End of geography (2012)

Book Review from the January 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why the West Rules – for Now. By Ian Morris. Profile Books.

The basic question addressed by Morris is why in recent times the Western part of the globe has been dominant over the Eastern part. Britain’s rulers, for instance, sent armies and gunboats to humiliate the Emperor of China in the nineteenth century and extract trading concessions, rather than vice versa. It is important to realise that the West (more precisely, the rulers in the West) has not always been top dog: from the sixth to the eighteenth centuries the East was more developed. Morris summarised his views in an article in History Today in October 2010, which can be read for free here.

Morris defines the ‘West’ as societies descended from the original core region of southwest Asia, so encompassing Europe and the Americas. The ‘East’ is those societies descended from the early civilisations between the Yellow and Yangzi rivers. Social development is quantified by looking at four criteria: energy capture (the capacity for extracting energy from the natural environment and for using it), urbanism (the size of a society’s largest city, as a proxy for the ability to organize complex situations), information processing (the power to communicate information) and the capacity to make war. The higher the score, the more powerful and developed a society is, and the more able it is to impose itself on others. The West was more advanced till around the middle of the sixth century CE and again from around 1800, when development leapt upwards, first in the West (the Industrial Revolution) and then in the East. The West is still ahead (especially in war-waging ability) but, as the title of the book suggests, this may not last for long.

Biological explanations (to the effect that people from the West are more intelligent) do not hold up, since human beings are basically the same everywhere. Rather, the factors behind the differences are claimed to be essentially geographical. A period of global warming around twenty thousand years ago led to the growth of agriculture in the ‘Hilly Flanks’ (covering the valleys of the Tigris, Euphrates and Jordan rivers) and so to a distinctive ‘Western’ core. At the end of the last Ice Age, agriculture began between 20 and 35 degrees north, a region with plenty of domesticable plants and animals (unlike, say, sub-Saharan Africa). Millennia later, by around 700 CE, China was a unified empire, with an enormous capital city and woodblock printing, while the West remained divided and much less developed, in the period known as the Dark Ages. But it was Europeans who encountered and exploited the Americas, because it was easier for them to cross the Atlantic than for Chinese explorers to cross the Pacific. Chinese fleets sailed through Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean in the fifteenth century, but distances and prevailing winds meant that sailing eastwards into an empty ocean was unlikely to be attempted.

Western Europe (especially Britain) was well-placed to start off industrialisation because it could build on the gradually-accumulating technologies of previous centuries, but also because it possessed plenty of natural resources, colonies and warships, much more so than China at the time. We might add that it benefited from the profits of the slave trade, too. The various graphs that Morris presents suggest that the East will overtake the West in development early next century; compare predictions that China will become the biggest economy within just two decades, though Morris is not simply dealing with China. He argues, however, that geography will soon cease to mean anything anyway, as globalisation undermines real differences and produces a true worldwide system.

Morris’s work is probably most reminiscent of Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel, which emphasised the importance of environmental factors, such as the relative shortage of domesticable animals in Africa and the Americas, in determining the course of historical development in different areas. In The Enigma of Capital, David Harvey accuses Diamond of a geographical or environmental determinism: on Diamond’s view, he says, ‘Africa is poor for environmental reasons, not … because of centuries of imperialist plundering, beginning with the slave trade’. This objection misses the point, though, since there needs to be an account of why it was Westerners who enslaved Africans, rather than vice versa. A geographical explanation is perfectly compatible with the view that the slave trade contributed to the impoverishment of Africa. In connection with the determinism objection, Morris is right to quote Marx to the effect that people make their own history but under circumstances they have not chosen themselves; their geographical situation being part of those circumstances.

Astonishingly, the word ‘capitalism’ is absent from the book’s index, though there is much discussion of industrialisation and industrialists (i.e. capitalists). It is all very well to say that ‘Change is caused by lazy, greedy, frightened people looking for easier, more profitable, and safer ways to do things’, but there needs to be explicit recognition that this often involves people getting others to work for them, and so exploiting them. Life for the earliest workers in capitalist factories was in no way easy or safe, and the profits went to the owners, not to those who toiled in the factories. The owners were not so much lazy and frightened as hungry for wealth and power.

Marx attributed the growth of the industrial working class to deliberate acts by the capitalists, fencing off the countryside and so driving people into towns to labour as propertyless wage workers. Rather, says Morris, it was due to increases in life expectancy and hence in population (Britain’s more or less doubled between 1780 and 1830). But he does not seem to deny that the rural dispossession took place, and it clearly contributed to the availability of urban workers as a labour force to be exploited by the new lords of capital.

One thing the book does show is that societal arrangements are never permanent. We could turn its theme around and say that the capitalists rule – but only for now.

