Notes by the Way: “No Reparations, No Indemnities” (1948)

The Notes by the Way Column from the January 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

“No Reparations, No Indemnities”

At the time the Communists seized power in Russia their favourite slogan for winning the support of the war-weary workers of Europe was “No Reparations : No Indemnities.” They bitterly attacked the Allied victors for trying to collect vast reparations from the defeated Central Powers, opposed the Versailles Treaty and encouraged the rebuilding of Germany as a great power. As Foreign Commissar Molotov was still saying after the outbreak of war in 1939, but before Russia was attacked, “We have always held that a strong Germany is an indispensable condition for a durable peace in Europe.” (Speech to Supreme Soviet, 31/10/39.) In 1929 the British Communists put forward the same plea at the General Election. They demanded “repudiation of all imperialist treaties and pacts—the Versailles Treaty, the Locarno Pact, the Kellog Pact” and “annulment of the Dawes Plan ” (a plan for the collection of reparations from Germany).

Now the tune is altered. Russia’s demand is for the payment by Germany of 10,000 million dollars as reparations. (Manchester Guardian, 15/12-’47.) Curiously the Daily Worker during the meetings of the four Foreign Ministers in London in December, while this was being discussed, was very coy about reporting it and managed on more than one occasion to report the debates without mentioning the figure. Perhaps they have a fear that readers may remember what they used to say about the futility and iniquity of reparations.

* * *

Why Workers Read the “Daily Worker”

The following is a notice issued by the Daily Worker and published by them as an advertisement in the News and ‘Book Trade Review and Stationers’ Gazette (6/12/47). It needs no comment.

“IT GETS AROUND. 

News has a habit of spreading. People soon get to know what’s happening. For instance, there’s a lot of talk in the sporting world about the consistent success of Cayton, the Daily Worker’s racing tipster. After all, 752 winners in the flat racing season is worth talking about! So you will understand why more people are asking for the Daily Worker. If you have difficulty in getting copies get in touch with us, we might be able to help.”

* * *

Some “Austerity” Fortunes

Among the fortunes reported in the Press recently on the death of the holders are the following:

Mr. H. Mountain, £1,122,616;

Sir W. McLintoch, £410,203;

Mr. Hermann Marx, £1,262,492;

Marquess of Lansdowne, £1,023,792;

Mr. Frank Hodges, one-time Secretary of the Miners’ Federation, £132,959.

Mr. Frank Hodges after leaving the trade, union movement went into the more lucrative occupation of company director.

All of the amounts given above are before payment of death duties

Another interesting news item recently was a comment by the City Editor of the Evening Standard (9/12/47) on the Ellerman fortune. After stating that Lord Ellerman holds £519,000 Deferred Stock of the Ellerman Shipping Lines, his holding being estimated to have a present value of over £2,500,000, and also holdings in a group of investment and brewery companies worth another £1,050,000 the Editor goes on as follows about the total present value of all investments :

“No firm estimate can be made of the Ellerman fortune today, but many people in the City believe that he would not lose in the comparison with his father. The first Sir John left £40 million.” (Evening Standard, 9/12/47.)

* * *

Grain Shortage?

”BUENOS AIRES, Wednesday. — The Argentine has been forced to burn £125,000,000 worth of crops, chiefly maize, says a Government statement tonight.

“It blames an economic blockade which keeps out machinery, cars, and rolling stock.

“Ports and railway terminals are jammed with grain which cannot he loaded in ships.” (Daily Express, 30/10/47.)

* * *

Growing Imperial Importance of Equatorial Africa

The following is an extract from an article on Equatorial Africa in the Times (14/11/47).

“As the British Empire in its old significance tends to shrink, with the gradual advance of its peoples to self-government and with the transfer to United Nations trusteeship of responsibility for certain territories at present administered by Britain, attention must he increasingly directed to the remaining British Colonies. That several of these are to be found in Africa is a fortunate fact in view of the withdrawal of British power from Egypt, the uncertain future of Palestine, and the consequent insecurity of the Mediterranean and Suez Canal route to those parts of the Commonwealth and Empire lying in the East.

“The search for alternative routes more secure from attack and for areas more conveniently situated for the disposition of imperial military resources must focus attention on West and East Africa, where there are great territories which, on examination, may be found to provide in great measure alternatives capable of making up for losses elsewhere. It might on the face of it seem that from a general move southwards into Africa only military advantages would accrue, such as safer lines of communication, areas suitable for British troops, and even alternative resources of man-power to succeed those lost by the changing conditions in India.”

* * *

Echo from Bikini

“King Juda of Bikini and his 165 subjects are to be uprooted afresh and shipped to a new island. Eighteen months ago their ancient atoll home was sacrificed to the atom bomb tests. Now, in the words of an official American Navy report, they are ‘a destitute, defeated, frustrated, poverty-stricken and hungry people.’

“Before the bombs exploded they were persuaded to make their ‘contribution to the advancement of science.’ Lock, stock and barrel they were moved to Rongerik Island, 120 miles away.

“There they found: 416 acres, instead of the 1,500 they were used to ; fire, which devastated their coconut trees ; and a lagoon with poisoned fish.

“They were driven to cutting palms and eating the leaves.” (News-Chronicle, 4/10/47.)

* * *

“The Greatest Social Reform Parliament in History.”

The Labour Party likes to make the claim that it is a Socialist party committed to the introduction of a Socialist system of society, but whenever its leaders set out to defend themselves against the Tory Opposition their line is always the very different one that they are a better social reform party than any of their predecessors. In a speech at Bermondsey Mr. Herbert Morrison is reported by the Daily Mirror (16/12/47) as making the claim thai “the present Parliament is destined to be the greatest social reform Parliament in history.”

He may prove to he right but the workers will discover that after all the Labour Party reforms have been put into operation Capitalism will still be with us.

* * *

I.L.P. History

In the Socialist Leader (6/12/47) Mr. F. A. Ridley writes an article on the theme “Had Rosa Luxemburg lived, Stalin might never have come to power in Russia, nor Hitler in Germany.” He writes:

“For had that amazing woman survived, she, at the head of German Communism, might have been able to establish a ‘Balance of Power’ in the new International which would have offset the Russian domination that subsequently monopolised it, in other words the ‘Third International’ might have become really international.”

Without going into elaborate arguments to answer this too-easy re-writing of history it should surely be obvious that as Socialism was impossible in 1918 because there were too few Socialists inside and outside of Russia, the Russian Government, if it had failed to control its instrument, the Third International, would have scrapped it and created other instruments for carrying out its foreign policy. We might just as well say that if Ramsay MacDonald had not been born or had succeeded in his first ambition, that of becoming a Liberal M.P., the Labour Party might have been Socialist.

Or perhaps now that Mr. Ridley has shown Stalin where he is wrong Stalin will mend his ways and do what Ridley thinks Luxemburg would have done.

* * *

A.R.P. Again

The following is from an Editorial, “Atom Age A.R.P.,” in the Daily Mail (12/12/47).

“To most people the revival of the A.R.P. service on a national scale is like a blow between the eyes. 

” ‘It is little more than two years since the end of the last war,’ they say, ‘ and now we seem to be getting ready for the next one. Has the world gone mad?’

“No, it has not gone mad, because it always was in that condition. But there are degrees of lunacy, and the wild state of this age is shown by the extent of the new Civil Defence plans.

“The aim in future is that everyone shall be trained in these warlike duties. The professional element will be provided by a full-time force of A.R.P. ‘commandos’ ready to move anywhere at a moment’s notice. An ‘incident’ in a future war may be the blotting-out of an entire town.”

In the meantime the war-time allies have finally ended the London meeting of the four Foreign Ministers quite unable to agree about the future of Germany. More or less open hostility now replaces the protestations of everlasting friendship. And the remedy is not more A.R.P. but the abolition of Capitalism.

Edgar Hardcastle

The bear on the rampage (1946)

From the July 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Delcassé once said “There are two diplomacies in this world that really count, the British and the Russian, for the simple reason that they are the only ones which plan in generations and not in months, in centuries and not in years.”

