Dictatorship and Democracy in the Ancient World - Part 2 (1940)

From the October 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from September issue).

One cause of complaint against Athens was the fact that after the Persian War the wealth which had flowed in as tribute from the Allies to build the Athenian fleet was diverted to beautifying the city. Pericles defended this policy on the following grounds: —

“It was right, Pericles argued, that after the city had provided all that was necessary for war, it should devote its surplus money to the erection of buildings which would be a glory to it for all ages, while these works would create plenty by leaving no one unemployed and encouraging all sorts of handicraft. . . . As he did not wish the mechanics and lower classes to be without their share, nor yet to see them receive it without doing work for it, he had laid the foundations of great edifices which would require industries of every kind to complete them.”—(Plutarch, Pericles, 12. Quoted by Grant, Pericles, p. 217.)

The menace that always lurked in the background of the Greek world up to the time of Alexander was the huge semi-barbarous Persian Empire which sprawled over Asia and at intervals stretched out tentacles to embrace the thriving Greek cities. It was the attack of the Persian hordes on the Ionian Peninsular that assisted the Athenians to lay the foundations of their empire. The Persians had obtained control of the Greek cities on the Asiatic mainland, but their defeat at Marathon and the growth of Athenian power freed the mainland for a time from the Persian dragon.

After the Peloponesian war had run for ten years mutual exhaustion compelled the two leading contestants to agree to a truce. During the truce Athens conceived the plan of attacking Syracuse in Sicily, an early colony of Corinth which had grown wealthy enough to become second only to Athens in commercial standing. The Athenians sent out a large fleet and a powerful army and looked forward to obtaining much booty as well as crushing a growing rival. But political jealousy deprived them of their most gifted commander, Alcibiades. The fleet had hardly arrived at Sicily when a message was received recalling Alcibiades to stand trial on the accusation of violating sacred monuments. Alcibiades, however, was not prepared to risk the trial. Instead of returning he went to Sparta where he urged the Spartans to send aid to the Syracusans. The suggestion appealed to the Spartans, although the truce with Athens was still in operation. As a first step Sparta made an arrangement with the Persian colossus under which the latter was allowed to resume its hegemony over the Greek cities of the mainland on condition that Sparta was allowed a free hand in Greek lands and waters. Throughout the war Sparta also received regular subsidies from Persia, while Athenian revenues were diminishing.

The Syracusan expedition was the end of the Athenian Empire, for it suffered a crushing defeat and never really recovered from the blow. Henceforward Sparta dominated the Greek world until its harsh oligarchical rule eventually drove the subject cities to revolt and recreated a modified Athenian Empire.

Although Sparta had obtained a firm grip of the bulk of the Greek states there were still those on the Asiatic Mainland under Persian control. How Sparta proposed solving this problem is explained by Robertson in “The Story of Greece and Rome.”

“There remained the liberation of the Greeks from Persia. The defeat of the Persians at Mycale did not mean their retirement from the AEgean. They still held all their possessions, both in Asia Minor and in Thrace. But to drive them out and liberate the Greek cities meant the maintenance of an efficient fleet in the eastern AEgean for a considerable time, and such a policy was, as might be expected, distasteful to Sparta. She, therefore, proposed that Asiatic Greeks should leave their cities and migrate to new homes to be provided for them in Greece.”–(P. 127.)

Before concluding this little sketch of conditions in Greece at the time, it remains to say a little more about that section of Greek society that went under the name of “Oligarchs,” particularly as it has a modern significance.

The Greek philosophers carne principally from the democratic states, but they represented a revolt against the abolition of the political privileges of the rich, and their teaching was directly antagonistic to existing government. Philosophers had reached the stage of doubting the value of all that was accepted and hence democratic government come in for their criticism. Socrates compared the existing constitution of Athens with his ideal state and found it wanting. The Sophists objected to the acceptance of anything on tradition and exalted the individual above the state. It was a reaction against the extreme democracy of the time.

It may appear strange to us that the slaves, who formed a large element in Greek society, were entirely ignored by both philosophers and politicians. But in those days the slave as such had no more standing than a horse or a bullock, although it was possible, under exceptional conditions, for a slave to obtain his freedom. Commerce was a great assistance in helping slaves to become freedmen.

The philosophers were the intellectual expression of oligarchical aspirations, and helped to influence dissatisfied sections of the population in favour of oligarchy—the dictatorship of one man or a small group of men.

The Oligarchs were a minority section that organised in secret clubs, threw their weight for or against any project or legislation that favoured their aspirations, and were able at times to seize power by force when conditions favoured a coup.

The following excellent summary of oligarchy is taken from Whibley’s “Political Parties at Athens,” and although it is only concerned with Athens, it nevertheless applied generally: —

“The oligarchs as a whole were a disloyal faction, for neither their methods nor their objects entitle them to be regarded as a party. They not only rejected the obligation to obey the laws, but they were traitors to their country, for they intrigued with the national enemy against it; their ends were always selfish and treasonable, and were pursued by means of conspiracy and terrorism. 

