50 Years Ago: Did the Socialist Movement fail in 1914 (1965)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard 

We are now at the root of the whole matter of the failure of the “European Socialist Movement” to take up and maintain the Socialist position in the recent crisis. These gigantic political organisations which disposed of so many millions of votes were not Socialist organisations. They were not founded upon the principle of the class struggle. They had not done the work of politically educating their supporters. They had not built up their strength upon an electorate understanding the working-class position and desiring revolution. These millions of so-called Socialist voters did not understand the class division in society, and did not, therefore, realise the unity of interest of the workers the world over, and the clash between the interests of the working class and the master class, at every point, nationally and internationally. Their votes had been attracted by all manner of nostrums and side-issues, and simply expressed opinions thereon, and not on the vital matter of working-class emancipation.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain calls the attention of the workers of this and other lands to the fact that, founded as a political organisation upon Socialist principles, it has maintained the true working-class position in relation to the war without difficulty. We cannot boast of the support of millions of voters at the polls, but no one can point to a single word or deed of ours, in this time of crisis, which has been a betrayal of the cause of the proletariat. Well for Socialism, well for the stricken workers, well for the great cause of humanity, if, when the present riot of anarchy is over, and those who have to pay for it in blood and tears come to count the cost and apportion the blame, they realise that the political party of Socialism, weak though it was in numbers, was strong enough to denounce the war on all sides, strong enough to expose the misleaders of Labour and their purchased “patriotism”, strong enough to avow and maintain, in the face of a frenzy of insane nationalism, the unity of interest of the workers of all countries, strong enough to remain Socialists and keep the flag of Socialism flying.

[From the editorial,  'A Blow for Socialism', Socialist Standard, March 1915.]

May Day and the Class Struggle (1958)

From the June 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

May Day demonstrations used to be held on the 1st of May: how they came to be changed to the first Sunday in May is one of life’s little ironies, or should we say one of working class life’s little ironies?

It happened during the first World War when the British and German sections of the working class were killing each other. Then the British Government suggested that in the interests of winning the war it would be greatly obliged if the Labour Party, who were also "winning the war” as well as organising May Day, would hold it on the first Sunday in May. To hold it on a week day would mean thousands of workers might be absent from munition factories and that would mean a drop in war production and what was more vital it would mean a drop in the rate at which the British uniformed workers were killing their German comrades.

It always rains on Sunday

After the first World War the Labour Party, presumably on the grounds that a week day demonstration would affect “peace production,” continued to hold May Day demonstrations on the first Sunday in May. There were also “influential people” who thought that if workers wanted to demonstrate they should demonstrate in their own time and not on a day normally devoted to the bosses. And further, as it could be shown statistically that the first May Sabbath was a case—”That it always rains on Sunday" — or nearly always, and so was likely to dampen the demonstrators’ ardour, everybody that is everybody apart from the workers seems to have reached a happy May Day solution.

The First of the May Days

There are, of course, four May Days historically considered. Two in the past, one in the present, and a hypothetical one in the future. May Days go back a long way, even the Greeks had a word for it, or more accurately a day for it. So did the Romans, Mais was a month of celebration, games and feasting a time when even austere Romans like Julius Caesar and Mark Antony took their hair down.

In Feudal England it was a day of celebration for the return of spring. On that day our forbears consumed quantities of cake and ale and made whoopee. It was sort of “Knees up Mother Brown” of the Middle Ages, and when the warmth of the day had subsided the young men full of cake and ale picked up the young women, also full of cake and ale, and bore them off into the woods, and a new warmth entered into the proceedings. It is even said, and I hope that I do our forbears no injustice that the girls entered the woods as immature maidens and came out of the woods experienced women. It seems that our working forefathers had more definite ideas about May Day than their modern counterparts.

Exit file First May Day

But Feudalism went and those sorts of May Days went with it—as a result of economic development a new class was emerging who were displacing the old Feudal order, a class of merchants and merchant adventurers who burst asunder the dosed Feudal economy and opened up the world. And what with piracy and plunder and the slave trade and colonisation they were so busy amassing vast wealth that they had little time for anything else, least of all for such things as May Days.

But the peasants and draftsmen of England not only lost their May Days, but their immemorial rights. The Land Enclosure increased in severity—as the 17th and 18th centuries went by a vast mass of peasants became landless and in some cases homeless. At the same time economic development led to a bitter, competitive struggle between the old craft guilds and the new merchant class and in the end the guilds went down in ruins before the impact of a new and superior method of wealth production and organisation.

Thus at the end of the 18th century and the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, a landless, unprivileged and unorganised mass were hungry to enter the new factories built by the new factory owners, i.e. the new ruling class which had emerged from this process of economic development. And these new factory owners equally hungry from the standpoint of profits to receive them into their factories. It was this uncouth, unorganised mass who were the nucleus and origin of the modern working class, yet an unorganised mass who were to become organised by the very process of production. And as the weight of misery and oppression bore more heavily upon their shoulders they were involved in the riots and machine breaking and other acts of violence. From this class struggle between owners and non-owners, the workers began to throw up their own class organs of defence, which later emerged as the modern Trade Union Movement. 

The Second May Day

It was out of this class struggle that the idea of a second May Day emerged. Not a May Day merely symbolical of a resurgence of nature, but of labour carrying a promise of a new life. The idea was mooted in France, Germany and England during the 19th century for by this time capitalism had become international and the working class had become international also, and it was felt by groups of workers in different lands that as they had common interests they should also have common aims.

Yet it was not until 1888 that the 2nd International set aside the first day of May to be a day symbolical of international working class solidarity, with an advocacy of the eight-hour day. The first May Day Demonstration was in 1890. On that and subsequent May Days, Negroes, Indians, Chinamen, Germans, Frenchmen, marched in the name of the International working class in different parts of the world, transcending their national boundaries.

In England on May Day, workers marched in various towns and cities and often many of their women marched with them. They marched to the open spaces and parks and those who lived by the sweat of their brow gathered round coal carts and platforms to listen to those who lived or were later to live by the sweat of their tongues. 

Workers of the World unite

It was the high tide of working class international feeling. A time when Marx's slogan, “workers of the world unite” seemed to have more significance than ever before—or since. These workers were not Socialists; perhaps the nearest they got to Socialism was a passionate conviction to remould things nearer to the heart's desire, but they felt a common purpose in face of a common enemy. But this promised spring-time of the working class movement never flowered. The early blush on its cheek, faded before the long, hard winter of growing national sentiment and reformism.

By the turn of the 20th century a change had come o'er the spirit of the dream. The workers still marched, they still gathered round the same coal carts and still listened to the same old speakers. But the old speakers were now saying new things. No longer did they cry, down with the powers that be, for they were trying to start a political movement with the help of the trade unions which hoped to become part of the powers that be and in fact did become part of them—eventually what is more, some of the old agitators and speakers who boasted of their lowly origins successfully took part in that process. So successfully that in their ripe, or rotten ripe old age they recorded their success by writing books like “From Doss House to Debrett" or “From Pigstyle to Parliament," a perhaps not unnatural evolution.

Excelsior!

And so the Labour movement began to carry banners bearing strange signs. There were some in it demanding votes for women. Demands for the nationalisation of the Railways and Mines. Munidpalisation of gas, water and later electricity. The fact that these things came about has little to do with the early demands of the Labour Movement, but for other reasons. There was even a demand for the building of Labour Exchanges.

These things were now represented as being steps towards what was then termed the Millenium. The only trouble was that the more steps they took towards the Millenium the further it got away. In fact, they took so many steps towards it that it finally disappeared altogether and has never been seen since.

Freedom for Everybody

At the beginning of the 20th century there appeared the first of the Freedoms. Big banners proclaimed: "Freedom for the Boers." In due course the Boers got their freedom, but like so many such freedoms it turned out to be the freedom of the few to deny any sort of freedom to anybody else. Then there were demands for freedom for the Poles, freedom for the Slavs, etc., in fact, the only thing the workers never demanded was freedom for themselves, freedom from the servility of class domination.

Then the Labour Movement got mixed up with international politics, but international capitalist politics not international working class politics. They began by declaiming against "secret diplomacy." Then the Entente Cordiale. They demanded "No trafficking with Russia” against "The Big Navy Bill,” "Abolition of the Territorial Army,” etc.

So the Labour Movement, and with it May Days, instead of being the sounding board of international working class sentiment, became a big drum for national rivalries and conflicting foreign politics. A sort of Empire Day in reverse, but much more effective in compounding, confounding, complicating and obfuscating the pattern of working class politics.

After the war, with the advent of the communists in May Day demonstrations and other activities, British Foreign Policy got mixed up with Soviet Foreign Policy and things got in a glorious muddle. Then the communists started the "Hands off Movement" " Hands off China," "Hands off Spain," "Hands off Czechoslovakia," etc., although this did not prevent violent hands from being laid on all of these countries. Then there was the great down and up phase: "Down with Bonar Law," "Down with Baldwin,” "Up with Ramsay Mac and Snowden. “Down with Ramsay Mac and Snowden,” "Up with Cook and Maxton," "Down with Cook and Maxton,” "Down with Churchill," " Up with Churchill," then "Down with Churchill ”—ad infinitum.

