For the Battle of Britain Sunday (1976)

From the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Where's Blunsdon?

“Uncle Bert, where’s Blunsdon?”

“Blunsdon? Now only in my mind old chap.

The shapes of buildings are still clear But names and faces aren’t I fear.

My memory’s a leaking tap.”

“Uncle Bert, what were they like?”

“Who?”

“Blunsdon people. Just like you?”

“What questions! — some ways yes, like me. 

They ate and drank and worked and swore 

And after, drank and swore some more.

In these ways people are like me.”

“Did they sing hymns 

Like we do here at school?”

“Of course. Some did, although not all,

In several churches, one quite old —

(St. Leonards) — and it was dammed cold,

And — ah yes! I now recall 

A school service on a drowsy day,

Outside the church we heard a noise 

And, jumping with excitement, (as do boys)

We saw some bomber planes “at play.”

There they were, winking in their silver grace, 

Heading East, a pretence in fun 

To direct bombs at a Blunsdon 

in some ungodly foreign place.”

(Aye! The Lord speaks through his preachers, versed

In schizoid phrases such as these:

“By all means love thy enemies,

But for Christ’s sake kill ’em first”).

Sting in the Tail: Suffer the little children (1996)

The Sting in the Tail column from the July 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Suffer the little children

Stephen Dorrell, the health secretary, is expected to order health regions to give more priority to paediatric intensive care beds after reports that numbers have fallen dangerously low.

In one of the worst cases, Nicholas Geldard, aged 10, died from a brain haemorrhage last December after being taken to four hospitals and across the Pennines in a snowstorm because no bed could be found for him.

Mr Dorrell’s action could be less than compassionate, however, for according to the Sunday Telegraph (19 May):

“He will also expect at least 33 of the beds to be opened by the winter, when demand is at its highest and to avoid any scandals in the run-up to the general election. ”

This is another example of the cynical contempt the Tory Party and its "Torygraph" supporters display towards the health care of the working class.

Ways of seeing

The 60th anniversary of the Spitfire, one of Britain’s World War Two aircraft, had one Jonathan Glancey rhapsodising over its “beauty” in the Independent (8 May).

He informed us that the Spitfire was “one of the most beautiful machines made”. It was “glamorous, romantic, balletic”, and in case we still hadn’t got the message:

“The spirit of the Spitfire is deeply embedded in our culture, a machine that somehow speaks of cricket, the sonnets of Keats . . ."

All this tripe about a machine designed to kill and destroy, a weapon in British capitalism’s struggle to hold onto its empire, markets and place as a world plunderer. Can something like this really be beautiful?

For us, a kidney machine or even the humble washing machine, which at least reduces drudgery, are far, far more beautiful than the Spitfire and every other instrument of death and destruction.

Utopian “Socialists”

The syllabus of the Socialist Scholars Conference held in New York City in April had 42 speakers listed to speak on 11 subjects under the general heading "Two Cheers for Utopia—Re-imagining Socialism".

This looked promising; after all, when scholars get together to talk about “socialism" they invariably mean schemes for patching-up capitalism through programmes of reforms. Could this really be a conference to discuss genuine socialism?

Even more promising was the statement in the syllabus that:

". . . we believe a little utopia is precisely what our society needs. "

Alas, further reading revealed that for these scholars “Re-imagining Socialism" amounted to such “outlandish” proposals as a guaranteed income, opposition to privatisation and welfare cuts, etc.

This is utopia? Compared to our vision of a classless, moneyless, worldwide society of production for use, the imagining of the SSC is very limited indeed.

Spot that tune

The terms of reference of the Hearing committee of inquiry into the future of further education in Britain spell out what the inquiry’s priorities will be.

The terms emphasise the need for universities to provide graduates with the skills required by industry, and although the need to be internationally competitive gets ten mentions, scholarship gets only four.

Anyone who is shocked by such priorities should remember that this is capitalism, and what is good for business will inevitably come first. This is why a committee dealing with education draws five of its sixteen members from business.

The fact is that the cost of education is borne by our masters, and isn’t it still true that who pays the piper calls the tune?

What Sid wasn’t told

Remember Sid? He was the creation of the ad-men in the Tories’ campaign to persuade your ordinary punter to buy shares in the privatised industries in the hope that ever-rising dividends and share prices would bring him to love the capitalist system.

Of course, Sid wasn’t told that owning shares in a company didn’t mean it would never sack him, and far from having a say in company policy he wouldn’t stand a chance against the big institutional investors. Now, the directors want shot of him altogether because he is a “costly pest” (Independent, 14 May).

Yes, lots of Sids did buy shares, about £ 1,000 worth on average, but mostly they flogged ’em, took the money and ran—in 1987 British Gas had 4.4 million shareholders but now has only 1.7 million.

Sid was only the front-man in yet another foolish attempt to achieve the impossible—making capitalism operate in the interest of the vast majority.

Hanson hits out

Lord Hanson, multi-millionaire turned social pundit has penned a blistering attack on “destructive journalism” in an article in the Spectator (16 May).

The noble lord writes “Destructive journalism fosters the believe that politicians routinely evade the truth and break their promises."

Politicians telling porkies? We are shocked at the suggestion. Broken promises? Tut, tut. What calumny.

But Hanson is really upset at what is written about businessmen: “They are castigated for seeking profit, damaging the environment and much else besides.”

As if businessmen would stoop so low, me lord!

Editorial: On the Cause of War. (1908)

Editorial from the October 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the Cause of War.

A few years ago the Sociological Society published some papers by J. S. Stuart-Glennie on “Some General Historical Laws,” designed to establish, among other things, that a “periodic law” operated to bring into inevitable conflict the East and the West, the Mongol races and the Aryan races at intervals of half a millennium. The Russo-Japanese War seems to have happened most opportunely for the purposes of the argument, and was hailed by our author as a palpable fulfilment of his prophecy: “Thus as, long years ago, I predicted from this periodic law, there has occurred in this twentieth century another of those great European-Asian conflicts which, at intervals of approximately half-a-millennium, have marked the age since the upbreak of the truly ancient civilisations in the sixth century B.C.”

The order of the events which culminated in this last upheaval are given thus: “The first epoch opened the Graeco-Roman half-millennium which culminated in the world conquest of Alexander . . . and of Aristotle. The second, that of Julius and Augustus Caesar and the establishment of Christianism by Constantine. The third, that of Mohammed and the first conquests of Islam, opened the Medieval half-millennium of the Byzantine empire and the barbarous Western anarchy only temporarily abated by Charlemagne. The fourth, the Asiatic conquests of the Turks and the first Crusades opened the Feudal half-millennium. The fifth opened the modern Industrial half-millennium of access to and attack on Further Asia, and the establishment of the Crescent for the Cross in Asiatic Europe.” The sixth epoch was punctuated by the Russo-Japanese War and—there you are ! The Russo-Japanese War was clearly ordained by the Fates about the time the crust of the earth was solidifying, and couldn’t have been otherwise.

The Revelations of General Kuropatkin.

Clearly, therefore, General Kuropatkin’s idea that the whole cause of the trouble was merely a dirty financial deal in which the Russian Royal House was engaged, has not taken into account the whole of the case. The Russian Royal Family doubtless wanted the timber wealth of Manchuria and were quite prepared to ride rough-shod over all the undertakings ever made in the name of their country ; they were prepared to drench a continent in blood in order to put money into their own pockets, and, on the showing of Kuropatkin, did it. These, however, were mere accidental causes only. Actually, on the hypothesis of “periodic law,” the war was, like the salvation of the soul of the hard-shelled Baptist, foreordained before the foundation of the world.

We fear, however, few students of history will be able to subscribe to Mr. Stuart-Glennie’s thesis on the evidence adduced. They will be far more ready to accept Kuropatkin’s plain statement of the immediate causes of the war, the more particularly as all wars can, with a high degree of certainty, be connected with approximately similar causes. Mr. Stuart-Glennie’s “periodic law” could not apply unless the conditions, at the expiration of the half-millennium time limit, were favourable to war between the races concerned. If a forest fire had swept Manchuria free of timber a year or two before the outbreak between Russia and Japan, the “periodic law” would have been punctured, if, as Kuropatkin asserts on indisputable evidence, it was the fact that the timber land was the bone of financial contention. The “law” that depends upon so small and accidental a thing as a bonfire, is not one to base large calculations upon.

Some Cant and a Lesson.

