A Letter from Mr. Walton Newbold (1932)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fulham, London, S. W. 6. 

3rd Sept., 1932.

The Editor, the Socialist Standard,

Tell the truth and riddle the opportunists. 

Dear Comrade,

In saying that I am now supporting the Maxtonites and implying that I have joined the I.L.P. once more, you are reading into the letter, headed, “The Puritan Strain” and appearing in The New Clarion recently, much more than you are entitled to do. Certainly, I admire Maxton and Brockway, Jennie Lee and Geo. Buchanan for having the courage of their convictions and taking the road into what may mean the abandonment of the flesh-pots, far away from which you will never find Laski, Brailsford, Wise or Dollan. For the courage of your convictions and the same disregard of advancement I have always admired the S.P.G.B., about whom I could equally well have said in that concluding sentence of my letter : “I do not agree with the (l.L.P.) in much, but they have the courage of their convictions.”

I was brought up, and have again become a Quaker. Twenty-five years I have been moving around the whole Labour and Socialist Movement and here and there and now and then I have found men and women who dared to say what they thought and damn the consequence to their careers. But for the most part the Movement lacks “guts.” Where there is no vision, it is quite true, the people perish. That is why the most appalling mess of all will be the Third Labour Government. But that is inevitable. That you and I know. Now, as to my going to Motherwell in 1918, and the means I took most deliberately to force the Catholic clergy, step by step, to reveal themselves as the enemies of Socialism and to bring them into antagonism to the interests of the Irish as a nation struggling to be free, and as workers needing either to limit their families or break away from the Catholic morality of private property on the basis of the patriarchal family. When I went there I was still a member of the Society of Friends. A priest charged me with being an atheist. The letters I produced caused him not only to apologise but, praising the society, practically to call Catholics to vote for me.

Well was I aware of the fact that the worst enemy the Socialist Movement has ever had in its ranks was the late John Wheatley. The Catholic Socialist Society we now know to have been “a contradiction in terms.” Pius XI tells us no Catholic can be any kind of a Socialist. John Wheatley substituted for Socialism his plans for Housing Reform. He turned the whole Socialist Movement of Scotland, including old Freethinkers like John Downie, of Wishaw, down that false scent. Motherwell and Wishaw were the worst-housed burghs in Scotland. With my eyes on John Wheatley I chose to fight in Motherwell.

The Catholic clergy dared not come out openly against the republican independence for Ireland. For that, if I was to stand, I had to break with the Labour Party. When the Clyde division came to Westminster I took good care that I spoke in the House of Commons ahead of John Wheatley. Always, John Wheatley was trailing behind me. Always, John MacLean was advising me. Together, we insulated John Wheatley. We did it as individuals and so committed no one but our two selves.

It was not John Wheatley who broke the discipline of the Labour Party, but myself, supported by an old garrison-soldier and pioneer of the Labour Colleges, George Barker, of Abertillery, when we divided the House on May Day, 1923, against Singapore Naval Base. Following up, I opposed other Navy Votes. John Wheatley, Geo. Buchanan and Tom Henderson joined me. Deliberately and in defiance of the Communist Party “polbureau ” (which had ordered me to demonstrate in Sheffield that day) did I force this split in Labour Party discipline on armaments. Deliberately and without consulting “the polbureau,” did I stage my suspension from the House in a debate on the danger of a war.

Deliberately, did I steal John Wheatley’s thunder in the debate on the Housing Bill, and cause him to come to me afterwards urging and telling me “Your business is to preach revolution ! Mine to preach reform ! Keep to your job !”

Deliberately, in the spring of 1926, did I make it possible for the advocates of Birth Control to go to the Clyde via Motherwell to start a campaign that I knew must split “the Left” so ingeniously got together by John Wheatley. The manoeuvre succeeded and the I.L.P. fell a-quarrelling, “Marxists” for birth-control propaganda, Catholics and all opportunists against it.

When the riot against me in Wishaw in June, 1926, occurred and I saw the chief Catholic town councillor inciting the crowd on because of my attack on the Rev. Barr and his opposition to birth control, I knew that I had lit a fire in Motherwell and Wishaw that will not finally go out till it has burned the Catholic church out of the West of Scotland.

Clericalism is the enemy on “the Right,” “Communism” of Moscow’s Comintern the enemy on “the Left.” I have used them both, and the taste on my tongue is very sweet.

Wishing you many years of good, hard hitting and fearless statement of what seems to you to be the truth.

Yours fraternally,

Walton Newbold.

Reply

We accept the correction about the I.L.P. but disagree with many of the views expressed in the letter.

Edgar Hardcastle

Answers to Correspondents. (1932)

From the October 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

F. R. B.—If you will give your name and address, not necessarily for publication, we will reply to your letter.

* * *

Mr. Arthur Marley.—Letters returned by the Post Office marked “insufficient address.” If you will give your full address we shall be able to reply.

* * *

B. F. (S.W.1).—No articles are published in the Socialist Standard unless they are in harmony with the Party’s position.

* * *

”Prophet Smith.”—See paragraph headed “Capitalism’s Crises.” Does this meet your point?

* * *

J. T. Walton Newbold, ” Bari,” and others.—Letters crowded out of this issue owing to pressure on space.

Editorial Committee.

A Socialist Searchlight. (1931)

From the October 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Maxton gives a date.

Mr. Maxton, M.P., under the false impression that it is a Marxian theory, has for years been prophesying the sudden and irretrievable collapse of capitalism. He has now given it a date. In a speech at Cowcaddens, reported in the Daily Record (August 22nd) and reprinted in Forward (September 12th), he said :—

“I am perfectly satisfied that the great capitalist system that has endured for 150 years in its modern form, declared Mr. James Maxton, M.P., in the Cowcaddens Ward, Glasgow, last night, is now at the stage of final collapse, and not all the devices of the statesmen, not all the three party conferences, not all the collaboration between the leaders, can prevent the system from coming down with one unholy crash. 

They may postpone the collapse for a month, two months, three months, six months,” he cried, forefinger pointing at his audience, and body crouched, “but collapse is sure and certain.”

Six months from August 22nd brings us to February, 1932. When that comes round, we will ask Mr. Maxton for his explanation.

* * *

Another exponent of the collapse theory, Mr. Walton Newbold, has suffered a strange transformation. In 1921, as a Communist, he. prophesied imminent collapse, and was doing his utmost, so he said, to hasten it. It did not come off, and Mr. Newbold, now in the Labour Party, is on this occasion rallying round MacDonald and Thomas to prop capitalism up again !

* * *

Letters to Mr. Hicks.

Mr. George Hicks, M.P., was asked for his comment on the letter of personal explanation which Mr. MacDonald sent to each of the Labour Party M.P.’s. Mr. Hicks sneeringly replied that it was just the sort of letter he would expect from a man like Mr. MacDonald.

Mr. Hicks was not always so minded about letters from that quarter. As recently as April of this year (see The Times, April 11th), when Mr. Hicks was Labour Party candidate at East Woolwich, he published a broadsheet called the George Hicks Herald, containing the letter sent by MacDonald, assuring the electors that Mr. Hicks is the sort of man MacDonald regarded as suitable to represent the workers of Woolwich.

* * *

The Communist-I.L.P. Alliance. 

The crisis has had the effect of throwing together the two reformist bodies, the I.L.P. and the Communist Party. On Sunday, September 6th, Communist and I.L.P. speakers addressed a joint demonstration in Hyde Park, speaking from the same platform. The Secretary of the Balham and Tooting I.L.P., in a letter to the New Leader (September 11th), described it as “a glorious sight to see a demonstration in Hyde Park in which both Parties were united.” This was just a week after the majority of the I.L.P. Labour M.P.’s had voted for the election of Mr. Henderson as leader of the Labour Party in place of Mr. MacDonald. Only five votes were cast against his election (Daily Express, August 29th). One of those who voted for Mr. Henderson was Mr. J. Beckett. M.P., and it was Mr. Beckett who was the star turn at the Hyde Park demonstration, although Mr. Beckett complained that Communists in his audience hurled abuse at the I.L.P. speakers. Mr. Beckett was so anxious not to have it thought that he voted against Henderson, that he had the Daily Express (August 31st) publish a correction of their statement including him among the five.

