Syndicalism, its cause and cure. (1912)

Book Review from the December 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Syndicalism and the General Strike – by Arthur D. Lewis. (London; T. Fisher Unwin. Price 7s 6d)

As the only party in Great Britain that has taken up a definite and consistent attitude towards Anarchism in all its forms, it is meet that we should have something to say on the latest work on Syndicalism that has been published.

We have adopted a frankly hostile policy to this latest importation for the simple reason that we are a Socialist party. The sorry plight of those so-called Socialist bodies like the B. S. P. and the I. L. P. is a natural result of their lack of principles based on a correct knowledge of the position of our class. Inside the former body there is a heated controversy, both among the “leaders” and the rank and file, as to whether Syndicalism is the road for the workers to travel. The curious position of the I. L. P. is shown by their advocacy of the General Strike at the International Labour Congress as a weapon against war!

The cause of Syndicalism lies in the history of these and similar parties. In the Blatchford section they have literally bred Syndicalism by their disgusting election tricks, so often exposed in these pages. Their former members, now Syndicalists, point to the vote-hunting, compromising campaigns of Bethnal Green and Northampton, along with others, as showing the failure and danger of political action. The Independent Labour Party, too, has so treacherously played the part of advance agents of the Liberal party that from political opportunism their supporters right-about-turn to denounce political action altogether  — not that they understand Syndicalism any more than its leading votaries, but believing it to be anti-political, they seek shelter beneath its slogans and formulas.

Our statement of the cause of Syndicalism is supporter by the Syndicalist author of the book under review, who states (p. 187) that: –

“There are practically only one or two Syndicalists in England, but discontent with the degree of success obtained through the Parliamentary Labour Party has led to a general return to trade unionism and strikes as a means of fighting the employers . . . The belief that at least one member of the party bargains with the Liberal Government with a view to his personal advantage; the moderation of its words in Parliament compared with its words on the platform; the incapacity of many members of it, who are only dolls in the hands of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald; the acceptance by certain of its members of paid posts given by the Liberals; and its love of Puritanism, have all helped to cause a feeling of disappointment and disillusionment in many who once trusted and believed in it.”

That, then, is the cause of the spread of Syndicalism. It is clearly shown by this that Syndicalism thrives on ignorance. Only mis-educated, non Socialist workers would ever trust the Labour Party, would ever expect them to look after the toilers’ interests; and when the failure of their political inaction is realised, it is not the political method itself that has been found wanting, but it is the lack of sound knowledge on the workers’ part that is demonstrated. Because the political machine has been used in a capitalist direction the Syndicalist and his dupes proclaim the failure of politics!

The present book consists chiefly of quotations from the works of the Syndicalist leaders of to-day throughout Europe, and the author ventures his opinions very little. When he does so, he shows not only that he does not understand Syndicalism, but that he understands Socialism still less. In the preface he declares Socialism to mean that “huge State monopolies are to be formed in all industries, and that these will be controlled by a few very powerful officials at Westminster”.

This is typical of the misrepresentation that the Syndicalists feed their followers on. If Mr. Lewis would consult what he calls an “orthodox” Socialist, say Frederick Engels, he would find that Socialism rises upon the ashes of the State, for when Socialism comes the day of the State has closed for ever.

Though the title of the work is Syndicalism and the General Strike, only one chapter is devoted wholly to the latter question. The chief part deals with the theory of Syndicalism and Syndicalists.

Our author tells us that “the Syndicalist likes poor unions best — riches bring caution: he likes low weekly dues and small benefits”. Rather we would say, the average Syndicalist likes no dues and many benefits. We are promised much melodrama and but little organisation and education by his statement that: “The great weapon of the workers against their masters is disorder”. And one phase is described as “sabôtage or the destruction of property, intimidation of masters, sitting in factories with folded arms so no blacklegs can take your places, leaving work at an hour earlier than the masters want, telling the truth to customers: all these are means by which the masters can be made to yield”.

What they are to be made to yield by these means we are not told. But anyone can realise that while these things may prove aggravating to the isolated employer, and make him more bitter against the music-hall revolutionists, yet if this kind of thing was general, all the employers being on the same footing, they would feel its effects very little.

But to keep this conduct up the workers would need the power, not merely to personate George Washington, but to take control of the entire means of life; not to leave at an earlier hour than the masters desire, but to leave masters altogether. The crude notions of these folk are brought forward in the idea of “sitting with folded arms” while the masters want food, clothing, etc. for their daily needs. Sabotage, like all Syndicalist methods, is born of the want of sound knowledge and strong organisation.

Despite the fact that the author declares that the General Confederation of Labour in France “contains both a reformist and a revolutionary section”, and that the latter is “the minority of a minority of a minority — only some of the members of the C. G. T. being revolutionists and the C. G. T. itself only representing a minority of the unions” — despite that, however, the Anarchists miscalled revolutionists have a governing influence in the organisation, and have made its actions both comedies and tragedies.

They don’t believe in democracy. As the leading French Syndicalist, Émile Pouget, says in the work quoted — “The Syndicalist” — “Syndicalism and democracy are the two opposite poles which exclude and neutralise each other . . . This is because democracy is a social superfluity, a parasitic and external excrescence, while Syndicalism is a logical manifestation of the growth of life”, etc. Another French leader, M. Pierrot, is quoted as saying in “Syndicalism and Revolution” : “It is better to have an active group who know how to carry the masses and turn them in the right direction by their words and actions” . “The Syndicalist”, says our author “has contempt for the vulgar idea of democracy: the inert, unconscious mass is not to be taken into account when the minority wishes to act so as to benefit it”.

That is the key note. The ‘intellectual’ few are to dominate the many. Not democracy but autocracy and dictatorship. The day of  a revolution carried out on these lines would also be the day of counter-revolution, the day of disaster, of drilled, unthinking masses being driven to the New Jerusalem. The day of revolution would but be the prelude to the long, black night of apathy and despair.

 

The Socialist Party, however, clings fast to democracy in organisation and in action. It knows that the real, reliable movement can only be built up with an alert, awakened, interested working class. That alone can bring about emancipation — not a few leaders hypnotising an ignorant rank and file.

Syndicalism means but a change of leaders. As Gaylord Wilshire’s (the wealthy Syndicalist) magazine declares (November 1912): “The new movement calls for new leaders”. And again: “The new conditions must bring forth a new type of leader, powerful, inspiring, and heroic”. Leadership, not a live membership doing their own work in their own way, that is the ideal. Mr. Lewis points out that unions with small funds are wanted, for, says he, “where funds are large the workers are made to vote for or against a strike”, thus showing that the Syndicalist objects to the will of the worker being expressed and acted upon.

“Syndicalism has an immediate programme. It would have the unions look to it that there are meeting places for working men, where there will be lectures, baths, and all that helps them to learn how to take control of production and consumption; also the officials, with professional help, should get for the workers their legal rights and place medical and legal advice at their disposal.”

So anxious are they about reforms that they even worry about legal rights. Fancy hungering after the rights conferred by lawyers and by Parliament! But it is not surprising, for above all else the Syndicalists are reformers. Without economic knowledge or political insight, what else could they be? The English Syndicalist, Mr. Tom Mann declares (“A Twofold Warning”) that poverty can be abolished under capitalism, and he also says: “I contend that reducing the working hours provides a solution for the problem of unemployment, and it matters not what system obtains”. With this rot they make converts among the ignorant, yet any tyro in economics could prove to him that the reserve army of labour is the corner-stone of capitalism, and that the shortening of hours doesn’t mean the lessening of the product of the same number of men. The Chief Inspector of Mines just reports that in spite of the Eight Hours Day Bill, and the strikes last year, over seven million tons more coal were produced than in 1912, and on the average every miner’s output increased three tons. This is typical of the whole industrial world.