Once again, then, it is established that wars are in general the outcome of conflict of economic interests. And once again we are brought up against the rant or the cant that the moralist newspaper gentlemen, who are pleased to do our thinking for us, and who are concerned to ascribe, as far as possible, other causes to wars in order that the truth may be obscured, retail for our consumption. Where, as in the case of the Russo-Japanese War, the “gaff has been blown” so thoroughly by a man in a position to speak with absolute authority as Kuropatkin, it is difficult to disguise the brutal, sordid facts. The only thing possible, therefore, is to speak as though the case were quite exceptional. At this sort of game the Daily News is always first class. In its leading article upon the subject it delivers itself thus : “We had known that a Royal Family’s greed played a considerable part in this horrible business ; we now know that it was the moving cause, and that, but for the greed of the St. Petersburg Court circle the war would never have occurred.” And again : “Deliberately to bring about one of the most terrific wars of history in order that a worthless set of royal relations, hanging about a court, may handle a little more gold than they had before, is a development that may suit a commercial age, but adds a new shame to the history of mankind.”

“New shame !” There is nothing new in it. It doesn’t make a difference in the “shame” because the persons standing to benefit are a royal gang of financiers and not a gang of professional bucket shop keepers, or capitalists in quest of new markets. It’s the old “shame,” as old as wars are old, and the only “moral” there is to it, is the lesson it offers for working-class learning, that the capitalist class control the State, because they dominate politics, and are prepared to use all the power of their control in their own interests, whether they lie in the direction of using the weaponed arm of the State for the purpose of cracking the heads of native workmen who manifest discontent, or in the direction of carrying on an aggressive policy abroad for the markets of the world and the benefit of their own banking accounts. In either case the remedy lies in the workers capturing political control in their own interest —the interest of the useful section of society.

Hell in the Clouds.

Discussing the further question of the development of aerial navigation and its possible relation to war, the organ of the “Prince of Peace” pursues its dull and melancholy way:—

“To drop various explosives down upon large objects like cities would not be difficult, but, after all, there are such things as Hague Conventions against the random destruction of private property.”

“Fool and slow of heart, who hath bewitched you?” Verily, the faith of the Daily News in Hague Conventions is of the brand that ought to move mountains. But faith never yet moved a mountain and there is no reason to suppose it will be more efficacious in the future than in the past—not even when the object to be moved is a mountain of stupidity or fraud such as the Hague Convention undoubtedly is. The question is, can the Hague Convention prevent the conflict of national commercial interests ? If it can, and when it does, it may stop wars which are, every one, the outcome of capitalist rapacity. But as it doesn’t try to stay the war of capitalist commerce, and could not effect it if it did, it follows that the interference of the Hague Conventions will stop wars when wars are impossible ! Just then.

But, say the peace-makers, the Hague Convention, we know, cannot stop wars, but it can by agreement, humanise them. It could, for example, rule out airships, or at any rate, prevent their use in the discharge of explosives from above and so on. Yes, it can—as it ruled out expanding bullets, and the inhuman practice of smoking out the enemy who had taken refuge in caves, and all the rest of it. But its ruling would not affect the matter worth tuppence for all that. It did not in South Africa.

The way of Peace.

You can’t humanise war. If you could it would not be war. While we have wars we must have inhumanity. And we must have wars until Socialism. Because even assuming the possibility of the present development of capitalism toward monopoly, reaching the universal trust stage, wars between sections of the working class and the dominant power would still continue, and probably be far more bloody than now. Even now we have our Right Honourable John Burnses and others of the “humanity-mongers” calling for the use of the deadliest weapons in industrial struggles.

The immediate object of war is to dispose of the opposing forces. To do that, if they won’t cave in, “you must kill ’em, and kill ’em, and kill ’em blooming dead” as somebody said somewhere. And you don’t kill ’em with humanity either. You use explosives and steel. The idea is to get as much explosive matter pumped in as possible in order that the opposition may be crumpled up the quicker. And that’s where the balloon may come in. If it can be used in that way to suit capitalist purposes it certainly will be; and would be the day after the signing of a Hague Convention, by all concerned, prohibiting it.

The only power that can stand between the people and the inhumanity of war is the organised working class of the world. The only hope that the intelligent peace-makers have against the possibility of serial machines dumping murder upon them from the clouds, is in the working class of the world organising themselves before the navigation of the air has reached the stage of the efficiently practical. Their only hope, that is, is Socialism. An for the peace-makers of the Daily News order, they merely howl “peace” when there is no peace— nor can be.

Capitalism's code of killing (1993)

From the December 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism has always maintained the mythology of the ’just war’, and the church has always been the leading standard bearer for state-sanctioned murder.

It’s not all that long ago since boys’ adventure stories were about swashbuckling heroes meeting in battle on more-or-less equal terms. Raphael Sabbatini's Captain Blood or Maurice Walsh’s David Gordon were fairly typical of the type: brave men opposing one another with courage and resolution and a determination not to take unfair advantage in battle.

Such romantic nonsense is out of place against the background of modern weaponry that denies the killer the agony of watching his victim die. War was never romantic nor "fair"; individual hand-to-hand combat with pikes, lances or swords must have been hell and the science of gaining an unfair advantage over an opponent, then as now. was known as strategy.

Because war and preparation for war is a permanent feature of capitalism that accounts for massive investments of personnel and finance and because it is an utterly foul business, governments are obliged to "respectabilize” it. Thus, something of the old romanticism prevails in what is offered as history. In every' walk of life, parents, schools, churches, participation in war is elevated in the public consciousness and emotive key words, like bravery, heroism, sacrifice, dedicated, proud and patriotic are part of the lexicon of glorification used to transmute the most utterly debased acts of human savagery into something necessary and noble.

Even the "enemy" is not completely damned lest condemnation provoke interest and enquiry. His leaders can be mad or bad and his courage, dignity and honour can rarely be accepted as on a level with "our boys". Nevertheless, there is a decorum that embellishes the obscenity of war. almost a mystique to lighten the haunting futility of death and this can be extended to the enemy.

Thus, it is expected that "we" and our "enemy" will reciprocate in showing a respect to corpses that must be denied to the living. The Luftwaffe pilot shot down while slaughtering women and children in London, the RAF man show down over Dresden while carrying out Churchill’s plan to kill as many German civilians as possible, the hyped-up John Wayne dropping a 2.000kg bomb on a Baghdad street, the heroes who made history at Hiroshima; if, in death, any of these falls into the hands of "the enemy", then they will be accorded the ritual firing of rifles and blowing of bugles over their graves. The exercise gives dignity to those who work at killing and promotes the notion that they died bravely in pursuit of a noble calling.

Appalling reality

But, in the reality of war. battles are won by the gaining of unfair advantage. Obviously, a completely fair fight could have no winner and it is, thus, imperative to the opposing sides to deceive their opponent and. where possible, to introduce weapons of greater destructive capacity and to amass greater concentrations of men and materials.

Spying, with its underscore of lies, deceit, blackmail and, not infrequently, murder, is a legitimate adjunct of war; striking at the enemy’s homeland and slaughtering innocent civilians demoralizes the enemy, impedes his movement and his production of munitions and is, therefore, condoned on the grounds of saving lives. The watchword in war must be "Victory!", untrammelled and uncompromised by considerations of everyday moral rectitude. The Roman Catholic church articulates the provisions for waging a "just war" and one of these stipulates a favourable chance of winning. In common with other bodies, the churches deplore war but lend their services to succour the participants and, often, to plead with their god for the vanquishing of "the enemy".

It is remarkable that decent people who deplore violence and who might be in the forefront of those demanding stiffer sentences and the return of the death penalty for people engaged in violence are often the most vociferous supporters of armed forces and patriotic aggression. How can any rational human being defend the idea of training great masses of people to kill and arming them with guns, bombs, nuclear weapons and the rest of the obscene array destructive equipment that governments provide for the killing business?

The answer we get from apologists for state violence is that it is made necessary by the nature of our society and the fact that our potential enemies have armed forces. The latter simply acknowledges that the effect lies in the cause — because there are armed forces, we must get armed conflict. Pressed, then, to consider an alternative form of society that will not contain the seeds of conflict, these apologists are usually revealed as the most trenchant defenders of the present system.

But there are other aspects of the killing business that create a real dilemma for the upholders of the political and economic status quo with its competition and built-in propensity for conflict and war. Among these is the problem of political terrorism.

In Northern Ireland, for example, people like Archbishop Eames of the Church of Ireland frequently grab headlines with condemnations of terrorists. There are many other churchmen, politicians and others who echo Eames’s sentiments and we name him only because he is the most forceful and frequent person to condemn violence. Like the others. Eames does not condemn all violence or dissociate his church from bodies established and maintained to excel in the use of the most calculatingly efficient means of inflicting death and injury.

