in the system that dominates and enslaves the world and so may be less conditioned by its rules and norms, and therefore more able to imagine a world organised differently. Conversely, for adults, having been subjected to the conditioning process for longer, a greater effort of the imagination may be necessary for them to contemplate a world with ‘no heaven’ and ‘no hell’, where people are ‘living life in peace’ and where there are ’no possessions’ (ie, surely artistic shorthand for no monopoly of wealth). But imagination is what socialists have always insisted is needed by those who own nothing but their ability to work and need to sell their energies to survive (ie, the vast majority).
Meanwhile those who have difficulty in exercising their imagination will always tend to say of the existing social order that ‘there is no alternative’. And this, contrary to what Lennon’s critic says about ‘Imagine’ being clichéd, is the real cliché and summed up so well by the science fiction writer Ursula Le Guin who wrote: ‘We live in capitalism – its power seems inescapable. But so did the divine right of kings.’ As history has shown, change does come, and, if that change means looking to a radically different way of living, perhaps we should say with Lennon ‘it’s easy if you try’.
Finally, another part of the criticism seems to be that Lennon doesn’t attempt to give any prescription as to how his imagined world is to be brought about. But how could he in three minutes or so? The fact is that he has outlined some of the key features of a socialist world, one without buying and selling, without markets, without rich and poor, without leaders and led, without wars or religion. And, as pop song popularity polls have constantly shown, he has done it in a way that people find appealing and listenable to. And if that’s what ‘sugar-coated’ means, then so be it. Of course, Lennon’s Imagine doesn’t seem to have made a large impact in shifting people towards socialist ideas, but it’s not hard to imagine that, as socialist ideas spread, it will be an anthem that people identify with as they take action to plan and bring into being the system of society it depicts.
From the July 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard
At the recent first public meeting of the newly formed Yorkshire Branch, a Socialist Party speaker presented a well-informed and powerful case against capitalism and for socialism as the only viable alternative for the meeting of all people’s needs.
As a social element the folk trio of which I’m one third played a selection of ‘Celtic’ tunes. As the other two thirds of our group are members of other political parties, Labour and Green, they gave me some insight on the drive home, into the effectiveness of the talk. The Green Party member is from what might be termed the Old Labour tradition. He feels the Labour Party has betrayed its socialist past which is why he joined the Greens. Interestingly, his expressed political views are in many ways similar to those espoused by us.
He is vehement about capitalism being the root of the world’s ills, be that poverty, climate change and related issues. For him it’s not just love of money that’s the root of all evil, but money itself. Unsurprisingly he found himself in virtually complete agreement with all the speaker had to say. However, despite referring to himself, even before the meeting, as a socialist he continues to support the Green Party. While disavowing money he continues to advocate a basic income scheme as a palliative to the difficulties the money system causes. Similarly, he supports environmentalist actions as a response to the climate crisis even though he accepts that capitalism cannot be changed from pursuit of profit with all that entails, to meeting needs.
The reforms enacted by the post-Second World War Labour government remain for him socialist markers that have been, and are still being, undone to some extent by recent Labour policies, and all the more so by pernicious Conservative administrations. This is someone who, despite residual illusions about previous Labour governments, has grasped the socialist case, but cannot take the next step, away from the lure of immediate reforms, the need to feel he is taking action now that might garner electoral support.
The disconnect is a deep-seated disbelief that it is actually possible to motivate people on a world-wide scale to act in concert to profoundly change the way the world is for the common good. For him the principles of the Socialist Party are correct, but in theory only. To stand by them may be principled, but unlikely to be acted on in the foreseeable future. In the meanwhile, and who knows how long that meanwhile may be, what could be done to make life a little better in the present, rather than some unspecified future?
My Labour Party colleague again had no disagreement with the spokesman’s critique of capitalism. Yet, for all its flaws, which he accepts are real, he continues to see Labour as a more benign alternative to the iniquitous Tories, for all the failings of the Starmer leadership. Labour, for him, is the only alternative, in the practical sense, of removing the Tories from office, his primary political objective. It is irrelevant how correct the Socialist Party may be because the party is in no position to actually change anything.
