Divide and Rule (1944)

From the September 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Idiotic Squabbles of British and American Miners’ Leaders

If the workers in the different countries clearly understood their own class interests, they would act unitedly to rid the world of the capitalist system and introduce Socialism. The majority of the workers lack that understanding, with the result that they periodically find themselves engaged in mutual slaughter in capitalism’s wars. Likewise in times of peace between the wars, the international trade union movement has much of its energy taken up in discussing the problems of the employing class instead of their own class problems. International trade union and Labour conferences rarely exhibit a genuine international working-class outlook; far too often they are gatherings at which the irreconcilable nationalistic and capitalistic views of the delegates are thinly covered up with a veneer of words expressing vague sentiments of harmony. This state of affairs will never be remedied until the workers in all countries have accepted the principles of Socialism, with the necessary full implication of internationalism based on class interest.

While it may well be true that the workers as a whole are in this matter rather less backward than their leaders, the long road that has to be travelled may be seen from the squabble going on between miners’ officials here and in U.S.A. In words they accept the case for international relationships, but in thought they are unable to see their industry except through capitalist spectacles. While Mr. E. Edwards, General Secretary of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain, is away visiting the conference of the United Mineworkers of America, John Lewis’s organisation, and the President of the British Miners, Mr. W. Lawther, is about to visit Italy to advise on steps to be taken by Italian trade unionists, the latter is engaged in bad-tempered controversy with John Lewis, not about a working-class problem, but a purely capitalist one. It appears from a news item in the News Chronicle (August 17) that an American Coal Commission which visited Great Britain found British mining methods “obsolete and inefficient” by American standards. Thereupon John Lewis launched an all-inclusive attack on the British coal owners, the miners’ leaders and the British Labour Party. According to Lewis, the owners do not want modernisation because they would have to spend money on machinery, the miners do not want it because they fear loss of jobs, and the Labour M.P.s do not want it because they think it would open the door to national wage agreements, and so show the miners they have more to gain from their union than from “blind political affiliation.”

Mr. Lawther retorts that British miners bitterly resent John Lewis’s interference in their affairs. He rejects all the charges, asserts that when British and European miners have, been struggling for improved conditions “we never had one word of encouragement from those American Scribes and Pharisees,” and suggests “it might be worth Mr. Lewis’s while to examine our miners’ welfare schemes and see how they compare with his own, if he has any” (News Chronicle, August 18, 1944).

As Socialists we are very much concerned with the workers’ efforts to maintain their standard of living against the encroachments of the employing class and with the workers’ advancement towards Socialism. Our interest extends to every industry and every country. What happens to the workers anywhere is the business of Socialists everywhere. We are not at all afraid of the charge that we are “poking our noses” into matters that do not concern us—but it all depends on the standpoint from which the approach to the problem is made, and we are not being inconsistent when we say that from a working-class point of view men with the outlook of Messrs. Lawther, Edwards and Lewis would be doing less harm if they confined their attention to their immediate job of trying to improve the poor conditions of their own members.

We say to them all that the efficiency of the mines owned by British, American and all other capitalists is the capitalists’ concern and will be decided by them in their own interests. Efficiency from the capitalist standpoint does not necessarily consist in having up-to-date machinery but in making large profits, and if they can do that without laying out money in modernisation they will do it; but with or without modernisation, they will continue to make profit in the only way it can be made—by exploiting the workers. They will continue to use every brutal means from the starvation weapon of the lock-out (as in Great Britain) to the use of armed thugs (as in the history of American mining), and always with the might of the capitalist state behind them. They will continue to fight each other for markets. Sometimes disputed markets will be captured by low-wage, backward sections of the industry, and sometimes by highly equipped machine operated mines, and always the owners will foster nationalistic divisions between the workers of the different countries and use “foreign competition” as a propaganda weapon against the demands of their own workers for better conditions. Neither Lewis nor Lawther has anything to shout about in respect of the conditions of American or British miners. Neither of them has been able to prevent the amassing of huge fortunes by the coal barons of ‘their respective countries, out of the blood and sweat of the workers.

Our advice to British, American and all other workers is to recognise their mutual interest in fighting the employing class and in seeking control of the political machinery to establish Socialism, not in childish wrangling about the profitless question which gang of exploiters exploits most efficiently, and which gang insults its workers most or least, by the size of the crumbs it throws to them.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Workers and Education (1944)

From the September 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many workers read with pleasure the announcement in the daily press of the proposal of the new Education Act to extend their children’s schooling to the age of 15 years, coupled with a vague promise of raising it when possible to the dizzy height of 16 years. Perhaps they took it as an earnest of the post-war reconstruction we hear so much of nowadays, an added inducement to have bigger and better families completely educated by the State.

If proof were needed to show that education is part of the State machinery used by the ruling class to make obedient wage slaves, it was given in the proceedings in the House of Lords on July 11th, 1944. The Daily Telegraph of the following day reports:—

“The Minister of Education is to discuss with his Advisory Council the best course to adopt to see that children are taught the duties of citizenship and to defend their native country.”