Paul Bennett

New Left (2011)

Book Review from the September 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Crisis of Theory: EP Thompson, the New Left and Postwar British Politics. By Scott Hamilton, Manchester University Press, 2011

Many socialists would count EP Thompson's books among the best socialist books ever written, particularly William Morris: From Romantic To Revolutionary (1955), The Making of the English Working Class (1963) and The Poverty of Theory and Other Essays (1978). Thompson's own politics however are less admirable. He joined the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1942 and was an active member until 1956 when he resigned as a result of the Russian military invasion of Hungary and Khrushchev’s 'secret speech' which denounced Stalin. To a significant extent, the rest of Thompson's political career can be seen as distancing himself from Stalinism. He later tried to justify his CP membership by claiming it was part of a 'Popular Front' against fascism. But Thompson did not appreciate that his CP membership would lend legitimacy to Stalin's reign of terror. His concern for the lives of ordinary workers did not extend to the Russian working class.

William Morris: From Romantic To Revolutionary showed that Morris was a revolutionary Marxist. This book was written and published while Thompson was in the CP and in it he claims that Morris's ideas were being realised in Stalin's Russia. In the Second Edition of 1977 this claim is removed. The Making of the English Working Class won huge critical acclaim and it is still widely used as a textbook. Thompson's book is an account of the formation of class consciousness, and in his 1980 Preface he argued that 'in the years between 1780 and 1832 most English working people came to feel an identity of interests as between themselves, and as against other men whose interests are different from (and usually opposed to) theirs'. Some critics had complained that Thompson's analysis of class is too subjective and this forms a major theme of his The Poverty of Theory and Other Essays. Among Thompson's targets was the 'Stalinism in theory' of Louis Althusser. For Althusser history was 'a process without a subject' in which specific circumstances determined human behaviour. For Thompson, on the other hand, the class struggle was the motor of history and so therefore he wrote about the experiences and consciousness of the working class.

Thompson was one of the self-appointed intellectuals who founded the New Left Review in 1960, and it is still published bi-monthly. It was conceived as the journal of the New Left who were opposed to Stalinism and Labour Party 'revisionism' (an open acceptance of capitalism). After an initial surge in interest provided by their work in Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, most of the New Left found their ideological home in the Labour Party. Thompson was involved with the Labour Party in the 1960s and re-joined in 1978. By the early 1980s CND was resurgent and Thompson was its main spokesperson, and he harangued large public meetings on the 'logic of exterminism'. He thought the superpowers were dragging the world towards an inevitable nuclear annihilation, a fatalistic way of thinking he once would have denounced as 'Stalinist'. Thompson died in 1993 but, as Hamilton shows, his books live on.

Lew Higgins

Cooking the Books: Saving Private Capitalism (2016)

The Cooking the Books column from the July 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

American capitalism is, apparently, suffering a ‘crisis of faith’, at least according to a 5-page article featured on the front cover of Time magazine (23 May). The author, Rana Foroohar, quotes the findings of an opinion poll which she finds ‘startling’:

‘… only 19% of Americans aged 18 to 29 identified themselves as “capitalists”. In the richest and most market-oriented country in the world, only 42% of that group said they “supported capitalism”. The numbers were higher among older people; still, only 26% considered themselves capitalists. A little over half supported the system as a whole.’

One of the questions must have been odd if it invited people to identify themselves as ‘capitalists’ in the same sort of way that they might have been asked if they were socialists. A capitalist is not someone who believes in capitalism. It is someone who has enough capital to be able to live without being obliged to sell their labour power for a living. In America that will be well under 5 percent.

Foroohar’s article, entitled ‘Saving Capitalism’, is taken from her forthcoming book Makers and Takers. Her argument is that the current problems of American capitalism are due to ‘financialization’. Up until the early 1970s, she says, finance served business:

‘finance took individual and corporate savings and funnelled them into productive enterprises, creating new jobs, new wealth and, ultimately, economic growth.’

However, over the past few decades this has changed:

‘finance has turned away from this traditional role. Academic research shows that only a fraction of all the money washing around the financial markets these days actually makes it to Main Street businesses…. Most of the money in the system is being used for lending against existing assets such as housing, stocks and bonds.’

She says that banks have become more interested in such ‘trading’ than in their traditional role of lending to business. But it is not just banks that have been affected. Businesses themselves have become increasingly involved in hedging, ‘tax optimization’ and offering financial services, to the detriment of productive investment. They have the money to do this because:

‘Top-tier US businesses have never enjoyed greater financial resources. They have a record $2 trillion in cash on their balance sheets – enough money combined to make them the 10^th largest economy in the world.’

Her plan to save capitalism is ‘remooring finance in the real economy’, putting ‘the financial system back in its rightful place, as a servant of business rather than its master.’

It’s not the first time in the history of capitalism that finance capital has been seen as the enemy. Before WWI the Austrian Social Democrat Rudolf Hilferding wrote Finanzkapital in which he argued that banks had come to dominate and control industry. Lenin took this up and incorporated it into his theory of imperialism.

