Equality, Not Sameness (2016)

From the August 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘You can’t have a world of equality,’ it is sometimes said, ‘because people differ. They differ in ability, energy, creativity. A world where everyone was forced to be equal simply wouldn’t work.’

Socialists want a society of equality, but that emphatically does not mean we want a world where everybody is the same. People do indeed differ, in terms of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, any disabilities and so on. We do not all have the capability to be a Beethoven, Dickens, Picasso or Einstein; but that is not an argument against equality.

So what do socialists mean by equality? Firstly, everyone will have the same kind of access to the goods and services produced in socialism. This will mean free access to, at the very least, the basic needs of human beings: food, housing, clothes, heating, household goods, travel, education, leisure time. Nobody will live in a thirty-room mansion, and equally nobody will live in a slum. Nobody will have to choose between eating and heating, or put off getting a new coat or pair of shoes. Secondly, everyone’s opinion will be equal in terms of deciding what should be done or how resources should be allocated. This does not imply that people will be voting all the time or spending hour after hour in meetings: it just means that there will be no power-holders or elites who will decide things for others and also that there will be no impersonal market forces that determine what transpires. Thirdly, work will be organised on a truly democratic basis, with no bosses or hierarchies and nobody being ordered around. There will still have to be organisation, of course, but work will be made as safe and satisfying and comradely as possible.

Where, then, does this leave the point that people are different? There is an old saying, ‘It takes all sorts to make a world – fortunately’. People have a diverse range of interests and abilities, and in socialism they will be able to develop and make use of these in ways simply not possible under capitalism. People may be interested in railways or computers or pottery or carpentry or chemistry, and they will be in a position to use these abilities to help meet human need. They may discover new abilities that are never explored under the present narrow system. Presumably there will still be top novelists, musicians and scientists, some with famous names, but no celebrity culture as now.

Further, it need not follow that socialist society would be exactly the same everywhere. There will very likely be differences in language, and in tastes in music, food and clothing in different parts of the world. We cannot predict this now but we certainly do not envisage a bland uniformity. And no doubt people will want to express their individual styles and preferences in lots of different ways.

So equality does not imply sameness or identity, just a democratic society where people have the same amount of control over their lives, and where creativity can truly flourish without the encumbrances of class and the profit motive.

Paul Bennett

Party Notes. (1909)

Party News from the November 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Two Party candidates are contesting local elections in Burnley and three in Tooting, and full advantage is being taken of the special facilities thus offered for propaganda.

Elsewhere our comrades are in evidence. In Islington, where the “Social-Democratic” and the “Progressive-Labour” wings of the Liberal Party are opposing each other, our branch is running a special mission exposing both and urging the workers to abstain from voting either for those who support capitalism because it pays them or for those who support it in order to “reform” it.

Our Islington comrades, thinking of the dark months now upon us, when necessarily the sale of the Socialist Standard is reduced and our finances correspondingly strained, are organising a Social and Dance in aid of the Party Organ Guarantee Fund (see Islington Branch Report, p. 22), while a Party Social to the same end is mooted. Take time by the forelock, comrades, and remember the appearance of the “ S.S.” must be assured.

A debate between T. A. Jackson, representing the I.L.P., and Comrade J. Fitzgerald, S.P.G.B., has been held at Tooting. We expect to repeat more fully in our December issue. As we go to press a debate is being arranged between Comrade F. E. Dawkins and “ Clarion Vanner” Mr. Muir Watson, the consent of the Stoke Newington I.L.P. being required.

Following up the public debate in which the local champion of the I.L.P. got so severely handled, our East Ham comrades have carried through a vigorous and successful week’s mission completely putting to rout the followers of the aforesaid champion.

At Ilford a Mr. A. M. Stones, a Protestant lecturer, quickly realising the growing influence of our Party even in that church and chapel ridden district, set himself to attack Socialism, denouncing it as Anarchism, Atheism, Free Love, etc., etc. Our men therefore held a few extra meetings to expose the fallacy of this teaching, and incidentally to take advantage of the advertisement given to Socialism by this Holy Squint. The meetings proved very successful, interest being added by the tactics of the Christians. At one meeting, after a scathing exposure of how religion is used to bolster up capitalism, our Comrade Dawkins, reading from Press reports of court proceedings, showed that while so-called "Free Love” did not necessarily apply to Socialism, it applied to Mr. Stones himself, in spite of his Christianity. This proved the last straw. Our comrade’s arguments won the intelligent portion of the audience: the Christian section, seeing their idol shattered, indulged in a display of hooliganism that rendered continuance of the meeting impossible. A bodyguard thirty or forty strong of the aforesaid intelligent section of the audience that accompanied our comrades to their Club alone prevented Dawkins from being literally torn to pieces by these erstwhile lambs of God. Baulked for the moment they were not satisfied, and later when Dawkins was walking home he was pounced upon by three of them, one of whom dealt him a very severe blow on the head with a cudgel, all three then running off. (In this connection a reward of £5 is offered—for particulars apply 27, York Road, Ilford). Fortunately they did not kill our comrade (who was on the platform next evening as enthusiastic as ever), but they have helped us to effectually kill Mr. Stone's propaganda, and have really done us a power of good.

O.

Editorial: Our New Leaflet. (1909)

Editorial from the February 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

In issuing “The Socialist View" of the unemployment question in leaflet form for free distribution, we have commenced the year well. The leaflet is at once a clear, comprehensive, simple and straight-forward statement of the case, and it is up to the Party members and sympathisers to see that it is placed in the hands of as many members of the working class, employed and unemployed alike, as is possible. This is particularly desirable at the present time because not only is the question of unemployment very acute, but the confusion that has overtaken the pseudo-Socialist and Labour parties on this matter seems to have reached something of a climax. Take, for instance, the grand national campaign that was to have been organised by the Social Democratic Party. This, has fizzled out, as Socialists knew it must, and now that “collections” are not forthcoming, and the “leaders" are not prepared to take their own advice and “rush the bakers’ shops,” the London unemployed decline to be used as “unpaid sandwich men,” to walk the streets accompanied by more policemen than “comrades,” to advertise the S.D.P. Those leaders sought to excuse their use of the unemployed on the plea that they were teaching them the principles of Socialism, illustrating those principles by the unemployment of their students. The force of this is seen when the “leader” is hustled out of Berkeley Square by the police. The men, being without a leader, disperse. Their class-consciousness could not be very profound, nor their Socialist education complete.

And what of the “Labour” Party—the great Independent-Free-Trade-Radical-Gospel-Temperance-Secular-Nonconformist-Labour Party? In the House of Commons its members were busy prating about opening ports and closing “pubs” ; outside, they are now, on the platform and in the capitalist Press, slanging each other as traitors and enemies. Yet despite the ever intensifying poverty and misery due to increasing unemployment, they are all of them content to moon about in what Liebknecht well termed “the dream of the right to work,” content to dream—for £200 a year.

Take the Socialist Labour Party—this party through a somewhat chequered career has, as it were, boxed the compass, yet has failed entirely to grasp the Socialist position. From advocating palliatives it has swung to the other extreme, and absurdly talked of “taking and holding,” and now we find it appealing, cap in hand, to the representatives of the capitalist class, asking what they are going to do for the unemployed, while, as if to further illustrate the confusion existing in that party its national secretary has been expelled for assisting a “right to work” committee.

The only remedy (!) the Tory Party can suggest is the same Protection that is proved powerless to touch the unemployed problem in Germany, France, or America; while the panacea of the Liberal Government is to be found in the new army scheme, coupled with the (conveniently made from the necessity of) putting in hand that work purposely held over from the Summer.

Amid and against all this confusion the S.RG.B. pursues its course as steadily and uncompromisingly as ever. The first and only Socialist party established in these isles, it has consistently held aloft the banner of Socialism. Increasing numbers and increasing strength have but spurred it on to greater efforts, while neither the wiles of the capitalist-class politician nor the sentimental ambiguities of the "labour leader,” the shrieks of the ultra moral and religious anti-Socialist, nor even the increase in working-class unemployment has succeeded in effecting in it the slightest deviation from the Socialist principles or change in its policy. Coming from such a party, the leaflet mentioned above will throw a welcome light on the outer world of political and economic darkness, and shed a peculiar light on the burning question of unemployment from an unmistakably Socialist, and therefore undeniably working-class, view-point.