In the debate which followed between the noble Lords, the Church gave its blessing to jingoism when the Archbishop of Canterbury. Dr. Temple, replied to Lord Mottistone, who stated that it was “the law of the land to defend one’s country,” by saying, “I was fully aware of it and rejoice in the fact.” (Daily Telegraph, July 12th).

Later on in the debate, the following curious statement was made by Viscount Maugham : —

“Historians of France had said that in recent years no body of people in that country were so responsible for the events of 1940 as were the teachers.” (Daily Telegraph, July 12th.)

Blame has been laid at many doors for the fall of France, but Viscount Maugham has at least been original in his particular scapegoat. It is, however, difficult to accept. If he would peruse a little work by Mark Starr, entitled “Lies and Hate in Education,” he might learn a little about history and geography as taught to elementary school children of capitalist countries. A whole chapter is devoted to the French text books. It opens on page 94: “In comparison with the British books, bias and nationalistic hatred are more easily to be seen in their French counterparts.” Many and extensive quotations are given from the French school which illustrate the design to awaken hatred of the Germans and to make children believe that they are their hereditary enemies and the sources of all their troubles. Thus does the ruling clique, as representatives of capital, endeavour to befog the workers, from a tender age onwards, into believing that their enemies are anyone but their masters, and also prepares their minds to accept the vituperative outpourings against a competitive nation, which always accompanies a military attack upon it.

One quotation by Mark Starr shows that the Treaty of Versailles was eulogised by the French history books, whilst the German counterparts gave a totally opposite view. Yet another reads : —

“You will happily put up with the strenuous and noble soldier life if you remember the past—our bombarded towns, our burnt-out villages—if you think of the provinces torn out of France, if you do not forget Alsace-Lorraine.” (Page 97).

From a “Reader for the Young,” the following is given : —

“The poor little boy has two cut hands. It is the Germans who have wounded him thus. They have killed his father, his sister, and his big brother as well. . . . Ah ! wicked Germans, the French children will curse you in their hearts for a long time.” (Page 100.)

A little history about the employment of young children in the French coal mines, such as is given in Zola’s “Germinal,” might have taught the French children to curse a little nearer home, where their own interests might have been affected.

Much, states the chapter on France, is said about German “ferocious beasts” and “brutes drunk with alcohol and blood” (pretty much the same as we read in our daily papers), whilst the Paris Commune of 1871 receives a boycott of silence, except that the Communards are dismissed as dangerous fanatics.

Many workers looking back on their own years at an elementary school will remember a similar attitude to history. Mainly an account of good, bad and indifferent kings, the unsurpassed greed of other nations, treachery among the blacks, yellows and browns, usually rounded off by a Kipling rhapsody on the white Britisher. The general ignorance of, say the Chartist movement is well illustrated by an extract from the chapter devoted to English education in Mark Starr’s book : —

“It is hardly surprising that when British soldiers in Murmansk were appealed to by aeroplane-scattered leaflets to “Remember your Chartist forefathers,” they only replied, “Who the hell are they?”… In treating the earlier Radical and Luddite agitations, the supporters are described as “rioters” and “foolish men.” This is the Fletcher Kipling account of Peterloo : 

"At one riot at Manchester in 1819 the soldiers had to be called in, and several people were shot. Very likely these were only innocent spectators; those who get up riots are usually careful to keep out of the way when their suppression begins. Stiff laws were passed in Parliament to prevent such riotous meetings for the future.’” (Pages 52 and 53.)

All civilised countries have their nationalistic teachings designed to warp the young mind. No wonder Socialist teaching is so often hard going; the workers have so many discoveries to make and so much to unlearn.

The Roman Catholic Church has always appreciated the need to get its adherents very young, and has protested strongly against the Education Act. The Act proposes to give them little financial assistance should they remain as they now are—that is, completely running their own schools and employing only teachers of the faith, and in many schools Monks and Nuns.

Commander Bower, in the House of Commons, among others, put the case for the Roman Catholics : —

“A Roman Catholic therefore must believe all the dogmas of his faith. His faith is a house supported by many pillars and if you knock one down, the whole collapses. . . . From this it follows that our view of education is fundamentally different. So religion must permeate the whole curriculum. All subjects must be taught from the Roman Catholic angle “(our italics). (Hansard, January 20th.)

So there it is, from the cradle to the grave never allow the individual to think for himself in case one pillar might be dislodged. Time, however, is not on their side. Not so very long ago the Roman Catholic Church held undisputed sway in this country. It became inconvenient, however, to the State, which endeavoured to institute a different kind of control on the worker. The manner in which it came about is beyond the scope of this article, but to anyone interested in real history it is most instructive.

It became necessary with the growth of capitalism that operatives of all descriptions must receive some education, but it was not of the variety designed to inculcate ideas of freedom in their minds. Education, nevertheless, is a two-edged sword, wield it never so carefully. Whilst making a useful worker, the development of his mind proceeds apace. Even the doctored history and geography cannot quite bemuse him, and his horizons widen ; often, however, he becomes disillusioned, but many turn this to good advantage, determined to resist and oust the master class. As the capitalist method of production advances, there is an increasing need for advanced education. The machines of the present war, for instance, require extensive knowledge of all branches of mathematics. The tremendous weaving and spinning plants of the cotton districts cannot be managed by a worker like those who ran the domestic industry in times gone by. Whilst many operations are performed by turning a lever, the actual working and construction of the machinery is a highly technical affair.

