War: Methods of Offence and Defence (Continued) (1940)

From the November 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1

In Homeric times the principal warriors were protected by helmets and bronze shields lined with hide—that is to say those who could afford it were so protected, the rest of the fighters had little more than dogskin caps to protect them. Fighting at that time was by individual warriors supported by followers.

By the sixth century B.C. the work of the smith in producing iron weapons and armour had completely altered the method of fighting, and the growth of a landed and commercial aristocracy had produced the military phalanx formation. All armour and weapons were provided by the individual soldier, and the more prosperous citizens of each state armed themselves with long spears and protected themselves with breastplates, greaves and stout shields. In the phalanx the fighters were trained to move together as a body and stand together firmly against the most vigorous attacks. As the soldiers advanced the first lines would have their spears lowered ready to attack while those behind would hold their spears upright ready to be lowered when required. The whole solid body behind the attack would give impetus to the shock when the actual moment of impact occurred.

This formation required strength and fitness in the soldier to obtain the maximum result. It was the excellent Greek athletic training at the time that made of them such formidable soldiers when fighting in the phalanx, and the Spartans the most formidable opponents of all on account of their mode of living and all-round physical culture.

When the Athenians met the Persians at Marathon (B.C., 490) they used the Greek phalanx formation, but they varied the usual tactics. As a rule the whole line advanced equally, but the Persian superiority in numbers was so overwhelming that this method would have weakened the attack as the line would have been too thin.

The vast Persian Army disembarked near the plain of Marathon, but their equipment was far inferior to that of the Greeks, of whom they had previously had little experience. Their weapons consisted of bows and arrows and a short sword for close fighting. Their defensive armour was very poor, consisting principally of wicker shields— a poor defence against the powerfully propelled Greek spears.

The Greeks drew up in formation on the hills above Marathon and, when they realised that the help expected from Sparta would not reach them in time, they prepared to attack the Persians who had already formed into battle line.

The Athenian General Callimachus had already decided upon the new plan of attack. The hoplites (heavily armed soldiers) were placed on each wing and the less well armed and lighter forces were put in the centre of the line. As the line advanced it increased its pace so as to lose as few men as possible, to the Persian archers, and charged each wing with terrific force, putting them to flight. As had been expected, the Greek centre could not stand up against the Persians, but while the latter were disorganised from their victory they were surprised by the attack of the heavy Greek wings which, instead of following up the defeated Persians, had turned inwards upon the centre and annihilated it. The result was a complete and sweeping victory for the Greeks, but it was their heavy armour as much as their tactics that was responsible. The highly civilised Greeks then pursued their semi-barbarous opponents and slaughtered thousands of them before they could reach their ships.

The solid phalanx remained the deciding factor in warfare throughout antiquity. It was improved by an innovation of a Theban General Epaminondas. Before this, however, light armed troops and horsemen were added in increasing numbers. The lightly armed troops first became important during the Peloponnesian War and were the basis of the professional soldier—the mercenary who sold his fighting power for pay to the highest bidder. These troops needed far more training than the hoplite. To be successful they had to become accustomed to rapid movement without losing formation. When the Peloponnesian War ended the men who had formed these companies for years found, themselves useless for peace-time occupations, and the only vocation left them was permanent soldiering, so, like Xenophon’s “Ten Thousand” (who hired themselves out to a Persian pretender), they sold their fighting power to any Greek state that was prepared to pay for their use.

It is interesting to notice that the Greek horsemen who operated along with the heavy armed foot soldier at the time of Pericles were composed of a limited number of wealthy young men who could afford horses. So that the army was a faithful representative of the social division in Athenian society—the wealthy, the middle class, and the poor.

We will have to depart a little from strict chronology in order to make understandable the progress in the methods of warfare. Hence, before dealing with the rise and fall of Athenian power, we will explain the next and vital development, the Greek phalanx—the innovation of Epaminondas. Until his time Sparta had remained the supreme land power in the Mediterranean area.

Epaminondas was the leading general of a Greek state, Thebes, that hitherto had not played an important part in warfare. Under his direction, however, it became for ten years the principal power, with an invincible army. This invincibility was entirely due to the new manner of employing the phalanx. The principle of the method was to throw the whole weight of the attack upon one point in the enemy’s line while at the same time keeping the rest of the enemy’s forces occupied.

It is a principle that was borrowed by Alexander the Great, and has been successfully employed by victorious generals right up to the present day, as witness the operations of the German army in France and elsewhere.

Before this it had been the custom, as already mentioned, for the whole line of foemen, ten or twelve ranks deep, to advance at an even pace I against the opposing line. Epaminondas, however, massed his best troops on one wing in a column fifty ranks deep, which charged the opposing wing with tremendous weight. In the meantime the rest of the line advanced slowly to keep the enemy’s attention occupied, but did not make contact until the enemy’s lines were already destroyed. The principle was tried out successfully at the battle of Leuctra when the Spartan army was completely defeated and the king and his best troops killed.

This new device of launching an overwhelming force at one selected spot in an enemy’s lines was adopted by Philip of Macedon and his son, Alexander, and was eventually part of the tactics of the Romans.

Philip of Macedon increased the efficiency of the Theban phalanx by some improvements of his own which made the Macedonian phalanx the most formidable of the times. He had the spears of his warriors lengthened so that the first few ranks could come into action before the enemy could make contact. He also made far more use of cavalry than had been the practice previously. The subjection of Greece to Macedon and conquering swoop of Alexander into Asia is a matter of history well known to most people.

Reverting back to the rise of Athens to imperial power and its defeat in the Peloponnesian War, it is worth noting that the improved warship, which was the basis of Athenian naval power, was actually invented by the Corinthians, but their geographical position prevented them from reaping the full benefit from the invention.

The early Greek warship had ten to twenty oars on each side and was provided with a mast and square sail. The new warship had three banks of oars on each side, and, in addition, at the prow, a beak shod with iron just beneath the water line with which to ram an enemy ship.

As pointed out, Sparta was for centuries the invincible land power of Greece, but Athens, owing to its favourable situation in the Mediterranean, grew rich in commerce and built up a maritime empire. Its commerce made of its sailors first-rate seamen, and the addition of the new trireme (warship) gave it undisputed supremacy on the seas. When, therefore, Athens came to blows with Sparta the problem was to find a way of circumventing the invincible Spartan army as Athens was vulnerable by land. There was only one way open—an old one—and that was for the people to leave their farms to be devastated by the enemy and retire with their flocks and herds inside the city walls with the object of tiring out the besiegers.

