People's power? (1986)

From the April 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is tempting in politics to see things in stark black and white terms: if a regime is obviously "bad" then those who oppose it are necessarily "good". This tendency to reduce complex situations to simplistic terms has nowhere been more evident in recent times than in the Philippines. Marcos was so evidently "bad" that Aquino must be "good". 

The Philippines is a cluster of islands in the Pacific Ocean with a total population of 54 million. Formerly an American colony, it achieved independence in 1946 although the United States maintained strong economic and military ties with the new state. Immediately after independence the Philippines was ruled by a coterie of the landed aristocracy. Ferdinand Marcos was elected in the mid '60s when he was seen as a radical, reforming politician, especially by progressive industrialists and businessmen. He received considerable support from the Americans, who were at this time extending their war in Vietnam and therefore concerned to maintain a strategically important foothold in the area. Although Marcos did not keep his election promises he secured re-election in 1969 and began to develop what came to be known as "crony capitalism", members of his own family, business associates and political supporters were granted favours and allowed to build up monopolies at the expense of economic efficiency. At the same time Marcos installed his own supporters at all levels of government and administration. 

Under the terms of the constitution Marcos was ineligible for a third term as President, and so he decided to abandon any pretence of democratic government. In 1972 martial law was imposed and justified by the need to deal with armed rebellion by the "communist" New People's Army (NPA). Marcos continued to rule in this way for a further nine years, during which time opposition politicians (including Benigno Aquino) were arrested and imprisoned. Torture and inhumane treatment of those deemed subversive became common. In 1981 martial law was lifted and Marcos secured re-election for a further six year term.

By this time, however, his failure to implement the promised reforms, the evidence of economic and political corruption and mismanagement and the inhumane treatment of political opponents had lost him the support of many industrialists and professionals who had backed him in the 1960s. Increasingly he was forced to turn to the Americans, who were willing to ignore his corruption and human rights violations so long as their bases in the Philippines were secure. However, as opposition increased and the NPA began to attract popular support, American backing began to weaken. 

This year, Marcos called a snap election in the hope that he could demonstrate to the Americans that he still commanded popular support. He had, however, under-estimated the degree to which the previously fragmented opposition groups had united after the assassination of Benigno Aquino on his return from exile in the United States, and the subsequent acquittal of leading members of the army elite who, it was widely assumed, were guilty of his murder. The opposition united behind Corazon Aquino, widow of Benigno Aquino, whose lack of political experience and aspiration was viewed as positively advantageous. A devout Catholic, she also had the support of at least the most conservative elements of the immensely powerful Catholic hierarchy, who deplored what they saw as the moral degeneracy of Marcos and his wife, Imelda. 

While Cardinal Sin, the leader of the Catholic church, called for divine intervention to ensure a free and fair election, Marcos relied on the physical activities of his political henchmen: ballot boxes were stolen, voters intimidated, Aquino supporters subjected to physical violence and, finally, attempts were made to "cook" the voting figures. It was becoming obvious that Marcos' final political gamble had not paid off, but the American government was still unwilling to give him the "kiss of death''. Clearly concerned over the fate of their bases and unsure to what extent Aquino would protect their interests, they were unwilling to declare the election fraudulent. In fact Reagan pathetically asserted to a press conference that there had probably been an element of fraud on both sides. 

By now sections of the army had staged a rebellion and Aquino returned to Manila and called for a campaign of civil disobedience. The Americans sent an envoy, Philip Habib, to discover what they might expect from Aquino and, having got a satisfactory response, decided to cut their losses and run. Marcos and his family were "advised" to leave, which they did with gold worth $240,000 and crates containing $1,179,000 in cash. 

As the new President, Cory Aquino is unlikely to have an easy task. Although the opposition was united against Marcos it is doubtful whether Aquino has a political programme which can hold together all the different factions. Indeed, the mere announcement of her cabinet was sufficient to threaten the political marriage of convenience between herself and her Vice-President, Prime Minister designate and Foreign Minister, Salvador Laurel. Laurel had originally stood as a presidential candidate for his Unido party, but was persuaded to join forces with Aquino so as not to split the anti-Marcos opposition. However, in the post-election carve-up of political jobs it was felt that Unido was not being given sufficient recognition. 