The longer period of education to be given by our masters, whilst appearing to be in the homes for heroes category, is merely a design for the better filling of our masters’ coffers. In veiled terms, the White Paper on Educational .Reconstruction stated this (page 19) : —

“From the point of view of the country’s manufacturing industry, agriculture and commerce, the training afforded by a system of part-time education in conjunction with employment is long overdue. The initial and natural advantages that gave this country, almost for the asking, its place of pre-eminence in world manufacture and world markets have long been fading. More and more in the future will it be necessary to rely on the capacity, adaptability and the quality of our industrial and commercial personnel. Had fuller attention been given earlier to the all-important question of training of young workers, some of the difficulties experienced by the Services and by industry during the present war would have been markedly less acute.”

Whilst an asset to the master class, therefore, we know the educated worker will be an asset to his own class in its task of educating for Socialism. The ability to propagate knowledge is badly needed. Many people are found to be receptive to our case, once presented, because of their own experience, but Socialist educationalists are needed to reach their brothers in all lands. The deplorable fact that most people believe what they read in their daily newspapers is somewhat mitigated by the fact that they can read; thus our hopes of teaching them with our literature.

To this end we welcome the Education Act, despite its capitalist purpose, for we remember that within the capitalist system are the seeds of its own destruction.

W. P.

Pollitt Forgets the Past (1944)

From the September 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Pollitt has written a pamphlet on Communist policy in answer to questions asked by a Mr. Duxbury, who describes himself as an “adherent” of the Communist Party. The questioner explains that while he has always tried to understand why Communist policy has suddenly changed, he finds it difficult when “he has to tell people the opposite to that which he has been drumming at them for months.” He comments, aptly enough : “They think—’this fellow is a lunatic.' ” Now, however, Earl Browder’s statement that “Capitalism and socialism have now found a way to peaceful co-existence in the same world” has “knocked the wind out of us.”

His enquiries are met with the fatuous assertion that “the general line of our Communist policy has been proved correct in the course of experience on every major political issue since the foundation of our Party in 1920,” page 6. Correct in what respect? We could, if we wished, examine in detail the contradictory and confusing policies of the Communist Party in those 24 years; it will suffice to mention one issue only. Possibly P.ollitt has forgotten the desperate efforts of the C.P. to keep its policy in line with the rapid changes of Russian foreign policy in the autumn of 1939— we all try to forget nightmares. The Communist Party declared support for the war on September 2nd, 1939 (before it started !—they were eager), but on October 7th they issued a manifesto opposing it because they discovered that it was an “unjust” war. Twenty-one months later they supported the war again. At last it was a “just” war; Russia was fighting in it.

Such major changes cannot be dismissed as merely incidental to their “correct” policy. The truth is that the Communist Party has one aim, and that is support of Russian State capitalism. When Russian interests demand it, Communist policy will change overnight regardless of working-class interests. Perhaps these changes have been beneficial to Russia; if so, Pollitt can claim that their policy has been correct, but it has been a correct policy for Russian capitalism, not for the working class. Socialists do not boast that their policy has been beneficial to capitalist interest. They are concerned with working-class interests only—the Communist Party is not.

In his explanation of Earl Browder’s dissolution of the American Communist Party and his support of Roosevelt, Pollitt says that with a Democratic President peaceful cooperation between Russia, Britain and the U.S.A. is guaranteed. Even were it possible to guarantee peace (and we emphasise that it is not possible), this policy means the support of men who intend to administer capitalism in one form or the other. The Communists are pledged to support the continued exploitation of the working class; no excuse will hide that fact.

One or two points in the questioner’s letter deserve comment. He wants to rally the millions who desire Socialism but will not listen to it if it were preached for 100 years. He wants Socialism before he is 30, and he continues : “I want to catch the fastest bus. Lenin would have made great decisions here.” After advocating unity between the Communist Party and the Common Wealth Party, he says : “The only thing that I can see is Unite and sweep capitalism to hell out of it by vigorous political action.” We want Socialism as quickly as possible, but we know that there is only one fast way—the correct way. These who are merely in a hurry but have little or no understanding of the Socialist case have followed many paths—paths that have led anywhere but to Socialism. Lenin, who is mentioned, was one who wanted to get Socialism quickly. He constantly urged his colleagues to insurrection and emphasised the need for seizing power even with a minority. He also repudiated the need for working-class understanding with the plea that it would take 500 years (Socialist Standard, May, 1921).

Lenin and the Bolsheviks achieved power and made their great decisions; but did they establish Socialism ? Of course not. The economic conditions were not ripe in Russia, but even in a modern industrial system Socialism will not be the outcome of any “great” decisions by leaders or parties. Those in a hurry must realise that Socialism will make headway only when workers are willing to listen to and discuss the Socialist case. Pollitt talks of “unity” so that a division in the “Labour and progressive vote” can be avoided. The Socialist wants votes for Socialisjn. and knows that when the workers want Socialism they will unite and take political action, hostile to all “progressive” or “reactionary” capitalist parties.

