The Purpose and Method of Colonisation [5] (1914)

From the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from last issue.)

Whether the “Study of British Methods,” in which certain European capitalist politicians seem to indulge, is also responsible for the incident which initiated the ghastly human slaughter now in progress, and which incident it greatly benefits the master class of this country to use for the purpose of hiding their own mercenary objects, it is not in our province to investigate. Anyhow, in reviewing the history of the component parts of the British Empire, no one will be at a loss to find precedents enough and to spare for any violation or outrage, however infamous and however revolting, that may have been committed in Belgium. The “glory and greatness of the Empire” is in fact made up of a long series of piratical conquests in which the sole right of Might has been everywhere proclaimed from the housetops, and in which the freedom and independence of millions of people have often been respected less than “scraps of paper.”

How the “indisputable right” over some of the millions of square miles in Africa, for example, has been secured, is in living memory; although it must not be supposed that the sordid history which centres round the gold and diamond fields exhausts the resources in the art of brigandage and massacre that the British “haute finance” is capable of commanding. In such books as “With Kitchener to Khartoum,” “The Unveiling of Lhasa,” etc., etc., typical instances are abounding of how the British “protectors” impose themselves and their “culture” upon small and relatively weak nations. Says the author of the last mentioned account of a Tibetan expedition, speaking of the “strange people we fought and conquered” : “We killed several thousand of the simple, brave, and ill-armed men; I was sorry for these Tibetans. Their struggle was so hopeless; . . . Here was all the brutality of war, and none of the glory and incentive. These men were cheerful, jolly fellows—and I have seen their crops ruined, their homes burnt and shelled, the dead lying about the thresholds of what were their homes, and all for no fault of their own—only because their leaders were politically impossible.” But what matter the lives of these people, if the “freedom of trade,” or trade-routes, in short, the freedom of Capital, is at stake ? As the writer adds with regard to these leaders: “Fortunately, however, this slaughter was beginning to put the fear of God into them.”

In the face of our present daily records of what “white against white,” Christians against Christians, can do, it will easily be granted that the deeds by which resistance to British expansion by the “so much inferior coloured heathen races,” has been crushed, not only equal any tale of brutality that is to-day laid to the charge of “the enemy” with regard to Belgium, but certainly outdo the latter in cowardice when we bear in mind that the unfortunate registers of “the invincible forces of civilisation” and Christianity did not dispose of anything like the modern efficient instruments of murder.

And if those who have laid thieves’ hands on so great a part of the world’s surface and have thereby flouted the independence of millions of people in the past; if these who are responsible for such barbarities as will ever be connected with the establishment of British dominance whether in Africa, Asia, Australia, or elsewhere if those who have never tolerated any interference with the “rights of free trade” (i.e.,, free robbery) and have carried out more “punitive expeditions” and burnt more villages of innocent peoples than the rest of the coloniz­ing nations put together ; if those who could stand by, incapable of shame, when recently hundreds of unarmed men and women were done to death or wounded in the blood-stained streets of Johannesburg ; if those who range themselves now on the side of these human fiends and very embodiment of oppression and tyranny, whose crimes vary between “Bloody Sunday” and exiling of innocent men and women to the icy dungeons of Siberia : if those now accuse their Continental rivals of savagery and violating the independence of small nations, while at the same time posing as the “trustees of freedom and good conduct,” even we—knowing their achievements in hypocrisy—feel bound to admire their insolent audacity in treating the public to this masterpiece of nauseating cant.

Of course, just as the vandalism and beastly deeds, committed by order of the German military authorities, figure in the official chronicles and school-books of the Teutons as heroic achievements, so the merciless usurpations, rapes and massacres which have marked the acquisition of “our” colonial dependencies are gloried in and impressed upon the children of the Empire as examples of British manhood, pluck, and enterprise.

Although to some extent outside the present subject, the foregoing will nevertheless serve to emphasise again the fact that the acquisition of the Colonial Empire is distinguished by the application of the most brutal, up-to-date methods that the machinery of militarism, and law and order is capable of bringing into play. But let us now revert to the subsequent economic policy of our colonial pioneers of “education and native advancement,” and see what the cultural trust imposed upon the “more advanced peoples” comes to.

Authority having once gained a footing, that is to say, the Right of Might having been brought home to the “uncultured heathen,” every subsequent activity of the Colonists is subservient to the process of converting all things capable of satisfying human wants and desires into what Providence intended them to be, namely, Commodities, so that they might at last take their proper places, as holy values and sacred property, in the temple of Mammon. The extent of the success of this process is the measure of the “prosperity” and “loyalty” of the Dominions. It goes without saying, that since all things have to become marketable values, this process involves the expropriation of the natives from all nature’s gifts—which brings the first virtue : Abstinence. And it is equally plain that only when the native’s life is hedged with notices such as:

“No admittance except on business”

“Trespassers will be prosecuted,”

will they lend themselves, or rather be forced, in order to live, to sell and apply their energies in the service of Capital— which brings a further virtue: Industry. This is so self evident that we could only describe as child-like naiveté or gross stupidity, Lord Curzon’s remark that “he greatly deplored, and had tried his utmost to discourage, the settling of Europeans in an in­digenous country with the object of extracting from it the essence which should serve to the natives as means of subsistence.” But where would abstinence come in ? And what, one may ask, are the Colonists to deal in and export if not the produce they have stolen from the natives ?

When, for example, the Chartered Company, who hold immense concessions in Africa, lease (as they have done last year) 1,000,000 acres of land (selected areas to be chosen throughout Rhodesia) at the rental of 1s. an acre, to an enterprising international firm, it is obvious that the latter mean to extract and export the resources of the territory ; in other words, these resources no longer belong to their former owners, the aborigines of Rhodesia, who will shave to look to the new proprietors (their expropriators) for their means of subsistence, unless they are prepared to quit. Such transactions necessitate, consequently, the absolute disregard of the natives’ interests and customs, seeing that if their most vital custom of all were to be observed, namely, the communal ownership (as distinct from private ownership, as in Europe) of all the land, the very object of any capitalist enterprise and colonisation would naturally become illusory. Which is surely more than a Colonial enthusiast, like Lord Curzon, could wish for. Indeed, this deprived of the native of his primitive means of living and own conditions of labour, is the very basis of all colonization; it is only hypocrites of the type of Curzon or His Excellency Dernburg, who pretend to be ignorant of the fact that in first completely disinheriting the mass of the natives, or, in Dernburg’s own terminology, in first “fulfilling the cultural trust” is the key to the “great question of how the white man is to retain his hold and domination over mankind of darker colour.”

Unfortunately, the proclamation of “Protectorates” here, and the annexation of large territories there, in short, the theoretic monopoly of the land and the granting of concessions to trading firms, on the one side, does not always automatically transform the native population into full-blown, wage-workers on the other. However desirable it may be to extract the maximum of surplus-value from this “economically most valuable motive-power,” the vastness of the territories and relatively thin population (the Colonies comprising, as a rule, disproportionately larger areas than the respective mother countries), also the widely different climatic conditions—these two main factors render difficult and protract the establishment of an effective, all-embracing control over, and exploitation of, the natives. Hence, the necessity for the professional labour-recruiting agencies ; the application of direct force (slavery); the importation of foreign labour: all of which methods have been shown to be practised on a large scale at the present time, as a temporary, if unsatisfactory, solution for the annoying “labour problem.”

In the meantime, the mills of economic development are grinding ; no sections of natives, hitherto secluded, are to be deprived of the blessings of civilisation and the comforting security it affords. Railways and extensions of railways are constantly opening up new districts and announce to previously obscure tribes the arrival of—the tax-collector; an indispensable means of bringing the native idlers to their senses and to their toil. “If one considers,” says deploringly a correspondent in an East African organ, “that there are about 3½ million of people living in the district of Ruanda and Urundi, who, in consequence of the seclusion of their exceedingly rich homelands, still enjoy, at this time of day, complete freedom from tax-paying, the necessity for opening up, through a railway, will at once become obvious.” And the “Usambara Post” (27.9.13) stated in support of a railway from Tabora to the Kagaraknie, that “such a railway would open up extraordinarily valuable districts, and that the introduction of the poll-tax there would alone make the railway pay its way.”

“No doubt it will cost thousands, but it will bring in millions”—such is their assurance. Railways in particular are powerful levers of “native advancement”—hence the great activity in this direction. They not only open up, and enable the easy transport of the produce, but of the “human material” as well. The Ovambo and Amboland railways in South-West Africa, for example, were built for the specific purpose of “serving the regular and increased supply of workers for the diamond mines.” And during a discussion (4.6.13) of the Government Council in East Africa the following was pointed out: “The idea of a continuation of the North railway up to the Lake Victoria did not originate so much from the endeavour to open up the mystic country of the Squatters and to enter into competition with the Unganda railway, but rather was the plan involved by the desire to confiscate the masses of workers living in the districts of the Lake Victoria.” This does not, of course, prevent our colonisers from pretending at the same time that the railways are built in the sole interest of the travelling workers. Indeed, what would a Christian employer not do for the welfare and amenity of the native ? ” Every friend of theirs,” he says, “must advocate the building of railways, seeing that the worker is exposed to many dangers and risks while en route for weeks and months” to the elevating occupation in the death pits of the diamond mines ! In the face of the comparative scarcity of workers it would, of course, be deplorable that these arms and “hands” should meet with accidents before having been drained of the “milliard values slumbering in them.”

