Editorial: From Comintern to Cominform (1947)

Editorial from the November 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Communist International, formed in 1919 at a time when Lenin and his associates expected the workers of all the leading countries to place Communists in power, continued in existence as an instrument of Russian foreign policy until it was wound up in 1943, presumably because, with problems of the peace settlement ahead, the Russian Government thought it tactful to remove an organisation that was at that time not very useful but was a source of irritation and alarm to the Allied governments.

On October 5th, 1947, the birth of an Information Bureau was announced (named by opponents the “Cominform”), representing the Communist parties of nine countries, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Rumania, Russia and Yugoslavia. According to the statement issued by the new group (Daily Worker, 6/10/47) it represents “the anti-imperialist and democratic camp, the principal aim of which is to undermine imperialism, strengthen democracy and liquidate the remnants of Fascism.”

It will “elaborate an agreed platform of action” directed against “the main forces of the imperialist camp – against American imperialism, its British and French Allies, the right-wing Socialists, in the first place in Britain and France.”

Again according to the Daily Worker, the communiqué issued by the Cominform “names Attlee, Bevin and Leon Blum among the ‘treacherous leadership’ of the Socialist movement,” It is explained by the Russian Communists that the new organisation “by no means signifies the restoration of a global Communist organisation with a centralized leadership, such as the Communist International represented at the time” (Daily Worker, 11/10/47), but it is evident from the declared objects that the aim is just the same, that of smashing Labour parties as a step towards the conquest of power by the Communist parties in the various countries.

What should be the attitude of workers to the new organisation? Are its aims and methods deserving of working-class support? Is it genuinely a body aiming to defend democracy, to oppose capitalism and imperialism, and to work for triumph of Socialism?

Let us first consider who engineered its formation by what methods. It was formed at a secret meeting in Warsaw in September, held on the initiative of Soviet Russia. The meeting was kept secret, not only secret from the openly capitalist press and capitalist parties of the world but secret also from the working class of the world, including the rank and file members of the Communist parties of the nine countries. The formation of the new body, like the dissolution of the old one in 1943 was decided over their heads and with their knowledge. The rank and file and even the leaders of the British Communist Party only learned of it after its secret decisions had been decided upon. The meeting, moreover, was called by Russian Communist Party officials, acting, of course, on the instructions of the Russian Government. In that country the Government is in the hands of the Communist Party, the membership of which numbers only a very small minority of the population. No political party is allowed to exist except the Communist Party, so that there is no political party to put up candidates in opposition to Communist Party candidates at elections. When, therefore, the Communist Party in this or any other country declares its support for “democracy” that is what they mean by democracy.

From the Socialist and working-class standpoint these dictatorial organisations, arriving at decisions at secret meetings, are wholly evil. Their activities are the antithesis of democracy and their work can only hinder the growth of a genuinely democratic, working-class Socialist movement.

There are, it is true, certain differences between the new organisation and the old. Instead of claiming world-wide scope it is at present limited to nine countries, most of them so placed that the Russian Government is in a position to extract direct and powerful influence on these governments with or without the camouflage provided by the Cominform. Its headquarters are to be in Belgrade, not Moscow, which suggests that the Russian Government will be able whenever it wishes to do so disclaim direct responsibility. As far as influence over the Communist Parties themselves is concerned the actual form taken by the new organisation is not of much account because the Communist Parties invariably toe the line laid down by Russia. They did so under the Comintern and continued to do so when the Comintern was officially abolished.

How little the Communist Parties and the Communist leaders in various countries are able to pursue a line of their own choosing was shown in 1939. The British Communist leaders came out in support of the war against Germany but immediately had to recant, make abject apology, and fall into line with Russian policy. It has been shown again by the Russian Government’s decision to support Jewish immigration and partition of Palestine. In the past the British Communists opposed it, now they must reverse their policy. Speaking in the House of Commons on June 19th, 1936, Mr. Gallacher, Communist M.P., declared: “Palestine can never be a home for the Jews.” He said that the Jews “have been fooled by their politicians who, under the leadership of the Zionist movement and who are the agents for British Imperialism against Arab masses.” He described the revolt of the Arabs against the attempt to set up a Jewish state as “a thoroughly justifiable revolt. It demands the end of immigration of a character which threatens the existence of Palestine.” Likewise a pamphlet published by the Communist Labour Monthly opposed partition as a scheme of British Imperialists. (“Who is Prosperous in Palestine?” 1936, p. 41.)

The Communist Parties are merely the propaganda agents for Russian governmental policy. What they is not a consistent policy based on principle but a policy based on the day-to-day tactics of the Government in its fight against the other imperialist powers.

In home policy there is the same want of principle. They alternatively oppose the Labour Party, saying it is a capitalist party, and support it, saying is a socialist party. In 1929 they described nationalisation as “State Capitalism” and the Labour Party as the “third Capitalist Party” (“Class Against Class,” p. 8), yet now pretend that nationalisation is socialism and ask the Labour Government “how is it that only one industry has been nationalised?” (Daily Worker, 13/10/47.) In 1939 they took the initiative in asking Mr. Churchill to form a National Government along with the Labour and the Liberal parties. When this was done they attacked the Labour Party for associating with Churchill! Then in 1941 when Russia was invaded they supported Churchill and now again discover that he has all along been and enemy of the workers.

The future Socialism depends on the growth of democratic, socialist organisations. The new Cominform, as well as the Communist parties that are at present not affiliated to it, are the enemies of both Socialism and Democracy.

50 Years Ago: The Communists and Democracy (1986)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

But who put democracy in danger? In recent years it has been the Communists above all others, yet they are now most vociferous in demanding a United Front to save it. It was the Russian Communists who set the modern fashion of seizing power and installing a dictatorship. It is undisputed that Mussolini, and after him Hitler, learned much from Lenin in the technique of seizing power and holding it by force, supported by mass propaganda and political suppression.

It was the Communists who, year in and year out, derided democratic Government, poured scorn on Parliament and the whole parliamentary system, preached minority revolt and civil war, and in every way idealised the method of violence. Everywhere that their propaganda penetrated they left a trail of hostility to parliamentary methods and a liking for the pseudo-progressive system of armed force and dictatorship.

#    #    #    #

At the 1929 Conference of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Mr. Harry Pollitt made a speech in which he explained to his fellow Communists that “only through armed insurrection can the workers gain power” (see report in Manchester Guardian, December 2nd, 1929). At the same conference, Mr. Gallacher, who now pretends that armed revolt was not intended, said this: —

   "They had talked of a Revolutionary Workers’ Government, but did they realise what was implied? Would the organisation of the workers for the revolutionary Government be a legal one? The task of fighting for a revolutionary Government would be a task of bringing the workers out on to the streets against the armed forces of capitalism.”—(Worker's Life, December 6th, 1929.)

[From the editorial, "The Truth about the Popular Front", Socialist Standard, September 1936]

Reported in Hansard (1949)

From the August 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Slums, like Poverty, are still with us.

Mr. Gibson (Labour, Kennington): ". . . There is no excuse whatever for the slightest complacency, for much remains to be done; in addition, there are slums which need to be pulled down; some of us have already made a start on slum clearance. I always thought that I knew something about slum conditions, but last week, when I went into one of the worst slum areas in London, I was appalled at the conditions existing in one part of Islington. The houses themselves are so sound structurally that medical officers of health are dubious about condemning them, but inside they have been allowed to become festering dens of unhealthy life, with walls falling down, floors cracking, no proper convenience, and no water. There are thousands of houses like these, not only in London but in many other large cities, which must be dealt with. There is, therefore, no call for anyone to imagine that there is not still a great deal to be done in the building of new houses.”

(Housing Debate, 4/7/49.)

* * *

Day to Day Struggle—Matches Front.

Mr. W. Gallagher (Communist, East Fife): “ . . . In this particular matter of matches, as a pipe smoker and as one who uses a very considerable amount of matches, I ask the Economic Secretary to discuss the matter again with the Chancellor and see whether they cannot find some other way of assisting the manufacturers to meet the costs of production rather than by way of making an increase of this kind. I ask him very sincerely to withdraw this proposal.”

(Finance Bill, Proposal to raise price of matches by halfpenny a box. 22/6/49.)

* * *

Members of Nationalised Boards.