Syndicalists claim great things for their strikes and sabotage. Something now! “The use of trade union labels is regarded as an instance of direct action”. The free advertisement of particular employers! Further we are told that by sabotage “bread has been made inedible but not injurious” — a kind of general “hunger strike” forced upon the working class.

But the sad story of Spanish, French and Italian strikes and sabotage has somewhat dimmed the picture. Yvetot, the chief of the C. G. T., in his ABC of Syndicalism, confesses that “the principle obstacle to a revolution is the army . . . When the Government does not use the army to replace strikers, it makes soldiers into massacrers of workmen”. What, then, is the use of the General Strike? What can it do against the army? As Yvetot says, the army massacres the strikers. In Italy, we are told (p. 104): “A general strike of railway workers was attempted in 1905 as a protest against a new attempt to introduce the (strike smashing) law; it failed and the law was passed. Men were shot down by the soldiers in 1907 and there was a renewal of a wide-spread strike. The strikers were defeated, and it was said that 20,000 men, or one third of all the men on the railways, were punished, either by imprisonment, discharge from the service, fines, or degradation of rank.”

Arturo Labriola, the leading Italian Syndicalist, shows the similarity between Syndicalism and capitalism. He says: “You can imagine that a Syndicat for a certain trade could contain all the workers in a single branch of industry, could contract on uniform conditions with all the capitalists on behalf of these workers, and would form a kind of common treasury of all the profits, to be distributed according to a rule of exalted justice to all its members  . . . This process could go further. It can be imagined that at a certain point of its development the workers’ union might hire the capital of the capitalists for a fixed return and then use it co-operatively, either working in one mass or constructing so many separate co-operative bodies each having separate and distinct accounts.”

And he goes on: “Syndicates, as organisms opposed to monopoly, and therefore open to all, would enthusiastically receive the capitalists of yesterday become the companions of to-day, and would make use of their indisputable directive and administrative ability.”

Before leaving the General Strike theory it is useful to note the words of Mr. Ben Tillett, quoted in the book. Speaking after the 1911 Transport strike was over he said (Glasgow, 11.2.12): “A  week before the strike a Cabinet Minister pleaded with me in a tearful voice to stop the strike. Of course, this pleading was unheeded until the men got what they wanted”.

Yet within six months of that speech the transport workers were fighting fir the very demands they had “won” the year before! And what a cruel comment was the suffering of that historic defeat on the “efficacy of the strike” idea!

The general strike of miners and other strikes in England bring home the lessons of the Socialist. Whilst the strike, local or industrial, may effect improvement for the time, slavery remains. Whilst the threat of a general strike may induce concessions, it cannot bring a solution. The best results of economic unity can only be effected by class-conscious toilers who recognise the need for class action, class union, for working class ends; who realise that, as the road to emancipation lies in control of political power, political action is a vital necessity.

The cure for Syndicalism is education in the Socialist principles and policy. There is no substitute for a Socialist working class seeking its salvation through the political struggle. When the toilers understand Socialism they will have no room in their minds for the sophisms and fallacies of Syndicalism.

Adolph Kohn

Aphorisms of Socialism: [VII.] (1912)

From the November 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Aphorism VI.

Being an explanation of the Declaration of Principles of the S.P.G.B.

Aphorism VII.

As all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class, the party seeking working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party.

The political machine, as we have endeavoured to show, is essentially an instrument of class government. It does not anywhere come into existence until society has assumed a class form — until there has developed within society a class who govern and a class who are governed.

The political machine exists to preserve order in society according to the existing basis of that society; but just as there can exist sections with opposing sectional interests within the ruling class of a given society, so that political machinery can be wielded in different directions to further the several interests of those warring sections of the ruling class – and that without in any way threatening the social base.

Political parties consist of those who organise to gain control of or at least to exert their influence upon, the political machine, in order to advance their interests as they understand them.

But if it appears from this that capitalist political parties rather indicate sectional than class interests, it must not be forgotten that this is merely because these parties, comprising sections of the ruling class, are at one with the basis upon which their position as a ruling class is founded.

Though it is true that each of these sections will use the political machinery in a slightly different way, this difference can only apply to matters of superficial detail. In anything deeper than this every political party among the ruling class stands for the interest of that ruling class.

This is inevitable. Before these sections can exist as such those comprised in them must be a ruling class. Before the landed interest can clash with the manufacturing interest both the landowner and the factory-owner must be established in privilege on a private property basis. Before Tariff Reform or Protection can become burning questions of the day, those whose sectional interest is wrapped up in either detail of capitalism must first have their deeper interests identified with one and founded upon the capitalist system.

The class interest, therefore, is paramount; in the last resort it overshadows all sectional interests. Indeed, the fact that sectional interests loom so large in capitalist party politics at the present day is no proof of the importance of those interests but is evidence only of the weakness of the pressure exerted politically by the opposing class.

The truth of this is seen in the tendency of capitalists to “close the ranks” against any political party which, in fact or in their idea, threatens their class interest, and the increasing pressure of the organised political party of the workers is destined to reveal with the utmost clearness the fact that capitalist parties stand primarily for capitalism and for the capitalist class — is destined to reveal it by exhibiting them a united party at bay with revolution.

There are certain so-called political parties such as the I.L.P., the B.S.P., and Labour Party, and in Scotland, the S.L.P. who, it might be argued, are not covered by the above remarks, but in reality these have no separate political existence. Two of them are nothing but appendages of the Liberal Party, one is trying which wing of the capitalist bird of prey it can find most comfort (if any) under. As for the remaining group, they have postponed political action until it will not be required — until the workers have gained in the teeth of the political machine all that they could gain with it. They have cut their political throats with the anarchist razor, and by this contribution to anarchy, to say nothing of other matters, have added their service to the preservation of capitalism.

As a matter of fact all political parties must express the interest of one or other of the only two classes in society. In this connection, Frederic Engels finely says (“Origin of the Family,” Kerr & Co. p. 211): “For as long as the oppressed class, in this case the proletariat, is not ripe for its economic emancipation, just so long will its majority regard the existing order of society as the only one possible, and form the tail, the extreme left wing, of the capitalist class.”

This is strictly true, and therefore, not only was it inevitable that these pseudo-Socialist and Labour parties, composed as they are, of a working class element which is “not ripe for its economic emancipation,” should express capitalist interests, but it was inevitable that they should express the sectional brand of capitalist class interest appertaining to the particular phase of capitalism by which they are immediately environed – namely, the manufacturing interest, as expressed in the Liberal Party.

Hence, despite their pretended hostility at the moment, the eventual destiny of the B.S.P. is the Liberal fold – just as soon as its leaders can get their price.

The political activities of all who are not ripe for their economic emancipation must necessarily express capitalist interest, for the simple reason that they are helping to maintain the existing order of society. This is so even if they managed to gain admission to a sound, revolutionary organisation. There they work out the ruling-class interest by weakening the revolutionary attack – probably the worst form opposition to working-class emancipation can take.

The interests expressed or reflected, and striven for, by political parties, therefore, fall into two main groups – capitalist and working-class. These are diametrically opposed, since they involve wage-slavery on the one hand and emancipation on the other. The position of the party seeking working-class emancipation, then, must clearly be one of uncompromising hostility to all other political parties. It does not materially matter whether these parties are organisations of working men with capitalist ideas or avowedly capitalist organisations with a working-class tail.

The object of the last is to secure working-class votes, because, as Engels puts it: “The possessing class rules directly through universal suffrage” – and the vast bulk of that suffrage is working-class. In this object they find, increasingly as the workers get a dim idea that their masters’ politics are not their own, great assistance in the pseudo-Socialist parties. These parties, led by men on the look-out for billets and personal aggrandisement, spread confusion by teaching the workers that the difference between themselves and the capitalists is merely one of personality, and not of class, principle and system; that the difference between their interests and their masters’ is so slight that for the “immediate end” of getting a Labour leader into Parliament, that difference can be composed, the battle stopped, and the two rival classes work together politically.