Down with Fascism

Then in the years prior to the second world war there was “Down with Fascism" and a demand for a democratic military alliance against Hitler—Russia was then part of the " democratic alliance.” To show how May Days were only consistent in their inconsistency there were at the same time demands for drastic disarmament by the Tory government and devoting the savings to road making and increased doles. There were even demands that future wars should be conducted minus bombers and tanks. Although in demonstrations during the second world war unlimited quantities of both for the Second Front were the subject of slogans.

Now there are no longer cries, such as “ Down with capitalism—" Down with war." Nor even that tanks and aeroplanes should not be used in war. Only the Hydrogen Bomb should be taken off the war list so that war might once again become humane, decent and friendly. Such then has been the rise and fall of the second May Day.

May Day in Russia

One cannot, of course, omit May Day in Russia. No doubt the communists' dialectic skill has more than anywhere else turned May Day into its opposite. The communist boast that Soviet May Days are bigger and better than anywhere else. Unlike any other government they have made them state subsidised ceremonies, replete with the panoply and pomp of circumstance. As a show they probably make even a coronation look like a seaside carnival. All the great ones in Russia occupy the seats of the mighty on this day—symbolical of international working class solidarity. In Czarist times the police and military marched with the workers, but they were only with them, not of them. Now under the formulae of the unity of opposites they are included.

Tanks and jet bombers are also thrown in to show that communist war weapons can kill quicker and faster than bourgeois ones, thus demonstrating the superiority of "Socialism" over capitalism. And perhaps if Engels could have seen these Soviet May Days he might have thought that his aphorism—"the irony of history turns everything upside down," was an historic understatement.

To draw an historic parallel, one might think of the British Government in the 19th century organising the workers' May Day. Of thousands of workers with banners headed by old Queen Victoria in the gilded state coach and as they wheeled into the park massed bands of the guard playing with a row tow row tow to the British Grenadiers. And Gladstone, Disraeli and choice spirits from the House of Lords standing on coal carts with faces grimed for the occasion, proclaiming "Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your brains." Only the communists could turn such a May Day fantasy, into a Russian May Day nightmare.

No doubt in turning back the pages of May Day demonstrations we might laugh at our Victorian working class grandfathers. We tend to laugh at many things in the past especially the Victorian past if only perhaps to prevent us from laughing at ourselves, because that might not be so funny. Whether if they could' see across the years to the present May Day demonstrations they would "look forward in anger” one cannot say. But one feels whatever they did they wouldn’t laugh at us but blush for us instead.

May Days of To-morrow

It might be that when the clock of history has gone forward by establishing a rational society we might so far as May Day is concerned put the clock back and make it once more a day of celebration and merry making. Then there will be no need to demonstrate. No need to cry “Down with secret diplomacy,” because there will be neither secrets nor diplomacy. Nor to call for disarmament, because there will be no need to arm or disarm Neither shall we organise for the abolition of the Hydrogen Bomb because it, or a miniature specimen of it, will have been relegated to the museum of pre-human history. Men will at last have become truly human, and in the light of that development I will conclude by saying—MAY DAY IS DEAD—LONG LIVE MAY DAY.

Ted Wilmott.

Blogger's Notes:

"Yet it was not until 1888 that the 2nd International set aside the first day of May . . . " This might be a typo. The 2nd International wasn't formally launched until 1889.

The May 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard carries a notice for a May Day meeting, entitled "The Class Struggle and May Day", to be held at Denison House, 296 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London. The speakers listed were Lisa Bryan and Ted Wilmott. There's a strong chance that this article by Wilmott is the text of his speech at that meeting.

The International. (1907)

From the December 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx and Engels had no misapprehension whatsoever as to the fact that the first International could only be the means of carrying and spreading a knowledge of Socialism among the wage-workers throughout the world. Such a task, in face of the great apathy and ignorance of the toilers, was a tremendous one, as the history of the first International has demonstrated. Yet it cannot be gainsaid that the International from 1863 till 1872 was a far greater educational power among the proletariat than the present International, which was inaugurated in 1889. This comparison becomes more significant still when it is asserted by prominent writers and speakers of the present labour movement that the first International was only a roof without the house, while the second, the present International, is a house with a roof. Marx and Engels never claimed any more for the first International than that it was an awning under which the toilers of the world were to be gathered in order to acquire a sound knowledge of capitalist society and of their position therein. And during the nine years of its existence it was indeed a powerful factor in the class struggle throughout the civilised world. The present International, however, is a house without a roof for all the good it is to the proletariat. Look back at that old International and you must feel astounded at the terror it drove into the hearts of the possessing class and their satellites; and why? Simply because it breathed revolution through and through; and Marx and Engels did their utmost to maintain the flame of the revolution.

With the tremendous advantages the present International possesses and has since it was inaugurated, as compared with the great difficulties of the first International, it is evident that the present International has by no means made the most of its opportunities. When in 1863 the first International saw the light there were practically only Marx, Engels, and a few other stalwarts to take up the gigantic task. Marx and Engels were then in the midst of their analysis of the capitalist system, which later on became the basis of the scientific Socialist movement. At the beginning of the first International there was only the Communist Manifesto, a work excellent in its way, but lacking the detailed exposition that followed in Das Capital. The Franco-German War, the Paris Commune, the many great fights and skirmishes of the workers with the capitalist class in every country from that period until 1889, when the second International was inaugurated, were certainly historic events from which splendid lessons ought to have been drawn by the international proletariat; but that was not to be.

The first International shines in the history of the international working-class movement as an epoch of revolutionary propaganda among the proletariat that is not in the least degree approached by the newer movement.

The first International Congress in connection with the first International was held at Geneva in 1866, followed by similar Congresses in 1867 at Lausanne, in 1868 at Brussels, 1869 at Basle, and in 1872 at The Hague. No Congresses were held in 1870 and 1871. During these two years the young international was sorely tried and proved too weak to withstand the exceptionally heavy onslaught made upon it. The Franco-German War and the subsequent Paris Commune were the primary causes of the collapse of the International in 1872, while the hostile position taken up by the bulk of the English Trade Unions against the brave and noble Communards, together with the fact that anarchist tactics were introduced and insisted upon by Bakounin and others were certainly most effective contributory factors to the ultimate fall of the first International. It has been frequently asserted by bourgeois writers and speakers and occasionally repeated by so-called Socialists that Marx was mainly responsible for the Paris Commune. Nothing is more erroneous. Marx knew the extent, power and possibilities of the first International too well to have advocated a sectional trial of strength between the practically unorganised proletariat and the capitalist class.

Marx and Engels, who had throughout the first International aided and advised it in person and by correspondence, continued to be helpers and guides in the different countries even after the first International had collapsed in 1872. When in 1883 Marx died, Engels remained in personal touch with the working-class organisations until his death in 1895, paying them visits in the summer and corresponding with them during the winter.

But although the Socialist movement in the different countries had since the fall of the first International nominally accepted the Socialist teachings of Marx and Engels and the principles of the class-struggle underlying them, the development of the political action of the respective Socialist parties almost in every country tended more and more towards opportunism, so that when the second International was inaugurated in 1889 the opportunist Parliamentarism of the German, Austrian and French parties and the reform tendency of the English, American, Belgian, Dutch, Italian, Swiss and other national parties, that had not yet entered upon a Parliamentary career, naturally found their reflection in the first and following assemblies of the present International. At each of these re-unions the opportunists and reformers were to the fore and easily overpowered the few valiant revolutionaries to whom the policy and tactics of negotiating with the capitalist class for “dirty patches on the wage-slavery garden” were treachery and abomination. And just in the proportion in which in the different countries the Socialist parties attached ever more importance to catching votes for Parliamentary and Municipal candidates running on reform programmes, the revolutionary propaganda was more and more relegated to the rear, till to-day we have a so-called International Socialist movement embracing organisations and individuals that are beyond a doubt purely bourgeois-radical in composition and action. As long as such conditions prevail the working-class movement will make no headway.

The constitution of the International Congress is, as we know so well, a purely theoretic one. Any working-class organisations avowing recognition of the class-struggle at the time of claiming admission have no difficulty whatever in being accepted. They may immediately before and after each Congress repudiate or grossly violate the principles of the class struggle; they may, in fact, be Liberal or Radical organisations at home; but so long as they pretend to be in accord with the class-war attitude, they are heartily welcome at these triennial gatherings.

And what is the composition of these Congresses in consequence? Let us briefly analyse it for our readers’ benefit. The English delegation undoubtedly carries off the palm.

First and foremost comes the Labour Party with a constitution supposing independence on pronouncedly non-Socialist lines. In Parliament they are represented by 30 members, who were elected mainly by open or secret compromise with the Liberal Party and on Radical programmes. In Parliament and out of it they have over and over again assured the Liberal Party that they would be perfectly friendly with them so long as that friendliness was reciprocated.

Next comes the bourgeois Fabian Society with its four members, who were at the last General Election returned as official Liberal representatives, and with a host of official progressive Municipal councillors. The Fabians want a state of Society where “Fabian intellect” shall dominate the masses on the “economic” basis of the “rent of ability”.

A further composite of the English section is the I.L.P., who deny and violate the principles of the class war all the time they are at home. Their members of Parliament were returned by the help of the Labour and Liberal parties. They spend all their efforts in propagating hopeless palliatives and reforms and in the real class struggle continually compromise with the capitalist class.

The S.D.F. support capitalist cat’s paws of the anti-Socialist labour type, and pursue a propaganda of palliatives and reforms, which finds its highest expression in waiting upon capitalist Cabinet Ministers and bourgeois Members of Parliament, to beg of them to push forward “Healthy Legislation for the Suffering Proletariat, etc.”