Parliamentary Secretary to Ministry of Civil Aviation (Mr. Lindgren): “… All those who have any responsibility for airline operation are in favour of this Bill; not only that, they ask for it to be given legislative effect at the earliest possible moment. The boards of B.O.A.C. and B.S.A.A. are in favour of the Bill, and those boards are composed of business men—men who prior to coming into association with civil air transport were and in some cases still are associated with successful private enterprise …”

(Airways Corporation Bill, Second Reading, 29/6/49.)

* * *

A Man in an Absolute Muddle

Mr. J. Scollan (Labour, West Renfrew): ". . . The Chancellor of the Exchequer has told us about the dollar crisis. What was the panacea that he had to offer for the problem facing us? Was it not the same as was offered in the 1930’s during the depression: reduce costs and increase production? Did not wages go down in the 1930’s? Had not we a lock-out in 1926 for the miners? Were not the miners locked out for weeks on end, until prices were brought down? Did that bring prosperity? It brought misery, poverty and degradation. I am surprised to hear some of the arguments today. What are the Government going to do to see that we can meet France and other countries in fair competition? It does not seem to occur to anyone that we recently decided upon a European bloc and unity. Now we are deciding to go into competition with the very people with whom we were to be united. We are hoping that instead of unemployment being in Scotland, it will be in France. That is the cure. I say to the Secretary of State for Scotland that if Scotland were a free and independent country—I am not pleading Nationalism— it could stand on its own economy in the world blizzard that is likely to hit us.”

(Debate on Scotland [Industry], 7/7/49.)

* * *

A Bouquet for American Capitalism—from a Labourite

Mr. J. Carmichael (Labour, Glasgow, Bridgeton): “. . . My only trouble is the attempt on the part of some people to complain about the interference of American capitalism. Does anybody doubt the fact that whatever Government would have been in, there would have been need of American aid? Our complaint all along has been that America might have been more liberal in her aid, recognising the great economic sacrifices made by this country during the war. They were compelled to intervene. I do not complain about American financial intervention. I welcome it, because today in Scotland we have less unemployment than we had in the bad old days.”

(Debate on Scotland [Industry], 7/7/49.)

* * *

Plain Words from a Tory

Major G. Lloyd (Conservative, East Renfrew): “. . . The solution is to be found in a steady courageous determination to bring down costs of production, to make it easier in a buyers’ market for our industrialists, traders and men of commerce to sell the goods, as a result of which alone they can employ the people . . . People can only be employed if our industrialists can sell goods. If they cannot do that, they cannot employ the people. There is no politics in it. It is a matter of plain economic common-sense.”

(Debate on Scotland [Industry], 7/7/49.)

* * *

A Labour Leader talks Capitalist Economics

Mr. A. Woodburn (Secretary .of State for Scotland): “. . . However, one thing is certain, that the buyers’ market which has obtained since the war is ending. Just as we may have to go without some imports, so other countries may have to do without what we would like to send them. We may have to make both effort and sacrifice to stimulate trade by quality, price and delivery. If then, we are to keep vital trade going, our efforts must be directed to producing goods which the world wants at the prices at which other people are able or ready to pay. We cannot live without imports. This country must trade, or die.”

(Debate on Scotland [Industry], 7/7/49.)

Stan Hampson

Stanley Baldwin: Bluff Squire or Shrewd Politician (1948)

From the February 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

Perhaps no politician tried more than the late Earl Baldwin to seem all things to all men. Certainly no other politician more nearly succeeded. That Stanley Baldwin played a role in accordance with ruling-class political requirements is undoubted. That he played it so skilfully was not the least of the services he rendered to his class.

Honest Stan Baldwin was not merely a caption on a Tory election poster. It was a by-word in English politics. For millions he summed up in his stocky person “our traditional native qualities” of bluffness, forthrightness and sturdy independence. He became the idealised representative of that national piece of Action—“The Typical Englishman.” Perhaps in these “native qualities” a little more typical than most of his countrymen. Possibly just a little more “English.” 

To sustain the emotional significance of the "Dictator Myth” the elaborate symbolism of uniformed parades, massed bands, mass rallies, swastika signs and salutes is indispensable. The Baldwin Myth as the representative Englishman of his age was built up around such homely and conventional items as a pipe and pigs.

His propagandists liked to feature him as a simple country gentleman. Because greatness had been thrust upon him, he forsook the rural peace of his Worcestershire orchards and Bewdley pig-yards for the strife and hurly-burly of Westminster politics. His most arcadian setting found him y a rustic gate, pipe in mouth ready at any moment to proclaim glowingly on the rural charms of “This England.”

That the emergence of Industrialism had disinherited the majority of his countrymen from such rural charms he wryly admitted. That the historic emergence of Capitalism had also disinherited the forefathers of the modern working class, from certain immemorial land-rights to “This England” he never stressed. He liked to think that Englishmen had an innate love for “This England.” Tiny garden patches of withered green in grimy industrial towns, or even the desire of their working class dwellers to have such things was for him, equally with the pride and possession of broad acres, part of our imperishable English heritage. He might have regarded the contents of a flower-pot on the window ledge of some industrial tenement as being equally a part of its possessor's ”imperishable English heritage.”

Such was the popular image of this Tory Prime Minister. In our preoccupation with this genial country gentleman we were apt to overlook his industrial associations, his tie-up in iron works, mines, docks, railways; his banking connections. The highlights of the picture of the bluff Worcestershire squire rather faded him out as being also a typical representative of this society’s most advanced economic phase— Finance Capital, and his story of forsaken business interests in the service of the State soft-pedalled the fact that it was in the pursuit and furtherance of such "interests” that he had spent—"The best years of his life.”

At banquets attended by members of the Federation of British Industries, Earl Baldwin liked to add to the glow of the after-dinner port by wistful references to the rare vintage of the good old English past. Those more leisurely days before the coming of mass-production, conveyor belts, merciless speed-ups and consequent nervous breakdowns. Then work was done at a pace natural to man. He also spoke of the more humane industrial relationships in some of the old-established family businesses which had existed. He hoped that one day this more humane spirit would prevail throughout the land. His social perspective seemed, however, as limited as that of a Melbourne or a Peel. He appeared to be blithely unaware of the historic fact that for masses of the working population, his good old English past was but the dawn of a bad new industrial present.

His nostalgic partiality for the past never prevented him from ardently embracing some very modern instances. He was a firm believer in up-to-date productive efficiency. He even welcomed such "newfangled” notions as Industrial Psychology, with its minimising of unnecessary effort on the part of the worker and its maximising of productive output. His age-long and misty affinity with St. George never dimmed his harsh, realistic view of the nature of Capitalist Society. He accepted the development of Monopoly Capitalism. In his "Peace in Industry” plea he said: "The elimination of smaller firms and industries and the appearance of great Capital amalgamations were the driving force of necessity in the protection from competition.” "That was the tendency of industry and nothing could change it.” He also accepted the fact that "the increasing consolidations of Capital into fewer hands was the natural evolution of English industrial life.” "This fact,” he added, "must be accepted. ”

He also regarded an industrial reserve army as normal to Capitalism. To an audience of Birmingham business men in 1925, he repudiated the idea that any government could solve the unemployment problem. He even felt profoundly thankful that the experience of the Labour Government had taught them that they, no more than any other Government could cure this evil. He claimed that "there was no guaranteed remedy to cure this disease and at the same time maintain the international power and position of the British Empire.” Such was the perhaps naturally antithetical make up of the "English Squire” and the great industrial magnate.

Into the texture of the Baldwin Myth there was embroidered an obscure social philosophy. His speeches, vague, sententious, even commonplace, with their strong literary flavour, were masterpieces of a misty, beyond the mountains, idealism. This apotheosis of Baldwin as the true Englishman and his capacity for enshrining a nebulous faith in some eternal harmony and peaceful co-operation of all classes proved an enormous asset to him and his party. From such intangible resources he built up a personal fund of good-will perhaps unequalled by any other capitalist politician. It was this that enabled him to more easily withstand the stresses and strains of antagonistic class interests. Certain acts and political incidents associated with his reign which might have subsequently dislodged a Lloyd George or a Churchill from popularity and power Honest Stan Baldwin successfully rode.