Finally, Pollitt says “that the Party is growing, that its meetings, . . . its members are the envy of every political organisation in the country.” Is that so? Do people envy “lunatics”?

Lew Jones

‘Philanthropy’ An Asset to the Capitalist (1944)

From the September 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following report, taken from a trade paper, needs very little comment: —

“The effect of a judgment which Mr. Justice Macnaughten delivered on June 16th in a revenue case was that contentment and loyalty of employees have a monetary value which their employers may include in the computation of their capital for assessment of excess profits tax.

“The case before the court concerned payments of over £1,000,000 by Lever Bros, and Unilever, Ltd., into their employees’ pension fund in order to provide pensions for employees and their widows. The company contended that by the payment of these sums they had brought into existence an asset in a feeling of greater security and contentment among their employees, leading to increased efficiency, and that the value of the asset should therefore be included in the computation of the capital employed in the business.

“The Commissioners of Inland Revenue, holding that no asset had thereby been created, assessed the company accordingly. The Special Commissioner upheld the finding; from that decision the company appealed.

“Mr. Justice Macnaughten allowed the appeal, saying that it could not be suggested that the word ‘asset’ in the schedule to the Finance Act, 1929, was restricted to material things; the company had acquired an asset within the meaning of the Act, and its value was the amount paid for it.” (The Insurance Mail, 21/6/44.)

There it is—pensions for worn-out workers, an asset to be paid for at its market price.

R. Ambridge

From the Cradle to the Grave (1944)

From the September 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Manchester Evening News of May 25, 1944, publishes an article by a staff reporter under the heading, “Control of Funerals, Unlikely.”

We are not here concerned with the question of price control, whether for ingress to or egress from “this sorry scherne of things entire”—that we can safely leave to those “financial wizards” and “price ceiling experts” whose job it is to “navigate” the “good ship Capitalism.”

The footnote to the above mentioned article is much more interesting and informative, and we quote it as follows :

“Prices at Southern Cemetery for Graves range from £3 4s. 6d. to £72 15s. More than 50 per cent. are buried in £3 4s. 6d. graves. Those at £72 15s. are double spaces in prominent positions on main drives. Single space in same position costs £30 1s. (Our italics.)

Human beings born into the working class are rocked in “shoddy” cradles, dressed in “shoddy” clothes, fed on “shoddy” food, housed in “jerry” buildings, and when their days of toil are over buried in “shoddy” graves. Worn out by a lifetime of toil and poverty midst plenty, the worker “giving up the ghost'” reaches his goal—a “£3 4s. 6d. grave.”

Not for him the prominent main drive; a back row will suffice, but he may console himself with the thought that the worms are probably fatter where the potentates are laid !

”Prominent graves for ‘prominent’ men” is a fitting slogan for supporters of capitalism, whilst the stone mason, exercising all his skill on magnificent monuments for “great” men and marble memorials for millionaires, vaguely wonders if he will manage a “wooden” cross!

The art of the stone mason adorns the pillars of plutocracy, but the stone mason—lies fertilising in the “back row.”

This is capitalism, from the cradle to the grave. Workers, unite for Socialism !

G. R. Russell

North Africa, Italy and Capitalism (1944)

From the September 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Because the Socialist Party of Great Britain is composed of members of the working class who, like most workers, are tied down to the place wherein they sell their labour power, we have not been able to do much to propagate Socialism directly to peoples of other lands. But although we have continually stressed the capitalist evils existing in this country, it does not follow that the S.P.G.B. is blind to the stultifying effects of capitalism in other countries. Indeed, those who have studied our case know that we have always stressed the universal nature of capitalism. Go wherever you will, you will find on one hand a privileged class that, without the necessity of working, can enjoy every luxury and comfort, and even dodge many of the worst effects of war, and, on the other hand, a far larger class composed of those who are forced to work to gain the bare necessities of life. Go where you will and, side by side with the wealth of those who produce nothing, you will see the poverty of those who produce all wealth—the workers.

With this fact in mind, the present writer would address those men and women who have been drawn into some branch of the Services and eventually sent abroad.

Possibly for the first time in your lives you have seen the sordid and nauseating effects of capitalism in countries other than England. You have, perhaps, been to North Africa and seen the dire poverty, squalor and hunger rampant in that vast terrain. You have seen disease-ridden Arabs dragging out an existence on tracts of land where the soil produces nothing that is edible. You have possibly wondered, with science at its present advanced state, why chemical fertilisation of the soil has not been undertaken. To the Socialist the answer is simple : Capitalism does not think such a step profitable.

Side by side with the poverty of the Arabs you have seen the wealth of Continental parasites, who can live in palatial, comparatively hygienic houses that are protection against the flies, mosquitoes, and stinks that beset the major part of North Africa’s population.

Possibly you have been to Italy and witnessed there the abject poverty and hunger of the many and the wealth and plenty of the few. You have seen the Naples slums—and maimed men and women begging in the dusty streets. you have learned, perhaps, that when Mussolini rose to power he ordered the patching up of these slums and the arrest of all beggars seen upon the streets. Thus to the tourist and casual observer slums and beggars did not exist in Italy. The grand facade of brightly coloured house exteriors and streets without beggars did its work in advertising what Fascism had done for the workers, yet merely hid the filth, insanitary conditions and destitution that actually existed.

