Letter: Russia's Future. (1933)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Russia’s Future.

Why not a development towards Socialism? 

A group of workers in New York have put the following interesting questions about Russia: —

A group of workers—20 all told—are interested in your viewpoint on the following questions :—

1. Can the Soviet Union ever become economically self-sufficient ?

2. Can Socialism be built in Russia alone ?

The argument we were presented with recently was that—starting out with its present enormous resources and labour power, and the money it may borrow abroad, the Russian State will sell Russian products abroad, turn the part of the surplus value that is left after the payment of interest, State expenses, etc., back into its industrial enterprises, developing its industries to the point of satisfying all national needs till in time there is attained the nearly total economic independence of the country from the rest of the world. This will offer the basis for Socialism in Russia.

Please answer in detail and in simple language why, for economic reasons, or any other, (1) and (2) are impossible. Have your explanation appear in the Socialist Standard if possible.

Reply.

If the question of self-sufficiency in Russia could be considered simply as a technical question of adjusting the living habits of the population so that they ate, and wore, and used up in other, ways, only articles which could be produced inside Russia, then self-sufficiency would be quite practicable, as indeed it would also in India, China, the U.S.A. or the British Empire.

The question, however, cannot very usefully be considered in that form because in no country is the production and distribution of wealth simply a technical question. In all countries it is as well a political question, involving the wealth and position of separate classes.

Before going further into that aspect, let us put another question. Is Russia becoming more self-sufficient or less ? The answer is that the development of Russia is away from self-sufficiency—not towards it.

Back in the eighties of last century, Russian imports and exports together amounted to only about £100,000,000 a year. For a country of that size it was negligible, as can be seen from a comparison with England’s foreign trade, which was seven times as great, although Russia’s population was several times as large as England’s. Russia then, particularly as regards the great mass of the population, was all but self-supporting.

By 1914 her trade had nearly trebled, showing clearly that Russia, like the other countries, was giving up self-sufficiency. During the six years after the war, Russia’s foreign trade was ruined, and again Russia was practically self-sufficient. Since 1924 her foreign trade-has rapidly grown again, and by 1930 and 1931 had reached a level not very far short of the pre-war level.

The present world crisis has, of course, adversely affected Russia, as was pointed out at the World Economic Conference by M. Litvinoff, who represented the Russian Government. (See Report of his address published in the Monthly Review of the Moscow Narodny Bank, Ltd., London, June.) The crisis compelled the Russian Government to curtail its imports because, owing to the fall in the prices of the articles Russia was exporting, the Russian Government was unable to obtain sufficient foreign currency to pay for the imports it had planned.

This does not, however, mean a permanent increase in Russia’s self-sufficiency. On the contrary, M. Litvinoff held out to the Conference delegates the attractive offer that the Russian Government “might agree to place orders abroad in the near future to the sum of about one billion dollars” (about £200,000,000), which, he said, “would have no small influence in the alleviation of the crisis.” To do this the Russian Government would need easier trading conditions from foreign, manufacturers.

Now that we have shown that Russia is moving away from self-sufficiency, let us ask why. Why does Russia or any other country import some articles and export others? Usually, it is because it is cheaper to produce an article in one country, and in particular areas of the same country, than in other areas or other countries. The cheapness may be due to climate and soil, cheaper labour-power, the presence of coal, iron or other mineral deposits, lower rates and taxes, lower tariffs, etc. (There are, of course, other complicating factors, such as restrictions or subsidies resulting from the military needs of the Governments.) The net effect of these differences is that it is more profitable to the English capitalist to invest his money in, say, machine manufacture and shipbuilding, than it is to invest it in cattle raising in England. The consequence is that certain industries survive in one country and are able to undersell and ruin their competitors in other countries and we get world trade and a large measure of interdependence. Governments often try to impede this development, either in order to help their friends in certain industries by means of tariffs, or for military reasons; and in times of acute depression almost all Governments try to restrict imports as a means of protecting their gold reserves, which they fear may be drained away to pay for the imports, and thus destroy confidence in the financial stability of the Government. If the difference in the cost of producing certain articles in different countries is sufficiently great, the import and export of these articles will surmount all obstacles.

For example, Russia at present is able to produce cheaply oil, timber and various foodstuffs, but cannot yet produce equally cheaply much-needed ores, metals and machinery. Therefore it “pays” Russia to concentrate on the production of certain' articles for export and use the money to pay for imports. On balance this is more profitable than trying to be self-sufficient. The world crisis and consequent slump in prices of oil and grain and timber has hit Russia’s export industries, but even a slight recovery in the world prices of these articles will restore the position of the years before the crisis, when it will again be profitable for Russia to maintain and expand her industries producing for export.

Our correspondents envisage the possibility of Russia “developing its industries to the point of satisfying all national needs.” This assumes that the conditions favouring the development of Russia’s foreign trade are disappearing or will disappear, but is there any reason to suppose that this will occur ? The mere growth of Russian production due to an all-round increase of productivity in all branches of industry and agriculture, mining, etc., will not make foreign trade any less profitable, for it will be accompanied by a parallel increase of productivity in industry all over the world. If it pays Russia to import machinery paid for by the export of oil or timber, any increase in the productivity of the Russian timber or oil industries will lead to a growth of foreign trade, as also will any increase in the productivity of the machine manufacturing industries outside Russia. On the other hand, Russia’s foreign trade would decline in volume if her machine manufacturing industries became more productive (that is cheaper) than the foreign machine manufacturing industries, or if the Russian oil and timber industries become less productive than their foreign competitors.

From what we know of the way in which agricultural and industrial technique advances all over the world, we can say with some certainty that for many years to come no changes are likely to occur of so revolutionary a nature that they will destroy the factors militating against self-sufficiency in Russia or any other comparable area.

The second question relates to building Socialism in Russia alone. Here again we can say that if Socialism depended only on the technical possibility of maintaining the life of the population on products within a given area like Russia or U.S.A., there would be no impossibility about Socialism in Russia alone. In fact, however, Socialism pre-supposes a whole range of conditions which are wholly or mainly lacking in Russia. It pre-supposes a population which has exhausted, and knows that it has exhausted, all the main possibilities inherent in capitalism, and knows and wants Socialism.

Russia, owing to the relatively backward condition of its industry and agriculture and to the fact that the overwhelming mass of its population has not spent its lifetime under conditions of highly developed industrial capitalism, has not exhausted the possibilities of capitalism. So far, therefore, from welcoming Socialism, the mass of the Russian population wants nothing better than to be left alone to enjoy the fruits of expanding capitalism. The efforts of the Government, carried on for sixteen years, to crush, placate, or remould the peasants, are evidence of the magnitude of the force against which Socialism in Russia would have to struggle. The attempt of the Bolsheviks to force an unwanted social system on an unready population, by means of its control of the State machine and the armed forces, will fail, as Marx said it would.

Our correspondents can perhaps grasp this best by considering the impossible task of forcing Socialism on the population of the U.S.A., a country far better equipped in every way than Russia for such an experiment.

Edgar Hardcastle

Russian Armed Forces (1976)

From the October 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the article “USSR—Land of Privilege” in the July Socialist Standard, page 132, the statement appears: “The Russians have over 8 million men in the armed forces.” The writer of the article has informed us that this was an error made in copying down figures, and should have been “over 3 million”.

The estimate of Russian armed forces given in the Europa Year Book for 1976 (Vol. 1) is 3,375,000, plus 430,000 “paramilitary forces” (230,000 “security” and 200,000 “border troops”).

