The coming of socialism. (1925)

From the August 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

A critic exposed.

After the Socialist has demolished in argument the case for capitalism his opponent falls back on one stock defence. He asks for a description of Socialistic society, and when he is informed that all that can be said about it with certainty is that it will be a society in which the means of production and distribution will be communally owned, and democratically controlled, in which production will be for use and not for profit, he cries, “There you are. You’ve got nothing constructive to offer. Your policy is wholly destructive, and your remedies vague and nebulous.” And that allegation comforts him and provides him with a justification for supporting capitalism which in argument he has had to admit cannot itself be justified. It is an old cry, but because it is being raised continuously it is worth while dealing with it.

The latest person to give prominence to it is Mr. Ramsay Muir. As Editor of the “Weekly Westminster” he has published a supplement entitled “The Socialist Case Examined,” in which he finishes up by flattening out the Socialist with ten questions, of which the first is, “How will the Socialist State be organised?” The other nine questions are equally terrifying, and show Mr. Muir’s journalistic skill in dodging the point at issue. Really Mr. Muir is not our pigeon; he does not attack responsible Socialism but the pink Liberalism of the MacDonalds, the Guild Socialism of G. D. H. Cole and the I.L.P. We will, however, remove those ten feathers from his tail (ten feathers of which he must be very proud, for he flourishes them twice, although that may be merely a trick of the journalist) because we can thereby deal with two birds with one stone. In passing it might be mentioned that Mr. Muir shows a greater knowledge of Socialism than the I.L.P’ers, etc., whom he attacks, and than he cares to admit. He points out, as we have never ceased to point out, that Socialism “does not mean a belief in using the power of the community for the purpose of protecting the weak, improving the condition of the poor and laying public burdens upon those who can best bear them,” and that it is foolish to think that legislation such as the Insurance Acts are Socialistic. He lays his finger on another weak point in the I.L.P. creed, when he points out that equal distribution of wealth, which the I.L.P., etc., seeks to bring about by inheritance taxes and capital levies, etc., would be useless at the present time, and is of only secondary importance. The main charge made by Socialists against Capitalism is that it fails to deliver the goods. The contradictions inherent in the system which is based on individual ownership and social productions prevent goods being produced in the quantities they might be. The system acts as a “fetter on production,” and it is because of that that we condemn it.

The question of distribution is only of secondary importance as compared with that of removing those fetters on production. Capitalism maintains an army of unemployed at both ends of society, under it many workers are employed unproductively, it presents the spectacle of equipment standing idle while those who could use it starve, it reveals man putting checks on the bounty of nature and restricting the production of rubber, tea, etc. It should be apparent then, even to a Radical Liberal, that anything that removes these evils will increase the wealth of the community. As they are inherent in capitalism they can only be ended by abolishing the system. To tinker about with the spanner of Manchester will do nothing, some of the “knocking” may be silenced but the car will still refuse to go. It is a new car that is wanted, and it won’t be found in the green Liberalism of the Wee Frees, or the delicate shell pink “Socialism” of the I.L.P. It can only be the product of the class conscious desire of the workers themselves.

It is not worth while dealing with the few weak defences Mr. Muir puts up for Capitalism, they are old and outworn, and should have been pensioned off long ago. But before proceeding to spoil his lovely tail we would like to pause to tender him our sympathy. He obviously found it very difficult to discover what the I.L.P. really stood for, to find some meaning in the contradictory statements of their various spokesmen. We appreciate his difficulty. We also have sought to discover what the I.L.P. stands for and have failed to do so. Of course we have always known what it did not stand for—Socialism. And now to reveal the Parson’s Nose.

The first and most important question is the first, “How will the Socialist State (!) be organised?” Strange as it may appear at first sight, no fuller answer can be given to this question than that indicated at the beginning of this article. Incidentally no fuller answer is necessary. If a defender of Capitalism were asked to say how the Capitalist system is organised all he could say if he were honest would be that the means of production and distribution are privately owned and that production is carried on by a propertyless class in exchange for wages under permission from the owning class who control production and draw profits from industry. That is the base on which the present superstructure is raised, but the buildings are many and various. Municipal tramways, monopolies like Coats, private family concerns like Hugo Stinnes & Co., vertical combinations like Harland and Wolff, horizontal combinations as in the German and French potash industries, public undertakings like the Post Office all differ from one another in detail, and yet are all capitalistic in that they are based on one thing—the existence of a propertyless wage earning class. If, therefore, it is impossible to say how industry is organised under Capitalism without writing a book, it is not surprising that more details cannot be given of industrial and social organisation under Socialism. Any attempt at prophesying is foolish, for the co-operative commonwealth would obviously be a very different thing if it came in 1925 from what it would be if it came in 2025. Its form will depend upon the stage reached in industrial development and technique whea the revolution takes place. Moreover Socialism is not a matter of crystal gazing, Socialists are not prophets of the future but interpreters of past history. Socialism is a theory which claims to explain past history as a series of class struggles, and more than that it does not seek to do. And as Socialism will be brought about by the united efforts of the workers, it is impossible for any one Socialist, or any body of Socialists now existing, to interpret what exactly all the workers of the future will want, and it is not only the Socialist who admits his inability to foretell the details of the future. Mr. Stanley Baldwin recently dealt in the House of Commons with the evolution of industry within the present system, and even in those much narrower limits he confessed that he could not prophesy.

