A Pair of Labour Bleeders (1974)

Book Reviews from the April 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The Future of the Left: Lincoln and After," by Dick Taverne. Cape, £2.95 (paperback £1.50).

Dick Taverne's book is divided into sections. The first reads like an adventure story, where our hero comes out on top having conquered the forces of evil (left wing of the Labour Party). The second part presents Taverne's alternative for radical politics in this country, with ideas as new and exciting as egg-and-chips.

Taverne's thesis is that the Labour Party, which according to him has been the only radical alternative since 1929, has become so dominated by its left extremists that those who want to pursue "sensible" policies don't stand a chance. Successive Labour governments fail to deliver the goods for the left wing: "There were very few measures from the 1966 government which they [the left] could regard as socialist." He never tells us what measures would be regarded as socialist; hardly surprising, as he states also that terms like "socialist" and "working class" have "no precise definition". The result is that the militants who tended to be a large section of part workers are disillusioned, the party loses the next election, and Labour-inspired radical change takes a dive.

He then explains his rejection of the left-dominated party machine, and the steps that led to his resignation and his success at a Lincoln bye-election. For his Democratic Labour party he would have preferred the title "Social Democrats", but felt this was inappropriate for Lincoln. His campaign based on "realism" (opportunism?) claims to be for a society of equal rights and equal opportunities. To achieve it he would require a permanent wages policy; allowing people more say in decisions that affect their working lives; forcing the big companies to disclose their affairs; fairer distribution of wealth; fiscal reform including an accessions tax to replace estate duty; and above all his chief love, the continuance of the Common Market. The package can be summed up in his favourite phrase "Social Justice". Heard it before?

The book does spotlight the undemocratic nature of the Labour Party (if it needed showing), the way politicians twist and turn at every corner (for example Wilson's volte-face on the Common Market) , and the fact that "ultra-right" Enoch Powell and "ultra-left" Michael Foot have much in common on major issues. It also shows the author as thoroughly confused about many things, specially economics. For example, he accepts the myth that rising wages cause inflation. The tragedy is that the working class — who, by the way, Mr. Taverne, are the vast majority having to sell their capabilities to live, because they do not own any part of the means of production — are taken in by this sort of confusion.

Taverne's majority at Lincoln shows nothing and leads nowhere. To make any real change the working class must take the problems surrounding them into their own hands, abolish the system of society based on private ownership, and establish Socialism. When that happens, ideas about instituting "Social Justice" will be placed in a Museum of Muddled Thought from this age.

Ronnie Warrington 

"John Strachey", by Hugh Thomas. Eyre Metheun, £4.50.

Strachey was the political Heinz. His range of allegiances and convictions was not far short of fifty-seven varieties; and each one was found tasty by people whose relish for an easy snack is heightened by thinking it a bore to eat more substantially.

From Eton and Oxford, Strachey joined the Labour Party in 1923 and the ILP in 1924, becoming editor of the ILP's Socialist Review and in 1926 editor of the NUM's The Miner. Elected a Labour MP in 1929, he left the Labour Party to help found Oswald Mosely's "New Party" in 1931 but quickly parted company; later the same year he lost his parliamentary seat and was found "drawing towards the communist party". On the advice of Communist leaders he never joined the CP, but from 1932 to 1938 wrote books expounding their theory, including The Nature of Capitalist Crises and The Theory and Practice of Socialism. Mr. Thomas tells us that in these books "the most articulate Marxist spokesman in Britain" received the assistance of Dutt, Pollitt and Emile Burns of the CP.

However, he was "appalled" and "staggered" by the Soviet-German pact in 1939. He sold his £1,000-worth of Russian Five Year Plan bonds (and re-invested in General Motors); in 1940 he published A Programme for Progress — "frankly a 'revisionist' work"; and dissociated himself from the CP. Thereafter, he served in the war and at the end of it was again elected to Parliament for Labour and was a Minister in successive governments.

In 1953 he wrote three articles called "Marxism Revisited" in the New Statesman. These were expanded into another book, Contemporary Capitalism, in which Strachey rejected old errors in favour of new ones. He wrote to Michael Foot in 1958 that he had "reverted to my ancestral tradition of Whiggery". His last change of mind, incurring Gaitskell's disfavour, was over whether or not Britain should enter the Common Market.

Mr. Thomas's biography is interesting and well documented. It ought to provide lessons in several things. One is the perennial weakness of the Left for "intellectuals" and its readiness to attribute depths to whatever they say. Strachey was fundamentally a dilettante, belonging really with his cousin Lytton in the "Bloomsbury set". His radicalism and copious writing were founded on a private income and on entrée to circles where thinking-aloud would be readily, over the port, accepted for print.

The other observations to be made is how unchanged the Left is, despite all the alleged re-thinking and rejection of old Communist stuff. Strachey writing in The Miner in 1926 that "the handful of cruel, stubborn and dull-witted reactionaries, who today have the audacity to claim that they 'own' the great coalfields of Britain, will be deprived of every vestige of the power which they have so terribly abused" — could be any militant broadsheet-writer today. The theory of The Nature of Capitalist Crises, that the capitalist system was being delivered into the "revolutionaries" hands by the law of the falling rate of profit, is now repeated by IS, WRP and the rest. In the 'thirties it was a non-runner by Dutt out of Strachey. They never learn.

Robert Barltrop

"Black Flag": Ignorance & Lies (1973)

From the November 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

The July issue of Black Flag, published by "the Anarchist Black Cross", consists an attack on the Socialist Party of Great Britain headed "SPGB — the Mumpsismus".

The first part of the article jeers at us for "having stood with the same principles since 1905", and claims that the Party was founded in error. The writer with this eye for error has his date wrong; but in the adjoining column an "anarcho-quiz" asks what is the oldest section of "the left" in Britain — and proudly tells us that the anarchist movement goes back to 1850s. Whether anarchist principles have remained the same or shifted about, and how much credit the answer implies, we are not told.

The alleged mistake in the Socialist Party's origins is as follows:

"Socialist prophet Fitzgerald got hold of the works of Marx. But the version he read in English was from the edited translation of Karl Kautsky. Kautsky had rigidly censored Marx and Engels, to conform with the anti-Socialist laws, and also to mould Marxist Social-Democracy, as it had arisen in Germany, into a legalistic form. It was on this censored version that Fitzgerald founded his faith . . . The SPGB took the 'mumpsismus' seriously."