This is, where it is conscious, the worst form of treachery, in as much as it prevents the working class realising the fundamental antagonism of interests between themselves and their exploiters. It prevents them, therefore, becoming “ripe for their economic emancipation,” and from organising politically as a class, apart from and hostile to those who hold them in bondage, ever seeking, working, fighting for deliverance from their chains.

Again, as Engels says: “Universal suffrage is the gauge of the maturity of the working class.” The ballot is indeed the means of gauging the working-class strength and maturity, and for that reason it must be kept free from compromise and the entanglement of alliances. It must stand as the clear index of the progress made by working class consciousness, the clock ticking off the last moments of our long slavery. To this purpose it is scared. If, however, it is to have any significance of this character, it must indicate a working-class mind free from the obsession of capitalist illusions. This is a final reason why the party seeking working-class emancipation must be hostile to every other political party.

The political struggle of the workers must of necessity be waged along class lines, for it is one form of the highest phase of the class struggle. It is on the political field that the sternest battle of all is to be fought. That fight is not for mere votes as such, but for the enthroning of the REVOLUTIONARY IDEA in the seat of power. The enemy, then, is no less the political ignorance of our own class than the educated master class, therefore we must attack that ignorance, even when it is organised in so-called working class political parties, just as relentlessly as we attack the orthodox parties of our masters.

A.E. Jacomb

Letter: Parliament and socialism (1986)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Parliament and socialism

Dear Editors.

I am unhappy about the phrasing of principle 6 which argues that the state machine can be "converted" into an agent of emancipation. 1 feel that this wording introduces ambiguities into your Declaration of Principles which permit a reformist interpretation. For the Marxists the state is regarded as an organ of class power, the capitalist state as an organ of capitalist power and oppression, which cannot be used to build socialism. Even if reformists admit that the state can sometimes be very biased, they say this is something that can be changed in some way or other. Reformism leads to electoralism. and to a legalistic approach — treating illegal activities with abhorrence. This leads to my second point of concern about the SPGB.

In past issues of the Socialist Standard, you have advocated winning a socialist majority in Parliament because "Parliament is the centre of political authority" and "Parliament controls the state machine." This would appear to make the social democratic error of equating governmental office with political power. But more recently (e.g. commenting on the overthrow of Marcos in the Philippines) you adopt a more mature Marxist position by saying "what is decisive is not so much the socialist electoral victory as the understanding and the determination to achieve socialism which this would reflect" Have you changed your position regarding the role of bourgeois parliaments? Could you please clarify your analysis?

With best wishes.

Andrew Northall

Norfolk

Reply

We have not changed our position on the role of parliaments, nor is our Declaration of Principles ambiguous, as Clause 6 deals with the establishment of socialism, not the reform of capitalism. We hold that socialism cannot be established until an overwhelming majority of workers understand and support the socialist case. Without this socialist understanding, a socialist society could simply not function. Given this socialist majority, it will be easy enough to send socialist delegates to Parliament and thereby gain control of the power of the state. Besides demonstrating the existence of the socialist majority, this will prevent any of the machinery of the state from being used to obstruct the establishment of socialism. The coercive power of the state will be immediately abolished, and there is no question of the state being "used to build socialism".

Editors.

History proves the soundness of our position. (1911)

From the August 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, of all the political organisations in this country, is the only one which stands solidly and consistently for the attainment of the Socialist system of society. Others (meaning, of course, political organisations) have displayed that compromise and trading resulting either from ignorance of the worker’s status under the present system, or from the fact that certain persons preferred personal aggrandisement to the straight path of a revolutionary party.

The innumerable instances quoted in the Socialist Standard and the S.P.G.B. Manifesto are sufficient evidence of the treacherous nature of parties who parade as Socialists. But the S.P.G.B., since the day it was formed, has ever insisted upon this basis as the essential to working-class salvation—the imperative necessity of

THE CONTROL OF THE POLITICAL MACHINERY.

The constant use by the capitalist class of that power to quell any semblance of revolt on the part of the workers; the endeavour to terrorise our class with demonstrations of military force, must be an indication of the value of the armed forces to the master class.

We of the S.P.G.B. realise, then, that the primary function of a Socialist party is to capture political power. What transpires after that will depend upon the democratic decision of an enlightened proletariat.

The record of incidents in the development of society should be a means of assisting the workers to realise how powerful, how necessary, is political control. History is a formidable foe to those who harbour Anarchist and reformist ideas. Generally speaking, the history of most countries, according to the majority of historians, is a record of the likes and dislikes of kings and queens and their favourites and paramours. Interesting as all this may be, it is not, and from a scientific standpoint cannot be considered to be, the history of the race. History to is is but

A SERIES OF DEVELOPMENTS

of all mankind, in which process one nation plays but a small part.

Further, unless we realise that the records of one epoch result from the actions of a previous state, and that our actions are but the inevitable growth from a condition in society precedent to us ; unless we clearly grasp that fact, a correct view of history cannot be obtained. Moreover, the keener the investigation into history, the clearer becomes the position we, as a party, occupy in this country. For by historical reference we are more than fortified in our position. In fact, the Socialist Party are the only party who can justify their attitude by history.

To us every method of government, whether it be monarchical, autocratic, plutocratic, theocratic or “democratic,” is tyrannical, since government implies a subject class in society. Let us get to the Athenian ascendancy for proof of this contention.

Athenian society originally was tribal. Later on the citizens were divided into classes principally on a private-property basis. Each section had political power corresponding to the volume of property it possessed. In Athens there existed a large population of propertyless slaves, who had no political rights of expression.

A remedy for such conditions being necessary, the famous constitutionalist and law-giver, Solon, so organised the political State that though the democracy had a voice, the aristocracy

WERE ALWAYS THE DOMINANT FACTOR

in Athenian political life. Nor was Athens the only State where such happenings were recorded, for after the expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus—the last of the seven Kings—from Rome in 509 B.C., the Romans swore they would never have another monarch.

Admirable as that may have appeared, it was in reality a further means for the nobility to suppress the “lower orders.” The Patricians and the Plebians were really the Aristocracy and the Commoners of the time. The latter had a split, and threatened to withdraw from the State unless there was some modification of the laws.

The masters (that is the controllers) of the political machinery, thereupon permitted a tribunate to be appointed, who were invested with power to veto certain actions of the Patricians. Then came the “Licinian Rogations,” due to combined action by the tribunes Licinius and Sextiud.

From the economic standpoint those laws, passed about 367 B.C., had no great value, and were purposely introduced to give the aristocracy greater power. It caused discontent to be stifled by grants of land to the plebians in all new territory conquered by the Romans. A later result of those laws was the extension of citizenship to the occupants of conquered cities, but with no political rights in the way of voting. The idea of the rulers in Rome was, “Keep what you like but let us have the political dominance.”

With the development in Rome came, too, the intermarrying of wealthy Plebians with the Patricians, with the result that the two sections became, socially and politically, a combination, and monopolised the public offices,

ALL AGAINST THE PROLETARIAT

of the day. Further, the constant usage of the political power had caused many acts which had been passed to become dormant. An instance is the Hortensian law of 287 B.C., which finally permitted the Plebian tribes to make laws without the assistance of the Comitia Centuriata.

Another interesting matter is that though each city conquered by Rome was given local autonomy, in most cases they were subordinate to the officials appointed from Rome. That had a tendency to give loyalty to the Romans, who, as are the British with regard to Egypt and India, were simply inspired by the possession of private property in the interest of the ruling class.

After the futile endeavours of Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, still another incident transpired that proves our contention conclusively. It was the reorganisation of the army by Marius, and after his death the actions of Sulla in using that army. The latter proved master of the situation because he had control of the army.

Let it be clearly understood that Rome was in a state of anarchy at this time. She was unable to master her possessions owing to the

GROWTH OF CORRUPTION

amongst the propertied classes.