“I have just tried to put . . . my conviction that we are moving forward rapidly from an old state of industry into a newer, and the question is : What is that newer going to be ? No man, of course, can say what form evolution is taking.” (“Hansard,” 6th March.)

Socialism will be prepared by the development of Capitalism and the form of its society will therefore be evolved in the womb of Capitalism. It is only “middle class” thinkers like the Webbs who are so impressed with their own intellects that they think that they can super-impose some organisation from without, and that the child of their imagination will be cheerfully adopted by the whole working class.

The third question raised is, “Can Socialism increase our national income?” and to that an answer has already been given. Then comes the gem of the collection. Mr. Muir wants to know if Socialism would cure unemployment. If he had considered what unemployment is, and if he had not found it advisable to change his ground in the course of the argument (so that although he starts off by accepting expropriation as an essential of Socialism, he finishes up by assuming that compensation would be paid to property owners) he would have refrained from this foolishness. Unemployment is inability to sell one’s labour power, and therefore only exists as a concomitant of wage slavery. Socialism, by ending wage slavery, will therefore cure unemployment, and what is more important it is only Socialism that will cure it. In this is also contained a reply to the seventh question, “How would Socialism deal with Labour disputes?”

The question “How would Socialism affect our Foreign Trade?” is a queer one in the mouth of a Liberal. Mr. Muir fears for our safety if we have a revolution, as we depend for our foodstuffs on importation from abroad. Tariff Reformers have been pointing out this danger which exists under Capitalism, and clamouring for Imperial Preferences, etc , for two decades, and Mr. Muir has scoffed at them and waxed eloquent in and out of Parliament about “sinister self interest.” Has Manchester’s armoury so few weapons in it that it has to borrow Birmingham’s blunderbuss?

The last four questions can be left, they do not touch the case for Socialism, but are directed against the policies of the Labour Party and the I.L.P. The second question is equally beside the point. “How would Socialism raise the necessary capital?” asks Mr. Muir. If cards like these are the trumps in the Liberal hand then one is almost sorry for those who have to play the hand out. Capital—an instrument of exploitation, will cease with Capitalism. Under Socialism provision will only have to be made for the supplying of the necessary equipment to carry on production, the providing of that equipment will be a charge on industry.

But all these are old cries, and it is amusing to find them in the mouth of a leader of “rejuvenated Liberalism.” The surprising thing is that they continue to deceive the workers.

W. J. R.

Progress and Politics. (1923)

Book Review from the July 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

Progress and Politics. by Ramsay Muir. Methuen & Co., 36, Essex Street, W. C.2. Price 3s. 6d.

The dust cover advertises this book “as an attempt to survey the whole field of politics from the standpoint of a progressive who is deeply dissatisfied with many aspects of the existing order, but who is convinced that the Socialist scheme of reconstruction is no better than a will o’ the wisp.”

After reading the book we can share the author’s conviction concerning what he calls “the Socialist scheme of reconstruction,” for throughout “Socialist” is used to denote the Labour Party, and for the workers the schemes of that party, like the schemes of the Liberal Party, are will o’ the wisps.

We have no space here to quarrel over the meaning of words, but to apply the term Socialist to the Labour Party is unfair both to responsible Socialists and to the Labour Party. The Labour Party is not, and never has been, a Socialist Party. Even its own publicists admit that, as witness Mr. Snowden’s statement that

  “the British Labour Party is certainly not Socialist in the sense in which Socialism is understood upon the Continent. It is not based upon the recognition of the class struggle.”—(Page, 528, “Manchester Guardian” Reconstruction Number, 26th October, 1922)

And so, while Mr. Muir is convinced the futility of Labourism, he says nothing about Socialism, and it is therefore impossible to know whether he has any convictions on this subject.

But more of this anon; for the present the book itself provides ample scope for comment. It can be divided into three sections, dealing with (1) the broad aims of Liberalism, 2) the achievements of Liberalism in the past, and (3) the Liberal solution of immediate problems. 

To take the last first.

