Notes by the Way: This Millionaire Business (1948)

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

This Millionaire Business

Mr. Bernard Harris, of the Sunday Express, is worried because under Labour Government (he calls it “Socialism”) “you have no chance to-day of starting a business in Britain which will make you a millionaire before you die.” (Sunday Express, April 11th, 1948.) It seems that the harvest of millionaires has been falling for generations so that to-day “there are only 244 millionaires in Britain. They are the people with incomes of £50,000 a year or more.”

Mr. Harris does not go so far as to say that there will be no new millionaires, but he fears they won’t be hard-working lads like their fathers, but will become millionaires the easy way, “by inheritance or out-and-out speculation.”

“The self-made millionaire, in the sense of the man who has created a vast business from small beginnings, is a fast disappearing species. And he is the only valuable kind.”

He quotes an unnamed jam millionaire who was asked 50 years ago “to give 12 rules for making a million,” and replied, “Repeat ‘hard work’ 12 times.”

So the good millionaires make their money by hard work, and the other millionaires are not good ones. This leads to some curious conclusions. Lord Derby, who died in February last, left property valued at £1,937,838 (Evening Standard, April 8th, 1948), but though he inherited his estates and therefore does not fall into Mr. Harris’s group of valuable millionaires, we do not recall that the Sunday Express ever condemned him as an example of a no-good rich man. Nor did Lord Derby think it of himself. When he was Tory Postmaster-General in 1905 it was the postmen whom he thought were no good. He had nasty things to say about some of them who were trying to work up electoral opposition to him and other M.P.s because, after a Committee appointed by the Government had recommended increases of pay, the Government would not carry out the whole of the recommendations. Lord Derby called the postmen blackmailers and bloodsuckers though later he withdrew the “bloodsuckers” when he found what a storm of criticism it produced The postmen, most of them earning probably between 25s. and 30s. a week, were certainly hard-working— their employer saw to that—but it never got them anywhere.

Mr. Harris also tells us that “there were the Wills, of tobacco fame. Eleven members of that family have died since 1909 leaving a total of £38,000,000 between them.”

In November last Sir William Churchman, a director of the Imperial Tobacco Co. and partner in Churchman’s, died worth £1,102,719. (Evening Standard, 7/2/48).

These ladies and gentlemen got their wealth out of business, in the way Mr. Harris approves but if hard work is the explanation one wonders why the hard-working cigarette makers never get into the millionaire group like their employers.

The truth is, of course, that all great fortunes, whether inherited or acquired during the owner’s lifetime, came out of the unpaid labour of the working class.

* * *

The Garibaldi Communists

When Communists fight elections it is on the principle that no dishonesty is barred provided it gets votes. In Italy, according to a correspondent of the Sunday Express (11/4/48), they are appealing to patriotic sentiment.

“The Red Flag is nowhere to be seen; no hammer and sickle signs disfigure the walls. With a lack of scruple that takes the breath away they proclaim Garibaldi their hero. His head appears on most of their posters.”

However, it seems that Garibaldi’s 81-year-old daughter is still alive and she objects to Communists “hiding behind her father’s picture.”

“Her father,” she said, “never approved of Communism.” “It was founded by a German (Marx) who always hated Garibaldi.” (Daily Mail, 12/4/48.)

* * *

“Freedom of the Press” in Russia

In Russia no political party is legal except the Communist Party and no publication is permitted that opposes the Communist Party. At the United Nations Conference at Geneva on 29th March, 1948, an American delegate, Mr. Harry Martin, president of the American Newspaper Guild, was challenged to produce proof of his statement that in Russia the press is controlled by the Government. According to a Reuter and Associated Press report Manchester Guardian, 30/3/48) he did so by reading out the Statute which in 1931 gave control of publications to a State organisation known as “Gavlit.”

“It authorised the Gavlit administration to forbid the publication of any works containing ‘agitation and propaganda against the Soviet authority and the dictatorship of the proletariat.’ It entrusted Gavlit with ‘preliminary and subsequent control over published literature both from the political-ideological and from the military and economic viewpoints,’ and authorised confiscation of disapproved publications and the prosecution of persons ‘violating the demands of Gavlit, its organs and authorised representatives’.” (Manchester Guardian 30/3/48.)

The News Chronicle's own correspondent at Geneva reported that although the Russian delegate addressed the Conference after the above had been quoted “he made no reference to Mr. Martin’s quotation.” (News Chronicle, 30/3/48.)

* * *

Japan’s the Friend, not China

Honor Tracy, correspondent in Japan of the Observer, reports that American policy has taken a new turn. “Under this policy Japanese economy is to be restored as quickly as possible, with liberal American help, in the hope of creating better conditions, not only in Japan herself but in the Far East as a whole. Japan is thus to become ‘the workshop of Asia’ as she has always claimed is her proper function.” (Observer, 11/4/48.)

The Report continues :

“Travellers returning to Tokyo from China report . . . indignation that the proposed grants and loans to Japan during the present year should be so much greater than what is being offered to China. The American view, on the other hand, is that China is now disintegrating so fast as to make outside help ineffective.”

It looks as if the “brave Eastern allies” in next war may be the Japs, while China qualifies for the position of a horrid dictatorship.

* * *

Lancashire’s Exports

Mr. Harold Wilson, President of the Board of Trade, speaking in London on 9th April, 1948, referred to the struggle to find markets abroad for textiles. “Although the problem of production of textiles this year’ is going to be the biggest problem this country has ever faced, the problem of selling them is going to be even greater, particularly in face of the enormous import restrictions in three-quarters of the trading world. We have put strong diplomatic pressure on every country which is imposing restrictions against us and we have in our various trade negotiations made it a cardinal point to try to open the market wherever possible …” (Manchester Guardian, 10/4/48.)

One of Lancashire’s competitors is Japan and another is U.S.A. Mr. Ewing, Chairman of the Bradford Dyers’ Association, according to a Manchester Guardian report of a speech, “was worried about Japanese competition. Exports of Japanese cotton textiles increased rapidly during 1947 and were equal to three-quarters of Lancashire’s trade. The United States was also developing export trade. Mr. Ewing therefore stressed the need for quality and inventiveness.” (Manchester Guardian, 12/4/48.)

In the meantime, while Japan fights to sell more textiles outside Japan, U.S.A. to sell more textiles outside U.S.A., and Britain to sell more outside Britain, the President of the Board of Trade tells us that “if textile, production does not buck up the clothing ration may have to be reduced.” (Daily Mail, 13/4/48.)

* * *

Is the Church an Essential Industry?

A News Chronicle reporter tells readers that “latest figures show that only 4,000 vicars and rectors have a net income of between £400 and £500 a year. Five thousand earn less than £400—and some hundreds have even less than £300. (News Chronicle, 10/4/48.) He says that parents today will not enter their sons for the Church because of the low pay and “a drive has begun to establish a £500 minimum for vicars and £260 for assistant curates.”

This is all very well but is the Church so other worldly that it hasn’t heard about “wage-freezing” and the policy of allowing increases only in essential industries or where there is increased production?

* * *

Social Reform is not Socialism

While the Daily Express (8/4/48) tells us that things are worse here than in America because “in Britain we have Socialism,” the Daily Mail will have none of it. Criticising a speech in which Mr. Attlee claimed we have had our Socialist social revolution the Mail wrote (24/1/48) :

“For such claptrap read ordinary ‘social reform.’ Bigger names stand upon that role than those of Attlee and Bevin. We cite Disraeli, Chamberlain, Asquith, Lloyd George, Churchill, Baldwin.”

We can leave them to fight out the issue which party achieved more reforms of capitalism. As Socialists we heartily endorse the statement that it is claptrap to describe social reform as Socialism.

