The War in Korea (1950)

From the August 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Towards the end of June war broke out in Korea and was promptly followed by the armed intervention of America, Britain and other Powers, against the Russian-trained and equipped North Korean armies. No event of the post-war years has so forcibly exposed the illusion of abolishing war through the United Nations; and those who look beneath the wordy smokescreen put up by the opposing sides can see in this conflict the naked brutality of capitalism and the vindication of the Socialist case.

Korea, once independent, but long a coveted prize in the rival ambitions of Russia, China and Japan, was annexed by Japan in 1910 and remained a Japanese colony until 1945. On the surrender of Japan in that year it was occupied by Russia and America on the understanding that it would in five years be restored to full independence. The Russian sphere of influence in the north, larger in area but much smaller in population, contains the principal industries, while the American sphere is primarily agricultural. The two occupying armies left in 1948 and 1949 but already the Southern Government feared invasion from the North and in November 1948 applied to the United Nations for the American troops to remain. Frontier incidents soon occurred between North and South and a United Nations Commission Report in September, 1949 blamed both Governments for "Military posturing on both sides of the frontier.” The Report recognised that a basic cause of the country’s difficulties was the “world-wide antagonism between the Soviet Union and the U.S.A.”; it placed on record the general belief of the Korean population that those two Powers “ are responsible for the present plight of the country.”

According to a Special Correspondent of the Times an important factor in the attitude of the peasants towards the Northern and Southern Governments is that whereas in the North "the Russians put into effect a measure of land redistribution, without consulting the owners of property or tolerating their objections” the "rather corrupt” South Korean Government, ignoring American suggestions of similar measures in their territory. "failed through jealousies and sectional interests to meet the needs of the peasantry.” (Times. 6th July, 1950).

The main interest of the Powers in Korea arises from its geographical position. The special correspondent of the Times wrote: —

“Korea's unhappy history can, to a large extent he explained by her strategical importance The chief port in the South. Pusan, is only 120 miles from Japan. Its most north-easterly point is within 100 miles of Vladivostock. The Japanese used to refer to it as a ‘dagger pointed at the heart of Japan,' which it could be, although in fact Korea has always been more in evidence as a bridgehead of Japanese penetration of the Asiatic mainland."

If America, now the occupying Power in Japan, fears a Korea under Russian influence it is not surprising that the Chinese and Russian Governments equally regard the American intervention as directed against them, especially as, simultaneously with intervention in Korea the American Government declared its intention of protecting the remnants of General Chiang Kai-shek’s forces on the Chinese island of Formosa against attack from Communist controlled China. A reporter of the Evening Standard (1st July, 1950) put the Chinese Government’s point of view:—“The Chinese Communists’ determination to capture Formosa can only be understood in terms of their conviction that the United States intends to use Formosa as a base for invading China.”

When we turn to the statements of the Governments and parties justifying their attitude on the Korean war we see on all sides how high-sounding pacific sentiments can serve as a cover for the determination to wage war where capitalist interests are at stake. They are all against war, but . . . The American and British Governments are in the war because, so they say, unless they stop Russian aggression now a third world war is inevitable. “By accepting this fresh challenge he had every hope that a world war could be averted. That was the only way to preserve peace.” (Mr. Herbert Morrison speaking at Manchester. Times, 3rd July, 1950). To which the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Mr. Gromyko, retorts:—“The U.S. Government . . . demonstrated that, far from seeking to consolidate peace, it is on the contrary, an enemy of peace . . . The U.S. Government . . .  is gradually impelling the country step by step towards open war.” (Daily Worker, 5th July, 1950).

So both sides are prepared to wage a small war because each affects to believe that the other side is preparing for a larger one.

Both sides use in their justification legalistic arguments about whether this war is a properly accredited United Nations war. The American-British side stands by a vote of the United Nations Security Council though American action actually preceded the vote; and Russia says it is all illegal because she was absent from the meeting. The only point of all such arguments is the implication that, if properly blessed by the United Nations, a war is not a war. And indeed the Egyptian Minister of State, Dr. Hamed Zaki, says so. He declared that “the events in Korea, he thought, amounted simply to international measures for peace and could not be regarded as a war.” (Daily Telegraph, 4th July, 1950). Nevertheless while his Government approves the United Nations action against aggression in Korea it declined to share in the action because it claims to be wrongfully deprived of United Nations aid against the aggression of Britain in continuing to maintain armed forces on Egyptian territory at the Suez Canal.

Both sides hide behind the plea that the other side started it, a plea that cannot be disproved because both Korean Governments had at some time in the past two years been responsible for frontier aggression and warlike threats. So if we are to accept that a United Nations war is not a war we are also asked to accept that it is quite all right for the “friends of peace” to wage war and refrain from any action to stop it provided that they believe the other side started hostilities.

The armies on both sides are conscripts and nobody thought it necessary to consult them or the Korean workers and peasants on the question whether they want to go to war.

Mr. Gromyko, seemingly in difficulties to explain how it happened that the North Koreans (who he alleges are the innocent victims of South Korean aggression) were, within a few days, advancing in force 50 miles or more into South Korea, has to fall back on the argument that this is a “civil war” and therefore the United Nations should keep out. He discovers, as a precedent, the American Civil War of 1861-5, and says:—“When attacked by the South, the armed forces of the North States did not, as is known, limit themselves to defence of their own territory. They transferred military operations to the territory of the Southern States . . .” (Daily Worker, 5th July, 1950).

So, according to the Russian Government, which has just given its official blessing to the Peace Appeal of the Communist sponsored “World Peace Congress,” it is quite in order for peace lovers to go in for a war provided it can be legally defined as “Civil War” and though it may, like the American civil war, cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

In taking the American Civil War as his example Mr. Gromyko was closer to reality than perhaps he appreciates. He described that war as an example of a “Struggle waged by the peoples for national unity and for democratic rights.” If he had not been so anxious to find a precedent awkward for the American Government to answer he might have recalled that it was the Northern States' victory in that war that laid the foundation for the modern American capitalist-imperialism. All the so-called national unity movements, including the Russian have had similar causes and lead to similar capitalist-imperialist results.

From both sides there is the customary nauseating propaganda about the loftiness of their aims. According to the Daily Mail (3rd July, 1950), it is a war between good and evil. Quoting a declaration by the Bishop of Rochester about the need “to fight Godless materialism with aggressive evangelism ” the Mail, had the following in a leading article: —

“In those six words he summed up the reason for the war in Korea. In every war the Right is on your side—whoever you may be—and the Wrong on the other. But this is different . . . We are engaged in a fight of Christian civilisation against Communist materialism; against terror and darkness and the degradation of men and women; against slave labour and forced famine.”

Not to be beaten, the Daily Worker the following day (4th July, 1950), published the declaration of the North Korean Government that theirs is a “holy war for the freedom, unity and independence of their native land.” Forgetting the excuse that their participation in the war was supposed to be merely resistance against frontier violations by the South Koreans the North Korean Government, after describing the speedy victorious advance of its armies, goes on to declare that they will continue “liberating” South Korea and “will intensify their struggle.”

The Socialist Party of Great Britain asserts that this war, like all modern wars, is provoked by the economic rivalries that are inherent in capitalism and of which all the powers are guilty whether it be under the openly capitalist government of U.S.A. or the capitalism of Britain and Russia administered by Labour and Communist Governments. While the capitalist struggle for markets, raw materials and strategic points goes on it is idle to believe that war can be abolished. The United Nations and the muddled-headed anti-war declarations of bodies of so-called lovers of peace are equally futile to stop it.