Blatchford under the Harrow. (1908)

From the October 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Between the nether millstones of the Socialist attitude upon the question of invasion, and the Liberal Manchester Guardian's answer upon the facts of the present German scare, Robert Blatchford has been rather pitiably pulverised. The Socialist Party derides Mr. Blatchford's passion for lamp-black and lightning, and repudiates his attitude upon war as upon other working-class questions; and the Manchester Guardian, with a single splutter of the pen, has killed the only alleged fact upon which Mr. Blatchford built up his war scare articles. His 200,000 Germans practising embarkation are now, as he himself admits, as dead as doornails. It is true Mr. Blatchford admits his error (as to the 200,000). There was. indeed, nothing else for it. But he still holds to the idea that we are in danger of invasion.

From a working-class point of view, of course, it doesn’t matter two straws whether we are or not. There is no reason for supposing that a German capitalist is worse than one of the bull-dog breed, and this is the only question that affects the workers in this connection. The casual person would be justified in concluding from the outcry of scare mongers of Mr. Blatchford's mould, that the Germans were a semi-barbarous horde who, having conquered England, would either put the whole 40 millions of us to the sword and have done with us in one great blood orgy, or would enslave and reduce us to a state of wretchedness inconceivable. In point of fact the normal German is at least the equal of the normal Britain in intelligence, and standard of comfort. If, therefore, the hosts of the Teutonic capitalist overran us and imposed German conditions and a German standard of comfort, there would be no material change in the case of the working class. As for any attempt to appreciably reduce the standard of living, that is clearly impossible. The working class of this country have plumbed the deeps of misery and poverty. They have, as a class, no further to go if they are to maintain anything approximating to working efficiency.

Therefore the intelligent working-class answer to the lay of the Clarion minstrel is, that, as they have nothing to lose but their chains, they are supremely indifferent to the possibility of a Prussian descent upon the English capitalist's coast. If Germany wants good old England, they may have it for us. It doesn’t belong to the English working class. Why should the English working class worry about preserving it for others? If the others want it, let them fight for it. and if they manage to eat one another in the process, all the better.

The only thing that matters is the development of a consciousness of working-class solidarity, born of appreciation of the common cause of the working-class misery and its common remedy. Socialism is the answer to every question of working-class import, and— Socialism knows no frontier. It matters nothing that England may be peopled as to one half by Germans, or by any other proportion nameable of any or all nationalities on the capitalist globe. That would make no difference to the movement of the working class towards the world-embracing Co-operative Commonwealth. The workers of all nations make common cause against the common or capitalist exploiter.

Therefore, if invasion is coming, let it come; and if Mr. Blatchford wants to don his old uniform and go out to fight, let him fight. It will he no more than one foolish entry on his own record - -and what is one among so many! Upon questions of this sort he is suspect. His reputation is known. He is weighed in the balances. He is of the stuff that the patriot is made—the patriot of the music hall—however he may protest to the contrary. He has worn regimentals and they have got into his blood. For this cause he gives himself over to the imagination of vain things (one of them being that he can speak with authority upon military matters). Wars and rumours of wars are (with the lust of adulation), meat and drink to him. He may quite honestly hold himself to be a man of peace but,—it is no more than a delusion he hugs. What reason he has, goes to the four winds at the tap of a drum. “My country right or wrong,” is the essence of Jingoism, and that was openly, blatantly, the attitude of Blatchford during the Boer War, however much he may attempt (as he has so often attempted), to disguise it to-day by quotations from other articles of that time, capable of bearing other constructions. He went “off the handle then, and his unfortunate daughter played, so he told the world, the “national” anthem (or was it “ Rule Britannia”?) every evening at his command. He was Sergeant Blatchford of the Dublin Fusiliers then, and he would be Sergeant Blatchford once again. He has very much in common with Kaiser Bill —whom he despises.

Well, the Socialist movement cannot afford to have a Sergeant Blatchford of the Dublin Fusiliers. He would be dear at any price.

But it must be a bitter pill for if the word is pardonable - so “cocksure” a gentleman as Mr. Blatchford to have to make public confession of error.

A. J. M. Gray

Tottenham Branch report. (1906)

Party News from the June 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

Like our comrades of West Ham reported in last month's Socialist Standard, we are neither dead nor asleep. We have held our propaganda meetings every Sunday morning and evening all through the Winter at West Green Corner, with very gratifying results. Our Comrade Anderson upholding the position of the Party against all comers, from the defenders of Total Abstinence to Universal Perpetualism, as well as the other usual "political" opponents, all of whom have alike had to depart, defeated.

The Branch membership is growing and the sale of The Socialist Standard is steadily increasing, over 100 copies having now been sold at one meeting.

A few weeks ago a meeting supposed to be in aid of the Hemsworth Miners (who had been locked out some 87 weeks) was held at our station. Three local Councillors were to speak, and when the chairman had opened the meeting one of them proceeded to address the crowd. But instead of speaking of, or on behalf of, the miners, he (presumably from force of habit) talked about himself and his activity or want of it on the local Education Committee.

Realising the trick, we planted our platform some little distance away, and very soon the people were around it, listening and applauding as our speaker showed how the poverty of the miners of Hemsworth and elsewhere, inevitable under capitalism, could be cured, but only by Socialism.

The attempt of the local parish pump politicians to take advantage of the sufferings of those people to advertise their own peculiar brand of "progressive labourism'' met with signal disaster, and, losing their entire audience, all they could do was to come and ask us for a collection for them. This was refused, but they were invited to send a statement of their case with any request to our Head Office, where, we assured them, it would be generously considered - but nothing more has been heard of them.

Under the auspices of the North London District Council we have started our Thursday night meetings at St. Ann's Road, and have met with that kind of opposition we had thought was a thing of the past, a section of the shopocracy of the neighbourhood engineering the trouble. One night one of them displayed his intelligence and skill by walking round and round the meeting blowing a penny trumpet. As this, however, did not succeed in spoiling our meeting, a professional cornet player was brought up and a chorus of half-a-dozen assisted him in making an infernal row. Some thought they were singing; nevertheless our meeting went on, and although at our last one an even more dirty attack was tried we held our ground, and finishing up with three rousing cheers for Free Speech, we assured all interested that we would be there again next Thursday, and we will.

H. A. Young

A Shadow Falls Across the Capitalist World (1945)

From the August 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Election Campaign is over and the votes have been cast. For the first time in the history of this country a party of working men and women has put forward a delegate for parliament on one issue alone—to capture the powers of government for the sole purpose of dispossessing the capitalist class of their ownership of the means of production and establishing Socialism in place of the present social order. At our meetings we stressed the fact that voters who were not in favour of this sweeping revolution should not vote for our delegate. We also stressed our opposition to reform policies and pointed out that we could do nothing for the workers: that Socialism was something the workers must accomplish themselves, understanding what they were after and using the Socialist Party as their instrument; for this purpose. Our opponents at North Paddington were the Tory and Labour parties.

Over the years we have been told that if we wait until the workers understand Socialism we would have to wait hundreds of years. As workers we repudiated this sneer at the intelligence of our class. We were told we were armchair philosophers, and twitted with the phrase “The Small Party of Good Boys.” Our reply has always been that our case is clear, direct and simple and is the only one in the interests of the workers. Consequently the workers will listen to us when we have sufficient means at our disposal to make a concentrated attack to arouse the workers interest.

Events have shown how right we were. For many years members and sympathisers have been contributing to our election fund. As we are only working men and women it has been a slow and painful process. Our principal obstacle was the £150 deposit required; not even a mole hill to our opponents, with their rich supporters, but a veritable alpine wall across our path. Just before the war we had collected enough to venture on the campaign and we put forward a prospective candidate, but the outbreak of war deferred the general election. When we learnt that there was to be a general election this year we decided to take part. We appointed a Parliamentary Committee who planned and, with the assistance of the Propaganda and other Committees, carried through the campaign. We decided to contest North Paddington and nominated a delegate to go forward as our candidate. Then we rolled up our sleeves and waded in, throwing all the strength we had into the contest.