To dispose of this ignorant rubbish, the English translation of Vol. I of Capital appeared in 1887. It was by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, and was edited by Engels. Moore translated the Communist Manifesto for its English appearance in 1888, also edited by Engels. Other major works available in English before 1904 included Engel's Origin of the Family and Marx's Poverty of Philosophy and Critique of Political Economy — none of them edited by Kautsky. It can be added that several of the 142 founders of the Socialist Party (only one of whom was named Fitzgerald) had previously attended classes in Marxian economics given by Aveling.

The reader may wonder where Kautsky entered the picture at all. In 1895 Wilhelm Liebknecht published, not in England but in the German Vorwarts, a cut version of Engel's introduction to Marx's Class Struggles in France; and Engels wrote to Kautsky complaining of it. The first English edition was not till 1936, when Fitzgerald and many of his contemporaries were dead. Thus, the Black Flag writer's statement is a complete fiction.

It would be possible to regard it as a painfully weak venture in the unfamiliar realm of political theory — some boy attempting a man's errand; except that the second part of the article consists of allegations about the lives and motives of Socialist Party members in general. In that light, we have to assume that the writer knows that he has written is untrue. We may also assume that his readers will note the allegations are in lieu of, and show incapacity to give, any answer to the Socialist case.

Marxist Ideas in Britain (1972)

From the January 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

The first article in our series on the early history and ideas of the British Communist Party. We recall this history not only for its own interest, but because today others are making the same mistakes.

The Russian Revolution had a great impact on the thinking of radically-minded workers everywhere. Very few of those who had opposed the War were not enthusiastically swept off their feet by events in Russia. To them it appeared that in one part of the world capitalist rule had been overthrown in favour of a government committed to introducing Socialism. The Bolsheviks themselves were caught up in this enthusiasm as reflected in the speeches of Lenin, Trotsky and Zinoviev (who was in charge of the Communist International). They also encouraged it, calling their regime a "Socialist Republic". Many outside of Russia took this further than the Bolsheviks intended and devoted their energies to spreading the good news that Socialism had actually been established in Russia.

What sort of people supported the Bolsheviks and heeded Lenin's call to split the Labour movement and form separate communist parties? Naturally they varied from country to country but nearly all their leaders had been associated either with the Social Democratic or, in a few cases, with the anarcho-syndicalist movements. In Britain they came from the small political parties that claimed to be in the Marxist tradition and from the militant trade unionists who had built up a following as a result of the official unions' war- time "truce" with the government and employers.

Marxism never caught on in Britain in the way it did on the Continent, and to the extent that it did it was recognisably different. Everywhere the Labour movement grew out of the radical wing of the parties supported by the industrialists and petty capitalists. So it is not surprising that its theory and language tended to reflect its background. On the Continent the radicals were anti-clerical and even insurrectionary, so Marxism with its materialist philosophy was not too radical a departure especially when linked with the rising consciousness amongst industrial workers that they ought not to remain the tail-end of their employers' political party. But in Britain the Liberals (and the Radicals) were Nonconformist Christians and believers in peaceful political change, features which were inherited by the Labour movement here. In Britain atheism was not popular amongst the workers; nor were appeals to class interest. The Labour leaders preferred to see Socialism as a question of "morality" and as a "faith", with the result that what passed for theory were the vaguest, sentimental repetitions of the Sermon on the Mount. But even in Britain, and especially London, atheism had a following amongst some Radicals. And where Secularism had been strong there Marxism found a following.

In 1883 a number of working-class Radical clubs in London came together as the Democratic Federation. Later, under the influence of a rich former Tory, H. M. Hyndman, this became the Social Democratic Federation, which proclaimed Socialism as its aim and professed adherence to Marxism. At that time, few of Marx's works had been translated into English and were only available in French or German. As a result those who couldn't read these languages had to rely on those who could for a knowledge of Marx's ideas. Men like Hyndman and the writer and designer William Morris did grasp more or less what Marx was getting at but put it over in a crude form. Hyndman made both Marx's Labour Theory of Value and his Materialist Conception of History much more rigid than in fact they were. In particular he made Socialism appear as the inevitable outcome of a mechanical operation about which human beings could do very little: sooner or later the capitalist economic machine would break down so Socialists must be prepared to take over when it did. This was Morris' view too, though in his writings he also touched on problems like that of Reform and Revolution which Marx did not really have to face.

The SDF took over traditional working-class Radical demands and justified them as "stepping stones" to Socialism. Of course they were nothing of the sort and would not have been out of place in the programme of a radical, non-socialist party. Concern about this was one of the reasons why Morris left the SDF and helped to form the Socialist League. The Socialist League did refuse to advocate reforms though this was often obscured by its general anti-parliamentarism.

At the time of the Chartists a group of London artisans had emphasised the importance of mass understanding and support for change. Secularism, too, with its street-corner propaganda meetings exerted an influence in the same direction of educational rather than reform activity. This was to be an issue which was to split English Social Democracy.

So Marxism in Britain tended to play down the workers' class struggle as the way to Socialism in favour of the mechanical breakdown of capitalism or the equally mechanical build-up of abstract "knowledge".

When towards the end of the century Marxist writings, of a sophisticated kind, became available in English (mainly from America) this contributed towards the dissatisfaction with the SDF's whole policy and structure amongst some of its younger members. The critics were dubbed "impossiblists" by the SDF leaders, a word which conveyed two meanings. One, that they were raising "impossible" demands and, two, that they held it was "impossible" to reform capitalism so as to benefit the workers.

The outcome of what has been called the Impossiblist Revolt was the founding in 1903 of the Socialist Labour Party and in 1904 of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, both of which -though the SLP a little vaguely -opposed the suggestion that a socialist party should have a programme of immediate demands to be achieved within capitalism. Nevertheless, the SDF did continue to attract those who considered themselves Marxists but wanted reforms.

The SLP, destined to supply some of the leading lights of the Communist Party of Great Britain, was based on the ideas of the American party of the same name led by Daniel De Leon. De Leon had been one of the first Social Democrats to come out against a reform programme declaring that a socialist party should concentrate exclusively on achieving Socialism. But he is more well known for his advocacy of "socialist industrial unionism", a hybrid of Social Democracy and syndicalism. He was in favour of setting up separate socialist unions opposed to the "pure and simple" trade unions. In the absence of mass support for Socialist ideas these unions were a failure and De Leon eventually turned to the Industrial Workers of the World. In Britain the SLP did have its own industrial union but this never got off the ground so SLP members, though banned by Party rule from holding union office, worked inside the existing unions. The effect, therefore, of De Leonism was to turn their attention to union work, an alteration that was to bear fruit during the war - but at the expense of their original "impossiblism".

