"Nor Prison Bars a Cage?" (1950)

From the February 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since Russia became the main rival to Western Capitalism, the capitalists of the West have seen fit to acknowledge, indeed to publicise, the vicious acts of their counterparts in that country. Their purpose, as we shall see, is not in the noble cause of truth, for they could have told that at least fifteen years ago, but the far more practical reason of getting the workers “at it.” And. many of the workers who four and five years back were wearing hammer and sickle badges in their lapels and cheering the mention of Stalin, are now prepared or even eager to fight their ex-allies. Not so the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Just as we took the line in both 1914 and 1939, that the workers of this country had nothing to gain by slaying fellow workers in Germany, so do we point out that a future war with Russia will benefit neither British nor Russian workers, but will be no more than a further dispute between the capitalists of these countries. But in the meantime it is our bounden duty to lay these distortions of the truth and show up this propaganda for what it is really worth.

A few months ago the Daily Express carried the headline, “Britain publishes Russia’s forced labour laws," the Evening Standard, "Soviet slave laws revealed," and the Daily Herald, so different from the days of not so very long ago had the biggest headline of the lot saying, “Soviet slave camp code shown to world." Many workers, who previously sympathised with the system of administration in capitalist Russia, rapidly changed their ideas. Those who looked just a little farther than the news put right on their plates by their masters, were not surprised. As long ago as 1935, a translation of the “Corrective Code ” was obtainable in Britain. It has taken the capitalist class a long while to find it!

Anyway up to this time, far from deploring this penal code, various spokesmen and apologists of Capitalism, both British and Russian, were quite vehement in applauding it. Sir Montague Burton said, “A better opportunity for prisoners to become useful members of society" (Yorkshire Evening News, 25710/35). Canon F. J. Shirley, in a sermon in Canterbury Cathedral, preached "Russia is reclaiming the criminals; the system is redemptive and men are restored to good moral life, assets once more to the community” (Kentish Gazette and Canterbury Press, 7/9/35). In March, 1937, the A.E.U. delegation published a report applauding the system, as did the Quakers in 1933. So we see that there has been a great deal of change in their ideas; there has been none in the Russian penal system.

But in slating the propagandists of Western Capitalism, we must not allow those of the East to escape scot free. Equal trickery comes from such Moscow henchmen as the Communist Party and its subsidiary Anglo-Soviet Society. While one group attacks the Russian system, the other attempts to defend it.

In its pamphlet "The Forced Labour Swindle” the British Soviet Society try to smooth over these revelations and get into such deep water that if their words were true the Russian worker would be better off in prison than out of it.

They begin by trying to establish a wealth of difference between the words "corrective” as used in the Russian text and “forced" in the newspapers. Surely this treatment is not voluntary?

Prisoners have much more freedom, we are told. When they are not performing their tasks, they are free to indulge in “political” education. In a country which recognises the need for only one political party, we can well imagine what form that education takes. Incidentally political prisoners are treated exactly the same as criminals.

Apart from these points it seems, in theory at least, that the conditions in Russian prisons are similar to those in the rest of the capitalist world so far as material conditions are concerned. In accordance with modern ideas they may attempt to rehabilitate the recalcitrant worker as an honest and servile wage-slave, but as a recent report by several psychologists pointed out, such systems are doomed to failure, for no matter how ideal the conditions in one of these centres may be, the subject must eventually return to the environment which was the cause of his misdemeanours.

The right of exile is excused by the author of this pamphlet and made to sound as if it doesn’t really matter. The exile is allowed to take his family with him and pays "only” five to fifteen per cent, of his income as cost. They are allowed twelve free days per year. They fail to emphasise the vast climatic and geographic difference between, say, Moscow or Kiev and the frozen wilds of Siberia.

It is, by the way, possible to imprison without a trial in Russia, and the writer compares this law with Defence Regulation 18B. Countering the argument that this Regulation is only enforced during a war, he says that Russia has been in peril for the whole thirty years of the Communist Party’s regime. But if the conditions in that country are as rosy as he would have us believe, who on earth would want to sabotage them?

As a conclusion the pamphlet points out that forced labour exists in many parts of the world, and cites the forced porterage in Tanganyika, Papua, Indonesia and Malaya. Attack, they say, is the best form of defence. But we know all this, and expose it wherever it exists, whether in Russia or Timbuctoo. And furthermore we know that wherever slaves exist there must be a class of masters, in other words, Socialism does not exist.

In 1917, the Russian revolution and what followed, transformed a semi-feudal society into an effective capitalist state. The fact that the particular organisation of Russia is worded with a hotch-potch of "left- wing” jargon counts for nothing. In Russia wage-labour exists as the counterpart of capital: there are armies, navies, airforces, police and prisons. All are hall-marks of Capitalism. That being so, the task which faces the Russian worker is similar to that which faces the workers throughout the modern world—the casting off of the yoke of exploitation and the establishment of Socialism.

Ronald.

"Fiesta." — An essay in futility (1949)

From the October 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

A King was once injured in the loins, and as he lay in his bed, he watched his kingdom decline. It is upon this mythological theme that Ernest Hemingway based his recently republished novel, “Fiesta.” His king is an American journalist, his kingdom, vividly portrayed with neither comment nor condemnation, is the degenerate world of the reckless twenties.

Much has already been written about the political and industrial conditions of this decade. Black Friday and the general strike have been analysed and discussed, and with them the miserable failure, so far as the working class were concerned, of the first two Labour Governments; but so far as the social relativity to economic conditions is concerned, another aspect has been largely neglected.

The first world war had resounding effects upon the social set up of capitalist society. By compromise, or in many cases, by complete surrender, many members of the landed aristocracy had managed to retain a great deal of their wealth and power. Still was it largely their prerogative to send their sons to the universities and thence into the diplomatic corps, the army or the church. Still the sons of the bourgeoisie were found a place in the family business. In both cases the daughters were taught to sing or play, “ finished,” “ brought out ” and used as “ pawns ” or even “ queens ” on the social chessboard.

But the war, which introduced many scientific discoveries, with all accompanying horrors, brought a great step up in production. Thousands of pounds were made overnight. New powers rose in the land. The little fish were swallowed by the sharks. And the war had to be paid for. Taxes rose. The landed aristocracy, living upon ground rents and family fortunes, suffered at the hands of the industrial capitalists. Many of them were uprooted.

The post war world revealed social changes. School, the army, the family estate or business was a sequence broken. The school, alright—the army, too true—but then what? The family estate was now the business of the “nouveau rich” or even the National Trust, and where was the place of the “master’s” son in a vast industrial organisation?

And the position of the daughters had changed as well. This war, dwarfing its predecessors in intensity, had called for the participation to some degree of every human being. The sea barrier, crumbling all the time under capitalism, broke down almost completely. So far as the women of the working class were concerned it merely meant that they became more competition for their jobless menfolk, but for the women of the capitalist class it made them as independent as their parasitic brothers.