It was once fashionable to depict him politically as a somewhat ingenuous soul. Nothing could have been further from the truth. No politician, not even Disraeli, was more astute in measuring up the political opposition, especially the Labour opposition. Where a Churchill seeks to slay the Labour Party by vituperation Baldwin killed them with "English” kindness. He referred to them constantly as "My Labour friends." Among certain elements there were on occasions “regrettable lapses.’’ He regarded most of them as being like himself, English to the core. Only Marxism was a gospel of hate. And it was not “English.’’ He believed, however, “ no gospel of hate would ever seize the hearts of our people.’’

He regarded the advent of a Labour Government as being no more than the inevitable swing of the political pendulum. He said in 1923, “When the Labour Party come to sit on the Government benches we shall all wish them well in their efforts to govern the country.”

He followed the Disraeli formula of adopting towards the working class an attitude of benevolent paternalism. He advised young Tories to study Disraeli Conservatism. “ With that you can always win,” he said. No less than the Labour Party he claimed to be the champion of the social “under-dog.” He also believed “we were slowly and gradually moving towards a better industrial system.” As the Labour Party also accept ”the inevitability of gradualism ” they would seem to have shared the same social ideal. In progressive social reforms he said his party yielded to none. So he stole the thunder of the “Left.”

He did more than steal the Labour Party’s thunder. He stole their leaders. In 1931, MacDonald, Snowden, Thomas, etc., left the Labour Party to help form the National Government. In the panic “crisis” election of 1931 the Labour Party were also deprived of their own national “heroes.” Bewildered and beaten they stayed in the political desert for many years.

True MacDonald remained Prime Minister. It would be truer to say he went through-the motions of being one. While he postured and jitterbugged in front of the political stage “simple Stan Baldwin” was the puppet-master who pulled the stringy. In 1934 Baldwin took over again. MacDonald became Lord President of the Council and went back stage.

The Labour Party themselves at one period fell heavily for the “Baldwin Myth.” Some even regarded him as a “Socialist.” His sentiments were sometimes as heartily applauded from Labour Party benches as from his own. When Baldwin spoke on the need for a better understanding between classes or Disarmament "even the ranks of Tuscany could scarce forebear to cheer.” Some members of the Labour Party regarded him as acting as a kind of buffer between the workers and the hard-faced men of his party. That he was a shrewd and able representative of these hard-faced men, they never suspected.

In 1925 he intimated that wages must come down. In the same year he made his “Peace in Industry plea” ending with “give peace in our time, O Lord.” He, however, saw signs in the same speech of a coming industrial storm. At that time the coal owners were pressing for heavy wage reductions for the miners. Baldwin granted the mine-owners a subsidy to maintain temporarily the status quo and prepared for the coming industrial storm. It took the shape of the General Strike. Millions of workers answered the call in defence of the miners’ standard of living. After nine days the T.U.C. called the strike off. The T.U.C. had, during the strike, been in contact with the then Sir Herbert Samuel who was Chairman of the Baldwin Government’s Mining Commission, and arranged a “Gentleman’s agreement.” Their excuse was that they believed the Government would accept the terms. Sir Herbert Samuel, incidentally, disclaimed any contract with the Government on the matter and pointed out that the meeting with the T.U.C. was entirely on his own initiative. Baldwin himself repudiated any such suggestion and demanded complete surrender. The miners fought on alone. After seven months lock-out by the owners with the backing of the Baldwin Government the miners were beaten to their knees. They were compelled to go back on conditions which made their occupation a virtually sweated industry.

His administration was also responsible for some of the harshest treatment ever meted out to the unemployed. Tightening up of Unemployed Regulations led to the wholesale transference of unemployed to Public Relief. When the numbers of able-bodied people receiving Outdoor Relief reached threatening proportions, heavy cuts were made in the scale of relief. Boards of Guardians who refused to zealously operate the “New Hunger Scales” as they were called, were replaced by Commissioners to see that these new scales were effectively carried out. Later came the notorious Means Test.

There came into being some time after the- first World War, gradually growing in size and intensity, the depressed and devastated areas. In some of the most industrial parts of England grass grew in the streets and men, women and children slowly starved in an atmosphere of decay and despair.

One of Earl Baldwin's favourite themes was the Englishman’s love of his native hearth mid “the sanctity of family life.” Nevertheless* under his administration a wholesale transference of unemployed persons from the distressed areas took place. They were sent to places like London and other parts of the South of England. These places themselves had more than their share of unemployment. Nevertheless the Baldwin Government referred to them as being “relatively prosperous areas.”

Earl Baldwin liked to talk about “Truth” and “ Honour ” in political life. On the need for candour on the part of politicians. He could, however, when necessary sit on the facts with the best of them. When the cynical “behind the scenes” carve up of Abyssinia in the Hoare-Laval pact came out, Hoare was sacrificed to the popular outcry against the secret terms. When Baldwin was pressed for information in Parliament on the matter he blandly remarked “My lips are sealed.”

He professed himself an admirer of the political ideals of Grotius. “ Honest Stan ” could, however, on occasions, indulge in the most Machiavellian expediency, In his successful 1935 General Election he assured the electors that there would be no great armaments. “ I give you my word,” he said, "that there has not been nor will there be any huge increases in armaments or materially increased forces..” Later he confessed that the election was a phoney. He admitted “that the necessity for rearmament existed but he kept his opinions to himself as the pacific temper of the country did not warrant such candour.” His statement that “Democracy must be humoured since it cannot always bear unpleasant truths,” has in the light of the foregoing, sardonic implications.

Another myth of Baldwin was that he stood for disarmament. The facts shatter it. In 1924 British expenditure on armaments was £113 million. In 1937 it was £278 million, nearly two and a half times as much. In the same year, Government plans were announced to spend £1,500 million during the next five years on armaments. His then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Neville Chamberlain, said that such figures were approximations. Expenditure would be indefinitely increased if circumstances warranted it.

His statement in 1934 that “the nation must carry its defensive frontiers to the Rhine” can now be judged in all its ominous and sinister significance. In that year the plant was laid down for the construction of the four-engined Lancaster bombers. He had no illusions about the nature of the coming war. He knew that one of the forms this "British defence” would take would consist of bombing attacks on German towns.

In spite of certain superficial differences as to the best policy for defending British Imperial interests existing between Baldwin and people like Churchill and others, he was no less a ruthless defender of such "interests." As equally committed to re-armament and finally war as they. Such differences were adroitly exploited for purposes of war propaganda. The attack on the so-called appeasement policy served to rouse workers to “our desperate plight.” It became one of the means for emotionally conditioning them to become once again willing, even enthusiastic, victims of a new and greater Armageddon. Baldwin’s stock which had been already in decline, slumped catastrophically. The wheel came full circle. He became in many once-favoured quarters the subject of bitter criticism. even abuse. There were “none so poor to do him reverence.”

But Earl Baldwin is dead! As always on such occasions the atmosphere of the House was heavy with “the odour of sanctity.” Eloquent last tributes were paid by spokesmen of all parties. He became once again, "The great Englishman.”

Mr. Gallacher, M.P., also paid his last respects. As a piece of concentrated sycophancy it would take some beating. It appears that the "English” Baldwin once told him that he had a Welsh father and a Scotch mother. Mr. Gallacher can also claim a Scotch parent on the distaff side. "That,” said Mr. Gallacher, "seemed to create a human bond between us.” On such slender blood-ties was their common humanity finally established. True the Daily Worker (15/12/47) referred to Baldwin as being an enemy of the working class. But it seems that Scotch blood is thicker than working-class water. Mr. Gallacher said, "Nothing should be said that could disturb his peace . . . In the quiet countryside beside his Scotch mother and Welsh father let him sleep in everlasting peace.” While Baldwin may from the Daily Worker's point of view have been an enemy of the working class for Mr. Gallacher he was at least a working-class enemy with a Scotch mother. This would seem for Mr. Gallacher to imply a distinction of some importance.

A pale attempt has been made in certain sections of the Press to see in the demise of Earl Baldwin "The Death of an Hero.” The Daily Telegraph (15/12/47) believed that for him "the trumpets might sound on the other side.” Perhaps a plaque or a bust or even a statue might be a pathetic attempt to ensure his “English” immortality. For posterity however, history will record that his name was writ on water.

Ted Wilmott

News in Review: China's Bomb (1964)

The News in Review column from the November 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Abroad

China's Bomb

Sir Alec Douglas-Home always stood up for an independent British nuclear armoury on the grounds that it gave the British capitalist class a place at the top negotiating table.