Forthrightly and correctly — he condemns the terrorist who leaves a bomb in a hold-all in a public place; he condemns the gunman and his organization and he argues that such behaviour is anti-Christian and that, despite the claims of loyalist killers, they are not acting for the Protestant community.

But Archbishop Eames has yet to go on record condemning governments for having armed forces, he does not condemn gunmen acting for the state and he is silent when a massive bomb is dropped on a city by a sophisticated flying machine using the most advanced technology to conceal its presence and its purpose, and, of course. Eames does not tell members of the state armed forces that their behaviour is anti-Christian.

Psychological scars

In fact the Archbishop, like his competitor colleagues in the other churches and, indeed, most of those in the forefront of the various well-intentioned peace groups, is not opposed to violence and killing. He may be moved to sadness by the lunacy of human beings killing human beings but he only condemns and disowns such behaviour when it is illegal.

Effectively, this reduces the Christian — and, it must be said, the general — concept of so-called moral reasoning to the politics of the head count and this, in turn, must raise very serious questions about the nature of capitalist democracy and the manipulation of "public opinion" by a minority-controlled public power of persuasion.

The question is particularly crucial for those of us who live in Northern Ireland, where the violence which spawned the ruthless Provisional IRA was initialed by a repressive elected government some twenty-five years ago. Now. with violence an everyday occurrence and selective condemnations ritualized by, among others, the very people whose behaviour and political ambition made it inevitable, the hypocritical utterances of people with a ready recourse to a microphone or TV camera can itself fuel violence.

Random killing

Recently, with an upsurge in the random killing of catholics by groups of loyalists operating under various fine sounding titles, a new strain of hypocrisy has emerged — from Sinn Fein, who articulate the political thinking of the IRA. According to this source, killing people because of their job or their overt political altitudes is a legitimate pursuit. On the other hand, if protestant terrorists, in order to exert political pressure, identify their targets on the basis of perceived religion, that is breaking the rules and must, therefore, be evil.

But is it? If you can departmentalize your thinking of the question you might conclude that killing someone is deplorable but sometimes necessary and proper providing the killing is within the confines of a particular code. But who determines the nature of the code and on what basis is it justified? Who is it says that it is permissible to kill perhaps millions of people in another country with a nuclear bomb because that country, or the authority within it that controls armed force, is threatening "our" markets, trade routes or sources of raw materials but it is wrong to kill people who represent an authority that abuses you or unfairly frustrates your political aspirations?

In the ease of the Provisional IRA, apart from the spurious claim to the democratic succession of Sinn Fein’s 1918 all-Ireland electoral victory, the historical morality of violence is often advanced, it is true, of course, that most states owe their existence and their power to the violence, often illegal violence, by which they were established. The "morality" of that argument is that violence is the justification of violence.

Special condemnation

As for preserving a social condemnation for the random killings carried out by loyalist gunmen, it might be asked by what logic it is permissible to shoot a bricklayer because the only way he can make a living is by selling his skills to "the enemy" but wrong to kill at random in order to frustrate a perceived harmful political design.

This is a part of the maze of contradictions you get into when you accept violence at any level. Nor can the question be resolved legalistically for, in every case, the lawful executive is itself not only an agent, real or potential. of the most ruthless violence but. in its role as what Marx referred to as "the executive committee of the ruling class". "Lawful government" is the constant agent of the many other forms of, frequently obscene, violence perpetrated on the working class.

Condemn all violence

Socialists condemn all wars and all political violence. That might seem a simplistic way of avoiding comparisons and condemnations of one form of violence as opposed to another. But it is not a simplistic formula; it is the inescapable logic of the fact that while members of the working class are pitched against one another in wars and so-called national liberation struggles, working class interests are never at stake.

All wars and violent political struggles arise directly or indirectly out of the competition and conflicts of capitalism though such conflicts are usually filtered through an ideological disguise in order to conceal their nature and as a means of enlisting working-class support.

The only struggle that concerns socialists and should concern the working class is the class struggle — the struggle between those who produce all wealth and own virtually none and those who produce nothing and own virtually everything. That struggle, we hold, can be resolved democratically when we have divested ourselves of the fictions that allow us to be enlisted as killers.

Richard Montague

The Bogey Man (1945)

F

rom the March 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

The ruling classes of all time have used in their armoury of weapons the powerful one of leadership. In order that the workers may be prevented from discovering their own strength and power, priests, politicians and teachers have saturated the workers’ minds with awe, fear and reliance upon some great deliverer, spiritual and otherwise. In times of stress, social, economic or political, the workers’ thoughts (skilfully prepared) turn to a “leader” or “saviour.” This mental condition enables the ruling class to canalise the thought-tendencies of the workers away from the emergent growing class concept of events to one of individualist responsibility, all dependent upon a “good” or “bad” leader. Parents having been trained that way themselves, continue on the same lines with their children.

In order to curb the ardent spirits of their unruly progeny, mothers call to their aid their own childhood teachings, and threaten their offspring with fears of a “bogey man.” The ruling class do the same. In the first years of the nineteenth century British capitalism had as its challenger the new youthful capitalism of France, and in order to harness the common people to their war machine, preached fear of the French through the medium of “bogey man” number one—Napoleon. Whilst the common people were dying at Waterloo to prevent “their” country from being stolen, three million acres of “common” land was filched by various enclosure acts. Four years after (August, 1819) the men who had won Waterloo were peacefully assembled in Peter’s Fields, Manchester, listening to orator Hunt, when the Yeomanry charged them, and the subsequent massacre became known as Peterloo. Half a century after (the Peterloo and Waterloo heroes being safely dead) British capitalism was in danger at its Empire gateway in the Mediterranean, so the workers had to be frightened by “bogey man” number two. This was the Czar of Russia, who on behalf of his own ruling class was seeking a warm-water port. The bones of British working men lay bleaching on the Crimean snows in a war waged so that “Russia shall not have Constantinople.” Half a century later we fought a war to see that she should have it. For fifty years after the Crimean war decent sized “bogey men” were scarce, and only practice matches were played against small-timers learning the trade, such as Dinizulu, Charka, Lobengula, the Mahdi, the Mad Mullah, etc., but the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the present century brought us “bogey man” number three—the Boer Kruger. Now here were the ingredients for a “just and righteous” war. We fought it to free the “outlander,” give “equal rights to all whites,” and at the same time collar the gold of the Rand and the diamonds of Kimberley. The net result being—two independent republics lost their “independence,” cheaper Chinese labour introduced into the mines, and a big slice of Africa marked red on the map. The workers of Britain got an extra dose of unemployment, but had laid low “that” bogey man. Another dozen years passed, and “bogey man” number four appeared on the scene. Not a Frenchman, not a Russian, not a Boer, but a German—the Kaiser. Once again the workers, true to their training, determined to lay him low, and fear of the “bogey man” became most pronounced in such questions as “What would you do if the Germans came?” This time there was to be no nonsense. We would make Germany pay and hang the Kaiser. Alas! the workers paid in blood and tears and intensified toil for some and unemployment for millions, and they didn’t even hang the Kaiser; he settled in Doorn, doing well until he went to his hall in Valhalla. Will the workers always fall for a “bogey man,” or will they learn Socialism?

Lew.

Ramsay McDonald and the “Great War”. (1930)

From the November 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

The pacifism of MacDonald has almost become a legend—to those who know little about him. The picture of him as a man of peace is rudely dispelled at the moment by his action as Prime Minister in deciding to build more ships than the Tories—as his own supporter, Kenworthy, has shown, and the programme of more bombing planes which his Air Ministry has put through.

Our Party Manifesto reprints MacDonald’s famous letter to the Mayor of Leicester during the war, in which our “pacific” Prime Minister called the young men of England to their “patriotic duty.”

In the life and work of MacDonald written by his admirer and defender, H. H. Tiltman, we have more evidence showing how MacDonald tried to keep the appearance of a pacifist whilst supporting the war.

On the economic causes of the war he was silent. He said nothing about the economic aims of the ruling class of each country pursuing the war. The only attack he made was on the diplomatic methods of the war mongers, especially the secret diplomacy of Sir Edward Grey. That was why MacDonald was criticised.

The day war was declared MacDonald merely showed that he did not believe that “national interests” were at stake.

“I want to say to this House, and to say it without equivocation, if the right hon. Gentleman had come here to-day and told us that our country is in danger, I do not care what party he appealed to, or to what class he appealed, we would be with him and behind him. If this is so, we will vote him what money he wants. Yes, and we will go further. We will offer him ourselves if the country is in danger.”