It proposes as a solution of modern financial problems, increased death duties (the capital levy is discussed and turned down), the League of Nations as a means to abolish war, and a re-organisation of industry and an improved dole system to solve the present unemployment problem

The capital levy and death duties are no concern of the workers. The incidence of taxes falls on the people who can pay them, not on the propertyless class. Financial problems are therefore problems for master class, who will have to solve them unless the workers do so by ending the system which engenders them.

As for the League of Nations, only a Liberal can imagine that it will prevent wars. They have their basis in the economic structure of society itself, and result from the struggle for markets under competitive production. And although the workers allow themselves to be used as cannon fodder, they are all the time only fighting their masters’ battles while neglecting their own. The futility of expecting to end war under capitalism by peaceful negotiation is shown with naive clearness by our author himself on page 89, where he writes :

  “It was by the use of the Concert of Europe that Sir Edward Grey succeeded in averting the almost annual threats of war by which Europe was disturbed during the years 1906 to 1914, and he could have succeeded in averting the final menace of 1914 by the same means if Germany had only permitted the concert of Europe to come into being.”

Moreover, somebody will be doing things like this again, for Mr. Muir is not going to trust a pacific League of Nations with an army,

  “for the commander of such an army would have in his hands the means of making himself the despot of the world.”

The League of Nations is to be bossed, not boss, you understand !

And then unemployment. As this did not arrive with the war, but was quite a flourishing problem which should have appealed to Liberals of the past prior to 1914, and as “it is a problem of manageable dimensions capable of a reasonable and just solution” (page 133), it is strange that it was not solved by one of the many Liberal Governments the workers have chosen for themselves. But, there, even Liberals cannot do everything at once, and while the House of Lords needed reforming, what time had they to deal with a problem like unemployment, which was soluble and would therefore present no difficulty? The solution is Government relief work, and insurance by industries. Of course,

  “there would remain a large group of industries which could not be directly helped by this method ; the textile trades, for example. In these industries the only way of minimising—for that is all that is possible—the evils of a period of exceptional trade depression would be a system of organised relay work with partial unemployment relief.” —(Page 136.)

As Mr. Ramsey Muir does not know, or at least does not say, how periods of “exceptional trade depression” can be avoided, this is an admission of blank failure and shows that even Liberalism of the pinkest hue will not give the workers that security of which Mr. Muir prates.

So much for the future Liberalism. What of the past?

In his outline of past achievements, our author is continually compelled to confess that Conservatives shared in the so-called reforms of the nineteenth century. Thus we get frequent passages like these :

  “This Act (giving the counties representative councils) of 1888, though it had been drafted by a Liberal statesman, was actually carried by a Conservative Government.”—(Page 94.)

   “A Liberal Act of 1871 saved the unions from this danger (of prosecutions for conspiracy in restraint of trade), though it had to be supplemented by a Conservative Act in 1875.”—(Page 95.)

  “In the early days, a great Tory philanthropist, Lord Shaftesbury, was one of the most persistent advocates of factory legislation, which always had Liberal majorities.”—(Page 100.)

   “Conservative Ministries and Parliaments contributed from time to time to the work.”—(Page 101.)

From this it is seen that if the worker had cause to be grateful for these reforms, if they mitigated the evils of his slave condition, his gratitude must be showered on Liberalism and Conservatism alike. Such reforms have not fundamentally altered the position of the working class, however, and no gratitude is needed. And if Factory Acts and the abolition of slavery are achievements to be referred to with pride, does Mr. Muir forget that the Liberals like Cobden, so energetic in freeing slaves, were equally energetic in opposing Factory Acts? And in spite of capitalist historians, was the emancipation of slaves so disinterested and high-minded as Mr. Muir would have us believe? The Act liberating slaves was passed in 1832. David Hume had already pointed out in 1711 that

  “from the experience of planters, slavery is as little advantageous to the master as to the slave, wherever hired servants can be procured. A man is obliged to clothe and feed his slave and he does no more for his servant. The price of the first purchase, therefore, is so much loss to him, not to mention that the fear of punishment will never draw so much labour from a slave as the dread of being turned off and not getting another service will from a free man.”

And in Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” occurs this passage :

  “Though the wear and tear of a free servant be equally at the expense of his master, it generally costs him much less than that of a slave.”

The liberation of slaves was as charitable and disinterested as is the sending of “armies of missionaries whom Britain maintained” into every land, which our author claims to be characteristic of a new policy of Liberalism (vide page 92).

  “The purpose of the Missions is not to develop trade, but trade is inevitably developed by missions. They steadily increase material needs: soaps, oils, cloths, sewing machines, books, tools, follow hard on Mission enterprise. Missions teach thrift, industry and honesty in commercial dealings. It is worthwhile for business men to support Missions if from no other motive than that they create new, larger and better markets for their goods.”—(Record of the Home and Foreign Mission work of the United Free Church of Scotland, December, 1919, page 267.)