And so, in accordance with the law of development of capitalist production, every activity that the enterprising European traders command in the Colonies, tends to separate the means of production more and more from the native and to concentrate the scattered means more and more under a few controlling concerns, thereby gradually closing to the natives all avenues outside of, and disciplining them for,—the wage-labour market. The exacting of hut-taxes, poll taxes, grazing-dues, etc.; permits for hunting and fishing ; the enclosure of large tracks of land either for cultivation or cattle-breeding ; the construction of railways and other means of transport and communication, water and irrigation works—these are only a few of the things which supply the precious “indirect pressure” and restrict more and more the liberties of the natives, until eventually they will find no other way to live than by selling their labour-power to their foreign masters. The “labour problem” will then be solved.

Naturally enough, this transition, far from being regarded by the natives as a normal economic development, or from benefiting him, is mostly looked upon as an act of aggression, of conquest—an arbitrary charge wrung from him in bitterness, and leaves behind a deep sense of injury. This resentment has undoubtedly been the cause of most colonial wars and rebellions since the first presence of the white man there, but the fact that the “superior” whites (superior, undoubtedly, in weapons) ever emerge victorious from the fray, again proves that Might is Right.

Rudolf Frank

(To be Continued.)

World View: Repression—in exile (1998)

From the November 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

The past couple of years have been a somewhat turbulent time for Tibetan refugee communities, Tibetan Buddhism in general, and for those who idealise the Dalai Lama. Far from fulfilling his fantasy status as some sort of “saintly” icon, the Dalai Lama has followed what can be seen as a political programme of repression not that dissimilar to that of the Chinese state, from which so many have fled.

In 1996 he announced a ban on the worship of a Buddhist deity called Dorje Shugden, declaring somewhat vaguely that he had discovered Shugden to be a “Chinese” spirit who was somehow physically threatening both his own life and the future of Tibet. He declared this ban not only in his capacity as a “spiritual leader”, but as head of a government-in-exile. For the Dalai Lama is the supreme head (unelected) of a state; albeit a state-in-waiting (Tibet) that is based in Dharamsala in northern India. It has a sizeable state machine; a parliament, cabinet, government departments, and most notably a Security Bureau. To fund this a tax is levied on all Tibetan refugees, non-payment of which results in official loss of “citizenship”. On the question of democracy, when the Vice President of the Tibetan parliament was asked if any political decision could conceivably be taken in opposition to the Dalai Lama he answered, “no, not possible”.

Those refusing to accept the ban on Shugden have accordingly been labelled as enemies of the state and Chinese agents and, in reference to Tibet’s provision at paper constitution, the government-in-exile has declared that, “concepts like democracy . . . are empty when it comes to the well-being of the Dalai Lama and the common cause of Tibet”. The lengths to which the Dalai Lama would be prepared to go to maintain his authority were hinted at in an interview in 1997 where he stated:

“If . . . there was only one learned Lama . . . alive, a person whose death would cause the whole of Tibet to lose all hope of keeping its Buddhist way of life, then it is conceivable that in order to protect that one person it might be justified for one or ten enemies to be eliminated . . .”

No prizes for guessing who and what is being referred to here then—and so much for peace and love.

The resulting “justified” actions taken against those refusing to comply with the deity ban have included the dismissal of all such dissidents from government employment and the report that the residents of at least one monastery were “persuaded” to sign forms in support of the ban by the presence of Indian state police. Some 300 cases of house arrest, destruction of personal property, and harassment by Dalai Lama supporters have been reported, including one case of a family being forced from their home by a large crowd, which petrol bombed and ransacked their house. In addition posters denouncing religious dissidents have become commonplace in Tibetan exile communities. These notices generally include the name, address and photo of the particular “enemy of the state” and the schools their children attend. It is little wonder that some have become refugees all over again.

The Dalai Lama recently helped promote the products of the Apple computer company under the advertising slogan “Think Different”, which is interesting when compared with an official statement of his that warns: “If you can think by yourselves it is good . . . it will not be good if we have to knock on your doors.”

Tibetans, both under Chinese rule and the rule of “their” government-in-exile, face a choice in common with the exploited majority everywhere: conformity imposed by gods and masters or the struggle for real freedom presented by socialists.

Ben Malcolm

Fifty Years Ago: Turmoil in Tibet (2009)

The 50 Years Ago column from the May 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

The rebellion in Tibet, its draconian suppression, and the escape of the Dalai Lama, have exploded like a star-shell to illuminate a world in the Iron Curtain’s dark shadow. Events in Tibet have been compared with the recent suppression in Hungary and while there is a resemblance, both revolts and the backgrounds have been reported everywhere befogged with misunderstanding or misrepresentation by people who do not seem to have a clue as to what the factors are that make society tick.(…)

Most of the 4,500,000 Tibetans actually live within the confines of China in the areas bordering on Tibet. Only about 1,000,000 live in Tibet proper, under political allegiance to Lhasa. Their social classification is roughly: 50,000 nobles and merchants, 150,000 monks, 800,000 serfs. About one-seventh of the population is in the monasteries—more than one man in four. Those who are not in the church have mostly swallowed the religious bait, hook, line and sinker, and live in subjection to the nobles. They live, imprisoned by the ties of these religious convictions. (…)

The trouble in Tibet is a revolt of the feudal rulers against the imposed rule of State-Capitalist China—these are the transgressors in Tibet. Whichever side wins, the underprivileged on either side will still continue to be exploited, even though serfs become wage-slaves. Tibet compares with Hungary in that, once again, it is a quarrel between ruling-cliques and is not worth the shedding of one drop of workers’ blood on either side.

(From article by F, Offord, Socialist Standard, May 1959)

Editorial: Hopes For 1960 (1960)

Editorial from the January 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Whether it is reasonable to hope for small blessings in 1960, or wiser to fear the worst, depends in some measure on the view taken of 1959. Well, what did happen in 1959? First, the too-obvious happening, which no newspaper or radio commentator ever mentions, that nine workers out of ten just went on working. They were glad to have had the chance, glad that they didn't lose their jobs and glad if nothing happened that forced them to strike. They did it for a living and they are glad to go on doing so: they hope their luck will hold out for another 12 months.

Among their troubles in 1959 was being preached at and moralised about by the rich, the learned and the famous; who told them they ought to work harder, stay away from work less, be more thrifty, spend less on drink, tobacco and gambling, and generally to behave themselves in a way that will do credit to their British masters when the latter are showing them off to V.l.P.’s from Russia and other foreign countries. There is not a chance that this will end in the year now beginning and anyway most workers do not even think of the possibility that it could end; their hopes are more modest. They are told they have never had it so good and that it is going to get better in the next twenty years or so. but in the next twelve months most of them would settle for a lot less. Mr. Peter Townsend, research fellow at London University, got together a few facts in the Sunday Dispatch (29/11/59). He pointed out that there are 4,000,000 retired people and old age pensioners who cannot count on an income of much over £4 a week; and that pensioners living alone have been shown in an official survey to be spending less than 22s. a week on food; and that there are 2½ million homes without piped water and

6½ million without a bath. Perhaps by January 1, 1961, the position will be a little better—unless, as may happen, it is a little worse.

Let us say that most of the workers would deem themselves fortunate if in a year’s time they are earning a little more, or working a slightly shorter week, and that prices and fares and rents have not gone up.

Of course the pleasant picture may be marred by workers having to spend still longer time waiting at bus queues or in traffic jams, but you can't have everything.

In politics the British workers decided to give the Tories another term of office because, among other things, there looked like being early high level talks between Russia, America, British and French heads of government. There is no reason at all why the workers should not hope that those high level talks will take place in I960. They can't very well make things worse and it will mean that the countries are not at war: Though why not low level talks between the workers?

It is one of the good things about 1959 that apart from the Tibetans having been “saved” by Chinese invaders and Cuba having been “saved” by revolution, and Nehru having been caught by surprise and therefore too late to save some almost uninhabitable territory from being occupied by other Chinese soldiers, most parts of the world have been lucky enough not to have been specially saved by anyone.

We can all hope that no "national saviour" has an opportunity of shedding other people's blood in 1960. Our hopes in that direction should be shared by the 20 million refugees, homeless and unwanted, who linger on after past wars.

