Editorial: A Few Words on the Atlantic Charter (1941)

Editorial from the October 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Atlantic Charter drafted by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill lays down the principles of the post-war international settlement as viewed by the U.S.A. and Britain. It has now received the general support of Russia and of the small Powers allied against Germany. It suggests obvious comparisons with the attempt to settle world affairs after the last war and with the scheme the German Government has put forward for enforcement if they are the victors. If it were as easy to dispose of awkward problems as it is to draft fine sounding proclamations we could perhaps agree about the superiority of the Atlantic Charter over the Versailles settlement and over the German plan. There is this to be said for the Atlantic Charter, that it is phrased in terms which do not envisage dividing up the spoils of world trade for the benefit of the victors. In Point 4 it pledges Great Britain and the U.S.A. that they will endeavour, “with due respect for their existing obligations” (more about this later) “to further enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity.”

This has been compared with the third of President Wilson’s 14 points drafted in 1918, which promised similar equality of trade conditions, but only “among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.” In other words, Germany and her allies were in effect barred.

Similarly it may be compared with the plan for world settlement recently elaborated by one of the leading Nazi economists, Werner Daitz. This was summarised in the Times (September 10th, 1941); under this plan the world is to be divided into six groups, the East-Asiatic, the Indo-Malay, the European, the African, the North American and the South American. The European, which is to take in all Western Russia and Great Britain, is to be under German dominance and according to Daitz it will have complete control over Africa, and there is to be no nonsense of equal trading conditions: —

“Europe will exercise a dominating power over the world. She will need much less food and raw materials from oversea than heretofore, but she will remain the greatest selling market for the countries producing rawstuffs. Consequently, she will be able to dictate the terms on which she buys. What will happen to Australia if Germany refuses her wool ? Or to the Argentine if she declines her beef ? Or to the United States if she will have no cotton? Europe will be able to use the fact that she is the world’s greatest consumer and the world’s intensest centre of industrial production as a political lever to control the other Lebensraume.”

Promise and Performance

But while the words and sentiments differ, what about the prospect of fulfilment? It will not be forgotten that when President Wilson had been disposed of other men and other interests actually dominated the settlement, and paid not even lip-service to the liberal sentiments expressed by Wilson in others of his 14 Points.

Already there has been questioning about that innocent little clause in the Atlantic Charter which reads: “With due respect for their existing obligations.” At the meeting of the nine allied Governments held in London, on September 24th, the representative of the Dutch Government raised objection and said “it was the view of his Government that this reservation might diminish the beneficial effect of the whole clause.”—(News-Chronicle, September 25th, 1941.)

The City Editor of the same journal supported the Dutch Government’s protest though pointing out that that Government too is asking preferential treatment for its own interest. He added: —

“Politicians, business men and leading civil servants are already busily engaged in explaining away Point 4. Some of them are even reported to have argued with scant tact; in the United States that we must maintain exchange control and trade bilateralism as permanent features of our economic set-up, since we “cannot afford” to do without them.

Bilateralism is the system of trade which says, “I won’t buy from you unless you buy as much from me.” That system is in direct and irreconcilable conflict with the equal access principle, which says, “I submit to no conditions from those to whom I sell and impose no conditions on those from whom I buy.”

If Point 4 of the Atlantic Charter means anything at all, it means adherence to the latter, “multilateral,” system of trade, and it is disquieting to find even distinguished economists setting at defiance both our signature to the Atlantic Charter and the most elementary doctrines of their own science”.— (News Chronicle, September 25th, 1941.)

So already it is plain that Clause 4 is going to have a rough passage and if its opponents have their way, to quote the News-Chronicle, “all that in practice is likely to be left of a fine principle is a fine phrase.”

Who will Slay the Capitalist Giants?

All the emphasis in the Atlantic Charter is laid on the relations between nations, but what about the great capitalist combines at home? The Atlantic Charter sees the need to protect the small nations against dominance by the larger ones if they are to trade and have access to raw materials on equal terms. But if capitalism is to continue, as Roosevelt and Churchill take for granted that it will, how is this to be done? How will they deal with the great capitalist concerns like Unilever, Imperial Chemical Industries and similar concerns in other lands? Who is going to slay these giant international semi-monopolies which are the real dominators of world trade? What is the use of saying that trade is on equal terms, a fair field and no favour, when these octopus organisations are left with their tentacles sprawling across the globe, not to mention the fact that they will naturally seek to use their great influence with governments to advance their interests.

This is the acid test of the talk of putting capitalist trade on a better basis. Is there any intention among the upholders of capitalism of reversing a half century of development towards bigger and bigger monopolies? Some twenty years ago a Labour leader, Mr. J. R. Clynes, said that his party thought it better to have a large number of small capitalists than a small number of large ones. Would Mr. Clynes or any other Labour leader say that to-day? Indeed, how could they when they are committed to a programme of amalgamation and formation of great public utility corporations ?

Is Agriculture to be Destroyed by Cheap Foreign Imports ?

There is another awkward fact to be faced by those who think that fine words about equal trade conditions are a contribution to settling the world’s problems. Are any countries to be allowed to impose protective tariffs or give subsidies to agriculture or other industries in order to save them from bankruptcy in face of a flood of cheaper products from abroad ? The News-Chronicle, true to its free-trade doctrines, says that the Atlantic Charter rules out these practices, as it logically does, but where do the Conservative Party and the Labour Party stand ? The Conservatives and many individuals in the Labour Party are already committed to a policy of protecting agriculture in Britain against a flood of imports from countries able to grow food more cheaply. What do they understand by Clause 4? And if they demand protective measures or subsidies for agriculture how will they object to Germany and other countries following a similar line for various industries ? In short, how will the trade scramble after this war be any different from that before the war’?