The unobservant man appears to be under the impression that the foreign policy of a capitalist government is determined by the party in power at the moment, whereas the truth is the track was probably laid down in the dim and distant past. The Labour Party is forced to foster and defend the interests of the Empire, and Stalin is the logical descendant of Peter the Great, the imperialist who laid the foundations of modern Russia. Capitalism has a ruthless code, and, so long as the system lasts., rulers and ruled are compelled to obey its mandate.

Gilbert Murray, in an article, “The Rule—The Lie,” in the current number of the “Contemporary Review,” says that “ When Nansen was distributing relief in Russia in 1921-22, one of the Soviet Government’s stipulations was that he should not reveal that the food came as a good will gift from foreign ‘capitalist' countries.”

The supplies that went from Britain to Russia during the late war are thought by countless numbers of Soviet citizens to have been sent from one part of Russia to the other. The Soviet Government rules by keeping its subjects in the dark, but events are helping to enlighten them. Edgar Bruce, in the “World Review” of May, tells of his experiences with the Russians in Europe who do not wish to go back to Soviet Russia. He was engaged in repatriation work and tried all be could to induce them to return to their native land. He wanted to know why many had no desire to go home. They sent him the following explanation : —

“We object to going back to the Soviet Union, it is all lies what they told us about our better living conditions in the Soviet Union.”

“ As peasants (on collective farms) the Government imposes taxes as follows on each individual: Milk contribution up to 500 litres, meat up to 32 kilo, eggs up to 120 eggs. If we keep our own cow a tax of 350 litres of milk from that cow has to be paid to the State. As workers the Government deducts 10 per cent, compulsory loan and then income tax and culture tax from our wages.

“The Stakhanovite system is a rate-cutting system. The Government gives an outstanding workman the best tools and materials. He sets up a production record which the Government expects the ordinary worker to attain.

“The average pay for a qualified man is 320 roubles a month, for the unskilled 80 or 90 roubles. Out of this ho must buy—black bread at 1 rouble a kilo, meat 12 roubles a kilo, butter 28 roubles a kilo, sugar 6.5 roubles a Kilo.

“The cost to the Government of these commodities is one-tenth and one-fourteenth of what we pay. Punishment for late arrival at work can be six months’ imprisonment. Private work outside the factory is forbidden, espionage is rampant, and one is not safe from denunciation even by a member of one’s own family. Nobody is allowed to choose his work or place of work.” Both peasants and workers in the deputation that came to interview Edgar Bruce stated that the standard of living was at starvation level."

In fairness to Stalin & Co. it must be pointed out. that the above statements are from men who were fed up with life in Russia, and may be overdrawn. This is somewhat different, however, from what we read in Communist publications and contradicts what is said in all countries by the “Friends of the Soviet Union.”

The Soviet Government is making a bid for expansion in Europe and Asia. It is now a matter of life and death for the Kremlin to continue its policy of world deception, it must conceal from the workers in countries outside Russia an understanding of what is happening in the Soviet Union, and also keep from its own wage slaves a real knowledge of the state of things existing in the other parks of the capitalist world. The Russian rulers, having control of the organs of publicity, are at present able to make their dupes believe what they want them to believe, but when disillusionment comes, as come it inevitably will, there may be a dreadful reckoning.

The Soviet Government is, like all capitalist governments, an enemy of Socialism, and aims at using its influence over the workers of other lands as a means of spreading its imperial power. The facts cry beware. What are the aspirations of Stalin & Co.? Let us first take Persia and judge what they are after by what they are doing. Azerbaijan contains oil. During the Russian occupation of the province they started exploiting that oil (they actually bored no less than thirty-five wells) without Teheran’s desire or permission. When, later, Teheran was consulted and refused the oil concessions, an autonomous Azerbaijan Government was set up for the express purpose of ceding those rights. British capitalism is already entrenched in the oilfields of Southern Persia and, of course, sees danger to its position and profits in the Russian incursion.

As Léon Blum says in the Manchester Guardian of May 21st: “The Communists sacrifice liberty to discipline to such an extent that liberty is in danger of disappearance. The Communists always take it for granted that Moscow is right. Communist methods of propaganda are so unscrupulous that they endanger the very fabric of democracy.”

On the last day in March, in Germany, a plebiscite was held to see whether the Social Democrats should amalgamate with the Communists. The result of the voting being a foregone conclusion in an anti-Communist sense, the Russian authorities, in their own particular zone, forbade the plebiscite to be held (they held a separate and special plebiscite in their own zone when the desired result had been well and truly assured). They, incidentally, thereby gave another definition of what they mean by the word “Democratic.”

The Russian spokesman who made, this announcement to the head polling office coined a new masterpiece of Bolshevik jargon: “The plebiscite is not prohibited, but it is not permitted.”

Mr. Voigt, a well known writer on international affairs, says: “ The time will come when Russia will in Western Germany promote a German national ‘proletarian’ revolution against the Western Powers. The revolution, if it succeeds, will inaugurate the anti-Western and more especially the anti-British armed alliance between Russia and Germany ” (“Nineteenth Century,” May).

Mr. Byrnes, speaking on the radio, May 20th, said “The Balkan treaties were blocked mainly by the Council’s inability to agree upon economic clauses and particularly by the Soviet refusal to allow inclusion in the treaties of any provision promising freedom of commerce on the Danube.”

It was German capitalism’s determination to control the inland waterways of Europe that was one of the causes of Anglo-American opposition leading to the late war.

Another writer in the same magazine says: “The information and facts available show that Russia considers herself to possess exclusive rights for economic expansion in the countries of the middle zone. She has concluded with several states at present occupied by Russian military forces trade agreements which would practically bar any outside trade and would eventually lead to melting these regions into the economic system of Soviet Russia. The Soviet trade policy strongly reminds us of that of pre-war Germany, with the difference that it is very much more brutal and thorough.”

The real reason why Russia is so persistent in her attacks on Franco Spain is connected with her ambitions in the Mediterranean. How little it is concerned with combatting a government with Nazi sympathies is shown by the sudden somersault in the Russian attitude to the similar government in the Argentine.

Another sphere of Russian penetration is Manchuria, about which it may be possible to deal in a further article.

Marx said “We should obtain a knowledge of international politics. It is essential if we are to accomplish our task that we should also participate.” Russia is in the new armaments race.

The likely line-up in the next scrap can already he perceived.

The interests of the working class are not served by fostering imperialism, whether practiced by Britain, the United Stales or Soviet Russia. The workers can achieve their emancipation when they refuse to be led by politicians whose object, like that of the Labour Party, is simply to perpetuate existing capitalist institutions. The continuation of capitalism in any form means another world war. The establishment of Socialism means permanent world peace, but this requires a majority of Socialists to bring about. The making of Socialists is the only way it can be done. Therefore, keep on the job.

Charles Lestor

Motives in the Middle East (1958)

From the September 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Following the Iraq coup d'etat, the working class has been subjected to a tremendous amount of propaganda. The press and radio have been calling for varying degrees of support or antagonism according to whichever sectional or national interest they represent. It falls to the Socialist Party, with our unqualified opposition to every capitalist faction, to interpret the events objectively and to state the true position of the workers in relation to them.

Throughout history the Middle East has been invaded or dominated, due to its location as the bridge between Europe, Africa and the Far East. Since the demand for oil has arisen, its strategic importance has been almost eclipsed by this most essential of fuels. These are the causes of the struggle for supremacy in this area. The conflict between American and British oil interests has been overshadowed now by the threat of Russian encroachment. In 1950 the U.S. controlled only 44 per cent. of production against 53 per cent. by Britain and Holland (in Royal Dutch Shell), but by 1956 the American percentage had grown to 57 per cent, while the U.K.'s share had fallen to 35 per cent. The outstanding example is Iran. Before the Abadan incident, all Iranian oil passed through British hands. The agreement reached after the failure of out-and-out nationalisation saw the establishment of an International Consortium to buy the oil from the Iranian Government. The Consortium is divided as between Britain 54 per cent., U.S. 40 per cent., France 6 per cent. Production throughout the Middle East has doubled since 1950 so that U.K. companies are showing increased profits, but this only masks the real decline of British holdings.