By learning this, perhaps, you have realised that a Fascist administration, by a ruthless eradicating of visible signs of poverty and squalor, may give a grand exterior to capitalism, but can do nothing towards actually curing the evils inherent in the social order.

You have seen, perhaps, Italian workers too poor to buy the food that will give them proper nourishment. You have seen shops that, through the background operations of prospering, well-fed “black-marketeers” are able to sell, at prices beyond the reach of the. workers, a bountiful supply of food, clothing, and other necessities. You have seen the rich satisfy their wants by paying the prices asked. You have seen the poor, half-fed and in rags, because they are unable to buy.

Fellow workers, many of you have seen these things now. Is it not obvious that the poverty-stricken, stultifying, disease-breeding conditions of the workers are not confined to Britain, but exist in every capitalist country? Does not the magnitude and far-reaching nature of this outworn social order convince you of the importance of abolishing it, with all its contradictious, anomalies and insanities ? Are you not convinced that capitalism should be replaced by a social order wherein all co-operate in producing and distributing the needs of society—wherein there is no master class exploiting a slave class—wherein the whole of society has free access to the products of society ?

Workers! what are you going to do about it?

Frank Hawkins

By The Way: Of Mice and Men—or Rich Tabby (1944)

The By The Way Column from the September 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Of Mice and Men—or Rich Tabby

A Boston lawyer has left $100,000 for the maintenance of his pet cat. He has also cancelled seven bequests of $20,000 each to seven relatives “because of their contemptuous attitude and cruelty towards my cat.” (Daily Mail, August 5th, 1944.)

He left $40,000 to his housekeeper, to ensure that she is in a position to maintain “Tabby.” This reminds us of the Pekinese dog that was left a few thousand shares in a British company some years back.

The workers in the concerns where the $140,000 is invested may now have the pleasure of slaving to maintain the governor’s pet in luxury, after the bloke himself has snuffed it. This is only a difference of degree; we doubt not that the cat has far more intelligence and is much more useful than some of the “film-stars” (? !), chorines, dancers, and others whom wealthy men frequently marry, especially when one dies, leaving the producers of their wealth, the workers, to maintain and fawn upon them in ridiculous opulence. The bequeathing of large chunks of labour productivity to animals and “pets” is the final epitome of the irrational and obsolete capitalist system, where the best portion of society toils unnecessarily for a few largely idiotic parasites, to the detriment of both.

* * *

One of the Four Freedoms

From the Daily Mail of August 15th we learn that the Registrar-General announces that a complete scheme of National Registration is in preparation for use after the war.

“Under a peace-time National Register everyone throughout life would have, in addition to a name, a code number.”

This, he thinks, would abolish bigamy and be necessary for operating the new social services.

We have had occasion to point out previously, and it is no discovery of the Socialist Party, that this sort of “temporary” war-time legislation is always much more difficult to get off the Statute Book than to put on.

As capitalism is allowed by politically ignorant workers to develop further in the direction of State centralisation, it becomes more obvious that we are approaching the conditions described by Mr. Hilaire Belloc in his book “The Servile State.”

This was a state of affairs where every citizen was numbered and docketed like a parcel, and every intimate personal action supervised by a board of State bureaucrats, with endless cards, numbers, permits, etc.

This is not Socialism. A genius like Oscar Wilde was much nearer the mark when he wrote in his “Soul of Man under Socialism” that only “with Socialism could we reach real individualism.” Wm. Morris expressed the same idea.

In the early days of the working-class movement nothing in Continental despotism was so roundly denounced as the reactionary passport system. The yellow spot of the Jew was a similar measure. Labour Liberals of two decades back poured the bitterest invective on the reactionary oppression of the Tsar’s secret police, with its individual passport system. It has taken a war for the Four Freedoms to shackle the working class with the National Service officer and a code number, like a convict, for life. Socialism will not be servile neither will it be a State.

The State is a private property institution which under Socialism will wither away. Freedom will be inevitable because economic equality of all will be the basis of society.

* * *

German Women to Work Harder

From the Times, July 29th, 1944 : —

“It is announced from Berlin that as a part of Goebbels’s efforts to secure total mobilisation women and adolescents will be directed into war work to the fullest extent. Curiously enough, the German press points out that while Russian women and children served unstintingly in Leningrad during the siege, and British women work as dock labourers and in all sorts of arms production, German women have hitherto contributed far less to the war effort. Why should they be exempt, the newspapers ask, now that the German homeland is being besieged ?

One of the first changes is that women will release men for the forces by becoming motor drivers.

Goebbels issued his first total mobilisation decree yesterday. According to an announcement by the German wireless last night, the decree is aimed "at all persons liable for work who have fulfilled their labour duties in appearance only, persons who through family or other connection have obtained a labour contract enabling them to lead an easy life far away from the nation’s common strain of war’.”—Reuter.