If, very hypothetically, the Socialist Party were to win an overwhelming majority of MPs in a general election, his point is that unless this was repeated simultaneously throughout the world, those MPs would have to compromise to deal with the immediate situation, or stand aside. As that hypothesis is unlikely to be realised, there is no prospect of any realistic change in the foreseeable. There is a disconnect between the analysis of society’s present structure and any impending practical solution.
He felt as if he was being asked, by implication, to not participate come the next election. This, for him, would be tantamount, if it became widespread amongst Labour supporters, to leaving the door to 10 Downing Street wide open for the Tories to stroll through again.
While none of this is novel, it does illustrate an abiding conundrum for socialists. That is, while the case for socialism may well be more widely acceptable than it presently appears, the personal may be a huge block against it becoming a mass movement. A casual conversation is not scientific evidence, but still it seems to me that they expressed views that are commonly articulated. The apparent size of the task overwhelms sustained engagement.
After all, no matter how large or widespread a mass movement becomes, its component parts are individuals, and their personal perspectives, whether profound, petty or both, are significant. The influence of capitalist ideology through mass and social media weighs heavily on personal concerns. There is also the not inconsiderable conservatism of preferring to stick with what is known, however disagreeable some of it is.
Socialists are going to have to find ways of dealing with this. Making the case for socialism is difficult enough as large numbers of people do not come into meaningful contact with socialists or their sources of information. It may well be some factor beyond just the general case for socialism, such as the increasing climate crisis, that begins to focus general thinking to consider and act to bring about profound change. This may especially be so if the main political parties are perceived to be powerless in increasingly urgent circumstances.
While socialism may seem a better alternative to what presently exists, it remains in the view of all too many merely an idea that’s attractive but uncertain, lacking in anything other than the broadest of outlines. For socialists there remains the painstaking prospect of continuing to make the case, the steady erosion of the ideological wall built by capitalism. Because of the public meeting in a South Yorkshire pub, a few more, including my two band mates, have looked over that wall.
They have seen beyond and like the look of the prospect. Now the challenge is to get them to start demolishing that wall so they can take steps beyond it towards a truly democratic society that meets need not greed.
Radio Show Review from the August 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard
Dean Reed: Death of a Comrade. Radio 2, 11 July. Presented by Mark Lamarr.
For a time in the 1970s, Dean Reed was probably the best-known American in South America and Eastern Europe. Though, as he sang, “Nobody knows me back in my home town.” Born in Denver in 1938, Reed was a rock singer who never quite made the big time in the US. Understandably enough, he felt that nobody who worked in Hollywood could keep their integrity.
When one of his records became a hit in Chile, he travelled there to perform and was struck by the obvious inequalities in power and wealth. He later settled in Argentina, but after some unwelcome attention from the dictatorship he moved to Europe. His left-wing views attracted the attention of cultural bosses in Russia, and he was invited there. He became a great success with young people in eastern Europe, who were keenly interested in Western popular music.
In 1973 Reed decided to move to East Germany permanently. The secret police or Stasi were initially suspicious of him and spied on him, but they later tried unsuccessfully to recruit him as an agent. By the 1980s, however, he was no longer a star in Eastern Europe, as younger musicians from the West were touring there. He considered returning to the US, but remarks on radio and TV chat shows (e.g. comparing Reagan to Stalin and defending the Berlin Wall) led to him receiving hate mail. In June 1986 he was found dead in a lake near his home in East Berlin – officially an accident but probably suicide.
Mark Lamarr’s programme contained interviews with people who knew Reed and excerpts from his (unexceptional) music. It also made the point that he failed to see how ordinary East Germans felt about the regime that governed them and how they viewed him as an establishment figure. So the rebel became another apologist for the Bolshevik dictatorship, one who certainly would have had no place in a unified Germany.