The S.P.G.B. has often been told by its opponents that, notwithstanding basic differences of aims and principles, we should be willing to co-operate with the “friends of peace,” the Labour Party and the Communists and should support the United Nations organisation. The Korean war shows how impossible and useless such co-operation would be. What would they have us do? Should we “preserve peace” by supporting United Nations war in Korea? Should we help the Labour Party “to stop war” when almost all of the Labour M.P.’s have given their endorsement to participation in this war ? Should we endorse the sanctimonious peace propaganda of the Communist Party which consists in fact of demanding action to stop American-British intervention so that Russia’s North Korean allies can have a clear field in their war against the South?

They are all, in theory, the friends of peace and all in practice will wage war for the respective capitalist interests they support.

When, on 5th July, the policy of the British Labour Government was debated in Parliament there were just two Labour M.P.’s who took a different line. They called it backing a “socialist” policy; but what did it consist of? Their amendment demanded that the British Government should withdraw from intervention and should “repudiate all commitments which involve on our part any obligations to maintain the present division of the nations of the world into two powerful and dangerously poised hostile groups, and to declare in conformity with the Government’s socialist principles our determination to give every encouragement to all peoples aspiring for freedom and self-government.”

The movers of this are Labour M.P.’s and as such fully committed to the Labour Party programme of administering British capitalism in a capitalist world. They have accepted British capitalism, and its export drive to capture foreign markets from rival Powers, but want it to pursue a “socialist” policy! They think that one capitalist Power can escape from capitalism by standing aside from rival groups. This was indeed Mr. Attlee’s own policy five years ago but it is as non-Socialist and as impracticable now as it was then. They might just as well suggest that Korea could escape from being a pawn in the struggle of rival Great Powers merely by saying that it wants to be left alone.

A Socialist policy can only be pursued by a Socialist party which bases its principles on the necessity of international Socialist action by the workers of the world against capitalism everywhere, whether it be in America, Britain, Russia or in the smaller countries like Korea. Only a party built up on Socialist principles can have a Socialist policy. Only a party of Socialists can consistently oppose war, and in that struggle the socialist movement will receive no aid from the war-making false friends of peace. 

Edgar Hardcastle

Crime marches on (1950)

From the August 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

To flog, or not to flog? That is the question which the daily press recently thrust upon its readers as the burning issue of the day, and which it discussed at great length with much emotion and, in some instances, precious little consideration for the facts; probably with no other result than to make the public—including the potential delinquent—cosh conscious. That violence is a serious problem for which a solution is long overdue, few would deny; but is flogging the answer? Let us quieten the hysteria for a moment and, like all good scientists, take a look at the facts.

The first and most obvious fact which should come to mind is that until September 1948 flogging was used to deal with various types of violence. This was provided for by a number of Acts such as the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861 as amended by the Garroters Act of 1863, so it cannot be said that flogging has not been given a fair trial. In spite of this however, violence is not only still with us, but since 1938 has increased rapidly. The number of robberies with violence increasing from 287 in that year to 1,101 in 1948 (News Chronicle 24/3/50). After flogging was abolished however, the number of cases decreased from 711 during the first nine months of 1948 to 597 in the corresponding period of 1949 (Daily Mirror 17/3/50). Conversely, during the six years that followed the introduction of the Garroters Act, viz. 1863 to 1869 there was, to quote Lord Aberdare who was at the time Under Secretary at the Home Department, “ a slight increase in these crimes.” (See “The Lawbreaker” by E. R. and T. Calvert, Routledge, 1933, p. 241). Another interesting example was the introduction of whipping as a punishment for procuration by the passage of the Criminal Law Amendment Act in 1912 which resulted in a tremendous increase in the offence in 1913. The actual figures are as follows: —

Persons for trial for procuration

1910 25

1911 18

1912 14—Whipping introduced during this year

1913 73 

1914 41 

(see, “Social Aspects of Crime in England Between the Wars ” by Dr. Hermann Mannheim, Al!en & Unwin, 1940, p. 51)

From these facts it is obvious that flogging is not only a failure as a solution to violent crime but its effect as a deterrent is. to say the least, extremely dubious. Neither, of course, will the abolition of flogging solve the problem. No problem can be solved by ignoring it. These methods must fail because they leave the cause of the trouble untouched.

The first task for anybody seeking a solution is to understand the problem. Many instances of violence such as assaults on policemen or nightwatchmen are the result of hindering the burglar in the practice of his profession. We cannot, in fact, separate violence from the crime problem as a whole. We shall not, therefore, make the attempt.

Before seeking a clear insight into the causes of crime it is necessary—as with so many things—to clear away a big cobweb of misconception which clouds so many people's vision. This is the attractively simple but quite erroneous idea that the whole trouble is caused by a “criminal type"; a sort of biological monstrosity, like Siamese twins or two-headed giraffes; a mental monster whose criminal activities are the result of some inborn crime instinct. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and amongst those who have made a study of criminals the idea is generally discredited. Listen, for example, to Dr. Goring who, after making a careful examination of no less than 3,000 convicts, makes the following observations: —

“This anthropological monster has no existence in fact. The physical and mental constitution of both criminal and law-abiding persons of the same age, class, stature, and intelligence, are identical. There is no such thing as an anthropological criminal type." (“The Lawbreaker,” p. 44)

In fact the evidence tends to show that they are ordinary people like ourselves, a large number of whom possess many excellent qualities. For instance on page 54 of the same book, Mr. Justice du Parq is quoted as reporting a type of prisoner who is “young, determined, and adventurous," and Leo Page, who has a wide first hand knowledge of criminals, tells us in his book “Crime and the Community” (Faber & Faber, 1937 p. 99) that:

“One finds with a shock of surprise that they (professional criminals) can be courteous and well mannered, grateful and appreciative of just treatment or of a little kindness, or passionately fond of music or of flowers; they are often brave—a good burglar, for example, must of necessity be a man of nerve, courage and resource; some are well read, with a real love of books; others can be wonderfully loyal, in the odd distorted way in which they understand the meaning of the word; very many retain amongst all their troubles a smiling acceptance of fate and a keen sense of humour.”

It seems that we must look elsewhere for the causes of crime.

The law is a social institution made by man, it is not a biological product; so also is crime—its opposite pole or complement—a social phenomenon, and it is in society and not the individual that we must look for an explanation. Government and the machinery of state, which make and enforce the law, exist to conserve those private property institutions which are so vital to the interests of the ruling class and the continued smooth running of their capitalist economy. This being the case, we should expect to find some connection between crime and social conditions generally and economic conditions in particular. Let us put the matter to the test.

Dr. Mannheim tells us (Social Aspects etc., p. 123) that “the significance of economic factors in the causation of crime is fairly generally accepted," and farther on (pages 127 to 130) he reproduces statistics which show the figures for crime rising and falling through the years almost in step with those for unemployment; the only exception being after the slump of the early thirties when, although crime figures dropped for the older age groups, those for the younger groups continued to rise right up until the outbreak of war. This may be explained by other social factors; possibly the waning influence of religion during the inter-war period and the growing tendency of the rising generation to criticize hitherto accepted moral standards.

Another excellent example of the influence of economics upon lawlessness, which can be gleaned from pages 105-7 of the same book, is that of Germany whose terrific crime wave in the early twenties can be accounted for by the economic distress following her military defeat in 1918. It is also significant that whilst the figures for simple larceny had rocketed from 202,885 in 1920 to 308,005 in 1923, which was the peak year of her inflation, those for coining actually "slumped" from 341 in 1921 to 156 in 1923, so reflecting the instability of the Mark. Immediately after stabilization, however, there was a “boom” in the offence which resulted in no less than 1,094 convictions. In England where the economy had not been so seriously disturbed, crime increased far more steadily.

