The Common Market Special Survey: 1. The Background (1962)

From the January 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

A shiver of apprehension is running through the national press as cabinet ministers and captains of industry set about the task of preparing the public for what to expect if Britain’s application to join the Common Market should be accepted. Mr. Macmillan calls it “a bracing cold shower we shall enter, not a relaxing Turkish bath” and one of the industrial bosses thinks it will rather be “an icicled channel swim at nought degrees Centigrade.” Prophecy is dangerous, but the chances are that within 15 months from now this country will be part of the European Economic Community.

What reasons do the British ruling class put forward for having to join the Common Market? Why should Britain shift the traditional centre of gravity of her economy from the Commonwealth to Europe? Why should she wish to wind up the European Free Trade Area (EFTA) she had only recently been instrumental in creating? And what effects will this have upon the British working class?

Weakened and impoverished by the ravages of World War II, the rump of continental Europe lay prostrate in front of the Iron Curtain, useless to the bloc of Western powers dominated by the United States of America as a profitable market, useless in the game of power politics as a defence against the rival bloc grouped around the Soviet Union. Only an economically healthy Europe would offer reasonable guarantees of safety to the American world of finance and industry. And so from the dust and ashes there arose new life, frantic activity, a giant mesh of scaffolding throughout Western Europe, factories, banks, stores, communications shot up at breakneck speed—financed by a massive programme of American aid and investment. The Marshall Plan "of which the sole condition was that the countries of Europe must band together and agree upon a joint recovery programme.”

British industrialists watched with consternation ultramodern plant swinging into action across the channel. But with both the home market and the Commonwealth, with its established system of preferential duties, crying out for manufactured goods after the shortage and wastage of the war years, profits were still secure in spite of outdated plant and methods.

Powerful vested interests were haunted by the fear of a resurgent Germany, the spectre of Krupp and Thyssen—the giants of the Ruhr and the power behind the expansionist militarism both of Prussia and Nazi Germany. German industry was not to be permitted to swallow all the plums in the new Europe. Markets, capital, labour and raw materials were to be divided fairly between the power groups. By 1953 the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was a going concern comprising the coal and steel industries of Federal Germany, France, Italy and Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg). The Origins of the Common Market.

There was one weak link; Belgian coal was too expensive. Throughout the mining belt across the south of Belgium mines were shut down and miners were out of work in their thousands. But the Belgian mine owners had been helped over the critical period with massive subsidies from the international High Authority administering ECSC. Capitalism had pulled a new card from its sleeve. For coal and steel, ECSC meant larger markets, bigger production, better exploitation of capital and labour, fewer irksome administrative barriers, discriminations and quotas. Why not extend the idea to the economy as a whole?

By March, 1957, there was signed the Treaty of Rome which launched the six participants in ECSC on the road towards the Common Market. Its object was:

“To permit goods to travel freely without Customs Duties or quota restrictions, throughout the area of the Six and thus to permit manufacturers to invest on the scale that modern technology makes possible and necessary.”

Customs duties between the Six were to be whittled down progressively in three successive phases of four years each. At the same time a uniform external tariff wall was to be erected around the Six. Allowance was made for differences between the Six in terms of industrial development and efficiency or productivity, for differences in wage levels between member countries. It was obvious that the impact of a progressive crumbling of Customs duties would have serious effects on certain industries and even countries. To soften the impact the Six adopted a device successfully tried out by the Benelux countries from the start of their Customs Union almost immediately after the last war—a Compensation Tax. Being flexible, this tax can be used to ensure, in the interest of the ruling class of the Six as a whole, that individual national groups of an industry do not cause too much of a disturbance in any specific field.

Big industry and banking seized the opportunity with both hands; American capital poured into the Six. Displaced Persons, human flotsam, waiting to be employed as cheap labour, were overflowing in German refugee camps. Italy, where starving millions were considered a potential communist threat, had been given a major blood transfusion of U.S. dollars and was starting a massive programme of industrialisation with huge reserves of agricultural labour waiting to be drawn off the land in Southern Italy and fed onto the new industrial treadmill.

Developments were rapid. Before the end of the first four-year period the programme of whittling down of Customs Duties had been exceeded by 18 months. Inter-Common Market tariffs are now 30 per cent. below their 1957 level and may be 50 per cent. down by the end of this year. The process may be completed by 1965 if not before.

In the meantime the British ruling class was taking only a modest interest in the Common Market. How modest will be seen from the fact that that even as late as 1960 British private direct investment within the Six (excluding oil and insurance) amounted to no more than £21 million as compared with £208 million invested in the Sterling Area outside the United Kingdom during the same period. In a good many fields British industry was not even interested in exports of any kind. These were the people who could sell all they could manufacture in the home market behind the cover of a high protective tariff wall and in the expectation that the halcyon days were here to stay. Their plant was being amortized at a comfortable rate and foreign competition could not touch them. To break into the fiercely competitive outside world meant hard work, expense, lower profit margins. Why bother?

But in the Commonwealth things had been happening. Preferential treatment of British goods had disappeared under a great many headings in the Customs Tariffs of Commonwealth countries which are fast building up a market for their products in Europe.

Nonetheless certain Commonwealth countries, notably New Zealand, still depended largely on the British market for their livelihood and raised vociferous objections to any thought of a British commitment with the Six unless their special interests were safeguarded.

Powerful British interests also disliked intensely the possibility of a political entanglement with the Six.

It was all too complicated. Couldn’t the remaining uncommitted countries of Europe (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Portugal) be brought into some form of association more to the liking of the British ruling class, without the embarrassment of. political implications and interference with existing Commonwealth trade? Their 97 million people (including the United Kingdom) would not compare with the home market of 170 millions of the Six, but it was better than nothing. And it would strengthen Britain’s hand in any later approaches to the Six. Thus was born the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) or “The Seven.” Finland has since joined making EFTA “The Eight.” Its purpose was to be strictly limited to the progressive reduction of Inter-EFTA Customs Duties and quantitive restrictions.

Now the prospect of an enlarged Common Market of 250 million people or more discriminating against U.S. goods is beginning to alarm the American capitalists. Already pressure groups are at work promoting a direct U.S. participation in the Common Market. This, to quote, the Herter report, “with its highly developed industrial and technological complex and its disciplined workers, would comprise the most efficient workshop in the world” where since 1958 trade among the Six had risen by about 50 per cent. . . .

What is involved in the British application to join the Six, for industry and finance, and what does it mean to the British working class?

If agreement should not be forthcoming, British industry could well find itself faced across the Channel with a fast-expanding, highly efficient and ultramodern competitor of great striking power. Many British manufactured products may disappear from the markets of the world which would entail a major re-alignment of industry. The usual flow of capital from the weak to the strong will be accelerated. The harder it became to export finished goods, the more British capital might have to seek investment abroad for overseas manufacture, albeit in return for smaller profits.

Designed to fit the present requirements of Western capitalist society, the Common Market has, like any other capitalist institution, no permanence. It will be discarded when it ceases to be profitable. To the British worker it reinforces the constant threat for the worker under capitalism of insecurity and unemployment,

Tisserand.

The Emerging World Scene (1946)

From the November 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is no doubt that things are on the move. Incessant activity on the part of politicians leads one to speculate as to what is pending. The Nuremberg Trial is now a thing of the past, the U.N. is proposing to take a breathing spell, the Conservative Party holds a conference, the U.S. takes decisive action in Europe; in short, what we see in our master’s press leads to the belief that the decks are being cleared for action : the capitalist class have, in the main, decided upon what they are going to do.

The American Presidential election takes place in two years’ time, and all those aspiring to office in the United States act, and speak, under the spell of that important fact. Eisenhower, who recently spoke at Edinburgh, Byrnes, the representative at the U.N., Wallace, the former U.S. Secretary of Commerce, and many others are thinking when they speak not so much of the subject in hand as of the American election of 1948.

