Letter: Quite a simple concept (1996)

Letter to the Editors from the June 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

I was interested to read your April issue and in particular the article, "How to tell a real Socialist". I thought the article was very interesting and made the point well that Socialism is actually quite a simple concept. Part of the reason, as you point out, is that many self-styled Socialists have no faith in ordinary people and their potential. The Leninist sects hold people back from an understanding of real Socialism but most of the people attracted to these organisations do genuinely believe they are working for Socialism.

The task must be to create dynamic and effective organisation(s) that can win some of these people over to Socialism and win the majority of the population over in the long run.

My point though is can the Socialist Party do this alone? Are you willing to work with other people, with similar views? Or do you see yourselves as in competition with them?

I believe there should be an alliance of Green and left groups prepared to work together in a non-hierarchical way. What do you think?

Ray Kent, 

London E8

Reply:

Since socialism can only come about when a majority want it, we see the task of socialists at the present time as being to do all they can to spread socialist ideas. We think that, to do this, all socialists should organise together in a separate organisation whose only aim and activity is to campaign for socialism.

As we campaign only for Socialism we are not in favour of allying ourselves with other groups to campaign for other things, however desirable some of these might be. Other organisations, such as trade unions, exist to do this. Campaigning for higher wages, better conditions, a better local environment and other ameliorations within capitalism—or, these days, campaigning to stop things getting worse—is not the job of a socialist party. It is the job of these other organisations.

Although we, as a party, don’t get involved in these organisations and their struggles, our members, as individuals, are members of some of them. In them they urge that these organisations be run democratically and that any struggles be conducted on a democratic, no-leadership, non-hierarchical basis. Naturally, our members are only too pleased to find others in these organisations who share this approach and to work with them to prevent these organisations and their struggles being hi-jacked either by Leninist vanguards or by Labour Party and other careerists.

Do we think that we alone will bring about the majority desire for socialism which will have to exist before socialism can be established? No, we don’t and never have as it is capitalism itself that does most of the work, creating discontent over its insoluble problems and getting people to think about alternative ways of organising society. If, as is conceivable, capitalist conditions throw up other groups of workers, whether from the traditional labour movement or the alternative green movement or anywhere else, which have the same aim and approach as us we would not only be prepared to work with them to campaign for socialism but we would be duty-bound to amalgamate with them. For all we know, this may be how the mass socialist party without which socialism cannot be established will come into being. Who can know at this stage? In the meantime, in the absence of any other groups that favour campaigning and democratically organising for socialism and nothing but, we continue doing this on our own. 

Editors

Letter: Is Disunity Hindering Socialist Proaganda? (1942)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have been asked to comment on the following letter published in the “Locomotive Journal” (August) : —

Sir,—Why is it, despite the most glaring of Capitalism’s evils, i.e., poverty, unemployment, war and its entailing miseries, the emancipation of the worker is no nearer its achievement? Is it due to the fact that whilst members of the Anarchist and Communist, S.P.G.B., Labour (a small minority), etc., parties, recognise that our common enemy is capitalism, they are divided in their method of approach ? If so, capitalistic society has no fear of being overthrown while their opponents carry on a divide and rule policy for them. Incidentally the proprietary rights of the study of “Sociology” are as much the workers as anyone’s, and in my humble opinion would be beneficial in their fight for equality. In case I should be misunderstood I am in no way suggesting this as an alternative measure for achieving same.

—Yours faithfully, 

J. Hodgkin. 

Stratford.

Reply:

The writer of the letter has a point of view that is held by a number of workers. It is not new. To go no further back than 1893 it was put in that year in the “Manifesto of English Socialists,” issued by G. B. Shaw, Sidney Webb, and others, on behalf of the Fabian Society and the Social Democratic Federation. Believing that “whatever differences may have arisen between them in the past, all who can fairly be called Socialists are agreed in their main principles of thought and action,” the signatories appealed “to all Socialists to sink their individual crochets in a business-like endeavour to realise in our own day that complete communisation of industry for which the economic forces are ready and the minds of the people are almost prepared.”

It is instructive to compare Mr. Hodgkin’s letter with the 1893 Manifesto, for they contain the same mistaken assumption. To start with, the group represented by “the Anarchist and Communist, S.P.G.B., Labour (a small minority) etc., parties,” is so small and weak that it could no more revolutionise society than could the tiny Fabian-S.D.F. group in 1893. Success now, as then, would depend upon whether the merging of the separate groups would so increase the effectiveness of propaganda that the Socialist movement would rapidly grow. But the question is, propaganda for what ? It is true that the group named (as also the whole of the Labour Party) would subscribe in words to the proposition that capitalism is the enemy, but that would only be an illusory agreement. They do not mean the same thing by the term “capitalism,” and their objects are not the same but are fundamentally different and irreconcilable. Let us suppose that six groups separately voicing different objects are merged into one group speaking in six different voices, what gain is there? Anarchists, the S.P.G.B. and the bulk of the Labour Party are opposed to Communist dictatorship and to the regime in Russia. The Communists, if they had their way, would suppress all the others. The S.P.G.B. is fundamentally opposed to the State Capitalism that the Communists and the Labour Party aim to introduce under the name “Socialism.” The Anarchists and the Labour Party are not in favour of the object of the S.P.G.B., a system of society based upon common ownership and democratic control, and the Anarchists do not recognise the fact that the working class cannot achieve their emancipation except through democratically gaining control of the machinery of government.

Another question is the advocacy of reforms. The 1893 Manifesto proposed a programme of “immediate” measures within the scope of “practical politics.” This was on the ground that these reforms would give the workers more leisure and less anxiety so that they could turn their attention to Socialism. The Labour Party have the same view now. The S.P.G.B. rejects it, holding that parties which advocate reforms attract reformists, not Socialists; perpetuate the illusion that capitalism can be reformed satisfactorily; and end up by being swamped by reformist elements. Many of the reforms listed in the 1893 Manifesto have been wholly or partly achieved— an eight hours law, prohibition of child labour, payment of M.P.s, universal suffrage, suppression of sub-contracting and sweating, but so far from the propaganda for Socialism having been simplified, the workers’ increased leisure is being taken up with “immediate” demands for more and more reforms. Whereas in 1893 Shaw and others were content to name eight immediate demands, the Labour and Communist Party can now at any moment produce a list of almost as many dozen—though at the moment far from believing that “capitalism is the enemy” they believe that the paramount task is to protect democratic capitalism against Nazism, and have shelved all their reforms to that end.

In 1893 it was believed that the “minds of the people are almost prepared” for Socialism. Shaw and his colleagues were mistaken, and while progress has been made it is still true that the great majority of the population are not prepared for Socialism. One of the principal reasons is that instead of preaching Socialism most of those who (wrongly) regarded themselves as Socialists have been preaching reforms and everything else but Socialism. This is still true, and fictitious unity would not alter it.

Let it be remembered, too, that the 1893 attempt at unity failed and the S.D.F. and Fabian Society are still in separate existence. In the intervening years there have been dozens of attempts at such “unity.” All have either failed and have merely encouraged reformism at the expense of Socialist propaganda.

Incidentally, while we are on the subject of unity, we notice that after years of propaganda for amalgamation there are still three separate railway trade unions.

Editorial Committee.

Socialist Unity — Is there any choice? (1995)

From the July 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

This article and the one on the following two pages should be
 read together since the first expresses some views which are 
countered in the second. Peter Nielsen is a former Labour
 parliamentary candidate.

"All it takes to do away with the ills of capitalism is a politically aware and motivated working class which wants and understands socialism." So said the Cover Feature, “What makes you angry?”, in the July 1992 edition of Socialist Standard. All? In a political environment where the word “socialism” is applied with such disregard for its real meaning, “understanding” it is no easy matter for people whose general political awareness is shaped by the capitalist agenda on which all mass media discussion takes place.