* * *

The “Daily Worker” is disappointed with Indian Capitalism

Socialists never supported the Indian Nationalist movement, knowing well that the propertied interests which financed and controlled it were only concerned with making India safe for Indian capitalism. Not so the Communists. They urged Indian workers to support Nehru and the Congress Party. Now the Daily Worker professes to be astonished because Nehru’s government treats the Indian workers in the same way that they were treated under British rule.

“What is happening in India? The British trade unionist may well rub his eyes in astonishment. Trade union leaders are being arrested and repressive action is being taken against the Communist Party . . .

“Such happenings were frequent under British rule, but India is now said to be free . . . The plain fact is that little has changed in India except that it is now ruled directly by the Indian capitalists, landlords and princes by grace of the British Imperialists.” (Daily Worker, 9/4/48.)

There is nothing to cause astonishment in the discovery that Indian capitalism is like any other hut how comes it that the Daily Worker should ever have supposed that it would he different?

Edgar Hardcastle

Alberta Calling—and the Socialist Reply (1948)

From the May 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Most people, I suppose, regard Karl Marx as the prophet of Communism, but that is not really correct. 

“Communism — meaning the common ownership of goods—was known in the world for many years before Karl Marx was even heard of. What Karl Marx preached was Marxism—a form of Communism which relies upon force and oppression.”

This statement, together with many others equally vague or inaccurate, comes all the way from Alberta, broadcast by one Richard J. Needham. Unlike most modern critics of Marx—who usually commence by paying him tribute for the scientific character of his works—Mr. Needham tries to belittle him by referring to him as prophet arid preacher. A good critic should never belittle the object of his criticism at the start, that should emerge as he unfolds his criticism. If Marx had been a mere ranter there would be no special virtue in having exposed him. But what is of even greater importance, Mr. Needham should have made himself acquainted with Marxism before he rushed to the microphone to talk about it.

It is true Communism existed before Marx. It was practised in ancient society, was, in fact, the normal mode of social life, but was obviously not known by that name at the time. The word was first used in the early days of the working-class movement and was derived from the French commune, or village community. The communal way of life prevailed, too, among savage tribes discovered in fairly recent times. It is said to have been practised by the monks in the early days of the Christian era. But none of these examples, as Marx said, is to be compared with the higher communism to come; which is only possible when the working class have come to realise that class ownership of the means of life is inconsistent with the free development of humanity.

To Mr. Needham Russia is the embodiment of Marxism. Soviet Russia, for him, is Marxism in practice, hence, for him, to expose the Russian way of life is to smash Marxism. He says :

“This, of course, is what has happened in Russia. Capitalism has been destroyed, but we can scarcely say that Communism has taken its place. What has happened is that a dictatorship has been set up—not exactly a dictatorship of the proletariat, but a dictatorship acting in the name of the proletariat. Sympathisers with Communism tell us that this dictatorship, as Marx proclaimed, is purely temporary, but it does not seem very temporary. Although it has been in effect thirty years, it still shows no signs of giving way to parliamentary democracy as we understand it.”

Capitalism in Russia destroyed; a temporary state called dictatorship established; and, as yet, no signs of parliamentary democracy as we understand it, Which means: we destroy capitalism, establish dictatorship and progress backwards, or is it forward? to capitalism. What is the truth?

America and Russia are the two greatest capitalist powers in the world, the two greatest powers in the present conflict of power-politics. America with her dollars and her atom bombs, and Russia grabbing oil fields, plutonium and other raw materials in readiness to answer the American challenge for world supremacy.

From this survey of the external facts it would appear that Russian capitalism is very much alive. What about the internal facts? The Supreme Soviet of Russia with all its political and industrial machinery is built on wage labour. The surplus value, over and above the cost of living of Russian workers, now flows into the coffers of the totalitarian state and is divided among officials, political, military and industrial, according to their usefulness in the Soviet schemes for power.

The leaders of the so-called Russian revolution have achieved power over the mass of their fellow countrymen. They lead, or push them into the industrial or military conflict for world domination in a capitalist world, under the dictates of the supreme Soviet. They are as firmly in control of their subjugated millions as the American capitalist class with its control of the political machinery. No Russian worker can escape the efficiency and widely flung tentacles of the Russian Government.

Orders are issued from the top, and they must be obeyed. They are obeyed. What would Wall Street not give to have their wage-slaves under such perfect control? Scared stiff by Hollywood reds and talk of Communists in official positions, they would care little at being dubbed fascist or gestapo, if their power to enforce their orders were equal to that of the Russian leaders.

It is obvious, that there is no dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia, nor anywhere else, nor at any time, now, or in the future. When the working-class is in a position to dictate they will be democratically organised for the purpose they have agreed upon, and their organisation will be intellectually and technically equal to the task. Until then it is the capitalists that dictate, and the workers’ task is an individual one: to understand and help to organise for the day when deeds of ownership and share certificates in the land and means of wealth production will be abolished; and the working-class will carry on production, in a truly democratic manner, for the satisfaction of their needs. Next Mr. Needham quotes from Marx as follows:

“In proportion as capital accumulates, the lot of the labourer must grow worse. Accumulation of wealth at one pole means at the same time accumulation of misery, toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality and mental degradation at the opposite pole.”

All this is substantially true. With regard to the accumulation of wealth Mr. Needham might have discovered that it was beyond dispute. An American work entitled The Modern Corporation and Private Property by Berle and Means, gives the information that one half the corporate wealth of the United States is controlled by no more than 200 companies. While 2,500 officers and directors own between them two thousand million dollars of capital; most of it in the hands of about 250 men who occupy the decisive executive positions.

Mr. Needham does not agree that this accumulation of wealth at one pole means poverty at the other, he says :

“The wages paid to factory workers in Canada and the United States are higher than have ever been paid to factory workers anywhere—not only in the money sense, but also in actual purchasing-power. Millions of factory workers in North America own comfortable houses and up-to-date automobiles.”

A higher standard of living is only made possible by the industry of the workers. But enjoyment of that higher standard by the workers is always opposed by the capitalists. The realisation of it can only come through hard bargaining and often strikes. Higher wages are not the result of generosity or fairness. They are paid for special qualifications, or as a compromise against still higher demands.

But ownership of a comfortable house and automobile is not confined to America. In most capitalist countries, there may not be millions, but there are more or less in a comparable position. This was proved in the last depression, when many thousands worsened the crisis because they could not keep up payments for cars, radio sets and refrigerators.

From the millions of factory workers owning houses and cars take a look at the other side of the picture. Of the slums in all the large towns, where millions do actually live in the grip of perpetual poverty. Where the conditions of existence are below any decent civilised standard. An American periodical, “Fortune,” ,says:

“About 31 per cent. of American homes lack running water; more than ten million dwelling units have no modern plumbing facilities. Eighteen million families are without baths. More than eight million families are without electric light, or power.” (Quoted in Daily Worker, August 1st, 1947.)

These figures possibly cover America’s notorious slums, but weighed in the balance against Mr. Needham’s doubtful millions, the misery side of the scale sags definitely. From the mortgaged or slum home to the factory:

“The factories, of course, have vastly improved under capitalism. People do their jobs under conditions strictly laid down by law. The manufacturing plants of Canada and the United States are the roomiest, the best lighted, the safest and most comfortable in the world. The milk and bread, the fruit and meat consumed by Canadian and American workers has to pass the most rigid tests.”

Who makes the factories roomy and keeps them clean? Not the capitalist owners. Neither is it permitted by them out of consideration for their wage-slaves. The housing of the machine must keep pace with its development. Machines are expensive, and must be suitably housed and protected from weather if they are to replace their value with the sale of products before they are worn out. While the workers who keep them running at top speed must work with ease if they are to last out the shift. And the capitalists who rely on these workers will not tolerate any tampering with food that would diminish their workers’ efficiency or constitute a danger to themselves.