Besides this array of “sound revolutionary” organisations there are a few “craft-unions” that keep up their membership by their “starvation pension schemes and coffin clubs” mingled with the hope of being able to do something “very soon” for the unemployed with the most valuable aid of the Right Honourable John Burns, whom they support during his election, and then denounce as traitor if the hoped-for reforms are not forthcoming.

But this confusion and opportunism is not, as pointed out previously, only rampant among the organisations that form the British Section of this unhappy International. Take Germany for instance. Here you have the much-boasted of three and a quarter million votes at the last general election, yet the membership of the Socialist Party comprises about 600,000 only, scarcely 18 per cent of the number of voters. It is true that the number of trade unionists has risen to nearly two millions; but a third of these are members of Liberal or religious trade unions, that are entirely under the sway of the capitalist class; and other trade unions are so-called “neutral” ones, that is to say, they are craft unions, independent of the Socialist Party. In the political arena the German Party is dominated by the Reformers and the Revisionists, and in their Parliamentary and Municipal actions they are steeped to the eyebrows in bourgeois reforms and palliatives, while the revolutionary propaganda is left to the very much despised “Rickers”.

In France there was until the International Congress in 1904 at Amsterdam, a body of real revolutionaries – the Guesdists. But in consequence of the “unity” craze these revolutionary fighters fused with the Reformers, the followers of Jaurès, about two years ago on the following terms:

“The United Party is a party of the class struggle, which, even if for the benefit of the workers it takes advantage of minor conflicts among the possessing class or joins in action with a political party for the purpose of defending the rights and interests of the proletariat, remains nevertheless an opposition party, which in principle irreconcilably faces the bourgeois class and their tool – the State.”

The Reformers have, at least temporarily, bamboozled the Guesdists; but judging from the proceedings at the last Congress of the Party, some few weeks ago, there are already many bad sores, which can only lead to a split in the near future. The trade union question, the anti-militarist agitation and the Revisionist tendencies of the followers of Jaurès must bring matters to a head very soon. The United Party during the last general election obtained nearly 900,000 votes, 52 of their candidates having been elected. Yet the members of the United Party number only about 52,000. There are about one and a half million trade unionists in France. Half of these are either Nationalists or Radicals, or do not believe in political action at all. The remaining half are composed of men, most of whom consider it detrimental to the cause of Labour for the trade unions to work in co-operation with the Socialist Party. This question is the great bone of contention between the Guesdists and the followers of Jaurès, who insist upon the trade unions remaining “neutral”, whatever that may mean. it is probable that mainly through the difference the Guesdists will leave the United Party very shortly.

A similar state of things is reflected in the delegations of almost every country, and the truth forces itself upon us that the International Socialist Congress is, as far as the majority is concerned, Socialist in name only, many indeed repudiating even the name.

For the triumph of Socialism, national and international, organisation is essential, but the organisation must be for Socialism and based on Socialist principles or such organisation can be nothing to the workers but a delusion and a snare,

Hans Neumann

Further reading:

In 1968 the late John Crump wrote a three-part article in the Socialist Standard on the subject of the Socialist Party and the Second International. Click on the links:

• May 1968
• June 1968
• July 1968

The S.L.P. of America again. (1915)

From the December 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “Weekly People” (New York) returns in its issue of October 16th to the controversy which has been carried on recently in its pages and those of the Socialist Standard. Things are in a bad way, however, with the “Weekly People,” as is evidenced by the fact that it is forced to strain every nerve to keep its readers amused in order to hide the fact that it has nothing more to contribute to the discussion. It is humour of the first water, of course, to depict the “S.S.” as a band indulging “itself in the spoil of furnishing the ‘music'” which it told the Socialist Labour Party of America it would have to face sooner or later. That humour, however, is only the grimaces our antagonist is indulging in in the hope of detracting attention from the sorry figure it is dancing to the music supplied.

It may be remembered that in our September issue we took from the S.L.P. “Address to the Affiliated Parties of the International Socialist Bureau,” the following :

“Besides, we believe that after the war is over the political conditions will be so adjusted as to compel the European comrades to give their undivided attention to the question of industrial unionism.”

and that we adduced this as disproving our opponents’ claim that their Address made “NO attempt to keep the workers from turning their eyes to class-conscious political action.” Of course, they don’t like to have this brought up against them. This unfortunate utterance, which arises out of their rock-bottom contempt for SOCIALIST political action, they think we should have been blind to. That it appeared in an Address issued by the Executive of the S.L.P. to the International Movement is nothing. It should be ignored, regarded as a meaningless vapouring—or if it was referred to at all it should have been accompanied by its context with special annotation making clear that, though the authors of the Address said in this place that they thought that after the war the European comrades would have to abandon political action (“give their undivided attention to the question of industrial unionism”), other parts of their Address indicated that they didn’t think anything of the kind. If we had only done that we should have produced harmony that our opponents would have been delighted to dance to. Also it would have saved them the trouble of playing that dreamy waltz themselves.

For this is all they have been able to achieve. The statement in the Address that its authors thought that after the war political conditions will be so adjusted as to compel the European comrades to give their undivided attention to the question of industrial unionism is plain enough for anything. How this is to come about might, be open to astonishing explanation, it is true, but no explanation that does not demolish the statement can affect its definite pronouncement that its authors think that after the war the European comrades would be compelled to give their UNDIVIDED attention to the question of industrial unionism. The statement does not depend on its context. To insist on the context is simply to whine to be allowed to drop the statement out.

Now it is clear that the same adjustment of “political conditions” that the S.L.P. Executive conceive of as compelling “the European comrades to give their UNDIVIDED attention to the question of industrial unionism” must perforce compel them to cease bestowing any of that attention upon political action. No appeal to the “context” can alter this fact, nor can any sarcastic references to “ingenious logic-choppers who are more concerned with the twisting awry of words and the fitting together of phrases to a syllogistic subtlety than they are in gathering the meaning or extracting the essence of an argument or declaration.” There is a rich roll in all that, but it is so familiar. The illogical cornered usually raise the cry, “logic-choppers.” But if there is any other “meaning or essence” in the declaration than that which we have found, why do not our opponents “extract” it for us ?

They do not because at the very bottom they do not believe in the vital necessity for political action. In spite of the reiteration of the demands for political organisation this note of disbelief in the essential need for political action runs through the Address. The vagueness of this document makes it difficult to illustrate this by extracts (which also have the disadvantage of leaving behind a “context”), but the atmosphere of the Address has been translated in an answer to a correspondent in the “Weekly People” of Sept. 4th, in which it is said :

“If the Socialist forces of Europe had been industrially organised, and when we say “industrially organised” we mean revolutionarily industrially organised, they could with their present numbers, have PREVENTED THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR.”

There it is, plain enough. In spite of the fact that the S.L.P. recognises that the “European comrades” are “so enmeshed in bourgeois politics” that they have lost sight of Socialism—in other words, they are politically rotten—yet there is no single word in the reply to their correspondent to indicate that that political rottenness is even a factor in the failure of the International in the face of the crisis of August 1914. This contempt for the political weapon, prevailing in the Address, belies all our opponents’ mouthings about being “committed to class-conscious political action.”

The fact is the S.L.P. have not grasped the true aim of Socialist political action—the real value of the political weapon. De Leon never grasped them, and those who still preach his absurdities, being mentally bound by the legacy of shallow thought he bestowed upon them, have no glimmering conception of the true function of the political weapon in Socialist hands.

On the 10th July, 1905, Daniel De Leon delivered an address at Union Temple, Minneapolis, Minnesota. This address was published by the Socialist Labour Party of America under the title : “The Preamble of the Industrial Workers of the World.” On pp. 36-7 of that publication De Leon is reported as saying :

“The bourgeois shell in which the Social Revolution must partly shape its course dictates the setting up of a body that shall contest the possession of the political Robber Burg by the Capitalist Class. The reason for such initial tactics also dictates their ultimate goal—THE RAZING WITH THE GROUND THE ROBBER BURG OF CAPITALIST TYRANNY. The shops, the yards, the mills, in short, the mechanical establishments of production, now in the hands of the Capitalist Class—they are all to be “taken,” not for the purpose of being destroyed, but for the purpose of being “held”; . . . It is exactly the reverse with the “political power.” That is to be taken for the purpose of ABOLISHING IT. . . . Suppose that at some election the class-conscious political arm of Labor were to sweep the field ; suppose the sweeping were done in such a land-slide fashion that . . from President down to Congress and the rest of the political redoubts of the capitalist political Robber Burg, our candidates were installed ;—suppose that, what would there be for them to do ? What should there be for them to do ? Simply TO ADJOURN THEMSELVES, ON THE SPOT, SINE DIE.”

That is the conception De Leon had of the end of political conquest. His idea of “razing with the ground the robber burg of capitalist tyranny” was simply to capture the machinery of Government and instantly abandon it. His idea of a political organisation was a body so hide-bound that it could have no consciousness outside politics. It could not know that its economic counterpart purposed “taking and holding” the “plants of production and distribution,” therefore it could not continue to hold the “robber burg of capitalist tyranny,” in order that it might control the armed forces that the capitalists have provided against any attempt to take and hold their property. No, that (says De Leon) would be usurpation.” The elected representatives could only “adjourn themselves sine die.” They could not even stop to take away the policeman’s baton and disband the armed forces to make things easier for the economic arm in its task of taking and holding.

