Racing For Markets (1952)

From the September 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Behind the thrill and excitement of motor racing, lies yet another example of the means used to satisfy the ever growing necessity to maintain and increase export markets. The constant stream of vehicles pouring out of motor factories must be disposed of, and what better advertisement is there for a firm in pursuance of this purpose than to show prowess on the race track. This year’s Le Mans, the 24-hour race for production cars, ended in a triumph for the German Mercedes-Benz Company, and Mr. Robert Raymond, writing in the Picture Post (28th June) has this to say on the matter:

   "The result of the Le Mans 24-hour race comes, unfortunately, not as a shock, but as a confirmation of an uneasiness many thoughtful people feel about the British attitude to motor racing.
   “One can make out a case for the casual and truly amateur British attitude to most sports, but motor racing is more than a sport, it is a business—a big and serious business.
   “And success or failure in an international race has far-reaching effects on one of our biggest export industries.
  “Remembering this, one cannot shrug off Le Mans . . .  After the B.R.M. fiasco this débâcle has done untold damage to our prestige and exports abroad.”

Mr. Raymond has obviously no illusions as to which aspect of motor racing is the most important. The race track, besides being the scene of first-class driving, is also a battle-ground of commerce, where the friendly rivalry of sportsmen is overcast by the dark shadow of the profit motive, producing rivalry of a very different kind, which often ends in disaster, and sometimes—greatest disaster of all—war.

Behind the careering chariot of Capitalism in its race for markets comes the working class, chained by their ignorance to a system which does not and cannot run in their interests, but is only the cause of their troubles. It is time you broke the chain, took the wheel yourselves, and drove all out for Socialism.

It is up to you.

Ian Jones

An American Troopship (1952)

From the October 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

The S.S. “United States,” by crossing the Atlantic in shorter time than any liner previously, became eligible for the Blue Riband trophy.

At both Le Havre and Southampton there were great celebrations.

The accomplishment of this magnificently constructed ship caused pleasure and a feeling of pride to many people, both in this country and abroad. It is therefore understandable that so much interest has been displayed in the performance of the vessel and in the celebrations that followed.

After hearing for so many years of the marvels produced for the purposes of war, it must have been refreshing news to hear of a feat of modem engineering ship construction that the design and building of the “United States”. undoubtedly represents, being produced for apparently purely civilian purposes.

To those who revel in this artless view it would probably come as an awakening draught to know that the planners designed the liner as a troopship.

An article in the July issue of “Readers’ Digest” gives some interesting though sinister facts about this awesome super-liner of steel and aluminium. The warship designing firm of Gibbs & Cox spent over one million dollars from 1944 to 1948 before plans were finally complete.

Two plans for the ship were developed simultaneously, one for a troopship and one for a passenger liner. Whenever the two conflicted the troopship plan was followed. When the Navy wanted special stairways, air ducts, safety doors, control stations, the Navy got them. In one of the smoking rooms the decorators wanted to put some windows looking out to sea over the stern. The Navy objected on the grounds that it would weaken the structure. The decorators then suggested leather panels but the Navy objected on the grounds that these were not fireproof.

With a beam of 101½ feet the “ United States” can squeeze through the Panama Canal, whereas the “Queen Mary” with a beam of 118 feet, cannot.

Her underwater hull remains a secret. By mistake a photo once slipped into a trade magazine, but the edition was destroyed before it was distributed. She was built in a dry dock, not on conventional launching ways. When the guests arrived for the christening, they found that the water bad already been let into the dock so that the lower hull was covered. Her speed and horsepower are also secret.

Her operation is so efficient that she could go from San Francisco to the coast of Asia, drop 14,000 troops with equipment, and return home without refuelling.

The United States Lines put up $28,000,000, the Government $42,000,000.

Although as a liner the ship will carry 2,000 passengers, the plumbing, kitchens and ventilation are built to accommodate 14,000.

Under a socialist system of society this waste of labour on unproductive war equipment schemes will stop, and with it the mental strain that the preparations for war create.

Frank Offord

The Morecambe Labour Party Conference (1952)

From the November 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Morecambe was for the Labour Party less a ground for common political activity than a battleground of warring factions and rival political ambitions. There were a number of casualties.

Among the “casualties” were Mr. Morrison and Mr. Dalton. Both failed to get re-elected to the Labour Party executive. In the executive voting, that doughty working class warrior Mr. Bevan headed the “lists” to a fanfare of cheers and clapping. Others elected to executive posts were those horny handed sons of toil, Messrs. Driberg, Wilson, Mikardo and Crossman, who rode on the Bevan band-wagon.

The two great rival standard bearers were Bevan and Morrison. Bevan’s contribution was never more than a piece of conference tub thumping; Morrison's never less than the slick performance of the accomplished party hack.

Of Mr. Attlee it could hardly be said that the conference was his finest hour. He preferred the somewhat enigmatic role of a political Nero, content to doodle while Morecambe was alight In contrast to Bevan’s frothy utterances his contribution was as flat as last night’s beer.

A spectacle, now a commonplace at Labour Party conferences, was that of ex-ministers reverently touching their political rosaries and dedicating themselves to “socialist ideals.” Then followed the usual attempt to squeeze the quart of socialist ideals into the pint bottle of capitalism.

There was a demand from delegates for more nationalisation and “socialist” measures. Doubtless Mr. Morrison and other Labour leaders are ruefully realising that it is easier for people to learn political nostrums than to unlearn them. These leaders having misinformed workers in the past that nationalisation was the panacea for their problems, now blandly inform them that these problems cannot be automatically solved by the mere transference of industries from private to public ownership. What, according to Mr. Morrison is most important, is not so much that industries should be nationalised but that “they should be efficient.”

For generations Labourites have been reared on the mother’s milk of old time Fabian planning. Now the milk has turned sour. “Planning for planning’s sake” it seems is merely a pipe dream for political opium smokers.

Mr. Morrison and others have now discovered more “prior and urgent” problems than nationalisation. Problems such as trade balances, exports and the need for increased output in order to meet foreign competition successfully especially the German and Japanese variety. These “urgent and prior problems” were just as urgent and prior for Capitalism when Mr. Morrison and other Labour leaders were merely up and coming politicians.

Nevertheless the fact that Labour politicians have discovered some simple economic facts about Capitalism, has, according to sections of the press, elevated them to the status of statesmen.

From the tone of the speeches of ex-ministers in explaining to delegates these simple facts, one might imagine they were addressing children. Listening to the criticism levelled at them on occasions by delegates, they may have thought that there are times when children should be seen and not heard.

Although conference instructed the executive to compile a further list of industries to be nationalised, Mr. Robertson for the United Textile Factory Workers' Association opposed an amendment asking for the nationalisation of the cotton industry. He urged conference "not to embarrass a Labour Government in that way.”

Although Mr. Bevan himself was in favour of more nationalisation, etc., Bevanite Mr. Mikardo in submitting a resolution asking for the building trade to be nationalised, said, “They might find the industry better suited to competitive public enterprise than nationalisation outright." Mrs. Braddock, M.P., reminded conference that "the person who opposed most strongly the nationalisation of the building industry with his usual bad faith was Mr. Bevan, when he was Minister of Health.”

Mr. Morrison touched a new political low when he attempted to make working class political ignorance the whipping boy of the Labour Government’s failure to fulfil its promises. He said “We have got to change the minds and hearts and souls of men and women so that they think in terms of socialist ethics and the old capitalist outlook that millions have, has passed away.”

