Editorial: The Communist Party and I.L.P. Unity. (1926)

Editorial from the March 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The alleged revolutionary nature of the Communist Party can be seen by the article of the Acting Secretary of the C.P. (Robert Stewart) in the Sunday Worker for January 17. He refers to the “recent offer (which is still open) to co-operate with the I.L.P. in a campaign on such points as 100 per cent. trades unionism, a living wage, and nationalisation of mines.” If these two parties can find common ground in such work, which leaves capitalism safe and sound, there is no reason why they should not unite. We suggest they should call the United Party—the Political Patchers Alliance. One of the final pleas of Mr. Stewart is pathetic.

He says : “Surely, if Mr. Brockway finds it possible to co-operate with (say, Mr. R. MacDonald, Mr. J. H. Thomas, or Mr. Will Thorne from each of which he differs widely in matters of theory, his co-operation with the Communists should be equally possible.”

Certainly ! Why not !

Socialist Brevities. (1929)

From the May 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Gate to More.

You all know, of course, that Unemployment can be both nice and nasty—the degrees of niceness and nastiness depending entirely upon the quality of wisdom displayed in choosing one’s parents. Locker- Lampson, Fat-fee Smith, Lloyd George, etc., etc., suffer their pangs amidst the lush verdure of the Riviera, but we workers prefer to cultivate our faculties of observation by meandering around looking for the display of that soul-stirring caption — "Hands wanted”! (Of course, if you are a baker, you may be expected to use your feet!)

However, let us look at unemployment as known to, and regarded as a normal risk by, the workers. Labour "leaders,” "economists,” and "captains of industry,” have constantly asserted that the cure for this disease is "More production,” "Rationalisation ” or "Nationalisation” —all fancied names for the increased exploitation of the workers. "Look at America!” they say. But let us look at England first. Lord Ebbisham, the President of the Federation of British Industries, in an article in the "Morning Post” (14/1/29), surveying British industrial conditions during 1928, makes the following statement:—

   Lastly, the reliability of unemployment returns as an index to industrial activity has been affected by the economy of effort and labour, which is one of the outstanding features of post-war industrial reorganisation. There is little doubt that post-war methods of manufacture aim at increasing output while actually decreasing the number of men engaged in production. That most of the workers so displaced will find employment in new industries does not minimise the significance of the possibility that, if the present tendency continues manufacturing, as opposed to marketing, finance, and other commercial activities, will in the future make progressively decreasing demands on the population, and in that sense will play a smaller part as a contributor to the general prosperity. (Our Italics.)

More production, more—unemployment! 

Observe that manufacturing (i.e., wealth production) will continue to make lesser and lesser "demand on the population.” A very generous interpretation of the 1921 Census returns gives us 7,615,198 workers engaged in productive occupations out of a population of about 45,000,000 (see pamphlet "Socialism,” pages 9 and 10), so the workers should feel quite complacent as to their prospects of increased leisure in the future.

But apparently, marketing, finance, etc., will make more and more “demands on the population.” Perhaps. Let us see. The “Morning Post” (1/1/29) provides us with a nice little tit-bit:—

ROBOT BANK CLERKS

  Will there be fewer openings for junior clerks in our large banks, owing to the ever-increasing efficiency of the ledger-posting, exchange-reckoning automatic devices being introduced? One of the latest of these devices is an American ledger-posting machine which writes out customers' bank balances in their pass-books and posts the amount of credit and debit.
  Under the new system a girl can do the work of two or three men. One of the largest London Banks is doing all its complicated exchange conversions by machine, and all foreign currencies can be turned into pounds sterling by turning a handle. A British machine for ledger-posting is being used at Lloyds’ head office, and nearly all bank branches are saving hours every week by up-to-date machines.

One need not be a prophet to see what this state of affairs might lead to in the future. I will hazard a guess, anyhow! 

Scene : A big Stores in 19—?

Salesman (to customer): “Bank clerks, Sir? Yessir! Fine line in to-day, sir. Six for sixpence each, sir. Or thirteen for a shilling if you are not superstitious, sir. Four gross, sir? Thank you, sir. They will be delivered to-morrow, sir, 12.30 p.m., in one of our plain vans, together with our free insurance policy. Good*day, sir.”