According to Mr. Needham Marx made many mistakes. No doubt he did in minor matters, but in the general analysis of the capitalist system, and the part the workers should play to achieve their freedom he was sound. Mr. Needham says :

“Marx made the greatest mistake when he told the workers to rise up, in blood and fury, and destroy their compatriots: He made his greatest mistake when he called upon them to engage in class warfare.”

Is there a class war? Is there class hatred? The Socialist knows that the capitalists in America, as elsewhere, suppress strikes in blood and fury.” He knows that those strikes are evidence of the conflict of interests in. the basis of capitalist society. Evidences of these conflicting interests are present all over the world; in America, the most advanced capitalist country, more so than anywhere else. The workers all over the world to-day struggle blindly on the industrial field to maintain their meagre standard of living. When, they realise that their struggle is inherent in the system because of its class ownership of the means of life, they will organise consciously for control of the machinery of government, in order that they may abolish class ownership and establish Socialism. A truly democratic system of all the people, who will control production and distribution according to their needs.

F. Foan

Letter: Our attitude on Hungary (1957)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our attitude on Hungary

Salford, 7,


December 18, 1956.

Dear Comrades,

I think the Party’s attitude on this subject needs further elucidation. In this month’s S.S. it is considered that the revolt is not worth the shedding of a drop of working-class blood.

This seems to conflict with previous statements that the Hungarian workers were trying to improve their miserable condition. In my view it also differs from the position on the first Russian revolution recently quoted in “50 years ago.” There it was stated that the workers and Capitalists have a short way to travel together. But not in Hungary!

In any case it needs to be made clear what the workers are supposed to do under a Communist dictatorship. It won’t be smashed without the shedding of working class blood; and there won’t be any Socialism or even propaganda for Socialism till it is smashed.

It has often been said that the Capitalists will never let themselves be ousted but if defeated on the Parliamentary field would form a dictatorship. I should have thought the original success of the Hungarians against their own national dictatorship (before overwhelming Russian intervention) was a good case for the Party in that respect. I think it also might have been mentioned that the working class, even those who had been schooled only on “Communism,” showed that objective conditions still prevailed over ’phoney propaganda.

In general I did feel the S.S. was less than generous to the heroic effort which wrested power, “with bare hands” from a police state.

Yours truly,

L. E. Weidberg.

Having said the above, may I add that the general excellence of the articles in the S.S. over the years is not unappreciated by one who has left the work to others.

Reply

The article in the December S.S. to which the critic refers made it clear that, whilst expressing sympathy with the victims of the “Communist” savagery, the Hungarian revolt was fundamentally a movement in favour of Hungarian Capitalist rule, and therefore was not worth the shedding of a drop of working class blood. One reason for this is that the removal of Russian Capitalist oppression is no guarantee that Hungarian Capitalist rule would be any better in the long run.

We have learnt from experience during the last 50 years. We were urged to support the Russian armed rising against the Czarist Police State 40 years ago. The result of that rising has been the establishment of one of the most savage and oppressive police states in the history of the world. We were urged to support the German rising about the same time and the result was another form of police state equally savage. Austria and China have had similar experiences.

However much we may desire to see freedom of expression where it is denied, armed uprising is not the way to accomplish it. Once guns enter into the dispute then guns continue to be be arbiters in internal clashes of ideas afterwards, until either economic development or organised working class action compels the powers that rule to make concessions. That has been the lesson repeatedly driven home, but not wholly appreciated, during toe last 100 years of working class activity. However much we may desire to make progress there is no quicker way than this organised working class action to clear the road to working class emancipation.

Thus, although we appreciate the courage of those who were prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice rather than continue to suffer Russian domination, it is our duty as Socialists to tell the bitter truth. Firstly, that it was not a rising aimed at bringing toe workers freedom; secondly, that armed uprisings may bring a change of rulers but will not bring freedom from class rule; thirdly, that the success of toe uprising would not necessarily have put an end to the police state.

It is not true that there cannot be any Socialist propaganda until a “Communist” dictatorship is smashed. The critic himself suggests that there can be Socialist propaganda when he writes that “the working class, even those who had been schooled on 'Communism' showed that objective conditions still prevailed over phoney propaganda” The revolt was not a bolt out of toe blue. It had been discussed and organised. There is, and has been. Socialist propaganda in all “Communist” and other police states.

It is worth while bearing in mind that, according to the information so far available the peaceful agitation of the Hungarian workers by stopping work has accomplished more, at far less cost in human life, than the armed uprising did. Thus, it certainly appears that the sounder attitude for the Hungarian workers would have been to stick to that method from the beginning in order to accomplish the limited objectives they were after. Sooner than see the whole social fabric collapse into confusion the rulers would have conceded some at least of their demands. However, once an armed revolt was embarked upon bloody conflict was inevitable, with savage reprisals and the use of Russian armed might; and now the atmosphere is still there for further savage reprisals.

Another advantage strike action alone would have achieved would be this. Attacks on peaceful strikers by the police, the militia, and the army, would have made the savagery of the Russian overlords more obvious to the world of Labour. The Russian rulers would not then be able to pat forward the pretence that they were quelling an armed rising against the government.

We are surprised at the last paragraph of the critic’s letter. Over and over again we have expressed our admiration for the courage and devotion of those who took part in the rising; we have, however, been truthful in regretting that it was not done in a better cause, the freedom from all oppression. To be generous without being truthful is to invite cheap praise. We have done our best to be helpful to the working class cause by pointing out realities in order to minimise, as far as possible, useless heroism in the future. We are also mindful of the bitter fact that the victims of today are so often the oppressors of tomorrow.

The revolt did not, as our critic puts it “wrest power, ‘with bare hands,’ from a police state.” The repressive action from outside was a foregone conclusion, and the power remains where it was. Furthermore, the action was not taken “with bare hands.” A portion of the Hungarian army took part in it and arms were in the the hands of the revolters.

Finally, let us consider the reference to the extract from the Socialist Standard of “Fifty Years Ago” that appeared in the November number. It concerns the attitude of the Socialist movement in a country where there is a revolt against a particular form of repression. We would urge the critic to look at the whole extract again in order to get a clear picture of what the writer was driving at. We would particularly urge him to take note of the following selections from the extract:—

“Hence, in the other nations of Western Europe a straight fight is possible between the proletariat and the capitalist ruling class, whilst in Russia the rising capitalist class has yet its emancipation from autocracy to accomplish: so that, in contrast with practically the whole of civilised nations, the working class and the capitalist class in Russia have, in the abolition of Tzardom's tyranny, a step to go together. This historical circumstance, which is at once the strength and weakness of the Russian movement, distinguishes it from that of all capitalist countries." . . .

“ Let us then do all in our power to help our Socialist comrades in Russia in the hope that they will not be deceived as to the outcome of the present upheaval: in the hope. also, that they will sternly keep their separate identity, and distinct aim. so that the Russian bourgeoise State of tomorrow may find a militant class-organisation of Socialist workers leading the final struggle against the Capitalist class, whose defeat must herald the Triumph of Humanity."

It will be seen from the above that the struggle in Russia 50 years ago was to get rid of the semi-feudal barriers, and the Socialist movement there was urged to keep their independence and their Socialist policy. As far as Capitalist Hungary is concerned that is still the attitude for the Socialist to take. Socialists there, just as under autocratic Russia in days gone by, should stand by their Socialist objective and do what propaganda they can under existing conditions, just as, for instance, an Austrian comrade of ours did under the Nazi and Russian occupations.

Editorial Committee.

Notes by the Way: The Fabians and the House of Lords (1957)

The Notes by the Way Column from the February 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Fabians and the House of Lords

In the Socialist Standard for February, 1907, was an article about the Fabians which opened with a quotation:—

“ The government of the future will be by experts and we, naturally, want to be the experts."

