The First World War and its Aftermath (2018)

From the November 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

At 11 am on 11 November 1918 Germany signed an armistice which ended four years of unremitting carnage. From 28 July 1914 to 11 November, over 9 million soldiers and 6 million civilians perished. The First World War is sometimes seen as an historical accident triggered by the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand. Yet from the nineteenth century onwards growing rivalries between the major capitalist powers created tensions that were bound to erupt into war.

Prussian victory in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71 led to the unification of Germany in 1871. The new German state then entered into an alliance with Austria-Hungary and Russia, known as the League of the Three Emperors, to contain French power. Russian victory in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 and increasing Russian influence in the Balkans brought this alliance to an end. Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy then formed the Triple Alliance. To counteract this France entered into an alliance with Russia. Britain later joined France and Russia to form the Triple Entente.

Germany, since unification, had become a major economic and industrial power. Its rulers sought to compete with other major powers in world markets and seek colonies that would be sources of raw materials. To achieve this, they sought to expand their military capacity and, therefore, they proceeded to build up their navy. This inevitably led to rivalry with Britain in the control of global sea routes. Germany, Russia, France and Italy increased the size of their standing armies.

Instability arose in the Balkans as competing powers vied with each other to grab the spoils from the declining Ottoman Empire. Austria-Hungary earned the enmity of Russia and Serbia when it formally annexed the former Ottoman province of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Germany also had a strategic interest in the region. The route of the proposed Berlin-Constantinople railway would travel through Vienna and Belgrade, and therefore Germany would require some control or influence over Serbia. This would bring conflict with Russia.

Austria-Hungary’s rulers used the occasion of the Archduke’s assassination to bring Serbia, which they suspected of promoting pan Slavic nationalism in Bosnia-Herzegovina, to heel. They delivered an ultimatum that they calculated would be rejected. Serbia accepted most of the conditions, but had reservations on others. Thereupon, they declared war on Serbia with the backing of their German ally. The Russian leaders retaliated by mobilising their forces, arguing that it was their duty to protect their fellow Slavs. But their real fear was that an Austrian victory would result in further Austrian and German encroachment of the Balkans, which would threaten to undermine their trade through the Bosphorus Straits.

The German rulers in turn demanded that Russia demobilise its forces, whereupon Russia refused and they declared war on her. A couple of days later Germany declared war on Russia’s ally, France. In order to avoid the highly fortified border with France, the German leaders decided to move their forces through Belgium. When the Belgian government refused free passage, the German military launched an invasion. Ostensibly the United Kingdom was committed by the Treaty of London 1839 to defend Belgium, and this was the reason given for declaring war on Germany. However, the British rulers main concern was the safeguarding of their trade routes to their empire, and followed a policy of ‘splendid isolation’, whereby Britain would intervene only in European affairs when there was a shift in the balance of power between the competing nations to their disadvantage. The German invasion of Belgium was deemed to be such a moment. The British government also drew on workers from the Dominions and Empire – India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand — to fight for them.

Bribery was used to entice other countries into the War. Rumania was promised Hungarian territory if they joined the ‘allied powers’ — Britain and France. Bulgaria preferred the offer from Germany, that it could have Macedonia, and so joined them. Italy was promised the Austrian regions of South Tyrol and Trieste and Northern Dalmatia by the allied powers. Italy turned her back on her former allies, Germany and Austria-Hungary, and joined the latter. Japan also joined the allied powers in the hope of acquiring Germany’s Chinese possessions.

In 1917, in a bid to end the war quickly, German forces intensified their blockade of Britain’s ports, which had been a source of friction with the United States for some time, and resumed attacks on shipping. Many American ships were sunk with a great loss of life. This, along with a telegram from the German Foreign Minister requesting support from the Mexicans in exchange for assistance in retaking US territory lost in the Mexican-American War, prompted the US government to declare war on Germany on 6 April 1917. Also, US capitalists made money out of providing financial loans to Britain and France and therefore saw it as in their economic interests to support the allied powers.

Workers did the fighting

When the capitalists of different nations fall out and go to war, they don’t normally do the fighting themselves, but get their respective working classes to do it for them. This requires an appeal to patriotism and jingoism, whereby politicians toured the country whipping up enthusiasm for the war. One successful orator was Horatio Bottomley, the so-called People’s Tribune but in fact a discredited bankrupt before the war. For all his efforts in bringing in recruits, he managed to rake in £78,000 which he spent on racehorses, women and champagne. For those young male workers who were of military age and not seduced by the clarion call to arms, young women were employed to stick white feathers on them.

The capitalists and their politicians did not garner support on their own. They had the backing of the so-called ‘workers representatives’, the Labour and Social Democratic parties, which abandoned their proclaimed commitment to the international working class and rallied behind the war efforts of their respective ruling classes. The German Social Democratic representatives in the Reichstag gave a spurious ‘Marxist’ justification for voting for war credits. A victorious Germany, they argued, would overthrow the backward Tsarist regime and capitalism would develop rapidly in Russia. Expansion in industrial production and the growth of the Russian working class would speedily create the conditions for the establishment of socialism. Trade unions showed their support by co-operating with the employers to ensure maximum production and the curtailing of any strike action. The suffragettes suspended their campaign and joined the war effort. However, there was opposition to the war from Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, Sylvia Pankhurst and of course, the Socialist Party.

The capitalist class couldn’t rely on jingoist appeals alone, they needed high ideals as well. The British capitalist class claimed to be fighting for ‘the liberty of small nations’. Although this noble ideal seemingly applied to Belgium, curiously it did not apply to Britain’s colonies, certainly not in the case of Ireland, where the Easter rising in 1916 was ruthlessly suppressed. Another great ideal was ‘to make the world safe for democracy’. Oddly, censorship and restriction of war reporting was required for this one. Many would consider the Russian Tsar to be a strange bedfellow.

It would seem that it is not enough for the capitalist class that their workers were facing the bullets and bombs on the battle fronts, for they appeared to be dissatisfied with the workers’ performance on the home front. In the UK, many blamed the munitions workers for the shortages of shells needed for the war effort, that they were too busy boozing in the pubs. Restriction in pub hours were introduced which survived until the 1990s.

Discontent

From 1916, with increasing hardship and seemingly no end in sight to the war, many workers became disillusioned and there were grumblings about this being a businessman’s war. Strikes, protests and riots erupted. The situation in Russia was particularly dire, where peasants were taken off the land to fight on the front line, resulting in acute food shortages in the cities. This was exacerbated by poor communication infrastructure and corruption. Food riots ensued and mass desertions from the army took place. Workers councils emerged in the cities and organised strikes. In March 1917, the Tsar was forced to abdicate and a provisional government headed by Kerensky took his place. However, they attempted to keep Russia in the war, which only increased the discontent and their power was challenged by the Petrograd Workers Council. The German leaders saw an opportunity to take Russia out of the war. They allowed Lenin to travel through Germany in a sealed train to Russia. Once there, Lenin was able to gain support for the Bolsheviks in the Workers Councils. In November 1917, the Kerensky government was overthrown by an uprising led by the Bolsheviks. Not long afterwards, they negotiated a peace treaty with Germany at Brest Litovsk.

Now that Russia was out of the war, the German military could reinforce their forces on the Western front. Although this gave Germany an added advantage, they were still unable to deliver the knockout blow to their opponents. However, the working class discontent that brought down the Tsarist regime was also being visited on Germany. On 29 October 1918, a mutiny by sailors sparked a general workers and soldiers uprising which finally forced the German government to seek an armistice which was signed on 11 November 1918. The Kaiser abdicated on 28th November 1918.