According to United Nations agencies nearly half the world's people were undernourished in 1959 and may hope to do no worse in 1960. Meanwhile, the American government, having been unable to sell enormous stocks of unwanted wheat, butter, etc., may hope to be able to give it away to the needy, provided other would-be sellers of surplus foods can be persuaded to give up their objections.

Turning from the likely hopes and fears of non-Socialist workers, to the hopes of Socialists, we can say that we start this year with something gained. The year 1959 saw a real improvement of the prospect for Socialist principles to make headway against those two hindrances to progress, the Labour Party, and the myth of Socialism in Russia. Both suffered crippling blows in the year just past. Here's to more of the same in 1960. And here's to the workers learning to be a lot less humble, and deciding to have Socialism.

The King of Nepal (1960)

From the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Several weeks ago the King and Queen of Nepal paid a state visit to London. You may recall the event, particularly if you were a Londoner caught up in the traffic chaos that day and were not mollified by the background of pageantry.

The City of London, however, showed pleasure unalloyed. The Crown Prince Birinda of Nepal watched the Guildhall luncheon in honour of his father, King Mahendra. Four hundred guests tackled lobster soup; sole and pheasant.

The king wore the same gorgeous uniform. as he did for his reception by the Royal Family on his arrival, with the addition of the baton of a British field-marshal, newly presented to him by the Queen. In his speech he said:—

  London is especially attractive to us because here was begun the battle of liberty and freedom, centuries ago, and here it was won during the latest—and let us hope, the last—challenge in war.
  The task is now to press on with the Battle of Peace—and we in Nepal unshakeably believe that London is going to be our greatest friend in this struggle, too.

Why do the Nepalese King and Queen hob-nob with “our” Queen, and what is the significance of Nepal to the British ruling class? What meaning lay behind the King's speech at the Guildhall? Such suspicious questions seem to come naturally to Socialists, for we have learned by experience in capitalism not to take too much notice of the description on the label.

May we now proceed to attempt to unravel the little mystery of the royal visit even though it may rather take some of the glitter off the tinsel.

Nepal is a border state between India and Tibet. It is 525 miles long and up to 140 miles wide, with a population of 5½ million. The family of the present ruler has been in power for decades and the history of Nepal is a long story of royal ruthlessness, trickery and bloody outrages.

Nepal invaded Tibet in 1855 and received annual tribute until 1952, when Tibet was colonised by “Socialist” China. Since then China has reversed the process and has become in turn the aggressor. The Chinese last June invaded Nepal's border, killed a Nepalese army officer and took prisoners back. It naturally gave a severe jolt to relations between them and makes it understandable that the Nepalese ruling-class should now wish to lean on the U.K. And with India on its other border Nepal is between two dangerous giants.

But the so-called Socialist Government of Nepal is good at playing one off against the other and in the process doing well for the ruling-class. To date the economic and technical aid from India amounts to about 100 million rupees (£8 million). Besides, India has been helping Nepal build up her vital lines of transportation and supply. A 972 mile highway linking Katmandu, the capital, with the Indian border was constructed by Indian engineers. In 1958 an agreement with India was signed for the laying of nearly 900 miles of roads. India has also agreed to contribute R's 500,000 for irrigation and waterworks.

From China, too, Nepal has received R'S 10 million in economic aid as part of a R's 60 million aid programme. Russia, too, has agreed to set up a hydro-electric power plant, a sugar factory with a diesel power plant, and to prepare a road survey costing three million roubles.

Whilst Nepalese capitalism is expanding, the Nepalese working-class is suffering heavy unemployment and is embarrassing the so-called Socialist government of the country. They, however, hold out hope in the start of the second five-year Plan now beginning, which has made provision to absorb about half a million working people during the Plan period. Social services cannot do much to tackle this thorny problem and the population is growing at the rate of 1.5 per cent. per year.

Amongst the Nepalese underprivileged, so great is the struggle for existence that normally children over 10 work and some even below that age. But unemployment means cheap labour, and cheap labour can give rise to good profits. No wonder the City of London are interested. The dinner at the Guildhall was bread cast upon the water, to be returned with interest.

The recently elected “Socialist” government of Nepal serves to mark that country's entry into the world of capitalism. The Sino-Indian dispute and its repercussions loom large on the Nepalese political horizon, but as a way out the Nepalese ruling class is developing a world consciousness.

When the King of Nepal referred to liberty and freedom, he was no doubt referring to the liberty and freedom for the ruling class to make money with as little in the way of restrictions and hindrances as possible. Those who remember the journeys and activities of the Duke of Windsor when he was Prince of Wales will realise that the King of Nepal is not the first royal commercial traveller.

Frank Offord

Mount Everest: Top of Whose World? (2013)

From the June 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Because it is there’ was the unbending response of mountaineer George Mallory when he was asked why anyone would want to climb Mount Everest. In that sense Everest had been ‘there’ since the 1850s, when it was first identified in the Great British Trigonometric Survey of India as ‘singularly shy and retiring.’ The fact that this was something extraordinary – the highest in the world, then measured at 29,002 feet – was acknowledged in 1856 when it was considered proper to name it after the retiring Surveyor General of India. Not that Sir George Everest, infamous for his volcanic temperament, was especially impressed. And Mallory? His body was left on the mountain in 1924, tantalisingly close to the summit. Thereafter Everest was inviolate until June 1953, when Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay allowed themselves to spend just fifteen minutes there, burying in the snow some small tokens of their achievement. The news of their triumph was delayed so as to arrive here on the same day as the coronation of queen Elizabeth, resulting in coinciding sixtieth anniversaries which may be used by crazier patriots in a campaign of delusion to play down the fact that neither of those two pioneering climbers was British.

Curzon

It was some time after Everest had been noted and measured that the prospect of climbing it, which involved first crossing the formidable surrounding landscape, was seriously discussed. And when there was such a discussion, it originated among an expensively exclusive elite that prided itself on being driven by what was known as a ‘mystic patriotism’ – but which in reality had notably less exalted motives. This was a cause enjoying the passionate support of Lord Curzon, supremely imperialist Viceroy of India: ‘It has always seemed to me a reproach … that we, mountaineers and pioneers par excellence of the universe, make no sustained and scientific attempt to climb to the top…’ In 1906 the proposal was taken on by the Alpine Club on the assumption that the cost would be borne by its more prosperous members who in return would qualify for a place on the expedition. In the event, the entire concept was swamped by the outbreak of war in 1914, when many of the aspiring conquerors of Everest – including Mallory – were persuaded by what they regarded as their obligation as Englishmen to the essential idealism of the human spirit to take their place in the trenches, where they witnessed such horrors as would prepare them for the worst that Everest could offer.

Bell

The foredoomed peace of 1918 allowed the surviving climbers to turn their obsessive attention to the detailed organisation of an Everest expedition. One immediate problem was to ensure that a party would be allowed by the surrounding countries to get at the mountain. This was complicated by the question of whether the British would send arms to Tibet for that country’s continuing dispute with China. There were also religious objections to the invasion of sacred ground. An influential figure in settling this problem was Charles Bell, the British political officer at Sikkim, whose knowledge of Tibet, its people and their traditions was impressively extensive. He reported: ‘…there are several sacred places in the vicinity of Mount Everest…Tibetans would not like Europeans moving about those places…(and) do not believe that explorations are carried on only in the interests of geographical knowledge and science… Until the Tibetan question is settled with China these expeditions to Mount Everest should not be allowed.’ Eventually Bell’s considerable influence persuaded the British government to supply arms, ammunition and the necessary training and technical advice to the Tibetan army. In December 1920, as part of a more complex initiative in diplomacy, this brought Tibetan agreement to a British Mount Everest expedition.

Hinks

The plan was to send a party in 1921 to assess whether it would be possible to climb Everest and get down again safely and to settle on the most likely route for doing so. This would be followed by yearly expeditions from 1922, setting up a chain of camps from which a select pair of climbers could strike out for the summit and quickly return. Among the most urgent matters for the Committee was to select the mountaineers. Arthur Hinks, one of the joint secretaries, was responsible for this although his temperament was not the most promising for so delicate a task. Among an ocean of volcanic eccentrics he was a sarcastic, intolerant, vituperous bully contemptuous of anything he considered ‘modern’ such as a telephone in his home. There was a strict requirement for all members of the expedition to be British, which allowed Hinks to compose a response to an ex-officer of the German Army: ‘I have hitherto put straight into the wastepaper basket all applications from ex-enemies.’ Not that all cases were judged on climbing ability: in 1923, Richard Graham who offered pretty well everything needed to commend him and who had a number of influential supporters – including Mallory – was at first accepted but then quietly rejected when an anonymous Committee member objected to him on the grounds that during the war, as a Quaker, he had been a conscientious objector.