Ah! But engineering will always be safe for the workers. Munitions, ships and things. Do not, therefore, let the following paragraph, culled from the “Manchester Guardian” (14/1/29) disquiet you unduly: 

  Mr. James Rowan, general secretary of the Electrical Trades Union, in his monthly report to the members, writes that the most remarkable feature of the past year has been the heavy production on the one hand in most of the staple industries, and on the other the large percentage of unemployment in the same industries. Shipbuilding in 1928 produced a tonnage in excess of all previous years, except 1922, yet so great has been the progress of labour-saving devices that the percentage of unemployed in shipbuilding districts never seems to have gone below 10 per cent., and in many cases had reached 20 per cent., and even 25 per cent.
   In the engineering section much the same state of things has prevailed. The motor section had a great year, and certainly there was a boom in electrical engineering.
   Noting this, and while again noting there has been a record output both in volume and value, the percentage of engineers unemployed has been remarkably high. In all the productive sections of industry the same remarks apply. To think that at the end of a year of such enhanced production it should leave us with about two millions of the workable population redundant, is something that casts a very grave reflection on the powers that be. If this is the result of rationalisation, so far as it has gone, then it seems rationalisation has gone mad.

Engine-very-neers!

#    #    #    #

Happy Erin.

Now how can poverty be cured before the cause is discovered? There are too many of us, that’s the true cause. Not enough jobs to go round, obviously. At least, that is what the Labour “leaders,” “economists ” and “statesmen” tell us—and they ought to know! The population of Ireland has been declining for centuries, so we will doubtless find here a happy, prosperous and healthy people. Especially now they have “Home Rule.” You will see this is so by the paragraph below, taken from an article on “Progress under Home Rule” by the “Morning Post” special correspondent (31/12/28).

  I do not suppose anybody will contradict my statement that the Government till is empty, or that the farmers are in a deplorable state. Mr. Cassidy, Labour Member for Donegal, made this remarkable statement in the “Dail” some weeks ago: “Unemployment and destitution prevail, thousands of farmers are in the state of poverty, thousands of fishermen are destitute, and nothing is being done for them. I think it is indeed strange that the Government should have given a thousand pounds to the Royal Zoological Society for the keep of wild animals while at the same time they refuse to keep human beings in the country."

Oh! dash it all. I’ve given the wrong paragraph!

#    #    #    #

He Changeth Not.

What we want is “leaders.” Leaders who will lead! Sincere, honest, champions of the worker’s cause. Bromley, Cramp, Smillie, Newbold: all of these used to fill the bill. Even Trotsky is more than doubtful just now! But A. J. Cook is the man. He is the one pearl in the ointment, the true gilt on the cokernut.

’Erb Smith? N.G. Cook? The Miners' Messiah, the workers’ Whatname! Leaders may come, leaders may go; but Cook remains, with a tow-row-row! Cook the—    but what’s this little bit in the “Sunday Worker” for March 10th? Can it be? The great A.J? I’m afraid it can!

In his weekly article in that newspaper, this paragon, so well boosted by the Communists, seems to have followed his late partner, Maxton, and crumpled up entirely under the threat of the Labour mandarins. Here is a piquant extract:—

  A Labour Government would bring new life and hope to the workers, would increase faith in trade unionism, and thus would lead us nearer to Socialism. Therefore I regret the actions of any party or sections that start new unions, or that endanger the return of a Labour Government. This is my view after an active life of many years in the Trade Union and Socialist Movement. No doubt I shall be called reactionary, a compromiser, etc., etc., by the Communists in particular. I want every reader to become an active Trade Unionist, and control his own destiny, believing Socialism is our only hope.

You see, you get nearer Socialism, the only hope, by supporting Capitalism.

#    #    #    #

Another Wreck!

In the same issue of the “Sunday Worker" there is another interesting item, which, by the way, may have some bearing on the defection of A. J. Cook :—

  The National Left Wing Committee meeting, held in London last week-end, decided by ten votes to one that the Left Wing Movement as a national organisation should be dissolved. It was emphasised that this decision does not mean the cessation of Local Left Wing activities, which should continue on the basis of local united front committees and workers' electoral committees, their work based on concrete issues before the workers. The decision was made after thorough and frank discussion, in which two points were strongly urged as making continuance of the organisation impossible.
  The first point was that the Birmingham conference political and organisational decisions have made it hopeless to turn the Labour Party into a working-class party. The "loyalty” resolution now makes Left Wing work in the Labour Party impossible.
  The second point emphasised was that the continuation of the National Left Wing movement in its present form involves the danger of a new Party which would be detrimental to the interests of the working class. The resolution adopted advised all Left Wing workers who desire to carry on a fight for Socialism that they can best do so by joining the Communist Party, now fighting alone for full emancipation of the workers.

