The Butcher of the Commune. (1909)

From the August 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

“It is a lie—their Priests, their Pope,

Their Saints:—their . . all they fear or hope

Are lies, and lies …”

Had Robert Browning’s victim of the Inquisition lived in our own time she could have added “their Press” to her list of lying agents. The truth of this is never more clearly seen than on the occasion of a popular military “hero” shuffling off this mortal coil.

On July 8th, at his house in Paris, expired General the Marquis of Gallifet, Prince of Martigues, etc., at the advanced age of 79. This old Bonapartist scoundrel, referred to by capitalist journals, both French and English, as “Famous French Fighter,” “Friend of King Edward,” “Great loss to France,” etc., etc., was in reality an unscrupulous and abandoned wretch, who, by his cold-blooded murders at the time of the Commune, earned the undying hatred of all who hold dear the cause of working-class freedom.

As Socialists we cannot fail to be struck by the wonderful and significant unanimity displayed by the organs of Capital on both sides of the Channel, when estimating the dead “hero’s” character.

Thus the Daily News, peaceful persuader and mouthpiece of reform, whilst lightly touching on his “severe repression in 1871,” gave due prominence to “his services to France.” The Petit Journal of July 9th wrote as follows :

“Eccentricities of character could not justify the story of executioner in civil warfare. It is said he took a fiendish pleasure in butchering conquered federals who had fallen into his hands. No trustworthy evidence of any weight has ever come to light to support these accusations, against which he was always unwilling to defend himself; finding that, as he himself once wrote in a letter, ‘to apologise would be wanting in elegance’ !”

No trustworthy evidence !

The Commune was dead. The last barricade had been captured and its brave defenders either massacred or taken prisoners.

The special correspondent of the Daily News (how “the whirligig of time brings in his revenges”) whilst searching for appropriate “copy” amongst the barricades, had the misfortune to fall in with Gallifet’s soldiers, who, despite the fact that the pressman held a pass from the Versailles Government, forced him to join a herd of unarmed prisoners.

These poor wretches were being marched from Paris to Versailles.

The description by this eye-witness of the scenes on the road has often been quoted.

“The column of prisoners halted in the Avenue Uhrich, and was drawn up, four deep, on the footway, facing to the road. General the Marquis de Gallifet and his staff, . . . dismounted and commenced an inspection from the left of the line. Walking down slowly and eyeing the ranks, the General stopped here and there, tapping a man on the shoulder or beckoning him out from the rear ranks. In most cases without further parley, the individual thus selected was marched out into the centre of the road, where a small supplementary column was thus soon formed. . . It was evident that there was considerable room for error. A mounted officer pointed out to Genera! Gallifet a man and a woman for some particular offence. The woman, rushing out of the ranks, threw herself on her knees, and, with outstretched arms, protested her innocence in passionate terms. The General waited for a pause, and then with most impassive face and unmoved demeanour, said : ‘Madame, I have visited every theatre in Paris ; your acting will have no effect upon me’ (ce n’est pas la peine de jouer la comedie) . . It was not a good thing on that day to be noticeably taller, dirtier, cleaner, older, or uglier than one’s neighbours. One individual in particular struck me as probably owing his speedy release from the ills of this world to his having a broken nose. . . Over a hundred being thus chosen, a firing party told off, and the column resumed its march, leaving them behind. A few minutes afterwards a dropping fire in our rear commenced, and continued for over a quarter of an hour. It was the execution of these summarily convicted wretches.” Daily News, June 8th, 1871.

This description was deemed worthy of a leading article on the next day. The following is a brief abstract:

“. . For the touch of M. de Gallifet’s fingers meant death. The appearance of the unfortunate men and women who were thus singled out for execution is described as being something horrible. One already wounded, his shirt soaked with blood, sat down in the road and howled with anguish . . . others wept in silence ; two soldiers, presumed to be deserters, pale but collected, appealed to all the other prisoners as to whether they had ever seen them amongst their ranks. . . The huddled mass of corpses which was subsequently seen by several horror-stricken correspondents showed where M. le Marquis had passed.”—Daily News, June 9, 1871.

From the “Manifesto of the Working Men’s International” we take the following:

“The captured soldiers of the line were massacred in cold blood ; . . . Gallifet, the kept man of his wife, so notorious for her shameless exhibitions at the orgies of the Second Empire, boasted in a proclamation of having commanded the murder of a small troop of National Guards, with their captain and lieutenant, surprised and disarmed by his Chasseurs.”

Does the Petit Journal want any further evidence ?

Our message is to the working class. We bid them to remember that at all times the powers that be are determined to maintain their supremacy by every means in their power. If they cannot gull the workers by political cheating, lying and chicanery, they are prepared to shoot down men, women and children by thousands rather than surrender one jot or tittle of their beloved “rights of property.”

Like every other class in the course of history, the ruling class came into power by means of the command they held of armed force. When we have sifted and winnowed out the chaff of “comforts of religion,” “respect for law and order,” “adaptability.” and all the other canting phrases beloved of labour niisleaders we find that the ultimate appeal is to force. Ignorance plays a great part in helping to keep the workers in subjection, but it is by force the “super” class hold their position. We must consciously organise therefore for the capture of the armed forces in order to convert them from an instrument of oppression into an agent of emancipation. Let this “consummation devoutly to be wished” once become a fact, then those brave souls who perished in the Commune will not have died in vain.

Fritz.

Ruthless (2022)

Pamphlet Review from the April 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Truth About Trotsky. Anarchist Communist Group. ACG/Stormy Petrel, 2021. 81pp.

In 1937 Leon Trotsky, from his exile in Central America, wrote an account of the murderous rule of Stalin in Bolshevik Russia. He entitled it The Crimes of Stalin. This new ACG pamphlet also deals with the brutal acts of Bolshevism but those carried out not by Stalin but, ironical as it may seem, by Trotsky. Trotsky’s activities pre-date the coming to monolithic power of Stalin in 1924 but are shown to be hardly less savage and ruthless.

In a series of short chapters the pamphlet analyses in significant detail the actions of Trotsky in ordering and directing the elimination, sometimes on a mass scale, of those he considered in any sense obstacles to the consolidation of Bolshevik power in the period of ‘war communism’ after 1917. Chapter titles such as ‘Trotsky as an Advocate of Concentration Camps’, ‘Shootings for Deserters’, ‘Shooting for Drunkenness’ and ‘Trotsky and Poison Gas’ tell their own tale of cruelty and brutality and in their narrative illustrate the utter and perhaps pathological ruthlessness of Trotsky as commander-in-chief of the Red Army. A prime example is the much-documented mass slaughter of the sailors of Kronstadt in 1921. The sailors, who had been staunch supporters of the revolution in 1917 but were now disgruntled over their worsening living conditions and seen to be challenging the new Russian (state capitalist) state. As the pamphlet puts it: ‘The revolt was drowned in blood, with thousands shot and many sent to the Solovki camps.’ The event is re-examined here and Trotsky’s later excuse that the sailors were ‘counter-revolutionaries’ and not the same ones as in 1917 is dismissed as false. And in earlier episodes we read how ‘the Bolsheviks reacted to the strike at the Putilov plant in Petrograd by shooting 200 workers. Then ‘in Astrakhan, the Bolsheviks fired on an assembly of 10,000 metalworkers, injuring 2,000 of them’ and ‘this was followed by 400 executions by the Cheka, with Trotsky, as War Commissar, sending his approval’.

Yet Trotsky still has many followers on the political left. One book recently talked about his ‘extraordinary vision’ and he is often counterposed to Stalin, who is seen as ‘bad’ for the misdeeds he perpetrated in the name of communism or socialism, while Trotsky, banished by Stalin and then murdered on his orders is seen as ‘good’. Soviet Russia, we are sometimes told, would have had a different trajectory if Trotsky and not Stalin had succeeded Lenin as its leader. Yet nothing we know and which is recapitulated here about Trotsky’s ‘crimes’ suggests that he would have been any less capable than Stalin of tyrannous dictatorial rule over a country far too backward at the time for the development of anything other than centralised state capitalism. So his influence today among many who would consider their ideas about social and political change as being progressive is nothing if not misplaced, both in view of his activities when alive, the theories (such as ‘permanent revolution’) that he left behind and the view he shared with Lenin of the need for a Party to ‘lead’ workers to revolution. In the event he ended up a victim of the system he had been one of the prime architects of, ‘consumed’, as this pamphlet has it ‘by a murderous reaction that he had helped to create’.

Howard Moss

A Look Round. (1926)

From the January 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

The skeleton at the feast.