This little gem had been spoken by Mr. H. Snell, of the Fabian Society.

The writer in the Socialist Standard had appropriate comments to make on this typically Fabian proposal for running other people's lives. He began:—

"So now you know, if you did not before, what the Fabian Society are after. Their ‘Socialism’ is government by bureau, and ‘naturally’ (sweet word) they want to be the bureaucrats. ‘Naturally’ they want the plums. ‘‘Naturally’’ they want to sit in the seats of authority and arrange things for the benefit (naturally for the benefit) of the other and somewhat lower orders who do the mere producing."

Our writer hit the nail on the head when he said the Fabians aimed to occupy the seats of authority and in the course of time many of them had their little hour in the Labour Governments, where they showed that their “superior brains” could no more cope with the chaos of Capitalism than could those they affected to despise, the political aristocrats and the business men.

One of the “reforms” supported by the Fabians was the abolition of the House of Lords. They came to be glad that they hadn't succeeded because it was to be a final refuge for a number of Fabians, including Sidney Webb (who wrote the Fabian tract demanding abolition of the Lords), and Attlee, and of course Mr. Snell, who became Lord Snell of Plumstead in 1931 just about the time two million unemployed were wondering how their Fabian trained leader had managed to get things in such a mess.

Macmillan Must Go!

If we were Labour or Communist vote-catchers we would be campaigning for “Macmillan Must Go!" and telling anyone silly enough to believe it, how successful we had been with our last campaign for u Eden Must Go!"

Since the S.P.G.B. was formed in 1904 there have been ten such campaigns for getting rid of a no-good Prime Minister. There have been rather more than ten governments because some of them, after being pushed, pulled or squeezed out have managed to get back again. When we survey the list we marvel at the rich variety. Scots, English, Welsh, and half-American (Churchill); spell-binders like Lloyd-George, and others who didn’t know how to gild the lilies of oratory; philosophical types like Balfour and Asquith and "plain, blunt men" like Baldwin;; semi-Pacifists and war-mongers; business men and professional politicians; the relatively poor and the passing rich; religionists and agnostics; aristocrats and commoners; Tory, Liberal, and Labour.

There are the differences: What of the similarities? They have all had a strange belief that the country was very lucky to have them at the helm. They have all come in generously promising how much better they will make life for the people and have all gone out little lamented.

And what difference has it made in the one thing that ought to be of paramount concern to the workers, the question of establishing Socialism in place of Capitalism? Just no difference at all. That job has yet to be done and it won't matter in the least whether the next Prime Minister who tries to administer Capitalism is Mr. G., or Mr. B., Mr. X or Mr. Y.

“Why We Left the Communist Party”

A group calling themselves the Nottingham Marxist Group, has issued an eight-page leaflet under the above title. As a criticism of the leaders of the British Communist Party from the standpoint of members whose confidence was first shaken by the dethronement of Stalin and then shattered by the Russian Army's onslaught on the Hungarian workers, it is effective enough. But that is all it is. In no way does it justify the claim that the group are Marxist in outlook. Indeed the limited range of their criticism clearly shows that they are not. Their case is against “the politically and morally bankrupt leaders of the Communist Party," but not against the idea of leadership and if it were not for their view that it is in practice impossible to change the leadership they would he working for new leaders in place of the old. They fail to see that a Socialist Party has no use or place for leaders.

They condemn various comparatively recent consequences of dictatorship in Russia and Hungary, but nowhere do they show an understanding of the fact that Socialism is incompatible with dictatorship. They do not explain how it was that they accepted the dictatorship and only woke up to some of its inevitable consequences at a late stage. Above all they do not square their claim to be Marxist with their tacit acceptance of the absurd belief that the Russian dictatorship is Socialism. This ought to have been the central theme of their declaration because every criticism they make stems from the fact that the social organisation in Russia and Hungary is and always has been Capitalism. They do now see that Socialism cannot be imposed by force and they quote from an American Communist journal:—“Socialism . . .  could not be imposed on a country by those means”; but they do not face up to the truth that that was the original, impossible, aim of the Communist group that seized power in Russia, and that dictatorship and a police state were the inevitable outcome of that attempt It was then that the Russian Communists “betrayed” the principles of Socialism, not at some later date, as the pamphlet would have us believe, when the “cult of leadership” was carried to such lengths as to endanger the stability of the dictatorship itself.

The Not-so-Stupid Tory Capitalists

The Hon. William Douglas-Home, writer of successful plays and unsuccessful Parliamentary candidate standing on one occasion as a “Progressive Independent," and on another as “Atlantic Charter" candidate, wrote to the Observer (3 January, 1957) advising the Tories to apply in foreign politics the policy they have used so well at home. He described the latter as follows:—

“. . . they never seem to realise that a controlled withdrawal is precisely what they have conducted with considerable skill in domestic policy since the industrial revolution, and that to this policy, and to this policy alone, they owe their survival. Whereas any attempt to preserve the status quo would have resulted in either their total extinction or a revolution, or both.”

Strikes by Hungarian Workers

On January 13 the Russian imposed government of their Hungarian colony announced a new decree imposing the death penalty for a number of acts, many of which would in most countries be regarded as normal trade union and political activities.

The Manchester Guardian (January 14), quoting B.U.P. and Reuter despatches from Budapest, had the following:—

"The death penalty was introduced in Hungary today for anyone calling a strike, damaging factory machinery, or committing  'any kind of offence directed against the State.’ The death sentence could be ordered for distributing leaflets, or for entering a government factory without permission, according to the new regulations, announced in a supplementary paragraph to the martial law declared in December."

The News Chronicle and other newspapers gave similar versions. Only the Daily Worker (January 14) managed to twist this new decree almost out of recognition. They left out the reference to strikes and reported it as:—

“ Death sentences may be imposed on people who ‘ sabotage or interfere in any way with public utilities and other essential enterprises'. "

But if the Hungarian workers in Hungary may now be hanged for striking, Hungarian refugees in Britain have shocked a lot of people by refusing jobs offered to them and by coming out on strike. The Sunday Despatch (January 16) reported:—

"Eighteen refugees walked out of their jobs at St Albans because they were dissatisfied with their pay. They were receiving an average of £7 a week as cooks, waiters, carpenters and farm workers. Mr. G. P. Bannister, manager of the Employment Exchange at St. Albans, said: ’They expected £14 or £15 a week. Most of them want to go to America or Canada'. "

This sort of conduct will get the Hungarians disliked by the employers and before we know where we are we shall hear the Hungarians denounced as unwelcome agitators. Being spirited in demanding the right to strike in Budapest is not at all the same as continuing to behave like that here.

But British workers ought to be delighted that the refugees do not intend to become a source of cheap and servile labour. And if the incident makes British workers more assertive in trying to raise their wages so much the better.

Exodus to Canada

And while the Hungarians pour in the Britishers pour out as fast as they can, Canada-bound for preference. Rhona Churchill, in the Daily Mail (January 8, 1957), made inquiries and these are her conclusions:—

“ Emigrant applications at Canada’s London and Liverpool offices have now reached 20,000 a week.

John Bull Taxpayer has had enough.

Emigration figures had been falling off. Then suddenly the Butler austerity Budget of October, 1955, doubled the numbers, calling at Canadian immigration offices, the Macmillan squeeze Budget of April, 1956, trebled them, and Suez, with its promise of more Budget austerity three months from now, increased them sixfold.

A quarter of a million Britons, tired of being told for ten austere years: ’Belt-tightening today means prosperity tomorrow,' and, finding that tomorrow never comes, are now actively organising their escape, believing that Britain has no sound financial future to offer their children."