Have you seen any of these “full emancipation" programmes of the Communist Party? Their slogans, too, are quite good —“God save the People” is the very latest, I believe!

What Shall We Do With Our Votes? (1928)

Editorial from the December 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

With the approach of a General Election the “Left Wing” Labour groups are asking themselves how they ought to vote. All the rebels and near-rebels and would-be rebels are wondering whether they ought to carry their opposition to the Labour Party to the extent of telling their supporters to vote for Communist candidates or the candidates put up by branches expelled from the official Labour Party. They are, of course, in a difficult position. Having dubbed the Labour Party programme a “Liberal” programme, they must now choose either to support that programme and the candidates who fight on it, or, in effect, put themselves outside the Labour Party; for the Labour Party Executive is taking vigorous action wherever the dissident elements infringe the Party constitution and rules. Probably many of the Left-Wingers would like to take a definite stand, but they are deterred by the consequences. Whatever they may say about the discontent of the Labour Party membership with its leaders, a practical test soon convinces them that it is MacDonald not Maxton, J. H. Thomas not Arthur Cook, who have the support of the mass of the Trade Union members. A recent and illuminating test was the Borough Council elections.

In England and Wales the Communist candidates polled in the areas contested by them 10.5 per cent. of the Labour Party vote, and in Scotland 19.5 per cent. For the whole country their poll was 17.7 per cent. of the Labour votes in these selected constituencies (Sunday Worker, November 18th, 1928). The Editor of the Sunday Worker points out, too, that the Communist vote has declined since the Communist Party recently adopted the policy of openly opposing Labour candidates. He says that “in places where Communist candidates previously contested seats, before the adoption of the party’s new electoral policy, decreased votes for the Communists are frequently recorded.”

The Sunday Worker offers what is no doubt a correct explanation. Even many voters who are dissatisfied with the Labour Party programme will not vote against its candidates because they want to “get the Tories out.” To indicate the unsoundness of this policy of voting for one capitalist party in order to prevent another capitalist party getting in, the Sunday Worker recalls the 1906 Election, when hundreds of thousands of workers who had no faith in Liberalism voted for the Liberals in order to keep the Tories out. The Liberals got in and eight years later led its dupes into the War.

Truly a fatuous policy, but who have done more to propagate it than the Communists and the multifarious “Left Wing” groups? The Communists from 1920 to 1927, and the other “ Left Wing " groups still, have persistently denounced the Labour Party and simultaneously told the workers to vote for it because, in some way never explained and now (by the Communists) emphatically denied, it was supposed to be better than the other capitalist parties. If the workers still have faith in the Labour Party’s programme of reforming capitalism, the responsibility cannot be shelved by the Communists and the Sunday Worker.

Even now, while opposing some Labour candidates, the Communist Party members are required to go on paying the political levy to the Labour Party through their Trade Unions. Could anything be more productive of confusion in the minds of the workers?

Mr, J. T. Murphy, a prominent member of the Communist Party, writes on this in the November issue of the Communist, and  points out the absurdity of asking the miners to contribute £10,000 a year to the Labour Party and then appealing to the miners again for more thousands to fight the Labour candidates. He also condemns the confusing relationship between the Communists and the Left Wing groups, which, he says, has made the Communist Party a “laughing-stock.”

  Our party members are not quite sure when they should be recruiting for the Left Wing and when for the party. It appears that we can carry the programme of the Left Wing in one pocket and that of the Communist party in the other, and, according to the audience we are addressing, use one or the other without contradiction, for . . . the Communist programme and the Left Wing are identical in all essentials. The only people who ought to be bewildered, apparently, should be the audience who are to be led into the Left Wing according to circumstances (i.e., whichever meeting they have attended—if a C.P. meeting, then into the C.P.; if a Left Wing meeting, then into the Left Wing). This may be considered by some of our comrades to be tactical, but I am sure that' our party members are unhappy about it, and cannot get results whilst such a policy exists. (Communist, November 1928.)