Finch

When the mammoth task of organisation was completed the expedition arrived at its base camp early in May 1921. Among the matters to be settled was whether the use of oxygen should be allowed or whether it would be ‘unsporting.’ Especially keen on oxygen, making himself somewhat unpopular in the process, was George Finch, an accomplished climber who in the next expedition in 1922 reached to a record 27,300 feet – during which he saved the life of his partner. A party led by Mallory then failed to improve on this and as they were descending they were hit by a massive avalanche in which Mallory narrowly escaped death but seven native porters were killed. A lack of money prevented another effort in 1923, but on the following year two climbers – Norton and Somervell without using oxygen – reached 28,126 feet, less than 1,000 from the summit. But they were in a very bad state, with Norton snow blind and Somervell fearing he was on the point of death. They both survived and Mallory prepared himself with Andrew Irvine for his third attempt on 8 June, leaving the geologist Noel Odell at Camp V to keep observation.

Odell

Early on 9 June as the mist cleared Odell saw, on a ridge near the base of the final peak, what he later described as ‘two black spots.’ As he watched, the two figures surmounted a great rock step before the mist clamped down again and they were lost to sight. ‘There was but one explanation,’ he later wrote, ‘It was Mallory and his companion moving, as I could see even at that great distance, with considerable alacrity…’ He kept watching and hoping for some hours before he gave up. But Mallory and Irvine were never seen again, and the climbers assembled below had to face the agonising truth that they had perished somewhere on the slopes. In effect it was the end of the expedition. But a great deal, in several senses, had been invested in its result, which stimulated some reluctance to admit to failure. So Odell was subjected to strong pressure to refashion his memory of what he had observed, even to supply evidence that the climb had been successful. But what concession he made on this was no more than vague and conditional. Subsequent events offered nothing more: for example when Hilary and Tenzing got to the top they did not find anything to suggest that anyone had been there before.

With the return of the expedition the angry frustration at the failure did not prevent an awareness that this was a potentially profitable situation. Odell was promoted as a rising star, soon speaking at as many as three lectures a day, which yielded him some £700. A lot was expected of the film The Epic Of Everest, made by the official photographer John Noel, on which rode an investment of £8000. Noel was not optimistic about the prospects for the film and questioned whether these might have been more promising had there been a female star to inject a romantic interest. Already it featured a type of carnival including dancing and seven performing Buddhist monks, which caused the Dalai Lama to ban Noel from Tibet and forbid any more plans to climb Mount Everest.

Crime

In what are known as these more enlightened times the travel industry has expanded into mountaineering, with offers to conduct willing tourists to the summit – at a suitable price. One agency promises to provide ‘…the very best leadership, equipment, oxygen systems, comfort, food and Sherpa support…’ for some £35,000; another charges $65,000 because it claims to be better than cheaper companies. One effect of this is to create serious congestion on the route up the mountain; recently one experienced climber took a photograph of a huge queue standing for hours on the slopes, waiting its turn. In all he summarised the situation as ‘mass hysteria.’ There have been accounts of the mountain being disfigured by masses of litter including empty oxygen cylinders and of hurrying climbers in the Death Zone stepping around others who have been overcome. And crime flourished in a setting where it would once have been inconceivable. In his book High Crimes Michael Kodas, who had climbed the mountain twice, listed a series of thefts from the tents of climbers, in many cases involving equipment which was life-preserving, later to be found hidden among other team members’ property: ‘…some of my own teammates… in their efforts to stand on top of the world and make money doing it, behaved more like mobsters than mountaineers.’

It was consistent with these events that in 1999 a party from the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition should find, at 27,000 feet, Mallory’s frozen body. Photographs were then on sale for considerable sums of money; at one stage the price for a single shot reached $40,000. As Mallory’s body was hacked and levered out of the ice the clothing was torn, yielding artefacts which were later catalogued as rare specimens. From the diggers could be heard comments such as, ‘There’s still some more shit here’ and ‘This is something…I think it’s fucking closed.’ One vastly experienced climber who gave vent to his feelings at this was Chris Bonington: ‘Words can’t express how disgusted I am. These people don’t deserve to be called climbers.’

Priorities

After the failure of the 1924 expedition, leaving its bodies out on the frozen slopes, there was a suspension of any more such ventures until 1933. In the meantime there was the preoccupation with glorifying it all as an historic example of purely British endeavour. At the memorial service in St. Paul’s cathedral the bishop of Chester intoned about ‘…the last ascent, with the beautiful mystery of the great enigma… stands for more than an heroic effort to climb a mountain.’ These words may have defiantly soothed some ruffled patriots but said nothing about the essentials of what had happened. The drive to climb Everest was at first energised by the pressure to compensate for the failure of British expeditions to be the first to reach either of the Earth’s poles. And then, in what was called, after 1918, The Silence as the world was in preparation for another great war, there was the need to assuage the grief over senseless disasters such as the Somme, Passchendaele, Gallipoli… Behind it all the political and military urgency of the tensions in the area sprouted from the priority to assert the British rule of India and stifle any potential threat from Russia. These matters were not unrelated to the fact that marketing the opportunity for people to climb Everest emerged as another investment, essentially no different from all the other degrading examples of the commodity demands of capitalism. In face of that, no human being, no mountain, can stand free.

Ivan

Turmoil in Tibet (1959)

From the May 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

The rebellion in Tibet, its draconian suppression, and the escape of the Dalai Lama, have exploded like a star-shell to illuminate a world in the Iron Curtain's dark shadow. Events in Tibet have been compared with the recent suppression in Hungary and while there is a resemblance, both revolts and the backgrounds have been reported everywhere befogged with misunderstanding or misrepresentation by people who do not seem to have a clue as to what the factors are that make society tick.

A Britisher says his piece
Mr. Hugh Richardson, the last British representative as Officer-in-Charge of the British Mission in Lhasa from 1947-1950 writing in The Observer, 5th April, 1959, gave a sincere, emotional, but woolly-headed review of the happenings and the historical background there. He said that the benefits of science conferred by the Chinese were illusory to the Tibetans when compared with the freedom to retain their old customs. He also naively berated Mr. Nehru for the part he played, “There is still no word from him of condemnation of the use of force beyond anything that an internal affair could warrant. Is such circumspection necessary or honourable?” He also makes out a case against the Chinese invasion on grounds of pure illegality.

Because Tibet has been off the beaten track of world trade, surrounded by land and without any ports conveniently available, she has been left severely alone by the great Capitalist groupings of the world whose main basis of transport is the steamship. Trade with Tibet had to be carried on with the aid of caravans for moving the merchandise, and this obsolete method renders out of the question cash crops and mining ventures, two of the great standbys of this profit-making age.

But there is a certain amount of trade with the contiguous countries, and this is to a large extent in the hands of the Tibetan nobles who, unlike the British aristocrats of last century, do not consider indulging in trade to be beneath them.

Tibet entered the Twentieth Century committed by the leanings of its ruling theocracy towards isolationism, and straining to get rid of its vassalage to Peking. The nobles wish to keep all of the profits of exploitation. The Tibetan ruling class is closely supported by the princes of the Buddhist church, who co-operate to preserve a subject-class docile, and amenable to the demands of their masters. Marx was by no means the first to realise that religion is the opiate of the people! Both British and Russian governments at that time had ambitions which extended to Tibet. But Prime Minister Arthur J. Balfour stated the British case simply, “It would be a serious misfortune to the Indian Government and a danger to our northern frontier, should Tibet fall under any European influence other than our own ” (Eastern World, December, 1956).

Tibet, a weak country, was but a pawn in the game of power politics then, as in the present fracas.

Would the Chinese Nationalists act the same ?
Chiang Kai-shek, the discredited Nationalist from his retreat in Formosa, criticised the Chinese government for their part in the affair and promised the Tibetans his support. He also proposed to organise an airlift, but the Tibetans, though they have not studied the Bible, probably know better than to lean upon a broken reed. Both the “Communist” and the Nationalist governments of China act on behalf of Chinese Capitalism. The “Communist” government of China has taken over from the Nationalists the map of China showing Tibet as being included within the country's boundaries.

But the tongue-in-cheek protestations of Chiang Kai-shek ring hollow to those who remember his activities in 1950, when the Chinese “liberated” Tibet. Lhasa's appeal of November 7th, 1950, to the United Nations for help against “the armed invasion of Tibet for the incorporation of Tibet within the fold of Chinese Communism, was presented in the United Nations, as a resolution by El Salvador. The Chiang Kai-shek delegate from Formosa opposed entering the item on the agenda on the challengeable grounds that Tibet had been part of China for 700 years.” In fact, as hollow as the sympathy for Tibet expressed by the press both here and in America. Chiang Kai-shek was allowed to have his way: neither Britain nor the United States rose to make an issue of the Tibetan nobles' right to self-determination, i.e., the right of the Tibet ruling-class to exploit the subjugated and keep the loot all to themselves. Apparent good intentions on the part of ruling-classes, when probed in the light of Socialist knowledge, so frequently appear as having economic motives. Whenever principles conflict with self-interests it seems as though it is always the principles that are jettisoned. The right to self-determination becomes the right to exploit: a rose by another name! The Tibetan government, standing alone, was forced in May, 1951, to submit to "Peaceful Liberation,” otherwise known as invasion and subjugation.