The Eastern Scene (1953)

From the October 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

India: Sacred Jobs

Recent demonstrations in Lucknow by over 1,000 Uttar Pradesh primary school teachers, over wage demands and the non-payment of salaries (some being months in arrears), brought forth a peroration from the Chief Minister, Mr. Gobind Ballabh Pant on the sacredness of teaching. According to Janata (organ of the Praja Socialist Party, Bombay, 1/3/53) he is reported to have advised the teachers “to follow the ideals set up by the Gurus of ancient India and to take their jobs as sacred work for the progress of the country.” Mr. Pant stressed that it was the importance of their task that made the teachers the most important section of the nation. It is, therefore, he said, not dignified for those who had a sacred task to perform, to think of petty things. We can be sure that Miss Horsbrugh will take note of this, for the next Burnham report on Teachers' pay.

Despite Mr. Pant's exhortations to the teachers, there has been no cessation of their activities. On the other hand, we haven’t noticed that Mr. Pant has taken any of his own advice.

As most teaching is done by inculcation, perhaps the Minister thinks that the old maxim is true, “That empty vessels make most noise."

India: A Reckless Report

A report on India’s prison administration was recently submitted to the United Nations by Dr. Walter Reckless, an American criminologist on loan to U.N. (Janata, 1st March). Dr. Reckless thinks that the Indian prison system is in a parlous condition and needs reorganising drastically—too many Black holes and not all in Calcutta. The treatment of prisoners seems to be wholly punitive, with all of which our eminent criminologist disagrees. Not that he wants to abolish prisons, he just wants to make them better to live in! He wants to substitute corrective and rehabilitative training for the present punitive system, the idea (as if we didn’t know) being, that with training prisoners will face life anew, full of confidence, and that their bitterness against society will disappear. In other words, they won’t steal, any more property.

The amazing thing is that the report recognises that environment plays a part in the make up of a criminal, but contains no talk of changing the environment, only the prisoner. Many of the convicts in India’s gaols are there because they could not subsist outside without stealing.

There was no mention of that other class of criminals; the 10 per cent. who live on the plunder which they steal legally from the workers. But then who expected there would bet

Labourism in India

Mr. B. S. Mahador Singh, Chairman of the State Praja Socialist Party, a body roughly analogous to the British Labour Party, has been voicing criticisms of the Indian Congress Party Government which he and his followers helped to establish.

Speaking at the Fourth Annual Conference of the State Mazdoor Sangh early this year he said:—

"Any legislation that imposes restrictions on the right of the workers to strike, regardless of providing other avenues of settlement, will be strongly resisted by the Hyderabad State Mazdoor Sangh, for in the opinion of the Sangh the right to strike should be assured to all workers.” (Janata, 1/3/53.)

At the moment of writing the P.S.P. has only 22 seats in the National Assembly, which still does not bring them anywhere near the Communist Party’s total of 41 members and position as chief opposition party. Still the P.S.P. leaders have hopes of getting into power and, like Social Democrats throughout the world, are prepared to tell workers almost any tale (witness the above) in their endeavour to achieve this.

One thing they don’t tell workers, is that capitalism can only run in the interests of the capitalists and that all Governments put down strikes. Witness the Labour Party in this country, which engaged in strike-breaking when in office, although telling another story when out. We can be sure that if the P.S.P. ever achieves power they will do likewise and that Mr. Singh will forget the hot words he poured forth at Hyderabad.

National Bank of Egypt

We are often exhorted by various newspapers and political leaders in general not to scuttle from Egypt. The information below may give one of the reasons why our rulers are so keen to stay there.

The recently published report of the National Bank of Egypt, shows that a gross profit of £E2,317,817 was made for the year ending December, 1952. A dividend of 20 per cent. the same as the year before, was paid to the shareholders. The capital of this Bank is mainly British. (Manchester Guardian 10.4.53, Company report)

Israel. Soviet Jews

Mr. Ben-Gurion, Israel’s Premier, is reported as saying at a meeting of immigrants on April 5th, “That he hoped that the Soviet Government would now allow Jews in Russia to emigrate to Palestine and resume diplomatic relations with Israel.”

If this news manages to percolate through the Iron Curtain, the two and a half million Jews should not take it too seriously, for even if Malenkov and Co. were willing, it must be remembered that legislation was passed last year in Israel which limits immigration to certain categories. 80 per cent. of the immigrants must be under 35 years. The other 20 per cent., the over-35’s, must have trades or professions, or sufficient resources to arrange for their own accommodation. All immigrants must pass a medical examination, supervised by Israeli physicians (Manchester Guardian, 3.12.51).

This of course will exclude a large part of the Jews in Russia, and those who are eligible, are liable to think twice about giving up home and job to go to Israel where unemployment is rife. The above legislation makes a mockery of the hoary cliches which are still trotted forth by Ben Gurion and his supporters, such as the “ Ingathering of the Exiles.”

Many of those who are in the “National Home” are thinking twice about it. Up to December, 1952, 39,000 are reported to have left the country, and 25,000 people inside Israel have preferred to keep the nationality of the country they came from (Jewish Observer and Middle East Review, 12.12.52), which speaks for itself.

The S.P.G.B. has pointed out since its inception that Nationalist movements or for that matter any reformist organisation cannot solve the workers' problems; only the ending of capitalism and establishment of Socialism can do that Ben Gurion (who called himself a Socialist and refers to his Mapai Party likewise) is not interested in Socialism. He wants emigrants from Russia, or anywhere else for that matter, to help build up capitalism in Israel. Technicians, teachers, doctors, scientists and maybe a few Rouble millionaires will be more than welcome. But if aged over 35, sick, unskilled, or without financial .backing, the signboard says “No vacancies.” Which is capitalism all the world over.

Israel Jewish Unemployment

Unemployment as we all know, is one of the many horrible aspects of capitalism and has increased in many countries since Malenkov made his peace statement. Israel is no exception and has one of the highest (if not the highest) percentages of unemployed in the world. Out of a population of 1,629,000 there are twenty-five thousand registered as unemployed (Jewish Observer and Middle East Review, 12th December, 1952). This does not include part-time workers and those who would not register anyway; such as most of the Arab population which forms the largest part of the 179,000 non-Jews.

Working on the assumption that the average family in Israel has at least four members, it can be seen that a very large section of the population is affected.

The supreme irony of the situation, lies in the fact that many of these people dissipated their energies over the years in the Zionist movement and other “Jewish ” Nationalist organisations in the endeavour to form a “National Home,” only to find that they can suffer just as much in Israel as elsewhere. For Israeli capitalists are no different from the rest of their class and are quite impartial about exploiting either Jewish or Gentile workers.

Jon Keys

Notes by the Way: Something to Cheer About? (1947)

The Notes by the Way Column from the December 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

Something to Cheer About?

On November 6th Molotov announced that Russia had solved the secrets of making atom bombs.

The following is from the Daily Worker (7/11/47) : 

“When a mass meeting of 15,000 in the largest hall in Paris were told of the Molotov atom bomb statement, they rose to their feet and cheered enthusiastically for 20 full minutes.”