Laurel is by no means the only problem that Aquino faces from within her own ranks. She came to power on the back of what was called "People Power" — a populist desire for changes not dissimilar to those pledged by Marcos in the '60s. She promised land reform — the majority of Filipinos are poor, landless peasants who work for subsistence wages on large plantations, provision of agricultural support schemes to permit small-scale peasant farms to be developed, an end to "crony capitalism", and to seek more favourable terms for the Philippines' $26-30 million international debt. 

The problem for Aquino is that she has promised what she almost certainly cannot "deliver". She will need to negotiate loans from the lMF, who will probably demand curbs on public expenditure in return, thus restricting her ability to offer much in the way of support for peasant farms. Her ability to control the direction of economic reconstruction is also likely to be hampered by the fact that much of Philippine industry is owned by American multi-nationals, which have been only too happy to exploit cheap domestic labour. If Aquino fulfills her promise to free the trade unions from the draconian controls imposed in the Marcos years, then there is also the likelihood that cheap labour will become organised labour engaged in industrial action against low wages and poor working conditions. If that occurs the multinationals may decide that Filipino labour power is no longer such a bargain and move their operations elsewhere. 

Politically, Aquino faces opposition not only from Laurel's Unido faction but also from the New People's Army, which has been waging a guerrilla war in an attempt to bring about a state-capitalist, anti-American regime. So far she has sought to placate them (to the alarm of the Americans who fear that Aquino may turn out to be "soft" on communism) by releasing those held as political prisoners. But if Aquino does not move fast enough in the direction of land reform and the removal of the American bases, they may step up their activity once more. 

The American bases — Clark airfield and Subic Bay — are crucial to an understanding of contemporary Filipino politics. At a time when the Russians are thought to be developing their bases in Vietnam — at Cam Ranh bay (ironically a former US base) and in North Korea at Wosan — the Americans are anxious to retain their strategic foothold in the Philippines. This has become even more pressing given that their other allies in the area are beginning to look less secure there is increasing opposition to the authoritarian, American-backed dictatorship in South Korea; tension exists between America and Japan over trade (in any case, there is no way that Japan would permit strategic, offensive US bases in the country); and controversy with Australia and New Zealand over harbour rights for American ships carrying nuclear weapons. Aquino could placate the NPA by not renewing the lease for the American bases which expires in 1991, but this is unlikely given the strength of the opposition and the economic sanctions that this would inevitably provoke from the Americans. 

Aquino's government is also likely to be pulled in opposite directions by the National Democratic Front — an illegal confederation of radical clergy, left-wing trade unions, students and single issue groups, and reformist businessmen and church moderates like Cardinal Sin who played an important part in bringing Aquino to power. 

Finally, Aquino faces opposition from the rump of loyal Marcos supporters who still hold crucial positions in the judiciary, civil service and local government. It will not be easy to replace such officials quickly and in the meantime they are weIl-placed to sabotage attempts to introduce reforms. It should also be remembered that the Philippines parliament contains two-thirds Marcos supporters who are in power until 1990. The army, too, remains a problem for the new President: the "rebels" — Enrile and Ramos — were both architects of martial law. Enrile worked for Marcos for twenty years, and although Ramos is depicted as the new "professional" soldier who finally lost patience with corrupt political appointees in the army (notably Marcos' right-hand man, General Ver), in fact he was head of the Philippines constabulary — notorious for atrocities like the shooting of 18 sugar cane workers on a plantation in Negros last September. Both men have nevertheless been incorporated into the new administration. 

