So They Say: Marching & Chanting (1976)

The So They Say column from the January 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marching & Chanting

TUC general secretary, Mr. Len Murray, found himself in a somewhat awkward position on the 26th November when an “anti-unemployment march” of 20,000 marched past Congress House chanting “Murray, out. Murray out.” In earlier times man, still groping for a greater understanding of the world in which he lived, used at least to vent his ignorant outbursts towards ends which could be respected, or which expressed some basic emotion — for rain in times of drought or even, Ee-ai-addio, we won the cup. Now we are reduced to “Murray, out. Murray, out.”

But the false god of employment, much displeased at these unfriendly overtures, felt it necessary to point out immediately that although many of those on the march were “sincere and honest” there were others, “extremist groups which are callously exploiting this concern and the plight of the unemployed for their own political ends.” But what of the many “sincere and honest” workers who were protesting at the level of unemployment: what advice could the bogus champion offer? Something which shows that the ritual chanters are not alone in their ignorance.

  The best way of overcoming the problem is by the TUC working together with the Government — not by taking part in anti-Government demonstrations.

Guardian, 27th November 75

He went on to concede charitably that the level of unemployment was “unacceptably high,” a chant which may even be heard from the Conservative congregation. But all evade the central issue: that capitalism will never run in such a way as to remove the recurring problem of unemployment. Its very seeds lie in the nature of a society which produces solely for profit. All the caterwauling cannot remove the need for workers to look for themselves into the nature of capitalist society. Only then will they recognize the implications behind Mr. Murray’s pleas to cooperate with the ruling class, even if he may not.

Shuffling Back and Forth

If asked to name a political party made up from an assortment of men and women who have ill-conceived principles individually, and none whatsoever collectively, the Labour Party must surely qualify for a high rating. It may be argued that its members are generally agreed on one notion, that capitalism is the only way in which society may be organized, but as many of its members see some imaginary difference between private capitalism and state capitalism, we can only conclude that it is a “principle” of which they are only dimly aware.

In recent months the Labour Party has been called “a coalition government” in its own right, both by opponents and by its own members. So many shades of what we are loath to call “opinions” lurk within the membership that it was hardly surprising to find the Prime Minister commenting on the disunity within the ranks. As a result of Reg Prentice’s dismissal by the Newham constituency party, an internal struggle has taken place in which the dreaded extremists have emerged. Mr. Wilson has taken them to task and in doing so he seems to have found so many members whose “views” he rejects that we visualize the rest of the membership desperately shuffling back and forth like a flock of sheep trying to keep on the “safe ground.”

  I want to warn the national executive about the situation which is developing. I reject the arrogance of extremists on the non-Party anti-Party Left — people who have always opposed what we are trying to achieve — and equally the arrogance of the anti-Party Right . . .
  I have spent 13 years so far, trying to keep this party together and I do not like what is going on.

Guardian, 27th November 75

Mr. Wilson may not like what’s going on, he may “reject” this faction or that, but never so far as to discourage any and everyone from voting Labour. He does not reject the votes, because that is all the Labour Party requires from its supporters.

Back to Earth

Like the man who clutches at straws, Mr. John Stonehouse MP is valiantly trying to show that he, like so many other MPs, once had principles too. That is before he entered the cruel world of “public life.” He was signing copies of his book “Death of an Idealist” on 24th November when he remarked:

  People entered public life with ideals but found that the pressures of life warped and changed their personalities so that they were prepared to throw away their ideals.

Guardian, 25th November 1975

And as if to prove that he has now become a “realist” in the day-to-day affairs of capitalism, we note that he has reverted to his former practice of entering the lobby together with his unprincipled colleagues at the first sound of a “division bell.”

Two Views

In recent weeks the newspapers have carried several Government-sponsored advertisements which read “Inflation — we can beat it together.” The current layout shows two sincere and trustworthy faces each with a small personal commentary assuring the reader that the defeat of inflation is of paramount importance. Trades Union leaders among others have appeared. The version in the London Evening Standard of 1st December gave the views of one Pat Cole, Docker at the Royal Docks of London, whose view as an “ordinary working man” was that “knowing the cause of inflation isn’t important. Stopping inflation is.” On the other half of the page, concurring with Mr. Cole’s view, was Sir John Cohen the life president of Tesco Stores.