In preparation for this eventuality Athens had already, under the guidance of Themistocles, built walls round the city and extended them to the Athenian port of Piraeus, about five miles away. Thus Athenian commerce was able to continue, and the citizens could draw food from abroad while remaining safely inside their walls. But one unlocked for eventuality defeated the plan that had been so carefully and confidently made, and that was the plague, the terrible scourge of the East.

The public places of Athens, the temple enclosures, and the spaces between the long walls were put at the disposal of the refugees to erect temporary shelters until such time as the Spartans, tired of waiting fruitlessly, would retire. Unfortunately for the Athenians, in the second year of the siege, the plague was introduced by some sailor from a foreign port. In the insanitary conditions of the crowded city it wrought havoc.

Before it declined, more than one-third of the population had fallen victims to it, and the rest were so badly shaken in morale that they were in poor condition to carry on the war. The plague, in fact, against which the highest and strongest walls were no protection, dealt the first hard blow in the series that eventually toppled the Athenian Empire; at the same time it showed a vulnerable spot in the defensive armour of city walls.

Before leaving the discussion of Greek warfare one amusing incident snows the relatively small scale of naval warfare in those days. In B.C.405, Lysander, a Spartan Admiral, had sailed to the Hellespont with the object of blockading Athens by stopping her supplies of corn. Athens sent a fleet of 180 ships after him. This fleet anchored at a place called Aegosopotaine. It was an open beach and one day, while most of the crew were on shore having their dinner, Lysander and his men rowed rapidly across and captured most of the Athenian fleet with hardly any resistance !

The next important development in warfare occurred in Roman times. We will discuss that in the next article.

Gilmac.

"Daily Worker" Unity Conference (1944)

From the May 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Sunday, April 2nd, at the Stoll Theatre, London, a conference of delegates from various working class organisations was organised by the Daily Worker, It was proclaimed as a tremendous success in the Daily Worker the following day—in the words of Mr. William Rust, the "Conference has spoken the will of the people."

Here we might well question whether the conference was representative of the people as it has been claimed. The Daily Worker (April 8, 1944) giving details of the representation states that there were 1762 delegates present, (we have totalled up the figures as given and make it 1803, but that is by the way!)

The vast majority of these represented trade union branches, district committees, shop stewards' committees, etc. The Communist Party sent 73 delegates, the Co-operative movement 66, Common Wealth 32, and local and divisional Labour Parties 17. The Labour Party had officially boycotted the conference, the Liberal Party was not represented although Mrs. Corbett Ashby, late Vice-President, claiming to speak for an enormous number of the rank and file of that party, was present as an independent, neither was the I.L.P., nor, needless to say, the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

It would seem, therefore, that Mr. William Rust has been tempted to exaggerate a little, like a proud father, perhaps over the achievements of the baby he had helped to bring into the world, especially in view of the fact that his paper claimed that the delegates represented only 2,000,000 of "the people."

Passing over this doubtful claim of speaking the will of that nebulous entity "the people," let us examine the "will" that was expressed. The conference was called to face the "urgency of unity for victory in the war, for overcoming all obstacles to the mobilisation of resources and power in the war effort, and for laying the foundations for victory in the peace, too."

In the morning session the problem of winning the war was dealt with, the chief bone of contention being picked by the Common Wealth (Mr. Tom Wintringham) and the Communist Party (Mr. W. Gallacher) on the question of the Coalition government. Wintringham wanted to see the ending of the coalition whilst Gallacher stated that it was futile to discuss getting national unity by breaking up the National Government yet at the same time we should not have a Tory-dominated coalition.

In the afternoon session dealing with post-war problems, however, more diversity of opinion was expressed. Sir Richard Acland wanted nationalisation of the mines; Krishna Menon wanted Amery sacked and the Indian leaders freed;- somebody else wanted better education; another wanted to build houses after the war; R. G. McKay of Common Wealth said that "it would not worry him which progressive M.P.s got in —so long as we got a Socialist majority in the House of Commons;" and so forth and so on.

Amidst all the welter of diverse opinions there was, however, agreement on the fact that "Unity and progress are possible only by the united action of the great mass organisations of the Labour movement—the Labour Party, the trade unions and the Conservatives."

It was stressed throughout the meeting that nothing could be done without the Labour Party, but we want to know what they want to do. We doubt whether the words "unity" and "progressive" have been used so frequently in one day before, with so little regard for what unity was wanted for or to what it was wanted to progress.

As a generalisation of the speeches made it is our impression that all the delegates were concerned with was getting rid of the Tory domination of Parliament and substituting a United Progressive Left Front Government in its place and this would appear to be the intention behind the resolution which was passed, viz.,

  "This Conference greets the decision of the Executive Committee of the Amalgamated Engineering Union calling on the Labour Party to convene a conference to formulate a common policy for the working class movement in readiness for the next general election and pledges itself to do all in its power in support."

It will be noted that the conference pledged its support for a "common policy" not yet decided upon at a conference to be called by the Labour Party which officially banned this one!

Thus we see that the result was that nobody got very far although everybody was in a hurry to get somewhere. The trouble was that nobody knew exactly where to go.

How much longer will the S.P.G.B. have to point out to the working class that as long as they make these futile attempts at unity simply on the flimsy basis of getting rid of the Tories or some such specious plea they will still have to travel the same old capitalist road. Unity for Socialism alone is what the working class should bother about—when this is achieved all these other pettifogging problems will disappear like chaff before the wind.

N.S.

Just war (1999)

Book Review from the June 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Face of War. By Martha Gellhorn. Granta, £7.99

To commemorate the author’s death last year Granta reissued Gellhorn’s collection of war correspondence. Covering most of the twentieth century’s wars, from the civil war in Spain to the US invasion of Panama, this is an impressive record. However most of us have heard the old “war is hell” stuff ad nauseum. What will be of interest is Gellhorn’s general explanation for conflict: “leaders make wars” and also her conclusion that there can be a “just war'”—that is one against exceptionally bad or aggressive leaders.