The Aquino family owns one of the world's largest sugar cane plantations and is part of the landed aristocracy that has dominated Filipino politics since independence. While the new President enthuses about "People's Power", it is significant that her cabinet contains not one single representative of "the people" — they are all businessmen and members of the political elite. Her regime may be more humane but, given her commitment to capitalism, the free market and private property, any hopes that the lot of the majority will improve should soon prove to be misplaced. And if, having flexed their political muscle once, "the people" realise that Aquino cannot deliver the reforms and decide to flex it again, it will be interesting to see how long she retains her political innocence. Among capitalist politicians "Peoples Power" is supported so long as it is tending in their direction; if it is not, it is just as likely to be condemned as subversion.

Janie Percy-Smith

Cromwell, Lord Protector (1954)

From the February 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Just over three hundred years ago, on December 16th, 1653, Oliver Cromwell took the oath as Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland. The occasion of the ter-centenary of this event summoned forth a number of articles in the Press. Maurice Ashley, in The Times (15-12-53) was shocked to find how far the materialist conception of history (though, of course, seldom acknowledged as such) has spread among the younger school of historians. He quotes an Oxford historian as having tried to show "that Cromwell represented 'the men of the new wealth' who purposed to overthrow the established ruling classes," and goes on, 

"An older generation of university historians would rub their eyes at so fanciful an economic interpretation of history. Could any reader of Cromwell's letters and speeches, they might ask, genuinely picture him as an upstart moved by jealousy and greed, or any student of contemporary tracts suppose that religion had not been a central fact in the puritan revolution?" 

This article does not propose to discuss the place of Puritanism in the Great Rebellion; this has been done with consummate skill by Professor R. H. Tawney in "Religion and the Rise of Capitalism." But it is proposed to enquire how far the picture of Cromwell as the representative of the men of new wealth is a true one. 

Marching with the Band in Front 

It is of course possible for a leader or figurehead to be motivated (so far as he himself understands his motives) entirely by religious considerations, while his "followers" are acting to protect or advance their economic interests. "Followers" is put in quotation marks because in such a case the great mass of men making up the movement would not be followers at all; the leader only "marches with the band in front" like children do. The movement only follows such a person because it is in the interest of those making up the movement to do so. As soon as the" leader" gets out of step, he finds that the movement has pursued its own course, and he has been left a general without an army. For example, Mohammed, a religious fanatic got his big chance when the inhabitants of Medina invited him to come and rule over them. This they did not because of religious conviction, but because they wanted to share in the profits of religious pilgrimages, which were then going entirely to the great rival of Medina, Mecca. Five hundred years later, the call of successive Popes to the faithful to go on Crusade against the Saracens was successful not because of religious enthusiasm, but because there was a surplus of younger sons in the great landed houses who in this way carved out for themselves estates in the Middle East. In such cases, is the root cause of the movement in what inspires the lender, or in what inspires the "followers"? For as Sir Ernest Barker put it, "what makes national history most is the action not of lonely leaders, but of big battalions; and by big battalions I mean social groups." (Introduction to L D. Jones' "The English Revolution 1603-1714.") 

Righteous judgment 

Even it it is allowed, then, that the Great Rebellion was caused by the emergence of a new class of men made rich by large-scale trading, allied to the class of yeomen or small landowners who were found chiefly in the south-eastern counties, we must still consider if Cromwell himself was inspired mainly by puritanism. There is some evidence for this view, but more against it. First, the evidence for this view. 

Certainly Cromwell, like the Kaiser, was always sure that God was on his side, When he was faced with the task of subjugating a rebellious Ireland, in 1649, he stormed Drogheda; of the 3,000 troops which had defended it, he himself wrote "I believe we put to the sword the whole number of the defendants, I do not think thirty of the whole number escaped with their lives. Those that did, are in safe custody for Barbadoes "—that is, were sold into slavery. This bloody work he described as " a righteous judgment of God," and he wrote back to the Speaker of the House of Commons more fully: 

"Sir, what can be said of these things? Is it the arm of the flesh that hath done these things? Is it the wisdom and counsel, or strength of man? It is the Lord only. God will curse that man and his house that dares to think otherwise. Sir, you see the work is done by a Divine leading." 