  Inflation is the greatest danger facing this nation. It saps our energy and lowers our morale. It leads to higher prices. It leads to unemployment, which is a useless, wasteful, and almost immoral thing to do. We at Tesco have always been aggressive traders . . . Over the years we have been committed to fighting rising prices . . . We are doing everything possible to increase our productivity and to keep our costs down so that we can minimise what is passed on to our customers.

But before Mr. Cole, and millions like him, applauds too loudly at Cohen’s drum beating, he would do well to consider their respective positions. Mr. Cole complains that most dockers “don’t even see £50 a week in take-home pay” but if he cared to examine the financial pages of his newspaper on the 27th November, he would have noted that Pre-Tax profit at Tesco improved in the twenty-four weeks up to 9th August 1975 to £9,381,000 from £8,362,000 in the same period of 1974. When Cohen says that Tescos are “aggressive traders” and that they are “committed to fighting rising prices” and increasing “productivity”, all “ordinary working men” should appreciate that wage increases to the Tesco boss, as to any other member of the capitalist class, are rising prices and as such they will fight them. The increase in productivity can only come from the working class, but the benefit accrues to the owners of the means of production and distribution in terms of increased Profit. Tescos for example anticipate “materially higher profitability” in the second half of their financial year.

If workers are given the impression that the “Fight against Inflation” is one in which the owners put aside their class interests to fight a common enemy, they are being deluded. Let the capitalists dress up as dockers themselves if this falsehood is to be projected.

Missile Order

The Society of Business Economists held a conference on the 2nd December in which they discussed the “Economic Outlook for 1976”. The report in the Times of 3rd December told us that this assortment of experts were “pessimistic about inflation and the balance of trade” and that they were “gloomy” on unemployment. The view of those attending the conference was that the unemployed would number between 1,400,000 and 1,800,000 by the end of 1976.

However, elsewhere the British Aircraft Corporation was announcing that it will be able to maintain the jobs of 10,000 of its own skilled workers for at least ten years, as well as many jobs within other factories supplying BAC with components. The Corporation had just received an order from Iran for the supply of the Rapier anti-aircraft missile system, valued at £186m. The Chairman of BAC, Mr. G. R. Jefferson commented

  We are delighted by this further expression of Iran’s confidence in us and our product.

Times, 3rd December 1975

The charmingly titled “Missiles Sales Director”, Mr. Eric Sanson, let us have more details of the “product”

  Tracked Rapier uniquely provides cross country mobility at 38 mph and is able to operate in soft sand or snow. It has armoured protection for crew and missiles, eight missiles ready to fire, high kill probability with proximity fuses, and a blind firing system.

We maintain that with the establishment of Socialism a tremendous increase in the numbers of those performing useful work will occur. Here for example are 10,000 skilled men and women who will not be engaged in making products with “high kill probabilities.”

Alan D'Arcy

The Prentice Affair (1975)

From the September 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Me! I don't even know what a Marxist is,” said Miss Anita Pollack when accused of plotting to oust Reg Prentice from his parliamentary seat at Newham, East London.

She’s not the only one. Karl Marx himself is credibly reported by one biographer as observing, when told of a particularly crass piece of stupidity by one of his French supporters: “If that’s Marxism, then I’m no Marxist.” In all probability, as a serious scientist he wasn’t even interested in "Marxism”, any more than Darwin would have wished to be regarded as a “Darwinist”.

Miss Pollack also said: "I’m no revolutionary — I only belong to the Labour Party.” Fair enough! On the other hand, she is among those in the Newham North East Labour Party who propose to repudiate Prentice for “betraying the Labour Party’s socialist principles”. Unlike the Socialist Party of Great Britain, the Labour Party has never had principles of any sort, let alone Socialist ones. From the day of its inception in 1906 it has never been anything but a motley collection of careerists and job-hunters, desperately intent on saying or doing anything that would get the votes required for a politician’s “skive”. The difference between John Stonehouse and the others is that he didn’t know when to stop.

How Prentice can betray principles which the Labour Party has never had and therefore do not exist, remains to be seen. Certain it is that there are no Socialist principles except Marxian ones. When a Labour Prime Minister like Harold Wilson can babble his fatuous nonsense at the Durham Miners’ Gala — that a man’s wage increase is “another man’s price increase” — we can well believe him when he says he was unable to read more than two pages of Marx’s Capital.