To merely denounce ‘financial capital’ is to support ‘manufacturing capital’; which is Foroohar’s (if not the Leninists’) explicit position. She has appointed herself as a defender of manufacturing (‘the makers’) against finance capital (‘the takers’). But she doesn’t consider an alternative explanation for ‘financialization’: that it might be a consequence of slow economic growth rather than the other way round. Since previous profits are not being fully reinvested because it’s not profitable enough a part of them accumulate as cash mountains, providing the stakes for ‘trading’ and ‘hedging’. Like the Stock Exchange, these are zero sum games in which no new wealth is created but where representations of existing wealth are traded instead – where some capitalists get richer but only at the expense of other capitalists, competing against each for the largest share they can get of wealth already taken from the real wealth makers, the working class.

Looking Back on Edward Bellamy (2016)

From the July 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1888 a book by Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward, was published which had an enormous impact at the time. It could even be said that it marked the take-off of modern socialist ideas in America.

Bellamy was a New England journalist and writer who had travelled widely. His utopian novel is based on the story of a rich young Bostonian, Julian West, who is sent to sleep by mesmerism and does not wake up until the year 2000, by which time a far-reaching economic and social revolution has taken place in America.

As explained to him by his host, Dr Leete, all land and industry is now the collective property of the whole community and run as a public service to supply people’s needs. People no longer work for wages, and money has been abolished. Instead, everybody is required to serve in an industrial army between the ages of 21 and 45 and in return receives an annual credit, which is equal for everyone, in the form of vouchers entitling them to draw a given amount of goods and services from the common store. Differences between the nature of jobs would be taken into account by adjusting the number of hours the people doing them would be expected to work. The functions of government, Dr Leete explains, now reduced essentially to the organisation of production for use are exercised by the general council of the industrial army whose members are elected by those who have retired from industrial service, i.e. by the over-45s.

Bellamy depicted a technologically advanced society, imagining some technological advances that would have taken place between 1888 and 2000, for instance moving pavements, music piped to every house, and goods delivered to homes by pneumatic tubes. Reality (airplanes, motor cars, radio, television, electronic computers, internet, mobile phones, etc) turned out to be much more amazing than anyone in 1888 could have imagined, but this strengthened rather than weakened Bellamy's case.

Although the industrial army aspect is over-painted (and Bellamy himself watered it down in his later writings), all the essential ideas of the socialist movement as it was to develop in America were there: collective ownership of all land and industry on a national scale, production for use not sale or profit, social service instead of working for wages, economic equality, industrial administration replacing political government.

Bellamy himself never referred to himself as a socialist, apparently feeling that the foreign associations of the word would put off American public opinion which he was seeking to convince. He referred to his system variously as 'national co-operation', 'nationalized industrial system' and even as 'public capitalism'. The movement which sprang up on the basis of the ideas expressed in his book was called the 'Nationalist' movement. Nevertheless, his was a powerful indictment of private capitalism and its effects on the propertyless majority which it both created and exploited. Many of those influenced by Bellamy were not afraid to call themselves socialists. In fact they easily moved from his Nationalist movement to Socialism, including Daniel De Leon who joined the Socialist Labor Party in 1890 and became its leading figure till his death in 1914.

The attraction of Bellamy’s book was that it put forward a solution to the social problems, brought about in America by the development of industry under capitalist conditions since the Civil War, and which did not reject industry and industrialisation, but which on the contrary fully accepted them as providing the means to supply plenty for all.

When people like De Leon left the Nationalist movement and became socialists, they did so not because they disagreed with the goal but because they disagreed with Bellamy’s strategy for reaching this goal. Bellamy thought that a 'nationalised industrial system' could come about gradually through the trustification of industry and then the piecemeal nationalisation of these trusts, and steadfastly refused till his death in 1898 to entertain talk about socialism and the class struggle. He got no further than supporting the People’s Party (Populists); in fact most of the Nationalists who did not go over to calling themselves Socialists were absorbed into the Populist movement.

De Leon and the others who broke away over this issue saw Bellamy’s system, which they were not afraid to call socialism, being achieved through the working-class victims of the competitive system organising politically and industrially to dispossess the private capitalists, so making all means of production the common property of the community (or rather of ‘the nation’ as they sometimes revealingly put it). Like Bellamy, they envisaged 'political government' being replaced by 'industrial government', though their conception of this latter was more democratic than Bellamy’s since they envisaged the members of this 'central directing authority' being elected by those working in the various branches of industry, an idea Bellamy had rejected in Looking Backward as being bad for the discipline of his 'industrial army'.

When William Morris reviewed Looking Backward in the Socialist League's paper, Commonweal, on 22 June 1889 he made the point that one of the dangers of socialist utopian novels was that some people would take them as a description of what socialism was going to be like rather than as seeing them as the author's preference as to what he or she would like it to be (a point to remember, as Morris himself made clear, when reading his utopian novel News from Nowhere written precisely to propose an alternative vision of the future to Bellamy's).