This is certainly the devil citing scripture for his own purposes with a vengeance. Mr. Morrison’s own contribution to working class understanding is gravely on the debit side of his political balance sheet. Mr. Morrison’s role in the ranks of the working class has been that of a fifth columnist. By plausibly presenting to workers a planned capitalist—as good as socialism —model, he and others like him have obscured and distorted basic working class issues. The work of teaching Socialism has thus been made infinitely harder.

The shadow-play of political rivalry thrown on the Morecambe screen is not a reflection of any basic differences within the Labour Party. Dr. Bevan with his finger on the pulse of working class discontent prescribes bigger doses of nationalisation, Mr. Morrison not to be outdone retorted that “the Labour Party would never rest until it had nationalised all the means of production, distribution and exchange.”

Mr. Bevan wants a smaller armament programme than that laid down by the last Labour Government, yet it was Mr. Bevan himself who piloted Labour's defence programme through the House of Commons. Then he begged people not to "jeer about the armament programme we are putting under way.” He added, “we shall carry it out; we shall fulfil our obligations to our friends and allies.”

Ironically enough, owing to the difficulties which have arisen over balance of payments since the Tories came in, they have been compelled to cut considerably the yearly expenditure on armaments. The “socialist” Bevan is not opposed to war preparation. He only wants to reduce the cost entailed. Incidentally his proposed peace-time expenditure on armaments involves greater sums of money than those spent in peace time by Tory or Liberal Governments.

Mr. Bevan’s militancy is not, as imagined by his supporters, a realistic step forward for the Labour Party but a retreat to its romantic pioneering past. Then, the Labour Party could indulge in pseudo socialist phraseology, with its promise of “changing things nearer to the heart's desire.” It is this vague working class sentiment that Mr. Bevan seeks to tap.

In the good old days of the Labour Party the “Labour Commonwealth” was a distant goal wrapped in mist and obscurity. Nevertheless Labour was on the march! There may have been differences, even dissidents, within the ranks, but the road was accommodatingly broad. Swings to the “left” or "right” made little difference. They were all bound for the same place.

Now they have arrived and the New Jerusalem is but old Babylon writ large. The Welfare State turns out to be the merest Utility Utopia.

“The New Social Era” has all the old working class problems—poverty, insecurity, low wages, high prices and the threat of war. The outward pressure of capitalism produces within the Labour Party its fissions and rifts.

In order to ease off working class political pressure the Labour Party would like to go further. But they have nowhere to go. Because one basic reason for their existence is their claim that they can go one better than the Tories, they have to simulate the semblance if not the reality of being in the vanguard of social progress. The Tories in turn pose as the great stabilising force of British political life. Their appeal to the working class is consequently pitched in a slightly lower key. Their political strategy merely consists of waiting for the inevitable disappointments that result from a term of Labour Government and then adroitly manipulating them for the purpose of winning the next election.

Bevan is merely a symptom of the failure of Labour Party reformism to make a world fit for ordinary men and women to live in. He is the price Labour leaders pay for their political sins. His role in the Labour Party is the old familiar one of today’s rebel being tomorrow’s leader.

The resentment and frustration felt by the Labour rank and file has placed high cards in his hand. Yet even if he succeeds in winning the game against the old leadership he in turn will become vulnerable.

Little wonder that many Labour Party members are acquiring a nostalgia for the past. Truly, for those who pin their hopes on reformism it is always the case —“That it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive.”

Ted Wilmott

Radio Commentary (1952)

From the December 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Book by the fire,” Light Programme, 5 p.m. on K Sundays, during the winter months.

In the “Radio Times” this programme is listed as “a series of weekly talks by Alan Melville about recently published books he has enjoyed, with dramatised illustrations acted by . . ." and here follows a list of the various actors and actresses who are contributing to these epic cameos. The companion programme which runs during the summer months is called “Book in the sun.” These talks are not a straightforward review or criticism of the books mentioned in the programme. They are put forward because they have met with the approval of the speaker, and are supposed to send you galloping off down to the Library. In these circumstances they receive a tremendous degree of publicity which it is difficult to reconcile with the much vaunted policy of the B.B.C., “no advertising.” The books are mostly fiction, a few “Whodunits,” some biographies and true stories of exploration and travel.

On Sunday, 2nd November, this programme touched a new low when Alan Melville brought to our notice a collection of short stories about an Italian priest. Some of the tales, he said, had a certain amount of political significance, which he wanted to avoid. He thereupon related the story of the aforesaid priest and an angel which perched on the spire of his village church. We received the impression that Mr. Melville wholeheartedly approved of the significance and sanctity of these symbols in general and this one in particular.

The second book to earn Mr. Melville’s commendation is written by one of those “pukka Sahibs” to whom we owe so much in “our” far flung Empire. He gives unstinted praise to Mr. Grimble, the modest and diffident chap who goes forth to lead the faltering footsteps of one of those “inferior races.” This officer drops clangers, belittles his own efforts, but “makes out ” in the end. Mr. Melville thinks he is a great guy and “where would the British Empire be if it weren’t for him and others like him? ” The programme concludes with a nauseatingly sentimental scene, acted by the players. To the sound of subdued chanting, a very old native woman of the Islands, gives drooling thanks to the British and this particular officer for ending war between the tribes, thus ensuring for her oodles of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Since the British have arrived, she says, peace has prevailed.

This must be one of the exceptions that proves the rule, as Great Britain’s record of imperialism and exploitation will testify.

Our hours of relaxation are few, and Mr. Melville’s somewhat corny literary recommendations singularly unattractive.

It has been truly said that one man’s meat is another man’s poison, and the discriminating listener can always resort to the switch. This programme has a certain propaganda value, being a mixture of fact and fiction. Many people unconsciously fail to separate the two when forming their opinions. As the foregoing shows, Mr. Melville is orthodox, mid-Victorian and sentimental. In addition he has an archly humorous method of speaking, a pill which could be digested uncomplainingly if the main dish were a trifle more appetising.

Further to the question of propaganda, it is not possible to assess the influence on the public of books, films and the theatre in formulating their opinions and ideas. The recent drift of the “spy” or “villain” from German to Russian nationality adds up to a gradual conditioning of the people to the idea of war with that nation.

F. M. Robins

The Socialist Labor Party Runs Away. (1930)

From the January 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

In previous issues of The Socialist Standard we have challenged the Weekly People of New York to quote any reference Where Marx made the statement quoted by them on Trade Unionism. Many issues of the People have appeared, but we still wait for an answer. The only attempt made by them to refer to our challenge was in the issue of August 10th, where the National Secretary, Arnold Petersen, spends a column and a quarter on abusing us, but fails to meet the challenge.

The statement which they allege Marx to have made was as follows :—

  Only the Trade Union is capable of setting on foot a true political party of labor and thus raise a bulwark against the power of Capital.

For many years the S.L.P. used this “quotation” to justify their advocacy of an industrial union which could take and hold the means of production. They also used it to support their argument that only an economic organisation could “take and hold” and that a political party was doomed to defeat without an economic organisation ready to supply the “might.”

The S.L.P. say that they got the "quotation" from a magazine which is opposed to Marxism—their only "authority” is a reform journal called The New Yorker Volkzeitung, run by the German section of the social democrats of New York. This was a paper which De Leon never tired of denouncing—but in face of our challenge they fall back on that paper as their authority.

To avoid dealing with our challenge The Weekly People talk about something else.

We quoted “Value, Price & Profit,” to show that Marx had no illusions about Unions being the instrument of emancipation. When dealing there with the limitation of hours of work he said:—

  As to the limitation of the working day in England, as in all other countries, it has never been settled, except by legislative interference. Without the working men’s continuous pressure from without, that interference would never have taken place. But, at all events, the result was not to be attained by private settlement between the working men and the Capitalists. This very necessity of general political action affords the proof that in its merely economic action, Capital is the stronger side.