Lack of space makes over-simplification unavoidable and we fully recognize that all crime cannot be traced to economic factors so directly as this. We fully appreciate the importance of war and insecurity, and the effects of gross inequalities and the degrading position of the wage slave; all of them factors which themselves spring more or less directly from the capitalist nature of society. It could be argued that even the majority of sex crimes spring from the unnatural sexual institutions thrown up by property society; but as Dr. Goring tells us that 95 per cent, of all prisoners are convicted for acquisitive offences, (“The Lawbreaker", p. 39) we will not labour the point.

We live in an acquisitive society where we get our living in permanent competition with our fellows, and often at their expense; where periodic orgies of blood and violence such as we have recently experienced tend to instil a bias? attitude towards human suffering. Many people not only grow up in such a world and have the outlook which it engenders but they see also a few people living in a surfeit of luxury and ease without the necessity of work, whilst they are doomed to a life of toil; living in some overcrowded hovel in a sordid and ugly slum environment, through no fault of their own—other than choosing the wrong parents. Is it, then, not cause for wonder that so few take matters into their own hands and ignore those laws which enable a privileged minority to keep them in poverty and subjection?

Let us face it; there is no easy solution, the roots of crime go deep into the very basis of society itself. A vicious and competitive economy gives rise to vicious and anti-social behaviour. An economy based on a community of interests will give rise to co-operative and social behaviour; its establishment is the most urgent task confronting society today; and society includes you.

Meanwhile; crime marches on!

J. Trotman

Where East meets West (1950)

From the August 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Although attention is today focussed on Korea, it is but a glittering spark in the great smouldering mass which is China. Throughout the past 100 years it has been the struggle for spheres of influence, trade, raw materials, which made China a hot bed of intrigue, murder and corruption. A glance at a map will show that the importance of Korea is its geographic position. It is a peninsula of land pointing like a great finger into the Sea of Japan, covering or threatening Vladivostok to the North, Shanghai and Hong-kong to the South and Japan to the East.

That the war which ended in 1945 solved no problems now becomes clear. The economic position that made occupation of Manchuria so essential to Japan is still the same. America as the political power in occupation of Japan is forced to take over the role of the Japanese militarists who preceded them. The Communist party of Russia carry on the same policy of expansion as did Czarist Russia.

But whereas the leading role of the West was played by British Imperialism in the carving up of China during the 19th century, that mantle too, has now fallen on American shoulders. The antagonism of China and Russia to both Britain and Japan now shows itself in open hostility to America. The drama remains the same, only the actors appear in different guises.

From time immemorial China had developed and perfected an economic and social system quite adequate for her needs. This was a system of production organised in the towns along lines similar to the Guilds of Mediaeval Europe. About 80 per cent. of her population were absorbed in agriculture. The basis of her rural life was the village community. The cohesive force that held together these almost exclusive units of town and village, was the organised Scholar Gentry; that is educated land owners from whose ranks the officials, provincial governors, magistrates, etc. were chosen. Following on the diverse products of different regions, there had developed in this society a rich merchant class which dealt in the finished products of the Guilds.

The only opportunity presenting itself to the owners of money as a source of investment aside from dealing in the products of the towns, was usury. The lending of money to peasants, the hiring of land from great land owners and reletting of it at exorbitant rents became one of the main sources of wealth.

However, with the breaking of the West into China, dealing in opium, and later, investing in foreign enterprises, banks, railroad building, mining etc., soon developed a class of Chinese who, while still retaining lucrative investments in usurous capital, also identified themselves with the interests of the foreigners.

It was from these that the foreign powers in their rivalries chose their puppet governments to rule in parts of China. But side by side with the foreigners there arose a small number of Chinese who emulated and copied the factory method of production. However meagrely they lived, however cheaply they paid their workers, however long they worked their employees, they found that they could not compete against the influx of Western made commodities. From them arose the cry for “Tariff Autonomy” that is to say the right to protect and nurture their budding industries by government action.

Because of the dissolution of the handicraft industries, labour capable of employment in factories became abundant and cheap. Industries dominated by foreign capital sprang up in the towns all round the coast of China. Workers who worked as many as 12 hours a day for as little as a shilling a day, formed a seething mass of discontent in the towns. As the capitalists who employed them were non-Chinese, their struggles took a nationalistic direction. They were the natural allies of a weak, embryonic Chinese capitalist class in their struggle for a “Free China.”

But the mass of the Chinese were still peasants. The land problem was still the crux of the unrest and turmoil troubling China.

Governments, in order to rule, need revenue, not only for administrative purposes but also to meet payments on foreign loans. Because of the privileges gained by the foreign invaders, they were exempt from Chinese government taxes. As the government was also denied access to the customs revenue at the ports, the burden of taxation fell, not only on Chinese industry, thus restricting its development still farther, but also on the peasant. Any increase of taxes levied on the land owner was easily shifted onto the peasant by the mere expedient of raising his rent. The government itself was peopled by men who had a vested interest in the land. Any movement organised by the peasants for a reduction in rents meant either a reduction of government revenue or a reduction of income accruing to the land owners who constitute a large and powerful section of the community.

As the government revenue was a source of income for the banking concerns of the Western powers, a reduction in it was out of the question. The struggle between the land owners and the peasant was settled by force. Non-payment of the required rent meant the eviction of the peasant from the land. This was accomplished either by the private army of the land owner or by some neighbouring War lord with whom he was intimately connected.

The Great War (’14-’18) however created the conditions for a rapid growth of a home-grown Chinese industry : furthermore, the Russian Revolution pointed a way to the solution of many of the problems that confronted the Chinese. It was just after this war that a Chinese Communist Party was formed. A child of the intellectuals of China, it had a somewhat chequered career from the time of its formation till the end of the last war (’39-’45). Its phenomenal success after the cessation of hostilities lies in the fact that the representative government of China, recognised and supported by the Allies in their war against the Axis powers, entered into agreements with America which virtually handed over the whole of Chinese assets. The National Sovereignty which had been promised to them as a reward for victory against Japan, although given on paper, was denied them in reality. The realization of this was the reason for the sudden and remarkable victories of the “communists.” Fear of Russian infiltration into China from the North East which she had already occupied after the defeat of Japan was no doubt one of the reasons that spurred America to almost frenzied support of the Kuomintang. Its reaction however, was to drive the “communists” into the arms of Russia in whom they saw a natural ally.

The “communists,” although the victors in the Civil War, have still to consolidate their position and implement their programme. It is to a consideration of this programme that we now turn.

Stuart Gelder in his book “The Chinese Communists” quotes a long political report of Mao Tse-Tung. Under the heading “Policy of the Communists,” on page 25, we find, “Troops and armed forces form an important part of the New Democratic State-authority. Without them, the nation is without protection. Like all other governmental authorities, and completely different from the old-time troops and police who belong to a few, and are tools for oppressing the people, all armed forces of New Democracy belong to the people and protect them.”

This of course rings true to a people long oppressed by bandits and the soldiers of thieving warlords. To a socialist however it means that the “New Democracy” means to maintain law and order. But what kind of law and order will this be? Mao Tse-Tung goes on:—“Imperialist and feudal oppression has restricted the development of individuality and private capital, and has ruined the property of the masses. The task of our New Democratic system is to remove this restriction and ruination, to safeguard the free development of the people’s individuality in their social life, to promote the free development of private capitalist economy that benefits and does not control the people’s livelihood, and to protect all proper private property.”

Like all pseudo-Marxists in backward countries, their alleged ultimate goal is communism but the immediate objective is the realization of the capitalist mode of production. This, apparently, can be striven for as a step towards the ultimate goal. Again from the report of Mao Tse-Tung (p. 26):—“When we joined the party, we had in our mind two clearly defined objectives : to fight for the new bourgeois-democratic revolution, and to strive for the materialisation of the future Socialist revolution of the proletariat.”