We had no “National figures,” with or without cigars, to dangle before the electors, nor had we any national newspapers to bamboozle them We wanted neither. Instead we had the best of all weapons, the only solution to working class poverty and misery, and working class brains, energy and enthusiasm with which to put it forward. In the few short weeks at our disposal a campaign was planned and carried through that our opponents, who had neither the conviction nor the sincerity that inspired us, were unable to equal.

We got out leaflets explaining our case in detail and members and sympathisers came straight from work (sometimes involving long journeys) to the committee rooms to spend hours writing  100,000 addresses, folding leaflets, printing posters and doing many other jobs. Others organised or spoke at the numerous meetings arranged in the constituency. Meetings were advertised by a loud speaker van, by sticking up 1,700 posters in every available spot and by chalking the roads at suitable places.

Our Manifesto and four other statements explaining the Socialist position were rent to the 34,000 voters in the constituency, and the manifesto to the 1,000 services voters. Men and women members and sympathisers were out every night canvassing and selling literature. They succeeded in covering over half the houses in the constituency spending much time discussing our ease. Every house in the constituency was visited four times by helpers to deliver leaflets or hand-bills. Everyone worked hard and took a joy in what they were doing. No one worried about whether the work was dirty or clean, for they were working for themselves, helping to clean out the dirty stable of capitalism.

And now, looking back, we have the satisfaction of knowing that the planning and the execution were well and truly done.

What response did we get to our efforts? There is only one word the present writer can think of that describes it—amazing! Our case was put forward everywhere without trimmings, just as we have put it forward for 41 years. We held two Sunday night-meetings at the Metropolitan Music Hall, Harrow Road. On each occasion the theatre was packed with two thousand people. These meetings lasted for over three hours during which interesting questions were put to our speakers by the audience. A weeknight meeting was held at the Porchester Hall which was attended by about 600 people.

One night Churchill turned up at the Prince of Wales, Paddington, to give his usual dose of opium. He did not get an enthusiastic reception. After he left our speakers held two large meetings. When it commenced to rain one of the speakers invited his audience to adjourn to the little Emmanuel Hall where about 300 of them packed it out and gave our speaker not only un attentive hearing, but an enthusiastic one as he answered their questions for nearly two hours.

At the beginning of the campaign our audiences were small but as they learnt more about our principles and policy they commenced to flock to the meetings.

The striking thing about all our meetings has been the orderliness and attentiveness of the audiences, and their genuine interest in Socialism as evidenced by the direct and interesting questions they asked.

Our audiences were composed of working men and woman of all kinds and yet they were sufficiently interested and appreciative of our case to contribute £55 to the collections at the first large meeting, £67 to the second, and £23 to the third. Collections have been taken up at indoor and outdoor meetings and a considerable amount of literature has been purchased. Those who came to the Emmanuel Hall meeting on the night of the Churchillian frost contributed nearly £7 to the collection.

Before each of the three large indoor meetings referred to above we put up posters inviting our two opponents to put their case from our platform in opposition to us, and repeated the invitation from the platform but neither of them turned up. They had the opportunity of speaking to 2,000 electors at the cost neither of effort nor expense, hut neither Mr. Brendan Bracken nor Lieut.-General Mason Macfarlane took advantage of this grand opportunity! Why? In our view because they funked it. They had not sufficient faith in their case, or in the response of the workers to it.

We started this election campaign with an election fund of £300. In the course of the campaign we have collected sufficient to enable us to spend another £300.

On the eve of polling day about 1,000 people were present at an outdoor meeting at the Prince of Wales, which lasted from 8 o'clock until after midnight.

All this shows that, whatever the size of the vote for Socialism this time, the workers are at last turning away from the sterile policies that have befogged them and left them in the ditch for so long, and are now willing to listen to the case for Socialism.

When one realises that this happened in the one little corner of England that our meagre resources enabled us to tackle it shows what a tremendous response there would be to our case if we could put in the same amount of work everywhere. But be it understood that this is only the beginning. Next time the volume of our challenge will be far greater.

Yes, the tide is beginning to turn at last. The workers are on the scent of the source of their slavery. Let the ruling class tremble at this portent of the coming flood which will sweep privilege and class rule from the earth for ever.

Gilmac.

Hillsborough (2016)

From the August 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

The former Liverpool chief executive Peter Robinson presided over Liverpool Football Club during their most successful period, the mid-1960s to the 1980s. He was well known for his shrewdness and informal management style. It’s only with hindsight we learn, that on the 20 March 1989, he telephoned Steve Clarke, the competitions secretary of the Football Association and urged him not to stage the upcoming FA cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough, and suggested Old Trafford, as a more suitable venue. Clarke returned his call later that morning to say that ‘the committee had selected Hillsborough’ and ‘the police would not agree to the allocation being altered’ either (the i newspaper, 28 April).

The most striking thing about the vast body of evidence gathered on the Hillsborough disaster is that the English game’s governing body (the FA) has, from the immediate aftermath of the disaster never acknowledged that it made a disastrously bad call by failing to heed Robinson’s advice about the inadequacy of Sheffield Wednesday’s ground. Graham Kelly, the former FA chief executive, drafted an initial six-page report two days afterwards, but there is no indication that he was looking to investigate how the venue, which did not have a safety certificate, had been chosen. The document also reveals the FA’s overwhelming preoccupation after Hillsborough was with covering its own back and getting the story straight. 

96 people aged from 10 to 67 years old died at the stadium, in the ambulances, or shortly after arrival at hospital. A total of 766 people suffered injuries  of some kind. On 19 April, the death toll reached 95 when 14-year-old Lee Nicol died in hospital after his life support machine was switched off. This total rose to 96 when artificial feeding and hydration were withdrawn from 22-year-old Tony Bland after nearly four years, during which he had remained in a persistent vegetative state. This followed a legal challenge in the High Court by his family to have his treatment withdrawn, a landmark challenge which succeeded in November 1992.

On the10th anniversary in 1999, at least three people who survived were known to have committed suicide as a result of the emotional problems brought on by the disaster. Another survivor had spent eight years in psychiatric care. Numerous cases of alcoholism and drug abuse were also attributed to lingering effects from the disaster, and it contributed to the collapse of a number of marriages involving people who had witnessed the events.

Professor Scraton was an important member of the Hillsborough Independent Panel (2010-2012) and primary author of Hillsborough: The Report of the Independent Panel (2012). He provided extensive submissions to the 1997-1998 judicial scrutiny undertaken by Lord Justice Stuart-Smith. These submissions included disclosure of the 'review and alteration' of police officers' statements. Following negotiations he eventually accessed and researched all police statements in their original and altered form in the House of Lords Reading Room. Professor Scraton has remained highly critical of the Stuart-Smith scrutiny, describing it as a ‘debacle’.

Scraton's book Hillsborough: The Truth is widely accepted as a definitive account of the disaster and its aftermath. It focuses on the inadequacies of the police investigations, official inquiries and inquests, and reveals the extent of the systematic review and alteration of South Yorkshire Police statements. It also details the treatment of the bereaved and survivors in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, and the ‘inhumanity’ of the body identification process.

Following the 20th anniversary of the disaster in 2009, the government gave a commitment to the full disclosure of all documents relating to Hillsborough, appointing the Hillsborough Independent Panel to manage the process of the disclosure and to produce a report explaining the work of the Panel illustrating how its work added to the public's understanding of the disaster. Professor Scraton was appointed as a member of the Panel. He led the Panel's research team, based at Queen's University Belfast. In a parliamentary debate following the publication of the Panel's Report, Scraton’s work was commended in parliament by Andy Burnham, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, as ‘a huge service not just to the Hillsborough families but to this country’. The Report led directly to: the quashing of the 96 inquest verdicts of 'accidental death' and the ordering of new inquests by the Attorney General; a full investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Authority; and a full criminal investigation.

Sir John Goldring was appointed as Assistant Coroner for South Yorkshire (East) and West Yorkshire (West) to conduct the new inquest. On 26 April, the inquest jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing in respect of all 96 victims. In 2012-13, Scraton received the Queen's University Vice-Chancellor's inaugural award for research impact. In May 2016 the Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, announced that Phil Scraton was to be given the Freedom of the City in recognition of his work, spanning twenty five years, on the Hillsborough tragedy.    