These are a few of the past achievements of Liberalism which Mr. Muir rakes up. There are some he has forgotten. What of Mr. Asquith sending soldiers to Featherstone in 1893, when the miners were shot down, and Churchill’s calling out of troops at the time of the Dock Strike in 1911, when, by mistake, of course, Mr. Tillett told the dockers to rush the bakers’ shops? For an author who chides Labour orators with trusting to the ignorance of their hearers (page 86), this is a serious omission. And how does he square this use of force with the statement that the Conservative is distinguished from the Liberal by

  “the use of force rather than persuasion as the easiest weapon for dealing with any sign of revolt against the established order.”—(Page 9.)

The use of force as a protection to the master class is another honour shared equally by these two parties, and with the advent of a Labour Government there will arise a third participator.

Force is the foundation of capitalist domination, and that force is obtained through Parliament; capitalist control there means capitalist control everywhere. The workers therefore have nothing to gain by supporting any party which seeks to maintain that control. Concessions and reliefs may have been granted in the past by both parties, but none of these concessions, none of these vaunted reliefs, such as Old Age Pensions, State Insurance, etc., have altered the general position of the workers in society. They are still slaves, and whilst Liberalism, Conservatism, or Labourism has their attention they will remain slaves. Mr. Muir admits that

  “Liberalism and Conservatism are united in their belief that private enterprise must, in the future as in the past, provide the main driving force in the economic sphere.”—(Page 7.)

And that statement damns Liberalism for the workers, to whom the only problem of vital importance is the problem of ownership and control of the means of life. The ending of private ownership solves the problem of the division of the product of industry, in which Liberalism promises the workers a larger but still a small share. The object of the workers should be to dispossess the master class. They therefore have no use for any party which denies the class struggle. For the achievement of their emancipation the Liberal Party is as useless as the Conservative or Labour Parties. The workers alone can free themselves from the burden of their condition—this they can do when they wish by organising on a class basis.

W. J. R.

“Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made Of”. (1922)

Book Review from the August 1922 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is Trade Unionism Sound ? By J. H. Bunting. Published by Benn Bros. 2s. 6d.

Sir Peter Rylands, who writes one of the prefaces to this book, J. R. Clynes being its other sponsor, is Past President of the Federation of British Industries. He is also Chairman of Rylands Bros., Ltd., Vice-Chairman of Pearson, Knowles Coal and Iron Co., Ltd., and director of several com­panies including the London and Lancashire Fire Insurance Co., Ltd., Moss Hall Coal Co., Ltd., Partington Steel and Iron Co. Ltd; quite a captain of industry, in fact, eking out a meagre existence on what our author calls “wages of superintendence.” When therefore he closes his blessing on the book with the remark that “some of Mr. Bunting’s premises may require further examination before they are completely acceptable,” I suspect him of cynicism. Sir Peter must know enough about industry, even if he is a director, to be aware that the less they are examined the more liable are Mr. Bunting’s premises to be accepted as the truth. Examination damns the book from first page to last as a mass of economic untruths, confusions, and contradictions. In style and matter it resembles those “Pay-day talks” which nowadays bulk larger and larger in pay envelopes. It extends to about 100 pages, each one more puerile than the last.

Before dealing with a few of the points it raises there is one small criticism I have to make. The book is entitled “Is Trade Unionism Sound?” Now in a book with this title the reader expects to find something about trade unionism. He expects to have the author’s definition of the term set before him, with a survey of trade unionism in the past, and lessons to be drawn from that survey. All this the reader expects reasonably enough, and yet nowhere in this book, save on the flyleaf, do the actual words “trade unionism” occur. Without counting I cannot say how often the phrase “trade union” is used, but certainly not half a dozen times. The author ignores the subject he is supposed to be writing on. He leaves it without apology or excuse and plunges at once into his world of dreams, to preach of brotherhood and good feeling between employers and employees. But let us turn to the material Mr. Bunting offers. From so much that is false it is difficult to chose items for comment. And to show briefly what in Mr. Bunting’s opinion is wrong with the world is equally difficult, for he does not definitely tell us. The one thing that certainly is not wrong with it in his opinion is capitalism. As well as I am able to make out Mr. Bunt­ing’s case it is this :—

  

“The total production of industry is the gross production of the workers who out of it have to pay (1) so much for the use of capital ; (2) so much for the use of land; (3) so much for the employers’ services.” (Page 25.) The balance they keep for themselves. This constitutes their wages fund. Now “if the amount of production could be increased, prices would be reduced accordingly, more capital could be conserved, and it would follow that it would be at the disposal of the workers at a lower rate. This would mean that capita­ lists would receive a smaller proportion of the total production, leaving a larger proportion of the increased production to be shared between the workers.” (Page 35.) And how to increase production? Why work for whatever wage an employer will offer? Don’t insist on 70s. when only 66s. is tendered. Take 66s., and then you create a demand for 66s. worth of commodities, and thus for workers to produce them, and these workers in their turn create fresh demand for labour and so “ad infinitum.” Everyone is employed, prices fall, real wages rise, the workers continue to pay less and less for the use of capital, until finally “they enjoy its use practically free of charge.” (Pages 18 and 29.) What a lovely dream ! Only un­fortunately it is only a dream, and does not stand examination, Sir Peter !