Another fact illustrating the strength of the political power is afforded us by a reference to the actions of Constantine when he was at war with Maxeratius and Licinius for control of both the Eastern and Western Empires. Maxentius was defeated at Myvern Bridge, and Licinius, who hated Christianity intensely, was anxious to become emperor. Constantine, knowing full well that Licinius had great power, made Christianity a State religion, by which means he got greater support than ever. But for that incident Licinius would have defeated him, and Constantine would have become a cypher. The political exigences caused Constantine to extend his protection to the Christian or his power would have gone. With the support given him by converts to his curious mixture of Christianity and paganism he was enabled to overwhelm his rival and retain his throne.

Coming still nearer to the present time, we find that the wisdom of Charlemagne gives a voice in the government to the people. That voice was the bi-annual conferences he presided at “to hear the opinion of his people.” His control was so great that at his coronation the pope paid homage to him.

Perhaps the history of England may be viewed profitably to show that, whatever economic power any class possessed, they were always at the mercy of those who possessed the political power. If it was economic power that was the prime factor, how was it the Roman Catholic dominance was destroyed by Henry VIII ?

Perhaps it is unlikely that any Direct Actionist or other individual displaying

ANARCHISTIC TENDENCIES

would deny that the control of Parliament by Halifax and Cromwell caused a change in the British Constitution in 1649. A fact ever illuminating in history is that a class that had acquired great wealth were never free to utilise that wealth to its fullest advantage unless it had first the control of the political machinery. The severest impediment to the capitalist in this country was the control and monopoly by the landlords prior to the Reform Bill of 1832. 

In order to give free and full development to industry ; in order to sanction and legalise the. robbery of the working class ; in order to cheapen the cost of production, the present capitalist class were compelled to get political control. But that was simply the act in the final development of capitalism. Then our capitalist went to Parliament himself, but now he is leaving his work to paid hacks, lawyers, solicitors, and professional politicians.

The increasing productivity of the working class has solved the problem of production. Prior to the capitalist system the periodic panics and financial catastrophes were unheard of. Now we have them frequently, showing that even the ingenuity of the capitalist cannot avoid the ever intensifying control capital has over the capitalist. No longer can he control the profit system—the latter completely dominates him, and that is why the working class will have to take control of the political force. That this is evident one can see from the way the capitalist uses the political machinery. Strikes and economic eruptions,

“RIOTOUS OUTBREAKS”

as they call them, are squelched (where the starvation process is not sufficient) by sending armed forces into the disaffected districts.

We desire to obtain immediately a condition of society wherein we will enjoy all the means of life to the utmost advantage, and our fellow-slaves must be made conscious of it. The naval and military section of the working class can be made to understand that; and surely, when intelligence becomes uppermost in their minds, they will see that life under democratic control is much better than the rigorous discipline under which they exist at present.

Those who hold political power dominate the country in which they live. Therefore we strongly appeal to the working class to exercise their intelligence and to examine this question from the historical standpoint. The Socialist Party of Great Britain have never deviated from the scientific position such an examination logically leads to. It remains for you to put yourself in agreement with that position and to join us, and to assist in the spreading of working-class enlightenment.

Moses Baritz

For or Against Parliament? (2010)

From the September 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

People who come into contact with the Socialist Party and learn that we advocate revolution are often surprised that the revolution we urge is one that can be brought about by parliamentary means. They are used to associating revolution with the violent overthrow of governments, not with peaceful democratic elections. This is understandable given that, historically, revolutions of whatever kind have tended to be accompanied by bloodshed and violence and most organisations or political parties calling for revolution still envisage, whether explicitly or otherwise, violent means.

But the latest Socialist Party pamphlet, What’s Wrong With Using Parliament? The Cases For and Against the Revolutionary Use of Parliament, makes it clear that, for the establishment of the wageless, moneyless free access society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life that defines socialism, it is essential for the revolution to be brought about by a majority using democratic means. And since such means are available in most countries in the form of elections by universal suffrage, there is no reason why these should not be used in order for that majority to take control of governments and establish a worldwide socialist society.

While this is the basic premise of the pamphlet, most of it is actually taken up explaining why the common objections to the use of parliament to carry out revolutionary action do not hold water. These are objections often put by those such as anarchists who may broadly agree with the kind of society we want to establish but believe that any attempt to do so by parliamentary means is doomed to failure. There are two main arguments along these lines.

The first argument is that socialists elected to a capitalist parliament will not be able to withstand the ‘system’ and either will find that it forces them into complying with the status quo or will be seduced by being part of the ‘power structure’ and will voluntarily fall in with it ignoring their roots and the mandate on which they were elected.

The pamphlet answers this argument firstly by showing that the capitalist form of democracy, though seriously flawed, has in fact no formal means of preventing sufficiently determined individuals representing a politically conscious majority from using the political system it has developed in order to overthrow it. It deals with the ‘power corrupts’ idea by arguing that the delegates in question would be operating in a different social framework from the one that currently exists, one that would be shot through with the notion of participation and democratic accountability at all levels. It expresses the idea in the following way:

“With the spread of socialist ideas all organisations will change and take on a participatory democratic and socialist character, so that the majority’s organisation for socialism will not be just political and economic, but will also embrace schools and universities, television, film-making, plays and the like as well as inter-personal relationships. We’re talking about a radical social revolution involving all aspects of social life.”

A far more advanced form of democracy therefore than offered to us by capitalism today, where once every few years we are asked to put an X on a ballot paper to choose the best capitalist-management team from amongst competing groups of politicians, who then go away and take all the decisions that influence our lives without consulting us. Yet weak democracy is better then none and, as the pamphlet makes clear, it still provides a means for the majority to take political power once a socialist majority has emerged.

The second argument against the use of parliament is that the powers-that-be would never tolerate a democratic takeover by a socialist majority because of the loss of authority and privilege this would mean for them. They would therefore, if necessary, prevent it by force. There are many suppositions underlying such an argument but the main one is that there is somehow a power behind or beyond elected governments that in reality controls them (some kind of shadowy group or committee or boardroom that is really in control) and that, therefore, if its position is seriously threatened it has the means at its disposal to clamp down on those threatening it and will not hesitate to use violence to do so, perhaps in the form of a coup or a military takeover.

The pamphlet confronts this position by challenging the ‘conspiracy theorists’ to provide evidence that there is a conspiracy behind government and the way the system is organised and argues that, while capitalism with its inbuilt rivalries and vested interests may provide a fertile breeding ground for many individual conspiracies, no evidence exists or has ever been presented that there is an overall conspiracy running capitalism and its governments. That being the case, any attempt to use violence to prevent socialism being brought about by a majority in parliament with undisputed democratic legitimacy would have to be made not by people in the ‘background’ but by non-socialist politicians, yet how would they go about using violence against a majority that included workers from all walks of life and occupations, including the police and armed forces? Is it conceivable that they would obey orders from politicians to suppress the majority of their fellow-socialists and, even if there were enough elements from those quarters who would be prepared to take such action, would they not be overwhelmed by the majority who would oppose them in self-defence?

The essence of the socialist position on the use of parliament is summed up in the following way towards the end of the pamphlet: 

“Once there is an organised, determined majority, the success of the socialist revolution is assured, one way or the other. It is then a question of the best tactic to pursue to try to ensure that this takes place as rapidly and as smoothly as possible. In our view, the best way to proceed is to start by obtaining a democratic mandate via the ballot box for the changeover to socialism. The tactical advantage is that, when obtained, it deprives the supporters of capitalism of any legitimacy for the continuation of their rule.”