According to this line of reasoning the proletariat (propertyless workers) are quite capable of understanding the need for capitalism in order to obtain socialism. Not only is socialism to be the result of consciousness but capitalism also. In short, the large industrial working class created by the foreign capitalists are firstly to aid the native capitalist to get rid of his foreign competitor and then to joyfully help him onto their backs in the foreigners’ place. This of course is nonsense.

The Chinese worker will find, nay, has probably already discovered that capitalists of whatever nationality or colour are much of a muchness. The development of the capitalist mode of production is the beginning of new struggles between new classes. Capital and its growth depend on a greater degree of exploitation, greater amounts of surplus value and the complete subjugation of the workers to its sway. In so far as the workers are blinded to the real import of capitalist production and look on it as a prelude to something better in the future, to that extent will their struggle be blunted. To that extent will they be the more effectively milked.

The acceptance of the “communist” position, however sincere, must conflict with the real interests of the working class. Any resistance by the workers at any time must be construed as preventing accumulation of greater amounts of capital. It will therefore be opposed by the state. Basically, despite its Marxist jargon, the “communist party” are putting forward that old shibboleth so roundly condemned by Marx and Engels in the “Communist Manifesto”—“ Capitalism for the benefit of the working class.”

Again from the report of Mao Tse-tung (p. 46): — “ The New Democratic system of government will adopt the policy of harmonizing the relationship between capital and labour. . . .  On the other hand the proper profits of state, private and co-operative enterprises will be protected.”

Despite the day dream of developing capitalism first and socialism afterwards, the “communists” get down to brass tacks. “Large amounts of capital will be needed for the development of our industries. They will come chiefly from the accumulated wealth of the Chinese people, and in a lesser degree from foreign assistance. We welcome foreign investments if such are beneficial to China’s economy and are made in observance of China’s laws. What is beneficial to both the Chinese people and foreigners is that China, after winning a firm internal and international peace, and instituting thorough political and agrarian reforms will be able to develop her large-scale light and heavy industries and modernized agriculture. On this basis we shall be able to absorb vast amounts of foreign investments. A politically backward and economically impoverished China will be unprofitable not only to the Chinese people, but also to foreigners.” (P. 46)

To sum up; the relation of the West to China has been one of ruthless exploitation. The apparent struggle between the powers which presents itself as a struggle between ideas or differing ways of life, is in fact a struggle over the spoils. The development of a strong native capitalist government therefore enters the field to expel the foreigners. Armed with the history of exploitation as justification for its actions, it attempts to place itself in position as the future exploiter of China.

The position of the masses of China will still be that of exploited toilers.

Rufus.

Unwillingly to school (1950)

From the August 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Hardman is Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education. On July 1st he opened his heart to a meeting of teachers at Dorchester; the Observer thought it important enough to accord a splash heading “New School Time Table.” Stressing as he did the urgent need for “co” ordination between hand and brain, and the high importance of inducing “delight” in the pupil while acquiring culture in its best sense, the words of the Secretary were a signal advance in the right direction; at least the ghost of Robert Lowe who flung his brutal “Board Schools” and scornful words in the face of the Working Class in 1871 has been well and truly laid; it may be hoped the Dorchester audience of Prime Minister Lord Rosebery’s “captains and guides” grasped the full significance of Hardman’s speech.

But alas! even today the gulf between the aspirations of the advance guard in education and the possibilities of fulfilment yawns discouragingly. That gulf can only be bridged, when a New Society (Socialism) has swept away the inevitable evils that must frustrate educational effort under the Capitalist System, in spite of the good intentions on the part of reformers.

It would be folly to deny that there has been a notable diminution in the lads and lassies who creep unwillingly to school; there has been a welcome and growing comradeship between pupil and scholar; there has been a definite, if slow, distrust of the Examination Myth—Hardman himself gave a sour glance at it.

But after all. Education in the long run is governed by political considerations; it was by no odd freak of history that in ancient Greece the Spartan youth was trained to a super-Fascist "hardness,” while the Athenian youth (of the privileged classes, of course), was trained to enjoy Homer and Aeschylus; tradition counted, it is true, but the outstanding fact was that Sparta had no walls, and no sea barrier.

Fifty years ago, Margaret McMillan, the pioneer of Nursery Schools, wrote an enthusiastic Clarionette: “You teachers do love the Grind.” They did, and unfortunately even on the plane of mere amelioration, a lamentable number still do. In the last War, a London school found itself sharing the dubious hospitality (morning and afternoon shifts) of a Secondary School in a South Coast town. An elderly member of the latter staff proudly expressed his determination (a siren wailing applause) to carry through "his” Final Somethings, come weal, come woe. "I’ll stick to the deck, said he, so they stuck him on deck with glue,” as an irreverent youngster of the London School afterwards remarked to his colleagues.

A pitiful handful of school reformers are gallantly striving to keep alive private schools where the child is the centre of the picture, where Wordsworth’s “blind authority beating with his staff the child that might have led him” no longer applies. Happy kiddies! but, with relatively large staffs, etc. these schools are expensive, and therefore for the children of the well-to-do only; further. Government grants are a far-off contingency when “a daily act of public worship” is laid down as part and parcel of grant-earning. This type of school is different.

There has been a spate of loose talk about "equality of opportunity” since the last Education Act, a new version of the old Napoleonic bilge about marshal’s baton and private’s knapsack. It is pretty apparent that the vast mass of pupils attaining Grammar School status will never attain the prize dangled at the top of the greasy pole; the unwholesome preoccupation of youngsters to reach a prescribed goal, the abiding dread of failure, failure itself, entails sheer tragedy for many a sensitive plant in Shelley’s garden. Face the fact, too, of the working-class parents scraping and sacrificing to come somewhere near the school’s requirements in clothing alone; face the fact of much prized “traditions” which are a veritable hot-bed of snobbery, spite of good intentions; face the fact of a child gradually sensing a growing divergence in speech between himself and relatively uneducated parents. It is easy to brush these things aside, to attribute exaggeration to a sketchy outline of potential child torture.

It may well be asked here: what is the remedy, granted the picture is even moderately true? The S.P.G.B. has no hesitation in replying—that only by removing the causes of evil can a final remedy be accomplished. Quinine is a benign alleviator of malaria—elimination of the foul pools with their disease carrying insects is the recognised scientific remedy. The evils inherent in the Capitalist system which, spite of pietistic mouthing, elevates material success to a major virtue, can at its best endeavour but alleviate the worst horrors of infant torture which marked the period of mine and factory hells. And it is worth calling to mind that there were Christian apologists in that period who affected to believe that "wholesome toil ” was a good thing for the pitiful little broken and disfigured scraps of humanity.

The achievement of Socialism will and can be only accomplished by the Working Class; the main appeal of the S.P.G.B. is therefore to that class, but it may not be irrelevant to point out that everything in the educational garden of Eton and Harrow and their kind, as far as pupils are concerned, is not lovely; bullying, even if not of the order of Tom Brown’s schooldays, is not unknown—"worse remains behind.” Socialism would be a happy change for many a sensitive school- tie kiddy.

Hardman means well—as does his chief, ex-schoolmaster Chuter Ede, despite a lapse occasionally into the hectoring Trade Union leader when condescending to speak to his late co-workers. But fine words butter no parsnips, indeed buttery sentimentalism adds to the rough pack of the unthinking worker a new element of dangerous slipperiness; Sir Peter Teazle’s “O damn your sentiments ” seems to meet the situation.