There may be something in this. The disputes of capitalism are finally settled by force, or by the threat of force—even when the amiable, wise-cracking Lord Home was Foreign Secretary. It is reasonable to suppose that the power with the biggest bomb will be the power with the biggest say in international affairs.

That is why the three first nuclear powers once hoped to keep the Bomb's secret to themselves, so that world capitalism was an orderly affair of just two big power blocs with Britain as a buffer between them.

This was a forlorn hope. Many other nations have been trying to develop their own bomb. The French were the first to succeed and now, in spite of a certain amount of hindrance from Russia, it seems that China has also arrived as a nuclear power.

The top table is getting rather crowded. 

The prospects are that it will get more crowded still. The Indian government, which always reserved the right to reconsider its original decision not to manufacture nuclear weapons, greeted the news that China had the Bomb with the announcement that India could also develop one if it wanted to.

All of this should please those who hold the theory of the deterrent, because the more nations that get the Bomb the more they can all frighten each other into peaceful intentions. Or is the opposite true?

In fact, wars are not caused by armaments, or by the lack of them. Capitalism is like a jungle, with any number of competing nations clawing and savaging each other in the ruthless struggle for advantage.

No humane considerations, no moral concepts, come into this. A government will coldly take the decision to manufacture a weapon which it knows is capable of literally atomising tens of millions of people in the blink of an eye. And having so decided, the members of the government will go home placidly, play with the dog, bath the baby and themselves sleep innocent sleep.

There is no sanity in this. To the requirements of property society, the human race is deliberately making the means of perhaps wiping itself out.

Capitalism marches on. It expands into places where it has not been before. It develops its productive abilities in fantastic leaps and bounds. At the same time it deprives, exploits, degrades and terrorises its people to an undreamt of intensity.

Politics

Immigration

Today the Communist Party is posing as the friend and champion of the interests of the immigrant worker. But, as with most other matters, it has not always taken up this position. Seventeen years ago, for instance, the Communist Party was engaged in an anti-Polish campaign. In 1947 the two Communist members of the House of Commons were continually asking questions about the Poles in Britain. Some of the comments then made by Willie Gallacher indicate the level to which the Communist Party was prepared to stoop. On February 4, 1947, the following exchange took place during question time:

Mr. Lennox Boyd: Is it not a fact that the vast majority of Poles are desperately seeking employment in this country?

Mr. Gallacher: Let them get employment in their own country. (Hansard, Vol. 432, Col. 1555.)

On July 29 again:

Vice-Admiral Taylor: Can the right hon. gentleman give us an assurance that none of them will be forcibly sent back, and can he tell us how many have refused to accept work?

Mr. Bellenger: I cannot give an assurance of that kind, but these Poles cannot remain on British benevolence indefinitely.

Mr. Gallacher: We do not want them. (Hansard, Vol. 441, Col. 251.)

In the same year the Communist Party published a book by their leader, Harry Pollit, under the title Looking Ahead. In here we read:

I ask you, does it make sense that we allow 500,000 of our best young people to put their names down for emigration abroad, when at the same time we employ Poles who ought to be back in their own country, and bring to work to Britain displaced persons who ought also to be sent back to their own countries? We want our own workers to have confidence in their own land, to take a pride in building it up. (p. 72.)

Who was it said, “the working men have no country? ”

Business

Dahlia affair

Could there be anything less offensive than a dedicated dahlia grower?

Just listen to his endless talk of ray and disk florets. Look at those sensitive, earthy hands caressing the prize blooms. A very perfect gentle chap, it seems.

Yet behind that placid exterior lurks a desire to undermine the basis of society. What happened when dahlia growers in the Midlands organised a cheap air trip to the United States?

Why, they invited other dahlia fans to go as well and if that is not subversive, antisocial and plain criminal, what is?

Fortunately, virtue triumphed. The Midland Dahlia Society booked their flight with B.O.A.C. but they broke the rules of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) when they advertised it as open to non-members. Virtue was a spy employed by rival airline Alitalia, who reported the matter to the IATA and so got the trip called off.

But virtue was not unreservedly rewarded. The Alitalia man—their Manchester manager—came back from holiday to a doormat load of poison pen letters, which shows how much people hate a wrecker of dahlia growers' outings.

Nobody seems to have got upset with the real culprit. The IATA does not only lay down rules about economy fares. It also governs all other aspects of flying freight and passengers all over the world, and the charges which are made for this.

In other words, it is an international organisation which tries to regulate the markets in air traffic. Quite often this means that the IATA restricts traffic, as it has in the Dahlia Society affair.

Such carve-ups are quite common under capitalism; they exist in all manner of enterprises and their object is to safeguard the profitability of those enterprises. This—the profit motive which underlies all capitalism's operations—is where the disappointed dahlia growers should vent their frustration.

And so should all those poison pen writers, who perhaps see something particularly mean and degrading in useful men wasting their time spying upon other useful men wasting their time thinking up ways of avoiding commercial restrictions.

At Home

The Sun

The International Publishing Corporation—the Daily Mirror group to most people—are noted for their mastery of the technique of ballyhoo. At one time, no newspaper had its finger so sensitively upon the pulse of public ignorance as did the Mirror—and none exploited that ignorance so cynically nor so remuneratively.

But recently there have been new scents in the wind. Is the Mirror losing its grip, as the IPC gets larger? The group's latest paper—the Sun—is trying, among other things, to prove that the finger is still unerringly there, still knows how fast or how slow beats the reader’s pulse.

“The only newspaper,” claimed the Sun, “born of the age we live in.” Self consciously, the paper detailed the type of person it is confident of attracting. The New Young Men with the Hardy Ames suit, with the open plan bungalow on the new estate, the foot on the second or even the third rung of the ladder. The people with a conscience—and, naturally, with the big buying power.

All of this splurge was really aimed at potential advertisers, to persuade them that space booked in the Sun would pay off. It is the advertising revenue, and not the circulation figures, which now decide whether a paper lives or dies.

The Daily Herald, when International put it to sleep, had a daily sale of well over a million copies, but couldn’t attract enough advertising to pay its way. In contrast, the colour supplement of the Sunday Times, which is virtually given away, is a money-spinner—and is therefore being widely imitated—because it attracts some rich advertising.

What this adds up to is that in the newspaper world it is only the really Big’uns who now stand a chance. This may mean that the Sun, backed by IPC’s massive resources and under the practised and ruthless control of Hugh Cudlipp, may eventually survive.

Which would merely add another mouthpiece of capitalist propaganda to the rest. And if the Sun lives up to its promise to be a “radical” paper, a paper with a “conscience,” a particularly unctuous and nauseating mouthpiece it will be. “The only newspaper born of the age we live in.” Ugh.

The Passing Show: Day to Day Struggle—Matches Front. (1964)

The Passing Show Column from the November 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Day to Day Struggle—Matches Front.

Under this heading we featured a news snippet in the August, 1949 Standard. Willie Gallacher, then Communist M.P. for East Fife, was asking the Chancellor of the Exchequer not to allow a halfpenny increase in the cost of a box of matches. He suggested “some other way of assisting the manufacturers to meet the cost of production ” (a subsidy perhaps?).

That was not very long after the end of the war and we wonder what he would be saying about that today, because the Russian and other Eastern bloc countries are now exporting matches to this country in quite huge quantities. According to The Guardian of September 14, a large proportion of the extra 28,800,000 boxes arriving from abroad last year came from Russia, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. And that's not all, for these matches are being sold to the trade at prices lower than the cost price of their British counterparts.

Would Mr. Gallacher be so concerned about the British Match industry now that the Soviet countries are beginning to compete so effectively? If British match Corporation Chairman, Lord Portal, were to announce a price increase now, our “ Communist ” friends would probably oppose it and demand bigger imports of the Eastern European brands to keep prices down. They are not, you see, opposed to trade competition as such, but only when it jeopardises Russian capitalist interests.

In 1964 Russian goods are being pushed onto the world’s markets and while the quantities are still comparatively small in some cases, it is a sign of the times. The Soviets are trying to find outlets for timber and oil. A few years ago, Russian watches were barely known in England whereas today they compete with British and Swiss watches and can be seen in practically any jeweller’s shop window.