The SPGB was the only party not to be carried away by the Russian revolution, refusing to concede that Socialism was possible in backward Russia or that the Bolsheviks had found a short-cut to Socialism. The SPGB differed from the SLP in not lauding De Leon and in not preaching "socialist industrial unionism". Members of the SPGB were active trade unionists but had no illusions about it. Because our support, small though it was, was built up as support for' Socialism alone we were to emerge from the War (which of course we opposed) and the Russian revolution still basically "impossiblist". The SPGB is important here in that we have been in continuous and active existence, particularly in London, since 1904. We were thus a thorn in the side of the Communist Party's attempts to palm off Bolshevism as Marxism and state capitalist Russia as Socialism. The SPGB's mere existence meant that the Communist Party had to meet the arguments of traditional Marxism.

Meanwhile those workers for whom Marxism had no attraction but who still favoured independent Labour politics had been organising with support many times larger than that of the SDF, SLP, and SPGB combined. In 1893 had been founded in Bradford the Independent Labour Party committed to the vague ethical "socialism" discussed earlier. The ILP was weak where the SDF was strong in London. But under Keir Hardie and Ramsay MacDonald they skilfully used trade union disquiet over certain Court decisions to win support for the idea of a "Labour Party". Their efforts were successful when in 1900 the Labour Representation Committee was set up, a body which, when it had enough MPs, became in 1906 the Labour Party. This was not, and did not claim to be a socialist party. It was basically a trade union parliamentary pressure group. Along with many trade unions the ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party and worked for the election of Labour candidates. The SDF had attended the inaugural conference of the LRC but had later withdrawn. It was not affiliated to the Labour Party but at the same time was not completely opposed to it like the SLP and the SPGB.

The Labour Party presented socialists and Marxists in Britain with a problem: should they oppose or should they work within the Labour Party? As we shall see, this was an issue on which the British Communist Party zigged and zagged. Those who weren't outright against the Labour Party were put in a more difficult position when in 1918 its new constitution committed it to "socialism", albeit of the Fabian variety (and therefore really only state capitalism).

The SDF became the Social Democratic Party in 1908 and in 1911, together with a number of dissident ILP branches and others, became the British Socialist Party, the party which was to supply the bulk of the members of the Communist Party when it was formed. Despite opposition from some of the old SDP members, the BSP soon began to move towards affiliation to the Labour Party. A party referendum in 1913 favoured this and in 1914 the party joined with Labour, leaving only the "impossiblists" and some "industrial unionists" and "syndicalists" opposed.

The poor record of the Labour Party as the mere tail-end of the Liberal majority in the House of Commons (it had to be since most of its MP's had been elected by Liberal votes) helped encourage anti-political and anti-parliamentary ideas in the period of industrial unrest immediately before the war. The subtle difference between the syndicalists and the industrial unionists does not concern us here for on one point they were agreed: that the workers could get more by "direct action" and relying on their own "economic power" than through sending representatives to parliament. It was an argument really not about how to get Socialism but how to get social reforms, though there were those who accepted the full anarcho-syndicalist argument that the way to overthrow capitalism was through a General Strike. Most didn't go this far and thought that Labour MP's could playa subsidiary role in getting reforms.

At this time, with the growth of trade unionism, there was a demand for workers' education to train people to fill the administrative posts in the unions. Ruskin College, Oxford, was originally set up with government support for this purpose but a row soon blew up when the principal wished to teach Marxian economics and sociology alongside the more orthodox versions. He was dismissed and eventually a rival "Labour College" financed mainly by the South Wales miners and the railwaymen was set up. Here a kind of Marxism (in addition to journalism, book-keeping, etc) was taught, but a Marxism tailored to trade unionism. The journal Plebs became the organ of the Labour College movement and its "Marxism".

The way in which this was different from traditional Marxism was in its emphasis on "economic power". Traditional Marxism had pointed out the necessity of winning political power, arguing that when a particular social class had become parasitic it was able to hang on to and preserve its privileges through its control of political power. Thus in effect that class had economic power because it was the ruling class (that is, the class that controlled the State). Labour College Marx- ism reversed this, arguing on the contrary that the capitalist class was the ruling class because it had economic power (of course they genuinely thought this was Marx's view). This was economic determination rather than historical materialism. But it implied that the struggle at the "point of production" was more significant than the political struggle, a doctrine that was attractive for militant trade unionists and in keeping with their anti-parliamentary mood at that time.

This view that the capitalist class rule because they own rather than own because they rule came to be accepted as "Marxism" by the Communist Party, which is not surprising since anti-parliamentarians like the South Wales (formerly Rhonddha) Socialist Society were amongst the founding groups of the British Communist Party. The SWSS also had links with Sylvia Pankhurst's Socialist Workers' Federation, another anti-parliamentary body. In addition, this version of Marxism was attractive to the SLP who were able to use the loose organization of the Labour College movement to get in some of their members as lecturers and to get some of their views published under its auspices.

The SLP arguing for "socialist industrial unions" as the main weapon to overthrow capitalism naturally tended to the view that economic power was more important than political power.

Soon after the war began the trade unions concluded an industrial truce with the employers. How- ever, the war with full employment and speed-up put pressure on the workers and at the same time put them in a strong position to resist it. It was inevitable that the workers would find a way of fighting back, if not through the official unions, then outside them. This is what happened. Unofficial bodies like the Clyde Workers' Committee in which members of the SLP and BSP were prominent took up the struggle. By the end of the war there was a fully-fledged and fairly influential Shop Stewards and Workers Committee Movement. The end of the war and industrial truce, together with growing unemployment, meant that this movement rapidly declined in influence but, before and while it did, its leaders transferred their allegiance to the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Those who supported Lenin in Britain were thus drawn from two groups. First, left wing Social Democrats, mainly from the BSP but with some from the ILP (the pro-war section of the BSP under Hyndman had split off at the beginning of the war) and, second, militant trade unionists and their supporters who regarded the economic struggle as paramount.

The bulk of the members of the CPGB set up in 1920 were from the first group, ex-members of the BSP. The Communist Party thus did not evolve out of the intransigent Marxist trend in English Social Democracy but rather from its pro-reform trend. And the SLP members who went over had already abandoned their Impossiblism, the prisoners of the non-socialist support they had won as prominent labour agitators. But the SPGB was opposed to the CPGB from the start knowing from past experience the reformism of the BSP and its members.