In his review Morris criticised the regimentation and centralisation Bellamy depicted and, like other socialists of the time, challenged his view as to how socialism would come about. Above all, he criticised Bellamy's attitude to work. Like many others, Bellamy saw work as something inherently unpleasant which people had to be obliged to do and which society should aim to minimise. Morris's view, on the contrary, was:

'I believe that the ideal of the future does not point to the lessening of men's energy by the reduction of labour to a minimum, but rather to the reduction of pain in labour to a minimum, so small that it will cease to be a pain.'

Morris point is a reasonable one but views similar to Bellamy's still circulate amongst critics in America of capitalism, for instance in the Zeitgeist movement (which wants to automate everything) and Parecon (which is based on the assumption that nobody will work without some form of compensation as an incentive).

This said, Looking Backward was an important work in the development of the socialist idea in America which in turn had an influence in their development in other parts of the English-speaking world including Britain.

Looking Backward can be read online here. 

For Members Only (1952)

From the September 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man”

Thus wrote Francis Bacon about the end of the 16th century.

Every year, the agenda for our annual conference carries a number of items for discussion. Any controversy that arises, whether it be a matter of internal organisation or the application of socialist principles to some problem of the moment finds its way into our conference room. There it gets analysed, investigated, debated and argued—to the full extent of the time available.

Every member of the party cannot be at the annual conference to hear or take part in the debates. Amongst those who do attend are many who would like to speak but are deterred by the limitation of time or their own failings as public speakers. Thus, many a valuable contribution may be lost to our discussions. We are going to remedy that.

Next month will appear the first issue of “Forum,” the S.P.G.B.’s internal journal. It will be the paper that hundreds of members have waited for. In it, any and every member of our party may express his point of view on the various controversial issues that arise in our ranks from time to time. The columns of “Forum” will be kept lively with the heat of debate as members flay the pants from one another in arguments and discussions. Out of the battles of ideas will emerge modified and clarified points of view. Here is our opportunity to become “Full,” “Ready,” and “ Exact.”

It is our intention to publish monthly, in this new journal, three or four feature articles expressing controversial points of view, written by their most able exponents. In following issues will appear replies from those who wish to pick up the gauntlet.

You, who have views on the advisability or otherwise of contesting parliamentary elections—here are bones for you to pick in the first issue of “Forum.” How many of you will want to have a crack at the author of "The Nature of the Socialist Revolution.” also to appear in issue number I? And the title, “Trade Unions,” will cover many of the much discussed issues that arise whenever the subject is broached amongst a group of S.P.G.B’ers.

In addition, we shall include items of party news, suggestions for reading and for study, and any matter that will be useful and interesting to members of our party.

Francis Bacon was a wise guy. He made some pithy remarks. Such as:

“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”

“Forum” is going to be a paper that will be chewed, digested and enjoyed.

S.P.G.B’ers and members of Companion Parties overseas! You must not miss the first issue of our new paper. If you get hold of a later issue and find yourself in the middle of a red-hot discussion on a topic of vital interest, and you have missed the beginning, you’ll want to kick yourself. So make sure of No. 1. Send your order in at once. Order through your branch or take out a subscription. Do it now, or you may leave it too late.

Internal Party Journal Committee.

Fairly Equal (2016)

Book Review from the July 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

'The Great Divide', by Joseph Stiglitz. Penguin £10.99.

Stiglitz is a kind of dissident establishment economist, a Nobel Prize winner and former Chief Economist at the World Bank, yet who is in some ways at odds with conventional views. This volume consists of shortish essays from publications such as the New York Times and Vanity Fair, with some extra material. Most deal with the United States, but there is also some discussion of other countries, including China, Scotland and Mauritius.

The central theme is inequality and its consequences, though strangely there are no references to Wilkinson and Pickett’s The Spirit Level. As an example of the extent of inequality, an article from 2012 notes that the family that owns Walmart has wealth of $90bn, equivalent to that of the poorest 30 percent of the US population. In three years of recession, median wealth declined by 40 percent, and workers are on average worse off than their parents were. In the first three years of the so-called recovery, 95 percent of the increase in income went to the top one percent. There is no equality of opportunity in the US either, as the life chances of a child are dependent on their parents’ income and education. The children of the poor suffer disproportionately from asthma and learning disabilities.

Among the consequences of a high degree of inequality are greater instability, lower growth and less aggregate demand. This is because the very rich consume less, as a fraction of their income, than lower-income individuals. So a less inegalitarian system would supposedly lead to a more buoyant economy and almost everyone being better off. Moreover, the current astonishing levels of inequality are not inevitable but the result of deliberate policies, including the growth in importance of the financial sector.

Stiglitz sees the present system as an example of ‘phoney capitalism’, where ‘losses are socialized and profits privatized’ and markets are not truly competitive (a position more usually associated with the ‘right’ than with the ‘left’). Corporate welfarism means the banks and so on are bailed out by the government, but those who own them still make big profits and their top bosses still get massive bonuses. He is particularly opposed to what economists term ‘rent seeking’, which includes preferential tax treatment, government subsidies and the profit from controlling a monopoly. It is a zero-sum activity, devoted to gaining a bigger share of the pie rather than increasing the size of the economic pie, and just leads to an increase in wealth at the top of the scale.

