Letter: Has Russia "Production for Use?" (1934)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

Has Russia "Production for Use?"

A correspondent (S.N.), writing from Waihi, asks how the S.P.G.B. justifies its attitude towards Russia in face of the following statement made by an observer of Russian conditions: —

After all, there is nothing wonderful about these (Russia’s) achievements. The simple and sufficient explanation is that in a mad world, one country is acting rationally—and is planning her industry and producing for use not for profit. . . .

The name of this observer is not given, but whoever he is, his observation is very much at fault. Nobody denies that the output of Russian industry has increased, but that can be said of many countries which make no claim to being anything but capitalistic. Whether or not those in charge of Russia can be said to be acting “rationally” depends on the point of view. From one angle it has been said that since Socialism in Russia is at present, and for many years to come, an impossibility, it is wise to come to terms with the capitalist world and enter into the mad scramble for markets which is a feature of world capitalism. At any rate, that is what Russia is doing. One outstanding instance of this is the enormous efforts Russia is making to develop the production of gold. The July issue of the Monthly Review of the Moscow Narodny Bank (an official | Soviet institution), publishes an article on gold production, from which we learn that the output of gold has been advancing rapidly. In December, 1933, it was nearly twice as great as in December, 1932, and a further great increase is planned. Russian gold output in 1933 was second largest in the world, being beaten only by Transvaal. The writer of the article in the Bank Review (A. Serebrovsky—chairman of the Central Administration of the Russian Government Gold Trust), holds out the hope that "in the near future the U.S.S.R. will assume first place in the world as a gold-producing country."

Is this rational, except on a purely capitalist basis? Of course it is not, and the Bolsheviks knew this well enough not so long ago. Did not Lenin tell us that under Socialism gold would no doubt be used for the construction of street lavatories ?

Again, this observer is quite wrong about Russia producing for use. Production for use (and this, too, the Bolsheviks once knew quite well) involves the abandonment of buying and selling, and profit-making. In Russia, however, goods are not produced for use but for sale, at a profit. The first charge on Russian industry is to meet the enormous cost (upwards of £100 millions a year) of the interest payments to the bondholders (mainly Russian citizens) who have invested money in the loans continually being raised by the Russian Government.

Quite unintentionally a pro-Bolshevik observer, Mr. Louis Fischer, who for years represented American newspapers in Moscow, showed the capitalist character of Russia in a recent article called " In Russia, Life grows Easier." He wrote: "The food situation, too, is much better than it was last winter. There is scarcely anything one cannot buy—if one has the money." (Nation, New York, June 13th, 1934. Italics ours.)

That is not production for use but production for sale, as in other capitalist countries, " to those who have the money." Ed. Comm.

Here and There: "Socialism’’ in Russia (1936)

The Here and There column from the October 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Socialism’’ in Russia

 

Mr. Maisky, the Russian Ambassador, recently addressed the Liberal Summer School on Russian foreign policy. In the course of his lecture he said: —

But at the same time we fully realise that we are still very far from our achieving our goal. We are only half way there, and it will take decades and decades to complete the construction of the Socialist society, which at a later stage will be transformed into Communist society. This is a very long development which will absorb the efforts of more than any generation.—(Manchester Guardian, August 3rd.) 

Communists and others who expected the millennium in Russia after the successive Five-Year Plans might note.

 

Britain for the British

 

A newspaper comments:—

British Equity, the actors' Trade Union, has won a big victory in the case of an American show which is shortly to open in London.

Equity insisted that an equal number of English girls be put into the show. Failing that, the permits would be opposed.

At the present time, when there are so many people out of work in the theatres, the action of Equity and its result cannot be too highly commended. 

The newspaper was the Daily Worker (August 10th, 1936).

There is a much bigger victory awaiting the workers of all countries, and when there are fewer misguided reformers to over-emphasise the importance of minor things, such as this, the workers will begin to understand why and how they should obtain it.

Straws in the Wind

Sir Abe Bailey, one of the principal Transvaal (S. Africa) mine owners, is a staunch patriot and imperialist—which, in the circumstances, is not very surprising. He writes to The Times (August 6th): —

I should like to see our National Government still further strengthened by the inclusion of the best elements of the Liberal and Labour parties and of some of those distinguished supporters of the present Government who are not members of the Cabinet. Such a Government, pinning its faith to the patriotism of its people, would be strong enough to tell the truth to' Englishmen (always at their best when up against it) and to take those measures—I believe conscription should be one of them—which will alone give security to this island and its oversea communications.

Sir Abe Bailey sees the rise of other imperialist powers in Africa, where he has immense industrial and financial interests, and is obviously nervous. We do not doubt that if the Empire were faced with an international crisis the “ best elements ” of the Liberal and Labour parties would show their willingness to join and support the Government in defending capitalism.

Communists in Canada

According to the Winnipeg Free Press (July 30th), Manitoba has had the honour of electing the first Communist M.P. on the American continent. The newspaper report says: —

Litterick became the first Communist to be elected to a provincial or state assembly on the American Continent and the second member of the party to become a member of parliament or legislature in the British Empire.

Should the illusion prevail that Communists abroad differ from those in England in their methods of vote-catching we quote from Mr. Litterick’s election programme.

• Provision of work for unemployed at trade union rates of pay.
• Clearance of slums, home construction and other necessary work.
• Abolition of the two per cent. wage tax.
• Extension and more rigid enforcement of the Minimum Wage Act.
• Provincial Health Act to cover all with incomes under 12,000 per year.
• Old Age Pensions of $50.00 per month, payable at 60.
• Extension of municipal franchise to all residents over 21 years.
• Extension of municipal democracy—abolition of municipal administrators.
• Adequate system of vocational and technical training.
• Provincial grants for scholarships and subsidies for needy students.
• Opposition to all attempts at railroad amalgamation.
• Five year moratorium on interest and principal of all provincial indebtedness.
• A steeply graduated increase in the corporation income tax.
• A steeply graduated increase in the income tax on all incomes over $2,000 per year, with adequate exemptions for all dependents.
• Capital levy on surplus reserve funds of corporations and banks.

There is no mention in it of Socialism or Communism—of course; nothing which the average supporter of capitalism, with very little adjustment, would oppose; and much which has already been applied by Mussolini and Hitler, such as the “ Capital Levy . . .” and “ A steeply graduated increase in the income tax. . . .”

Harry Waite

Letter: State Capitalism (1960)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

State Capitalism

After coming into contact with the SPGB through the pages of the American Western Socialist, I am left with the following doubt. Does the SPGB wish to see a regime of full scale nationalisation (i.e.. State Capitalism) instituted, or would industries be controlled by workers’ soviets?

As an anarchist, I cannot see that a centralised state bureaucracy can ever give true public control. Industry must be organised and run by elected workers' councils. What is the SPGB's attitude to this?

J. A. D.

Darlington. Co. Durham.

Reply:

Our correspondent correctly points out that full scale nationalisation is capitalism directly organised by the state machine. Socialists are opposed to capitalism in any form, including state capitalism. The method of controlling industries is determined by the type of ownership to which they are subject. Thus, it is of little importance whether privately owned industry is organised by private companies, as in many cases in this country, or by a central bureaucracy through so-called workers’ soviets, as in some cases in the USSR. Both types of organisation administer privately owned industries in the interests of their owning—or capitalist—class.