This collapse of tradition made their world seem hopeless. Those things that had previously existed to occupy their minds had vanished. Pleasure became their sole pursuit. The social columns were filled with details of extravagant parties. Hostesses were judged by the lavishness and originality of their balls. One achieved passing fame by ordaining that all her guests turn up in baby clothes. The rag-time band, the bottle party, the night club, the stunt, Paris, the Riviera, Eastern tours, was the fad of the layabouts. Drug addiction and immorality reached their highest peak. They dabbled in Freudian psychology and psycho-analysis. Fantastic behaviour was excused as “ self-expression,” perversion as reflexes. “The colonel’s lady and Rosy O’Grady,” as Hemingway parodies icily, “are lesbians under the skin.”

Such conditions and ideas are bound to reflect themselves in the art of the generation. New schools in literature and art portrayed the expensive futility of this generation. The harsh sexuality of D. H. Lawrence, the infathomability of James Joyce, the fatuous writings of unmourned contemporaries, the cubist, surrealistic and futuristic schools of art are all evidence of these trends. “I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas ”—these stark horrible words of T. S. Eliot, the era’s major poet, are typical. "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons"—again Eliot.

Forever seeking something new their hungry eyes turned to Russia. What was taking place there? Bolshevik propagandists spoke glibly of the intellectual, of the intelligentsia, of the new culture. Did these words not apply to them? Many of them thought so, and from this womb of jargon emerged one of the most pernicious creations of our time—the left wing intellectual who was going to lead the suffering workers by their noses to what they vaguely referred to as “emancipation.” To further this aim they founded little magazines, not to propagate understanding but to dangle cultural carrots, and under the heading of “reviews” to flatter their own authors’ uselessness.

These were the 1920’s—for the working class a period of unemployment, industrial dispute and lockout; to the capitalist class, especially its younger members, a period of re-organisation and re-settlement. The slump of 1931 put a brake on their activities. So ignorant are they of their own system of society that they were severely shaken and many of them even believed that the system which kept them idle was on the verge of collapse. Many workers, by the way, thought so too. The Socialist Party of Great Britain was not so optimistic. We pointed out that the system would not just collapse, that a force was operating within it that would not only bring about its downfall, but be ready with a new system of society to replace it; that as that force was not ready yet the system would eventually right itself. Time has proved us correct.

But in retrospect we can draw useful lessons from this age. The working class are slated by the bishops and told by the Bible bashers that their licentious habits and immoral practices are the root cause of their poverty. These people do not, or at least do not want, to recognise that it is the working class who are most obedient to the morality of this system of society. After earning or seeking to earn a living they have in the main neither the time nor the energy to do otherwise. It is only when a class is completely divorced, as were they also in ancient Rome, from all useful work that their minds turns to these excesses.

And it is the working class who by their lack of political understanding keep these people idle. Contrast this sterile opulence with your poverty and usefulness. They are linked. Ask yourselves why? The Socialist Party of Great Britain can provide the answer. This is capitalism wherein a small class own the means whereby you live. They neither toil, nor do they spin. You do that! They reap the benefits. The solution? A new system of society wherein these things are the property of all mankind. Under such a system not only would your material needs be satisfied but your culture would be a reflection of happiness instead of misery. It can come just when the working class desire it. So read, learn, realise and band with us.

Overthrow this sterile curse!

Ronald.

Suffer little children (1949)

From the October 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ronald.

Robert Owen – Utopian Socialist (1971)

From the May 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the savage world that was the Britain of the Industrial Revolution, when Blake’s dark satanic mills were a reality, and not just a sentimental romantic conclusion to the last night of the Proms, one figure stands out — Robert Owen. Born 200 years ago on 17 May, Owen had a career that would have been phenomenal in any age, but that he should have had this in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries makes his story even more remarkable.

Owen was born in Newtown, Montgomeryshire, the fourth surviving child of a saddlemaker and ironmonger. Very little is known of his early family life, and this is not surprising for he left home at the age of ten. We do, however, know that he attended a school run by a Mr. Thickness where he excelled at “games, dancing and lessons”, so much so that at the age of seven Mr. Thickness “applied to my father for permission that I should become his assistant and usher, as from that time I was called while I remained in school”.

Owen left school at the age of nine and engaged himself to a Newtown neighbour who kept a “superior shop” for the sale of haberdashery and drapery, and after a year’s apprenticeship he felt ready to seek his fortune elsewhere. In 1781, with his parent’s goodwill and a present of forty shillings from the people of Newtown in his pocket, Owen set out for London. Later he began to read extensively, searching, he said, for the “true religion”, with the result that he was forced to reject all religions:

  My reason taught me that I could not have made one of my own qualities, — that they were forced upon me by nature; — that my language, religion and habits were forced upon me by society; and that I was entirely the child of Nature and Society; — that Nature gave the qualities, and Society directed them. Thus was I forced, through seeing the error of their foundation, to abandon all belief in every religion which had been taught to Man. But my religious feelings were immediately replaced by the spirit of universal charity.

After returning to London, where he stayed for another year, Owen moved to Manchester which was to be his home, more or less continuously for the next fourteen years, and was to see the start of his industrial career.

He went to work as a manager of a cotton factory employing 500 men, women and children: “When I arrived at the mill”, Owen tells us, “I found myself at once in the midst of 500 men, women and children, who were busily occupied with machinery, much of which I had never seen before.” Besides being expected to superintend those 500 at work, he found that he was responsible for buying their raw material, for increasing production, and for keeping the accounts, in fact everything except the marketing of the finished product. So over-awed was he at first that “I did not give one direct order about anything”, he said. However, after six weeks of watching, listening and carefully studying the working of the machines his old confidence returned and “I felt myself so much the master of my position as to be ready to give direction in any department.”

At this time Owen married Caroline, the eldest daughter of David Dale, the owner of the New Lanark Mills. Owen eventually became the manager of these mills and devoted the next twenty years to reorganising the community of two thousand workers on strikingly original lines. To fully appreciate his efforts at this time one must understand the sufferings of the workers in the early nineteenth century; hours were long, pay at starvation level, and housing grim beyond belief. But the evil that stands out above all was the treatment of small children, treatment which called forth the jibe from American slave owners that their slaves were better off than the children in the cotton mills of Lancashire.

Owen not only favoured a limitation of the working day in theory, but actually introduced the ten hour day in his factory. As Marx points out, this was laughed at as a communistic Utopia, so were his “Combination of children’s education with productive labour”. The first Utopia was soon to become a Factory Act, and the second figures as an official phrase in all Factory Acts. Combined with this reduction of working hours, Owen improved housing, opened a shop in which good quality goods were sold at relatively low prices, and started schools and day-nurseries. He was not concerned to use education to inculcate beliefs or theories, nor with happenings conceived in an abstract way, but sought to educate children as human beings capable of applying their reason to nature and society and of enjoying all aspects of life. In New Lanark these ideas were translated into practice. Though at first restricted by his partners, who intended to build up a profitable enterprise, Owen had put an end to the practice of employing pauper children and had withdrawn all children under ten from work. Later he was able to limit the hours of adults to twelve and then to proceed with his plans for education and improvement of home life and surroundings of the younger generation.

Such was the fame of the New Lanark Mills that hundreds of visitors went to the factory, and as Engels said:

 As long as he was simply a philanthropist he was rewarded with nothing but wealth, applause, honour and glory. He was the most popular man in Europe. Not only men of his own class, but statesmen and princes listened to him approvingly. But when he stepped forth with his communistic theories, then that was quite another matter.