Where such a conception as this exists of the political triumph how can there be any fundamental belief in the essential necessity for political action or any respect for it ? If the political triumph means no more than the capture of the enemy’s guns and the immediate abandonment of them to the enemy again, then we also should say to blazes with political effort. If the political triumph would still leave the armed forces and other instruments of oppression in the capitalist control, then we also might pass as near enough the S.L.P. dictum that the “economic organisation [is] . . . the only conceivable force with which to back up the ballot”—which wouldn’t then be worth backing up. If nothing more was to be gained by political conquest than the S.L.P. imagine, then we should have to find a sole reason for political endeavour in De Leon’s ingenious argument that the institution of the suffrage “is so bred in the bones of the people that . . . chimerical is the idea of expecting to conduct a great Movement, whose palpable aim is a Socialist Revolution, to the slogan of ‘Abstinence from the Ballot-box.’ ”

But we have other views regarding the political weapon—views which prevent us from harbouring even a thought of such shallow and cynical expediency, the mere expression of which reveals a contempt for the true function of Socialist political action which give the lie to our opponents’ claim to political integrity.

But there is more music to come on this phase of the discussion. The report of the First Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World quotes (p. 226) De Leon as saying :

“The situation in America . . . establishes the fact that the “taking and the holding” of the things that labor needs to be free can never depend upon a political party. (Applause.) If anything is clear in the American situation it is this : That if any individual is elected to office upon a revolutionary ballot, that individual is a suspicious character. (Applause.) Whoever is returned elected on a program of labour emancipation ; whoever is allowed to be filtered through by the political inspectors of the capitalist class ;—that man is a carefully selected tool, a traitor to the working people, selected by the capitalist class. (Applause.)”

These well-applauded but dismal sentiments lead to the logical conclusion that political endeavour is futile. Surely, in face of such a hopeless situation the only sensible thing to do is to foreclose on the political organisation and have done with it. Any talk of dismantling the capitalist “political Robber Burg,” if this is the position, is sheer rainbow-chewing. It does, however, throw an illuminating ray over that passage we are accused of having torn from its context, and justifies our reading of it. For if, as the S.L.P. Address tells us, the “country that is more developed industrially [America] only shows to the less developed the image of its own future,” then when, the political situation described by De Leon as existing in America, develops in Europe, the “European comrades” will probably be forced into the non-political lines of action prophesied for them by the S.L.P. That, however, only substantiates what we said that the Address was a deliberate attempt to prevent the workers from turning their eyes to class-conscious political action.

Now for another point. We challenged our opponents upon their implication that the action of those who “have become so enmeshed in bourgeois politics that they have lost sight of the ultimate goal of the Socialist Movement can be Socialist action. “Ha,” laughs the “Weekly People,” “how the challenge rings . . . calling upon us to prove—if we maintain it—that the action of those” and so on. If they maintain it ! What caution ! To confirm our view of the matter we quote the Address as follows :

“We recognise the fact that the Socialists of Europe have been confronted with many problems which had to be solved before the real issue, Socialism versus Capitalism, could be decided. These problems have been largely of a political nature Politically, Europe as a whole is far behind the United States. Here the issue is clip and clear, Socialism versus full-grown Capitalism. Not so in Europe. There large remnants of feudalism remained, blocking the path of Socialist revolutionary progress, and the attention of the European, comrades has therefore been given almost exclusively to these problems, with the result that they have become so enmeshed in bourgeois politics that they have apparently lost sight, for the moment at least, of the ultimate goal of the Socialist movement.”

And now this from the “Weekly People” of  Dec. 12, 1908 :

“The enlightened conduct of the German Social Democracy will be misunderstood only by the pure and simple Socialist politician of America, for the identical reason that the German Social Democracy deserves applause for temporarily suspending its Socialist work and assisting the bourgeois Radicals, such a policy in America deserves condemnation, As an applauder of the German Social Democracy, the S.L.P. of America rejects, for America, the tactics that German conditions demand.”

The S.L.P., then, applauded those tactics of the German Social Democratic Party which led to the latter “becoming so enmeshed in bourgeois politics that they have apparently lost sight, for the moment at least, of the ultimate goal of the Socialist movement.” They praised that “enlightened conduct” which culminated in the vote of credit for the war. In face of that endorsement of action which has had so sad a result one might expect a little caution in replying to the question whether the actions of such people can be Socialist action. If they maintain it, indeed ! Let them deny that they maintain, it and they are up a tree ; let them admit it and they concede the point.

And we are here up against the whole crux of the matter, which is that it is this building of the political organisation on an unsound basis and with unsound material, the following of that corrupt and rotten path of political opportunism so vigorously applauded by the S.L.P., which is responsible for the failure of the International in the present crisis (and that failure is not that it did not prevent the war [which was beyond its power in any event], but that it did not maintain the Socialist position).

As we have said, it was in order to hide this result of the political obscurantism they had applauded, and to turn the workers from the political means to industrial unionism that the S.L.P. Address was issued. It is clear that the S.L.P. could hardly denounce conduct they had themselves applauded—and practised. In 1907 the mine-owners in Goldfield issued scrip, and demanded that their wage-workers should accept it as payment for wages. This led the “Weekly People” (Dec. 21, 1907) to issue a touching, cap-in-hand “Open Letter” to the “Robber Burg of capitalist tyranny” in America (Congress) identifying the interest of the occupants of that “Robber Burg” and the workers in the following words :

“An issue has arisen in which Labor and intelligent Capital, Capitalists (if intelligent) and Socialists alike have a common cause—THE CAUSE OF AVERTING SOCIAL CALAMITY.”

That is how they “reject, for America, the tactics German conditions demand.”

Now then, let us see where this brings us out. The so-called Socialists of Germany, the so-called Socialists of France, the so-called Socialists of Britain, have all acted under the same specious plea as the S.L.P. The threat of the “foreign foe” was in their idea a threat of “social calamity,” and like the S.L.P., they made “common cause” with the capitalists to avert it. Thus the American pseudo-Socialists who say that the “capitalists and the Socialists alike have a common cause—the cause of averting social calamity,” and the pseudo-Socialists of Europe who say (as the German “Socialists” are reported to have told their Belgian comrades at the Maison du Peuple in Brussels) “as the development of the proletariat was bound up with the development and economic prosperity of the nation, German Socialists were bound to side with the Government,” are tarred with the same brush, and may be feathered with the same feathers.

Which is why the S.L.P. still claim that those in Europe who have lost sight of Socialism are “still the Socialist movement of Europe.”

There are one or two other points in our opponents’ latest screed which may be dealt with at a future date ; but meanwhile, would the S.L.P. spokesman like to confirm and explain that champion idiocy propounded in the Address—that industrial unionism is the embryo, the undeveloped fcrm of future society ? Or has he not the courage ?

A. E. Jacomb

Letter: Min or max? (2024)

From the 30th May 2024 issue of the Weekly Worker

Mike Macnair tries to argue that Karl Marx “advocated, wrote and defended the revolutionary minimum programme” (‘Minimal symmetrical errors’ Weekly Worker May 23). Marx certainly had no objection to a socialist workers’ party having a programme of immediate demands, but he wasn’t so illogical as to describe these as “revolutionary”.

A “revolutionary minimum programme” is in fact a contradiction in terms. The “immediate demands” (the term used in the 1880 programme of the French Parti Ouvrier) that constituted the minimum programme of the pre-World War I social democratic parties were all measures to be implemented within capitalism, even if (some of them) would strengthen the hand of the working class in the class struggle. Only the maximum programme can be described as revolutionary.

Mike Macnair argues (not very convincingly, since in practice the emphasis was placed on the social and economic, rather than political, “immediate demands”) that the essence of a minimum programme is a demand for complete - “extreme” - political democracy. He describes this as “revolutionary”, as it makes it easy, even inevitable, for the working class to win political control. But this, of course, presupposes a socialist-minded working class. It is the absence of this, not of “extreme democracy”, that is currently the barrier to socialism - as a society of common ownership and democratic control of the means of living, with production directly to satisfy people’s needs, not for profit.

In any event, it would take as much time and energy to get the working class to organise and vote for “extreme democracy” as it would to get them to organise and vote for socialism.

It is true that some degree of political democracy does make it easier for the working class both to organise for socialism and to wage the trade union struggle, but it doesn’t need to be perfect or “extreme”. In countries like Britain is it really necessary to set aside the revolutionary, maximum programme to demand, for instance, the abolition of the monarchy as a step towards “extreme democracy”?

The limited political democracy that exists today is enough to enable a socialist-minded working class majority to transform universal suffrage - in the words of the maximum programme of the Parti Ouvrier, “from the instrument of deception that it has been until now into an instrument of emancipation” - by using it to win political control and introduce socialism, including full democracy. This should be the “immediate demand” of socialists, not a list of reforms to capitalism, whether attractive or not. It’s what socialists today should be campaigning for, not chasing reforms.

Adam Buick 

Socialist Party of Great Britain

International Socialist Bureau. (1906)

From the November 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

I. S. B.

Brussels, October, 1906.

Dear Comrade,—

The plenary assembly of the International Socialist Bureau will take place on Saturday, November 10th, at the Secretary’s Office of the I.S.B. (Brussels, People’s Palace, 17, Joseph Steven’s-street, 1st story, room 6), at 10 o’clock in the forenoon.)

