The Truth About the Co-operative Movement. (1932)

From the September 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Baillie J. P. Dollan, writing in the New Leader (27th May, 1932), sympathetically reviewed the decisions of the recent Co-operative Congress, and supplied some interesting facts and figures relating to the Co-operative movement.

Co-operation has always been presented to the workers with a double appeal. The appeal to their immediate interests, in the shape of cheaper commodities, plus dividends, and the promise of Socialism as a result of every industry being brought under Co-operative control.

If all this were true, then the very moderate success of the Co-op. after a century of effort seems to prove that the workers want neither cheap commodities and dividends, nor Socialism. For what could be more alluring than the prospect held out to them? Buy in the cheapest market, keep all profits for themselves and, at the same time, pave the way to a system where they would be free from capitalist exploitation. As a slogan it is ideal, but as a working hypothesis it will not stand a moment's logical examination.

Co-operation cannot beat capitalism at its own game, and even if all the workers spent all their wages at Co-op. stores, the latter could only employ a. very small proportion of them.

At present the total share capital of the retail business is £119,000,000, while the sales amount to £210,000,000. Baillie Dollan expresses the view that these figures show a serious weakness. He says that the turnover should be at least five or six times as great as the capital. He says further: —

  There has thus been an increase in share and loan capital and in savings bank deposits during a period of trade depression, while sales have decreased. This.is not healthy finance, because the increase in capital and the decrease in sales compels the adoption of a policy which will insure a financial return on the investment, rather than the adoption of a policy which will lead to increased sales, because of reduced prices and improved values.

Savings bank deposits, although only a small proportion of the total capital—just over £5,000,000 compared with £119,000,000—obtain their interest from the business. Both these sums are on the increase. The share capital increased by £6,500,000 and the savings increased by £114,976 during 1931. It will thus be seen that the Co-op. is already well on the usual capitalist road of over- capitalisation.

But this is not the full story of the hollowness of the Co-op. when considered as a merely capitalist business. With a Membership of 6,626,492, plus family dependents, it does a retail trade of £210,000,000, an average of £10 per member per annum. It is apparent, therefore, that the majority of the members must find it cheaper to do most of their shopping elsewhere.

Apart from its propaganda, the Co-op. does an enormous amount of advertising in the ordinary capitalist way. It issues constant appeals to trade unionists, and it returns to members, in the shape of dividends, a small percentage on every pound spent with them. Yet up to the present their success can be summed up in the statement that they have six-and-a-half million members who spend on the average sevenpence daily with them for things they require.

This would be most regrettable if there really were any principles in co-operation essentially different from those of capitalism. But as the main ideas forming the basis of co-operation have been faithfully copied from capitalist business, their lack of success does little harm to the workers.

It is, of course, only the leaders and busybodies in the movement who seriously suggest that cooperation can expand until it displaces capitalism. The rank and file do not share such long-distance views to any extent. Moreover, the leaders in the movement have never made it clear how a business run on capitalist lines can evolve into something that is the opposite of capitalism. To be fair to Mr. Dollan, his most ambitious expectations are that co-operation ought to be able to afford an economic service in the transition period between capitalism and Socialism for the lower paid grades of the working class. He even goes so far as to say that it is unable to do this because of the dividend and interest system. In other words, because of its capitalist nature.

This dependence on the owners of capital is common to many forms of Labour activity, industrial or political. Every Labour newspaper. and magazine is subject to the dictation of the shareholders who own it. The provision of capital for any form of enterprise is always conditional that control as to policy goes with it. The control may be delegated, but it is there all the same.

The workers in Co-operative stores and factories have no delusions about their employment. They are at the mercy of officials and foremen, just as other workers, and find it just as necessary to organise against reductions in wages. Their hours and wages are no better than the average for their particular calling. The fact that they are employed by the Co-op. means no more to them than if employed by a city corporation.

Co-operation bears no relation to Socialism. It no more leads to Socialism than does co-partnership or nationalisation. It may be said that the workers learn by their co-operative experiences that they cannot escape from capitalist slavery by any of these roads. But it is far easier and less painful to learn facts of this kind by knowledge and reasoning than by experience.

If we note the essential facts about any question, then weigh and compare them in the mind, we form a judgment, or reach a conclusion more or less correct according to the truth of our facts and the soundness of our reasoning.

In any case, before we can understand co-operation it is necessary to understand capitalism, of which co-operation is a part. The first essential fact about capitalism that compels our notice is the necessity imposed on every member of the Working-class of finding a job. Which, translated into exact terms means, finding a purchaser for his labour- power. This obligation stands out above everything else. It is the most outstanding feature of capitalist society, dwarfing everything else into insignificance. Because it is the greatest factor in the worker’s life, it is the starting point from which to reason towards a complete explanation of working class poverty.

How he gets his living is the most important fact of every man’s life. That he is forced to sell his energy because a class of idlers own the means of production makes him a slave to that class. In every discussion affecting his position, this should take precedence of any mere modifications of that position.

The solution to this state of things is quite obviously the exact opposite of present arrangements. The means of production and distribution, instead of being class-owned, must be made the common property of the human race, to be used by them according to an agreed plan for the benefit of the people as a whole. It is a common complaint of labour leaders and others that the workers cannot agree on a definite policy for their own benefit. That is a stupid complaint, because no one in this country, apart from the S.P.G.B., has ever presented to the workers a policy of action based on the essential facts of their existence on which can agree.

Every worker knows he must sell his labour-power in order to live. But few workers see in that fact, and the conditions behind it, the cause of their poverty. The constitution of society imposing that condition on them is the result of evolution, and appears to the individual as being quite “natural,” as well as rigidly established. Thus even when he first glimpses the truth, the only result is a feeling of helplessness, amid the forces that surround him.

Among these forces are ignorance and confusion. Innumerable organisations and parties are continually telling the workers of reforms, policies and schemes .that will bring them relief in the present or emancipate them in the distant future. Life is short, and the workers rise to the bait of “something now.” Instead of critically examining all proposals, they put their faith in those who promise, only to find, when too late, that they have merely helped a few more adventurers to place or power.

The Co-operative Societies, on their propagandist side, are among these confusionists. On the economic side they are merely capitalist concerns out for profits. As to purchasers’ dividends, they are not alone in giving something back in order to retain customers. The practice of giving coupons entitling purchasers to free gifts is quite common, and the article bought, plus the free gift, is generally the equivalent in value of the price paid. The fact that co-operators spend such a small proportion of their wages in the stores proves they are not deceived on the question of value for money. To the bulk of them the Co-op. is just a convenient place to shop.

But so far as Co-op. leaders hold out hopes to the workers that their support will help towards a new order of society, or will even provide an escalator to reach it, they are practising deceit. The only way out for the workers, is to organise politically for that special purpose. A special objective requires a special organisation for its achievement. Moreover, the objective must not be obscured by lesser things of little or no importance.

Dividends and profits can have no place within a socialist system of society. They belong to the present lop-sided arrangement of starving workers and over-fed idlers. Dividends and profits belong to capitalism, and the practice of co-operation helps to keep them alive in the minds of the workers, to the detriment of a true understanding of their real position.