“Liberations”
The “liberation” of Tibet by the so-called Communist government of China in 1950-1 was by no means the first time that the country has seen invaders. The first Gurkha invasion from the south was in 1788, but in 1792 the Chinese government despatched an army of both Tibetans and Chinese under Chinese leadership and in the arctic cold of winter forced the Gurkhas to retire. The Chinese closed the frontier, but in 1841 an invading force from Kashmir were almost exterminated by the Tibetans. A Gurkha invasion of 1855 opened the country up to trade with the Indian sub-continent which was then governed by the British.

But Tibet, long regarded romantically by Europeans as the Land of the Lamas, is of strategic importance in the virtually New World that is Asia, and the country can be compared there much in the same way as control of the Middle East is regarded as vital by Western interests. Fairly recent events surely underline the truth of this contention. But Tibet no longer acts as a buffer zone; instead, it constitutes a forward area for Chinese penetration into South Asia.

Missiles from the Roof of the World

The Chinese are constructing airfields in Tibet. The Tibetan plateau of 12,000 foot altitude provides, in this age of jet bombers, an air base unique in the world. Calcutta is only about 550 miles from Lhasa. According to a report in the Eastern World, December, 1956, north of Tibet, through Kansu and Sinkiang, work is progressing on the Lanchow-Urumchi Railway, scheduled for completion (with a link to the Soviet Turk-Siberian Railway) in 1960. In August, 1956, Georgi Pokrovsky, a Soviet natural scientist, in a magazine article, proposed the construction of a Trans-Hymalayan railway running from the Soviet Union across Sinkiang to Kashmir and on to Delhi, thus connecting the Soviet Union, China and India by rail.

Those are all tremendous undertakings, and some of them are only projects for the future. But it is to the future that Peking and Moscow are looking, and the blueprints fit together. And in that context Tibet is being developed as a base from which China would be enabled to manoeuvre. For land power, not sea power, dominates Asia. Tibet thus becomes a factor in world strategy.

China and Tibet

Most of the 4,500,000 Tibetans actually live within the confines of China in the areas bordering on Tibet. Only about 1,000,000 live in Tibet proper, under political allegiance to Lhasa. Their social classification is roughly: 50,000 nobles and merchants, 150,000 monks, 800,000 serfs. About one-seventh of the population is in the monastaries—more than one man in four. Those who are not in the church have mostly swallowed the religious bait, hook, line and sinker, and live in subjection to the nobles. They live, imprisoned by the ties of their religious convictions.

A Reuters report published in the Far Eastern Review (November 1952) on developments in Tibet describes how the Chinese, using the Tibetan ruling-class governmental control of the population, are developing the country. As a reprisal for the Chinese occupation, the U.S.A., who are the main buyers of the wool crop (the chief item of export to the outside world), stopped purchases, in conformity with their policy of no trade with Communist countries. This brought about a minor crisis among the Tibet traders, but the Chinese met it by buying about 4 million pounds of wool for the China home market. While the Tibetan ruling-class co-operate with the Chinese government and the latter rally to their aid in time of trouble, it is only those who believe the State Capitalism of China is really Communism, that would consider these two groups to be other than two of a kind.

Industrialisation goes on apace

  Many factories, including an automatic repair plant, an iron works, bricks and tiles plants, saw mills, and a chemical plant, are now in operation. Hydro-electric or steam power stations have been built in Lhasa, Shigatse and Chamdo. Many Tibetan homes which once used yak-butter lamps or had no illumination at night at all, are today using electric light. Over 4,000 miles of motor roads have been constructed and many bridges built; some of them are remarkable feats of engineering skill. These roads link up all the major cities and towns and the principal agricultural, pastoral and handicraft areas which seven years ago were solely dependent on yak, horse and donkey caravans for the transportation of goods. They also connect Tibet with Chinghai, Sinkiang. Szechwan and other parts of China. A passenger air service is now running between Lhasa and Peking. Several airfields have been constructed both for civil and military aviation. Many towns and settlements have sprung up along the newly built highways. Nagchuka, a point along the Chinghai-Tibet highway where there were only a few cottages and tents before, today has become a town with banking, postal and telegraph, trading and health services. A free primary school has also been opened. New dwellings in great numbers have been added in Lhasa, Shigatse, Chamdo and Gynagtse. Industrial activities have given Lhasa a modern look. Its uninhabited northern outskirts are now dotted with factories and living quarters.
  More than 500 species of farm crops and vegetables have been successfully cultivated by the three agricultural experimental farms located on the high Tibetan plateau. Corn has been grown in Shigatse, nearly 12,000 feet above the sea level. Tibetans are being helped by Chinese workers to develop agriculture and livestock breeding. There are now about 80 primary schools attended by more than 6,000 pupils. Last year the first secondary school was opened. Students are given free board, clothing and books. During their study period they get pocket money. There are now three well-equipped general hospitals and several smaller hospitals and clinics in Tibet. About 4.000 Tibetans are now studying in higher institutions in Peking and other cities of China. More Tibetans are being trained locally and in China as doctors, nurses, teachers, radio-operators, tractor drivers and skilled workers.
 The China-geared economic revolution is gradually creating a new social consciousness. Radio, newspapers and cinema are gradually breaking the long-standing barrier of backwardness.

But it must not be thought that China is acting from purely altruistic motives. Tibet is rich in a range of minerals, including uranium—the raw material of atomic power and atomic bombs—according to Chinese surveys.

  China is doing a very commendable job in improving the economic conditions of Tibet. Industries are being developed, agricultural reorganisation is being carried out, the transportation and communication system is being rapidly extended, illiteracy is being removed and health improved, and, above all, mineral surveys are being conducted to utilise vast untapped resources. So far the surveys have revealed that there are more than 30 kinds of mineral resources of industrial value in Tibet. Besides precious metals, coal and iron, Tibet is said to be rich in uranium. There is no doubt that preliminary exploitation of Tibetan mineral resources will be undertaken before 1962. When the envisaged industrial revolution takes place Tibet will become an important economic unit of China. Already it has been established that about two-thirds of the northern Tibetan plateau is very good cattle grazing ground. Hence plans are afoot to make the area China’s major livestock breeding zone in the future. Specially picked Chinese families are being settled in Tibet to help the projected industrialisation of the region and to render smooth the Sino-Tibetan racial unification. The region therefore has become a reservoir for Chinese settlers. Tibet, which has an area of about 12.3 per cent, of that of China, has a total population of only about 1,200,000.

—Eastern World, August, 1958.

Chinese in Mongolia—a foretaste of happenings in Tibet

Mongolia bordering China in the north has already experienced a full-dress rehearsal of what is now taking place in Tibet. The former country, also remote, with a lama dominated population, has already had a taste of "liberation,” Chinese style. Mongolia, a vast country dominated by its cattle baron aristocracy, who look askance at the teeming Chinese settlers. As in Tibet, some are engaged in mining. The coal deposits there, for instance, are estimated at 2,000 million tons. Chinese agriculturalists are swarming in, turning the ancient open pasture lands into farms. Mass trials of Mongolians and killing off the disaffected have been the order of the day, and make a mockery of Article 72 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China dealing with the protection of minorities.

In Mongolia as in Tibet when economic motives beckon, all other considerations have to give way, and the Chinese government behave like any old-time colonial power, except that they falsely act in the name of Communism. 

Who are the transgressors in Tibet ?

The Chinese authorities, probably feeling more secure in their grip of Tibet, and therefore more independent of the services of the Tibetan ruling-clique, had begun clamping on taxes, especially on the monasteries, which have tremendous influence, and had never before been taxed. The Tibetan court, steeped in traditional ways of thought, probably found that a conversion of their feudal economy, almost overnight, into a colonial appendage of a Capitalist power, was a bit too much to stomach, and that they could no longer co-operate, and so they went whilst they still had the chance to get away.

The Dalai Lama and his retinue has been reported as having crossed the Indian frontier, no doubt with heavy hearts, but also with a caravan loaded with gold and jewels. Moreover, it appears that the contents of his palace, reported as having been looted, are insured in India for a vast sum. The Indian government are considering whether they will allow him to build a palace there. Whilst the Dalai Lama may feel miserable he will, apparently, at least be able to be miserable in comfort.