The experience of the working class of so-called “socialism” has not been a happy one. “Socialists” of many hues have come and gone this century world-wide, their promise unfulfilled through subversion and betrayal. In Britain, all the achievements of previous Labour governments have been partly or wholly destroyed since 1979. Cowed by Thatcher, seduced by an establishment which it has never repudiated anyway, and betrayed by its leaders. Labour now seeks an electoral mandate to govern the same old rotten system under Tony Blair declaring itself “a socialist party”. Coupled with the slavering triumphalism of the capitalists that “socialism is dead” following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, ordinary people are understandably lost in a maze of meanings. Worse still, the disowning of socialism by the Labour Party in recent years has only reinforced the capitalists in their propaganda that socialism is associated with hopeless idealism, incompetence and failure. The fact that the chronic economic and administrative incompetence of the nomenclatura of Soviet state capitalism caused it to collapse in chaos and defeat only adds to the scepticism of working class people. In their eyes, through their mass media, all systems end up with people at the top looking after themselves.

If socialism is to advance and not continue to be scandalised by vested interests who patronisingly describe it as a good idea which will never work in practice because of “human greed”, the task of socialists is not only to expose the ills of capitalism, but also to meet the challenge of cynicism and hopelessness so successfully nurtured by decades of Tory propaganda and Labour betrayal. Socialists need more than a definition of socialism. They need a language of socialism which expresses the rights and moral standards by which human beings must live to survive in peace, freedom and with justice. It must be capable of being articulated in a consistent way and of being recognised each time it is spoken.

The language of socialism must be the language of the ethical. It must not waver from principle. The concept of human rights must be total. It must not only concern itself with freedom from victimisation, false imprisonment, torture and execution. If anything, such acts are sanitised by being on the human rights agenda rather than in the sphere of criminality where they belong. Human rights must extend to the fields of economics, housing, health, education and the environment and they must be applied universally. The redistribution of wealth and the democratisation of industry must not be a mere policy option for socialists seeking votes in elections but must be taken for granted as an inevitable consequence of supporting socialism. Socialism should be synonymous with the highest standards of life. Human rights in the social and economic spheres demand the elimination of poverty, unemployment, homelessness and alienation. They also demand the highest levels of performance and professionalism in all work by each other for each other.

No conflict

There should be no conflict between the good of the individual and the good of the community. The two are inseparable. Individuals benefit from communities organised to provide the best in public services, and communities benefit from free and fulfilled individuals realising their full potential be they highly gifted or severely handicapped. The full realisation of the potential in all human beings is the ultimate guarantee of the best society that can be conceived. Th waste of one human being through neglect and exploitation denies others the fruits of their endeavour.

Such general tenets are not, as cynics would have it, the utopian beliefs of idealists and dreamers. They command wide support according to the ICM State of the Nation polls published annually in the Guardian newspaper. For years, they have shown big majorities who regard unemployment more serious than inflation, who think that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor, who oppose privatisations, who regard environmental protection as more important than producing “cheap” goods, and who prefer better public services to lower taxes. Substantial minorities still oppose Britain's nuclear weapons and support more trade union involvement in industry and the economy. There is an even split between those who believe that more socialist planning would be the best way to solve Britain's economic problems and those who did not.

These views are some way from being those of “a politically aware and motivated working class which wants and understands socialism”, but that is not the point. Given that such opinions are expressed in the context of the capitalist agenda by people who have rarely or ever been exposed to a true socialist alternative and whose most recent encounter with commentaries on socialism was intended to consign socialism as variously “unworkable”, “failed”, “discredited” and “dead”, they must be regarded as remarkable. They should tell us that all the political parties represented in Parliament, including the Labour Party, should speak for less than half of the people and that there is a huge political void waiting to be occupied by advocates of socialism.

Political void

The crunch is, how is it to be occupied? Who will occupy it? The Lahour Party has abandoned it if it ever occupied it at all. Socialist thinkers and activists are scattered across a profusion of parties and organisations which collectively represent a common rejection of capitalism and its wars, its environmental vandalism, its poverty, starvation, homelessness, unemployment and racism, and its ambition for the usurious enslavement of all humanity. How many more decades will it take socialists to work through their differences towards a socialist consensus? Is there no synthesis of socialism, democracy, peace, freedom and justice to which we can all subscribe?

If objectives can be broadly agreed, then two steps towards unity will have been made possible: A united critique of capitalism and a united vision of what should replace it. There only remains agreement about the process of achieving it. That will be difficult and will require the putting to pasture of some sacred cows on the left. It will be an iconoclastic endeavour, not against socialist sentiment but against long and dearly held convictions about the “only” way to defeat capitalism in a left culture in which there are many “only” ways including insurrection, revolution, entryism, the ballot box and just waiting around until the system grows rotten, collapses and dies.

The achievement of socialism is the responsibility of all who take up the cause irrespective of which organisation, if any, they identify with. Socialism is no longer a luxury which can occupy our intellects in interminable arguments about strategies for achieving it to the exclusion of events unfolding around us. Socialism has become an urgent necessity. To hand over the world's economy to the business élites to exploit for profit, by collusion or by default, is a recipe for social and environmental disaster. If socialism is denied for lack of the will to unite, it will amount to a criminal act of passive surrender to the capitalists and to betrayal of the working class. It is not just about filling a vacuum left by the Labour Party’s rightward shifts. It is also about a vacuum in the understanding of people who have never thought about politics, who are dissatisfied but don’t know what with, some of who may even vote for the Tories without being sure why. That requires that socialists organise to demand the attention given to the capitalist parties in the media, on the stump and on the street. Socialists must speak the language of socialism which the people understand. Above all, they must reach the people, confronting the capitalist agenda issue-by-issue, blow-for-blow.

United Left

Demanding attention requires presence. Presence comes from the status conferred by the strength of a united socialist front which cannot be dismissed as “marginal” or “extreme”. The capitalists may control the media through the ownership of its assets but they do not own the right of communication and dialogue between peoples any more than they own the rain in spite of their efforts to privatise it. Their monopoly of the use of the media and of the agenda should not be surrendered by default. As long as these powerful levers remain in their hands, the capitalists retain the ability to contain everything a divided Left can throw at them A united Left could not be denied, especially if it scored enough points under the capitalists' own rules of access to the media, namely by the election of MPs and councillors.

The point is not to sign up to the traditions of British politics and the institutions of the establishment which sustains them. It is to give united public expression to the socialist cause in a form which is familiar to people and which can reach people in an age of mass telecommunications which demands presence and status to justify participation. Virtue is not enough. A show of strength is needed, strength in numbers which demands attention and can show that socialism is not a scattered body of non-conformist belief but a philosophy which is the true reflection of the natural state of human society. To a rising generation which has known no other political environment than that which exists today, and to who this century’s two World Wars and the Cold War exist only in history’ books, the arguments for socialism must address the world as it is today. Not the “modern” world of Tony Blair which accepts a limited democratic influence over the forces of international capitalism, but the modern world whose awesome problems of inequality and environmental plunder and destruction can only be solved by co-operation through assent, inseparably by socialism and democracy.

The capitalists are rampant in the wake of the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the ascendancy of the so-called New World Order. If they are to be challenged, it must be done before it is too late. Socialists bear that responsibility. United we stand, divided we fall. After all, if professing socialists can’t get their act together, how will the people ever be persuaded “to want and understand socialism”?

Peter Nielsen

Blogger's Note:

Here's an obituary for Peter Nielsen which dates from 2018, and which gives more background on his political and personal life.

Is there a better alternative? (1995)

From the July 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since its formation the Socialist Party has argued that it is
 essential for the working class to unite in order to gel rid of
 capitalism. But this unity must be on the basis of a clear
 understanding of what socialism is, of what capitalism is,
 and of how to replace one with the other.

Without winning the battle of ideas socialists will achieve nothing. Workers, who constitute the vast majority of society, will either have their own class-consciousness or they will fall victim to the ideological attack of the minority class who are the legalised exploiters of the profit system There is no middle ground: workers must either understand and want a co-operative society which is fundamentally different from the class-divided system we have or capitalism will carry on in its callous, destructive way.