Aside from mass human slaughter, what was the legacy of the war? It could be seen as the ultimate triumph of capitalism, as the vestiges of the feudalistic empires were swept away. The Austrian-Hungary Empire collapsed and metamorphosed into separate capitalist nation states. The Ottoman Empire disintegrated and the French and British ruling classes carved up its territories among themselves. Germany became a modern capitalist state under the rule of the Social Democratic Party. Russia evolved into an authoritarian state capitalist country. The Third International was launched during the Russian civil war in 1919 to support the Bolshevik regime and superseded the Second International which was dissolved in 1916. It became a mouthpiece of the Bolshevik regime and promoted the idea that communism equates with state capitalism and that it can only be brought about by violent revolution led by a vanguard party. This served to confuse workers as to what socialism really is and has played a part in holding back the genuine socialist movement.

With working class men being sent to the front, more women had to be brought into the munitions factories and offices to keep production going. They remained a part of the workforce after the war ended.

The phrase ‘The war to end all wars’ must be one of the sardonic statements of all times. Far from ending wars, the First World War sowed the seeds for further conflicts. The punitive measures of the Versailles Peace Treaty helped foster a sense of grievance, a feeling that Germany had been stabbed in the back. German nationalists, including the Nazis, exploited this for their own ends. Furthermore, the heavy reparations led to economic instability, such as the hyperinflation of 1923, which provided the fertile soil for aggressive nationalists like the Nazis to flourish. The increasing hostility between the Western Powers and the Bolshevik regime presaged the Cold War, which came to dominate the twentieth century. The League of Nations was set up to prevent further wars, but was powerless to do so, as it could not deal with the underlying cause — competition between capitalist powers for world markets and sources for raw materials. Wars are inevitable within capitalism.

Oliver Bond

Capitalism in Eastern Europe (1969)

Book Review from the October 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Economic Devolution in Eastern Europe’, by Ljubo Sirc. (‘Problems of Capitalism in Eastern Europe’ series. Longmans – for the Institute of Economic Affairs, 35/-)

Dr. Sirc, now a lecturer in International economics at Glasgow University, was born in Yugoslavia and fought with Tito’s army during the war but, like a number of other supporters of the Yugoslav regime, he came into conflict with the government and he was imprisoned for seven and a half years in 1947 for 'conspiracy against the State'.

His book deals with the way the original centralised control and planning of production, distribution and prices in Eastern European countries, including Russia and Eastern Germany, has had to be modified in the direction of decentralising decision making and allowing the market forces of profits and competitive prices to operate, more on the lines of Western Capitalism. He also tries to foresee further changes that will be forced on the governments concerned.

Dr. Sirc approaches his subject as if it is a study of the problems and failures of Socialism, but once this absurdity is discounted the reader will find in the book many facts and figures illustrating the inescapable capitalist pressures at home and in the world market which have compelled the governments to change their economic and political policies and will continue to do so.

His central theme is that “the old Stalinist Soviet model was very inefficient”, producing as it did, “goods which nobody wants to buy . . . productive capacities which cannot be used, keep personal consumption very low and causes foreign trade difficulties”.

He stresses the point that inefficient centralised control resulted in industries carrying a labour force in excess of their real needs so that when the efficiency is raised by various reforms large scale unemployment appears; hence the movement of thousands of Yugoslavs into Germany, Austria and Sweden and the efforts of the Hungarian government to find work for unemployed Hungarians in Eastern Germany and Russia. Czechoslovakia faces the same problem.

An interesting parallel with this is the British Labour Government’s Selective Employment Tax and other measures designed to squeeze workers out of the distributive trades and induce them to go into production industries ― if they can find jobs there.

Inevitably, in view of Dr. Sirc’s assumption that he is dealing not with State capitalism but with Socialism, the alleged inadequacies of Marxism are brought under attack. Marx’s blueprint for the society of the future, and specifically its “Marxist-Leninist” offshoot, was he says, imprecise and inapplicable to the circumstances of the Eastern European countries under Communist Party dictatorship. He likewise finds that Marx’s historical materialism “has proved false”. To support his case he quotes the head of the Slovene government who argued that some private enterprise is essential in Yugoslavia and that “it is not worth while nationalising all productive processes”. He appears to be quite unaware that, as Marx well knew, nationalisation or state Capitalism is not Socialism.

Although the old, rigidly centralised, organisation is under growing attack among members of the governments and economists the claim that the new methods are also “Marxist” will no doubt continue, at least for many years. An interesting example comes from Yugoslavia, the country which has gone farthest in introducing decentralisation. Sir Fitzroy MacLean, Conservative M.P. recently interviewed Marshal Tito (Sunday Times July 6, 1969). MacLean summarised the present situation in Yugoslavia, following the reforms of 1965:-

  Under which individual, commercial and industrial enterprises dispose of their own funds, fix their own wages and prices and are almost entirely free from State interference or control, while vigorously competing among themselves.

MacLean also points out that the Yugoslav government allows in foreign capital and encourages “a measure of private enterprise.”

He asked Tito “Is all this good Marxism?” and got the answer : ―

  We ourselves believe that what we are doing is in strict accordance with the principles of Marxism-Leninism, especially in regard to the withering away of the State.

It remains to be seen, with regard to the economic changes themselves, how far Russia and the other Eastern Countries will be forced to follow the Yugoslav example.

One important factor in this is the need the Russian satellite countries have for foreign capital to speed up development. The West German government is reported to be discussing with the Polish government (at the latter’s invitation) plans to make German capital and technical aid available to build up Polish industry. Behind this, according to Herr Arndt, the German Minister concerned, is “that the Soviet Government is now admitting that it does not have the capacity to supply the necessary technical assistance to the Eastern countries on its own.” (Financial Times, 25 June 1967).

Edgar Hardcastle

The Foreigners in Our Midst (1945)

From the December 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

A young G.I., who seemed to think that he owned the earth, was behaving rudely to a tough-looking bus conductress. Instead of ticking him off as a rude young man the angry girl commenced a lengthy and colourful attack on all Americans. The "Yanks," so it seemed to her, were responsible for most of the evils of this unhappy world. This unpleasant incident is typical of thousands that are occurring all over England and Europe to-day, and it is not only the Americans who are indiscriminately attacked.

Under the most unfavourable circumstances the workers of many countries have mingled. German, Russian, British and American conscripts have in their turn performed the unenviable duties of armies of occupation. Individually the conquerors and conquered cannot hate one another, and "fraternisation," an old word with a new meaning, has been inevitable. But only the most romantic optimist can imagine that a real basis for international understanding can be established on the love-affairs of lonely and sex-starved British soldiers with the hungry women of Berlin. Armies of occupation cannot be ambassadors of goodwill.

But one might imagine that the mingling of allies might have more fruitful results. Let us look at the position in this country and judge for ourselves. For a decade or more England has become the permanent or temporary home of many opponents of Nazi Germany. First came the Jewish refugees, Germans, Austrians and Czechs who fled to avoid death, the Ghetto or the concentration camp, then the remnants of defeated armies, the Poles, the French, the Belgians, Dutch and Norwegians, and, lastly the American "champions of democracy." Most of these men and women came to this country not on a heroic mission but because they had no choice. Individual friendships between some of them and the "natives" have grown up, but on the whole many British workers (who are not alone in this respect) still retain their illogical and almost unconquerable aversion to foreigners.