Cromwell then stormed Wexford, slaughtered the garrison there too, and wrote again to the Speaker that "God hath blessed you with a great tract of land in longitude alongst the shore." It is curious that a full knowledge of this butchery does not prevent our modern Nonconformists claiming Cromwell as a blood brother, inspired by the Holy Scriptures. 

Stubble to our swords 

After some months of this, Cromwell left to his lieutenants the work of murdering and enslaving the Irish, and himself went north to deal with Scotland. Though at first the English army seemed in a perilous situation, Cromwell wrote "We have much hope in the Lord, of whose mercy we have had large experience." On this occasion the Lord's mercies took tangible shape in the battle of Dunbar, where 3,000 Scots were killed or injured, and 10,000 captured. After the battle Cromwll boasted that "the Lord made them as stubble to our swords." Further evidence may be found in the well-known fact that before the battle Cromwell gave the command to sing a Psalm; surely this means that he was motivated by religion? But on further consideration, one observes that Cromwell chose none of the bloodthirsty Psalms, of which usually he was inordinately fond; for example, Psalm 110 (the Lord "shall fill the places with the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries") or Psalm 

69 ("Let them be blotted out of the book of the living")—or many more. Psalm 117, which Cromwell 

chose, is a very mild one, with nothing to recommend it—except its brevity; of all the 150 Psalms, this is the shortest, having only two verses. The moral perhaps is that if Cromwell hadn't been attentive at Sunday School, he might well have chosen Psalm 119, which has one hundred and seventy six verses; and the Scots would have been able to withdraw to the trackless moors in their rear before the English army had finished Psalming at them.

Providence seemed to lead us 

These examples of the pious-sounding words used by Cromwell could be multiplied many times. "The Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell" by Thomas Carlyle, is full of instances. But to find the true character of a man, and the true reasons for his policies, it is always necessary to examine not only his words but also his deeds. And we find that both Cromwell's home and his foreign policy were shaped by the desires of the commercial class, not by any religious abstractions. 

In 1651 England went to war with Holland, in spite of the fact that the brand of religion professed by the Dutch was very similar to that of the Puritans themselves. It is true that at that time Cromwell had not yet become Protector, but he was already so outstanding a figure in the Government, as well as being Commander-in-chief of the army, that the Rump would not have dared to take any action of which he disapproved. The cause of this war was unashamedly commercial—the Rump had passed the Navigation Act, which was an attempt to win back the carrying trade of England and the colonies from the Dutch. Cromwell brought this war to a successful conclusion in 1654, and then turned his attention to the Spanish Empire. England had a large navy at the end of the Dutch War, the Spanish West Indies were inadequately defended, and altogether, as Cromwell himself said, "Providence seemed to lead us" to an unprovoked aggression against Spain. This war gained Jamaica and Dunkirk (also previously a Spanish possession) for the English Empire. As it happened, Spain was a Catholic power, which suggests the view that the war was really a war of religion; but since England was at the same time allied with another Catholic Power, France, this view is untenable. 

First to his Englishmen 

Even Cromwell's speeches themselves show us that he was by no means blind to economic considerations. In a speech to the first Parliament elected under the Instrument of Government, in 1654, he bemoaned the fact that the trade of the nation was ruined and the manufacture of cloth at a standstill for want of a market. (This market Cromwell attempted to provide by attacking the Spanish Empire.) In another speech to the same Parliament he pointed with pride to the fact that the Sound, leading into the Baltic, was now open, and said "that which was and is the strength of this nation, the shipping, will now be supplied thence "—with rope, masts, pitch and tar. Cromwell even carried his patriotism into his religion. G. M. Trevelyan tells us in "England under the Stuarts" that Cromwell held, along with his secretary Milton, that God revealed himself "as His manner is, first to His Englishmen." 