Throughout the 1820’s Owen turned to the formation of co-operative villages, some of which were already being run on Owenite lines in Scotland, Ireland and Hampshire. He himself set up such a community in America, but the project failed, with four-fifths of his entire fortune being lost in the venture. Following the failure of the co-operative villages he entered into the trade union field, and his road to the New Moral World he now saw through the organisation of the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union, which within a few weeks of its formation in 1834 had enrolled more than one million members. This too collapsed in 1834, following the deportation of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, and Owen continuously fought for their return to England.

His other work was within the field of Co-operative Societies, something which he came to support — he was not a founder, as many today would suggest. Co-operatives flourished at this time, but by then Owen was old and concerned more with lecturing than administration. Indeed Marx rather bitingly observed that even as early as the 1870’s the Co-op’s were being used as a cloak for reactionary humbug. Furthermore, as G. D. H. Cole points out in his biography of Owen

   . . . although Co-operators pay tribute to him as the founder of their system, it is more than doubtful whether Owen, if he could revisit the earth, would recognise his progeny, or take more than a passing interest in its growth.

How then should we regard Owen in this bicentennial years of his birth? First and foremost he must be judged within the context of his time. He was an early advocate in this country of town planning and of a green belt; in education he was quick to demand, and to set up, nursery schools; and to recognise the function of play in education and to suggest that teachers should be trained, if necessary by the state. He told his fellow employers, in an age of a scramble for profits and pared costs which we call the Industrial Revolution, that the human machines they used in their factories would repay careful treatment and upkeep as much as did the inanimate machines, and he appreciated the need for economic planning. Long before Henry Ford was born, Owen preached “the economy of high wages” to a master class which had yet to realise the possibilities of a home-market among the lowly paid. He declared, ninety years before Beatrice Webb produced her Minority Report on the Poor Laws, that relief of destitution ought to be a charge on the resources of a state, and in an age when people were still being hanged or deported for petty theft he denounced the retributive theory of punishment. Such acclaim may seem surprising when one considers that so many of his projects failed, but it should be remembered that Owen did not intend his ideas to be a universal panacea for all social ills, but only a first step towards a far more radical transformation of society.

Ronald.

From The Eastern Front (1949)

Party News from the November 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

In East Ham South the preliminary shots of the election battle have been fired. All parties contesting are now busy with propaganda meetings and door-to-door canvassing. Unlike the S.P.G.B., however, the canvassers of the other parties are far more concerned with catching votes than spreading information. “Trust us” each of them say in turn, and in less than a month I have been invited to join the Labour, Conservative and Communist Parties. So long as you can write your name you’re in!

In connection with this recruiting campaign, the Labour Party have been parading their M.P., the Rt. Hon. Alfred Barnes, P.C., M.P., round to meetings in various school halls. At the one I attended there were twenty-three faithful followers and three S.P.G.B.-ers. Time was allowed for questions, but apparently not for answers. Upon being asked for a definition of Socialism, Mr. Barnes, recognising the politics of his questioner, said that he wouldn’t give it as we’d only disagree. Really, Mr. Barnes! After further questions we finally challenged him to a public debate. Proudly surveying his enormous audience he informed us that he had no intention of getting an audience for the S.P.G.B.! Could it be that Mr. Barnes has no desire to face a large audience himself?

The Tory rally was again like the vicar’s tea party, complete with pauses for applause at the mention of Churchill and the Empire. Between them, in spite of protests from S.P.G.B.-ers in the hall. Baker White, M.P., and candidate Jordan, referred no less than twenty-seven times to the Labour Party as “Socialists.” Ignorance or dishonesty? Questions were taken in writing and answered with facetiousness. Any attempt to speak from the floor was drowned by the slow claps and jeers of three hundred Tory democrats. While expressing ignorance of the S.P.G.B., Mr. Jordan agreed to debate with us. Whether, in light of his newly gained knowledge, that promise will be fulfilled, remains to be seen.

Last, and least, the Communist Party, who not so very long ago were urging the workers of East Ham to support the Labour Party, have entered the arena by giving their candidate’s life story to the local press. He is a local man; he is married; he has so many children; he is a lighterman; he is an expert on inland waterways. I wonder what it is all supposed to prove? They hold Saturday evening meetings at which S.P.G.B.-ers are especially unwelcome. A challenge to debate three or four years back earned us the title of "social fascists,” and a challenge made earlier this year was discreetly ignored. No doubt they remember Hornsey Town Hall.

So far as our own campaign is concerned, satisfactory progress can be reported. The door-to-door canvassing which began in January, has so far resulted in one hundred regular readers of the STANDARD, as well as well over ten pounds’ worth of pamphlets sold. Our difficulty now is keeping up with the “call backs” and offers from Tottenham and Wood Green Branch to open up new territory have been gratefully accepted.

Our outdoor venue at the Cock Hotel on Sunday evenings proved itself unsatisfactory, due to the local rowdies, both adolescent and adult, so we have moved to Heigham Road opposite East Ham Station. Audiences of more than a hundred, intelligent questions and good literature sales have caused both branch and visiting speakers to express satisfaction with the new station. At the other end of the constituency the new mid-week station at the Boleyn Hotel is showing promising results.

As the election draws nearer, the battle will no doubt intensify. Every house in the borough must be canvassed, every elector made aware of the S.P.G.B. To do this we need YOUR help. If you live within distance of the constituency and are prepared to lend a hand get in touch with the branch secretary or members for specific details..

The more seeds sown now, the greater will be the harvest of conscious working class votes for Socialism. Into battle!

Ronald.

Death of a Clown (1949)

From the August 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

Coming out of the factory I bought a “mid-day” to look at the runners. A bob each-way on a decent priced winner would pay for a night in town.

“Seen the stop press?” the paper boy asked as he took my coin. I glanced down.

“Early this morning Peter Waring, the comedian who was yesterday sentenced to nine months' imprisonment, was found hanged in his cell.”

I hadn’t read much of the case. Every day in courtrooms up and down the country men, women and adolescents are being sentenced to so many weeks, months or years imprisonment for enjoying property to which they have no legal right. Borstal institutions are full of boys who wanted bicycles or girls who wanted gay new dresses for the summer; Holloway is full of women who were light-fingered in the chain stores; the Scrubs and the Pen are full of men who were fools enough to believe that merely because they produce they have a right to the product.

But Waring was a celebrity. By nature of his work he was in the public eye and hence his tragedy had commercial value as news. The Sunday papers revelled in it. Each one probed into his past, examined every angle; each one attempting to outdo its rival in hounding the victim even beyond the grave. But the facts they produced examined carefully provide a useful object lesson in the effects of a system of exploitation upon the exploited.

He was born in Camberwell in 1917. D’you know Camberwell? An ugly place just like Stepney or Salford, Bermondsey or Birmingham, East Ham or Everton, or any other place where workers are hounded together to live, breed, and die.

Silly fellow—he objected to it, and vainly sought escape across the seas. At the age of sixteen he stowed away in the funnel of a liner and was badly burnt for his trouble. The second attempt won him twenty-eight days in jail.