The other, related point made is that the organisation of the socialist majority that develops within capitalist society will reflect – will have to reflect – the essentially democratic nature of the future society it will establish. It will in fact have to prefigure that society and so be entirely democratic, and without a leadership which can impose decisions on the rest. All important decisions, in fact, will come from the majority via referendums or meetings of mandated, wholly accountable and recallable delegates. In this light, it is not surprising, as the pamphlet points out, that those groups who support left-wing, Leninist-style ‘revolution’, with its ideas of leadership and decision-taking by a vanguard, dismiss socialism by the ballot box as ‘utopian’. Not that the ‘socialism’ those groups say they stand for amounts to anything more than some form of tightly organised state control of capitalism. Not either that the ‘socialism’ they endorse is any closer to a society of free access and democratic control than the aims of supporters of established parties such as the Labour Party who wish to press their parties into somehow overcoming the economic realities of the profit system and bringing in reforms that will allow it to be governed more humanely.

So this pamphlet puts the case for a revolutionary use of the ballot box to establish socialism and in so doing provides powerful arguments against those who advocate a more benign form of capitalism via parliamentary reforms, against those who want to bring in forms of rigid state control over the capitalist system, if necessary by minority action, and, more specifically, against those who seem to share the socialist aims of a stateless, free access society but still think that parliament cannot be the route to achieve it because the ruling class will never give up power without the use of armed force.

Howard Moss

For a copy of What’s Wrong With Using Parliament? The Cases For and Against the Revolutionary Use of Parliament, send a cheque / money order for £1.50 payable to 

“The Socialist Party of Great Britain” to 52 Clapham High St, London SW4 7UN.

Editorial: The Rise of Hitler: A Warning to the Workers (1933)

Editorial from the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

The rise of Hitler to power in Germany is an event which the workers of all countries should study with care. It is not an isolated phenomenon, but part of a world-wide overflowing of discontent. It is not a coincidence that the three years since the oncoming of the crisis late in 1929 have witnessed the abrupt and sometimes violent overthrow of governments in different parts of the capitalist world. “National” Governments in the United Kingdom and many of the British Dominions; the advent of De Valera in the Irish Free State; the colossal defeat of “Prosperity” Hoover in the USA; repeated cabinet crises in France; political revolutions and counter-revolutions in South America; the Republic in Spain; political crises in Scandinavia; expulsions of leaders and reversals of policy in Russia; no country has escaped the economic consequences of a capitalist world which is seriously out of joint.

Each country has witnessed the consequent political stresses and strains of new discontents, and new slogans, which had generally brought about new political groupings and new figure-heads. The universal insurgency expresses itself in different ways according to the traditions, experience and constitutions of the various countries. A century ago such economic crises brought to a head deep underlying social conflicts and produced the revolutions of  ’30 and ’48, with their violent overthrow of kings and absolutist constitutions. Nowadays the more advanced countries have developed systems which permit easier adjustment to new pressures, avoiding the disturbance and expenses of the appeal to violence. Countries which have not travelled so far along the road of capitalist democratic government still resort to the old method of the bomb, the rifle, and the machine gun, the mass demonstration, the barricade, and the organisation of insurrection in the armed forces.

In a broad way the cause and the effect are the same everywhere. Everywhere capitalist private ownership reigns. Everywhere the rulers must serve the interests of the capitalist class, but everywhere it is an over-riding condition of social life that rulers cannot ignore the active discontent of the mass of the population. The discontent, even the open rebellion, of individuals and minorities can be bludgeoned into acquiescence, but when great masses of the population are driven by intolerable conditions into organising for common action then the rulers must sooner or later provide a safety valve; placate the movement or find means of dividing it; turn it into new directions or harness it directly to the capitalist state. In no other way can capitalism maintain itself.

Long before the war the British ruling class learned how to incorporate radical politicians and labour leaders in the parties of capitalism. The German capitalists in 1918 jettisoned the Kaiser for a similar end. Fifty per cent of the German voters had registered their disillusionment and war-weariness by voting for the reform programme of the Social Democratic Party. German capitalism thereupon “digested” the SDP and watched it stabilise German capitalism in the troubled post-war years. The military and civil associates of the Imperial Kaiser humbled themselves to the “upstart” labour leaders because they had to have someone who could control the workers and keep them loyal to the fundamentals of capitalism. So for fourteen years the Social Democrats, either in coalitions or in “friendly opposition”, worked out their policy of bargaining for reforms as price of their support. The outcome was inevitable. They have shared the fate that has always overtaken “Labour” politicians and parties when they accept responsibility for the administration of capitalism. Discontent with the effects of capitalism cannot for ever be stifled by Labour promises of better times or apologetic assurances that things might be worse. The membership and influence of the German SDP declined year by year until it had shrunk to a third of its former size. Part of the loss was picked up by the Communist Party, but in the meantime a new group had arisen, led by Hitler. At the election on March 5th he received 17,266,000 votes (43.9 per cent) and his allies, the Nationalists, received 3,132,000 (8 per cent), giving him a clear majority. The Social Democrats received 7,176,000 (18.3 per cent) and the Communists 4,845,000 (12.1 percent).

In one important respect Hitler’s Nazis are just like the Social Democrats and the Communists; they are all parties of discontent. Hitler promises work for the workless; secure government jobs in the police, the Army or the Civil service for 100,000 of his members; higher prices for agricultural products to help the peasants; and protection for the small investor and little shopkeeper squeezed by the big stores and the banks.

Immediately on taking office Hitler imposed fresh taxes on the big departmental stores and chain stores with the professed object of helping the small shopkeepers. He promised also to find posts for out-of-work professional men (doctors, lawyers and others), and it is because a relatively large number of bankers, proprietors of big stores and the more successful professional men are Jews that the party has taken on a violently anti-Jewish character. Every Jewish doctor driven out of practice, every Jewish lawyer barred from the courts, every Jewish schoolmaster and civil servant dismissed, makes another vacancy for one of his members. He was supplied with funds by German heavy industry, by armament manufacturers both in Germany and in France, and by American and other business men and financiers who had investments in Germany for which they needed protection. With the help of these funds Hitler’s party has known how to rally all kinds of discontent into a great movement representing half the electorate of Germany. Therefore Hitler has had to be “digested” as fourteen years ago were the Social Democrats. The stately and imperious Hindenburg and the aristocratic Von Papen, representing the military caste and big landowner, have had to receive on terms of equality the Austrian house-painter Adolf Hitler. Dr Hugenberg and the Nationalist Party, representing big industrial capitalists, have had to enter into coalition with him. Hitler will now have to administer capitalism. He will have to curb the demands of his followers, disappoint them, and ultimately lose many of them to new political adventurers, whereupon the capitalists and landlords who now use him will scrap him and use his successor.

The great lesson to be learned from the decline of the Social Democrats is the sterility of the policy of reforms and of reform parties. The day on which a reform party reaches power is the day on which the evil effects of capitalism begin to sap and undermine the strength of the party, turning the members’ blind loyalty first into bewilderment and then into dissatisfaction, causing them to drift into new parties.

The depths of mental bankruptcy of the reformists are shown by the comment of the Fabian New Statesman (London, March 11th, 1933). After explaining that Hitler scored because he appealed, with banners and uniforms and parades, to the electorate’s love of glamour, the German correspondent of the New Statesman says that the Social Democrats should have done the same, and should have given more prominence to pageantry and less prominence to social reforms. In other words, the workers are to be enticed, not even by the old plan of “bread and circuses”, but by circuses without the bread! This is what forty years of Fabian reformism has brought to the working-class movement!

The second lesson is one which has been entirely missed by the Labour Press in Great Britain, that is the evidence given by the Hitler episode of the overwhelming importance of controlling the political machinery. Six months ago, although the largest party in Germany, Hitler was not in control of the German Parliament and the machinery of government. He was ridiculed and derided by the members of the Government, and insulted by President Hindenburg. His party officials were hauled into court on charges of treason, and thrown into prison. Others were forced to flee the country. His newspapers were suppressed, his offices were raided by the police, his troops were forbidden to parade or wear uniforms in the street. When they attempted defiance they were driven off just like the Communists.