To Working Class fathers, the S.P.G.B. makes this special appeal: even if you fail to realise completely the dire meaning of wage-slavedom for yourself: if you have but imperfectly grasped that Capitalism entails a harassed and inhumanly overworked wife, at least give a thought for your children, your bidden guests. The joy of life, childhood laughing as it goes, faces “ in which sweet records meet, promises as sweet ”—these can be a realised aspiration under SOCIALISM alone.

Augustus Snellgrove

"Science, natural and social" (1950)

From the August 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

“. . . Today it seems that we are again in the process of launching a new phase of science—one in which social as well as natural phenomena are to be made amenable to scientific understanding and rational control.

“As with natural science, social science too has had its earlier stages. It too passed through the stage of trial and error, in which social organisation shaped itself under the influence of unconscious adjustment together with non-rational rules of conduct and non-scientific interpretations of human destiny. It also had its traditional phases, often tightly bound up with philosophical and theological interpretative principles, as, for example the climax of the Middle Ages. And it has had its birth of free speculative inquiry, parallel to the Greek phase of natural science—but two thousand years later, in the philosophers of the seventeenth and especially the eighteenth century.

“Finally, its modern stage now dawning has had. like the modern stage of natural science, its scattered precursors, its Roger Bacons and Leonardos—and it has had its precursor in the restricted sense, its equivalent of Francis Bacon in the Renaissance. Many, I am sure, would put Herbert Spencer in this position; but I believe that the true John the Baptist of social science is Karl Marx. Herbert Spencer, for all his academic knowledge, or perhaps because of it, was more in the position of an Old Testament prophet. His work was essentially analogical. He demonstrated that social science was an inevitable development; but his notions of what form it would actually take and what methods it should employ were vague and essentially erroneous.

“Marx, on the other hand, developed a system directly based on social facts and directly applicable to them. He did not just prophesy. A Messiah; he indicated THE Messiah. As natural scientists tend to undervalue Bacon because he himself did not make discoveries or work out experimental techniques, so social scientists tend to under-rate Marx because his system is a dialectical one, ready-made and complete with an answer to any problem, not sufficiently empirical and inductive for their scientific taste. But at least Marx, like Bacon, gave expression to a new outlook and a new method of attack, and helped materially to alter the intellectual climate so as to make it propitious for scientific work in his field . . . ”

(“The Uniqueness of Man”, by Julian Huxley. Pages 224—225).

Random notes on Marxian Philosophy (1950)

From the August 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Marxian Philosophy, as has been frequently stated is the outcome of German Philosophy, socialist Utopian doctrines and English Political Economy.

There are many prominent men to-day who sniff at Marxism; a doctrine formulated in the nineteenth century cannot in their opinion be valid to-day. The last eighty years have certainly brought about remarkable progress in the development of productive forces; electric trains, aeroplanes, radio and much modern machinery did not exist at the time that Marx formulated his theories. This profound development of the material means of production can certainly not be held as an invalidation of the Marxian ideal (i.e. Socialism); it must on the contrary be regarded as fulfilling much more adequately the prerequisite material foundation which Marx considered to be a preliminary for the construction of a classless socialist society. The invectives hurled against the Marxian ideal from this standpoint are therefore unwarranted. The utmost charge that can be made is against the Marxian analysis itself, which is in the opinion of its rebutters unsound. In face of the much more modern development of society “historical materialism” and “surplus value” in their opinion no longer hold water as scientific theses, even granted that some justification may have been held for these concepts in the “Victorian Epoch.”

. . . The question arises: Can one honestly subscribe to a doctrine, or body of doctrines, which is unsound in its essence.

The Marxian “ideal” may be cherished, but then it is the ideal of predecessors of Marx (Bray, Thompson); but for that idealistic vision Marx deserves no special merit, nor even for his consistent devotion to the workers’ cause—if one may add this factor too. It is his theories which constitute his “contribution” and which enable us to understand modern capitalism. The entire ideological phenomenon is to be elucidated through an explanation of the economic conditions of man. This is historical materialism. The religious thoughts, the changes of ideas, intellectual life have their grounding in the economic structure of society—and one may add the political and juridical life. That Hitler, Bolshevism and Labour Government can be explained in terms of the economic structure and that they are satisfactorily explained are factors which leave no doubt in our minds of recent events. Neither Hitler, nor Bolshevism, nor Labour Government could have arisen in Feudalism, in a previous economic building of society.

The perennial incomes of the capitalist class are a deduction from the total labour of the working class; the result of the excess produced by the workers over their own income, i.e. the value of their labour power.

This is the doctrine of surplus value. The value of a ware is the sum total of labour contained within it. What do we mean by value? We mean just that which we use in colloquial conversation, viz., a treasurable estimation. But this treasurable estimation only arises in exchange societies or where exchange of goods has arisen or taken place. In a Socialist community two children in a Kindergarten may very well exchange their toys, but they will not do so with a concept of value. Nor will value be a factor of their articles for them, as it must necessarily be for them to-day behind their backs, namely, some sort of treasurable estimation. The value of a thing is then to-day some sort of qualitative estimation of it, even if the factors behind that estimate are not grasped. . . . money, too, has value, i.e. gold, silver, copper. The exchange of a commodity for money is the exchange of one for another value. It has been said that the proportionally determining factor in the exchange of values is their usefulness. This is pure nonsense! It cannot mean estimation as to whether a fur coat contains a thousand times more usefulness than does a chair. This is a purely subjective estimation —the utility of a commodity. But if the degree of usefulness is impossible to fathom, it is possible to gauge the socially necessary labour in an article, which Marx holds to constitute the value of the thing. That the total value of goods is estimated in terms of labour; exchanges on an average for a total of money estimated in terms equivalent of labour is Marx’s thesis, viz., the labour theory of value, and he has shown that although his thesis is that of Ricardo, Smith and other economists too his special contribution is that it is not “labour” which the worker sells to the capitalist but his labour power. The pervading thought in my mind is the applicability of the doctrine of Marx to the progressive industrial 1950 capitalism.

G.

Blue Blood (1950)

From the August 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

People often boast of having “ blue blood ” in their veins, meaning of course that they are related more or less closely to some member of the nobility. This is supposed to lend a charm to their character, not possessed by more common folk.

A peep into “The Complete Peerage” a work, still in the process of construction, it will not be finished until 1954, will at least make people hesitate before claiming relationship with the “gentry.” Baron Hungerford was found guilty of so many unnatural crimes that he was beheaded in 1540.

For four years he imprisoned his starved wife in a castle, and suborned the chaplain to poison her.

A Mad Earl of Queensbury fell upon a cookboy who was burning the spit in the kitchen of Holyrood in 1707 and spitted and roasted him in front of the fire.

Lady Glamis, ancestor of the present Queen, was burned at the stake as a sorceress who tried to poison the King of Scotland in 1537.

Maybe the sacked dustman now reinstated, “who was dismissed because he was supposed to have mimicked the. Queen,” will be surprised to learn this.

Some of these gentry also possessed a 'sense of “ humour/’ As in the case of the cruel Lady Marischal who died from laughing at a killing in 1598.

Lady Janet Gray smothered her first husband at the end of the fifteenth century but found two more.

These are some of the facts drawn from this work, there are many more but these will suffice to illustrate the kind of people many of them were.

It may be said in their defence that the period was a vicious one, but it does not lend any weight to their claims of being the lords of creation. These facts about the nobility are taken from an article in the Sunday Express on May 28th entitled “ The Peerage without Whitewash,” by Sidney Rodin.