F. Foan

Do You Like Coffee? (1932)

From the September 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following interesting sidelight on capitalism is a Reuter message from New York, published in the Daily Telegraph (5th July, 1932): —

  More than 1,000,000,000 lbs. of coffee, worth over £10,000,000, have been destroyed in Brazil by the National Coffee Council in its efforts to stabilise the price of coffee. According to the New York Sugar and Coffee Exchange, the amount destroyed before June 18 was 7,786,000 bags of 132 lbs. each, or a total of 1,027,752,000 lbs.
  The original plan of the Council contemplated a total destruction of 18,000,000 bags.

A New Pamphlet in Preparation. (1932)

Party News from the September 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

A 48-page pamphlet is being prepared, dealing with the principles of the S.P.G.B., and will be ready shortly. At the same time the pamphlet, “Socialism," will need to be reprinted, as the old edition is almost exhausted. We have recently incurred heavy outlay on publishing "The Socialist Party of Great Britain and Questions of the Day." In order to publish the new pamphlet and republish “Socialism," a considerable sum of money will be required. We are anxious to publish many pamphlets, only lack of funds stands in the way. The donations already received have enabled us to publish two pamphlets this year, and further donations will enable us to publish another. We, therefore, invite donations to be sent to the Treasurer, 42, Gt. Dover Street, S.E.1.

Letter: Marx and Dictatorship (1932)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Letter From A Correspondent.
Under the above heading, the Socialist Standard for June chose to answer a perfectly fair question by twisting and misconstruing a clear statement of Engels into an anti-class struggle position by adding to it a typical S.P.G.B. “explanatory interpretation.” The statement quoted ran, “ . . . Then look at the Paris Commune. That was the dictatorship of the proletariat.” This statement was “clarified,” save the mark! You went on to show how the Paris Commune was an instance of majority democratic control with, of course, no suppression of minorities. Minorities had their newspapers and were allowed to carry on their propaganda. In point of fact, they were, according to you, generally and generously “protected” by the “good” working-class dictatorship.

Then you contrast this beautiful fancy against Russia, with its ruthless suppression of all minorities, and draw the vicious anti-working class conclusion that you are right and the Bolshevist wrong.

You, as individuals, editors, contributors and members of the S.P.G.B., have every “right” to express opinions like the foregoing, but neither you nor anyone else has the slightest right to make, or try to make, Marx or Engels responsible for such cowardly opinions.

I am going to quote from Engels, but before doing so I want to say that the quotations which I will use need no "interpretations” from the S.P.G.B., or anybody else. They are clarity itself! Engels, writing on the Anti-authoritarians of his day, says;:

  “These gentlemen, have they ever seen a revolution? A revolution is the most authoritative thing possible. Revolution is an act in which part of the population forces its will on the other part by means of rifles, bayonets, cannon, i.e., by the most authoritative means. And the conquering party is inevitably forced to maintain its supremacy by means of that fear which its arms inspires in the reactionaries.
  “Had the Paris Commune not relied on the armed people against the bourgeoisie, would it have lasted longer than a single day ?
   “May we not rather censure the Commune for not having made sufficient use of its authority?”

Again Engels, in a letter to Bebel, after pointing out the ahsurdity of a Free People’s State in a revolutionary period, says:—

  “As the State is only a transitional institution which we are obliged to use in the revolutionary struggle in order to forcibly crush our opponents, it is a pure absurdity to talk of a 'Free People's State.’ During the period that the proletariat still needs the State, it does not require it in the interest of ‘Freedom,’ but in the interest of crushing its antagonists . . ."  

And so any Marxist could go on quoting. But it is when you make the stupid blunder of contrasting the Russian “departure” from “equality” in wages and their “resorting” to inequality that you really relinquish all right to be considered seriously as Socialists, and take your true place as “just another one of those opposed to the growing power of the Working Class all over the world and particularly in Soviet Russia.!’

Try, if you can, to get the idea contained in the common Marxism : Equal “right” is a bourgeois “right” and will wither away as the State withers away, until real justice for Humanity shall establish itself in what would appear to-day as inequality, and we shall realise to the full that pregnant sentence—“ From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

W. D., 

London.

Reply.
If W.D. would use his intelligence, instead of his temper, he would try to meet arguments based on facts instead of foolish remarks.

It is a fact that Engels wrote: —

  The German Philistine has lately been thrown once again into wholesome paroxisms by the expression “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Well, gentle sirs. would you like to know how this dictatorship looks? Then look at the Paris Commune. That was the dictatorship of the proletariat. (Paris Commune, p. 20, New York Labor News Co.)

It is a fact that Marx described the Commune in the following words: —

  The Commune was formed of the municipal councillors, chosen by universal suffrage in various wards of the town, responsible and revocable at short terms. The majority of its members were naturally working men, or acknowledged representatives of the working class. The Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary, body, executive and legislative at the same time. Instead of continuing to be the agent of the central Government, the police was at once stripped of its political attributes and turned into the responsible and at all times revocable agent of the Commune. So were the officials of all other branches of the administration. From the members of the Commune downwards, the public service had to be done at workman's wages. (Page 74.)
  While the merely repressive organs of the old governmental power were to be amputated, its legitimate functions were to be wrested from an authority-usurping preeminence over society itself, and restored to the responsible agents of society. Instead of deciding once in three or six years which member of the ruling Class was to represent the people in Parliament, universal suffrage was to serve the people, constituted in Communes, as individual suffrage serves every other employer in the search for the workmen and managers in his business. And it is well known that companies, like individuals, in matters of real business generally know how to put the right man in the right place, and, if they for once make a mistake, to redress it promptly. On the other hand, nothing could be more foreign to the spirit of the Commune than to supersede universal suffrage by hierarchic investiture. (P. 76.)

Of Russia it was and is a fact that universal suffrage is superseded by hierarchic investiture.

It is a fact that Russia is one of the most bureaucracy-ridden countries in the world, and that the police and all the officials of the administration are the agents of the Central Government—the Central Committee of the Communist Party—and are not revocable at the behest of the majority of the Russian people.

It is a fact that the officials of the Russian Government do not perform their duties at workmen’s wages in the sense Marx used the term.

The above are a few of the host of fundamental differences between the Paris Commune and the Russian Soviet Republic.

We will quote the evidence of Lenin. Speaking at the 4th Congress of the Communist International in 1922, and enumerating the reasons the Bolsheviks made mistakes, he said : —

  A fourth reason is the nature of our State apparatus. One of our misfortunes was that we had to take over the old state apparatus. The State apparatus often works against us. It is a matter of history that in the year 1917, when we had seized power, the State apparatus practised sabotage against us. We were greatly alarmed, and said: “Please come back to us”—and they all came back. That was our misfortune; We have now an enormous mass of officials, but we still lack a sufficient quantity of trained energies to keep them under proper control.
  In actual practice we often find that here at the top, where we exercise the powers of State, the apparatus works all right, whereas lower down the officials do as they please, and what they please to do is to work against our measures.
  At the top we have a few—I do not know the exact number—I am sure it is only a few thousand, or at a maximum, a few ten thousands—of our people; in the lower grades we have hundreds of thousands of officials bequeathed to us from Czarist clays or taken over by us from capitalist society. To some extent deliberately and to some extent unconsciously, they work against us. (The Communist, 16th December, 1922.)

From the above it will be seen that the Bolsheviks took over the old state apparatus, whereas the Commune did not. Since Lenin’s speech, Stalin and company have developed this state apparatus into a huge overshadowing power that crushes out all who disagree on particular points of policy with the small clique at the top. Heresy hunts and the activities of the secret police remind one of the extent the ideas of the Middle Ages affect Bolshevik activity. Trotsky and others have already found this out to their cost.