P. S.

“Nationalisation is Obsolete.” (1929)

From the October 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Walton Newbold makes a discovery.

Mr. J. T. Walton Newbold, M.A., who has been preaching nationalisation of the mines for nearly 20 years, has decided that it is now obsolete. He contributes to the Miner (August 17th) an article in which he argues that the grouping together of South Wales mining, iron and steel, wagon building, electrical and banking interests,

“Makes obsolete the whole notion of nationalisation of the mines. Actually, that panacea of the propagandists of the last twenty years has been as dead as mutton for half a decade.”

Although this is not by any means the first time Mr. Newbold has discovered his politics to be obsolete, and we shall not be surprised if, as on previous occasions, he shortly swallows his words, it is interesting to have this direct admission from one of the purveyors of obsolete remedies. It is still more interesting to hear why the secret has not been disclosed before. Addressing1 his remarks to the miners, he writes :—

“Every Marxist has known that, though, I grant you, most of them have been too fearful of your disapproval to tell you the honest truth. Socialists are supposed to be guided by science. Actually, they are all too often swayed by the most sloppy sentimentality.”

To that statement we would like to put in a protest and add a question. We deny that those who understood Socialism ever had any doubts on the question or ever believed nationalisation to be a panacea for working-class problems or deserving of any support whatever from the workers.

Newbold, the reformer, in his unstable passage through the Fabian Society, the Labour Party, the I.L.P., the Communist Party, the I.L.P. again, and finally the Social Democrat Federation, might have thought that nationalisation was a panacea; and Newbold, the carpet-bagger, when he learned differently may well have kept his thoughts to himself for fear of the disapproval of those whose votes and financial support he was seeking. Socialists never made the original error, nor had the need to be dishonest about their objects.

The question we would like Mr. Walton Newbold to answer is this :—

“What are his reasons for believing that Nationalisation, before it became “obsolete” half a decade ago, would have proved a panacea for the workers ?”

It would appear that Mr. Newbold still finds it expedient not to risk the disapproval of those who supply the funds and the votes. At the last election he fought as a Labour candidate, committed to support of the Labour Party and accepting its programme of nationalisation and its string of capitalist reforms. But although Labour Party rules definitely prevent Labour candidates from running as Socialists, we notice that when Mr. Newbold appealed for funds through a Canadian journal, his candidature suffered a strange transformation. In Epping he was a Labour Candidate seeking the non-Socialist votes of the Labour Party’s supporters. In Winnipeg, he became a Socialist, and the votes he polled were “votes for Socialism.”

Edgar Hardcastle

Editorial: The Decay of the Communist Party. (1924)

Editorial from the October 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard 

After a meteoric career lasting no more than 3 or 4 years the Communist Party in this country finds itself trying with ever less success to stem the tide of members drifting away to the Labour Party or into apathy. In spite of the blundering ineptitude of its leaders in a sphere which they thought peculiarly their own—the sphere of stunts and political intrigue—they had at first a small measure of success. That they were able to achieve this was due partly to the money received by them from Moscow and thrown away in advocating futile insurrectionary policies which were always promptly disavowed whenever the authorities threatened suppression, but chiefly due to the chaos of trade and production after the world war, and the consequent weakened hold on the workers’ minds of pre-war political ideas and allegiances. But even in ground apparently so fertile the fruit of their labours was ridiculously small in comparison to the cost in money and energy.

Although they began with a flourish and reported frequent huge accessions of new members, they have in fact failed to grow and even to hold their initial position. Their total present membership is less than the 5,000 who were alleged to have joined them from the I.L.P. in 1922. Weaker numerically, they are weaker too in the respect they can demand from the class-conscious worker. From vigorous if somewhat hysterical hostility towards the Labour Party, they turned in 1921 to the United Front policy. They then claimed that support of anti-working-class candidates was not incompatible with the continuation ot communist propaganda and the denunciation of the very men they were asking the workers to vote into power. Incredible as it may seem, it required considerable experience to convince them that the communist rank and file would always in this dilemma be compelled to suppress their own views in order not to offend the Labour Party’s capitalist sympathisers. While the job seekers and the light-minded intellectual riff-raff which had been drawn in by the cash and glitter of the Communist movement saw in the new policy only the promise of elevation to the House of Commons. The boasted thousands of “communist” votes given to communist Labour candidates showed, not the strength but the weakness of the Communist Party; the dependence of a so-called independent organisation on Labour votes and the Labour Party machine. So soon as they found this out the careerists and the “intellectuals” began to desert the sinking ship, following, of course, the ancient custom of their kind of giving every excuse but the true one. Meynell, Malone, Windsor and later, Walton Newbold, Ellen Wilkinson and Philips Price are some of those who have left because of the call of ambition, the passing of the excitement of the earlier months, or simply because they had learned through experience that the fundamental ideas on which Communist Policy had been built were partly false and wholly inapplicable except in the peculiar conditions which gave them birth in Russia.

The disgust and confusion which follow these “betrayals” add point to our criticism of leader worship; the workers lose more than they can possibly gain from the magnifying of the individual and dependence on his leadership. Having foolishly overrated, they now, spitefully belittle the ability of their late members. What is however of rather more importance is the opportunity that offers here of justifying the position of the Socialist Party.

When the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia we alone of the organisations claiming to be socialist in this country, refused to be swept off our feet either by hostile prejudice or by misguided enthusiasm. We never lent ourselves to capitalist condemnation of Bolshevik “violence,” a pastime which was very popular with Labour men who had been preaching murder for the capitalist class during the war, nor did we deceive ourselves with unfounded hopes and mistake intentions for performances. We held that economic backwardness and the anti-socialist peasants would forbid the establishment of Socialism in Russia, and we held that the seizure of power by a minority could not succeed, and need not be attempted in Great Britain where political traditions, institutions and development had been so different. We were told that we were wrong, and the C.P.G.B. came into being to show how it could be done. Now, seven years after the initial success of the Bolsheviks, their too servile imitators are having to confess failure.

Walton Newbold writes (“Forward,” Sept. 13th) :—

   “From the autumn of 1920, although it was almost impossible to see it at the time, Capitalism had won, not only the advantage, but the decisive advantage, here in Britain as elsewhere. . . .

   There will be no further revolution in Europe for many a long year.”

This is strange talk from one who discoursed then so glibly and learnedly on the “collapse of capitalism.”

Philips Price, in whose judgment the communists were used to express the utmost confidence, takes up a similar attitude. He chides the communists with assuming

   “that the same process must be gone through in Western Europe as in Russia, where there never was a Parliamentary machine elected in geographical constituencies and on a democratic franchise. (Forward, August 30th.)

The editor of the “Workers’ Weekly” tries to minimise the force of his argument by offering evidence to show that Newbold had for long been expressing more or less clearly the views on which he based his resignation. But what are we to think of a party which discovers only when a member resigns that the opinions be held years before are incompatible with the party’s position ?

In December, 1922, Newbold wrote this :

  “I, like my comrade Saklatvala, am a member of the Labour Party. Either as a member of the Fabian Society or of the I.L.P. or otherwise, I have been a member of that party without intermission since the autumn of 1908. I have never had any cause to disagree with the Labour Party as such.” (“Manchester Guardian,” Dec. 7, 1922.)

And as a matter of fact, in December, 1923, the C.P.G.B.’s official attitude was to give unqualified support to all Labour candidates.

The Manifesto issued by the Executive Committee of the C.P.G.B. during the election contained an appeal to the workers to “Support the Labour and Communist candidates” without any kind of qualification. They themselves in the same issue of the “Communist Daily” which printed the appeal, boasted of the help their members were giving to such men as Jack Mills and John Hodge. Harry Pollitt, Communist candidate, withdrew in favour of the latter and spoke on his platform, although Hodge refused to give a satisfactory answer to the questions put by the unemployed. (“Communist Daily,” 13th November, 1923.)