When Socialism is established, the control of industry will still be in line with its ownership. It is impossible, at the present, to give a detailed picture of the organisation which a Socialist community will use for controlling industry. That will depend upon the conditions prevailing at the time. But, because the means of wealth production will be commonly owned, we can say that they will be democratically controlled in the interests of the whole of mankind.

Editorial Committee.

Capitalism v. Socialism (1935)

From the October 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

 

Trade Union official cites Russia!

There has lately come before us a copy of The General and Municipal "Workers' Journal (June, 1935). Reminiscent of a parish magazine, its pages contain so many incorrect statements and samples of loose thinking that it would take several issues of the Socialist Standard to deal with them individually. It may, however, be of interest to deal with the “Notes” of the General Secretary, Mr. Charles Dukes, especially those under the heading of “Capitalism v. Socialism.” The United States is quoted as an example of capitalism, whilst Russia is referred to as “Socialist Russia.” The General Secretary states that the disaster of capitalism in the United States is due to the fact that they have no policy for refunding their National debt, which has increased by nearly 12,000 million dollars as a result of the “New Deal” policy. The General Secretary should know, however, that national debts are not necessarily disliked by the capitalist class—who are the only people concerned; in fact, some of them like them so well, that there is at the moment a widespread newspaper campaign for expanding armaments by means of a £250,000,000 loan, instead of by means of taxation.

A national debt is nothing more than a sum of money owed by the capitalist class as a whole to that section of the capitalist class which invests its money in war loans and other government securities. The incomes of the whole class are taxed in order to pay the interest to that section. National debts, therefore, are no indication of disaster to the capitalist class.

His remarks on Socialism show that Mr. Dukes knows not what this is. Our own definition of Socialism will be found by reference to our object on the centre page of every issue of the Socialist Standard. As it is now fairly well known that the conditions in Russia do not correspond to this definition—in particular, the means of production are controlled, not democratically, but by the controllers of the Communist Party—it will be obvious that Socialism has not been established in Russia.

Again, as under Socialism goods would be produced solely for use, the necessity of the exchange medium—money—would disappear, yet the General Secretary refers to “money,” “income,” and “expense,” as part of the Russian “Socialist” economy. Another reason given for the “success” of “Socialist” Russia is, that she “does not seek the assistance of foreign loans.” Here, again, he is wrong. Instances of foreign loans negotiated by the Bolsheviks have been recorded previously, but the following is a case in point: —

BIG LOAN TO SOVIET.

Prague, Monday.

Soviet representatives to-day signed an agreement with Czecho-Slovakian banks for a loan of £2,083,000 for five years at six per cent, to finance purchases of Czech manufactures by Russia. —British United Press.

(News Chronicle, June 4th, 1935.)

As to the nature of the “success” itself, this would appear to consist of the fact that there are insufficient workers for the available jobs, and that output in the heavy industries has increased as compared with a year ago. And this is the “success” of “Socialism”! It is, of course, simply the conditions which are regarded as successful under capitalism.

The case for Socialism as against capitalism can be put both correctly and much more simply. Briefly it is that capitalism—a system of society based upon the private ownership of the means of production—produces certain unpleasant effects upon an enslaved class called workers, viz.: poverty and insecurity most of the time, and, by way of a change, unemployment and war. It is, therefore, in the interest of the workers to completely change the basis of a society which produces such effects. As the opposite of private ownership is common ownership. Socialists advocate the replacement of the existing form of society by one based upon this common ownership of the means of production and distribution, namely, Socialism. This result can, however, only be achieved by a class-conscious working class organised for that purpose. It is for that purpose that the Socialist Party of Great Britain was formed, and it is up to all workers who agree with our position to join with us and help on with the work. Now, fellow workers, what about it?

R. Milborne

Letter: Socialists and Russia (1935)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists and Russia

August 6th, 1936.

 

Dear Sir,—I was listening to your speaker at Finsbury Park on Sunday evening, August 4th, when he remarked that the Soviet Government had issued loans from 7 to 12½ per cent. profit to subscribers, and hinted that by inviting foreigners to invest they are acting just as State capitalists and that the workers are nothing more or less than wage slaves. May I point out that these loans are used for construction of Socialistic industries and that the bulk of Russian workers, numbering several millions, are subscribers towards the loans, knowing full well the .purpose to which the money is being put. The interest given is certainly an incentive, but it should be pointed out by your speaker that as these loans are spread over an enormous number of subscribers the profit accruing to an individual investor is very small and cannot exercise any influence. Also, the number of foreign investors is estimated at less than one per centum (1%) of the total.

The Bolshevists are practical realists and know full well the impossibility of abolishing wages at the present time. As a matter of fact, this is not so very important, but what is much more essentially valuable is that the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution is held firmly in the hands of the workers themselves. If this is not practical Socialism, what is? Can it be denied that the Bolsheviks took over a graveyard and have now progressed at an amazing rate? Can it be denied that the material well-being of the Russian workers is improving from year to year, and that, to my mind, is the acid test, whether they are wage-slaves or overcoming the conditions of wage-slavery that is inherent in private capitalism.

Your speaker boasted that he is upholding the truth. Therefore he should amplify statements that are likely to be misrepresented by mischievous and unscrupulous individuals.

I remain.

Yours faithfully,

H. Jackson.

Reply.

The principal issues raised by our correspondent are: (1) Whether the social system in Russia is Socialist or Capitalist; (2) Whether the bondholders are all small investors; (3) Whether industry is progressing, and (4) Whether the material conditions of the workers are improving.

For replies to the various points, our correspondent is referred to the pamphlet "The S.P.G.B. and Questions of the Day," and to the Socialist Standard, October, 1934.

Brief replies are also given below: —

(1) Socialists from Marx onwards are agreed that characteristic features of Socialism are the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution; the production of goods only for use, not for sale; the abolition of all forms of income from the ownership of property; the abolition of the system of wage-labour; and the consequent disappearance of privilege.

Are these things found in Russia to-day? Certainly not. The Communist clique which controls the State machine maintains control of Russian industry as rigid as the control of the British Government over the Post Office. Goods are produced for sale, and at a profit. Rent, interest and profit from the ownership of property, bonds, etc., is a normal and growing feature of economic life. As our correspondent admits, the Bolsheviks, so far from having abolished the system of wage-labour, “know full well the impossibility of abolishing wages at the present time.” Lastly, by various means, including the great and growing inequality of pay between the masses of workers and the high-salaried officials, privilege is enjoyed by a fortunate minority.

(2) It is true that the great majority of bondholders own only small amounts of bonds, but exactly the same plea is made in England and America by the defenders of capitalism. In Russia, although precise figures are not available, it is known that some of the bondholders own large or comparatively large amounts. But in any event, this is beside the point. Under Socialism there will be no investors.

(3) The S.P.G.B. has not questioned the claim that Russian industry (like industry in Japan, Turkey, and other countries) has expanded rapidly since the war.

(4) The S.P.G.B. has not denied that the standard of living has risen since the Bolshevists obtained power. That does not mean, however, that we accept all of the extravagant claims made by some Communists. Russia is a country in which rigid censorship and suppression of independent working-class organisation is the normal order of things. As, therefore, it is impossible to hear the unfettered expression of the opinion of the workers themselves, we must accept with caution the claims made by the Russian Government since that Government has the usual interest in presenting the facts in a favourable light.