But while the exasperated British workers flee from the rigours of “Welfare State" Capitalism to seek paradise in Canada the Canadian Railwaymen were on strike because they too have grievances against their “free enterprise” Capitalism.

Profits and the Ugly Head of Politics

For a century or more business men, stock exchange speculators and economists have recurrently dreamed of a beautiful world in which Capitalism would function “naturally” without being disturbed by politics. The latest is Mr. A. G. Jenkins, City Editor of the Empire News (January 3,1957).

’’So much for the short-term view. Dividend limitation, nationalisation, confiscation and many other 'ations’ loom ahead when politics rears its ugly head, and for the moment this may discourage buyers of industrial ordinary shares."

Mr. Jenkins thinks Capitalism would be nicer without the serpent of politics and other “ations.” He should think again. If there were no political machine to be controlled by the politicians bent on keeping Capitalism going, our class divided society would disintegrate. One “ation” would, indeed, be taken away, but Mr. Jenkins would not be pleased for it is “exploitation," and if there were no exploitation of one class by another there would be no rent, interest or profit, no Stock Exchange, and no City Editors.

Over in Bombay the great Indian iron and steel concern of the Tata Company knows better. They don’t want to rule out politics; on the contrary they have just appealed successfully to the High Court for the right to make contributions to political party funds.

"Mr. Justice Tendolkar allowed a petition by the company for confirmation of alteration in its memorandum enabling it to make such contributions. He said that expenditure by way of donations to political parties could in the long run be economic.

”The petition said the company was at present carrying out a Rs. 750m. (£57m.) expansion programme and any further expansion would depend on Government approval. The company’s prosperity was therefore bound up with the policy of the party in power.”

(Financial Times, 12th January, 1957). 

The Indian Capitalists, who used the nationalist movement to establish themselves as a Capitalist India, learned all the tricks and devices of Capitalist rule practised by the British ruling class.

The Communists and the S.P.G.B.

Letters written to the Daily Worker by members of the S.P.G.B. have been refused publication recently. This is not in itself surprising but the reason given deserves comment. A letter from the Editor, J. R. Campbell (October 10, 1956) included the following:—

“It is true that the Daily Worker does not propose to publish letters dealing with insignificant political bodies like the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Our space is precious and we have to devote it to more important questions.” 

We can imagine the indignation of the Communists if, say the Daily Herald were to give the same reason for not publishing their letters. And of course we can guess that J. R. Campbell (responsible recently for the suppression of reports from Budapest by its own correspondent) may have other reasons for not wanting the Marxist case against his party to be put before his readers.

One small point about Campbell’s letter is that he addressed the S.P.G.B. member as “Dear Friend” and ended it “with best wishes.”

Another letter (January 7, 1957), this time signed “with all good wishes” by the Assistant Editor of the Daily Worker, Mick Bennett, informed our member that “the role and influence of the S.P.G.B. has declined over the years largely because of its conscious deliberate policy of remaining a small sect devoted largely to the theory that until all the working class have been sufficiently educated in Marxism they will not be able to get rid of Capitalism.”

This implies that the S.P.G.B. used to have more influence and was therefore worthy of the notice of Communists but, except on very rare occasions, the Communist Party has always maintained the policy of ignoring the S.P.G.B. and declining debates. But the official reason given for this in the early days was that there was no time or place for discussion because revolution, here and in the world generally, was "just around the corner.” Privately members of the C.P.G.B. were advised to keep away from discussion with the S.P.G.B.

Bennett's letter (in the last sentence quoted above) re-iterates the Communist’s case that Capitalism could be got rid of in speedier ways than by building up a movement of Socialists. What a pity we can't have from him his explanation of the total failure of Communist governments in Russia, Hungary and elsewhere, to get rid of Capitalism and introduce Socialism.

Brotherly Love from a Christian

A reader sends us an article by Pastor W. W. Kirkby. published in the Elim Evangel (December 8, 1956), called “Ambitious Russia,” which sets out to describe the imperialist aims of the Russian Government; including, so the writer says, the conquest of Israel as a main objective.

It is full of the common misconceptions about the social system in Russia (the writer of the article thinks it is Communism and that Marx was responsible for it), and about the driving force behind the Russian Imperialism (the writer naturally fails to recognise that it is like the imperialism of the rest of the Capitalist powers).

One interesting item is an alleged quotation from Karl Marx in which he is made to say that as “loving my neighbour” has not changed the world, “let us see what hatred can do.” (No source is given).

But just to show how different the Christian and his God are the article ends:—

“Four thousand years ago God declared to Abraham, the father of the faithful: 'I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee.'

. . . That principle has been carried out right down the years, and in the future God’s curse is to fall upon atheistic and ambitious Russia.”

Edgar Hardcastle

Letter From Vienna: Postscript on Skopje (1963)

From the December 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

When I learned of the earthquake in Yugoslavia and the terrible fate of the victims, it brought back to mind my own terrifying experiences in Vienna, as it must have reminded millions of others in the world, who survived the bombing of their homes and the carnage in the 1940s. The blind forces of nature could not then be blamed for it. No, these deeds were unspeakable crimes perpetrated by deliberate human design, scientifically organized and directed by the managers and other hirelings of capitalism, supported and blessed by the church!

That 20 years later this ogre of capitalist war should still have been able to stalk the earth, openly parade his armour, and boast of the ever-growing destructive power of the megation bombs and Polaris craft, will probably be one of the phenomena incomprehensible to a future society no longer afflicted with political mental inertia.

The suffering of the survivors of the earthquake in Yugoslavia has been temporarily mitigated, as usual under capitalism, by charity. Collections and other assistance have been organised by many countries, but when these helpful channels dry up, the surviving victims will, as usual, be left to their wretched fate.

Some details in connection with this disaster should be put on record, if only to nail the lie and show the hollowness of the assertion that capitalism has been abolished somewhere and replaced by a new and better social system. You may indeed ask how the mass of the people in Yugoslavia can be made to now accept a regime of despotism equal to that of Hitler—the squashing of democracy, the setting up of a Yugoslav Gestapo, forced labour camps, and prison for political opponents of the regime, supply the answer to that question. It is fear of persecution—the fate of Milovan Djilas' (seven years’ prison for free expression of opinion and publishing a book The New Class) it is government terror that makes people under ruthless dictatorship acquiesce in the horrible regime of State capitalism masquerading under the name of communism.

Among the many helpers of the earthquake victims, neighbouring Austria showed a quite remarkable zeal in assisting the great efforts to alleviate the distress. even though there is at all times great poverty, homelessness and helplessness in her own country. Poignant tales of human misery' and tragedies fill the columns of the daily Press. Who here has not read of evicted families with eight and more children seeking to spend the night in public parks or in ruined houses before being removed by the Police to some barracks? Every autumn every house in Vienna carries a big poster appealing for funds to help the needs and destitute by supporting the innumerable charitable institutions up and down the country. Our letter boxes are constantly filled with appeals for assistance to the countless local poor. But how much greater is the poverty behind the iron curtain and the helplessness in emergencies such as an earthquake!

So, in addition to all the funds the Viennese business firms and newspapers collected, and the trucks full of clothing, bedding, blankets, tents and toys sent to Skopje, a Welfare organisation under the auspices of the Arbeiler-Zeitung also invited seventy orphans to come to Vienna, where they would be taken care of as the guests of the organisation. Everything was prepared down to the minutest detail, and the children duly arrived at Marburg on the iron curtain border, where Austrian officials had previously arrived to receive the children and see them safely to Vienna. Here also the children were to have a grand reception by the Bürgermeister and a staff of welfare officials.

But—sad to relate the orphans never got beyond Marburg. Instead of proceeding to Vienna, they had to go back to the communist paradise. Not that there are no wonderful places in Yugoslavia, but these are not for the poverty-stricken wage slaves or the victims of earthquakes—they are for the new class, the new bourgeoisie.