This tragedy has been looked at from many perspectives including the police, the judiciary, newspaper reportage and the families fighting for justice. But what about the typical Liverpool fan? Peter has been a Liverpool supporter for over 50 years. Conscious of the campaigns for the past 27 years but not emotionally involved like families and friends of the 96 killed, he attended the 20^th anniversary memorial service at Anfield and witnessed the ‘Justice for the 96”’chant when Andy Burnham was attempting to speak that moved him to take the campaign back to government.

When lies were being told almost immediately after the disaster, he struggled to believe them and even when some were convincingly refuted, he didn’t imagine the conspiracy was as deep and widespread as it turned out. As the years passed he still felt for the families, admired them, but did not forget them because LFC fans would not let that happen.

The second inquest that took over two years was important because it allowed the personal stories that were not heard previously to be told, and helped families to grieve, knowing more clearly what had happened to their loved ones. In Liverpool when the verdicts were announced, the emotions could be felt throughout the City, culminating in a huge gathering in front of the famous St George’s Hall.

Peter is proud of the families and all connected with the campaign, their dignity, perseverance etc. He is proud to be a scouser in the fullest sense, noting that the other Merseyside team, Everton were also united in grief, along with much of the football world –with tributes coming from Dortmund and Villarreal fans.

Although still appalled at the tactics and behaviour of police and other institutions that tried to justify the lies and cover ups, he is delighted that after 27 years, a serious injustice has been put right, giving hope to other long campaigns, such as the Orgreave miners who were also victims of the South Yorkshire Police. We hope that their fight is taken as seriously.

Kevin

Saklatvala's "Holy Ghost" (1992)

Book Review from the October 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Fifth Commandant. By Sehri Saklatvala. Miranda Press. Salford. 1991. £4.95.

The author was sixteen years old when her father, Shapurji Saklatvala, died in 1936 but more than 50 years later her devotion to his memory is clearly evident in this biography of his life and work.

Saklatvala was a Parsee, born into an affluent Bombay family in 1874. But after emigrating to England in 1905 he gradually gave up his family business connections to devote himself to politics. From 1922-23 and 1924-29 he was a member of parliament for Battersea North. First for Labour and then as a Communist.

Saklatvala's political affiliations often overlapped: he was a member of the Liberal Party until 1910 although he joined the ILP in 1909. In 1917 he was a member of the British Socialist Party as well as the ILP; at the 1921 ILP Conference he represented the ILP’s Clapham Branch although he joined the Communist Party in the spring of that year. In 1922 he was elected as a Labour MP although it was known that he was a member of the Communist Party. He continued to be an active member of the Labour Party until 1928 despite being elected as a Communist MP in 1924.

During his time as an MP, and afterwards, Saklatvala tirelessly worked to inform the public of the exploitation of Indian workers, and also helped to form a Communist Party in India.

There is no doubt that Saklatvala had the courage of his convictions and was a thorn in the side of the establishment. In May 1926 he served two months in prison for sedition. Such was the haste and determination to silence him that detectives tried to arrest him before the Emergency Powers Act was passed.

Saklatvala’s life epitomises the futility of reformism. He was a sincere man with a genuine wish to see poverty eradicated. Despite having a serious heart condition he kept up a punishing schedule of work which undoubtedly hastened his premature death. But he tackled effects rather than causes: during the 1923 budget debate Saklatvala asked for low incomes to be free from tax. But the take- home pay of workers is subjected to downward pressure irrespective of the amount of taxes levied. A revolutionary would have advocated the abolition of the wages system; anything less is simply a continuation of the exploitation of the working class by the capitalist class.

Chapter 20 gives the full text of Saklatvala’s speech defining socialism in the House of Commons on 21 March 1928. He correctly repudiated nationalisation as a path to socialism and understood the necessity for socialism to be a worldwide movement. But instead of a socialist society he envisaged standardisation of working conditions and wages in all countries to avoid the extreme exploitation of workers in underdeveloped countries, and the nationalisation of all industries under workers’ control. He also stated his belief that Russia was a socialist country.

Despite his criticism of capitalism, Saklatvala did not understand that while the wages system existed capitalism—either monopoly capitalism or state capitalism—would continue nor that a socialist society, with goods produced for use instead of for sale, would have no need of money or any means of exchange.

Saklatvala once stated that he had made up his mind never to admit even the tiniest criticism of Russia because that, for him, “was like a sin against the Holy Ghost". Today the economic doctrines of state capitalist Russia are discredited, and the late, unlamented British Communist Party has revealed a few unpleasant secrets about its unsavoury past. What a sad epitaph for such a dedicated propagandist! And what a blind alley to devote one’s life to!

This is an affectionate portrait of one of the erstwhile Communist Party’s few MPs and it provides an interesting glimpse of the politics of the 1920s. particularly in regard to British foreign policy in India, with details of the Meerut trial and the Simon Commission.

Carl Pinel

Going for gold (1992)

Editorial from the July 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

It really is four years since the last Olympic Games, and the whole jamboree is ready to roll again, this time in Barcelona. The Earth’s largest gathering of athletes and other sportspeople will assemble there this month and compete for medals and glory. Television and newspapers will keep the world informed of what is happening, compile the medal tables and search out the best news stories. And many people (not just the Barcelona hotel-owners) will be turning a nice profit.

For the Olympics of course are not at bottom about running and jumping and swimming. Like so many other things, Olympic sport has been moulded into a capitalist image, with money and nationalism the motivating factors. The sponsors don’t do it out of the goodness of their hearts, rather they expect good returns for their investment. Every winner wearing the gear of some manufacturer is adding to their coffers, while the greatest prize is that of hosting the Games themselves. The members of the International Olympic Committee are being wined and dined by those hoping to strike it lucky when the site for the 2000 Games is announced.

Besides the money, national pride and reputation are also at stake—as if having the fastest runner somehow proved the worth of a country’s government. But that, alas, is more or less how many workers will see it, that “their” country did well in terms of winning golds and silvers. The countries of Russia’s former East European empire used to be the most desperate for success in these terms, but the shamateurism rife elsewhere was equally hypocritical. Despite the fine-sounding words of the Olympic motto, nobody can pretend that taking part is anywhere near as important as winning.

The financial and nationalist pressures are responsible for the way so many competitors are forced to resort to drugs of one kind or another. The real crime is getting caught, misjudging how long before the contest you can safely stop the drugs you’ve been taking. For a tiny minority, Olympic success does open the door to relative wealth and comfort, but most have only broken dreams to show for their efforts, and often damaged bodies as well. There have been recent claims of athletes being used as guinea-pigs in the testing of unproven drugs, sometimes with appalling consequences.

The Olympics, then, are not about the pursuit of sporting excellence. Despite the dedication and talent of the participants, the name of the game is money and power, in various forms. Just as teaching under capitalism is not designed to educate in a real sense or help people to learn and think, top-level sport is not aimed at finding the best runner or swimmer. The flag-waving and money-grubbing, the deadly rivalry and the underhand tactics all reflect the sick society in which they occur. There is nothing wrong with striving to do your best, whether in sport or any activity. But the Olympics do not exist for this purpose at all—and it’s as well to remember that the next time you flick the TV switch to tune into the latest from Barcelona.

Capitalism for the Workers – Pull the Other One (2016)

From the August 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

In her first speech as Prime Minister, outside Number 10, Theresa May assured those from 'an ordinary working class family' that she understood their problems and that 'the government I lead will be driven not by the interests of the privileged few but by yours'.

That would be a turn up for the books for a Tory government. The Tory Party's role has always been, precisely, to govern more or less consciously in the interest of the rich. But, to get into office to do this, they need the votes of 'ordinary' members of the majority class of wage and salary earners and their dependants who make up the great bulk of the electorate. Hence such empty promises and pie-crust pledges.

Governing in the interest of the working class (and May used the term twice in her speech) is impossible for any government as this simply cannot be done under capitalism. Capitalism is based on the ownership and control of the means of production by a 'privileged few' and production for the market with a view to profit, the source of their high incomes and privileged lifestyle.

Capitalism runs on profits. Any government, whatever its intentions, has to respect this and give priority to profits and conditions for profit-making, unless they want to provoke an economic crisis and slump. This means putting profit-making before meeting the needs of 'ordinary working-class families'. All governments have done – have had to do – this, some Tory governments with relish, some Labour governments reluctantly, but they've all done it.

The most recent example is the governments of which May herself has been a leading member for the past six years which have been imposing austerity on the 'non-privileged many', cutting benefits and slashing services while at the same time reducing corporation tax on profits.