* * *

Scientists in Russia

In “Scientist in Russia” (Pelican Books Edition, 1s.), Professor Ashby tells what happened to a Russian scientist who opposed the scientific theory backed by the Russian Government. He writes as follows :

“The argument by heresy-hunt was used with deadly effect against the most outspoken and devastating critic of Lysenko, the famous Russian biologist N. I. Vavilov. Vavilov probably went beyond safe limits in condemning the new genetics as an outbreak of medieval obscurantism. He paid a high price. He was accused of dilatoriness in getting practical results, of lending support to fascists by his theory of centres of origin of crops, and of aligning himself with Bateson, the leader of genetics in England. In 1940 he was deprived of his directorship of the Institute of Plant Industry. He was subsequently imprisoned and he died, without any announcement or explanation, probably in 1943. The type of argument used against Vavilov is well illustrated by a comment made to me by a prominent animal physiologist in Moscow in October, 1945. ‘I reject Vavilov’s views,’ he said, ‘because Vavilov believed in Bateson, and Timiryazev condemned Bateson.’ The same argument has been put on paper by Prezent.” (P. 111).

In a letter to the Manchester Guardian, as in the book itself, Professor Ashby made it clear that such intolerance is not in his view the whole picture. He wrote :

“It is true that Vavilov was killed because he adhered to bourgeois genetics; it is no less true that there are to this day two professors of bourgeois genetics in the University of Moscow—no other kind of genetics is taught there, and the official text-book was written by an American. This sort of inconsistency is, in my opinion, the key to an understanding of Russian policy not only in science but also in public affairs.”—(Manchester Guardian, 1/11/47.)

To which the Manchester Guardian reviewer replied as follows :

“When Russian scientists see a political adventurer, half charlatan and half visionary, attacking the most eminent scientist of the country with pseudo-scientific, slogans steeped in political venom ; when they have to stand by helplessly and watch the victim standing at bay and being hounded in the end to prison and death (the campaign took about, ten years from start to finish) – then I am sure they felt exactly as any of us would if this happened here. The more dearly they love their country, the more bitter is their shame and horror, and their seeming unconcern is simply a token of the reigning political terror.”— (Manchester Guardian, 11/11//47.)

* * *

Why Financiers Like Labour Government

The following is from the Financial Times, (8/9/47):

“Despite a formidable total of bear points—inadequate supplies of coal, steel and other materials, reduced home consumption, dollar shortage, and a possible autumn Budget—there are more favourable aspects which, at the moment the market tends rather to ignore.

“This is the view expressed in their current circular by a leading firm of Stock Exchange brokers.

”‘There can be no comparison with conditions in 1931 when industry was facing a widespread saturation of its markets through over production,’ says the circular, ‘and while the sequence of events ten years earlier after the 1914-18 war were rather more closely comparable, there is one significant difference—the fact that a Labour Government is in office will surely mean that we need not fear widespread or long lasting strikes of the character which then caused the collapse of post-war industrial activity.”

* * *

Machinery and Unemployment

“NEW YORK, Friday.— Mechanisation and other agricultural developments threaten to make displaced persons of many American farmers, according to a report by the House of Representatives’ Agricultural Committee.

“More than 3,000,000 farm labourers were unemployed last year because of mechanisation, although crops beat all records.

“Further displacement of people now making some kind of living from the land is expected, says the report.–Reuter.”—(Evening Standard, 12/9/47.)

* * *

The U.S.A. and the Mediterranean

“Admiral Bieri, commanding the United States Mediterranean Fleet, has given an interview in Naples to the correspondent of the Milan daily Corriere Lombardo in the course of which he is alleged to have said :

”The United States Fleet is here and intends to stay here in Italian and Mediterranean waters. American interests in Europe will not cease with the signing of the German treaty. In accordance with the policy of the United States Navy Minister American forces will be allocated wherever there are American interests, in closest co-operation with the British’.”— (Manchester Guardian, 10/9/17.)

* * *

The Miners’ New Masters

“Mr. Bernard Rees, chairman of the National Union of Mineworkers’ lodge at Arrail Griffin Colliery, Abertillery, where 16,000 miners are on strike, said this afternoon :

” ‘Surface workers are still being paid wages at starvation level and the National’ Coal Board’s policy of subjection has been worse than anything we ever experienced under free enterprise.

” ‘N.C.B. officials are standing over men to time their movements, and the miners say that they are turning our colliery into something which resembles a concentration camp.’ “—(Evening Standard, 21/10/47.)

* * *

NOT the Socialist Party

“One of the richest men in England has just joined the Socialist Party. He is metal-magnate Steven James Lindsay Hardie, 62-year-old Scot, chairman of British Oxygen Company and its associated companies.

“British Oxygen has a capital of £6,000,000 and directly controls eight companies, with interests in South Africa, Australia, India find Norway.

“Total directorships held by Hardie, 27. Among them is vice-chairmanship of the £2,750,000 firm of Metal Industries, Ltd. As an industrialist Hardie makes metal products ranging from screws to ships.”— (Evening Standard, 14/10/47.)

* * *

Erstwhile Internationalist Proclaim National Sovreignt

The report to the Warsaw Conference at which the new Communist International organisation was formed was made by an influential Russian Communist, Zhdanov. Much of it was reproduced by the Manchester Guardian (3/11/47). One illuminating passage reads as follows:

“Taken up by the bourgeois intelligentsia, dreamers and pacifists, the idea of a ‘world government’ is being used not only as a means of ideologically disarming the people still defending their independence from the encroachments of American imperialism, but also as a slogan specially aimed at the Soviet Union, which constantly and consistently defends the principle of true equality and the maintenance of the sovereign rights of all nations, great and small.”

In the meantime Russia,, like the other capitalist Powers, keeps troops in occupation of several countries and is at the moment trying to induce the Persian Government to carry out the agreement to set up a Russian controlled oil concern in North Persia, the agreement having been forced on the Persian Government last year while Russian troops were in occupation.

Notes by the Way: The Purchasing Power of the Pound (1948)

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

The Purchasing Power of the Pound

At the T.U. Congress, in order to lead the delegates away from the policy of repudiating “wage-freezing” and pressing for higher wages, members of the General Council laid emphasis on the idea that lower prices would be more advantageous than higher wages. Mr. Arthur Deakin crystallised the view in the remark “I want to see £1 buy a pound’s worth of goods.” (Daily Express, 10/9/48.) Accurately speaking, the statement doesn’t mean anything, because what a £1 will buy is “a pound’s worth of goods” ; it can’t be anything else. The delegates, however, knew what he meant. It was a way of saying that he wants prices to stop rising and if possible he wants them to be reduced. Many workers think the same but what they have in mind is that they would like to see prices back to the level of 1939, or better still back to 1914, but without any fall in wages. If they kept the present level of wages and could spend them on goods at the much lower 1914 price level they would indeed have got something. It will, however, not happen, and the Government has never even suggested that they have any hope of seeing it happen. If prices came down by half, wages would soon follow, closely enough.

If the question is asked why are prices so much higher than in 1914 the greater part of the increase is easy to explain though the explanation is overlooked by many people.

In 1914, and again from 1925 to 1931, the British pound represented a certain weight of gold (113 grains of fine gold) and it was kept at that level automatically because, by law, Bank of England notes were convertible into gold or gold into notes. The American dollar also represented a fixed amount of gold, and the relationship of the weight of gold in the pound and dollar respectively was such that one pound equalled about 4.86 dollars. Now there is no convertibility of the pound into gold but, by agreement between the two governments, the pound is fixed at 4.03 dollars instead of the former 4.86 dollars. Also, since 1914, the dollar has been devalued and it too represents a smaller weight of gold than formerly; 59 per cent. of what it was in 1914.

The effect of these two changes taken together (i.e. that the dollar represents less gold, and that the pound represents fewer dollars) is that the pound now represents just under half the weight of gold it represented in 1914.