In keeping with its status as a world power, the Soviet Union is greatly interested in the Middle East. As with all capitalist states, Russian foreign policy is directed at seizure of the fields. This aim—an extension of Czarist policies—came close to partial achievement following the Second World War. In 1946 a treaty was forced on the Iranian Government, forming a Soviet dominated company with concessions in Northern Iran—this area still being under Russian military occupation. After the troops withdrew Iran, with Anglo-U.S. backing, repudiated the agreement. Now posing as the Arabs' friend, Russia has increased its propaganda in the hope of building Communist parties capable of taking over and attaching the oil nations to the Soviet bloc.

The Egyptian capitalist class, spear-headed by Nasser, is also trying to gain access to the oil sources. To gain this object they have some indisputable advantages over their rivals. Most Arab workers feel that the sole barrier to better conditions is the dominance of Western nations. Exploiting this conviction, Nasser has persuaded many Arabs that he is the only man capable of obtaining and maintaining their departure. He has been greatly assisted by Russia, which has supplied arms and money, and by the abortive Anglo-French Suez landing. Although Russia and Egypt are momentarily allied doubtless time will generate the usual frictions

Although Egyptian policy has won many supporters among the Arab workers, the capitalists of the Middle East oil producing nations are not enthusiastic about coming under Egyptian dominance. This lack of enthusiasm has led to a reluctance to join the United Arab Republic and so share the revenues with the Egyptians. Even the new Iraq Government shows no desire for integration.

Against this sordid background, shorn of the normal camouflage about “safeguarding our national livelihood” or “safeguarding the political independence of the Arab peoples,” the Iraqi rising and the subsequent manoeuvring can be seen in their true perspective. At the overthrow of the monarchy, agreements between the Royal Government and the oil companies were on the standard 50/50 basis. This 50/50 division of the spoils has recently been cracking. Earlier this year contracts between the Japanese and Saudi Arabia and Kuwait led to the Arab States receiving a 56 per cent. and 57 per cent. share respectively. Much speculation has been aroused on the outcome of these and similar agreements. In its March publication the Petroleum Press Service asked, “Are we going to see governments of some of the main producing countries seeking changes in the existing agreements?” Shortly before the revolution the Iraq Minister of Economics held talks with the Iraq Petroleum Co., after which it was announced that the Iraq Petroleum Co. would surrender certain areas held under concession. No doubt Feisal’s Government intended to lease these areas to other companies in keeping with the new rates, but as the 50/50 still applied to the I.P.C., which controls the majority of the output, the net gain was somewhat niggardly. The report on these talks was announced on the 13th July— the coup began on the 14th! Though reports suggest that the revolution was planned in advance, the timing appears more than coincidental. The rebels felt, no doubt, that Feisal and Nuri-es-Said were too bound by their earlier agreements to obtain better terms and a completely new government would have more success. Premier Kassen has stated “the new Iraqi Government would be able better to safeguard oil interests than previous governments.” We can now expect the Republicans to negotiate a fresh agreement with the I.P.C. on a par with the recent precedents.

Western capitalism is probably resigned to this course in moderation (“any Iraq Government will make greater demands on the producing companies" — Financial Times, 16/7/58), but exorbitant demands will be strongly resisted. The landings in Lebanon and Jordan after the revolt were ostensibly to bolster friendly governments, but it has not escaped the attention of the U.K. and U.S. authorities that there are advantages in controlling these countries should discussions break down. The head of the main pipeline from Iraq is situated in Lebanon and could be closed to impede any attempt by the Iraqis to market the oil themselves. And the British troops in Jordan are on hand should intervention be deemed necessary. The stakes are high enough for our masters to contemplate it!

The turnover has been approximately £150 million annually and attempts are being made to double production by 1960. As has been stated, the overwhelming proportion of Iraki oil passes through the Irak Petroleum Co. and its subsidiaries. 95 per cent. of the I.P.C.’s shares are divided equally between British Petroleum, Shell, the Cie. Francaise de Petroles (in which the French Government has a large interest), and the North Eastern Development Corporation—an American company controlled by Socony Mobil Oil and Esso. The remaining 5 per cent. is owned by the Gulkenkian Foundation, although negotiations are afoot to buy 1¼ per cent. of these by the C. F. de P. This would then make the French organisation the largest individual shareholder. The interest of the West in the welfare of the I.P.C. is evident.

Previous examples have shown that when nations are competing for such a richprize open hostilities can result. Although it is by no means certain that armed conflict, either local or world-wide, will immediately arise out of the present situation, it IS certain it will be the working class who will bear the brunt of any fighting—AND FOR NOTHING! It will make no difference to the working class whichever capitalist group controls the oil fields. Arabs, who believe that complete national control of a country’s resources will benefit the workers, are advised to study the contemporary histories of the Sudan, Indonesia, etc. Supporters of the Communist Party should compare current Russian Middle East behaviour with the Soviet/Persian Treaty of Friendship of 1921, before lending support to its imperialist policy. Article 8 of this treaty contains the following: “Federal Russia finally renounces the economic policy pursued in the East by the Czarist Government, which consisted in lending money to the Persian Government, not with a view to the economic development of the country, but rather for the purposes of political subjugation.” Western workers, instead of being bellicose on the masters’ behalf, should be concerned with the struggle against both Eastern and Western capitalism and for the establishment of Socialism; only then will oil cease to feed the flames of hatred.

Essig.

Editorial: What to do with the World’s Frontiers? (1945)

Editorial from the February 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is not only the fighting men whose occupation ceases when a war ends; the same fate overtakes the armchair strategists, who can no longer recount each day where General X and Admiral Y were at fault the day before. But by an admirable principle of compensation the armchair strategists, notably those with which Labour’s “left wing” is graced, will at once be provided with another occupation for which their self-certified talent at placing and removing large masses of human beings without their knowledge and consent will specially qualify them. They will be able to unroll the maps of Europe—indeed, of the world—and tell the statesmen just how to redraw all the frontiers and solve all the problems of minorities. It will be the years of the last peace settlement all over again—but with a few differences. The same old schemes based on language, on religion, on history, and on the consent of the people concerned will be argued and criticised, statistics will be produced and disputed, and the claims of the big Powers for spheres of interest and special rights will be heard. Among the notable differences is, above all, the fact that Russia, weak and ignored in 1919, is now powerful and must be treated as such. So the Russian spokesmen no longer talk the language of Lenin, of “no annexations” and “self-determination.” Instead, we find Mr. W. P. Coates, of the Anglo-Russian Parliamentary Committee, in a discussion about Poland’s frontiers, quite frankly proclaiming that what Russia has she holds :—

“The Soviet Union has already re-incorporated all the territories up to the Curzon Line. Soviet administration has been established in those territories, and no power under heaven can alter that fact, so that’s that.”— (Letter to Forward, November 11th, 1944.)

This is, of course, only the customary attitude of all capitalist governments when they believe themselves possessed of sufficient force to make their policy effective, and the gulf that lies between modern Russian policy and the early professions of the Bolshevists can be seen from another letter written by Mr. Coates, in which he actually threw in as a reason why Russia should have certain territory until recently held by Poland, the alleged fact that “it was originally Russian territory and was seized by Poland during the Tartar invasion of Russia in 1340.” (Times, December 22nd, 1944.) Yes, 1340 is the date mentioned !

We wait to learn that the Communist Party is going to claim back America for the British Empire, recall the descendants of Caesar to London, put back the Moors in Spain, and make a few other changes based on what happened 1,000 or 2,000 years ago.

