Letter: A Campaign with Revolutionary Implications? (1995)

From the March 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

ALB’s review of Selma James's Marx and Feminism (Socialist Standard, December 1994) not only gives a misleading portrayal of a tradition which has made a valuable contribution to libertarian communist thought, but also displays the usual blind-spots present in much orthodox Marxist theorising (or lack of it) on the position of women under capitalism.

The Socialist Party may dismiss Wages for Housework as "conservative" and reformist.but I believe that they, together with the Autonomist Marxist tradition with which they are connected. have made the following critical interventions which have revolutionary implications:

(a) Selma James, together with Mariarosa Dalla Costa, was among the first to show how capitalism is founded not only on the capital/wage labour relationship but also on a hierarchy between waged and unwaged within the working-class. Thus capital “hides behind" the unpaid labour of those, usually women and people of colour, who carry out activities such as care-giving, cooking, cleaning, and basic food production, upon which "free" wage labour depends. Where these activities are provided in return for a wage, this usually involves the "super-exploitation" of labour-power as in the case of the so-called Third World where many women and men are paid far less than the average cost of meeting their subsistence needs. The production and reproduction of the commodity "labour power" is central, therefore, to the ongoing process of capital accumulation.

(b) Present day capitalism can usefully be seen as a "social factory" in which class struggle has spread to virtually all areas of everyday life, even as. numerically speaking, "wage labourers" have come to constitute a small minority of the world’s working-class. (The German sociologist Claudia von Werlhof has estimated that only 10-20 percent of the world’s working class are wage labourers "free" to sell their labour-power in return for a wage or salary. The rest, made up of women, subsistence producers. peasants and other "marginalised" labourers appear to be the "norm" despite what Eurocentric forms of Marxism would have us believe.) Resistance to capitalist domination, therefore, occurs in sites far removed from factory-based industrial production and trade unions: from women fighting against the introduction of reproductive technologies to the resistance of indigenous peoples to the forced enclosure of common land. In this respect. James and Dalla Costa have stressed the importance of recognising the diversity of working-class experience as well as the commonalities. They and other feminists have exploded the myth of the white, male, unionised wage labourer as the subject of Marxist analysis and agent of revolutionary change.

(c) Wages for Housework and the Autonomist Marxist tradition has consistently stressed the futility of reformism, particularly as it is embodied in unionism, labour parties. Leninism, and the “left” in general. They have been critical of those leftists who see the way forward as more jobs/full employment, more rational control of capitalist production disguised as "workers control", a social democratic government, or a vanguard party leading the masses to revolution. Selma James castigates feminists who "don't aim to destroy the capitalist social relation but only to organize it more rationally" while Mariarosa Dalla Costa has argued that those "who advocate that the liberation of the working-class woman lies in her getting a job outside the home are part of the problem, not the solution. Slavery to an assembly line is not a liberation from slavery to a kitchen sink" (Dalla Costa & James The Power of Women and the Subversion of Community. Bristol: Falling Wall Press. 1972. pp 2 and 33 respectively). The alternative this tradition poses is concurrent with other non-market communist traditions; the abolition of capitalist work (both waged and unwaged labour) and of the state, common ownership and production for human needs, and the encouragement of the fullest possible range of human creative activity unmediated by the capital class relationship.

(d) In arguing for the importance of the self-activity of the working-class. Wages for Housework argues against vanguardism and the centralised Party (with a capital "P") and for the development of autonomous organisations within the working-class. These have enabled women, for example, to challenge the sexism of male-dominated socialist organisations which have colluded, perhaps unintentionally, with capital and the state in rendering women's work socially invisible, "natural" and unproductive, and relegating to "side issues” any attempts by women to organise independently to challenge their exploitation. It is only by supporting the autonomy of various organisations throughout the circulation of struggles within the working class, that divisions can be overcome as a prerequisite for class unity and fundamental social change.

It is in the above respect that the campaign for Wages for Housework should be understood. not as just another single-issue reformist group. Rather than an end in itself, the campaign for a guaranteed income for women and men homeworkers is best looked at as a strategic intervention designed to expose patriarchal capitalism's dependence on the unpaid labour of women, and bring to the forefront some of the unique experiences and struggles faced by women as members of a divided working-class.

With their fixation on wage/salaried labour as the source of surplus value for the capitalist class, socialists (following Marx) have generally ignored the production and reproduction of labour-power and have historically accepted the false division between "private"/reproductive/unwaged work and "public"/productive/waged work imposed by capital on the working class. Furthermore the Socialist Party has always maintained that the only worthwhile vehicles for defending the living standards, wages, working conditions etc of the working class under capitalism are trade unions. The Socialist Standard continues to pay scant attention to forms of working-class struggle outside of unions, such as that waged by women in Wages for Housework. Such a monolithic class analysis does little to overcome the many divisions within the working class at the same time as it provides cannon fodder for those who feel that Marxism is now outmoded.

Feminists argue that the liberation of women entails more than simply the abolition of wage labour and the establishment of "free access" to wealth produced. It is quite possible, they argue, to conceive of a socialist society (as defined by the Socialist Party) where the wages system has been abolished yet an exploitative sexual division of labour continues to exist, where women continue to lack control over their bodies, sexuality, or reproductive rights, or where male violence continues on a substantial scale. We might, then, question ALB's assertion that "the energies of those who are. quite rightly, concerned about the economic dependence of women on men would be much better directed to campaigning for socialism”, and ask instead whether at least some of the energies of those socialists who are concerned about the liberation of women might be better employed listening to feminists. 

Julian Prior

Burnaby, Canada.

Reply:

The claim that the Wages for Housework Campaign is now a single-issue campaign for a reform within capitalism was based on the contents of the pamphlet Marx and Feminism itself and of the accompanying publicity material sent us by the publishers.

In the 1970s Selma James did talk about "class struggle”, "revolutionary action", “abolishing capitalism", etc (though not so much about abolishing wages, money and markets and instituting common ownership and production solely and directly to satisfy people’s needs) and she saw the launching of a campaign for "wages for housework" in this context.

We wouldn't deny — and weren’t concerned to deny — that James and others made some valid criticisms of the narrow definition of the working class (and so also of the agent of revolutionary change) held by Trotskyists, Leninists, Stalinists and other leftists. In defining the working class only as miners, dockers, factory workers, etc these excluded whole sections of the working class from being able to play a full role in the transformation of society and downgraded their problems and struggles to being marginal or secondary.

But this criticism didn't apply to us since we have always had a broad definition of the working class as all those excluded from the ownership and control of the means of production irrespective of the job they do (or don't do). OK. perhaps not so broad as to include "subsistence producers, peasants and indigenous peoples” but this issue has been discussed amongst our members.

Nor is it accurate to say that we have "always maintained that the only worthwhile vehicles for defending the living standards. wages. working conditions, etc of the working class under capitalism are trade unions". We may see trade unions as the main vehicles for doing this, but we don't exclude other organisations like tenants associations, claimants unions, student unions — or some women’s organisations such as those advising women of their legal rights or refuges for battered women. The Wages for Housework Campaign. however, does not enter into this category. It is a politically-motivated reformist group.

James came from an ex-Trotskyist tradition, but one which had not got rid of all the assumptions and methods of Trotskyism, in particular the so-called "transitional demand". This is a demand put forward by militants for discontented workers to struggle for but which the militants know full well is not achievable under capitalism: their hope is that when, as a result of their unsuccessful struggle, the discontented workers realise this they will turn against capitalism and become revolutionaries.

James's disagreement with the Trotskyists was not over whether or not to put forward "transitional demands" but over what these demands should be and at who they should be aimed. They favoured demands of a trade union-type like “indexisation of wages to prices". “35-hour week", "workers' control". She rejected this on the grounds that these demands could only be attractive to unionised, mainly male, factory workers and left out unwaged women doing housework as “the slave of a wage slave". The alternative she proposed was "wages for housework" as a transitional demand to mobilise women as an autonomous movement. independent of (and even opposed to) the Trade Union and Labour Movement.