So we agree with a good deal of what Peter Nielsen says. Yes, the capitalist agenda does dominate mass media communication and makes it far from easy for workers to think for ourselves. Added to that, there are schools and churches and all kinds of institutions dedicated, intentionally or otherwise, to the confusion of the working class Yes, the triumphalism or capitalism's apologists in the light of the alleged “failure of socialism” has misled millions of workers. The fact that the Labour Party has only ever stood for capitalism and that the so-called socialist countries were no more than attempts by élite-run states to manage capitalism (state capitalism) makes it easy for workers to assume that real socialism could never work. The recognition that socialists have a big battle on our hands, made more difficult not only by media disinformation but also by the historical actions of pseudo-socialists, is one that does not need to be pointed out to the Socialist Party. After all, we stand alone in the political arena as the only party professing socialism which was never for a minute taken in by the socialist claims of state capitalists and left-wing reformers of capitalism. We know just how big an ideological mess this history has created.

Indecencies of capitalism

So, what is to be the way forward out of the mess? We are told that we need more than a definition of socialism, but an ethical language within which to express it. In truth, it would be impossible to define and argue for socialism without pointing to the indecencies of capitalism. It is the fundamental opposition to the interests and feelings of the majority which arises from production for profit (capitalism) which makes production for use (socialism) so compelling and urgent. We are not seeking to win workers to support for a dry political definition, but to a new way of running the world, a different way of living which is co-operative, caring and free from the shackles of the market. Indeed, this means rejecting the individual/community dichotomy and recognising in practical terms the need for a society where the interest of one is the interest of all.

We agree also that there are many workers who are far from actively liking or supporting the profit system. Capitalism thrives upon the passive support of the scared and the uninformed. But there are those who will not vote for any of the capitalist parties and would agree with Peter Nielsen that this huge radical political void needs to be occupied by an alternative movement.

So, what are these people to do? How is the radical void to be filled? Clearly, not by the Labour Party. It never was socialist or radical, but now it is so far from seriously claiming to be so that nobody in their right mind would join it with a view to ending capitalism. Nor does the answer lie in the Leninist Left which has spent this century wasting workers’ time calling for a re-enactment of the insurrectionary tactics which gave rise the state-capitalist tyrannies and telling workers to vote Labour at every election: a history' of double-confusion. Clearly, the alternative is not going to come from their direction

So, what is the case for unity? We agree with Peter Nielsen that those who unite for socialism must understand what capitalism is and share a common socialist objective. Indeed, that is the basis for membership of the Socialist Party. All workers who oppose capitalism and seek the establishment of socialism, not just as definitions but as practically understood and experienced systems of society, must unite. In this sense, we are all for unity.

Unity for socialism

But can we unite with those whose professed radical or socialist energies amount to campaigns to reform capitalism? No—never! This is not because we doubt the sincerity of such would-be reformers or enjoy standing aloof from active struggles. But we must at all times and without compromise stick to the Big Issue of opposing capitalism as a whole, not just bits of it, and advocating socialism as a basic social alternative, not just a new policy for running capitalism. Organised socialists must be politically hostile to reformism, whilst doing our utmost to win reformists from the path of mending capitalism to that of ending it.

We are all for “a show of strength”, but numbers without understanding and clear-cut principles do not constitute strength but easily broken weakness. So, to be plain-speaking about it, we reject the proposal that we should unite with reformists and call instead for them to abandon their struggles for the crumbs from their masters’ tables and unite to take possession of the whole cake and the bakery in which it is made: common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production and distribution.

We do not reject Peter Nielsen's call for “socialist unity” out of sectarian indifference to the need to build a mass socialist movement. Far from it: there is nothing that we would more like to see. But the unity of socialists with non-socialists, semi-socialists or single-issue radicals would be to build a castle made of straw.

In the spirit of Peter Nielsen’s enthusiastic and hopeful call for socialist unity, let us offer a different proposition. Consider what would happen if the active support for the Socialist Party, which is small at present, were to be doubled or trebled or multiplied by ten? What impact might 10,000 politically-conscious and actively-organised socialists make if enough people were to get to the roots of society’s problems and join our cause? And if we allow ourselves to think of 10,000, how long before they became 100,000? What if such numbers of people were to distribute socialist literature in opposition to the lie-sheets of the capitalist media? What if every phone-in programme had hundreds of socialists jamming the switchboards intent on arguing the need to get rid of production for profit and establish production for need? Now, that would be unity. It would be a force to be reckoned with. Of course, within a growing socialists movement there would be different people motivated by different problems, but all would be united by a recognition that the root cause of these problems is this rotten capitalist system.

These are exciting and invigorating thoughts, but left in the realm of though they will achieve nothing. So, why not start now? Why not think about uniting with those of us who are committed to the single aim of world socialism? Why not persuade friends, workmates and family to join us, or at least read what we have to say? Why not lake ten copies of the Socialist Standard instead of one or two—or write in for a few hundred free leaflets to distribute in your area? Why not organise a socialist meeting locally? Invite along the local radicals, convince them of the need for real socialist unity and let’s have new branches and groups everywhere. Why not unite for the greatest historical aim in human history: the possession of the world and all of its resources by its inhabitants? And why not do it now?

Steve Coleman

Unity: A Misdirected Fable (1943)

From the June 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Labour,” published by the T.U.C., contained in its April issue a Russian fable on unity. It tells how a fish, a swan and a crab harnessed themselves together to pull a load. The load never moved because the swan tried to fly up, the crab stepped backwards, and the fish headed for a pond. "The moral is: Unity," says "Labour."

The Daily Worker noticed the fable and retorted that the moral obviously is that the Labour Party should accept Communist affiliation.

They are both wrong. The moral is that harnessing together incompatible Socialist and non-Sucialist elements, which move by different means towards different objectives, is not unity. It produces paralysis, not progress.

Socialists and Working Class Unity (1933)

From the May 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

An appeal has recently been sent out by the Communist International for a “United Front” of the working class against “Fascism" and in defence of working class standards of living and a number of other objects. This has been taken up readily by the I.L.P., but the Labour Party and Trades Union Congress have rejected the proposals of the I.L.P. and the Communist Party for joint action. Before explaining the attitude of the Socialist Party of Great Britain towards unity proposals, it is worth while observing the conditions which have given rise to a revival of the idea of the “United Front." The plan is not new. On the contrary, the past half-century has witnessed innumerable attempts to form one united organisation into which the various parties calling themselves Labour or Socialist could merge. We are, however, interested at the moment only with the movement organised just 11 years ago. The circumstances are strikingly similar to those of to-day. The world is sunk in a serious economic crisis—as it also was in 1921-22. Hitler has just risen to power and has demonstrated the incapacity and utter impotence of the Social Democrats and the Communist Party in face of a situation which they professed to be able to tackle. In 1921 and 1922 Mussolini was strengthening his forces and subsequently, in October, 1922, came to power, showing, just as Hitler has shown, that the Labour and Communist parties were unable to offer any serious opposition. Again, in 1921, as at present, Russia was in the throes of a serious internal economic crisis. In 1921 this crisis, aggravated by the famine, compelled Lenin to introduce the New Economic Policy, an open avowal of Russia’s inability to do without capitalism. (August, 1921.) Then, as now, the Communist International and the Communist parties were under the orders of the Russian Government, and the latter instructed them to open up the “United Front” campaign in the belief that it would strengthen the position of the Russian Government at home and abroad.

So in March, 1922, after roundly abusing the Labour parties for two years, the Communist Party was prepared to meet them, join up with them, accept their rules and programme, and tell the workers to vote for those whom hitherto it had described as tools of capitalism. Now the cry of unity is being revived and we are again asked to justify our definite and absolute refusal to have anything whatever to do with it.

It is not that the S.P.G.B. is opposed to unity or that we like segregation for its own sake. On the contrary, it is our claim that only through Socialism will it ultimately be possible to unite the human race by ridding the world of the economic barriers which divide class from class and nation from nation.