We see, therefore, that the Communists are still unprepared to accept and act on the recognition of the fact that the workers' economic position of subjection is the result of capitalism and will continue as long as capitalism continues, irrespective of whether the system is administered by Tories, Liberals, the Labour Party or by anyone else. Similarly, the Sunday Worker, having disposed of the fallacious argument that the workers should vote Labour to “keep the Tories out,” proceeds to throw up another smoke screen in order to hide its retreat from the position to which its argument would logically lead it. The editorial lamely concludes:—

  We shall give our votes only to the working-class candidates whose programme is the end of imperialism and the end of war.

Capitalism and the danger of capitalist war will not be brought to an end by voting for the Labour Party programme of reforms of capitalism. Labour candidates are compelled to fight on the Labour Party’s general programme, but this, of course, will not prevent every single Labour candidate from saying that he is in favour of “ending Imperialism and war.” Probably all the Liberals and most of the Tories will equally willingly subscribe to the same vague and unhelpful declaration. So that, having given good reasons why the workers should vote against the Labour, candidates, the Sunday Worker evades the issue with a piece of advice which is meaningless.

In contrast with the trifling of Communist and Left Wing groups, the Socialist Party gives a bold answer. If the workers vote for capitalism, then they will get what they vote for. Workers who want Socialism will vote only for Socialist candidates. The Socialist Party of Great Britain is unique among the political parties in this country in being prepared to put forward candidates fighting on that issue alone, Socialism or Capitalism. At present the number of workers who want Socialism is few in comparison with those who want Liberal capitalism, Tory capitalism or Labour Party capitalism. That unfortunate position can be remedied only by Socialist propaganda. It is not helped, but hindered, by voting for one in preference to another of the parties which stand for private or state capitalism. There are differences, and real differences, between the capitalist parties, but the differences do not touch the subject condition of the working class.

Capitalism victorious in China. (1926)

From the December 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

In our issue of August, 1925, we set out our view of the situation in China and explained why Socialists cannot share the extravagant hopes raised in certain quarters by the progress of the Kuomintang Party. As in the pioneer capitalist countries, so also in those which have been subject to foreign imperialists, the capitalists are always anxious to obtain the help of the workers in the fight against their own enemies, whether those enemies be feudal proprietors or foreign capitalists. No doubt there was a gain in the grant to Ireland of “self-government." That gain is a gain in clarity. It is no longer possible for the Irish defenders of capitalism to pretend that the poverty and unemployment suffered by the Irish workers are due to “foreign” government. So also in China. It is better that the Chinese workers should be able to realise that they suffer from exploitation just as much whether at the hands of Chinese exploiters or European and Japanese exploiters. The rise of a strong independent capitalist Chinese Republic will enormously hasten the economic and political development of the Eastern workers. But we must at the same time point out that nothing is gained and much is lost by misinterpreting the outcome of these national struggles.

If the Chinese workers are encouraged to see in national independence a solution of their economic problems they will—like the Irish, the Poles and many others—suffer a grievous disappointment. It is the duty of the Socialist to work to destroy the present illusion and thus avoid the future disillusion. Let the Chinese workers organise not as Chinamen alongside their home capitalists, but as workers. They should reject the fallacious argument of foreign political parties which urge them to do otherwise. In England this fallacy is based on an old saying that “The enemies of my enemies are my friends.” In truth the capitalist enemies of the British capitalists are not, and cannot, be the friends of the workers, British or non-British. If the Chinese capitalists happen to be at loggerheads with the British capitalists, that is no reason why British or Chinese workers should imagine they have a friend in the Chinese employing class.

In the Sunday Worker (November 14th) the position in China with all its pitfalls to the workers is shown in a nutshell :

  The native merchant class saw the trade of the country growing under the domination of the foreign financial groups while their own share of the booty grew smaller. The foreign imperialists had to be fought.
  Unable to fight the battle alone the native capitalists sought salvation in the Kuomintang. They planned to use the revolt of the Workers and Peasants to drive out the foreign imperialists and to establish a new imperialism of their own.
  The right wing of the party has therefore grown to an alarming extent, and unless the Left Wing can retain control the Workers of China and Europe will find that when European imperialism has been smashed a Chinese imperialism will have risen in its stead. This is the real “Yellow Peril.”