But what is the lot of those who have been left behind: Newspapers report that practically all the young able-bodied men in Lhasa have been separated from their families and driven off by the Chinese apparently to forced labour camps. The Chinese appear to be trying to close the frontier, when, liquidation, a euphemism for extermination, will become the order of the day. The sum total of human suffering there mounts up. Once again, there is a resemblance between the fairly recent events in Hungary, in the plight of the refugees, who, for the moment, are fleeing across the frontiers. Once again, there is a break-up of families and the horror of both young and old at being uprooted and driven out, but this is an almost continuous process in a class-dominated society. The Tibetan refugees now join the grim procession: before them the Dutch from Indonesia, the Hungarians, the 900,000 Arab refugees in the Middle East, the Muslims who fled from India, the Hindus from Pakistan and the continuous stream from East Germany. This column of spectres will go on, it seems, while Capitalism lasts.

The trouble in Tibet is a revolt of the feudal rulers against the imposed rule of State-Capitalist China—these are the transgressors in Tibet. Whichever side wins, the underprivileged on either side will still continue to be exploited, even though serfs become wage-slaves. Tibet compares with Hungary in that, once again, it is a quarrel between ruling-cliques and is not worth the shedding of one drop of workers' blood on either side.

Frank Offord

Passing Comments: China (1950)

The Passing Comments column from the December 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

China

The Stalinists are having a difficult time trying to explain away the invasion of Tibet by China. One might have expected such an invasion in the days of the old, avowedly imperialist China; but surely, one would have thought, the new China, which claims to be “Communist,” would have no reason to invade her neighbours. The Stalinists are so short of good arguments that the best two excuses for the invasion they can think of are firstly that the Chinese Emperors of the thirteenth century conquered Tibet, and secondly that the British Government recognises Tibet to be “part of China". For example, the Daily Worker (27/10/50) says, “Just as Wales is part of Britain, so Tibet is part of China, and has been so since the thirteenth century. This fact was recognised by the British Government in a note to the Chinese Government as recently as 1945.” The second reason is feeble in the extreme: if the British Government recognises that, say, lndo-China is part of the French Empire, do the Stalinists agree without further discussion that the French have a title to lndo-China? The first reason is even more revealing: apparently the Communists believe that Mao Tse-tung and his friends are the successors of the Emperors, and that if the Mongol rulers of China seven hundred years ago conquered Tibet, then Mao has the right to rule over Tibet to-day. Tibet is as much a part of China as Ireland is of England. Ireland and Tibet are both relatively weak-countries which have at some time in their history been conquered by their bigger and more powerful neighbours. Just as one of the English imperialists of the last century might have referred to “the historic English territory of Ireland,” so now the daily paper of our new twentieth-century imperialists refers to “the historic Chinese territory of Tibet.” The Stalinists, it seems, now think that small countries once conquered lose all right to an independent existence. All of which goes to show that “the rights of small nations” is as empty a phrase in the mouths of the Stalinists as it is in the mouths of the Anglo-American leaders.


Peace

But how does all this square with the desire for “peace” so tirelessly reiterated by the Communist parties of the world?

So agile are the Stalinists in juggling with words that they can even reconcile the waging of an aggressive war with the defence of peace. A Daily Worker article of November 8th begins with the words, “ Twice in the past fortnight the Chinese people have acted for peace. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army has marched into Tibet to protect China’s frontiers, and Chinese volunteers have gone to the help of the Koreans.” This action, it goes on, “ has made more secure not only China but the peace of all Asia and the world.” Propaganda about going to war in order to preserve the peace is not, of course, confined to the Russian bloc: “Illustrated" (11/11/50) has an article about one of the British soldiers who have gone to fight in Korea, and headlines it “Soldiers for Peace.”


Defence

The Daily Worker (27/10/50) says of what it calls the “standard Constitutional History Book for all pupils in the seventh class” in Soviet schools that it emphasises the “peaceful nature of the Soviet State.” “Nowhere in its pages can one find any other justification for the armed forces of the State than the needs of defence.” In the Western World there is the same insistence on the need for defence as the justification for having an army. The cost of preparing for the next war, including the building of bombing planes and bombs of all kinds, comes under the heading of “Defence Expenditure.” The invasion of Tibet shows that the Stalinists, like their opponents, have a somewhat elastic idea of the meaning of the word “ defence.”


India

Mr. Nehru disapproves strongly of the Chinese aggression on Tibet; indeed, he appears to dislike the use of force in any circumstances if it can possibly be avoided, according to the Manchester Guardian. An article in that paper on October 26th said of him that “his whole foreign policy is governed by his views on the use of force. He is enough of a Ghandian to believe that force solves nothing; he is also enough of a practical patriot to realise that countries must defend themselves against attack. . . . He satisfies the Ghandian in himself by insisting that force must not be used to drive the other side into a corner. Solutions to the last must be, he thinks, freely accepted. Mr. Nehru fulfils his duty as Prime Minister by insisting that aggression must be resisted.”

And it must be admitted that when Mr. Nehru talks about aggression and the use of force he is speaking of a subject of which he knows a great deal. Mr. Nehru has had experience of aggression from the profitable end.


Hyderabad

When in 1947 the British set up the two new dominions of India and Pakistan on the Indian subcontinent they did not at first cover all the territory which had accepted the supremacy of Britain. There were a number of Princes’ States like Kashmir and Hyderabad which were left to decide their future for themselves. Most of these States joined one of the Dominions, but the Nizam of Hyderabad did not wish to join either. By August, 1948, Hyderabad was the only state on the sub-continent which was still independent of both Dominions. In that month India protested at the activities of a Moslem organisation in Hyderabad whose members were called Razakars: India alleged that the Moslems were terrorising the Hindus of Hyderabad, who formed 86 per cent, of the population. The government of Hyderabad insisted that there was no internal disorder, and made the counter-charge that India was violating the frontier by sending raiding-parties across it, and was carrying out an economic blockade. (Hyderabad was entirely surrounded by Indian territory, having no outlet to the sea except through India.) After much further accusation and counter-accusation, India, without declaring war, invaded Hyderabad. On September 13th four Indian armoured columns thrust their way across the border. Three days later the Security Council met to hear the complaint of the representative of Hyderabad, who protested against the Indian aggression and demanded "immediate action” by the Security Council. Instead of sending MacArthur to help Hyderabad defend herself against this open act of aggression, the Security Council adjourned. On September 17th the Nizam gave up the unequal struggle against India: an estimated 2,000 of the defending forces had been killed, and the invading columns had almost reached the capital. Mr. Nehru added insult to injury by remarking "we are men of peace, hating war, and the last thing we desire is to come into armed conflict with anyone." After the surrender, the Nizam telegraphed to Lake Success withdrawing Hyderabad’s complaint against India. The Security Council breathed a sigh of relief and adjourned the matter sine die: which is a polite way of saying that they dropped it for good. No doubt Hyderabad was a backward, undemocratic country, ruled dictatorial by the Nizam; but South Korea (the invasion of which so outraged the Security Council) was also an undemocratic country, ruled dictatorially by the Syngman Rhee clique. If the Anglo-American bloc was really interested in defeating aggression, as opposed to making war on Stalinist countries, they could hardly have had a clearer case to deal with than the Indian attack on Hyderabad; but they refused to take any action, and thus showed themselves to be interested, not in defeating aggression, but merely in using aggression as a pretext for war in the countries belonging to the rival bloc.

Production

When the Labour Government took office in 1945 it appealed to the workers to increase production in order to assist in the "national recovery” after the war. To recover means, of course, to regain a position one has previously had, but has temporarily lost. When a nation recovers, it returns to some previous condition: but the Labour Party has never satisfactorily explained just why it wants us to regain our pre-war condition, to return to the days of 1918-39; especially since it has never ceased to criticise the Tory rule of those years. One suspects that phrase "national recovery” has only been used so often because it has a fine sound about it, but at the same time means little.

The workers responded to the Government’s call. Production is now over a quarter more than it was in 1946. The Government, however, has been making it painfully clear that the workers need expect no reward in the shape of a reduction in the cost of living. Mr. Harold Wilson, President of the Board of Trade, said on October 30th: "It would be dishonest to hold out hopes or promises of reductions in the cost of living at a time when world prices, as a result of rearmament, are rising.” And Mr. Chuter Ede, the Home Secretary, told the House of Commons a week later that "it is impossible to anticipate that there will be any reduction in the cost of living.” Not only will there be no reduction : there are more increases on the way. On November 10th the Board of Trade announced that wholesale prices have gone up by another sixpence in the pound. The prices of raw materials have also increased—cotton, rubber, wool and metals are among those which have gone up most.

Wool

For the workers this makes dismal reading. But there are others who are less worried about it. The News Chronicle (31/10/50) had some interesting information about Mr. Ebenezer Sykes, one of the men who buy wool from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, and sell it on Bradford Exchange to the spinners. Mr. Sykes takes up his stand on the floor of the Exchange every Monday and Thursday morning, and the buyers come and see him there. "Mostly when they meet they seem to tell funny stories. You must be very sharp to overhear the deals they make in between the yarns. But quietly, almost casually, one of them will say that he has 50,000 lb. weight of super 60’s to sell at 199 pence a lb. Another will say 'I’ll buy,' and the contract is as good as sealed.” The duties of Mr. Sykes’ job do not seem to be very arduous; but the money is good. "The last time Ben Sykes went on 'Change he sold 60,000 lb. of wool. He had bought it last December for 57 pence a lb. The price he received for that wool from the spinner who bought it from him was 150 pence a lb.” So the gross profit on that one transaction came to £23,250.