Nor are we opposed to unity of the working class for the purpose of achieving Socialism, for we know full well that Socialism can only be achieved when at least a majority of the working class are prepared to join together to bring it about. But unity, to be real and useful, must have a common purpose and common basis, and there can be no common basis for unity between the S.P.G.B. on the one hand and the Communist and Labour parties on the other. When Socialist unity becomes a possibility our Declaration of Principles shows the basis on which alone it can be achieved. It declares the object that Socialists have in view, and in general terms, the means by which power for Socialism can be reached. It is not sectarian, but it is also not so loose that it will cover the vague lack of principle of the sentimental dreamer who has not grasped the essentials of capitalism and of social development.

Let us be more specific. Why will the S.P.G.B. not join up with the Labour Party or the Communist Party? The principal objection the Socialist has to the Labour programme is that it has not a Socialist objective at all. Socialism means the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution. In spite of a superficial similarity of words, the Labour Party is not aiming at common ownership, but at State control with private owners. The capitalist class are not, according to the Labour Party, to be dispossessed, but are to remain as a property owning class, but are to be deprived of their immediate control over the management of industry. The country is to remain the same in all essentials. There will still be a working class and a class living on property incomes. Goods will still be produced for sale and profit making, but the management will be in the hands of a series of so-called public utility corporations, directed by highly-paid business men like Lord Ashfield. This is a grotesque representation of Socialism. It is capitalism in a thin disguise. It solves no working class problem. It is not Socialism and as such does not bring Socialism one day nearer. Socialists do not, and cannot, desert all their Socialist principles in order to create a fictitious unity behind such a facade of illusion.

Now for the Communists. It is necessary here to insist on a frank recognition of what the Communists really stand for. It is their honest conviction that mass strikes and demonstrations, leading on to street fighting and civil war are the means, and the only means, to Socialism. We reject that in its entirety; not only is it not the best means, it is not a means at all. Civil war and its corollary, the dictatorship of the Communist Party (misnamed in Russia the dictatorship of the working class), are not the soil out of which Socialism, or even a Socialist movement, will spring. They hold out no prospect for the future and they are full of deadly damage to the working class in the present.

For it is the criminal irresponsibility and dangerous civil war talk of the Communists which, feeding on the workers’ disillusionment with the openly capitalist and the Labour Parties, fosters the development of Mussolinis and Hitlers.

The Communists talk ignorantly of the work ing class being tyrannised over by a Hitler or Mussolini. They forget two things of vital importance. The first is that every riot and street fight organised by them, every bluffing appeal to arms, helps to create the conditions of violence and panic out of which the so-called Fascist movements rise to power. The second fact they forget is that their violent talk and actions are directly, and indirectly, harmful to the Socialist movement, for they drive vast numbers of the working class over to the side of the parties of violent suppression. If it is impossible for Trade Unions and Socialist organisations (as well as Communist and Labour organisations) to function in Italy, Germany and elsewhere, the Communists are largely responsible. It is they who for years prepared the ground for Mussolini and Hitler by planning attempts at the seizure of power by armed minorities.

Whatever the intentions of the Communists may be, they are enemies of the working class movement.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain lays emphasis on the fact that it is a movement fundamentally different from the Labour parties and from the Communist parties.

We come before the working class with a reasoned explanation of the economic ills of the world, and with a reasoned plan for placing the social system on a new basis in keeping with the development of man’s productive forces.

We appeal to the working class to understand and act upon Socialist principles. We preach that the method of achieving Socialism is by constitutional, majority, control of the political machinery through the vote.

We come not to create chaos and civil war, but to bring order to a disordered world.

We are not political gangsters threatening the lives or well-being of any individual. We are not bent on revenge, or on penalising our political opponents or the members of the propertied class. While it is necessary that the means of production shall be brought under social ownership and control, Socialism will offer to the whole community—ex-capitalists included—the comfort and security which rational use of modern productive forces renders possible.

Indeed, it is our boast that the increasing insecurity of life under capitalism and the chaotic conditions at home and abroad will, in time, drive more and more capitalists, as well as the workers, to recognise that the Socialist movement is the only guarantee of ordered development for society as a whole.

Our answer to appeals for unity is, therefore, what it has always been. The S.P.G.B. is always prepared to welcome Socialists to join us on the basis of our Declaration of Principles, which points the only road to Socialism. Never, under any circumstances, are we prepared to unite with those who—however well-meaningly—are travelling to a different objective or who preach a policy of civil war, which, if acted upon, destroys all present hope of Socialist propaganda and organisation and delays progress towards emancipation.

Edgar Hardcastle

50 Years Ago: That Blessed Word Unity. (1956)

The 50 Years Ago column from the May 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

With Easter come the Annual Conferences of those bodies which, with fine contempt for the meaning of words, call themselves Socialist, and with the conferences come also the customary demands, appeals and entreaties for unity. And. indeed, there is no real reason why these bodies should not unite, seeing that in practice they do not differ.

Socialist unity is achieved by membership of the* S.P.G.B. . . . there is no reason why, if the members of these organisations desire Socialist unity, and not only the unity of non-Socialist Societies, and are prepared to adopt a Socialist attitude, they should not withdraw from their various separate bodies and enrol themselves with us. We only insist that they shall sign a declaration of adherence to the principles set out in column one of the front page of this journal and never depart from the position such adhesion involves, even though the chances of “getting their man in” were never so rosy. Who then is for SOCIALIST unity?

(From the “Socialist Standard,” May, 1906.)

American Parties and the Unity Question. (1908)

From the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

For the information of readers whose knowledge of the "Socialist movement" is limited, a few explanations may be helpful before dealing with the subject under discussion.

The Weekly People is the organ of the Socialist Labour Party of America—an organisation claiming to be "a bona fide strictly revolutionary party of Socialism." Until its unfortunate "endorsement" of the "Industrial Workers of the World," such a claim could be well sustained.

The latter organisation (I.W.W.) declares as its object "the propagation of the principles of Industrial Unionism with a view to the establishment of an organisation based on the 'class struggle' and aiming at the overthrow of the Capitalist system and the establishment of a Socialist Republic."

The "Socialist Party" of America is a curiously motley conglomeration of "Socialists" of all shades and hues. Like the Social Democratic Party and the Independent Labour Party of Great Britain, it is dominated by "leaders," whose main concern is to gain seats—anyhow, on any kind of vote—in the Parliamentary body which they affect to believe will be induced eventually to "legislate" away the privileges of the class which maintain army, navy, and police to conserve such privileges; the S.L.P. of America had hitherto consistently opposed the S.P. of America in that vigourously picturesque style which their British comrades (the S.L.P.) seek vainly to imitate.

But the S.L.P. of America has recently clamoured for "Unity." Its National Executive Committee resolved, among other things, "That if conference succeeds in agreeing on conditions for uniting the two parties, steps be immediately taken that one joint National Convention be held to adopt a platform, constitution and resolutions, to nominate candidates, etc."

The S.P. of America has unceremoniously— through their Executive, without consulting the rank and file on such a momentous issue, quite in the style of the secret junta which "guides" the S.D.P. of England, rejected the overtures.

The Weekly People of March 28th contains an article entitled "Unity" from the pen of its editor, the veteran fighter, De Leon.

It is significant of much that the editor of the ofiicial organ of a party which—rightly enough —urges the necessity of "discipline" should in that organ, through seven good fat columns, assert that his contribution is "independent." "I speak from this independent platform as one of the many people active in the Socialist movement. I do not here represent the S.L.P."

It is unnecessary to do more than quote from the report of a meeting held "under the auspices of the S.L.P." on the 11th March in New York, to show the utter confusion that reigns since the birth of the S.L.P's unfortunate offspring— the parentage of which it now vainly endeavours to repudiate. The lecturer stated "De Leon showed an absolute lack of knowledge of Industrial Unionism." De Leon—unwittingly endorsing our declaration in the Manifesto with regard to "Industrial Unionism,"—charged the lecturer with using the language of "veiled dynamitism," that is, of enunciating the principles of Anarchy.