Capitalist cant usually has a field day at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet. After the reams of lying literature scattered broadcast during the war, exhorting us to go and exterminate the “German beasts” and the “Hunnish swine,” the following makes fine reading for the cynical philosopher. Mr. A. Chamberlain, proposing the toast of the foreign ministers, threw the following pearl before our masters’ one-time “swine” :—

“My Lord Mayor thanks to your hospitality I have drunk to-night of your loving cup with the German Ambassador. What I have done this evening may our nations do to-morrow. We will work in the spirit of Locarno that the peace of the world may be kept and civilisation recover from the wounds that it has suffered.”—(Times, November 20th, 1925.)

Admiralty, War, and Air Ministers then responded to the toast, and emphasised the activities of their departments in preparation for peace and for civilisation’s recovery. Earl Beattie spoke regretfully :—

“It is not the fault of the Admiralty that the impetus of war had added vastly to the complexity of the technique of naval warfare, that new weapons had been evolved and the scope of existing weapons expanded beyond imagination.”

Sir Worthington Evans spoke assuringly :—-

“We had taken some risks which were only justified on the assumption that the Army was up to establishment, well trained and well equipped. He could assure those present that the Army would fulfil all these conditions.”

Sir Samuel Hoare spoke in a querulous tone :—

“. . . during the last twelve months our Air Force had been substantially strengthened. The London Auxiliary Air Force squadrons were already in being. . . . We are certainly anxious to make the fullest possible use of inventions and discoveries. . . . Was the discovery to which generation after generation had devoted its untiring efforts to prove a Frankenstein Monster that would destroy civilisation.”

So, seven years after “the war to end war,” we have a navy grown beyond imagination, an army ready to jump at any nation’s throat, and an air force which, it is hinted, may settle war (and the unemployment problem) for some considerable time by the destruction of civilisation. What cheerful news for the Christian peace cranks, who will continue to mouth peace platitudes until the next war arrives—when they will, as of yore, out-jingo the jingoes. It is also striking confirmation of our claim that while capitalism lasts the struggle for trade advantages will bring wars and preparation for wars.

Capitalism without armed force is unthinkable. It is a force the working class must politically control before they can achieve emancipation.

The acceptance of the position embodied in our principles is the only sane and safe attitude for the workers.

* * *

The Great Man Bogey. 

“Born in one of the worst slums in Nottingham and beginning work at nine, Mr. Samuel Ward, a Liberal member for Nottingham City Council, was yesterday elected Sheriff. He was an illustration, he told the Council, of how, under our democratic constitution, the poorest boy could rise by industry, thrift, and sobriety, to the highest positions an important city could offer. ” —(Daily Chronicle, November 10th,” 1925.)

The fact that the Chronicle gave prominence to the above shows clearly enough that such occurrences are not commonplace. The “Great Man” theorists would have you believe that the long and tedious struggle of mankind through countless unknown generations serves no other purpose than that some may derive an easy existence as Capital’s functionaries or henchmen. Capitalism will reward comparative ignoramuses like General Booth or Lloyd George with their wealth and approbation, while a man of Marx’s mental calibre, acclaimed by his opponents a genius, was compelled to live half his life in poverty. Throughout the large towns thousands of boys have never had a job since leaving school two or three years ago. The following bears witness to the “splendid opportunities” available for the workers’ children :—

“Thirty-five per cent, to 40 per cent, of the children who are admitted to school at five years of age bear with them physical defects which could have been either prevented or cured.”—(Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer, Board of Education, for 1922, p. 36.)

In 1924 a similar report finds 38 per cent. of the entrants to school in London require medical treatment, and an increase over 1923 in cases of malnutrition.

“There is one feature of the findings of the School Medical Service which is very significant. Every year there appears to be the same tide of disease, the same burden of defect requiring treatment.”— (Sir Geo. Newman, Annual Report of School Medical Inspection, 1924).—(Daily Telegraph, November 14th, 1925.)

Such is our democratic constitution. It would be a lie to say that the bulk of the workers’ children ever have a ghost of a chance to rise from the position in which they are born. Consider the industry and thrift of the Monds, the Derbys, and the Rothschilds, and then reflect that a capitalist statistician has said of the wealth producers : “The poor within our borders to-day are as large in numbers as the entire population of 1867” (Chiozza Money, “Riches and Poverty,” p. 52). Such is the reward for the industry and thrift of the workers whose class ignorance keeps them the drudges and the doormats of the capitalist few. The Great Men of to-day are mainly the ones who, by adaptability, can give expression to the requirements of our rulers. Cunning and assertive impudence are surer of a place than that which may be of service to present and future generations. The recent remarks of a popular music-hall artist aptly illustrate the age we live in : “Cater for the scream,” said Mr. Billy Merson. “If people screamed at a show, that was the chief point. Some world-famous composers died in poverty, while writers of tripe drove about in motorcars. If the people want tripe, give them tripe ” (Daily Mirror, October 26th, 1925). When all have equal opportunities, there will be some talent or ability worth considering in those who become conspicuous by their achievements. In any case, when the interests of all are alike (as would be the case in Socialist society), those of any individual will be best furthered through society’s welfare, and not through the subjection and misery of others, as is the case to-day.

* * *

A Comic Interpretation of History. 

“There was a tendency to-day to believe that history must only be studied from the point of view of economics and industry. It was a degraded view of humanity to believe that the poorest had no interest but that of livelihood. The assumption was reactionary. . . . The point of view from which to study history was that of love of mankind.”— (Lord Eustace Percy, Morning Post, November 9th, 1925.)

No doubt hunger appears an absurdity to a well-fed body. That view is also consistent with the idea that it is reactionary for those whose lives are spent in one long battle with poverty to concern themselves with the economics of that poverty.

The gaiety and the luxury of the parasitic capitalist class is only made possible by their monopoly of the wealth the workers produce. The absurd claim that it is they who exercise “directive ability” is shown not only in death, but in life. Whole-page advertisements recently appeared in the Times and the Daily Telegraph, inviting “you” to winter at such resorts as Cannes, Mentone, Monte Carlo. Says one : “Spend your winter in the island of Madeira. Winter season from October to May. Society’s winter rendezvous.” No degradation there, miles from the source of the production of their, wealth, where others, members of the working class, exercise all the ability necessary to produce wealth, including that of a directing and organising nature. Degradation !—it is yours, in the gloomy city amid the din, the dirt, and the ceaseless round of toil. No wonder your masters can talk of love, of humanity while you pander to their every whim with such sheep-like docility.

Attempt, however, without intelligent class organisation, to threaten the institution of private property, and their sickly words of love will turn to brutal ferocity. Let any worker read a truthful account of the Paris Commune, with its lurid story of the slaughter of the Communards, and they will realise the love that the masters have shown the workers in the past. Paris was literally converted into a charnal house for no greater crime than that the workers attempted to control their own affairs in the most democratic and orderly manner Paris ever knew. Says Lissagary, in “The History of the Commune of 1871” :—

“The struggle over the Army transformed itself into a vast platoon of executioners. … A chief of battalion standing at the entrance surveyed the prisoners, and said : “to the right,” or “to the left.” Those to the left were to be shot. Their pockets emptied, they were drawn up along a wall and slaughtered (p. 383).

Women and children followed their husbands and their fathers, crying to the soldiers : “Shoot us with them !”—and they were shot.

What then will this justice say when those shall be judged, who methodically, without any anxiety as to the issue of the combat, and, above all, the battle over, shot 20,000 persons, of whom three-fourths had not taken part in the fight?” (p. 390).

Fellow-workers, by all means study history. You will find it a struggle everywhere between classes. It bears worldwide witness to the Capitalist and Labour lie about our “community of interests, “our” common humanity,” and shows the antagonism between the exploiters and their victims.

Blogger's Note:

This particular 'A Look Round Column' was unsigned but in this period it was usually written by W. E. MacHaffie ('Mac'). His name being omitted may have been a mistake at the print shop, or it may have been the case that someone else wrote the column this particular month.

Finland, The Balts, and the Baltic (1939)

From the November 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

Finland was for centuries a vassal to the Swedes, and the lands of the conquered were given to the powerful and faithful of the conquering baronage.

In 1809 the Russians seized Finland, and by possession of the Gulf, made safe the channels of St. Petersburg. Apart from this purpose, Russian Governments left the economic and political dominance of Finland to the Swedish barons, or came in only to buttress their oppressions.

The Swedish overlords had nothing but contempt for the conquered race. Its language was ostracised, its literature suppressed. Official positions were the perquisites of the Swedo-Finnish upper class. The holders were unimpeachable. The language, even of the courts of law, was Swedish, and into these courts the Finnish people had to take their interpreters or learn the language of the master class.

The Government was Parliamentary. Parliament consisted of four Houses. It was a delusive democracy.

1st, The House of Nobility, in which sat the Swedo-Finnish feudality—hereditary, non-elective, self-appointed.

2nd, The House of Clergy—elected by the clergy.

3rd, The House of Burghers—elected by property-holders within the cities.

4th, The House of Peasants—elected by property-holders outside the cities.