Eisenhower said in his speech of October 3rd : “World neighbourliness must be achieved or else, we shall, in a twinkling, travel a backward route over mankind’s long and laborious progress from his ancient caves to the present.”—(Daily Telegraph, 4/10/46.)

Mr. Byrnes says that if other Powers will agree to the 40-year Treaty proposed by him, this treaty will bind “not merely the present American administration, but its successors.”

Commenting on this, the Daily Telegraph of October 4th says : —

“Of the four Powers consulted upon this proposal, Britain, France and the United States are favourable, and it, is only from Russia that a refusal has so far come. This refusal is no doubt partly based upon those divergencies of view between the wartime Allies to which Mr. Byrnes made discreet reference. The prospect of a democratic Germany as seen by the State Department and by the Kremlin is strikingly different. Yet it is difficult not to surmise that Marshal Stalin’s objection to the Four-Power Treaty is mainly based on the fear, not that the United States will disinterest herself from Europe, but on the contrary, that the Treaty would serve to maintain her influence there. Mr. Byrnes’s reference to the Yalta declaration and the continued American interest in the Balkans indicates that this influence will, none the less, persist.”

Mr. Byrnes has a good election cry for 1948 : his rival, Mr. Wallace, who recently was rapped over the knuckles by President Truman and, as a consequence, lost his job, is losing out in the race; the policy of isolationism is no longer in favour in capitalist circles. 

Mr. Baruch, United States representative on the Atomic Control Commission, has vigorously attacked Wallace, and stated that the latter was totally ignorant of the facts underlying atomic control. Wallace is now trimming his sails, and states, in excuse for his attack on Mr. Byrnes’ policy in regard to Russia, “that he had obviously not been fully posted as to the facts.” The deadlock over atomic control, according to Wallace, results from absence of mutual trust between U.S. and Russia. He faces both ways, like all politicians placed in similar circumstances, by concluding that “the United States is in a better position to assume leadership which will lead,” but he has no plan except that of stopping the manufacture of atomic bombs.

If we read between the lines the general conclusion arrived at is that a peace treaty is going to be patched up. Russia is compelled to accept the U.N. decision on Trieste, and her policy regarding the Danubian Waterway has been opposed so strenuously by Britain, France and the United States that she is compelled temporarily to give way to them.

There is little likelihood of a long or permanent peace; however, the nations will, in all probability, prepare for what, under capitalism, is inevitable with what speed they may. Britain is evidently not going to be caught napping. Look at this: —

£12,000,000 FOB ROCKET TESTS.

AUSTRALIAN PLANT.

“The British and Australian Governments may be involved in an expenditure of between £12,000,000 and £14,000,000 in the construction of rocket-bomb workshops and testing ranges in Australia. The annual maintenance cost is expected to be about £3,000,000.

It is understood the Australian Government has received advice from Britain setting out proposals for research and development and for testing grounds in the centre of Australia. These are based on the recommendations of a mission of experts and scientists which visited Australia early this year”.—(Daily Telegraph, 4/10/46.)

It is against the above background we must judge the speeches of Sir Stafford Cripps at the Empire Trade Conference on October 3rd.

The Tories have recently laid stress on Imperial Preference; the following is Stafford Cripps’ reply.—

“It was an obvious and sensible course for us to pursue to endeavour to extend and consolidate our inter-Commonwealth trade.

"But that trade alone cannot fully meet any of our needs, and it would defeat our object of full employment and prosperity for our own people if we were to concentrate on Commonwealth trade alone and neglect those wider fields of world trade which we must cultivate.”

You are plainly told the Empire is not enough for British Capitalism; the Government must go hunting elsewhere for markets. The system compels expansion; the world is the limit; the clash between nations cannot be avoided. Socialism is the only means of saving mankind from destruction, and, unfortunately, Socialism is not yet fully understood by those who are called upon by history to establish it.

The Conservative Conference was held by men who observe the signs of the times, and are getting ready to deal with a situation they think will arise in the not far distant future.

The Labour Party is designated as the Socialist Party, but one statement made by Mr. Eden will be very interesting to the readers of the Socialist Standard.

“There is one principle underlying our approach to all these problems, a principle on which we stand in fundamental opposition to Socialism. The objective of Socialism is State ownership of all the means of production, distribution and exchange. Our objective is a nation-wide, property-owning democracy. (Cheers.)

These objectives are fundamentally opposed. Whereas the Socialist purpose is the concentration of ownership in the hands of the State, ours is the distribution of ownership over the widest practicable number of individuals. (Cheers.) Both parties believe in a form of capitalism, but whereas our opponents believe in State capitalism, we believe in the widest measure of individual capitalism.”—(Daily Telegraph, 4/10/46.)

Eden knows, and clearly shows, that the difference between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party is a difference in degree and not in kind.

The propaganda of the l.L.P. and kindred organisations have confounded Socialism with State Capitalism.

Mr. Eden is slated for the Premiership and the odds are in his favour.

Division in the Labour Party is probable, and the Communists may hasten it along. “For or against the Soviet Union” may arise as an issue out of the present political situation. The Cabinet will be up against it if they are forced to decide between Russia and the United States. The “Labour Progressives”, supported by Communists, will go wholeheartedly for Russia if such an issue develops, so will many of their followers in the Unions, and the question, is what will happen to the Labour Government in these circumstances?

Anthony Eden is the most likely man for the Premiership in the Coalition Government which it is anticipated would then spring into being as a matter of course.

The above is how the prophets have worked it out; they may be right, but, as Shaw says, “You never can tell.”

Meanwhile the wage slave plods his weary way. his meagre rations barely sufficient to enable him to carry on.

So Capitalism staggers along through the stages that precede its dissolution. It must live its life, but the end is drawing nearer every day.

Wherever you go nowadays you find working men not only discussing the political situation, but analysing it ably and well.

The war has not succeeded in blowing out the light within the brains of the members of our class; it has accelerated the growth of class consciousness, and increased the knowledge of the system that is its cause.

In the chain gang of wage slavery this knowledge is being passed from man to man and from woman to woman. The substance of Socialism is being absorbed by ever-increasing numbers.

The effects of this may be clearly revealed in the intelligence displayed by the workers in the strenuous conflicts that lie ahead.

The inherent antagonism between the exploited and their exploiters cannot be suppressed; it will become world wide; wherever Capitalism goes Socialist ideas cannot be prevented from appearing and playing their historic part.

The Capitalist class are bent on rejuvenating a system that is now senile. They cannot give it a new lease of life.

The working class will soon be forced to try and discover ways and means of ending it. We are with them because we are of them. There is no doubt as to the result. Society must establish Socialism or perish. The expropriation of the expropriators is the only way out.

Charles Lestor

The Trouble in Berlin (1948)

From the August 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

It stands to reason that when rival Powers are forced to unite by fear of a common enemy the one thing that cannot fail to bring their loving association to an abrupt end is the destruction of their enemy. Ostensibly the four Allied Powers agreed together to occupy the four Zones of Germany in order “to keep the Germans down” ; but only the very simple believed it would last. The destruction of German might in 1945 was bound to have the same kind of sequel as it had in 1918. Then it was France and Britain that were soon at daggers drawn, this time, with Germany crushed, it is Russia and the Western Powers that fear each other and are trying to win support for their respective policies among the Germans themselves. All the occupying Powers were in an awkward position when it came to making advances to the Germans. They had to explain by what right they remained in occupation of Germany after the end of the fighting. To each other they kept up for a time the fiction that they were united allies who were in Germany because each wanted the other to be there just out of comradely feeling and under amicably negotiated agreements.