We always rejected "transitional demands". As far as we are concerned they were just reforms. while the Socialist Party had been founded on the principle that a socialist organisation should not advocate reforms; this was not because we were against all reforms but because we recognise that reformism cannot solve the problems of the working class within capitalism and because of the effect we felt that campaigning for reforms would have on the socialist nature of the organisation. We argued that for it to campaign for reforms would attract the support of people who wanted reforms not socialism and that this would eventually lead to it becoming a reformist organisation.

The fate of the Wages for Housework Campaign which James helped set up over twenty years ago illustrates this perfectly.

Whatever might have been her original intention (and there is no reason to doubt that she then wanted to get rid of capitalism with its privileges for the few and exploitation and oppression for the many), the WFH Campaign has become a single-issue reformist pressure group.

The publicity material accompanying the review consisted of an interview of Selma James and Margaret Prescod in the Los Angeles Times of 7 May 1987, a news item from the same paper headlined “Bill Would Make Housework Count in Calculation of GNP" (12 December 1991), and an article on Selma James from the London Times of 19 February 1992.

All these articles have a common theme: that the payment by the state of money to women for doing housework is a demand that should, and can, be achieved within capitalism, and is in fact on the way to being realised thanks to successful lobbying by James and others of the United Nations, the European Parliament and the US House of Representatives. James is quoted as follows:

"There are. she says, two questions. women always ask when confronted by the concept of wages for housework. "Who will pay for it?" and "Will we ever get it?' Her answers are "Trident" — she would siphon off the entire military budget to pay for unremunerated labour — and "Yes'. 

Her optimism springs from existing welfare provisions. "Child benefit and income support are forms of recognition that women working in the home have an entitlement to wages, even though it is not enough. Those benefits are creeping wages for housework and after you creep you walk, after you walk you run." (Times, 19 February 1992)

.

A far cry from what she was saying in the 1970s. Now it’s the inevitability of gradualism. We once heard somebody (not a member of the Socialist Party) describe "wages for housework" as a “crap demand". His point was that if you were going to make such a demand on the state you might as well demand a basic state income for everybody. We said you might as well establish socialism, at least that was achievable.

There are feminists and feminists. Some (most, these days?) feminists wouldn’t know what you were talking about if you mentioned "the abolition of the wages system" and "free access": they are concerned with getting women an equal chance to compete in the rat-race that capitalism is and to scramble to the top of the heap if they can. Or, in a language they wouldn't understand. to turn women from unequal wage slaves and from “slaves to wage slaves" into "equal wage slaves” with men.

Other feminists may well be able to conceive of a socialist society in which discrimination and oppression of women continued. Well, we can't and we're socialists and they're not. Socialism involves people voluntarily co-operating to produce and distribute wealth and to run their common affairs on a democratic basis, with free access for all to the things they need to live and enjoy life. Under these circumstances there would be no economic pressures on women to put up with discriminatory or oppressive practices: women could simply walk away from them and still have free access to what they needed. So there’d be no basis for their continued existence. In fact the feminist — and indeed socialist aim — of women’s equality is only going to be fully realised in a socialist society.

Editors.

Letter: Withering away of money? (2010)

Letter to the Editors from the August 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Withering away of money?

Dear Editors,

Responding to Max Hess’s article ‘Capitalist Money Madness’ (Socialist Standard, May) a suggestion. Perhaps, a way a Socialist government (if there ever was one ) could bring about a moneyless economy is to print the stuff in abundance and pay it out in salaries and wages. Everyone would be employed in goods and services and use money to buy whatever they needed, or thought they needed. Meanwhile, everyone would be working to produce and provide the goods and services but no one would ever be without enough dosh to ‘purchase’ whatever they wanted because they would have access to as much of the stuff that they wanted.

Of course, in no time at all there’d be run-away inflation but it wouldn’t matter if there were no money markets, exchange and financial institutions, there’d be no capitalist institutions because there would be nothing for them to do. As Max says, also no need for police, military, bankers, lawyers, prisons and prison officers  … a whole swathe of jobs related to money, it’s use and misuse.

People would soon realize that money isn’t necessary to maintain an economy. It’s just a method used by a profit system that was perhaps necessary in times past but now no longer appropriate, needed or wanted. They’d only need to continue doing what they always did do…work and consume without the need to use paper and metal tokens to do it.

If other capitalist countries wanted to trade with Britain we’d provide them with goods and services in exchange for what we needed of theirs. Their workers would soon see what ours have got up to and would bring about the same change in their countries. When people see that they don’t need money to maintain their standards of living and even raise them to heights only ever dreamed of they’d wonder why it was never thought of before.

Then they’d realize the great thievery that had been perpetrated upon them for centuries and resolve to never again allow capitalism to raise its fanged head again. Then, and only then, would a truly international common global economy evolve. Then, and only then, would mankind advance to the utopian world dreamt of by our ancestors .

Of course, things wouldn’t run smoothly at first but society by its very nature is a moral system and just as today layabouts and petty thieves are disdained and rejected, so too in a sane socialist system dissenters would have no argument and find it hard going to feel self respect and acceptance.

Am I right or am I right ?

Leo Aliferis (by email)

Reply:

You’re right that when people realise they don’t need money to maintain a very good standard of living, they’ll wonder why it was never thought of before. But that awareness can’t be achieved through a leftwing ‘socialist government’, which would have campaigned for, and been elected to, supervise capitalism — not abolish it.

In the highly unlikely event that such a government, led by a Trotskyist-style vanguard, sabotaged the profit-wages-money system by deliberately bringing about hyperinflation and economic chaos, the population would neither expect nor want this. All voters would then focus on is the ensuing financial turmoil and they’d be extremely alarmed by what was happening and they’d throw that government out of office at the earliest opportunity. Deliberately subjecting a pro-money population to economic chaos, as a means of supposedly leading them to socialist awareness, is doomed to fail.

Whereas, if a clear majority of the electorate vote for moneyless real socialism, because they have come to understand what it is and consciously want this system instead of capitalism, then there’d be no need to continue with a means of exchange. They would already “realize that money isn’t necessary to maintain an economy”. And after a clear majority of people have voted for real socialism in a general election, then plans and preparations to bring this about can be acted upon immediately without any widespread rejection and resistance that would be associated with trying to impose it on an unready and averse population from above.

Given the dire condition clapped-out capitalism is now in, and that we’re heading for a prolonged period of additional working class suffering and misery, mainstream party politicians will be trying harder than ever to dupe people into believing that money management offers the answer to alleviating and solving these capitalism-caused problems. They’ll want people submissively accepting worsening state-funded services. They’ll want those without jobs submissively accepting any low-paid work they are offered. They’ll want those with jobs submissively accepting pay restraint and cuts. They’ll want people turning against supposedly less-deserving recipients of welfare benefits.

We need to get people to completely reject this bogus capitalist agenda that managing money better is in our best interests. It isn’t. Abolishing money, and the capitalist system that requires it, is in our best interests.

We are not “all in this together”, as Cameron farcically states. Capitalists and their political stooges are in it for as much as they can get out of it. Everyone else is required to keep the pig trough as full as possible.  – Editors.

“How Solidarity (in the Struggle for Reforms) Can Change the World” (1998)

Book Review from the July 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

How Solidarity Can Change the World. Workers Liberty. £3.95.

Believe it or not, but there are still some Trotskyists in the Labour Party. One such group has published this pamphlet, which is a collection of contradictory articles by Engels, Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg and Trotsky introduced by their leader, Sean Matgamma.