In conclusion, we would ask our correspondent a question. Seeing that the Russian economic system is not Socialism because it lacks the essential features of Socialism, will he tell us by what name he would describe it other than the one used by our speaker, “ State capitalism.”

Ed. Comm.

Gorbachev and the End of Communism (1988)

From the October 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Bolsheviks who seized power in Russia in November 1917 drew a distinction, at the insistence of Lenin but unlike Marx and Engels, between socialism and communism.

By “socialism” they meant a society where everybody would be an employee of the state which in turn would own all the means of production; what should more properly be called state capitalism. By “communism” they meant what up to then had more usually been called socialism — a classless, moneyless, wageless, stateless society based on common ownership and democratic control. Thus, in the ABC of Communism, a textbook written to explain the new programme the Bolshevik party had adopted in March 1919, Bukharin and Preobrazhensky stated:

“The communist method of production presupposes in addition that production is not for the market, but for use. Under communism, it is no longer the individual manufacturer or the individual peasant who produces; the work of production is effected by the gigantic cooperative as a whole. In consequence of this change, we no longer have commodities, but only products. These products are not exchanged one for another; they are neither bought nor sold. They are simply stored in the communal warehouses, and are subsequently delivered to those who need them. In such conditions, money will no longer be required. Communist society will know nothing of money. Every worker will produce goods for the general welfare. He will not receive any certificate to the effect that he has delivered the product to society, he will receive no money, that is to say. In like manner, he will pay no money to society when he receives whatever he requires from the common store.”

In Bolshevik theory communism could not be established immediately after the capture of political power but only after “socialism” — defined, as we saw, as 100 per cent state capitalism — had been achieved. A moneyless, wageless society was seen as evolving gradually out of the state capitalist society that was the Bolsheviks’ real immediate aim.

This is still the official dogma of the Russian ruling class though their vision of communism, like everything else they inherited from their 1914 Marxist past, has suffered some significant distortions. It is seen as being able to exist on less than a world scale, either in one large country like Russia or the whole Russian bloc but above all the Party (if not the state as such) is seen as surviving into it.

Stalin proclaimed that “socialism” – more or less total state capitalism – had been achieved in 1936. So, ever since, the country has supposedly been heading for communism. Khrushchev, the last previous “liberal” ruler of Russia before Gorbachev, even tried to give this goal a concrete form as a way of enlisting popular support for his anti-Stalinist reform programme. The new Programme of the Russian Party, adopted in October 1961, declared in its introduction:

“Today the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) is adopting its third Programme, a programme for the building of communist society . . . . The supreme goal of the Party is to build a communist society on whose banner will be inscribed: ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

and ended with the words:

“The Party solemnly proclaims: the present generation of Soviet people shall live in communism!”

A specific timetable was even laid down:

“The material and technical basis of communism will be built up by the end of the second decade (1971-80) . . . The construction of communist society will be fully completed in the subsequent period.”

The “communist principle of distribution according to need” was to be introduced gradually, even before 1980, before being extended generally in the 1980s:

“In the course of the second decade housing will gradually become rent-free for all citizens. Public transport facilities (trolleys, buses, trolley-buses and subways) will become free in the course of the second decade, and at the end of it such public amenities as water, gas and heating will also be free.

In addition to the existing free medical services, accommodation of sick persons at sanatoria and the dispensing of medicines will become gratuitous.

The transition to free public catering (midday meals) at enterprises and institutions, and for collective farmers at work, will begin in the second decade.”

Free housing, public transport, water, gas, heating, medical services and meals at work – this was the promise for the 1980s that the ruling party made to the Russian workers in 1961. Other promises included falling prices and the abolition of income tax. The fact that not one of these has been realised – Russian workers still have to pay for public transport, water, gas, heating and so on -shows that it is not just Western politicians who make promises that they don’t – in fact can’t – keep.

One of the first things Gorbachev had to do after he became Party leader in 1985 was to admit failure in this respect. As he told the 27th Party Congress held in February 1986:

“Much has changed in our life in the quarter of a century since the adoption of the Third Party Programme. New historical experience has been accumulated. Not all of the estimates and conclusions turned out to be correct. The idea of translating the tasks of the full-scale building of communism into direct practical action has proved to be premature. Certain miscalculations were made, too, in fixing deadlines for the solution of a number of concrete problems.”

He went on to denounce “simplistic ideas about the ways and period of time for carrying out the tasks of communist construction” and to declare that ”as for the chronological limits in which the Party’s targets are to be attained, they do not seem to be needed”; all that could be said on this was that these targets would be achieved after the end of the present century.

Gorbachev was announcing, in other words, that the establishment of “communism” in Russia was being postponed indefinitely. More in fact, since his alternative to Khrushchev’s “construction of communist society” as a mirage to hold before the Russian people — perestroika — amounts to a virtual abandoning of communism as a goal. The essence of perestroika, which is merely the Russian word for restructuring, is the gearing of production of individual state enterprises more to the profitable market demand than hitherto, involving in particular a price reform which, with the ending of state subsidies, is likely to mean a rise — rather than a fall towards zero, as promised by Khrushchev —in the price of many goods and services. Gorbachev said so explicitly at the special Party conference held at the end of June this year:

“The price reform cannot fail to affect retail prices. Today the retail price of many food products, notably that of meat and milk, is considerably lower than the actual cost of producing them, lower than the state’s procurement price. The state is compelled to cover this difference in the form of a subsidy. That is not a normal situation. It undermines the incentive for producing these products and gives rise to a wasteful attitude, especially towards bread.

We know all this perfectly well, comrades. It is absolutely necessary to resolve this problem, no matter how difficult it may be and no matter what doubts and fears it may create at first glance.

Here is our approach: the funds which the state is paying out as subsidies today will be handed over in full to the population as compensation.”(Financial Times, 29 June 1988)

In other words, instead of free services and falling prices being subsidised as a supposed transition to “the communist principle of distribution according to need”, both prices and wages are going to be allowed to rise, so forcing workers to buy what they need at a price corresponding to economic cost as determined by the operation of market forces. Money-commodity relations are to be strengthened rather than gradually abolished, as envisaged in the 1961 Party Programme. Perestroika, in fact, represents a complete repudiation of this perspective.

So where does this leave “communism”, or rather the free distribution by the Russian ruling class to its workers of goods and services? This goal now seems to have been shelved. The original version of the Party Programme adopted at the 22nd Party Congress in 1961 declared that “with the transition to the single form of people’s property and the communist system of distribution, commodity-money relations will become economically outdated and will wither away”. However the revised version adopted, under Gorbachev, at the 27th Party Congress in 1986 affirmed market relations to be inherent to the Russian social system (as indeed they are).

Propagandists for Gorbachev’s reforms go out of their way to emphasise that the goal is now a society in which the market will still exist. Abel Aganbegyan, a top economic adviser to Gorbachev and one of the theorists of perestroika, speaks in his recent book The Challenge: Economics of Perestroika of achieving in the 21st century, not the free distribution promised by Khrushchev for the 1980s and 90s, but “the full supply to the market of all the sought-after goods in order to ensure the full satisfaction of demand”. Another supporter of Gorbachev, Fedor Burlatsky, who in his time was also a  propagandist for Khrushchev, now criticises Khrushchev for having wanted to “leap” into communism. In an article this April in Literaturnaya Gazeta (translated into English and published in the June issue of Marxism Today) he contrasted “state socialism”, of which he sees Khrushchev’s “communism” as a variant, with what he calls “public, self-managing socialism” which he defines as “the planned commodity economy based on individual cost-accounting by enterprises”.