According to Gellhorn there were several “just” wars this century including the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War, the Vietnam war (Vietnamese side) and the Israeli-Arab wars (Israeli side). The reasoning is fairly obvious: atrocity-mongering dictators have to be prevented, small nations deserve independence. What is being played here is the “good war, bad war” game. Choose your war and let your prejudices decide which side is the “goodies” (i.e. “morally right”). Ignore anything that gets inconveniently in the way. The 1939-45 war for example was apparently a war against fascism (despite the existence of neutral Spanish and Portuguese fascisms), and for democracy (despite totalitarian Russia being on “our” side). The idea that “this war was made to abolish Dachau and places like (it) forever” is equally absurd given the continued existence of concentration camps first in Russia and now in the Balkans.

And apparently in a just war anything goes. The “bad side” gets a hammering but that’s okay because they’re the “bad guys”. Thus the Germans in the 1939-45 war deserved everything they got. So it’s okay to roast folk alive in air raids if they’re on the “‘wrong side” (“You can’t really learn to like those people—unless they’re dead”, p. 184). Similarly Gellhorn has the audacity to say that Palestinians are better off as refugees (p. 309). So much for Gellhorn’s alleged “humanity, compassion and wisdom” (blurb on back).

No matter what the real or alleged atrocities of the “bad” side however, wars are quarrels over control of territory and resources between different sections of the capitalist class—business rivalry by other means. The working class can have no interest in such matters. The result of a “just” war is the same as a “bad” war—we get the hammering. The only “worthwhile” war is the class war—the fight against war.

KAZ 

Editorial: An Offence to Destroy Food—But only in War-Time (1940)

Editorial from the September 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reviving a practice adopted during the last war, the Government has issued an order under which it is an offence to waste food. Heavy penalties, up to two years' imprisonment and a £500 fine, may be imposed on persons who wilfully or negligently damage or throw away anything “used by man for food or drink other than water," water being already covered by bye-laws. The order also makes it an offence if anyone having control or custody of food fails to take reasonable precautions for its preservation, or if anyone procures a larger quantity than is reasonably required for his purposes, and part becomes unfit for use.

It is recalled that during the last war a woman was fined £20 for giving meat to a St. Bernard dog, while another who fed 14 dogs on bread and milk was fined £5.

This seems all very reasonable. What could be more natural than that it should be illegal to destroy or waste food when there are human beings in need of it. But observe. The order to this effect introduced in the last war ceased when the war ended. No authorities stepped in to fine and imprison the individuals and companies responsible for destroying wheat and coffee, throwing fish back into the sea, feeding milk to pigs, and so on. Indeed, in some countries the destruction of foodstuffs to keep up prices was organised with the active support of State authorities themselves.

There is, indeed, something very unnatural about the social system that permitted such things.

"Equal Sacrifice" (1941)

From the November 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some time ago an article appeared in these columns; it was called “In the Front Line.” It was a description of working-class life in one of the great industrial belts of Britain. The story was one of poverty and drabness, but the writer does not think he exaggerated the grimness of the scene, nor the sordid existence of the people. 

Here is the other side of the picture.

It is a pretty picture—at least, nature has done its best to please the human eye. It is a place not very far from the Metropolis, and in the days of peace the Mecca of many a trip by working folk in search of a day’s fresh air.

To-day the small town has swollen to almost twice its former size. Crowded trains draw out of its station early every morning, taking with them hundreds of men and women, many still “nodding” through lack of sleep. Their jobs are in London, but they have come here in search of safety in the night. To them, “Pretty-town,” as you may call it, means just a bed away from the bombs. When they come home in the evening they are usually far too tired to do much else than have their supper and go to bed. The week-end is the long-awaited chance for a "lay-in,” and so the charm and soothing quiet of the country-side is lost to them.

Then there are the official evacuees. Women with their offspring, thousands of them, were literally dumped upon the place with little thought of caring for them once they had got here; for the problems in accommodation, food and other items of welfare.

Of course, these evacuees belong to the working class; the wealthy do not have to rely on the tender mercies of officialdom to provide refuge for their wives and children.

It is easy enough to distinguish this human flotsam; all are shabbily dressed, and can often be seen wandering about the main streets aimlessly. In this town, where ”cleanliness and godliness” are the twin virtues, a slovenly appearance causes much comment, but these intolerant disciples of Jesus should bear in mind that the slums of London’s dockland are not good training ground for clean habits. And the local authorities do nothing to encourage self-care; they have shown their regard by putting large numbers into houses long since condemned, where they are herded five and six persons to a room.

Others are billeted on the local working class, who live mostly in small council houses dotted around the outskirts. There is no use in glossing over the hostility which exists between “guests” and “hosts”—it is deep-rooted, and, even if the differences in outlook and up-bringing could be overcome, there still remains the problem of squeezing two families into the narrow walls within which it is difficult enough for one average-sized household to move.

But all these are the small fry among God’s children. Let us leave them and follow the stream of motor-cars continually passing to and fro the centre of this little city. Their destination is a different quarter in the neighbourhood, the wooded hills which overlook the valley like sentinels of nature. Climb up the leafy avenues, and, when you can turn your gaze from the colourful view of the many-coloured carpet of fields below, peer through the long line of trees and the high hedge rows beyond.

Here, discreetly hidden from all but very prying eyes, is the heritage of England.

Often you will not even then be able to see the abode of the fortunate owner, so spacious are the grounds, the vast stretches of carefully tended lawn, of elaborately planned gardens, the miniature forests.

No fancy names on wooden boards will give you any due as to whom you are seeking; the “Mon Abri’s,” and such-like products of fanciful minds, are left to the envious but impotent hangers-on, the self-styled middle-class.

Coming from the poorer quarters of the town, with its crowded streets and shops, the contrast is startling. Such is the spacious comfort in which this elite has its being, that the passer-by, used to the noise and jostling of working-class existence, may be left with a curious impression of desolation. Never do you hear the noise of children playing, certainly not evacuees; the notion that you are in a country at war, ”fighting for its life,” seems fantastic.

Occasionally a car speeds up the drive and into the buildings beyond. You get a brief glimpse of the occupants, quite ordinary looking persons they appear, and then they are gone, as aloof as their impressive habitation.

It is quite impossible to associate what you see here with the urgent problems which you are told are facing the country to-day.