Twenty odd years ago the Labour Party had an answer. They were prepared to take the free trade line and let agriculture or any other industry sink or swim without aid. In their 1918 “Labour and the new social order,” they said “we ourselves object to all Protective Customs Tariffs,” and on the question of agriculture they said specifically that nothing must be done which would raise the price of foodstuffs here above the price level of foodstuffs imported from abroad.

They would no doubt give a somewhat different answer now but change is not necessarily progress, and the task of making capitalism work harmoniously is at least as difficult now as it was then. Socialists have no doubt about their attitude. Capitalism cannot be made to work satisfactorily. It must be abolished. Those who think differently, and this includes all those who have hastened to applaud the sentiments of the Atlantic Charter, should at least face up to these problems and decide where they stand.

Right Again. (1918)

From the December 1918 issue of the Socialist Standard

A little while since President Wilson, in this the mouth-piece of the Allies, was screaming for the German people to arise and overthrow their rulers. There would be no negotiation with the Hohenzollerns, he declared ; the Kaiser and his gang would have to go. Every available means was exploited in order to induce the working class of Germany to solve the difficulties of the Allies by plunging into revolution.

We said, however, at the time, that should the workers of the Central Empires take their cue from Mr. Wilson and attempt to take into their own hands control of public affairs, the armies of the Allies would be used to crush down the rising and restore security to capitalist interests.

What has happened ? After the signing of the Armistice a wave of revolution appeared to threaten 
the existence of German capitalism. Immediately the American President announced that no food
 would be sent to Germany unless the people were quiet. So we were not far out, nor did we have to 
wait long for events to prove the correctness of our statement. If the Allied Armies are not called on
to restore capitalist domination in Germany it will only be because the capitalists of the world have
found sufficient the more cunning scheme of starving into submission the revolutionaries who have served their purpose.

Jacko.

Seventeen Years. (1921)

From the June 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under the heading "Two Years," Mr. W. N. Ewer in the "Daily Herald's" May Day Annual claims recognition for the correctness of views held in the Spring of 1919 by some few nameless Socialists whom the world then regarded as cynics and scoffers. Then "amiable and credulous folk were still looking hopefully to President Wilson and the Paris Conference to secure a lasting peace for the world."

"To-day Kaiser-hanging is a joke. So is the League. . . . Mr. Wilson's principles are as dead as Mr. Wilson's power."

Unfortunately the "amiable and credulous folk" who invariably mislead the workers are by no means dead. The MacDonalds and Lansburys who recruited for King Capital in 1914 and supported Lansdowne or Wilson or any other politician who temporarily differed or pretended to differ from his colleagues on the desirability of continuing the war, are still carrying on. It is so easy for the workers to forget. In April 1921 some twenty or more prominent members of the Labour Party are to be found supporting an appeal to the Allies to revise the Peace settlement on the basis of the 14 Points. Having urged the workers to take part in the war and having seen the result of it, the Labour Party "believes in reparations," but finding the division of the loot among the victors unsatisfactory, it considers a redistribution to be necessary and will no doubt want the same workers to be prepared fight again for this.

Mr. Ewer condemns the Liberals in no measured terms, but is there one word of that condemnation which could not as aptly be applied to the Labour Party ?

  "The world it is clear is not going to be saved from war by self-determination or by open diplomacy any more than by Kaiser-hanging. These copy book maxims are pretty; but they will not work. They are like all the rest of the liberalism that there is in Liberalism. . .  War,  we told the people, is the inevitable result of the economic organisation of the world. If you want to abolish war you have got to alter that organisation." 

  " 'Nonsense!' said the Liberals, who didn't wars and also didn't want a social revolution. 'Nonsense ! you are impossiblists.' Now we have had two years' experience. But even now these Liberals will not see. They are convinced . . . that the failure to secure a bourgeois peace is the result of the wickedness or weakness of individuals. . . . And those very people who to day are deploring Mr. Wilson's failure are repeating his crime. They are still trying to persuade the people that salvation from war can be secured by leagues and arbitrations, and the result of the benevolent illusions of Liberalism." 

  "They no longer believe that the last war ended war. But they are getting ready to condone the next one as really the last. And they are also busy with proposals that we should all agree to fight it in a more gentlemanly way than before." (In this latter connection it is amusing to note the Labour Party's request to the Government that they should make it possible for the sons of the mere workers easily to reach officer rank in "our army.") " Whether it be America or Japan or France: with whomsoever it may be, and over whatever pretended issue, this is as certain as the sunrise ; that the next war will come, and then the next, and then again the next. Unless ? Until and unless the system that breeds wars as dirt breeds vermin is swept away. No Fourteen Points, no open diplomacies, no armament limitation or arbitration tribunals or league conventions, or Wilsons or Leagues of Nations can stop it. Liberalism and its bogus internationalism are bankrupt. It is war ... or revolution."

Thank you, Mr. Ewer. One has only to substitute Labour for Liberalism in the above to get our point of view. That word "Impossiblist" has a familiar ring. For seventeen years we have preached this and we too have been called the impossiblists by the practical men, and we too have found we were justified by the events, but ''even now they will not see."

Edgar Hardcastle 

Democracy and dictatorship today (1966)

From the July 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

  “I'm tired; have you ever tried to run a country?” (General Odria, dictator of Peru, on his resignation in 1956.)

George Bernard, Shaw once wrote that democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. This typical witticism is as inadequate as the, definitiop in the Concise Oxford Dictionary—". . . government by the people, direct or representative.” Democracy should mean more than the counting of hands; it should also mean a complete lack of secrecy, giving everyone access to information and so allowing them to take a full part in the management of society.

This is incompatible with government, which by its very nature must be coercive and secretive. And it is impossible while the many are, to adapt somewhat Shaw’s word, “incompetent”.