In fact he wouldn’t have to! Just one page of Marx’s Value, Price and Profit suffices to show that the British workers (the highest-paid in Europe at the time, 1860-70) flooded the markets of the world with cheap commodities and undercut the products of all competitors, forcing them to erect tariff barriers to stop British imports. The whole essence of the capitalist economic system is to compensate for wage increases by more sophisticated production — the so- called accumulation of capital.

In view of the general ignorance of Marxism in the Labour Party — and even worse, its rejection in favour of Keynes by those who profess to know — it is surprising that the Newham Labour Party are aware of the existence of “socialist principles” at all. And yet there is one source, and one only, where they could hear of them: The Socialist Party! There is one organization only in this country that sticks rigidly and unalterably to principles — the Socialist Party.

What the Newham Labour Party are really objecting to is Prentice’s advocacy of coalition government, which makes them look idiots before the electorate. But the Labour Party has done that before: in 1931 and 1939. It has always been at the beck and call of the capitalist class, to save things for them. And now the chickens are at last coming home to roost! After six Labour governments the Labour Party’s attempts at reforming the system and curbing the workers’ demands are again coming unstuck. Hence the demands for the “retirement” of Prentice, Silkin and (according to the Mirror and the Sun) a number of others.

Those who have the temerity to say that an elected representative should do what he is told are denounced in those two well-known clear-thinking journals as wicked conspirators, plotters infiltrating local Labour Parties, Marxist factionists seizing control, etc. Prentice himself has given formal notice that he will ignore a majority decision to sack him. How sensitive these politicians are to the electorate! What a lesson to those critics of the Socialist Party who say that votes don’t count, and Parliament is a futile gasworks!

But try as they may, and however well-meaning their intention, the members of the Newham North East Labour Party, even if they sack Prentice, will succeed in nothing. What is wrong is not Prentice, but the rotten, unprincipled Labour Party which spawned him. The only way to Socialism is by the conscious votes of a democratic majority, for candidates nominated by a party based on Socialist principles. In that event working-class voters would really have a case against a defaulter in the House. The object of a Socialist party is the abolition of capitalism and nothing else — making it near-impossible for an elected representative to double-cross.

How comical the hysterical squeals of the gutter press about “minorities controlling the local Labour Parties” — as soon as the ordinary members express themselves! But sacking one scallywag to replace him with another is not enough. The time has come to stop playing silly-boy Labour politics and turn to the serious revolutionary Socialist Party which exists, based on a crystal-clear Declaration of its Principles.

Horatio.

The Tribune Group: Organized Hypocrisy (1975)

From the September 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Circus provides many political analogies. There are the clowns, of course; balancing and tightrope acts; tamed lions and dogs walking on hind legs; fire-eaters, who all give it up because it harms their mastication.

One other which should not be overlooked is the anti-circus freaks. Wherever a show appears, comes an earnest lady or two with a placard saying Stop the circus — it's cruel. Like the old men carrying religious texts on Derby Day, they are part of the attractions; and their political counterpart is the Tribune group. While Healey swings on a trapeze and Wilson cracks his whip, the Tribunites parade the ground crying woe and disapproval. And then go home to tea.

Tribune began in 1937. It was founded by a group including Bevan, Jennie Lee, Cripps and George Strauss, to advocate support for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War and to oppose rearmament. These original aims established the fatuousness which has been Tribune's hallmark. It demanded on one hand that the British government should stop making arms to fight dictators; on the other, it wanted Britain to give military help against dictatorship in Spain.

Its overt purpose has always been to sustain a “left wing” inside the Parliamentary Labour Party and protest against “betrayals” which, sadly for it, occur day by day in labour politics. In the postwar years the Tribune supporters were known generally as “Bevanites”. Bevan having died, after the Labour victory of 1964 the left-wing faction formed an organized group using Tribune as their platform. The principal figure of the group — until recently, at any rate -— has been Michael Foot; but his remaining a member of the crisis-bound Wilson government has reduced the left’s enthusiasm for him.