Lack of food, shortage of man-power, people without homes—all these and a multitude of other difficulties may be agitating your mind, making you a chronic victim of anxiety and fear (the deadliest foes of happiness), but here everything speaks of comfort, of leisure, a sense of economic security that has no inkling of the ceaseless struggle for existence that goes on below.

Vats of boiling steel, over which men, sweating though stripped to the waist, are standing, shaping the metal; miners hacking their way along the labyrinth, hundreds of feet below ground; women stumbling home through the black-out after a long day of machine tending; screaming sirens and a mass of human bodies huddled together in filthy basements—merely the sinister shadows of another world.

For you, food is a “munition of war," to be obtained by scrambling, queueing, begging the shop-keeper of regretfully paying double the price you can afford. It is a fuel for vitals which have been emptied by the day’s strenuous labour. But to this other class such concern for food is unknown. Never are they seen at the shops lining up for goods in short supply, war-time restrictions appear to hold no terrors for them. And is it possible to imagine their dining-tables served with a small piece of cheese and a pat of margarine by the butler (“three servants kept in pantry ”— recent advert.)?

To what magic does this class owe its favoured living—what remarkable gifts of mind and body assure them a social and economic standing quite inconceivable by the average working-class brain?

The clue can often be found in the City of London, the “richest square mile in the world.” Stacked in the vaults of banking firms or in the offices of the big joint-stock companies are the documents that “prove,” according to law, the right of this privileged minority to possess and use the best in life which the productive resources and human labour can offer. Mere pieces of paper, but backed by the entire force of the State—what gangster ever had better protection? Not that these people are gangsters—they are the most law-abiding citizens to be found anywhere.

Those documents relate to copper mines in Rhodesia, to tea plantations in India, the cotton mills of Lancashire, to the stock yards in the Argentine; in every corner of the British Empire and beyond are to be found the well-shaped predatory fingers of the richest ruling-class of to-day.

Property that is never seen—labour-power by the million, black, brown and white, pay the tribute which enables these persons in the Home Counties of England to live in splendour and seclusion.

You may well ask: What active share do this class take in this process of wealth-production? The answer is, None. Their sons go to the public school and universities, and from there, if minded, for “public duties,” fill the benches of the Conservative parties in Parliament or other public bodies. Here their intellectual and socially useful qualities can and have been judged. Others have gone into the diplomatic service; their record is now being expunged by bombs and guns. Many others, more discreet, keep an eye on the source of their incomes by “sitting” on the boards of numerous undertakings as “directors.” If you go to the local railway station here at an early hour in the afternoon, you will see some of these “captains of industry” alighting from a London train and hurrying to their waiting automobile—surely an early hour for leaving the factory in these days of twenty-four hour shifts? You are mistaken, reader; these gentlemen are “somebodies” in the "City.”

Many have, of course, joined the armed forces; they have the consolation of knowing that they are defending a real “stake in the country,” not an imaginary one. In this connection it is worth noting that the local working-class have a very strongly developed sense of property: It is their house and their garden, whereas a few weeks without payment of rent would quickly put an end to this hallucination. Admittedly, rents are low compared with towns, but so are wages—the capitalist class know how to even things up.

It is the rule for workers to model their outlook on that of their masters; ”Pretty-town” is no exception. The capitalist caricature of the old manorial system poisons the whole locality with its prejudices and reactionary foibles. Jews (of the poorer type) and revolutionaries are their pet aversions; a former town clerk is now imprisoned as a fascist.

Fortunately for the prospects of Socialism, these “pocket boroughs” can have little influence on the march of ideas, otherwise the future of mankind would indeed look gloomy.

Sid Rubin

The Priest and His Piffle. (1916)

From the January 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

One, Father Bernard Vaughan, of the Roman Catholic Church in England, has been setting about his congregation with the jaw-bone of an ass. The jaw-bone was the reverend father’s own. The oily priest has been ass enough to attempt to answer the question: Why does not God stop this war? and he had better have kept his jaw-bone engaged upon the comparatively un-asinine occupation of chewing thistles. He couldn’t have made such a mess of thistles, and thistles couldn’t have made such a mess of him, however they may have revolted his belly.

The thesis of this detestable churchman’s onslaught, delivered at his church in Farln-st, W., on December 12th, is thus given by the “Daily Chronicle” (December 13th):

   Why does not God stop this war? If he were Almighty and All-loving he would have done so long ago.

The preacher spoke of this question as “a sample of the blasphemies sent by post” A sample of the bogey-man's correspondence it well may be, for without doubt thousands of the earnest befogged are daily propounding to themselves that riddle—hourly trying, and failing, to reconcile the idea of an All-loving Almighty with the hard, stern fact of world-wide war, and it would be strange indeed if some of these seekers after light did not take their enquiry direct to those who know all about God and his ways and his motives, not to speak of his love that passeth all understanding, and his strap-oil that sur-passeth his love. That the Holy Joe should publicly try his fist at such a reconciliation may be taken as symptomatic of his consciousness of the wide harbouring of this and kindred “blasphemies,” whether they find expression through the post or not.

It has been the custom among the aristocratic plunderers, we are told, to shove the fool of the family in the Church. The idea, of course, is that of all fields of roguery the Church offers the easiest opportunity. There, where the very choicest mugs foregather, a child could work the oracle. As a matter of fact children sometimes do, though the infant prodigy is now more often to be found practicing “practical Christianity” in the trenches as the more manly way of bringing to fulfilment the Scriptural prophecy: “A little child shall bleed them.” Anyway, it did not need any superman to invent the answer to the riddle which the reverend father made “revelation ” to his flock, though perhaps only divine inspiration enabled him to cut his coat in such true and exact knowledge of his sheepskin. He answered the whydiddle thus :

   God did not stop the war because, being Almighty, He could draw good out of it, and, being All-loving, He did so.

You see how beautifully plain it is. Military experts who have explained in the columns of the seven-times daily Press every military move long before it didn’t come off, the prophets who prophesied all sorts of happenings from “Constantinople in a week” to “war babies by the million ’ (and they didn’t mean Group 1), the blusterers who were going to “dig them [the German fleet] out like rats’ and “fetch” us if we didn’t go—all these have draped their words in obfuscation. One hardly knew what they meant. But the priest is clear as claret. God, being Almighty, could draw good out of war, and being All-loving, he does so. Of course, being Almighty, He could draw good out of peace, but it would be rank blasphemy against heaven and treason against the realm to suggest that he should find it in his tender, loving heart to do so. That, the corollary of the reverend gent’s tale, we can all understand, without doubt.