The Communist Party did and does support reactionary Labour men, but because Newbold wanted the criticism of these people to be confined to private meetings, and wrote that “the moment they came out there was to be no difference between the most extreme right men and left wingers, like himself,” he is denounced by the editor of the “Workers’ Weekly” as “favouring the enemy” (12th Sept.). The charge is surely more damaging to the accuser than to the accused, for how does Newbold’s policy differ from their own of denouncing Labour men at private Communist meetings and then going out to ask workers to vote for a Thomas or a “monstrous gnome” like Stephen Walsh, or allowing their members to appeal for votes on the strength of a letter from MacDonald, as did Paul in Manchester?

And it was the “Workers’ Weekly” itself under Palme Dutt’s editorship which published after the election an article by Newbold which contained the following :—

  “If we are not proud of Thomas as Thomas we shall be proud of him as a Labour Minister. Our business is to make him feel, the responsibility, putting the stress on the first, word “Labour,” rather than the second word “Minister.” . . .

   In the next few months we shall have to do a great deal of barking back at the “boss” class, and as little as possible, I hope, of snapping at our leaders.”

When, therefore, Palme Dutt goes on to say that in spite of Newbold’s defection the Communist party “has no reason to revise its attitude to the Labour Party,” we cannot refrain from asking what on earth he means. Which of its half-dozen policies is the C.P. determined to persist in? The policy of 1921 of open hostility in theory, coupled in fact with the opposition to some (MacDonald) and the support of others (Naylor), or the policy of 1922 and 1923 of supporting them all where they needed support at election times, and keeping the denunciation where it could do no harm? Or the policy of support on the political field and opposition to the same persons and policies in the Trade Unions?

Palme Dutt can only reply that they will “persist in their policy.” The fact is that the “tacticians” blundered again. They might themselves be proud of J. H. Thomas, but they soon found that the only people from whom they could expect to win support were not proud of him at all, and this explains why T. Johnston, who in January they considered to be a staunch fighter for the proletariat, is described in September as a “capitalist lackey” as are the ministers and other supporters of the Labour Government (“Workers’ Weekly,” 12th Sept.).

And it seems that Newbold and the rest of the “traitors” have the laugh after all. After they have been ridiculed for ignorance and denounced for their cowardice and treachery, they will still as Labour candidates receive the votes and assistance of C.P. members !

They cannot even condemn Newbold for his imperialist tendencies, for it was while he was “Communist” member for Motherwell in 1923 that he admits having defended the Navy as essential for the protection of “our food ships,” and no public condemnation of him was made by his party. (“Forward,” 30th August, 1924.)

It would also be interesting to know what is now supposed to be the attitude of the Communists on the question of minority revolution. Do they hold with Trotsky (“Communist,” 6th Aug., 1921) that the victory of the working class “can only be achieved by the capacity to conduct battles, and above all by gaining over the majority of the working class.” Or do they still believe that an “intellectual minority” can do the work? It was as recently as the end of 1923 that the German Communists made a futile attempt, in spite of the fact that their strength, as shown by the Reichstag elections, was only about 12 per cent. of the votes cast. And the left wing who dominated the party (980 delegates to 369 of the others combined), referring to this rising, were still able to declare, in April, 1924, that “victory—the seizure of power by the workers—was not only possible, but historically necessary.” (“Workers’ Weekly,” May 16th, 1924.)

In all this welter of confusion the S.P.G.B. stands alone and unshaken. I.L.P. pacifists join hands with Labour jingoes building cruisers to solve unemployment, and joyfully endorse in the Dawes Report a new attempt to intensify the slavery of the European working class; while Communists call them knaves, and vote them into Parliament.

The Communists, trying to emulate their fellow confusionists in the I.L.P., just hug themselves with delight because MacDonald has agreed to give a State guarantee of interest payments on a £40,000,000 loan to Russia, for the benefit of certain financial circles. One of their amusing arguments is that it will make work for the unemployed. They have doubtless overlooked the detail that even if work is provided for engineers now, the ultimate result when Russian agriculture has been reorganised and brought up to date by the imported machinery, is that this and other countries will have to face the competition of cheap Russian wheat. This will be good news for the unemployed agricultural workers. While the Communist propagates futile “solutions” of insoluble problems, the Socialist goes on propagating socialism.

We extend an urgent invitation to those who have seen the Socialist Party stand the test of war and would-be revolution and yet maintain the intellectual strength of its position, to come forward and give us their active assistance.

Notes by the Way: Circumstances Alter Cases. A Communist Slogan for England Only. (1932)

The Notes by the Way Column from the September 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Circumstances Alter Cases. A Communist Slogan for England Only.

One of the useless reforms urged by the communists in Great Britain is the abolition of inheritance and the confiscation of all fortunes over £1,000. (See Class Against Class, published 1929, by C.P.G.B., p. 30.)

What gives special interest to this demand is that it is something the communists in Russia make no pretence of carrying out. Russian law “recognises the right of inheritance irrespective of the amount involved." (Soviet Union Year Book, 1930, p. 498.) Inheritance tax is paid, but the law specifies maximum rates of tax, which may not be exceeded by the separate republics which make up the Soviet Union. The maximum scale of tax is graduated from £2 on £200, up to £23,854 on £50,000. (See Year Book, p. 405.)

We wonder what sort of reception a simple-minded English communist would have who tried to enforce the abolition of inheritance and confiscation of all fortunes above £1,000, among the highly paid technicians and, administrative officials in Russia.


Ethel Mannin’s Blunder.

A recent recruit to the I.L.P. is the novelist, Miss Ethel Mannin. In February she was reminded by a correspondent that her claim to be a socialist does not square with the reformist programme of her party. In reply she wrote: —

  I agree entirely that the I.L.P. is a reformist party—which is a reason why I shall probably not remain with them. Actually I have no faith in any party. (Italics hers.)

When the split came, Miss Mannin followed the disaffiliationists. She gives her reasons in the New Leader (12th August). One is that she believes in moving “to the left—always to the left." Another she explains as follows : —

  We of the Left Wing have our dream, the tremendous dream of Socialism in Our Time, and it is up to us to be proud of it instead of being apologetic about it. Thank God we have this dream, for no one else seems to have it—certainly not the official Labour Party! And without this dream what is left to us ?

This is where Miss Mannin makes her mistake. The I.L.P. have not got this programme now. Brailsford and three other I.L.P. leaders, wrote it for them (the “Living Income Programme”). But already by 1928, according to the Report to the I.L.P.'s Annual Conference, presented by the Administrative Council, "its main proposals are being gradually incorporated in the thought and propaganda of the Labour Movement, and are exerting a continuous influence on the policies of its leadership.” (Report, 1928, p. 3.)

It was, therefore, quite logical for the four men who wrote it to leave the disaffiliationists and join the official group, and quite logical, for them to claim that their reformist policy, known as "Socialism in Our Time," is now the inspiration of the Labour Party. The leading disaffiliationists, who assert that they have made a clean break with the I.L.P.'s past, confirm this claim.

So that Miss Mannin is in the uncomfortable position of having her body in the I.L.P.—and moving "to the left—always to the left’’—while the Ark of the Covenant containing the essence of her proud dream is being borne off to the right by the four men who fashioned it. And in the meantime Maxton and others have drawn up a new list of reforms for their reformist party.

Miss Mannin should be told about this.


Muddled Middleton Murry.

After achieving distinction in literature, Mr. John Middleton Murry blew in on the world of working class politics by announcing himself a Marxist and communist. It was at once evident that Mr. Murry has much to learn and many old habits of thought and expression to unlearn before he will appreciate what the socialist case is and be able to enlighten others. His attempts to explain Marx befog rather than clear the air, and nobody would be more startled than Marx if he could know what he is supposed by Mr. Murry to have meant by some of his writings. To say this is not to throw doubt on Mr. Murry’s well-meaningness, but it appears to be very difficult for the typical academic or literary man to believe that Marx could have meant just what he said.