And not only does the approaching victory of the Kuomintang lead the Chinese capitalists to prepare for the inevitable future clash with their own exploited classes, but it seems likely also that they will follow the path already trodden by their fellow capitalist-nationalists in Ireland and India. In the long run they will find that as capitalists they have lasting and important interests in common with some or other of their late capitalist enemies. The Sunday Worker correspondent reports that the British Foreign Office is now in favour of supporting the Kuominatung capitalists, who in turn will no doubt be glad of this outside help in time of trouble at home with the Chinese workers. The real task of the Chinese workers is that of the workers everywhere—to fight against capitalism whatever the national flag under which it hides. The duty of Socialists is to keep this issue always to the fore, not to rouse deadly national hatreds which obscure the class divisions in society and retard the growth of Socialism.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Moscow executions (1927)

Editorial from the July 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Communist Editor of the “Sunday Worker” (June 19th), defends the execution of 20 political prisoners by the Soviet Government as an “act of stern revolutionary justice.” My thought on reading this was to wonder why the Russians allow soft-headed Communists in this country to broadcast such sentimental poppy-cock in their name. When professional politicians like Lloyd George or MacDonald speak as if they are the humble instruments of the Almighty, dealing out even-handed justice in a wicked world, we recognise an accepted trick of an old-established trade, but the Communists should be above such things. The working-class movement has no need to defend its actions on the illogical ground that they are in accord with some everlasting standard of abstract justice, or on the ground that those who suffer from those actions have “deserved” what they get. If the working-class should ever be compelled to take human life, its only justification—and that a sufficient one—is that working-class interests necessitate that action. If one may believe some of the Communists, these 20 prisoners were executed out of revenge for the assassination of Voikoff in Warsaw. If so, that is a piece of indefensible emotionalism, for which the working-class movement has no use. If the rigid test of working-class interests is applied, it is hard to see how this action could assist the progress of Socialism. It may be answered that those in control of the Russian Government thought that it was called for in order to serve some interest of State, to enhance the prestige of Russia by a defiant gesture. Our answer to this is that as Socialists, we are not interested in the game of Statecraft and we repudiate the notion that “reasons of State” can be adequate grounds on which to base working-class policy. When the Russian Communists allow themselves to be drawn into the bogs of diplomatic intrigue, trying to play off one capitalist state against another, they may prove as cunning as their opponents (although this is doubtful—certainly, the present incident has not added to their reputation for wisdom or strength) but the pleasure gained through the satisfaction of their desire for revenge will be at the direct expense of the real interests of the working-class.

Should the Workers Fight for Russia? (1928)

From the April 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

Before the Great War there were many workers in this and other countries who would have agreed without a moment’s hesitation that a working class movement should not support a capitalist war, and who, again without hesitation, rushed into the war when it came. This war, they said, was “different"; this was a “defensive” war; the workers must defend their homes, their wives, their liberties.

Since 1918 the vague sentiment against war has grown up again, and we are asked to put our trust in the illusory determination of the organised trade unionists to stop another outbreak. But those non-socialists who are most emphatic in their refusal to support another capitalist war are frequently to be heard expressing their willingness to fight for Russia, and their approval of the Russian military preparations. Thus the Sunday Worker (February 19th), shows a picture of a handsome Russian soldier in full fighting equipment, and under it the words: “Soviet worker in the Red Army ready to defend the factories and land of his class.”

CAPITALISM THE ENEMY.

We tell the workers of each capitalist nation that support for capitalist wars, offensive or defensive, is not in accordance with working class interests, for the simple reason that “their” country does not in fact belong to them but to the capitalist class. The factories and land of England do not belong to the workers but to their masters, and the same is true of Germany, America and other countries. What the workers have not got they cannot lose. What then does it matter to them if "their” country, which isn’t theirs at all, is taken away from the English section of the capitalist class by another section? Win or lose, the workers are still workers, and the kindly interest taken in them by English capitalists is precisely the same in kind as that of American, German, or any other exploiters, i.e., the desire to make a profit out of them.

CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA.

So far the members and followers of (he Communist Party in this country would doubtless signify their agreement. But the next step in the argument is to consider whether Russian workers are in an essentially different position. Do the factories and land in Russia really belong to the Russian working class, and if not why should they defend interests which are not their own, but those of another class ?