In the uncertain days of peace national prejudice increases. With the end of Lease-Lend, grumbles against the Americans became louder; a Scottish town council urges the Government to send the Poles home; 3,000 residents of Hampstead want the aliens living among them expelled; the shadow of unemployment draws near and thoughtless workers voice the fear that foreign Jewish workers will steal their jobs, forgetting that in 1931, when there were more than 2½ million unemployed, the refugees had not arrived. The foreigners in our midst are blamed for the housing shortage, and the Evening Standard (by the way why doesn’t Beaverbrook return to Canada), always quick to turn working-class discontent into reactionary channels, gives prominence to a series of articles dealing with the number of houses and flats still occupied by refugee Governments in London. These houses are mostly in Mayfair, Belgravia and Kensington, and one wonders if the homeless workers of Stepney and Wandsworth could afford the rents which will be charged for them when they are evacuated. The Evening Standard does not complain of the waste of space in British Government offices, of unnecessary buildings such as Banks, income tax offices and Labour Exchanges, and it does not point out, for example, that one member of the British ruling-class with quite a small family does not need a vast town mansion as well as country residences at Sandringham, Balmoral and Windsor.

No, acquaintanceship at close quarters and under capitalist conditions with foreigners, however charming and well-behaved they may be, does not seem to further international friendship. But must the workers of the world always have feelings of suspicion, hatred and contempt towards each other? We Socialists do not think so. We are normal human beings, but we do not blame the strangers in our midst for all the minor and major evils of capitalism, and we address these words to our fellow workers for their consideration.

Workers must learn to think with their heads and not be guided by their feelings. They must understand, and they will do when they become Socialists, that there is a bond that unites them with their fellow workers, whether they are “enemies'' or “allies". This bond is not the superficial one of the same language, the same colour of skin, the same shape of nose, the same habits or allegiance to the same capitalist state, but the fundamental one of class interest. The workers of the world have one great task: to overthrow the system of their respective capitalistic masters and establish a world Socialist commonwealth, where the word “foreigner” will have no meaning.

John Moore

Socialism and the Labour Party (1945)

From the December 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Morgan Phillips, Secretary of the Labour Party, in the pamphlet, “What is this Labour Party?" states that: “The Labour movement is not a narrow restricted thing. It goes outside trade and class. Anyone can be in it. The test is simply political allegiance. If you believe in Socialism, then support the Labour Party." Take the basic national object of the Party as set out in the Constitution:—

  “To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry, and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible, upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service."

“That's Socialism," says Mr. Phillips.

“That’s nonsense!" says the Socialist Party, especially when Mr. Phillips adds "and the method by which its objectives can be fully attained is Public Enterprise,” which turns out to be the old Labour Party gag “Nationalisation,” vide “Let us face the future,” the Labour election fairy tale.

Let us briefly analyse the “Object" of the Labour Party. First, “To secure for the workers, by hand or by brain, the full fruits of their industry.”

We have never yet discovered anyone who can use his hands without using his brain, neither has biological science. It is possible to use the brain without using the hands, but most work is done by both in consonance.

It is utterly impossible to “secure the full fruits of their industry ” to “the workers.” “The workers” can only mean the working class under capitalism—“the workers” will be transformed into members of the Socialist community by Socialism—under capitalism “the workers” will always secure wages—which can ONLY be a small fraction of the wealth they produce. Even under Socialism the producer will NOT receive the full product of his toil, as Marx indicated to the German Labour Party seventy years ago—all organised society necessitates certain social charges on the social wealth, education, hospitals, maintenance of the aged, administration, etc. (Gotha programme). What the “most equitable distribution” of the “full fruits” of the “worker's industry” is supposed to mean, nobody knows!

If it is meant to mean that, under Socialism, everybody will receive an exactly equal share of the social wealth— that non-smokers, for example, will get a “share” of cigarettes daily, or vegetarians be compelled to take two pork chops in the week, it is not Socialism, but “crude equalitarianism,” denounced by Marx and others in the last century. Socialism does not mean the abolition of personal divergences of individual taste—it means free distribution according to the single test of NEED. Indeed, individual taste will secure real recognition for the first time in history.

If it means "equitable distribution” under capitalism— i.e., what the Labour Party flogged when it was OUT of office—a re-distribution of existing wealth in the workers' favour (capital levy, etc., etc.), this is NOT Socialism—but moonshine.

But the cream of the joke is the Labour Party s frantic attempt to acquire a "Socialistic" flavour by its formulation of its object as the “common ownership of the means of production, distribution, AND EXCHANGE."

We defy Mr. Phillips, the Secretary, or that pompous little gasbag, Professor Laski, the Chairman, or Mr. Greenwood, the Treasurer, or any member or official of the Labour Party to tell us what this means!

It is utterly and completely meaningless!

Let us patiently explain all over again. Exchange is a social relation of private owners. Socialism abolishes exchange by free distribution. Socialists under Socialism will ALL commonly OWN. Whom Mr. Phillips will find to exchange the full fruits of his industry with, under Socialism, we can't think!

Common ownership of the "means of exchange" means precisely "common ownership of private ownership.” In other words the subject cancels out the predicate—it is a perfect contradiction meaning nothing—which is what the Labour Party really stands for (except jobs for leaders).

The final phrase of the Labour Party's object, "the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service," is pure rhetoric.

It might be asked, if what has been said is true, how is it that a large party like the Labour Party, with many quite clever members, can formulate its objects so stupidly? The answer is, firstly, that it is by no means so silly as it might seem.

To understand how the Labour Party Constitution and Object has been formulated one must investigate the history and character of that organisation.

Briefly the present Object of the Labour Party has evolved grown-up, with the times, and is an attempt to combine attracting enthusiastic class-conscious workers, who have got to do the local spade work of the Party, by convincing them that it stands for Socialism, and catching the votes of ordinary electors, who just want something NOW ("full fruits," etc.).

The "common ownership" phrases were introduced at Margate and Edinburgh after the last war. The discussion around them was the same as always take place, for instance, on Compensation at Bournemouth. The "responsible leaders" tell the conference that it is not "practical politics"—that it "will prejudice the Party’s future," etc.; in other words— that it may lose votes. The same debate took place on full versus partial nationalisation. Every Socialist party propagandist knows the look of blank incredulous amazement which comes over the countenances of well-meaning Labour Party members, who sincerely believe the statements of Morgan Phillips and the Executive that the Labour Party is a Socialist Party—when the object of the Party is analysed.

It is only equalled by the expression of dumbfounded astonishment on the Socialist’s face when the Labour man says finally, "Well, what does it matter, anyway!"

People who wouldn't dream of calling in a "doctor who had not a scientific training, or let a "dentist" put a drill in their mouths who did not know the name of one tooth from another, trust their social welfare to politicians whose real aims they never closely examine. The Labour Party does not stand for Socialism. Its declared object is a meaningless phrase.

The best comment on it was made by Lord Snowden :—

   "It (the Labour Party) gained its former political strength neither from its Socialist idealism nor its election programme. It was an electoral refuge for a vague discontent.
   The old political parties had failed. Here was a new party which made the social condition of the people its claim to popular support.
   Millions of men and women who know nothing about Socialism, and who have never read the Labour programme, vote for Labour candidates because they believe that this is a party which is going to do something—they don’t know what—to improve their condition.
    I have been in this programme-making business for forty years. I have always realised its futility. Every programme in which I have had a hand I have seen discarded and another put in its place, later to share the fate of its predecessor."—(Snowden, Sunday Express, October 16th, 1932.)

Horatio.