They formed, as their name implies, a small minority of the State, and were for the most part men of wealth, or political adventurers who saw possibilities of their own advancement in the chance of revolution. In particular, many of the young aristocrats, who looked with contempt on the rule of the lower classes, and were anxious to overthrow it, joined their ranks. 

The motives which had put rich men in opposition to the constitution are obvious …. the political conflict was reactionary, the rich striving to regain the powers they had lost.”—(P. 81.)

From what has been written it should be clear that the Peloponesian War was no different from other later wars in the sense that it arose directly out of the economic conditions of the time. It is also an example of how little “human nature” has changed in the course of two thousand years.

Gilmac.

Original approach (1979)

Book Review from the April 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Understanding Marxism: An approach through Dialogue. Harry Eddy. Blackwell 1979 (£2.95 paper)

This little book is certainly original. It takes the Socratic form of a three-cornered discussion on Marxist Philosophy, Historical Materialism, the Class Struggle, the State, Ideology. Religion, Scientific Socialism, Capitalism and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Whether the text is an actual record of what took place is not stated, but the discussions were sent to all the study groups of the Workers’ Educational Association in Sydney, Australia, as material for a study course, and are well worth application by branches of the SPGB.

The speakers consist of a self-styled “Marxist”, an anti-Marxist, and a novice who interjects every now and again ‘‘what does that mean?” The book has the merit of extremely simplified, direct language and the interruptions (“I don't get that point") enable the speakers to reiterate their arguments.

The text is remarkable for its complete omission of any mention of Marx’s economics, the corner-stone of his system. Most of the latter half deals with Lenin’s aberrations from, and distortions of, Marxism, particularly with reference to the ‘‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat’’, quoting one of the best books on the subject. Lucien Laurat's Marxism and Demoncracy.

The book is not without other defects; the Marxist speaker (Allen) holds that Marxism cannot prove objectivity, because Lenin said so. As is well known, Marx wrote that "the point is to change the world, not interpret it.” He never proclaimed that capitalism would collapse, neither for that matter did Lenin. Socialism is not the common ownership of “means of exchange", which it will abolish. It is not right that all the "Marxists” (meaning people calling themselves that) told Lenin that Socialism could not be established in Russia in 1917. The British Socialist Party went overboard for Leninism, forming the Communist Party.

The Socialist Labour Party said in The Socialist that the Russian Soviets represented De Leonism (SLP) applied to Russia. At least half the ILP supported the Bolsheviks. A huge congress was held in Leeds, attended by Ramsay Macdonald. Sydney Webb, national trade union leaders, writers and politicians, which passed resolutions calling for "Soviets in Britain”. There was one group in Britain which did not support the idea of Socialism in Russia in 1917. It was The Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Horatio.

Logic, Truth and Politics (1974)

From the May 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socrates taught that all men desire the truth. If they do not, it is because they do not know the truth; once it is told to them, their eyes are opened and they will naturally pursue it.

The briefest look at history and current events makes plain that Socrates was wrong. In all kinds of situations men learn the truth and then act as if it were an unfounded rumour. Indeed, the simple dicta about truth are turned by everyday experience into untruths themselves: “honesty is the best policy” (well, IS it?) and “the unrighteous never prosper” (manifestly, they do). Three public figures have recently said this should not be so, and that truth should prevail in politics. Because most readers of their statements would agree, and at the same time not dream of acting accordingly, it is worth examining what they said to see where the fallacy is.

On 11th March The Times published an article by Enoch Powell on why he did not stand in the General Election. He wrote:

. . . the assumption so widely, even unquestioningly prevalent now, that any correspondence between the proclaimed intentions and policies of political parties and their actions in office cannot, and perhaps even should not, be expected, is certainly unhealthy; for if accepted, it reduces elections and Parliament to a charade.

Powell instanced his own Conservative Party in 1972 introducing a wage-control policy “which at the 1970 election it renounced and repudiated in the most thorough manner”, and pointed out that this required Conservative candidates to be liars:

What is more, it was universally expected (so far as I could tell) that come an election, the same member would find no problem in presenting himself to the electors as the official candidate of a party seeking support and approval for the actual policies he had consistently denounced.

It seems strange that Powell in the 1974 election supported Labour, whose policies he had “consistently denounced”; and who did exactly the same thing in reverse, introducing a wage-control policy in 1966 and then repudiating it. Powell’s support was given because of one over-riding reason, the belief that a Labour government would get Britain out of the Common Market. But this highlights the whole question of political practicality, and why leaders eat their words. Necessity drives. One of the most famous lies of modern times was put down to a Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Stafford Cripps, in 1949 when he affirmed repeatedly that the government was not going to devalue the pound — right up to the moment when the government did so. The pious Cripps, of whom Churchill said “there but for the grace of God goes God”, simply did not believe it would be done and was left with the consequences of his own utterances.

Looking for an Honest Man

A different version of Powell’s plaint was given in an article on Pierre Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, by the Financial Times Ottawa correspondent on 4th January. Trudeau, it was said, had “undergone a change in his thinking about politics”:

He said that he used to think it would be sufficient to put ‘a reasonable proposition to a person for that person to look at it reasonably, without passion’. He had now learned that this is not true. Nine-tenths of politics . . . appeals to emotions rather than to reason. He said he was sorry about that, but had accepted it as a way of life.