After a terrific fanfare of the usual boloney, Goebbels is now announcing the measures to be introduced to find more men for the shambles. British readers will probably be somewhat surprised to read that one of the drastic “total” totalitarian war schemes is that women are to release men by becoming motor-drivers. Really ! Dr. Goebbels ! the poor old, worn out, effete democracies did this years ago. Apparently Mr. Bevin can give the Nazis ten yards start in a hundred at this game, and beat them any time. The stories the British Ministry of Information told us about “Hitler’s slaves” don’t sound so good any more either, if it has taken all this time for them to check up on “dodgers” (who seem to manage pretty well in England, too, if they’ve enough money), and tell the women to start driving motors.

* * *

New Curtains, Fruits of Victory

There is probably no clearer indication of the real frame of mind of the capitalist class than the advertisements which the directors of various large firms are publishing just now. All sorts of concerns are stating their post-war intentions. Motor manufacturers advertise the advent of a world with wide motor roads and better “So and so’s” cars. The I.C.I. state that their view is that the post-war world must be international. Makers of toffees and wireless sets, building societies, brewers, tobacco manufacturers, textile firms—all strike the same note.

“Bigger and Better” this, or that, is what it practically amounts to. One of the most fantastic actually says : —

My Peace Terms.

“Freedom for the oppressed people of Europe. . . . New curtains in the sitting room . . . and back to fresh butter, honey, and lovely—Cream Crackers! (Daily Telegraph, July 26th, 1944.)

One can only conclude that people who can write of “Freedom for the people of Europe” in the same breath as curtains for the sitting room have been rather seriously affected by the buzz-bomb.

The hollow mockery and revolting hypocrisy of this mentality is the strongest possible proof of the real aims of the Capitalist Government in war. They have no more concern for the people of Europe than those of anywhere else. Their idea of Freedom is a new pair of curtains.

That’s all right—as far as it goes—but when they want us to believe it’s for freedom for the oppressed people of Europe or somewhere—Well, Donald Duck has a word for it’

* * * 

“Pay Them Well”

Thus the Daily Mail for August 4th, 1944. They refer to the fighting Services. Lord Rothermere and friends are quite indignant with the Pensions Minister and the Cabinet for being niggardly with Services pay and “huckstering” about pensions and allowances.

That it is utterly outrageous that the wife of a soldier killed in battle should get less than the wife of a soldier still lucky enough to survive, the Socialist is the last to deny !

But, says the Mail with lordly (“Press-Lordly”) disdain, “A copper or two granted here, a readjustment made there is considered sufficient.”

“The costly policies initiated by the Government (free public schools, public health services, social security) are the hall-marks of the twentieth century.”

The “pay per day” method is a relic of the times when soldiers were mercenaries—mere casual labourers of the battlefields. It should be abolished, just as it has been abolished in the docks. The modern fighting man is a highly trained combatant and a skilled technician. He should be paid a salary and a good one.” (Italics ours.) (Daily Mail, August 8th.)

What the Mail calls a “good salary” for soldiers it carefully refrains from saying. We know men who would not do it for all the tea in China. Certain it is that, like working for the Socialist Party, nobody does it for what he gets in money—which is a joke, even for the officers.

Two things about the Daily Mail’s viewpoint interest us as Socialists, apart from the fact that the British capitalists, having raked in big profits during the war, feel at the moment—but only at the moment—like a man at the last course of a magnificent banquet—(“Gentlemen, you may smoke”), and are ready to chuck a pound in the plate for the waiter.

One is the statement that the “costly policies of the Government are the hall-marks of the twentieth century.” In other words, it is the considered policy of the capitalists to-day to give up a little, in the shape of reforms for the workers, to try to avoid having to surrender the lot to a discontented, Socialist, working class. As Socialist knowledge spreads among workers, and Labour leaders find it more difficult to convince them that reform of capitalism is “instalments” of Socialism, Lord Rothermere, Sir Samuel Courtauld, Lords Mcgowan and Nuffield will shower reforms, like the Beveridge Plan and More Pay, upon them to keep them occupied—and quiet. Even if it is reforms you want—which we Socialists do not—it is better to plump for Socialism.

But more important than this—the Mail points out that the one-time mercenaries who sold themselves for the King’s shilling—the “scum of the earth” of Rudyard Kipling and Billy Bennett—the old beer-swilling sweats—the “poor bloody infantry” of the past—like their civilian counterparts, the unskilled labourer, have become “highly trained skilled technicians.”

Modern fighting men, unlike their predecessors in history, are simply modern working-men put into uniform for organised scientific technical mass killing.

Some historians declare that the hired mercenaries of the Middle Ages fixed up representative conferences the night before “battle commenced” to arrange terms, and that sometimes battles did not start until the generals had agreed to “the rate for the job.” On other occasions armies just transferred during battle to the other side for more money.

But modern complicated capitalism, handling immense armies of millions at war, with colossal modern scientific equipment, can no more work on these methods than a man can pilot a plane without instruments.

Modern soldiers, or workers, in the world of 1944 are becoming highly trained skilled technicians; they are rapidly becoming producers of modern super-abundance in control of mighty complex engines which subdue and transform the forces and resources of nature—in other words, the result of the development of capitalism—is to make the working man of to-day a potential Socialist. But only potential; the ground is getting richer for the reception of the seed; the job of the Socialist Party is to implant it, deeply and firmly— it is certain to grow and multiply.