Nevertheless, not all truths are pleasant, however clearly they may be presented, and in times like the present, when so many thousands of mothers and widows and sisters are more than a little bit impatient under the process of being put through the mangle of war in order that good (for somebody) may be drawn from their sufferings, it would not ill-become the servant of All-loving God to make some excusably hypocritical concession to public opinion. None can resist the power of conviction attaching to the reverend gentleman’s illustration, which I give as reported in the “Daily Chronicle” :

     By the way of illustration Father Vaughan told the story of'a young cavalry officer who, before going into the trenches—where he was blown to pieces—wrote to a friend, saying: “If I am killed, tell my mother not to worry, because, but for this war she would never have met me in Heaven. This war has brought me back to my own self, and I have made it all right in the confessional."
    If that instance were multiplied ten thousand times, continued the preacher, they could see how good was drawn out of the physical evil of the war.

The dullest can comprehend that if ten thousand young cavalry officers are going to meet their mothers in Heaven who would otherwise never have done so, the war was jolly well worthwhile. That the All-loving Almighty should find more acceptable one of His lambs who happens to be returned to him in pieces is also only in accordance with human ideas. We also know that the road to Heaven is broadened to those who traverse it with feet and hands soaked with the blood of their fellows slain in battle—the All-loving would see to that. But it would have been interesting to have been informed whether the ten thousand cavalry officers who have to thank the war for the opportunity of meeting their very fond mammas in Heaven, would not have done so because but for the war they would have lived for ever, or because the devil was finding work for their idle hands to do before the All-loving busied them with butchery. If the latter, a class whose sons so regularly go to hell except they find salvation in homicide are worth all the sacrifice the workers are making.

The all-abounding love and wisdom of God are not things patent to the untrained eye of the man in the street. But, luckily, our reverend fathers are always alive to these matters. Here is light and leading from Daddy Vaughan: 

   Personally, I feel that it would take eternity to thank God for not having stopped this war as He might have done. If it had been deferred for ten years, my beloved country would hare been a Mongolian desert. . . . Our dear island home, with its cathedrals, minsters, and abbeys would have been utterly destroyed; we should have had nothing left us but “our eyes to weep with."

But a “but” saved us from the dismal plight of having nothing left to weep with but our eyes, to say nothing of the destruction of our cathedrals, minsters, and abbeys, and perchance also the slums, prisons, lunatic asylums, work-houses, mansions, broad-acred, well-wooded and watered ancestral domains concerning which the war poster asks Bill Higgins, ‘Isn’t this worth fighting for? ” The preacher proceeded :

    But God, being Almighty and wise, and loving, has spared us the horrors of Belgium and Poland and the despair of the Armenians.

The wisdom and the love of God, the priest thus shows, are not revealed alone in the fact of what He has saved us from: they are revealed even more forceably in what, evidently for our worthy sakes, he has put upon Belgium, Poland, and Armenia. There’s love for you; verily it passeth all understanding!

See how Father Vaughan flattens out the man who asks the fool question: “Can you deny that Christianity has been proved by this war to be a ghastly failure?” He replies :

  Christianity has not failed, because it has not been used. If Christianity had been used and recognised, there would have been no war at all.

So it is seen what a good thing Christianity would have robbed us of had it been “used and recognised.” If it will take all eternity to thank God for the war, surely it will also take some time to thank Him for rendering futile the efforts of His (don’t forget the capitals, Mr. Printer) clergy to get Christianity “used and recognised.” 

Meanwhile, eternity is a long time; and a job that is going [to] last for eternity ought to be got on with. Would it be out of place to suggest that the reverend gentleman go out into the highways and bye-ways and call upon the multitude to thank God for the war? One interested spectator would be.

Bill Bailey

The Docker's Problems (1944)

From the February 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Having witnessed the spectacle of millions of their fellows chasing the will o* the wisp of steady employment in the long years before the present war, to-day in 1944 the workers are performing miracles of constant, unremitting toil. Their numbers reduced by the calls of the armed forces, they are feeding the mammoth war machine of Britain and simultaneously providing the civilian population with at least that minimum of creature comforts necessary. Intriguing speculations are rife in the world of the industrial workers, contrasting tho pre-war scene with the present one. One vivid contrast is that which prevails in the great ports.

Before the war, in “normal” shipping circumstances, there was invariably enacted at the northern ports scenes of struggle for four to eight hours' work that had to be seen to be believed. The docker was then ironically termed a “casual” worker, and the fight for bread often became an actual physical reality. Unfortunate foremen, whose unenviable task it was to select the recipients of four hours' work were often injured, their hands bitten and their clothing torn in the wolfish scramble that took place. Favouritism and nepotism were the order of the day, and violent was the experience often of any who presumed to change the status quo. To-day “things” are changed. The Government, in the beginning of 1941, perceiving the vital need of a trained supply of dock labour, introduced various schemes that have in effect decasualised dock labour. A minority of the men, recognising dangerous anomalies in the official proposals, resisted the innovation. Albeit, the Ministry of War Transport had its way, and to-day in all great ports the Government directs the ebb and flow of labour. Viewed superficially, the weekly guarantee of sums ranging from 55s. to 82s. 6d. to dockers is an immense improvement on previous conditions. For months past, in the columns of the Glasgow dailies, officious magistrates and others have dilated oracularly on the “enormous" wages of the Glasgow dockers. Their effusions have been productive of acid comment among the men concerned. The docker's wage rate has remained unchanged since early in 1940, since when prices generally have risen. The docker to-day, in order to earn a wage that will provide him and his dependants with a working-class standard of comfort has to work many hours of overtime. And that, at a task unquestionably enervating and exhausting. The dockers imagine that most Labour magistrates—who are especially prone to criticism of the men—would quail at the prospect of one hour's work wrestling with bales and cases or pushing trucks, let alone 70 or 80 hours! For years deprived of steady employment, to-day subjected to disciplinary measures for absenting themselves from work.