As for the kind of society he wants instead, Stiglitz says we should choose both capitalism and fairness. He prefers a far more equal system and rejects austerity, which weakens demand and so discourages investment. Inequality stifles growth, and committing resources to education, infrastructure and technology will be a way of ‘putting America back to work’. With bland views like this, it is little wonder he is on the Labour Party’s Economic Advisory Committee (with Thomas Piketty).

One essay here is entitled ‘Of the 1 percent, by the 1 percent, for the 1 percent’. Nothing Stiglitz says suggests that he stands for a society where things will be different in any significant way from this.      Paul Bennett

Party News Briefs (1952)

Party News from the September 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Delegate Meeting will be held at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London, on Saturday and Sunday, September 6th and 7th, commencing each day at 11 a.m.

A Social and Dance will be held at Conway Hall on the Saturday evening commencing at 7 p.m. Full details regarding this appear elsewhere in this issue.

Indoor Propaganda Meetings will be held fortnightly at Denison House, Vauxhall Bridge Road, commencing Sunday evening, 5th October, at 7 p.m. Every effort will be made to ensure that these meetings are successful and members are urged to note the dates and interest as many as possible to attend. The hall is a pleasant one, easily accessible and has been booked until March, 1953, and affords an excellent opportunity and scope to propagate the Party’s case. Branches will be making their own arrangements to publicise these meetings as much as possible. The members who cannot attend branch meetings will be noting the dates in order to invite non-members to attend.

St Pancras Town Hall has been booked for a Sunday evening meeting on 12th October, when another Challenge meeting will be held, similar to the successful May Day Challenge meeting. Other political Parties have been invited to send a representative to address the meeting.

Phyllis Howard

To All Members: The Internal Party Journal (1952)

Party News from the August 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Party members will know by now that the first issue of the Internal Party Journal is to appear in October. It will appear regularly each month. The decision arises directly out of the expressed wishes of Conference.

The committee responsible for the publication is governed by terms of reference laid down by the E.C. The matter to be published will include articles on controversial issues, educational matters, book notes and guidance on courses of study, letters from correspondents, and general information about the activities of Socialists at home and broad. Judging from letters from comrades abroad it seems that even E.C. reports are as welcome as refreshing rain in a desert. The Journal, we know, will be very welcome. A comrade from the U.S.A. writes that it is a “tremendous step forward," and expresses the opinion (and hope) that it will be open to contributions from comrades in the companion parties. We hope that the views and opinions of members of all the companion parties will find expression in the Journal, and that it will provide a new link between us all to help to break the remoteness of distance. The new venture will demonstrate that Socialist principles are the stronger where varying opinions about their interpretation and application can be argued out sincerely and without fear.

The first issue in October will contain, apart from other matter, four main articles: “The Nature of the Socialist Revolution,” “Is Parliament the Road to Socialism?” “Trade Unions,” “Is the Time Opportune for Socialists to Contest Parliamentary Elections? ” Each issue will contain main articles as well as correspondence dealing with previous articles.

The price of the Journal has initially been fixed by the E.C. at sixpence. Early reactions suggest that the demand will be good and the possibility of it being sold at a lower price or of producing a larger Journal is not ruled out. For the time being it will be a four-page production about twice the size of our Election Specials.

Branches are asked to give the effort their full support and to endeavour to contact each member with a view to selling a copy to each member. Branches are also asked to let H.O. know at the first opportunity the number they will require of the October issue. Comrades out of touch with branches are advised to take out a quarterly, six-monthly or an annual subscription and to write H.O. accordingly.

This is the paper the membership has asked for and it should be taken by the whole Party membership.

Party News Briefs (1952)

Party News from the August 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Provincial Propaganda Tour. The Executive Committee have approved preliminary arrangements for a Provincial Propaganda Tour during August. Comrades Lawler, Coster, May and D’Arcy are visiting Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham, and Comrade Cash is going to Glasgow for two weeks. Help from members in these districts will be welcome and we suggest that the secretaries of the branches concerned be contacted for further details.

It is hoped to send speakers to Nottingham for weekend meetings and following Comrade Lawler’s fortnight in Birmingham, to send week-end speakers from London to follow on.

Bloomsbury Branch will not be holding meetings during the month of August as Conway Hall will not be available. From Thursday, 4th September, the branch will hold its meetings on the first and third Thursdays in each month as ’ previously instead of weekly as at present

Islington Branch are holding a weekly Speakers’ Class under the guidance of Comrade F. Terry. Four meetings have already been held and the six members who have regularly attended have found the class interesting and instructive. The branch suggests that other branches might find the scheme worthy of consideration. 

Denison House Meetings. The Propaganda Committee have the Executive Committee’s approval of arrangements to hold fortnightly Sunday evening meetings at Denison House from October 5th to December 14th and then during the first three months in 1953. Bloomsbury, Ealing and Paddington Branches have already offered to assist in running these meetings and it is hoped that really good results will ensue.