Let us first take the land. In theory the land of Russia belongs to the State, as in this country all land is in theory held from the Crown; in fact the land belongs in Russia to the peasants as it belongs here to the landowners. Issuing decrees declaring that the land has been socialised is of no significance whatever except as an evidence of good intentions. The Soviet Government has not the machinery to carry out such decrees, nor the power enforce them. The consent of the peasants is unobtained and unobtainable, and the Government never did in fact seriously regard such a step as practical politics. No Russian Government would survive for a month if it endeavoured to dispossess the peasants of their land. They were the makers of the "revolution” and they would crush any Government which openly opposed their interests. Their seizure of the land preceded the Bolshevik coup d’etat and they will resist fiercely any change from Monarchists to go back or from Communists to go forward.

PRIVATE PROPERTY IN LAND.

Mr. Arthur Ransome (Manchester Guardian, 2nd March) quotes from Pravda an article on this question in which it is shown from official records that whereas there were at the end of the Civil War between 15 and 16 million separate peasant holdings there are now 25 million. Peasant proprietorship is growing, not declining.

There are, it is true, some Soviet Government model farms run on up-to-date industrial lines and intended to undermine the barbaric individualism of the peasants and their methods of cultivation. As a means of raising the standard of cultivation they have had some success, but as the basis of social ownership of the land and a socially organised agriculture they are negligible. Out of a rural population of some 116,000,000 (see Statesman’s Year Book, page 1227) only “about 500,000 workers, of whom 45 per cent, are permanent workers, are employed in the Soviet farms and their dependent enterprises." (See Weekly Bulletin of the Anglo-Russian Parliamentary Committee, 23rd February 1928). That is to say that less than one-half of one per cent, of the rural population are employed on these model farms. The value of the output of the State Agricultural Syndicate and the Sugar Trust is only 5.5 per cent, of the gross agricultural output in 1926-27. (See above Bulletin.)

The land in Russia belongs not to the working class but to the peasants. It is privately owned and controlled by them and cultivated on an individualistic basis for private profit. The Russian working class have no more direct interest in the defence of peasant proprietorship, than have the French workers in the defence of peasant proprietorship in France. Peasant proprietorship is economically backward and socially reactionary. As sellers of farm products, as purchasers of manufactured goods, as employers of wage earners or exploiters of the unpaid labour of their wives and children, and finally as owners of land, the interests of the peasants are in direct conflict with those of the working class and are directly opposed to the movement towards socialism. The Russian workers emphatically do not possess the land of Russia. Why. then should they fight to defend what is not theirs?

WHO OWNS THE FACTORIES?

Now let us consider the factories. Do the Russian workers own the Russian factories and workshops, railways and steamships, and industrial capital in general? The answer is plainly No! The Russian workers are wage-earners as in this country. Some are employed by Russian and foreign private capitalist undertakings, frankly carried on for profit. Others, as in our Post Office, are employed in State capitalist concerns, their general conditions of labour being governed as here by the general standard of living of the workers and by the need of the Government to pay; interest on borrowed capital and foreign credits, and to run the concerns at a profit on ordinary commercial lines. It has even happened that wages in the Russian State concerns have been lower than in outside industry. This, however, is due to special circumstances and is hardly likely to be more than temporary. It has been explained in Russian official quarters as being due to the willingness of State employees to take lower wages in order to build up capital reserves for the expansion of State industry. Workers in private concerns have, on the other hand, been directly encouraged to, stand out for higher wages among other reasons for the purpose of crippling their accumulation of reserves.

NO PROFITS WITHOUT EXPLOITATION.

Profit and interest only come from the exploitation of wage labour, and capitalism in Russia is no exception. That is not to question the sincerity or good intentions of the Bolshevik administrators of Russian capitalism. But whatever their intentions may be there is in essentials only one way of administering capitalism, that is in the capitalist way. The policy of the Soviet Government is dominated by the solid resistance of the peasants to any attempt at socialisation, by the need to produce manufactured goods cheaply and by the necessity of paying for the capital which they must borrow at home or abroad.