(House of Commons, 3rd August, 1914. quoted p. 285.)

Four days afterwards he followed that speech by another in the Trades Hall, Leicester (August 7th, 1914).

“We are in it and we must see it through. It is a sad thing that we, loving our own country best, and hoping and striving that we shall not be defeated or worsened or disgraced, should have as counterpart to that the desire that this great nation of Germany should be worsened, defeated, and disgraced. How one almost hates the diplomacy that has brought us to this.” (Quoted Tiltman, p. 93.)

After such a statement it is quite natural that his biographer should say :—

“The war, once begun, however, he never cast any reflection upon the need of pursuing it up to a point at which a peace, just to this country, France, Belgium and Germany alike, was obtainable.” (p. 94.)

The Labour Party threw their entire resources into the war. Henderson, Clynes, Parker, Roberts, etc., became members of the war Government. Did MacDonald resign from the Party? Or was he relieved of his position?

No, he retained his official position, as Mr. Tiltman shows :—

“During this time, when even those who admitted that they knew Ramsay MacDonald could not escape a measure of social ostracism, he retained his official connection with the Labour Party as the Treasurer of the body which he had fashioned in its earliest days.” (p. 103.)

At Oldham on October 28th, 1916, MacDonald made a speech full of the usual rhetoric indulged in by recruiters. We quote an extract : —

“When a nation was threatened something instinctive in every man and woman in the nation made them stand by their nation. England was not merely a little patch of red on a map of the world, but it was something like a personnel, that had grown through generations and centuries, so that the English man or woman was something that had a rich past, a hopeful present and an enticing future. All these things came into the minds of the people at the moment of war and made them forget all differences and principles and fight, almost blindly, for national existence and nationality itself. That was the instinctive emotion of the moment. ” (p. 109.)

In the House of Commons, as late as June 20th, 1918, MacDonald was still “in the war” :

“I am in the war for the purpose of ending all war. Because that is so, I say you will have to adopt a method which the history of Europe shows has never been adopted before, because if you go on the old lines you will fulfil the old ends and nothing else. Therefore, I appeal to the Government to bring freshness of mind to these problems of diplomacy.” (Quoted p. 114.)

H. G. Wells, the war supporter, said that it was a war to end war. Ramsay MacDonald followed him very close in this moonshine :—

“With our hearts uplifted and our enemies’ minds enlightened, I am perfectly certain that this war will eventuate in a demand for peace which will not be broken again—a demand for a peace which will be established upon the common agreements of the peoples, and which, therefore, will never be assailed in the history of mankind.” (House of Commons, May 24th, 1916 ; quoted p. 109.)

When MacDonald expressed a desire for bringing the war to a close soon it was because he wanted to see “us” get the best terms. !

Listen to his speech at Swansea in May, 1917 :—

“The country is threatened by two dangers. The first is that it may make peace on account of war weariness. Nothing can be more fatal than that peace should be made because this country is war weary. That means that you will not obtain your object at all. A man who runs a race to obtain a prize, and who sits down on the course half-way to the goal, has not only lost, but has lost very badly. This country must nor he allowed to make peace on account of war weariness.” (Quoted Tiltman, p. 112.)

When murmurs arose in his own I.L.P. against their “comrades who were a part of the war Government, MacDonald set out to allay these protests by reminding them of the necessity of unity with the super-patriots after the war. Tiltman quotes an incident :—

“The Town Hall in Newcastle was crowded with delegates of the I.L.P. Annual Conference in 1916. Members of the Party who favoured a strong war policy were obviously in a minority. Delegate after delegate rose and literally shouted for the heads of Henderson, Barnes, Clynes and Parker. . . . MacDonald rose, quiet and grave, and in the measured accents of the Scot, and with relentless logic, envisioned the future when the temporary issue of the war had passed and the need for unity would be greater than ever before. ‘Be fair to these men, even though you don’t see eye to eye with them,’ was the gist of the speech.” (p. 101.)

A final quotation from the biography will be useful to portray this pacific war supporter as his apologist sees him :—

“Within the last twelve months a Member of Parliament who sat in the House of Commons throughout the war has informed me that MacDonald was in a state of indecision for weeks following the outbreak of hostilities, and he instanced this recruiting letter as evidence of the fact. Perhaps he had not examined Mr. MacDonald’s speeches at that time. Through them all runs the same clear-cut policy of opposition to our foreign policy, and acceptance of the fact that once the war had started it must be waged until a just peace was possible.” (p. 96.)

All the copies of speeches, etc., quoted, were provided by MacDonald to assist in preparing the book, so that there can be no question of their genuineness.

To aspiring youths now doing odd jobs in the workshop of Labourism, this biography should be useful to teach them how to become a “Statesman !”

C.

The Great Lie. (1930)

Book Review from the September 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Falsehood in War-time, Containing an Assortment of Lies Circulated Throughout the Nations During the Great War by Arthur Ponsonby (Allen & Unwin.)

We still speak familiarly of the War, as though it were something that only occurred the other day. It is curious to reflect that our boys of sixteen were babies in arms, and our young men now coming of age were toddling infants when red ruin was let loose on an unsuspecting world. Each year it is customary on the anniversary of the catastrophe, for the tawdry minds of Fleet Street to reassure a doubtful world that the slaughter was not in vain. Its hideous futility and long-drawn-out horror, are concealed in flatulent phrases about our National Honour, our concern for International Rights, the Sacredness of our Pledged Word, our Regard for the Rights of Small Nations, and other eyewash. Should there be any who still allow these illusions to drift about their consciousness, they might do much worse than spend half-a-crown on Mr. Ponsonby’s “Falsehood in Wartime.” August 4th this year again fell on Bank Holiday, exactly as it did sixteen years ago, and it seemed fitting to celebrate the anniversary by reading how our Christian rulers lied the people into massacre, lied them through it, and lied them back to peace and unemployment again. As Mr. Ponsonby says : “There must have been more deliberate lying in the world from 1914 to 1918 than in any other period of the world’s history.”

Those who were too young for the shambles last time, would do well to examine the bait that caught their fathers and their elder brothers. The collection is not exhaustive. It is only an exposure of a few samples, and is intended as a warning. The nation was assured that it was not committed to France in any way. It was a lie. “All preparations, down to the last detail, had been made, as shown by the prompt, secret and well-organised despatch of the Expeditionary Force.” The German invasion of Belgium was given as the cause of Great Britain’s entry into the war. It was a lie. Mr. Ponsonby gives the evidence. Germany, of course, we know was solely responsible for the war ! Mr. Asquith said so : “One Power, and one Power only, and that Power is Germany.” Lloyd George referred to it as the “most dangerous conspiracy ever plotted against the liberty of nations. …” (August 4th, 1917.) Three years later the Welsh Wizard realized “that no one at the head of affairs quite meant war at that stage (August 1st, 1914) . . , and a discussion, I have no doubt, would have averted it.” Four years of the bloodiest horror the human race has experienced, “and a discussion, I have no doubt, would have averted it.” What a thought for Bank Holiday. If the twenty million dead could only read that.

And then there was the notorious lie of the passage of hordes of Russian troops through Great Britain, en route for France. In less than a month the atrocity stories commenced. There was the nurse whose breast had been mutilated, the Belgian baby whose hands had been hacked off, the Canadian who was crucified, the tale of the prisoner whose tongue had been torn out, the tattooed man, and so on. All lies, utter downright lies. Everyone remembers the German corpse factory yarn. Who believes it now? And so we go on. Lists of atrocities that never happened, photographs that were faked, official documents that were doctored ; lies by the cubic ton, lies by the square mile, lies by the great gross, and all to secure the killing of men and the starving of women and children. The British established a truth manipulating factory at Crewe House, under the appropriate leadership of Lord Northcliffe, founder of the “Daily Mail.” He’d had some experience.

Mr. Ponsonby is candid. He says in his introduction : “This is no plea that lies should not be used in war-time, but a demonstration of how lies must be used in war-time. If the truth were told from the outset, there would be no reason, and no will to war.”

He calls attention to the new and far more efficient instrument of propaganda which has appeared since the last war—the Government control of broadcasting. He concludes : “None of the heroes prepared for suffering and sacrifice, none of the common herd ready for service and obedience, will be inclined to listen to the call of their country once they discover the polluted sources from whence that call proceeds and recognise the monstrous finger of falsehood which beckons them to the battlefield.”

We agree. We were saying that ten years before the war. It is important to realise, however, that the pollution is not confined to war-time.