Agenda:

1. The organisation and agenda of the International Socialist Congress of Stuttgart (August, 1907).

2. Second examination of Van Kol’s proposition concerning the International Congresses and the I.S.B.

3. The rules of the Parliamentary Socialist and Labour Commission.

The Executive Committee:

Anseele, Vandervelde, Huysmans.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain and The Socialist Labour Party. (1906)

From the August 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Statement of Differences.

When The Socialist Party of Great Britain was formed in June, 1904, the bulk of the members were sufficiently acquainted with the work and attitude of the Socialist Labour Party to render unnecessary at that time any further statement of the differences between the two bodies. New members have, however, since joined our Party, unacquainted with the facts, and several enquiries have been received from provincial correspondents for information upon the subject. Moreover, the refined literary criticism of our Party in the S.L.P. organ, The Socialist, has now taken the turn of stating that the difference between the parties consists in their respective attitudes towards trade unionism. It is therefore well at this stage to take up the matter for the benefit of those mentioned above, although to make the position clear it will be necessary to go back to the period preceding the formation of both bodies, the more so because both organisations were formed by, and in their early stages consisted almost entirely of seceding members of the Social Democratic Federation.

For some time previous to the first secession in 1903 an agitation had been developing inside the Social Democratic Federation against the vacillating policy that the Executive Committee of that body had, with some success, been urging upon its members. This agitation had grown independently in London and Scotland, but, as subsequent events showed, in different ways. In Scotland it appears to have been organised, and its supporters worked as a regular faction. In London, however, no systematic course was followed. The supporters of an uncompromising policy (dubbed “Impossiblists” by Mr. H. Quelch) simply pushed forward their views at every opportunity, and supported each other when they came in contact without special plan or organisation.

At the Blackburn Conference of the S.D.F. in 1902, the so-called Impossiblist delegates from Scotland and London met and supported each other, the Scotsmen nominating Friedberg (a London “impossiblist”) for the E.C. Friendly relations were established and the understanding arrived at that the London members would work in conjunction with the Scotch members for the adoption of an uncompromising policy by the S.D.F., Friedberg agreeing to act as correspondent for London.

The report of this Blackburn Conference as published contained some inaccuracies and left out some very important items of business. Friedberg wrote to Justice (the organ of the S.D.F.) pointing this out, and upon his corrections being refused publication, he sent a letter to the Weekly People of New York, detailing certain events of the Conference. For this he was expelled by the E.C. of the S.D.F., and as his branch (Finsbury Park) insisted upon retaining him as a member pending an appeal to the Annual Conference, it was dissolved. Against this the branch, of course, protested, and issued a statement to the S.D.F. branches. In this it was assisted by members in Scotland. While the above incidents were taking place, W. McGregor (one of the delegates to the Blackburn Conference from Scotland) came to London and after some months residence here returned. Shortly afterwards the surprising news reached London that he had been expelled from the Leith Branch. As he had always acted the part of a straight comrade in London, he and those who expelled him were written to for their respective versions, so that the Londoners might have an opportunity of judging the case. No information, was supplied by Leith, but McGregor’s statement was received and was supported by an independent communication from a member named Gillespie. According to this statement McGregor and others were present, as non-delegates, at the Scottish District Council Meeting held on February 8th, 1903. After the Council’s ordinary business had concluded a meeting of the delegates from the branches running The Socialist was held, and before a secretary or chairman was appointed it was moved and seconded that “all those other than delegates leave the table.” As McGregor was one of the Auditors (though not a delegate) and wished to know how the paper was being managed, he resented this, and when the delegates of his branch (Robertson and Drummond) gave in their report, he asked if they did not move and second the above resolution. Robertson denied all knowledge of it, while Drummond replied “there was a suggestion of that kind.” Thereupon McGregor charged them with moving and seconding that resolution. Instead of hearing McGregor’s case a committee of enquiry was appointed, who simply wrote to the other delegates asking if such a resolution had been brought forward at the meeting referred to. The answers were in the negative, for the simple reason given by Geddes, who was appointed secretary and who, when asked why the resolution was not in the minutes pointed out not that no such thing had been proposed : it had been suggested before a secretary had been appointed, and therefore before any minutes were taken, or the meeting technically constituted. McGregor was called upon to withdraw, but as no refutation of his statement of fact was made and advantage was taken of this small technical point to refuse to consider any other portion of the gathering, he refused and was expelled—an inquiring kind of auditor thus being got rid of.

This was the first suspicious circumstance that came from Scotland.

A short time before this Friedberg had gone to Spain and Fitzgerald carried on such correspondence as was necessary with the Scotsmen.

About a week or so before the Shoreditch Conference 1903, letters were received from McGregor and Anderson, stating that a movement was on foot in Scotland to start a new party, and asking if the London “impossiblists” were aware of it. This was something of a thunderclap in the midst of the difficulties already existing—such as the Friedberg and Finsbury Park appeals. The correspondents were informed that nothing was known of this business in London, but as it was so close to the Conference and several Scotsmen would be in London on that occasion, the London section decided that no action should be taken other than to arrange for a joint meeting to discuss the whole business.

An incident confirming the foregoing occurred just previous to the Conference : the Leith Branch decided to send an ultimatum to the E.C., threatening withdrawal unless the compromising policy of the S.D.F. was dropped at the Conference. An attempt was made to persuade the Edinburgh and Glasgow Branches to adopt the same position for the reason (among others) that it was necessary for some branches to take the lead and then the rest of the “impossiblist” section would be obliged to follow them and form a new party.

At the Conference the expulsion of G. Yates, moved by the E.C., for his article entitled “The Official S.D.F.” in The Socialist, was carried, the expulsion of Friedberg was confirmed, and the dissolution of the Finsbury Park Branch was upheld.

As Anderson and McGregor were in London at the Conference it was suggested by the London section that they should be invited to the joint meeting so that the differences might be cleared up. The Scotsmen, however, declined to go to the meeting unless these two men were excluded. While this was thought another peculiar attitude, it was finally agreed to.

This meeting produced another surprise. During the course of his speech upon the situation Yates stated that in Scotland they had been building up a new party during “the last two years.” That is to say, during the whole time they were supposed to be working with the London section for the re-organisation of the S.D.F., they were playing a double game by forming a new organisation in secret.

This statement, coupled with the previous facts, showed the Londoners that if they joined the party thus forming, they would be simply leaving one organisation where the leaders deceived and misled the rank and file to support and strengthen another whose prominent members were prepared to play the same game. Accepting the facts of the class war and the necessary deduction made by Marx from those facts, “that the emancipation of the working class must be the conscious work of the working class itself,” the London section were no more ready to blindly follow would-be geniuses from Scotland than “highly educated” leaders from Queen Anne’s Gate, and therefore, despite the set-back that these incidents naturally gave to the business in hand, and the fact that a few Londoners joined the new party, the rest of the section decided to go forward on the lines originally laid down. When, at the Burnley (1904) Conference, fear of further exposure of their underhand trickery impelled the E.C. of the S.D.F. to further expulsions, the London members, after two meetings at which the situation was discussed, so clearly indicated their attitude that the bulk of the active S.D.F. membership in London revolted and, withdrawing in an open, above-board manner, formed The Socialist Party of Great Britain.

This difference of principle forms the real and substantial difference between the two parties—a difference the S.L.P. has always endeavoured to obscure by trying to find some detail point upon which to hang a sample of that cultured criticism for which they have something of a reputation. Chagrined at their failure to mislead the Londoners, they have thought to hide their disappointment in “a lofty superiority expressing itself in such observations as the following :

“Those timid souls (whom the S.L.P. will always find it hard to trust) i.e., those who against their expressed convictions have remained within this now discredited organisation [S.D.F.] have plucked up courage to give a gentle whine of protest, of course, on strictly constitutional lines.” (The Socialist, Dec., 1903,) while at the time of the Burnley Conference a leading article said:

“Some were sentenced to apologise and eat humble pie, and others were expelled. A meeting was held in London, after the return from the Conference, at which the expellees were largely supported and the result is that the London S.D.F. is rent asunder, and a considerable section will probably leave the Party and set up some sort of castle of cards of their own.” (The Socialist, May, 1904.)

No doubt, as in the argument put forward by the Leith branch 12 months previously, they hoped that this section would see their “castle” collapse in a short time and that then they would gravitate towards the S.L.P. But they were soon undeceived, and their next issue stated

“Our London comrades are face to face with a new foe, or rather an old foe in another guise. As a result of the Burnley Conference of the S.D.F. about 100 members have left that organisation and are forming a party of their own. Eighteen months ago most of these men professed to believe in our principles and tactics, but when 12 months ago adherence to principle meant leaving the S.D.F. and tackling the forlorn hope of founding a new party they basely deserted us. The preliminary spade work necessary to the building up of such a party as ours, accompanied by the risk of failure, was too much for the knees of those men, and the joints giving way through fear, they flopped prostrate before the ‘Holy Trinity,’ Hyndman, Burrows & Quelch, and craved mercy and forgiveness. And since the April Conference, 1903, their lives have been made miserable. Treated with contempt by the members of the Socialist Labour Party, sneered at, cuffed and ridiculed by their own organisation, they have been forced to save the small portion of self-respect still left by seceding from the S.D.F.