In further illustration of the undemocratic nature of the Russian Dictatorship as compared with the Paris Commune, let us quote once again the statement of Zinovieff at the 1st Congress of the 3rd International in March, 1919: —

   Our Central Committee has decided to deprive certain categories of party members the right to vote at the Congress of the Party. Certainly it is unheard of to limit the right of voting within the party, but the entire party has approved this measure, which is to insure the homogeneous unity of the Communists.
  So that, in fact, we have 500,000 members who manage the entire State machine from top to bottom. (The Socialist, 29th April 1920.)

Now, W.D., would you mind informing us what kind of a “working class dictatorship" this is from which not only the working class but even members of the ruling party are excluded ? Is this the form under which “real justice for humanity" (whatever this empty bourgeois phrase means!) will "establish itself"?

Let us now take the two extracts from pages 64 and 67 of Lenin’s “State and Revolution," that have been quoted by our opponent. W.D. says they need no "interpretation" from us or anybody else. Having doctored the quotations by tearing them from their context, he naturally objects to analysis.

The first is a quotation from an article written in 1873, by Engels, in an Italian paper against the Anarchists who "denied every form of authority, of subordination, of power." The whole of the quotation given by Lenin on page 64 is as follows: — .

  If the Autonomists merely meant to say that the social organisation of the future would admit authority only within those limits which the conditions of industry inevitably dictate, then it would be possible to come to an understanding with them. But they are blind in respect of all the facts which make authority necessary, and they fight passionately against a mere word.
  Why do not the Anti-Authoritarians limit themselves to shouting against the political authority, against the State? All Socialists agree that the State, and together with it, also political authority, will vanish as the result of the future Socialist Revolution, i.e., that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into simple administrative functions, concerned with social interests. But the Anti-Authoritarians demand that the political State should be abolished at one
blow, even before those social relations which gave birth to the State are themselves abolished. They demand that the first act of the Social Revolution shall be the abolition of all authority..
 These gentlemen, have they ever seen a Revolution? Revolution is undoubtedly the most authoritative thing possible. Revolution is an act in which part of the population forces its will on the other part by means of rifles, bayonets, cannons, i.e., by the most authoritative means. And the conquering party is inevitably forced to maintain its supremacy by means of that fear which its arms inspire in the reactionaries. Had the Paris Commune not relied on the authority of the armed people, against the bourgeoisie, would it have lasted longer than a single day? May we not. rather censure the Commune for not having made sufficient use of this authority? And so either the Anti-Authoritarians themselves do not know what they are talking about, in which case they merely sow confusion, or they do know what they are talking about, in which case they are betraying the proletariat. In either case they serve only the interests of reaction. 

If Engels' statement is analysed, and not blindly bolted, it is obvious that he was arguing against those who were opposed to the capture and use of political power. Engels and the S.P.G.B. maintain that political power must be captured by the workers and used as an agent of emancipation. Engels also means that it shall be the work of the majority, hence his reference to the Paris Commune. Engels nowhere says that a minority of the population shall force its will on the majority, nor does he say that the minority shall not be.allowed to express their views. He is not dealing with that point. He is only concerned that the will of the conquering party shall prevail, that it shall remain supreme. In other words, that when the majority are in favour of Socialism, and obtain control of political power, they will not allow the minority to prevent them from setting about the establishment of Socialism. He suggests that the Commune might be censured for not having made sufficient use of their authority, and we have also put forward the same view in different articles on the Commune. But this has nothing to do with the question of democracy.

The second quotation from page 66 of Lenin's book is taken from a private letter to Bebel by Engels, criticising the “Gotha programme" of 1875. Again Engels was concerned with the Anarchist's criticism of the State, and he objected to the use of the term "Free State" in the programme.

  The Free People's State has been transformed into a Free State. According to the grammatical meaning of the words, the Free State is one in which the State is free in relation to its citizens, that is. a State with a despotic government. It would be well to throw overboard all this nonsense about the State, especially after the Commune, which was already no longer a State in the proper sense of the word.
  The Anarchists have too long been able to throw in our teeth this “People’s State,” although already, in Marx’s works against Proudhon, and then in the “Communist Manifesto,” it was stated quite plainly that with the introduction of the Socialist order of society, the State will dissolve of itself, and will disappear, as the State is only a transitional institution which we are obliged to use in the revolutionary struggle in order forcibly to crush our opponents, it is a pure absurdity to speak of a Free People’s State. During the period when the proletariat needs the State, it does not require it in the interests of freedom, but in the interests of crushing its antagonists; and when it becomes possible really to speak of freedom, then the State, as such, ceases to exist. We should, therefore, suggest that everywhere the word State be replaced by Gemeinwesen (Commonwealth), a fine old German word, which corresponds to the French word "Commune."

Take the expression, “crushing its antagonists” in the above, and, putting it along with all Engels’ other writings on the subject, what meaning can be taken from it except the crushing of those who try to frustrate the carrying out of the will of the majority? Engels certainly did not mean that one portion of the working class party should use state power to prevent another part from having a voice in policy.

In Engels' criticism of the German Social Democratic draft programme of 1891, he said: —

   If anything is certain, it is this, that our party and the working class can only achieve power under the form of the democratic Republic. This is even the specific form for the dictatorship of the proletariat.

(The Labour Revolution, Kautsky, p.67).

Finally, let us hear the voice of one who should know something of Russia: —

 We know from older books that workers' bureaucracy and workers' aristocracy is the social foundation for opportunism. In Russia this phenomenon has taken on new forms. On the foundation of the dictatorship of the proletariat—in a backward country—surrounded by capitalism—for the first time a powerful bureaucratic apparatus has been created from among the upper layers of the workers, that is, raised above the masses, that lays down the law to them, that has at its disposal colossal resources, that is bound together by an inner mutual responsibility and that intrudes into the policies of a workers* government in its own interests, methods and regulations.
   . . . The entire leading stratum of the party that was at the helm during the revolution and the civil war has been replaced, removed and crushed. Their place has been taken by an anonymous functionary. At the same time the struggle against bureaucratism which was so acute in character during Lenin's lifetime, when the bureaucracy was not yet out of its diapers, has ceased entirely now when the apparatus has grown sky high.
  And, indeed, who is there capable of carrying on this struggle? The party, as a self-controlling vanguard of the proletariat, no longer exists now. The party apparatus has been fused with the administrative. The most important instrument of the general line within the party is the G.P.U. The bureaucracy not only prohibits the criticism of the top from below but it prohibits its theoreticians from even talking about it and from noticing it. (Trotzky, quoted from the Militant by the One Big Union Bulletin, 16/6/1932.)

Perhaps the above is an illustration of the "growing power of the workers"!

Finally, W. D., if you would analyse what you write, you might think more clearly. For instance, when you say "contrasting the Russian 'departure' from 'equality' in wages and their 'resorting' to 'inequality,' " what do you mean? What is contrasted? Again, how "Equal 'Right' " "wither away"? Again, when we quote Marx's statements as to the nature of the Commune, how are we contrasting "this beautiful fancy against Russia"? If, as it appears, you are in favour of the "ruthless suppression of all minorities," why do you say: "You, as individuals, editors, contributors, and members of the S.P.G.B., have every 'right' to express opinions like the foregoing"? At least be logical! '

Gilmac.