W. T. Hopley

News from the Madhouse (2003)

From the August 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Statistics

The United States, as the most powerful country in the world, must be the world’s leading producer of statistics. But for some reason the US has been very coy about producing any estimate of the numbers of Iraqis killed during the American attack. However, others outside officialdom are less reticent, and according to a Times (10 July) report on Iraq, “a group of British and US academics said that the civilian death toll from the war was at least 6000.” But the lack of official American figures does mean that all that suffering can be brushed under the carpet. An American writer in the Times (3 June) said that the Iraqi war was “pretty-close-to-bloodless”. The 2800 people killed in the 2001 attack on the World Trade Centre are fewer than half the probable figure of Iraqi civilian deaths. No American writer would ever describe the 11 September attack as “pretty-close-to-bloodless”. Of course, the twin towers attacks killed mainly Americans, while in Iraq it was mainly Iraqis who died. Perhaps that makes a difference.

Solitary confinement

But if you call your dead “victims”, instead of “heroes”, you may find people asking what is the point of supporting a system which results in so many dead victims. Describing them as “heroes”, or so the authorities hope, is a good way of getting people to rally behind the flag, and continue the merciless carnage which is part of capitalism. Private Jessica Lynch, for example, an American maintenance soldier, was in a vehicle at the back-end of an American convoy in Iraq, which lost its way and blundered into enemy territory. In an exchange of fire, she was badly injured, and captured by the Iraqis. She was taken to a nearby hospital in Nasiriyah, and her crushed arms and legs were put in plaster. The Americans discovered she was there, and decided the chance of rescuing a young, good-looking blonde was too good to miss. By that time Iraqi resistance was crumbling, but the desire for a propaganda coup was too strong. So special forces in helicopters, guns firing, stormed the hospital, capturing all the doctors and nurses and not really helping the patients, and triumphantly carried off Private Lynch.

According to the Times (21 June), the press was fed reports about her heroic resistance, fighting and killing Iraqis before being wounded several times herself. There are plans to make films about this exciting story. In fact, it seems, her gun jammed so she didn’t fire at all. Unfortunately, Private Lynch “has been unable to remember anything about the events which have propelled her into the public eye”, and, said the Times reporter, she is now “living in solitary confinement in the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington. Outside her door stands a military guard who prevents anyone except her medical helpers and her immediate family from seeing her. Each lunchtime Private Lynch goes to physiotherapy and works out alone.Other patients are banished from the gym for fear that the press will use them as a way to get to her.” A “hero”, kept in solitary confinement! It makes you wonder if they are helping her to remember what she has forgotten, i.e. all about her heroism. As the report said, “She is deliberately and falsely being portrayed as a hero in a war with few genuine heroes because the Americans would like to feel good about a war that has an ambiguous ending, and the entertainment industry needs to please them.”

Fishy story

In legal circles, there is a well-known story about a barrister, appearing for the defendant, who listened to the other side’s allegations, and wondered how on earth he was going to reply to them. At length his solicitor passed him a note: “No case; attack the plaintiff’s attorney.”

Ten Downing Street is acting on exactly the same principle in the aftermath of the Iraqi war. Much of the media—newspapers, radio, television—has been questioning some of the stories the government put out to justify their action in invading Iraq along with the Americans. Not having a convincing reply to many of these questions, Alastair Campbell (the Prime Minister’s main public relations adviser) decided to seize on one allegation broadcast on BBC television, to the effect that he had “sexed up” some of the information the government got from its so-called “intelligence services”, before issuing it as part of the government’s propaganda drive to persuade people of the necessity of war.

Whether this or that claim is one hundred per cent justified is of minor importance besides the government’s efforts to obscure the basic facts of the matter. America attacked and overthrew the Saddam Hussein regime because it needs to import a great deal of oil to keep its productive and distributive industries functioning. Saudi Arabia, with the world’s largest reserves of oil, is already firmly within the American sphere of influence; Iraq, with the world’s second largest reserves, was hostile to the United States, so had to be brought into line. Britain, and a few other countries, supported the United States because it is by a long way the most powerful country in the world. Some European countries have reacted to this enormous American power by stepping up their attempt to build a capitalist European federation which might in the future hope to rival the United States, and share in world leadership. Others, including Britain, think that a better bet is to go with the country which now has the leadership: in the jungle of world capitalism, the British rulers think, perhaps safety and prosperity lie in cosying up to the most ferocious predator.

Each group of capitalists, ruling in a particular country, does whatever it thinks is best for its own interests. Lots of advice is given, but the decision rests with each country’s ruling class. In Britain, there was a lot of feeling against going to war. Tony Blair, in his present role as right-hand man to the British ruling class, and administrator of British capitalism, ignored the widespread anti-war feeling, and did what he thought the British capitalist class would want him to do. So he went along with the American rulers, hoping that it would help to ensure the oil supplies which British industry needs and will need in the foreseeable future.

Whenever anyone makes an open, honest decision, he adds up all the possible reasons for and against, and arrives at a conclusion. When anyone reaches his conclusion first, and then has to make up his reasons afterwards, there are often a lot of problems. Tony Blair couldn’t announce that he was going to send British soldiers to fight in Iraq, which would involve killing and injuring Iraqi soldiers and civilians, as well as deaths and injuries among the British invading force, simply because he thought it was safer in the modern world for the British ruling class to ally with the single world superpower, and at the same time make sure British capitalism didn’t run out of oil. So reasons had to be made up afterwards. Hence the sudden discovery that Saddam Hussein is a nasty man, running a barbarous regime. Quite true, of course, but not enough to excuse a war which was almost impossible to square with capitalism’s own “international law”. The problems were, firstly, that the British government has supported and traded with this barbarous regime in the past, and, secondly, if that was the reason behind the war, Britain would have to attack many countries round the world, which have regimes just as tyrannical and murderous as Saddam’s. If only the “enemy” country would attack first, then the excuse for war would be obvious—resistance to aggression, which was trumpeted as a complete justification throughout the Second World War. But that wouldn’t do in this case, since America and Britain were going to be the ones committing the aggression. And it wouldn’t be very convincing to claim that Iraq, economically feeble after the Gulf War and the years of sanctions since then, was somehow going to get powerful enough to send an invasion fleet down the Persian Gulf and round the Arabian Sea, up the Red Sea and through the Suez Canal, then through the Mediterranean and past Gibraltar, and across the Bay of Biscay before finally invading Cornwall.

What could be done? So in comes the killer excuse—Saddam has weapons of mass destruction: nuclear or chemical or biological weapons which could be sent on a rocket across Europe to land on Basingstoke or thereabouts—and which would be ready for action in only forty-five minutes! (Exactly forty-five, apparently—not forty-four or forty-six minutes: or, as W. S. Gilbert put it, “corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative”.) All this is jazzed up in two official-sounding dossiers, which seek to prove the imminent danger. In due course awkward facts start to emerge—some of the material was taken from an ancient thesis which a student had submitted for his degree (and put on the internet), borrowed without acknowledgement and improved to make it more exciting; and allegations about Saddam trying to import uranium from the Niger republic in West Africa, which turn out to have been based mainly on forged documents.

When all this comes out in the newspapers and the media generally, no wonder Ten Downing Street try to defend themselves by picking out some uncertain bits of the criticism and demanding apologies. But since the Labour Party convinced millions of voters at the last two elections of the gigantic lie that they could run the capitalist system for the benefit of the working class—the great majority of ordinary people—then perhaps these other terminological inexactitudes seem to be very small beer.

Alwyn Edgar

Passing Comments: Reformists (1951)

The Passing Comments Column from the August 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reformists

Even on their own false definition of Socialism the Labour Party's claim to be a Socialist party grows more hollow with every month that passes. The Liberals claim that the credit for envisaging and planning the Welfare State is really theirs, and all the big parties join in promising to preserve it. The Americans have started buying their tin and rubber supplies in bulk (so bulk-buying can scarcely now be called “Socialist” either). Nationalisation, which used to be put forward as the very core of the Labour Party's “Socialism,” has now been accepted by the Persian ruling class as the best means of getting the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.'s plant into their own hands, and the embarrassed Labour Government is faced with all the arguments the Labour leaders once used themselves. Even that old standby of Labour politicians, the vague and windy attacks on high profits and high prices, they must now share with the Tory Sunday Express, which gives front-page headlining (17-6-51) to its question “Are prices too high because profits are too high?"—and answers that many financial experts believe they are. Before long there will be hardly an item on the Labour Party programme that some other capitalist group or party is not also promising or putting into practice.