St Pancras Town Hall—It was considered that the May Day Challenge meeting at St. Pancras Town Hall was a success and arrangements are in hand to book the same Hall for a similar type of meeting for Sunday evening, October 12th. When dans are more advanced details will appear in the Socialist Standard. 

The Internal Party Journal. Members’ attention is drawn to the notice elsewhere in this issue announcing the launching of the new Internal Party Journal in October. This is something that has been “in the air” for a long while and now that it is shortly to appear it is up to all who are interested to give it full support. A lot depends on effective planning in advance of the first issue, and members will greatly help this work by making their decision about getting it as soon as possible.

Phyllis Howard

Party News Briefs (1952)

Party Notes from the July 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Head Office Forum will be held on Saturday, July 12th, at 7 p.m., subject, “Socialism in Backward Countries.” Forum is to consist of Comrades F. Evans, D. Fenwick, C. Groves, G. McClatchie and W. Read. A. Turner will take the chair. This should prove a very interesting discussion so please make a note of the date and time.

Summer School Week-end was held on Saturday and Sunday, June 8th, and 9th, at “Treetops,” Farley Green, Surrey. Sixty members and friends were present and despite showers on the Sunday, all appeared to have enjoyed the week-end. F. Evans gave a lecture on Economic Geography and a discussion was opened by A. Turner on “Socialist Propaganda—is our approach too Negative?”

A Social was held on Saturday evening. All expenses were met with £1 surplus.

It is hoped to arrange an autumn week-end school at “Treetops,” and if members who are interested would contact the Central Organiser it will enable him to make preliminary arrangements as a minimum number of visitors must be ensured before he can book the camp.

Provincial Propaganda,—The Executive Committee is making arrangements for a comrade to visit the Manchester/Liverpool area for four weeks in August. It is also hoped to run regular fortnightly meetings at Nottingham throughout the summer. The meetings already held there have proved most satisfactory. 

Ealing Branch is slowly but surely increasing its efforts after a period of comparative inactivity. At the time of writing three debates are due to take place, one of which is in June with the Ealing North Liberals. The other two come later in the year with the Peace Pledge Union and George Schwarz, of the Sunday Times.

Members are once more rallying in support of the outdoor stations at Ealing and Richmond. This year’s season has had an encouraging commencement with good results. It is also proposed to hold two seaside propaganda trips, one of which is to Southsea on June 22nd, and the other to Hastings on August 17th. Ventures of this sort have in the past proved very fruitful, some excellent meetings having been held.

Just recently the monthly canvass of the Socialist Standard has been recommenced with promising results to date. Efforts are also being made to get the sales of the Party’s journal boosted in local newsagents and outside railway stations.

Phyllis Howard

Party News Briefs: Glasgow and St. Pancras (1952)

Party News from the June 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

May Day, 1952. Our Glasgow members write that this year’s May Day has been very encouraging for the Glasgow Comrades. In the afternoon on Sunday, May 4th, at Queen’s Park Recreation Grounds, a propaganda meeting which had been organised jointly by Kelvingrove and City branches, was a great success. The best, as a matter of fact, ever held outdoors on May Day.

When members arrived at the park with their small platform, the Communist Party, I.L.P. and the Scottish Nationalists were building up platforms and mounting loudspeaker equipment on motor-lorries, whilst waiting on their respective members who were marching to the park in the May Day Procession.

The procession duly arrived helped by pipe and flute bands and made for the different platforms prepared for them. When the circus had passed our first speaker mounted the platform and very quickly gathered an audience which grew to at least 500. Our meeting lasted two hours and could have gone on longer, but we had to allow time to get to the Cosmo Cinema where we were holding our indoor meeting in the evening. During the time we were holding the outdoor meeting we witnessed the spectacle of the once proud I.L.P. having to close down after less than 30 minutes, during which they had made a vain effort to get an audience with the assistance of loudspeakers and a ladies’ pipe band. The Scottish Nationalists stuck it out with a comparatively small audience, considering all the display they had. The only other meeting of any size was addressed by the ‘Rev.' Harry Pollitt, backed up by the choir of the ‘Russian Orthodox Church.' Their audience amounted to about 2,500, mostly composed of the faithful flock who had marched all the way from the centre of the town shouting silly slogans.

Our meeting arranged for the evening in the Cosmo Cinema had been advertised by putting 10,000 tickets through doors in the Kelvingrove constituency, by street chalking and newspaper advertisements. The distribution of the tickets had been hard work and we were anxious to see the results. The audience, giving a conservative estimate numbered at least 550. A collection of £15 13s. 8d. was taken and £4 odd literature was sold. But for a last minute hitch which deprived us of the use of a car for our loudspeaker equipment, we would probably have filled the hall which holds 750. Comrade May gave an excellent lecture and the members went home satisfied that the work they had put in was well worth the results.

The total of the collections for the day was £16 12s. and total literature sales amounted to £7 10s.