The conviction hanging round the Tribune group is that they are would-be revolutionaries, probably Marxists, bent on prosecuting the class struggle. The Observer, in an article on 13th July, remarked as evidence of Tribune's being “plebeian” that its appearance is inelegant and its offices are behind Smithfield meat market. That is mendacious nonsense which Tribune has fostered, like an intellectual wearing hobnail boots in the hope that they will lead to his being mistaken for a rat-catcher. In fact throughout its lifetime Tribune has been financed by well-to-do Labourites. Cripps and Strauss provided £20,000 to launch it in 1937; in the Bevan days it was supported by the millionaire Howard Samuel, and on one occasion was got out of trouble by Lord Beaverbrook.

Tribune has always attacked inequality, the profit motive and the horrors of capitalism. Its standpoint is not that of the class struggle, however, but of moral indignation. And like most moralists it is a hypocrite. Before the war it propagandized for the Soviet Union and — so as not to alienate Communist support for a “united front” — ignored the barbaric Russian purges. Today it excels at being frank when the appropriate time has passed, neglecting to mention at election-times what it will assert afterwards: that Labour is being led by untrustworthy and incompetent people — whom, nevertheless, it campaigned to get elected. Earlier this year Foot described a Labour minister, Reg Prentice, as an “economic illiterate”. His remark was capped by Sydney Bidwell, chairman of the Tribune group, who said Prentice was a “political illiterate” too. No doubt each thought of his phrase while looking in a mirror; but why did not Tribune make Prentice’s condition known at election-time last year?

The publicized aims of the Tribune group in 1975 (besides its anti-Common Market campaign) have been to oppose government policies of wage restraint, and to have Labour return to policies of nationalization and “soaking the rich”. During July newspaper headlines spoke of a threatened “big revolt” against the government’s Anti-Inflation Bill. On its introduction the revolt turned out to be no more than protest, with divisions among the Tribunites themselves. That could have been anticipated: the bright idea at the head of the government measures, the £6 limit on pay increases, was first proposed by the TGWU leader Jack Jones — who is one of the directors of Tribune.

Thus, the Tribune group’s impotence is now as widely commented on as, a short while back, was its clamorousness. The Guardian on 17th July had an article headed “Tribune’s opposition pales to a shadow”. The Observer article already quoted said: “Not so long ago, the group seemed to be capturing the whole party. Now, despite its successful campaigning in the trade unions, in the local constituencies, and on the National Executive, the group’s influence on Government policy appears to be nil.” What this amounts to is that the group was able to disport itself, “capture” and be “successful” as long as the contest was not too serious. When the mucking-about stopped the wretched little creature was found — as always — boo-hooing that its ball had been taken away.

The impossibility of the Tribunites’ position is in the fact that each is a Labour MP, and therefore committed to administering the capitalist system. The basic situations and problems created by capitalism are parts of its structure, and simply cannot be altered while it exists. The members of any governing party find themselves with no choice against the necessities of what they have taken on. The pre-war “disarmament” Tribune group supported the war which broke out two years later, and served in the wartime government under Churchill; just as Labour leaders in Britain and other countries urged the workers to war in 1914, after swearing in concert that they would not.

“Reluctance” is meaningless. A kick from a reluctant person hurts the same as a kick from a willing one. The Guardian article spoke of Tribunites’ giving Wilson “grudging and qualified support in the lobbies” — but whatever its frame of mind, a vote is a vote. But these are, in any case, marginal matters. The Tribune group has no idea of abolishing capitalism; it wants it managed in a different way from which, it hopes, results will be better. Its proposed alternatives to the government’s anti-inflation policy included a price freeze, import controls, cuts in arms spending, and “an extension of public ownership and accountability”.

In addition to this rag-bag of reforms the group called for a wealth tax to achieve a “fundamental and irreversible shift of wealth and power in favour of working people”. It is difficult to visualize a mind which can put such twaddle into lofty-sounding words. Does it mean the rich are to go on making riches so that they can be taken away? If so, how can they make riches without exploiting the workers who must therefore be kept poor? Or is it to be transferred from one address to another, so that we all have a turn at being rich and being taxed and then being poor again?

It is unlikely that any Tribunite would be able to explain or, if he could, that his explanation would resemble any other Tribunite’s. But Socialists can always shed light on these questions. First, the proposal to shift wealth towards working people accompanies a list of other measures which are all aimed to get capitalism in Britain out of its difficulties and keep Labour in power. It is, in other words, a carrot on a stick: help us over this hill, and then see what we’ll give you.