This quotation amply shows his view of the weakness of economic action. But the S.L.P. say that it only refers to action under Capitalism. If, however, the economic action of the workers is unable to win in the smaller battles under Capitalism how much less could economic action "take and hold” the means of wealth production!

Instead of meeting this point, The Weekly People quote the last few lines of ”Value, Price & Profit,” which tell the Trade Unions that they should use their organised forces “as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class—that is to say, the ultimate abolition of the wages system.”

In their article, The People assert that Marx stated that the economic organisation was the lever of emancipation. Nowhere did Marx make such a statement. The Socialist Party does not deny that the Trade Unions can assist in the struggle, but we hold with Marx that political action is the stronger action. We hold with Marx that the FIRST step in the emancipation of the working class “is to win political power.” (See Communist Manifesto.)

The People's quotation from “Value, Price & Profit,” has no reference whatever to the mare's nest discovered by the S.L.P. —that only the economic organisation can set on foot the political party of Labour.

Adolph Kohn

A Labour Party Promise and a Capitalist Admission. (1930)

From the February 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Tom Shaw, speaking at Wandsworth on December 16th, 1929, gave the following interesting pledge on behalf of the Labour Party: —

  We make no apology for saying that the instant we are powerful enough to do it, poverty shall be abolished.

—(“Evening News,” 17th Dec.) 

The “Evening News,” in an editorial, expressed its doubts about the matter :—

  That is not the maundering of a street-corner spell-binder. It is the considered utterance of Mr. Tom Shaw, one of His Majesty’s principal Secretaries of State in the Labour Government and incidentally the man who once complained piteously that he could not produce a remedy for unemployment “ like rabbits out of a hat.”
  We make no apology for saying that though Mr. Shaw and his friends should be returned to Parliament with no opposition at all poverty will not be abolished. We venture to add that the type of mind that could produce such a statement as Mr. Shaw made at Wandsworth last night will never decrease poverty, let alone abolish it.

We are strongly of the opinion that the “Evening News” is right; we also do not think that the Labour Party will succeed in fulfilling Mr. Shaw’s promise. We are quite certain that poverty will not, and cannot, be abolished under Capitalism, although the administration of the system is in the hands of “Labour” men. But what surprises us is the further admission of the "Evening News” that the problem has not been solved in the U.S.A., which the “Evening News” is always telling us to imitate.

  We might begin by reminding Mr. Shaw that the world has never been without poverty and that in the United States to-day, the richest nation in material wealth that the world has ever known, there is plenty of it—not relative poverty merely, but want and destitution.

Next time we are invited to copy American methods, perhaps the “Evening News” will tell us in what way “want and destitution" in the U.S.A. are preferable to “want and destitution” in the United Kingdom."

Socialism and the Economic "Experts". (1930)

From the March 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many people to whom Socialist teachings seem unanswerable and in every way satisfactory, are still reluctant to accept the Socialist case because they cannot believe that Capitalist theories can be unsound and yet be accepted by so many clever men, economists, financial and industrial experts, professors, scientists, and so on. They ask us how we can be so confident that we are right when so many apparently great economists say that we are wrong.

Our answer is two-fold. We claim in the first place that the only final test of a theory is that it should explain the facts and not be out of keeping with the facts. So, for example, we can quite confidently assert that the various theories which try to prove that permanent unemployment is impossible are shown to be wrong by the facts of permanent unemployment. Secondly, we ask you to remember that great reputations can be, to a large extent, created out of very little substance and that universities and such places, being dependent on the financial support of Capitalist Governments, wealthy companies, etc., do not shower honours on and give prominent posts to men whose ideas clash violently with the accepted ideas of Capitalism.

When we come to examine the theories of the learned men with whom we are especially concerned, the economists, we find that there are one or two facts which alone should justify the abandonment of that attitude of worshipping their declarations as If they were above criticism. Firstly, we observe that these "great” men rarely agree among themselves; secondly, their inability to give useful advice in practical problems is notorious; and thirdly, they themselves on occasion admit the unsatisfactory nature of their whole body of doctrines.

We give below two quotations which illustrate these points. The first is taken from a review, published in the New Statesman, of a recent book by Professor Edwin Cannan, who is one of the most famous of living economists. The book is his "Review of Economic Theory.” The reviewer calls Professor Cannan the "Economic Socrates,” and says :—

  Let no one, then, go to this Review of Economic Theory in the hope of discovering in it new truth of a positive sort. It may help readers to new truth, but only indirectly, through the exposure of old error. This, however, it achieves with signal success. Professor Cannan has no difficulty at all in proving his case that economic theory has been throughout its life, and is still, in a state of deplorable confusion, and that not only do the text-books talk a great deal of utter nonsense, but even the classical practitioners of the art or science are in a terribly muddled condition. His handling of Marshall is as devastating as his handling of Mill; and his comments on Marshall's living disciples are mostly to the effect that they have made the confusion worse. This is a real service; for economics stand in real need of an iconoclast, and an economic Socrates may well be the indispensable forerunner of an economic Plato. (The New Statesman, Oct. 19, 1929.)

Our next quotation is taken from "The Founders of Political Economy,” by Jan St. Lewinski, D.Ec.Sc., Professor of Political Economy in the University of Lublin, Poland. The book was published in 1922 by P. S. King & Son, Ltd. :—

   The Great War has clearly shown of what little use all our economic knowledge has been where most simple theoretical problems had to be solved. When, for instance, the question if after the war the rate of interest will be high or low became acute, writers began to discuss what capital really is, and each gave a different definition and different solutions of the problem. In Germany economic writers of high standing, as, for instance, the Vice-Chancellor and former Professor of Political Economy at the University of Berlin, Helfferich claimed that Germany can wage war indefinitely because “money remains in the country." They imagined that money expended in financing military operations would return in form of war loans, and that this circle could last for centuries. Almost all economists in Germany believed in the truth of this absurd doctrine, and only the University of Breslau, which was a little doubtful about it, organised an inquiry on the subject.
  All the rich economic literature which had been accumulating for more than a century could not afford a solution of a problem which really belongs to the A B C of our science. Could anything illustrate better the deplorable state of political economy? (Page 167.)

The next time somebody tells you that Socialist theory must be unsound because this or the other professor of economics says so, you may reject that the views of these gentlemen on the subject of Socialism would carry more weight if they had first succeeded in reducing to order the chaotic jumble of theories which make up their own department of study.

Edgar Hardcastle

Socialism and Psychology: An Open Letter to a Critic. (1930)

From the April 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear X,

You ask me what I am doing for the community, and whether I have not underestimated the important differences of type or character in human beings which you consider such a formidable obstacle to the establishment of Socialism. I will try and answer your questions.

In the first place, let me direct your attention to the fact that the “community,” for which you expect me to do something, is sharply divided into two distinct classes, one of which owns the means of living of the other. Do not take my word for this! Professor Clay (I know you are impressed by Professors), a most respectable person, told us, on February 19th, 1925, in the sober columns of the Manchester Guardian, that less than 6 per cent. of the population held four-fifths of the national capital and received nearly half the national income. Just think that over carefully and you will cease to wonder that the majority of people are poor, no matter how hard they toil.

No psychologist has ever yet discovered how to live upon fresh air! He or she always wants food in his or her tummy, clothes to prevent arrest, if nothing else, and a "home” ! And to-day, the means whereby food, clothing and shelter are produced are owned in the main by considerably less than a tenth of the population.