But to discuss the matter sensibly we have no choice but to accept the generally accepted meaning of democracy, if only to distinguish it from the other method of running capitalism—dictatorship. We shall have to accept that democracy is confined to the periodical election of a government by popular vote and the things which go with it; the existence of opposition parties, an uncensored press, the legal right to a trial and so on.

Almost 50 years after President Wilson assured Congress that the world was to be made safe for democracy, a brief look at the political set-up shows that this is far from becoming reality. In the Americas, democracy to all intents and purposes stops at the Mexican border. In the Caribbean, Cuba and Haiti are governed by ruthless despotisms. In Europe there are Spain, Portugal, Russia and the Eastern bloc. Almost the entire African continent, and most of the Arab countries in the Middle East, are under some sort of dictatorship. In the Far East China, Vietnam (North and South), Korea (North and South) are only a few of the places where democracy does not exist.

What this gloomy survey reveals is that, despite the professed aims of Woodrow Wilson and many other statesmen, at present the majority of the world’s people live under dictatorships. The United Nations (for what it is worth) is pretty well dominated by totalitarian states; only a third of its members can be described as democracies.

Neither should we forget that many of the democracies are anything but free countries. In the United States, for example, the voting and legal rights which are supposed to be part of democracy are denied to a large part of the Negro population. Indeed, this denial is particularly complete and ruthless in the Southern States, where politicians often boast loudly of their determination to defend “freedom”.

Such double-think has not always been fashionable. Pre-war Fascists professed an open contempt for democracy, which they said was decadent, corrupt and inefficient. Hence their reliance upon the strong, wise, resolute leader who would beat down all opposition and drag the rest of us into disciplined prosperity.

To some extent, times have changed. Today, even dictatorships like to call themselves democracies. East Germany, with its wall across Berlin, is officially known as the German Democratic Republic. Russia, where no opposition parties are allowed to exist, and where until recently political extermination was common, claims to be a free democracy. It is usual now for all manner of quibbles to be used in the effort to prove that dictatorship is freedom. Last October the Prime Minister of Malawi, Dr. Banda, justified the proposal to alter Malawi’s Constitution to give him dictatorial powers in these words:

  It does not matter whether there is a dictator or not as long as the people choose the dictator.

It is in the new African states that the misuse of the word democracy has been particularly shameless. The nationalist movements there came to power after long struggles to oust the colonial nations and during these struggles they won a lot of sympathy, outside Africa as well as inside, by frequent promises that independence would bring political freedom.

The result has been very different. Algeria and Egypt are now governed by autocrats—both of them, incidentally, claiming to be Socialists. Nigeria is under military government and so, after years of the Nkrumah dictatorship, is Ghana. Kenya and Malawi are one-party states and Uganda, as its Prime Minister Dr. Milton Obote foretold in January, 1964, is travelling in the same direction.

Indeed, in some ways the new states are no better than the old colonial administrations—and in others they are even worse. The Belgian rubber men committed some fearful atrocities in the Congo and even as late as the last war were still hanging criminals in public. The present Congolese government have shown that they are no improvement on this, by executing the four ex-Ministers in the main square in Leopoldville last month—and declaring a public holiday so that everyone could go along to watch.

Public hangings have also been promised in Malawi, where the government last year introduced the Penal Code Amendment Bill, which reversed the decision taken by the British in 1875 that in future all executions must take place behind prison walls.

And to show that this criticism is not confined to African states let us also mention South Africa, which gained independence after a long and bitter struggle against British Imperialism and where the descendants of the Boer fighters are dourly resolved that freedom shall be something reserved for the minority of the population who have a white skin.

It can be argued with some force that at present democracy is not practicable in much of Africa. The powers who parcelled out the continent during the 18th and 19th centuries did little to disturb the agrarian economies of their colonics. As a result the feudal structure of tribalism was intact when the colonists went home—and has since proved a considerable problem to nationalist politicians trying to drag Africa into 20th century capitalism.

Tribalism and democracy do not mix. The tribesman’s concepts are limited to his dependence on his tribe; he can no more understand what is implied by voting for representation in a national government than could the peasant in Mediaeval Europe. When the African nationalists claimed to stand for democracy they were often speaking in terms which the tribesmen, on whom they depended for support, had no reason to understand—and perhaps this shows how potent the word democracy has become.

Modern democracy is a by-product of the development of capitalism. It is part of the development of a free working class—free in the sense that they can sell their labour power to any employer and are not tied by social groupings such as feudal manors and tribes. As capitalism’s production techniques become ever more complex, and as its commerce becomes ever more international, so it requires an ever wider schooling for its workers. This inevitably stimulates a demand for democracy which, apart from its other uses, can be a safety valve to ease the pressures of discontent.

Although democracy has certain drawbacks for capitalism —political parties which aim to run the system must, for example, always form their policies with one eye on public opinion—it also has some solid advantages. To begin with, it is the most efficient method of running capitalism.

There was once a popular theory that dictatorships, because they were under the control of one man who did not have to bother about consulting anybody else before he took any necessary decisions, were models of efficiency. We have all heard the stories about Mussolini personally ensuring that the Italian trains ran on time; but we have also learnt how the war mercilessly exposed the ineptitudes of Italian capitalism under the Fascists. We have all heard the stories about Hitler simply deciding to abolish unemployment in Germany and, because he was a dictator, of unemployment promptly decreasing. This is not so effective a story when we remember that Hitler came to power, like Roosevelt, just at the time when the slump of the Thirties was in any case receding.

In dictatorships as well as in democracies, an opposition of some kind is bound to exist. In a democracy this is useful; an opposition brings the government face to face with the realities of capitalism. In a dictatorship inconvenient facts are often suppressed; the ruler tries to eliminate opposition and to surround himself with sycophants—he frequently lives in a dream-world of his own, governing the country by his hunches.