The leader’s view—as expressed in the title, to be understood as “How Solidarity (in the Struggle for Reforms) Can Change the World”—is that “the struggle for reforms and transitional demands is now the indicated way the British working class—but not only the British—and the labour movement can revive”. This is the old argument, advanced by Trotsky in his founding manifesto for the “Fourth International” in 1938 (included here), that socialist consciousness will develop out of the struggle for reforms within capitalism: when workers realise that they can’t get the reforms they have been campaigning for they will, Trotsky pontificated, turn to the “cadres” of the Fourth International for leadership.

Quite apart from the fact that this has (fortunately) never happened, this argument has always been more of a rationalisation of their reformist practice by shamefaced reformists who want to imagine that they are revolutionaries. Since it is reforms they want there is some logic in being in a party that has a chance of exercising political power. So perhaps after all it is not really surprising that there are Trotskyists in the Labour Party, licking envelopes and knocking on doors for Blair and his crew.

Adam Buick

Promising the moon (1997)

From the June 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Have you ever wondered what we mean when we use the word "reformist" in these columns?

The recent election provided a striking illustration of the difference between our approach and the reformist approach in the contrast between our programme and campaigning and that of the various other parties calling themselves socialist. We advocated a fundamental change in the basis of society. They merely offered reforms.

We stood for socialism and nothing else. We made no promises as to what “we” would do to make things better under capitalism. We simply said that capitalism can't be reformed to work in the interests of the majority and that the way-out was to get rid of the profit system and replace it by a system based on common ownership and democratic control and geared to meeting needs not making profits.

The SLP, Militant, the Scottish Socialist Alliance and the others took a different approach. In a bid to get as many votes as possible they promised the moon. In other words, they played the game of conventional electioneering politics to the full. However all their promises were pie-in-the-sky in the sense that capitalism could not afford them. This didn't stop these parties entering into great detail about what they would do if elected.

Wonderful wages

Pat Sikorski, SLP candidate for Hornsey and Wood Green, had worked out to the nearest penny what the minimum wage should be: “£6.22 per hour or £250 per week is everyone’s entitlement”. That works out as for a 40 hour week. But he hadn’t thought this through as in the previous paragraph he had promised “a 35-hour week for all. Speedily followed by a 32 hour-4 day week”. £6.22 per hour for a 35 hour week is £216.60. only 87 percent of "everyone’s entitlement”.

To be coherent he should have advocated a minimum wage of £7.14p per hour, but perhaps that would have seemed a bit too unreasonable. Not to another SLP candidate though. Councillor Ian Driver of Southwark, standing in Vauxhall (where he faced opposition from a real socialist), promised “we will introduce a minimum wage of £8 per hour”. Perhaps he was anticipating the coming of the 32-hour week.

Militant—using, to our great anger and embarrassment, our name of Socialist Party—was more modest. They promised “a minimum wage of £6 an hour for all workers” coupled with “the introduction of a maximum 35-hour week". That gives £210 a week as the minimum wage, but also the maximum wage for those concerned. This, they said, was “the European Decency Threshold. That’s the rate necessary to take the low paid out of the poverty trap”.

An example of the crude electioneering engaged in by these groups over this issue is the following report from Militants Hitchin branch: 

"The fight against low pay has been our main campaign. At a town centre stall a single mother was asked to sign our petition. “Would your party pay me more than £50 a week?’

‘Yes, we campaign for a minimum wage of £6 an hour, £210 a week.’

‘You’ve got my vote then!’”

Unfortunately for Militant, her vote wasn’t enough to stop their candidate in Hitchin being beaten by the Natural Law Party. It appears that more people in Hitchin believe in yogic flying than in the possibility of a £6 an hour minimum wage. After the election, with the vote-catching over, Militant revealed that it too considered £6 an hour impracticable when the front page of its paper said that “top of the workers’ demands from a Labour government will be a minimum wage of over £4 an hour” (The Socialist, 9 May). Not that there’s much chance of getting that either, at least not until inflation has reduced £4 to the value of £3 today.

But, in Militant’s utopia, some people are still going to get less than the “European Decency Threshold’’. They say that “pensions and benefits should be immediately increased by 50 percent”. But why only 50 percent? With the pension for a single person at £62.45 and the jobseekers Allowance at £49.15 that’s not enough, even with housing benefit, to bring many up to £210.

“We would introduce,” said Militant pompously as if they really had the chance of forming the government, ”a wealth tax—no one should earn more than £100,000. VAT should be abolished and there should be no tax on wages below £10,000 a year.” But if there’s a minimum wage of £210 a week, then there’s not supposed to be any full-time workers earning less than £ 10,000 a year.

These people are jokers, insulting people’s intelligence. They just pluck figures out of the air to make what they consider attractive promises—but which most people consider ridiculous—without even checking that their various promises are compatible with each other.

It is interesting, though, that Militant is prepared to have a 10:1 differential between the highest paid and the lowest paid. Who will be the £100K earners anyway—the new Trotskyist nomenklatura?

Another Trotskyist group calling itself the "Socialist Equality Party” had a more radical tax policy: ”all personal incomes over £80,000 should be taxed 100%, whilst those under £12,000 should be tax-free.” It also advocated a higher minimum wage—£8 an hour—and an even shorter working week, of 30 hours.This gives a maximum minimum wage of £240 a week, still below the level of what the SLP said was “everyone’s entitlement”.

It might have been thought that a party calling itself the "Socialist Equality Party" would have refused a 7:1 differential between the highest and lowest pay and advocated an equal income for all of, say, £80,000. Why not? If you are in the business of making unrealistic promises you might as well go the whole way.

Plentiful pensions

The fantastic promises—and the contradictions—continued over pensions."People should be able to retire at 55 on a full pension linked to earnings,” said Pat Sikorski (SLP). That wasn’t good enough for Ian Driver (SLP). He promised “voluntary retirement at 55 on full pay”. In a later leaflet, perhaps in an attempt to outbid Driver, Sikorski promised “an immediate doubling of pensions”. But to no avail. Retirement on full pay is still better for most people than retirement on a double State pension. You should have promised to triple the State pension or supported the SEP proposal "pensions must be increased to the level of the average wage”, Pat, but perhaps you ruled these options out as appearing too unreasonable.

Perhaps this explains why Driver got more votes (983) than Sikorski (586). Or perhaps not. People are not stupid and clearly do not take these promises seriously. At a meeting in Brixton on 24 April attended by the candidates (including ours) Driver’s list of fantastic promises—£8 minimum wage, 32 hour week with no loss of pay, retirement at 55 on full pay—were greeted with laughter. He might have got a better reception if he had advocated, as our candidate did. the abolition of the whole system of working for an employer with the wages you get determining your level of access to consumer goods and services. After all, didn’t Karl Marx once say to workers: "Instead of the conservative motto, 'A £6-£8 minimum wage’, they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword, 'Abolition of the wages system’ “(or something like that)?

As all these fantastic [proposals] would cost millions, no billions, to implement, the inevitable question arises: Where is the money to come from? Who is going to pay for them?

Julia Leonard, Militant candidate in Uxbridge had the answer:

“I say use the profits of big business and tax the super rich to provide well-paid jobs and a decent standard of living for all.” 

Simple. But this assumes that Big Business and the Super Rich are to continue so that they can be milked, i.e. that capitalism is to continue.

The SLP made the same assumption, their candidates declaring that “the policies outlined in this election address can only ameliorate the destructiveness of the present system”. This of course is to imply that their policies could be implemented under capitalism. (We don’t want to be too cruel, but they used the wrong word: they meant “mitigate” not "ameliorate". To ameliorate the destructiveness of capitalism would be to make it more destructive. On the other hand, perhaps it was the right word since any attempt to put their fanciful promises into practice under capitalism would make it more destructive by provoking a massive economic crisis.)

To suggest that capitalism could afford all these things—and many more, a free health service, "the immediate injection of £5 billion into our schools” (Militant), "build a million new homes every year for five years" (SLP), "a multi-billion pound programme of public works” (SEP)—is just ridiculous, not to say dishonest.