The vast mass of the community feed and breed only by permission of the tiny section which owns the resources (land, factories, machinery, etc.), without which feeding and breeding are impossible to-day; and the conditions upon which this permission is granted are that the propertyless ones shall toil for the profit of those who own and control the means of existence.

The members of the class to which you and I belong surrender the product of their toil to their kind employers, who graciously return to them a sum of money capable of buying back goods to the value of only a fraction of their product. The masterclass (mostly composed of inactive shareholders) are enabled to live in luxury and also amass fresh capital to make still more profit.

This has not always been so. In the Middle Ages the class which attempted to live by trade and money-lending was despised and persecuted by the feudal lords and their vassal land-holders, and condemned by the Church. One day, when you have nothing better to do, you might ask your psychological tutor to explain the curious volte-face on the part of the reformed Church towards the taking of interest. As he believes that the human mind is an independent entity, which develops regardless of material conditions and social environment, I can readily imagine some entertaining mental contortions on his part. To maintain any degree of consistency he will have to maintain that—the Church received a sudden revelation from those "forces” which are hidden so mysteriously somewhere "behind the universe” ! But the above is only one of the many changes in social life and in men's corresponding ideas and customs.

Go far back in history and you will come to a time when neither money nor territory nor chattels but kinship formed the root condition of social organisation, and it is from this misty past that the creatures of religious fancy take their rise.

In those days a few crude tools and weapons were men's only equipment against nature (animal, vegetable and mineral), yet even these represented ages of experiment. Ideas of practical utility were hard to come by and slow in growth, and so, men's wishes outstripped their acts and built up an imaginary world transcending ordinary human limitations wherein men's shades became transfigured into gods. It is from this primitive ignorance of men that the concept of a "soul” (or psyche) was derived. The individual was credited with possessing an immortal shadow or second self, which controlled his body as a man operates any other inert object. “Mind” was held to dominate “matter,” and the “modern” psychologist, who clings tenaciously to this superstition does but proclaim how little, in this respect, he has progressed beyond the savage.

The materialistic Socialist, however, reviewing human history perceives how overwhelming has been the effect of economic development upon the habits of mankind and how, in practice, Christians and other metaphysicians have flown in the face of their avowed doctrines in the pursuit of their material interests.

The ruling classes throughout history have imposed systems of discipline and so-called education upon their subjects which would be meaningless if man’s “soul” controlled man’s behaviour. Is the “immortal” susceptible to training and the environment of the school? But let us return to our boiled beef and carrots!

The class to which you and I belong consists of individuals whose characters are as varied as their physical make-ups. In this respect it does not differ from the master-class nor, indeed, from any class that has ever existed. From this fact it is clear that social position does not rest upon individual character. A man is either a worker or a capitalist, not because he has a peculiar temperament or disposition, but because his environment and history have so determined. To explain the difference between him and others we can only refer to this same environmental history. Try how we will we cannot discover any mysterious entity which decides that certain individuals shall dig coal for a living while others clip coupons. In short, the illusion that “character is destiny” sums up the stupid conceit of the master-class, who childishly fancy that ”God” or “Fate” has blessed them with “superior natures.” They mistake the effect for the cause, and imagine that their privileged position is due to their “culture,” instead of realising that their "culture ” is the fruit of their privileged position in society.

Socialists aim at the foundation of a system based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of living. In such a society individuals will continue to vary, but it is in the common necessities of all that social life is rooted. Capitalist society has long since ceased to be consistent with the satisfactory distribution of these necessities. Hence the turmoil of modern social life. The "superior persons” of the master-class will, no doubt, resist the change as long as possible; but every ruling class in history has bitten the dust in due course when economic development has dug its grave. Psychological trickery may delay, it cannot prevent, the slow but sure awakening of the working-class, the class whose mission is to give to capitalism a conclusive exit to the land of shades.

Eric Boden

A Commentary on the Communist Manifesto (1930)

Book Review from the May 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels with an introduction and notes by D. Ryazanoff, Director of the Marx-Engels Institute, Moscow. Published by Martin Lawrence, Bedford Row, London, W.C., 15/-. (Special cheap edition, 6/-, obtainable through this office)

This work is the summary of lectures given in Russia by the head of the Marx-Engels Institute during 1921 and 1922. The book takes the form of a re-translation of the Communist Manifesto into English by Eden and Cedar Paul, and a series of historical and other notes commenting on the persons, events and policies dealt with in the manifesto itself. It includes a chronology of events in the “working class” movements from 1516-1871. The draft of a proposed manifesto for the Communist League by Frederick Engels, and also the Rules and Constitution of the League are reprinted in the book.

Two very interesting articles by Engels on the Communist League and the Revolutionary Movements of 1847, are given for the first time in English. There is also a reprint of a trial number of the Communist Journal of September, 1847, which was to be the London organ of the Workers' Educational Society, a body with whom Marx and Engels were associated.

The New Translation of the Manifesto.

Eden and Cedar Paul’s translation of the Communist manifesto is certainly no improvement on the authorised edition published in England by Reeves, translated by Samuel Moore, and revised by Engels. The language used by the new translators is not as simple and clear as the old. One or two examples will illustrate the curious efforts of the translators to use new and strange words in place of the easier and more popular English of the old translation. The new translation refers to the bourgeoisie and proletariat as “two great and directly contraposed classes,” whereas in the Reeves’ edition we have ”two great classes directly facing each other.” In place of ”political sway” in the Reeves’ edition, Eden and Cedar Paul put “political hegemony.” In the old translation the manifesto refers to the “scattered state of the population,” etc., but the new translation prefers to use such a difficult, ugly word as “fractionisation. ” Where the Reeves’ edition talks of "the abolition of existing property relations," the Pauls say, “pre-existent property relations." In another paragraph we get the formal lawyer-like language, “pre-existent private proprietary securities” to replace “previous securities for, and insurances of individual property.” Where the old translation refers to the wage-labourer, the new one adopts the harder phrase, “the proletarianised worker.” Many similar instances could be quoted to show that the translators have forgotten that this great historic manifesto was written for the working class and that the language should be as simple as possible. In one place where Marx refers to Communism abolishing the bourgeois family, the new translation makes Communism abolish the family!

Ryazanoff, however, is not responsible for the translation. In the Russian edition of his work he used Plechanoff’s translation of the manifesto.

The Commentary on the Manifesto.

The lengthy notes to illustrate and explain characters and events will be very useful for the student. Marx’s “Capital,” and also his “Poverty of Philosophy,” are drawn upon for quotations to help the reader. Engels' “Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844,” is much quoted by Ryazanoff to furnish the historical background of the manifesto in England.

The author of this work states that it is not the commentary on the manifesto that is really needed, but time has not permitted a more suitable work. His view as to what a commentary should be is quite correct and he hopes to be able to write a fuller work in the future. What the student needs is a history of the previous “Communist ” and allied movements and a history of the Early “Socialist ” theories, together with a study of the class struggles prevailing.

The manifesto is a historical work and can be best understood with a knowledge of the social and historical conditions that led up to it. The notes given by Ryazanoff will be useful as an outline.

There are many extracts from little known writings of Marx and Engels now translated for the first time in this book. Some of them on Christianity, Law, etc., will be reproduced in the Socialist Standard as space permits. The famous quotation containing Marx’s phrase, “Religion is the opium of the people,” is given from Marx’s Criticism of Hegel's' “ Philosophy of Rights.”

Proletarian Democracy!