A study of Cromwell's home policy reveals plainly the same lesson. Some of the reforms carried out under the Commonwealth, although they were all held to be nullities at the Restoration, were immediately re-enacted by the extreme anti-Puritan Anglicans who held power after 1660—for example, the Navigation Act, the provision in the Instrument of Government for triennial Parliaments, and the abolition of the system of holding land by military tenure. Many more of Cromwell's reforms and policies were abolished in 1660, only to be resuscitated later. Among these were the abolition of the monarchy (since the last century this country has been, in effect, "a crowned Republic"); the reform of the franchise; the unification of Ireland and Scotland with England in one united Commonwealth, and free trade within that Commonwealth; the reform of the court of Chancery, and an attempt to codify the common law; the abolition of patronage in the Church of England, and the establishment of civil marriage; the maintenance of a fleet permanently in the Mediterranean; and the setting-up of an efficient system of local government and police (which is called in the history books "the rule of the Major-Generals "). These reforms and policies were not brought back all at the same time. Some were re-enacted by the High Church Anglicans of Queen Anne's reign; some by the Low Church, freethinking Whigs of the eighteenth century; and some by men of all shades of religious belief, and of none, in the nineteenth century. All these men were very different, in point of religion, from the sternly Puritan and evangelic Cromwell. What they had in common with him was not any particular set of religious principles, but the desire to preserve and extend the interests of the commercial class, and to carry out the reforms in the structure of society desired by that class. Cromwell genuinely thought of himself as a chosen instrument of God, carrying out God's will. But no newly- emerging ruling class has ever been accurate about its motives. Every man likes to credit himself with higher motives than the pursuit of self- or class-interests. But it is what a man does, not what he says, that shows what he is: and Cromwell's policies reveal him to have been, just as much as his comrades-in-arms, a man of the middle class.

Jenkin.

Asking the right questions (1997)

From the June 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Clear political thinking arises from asking the right questions. Ask bad questions and your answers will lead nowhere. 

For example, given the question, "Should I support the government of the day or a new government, much like them?", it is inevitable that the result, inherent in the flawed question, will lead to an effective non-choice between more of the same and more of something similar. Again, the question, "Should we federate within the European Union?" carries within it enough wrong assumptions to guarantee a useless answer. Who are the "we" in question: British millionaires or British wage slaves? Do both have common interests? Do workers have any interest in which trading bloc their bosses join? But, by confining the question to the narrow issue, the answer is bound to lead the questioner astray.

So, before seeking great political solutions, the task is to raise great political questions. These are not likely to coincide with the questions raised by the mass media. These tend to be narrowly based on the agenda of the capitalist system and its immediiate problems. So, media discussion is rather like observing the fire brigade at work after a bomb has exploded. Questions about who saw it in their interest to make the bomb and why they decided to do it and what other options they had are relegated to the margins. The mass media dismisses such 'why' questions as being too obscure. They want to know who planted the bomb, when it went off, how many people it killed or injured, what the scene of the fire fighters and the flames look like. An election—just like the recent one—might well be described as a competition between rival fire brigades to hose down the flames of the inferno, the cause of which is of no concern to them.

The most illuminating questions are those which concern cause and effect. These are the questions which have traditionally interested scientists. Had Newton's response to the apple falling been to merely study the effect and ask, "What's the best remedy for a bump on the head?", his enlightening thoughts about gravity might not have occurred to him. For most of us, it is the occurrence of regular metaphorical bumps on the head (experience, in short) which leads us to ask the question, "Why is this happening?"

Political headache

Here are some good examples of how experience determines questions:

A man is employed by Ford for twenty years. He is skilled and he needs the money in his wage packet. One day he receives a notice with his wages telling him that the job's finished. He is to be made redundant. Capitalism has given him its version of a thump on the head. What does he ask himself? He has a range of questions which he could ask: "Why is it me losing my job and not the other worker who is a different age, colour, gender . . .?" This kind of question (scapegoating) will only lead to frustration and bitterness. Or he might as, "How can I beg for my job back? Could I convince my employer that I can become even more productive for even less money?" This is the desperate reasoning of the wage slave. How about asking a few more useless questions:"Where was God when I needed him?" or "Why can't I get the right numbers for the lottery now that l'm down on my luck?" Some people spend years entrapped by such useless questioning. They end up with huge political headaches and a conviction that asking questions leads nowhere.