Editorial: The Breaking Up of the I.L.P. (1932)

Editorial from the September 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

At its special Conference at Bradford on July 30th, the I.L.P. decided by 241 votes to 142 to leave the Labour Party. It was also decided to run I.L.P. candidates for election to Parliament and local councils, to expel members or branches which remain affiliated with the Labour Party, and to instruct members of trade unions not to pay political levy to the Labour Party. The affiliationist group, which claims to have the bulk of the Scottish membership behind it, is busy organising an affiliationist party. So we now have the exhilarating spectacle of two I.L.P.’s instead of one.

Mr. Dollan, who is leading the affiliationists, states that the total membership of the party before the split was down to 16,000, their funds were depleted and they were in debt. Mr. Brockway claims for the disaffiliationists that new members are being enrolled by the hundred, but they have failed to hold more than a very small minority of the I.L.P. candidates on local councils in Glasgow, Bradford, Manchester and elsewhere,

Mr. Brailsford, and the other three men who drafted the programme of the I.L.P. known as the Living Income Policy, have all joined the affiliationists. Mr. Brailsford, in a disrespectful letter, describes his ex-comrades as behaving with “conspicuous silliness."

Already, at the Bradford Conference, the disaffiliationists had developed a left wing—the Revolutionary Policy Group—inside which, according to John Paton, there were already differences of opinion, foreshadowing a left-left-wing. (New Leader, 5th August.)

It is easy to see that the new I.L.P. consists of the same confusion-mongers as the old. While some of its leaders claim that the new policy is essentially the same as the old policy, others say that it is fundamentally different. While Mr. Campbell Stephen, at the LL.P. Summer School on August 8th, was promising that "the present economic crisis was going to put them in the trenches in the revolutionary war" (Manchester Guardian, 9th August), Mr. Fenner Brockway told Reynolds's Illustrated News (the Co-operative Sunday paper) that the most revolutionary work of all is that of the co-operatives! (Reynolds's, 31st July.)

Mr. Campbell Stephen foreshadows the possibility of the I.L.P. coming out of the Unions, as it has come out of the Labour Party. Mr. R. C. Wallhead, M.P., on the other hand, while supporting disaffiliation, warned the Conference delegates not to widen the breach too much because "after doing their utmost to mould the workers’ minds, they would have to come to some form of unity." (New Leader, 5th August.)

The I.L.P. Still Accepts the Labour Party Programme. 

And, after all this, what is the new I.L.P.’s programme but a rehash of the old, and as E. F. Wise said, just like the Labour Party’s programme, except that it is “full of revolutionary phrases."

Among the “immediate demands" in the new I.L.P. programme are the following (New Leader, 22nd July, 1932) : —

“Immediate and progressive expansion of working class purchasing power" (this is the Living Wage policy over again); "holidays with pay"; "adequate housing and reduced rents"; "unemployed maintenance to be a national charge” ; "a ‘full life' for the unemployed"; "individual and collective resistance to all war preparations and tendencies"; and "disarmament by example." These are a selection from the new reformist programme adopted , at the Bradford Conference.

Mr. Fenner Brockway, the Chairman of the I.L.P., clinches the matter in his reiterated assertion that the I.L.P., while differing from the Labour Party, as to "method" and "policy," accepts the Labour Party’s objective and programme. He writes (New Leader, 5th August): —

  I think it may be useful to say that the I.L.P. accepts the objective of the Labour Party—Socialism—and, in general, its programme. There are isolated issues upon which we differ in that programme. But on the major issues we accept it.

As Maxton has repeatedly admitted, the Labour Party’s programme and object is nothing but State capitalism and State controlled capitalism. The Party which can accept that objective has not begun to understand and accept the socialist case.

Letter: Socialist Action in Parliament, Etc. (1932)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

  In the July issue of the Socialist Standard we explained why a Socialist Party must be based on, and must fight elections on, the simple demand for Socialism and not on a programme of reforms or even on the demand for Socialism linked up with a programme of reforms. Several correspondents have now asked what should be the attitude of a minority of socialists in Parliament or a majority or minority on a local council towards measures introduced by capitalist parties. We print below one of these letters: —

Bentley,

Doncaster

To the Editorial Committee.

For the benefit of a few readers of the “S.S.,” could you give the Party’s position upon a few points that arise from the 6th Clause of the Declaration of Principles.

Seeing that Socialism is the object of the Party, and that the 6th Clause is the method advocated to get power to establish it, what would be the attitude or position of a single candidate or a few S.P.G.B. candidates who were elected by class conscious electors to the House of Commons, towards the problems discussed by capitalist politicians?

What would be the Socialist attitude towards the following measures that were being put on the Statute Book by, say, a Labour Government ? :—

• An Improved Minimum Wage Bill for all workers,
• An improved Compensation Act,
• A Shorter-Working Day for a section or for all workers, 
• Abolition of the Means Test.

What would be the attitude of the single socialist or a minority of socialists on the Local Councils towards the problems discussed in Council ?

Finally, in the event of a few Constituencies voting a majority of Class Conscious Socialists into power in the local councils, what would be their attitude from the point of view of administration of Council work?

Hoping a reply to the same will fulfil a useful purpose,

Yours,

Edward Littler.

Reply.
The Socialist Party of Great Britain has as its object the establishment of Socialism. It is a revolutionary party based on the class struggle, and not a reform party. Holding that no amelioration of the workers' condition can be obtained under capitalism that would be worth the amount of time and energy spent in working and organising to obtain it, the Socialist Party is opposed to the waste of such time and energy, and to the confusion involved in attempting to improve capitalism by means of reforms, thus obscuring the class struggle. A party claiming to be socialist, but with a list of reforms or “immediate demands," attracts reformers who are not socialists, and has a reformist and not a socialist electorate behind it. Even if such a party obtains political control it is useless for the purpose of furthering Socialism.

While the S.P.G.B. is opposed to a reformist policy the socialist delegate in Parliament or on a local council is not, therefore, bound to vote against every particular measure. The Socialist Party of Great Britain does not hold that the measures already taken or to be taken by the capitalists are all of them bound to be useless or harmful to the workers, or bound to impede progress towards Socialism. Some of the suffrage, factory and trade union legislation in the past, while assisting capitalists immediately or in the long run, has not been correspondingly harmful to the workers. The Socialist Party holds that some of the measures brought forward by the capitalists owing to economic developments or owing to conflicts of interest between sections of the capitalists themselves can be used as weapons in the class struggle by the workers and by the socialist movement. That being the case, a socialist minority in Parliament or on a local council would be required by the socialists who sent them there to criticise from the socialist standpoint all measures brought before them (pointing out their futility in comparison with Socialism and so forth), and to refrain from supporting, bargaining or allying themselves with any party for temporary ends, but at the same time would be required to vote for particular measures where there is a clear gain to the workers and the socialist movement in so doing. (The decision would, of course, be in the hands of the Party, and not in the hands of the individual.) It may be added that such measures are more likely to be put forward when Socialism is imminent, and a frightened ruling class is striving to keep back the flood by making concessions.

The position which the S.P.G.B. has always taken up, and which is outlined above, differs fundamentally from the position of candidates elected on reform programmes by reformist voters. In the case of socialists elected on a socialist programme, the decision lies with socialists, well able to judge the merits from a socialist standpoint. In the case of reformists (the I.L.P., for example) the decision rests with a party and an electorate which do not know and accept the socialist case, and are incapable of judging from the socialist standpoint.