Now, having become possessed of the political machine and confirmed in power by the electors, he is able to turn the tables on his former opponents. He has removed the Governments of all the States of Germany. Former Cabinet Ministers have been arrested, beaten and made to suffer many indignities. Newspapers have been suppressed and their offices raided – from Conservative Catholic newspapers at one end of the scale to Social Democratic and Communist newspapers at the other. The Communists, in spite of their 5,000,000 voters and their year-long boasting of their belief in “mass action” and military revolt, have been cowed into complete submission without offering any real resistance whatever. Events are proving to them what they refused to learn. The organised political majority which controls the political machinery of the modern State is in a position to dominate, and can enforce submission on minorities. There is no road to Socialism except through the control of the machinery of government by a politically organised majority of Socialists.

Chile: Myth and Reality (1973)

From the October 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

The events in Chile are already a myth. There, according to left and right-wing commentators alike, a democratically-elected Marxist government was overthrown by the armed forces, so proving the impossibility of establishing Socialism peacefully by using the existing machinery of limited political democracy.

Let us try to scotch this myth now by showing that the failure of the so-called Chilean experiment has absolutely no relevance to the question of whether or not Socialism can be established peacefully and democratically.

Allende and his Popular Unity were not Marxists and were not trying to establish Socialism. The programme of the Popular Unity, an alliance whose main elements were the so-called Socialist Party and the so-called Communist Party, was essentially one of state capitalism for Chile. It called for the break-up the big landed estates, for the nationalisation of foreign-owned and some Chilean-owned industry, and for various social reforms. Even if implemented in full this programme would have left the basic position of the working class in Chile unchanged: they would have remained propertyless wage-workers forced to sell their mental and physical energies to an employer (even if the State) in order to live; production would have remained geared to the market; and the government would still, under pressure from the world market, have had to restrict the consumption of the working class in order to allow the maximum amount of surplus value to be extracted for re-investment.

Secondly, not only was the Allende government not trying to establish Socialism, but it did not even have majority support for its programme of state capitalism. Allende was elected President in September 1970 in a three-way contest, but with only 36 per cent of the vote. Subsequent elections showed that his government never did manage to acquire majority support. The last elections in March this year still gave its opponents 55 per cent of the vote.

Thirdly, because of this limited electoral support, the Popular Unity did not completely control the State machine. Parliament remained in the hands of its opponents who, although they did not have the two-thirds majority needed to impeach Allende himself, harassed his Ministers and delayed and altered ills proposed laws.

For three years those whose vested interests were threatened by the coming of state capitalism to Chile—the American corporations, the Chilean landowners and big capitalists—sabotaged and plotted against the Allende government, but the fact remains that the conflict in Chile was between private capitalism and state capitalism, not between capitalism and Socialism.

That the limited democracy that existed in Chile has been a victim of this conflict can only be a matter of regret for Socialists. For, whatever its limitations, capitalist political democracy at least allows the working class to organise to defend its everyday interests and to discuss differing political views, including those of Socialists. Its suppression in Chile by a military junta represents, in this sense, a step backward for the working class of Chile—not that much of it would have survived had the Popular Unity’s full state capitalist programme been implemented, if the experience of Cuba is anything to go by.

But it still remains true that, in the quite different political conditions (which have never yet existed) of .in immense majority of workers in all the industrialized countries of the world being Socialists and organised to win and control political power, Socialism could be established peacefully. The overthrow of a minority state capitalist government in Chile by forces acting on behalf of private capitalist groups will not deflect us from this position into urging the working class to adopt the futile and dangerous policy of armed insurrection.

Letter: Socialism and parliamentary action. (1926)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following letter from a correspondent in Glasgow is printed in full and our reply follows :—

To S.P.G.B.

Comrades,

The S.P.G.B., holds that supreme power in present day society is political, and is centred in Parliament, owing to the fact that Parliament controls the armed forces.

As proof of this, it is stated that Parliament votes the necessary money for maintaining the armed forces, from year to year. The S.P.G.B. say that to get control of the armed forces is to get control of political power; and logically deduce from this that when a class-conscious majority of the electorate sends Socialists to Parliament they will control the armed. forces. That, from that day forward, “everything in the garden will be lovely,” and that Capitalism will die a sudden death.

But I am afraid that there are one or two things the S.P.G.B. has forgotten, such as, that Parliament only controls the armed forces when the Capitalist class have a majority there; that, as a Socialist majority will not take away their (the Capitalists’) money, the latter will still be able to pay (and handsomely at that) for the maintenance of the armed forces. This, the more easily, since the officers are all members of the Capitalist class. For proof of this it has only to be stated that it takes more than the pay or salary of an officer to maintain his position, as such. As everybody knows, most of the wartime “officers” are to-day on the bureau, or begging on the streets. That the Capitalist class are preparing for “the day” is surely obvious to anyone who “has eyes to see,” when organisations such as the Secret Service, O.M.S., Fascisti, etc., are already in existence and for a purpose which they do not seek to hide.

Also we should not lose sight of the fact that “specials” and other auxiliary forces (Black and Tans) were organised at short notice when occasion demanded, in the past.

The Logic of this is that Capitalism will be abolished like all past systems of society, not through the method of capturing Parliament, but at the barricades. Further does the S.P.G.B. deny that Finance Capital through the medium of the cabinet, dictates the policy of Parliament?

Hoping that this communication is published in full when answered.

Yours for Revolution,

ANTI-PARLEY.

Our Reply.

The above letter contains the usual anarchist objections to political action which have been answered continually in the “Socialist Standard.”

In the first place, we must correct some crude mis-statements of our critic. We do not say that “everything in the garden will be lovely” when a class-conscious working class controls Parliament. The capture of the political machinery is, as Marx says in the Communist Manifesto, the first step which must be taken to obtain emancipation. The succeeding conditions may be quite unlovely, depending upon the circumstances of the time and the degree of counter-revolution attempted.

The statement that Parliament only controls the armed forces whilst Capitalists are in the majority in Parliament is pure bunkum. Parliament is a machine which arose and evolved long before Capitalism. The tremendous outlay of finance and effort on the part of Capitalists to assure that the workers vote for Capitalist candidates and their lackeys shows how important control of Parliament is. Then we are told that Socialist control of Parliament will allow Capitalists to have the money to pay for the upkeep of the armed forces for their own use.

The actual fact is that the armed forces are maintained out of funds voted by Parliament. These huge sums are obtained from taxation paid by the employers out of the surplus extracted from the result of the workers’ labour. This exploitation will stop when the workers control political power and hence the funds out of which Capitalists can pay armies will cease.

The Capitalist system could not be run by bodies of employers hiring some armed bands to attack the whole working class. Capitalism depends, upon the regular and smooth conduct of affairs under which the wheels of industry can turn, commerce be carried on and profits be obtained. Therefore a constitution with delegated functions and a Parliament controlling nationally the forces of repression is an essential thing to the life of Capitalism in all “advanced” countries.

Therefore, the resolute efforts of all those aiming at conquest of the social powers to control the political machine.

Mussolini in Italy or Lenin in Russia, or the worldwide struggles of rising Capitalists—each had to first of all conquer political power as represented in the political machinery of each country.

Our policy is framed for the country in which we live, and according to existing conditions.

Parliament being the central machine of the present constitution, we are compelled to control it in our own interests as a working class.

Should the Capitalists destroy the constitution, the situation would be changed and the detail policy of the workers would be different. But this assumption of destruction of Parliamentary institutions reckons without the facts of economic life. In destroying the constitution the Capitalists would cripple their system. Capitalism in advanced countries depends upon government by elected authority, local and national and the disruption of these bodies would result in chaos, not in a system. The incitement to open warfare resulting from the abolition of Parliament would prevent that ordered working of affairs upon which Capitalism depends.