However, let us make our attitude clear. We have no scheme for drawing frontiers or solving minority problems. We recognise the fact that many people are much concerned with religious or language or other differences, but we do not believe that these are the cause of national friction and hatreds. If one Power wants oil or some other mineral that happens to be within the territory of a weaker Power, no doubt it is a very useful propaganda weapon to recall what happened in 1066, or to work up agitation on religious or language grounds, but these are the excuses; the cause is the capitalist lust for profit. The propaganda would rarely range more than a ripple but for the alleged economic interests that are woven into it. It is capitalism that causes the poverty of the mass of the population, on both sides of all frontiers, and it is capitalism that threatens the worker always with unemployment: but how convenient it is for the capitalist to hold up the foreigner as the cause of it all ! If the foreign worker stays at home we are told he is destroying “our” industry by his cheap labour. If the foreign worker happens to be a minority group inside the frontier, he is taking “our” job and is moreover helping some foreign Power. If a man who speaks our language is in a minority group in some other country, he is told he can only find prosperity and happiness by agitating to rejoin the land of his fathers.

The problem of making all countries fit for all people to live in will not be solved by shifting frontiers. The new attempt will be just as faulty as the much lauded attempt after the last war. When there is no longer a profit-seeking privileged class to bedevil relationships between peoples, and when there is no exploited class to suffer poverty and unemployment, the frontier problem will be solved, but that means Socialism and no frontiers.

Chinese Hack Stalin (1956)

From the August 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

The "Communist” ruling clique in China can scarcely conceal their jubilation over the volte-face in Russian policy since the recent Congress of the Soviet Communist Party touched off the new Party line of vilifying Stalin. But the Chinese go further in attacks on Stalin than Moscow—the beating of Stalin with proverbial scorpions started in an attack in an article on April 4th, that is, considerably before Kruschev’s much publicised speech on Stalin's misdeeds, published in The People’s Daily (the equivalent in China of the Times in this Country). The Russian attacks until that time had been confined to the period covering the last years of Stalin's life, but the Chinese went back as far as the late 1920's during the Civil War in China between the Communist Party and the Nationalists and show that by the Chinese Communist Party following Stalin’s dictates “the result was that instead of isolating the real enemy we isolated ourselves and inflicted blows on ourselves which benefited the real enemy." The Chinese level a variety of charges against Stalin including one that “Stalin failed to draw the lessons from particular, local and temporary mistakes on certain issues and so failed to prevent them from becoming serious errors involving the whole nation over a long period of time!!" The Russian ruling-class, for whom Stalin was for many years the chief spokesman, have in fact piled up quite an imposing lot of treacheries against their Chinese "Communist" comrades. Firstly, there, was Stalin's instructions to the Chinese Communist Party to co-operate with the Nationalists. The Nationalists, emboldened by this policy, suddenly turned on the Communists and butchered them in their thousands. Stalin abandoned them.

Chou-en lai, the present Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, was one of the Communist leaders in Shanghai who by a remarkable chance escaped. Mao-Tse Tung and the rest of those elsewhere who escaped are not likely to forget this formerly unpaid debt to Stalin that they now have a chance to work off. Secondly, during the blockade of the Chinese Communists by the Nationalists it was the Soviet advisers under the control of Stalin who advocated the disastrous policy of static warfare. It was when this policy was abandoned that the Chinese Communist Armies became more mobile and became more successful. But this was learning the hard way and meanwhile Chinese Communists were driven by the Soviet advisers like pigs to the slaughter.

But there was also the question of Stalin's disastrous theory to overcome. Stalin considered peasants as being merely the “packhorses of civilisation" and that no revolutionary party could be built on them. The advice therefore to the Chinese was to capture the cities and thus to get the city proletariat into the revolt—no workers, no Communism. That was the Russian dogma—but it was in the cities that the Nationalists were the strongest and the Communists were not able to hold a single large city, being repulsed with tremendous losses.

At the conclusion of the second world war when the Japanese capitulated to Russia their arms and ammunition and their control of Manchuria and China were handed over by Statin not to the Communists who had borne the brunt of the Chinese war against the Japanese but to their mortal enemies the Nationalists. Thus was the Chinese civil war again precipitated, plunging the population into all the horrors that a civil war can cause.

The Chinese Communists could not be expected to miss a chance to vent their spleen on Stalin—their pet aversion—and all this is thoroughly understood by those in power in Russia at the moment. Mao Tse Tung was the only leader of the Soviet bloc countries who did not go to Moscow for Stalin’s funeral.

The latest developments in the Soviet Union cannot be understood properly if one fails to see them in the perspective of Soviet relations with other countries, and Soviet/Chinese relations occupy, in this respect, a position of special importance. Foreign policies of capitalist countries are intimately linked with their need for foreign trade. Industrial enterprises usually are concerned with development of their production. Sometimes the effect of many concerns all expanding as best they can produces an overall picture of haphazard development whereby the existing markets can no longer absorb the products produced and it becomes imperative to expand these markets and enter new ones. This is where foreign policy can be useful such as in opening the way for trade by friendly relations and by conducting trade treaties. The State Capitalist economy of Russia is no exception to all this.

Since Stalin's death Russia has been desperately trying to develop economic and diplomatic relations with any country who might reciprocate. Stalin died in March, 1953, leaving not only a legacy of strained Soviet/Chinese relations, but a rival figure in world Communism—Mao Tse-Tung—the head of a State with a population of 500 million. Mae Tse-Tung was the leader of an Asian Communist Party who had achieved victory in an Asian country moreover not with Russian advice but against it. Furthermore, many of the countries of S. E. Asia have a sizeable Chinese minority who because of their position of dominance in various trades and industry wield a power out of proportion to their numbers. These Chinese look to Mao Tse-Tung and China for inspiration and backing. Stalin is no more: Russia is a long way away. But China is closer, and anyway has three times the man-power of Russia which sees influence passing to the Chinese.

The Chinese were quick to press their advantage. Chou En-lai visited India and Burma, where he signed with Nehru and U.Nu the five principles of co-existence. His participation in the Bandung Conference, together with visits of other Chinese leading personalities, has enhanced Peking's prestige in Asia.

Long before they visited this country, Bulganin and Krushchev in October, 1954, went to Peking. At the close of the visit a communique was issued containing a number of political and economic concessions by the Soviet Union to China. Since then Russian policy has been to make further concessions to China. They also went on a barnstorming tour of other Asian countries and outdid the Chinese by offering economic concessions to successfully expand Russian trade.

The violent attacks on Stalin by the Chinese Communists should not be ascribed to personal bitterness. Were this the case, then surely these attacks would have been made at the times when Stalin perpetrated those foul actions and personal feelings were running high. Presumably it was not advisable in the interests of the budding capitalism of China to bring these points up before. There is little emotion entering into the apparent friendships between Capitalist groups either within the “Communist" block or the “Democratic” group. “Friendship" is merely an expression of foreign policy which is liable to change to suit altered conditions. Capitalist friendship frequently conceals throat-cutting, their advice may be pitted with treachery (as the Chinese Communist found out to their cost), co-operation may camouflage competition and co-existence conceal moves to “liberate” and exploit weaker groups.

The attacks on Stalin by the Chinese should be considered as the expression of one expanding power to a rival, and, incidentally, as revealing the stresses and contradictions in Capitalist relations of the type that this system of society continually throws up.

Frank Offord

The Passing Show: Success . . . . (1956)

The Passing Show Column from the May 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Success . . . .

State Capitalism marches on from triumph to triumph. British European Airways last year turned 1954’s loss of £400,000 into a profit of £862,000 (The Star, 28-2-56). And hard on the heels of this announcement comes the news that the British Overseas Airways Corporation almost doubled its net profit in the financial year 1955-56. It made a gross profit of about £1,750,000 on the year, and a net profit of about £500,000. This compared with last year’s net profit of £260,000 (The Observer, 1-4-56). These successes will no doubt make those staunch Labourites, who for years devoted themselves to bringing about the nationalization of the country's basis industries, feel very proud. Or will they?