Second, whatever form the “shift” was intended to take, it would not envisage actually giving more wages. The whole of Labour history is against that. Every Labour government has made its special business to try to keep wages down. Let the working class have money? Not likely. The shifting would be a hypothetical arrangement known as a “social wage”, a notional benefit, etc. It would most likely take the form of subsidies and rebates, be accompanied by a heightening of the housing problem, and lead to the indignant discovery by a Tribune group ten years later that the workers were no better off.

As for a “fundamental shift of power in favour of working people’’, the Tribunites either do not comprehend or are happy to misrepresent the nature of political power. It means the control of the state, and while capitalism exists that can only be to conserve the class ownership of the means of production and distribution. The working class can and one day will take control of the powers of government — to replace capitalist ownership with common ownership; but it can do that only when the majority have become conscious of the need for Socialism.

To speak of redistributing power as a social reform under capitalism is absurd. If the Tribunites desired that the working class should acquire Socialist consciousness and aim for control of the state machine, there are two steps their group could take. One is, of course, to say so and stop preaching reforms which patch up capitalism. The other is to remove themselves from the posture of leaders and make known that the working class is able to emancipate itself; which would involve also giving up the secrecy to which Tribune and its group are addicted.

Failing that, the Tribune group goes on doing harm. If its influence on the Parliamentary Labour Party is negligible, it exercises a more dire one on the voters. In particular, many are persuaded that a Socialist purpose is to be found in the Labour Party — that if instead of “betrayers” the opportunity is given to men of good will, they can produce a change in society. There are large numbers of people who express themselves as disillusioned with Socialism. They mean they have believed these buffoons, or a previous generation of them. With their rejection of the means for their emancipation, the Tribune group stands charged.

Robert Barltrop

The Enemy on the Left! - Tribune (1973)

The Enemy on the Left Column from the February 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

A regular column dealing with the antics of those who call themselves socialist but in practice do nothing but harm to the cause.

The antics (no other word will do) of the pseudo-socialists of the world — needless to say they are by no means confined to this country — fill just about half the acreage of every day's papers, so it is difficult to pick one or two items out of the available abundance for discussion in this column. If one sees something particularly gruesome from, say, Foot or Wilson or Nyerere (they are all socialists now, of course, even the grotesque Amin) one knows that tomorrow's press will produce something even more heinous. However, it should be instructive if this month we look at an item from one of the best-known left-wing papers in this country.

Tribune has of course been associated since its foundation with all the best Labour lefties from Nye Bevan (late, but I fear, unlamented) through his successor at Ebbw Vale, Foot, along with Atkinson, Allaun, Heffer and the rest of the menagerie. A few weeks ago they ran a piece getting all hot under the collar about a remark made by Reg Prentice who is on Wilson's front bench and is in fact his Minister for Unemployment designate. It seems that this pseudo had the impudence to say that a figure of 400,000 unemployed was "acceptable" and the Tribune pseudos were quite ready to tear him to pieces over it. First let us just have a think about the statement itself (which was not repudiated by Wilson or any other front-bencher to my knowledge). If one includes dependents, it means that about a million members of the British working class must find it acceptable to be members of the non-working class (I know they would find it acceptable if they were made members of the real non-working class, the capitalists, but I don't think that's what Prentice meant.) It appears, therefore, that the Labour leadership find the fate of a million people living on doles and social security in our so-called affluent society to be acceptable. How jolly of them. Whether it is acceptable to the million poor devils themselves, or whether anyone but a lunatic should support a party which finds this sort of thing acceptable, well, you don't really expect Labour politicians to lose sleep over that as long as they're all right Jack.

But the Tribune types are different? You could have fooled me. The Foots and the rest were all there at Westminster keeping their Labour government in power a few years ago when the unemployed figure was not 400,000 but 600,000. Acceptable or otherwise, Tribune MPs had to accept it, didn't they? And of course there was only one reason why the figure did not rise to a million (i.e. at least two million people suffering from the pernicious disease of capitalism) while Labour was in power. And that was that in 1970 the electorate threw them out, so that the honour of achieving the million was won by the Tories. It has long been clear to all but the wilfully blind that capitalism will produce its ups and downs in unemployment along with the other evils which afflict society, irrespective of whether the capitalist managers call themselves Tories or Labour (or, god help us, socialist). And it is just another of the crimes of the lefties that they hypocritically deride the Tory government for doing exactly the same sort of things which their own party did before them.

L. E. Weidberg