Why had the orphaned children to be sent back?

Apparently the Yugoslav dictator and his close circle had been too busy with the preparations for a right royal reception of their Soviet visitors to he able to supervise and check up on all arrangements made by their underlings. Anyway, when the higher quarters learned of these particular welfare arrangement, the children’s exit from the communist paradise and their journey to “capitalist Austria” was stopped. The underlings in charge of the Skopje victims had received their instructions, plus lessons in communist superior “statesmanship" and diplomacy, the orphans had to remain in Yugoslavia, and Tito's preparations for his trip abroad (this time to America) on his luxury yacht, as befits a ruler, could proceed without further worries. What does the disappointment of poor children—not to speak of the zealous welfare organizers—matter to communist despots with axes to grind?

With humble expressions of regret, but undeterred by this snub, the Arbeiter-Zeitung sent all the clothing in a big truck-load to the Yugoslav children who of course were overjoyed with the gifts. According to a reporter, the coats and other garments were the first they had had in their lives. Obligingly, hardly any other newspaper commented on this episode and on the embarrassment of a so called communist government in its utter failure to cope with an emergency. With the exception of belatedly refusing the foreign help offered to the seventy Skopje orphans, this “communist ” government was not too proud to decline other western assistance and gifts to its poor people.

If, after 46 years of existence, further evidence was still needed to show the cold-blooded swindle, and demolish the impudent assertion that Yugoslavia, Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania and China are communist, recent developments and experiences there should provide that final evidence. Or will the working class, of Czechoslovakia, for example, for ever ignore such almost unbelievable episodes as those of the nine of the eleven prominent Czech communist politicians hanged in 1952, and now rehabilitated as not guilty of the accusations levelled against them 11 years ago? And will the fiasco of the Moscow so called Ideological Conference also be passed over in true capitalist style, like world-wars, as all in the days work?

Rudolf Frank

Russian gold (1947)

From the November 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

People whose only principle is to praise every act of the government of State Capitalist Russia, need to be very careful how they throw stones at the other capitalist states. In the Daily Worker (23/9/47) Mr. Allen Hutt pokes fun at “our elaborate apparatus for extracting the yellow metal at enormous expense from deep holes in the ground in South Africa in order to bury it again in deep holes in the ground in Kentucky.”

This is indeed one of the daft things that necessarily go with capitalism, but why is it more daft to mine gold in South Africa and bury it at Fort Knox in U.S.A. than to mine it in the gold-fields scattered all over Russia in order to hoard it in Moscow? Already by 1934 Russian gold production, according to the “U.S.S.R. Handbook” (1936, p.197) had been expanded so much that Russia claimed to be second only to South Africa as a gold producer. Mr. Hutt should read “U.S.S.R. in Reconstruction,” May, 1937 (published in Moscow) where he will learn how gold production was increased fourfold between 1930 and 1936 and was still rapidly expanding. He will read how more and more men and materials were being-poured into the remote gold regions, how scientists were perfecting methods of mining, how mines were going to deeper and deeper levels.

“The principal gold fields,” we read, “are situated hundreds of kilometres from railways and navigable waterways. Goods are transported through Taiga, boundless steppe, sand dunes and over mountain ranges to the gold fields.”

And all for what purpose? “Soviet gold flows in a broad stream to the capital of the Union of Soviet Republics, where it is refined and stamped according to the world standard.” Some of it is then sold to U.S.A., to go into the vaults at Fort Knox. The same Russian publication quotes a resolution passed by the Russian Communist Party in 1922 affirming that government policy must be “to maintain the gold fund inviolable and to develop the mining of precious metals.”

Some of the mining is carried on by the State and the rest by individuals organised into co-operative groups. Of course it is all described as “Socialist” gold-mining, whatever that is supposed to mean.

Mr. Hutt in the Daily Worker recalls how Voltaire in “Candide” describes the land of El Dorado, where gold lay about disregarded and treated like dirt. He might also have recalled how Sir Thomas More in his “Utopia ” anticipated the use of gold and silver not as precious metals but to make “chamber-pots.” It was doubtless from that source, or possibly from Kautsky’s book “Thomas More and his Utopia” (p.203), that Lenin got the idea that under Socialism gold would be used “for making public lavatories in the streets of the great cities of the world.” (Quoted by Ralph Fox in “Lenin.”)

Sir Thomas More had another notion, which was that in “Utopia” gold would be used by the masters to make ”chains and fetters for their slaves.” That is certainly the effect on the minds of the workers under capitalism, wherever the worship of the Golden Calf still flourishes.

There is another, more grim, joke that Mr. Hutt overlooked. In U.S.A., while it is an offence against capitalist law to try to make forcible entry into the vaults at Fort Knox, it is at least not illegal to disclose where the gold reserve is situated. In the Russian ‘”Utopia” they have made even that a criminal offence. According to Soviet News (11/6/47, published in London by the Soviet Embassy) the new Criminal Code makes it an offence for a private individual to disclose “information on the current account balance and operative financial plans of the U.S.S.R.,” or to disclose “the place and system and safekeeping and transportation of precious metals of the State Fund, currency valuables and money coins.”

The unlucky Russian worker who lets out that the Russian “Socialist” gold reserve is kept at Moscow or wherever it is “shall be pimishable by confinement in a reformatory labour camp for a term of from five to ten years.”

This “mild” sentence is given “provided such action cannot be qualified as treason or espionage.” What happens for the aggravated offence of giving this information to foreigners and thus committing treason is not stated. If Mr. Hutt had written his little paragraph in Russia he would have been for it.

Edgar Hardcastle

Poland is state capitalist (1982)

From the October 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Before the Second World War Poland had been governed by a military junta led by Pilsudski. The political outlook of Pilsudski was close to that of the largest pre-war political grouping in Poland, the National Democrats — a band of crudely anti-semitic fascists whose national ideal was similar to that of Hitler’s Germany. During the war the Polish working class were victims of some of the foulest Nazi atrocities. In June 1945 a Committee of National Liberation declared Poland to be a ‘People’s Democracy'. There was by no means a wide Polish consensus in favour of the new government, which was seen to be a political puppet of the Stalinist state bureaucracy which was effectively the capitalist ruling class of Russia. In 1945 a "Democratic Alliance", comprising the Communist Party of Poland and the Socialist Party of Poland, won a number of votes in the election. Soon after the election the Socialist Party was expelled from the “Alliance" and the agents of Russian capitalism dominated Poland.

The leader of the Polish Communist Party in 1945 was Gomulka who, above all else, was a Polish nationalist. Even before adhering to the Russian policy of state capitalism he was committed to the equally anti-socialist policy of strong national pride. The difference between state capitalism and private capitalism is that under the former a state bureaucracy (composed of senior Party members) possess capital, whereas under the latter form of capitalism the means of wealth production and distribution are privately possessed. Neither form of capitalism excludes the other entirely; for instance, in 1945 the Labour Party nationalised a number of industries; this did not stop them from being capitalist concerns, which produced wealth for profit rather than use. but simply altered the political arrangements.

Similarly, although Gomulka's Poland was primarily state capitalist, this did not stop his government from trading with the West and borrowing 40 million dollars from Western banks. These bank loans are of crucial importance: as soon as a professedly ‘socialist state’ borrows money from a bank it has to repay the loan and the only way it can do this is by the process of exploiting its workforce. A second economic area in which Gomulka resisted pressure from the Kremlin to establish total state capitalism was agriculture. The Stalinist policy was to nationalise all land, but Gomulka found it politically inexpedient to do this. He had gained power by promising the Polish peasant farmers that they could retain ownership and control of their land. Lenin and the Bolsheviks had promised the same thing to the Russian peasants in 1917, but they broke their promise when in power. Gomulka kept his promise to his supporters and as a result 80 per cent of the agricultural land in Poland remained the possession of 10 per cent of the population. This is still so today.