Working as a footman he absconded with £100 belonging to Lord Sysonby—three years in Borstal. 1939, guilty of fraud—six months—again in 1941. And then came his big chance! His talent as a comic made him a top of the bill star.

Yet still the ugliness of his past haunted him. Was he not a child of the threadbare thirties? Still he strove for the antithesis of his youth. He wanted to enjoy the luxuries he had seen as a servant. In 1948 he was bankrupt.

Finally he was charged with obtaining money under false pretences, When sentenced he wept, “I am not a criminal. I have been foolish but—.”

What does it matter? So many workers end the same way. Seeing the good things of life always in sight, never in reach, they conduct a one-man struggle to make them their own. Always Nemesis, in the form of the state overtakes them and back they are pitched.

For this is a system of society based upon private property and all the powers spiritual and temporal are bound up in its protection. No one man can permanently assail its defences. But many men and women—the useful but propertyless section upon whose energies it depends, can when they are ready destroy it for ever.

You who can study the intricacies of racehorse breeding, forms and timing; you who are wily enough to make a few bob here and there at the expense of your masters; you who go to your graves still hoping for something to turn up; give a few moments’ thought to the world in which you live. Understand the comparatively simple workings of capitalism and the need for Socialism. Equipped with that knowledge nothing can stand in your way.

Ronald

He Believed (1951)

From the April 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

A fundamental human desire is to be correct, and in the quest for this correctness a man may be forced perhaps several times to reconsider and revise his opinions. To do otherwise, to hang on to outworn ideas out of misplaced loyalty or pride is sheer dishonesty and frequently a forerunner of dogmatism. At the same time it is wise for an individual perceiving a flaw in his ideas to elucidate the facts of both his old position and the new and examine them carefully lest he finds himself jumping straight out of the frying pan into the fire; or as in the case of Douglas Hyde, out of the Kremlin and into the Vatican.

Douglas Hyde was a well-known British communist, for many years news editor of the Daily Worker, and as such an unprotesting subscriber to its policy. When Russia threw in her lot with Germany in 1939, he faithfully swallowed his ideas of a “war for freedom.” Russia was invaded. He spewed them up again and cried for a “strike in the west” but of course, for no strikes at home. He supported the Labour Party in the ’45 landslide and later opposed it. Then one day he perceived certain contradictions so glaring that even he couldn’t stomach them. Slowly he transferred his affections and capacity for, believing in the unreal to the Roman Catholic church.

And “I Believed,” recently published by Heinemann. Ltd., is his story. 

The national press received it warmly, but it is doubtful whether their joy was over Mr. Hyde’s redemption. More likely was it welcomed as more grist for the mill; fuel for the immediate task of preparing their readers for a future war with their erstwhile allies. In a world imbued with a complex of "leadership,” a leader changing camps is something great and his words must be taken as gospel.

It is interesting to note that several newspapers made great play of the Communist Party’s morality or lack of same. We used to read similar tales of the Nazis, all calculated to raise the indignation of the masses at the “unBritish” behaviour of the enemy. Yet in the same issues these papers reported several sordid court cases including one unsavoury “breach of promise ” without a word of editorial comment. Presumably those people involved were not members of the Communist Party.

However let us get back to the book itself. So far as Mr. Hyde as an individual is concerned, self styled communist or catholic he is our opponent, but his story, and one must admit his apparent sincerity, may serve as a useful guide to why so many workers can subscribe to the fantastic aims and claims of the Communist Party yet still from time to time change their allegiance to organisations which seem diametrically opposed to it.

Right from the word “go” the Communist Party has been primarily the overseas instrument of Russian policy and propaganda, and its ultimate aim to “Sovietise ” the country in which it operates. In a jargon of Marxian phrases and Lenin’s writings it has justified every move of Russia and its own subsequent recantation. At the same time it has sought to build up its membership and the main method used is not one of explaining socialism (which in view of Russia they hardly dare do) or even of finding reasons for the series of crises that have permanently been with us since the first world war and their inception, but by exploiting working class indignation at these recurrent crises and concentrating upon sectional issues in what they refer to as the “day to day” struggle. As Hyde puts it “A strong resentment against social injustice was another of the things which drove me into the Party.” 

Under these circumstances they are not fussy whom they take. A signature upon the dotted line is all that is needed. When Hyde joined he was still a practising Methodist. When one considers that the International Class War Prisoners Aid (later International Labour Defence), the National Unemployed Workers Movement, the “No More War” movement and various organisations crying for Indian independence were but few of the organisations and committees inspired by members of the Communist Party, the hotch-potch of ideas and misconstructions that centred itself at King Street is not surprising. More recently when the Union Movement returned after its seven year enforced vacation we witnessed a Communist Party revival in the Jewish section of the East End, and also this ubiquitous body as the stalwart champion of better pay for nurses.

But a party membership based upon such shifting premises can never boast of a large stable membership. As the spotlight of world events changes its position one section of the membership drifts out another flows in. It is a transit camp and we must concern ourselves with the permanent staff, that hard core which remains stable when all the rest have gone.

Excluding those who are possibly careerists, we cannot doubt their almost fanatical sincerity. Showing a complete disregard for themselves many have been victimised and persecuted by their employers and more than once imprisoned. Yet still they have carried on and it is difficult to analyse their outlook.

Above all things is Russia, a light in a world of darkness as is Mecca to the Mohammedan. There is the home of “socialism” they say, to be protected not only from military assaults but also those of logical argument. Within the party they are compelled to toe the “party line” in whichever direction it may go and it is in this way that it may be compared with the church of Rome, unswervingly obedient to the bulls of Pope Stalin and encyclicals of Cardinal Palme Dutt.

Mr. Hyde chooses to call this fanatical devotion “Marxism” and throughout his book he throws the word about with the liberality of a drunken Scot on New Year’s Eve. In his eyes every step, thought or action made by the Communist Party is either “cold, ungodly Marxism” or “dialectics.” He claims to have read Marx. Perhaps he got hold of a different edition because as we see it Marxism is not a gospel but the findings, namely the materialist conception of history, the labour theory of value and the theory of the class struggle, of a nineteenth century political-economist who was sometimes wrong. One thing is certain. He did not advocate the state capitalism of Russia.

This is not the first time a man has changed his religion. When the confusion of twenty years had taken its toll Douglas Hyde found himself in a wilderness. A chance reading of catholic writers exposed for him a certain affinity of ideas especially about architecture and music. As the “communist” religion withdrew the catholic religion seeped in. At no time was there a vacuum which may have succumbed to reason.

In the closing chapter he writes, “ If I knew from my own experience that communism is wrong I as a writer must say so. That did not mean that I should suddenly start writing as though all my old comrades and colleagues whom I had been proud to call my friends were now a bunch of crooks and morons. At all costs I must hold fast to what I felt to be the facts, those which I knew from my own experience to be true, the belief that the most evil thing in communism is that it claims some of the best and moulds their minds and twists their consciences so that they can be used for the worst”(Our italics.)

Such a highly emotional paragraph, charged as it is with sentiment, could be applied to almost any religion, ancient or modern. Indeed, it is the penalty for belief without reason.

Ronald.