Squatters and the Housing Problem (1969)

From the April 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

The plight of the homeless has once again made headline news in the daily press with the occupation of a block of luxury flats in London. It should come as no surprise to anyone that one of the oldest problems of capitalism, that of providing cheap accommodation for the working class, is still as acute as it ever was, after 120 years of various reforms and measures introduced by a succession of Tory, Liberal, and Labour governments.

The number of people involved in the 'squat-ins' now going on is extremely small compared with the number of homeless people who occupied empty camps under the control of the War Ministry just after the Second World War. One estimate put the number of squatters then involved at about 45,000. Of course conditions after the war were exceptional, as is to be expected when the warring national capitalist classes of the world have blasted one another's cities by aerial bombardment. Nevertheless no member of the British capitalist class whose home had been bombed ever had to move into an unoccupied army camp. This was something suffered only by the working class.

On October 11, 1946, statistics given by Aneurin Bevan revealed that 1,038 camps in England and Wales were occupied by 39,535 people. On Sept. 5 G. Buchanan, the then Under-Secretary of State, gave figures showing that in Scotland squatters numbered about 1,300 families comprising 4,000 people. Squatting on a considerable scale also took place in Northern Ireland.

Not all of the properties occupied by the squatters were army camps. Like their present-day counterparts, who took over the block of luxury flats in Snaresbrook, London, they showed impeccable taste by installing themselves in such residences as a 17-room vicarage in Shropshire, a 17th-century 40-room house owned by Vesta Tilley, a house in Finsbury owned by the Marquis of Northampton, and Litley Court, Hereford. A number of high-class properties in London were also taken over. Then, as now, the only reason for the properties being allowed to remain empty was that there were no buyers able or willing to pay the price demanded. Housing, like everything under capitalism, is produced for sale to realise profit or to be rented for the highest amount obtainable.

In 1946 Kensington and Marylebone had thousands of empty flats and houses, while their combined housing lists totalled 7,367. A similar situation prevails today in the same boroughs, especially in the Notting Hill area, with blocks of luxury flats virtually nestling side-by-side with crumbling tenements, large numbers of which are awaiting demolition, whose residents have been compelled by high rates and rents to seek accommodation elsewhere.

The policy of the majority of councils just after the war with regard to squatters is in sharp contrast with that of councils today, which is to evict them as quickly as possible from any property they occupy. In 1946 squatters were actually encouraged in their actions by councils, Scunthorpe acting first by taking over three army camps, after making prior arrangements with the Ministry of Health. Some councils failed to get Ministerial consent to take over camps, while some councils, like Reading, resisted the squatters from the start, cutting off electricity and threatening to remove their names from the housing list.

Twenty-three years after what must surely have been the biggest 'squat-in' of all time, the homeless are still with us and are still resorting to the same desperate measures to get a roof over their heads. In the Greater London area alone there are 170,000 families on the housing list and about 9,000 people in local authority hostels. The story is the same for the rest of the country, the acuteness of the problem varying from place to place, so much so that the claim of Kenneth Robinson, Minister of Planning and Land, that there would be a surplus of one million houses by 1973 sounds pretty hollow when it is realised that of a total of 17½  million dwellings in England three million (17 per cent) are irredeemable slums . . .

Even a bigger allocation of houses will not remove all today's slums by 1990, let alone 1975. Yet a target of 500,000 houses per year, if sustained throughout the early 1970s, will demand three times the present rate of slum clearance (Economist, October 14, 1967). Changes in the classification of housing could enlarge this estimate of the number of slums, making an even bigger problem of rehousing.

The Socialist Party supports the efforts of workers to improve their housing conditions under capitalism — even by squatting. But socialists also point out that there is no solution to the housing problem inside capitalism, and even if the agitation of those who support the squatters succeeds for the families they are now trying to help, future generations will still face the same misery and hardship of homelessness. Only in a society in which production is carried on solely to satisfy human wants, without anyone having to worry about where next week's rent or next month's mortgage repayment is coming from, will the housing problem find a solution.

Lawrence Brown

Ownership Means Control (1969)

From the April 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

The question of the ownership of the means of production has been, and continues to be, the most vital factor in any discussion of major social problems. Since capitalism rests upon a foundation of class ownership of the means of production, then the obvious solution to those problems (such as war, poverty and insecurity) inherent in the capitalist system is the establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership of the means of production, namely Socialism.

At various time, however, individuals and groups claiming to be socialist have put forward the view that not "ownership" but "control" is the vital issue. This is sheer confusion since they are trying to separate that which is really inseparable. Common ownership and democratic control go hand in hand; one is quite impossible without the other.

The reason for this attempt to pose the question of "control" against that of ownership would appear to lie in commonly held illusions as to the nature of the Russian revoution, and subsequent events in that and other countries that modelled themselves on the Russian example. If you think that the 1917 revolution was socialist, and by implication that the working class gained control of the state and transformed the means of production from class to common property, then it is not too difficult to understand why, on any examination of the subsequent dictatorship and repression, that resort should be made to the excuse of "bureaucratisation" and "administrative failures", and attention diverted to ideas of workers' control in the factory.

In fact, of course, far from being a Socialist revolution, it was the capitalist revolution or at least a phase of it, resultinging from the inability of the traditional bourgeoisie to carry through its historic task. The two essential pre-requisites of a socialist revolution were missing, namely an advanced level of technology and industrial development; and a majority of workers organised for the specific purpose of establishing Socialism. Despite industrial development in some of the larger towns Russia was largely a backward feudal economy. Some 80 per cent or more of the population were peasants, and of the small working class only a minority could have understood and desired the establishment of Socialism. The involvement of individuals or groups who may have understood and genuinely desired Socialism could not, and did not, change the role of the revolution, which was to completely break the political and economic influence of the Tsarist nobility, and develop capitalist industry in competition with the established capitalist powers as rapidly as possible.

Even had the Russian working class wanted Socialism, nobody should have expected the European working class to come to their rescue. Whilst the membership of and support for the European Social-Democratic parties was certainly on a mass scale, it had been gained not on a revolutionary, but on a reform, programme. What developed in Russia— which also was imposed upon Eastern Europe, and is developing to-day in China, Cuba, N. Vietnam and elsewhere —is, in fact, state capitalism.

When this is realised the question of "control" becomes much clearer, though it takes on a somewhat different meaning from that generally attached to it by the so-called left-wing. The capitalist class maintains its position of privilege through its control of the state (and not the other way around as some would have us believe). In Russia by far the larger part of the means of production are owned by the State, which is controlled by a political elite, carrying out the same functions as the traditional capitalist class of America and Europe, The important distinction is, that while in Britain and America the capitalist class own individually through the holding of stock, shares and bonds, in Russia the capitalist class owns collectively.

The task facing workers all over the world is the same: organisation along class lines for the overthrow of international capitalism and the establishment of a world Socialist society. The task of Socialists is clear. Since Socialism is a democratic society based upon voluntary work and co-operation, then its establishment and survival depends upon the conscious, organised action of the majority of the working class. On the economic front Socialists must do all in their power to encourage the development of democratic organisation and processes for the defence of workers wages and conditions. But more than this is needed: the organisation of a revolutionary Socialist party seeking understanding on the single issue of capitalism or Socialism, and reflecting the
 society it seeks to establish, by being completely under the control of the whole of its membership.

Mike Ballard

Fine Words (1945)

From the December 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

"There must be a change of heart, if Peace is to become something better than an uneasy interval between wars."

The above is a quotation from a speech by the Prime Minister, Mr. Attlee, before the T.U.C. Conference at Blackpool, as reported in the Star (September 12th, 1945).