The manoeuvring which eventually led to unity amongst the pro-Bolshevik groups in Britain has been described elsewhere and we need not repeat it here. Suffice it to set out what were the conditions for unity: support for

1. the soviets, or workers' councils, as the way to power and then to control society;

2. the "dictatorship of the proletariat" to crush all opposition to the introduction of Socialism;

3. the Third (Communist) International. This left unsettled two important issues on which the pro-Bolsheviks were divided -the attitude of the new party towards the Labour Party and towards parliament. The BSP had been affiliated to the Labour Party and had always been committed to using parliament to get reforms. The ex-SLP members were opposed to the Labour Party but not to parliamentary action, while the others from the Workers Commit- tees, the SWSS and the SWF were opposed to both the Labour Party and parliament,

As most of the members had come from the BSP a party referendum would have gone in favour of both. But another factor helped secure this result. Lenin favoured it. He argued that the Labour Party was not so much a Social Democratic party as a federation of workers' political and industrial organisations, which the Communist Party ought to join while retaining full freedom of thought and action.

The pro-Labour decision meant (though this is hardly what Lenin intended) that the Communist Party was destined to be the tail-end of the Labour Party, its extreme left wing rather than a Leninist party in its own right. The reformists who had come from the BSP did not appreciate Lenin's subtle pro-Labour arguments. For them this was not just a "tactic"; they remained reformists who really believed that a Labour government was the way to Socialism and would help solve the workers' problems. This reformist trend in the CPGB was strengthened in 1921 when the Communist International adopted the "united front" tactic.

The question of parliamentary action was easily settled: the workers could only win power through the workers’ councils so that the role of parliament could only be subsidiary, a sounding board for revolutionary propaganda.

When the Communist Party applied for affiliation in 1920 the Labour Party turned them down. However, undismayed, the Communists joined local Labour parties and as such were delegates to the Labour conferences, Labour candidates, councillors and even MP's.

As we shall see, except for a few years between 1929 and 1933, it has been Communist policy to work for or within the Labour Party (as far as that party has allowed them). For most of its existence it has thus been a left wing ginger group encouraging, and sharing, illusions about some form of Labour government as the way to Socialism.

Next month: The effect of Stalin’s “left” turn in 1928 on the British party.

Adam Buick

What Labour is Really Worth (2014)

From the October 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. What every thing is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of it or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose upon other people.”

“Labour alone, therefore, never varying in its own value, is alone the ultimate and real standard by which the value of all commodities can at all times and places be estimated and compared. It is their real price; money is their nominal price only."

These are the words of Adam Smith about the system we inhabit currently but what would they mean if anything in the alternative system we may choose for the future?

Take money for instance, what does it mean to most people? Simply a means of acquiring the things they need and want, in fact most things throughout life and for the majority that isn't easily attained. And in many cases there is never enough, however hard they try. How much one needs for an average life for an average lifetime who knows? On an average wage, wherever you live on the planet, who can imagine what it means to be a millionaire or a billionaire (the numbers of which are rising fast)?

Counting at the rate of one dollar, pound or euro per second it will take twelve days to count a million and thirty one years to count a billion. Longer if you stop for the necessities of life. And as for a trillion, a number bandied about more frequently of late, with the expectation that within a few short years the first trillionaire will hit the headlines, simple maths shows us that 31,000 years would be required. That's an awful lot of toil and trouble, potentially an awful lot of labour.

It is the predatory nature of capitalism that has, in recent years, awakened increasing numbers to question what it is that is happening around the world and to feel aggrieved enough to protest in their thousands. From believing they lived in functioning democracies we are now aware that that belief has been overturned as demonstration after demonstration reveals the deeper awareness of masses of people. It is now commonly recognised that governments are running countries for the benefit of business and that business is extremely friendly to compliant governments. Revolving doors, hefty donations, lecture tours for ex-politicians, seats on boards, fees for access, you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. We know how the system works and for whom it works best, so the question for the great majority for whom it doesn't work becomes 'what are we going to do about it?'

Who can have failed to notice how the sphere of things that used to be freely available has shrunk, has been taken away by force for the benefit of capitalists and corporations? Here cost comes into play. The cost to the public in general of the loss of the commons is impossible to put a price tag on. Water, land and hitherto public spaces have been acquired from the public sphere as money-making ventures: factories, mines, building projects, dams, monocrops for feed or biofuel; town centres, former public land and playing fields, even the ground underneath housing is vulnerable to takeover. The air we breathe is highly susceptible to pollution as an externality of the market system we endure. The polluters are also the beneficiaries of the profits from their businesses but they readily pass on the costs of that pollution to workers as externalities. The costs are borne by people living locally as air, water, ground and food is contaminated – and by those living far away as poisoned waste is shipped thousands of miles to be dealt with at a fraction of the cost it would be in the producing country. Huge health costs to be borne by those in the recipient neighbourhoods.

Accumulatively there are costs from loss of space, loss of freedom to use such spaces, health costs, loss of individual privacy and freedom of speech, loss of choice in all manner of areas signifying both personal and collective costs - all whilst the capitalist minority continues to steal more and more of the common wealth and influence law making. Current politics is far from inclusive and certainly not democratic in many eyes.

Those with money are the ones with influence. They are free to buy whatever it is they want – material goods and the time and labour of others. However, in the grand scheme of things, they are the minority. Those with little – and we are many – are the labour.

Giving value to labour, in the broadest sense – those of us who work for our living, whether manual in farming, fishing, factory or mine, on road, rail or the high seas, or indoors in health, education, administration or any other kind of service industry – when we recognise the value of giving value to labour, to our labour and the labour of all the others like us, we will be on the path to answering the earlier question – 'what are we going to do about it?'

Removing the money element from our labour will remove the money from all of our transactions. It will also remove the profit seekers and corporations from any further equations. No more banks, investment companies, mortgage, rent and insurances creating endless headaches and the anxiety of indebtedness. No more middlemen and consumer ideology warping our minds and persuading us against our better judgment to consume, consume, consume. Labour, working together across the world, retaking and rebuilding the commons in the best interests of the common good. Labour, recognising its individual and collective value, working together to secure a democratic world community.

Janet Surman

Women and socialism meetings (1987)

From the January 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

In June 1986 the Socialist Party published a new pamphlet, Women and Socialism, in which we discuss the question of women's oppression, how it relates to class oppression in capitalist society and how socialism offers women real liberation. At annual conference it was decided that a series of meetings should be organised in order to publicise the new pamphlet and so throughout September, October and November branches and groups up and down the country held meetings on the subject of "Women and Socialism".