. . . .  for the Capitalists

The Socialist Party has consistently pointed out for more than half a century that nationalization is no more than Capitalism run by the State or its nominees. It has nothing to do with Socialism. And the more experience the country has of the actual running of nationalization, the more it becomes obvious that what the Socialist Party has always said about it is true. Now even social anthropologists, quietly pursuing their studies far removed from the hurly-burly of political conflict, arrive at the same conclusion. Norman Dennis, Fernando Henriques and Clifford Slaughter, have written a book embodying the results of their researches into the life of a Yorkshire mining town. “They found that"—to quote a review in The Times (54-56)—“they found that, in the mines, the old fundamental conflict between management and men has continued, and that the system of piece-work payments gives occasions every day for conflict between worker and management.” Of course it does. It is merely one aspect of the class struggle. The review of the book (“Coal is our Life”) goes on:

  "The miner remains an employee, and whether or no he works is still dependent on the capacity of owners of capital to cater for him.”

The Socialist case could hardly be put more clearly than that. The worker is propertyless; therefore he is forced to sell his ability to work to the “owners of capital": and if the owners of capital cannot make a profit out of his work, they will not employ him, and so he is not allowed to work at all. Instead he goes on the dole, and his physical energies and mental faculties rot together. And this is the case whether he works in an industry run by private or by State capitalism.

And yet—probably on the very day you buy this paper—the left-wing political parties hold May-Day demonstrations to demand further doses of nationalization! Will they never learn?

Sales Manager

The barnstorming tour of Mr. Malenkov through Britain has been providing journalists with a lot of copy during the past week or two. Patting children on the head, switching on a wide grin for the photographers, scattering “peace-medals” like confetti at a wedding, he has been arousing the ire of some political commentators who fear he may make Russia too popular. This situation is not without its humour. For the reports of Mr. Malenkov's doings—not forgetting his occasional gaucheries, such as asking an Ayr workman what he thought of Burns—are highly reminiscent of election-time, when the candidates of the big parties go cap in hand to the electors to solicit their votes. And the aforementioned commentators, none of whom complain about the activities of Parliamentary candidates who support the British ruling class, are now hoarsely indignant that Mr. Malenkov may win backing for the Russian ruling class by using the same dubious tactics. But what is sauce for Sir Anthony Eden and Mr. Gaitskell is also sauce for Mr. Malenkov—as well as for Messrs. Bulganin and Khrushchev, when they follow in Malenkov's footsteps; and only those who have criticised the electioneering tactics of the British political leaders have any right to criticise the same tactics now being employed by the Russians.

I see it all now

Mr. Malenkov has come to Britain at a crisis in the fortunes of the world's Communist Parties. The present leaders of the Soviet Communist Party have severely attacked the Stalin legend, and have boldly said about their late master what nearly everyone else has been saying about him for the last 30 years. And the Communist Party of Great Britain has. naturally, followed suit. The poor old British Bolsheviks have had to perform the about turn so often that, in revolutions per minute, they must now be challenging the internal combustion engine. Mr. Pollitt is reported to have fobbed off questions with the remark that, if Stalin hadn’t made any mistakes, he wouldn’t have been human. The accuracy of this remark is unchallengeable; but what a pity Mr. Pollitt didn’t have the guts to say so ten years ago, instead of spending his time kissing the ground in front of the great Stalin myth.

It may be that, for some time at any rate, Russia will be ruled by a committee of men instead of by one man. Developing Russian Capitalism seems to require—like developing English and French Capitalism required—a totalitarian regime at a certain stage; and it appears that the Russian ruling class has now decided that the “leadership” cult has been overdone. But committee-rule would not make Russia any more democratic. The powers of a police state like Russia may be exercised, just as effectively by ten men as by one. It is easy enough, for Communists inside and outside Russia, to criticise a fallen idol; but Russians will not have freedom of speech until they are at liberty to challenge the false theories of social development to which Communists have committed themselves, and to discuss publicly whether the Russian system is Socialism, or whether— as is in fact the case—it is merely State Capitalism.

Seconds out of the ring

So the British Royal Family has declined invitations to attend the forthcoming Royal Wedding of the Year (on my right, Prince Rainier, title-holder of Monaco; on my left, Grace Kelly, star attraction from Philadelphia and Hollywood). Which is curious. One would have thought the few remaining royalties would try to consolidate the ranks. But there may be an explanation. For when the crowds cheered at the Philip-Elizabeth wedding, and subsequently at the Coronation, the commentators rushed forward to tell us why. It was (we were told) Loyalty, the great throbbing Loyalty of the British people to its monarch. But now the same British people is showing just as much interest in the wedding of Rainier and Kelly—the representatives respectively of the Monte Carlo gaming-tables and the Californian arc-lights. Can it be that life within Capitalism is so drab that the British people would enthuse over anything which offered a little glamour, gaiety and colour, and that this much-vaunted Loyalty doesn't come into it?

Exit Ceylon

While we’re on the subject of loyalty, a word about Ceylon. When the Queen undertook the round-the- Empire tour after the Coronation, nowhere was she more enthusiastically received than in Ceylon. Ah! said the experts—loyal Ceylon! But the results of Ceylon’s general election now show a landslide in favour of Mr. Bandaraniake's Party, which promised to make Ceylon a Republic outside the Commonwealth. In other words, the Ceylon ruling class, having freed itself from the control of the British ruling class after the war, is in no mood to retain the trappings of the British monarchy.

And once again the experts are proved wrong.

Chip that Buddha

When a ten-foot high Buddha was being moved by cane into a new temple in Bangkok recently it fell, and the plaster casing was chipped; beneath the casing the Buddha was seen to be made of gold (Sunday Express, 8-4-56). Now, it seems, the Buddhist temples of Siam are full of hurrying priests and laymen carrying hammer and chisel, purposefully bent on seeing whether their own Buddhas conceal the same treasure-trove. Mingled with the prayers of the worshippers comes the sound of the gold-hungry faithful attacking their hitherto inviolate idols. Meanwhile, the original monks are finding that they struck a gusher; offerings to the golden Buddha are pouring in like a pools-entrant’s dream, and already amount to nearly £20,000.

It is easy to sneer at these remarkable events; but surely there is here a message for us all. Beneath the outward show, and doctrinal differences, we can find here a text on which both Christians and Buddhists obviously agree. What text?

To him that hath shall be given,

How revolutionary can you get ?

It was suggested by a delegate at the Co-operative Party conference that no person should inherit more than £20,000 from any source (Sunday Express, 1-4-56). So instead of comparatively few big Capitalists, we should have a greater number of medium-sized Capitalists. What a suggestion with which to arouse the revolutionary fervour of the working class on the approach of May-Day!

Alwyn Edgar

Notes by the Way: The Italian Fascists and Their Former Apologists. (1941)

The Notes by the Way Column from the May 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Italian Fascists and Their Former Apologists.

Before the war our newspapers and public men told us remarkably little about the real nature of the Fascist racket led by Mussolini, they were chiefly interested in telling us that it couldn’t be so bad because under Fascism the hotels were improved and the trains were running to time and Mussolini had preserved ancient monuments and built splendid motor roads—a typical tourist view of things. They forgot that 40 million Italians don’t spend their day visiting the sights and living in expensive hotels or touring about on motor roads. Mr. Bernard Shaw shows the same kind of mental blindness when he gives as a reason why Rome should not be bombed, our common interest in that city’s ancient glories. “In Rome,” he writes, “no one is a stranger and a foreigner; we all feel when we first go there that we are revisiting the scene of a former existence.” (Times, April 28th, 1941.) Mr. Shaw forgets that 40 million British workers, under this beneficent capitalist system, never had the time or money to go to see their ancient heritage.

Amongst the steadfast admirers of Mussolini was the late Lord Rothermere, who wrote in the Daily Mail (July 10th, 1933) dismissing the brutalities of Italian Fascism as mere “incidental extravagances” and glorifying the Fascist and Nazi regimes.

“Now that Italy has been for ten years not only peaceful and progressive, but, by comparison with other lands, even prosperous, the incidental extravagances of the early days of Fascism are forgotten. In the same way the minor misdeeds of individual Nazis will be submerged by the immense benefits that the new regime is already bestowing upon Germany.”