Do they take us for fools? The answer is, yes, they do. As Leninists they believe that ordinary workers are only capable of acquiring what they call a "trade union consciousness" by which they mean wanting more under capitalism. So that’s what they offer to provide for workers, knowing full well that capitalism will be unable to deliver, in the hope that they can get the workers with themselves as the leaders to overthrow capitalism because it won’t pay them a full-pay pension at 55. Only the Workers’ Revolutionary Party however had the honesty to come out and say that it was standing in the election "to build the revolutionary leadership”.

It’s an insulting theory and has never worked. It didn’t even get them many votes, not even much more than us. In fact one of our candidates, making no promises and saying that capitalism couldn’t make these reforms, got more votes than 15 of the 19 Militant candidates and 23 of the 64 SLP candidates, as well as all nine WRP and all four SEP candidates.

People are quite capable of understanding the idea of socialism. What could be easier to understand than a society where productive resources belong to no-one but are democratically controlled and used to produce goods and services directly to meet people’s needs and not for profit? People certainly understand very well when someone is just dangling bait before them.

Adam Buick

Who are the Marxists? (1966)

Book Review from the June 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Socialist Review, International Socialism, 18s.

This book is a collection of articles from a now defunct journal, Socialist Review. Its former followers are now grouped around another journal, International Socialism. It is one of the many trotskyist offshoots which claim to be Marxist, yet which depart radically from Marx’s basic ideas on many points.

Marx argued that only the working class can free itself from wage-slavery. By working class he understood all those who, having no property, had to sell their working abilities for a wage in order to live. Today this class, composed of managers, clerks, factory workers, labourers and so on, run society from top to bottom. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, with Marx, holds that only they, acting as a united class, can be the agent of the social change from capitalism to socialism. IS sees the agent as only a section of this class, those who work in the factories, mines, railways and docks. In fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that they idealise this section of the working class. Seeing that most of the members of groups like IS are not themselves workers in these sorts of jobs their attitude verges on the condescending, of doing something for the poor, down-trodden workers. This attitude is a left-over from their Leninist past. Lenin, in contradiction to Marx, held that the workers were incapable of becoming socialists by themselves; they had to be introduced to socialist ideas by an enlightened vanguard. This vanguard would lead them against capitalism.

The IS group, like similar groups, has a reform programme which they call a "transitional programme." This is a programme designed to create a socialist understanding and to be realised as a transitional stage to Socialism. When these reforms are examined, for example, nationalisation of banks, national planning, State monopoly of foreign trade, it becomes clear that IS is saying that State capitalism is a necessary stage to Socialism. More than this, in fact, many of their members including some writers in this book clearly don't understand the difference between State Capitalism and Socialism; they really believe that nationalisation is Socialism and that wages, buying and selling, money, etc., will exist in Socialism. In their day-to-day propaganda the emphasis is on State capitalism rather, than Socialism as the solution to workers’ problems. The Socialist Party of Great Britain holds that capitalism has outlived its usefulness and that Socialism is possible as soon as the workers want it; there is no need for any State capitalist stage.

Finally, there is the inevitable r-r-revolutionary romanticism, the dreaming of mass strikes and street battles (read Cliff on the Belgian General Strike of 1960). This leads IS to dismiss with contempt the historically-evolved means to freedom—the vote. But at election times we witness the spectacle of people who dismiss the vote as “a scrap of paper" and Parliament as a “gas house" eagerly working for, and urging workers to vote for, one of the major capitalist parties in this country. This devotion to the Labour Party is maintained even when, as in Hampstead at the last election, they were faced with a socialist candidate. Not understanding the significance of the vote they use it and urge others to use it, to give political power to the owning class. Are they really Marxists?

Adam Buick

The Reformism of the Hard Left (2018)

From the October 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

The social revolution to replace minority class monopoly over the means of production by common ownership finds a formidable barrier in the guise of reformism to which the Hard Left, every bit as much as any mainstream capitalist political party, is fundamentally wedded. It is important to precisely define what we mean by this term. It is very easy to conflate reformism with other forms of activity, notably trade unionism, on the grounds that both seem to have in common the aim of improving the welfare and wellbeing of workers.

However, it would be a gross error to see trade unionism as a type of reformism. In the Introduction to her pamphlet Reform or Revolution (1900) Rosa Luxemburg, for one, seemed to commit this very error:

 ‘Can the Social-Democracy be against reforms? Can we contrapose the social revolution, the transformation of the existing order, our final goal, to social reforms? Certainly not. The daily struggle for reforms, for the amelioration of the condition of the workers within the framework of the existing social order, and for democratic institutions, offers to the Social-Democracy an indissoluble tie. The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its aim’.

What underlies this thinking is the understandable fear that the revolutionary goal might seem somehow divorced from the ‘daily struggles of workers’ if it did not appear to endorse the latter. But this fear is misplaced for reasons that have already been touched upon

Reformism is distinguishable from trade unionism by virtue of the fact that it is essentially political in nature. That is to say, its field of operation – like revolution itself – is political whereas the field of trade union struggle is bargaining with employers.

Reformism entails the state enacting various legislative measures that are ostensibly designed to ameliorate certain socio-economic problems arising from the capitalist basis of contemporary society – without, of course, posing any kind of existential threat to the continuance of capitalism itself. In other words, reformism seeks to mend capitalism. As such it runs completely counter to the socialist goal of ending capitalism.

The futility of reformism was no better summed up than by the revolutionary socialist, William Morris, more than a century ago in How We Live and How We Might Live (1887):

 ‘The palliatives over which many worthy people are busying themselves now are useless because they are but unorganised partial revolts against a vast, wide-spreading, grasping organisation which will, with the unconscious instinct of a plant, meet every attempt at bettering the conditions of the people with an attack on a fresh side’.

Capitalism by its very nature has to operate in the interests of capital, which interests are fundamentally opposed to those of workers. The accumulation of capital, whether in the hands of private corporations or the state, expresses itself in the remorseless drive to maximise the amount of surplus value – ‘profit’ – extracted out of the labour of working people and is, thus, firmly predicated on the exploitation of the latter. This is not a matter of choice but of economic necessity. It is the very condition of commercial survival – not to mention, expansion – in a world of ruthless economic competition. Quite simply, any business that did not make a profit out of its workforce would soon go out of business.

Were the Hard Left ever to secure political power it would soon enough find itself politically imprisoned within the constraints imposed by the non-socialist outlook of the majority and thus forced to continue with the administration of capitalism in some form. This follows logically from the very premise of its own vanguardist theory of revolution. Vanguardism is defined as the capture of political power by a small minority ostensibly acting on behalf of the working class majority in advance of the latter having become socialists. Since socialism cannot come about without the latter becoming socialists this means that, for the time being, a Hard Left government would have no option but to continue by default with the administration of capitalism.

The Hard Left may protest that this is to overlook the whole point of a socialist minority capturing power before a majority had become socialist – namely, to be in a position to be able then to counter the enormous weight of capitalist propaganda in order to infuse workers with a socialist consciousness. How can you do that without this minority first capturing the state?

Actually, this is yet another example of the Hard Left shooting itself in the foot. While it is all too ready to scornfully characterise the so-called ‘abstract propagandism’ of the Socialist Party as ‘idealist’, arguing that ‘practical experience’ is the way we become socialists rather than through the dissemination of socialist ideas – as if these two things can ever really be separated – it conspicuously chooses not to apply this very same argument to itself and in its own theory of vanguardism.