With regard to the issues raised by our correspondent, it is of little use to give a yes or no answer, because the effect of particular measures depends on the time and circumstances and the actual clauses of the measures in question. It is not sufficient merely to be told that a bill is described by its supporters as a bill for a minimum wage, or for an improved compensation law, etc. Advocates of a minimum wage have often associated it with the prohibition of strikes, and a Minimum Wage Bill might have tacked on to it a clause penalising strikers. The abolition of the Means Test may look like a clear issue on which a socialist minority would be instructed to vote for abolition, but it must be borne in mind that a proposal for its nominal abolition would probably be linked up with the imposition of some other objectionable procedure.

What is stated above in connection with a minority in Parliament explains also the attitude of a minority on a local council. A socialist minority on the London County Council, for instance, would vote for a proposal to restore the right of selling literature and taking up collections in London parks since the S.P.G.B. are the chief sufferers from the prohibition introduced a few years ago.

Our correspondent’s last question refers to a majority on a local council.

By the time a few constituencies had voted a majority of class conscious socialists into control of the local councils the rest of the country would be on the verge of doing the same thing, and on the verge of sending a majority of socialist delegates to Parliament also. If such a hypothetical situation arose the socialist majority would use the limited power, funds and organisation of the municipalities to help with the task of capturing the central seat of power, in every way available.

In conclusion, we must emphasise that the object of the Socialist Party of Great Britain is the establishment of Socialism. This purpose, in an organisation based solely upon the demand for Socialism, and putting forward candidates on that and nothing else, cannot be forgotten or submerged. Our policy, our organisation, and all our activities are governed by that objective. The question of voting for or against, or ignoring measures introduced by non-socialist parties, does not and cannot influence our policy towards the objective.

Editorial Committee

Notes by the Way: Circumstances Alter Cases. A Communist Slogan for England Only. (1932)

The Notes by the Way Column from the September 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Circumstances Alter Cases. A Communist Slogan for England Only.

One of the useless reforms urged by the communists in Great Britain is the abolition of inheritance and the confiscation of all fortunes over £1,000. (See Class Against Class, published 1929, by C.P.G.B., p. 30.)

What gives special interest to this demand is that it is something the communists in Russia make no pretence of carrying out. Russian law “recognises the right of inheritance irrespective of the amount involved." (Soviet Union Year Book, 1930, p. 498.) Inheritance tax is paid, but the law specifies maximum rates of tax, which may not be exceeded by the separate republics which make up the Soviet Union. The maximum scale of tax is graduated from £2 on £200, up to £23,854 on £50,000. (See Year Book, p. 405.)

We wonder what sort of reception a simple-minded English communist would have who tried to enforce the abolition of inheritance and confiscation of all fortunes above £1,000, among the highly paid technicians and, administrative officials in Russia.


Ethel Mannin’s Blunder.

A recent recruit to the I.L.P. is the novelist, Miss Ethel Mannin. In February she was reminded by a correspondent that her claim to be a socialist does not square with the reformist programme of her party. In reply she wrote: —

  I agree entirely that the I.L.P. is a reformist party—which is a reason why I shall probably not remain with them. Actually I have no faith in any party. (Italics hers.)

When the split came, Miss Mannin followed the disaffiliationists. She gives her reasons in the New Leader (12th August). One is that she believes in moving “to the left—always to the left." Another she explains as follows : —

  We of the Left Wing have our dream, the tremendous dream of Socialism in Our Time, and it is up to us to be proud of it instead of being apologetic about it. Thank God we have this dream, for no one else seems to have it—certainly not the official Labour Party! And without this dream what is left to us ?

This is where Miss Mannin makes her mistake. The I.L.P. have not got this programme now. Brailsford and three other I.L.P. leaders, wrote it for them (the “Living Income Programme”). But already by 1928, according to the Report to the I.L.P.'s Annual Conference, presented by the Administrative Council, "its main proposals are being gradually incorporated in the thought and propaganda of the Labour Movement, and are exerting a continuous influence on the policies of its leadership.” (Report, 1928, p. 3.)

It was, therefore, quite logical for the four men who wrote it to leave the disaffiliationists and join the official group, and quite logical, for them to claim that their reformist policy, known as "Socialism in Our Time," is now the inspiration of the Labour Party. The leading disaffiliationists, who assert that they have made a clean break with the I.L.P.'s past, confirm this claim.

So that Miss Mannin is in the uncomfortable position of having her body in the I.L.P.—and moving "to the left—always to the left’’—while the Ark of the Covenant containing the essence of her proud dream is being borne off to the right by the four men who fashioned it. And in the meantime Maxton and others have drawn up a new list of reforms for their reformist party.

Miss Mannin should be told about this.


Muddled Middleton Murry.

After achieving distinction in literature, Mr. John Middleton Murry blew in on the world of working class politics by announcing himself a Marxist and communist. It was at once evident that Mr. Murry has much to learn and many old habits of thought and expression to unlearn before he will appreciate what the socialist case is and be able to enlighten others. His attempts to explain Marx befog rather than clear the air, and nobody would be more startled than Marx if he could know what he is supposed by Mr. Murry to have meant by some of his writings. To say this is not to throw doubt on Mr. Murry’s well-meaningness, but it appears to be very difficult for the typical academic or literary man to believe that Marx could have meant just what he said.

How muddled Murry is can be seen from his constant shifting of position and his enthusiasm for contradictory policies. He appears at first to have had leanings towards the Communist Party, and is still a worshipper of Russia, being under the impression that Socialism is being built up in that country. However, he quarrelled with the communists and turned up in the I.L.P. While still there he read one of our pamphlets in March this year, and promptly wrote to us: "It seems to me I ought to join.” He did not proceed with the matter, and by August he had discovered a new hope. Writing in The Adelphi (August, p. 764), he said: “There is a good hope that gradually the I.L.P. will become a genuinely socialist organisation —the only one in this country.”

It would be interesting to know in what way the S.P.G.B., which apparently was a socialist body in Mr. Murry’s eyes in Match, had ceased to be socialist by August.

In the same issue of The Adelphi, Mr. Murry shows how little he understands of Socialism by defining it as “economic equality”—an inadequate phrase completely missing the essence of the matter, which is that its basis will be the common ownership of the means of production and distribution. He also describes Mr. R. H. Tawney as chief of the “small number of genuine socialists" in the Labour Party. Mr. Tawney has never committed himself to common ownership. In his Acquisitive Society (p. 67) he expressly declares his belief in the necessity of continuing property incomes in the form of interest on investments.

Unless Mr. Murry will make an effort to understand the elementary principles of Socialism he will no doubt suffer the fate of many others who have skimmed over the working class movement. He will drift off, disgusted with the slow progress of socialist organisation, but no wiser than when he came in as to why it makes slow progress and why his well-meant efforts do not help.

Lo, the Poor Indian!

Those who profess to believe that the poverty of the Indian workers and peasants is due only to the British Exploiters would do well to ponder over a statement which appeared in the Daily Herald (26th July), that there are twenty Indian millionaires living in Bombay whose fortunes are estimated to total £70 millions. The capitalist amasses his wealth by exploitation, and whether he is Indian or British, He does not allow race, religion or sentiment to come between himself and his riches and power.

The Power of the State.