It was only after the war broke out that the Daily Mail and some other newspapers could discover the brutalities of both regimes. Similarly with regard to the qualities of their leaders. In the article quoted above, Lord Rothermere was full of praise for the virile youthful Mussolini. It was only in 1940 (Daily Mail, May 9th) that the Daily Mail could relate that Mussolini’s more middle-aged virility took the form that when he addressed a meeting of Italian industrialists about the British blockade, “he leant over the table and literally foamed at the mouth.” Hitler’s hysterical outbursts are by now well-known, but Lord Rothermere was able only eight years ago to describe him as a man who “will stand out in history” as one of the three “founders of a new Germany,” “The world’s greatest need to-day,” said Lord Rothermere (Daily Mail, July 10th, 1933), “is realism. Hitler is a realist.” (Lord Rothermere’s two other youthful heroes were the senile Hindenburg and the German Crown Prince.) If the world needed Hitler the world has certainly got him, in full measure, and it is worth bearing always in mind how large a part in getting the world to accept Hitler was played by men and newspapers like Lord Rothermere and the Daily Mail.

Another aspect of the Fascist racket, which answers Lord Rothermere’s argument that Fascism and Nazism rooted out corruption, is given by the Evening Standard (April 22nd, 1941). It discloses that Count Ciano, the husband of Mussolini’s daughter, Edda, “prevailed on the Banco di Santo Spirito, of Rome, to sell him building sites between the Lower Aventine and Ostia, port of Rome, at half a farthing a square yard. He resold the land to the Committee for the ‘Rome Exhibition of 1942,’ at 12s. 6d. a square yard.”

Rome may be, as Bernard Shaw says, the heritage of the whole world, but it looks as if the more immediate landlord gets the biggest rake-off. Note by the way the name of the bank which put the deal in Ciano’s way.

Incidentally, there has been much complaint in the Press recently about land speculators in this country.

Another interesting story about the supporters of Fascism appeared in the diary of the late William Dodd, who was American Ambassador in Germany. The following extract was reproduced in the Sunday Dispatch (March 9th, 1941): —

“In 1924 Hearst, who had been violently opposed to the Mussolini dictatorship, sent a man to Rome to negotiate a deal with Mussolini by which he would be paid a dollar a word for anything he would dictate for the Hearst Press.

It was widely known that Gianini, president of the Bank of America in California and an ardent Mussolini supporter, had loaned Hearst some millions of dollars.

Thereafter, Hearst’s newspapers praised the Italian dictatorship and Mussolini received large sums of money.

From 1924 until now Hearst has supported the dictatorship in Italy.”

* * * *

The Sunday Opening of Theatres

The Sabbatarians’ itch to interfere with other people’s lives always finds support among the Clergy and others whose living is bound up with the churches from the purely business point of view. For them the Sunday cinemas, theatres and public-houses are rival commercial establishments and curbing them is legitimate business practice. One novelty about the recent campaign which stopped the opening of theatres on Sundays was that the brewers were siding with the parsons, for them it is better that workers should not have opened up an additional Sunday entertainment which might affect the takings of the public houses as well as the revenue of the churches. Now, however, emboldened by their success, it looks as if the Sabbatarians are going to have a shot at closing the public houses as well, for the duration of the war. Thus ends another short-lived eternal pact of non-aggression.

One pained complaint comes from Mr. R. Wilson Black, President of the Baptist Union, this time directed against the Radio. “The Radio was made by many an excuse for remaining at home, where they could listen to just as much or as little of the broadcast service as they chose.” —(The Times, April 29th.)

It looks as if Mr. Black’s problem will only be solved by a law making it compulsory for everyone to attend Church services and to listen in silence to the whole of the sermon whether they like it or not.

The Manchester Guardian (April 24th, 1941) tells an entertaining story from U.S.A. The State of Delaware has on its Statute Book a law passed in 1740 prohibiting all “worldly” activities on Sunday. The Delaware Senate recently passed an amendment to permit each community to decide for itself the extent of Sabbath observance, but the House of Representatives refused to agree to the amendment. At this point the Attorney General comes on the scene. He thinks the 1740 law is all nonsense and he decided that the best way to prove it to its defenders was to enforce it to the full, and he did !

“So the police went out and arrested bus-drivers, tram-drivers, taxi-drivers, newsboys, restaurant-owners, milkmen, drug-store clerks, sweet-shop proprietors, garage hands, and even a strike picket and a man shovelling snow from the pavement. The manager of a radio station was taken up, and a Sabbatarian parson whose sermon had been broadcast was warned that he had become an accomplice in law-breaking. The next morning hundreds of people appeared in the courts. The House of Representatives became alarmed and protested but declared that it would not be coerced into repeal. The Attorney-General replied that “each Sunday will grow worse until the laws are amended.” Within four days the law was repealed.”

* * * *

Stalin Meets Matsuoka

We have had Hitler sending birthday greetings to Stalin, Stalin being photographed in a friendly party with Ribbentrop, Molotov all smiles with General Goering, now comes Stalin and Matsuoka, the Japanese Foreign Minister, who was in Moscow late in April. Here is the story from the Evening Standard of what is reported to have occurred when Stalin saw Matsuoka off on the train : —

“According to Mr. Hasegawa, the two statesmen were then apparently overcome with emotion and embraced one another to the amazement of the foreign diplomatic representatives present. —(Evening Standard, April 28th, 1941.)

It sounds too touching to be true, but, no doubt “dialectically considered,” as the Communists would say, it is a further piece of Socialist propaganda designed to clarify the ideas of the world’s workers and show them which of the representatives of capitalism are their true friends.

Those who still imagine that the Russian Government’s foreign policy is governed by internationalism should note the following, reproduced from the Bolshevik journal Pravda:—

“The foreign policy of the U.S.S.R. is guided exclusively by the interests of the U.S.S.R., exclusively by the interests of the peoples of the U.S.S.R. This policy dictates to the U.S.S.R. the desire to develop as widely as possible trade and economic relations with those of its neighbours who correctly appraise the importance of these connections with the U.S.S.R. for their own interests. The Soviet-German Treaty and Agreements of 1941 confirm with perfect clarity the absolute truth of this proposition—(Reproduced in the Anglo-Russia News Bulletin, January: 18th, 1941.)

Edgar Hardcastle

Socialism or Chinese nationalism? (1927)

From the March 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

Although our attitude towards Chinese Nationalism has been stated several times, there are still readers who do not understand it or cannot reconcile it with what they supposed to be the socialist point of view.

Let us first separate two quite distinct questions which have unfortunately been confused in the agitation carried on by various wings of the Labour Party : First, ought the workers to support wars waged by capitalist States, including a possible war in China? Secondly, should the workers support nationalist movements, aimed at securing national independence, including the struggle to rid China of foreign control?

The only socialist answer in both cases is an unambiguous no ! We support no capitalist war and we support no nationalist movement.

Where the capitalist economic system exists (whether the government is Conservative, Liberal or Labour) armed forces are maintained for the protection of capitalist private property and capitalist interests generally. Foreign trade is one of the forces constantly creating friction with other capitalist competing countries and with “backward” races which are unfortunate enough to dwell in parts of the earth endowed with rich natural resources. When the governing sections of the capitalist class think their interests seriously menaced they set the armed forces in motion either at home or abroad. Those armed forces are organised and controlled by these governing sections and THEY ARE NEVER USED FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSE THAN THE PROTECTION OF CAPITALIST INTERESTS. Wars waged by capitalist State involves, therefore, no working-class issue, and on no account would socialists support them. The Socialist Party alone in this country consistently opposed the last war on socialist grounds, and opposes any and every capitalist war. The particular circumstances are to us a matter of supreme indifference. The German invasion of Belgium, the French occupation of the Saar, the Chinese threat to Shanghai, the Russian attempts to damage the British Empire, Irish or Indian or Egyptian demands for independence, Mexican threats to the property of oil companies, each and every one leaves us cold. In every instance the driving motive is the desire to seize or to protect captalist private property. Capitalist States fight only over the division of the loot obtained by the exploitation of wage workers. We are wage workers and are only concerned with the abolition of exploitation.