What, for instance, does it imagine would be the result of the ‘practical experience’ of a Hard Left government having to administer capitalism? Since capitalism can only really be administered in the interests of capital, and not wage labour, such a government, like any other capitalist government, would be compelled to come out and oppose the interests of the very workers it claimed to represent. In other words it would be compelled to abandon any thought of inculcating socialist consciousness into workers since to do that would defeat or, at least, seriously impede, the very purpose to which it had resigned itself – namely, the effective administration of capitalism. You can’t effectively administer capitalism with millions of people beginning to question, and oppose, the very basis of capitalist society – class ownership of the means of wealth production.

The Hard Left, while fond of rebuking others for their philosophical ‘idealism’ shows its own attachment to ‘idealism’, in its utterly lame attempts to explain away the all too obvious shortcomings of the so called “proletarian states” to which it has historically pledged allegiance – from the establishment of the Soviet Union onwards. Even today Leftist supporters of such transparently obnoxious anti-working class regimes as Maduro’s Venezuela or Kim Yong Un’s quasi-monarchical North Korea will perform political gymnastics to justify this craven, not to say cringing, support. Their gullibility seems to know no bounds.

For the regimes in question a few petty, token pro-worker reforms or the ritual bombastic denunciation of that ogre of ‘American imperialism’ (as if imperialism is limited to just the US and its European allies) will suffice to have the Hard Left meekly eating out of their hands and sycophantically trying to rationalise every twist and turn of policy designed to tighten the screws on the workers in these countries.

When evidence of the anti-working class nature of these regimes becomes too overwhelming to ignore, the excuses offered will be couched in terms that do not – and dare not – question the basic tenets of vanguardism itself. The failure of the ‘proletarian state’ to make good its promises to the workers will be attributed to the various character flaws and the betrayal of the Leadership in its ‘drift to the Right’. If only Trotsky had got into power and not Stalin, exclaims our fervent Trotskyist, then things would have been so different and so much better. The irony of rebuking socialists for being ‘idealists’ while endorsing this idealist ‘Great Man’ theory of history could hardly be richer.

Reforms and Reformism

Part of the reason why the Socialist Party comes in for so much criticism for its opposition to reformism is that it seems to suggest an attitude of callous indifference to the plight of fellow workers. Is it not clearly the case that certain reforms can be beneficial to the working class or at any rate, certain groups of workers?

Well, yes, of course some reforms can be of some benefit to workers. This is not denied. Socialists are not opposed to particular reforms as such but, rather, to reformism – that is, to the practice of advocating or campaigning for reforms. Once you go down that road there is technically no limit to the number of reforms you might then want to push for. Sooner or later in your bid to push for reforms, the revolutionary objective of fundamentally changing society will be overwhelmed, side-lined and eventually forgotten altogether. The entire history of the Second International, and of the Social Democratic and Labour parties of which it was composed, unequivocally shows this to be the case.

Not only that, any benefits that particular reforms might provide are likely to be transient and provisional and dependent on the current state of the market itself which is always subject to fluctuation. Reforms that can be given with one hand can also in effect be taken away with other – that is, withdrawn in the interests of ‘belt tightening’ or simply honoured in the breach, particularly in the context of economic recession

Furthermore, insofar as some reforms provide some benefit to some workers they can sometimes be at the expense of other workers. Also, it is not only some workers that might benefit but some, if not all, capitalists too. It is, after all, mainly through the taxes paid by the latter to the state that reforms are financed. Increased taxation can undermine the competitiveness of the businesses concerned unless the advantages accruing to them from the resultant increase in state spending outweigh the costs. This places a structural limit on what reformism can hope to achieve. Tax the capitalists too heavily and you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs that provides the state with its revenue.

In short, then, opposition to reforms as reforms is not at all the position of the Socialist Party though, surprisingly enough, such opposition is something that has, in the past, attracted support in certain quarters. In his book, Socialism (1970), Michael Harrington cited the curious case, in the late 19th century/early 20th century, of the American Federation of Labour, at that time led by the colourful figure of Samuel Gompers.

Gompers espoused a ‘voluntarist’ philosophy and ‘was hostile to all social legislation on the part of the government’. This stemmed from a quasi-Marxian conviction that the state inevitably governed in the interests of the ruling capitalist class and, consequently, any legislation emanating from it was bound to have the interests of that class in mind and thus be injurious to the interests of workers concerned. For that reason the AFL went out of its way to campaign against health and unemployment insurance, old age pensions and even helped to defeat referenda in favour of the eight-hour day.

Now this was obviously a ludicrous position to take but it also provides a salutatory warning of the dangers of blurring the distinction between economic and political struggles. As far as political struggle is concerned, the position of the Socialist Party is quite simply that it opposes reformism, not reforms, on the grounds that this is incompatible with the goal of achieving a socialist revolution.

Transitional demands

While the Hard Left goes through the motions of paying lip service to that revolutionary goal it is, nevertheless, fully committed to the struggle to reform capitalism. One of the ways in which it strives to rationalise this basically incoherent strategy in doctrinal terms, and thereby appear to give some credence to its revolutionary pretensions is by advancing the Trotskyist concept of ‘transitional demands’.

By this is meant a set of reforms that are supposed to differ in kind from the sort of reforms that, for instance typified, the so called ‘minimum programme’ espoused by the Second International. They are deliberately advocated by the Hard Left, on top of the minimum programme, in the full knowledge that they are unrealisable within capitalism. So, for instance, instead of pushing for a minimum wage of ten dollars an hour, you double, treble or even quadruple that figure. Yet even though such demands are unrealisable (since their implementation would spell commercial bankruptcy for the businesses involved which would, in turn, rebound against the workers employed in these businesses), they are still advocated. Why?

According to this crackpot theory what these so called transitional demands are supposed to do is to whet the appetite of workers for more ambitious change and so ultimately pave the way for the socialist transformation of society itself. In other words, they are supposed to bridge the gap between reform and revolution. Strangely enough, campaigning for the socialist transformation of society is considered ‘utopian’ by these theorists yet campaigning for a hopelessly unrealistic and unrealisable reform is not.

What this illustrates is the fundamentally manipulative and elitist outlook of the Hard Left. You cannot cynically engineer a socialist transformation of society behind the backs of the workers themselves. Apart from anything else that will more than likely backfire against you.

Workers are a lot savvier about the workings of capitalism than the Leninist vanguard seems to give credit. They are quite capable of sniffing out an opportunist politician offering pie in the sky when they meet one and the Hard Left, seemingly, will not be outdone in the size of the pie they offer.

Robin Cox

The Latter Day Followers of Leon Trotsky (2018)

Book Review from the October 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

Contemporary Trotskyism: Parties, Sects and Social Movements in Britain by John Kelly (Routledge 2018)

Those seeking to change the way society is organized will at some stage come across a fractured group of people with ideas about it. They are quite active and visible, though perhaps not so much as they once were. Demonstrations and picket-lines, selling papers at universities and outside tube stations is their stock-in-trade. These days they are not in the best of health and struggle to make the impact they once did. They are the followers of Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky.

Trotsky played a significant role in the 1917 Bolshevik takeover in Russia led by Lenin, but after Lenin’s death was squeezed out by his successor Josef Stalin, went into exile in Mexico and then was murdered there by Stalin’s agents in 1940. It is perhaps a little odd that his modern acolytes are as well-known and persistent as they are. Not unlike the splintered religious sects that offer a regimen of activity and surety of doctrine, with each one microscopically different to the other.

A new book by John Kelly called Contemporary Trotskyism (Routledge, 2018) has set out to examine this phenomenon. Perhaps surprisingly, it is the first book-length analysis of the Trotskyist movement in Britain for over 30 years. It is meticulously researched and packed with detail. ‘Left-wing train-spotters’ everywhere will cherish it dearly.

What is Trotskyism?

Political ideas – especially complex ones – often struggle to be defined coherently. Trotskyism is no exception. Kelly identifies nine ‘core elements’, though a number of these are actually beliefs held in common with Lenin and the Bolsheviks (Trotskyists see themselves as their true heirs) together with their advocates in the various ‘Communist’ parties and regimes across the world this last century or so.