The nobility and clergy were, as usual, the two arms of tyranny. They exercised the veto against even the few upon whom the pretence of self-government had been conferred. The labouring, wage-earning mass had no vote.

In 1906 the Finnish workers revolted. The Four-house Parliament was swept out of existence, and the first reformed Parliament of Finland contained 20 Social Democrats out of a total membership of 200.

At the 1916 election the Social Democrats won a majority of seats (103 to 97), and from their membership formed the first Social Democratic Government of Finland.

In July, 1917, the Finnish Parliament carried an “Independence Bill.” The Russian Government (the Second Provisional) vetoed the Bill and dissolved the Parliament.

No sooner did the November Revolution take place in Russia than the reactionaries in Finland jumped to arms, overthrew the Finnish Government elected by the votes of the people, set up an arbitrary Government, in which there was not one Social Democrat. But, in a few weeks the Finnish militia and Labour organisations consolidated their forces, rose up, smashed the reactionaries, and restored to power the men elected in 1916.

Parliament reassembled. It declared for a Finnish Republic. Karl Manner, the Speaker of the 1916 Parliament, was made first President, and Oskar Tokoi, first Prime Minister.

Mr. Frank Anstey, M.P., member of the Australian Parliament, states in his book, “Red Europe” : “This Government the Allies refused to recognise, but they did recognise and subsidise every conspiracy for its overthrow.”

The Baltic being then controlled by Germany, and the Arctic ports icebound, the Allies could not send troops. The Swedish Government would have put in troops, but the Swedish Labour organisations threatened a general strike. The reactionary factions in Finland appealed to Germany.

In March, 1918, German warships and transports appeared off Helsingfors, and German troops were landed.

In April the Republic was overthrown and a Dictatorship set up under the protection of German bayonets.

Mr. Anstey, referring to this episode, says: 

“Thus once more was it demonstrated that the capitalist and landed classes, the master class in every form, prefer the occupation of their country by a foreign foe, to the government of their country by a working class that in any way threatens their predatory powers.”

In this same month, April, 1918, Mr. Haines, the United States Consul in Finland, made a report to the American Government. He reported that the landowners and money classes of Finland had asked the Swedish Government for assistance, but that the Swedish Labour organisations threatened a general strike if Swedish troops were sent to Finland. He stated that the help of the Allied Powers had been sought, but for various reasons was not available, and then he added:

“Therefore there was no alternative but to fall back upon Germany.”

No sooner was the German-sustained capitalist Government established in Finland than the British Government intimated its readiness to recognise it and to enter into diplomatic relations with it.

The united action of the reactionary White Guards and of the German army of occupation in Finland was secured by a united command. The supreme command was held by the German General, Von der Goltz, and command of the Finnish reactionary regiments by the Swedo-Finn, General Mannerheim.

Mannerheim used the German-trained Jaegers and men of the land-owning class, with such of their servitors as they could certify as safe. These made a force of about 50,000, and these, supported by the Germans under Von der Goltz, put the rebellious population to the sword. David Soskice told the Manchester Guardian there was “terrible slaughter,” and the London Times, referring to the ‘splendid’ work of Mannerheim, says that it broke the back of the rebellion, and that “the Germans quickly finished the job.” The Times casually mentions that, “out of about 80,000 prisoners, 30,000 are dead.” “Dead” is a sweet and luscious word for wholesale slaughter of rounded-up human sheep. Out of a population of 3,000,000, over one hundred thousand perished.

The Germans smoke-screened behind a so-called “Finnish Government,” rounded up and wiped out in cold-blooded “law and order” slaughter thousands of men, women and children. They arrested and imprisoned 80 members of the 1916 Finnish Parliament. Only one got out alive. Some were executed and others were reported “dead.”

In the latter part of 1918, when the German overlords found their populations were rising, their ships of war flying the Red Flag, and their warriors declining to fight, then they opened negotiations for an armistice. Allied commanders stipulated many things for Germany to do, but there was one thing it stipulated that Germany should not do. It was not to withdraw any more troops from the occupation of Finland or the Baltic Provinces.

From Finland the Germans had begun the withdrawal of their troops in September, and it became evident that without foreign bayonets the local reactionaries could not exist. In early October, while the war was still on, and weeks before the declaration of any Armistice, the Finnish butcher, General Mannerheim, left Finland, came to England, was the guest of the Government and, interviewed by the English Press, he spoke of the “splendid work done by the Germans.”

The working class crowds of Stockholm howled at Mannerheim, “You murderer,” and in Norway the Government so feared a popular rising that they asked him to keep out of the country, but Havelock Wilson’s Union carried this man backward and forward without protest.

It is to the credit of the Finnish working class that they have kept the spirit of class-consciousness alive.

In March, 1919, on a jerrymandered franchise, with 100,000 of their best dead, or in gaols, or off the rolls, with no free speech and with a rigid suppression of working-class newspapers, they scored 80 out of 200 seats.

They have learned much by bitter experience. If they had got a majority their representatives would have been imprisoned or shot.

The working class of Finland are still doing their best in the circumstances in which they find themselves; they still lean too much to reformism, but they have a noble record, and in the coming struggle we can depend upon them to continue to do their bit.

The chief seaports and cities of the Baltic Provinces were founded by German traders in the thirteenth century. From that date they have been the master class, controllers of land, finance and industry, the exclusive holders of local political power, and the imposers of economic slavery upon the local races.

For two centuries the German Balts were the staunch supporters of Czarist Governments. In return they were permitted to be sole rulers in the Baltic Provinces, and Czarist soldiery were always at their disposal for the subjection of the rebellious workers.

The Baltic masses, therefore, staggered under a double yoke, that of the German Balts and that of the Russian bureaucracy—the former were the economic taskmasters, the latter the military oppressors. The German Balts and Russian autocracy were akin, but since the Balts came closer to the daily life of the people, the Baltic masses had a more implacable hatred against the German Balts than even against the Russian autocracy.

The Russian revolution of 1905 showed how intense was the hatred of the Baltic peasants to their brutal Teutonic landlords, and only the influx of many Cossack regiments saved the Baltic Barons from utter extermination.

On April 12th, 1917, the first Provisional Government of Russia granted “Home Rule” to the Baltic Provinces, and as such autonomy meant government by peasants and proletarians, the Baltic baronage of landlords, trade lords and financiers saw their robber power disappearing. Thus they agitated for intervention, annexation, salvation of their perquisites and possessions from the wrath of the Baltic people, and their cry for liberation was taken up by Germany.

On January 2nd, 1918, Herr Vorst, the correspondent in Russia of the Berliner Tageblatt, put the case thus: 

“Should the Baltic Provinces remain united with Russia or obtain self-government, the social and economic predominance of the German Balts will be abolished through the uprising of the people. The German Balts look to Germany for protection against the local proletariat.”

The Brest Treaty (March, 1918) left the Baltic Provinces of Esthonia and Livonia within the Russian State, and Soviet Russia left to these Provinces self-government. At once a deputation of Baltic capitalists visited Berlin and appealed for the occupation of their country by a foreign State. The German Government complied, and thereafter German steel and German guns kept the people in subjection.

And when Germany could no longer do the work Britain took up the task, and either acted alone or in collaboration with Germany.

On Sunday, December 29th, 1918, the local Lithuanian regiments held a meeting in Riga and declared for Lenin and the Soviet Government of Russia.

On December 30th the joint action of German and British troops was agreed to by their respective Governments.

On January 1st, 1919, the Lithuanian troops were designated “mutineers,” and German and British troops marched out against them, overcame them, and compelled the survivors to carry arms against their own race and country.

On January 2nd the working population rose en masse; the German soldiery refused to fight and the British were compelled to evacuate Riga and the surrounding country.

In this situation it was determined to secure high-priced “volunteers” for the unreliable conscript armies. The “National Committee” of German Baltic Barons, the Committee that twelve months previously had petitioned Germany to annex the Baltic Provinces, were heavily financed by the Allied Powers to organise a German volunteer force, and recruiting offices were at once established in Berlin and other cities. The Manchester Guardian, January 8th, said, “The irony of the situation is that the German Baltic Barons are the most reactionary gang to be found anywhere in the world.”

In the middle of January came the Spartacist risings in Germany, as a protest, amongst other things, against the German-British intervention in the Baltic Provinces.

During January and February, 1919, British ships of war were convoying German troops from one part of the Baltic to the other. Von der Goltz was invited across from Finland. He took charge of the Baltic land operations while the British Fleet protected his rear.

What has followed is now current history.

The working men of the Baltic and Scandinavian countries are well informed, and are watching the events now transpiring with intense interest.

They, like us, are caught in the web of conflicting imperial interests; the dropping of the mask by Soviet Russia has caused a hurried regathering of forces.