The tour began with a meeting at Head Office organised by South West London branch. In the same week I spoke at meetings in Bolton, Manchester, Liverpool and Lancaster, nearly all of which were well-attended and led to useful discussion on a wide range of topics. The following week took me to Dundee and Glasgow while Pat Deutz spoke in Leeds. (For those of you who were wondering how I could speak in Glasgow and Leeds on the same evening, no, not a socialist miracle, simply a socialist cock-up remedied by socialist cooperation!) September ended on home ground with a meeting in Bristol and October began with a visit to Luton where I spoke at a well-attended meeting which must have been encouraging to the member who has recently moved into that area and is working hard to establish a new group. The following week took me to a girls' school in Barnet to talk to a group of sixth formers which produced some lively discussion on the subject of what women can do to change society and on the same day I spoke at an Islington Branch meeting. Later in the month I travelled to Swansea and then back to London for a meeting organised jointly by Hammersmith and West London branches in Chiswick. November took me up north again to Newcastle and Edinburgh and finally, in December, to Kent, where the efforts of a member of Bournemouth branch have led to the establishment of another new group in Canterbury.

It would be impossible to sum up the enormous range of subjects covered in discussion during this series of meetings. Each meeting was different in terms of the points raised and questions asked. Nearly all were well-attended by both members and visitors. The only disappointment was that, as is so often the case, men outnumbered the women at just about all the meetings. For this reason I think it is worth mentioning what was probably the most useful discussion of all, resulting from a point raised at the meeting in Newcastle. The question was  asked - how can we encourage more women to come along to Socialist Party meetings and become actively involved in the work for socialism? In the course of discussion on this important question the following points emerged.

Women workers are in general less active politically than men for four main reasons. Firstly, there are practical problems that prevent women from attending political meetings. Most meetings are held in the evening and many women have young children so going out to a meeting is likely to mean finding a baby sitter, which is not always easy and often expensive. Socialist Party members should recognise this and wherever possible offer practical help (such as babysitting) to women with children who are prevented from attending Socialist Party meetings because of their child-care responsibilities.

Secondly many women are, understandably, nervous about going out alone after dark. They may very well be put off going out to a meeting at night if they know they will have to go home afterwards. Again Socialist Party members should be prepared to help out by organising lifts home after meetings if members have cars, or by offering to walk with women who are scared.

Thirdly, many women have been taught from an early age that politics is part of the man's world outside the home, is nothing to do with them and has nothing to offer them. They may very well feel that their first concern is with their domestic responsibilities - the welfare of their children and the problems of trying to fit paid work around the needs of their families. So how can we persuade women workers that socialist politics is as much to do with them as it is with men? Firstly, we need to convince women that socialism will not just change the "public" sphere of things that go on outside the home but it will also affect the "private" sphere of family and child care in important ways as well. Socialism, unlike capitalism, will offer women workers not just a choice between paid drudgery outside the home and unpaid drudgery inside the home, but the possibility of doing whatever work or combination of work they themselves find fulfilling. Their role as mothers (if that is what they choose) will not be under-valued but will be recognised and respected. But fathers, and indeed other adults in the community, will also recognise that they have a responsibility for the welfare of children. So caring for children will no longer be seen as a burden, the responsibility of just one or two tired adults but as a joy to be shared in by everyone, male and female. So in very practical ways socialism has a lot to offer women. We must therefore stress to women workers that while they are absolutely right to say that capitalist political parties have little to offer them, the Socialist Party offers them not only the chance to work together, as equals, with other like-minded workers in order to build a new socialist society, but also the possibility of a full and creative life in that new society. As socialists, we are not concerned with just one area of life - the male-dominated world of politics and politicians. All the conflicts and contradictions of capitalist society affect all of our lives.

Some women may be reluctant to become politically active because traditional sex-roles and conditioning into those roles has convinced them that to be assertive and to speak up for yourself is "unfeminine" and that women are "no good at that sort of thing". As a result many women lack confidence in their own abilities and are terrified at the prospect of even asking a question at a public meeting. Party members should be aware of this problem (and of course many men may also be nervous) and take practical steps to give women support and to encourage them to take an active part in socialist activities. Some men still believe that so-called "women's issues" are trivial or marginal. They are not, and should not be treated as such. Issues to do with the family, child-care and sexuality are as important as those to do with waged work and affect us all in important ways. The Socialist Party does not make distinctions between men's interests and women's interests. Whether we are talking about child-care or factories these are issues that affect all workers, men and women.

It is vital that we get more women along to our meetings. Socialism is not just for and in the interests of men, and men certainly can't get socialism without women. I hope that the new pamphlet and the series of meetings will have succeeded in persuading at least some women that The Socialist Party takes them seriously and persuaded at least some men to think about how they treat women.

Visiting so many groups and branches throughout the country in such a short space of time was an immensely encouraging exercise. I am very grateful to all the members who, through their kind hospitality, helped to turn what might have been an exhausting three months into an enjoyable and stimulating experience. There is an incredible amount of enthusiasm around in the party at the moment; there are plenty of new ideas and approaches to propaganda; new groups are being set up in many areas; and more established groups are becoming branches. So the message is that the Socialist Party is alive, well, and, most important, growing. Let's hope that 1987 sees an even faster expansion in the movement for socialism!

Janie Percy-Smith

On the stump (2004)

From the June 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Short History of SPGB Outdoor Speaking

When the name of the Socialist Party is mentioned something that springs to mind for many is outdoor public speaking. For much of its political life the SPGB has relied on outdoor meetings for a key part of its propaganda against the capitalist system, these acting as crucial aids to recruitment alongside the Socialist Standard, leaflets, pamphlets, indoor meetings and debates. Indeed, the proportion of Party members citing outdoor meetings as the means by which they first came into contact with the Party was significant until the 1950s when this form of propaganda went into something of a decline.

During the first few years of the Party’s existence propaganda was mostly indoor, outside speaking only being undertaken in the summer months. In these early years the Party was almost entirely confined to   London and its environs, with only Manchester in the provinces holding regular meetings, and from early 1908 a year round London outdoor rota (the “Lecture List”) was established. A range of stations were used across the capital increasing to no less than 22 sites on Sundays during the summer of 1914, before the outbreak of war. Street corners, especially outside pubs, were the favourite locations. Few of these sites were used exclusively by the Party and some had been in continuous use since the 1880s.

Sunday’s best

Sunday was the most important day for outdoor meetings, although on most other nights a Party speaker would be on the stump somewhere in the capital. The pre-war Sunday meeting was an integral part of working class life. Typically the father would be evicted from the house while the Sunday meal was  prepared. Since the pubs were closed he drifted around the streets looking for anything to entertain him,  which is what the street meeting typically did. After his meal he might visit the local during the afternoon  for some liquid refreshment. Afterwards speakers would again be on hand. The typical starting times of the street meeting were therefore 11.30 a.m. and 7.30 p.m. Meetings in public parks were usually held in  the afternoon (3.30 or 4 pm), for a rather more ‘refined’ clientele taking their Sunday afternoon stroll.