Just how successful the Russians will be in the future is anybody’s guess, but we may be sure that they will keep on trying wherever they see the chance. We have always maintained that Soviet Russia is a capitalist power and it is news like this that adds just a little extra tit-bit to the impressive weight of evidence supporting our view. Like any capitalist country, she must sooner or later start looking to outside markets and do battle with the other giants. This will doubtless be welcomed by the slavish C.P. membership, but we can see it only as an addition to the sum total of already fierce competition and the conflicts which are the breeding ground of war.

New Robbers for Old.

Since the end of the last war, many of the old colonies have won independence, and amidst the cheers and celebrations, we have been the only ones to point out that one set of masters has merely been replaced by another, and that for workers it was certainly not a time for cheering. Time is once again proving the soundness of our claim. India, Ghana, and Indonesia, to name only three, have their ruling class well in the saddle, and striking workers are discovering that a crack on the head from a native policeman’s truncheon is just as unpleasant as one from his white predecessor.

And when the new capitalists take over, they follow the usual course of building up their industries, attracting the necessary capital and getting their workers trained to produce the all-important surplus value. In some cases, they cast greedy eyes in the direction of assets owned by foreign capitalists, particularly where a well developed industry is involved; then they move in and take over "in the name of the people.” This has happened, for instance, in Indonesia, and much of the squabbling in the Congo has centred round the mineral exploitation rights held formerly by Belgian capitalists.

The latest example to make news has been Zambia—or Northern Rhodesia as it was known until October 24th. There has been an almighty row over the mineral rights of the British South Africa Company (BSA). Apparently these are worth about £7 millions a year at present and with the approach of independence, the N. Rhodesian Government lost no time in challenging the treaties under which the rights are guaranteed. They have got together an impressive band of lawyers and economists to prove that many of the sixty years old concessions by the tribal chiefs to Cecil Rhodes’ company are “illegal.” In the words of the N. Rhodesian Government’s white paper of September 21st:—

There are certainly areas of Northern Rhodesia . . . where the authority of the Paramount Chief of Barotseland, on which the mineral rights in the western part of the territory are based, never ran. . . . They include the Nkana and Nchanga mines, representing not far short of half the copper production of the territory.

The British Government has tried to safeguard the interests of this company, among others, by putting a protective clause into the independence agreement, but at the time of writing it looks as if this is something that Kaunda’s boys will not wear. If they do not get agreement in London they promise to take the necessary political measures at home after the new state has been established.

Now it is undeniable that the British South Africa Company have made huge profits out of this area, from which is produced about fourteen per cent. of the world’s annual copper output. Since 1889 they have received £135 millions, and stand to get another £154 millions before the royalty agreement expires in 1986. Compare this with the £10 per year “enjoyed” by most African families in the rural areas. No wonder BSA are so anxious to hold on to what they have. No wonder, too, that other British mining and commercial interests are worried.. They fear antagonism and perhaps expropriation if the matter is not settled quickly.

But having said all this, we are back once again to our opening remarks. Whoever wins this battle, it will make precious little difference to those £10 a year families, or to any other Zambian worker. For them, it will still mean exploitation as usual. For their masters, business as usual—perhaps the profits will go into new pockets, that’s all.

New Club Member.

China is about to join the nuclear club. By the time you read this, she may well have exploded her first atom bomb. To the man in the street this does not make very happy reading, for no one in his right mind can view other than with horror the fact that yet another threat to his life is looming on the horizon. The press and politicians have not unexpectedly tried to play down the whole business. “Western experts believe the bomb will be a primitive affair,” says Peter Fairley in the Evening Standard of September 30. “Nobody expects the Chinese A-device to be a viable military threat for at least four years.”

Well perhaps you can get a crumb of comfort from the thought that you will have at least four years before you are atomised by a Chinese bomb—that’s if somebody else doesn’t start something beforehand. And, of course, it takes no account of the dangers of fall-out from the Chinese tests occurring in the meantime. It is interesting to note, incidentally, one of the ways in which the Chinese preparations were discovered—American Camera carrying Samos satellites were orbited over China, so those of you who thought that satellites were a “peaceful" project will have to think again.

When the test ban treaty was signed, we were not very popular for saying then that it would make no essential difference and that the threat of war was in no way lessened. While Pat Arrowsmith and other misguided CND’ers were welcoming it with sighs of relief, China was quietly developing her own bomb. Fast on the heels of France, she is the fifth capitalist power to do so. Who will be next? Perhaps Western Germany will have a go. Some of her politicians have been in favour of it for some time.

Just like the other nuclear powers, China will lose no time in wielding her bomb as a diplomatic weapon. Maybe we shall hear renewed demands from Peking for her government’s recognition and a seat at the United Nations. And this time the UJS. will have to think twice before refusing. Almost certainly the parleys of the future will include Mao's men and the conference tables will be that much bigger. So will the squabbles.

Some of the facts are now known about the exploding of the first U.S.A. Bomb at Hiroshima, of the cold-blooded calculations which went into its production, of the chicanery and double dealing between the so-called allies, and of the alleged deliberate prolongation of .the war to enable it to be used against the Japanese. Perhaps some day we will learn something also of the intrigues which have undoubtedly taken place since then, as one power after another has got its own bomb and intensified the frightful prospect of obliteration.

The futility and tragic waste of it all are glaringly obvious despite the hollow hypocrisy of capitalist statesmen. This is all that capitalism can offer us in the world where the potential for human welfare is immense.

Eddie Critchfield

How Not To Get Socialism. (1930)

From the February 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Way of the Communists. 

The “Daily News,” on January 16th, reported Dr. Brown, President of the Baptist Union, as having said that the Baptists last year lost 4,450 church members and 11,000 Sunday School scholars; in ten years, he added, they would at that rate be “as dead as the dodo.”

This is bad news for the Baptists, and we believe it will also be bad news for the Communist Party. For it appears that when they were hard at work preaching the “United Front,” Baptist ministers as well as the Labour Party were to be brought within the fold. Those who think that there must be a limit to the silliness even of the Communists are asked to read the following. It is a letter printed on the front page of the “Workers’ Weekly,” on December 7th, 1923, at a time when a general election was in progress. It is headed, “Helping Ramsay Mac.,” and is signed by J. Stokes, of Portabbot:—

“There is a straight fight in the constituency between Byass, the Capitalist candidate (Unionist), and Ramsay MacDonald. Ramsay MacDonald has all the way to go ; if he gets there, that will be all.

We had a meeting here on November 19th with Ramsay MacDonald, who had three Baptist Ministers on the platform. It was a jolly meeting, and I was most pleased to hear these fellows speaking. We Communists here are doing our best to help Ramsay MacDonald to beat the Capitalist candidate.”

Deeds, not words.

The same issue of the “Workers’ Life” contains many other delightful sidelights on Communist activities. There is, for example, an illustration of what is meant by that favourite slogan of the Communist Party : “Now is the time for action.”

“Comrade Mowatt” writes from Barrow to say that the local Communist Party were working hard to get Mr. J, Bromley returned to Parliament as Labour M.P., and he adds, “all our illusions and theoretical deductions have been hung out on the clothes line to dry.”

We never regarded their “theoretical deductions” as other than unsound, but such candid admission from themselves as to the usefulness of their theories is refreshing.

Having abandoned their theories the Communists were then free to get down to action. Mr. J. McHendrick, of Rutherglen, obligingly tells us what kind of action.

“It was arranged that the addressing of envelopes should be done by team work, and anyone who saw this work being done would have to admit that the Communist Party is a working party.”

And to think that the Soviet Government borrows money at high rates of interest from Russian capitalists and then spends part of it paying British Communists to “help Ramsay Mac.” at elections and address envelopes for Labour Party candidates !

The Mass Party.

The justification given by the Communists for supporting MacDonald, whom they described as a “faithful servant of capital,” was that this was the way to build up a “mass Communist Party.”

In the “Communist Review” (October, 1929) the Tyneside District Party Committee publishes a statement on the condition of the Communist Party as a whole.

This is what they say :—

“After ten years of strenuous effort, the Communist Party of Great Britain finds itself with a financial membership which cannot be placed at a higher figure than 2,500, It is doubtful if even this number of financial members would be found to exist were a careful examination made . . . our Party has never been so weak in membership or influence.”