Now what bearing have these things on the "Unity" question? They constitute the very germ and essence of the question as it affects the S.L.P. De Leon bases his argument for "unity" on the ground, mainly, that the Stutgart International Congress has "thrown a bridge across the chasm" which separated the warring American factions (the trophe, an you please, is De Leon's). The declaration was "seriously defective," nevertheless, in a new-found fervour of loyalty to a Congress which includes "Socialistic" freaks of all descriptions—including the "Rudimentary Zionist-Socialists," he sees the hope of uniting for common action, "Militant Socialism to-day sees in Unionism a fact of greater moment to the Revolution than the conquest of a few seats in the political parliaments." "Therefore, walk into my I.W.W. parlour (it isn't really my parlour, you know) and we can compose all our little differences. "Nay, my pretty little flies, I will e'en merge my personality into your political reflex, which you shall project when in the web." The succulent lamb is merged into the commanding personality of the lion, but subsequent investigation fails to discover traces of lamb.

The plea put forward in the article on "Unity" that before the day of revolution, simultaneously with the action of straight, revolutionary bodies, "just so necessary may be the looser methods" of parties — which the S.L.P. is still prepared to "clear the decks" for — the suggestion that it may be found to be but "a matter of the practical distribution of functions" marks perhaps the lowest point to which the S.L.P. has fallen through its dallying with Anarchy, and its impatience to gain adherents to "Socialism" by the offering of palliatives in the shape of bettered conditions for the worker. "See if you do not believe that the life of the lumber worker may be improved, shorter hours established, etc." (Weekly People, 21/3/08.) "If a union could step into the field that could weld the whole of the workers of the building industry into a solid mass it would soon attract members, and by winning strikes, organise far more men than are organised to-day." (Industrial Unionist, March '08.)

The fundamental error underlying Industrial Unionism as understood by its advocates has been well exposed by Comrade Fitzgerald (Socialist Standard, Oct. '06), who, debating the question of Industrial Unionism with a representative of the British S.L.P. said, "The mere adoption of a Socialist preamble does not constitute a union a Socialist union." The declaration on paper of a Revolutionary object, it should hardly be necessary to remind the S.L.P., is no guarantee of its aiming at genuine performance. Fitzgerald clinched that matter once and for all by quoting the words of a delegate to the first Convention of the I.W.W. at Chicago. "We are here as working men, and as such we do not recognise the Socialist or any other 'ist."

Further, it will usually be found that a "common purpose " is almost certain to be followed by common action. The "Fabian" and "Clarion" school of "Socialist" for instance is sometimes thoughtlessly credited with the "purpose" of establishing a Socialist Republic. An acquaintance with "A Modern Utopia" "The Sorcery Shop" and other Utopian twaddle of that description will reveal the gulf that separates the "purpose" of Utopists from that of genuine Socialists.

Unity is only possible on the lines laid down by the S.P.G.B. in the January number of the Socialist Standard, 1906, in a communication addressed to the International Socialist Bureau. "That admission to future International Socialist Congresses shall be open only to all avowed Socialist bodies that accept the essential principles of Socialism, i.e., Socialisation of the means of production and distribution, union and international action of workers, Socialist conquest of the public powers by the proletariat organised as a class party recognising and proclaiming the class war. adopting an attitude of hostility under all circumstances to all sections of the capitalist party."

No one recognises the signal services that De Leon has rendered to the proletariat more than the S.P.G.B., no one so ready to recognise the sterling worth of the rank and file of both English and American S.L.P. The more urgent becomes our duty to seek the destruction of organisations which will inevitably commit their members to a sojourn in the dreary wilderness of Reform, or land them in the slimy bog of Anarchy.

A. Reginald

An Open Letter to Robert Blatchford: Wanted — A Party. (1907)

From the July 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

My Dear Robert,

If it isn’t a rode question, where have you been living for the past three years? 1 did hear you had been in London most of the time, but 1 can hardly credit that. Unless, indeed, you have “sported the oak” of your reading room to the exclusion of all information from the outside world. But that can’t be, for I have observed articles from your pen on current topics. You must have kept in communication with London affairs, and as you call yourself a Socialist, I take it you have kept touch with the Socialist movement in London. Or relied upon somebody to keep you in touch. If so, if you have relied upon somebody, he has let you down and made you look silly. He has made you write: “We want a real Socialist Party . . . we have an S.D.F. and an I.L.P. and a L.R.C. and a Fabian Society; but we have not a British Socialist Party. What is to be done ? ”

What is to be done? Well! Had you asked me I should have answered—wake up! If I, as a London Socialist writer, said, “we have a Justice and a Labour Leader and Daily Mail but we have not a Clarion,” you would think that my education in such matters had been neglected.

Everybody in London professing Socialism knows of the Clarion, and by the same token everybody in London professing Socialism knows of The Socialist. Party of Great Britain, or their education in such matters is defective.

We have not a British Socialist Party! Why, I’ve been a member of the British Socialist Party three years. This paper is issued by—just the Party you are enquiring for, a real Socialist Party.

And you didn’t know of its existence. Oh! Robert, Robert, where have you been buried ?

No, don't thank me. This is the fellowship. I confess to the greatest astonishment that you were ignorant of this good thing, but the discharging of my fellowship obligation in sending you the news calls for no thanks. Only mark that “Socialism” is not S.D.F’ism or l.LP'ism or Fabianism or even Clarionism. They are quite different things, as we show in our “Manifesto,” and in this journal. It was precisely because we had discovered that S.D.F’ism and the rest did not make for Socialism that we anticipated your desire for

A Real Socialist Party.

We are very emphatic on this point, and you will readily see how necessary such emphasis is. The clear duty of a real Socialist Party is to work for real Socialism. It has no justification for existence apart from that.

It is urged that conceptions as to what constitutes work for real Socialism may properly differ, Conceptions on this point among Socialists should not differ: do not in fact. The only work a Socialist can do is to preach Socialism. He can never preach anything that conflicts with his Socialism while he remains a Socialist; for that is to obscure his Socialism and to stultify himself as a Socialist.

Suppose he becomes an advocate for Payment of Members as the S.D.F. member does, a little Women's Suffrage, after the fashion of the I. L.P'er, Municipal Public Houses, like unto the Fabian, what then? In the first place his Socialism has receded, however temporarily, into a secondary position. Socialism is not being preached — the working class crying for bread is given— a stone. Secondly he is doing work that needs no Socialist Party at all. Thirdly the particular reform worked for will not appreciably affect the condition of the working class as such. Fourthly  it will therefore have wasted the working-class strength concentrated upon realising it. Fifthly it will, because it has effected no material improvement in working class conditions, have bred disappointment, and, from disappointment, apathy. And finally it will have made existing confusion worse confounded in the minds of the working class.

Therefore I contend that preaching Socialism and explaining the phenomena of industrial development in the light of Socialism is the proper work of a Socialist. If he does any other propaganda work he is not a Socialist.

In the issue of the Clarion which contained your note already quoted, you plead for the all- sufficiency of the logical method. You say “If we overleap logic we overleap ourselves and land in a bog of confusion and disappointment,” which is very true. I am all for the logical method, therefore, I think that the argument I have submitted is strictly logical. If yon think otherwise perhaps yon will confute me.

Now will you turn to our Declaration of Principles on the back page and read it closely. It is an important pronouncement. So important that we reproduce it in every issue. It is important to you if you want a real British Socialist Party, because it is the base of the real British Socialist Party—which you will have to sign before yon can realise your desire. Perhaps you will point out wherein we overleap logic.

I will anticipate one objection you may raise. It is raised by your non-Socialist S.D.F., I.L.P., F.S. and the rest. It is our statement of hostility to all other political parties.

You may think we are too narrow, too doctrinaire. You may think it an impossible position, as the others do, but is it? I ask you, Robert, to proceed with your examination logically, without regard to the feelings of members of other political parties; without concern for the probable effect upon the sale of the Clarion. Proceed as you did in your examination of Christianity.