President Duvalier of Haiti, for example, believes that he has magical powers. By the time he was deposed, Nkrumah had lost his once famous charm and was a fear-haunted megalomaniac with a taste for employing wanted ex-Nazis on his personal staff. Hitler's last days in the bunker in Berlin were spent directing non-existent armies, under the delusion that victory was in his grasp.

A dictatorship is a power pyramid, with each layer being able to enforce its wishes on those below. If an official can be bribed into giving certain orders, the people he gives them to cannot question them—that can come only from above, where bribery is probably also operating. Thus dictatorships are frequently hotbeds of corruption, with the men at the top amassing huge fortunes—Goering’s famous art collection, Batista's £15 million, the Trujillo family's £280 million.

The leaders of capitalism find it difficult enough to run the system without burdening themselves by ignoring facts, regardless to their own conceits and immersing themselves in corruption. These things undoubtedly exist in democracies, but not so widely nor with the effect which they have in dictatorships. A democracy can reveal scandals like the affairs of Sydney Stanley and Profumo; a dictatorship tends to cover them up. It is not without significance for capitalism that the most efficient and competitive of its countries are democracies.

For the working class, democracy has its uses—and its dangers. There is first of all the great delusion that democracy inevitably means social equality. A rich man has the same vote as a poor one, but it does not follow that both have equal standing in capitalist society. In fact, as long as the majority of people use their votes to support capitalism there will always be rich and poor, which means that there will be privilege and repression.

The danger of this situation is that a working class who support capitalism have little understanding of the cause of their problems. They will vote for all manner of reforms and remedies, none of which have any effect, and they are easy prey to the demagogue who blames their problems on to democracy. Then millions of people are liable to fall for the strong man theory and use their votes to abolish the right to vote, as they did in Germany in the Thirties and as they may do anywhere, at any time.

Another danger is in the fact that democracy can be used to persuade the working class to act against their own interests. In the last war, for example, the fact that this country was a democracy and Germany a dictatorship gave the British ruling class the chance to sell the war as a struggle for freedom against oppression. This propaganda was very effective, especially as the organisations which were putting it out were careful to gloss over the fact that also in the fight against Germany was one of the world's biggest and worst dictatorships. The results of the war showed up plainly what was apparent at the time to only a few— that those who went to fight in the belief that they were defending freedom were cruelly misled.

For all this, democracy is essential to the working class. They can achieve their emancipation only through political action—and to take this they need democracy. This action can be taken only when the workers have consciously accepted the need for it—and to come to this they need the free discussion and the spread of ideas which democracy allows. The tool the workers will use in their action will be a political party—which can exist in freedom only in a democratic system.

Democracy today is a frail thing, surviving only narrowly. Its future depends on the very people who need it and who can use it to build the new society. The choice is theirs; to surrender democracy is a step backwards, almost to surrender all hope.

Ivan

Editorial: "What Will He Do With It?" (1919)

Editorial from the January 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Martial Law General Election has come and gone. As was generally expected, the “Coalition” gang got there. They polled, in the United Kingdom, 5,091,528 votes, against 4,589,486 polled by the non-coalitionists. Thus they had a majority of 52 per cent of the votes cast. This astounding majority, we are seriously informed, overwhelmed David Ll. G. But, as showing how minorities fare under capitalist “democracy,” it may be remarked that this five per cent. vote majority gives the Coalition (leaving Ireland out of it) a majority of some 317 seats.

For us, of course, the election was bound to provide consolation prizes. It is sweet to observe that Butcher Asquith has got left, and it is sweeter than saccharine tablets to note that J. R. Macdonald has bitten the dust. The Liberal henchmen have proved who their masters are, alike in the defeat of men like Henderson and Macdonald who have been unfortunate enough to lose their masters’ support, and in the victory of men like Thorne who, openly flouting their “labour” crutches, clung frantically to the hand that doles them out their £400 a year, and found, if we may mix the metaphor in a good cause, that they had backed the right horse.

And now Lloyd George goes on to juggle with his promises. Pledged up to the hilt to Home Rule for Ireland, he is going to carry it with a vast Unionist majority! He is going to make a “beautiful new world” with a majority of the stoutest defenders of the old sordid and bestial working-class environment. Well, we hope the workers are about to learn a few useful lessons—and we think they are.

Another Election Lie.

At the fag end of the election campaign Lloyd George made a bid for the soldiers’ votes by declaring for rapid demobilisation and no conscription after the war. As to the first, we shall see presently what he means by that, but as for the second, he has warned us beforehand that he was simply lying.

Earlier in the campaign the wily one said that the question of Conscription depended upon the terms of the peace settlement. He was opposed to Conscription, he said, but if other countries had large armies—why, of course, and so on. He at the same time declared that Britain must retain her navy, which he said is a defensive force.

Now it must be obvious that if Britain is to retain her gigantic navy other countries are going to provide themselves with instruments of defence. The American Naval Secretary soon showed this when he declared that “It was his firm conviction that if the Versailles Conference did not result in a general agreement to put an end to naval construction the United States must bend its energies to the creation of incomparably the greatest navy in the world.” (‘"Star,” 31.12.18.)

It is sheer rubbish to talk of the Navy as being a defensive weapon. Lloyd George’s persistent claim that without the British Navy the Allies had never won the war proves that it was an offensive instrument of the first order. If it were merely a defensive weapon then it might be extinguished in a general disarmament. But Lloyd George says no, it must be retained. And Secretary Daniels, knowing that it is the factor in the control of trade routes, and therefore of.the world market, declares that America does not intend to be shut out of the world market.

And so there we are. The game is about to begin all over again—and nobody knows it better than Lloyd George. So when he says that he is in favour of no-conscription he is only lying to catch votes. He tells us the truth when he says Conscription in this country depends upon what obtains on the Continent, for that means that he is already preparing to institute it as an integral part of the “beautiful new world.”

Confirmation!

“If Germany had waited a single generation she would have had a commercial empire of the world.”