The present line-up is not likely to be permanent; a regrouping of Powers may be expected before the war is over. The class-conscious know where they stand and those who are not at present in that category will by hammer-blows be driven into an understanding of their position.

Charles Lestor

Paris Commune 1871 (2021)

From the May 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

May 28 marks the 150th anniversary since the French Army captured the Communards’ final positions, officially marking the end of the Paris Commune, the first living example of workers in control of political power. Preceded by the Franco-Prussian War, which ended after Prussian forces besieged Paris for over four months, the Commune began on March 18, 1871, following a failed attempt by the French Army to seize 400 cannons that the Government of National Defence deemed ‘state property’, even though Parisians themselves paid for the cannons via a subscription. The French Army retreated to Versailles and Paris’s National Guard then took control of the city for over two months before the French Army could gather enough reinforcements to return and slaughter the Communards during Bloody Week. Along with the Prussian Army, who’d just defeated the French, they injured as many as 10,000 Communards and massacred as many as another 10,000, with 147 alone being shot at what’s now called Communards’ Wall in Père Lachaise cemetery the day before the French and Prussian armies fully suppressed the uprising. The French Army captured over 43,000 prisoners during and immediately after Bloody Week, 13,500 of whom were either sentenced to imprisonment, deportation, forced labour, or death.

Barricade at Paris 1871

The Paris Commune arguably stands out as the first peek at what the last phase of capitalism might have looked like, as well as what challenges the working class might face in attempting to surpass it. Though the Commune was ultimately foiled, events like this are always worth analysing for any lessons that can be learned, whether good or bad, and applied to the future.

The Good

One of the best aspects of the Commune was that it was leaderless. Leaders necessarily imply followers placing all their faith in them, even though no one’s infallible. Having a leader also allows an easy target to be picked off, incapacitating their followers at the drop of a hat. Rather than leaders, the Commune had mandated delegates, elected by the Communards themselves, who were recallable any moment the people felt a delegate wasn’t carrying out their will — a direct democracy. They also had plans to implement the same structure of self-government across the rural areas of France, having district assemblies in the central towns and having those send delegates to the National Delegation in Paris — decentralised self-government. Magistrates and judges were elected and immediately revocable, as well.

The Commune also passed a decree which implemented a separation of church and state, as well as another allowing everyone to attend school free of charge, with some arrondissements giving out free school supplies, clothes, and food for children — mutual aid. The police were also made revocable, and they abolished conscription, along with the standing army, declaring the National Guard — which included all citizens able to bear arms — as the Commune’s only armed force. Much to the surprise of the bourgeois government, there was no violence between Communards during the entire two months. Pensions were also granted to the unmarried companions and children of national guardsmen killed in active service. The death penalty was abolished and the guillotine was even brought out by the National Guard and publicly burned as the crowd celebrated.

It’s said that the highest salary given to an employee of the Commune was 6,000 francs, though that claim has been contested. Regardless, they abolished child labour, as well as night work for bakers, since it’s very difficult to get sleep while you’re cooking bread. Employees were given the right to take over and run any businesses that were abandoned by their owners and any fines imposed by employers on their employees were prohibited. All workmen’s tools and household items that were given to pawn shops during the siege, valued up to 20 francs, were returned for free and, later, the Commune ordered the closure of all pawn shops themselves, since they were deemed a private exploitation of labour. There was a moratorium on all rents during the siege, meaning they were supposed to be paid back afterward, but the Commune forgave all rent for homes from October 1870 through April 1871, with any amounts already paid counting instead towards future rent, along with a postponement of commercial debt obligations, and the abolition of interest on any debts.

The Bad

It’s much easier to play Monday morning quarterback with uprisings rather than actually participate in them, but it’s always important to take a critical look at these kinds of situations to parse out any decisions made due to bad circumstances from those made due to bad foresight. One of the first that stands out is the fact that, despite many women playing important roles in the Commune, they weren’t allowed to vote in the Commune elections. Only three countries had ever granted women suffrage before this, but — considering the fact that the Communards were seeking economic equality — it wouldn’t have been much of an ideological leap to extend that equality to women, too. Another drawback was the fact that they opted to keep the Commune Council’s meetings secret, citing war with the bourgeois government as their reason. They obviously should’ve tried their best to prevent any sensitive information from getting back to the French Army, though perhaps a reasonable middle ground could’ve been reached.

Aside from those decisions, there were a couple made that were pretty useless. One was the adoption of the French Republican Calendar. Considering the Commune was still at war, finagling with the date should have been the last thing on anyone’s mind, if only because it could complicate communications with allies outside the city. Communards also took to burning various buildings and monuments, two of the most prominent being the Vendôme Column and the home of Adolphe Thiers, the chief executive of the French government during the Commune. While individuals may decide to do that themselves, the only things the Commune administration should have been focused on at that time were keeping Parisians alive and surviving as a political institution— and burning buildings assists with neither of those.

As far as the financial decisions go, the Communards decided to take a loan from the Rothschild Bank to cover their expenses, rather than seize the 254 million francs in gold coins and banknotes left inside the vaults of the Bank of France — essentially leaving their greatest bargaining chip on the table. Had the Commune threatened to collapse the French currency, they might have got Thiers to do anything they wanted. Not only did they neglect to exploit that opportunity, but if employees took over a business, they also recognised the previous owner’s right to compensation. Employers rob employees for their surplus value and, by virtue of that alone, would have no reasonable right to compensation in this circumstance. That money could instead be used for more mutual aid.

Another big issue was censorship and repression. The Commune banned multiple pro-Versailles newspapers and created a Committee of Public Safety to hunt down and imprison enemies of the Commune, in the same vein as the Committee of the same name which committed the infamous Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. Considering how many times efforts like this had taken a turn for the worse before, the Commune should have avoided them at all costs. They also issued a decree which accused the Catholic Church of ‘complicity in the crimes of the monarchy’, arresting roughly 200 church officials afterward, along with another decree later called the Decree on Hostages, which stated that for every prisoner of war or Commune official that was executed by the French Army, the Commune would execute three hostages. However, it’s worth noting that, despite this decree and the fact that the French Army executed multiple Communards beforehand, the Commune executed none of their hostages until after the start of Bloody Week — and even then it was only 63, which pales in comparison to the roughly 10,000 Communards murdered in cold blood during that same week by the French and Prussian armies.

Arguably, there were also more than a few mistakes made on the military front. A major setback happened when the National Guard tried to march on the French Army in Versailles. The National Guard took power after the French soldiers refused to fire on them once instructed to during the soldiers’ attempted seizure of the cannons. The Communards naively assumed the same thing would happen again and advanced without cavalry, artillery, food, ammunition, or ambulances. Not only that, but they didn’t even scout the area ahead, subsequently passing a line of forts on the way that they thought were occupied by more national guardsmen but which had actually just been re-occupied by the French Army, causing the National Guard to suffer heavy artillery fire as a result.

As the French Army was returning to recapture Paris, divisions arose within the Commune about whether to give absolute priority to military defence, or to political and social freedoms and reforms. This decision honestly should’ve been a no-brainer, considering that any reforms would be undone if the Commune were to be drowned in blood. A key fort, Fort d’Issy, was captured by the French Army and the National Guard left the fortifications undefended by one part of the city wall at Point-du-Jour, allowing 60,000 soldiers to enter the city within a few hours. Without an overall planned defence or many barricades having been prepared in advance, it quickly turned into a bloodbath. To add insult to injury, when the Commune Council found out the walls of Paris had been breached, they were holding a trial for a former General — something that clearly could’ve waited until the war was over — and the last military commander they’d chosen, Louis Charles Delescluze, was a journalist who had absolutely zero military experience.

Most importantly, though, even if the Communards had done everything correctly, they were still acting prematurely. Not only was the majority of the working class still not socialist, but the majority of the Communards weren’t socialists in the proper sense, either. Aside from that, capitalism was still in its relative infancy, far from the complete global hegemony we’ve reached now and any developments that are bound to happen in the future. As frustrating as it may be, we have to remember that, no matter how badly a minority of the working class may want to establish socialism, they’ll fail until the material conditions have developed for them to succeed — two key conditions being productive forces capable of sustaining a socialist society, as well as a vast majority of the global working class understanding what socialism is and what responsibilities it would entail, while actively wanting to establish it. Nonetheless, the Commune was a noble effort that will surely go down in history as one of, if not the greatest, attempt at liberating the proletariat.

Jordan Levi

(WSPUS)

Marx’s considered opinion on the Paris Commune:

“[A]part from the fact that this was merely the rising of a town under exceptional conditions, the majority of the Commune was in no sense socialist, nor could it be. With a small amount of sound common sense, however, they could have reached a compromise with Versailles useful to the whole mass of the people — the only thing that could be reached at the time. The appropriation of the Bank of France alone would have been enough to dissolve all the pretensions of the Versailles people in terror, etc., etc.” (Letter to F.D. Nieuwenhuis, 22 February 1881) (see Marxist Archive)

The Commune of Paris, 1871. (1923)

From the March 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

To all Socialists throughout the world, the 18th of March recalls to their minds the first organised attempt on the part of a section of the working class to administer the affairs of society in the workers’ interest. We speak of the Commune of Paris in 1871.