Letter to an Unpolitical Man (1950)

From the June 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fellow Worker,

Do not mistake me. You are a menace to yourself and to society. Our opponents we can deal with, be they Labour, Liberal, Tory, Communist or hot gospeller, for we can meet them on common ground and bowl them out. With you there is no such common ground. You’ve always had a roof over your head, a job and a wage and have thus been able to continue your miserable existence undisturbed. Wars have come and gone. You are still alive. Booms have grown into slumps. You have been lucky. No issue affecting your immediate self has shaken you from your lethargy. As a result you skulk behind your limited horizon and vegetate.

Were you not so dangerous, one might even feel sorry for you. How stunted your imagination must be. Do you really consider that as a member of the working class, that section of the population which runs the present system of society from top to bottom, you are living in the best of possible worlds ?

Take a look around you and what do you see? Ribbons of dull brick houses plastered haphazardly across the face of the earth as though some giant has run amok with a tube of toothpaste. Each one of them is a deathtrap, small and unhealthy to the body, frustrating to man’s natural communal instinct.

Now look inside and view the bodged up furniture with that familiar “utility” mark. Tap the highly polished wood (but not too hard or you’ll crack it) and find it is a veneer over boxwood. Pull out the drawers and see how roughly the joints are bashed home. Not up to a standard but down to a price. Probably its proud owners are buying it on the never-never.

On the rickety table is their food. In spite of various laws about pollution its standard is low. Sausages, part of your staple diet, contain 40 per cent, meat. Read the trade journals and see the advertisements for patent pie-filler. Learn that the raspberry jam you eat is made from swedes and potatoes, coloured and decorated with specially imported pips. Horrible, isn’t it?

And before we leave the house let’s take a look at the people in it. Perhaps this is a 'broken’ home. There’s enough of them around. Families are split up or even worse are living jaded lives, barely tolerant of each other’s presence. Why do you think they are like this? Could it be some supernatural cause or is it more likely that endless years of skimping and saving have turned fresh young love into bitterness? You say the pairs may not be well matched. Any wonder in a world where the worker’s social circle is doubly limited by his subsistence level wages and his limited hours of leisure.

From the homes let us pass to the places of work. Every day since you left school you’ve experienced the rush hour packed in a stinking underground train with less comfort than a sardine. The glaring poster mocks, “Avoid Rush Hour Travel.” Don’t you wish you could?

There is no joy in the factory or office, repeating the same old automatic process, totting up the endless columns of figures, day in, day out for more than forty years, wars and slumps permitting. There’s no sense of achievement when you’ve done because you must immediately start again. To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow . . .  No wonder it pleases you to potter about the garden or create small things of wood in the toolshed. There you are expressing yourself.

One day it will all come to an end, and as you take your leave of life, maybe you will pause for a moment to sum up. What will be your conclusion? You were born, worked for fifty years, spent a couple more on the scrap heap and are now about ready to leave the world exactly as you came into it.

Again I pose the question, “Do you really believe that this miserable, humdrum existence is all that the useful section of society merits?" Your masters would have you believe that these things are completely divorced from politics. Meanwhile the major political parties vie with each other for the right to gather the crumbs that they sweep from their table. But we of the Socialist Party of Great Britain take a different stand.

We believe, indeed we can demonstrate, that this ugliness which is perpetually around us, to say nothing of the recurring periods of slump and war, have a very tangible cause in the basis of this system which you, by your apathy, allow to continue.

No doubt you would like to see it changed but it is no use sitting back and waiting for us to do it for you. We can’t! Only you can do that! Read through our Declaration of Principles on the back page and get hold of our pamphlets. They will show you how.

In striving to make the world a better place for men and women to live in you will find a satisfaction you have never known. Here’s hoping !

Ronald.

Evergreen (1951)

From the April 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

To re-read a favourite book is to meet up with an old friend. Sometimes it is more. It is an encounter with a creditor you can never hope to repay. To most socialists this rile is played by the Communist Manifesto.

In these days when the word "communism” is used as frequently as “fascism” used to be, with as many different interpretations, and “marxist” is an adjective applied to everything from the forces of North Korea to the Polish dental service, it is, to say the least, gratifying to hear these words used and recognise them as clear, tangible things instead of symbols for everything distasteful.

The Communist Manifesto provides the information required, and the object of this review is to recommend anyone who hasn’t read it to do so.

Don’t let the title put you off. Any connection between the Communist Manifesto and Uncle Joe’s private army is purely deliberate—but not on the part of the authors. The state of affairs they visualise and that obtaining in Russia are poles, indeed, a social revolution apart. The Manifesto is a brief statement of Marxist ideas written by the old bogyman himself in collaboration with his lifelong partner, Frederick Engels. Straight from the horse’s mouth!

“The (written) history of all hitherto existing societies is a history of class struggles.” So begins the first chapter in which the writers briefly outline the class struggles in the multi-divided societies of the past and their final culmination in capitalism wherein the struggle has resolved itself into one between two classes, the workers and the capitalists.

It continues by describing this system and its differences from those which preceded it; how they relied upon stability while the capitalist must, in face of competition, constantly revolutionise his means of production to produce cheaper goods. He must seek new markets as the mass of wealth increases, and wherever he goes he plants the seeds of his own system.

How correct that is in the light of our own experience. The competition has spread to an international plane with new powers, first Germany, then Russia, eager for a “place in the sun.” Here lies the cause of today’s world crisis.

In spite of their scientific approach Marx and Engels do not overlook the effects of this system upon the lives of men. “It has resolved personal worth into exchange value.” is but one quotation. They comment upon the rise of ugly cities. "The work of the proletarians (that’s us) has lost all individual character and consequently, all charm for the workman.” They condemn the rapid disappearance of skill and the rapid development of a world in which the craftsman is an antiquated oddity.

For its description of capitalism alone, its history, working, and effect, it is worth a careful perusal.

The second chapter “Proletarians and Communists” makes clear the scientific approach of the Marxist.—“The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based upon ideas and principles that have been invented or discovered by this or that would-be universal reformer. They merely express in general terms actual relations springing from an existing class struggle going on under our own eyes,” and goes on to build up the case for our aim—the abolition of private property.

In presenting this aim Marx and Engels were confronted with exactly the same questions as we are today. Are we opposed to personal property? What about lazy people? What about the family or education or sexual relationships? Patriotism? Nationality? There is no need to précis their answers here. Enough is it to quote the last sentence of the chapter. “In place of the old bourgeois (capitalist) society with its classes and class struggles, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”

It may well be asked at this juncture why the Socialist Party should subscribe to the Communist Manifesto, or conversely why a party subscribing to it should call itself Socialist. Engels, in his preface explains that in 1848 when the Manifesto was written the word “socialist" was widely used in connection with various reformers whose sole aim was to alleviate the major miseries of the system while leaving the basis untouched, and with various Utopians, most of whom are dealt with in the third section. When we were formed that confusion was at a low ebb. Unfortunately it has since grown again.

The Communist Manifesto is not a gospel On certain aspects they were incorrect. They were as optimistic about the rapid coming of the social revolution as the present writer is about the effect of this short introduction upon the sales of the Manifesto, and being so, laid down certain "immediate aims.” Forty years later in 1888, Engels wrote "that passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today.” And with regard to the use of force Engels views on barricades and street warfare were considerably revised as can be seen in his preface to the "Class Struggle in France,” written shortly before his death.