In London plans had been made to hold our usual May Day Rally in Hyde Park, but owing to heavy rain our hopes were washed away. Despite the rain, however, efforts were made to distribute handbills advertising our evening May Day Rally at St. Pancras Town Hall.

An audience of 600 attended this evening meeting to which we had invited representatives of other political parties to speak from the platform putting their parties’ case so that the audience could compare the various cases along with the case of the Socialist Party. The Liberal Party accepted the challenge, the Labour Party declined, the Conservative Party replied that they could not accept as it was not their practice to address meetings on a Sunday, the Communist Party did not reply to our invitation.

The meeting commenced with Comrades D’Arcy. and Waters speaking for the Party and a Mr. Allison for the Liberal Party. We announced that our challenge had been made and only accepted by the Liberal Party when a Conservative and Labour Party member from the audience asked if they could speak on their respective Parties’ cases. They were permitted to join the other speakers on the platform and each spoke for ten minutes. The audience was most attentive and many questions were asked of our speakers.

A collection of £17 was taken and literature sales amounted to £3 10s.

St. Pancras Branch members were responsible for Stewards and literature sellers, and the general organisation of the meeting, and they worked efficiently and well.

Manchester Branch held their May Day Rally on Thursday, 1st May, at a meeting in Chorlton Town Hall. Apart from knowing that this meeting was also very successful we have not the full details to hand yet.

Phyllis Howard

Our 48th Annual Conference (1952)

Party News from the May 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the morning of Friday, April 11th, of this year, 69 delegates, representing all but one of our branches, assembled at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London, for our 48th Annual Conference. The delegates sat down to criticise and discuss a 14-page report from the Executive Committee, together with two pages of amendments to rules, 22 resolutions and 13 items for discussion. This was quite a plateful to digest in the three days at their disposal. On Friday afternoon the delegates reached the all-time record total of 72 delegates.

Much of the discussion on Friday morning centred around proposals for reorganising and improving the procedure at our Conference. This was undoubtedly due to the fact that the increased size of our conference delegation during late years has shown some of our procedure to be suitable only for smaller bodies and that, as we grow in numerical strength, we must amend our methods in order to facilitate our work.

Another proposition which was obviously inspired by the increase in our membership was that all branches with a membership of over 50 should be encouraged to divide and set up new branches in nearby localities. Conference decided that to attempt to increase the number of our branches by these methods was undesirable and would not have the effect desired by the proposers of the item. Branches should be allowed to grow naturally without urging from Head Office.

The Executive Committee reported to the Conference on the Party’s finances during 1951. The report showed that losses made in previous years on our Summer Schools were not repeated during 1951. The cost of postage, printing and stationery increased by about 30 per cent, compared with 1950 and over 60 per cent, compared with 1949. The cost of producing the Socialist Standard was up by £150 during the year necessitating the increase of price by 1d. Expenditure on Hall Hire, Advertising, etc., was also greater so that altogether, “The end of 1951 sees us worse off financially (as far as balance is concerned) than a year previously, but with the problem of premises solved permanently.”

The main item of discussion on the Saturday session centred around our methods of propaganda. Heated arguments were advanced in favour or in opposition to our various avenues for expounding our case. All were agreed that it would be inadvisable to discard any one of those avenues but that we might with advantage concentrate on certain ones without neglecting any. The disadvantages attendant upon outdoor meetings in this age of noisy traffic, cinemas, radio, television, etc., were considered, but our inability to make use of the modem mass propaganda machinery, due to lack of finances and Government control, make it necessary for us to continue with older methods despite the fact that they may be less productive of results than of yore.

The training and encouragement of new speakers, the methods and manner of our approach to audiences, the social problems that we investigate and the flaws in our propaganda organisation were all debated, and delegates indulged in a lot of self-searching to find causes for dissatisfaction and remedies for the future.

Sunday afternoon was devoted mainly to a discussion on electoral activity and the Executive Committee was instructed to put forward candidates at the next General Election. Here a problem was encountered. It was recognised that a Parliamentary Election could be held at very short notice and that quick decisions would have to be made. The concern of delegates arose from the need to keep decisions on all major issues in the hands of the Party membership whilst at the same time being able to make such decisions in the limited time available.

Much of the discussion disclosed a dissatisfaction with the slow growth of our organisation, but never at any time did a delegate or other member suggest that we should depart from the rock-firm foundation on which our Party is built—a sound understanding of our object and principles on the part of all applicants for membership. We have seen other political parties which have called themselves socialist but have in reality been little more than rebellions, build up large organisations on the soft sand of a mass, politically-ignorant membership, and then crumble away to oblivion.

The report of the work done during 1951, which was under review, did not show anything sensational. The decline in interest in outdoor meetings was offset by an increase in the number of writers for the Socialist Standard, tending to show that many members consider written propaganda to be more effective than verbal.