To convey a clear understanding of the Commune, it is necessary to give a brief outline of some of the events which led to the uprising of the Parisian workers on the 18th of March, 1871.

In 1849, an enterprising gentleman, named Louis Bonaparte, nephew of the first Napoleon, was elected President of the French Republic, and three years later he was proclaimed Emperor of the Second Empire.

For the events which enabled Bonaparte and his gang of hangers-on to become masters of France, readers are referred to Marx’s brilliant and profound monograph, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.”

Of the establishment of the Second Empire, Engels says “that meant the appeal to French chauvinism, which implied the demand for the reacquisition of the frontier of the First Empire lost in 1814.” The existing frontier no longer satisfied the requirements of the Jingoes, in view of the fact that during the Bonapartist regime France had experienced a rapid industrial development. To the French ruling class the redeeming feature of the Bonapartist Government was its policy which favoured speculation and industrial activity, resulting for them in enrichment to a hitherto unheard of degree. Industrial expansion made necessary occasional wars and extensions of frontier, and the frontier which most interested the French Chauvinists was the left bank of the Rhine.

Gradually a growing section of the ruling class began more and more to express their dissatisfaction with the foreign and domestic policy of Bonaparte; whilst on the other hand, the discontent of the workers manifested itself in a way disturbing to the peace of mind, of not only the section of the ruling class opposed to Bonaparte, but to Bonaparte himself.

Among the workers, an organisation called the International Working Men’s Association, founded by Marx and Engels in 1864, was carrying on an agitation throughout Europe; and in France, the agitation was such, that Bonaparte had 60 of its most active members arrested.

Thus, confronted with the growing unpopularity among the ruling class, and fearing an uprising of the workers, Bonaparte sought refuge in satisfying the aspirations of the French Jingoes by declaring war on Prussia on the 15th of July, 1870. But the war proved disastrous for France. After various encounters, one French Army was driven into Sedan, where Bonaparte, with 80,000 men, surrendered. After this, battle after battle was lost by the French. Even the new Army under Marshal Bazaine, which had been raised to stave off the march of the Prussians on Paris, was surrounded at Metz, where Bazaine, with 180,000 men, surrendered.

As a consequence of the first great defeat at Sedan, an uprising occurred in Paris on the 4th of September, 1870, which sounded the death-knell of the Second Empire. The Republic was again proclaimed, and Thiers, who had been a statesman under the old Monarchy of Louis Phillipe, was appointed as its head.

During the war, the mass of the workers, like the great bulk of the workers during the late European war, were stupid enough to interest themselves in a quarrel which was entirely a quarrel between rival groups of the ruling class. Consequently, what was uppermost in the minds of the Parisians, was to organise a resistance against the Prussians, who were now on their way to besiege the city. The bulk of the Parisians believed in the possibility of successfully defending Paris, and the Thiers’ Government accepted a mandate from them to act as the “government of defence.” For the purpose of defending Paris all Parisians capable of bearing arms were armed and enrolled in the National Guard, which was composed mainly of working men.

Towards the end of September the Prussians began their siege of Paris, and it soon became evident to many that the Government was not treating seriously the question of defence. The fact is, that the matter of the defence of Paris was treated as a huge joke by the Thiers’ Government, and is described by Marx as “a well understood mockery of defence.” The evidence of this fact was left in the hands of the Commune when the Government made its wild flight to Versailles after the 18th of March.

As indicated above, we do not approve the action of the Parisians in demanding the continuance of the war; but even so, that in no way excuses the “government of defence” in not seriously acting in line with the mandate it had accepted to effectively defend Paris, which is one illustration of the contempt that all Capitalist Governments have for the views of the great bulk of those who elect them to power.

Of course, the Thiers’ Government had reasons of its own for disregarding the mandate. What Thiers and his gang were really desirous of defending Paris against was, not the Prussians, but the armed working men of Paris.

“Paris armed, was the revolution armed,” says Marx; and Thiers did not fail to note this significant fact.

The year 1871 opened with Paris still a besieged city, and finally on the 28th of January, it being no longer possible to carry on the farce of “defence,” the French Government capitulated to Bismark.

Engels, in his introduction to Marx’s “Civil War in France,” points out that when the Prussians entered Paris they found themselves surrounded by armed workmen, “who carefully watched lest any ‘Prussian’ should overstep the narrow limits of the quarter reserved for the foreign conqueror.”

How to disarm these workmen was the immediate problem set before Thiers. To accomplish this Thiers, with the flagrant lie on his lips that the arms of the National Guard were State property, called upon the National Guard to give up their artillery. Of course, Thiers knew well that the arms of the Guards were their own property ; they were bought by themselves by means of public subscriptions; moreover, they were officially recognised as their property in the terms of the capitulation of Paris. This move on the part of Thiers to get the National Guard to surrender their arms having failed, he next tried more forcible means.

Accordingly, Thiers dispatched a few regiments of the line to Montmartre to steal the artillery. With the usual display of “directive ability,” those responsible for the organisation to take the guns had failed to provide adequate means of transport. When the troops secured the guns the lack of transport prevented them from proceeding far, before the move became known. It is said that the women were the first to act, calling upon the troops to leave the guns alone. Meanwhile, the news having spread, some of the National Guard: appeared on the scene accompanied by women and children. Several times did General Lecomte give the order for his men to fire upon the defenceless women and children, but each time his order was disregarded. The few stragglers of the National Guard, with the women and children seeing this, pushed forward, and fraternised with the troops. The attempt to steal the guns had failed.

In vain did Thiers appeal to the Parisians to stand by “law and order,” for out of 300,000 National Guards only a few hundred could be found to rally to his support. Small wonder that they did not do so, for in addition to enduring the hardships of the 131 days siege of Paris, the Thiers’ Government had stopped the pay of the National Guard. Thus, were they and their dependents faced with starvation.

From the time that Thiers had failed to disarm the National Guard on the 18th of March, the workers had assumed control of Paris. The Thiers’ Government in the meantime had fled to Versailles.

On the 26th of March, the Paris Commune was elected and proclaimed on the 28th.

The workers had thereby committed a “crime”—the worst of all possible crimes in the eyes of the ruling class—”the violation of the sacred rights of private property.”

It cannot be said that the revolt of the Parisian workers was a Socialist Revolution, as only a few of those who took part in the movement had any Socialist knowledge. But considering the suddenness with which they were called upon to act, it must be ungrudgingly granted that the workers of Paris acquitted themselves wonderfully. Mistakes they made, of course, as they were sure to do, considering the circumstances which surrounded the movement.

The Commune accomplished many fine acts of legislation. It abolished the conscription and standing army, the only force recognised being the National Guard. All rents of dwellings from October, 1870, to April, 1871, were remitted, such rent as had been paid to be deducted from future payments. Its labour department brought about the abolition of night work for bakers, and declared all fines and stoppages from wages illegal. The fact that “foreigners” were elected to the Commune, shows the international outlook of many of the Communards. The “superior officials” who had acted under the Thiers and Napoleonic Governments having made off to Versailles, the control of nearly all the public services was in the hands of workmen administrators, placed there by the Commune.

What was Paris like during the short period of the workers’ control of affairs? Belfort Bax, in his admirable “Short History of the Commune,” tells us that the city was quiet, peaceful, and wholly free from crime. Even many middle-class Englishmen, who had no sympathy with the Commune reluctantly testified to the orderly and peaceful manner in which the Communards carried out the duties of citizenship. While the Versailles publications were demanding the wholesale slaughter of the Parisians, one could look in vain through the revolutionary journals for any blood-thirsty suggestion.

The people’s Paris of 1871 was a model against which no city throughout capitalist civilisation could compare. The wants of the populace were attended to, as best they could in the circumstances. For the “crime” of having attacked the private property institution, Thiers and his blood-thirsty gang at Versailles were planning to deluge Paris in a sea of blood.

We have said that the Commune made many mistakes, and one important mistake was its treatment of the military side of its administration. Of all the departments controlled by the Commune, the department of war was the worst conducted. Having made the initial blunder of allowing the Thiers’ Government to escape from Paris, one would imagine that they would have prepared for an attack from Thiers later. Instead, the Commune spent its time in futile attempts to negotiate with Thiers, which the latter gladly protracted till he had made arrangements with Bismark for the delivery of the French troops, taken as prisoners during the war. Thiers would hear of no compromise with the Commune, nothing but the unconstitutional surrender of Paris would meet his requirements.