P. S. M.

SPGB Meetings (1950)

Party News from the August 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Into Battle! The War over Soap Substitutes (1950)

From the July 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

According to all reports, the first salvoes are now being fired in what promises to be one of the biggest trade-wars we have seen in this country for many a long year. The contestants in the struggle are the manufacturers of detergents, or soap-substitutes.

The set-to in Britain is actually the second round of a contest which has only just come to an uneasy (and probably temporary) end in the United States. Here, Proctor and Gamble an American firm, and Lever Bros., the Anglo-Dutch combine, fought out a bitter struggle for many months before Lever Bros, were defeated and forced to content themselves, for the time being at any rate, with only a minor share of the American soap-substitute market.

Now the scene has changed to this country, though the chief contenders are the same. On the one hand is Thomas Hedley & Co., the British subsidiary of Proctor and Gamble; on the other. Lever Bros, once more, fighting this time on their own ground. In addition there are a host of smaller fry, all trying hard to keep a foothold in a very precarious and uncertain market.

All of them, big and small, are spending large sums on advertising (Hedley’s and Lever Bros, are employing two of the biggest firms in the business). Hedley’s are reported to have already spent £72,000 on Press advertising for “Dreft,” besides about £100,000 on film publicity. Now they are busy launching “Tide” on the public, with what seems like lavishness of advertising even greater than that devoted to “Dreft.” Lever Bros, in their turn have already spent £73,000 on “Wisk,” and £22,000 on their liquid product “Quix.” Both seem ready to spend a lot more besides. These two big firms, it will be noticed, are playing the game of running two products, so giving themselves an opportunity of pitting one against the other, as well as against the products of their rivals. When one product really begins to outstrip the other, then they will probably drop the poorly-selling one and concentrate on the one that is selling well. One of them, perhaps both, may even now be working out plans to launch a third, so getting the additional advantage of newness—an important factor when each new product is launched with lavish publicity.

Just recently, the situation has been further complicated by a new big rival, the American Colgate-Palmolive-Peet combine, which plans to put its own product “Fab” on the market in a big way. The smaller fry are, of course, now some way behind, but they are all struggling hard for their own little place in the trade. Domestos Ltd., for example, have already spent £39,000 on advertising “ Stergene,” and the Brobat Mfg. Co. £33,000 on “Brobat.” Boots with “D.10,” and the Co-op with “Cascade,” are of course at some advantage in that they can distribute their products in their own shops, but their trade will in effect be confined to their own distribution system. They will not stand a chance on the open market unless they are prepared to risk a great deal of money in pushing their products. Having taken a look at the jungle outside, they have no doubt already decided to stay at home!

This high-pressure advertising is, of course, only the prelude to the fight. The first real blow was struck by Lever Bros, when they offered, temporarily, to let housewives have two packets of “Wisk” for the price of one. Hedley’s replied by covering large areas of London with vouchers offering a 1s. 7d. packet of “Tide” for 6d. Apart from stunts, prices generally are already on the way down. “Fab” recently dropped from 1s. 9d. to 1s. 7d.; “Dreft ” from 1s. 7d. to 1s. 4d.; and “Cascade ” from 8d. to 6d. (Price differences are largely accounted for by differences in the sizes of the packets). All of them are probably working frantically to think of other bright ideas which will enable them to gain an advantage.

Even when soap-rationing is abolished, all the manufacturers seem convinced that there is a future for detergents. If they did not think so, they obviously would not be doing what they are doing. Reinforcing them in their belief is their determination to bring down the price of detergents below the price of soap. One of the main ways in which this can be done is by reducing the price of the raw materials from which detergents are made.

Detergents, as is well known, are derived from petrol, and just as competition is now rife among the detergent manufacturers so is competition among the oil-producers. At least four companies are already producing raw materials for soap-substitutes, and others are thinking of doing so. Shell are the biggest producers at present with “Teepol.” After them come I.C.I. with “Lissapol,” Anglo-Iranian with “Comprox,” and Monsanto Chemicals with “ Santomerse ”— all struggling hard to get hold of as much of the rapidly growing market as they can. For detergents to really compete with soap, the oil-producers will have to cut their prices. That they can do so was shown when the soap ration was last increased—prices immediately dropped. They will probably find means of doing so again when rationing is fully lifted and their products have to compete on equal terms with soap.

Whatever form the struggle takes, it should be interesting to watch. The contestants may fight to the limit, as they did in the United States. They may try to reach a compromise, which will certainly be an uneasy and temporary one. Perhaps the abolition of soap-rationing will prick the whole bubble. We do not know, nor do we wish to speculate.

What is worthy of comment is the stupidity of a system in which huge sums of money are being spent in selling, one against the other, products between which there is probably not a scrap of difference worth troubling about; the stupidity of a system in which adults in complete possession of their senses spend their working hours thinking up new and better stunts to help sell these products; the stupidity of a system where other fully mature men and women worry themselves sick wondering whether “this” is a better name than “ that,” or “that” is a better name than “this” (we have it on no less an authority than the Financial Times that enormous care and market research is expended on choosing just the right brand name). The example of soap-substitutes can be multiplied a thousandfold, and the wastefulness in terms of wealth and human effort is correspondingly greater.

Capitalism has introduced a substitute for soap. When are you workers going to introduce the substitute for capitalism—socialism?

Stan Hampson

Knees bend! (1950)

From the July 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

In our propaganda activities we often point out that education is subordinated to needs of capitalism.

The vast sums of money spent on universities and education in general are spent, in the main, to ensures steady supply of efficient wage slaves.

Recently, in Glasgow, at a conscientious objector’s court, during a hearing given to a young doctor who was opposed to becoming part of the military machine, evidence was supplied by a Professor McRobert of the Glasgow University, which helps to substantiate our assertions.

The doctor who had registered for military service on first taking up medicine, had changed his views on the army somewhat by the time he had qualified six years later, in, 1950, with the result, he registered as a Conscientious Objector when he became a doctor.

Professor McRobert who was in the court during the hearing made the following comment to the doctor, “If you had not registered for military service you would have been rejected. You kept out another man who would have been willing to do this work ” (Glasgow Evening News, May 1, 1950). When this statement is examined it is obvious that the democracy the tribunals are so fond of reminding C.O.s about, does not exist in the university. An applicant for admission to the medical profession could be most capable in every respect, but unless he bows the knee to the state his entry is barred.

What better proof could be offered against those apologists for capitalism, who say that the clever and the industrious are assured of success and that this wonderful system makes for the survival of the fittest.

BEE VEE

Blogger's Note:

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that 'BEE VEE' was a one off pen-name for Glasgow Branch's Bert Vallar. The giveaway is the quotation from the Glasgow Evening News.

The goose is bored (1950)

From the July 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

When capitalism was young and trade unionism was in its infancy, the masters took very little interest in the welfare and education of the “philanthropists” who provided their comforts. But with the development of the tools of production and the necessity for a more highly trained working population, the masters discovered, to their dismay, that the rabble had to be equipped with a certain amount of knowledge. Consequently, schools quickly sprung up and in a surprisingly short period of time the working class had mastered the three "Rs.” Of course, although the masters are well aware that their workers must read and write in order to run the system for them, the disadvantage is that there is no check upon what they read and write. Therefore it is necessary for the capitalist class to engage in a ceaseless barrage of propaganda through the medium of the press and radio, to convince workers that this is the best of all possible systems and that they (the Capitalists) are here to stay. Nevertheless it has become increasingly obvious to the masters that although the “Goose that lays the Golden Eggs” is still blissfully unaware of his amazing qualities and capabilities, there is a considerable amount of drudgery in the poor wretches' life which, if not arrested, might result in a smaller egg. Therefore during recent years it has been found advantageous to invest a little capital in brightening up factory conditions and providing all sorts of undreamt-of welfare amenities to make things more agreeable to the inmates.