Sammy Cash

The outdoor Party meeting was managed by the local branch whose ‘turf’ the site was on and the duty of host (meeting chairman) was highly competed for. In March, 1908, for example, a dispute arose over the  ‘ownership’ of the Clapham Common meeting. Both Battersea and the short-lived Clapham branch  claimed the meeting and tempers frayed so much that five Battersea members went so far as to hand in  their resignations.

The big names of the era, most notably Jack Fitzgerald and Alex Anderson – whose  main stamping grounds were Battersea and Tottenham respectively – featured prominently amongst the  speakers but there was a wide range of others, many now forgotten (as with the membership generally there was a  high degree of turnover during these years). It was by no means uncommon for a speaker to do two  ‘shifts’, though three talks in one day would have been very rare even for Anderson.

While no record exists of what exactly was said at outdoor meetings during this era it can be safely assumed from accounts of the time that the speechmaking was heavy on rhetoric, working perhaps just as much on an emotional as an intellectual level, and was most likely lengthy and littered with stock quotations from key texts on political theory and Marxian economics. The real importance of such meetings lay not just in the speech itself but in the small groups of young workers that gathered afterwards to argue points raised. In this way outdoor speaking acted as a valuable spur to working class intellectual self- development.

Harry Young

All this came to an end with the outbreak of the First World War. Within a short time outdoor meetings stopped as a result of harassment by pro-war ‘jingoes’. The last Party listing published during this period (December 1914) sarcastically noted that “Owing to various circumstances, including the peculiarly British sense of fair play of our opponents, the Party’s Lecture List is considerably curtailed this month.” The following month outdoor meetings ceased altogether.

In the summer of 1919 regular outdoor meetings resumed in London, although with a much lower level  of activity than before the war. In August of that year there were just six Sunday stations. Only four of these  proved to be of any long-term use: Clapham Common, Finsbury Park, Victoria Park, and West Green  Corner in Tottenham. During the mid-1920s these were the only locations in the capital operated by the  Party but towards the end of the decade a modest revival occurred with a few pre-war venues, such as  Prince of Wales, Harrow Road, and several new sites, such as Beresford Square, Woolwich, coming into use. It was not until after the 1929 crash though that more widespread outdoor activity returned. The early  1930s saw a multitude of sites brought into use, the most important being the Cock Hotel at East Ham,  Whipps Cross at Leyton and Brockwell Park. A peak was reached during this period in July 1935 with  twelve Sunday stations in use and a further four on a Saturday.

Interestingly, the latter part of the 1930s  saw something of a decrease in regular outdoor meetings. To some extent this was due to increasing  motor traffic, which rendered certain street locations unusable but was also due to a relative (though  temporary) shortage of outdoor speakers, this in part resulting from the introduction of more stringent  requirements for those wishing to take the platform on behalf of the Party (the introduction of the so-called ‘New Speakers Test’). At this time the Party increasingly moved its attention to propaganda in parks, the focus being on five open spaces: Brockwell Park, Clapham  Common, Finsbury Park, Hyde Park and Victoria Park.

Of these Hyde Park was king. For the SPGB the rise of Hyde Park was rapid as although meetings had  briefly been held here in pre-war days and in the late 1920s these had not always been a huge success, and so it was not until 1937 that Speakers’ Corner again entered the Party’s itinerary. Hyde Park became fertile ground and by the summer of 1939 three ‘shifts’ were operating on a Sunday.

Prolific

The most prolific speakers of this era were Bob Ambridge, the idiosyncratic Sammy Cash, Solomon Goldstein (remembered by those in the Party as a particularly able exponent of Marxian economics), Clifford Groves, Sid Rubin and the grizzled old Canadian orator Charlie Lestor – all of them hugely  capable outdoor speakers, though Tony Turner, with his deep rasping voice and thunderous delivery,  was the most remarkable of all. Turner’s greatest moment was on the day war broke out, when in Hyde  Park he took and held a crowd of ten thousand or more as he railed against the impending imperialist  slaughter.

Bob Ambridge

The outbreak of the Second World War – in contrast to 1914 – did not bring an end to outdoor  propaganda, even if for a time it was severely curtailed as a result of the ‘blackout’ and the Blitz. Until mid-war the parks continued to be the main venues, though as the war progressed street meetings  resumed their importance. A big explosion of meetings then came after the end of the war and by 1949 the SPGB was holding over a thousand outdoor meetings a year. During this period regular Sunday  meetings in London were held at:

Beresford Square, Woolwich

Clapham Common

Cock Hotel, East Ham

East Street, Walworth

Finsbury Park

Heron Court, Richmond

Hyde Park

Islip Street, Kentish Town

Regents Park

Warren Street station

West Green Corner, Tottenham

A further eight sites, including the long-lived Jolly Butchers Hill venue, were used on Saturday with  several others – such as Trebovir Road, Earl’s Court – used on week-nights. The most productive was  always Hyde Park: these meetings alone accounted for over 10 percent of the Party’s new members  during the 1940s. Most of the orators who learnt to ply their trade in the Party during the 1930s continued  to be active, Turner remaining a star turn, along with Wilmott, Dawe and a band of other speakers who  had joined in the years before the war and who brought with them a characteristic platform style distinguished by quick-wittedness, aggression and self-confidence.

An important innovation around this time was the popular weekday lunchtime meetings at Tower Hill, Finsbury Pavement and Lincoln’s Inn Fields, with the latter being perhaps the most rewarding in terms of new members. Outdoor speaking was a notable feature of the election campaigns during the immediate  post-war era too. For the 1945 Paddington election, meetings were held every night outside the Prince of  Wales, Harrow Road, and most nights at a selection of venues throughout the area, supplementing the  big indoor meetings at the Metropolitan Theatre.

But if the 1940s saw continuous and rapid expansion in the SPGB outdoor speaking scene, the 1950s  saw just as speedy a decline, especially in London, though Glasgow and some other provincial venues  bucked the trend for longer. One by one the old haunts were shut down until by the end of the decade just four Sunday venues remained in the capital: Hyde Park, East Street in Walworth, Beresford Square in Woolwich and Clapham Common. In addition two Saturday stations, Rushcroft Road in Brixton and  Castle Street, Kingston, were retained.

Steve Coleman

These last few outdoor speaking venues took a surprising time to die off and it was not until 1967 that the SPGB held its last regular street meeting in London. This left occasional meetings at Earl’s Court, the  regular weekday City meetings – such as those at Tower Hill – which lasted until 1979, and Hyde Park,  where Harry Young, Steve Coleman and others habitually mounted the Party platform on Sundays and which still sees regular if ad hoc use today.