Though they have not done so yet, the Russian Party may end up embracing the same position as their Chinese counterparts who have also made a U-turn on this issue and who now see the “socialist” (in reality, state capitalist} stage, with commodity-production and market relations, lasting for another hundred years.

“In the latest attack on Stalin, the Shanghai journal Shu Lin carried an article attacking him for pressing too rapidly the transition from socialism to communism . . . Nowadays, the article said, China was only at the beginning of a 100-year socialist stage which was laying the foundation for the final realisation of Communism – only hazily defined even by Deng Xiaoping, the senior leader.” (Independent, 27 July 1988)

By that time the workers of the world should long have overthrown both the Russian and Chinese ruling classes and themselves have established a socialist (or communist, for the two words mean exactly the same thing} society based on common ownership and democratic control in which wealth will be produced simply as useful products to satisfy needs and no longer as commodities to be bought and sold on a market.

Adam Buick

The Soviet State - Part 2 (1962)

From the September 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

The Russian State is powerful. Russian workers would be the first to agree with this, for their dependence upon the State as their employer is the measure of the State’s power over them. Again, the Communists may not agree that there is anything undesirable in this, but what did Lenin write about it in his book State and Revolution? “While the State exists there is no freedom, when there will be freedom there will be no state.”

There cannot be much of Lenin’s sort of freedom in Russia today, when the State has its fingers in every pie. Consider, for example, the Twenty Year Plan, recently published (Moscow, 1961) amidst much clamour, which promised free housing, transport and food to the Russian workers sometime between now and 1980. When this programme (a better word for it than “Plan”) is stripped of the ballyhoo, there is no difficulty in seeing it for what it is—a familiar document of Capitalism.

In Management of the National Economy and Planning, the statement: “The sphere of material production is the main sphere in the life of society” is the key to the situation which is illustrated by the following quotations:

“The Party attaches prime importance to the more effective investment of capital, the choice of the most profitable and economical trends in capital construction, achievement everywhere of the maximum growth of output per invested rouble, and reduction of the time-lapse between investment and return. It is necessary continuously to improve the structure of capital investments and to expand that portion of them which is spent on equipment, machinery and machine tools.” (Page 71).

“It is necessary for enterprises to play a substantially greater part in introducing the latest machinery.” (Page 73).

These passages leave no doubt that the Soviet government is as much concerned as any of its counterparts with the need to accumulate capital. And capital accumulation, let us remember, means capitalism. It means Capitalism in Great Britain and the U.S.A.—and the U.S.S.R. How is the Russian worker to be persuaded to pull his weight in making “more effective use of capital investment” and the rest? Why, in just the same way as the British or American worker is sometimes persuaded :

“In the process of Communist construction economic management will make use of material and moral incentives for high production figures.” (Page 73).

And to do all this, there is the intricate machinery of checkers and chasers, money grubbers and ledger slaves, all being urged to work harder and better:

“There must be a continuous improvement in rate setting, the system of labour payments and bonuses, in the financial control over the quantity and quality of work, in the elimination of levelling, and the stimulation of collective forms of incentives raising the interest of each employee in the high efficiency of the enterprise as a whole. It is necessary in communist construction to make full use of commodity-money relations in keeping with their new meaning in the Socialist period. In this, such instruments of economic development as cost accounting, money, prices, production costs, profit, trade, credit and finance play a big part.” (Page 74).

The only reference to Communist society in this section is as follows:

“When the transition to one Communist form of peoples’ property and the Communist system of distribution is completed, commodity-money relations will become economically outdated and will wither away.”(Page 74).

This is not explained until the next section of the programme:

“The task will be effected by (a) raising the individual payments of working people according to the quantity and quality of their work, coupled with reduction of all retail prices and abolition of taxes paid by the people; (b) increase of the public funds distributed among members of society irrespective of the quantity and quality of their labour, that is, free of charge, (education, medical treatment, pensions, maintenance of children at children’s institutions, transition to cost-free use of public amenities, etc.) “(Page 75).

This list is amplified later to cover housing, public services, public transport, holiday homes, public catering (mid-day meals).

Taxes

The programme may be ponderously worded, but its implied promises to abolish taxes, reduce prices and make public amenities free, are the stuff which wins by-elections in countries like England. Apart from that, what are they worth? The “abolition of taxes paid by the people” is only possible where the State is the sole realiser of surplus value, so that it can utilise part of the surplus for the running of the public services. Talk of “free services” is misleading and meaningless, because either the State has to pay the workers in wages to cover these services, or provide them directly, which may be cheaper because it can centrally plan and allocate expenditure. The State can budget more or less exactly because it knows that its expenditure is to be taken from existing and known funds, and not from an unknown income, such as fares payments, gas and electricity consumption.

Every “free” State service is a cost to the State as a whole. The plan for public catering, connected as it is to the prices the Soviet State must pay to the collective farms (Kolkhozes), is obviously meant to be financed in part, at any rate, in this way:

“It is essential that the level of state purchasing prices encourages the Kolkhozes to raise labour productivity and reduce production expenses, since greater farm output and lower production costs are the basis of greater incomes for the Kolkhozes.” (Page 68).

Now the main part of production expenses is made up of wages, so that if this section means anything, it is that the Russian farm workers will be expected to produce more for the same pay. A finer example of capitalist sophistry would be hard to find. This applies, too, on the industrial field:

“Technical progress and better production organisation must be fully utilised to increase labour productivity and reduce production costs at every enterprise. This implies a higher rate of increase in labour productivity as compared with remuneration, better rate fixing, prevention of loss of working time, and operation on a profitable basis in all sectors of production.” (Page 62).

Anyway, prices are only to come down (if at all) under certain circumstances:

“Prices must, to a growing extent, reflect the socially-necessary outlays of labour, ensure return of production and circulation expenditures and a certain profit for each normally operating enterprise. Systematically, economically justified price reductions based on growth of labour productivity and reduction of production costs are the main trend of the price policy in the period of Communist construction.” (Page 75).

And the entire programme is summed up by a passage which would be applauded at any Lord Mayor’s banquet at the Mansion House:

“It is necessary to promote profitable operation of enterprises, to work for lower production costs and higher profitability.” (Page 74).

Commodity production

This would be approved in the City of London because in this country wealth is produced for profitable sale—that is, it takes the form of commodities. The Russian State is urging the “. . . profitable operation of enterprises . . .” because in the U.S.S.R. also, wealth is produced as commodities. Stalin, as we saw in part 1 of this article, admitted that the Soviet Union “. . . has not abolished commodity production . . .” and went on, as he had to. to hedge this statement round with qualifications. But Marx was quite clear on the matter. The opening words of Capital read: “The wealth of a community in which the Capitalist mode of production prevails, appears as an immense collection of commodities.”

Marx’s analysis is still valid. Commodity production means Capitalism, whether it is in this country or anywhere else, including Russia.

What can we conclude from the Twenty Year Plan and from the other evidence which seeps through the Iron Curtain? The Soviet Union seems to be trying to become an ever-bigger monolith of an intensely automated, super-efficient, high-powered production machine. Such a nation must generate something of a momentum and values of its own. The Russian workers are caught up in a system which dictates its own terms. The Russians believe that this is Communism and presumably will go on believing so until Capitalism itself wakes them up.