We have heard it all before somewhere, and it is in fact a political-cum-religious gramophone record which apparently still has plenty of life in it.

Whenever working class conditions under capitalism are aggravated by particular crises within the system, such as wars and depressions, then the master class or their representatives bring the full force of their propaganda machine into play to befog the minds of workers and to distract them from the real causes of their problems. As we see from the above, the Labour leader is no exception; in fact we find that he develops the hypocrisy still further by stating that, “however perfect a machinery we may devise, it cannot be worked without the power of the spirit. A new world order cannot be made by Governments."

This is particularly interesting when we recall the eloquence of Mr. Attlee and his associates in claiming, prior to the election, that a Labour Government could and would cure everything from poverty to war.

Continuing his speech, Mr. Attlee said: “There is only one principle that can save the world, the principle you practise in your great movements, the Christian principle that all men are brothers one of another.” Strange words indeed from the man who actually participated in the direction of the war in which 30,000,000 workers were slaughtered, strange words indeed from the man who presided over the meeting which launched upon the world the indiscriminate destruction of the atomic bomb.

All history has been full of such “fine words.” Plato used them over 2,000 years ago to keep down the murmurings of the chattel slave community at Athens; in 1945 Mr. Attlee uses them to keep down the murmurings of the wage slave community in this country.

Just as the “fine words" of Plato were a means to an end, the end being the perpetuation of the City State and the domination by the aristocratic class of all other classes, so Mr. Attlee's “fine words” have a similar end, namely, the safeguarding of the private property institution and the maintenance of the master class as the dominating class in modern society; and this domination and privilege of the master class can only be maintained by the exploitation and oppression of the only useful section in society, the working class.

So the message of Socialists to their fellow members of the working class is, “Beware, 'fine words' "; the history of class domination is full of them.

Ronald L. Griffin

Barcelona conference (1989)

From the January 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Late last year there took place in Barcelona an international conference on the future of society. The idea was for a large number of speakers from across the world to take part in a week of discussion and debate on the question of social change. Contributors were to be of diverse political persuasions, so that the outcome would be representative, and conferences would be continued annually in different parts of the world over five years, returning to Barcelona in 1992. This first conference was timed to mark the twentieth anniversary of the events of 1968, and the radical pronouncements in the advance programme appeared promising, speaking enthusiastically of “a change in civilisation", "models for the future" and even the need to "transform society".

Having been offered the opportunity to take part in all of the seminars and debates. and to address one of the sessions, I was quite willing to see of what use this forum could be in the urgent task of propagating socialist ideas. This was in spite of the fact that speakers included certain philosophers of the "New Right”; unlike some political dim-wits of the Left who refuse to debate with those they allegedly disagree with, socialists are prepared to discuss and debate with political opponents of all persuasions. This is a point of principle based on our view that socialist revolution can only come with the winning over of a clear majority to our ideas. We can and must defeat in argument all kinds of antiquated myths which are peddled by many workers on behalf of their employers.

On arrival at the conference, however, all of my worst fears were confirmed. Although originally organised by a small group of ex-Trotskyists based around the University, the event had grown and begun to attract major sponsorship in a way that verged on the sinister and would have been comical had the wasted opportunity not been so obvious. The sponsors, it turned out. included the Sony Corporation, various banks and even government bodies. These financial institutions clearly knew a thing or two about buying off dissent, but with this intellectual mob the process clearly came pretty cheaply. Even the grandiose conference auditorium itself was situated in a bank!

The conference was opened by speeches full of pious waffle from non-entities such as a government minister and the Chairman of the bank in question. Anyone attending, other than the hundred or so invited speakers, had to pay ninety dollars just to take part. Almost all the main participants were senior academics of various disciplines. Lively debate was prevented by methods ranging from restricting to a few minutes at the end of a session, questions from the floor" to the outright censorship of taking points in writing for selection by the platform speakers.

Despite all these and other limitations, I was able to ensure that the genuine expression of socialism was heard loud and clear in several of the sessions, as well as in the text presented at one of the seminars (see separate article). It is, however, worth considering in detail some of the nonsense spoken, as this proved in the end to be a classic example of the chaos which results when capitalism's apologists try to give the system a new lease of life by discussing so-called 'alternatives” within it.

At the outset, the excited auditorium of two hundred or so were warned by an anthropologist called Buxó not to contemplate any return to the structures or values of primitive anthropological forms: far better no doubt to stick with the civilised certainties of the bomb and the dole queue. Lester Ruiz from New York spoke of the "deconstructivist" efforts facing us all, and the need for spiritual transformation. An ex-Communist party member from Paris called Garaudy stated that millions were dying of hunger while wheat is destroyed, but then showed his reluctance to leave the CP behind by singing the praises of Gorbachev and declaring his conversion to Islam. A born-again Christian called for a "mixed economy" with “God at the centre and love at its heart". A Communist Party member and philosopher from Georgia, Merab Mamardashvili, spoke of the need for metaphysical rebirth and mourned the passing of the “pre-revolutionary spirit" of Tsarism, while insisting that as a Marxist and Party member, he knew what he was saying and “allowed" himself to say it. "The capitalist system does not exist", he went on, and “life, in the strict sense of the term, is impossible". Even the simultaneous-translation interpreters were in stitches of laughter at this learned philosopher's ramblings. which culminated with the classic plea (quoted here verbatim) that: "I hope you understand me because I have difficulty in understanding what I’m saying myself". This comment would make a fitting epitaph to much of the pompous event itself. Meanwhile, students and scholars in the aisles scribbled notes furiously and the next philosopher was helped to the stage.

Maximilien Rubel, who has written several times to the Letters column of the Socialist Standard, chided the conference for ignoring the threat of nuclear war and pointed out Marx's recognition that the majority most affected by social problems must act to end their cause — the market system itself. He spoke against the state capitalist Russian Empire and attacked in advance next year's Paris celebration of 1789. adding that rather than “indulge in vanity of inventing new cultures", the speakers should declare themselves against “the insane nihilism of the political barbarians" who own and control the world. Rubel also pointed out that 1968 was a useless starting point unless it was recognised as a complete failure. Like others who spoke some sense or showed tell-tale signs of having ventured beyond their studies during the past year, he was patronised and dismissed by both the organisers and the majority present.

While these enthusiastic “experts" pontificated in a bank, the streets of Barcelona overflowed with some of the worst poverty in Europe. We were surrounded by social problems of which many speakers seemed ignorant, as they shunned as too “political" any talk of the majority repossessing the earth as the necessary prelude to any real social change. An official survey in the old quarter of Barcelona in 1985 found 25 per cent of the children there suffering malnutrition and more than half of the families living in sub-standard housing. Life expectancy was ten times lower than in other districts. These and other statistics were lucidly presented in a television documentary shown late last year (Cities Fit to Live In: Salud. Barcelona, TVE Barcelona/ Channel Four, November 1988), which ended with this refreshing piece of honest commentary:

  In the nineteenth century, Barcelona fought to demolish the stone walls hemming her in. The challenge she faces today is to bring down the invisible walls that divide one citizen from another, and to set all her citizens on an equal footing. Only then will it be possible to talk about health as a state of total physical, mental and social well-being, and not simply an absence of illness.

Clifford Slapper

Human Nature and Morality (1989)

From the February 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

After Marx died there grew up a legend that his theory of social causation was too narrowly mechanistic to provide accommodation for any sort of ethics. No doubt Marx, in combating the sentimental “moralising” of certain Utopian contemporaries who called themselves “the True Socialists”, had leaned so far backward as to give semblance if not substance for fathering on him views whose alleged paternity he would have disclaimed.