How muddled Murry is can be seen from his constant shifting of position and his enthusiasm for contradictory policies. He appears at first to have had leanings towards the Communist Party, and is still a worshipper of Russia, being under the impression that Socialism is being built up in that country. However, he quarrelled with the communists and turned up in the I.L.P. While still there he read one of our pamphlets in March this year, and promptly wrote to us: "It seems to me I ought to join.” He did not proceed with the matter, and by August he had discovered a new hope. Writing in The Adelphi (August, p. 764), he said: “There is a good hope that gradually the I.L.P. will become a genuinely socialist organisation —the only one in this country.”

It would be interesting to know in what way the S.P.G.B., which apparently was a socialist body in Mr. Murry’s eyes in Match, had ceased to be socialist by August.

In the same issue of The Adelphi, Mr. Murry shows how little he understands of Socialism by defining it as “economic equality”—an inadequate phrase completely missing the essence of the matter, which is that its basis will be the common ownership of the means of production and distribution. He also describes Mr. R. H. Tawney as chief of the “small number of genuine socialists" in the Labour Party. Mr. Tawney has never committed himself to common ownership. In his Acquisitive Society (p. 67) he expressly declares his belief in the necessity of continuing property incomes in the form of interest on investments.

Unless Mr. Murry will make an effort to understand the elementary principles of Socialism he will no doubt suffer the fate of many others who have skimmed over the working class movement. He will drift off, disgusted with the slow progress of socialist organisation, but no wiser than when he came in as to why it makes slow progress and why his well-meant efforts do not help.

Lo, the Poor Indian!

Those who profess to believe that the poverty of the Indian workers and peasants is due only to the British Exploiters would do well to ponder over a statement which appeared in the Daily Herald (26th July), that there are twenty Indian millionaires living in Bombay whose fortunes are estimated to total £70 millions. The capitalist amasses his wealth by exploitation, and whether he is Indian or British, He does not allow race, religion or sentiment to come between himself and his riches and power.

The Power of the State.

We have heard much from communists and syndicalists—particularly in South Wales—about the all- conquering power of organisation on the economic field. How limited the unions are and how helpless against those who control the machinery of' Government was well illustrated in a recent case. On April 1st, 1932, Mr. Justice Bennett granted an injunction restraining miners at the Bedwas Navigation Colliery from “the watching and besetting of the colliery,” as being in violation of the law. Members of the Miners' Federation ignored the injunction and held a show of cards at the mine. On June 29th the Judge required the defendants to appear for Contempt of Court. Accordingly they were compelled to travel to London at their own expense and appear in person to make individual and abject apology. They all of them pleaded that they would not have held the show of cards if they thought it was in violation of the injunction, and they solemnly promised not to do it again. (See Times, 30th June and 8th July.) Some of them are said to be communists and active advocates of so-called direct action.

Curious Communist Electioneering.

Mr. J. T. Walton Newbold, until just recently a supporter of the National Government, writing in the O.B.U. Bulletin (Winnipeg, 28th July), tells how he and Saklatvala, who were candidates of the Labour Party, and later became communists, angled for the non-socialist votes of Irish nationalists and Catholics. He says that he, at Motherwell, and Saklatvala, at Battersea, had deliberately picked seats with a large Irish vote and set out to capture it by appealing to nationalist sentiment. Newbold claims that fully half of the votes he received in 1918 were Irish votes. In the 1922 election, after Newbold had joined the communists, 5,000 out of his 8,000 voters were Catholic Irishmen. This is what the communists called winning elections for Communism and Internationalism.

Newbold has had cause to welcome the split in the I.L.P. Having been a Fabian, then in turn a member of the Labour Party and I.L.P., the Communist Party, the I.L.P. again, then the Social Democratic Federation, then the MacDonald National Labour Group, he was for the moment stumped to find a new party to join. The split in the I.L.P., by increasing the number of parties, has given him another chance, and he is now supporting the Maxtonites.

An Angry Right Honourable.

The Right Honourable Thomas Kennedy, P.C., is editor of the Social Democrat and is very angry because Viscount. Snowden, speaking in the House of Lords on June 29th, commented on the late H. M. Hyndman’s belief that capitalism would collapse as each new industrial crisis came round. Kennedy says that it is a lie, angrily denounces Snowden and the I.L.P., and demands evidence for the statement. Snowden had been supplied (free of charge) with a copy of our pamphlet, “Why Capitalism will not Collapse," and doubtless was indebted to it for the information about Hyndman. This recalls a curious action on the part of the Social Democrat. When we published the pamphlet (which contains evidence for the statement about Hyndman) we sent copies to the Social Democrat (of which Kennedy was not then editor) and Forward, the I.L.P. journal. Forward reviewed, it and acknowledged that it is published by the S.P.G.B. The Social Democrat did not review it directly, but published an editorial fiercely attacking it on the basis of Forward's review, and implying, without saying so directly, that it is published by the I.L.P.

The Social Democrat's editorial (April, 1932) actually pretended that the pamphlet is an attack on doctrinaire economic theory and a defence of the “broad, open-minded, benevolent, pleasant-Sunday- afternoon methods of the I.L.P." in the days when it was led by Ramsay MacDonald.

There is nothing whatever either in the pamphlet 
or in the review by Forward which supports the
extraordinary line taken by the Social Democrat.

A View on Russia.

In The Times (5th and 6th August) an Italian journalist, Carlo Scarfoglio, writing after a tour of Russia. gives an interesting account of the rapid emergence of the typical features of capitalism. He shows how, in spite of the claims and intentions of communists, industrial development is giving rise to the ordinary class differentiations of capitalism, from the collective farm labourers earning about £100 a year up to the foreign specialists with £2,400 and every sort of additional privilege. Clerical and so-called intellectual workers are now being paid more than skilled craftsmen and the latter more than unskilled. He notes the appearance of privately-owned motor cars and racing boats, and the accumulation of capital in the hands of the investors in State loans, receiving up to 10 per cent. interest. The so-called State industries are tending more and more to independence, and to the position of ordinary private enterprises.

He shows the illusion behind the belief that the workers and the State are one, with common interests. The wage-earner is in precisely the same position as in any other country.

Scarfoglio thinks that the Bolsheviks may be able and will wish to continue calling Russian capitalism by the name of communism.

Edgar Hardcastle

A Look Round. (1930)

From the January 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Communist "Intellectual."

Many workers imagined that the Communist Party were Revolutionary; but one of their leaders, R. Palme Dutt, admits in The Workers' Life (Nov. 15th), that it is not so. He says :—

  “The chief task of the coming congress is to revolutionise the party and its leadership in readiness for the developing period of mass struggles.”

According to his view they need to get rid of relics of Social Democracy and find new leaders and to get into contact with the masses. He is still talking of factory groups years after the “thesis” merchants declared that factory nuclei were the basis of the party. He states that “the question of leadership is at the centre of the whole situation.”

The article is full of the usual high-sounding phrases like “orientation,” “dialectics," “objective situations,” but one looks in vain for any understanding of the road to Socialism. He talks of the need “to press fighting demands on the Labour Government,” and never once points out that the sole need of the working class is to organise to control political power to establish Socialism.

#    #    #    #

Labour Deals With Unemployment.

The Labour Government, through its leaders, MacDonald and Thomas, are continually telling us that the only real road to curing unemployment is to increase our trade—especially our export trade. One of the chief defenders of the Labour Party is Forward of Glasgow, which has to admit that their leaders’ theory is all wrong. Forward quotes an answer in the House of Commons (Nov. 26th) by the President of the Board of Trade, and heads the paragraph, "More Work and Fewer Men.” This is the information given by the Board of Trade:—

  “The total mercantile tonnage launched in the United Kingdom in 1925 (excluding unregistered vessels of under 15 tons gross) was 1,123, 049, while the estimated number of persons in the ship-building, ship-repairing, and marine engineering, etc., industries, who were insured against unemployment in July was 301,340.
   “But while in 1928, the comparable tonnage had risen to 1,458,058, the insured workers in these trades had fallen to 257,460.”