Then they will realise that all the talk about the “all-round, harmonious development of the individual” and a “truly rich spiritual culture” (page 97) is so much humbug. Such concepts cannot flourish in a society that glories in production norms, because it produces people with a production norm mentality.

Alienation

The culture of a people is inseparable from its work. But Capitalism, in Russia and elsewhere, separates work from culture; for most of its people, work is an expenditure of their labour power which they must go through to get their living wage. It has nothing to do with culture and this fact is one of the chief reasons for social illness in a highly industrialised society. The shortening of the working day and the intensification of labour go hand in hand. But the increasing mechanisation and automation of industry must create a void between the worker and the object of his work; and what sort of culture came out of a void? “What, then, constitutes the alienation of labour?” says Marx. “. . . the fact that labour is external to the worker, i.e., that it does not belong to his essential being; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself.” (Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844), Moscow, 1959, page 72.

It is the intention of the Soviet Union to outpace the United States in production; the only way to do this is to outpace them in the techniques of exploitation; but the result of this in America has been this very alienation—in an aggravated form—that Marx wrote about in 1844, and has been further commented upon by others since then.

The British constitution (what there is of it) does not say that the United Kingdom is a capitalist State, but we know that it is because the evidence says so. In the same way, whatever the Soviet: Constitution may say, the evidence says that Russia is a capitalist nation. As long as it remains so, the anomalies and problems of Capitalism will be visited upon its people.

We will not need a constitution to tell us when Socialism is established, because Socialism is a world in which “the Government of people is replaced by the administration of things,” where the whole object is to make men and women masters of themselves—for they have had masters too long.

Ian Jones

 

(Concluded.)

The Soviet State - Part 1 (1962)

From the August 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Russia is a mysterious country in many ways. Its internal power struggles are submerged, dramatic affairs in which we usually realise that one man has fallen and another taken his place only by their relative places on a rostrum or in the line up to greet Krushchev at an airport. What news comes out is carefully filtered.

Nevertheless, we know enough about Russia to be able to say that the social system which exists there is Capitalism. This means that it is basically the same system as in England and America, although it would obviously be foolish to say that it corresponds in every way. When feudalism was the recognisable social system in many parts of the globe it, too, took different forms in different countries, but basically it was the same social system in all of them.

The Russian Government claims—and its claim is supported by the Communist Parties of the World—that the Soviet Union is a Socialist country. The Soviet Constitution states, for example, in Article 1 that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics “is a Socialist State of workers and peasants.” And Article 4 adds that:

“the economic foundations of the U.S.S.R. consist in the Socialist ownership of the implements and means of production, firmly established as a result of the liquidation of the Capitalist system of economy, the abolition of private property of the instruments and means of production, and the abolition of the exploitation of man by man.”

But it is not constitutions that determine social systems. Capitalism in Russia does not rest on a legal constitution, but on the social and economic relationships which operate there. The evidence that has come from Russia in the past and is still coming now, shows clearly that certain basic features of Soviet society correspond to what we recognise as Capitalism. In fact, the so-called “evidence” for the existence of Socialism there is mainly a listing of the superficial differences between Russian Capitalism and some of the other Capitalist powers. These differences mean a lot to the ardent supporter of Russia; a critical analysis puts them in a less convincing light.

To begin with, we have to chop away some of the confusion which Communist party leaders have so assiduously spread over the years. Writing in Economic problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R., Stalin said:

“absolutely mistaken . . . are those comrades who allege that, since Socialist society has not abolished commodity production, we are bound to have the reappearance of all the economic categories characteristic of capitalism: labour power as a commodity, surplus value, capital, capitalist profit, the average rate of profit, etc. “(Page 21).

He went on to justify these apparent contradictions by claiming that in Russia commodities, money, banks, and so on, “. . . while they lose their old functions and acquire new ones, preserve their old form, which is utilised by the Socialist system” (page 59), and that “. . . it is chiefly the form, the outward appearance, of the old categories of Capitalism that have remained in our country, but . . . their essence has radically changed in adaption to the requirements of the Socialist economy” (page 60).

This sort of argument is dishonest enough to explain away anything. Stalin, of course, had the last word—any comrades who remained “absolutely mistaken” long enough probably went under in one of the purges which were so often necessary to protect what we were told was Socialism in Russia.

What are the fundamental criteria by which we recognise the capitalist social system ? They are: wage labour and commodity production; and capital investment and accumulation.

Do these things exist in Russia? The Soviet state is the centralised monopoliser of the means of wealth production, to which the workers in Russia have to sell their energies for money. It therefore employs the Russian workers and pays them wages just like other employers in other countries. Thus the relationship between the Soviet state and its workers is one of capital and labour. Members of the Communist Party may not think that this fact in itself proves that Capitalism exists in Russia, but Karl Marx, to whose theories they pay lip service, would certainly have thought so. In his Wage Labour and Capital, he summed up his argument with “wage labour presupposes capital—capital presupposes wage labour.”

Capital is accumulated in Russia by the State and invested in state enterprise. Now the State can only do this if it is appropriating the surplus-value, or the results of unpaid labour time, of the workers it employs. This surplus value may not be distributed in dividends in the same way as in other Capitalist countries, but this makes no difference to the basic situation. In this country the State take a sizeable portion of surplus value by way of taxation upon the Capitalist class; in Russia, it also takes it directly from the workers it employs. The Soviet State does impose some taxes—capital can thus be accumulated in either way.

Raising productivity

In his book Industry in the U.S.S.R. (Moscow, 1949), E. Lokshin wrote:

“Socialist industry has incomparably greater possibilities than Capitalist industry of raising the productivity of labour, of constantly lowering production costs and thus increasing accumulations.” (Page 100.)

But before making this statement, he was careful to prepare the way for it by quoting Stalin:

“History up till now,” said Comrade Stalin, “has known three paths of the formation and development of powerful industrial states. The first path is the path of grabbing and pillaging colonies . . . The second path is the path of military conquest and the exaction of large indemnities from one country by another . . . The third path is the path of usurious concessions and usurious loans from capitalistically developed countries to a capitalistically backward country . . . All these paths were inacceptable to the Soviet Union . . . The Communist Party and the Soviet Government led the Land of Soviets along a different course, of industrialising the country by drawing on its interior sources of accumulation” (our emphasis).

These statements of Stalin’s may be true in themselves, but Lokshin’s defence of the Soviet Union is typical in that he uses them to give a completely false comparison between what he calls “capitalist methods of accumulation” and the method which is used in Russia—”interior sources of accumulation.” Capital can only be accumulated from the exploitation of labour. So what else can Lokshin’s “interior sources” be other than the unpaid labour of Soviet workers?

No one can deny the dissimilarities between Capitalism in this country and Capitalism in Russia. The capitalist class in Russia is not as distinct as in this country and “Western style” private property is largely non-existent in the Soviet Union. But it does not follow from this that Capitalism has gone from Russia, and with it the exploitation of man by man. It does mean that in Russia the state is the biggest property owner and exploiter of all.

For exploitation has nothing to do with conditions of work, nor with the value of wages. Exploitation is an integral part of the relationship between employer and employee, whereby the employer can appropriate surplus value for the accumulation of capital, by paying the worker less than the value of what he has produced or assisted in producing. Thus it is possible for a worker with a relatively high wage to be exploited at a higher rate than a worker with a lower wage.