For years, accustomed to scrambling for work, to-day. in some instances, scrambling in the opposite direction. Their natural industrial combativeness gelded by a combination of patriotism and bureaucratic efficiency, they have in a situation favourable to them as sellers of their commodity, labour-power, allowed their wage-rate to remain static since the first year of war. The Government selected as local administrators prominent members of the dockers' unions, some of them Communists and I.L.P.ers. As is usual, these individuals have “out-Heroded Herod”! The dockers to-day are afflicted with misgivings regarding post-war conditions. Under the plea of a "quick turn round ” of ships to expedite the war effort, they have seen the insidious "whittling away” of much of their T.U. rights and conditions. Conditions that were won after years of unceasing bloody struggle. They see, also, mechanisation taking place, speed-ups that will remain, that will displace large numbers of men in the years to come.

Mr. Bevin, with others, has reassured dockers of the continued existence of guaranteed wages in peace-time, but— they are sceptical. Like the vast majority of workers, the promises made by official spokesmen of projected changes in the post-war industrial set-up, leave dockers cold.

They have been lavishly praised for their fortitude during the period of the blitz, and mention has been made of the fact that their dockside homes have been the target of many bombs. Despite all this, they are profoundly aware of the odds against them in their day-to-day struggle. The end of hostilities will find dockers denuded of many defensive conditions, essential to them to—at best—maintain their conditions of existence. The confident prediction that can be made of general post-war industrial upheaval can be made emphatically of dock-land. Unemployment has driven men to the docks of a higher intellectual level than the old-time docker, and this factor will be felt. The remedy for the docker, like all others possessing nothing but the ability to work, is clear. Jealously guarding their existing T.U. privileges, recognising the essential limitations of their efforts to withstand the attacks of their masters, they must perceive that the private ownership of the machinery of producing wealth, including shipping, is the basic cause of their perpetual poverty and consequent struggle for miserable employment. The S.P.G.B. do not, as our opponents impugn, idly wait on the working class. The lie must be bludgeoned—that S.P.G.B.ers are dilletantes, and the efforts of the members in the actual arena of the industrial workshops is the irrefutable proof. The clerks, labourers, dockers, railwaymen, seamen, taxicabmen, waitresses, etc., that form the membership of the S.P.G.B., call upon their mates, wherever they may be, to examine our case carefully. Having done so, we are sure of their ultimate verdict. We have a great historical responsibility to carry, and we need the help of the working class of the world.

Tony Mulheron

Editorial: Where Common Wealth Stands (1944)

Editorial from the April 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sir Richard Acland's Common Wealth is a party of small membership, substantial funds, big ideas and monumental confusion. Formed in July, 1942, it had a membership at the end of that year of 5,000 (1943 Conference Report, page 18), though by April, 1943, it claimed nearly 10,000. Its income from subscriptions and donations in its first nine months was £7,000, of which only about half Was in amounts of under £50. Two individuals. Sir R. Acland and Mr. Alan Good, a wealthy Midlands business man, guaranteed between them £1,000 a month for two years (page 6). For 1943 the Party budgeted for an expenditure of £22,000, and plans to put up candidates in 120 constituencies (News Chronicle, February 16th, 1944). The latest move was to call a meeting of Labour, Liberal, I.L.P. and Independent M.P.s and others with the intention of starting a "Socialist Unity Campaign," which was to bring together members of the Labour Party, Common Wealth, I.L.P., Communist Party and Liberals in the "Radical Action" group to secure a Parliamentary majority at the next general election (Manchester Guardian, March 8th, 1944.) The meeting, according to the Daily Telegraph (March 9th) failed to bring any Labour M.P.s, though the I.L.P. was there in strength, including its M.P.s, its General Secretary, Mr. J. McNair, and Mr. F. A. Ridley. It can hardly be called a success. A cleavage developed between Acland, who is all out for winning the war, and some of the I.L.P. contingent, who adopt a more or less anti-war attitude. It is typical of Common Wealth's attitude of being all things to all men that it should imagine this strange mixture, including loyal Liberals, could be interested in "Socialist" unity. The same confusion is apparent in all its activities. It makes a special point of its religious inspiration and at the Skipton by-election, where its candidate was successful, a voter informed the News Chronicle (January 11th, 1944) that she supported Common Wealth because “ it was the only political party which emphasised the Christian point of view"—yet "Question and Answer" one of its publications, insists that it is open to Christians, Jews, Hindus, Moslems, and Atheists (page 59), and one of its first rebuffs was an announcement that it was to be boycotted by Catholics on the ground that "it has rejected Christianity" (Daily Herald, August 8th, 1942). In view of the infamies committed by politicians of all the capitalist parties, who almost invariably claim to be religious and acting in accordance with religious teachings, this emphasis on religion is hardly a recommendation. Moreover, Sir R. Acland has himself unwittingly exposed how little it means. In a letter to the Times (October 15th, 1943) he claimed for his party that "it is probably more concerned . . . with the inter-relations between religion and politics than any political organisation since the Labour Party as it was in the days of Keir Hardie." If a religious outlook is as Sir R. Acland seems to think, a guarantee that a party will prove a fit instrument for the achievement of Socialism, why did it not prove to be so for the Labour Party? And why is Common Wealth so critical of the present Labour Party, the child of the party of Keir Hardie's day?

Common Wealth will find that the nearer it gets to power (if ever it does), the more its actions will be determined by the economic and class factors imposed by its acceptance of State capitalism. Its religions inspiration will count for nothing, and like many other trimmings, will be dropped or disregarded in the rough and tumble of electoral vote-catching. How little its methods differ from those of the older parties of capitalist reform is indicated by statements made to the News Chronicle (January 11th, 1944) by voters who supported Common Wealth at Skipton. One local councillor gave as his reason, “I am a Gladstonian Liberal with a progressive mind. Common Wealth is the closest approach to what I want." Another voter was concerned with protecting his little business against the combines; a third, a co-operator thought Common Wealth approached her "ideal of Socialism," and a fourth voted "as her husband voted. It is a good thing to get younger people in Parliament—and to have old-age pensions at 30s. a week."