From the September 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard
In the course of our work as Socialist propagandists we frequently come in contact with people who appear to imagine that the bulwarks of capitalism will collapse as the result of much lusty singing of the “Red Flag.” No “Labour” meeting is considered a success unless this or some similar ditty is borne upon the night air, with or without orchestral accompaniment. What the arguments presented at such gathering’s lack in logic is amply made up for by vociferation. This attitude of mind recalls the legend of the Walls of Jericho falling before the blasts of the trumpets of the Children of Israel. In fact, idealism generally has its roots far back in the magic past, although it serves a very useful purpose to the capitalist class of the present day, as we shall endeavour to show.
The following is an extract from an article in the “Daily Chronicle” of July 20th entitled, “Music; the Life Force,” by Dr. Leigh Henry :
“The French Revolution was the outcome of a reaction in music.
When Rouget de Lisle wrote “La Marseillaise” he roused the people to such an inflammatory pitch that they rose in arms and overthrew their tyrants, only to create a greater and more powerful one; but it was a German, Theodore Korner, who brought about the downfall of Napoleon by going among his countrymen and singing to them old folk songs and poems of revolt which past generations had handed down.”
Dr. Leigh Henry may be an authority on musical forms, but his notions of history are laughable. He might as well ask us to believe that the War and the Allied victory in 1918 were due to the influence of “Mademoiselle from Armentiers,” or “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” ; but let us examine his illustration a little more closely.
The French Revolution resulted in the triumph of the Third Estate (or middle class) over the feudal nobility, with the monarch at their head. The convocation of the National Assembly, the imprisonment and eventual execution of the Royal Family, the war with Austria, and Europe generally, were simply events in the struggle for supremacy of the bankers, merchants, shopkeepers and manufacturers in the towns, assisted by the lawyers and by the peasantry in the country at large. As this, that, or the other section of the insurgent mass asserted itself, so group after group of leaders were pushed forward or thrust aside.
All the so-called great men of the epoch from Mirabeau to Napoleon were simply the tools, conscious or otherwise, of the rising class.
At this period, owing to the undeveloped state of French industry, the number of wage-workers in the country was comparatively small, and their political influence, such as it was, fell into the scale on the side of the capitalist revolutionaries. The peasants hankered after the land, and did in fact secure a greater degree of control than they had till then possessed; but the richest estates, including those of the clergy, were seized by the Government and auctioned off to the highest bidders. Thus the poor remained poor. Instead, however, of performing forced labour for the aristocrats, they commenced to slave to fill the pockets of the tax-gatherer and the usurers.
On this basis was erected the First Empire, and the problem of a bankrupt national exchequer was solved. No sooner had they dealt with their feudal enemies at home than the French capitalist class found themselves set upon by the remaining feudal monarchies of Middle and Eastern Europe and the capitalist government of Britain; the former feared the spread of the Revolution, the latter could hardly favour the rise of a new commercial competitor.
Conscription filled the armies of Napoleon as taxation filled his purse. Nevertheless he was idolised by the very peasantry who bled for his glory, both financially and physically.
The “Marseillaise,” which inflamed the imagination of the insurgent capitalists, became the National Anthem in the hour of their triumph, and in spite of temporary eclipses, still holds that place of “honour.”
That the German folk-songs assisted in stimulating the more simple-minded of the German peasants to enable their overlords to regain their lands and power from the hated upstart, Napoleon, may be granted; but the actual force which mobilised the German armies was the same pressure which every ruling class is in a position to bring to bear upon its slaves. In other words, the musical accompaniment of historical events plays a secondary part in determining their character.
The primary factor is the economic development of the society concerned.
The “Marseillaise” or “God save the King” would be quite unintelligible to the inhabitants of Central Africa or the South Sea Islands, owing to their totally different stage of development and mode of life, giving rise to different groups of ideas, including notions of musical taste and methods of expressing emotion.
Similarly, the barbarians celebrate birth, initiation, marriage, war, and death with rhythmic monotones which appear positively weird to the European. They may haunt him, but he would hardly describe them as melodious. The nearest approach to their effect is that of the Church chants, which are little more than modified survivals of the dirges droned out by the slaves in the catacombs of Rome. In the ancient and medieval worlds, music was practically inseparable from religion, first of the pagan, later of the Christian variety.