It may be argued that the State uses some surplus value for the creation of things like roads, schools and hospitals. But this is only the accepted function of the State in a highly organised society. The capitalist class in this country needs a centralised authority to do these things because it could not possibly do them without such an authority. In Russia, the State has the same functions, but with a difference. It has the field to itself.

Ian Jones

                                                                           (To be concluded)

Are the Managers Really in Control? Part Two (1981)

From the February 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1. 

In Part One (Socialist Standard, January 1981 ) we discussed James Burnham’s clearly expressed  argument that class society could exist without property titles vested in individuals. He was of course proved wrong by events: industrial managers have not replaced private capitalists as the possessing, ruling class, on the basis of the state ownership of the means of production (for Burnham never expected the managers to come to power within the legal framework of private capitalism).

Burnham gave as the reason why the “managers”, by which he meant those who actually managed the process of production, would be the new ruling class the alleged fact that a ruling class must have some function in the process of production :

“Social rule . . . depends on de facto control of the instruments of production—the means whereby society lives; and such control can be held only by some group which plays a direct and integral role in production” (The Managerial Revolution, p. 232).

In the past when the means of production were small-scale and scattered this was so. At that time the various means and instruments of production could be, and were, controlled individually. But today, due precisely to the development of modern industry brought about by capitalism, this is no longer so; the production of wealth has become socialised. The wealth of modern society is produced by the co-operative labour of those who work. In this sense the point of production is not the individual mine or factory, but society. Thus it is those who control society, not those who manage production at factory level, who are really in a position to control the use of today’s means of production.

It is the state which is the centre of social control so that whoever controls the state controls society and so, potentially at least, the means of production. This is so even in Western capitalism with its legal property titles. The private capitalists of the West, just as much as the possessing class in Russia (which in fact is also a capitalist class), now possess the means of production because they control the state rather than vice-versa. They use this control to back up their historically-inherited legal property titles, having long ceased to have any necessary productive function. Whereas in Russia the possessing class own the means of production directly through the state, in the West this is done indirectly through individual property titles ultimately enforceable by the state. In the end this amounts to the same thing: today’s socially-operated means of production are possessed and controlled by a minority class socially, through the state, the centre of social control.

Actually, Burnham himself unwittingly recognisedthat access to the modern means of production can only be controlled socially when he argued that managerial rule would be based on the state ownership of the means of production. For, on the basis of state ownership, any group which established its exclusive stable control over the state would become a collective possessing class precisely because it would therefore control the use of the means of production. If industrial managers were to organiseas a group, win popular support or acquiescence, and come to gain control of state power they would indeed become the ruling and possessing class—but  by virtue of controlling the state not of being managers.

Burnham was wrong, then, in assuming that the managers’ technical function in production was a compelling reason why they should emerge as such a group whereas in fact they were no more, or less, likely than any other group to do so.

State Capitalism

Both Rizzi and Burnham (and, indeed, Wittfogel also) rejected the view that Russia could be described as state capitalism. Both of them regarded Russia as a new class society: “bureaucratic collectivism” for Rizzi and “managerial society” for Burnham. This rejection of a state capitalist analysis of Russia was an inheritance from their Trotskyist past where they had learned to identify capitalism with private capitalism. For Trotsky, capitalism could not exist without private property titles vested in individuals; for him “state capitalism” was state control of private capitalist industry.

Capitalism, however, is not characterised by the legal form that class possession of the means of production takes, but by the social fact that those who “possess” the means of production exploit wage-labour and accumulate the surplus-value thus obtained as capital. An examination of “the specific economic form in which unpaid surplus labour is pumped out of the direct producers” in Russia shows this to be the case there. The excluded majority live by selling their labour-power to various state enterprises; the products of these enterprises are sold on the market with a view to profit; and the difference between the wages of the producers and the value of what they produce is surplus value which is used for capital accumulation and the consumption of the privileged class. Russia is thus capitalist and its possessing, ruling, privileged class a capitalist class.

Russia can be described as state capitalist in order to distinguish the form of capitalist class possession of the means of production there from the legal property-holding of the West. It should not be forgotten, however, that private property titles do still exist in Russia (though, admittedly, not as the predominant form) and that this could grow in the future. Equally, elements of non-legal de facto class possession through the state exist in Western countries, though the capitalist title-holders are able through their control of Parliament to prevent politicians and state officials gaining a permanent and widespread privileged consumption at their expense.

We see, then, that in East and West alike control of the use of today’s socially-operated means of production rests ultimately in the hands of those who control the state. It is clear that on the basis of class possession of the means of production a variety of such forms—both with regard to control of production and to the allocation of consumer goods among the privileged class—are possible. Each particular case needs to be examined on its own in the light of the historical and social facts. It is not possible to lay down a priori, as Burnham tried to do, which particular group would be most likely to emerge as the ruling class on the basis of state-owned industry. Nor can it be said that there is any particular reason why there should be any tendency for individual property titles to be abolished and replaced by de facto possession through the state.

Classless Society

The above analysis has certain practical implications. Since the state is the organ of social control, and since it is through controlling this organ that the capitalist class, East and West, is able to maintain its possession of the means of production, it is clear that the excluded producing class of wage and salary earners must, in order to establish a classless society, begin by gaining control of the state. Not, be it quickly added, to form a “socialist government” or a “workers state” (both absurd contradictions; when there is socialism there will be no state and where there is a state there is no socialism), but simply and solely to take state power out of the hands of the capitalist class, so removing the last obstacle to society establishing common ownership and democratic social control over the means of production. This presupposes both a widespread desire and understanding among the working class to establish a classless, socialist society and that the working class have democratically organised themselves, without political or industrial leaders, to carry out this desire. In the absence of such majority socialist understanding any attempt to establish socialism would inevitably fail and most probably lead to the sort of state capitalist society, based on de facto class possession of the means of production which we have been discussing.

The essence of class possession is precisely control over the use of the means of production by a section only of society. Once the use of the means of production is under the democratic control of the whole of society then “class possession”, “private property”, “class ownership”, call it what you will, has been abolished. The means of production could still be said to “belong” to those who controlled their use—in other words, to be “commonly owned” by the democratically-organised community.

But to talk of “common property”, “social property”, and the like can be misleading in that these terms do not fully bring out the fact that the transfer to society of the power to control the production of wealth makes the whole concept of “property” redundant. The question “who would own the means of production in socialist society?” can be answered just as correctly by saying “nobody” as by saying “everybody”, or “society”, or the “community”.

What social control over production will mean in practice is that every member of society will be free to take part, on equal terms with every other member, in deciding how the means of production should be used. As Burnham put it:

“For society to be ‘classless’ would mean that within society there would be no group (with the exception, perhaps, of temporary delegate bodies, freely elected by the community and subject always to recall) which would exercise, as a group, any special degree of control over access to the instruments of production; and no group receiving, as a group, preferential treatment in distribution” (The Managerial Revolution, p.55).

Society’s power to control production would be embodied in various democratic institutions. “Common ownership” and “democratic social control” of the means of production are merely, as we have said, two different ways of describing the same situation. This is why discussion as to whether one could exist without the other is quite meaningless.

Socialism is democratic or it is not socialism. A society where the means of production were formally the common property of society but where only a minority took part in deciding how they should be used would be one in which “common property” was merely a fiction since in practice the means of production would be the sectional possession of the decision-making minority.