It has been proved conclusively that we workers lend and apply ourselves far more willingly to the process of being exploited under congenial conditions., than under the dark and miserable conditions of years ago. This fact reflects itself immediately in an egg of considerably larger dimensions.

So much are our masters aware of the growing lethargy in our ranks that they often print bright little articles in the press suggesting ways and means that we ourselves can assist in making this life a little less humdrum. For instance, the person who travels to work by bus every day along the same old route with the same familiar faces, passing the same familiar objects; he should go by train for a change. Undoubtedly this momentous step in his life will present fresh fields to conquer and provide many exciting hours eagerly scanning fresh faces and scenery. Of course the period in between coming and going will unfortunately remain unchanged but no doubt this will lose some of its boredom with the anticipation of the new and exciting journey home.

Almost every day we read about young people who, rather than spend their lives unobtrusively in factory or office, revolt, and seek to satisfy their craving for colour and excitement along other channels. It is significant that today the prisons and mental institutions are overflowing with customers requiring treatment. It is more than coincidental that with the development of modern capitalism, the population of these respective centres has more than doubled during recent years, and given the continuation of capitalism it is extremely likely that we shall eventually run out of storage space for these unfortunate individuals.

On the industrial field we find that the inevitable trend of capitalism is to reduce previously complicated tasks that required individual attention and skill into simpler operations. The introduction of the conveyor belt system has banished the old craftsman and taken the joy of creating beautiful articles away from mankind, substituting the mass production of shoddy and cheap commodities. To such an extent has this change been accomplished that it is no wonder that society has temporarily forgotten how to appreciate well balanced design and beauty, even to the extent of preferring the ugly to the beautiful, or further, being incapable of distinguishing either.

It is comforting at least to know that capitalism, in spite of its apparent strength and universal acceptance, cannot exist for ever and that a new and better form of society will one day replace it. This will bring with it the joy of living and working for the benefit of all mankind and will instil new and finer characteristics into man’s mental and physical make up.

G. L.

Editorial: Marx, Methodism and the Labour Party (1950)

Editorial from the July 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Morgan Phillips, Secretary of the Labour Party has caused a stir by the way he has restated the outlook of his Party. In a speech to a gathering of European Labour Parties at Copenhagen he elaborated the proposition that the philosophy and method of the British organisation is “Methodist rather than Marxist.” Here are some of his statements.

“British socialism owes little to Karl Marx, either in theory or practice, or in its methods of organising the working classes. Marx’s economics as well as his politics were challenged and finally renounced by the founders and teachers of the British Labour Party.” 

“Marx’s conception of the political organisation required for waging the class war was not accepted by the British Labour movement.”

". . . Marxism as a philosophy of materialism, as an economic theory, and as a form of political organisation with revolutionary intention and aim, is historically an aberrant tendency in the development of British Socialism.”

“British Socialists do not consider it at all a reproach or a source of weakness in their intellectual and political positions that their movement has been profoundly influenced by religious thought. The very organisation of our British working-class movement embodies methods we have taken over from religious institutions.” (Manchester Guardian, 3/6/50).

Among the religious influences he mentioned particularly is Methodism. There is nothing new in this. It was said by many of the early leaders of the Labour Party and was a commonplace criticism of them in S.P.G.B. propaganda forty years ago.

In 1922 the late Phillip Snowden wrote of his Party:—“The British Labour Party is certainly not Socialist in the sense in which socialism is understood upon the Continent. It is not based upon the recognition of the class struggle; it does not accept the teachings of Marx.” (Manchester Guardian Reconstruction Supplement, October 26, 1922).

But though it is not new it has a significance now that it did not have years ago. When the British Labour Party was younger, before it had had experience as a government, and before the Communists seized power in Russia, the lead among the Labour Parties of Europe was taken by the German Party. It was the German Social Democratic Party that was largest and seemed to be most successful and nearest to becoming the government. The future of Labourism throughout Europe was thought to be bound up with the fate of the German party. Like all of the continental parties the German S.D.P. was traditionally hostile towards religion and the church and paid lip service to Marxism.

Now several new factors have brought the British Labour Party into greater prominence and influence. The German S.D.P. was greatly weakened by the war and by the rise of the Communists; Marxism has been brought into popular disrepute by the distortion of it associated with the Russian dictatorship; the new balance of world capitalism has produced the line-up of America, Britain and Western Europe on the one side against Russia and her satellites on the other; and lastly the British Labour Party is now almost alone among the Labour parties of Europe in holding governmental power. In these circumstances the lead among the Labour Parties has been taken by the British Party, and the prospect is that the traditional lip service paid to Marxism by the Continental parties will be allowed to fall into the background.

This development represents a certain change; but no progress towards a greater understanding of socialism. It exposes the fundamental lack of socialist principle that characterises all the Labour parties, and shows the extent to which their policies are in fact bound up with the requirements of capitalism in the various countries. It needs to be studied in relation to another pronouncement made by Morgan Phillips at the same conference. Because the West European Trade Unions and Labour parties are now backing Marshall Aid and the tie-up with U.S.A., and the American trade unions play an increasingly influential role in the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in its fight with the Communist World Federation of Trade Unions, it becomes expedient to whitewash American capitalism, hence the following from Mr. Phillips: —

“Socialist prejudice against the United States must be exposed as out of date. For more than two decades the United States has been the most progressive country in the world outside Britain and Scandinavia. . . . At present most European Governments are less progressive than the Truman administration. I hope you will forgive me if I say that we must not be too smug about European traditions. It must not be forgotten that in the period between the two world wars America reacted to the world crisis by producing Roosevelt and the New Deal while Europe produced Hitler and Mussolini. Totalitarianism is in fact a European product.”

(Manchester Guardian 5/6/50).

There is nothing at all illogical in the British Labour Party, which stands for the reform of capitalism, looking with a sympathetic eye on Roosevelt’s and Truman’s reforms of American capitalism. It does not surprise Socialists though it may be a bitter pill for those Labourites to swallow who have liked to cherish the delusion that the Labour Party stands for something distinctive. Like Morgan Phillips they will seek comfort in the notion that at least they have been consistent in abhorring totalitarianism. But even here they are doomed to disappointment. Just now Mr. Phillips is asking them to admire the progressiveness of democratic American capitalism under Truman but not so long ago—before the opening of the “cold war”—Mr. Phillips was equally admiring of totalitarian capitalism in Russia., He visited Russia in 1946 and wrote up his observations in the Daily Herald (20 August, 1946). This is one of his remarks: —

“In Britain we are only just beginning our Socialist planning; in Russia it has been going on for 28 years. In some ways British social standards are well ahead of the Russian, and in others the Russians can teach us a lot.”

Before leaving Mr. Phillips and his views on Socialism we may usefully quote what he has to say of the aim the British.Labour Party sets before itself:—“It promises . . .  the attainment of a planned economy in which proletarian exploitation is not tolerated, and where the fundamental freedoms of the individual citizens, worker and wage-earner are safeguarded ” Marx showed conclusively that the exploitation of the working class cannot be ended while the workers continue to be a wage-earning class, hence his insistence that the unions should see the need to aim at the abolition of the wages system. Morgan Phillips, lacking Marx’s understanding of capitalism and socialism, cannot even perceive that the continued existence of the wages system in Russia and Britain makes nonsense of the claim in both countries to have ended exploitation and introduced socialism. He glories in the fact that the Labour Party rejected Marxism but cannot see that in so doing it was rejecting Socialism.

A Chemical Octopus (1950)

From the July 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd. have issued their Annual Report for 1949. The Report contains some interesting information.