Even the lays of the troubadours combined profanity with mysticism; as the bloody sagas of the Norsemen would be incomplete without reference to the gods of Valhalla.
With the grand operatic masters of the 18th and 19th centuries a change is evident. From Mozart to Wagner they all exhibit the influence of the economic and political upheaval which characterised their age.
The rise of the capitalist class was reflected in the musical world by the triumph of the secular principle. The church choir gave way to the stage chorus, which provided an enhancing background for the efforts of individual vocalists.
The destruction of the old village life by modern industry spelt the death knell of the ballad and the folk-song. These mediaeval modes of expression have been supplanted by the music-hall ditty, while the negroes of America have avenged their enslaved ancestors by infecting their 100 per cent. American masters with jazz tunes and “spirituals.”
This interesting resurrection of the primitive seems to indicate that capitalism has reached the limits of originality in art, just as, on the economic plane, it condemns the masses to an ever-worsening standard of living. To avoid misunderstanding, the writer would add that, while jazz has much that can be said in its favour when compared with the stilted products of the Victorian epoch, it nevertheless represents a reaction rather than an advance. It is a symptom of the decay and break-up of the classical musical tradition, but it gives little indication of what will take its place.
The struggle of the working class for emancipation has yet to make its mark, but when it does it can hardly leave the dance-hall and the theatre as it finds them. As the workers acquire leisure, they will develop their critical faculties in other directions besides that of economics. When they enter freely into possession of the fruits of their labour, they will have something to make a song about. Till then, perhaps, we shall have to put up with the “International” and the “Red Flag.”
Book Review from the February 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard
Omasius Gorgut: Poor Man’s Heaven: The Land of Cokaygne. Past Tense Publications. £1.00. (Available from Past Tense Publications, c/o 56a Info Shop, 56 Crampton Street, London SE17. Postage 30p.)
The Land of Cokaygne, reprinted as a modernised verse in this pamphlet, is a 14th century utopian image of an earthly paradise, largely created by serfs, which became a popular song or ballad. This pamphlet puts it into context, linking it with other stories and songs of the time and later.
In the Land of Cokaygne there is “joy and green delight”. There is nothing good but fruit to bight. Indeed,
“In Cokaygne we drink and eat
Freely without care and sweat,
The food is choice and clear the wine
. . .no land is like it anywhere,
Under heaven no land like this
Of such joy and endless bliss.
Many fruits grow in that place
For all delight and sweet solace,
. . .every man takes what he will,
as of right. . .
All is common to young and old,
To stout and strong, to meek and bold.”
The author of Poor Man’s Heaven notes that in most of Europe, in their folk tales and popular songs, the poor of the Middle Ages dreamed up a land where their sufferings were reversed, and where people lived in harmony and plenty without having to work. The Church, however, told them constantly that they could not expect, and should not dream of, a better existence in this life; but that paradise existed for them in another, after death. Utopian dreams appeared not just in England, but in France, in Ireland, in Medieval German legends, in Holland, and in Celtic mythology. The author suggests that early popular medieval utopias may be pre-Christian.
Interestingly, the Land of Cokaygne is enjoyed without effort. It stresses idleness rather than the largely unrewarded labour of the serf. As in much revolutionary utopian thought of the Middle Ages, in Cokaygne there is neither rich nor poor. There is equality says the writer, as in, “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman.” Of course, the peasants did not just dream, or sing, of a better world. Often they revolted, as in England in 1381.
The writer of Poor Man’s Heaven links the story of Cokaygne with the modern American songs The Big Rock Candy Mountain and Poor Man’s Heaven, where the barns are full of hay and there are streams of alcohol. “There’s a lake of stew and whisky too.” The singer is bound to stay where they sleep all day”. And in the Poor Man’s Heaven:
“There’s strawberry pie that’s twenty feet high
And whipped cream they bring in a truck. . .