Someone has a small business and a mortgaged home. The business goes bust because other small businessmen are unable to pay their bills on time. The bank is owed money. The business folds. Without a business income the mortgage payments fall into arrears. The family home is repossessed by the bank. Once again, the array of useless questions which could be—and often are—asked is huge: "Why weren't the other business men more prompt at paying their bills? Why wasn't the bank more flexible? Why should my family suffer from being homeless when I have done nothing but work my fingers to the bone? Why should this happen to me and not the people who own supermarkets?"

The need for these people, and millions like them suffering to a greater or lesser extent from social problems, is to ask the right questions. The right questions are ones which go to the root cause of the problem. Imagine going to a doctor with a pain in your leg: "Shall we cut your leg off or pray for a miracle relief?" she asks. Any sensible sufferer will soon be limping out of the surgery of such a lunatic. Any serious scientist will want to know the cause of the pain.

Religious people have their own answer. The cause of humanity's pain is original sin. Why is life full of woes? Because Eve was tempted by a snake to eat an apple. Well, if that kind of fairy story satisfies you there is little point in looking for further root causes. Why Hiroshima? Why the gas chambers? Why do millions of innocent children starve to death? Blame Adam and Eve. The Fall of Man. Human Nature. This is the most erroneous causal explanation in the history of ideas. It is a humanity-hating analysis which substitutes self-blame and guilt for more reasoned questioning.

The root cause

The socialist takes the opposite approach to questioning. We ask, "What is it about the way that society is organised which leads to effects which repeatedly harm so many people?" The same question could well be asked by people who are not socialists. Answers could range from "Because the government is lousy and we need a new government" to "Because there are too many people being born." All of these imagined root causes have been put from time to time. They are all wrong. Governments come and governments go, but still the basic social system remains. In fact, the system governs the government and not the other way round—as Messrs. Blair and Brown will soon come to realise. What these fail to do is address the nature of the way society is organised at root.

The root cause for socialists is the social system. By this we mean a particular network of social relationships existing at this point in history. It has not always existed. It will not always exist. It will stop existing after enough people have questioned its practicality and desirability as the best possible social system.

Put simply, we state that the current social system is one which puts production for profit before production for human needs. Why does it do so? Because a minority own and control the productive resources of society and will only allow these to be used as long as they are making a profit for them. How do they make profits? By getting the majority of society, who own little but our mental and physical energies, to work for them in return for wages or salaries which amount to less than what we are producing. Why does the majority work to make profits for a minority? Because they have yet to question why it is that their problems arise directly from a social system where minority profit comes before majority needs. And a good deal of money and energy is devoted to diverting the majority from asking such dangerous questions.

So, in an age filled to the brim with awful social problems and countless wrong solutions, let's conclude with some questions rather than answers. Think long and hard enough about the right questions and the answers will take care of themselves. 

Why are we living in a society capable of producing enough to feed, clothe and shelter everyone, yet millions are deprived of these needs being satisfied and hundreds of millions face relative poverty?

Why is production of goods and services geared to sale on the market with a view to profit rather than solely to meet people's needs?

What kind of a society could we have if production solely for use replaced production for profit?

If the socialist alternative of common ownership and democratic control of productive resources, and production for use, is so sensible, why aren't millions of people insisting that we organise society on that basis?

Why not do something about working with other socialists to raise these vital questions and act upon the answers?

Steve Coleman

Great Men and greater nonsense (1990)

From the December 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

By and large, socialists have little truck with what is sometimes called the "Great Man Theory of History", much preferring the Materialist Conception of History. Propounded by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, this offers a much more satisfactory explanation of the forces that have shaped and changed human societies since the beginning of written history, which Marx pointed out was the history of private property society. 

It still remains a fact that there are libraries of literature, and hosts of avid readers, concerned with the biographies of men and women whose lives have captured the public imagination for one reason or another, probably because most of us feel our own lives to be lacking in romance or significance and we like to escape from our own humdrum stories into the larger canvases of supposed "larger" lives. 