The “great” schemes of granting millions to railways, gas companies, road boards, etc., to make these services more efficient; plans to cheapen costs in coal and steel industries, and similar policies, are therefore bound to fail to reduce or arrest unemployment, because efficient industry increases output faster than trade increases.

Mr. Thomas said in the House of Commons (Nov. 4th) that he did not attach so much importance to work schemes as a solution of our unemployment problem as he did to the wider aspect of the “development of our export trade.”

But the Labour Leaders know that when Britain’s export trade was good unemployment and poverty were widespread and now that productive powers have been vastly increased in every country the increase of export trade cannot cure unemployment.

Look at America with its vast Home market and great export trade—a country in which the Telegraph tells us there are millions of “out-of-works”! Was it not only the other day that leading commercial men warned the motor trade that there were a million surplus motor cars in the U.S.A. looking for a market!

#    #    #    #

The Labour Liberals.

Labour supporters criticise the Liberal Party’s legislation but they forget that the Labour Party supported all the leading measures passed from 1906 to 1914, although ever since they have claimed these measures were miserly and ineffectual. How close the Liberal Party and the Labour Party were during those years can be gathered from a quotation from the “Life of Philip Snowden, Chancellor of the Exchequer,” by Mr. Bechofer Roberts. The reader can gather how great was the Labour Party’s support of the Capitalist Reform Legislation of the Liberals.

  On the Insurance Act. Snowden took a line directly opposed to the majority of his colleagues, led by Ramsay MacDonald. The Labour Party had put down amendments to the Bill; MacDonald came to an arrangement with the Government not to embarrass it by moving them. Snowden thereupon stood down from the executive of the Labour Party, and threatened to leave it altogether if these tactics were continued. What was the I.L.P. doing, he demanded, to permit such backsliding among its nominees in the House of Commons? Really, the I.L.P. might just as well dissolve, and consider merging itself in the National Liberal Federation; there was simply no difference any longer between the Labour Party and the Liberal Party. And for his part, he wasn't going to acquiesce in this sacrifice of principles to prudence.
  Followed by George Lansbury, F. W. Jowett and Will Thorne, he refused to obey the Labour Whip; they voted against their colleagues. In articles and speeches, Snowden derided the motives which dictated the tactics of MacDonald and the others. Everyone knew, he said, that four-fifths of the Labour Party's members held their seats through arrangements in their constituencies with the local Liberals; was it not ridiculous, therefore, to expect that they would dare to quarrel with the party to whose goodwill they owed their election?

The Labour Party still appeals to and depends on Liberal "goodwill.”

#    #    #    #

The Great Left Wing.

Mr. Cook, the Miner’s leader, has declared his entire support for the Labour Government. Mr. Cook, who said that he had a pledge for a 7-hours’ day given by Mr. MacDonald locked up in his desk, is still keen on the Labour Government after they have declined to redeem that pledge. Cook still supports the Labour Government though he confesses that "during the last five months, up to October, 92,655 claims were disallowed by Insurance Officers on the grounds of "not genuinely seeking work'." During the same period, "308,001 claims were disallowed under all the various vile provisions of the Unemployment Insurance Act.” Mr. Cook evidently "forgets” that the "vile” clauses of the Insurance Act were a part of the Insurance Bill passed by the Labour Government in 1924. Yet he sobs, "he has played the game with the Labour Government.” He has ! The Editor of the I.L.P. paper, Forward, describes him (Dec. 14th) as "The greatest cry-baby in Socialist Politics,” but forgets to mention that neither Cook nor the I.L.P. has ever entered Socialist Politics. Forward refers to that curious document called "The Cook-Maxton Manifesto,” in which Maxton and Co. demanded that the unemployed should get maintenance at the same scale as the employed man (since reduced by Maxton and Co. to £l per week). Forward quotes a speech by W. Gallagher, the alleged Communist, to show that he wrote the Manifesto for Cook and Maxton. The Communist Party, it should be recalled, allowed their members to join the Cook-Maxton campaign though they didn’t like the Manifesto.

Gallagher’s speech at a Communist meeting in Glasgow City Hall, on April 7th, was as follows:—

  I have worked with them for years, trying to instil a working-class point of view into them, and all to no purpose. They sent for me to the House or Commons, and there I took Cook down to meet them. There was Wheatley, Buchanan, Campbell Stephen, Kirkwood, and Maxton, and they informed me that they had decided to fight MacDonald and the Labour Party leaders, and wanted my advice as to what they were to do. I told them that a manifesto must be issued and I wrote it for them, and helped them to organise the campaign, and persuaded Cook to go down to St. Andrew's Hall for the opening meeting. When Wheatley was assuring me that he was out to fight the Labour Party leaders, he was busy arranging to bring Arthur Henderson down to Shettleston to speak on his behalf. No, I am absolutely finished with them, and am out to fight them.

Such is the mess that Labour and Communist Politics result in. All reform and "something now” politicians are inevitably involved in the rotten game which Cook says he has played so well.

#    #    #    #

Too Much Production.

"Is there enough wealth for all?” is a common question put by anti-Socialists. The existence of luxury all round us and the stored-up wealth that cannot find a market to-day is one aspect of the answer. But what would be the possibilities of wealth production in a society where the workers had access to the raw materials and the machines? That can be seen by the continual reports of the deliberate limitation of production to-day. In the Observer (Dec. 15th) there is a long article on the "Sugar Crisis,” which explains that the only solution for the owners of that industry is to restrict the supply and limit production in Cuba, Java, Czechoslovakia, etc.

The increase in production of sugar has been so immense that the firms such as the Sugar Trust of America are working out a policy to keep the price up by cutting down the production.

In the same paper, on another page, there is an article on "Tin Restriction,” which states that the Tin Producers’ Association, in order to maintain an "economic price” for their metal, propose the cessation of work for 32 hours each week in the mines, and a total cessation of work for one week in January and February, and, if necessary, in March. This applies to all Eastern sources of supply, and also places like Nigeria.

In modern society the ease with which wealth can be produced means lack of work for the worker but only to assure the maintenance of owners’ profits. More wealth could be produced but it does not "pay” the owners to allow that to be done.

#    #    #    #

A Social Democratic Curiosity.

Walton Newbold, late Communist M.P., previously in the I.L.P. and now in the S.D.F., explains his "ideas” in the issue of Forward for Dec. 14th. He says :—

   “I am convinced that the propertied classes will never evacuate without the exercise of force. By force I mean physical compulsion. And physical compulsion is absolutely certain, in some phases, to involve an armed clash.”

Walton Newbold, the Labour Party Candidate for Epping, has recently joined the Social Democratic Federation, which holds that the road to Emancipation is by means of the Labour Party. Newbold says that you can only get emancipation by an armed clash, so he joins an organisation that is opposed to it! He does not tell the electors of Epping about the "armed clash” stuff, although he claims, “I did not say one thing on the public platform and do a different thing in Parliament.” And to crown all, he says, “I accept as axiomatic the Class War.” In the next sentence he says, "That is why, viewing the forces ranged on either side, I have declared for a truce.” So he accepts the Class War but wants it suspended for a while! No wonder the S.D.F. welcomes Newbold. He ought to make a good addition to their professional politicians. The Class War with truce!

#    #    #    #

More Bibles In Russia.

An answer both to screeching Christians and uninformed Communists is contained in The Tory Daily Record of Glasgow (Dec. 3rd), which reported a meeting of the directors of the Royal National Bible Society of Scotland.

Letters were read from Germany with regard to the introduction of Russian Scriptures into Russia. It was stated that the demand was so great that for some time it had been out of print. "The Soviet Government had itself been printing large numbers of Bibles in Leningrad, Kiev and Odessa.”

Religion is evidently still widespread in Russia under dictatorship.

#    #    #    #

The Class Warriors of the I.L.P.