The Manifesto is more than a historic document. It is a crisp analysis of the socialist position in its main aspects as correct today as when it was first written.

Shortly you may be asked to fight against "communism.” You won’t be. The struggle will be one between eastern and western capitalism from which the working class can gain nothing. As the Manifesto will show you, communism or socialism isn’t a thing to die for, but a new system of society to live and work for.

Ronald.

Note: “The Communist Manifesto and the Last Hundred Years” published by the S.P.G.B., contains the Manifesto unabridged and a forty-eight page summary of the past century of working-class struggles. Price I/- from all branches or Head Office.”

Ronald

The Abyss revisited (1950)

From the January 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the beginning of the century a young American writer came to the slums of London in search of experience. In the guise of a tramp he spent many months amidst the filth and squalor that thousands of people knew as home. The writer was Jack London, and his researches led to the publication of the “People of the Abyss.” If anybody doubts, or seeks more evidence of the vile foundations upon which present-day society is based he need go no farther than this small volume. It is not pleasant reading.

Many people would read it merely as history. The bad old days. They would tell you that poverty is a thing of the past. The “philanthropic” Tories, the “bluff generous Liberals, and the newly powerful Labour Party, with Beadle Bevan well to the fore, would all agree with them, and argue among themselves as to who was responsible for removing this evil. Maybe we would take sides in this squabble, but first of all we must be sure that the evil has actually been removed.

In spite of all its anomalies and contradictions the capitalist system does comply with certain economic laws. As the mass of wealth produced by the working-class increases, due to revisions and improvements in the means and methods of production, greater skill is required from the working-class. This means a rise in the cost of production of a worker. In order for him to reproduce his mental and physical energies he must consume increasing amounts of food, clothing, shelter, entertainment and education. Many examples of this can be gleaned from contemporary history. Hundreds of natives of Africa who a few years ago were eking a bare living from the soil are to-day employed in Strachey’s ground nut scheme, with the result that they now require those social conditions befitting a labourer, lorry driver or mechanic. Where to-day is the Indian factory worker who can exist upon a daily handful of rice? In other words, as the mountain of commodities increases, the molehill returned to the workers in the form of wages and salaries does grow also. Consequently the poverty of an electric, near atomic era is very different from an era of gas power wherein the internal combustion engine was no more than a daring experiment.

Yet such social derelicts as Jack London describes still doze upon the walls of Spitalfields Churchyard and they are not all old. Some carry young babies and openly feed them. You see them scrounging around the fruit and vegetable market in search of discarded “specks” and fag ends. Occasionally they come to blows over the division of their spoils and are carted off for 28 days in the comparative comfort of Wormwood Scrubs. The well-meaning self-satisfied social busybody points out that they could enter institutions and be well cared-for. It is easy to say but these people are suffering from more than material poverty. Years spent in such conditions have made their mark upon their minds. All self-respect has gone. Beer, cheap port or even methylated spirits are the peaks of their ambitions.

The streets are narrow and between the houses are tailoring sweat shops. The clatter of the machines, the hissing of the steam presses, the discordant singing of the girls pour from the windows. Now is the “season” and many of these places exhibit notices offering attractive conditions of work. After Christmas they will disappear and work will be scarce. At 12 or 1 o'clock the girls come out. They are young and dressed not in gay but gawdy clothes, their pallid faces over-decorated with paint and powder, their nails highly varnished (but notice the work-worn hands). The greyness of their surroundings gives them an uncontrolled desire for colour. Their one topic of conversation is men.

For marriage seems their only form of escape. And what an escape! See the places wherein they live and breed—the vast prison blocks of the Peabody Estate and other such organisations. See the women on their balconies with sagging breasts and distended stomachs, old before their time. See the market places—Wentworth Street, Brick Lane or Mile End Waste—where they haggle with the vendors. See the schools wherein their kids are trained to replace them in the factories and mills. Many of these places were destroyed by bombs. In their place rise the slums of 10 years time.

To-day employment conditions are fairly good and the majority of capable men and women are in work. The many public houses are doing well. “Why aren’t they saving for a rainy day?” screeches the social nosey-parker. Why? If these people had a little less self-righteousness and a little more commonsense the answer would be clear. The people of the abyss have forever lived in poverty, spending literally years plodding from factory to factory and then back to the labour exchanges for a few bob to tide them over. As children, youths and then as parents they have always had to scrimp and save to keep body and soul together. Is it then not natural that when a few extra shillings come their way they are going to enjoy those things which to their limited horizons appear as luxuries.

Such conditions must obviously affect the ideas of those who suffer them. As the previous paragraph demonstrates, their general attitude is one of “ here today and gone to-morrow.” Always must they live from hand to mouth. Their kids are not ill-treated, but left from an early age to fight the battle of life for themselves. They become precocious and unwilling to respect the “sanctity” of private property. They learn to steal, fiddle and avoid the law. Many find their way into the juvenile courts, to approved schools, Borstal institutions and thence to prisons as habitual offenders.

Politically they are easy meat for the opportunists. Many of them, especially among the Jewish community are attracted by the subtle propaganda and glib promises of the Communist Party. Since the war the familiar “flash and circle” has reappeared upon the walls as the Fascist Movement with its vicious anti-Semitic nonsense, has crept back on to the scene. To support such organisations as these is an outlet for their emotions, a means of hitting out at something. Consequently we have seen the battles at Ridley Road.

Yet in spite of all these obstacles there are oases in this desert where man’s natural love of beauty can rise to the surface. On the windowsills of the tenements’ window boxes filled to capacity bloom and are tended with loving care. Queues of work-worn men and women wait outside the Whitechapel Gallery or the People’s Palace to experience works of art. See them in the evenings, still in their working clothes, hurrying to and from the public libraries.

A contradiction? Not at all. Here again capitalism shows itself as its own gravedigger. As the system becomes more involved we have seen how necessary it is for the workers to receive more “education." In itself this is nothing, but in widening the worker's horizon its effect is colossal. He becomes ever more aware of the world in which he lives and how it operates. The fallacies become more apparent, and slowly, the solution more clear.

For these are the producers. I have spoken of London because it is within my own experience, but with very little modification these conditions prevail in every industrial area throughout the capitalist world. Those who are the most useful suffer the worst conditions. But it is a temporary state. All over the world a wind is rising, a wind that will eventually destroy capitalism and its festering sores forever. Hasten the day!

Ronald.

Raising of the school leaving age (1972)

From the April 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Teacher writes . . . 