As their quarrels became more open and heated this ceased to be of any use, especially as both sides accused the other of having broken the agreements. The other and only real “right” to be there was the “right of conquest,” since not even the most brazen politician could argue that they were there by invitation of the population. But when allies get to the stage of arguing about the right of might danger is in the air. When each side accused the other of wanting to split Germany both were evading the issue. Each wanted a united Germany provided the government would be subservient: neither wanted a united Germany which would back the other side. Russia had an advantage because its zone encircled Berlin, the traditional capital, but it still remained to squeeze America, Britain and France out of their sectors of Berlin itself. The latter governments stood on their right to be there by agreement, to which the Daily Worker (10/7/48), retorted with the answer that the Russians got to Berlin first and “invited” the other Powers, to join them because they then supposed that “the British, Americans and French were at one with the Russians in sincerely desiring the united control of Germany.” The major reason given by the Worker is, however, that “the Russians took Berlin with tremendous loss and sacrifice by their own forces. . . .”—in other words the “right of conquest.” The inevitable answer to the argument that one Power holds something by right of force is for some other Power to threaten to use more force to change the “right.” And that was the position in July when all sorts of vague threats of never yielding were being bandied about by both sides. The Observer’s Washington correspondent summed it up as follows: “There is every reason to believe that the American Government, and indeed all three Western occupying Powers, have accepted the risk of war which is inherent in the Berlin note to Russia.” (Observer, 11 7 48).

This Correspondent quoted a diplomatic informant who brightly remarked : “We have put our boat in at the head of the rapids and will just have to see how it turns out.” So the preliminary manoeuvring for the third world war goes on over the, at present, prostrate body of Germany. What the future will bring when some day the boat does “shoot the rapids” everyone can imagine.

In the meantime the palm for stupidity surely goes to the Labour Government’s Home Secretary, Mr. Chuter Ede, who as an ex-teacher must have learned nothing from history and as an ex-soldier must have learned nothing from war. and could actually talk in our age of war “for honour.” Speaking at a British Legion meeting in South Shields he said : “There is one price we are not prepared to pay for peace. That is the loss of our honour.” (Daily Telegraph, 12/7/48).

The joint military occupation of Germany was hound to fail because in a capitalist world the formerly allied capitalisms have real things to fight about among themselves.—the capture of markets and control of regions of economic and strategic importance. If the workers of the world were alive to their common interest in the struggle against Capitalism and for Socialism they would have opposed from the start any attempt to impose a settlement by armies of occupation. The German workers, like the workers of Russia and the West, have to learn to achieve their own emancipation for themselves: and behind the problem of destroying militarism, which is but one of the effects of capitalism, is the fundamental problem of destroying capitalism itself, a task for the working class of all lands.

Edgar Hardcastle

Editorial: Tobacco workers' dilemma (1953)

Editorial from the July 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the annual conference of the Tobacco Workers' Union, held in London in June, the delegates were discussing unemployment which has recently increased in the industry. The president of the Union, Mr. D. G. Bowry, drew attention to a problem affecting tobacco workers.

“In a number of our factories we have had to endure short time. We have seen the elimination of certain smaller manufacturers with certain dismissals of staff. Yet we are told that if we are to survive we must produce more. It seems to me that we in our industry are tossing up with a double-headed penny. If we produce more we are faced with redundancy, and if we produce less we are faced with the same medicine.”—(Manchester Guardian, 12th June, 1953.)

The point was neatly put; but Mr. Bowry did not state the problem fully and did not offer a solution.

Stating the problem fully he would have included all industries everywhere, not merely the tobacco industry in this country. He would not have called the factories “ours,” for in no country do the factories belong to the workers or to the community as a whole; in all countries all industries, including those run on nationalised capitalist lines, are run for profit not solely for use.

Consequently it is all workers, in all countries, who are tossing up with the double-headed penny. If they produce too little they get the sack; if they produce too much they work some of their number out of their jobs. And if they follow a happy mean their fate is just the same whenever an industry (or all industries) suffers from one of capitalism's chaotic phases of “overproduction” in relation to the market as did textiles last year. Nowhere at all are the workers free from poverty and safe against insecurity.

This is not what the workers are told. All governments and employers, and many labour leaders, tell the workers that if they produce more they will be better off and will be safeguarding themselves against unemployment.

As it happened, a day or two after the Tobacco Workers’ conference the Sunday Express (14 June) published an article by Dr. Ludwig Erhard, Minister for Economic Affairs in the West German government. In it Dr. Erhard offered to Britain and the British workers the advice he offers to the workers in Germany. Recently, “travelling in his fast Mercedes car he went round the Ruhr urging more steel production," and he would tell the British workers:—

“ It is no use for a working man to say, ‘I’m safe whether I work hard or not.’ It is no use saying: 'I won’t go without food even if I’m not worth a job ’ . . . But I would also add this: If you work hard you should eat well. If you eat well, you will work.”

Dr. Erhard thinks that British industry has nothing to fear from German competition as “there is room in the world for both British and German exports." He notes just one difference between Britain and Germany: “ our men work harder and faster.”

But one thing Dr. Erhard forgot to mention is that in West Germany there were at the end of March 1,392,870 registered unemployed!

So far what we have said could only strengthen Mr. Bowry in his conviction that we live in a hard, cruel world, for we have not yet attended to the remark he made at the end of his speech, that he would be “quite happy to hear the solution to this dilemma."

We are quite happy to supply the solution though surprised that among those tobacco workers there was nobody able to do so on the spot.

The dilemma glimpsed by Mr. Bowry is just an aspect, an inevitable one, of capitalism. And the only cure for capitalism is Socialism.

If, as so often happens, the tobacco workers hear the solution and then dismiss it from their minds on the ground that Socialism calls for a radical change of thought and action and is therefore difficult to grasp and endorse, they should remember that that difficulty will be as nothing compared with the miseries of poverty, unemployment and war they will undoubtedly suffer if they go on hoping that social reforms and Labour Governments and nationalised capitalism will get them out of the mess they are in.

The bear on the rampage (1946)

From the July 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Delcassé once said “There are two diplomacies in this world that really count, the British and the Russian, for the simple reason that they are the only ones which plan in generations and not in months, in centuries and not in years.”

The unobservant man appears to be under the impression that the foreign policy of a capitalist government is determined by the party in power at the moment, whereas the truth is the track was probably laid down in the dim and distant past. The Labour Party is forced to foster and defend the interests of the Empire, and Stalin is the logical descendant of Peter the Great, the imperialist who laid the foundations of modern Russia. Capitalism has a ruthless code, and, so long as the system lasts., rulers and ruled are compelled to obey its mandate.

Gilbert Murray, in an article, “The Rule—The Lie,” in the current number of the “Contemporary Review,” says that “ When Nansen was distributing relief in Russia in 1921-22, one of the Soviet Government’s stipulations was that he should not reveal that the food came as a good will gift from foreign ‘capitalist' countries.”

The supplies that went from Britain to Russia during the late war are thought by countless numbers of Soviet citizens to have been sent from one part of Russia to the other. The Soviet Government rules by keeping its subjects in the dark, but events are helping to enlighten them. Edgar Bruce, in the “World Review” of May, tells of his experiences with the Russians in Europe who do not wish to go back to Soviet Russia. He was engaged in repatriation work and tried all be could to induce them to return to their native land. He wanted to know why many had no desire to go home. They sent him the following explanation : —

“We object to going back to the Soviet Union, it is all lies what they told us about our better living conditions in the Soviet Union.”

“ As peasants (on collective farms) the Government imposes taxes as follows on each individual: Milk contribution up to 500 litres, meat up to 32 kilo, eggs up to 120 eggs. If we keep our own cow a tax of 350 litres of milk from that cow has to be paid to the State. As workers the Government deducts 10 per cent, compulsory loan and then income tax and culture tax from our wages.

“The Stakhanovite system is a rate-cutting system. The Government gives an outstanding workman the best tools and materials. He sets up a production record which the Government expects the ordinary worker to attain.

“The average pay for a qualified man is 320 roubles a month, for the unskilled 80 or 90 roubles. Out of this ho must buy—black bread at 1 rouble a kilo, meat 12 roubles a kilo, butter 28 roubles a kilo, sugar 6.5 roubles a Kilo.