Sweated Labour

Mr. Dugdale, the Minister of State for Colonial Affairs, made a speech at Staines in which he gave his own explanation of the rise in prices. "One of the main causes of higher prices was that people in India and Africa and other tropical countries were at last beginning to improve their standard of living ” (Times, 4/11 /50). Mr. Dugdale said that the wages of the Gold Coast agricultural labourers had now risen to 2s. 6d. a day, of tin-workers to 5s. 3d. a day, and of the Malayan rubber-workers to 3s. 4d. a day. "We had the satisfaction of knowing that such people were better fed and clothed now than when the Conservatives were running the Empire ‘and goods were produced at sweated rates.’ ”

It seems, then, that now the Labour Party is running the Empire, goods are not being produced at sweated rates: the line between sweated and non-sweated rates must run somewhere below fifteen shillings a week, at least in the British colonies. Mr. Dugdale’s conclusions on the wages question should earn the Labour Party a lot of support among the tin and rubber shareholders.

Alwyn Edgar

Protests in Tibet (1988)

From the January 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

In October there was a series of riots and demonstrations in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, in which several thousand people took part and perhaps a dozen were killed. The violence was directed against the Chinese-run government and against ordinary Chinese who are sent to work in Tibet. The Chinese rulers responded with a show of military force, imprisonments and expulsion of journalists. amounting to the imposition of a police state.

According to official government policy, the Tibetans form one of the 54 "minority nationalists" who, together with the majority Han Chinese, constitute the inhabitants of China. The minorities, who are primarily distinguished in terms of language, make up only six per cent of the population, though this means over 60 million people. The Tibetans number getting on for four million, about half of whom live, together with a smallish number of Chinese migrants, in the Tibetan Autonomous Region. This supposedly means that Tibet is autonomous in internal affairs but its relations to other parts of China and other countries are determined by the Chinese government in Beijing. In fact such autonomy is a sham as, quite apart from the lack of political democracy throughout China, nearly all important posts in Tibet are held by Hans and not by Tibetans.

Most of the minority nationality areas are in the backward and isolated lands around China's borders, which often gives them strategic importance. Many are also sources, or potential sources, of raw materials — in Tibet's case, minerals such as uranium and plutonium and also timber. So for both military and economic reasons many new roads have been built into and across the inhospitable Tibetan plateau, bringing in tourists as well as soldiers.

We can leave it to the nationalists of all varieties to decide whether Tibet "ought to" belong to China. Certainly it was for centuries a theocracy ruled by a king-cum-pope. the Dalai Lama, regarded by the faithful as a reincarnation of Buddha. Lamaism is a variant of Buddhism, involving a massive religious bureaucracy run by so-called monks who were quite prepared to kill and torture in order to maintain their rule. The ordinary peasants were virtually serfs, oppressed by the priests and landowners and mentally stultified by their uncomplaining acceptance of Buddhism.

The Chinese "Communist” Party gained power in the rest of China in 1949 and in Tibet the following year. Their policy of introducing state capitalism was not at first pursued very actively throughout most of Tibet, which was far from China's major population centres but gradually anti-Chinese sentiment (on nationalist, religious and economic grounds) built up. In 1959 there was a large-scale revolt in Tibet, put down by Chinese troops with great loss of life, and the Dalai Lama fled to exile in India. Land was then confiscated and redistributed, industries were started and many Han workers brought in to help run them. The "Cultural Revolution" saw much destruction of monasteries, mostly by young Tibetans, in what are now seen by the government as regrettable excesses.

Tibet is now used by the Chinese ruling class as a source of cheap and abundant labour and raw materials. Goods such as dried milk and leather shoes are made in Tibet and sold elsewhere in China or exported. Vast areas of natural forest are being denuded of timber. Religious feelings remain strong and traditional-style worship is still practised. Few Tibetans speak Chinese and fewer of the Hans sent to Tibet learn Tibetan.

The October protests were probably triggered off by a number of causes. The "reforming" policies of the Chinese government under Deng Xiaoping have led to greater contacts with abroad, which in Tibet's case mainly means overseas tourists (there's now a Holiday Inn in Lhasa). At least some Tibetans now have some knowledge of the outside world and hopes of their views being reported there. The Dalai Lama's visit to the United States in September must have focused their attention and many still regard him as a living god.

But above all, life for the ordinary Tibetans is just plain hard, with no legitimate means of protest. They must work long hours and can afford only poor-quality food. Alas many cling obsessively to their traditional faith, spending large parts of their pitiful wages on religious items and performing prodigious feats of prostration. A recent rainbow and a solar eclipse were widely seen as omens for the end of Chinese rule in Tibet.

It is not clear whether the Tibetan protestors simply wanted an end to Chinese occupation. a return to the pre-1949 situation, or what. No doubt there are various different strands among the protests, including monks anxious for the restoration of religious power and ex-landlords wishing to become part of the ruling class again. But it is clear enough that the view of many ordinary Tibetans that their problems are caused by the Chinese-run regime is wrong-headed. A change of rulers will not lead to liberation — whether in Tibet, South Africa or Nicaragua.

Paul Bennett

World View: Tibet – from feudal theocracy to a market economy (2003)

From the January 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Prior to AD 600, when Buddhism first began to penetrate Tibet its central doctrine had already been perverted into what came to be called Lamaism. The idea of a saving Buddha who reappears every 5,000 years as a man, and who through successive reincarnations has gained perfection, was being vulgarised into a phantom hovering between heaven and earth, attended by a host of demons. Moreover, the discipline imposed by Buddha of conversion by means of meditation had largely given place to a formal monasticism. This degeneration had, since the religion established itself in Tibet, advanced through its contact with the original demon-worship which, for a time, succeeded in driving Buddhism underground. By the 15th and 16th centuries the metamorphosis into Lamaism was complete.

A Dalai Lama, who is supposed to be the reincarnated Buddha of India, was at once a king and a High Priest. He ruled despotically in both civil and religious affairs, with an ordered series of “spiritual” officers and monks. At one time, about one man in every six or seven was a monk. The whole force of the Tibetan state was directed towards obtaining revenues which maintained the monasteries, their land, and the privileged lamas or officials. When a Dalai Lama dies, and his successor is elected, he in turn becomes a Buddha.

In 1897, a British explorer, A. Henry Savage Landor, spent about six harrowing months in the country. On his return to Britain he wrote two large volumes entitled: In The Forbidden Land – An account of a journey in Tibet, Capture by the Tibet Authorities, Imprisonment, torture, and Ultimate Release. (Victorian explorers rarely wrote short books with snappy titles.)

Of the lamaseries (monasteries), Landor observed that they are usually very rich, and that the Lamas

“are not backward in learning how to exhort money from the ignorant worshippers under pretences of all kinds. Besides attending to their religious functions, the Lamas are traders at large, carrying on a smart business, and charging a very high interest rate, which falls every month. If this is not paid, all the property of the borrower is confiscated, and if this proves insufficient to repay the loan the debtor becomes a slave of the monastery”.

The Lamas, noted Landor, lived in comparative luxury. And, he added:

“The larger lamaseries receive a yearly Government allowance, and considerable sums are collected from the oblations of the faithful, while other moneys are obtained by all sorts of devices which, in any country less religious than Tibet, would be considered hardly honourable and often even altogether criminal. To anyone acquainted with Tibet, it is a well-known fact that, except in larger towns, nearly all the people besides brigands and Lamas are absolutely poor, while the monks themselves and their agents live and prosper on the fat of the land. The masses are maintained in complete ignorance, and seldom is a layman found who can write or even read. Thus everything has to go through the Lamas' hands before it can be sanctioned.”

The lamaseries and the Lamas, and all the property belonging to them, were absolutely free from all taxes and dues to the state. Each monastery had a number of “depraved Lamas” who were slaves of the Grand Lama. Indeed, as early as the tenth century,

“Powerful monastic orders became major players in the fragmented power structure. Feudal leaders sent their sons into Buddhist institutions as a way of ensuring the maintenance of family authority. These local noble families became an increasingly strong force in the monasteries. Often the position of abbot was no longer chosen from among the monks, but was passed down within families from uncle to nephew . . . By the 13th century monastic dynasties controlled much of Tibet” (Lee Feigon, Demystifying Tibet).

Very little had changed by as late as the beginning of the 20th century.