The largest slice of this literary market is concerned with the enthralling inner secrets of film stars, hitters or kickers of balls, criminals in a variety of fields and the guardians of law and order who have never, "honest, guvnor", fitted-up anyone in their unblemished careers. Now and again there is a blockbuster about a Cromwell or a president, or some scientist, whose lives or discoveries seemed to leave their mark on a changed world. 

Mathematically, it should not be too surprising that, in a species which is as richly and variously talented as humanity and is numbered in multi-millions, there should be the occasional supremely talented individual, just as from week to week there are men and women who win the pools. 

Of course the materialist conception of history acknowledges the different qualities and contributions of individual men, women and groups in the development of society throughout the ages, and socialists would far rather pass an evening in the company of Louis Pasteur and his wife, than share a pint with Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Stalin or Alfred Krupps, but they recognise that the society in which these individuals operated were the greater forces in the equation. 

Apart from anything else, genius or talent is not inheritable. It is unlikely that the grandchildren of Puccini would qualify for lifetime free tickets to La Scala, Milan, and even the descendants of Pavarotti are not too likely to inherit his magical tonsils. But there is one property that even the completely talentless can inherit, and that is private property and the public use of power this entails. This is why humanity has had to suffer the dynastic rule, in politics and industry, of so many Neros and Caligulas. 

Karl Marx and Albert Einstein 

However, back to Great Men. Columbus discovered America and Newton discovered the gravitational forces, though both America and gravity had been there for some time before their "discovery". Nonetheless Columbus and Newton are worthy names in the history books. Karl Marx revealed the nature of the forces that operated to affect the human societies in the political and economic field, and postulated a society where poverty would be abolished along with buying and selling and money. He has been scorned, and ridiculed since for his ideas. 

A more recent Great Man was Albert Einstein, who set the world of physics ablaze with his theory of relativity. Few informed people would deny that Einstein was a twenty-four carat genius. Shortly after other Great Men had ended four years of ordering men to butcher and be butchered, an eclipse of the sun enabled Einstein's postulates to be confirmed. He then became news, as quotable as Garbo or Valentino, and journalists in popular science had a field day. Relativity was a strange concept, but no-one hated Einstein for it. Karl Marx envisaged a society where poverty would be abolished, and a lot of people still hate him for that theory, and we mean hate. Weird. 

Einstein did not confine himself to physics. He also had views on politics and world affairs. When he was interviewed by the world press arriving off some liner or aircraft he would tell them to "never forget to mention that I am a pacifist". He was scathing in his contempt of the military mind, stating that the magnificent human brain was wasted on such who only needed a broomstick for a spine and a place to support their helmets. But genius or no, he had, as we all do, to live in the real world, and that real world had made him a political refugee, as earlier it had Karl Marx. 

In time the developments of that real world led Albert Einstein, genius and avowed pacifist, to pen a letter to the President of the United States, who was also Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, pleading that he set up research into a super-weapon. 

Thus was the Manhattan Project started, Hiroshima devastated and a climate of cold-war fear and fever created that threatened the very survival of all life on planet Earth. Many of the team that built the atomic bomb were, like Einstein, pacifists and some (enough to worry the military mind of Colonel Groves) had "left-wing" views. It is obvious that not only has the Ultimate Weapon which arose as an antidote of the Final Solution failed in its purpose, but that there are still some very nasty political ideas and regimes thriving yet. 

Karl Marx did not appeal to men and women of genius, or leaders. He addressed his message to the working class of the world, as his words show—"Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains, you have a world to win!" 

Marx was not a pacifist. Einstein was. How strange that one led to the possible losing of the world and the other is still hated for pleading for it to be won. Like Einstein, Marx was a man of exceptional talent, but he knew that changing the world would not be the work of exceptional men and women. That is why we emphasise in our Declaration of Principles that "this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself" . We may not be a party of exceptional men and women, but we are a party with an exceptional idea. 