The author comments on the well-known attitude of Marx in the manifesto that the workers must first of all win political supremacy—become the ruling class by winning the battle of democracy. Ryazanoff says this must be understood as “proletarian democracy,” but gives no evidence that Marx, meant anything different from what he said—“democracy.” Winning the battle of democracy in modern times means winning the majority of the population— which is the working class. Marx pointed out at the time in his article on Chartism (quoted in the March Socialist Standard), that the majority of voters in England under manhood suffrage would constitute the mass of the workers who could become politically supreme if they used their votes to do so.

If the workers are to win the battle of democracy and become supreme, then it is obvious that where the working class are the majority of the nation they become supreme by using existing democracy and not waiting till a new society is already established. The statement of the author that “democracy” here means “proletarian democracy” makes nonsense of Marx’s phrase, because the workers have to rise to power before they could (if they wished) disfranchise the capitalists.

Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

Ryazanoff says that though the phrase “dictatorship of the proletariat” is not used in the Communist manifesto the basis of it is there. He says the phrase was coined after the 1848 revolution in Paris. But he forgets that in none of the many prefaces to the manifesto which Marx and Engels wrote in later years did they use the phrase “dictatorship of the proletariat.” In two writings where it was used it was simply used to mean the rule of the working class in a society not ready for Socialism. In a private letter criticising the “free people’s State” Marx once used it and also in the early ’fifties in magazine articles on “Class Struggles in France.” The latter were not published in book form till 1895, long after Marx’s death. And it was in that work where Marx, dealing with the large peasantry and the small working class in France, said that if the workers got power there would be a “dictatorship of the proletariat."

"The Class Struggles in France” is a review of events from 1848-1850, and the views set out there depend upon the conditions of the time. Engels, in his long introduction, shows that minority action and the violent methods, advocated at the time Marx wrote the work, had been proved wrong by history, and that social changes had transformed completely the conditions under which the workers had to struggle. Engels advocates political action and also tells us that a democratic republic affords the best conditions for political success. He did not repeat the advice about dictatorship given by Marx nearly 50 years before. In none of the published works of Marx and Engels did they lay down dictatorship as the object of a working class party. As Engels says (“Socialism: Utopian and Scientific”), the working class seizes the power of the State and at once converts the means of production into social property. Whether we examine the Communist League, the International Working Men’s Association or any other body Marx was identified with; their object was always defined as the capture of political power by the working class.

Long after the Paris Commune of 1871 was over Engels wrote in the preface to Marx’s “Civil War in France (1871),” that in the Paris Commune, with its universal suffrage and democracy, you could see what the dictatorship of the proletariat was like.

Finally, we suggest to the head of the Marx-Engels Institute that the "smash the State" theory which he associates with Marx and Engels has no foundation in the philosophy of Marx and Engels. The most widely read book of Engels, written with the co-operation of Marx against Duhring (“Socialism: Utopian and Scientific"), says:

"The first action undertaken by the State as genuinely representative of society at large, the seizure of the means of production in the name of society at large, is simultaneously its last independent action as a State.” And he goes on to say, “The State is not 'abolished,’ it dies but.” (Ryazanoff translation).

Apart from the matters to which we have drawn attention, the book well deserves reading and will prove worthy of any worker’s, time.

One of its chief drawbacks is that it does not generally deal with the usefulness or otherwise, to-day, of the various measures or policies advocated in the manifesto.

The book is published at 15/-, but working class bodies can have a special edition at 6/-. It really should be published in cheap covers at about 2/-, so that most workers could get it.

Adolph Kohn

Minds and Muddle (1930)

From the June 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is painfully obvious that workers can only be employed by those who purchase the goods they produce; yet so persistently has the word “employer” been wrongly used, that it is difficult to disabuse people's minds of the muddled idea that workers’ wages are paid by those who own the means of production. . . .  If everybody realised clearly that there is no such thing as an “employing class,” that everyone who uses or consumes any product (that is, every man, woman, and child in the country) is an employer, there would be a perfect revolution of thought on the question of wages, taxation and other vital problems.

So wrote Miss Minnie Pallister in an article entitled “Muddled Minds" in The New Leader (9/5/1930).

If there is no such thing as an employing class, what do we mean when we speak of employers and employees? Most people, whether socialists or not, will agree that there is one class in modern society that employs workers and pays them wages. If we are not to use terms inaccurately, by what name must we designate this class?

We distinguish the capitalist system from previous forms of society by the fact that it is made up of a capitalist, or employing class, and a class of wage workers. This division is self-evident, and easily the most important characteristic of this form of society.

The employing class own the means of production. They pay wages. They own the wealth that is produced by the workers. That wealth is in the form of commodities, which must be sold before its owners can realise the value contained in them over and above the wages paid for their production. These are the essential facts of capitalism as revealed to us in our daily efforts to obtain a living. Miss Pallister denies the obvious.

It has been the fashion for years with supporters of capitalism to refer to the savings, and even the tools of working-men, as capital. Now we have it from a member of the I.L.P., that every child sucking milk from a feeding bottle, or kicking out its shoes at play is an employer of labour.

If there is not a separate employing class that pays wages, there is no case for Socialism. Capitalism, with its opposing classes of employers and wage-workers, simply does not exist.

F. Foan

Mr. J. H. Thomas and the Unemployed. (1930)

From the July 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Thomas has proved himself once more the friend of the employers. How grateful they must feel to good old Jimmy.

The "Daily News” of May 5th, 1930, reports a part of a speech given by him to his constituents at Derby. Speaking of rationalisation, he says; "It will temporarily result in unemployment, but if I am satisfied that it is a remedy, and that the ultimate effects will be of lasting benefit, then my policy is not to refuse anything that is temporarily unpopular or unpleasant. I am prepared to risk the unpopularity, knowing | it must succeed.” Furthermore he says:

"We have to have a drastic process of rationalisation,” and then, "Protection has been suggested as a remedy for unemployment, but protectionist countries were suffering the same trouble. Regard must be had to the conditions of employment in competing countries.” "French, German, and Belgian workers could not be allowed to be exploited for our benefit.” And. finally, he remarks; "If women abolished short skirts, they would make the greatest possible contribution to the revival of the Lancashire cotton trade.”

What a noble and pathetic picture he makes as he prepares to sacrifice his popularity for an ideal, the ideal of rationalisation. How ignorant, or wilfully blind to the true facts he must be, when he insists that only temporary unemployment will result. Better and speedier methods of production mean that less labour is required, and if Mr. Thomas grants this, but says that the cheapening of the product will mean a bigger demand and the reabsorption of the displaced labour, then he must have forgotten, in the strenuous duties as a Minister, his experiences as a trade union leader. His dealing with the employers must have shown him how, when the cost of living decreases, wages fall. If wages fall, then the purchasing power of the workers in employment is no greater, and again, there is the fact of those thrown out by the rationalisation process, have their spending powers considerably decreased. Hence the increased demand is a myth, and Mr. Thomas has simply helped the bosses to displace labour and produce more cheaply, not temporarily, but permanently. The improvements that are made are never lost, but are the stepping stones to greater efficiency. His argument on Protection can, with the same reasoning, be applied to rationalisation. "Protection is no cure, because protectionist countries are suffering the same trouble.” Rationalisation is shown to be no cure, because rationalised countries are suffering just the same trouble. Rationalisation has gone on extensively in America, and on this the "Daily News” of January 14th, 1930, makes interesting reading. Two columns are devoted to unemployment in America, but just a short quotation will suffice:—

  The causes of this huge displacement of workers (nearly 4,000,000) are declared to be (1) Improvements in machinery, (2) the extension of cheap electric power, (3) the invention of labour- saving devices, (4) the processes described in Gt. Britain under the name of Rationalisation. Hundreds of thousands of these dispossesed men and women have found work in new and growing industries, but the new industries have not been sufficient to absorb the displaced labour. The situation is one that has a marked significance for Great Britain, because similar developments in the use of labour-saving machines and Rationalisation are, in the opinion of many, bound to have similar consequences. The problem of what to do with men and women “scrapped” by the relentless new machines, is baffling the best brains in American industry. It is like a gaunt spectre in the richest country in the world, and distinguished economists say that the situation must inevitably grow more acute as time goes on.