During the latter part of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, Tibet's trade, principally in wool, but also in salt, gold and silver, increased considerably, despite the fact that there were no roads in the country. Many of the traders, however, were Nepalese, Chinese or Indian. Tibetan farmers and herdsmen exchanged their products, sometimes using various currencies, for industrially-produced commodities. Nevertheless, commodity production was, as yet, far from universal in Tibet. Most production was in the form of handicrafts or for personal and family use. And prior to 1950, there were still 2,5000 monasteries in the country.

Imperialist rivalries

But by the end of the 19th century, Tibet had become a focus of imperialist rivalries. The Dalai Lama began to edge the country closer to an alliance with Tsarist Russia, whilst the Panchen Lama favoured China. The British feared a Russian plot to undermine their domination of India and elsewhere in Asia. However, by 1906, the British largely gave up what they had previously gained, except for a number of trade missions and, sometime later, three permanent Postal Agencies. China continued to send their armed forces into eastern Tibet.

In 1913 the Dalai Lama had fewer than 3,000 ill-trained troops to combat the Chinese incursions, or to quash internal rebellions and banditry. But shortly after, Britain supplied the Dalai Lama with 5,000 modern rifles as well as military training for the Tibetan army. In 1917 the Tibetans defeated a Chinese force in Kham, and extended their border as far as the Upper Yangtze river. Besides the Dalai Lama's modern army there was Tibet's older armed forces provided by the ruling monasteries, armed only with bows and arrows, spears and a few 17th-century muzzle loaders. Of the situation, Feigon commented:

“the contrast between the two armies had begun to excite opposition. Most of the money needed to fund the new army's expansion came from a land tax. Virtually all land in Tibet was owned by either aristocrats or monasteries and was worked by serfs. The more the need to support the military grew, the more taxes were increased on these estates. In effect, the old aristocracy was paying for the army that would in turn diminish the nobility's authority. Moreover, military leaders often came from families of low social position . . . These new leaders did not always approve of the nobility's traditional privileges . . . Like Tibet's aristocracy, its religious establishment opposed the army's growing influence. Before the twentieth century, almost all government revenues funded the monasteries, not the military. Monks became resentful of the army . . . The foreign manners and dress of the new troops exacerbated the situation.”

A destroyed monastery: the Chinese hoped to break the power of the lamas by breaking their hold over Tibetan minds

By 1920 the animosity grew strongest in eastern Tibet, where the Lhasa government had stationed 10,000 troops, virtually the entire army; and where the taxes imposed were the most severe. Conflict erupted between the Dalai Lama, who commanded the new army, and the Panchen Lama who was the owner of a large estate. The two had long been at odds. In 1922 the Panchen Lama appealed to the British to help him resist the Dalai Lama. When the British refused, the Panchen Lama fled to China, where he remained for the next fourteen years. The so-called reformers, led by the Dalai Lama, soon began to fight among themselves, and the reforms ground to a halt by 1925. By 1930 the Tibetan government lost eastern Tibet to the local Chinese warlord. The Dalai Lama was forced to reduce the size of the army; and by 1932, the Chinese had pushed the Tibetans back west of the Yangtze river. “As the Tibetan government weakened and the Chinese government strengthened, Tibet assumed an increasingly vulnerable position” (Feigon). In 1933 Britain established a new, permanent mission to Lhasa in an attempt to counter Chinese influence. They even tried to introduce golf and soccer to Tibet. And shortly after, Himmler, on behalf of Nazi Germany, sent an expedition, led by Ernst Schaefer, to Tibet in an attempt to prove that the Tibetans were a lost Aryan race.

From 1927 until 1949, there was a civil war between the Nationalist forces of the Koumintang (KMT) and the Chinese Red Army, led by the "Communist" Party. By 1949, the Chinese Red Army had driven the KMT from the Chinese mainland, and the Communist Party now controlled the country. As direct British influence had been removed from India by 1947, so Mao Tse-tung decided that time was ripe for China to assert her authority over Tibet and in 1950 the Red Army invaded. They met little resistance from the Tibetan army, although the Khams, a fierce, warlike tribe, gave the Chinese forces some trouble. Fearful of exile, the Tibetan establishment pressured the Dalai Lama to remain in the country. On 28 September the Tibetan National Assembly ratified the agreement, and the Dalai Lama returned to Lhasa and the Potala Palace.

During the early part of the 1950s the Chinese authorities did not control internal policy in Tibet. However although they refrained from interfering in central Tibet they began to transform eastern and outer Tibet. In 1954 the Dalai Lama accepted an invitation to visit China and, against the advice of his ministers, stayed there for almost one year. Whilst there, he seems to have been influenced by Maoist ideas. On his return, he wanted to divide the monastic lands among the Tibetan peasants, but was surprised when the Chinese authorities opposed his plan and supported the Tibetan landowning class. The Chinese constructed an airfield 60 miles north of Lhasa. They also began to cut down the forests, for timber, in the eastern part of the country. Many former Tibetan serfs now became wage-workers, employed by Chinese contractors in the timber camps and on road building. Numerous nomads began to settle down. By 1956 there was unrest in Kham and other areas of eastern Tibet. In the words of John Prados:

“Economic development, industrial, production, even the introduction of money, required fundamental changes in a society that had used barter as a primary form of exchange . . . The Chinese situation worsened in Kham . . . the people rose up against the lowland Chinese. Khampa partisans managed to block the Kamgting road at three points . . . Kham and Ambo were the provinces the Chinese attempted to split off from Tibet, calling them Inner Tibet and incorporating them into the Chinese provinces of Sikiang and Tsinghai . . . by 1956, unrest was spreading” (Presidents' Secret Wars).

Unsurprisingly, the United States assisted the revolt. In 1956 the CIA supplied the rebels with weapons and other equipment; it trained commando squads, first in Taiwan and then in America, where it conducted special classes and, later, smuggled and parachuted Tibetan commandos into eastern Tibet. The Dalai Lama, helped by the CIA, fled to India, but returned shortly after. By 1957 there was open warfare in Kham. The Chinese airforce bombed a number of villages; and the CIA sent more and more arms into eastern Tibet. In 1959 unrest spread to Lhasa, where there were large demonstrations against the Chinese occupation. These were violently crushed. Again, the Dalai Lama fled to India.

The Chinese government sent in troops in large numbers and took complete control of the country. It confiscated land owned by “rebels” and officially abolished serfdom. War was declared on the monasteries, and many monks, nuns and former aristocrats were jailed. Thousands fled to India and Nepal. The CIA supported the rebels well into the 1970s. On 9 September 1965 Tibet became an “Autonomous Region” of the People's Republic of China.

Industrial and radical change

During the so-called Cultural Revolution (1966-77) the Chinese Red Guards destroyed 80 percent of central Tibet's monasteries. By 1978 only eight monasteries remained out of two thousand. Many were destroyed brick by brick. The political and economic power of the monks was completely destroyed. In 1990 the population of the Autonomous Region of Tibet was unofficially put at 2.5 million of whom 100,000 were Chinese (Han) workers. Unofficially, there were, and probably still are, between 100,000 and 250,000 Chinese troops in the country.

By the standards of Western Europe or North America, Tibet is not as yet heavily industrialised. Nevertheless, capitalism and a market economy now prevail. In 1992 the Chinese expanded Lhasa airport. The government approved 41 joint-partner enterprises with Nepal, Malaysia, Germany and a number of other countries. Export enterprises, including ones specialising in traditional handicrafts, grew. Indeed, according the Lee Feigon, “Chinese businessmen and manufacturers have even copied traditional Tibetan handicrafts, and begun to mass-produce them.” Han entrepreneurs have pioneered many investments, opening businesses throughout Tibet. By 1994 the Tibet Trust and Investment Company's shares were traded on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Although not on a large scale, Tibet now has an iron and steel industry, and motor repair factories and factories manufacturing farm implements. Gyangtze has a large carpet factory, mass-producing “traditional” Tibetan carpets.

According to John Gittings, writing in the Guardian (17 June 2001), the Chinese authorities in Tibet aim to make the country “a market economy which will allow private enterprises to become the most dynamic factor in Tibet”. Gittings adds, however, that economic reforms in Lhasa “have created a city where corruption co-exists with hard-nosed commercialism, where prostitution thrives in areas previously better known as places of spiritual pilgrimage and where citizens may own computers and wide-screen TVs, but not necessarily toilets or running water”. The Chinese admitted last year that the standard of living of “ethnic Tibetans”, including “farmers and herdsmen”, was only half the national Chinese average.

In 1990 the exiled Dalai Lama accused China of “wantonly cutting down the vast forests, strip-mining the soil, overgrazing the plains, and using agricultural pesticides and chemical fertilizers that have destroyed the delicate ecology of his (sic) country”. He proposed that Tibet “should become the planet's largest natural, reserve”, and that the country “could return to the simple life of its ancestors”. What a hope! Tibet, including the so-called Autonomous Region, and the eastern part of the country incorporated into China proper, is now wholly an integral component of the world market, capitalist, system. There can be no turning back to the “simple life” of feudalism.

Peter E. Newell