The significance of this admission will be appreciated when it is remembered that the C.P.G.B. claimed to start with about 10,000 members and that, in addition to thousands of members who joined individually, it claimed to have won over in 1921 5,000 members of the l.L.P. en bloc.

It must indeed be disappointing to spend 10 years helping the Capitalist candidates against the Capitalist candidates, and addressing envelopes in Labour Party committee rooms and then find your membership smaller by three-quarters than when you began.

The stock Communist argument against using the vote as the means of gaining political control for the establishment of Socialism, is that the vote is a “Capitalist instrument,” so that instead of using the vote for that purpose they hasten to use it to “help Ramsay Mac.” administer Capitalism. The vote is a means of attaining power, and as such is neither Capitalist nor Socialist, but it is indeed useless to the workers under Communist guidance.

The Communist Street Fighters.

We have often remarked on the danger to the working-class of the Communist policy of street-fighting, that is, the pitting of practically unarmed men against the colossal weapons of modern warfare in the hands of trained soldiers.

At the Congress of the Communist Party of Great Britain, held at Leeds at the end of November, 1929, fresh evidence was given of the dangerously reactionary nature of Communist methods.

A special correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian” reports a speech in which Mr. H. Pollitt, the prominent Communist and member of the Communist Party Executive, said : —

“Only through social revolution, only through armed insurrection, can the workers gain power.” —(“Manchester Guardian,” 2nd Dec..)

In the “Workers’ Life” (6th December) is a report of a speech delivered at the Congress by Mr. W. Gallacher, another prominent Communist, and also a member of the Central Committee. In it he said :—

“They had talked of a Revolutionary Workers’ Government, but did they realise what was implied ? Would the organisation of the workers for the revolutionary government be a legal one ? The task of fighting for a revolutionary government would be a task of bringing the workers out on to the streets against the armed forces of Capitalism.”

Having assisted their friend “Ramsay Mac.” into office and placed his Government in control of the armed forces, the Communists now talk of leading the workers into the streets against those same armed forces !

This sort of lunacy they call “tactics.”

Last May Day in Berlin we had an example of this street fighting. Large numbers of young Communists “armed” with a few revolvers and one dummy machine-gun suffered heavy casualties at the hands of a fully-equipped, semi-military, police force.

Recently the same suicidal policy has been tried out again, also in Germany. On this occasion a number of Communists were killed and many were more or less seriously wounded by the police, who were armed with revolvers, machine-guns and armoured cars. (See “Manchester Guardian” and “Daily Express,” 16th January.)

The Communists, according to the accounts in the two newspapers referred to above, were “armed” with a few revolvers, plus “bricks,” “stones,” “planks” and “knuckle-dusters” !

We have only one comment to make. Whenever Pollitt and Gallacher intend throwing stones at a machine-gun or hitting a tank with knuckle-dusters we hope they will let us know so that we can be there to see.

Enter the Proletarian Peashooters.

We are now unreliably informed of new developments in the Communist Party. According to this report that Party is now discussing a question which divided the military experts several hundreds of years ago. The question is that concerning the relative merits of the Crossbow and the Long bow. The old controversy was finally settled by the perfecting of firearms, it being found that both crossbowmen and long-bowmen were as good as dead against the gun.

The present dispute among the “street-fighters” is, however, in danger of being side-tracked by yet another school of thought which has on its side two unanswerable arguments. One is that it is possible for workers to die heroically and perfectly uselessly up against armed forces without going to the trouble of having either longbows or cross-bows, dummy machine guns or knuckle-dusters; and the second is that the cheap and homely pea-shooter, while entirely useless, is a weapon which, unlike the vote, has not been besmirched by being used by the Capitalists, Hence the rumoured formation of an entirely new corps of “Proletarian Peashooters.” Pollitt and Gallacher are to be in command of the new force, ably supported by three unemployed Baptist chaplains.

P. S.

Editorial: The Passing of a Capitalist "Great Man" (1945)

Editorial from the May 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

For about 15 years, including the period of the first World War, Lloyd George served the purposes of the capitalist class in various ministerial offices. Then, his hold over the electorate diminished and his usefulness as a Cabinet Minister exhausted, he spent nearly a quarter of a century outside the charmed circle, making ceaseless, but ineffectual attempts to demonstrate that he was still indispensable

But when he died, on March 26th, his erstwhile opponents, who had many of them denounced him in times gone by, united in the discovery of his greatness. Here are some of the verdicts pronounced in the House of Commons on March 29th :—.

“The greatest Welshman .... since the days of the Tudors,” “He was the champion of the weak and poor,” . those who came after would find pillars of his life's toil upstanding, massive and indestructible.”—(Mr. Winston Churchill).

Mr. Arthur Greenwood, speaking for the Labour Party, endorsed everything that Mr. Churchill said : “We mourn the passing of a great Parliamentarian and I am certain my Right Hon. Friend has expressed, irrespective of party, the views held by the House about the great Mr. Lloyd George. ... He was the friend of the oppressed.” Mr. Aneurin Bevan, concurred—“We have lost our most distinguished member, and Wales her greatest son.” . . . He was first and last a democrat.”

Then Mr. Gallacher, the Communist M.P. had his say about this astute defender of the capitalist system. He quoted Lenin as having said that Lloyd George “was the greatest political leader this country had known ” and confessed that Lenin advised him to study Lloyd George. (This may explain many things about Mr. Gallacher). Like the other speakers, Gallacher found that Lloyd George was a friend of the “common people.” “. . . . he played many parts, great parts, always with the fervour and intensity of a son of the people, for it was the common people that bore him. It was the suffering of the common people that called him forth to battle against poverty and neglect.”

The Press followed the same line. To the “Daily Herald” (March 27th), Lloyd George in the first World War was a giant, the nation is eternally in his debt and his qualities “at his finest were the great qualities of our Democracy : he was fearless, he was tireless, he was ablaze with the spirit of liberty, equality and fraternity.”

Mr. R. Page Arnot in the Daily Worker (March 27th), gave a less unbalanced, but still lopsided account of Lloyd George’s career. He accepts the popular view of Lloyd George in pre-1914 days as waging war on the capitalist class. (“The City and the propertied classes were cast into frenzy”), yet a moment’s thought would recall that Lloyd George was-Chancellor of the Exchequer in a Liberal Capitalist Government, backed by his Liberal colleagues and by the majority of the party, a party which whole-heartedly represented the interests of the manufacturing section of the propertied class: It was merely the quarrel of that section against landed and financial interests. Page Arnot, like Gallacher, quotes Lenin on Lloyd George, but more to the point:—“a first class bourgeois business man and master of political cunning, a popular orator, able to make any kind of speech, even r-r-revolutionary speeches before Labour audiences.”

The fact that a man is dead does not sanctify him, and what we said of him living we continue to say after his death; but now let us recall what others were saying of Lloyd George when he was in active politics. In 1922 the leader of the Labour Party, the late J. R. MacDonald, far from finding Lloyd George a “giant ’’ in the war accurately summed him up as follows:—“His great contribution to the war was an unequalled genius for placing false and flashy issues with much fervour before the country.” (“Labour Magazine,” November, 1922). His “greatness” in MacDonald’s eyes was that his four years as Prime Minister in the Coalition Government, 1918-1922 were a “great failure.” MacDonald went on to describe him as a rhetorical demagogue, and an adept at “nimble-witted trickery.” This, of course, was the way all the Labour Party and Trade Union spokesmen were describing him after the last war. Have the workers forgotten his dragooning of the trade unions during and after the war, his trickery of the miners over the Sankey Report on Nationalisation of the Mines, which led Mr. Hartshorn, Miners Leader, to declare, “We have been deceived, betrayed, duped.”—(Labour Party Speaker’s Handbook, 1922. P.48). Was Lloyd George “first and last a democrat”? What of his part in the trickery which foisted conscription and defence of the realm acts on the workers in the last War, and the way he intrigued Asquith out of the Premiership and himself in? In the House on March 28th, 1945, Mr. Churchill described it as “Presently Lloyd George seized the main power in the State and the headship of the Government”; and he reiterated the word “seized” when interrupted. In 1922, the Communist Party were denouncing Lloyd George as the friend of Italian Fascism, preparing to instal Fascism here. The break up of the Coalition Government in 1922 was, according to the “Communist” (November 4th, 1922), a “swindle to demoralise the workers ” and leave them "defenceless before the oncoming of the Iron Heel of the new plutocratic Dictatorship.” Lloyd George, they said, was “a party to the conspiracy.” The Communists too used to be fond of recalling that Lloyd George “was responsible for the black and tan regime in Ireland.” (“Class against Class,” C.P.G.B., 1921), p. 8.)