We have heard much from communists and syndicalists—particularly in South Wales—about the all- conquering power of organisation on the economic field. How limited the unions are and how helpless against those who control the machinery of' Government was well illustrated in a recent case. On April 1st, 1932, Mr. Justice Bennett granted an injunction restraining miners at the Bedwas Navigation Colliery from “the watching and besetting of the colliery,” as being in violation of the law. Members of the Miners' Federation ignored the injunction and held a show of cards at the mine. On June 29th the Judge required the defendants to appear for Contempt of Court. Accordingly they were compelled to travel to London at their own expense and appear in person to make individual and abject apology. They all of them pleaded that they would not have held the show of cards if they thought it was in violation of the injunction, and they solemnly promised not to do it again. (See Times, 30th June and 8th July.) Some of them are said to be communists and active advocates of so-called direct action.

Curious Communist Electioneering.

Mr. J. T. Walton Newbold, until just recently a supporter of the National Government, writing in the O.B.U. Bulletin (Winnipeg, 28th July), tells how he and Saklatvala, who were candidates of the Labour Party, and later became communists, angled for the non-socialist votes of Irish nationalists and Catholics. He says that he, at Motherwell, and Saklatvala, at Battersea, had deliberately picked seats with a large Irish vote and set out to capture it by appealing to nationalist sentiment. Newbold claims that fully half of the votes he received in 1918 were Irish votes. In the 1922 election, after Newbold had joined the communists, 5,000 out of his 8,000 voters were Catholic Irishmen. This is what the communists called winning elections for Communism and Internationalism.

Newbold has had cause to welcome the split in the I.L.P. Having been a Fabian, then in turn a member of the Labour Party and I.L.P., the Communist Party, the I.L.P. again, then the Social Democratic Federation, then the MacDonald National Labour Group, he was for the moment stumped to find a new party to join. The split in the I.L.P., by increasing the number of parties, has given him another chance, and he is now supporting the Maxtonites.

An Angry Right Honourable.

The Right Honourable Thomas Kennedy, P.C., is editor of the Social Democrat and is very angry because Viscount. Snowden, speaking in the House of Lords on June 29th, commented on the late H. M. Hyndman’s belief that capitalism would collapse as each new industrial crisis came round. Kennedy says that it is a lie, angrily denounces Snowden and the I.L.P., and demands evidence for the statement. Snowden had been supplied (free of charge) with a copy of our pamphlet, “Why Capitalism will not Collapse," and doubtless was indebted to it for the information about Hyndman. This recalls a curious action on the part of the Social Democrat. When we published the pamphlet (which contains evidence for the statement about Hyndman) we sent copies to the Social Democrat (of which Kennedy was not then editor) and Forward, the I.L.P. journal. Forward reviewed, it and acknowledged that it is published by the S.P.G.B. The Social Democrat did not review it directly, but published an editorial fiercely attacking it on the basis of Forward's review, and implying, without saying so directly, that it is published by the I.L.P.

The Social Democrat's editorial (April, 1932) actually pretended that the pamphlet is an attack on doctrinaire economic theory and a defence of the “broad, open-minded, benevolent, pleasant-Sunday- afternoon methods of the I.L.P." in the days when it was led by Ramsay MacDonald.

There is nothing whatever either in the pamphlet 
or in the review by Forward which supports the
extraordinary line taken by the Social Democrat.

A View on Russia.

In The Times (5th and 6th August) an Italian journalist, Carlo Scarfoglio, writing after a tour of Russia. gives an interesting account of the rapid emergence of the typical features of capitalism. He shows how, in spite of the claims and intentions of communists, industrial development is giving rise to the ordinary class differentiations of capitalism, from the collective farm labourers earning about £100 a year up to the foreign specialists with £2,400 and every sort of additional privilege. Clerical and so-called intellectual workers are now being paid more than skilled craftsmen and the latter more than unskilled. He notes the appearance of privately-owned motor cars and racing boats, and the accumulation of capital in the hands of the investors in State loans, receiving up to 10 per cent. interest. The so-called State industries are tending more and more to independence, and to the position of ordinary private enterprises.

He shows the illusion behind the belief that the workers and the State are one, with common interests. The wage-earner is in precisely the same position as in any other country.

Scarfoglio thinks that the Bolsheviks may be able and will wish to continue calling Russian capitalism by the name of communism.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Intellectuals and Marx. (1932)

From the September 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent asks why it is that accredited “intellectuals like Shaw, Wells and Laski are not Marxists.”

One reason, clearly demonstrated by the writings and speeches of the gentlemen in question, is that they have never got within miles of understanding Marx. We have shown in these columns how Laski misrepresents Marx’s writings (and declines to reply to criticisms). Shaw on occasion talks the most utter nonsense about Marx. A year or two ago he brazenly informed an ignorant crowd of business men connected with the building trade that Marx claimed to be able to tell from, say, a piece of pottery, what was the nature, the arts, sciences, politics, etc., of the social system under which it was produced. When Shaw was challenged to say where Marx was supposed to have made this extraordinary and absurd claim, Shaw remained silent.

Wells principal contribution to "intellectual" criticism of Marx was to inform the world that he did not like Marx’s beard.

However, even if the intellectuals did understand Marx’s views they would still be unlikely to avow themselves publicly as Marxists. Marx analysed the capitalist system and explained its growth and decay, and its relation to the series of social systems that have preceded it. He revealed the laws governing these historical changes and showed that the present system will pass into history as inevitably as those which preceded it, and will be followed by the only possible alternative— Socialism. All the conditions are present and ripe for the change, except one, the desire of the working class for it. The only remedy for this is knowledge, and it is this knowledge which it is the aim of the Socialist to spread. When this knowledge is spread sufficiently the end of capitalism is certain.

The position of the “intellectuals,” however, even assuming they accepted Marx, would be difficult. The institutions of learning are financed and controlled by the capitalist class for the purpose of providing technical and scientific knowledge useful in industry and administration, and of teaching ideas which suit their interest. A university professor, who applied to history, economics and politics, the Marxist theories of the materialist Conception of History and the Labour Theory of Value, would learn pretty quickly that he had no control over his job and reputation.

The dramatist or novelist who used his craft, to aim at the overthrow of capitalism would also learn that his popularity and success depended on something more than his genius. Many examples could be quoted of ostracism, calumny and persecution of many in the academic and literary world whose love of truth was stronger than their respect for capitalist interests. Whether the ”intellectual,” academic or literary, is “accredited" or "discredited" depends how far he avoids giving offence to the ruling class and to the majority of the population who so far accept the ideas and standards of the ruling class.

It is quite reasonable to suppose that, as greater numbers of workers become socialists, many of the intellectuals will be less inclined to support capitalism. Marx and Engels held this opinion. They say in the Communist Manifesto: —

  “Finally, when the class war is about to be fought to a finish, disintegration of the ruling class and the old order of society becomes so active, so acute, that a small portion of the ruling class breaks away to make common cause with the revolutionary class, the class which holds the future in its hands. Just as in former days part of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now part of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat. Especially does this happen in the case of some of the bourgeois ideologues, who have achieved a theoretical understanding of the historical movement as a whole."

Don.

SPGB Meetings (1932)

Party News from the September 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Fabian on Marx. (1932)

From the September 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

A well-known Fabian, who died recently, has been the means of press reviewers having a tilt at Marx. Professor Philip H. Wicksteed’s life, written by Prof. Herford, refers to Bernard Shaw’s debate with Wicksteed in the ’eighties.