As workers and soldiers become still more highly educated, they will more easily grasp the futility of illusory scrambles for pennies or shillings extra, and fix their eyes on the real goal—abolition of private ownership—not large salaries, but what they produce. Lord Rothermere can pay as well as he likes. It will avail him nothing.

Horatio.

A Word From William Morris (1944)

From the September 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Now it seems to me that at such a time, when people are not only discontented, but have really conceived a hope of bettering the condition of labour, while at the same time the means towards their end are doubtful; or, rather, when they take the very beginning of the means as an end in itself, that this time when people are excited about Socialism, and when many who know nothing about it think themselves Socialists, is the time of all others to put forward the simple principles of Socialism regardless of the policy of the passing hour.

My readers will understand that in saying this I am speaking for those who are complete Socialists or let us call them Communists. I say for us to make Socialists is the business at present, and at present I do not think we can have any other useful business. Those who are not really Socialists — who are Trades' Unionists, disturbance-breeders, or what not — will do what they are impelled to do, and we cannot help it. At the worst there will be some good in what they do; but we need not and cannot heartily work with them, when we know that their methods are beside the right way.

Our business, I repeat, is the making of Socialists, i.e., convincing people that Socialism is good for them and is possible. When we have enough people of that way of thinking, they will find out what action is necessary for putting their principles in practice. Until we have that mass of opinion, action for a general change that will benefit the whole people is impossible. Have we that body of opinion of any thing like it? Surely not. If we look outside that glamour, that charmed atmosphere of party warfare in which we necessarily move, we shall see this clearly: that though there are a great many who believe it possible to compel their masters by some means or another to behave better to them, and though they are prepared to compel them (by so-called peaceful means, strikes and the like), all but a very small minority are not prepared to do without masters. They do not believe in their own capacity to undertake the management of affairs, and to be responsible for their life in this world. When they are so prepared, then Socialism will be realised; but nothing can push it on a day in advance of that time.

Therefore, I say, make Socialists. We Socialists can do nothing else that is useful, and preaching and teaching is not out of date for that purpose; but rather for those who, like myself, do not believe in State Socialism, it is the only rational means of attaining to the New Order of Things."

(The above is taken from: William Morris, Artist, Writer Socialist, by May Morris, Vol. 11„ p.518., and originally appeared in The Commonweal, November 15th, 1890.)

Confessions of a Labour Leader (1944)

From the September 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Tom Johnston, Labour M.P., says we are better fed during the war than ever before: —

  Nutritionally, we had never been better fed in our history than we were now, Mr. Tom Johnston, Secretary for Scotland, said at Dundee yesterday.
  Despite shortages, other difficulties and the rationing system, everyone for the first time was able to get three meals a day.
  It was tragic that it took the war to ensure that the most necessitous—children and infants—got priorities, fruit juices, and so on. (News Chronicle, August 19th, 1944.)

Mr. Johnston was a supporter of the Labour Government in 1924 and again in 1929-31, and held office under the latter as Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Scotland and Lord Privy Seal. Will he explain why the Labour Governments did not tackle this elementary problem of nutrition?

Obituary: Comrade Jack Butler (1944)

Obituary from the September 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have the sad task of informing comrades and friends that our true and trusty Treasurer, Comrade J. Butler, has been killed by a flying bomb. The tragedy occurred at 7 o'clock in the morning, but he was not dug out of the debris until the evening. When found, there was a pencil behind his ear and a mutilated party account book nearby—so that he was already up and engaged on party work at the time. He certainly died in harness—a harness he gloried in wearing.

Butler was 58 years old, and joined the West Ham Branch of the Party in 1910. He early became active as a speaker, and was on the platform as recently as a fortnight before he died. He also became Literature Secretary for the Branch, and kept the job till the end. About 20 years ago he became Treasurer of the Party, and from that time onwards the Party absorbed all his energies—he had no other interest.

During his long association with the Party, Butler participated in the many long and vital discussions in the course of which the Party hammered out its policy on different problems; he has been a solid supporting pillar, reasonable, sound and universally liked. He was one of those rare people who shirk the limelight, do an enormous amount of work, and make no fuss about it. It was sufficient recompense for him that the work he was doing was for the cause in which he believed and hoped soon to see successful. He will be sorely missed. Absolutely straight, sincere, dependable, and a glutton for work, he was one of those who are not easy to replace.

Perhaps the writer may be permitted a personal note, as an old friend. He first met Butler about 1910 or 1911, when a group of enthusiastic young members, panting for knowledge and struggling to become speakers and writers, used to gather at Head Office. At that time the Party Headquarters consisted of a couple of squalid rooms at the top of some rickety stairs in Sandland Street, Bedford Row—it was wiped out in the Blitz. The Party had very small funds at the time and we used to have “family parties"  folding the “S.S." (it was delivered in sheets at the time), and discussing Socialist principles and all the knotty problems of the day. We also arranged among ourselves to visit various spots to hold impromptu meetings, from which we would disperse to our homes long after midnight. Then the Great War of 1914-18 came. The Party was opposed to it on Socialist grounds, and we were dispersed in different directions. When we resumed after the war, only a few of the group of our generation turned up again, but Butler was one of them, and was soon back at Standard-folding, discussing and routine work again. In his Branch he was also a tower of strength, helpful and informing to now members.