The humanistic socialism combated by Marx, like its contemporary counterpart, was a pseudo-political trend, inspired by the literati, philosophers and pundits. Moses Hess was for a time their most representative spokesman. For the early humanists as with the latter day ones, socialism was not a question of “by bread alone”  – even though bread might be included. Socialism was primarily a question of moral values. Stress was laid on brotherly love, the dignity of man and concern for the individual. From such political piety, socialism came to be defined as “the ethics of love”. Then, socialism took the guise of contemporary humanism. Now, humanism assumes the role of contemporary socialism.

Like many of the views Marx fought against, the arguments of the True Socialists have turned up over and over again in a variety of social situations, tricked out each time in fresh frills and flounces, as if making their first bow on the stage of world history.

Humanism the classless ethic

Common to all shades of this humanistic approach is the tenet that socialism is not basically a question of economic interests but humanitarian ideals. Not a matter for the stomach, but an affair of the heart, and that a moral revolution must be the prelude to the social revolution. Not only, argue the humanists, have men and women altruistic feelings, but implicit in these feelings are the ideals of communism. All that is necessary is to encourage and help promote these altruistic tendencies, to actualise the Brotherhood of Man based on universal love.

If our true nature is some residual and permanent quality of the human species, then every individual is at least in embryo a communist. But what the right kind of social conditions necessary for this are, the humanists all through the ages have been very vague about. Again, if our essence is our “true nature”, then this human essence transcends all social systems and classes. Landed proprietors, capitalists, peasants and wage workers are all equally capable of actualising their “true nature” into the communist way of life. Thus, while many humanists have called for the abolition of all classes they have done so in the name of an abstract classless ethic. While they will admit that the class struggle itself is inevitably engendered by the competitive character of capitalist society, they nevertheless hold that it militates against the growth of humanistic ideals by giving emphasis to material differences instead of stressing human sameness. Many humanists have even talked about the necessity of prosecuting the class struggle, but how can one ask people to disregard class interests and then call upon one class to oppose another?

Human nature as an historic variable

The ethical assumptions of all varieties of what is called the humanistic socialist view are based on the fixity of human nature. They share this view with theological theorists, the difference being that the former hold that this basic human nature is good and the latter that it is bad. Marx denied that human nature can be placed in such absolute categories. Both Marx and Engels held that human nature was not an absolute constant but an historic variable. In fact, they always insisted that the “human nature” to which humanists and the clericalists appeal, each in their different ways, cannot serve as a guide to social organisation. It is not human nature which explains society, but society which explains human nature. There is no given human nature independent of time and place. There is only an historical human nature, that is a specific expression of human nature in a definite social context. To put it more precisely, to understand the nature of the human one must understand the nature of the society in which humans live. When we adopt such a criterion we discover that there is no immutable human nature, no homogeneous pattern to which a universal appeal can be made for the justification of concrete social questions. There can be no overall moral agreement or ethical unity in a social system split by class interests and antagonisms.

Class demands v. ethical neutrality

Contrary to what humanists believe, all ethics can be shown to have a class bias in a class system, and further there can be no genuine class ethic unless backed by class demands. That is why on concrete social issues one cannot appeal to “Man” or “the normal human”. Neither is there some ethically neutral tribunal to which opposing class rights can be impartially referred.

Capitalist society consists of buyers and sellers of labour-power. The worker as a seller of labour-power cannot assert his or her “right” to maintain or improve living standards via ethical appeal or moral law. Nor is the capitalist under a moral obligation to waive or even remit in any way the unpaid labour of the worker — profit — back in the form of increased wages. Not only has the capitalist a legal right to profit, but from his standpoint a moral right as well. Behind this moral right stands custom, tradition, religion, the classless ethic — and the State. As Marx points out in Capital, “There is here, therefore, an antimony, right against right, both equally bearing the seal of the law of exchange. Between equal rights, force decides”.

In a society such as capitalism, based on a permanent class conflict, there can be no genuine appeal to a neutral ethics. That is why Marx never invoked Humanity, Justice or Mercy as agencies for solving social struggle. For the same reason he rejected the abstract classless morality of Kant and Christ. Morality for Marx is not eternal or natural but active and social. Morality to be genuinely effective must be based on needs, and in a class society on class needs. It is true that ethical ideals, like truth, duty, honour and human rights, acquire a seeming eternal form. But social analysis shows while the forms of these ideals are the same, their nature differs from social epoch to social epoch and from class to class. So if the question is posed: whose truth? whose duty? what human rights?, one will find in the answer a class standpoint. Crack the shell of a classless absolute ethic hard enough and the kernel of a class interest will be found. Marxist ethics do not invoke “Truth”, “Duty” and “Altruism” but demand a state of affairs where these things have a different content from the existing ruling morality. Humility or self assertion, unselfishness or selfishness are themselves neither virtuous nor vicious; it is the actual social situation which gives them their truly moral quality.

The demand for the abolition of classes is a concrete class demand, engendered by a specific social situation. For the working class to be concerned with the plight of its “enemies” is itself a policy of despair whose ultimate logic is the perpetuation of capitalism. That is why we reject the classless ethic of religious theory and the school of bourgeois morality with its intuitive ethics based on the private individual. For such moral views turn out to be a disguised defence of the status quo.

Obituary: Vic Heeley (1989)

Obituary from the March 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

We were sad to learn of the death last year of Comrade Vic Heeley, who more than fifty years ago left the National Secular Society to join our Manchester Branch. Vic will be long remembered by members living and visiting the area in the twenty years he was active there, in particular for his enthusiastic selling of the Socialist Standard. When he moved to Cornwall in the 1950s he continued to propagate our ideas vigorously and maintain contact with other members, in spite of his isolation and poor health. We salute his memory.

AGA

Intervention USA (1989)

From the April 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

In these days of the enterprise culture, government involvement in industry, commerce, banking and other economic activities is not the flavour of the month. Market forces are in and intervention, or so we are told, is out.

Indeed it would appear that this is true, for all over the world, in Britain, France, Australia and elsewhere, governments have been getting rid of much of what is called “the public sector”. In fact nationalisation, the main form of government involvement in a nation’s economic activity and once seen as a device which would solve all of capitalism’s economic and social problems, is more or less a dead duck.

So obvious is this even to politicians of “the left” that the Labour Party here doesn’t intend to re-nationalise all the Tory sell-offs of the last decade, while in the so-called communist countries private enterprise is being encouraged to compete with ailing state enterprise.

From deregulation…

However, even in such times as these, governments still have to step in and intervene when they think that the interest of the national capitalist class is in danger. For example, in the United States, the very heartland of non-intervention, there has been the growing problem of the Savings and Loans banks. These S and Ls are the rough equivalent of Britain’s building societies and hundreds of them have gone bust while hundreds more are insolvent. Their losses were $6.8 billion in 1987 and $3.8 billion in the first quarter of 1988, although depositors are covered by a government insurance agency.

How did this happen? Just as nationalisation was once seen as the great cure-all, nowadays it is “deregulation” which fills the bill. This means that enterprises in an industry no longer have to conform to laid-down government regulations but are freer to operate as they see fit. This, it is claimed, will produce a capitalism without its attendant problems, will provide greater all-round prosperity, and so on.

Thus the S and Ls were allowed by the Carter administration in 1980 to borrow, not only from small investors for re-lending as mortgages as previously, but from the money markets at ever higher rates of interest. This laid them wide open to trouble, which duly arrived when the Reagan administration further deregulated by allowing the now exposed S and Ls to move into high-risk lending for big property deals and other get-rich-quick schemes of which they had no experience. The result was the spate of bankruptcies and insolvencies already mentioned.