The article also described how Trudeau’s minority Liberal government responded to policies which might have affronted their principles but were successful:

The Tories were astounded at how far Mr. Trudeau had gone . . . Some Liberals concede privately that the PM went further than they would have gone, but they are not complaining. They won the confidence vote . . .

The third condemnation was made by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in a statement to foreign journalists before he left Russia. Answering the question “How can your compatriots and youth show their support for you?” he said:

Everyone must decisively stop co-operating with the lie everywhere he sees it himself-: where they force him to speak, write, quote or sign, or even simply to vote or even to read.
  In our country the lie has become not just a moral category, but a pillar of the state.
  In breaking with the lie, we are performing a moral act, not a political one and not one that can be punished by criminal law — but an act that would immediately have an effect on our way of life.

(The Times, 22nd January)

The attack on Russian state-capitalist politics may be accurate, but the inference here and elsewhere in Solzhenitsyn’s speech that “truth” holds sway in western countries is very naive. Possibly the foreign journalists he addressed included some whose business in the last war was to show Russia as a land of freedom and warm hearts, Russia then being an ally against Germany. And there are those who think Solzhenitsyn (like Pasternak, who was awarded a Nobel Prize) is a not-much-more-than-mediocre novelist being declared a “great” one for propagandist purposes. What then of truth and lies?

It is easy to assume that irrationality and cynicism rule the world and this is what man is like. Further examples could fill many pages. The politicians who, on retirement, publish memoirs revealing “all” (yes, I knew MacDonald was a fraud — I was his right-hand man). The getting young men to die horribly for “peace and honour” when only trade and profits at at stake. The idiotic religious beliefs still clogging people’s minds (talking of truth, the Catholic Truth Society and the Protestant Truth Society spend most of their lives calling each other liars, and both do the same to other religious “truths”). The fact that most people want to hear not what is logical but what is gratifying.

Making Sense

But in fact it is rational. The talk about truth is equally misleading as the lies and distortions. It can be said that all truths are relative — this view is what separates the scientist from the religious philosopher who sees them as absolute and eternal. However, despite their lofty language it is the relative, practical view which Powell, Trudeau and Solzhenitsyn are expounding. They want "truths” which will lead, respectively, to the Conservative Party adopting different policies; to the Canadian Liberals getting firmer support; and to the overthrow of the regime in Russia. Their policies are going to be continued anyway, and it is justification on logical or moral grounds that is being sought.

What is pursued in a class-divided society is not truth or reason, but interests. If that is understood, the prevarications and sleights-of-hand are not unnecessary departures but rational actions towards certain ends. It is commonly — and mistakenly — believed that politicians know the truth about the economy and what is going on, and choose not to reveal it or use it to feather their own nests: most people will have read into Enoch Powell’s statement that we need honest men in Parliament.

That is altogether irrelevant. Some politicians are Horatio Bottomleys, but there is no substantial difference between their running of capitalism and that of others whose love of fair play is a byword. Of course there have been honest politicians. At least one leader of the Communist Party has had the reputation of being personally a thoroughly decent fellow — but he told the same whopping and self-contradictory lies as if he had been a rogue.

The contrary statement “all men are liars” is as meaningless as Socrates’ axiom that they seek the truth. Statements about the nature of “all men” — or individual “man” — see human beings stripped of their social conditioning and motivation. As Marx pointed out:

Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand.

(Grundrisse, p. 265)

Within those relations the individuals rationally follow their interests as members of a particular class. It is Powell, Trudeau and Solzhenitsyn who depart from rationality in their statements by proposing that it can be otherwise. Powell’s article says he found that to ask for consistency and truthfulness was “supposed a subtle and tortuous machination for self-advancement”. No doubt it can be — but what is more to the point is that it machinates to conceal the class division and class interests in society.

As for Solzhenitsyn, the belief that people will adopt policies of non-cooperation against the Russian state in the cause of truth alone is pitiful. Undoubtedly working people do and will seek change in Russia — for almost any reason but that, and specifically to defend or further their material interests. It is always possible to imagine revolts there against poor living standards and lack of democratic expression, but not as “a moral act” against the iniquity of lying.

Capitalist society is corrupt from the viewpoint of its pretended morality, dressing up property-protecting laws as high ethics and at the same time making trust between man and man improbable. This is part of the degradation it imposes: what kind of world is it that calls its own going-to-work everyday activity “the RAT race”? We have the paradox of knowing it should not be thus but having like Trudeau to accept — and practise — it “as a way of life”.

The alternative is to establish Socialism. This can and will be done when the majority decide they have had enough of capitalism. The movement for Socialism does not commit the irrationality of seeking truth; what it represents instead is the material interest of the working class. However, it is a fact that the Socialist Party does not have to tell lies to exist, because its object is not domination of one section by another but the emancipation of all mankind. And in the same way, truth will be not debated under Socialism — but will characterize all relationships in society.

Robert Barltrop