Outside London

Outside the capital SPGB outdoor meetings have been a feature at a large number of venues in towns  and cities across the UK – with a peak in the 30s and 40s. Glasgow was a city where the Party’s outdoor  speaking activities were significant from the 1920s onwards, and they continued to flourish much later than in London, especially in The Barrows, West Regent Street, Blythswood Street and Exchange Square. Glasgow branch produced many fine outdoor orators but Alec Shaw was truly outstanding.

Other regular provincial venues included Edinburgh (where The Mound was a regular venue into the 1990s), Bristol, Birmingham, Nottingham, Sheffield, Southend and even Welwyn Garden City for a time. A number of cities in the Midlands and the North including Coventry and Bradford saw periodic SPGB  outdoor speaking activity, with many others seeing flying visits from Party speakers trying to drum-up  interest. In the North of England though, only Manchester proved to be really consistent territory for  speakers on the outdoor platform, with Baritz, Maertens and others regularly holding forth at Stevenson Square and Platt Fields.

Looking back, the reasons for the sad decline of street-corner meetings are not hard to find. It is no surprise that the start of the fall-off in these in the early 1950s, especially in London, coincides almost  exactly with the removal of petrol rationing and in one sense street meetings during and immediately  after the Second World War were a revival of a form already under sentence of death: as has been indicated they had been noticeably curtailed in favour of both indoor meetings and meetings in parks  even in the late 1930s.

The decline of park meetings though is perhaps more complex. Local authority pressure to ‘tidy up’ the open spaces may well have been one reason and the related decline of street meetings another, as  people simply got out of the habit of listening to – and interacting with – outdoor orators on a daily or  weekly basis. In terms of entertainment, competition from radio, and later television, was obviously another factor, as was – most crucially of all – the role of passive receiver of information foisted upon the working class by the entire apparatus of the modern mass media.

Keith Scholey

Anti-parliamentary dogmatism (2001)

Book Review from the April 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Against Parliament. For Anarchism. Anarchist Federation.

This latest offering from the Anarchist Federation (formally known as the Anarchist Communist Federation) once again re-affirms their position that the revolutionary process towards “anarchist communism” can and must in no way involve the use of parliament. Indeed, the pamphlet itself is comprised of a discussion of the main political parties in Britain (including a chapter on the far left and right), all of whom advocate the use of parliament to advance their political programmes.

Unfortunately, the AF did not feel it necessary to mention the Socialist Party which is a shame as we are well-known to the AF and although not part of the same milieu, members of both organisations have been able to strike up cordial relations on occasion. The reason for this is that the AF's definition of “anarchist communist” society is almost indistinguishable from our view of socialism, i.e. moneyless, stateless with free access to goods and services. Perhaps, the main bone of contention is how we get there and here there are some real differences.

Whereas we emphasis mass democratic political action by a majority of the global working class (which may well involve socialist delegates being sent to parliaments) as the best means for attaining world socialism, the AF see the revolutionary process more in terms of community/worker resistance and mass action through strikes and riots and the like. However, some of their views seem remarkably similar to those of the Socialist Party's:

 “Anarchist communism would depend on mass involvement. This is both to release everyone's inventiveness and ideas and to prevent the formation of some sort of elite. Two forms of organisation are crucial in this context. The first is regular mass meetings of communities and workers, to ensure that full discussion and participation in matters affecting a locality could be achieved. The second is federation, as many issues need a broader perspective than the local. Federalism would run through successive bands—local, district, regional, international—to take decisions appropriate to that band” (p.54).

Needless to say that the AF's vision of a new society is far more edifying than the oxymoronic Trotskyist notion of a “workers' state” (state capitalist nightmare), but their anti-parliamentary dogmatism means that the question of the state in a revolutionary situation is effectively ignored.

No-one can be exactly sure which form the revolutionary process will take and it may well involve some of the things the AF point to. However, we in the Socialist Party believe that the potential use of parliament as part of a revolutionary process may prove vitally important in neutralising the ruling class's hold on state power. For us, this is the most effective way of abolishing the state and thus ushering in the revolutionary society.

The pamphlet itself is not a bad read (for a quid) and is especially interesting for budding political anoraks who wish to differentiate between the “National Democrats” and the National Front or the Scottish Socialist Party from the Socialist Workers Party. This said, it is more descriptive than analytical and the AF are wrong—even slightly disingenuous—to mix up the parliamentary reformism of the Trotskyists without reference to the revolutionary approach of the Socialist Party.

Dave Flynn

Lists and drugs (2012)

Book Review from the October 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Psychopath Test. By Jon Ronson, Picador. £8.99.

This is a very funny book, but also a very sad and disturbing one. Its subtitle is ‘A journey through the madness industry’, which gives a good idea of how mental illness is a source of status and profit for some who claim to treat it.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is published by the American Psychiatric Association (which makes $5m a year from its sales), and supposedly provides a list of disorders and how to identify and classify them. But in the case of psychopathy (or sociopathy or anti-social personality disorder) nobody has any real idea as to what this condition comprises. A widely-used psychopathy checklist, provided by Bob Hare, contains points such as grandiose sense of self-worth, proneness to boredom, impulsivity and lack of remorse. Using these and similar tests, maybe half the population can be viewed as having some mental illness, which is good news for the pharmaceutical companies that make the drugs which are claimed to treat such illnesses. And to illustrate the kind of nonsense found in such circles, one nineteenth-century American doctor identified a mental disorder called drapetomania in some slaves (meaning a desire to escape from slavery).

As for actually treating psychopathy, nobody really seems to have a clue, though there have been many attempts (including Nude Psychotherapy), and many criminal psychopaths re-offend quite soon after being released. Too often ‘treatment’ just consists of detaining people.

But is it really just a matter of a few anti-social individuals? Hare claims that psychopaths are responsible for much of what is wrong with society, with many being in top positions in business. For what some see as psychopathic traits, others will view as being distinctive of good leadership. Some chief executives of companies genuinely seem to enjoy sacking workers, especially if it leads to the share price going up. Nobody is arguing that more than a few percent of bosses are psychopaths but, as Ronson says, ‘I wondered if sometimes the difference between a psychopath in Broadmoor and a psychopath on Wall Street was the luck of being born into a stable, rich family.’

And if psychiatrists find it hard to diagnose psychopathy and other mental illnesses, it can be very difficult to convince people that you are actually sane. Ronson recounts an experiment run by an American psychologist called David Rosenhan: eight people presented themselves to mental hospitals, saying they had a voice in their head but otherwise acting completely normally. All were diagnosed with schizophrenia or manic depression, were admitted and were kept in for an average of nineteen days, despite their behaviour from their time of admission being completely normal. But then psychiatrists have little idea as to how to distinguish ‘normal’ from ‘ill’.