“Emboldened by the success of the S.L.P., they have decided to form a new party, and rumour hath it that they have adopted a similar constitution to our party. Such is the tribute mediocrity renders to genius. Our London comrades may be assured of every help we can give them in fighting this “Party of the Wobblers,” and though the fight may tax the energies of our members, the S.L.P. is too well disciplined and firmly founded to be swept off its feet by such a flood as has been loosed by the Burnley Conference of the S.D.F.” (The Socialist, June, 1904.)

The “success” which so “emboldened” us consisted, as far as London was concerned, in about 3 new members after more than twelve months existence ! while in addition to the modest (and grammatical) reference to their party as a “genius,” the material is supplied for a new definition of “basely desert.” Evidently, according to this quotation, to refuse to blindly follow the lead of one set of tricksters, while you are engaged in a fight with another set, is to basely desert the first one !

The constitution of the S.L.P., then, and for some time after, had a “palliative” or “reform” programme as part, while The Socialist Party’s constitution ignored such confusionist items.

When reporting the formation of the Wimbledon branch of the S.L.P. (since dissolved and its secretary, J. Grose, expelled) it was stated that this formation

“affords proof of the fact that in spite of the political mushroom growths that have made their appearance during the last month or two, in spite of the unscrupulous intrigues of those disgruntled individuals who are moving heaven and earth in London circles to gather together a party to enhance their political ‘exchange-value,’ the Socialist Labour Party is not only holding its own but is also annexing territory in the extreme South-West of London.” (The Socialist, July, 1904.)

In the next issue ” W.S.J.” writes that this formation is a

“fitting reply to the group of intriguers whose sole aim and object appears to be the splitting of the Revolutionary Socialist movement in Great Britain. But we can afford to ignore them, knowing full well that their treachery will meet with due reward in the future, and knowing, too, that a party built on sound scientific principles, as the S.L.P. undoubtedly is, need never fear the puny attacks of parties composed of tin gods and their worshippers.” (The Socialist, August, 1904.) 

A method of ignoring an opponent that can only be compared to that of the Irishman who made a long journey in order to tell an enemy “to his face” that he was going to treat him with silent contempt !

At the De Leon Meeting in London, August 31st, the chairman, E. E. Hunter, said

“One result of the formation of the London branch (S.L.P.) was that we already had imitators here—a sincere form of flattery greatly appreciated by the S.L.P.” (The Socialist, Oct., 1904.)

Evidently then, The Socialist Party, while being “base deserters,” a “Party of Wobblers,” “unscrupulous intriguers,” who were “moving heaven and earth … to enhance their political ‘exchange-value'” and whose “sole aim and object appears to be the splitting of the Revolutionary Socialist movement” are only imitators of the S.L.P. in these matters !

The International Congress was held at Amsterdam in 1904. While these congresses have never been purely Socialist congresses (as they allow organisations, that can by no stretch of language be called Socialist, to be represented thereat), yet this remains the only regular international gathering whereat the majority of Socialist parties are represented. This of course is well known to the various national parties, and a steadily growing section are endeavouring to ensure that future congresses shall be Socialist and nothing else. The point (as to the constitution of the Congress) is usually thrashed out at the Congress on the question of the right of entry and sometimes on the question of voting. At Amsterdam the Allemandist Party of France wished to have voting power independent of the two other French parties. This would have made an opportunity for fighting out the whole question of representation from the floor of Congress itself, but it was moved by those who wished to shelve the matter that it be referred to the Bureau. This motion the Scotch S.L.P. delegation supported, thus helping to prevent the question being dealt with in open Congress. It was decided by the Congress that credentials should be verified by each Nation. The S.L.P. delegation refused to submit their credentials to the English section because it was “composed of people whom they condemn at home.” The argument is doubly puerile. In the first place, for the purpose of obtaining provisional tickets they had already submitted their credentials to the International Bureau composed of Hardie, Hyndman, etc., whom they “condemn at home” ; In the second place they were already aware that the Congress had decided upon this course when they tried to obtain entry by other methods, while if they had been seated at all, they would have actually joined with those they condemn in an international meeting. (As a matter of fact for the first three days during which they sat in Congress they did so join with those they condemn.) They knew before they left Britain (if they knew anything of the international congresses at all) that these people would be present and would be accepted by the Bureau, and therefore they would be sitting with them (Hyndman & Co.) under any condition of entry that could have been expected to be in operation.

In spite of all this they have, tried to claim that their action was the only consistent one to follow, while our delegates sacrificed their principle by taking their seats under the conditions laid down. If this is so then of course every other delegate who sat in the Congress was equally guilty. But when this is pointed out to our objectors ; when it is shown that De Leon of the American S.L.P. (whom the Scotch S.L.P. parody on all occasions) sat with those he had continually denounced at home (the Socialist Party of America); when it is also pointed out that he acquiesced in the seating of the S.P. delegates in so far as he made no protest, and, stranger still, afterwards obtained a seat on the Bureau along with Hardie, Hyndman, and Hillquit—then the brilliant defence is put forward by the editor of The Socialist that De Leon submitted his credentials to himself. Sweetly simple ! Then why did the Scotch delegates abstain from submitting their credentials to themselves ? Because they were not a National delegation ? But neither was De Leon. Then under the rule of entry his credentials must have been submitted to and accepted by the American Delegation, unless there is a means of evading the rule, in which case he might have given his friends the “tip.” W. S. Jerman, in The Socialist for Jan., 1905, attempted to support the above thin editorial piffle by saying “they (the S.P.) no doubt thought they might pass it off with the aid of the stock-in-trade they brought out of the S.D.F., viz., “lies.” The “it” referred to being the point given above re De Leon’s credentials. As Mr. Jerman was in possession of the facts given here before he wrote this statement he is particularly well situated to talk about lies.

In the same issue, in the “London Notes” appears a statement that the S.P.G.B. was “formed for the purpose of popularising Esperanto” but “of late has been giving its attention to politics” —a fair specimen of the veracity of their statements. The writer there deals with a challenge sent to our E.C. by the London Branch, S.L.P. and the answers given thereto, which are termed “evasions.” Although these replies were lying before him, the writer, curiously enough, forgot to quote them, either in full or in part, but winds up by saying “they speak their volapuk with a decided S.D.F. accent.” The impression that it is endeavoured to convey is that we refused to debate. The truth, as the letters would have shown, was that, while pointing out that set debates were only undertaken with recognised political parties, all our platforms were open to opposition, while the statement in our Declaration of Principles stating that “we waged war against all other political parties” was a standing challenge to any who cared to take it up.

Writing in the March (1905) Socialist, Mr. Jerman, after about a column of similar inanities to those already quoted, says “As I pointed out in my letter to The Socialist, I tumbled to the motives of our one-time impossiblist comrades in the S.D.F., they were out for something shady, and if anyone has been sucked in, that is their fault, for it was pointed out time and again what one man in particular was moving heaven and earth to obtain.” Unfortunately we are again left without any information as to what we were “out for” or as to who the “one man in particular” who “was moving heaven and earth”—evidently a new Atlas with a double burden—was, or what he was out to “obtain.”

The criticisms given above, extending over a period from a few months before the formation of our Party to nearly twelve months after, have a certain feature that may be specially noted—they are, without exception, remarks dealing with the political question and the political position of the two parties. Illuminating indeed, then, is the statement of the editor of The Socialist in reply to a correspondent signing himself “G.G.” that “When the S.L.P. ” came into being, if there was one thing it was absolutely clear upon it was its hostility to the pure and simple Trade Unions and laying it down that this is the point of difference between the two parties (March, 1906), while in a further reply to the same writer he says “When the S.P.G.B. has emancipated itself from S.D.F. traditions and obsessions by adopting a clean and consistent Trade Union policy, it will be time enough then to talk of joining hands”, (April, 1906), for if this is correct, the whole of the criticism, extending over the period given, is inaccurate and misleading as it entirely fails to mention the Trade-Union question. We may be “base deserters,” “unscrupulous intriguers,” who are endeavouring to “enhance our political exchange-value” and who deal in lies, but if we only adopt “a clean and consistent Trade Union policy” we shall be whiter than snow and all will be well, But let us look at this matter a little closer. We are told that they were “absolutely clear” upon this question, yet, neither in the first Manifesto issued shortly after the Shoreditch Conference, nor in the second Manifesto, “The Party of the Workers,” issued some months after, is the Trade Union question dealt with at all ! Practically, with the exception of a rule stating that one of the duties of the E.C. is “the formation of Socialist unions,” the first official pronouncement was in the Manifesto issued to the International Movement, in Feb., 1904, where they state their policy as “one of criticism and exposure in order to prepare the minds of the workers for the Socialist unions.” Apparently although “absolutely clear” they require nearly a year to discover it ! And as (in his second reply) the editor states that “the T.U. policy of the S.L.P, is the foundation upon which the Party is built” an organisation can exist for some time without any foundation !