Even the dreamer himself seems to have doubts about the efficacy of his scheme, for he shows us how it would work if applied on Mars, where, for illustration, he assumes “conditions to be very similar to those which prevail here.” Yes; they may be “very similar,” but they are not the same, and because of that the scheme will fail here. Even judged by Mr. Bunting’s own premises it can be shown to be impossible and illogical.

If the demand for commodities increases to such an enormous extent, why should their prices fall rather than rise, and why should the price of capital (i.e., interest) fall with an increased demand?

But, of course, our author is wrong in his fundamentals. Workers do not “employ capital.” The owners of capital employ them. To-day the working class possesses nothing but its power to labour, which, in order to live, it sells to the capitalist class, the owners of the machinery, the raw material—in short, all the means of production. And the capitalist is willing to buy labour power because it brings forth surplus value, because it produces more than is necessary for the workers’ subsistence, because he can appropriate to himself this surplus. When a surplus cannot be obtained production ceases, unemployment ensues. The profits of capital, while undoubtedly produced by the workers, are not paid by them to the capitalists for the use of their capital, but are extorted out of them by the present system of legalised robbery.

Until he realises this, our author will continue to contradict himself and argue in circles. And when he does realise it, he will not be so hazy concerning wages, prices, and profits.

Another statement given without the sorely needed proof is the old one that high wages result in high prices. If it is possible for a producer to raise prices at will, if prices are fixed quite arbitrarily, why is any strike ever contested ? Why do employers organise to prevent wage increases ? It would be cheaper and easier to pay any wage demanded and raise the price of the product. Capitalists and workers alike are subject to the economic forces which, not individual wishes, determine the prices at which commodities sell. To recount all the other fallacies and sentimentalities contained in the book would take too long, and serve little useful purpose. When an author says that half the reward of a miner “is the vision of the comfort that is being brought to the homes of the people, the power that is being supplied for the production of wealth” ; and that capitalists “if they choose to retire from the commercial arena, could obtain sufficient income from their capital without entrenching on their capital or employing labour for commercial purposes” (Marx in “Capital” has already asked : If all capitalists were to do this, where would they find their commodities in the market?)—to quote but two passages typical of many, he is not worthy of serious attention.

But books like these which, whilst ostensibly stating new truths are in reality only propounding new ways of defending capitalism, are becoming more and more common as the rottenness of the present system of production obtrudes itself more on its victims, and unless such attempts are recognised for what they are, still more enquiring workers will be gulled into meek acceptance of their present misery. Knowledge of their position in society will, however, give the workers the power to resist the influence of these pipings, and that knowledge can only be obtained by the reading of Socialist literature and a grasp of the Socialist position.

W. J. R.

"The French Revolution." (1922)

Book Review from the January 1922 issue of the Socialist Standard

The French Revolution has been a favourite topic with historians of all countries, and it has probably called forth more books than any other event in the history of the world. Yet in the whole literature of the subject one can find little that is consistently good; there is a disproportionate amount of chaff. A book that has just come into my hands, "A Brief History of the French Revolution," by F. W. Aveling, is, however, so really bad, that I think it deserves notice, if only to warn those who might, in their hurry, confuse the author with Edward Aveling, and buy it.

In his preface the author states that the book is intended primarily as a school textbook. No doubt it will have success as such, for it is moulded on the true lines of all modern school histories. It is a string of events, with nothing to connect them, each one seemingly an accident. The true causes of the revolution and its meaning, the knowledge of which might cause pupils to grow interested in a dangerous field of inquiry, are hidden, and instead the reader is offered a few trumpery excuses, which explain nothing and lead nowhere, but which satisfy that craving for sensation which springs from faulty education and the degrading influence of the press. Aveling's causes of the Revolution bear the same relation to the real origin as does the popular idea of profiteering to the profit-making system. They serve only to hide the relevant facts.

Three reasons are given, viz. :

1. The vices and extravagances of the kings and their court.
2. The writings of the philosophers and literary men, particularly of J. J. Rousseau ; and the growth of unbelief in religion.
3. Bad government on the part of the rulers of the land : the oppression of the poor by aristocrats : the absence of any political power on the part of the great mass of the people.