Thus spake President Wilson in Rome on Jan. 3rd. Strange, is it not, how our opponents and apologists for the war prove the correctness of our statements regarding the root cause of the conflict and belie their own beatitudes concerning the high ideals which have actuated the Allies. Can it possibly be that they find, when the bill is finally presented, and shows ten million naval and military deaths alone, to say nothing of the millions of other deaths for which the war is responsible, that the old shallow bunkum of honour and the like is really too absurdly inadequate, and that is better to rely on the truth—that it was an economic war?

By The Way. (1918)

The By The Way column from the November 1918 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Lloyd George in his Manchester speech once again crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s of the Socialist propagandist. It was in dealing with the lessons of the war that the Prime Minister told his hearers that “the State must take a more constant and more intelligent interest in the health and fitness of the people.” Why this interest was to be manifested was in order to maintain the Empire, and because the war and the need for fighters had shown what a pitiable caricature capitalist society had reduced its wage slaves to. The speaker went on to say— '

I asked the Minister of National Service how many more men could we have put into the fighting ranks if the health of this country had been properly looked after. I staggered at the reply. It was a considered reply. It was, “At least one million.” . . .  Here we are combing out the essential industries . . . and yet you had a million men who, if the State had taken proper care of the fitness of the people, would have been available for the war. . . . I solemnly warn my fellow-countrymen that you cannot maintain an A1 Empire with a C3 population. Unless this lesson is learned war is vain.—“Daily News,” Sept. 13th, 1918.

Now, I submit that this is a pretty strong indictment of capitalism. Strange, is it not, that it should require a world war to bring home to our rulers the truth of our contention of the indifference, even to the point of callousness, in the treatment meted out to the workers in the piping times of peace by the master class? Mate, it’s up to you! Is capitalism worth fighting for? Think it over!

* * *

Next our glib-tongued orator turned his attention to unpacking a box of red herrings, termed in these days reconstruction. The question of housing reform was an essential feature in improving the health of the people; healthier conditions of workshops, and wages which will sustain life in full vigour; more attention to be paid to the schools, encouragement of production and national assistance: all these things are offered as tempting baits to the unwary to lure them into further support of capitalist apologists. Coming to close grips with this specious thing, he adds—

  Let us have it when the nation is riding the chariot of a high purpose ere it comes down to the dusty road. That is the time to reconstruct, that is the time to build —when there is the spirit of fraternity throughout the land, when there is no longer rich and poor, one party or other, but one people, one spirit, one purpose, one soul—to lift our native land, not merely above the menace of a foreign foe, but above the wretchedness, the squalor, the horror, the misery which so many men and women and children who live on the hearthstones of this old land have been enduring. I have been amongst the people and I know it, and I want to see this thing righted after the war.

All these things are offered to the credulous if they will but bow down and worship him. But let us pause for a moment and ask if he will really “deliver the goods.” What of the promises made years ago? What of the land campaign, the 1909 budget, the easier and pleasanter road, the road through fields of waving corn, and the benefits to be conferred on long-suffering humanity by the insurance act. Long years of office and a total inability to deliver the goods in the past emboldens me to say that these fine words are but empty vapourings.

* * *

In these days when shortage of shipping is a continual cry, the following announcement is illuminating,—from South Africa this time—

  A boat arrived here the other day with motors and racehorses for Solly Joel, but no mails or anything of any use to the general community. No ships can be found for wheat, wool, hides, and a thousand and one things that are wanted at home in England, but a ship can be easily spared for Solly Joel's racehorses, motors, etc.—“Daily News,” Aug. 28th, 1918.

Cheerful news this for those who “spot” winners and “back” horses. But what matters it for those who lack the necessaries of life so long as we maintain this glorious form of sport ?

* * *

More business ability! Recently Mr. J. M. Hogge, M.P., was speaking at Liverpool, where he read the following letter received by a discharged soldier—

   The Minister of Pensions has decided to continue your pension at the rate of 22s. 9d. a week from July 31,1918, till January 31,1919, then at the rate of 19s 6d. for life, at the expiration of which you will again be medically examined with a view to consideration of your claim for further pension.

Funny, isn’t it? Evidently the age of miracles is not yet passed.

* * *

Whilst so many people are busily employed with the mote in the German’s eye regardless of the beam in their own it is interesting to read President Wilson’s Proclamation condemning manifestations of the mob spirit. I read:

  There have been many lynchings, and every one of them has been a blow at the heart of ordered law and humane justice.
  No man who loves America, no man who really cares for her fame and honour and character, or who is truly loyal to her institutions, can justify mob action while the courts of justice are open and the Governments of the States and nations are ready to do their duty.
  We are at this very moment fighting lawless passion. Germany has outlawed herself among the nations because she has disregarded the sacred obligations of law and has made lynchers of her armies. Lynchers emulate her disgraceful example.
   I say plainly that every American who takes part in the action of a mob, or who gives it any sort of countenance, is no son of this great democracy, but its betrayer. “Star,” Sept. 3rd, 1918.

In this “land of the free” we are also acquainted with the mob spirit. One has only to call to mind recent happenings at Plumstead Common and Abbey Wood. And we have no recollection of seeing any condemnation of such tactics by those who are alleged to be the custodians of the rights of small nations.

The Scout.

Scrag-Ends. (1916)

From the July 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lloyd George says that England can take every man off the land if required for fighting and get all agricultural work done by women. Lord Selborne says so many men have been already taken that the whole industry is endangered. Great minds think alike, we are often told—here, small minds differ.

The Christians are still busy praying about the war, not for peace, of course, but for more blood to be shed and that right quickly. So hurry up, my gallant youths, kill your enemies quickly, so that we can have all the dirty mess cleared up by Christmas Eve, and assemble once again in the old church to warble that sweet little ditty, “ Peace on earth and mercy mild."