We are only interested in the maintenance of truth. Truth can only be maintained inside the logical method. "If we overleap logic we overleap ourselves and land in a bog of confusion and disappointment.’’ Therefore,—the truth, even if it means that we become for the time as voices crying in the wilderness.

The cause of working-class misery is private ownership of the means of life. The interests of the workers, who do not own the means of life, are opposed to the interests of the capitalists, who do own them. This clash of interests is the class struggle. I presume we may take that as read.

These things continue because

The working class are ignorant.

Although their interests continually clash with those of their masters, they do not understand that this is inevitable. Nor do they understand that their masters' ownership of the means of life is at the bottom of the trouble. We may take this as read also.

Now why, with this continual conflict of interest, do the working class remain ignorant ? And why are they so desperately apathetic? Is their ignorance not because the truth has not been told? And is their apathy not born largely of disappointment with the results of past efforts of their class to secure some amelioration of their condition?

We need not enquire for the moment into the honesty of working-class teachers and leaders. We need only deal with the teaching and leading.

The school instruction of the working class is not such as would enable the child to get a glimmering of the truth of the position. It would be surprising if the capitalist class, dominant in the legislature (because dominance there is essential to the maintenance of their economic ascendancy) should take steps to instruct the children of the working class concerning working-class poverty, So we will consider the teaching and leading the workers receive alter they have entered the industrial and political arenas.

Now do the majority of working-class teachers | teach that the working-class position is inevitable under present conditions? that there is no name given under heaven whereby the working class may be saved except Socialism? that until Socialism there can be no cessation of the clash of interests between Capital and Labour?—that the class struggle persists unflaggingly? 

Leave out of account those who do not claim to be Socialists. If Socialism is the only remedy, and they are not Socialists, their teaching cannot be right because they do not teach Socialism. That’s agreed, I think.

But what of those who profess Socialism? My answer is that although they talk of it occasionally, they do not teach it. Nor do their leadings square with their occasional professions.

The important thing in a teacher of Socialism is that it should always be Socialism that he teaches. If he does not explain every manifestation of class conflict in the light of his Socialist philosophy, he is little, if any, better than the non-Socialist misleader. His teaching is neither logical nor consistent. He lands his audience in a bog of confusion.

And if, as very frequently happens, his actions directly conflict with his

Occasional Socialist Professions;

if he mouths the class straggle and the fundamental importance of its full appreciation, what time he is doing those things which can only obscure the appreciation of the class struggle, I submit that he can only be classified under one of two heads. Either he is a fraud or a fool.

These be hard words, Robert, but they are not bitter, for I also am a Determinist.

However, the working class ignorance and apathy which must be dispelled before Socialism can be realised, so far from being effectively combatted by working-class leaders and teachers are contributed to by most of them. For example. If I were to tell the unemployed that unemployment must last as long as capitalism and were then to recommend them to send a deputation to the representatives of the capitalists to ask that they [the capitalists] should abolish unemployment, I should either be a knave or a fool. 1 should have cut myself off from logic and landed my audience in a bog of confusion and disappointment. If I argue that capitalist representatives are in control of the political machinery to conserve their own interests as against those of the working class (as we all agree is and must be the case); and that we must regard capitalist representatives always as a hostile force against whom war must be waged unceasingly until they are utterly vanquished. And if in face of that I suspend hostilities and enter into alliance with them, I overleap logic and land my followers in the bog of confusion and disappointment.

If I postulate that poverty and misery must last till Socialism, that until Socialism nothing can materially or permanently affect the position; if I say that palliatives are therefore of little use, so little use indeed that I must have a party that shall concentrate upon the thing that matters (Socialism) rather than the things that do not matter (palliatives); and if notwithstanding I secure that my organisation, founded because palliatives were not good enough, shall concentrate working-class effort upon the realisation of palliatives, I am riding rough-shod over logic and doing my level best to engulf my followers in the pit of impotence and despair.

Well, dear Robert, that is precisely what your S.D.F., I.L.P., Fabian Society, and—yes, and your Clarion are doing. If you want details I have told you already where you can get some. If you want a special list of

Clarionese Fatuities

say the word.

You think highly of the Clarion, naturally. I think myself it is an excellent pen’orth too— sometimes. But it is not a Socialist paper. It is written to please those who fancy themselves “advanced’’ and caters for the organisations to which the “advanced” person belongs. It will give space to anything or anybody bearing one of the many recognised labels. But it wont give space to the S.P.G.B. representative who wishes to reply to a misleading reference to his Party, which is the more curious because you are enquiring for the Party.

No,

The “Clarion” is not a Socialist Paper.

It is a jumble,—a gorgeous, inconsistent, illogical jumble. Which wouldn’t matter tuppence if it didn’t help throw the workers into confusion.

But the pity of it, Robert, the pity of it! You might do good work for Socialism if only your vaunted adherence to principle was a matter of fact instead of a figment of fancy. With your fine literary sense, your faculty for the selection of the apt phrase and the illuminating quotation, the appeal of your imagery, the grace of your style these powers might make a mighty instrument in the education of the working class. Instead of which you handle pitch and are defiled; you persist in the folly of emphasising non-essentials and scamping essentials until I begin to fear you must for ever remain a stumbling block and a rock of offence.

That’s what I had in my mind when I said that having had the Socialist Party of Great Britain, the party you are enquiring for, brought to your notice, and having decided that it is the party you must apply for membership in, you must do all in your power for Socialism, as distinguished from S.D.F’ism, Clarionisin, and the rest. “We are all Socialists now,” quoth a certain knight now dead, and I suppose he spake as truly as he knew. Yet he was absurdly wide of the mark. Not every one who proclaims himself Socialist shall find place in the ranks of the Socialist army. Not those whose desire is personal aggrandisement, nor those who aspire to superintend the workers’ activities, nor the experts nor the superior persons nor the palliators, nor the compromisers, nor the hosts of the otherwise damned are of the confraternity of working-class educators. Rather are they conscious and unconscious perpetuators of ignorance, workers of evil, misleaders, and false friends. But those who, understanding the working-class relation to the economy of production; understanding the forces that have been at work through all history to present in this the twentieth century that appalling anomaly of a starving people in the midst of a riot of wealth of their own creation; understanding how the physical and intellectual well-being of the workers is conditioned by the measure of their control of the means by which they live; understanding that control of these means of life can only be secured by workers similarly enlightened; those who understanding these things and the necessity for eliminating every factor tending to confuse the issue in the working-class mind, have set themselves steadfastly to the task of translating their knowledge into clear, logical, consistent action to the end that their fellows may the more readily acquire the knowledge that shall make them free, only these are the Socialists and only these can form in England or elsewhere, the Socialist Party.

And that, Robert, is all I can say to you today, and I hope it will be helpful if not to you at least to some others and lead them to come over and help us. At present the labourers are few. You if you will may help to make them many. If you will not, well, we must needs do without you. This is the fellowship.

And so no more at present from—

                                                                                                                                     Yours truly,

'Filius Populi'

British Unity. (1911)

From the September 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

The circulation of the “Clarion” is on the decline. The “chief” has been making strenuous efforts to apply the brake. He has deserted hie Agnosticism for a belief in a divine God, has joined with Hyndman in advocating a big navy, has scrapped the Free Trade fetish for Tariff Reform with the assistance of the “Daily Mail”—he has sacrificed all to save the “Clarion.”

But all to no purpose. And just when it appears that the compass has been completely “boxed,” and that no other course is open to R.B. than to accept the honourable position of office boy at Carmelite House, Grayson, the vanquished Victor, steps into the breach with a genuine British production, and the situation is saved.

“The psychological moment has arrived,” says he. “The time for the formation of the British Socialist Party has definitely come.”

Undoubtedly. With a party pushing the “Clarion” as its official organ, and Grayson as its official organiser, both will be saved from the oblivion that threatened.

But the object of the proposed party is by no means as definite as the time, for we are told that by signing the declaration form you simply “express your desire to join," and declare that you are “favourably disposed toward the project of a United British Socialist Party.”