In a speech to the 2013 Tory Party Conference May had already talked of 'reforming capitalism and making sure our economy works for all of us.' Launching her campaign to become Tory Leader, in Birmingham on 10 July, she returned to this theme, criticising certain business practices such as inflated executive pay and bonuses and advocating what the papers called a 'socially responsible capitalism' (as in the Financial Times headline the following day: 'Theresa May calls for responsible capitalism in pitch for Number 10').

This, too, is a pipe-dream, not to say a contradiction in terms. Some individual capitalists do sometimes exaggerate and have to be reined in, but capitalism cannot be 'socially responsible', i.e. responsible to society as a whole. It is a profit-driven system that can only work in the interest of the privileged few who are the profit-takers.

Exchanging rhetoric

In saying her government will govern in the interest of the working class May has stolen the Labour Party's rhetoric, as it is Labour that has specialised in claiming to be the workers' party, out to govern in their interest. But there is a certain fairness in this, as the pre-Corbyn Labour Party had taken to stealing the Tories' rhetoric.

In his bid to become Labour leader in 2010 Ed Miliband wrote about building 'a different model – a capitalism that works for the people and not the other way round' (Guardian, 29 August 2010 under the headline 'I'll make capitalism work for the people'). He became Labour leader but never got the chance to fail in this doomed venture. Later, Labour's shadow Business Secretary, Chuka Umunna, was going around calling for a 'more responsible' and a 'better capitalism' (just Google 'Umunna' + 'better capitalism').

The reason given by the majority of Labour MPs for wanting to depose Corbyn is their perception that, with him as leader, the Labour Party is unelectable and so cannot, as some of them have been tearfully proclaiming, get into a position where it can govern in the interest of – of course – the working class. Are they any more sincere – or insincere – than May? Not that it matters. It is not a question of sincerity but of what is practicably possible, and it is not possible to govern capitalism in the interest of the majority class of wage and salary workers.

Gradual transformation

Corbyn and his supporters, too, stand for a form of capitalism though they don't overtly express themselves in that way. They stand for a more state-directed capitalist economy which they call, in the tradition of Old Labour, 'socialism.'  But it's still capitalism and still would not work in the interest of the working class. They have, however, forced some of their opponents to fight on their terrain.

Corbyn's challenger, Welsh MP Owen Smith, has even described himself as a 'Bevanite', after a left-wing ginger group in the Labour Party in the 1950s led by Aneurin Bevan (before he eventually became reconciled with the Labour leadership and its policies, supporting the British H-bomb on the grounds that, if he were Foreign Secretary, he wouldn't want to go naked into the conference chamber).

Another Welsh one-time firebrand, Neil Kinnock, in a secretly recorded intervention at a meeting of Labour MPs on 4 July, even used the S-word:

'In 1918, in the shadow of the Russian revolution, they made a deliberate, conscious, ideological choice, that they would not pursue the syndicalist road, that they would not pursue the revolutionary road – it was a real choice in those days. They would pursue the parliamentary road to socialism' (Guardian, 8 July).

His emphasis was more on 'the parliamentary road' than on ‘socialism’, but he did make a relevant historical point. The Labour Party has never been committed to syndicalism as the doctrine that the best way to get improvements for workers under capitalism and eventually to overthrow it is by trade union action. Nor, even less, to 'revolution' in the sense of the armed insurrection advocated by the Bolsheviks. In fact, the Labour Party has never been committed to revolution in any sense, but only – and openly – to the gradual reform of capitalism into socialism (actually, state capitalism) through a long series of Acts of Parliament.

The ironic thing is that this is what Corbyn and McDonnell stand for, in opposition to talk of accepting capitalism as it is and trying to make it work better than the Tories. It is certainly not what a majority of Labour MPs stand for. But their approach historically didn't work. Instead of the Labour Party gradually transforming capitalism into something else, it was the experience of governing capitalism that transformed the Labour Party into a mere alternative management team to the Tories for British Capitalism plc.

We don't suppose many workers will be fooled by May's promise to govern in their interest but a number still are and will be by the Labour Party's. They shouldn't be. Both the Labour Party and the Tory Party stand for capitalism, and no government, not even one under Corbyn, can make capitalism work for the working class.

Adam Buick

Fascism, democracy and the war (1986)

From the February 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Workers who suffered under the monstrous Mussolini and Hitler dictatorships were clearly worse off than their fellow wage slaves in the so-called democratic countries. It is a popular fiction that Britain and its allies went to war against the fascist nations in 1939 to defeat an evil ideology and save the world for democracy. This is a lie, just as false as those invented to persuade workers to be slaughtered in the trenches in 1914. The fact is that Britain and its allies were motivated by a political and economic desire to protect their long-held interests in the world market against the expansionist aims of the fascist nations which had arrived late on the scene of world imperialism. The claim that a major war was initiated to liberate workers from fascist tyranny sounds very noble, but has little to do with the sordid motives of the capitalist class.

Fascism and the British capitalists

The first fascist state in Europe was Mussolini's Italy. It was established in 1923, long before the British capitalists contemplated going to war to save workers from the fascists. Far from regarding this new type of capitalist government as a deadly threat. Britain's leaders approved of Italian fascism. Winston Churchill told the fascists that

If I had been an Italian, I am sure that I should have been wholeheartedly with you from start to finish in your triumphant struggle . . . (Quoted in The Times, 21 January 1927.)

Churchill took the same attitude to Hitler, stating that if Britain was ever threatened with "communism", he hoped that a man such as Adolf Hitler would be available to lead the nation to safety. Indeed, the capitalist leaders admired Hitler's ability to keep the workers in check; consider the words expressed by Ramsay MacDonald to the National Government's Labour Committee on 6 November 1933:

The secret of the success of the dictatorships is that they have managed somehow or other to make the soul of a nation alive. We may be shocked at what they are doing, but they have certainly awakened something in the hearts of their people which has given them a new vision and a new energy to pursue national affairs. In this country the three parties in co-operation are doing that . . .

So much for the opposition to fascism of Britain's first Labour Prime Minister. He was simply stating the desire of the capitalist class: that workers must accept the needs of the profit system and if the fascists were succeeding in such a task they cannot be condemned. This was well summed up by the Tory, Lord Melchett, who stated that:

I admire Fascism because it is successful in bringing about social peace . . . I have been working for years towards the same peace in the industrial field of England . . . Fascism is tending towards the realisation of my political ideals, namely, to make all classes collaborate loyally.

David Lloyd George, the hero of the modem Liberals, was so impressed by Nazism that he went to visit Hitler in 1936. This visit was arranged by Philip Conwell-Evans. an enthusiast for the fascist cause, who had been a senior figure in the 1929

Labour government. He kept notes on the talks between the Fuhrer and the Liberal and reported that Lloyd George told Hitler that:

. . . public opinion in Great Britain was to an increasing degree showing more and more understanding for Hitler’s position and the one anxiety of British public opinion today was to bring about the closest co-operation between the two countries. (Quoted in Appendix II of Martin Gilbert's The Roots of Appeasement, London 1966.)

On 17 September 1936, Lloyd George had an article published in The Daily Express which was full of enthusiasm for Nazism and referred to Hitler as "a born leader of men". In another article he stated that the Nazis had "effected a remarkable improvement in the working conditions of both men and women" (News Chronicle, 21 September 1936). Two years earlier he had told the House of Commons: "Do not let us be in a hurry to condemn Germany. We shall be welcoming Germany as our friend" (Hansard., 28 November 1934).

As with Hitler, so with the fascist General Franco. The Conservative historian, Maurice Cowling, has written that "most Conservative MPs sympathised with Franco from the start . . . and did not regard Franco as a Fascist . . (The Impact of Hitler, p.266, Cambridge. 1975). Among those who were enthusiastic in their initial support for Franco was Churchill. Numerous examples can be cited to demonstrate the widespread enthusiasm within the British capitalist class for the tactics of the fascist governments. They were seen as models of efficient capitalism and were respected. The idea that capitalism could be managed democratically (which has never much impressed the capitalists) was becoming unfashionable in the 1930s. Typical of this was a speech made by Gordon Selfridge to the American Chamber of Commerce in London; The Times of 22 June 1932 reports him as stating that:

as an American he spoke to fifty representative men in America and did not find one who disagreed with his view that democracy in that great country could not possibly succeed as a system of government . . .  a country should be managed as a great business was managed.