In spite of the pleadings of the War Savings Committee we remain an extravagant people; last month several more reckless Old-Age Pensioners squandered their weekly dollar and starved themselves into “glory."

Mr. Asquith has been telling his constituents that it is only the knowledge that he enjoys their complete confidence which enables him to carry the stupendous burden of the Premiership. Well spoken, Herbert! You may beat David after all in the Swankers' championship.

“There are mills in which men are made to work 7 days a week for 12 hours a day, and in the 365 weary days of the year cannot make enough to pay their bills.”

The above is an extract from one of President Wilson's speeches and has reference to conditions in the U.S.A., but it could be stated with truth about all countries where capitalism exists, whether they are Free Trade or Protectionist countries: capitalism being the universal cause of working-class misery, the only remedy for that misery is the universal abolition of capitalism hence the S.P.G.B.

SKEWER.

What next for Yugoslavia? (1991)

From the August 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

When I was at school over forty years ago we were told in our history classes how a young South Slav nationalist, Gavrilo Princep, by assassinating Arch-Duke Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo, had triggered off (1 seem to remember "caused" was the word used) the entire first world war. Whilst not denying a role for such melodramatic gestures, Marxian critics of the capitalist system and its persistent drive to war were never convinced that the enormous conflict that ensued had such a Ruritanian root-cause. It was, instead, the culmination of a lengthy period of economic rivalry between, on the one hand, the established powers such as France and Britain with their imperial systems of guaranteed markets and cheap sources of labour and raw materials and, on the other, the thwarted ambitions of capitalist late-comers Germany and Austria-Hungary.

Woodrow Wilson redraws the map

Following the armistice in 1918, Americas President Wilson acted upon the new super-power status of the USA by redrawing the map of Europe consequent upon the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian and Turkish empires. A key figure of the new pattern of states was the very Yugoslavia that Princep had heralded. The new entity cobbled together some diverse areas at highly varied levels of economic and social development which had in common that most of the kingdom's new subjects spoke one or other related Slav language. On the other hand they were divided by the fact that the Slovenes and Croats had for centuries formed part of the Catholic society of the Austro-Hungarian Empire whereas the Serbs, Kossovo Albanians, Macedonians, and the Bosnian three-way mix of Catholics, Serbian Orthodox and Moslems, reflected the five centuries of Ottoman Turkish domination that they had undergone. Even the essentially common language of the Serbs and Croats was deeply marked by the differing impacts upon it of Eastern and Western influences. In Croatia the language is written in Roman script. Serbs, Montenegrins and Macedonians write in Cyrillic derived from Greek.

The lack of a common spoken and written language was a major handicap in the development of modern state institutions and in the inter-war years the Serbs, who were the largest ethnic group, were felt by the other elements of the population to exercise far too strong an influence over the kingdom as a whole, especially as the royal family was Serbian. Tito, the post-WWII dictator, took steps to unify Serbo-Croat. This required concessions on the part of both wings of the language. The Serbs had to forgo the use of Cyrillic in those publications brought out in the unified format. However, where variations of grammar or vocabulary needed to be reconciled the Serbian form prevailed. To the more bigoted elements none of the sacrifices could be regarded as acceptable, but educational institutions budgeting for the publication of engineering or medical textbooks of limited circulation were soon to see the merits of the new approach.

Interestingly enough, our political cousins in the USA, the SLP, grappled with this problem in trying to spread the socialist message amongst Balkan immigrants whose settlement was especially concentrated in the Ohio area. Certainly it would be some time before propaganda couched in English would well be understood. But the limited funds of a working-class organisation could hardly run to printing separate publications and pamphlets in two scripts and several South Slav languages including Bulgarian. So perhaps forty-odd years before Tito’s similar efforts with all the assistance of the state-machine and paid academics, a parallel development was brought about by the voluntary efforts of mostly self-educated working men and women.

Austro-Marxism

The Allies’ Wilsonian carve-up of the former empires bore little relation to the over-riding economic practicalities. For example, Czechoslovakia which joined together in an independent republic the Bohemians, Moravians, Slovaks, and Ruthenes (Ukrainians) of the old Austria was said to have inherited a railway network which went from nowhere to nowhere. The Danube basin which has its own natural unity was split between the new Austrian Republic, Czechoslovakia, Hungary. Yugoslavia, Rumania and Bulgaria.

Prior to 1914 the quasi-Marxist Austrian Social-Democrats had engaged in a decade of more of furious debate on the National Question and the socialist attitude towards it. It was evident that a situation which condemned millions of people to gaining literacy, military service and employment in a “foreign" language was cause for real dissatisfaction and resentment. It is also the case that several embryonic capitalist ruling groups in the region were eager and assiduous in fomenting and harnessing these genuine concerns, so divisive of working-class unity, to further their own class interests. In these debates the classic Austro-Marxist school of socialist thought well argued the supra-national, common interests of workers as workers, whilst at the same time accepting as valid the desire for linguistic freedom of choice.

Sadly, the outlook of the majority of Social Democrats was as backward in this regard as in most other respects and Czech, Croat, Hungarian and Rumanian sections of the movement were overwhelmingly in favour of setting up new frontiers rather than getting rid of old ones. Nor should it be thought that the bulk of German-speaking Social Democrats were any different; they too. equally sadly, proved to be imbued with nationalist ideas.

Inter-war Yugoslavia was a shaky construct, highly vulnerable to all the pressures of thrusting German and Italian capitalism and the lure of Russia's socialist pretensions to a population of workers and peasants coping with the harsh effects of the world slump, massive inflation and the rise of fascism. When the Nazis launched their “Drang nach Osten” and their quest for “Lebensraum" Yugoslavia, with all its internal strife, fell easy prey to the invaders.