”Our basis must be pure Socialism,” but we are not told what this pure Socialism is. Conceptions as to what constitutes “pure” Socialism may differ—which is probably the idea of of the founders of the new brand. For that will permit all to join and none to be sent empty-handed away.

Let us endeavour, from the writings and utterances of the holy trinity, Blatchford, Grayson, and A. M. Thompson, to discover what this “Socialism” is that is to unite all the “Socialist forces” into one great mess—pardon—mass.

A. M. Thompson tells us what we have to do.

“We have sworn to smash and pulverise the gilded gods with the crafty eyes of glass that unceasingly mock our people’s wretchedness from their lofty shrines above our national altars. We are determined to revolutionise England and English ideals and English society. But how? ”

This sounds all right until he reaches the last two words. Then he wobbles. He does not seem to know quite how it is to be done. Parliamentary action is taboo because “Jesus never fought an election, never won a seat, never drafted a Bill, nor ever moved a resolution.” What we have to do is to “sacrifice to the mob, receive its complaint, listen to it touching its faults and touching the faults of others, hear its confession, give it thy ear, thy hand, thy arm, thy heart.”

Not very definite, is it? Yet quite sufficient to bring along a “startling number of unattached Socialists, many of whom belong to the middle-class.” And we are assured that “Hundreds of members of the I.L P., members of the S.D.P., the Fabian Society and the Church Socialist League,” and “ thousands of others, have responded to the call for new Party.”

Whatever the policy of the party is to be, we may be sure of its British diameter. We must give our ears, hands, arms and hearts to the party, but we can keep our heads for other purposes. Which is kind.

Blatchford says (“Clarion” 4.8.11): “Let each man be free on all points outside the mere plain principle of Socialism. If a man chooses to preach religion or anti-religion, let him have his head, but don’t incorporate those ideas into the policy of the Party . BRITAIN FOR THE BRITISH, that is all we want.”

When writing in the “Daily Mail” on the “German Menace,” Mr. Blatchford said that ”the destruction of the British Empire would be a misfortune for Europe and a blow to civilization throughout the world,” while Grayson has said that he was “ready to defend even this rotten country willing to prefer the English to the German plunderer.”

Part of the “plain principle” of “pure" Socialism is to defend the British Empire and to arm in defence of the British capitalists, Rothschild, Cassell A Co, to the discomfort of the German plunderer. Outside that “plain principle,” however, the member is to "have his head,” and surely he will but be following in the footsteps of the holy trinity if be loses it in dealing with Socialism.

As instance Grayson in debate with Joynson-Hicks at Manchester:

“It would have given me more pleasure tonight had Mr. Joynson-Hicks, instead of reading the exoteric, philosophic ramblings of the philosopher, Mr. Belfort Bax ; instead of going to the exotics of Karl Marx, come to the source of English (why not British?) Socialism, the books of the English economists to learn what the Socialist suggestion really is. When Socialism is put into practice as it is in tramways," etc.

This repudiation of the founder of scientific Socialism is supported by Blatchford, who, in the “Fortnightly Review” (Feb. 1908) wrote:

“Dr. Crozier is mistaken if he thinks I take my Socialism from Marx or that it depends upon the Marxian theory of Value. I have never read a line of Marx. English ” (I suggest British) “Socialism is not German, it is English. English Socialism is not Marxian, it is humanitarian.”

So, whatever the constitution of the party is to be, whatever its policy, it is not to be based upon the teachings of Marx. We are told that all theories of Value are “vanity and striving after wind.” “Economic justice is impossible," and that "surplus value is due to the inventor, and not to the labourer or the capitalist.”

(Blatchford in the “Fortnightly Review.”) 

Socialism, according to St. Victor, is “State help out of the large income which the rich have seized from the wealth produced by the workers,” and therefore they (the Socialists) “declare that land and capital are to belong to the community, whether expressed as the State, or the local county or municipal council.”

In the debate mentioned, Grayson affirms his belief in God and “counts the existence of God as part of his life and aspirations,” while Blatchford, known above all as an opponent of religion, and who has declared that “conflict between Socialism and religion is inevitable," writes in the “Fortnightly Review” : “All forms of human genius, like land and water and the fruits of the earth, are the gifts of God, and why should not we, being all of us God’s children, share the gifts of our Father to the comfort and happiness of us all? ”

This, then, is the jumble which is dubbed “pure Socialism” and is to form the basis of the British Socialist Party! It is to this we are asked to pin our faith; under this banner we are to seek the Socialist unity we desire.

The B.S.P. is not to oppose other parties or, in Parliament, to oppose the Labour Party, despite the fact, as Grayson himself has stated, that the Labour Party are “traitors and cowards.” No, it is to support the traitors to the working class, and, in fact, to support anything that will bring members to the “party” and readers to the “Clarion.”

In the light of the facts the workers should have no hesitation in placing the B.S.P., before its formation, in the category of pseudo Socialist parties as another step in the wrong direction, an attempt to lead a section of the workers already fooled and sold by political tricksters, in another chase after the Will o'-the-wisp.

True Socialist unity will only come when the workers realise that would-be bosses of the Grayson type are as futile as would-be leaders of the Macdonald pattern.

Let the workers but grip the essentials of Socialism, and then there will be no need to talk to them of unity; and the winnings of such burnt-out “fire brands" anxious to be rekindled, as Victor Grayson, will find no “thousands" of semi-detached "Socialists” to support them.

T. W. Lobb

The French Socialist-Communist Party. (1930)

From the December 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received from Paul Louis, General Secretary of the French Socialist-Communist Party, a letter concerning the article on International Organisation in our November issue. Below is a translation of the chief passages :—

   Comrade,—I reply briefly to the remarks in your journal relating to our party: (1) Our object is identical with your own; (2) we are advocates of an International Conference to be attended by all the Socialist and Communist parties of the world. The Conference would discuss a programme of action based on Marxian principles. It is on this basis that unity ought to be achieved; (3) for us electoral action is only a means of propaganda. The proletariat will obtain power by revolution or by the breaking up of the capitalist class.

It will be seen that the proposed international conference is to be founded on the illusion that a gathering of socialists and communists could find common ground “based on Marxian principles.” We claim that the anti-working class actions and policies of the communists are in direct contradiction to the essential policies worked out by Marx and verified by experience.

The third point of the letter indicates a dangerous defect in the policy of the French Socialist-Communist Party. The rejection of the vote as a means of obtaining control of the political machinery leaves only one apparent alternative, i.e., the communist policy of attempting to overthrow the armed forces of the State by a working-class uprising. That way lies nothing but disaster.

Edgar Hardcastle

Why Can't We All Get Together (1947)

From the August 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ever since workers' political organisations were first formed the idea of uniting them has occupied the minds of many members. Frequent attempts have been made among political bodies in this country, but always the S.P.G.B. has stood aside on the ground that effective unity can only be on the basis of agreement on fundamental principles, that is to say agreement about the aim and about the methods. Where there is such agreement, as between the S.P.G.B. and the parties with the same aims and methods, in U.S.A., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, close and harmonious co-operation presents no difficulty. It is obvious, easy and useful.

The following item about the Easter Conference of the I.L.P. was published in the Manchester Evening News (2/4/47):—

I.L.P. CONSIDERS ANARCHIST LINK 

  “When the I.L.P. meets at Ayr at Easter it will debate a proposal for close links with Common Wealth, the Socialist party of Great Britain, and the Anarchist Federation.
  “A resolution from Ipswich urges that the I.L.P. should conduct a joint campaign with these bodies on specific issues stressing workers’ ownership and control of industries and freedom of colonial peoples.”

It appears from published reports of the Conference proceedings that the decision actually made was to form some sort of joint committee between the I.L.P. and Common Wealth. Another decision was that I.L.P. members are barred from being members of the Labour Party though this is to be reconsidered.

The organisations that plead for unity, the I.L.P. and the Communists, for example, either hold that agreement is unnecessary or pretend that it exists where it does not. Sometimes the proposal is that there should be associated action on a particular issue between parties that claim to be fundamentally antagonistic.