When Butler took over the Treasurership he watched Party finances closely, and always had the trust, goodwill and friendship of the membership. It is pitiful to think that after weathering the storms of the last war and the blitzes of this, now, when appearances suggest that the end is near, he should have been struck down by a fiendish product of the system to the fight against which he gave the best years of his life. The best tribute we can offer to his memory is to carry on as steadfastly as he did [for] the struggle for the triumph of Socialism.

Butler’s wife was seriously injured and his son slightly. We wish them a speedy recovery, and send them our sympathy in the loss they have suffered.

Gilmac.

Death of Another Old Comrade (1944)

Obituary from the September 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

We regret to announce the death of Comrade W. Howard, of Hackney Branch, at the age of 66. A docker by trade for the greater part of his life, he was formerly a member of the Social Democratic Federation. Realising the futility of the reformist policy which had overtaken the S.D.F., he left it to join the S.P.G.B. in June, 1912. For 32 years he gave his unstinted efforts to the work of the Party as lecturer and in the organisation of the Branch, and passed on the benefits of his experience to younger members. He rarely failed to attend Branch meetings even during the last four years when he suffered from a heart ailment. Comrade Howard will be greatly missed by all who knew him. We extend our sympathy to his relatives in their loss.

Editorial: The Evolution of Sir Stafford Cripps, The "Revolutionary" (1944)

Editorial from the September 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists are not concerned about the career of Sir Stafford Cripps and his success in the world of capitalist politics. There is, however, a value in observing the evolution of his political ideas because he represents a type with which Socialists have long been familiar. Forty years ago, when the S.P.G.B. first laid it down that Socialism could never be brought about except by the conscious act of a Socialist majority, this principle was criticised by all the reformists because it meant, they said, long postponement of the emancipation of the working class. There were quicker ways, we were told, and the Socialist Party year after year has had to show the fallacy of the advocates of short cuts to Socialism, whether they were preaching the general strike, the seizure of power by a minority, or the formation of Labour Governments which would introduce so-called "revolutionary" reforms to speed us on the way. Nothing daunted by a succession of past failures, there are always new men coming along to preach the same doctrine. Always, as they make their spectacular way, their career takes the same general course. First they denounce the slowness of the S.P.G.B. and demand action to get "Socialism now"; then they climb to high office in the Labour movement or the capitalist State, only to find that they cannot deliver the goods: then they fall back into the ranks of those who accept capitalism and merely advocate the petty reforms that have always been the stock-in-trade of the capitalist parties. Ten years ago Cripps was in full and furious fight. He was in a hurry. Everyone else was holding back the Socialist triumph. He attacked them all and gained the reputation of being the hundred per cent. revolutionary. He declared he wanted Socialism now and nothing but Socialism. He had no time for compromise and compromisers, and no time for the S.P.G.B. view that the laborious task had first to be carried out of making Socialists. Attacking the Labour Party, he declared in his pamphlet “The Choice for Britain," “ We must . . . firmly and definitely abandon any idea of working in association with any other political group or party that denies the absolute necessity of Socialism." In particular, he rejected as dangerous the idea that some temporary alliance of pro-democratic forces should be brought about not based on the achievement of Socialism."

From then till now is not a very long period, but long enough for Sir Stafford to have abandoned most of his ideas. As a member of a Coalition Government facing the problem of post-war reconstruction he now quite frankly accepts the fact that capitalism will continue after the war, and that reconstruction will be strictly within the limits imposed by capitalism. In a speech at Belfast (reported in the Times, August 19, ), 1944), he forecast a fall in the standard of living after the war “unless we could get back all our pre-war export trade and add something like another 50 per cent. pretty quickly . . . " This, though he may have forgotten the fact, has been in the line of Conservative and Liberal propaganda for upwards of a century, as also was his further plea for increased efficiency. Finally, he let the cat out of the bag entirely when he admitted that it is to be the same old capitalism—"we shall embark upon the solution of our post-war difficulties largely under the aegis of private enterprise in this country, and that system will have to justify its own continuance by showing that it has the enterprise to meet the new circumstances and to overcome them."

This last pronouncement about capitalism justifying its continued existence comes strangely from one who ten years ago was proclaiming from the housetop that capitalism had long proved its own failure and unfitness to survive. In the same speech Sir Stafford thought that this country might fail to handle post-war problems satisfactorily “because of our innate conservatism.” "What was good enough for my father is good enough for me" is, he said, a “fatal slogan for industry."

The only serious conservatism from which the workers suffer is their habit of clinging to capitalism when Socialism is within their reach if they would have it, and Sir Stafford Cripps, who is now saying in effect, “Capitalism which was good enough for my father is good enough for me," is aiding the capitalist class to keep the workers conservative.

In the post-war years there will be many more self styled saviours of the working class seeking votes and support, shouting urgently for speedy action while they are climbing and then, when they have arrived, imploring the workers to go slow and be content with capitalism. These men are the successors of a long line stretching back to the earliest days of the reformist movement. No matter what their good intentions may be, they will not and cannot do anything for the emancipation of the working class.