* * *

The Persian “People“

The Persian oil dispute has given the Stalinists another opportunity of displaying their patriotic fervour for the interests of Russia. It seems possible that if the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. is dispossessed, some Persian oil may be diverted to markets inside the Soviet bloc away from its present markets in the Western bloc countries. This possibility is enough to line the Stalinists up behind the Persian ruling class, and their daily paper now defends the Persian capitalists with almost as much enthusiasm as it does the Russian rulers. One might have expected even a Stalinist to understand that there is not much likelihood of a Persian worker being better off simply because the job of exploiting him is taken over by capitalists speaking Persian from capitalists speaking English. Indeed, there may be truth in the allegations of the British Press that the Persian workers will probably be worse off under capitalists of their own nationality. But the World Federation of Trade Unions, a body under Stalinist leadership, has published a pamphlet written by a former Persian minister entitled “The Iranian People Fight the British Oil Trust." And the Daily Worker (editorial, 30-6-51) also glibly repeats the arguments of the Persian governing class, talking of the “Persians resuming possession of their natural resources," and saying that the British government is trying to intimidate “the Persian government and people." “Now that the Persian people are awake," it decides, “these tactics will not succeed.” But it doesn't explain why the fact that the Persian workers are supporting" the Persian capitalists, if they are doing so, shows that they are awake; Socialists would conclude rather that it proves they are still in a nationalist stupor.

So near and yet . . .

The day before, however, the Daily Worker unintentionally got near to the truth. In Mr. Walter Holmes' column the following appeared:

“Persia was described by Lenin in 1908 as ‘inflammable material in world politics.' His description of the scene then, when the Persians were struggling to end the absolutism of the Shahs and to win a constitution, while Russian and British imperialism rivalled each other in grabbing tactics, has sharp point now.” 

Sharper than you think, Mr. Holmes, sharper than you think.

* * *

Truth in wartime

The estimates given by each side in the Korean war of the losses suffered by the opposing forces differ considerably. To guard against too easy acceptance of the figures issued by “our" side, it may be worth while recalling that on May 14th, 1947, Mr. Noel-Baker, then Air Minister, announced in the House of Commons that although during the Battle of Britain the R.A.F. claimed to have shot down 2,692 enemy aircraft, the German records showed that only 1,733 had been destroyed; and that the. British government had now accepted the German figures. When the British figures were originally issued during the war, they were given not as estimates but as hard facts; and doubtless any citizen publicly stating his disbelief in them would have laid himself open to a charge of spreading alarm and despondency. And now here was the confession that the official figures exceeded the truth by more than 55 percent. !

* * *

Where dictatorship is good for business

It has always been the Socialist contention that the opposition sometimes expressed in the British Press to dictatorship and totalitarianism has not been founded on any dislike of those systems as such, but has merely been a means of stirring up a feeling of hatred towards those countries which are competing with Britain for overseas markets and raw materials. In the case of countries from which our rulers expect help in war, or with which they do profitable business, dictatorship is overlooked; more, it is often praised. What, in an “enemy country," is called rule by secret police and concentration camp, becomes in a “friendly country" orderly and stable government. For example, here is an extract from a recent statement by the Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh O'Neill, Bt., P.C., M.P.:

“It is with the deepest regret that I have to refer to the recent death of His Excellency Marshal Carmona, the President of the Portuguese Republic. He had been President for nearly 25 years and was held in the greatest affection by all his people. During this period Portugal enjoyed orderly government and achieved stability. He did much to extend and foster the good relations which have always existed between his country and its oldest ally, Great Britain.”

Now it is general knowledge that Portugal is as much a dictatorship as, say. Russia, and that Carmona stood in much the same relationship to the dictator Salazar as Kalinin used to do to the dictator Stalin. What then led Sir Hugh to sing this paean of praise to the figurehead of a dictatorship?

* * *

Profit covers a multitude of sins

Sir Hugh is chairman of Lisbon Electric Tramways, Ltd., and the extract above is taken from his annual statement for the year 1950 (Economist, 9-6-51). The net profit for that year, £70,390, shows an increase of £5,000 over the previous year's. And £61,595 of it is distributed to shareholders in preference dividends and in an ordinary dividend of 5 per cent.

No wonder Sir Hugh can turn a blind eye to the totalitarian political set-up in Portugal; indeed, since it produces "orderly government and stability," so much the better for business.

* * *

Precept . . .

Dr. Garbett, archbishop of York, warned us the other day of some of the dangers of the Welfare State. In the Observer (22-4-51) he is reported to have said:

" I think we should be proud that our country has been a pioneer in establishing the Welfare State. But it carries with it the danger that its citizens may expect everything to be done for them without their doing anything in return, beyond, of course, paying their insurance. The citizen may become a passive recipient, always demanding more, but gradually losing initiative and responsibility. The ‘they’ mentality is developed instead of the ‘we' — 'They must do it ’ instead of ‘We must do it.’”

Dr. Garbett was talking of a very real danger. But why has he waited until the introduction of the so- called Welfare State to utter his warning? For the citizens who "expect everything to be done for them without their doing anything for it in return” are to be found among the higher income-groups, among the owning-class; and these citizens have had their own privately-operated Welfare State working for a long time in the form of unearned income from the ownership of land, factories, and shares. Dr. Garbett's phrase about "passive recipients, always demanding more” is one of the best descriptions we have seen for some time of shareholders attending the annual general meeting of their company. Dr. Garbett said that the survival of the Welfare State "depends upon the duty of hard work by all able-bodied citizens. Unless we produce more for export by skill and hard work we shall be unable to purchase sufficient food for our people or raw materials for our industries.” If the archbishop had attempted to follow this up by attending Ascot the other week and advising some of the gentlemen there to take jobs in the factories and mines we feel that he would soon have seen exactly where the “they” mentality he refers to is strongest.

* * *

. . . and Practice

Talking about members of the owning class, the Evening Standard (20-4-51) tells us of the case of Mr. Ronald Tree, former Tory M.P. for Market Harborough, who has been receiving an income of £85,000 year from a trust fund of £2,678,000 left by his grandfather. Mr. Tree said that taxation had cut this down to £7,140 a year. Apparently an income of £140 a week did not allow Mr. Tree to live "according to his station.” So, instead of finding some other station to live according to, Mr. Tree applied to the Superior Court in Chicago for a further tax-free payment of £214,000 from the trust fund, and obtained it. Assuming that Mr. Tree devotes all this sum to immediate income, instead of putting it out to "earn” further interest, it will last for twenty years at the rate of £200 a week. There is, then, reasonable hope that for this period of time Mr. Tree will be able to keep up with the Joneses.

* * *

War Vocabulary

The trouble in Korea has enabled us to brush up our war vocabulary. One of the first things to be learnt is that the same event or object always has two terms to describe it, according to whether it occurs on one's own side of the Iron Curtain or on the other. A few examples are given below:

 Alwyn Edgar

Those war books! (1952)

From the August 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

If one studies the large illustrated histories of the first and second World Wars, it becomes obvious that there are many differences in the propaganda, ideas and methods of the various capitalist governments. These changes in putting out their “War Propaganda" probably took origin in the fact that the working class had in the meantime learnt a thing or two.

If we refer to the well known “ Illustrated ” of the First World War (the Great War as it was called), edited by H. W. Wilson, who incidentally also edited “Japan Fights for Freedom,” and “ Following the Flag to Pretoria,” the recognised histories of the Russo-Japanese and Boer Wars respectively, we find that flag waving was a dominant factor, with God, King, and Country closely wrapped up with the flags. Apparently these things made a far greater impression on the people than during the Second World War, for in Sir John Hammerton’s "History of the Second World War", this flag waving type of propaganda is given little scope, and God scarcely gets a mention. Even the Germans thought fit to drop their famous motto of the First War “ Gott mit uns ” after the Almighty had so badly let them down in the first round.

The German propaganda differed little in the two wars so far as flag waving intensity was concerned, while the Russian propaganda stuff merely had to replace the "Divine Little Father” by Infallible Uncle Joe!

The dominant idea in these history books of the First War, was that the Kaiser was ambitious, and at a later stage that he was mad. Many photos of him had the caption that he was looking obviously old and tired and suffering from war strain. Such words occurred early in 1915. The awkward point which the ruling class had to skirt around was that our own Royalty were German in origin and close blood relations with the Kaiser, who incidentally was born in Buckingham Palace and narrowly missed becoming King of England. This ticklish point did not arise in the Second War and it was easy to get at Hitler because he was, like so many members of the working class, once a corporal. Indeed such propaganda was slung at Napoleon by the bucketful. But don’t worry there is plenty of time for the ruling class to discover one day that Stalin was once a bank robber, not to mention the murderer of the "Old Guard.”