The one outstanding feature of Common Wealth's activities is its opposition to supporters of the political truce, and this is the real reason why it has been able to send what has been dubbed its "travelling circus" roaring successfully into by-election campaigns. The first fine careless rapture of the coalition government has worn off. Labour Party official speakers who had to go to West Derbyshire and support the Tory, Lord Hartington, were plainly ill-at-ease in face of criticism from Labour voters. Common Wealth is capitalising this dissatisfaction. While the electoral truce lasts it can hope to do well, though already its monopoly is being challenged by the Liberal and Communist parties, both of which are veering towards a course which will relieve them of having to support Tories. When the political truce ends and the Labour Party fights on its own against Tory candidates. Common Wealth will have to make the choice either to remain a small independent group or to merge in or ally itself with the Labour Party where it naturally belongs.

What chiefly concerns us, however, is the fantastic claim that Common Wealth is a Socialist organisation.

Those who do not look closely at the programmes and activities of the political parties they support notice that Common Wealth claims to stand for Socialism and "common ownership," as does the S.P.G.B., and they wonder therefore why the S.P.G.B. is opposed to the Common Wealth Party. The explanation is that, in spite of the words it uses, Acland's party does not stand for Socialism or common ownership; it is merely using the words in the same loose way as the Labour Party. Common Wealth has actually taken over its phrases, from the Constitution of the Labour Party, in which appears the declaration that the Labour Party stands for "the common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange." Every Socialist will at once recognise that the inclusion of the word "exchange" in the declared aim, both of the Labour Party and of Common Wealth, is itself an unmistakable proof that they are not aiming at Socialism, under which, of course, there will be no need for the capitalist mechanism of buying and selling. Goods will not be produced for sale or exchange but solely for use. Common Wealth is little more than a "ginger" group trying to stir up the Labour Party and at the same time to attract elements in the Liberal and Tory parties and voters outside all parties. In their own words, "We are not against the Labour Party. We regard as our friends and allies all those within the Labour Party who are seeking to promote a more inspiring leadership." (Common Wealth, Bristol, Publication No. 2.)

Socialists are not at all concerned with the qualities of leadership displayed by .the Labour Party or any other party. Socialists do not need leadership; and leaders cannot lead non-socialists to Socialism.

What is the outstanding problem of to-day? It is not the choice between backing the Beveridge plan and backing the Churchill supporters' promise of "something better than Beveridge"; nor is it the choice between capitalism run by competitive private groups and capitalism run by private monopolies or under State control—this despite Mr. Herbert Morrison's shrewd view that “ for some time after the war Britain will be working out a form of partnership between the State and big business" (Sunday Express, March 5th, 1944). The vital question for the working class is one of ownership. Sir William Beveridge—who is not in favour of ending the state of affairs he mentions—-has admitted that “nearly 80 per cent, of the private wealth of the country was owned by 7 per cent of the people " (Times, November 30th,. 1948). This is the workers' real problem. Shall this capitalist ownership of the means of production and distribution be ended, and replaced by ownership and democratic control by the whole community, with its necessary accompaniment—the ending of all incomes from property and the ending of the wages system, or shall capitalism continue. This is the issue between Socialists on the one side and all who are prepared to carry on capitalism, whether in the form of private monopolies or in the form of State capitalism. Common Wealth, behind its muddled ideas and fancy schemes, is not aiming at Socialism. Like the Labour Party (which it chides for lukewarmness about its own programme), Common Wealth aims merely at nationalisation or State capitalism.

There is no room for doubt about where Common Wealth stands on this issue. Their "Manifesto" demands "the nationalisation of the mines and of the biggest arms factories at once " (page 9), and ultimately wants the land, the banks, fuel and poorer, transport, etc., "wholly transferred to common ownership." There is to be "reasonable compensation on a sliding scale to existing owners, starting with 100 per cent, compensation to the smallest owners, and falling to some quite small percentage in the case of the largest" (page 8).

Socialists would ask why the talk of compensation? Are capitalists to be compensated for relinquishing the right to exploit the workers? And if so, how can they be compensated except by allowing them to continue the exploitation-— as, indeed, Common Wealth proposes. How will these schemes of State capitalism solve the workers' problem', and how can banks, which are nothing but instruments of capitalist industry and trade, be "commonly, owned"? What function could they serve under Socialism? The pamphlet continues :—-

Under common' ownership, as in the Soviet Union to-day, the functions of money are: To allocate to individuals groups and industries within the community their appropriate total share in the goods and services of the community. . . .

Here we have Sir B. Acland's Party's real aim, of promoting State capitalism on the basis of a structure of vast and growing inequality (" as in the Soviet Union to-day "), between the fortunate managerial groups and others with their great incomes and investments in State bonds, and the unfortunate hewers of wood and drawers of water on the poverty line, all under the smooth sounding principle of allocating to each "their appropriate total share."

Have we not nationalisation already here, in the Post Office, and near-nationalisation in the Public Utility Corporations? And do not those responsible proclaim that each individual, from the bus-driver to the £12,500 head of London Passenger Transport, and from the low-paid and often unpensioned thousands in tho Post Office up to the £3,000 a year Director-General, all get "their appropriate share"? Yet the fact remains that the "appropriate" share at the top of nationalised concerns, here and in Russia, can be thirty, fifty or more times the amount paid to the workers at the bottom. Well might the Chairman of the Union of Post Office Workers say, "Post Office workers knew that at present there was very little difference between their conditions in a nationalised industry and those of workers outside" (Daily Herald, May 4th, 1943).

Common Wealth is merely carrying on in the long tradition of those who blindly or wilfully confuse the capitalist problem of nationalising the control of certain industries and services, in the interest of capitalist efficiency, with the workers' problem of ending capitalist ownership. A Tory Government in 1868 nationalised the Telegraphs. A Tory Government began and a Liberal Government completed Telephone nationalisation between 1905 and 1912. Liberals set up the Port of London Authority in 1908, and Tories established the Metropolitan Water Board in 1902, and the Central Electricity Board in 1926. Mr. Herbert Morrison began the move to establish the London Passenger Transport Board in 1931, and it was completed under the National Government in 1933. A move in the opposite direction was the handing over of Post Office Beam Wireless and Government cables to the Cable-Wireless merger. It was begun in 1924, and actually the last formal step was completed after the advent of the Labour Government in 1929. None of this has any bearing on the Socialist problem of ending capitalism and establishing Socialism; but because of the prevailing confusion of ideas, Mr. Herbert Morrison could naturally tell the boys at Malvern School that "more Socialism was done by the Conservative Party, which opposed it, than by the Labour Party, which was in favour of it" (Times, February 12th, 1944). Common Wealth is stepping in to do what it thinks the Labour Party is neglecting. Meanwhile the real problem remains untouched, and Common Wealth is not going to do anything about it.