If we assumed that the value of gold itself had kept unchanged and therefore one ounce of gold would buy as much as in 1914. the effect of reducing the weight of gold represented by the Pound to one-half of what it used to be would naturally be that the pound would purchase only half as much as it did in 1914. There have been other factors also at work but by comparison with this they are of relatively small importance.

Incidentally it is worth noticing that those who believe that “we are no longer on the gold standard” are very wide of the mark.

* * *

The Russian Concentration Camps

Two exiled opponents of the Stalin Regime, Dallin and Nicolaevsky, wrote “Forced Labour in Soviet Russia,” giving a terrible picture of the conditions they allege exist in the Russian concentration camps. In our February issue we published a comment made by the Manchester Guardian in which the editor, while questioning some statements, accepted the description as convincing evidence of the inhumanity of the system of forced labour imposed on political and other prisoners. The Communists and their supporters deny the truth of the allegations. The Anglo-Russian News Bulletin (June 28th) published a review of “Forced Labour in Soviet Russia” by Mr. Rothstein, who is Lecturer on Soviet Institutions at the University of London School of Slavonic and East European Studies. Because Mr. Rothstein is presumably familiar with conditions in Russia, and able to obtain whatever information the Russian Government makes available, his review is interesting—but chiefly for what it does not say. He argues that the book contains contradictory statements and figures, that the authors are weak on arithmetic, that their estimates of the numbers in the camps could not be correct, that they make some statements “without a shred of evidence,” that they are guilty of distortions and malicious gossip and so on. The obvious intention of this line of attack is to cast such doubts on the reliability of Dallin and Nicolaevsky that the reader will conclude that he cannot believe anything they say. But before coming to any such conclusion it is necessary to notice that Mr. Rothstein stops short just at the point where he should be telling us something positive. We naturally expect him to tell us that there are no forced labour camps, or alternatively, give us some evidence that conditions in them are not inhuman. Why this silence on the part of Mr. Rothstein? Can it be that this “authority” on Soviet Institutions does not know about the institution of forced labour?

Further examination raises other doubts about Mr. Rothstein. He starts off by dismissing the whole book as being “largely a rehash of what Mr. Dallin . . . was writing in 1921, with some recent ‘documentation’ which will not stand up to serious analysis.” Later he brushes aside charges about contingents of forced labour raised since 1930 from the collective farms. Then he ridicules the idea that forced labour could have been used for the purpose of accumulating gold, on the ground that in the years 1934-1938 Russian foreign trade showed a huge favourable balance ”and therefore did not depend in the least on such accumulation.” The whole trend of Mr. Rothstein’s phrasing is to convey that at no time, from 1921 onwards, were the charges true. Unfortunately for him, those admirers of the Soviet regime, Sidney and Beatrice Webb in their “Soviet Communism” admitted and deplored the existence of concentration camps in which political prisoners, and peasants who resisted being forced into collective farms were “set to hard labour in return for a bare subsistence.” The Webbs were often eulogised by the Communists and as recently as 13th July, 1948, the Daily Worker praised their “power of objective observation and judgment” shown in another book on Russia. This is what the Webbs wrote in “Soviet Communism” (1937 edition, p.581) about one of the concentration camps :

“The miseries of a rigorous climate were aggravated by a cruel administration by brutal jailers, in which every kind of torment seems to have been employed.”

The matter was placed beyond question by the fact, as related by the Webbs, that after an outcry outside Russia, an official inquiry took place by the Russian authorities which resulted in the shooting or dismissal of many of the jailers. The camps were reorganised, but even then, said the Webbs, “the conditions, we fear, continued to be inhuman” (p.584).

So it seems that although Mr. Rothstein scoffs at the charges they were so well-founded up to 1937 that they convinced the Webbs.

About gold production Mr. Rothstein’s curious argument can be shown from official Russian figures to be entirely wrong. He argues that it cannot be true that forced labour was needed for gold production, because Russia at that time, 1934-1938, had no need of gold for foreign trade. Mr. Rothstein should tell this to the Russian Government, they would he surprised. In the Moscow publication “U.S.S.R. in Construction” (May, 1937) it is shown that gold production in Russia was rising at a stupendous rate during the years in question. Whereas in 1934 production was 157 per cent. above the 1930 level, by 1930 it had reached 340 per cent. above 1930.

So much for Mr. Rothstein. As his implied denial of the existence of forced labour camps in the years before 1937 is found to be worthless it is not unreasonable to be very suspicious about anything he says of present conditions.

* * *

What Nationalisation does for Tilling’s Shareholders

Thomas Tilling, the bus and road transport firm, with an issued capital of £4,420,000, have agreed to sell out to the Government for £25 million, and the purchase price ”will be paid in Transport stock, or cash, or partly in one form and partly in the other.” (Daily Mail, 9/9/48.)

A year ago the Company’s £1 shares were selling at 53s. 3d. When negotiations began they jumped to 75s. 3d., and when the agreement was announced they rose to nearly £6. As the City Editor of the Daily Express remarks (9/9/48), “For shareholders—State ownership with a smile.”

The Daily Herald’s City Editor (10/9/48) writes: 

“The generous purchase price of £24,800,000 offered by the Transport Commission for Tillings road transport and haulage interests started a boom in bus shares in the Stock Exchange yesterday. Prices soared to high record levels which added about £10,000,000 to market values.” 

The Daily Mail (9/9/48) still thought, however, that it was a hard bargain for the company and that the price agreed upon "is probably well below the real value.”

The company will still continue in business as it has other interests in addition to those sold to the Government.

* * *

The Law says it is preposterous

A man who took seriously the statement that under nationalisation the railways become “our” property was fined £1, with 15 guineas costs. He had refused to leave Kings Cross Station and was charged with trespassing. The magistrate said:

“The proposition that the railways are now nationalised and that any member of the public is entitled to go on their property and cannot be requested to leave is really a preposterous one and one that cannot be accepted for a moment.” Star (18/9/48).

* * *

The Lucky Tories

The following report of a speech by Mr. Cyril Osborne, Conservative M.P. for Louth, at Castle Donington on Saturday, 11th September, was published in the Star (12/9/48) :

“Fate has played a dirty trick on the Socialists. They have come to power just at the worst time; instead of being able to give everybody more the war has so impoverished us that they are compelled to force austerity down our throats. Soon they will have to enforce industrial discipline, harsher than the Tories ever dared in pre-war days. It will be bitter medicine for their supporters, but it will do them good. The Conservatives are lucky to be out of office during these days of bitter pill-taking, and the nation should be grateful to the Socialists for having provided such a willing doctor in Sir Stafford Cripps to administer such unpalatable medicine.”

Mr. Osborne here says that impoverishment due to war compelled the Labour Government, to do as they have done; but this certainly won’t prevent the Tories from trying to catch votes at the next election by laying the blame on the Labour Government and claiming that it would have been better under the Tories. We also remember that under long years of Tory Government there was always some excuse to hand to explain working class poverty and unemployment and we never remember any Tory Government that gave anything to the workers.

The truth is that capitalism run by Tories and capitalism run by the Labour Party are both unlucky for the workers.

* * *

Communist Defence of Russian Dictatorship

In the Daily Worker (24/8/48) Mr. J. R. Campbell answered a letter from a correspondent who wrote pointing out that Russia is “without democracy, without the right of criticism, ruled by a single party. You call this freedom. I call it slavery.”