We should make it clear that, while capitalism may benefit from having executives who are psychopathic, the problem lies not with the dysfunctional bosses but with a sick system.

Paul Bennett

Speaker's notes (1979)

From the June 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

On 12 June 1904, a few ordinary working men women founded the Socialist Party of Great Britain with the sole object of establishing a socialist society. The aim of the party was clearly defined, as was a set of principles which through the years have anchored the Party to its task.

September 1904 saw the production of the first Socialist Standard; our journal has appeared every month since then. Its production has been carried out entirely by the voluntary efforts of members, often under very difficult circumstances. Lack of funds has been the recurring problem over the years.

The first printer, the late Comrade Jacomb, never pressed for payment. Later, and for many years, the Socialist Standard and other Party publications were printed by a sympathetic firm who were prepared to give us credit. Regularly the Treasurer informed the Executive Committee that funds only permitted part payment to the printer. Thanks to some legacies in recent years we have put these problems behind us.

The contents of the Socialist Standard over the years have reflected changing conditions and the reactions of the writers to these changes. So many years later it is not easy to pick out subjects for special mention and the choice must be a personal one.

There is some material which has become part of history. Jacomb's King Capital's Coronation in 1912, which in later years patriotic compositors refused to deal with, is one such article. Jack Fitzgerald's early statement on the Russian revolution, in which we said that economic conditions made it impossible to establish socialism there, is another. Then there is the Manifesto on War in 1914, repeated at the outbreak of the Second World War, and the Manifesto to the proposed international Peace Congress of 1917, in which the Executive Committee restated the socialist viewpoint on war.

The distribution of our literature has always depended on the work of our members. Difficulties were there to be overcome. There was a bad period during the First World War when, as a result of the Military Service Act male members had to scatter and contact was often lost. Women members had to take on the extra work; some members who had been jailed for refusing military service distributed literature in and around the prisons. During October 1916 the War Office banned the despatch of the Socialist Standard overseas on the grounds that part of it might be useful to the enemy.

May Day demonstrations have always provided members with the opportunity of selling literature, and dodging the park regulations became quite an art. CND marches at their peak were always good for literature sales and propaganda in general. Meetings in Trafalgar Square, held by the Party or opponents, find members busy selling literature, arguing with opponents and discussing with enquirers.

The "stump" - or portable platform - was until quite recently the most successful method of propagating political views. In 1905 there were twenty-five known outdoor speaking spots in London alone and many others in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Manchester. For a Party speaker in London, Sunday could be hectic. A speaker who was a keen cyclist would speak at Wood Green, Tottenham in the morning until around midday. After some refreshment, on to Finsbury Park for an afternoon meeting. Here there would usually be plenty of opponents and occasions when the speaker needed the physical protection of other members. After this he might go to West Ham for an evening meeting. This took place outside a pub and he'd make sure the meeting closed well before the pub did. One such speaker, when he got off the platform, found that his bicycle was missing and he had to borrow his fare home.

During the First World War speaking on the outdoor platform became dangerous and some of the speakers were in prison or on the run. There was a recovery between the two wars, and some good meetings were held on Sundays at Victoria Park in East London, Finsbury Park. Brockwell Park, Hyde Park and Beresford Square, Woolwich. During the 1939-45 war there was a drop in activity, although meetings were held successfully on Sundays in Hyde Park. Audiences often consisted of workers in uniform, and the meeting often continued through air raids.

Modern traffic conditions have made street propaganda almost impossible. In London the only major speaking spot left is Hyde Park. At Tower Hill, where we still hold mid-week meetings, the competition was fierce: there was the man who was tattooed from head to foot, the man who for a few pence demonstrated how he could release himself from the tightest of chains; the Irish comedian and one or two others who were classed as "penny snatchers". Two religious meetings and one Secular Society speaker all competed for an audience. On Monday midday we still put up the platform at the home of the legal profession at Lincoln Inn Fields, but again car parking and traffic have made it very difficult to hold meetings there.

As conditions progressively made the early form of outdoor meetings difficult, the Party looked for other ways of carrying out our work. Elections have been contested in an endeavour to get workers to accept our point of view. 1906 saw the beginning in a small way; probably our most successful venture in elections was in 1945. We still put up candidates as and when we can, but activity today concentrates more on the distribution and sale of our literature, rather than the holding of indoor meetings. Debates with opponents have been, and are still being held - when we can persuade them to take up our challenge.

Over the years the Party has seen hard times and good ones; we have seen many so-called working class parties rise and fall. It is a tribute to our members who have carried on the work that the Socialist Party of Great Britain is still in existence in 1979 and working for its original and only Object.

R. Ambridge

Action Replay: Basket Case (2014)

The Action Replay Column from the October 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

You might well be able to guess that football is the most popular participant sport in Britain, but you would probably be surprised to learn that basketball ranks second. Every year over 2.5 million people over 14 play the game.

But in terms of medals and national prestige, things are not so good. The British men’s basketball team has never qualified for an Olympics contest, though they did play as host nation at London 2012, where they won just one match out of five. They recently failed to make it through to the European national tournament in 2015, having lost in the qualifiers to Iceland and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Early this year funding at the elite level was cut from £7m to zero, as UK Sport reassessed its priorities after the London Olympics. This organisation (which receives money from the government and the National Lottery) deals only with ‘top end’ sport, and – in addition to money for athletics – dishes out sizeable sums to sports such as sailing and fencing, which deliver a fair number of medals but have very little impact in terms of participation. It should be pointed out, though, that basketball still gets funding from, for instance, Sport England, which is concerned with grass roots sport.

Former international John Amaechi argued (BBC online, 22 August) that basketball could help solve various social problems: ‘There is legitimacy to all the sports in question, but are canoeing, shooting, archery, fencing, modern pentathlon and rowing the answer to our obesity problem? Are these the sports that can permeate our urban communities and inspire a generation of youth who are dramatically less well off than the previous?’ He proposed radical changes to the way the sport is run, at all levels.

The boss of British Basketball, Roger Moreland, dismissed Amaechi’s complaints, and insisted that progress was being made. Though in relation to the recent qualifiers he could only say, ‘Frankly, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. We just happened to have lost on this particular occasion.’

Amaechi is probably rather optimistic about what sport could do to keep people fit, well and off the streets. This little spat tells us quite a lot about the priorities that drive establishment support for sport: weighing up the furtherance of national glory against promoting a healthy population. But they all see sport as serving some useful (for them) function and not just being for fun.

Paul Bennett