What does Mr. Thomas say in the face of these facts? He just owlishly blinks and turns to the ladies. If we do what he asks, our frantic endeavours to free our legs from our petticoats should melt a heart of stone, and perhaps Mr. Thomas will excuse us from being the saviours of the Lancashire cotton trade. The cotton traders, however, put the trade depression down to something more serious than short skirts. The day after the article on unemployment in America, our useful little guide, the "Daily News” of January 13th, 1930, reports the following opinion of those interested in cotton:—

  We have too much machinery. This carries with it a capacity for producing more than the market will take, and a consequent readiness of makers to sell their yarn and cloth at uneconomic prices in order to keep a foothold in the market.

Then since in this report they are not concerned with the workers, they go on to suggest that rationalisation, the elimination of small trading concerns, and the combining together of all the cotton interests so as to eliminate waste, etc., is the method by which the capitalists can save their industries. The “Manchester Guardian" of 25th April, 1930, reports that the National Union of Shop Assistants were discussing the dismissal of elderly assistants through the amalgamation of firms, i.e., rationalisation. The amount of labour affected assumes gigantic proportions, and cannot be dismissed so lightheartedly as Mr. Thomas would dismiss it. This rationalisation, upon which Mr. Thomas confers his blessing so assiduously, means that industry will become centred in fewer and fewer hands. The spoils will be less divided. The most efficient methods of production will be utilised, reducing labour to a minimum. Commodities must be produced cheaply if they are to compete with foreign rivals, and if British capitalists are going to secure overseas trade. Whether or no foreign workers are exploited more than British workers, only concerns Mr. Thomason so far that it means that foreign capitalists will prosper at the expense of British capitalists, and make Mr. Thomas' position more precarious. A point, however, in all this that Mr. Thomas never mentions, and which we must perforce bring to his notice, is his lack of concern over the position of the workers who are not unemployed. The vast majority are certainly not living in the lap of luxury, or does Mr. Thomas think that to have a job even at two pounds ten is the pinnacle of ambition realised? The workers employed and unemployed are in a position of poverty and insecurity. Knowledge and skill do not count now as they did formerly, and robots are more and more displacing higher paid labour.

Is Mr. Thomas concerned? Not in the least. He just smilingly prates about unpopular temporary effects, and urges the workers to support the employers in dismissing them.

Mr. Thomas himself is in a singularly happy position, and no doubt this it is which enables him to bear up so blithely under other people’s miseries. After failing for a year to carry out his promise of reducing unemployment, and seeing it in fact increase stupendously, Mr. Thomas leaves one Cabinet job for another equally highly paid. Workers who lose their jobs are not so fortunate.

May Otway

Lessons From Trotsky's Life Story: A Dictator Denounces Dictatorship (1930)

Book Review from the August 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Great Man Moonshine.

Few men have been more idolised in modern times than Leon Trotsky; and few men have been more bitterly attacked. The publication of his own life story should therefore arouse extraordinary attention but Trotsky nowadays has gone out of fashion. His universal Bolshevik worshippers have taken the cue from Moscow and dubbed him counter-revolutionist, and the worldwide Press invective against him has declined since he was pushed off the Russian political stage. Newspapers nowadays are only interested in him so far as he can be used in their anti-Russian abuse. Those who hold to the unscientific great man theory and who conceived Trotsky to be almost a god—or a devil, will be in a hopeless quandary to explain how such a “great man” was undone.

The situation in Russia, like any other stage in social evolution, cannot be explained by the rise or decline of this or that leading figure. The war and the resulting effects in Russia supplied the conditions which pushed into the forefront obscure figures like Trotsky, editing a paper in a back street in New York, and Lenin penning little-known articles in a remote Swiss town. Trotsky’s incisive attack on the men who supplanted him is a complete answer to those who think that the great man makes the social situation instead of the social forces producing a human instrument limited and leavened by the conditions of his time.

That Lenin and Trotsky occupied so much space and claimed so much attention was not due to being “supermen" but was because backward social and economic Russia did not have the conditions under which many capable and experienced fighters could develop.

Trotsky’s own life story is a large book of over 500 pages and is written in a very readable, graphic style that holds interest to the end. While the early part is devoted to his childhood and youth the chief part is written as a justification for his attitude in Russia against the Communist Party leadership. The personal element in the book looms very large and most readers not acquainted with the interplay of men and forces in Russia will find it difficult to understand what were the actual differences between Trotsky and others in the Party. Trotsky’s story is too full—of Trotsky!

The Czarist Days.

His stormy struggle in Czarist Russia is a good illustration of the hardships and penalties of an agitator’s life when Church and Grand Duke held the fort. His early activity as a critic of Marxism and later as one of the members of the scattered Social Democratic Party in Russia is full of incident and interest, but space prevents it being referred to in detail here.

The secret meetings and secret organisation of Czarist days brought with it the agent provocateur or government spy, and thus Leon Trotsky, along with others, was arrested, and sent to Siberia. In prison he studied Marx’s Capital, Kautsky’s masterly reply to Bernstein and Plechanoff’s able writings, etc. Escaping from Siberia he came to London (1902) and there for the first time met Lenin who was also in exile, and working on the “Iskra,” a party paper smuggled into Russia. Trotsky, lecturing in the East End, was amazed at the stupid anti-Marxist arguments of men like Tchaikowsky, the Russian Liberal, and Tcherkesoff, the Russian Anarchist and war supporter. Trotsky also associated with Plechanoff and Vera Sassulitch at the early congresses of the Russian Party, and he indicates their varied ideas.

The attempted uprising, the general strike and ferment in Russia of 1905 took Trotsky back to Russia, where he met Krassin, the engineer, who was an active Bolshevik. The Party were then demanding a Constituent Assembly, the 8-hour day, better land distribution, etc. This was the period in which the St. Petersburg Soviet first achieved prominence, and in it Trotsky was very active.

The 1905 uprising was crushed by force, and Trotsky and the whole Soviet was arrested. Again in prison and transported to arctic Siberia, Trotsky once more escaped. Lenin fled to Finland.

In Exile.

Reaction sat heavy in Russia after 1905 and the activities of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks had to be carried on in Continental exile up to 1917. The Russian Social Democratic Congress in London in 1907, at Dalston, was a milestone in their history. The Executive were unable to find funds for the continuance of the Congress and after visits to Hyndman and others, it was, I think, Joseph Fels, the Single Tax Soap Manufacturer, who lent them £3,000 for the purpose. Rosa Luxembourg, Maxim Gorky and other famous people visited the Congress, which was so mysteriously referred to in the London papers of the time. The split over questions of centralized Party control had already taken place and thus the famous titles of Menshevik (Minority) and Bolshevik (Majority) came into use. These two names acquired, however, many meanings in later years, as each section chopped and changed their attitudes on various points. 

The Second International.

After the Congress, Trotsky went to the so-called International Conference at Stuttgart, where he met Adler, Kautsky, Hilferding, Bernstein and similar popular figures in Social Democracy.