In his lengthy reply Mr. Campbell does everything except meet the real criticism, which is that the Russian workers are forbidden by law to form political parties of their own choice. Unless they are members of the Communist Party they cannot belong to any political party. At elections, unless they want to vote for the candidate approved by the Communist Party, all they could do would be to vote against him; they are prevented from running opposition candidates. The membership of the Communist Party is only a very small minority of the population, and the overwhelming majority are not in a political party and cannot be.

What Mr. Campbell does is to argue as if the critics of the dictatorship are concerned solely with the right to form avowedly capitalist parties. He confines his statement to giving reasons why the workers in Russia do not need parties of the “capitalist opposition.” It may look to Mr. Campbell that this is a clever way of dodging the issue, but it only lands him in another awkward spot. The Russian Government doesn’t have to forbid the formation of capitalist parties like the Liberals and Tories unless there are in Russia people who want to form such parties. Now who would want to form capitalist parties in Russia today? and why would they want to form them? Obviously the capitalists would want to form parties of their own ; but are there capitalists in Russia? Here Mr. Campbell is in a dilemma. For the purpose of claiming that Socialism has been established in Russia he would have to maintain that there are no capitalists there; but in order to justify forbidding them to form political parties he would have to maintain that they do exist.

If he plumps for the former position and denies the existence of capitalists in Russia, then he is left to explain that it is some other groups of people who want to form capitalist parties and have to be prevented. So we have to assume that it is peasants or workers, who, knowing all the benefits of life in the Soviet paradise nevertheless want to organise Liberal or Tory capitalist parties and would do so if the law did not forbid it.

Having thus got himself into difficulties by pretending that it is only capitalist parties that are illegal in Russia perhaps Mr. Campbell will try to find time to deal with the real question which is why the workers are forcibly prevented from forming their own political parties; and how this can be squared with the claim that it is democratic.

Incidentally Mr. Campbell should take his courage in both hands and offer to tell British workers why he thinks it would be good for them, too, if they were allowed to belong to a political party only by permission of the Executive Committee of the C.P.G.B. and be thrown into concentration camps if they objected.

Edgar Hardcastle

Escape to Happiness (or drama on the Trans-Siberian Railway) (1986)

A Short Story from the October 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

This summer I took a party of tourists to Lake Baikol and Irkutsk, the capital of Siberia. Any professional "courier'' will tell you that every package tour has its "freaks", and this one had two — both young women with college degrees in — "surprise, surprise" — sociology. One, who was quite small and looked like death warmed up. said "she was not getting enough fibre". The other, larger, with a huge shock of fair curly hair, shuffled around in a voluminous covering like a pair of old curtains — and large, soft, fluffy boots. She could have just escaped from the local pantomime, playing Widow Twanky. They were both engaged in local community projects. One was forming a group in Hounslow to help people "analyse their dreams

They were (or had been) "into" everything. of course, running the gamut of the so-called "Left Wing": ex-Socialist Workers Party; CND; Battered Wives; Women's Liberation; Greenham Common — and now "Animal Rights". The little one had been prosecuted for disrupting a fur auction, but did not believe in "violent action" (her boyfriend was doing six months for it) and now the very latest — they were "vegans'; not just vegetarians — but vegans. No meat, fish, eggs, butter. milk, bread or cakes baked with animal fat. etc. etc.

The manager on the dining car of the train (Trans-Siberian Railway) just could not grasp it. "Then what the hell do they eat?", he asked plaintively. The usual Russian attitude to vegetarians is very practical. They just take a knife and scrape the meat off the plate. Not with vegans they don't! They actually sent back an excellent Borsht (beetroot soup) because one suspected a sliver of meat in it — which is just not possible.

Nevertheless, all went well until we reached Ormsk. Here a handsome, almost beautiful Russian lady boarded our train with an enormous quantity (even for Russians) of luggage, including possibly a washing machine, and certainly a child's pram, and three very good-looking children. A boy of ten. a girl of five and a baby of a few months.

There are four berths to a compartment (second-class), obviously two up. two down. The newcomer with a small baby, two other children, and terrifying luggage was quite flustered, almost hysterical with anxiety. With that frank openness so typical of Russians, especially when travelling, she naturally assumed that she would be granted the bottom berths, whatever the tickets said, on account of the children, especially the tiny one.

Our vegans had omitted to master the Russian language prior to their trip, so that no dialogue or explanations were possible. She just plonked herself, her kids, the cradle, and her bags on the bottom berths, pointing heavenwards to indicate her proposal that our two "liberators" move up to oblige.

But no! Not a bit of it! Why should we move? They could not move their luggage. "These are our seats." "Besides", said Widow Twanky, "I've got a bad back"! A "bad back"? How many millions of working days are skived every year with "bad backs"? The one undiagnosable. indefinable gimmick known to all for a couple of days off.

By this time our Russian visitor found everything just too much — and with a voluble stream of rich Russian invective, rudely shoved poor little fibre-less No. 1 violently out into the corridor. Screams, tears, kids sobbing, everyone shouting, with calls for the unfortunate "courier" to "do something'. Calmly surveying the scene I announced portentously: "It's dinner time! Come along! We'll sort all this out later!!" Once our freaks left the compartment, their chance of retaining the bottom bunks was about as likely as snow in the Sahara.

Safely shepherded half-way up the quarter-mile-long train to the Diner, I was able to divert attention and calm hysteria by guaranteeing that the "Schee" (cabbage soup) was utterly meatless. So it was; the meat had been given to somebody else. "Now really". I started persuasively, "You are animal lovers. so am I! So are we all! But little children are animals too! Don't you think? Have they no rights? Is their mother wrong to want to care for them?" No dice. I was talking to a brick wall. "Yes. but we paid for our ticket! They are our seats! She should not be allowed to travel with all that luggage with children. Why should we have to move?" Argument was obviously futile.

But a solution was to hand. Our handsome newcomer had told me, through her tears, that she was joining her husband, an Army officer, in Budapest. This was my cue. Lowering my voice and wagging a finger. I whispered mysteriously "Do you know what I think?" They were agog. "I've suspected it from the start", I murmured. "She's escaping from the KGB." This completely flattened them. After a long pause, little Miss No-Fibre whispered. “Does this happen very often?" "Often", I breathed heavily, "almost every other day or night. We've got to help her. for the sake of the kids." The result was magic. All their sentimental longings for some practical worthy cause were aroused. They obediently and efficiently transferred to the top bunks, proud members of a dramatic liberation conspiracy. Harmony reigned. The Russian lady was now treated with reverential respect, more deeply convinced than ever that the English were nuts.

I am sure that for many months to come the local Community Centre at Ruislip will thrill to the story of how they helped a beautiful Russian lady with her three lovely children to escape the dreaded KGB. But 1 must be getting absent-minded, for 1 clean forgot to tell them that what I had meant was Kinky Girls from Britain.

SPUTNIK

Blogger's Note:

Mmm, what were the SSPC thinking? I grew up reading The Sun newspaper in the 1980s, and I was getting flashbacks as I was scanning this in. Understandably, this short story stirred up quite a bit of controversy amongst the readership at the time, and the following letter from John Usher appeared in the December 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard:

Escape to happiness 

Comrades, 

As a party member I would like to ask what purpose was served by the publication of Sputnik's article in the October Standard. As far as I can see no socialist viewpoint is advanced, rather the contrary; to suggest that "scraping the meat off the plate" is a practical attitude to vegetarians is obtuse and. in practical terms, counter effective. Further, stereotyping of the kind employed can do nothing other than alienate interested neutrals. A propagandist of experience must surely know that stereotypes are no more effective when purportedly factual than avowedly imaginary. Although this should make no difference, the article is not even funny; on my reading it did not even raise the involuntary and quickly regretted chuckle sometimes elicited by sick jokes. 