Over the past twenty years or so education has become one of the most popular discussion topics among pundits, practitioners and participants alike. Following the 1944 Butler Education Act, and the resulting tripartite secondary system of grammar, technical and modern schools, there has been much heated argument about early selection and the relatively privileged position of the grammar schools. This in turn has been followed by a movement towards comprehensive schools and their gradual and partial replacement of grammar schools. But the concept of “equality of educational opportunity" has meant many things to many people in the past, not least among supporters of the comprehensive movement who saw in such schools the opportunity to put into practice such ideas of equality. The publication of three "Black Papers" on education by anti-comprehensive writers, and indeed other writings by some who support the idea in principle, has shown that much of the expected outcome has not been fulfilled, and the ethos within these schools today seems to hold little promise of a more egalitarian structure in education. As Dennis Marsden point out, in Education For Democracy, the early supporters of comprehensives looked to these new schools to provide a solvent for class barriers and inequality. They urged the abolition of grammar schools on the grounds of social exclusiveness, narrowness and rigidity of academic curriculum. By contrast, many of the later supporters of the comprehensive schools have wanted merely an extension of the grammar school traditions with a higher proportion of the population benefiting. Also, instead of the proposed unstreaming and the common curriculum, with flexible teaching methods intended to promote a new co-operative atmosphere especially geared towards the average or less-able child, the existing competitive streamed and specialised structure has for the most part been retained. The measure of success is still the number of GCE passes, university places and the more efficient use of scarce science and maths teachers.

Accompanying these arguments have been other equally passionate themes such as forms of examinations, school organisation and size of classes, changing pattern of sixth forms, abolition of free milk, and as a reminder that teachers are very much part of the class struggle there has been regular recurrences of teachers’ pay negotiations. Now comes the latest controversy in this long line of reform, namely the raising of the school leaving age, or ROSLA as it has become popularly known. From next year pupils whose fifteenth birthday falls on or after 1 September, 1972, will have to remain at school for one year more than they would otherwise have done, although it must at once be made clear that many children already stay on at school quite voluntarily. In fact there is an average of some 60 per cent of the age group throughout the country already doing so. This figure must, however, be considered further to establish precisely where the problems are likely to arise. It does not follow that 60 per cent in every area stay on at school; the incidence varies from about 68 per cent in Greater London and the South to some 42 per cent in the East Midlands.

The concern among practising teachers and administrators is directed towards the group of pupils who would normally leave at fifteen, and although these represent a minority of the age group there is a feeling that these “reluctant learners”, as they have come to be called, will cause disruption disproportionately to their numbers. An indication of this concern can be seen in Enquiry I, a Government Social Survey undertaken as part of the Schools Council’s programme for helping teachers prepare for the raising of the school leaving age. Around 3,000 teachers were interviewed.

The majority had some reservations about the advantages of keeping at least some of their pupils at school for the extra year, and one union — The National Association of Schoolmasters — views the plan with considerable apprehension. During the debate on the proposal at its Easter Conference, older delegates said their life expectancy was being shortened by five years by the stresses of coping with unruly teenagers in large urban schools.

Britain, of course, is not alone in this desire to extend education beyond the current school leaving age. Although there has been something of an explosion of pupils between 17-18 in schools there is still only 19 per cent of the age group getting full-time education. This compares with 24 per cent in France and Italy, some 38 per cent in the Netherlands and Belgium, over 70 per cent in Japan and nearly 90 per cent in America and higher proportions will soon be internationally commonplace. Yet some are asking if these figures are justified even by present-day standards, when one considers the type of education churned out for these increasing numbers. Does capitalist society need the technologists, and if so are the schools best fitted to train them, and should, in fact, that be the purpose of mass education? One writer, Paul Goodman, in his book Compulsory Miseducation, uses the following argument to question the value of extended education.

It is claimed that society needs more people who are technically trained. But informed labour people tell me that, for a job requiring skill but no great genius, a worker can be found at once, or quickly trained to fill it. For instance, the average job in General Motors’ most automated plant requires three weeks of training for those who have no education whatever. It used to require six weeks; for such automation has diminished rather than increased the needs for training. In the Army and Navy, fairly complicated skills e.g. radar operation and repair, are taught on the job in a year, often to practical illiterates.

The argument here is not that there should be no education for the mass of people, but rather what type of education, and to whom should it be orientated. Goodman argues that it is time we stopped using the word "education” honorifically, and that the present type of compulsory schooling under the present administrators, far from being extended, should be sharply curtailed. He feels that schools should become less institutionalised and much more flexible, with opportunities to return to education in later years as the desire or needs demand.

The purpose of this article is not to oppose the raising of the school leaving age, though it is clear that there has been a lack of preparation to meet the obvious demands this will make on an already overburdened educational system. And there are many in education today who have serious misgivings as to whether reforms like this will be an improvement. Evidence of this doubt can readily be seen in the new books dealing with the aims and values of modern schools, books such as Paul Goodman’s Compulsory Miseducation, Everett Reimer’s School is Dead, Ivan Illich’s work on the school as an institution, and many others searching for alternatives in education. So much of their description is correct, but the prescription is lacking, and while education today is restricting, limiting and narrow in every sense, putting this right can only be done in an alternative society, and for this reason we direct our efforts towards the establishing of Socialism rather than concerning ourselves with advocating or opposing reforms such as the raising of the school leaving age. As a practising teacher, very much in the front line of action, and like so many other teachers up and down the country, I shall endeavour to face the realities of the situation and work out a series of solutions and compromises, at the same time making the extra year as profitable and as enjoyable to the young people in my care as I possibly can. Perhaps one good feature about the whole scheme is that many adolescents are becoming more informed about world problems, and discussion groups within the schools are allowing them to become aware that the solutions to social problems such as war, poverty, unemployment and pollution can only be found through the establishment of a non-competitive society. (We have recently been invited to talk to groups of senior pupils within the schools, and the response to our case is encouraging).

Education in the seventies will continue to develop along the lines that it has for the past century, and to the same purpose, that is producing workers capable of manning the machinery of production and distribution, who are paid in return sufficient wages and salaries to reproduce their energies. The fact that some workers progress beyond this stage is due to their own efforts rather than the educational system, just as it was during the last century in Britain and just as it is today in many of the underdeveloped countries throughout the world. The Times "Turnover” article (29 April, 1964) pointed out that "Strictly speaking the hottest political debates about education are not about education at all. They are about national investment, national competitiveness, social justice and above all class.” The discussion, in other words, is about educational reforms within the context of capitalism. Real freedom and a truly liberal education can only come about in a cooperative and non-competitive society. Socialists look forward to the day when education will be genuinely for the individual, and when the development of creative talents will replace the pre-packeted, mass-training that sadly passes for education today.

Ronald.

Into the Crystal Ball (1949)

From the December 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

"When I dipped into the future as far as human eye can see."

Every generation produces at least one writer who sets upon paper his visions of the future. As early as the 13th Century Roger Bacon is reputed to have visualised a "horseless chariot." Tennyson in his "Locksley Hall" foresaw aerial warfare. Early this century H. G. Wells dreamed up all kinds of weird and wonderful phenomena which if nothing else, at least made an interesting film.

Many of these writers use this medium, as did Plato with his "Republic," as a vehicle for their own political and philosophical ideas. 1949 has produced two novels of the future which are in reality no more than their respective authors' views upon contemporary events.

For Aldous Huxley, "Ape and Essence" is a second attempt. His first, "Brave New World" with its pre-determinism and Malthusian belts was a sensation twenty or so years ago. Since then apparently this peculiar mystic of the Californian coast has developed and now instead of seeing the highly complex press-button society of the "Brave New World," he sees, as did Jack London fifty years before, the complete destruction of civilisation as we know it. Only with London it was the plague; with Huxley it is the atomic bomb.