“The cost to the Government of these commodities is one-tenth and one-fourteenth of what we pay. Punishment for late arrival at work can be six months’ imprisonment. Private work outside the factory is forbidden, espionage is rampant, and one is not safe from denunciation even by a member of one’s own family. Nobody is allowed to choose his work or place of work.” Both peasants and workers in the deputation that came to interview Edgar Bruce stated that the standard of living was at starvation level."

In fairness to Stalin & Co. it must be pointed out. that the above statements are from men who were fed up with life in Russia, and may be overdrawn. This is somewhat different, however, from what we read in Communist publications and contradicts what is said in all countries by the “Friends of the Soviet Union.”

The Soviet Government is making a bid for expansion in Europe and Asia. It is now a matter of life and death for the Kremlin to continue its policy of world deception, it must conceal from the workers in countries outside Russia an understanding of what is happening in the Soviet Union, and also keep from its own wage slaves a real knowledge of the state of things existing in the other parks of the capitalist world. The Russian rulers, having control of the organs of publicity, are at present able to make their dupes believe what they want them to believe, but when disillusionment comes, as come it inevitably will, there may be a dreadful reckoning.

The Soviet Government is, like all capitalist governments, an enemy of Socialism, and aims at using its influence over the workers of other lands as a means of spreading its imperial power. The facts cry beware. What are the aspirations of Stalin & Co.? Let us first take Persia and judge what they are after by what they are doing. Azerbaijan contains oil. During the Russian occupation of the province they started exploiting that oil (they actually bored no less than thirty-five wells) without Teheran’s desire or permission. When, later, Teheran was consulted and refused the oil concessions, an autonomous Azerbaijan Government was set up for the express purpose of ceding those rights. British capitalism is already entrenched in the oilfields of Southern Persia and, of course, sees danger to its position and profits in the Russian incursion.

As Léon Blum says in the Manchester Guardian of May 21st: “The Communists sacrifice liberty to discipline to such an extent that liberty is in danger of disappearance. The Communists always take it for granted that Moscow is right. Communist methods of propaganda are so unscrupulous that they endanger the very fabric of democracy.”

On the last day in March, in Germany, a plebiscite was held to see whether the Social Democrats should amalgamate with the Communists. The result of the voting being a foregone conclusion in an anti-Communist sense, the Russian authorities, in their own particular zone, forbade the plebiscite to be held (they held a separate and special plebiscite in their own zone when the desired result had been well and truly assured). They, incidentally, thereby gave another definition of what they mean by the word “Democratic.”

The Russian spokesman who made, this announcement to the head polling office coined a new masterpiece of Bolshevik jargon: “The plebiscite is not prohibited, but it is not permitted.”

Mr. Voigt, a well known writer on international affairs, says: “ The time will come when Russia will in Western Germany promote a German national ‘proletarian’ revolution against the Western Powers. The revolution, if it succeeds, will inaugurate the anti-Western and more especially the anti-British armed alliance between Russia and Germany ” (“Nineteenth Century,” May).

Mr. Byrnes, speaking on the radio, May 20th, said “The Balkan treaties were blocked mainly by the Council’s inability to agree upon economic clauses and particularly by the Soviet refusal to allow inclusion in the treaties of any provision promising freedom of commerce on the Danube.”

It was German capitalism’s determination to control the inland waterways of Europe that was one of the causes of Anglo-American opposition leading to the late war.

Another writer in the same magazine says: “The information and facts available show that Russia considers herself to possess exclusive rights for economic expansion in the countries of the middle zone. She has concluded with several states at present occupied by Russian military forces trade agreements which would practically bar any outside trade and would eventually lead to melting these regions into the economic system of Soviet Russia. The Soviet trade policy strongly reminds us of that of pre-war Germany, with the difference that it is very much more brutal and thorough.”

The real reason why Russia is so persistent in her attacks on Franco Spain is connected with her ambitions in the Mediterranean. How little it is concerned with combatting a government with Nazi sympathies is shown by the sudden somersault in the Russian attitude to the similar government in the Argentine.

Another sphere of Russian penetration is Manchuria, about which it may be possible to deal in a further article.

Marx said “We should obtain a knowledge of international politics. It is essential if we are to accomplish our task that we should also participate.” Russia is in the new armaments race.

The likely line-up in the next scrap can already he perceived.

The interests of the working class are not served by fostering imperialism, whether practiced by Britain, the United Stales or Soviet Russia. The workers can achieve their emancipation when they refuse to be led by politicians whose object, like that of the Labour Party, is simply to perpetuate existing capitalist institutions. The continuation of capitalism in any form means another world war. The establishment of Socialism means permanent world peace, but this requires a majority of Socialists to bring about. The making of Socialists is the only way it can be done. Therefore, keep on the job.

Charles Lestor

The World To-Day — A Socialist Survey (1946)

From the March 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the corrupted currents of capitalist life the wage slave is never, but always to be blest. Good times are said to be coming, but they never arrive. During the war promises were lavishly spread and the workers looked forward to the cessation of hostilities eagerly, and hopefully, under the impression that the strain would then be over and they could relax to some extent from their arduous toil. They were soon disillusioned however. Exhortation was made to them to resume their weary burden, and when relief was sought through the election of a Labour Government there was no respite. The wage slave gets his fodder barely enough to work on—the difference between the working men who lost, and the working men who won the war-is soon levelled up—amid all the confusion of concentration camps, displaced persons, foes and friends, and the chaos existing everywhere, the commodity nature of labour power manifests itself: the slave must receive sufficient to generate within him what he is called upon to deliver.

The conflict now raging between the more powerful groups of capitalists has forced them to do away with internal competition as much as possible, and this is largely responsible for the growth of nationalisation. There are other causes of course, but this fact should not be lost sight of. A Labour Government puts it over for them, and what is more, fools the wage slaves into believing they are receiving Socialism. The pooling of national capitalist groups has had an effect on the international situation, which is revealed in the quarrel over the proposed loan from the United States, and the squabbles at U.N.O. The recipients of surplus value cannot reconcile their sectional interests; these stand out sharply immediately the war ends. The smaller nations are at the mercy of one or the other of the big three, the mighty economic forces are carrying society along, and forcing the thinking section of the community towards the point when they will be forced to perceive that Socialism is the only way out.

The U.N.O. Conference in London has disclosed the relative decline of European capitalism. Out of 51 nations not a quarter are Europeans.

The veil was lifted for a while during the quarrel between Bevin and Vishinsky, and the real character of Russia was revealed, as also of capitalist Britain. The sudden publicity given by Bevin to the part played by the Communists was not to Moscow’s liking. It looked at one time as if the Bear was going to hibernate, but instead he beat a strategic retreat. Whilst this was going on Molotov was telling the slaves of the Soviet Union that Russian would never allow any other nation to interfere in her internal affairs. A sense of humour is essential at these times even when discussing international bickerings.

The Russians are the victims of their own propaganda ; we are told by them that there is no unemployment in the Soviet Union. There was little unemployment in the slave states of old, or under the feudal system, but this is not saying there was no exploitation. Russian has this in common with ancient Rome and the old civilisations—she allows little or no freedom. The masses are taught and induced to believe what the ruling clique consider it is desirable they should know; their contact with the outside world is restricted; a real knowledge of what exists in other lands might make the Russian workers dangerous from the standpoint of their oppressors. The wage slaves of Russia will grasp the facts underlying their real position eventually: the machine may help to clarify their ideas, and although freedom of association with the workers of other lands may be retarded, it cannot be permanently prevented.