If I did not know that Sputnik had published excellent articles under another name, I would suggest that he sends his next offering to Punch, a magazine long renowned for bridging the gap between seriousness and humour by eschewing both.

John Usher

London SW4

 

Reply: 

We have received many letters in a similar vein and note the points made.

Editors.

I believe 'Sputnik' was a one-off pen-name for Harry Young ('Horatio' in the Socialist Standard).

Cold War Inside the Kremlin (1953)

From the August 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under socialism, when classes and class interests will no longer exist, the reason for the existence of political parties representing contending class interests will have gone. Decisions about the best policy to be followed to promote the well-being of all will be reached democratically by informed discussion. That situation is, however, something yet to be brought about since socialism exists nowhere in the world.

In Britain and many other countries capitalism has evolved a political system through which control of the government is vested in the politicians who are able to secure for their party or groups of parties the support of voters at elections, conducted on the basis of universal adult suffrage. This system works, and provides capitalism with the stability it needs, only because the major political parties and the voters behind them are agreed on the continuance of capitalism and differ only on secondary issues of policy.

In earlier times when the electorate was a very restricted body of property owners, and still earlier, before Parliament had made its hold on the armed forces and the monarchy effective, the struggles between contending economic interests to control the State machine were settled by disorderly public demonstrations, by show of armed force or by costly and ruinous civil war.

In Russia, since the overthrow of the Czarist monarchy in 1917, rule has been in the hands of a group based on the Communist Party, all other political parties being ruthlessly suppressed. In such conditions it was necessary to retain and strengthen the Secret Police, which, with its own powerful armed forces constitutes one of the three pillars of the Russian government, alongside the army and the Communist Party. Under this political system the rulers of Russia have had to face problems of great size and complexity including civil war, invasion in the second world war, the dispossession of the peasants and their forcible combination into collective farms, and the problem of trying to persuade and cajole the workers into accepting their exploitation and the particular hardship involved in building up modern industry in what was a predominantly peasant country. The inevitable tension has been aggravated by the need to impose a large measure of centralisation not only on strongly-autonomous regional interests inside Russia but also on the “satellite” countries in Eastern Europe brought, since 1945, into the Russian sphere of interest. Stalin's death brought the problem to a head, and forced the question, which individual was to gain the succession at the centre and on which of the three pillars of the State, Party, Army and Secret Police, he would lean. In this situation the sudden flare up of revolt in East Berlin and the plain signs of incipient breakaway in the satellite countries were, to those at the centre, alarming reminders of the dangers surrounding them.

Beria’s removal gives colour to the view that the Party and the Army have been able to agree to line up against the Secret Police but that, even if it is a correct interpretation of forces about which so little definite is known, could only be a provisional solution. It does not settle the question of bringing all the forces of the State, including the army, under the control of political heads who would owe their authority to having majority support in a Parliament resting on genuine electoral contests. Where, as in Britain, continuous contact between electors, the government and the opposition is maintained by political parties operating in the open, and seeking both to reflect and to mould political opinion, a stable basis is provided for the administration as well as means to change it at elections. Lacking such a system contending interests in Russia, with their divergent views on the running of capitalism, can only intrigue for power at the centre and seek support in Army, Secret Police, Communist Party, regional autonomous movements, or anywhere else where discontent makes itself manifest.

The removal of Beria and the likely curbing of the power of the Secret Police, have not materially altered the system. In a country where ordinary political organisation and activity is illegal and discontent is therefore driven underground an elaborate secret police organisation is indispensable and it will be observed that Beria’s removal and other changes have all been initiated and carried out arbitrarily from the top, with the masses of the people kept completely in the dark until they are simultaneously informed of what has been done and called upon to hold “spontaneous” demonstrations approving it. As is usual in a Police State the defeated contestants are removed and held guilty without any such formality as waiting for a public trial or allowing their supporters to state their case in the open.

Whichever group wins the present round in the struggle for power the problem of broadening the base of the Russian political system remains to be solved. Whether it will be by compromise among the rivals or by armed struggle remains to be seen.

Edgar Hardcastle

Here and There: The Church in Spain (1937)

The Here and There column from the August 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Church in Spain

Among a series of excellent articles on Spain in the Manchester Guardian one deals with the function of the Catholic Church in Spain and its attitude towards the Civil War. The correspondent, who spent a year in Spain, says: —

The burnings were often carried out by the villagers without any instructions from outside— indeed, they were often as spontaneous and, seemingly, as natural throughout Spain as the seizure of land was in the South of Spain. . . .

But, generally speaking, the war on the churches seems to have been a popular, spontaneous movement. And even when a gang arrived from outside the villagers, would, as a rule, stand round passively and look on while petrol was poured on the altar and set alight and the priest was dragged from his hiding- place.

In a country where the majority of the people have been, and still are, Catholics this indifference to the fate of the clergy needs some explaining. Read on: —

A Materialist Church.

Genuinely Christian priests have been killed. Much fine art has been destroyed and some of the finest music in the world been silenced. But the problem of the Church in Spain has another aspect. It was a Church more permeated by materialism than any other in Europe. It was largely—though by no means entirely—a commercial enterprise. It was the biggest landowner in a country of big landowners. It had a vast, and sometimes even a commanding, share in various industrial and commercial interests. A Church that identifies itself too closely with a temporal order is in danger of sharing the destiny of that order. And if a Church throws its weight on the side either of revolution or of counter-revolution, it will survive with the one or perish with the other.

The Spanish clergy has used Catholic teaching to influence Spanish workers to assist in maintaining the landowning and capitalist interests of the Spanish Church. They have failed and millions of Spanish Catholics are now the bitter enemies of the Catholic Church. The Jesuit boast that Catholic teaching until the age of seven years immunises the mind for life from heretical influences is a patent myth. The dominating influence in class struggles is class interest. The class interest of the Spanish workers, or what appears to them to be their class interest, dominates the influence of religious superstition. In many thousands of cases the open struggle with the Catholic Church will be sufficient to destroy its influence entirely. The position surprises many people with exaggerated ideas about the power of religion. The attitude of the Spanish worker to the Catholic Church is no less a logical expression of material interest than the attitude of the angry Spanish peasant who hung the image of St. Anthony upside down in a well after a failure of his crops. (An instance quoted by the Guardian correspondent, which can be paralleled by many stories from countries where there is a large Catholic peasantry.)

The Catholic Church is lined up with the landowning class behind Franco in a desperate fight to retain its ownership and feudal privileges. That is its chief interest in the struggle; and its resources are at the disposal of Franco. Many churches have become arsenals and many priests have discarded the cassock for the rifle. It is a ruthless and bitter class struggle in which life and property inevitably are destroyed.

If Catholic priests were murdered by angry Spanish peasants they have the reactionary and callous attitude of the Catholic Church to thank.

Whatever the outcome of the immediate struggle in Spain the hypocrisy and charlatanry of the Catholic Church there has dealt a blow to its moral influence which will not be rebuilt so easily as the walls of its churches.

Civilising Spain

The Irish Brigade, raised by General O’ Duffy to fight on behalf of Franco in Spain, has returned to Ireland without having done much fighting. The Manchester Guardian (June 23rd, 1937) quotes from the Irish Times and the Irish Press an account by the volunteers of what they saw in Spain.

We saw General Franco’s army executing “Reds” each morning in massed groups. They machine-gunned the condemned people, beginning at their ankles and directing the fire up along their bodies. The “ Reds,” in their last moments, lifted their clenched fists in the Communist salute, snouting “Viva Madrid !” This was in Caceres. It was in this town that the brigade spent most of their time.