… to regulation

At present the insolvent S and Ls keep afloat by continuing to borrow at high interest rates and their debts are estimated to be increasing by $35 million a day. Sooner or later the government will have to foot the ever-mounting bill. The implications of this are serious for American capitalism. How can it ever tackle its massive budget deficit of $150 billion while it throws away billions at this rate? More seriously, many American banks have collapsed in recent years (almost 200 in 1987 alone) and the additional collapse of hundreds more S and Ls could trigger a disastrous loss of public confidence in the entire American banking system. The Administration have therefore intervened to try to stop the rot.

Bush and his financial advisers have come up with a plan calling for a one hundred billion dollar issue of new bonds to bail out the S and Ls. The interest on the bonds is to be paid to the government by the S and Ls and the other banks though higher premiums for Federal insurance of all bank deposits. Critics of the plan say it breaks Bush’s election promise of “no new taxes” as “the taxpayer”, in the form of the banks’ customers, will have the extra premium passed onto them through higher bank charges. But this will not necessarily happen because the customers may refuse to pay up, in which case the banks and S and Ls will have to bear the extra cost themselves.

This rescue package also calls for a leaner and fitter S and L industry to be taken over and run by another government agency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and amounts to back-door nationalisation. So whatever their ideological preferences any government will make use of intervention, even despised nationalisation, when it suits “the national interest”.

All of this reinforces the Socialist Party’s view that whether government use less intervention or more, they are helpless in avoiding capitalism’s pitfalls.

Vic Vanni

Editorial: Thatcheritis (1989)

Editorial from the May 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is now ten years since Margaret Thatcher, the grocer’s daughter from Grantham, became Prime Minister. Since then she has earned her place in the Guinness Book of Records. First woman Prime Minister, longest-serving Prime Minister, only Prime Minister to win three successive general elections. She has also earned a reputation for being heartless and indifferent to the lot of ordinary people and concerned only about helping the rich. No wonder she is so intensely disliked by so many people.

She has indeed been the head of an openly pro-capitalist government that has deliberately set out to attack the working class. Her government has legislated against the unions — the only effective weapon workers have to defend themselves under capitalism — and reduced the payments the State pays to workers not in employment. It has ended subsidised housing and made workers pay for a whole range of services which in the past were available on a free basis (the latest being eye tests). It has reintroduced the Victorian distinction between the deserving and the undeserving poor and again made submission to a Means Test a condition for access to most State benefits.

It would, however, be a mistake to attribute the sufferings workers have had to endure over the past ten years to the actions of one particular capitalist politician, however ill-intentioned, class-prejudiced and domineering she might be. There is no such thing as Thatcherism as something different and worse than ordinary capitalism. What Thatcher has done is to have presided over the operation of capitalism during the worst part of the slump phase of its economic cycle. During such a period redundancies and unemployment reach a maximum and governments are forced to slash social benefits as a way of lowering the tax burden on the reduced profits of capitalist enterprises.

When Thatcher endlessly repeated “There Is No Alternative” she was in fact displaying a clearer understanding of how capitalism works than did the Labour and other opposition politicians. There really was no alternative (apart from socialism, of course). Any government of capitalism during the worst part of a slump would have had to behave in essentially the same way. In short, it was capitalism not Thatcher that has been responsible.

What has distinguished Thatcher has been style rather than content. Whereas other politicians, even Tory ones, would have apologised for having to take the measures capitalism was imposing on them, not Mrs Thatcher. She applied them enthusiastically, seeing them as steps in the cultural revolution from “dependency culture” to “enterprise culture” she believes it her mission to carry out. She has openly proclaimed her aim to be the complete eradication of “State Socialism”, by which she means the theory and practice of the Labour Party — nationalisation, government intervention, redistribution of wealth from rich to poor by means of improved State benefits, subsidised housing, transport and other services — what should more properly be called state capitalism. What she wants is “to roll back the frontiers of the State” and allow the freest possible operation of the forces of the market. In this respect she is more of a Free Trade Liberal than a Tory.

The Labour Party in power has indeed been a failure — the Labour governments of the sixties and seventies not only failed to improve working class living standards as promised, but worsened them for many workers while at the same time mismanaging the finances of the capitalist State by massively inflating the currency — but this has not been the failure of Socialism. It has been the failure of reformism and state capitalism to which we in the Socialist Party have always been opposed.

Unfortunately, this has been seen as the failure of Socialism and has allowed the intellectual defenders of capitalism to seize the initiative. The Free Marketeers re-emerged from the dustbins of history to preach laissez-faire, the survival of the fittest (the profitable) and death to lame ducks and other weaklings and to proclaim that capitalism, profits, inequality, the market were no longer dirty words. Indeed their views can almost be said to have become the official State ideology under Thatcher. Faced with this intellectual offensive, the leaders of the Labour Party have conceded defeat and now promise to run the market economy better than the Tories. Few believe them and most of their activists remain nostalgic for state capitalism, but in any event capitalism whether private or state can only run in one way: as a profit-making system in the interest of a profit-taking class.

So workers should not be taken in by the so-called Thatcherite Revolution which is essentially only window-dressing, one of a number of possible ideological justifications for what any government of capitalism would have been forced to do under the same circumstances. Indeed, the Labour governments in Australia and New Zealand have pursued the same policies, not excluding the denationalisation measures particularly associated with Thatcher.

It is for this reason that we say that Thatcherism is a myth and refuse to fall for calls for the return of a Labour government or some anti-Thatcher coalition. Capitalism without Thatcher would remain capitalism, and it is capitalism and not Mrs Thatcher that is the cause of the problems facing wage and salary workers.

Why the Left Needs a Thatcher (1989)

From the May 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

So, Thatcher is dead, the victim of a rotten egg that she told the workers it was safe to eat. The offending chicken has been ritually slaughtered by the Guildford Association of Conservative Ladies. The funeral cortege passes slowly through the streets of London, which have been cleared of beggars the night before. Behind the coffin march vast rows of stockbrokers and workers with red-rimmed glasses and portable telephones; they have gone from deepest Surrey and deepest Sussex, from Hants and Herts and Bucks and Beds. In Dorset the firm selling black armbands (made by cheap labour in Hong Kong, of course) is expecting a boom. The cops and soldiers, saddened by the loss of an Empress, pacified by the overtime bonus paid out for funeral duties, march tearfully. Behind them shuffle the silly old proles who will weep at anything: they wept when Charles and Di got married and when the Queen Mother swallowed a trout bone (who would have believed she’d outlive Thatcher) and when The Firm got Dirty Den in East Enders. They cried with joy when they received the letter telling them that Maggie was going to let them buy their council slum, and with fear when a letter came informing them that the whole estate had been bought by a property company on the Isle of Dogs. The media whores march along, forgiving the old girl for her excesses; after all, she was a character to write about. And who is this tailing on to the procession? They are weeping more than anyone. They feel deserted, they have lost a cause, Satan has descended to Hell and the children of righteousness have no-one to blame for their misfortunes. With Thatcher goes into the grave Thatcherism: a decade of leftist illusion being carried away to be chewed up by the worms. What will they do without her?