About fifty years after the third world war has destroyed the rest of the world an expedition from New Zealand lands on the coast that was Los Angeles. One of their number is captured by the inhabitants whom he had found engaged in exhuming the corpses for their clothing and jewellery. He learns of the results of an atomic war. Machinery is unusable. Human beings instead of having a permanent potency have an animal-like sexual cycle. All the breeding takes place during a fortnight's orgy which is opened by the assassination of all deformed children and their mothers by a castrated high priest. Women are degraded and known as vessels of evil. In short, good has succumbed to evil to such an extent that their god is the devil and the sign of the cross has been displaced by the sign of his proverbial horns. The whole story is written in the form of a film script which enables the author to introduce many side issues, one of which is the picture of baboons leading humans resembling Einsteins, symbolising the degradation of the intellectual.

Summing up, if one can see through the thick clouds of erotic pipe dreams which seem always to surround the author, the warning that he issues is not a new one. It has been used to justify every war and struggle in history—that it is a battle between good and evil, though the purveyors of this argument are always careful not to define or describe the terms they use. Huxley presents what will happen if this particular form of evil triumphs. So children, gather around Uncle Aldous and his happy band of intellectuals, and lay down your lives that his "goodness" may live to fight again.

George Orwell, the other crystal gazer, takes us but thirty-four years hence to the world 1984, and thus his book his titled. He too had previously attempted satire with his "Animal Farm."

By 1984, Orwell visualises the world resolved into three states, Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia, who are all conducting long-distance wars against the other. The scene of the story is Great Britain, now known as Airstrip 1 of Oceania. In this society there are still two classes, Party members and "proles," and although the latter are in the majority they live as they do to-day and count for very little. The Party members are dominated by one "Big Brother" who is quoted, heard and pictured but never seen. In every one of their homes there is a television on reverse which conveys to the Party all that each member does and says. The language spoken is "Newspeak" in which no word has a definite meaning. For example, "war is peace," and "strength is weakness" are phrases they use. It os the intention of the Party to crush all individuality and permanency of ideas.

The hero, Winston Smith, is a member concerned with erasing contradictions in the Party's propaganda. He meets a young woman, a section leader in the Women's Anti-Sex League and they become involved with a secret revolutionary organisation led by one Goldstein. At the same meeting they become attached to each other—a crime against the State. They have clandestine meetings in the "proles" quarters and speak of the happiness to be found amidst the bug-ridden slums where they live as normal human beings. Unfortunately they are captured and Smith, like thousands before him, is tortured both physically and mentally until he is convinced that he loves "Big Brother." With the juggernaut of the State continuing uninterrupted he can only hope that one day the "proles" will rise and alter things.

Analysing the book, it seems that George Orwell fear the centralisation that is the trend of present-day society. We have seen the dictatorship of Germany which, with its lack of "left wing" jargon, was old-fashioned, and the more fashionable Russia, and now, with the advent of the Labour Government and nationalisation, to say nothing of the expulsion of Platt-Mills, Zilliacus and company. Orwell fear the same trend in Great Britain. His "Newspeak" is aimed at the new illiteracy wherein masses of words lack any different meaning. He offers no solution but hopes that one day the masses will rise. If his hope is to be fulfilled, then surely the masses would have been powerful enough to prevent that state of affairs arising in the first place.

Yet in spite of their difference of approach there is a great deal of similarity between the two writers. They both use the symbol of the sex instinct to portray the crushing of what is generally mis-named "human nature" — in other words, that the advancement of scientific discovery is making man less and less a conscious organism and more and more an appendage to a machine. Both of them are struggling in a mental morass. Huxley, having started with the post-1918 cynicism, has dabbled in psychology and all the other fads of the inter-war years and finally, along with his contemporary T. S. Eliot, arrived at the conclusion that God is the answer — that there'll be pie in the sky when you die. What a lie! Orwell, like so many of the other self-styled left wing intellectuals has finally decided that the system in Russia is not all that he thought it was and is now groping in the dark for some new axe to grind, and for the moment is content, instead of offering false hopes to issue unmerited warnings.

But both of them are agreed on one point—the need for intellectual leadership, and like every other advocate of this will-o'-the-wisp, they are the boys for the job—the figurehead in whose wake the masses will rally.

What tripe! As members of that mass let us do a little crystal gazing of our own and inform these two worthies that leaders, whether they style themselves as practical or intellectual, are no more than reflections of the ignorance of their followers. Just as the gods and hobgoblins are fading as men solve more of their problems, so will the need for leadership die when men decide exactly where they want to go. Gradually they are finding the correct road. As slumps and wars grow more frequent, each one more vicious than its predecessor, more and more are rejecting the excuses and finding the cause. With the cause comes the cure. When there are enough of us with that understanding, the Huxleys and the Orwells will be left at the post. Men will march forward together not to a 1984, or to destruction, but to a new society where all men and women can live full and happy lives.

Ronald. 

The People You Meet—The Grocer (1950)

From the May 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

He was something apart from the working class. True, he was born in Poplar; indeed he lives there still, but whereas most of his neighbours live in tenements or houses he lives in the dark, cramped quarters above his shop. He is a "small business man."

He recalls the days when his kind were more numerous, when the majority of goods and services requested by those around him were supplied by such as he. Every district had its Welsh dairy, its German delicatessen and Chinese laundry. Now it's the United Dairies, Sainsbury's, Woolworth's, Forty Shilling Tailors, and of course that most villainous of all rivals, the Co-op.

Naturally he is concerned with his future. On one hand the Beaverbrook press tells him that the Labour Party is his enemy; on the other hand the Daily Herald points out that they are the protectors of his kind. He sees evidence on both sides. Beaverbrook has never vehemently attacked the chainstores, and though he has vaguely mentioned the restriction of monopolies, the bite of his venom is directed at the Co-ops and nationalised industries. On the other hand the Labour Party expose the monopolies in cement and sugar but advocate nationalisation and support its child, the co-operative. At election times he runs from one party to the other, completely lost.

Then he met an organisation that told him his kind was doomed, not by the political "right" or "left," but by the very conditions of the capitalist system. That was the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Consider the small trader. Is he a capitalist? He owns a microscopic portion of the means of distribution: Yet he is unable to live without working. Indeed, to avoid the direct supervision of a foreman or boss he works a darned sight harder than the normal worker. He is respected too. Unless he orders so-and-so from a firm they will not sell him this or that. If he deals with one firm another will not supply him with a different variety of the same ware. In other words, the goods he sells are dictated to him by someone far more powerful than himself. As a result he is no more than a glorified salesman working without a basic salary but for a hard-earned commission in the form of a narrow margin of profit upon the goods he sells. To all intents and purposes he is a member of the working class.

The decline of his kind has been a gradual but steady process. In the field of production as well as distribution thousands of small businesses have been killed by competition. One firm introduces a new technique of production. The cost of production falls and with it the price of the commodity concerned. Rival concerns must either do likewise of perish, and as through the years the competition has grown more intense, many have either fallen by the wayside or been devoured by the larger concerns. Still the process continues. The "little man" may fight but the relentless juggernaut of the system which forces capital to concentrate in fewer and fewer hands will beat him in the end.

His answer lies, like that of every other worker, in the establishment of Socialism where there will be no businesses, large or small, but production for the satisfaction of human needs.

Ronald.