The reasons for the distinctive attitude of the S.P.G.B. can be found in our declaration of principles. The three clauses of special relevance are the object, the clause affirming that there is an antagonism of interests between the working class and the Capitalist class, and the clause that lays down the need for the working class to organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government.

Our object is Socialism, defined as a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole community. Our definition is not a mere insistence on a formula. We work for Socialism and oppose Capitalism—including nationalisation or State Capitalism—because only Socialism will solve the problem facing the working class. The Labour Party miscalls State Capitalism "Socialism,” as also do the Communists. The I.L.P. used to do so although at the moment it places more emphasis on the equally false proposition that State Capitalism is a useful stepping stone on the way to Socialism. When therefore the unity seeker asks why cannot the S.P.G.B. get together with others who want "Socialism” he is letting the misuse of a word deceive him. We do not want State Capitalism and therefore have no interest in associating with those who do. The fact that they call it “Socialism” only makes their activities more dangerous to the workers.

Another proposition is that while recognising differences of aim why cannot Socialists consent to be fellow-travellers with others who are “on the same road but are not going so far.” This has often been put to us by Labour Party supporters, I.L.P.ers, and, in the old days, by Liberals. One objection is that it is an essential part of Socialist propaganda to convince the workers that the advocates of “something less than Socialism” are and must be advocates of Capitalism. It is our job to demonstrate that their activities are against the interests of the workers; that they are enemies of Socialism and of the working class. How could we associate with them and at the same time expect the workers to believe us when we say that support of such organisations is useless and dangerous? Years ago when a Liberal put this proposal in debate with the S.P.G.B., our speaker, the late A. Anderson, pointed out in reply that the only gainers would be the Liberals. What they called travelling together would mean in effect only that we would be carrying the Liberals’ luggage for them.

The resolution quoted at the beginning of this article seeks a joint campaign with Common Wealth, the I.L P. and the Anarchists on specific issues stressing workers' ownership and control of industries and freedom of colonial people. The objection of the S.P.C.B. to any such joint campaign should be obvious. We do not want “workers’ ownership," which means syndicalism, but ownership by the whole community. We are utterly opposed to the support of State Capitalism given by Common Wealth. We regard the propaganda and activities of the Anarchists as useless and dangerous to the working class. Finally we have to point out to colonial workers that "freedom/' i.e., national independence, is not the solution of their problem. We want all countries to be free from Capitalism and are not in favour of encouraging the illusions fostered for interested reasons by the propertied class in colonial countries.

Point is given to our case against the Anarchists by their views and actions in the country where they are strongest, Spain. In 1936 they abandoned their claim to be opposed to political parties by joining in the movement to elect a Popular Front Government The following recent report shows a new twist:

"Madrid, March 26th.
   “The Spanish anarchist movement announced to-night that after a meeting of delegates from all parts of Spain it had decided to collaborate fully with the Monarchists for the overthrow of the Franco regime and for holding a plebiscite to decide whether Spain should be a republic or a monarchy.” — Reuter. — Manchester Guardian, March 29th, 1947).

It would seem that association with Anarchists for specific objects may lead the participants into curious company.

On the international field the S.P.G.B. has always taken the same consistent view. Having in 1904 sent two delegates to the International Socialist Congress at Amsterdam, and found that the organisation was largely made up of bodies interested in reforms but not in Socialism, the S.P.G.B. laid down as a first requirement: "That only Socialist organisations recognising the class war in theory and practice should be represented at the International Socialist Congress.” 

As this was naturally unacceptable to the reforms bodies in the International the S.P.G.B. did not see any use in seeking admission. The attempt to associate at home with bodies having conflicting aims and methods would only cause confusion and wasted effort. Equally the passing of pious resolutions at international conferences merely hides the nationalist outlook of the affiliated parties as two world wars have demonstrated. Effective unity for Socialism can only be on the basis of real agreement about the aim and the methods. Our Declaration of Principles provides such a basis and it is for the critics to show what other basis there can be for the Socialist movement.

Edgar Hardcastle

That Word "Unity" (1944)

From the January 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

That word "unity" has a charm of its own. Ethically it symbolises an idealist condition and appeals to the gregariousness of human beings. Having this fine appeal, it is continuously used by all sorts of unscrupulous people and bodies as a cloak. We have appeals by vested clerical interests for "Christian" unity, capitalists and their Labour and Communist allies clamour for "National" unity, federationists seek "European" unity; we have got the term United Nations, and prominent statesman are clamouring for "world" unity. The charm of the "idea" of unity has produced phrases which have become of daily use, such as "there's safety in numbers," "we sink or swim together," and many other common expressions of speech. All this indicates the "social" (not Socialist) aspirations of human beings, and challenges the Victorian conception of "it's every man for himself." Capitalism being a class-divided society, Socialists can only concern themselves with what matters to the Working Class. That automatically rules out any plea for "national" unity. Realising the reactionary role of religion, Socialists cannot be concerned about "Christian" unity. Socialists seek to establish a new system of society World Wide, and this rules out talk of "European" unity, and understanding the basis of the profit-making system, with its competing combines, we cannot see the possibility of "world" unity. Is then ours a policy of despair? No! nor is it a policy of "snare." The question of "unity" has come to the front by the recent application  for affiliation to the Labour Party by the Communist Party. As Socialists we are always interested in anything applying to the working-class and parties and groups thrown up by them. This does not pledge us in their support. A group or body or organisation may be entirely working-class but that does not make it Socialist; it often is reactionary. The Socialist's question about Unity is, Will it help abolish the wages system and establish Socialism? If it will not, then it is futile except for political crooks to use as a tool.

In my days of youthful exuberance I worked for "unity." Some thirty-two years ago the Social Democratic Party decided the time was ripe for "Socialist" unity, and along with the Clarion movement (cyclists, not Socialists), a few of the I.L.P. and odd bits here and there, we established the British Socialist Party. There occurred a brief hectic period, and during the middle of the war of 1914 this "united" party split. From thence until the end of war a United Socialist Committee was formed representative of B.S.P., S.L.P., I.L.P. for "anti-war" purposes. Twelve months after the war, arising out of the Russian revolt, the leading members of the S.L.P. formed the Communist Unity Group, and in 1920 this coterie, plus the B.S.P. and odd groups round and about, formed one of three parties calling themselves Communists. In a short while a further conference was held in Leeds to unite the uniters, and the result was the brew—C.P.G.B. Ere a few years had passed these united Communist parties began to split on the continent, and in Russia itself the "Trotskyist" section was eliminated. Soon the British Communist Party began to clamour for unity. They drafted a programme (without consulting anybody else), then circularised other bodies asking them to unite—on a programme set out by the Communist Party itself. In the industrial field they played similar games. They brought about the split in the Miners' Union and the Garment Workers' Union, and established break-away unions which they cynically named United Clothing Workers' Union and United Mineworkers of Scotland. Later came the extended forms of Unity, in Popular Fronts and People's Conventions, and a whole series of groups and societies, ostensibly legitimate bodies, but in reality tentacles of the Communist Party.

Whilst addressing an outdoor meeting prior to the war the question put was, "Why don't you Socialists unite?" That is a question which must be answered. Let us try to answer. Before Socialists can unite we must be sure they are Socialists. If they are Socialists they will have a clear conception of fundamental principles. The tragic history of the workers' parties and groups (excepting S.P.G.B.) has been one of futile reformism. Every effort to achieve unity was foredoomed to failure. Time, energy and money has been continuously wasted in fruitless groupings and re-groupings. The thousand and one stunts, reform measures or immediate demands have not had the slightest unifying effect, but has merely bred bitter chagrin and disillusionment. This does not mean that Socialists do not want unity, They do, but it must not be chimerical or ephemeral, but must be solid and lasting. Such unity can only come about on the basis of correctness in theory, which will ensure correctness in practice. In no other way is Unity possible. The growth of Socialist knowledge is a guarantee of a united working class, therefore spread Socialist knowledge.

Lew.