Francis Yeats-Brown, who was the assistant editor of The Spectator between 1926 and 1931, expressed a popular ruling-class sentiment when he wrote that "the hope of order in Europe depends upon the abolition of democracy and the establishment of Corporate States" (10 November 1933).

Not only capitalists, but many workers also, were no longer prepared to place their faith in capitalist democracy. One of the main reasons for this is that the political parties all seemed to be standing for the same system and pursuing policies which led to the same old problems occurring again and again. Who can blame workers for feeling that elections and the other features of democracy are a waste of time if they do not lead to people being better off? It was capitalist politics, particularly the policies of reformism, which brought democracy into disrepute. This sentiment was well expressed by a character in Shaw's play, On The Rocks, written in 1933: he was a Prime Minister who knew that reform policies could make no difference to the working class and he undemocratically concluded:

The people of this country . . .  are sick of twaddle about liberty when they have no liberty . . They are sick of me and sick of you and sick of the whole lot of us. They want to see something done that will give them decent employment . . . They can’t set matters to right themselves, so they want rulers who will discipline them and make them do it instead of making them do the other thing. They are ready to go mad with enthusiasm for any man strong enough to make them do anything, even if it is only Jew baiting, provided it’s something tyrannical, something coercive, something that we all pretend no Englishman will submit to. though we’ve known ever since we gave them the vote that they'd submit to anything.

Shaw, who was as confused as he was condescending, was of the view that Mussolini and the Italian fascists had gone further in the direction of Socialism than the English Labour Party could yet venture if they were in power" (Quoted in Bernard Shaw and Fascism. London 1927). It was not until the late 1930s, when fascist foreign policy began to interfere with the imperial interests of the older capitalist powers, that British capitalist leaders began to use fascism as an ideological stick with which to beat their economic rivals. For example, it is an accepted fact that the British Foreign Office was well aware that German Jews were being subjected to state persecution and many dissidents were being tortured and killed by the fascists years before war was declared. If it was "the menace of fascism" which our bosses were so opposed to why were so many of them praising it until the moment that fascism threatened their economic power?

The Leninist attitude

No small contribution to the anti-democratic atmosphere in Britain in the 1930s was made by the Communist Party of Great Britain. As the main party of organised Leninism, the CP propagated two ideas which were both confused and dangerous. Firstly, it was CP policy between 1928 and 1935 to label all its opponents as "social fascists". The term was attributed to anyone who rejected the claims of the Russian state to be socialist. It was argued that there was no difference between fascist parties and social democratic ones: if they were not Leninists they must be fascists. This view, adopted because it was laid down by the Communist International (Comintern) led to the absurd conclusion on the part of the CP that "bourgeois democracy" was indistinguishable from fascism. Secondly, the CP pointed to Russia as the example of real democracy in action. The Stalinist police state of the 1930s arguably more dictatorial than Russia today - was described as "people’s democracy" and the CP maintained that instead of the limited democracy granted under private capitalism workers should aim to achieve the higher form of democracy of Stalin's Russia. Of course, this "people’s democracy" amounted to state-capitalist dictatorship and was feared by many workers as being no better than fascism. So. the CP added to popular confusion about what democracy means and. in presenting Stalinist dictatorship as real democracy. they led many workers to oppose the idea of democracy.

In 1935 the CP changed its policy and regarded fascism as a threat to the working class. This change was a reflection of Kremlin-dominated Comintern policy: the CP was then, as now. a party whose function was to defend the policies of the Kremlin. In September 1939. when the British capitalists went reluctantly to war with the fascist powers. the CP supported the war and published a pamphlet, written by Harry Pollitt, called How To Win The War. The following month the Comintern informed the British CP of the non-aggression pact which had been made between Russia and Germany and as a result the CP changed its position and opposed the war. Pollitt’s pamphlet was withdrawn from circulation and a new one. written by Palme Dutt. was issued, arguing the opposite of that being put forward a month earlier. Pollitt was forced to apologise for having supported the war. stating that

I recognise that my action in resisting the carrying out of the line of the Communist Party and the Communist International represented an impermissible infraction of our Party’s discipline. I request the Central Committee to give me facilities to prove in deeds that I know how to take my place in the front ranks (Quoted in 1939: The Communist Party and the War, London 1984).

On 2 September 1939 the CP issued a manifesto stating that "We are in favour of all necessary measures to secure the victory of democracy over fascism ”. (Remember: until 1935 the CP did not distinguish between the two.) Then, on 7 October 1939. after a British CP delegate had returned from Moscow with instructions to oppose the war because Russia had come to terms with Germany. a new manifesto was issued stating that:

The truth about this war must be told. This war is not a war for democracy against Fascism . . . This war is a fight between imperialist powers over profits, colonies and world domination.

The CP had turned its policy on its head because of Russian foreign policy. In fact, its revised policy made more sense: the war was not about ideology and was indeed a fight between economic competitors. In June 1941 the Nazis broke the pact with Russia and Stalin became an ally of Churchill - two great defenders of democracy! Once again, the CP line changed within days and the war was no longer to be opposed, but supported. Indeed, during the war the CP urged workers to place faith in Churchill’s great leadership and was instrumental in strike-breaking in areas where workers’ trade-union action might damage the war effort.

In 1979 the CP History Group held a conference to discuss its war policy and the proceedings have been published as a book: 1939: The Communist Party and the War edited by John Attfield and Stephen Williams. The CP is evidently anxious to explain away this sorry episode in its anti-socialist history but, judging from some of the contributions, it has no option but to admit to the fact that its role has been to echo, in the most unprincipled fashion, the decisions of Kremlin dictators. Monty Johnstone - supposedly a more critical leader within the modem CP - argues (p.24) that Russia was correct to make a pact with the Nazis. Perhaps such a pact was in Russia’s interest, but is it not then necessary for the CP to point out that such an interest could have nothing to do with socialism? The slavish response of CPers to Kremlin policy was summed up by the contribution made by Eric Scott who was secretary of the High Wycombe branch of the CP in 1939: he had supported the CP's September policy and was worried when he heard that it had been changed:

. . .  I thought that this was a betrayal of the anti-fascist fight. I spent a very uncomfortable forty-eight hours scratching my head and thinking it all over, and then I said. "well, if the Soviet Union takes this attitude. I suppose we can’t do anything else but take the same attitude". (pp. 128/9)

This uncritical dogmatism, so characteristic of the British CP. explains how workers who were advocating one view at one moment adopted a completely different one the next. They were victims of their own faith in leadership from Moscow. Again, in the contribution made by the late Lon Elliott:

The Soviet Union had tremendous prestige in the Communist movement, tremendous weight in the Communist International. We all of us felt, perfectly rightly I think, that the defence of the one and only socialist state was an absolutely paramount question at the time—it was the only socialist state. It seems to me . . . that the decision of the Comintern that this was an imperialist war was decisive (pp.68/9)

Apart from the obvious nonsense of referring to Russia as a "socialist state", it is a sure indictment of the willingness of Leninists to be told what to think that a decision made by the Comintern, in response to Russian foreign policy interests, led CPers to decide how to respond to fascism. The CP’s attitude to fascism was that it should only be opposed if Stalinism was threatened — just the same as the policy of the British capitalist class who only opposed fascism when it conflicted with their national interests.

The socialist reponse

Socialists have never been in any doubt as to the crucial importance of democratic methods as a means of achieving socialism. Unlike the parties of the Right and the Left, which contemptuously use the rhetoric of democracy in order to maintain capitalism in one form or another, the Socialist Party has always accepted that a fully democratic system of society can only be brought about by thoroughly democratic tactics. For that reason socialists (while recognising that capitalism will never be fully democratic) have urged workers in countries where they lack democratic rights to obtain them for the sake of building a socialist movement. It was therefore, quite obvious that the socialist response to the fascist dictatorships was one of total opposition, firstly because they were capitalist governments, but additionally because they were anti-democratic. This hostility to fascism was not determined by political opportunism, but by clear socialist principles. In 1850 Engels wrote of the working class that

They must see now that under no circumstances have they any guarantee for bettering their social position unless by universal suffrage, which would enable them to send a majority of working men in the House of Commons (The Ten Hours Question, The Democratic Review, March 1850).