In the first World War Books, great play was made on the “devilish zeppelin raids,” for deliberately dropping bombs on women and children—an innovation in those days, whilst in the Second War, raids on civilians and towns, although met with by an outcry at first (Rotterdam, Coventry, etc.), were soon taken as a matter of course, and dealt with by “If you bomb our towns, we will bomb yours.” This principle followed along the lines of Baldwin when he declared (about 1935), that there was no defence against the bombing aeroplane, so the only thing to do was to bomb as many of the enemy’s towns as he did of yours. In other words, to concentrate on attack and destruction at all costs, and to justify your actions afterwards.

When both wars were over we learnt through these semi-official books the experiences of different countries in getting men to fight, and how nearly each side came to open revolt. In the spring of 1918 there were big revolts among the French troops during the critical German offensive, and British troops had to take over to check what would have an immediate disaster to the allies. In the second war Rumanian troops under German leadership were thrust mercilessly against the Russians with such enormous losses, causing sporadic revolts, that their use had to be discontinued because the Nazis had to devote so much time to driving them on that it was not worth it. It was the Rumanians who put down Soviet Hungary under Bela Kun, and Czech armies who marched right across Russia and had to be helped out by allied forces in Vladivostock.

The horrors of gas warfare were made the object of great play in the First War books, but in those of the Second, received only a casual mention in comparison. True in this case preparation beforehand did what was required.

One obvious difference in die two wars was due to the introduction of the Radio. Each nation poured out its stuff in as many languages as it could. The B.B.C. was in some respects well up to all the tricks, and not only encouraged listening to German stations, but actually on one occasion at least, re-broadcast one of Hitler's speeches while it was going on, doubtlessly without his permission. True, very few could understand a word of it, except the thousands of refugees, but it probably had its intended influence on the “democratic propaganda” on which the B.B.C. prided itself.

The Germans were confronted with many difficulties in the radio direction and had told so many lies about events abroad that they had to make it a punishable offence if foreign broadcasts were listened to. But the B.B.C. were well in advance of this by a special station “Atlantic” that broadcast news and views along with gramophone records and "letters from home," to German soldiers at the fronts. The news bulletins were such that they showed that a few more German planes were lost and a few more prisoners captured than Allied, while the pretence to be a German station was kept up very successfully.

The Russfcui rulers were even more scared than were those of the Germans, and went so far as to call in all the radio sets (Kravchencko “I chose Freedom”) thereby permitting only the massive state and factory sets for workers to listen to their beloved leaders.

The B.B.Cs. motto, “When nations can speak to one another there will be no wars," seems to have fallen into disuse. Perhaps it is because there are other causes of war than those arising from being unable to speak to one another.

Those cruder methods of working up hatred such as the “ Corpse factory," Babies being stuck on the end of bayonets" “Women with their breasts cut off,” “ Crucified Canadians,” or even the “ Angel of Mons ” all of First War origin, made no appearance in the Second War, although similar things are alleged to have been put out on the German side in both wars. In the Second war no Russians were seen arriving in England with snow on their boots. Bolsheviks and Commu-Nazis became over night heroes and before the last shots of the Second War were fired, the Soviet heroes became once again Bolsheviks and Commu-Nazis, Red Fascists, and with the same ruthless dictatorship regime with all its spying, secret police and rigid propaganda as that formerly existing in Germany. In other words we had an ally whose political system consisted of those very evils which Chamberlain told us we were fighting against.

Do the workers notice all these things, or some of them ? Naturally it doesn’t all stick, if it did our mission would be largely fulfilled. The fact that the ruling class was compelled to modify its propaganda to the extent in which it did in the Second War, is sufficient indication that they are not too sure of themselves and of how the workers are going to take it all. In the event of another world war they will have an even more difficult task to deal with, that of having to live down two world wars, and finding fresh excuses for why they can't get their system to work harmoniously.

Horace Jarvis.

Fake History (2023)

Book Review from the June 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fake History: Ten Great Lies and How They Shaped The World. By Otto English, Wellbeck, 2022

Anyone who has seen a big enough expanse of water will be able to see the curvature of the Earth on the horizon. The bizarre notion that pre-Colombian people thought the earth was flat was started by Washington Irving, author of Sleepy Hollow, the Rip Van Winkle stories and a biography of Columbus published in 1828. According to Irving, Columbus sailed west from Spain to prove that the Earth was spherical and ‘discovered’ America in the process. However, there is no evidence that Columbus had that intention and there were already, in 1492, some 60 million people living in America. The founding myth of America and many other states is that of ‘exceptionalism’, the belief that they are a special people and, by inference, that others are inferior.

Abraham Lincoln did not believe that all men were created equal. In 1861 Lincoln became the first Republican Party President. Shortly afterwards a Civil War began which killed an estimated 618,000 people (a greater number than British dead, military and civilian, in the Second World War). In his Gettysburg Address of 1863 Lincoln declared that the American nation was founded on the proposition that ‘all men are created equal’. What he meant was ‘all white men’. In a debate in 1858 Lincoln said that he was ‘not, nor have ever been, in favour of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races’. He was opposed to ‘mixed race’ marriages but he was strongly in favour of ‘repatriating’ black people to Africa. He didn’t believe black people should have the vote, though he did eventually agree to extending suffrage to black Americans who had served on the Union side in the Civil War. But not to other black Americans.

Queen Victoria married a German, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, in 1840. They continued with that family name, Saxe-Coburg Gotha, until the First World War with Germany, when overnight it became the House of Windsor. The insinuation has long been held that the royal family is German. This is rather like Donald Trump’s accusation that Barack Obama couldn’t be a ‘real American’ because he wasn’t born in America and his father was born in Kenya. Barack was born in America and his father was born in Kenya, but that didn’t matter to the racist meme. The arch-opponent of immigration Nigel Farage is the great-great grandson of German refugees in the 1860s. He may be a hypocrite, but it would be absurd to claim that he is really a German.

There was never a realistic prospect of Nazi Germany invading Britain during the Second World War. Although their air forces were more or less evenly matched, the Kriegsmarine was massively outgunned by the Royal Navy. That alone made invasion extremely unlikely. German General Alfred Jodl said that an invasion would be like ‘sending troops into a mincing machine’. And Field Marshal von Rundstedt later claimed that Hitler never had a serious plan to invade. But that doesn’t stop the relentless propaganda being pumped out that Britain could have lost the war if not for those who gave their lives in its defence.

Many falsehoods have been told by and about Churchill, some of which have been repeated by his biographer and wannabe Churchillian PM, Andrew Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. Among the many things Churchill never actually said: ‘If you’re not a Liberal by 25 you don’t have a heart’ and that ‘if you’re not a Conservative by 35, you don’t have a brain’ (he was a Conservative MP at 25 and a Liberal MP at 35). Born into the ruling class, Churchill’s reputation was forged when he became Prime Minister of the wartime coalition in 1940. Like Abraham Lincoln, he has acquired a cult status, seemingly beyond criticism. But his defence of Empire is less well known. For instance, writing in the 1930s of aborigines in Australia: ‘I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly-wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place’. How much longer will his statue remain in Parliament Square? Upon hearing of a suggestion to remove the statue, Boris Johnson said that he would ‘fight with every breath in his body’ to keep the statue up. A more likely scenario would be — taking a cue from his hero — that he would give the order for others to do the fighting.

And there’s much more fake history exposed in this recommended book by Otto English. Some hostile reviewers have gleefully seized upon the fact that this name is fake. His real name is Andrew Scott, which is also the name of an actor. To avoid confusion, and possible legal consequences, he adopted a pen name. Nothing unusual about that for authors.

Lew Higgins

Letters: Who are the cowards? (2000)

Letters to the Editors from the November 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Who are the cowards?

Dear Editors,

There could hardly be a better symbol for how governments treat their mass public, than the 306 “cowards”, executed by British authorities during the First World War. Nothing has changed, either. There is no essential difference between the military, flexing its muscles, or the Thatcherite revolution throwing people out into the street, or even a Blairite dogma to “modernise”, but actually preparing everyone and every aspect of life to be merely the plaything of global capitalism. Then, if war is an extension of diplomacy, and business is a substitute for war, all this becomes more understandable, but not defensible, given the catastrophic effects on society’s weaker members.

The incompetent Earl Haig treated his troops as cannon fodder; Thatcher said there is no such thing as society; and Blair’s modernity will expose the unwary to a life of being only a marketing statistic. All these three were, and are, immune to the shock imposed on others less able to defend themselves, by pursuing their social revolutions. They also maintain their advantage, through an elite status. Hence, “deserters”, the dispossessed and disabled, or the incapacitated, are treated by their elected leaders as inferior, and therefore, fair game. These people are losers, and consequently seen by the elite as an embarrassment to their inflated opinion of themselves—and here we have the underlying reason for New Labour’s attitude to voters in wheelchairs: punish them.