We are beginning to obtain a little more information from Germany about the movement there, and it is pleasing to note that the opposition to the Nazi dictators was stronger than we had been asked to believe. The ruthlessness of the Hitler regime did not prevent certain groups standing out for what they believed to be the real interests of the workers, of which freedom of speech was one. The brutality with which they were treated by the Nazi gang is a sign that Hitler feared them. Many articles have been written about Nazism, but it is hard to accept the statement that the children of Germany were educated and trained by the Nazis against the wishes of their parents. The majority of the wage slaves of the Reich were willing tools and for this reason we should appreciate all the more the courage of those who refused to bow the knee and steadfastly stood, during the whole period of Nazi supremacy, for the unity of the working class of all countries.

There are great troubles ahead; the quarrel over the control of the waterways of Europe is now rampant, with Russia taking the place of Germany. 

How cynically the Russian rulers act: they apparently consider the masses of all other countries to be as backward as the peasantry of the Steppes. They classify themselves as belonging to the freedom- loving nations whilst holding against their will vast numbers of helpless individuals, whose voices they will not allow to be heard. Let the admirers of Russia read the chapter on Pan Slavism in Marx’s “Revolution and Counter Revolution”: let them take stock of the actions of Russia in the Baltic States, and everywhere where she has been able to get a foothold, and they will realise that this totalitarian power is as much a menace to all members of the working class, who are endeavouring to escape the horrors of capitalism by establishing Socialism, as are the rest of the capitalist Powers.

The Labour Government are still continuing their policy of dangling the carrot before the donkey. When anything was wanted during the war how quickly it was brought into being. What a difference when the wage slaves desire something for themselves. Houses, for instance. What a lot of discussion precedes action. The number of samples on show cause hope to spring in the breast of those who live in over-crowded conditions. Swedish houses, Canadian houses, American houses. The specimens are of wood, brick, aluminium or plastic. The women are being questioned as to why they do not have more children. One would think even a Labour Government would get the shelters ready before asking the slaves why they do not have more offspring. The maternity wards are said to be overcrowded. What more do they want? The fact is the God of Profit must be served first, and unless and until a way can he found to enable capitalism’s deity to obtain his pound of flesh, the woes of his victims will be allowed to continue. It is plain to every observant individual that the Labour Party cannot fulfil its pledges to the electorate. There was to be no unemployment. A visit to the Labour Exchange will soon show differently. Capitalism has its own laws and these are more powerful than governments.

To take something from one section of the working class and give it to another does not decrease the amount of exploitation or the amount of surplus value that goes to the capitalist class.

The above is all the Labour Party’s proposals amount to in reality. No expropriation of the recipients of rent, interest, and profit is seriously contemplated, and until that is done nothing is accomplished of lasting benefit to those who produce the wealth of society.

Charles Lestor

The Revolutionary Proposition - Part 2 (1955)

From the September 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

To Socialists it is an almost pathetic spectacle to see the mass of the workers everywhere looking up to and voting for leaders though the latter have invariably let them down and failed to bring about any change in the great disparity between the status of the workers and that of the owners. The struggle between the two classes continues unabated. Every demand for an increase of wages is resisted by the employers as fiercely as ever. For, does it not curtail the Capitalists’ profits? Whatever improvements have been made in working conditions for the slaves in the industrially-advanced countries in the West, and in the backward countries in the East, have been and are in the interest of the employers themselves. All reforms have left the problem untouched. The rich have become richer, the poor poorer. The working-class continues to be excluded from ownership and control of the means and instruments of wealth production and therefore from the degrees of social dignity and economic independence that modern man could enjoy. Nationalisation of industries is still being dangled before the eyes of the workers as a panacea, but wherever industries have been partially or—as in Russia and elsewhere—almost completely nationalized, it has not altered the position of the workers one iota. In some respects it has made matters worse for the workers.

That the fallacy and uselessness of nationalisation as a remedy for working-class problems can on occasion be admitted even by its advocates, with impunity, would, show how deplorably slow the masses are to draw conclusions and move in the right, i.e., in the revolutionary direction. Thus, Jean Jaurès was recently quoted by the Vienna Arbeiter-Zeituny as having stated:

"Whether the worker toils for the State, the Department, the city-councils, or for privates, is all the same. Whether the employer is called State or tailor, the dependency and the misery are always the same. If the Socialist organization meant nothing but the extension of the present State enterprises and public works in their present-day form, it would be nothing but a colossal swindle . . . ' '. . . as long as the State does not stamp out the Capitalistic organisation and establish a new organisation in its place, the State is caught by this Capitalist rule in the same way as the private producers: its despotic hand is impotent against the terrible, steelhard juggernaut and so becomes, willy-nilly, the slave of the present social order of the brutal machines which trample on and squeeze the workers just as a steam press squeezes the grapes and pours forth riches for the fortunates of the world, but leaves for the people nothing but the useless residue of want and misery.'

And in another issue of the paper they quoted in a leading article:

‘The transfer of all private capital to the State does not by a long way do away with the function of capital, and does not by a long way exclude the exploitation of the working-class—it is in truth FAR FROM BEING SOCIALISM.’ 

Yet, they call themselves Socialists while all the time doing the dirty work of the exploiters and calling for more State-control! Is it so difficult for the multitude of voters and the dues-paying party-members to perceive the fraud and swindle that is being perpetrated upon them?

Is it too much to expect that the two world-wars also would have opened the workers’ eyes after the smoke had cleared and shown the old great gulf between the two classes, the haves and the have-nots, unchanged in both the victorious and the defeated countries alike? And is the swindle not equally clear in Russia, where even the Western democratic facilities which the Russian workers had precariously grasped for a moment in 1918, were again lost under the bloody onslaught of the Bolshevik monster? Incidentally, the fact that the present enemies (East v. West) fought hand in- hand to destroy the “militarism” of an adversary whom they are now straining every nerve to re-arm. should convince the most credulous of workers that NOT ideologies, but sordid commercial interest and loot are the stakes in these' conflicts.

If some innocent youngster, such as the writer was when he made his first steps in Socialism, were to suggest to these Austrian or, for that matter, any Continental “Socialist” or “Communist” leaders, that they might in the present “unique and fateful” emergency urge the revolutionary Marxian solution, i.e., the expropriation of the expropriators, and the establishment of a classless and moneyless society, as the only way to ensure real peace and prosperity for all, such a suggestion would only be considered as simply incongruous and impossible by these “ Socialists.” It was only to be expected that the leaders of the S.P.O. and the Arbeiter Zeitung also would do nothing but just echo the great fears, add some sloppy sentimentalities and pretend standing aghast at this development.

No wonder that, in spite of the Capitalists themselves living now uneasily and even dangerously, armament manufacturers are reassured and consider their profits safe, just as “Nehru’s expose of the. Socialist pattern of society provided a stimulus for the Bombay stock-market. The market reflected the encouragement to investors from Nehru’s speech! it led to widespread buying, and the market is again buoyant.” Slyly, the Times correspondent described Nehru’s politics as “Ghandian principles and modern politics, economic theories, and—what appears to be essential—a touch of humbug.”

If any of the exploiters of labour ever feared action by these self-styled “Socialist” leaders endangering the safety of their profits and dividends, they have now proof absolute that their fears were unjustified. What present fears persist, spring from the discovery of nuclear energy which, only under the idiotic system of Capitalism, is primarily applied to the forging of weapons for the most effective mass destruction and so becomes a nightmare to all humanity. The fears then stem from the existence of nuclear weapons and the uncertainty whether the Capitalists with their managers and statesmen in East and West, and in the other opposing camps, will be capable of containing and permanently controlling their fine virtues of greed, commercial rivalry in the world’s markets and resources, lust for power, jealousy, envy, hatred and mistrust engendered by the possibility of extracting tremendous wealth from the exploitation of a disinherited working-class, and so prevent a fatal explosion and world conflagration.

The writer felt it necessary to restate what the Socialist Standard has in much better form already pointed out on the situation. I wished that in particular Gilmac’S fine article: “Should we Despair?” in the January issue,' were read and re-read, and taken to heart by all workers for the really welcome stimulant it is in these dark days. It is time indeed that the workers shook off the old dirty cloak of nationalism, the illusions of nationalisation, and that—in the words of Marx—“he faced with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.”