The importance of democracy for socialists was expressed in the June 1939 Socialist Standard:

Under democracy, the workers are allowed to form their own political and economic organisations and within limits, freedom of speech, of assembly, and of the press is permitted as well as the freedom of the electorate choosing between contending political parties.

This was not to say that democracy in itself was enough:

Democracy, in itself, cannot solve a single problem of the working class . . .  As long as the working class supports capitalism and capitalist policies, it will, in the long run. ultimately give its support to that policy best calculated to meet the political and economic needs of capitalism - even though that policy may be fascist.

At the time of the Spanish Civil War some members took the view that democracy had to be fought for that the war was in defence of democratic rights and deserved workers' support. This was the view of A. E. Jacomb, who had been an active founder member of the Party, and by a number of members of then then Islington branch. The vast majority of Party members rejected this attitude, understanding that

If Fascism arose in Britain, with or without war. it could only be because the British capitalists wanted it and the workers supported it or were apathetic (The Socialist Standard, January 1939).

It is not possible to terrorise workers into a respect for democracy: if they are persuaded. as they were in the fascist countries. that democracy is not worth having, then no army will succeed in imposing democracy on them. So while maintaining at all times that "We much prefer a democracy to a dictatorship" (Socialist Standard, January 1941), the Socialist Party opposed the war. pointing out in 1939. as in 1914, that the war was between capitalist rivals and was unworthy of the shedding of working-class blood. On 24 September 1939 the Socialist Party's war manifesto was published and it contained the following sound analysis:

The present conflict is represented in certain quarters as one between "freedom" and "tyranny" and for the rights of small nations.
   The Socialist Party of Great Britain is fully aware of the sufferings of German workers under Nazi rule, and wholeheartedly supports the efforts of workers everywhere to secure democratic rights against the powers of suppression. but the history of the past decades shows the futility of war as a means of safeguarding democracy.

Indeed, the history of the Second World War proved the validity of this contention for, after 1945, when the dictatorships were apparently defeated, the process began whereby more workers in Europe are living under dictatorships today than in 1939.

Fascist dictatorships today

Using the term fascism in its broadest sense, we can see that in 1986 there is no shortage of governments in the world which can be well described as such: the military dictatorships of Central and South America; the one-party states of Africa; the racism of the apartheid regime in South Africa; the centralised tyrannies of the state capitalist countries. including the Russian Empire and China. In relation to the so-called communist countries, it has been stated that:

Russia must be placed first among the new totalitarian states. It was the first to adopt the new state principle. It went furthest in its application. It was the first to establish a constitutional dictatorship, together with the political and terror system which goes with it. Adopting all the features of the total state, it thus became the model for those other countries which were forced to do away with the democratic state system and change to dictatorial rule. Russia was the example for fascism (Otto Rühle. The Struggle Against Fascism Begins With The Struggle Against Bolshevism. 1981. p.5; originally published in 1939).

These days it is popular for those on the Left to attack the openly capitalist tyrannies, such as the monstrous regime in racist South Africa, while making apologies for equally dictatorial governments such as the one in Poland which uses thugs to beat trade unionists with truncheons and incarcerates dissenters in prisons. At the same time the Right wingers are very articulate when it comes to showing the undemocratic nature of the state capitalist countries, which are military and trade rivals of the Western nations but close their eyes to the overtly capitalist tyrannies. Socialists are alone in our total and equal hostility to all dictatorships. We are on the side of the workers in Russia and South Africa, Chile and China against their oppressors. We point out that only class-conscious workers can make full use of democracy but democracy must be obtained in order to build a movement of class-conscious workers.

Like in the 1930s, when the so-called democratic politicians in Britain were not that averse to fascist tactics, we know that the leaders who make a great noise about how democratic they are today could adopt more ruthless and dictatorial methods tomorrow. During the coal strike we saw all too dearly how readily these "Democrats" who rule over us will suspend rights, such as the freedom of movement within Britain, when it is to their advantage in the class war. The fact is that as long as workers follow leaders whose job is to run capitalism we are all the victims of power which is above us: the dictatorship of capital tyrannises us. whether it is wearing the mask of democracy or not.

The way to counter the racist nonsense with which British fascists today poison the minds of workers is not for us to become more capable thugs but to present a clear, practical alternative to the frustration bred by the system. Fascism is part of the messy business of running capitalism; only socialists. with our principled case for social revolution, offer workers a weapon which will blow fascism and capitalism from the face of the earth.

Steve Coleman

Greasy Pole: MayDay . . . MayDay . . . (2016)

The Greasy Pole Column from the August 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the beginning it was a major event in British politics but then the election for David Cameron’s replacement as Conservative Party Leader began to crumble away, until Theresa May stood supreme with no other contenders. The first to fall, in the first round, was Liam Fox, who was eliminated with only 16 votes. Fox is a politician with a not-entirely-creditable past. His standing as a Party favourite was once asserted in his being the Secretary of State for Defence but this perished when he allowed a particular aspect of his ministerial relationships to become what he described as ‘blurred’. This imaginative euphemism referred to his contact with one Adam Werritty, a friend and flatmate from his past. According to Fox they happened to meet again when he was on ministerial business abroad and their previous friendship was allowed to flourish to the extent that Werritty was included on a succession of such trips and gave out his own business cards, encouraging the impression that he was an official adviser and assistant to Fox, attending meetings with foreign diplomats, contractors and military commanders. It was inescapable that Fox should be sacked, but he seems now to have been regarded as entitled to enough remission to be rewarded by May with the new Ministry for International Trade.

Stephen Crabb

The next hopeful to crumble away was Stephen Crabb, who since his first promotion in 2012 to Under-Secretary of State for Wales, had risen to Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. When he declared his intention to stand for the party leadership Crabb was careful to announce that he had already appointed his prospective Chancellor of the Exchequer in Business Minister Sajid Javid. During his brief campaign he made much of his materially deprived history, including when he was eight and his mother left his father who had lived on the old Sickness Benefit since before Crabb’s birth. Crabb then indomitably studied his way up the educational and career ladder, into Parliament and then as a Minister. Whatever Crabb’s background may have taught him it was not to have any reservations in the matter of the so-called welfare scroungers, so often denounced as the serious cause of their own chronic misery rather than to face the cruel reality of poverty in a class divided system. In May 2015, after the introduction of an example of ‘welfare reform’ by Iain Duncan Smith, Crabb commented ‘We can’t go soft on welfare reform in a place like Wales – it’s precisely the place that needs it’.

CARE

He went on to vote in favour of the reduction by £30 a week of the Employment and Support Allowance to disabled people in the ‘work-related activity group’. Soon afterwards he was asked ‘Why do you hate the sick?’ in some graffiti on the vandalised façade of his office. With all this it is not surprising that Crabb is a firm believer in prayer as an aid in making way through the turmoil of capitalism and its structures of family, class, deprivation, human relationships and the like. He has links with Christian Action Research and Education (CARE) which is opposed to full LGBT rights and which, while asserting that it does not actively support the concept of ’gay cure theology’ did sponsor a conference which discussed ‘therapeutic approaches to same sex attraction’. CARE supported him as a parliamentary intern and has supplied interns to his office. Recently he voted against same-sex marriage. Crabb has been married for 20 years to a woman he met at university; they have two children and he has respected his family for its ‘core values of resilience, optimism and humility’. However it has recently been revealed that he has resumed contact with another woman, who is in her twenties. They met several years ago and at the time of the Referendum they were exchanging suggestive internet messages such as his telling her of the ‘toxic mix’ faced by MPs who are ‘risk-takers to one degree or another. Usually in the areas of money, sex, political opportunism.’ According to the newspapers he also provided her with detailed versions of the sexual activity he desired to share with her.