The peasants already complain of the fact that they are compelled to buy home produced manufactures at prices well above those ruling abroad. As their knowledge increases so they will press more and more strongly for the destruction of the State control of foreign trade, for the right to sell their products in the dearest market and the right to buy manufactures in the cheapest market. To meet this the rulers of Russia will in turn be compelled to introduce all the modern capitalist methods of speeding up in the endeavour to make their employees produce goods cheaply enough to compete with goods produced in Germany, England and elsewhere. The Russian workers are wage-earners like any others, living under capitalist economic conditions and exploited like any other wage-earners.

The issue of the Sunday Worker from which we quoted above gives very pointed evidence of this.

THE SHARE PUSHERS.

Under the heading “Big Chance for Investors,” it spreads the glad tidings that a Russian Government Railway Loan for £6,000,000 has been placed on the English market, offering a total actual return of over 11 per cent. The Sunday Worker says: “High yielding loans are usually not available for public subscription, especially with the security this offers. The profits on the railways last year would cover the loan four times.” Here we have our old familiar enemy capitalism in all its nakedness. The Russian workers have no more interest in defending Russian capitalism than we have in defending English capitalism.

But, we are told, surely the control of the Russian Government by the Bolsheviks makes a difference; as also the numerous and important improvements in wages and conditions of labour which have been introduced. Should the Russian workers not be willing to fight in defence of these gains?

THE PROGRESS OF CAPITALISM.

Let us clear the air, by stating one or two facts. First, it is evident from the more reliable accounts that the condition of the Russian workers is better than before the war, as measured by the amount of real wages. Second, it can readily be admitted that the “sympathetic” and enlightened administration of the capitalist system can bring certain definite but limited gains to the workers. For example, it is plainly better for the workers to be protected by Factory Acts than not to be protected, and probably better to be scientifically exploited by a Ford or a Cadbury than to be brutally and unscientifically sweated by some unintelligent early Victorian who has not realised that it pays to have healthy and contented workers. But while this may be admitted to be true that is no sufficient cause for the workers to sacrifice their lives. In the first place, the difference of degree is small and certainly not worth fighting about, and more importantly, the workers will not lose these small advantages by any action or inaction of theirs, because the motive is not at all the welfare of the workers. The changes in methods of exploitation are due to the development of capitalist industry itself. It is not kindness but necessity which compels the factory owner to raise the standard of living of the coolie when he takes him from his field work and introduces him into the more exhausting factory system. Russia, whether ruled by Bolsheviks or as an adjunct of a British-American Banking trust, cannot compete with foreign highly developed capitalist industry unless it gives its wage-slaves approximately the same physical standards and inducements to work. Carrying the argument to its logical extreme, the conquest of Russia by America, might result in the Russians being forced to accept the American more developed system of intensified exploitation based on the payment of those higher wages of which we hear so much.

A PEASANT GOVERNMENT?

There is of course the possibility that the Russian Government might come to be controlled by a peasant party, openly hostile to and ignorant of capitalist industry and its needs. (This is in Trotsky’s view the present tendency.) Should that happen capitalist industry and incidentally the care of the workers as profit-producing agents, would be neglected. This is no doubt the reason why Factory legislation, health and unemployment insurance, etc., are so backward in France with its largely peasant dominated parliament, as compared with Germany. But that danger in Russia would point to the need of the workers endeavouring to protect themselves against the encroachments both of the peasants and of the capitalist class and not to the fatal policy of lining-up under the national flag in the pathetic belief that they have an interest in defending their "country.” Their county, like our "motherland” and the German “fatherland,” belongs not to them but to classes with interests opposed to those of the working class. The chief enemy of the working class is the capitalist class and the task of the Socialist is to overthrow the capitalist system in Russia as elsewhere.

In conclusion, it may be as well to point out that this is in no sense a condemnation of the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917 Our criticism was and, is that they claimed to be able to achieve the impossible. Certain definite tasks lay before them and have been achieved. They brought Russia out of the war, exposed the purely capitalist nature of the conflict to the workers in both camps, and hastened the building of capitalism in Russia at a time when there was no other party with sufficient experience or determination to tackle so great an administrative work. They cannot, however, by legislation solve the fundamental conflicts between contending classes in Russia. They cannot permanently make the working class content with the capitalist economic system, and it would be better that they should recognise before it is too late that if they remain in office the discontent of the workers will come to be directed against them.

Edgar Hardcastle