Mr. James Maxton’s recent opposition to Ramsay MacDonald on details of Unemployment Insurance recalls to us how often he has voted for him as leader, and made the usual sentimental eulogies and declarations of loyalty to MacDonald. At the Memorial Hall debate with our late comrade, Fitzgerald, Mr. Maxton said the I.L.P. were not heresy hunters and therefore did not expel their members who supported the Capitalists. Of course, the I.L.P. could not be expected to do this as it would leave them without a membership. When, however, it helps them to catch votes they do expel members, but not on Socialist grounds. They expelled some of their members in Glasgow recently for voting for booze licences. They did not want to lose a lot of their "unco guid” supporters.

#    #    #    #

Peace!—But More Arms.

How much nonsense is being written and spoken of the great achievements of the Labour Government in promoting peace schemes! The Kellogg pact was one of the so-called great pillars of peace of which Labour is proud; and it is interesting, therefore, to read in The Daily Herald (Dec. 16th) of the U.S.A. Senator Borah’s speech:—

  "I think that the best evidence of a belief that the Kellogg Pact had removed all question of neutral rights at sea would be a drastic reduction in armaments.
   "If the Peace Pact eliminated all question of rights of neutrals at sea, what can be the reasons for such vast navies? If we do not expect any conflicts at sea, and all conditions in that regard are removed by the Kellogg Pact, then let us manifest our faith in the Pact by taking away the crushing burden of armaments which we are now carrying".

The Senator doesn’t realise that Labour Governments intend to "humanise” war!

Adolph Kohn

A Socialist Searchlight. (1931)

From the September 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

New Communist Tactics— Wholesale Burglaries. 

Workers' News (April 30th), a Communist paper published in Moscow for English-speaking workers living in Russia, contains an account of an unemployed demonstration at Wellington, New Zealand. The unemployed, “under Communist leadership,” attempted to raid the Parliament buildings. Many were injured and several were arrested, including the Communist leader. He told the authorities that “they would organise wholesale burglaries and looting, inevitably entailing general turmoil."

In this way the Communists, bankrupt of ideas and ignorant of Socialist principles, come back to the old and discredited doctrines of individual attempts at law-breaking. And whoever heard of an intelligent burglar telling the police where they can round up the intending breakers of the law?

#    #    #    #

Liberal-Labour Government.

As it is certain to be denied later on that there were ever formal negotiations between the Labour Government and the Liberal Party, the following extracts from the Daily Herald have an interest:—

From the Daily Herald of March 23rd, 1931 :—

  The fate of the Liberal Party depends on the events of the next few days.
 Either an arrangement must be reached which provides for a stable period of progressive legislation or an intolerable position must be ended by an appeal to the country.
 A continuance of the present deadlock indefinitely is unthinkable . . .   Already there have been a number of meetings between Labour and Liberal spokesmen and these will be continued during the week.
 Among those who have taken part in these discussions are the Prime Minister, Mr.  Arthur Henderson, Mr. Philip Snowden (before his illness), Lord Sankey, Mr. Lloyd George, Sir Herbert Samuel, and Lord Lothian.

From a Daily Herald editorial on May 29th, 1931 :—

Two years ago to-morrow the country gave at the polls the verdict which threw the Tories from power and made possible the formation of the second Labour Government.
Like its predecessor of 1924, it is a minority Government. And hopeful Tories prophesied for it a short, feeble, and sterile career.
They have been disappointed. ’They will be disappointed.
They forgot that minority Governments are not necessarily either feeble or short-lived.
The Salisbury Government of 1886 was a minority Government; but it lasted its full term, and it heralded 20 years of almost unbroken Tory rule.
History may very well repeat itself. Assured now of Liberal co-operation, as Salisbury was of Liberal-Unionist co-operation, there is no reason why Mr. MacDonald should not hold office for a full and fruitful term.

#    #    #    # 

Fascism and the Communist Party

Reply to the “ Pan-Pacific Worker.”

The "Pan-Pacific Worker," published at Sydney, Australia, is one of the disguises adopted by the "Communist International,” calling itself for this purpose the "Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat."

In the Australian Edition (12th May, 1931) a Mr. Herbert Moore, in an article on "Fascism,” has a word to say about the S.P.G.B., the Socialist Labour Party, and the Socialist Party of Canada. He calls us all "thoroughly discredited and decadent.” The other two bodies must of course speak for themselves, but the S.P.G.B. has never been in better form than it is now.

Mr. Moore’s reason for regarding us as decadent is that he believes we "hold the illusion that we must pass through Fascism.” He gives no evidence for this belief about us and he is, of course, completely wrong. We hold no such illusion. So-called "Fascism” is as old as capitalism, and simply means the readiness of the capitalists, whenever they think it necessary, to use their power for the violent and brutal suppression of any insurgent minority, either of workers or capitalists. This is a common feature of capitalist political history in every country, before as well as since the war. To say then that the S.P.G.B. holds the illusion "that we must pass through Fascism" is only true in the sense that capitalism without the possibility of such violence by capitalist Governments is, and always has been, inconceivable. But this is not the sense in which Mr. Moore uses it. He thinks that this so-called "Fascism” is something which has not yet happened in the English-speaking countries, but which may happen. Mr. Moore is quite wrong and should acquaint himself with the records of the British, the French, the American, and the Australian sections of the ruling class.

The Socialist Party’s attitude has been logical and consistent. The one way to prevent the capitalists from using their political power against the workers is to refrain from voting them and their agents into control of the political machinery. We have always urged the workers not to vote for any candidate who is a supporter of capitalism.

Compare our attitude with that of the Communist Party, which has Mr. Moore’s sympathy and support.

In Germany, at the time of writing, the Prussian Communists are voting for the referendum initiated by the Hitlerite (Fascist) Party and the German Nationalists.

In Great Britain the Communists have supported Labour leaders notorious for their willingness to use the armed forces against the workers.

There was Mr. Arthur Henderson, who, as a member of the War Cabinet, urged the forcible deportation of the Clyde strikers in 1916. For years the Communists have urged the workers to vote for Mr. Henderson.

In 1922 the Communists voted for all the Labour Party candidates while declaring of them that "they support British imperialist policy in Ireland and India.”

  In Ireland they stand by the British machine-guns of the Irish Free State against the declared will of the majority of the Irish people for a Republic.—(“The Communist,” November 4, 1922.)

One of the most striking illustrations of Communist trickery in supporting avowed enemies of the workers relates to Mr. John Hodge, M.P.

At the 1922 General Election, which took place in November, the Communist candidate, Mr. Harry Pollitt, stood down in favour of Mr. John Hodge and supported him on the Labour party platform (see "Communist Daily,” November 13, 1922).

Nine months earlier the local Communists had asked some questions of the Right Hon. John Hodge, who was already the Labour M.P. for the constituency. Questions and answers were published in the "Communist" (February 4, 1922):— 

Question.—"Are you, if elected to Parliament, prepared to support the Government in bringing out the White Guards against strikers, as you did during the Boilermakers’ Strike at Liverpool? "
Answer.—" Yes."

We commend this to the “ Pan-Pacific Worker ” for their consideration.

#    #    #    #

Socialism—“ For Export Only.”

Mr. J. T. Walton Newbold has for some time been a member of the Social-Democratic Federation. Until a month or two ago he was Editor of their journal, "The Social-Democrat.” During the War the Social-Democratic Federation called itself the "National Socialist Party” and devoted all its energies to helping the British capitalists win their war. In the "Writers’, and Artists’ Year-Book” the "Social-Democratic Federation” advertises its journal in the following choice phrase : "Though Socialist, was pro-Ally during thfc War.”

All of which leads us up to an article by Newbold and W. Craik, published in the Winnipeg "One Big Union Bulletin” (July 16). In this article, which describes the political Situation in Germany, the writers denounce and ridicule the German Hitlerites on the ground that their official title, "The National Socialist German Workers’ Party,” is a "contradiction in terms.” They point out that it is a useful name because it enables the party to attract all kinds of support, both big and small capitalists and also workers.

But why is "National Socialist” a contradiction only in Germany and Canada? Why not in England? Why is the policy of building up a party out of contradictory elements (vide the British Labour Party, or the Social-Democratic Federation) sound in England, where Newbold supports it, and unsound abroad? Why is Newbold so anxious to prevent his foreign readers from knowing the kind of policies he pursues at home?