But to come to the second question, if we will not fight to prevent the German capitalist class from plundering the Belgian and British capitalist class, we most emphatically will not assist Irish, Indian, German or Chinese captalists against British capitalists. We are interested in one kind of struggle only, class struggle, and primarily in that phase which consists in the endeavour by wage earners to overthrow capitalist private property and all forms of the wages system. The national movements blazing away in different parts of the world are not working-class, but capitalist, in their aim. We therefore oppose them. Patriotism has the effect of binding together the classes in each geographical area. Socialists desire that conflicting class interests shall be recognised, not obscured.

Socialism and patriotism are irreconcilably antagonistic. Patriotism is anti-working class and Chinese nationalism is no less so than is British. The one encourages the other. We wish to strangle both.

The Labour Party leads the workers to believe that hostility to a war with China implies the necessity of supporting Chinese nationalism. This is an anti-socialist attitude. Nationalism is merely an aspect of the rise of capitalism. Its history is a tragic record of working-class lives lost, working-class energies wasted and self-sacrifice betrayed. It has no relieving feature; it has brought no material gain to the workers. Nationalism has ever in the long run proved a treacherous basis for working-class organisation. In the capitalist French Revolution the great majority of the victims of the guillotine were not aristocrats but workers. The French commercial class did not hesitate to slaughter the misguided wage-earners who interpreted Liberty as meaning the Liberty of themselves.

In the revolutions which swept over Europe in 1848 under the twin capitalist cries of Democracy and Nationalism, the workers who fought under capitalist leadership were invariably betrayed and their hopes disappointed whenever the demands of the capitalists against their Feudal enemies were wholly or partly conceded. What have Italian or Balkan workers gained by the blood they poured out winning “freedom” from Austria and Turkey? In our own day, what have Irish workers benefited by the years of assassination and guerilla warfare against the armed forces of the British capitalist state? Does any intelligent observer believe for one moment that Irish, or Polish, or Indian, or Egyptian, or Chinese capitalists are one whit less brutal in their exploitation of their workers than are British, or German, or American, or any other Imperialist capitalist class?

The Chinese workers will be no better off when they have exchanged British and Japanese for Chinese masters. The Chinese workers are few in comparison with the enormous mass of peasants; they are not, or at best only weakly, organised. They cannot impose their will on the Nationalist Movement and, if they cannot do so now, much less will they be able to do so when Chinese Capitalism, flushed with victory over its foreign enemies, turns its attention to the paramount home problem of keeping the, workers in subjection. After generations of struggle and experience, the British and other European trade union movements are impotent to control their own sections of the capitalist class, yet their leaders do not hesitate to assume that the Chinese workers have done this or will succeed in doing so in a year or two.

We have already in these pages given the evidence of unprejudiced observers as to the essentially capitalist origin and aims of the Cantonese movement. To reply, as some of their apologists do, that the organised Chinese workers support this movement, is evidence only of the political inexperience of the Chinese workers. We have hardly had time to forget that in 1914 the organised workers in Europe rushed madly into the slaughter under their respective national flags. Will anyone now suggest that this is proof of the non-capitalist origins and objects of that war? And, further, can anyone assert that the working class gained anything whatever by their support? Many of those who were preaching hatred then in the name of Nationalism and in the service of the capitalist class, are now parading the same anti-socialist principles on behalf of China. Ben Tillett “hailing the new spirit in China” on the platform of the Albert Hall (Daily Herald 7th February), and being rapturously cheered by workers, is as pitiful a spectacle as was shown during the war, when similar unthinking people were misled by the same Ben Tillett, while he was earning an honest penny on the music halls, devoting his oratorical gifts to inflaming bestial passions with filthy lies about German atrocities.

Merely to assume that the enemies of British capitalists are necessarily the friends of socialism is too shallow to need refutation, but another cause of confusion about China is the fact that the Russian Government is actively supporting the Kuomintang Party. What must be remembered is that the Russian Government has other reasons for its activity besides its direct working-class sympathies. Russian foreign policy, for instance, led to some kind of tacit understanding with Fascist Italy, because, for a time, both Russia and Italy happened to be at loggerheads with Rumania. And, in China, while the Bolshevists have no illusions about the Nationalist Movement, they do urgently want a strong independent China, able to resist European and particularly British influences in the East.

Lewis S. Gannett, writing on his visit to China in the New Masses (New York, February, 1927, an “unofficial” Communist journal), has the following :—

“The Russians …. want to see in China a strong National State which will resist the encroachments of those Western States which Russia perforce regards as enemies; and they know full well that a semi-bourgeois Nationalist China, if strong, will mean far more help to Soviet Russia than a struggling little Communist nucleus, pure but ineffective,”

and again

“They [the Russians] know perfectly well that there is no more chance of a Communist revolution in China to-day than there was in America in 1776.”

According to Gannett there are only some 3,000 Communists in China.

A recent Thesis of the Communist International on the Chinese question, states that no less than five out of six of the Commissars of the Kuomintang Party belong to the right wing, i.e., represent purely capitalist interests, recognising, however, that at present they cannot dispense with working-class support.

(For extracts from Thesis, see Manchester Guardian, 14th February.)

Further, leaders of the daily press will have noticed that various religious organisations are supporting the Nationalist Movement. The Executive of the National Christian Council, “which represents the vast majority of Protestant Churches in: China and the great majority of Missionary Societies, British, American and Continental,” has issued a manifesto declaring that they “share in the Nationalist aspirations . . . They are prepared to accept risks and even to face persecution rather than: oppose the most hopeful movement in modern China.” (Manchester Guardian, 14th February). A working-class movement, whether in China or England, would not move organised religious movements to such enthusiasm.

There is a last and fairly powerful argument in favour of supporting Nationalist Movements. It is true that the existence of foreign control enables capitalist politicians to blame the evils of their system on to the “foreigner.” Thus it was not until Ireland became “free” that Irish workers fully learned what Irish capitalists are capable of. Against this, however, must be placed the great harm wrought by the exaggeration of national feeling, and hatred of foreigners. This breeds a state of mind quite unsuited to working-class organisation: and saps the solidarity of members of the working-class to each other. It cannot be doubted that the virtual suspension of organised trade union activities in Ireland during the Civil War and in England during the “Great” War, enormously weakened the strength of the organisations concerned, and buried their avowed objects under masses of the vilest war propaganda.

True, it is not easy to oppose mass patriotic movements, whether in Ireland, or England, or China, but that difficulty is not removed by closing one’s eyes to it, nor is it lessened by postponing it until “after the war.” If those who wish to organise and educate the Chinese workers lend themselves to Nationalist propaganda now, they will find it immeasurably more difficult to return to working-class principles after they have won for their masters the reality and for themselves the illusion of Chinese independence. Our advice to the Chinese workers is to build up organisations to fight their own capitalist class—they will need them soon enough. Our advice to British workers is to acquaint themselves with their own class interests and get rid of the two illusions that organisations which have suffered for five or six years an almost unbroken series of defeats at home at the hands of the powerful British ruling class, is able, by passing resolutions, to dictate foreign policy to its masters, or wise to urge young movements like the Chinese, to follow the disastrous British policies, which have wrought such tragic results.

Blogger's Note:

This article was unsigned but it was the case that other substantive articles that were written on China in the Socialist Standard during the 1920s were usually written by Edgar Hardcastle. There's a strong case that Hardcastle also wrote this article.