But in what does their “clean and consistent Trade-Union policy” consist ? First (aping the American S.L.P.), the adoption of a rule forbidding members to hold office in a present Trade Union, otherwise silence ; then that their policy is to be one of “criticism and exposure” with the object of establishing Socialist unions as “that portion of the working-class army which conducts on the economic field skirmishing operations with the view to seizing small points of vantage, while all the time working in close conjunction with the heavier and solider regiments which carry out the more serious pitched battles on the field of politics ” (Feb. 1904. italics ours.) Later it is stated that the Party will have to consider whether “the time is ripe for the formation of a Socialist union based on the lines of the Socialist Trades and Labor Alliance and American Labor Union of America.” Then still another change comes o’er the scene and, when the new union called “The Industrial Workers of the World” is started, the E.C. of the S.L.P. without consulting their members send a message of approval and pledge themselves to work to establish a British wing of the I.W.W. (Oct., 1905). When the question of starting I.W.W. clubs was discussed at the S.L.P. conference, the delegates from the two strongest branches (Edinburgh and Glasgow) had received instructions to oppose, but were told by J. C. Matheson that the clubs, would be formed and so long as the members joining these clubs kept within the rules of the Party, the Party had no right to interfere with their activity on the economic field.

Evidently then the S.L.P. conception of a “clean and consistent trade union policy” is to repeat, parrot fashion, the decisions arrived at by the American S.L.P., including the contradiction of that Party’s past position on the S.T. & L.A., wherein it was laid down that the Trade Union was the skirmishing force or arm that must be dominated by the political arm, with the present one on I.W.W., wherein it is stated that the economic arm must dominate the political, which it now seems is the skirmishing force.

When the S.P.G.B. was formed a series of Party Meetings were held and the question of our attitude towards the Trade Unions discussed, with the result that a decision was arrived at to carry on the fight for Socialism inside and outside the present unions, with the object of educating the members thereof into realising the necessity for accepting and adopting the Socialist position, —that decision has been adhered to ever since.

In the preface to his magnificent work, “Capital” Karl Marx says, “I paint the capitalist and the landlord in no sense coleur de rose. But here individuals are dealt with only in so far as they are the personifications of economic categories, embodiments of particular class relations and class interests.” When, therefore, in dealing with political and economic opponents, such beauties of literature as the extracts immediately following (all from the organ of the S.L.P.) are met with, one can only wonder what ”economic category” or “particular class relation” these distorted facial and physiological descriptions are “embodiments of.” Old, however, is the remark “When you have no case abuse the opponent,” and the specimens of profound and scholarly criticism quoted certainly convey a volume of information as to the amount of argument in the possession of those using them.

“A prognathous, drink-soddened ranter.”(Sep. 1903.) “Political Debauchees.” (Jan., 1904.) “Flannel-mouthed S.D.F. organiser” (ibid) “the drivelling senilities of this dotard” (May, 1904.)

“… an official of the I.L.P. . . . had wild, staring, maniacal eyes, black dishevelled hair, a sloping forehead, prognathous jaws, and the general appearance of a congenital idiot. These beauties, however, were hidden to some extent by his mouth, which was wide open . . . while from the pit of his stomach he emitted a blood-curdling howl, the blind, instinctive, meaningless expression of a stricken beast.” (Sep., 04.)

“The Lancashire fakir . . . with black hair, oily skin, shifty eyes, one-and-half inch forehead.” (ibid.) “political swankers.” (Mar., 1905.)

“A wild, scatty individual.” (June, 1905.)

“Pouring forth a torrent of gush and slobber.” (May, 1906.)

“A flannel-mouthed, lank-haired, political individual with a pink complexion and a faraway look in his eyes.” (ibid.)

“Who conducted himself . . like an epileptic chimpanzee, whose spluttering, inarticulate malevolence . . equalled the performances of the most besotted and befuddled Hyndmaniac.” (July, 06.)

” G.G.” in the second article referred to above says that when he asks the members of the S.P. why they started another party they cannot exactly define the cause, “for like all facts it is not the result of any one cause, but of many.” (April, 1906.) While “G.G,” quite forgot to state the “many causes” that would even approximately define the facts, his statement is correct in so far as the main cause itself has certain minor ones contributing their quota to increase the sum total. First and foremost is the difference of principle given above ; while the vacillating policy of the S.L.P. on trade unionism and the gutter garbage ladled out as political criticism, complete the many causes that made it necessary for those who desired to spread the principles of Socialism among the working class and give correct instruction upon the economic categories and class relations of their position, to form a new party to carry on the propaganda of those principles, clean, straight and above board, and so organise the working class along the lines laid down in those principles, for their own emancipation.

Bebel and the S.P.G.B. (1906)

From the April 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondence arising out of a telegram on the results of the Parliamentary elections, sent by the leader of the German Social Democratic Party to “Reynolds’s Newspaper.”

______________

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, 

la, Caledonian Road, London, N.

17th February, 1906.

A. Bebel,

Per Addresse “Vorwaerts,” 

68/9 Lindenstrasse, Berlin.

Dear Comrade,

I am instructed by the Executive Committee to forward to you the enclosed cutting from Reynolds’s Newspaper of Sunday, January 28th, 1906, containing text and translation of a telegram alleged to have been sent by you to the paper in question.

The Executive Committee will be glad if you will kindly state whether such a telegram was sent by you, and in the event of a telegram having been sent, whether it is correctly reproduced in the attached cutting.

Awaiting your reply,

Yours fraternally,

(Signed) C. Lehane,

General Secretary.

______________

HERR BEBEL .
TO “REYNOLDS’S.”
IMPORTANT TELEGRAM. —YESTERDAY.

Herr Bebel, the famous leader of the Social Democratic party in the German Parliament, sent a telegram yesterday to Reynolds’s Newspaper, in reply to a request for his opinion on the results of the General Election. His reply was as follows :—

I welcome the result of the elections as a genuine sign of the desire of the British people for a friendly understanding in foreign affairs, and as a progressive development in domestic affairs. In any case the decision of the voting implies a cold douche for Jingoes with us and with you. On the other hand, with regard to the signs of progress in domestic affairs, I dare not, after old experiences, express an opinion until I know more.

______________

German Imperial Parliament,

Berlin, February 20th, 1906.

Dear Comrade,

The telegram corresponds with the wording of that sent by me. By way of explanation I wish to state that concerning “progress internally” I have above all in mind possible progress in the amelioration of the working class position. Here I also regard the Liberal Party with distrust.

With fraternal greetings.

(Signed) A. Bebel.

______________

The Socialist Party of Great Britain,

London, 9th March, 1906.

A. Bebel,

German Imperial Parliament, Berlin.

Dear Comrade,

I am directed by the Executive Committee to acknowledge receipt of your letter of 20th ult. regarding your telegram to Reynolds’s Newspaper.

The Executive Committee of The Socialist Party of Great Britain wishes to enter its emphatic protest against your action in this matter. The opinion you expressed in the telegram is not in accord with the Socialist position in this country, as set forth in the manifesto (entitled “Why Vote?”) issued by this Party in January last, copy enclosed. Reynolds’s Newspaper is a capitalist organ which has used your telegram against the Socialists and in support of the Liberals.

The Executive Committee regrets that occasion should have arisen to evoke this protest, but the sentiments to which you have given utterance in welcoming Liberalism to political power as an indication of progress in foreign or domestic affairs are such as to leave no other course open. Nationally and internationally there is but one Party to which we can look for progress, and that is the Socialist Party, but Socialism will triumph only by the overthrow of Liberalism in Britain and elsewhere.

Copies of this letter are being forwarded to the German Social-Democratic Party, International Socialist Bureau, and “Vorwaerts.”

Yours fraternally,

(Signed) C. Lehane, 

General Secretary.

______________

Translated from “Vorwaerts” of March l5th, 1906:

Relating to this matter Comrade Bebel writes us:—

Immediately on the conclusion of the English Parliamentary elections, I received a telegram from the Editorial Department of Reynolds’s Newspaper requesting me to communicate to them my views concerning the result. For this purpose a prepaid telegram form that afforded me the scope of 120 words for my reply was placed at my disposal. As the character of Reynolds’s Newspaper was known to me as that of a bourgeois paper, I at first entertained misgivings as to the advisability of sending a reply. Eventually I dispelled these doubts and sent off the telegram reprinted above.

But I am not a little astonished at the importance the Executive Committee of The Socialist Party of Great Britain attaches to my telegram. When describing the result of the English elections as designating a state of mind of the British people in favour of a peaceable development of affairs externally and conducive to progress internally, I could not, had I been, dreaming, have understood by that only the result in favour of the Liberals, and could not possibly have overlooked the result of the elections in favour of the Socialist Party. The total effect of the elections has the result pointed out by me—the protest raised does not in any way alter my views, which may be characterised in three directions:—

1. Definite disavowal of the protective tariff proposals of Mr. Chamberlain and his colleagues.

2. Renunciation of Jingoism and Chauvinism which have developed more and more under the Conservative regime.

3. Furtherance of progress in the social legislation of England, mainly due to the entrance of representatives of the Socialist Party into Parliament.

In the concluding sentence of my telegram, I certainly expressed distrust as to whether hopes of this kind would be realised in face of the Liberal majority in Parliament.

How the Executive Committee of The Socialist Party of Great Britain could gather from my telegram that I failed to recognise that real progress, internationally and at home, could only be achieved by Socialism, is also a riddle to me. Let no one ascribe to me what, in consideration of my past career, nobody dare impute.

I am not aware in what way Reynolds’s Newspaper has used my telegram against my comrades in England. The loyal interpretation of my telegram that I had reason to expect from the Editorial Department of that journal would have made it impossible. If I have been mistaken in this respect, I am sorry.

(Signed) A. Bebel.

Schoeneberg-Berlin, March 13th, 1906.