Lloyd George was throughout his life an upholder of the capitalist system. His niggling reforms were designed to help British capitalism meet its overseas trade rivals and to allay some working class discontent which had reached a bitterness that might be dangerous to capitalism. Even in that field he was largely a borrower from others (“Lloyd George, on going to the Treasury, found an Old Age Pensions Bill already drafted by his predecessor, and after he had carried this through he turned his thought towards schemes of national insurance against sickness and unemployment, and visited Germany in the autumn of 1908 to study the German insurance system”—Times, March 27th, 1945.)

As for being a friend of the oppressed, his life work was devoted to preventing capitalism from being overthrown. Here we have some of his own admissions. On January 21st, 1922, he was pleading for continued Liberal-Tory unity. "What is there to quarrel about? Private enterprise, the resistance to the revolutionary policy to overthrow the individual enterprise that has made this country—what is the difference between Liberals and Conservatives? They are both supporting the same cause .... We are fighting to defend the same fortress. Let’s combine forces.” (Labour Speakers Handbook, 1929. P.141).

On October 25th, 1924, in a speech at Cardiff he was again telling the Tories that if they destroyed the Liberal Party they ran the risk of aiding Socialism. “Are you going to destroy a party which does not agree with you . . .  but which is just as firmly rooted as you in the existing order”? (“Daily News, October 26th, 1924).

In the “Socialist Standard,” (December, 1918), we said this of Lloyd George.

  “Behind this mountebank marionette stands the Imperialist section of the capitalist class, composed of both Liberals and Tories, who are striving to extend their dominion and power of robbing the working class, over larger areas of the globe. It was to protect their interests that this country entered into the War. When two years ago the military situation looked serious for the Allies this section looked for a more pliant tool to take charge of the Government. One was at hand possessing a glib tongue. always ready with large and extravagant promises quite unscrupulous, and able to sway crowds with his clap-trap. A dirty political shuffle took place and Lloyd George became Prime Minister.”

There is no reason to modify that statement.

Obituary (1950)

From the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard 

What an ungrateful lot the British workers are! Hardened fighters in the great battle for Immediate Demands have given the best years of their lives furthering the cause of that great fountain of reforms, the Communist Party of Great Britain; nay, have also been so generous as to urge the workers to give their lives not only in international warfare, but also in the streets against the forces of the State. But what do the workers do to show their appreciation of the herculean efforts of their self-appointed leaders? The result of the recent election clearly shows that the British workers overwhelmingly rejected the C.P.G.B. and its crypto-comrades.

Both M.P.s in the previous House of Commons lost their seats, and apart from these two and Harry Pollitt who fought Rhondda East, the remaining 97 Communist Party candidates lost their deposits, very few of them polling 1,000 votes or over.

As was to be expected, the Daily Worker of 25th February, 1950, gives a couple of false reasons for this calamity, in the hope of covering up the truth. Mr. Gallacher is reported as saying:—

  “The workers have not yet seen our point of view that it was necessary to vote Communist in order to ensure a real fight against their enemies."

The point of view of the Communist Party (as published at the time of the election campaign—it has a notorious habit of changing overnight) was all too discernible. A plethora of social reforms ranging from Home Rule for various sections of the British Isles, through the familiar hardy annuals—more wages, houses, schools, trade with Russia, etc., and less armaments, price increases, frozen wages, trade with the United States, etc., to the more exotic items such as banning the atom bomb and a more democratic constitution of the British Army.

But behind the camouflage of all these reforms, promises and vote-catching slogans, the insoluble tie between the Communist Party of Great Britain and the Russian Government stood out in bold relief, and here lies the real cause of the C.P.’s downfall. A working-class not accepting the Socialist solution to world problems, and stiff in support of Capitalism will be most likely to support the “home-grown” section of the capitalist class, and not the interests of some rival group of exploiters abroad. Hence, now that the American and British sections of the world capitalist class find themselves opposed to the imperialist policy of the Russian ruling class, the British workers (who are still nationalist in their outlook, thanks partly to the propaganda of the Communist Party itself) will naturally oppose any organisation which supports Russian capitalism. The popularity of the Communist Party in 1945, which resulted in their obtaining two seats in Parliament, was largely due to the temporary alliance between the United States. Britain and the U.S.S.R. during the war.

The other reason for defeat advanced by the Daily Worker was that the workers voted for the Labour Party rather than the C.P. in order to “ keep the Tories out.” Surely, if the “Communists” were really concerned about keeping out the Tories, they would have refrained from putting forward all those candidates, which, according to their reasoning, might have “split the Left vote,” a heinous crime for all so-called “progressives” to commit, and one, incidentally, of which the S.P.G.B. has often been accused. However, five years of Labour Party administration of Capitalism prompted large numbers of workers to vote Tory in 1950, despite the Daily Worker's glib excuse, in fact, so many workers supported the Tory candidate in West Fife that he topped Mr. Gallacher’s vote by nearly 1,000, the Labour candidate winning the seat which “oor Wullie ” had so stoutly held for the past fifteen years.

It is interesting to note here that in spite of the host of reforms and the vote-catching tricks employed by the “Communist” candidates (i.e., pandering to religious and racial prejudices in certain constituencies), they polled a mere 200 votes each more than the S.P.G.B. candidates in North Paddington and East Ham South. We of the Socialist Party, who stood for the single issue of Socialism, and who eschewed all forms of election stunts and vote-catching slogans and promises of reforms, insisting on socialist knowledge being the pre-requisite for the support of our candidates, have long been chided by the “short-cut boys” of the C.P. as being “impossibilists,” whereas they, the saviours of the workers, would lead them to victory in a flash of lightning. Now it appears that the leaders have moved so fast (in a circle) that they have left their followers behind, and have reappeared at the rear of the political scene.

What are the future prospects for the vanquished “vanguards of the proletariat”? Now that parliamentary representation no longer exists, and the chances of future representation seems remote, the Communist Party may once more advocate armed insurrection as being the only hope for the workers. The cloak-and-dagger element of the C.P. may once more become prominent, organising “parallel illegal machinery,” forming secret cadres, shock battalions and what not, in fact as it were reverting to type, and complying with Bolshevik theory inherited from the terrorism of the Blanquists of nineteenth century Russia.

This policy of bringing the workers out against the armed forces of the State may have sounded feasible in the days of rifles and barricades, but it is recklessly suicidal for the workers nowadays, when the modern State controls such weapons as tanks and flamethrowers. At the congress of the C.P.G.B. held in November, 1929, the Manchester Guardian of 2/12 /1929 reports Harry Pollitt as saying: —

  “Only through social revolution, only through armed insurrection, can the workers gain power."

And now, fresh from the crushing Communist Party defeat in 1950, the same Mr. Pollitt says: —

  “The great issues will be settled not in the arena of this reactionary Parliament, but by the workers’ mass struggle in the factories and the streets." (Daily Worker, 25/2/50.)

This statement may only refer to trade union activity and to street meetings and marches, but on the other hand it may be a hint of further dangerous anti-working-class machinations by the Communist Party.

Whatever the new Party Line will be. we can make two prophecies with confidence: —

1. It will be strictly in conformity with the needs of the Russian capitalist government.
2. It will not present an alternative to the present system of society for the consideration of the working class, but will offer innumerable reforms, as do all the other reform parties, in the hope of attracting support for its policy.

We have always held the view that the “Communists' ” misuse of the word “Socialism" by applying it to state-capitalist Russia has greatly hindered the task of explaining what Socialism really is despite the smokescreen of pseudo-marxian jargon with which they cloak their propaganda, and we have also seen many similar so-called “left-wing" parties perish during the last thirty years (Trotskyites, Independent Labour Party, etc.) due to the sterility of their non-socialist arguments.

The sooner the Communist Party of Great Britain also finally falls from the political scene the better, for the workers will then be rid of an organisation which has been nothing but a millstone round their political necks, and whose policy has helped in no way to remove the cause of the major problems besetting society to-day —i.e., Capitalism and substitute Socialism in its place Only a political party having this object as its aim is worthy of working-class support.