Leadsom

A certain source of relief for the Tories in their struggle was the defeat, in the next election round, of Michael Gove. Which left Theresa May as the favourite for the final ballot, challenged by Andrea Leadsom, the MP for South Northampton and Minister of State for Energy, who emerged as a formidably forceful opponent when sounding off in a succession of TV debates from the base of her claiming a high-rank career in banking, finance and the like. Except that there were some inconsistencies behind all that power and assertion. Her present strong opposition to British membership of the European Union was in contrast to her previous stance; in April 2013 she was clear that to leave would be ‘…a disaster for our economy and it would lead to a decade of economic and political uncertainty’. There were also serious questions about her record of her previous work status; in one typical case former colleagues of hers described her claims as ‘categorically not true’ and ‘just ludicrous’. At the same time she was busy reminding us that she is a mother of three in contrast to Theresa May who is childless: ‘She possibly has nieces, nephews, lots of people, but I have children who are going to have children who will directly be a part of what happens next… I feel that being a mum means you have a very real stake in the future of our country, a tangible stake’. But her assumed experience had not developed any suitable sensitivity or any alarm that it would help May gain votes. Among the media she was re-named ‘Andrea Loathsome’. But she was unable to carry on her campaign and withdrew in favour of May. And now May has promised, from the door of Number Ten that her government will be driven ‘…not by the interests of the privileged few but by yours’. Which would be a lot more impressive if it did not remind us of Thatcher on the very same spot in May 1979, declaring that ‘Where there is discord may we bring harmony. Where there is error may we bring truth. Where there is doubt may we bring faith….’ To put it another way, we have been here before and as long as this society continues with its exploited people we shall have to be here again.

Ivan

Socialists and General de Gaulle (1958)

From the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists are opposed to what de Gaulle stands for on principle, because he stands for French capitalism, and Socialists do not support any capitalist faction anywhere or at any time. But the Socialist principle on which we oppose de Gaulle just as imperatively lines us up against the French political parties that oppose de Gaulle, the so-called “Communists" and the minority of the French party misnamed Socialist (its majority supports de Gaulle).

The immediate issue which so bewildered de Gaulle's opponents of a few weeks ago that many of them ended by voting him into power, was the alleged “defence of democracy." Faced with a threat of civil war from the rebel generals and French settlers in Algeria and their sympathisers in France, they chose what they thought the lesser evil making de Gaulle head of the government in the hope that he could and would control the generals. The French Communist Party, which defends the Russian dictatorship and still applauds the bloody suppression of the Hungarian workers by Russian troops in 1956, came out hypocritically for the “defence of democracy" against the “Fascist" de Gaulle. We need waste no words on them except to wonder whether their failure to back up their outcry against de Gaulle with something more than words may not have been due to a lurking fear—that perhaps de Gaulle may do a deal with the Russian government behind their backs.

But although the Communist Party did not change its ground while the crisis was on, the French Labourites, the so-called Socialist Party, made themselves ridiculous with a series of somersaults. Starting with a resolution not to support de Gaulle in any circumstances, they followed this with a decision to let the M.P.'s have a free hand either to follow their leader Mollet who backed de Gaulle, or to vote against him; then another decision a few day later to let them abstain from voting on the question of handing over power to de Gaulle. With Mollet and others of their leaders in de Gaulle's government the party is split into nearly equal halves; with likelihood that more will swing over to Mollet.

The time-worn tactic of the lesser evil is the philosophy of the reformist labour movement in France as in Britain, but both movements might recall that 25 years ago the German Social Democrats in the same dilemma helped elect Marshal Hindenburg to the Presidency of Germany “to keep Hitler out" but as it turned out to open the door to Nazism. It does not necessarily follow that matters in France will take the same course, with Soustelle or some other playing Hitler to de Gaulle’s Hindenburg, but the “lesser evil" supporters of de Gaulle in France have no guarantee at all that this will not happen. They have taken a leap in the dark because they did not know what else they could do. Standing by the Socialist principle in the matter did not enter into their minds.

Are we entitled to condemn them and disregard their plea that they had to make a cruel choice? Emphatically, yes! Had they been Socialists, adhering to the Socialist principle which recognises as basic that working class interest is opposed to all supporters of capitalism, they would never have had to consider the matter at all. But that would presuppose that their organisation, their thinking, their propaganda and their actions in the past had all been fundamentally different from what in fact they have been.

In the last resort they accepted de Gaulle because, like, the British Labour Party and Trade Unions which rallied round their “enemy” Churchill in 1940, many of de Gaulle’s capitalist aims are acceptable to them. De Gaulle stands for French patriotism and “ greatness,” so do they—almost their last act in the Assembly before they changed sides was to stand singing the Marseillaise, the battle-hymn of French capitalism in its triumph over the old regime, in the French Revolution.

De Gaulle still lives in the atmosphere of the wars against German capitalism—so do they.

De Gaulle stands for a forceful foreign policy as in the Franco-British-Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956—so did the French “Socialist” party under its leader Mollet.

They believe not in Socialism, but in Republicanism and patriotism, nationalisation and the reform of capitalism—so does de Gaulle. In his declaration of his aims at a Press Conference on May 19th, he stressed the grounds calculated to appeal to social reformists:—

“I fought the war to win victory for France. But I did it in such a way that it was also the victory of the Republic. I did it with all those without a single exception who willingly wanted to join me. And at their head I restored the Republic to its place. In its name, on its behalf, in conformity with its spirit, my Government accomplished an enormous task of renovation. Political renovation: the granting of the right to vote to women, citizenship given to the Muslims of Algeria, the beginning of an association within the French Union of peoples who formerly depended on us. Economic and social renovation: Nationalisation of the mines, gas, electricity, of the Bank of France, of the main credit institutions, the State-owned Renault car works, works committees, a social insurance organisation on such a scale and in such a way that workers are covered against century-old scourges . . . ” (Times, 20th May, 1958.)

So he went on reminding the workers and their organisations that if what they wanted is reforms of capitalism he was the man who did what they wanted.

The French “Socialist” party supported him before and served in his government, so why not again?

Thus do years of reformist propaganda rise up to mock those who used it. Elements in the British Labour Party fall for the same stuff and for the same reason. Philip Noel-Baker, writing in the Labour journal “Forward” (May 23rd, 1958) joined in the praise for de Gaulle, while reserving judgment as to whether he would succeed in resisting pressure to go in for “Fascist courses.” Noel Baker wrote about the General’s work for “nationalisation, economic planning and social reform” and ended his article:—

“But, whatever the fears and suspicions of the politicians, de Gaulle is one of the great Frenchmen of the modem age, with matchless courage, and great achievements to his name. I believe that history will judge him to be a writer of the finest modem prose, and, in his instincts, a democrat, and a reformer inspired by a visionary belief in the enduring greatness of his country, France."

The British Labour Party is divided in its attitude to de Gaulle for the same reason as the French party, with their leader Mr. Gaitskell counselling a waiting attitude and no hasty condemnation of Mollet, while others, including Bevan, taking a line of strong criticism. But neither side is guided by an over-riding Socialist principle, each treats it just as an issue in everyday practical politics.

Mr. Gaitskell in a speech at the conference of the Boilermakers Union at Scarborough paid tribute to de Gaulle’s past, hoped he would succeed, and ended by calling on his listeners to express “our support for and solidarity with all those French comrades, whether they voted ’for’ or ’against' de Gaulle, who are striving to preserve the democratic system and to resist the continuing threat of Fascist dictatorship” (Daily Telegraph, 4/6/58).

What will de Gaulle's efforts aim to achieve and actually achieve? French capitalism, after losing to England in the Napoleonic wars, the dominance of Europe and the seas of the world, built up a great colonial empire in the late nineteenth century. But, with the rise of the U.S.A and Russia as the two great world powers, with the decline of Europe and, with the emergence of local capitalist dominance in many of her African, Middle East and Far Eastern colonies, French capitalism, as an empire, even more than British capitalism, faces a hazardous battle to avoid relegation to the ranks of second class powers.

Whatever course events may take we have to face the lamentable fact that there does not yet exist in France, any more than in any other country, a united Socialist working class aiming internationally to end capitalism. As facts are, all the rival sections want to do is to play capitalist politics over the question whether French capitalism should be governed in the chaotic manner of the past 20 years or placed under an authoritarian regime with de Gaulle. The French scene presents us with another example of the emptiness of the reformist argument that because most workers are not yet Socialists, only a programme of reforms can unite the workers. Far from being united against de Gaulle they are divided for and against him, and on each wing there are yet other bitter divisions over yet other relatively minor issues. Socialism cannot unite the world’s workers now, but in the long run there is no other programme capable of bringing them together, for Socialism and against all the forces of capitalism.

Edgar Hardcastle