The resistance movements which the German and Italian occupying armies brought into being strongly reflected the fiercely divergent elements of Yugoslav society. Tito (a Croat, it is worth remembering) led the most effective guerrilla army which, although operating under a Bolshevik ideology, was virtually the only instance in Axis-occupied East Europe of such a movement achieving victory largely without the aid of the Red Army.

In view of the relatively minor pre-war role of Belgrade’s Communist Party it is not surprising that in the early stages of the occupation the principal resistance movement, led by Draza Mihajlovic, reflected the mainstream conservative, monarchist. Serbian majority. The existence of rival underground armies posed a dilemma for Winston Churchill and the Allied strategists, so Captain Fitzroy Maclean was parachuted into the occupied country to assess the fighting potential of the separate resistance forces. With remarkable timeliness his book of wartime adventures. Eastern Approaches, has just been republished in paperback. No doubt there were quite a few true-blue British Tories who were deeply shocked when Churchill took Maclean’s advice, ceased supplying arms to Mihajlovic’s Chetniks and began aiding the "Communist” partizans instead.

The Chetniks. who had been fighting on two fronts against the Wehrmacht and the Partizans. were forced by this policy into increased collaboration with the Germans. Tito’s forces went from strength to strength. The clerical-fascist puppet state set up in Croatia drew widespread support for their militia, the feared Ustashe, but their fate was tied up with that of their Nazi masters. Another element which tended to side with the Germans were the Muslims. World War I memories of the Turkish alliance with Berlin played a part, as did fond recollections of German sponsorship of Enver Pasha's schemes for gathering together all the Turkic lands within the Russian Empire of the Tsars and joining them with Turkey in a "Pan-Turanian Empire" under German tutelage. Just as Franco’s use of Moroccan troops in the Nationalist offensive against the Republic brought out all the racist and Christian prejudices of the man in the Spanish street, Serbian Orthodox and Catholics see mirrored in every Yugoslav Moslem “five hundred years of the Turkish yoke", although by far the greater part of these are descended from Slav converts rather than from Turkish settlers

Those who have been watching blow-by-blow accounts of recent violent incidents on TV bulletins from Slovenia and Croatia might see disturbing analogies with the earlier events referred to above. A united Germany shows all the signs of re-asserting its hegemony over Eastern Europe from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Armed thugs create mayhem amongst people of the other ethnic group. Already the Serbian irregulars are willing to be known, even proudly call themselves, Chetniks. More hesitantly, Croatian auxiliaries are accepting the label being given to them of Ustashe. However, the authorities in Zagreb are keen to maintain their democratic credentials (like Hitler they came to power through elections) as they cannot easily afford to alienate the goodwill of Common Market governments or public opinion. After all, the number of Yugoslav "guest workers” in Germany is second only to the two million Turkish workers there. A good proportion of these “Gastarbeitern" are from Croatia and their cash remittances home are no small consideration in the minds of the economic planners.

Mention of Slovenia may remind some readers of a speaker from our Hyde Park platform in the late fifties. In those days the fact that he was a Slovene was regarded as less noteworthy than that he came from Yugoslavia and wished to repudiate their false claims to being some kind of socialist society with "workers self-management". The excellence of his arguments was marred a little by his hesitant English but, on the other hand, it did wonders for our efforts to put over the World Socialist perspective of a world without states in which linguistic freedom of choice will be a matter of course

Eddie Grant

The United States and imperialism (1986)

From the Summer 1986 issue of the World Socialist

The history of US imperialism dates back to the times of the foundation of the nation. Whether making and breaking treaties with various American Indian tribes and "nations"—expropriating their lands—or in adventures in far-flung oceans and climes, US capitalism went all-out from its beginnings in muscling its way into world business and, in pursuit of such ends, into the internal affairs of other nations. To be sure, that is not exactly how such activity was always explained by the official moulders of public opinion. Like ruling classes everywhere, the capitalists of the United States were aided in their expansionism by their educational and religious henchmen who found high-sounding moral justification for their nation's conquests. It must be admitted, though, that the primary motivation has been amply clarified by at least some US historians (as well as by some politicians in their more honest moments—see "Foreign Policy for Beginners"). As a case in point it will be instructive to quote directly from The Rise of American Civilization by Charles and Mary Beard (1927):

The revolution wrought by steam and machinery was by no means limited in its effect to factory districts, corn fields, cotton plantations, and mining camps. It widened the borders of economic empire by the expansion of American commerce into the Far Pacific. Though obscured to the vulgar eye by the dust of domestic conflict, the construction of that commercial dominion went forward rapidly from the foundation of the republic. The very year after Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown, the Empress of China, fitted out partly at the expense of Robert Morris, merchant prince and 'financier of the American Revolution,' sailed from New York to Canton, carrying the American flag into the midst of the Dutch and British pennants that fluttered in the breezes of Chinese waters. Before the Fathers completed the framing of the Constitution, at least nine voyages had been made to the Far East by enterprising Yankees.

And the Beards continued their interesting disclosures:

In the year of Washington's inauguration, ten ships from Salem plowed the waters of the Indian Ocean. Before he delivered his 'Farewell Address,' warning his countrymen against foreign entanglements, American captains were at home in the ports of China, Java, Sumatra, Siam, India, the Philippines, and Ile de France. In 1979, the date of his retirement to Mt Vernon, a crew of thirty boys, the oldest not over twenty-eight, took the Betsy, a boat of less than a hundred tons, on a voyage around the world by way of the Horn, Canton, and Good Hope, netting on an outlay of about eight thousand dollars the neat profit of a hundred and twenty thousand. (I, page 661) 

The World Socialist Party (US) has for many years recommended the Beards' Rise of American Civilization as an excellent source for information on the material factors influencing US history. They were not socialists but they did as much, if not more, than most professed socialists (and/or communists) in this country to straighten out the generally mistaken views on subjects such as the causes of the American Revolution, the Civil War and the real reasons behind Wilson's switch on World War I which brought about US entry into that shambles only  some five months after he had been reelected in a platform accentuating the slogan: "He kept us out of the war!" Having been written in 1927, this book does not go much beyond World War I but the Beards did manage, during their lifetime, to bring their chronicle of US history up to the times of World War II with their Basic History of the United States.