______________

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, 

la, Caledonian Road, London, N.

22nd. March, 1906.

To the Editors, ” Vorwaerts” Berlin.

Dear Comrades,

The questions raised in the telegram sent by Comrade Bebel to Reynolds’s Newspaper and further elaborated by our Comrade in his reply published by Vorwaerts to the protest which the Executive Committee of The Socialist Party of Great Britain felt constrained to enter, are of such serious importance to us here in England and we believe also to the whole international Socialist movement that the Executive Committee desires through the columns of Vorwaerts to deal with the position taken up by Comrade Bebel in this matter.

Let us say at the outset that far from desiring to inconsiderately impute to Comrade Bebel sentiments out of harmony with his record as a fighter in the ranks of Socialism, it was with feelings of pain that we found it necessary to send our protest, recollecting as we did that it was Comrade Bebel who at the International Socialist Congress (Amsterdam, 1904) strongly supported the ”Dresden Resolution” which decisively affirmed our tried and victorious policy based on the class struggle, condemned every attempt to mask the ever-growing class antagonisms, rejected all responsibility of any sort under political and economic conditions based on capitalist production, and discountenanced any measure tending to maintain the dominant class in power; but, having regard to the position laid down in the Dresden Resolution, we deemed it our imperative duty to call attention to an action, to which Comrade Bebel does not appear to attach much importance but to which Reynolds’s Newspaper gave the greatest possible prominence, in the hope that we would in future be saved from the humiliation of seeing the lesson which we have been hard endeavouring to inculcate into the minds of the British working class repudiated by a prominent continental Comrade in the columns of one of the most dangerous organs of Capitalism in this country.

Here we wish to observe that although we called Comrade Bebel’s attention to the manifesto (“Why Vote ?”) issued by The Socialist Party of Great Britain in January last, he has not even hinted at the truth or falsity of the arguments therein set forth. A correct comprehension of the nature of our protest is perhaps impossible unless the position taken up in iliai manifesto is known and appreciated.

Regarding the telegram which is the subject of this correspondence, there is absolutely nothing in it to suggest that the sender was a Socialist, and had it not been announced by Reynolds’s Newspaper that the message had been sent by Comrade Bebel no one would have suspected that this was a pronouncement made by a recognized spokesman of Socialism. On the contrary, the telegram might well be supposed without taxing the imaginative faculty, to have been sent by an ordinary bourgeois radical. Indeed, far from crediting this message to have emanated from Comrade Bebel, and well knowing how erroneous it might be on our part to rely on the mere assertion of a journal like Reynolds’s Newspaper that the published wording was the actual text of the telegram sent, we decided in the first instance to send direct to our Comrade the complete cutting from Reynolds’s Newspaper in order that we might ascertain the authenticity and accuracy of the published message.

We received from Comrade Bebel a letter confirming the telegram and at the same time volunteering the information that as to “progress internally” he had particularly in mind possible progress in the betterment of the position of the working class. The fact that our Comrade thought it necessary to explain a certain part of his telegram would seem to indicate that he himself realised that his message was not explicit in at least this particular, and the further fact that in his statement already published in Vorwaerts he introduced matters not referred to in the telegram serves to shew that he recognises the incompleteness of the position he at first laid down.

In his reply to our letter published in Vorwaerts Comrade Bebel states that his telegram described the result of the English elections as designating a state of mind of the British people ; to this we have raised no objection but we would point out that what we have called attention to was that the telegram also indicated on the part of Comrade Bebel a state of mind which was in our opinion unsatisfactory m so far as it “welcomed” as a sign of progress that result. The concluding sentence of the telegram did certainly express doubt as to whether the expectations of progress would be fulfilled, but similar doubts and in stronger language haver been more than once expressed by Reynolds’s Newspaper itself. That, however, dues not prove the Editor of Reynolds’s Newspaper to be a Socialist. Surely, we are justified in expecting from our comrade an expression of opinion which would convey something more than a doubt as to the power or inclination of the Liberal Party of Capitalism to ameliorate the condition of the working class ? The members of The Socialist Party of Great Britain at any rate entertain no doubts on the matter. British Liberalism is an enemy, and we expect nothing from an enemy but hostility.

Comrade Bebel avers that in sending his telegram he had in mind not merely the result in favour of the Liberals, but also the result in favour of the Socialist Party. Here the result of the elections is regarded as an overwhelming triumph for Liberalism or Radicalism, and as the telegram did not contain any reference to Socialism, it was open to the render to understand that our Comrade sympathised with the Radical victory. We have again perused the telegram and find our impressions in no way altered. In this connection it is well to point out that it is a common practice among capitalist journals in Britain to describe German Socialism as a bourgeois Radical movement, and when we here preach the class struggle they tell us that we are not in accord with the German movement. In the issue of Reynolds’s Newspaper containing Comrade Bebel’s telegram, an editorial article in the column preceding that which was boldly headed by the telegram, points out that “a Socialist in theory is a Radical in practice,” and the publication of the telegram as an ”important” message was calculated to support this position. In that issue, also, is reproduced part of our “Why Vote ?” manifesto, and the obvious contradiction between our advice to the working class to abstain from voting altogether in the last General Election (on the grounds that every candidate appealing for their votes was a conscious or un-conscious supporter of capitalism and that, therefore, whatever the result, it could not be beneficial to them) and the position taken up by Comrade Bebel whose telegram greeted the result as an auspicious sign of progress, was just the. kind of thing which has in the past been used to our detriment by the British Radical press.

Our Comrade says he cannot imagine how we could have thought he did not recognise that genuine progress could be achieved except by Socialism, but there is no mention of Socialism in the telegram and the victory of the Liberal Party is the only result referred to.

Regarding Comrade Bebel’s views with reference to the result of the British elections, we wish to make the following comments :

(1) We agree that it might be described as an expression of determination to uphold the Free Trade system. In view, however, of tho fact that as admitted by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman the head of the Liberal and Free Trade Government, there are in Britain to-day thirteen millions of the working class on the verge of starvation although the Free Trade regime has been established for sixty years, it can scarcely be claimed that the workers have much to congratulate themselves upon. As Comrade Bebel knows, it is difficult to say which are the worst off, the workers of Protectionist America or Free Trade Britain. In Germany where Feudalism is still far from being extinct there doubtless exist reasons for interesting the workers in questions of tariff, but here in Britain where industrial Capitalism enjoys full sway, such reasons are inapplicable. Hence we tell the working class that questions of tariff do not affect them.

(2) If the elections shewed a desire on the part of the British people to renounce jingoism, it is a curious fact that in foreign affairs it is the avowed intention of the Liberal Cabinet to continue the policy of the late Tory Government. On the very day that Reuter’s Berlin telegram containing Comrade Bebel’s view as to the abandonment of Jingoism in England was published, there also appeared in the English press the announcement of the refusal of the British Secretary for War to reduce the standing army which is still on the same footing as it was during the South African War. In this refusal the Government were supported by such “Socialist” Members of Parliament as P. Snowden, D. J. Shackleton and W. Crooks. Indeed, there has been no slackening of Jingoism either during or after tne elections. Comrade Bebel has apparently mistaken Liberal professions for Liberal performances. They profess to be the party of peace, but historical records shew that more wars have been carried on in the name of the British nation while the Liberal Party have been in power than while the Tories have held ollice.

(3) We absolutely deny the accuracy of our Comrade’s assertion that progress is to be expected in the social legislation of England due to the entrance into Parliament of representatives of the Socialist Party. Not a single Socialist canidate was elected. It is not at all clear what Comrade Bebel has in mind when he speaks of the “Socialist Party,” but if he refers to the Labour Representation Committee, which is the organisation that returned the so-called Independent Labour members, we wish to inform our Comrade that this organisation declines to recognise any Socialist candidate : it has no principles, no program, and merely a constitution which states that their members shall be independent of the other political parties. The Independent Labour Party, which ran its candidates under the auspices of the Labour Reprsentation Committee, repudiates the class struggle—see their press. J. Keir Hardie, Chairman of the Labour Party in Parliament, denies the class struggle, and J. Ramsay MacDonald, Secretary of the Labour Representation Committee and Parliamentary Whip of the Labour Party, has recently written a book entitled “Socialism and Society,” published by the Independent Labour Party, repudiating the class struggle and ranking Karl Marx as the last of the Utopian Socialists. Those candidates claiming to be Socialists and recognised as such by the International Socialist Congress or International Socialist Bureau, and who were elected, did not stand as Socialists—they are part and parcel of the non-Socialist Labour Party. The Social Democratic Federation, which is claimed by Reynolds’s Newspaper to be “the only genuine Socialistic organisation in the Kingdom,” did not secure the return of a single Socialist candidate.

The Executive Committee of The Socialist Party of Great Britain notes that Comrade Bebel recognises that genuine progress in both domestic and international affairs can be achieved only by the Socialist Party, but regrets that he did not remove any possibility of misconception by utilising for the specific indication of this belief the remaining scope of the one hundred and twenty words prepaid by Reynolds’s Newspaper. Had he have done this, the London organ of bourgeois democracy would be unlikely to have given his message the prominence it did.

The Executive Committee of

The Socialist Party of Great Britain,

(Signed) C. Lehane.

General Secretary.

Blogger's Note:

From the same issue of the Socialist Standard see:

• Bebel's Incursion Into English Politics
• Rampageous "Reynolds's."