Wicksteed is little read here, hut in American colleges the students are referred to his writings on Economics for guidance. This professor imbibed ideas from Jevons and “popularised" the utility theory of value. In 1884 he set out to show that Marx was wrong; labour was not the measure of value, and Marx had admitted this by including usefulness as a necessary condition of an article having value. Wicksteed’s ideas, like Jevons, were a revival of theories of supply and demand, which Marx had already exploded. Bernard Shaw squashed Wicksteed by using Marx’s economic writings. Shaw, however, found that Marx’s ideas were not suitable for intellectuals, and so he joined Wicksteed in worshipping at the shrine of Jevons.

The practice of modern capitalism in concentrating upon reducing the time spent in producing articles in order to sell cheaper, is a tribute to the truth of the labour theory of value. Nowadays, Bernard Shaw says Karl Marx “made a man of me,’’ which is a nasty blow to the Star reviewer, who says Shaw knew that he was beaten by Wicksteed.

Adolph Kohn

A Literary Man on Labour Leaders. (1932)

From the September 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Sisley Huddleston, in his “Europe in Zig-zags," has something to say about the changed outlook of those whom he once regarded as Socialists. It is, of course, the social reformers he has in mind.

  When I was a boy already interested in social questions, it was taken for granted that Socialism was revolutionary. This did not mean that Socialists would necessarily provoke a Revolution, but certainly that they would not neglect the opportunity which might be offered by social upheavals. But when I became a man I found that all the Socialists whom I knew set themselves up as the guardians of the existing society. Since the war there are no anti-Communists, no anti-Revolutionaries so fierce as the Socialists. They have become respectable and respected. They make the world safe for capitalism. (p. 242.)

The Campaign Against Prohibition in the U.S.A. (1932)

From the September 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the time of writing arrangements are being made to hold a big parade, and it is claimed that many trade unions and working men have applied for permission to march in it.

The parade is to protest against the Eighteenth Amendment (Prohibition), and to demand the legalising of beer. The workers are led to believe that if beer is legalised a lot of jobs will be brought back and this will cause a demand for commodities which will put the workers on the road to more prosperous times.

It is interesting to consider why the Eighteenth Amendment was made the law of the land. We will quote Fort, a member of the House of Representatives, in a speech made before the House concerning the economic causes of Prohibition: —

  With high-speed machinery and increased specialisation in its use, alertness of body and mind became essential for both the safety of the worker and the efficiency of his work.
   With factories organised so that processes were continuous, and a break at any point in the handling chain slowed all the wheels and hampered all the work, each workman’s presence and correct performance must be assured. Midday drinking by one man might cause someone to slip and injure either his fellow workman or the whole system. So, too, the plant must be fully managed every day, each specialised workman at his appointed task. No longer could our industries proceed with a 50 per cent. attendance Monday, 80 per cent. on Tuesday, and 100 per cent., perhaps, by Wednesday noon. In the old days of one or two men it had not been so serious. If necessary the delinquent could work later when sober and make up for lost time. But the eight-hour day and dependence of one man's work upon the other made that impossible.
   . . . Then, too. machines were^st replacing horses. Now a horse would get home with a drunken driver, but a railroad train, trolley car, or an automobile might not . . .
    The swelling power of our new economic era, therefore, had to match swords against the saloon.

(Times, New York February 2nd, 1930.)

Charles and Mary Beard support this view. They say: “ . . . . employers of labour, in their quest for efficiency give money and support to the new crusade, for drunken workers were a danger as well as an economic loss to machine industry.** (“The Rise of American Civilisation," Vol. II., page 733.)

As long as it remained a “moral" issue, Prohibition did not make much headway; but when it was found that drink interfered with the profits of manufacturers, it had to go. The distillery and brewery owners had to be sacrificed for the good of other manufacturers, and their workers lost their jobs. The workers have very short memories, for it is not so long ago that they believed that their poverty was due to drinking, and that if Prohibition were passed they would be better off. But we now find the position of the.worker to be the same as it was before. Prohibition or wet, there is no difference. In relation to the capitalist, the worker is still a wage slave and poverty stricken. Now he believes that Prohibition is the cause of his poverty, but if he would think just a bit and look across the herring pond he would discover many countries in Europe that do not have Prohibition, yet their wage-slaves are in the same condition as in U.S.A., where we do have it.

Thus it can be clearly seen that neither Prohibition nor Repeal is the solution to the wage-workers’ problems. While Repeal might make prosperity for some distillers and brewery owners, the workers will gain nothing.

The contention that the legalising of beer will make more employment cannot be accepted. Although the figures given are not capable of proof there is little doubt that there are more persons engaged in the liquor industry now than before Prohibition. In New York City alone there are more than thirty thousand speakeasies ; it is doubtful if ever there were as many saloons as this. Also, owing to the less efficient methods that have to be used now. than when it was legal, room is made in this trade for extra thousands.

And as for workers not being able to get a drink, this is not due to any lack of beer supply, but that they simply cannot afford to buy it. If you have the price you can get all you want. This state of affairs will continue, whether legally or not. There is not a bit of doubt but that when beer is legalised, Prohibition, or something near it, will still be the lot of many wage-workers. They will be unable to buy much beer owing to lack of money.

Since the introduction of Prohibition, considerable changes have taken place. The capitalist is no longer worried about having to make his workers sober by law. Owing to the unemployment situation, police are now required to control the large numbers of applicants for jobs. The wage-slaves stay sober because they know they can be so easily replaced, and that if they get into the ranks of the unemployed they will have to stay sober, anyway. So the manufacturing capitalist is not worried on this score any longer, and for this and other reasons has changed his outlook. Behind the demand for the legalising of beer is the problem of taxation. This is behind much of the propaganda now being let loose upon the working class.

Making beer legal appears to be in the interest of sections of the capitalist class, who want to shed some of the increasing burden of taxes. They cast about to discover how to shift some of this burden of taxes on to other sections of their class. They see that the brewery owners pay no taxes on beer at present; they know it is being made, so why not make it legal and tax it, thus making the brewery section of the capitalist class pay a share of taxes? They would have less to pay themselves, so they are willing to bring back beer, which, like the poor, is always with us, wet or dry.

The worker, generally, thinks that he, also, suffers from the burden of taxes. So he is easily led to believe that his interests are involved when the question of taxation comes up. If he would examine this point a little more closely, he would find that taxes are a levy on property, and that wage-slaves are, in the main, propertyless. To the workers, as a class, it does not matter a tinker’s damn if the taxes are high or low: all the.worker gets when he works is, roughly, a wage sufficient to keep him in a state where he can continue to. produce efficiently and bring up a family, and no more; just enough to repeat the process of bringing new values into existence, new wealth that did not exist before he applied his labour power. If prices fall owing to lowered taxation, or any other reason, wages tend to follow. The employers, not the workers, gain thereby.

Yet we see that reformer after reformer brings out this question of taxes, which, economically, has nothing to do with the workers. This is done to hoodwink the workers into giving support to this or that section of the capitalist class. That section whose representatives succeed in enticing the workers' support secures political control of the State. In this position they have the power to shift the tax burden to the shoulders of other sections, thus relieving themselves in proportion.

It is not due to beer, or lack of it; nor is it due to high or low taxes, that conditions are as we find them. It is due to the system of society that divides mankind into classes, those who own the means of wealth production and distribution, and those who own nothing but their labour-power.