One of the core elements is more fundamental than most of the others and – despite the excellence of the book in other respects – has not been brought out quite as clearly as it might have been. This is the idea that while the working class is considered to be the agent of social change – as in Marxist theory generally – it is deemed incapable of doing this while capitalist rule dominates. This was the view taken by Lenin and the Bolsheviks, including both Stalin and Trotsky, and so unites them all.

From this viewpoint much else follows. If the working class is unable to understand capitalist exploitation and overthrow the capitalist system because the dominant ideas are literally always those of the ruling class, then how can a socialist revolution ever occur? All those in the tradition of Lenin came up with an answer, based on adapting the Russian Bolshevik model of a minority political coup d’etat. This idea was to build up a political party of professional revolutionaries (the ‘vanguard’ or ‘advanced guard’ of the working class) that could overthrow the capitalist government. It could then try to create the economic and political conditions for a socialist society – including the desire of the working class for it – after the event. Rather like having the pregnancy after the birth.

But to build up the vanguard party of professional revolutionaries within capitalism there’s no point advocating socialism, as that would be to cast pearls before the proverbial swine. What is needed instead is a tactical approach that can form an ideological bridge between where we are today and where we could end up. And this, in most respects, is where Trotsky and his followers developed a set of theories – most of them really tactics – that have distinguished them from others in the tradition of Lenin and the Bolsheviks. In particular:

Transitional demands. These are reforms of capitalism advocated with the sole purpose of demonstrating that the system can’t deliver them. This creates tension with genuine reformists like those in the mainstream Labour and Social Democratic parties who know they are unattainable and unrealistic, so prefer not to pursue them. But for Trotskyists the point is to create disillusion with the system and its established leaders so that the more critical, questioning members of the working class will turn away from them and towards the leadership of the vanguard party instead.

The ‘united front’ tactic. Like advocating transitional demands, this has been a means of winning recruits from other parties as it involves putting forward specific demands and campaigns that will enable Labour, Communists, Trotskyists, etc to work together on certain issues such as anti-fascism, while enabling Trotskyists to remain critical of their partners in other respects. This is just slightly different from the old Communist Party tactic of the ‘Popular Front’ which had often involved overtly pro-capitalist parties too, like Liberals.

A critical stance towards the former Soviet Union and its satellites. This is the big issue that has created more disagreement in the Trotskyist movement than probably any other. This is because while all wish to be critical of the regime Stalin went on to build up while Trotsky was in exile, they nevertheless hold very dear to the political methods that created it in the first place. Trotsky’s own formula was to label Russia a workers’ state that had degenerated under Stalinist leadership. Some still adhere to this, while others have moved from this position over time to create greater distance, adopting the view that these countries became state capitalist, or were some other form of class society.

A ‘catastrophist’ interpretation of capitalism. Trotsky’s seminal text in 1938 was The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International and most Trotskyists believe capitalism has been in its death throes ever since, 80 years and counting. This view is not entirely exclusive to them, but they link it vigorously with the need for working class ‘leadership’ i.e themselves as the vanguard party that can rescue the working class from crisis.

The need for a ‘Fourth International’ or similar. This is as a successor to the old Third International or ‘Comintern’ associated with Stalin and the Soviet regime. It would be an international body linking and uniting Trotskyist vanguard parties across the world with common perspectives, and also under a broadly common programme and set of tactical approaches.

The idea of spreading ‘permanent revolution’. This stands in distinction to the Stalinist idea that socialism could be built in one country and by stages, as Trotsky held the view that revolutions – if they were to succeed – needed to spread and not become isolated, hence the need for a Fourth International.  Nevertheless, the idea of a socialist revolution being one where a minority vanguard party takes power and then nationalizes the economy (as in Soviet Russia and China) is the same as the conventional Leninist and Stalinist view.

Trotskyism in Britain

One of the most notable features of the Trotskyist movement in Britain and other countries has been its tendency to fragment over time. From its origins in the tiny Balham Group of former Communist Party members in the 1930s it was united for a short time towards the end of the Second World War in an organization called the Revolutionary Communist Party, but since then has been split asunder many times.

Kelly has identified seven Trotskyist ‘families’ that emerged, though this is perhaps a little over-theorized. In reality, four main tendencies surfaced in Britain in the post-war era after the split of the RCP and these were led by four dominant individuals. This is perhaps not surprising. Trotsky himself had claimed that ‘The world political situation as a whole is chiefly characterized by a historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat’ and Trotskyist organizations (like Lenin’s Bolsheviks) are characterized by top-down structures based on the principles of what they call ‘democratic centralism’, effectively designed to ensure self-perpetuating leaderships.

The four main Trotskyist organizations that emerged in Britain from the 1950s and 60s onwards may be familiar:

The Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP), formerly the Socialist Labour League, which was founded and led by Gerry Healy until it split into myriad fragments in the mid-late 1980s. This tendency has been characterized by Kelly as Orthodox Trotskyism, and it is hard to disagree as it holds rigidly to what it sees as Trotsky’s perspectives and recommendations before his death and has been known for its extreme sectarianism and hostility to other organizations.

The Militant Tendency (really called the Revolutionary Socialist League), led by Ted Grant and which became the most well-known Trotskyist organisation through its control of Liverpool City Council in the mid 1980s and its ‘deep entryism’ inside the Labour Party, even at one stage having three Labour MPs. It split in the early 90s and its successor organizations are the Socialist Party of England and Wales (SPEW) and Socialist Appeal. Kelly calls this tendency ‘Institutional Trotskyism’ because of its adherence to supporting Labour and use of parliament, though most of its attitudes, perspectives and ingrained sectarianism are not dissimilar to the Orthodox Trotskyism of the WRP – the main difference being that the WRP/SLL in its early life used entryism into the Labour Party as a tactic (as did the other main Trotskyist tendencies) whereas Militant made it a point of principle.

The International Marxist Group (IMG) led by Tariq Ali. This became the British section of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (for a while the dominant semi-official one), hence Kelly’s description of this as Mainstream Trotskyism. This is perhaps a little confusing as it was mainly noted for attempts by its international leaders Ernest Mandel and Michel Pablo to revise and update Trotsky’s ideas in an era of Third World revolts and student agitation. Again it splintered into various competing sects, some inside the Labour Party and some outside it, the most well-known survivor probably being Socialist Resistance.

The Socialist Workers Party (SWP), formerly International Socialism and led until his death by Tony Cliff. This is currently the largest of them all, even though it has suffered more splits and splinters than most, including in recent years. It was originally influenced as much by the ideas of Rosa Luxemburg as by Lenin and Trotsky and its distinguishing feature is its view that the Soviet Union and its satellites became state capitalist when Stalinism took hold, adopting a standpoint previously alien to the Trotskyist movement and pioneered by non-Leninist organizations like the SPGB. Kelly categorizes the SWP and most of its offshoots as ‘Third Camp’ Trotskyism.

Upwaves and downwaves

Kelly argues with some evidence that there have so far been four distinct phases in the British Trotskyist movement: 1950-65 which were the ‘Bleak Years’ of limited growth while inside the Labour Party, the ‘Golden Age’ of membership growth and influence from the mid 60s to mid 80s while the traditional Communist Party declined, then a period of ‘Fracture and Decline’ from the mid 80s until around 2005, when a period of ‘Stasis’ has endured.

There are currently 22 separate Trotskyist organizations in the UK though their total membership is less than 10,000 – well under half of the combined peak membership of the mid 1980s. Some organizations have splintered off over time and have moved away from Trotskyism such as the Revolutionary Communist Group (RCG), though these, along with Stalinist and Maoist-type groups, also have memberships that tend to be numbered in the low hundreds at best and more typically much less than that.