The capital, issued and converted into stock is £84 millions; the Reserves are £39 million, making a total of £123 millions. There is also a Central Obsolescence and Depreciation Provision of £35 millions. The Company has 93 subsidiaries covering Europe, S. & E. Africa, N. America, S. America, Australasia, Far East, Near East and Indian Sub-Continent. Its products include Chemicals, Metals, Paper Goods, Lime, Leather Cloth, Dyestuffs, Explosives, Glass, Paints, Plastics, Salt, Petrol and Cement.

There is a common idea that nationalisation is the last word in combination but what nationalised industry can compare with this gigantic concern which produces such a variety of different products and whose tentacles stretch all over the earth? The direct exports alone amounted to £38 million.

There is, however, an ominous statement in the early part of the report:

“German and Japanese competition has been limited, partly owing to restrictions imposed by the occupying powers, but there are now clear signs that this competition will become a problem in the near future.” (page 4)

There are, however, brighter statements further on. For instance:

“The production of the Dyestuffs Division has shown a remarkable increase during recent years. On the outbreak of war in 1939 responsibility for meeting the demands for dyestuffs throughout Great Britain and the Commonwealth fell largely on the Dyestuffs Division. Production had therefore to be increased by modifying plants and improving and shortening the chemical processes involved' and the measures were so successful that in 1949 production was about three times as great as in pre-war years, although substantially the same plants were in use.” (page 6)

And further:

“African Explosives and Chemical Industries, Ltd., in which the Company and De Beers Industrial Corporation Ltd. are the principal shareholders, achieved new records in the sales of both explosives and fertilizers. Devaluation has increased the profitability and length of life of African gold mines.” (page 12)

And still further:

“The prospects of future trading in China remain obscure. It appears to be the intention of the new Government to use Government trading agencies for all exports and imports but it is likely that they will continue to do business with the local representatives of foreign manufacturing companies, if it is in their interest to do so.” (page 13)

We have been reading for some time news of the disturbances in Malaya, of the bandit menace and of the bodies of troops drafted there to root out the bandits. We have even seen a newsreel of Mr. Strachey handling a gun on one of the expeditions against the bandits. These matters make the following extract from the report topical and interesting:

“Imperial Chemicals (Malaya) Ltd. was able to exceed by 20 per cent its record turnover of the previous year, mainly because of increased supplies, and its profits were again very satisfactory.” (page 13)

We have often been urged in the past to admire the philanthropy and disinterestedness of individuals and companies that make large donations to universities. Being of a suspicious turn of mind we have—suspected. In their earnest desire to impress shareholders with their efficiency and foresight the directors of the company have thrown some light on the subject. This is what they say:

“If a large research organisation, such as the Company's, is to justify its existence over a prolonged period, it is essential that it should be able to secure the services of numbers of able and well-trained scientists, and also to have available a continuous flow of new fundamental knowledge which it can use in solving the practical problems of industry. For this reason it is in the interests of the Company to assist, wherever it can, the universities and other educational bodies, which are responsible for the training of scientists and are engaged in the production of new basic knowledge. For many years, therefore, the Company has made a practice of assisting educational establishments with financial grants. . . .” (page 15)

Then follows a list of some of these grants which include: Post graduate research fellowships about £55,000 a year, and in addition over £4,000 a year on scholarships; Special donations about £20,000 a year; special researches about £8,000 a year; Grants for apparatus and chemicals about £25,000. This makes a total of about £112,000 a year. After the list of donations we find this naive paragraph:

“Except in the cases of the special researches, which are on subjects of direct interest to the company, no attempt is made to influence in any way the choice of the research projects, and the company’s practice of making these grants without attaching conditions is regarded by the University authorities as one of their most valuable features.” (page 15)

How very altruistic. The innocence of them! As if the grateful universities won’t give them “most favoured nations” treatment in order to get further donations. As a matter of interest we get a line on this a few pages later in the Report:

“The Company has found difficulty in recruiting in satisfactory numbers the high grade technical staff which is required, not only for design and construction, but also for all aspects of research and production. Energetic action if needed to increase the number of scientific and technical graduates coming from universities and technical colleges, and to improve and extend its teaching of science in the schools where there is generally a regrettable shortage-of science masters. The Company is maintaining particularly close contact with the Appointments Boards of the Universities and as a result it has been possible to recruit during the year 265 chemists, physicists; engineers and other scientists, of whom 200 came direct from the Universities. This will help the Company to carry out its extensive and varied research programme and to maintain its high standard of technical management.” (page 20)

So they get what they pay for!

There is a great deal more of interest in this Report but we cannot take up more space recording it. However we must not conclude without recording the following tribute to those upon whose work the Company owes its prosperity.

“The Company’s progress was sustained last year, as it has always been in the past, by the loyalty and zeal which was shown, in this country and overseas, by factory managers, foremen and workpeople, commercial, technical and clerical staff, and all other grades of employees. The Directors would like to record their sincere appreciation of such conscientious service and cooperation and wish to mention in particular the support which has been given to schemes for increasing the manufacturing efficiency of the Company.” (page 21)

Now that is real decent of them. It is true that words are cheap, it is also true that those who lack zeal get the sack; still, it is very sporting of them— three cheers for the Company!

Gilmac

No Orchids For Sweet William (1950)

Film Review from the July 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Although socialists agree about the solution to social problems, when it comes to other issues differences of opinion can and do arise. What is a “good” film, is a question about which socialists can and do disagree. Some attach great importance to colouring, dresses and scenery, others to acting, sound recording, and the tempo of the drama. In short the same film is “good” to some and “bad” to others. For that reason we cannot exhaust these columns with personal views on the technical merits or demerits of films. What we can do is turn the socialist searchlight on the silver screen and show how the need for socialism is reflected in film stories.

For example take a recent production—“All the King’s Men.” This film, given academy awards, is the story of the rise to power and privilege of Willie Stark; a story adapted from real life.

Willie Stark starts off with poverty and honesty. During his struggles for political power he loses both, and finally “stops a bullet”—just before the National Anthem. That is the story in a nut shell as far as many people are concerned, but for socialists what is much more to the point is the social background of squalor and discontent that makes the story possible.

In the film we are shown glimpses of the poverty and humiliation experienced by workers, and the corruption, bribery and trickery that characterises world of rich and poor. We hear speeches by politicians anxious to turn the votes of working people to their own ends. Moreover we see in the political careerism of a Willie Stark only a melodramatic version of many a real life would-be reformer. Starting off with the desire to do something for workers and ending by doing something to them. Willie Stark, like many another before him, thought he could separate means from ends in his efforts to solve social problems. He thought he could gain political power by any means and wield it to benefit ordinary working people. Instead, having gained the support of people easily swayed by promises he had to resort to every kind of deceit to retain their support and his position of power.

Willie is not alone. Many have thought, and still think, that any kind of voter will do to solve the problems of working people. History belies this fallacy. The history of the working class in all countries shows that only a majority of working people equipped with socialist knowledge can solve their problems. This is an assertion to the validity of which the columns of this journal over many years bear ample testimony, and is in fact a touch stone of the Socialist movement.

Socialism, a world of common ownership and democratic control where all have free access to the things they need, will give the “Willie Stark’s” of this world no opportunity to harm others by their ill-informed efforts to rid the world of problems they do not fully understand. More important still Socialism, by ensuring the well-being of everyone, will eliminate the discontent and misery which is the breeding ground of those who aspire to personal power.

These then are some of the thoughts of socialists when they pay their one and nine’s to see the world of make-believe reflecting unwittingly the problems of our time. Our task as socialists is to change reality thereby changing the reflection. Why not join us?

John Moore