Accordingly, on the 1st of April, without any warning, the Versaillese opened fire on Paris. It was then that the lack of military preparation on the part of the Commune came into prominence. The requisites of war were at places other than where they should have been. Important points of defence were discovered to be undefended. It seems that some of the leaders of the Commune thought that the Versaillese would refuse to fire upon the Parisians as had happened on the 18th of March. On this point Belfort Bax well says, they forgot

  “that insubordination in the interior of a fortress is a very different thing from insubordination in the open street under the moral pressure of a sympathetic crowd ready to protect the insubordinate from the vengeance of their superior officers.”

The time for the Commune to organise an effective defence of Paris had now gone. Strenuous efforts were made, but all was in vain. We could go on to tell of the wonderful acts of heroism. Men, women, and even children, took their part in the fight to defend the Commune. But space does not permit.

Finally, on the 21st of May, the forces of Thiers entered Paris. He had demanded the blood of the Parisians, and the time had now arrived for he and his gang to execute their evil designs of butchery in which they were ably assisted by the much “hated” Prussian, Bismark.

  “Twenty-five thousand men, women and children killed during the battle and after ; three thousand at least dead in the prisons, the pontoons, the forts, or in consequence of maladies contracted during their captivity; thirteen thousand seven hundred condemned, most of them for life; seventy thousand women, children and old men deprived of their natural supporters, or thrown out of France; one hundred and eleven thousand victims at least—that is the balance-sheet of the bourgeois vengeance for the solitary insurrection of the 18th of March.”

So writes M. Lissagaray, the author of the “History of the Commune,” who himself took part in the struggle.

Lest it be said that we are taking the evidence of a partial witness, we will give one quotation from the capitalist press of the time.

  “As many as one thousand Communists were shot after their capture (June 1st). Human life has become so cheap that a man is shot more readily than a dog. Summary executions are still (long after the fighting had ceased) going on wholesale.”—”Times,” May-June, 1871.

Such was the fury of the bourgeois butchers under the leadership of Thiers. No deed was too foul for them to perpetrate upon their defenceless victims.

As Socialists, we are pleased to commemorate the Commune of Paris; it demonstrated to the world, in spite of its many blunders that the workers can, when given a favourable opportunity, control the affairs of society, not only without the aid of the ruling class, but the better for its absence; a fact which unquestionably added to the fury of the French ruling class.

The great value the Commune has for the workers to-day is the lesson they can draw therefrom. The Commune served to bring out the reality of the class struggle, and the ruthlessness of the ruling class when their system, the private property institution, is attacked.

Far too much of that abstraction “Humanity” seemed to characterise the Communards, they treated their bourgeois enemies far too lightly, and too kindly; every act of kindness shown by the Communards, being treated by Thiers as an act of weakness, serving to encourage him in his foul treatment of the Parisians.

If heroism and devotion to the ideal of human solidarity could accomplish anything in themselves, a different tale of the Commune would have to be told, but without sound organisation these will achieve but little.

Not the least of the factors which aided the destruction of the Commune was the mixed elements which composed it.

The Commune, like many other attempts on the part of the workers, demonstrates the absolute necessity for a sound, well-disciplined organisation, understanding, and ready to meet the requirements of the situation. The Socialist Party of Great Britain fulfils the requirement. We steadily point out to the workers the cause of their troubles, and the futility of their many attempts to remove them. The workers must cease to trust in “leaders,” particularly those of the “intellectual minority” type, for this same type of “leader” was known to the Commune.

In conclusion, let us hope that the time is not far distant when the workers sound in their understanding and strong in their determination will arise to avenge their fellows of the Commune, by overthrowing capitalist society and inaugurating the Socialist Commonwealth.

Robert Reynolds

Hero Worship: A Conversation With a Visitor from Mars. (Part 8) (1928)

From the July 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from June Issue.)

As the ‘magical’ rites performed by the 'medicine-man' are deemed indispensable to the prosperity of the tribe, our 'hero' gains great influence and repute, and often acquires the rank and authority of a chief or king. Later the time arrives when this position is made hereditary, and soon the 'magician's' wand becomes the sceptre of 'kingly authority'! And so we see, Marty, that the exalted origin of kings and emperors—the 'divine right of kings'—is the plausible, shrivelled-up impostor thought to be so powerful by my ancestors, but whose best performances to-day would scarcely attract the notice of a street audience.

"But, however bad the institution of monarchy has been for the human race, its effects have been negligible compared with the terrible superstitions called religions, which have grown up out of the 'magical’ rites performed by the medicine-man. The old mimicry and flapdoodle of these rites are still the stock-in-trade of our religions, but all the arts of civilisation have been called upon to gratify the senses of the devotees, to dignify fraud, to sanctify humbug and implant superstitious beliefs in the minds of the masses, and so resist the effect of revolutionary ideas engendered by the economic conditions endured by the enslaved majority. But happily the wide spread of knowledge, which the capitalist class has been compelled to facilitate, is steadily weakening the hold of religion upon the community.

"In enumerating the effects of this primitive 'hero-worship,' however, one must bear in mind that, as the antidote is never far from the poison, so the experiments of the witch-doctor with herbal concoctions mark the beginnings of medical science, his 'magical' rites led to the development of many arts and crafts, and his pretended study of the stars led (via astrology) to the science of astronomy. That is to say, the eradication of superstition led to honest enquiry.

"It may be relevant here, Marty, to comment upon another phase of 'hero-worship,' which appears to have been in being in the earliest stages of social development. Age seems to have been the first privilege to creep into society. In early communities we find the membership of the Council of the tribe was confined almost invariably to men of advanced years. This deference paid to old-age (perhaps originally due to some savage association of ideas connecting whiskers with wisdom!) went to ludicrous lengths during the Patriarchal stage, but although capitalism has brutally reversed old conceptions regarding senility, the old tradition is often hypocritically used by members of the ruling class and their agents as a valuable aid in the task of bemusing the minds of the workers. With what tragical frequency, for instance, does it happen that when some venerable ancient holding high office in a Trade Union, after years spent in beguiling and tricking the members, is exposed and denounced for his flagrant treachery, the members are deterred from taking salutary (and summary!) action by reminders of his past services. Such phrases as 'Be not hard on one who has grown grey in the Movement ’ or 'Do not forget that Wheedler has sacrificed the best years of his life in your interests,’ etc., ad nauseam, are repeatedly showered upon the duped men in supplicating tones, whilst the fact that Wheedler has also grown affluent and corpulent is not mentioned. The curse of whiskers . . .”

"Enough!” Marty imperiously exclaimed, at the same time fondling his really superb golden beard, "do not deteriorate into childish prattle. You have touched upon a subject which is interesting to me—the question of leadership. Now can you impart some information as to the effects of 'leadership' upon the various subject classes you have mentioned? And ”—here Marty winced perceptibly— "leave whiskers alone ! ”

Thus rebuked, I changed the trend of my remarks. "You may be surprised to learn, Marty, that it took centuries of the experience of chattel-slavery before the idea of 'leadership' was conceived. Tribal society was often engaged in warfare, but the military commanders were warlike men who received delegated authority from the tribe. During peace time such persons reverted to their ordinary occupations, and were without any special privileges. But although the idea of 'leadership' (as differentiated from delegated authority) arose out of the habits of obedience enforced under chattel-slavery, you must not suppose that the slaves themselves tamely submitted to their lot. On the contrary, the great empires of Chaldea, Egypt, Greece and Rome were at times seriously threatened by slave revolts. Thus in Rome (B.C. 73) a Thracian slave called Spartacus gathered a large body of followers and ravaged Italy from end to end, and defeated several Roman armies, until he was at last slain. Undoubtedly, Spartacus was a great leader of men, and the obedience rendered grudgingly by the slaves to their masters was willingly given to him. Accordingly, the slaves, having put all their hopes in the keeping of one man, these hopes perished with the death of the man, and the capable army became a mere rabble and was easily conquered. The bloody vengeance of the ruling class upon these rebels against slavery has no parallel in history—save, perhaps, the massacres after the Paris Commune. The terrible lesson of this vengeance was ever in the minds of the slaves, and no further revolts on such a gigantic scale occurred; and, as there was apparently no earthly saviour, they eventually succumbed to the teachings of the divine-man saviour (Jesus), later encouraged by their masters, who saw its usefulness in instilling earthly contentedness.

"In the history of my country, Marty, the rebellion of the peasants, led by Wat Tyler (1381), provides another example of the senselessness in placing all one’s trust and hopes in 'leaders.' The revolt was highly successful until Tyler was murdered, and then his infuriated followers were eventually mollified by the young king, who promised to be their leader and redress their wrongs. Of course, when the peasants had returned home, the ruling class opened its campaign of vengeance, and desisted in its slaughter only when it realized that it was reducing the number of wealth makers so grievously that any further 'displacement' of labour would send wages soaring.