Upon a tombstone of crumbling clay in the political grave where the C.P.G.B. will be unceremoniously interred, the following epitaph, written in the blood of millions of workers may be seen: “Born 1920, Died ?. R.I.P. (Russian Imperial Policy).”

Michael La Touche

The Communists and Palestine (1948)

Editorial from the July 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

Just as the capitalist declines to allow sentiment or humanity to interfere with the purpose for which he is in business—-the making of profit, so capitalist governments decline to be guided by sentiment in deciding their international policies. If the British Government holds that the oil of the Middle East and the need to protect Empire communications call for a policy of friendship with the Arab States, not all the past resolutions of Labour Conferences nor all the heckling by many Labour M.Ps. would move Mr. Mayhew, Under Secretary to the Foreign Office, when on 11th June of this year he refused to recognise the new State of Israel. But many workers who perceive that this is true of the British and other Governments, believe that it is not true of Russia. When, therefore, they see the Communist Party attacking Labour Government policy on Palestine they conclude that the Communist Party is more trustworthy than Mr. Bevin. A little delving into the Communists' record on this question will show, however, that there is not a ha’porth of difference, either in principle or in practice.

The cynical principle was laid down by Mr. Litvinov, who in 1933 was Russian Foreign Minister. The occasion was the relations between Russia and Germany, at a time when Hitler’s Government was busy persecuting Communists and other opponents of the regime. In a speech in Moscow on December 29th, 1933, Mr. Litvinov excused Russian friendship with Fascist Germany:

  “We, of course, have our own opinion of the German regime. We, of course, are sensitive to the sufferings of our German comrades, but we Marxists can be reproached least of all for permitting our feelings to dominate our policy. The whole world knows that we can maintain and are maintaining good relations with capitalist States under any regime, including also a Fascist regime. But that is not the point. We do not interfere in the internal affairs of Germany, just as in those of other countries, and our relations with her are determined not by her internal, but her foreign policy. We want to have the best relations with Germany, as with other States.” (Moscow News, 6/1/1934.)

As the reader will perceive this might be Mr. Bevin or his Under Secretary explaining that oil and Empire are thicker than sympathy for Jewish refugees. It might also be the present Russian Foreign Minister and Mr. Gallacher explaining that all the tears they used to shed for the Arabs were just a mistake and it is now necessary to shed tears for the Jews instead.

Up to 1941 Russia and the Communists backed the Arabs, opposed Jewish immigration into Palestine, and denounced Zionism as an instrument of British Imperialism. Now Russian foreign policy demands a change of front and Mr. Gallacher changes front likewise.

In the Daily Worker (29th May, 1948) Mr. Gallacher, M.P., and other Communists contributed articles explaining their policy of the moment and criticising the policy of the Labour Government. Mr. Gallacher accused Bevin of going directly against the declared policy of Labour Party Conferences. He wrote:

  “For the Labour leaders were all individually pledged to the support of Zionism and they were parties to the many resolutions passed at different Labour Party-Conferences.”

What Mr. Gallacher did not say was that when, before the war, Labour Party Conferences backed Zionism he and his Party condemned them for doing so, for at that time Russia and therefore the British Communists were backing the Arabs.

Mr. Gallacher now quotes from a poem written by a Zionist, Mr. Jabotinsky, in which the latter proclaims in romanic terms the aim of a Zionist State to control both banks of “Holy Jordan,” But, says Mr. Gallacher, “Jabotinsky didn’t know Mr. Bevin or the cunning, clever gentlemen in the Foreign Office.” These gentlemen have, it seems, tricked Mr. Bevin into backing the Arab States and thus double-crossing Mr. Jabotinsky. Readers of the Daily Worker would be astonished to learn what Mr. Gallacher used to say about Mr. Jabotinsky. They will find it in the Reports of Parliamentary proceedings. Back in 1936 the Arabs had staged an armed revolt against Zionism, against the attempt to set up a Jewish State and against Jewish immigration and Mr.. Gallacher was making a stirring plea on behalf of the Arabs. In the course of one of his speeches he replied to Colonel Wedgwood, a supporter of Zionism, with the following remark:

   ". . . if it is a question of ruffians, I would recommend the right hon. and gallant gentleman, the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, to give his attention to Mr. Jabotinsky and his Fascist organisation, who are deliberately' carrying on provocation.” (Hansard, 22nd February, 1937. Col. 1,732.)

Here are some other passages from Mr. Gallacher's speeches. Now he loyally backs up Russian policy of partition in Palestine, then, in his own words, "I rise as an absolute opponent of partition.” (Hansard, 21st July, 1937, Col 2,358). In his speech of that date Mr. Gallacher said that the Zionists “are not representing the interests of the Jewish people but . . . a particular political trend,” and he went on to explain that there would never be agreement between Jews and Arabs unless the Jews would give up their claim to become a majority in Palestine. He warned the Jews against partition and the setting up of a Jewish State:

  "I want to direct the attention of Members, particularly my Jewish friends, to the fact that partition is the greatest menace that can face the Jewish people at the moment. When the whole of Europe is being stirred up in the most criminal, dastardly and vicious manner against these people . . . are we to have a situation where the people with whom they have lived in amity for centuries are to be stirred up against them? It is going to encourage all the Jew-baiting and all the anti-Semitism that is being developed in Europe. Immediately they go over there, these people who for centuries have never known anti-Semitism will begin to develop it.” (Hansard, 21et July, 1937, Col. 2,358.)

In his warning Mr. Gallaclier was indeed prophetic, for on the day after the State of Israel was proclaimed the British section of the World's Jewish Congress in an appeal to the British Government stated “that Jews are being persecuted in Arab and Moslem countries following the proclamation of a Jewish State.” (Evening News, 19/5/48.)

Now the Communists demand armed action against the Arab States to enforce Zionism and partition. On 19th June, 1936, (Hansard, Cols. 1,367-1,368) Mr. Gallacher declared “Palestine can never be a home for the Jews.” He demanded of the British Government that they cease using military force against the Arabs. "Have the Arabs a case? Yes, they have a case. They have had a rotten deal. I ask the Government to stop the beastly, brutal murder that is going on . . . I say stop using brutal force against the Arabs.” He declared that the Zionist leaders had fooled the Jewish refugees and that those leaders “are the agents for British Imperialism against the Arab masses"; and that the Arab revolt against Jewish immigration was “a thoroughly justifiable revolt.” (Col, 1,369). He read out a cable he had received from the Arab Women Committee congratulating him on his “noble stand” defending the Arab cause. He called on the Government to recognise “the rights of the Arabs and the justice of their claim.” (Col. 1,371.)

Then, in Mr. Gallacher’s eyes, it was some of the Zionist leaders who were ruffians and Fascists, now,

of course, it is the Arab leaders. At that time Mr. Gallacher indignantly repudiated charges brought against his Arab friends:

  "I wish to take the greatest possible exception to the general accusations which have been made and which have suggested that this fine body of people, the Arabs, are murderers and blackguards . . . It has been said that they are ruffians and murderers, and I object to that.” (Col. 1,731.) 

On 19th June, 1936. he answered the charge that the Arab movement was a capitalist movement:

  "Many Arab leaders have been arrested. It has been stated that the leaders are wealthy capitalists. I challenge the Minister to give us the name of any wealthy capitalist among the leaders. They include doctors, teachers, and various others. (Hansard, Col. 1,369.)

To an interjector who said the Arab leaders in the fight against the Jews were Communists, he said: “Yes, Communists. Wherever there is an oppressed people, or wherever there is exploitation of the working classes, there you will find Communists.”

The tragedy of all this is the fact that there are workers, British, Jewish, Arab and others, who fall for the pleas of a man like Gallacher. They have not yet realised that whenever any Government wants to gain support for some foreign policy dictated by trade or strategy there are always muddle-headed men like Gallacher and the equally muddled sentimentalists of the Labour Party who will provide the impassioned speeches, the tears and the appeals to humanitarian feelings. Mr. Gallacher may be as sincere in his present policy as when he was rousing up emotions in support of the opposite policy but in effect his weathercock antics just serve the Russian Government. They certainly do not serve the Jewish and Arab workers.