No mention is made of its being a Revolution of the bourgeoisie ; rather it is made to appear as working class in its objects, and this, although it is now agreed that the French Revolution was the homologue of the English Revolution of 1640-60, 1688, that it was the triumph of the Capitalist class and the final overthrow of feudalism. Such an omission might be excused to a contemporary, but in a modern history it becomes a suppression, and one is compelled to think that the author is deliberately misleading.

The immorality of the Bourbons had as little to do with the French Revolution as did the morality of Charles I. with the English.

And in view of the fact that the poor in France had always been oppressed by the aristocrats and had never had any political power, it is useless to suggest that this oppression and lack of political power alone could have precipitated the Revolution of 1789. Why 1789 rather than 1400?

The prominence of the philosophers and their sceptical teaching themselves require an explanation. Our author does not, or will not, see this, and so it is not given.

Let us see why the revolution came in the eighteenth rather than in the fifteenth century.

In the first place, it is necessary to remember that this, like all others, was an economic revolution. It arose owing to the necessity to industrialism of the abolition of the remnants of the feudal barriers. It was a revolution of the French bourgeoisie, which was confronted with impotence and ruin unless it could seize political power and enter on the same course of expansion as England and the newly-freed American Republic.

Up to then political power was concentrated in the hands of a bureaucratic despotism. The nobles and clergy retained their social positions, feudal privileges, and rights. This hampered the development of the industrial and trading classes, for which a free working-class, as opposed to feudal serfs, and a free circulation of commodities were essential. The Gabelle, a government monopoly of the sale of salt, and the Banvin, or the right enjoyed by the lord of the manor to sell his own wine in the parish, to the exclusion of any other, are but two examples of the many feudal privileges which stood in the way of free development of commerce and industry.

Again, taxation was high, and owing to the exemption from it enjoyed by the nobles and clerics, its burden fell on the propertied commercial class. In the army aristocrats held the chief posts, so that the ambitions of bourgeois officers were checked. This explains the willingness of the lower officers to usurp authority and lead their troops against the dominant class.

It was the growth of the bourgeoisie in France, with its accompanying necessity for a new philosophy and set of ideals, which gave rise to the liberal spirit noticeable earlier in the century. In particular, intercourse with other countries and with England, from which the newly invented machinery was beginning to be imported, fostered this spirit, of which the writings of Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau are but the expression. To place too great an importance in the effects of their books is dangerous, especially as only about 4 per cent. of the population could read.

They were the philosophers of the rising capitalists, and it was among the members of this class in the main that they found readers and popularity.

To say, as the author does, that they spread democratic ideas among the masses, is to show a complete ignorance of their works.

Rousseau looked longingly to the Roman State and a return to nature. Montesquieu and Voltaire aimed merely at adopting the English constitutional system. Buckle, in his "Civilisation in England," lays great stress on this, and Gustave Le Bon, a middle-class author, writes : "Although the philosophers, who have been supposed the inspirers of the French Revolution, did attack certain privileges and abuses, we must not for that reason regard them as partisans of popular government " ("Psychology of Revolution").

When Louis XVI., owing to the financial difficulties of the government, was forced to summon the States General, the time for the seizure of political power by the revolutionary bourgeoisie had arrived.

To obtain control of the Tiers Etat, they, with their cry of "Free the land!" obtained the support of the peasants, but "they were as undemocratic at bottom as men well could be; their feeling for the masses was nothing but a mixture of scorn and fear; the perfect type of the bourgeois of '89 combined hatred of the nobles with distrust of the mob " ("French Revolution," Louis Madelin).

Thanks to the support of the lesser clergy, who suffered from the tyranny of the great prelates, they obtained control in the National Assembly, and at once proceeded to destroy all that remained of feudalism. In a short time seigneural rights were abolished, serfs were freed, and later the Church lands were confiscated.

Meanwhile, in the, towns unemployment, consequent on machine production superseding hand labour in many trades, together with lack of bread, occasioned by bad harvests, destruction of the crops by agents of the bourgeoisie, and the speculations of the grain merchants, who were holding back supplies, caused the workers to support the rising class. This provided them with a force which at need they could bring out to overcome the Royalists.

The weakness of Louis and the need to crush the nobility and clergy completely, rendered the introduction of a constitutional monarchy impossible, although certain sections favoured it. And so Louis was executed and a Republic proclaimed.

The rising of the Revolution from the National Assembly to the Directory, which paved the way for Napoleon to consolidate the gains of the triumphant class, is a history of struggles between sections of the bourgeoisie, and of their efforts to drive back the workers into subjection after they had served the needs of their masters.

Even the Terror is a period of bourgeois domination.

But our author would not stain the honour of the master class, our present rulers, so he reviles the workers for the executions. And this in spite of the fact that "out of 2,750 victims of Robespierre only 650 belonged to the upper or middle classes. The tumbrils that wended their way daily to the Place de la Revolution and afterwards to the Faubourg St. Antoine were largely filled with working-men" ("French Revolution," Belfort Bax).