That “great gentleman” and Catholic, Franco, will find a place in history with those murderers of the Paris Communards, the French ruling class. 

Marx—by Mr. Woodburn

Mr. Arthur Woodburn, secretary of the Scottish Labour Party, N.C.L.C. lecturer, and exponent of finance and economics, arch-squarer of the circles in Labour Party policy, says in the June Plebs: —

When individuals deny the obvious and proved fact that the Labour Party is a Socialist Party there is no point in arguing with them. . . . No one can join the Labour Party without proclaiming himself a Socialist.

It is, perhaps, too much to expect an Oracle to argue, but does he need to? Surely an "obvious and proved fact” should speak for itself? The “obvious and proved fact” that prominent members of the Labour Party have openly repudiated being Socialists and that the Labour Party is a Socialist Party does, however, appear to require explanation. Would you oblige, Mr. Woodburn? And would you also mention where evidence can be found for the statement that Marx agreed that 

It was quite conceivable that the capitalists would be bought out if they were paid very well if (as an exception, and England at that time was an exception) circumstances so developed that the capitalist would be obliged to submit and proceed in a cultured and organised manner towards Socialism on terms of compensation, 

and where

Elsewhere Marx said that "Under certain conditions the workers will not by any means refuse to buy out the bourgeoisie.”

There may be “not much point in arguing,” but, really, Mr. Woodburn, we would like to know.


The "New Leader” and “ The Socialist Standard"

In an article, “A Communist Leader and the Right to Strike,” which appeared in the July The Socialist Standard, it was stated that: “No reference has appeared, or—to be pedantically correct—has been noticed,” in Labour and Communist newspapers to the Bedwas Agreement signed by Mr. Arthur Horner. We learn now that such reference had been made. John Alpin, industrial editor of the New Leader, writes to say that it carried a critical analysis of the agreement and that a reply to that analysis by a member of the South Wales Miners’ Federation was dealt with point by point. Rather disagreeably, he says that he “would have assumed that the S.P.G.B. . . . would have read the columns of the New Leader each week.” We make the correction suggested by Mr. Alpin, if such it can be called, gladly. The number of weekly and monthly journals published by working-class organisations is numerous, and when writing is a voluntary task and journals unobtainable through the usual channels it is quite easy to miss an issue of any particular journal. The New Leader could help to avoid the recurrence of such “errors.” We suggest it put us on its exchange list. We put this suggestion to several journals, including the New Leader, a few years ago. Many agreed, even where the price is much higher than The Socialist Standard and publication more frequent: the New Leader declined. Perhaps, Mr. Alpin, you would do something to adjust the matter?

The Indian Workers and their Exploiters

Congress, India’s Nationalist Party, has climbed down from its earlier attitude of refusing to form governments in the six Provinces where it obtained majorities in the recent elections. In the resolution embodying the decision to form Governments, the draft of which, according to the Daily Herald, is attributed to Gandhi, it is said: —

The proper description of the existing relationship between the British Government and the people of India is that of exploiter and exploited, and hence they have a different outlook upon almost everything of vital importance.

Having admitted that exploiters and exploited must have a different outlook, Mr. Gandhi ignores the obvious, that exploited Indians can have no harmony of outlook with the Nationalist exploiters of their own race. To say, as he has said, that the Indian princes, landowners and capitalists can be persuaded to be “trustees” for the Indian masses, dodges the issue. The British capitalists would claim “trusteeship” for millions of Colonial masses throughout the world with nothing more to support it than the pious hypocrisy which cloaks their real interests. The practice of capitalism does not reveal the capitalist class to be any less the robbers because the class they exploit happen to speak the same language. The Indian workers have yet a painful road to travel before they acquire the understanding necessary for their emancipation. 

More Russian Puzzles

The Russian Government’s purge of "Trotskyites,” “diversionists,” ”wreckers” and “spies” continues, apparently, unabated. As must obviously happen, no amount of bias or coloured phraseology can obscure the contradictions which obtrude through the evidence against the “traitors."

The Moscow correspondent of the Daily Herald (June 29th, T 937) gives the number executed for spying in the Far Eastern Province of Khabarovsk as 133 to the end of April, and quotes the Russian newspaper Izvestia, that “the spies were able to persuade railway workers’ to sell them uniforms." The reason why workers, who, according to Russian and Communist claims, are well paid, should want to sell their uniforms, is left to the imagination of the reader who is keen enough to notice the contradiction.

Another report from the same correspondent (July 3rd, 1937) states that a notorious spy, who had been run to earth, succeeded in organising "a gang of ex-priests, monks, kulaks and discontented young people'' (Our italics.) Perhaps a Communist friend could explain that “discontent" of young people.

Many of the “honourable Communists" who helped to draft the Constitution have since become victims of the purge, including Tukhachensky, Gamarnik, Uborevich, Yakir and Chervyakoff, who are dead, and Goloded and Postysheff, who are disgraced.

The Moscow correspondent of the Daily Telegraph (June 29th, 1937) refers to the purge among industrial leaders whose production figures have fallen, and quotes from Pravda an attack on the woman Communist President of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Society, who. it is alleged, spent £600 on clothes suitable for her to wear to meet foreigners, when sent on an official trip abroad. The reward of Socialist competition?

Yet another report comments on the arrest of a “Trotskyist bandit,” Doletski, head of the Tass News Agency, which supplies the bulk of all news to Soviet papers. He is ”accused of having suppressed news about wreckers in industry and having over-emphasised news of successes." (Daily Herald, July 8th, 1937.)

Suppression of news inimical to its interests is inevitable where there is political dictatorship and a host of minor dictators in their own particular spheres. No regime claiming to represent working-class interests, which has a sound basis, need repress news or criticism. Socialist principles have nothing to lose and everything to gain from free and open discussion. Under dictatorship even the mildest criticism of the regime, or opposition on questions of policy, must result in intrigue against the Government and take insurrectionary forms.

Where there is dictatorship by a person or a clique, who decide what is right for the majority, it is inevitable that discontent and inequality arise. When discontent becomes widespread a scramble takes place to place culpability on the shoulders of others. Socialist interests can only thrive under the free and open conditions of democracy. 

Harry Waite

How Now, Mr. Pritt ? (1937)

From the July 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

During the various Russian trials, in which the prisoners all confessed many astounding things, including some which were shown to have been untrue, a whole host of simpletons took their stand on the proposition that as the prisoners themselves said these things they must be true, and no other evidence was required to prove them. Mr. Pritt, K.C., according to a Manchester Guardian report of a speech delivered by him at Conway Hall, on September 30th, 1936. said: “The corroboration that the confessions gave each other was such that they could not have been invented stories" (Manchester Guardian, October 1st, 1936). Mr. A. J. Cummings, reviewing a pamphlet by Mr. Pritt, was satisfied with the confessions—“Now all was discovered, and they confessed all” (News Chronicle, October 6th, 1936).

Mr. P. A. Sloan, staunch defender of anything Stalin’s Government says, ridiculed the notion that the confessions could have been “play-acting” (Manchester Guardian, February 3rd, 1937). The Daily Herald correspondent, who attended the trials in January, was quite satisfied that the prisoners were telling the truth.

Now read the following report in the Daily Herald (June 21st, 1937): —

From Our Own Correspondent.

Moscow, Sunday.

Radek, Pyatakov, Zinoviev and other accused men in Moscow’s sensational trials deliberately lied in their confessions in face of death.