After denying the power of Parliament, our critic admits its importance and its power by pointing out that finance capital dictates the policy of Parliament.

It is obvious, then, even to our confused critic, that not merely content with having the finance, the financiers find it essential to influence the policy of Parliament. That they can do so is due to the fact that it is in the interest of their fellow Capitalists in Parliament to carry out the wishes of the bankers, etc. A Socialist working class intent upon abolishing Capitalism would have a policy directly in conflict with the interests of Capitalists—financial or industrial, and the day of Parliament carrying out the wishes of the Capitalists would be over.

While “Anti-Parley” states that the army is officered by the Capitalists, he also tells us that there is a large number of officers on the dole. Does that show that officers belong to the Capitalist class? Actually it shows that when Parliament votes no funds for them they are sacked—then they are on the dole. Officers in the main are not Capitalists. The Capitalists being few, are compelled to hire the workers to run the system, and also the civil and military forces to control it. Further, officers are helpless without an army and the army acts not according to its officers but according to instructions which are given by those in charge of political power.

If the officers do not carry out these instructions they are liable to severe punishment apart from losing their position. Our critic’s reference to the large number of officers on the dole shows how rapidly they can be trained and how many are available. If our critic studied history, recent history, he would know that officers, to maintain themselves, are compelled to transfer their allegiance to those who control political power and who can give them jobs. Look at the huge number of German officers who took well paid jobs to organise the famous Red Army of Russia. Look at the helpless state of the Czarist officers in March, 1917, when the rank and file revolted.

We are next told that the capitalists are preparing for “the day” by forming the O.M.S., Fascists, etc. These bodies depend for success upon recruiting the workers to their ranks and while they can obtain a large measure of working class support it shows the need for Socialist propaganda, for until the mass of the workers understand their class interests, they cannot be expected to act in the interests of their class.

The dangerous and misleading alternative to Parliamentary action offered by our critic is—the barricades. What, then, becomes of his argument about the officers of the Capitalist class being in command of the Army? How can unarmed workers fight the army?

In these days of powerful instruments of death dealing and after the experiences of the World War—we are told by our anarchist opponent to throw up some barricades ! The lessons of the Paris Commune, of the Rand, of Munich, of Hungary, etc., are all lost on our “anti-parley” friend. Read Engels’s introduction to Marx’s “Class Struggles in France” (1895) on the insanity of barricades in face of modern developments !

Apparently our critic has been listening to the anarchist element denouncing Parliament and as neither the anarchists nor he falls back upon the policy that reactionaries everywhere have tried to get the workers to adopt so that they can drown them in blood.

Barricade or bombs, chemical parcel post or street fights—our opponents advocate everything except the one policy—Socialist knowledge, Socialist organisation and Socialist political action by the mass of the working class.

As seen in our opponents’ alternative, the enemies of political action become dangerous to the working class.

Editorial Committee.

Government (1966)

Book Review from the February 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Insight into Government by Lord Craigton, Pitman 21s.

This little book is intended as a primer for those who want to play the game of bourgeois politics. It is written by a Conservative peer for the benefit of “individuals and organizations who desire to exert influence on the British Government” in order to “get things done”. The multitude of tedious activities with which Lord Craigton concerns himself are those aimed at the endless reform of capitalism. Naturally, the socialist movement — whose object is the establishment of a system of society on an entirely different basis — is considered too trivial to warrant any consideration.

We can, however, endorse two of the points which Lord Craigton makes. Firstly, that the House of Commons is the seat of power in Great Britain. Secondly, that the state machinery of capitalist society is manned by paid officials and civil servants members of the working class. But his lordship is blissfully unaware of the irony of such a situation—where the working class loyally runs capitalism in the interest of its capitalist masters and uses its voting power to perpetuate its own degraded status.

This book, then, contains little of any importance to the workers. Socialism will not be achieved by attempts at exerting pressure and influence on a government which has been elected for the declared purpose of administering British capitalism.

Those who fooled themselves into thinking otherwise are having this lesson painfully taught to them at present. But one useful fact does emerge from Lord Craigton's sketch of the machinery of government If a majority of working men and women, equipped with a knowledge of what socialism is and how it may be realised, chose to elect socialist delegates to the national parliaments nothing could stand between them and the classless reorganisation of society. But the workers have no need to glean such information from Lord Craigton’s over-priced book. Throughout this century the SPGB has been putting forward the case that, once a consciously organised working class has captured the coercive apparatus of the State, this may be converted into the agent of emancipation.

As long as working men look to their leaders and the apologists of capitalism for political inspiration they will stay where they are—propertyless wage earners at the whim of capital. When they choose to shake off their lethargy and work it out for themselves there'll be a different tale to tell. Until such time there will continue to he a market for such books as this.

Ivan

Correspondence: What determines the form of the social system? (1920)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

To the Editor.

Dear Sir,—In the first chapter of the S.P.G.B. Manifesto Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto is quoted as stating that “the workers, to secure their emancipation, must first secure the control of the political machine.”

This is tantamount to saying that the social organism is determine by Political and not according to the general trend of Marx, “The economic condition of the people.”

Is this so ?

G. C. W.

Our Reply.

Exercising our enormous fund of goodwill to the uttermost in the endeavour to understand you, we conclude that when you speak of the “social organism” you mean the social edifice, structure, system—anything almost but what you say, in fact. To use the words of one who has gone before, is this so ?

If it is, then the answer to your question is, brother, it is not so.

The form of the social system is determined, not, as you say Marx said (poor old Marx, how they do love to dance upon your literary relics!) by “the economic condition of the people,” but by its economic base.

If you read the first clause of our Declaration of Principles you will see it there stated that society is based upon the private ownership of the means of living. How the form which the social system shall take is determined by this basic factor a little thought should reveal. For instance, the private ownership being confined to a section of the people, it is determined that society shall consist of two classes—those who possess and those who do not; it is also determined by the same factor that those who do not own property must work for wages Thus it is seen that the two most pregnant characteristics of present-day society, (1) its division into classes and (2) the wage-labour basis of its productive system, are clearly seen to arise from the private property base.

Now although private property is the basis of present-day society, private property is not an institution which can exist of its own force, like, say, gravitation. Minor infringements on the “rights of private property” are called theft, and our correspondent is presumed by the law to know how such cases are dealt with. Just as such minor cases are dealt with by the minor forces of the State—the police and the beak—so to preserve private property from the major infringements on private property—the revolutionary attack upon its very vitals—there exists the major force, the armed forces of the State.

To say that the wages system, together with the other phenomena peculiar to the present order, rests upon the private property basis of society, is to imply that the emancipation of the workers from wage-slavery can result only from the abolition of private property. This naturally raises the question: How is this to be accomplished in face of the armed forces of the State ?

The answer to this is that the workers must either fight the armed forces or control them.

The first course is obviously not to be thought of until the second is closed to us. Therefore the next question is : Through what medium are the armed forces of the nation controlled ?

The Army and Navy are part of the machinery of government, or the political machinery. As such they are controlled by Parliament.

That is why we tell the workers that in order to obtain their emancipation they must get control of the political machinery.

Now the point that our correspondent will observe here is that, far from our insistence on the need for capturing the political machinery implying that the political factor determines the form of the social structure, it simply indicates something the workers must do before they can be in a position to deal with the real determining factor in the shaping of society, the private ownership of property. This is the root of the social tree, from which every twig and leaf draws its life ; the political machinery is the fence around the tree, to keep donkeys and other things off. To deal with the fence is the necessary preliminary to doing things to the root, but that does not imply that the tree is based on the fence instead of on the root.

Editorial Committee

#    #    #    #

H. Dight. — Your criticism has been handed to the writer of the article in question and we hope to publish the reply next month.

The Growth of State Power (1943)

From the April 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

The State is the public power of coercion. It makes and administers the laws, and it does so in the interests of the class that is economically supreme at the different epochs. In antiquity it was the state of the slave proprietors, in the middle ages the feudal proprietors, and in modern times the capitalist proprietors.