In the end the only guarantee in socialist society against the emergence of a new ruling class which would negate the common ownership of the means of production is people using the democratic institutions—the actual democratic participation of all the people in the running of society. This is why it is absolutely essential that those who establish socialism—the majority working class who will constitute also the major part of the people of socialist society—must be fully aware of its implications, being prepared and organised to participate not only in its establishment but also in its subsequent running.

Adam Buick

Notes by the Way: Another Communist Travesty of Socialism A Flaw in the Russian Constitution (1936)

The Notes by the Way Column from the July 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

Another Communist Travesty of Socialism A Flaw in the Russian Constitution

The Daily Worker of June 16th published in full the new Constitution of Soviet Russia. It is a lengthy document containing much that will interest those who wish to follow developments in that country. Two small paragraphs, however, will tell Socialists almost as much as the rest of the Constitution. They are articles 12 and 118. The first contains the statement: —

In the U.S.S.R. the principle of Socialism is being realised: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.”

The second says that “Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to work—the right to receive guaranteed work with payment for their work in accordance with its quantity and quality.” 

Those who know nothing of Socialist principles and who (like the Daily Worker) can see nothing strange in describing the Labour Party as "socialist,” will find these principles in no way remarkable; payment in accordance with the quantity and quality of work is, after all, the declared principle of every capitalist undertaking. Socialists, however, can only be amazed at the impudence of the Communists in trying to pass off as a principle of Socialism "to each according to the quantity and quality of his work.”

We have heard of another, quite different, principle: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

Perhaps the Daily Worker will tell us why they have produced this corrupted version and on what ground they describe it as socialist.

Pigs “Better Housed and Fed” than Proletarians

Sir Benjamin Dawson, Bt., Chairman of the Bradford Central Division Conservative Association, recently alarmed his political associates by making a speech on the condition of the workers in Bradford. It happened thus: he read an advertisement asking for “coals for the poor and aged,” and he was surprised that such things could be necessary in view of the progress we are supposed to have made in the past forty years. So he made a tour of inspection.

“When I had finished my tour, I felt thoroughly ashamed of my country, thoroughly ashamed of the National Government, and thoroughly ashamed of the Conservative Party.

“The pigs on my farm are better housed and fed than some of the people I saw that day.’’—(From a pamphlet reproducing the speech.)

Sir Benjamin, as a mark of his sincerity, rushed off to the Conservative Association, told them what he had seen and what he felt, and offered to resign his chairmanship.

He went on to make some other pertinent remarks about the fact that poverty exists in the midst of plenty, and that those who have money can get what they want and where they want it— on top of Mount Snowdon if they so desire.

Nevertheless. Sir B. Dawson makes a common error in saying that "the cause of these terrible conditions is poverty, and poverty arises from unemployment.''

For years the S.P.G.B. has combated the false doctrine that only the unemployed are poor. Poverty exists for the employed worker as well. Consequently, Sir B. Dawson's remedy—shorter hours, so that the unemployed can be absorbed into employment—is no remedy at all, even if it achieved its first purpose of removing unemployment. Even if all the workers were got back to work, they would still be poor. Moreover, capitalism would continue to create more unemployment by introducing still more labour-displacing machinery.

A Hero of the Home Front

Mr. J. H. Thomas, war-supporter, did all of his fighting on the home-front, which gives an odd flavour to a remark in the Times editorial on the passing of Thomas: “He faced the emergency of war without flinching . . ." (Times, June 3rd, 1936.)

Quite a lot of us can face other people's wars without flinching.

A Question to a Labour Councillor

Speaking at a Conference of the Socialist League on June 1st, a Mr. F. R. Levy, of Stepney, said that he is a member of a council with sixty-five Labour members out of seventy.

The majority of them do not know the first little thing about Socialism or what it stands for. They are either out for a career or are there because some friend of theirs wants a job.—(Manchester Guardian, June 2nd, 1936.)

Mr. Levy went on to urge greater care in the selection of Labour candidates, which misses the most important point about the whole matter, that is, the character of the vote behind the elected delegate. There will be no progress towards the conquest of power for Socialism until the electorate is Socialist, when it will give a mandate for Socialism. If Mr. Levy desired to help Socialism on he could begin now by fighting elections on one demand only—Socialism. We know it is safe to say that the whole of the Labour candidates, at Stepney and elsewhere, do nothing of the kind. Instead they solicit votes on a programme of reforms of capitalism, thus delaying the day when the workers will realise that their only salvation is in Socialism.

Mr. Chamberlain*s Understanding of Capitalism

Mr. Neville Chamberlain, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a speech in Parliament on May 20th, made two admissions of interest to Socialists. The first was an admission that capitalism will in due course produce another trade depression.

. . . . I accept the broad principle that these things do work in cycles, and I have to look forward to the time when we may expect in the natural course of things that trade activity will diminish instead of increase.—(Hansard, col. 1266, May 20th, 1936.)

(It is worth noticing how Mr. Chamberlain unconsciously identifies capitalism with nature, and says “in the natural course of things" when he should say “in the capitalist course of things.")

The second point (col. 1,263) discloses the way in which a capitalist financial expert views expenditure on old-age pensions, unemployment, etc. Another M.P. had said, “Why not raise wages and scrap the expenditure on the social services ?" Mr. Chamberlain replied as follows:—

I did not quite apprehend how my hon. Friend thought it would be possible to provide that the rise in the wages of the workers could be so general, widespread and universal as to give them the equivalent for the social services they would lose.

Mr. Chamberlain here admits the Socialist contention that social services are an alternative to wage increases, and his references to "spreading" explain why the capitalists prefer the method of social services. A wage increase will be largely spent by the workers on satisfying the immediate needs of themselves and their families, and still leave the capitalists to provide for the destitute and for the big increase of unemployment during times of crisis. In other words, the social service method is cheaper.

French Capitalists Provide German Armaments

The following is taken from an article in the American Industrial Worker (April 18th, 1936), written by Pierre van Paassen: —

France is arming Germany! Her munitions makers, like those of other lands, know no fatherland but profit.

If Herr Hitler felt strong enough March 7th to defy the world, tear the Locarno Treaty to shreds and install himself on the Rhine with heavy artillery, monster tanks, mobile forts of steel and bombing planes, this was made possible by the French mining trusts.

Seventy-five per cent. of the steel in Germany’s artillery and other war equipment comes from France. Seventy-five per cent, of the shells and bullets which are going to kill French soldiers or the soldiers of nations allied with France in an eventual war with Germany are of French origin.

An average of 60 freight trains loaded with iron ore left France every day in 1933, 1934, and 1935 for Germany. The rate of export is even higher in 1936.

An expert, Paul Allard, has figured out that of every two shells Germany fires off in the next war, one will be of French origin. That is to say, one out of every two shells fired by Germans to kill Frenchmen in the next war will represent a profit to the Comite des Forges, the great French steel trust.

The Co-Operative Movement Admits Defeat

The Co-operative movement is not only fundamentally different from the conceptions of such pioneers as Robert Owen, but even the restricted aims it set itself are now seen to be unattainable. The latter-day notion was that the co-operative trading and manufacturing organisations could beat the private capitalist traders on their own field and thus gradually drive them out of business.