Vyshinsky, all-Union Prosecutor, who appeared at the trials, makes this declaration in an official report —“How Enemies Work”—published to-day.

“There was not 50 per cent. of truth in their evidence,” says Vyshinsky.

He pictures experienced Bolshevik revolutionary plotters glibly unfolding fictitious stories before a court consisting of former comrades.

Their intention, says Vyshinsky, was to conceal the extent of their activities and divert suspicion from their confederates by giving an appearance of complete frankness.

“We have become convinced of this after each trial,” asserts Vyshinsky.

So it seems that the Public Prosecutor in Russia does not believe the confessions were true; more than 50 per cent. were false. It remained for his silly English dupes to believe the whole 100 per cent., and to suppose that such things constitute proof in the absence of independent evidence.

P. S.

Notes on Russia: Russia and world trade (1962)

From the July 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

In recent years there have been many signs that Russian industry is becoming more and more interested in finding foreign markets for its products, from ships and motor cars to oil and from timber to diamonds.

Immediately after the Communists captured power in Russia in 1917 they introduced State control of all foreign trade largely because they feared that German and other exporters would undercut Russian home industries with a flood of cheap goods. It was the aim of the Russian Government to restrict imports to those articles regarded as essential and to pay for them by exporting surpluses produced in home industries. There was at that time no urge to expand trade and in 1938 the volume of foreign trade was only fifty per cent of what it had been before they came to power, though trade was expanding fast in the world as a whole. But by 1959 with the successful building up of great manufacturing industries Russia had come into line with the general expansion of foreign trade, and her imports and exports had recovered so far that they were half as large again as in 1913 and three times what they had been in 1938.

This change of trend found expression during June of this year at the Conference of the Russian bloc countries in Moscow, which dealt with industrial and trade relations with each other and with the rest of the world. They are reported (Times 9 June, 1962) to have “expressed their desire for the further expansion of foreign trade with capitalist countries”, and also supporting a call for an international conference to set up a worldwide organisation to promote trade, and remove discriminatory actions by one country against another. Doubtless, from the Russian government’s standpoint, the latter proposal is directed against the development of the European Common Market and the possibility of Britain joining it, both of them developments that may threaten Russia’s position as expanding exporter in world markets.

Edgar Hardcastle

The death penalty in Soviet Russia (1939)

From the July 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

In our March issue (p. 41) appeared a quotation from Yvon’s “L’U.R.S.S. telle qu’elle est,” a statement taken from Russian official sources, to the effect that “from the age of 12 children guilty of theft, wounding, assassination or attempts thereto, are subject to all penalties provided by the common law.”

A correspondent from Exmouth, who describes this statement as a “wicked attack upon the Russian people and their rulers,” refers us to “The Soviet Comes of Age” (p. 163), which states that “the death sentence cannot be pronounced on a person under 18 years of age.”

We publish the correction, pending further information which may explain how the discrepancy between the two statements arises.

For the benefit of our correspondent we may add that we would regard as a “wicked attack” on Socialism any implication that in a Socialist country boys and girls of 18 could be liable to the death penalty for theft.

Editorial Committee.

Sting in the Tail: Perm x from No. 11 (1989)

The Sting in the Tail column from the June 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Perm x from No. 11

It has recently been reported that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is a keen football pools investor.

We can only hope that he is a little bit more gifted in his pools forecasting efforts than in his budget forecasts.

For example in his budget of 1988 he confidently forecast that the inflation rate over the coming year would be 4 per cent and that the balance of payments deficit would be £4 billion.

In fact the inflation rate has turned out to be double his forecast and the balance of payments was more than treble his forecast.

Mr. Lawson received a terrible drubbing from his critics so his latest forecast is a little less confident. According to The Independent (11 April):

But Mr. Lawson was less certain of his predictions that the current account deficit would remain at £14.5 billion. The forecast, he said was "a genuine best guess" but "we Just simply don't know" whether It would be achieved.

In Mr. Lawson's defence it can be argued that the vagaries of form of Fulham or Partick Thistle are models of consistency compared to the unpredictability of the capitalist market place.

Libertarian?

Here's an interesting little publication from the Libertarian Alliance: Brian Micklethwait on Why I Support The Contras.

When it comes to fighting Communism, the most important rule is: win . . . it may well, for example, be unwise for the Contras to get caught torturing people, on the grounds that this hurts their support In Congress. But the answer is not for the Contras to surrender: It is for them to fight smarter and not get caught torturing people. If they can fight successfully without torturing people at all, then they should do that as well.

In Sickness and Health

In an attempt to generate funds the Mid-Glamorgan Health Authority has come up with a nice little earner.

According to a report in The Independent 11 April:

After shopping mails and one-armed bandits, contraception machines and the sale of puzzles and games to placate patients during the long wait in casualty, the NHS Is about to add another wheeze to the ranks of Its schemes for generating extra income — the car salesman.

Health is just another commodity Inside capitalism. If you have the money you can afford the £1,000 per night London Clinic, If not you can take your chance In the queue at some under-funded public hospital.

Red Sales in the Smart Set

Andrei Fyodorov lives in Moscow and his ambition is to become an old fashioned capitalist. He is all for the freedom of market forces, and is a real Russian Thatcherite. 

At present he is merely the manager of Moscow's first co-operative restaurant but he is about to branch into sales of computers and imported liquor. He also has a joint venture with Spanish businessmen to open a Spanish restaurant in Moscow and a Russian one in Barcelona.

His answer to complaints that his prices are too high is that he is in a monopoly situation and, like a good free marketeer, will charge whatever he can get away with.

Yet he is not a happy man, for although his workers have some shares in the business they don't work any harder than the ones he knew when he managed a state-controlled hotel.

But Fyodorov is no fool. He recognises that Russia is a long way from becoming a western-style economy because the workers cannot throw off overnight the anti free market history of the last 70 years.

He explains in The Guardian:

Millions of people in this country are against the market. They're afraid of prices going up. They fear inflation. They're against private enterprise because it’s a violation of socialism. Yet we don’t know what socialism is. It certainly doesn't exist here.

As we said, Andrei Is no fool.

Fyodorov and his like are as yet an insignificant force in Russia, but unless the die-hard central planners within Russia's ruling class manage to topple the dominant Gorbachev faction then these would-be capitalists will surely grow in wealth and seek a share in political power.

Holiday Planning

Last year the package holiday operators drew up their brochures for 1989. Thomson's, the biggest operator with 40 per cent of the market, estimated that the market would grow by 10 per cent but now find that It has SHRUNK by 10 per cent.

So Thomson's and its subsidiaries have cancelled around one million of their advertised holidays and some trade estimates put the number of cancellations by all the operators at two million, about 16 per cent of the total market.

Why did this happen? Well, the mild winter means that people don't have the same determination to "get some sun” when the holidays come round, and the big increase in interest rates for mortgages and personal borrowing ensures that many people will simply be unable to afford a holiday.

What it adds up to is that the anarchy of the market has triumphed once again. When the brochures were drawn up interest rates were much lower and the consumer spending spree was in full swing. Also, no one could forecast with any certainty what kind of winter we would be getting. True, the operators have their "experts" who try to take these and other factors into account but really, all they can do is make a guess and then hope.

But now that they've cancelled all those bedrooms in Spain, Yugoslavia, Greece, etc., what if we get a cold wet June or people make a late decision to get away after all? They will be clamouring for a holiday in the sun but the operators will be unable to supply them.

What was that about the perfectability of the market?