The State had its beginning with the birth of private property, which started with the limitation of property within the early communistic tribes. Members of the tribe were appointed as officials to guard the rights of this budding property. As the operations of private owners extended outside tribal limits, the functions of these officials were extended.

With the disintegration of tribal society the incipient State was personified in the military chief and his followers. These war leaders overran other territories, and, like the Spartans and the Normans, established themselves as ruling, tribute collecting bodies.

The growth of trading and the splitting of society into more clearly defined classes strengthened the influence and power of the growing state, and the struggle for control of it. It was the only body that stood apart from the various social groups, and therefore the most obvious body to take over the work of promulgating laws. It also had the power to enforce the laws.

This early form of the state was rude and barbarous, and frequently resorted to open force. It was an object of struggle between social classes because the class that was paramount in society had the power to enforce its will and, if necessary, sweep away its opponents. It was a state form that fitted the early civilisations in which people lived in walled towns that were surrounded by agricultural territory.

In the city states of Babylon and Egypt the military rulers became both priest and law-giver, and the laws were administered at the gates of the temple. The temple itself was the receptacle for the tablets upon which the laws were engraved. From that time onwards religion remained a pillar of the state.

The growth of the small Roman state into the overlordship of myriads of similar states throughout Europe and a part of Africa and Asia threw up a host of administrative problems that resulted in a vast growth of officials and a huge bureaucracy that covered with a network the whole unwieldy Roman Empire. It was also a spur to the study of the use and abuses of private property, which resulted in the production of a mass of laws and methods of legal procedure, a good deal of which has lasted to the present day.

The empires that were based on the organisation into city states were not closely knit societies with local autonomy and direct connection with the centres, such as sprang up in modern times. They were in the main municipalities preyed upon by the central power. The Roman State was principally a huge tax-gathering machine.

Very little further progress was made in state building from Roman times until the modern state began to emerge in the 14th and 15th centuries with the opening of world markets and the rise of the capitalist class.

The growth of the modern state has followed similar lines everywhere, and thus a brief description of its development in England will give a clear enough general picture.

England was settled by different bands of warriors before and after the Roman conquest. The population was small and the country covered with woodland. The withdrawal of the Romans left it open for conquest by Angles, Jutes, Saxons and Danes, each of whom at first occupied definite tracts of country and kept their own identity. As consolidation developed tribal kingdoms became local administrative centres of larger kingdoms, until eventually, in the ninth century, the whole country was brought under the control of one king. By that time also the manorial system, with its lords and serfs, feudal dues and local courts, had become firmly established.

By 1066, the Norman conquest, local government divisions of shire, hundred, borough and township had grown out of the swallowing up of earlier tribal territories in larger ones. The local settlement of disputes under the manorial system left little room for royal intervention at first, though it was from the latter that the state was to grow.

In those days the king was elected by leaders sitting in council, and obtained and held his position as a rule by his military prowess, although kingship generally kept within the same family group.

The Norman Conquest planted upon the country an upper tier of war lords, who exacted feudal tribute, and for this purpose took a census of the number, wealth and standing of the inhabitants. The different districts were organised into a system of land tenure under which the whole country was owned in theory by the king, but each district, or a number of districts, was held in fief by nobles (his personal followers), who owed him military and other service. They in turn had vassals, who owed them similar dues. In fact, the king was a glorified manorial lord, but his position at the head of the feudal system gave him the opportunity and the means to gradually intrude in local affairs. This intrusion began with the establishment of what was called the king's peace. The lawlessness of some of the feudal lords and bands of feudal retainers became too much for the local courts to deal with, and furnished an excuse for the royal power to step in.

During the Middle Ages the King's Council ruled England. At first it consisted of the more powerful nobles, thanes, bishops and abbots, but was later reduced in size by various causes, including the crusades. Eventually the growing power of the king led to a struggle between the king and the nobles for control of the state. It was this body of feudal lords, neither elective nor representative, that began to be known as Parliament about 1250.

The influence of the crown in the general affairs of the country really began with .the appointment of Justices of the Peace, at first to assist the local sheriffs in police duties, but later to perform a great variety of functions necessary, for efficient administration. For instance, the increase in commerce increased the importance of the monetary system and the need for reliable standards of weight and measurement. Counterfeiting coins and clipping gold and silver coins was common. These were among the evils that the Justices of the Peace were organised to check. Also the putting down of piracy and securing the safety of highways came within their province. And so their number and activities increased until they covered the kingdom and attended to the smallest of local matters.

These justices were appointed by the King's Council and were only answerable to it, and they reported everything and spied upon everybody. Their growth was assisted by the disorders following the Black Death, the plague that ravaged England during the fourteenth century, and the wars with France during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.. These factors contributed so much to the state power of the crown that by the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Tudor sovereigns, Henry VII., Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, had the country under the control of a despotism that covered the acts and aspirations of every single one of the inhabitants.

In the course of time control of public affairs had become so complicated that the King's Council, which by 1626 became the Privy Council, had to delegate its work to commissions, such as the Star Chamber, Court of High Commission, and Councils of the North, of Ireland, and of Wales. Secretaries were established covering the treasury, foreign affairs, and the navy and arms. In the seventeenth century these secretaries and heads of departments formed a Cabinet Council, which later entirely took the place of the Privy Council for executive purposes. It was they who decided what money should be asked from Parliament and how Parliament should be prevailed upon to grant it.

It is necessary to go back a little to consider the development of Parliament itself.

The object of the crown in building up and controlling the state was to acquire wealth. At first the use of brute force was sufficient, but it could not thrive indefinitely upon plunder, because wealth has to be produced before it can be plundered, and a measure of security was essential to the production of wealth. Hence the crown's interest in the peace of the country.

The growth of trading, with the gradual disintegration of the manorial system, strengthened the central government, which undertook regulation of economic matters by proclamation and statute, but it also dried up some of the sources of royal revenue and forced the crown to devise other means of replenishing the treasury. In 1264 four representative knights (minor landowners) from each shire were summoned to a great council in London for the purpose of voting money to the royal exchequer. This was the germ of the House of Commons, just as the council of nobles and bishops was the germ of the House of Lords.

In 1266 two representatives of certain towns (borough members) were added to this council. And in 1322 Edward II. settled by Act that the Commons must taker part in all future legislation. In 1341 the meetings of the council were restricted to Westminster, and the Commons sat apart from the Lords. By the middle of the fifteenth century the Commons had acquired the sole right of granting money, and used it to extract concessions from the crown.

The growth of the trading companies and the exploitation of the newly discovered foreign lands poured wealth into the hands of the commercial group, and they answered the financial demands of the crown with demands for influence in legislation. These demands culminated in the Revolution of 1640, which gave the Commons an opportunity to gain experience in legislating on their own behalf. That is to say, on behalf of owners of property, because there was a property qualification for membership of Parliament which persisted until the Reform Acts from 1832 to 1886 cut into it, and it was finally abolished in the present century.

After the compromise between the crown and the landowners and financial magnates in 1688, there began to appear responsible accounts of public income and expenditure, and the practice of governing by departments readied a position by the middle of the eighteenth century that was similar in its main details to present-day practice.

The increasing complexity of social affairs, coupled with the struggle of the workers to make their voice heard, resulted finally in the admission of the whole of the population to the vote, and hence, in theory, to a voice in the control of social affairs. In fact, however, the mass of the population have not yet reached the point of desiring to control their own affairs, due partly to the work of bamboozling accomplished by the capitalism and their supporters, and partly to a failure so far to grasp the fact that society is organised at present in the interests of the owners of private property.

The acquisition of the vote by the workers has, however, given them the key to the control of the state when they wish to use it to serve their own interests by establishing a new form of society in which the means of production will be commonly owned, thus abolishing private property and the need for a state.

Gilmac.