The commitment expected of members of Leninist organizations generally can be considerable, with many Trotskyist groups mapping out their members’ free time in any given week and expecting significant financial contributions – the Alliance for Workers Liberty (AWL) had average annual membership contributions per head of over £330 a year in 2014 and Workers Power has effectively charged a ‘tithe’ of 10 per cent of income. This is in large part what enables Trotskyist groups to publish a very regular press and many even now are built around the sales of their newspapers and magazines. The WRP famously received funds from Libya and other Middle East states but this is exceptional – most Trotskyist organizations lurch from internal financial crisis to crisis, being repeatedly bailed out by their membership to keep their loss-making publications going. Nevertheless, the Revolutionary Communist Party of the 80s and 90s (a grandchild of the IS/SWP) and publisher of Living Marxism was bankrupted by a £1 million libel action from ITN. Today only two papers have regular print runs (not sales) of over 2,000, these being Socialist Worker (SWP) and The Socialist (SPEW), with print runs of 20,000 and 10,000 copies respectively per week. Some organizations are so small they only produce irregular magazines or concentrate on maintaining a web presence.

Staffers

One of the more intriguing details to emerge in Kelly’s book is how much activity is stimulated and supported by paid officials. During the Militant Tendency’s peak of 8,000 members it had no less than 250 full-time equivalent staff (a not dissimilar total to the entire Labour Party). More recently, SPEW has the highest number of staffers with 45 full-time equivalent workers, compared to 32.5 in the SWP. Most of these are employed in publications-related work, with some being national, regional or campaign organizers.

Given all this, and the campaigns both initiated and hijacked by Trotskyist groups (from the Anti-Nazi League in the late 70s to the Stop the War Coalition more recently), it is perhaps surprising they remain as small as they do. Even more surprising perhaps given their relentless work in the trade unions, including trying to gain positions of influence at all levels, again meticulously detailed by Kelly. Similarly, in the last couple of decades there has been a generally increased focus on election campaigns as a means of generating publicity, from Respect to the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). This has led to some long-term sworn enemies like the SWP and SPEW temporarily bury their differences, but with little practical effect.

Prognosis

The current state of flux in the Corbyn-led Labour Party has seen a number of Trotskyist groups identify a chance to engage closely with people who could be like-minded. The paucity of Trotskyist candidates standing against Labour in the 2017 General Election was a reflection of this, reversing the trend towards greater electoral participation since the 1990s. The evidence presented by Kelly suggests that the far left tends to do better on average (both in terms of electoral support and in party membership) when Labour is in government rather than in opposition. But it still does badly, and even organizations in other countries including some Trotskyist elements within them at various stages such as Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain only succeed when they build far wider leftist coalitions, dwarfing the Trotskyist contribution to the extent that it becomes almost invisible. And almost inevitably these parties have a tendency to end up – like Syriza – being respectable parties of capitalist government.

This is interesting, because Trotskyist groups have long argued that they do this because to do anything differently, such as advocate real socialism (common ownership, production for use, the abolition of the wages system, etc) is a waste of time. In fact, most of them only pay lip-service to this as being their long term goal at very best, and most take the traditional view of the Communists (ie Stalinists and Maoists) that socialism is really a nationalized, planned economy under the control of the vanguard party. But as in Soviet Russia this leaves all the economic features of capitalism intact – such as wage labour, production for sale on markets, etc – and is really just state-run capitalism.

It all gets to the essence though of why socialists oppose the Trotskyist movement and have long warned of the dangers of being involved in it:

• they do not advocate (or in many case really believe in) socialism but actually believe in a form of state run-capitalism under their own leadership
• they are elitist organizations that are dominated by small and generally unaccountable groups of leaders who see themselves as potentially great historical figures, guiding the masses with their supposedly superior political tactics
• they are politically dishonest as they advocate demands (the ‘transitional programme’) in the full knowledge they cannot be met within capitalism and will only create disillusion – indeed that is the entire point of advocating them
• they will periodically enter and otherwise give support (however ‘critical’) to anti-socialist organizations like the Labour Party
• they have a well-known history of hijacking trade union and other struggles for their own ends.

Of course, we are well aware that they don’t have a high opinion of us either. We are usually guilty of things like ‘abstract propagandism’, which means not arguing for reforms of capitalism and they have sometimes derided us as the ‘Small Party of Good Boys’ and similar.

While we are far smaller than we would like to be and can certainly learn lessons from the last century and more, John Kelly’s book has thrown an interesting spotlight on a few things. And one of them is that despite the fact that we in the SPGB advocate the ‘maximum programme’ of socialism and nothing but – and despite all the tactical manoeuvrings and reform campaigns of the various Trotskyist groups over the years –  there are only two of them (the SWP and SPEW) that are actually bigger than us! Every other party and group from the WRP and Socialist Appeal to the AWL and Counterfire are smaller than we are. And so were former (and very visible) Trot groups like the RCP at their peak in the late 80s/early 90s.

Just think, then – if a few more of them had spent their considerable energies advocating real socialism rather than playing tactical games of footsie with the reformists, the movement for social change in this country would be a lot stronger than it is. That’s not to crow, as we of course wish we were a lot bigger than we are – but just to point out that the tactical genius of Leon Trotsky and his latter-day followers has been rather misdirected and somewhat over-rated. And that’s us trying to be polite.

Dave Perrin

Socialism or Reformism? (1976)

From the January 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Summary of a debate between the SPGB and the Labour Party Young Socialists —

Greenford Co-op Hall, Greenford Road. Tuesday 2nd December
For SPGB : T. D’Arcy. For LPYS : M. Brooks, Acton Labour Party.

SPGB Opening Statement
The title of the debate is: “Which party should the working class support, the SPGB or LPYS?” Today we live under a system called capitalism. The basis of this society is division into two classes: the working class virtually propertyless, having only their labour-power to sell, and the capitalist class, the tiny minority who own the wealth of society. There exists therefore a class antagonism between wage-labour and capital which is irreconcilable. We say Socialism is in working-class interests and by Socialism we mean our object, contained in all our literature. This is not what exists in Russia and other places and as yet it does not exist. The LPYS do not advocate this system which implies abolition of the wages system, private property and its relationships, banks, trade unions etc. Socialism means a fundamentally different kind of society where the means of production are owned and controlled by society as a whole.

The LPYS make socialist noises but there is a world of difference. They want capitalism run in working-class interests — this is nonsense, capitalism cannot benefit workers; only the capitalist class. One outstanding disagreement is on reforms. The LPYS have a list of reforms: Free Spanish political prisoners, oppose cuts in social services, Rent Act, nationalization, abolition of the House of Lords, etc.

The SPGB is opposed to reformism because: (a) it makes capitalism run more smoothly (b) it is the capitalists who pay for reforms and decide which ones, and (c) we have had them for 150 years and they have not led to Socialism and never will. At most they are a temporary appeasement to some sections of the working class and can be withdrawn, e.g. free milk for schoolchildren. Why do the LPYS need [a] “radical Labour Government” to push a reformist programme? Surely the Tories and Liberals have a better record on that count? Can you imagine the fury of the left if we had a Tory government now with a £6 limit and 1¼ million unemployed?

Nationalization is a main part of the Labour programme but it is irrelevant to the working class. Are workers for British Rail any better off because they are exploited by the state? Nor does nationalization bring Socialism any nearer. Lenin admitted that what existed in Russia was state capitalism. The LPYS have misconceptions about the state. To them it is something which, if you push hard, will do what you want. But it is a coercive body to maintain the rule of law, i.e. protect private property society. I refer you to Engels’ Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. The LPYS have the idea that with good leadership and 10 million trade unionists you can combat capital and take it over, leading to the promised land. The SPGB rejects leadership and insists on the majority understanding Socialism before it can be established. No need for intellectuals, vanguardists, élitists, Trots etc. Understanding is the key.