He criticises their ideas about Russia but says nothing of the essential point that these men, along with the mass of the delegates and parties at these International Congresses, were anything but Socialist. Reform and opportunism was their road to power. Lenin, Trotsky and the other Russian delegates had no objections then, as they accepted the reform position of these parties and only took up general opposition over the war attitude when 1914 came. But long before 1914, in taking our stand, national and international, the Socialist Party of Great Britain had refused to be a party to the anti-Socialist reform and political trading policy of these parties at home and abroad who used the Social Democratic label. Whilst Lenin and Trotsky and the Mensheviks were in alliance with the parties and leaders who were later denounced as “betrayers,” the Socialist Party had carried on the exposure for years, as the pages of our paper since 1904 show. Speaking of the Copenhagen International Congress (1910), Trotsky says : “ After all, I was not yet sure of the sort of amendment that must be made to the entire policy of the Social Democracy.” He states that he found out in 1914.

The World War.

When Trotsky reaches the 1914 period he was living in Vienna and was shocked at the "Capitulation of the German Social Democracy.” Had Trotsky overlooked their nationalism and ordinary liberal programme so similar to the general run of self-styled Socialist Parties—who all lined up for the World Carnage? Trotsky avoided internment by going to Switzerland which was to become the home of Lenin and most of the other Russian exiles during the War. Trotsky says Lenin thought the newspapers had faked the reports that German Social Democracy had voted for the War, for “Lenin’s faith in the German Social Democracy was still as strong as that.” (Page 204.) Trotsky met Karl Radek, in Switzerland, who differed from Trotsky’s view that a proletarian revolution would result from the War. Radek held that the productive forces were not sufficiently developed. This attitude surprised Trotsky.

After a brief stay in France, during which the Zimmerwald Anti-War Conference in Switzerland was arranged, Trotsky was ordered out of France and went to Spain, where the kindly hand of the French foreign office followed him and had him deported. He chose New York as his next haven, and here, after a brief sojourn of two months on the Russian paper, Novy Mir (New World), the news came of the fall of Czardom.

After Trotsky left for Russia and was detained in Canada by Lloyd George’s influence, a legend about him grew up in U.S.A. and amazing imaginary stories were told. Even Frank Harris, in Pearson's Magazine, had to get a story afoot and so he treated us to a romantic tale of how he had met Trotsky in New York and explained to him what must be done in Russia. Such is journalism.

Trotsky met Bucharin in New York, where we knew him as a member of the Left Wing Propaganda Group, whose shining light was Louis Fraina, the apostle of Force, who was accused by the Soviet Envoy of being a spy. In passing, I may add that Fraina was appointed the International Secretary of the Communist Party of America, and put on the Executive at Moscow.

Bucharin was then friendly to Trotsky, as neither was in power. The woman who was afterwards to become Soviet Minister of Welfare—Alexandra Kollontay—was also in New York. Trotsky complains that nothing was revolutionary enough for her—she took an ultra left stand against Trotsky and Lenin, we are told. This attitude towards Madame Kollontay indicates Trotsky’s judgment, as Madame Kollontay was the only Russian propagandist we heard in America who opposed the reform and opportunism so current there and who publicly stated that the Socialist Party of Great Britain took up the correct position. She, however, later incurred the displeasure of the Moscow machine and was transferred to Mexico in the diplomatic service.

Russia Under The Influence.

Trotsky arrived at Petrograd in May, 1917, and his story of the overthrow of the Provisional Government of Democratic Liberals and Mensheviks is told at some length, but a far clearer and fuller picture of the events is given in John Reed’s “Ten Days that Shook the World”—reviewed in these pages many years ago. The turning point in favour of the Bolsheviks was that the soldiers and sailors, sick of war and want, came over to their side. The Lenin-Trotsky element had won the majority in the Soviet by adopting their opponent’s—the Social Revolutionary Party’s—peasant platform.

Trotsky was sent to Brest-Litovsk as Commissar for Foreign Affairs and with Lenin’s consent signed the peace treaty with Germany. The harsh terms were accepted, Trotsky tells us in his “Peace Program,” because without the hourly-expected World Revolution, Russia was not in a position to fight over terms. When Chicherin, Petroff, Litvinoff and other Russians were released from English prisons and went to Russia in 1918 the Bolsheviks were able to re-arrange official positions and Trotsky was persuaded by Lenin to become War Minister. Trotsky knew nothing of military affairs. He says (300) : "Was I prepared to do military work? Of course not. I had not even had the benefit of service in the Czar’s army.” Yet Maxim Gorky and many others write as though Trotsky made the Red Army. The peace released crowds of trained Russian officers who had to live and were ready to serve the new Government. There was the trained rank and file coming home from the War and when Germany surrendered later to the Allies, German officers were obtained for use in the building of Russia’s army.

The Peace Terms.

Stalin has resurrected every difference that Trotsky had with Lenin over points of policy in order to charge Trotsky with being an anti-Leninist. The conflict of ideas about accepting peace terms between Lenin and others has been used by Stalin although Trotsky finally accepted Lenin’s point of view. But when the Bolsheviks were faced with crushing terms by Germany, Lenin said at first, 'Yes, we shall have to fight, though we have nothing to fight with.” (P. 332.) A few minutes later Lenin changed his mind and said that military action would be ruinous.

When French and English diplomats brought an offer from their Governments to assist the Bolsheviks to continue war against Germany, Lenin and Trotsky were favourable; Bucharin objected to an alliance with the Imperialists. The Central Committee of the Party—which held the reins of Government, supported Lenin and Trotsky. Trotsky quotes Lenin’s resolution from memory: ‘‘That Comrade Trotsky be authorized to accept the assistance of the brigands of French Imperialism against the German brigands.” (P. 333).

Russia, however, was in no position then to fight over conditions, so the peace terms were signed. 

War Communism.

The rest of the story of the Russian struggle has been often told. Trotsky recounts his personal part in it. The efforts to impose “War Communism” with the resulting collapse due to a hostile peasantry and backward industry; the conscription of labour with military discipline in the endeavour to stop the decline, and the free and easy manner of working; these and similar policies were tried in vain. "The working masses were more and more disinclined to submit to the ways of military rule.” (P. 397.) Trotsky argued that the trade unions must be made organs of the State, as there was no place for them under War Communism. Lenin took an opposite view.

Marx's Lesson.

The teaching of Marx, the materialist explanation of history was now brought home to the actors in the Russian drama.

The stage reached in material development determines the social system possible in a country. Laws and edicts cannot dodge the obstacles that stand in the way of the normal development of a country. Communism could not be carried out where the productive powers and methods belonged to the early stages of capitalism. Peasant Property dominated Russia. The ideas of the population arising from these conditions were not Socialist. Socialist ideas could only be bred from highly-developed conditions of production where associated labour and large-scale industry had prepared the mind for social change.

So the new Economic Policy of free trade in commodities was ushered in to save Russia. It is still the basis of economic life in Russia. The Premier of Soviet Russia, Rykov, admitted this in his official speech to the Moscow Soviet on March 9th, 1928:—

   All the talk to the effect that we are abolishing the New Economic Policy and introducing a system of requisitioning and the like is nothing but counter-revolutionary twaddle, which must be energetically opposed. The New Economic Policy underlies our entire economy and will remain so for a long historical period. The New Economic Policy permits of traffic in goods and the sufferance of Capitalism on condition that the State retains the right and the possibility of regulating trade from the standpoint of proletarian dictatorship ("International Press Correspondence," 29th March, 1928).