W. J.

(To be continued).

Past Class Struggles. (1919)

From the April 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the last article we gave an outline of the English Peasants' Revolt and its consequences. In the meantime conditions in Germany had brought about a similar revolt there.

The break-up of the Roman Empire left Germany cut up into feudal territories with a feudal lord over each. Then came the growth of commerce which developed the wealth and importance of the city burghers. The luxuries of the East were brought West and enjoyed by the townsmen into whose hands gradually centred all the handicraft, art and luxuries of the times. This placed the feudal lord at a disadvantage and aroused his envy. He, who looked down from the superior height of traditional regality upon the lowbred townsman, found himself the townsman's inferior in wealth and splendour. He consequently looked around for means to increase his wealth.

In those days the nobility lived in fortified castles and surrounded themselves with trained bands of retainers and soldiery. Their usual method of increasing the worldly possessions was by issuing from their castles on marauding expeditions, and lying in wait and robbing the travellers that passed through their territories. Wm. Jacobs, in his "History of the Precious Metals," writes of the internal conditions of Germany at this time as follows: —

  "Those countries under a rigid feudal system were divided into various independent and petty sovereignties, all jealous of their neighbours, and frequently embroiled with them. The roads and rivers were insecure, and the protection either to property or persons passing along them, dependent upon the interest, the caprice or the cupidity of the various princes or nobles who ruled the several minor dominions … No protection was afforded to intercourse, and commerce was consequently almost unknown." (Vol. II., pp. 23-24.)

As time went on, however, lying in wait for travelling merchants became less profitable, more dangerous, and but a slow and doubtful way of acquiring the necessary wealth to obtain the delicious luxuries enjoyed by the rich merchants. Consequently the feudal princes and lords had to cast about for other methods of raising the money to purchase the good things of the new life. Right at their hands lay the weapon of conquest—the further exploitation of the peasantry.

Karl Marx, in "Capital," Vol. 1., p. 220, says of these peasants :

"In the I5th Century the German peasant was nearly everywhere a man who, whilst subject to certain rents paid in produce and labour, was otherwise at least practically free. The German colonists, in Brandenbourg, Pomerania, and Silesia and Eastern Prussia, were even legally acknowledged as free men."

These peasants had not sunk to the same level of serfdom as the English peasants of this period, although the degradation was soon to be accomplished. They had stretches of common lands, and under the system of corvee (statute labour) they owed a comparatively small amount of labour and produce to the lords.

With the growth of the lords' appetite for luxury, however, the oppression of the peasantry and the seizure of their common lands developed into a system of bare-faced robbery. Their rents were steadily converted into money rents and increased. Documents were forged whereby the rights of the peasants were curtailed and their duties increased.

From the end of the 15th Century there were sporadic revolts on the part of the peasantry, but these were easily crushed. Eventually (1525) there was a general and extensive rising of the peasantry throughout Southern Germany.

The German Peasants' War was, unfortunately for the peasants, a disunited and badly organised affair. In spite of the fact that the rising was general throughout Germany, each territory fought out its own individual battles, and, although there were numerous peasant armies in the field, instead of forming a united plan of action, they all aspired to be self-sufficient and acted locally only. Not so the nobles. They formed a league (the Swabian League) to raise and equip an army for the purpose of putting down the rising everywhere. While they momentarily concluded peace with one army they fell upon and destroyed another. And in this manner, by bribery, chicanery, fraud, and force, they destroyed the peasant forces peacemeal.

Each group of peasants formulated their demands in the shape of a number of articles, but eventually the twelve articles adopted by the Swabian peasantry became generally accepted as the basis of the movement. The principal demands in these articles were

1. Right of Electing their own Ministers.
2. Reduction of Tithes.
3. Abolition of Villeinage.
4. Liberty to Fish and Kill Wild Game.
5. Restoration of Woods.
10. Restoration of Common Lands.
11. Abolition of Death Dues.

Here, as in England, the lords pursued their time-dishonoured methods of dodgery, promising redress until the simple peasants had been put off their guard, and then falling upon and slaughtering them unmercifully.

Throughout the war the peasants were remarkable for their forbearance, and the lords for their ferocity. In spite of extreme provocation only two cases of alleged barbarity could be quoted against the peasantry. In one case a Baron von Helfenstein, who had achieved notoriety by his cruelty, and who had massacred peasants by the dozen in cold blood, was captured at the town of Weinsberg. The leaders of the United Contingent (the peasant army that captured the place) gave orders that he was to be kept prisoner, but a section of the peasantry (some of whom had suffered personally at his hands) had resolved upon his death, and he was executed. This act was used as an excuse for the atrocities that followed.

The United Contingent, making the same mistake as the modern workers, appointed as commander a dissatisfied hanger-on of the ruling class, a knight Gotz von Berlichingen, and after his appointment the articles originally formulated were gradually watered down. Like the modern labour leader, he played the game of the ruling class, and his vaccilating and treacherous policy largely conduced to the early defeat of the peasants in the quarter where he commanded.

Eventually the lords succeeded, with the aid of mercenary soldiery and a quantity of artillery, in crushing the peasantry. Then the wholesale execution of men, women, and children became the order of the day.

The majority of the leaders of the insurrection were captured, tortured, and wasted to death, or died in prison. It is estimated that not less than 130,000 peasants were slaughtered during and immediately after the revolt. "At least 100,000 were killed," says the ultra-conservative "Harmsworth Encyclopoedia," p. 4623.

It is worth noting that Martin Luther, the apostle of revolt (for early capitalism) against Roman Catholicism, opposed the peasants' rising with all his power, and suggested that the best way to deal with the insurrection was to exterminate the peasantry! He is reported to have written the following sublime exhortation: "Crush them, strangle them, and pierce them, in secret places and in sight of men, he who can even as one would strike dead a mad dog." ("Encyclopedia Brittanica," 9th edition, article "Luther.")

The German Peasants' War, like the English Peasants' Revolt, was but a reactionary movement, an incident and an accompaniment of the gradual rise to a share in political control of the wealthy burghers of the towns.

The crushing of the peasantry in the war fixed the bonds of servitude still more securely upon their backs, and degraded them to the lowest depths of villeinage. Many decades elapsed ere they could rise from their prostrate position, and then it was only to be precipitated into a still worse servitude—the servitude of the wage slave.

In the evolution of society only movements that are logical sequences of social development can
succeed. The writer recommends this point to the consideration of the Anarchist Communist, who mournfully moans for the return to peasant-proprietorship or small ownership, disregarding 
economic development and the results of the scientific examination of society. The conclusions
 of the Socialist are correct and safe because they are based on, and harmonise with, the normal
 development of society.

Gilmac.

Lest We Forget. (1919)

From the May 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

How the capitalists suppressed the Parisian workers in 1871.

At last the smell of the carnage began to choke even the most frantic. The pest, if not pity, was coming. Myriads of flesh-flies flew up from the putrefied corpses. The streets were full of dead birds. The "Avenir Libéral" singing the praises of MacMahon’s proclamations, applied the words of Flechier; ‘He hides himself, but his glory finds him out.’ The glory of the Turenne of 1871 betrayed him even up to the Seine. In certain streets the corpses encumbered the pathway, looking at the passers-by from out of their dead eyes. In the Faubourg St. Antoine they were to be seen everywhere in heaps, half white with chloride of lime. At the Polytechnic School they occupied a space of 100 yards long and three deep. At Passy, which was not one of the great centres of execution, there were 1,100 near the Trocadero. These, covered over by a thin shroud of earth, also showed their ghastly profiles. ‘Who does not recollect,’ said the Temps, ‘even though he had seen it but one moment, the square, no, the charnel of the Tour St. Jacques? From the midst of this moist soil, recently turned up by the spade, here and there look out heads, arms, feet, and hands. The profiles of corpses, dressed in the uniform of National Guards, were seen impressed against the ground. It was hideous. A decayed, sickening odour arose from this garden, and occasionally at some places it became fetid.’ The rain and heat having precipitated the putrefaction, the swollen bodies reappeared. The glory of MacMahon displayed itself too well. The journals were taking fright. ‘These wretches,’ said one of them, ‘who have done us so much harm during their lives, must not be allowed to do so still after their death.’ And those that had instigated the massacre cried ‘Enough!’

‘Let us not kill any more,’ said the Paris Journal of the 2nd June, ‘even the assassins, even the incendiaries. Let us not kill any more. It is not their pardon we ask for, but a respite.’ ‘Enough executions, enough blood, enough victims,’ said the Nationale of the 1st June. And the Opinion Nationale of the same day: ‘A serious examination of the accused is imperative. One would like to see only the really guilty die.’