Much would have to be said about such words as “nationalism” and “patriotism,” so assiduously fostered among the people from the cradle to the grave. But taking: “Right or wrong my country” at its face value, we would say to the workers: “If you find it hard, or if you have any scruples in discarding your nationalist sentiments, since they have become the apex of the retreat from reason, here is an authority on the value of nationalist sentiments: Sir Winston Churchill. His words:

“What is the use of being a famous race and nation . . . if at the end of the week you cannot pay your housekeeping bill?” 

should help you to discard nationalism and become CLASS-conscious!

R.

Concluded.

Blogger's Note:

It just struck whilst scanning this in that 'R.' is the Austrian comrade, Rudolf Frank. It was obviously the quote from the Austrian newspaper that was the giveaway, but I should have known anyway. Early Socialist Standard writers — and Frank joined the SPGB around about 1910 — would sometimes just use a letter as their pen-name, so 'A.' was Alex Anderson, 'K.' was Adolph Kohn, and a later Socialist Standard writer, Edgar Hardcastle, adopted it in the 1920s by using 'H.' as his pen-name. 

The other giveaway was that I just posted on the blog another article — from 1910 — with the same title. This was obviously Frank's hat tip to Jacomb's earlier article.

Editorial: War—But With Whom? (1950)

Editorial from the June 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is a popular theme with writers on war to discuss after the event how each war could have been avoided if only the government had taken action to stop the aggressor in time. Thus Sir Duff Cooper in an article in the Daily Mail (16/5/50) tells the British people that “had they been willing to listen to Lord Roberts before 1914 or Mr. Churchill before 1939, it is possible that two world wars might have been avoided.” His present theme is that Russia is not the only danger to world peace for within a short time Germany may again have recovered sufficiently to become an equal or greater menace. The fact that he recognises the existence of more than one potential enemy reveals the fallacy of the whole of his case for stopping war by timely action; for it must be obvious that a government cannot take a decision unless it knows with which Power it may be at war and with which Power it may then be in alliance. Sir Duff Cooper's list of warning voices is not complete; to it should be added those who expected war with Russia in 1919, or with France in 1923, or with America at various times of tension. Where all such arguments go astray is that they fail to see that while the world remains capitalist all Powers are potential enemies. From which it follows that the capitalists and the capitalist politicians are always divided in their judgment about which rival Power is the greatest menace. Before 1914 there were influential British groups which favoured an alliance, or at least a “deal,” with expansionist German capitalism and it was a similar division of opinion that produced the Chamberlain policy towards Hitler.

At the present moment most British and American Statesmen see Russia as "the only militaristic and aggressive Power in the world,” but others, like Sir Duff Cooper, taking a longer view, see a renascent Germany as “the enemy,” and in truth nobody can be certain that these discords may not be overshadowed by others in the course of a few years. Under the Russian threat France, Britain and Holland now welcome American Military Aid to hold colonies in Asia, and the investment of American capital in colonies in Africa but if and when the Russian threat diminishes the encroachment of American capitalism may appear as the more dangerous menace.

Each school of thought can produce supporting arguments. While the People (7/5/50) featured the threat to British exports from “the growing menace of cheap goods made in Germany and Japan” the Sunday Empire News of the same date was warning its readers that “countries behind the Iron Curtain are flooding world markets" with all sorts of goods at cut-throat prices.”

The British Government, through the Foreign Under-Secretary, Mr. E. Davies, declares its view that at present German exports do not constitute a serious menace to British export trade (Daily Telegraph 16/5/50); but Mr. Davies' further statement that German exports would have to be increased many times before they represented “a threat equivalent to the German pre-war export rate” shows that he has not forgotten the alarm British exporters felt in the years immediately before the second world war. What happened then may happen again as German production increases.

A more understanding view used to be expressed by Sir Stafford Cripps who told an audience of co- operators at Ilkeston, Derby, on 17 September, 1944: “A return to open competition between the nations will inevitably lead to another and even more disastrous war” (Daily Express 18/9/44). Having now forgotten what he once knew Sir Stafford Cripps has in recent years been the Minister primarily responsible for the drive to flood world markets with British exports at prices below those of foreign competitors. He was responsible for the devaluation of the pound in September, 1949, with the specific object of lowering British export prices but now he cannot see that in the eyes of foreign capitalists this is “economic aggression" which will in due course produce its harvest of international enmity, retaliatory action and eventual threats of war.

The former Sir Stafford had a better grasp of the relationship between capitalism and war but at that time he was not finally committed to the effort of the Labour Government to put British capitalism on its feet again. He still cherished the utopian notion of a world capitalism pruned of aggression through the now moribund United Nations.

Suffer little children (1949)

From the October 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Monday, 15th August, at King’s Cross, a crowd of irate men and women roughly handled an eighteen year old girl who was alleged to have thrown scalding water into the face of a two-year old girl. One can well understand their indignation. No one in his right mind can see a helpless child misused —or can he?

A few years ago, between the years 1939 and 1945, children were being killed, maimed and wounded by the countless hundred. True, people were indignant. They threw up their hands in horror—cursed the men whose vile duty it was to release these missiles—and went home to knit comforts for their compatriots who were performing the same deeds upon children of another country.

And when the war was over, hundreds of children on the continent of Europe, orphaned or completely divorced from their families by the war, lived like wild animals in bombed cities. Their world was a jungle. They learned that scrounging and stealing, sharp practice and prostitution were their only means of livelihood. Italy supported many such misfits. Who can see the film “Sciuscià” or read Giussepe Berto’s “The Sky is Red”—of young boys locked in barrack-like prisons, or of girls, sixteen, fifteen, fourteen or even less, selling their immature bodies for a handful of food or a bar of soap—without wanting to weep or vomit?

Into these conditions come the mealy mouthed social workers. A recent “March of Time” film proudly announced that several hundred of these children had been reclaimed “ in the glory of God.” For what? To learn the virtues of hard work and honesty, of religion and cant: to be convinced that it is both righteous and correct that at some time in the future they shall be the instruments by which a further generation is pitched into the degradation from which they themselves have risen.

But is there really need to look to the exceptional circumstances of war? Take a stroll round the mean streets of any industrial area and view those grim three-storied buildings that masquerade as schools. Listen to the lessons imparted therein. How are kids to know that French workers are more than sub-humans living upon snails and filthy postcards; that the Germans (or are they Russians to-day ?) do other things besides rob, plunder and devour their young? How are kids to realise that when mother says “she can’t afford it” to their simplest demand, it is an indirect result of the humility and toleration that they themselves are taught? An ageing schoolmaster once told the writer that when he came down from college he too had high ideals, but “you’re beating your heads against a brick wall.” He did not recognise that just like a miner or a factory hand he is employed to train children as cheaply as possible.

Education! The word itself derives from the verb “educe,” which means to “draw out.” The teacher’s job is not to draw out potentialities but to cram in— to cram in the bare amount of facts and the abundance of fantasy that will keep the worker fit and happy in his position of slavery.

And when school is over for the day, what then? Football in a side street, a game of cricket in the park, or down the market with Mum learning how to save a penny here and there and how to ask for two separate pounds of potatoes to get a double “ turn of the scale.” Of course, there are some wonderful institutions for kids. They can join a youth club and learn “citizenship” or the Air and Army Cadets and learn how to kill. Yes, truly wonderful institutions!

Suffer little children! Whether it be individually at the hands of some poor warped mind or en masse as the children of a subjected class, suffer they must in this system of society, whether the conditions be boom, slump, war or peace—and the road of escape will not be found in the classroom. The experiences of the factory, the dole queue, the army, the battlefields provide your education. The world is your university. Wake up and use it!

Ronald.