Notes by the Way: More Russian Trials: The Seven-Year-Old Conspirator (1939)

The Notes by the Way Column from the April 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

More Russian Trials: The Seven-Year-Old Conspirator

The Moscow correspondent of the Manchester Guardian (March 2nd, 1939) reports the latest fantastic story of conspiracy in Russia. Three former officials of the political police and the State Prosecutor at a small town in Western Siberia were sentenced on March 1st to imprisonment ranging from five to ten years. Their offence was that they had concocted charges of plotting and terrorism against more than sixty children, some of whom they held in prison for eight months and forced to make confessions. The children, naturally, confessed to everything, from counter-revolutionary Fascist terrorism to having concealed weapons (penknives). The Daily Telegraph's Moscow correspondent (March 1st and 2nd, 1939) adds other staggering details. The children's ages were ten to twelve years. One of them, a small boy aged ten, had confessed that already, in 1935, he was "active in recruiting members for our counter-revolutionary group." As he was then only seven years of age, and was already an active ringleader, it appears that he must have begun his criminal career at about four or five.

The official responsible for the arrest of the children made a naive confession: —

I knew only one statute of the criminal code—58 (which defines counter-revolutionary political crimes)—and formulated all the charges to fit that statute. (Manchester Guardian, March 2nd, 1939.)

#    #    #    # 

Stalin on British Foreign Policy

In his speech to the Eighteenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party on March 10th, 1939, Stalin explained what he thinks is the guiding line in the foreign policy of Britain and France, i.e., the desire to see Germany and Russia involved in war, so that British and French capitalists could score against both later on.

Through the policy of non-intervention there runs the eagerness and desire not to prevent the aggressors from perpetrating their black deeds, not to prevent, say Japan, from becoming involved in a war with China—or still better, with the Soviet Union; not to prevent say, Germany, from becoming enmeshed in European affairs, from becoming involved in a war with the Soviet Union: to allow all belligerents to sink deep into the mire of war, stealthily to encourage them to follow this line, to allow them to weaken and exhaust one another, and then when they become sufficiently weakened, to appear on the scene with fresh forces to come out, of course, “in the interests of peace,” and to dictate their terms to weakened belligerent nations. It is cheap, and it serves its purpose! (Daily Worker, March 13th, 1939.)

But Stalin thinks the Germans have no intention of getting involved in war with Russia, but have, instead, “turned to the west, if you please, and demand colonies."

Afterwards Stalin defined the attitude of the Communist Party in the sphere of foreign policy: —

Firstly, to pursue also in future a policy of peace and of strengthening the businesslike relations with all countries;

Secondly, to be careful and not to allow our country to be involved in conflicts by instigators of war, who are used to get other people to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for them;

Thirdly, to strengthen the fighting power of our Red Army and Red Navy to the utmost;

Fourthly, to strengthen our international bonds of friendship with the working people of all countries who are interested in peace and friendship between nations.

This was supplemented a few days later by a statement made by the Russian Ambassador in London, M. Maisky, speaking at the annual dinner of the Machine Tool Trades Association. He said: —

You will find that in the last resort the fate of peace or war in our time depends on the kind of relations which exist between London and Moscow. Therefore every improvement to this end is an important contribution to the cause of general peace. (Times, March 16, 1939.)

#    #    #    # 

The Rich Minority Who Own Britain. Labour Writer Admits Failure of Labourism

Mr. Ramsay Muir stated on March 2nd, at a lunch of the Industrial Co-partnership Association, that, so long as “gross maldistribution of prorperty” continued, “we could not have a genuinely democratic society; and, indeed, it had been said that the property distribution was worse in Britain than in any other country."

To support his case, Mr. Muir gave some figures about property left at death. In a recent year, he said, 560,000 people died. Those who left less than £100 numbered 425,000. More than half of the property left by the whole 560,000 was left by three per cent. of them. (Manchester Guardian, March 3rd, 1939.)

Mr. Ramsay Muir is a Liberal, and it is for him to explain why Liberal governments never did anything about this. He is, however, fully entitled to make the charge against the Labour Party that it, too, does, not possess a solution. Mr. Muir, speaking of Labourism, but wrongly calling it Socialism, said: —

He did not think that . . . the purchase by the State of private property was any solution at all; the only effect of that would be to turn the ex-property-owners into an irresponsible rentier class and to widen the differences between them and the rest of the population.

Very true, Mr. Muir, and a few days later, Mr. Douglas Jay, City Editor of the Daily Herald, was risking his job by making a similar remark. Reviewing a book which describes the, London Passenger Transport Board (formed by the Labour Party) as “public property," Mr. Jay says that neither the Board, nor the B.B.C., nor the Central Electricity Board, should be so described, “since private persons hold stock" in them. (Daily Herald, March 13th, 1939.)

Mr. Jay also made another damaging admission about the programme of his Party, in saying in the same article that, as regards the inequality of wealth, “there has been only a very slight redistribution since before the War, despite death duties and direct taxation."

The book being reviewed by Mr. Jay is “Public and Private Property in Great Britain" (H. Campion. Pub. Oxford University Press). It shows that five per cent. of the population owned in 1936 between 75 per cent. and 80 per cent. of the total private property. Two-thirds of the population still own less than £100.

#    #    #    #

Cripps Answers Cripps

A correspondent in the Daily Herald (March 2nd, 1939) recalls that only a few years ago Sir Stafford Cripps, in a pamphlet called “The Choice for Britain,” gave Very good answers to the Popular Front propaganda he is now carrying on. This is what he wrote: —

It will be fatal if we do as the Social Democrats did in Germany; that is, combine with any anti-Fascist forces for the sake of saving democracy. That way lies disaster.

The very compromise that is intended to bring together all the forces in favour of democracy, destroys democracy, because it renders it incapable of achieving the economic change which is essential to its survival.

Nothing, in my view, is more dangerous than the idea that some temporary alliance of pro-democratic forces should be brought about not based on the achievement of Socialism,

Such an alliance, like the Labour Government of 1929-91, would find itself incapable of doing anything except deepening the crisis of capitalism, with the inevitable conscience of the bankruptcy of democracy and its elimination in favour of some sort of dictatorship which would come from the right and not the left.

We must, then, firmly and definitely abandon any ideal of working in association with any other political group or party that defies the absolute necessity of Socialism.

The argument is sound, but it will be noticed that it helps the Labour Party no more than it helps the Popular Front.

#    #    #    #

Shaw Has His Say

In an article on Foreign Policy published by the Daily Herald on March 3rd, Mr. G. B. Shaw laid about him in his usual agile way, distributing cuffs to all parties. He annoyed official Labour Party circles by complimenting Cripps and condemning his expulsion by the Executive Committee. He promises that Cripps, “whether right or wrong, will presently wipe the floor with it for being so silly."

Crippsites are exultant, but they do not appear to have noticed that. Shaw condemns Cripps' foreign policy just as whole-heartedly as he condemns the Labour Party's. This is what he says: —

We on the Labour side have nothing in the way of foreign policy that will wash.

We praise peace and collective security, and in the same breath revile the Conservatives because they did not make war on Japan over Manchuria, on Italy over Abyssinia, and on Germany over Austria and Czechoslovakia.

This is patent nonsense. Suppose the Labour Party had been in power with a ninety-nine per cent, majority, could they have led the Nation to war for the sake of the Chinese, the Danaikils, or the entirely imaginary race called the Czecho-Slovaks ?

Could they, when the Italians were bombing the Abyssinian tribes into submission and smithereens, have stopped our troops from doing exactly the same thing on the North-West Indian frontier ?

That the answers to these questions are in the negative is obvious to everybody who is out for facts and realities and not for virtuous indignation on party lines.

#    #    #    # 

The Old Pope and the New One

When the new Pope was elected by the Cardinals, the British Lib.-Lab. Press welcomed the choice on the ground that the new man is anti-Fascist and leans towards democracy. If that is so, it would appear that he is also a believer in continuity, for one of his first acts as Pope was to send the following message to General Franco in reply to the latter's telegram of congratulation : —

Praying for new success in conformity with your glorious Catholic traditions and blessing our cordially beloved Spain, we thank you for your devout message and invoke for your Excellency divine assistance. (Times, March 11th.)

To the ordinary looker-on, Franco's successes appear to be in the glorious propertied-class tradition of using every fiendish method of mass slaughter to prevent the workers and peasants from improving their position.

Edgar Hardcastle