The executions abated, and the sweeping off began. Carriages of all kinds, vans, omnibuses, came to pick up the corpses and traversed the town. Since the great plagues of London and Marseilles, such cart-loads of human flesh had not been seen. These exhumations proved that a great number of people had been buried alive. Imperfectly shot, and thrown with the heaps of dead into the common grave, they had eaten earth, and showed the contortions of their violent agony. Certain corpses were taken up in pieces. It was necessary to shut them as soon as possible into closed wagons, and to take them with the utmost speed to the cemeteries, where immense graves of lime swallowed up these putrid masses.

The cemetries of Paris absorbed all they could. The victims, placed side by side, without any other covering than their clothes, filled enormous ditches at the Père Lachaise, Montmartre, Mont-Parnasse, where the people in pious rememberance will annually come as pilgrims. Others, more unfortunate, were carried out of the town. At Charonne, Bagnolet, Bicêtre, etc. the trenches dug during the first siege were utilized. ‘There nothing is to be feared of the cadaverous emanations,’ said La Liberté ‘an impure blood will water the soil of the labourer, fecundating it. The deceased delegate at war will be able to pass a review of his faithful followers at the hour of midnight; the watchword will be ‘Incendiarism and assassination.’ Women by the side of the lugubrious trench endeavoured to recognize these remains. The police waited that their grief should betray them, in order to arrest those ‘females of insurgents.’

The burying of such a large number of corpses soon became too difficult, and they were burnt in the casemates of the fortifications; but for want of draught the combustion was incomplete, and the bodies were reduced to a pulp. At the Buttes Chaumont the corpses, piled up in enormous heaps, inundated with petroleum, were burnt in the open air.

The wholesale massacres lasted up to the first days of June, and the summary executions up to the middle of that month. For a long time mysterious dramas were enacted in the Bois de Boulogne. Never will the exact number of the victims of the Bloody Week be known. The chief of military justice admitted 17,000 shot, the municipal council of Paris paid the expenses of burial of 17,000 corpses; but a great number were killed out of Paris or burnt. There is no exaggeration in saying 20,000 at least.

Many battlefields have numbered more dead, but these at least had fallen in the fury of the combat. The century has not witnessed such a slaughtering after the battle; there is nothing to equal it in the history of our civil struggles. St. Bartholomew’s Day, June 1848, the 2nd December, would form but an episode of the massacres of May. Even the great executioners of Rome and modern times pale before the Duke of Magenta. The hecatombs of the Asiatic victors, the fetes of Dahomey alone could give some idea of this butchery of proletarians.

Such was the repression ‘by the laws, with the laws.’ And during these atrocities of incomparably worse than Bulgarian type, the bourgeoisie, raising to heaven its bloody hands, undertook to incite the whole world against this people, who, after two months of domination and the massacre of thousands of their own, had shed the blood of sixty-three prisoners.

– “History of the Paris Commune.” Lissagary

Labourism, Socialism or Anarchism. (1909)

From the January 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Eternal Question of Tactics

The Rocks and the Shallows

There exists to-day, so many factions claiming each to lay down the course necessary to be taken by the working class towards its emancipation, that the discussion of this subject may not be out of place. Not that the position of the S.P.G.B. is in any way indefinite, or that it has altered, but simply as an extra application of Socialist principles to current working-class thought and action. That thought and action is being divided, apart from ourselves, into two opposing, but equally fallacious, directions. On the one side its absorption into what is called the “Labour” movement – really a movement for the return of members of the working-class to represent the constituencies in parliament, and on the local boards of administration; and on the other side the attempt to direct the workers from political and Parliamentary methods altogether by an endeavour to achieve working emancipation by economic and direct action alone. With the first we have repeatedly dealt, and it is here only necessary to repeat that “Labour” representation, except as denoting the representation of labour’s consciousness of its class position and a recognition of the remedy, is utterly futile to effect any change in that position. This is being proved with increasing obviousness by the political bankruptcy of the Labour Party. With regard to the second, however, we have hitherto not considered it necessary to awaken the echoes of a discussion which raged in the early stages of the development of the Socialist idea, but which at this period are supposed to be the exclusive possession of the dreamers and the idealists hopelessly out of touch with the real factors in the struggle.

The Gun v. the Fist

The anarchist, by whatever new name he may choose to be known, by the present advocacy of shunning the political side of the struggle, is endeavouring to blind the working class to the most effective weapon it has in the prosecution of the class struggle. To pretend to make a more drastic assault on the position of the capitalist class by ignoring politics and adopting a policy of action in the workshop to directly take possession of the means of production is farcical. The capitalist class retain their economic power by their political power, by means of which they will always be able to beat the working class. Nor is it more definitely revolutionary to repudiate the “indirect” method of political action. It can easily be, and in fact is, reactionary. The potential force to achieve working-class emancipation lies principally in the political field for the reason that the capitalists are compelled to obtain the vote of the working class in order to continue its political control. To receive that working-class sanction of capitalist society, our masters are reduced to numerous shifts to blind the workers to the fact that they are in no real sense interested in the maintenance of capitalism; in a word, to prevent the workers from becoming class conscious.

Now assume the workers to be class conscious. Is it conceivable that they will continue to sanction the retention of capitalism by the return of capitalist politicians? Emphatically not. They will inevitably express their class-consciousness by voting Socialism at the ballot box. And when that is done we are met with numerous queries. One of them arose out of the article on the “Class Struggle”, which appeared in the October S.S. “What would be the action of the S.P.G.B. if the capitalist class, in view of the possibility of an adverse vote, disfranchise the workers?” Our reply was that in such an event we would be faced with a new problem; the whole aspect has changed; constitutional methods are closed to us; and we are forced to adopt methods of secret organisation and physical violence. And that is the only course left open if the workers disfranchise themselves by baulking at any of the formulae imposed by the capitalist government to hinder the political return of their social and economic opponents in the class struggle. But there is little likelihood of the master class being so blind to the sociological aspect of the ballot as to attempt to rudely interfere with it. The vote is not a gift to the masses from the Government out of the beneficence of its heart: it is a social growth. As such it is a matter of very grave responsibility to deliberately court murder and bloodshed by acting their part towards the class they will always want to conciliate for economic reasons in too ruthless a manner.

Capitalist Clemency

Not that the master class will hesitate at bloodshed if they deem it necessary to the maintenance of capitalist privilege: they have not hesitated to incur bloodshed and murder to maintain their full pound of flesh at Featherstone and elsewhere; but disfranchising the workers would involve disfranchising the pro-capitalist workman as well as the anti-capitalist workman, and would mean the entire subversion of the evolution to be in form, though, for economic reasons, not in essence, more and more democratic.

Actually the problem of the methods to be adopted must be determined by the circumstances of the time. Our first move is the development of the desire for Socialism among the working class and the preparation of the political party to give expression to that desire. The move of our opponents against the successful action of that political party must determine our subsequent actions. If the fight is kept to the political field within constitutional limits, the rulers taking the defeat when it comes in a spirit of contrition and resignation – well and good. If they choose not to accept the verdict of the nation when given through the medium of their own institutions, but contest that verdict by physical force, the workers must be depended upon to repeat their verdict upon that field, and if the capitalist class follows its predecessors into the limbo of the forgotten past through an exit of blood and carnage, its blood must be on its own head.

Our Tactics

The important thing is for the workers to gain control of the political machinery, because the political machine is the real centre of social control – not made so by capitalist rulers but developed and evolved into being the brain of the social organism in conformity with the evolution of that organism. To control that organism in the interest of their own class the workers must gain possession of the instrument of control. Against the frontal attack of the capitalist class, and the flank movements of its friends, the emasculated “labourism” of the Labour Party on the one side, and the suicidal “direct action” on the other, the working class must keep its ranks well closed and its head clear. They must not believe the armies approaching on the flanks are reinforcements just because they say they are. The capitalist class itself says it is on the side of labour, but only the greenest believe it, for all that. It may be that those holding views in any direction dissimilar to ours believe those views to be correct ones, but except that we must recognise how far their material interests are served by their attitude towards us, we may of course, still oppose them on the ground of that dissimilarity. In those cases where the political attitude is one obviously dictated by the desire for the loaves and fishes it is better to frankly state the impossibility of intellectual reasons outweighing economic ones. The most that could happen as an outcome of the permeation of the Socialist idea among members of the capitalist ranks would be for them to act as a break on the rest of their class. This factor, little as it may be in importance, only increases the dubiousness of their action in resorting to such measures as the disfranchisement of the workers, such measures requiring a more than usual unanimity in their ranks.

The Socialist Attitude

Given, then, the Socialist idea firmly set in the mind of the working class, any action taken by the masters to prevent the realisation of that idea would be checked by the workers if solidly organised into the Socialist Party; while a final appeal to physical force hastened by the destruction of constitutional means would leave the victory with the workers, who, “vastly outnumber their tyrants in war”. In view of all the facts, the Socialist Party of Great Britain enters the field of political action determined to wage war etc, etc.

Dick Kent