The LPYS hold that inflation is caused by rising prices; but a wage is a price. It is caused by the depreciation of the currency — printing paper money. Unemployment is a normal part of capitalism but the LPYS want to fight it. How? It provides a reserve industrial army for when production picks up again, and it tends to keep wages down. Taxation is not a concern of the working class; it is a levy on wealth and the burden of taxation falls on the owners of wealth, the capitalists. LPYS ideas are not new. They should learn the lessons of history. The SPGB holds that Socialism is not only possible but the essential step if mankind is to progress.

LPYS Opening Statement

The SPGB rejects leadership yet goes to some lengths to put forward its ideas — this is playing with words. Leadership means offering a way forward; we have no ability to enchain the working class, only ideas and a political programme to offer them. The Labour government has false policies and is on the wrong course — we try to change these policies within the Labour movement. The LPYS have their own conferences, programmes and policymaking bodies.

The LYPS believe themselves to be socialist. We believe unemployment, rising prices, poverty, can only be solved by a fundamental transformation of society, in the direction of socialism. What’s stopping us? The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself and there is only a minority of socialists. It is absolutely true that the Labour Party has not led to socialism. Nor has the SPGB. It is necessary for the socialist movement to work within the labour movement putting forward the day-to-day interests of the working class, but it is necessary both to build understanding and to relate this to the struggles of workers. The LPYS attempt to do this. We don’t talk of solving unemployment in the framework of capitalism, we explain the need to take over the means of production and run them in the interests of the working class. SPGB history shows they have done service to the labour movement in the field of propaganda if in no other. The method of Marxism shows that during times of capitalist boom (the 1950s) workers aren’t interested in revolution, but they are in desperate economic crisis (e.g. 1848). The present crisis gives some hope of the working class questioning the basis of society but there is no certainty of this.

The SPGB contradicts itself by supporting trade-union action and not reform action. The trade unions are not revolutionary and yet Socialists work in them. In the same way the Labour Party is not revolutionary yet we work within it. Labour Party policies are no different from Tory policies, but radicalization will multiply as the crisis deepens. To cut yourself off from the Labour Party and the trade unions is to cut yourself off from the organized working class.

The SPGB likens reforms to crumbs from the capitalist table; if capitalists had infinite ability to give crumbs, socialism would be forever a dream. Marx hailed the 10-hour-day as a political reform, it was an indication to the working class of how to act. Would the SPGB support the 7-hour-day if brought about by trade-union action and oppose it if legislated? The 7-hour-day would be one of the first steps of a socialist government. The workers should take over industry and run it in their own interests, and this only leads to socialism when workers have control of the state.

The SPGB denies need for transition period but the level of production is not high enough to do away with money, and workers will need a period of training. The SPGB says it wants the democratic way. Who doesn’t? but most workers live under dictatorships and capitalists stop democracy when they want to, e.g. Chile. Capitalists will behave like wild beasts when they see their interests threatened. We must warn workers of the tricks and guiles capitalists will use in a country. As Guthrie says "Take it easy, but take it”.

(Several questions were asked by the audience, for the speakers to answer in summing up).

SPGB Second Speech

My opponent says he agrees that he wants Socialism as I defined it, yet LPYS propaganda is full only of “real issues”. If you don’t take Socialism seriously, of course it will seem years away. The SPGB is not prepared to water down its case by pushing reform programmes as the LPYS do. If we did this we could increase our membership with the support of non-socialists. On trade unions I refer you to Value, Price and Profit, where Marx calls for the abolition of the wages system. Workers organize under capitalism to try to safeguard their wages whether or not the SPGB urges them to.

A Socialist party must maintain independence and have no compromise with capitalism. It neither supports nor opposes reforms even if they appear to benefit workers at some time. Personally I have no objection to free milk for schoolchildren but it is not the task of a Socialist party to advocate such things.

The transition to Socialism takes place in capitalist society whilst men’s ideas are changing. The LPYS do not talk of abolishing the wages system, they talk of a £40 minimum wage.

Aim must be linked to method. Socialists in countries like Spain put forward the Socialist case as best they can alongside propaganda for political democracy for Socialism and not anything else. Socialist ideas, when they start spreading, will go to all parts of the world. Democracy will realize its true meaning in Socialist society. Capitalists cannot stop a vast social movement when it gets going, especially as the working class run capitalism from top to bottom.

The policy of boring from within is dishonest. I submit that the LPYS have no separate identity from the Labour Party and that they carry out their own rule “to secure the support of young people for the principles and policy of the Labour Party.”

LPYS Second Speech

We try to relate our programme to the day-to-day needs of working people. The SPGB reacted against the split in the 19th century socialist movement by resorting to preaching the final end without involving themselves in the mass movement.

On the question of taxation when VAT was introduced the retail price index did go up and this obviously would cause hardship to workers who could not get increases in wages. You have to support the working class on such issues.

The LPYS demand ‘“Work Or Full Pay” is not achievable within capitalism. It requires a transformation of society, but it is a reform attractive to workers who have no conception of Socialism. We base ourselves on not forming a party away from the main movement. Otherwise, no-one listens to you.

We agree that nationalization is state capitalism and that capitalists get their income in the same way as if they owned shares, but if the commanding heights of the economy were taken over that situation would be transformed. We would be prepared to give a better deal at the Social Security to poor workers with a few shares, say in ICI, to supplement their income. Nationalization is a necessary first step. There are just not enough resources available to immediately abolish money, and there will have to be a transition period with certain inequalities.

With the deepening economic crisis the working class is going to move to the left, and you have to be there explaining the need for the transformation of society. If not then you’re writing off the working-class movement.

As regards boring from within, the Labour Party has capitalist-minded leaders but the working class don’t regard it as such and that will be the cause of the radicalization of that party. During elections we don’t stress the bad points of Labour Party policy but instead put the LPYS programme and ask workers to get involved.

It is an admission of failure to say that the SPGB could not exist in Spain. Most workers live under dictatorships. It’s all very well to talk of taking over the state but what if the generals etc. don’t let you? The need to change society will not be realized in a flash of light. You must prepare against the reactionary violence the ruling class are likely to use in defence of their privilege and profits.

Tony D'Arcy

Question Time. (1913)

From the April 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

A most amusing poster was exhibited at the Tooting branch of the B.S.P recently, and from the Socialist point of view a most comprehensive one, too.

A meeting was advertised for March 9th at which Mr. E Crump was to give a lecture. and the a subject was to be : “Where Are We?’’

Had the speaker shown the same sincerity in keeping his engagement as he did in choosing his subject the position would even then have been humorous, but his failure to turn up placed a touch of reality on the whole affair.

After an existence of twenty seven years, smelling as sweetly under a variety of names, the B.S.P. find it necessary to ask themselves where they are! When we remember that the same party, on the occasion of the Borough Council election in 1912, opposed the Progressives in Battersea and supported them in Tooting, the above incident can only be taken as a true reflex of their "organisation.”

It is interesting to note, also, that what is called a “Transition Programme” (whatever that may be) finds a place on the preliminary agenda for the B.S.P.’s Whitsuntide Conference. The following extracts reveal the terrifying and r-r revolutionary nature of the discussion that is to take place :—

   “The Abolition of the Monarchy.” “Free Administration of Justice and Legal Advice.” “Compensation for Persons Innocently Accused and Imprisoned.” “Abolition of Indirect Taxation,” etc, etc.

Now at last we can feel that capitalism is tottering to its grave Surely nothing but the fear of the advent of Socialism would move the B.S.P. to endeavour to perpetuate the present rotten system with such desperation as the above suggests.

Yet H. M. Hyndman, the G.O.M. of confusion, has said that we are faced with a system which makes reform impossible.

When intelligent workers note these facts, and also bear in mind the controversy raging round the subject of strengthening the very forces which exist to keep us in our slavery, they will agree that the time is over-ripe for questions, including the plaintive one of the lost—"Where are we? "

C. Baggett