Jeffrey Wheeler, 

Nuneaton, Warwicks

The Morgenthau Plan

Dear Editors,

The article “Why war is no accident”, (August Socialist Standard) claimed that “on the eve of allied victory the leaders of the victorious countries accepted a plan drawn up by . . . Morgenthau to de-industrialise Germany” Not so. The Quebec Agreement between Churchill and Roosevelt on proposals to de-industrialise Germany was “initialled” (i.e. agreed to informally) by them on 15 September 1944. Neither Churchill nor Roosevelt had with them their top advisors and there were no representatives present from the Soviet Union, the third of the wartime alliance.

British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and American Secretary of State Cordell Hull were “horrified” by the proposals. Eden recalls in his Memoirs “I did not like the plan, nor was I convinced that it was to our national advantage.” Hull rejected it as being “a plan of blind vengeance.” The American Secretary of War Henry Stimson also strongly opposed it; it was “just fighting brutality with brutality.”

Historians have variously characterised the Morgenthau Plan as being “still-born”, “abandoned”, “pigeon-holed”, “did not…become official policy” and was “never put into effect.”

It was realised that a weak Germany with high unemployment brought about by de-industrialisation would be prey to political extremism (as it had been in the 1920s and 1930s) and liable to fall into the Soviet camp. American policy-makers planned for an “open” Europe of free trade which would be a market for US produce.

It has been suggested that Churchill had been reluctant to go along with the Plan but did so because he was at the time in negotiations with Morgenthau over post-war Lend-Lease arrangements. Britain had been offered $6.5 billion post-war credit and he did not want the promise jeopardised. His claimed that the Morgenthau Plan would leave Britain “chained to a dead body”. Although a de-industrialised Germany would remove an economic rival it would also entail the loss of a lucrative market for industrial goods produced in Britain.

A Germany integrated into a “United States of Europe” would be economically more efficient which would in turn (in the view of the US Department of State Division of Economic Studies at the time) give higher levels of real incomes leading to an increased demand “for imports of raw materials, food, and manufactured articles, of which the United States would be the primary beneficiaries.” (In 1937 Europe had been the destination for 41 per cent US exports and the source of 27 per cent of its imports).

It was these arguments that eventually won the day. Germany was not subject to “ongoing economic attacks” as the launching of the European Recovery Programme (the “Marshall Plan”) in mid-1947 demonstrates.

By 1946 there were an estimated 14 million “displaced persons” (i.e. refugees) in Europe—10 million in Germany (7 million in the Western Zones.) Deaths “may have been anything between 2 and 3 million” according to Hugh Thomas (Armed Truce). In their two volume study A History of West Germany D.L. Bark and D. R. Gress estimate that two million Germans died as a result of the immediate post-war disruptions. It is not clear on what authority the author of the article bases his claim of 5 million deaths and on what evidence it rests.

John E. Farquharson (in The Western Allies and the Politics of Food.) shows that the Allied system of food rationing was a continuation of the German one already in place. Ration allowances were supplemented by theft, forgery of ration documents, barter, recourse to the black market, self supply (e.g. allotments), and additional allowances for those employed in heavy work. In one area of occupied Germany the number of ration cards presented in one accounting period was twice the number officially issued. Less than a quarter of the population of the Western Zones were “normal consumers”, the majority claimed supplements of one kind or another.

This not to say that hunger and malnutrition did not occur, it did. However the “hard” figures represented by official ration issues for calories per day do not represent the true state of affairs. In the circumstances the Western Allies did what they could and it is incorrect to state that the Allies imposed blockade and starvation upon the defeated German nation. We do not need to exaggerate to make out a Socialist case against the pernicious nature of capitalism and its wars.

Gwynn Thomas, 

Colchester, Essex

Reply: 

Thanks for your interesting and useful clarification. The article’s main point was that blockading a rival state is a policy capitalist states are prepared to consider (as the existence of the Morgenthau Plan shows) and to implement (today as in Iraq) regardless of the consequences on the civilian population. And, as your letter brings out well, again as in Iraq, those capitalist politicians who oppose this option do so because they are more interested in export prospects than in the plight of the population. The source of the 5 million figure was the book Crimes and Mercies by James Baque, mentioned in the article.

Editors.

How I became a socialist

Dear Editors,

In the beginning, way back in the 1960s, I became, in my late teens, a so-called “hippie”. The hippies were a more progressive, creative and imaginative development from the beatniks in the USA—who were basically scruffy, layabouts, poets and artists. I remained in the hippie phase for about eight years, until the early 70s, when I changed my outlook gradually and became, so to speak, politically “radicalised”. I began to support the left wing, and joined CND, voting Labour, attending meetings, and taking part in protests and demonstrations.

By 1979 I grew deeply disillusioned with Labour and rejected its policies and ideology: I was then far-left in outlook. Almost a Trotskyite, in fact. It seemed to me that only a violent mass movement would change society, and that “direct action”, including the general strike and armed insurrection, could and would overthrow the state and ruling class.

This barricades mentality persisted in my mind until the mid-1980s, when I began to study the various “schools” or styles of anarchism. Reading the works of Peter Kropotkin, Michael Bakunin, Errico Malatesta, Emma Goldman, etc, etc. I became a militant anarchist. I was very determined and began fighting the police; even after several jail terms (in which I fought the screws), I persisted and persevered in anarchism. But by 1986, grave doubts and misgivings surfaced; I discovered serious flaws and errors in anarchist theory and practice. My conclusion was that it actually leads nowhere and achieves nothing but more bloodshed and frustration.

So, early in 1986, I abandoned anarchism altogether. A few months later my attention was drawn to some examples of Socialist Party literature. By chance, I came across a few issues of the Socialist Standard. After reading carefully and reflecting on it, I accepted the concept of socialism. Then I obtained some of the works of Karl Marx from a public library—in particular, the Communist Manifesto of 1848.

This really transformed my whole outlook on history, society and politics. Marx profoundly impressed and inspired me in a way no-one and nothing ever had before. Thus, acquiring a Marxist understanding and analysis of capitalism and of how to get rid of it, I became a scientific socialist by the spring of 1986: after which I contacted the Socialist Party, and subsequently joined.

The one thing about the Socialist Party that persuaded me, above all else, to join, was that all its literature is strictly honest, truthful and accurate; also that the party is fully and truly democratic in its organisation and activities. This meant a lot to me: I realised that here was one political party which not only had genuine principles but stuck to them through thick and thin without any compromise or “sell-out”.

So that is how and why I became a socialist, fourteen years ago. I lapsed from membership some time ago—but that is solely due to chronic, incurable disabling illness and my personal circumstances, which make it impossible for me to travel around and attend its debates and meetings. The only sort of contribution I can make is by writing articles and collecting the party’s audio tapes. I also argue the case for socialism with friends and acquaintances—and, occasionally, with strangers I meet in pubs, cafés, etc. (I’ve made a lot of enemies this way!)

Through the years, I have amassed a great deal of vital information on many subjects—including political history, religion, ecology and conservation, anthropology, the history of the socialist movement, and so on—and have written a book on the origins and development of capitalism, comparing it with the only sane alternative, World Socialism. My final draft typescript of this book is now in the possession of the Socialist Party’s archivists. I hope some day that it will be published.

In conclusion, I want to express my gratitude to the Socialist Party for providing me with the understanding and insight I sorely lacked before; and to Karl Marx too, of course: we all owe him a great debt for the tremendous work he did and his great achievements. We can’t all be like Marx, but at least some of us might approach his level of intellect if we make the necessary effort. Marxian knowledge can increase intelligence, I have found: and it produces the “quantum jump” in consciousness among workers everywhere which makes socialism possible. Speed the day!

David E. Finlay, 

Brighton

Labour history

Dear Editors,

I am writing on behalf of the North West Labour History Group. As part of our work in popularising knowledge of labour history we publish an annual journal and I would like to appeal to your readers for contributions to two forthcoming issues, one on the 1960s to be published in 2001 and one on the 1970s to be published in 2002.

We believe the time has come to examine the radical social, political and labour movement of those decades in the North West. We invite anybody interested in writing an article to contact us in the first instance at: North West Labour History Group c/o Working Class Movement Library, 51 Crescent, Salford M5 4WX.

Michael Herbert, 

North West Labour History Group