The controllers of the movement now know that this is impossible. At the recent congress of the Co-operative Union a delegate stated that “after ninety years of co-operation they still had only ten per cent. of the retail trade in the country and only half of that trade was placed with the Cooperative Wholesale Society. Only one-third of that was manufactured in their own factories." (Daily Herald, June 4th, 1936.)

A still more amazing confession of failure is an advertisement issued by the C.W.S. itself, in the June issue of The Clerk. It is an appeal to readers when shopping at Co-operative stores to insist that articles purchased came originally from the Co-operative Wholesale Society, and not from a private wholesaler or manufacturer. In other words, the retail Co-operative stores are refusing to buy Co-operative goods themselves, doubtless to a great extent because they can make a bigger profit by handling the better-known products of private manufacturers.

Illusions about Russia, Sweden and France

For years the Bolsheviks complained, with good reason, that the capitalist Press was filled with reckless or deliberately lying statements about conditions in Russia. It would appear that many Communists decided that the best answer to one lie is another. Consider, for example, the following utterly untrue assertion about Russia, which appeared in the Daily Worker (June 1st, 1936), from their own Moscow correspondent: —

In the U.S.S.R. Socialist society has been built.

This is untrue, and the Daily Worker knows it.

Another ridiculous statement, this time about Sweden, was made by the City Editor of the Daily Herald on June 8th, 1936. Mr. Francis Williams there tells us that the administration of capitalism in Sweden by a Labour Government is an instance of “ Socialism in action."

There is this difference between Mr. Williams and the Daily Worker, that Mr. Williams just does not know any better.

A third statement, about France, was made by Major Attlee, leader of the Labour Party. Writing in the Daily Herald (June 15th, 1936), he said: —

There are many people who have maintained until now that Socialism could not be introduced without bloodshed. The French Government is showing that it can.

All three statements are entirely without foundation, and such lies or ignorance do untold harm to Socialism.

The Friends of J. H. Thomas

The Daily Worker (May 25th, 1936) celebrates the eclipse of Mr. J. H. Thomas by telling us that they always knew he was a friend of the ruling class and an enemy of the workers, right back to 1926, 1921, 1919 and 1911—the dates of various noteworthy betrayals.

All of this may be true, but will the Communists now tell us why they persisted in playing Thomas’s game by telling the workers he was a fit and proper person to have their votes and represent their interests in Parliament after 1911, after 1919, after 1921 and after 1926? Even after the General Strike the Communists continued this policy, and mentioned J. H. Thomas by name as one of the Labour M.P.s they would not oppose. (See Communist Review, February, 1928.)

Saving the Girls from Vice

Reynolds' News, advocate of the stupid policy of trying to improve capitalism with reforms instead of abolishing it, neatly gave its whole case away in its issue of May 17th, 1936. It published an article on “Soho’s Vice Racketeers,” and demanded instant action to stop landlords from drawing high rents from brothels. This is how the article ends: —

Fifty years have passed since W. T. Stead aroused the sleeping conscience of the nation by his Pall Mall revelations of “The Maiden Tribute." The M.P. who takes the lid off Soho now will startle the British nation even more.

So fifty years after one reformer reformed London, the position is more startling than ever. So let’s pretend to reform it again.

In reformist circles this is known as progress! 

The Half-Brotherhood of the Sea

The building of luxury liners for plutocrats, while the bulk of the population is underfed and miserably housed and clothed, is a mark of the rottenness of capitalist civilisation, and the way the reformists from Labour to Fascist have rushed in to praise it is a mark of their essentially reactionary attitude. The maiden voyage of the “Queen Mary” led the Daily Herald to publish a sticky editorial about the “comradeship of the sea which transcends national boundaries.” (May 28th, 1936.)

So little does the sea differ from the other i fields of competitive profit-seeking that the very next day the Herald published a fierce attack on the Russian Government for carrying timber in Russian and other non-British ships, "in which wages are lower than those of the British and Scandinavian ships which used 'to handle most of the trade.” (Daily Herald, May 29th, 1936.) The Herald calls it “blacklegging on British shipping and undermining its wage standards,” and adds that it “is not going to be quietly tolerated.”

Surely this is not comradely language to use towards fellow seafarers?

And while we are on the subject, what about the T.U.C.’s policy of excluding coloured seamen from British ships, even coloured seamen who are British subjects? The Indian Labour movement has long protested against this still less comradely attitude.

This Jewish Business

The attempt by German Nazis and British Fascists to explain everything under the sun by reference to the 400,000 Jews in Germany and the 350,000 in Britain (fewer than one per cent. of the population) leads them into curious situations. The German doctrine of a pure, noble, non-Jewish, Nordic race, made even Mussolini laugh. He pointed out that the originators of the idea of a “chosen race” were the Jews themselves. Mussolini has never hesitated to employ Jews as his Ministers and assistants. In Austria, where he finances and controls the "Heimwehr,” a Fascist movement, one of his principal allies and friends is Otto Mandl, who is also political adviser to Fascist Prince Starhemberg and owner of the great Hirtenberg Arms Factory. Mandl is a Jew. (See Evening Standard, October 21st, 1935.) Not for that reason, but because he is a typical capitalist, he supplied arms and munitions both to the Nazis and to the Heimwehr, although they were fighting each other.

In England, Sir Oswald Mosley’s organisation attacks the Jews, and is in turn attacked by Lieut.-Col. Hutchison’s organisation for being the friend of Jews. Truth, published by Hutchison's “National Workers’ Party of Great Britain,” shows a photograph of Mosley speaking at Birmingham Town Hall on September 25th, 1931, at a meeting of the New Party. “ On Mosley’s left is Kid Lewis, Jew boxer. . . . Forming a trio, arm-in-arm, is Mr. W. E. D. Allen, son of David and Sarah Allen, nephew of Samuel Allen; some time M.P. for Belfast. . . . Behind Allen is Peter Cheney, another Jew. . . . The lawyer employed by Sir Oswald Mosley and the Blackshirts is Mr. St. John Hutchinson, whose daughter, in 1935, was converted to Judaism, and married a Rothschild.”

One of the queer errors into which such nonsense betrays its adherents was illustrated in a recent issue of the Blackshirt, which saw fit to comment on The Socialist Standard being sold at a meeting by an individual in whose features the sharp-eyed Fascist thought he discerned Jewish characteristics. As it happens, the individual in question is indeed of mixed stock—pure British “aryan” mixed with Italian; not a trace of Jewish  blood!

But enough of all this rubbish. Individuals are the product of a variety of moulding forces, and the environment of a segregated Jewish group doubtless plays an important part, but dominating all sectional environments is capitalism, with its class divisions and the exploitation of one class by another. The struggles of the exploited to compete with each other for employment, and at the same time to resist the employers, are more important in determining the individual’s conduct than the fact of being Jewish or Gentile.

The only really useful contribution towards ridding society of the unpleasant characteristics of exploiters and exploited is to strive for the abolition of class ownership of the means of production and distribution, and this the Fascists are not doing. What they are doing is to provide a political cloak (or rather, a shirt) under which individuals can promote private vendettas and commercial rivalries against Jews. Most of the anti-Jewish activity is' of the kind mentioned by the Manchester Guardian's Warsaw correspondent: “Many peasants attack Jews merely for looting their shops rather than for other reasons." (Manchester Guardian, February 10th, 1936.) The remainder is mainly blind discontent with capitalism misdirected by Fascists into these useless channels.

Edgar Hardcastle