# # # #

The Fabian Bolsheviks.

Mr. George Bernard Shaw, who received an idolatrous reception on his nine-day visit to Russia, has enormously cheered the Communists by his approval of their political and economic system. If they had stopped to consider exactly what Mr. Shaw says of them, they might be less happy about it. He told the I.L.P. Summer School that "the first thing I discovered, with great gratification, is that Socialism as established in Russia is Fabian Socialism” ("Manchester Guardian,” August 6, 1931). This particular description was used many months earlier by the Liberal, Lord Lothian, who was Shaw’s companion on the Russian visit, and Mr. Shaw is not above borrowing a smart phrase when he hears it. It is absurd, of course, to describe Fabianism as Socialism, and we have for a quarter of a century attacked that misconception, but it is indeed true that the Fabian nightmare of State capitalism run by "intellectuals” is. in many ways similar to the scheme of things in Russia. Long ago the similarity was referred to in these columns.

We wish the Communists joy of their new convert, who so lately was worshipping at the feet of Mussolini. We would, however, warn them that policies have a queer knack of "blowing up” as soon as Shaw endorses them. On August 10th, 1921, Shaw-congratulated the Russians on their existing policy, including forced labour. Twelve hours later the Russian Government announced the abandonment of their policy and the introduction of the so-called "New Economic Policy,” because the old one would not work.

On the present occasion Shaw’s approval was hardly in print before the Russian Government announced a big extension of their existing policy of inequality of pay between different groups of workers. Yet Shaw, it will be recalled, defines his "Socialism” as "equality of income.”

In one thing we can agree with Shaw, that is, in his assertion that the theories of the Bolsheviks are not the theories of Marx.

Edgar Hardcastle

Tom Mann Retracts! (1924)

From the January 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

For years Tom Mann has been held up to public admiration as the sturdy champion of the General Strike as the only means by which the workers can achieve their emancipation. He has written much rubbish on the subject, and he has poured much scorn upon those who pointed out that the working class must either capture the political machinery or give up all hope of getting out of wage slavery. But history will have its little joke! Tom Mann has thrown up the sponge—the, pillar of fire was after all only a pillar of smoke.

Enshrined in the columns of "The Communist" Sydney (17/11/1922), the official organ of the Communist Party of Australia, is the renunciation. Here is what he wrote:

  “Now, however, the experience of the war and after the war has shewn conclusively that we can no longer think simply of an industrial struggle, and industrial organisation is not enough. Whatever is done by industrial organisation, the organised State machine will continue to function, and will beyond question be used by the plutocracy in any and every available form against the workers. The dominant ruling capitalist class, the plutocracy, have complete control of that highly efficient machine for class purposes; the interests of the community are ever secondary to the maintenance of power by the master class, and that machine will continue to be theirs until it is wrested from them by the workers.  .   . .
   “The most sanguine amongst us, as believers in the power of industrial organisation, are compelled by facts and experience to realise that the State institution in the hands of the master is not merely a danger to our success, but makes our success impossible no matter how perfectly we organise in our respective industries."

The article from which the above is taken is entitled “Syndicalism, Communism, and Revolution : An Answer to the Reformists of Australia and elsewhere.”

Another fallen idol! Working men, here is one of your trusted leaders—one who has incited you to the shambles many a time. But what is this?

   "In a rousing speech, Mr. Mann advocated the policy of the general strike as the 'only means of bringing the boss class to its knees.'
    “ ‘Do I advocate,' he asked, 'the killing of anyone? Nay, all you need do is to fold your arms, go to bed if you like, and three days would be sufficient. No strike pay would be required.' " (Daily Herald, 11/4/1923).

Notice that he advocates the “General Strike” as the “only means.” Perhaps, you think, Tom Mann is merely a shameless turncoat. He is not, he is an opportunist— searching for opportunities to the advantage of one Thomas Mann. For example, in spite of the above, he went to Scotland to assist Walton Newbold’s candidature for Parliament. Perhaps that partly accounts for Newbold’s failure to "get in” !

   One of the most enthusiastic election meetings over held in Motherwell was that addressed by Walton Newbold and Tom Mann, in the Pavilion Picture House, on Tuesday evening.  . .  .
Newbold and Mann were in splendid form, especially Mann, who gripped the big audience right away, and the cheering at the conclusion of his rousing speech could be heard all over the district. (The Workers' Weekly, 7th December, 1923.)

What do you think of him? The chameleon is constant compared with him!

They are all the same, these precious leaders. They change their tune with the change in their interests. Their object is to obtain pelf and place.

Have done with leaders. Direct your own movements, and let leaders go beg for their bread.

Gilmac.

Editorial: Labour Rules The Empire With Bombs and Bullets. (1924)

Editorial from the August 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

The repeated use of bombs in Mespot by the Air Force since the Labour, Government came into office is another item in their black and brutal record.. It shows how willing they are to do the dirty work for the capitalists in maintaining their ownership and control. Under the Conservative Government bombs were frequently used to aid in compelling payment of taxes, but, of course, that was "the dirty method of the Capitalists.” How similar the rule of the Labour Party is was admitted by Mr. Leach, the Labour Minister, in the House of Commons in answer to a Tory question. He said :—

  We communicated with our military and air headquarters in Iraq in regard to the whole situation in bombing operations, and 1 cannot honestly say that we have made any change in the policy of the late Government.—(Parliamentary Debates, June 30, column 925.)

This "pacifist” minister defends bombing as a humane method and tells the Daily Herald (July 15) that it is "a great saving to the taxpayer,” as military forces cost more! In the language of an Empire Builder, he talks of the necessity to stop the tribesmen fighting, so that the land of oil annexed to "our Empire” shall be a sweet land of peace and profit. Therefore, the Labour Government is suppressing all attempts at rebellion by the kindly and Christian use of bombs.

This rule of force in the interests of Capital is shown also by the shooting down of Indians under this Labour Government.

In April the brutal exploitation in the cotton mills of Cawnpore drove the workers to strike and on the grounds of "law and order” the police were ordered to fire on the strikers. Three strikers were killed and 34 injured.

In .March the cotton slaves at Bombay were on strike and the firing on the strikers is thus described by the Daily Herald (April 7-24) :—

    It is stated in responsible Indian circles that the conduct of the strikers had been exemplary, that no magistrate was present, and no adequate warning given when the firing began and that the police did not as usual fire in the air first, but directly at the crowd, and that schoolboys taking no part whatever in the demonstration were killed.

Within the period of six weeks the third case of shooting took place at Jaito upon a crowd of Sikhs engaged in their religious ceremonies and since then no Nationalist or Indian journalist has been allowed to enter the locality, according to the Herald (April 7).

This brutal rule under a Labour Government takes place in a country where Ramsay MacDonald tells us (The Awakening of India) "only the faintest glimmer of trade unionism is streaking his (the Indian’s) horizon with light.” On the Prime Minister’s own showing, therefore, the working class are very weak in union organisation in India and the bloody efforts to kill it altogether under "Labour” Rule is clear evidence of the Labour Pity’s work for Capitalism.

The shooting and bombing of "natives of the Empire" is strictly in accord with the policy of Imperialism. The Labour Party’s work to maintain Capitalist rule is on a level with the Liberal and Conservative policy of the past. Every worker, therefore, can take note of the Capitalist nature of the so-called Labour Government, as clearly shown by their deeds.

If Mespot and India are not enough evidence of Empire under "Labour,” the Colonial Secretary, Mr. Thomas, supplies a further example. When the "hero” responsible for the massacre of strikers on the Rand, Mr. Smuts, was defeated, Thomas eulogised him to the skies. Said our Labour Colonial Secretary: "There is no man more entitled to our gratitude and appreciation than General Smuts” (Daily Herald, June 20). The day previous the Herald had to confess that Smuts was responsible for the slaughter of 300 natives by machine gun fire in 1921, the bloody suppression of the Rand Strike in 1922 and the Bondelswarts massacre in 1923.