Gomulka's political insolence, which he was forced into in order to retain the support of his capitalist-nationalist-minded supporters, earned him the criticism of his Russian masters. In September 1948 Gomulka was removed from the leadership and replaced by the hard-line pro- Kremlinite, Bierut. From 1949 until 1956 Poland, like other Stalinist satellites, underwent a period of state terror and unprecedented economic hardship for the workers. During this period, marked by the notorious Six-Year Plan, everything was sacrificed so that industrial capital could be accumulated. The aim of the government was to turn Poland into an industrial power and in order to do this maximum profits had to be extracted from the labour of the wealth producers.

Just as in Britain in the early 1800s. and in Chile and Zimbabwe today, working class combination is outlawed so as to ensure the passivity of labour which is necessary for the rapid accumulation of capital, so in Poland the trade unions were regarded as an unacceptable obstacle to the objectives of state capitalist production. As in Nazi Germany, the state did not ban unions, but took them over. During 1949 and 1950, 80 per cent of Polish trade union officials were purged. The state-run unions ceased to be a weapon of working class resistance against the rate of exploitation (which even before 1948 they were hardly able to be) and became a weapon in the hands of the exploiters to extract as much profit as possible out of the exploited. The excellent Polish film, Man of Marble, provides a vivid social portrait of the appallingly tyrannous condition of Polish capitalism during the period of the 'plans' for capital accumulation.

The death of Stalin and Bierut, and the relaxation of state terror which occurred after Krushchev denounced Stalin at the Tenth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, resulted in a desire on the part of many Poles — including some Party members — to liberalise state capitalism. In Hungary, the period of so-called destalinisation was considered by the Kremlin to be excessive and in 1956 the Russian tanks went in to Budapest. In Poland the end of the brief period of “liberalism" was decisive, if less dramatic. In 1956 fifteen thousand workers in Poznan held a demonstration to complain about the high production targets which they had been set. The militia was used to break up the demonstration and eighty workers were murdered on the streets.

After 1956 Gomulka returned to power. As in 1946, he chose to finance Polish industrialisation by borrowing from the Western banks. Between 1957 and 1963. 529 million dollars were borrowed from America alone. The result was a consistent effort by the state authorities to intensify the rate of exploitation — notably in heavy industries like ship building. In 1970 the workers in the Gdansk shipyard decided that enough was enough: they went on strike and made the fatal mistake of demonstrating in the streets. The state responded in the only way it knew—just as the authorities in Manchester did at Peterloo — and once again workers were fired on and killed.

In Gdansk in 1970 the state had exposed itself as a ruthless defender of capital and an opponent of the working class interest. Learning from the street demonstrations of 1970. many Polish workers began to realise the need for organisation. After the Gdansk affair Gomulka was removed for a second time and Gierek was brought in to replace him. Although the leader was new, the policy remained the same: Gierek borrowed heavily from the West, receiving 100 million dollars from Russia and 50 million dollars from the West in 1971 alone. There seemed to be an initial success. By 1973 Poland had the third fastest productivity growth rate in the world. Production of consumer goods rose by 7 per cent and real wages rose by 40 per cent between 1970 and 1975. By 1975 Poland owed 6,000 million dollars to the Western banks. To pay off these debts more wealth had to be produced. To produce more, machinery had to be imported. To buy the machinery, more debts were incurred. Eventually, the Polish state decided to cut back on the production of consumer goods for the home market and devote more and more production to goods for export. The contraction of production for the home market led to increased prices of consumer goods and a second problem: the private farmers, who own most of Poland's land, refused to sell their agricultural produce to the state because they had nothing useful to buy with the money. The commodities required by the peasant farmers, such as machinery and chemicals, were being produced for export. Consequently there was a desperate shortage of food, as the price increased still more.

By 1980 the Polish state owed 27,000 million dollars to the banks. It was finding it difficult to sell its goods on the world market because of the world recession. Productive growth, which increased by about 9 per cent between 1971 and 1977, was contracting. Sixty per cent of the industrial products due to be completed in 1980 were unfinished at the end of that year due to lack of goods, leaving Poland with 10.6 billion dollars worth of frozen assets. In 1975, 30 per cent of Polish government expenditure was on food subsidies and welfare services; by 1980 this had fallen to 20 per cent. In 1980 there was a coal shortfall of 12 million tons; shipbuilding amounted to 400,000 tons, 35 per cent less than in 1978. Truck production fell by 6 per cent of 1979 figures and there was a sugar beet shortfall of 30 per cent.

It was thus in response to a crisis of capitalism that the workers in the Gdansk shipyard went out on strike in 1980. In 1981 the workers' journal, Jednosc, contained an article which posed the question: how is the emancipation of labour to be achieved? The answer given was that "it involves true socialism, undistorted socialism . . ." and went on to make the highly perceptive statement that “State ownership and social ownership of the means of production are two completely different concepts which should never be confused. The means of production may be owned by the state, but this does not mean that it is thereby the property of the working class”.

Socialism means the common ownership and democratic control of the world and everything in it by the whole community. There cannot be socialist countries or socialist governments or socialist banks or socialist police or socialist prisons. Our fellow workers in Poland must learn from their experience of opposing their oppressors in recent times. The enemy is capitalism, whatever its form, and to the end of destroying it the Polish workers will have the support of socialists everywhere.

Steve Coleman

The Class Struggle in Poland (1976)

From the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the end of June, following the announcement of huge increases in food prices, strikes and riots broke out in many Polish towns. The government subsequently altered its proposals. At the end of 1970 strikes and riots were started by the dockers and shipyard workers of Gdansk (Danzig), in which the police shot down and killed at least six workers. The 1970 strikes led to a change in the leadership of the “Communist” Party with Gierek, the present Party leader, replacing Gomulka (who had himself come to power following strikes and riots in Poznan in 1956 in which 38 workers were murdered by the police).

The Polish working class like workers the world over, has had to resist attempts by their capitalist rulers to reduce their living standards. If the protest has taken the form of rioting and looting, as well as going on strike, it is partly because there are no independent trade unions in Poland: though no doubt there are political axe-grinders urging workers that this is what they should do. The organizations calling themselves “trade unions” are merely government agencies for disciplining workers and getting them to work harder.

The strikes in Poland show clearly that, even in state-capitalist countries ruled by a dictatorial “Communist” party, the class struggle of the working class against their exploiters cannot be suppressed. It is a myth that the exploitation of the working class has been abolished and Socialism established in Poland, as claimed by the government. The workers of Poland are exploited by the privileged minority who, through their dictatorial control of the State machine, monopolize the use of the means of production just as much as the private capitalists of the West.

An increase in food prices without a compensating increase in wages means of course a cut in living standards; it was to object to the size of the cut that the Polish workers went on strike. For the present the government has postponed its plans, but it has no choice in this matter because the world crisis has led to Poland developing a serious trade deficit. Exports have fallen and import prices risen, so squeezing the profits of the country’s state-capitalist enterprises, the source of income both for capital accumulation and the privileged consumption of the Polish ruling class. As The Times (26th June) put it:

The increases had become an economic necessity. Since 1970, real wages have risen by about 7 per cent a year while food prices have been artificially frozen. At the same time, world inflation has been pressing in on Poland. Government subsidies for protecting the consumer have reached enormous proportions and became a particularly heavy burden because Poland needs desperately to pay off its heavy foreign debts.

So working-class living standards are to be reduced in order to pay off the debts of the Polish state capitalist ruling class! A familiar story and a proof that the establishment of state capitalism with a State monopoly of foreign trade, in place of private capitalism does nothing to free a country from the pressures of capitalism on the working class. A further proof that there is no national solution to working-class problems.