We’ll eat all we please off ham and egg trees
That grow by the lake full of beer.”
This pamphlet is well worth reading, depicting as it does what, in the past, could only be a utopian vision of a better world.
Peter E. Newell
Blogger's Note:.
A longer review of the same book in the February 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard.
The Rear View Column from the June 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard
Bin capitalism
The rock band Garbage have a new album out this month. The title No Gods, No Masters will likely bring a smile or nod of agreement from socialists regardless of their musical tastes and is attributed to Louis Blanqui, a contemporary of Marx and Engels, and described by the latter as ‘…essentially a political revolutionist. He is a socialist only through sentiment, through his sympathy with the sufferings of the people, but he has neither a socialist theory nor any definite practical suggestions for social remedies. In his political activity he was mainly a “man of action”, believing that a small and well organised minority, who would attempt a political stroke of force at the opportune moment, could carry the mass of the people with them by a few successes at the start and thus make a victorious revolution’ (The Programme of the Blanquist Fugitives from the Paris Commune, 1874). Shirley Manson, the band’s vocalist, when she was 12 or so told her Sunday-school-teacher father ‘religion’s a sham and I’m not going to church anymore, it’s just bullshit’. Speaking recently (spin.com, 30 March) of the album she declared: ‘It was our way of trying to make sense of how fucking nuts the world is and the astounding chaos we find ourselves in’. Further, it is ‘a critique of the rise of capitalist short-sightedness, racism, sexism and misogyny across the world.’ Evidence of which abounds.
Myopic measures
‘On Feb. 21, Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party passed a resolution unequivocally hailing the “visionary leadership of Prime Minister Modi” in turning India into a “victorious nation in the fight against COVID”’ (time.com, April 28). ‘There is a shortage everywhere at the peak of the crisis. This government defines shortages, shortcomings, and short-sightedness’ (nationalheraldindia.com, 23 April). ‘Experts have long raised the alarm about shortages of medical oxygen in India and other poor countries to treat pneumonia, the world’s biggest preventable infectious killer of children under five years of age.
But the government has for years failed to invest enough money in such infrastructure, experts say. Does India produce enough oxygen? The short answer: yes. Experts say the vast nation of 1.3 billion people is producing enough oxygen – a little over 7,000 tonnes a day. Most is for industrial use but can be diverted for medical purposes’ (aljazeera.com, 29 April). Religion thrives alongside such (preventable) suffering: ‘In March 2020, a Hindutva group, the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha, held a cow urine drinking party as a means of providing protection against the virus’ (scroll.in, 1 May). Yet, as Marx noted, ‘To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo…’ Atheism alone is another dead end.
Race or class?
‘Nothing has exposed the role of structural and institutional racism as starkly as the disproportionate effects of covid-19 on ethnic minority communities. Public Health England’s report identifies racism and discrimination as key contributors to infection risk, outcomes, and life chance’ (bmj.com, 21 April). ‘Poor British people in 2020 are unhealthier than those born into poverty 100 years ago, a study has found’ (dailymail.co.uk, 20 January 2020). Workers who don’t understand why capitalism condemns them to impoverished lives are all too ready to blame their problems on other workers, from other towns or from other countries or of other ’races’. This is an exercise of blind futility for after all the misconceptions, after all the efforts to reform capitalism into a problem-free system, it is clear that the need is for a radical change; nothing less than the abolition of class society will do. This is perfectly possible but it requires a united resolve among the world’s working class, reflecting the fact that their interests are as one, to establish a society based on common ownership of the means of life. Race has no scientific basis. Racism needs to be rejected as a destructive, anti-social force. There is a better way; we have a world to win and little time to lose.