The admission that capitalism cannot be avoided in the evolution of Russia, proves the idiocy of those who hold up Russia as the Socialist example. Rykov’s reference to the State is misleading.

The material conditions of production are the determining factor and the State had to adopt the New Economic Policy because it could not avoid the economic obstacles in its path. No matter who wields the State power they cannot successfully legislate in conflict with the ideas flowing from the backward economic condition of a country. Peasant property made hash of all the Dictator’s decrees. Thus was the materialist conception of history proved true in Russia and the lesson Marx taught made plain.

Political parties, even dictatorships, cannot impose systems at their will; the method of production is the real dictator deciding what can be done.

After Lenin.

Trotsky traces Stalin’s opposition to him back to the days when Stalin was removed from positions by Trotsky’s orders as Minister of War. Trotsky’s long absence out in the country in charge of the Red Army gave Stalin an opportunity, according to Trotsky, to prejudice others against him and to curry favour with Lenin, who was fast becoming an invalid and nearly paralysed. The death of Lenin in January, 1924, was followed by Trotsky’s long illness. Very soon after recovery he was relieved of his post as War Minister, although Stalin says he was dismissed.

Lenin’s death coincided with growing opposition inside the Party to the rising influence of the Kulak or rich peasant. One “workers’ opposition,” led by Madame Kollontay, had long since been silenced but others took its place. Lenin’s wife was opposed to the party policy. She held that “Nep” was capitalism, but Stalin in one place says that such an idea is “ absurd.” (Stalin’s Leninism, p. 435.)

Trotsky's Position.

Trotsky held that Socialism could not come in one country alone, particularly Russia. The policy of the party, therefore, he claimed, should not be to work in harmony with the rich peasants and the Nepman but to promote the World Revolution. He objected to the growing bureaucracy in the party—he demanded more democracy—now that the “machine" was being used by others.

Stalin was secretary of the party and had built up an anti-Trotsky bloc or caucus. All the early writings and especially Trotsky’s story of 1905 and the October (1917) Revolt were used to fasten on him the title of anti-Leninist and liquidator of the Revolution. Trotsky attacked the Third International’s policy in Germany during the 1923 upsurge and also their attitude in backing the Nationalist Kuomintang in China with such terrible results for. the thousands of “Communist” victims. Stalin and Co; backed the General Council during the General Strike here in 1926 and thought that Purcell and Co. were with the workers. Trotsky demanded a break with the General Council and denounced Stalin and Co. as opportunists. He demanded the publication of Lenin’s last testament. This has never been done.

At the great Tenth Anniversary Demonstration in Moscow in 1927, the opposition carried their own banners inscribed with such demands as, “Let us Carry out Lenin’s Will,” "Against Bureaucracy,” etc.

Exile Again.

Soon afterwards, at the 15th Congress of the Party, the entire opposition was expelled and given over to the charge of the Bolshevik secret police, the Ogpu. Trotsky was taken to distant Turkestan and there, on the borders of China, carried on correspondence and kept in touch with his supporters. He was ordered to give up political activity under the penalty of being deported and, refusing, he was put out of Soviet territory and is now trying to persuade each Country in turn to give him a home.

Zinovief, the overlord of the Third International, and Karl Radek were busily occupied denouncing Trotsky, but they, along with Bucharin, Tomsky, Rakofsky, Kameneff, Krassin, Preobashevsky, etc., very soon took up the work of opposing Stalinism—and so right or left wings of the Party were formed. The very arguments of Trotsky became theirs and practically all of them from Rykov the Premier to Karl Radek were either expelled from their positions or membership, or made to recant. Zinovief joined with Trotsky but gave in at the last moment only to be once again accused.

Thus many of the leading Bolshevik figures were silenced. Only one political party is allowed to exist in Russia and every attempt at propaganda on the part of the opposition was crushed. Their press was confiscated and the heavy hand of the Military Tribunal descended upon those who sought to win support by speech or writing. So the Machine won.

What is the Lesson?

After narrating Trotsky’s story in outline it is necessary to draw attention to the lesson of the whole series of events. Neither Trotsky, nor Stalin (in the lengthy book written against the former) attempts to do so. In fact none of the many writers explain the cause of that long internal party struggle in Russia or its relation to Russian economic and political life. Trotsky merely attacks Stalin as though it is simply an individual matter.

The prominent Bolsheviks, who have so bitterly denounced the bureaucracy of present-day Russia and demanded wider democracy, have each and every one of them been to the fore in upholding terrorism and dictatorship. Whether in attacking Kautsky or in defending Bolshevik ideas they have gloried in smashing “democratic methods.” Trotsky’s “Defence of Terrorism” was the handbook of Bolshevism, and Karl Radek's “Proletarian Dictatorship and Terrorism” was the most outspoken message of minority rule the Communists issued.

Now, however, that they are suffering from their own methods being applied they bitterly complain.

The explanation of the policy pursued in Russia is in the economic situation there in 1917 and in the equally backward outlook of the population. Eighty-five per cent. were peasants, and in the towns industry was in a very undeveloped condition. Socialism, therefore, was not possible. Thus conditions paved the way for power to be seized by the Bolshevik minority (Communist Party). Stalin tells us that Lenin’s position was this :—

240,000 members of the Communist Party will certainly be able to govern the country in the interests of the poor and against the wealthy, seeing that they are in no way less competent than the 130,000 landowners who in former days governed the country in the interests of the wealthy and against the poor. (Leninism, p. 298.) 

The Bolsheviks therefore, even according to Lenin’s comparison, could only rule a country of 150 millions in the way the previous minority ruled them—by ignoring democratic methods and imposing their policy upon the majority. Capitalism and feudalism have a ruling class composed of a minority. A minority party can rule Russia but Socialism and even the building of a Socialist mass movement demands democratic methods.

A minority Bolshevik party kept power in Russia by yielding to the economic necessities of the country and by adopting a policy, therefore, to pacify the peasant. Hence arose the contradiction between their Socialist claims and statutes, and the actual capitalism they were building up. Socialism being impossible in Russia to-day, they had to develop Russia’s resources by going through a capitalist form of society. Stalin tells us that “the new economic policy permits of a free market, of capitalism, of wage labour.” (Leninism, p. 429.)

The work of spreading Bolshevik ideas could be carried on it is true. But in spite of living through the many years' rule of Bolshevism, out of 54 million adults among the peasantry, the number of members of the Communist Party is 136,000, or 0.37 of the adult rural population. (Stalin's Leninism, p. 298.)

The apostles of minority rule and the supporters of Dictatorship were faced then and are still faced with the question, who shall be the dictators? Once democracy is pushed aside and the masses do not have an open, free and full opportunity of coming to a decision; with all the information before them; with the chance of assembling and discussing; with the power to read and hear the various points; when these things are absent those concerned in a movement are simply the material upon which conspiracies and underhand methods can thrive. So in Russia the Bolshevik policy of Dictatorship has bred the inevitable contest for the dictators' positions.

Those who are acquainted with Communist Party organisation can well understand the part that "caucuses," “blocs" and similar machine methods played in the internal struggle in Russia where each follows a leader and strongly assails his opponents.

The lesson to be gathered from Trotsky's story, therefore, is the one taught by Socialists. That Socialism includes democracy and it can only be established when the majority understand it and decide to establish it. It cannot be imposed upon them by minorities, be they led by Trotsky, Stalin, Tomsky, Lenin, or some other leader.

Russia under Stalin or anybody else at present is compelled by necessity to carry on capitalism because it is not ripe for Socialism.

Adolph Kohn