Taffy Brown

Workers' Socialist Party of U.S.A.

The Time For Action: A Letter to a Young Socialist (1932)

From the September 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

You say that you like our theory but you cannot understand our seeming indifference to action. You are mystified that a party with so firm a grasp of principles should appear to have no capacity—or no stomach—for applying them in the practical way that appeals to the workers. You say that we leave all the active struggle to other parties with only half our insight into the social problem. You ask, “What is the good of all the S.P.G.B.’s lucid explanations of the failure of capitalism if they do not lead somewhere? Is it not time something was done, something drastic and exciting, right in the line of march towards Socialism?” You end with a warning: "If the S.P.G.B. will not, then someone else must.”

You put your question bluntly. We will give you a candid answer. But first a word about yourself. You are a newcomer to the Socialist movement and for that reason we are not surprised at your impatience. You have just had your eyes opened to the problem that confronts the workers. At first you did not know that there is a problem. Then you found the problem and were baffled by it. Now you see the solution, and on being told that you cannot get there at once you want to know the reason why.

There is no need to stop long over a re-statement of the problem. We live in a world marvellously equipped for producing all the things the human race needs. Yet so faultily is society organised to deal with the present situation that half of the equipment is out of gear and far more than half of the population is forcibly prevented from using up the goods already produced, and from using the equipment to produce more goods. This is absurd and indefensible. Almost every interested person sees this and says that it is absurd, from the Prince of Wales and the Leaders of the Churches to the professional politicians and their millions of followers. Yet it has remained for the socialist to perceive what it is that paralyses even the well-meant plans of reformers. The means of producing and distributing wealth are the private property of individuals and are under their legal control. The rest of the population—representing more than 90 out of every 100—may not use the means of production or consume the products unless they can first obtain the permission of the minority or their paid agents. The workers may not eat the food they grew and prepared, wear the clothes they made, dwell in the houses they built, or travel in the trains they constructed except by leave of the capitalists. Unless and until the masters say "you may now go in and work,” the workers have no right to set foot in the mills, mines, and factories. While this situation continues the working class, who form the great majority of the population, may not live except by permission of the propertied minority.

The way out of the economic labyrinth is simple and obvious. The majority, acting in an organised and orderly fashion, must assume possession of the means of life in the name of society as a whole. Society must take them over from the few whose private ownership stands in the way of the general welfare. That is where we want to get. But how? And where do we begin?

There are plenty of people telling the workers what to do, but for our present purpose it is not necessary to examine what most of them say. The advice of nine out of ten of them consists of recommending actions which would leave the cause of the trouble quite untouched. So we need not bother our heads on this occasion with the schemes which only tinker with capitalism and leave the capitalists still in possession. There are, however, other advisers who profess to agree about the need for Socialism, but who advocate immediate action. They say, "Let us demonstrate about the Means Test. Let us send deputations to the Public Assistance Committees and to Ministers of the Crown. Let us hold meetings of protest outside the Japanese Embassy as the I.L.P. and the Communists tried to do on May Day. "Let us distribute anti-war leaflets. Let us organise to stop the transport of munitions in the event of war. Let us demand higher wages, shorter hours, holidays with pay, more unemployment benefit, lower rents, etc., etc. Let us back up all these demands with demonstrations and deputations, and with strikes, local, national and international. ”

The people who are the loudest with this sort of talk call it “direct action” or "mass action.” And the strange thing is, that that is just what it isn’t. It is not direct action. Much of it is not “action ” at all in the popular sense of the word. Much of it is just talk. Much of it—strikes, for example— is inaction, the sometimes useful but very negative state of refraining from work. If we socialists were free agents, able to do what we like, we would not do any of these things. We would not waste a moment on things so hopelessly indirect and roundabout. We would—if we could—take direct action and advise the workers to do the same. Indeed, the workers would not need anybody’s advice. If it were not for a something that stands in the way the workers could walk into the shops and warehouses where the food and clothing is and take what they want. Then they could occupy the land, the factories and the workshops, and use them to produce more goods, no longer for the employing class but for society as a whole. That would be direct action. That is what we would advocate if it could be done. It cannot be done, so we say that it cannot be done. The so-called direct actionists and mass actionists say differently. They say that direct action is possible, but they know that it is not. That is why the one thing they never advocate is direct action, and why the things they call direct action are always anything but that. Could anything be more indirect than for workers who produced too many goods for the market and thus threw themselves out of work to go cap-in-hand to the Public Assistance Committee for permission to have a small portion of the unsaleable surplus?

The something that stands in the way of direct action is the control by the capitalist class of the machinery of government, including the police, the army, navy and air force. Because of that, the so-called actionists, just like the Socialist Party of Great Britain, must confine their activities to those things permitted by the capitalists. For practical purposes all that any of us can do is to propagate our ideas and organise to apply them eventually. The "actionists” are muddled in their ideas and are organising for a kind of action that can never succeed. Our ideas are clear and we organise for the only action which can eventually command success—action to gain control of the machinery of government and the armed forces. Socialists are at present a small minority of the working class. The majority of the workers are not yet with us. Until they are won over they will continue to vote the capitalists and their agents into control. It is the non-socialist workers who periodically at elections give the capitalists the power to say to the socialist minority: “If you take any action against our interests, and in defiance of our laws and our wishes, we will crush you."

These are the facts of the situation. You will have to give heed to them and curb your impatience, for you will ignore these facts at your peril. There are really only two courses open to you. You may learn from the experience and observation of others as we have done, or you will learn more slowly and painfully by frittering away your energy and enthusiasm on the senseless activities miscalled direct action.

Edgar Hardcastle

"Darkness at Noon" (1932)

Book Review from the September 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Darkness at Noon by H. Carlisle (Jarrolds. 7s. 6d. net. 288 pages.)

The central figure in this story of mining is a miner, called "Red."

"Red" is no ordinary miner. Of great physical strength, he is much admired by his mates, chiefly because of his ability to earn double their wages; he is the champion hewer.

But "Red" is not satisfied. He hates the mines. He yearns for the "green earth above, lovely with sunshine." He longs furtively for the warm love of women but, conscious of his awkward body and simple mind, he avoids them. To escape from the mines and to satisfy the cravings of his body became the dominating purpose of his life. He conceives the idea of buying a cheap and dingy "pub" with his savings, and with it to attract a barmaid to be his wife. He succeeds. Then begins disillusion. "Red" does not leave the mines. His mercenary barmaid-wife uses her charms to prevail upon him to remain at his work until the "pub" is a success. The "pub" becomes an inn, enlarges, and engages a staff. Still "Red" remains a miner.

The threads of the story are drawn into a swift and dramatic climax. "Red," disillusioned, maddened with jealousy and doubts of his wife's fidelity, almost blinded by an eye disease contracted in the mines, murders, in the mines, a mining engineer, he suspects to be his wife's lover, strangles his wife, sets fire to the inn, and, in his mad flight from the scene, hurls himself to destruction down a disused mining shaft which his failing eyes prevented him from seeing.

The story, which sags in parts, is graphically written and with simple literary force. "Red" is read. The sanctimonious labour leader, the union official, the agitator and the Ruskin man, who are impelled into the book without essential connection with the story, are all real and can be met among any section of organised workers. It has been said that this book is socialist propaganda. It is not. One is left with the feeling that Mr. Carlisle's talents has been wasted on a sex-baffled miner.

Don.