Dead slow
The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021: ‘At the current relative pace, gender gaps can potentially be closed in 52.1 years in Western Europe, 61.5 years in North America, and 68.9 years in Latin America and the Caribbean. In all other regions it will take over 100 years to close the gender gap: 121.7 years in Sub-Saharan Africa, 134.7 years in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, 165.1 years in East Asia and the Pacific, 142.4 years in Middle East and North Africa, and 195.4 years in South Asia.’ (weforum.org, 30 March). Socialism will include the liberation of women as part of its project of human emancipation. This will not come about in an automatic or inevitable way. A political organisation whose object is socialism cannot permit sexism within its ranks on the grounds that nothing can be done now and that the problem will be resolved ‘after the revolution’. For a political organisation to be credible, it must embody the attitudes, values and practices that it seeks to institute in society at large. Socialists believe that all people, men and women, are equally worthy of respect. This is enshrined in our Declaration of Principles (1904-present), specifically Clause 4: ‘That as in the order of social evolution the working class is the last class to achieve its freedom the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex’.
Letters to the Editors from the July 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard Red Wedge
Dear Editors.
With reference to your article Rock Bottom (March) I should like to make the following comments. I attended two Red Wedge concerts and was also present at a "Day of Action" in which Billy Bragg and the "Wedgies" were questioned about their motives for the tour and I feel that your article gives the wrong impression.
The tour was not thought up or arranged by the Labour Party but by Billy Bragg, Paul Weller and other left-wing artists; in fact, your first line is incorrect as Red Wedge is not just a campaign by rock musicians but also by comedians, cabaret artists, actors and writers who have been or will be on the road with their own tours.
Propaganda did not come from the stage but MPs — and a certain (ex) GLC leader — were in the foyer to be approached only if so desired. The theme of the tour was to make young people aware that politics is something that affects everyone, and also to get young people to register to vote —whatever party they may vote for, as many young votes had been lost in the 1979 election due to "punk" apathy.
In all. socialism was more the issue than the Labour Party, and at one concert Joolz stated that "no mighty thing" called the Labour Party would change anything — only the people can do that.
Amongst the leaflets left on chairs were ones on behalf of CND and the Anti-Apartheid Movement. Socialist Worker and Militant papers were for sale (where was the Socialist Standard?) and even the slogan on the official T-shirts, like the songs of the artists involved, advocated socialism, and I don't think that is a thing to be knocked.
Yours faithfully.
Philippa Britton
Jersey
Reply:
It was an omission on our part to refer to Red Wedge as including only musicians; it does also include comedians and actors. It is, however, definitely a pro-Labour movement, even though it is officially independent of the Labour Party. During 1985, Billy Bragg performed some fifty concerts as part of the "Jobs For Youth" campaign in conjunction with the Labour Party. That tour led directly to the founding of Red Wedge which declared itself, from the start, "committed to a Labour victory at the next election". Needless to say, the "Jobs For Youth" campaign had not made great play of the fact that Labour policies have proved as hopeless as those of the Tories in trying to control capitalism: every labour government since the 'thirties has left office with unemployment higher than when they were elected.
It may be true that Labour Party propaganda has not been featured on stage, but the performers would not have to tolerate the politicians “in the wings" if they did not wish to. It would be rather surprising if, come the next election, Red Wedge performers such as Robbie Coltrane, Paul Weller and Billy Bragg were to withhold their votes from the nationalist and fundamentally pro-capitalist Labour Party, and, of course, they make no secret of this. Indeed. Billy Bragg tried to defend his active canvassing for Kinnock in a Sunday Times article of 26 January 1986: "Anybody who cares about politics has their part to play, and that's best done as a local party member". He went on to say of earlier protest singers, "All that generation came to nought. They thought if they joined hands and sang Imagine the world would change" Of course, it is essential for people to think critically and to organise politically; but when John Lennon asked people to "imagine ... no possessions”, was that not more challenging than Bragg's sad badge of slavery in Between The Wars. "I'll give my consent, To any government. That does not deny a man. A living wage"?
Meanwhile, the political hacks were gloating. In the Sunday Times article referred to above, Andy McSmith, co-ordinator of the Labour Party's Jobs and Industry campaign, was quoted as saying "Billy is worth his weight in gold to us”, and Eric Heffer comments: "It is a good thing that an ordinary working-class lad like Billy should identify himself with the Labour movement".