Such is the hero worshipped by Labour’s choice! The Labour Party, pacifist and militarist, Fabian and I.L.P. combined, are once again shown to be the enemies of the working class. And “Communist” place seekers and vote catchers are supporting the Labour Party! Even after the slaughter referred to above has been made public we find Walton Newbold, of the Communist Party, declaring, “The more I have seen of the Labour Party, the more I have liked it.” (Forward, June 14, 1924).

The Socialist Party is not like the Communists "out to steal the Leadership of the Labour Party.” We are out for Socialism, and therefore stand for the capture of political power by a Socialist working class. Then, and only then, will the butchery by Capital and its Labour agents be impossible.

Mr. Walton Newbold Makes a Confession. (1932)

From the March 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Writing in the One Big Union Bulletin (Winnipeg, November 26th, 1931), Mr. J. T. Walton Newbold makes a confession of political faith, or rather lack of faith, which is intended to be startling and is certainly interesting. It will not be understood unless it is remembered how much and often Mr. Newbold’s political views have changed. He has found a home for himself at different periods in the Fabian Society, the I.L.P. and the Labour Party, the Communist Party, the I.L.P. again, the Social-Democratic Federation, and then at the last General Election in MacDonald's National Labour group. It now appears from Mr. Newbold's article in the O.B.U. Bulletin that he never had faith in any of his parties. He says that although he has four times stood for Parliament, he never—

regarded the capture of a majority of seats in the House of Commons as in any sense a step to power. All that it could be was a step to enlightenment in the hollowness of the whole system of “democracy.”

He never expected “the Labour Government to do anything but to prove the bankruptcy of reformism."

He once ran as a Communist and claimed at the time that his constituency was converted to Communism (actually he got in on a reformist programme and with the backing of the Labour Party).

Now he declares that it was “enough to make a cat laugh," that anyone should have supposed that either he or Saklatvala was a Communist. Incidentally, it would interesting to hear Saklatvala's views on this.

Newbold opposed Churchill at Epping in 1929. At the time Newbold was trying to raise funds through the O.B.U. Bulletin and stated that he ran as a Socialist. We were able at the time to point out that Newbold had one story for Winnipeg and a very different story for his constituents at Epping. Now he declares that he only opposed Churchill in order to prevent the Tories from putting up another Tory, his object being to secure the election of Churchill.

All of this is interesting, but, like many confessions, it hides more than it discloses. We flatly do not believe it. When Mr. Newbold pretends that his woolly-headed support for all kinds of anti-working-class policies was part of an astute and longsighted manoeuvre, he is deceiving himself. It was Newbold himself who was taken in by these series of fraudulent policies, and his super-cleverness is just a face-saving afterthought.

If Newbold was so clever, he might explain how he came to land himself in his present position of being thoroughly mistrusted by every organisation of which he has been a member, as well as by the small number of organisations to which he has not yet turned his attention.

To Mr. Newbold the workers have been a crowd of boobs to be led and inoculated with knowledge by the Machiavellian schemer, Newbold. He should ponder over the saying of Voltaire, that he who believes he can lead a great crowd of fools without a great store of knavery is a fool himself.

Edgar Hardcastle

Editorial: Confusionists in Conflict. (1923)

Editorial from the March 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the February issue of the “Labour Monthly” the Editor, R. Palme Dutt, adversely criticises the Plebs' League in a review of their text-book on “Modern Imperialism.” He says that the Plebs’ teaching is merely a “substitute for Marxism,” with the “essence of Marx left out”; that their “class consciousness” is abstract,” leading only to “Labour Party vagueness” ; that “Promising young men are sent to the Labour College for two years and come back budding snobs and trade union officials.”

He summarises the difference between the Plebs’ interpretation of Marxism and the real thing thus:—

“Marxism interprets history and politics in. terms of the class struggle. The British-American substitute for Marxism interprets history and politics in the terms of economics (an occupation favoured by many bourgeois historians).”

Palme Dutt points out that in dealing with the “deception of the masses” which took place at the outbreak of the war, the Plebs make no mention of

“the main agents which made the people fit materials for the great struggle—the social patriotic Labour leaders, whose treachery was the real collapse of 1914.”

He partly explains this by suggesting that the Plebs do not care to incur the “ ill-will of Trade Union Officials.”

With his ridicule of “ non-party Marxism” I entirely agree, but is he in a position to throw stones? He is a member of the Communist Party whose "Two Party Marxism” is hardly less ridiculous. The Communist Party claims to be a revolutionary organisation. The Labour Party is most decidedly not a revolutionary organisation, but the Communist Party’s “Marxism” is their justification both for claiming to be revolutionary and for supporting the Labour Party. It will perhaps be urged by the Communists that they must support the Labour Party to keep in touch with the masses, but the Plebs are at least no more inconsistent if they say they must avoid offending the Trade Unionists and Trade Union Officials who give them support. Anyway, some of the Communist leaders who now make this plea in defence of the Communist Party used to make precisely the same plea for the I.L.P.; and others who now quote Marx to justify their endeavour to get into the Labour Party, used to quote Marx just as cheerfully to justify the S.L.P. in keeping out.

Palme Dutt uses against the Plebs their readiness to quote from Walton Newbold in “his I.L.P. period.” He implies that Walton Newbold has now changed. Walton Newbold says he hasn’t, so the charge is equally valid against the Communist Party which now endorses Walton Newbold.

“I, like my comrade Saklatvala, am a member of the Labour Party. Either as a member of the Fabian Society or of the I.L.P. or otherwise, I have been a member of that party without intermission since the autumn of 1908. I have never had any cause to disagree with the Labour Party as such. I believe, as a cardinal principle of my political conviction, in the desirability and the urgency of all political power in Great Britain being in the hands of the Labour Party. I have laboured in season and out of season for the last 14 years to bring about that state of affairs and have rather intensified than relaxed my efforts since I joined the Communist Party in April, 1921.”—(“Manchester Guardian,” December 7th).

Under their standard of “two Party Marxism” the Communist Party at the General Election supported just those Trade Union Official to whom the Plebs ought not to bow the knee, together with people in their “ I.L.P. period ” who make Palme Dutt’s blood boil; choice old Conservatives like John Hodge (O.B.E. and P.C.), Liberal Clynes (of “increased production” fame), and in fact all the men who before, during, and since the war, have betrayed the working class.

The Plebs have not exposed their treachery, but has the Communist Party when supporting these men advised the workers of their record and their intentions?

Palme Dutt should be grateful indeed that the Plebs have not done so, or some of the workers when told by Communists to support Labour men might have asked the reason why.

The policy of helping capitalist candidates into power in order to get “bits of Socialism now,” or to prove to the worker that Socialism is not to be got either wholly or piecemeal by such methods, is so old, so universal, and so invariably fruitless, that Palme Dutt cannot be unaware of its absurdity. Why, then, does he turn a blind eye on the Communist Party?

Is there possibly someone whom he may not offend?

This tactic is not without its humorous side. One of the Labour Party’s true-blue Tories actively assisted by Communists, was C. W. Bowerman at Deptford. Bowerman, according to a Mr. W. Taylor, Chairman of the National Citizens Union (“Kentish Mercury,” 16th June, 1922), “had been communicated with and had promised to support” Sir John Butcher’s Seditious Teachings Bill; and the Seditious Teachings Bill is a Bill for the suppression of Communist propaganda!

This surely ought to teach the Plebs how not to be vague and how to denounce the “social patriotic Labour leaders.”

R. Palme Dutt, Communist, condemns the Plebs because they do not expose the men the Communists assist into the House of Commons. "Non-Party Marxism” is clearly absurd, but is "Two-Party Marxism” so much better that Communists can crow about it?

Labour Party vagueness is indeed the grave of revolutionary working class aspirations, but among the workers who reach that state of vagueness, is there really anything to choose between those who foot it behind the "headless horsemen” of the Plebs and those who come mounted on the "double-headed ass” of the Communist Party?