Robespierre himself was merely a tool, although perhaps an unconscious tool, of the bourgeoisie; he served them by destroying the more liberal-minded Herbertists, and was destroyed himself when his task was accomplished.

But although it was not, and could not be, a working-class revolution, study of the French Revolution is of value to the proletariat for two reasons. Firstly, it demonstrates the truth of the Materialist Conception of History.

Society rests on an economic basis and it is only by examination of this foundation that one can understand the nature and development of the institutions, ideas, and cultural activities of the classes of which the particular society is composed, and explain outstanding historical and political movements and events.

Secondly, it shows the futility of working-class action without class-consciousness.

The workers allowed themselves to be stirred up to do the behests of a higher class, they fought their battles for them, and then, when they had clone all that was wanted of them, they were forced into a new and worse servitude. They were surrounded and disarmed on their return from the army. Their organisations were broken up by "Jeunesse Dorée" (the White Guards of the period) armed with weighted canes!

And attempts of the workers to achieve their emancipation will always end in failure until they, by study, learn their position in society as slaves of the propertied class, and then, acting as a class, gain control of political power and the force it commands.

W. J. R.

"And Found Wanting." (1921)

Book Review from the August 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The Coming Revolution," by Gerald Gould.

For the Socialist this book has little value, if one excludes certain statistics and information given in the appendix, which may be useful for reference, it is a jumble of sentiment and false economic conclusions, a book written to quiet the heated and affrighted imaginations of the "middle class," and to relieve the conscience of its author. He has no realisation of the existence of the class war, although, in his search for moral justification for a revolution, he seems to have seen it "disappearing round a corner "; he lacks comprehension of the materialistic conception of history, and does not hesitate to contradict himself.

Let me go further into details:

Mr. Gould is convinced that there is going to be a working-class revolution. Here he seeks to show:

1. Why it is inevitable.
2. Why it is justified.
3. How it will, or can be, accomplished.

For those who wish to know "it is to be about the simplest and most homely of all subjects— the cost of living," and again, "the cause of any upheaval that happens will be the cost of living."

In view of the fact that prices are now falling the prospects of revolution must be fading slowly and silently away !

But justification of and excuses for the Revolution are our author's chief worry. Writing as he does for timid ''middle-class" sentimentalists he has to show that "Labour's demands and requirements are natural" and "the issue a moral one." This is an untenable position to take up, and, of course, Mr. Gould fails to maintain it. For one thing, the excuse that these demands are natural can cut both ways, as it is as natural for the capitalist to welcome unemployment and pay low wages as it is for the workers to seek to force wages up.

Now with regard to its accomplishing.

Our author thinks it possible that the high cost of living may force the workers into a bloody revolution. In case it does he has found a scapegoat, though why one should be needed, and who will demand excuses from the victorious workers after the Revolution he does not say and I do not know. It may be his friends of "the impoverished middle classes" will want justification for the slaughter of the innocents. Anyway, all demands of that sort have been anticipated and need not disturb the rest of any Direct Actionist, for "if ever a bloody revolution breaks out in this country a large share of the responsibility will have to be borne by Bonar Law and other Tory leaders, who made incendiary speeches on the Ulster Theme."

But Mr. Gould does not think a bloody revolution at all likely, because "nobody is less revolutionary by temperament than the British Working Man," than whom "nobody is saner and kinder." (I think we have all met phrases like these before in such papers as the ''Daily Mail" and the "Daily Express.") And, of course, we always have "the courage and statesmanship of Trade Unionists" which will save the country again if need be as they did at the time of the railway strike of 1919, and the Triple Alliance swindle of the present year. The settlement of the strikes in question would suggest that the statesmanship of Trade Union officials consists of a willingness to be bluffed by Lloyd George and an anxiety not to incur the latter's displeasure by any hesitation in retailing the same bluff to their members.

The anticipated revolution, however, is to be peaceful. It will start with a general strike. Guild Socialists will prepare a new system in "intellectual readiness to take over on the collapse of the old." Private capitalists will buy one another out, and incidentally reduce the National Debt. Nationalisation will be installed and a redistribution of national wealth will take place.

Now, in the first place can a general strike meet with success? Our author admits that, in the event of one taking place, "the poor would be the first to suffer, since, unlike the rich, they would not have reserves of material commodities," but thinks that this could "be averted if no element of violence entered in at any stage of the struggle." Poor, ingenuous Mr. Gould ! Does he really think that the Government would abstain from violence if that alone could save capitalism ?

But probably he does not recognise that the Government is but the tool of the capitalists, for he seems hurt and surprised to realise that "as with the employers so with the Government itself."