The Passing Show: Houses (1952)

The Passing Show Column from the September 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Houses

We hear a lot about the housing shortage. Officially, housing is considered to be adequate when there is one room per person in a household; though anyone who has to live in a household where six persons are crammed into a six-roomed house may be excused for supposing that the official who arrived at this conclusion has never had a similar experience. But the last census shows that more than a quarter of the total population lives in households where not even this ratio is attained—where there is not even one room per each member of the household.

This is, however, only one side of the picture. There is another, and a happier, side. For like food-rationing, the housing shortage is a problem that affects one class in the country only—the poorer class, the working class. Just as the rich have never needed ration books—the restaurants and hotels have always been able to provide them with all the food they wanted without rationing—so have they never needed to put their names at the bottom of the housing lists. For the question the social system asks of the house-hunter is not "How badly off are you for accommodation? ” but “How much capital have you got?” If, like most people, you have none, you can join the housing queue; but if you have five or six thousand at your command the estate agents will fall over themselves offering you desirable residences with all mod con. Take one issue of The Times—for example, that of August 5th. Here there are a hundred houses and more offered for sale; there are none below £1,000, and only one or two below £3,000, the prices of most being from £5,000 up to £35,000. But supposing there was a worker so frugal that out of his wage of £6 or £7 a week he managed to put away £1 each and every week, even when he was out of work through illness or "redundancy"; how long would it take him to save up £5,000 for one of these desirable properties? If he began saving now, he would have his five thousand in the year 2052. This scheme, though, like all schemes for the amelioration of the working class under Capitalism, has its drawback: the snag in this case is that the worker would almost certainly be dead in 2052. 

Personal Column

While you are looking in The Times for your house, turn to the Personal Column. Here you will find houses for sale at £10,000, houses or flats to rent at £20 a week (e.g., 31.7.52). Here you will come across a number of other items which might lead you to suspect that the Labour Party’s claim to have taxed the rich out of existence is exaggerated. On July 29th there was an advert, inserted by someone who had £100,000 to spare to buy a drapery business; on July 23rd there was offered for sale a book-publishing business for the same sum. Then on July 31st a gentleman going to Scotland for a month wanted a “chauffeur-loader-handyman”; in other words, besides being able to go on holiday for a month himself, he could afford to take a servant along. And students of the rate of interest after six years’ Labour Government will be interested in the following item, which appeared on August 2nd: 

Torquay.—Sound investment offered; 12 new proprietary 4-berth caravans £4,250; net £800 yearly income guaranteed.—Write box . . .

The happy purchaser will be able to rake in £16 a week net, this being a return of nearly 19 per cent., at the expense of the twelve unfortunate families who have to pay what must be high rents for caravans.

Korea

As the war continues in Korea, the headlines still say “No progress in truce talks.” What discussions still go on are now largely taken up with arguments about how to translate “United Nations” into Korean. But each side claims that deadlock has been reached because of the intransigeant attitude of the other side in the matter of the return of the Korean and Chinese prisoners held by the so-called “United Nations” forces. It is certainly difficult for the impartial observer to decide whether these prisoners would be worse off in North Korea under the Stalinists or in South Korea under Syngman Rhee. One thing is clear: whichever part of the country finally gets them, their social position as propertyless workers will be exactly the same. North of the firing line or south of it, the social system is capitalist, and will continue to be so for as long as the present sets of rulers hold power.

The Koreans

Each world group maintains that its forces went into Korea to defend the Koreans against aggression and to uphold their liberties. But while each side poured men and arms into the country, both nominally in defence of the inhabitants, what actually happened to the Koreans? At the meeting in Toronto of the International Red Cross, it was stated that ten million people had been driven from their homes, and another million were permanently injured or had disappeared (Times, 4.8.52). And this in a country the total population of which is only nineteen million!

Woe betide any people when the power-blocs of the world decide that its liberties and independence are in danger.

Wage-freeze

At the end of July the engineering employers turned down the claim of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions for a £2 a week increase in pay. Two of the reasons they gave are worthy of note. The rise in the cost of living, they said, had been partly offset by higher family allowances. This reinforces the Socialist case that family allowances are in effect merely one of the devices of the employers to keep down wages. In fact, a given sum paid as family allowances is worth more to the employers than the same sum paid in the wage-packet. For wages are paid at the same level irrespective of whether the worker is married or has any children to keep. But family allowances go solely to the man who has a sizeable family to support, and thus allay discontent among that very section of the working class who would be the hardest hit and therefore the first to complain when the cost of living rose. In this way family allowances act to keep the general wage level down.

Germany and Japan

And, secondly, the engineering employers pointed out that the industry was faced with a revival of competition from Germany and Japan. This competition, which is no doubt a very real menace to British capitalists, leads the worker only to speculate on the uselessness of war. For as soon as Germany and Japan were defeated, the ruling classes of Britain and the United States decided that the real danger to their overseas markets and sources of raw material now came from Russia and her allies. After the first world war it was fifteen years before Germany rearmed. This time it has taken only seven years, and Germany is rearming at the instance of her late enemies. Rearmament is impossible without flourishing heavy industries. So the last war, while it halted Germany’s aggrandisement for a time, and while it provided British industry with orders for a time, was only a temporary palliative. In order to prepare for a third world war, British Capitalism has now to watch the resuscitation of its German rival.

Militarism

What of the workers, who were exhorted to fight Germany in the last war under the pretence that the real fight was not so much against the German state as against the Nazis and German militarism? If this tale ever carried credence, it should do so no longer, as more and more reports come in of the Nazis and militarists, once supposed to be defeated, still in the seats of office in Germany. The Krupp family were prominent among the industrialist supporters of Hitler; on August 4th it wasreported that the Villa Hugel, the Krupp family home, was being derequisitioned, and that Herr Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was building a new house in the grounds—this while many of the British houses destroyed by Krupp armaments are still unreplaced. On August 8th an article in The Times, remarking on the difficulties encountered by the Israeli-German conference on reparations, contained the following comment:

“Some of the Jewish delegates had themselves suffered grievously at the hands of the Nazis and before sitting down to the same table with the Germans had to submit to the difficult process of sinking their own feelings—a process which was not made easier by the fact that some of the German delegates themselves had been members of the Nazi Party or had worked in the German Foreign Office under Ribbentrop.”

In the same paper, on the same day, a letter appeared from Randolph Churchill attacking a suggestion that “no former German officer should be allowed to serve in the German contingent of the European Defence Community,” on the unusual ground that it was un-Christian. Well, perhaps; but if this proposal is un-Christian, it doesn't say much for Christianity. And finally, General Sir John Harding, one of the NATO European commanders, and next year’s Chief of the Imperial General Staff, has said, “I think that German military thinking will contribute immensely to Western defence.” Obviously, if Randolph Churchill and General Harding have anything to do with it, the old gang of German militarists will be fully employed in the expected struggle against the Russians.

So anyone who thought we were fighting against “German militarism” in the last war will have to think again.

Nationalisation

From The Times, 31.7.52:

“Russian armed guards are to-day reported to be patrolling the power station at Amstetten, Lower Austria, to prevent its being taken over by the Newag—the Lower Austria Electrical Supply Corporation — in accordance with the federal nationalisation law."

But if nationalisation is supposed to be to the advantage of the workers, why are the Stalinists denying its benefits to the Austrian workers?

Alwyn Edgar

From an old Austrian Comrade (1954)

From the September 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

During my stay in England, some 40 years ago, I came in contact with your party whose teaching brought me out of the political quandary and wilderness in which I had till then been groping under the influence of Austrian Social Democracy. A study of economics and especially Karl Marx’s critical scientific analysis of the operation of the profit-making system, to which study I had been encouraged, was a veritable revelation. What I had previously been taught in Continental labour, “socialist” and “communist” circles and in Arbeiter-Zeitungen, and what is still being propagated to this day as being Socialism or Communism, or “ instalments of socialism,” revealed itself as the very opposite, namely the consolidation and strengthening of capitalism. So far indeed from touching or interfering with the fundamental principle of private or State-capitalist ownership of the means and instruments of wealth-production and distribution so far from touching the degrading fundamental status of the workers as a disinherited slave-class to capital, the policy of all the so-called Socialist and Communist parties in the world—save the Socialist Party of Great Britain and its companion parties overseas based on their Declaration of Principles—merely serves to prevent the breakdown of, and so to perpetuate the rule of capital and money.