One or two incidental features of its programme deserve notice. While all in favour of nationalisation, the party is warily avoiding having to defend actual operation by Government departments; thus following Mr. Herbert Morrison's lead. Common Wealth does not propose handing over industry “to the present civil service. Let the managers and technicians who are actually doing the job have a free hand to go all-out for production and efficiency" (C. W., Bristol, Publication No. 2). Letting managers and technicians have a free hand recalls the anti-democratic propaganda of those who want industry controlled by a new group of dictatorial "experts," It does not sound much like the "democracy in industry" that Sir B. Acland holds out as a bait to trade unionist voters. Nor is it much altered by the supposedly enticing carrot of Production Councils promised in the Common Wealth Manifesto (page 6);—

Production Councils for war purposes, even working within the limits allowed by private ownership, have shown how workers could share responsibility for the running of factories and industries with technicians and production management.

Workers know very well that behind the camouflage of joint councils, Whitley Committees and so on, effective control still rests with the capitalist owners or the capitalist State. Common Wealth, however, can see that while it offers "security and equality" to the low-paid workers, it can make a separate appeal to the managerial and technical group of the working class by promising them more authority and of course larger incomes. (Despite "equality for all citizens" on page 2, on page 6 is the promise of "higher wages and salaries to men who do skilled and responsible jobs.") Whereas it took the Bolshevists some years to drop Lenin's plea for equal pay for all workers from top to bottom. Common Wealth is managing to combine the promise and the repudiation of equality in the same pamphlet. It need only be repeated, to remove possible confusion, that Socialism involves the abolition of the wages system in its entirety— another proof that Common Wealth does not understand or aim at Socialism.

We shall be surprised if Common Wealth survives the ending of the political truce. We doubt if either the capitalist class or the non-socialist workers will have any use for this new conglomeration of old reforms preached by new reformers. We are, however, quite safe in prophesying that, whether Common Wealth eventually gets crushed between the millstones of Tory and Labour, or whether it survives to reach office, it will not solve the problem of the workers, and it has already—by its confusion-mongering—helped to postpone the day when the workers will understand and demand Socialism.

Are The Workers Better Off During The War? (1942)

From the March 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

As happened during the last war there is much exaggerated talk about the supposed high wages earned by workers in munition factories and the demand is frequently made that the Government should put a stop to all wage increases or even reduce the level of civilian pay to that of men in the armed Forces. The policy of the Government is, however, the more cautious one of deprecating all-round increases of wages while leaving the various arbitration and negotiating bodies free to sanction wage increases in certain cases, "particularly among comparatively low paid grades and categories of workers, or for adjustment owing to changes in the form, method or volume of production." This policy of trying to stabilise the general level of wages is linked with the policy of preventing the prices of a number of essential foodstuffs from rising above the present level. To do this large subsidies are paid to producers of such articles as wheat, milk, meat and bacon, and the retail prices are controlled.

As far as it is possible to describe what has taken place with regard to wages and prices, by means of figures, the position is fairly clear. It gives no support whatever to the claim that wages have outstripped the rise in the cost of living. The Ministry of Labour Cost of Living Index shows a rise from 155 in September, 1939, to 200 in February, 1942. This increase of 45 points represents a percentage rise of 29% above the level of September, 1939. As regards the level of wage rates for a normal week’s work, the Ministry of Labour Gazette (January, 1942) shows that the average increase due to wage increases and war bonuses since September, 1939, has been about 26% or 27%. It will be seen, therefore, that wages have barely kept pace with the rise of the cost of living index figure. If in some industries wages have risen by a larger percentage this is offset by the many industries in which the rise has been much smaller.

The critics who talk about high wages ignore the above official figures and either seize upon the few exceptional cases where the increase has been larger or else use a quite different set of figures which relate not to the standard wage for a normal week’s work but to earnings for the very long hours now being put in, earnings which include of course payment for overtime and Sunday work.

A typical case was a complaint in the House of Commons on January 20th, 1942, that youths under 21 were earning "excessive” wages. The figure mentioned was 50s. 5d. a week, but, as the Ministry of Labour pointed out, this happened to apply in only one out of many industries, and the average for all industries was only 40s. 7d.. Moreover, it made no allowance for the fact that owing to the scarcity of adult workers many of the youths in question are doing work formerly done by older men; ’incidentally without regard to the possible danger to their health through undue physical strain and long hours.

One critic of the earnings of juveniles, Lady Bonham-Carter, complained that production has suffered through the fact that a young munition maker may be receiving more than a Civil Defence worker or soldier. “It does not seem," she said, “to rest on justice" (News Chronicle, February 5th, 1942). Needless to say, she did not develop her case and apply it to the whole capitalist class who are much concerned with inequalities inside the ranks of the working class but turn a blind eye on the fact that they as a propertied class receive their incomes simply by virtue of ownership and without the need to work at all.

Another relevant factor in any comparison between the rise of prices and the rise of wage-rates is that the Cost of Living Index is at best a very defective measure of the extent to which the cost of the workers’ necessities has risen since September, 1939. Even the Ministry of Labour do not claim that it is an accurate guide, being based as it is on the kind of articles a working class family bought in 1914. It should be added that even if the index were more accurate it would not make any appreciable difference to the working class. Wage negotiations may be to some degree influenced by such figures, but the index does not lay down a minimum level below which wages should not fall. All it does it to show to what extent the cost of the articles bought by workers has risen over a period of time. If all wages were brought into line with an accurately measured rise of prices since September, 1939, that would still, leave millions of workers in the position they were in before the war of being unable to afford the food and clothing, etc., required to maintain them in health and efficiency, let alone comfort. If, under war conditions of long hours of work, some of them actually earn enough to buy more of the bare necessities, it is only at the expense of their leisure, and in the long run, of their health. Capitalism is still with us. The wages system is still the wages system, and the remedy is not the reformist one of regulating wages and prices but of abolishing capitalism and the wages system in their entirety.

Edgar Hardcastle