Again, he does not show how sitting still with folded arms can provide loaves of bread.

But then, even if a general strike were successful and the workers followed the plans set forth in this book, they would still be wage slaves. Nationalisation is but intensified capitalism and holds out no remedy to the worker. Mr. Gould's method of attaining it is, however, rather amusing. He first makes it clear that you must "not simply expropriate the owners of an industry without compensation." You must make a grant to the shareholders "to prevent actual hardship," else what becomes of the "philoprogenitive vicar in his poverty-stricken country vicarage" if you rob him of his shares in the Great Eastern Railway ? Here you have a frank admission of failure, for even after Nationalisation there will be it seems, "actual hardship" and "poverty-stricken country vicarages." This by the way. The method of obtaining the money for this grant is novel indeed. Assume you nationalise the railways first, and the cost of buying out the shareholders is 500 millions, you make a levy on capital sufficient to yield this amount. By this means the rich railowners provide part of the money necessary for their own expropriation, and as the Government, whilst paying out 500 millions only, receives 500 millions rail stock and 500 millions from the levy, the National Debt is reduced by 500 millions. Repeat this with every industry in turn, and then "Hail the Revolution!" It reminds one of the problem of the two snakes who started eating each other from the tail !

Having seen that wages, at present, are the workers' chief concern, and not wishing that his Utopia should offend by their non-existence, Mr. Gould makes it clear that payment for labour power will not cease. That is what he means when he talks of a redistribution of wealth. Having persuaded the capitalists to buy one another out, the statesmen of the trade unions, under the tutorship of Guild Socialists, would run industry for the nation, "treat the workers like men and brothers," and pay a family, on the basis of present production, about £400 per annum.

The examples Mr. Gould gives to show the increase in production that will result from the kindly treatment of the workers is instructive:

A Mr. S. J. L. Vincent, A.M.I.C.E., borough surveyor at Newbury, builds houses. He guarantees a 48 hour week, and treats his workmen like brothers, so that they, "feeling that they are not working to build up profits but to build houses," respond in the same spirit. Of course, Mr. S. J. L. Vincent, A.M.I.C.E.'s object is to sow the seeds of love among his workmen, and so it must be quite an unforeseen accident that he can build houses at £650 each while contractors, at a period of dearer materials, asked £875. As the cost of bricks, etc., to Mr. Vincent was more than to the contractors, and as his income was probably not much lees, the difference in price must be in his wages expenditure. Yet Mr. Gould quotes this and says to the workers "see what benefits will result from nationalisation, under which you will be treated like brothers." All I can see is increased unemployment, and nowhere in this book are we told, what provision is to be made for those who, owing to increased production, have nothing to do. Also we are not told who is going to condescend to treat their workers like brothers.

Will their exploiters do so then any more than now, or is this an invitation to the ''middle class" to reap the reward of their imagined intellectual superiority on the backs of the workers ?

But our chief quarrel with Mr. Gould is over his citation of Marx as an authority for his conclusions. He does not understand Marxian economics and philosophy, and should confine himself to Sidney Webb and Fabianism. Marxism and Fabianism are quite incompatible, and it is therefore ignorance of one or both which makes him support his tottering ideas with selections from the two of them.

See how he misinterprets Marx. He summarises Marx's description of the transformation from capitalism to Socialism as the taking over by the workers "in one solid lump, of the capital which private capitalism itself has in accordance with the laws of its own development, coagulated into that lump." Marx taught that capital, i.e., wealth used to exploit labour, will cease to exist with the passing of capitalism, since the workers cannot exploit themselves. To talk about "taking over capital," therefore, is nonsense ; anyway, it isn't Marx.

In passing, one should notice the phrase "private capitalism" here. Its insertion shows that when our author speaks of Nationalisation he has State capitalism in mind.

Did he understand the primary theory in Marx, that of value, which states that the value of a commodity is measured by the amount of labour socially necessary for its reproduction, he would not be puzzled by the fact that fertile ground on which little labour is spent produces greater value than less productive ground on which a greater amount of labour is expended. Also he would never be so foolish as to write : "The workers insist on higher wages so that they may cope with the higher prices. The capitalist often has no objection. He simply raises his prices again, so as to get back the extra amount he has to pay in the cost of labour."

The capitalist, like the worker, is bound by the laws of the system and cannot raise prices at will. But then, Mr. Gould does not realise that the system controls man, he thinks man controls the system, and has but to will a new world in order to produce it, ignoring social development.

Yet we can agree with the last sentence in the book, "there is no third way" (i.e., to attain Socialism). There is not even a second. The only way is for the workers to study and understand their position, and the laws governing the society of which they are a part, for then they can and will become possessed of the machinery of government, and under the protecion of the power then at their disposal, work with the economic forces to mould the new classless society, the Socialist Republic.

W. J. R.