Those members who sat through the three days of the Conference, whilst the sun was shining outside the Conference Hall, probably felt that they had experienced three days of dry-as-dust discussion. It has been said that this was not our most brilliant or enthusing Conference. Long hours of serious discussion was relieved by an occasional humorous wisecrack or, interjection. But it was business done. It was a real Conference in that the delegates assembled to confer on the many problems facing the Party and not to listen to long-winded oratory from a bunch of party commissars, as is the case at the Annual Conferences of other political parties. We can embark on the next year of socialist activity reinforced with the ideas and decisions that emanated from the Conference.

A successful social evening was held at our new Head Office on the Friday evening and the social and dance on Saturday evening was likewise a great success. The Conference concluded with the usual Party rally in the Conway Hall on Sunday evening.

W. Waters

Party News Briefs (1952)

Party News from the May 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Annual Conference, a big event for Party Comrades, again took place at Conway Hall, London, during the Easter week-end. A report of the proceedings appears on another page of this issue.

Propaganda was one of the items discussed at length during Conference and it does appear that greater efforts should be made all round to improve this vital aspect of the Party’s work. An opportunity is available for London Comrades in particular to gather round for the May Day Rally in Hyde Park on Sunday afternoon, 4th May, and for the evening indoor meeting at St. Pancras Town Hall, held after the Park meeting. A call has been sent to Branches urging that Members should help to advertise these meetings and to sell literature. Comrades are asked to meet at St. Martins-in-the-Fields (Trafalgar Square) on Saturday and Sunday afternoons (3rd and 4th May) at 2.30 p.m. as there will be an opportunity to sell our literature at meetings that are being held there. This will provide a good opportunity to distribute handbills advertising our Sunday evening meeting. So please make a note of the dates and time and turn up prepared to work for Socialism. Literature sellers are also urgently needed at Bayswater Road (Hyde Park) at 2.30 p.m. on Sunday, 4th May. This is an extra special occasion and worthy of strong support.

Glasgow Branches (City and Kelvingrove) are also holding a May Day Rally at the Cosmo Cinema, Rose Street, Glasgow, on Sunday, 4th May.

Phyllis Howard

Party News Briefs (1952)

Party News from the April 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Annual Conference is being held as usual at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, April 11th, 12th and 13th. The proceedings commence each day at 11 a.m. and it does speed the work of Conference considerably if members and visitors arrive punctually.

The Social and Dance (full details elsewhere in this issue) is being held on Saturday and it is hoped that there will be a record attendance. A band has been engaged and the price of the tickets includes refreshments which are available in the small hall.

Conference Rally takes place on the Sunday evening and Provincial speakers have been invited to address the meeting. This meeting provides a good opportunity for provincial members to be present at a London propaganda rally.

Leyton Branch have been unsuccessful so far in arranging a debate with a local M.P. Challenges have either been refused or unanswered, but there is still hope of getting an acceptance. During the last few months the Branch has continued to hold fortnightly lectures and discussions on a variety of subjects. These lectures have been well attended by members and visitors. It is hoped to run the outdoor meetings this summer without assistance from Head Office, several members of the Branch being Party speakers.

Bloomsbury Branch have held two Sunday meetings in Central London and arrangements will be put in hand to have regular Sunday meetings at the same address during the next indoor winter season. The Trade Union Club having closed, the Branch found it difficult to find an alternative meeting place in Central London after an unbroken record of over ten years at the Trade Union Club. We hope the new venue will prove the alternative.

Phyllis Howard

Party News Briefs: Paddington, Bloomsbury and Manchester (1952)

Party News from the March 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Paddington Branch report that the first of their fortnightly Sunday evening meetings held at Denison House, Vauxhall Bridge Road, was a success and it is hoped that these meetings will be continued for some time. Meetings in March are being held on the 9th and 23rd. For details see Notices of Meetings.

Bloomsbury Branch, since the closing of the Trades Union Club, has been anxious to obtain a Central London Hall for Sunday evening meetings and has now been successful in hiring the Night Taxi Drivers’ hall at 6, Flitcroft Street (off St. Giles High Street), W.C.2 The first meeting will be held on Sunday, March 16th, at 7 p.m. followed by another meeting on March 30th. The speaker on the 16th will be A. Turner and on the 30th the speaker will be C. May. These meetings together with the Paddington Branch meetings at Denison House, will provide good propaganda opportunities in Central London in addition to the regular weekly Sunday evening meetings at Head Office (52, Clapham High Street). Will members and sympathisers please note these dates and give the meetings every possible support

Other midweek meetings are being held regularly by Branches throughout London and full details appear elsewhere in this issue.

Manchester Branch is holding another meeting at Onward Hall, Deansgate, on Friday, 14th March.

The Annual Conference will be held at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, April 11th, 12th and 13th, when the work of the Party over the past year will be reviewed. On the Saturday evening a Social and Dance will be held in the large Conway Hall and the usual Sunday evening Rally will be held in the same hall.

Will members who can accommodate Provincial Delegates and members prepared to assist in the social arrangements, please contact the Social Committee at Head Office as soon as possible in order to facilitate the smooth running of the social side of Conference.

Phyllis Howard