MODERN OVERSEAS ADVENTURES

It would not be possible within the scope of an article to list the instances of US imperialist adventure throughout its history completely. At least some of the oldest among the present population are no doubt passingly familiar with most of the thrusts of US military power in defense of her imperial interests - not all of which have been successful - since World WarI. There must be a few, though, who have not been made aware of US "meddling", overtly and covertly, into the affairs of the nations of Southeast Asia and, particularly, the countries of Central and South America . From the time of Fidel Castro's "conversion to Marxism" and embrace of and by the Soviet Union there has been hostile, even at times, violent, reaction by officialdom in this country and indeed, wherever purported Marxists gained or even threatened to gain control in the Americas. Were it not for the Nixon and Reagan flirtations with the head dispensers of Chinese "marxism", one might at least suspect that the basis of this hostility toward leftist regimes in Latin America is truly ideological.

The truth, of course, has to be otherwise. The hostility is obviously based upon the threat to important US capitalist interests by left-radical nationalists in those countries. As is well known, even if the knowledge is sublimated, as it usually is, by the more conservative-minded among capitalism's apologists, bourgeois antipathy towards Bolshevism has not been carved in stone. There have been many occasions since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 when US, British, and other heads of the more traditional variety of capitalists have heaped encomium on the heads of the Soviet dictators. Particularly this was true during most of those years of World War II when Western Capitalism was allied with Bolshevik State Capitalism and when the topmost political leaders of Britain and the US hailed Joseph Stalin as a contemporary "genius". In fact, had Stalin not lived on into the period of "Cold War", reverting to his status of "monster", he would quite likely still be depicted in US school texts as the savior of Russia.

CONFLICT OF INTERESTS NOT IDEOLOGIES

In any case. one thing should have been made clear since the times of World War II: it is not professed ideological differences between nations that propel them into open warfare against one another. It is, rather, the fact that their economic foundations and the basic philosophies that arise from them are all but identical, notwithstanding some differences in nomenclature and that they are, at least temporarily, threatening one another's imperial interests. Both Hitler and F. D. Roosevelt put it succinctly: Hitler with his "Germany must expand or explode" and Roosevelt's "Our frontier is on the Rhine".

What should be emphasized, though, is that "anti-imperialism" is, or should be, regarded as of no concern of the working class of either imperial or subject nation. It is just another red herring injected into the class struggle, whether with deliberate intent of confusing or through simple ignorance on the part of the propagandists. The cause of mass poverty, insecurity, and war, is not imperialism but the very relationships themselves of capitalism - wage labor and capital.

Harry Morrison (USA.)

FOREIGN POLICY FOR BEGINNERS

"We want a foreign market for our surplus products."

- William McKinley, 1880's

"In the interests of our commerce  . . . we should build the Nicaragua canal, and for the protection of that canal and for the sake of our commercial supremacy in the Pacific we should control the Hawaiian islands and maintain our influence in Samoa  . . . The great nations are rapidly absorbing for their present defense all the waste places of the earth. It is a movement which makes for civilization and the advancement of the race."

- Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, 1890s

"It seems to be conceded that every year we shall be confronted with an increasing surplus of manufactured goods for sale in foreign markets if American operatives and artisans are to be kept employed the year around. The enlargement of foreign consumption of the products of our mills and workshops has, therefore, become a serious problem of statesmanship as well as well as of commerce."

- State Department 1898

"Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even of the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process  . . . the doors of the nations which are closed must be battered down."

- Woodrow Wilson, 1907

"The real reason that the war we just finished took place was that Germany was afraid her commercial rivals were going to get the better of her and the reason why some nations went onto the war against Germany was that they thought Germany would get the advantage of them."

- President Woodrow Wilson, St Louis, 1919

" . . . our general diplomatic and strategic position would be considerably weakened - by our loss of Chinese, Indian and South Seas markets (and by our loss of much of the Japanese market for our goods, as Japan would become more and more self-sufficient) as well by insurmountable restrictions upon our access to the rubber, tin, jute, and other vital materials of the Asian and Oceanic regions."

- US State Department, 1940

"The real stake in this war is sea control, is the domination of the avenues of world trade."

- United States News, Sept. 13, 1940

"There never was a war at arms that was not merely the extension of a preceding war of commerce grown fiercer until the weapons of commerce seemed no longer sufficiently deadly."

- General Hugh Johnson (1882-1942)

"As you know, we've got to plan on enormously increased production in this country after the war, and the American domestic market can't absorb all that production indefinitely. There won't be any question about our needing greatly increased foreign markets."

- State Department official, April 1944

"In May of 1962, we stand at the great divide; we must either trade or fade. They (the Russians) are ready to take and sell any area in which we leave a gap. And we do not intend to give way."

- President Kennedy, May 4 1962

"What is the attraction that Southeast Asia has exerted for centuries on the great powers flanking it on all sides? Why is it desirable, and why is it important? First, it provides a lush climate, fertile soil, rich natural resources, a relatively sparse population in most areas, and room to expand. The countries of Southeast Asia produce rich exportable surpluses such as rice, rubber, tea, corn, tin, spices, oil and many others . . . "

- Kennedy's Undersecretary of State, U. Alexis Johnson - Early 1963

"My approach to Africa is in some ways like the Japanese approach to Asia, and approach is not necessarily humanitarian. It is in the long-range interest of access to resources and the creation of markets for American goods and services."

- U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young, 1977

Source: Daily Battle, Berkeley, California; Socialist Party of Canada leaflet