Our message to the workers of Poland is to urge them to recognize this and, while doing what they can and must to maintain their living standards, to join with their fellow workers in other countries with a view to replacing world capitalism, in both its private and State forms, by world socialism. 

Adam Buick

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

Kenya and Berlin (1953)

From the August 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Enemy of an Enemy

Cardinal Richelieu was credited with basing his foreign policy on the maxim “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The capitalist groups in the modern world work on the same slogan. In present world conditions Russian capitalism and its allies in the Soviet bloc, is in conflict with the capitalists of the Western world. The latter in their turn are engaged in struggles against the working class in each of the Western countries. Therefore the working class of the Western countries are the potential allies of the Russian rulers. This is the reason why the Russian rulers hold themselves out as the friend of “the toilers of Britain and America" and try to enlist the sympathy of the latter by means of the Communist Parties in those countries. The assiduity with which the Communist Party of Great Britain has built up the legend of “The Jolly George"—in which incident the workers of Britain are supposed to have prevented the British ruling class pursuing the war against the Bolsheviks in the early days of the Russian Revolution—shows, in spite of the fact that the story as related by them is not true, the direction in which their thoughts are moving, For the Russian rulers realise that, however powerful the Anglo-American ruling class might be, it could not, without the active support of the British and American workers, embark successfully on any war against the Soviet Union.

Vast Subversive Network

On the same principle, the ruling class of Britain and America show great sympathy for the oppressed workers in the countries under Soviet regimes, and try to stir up discontent and organise opposition. In the conditions obtaining in the Stalinist countries, this work has to be done underground, in exactly the same way as the Communist Parties have to work secretly in many western countries, among them Spain and Portugal, some of the South American republics, and (to an increasing degree) the United States itself. Thus an article in the “Readers' Digest” of October, 1952, says "West Berlin, an enclave deep in the Soviet Zone, continues to be headquarters for a vast subversive network radiating throughout Red Germany, warning police officials of the punishment in store for them, smuggling refugees to the West, ceaselessly distributing propaganda.”

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

But, one need scarcely add, the sympathy felt by the ruling class of Russia, and of Britain and America, for the struggle of the workers against their masters, stops at their own boundaries. The workers of an enemy country are fit subjects for sympathy; but never the workers of your own. Chapter and verse for these statements can be found in the recent events in Kenya and East Berlin. When in East Berlin and other German cities, on June 16th and 17th, the workers turned on their masters and protested by mass demonstrations against their wages and working conditions, the German Stalinist police, supported by Russian tanks and machine-guns, suppressed the demonstrations by force, killing a number of demonstrators. This was the signal for a barrage of sympathy from the rulers of the Western world. Dr. Adenauer said, “betraying deep emotion,” that “even in a cynical age there were still men prepared to die in the streets for an idea. They did not fear Russian tanks and machine-guns; they had shown to the world that they would not be slaves, and that the age of tyranny was over.” (The Times, 24-6-53; subsequent references are also to The Times, unless otherwise stated.) In Parliament Mr. Maclean, a Conservative, called the Russian action a “barbarous massacre” (25-6-53); and a group of Labour members tabled a motion reading: “That this House notes with intense interest and deep sympathy the struggle of the German workers against the Russian military dictatorship in Eastern Germany and deplores the execution without trial of the leaders thrown up by the workers in the struggle for bread and liberty” (24-6-53). Mr. Dulles, the American Secretary of State, found that the episode "demonstrates that the people do retain their love of God and love of country and their sense of personal dignity. They want to run their own affairs and not be run from Moscow. The unquenchable spirit of the people was dramatised in East Berlin, where unarmed youths tore up paving stones from the streets to hurl in defiance at tanks . . . The people want to be governed by those whom they select as responsive to their needs and desires, rather than to be ruled by those who take their orders from aliens and who give their orders with a view to achieving their own ambitions without regard to the welfare of the people concerned ” (1-7-53).

Kenya

If this is the attitude taken by the Western rulers to the events in East Berlin; why do not they deliver the same kind of stirring speeches about the disturbances in Kenya? Mr. Dulles thinks the East Germans want to run their own affairs; but the East Germans are at least allowed the semblance of free elections (skilfully manipulated though they may be by Herr Ulbricht and his friends) whereas in Kenya the Kikuyu and other Africans are openly barred from the franchise. A defender of the attitude of the Anglo-American ruling class might say that the two cases were different; the Kikuyu, in rebelling, did not stop short at peaceful demonstrations, but actually killed those whom they thought were oppressing them. The answer to this is— so did the East Germans: a number of police and state-officials were reported shot or beaten to death during the riots of June 16th and 17th (1-7-53). And this should cause no surprise; when workers are driven to desperation point, be their skins black or white, they often try to seek escape by using violence against individual members of the oppressing class or their hirelings.

Savagery

But again it might be alleged (by a supporter of the British ruling class) that the behaviour of Mau Mau adherents in Kenya has shown them to be savages at heart, and to be therefore beyond the sympathy of “civilised” men. But this is the last argument .which could be used by members of the British ruling class. If individual acts of barbarity are to blacken for ever the character of the nations to which their perpetrators belong, and place those nations for ever beyond the pale of civilisation and civilised rights, then why this sympathy and support for the Germans? These Germans are exactly the same as those against whom our rulers were lashing us into furious enmity only eight years ago, on the grounds of the savagery, the barbarity, the bestiality they had shown in the treatment of minorities inside Germany and of the populations of the occupied countries. Our rulers cannot now ignore the six years of unending propaganda with which they overwhelmed us in the second world war. The truth is that neither the East Germans nor the Kikuyu are any more brutal by nature than other human beings, though some of them have been driven by oppression and bad conditions into brutality (as were the East Germans on June 16th and 17th, and as the Kikuyu have been from time to time since a year ago).

“Fatherland of the Proletariat”

Just as East Berlin has shown up the hypocrisy of the rulers of the Western world, so it has shown up the hypocrisy of the Stalinist leaders. The Communist Parties of the world claim to be parties of the workers, organised in the interest of the workers; the Communist Parties of the Soviet Union and the other Soviet countries are always to the fore with denunciations of “capitalist oppression” whenever the workers of the Western world are suppressed by force. In East Berlin the German and Russian Bolsheviks had the opportunity to show how they themselves deal with similar situations; and the outcome was as one would expect, for no capitalist system, whether its superstructure is of the Stalinist or the Western kind, can tolerate insubordination among its workers. By using the rifle, the machine-gun, and the tank against striking and rioting workers, the Stalinists have once more demonstrated the division between the master class and the working class in the countries under their control. 

Worse Than Useless

The Socialist attitude to these events can be explained in a few words. While we have sympathy with workers who are driven to break out in open violence, whether against Stalinist or a western ruling class, the killing of individual members of a ruling class does nothing at all to alter the economic basis of society; so long as that basis is unchanged, so long will there be a master class and a working class. Acts of violence on the part of the workers merely provoke the ruling class and its armed forces, and give it the excuse for bloody reprisals. In Eastern Germany, scores of workers are reported to have been killed; in Kenya, the “security forces" boasted that in three days last month they had killed a hundred “terrorists,” which is far more than the total number of whites killed by the Mau Mau since the beginning of the troubles (27-6-53). When workers become Socialists, they use their resentment at their conditions to spur them on towards ending the society that causes them, not in sporadic and pointless acts of violence. The Western leaders claim to be opposed to violence and murder as political weapons; but they reveal themselves as double-dealers when they incite the workers in Stalinist countries to use these weapons, although they know that the result can only be a slaughter among those who try to fight their political battles in the streets.

Alwyn Edgar