The 60 years of Austrian “socialism ” or “ instalments of socialism ” have proved the truth of this contention. With “ socialist ” governments in a number of countries, with “socialist” State-presidents, Prime-ministers and Chancellors in others, with three times Labour party governments in Britain up to now, with “communism” in one sixth of the earth, capital and its privileged beneficiaries,. the shareholders, the millionaires, Royal families, kings and queens, landlords and aristocrats, the high priests and dignitaries of the church, and the rest of the masters’ supporters, are doing as well as ever. They can indeed feel quite safe in their palaces, castles and luxurious mansions, as long as the workers and their families do not ask the impertinent question where their “ instalments of socialism” are, or as long as they believe their leaders* assurances that the working-class has been “ uplifted ” from wage-slavery to “ free men.” What a farce!

Already at an early stage of my contact with the English comrades and my discussions with them—what a different picture was unrolled before my mental eye! I came to realize that as the very antithesis of capitalism, the term Socialism can mean nothing but the total abolition of private and State-ownership of the means of life and their conversion into the SOCIAL or COMMON property of the people as a whole. It had never struck me before that the true implications of such a new constitution of society and the completely changed outlook on every phase of human co-existence it is bound to produce, were never dwelled upon in so-called socialist publications. Ignoring, as they do, these implications, the leaders and mouthpieces of the big parties masquerading under the banner of Socialism, would seem to look upon a classless and moneyless society as a utopia, or else they are deliberate frauds. As a result of “ socialist ” education and propaganda provided by these workers’ organisations, most of their members will indeed tell you that a society without wages and without money—a society based on the principle : “From each according to his capacity, to each according to his NEEDS ” was an impossibility, a utopia. How pleased the capitalists must be with such loyalty of their slaves to capitalism! Well, dear brother, while wage-packets are a cardinal feature of their system of exploitation, they will have no place under socialism, since there will be no employers and no employed. There will only be co-operation in producing the wherewithal to live and enjoy life by so doing. The very word “work” will become generally identified with pleasure. Wealth will no longer be produced for buying and selling for profit, but for USE. Commerce will be replaced by distribution according to the needs of individuals the world over. With no more buying and selling, and no more money (which becomes unnecessary with the abolition of private property and will go into the museums for future generations to see and marvel at 20th century-man’s folly), there will of course also be no more buying and selling of human labour power (wages), no prostitution male or female, and no corruption. The dependence of individuals on other individuals or groups of individuals will cease. Since under socialism the means of subsistence, including all cultural needs and desires, will be guaranteed by society to every human being from the cradle to the grave, irrespective of services rendered, there will be no more need for insurance of any kind, nor pensions. The sick and infirm, the invalids and the old will naturally be provided for as well as the children.

With the gigantic means of production and distribution now at the disposal of mankind, all man’s needs and desires can easily be satisfied, especially when the enormous waste due to the protection of the private property “rights” by armaments, police, laws, insurance, etc. ceases, and all the complicated and intricate machinery of financial accounting. Banks, advertising, taxes, and the rest of the capitalist paraphernalia is no longer necessary. As there will be no more private or State-ownership, there can be no more coercion. Government, which is only the executive committee for the management and safeguarding of the interests of property-holders and the maintenance of privilege, will be replaced by a purely technical administration of things. With private interests and the question “does it pay” out of the way, it will be a comparatively simple process. In fact, most of the complications and problems with which society has to grapple today, will fall away. With the world and all its resources controlled and operated by, and in the interest of the people as a whole, as their common heritage, with all separating frontiers gone, as they will under socialism, not only poverty, but insecurity and the rest of the social evils arising therefrom, will be things of the past.

Mankind under socialism will no longer be dependant, for the continuance of life, on the crops and dwellings in this or the other locality. If they ate destroyed, no one who is not himself destroyed or struck down by the event, need suffer prolonged hardship; it will simply be a case of perhaps only temporary displacement until “his” devastated area has by common effort or desire been restored. Apart from this, mankind will not be slow in learning from the experience and probably take greater precautions against possible “accidents” and riotous nature in future. Anyway, the destruction and devastation wrought by natural catastrophes is as nothing compared with the havoc and ruin caused through capitalist wars and preparations for war, and the latter will certainly be things of the past under socialism.

Only the revolutionary objective of the S.P.G.B. is worthy of the name of Socialism; what goes today by that name. i.e. what is by present-day “ socialist, communist ” and labour parties represented and claimed to be Socialism, is a fraud, a delusion and a snare. To have allowed themselves to be misled and bamboozled by this lure, has not been without a heavy penalty for the workers and their families. By identifying themselves with the interests of the property-holders and voting for their political agents and executive committees (the modem capitalist State), the workers have been mixed up, with disastrous consequences, in the mercenary quarrels of their masters over property and trade routes in which the workers have no share whatever. Proof: The 10 years of war which left the workers, both in the “victorious” and the "defeated” countries alike poor, if not poorer than ever before. The present conflicts in Asia, Africa and elsewhere are of course no exception. The European, as well as the American and the Asiatic and African workers are all deluded in the belief that it is a struggle for their freedom. In reality, it is of course part and parcel of the eternal quarrels between rival groups of property-owners—hence of no concern to the propertyless working class. As an unknown poet sang during the first world-war:

“ Sing a sang of Europe, highly civilized,

“ Four and twenty nations, thoroughly hypnotized.

“ When the battles opened, the bullets began to sing,

" Wasn't that a silly thing to do for any king?

“ The kings were in the background, issuing commands,

“ the queens were in their parlours, by etiquette's demands.

“ The bankers in the counting-house busy multiplying,

“ while oil the rest were at the front, DOING ALL THE DYING."

That the teaching of Marx, which the S.P.G.B. and companion-parties elsewhere have been faithfully interpreting and spreading for the past 50 years, should not yet have found a more universal echo and response among the working-class, we all regret of course; The reasons are manifold, not the least of which is our lack of means, and the prodigious means (including the poisonous Radio-spider) at the disposal of the enemy. It cannot, however, discourage us from persevering on the straight and clean path we are pursuing, even if for the time being, we have to be content with the role of being just pioneers.

Upon returning to the Continent after World-War I, efforts, however feeble, were not wanting to make the founding of a revolutionary Socialist Party in England known over here. Comrades of the writer started a group in Dortmund, Germany, which however seems to have eventually disintegrated after the death of the more active members. Before anything could be got underway here in Austria, even the western pattern of democratic liberties was finally lost by the advent first of the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg dictatorship, then by Hitler and now by another occupation, so that for the last 20 years it has been virtually impossible to openly advocate the revolutionary socialist policy. I need hardly remind you of the fate awaiting anyone who exposes publicly in the Russian zone the fraud and masquerade labelled communism.

Personally I enjoy the satisfaction that I could contribute in England my own tiny share and have recorded in the Socialist Standard my adherence to that great cause even before capitalism’s great crisis and world-wars with atomic weapons had so glaringly demonstrated what capitalist greed, lust for power and domination is capable of and where what one of their most prominent representatives called "this appalling development” will land the human race, unless the workers of the world bestir themselves and join with us to end the nightmare. The Socialist Party of Great Britain points the scientific way how to dethrone the ruthless powers that impose upon the dispossessed the precarious and degrading conditions of existence—the wages-system—and how true Socialism will abolish it and ensure a dignified and enjoyable life for all.

Rudolf Frank