Doing what the system demands
The British Left needs Margaret Thatcher. Bankrupt of ideas or vision, all that is left for them to do is detest hers. The Left rarely talks of capitalism—except, as at the Labour conference last year, when Kinnock said that his government would have to run it better than the Tories. The aim of the left-wing has always been to establish state capitalism, the profit system planned centrally by a miracle-performing state. Eight Labour governments have demonstrated that the miracle cannot be performed. Whoever runs it, the capitalist system must exploit and oppress the working class; that is its inherent nature. So, the debate on the Left is about how to run capitalism. And to do the job as ruthlessly and callously as the system demands has come to be called Thatcherism.

Most of the Thatcher policies are hated by the Left for good reasons. Thatcher is a militant class warrior. Not even The Daily Express would ever have called Wilson or Callaghan that. Laws have been passed in the past ten years which have hurt workers and blunted our instruments of self-defence. The unions have taken a battering; services like the NHS, which Labour had boasted was the cream of the reformist gains, have been attacked and then attacked again. It is understandable that many workers see in Thatcher the personification of all that is wrong in society. The question they must ask themselves is, Would society have been a much better place to live in had Thatcher never come into office? The answer, based on the hard evidence of history, is that Thatcher has not been governing capitalism, but that it has governed her. Just as it governed the Labour government before she came to power. That is why the last Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, Denis Healey, introduced the policy of monetarism as a means of cutting the state budget in a bid to deal with inflation. It was under the last Labour government that expenditure limits within the NHS were first introduced. It was the last Labour government which took on the low-paid workers of NUPE and NALGO in the winter of 1978—when Callaghan told the unions that they would have to take cuts in real wages. Back in the mid-Seventies there were “Fight the Cuts” rallies being organised across the country. Whose cuts were being fought but those of the last Labour government? It was under the last Labour government that unemployment doubled to the then “wholly unacceptable” level of one and a half million.

And those Thatcher policies which Labour did not implement before 1979, they are now ready to accept as their own. Before 1979 Labour was opposed to British membership of the Common Market. Now they agree with Thatcher that Britain should stay in. Labour was opposed to selling off council houses. It is now Labour policy to sell them. Labour was opposed to selling off nationalised services, such as Telecom. It is now official Labour policy not to take back such services from private hands, lest the votes of the shareholders be lost. Labour made noises of opposition to the monstrous Tory laws aimed to limit union powers. Kinnock is now on record as opposing any substantial alteration to those laws in the event of a future Labour government. So, where does the Labour Party actually disagree with the wicked Thatcher who is supposed to stand for everything that they are against? Membership of NATO? Both parties agree that Britain should stay in. Troops in Ireland? Both parties want to keep them there. The nuclear bomb? With passionate unilateralists like Neil Kinnock, the men at the Pentagon need have no fears that both British parties of capitalism will be with them on the day. The chief differences between Thatcher and Kinnock are these: she admits to being a swine who will do whatever the system requires of her, he lies about it; she is in power, he is not.

What Lesser evil?
Some of the Left are of the view that capitalism has been fundamentally changed by the Thatcher years. It is no longer the same system. It is now a new phenomenon called Thatcherism. It is, to be frank, very difficult to know what such people are talking about. The Communist Party’s latest policy document New Times, claims that we are now living in a period of “post-Fordism” in which the old working class has disappeared and been replaced by a new Thatcherite breed. The CP’s response to these “new times” is to seek some sort of broad, popular front reform movement, comprising every brand of political timewaster from the SNP to the SDP, with a view to offering the voters a better lifestyle under the system than Thatcher has offered them. The entire theory is flawed by two basic mistakes.

Firstly, the working class never was just that group of people who wore cloth caps and worked on the line at Ford. “Post-Fordism” is a mourning at the funeral of a class which has not disappeared at all, but is now exploited in new areas of the economy. There are vastly more workers in the service industries now than in manufacturing, and over the last ten years the move away from making to selling has been a characteristic of the European and US economies. But the workers in these countries are still wage (and salary) slaves, legally robbed by their employers. You don’t have to be a miner to be in the class struggle.

Secondly, the assumption that the way to fight a system is to concentrate all of your forces into defeating its leader of the moment is as foolish politically as it would be militarily for the Warsaw Pact to imagine that it could win the next world war by knocking off the current head of NATO. The Communist Party theorists argue that the crucial battle is at election time when a non-Tory alliance must win the day and slay the Thatcherite dragon. But what if a new dragon in the form of an Owen or a Kinnock or a Hattersley is elected instead? Surely, it is the job description and not the person appointed to do the job which is the real issue. The point of the battle should be to put an end to the dirty job of running capitalism. But, disloyal to the working-class interest in its death throes as much as it was at the outset, the CP is of the view that it is better to have capitalism run by “the lesser evil”. And who are they, who spent most of their political history telling us that Stalin was “the lesser evil”, to advise the workers on such matters? The foolish tactical plans of Professor Eric Hobsbawm for a broad anti-Thatcher alliance are to the cause of socialism what Groucho was to Marxism.

Back in 1979 the Socialist Party took the same principled position that we take now. We are opposed to capitalism and all who seek to run it. We do not want reformed capitalism or the profit system better managed. We are not looking for “nice” leaders or any kind of leaders for the workers to follow. The wages system is against the interest of the workers and only workers’ self-emancipation will solve the problems that we face. We were told not to waste our time upon such revolutionary ambitions. Many on the Left urged us to join the Labour Party and achieve what little could be achieved. After all, that was the party of the workers, so we were told. The present writer was even urged by Neil Kinnock no less (when the latter was Shadow Minister of Education and the former was a persistent questioner at a meeting) to join the Labour Party and help swell the ranks of “real socialists”. We were told that with just a little harder push Tony Benn would take the leadership and set the world ablaze. Those who joined the Labour Party in 1979 have not had much for their subscription money. The Tories have won three elections, with millions of trade unionists voting for them, despite the fact that the union leaders count them in as affiliated members of the Labour Party. Foot was elected as Labour leader (to loud cheers from the Left) and proved to be an utter failure; then Kinnock was elected as the Left’s choice against Hattersley. Now Kinnock is detested by the Labour Left—before he has even had a chance to betray them in power.

Utter lack of principles
Most political commentators, and most of the more candid Labour leaders, do not think that the Labour Party will win the next general election. Indeed, a split in the Labour Party is on the cards. Where Labour is in power locally it has shown that it can be just as ruthless at cutting essential services as the Tories. In short, after ten years of degrading and unprincipled compromise of the few principles that they once had, the Left stands without much hope, without much support and with a few cranky theories of further opportunism about joining with Dr Owen, the Greens and the Nats to form a reformist alliance. The so-called hard left retreats annually to Chesterfield to lick its wounds, praise the achievements of Gorbachev and listen with devotion to the guru, Benn. The other hangers-on to the Labour Party (who have urged workers to vote for them in every election) have turned into parodies of themselves. The Workers’ Revolutionary Party is now busy singing the praises of the Russian dictators and the SWP has degenerated further than ever, existing now as a group engaged in a few single-issue reform campaigns, such as opposition to the poll tax and—the sign of real senility—support for the Khomeni regime in its territorial conflict with Iraq. The Left which warned the Socialist Party that we would be left behind while they stormed the fortress has been left seriously wounded, largely by its own utter lack of principles.

That is why the Left needs a Thatcher. It needs that hideous voice and that look of contempt that leaves you in no doubt that you are being politically abused by the woman even when she is simply telling you the time. The hope of the Left is that hatred of Thatcher will cover up the fact that the opposition has nothing to offer in her place. The Socialist Party does have a clear alternative to the mean-minded narrowness of what Thatcher stands for. And when Thatcher is cold in her grave and another despicable faker is mouthing her lies, the call to the workers to transcend this system of misery will be as fresh and as urgent as ever.

Steve Coleman