It is fair to conclude that Red Wedge does not exist purely to encourage young people to vote and to think in any way they might feel like, but to vote and think Labour. The T-shirts might refer to "socialism", but this would not be the first time this term has been used for its popular appeal. Perhaps some performers are being "used" by the politicians to some extent, and any comments they might make about young people thinking for themselves can only be supported by socialists But it is contemptible for artistic popularity to be prostituted to the sale of stale and second-hand ideas for an alternative brand of "people's capitalism".
The Socialist Party did produce a leaflet which has been distributed at Red Wedge events, which we quote from here:
Enjoy the music, but do your own thinking. Beware of the smooth talking leaders who are waiting in the wings to sell you their sterile ideas. Workers are capable of building a future which might now seem like a dream. That future has nothing to do with swapping the inhabitants of Ten Downing Street It is about establishing a society of common ownership, democratic control and production for use — a genuine socialist society. You owe it to yourselves to consider the case, not for the Labour Party, but for socialism.
Editors
No reform
Dear Editors,
Central to your position is the belief that capitalism cannot be destroyed piecemeal; the struggle must be for all or nothing. I agree that most reformist campaigns are futile and ultimately counter-productive However, I believe that there are exceptions to this rule.
I have in mind the following campaign proposal: "In order to safeguard the National Health Service private medicine should be abolished. Only when those who control the nation's purse-strings are compelled to rely on the NHS will they ensure that it is properly funded Quite simply, medicine is too vital a service to be bought and sold in the market-place".
Such a campaign can surely be seen only as a first step in persuading people that they would benefit from the common ownership of all resources. I am also convinced that it would gain widespread support. Even Sun readers would see through crude propaganda of the "freedom of choice" variety. In short, the prospect of the rich waiting their turn for treatment has very wide appeal.
Of course, a similar case can be made for the outlawing of private education.
Socialism remains the only answer to humanity's problems. It's time we took that first step.
Yours.
A. Beckett
Chester
Reply:
A. Beckett is correct in asserting that central to the Socialist Party's position is the belief that capitalism cannot be destroyed piecemeal and that reformist campaigns are futile and counter-productive. But A. Beckett takes the view that some "worthy causes" are exceptions and can be reformed within capitalism.
The National Health Service does not represent a step towards socialism: the 1944 White Paper proposing such a service was presented by Henry Willinck. a Conservative Minister of Health, because it was necessary to give credibility to the concept of "fighting for a better Britain '; a centrally administered service was more efficient; a fitter workforce was needed for post-war reconstruction; it was feared that workers' agitation would break out again after the war if concessions were not granted.
Although health care is centrally funded the supply of drugs, equipment, provisions and construction have remained in private hands and the state in its role as employer has been just as ruthless in holding down wages as any private business concern.
To suggest that privileges can be given up by abolishing private medicine, without removing the causes of privilege and the exploitation of one person by another, is to invite failure Like all institutions under capitalism health services facilitate business interests which explains their growth when labour is in short supply and needs to be conserved, and the cut-backs imposed when unemployment causes a surplus of labour. "Non-producers" such as the elderly, the young, disabled. mentally handicapped and long-term mentally ill are kept short of resources even in a time of prosperity and expansion because they no longer contribute to the profitability of capitalism which overrides social needs.
The incidence of ill-health and premature deaths are higher for the poor than the wealthy and health services, however sophisticated, can only treat the symptoms of poverty instead of tackling the causes. Therefore, to campaign for better health services while leaving the causes of ill- health intact is to collaborate in the continued, and often unnecessary, ill-health of the workers. The same objections apply to A. Beckett's concluding view, that a similar case could be made for the abolition of private education. Indeed, once on the reformist road a case could be made for campaigning against destroying food; pollution; racism; sexism; nuclear weapons — all of which are doomed to failure or at best only limited success while we have a social system based on profit. Instead of enduring the frustration of trying to change a piece of capitalism we invite A. Beckett to join with socialists in building a moneyless society which puts people first.