We would like ordinary men and women (and geniuses, too) to read our case, then help us spread it, any ordinary way they can.

Ed Blewitt

Castro's brand of capitalism (1979)

From the February 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is now twenty years since the hated Cuban dictator Batista went into exile. As he did so the small army led by Fidel Castro finally took control of Havana, the capital city, after years of rural guerrilla warfare. This event, coupled with a series of economic and social reforms, is widely regarded as a revolution; it was no such thing. The new rulers nationalised much of the economy, set-up a one-party system, established diplomatic, economic and military ties with the Soviet bloc and to an increasing extent adapted their radical nationalism to a tropical version of Bolshevism. Not only was it described as a 'communist state' by the horrified defenders of United States' imperial interests, but also by young leftists elated by an initially unbureaucratic, indeed light-hearted and popular, new system that contrasted favourably with the familiar Soviet pattern. What really happened and why the misrepresentation? 

Cuba remained a Spanish colony 73 years after mainland Latin America had won its independence. When her 'liberation' was finally achieved in 1898, it was largely the result of United States military intervention. A short period of US administration was followed by the setting up of an 'independent' constitution in 1902 which nevertheless embodied the 'Platt Amendment' restrictions on its authority, enabling the US to intervene in Cuban affairs when deemed necessary. Having displaced Spanish political power, the United States proceeded to supplant local and European economic interests. The value of US exports to Cuba rose from $27m in 1897 to $200m in 1914. By 1929 78 per cent of Cuba's sugar cane was milled by foreign (mainly North American) owned companies and 25 per cent of the cane plantations were owned by 4 United States firms The US, by means of trade agreements, was the major market for Cuban sugar, and using a preferential rate of exchange sold cheap items of manufacture which strangled embryonic Cuban industry. 

By 1955, 40 per cent of raw sugar production, 23 per cent of non-sugar industry, 90 per cent of telephone and electrical services and 50 per cent of the railway network were American owned. This domination gave rise to resentment, especially among students, and the nationalism which had inspired the struggle against Spa in now took the form of Anti-Americanism. 

Cuba's economy depended on sugar (55 per cent of its arable land was devoted to growing cane) yet from 1925 onwards this section of the economy ceased to expand, causing general stagnation. Indeed, many countries began producing sugar from home-grown beet, resulting in a conflict of interests between American domestic producers and those upholding the sugar agreement with Cuba. 

The subservience to Washington of Cuba's governing circles and the fragmented character of social groupings militated against positive moves towards greater economic development and independence. Neither the rich nor the poor effectively coordinated their activities. The politicians were far more interested in the spoils of office than in advancing national development and corruption was virtually unchecked. As for a radical capitalist solution, the best organised body of people that might bring this about, the Communist Party, was seriously compromised by its record of deals with repressive regimes for the sake of real or illusory increases in its power and influence over the working class movement. Their alliance with Batista in 1938, helped him into power, played a significant part in alienating many young radicals from the political process. They had witnessed one leader after another promise radical changes for the better, only to be disappointed They had seen the Communist Party prostitute itself to dictator after dictator in the crude quest for power (through the first Batista regime they had received control of the CTC, the Cuban Trade Union organisation, as well as obtaining two cabinet seats). These radicals were well aware of the political chaos Cuba was in and of its social and technological backwardness and in desperation they turned to violence. During the Forties many students took part in 'Action Groups', small units carrying out terrorist activities but with little or no political success. From this hope of a regenerated Cuba a new movement arose under the leadership and powerful oratory of Eddy Chibas. But just when it seemed on the point of a break-through, Batista led a second coup d'état and re-installed himself as dictator in 1952. This event marked a turning point in the struggle for reform had been undertaken by the 'Orthodoxo' movement. Many of its former adherents became convinced of the need for the violent overthrow of the existing system. On the 26 July 1953 Castro led an unsuccessful attack on the Moncada Barracks but later the movement which took its name from the occasion was to gain support. Starting with twelve survivors of a landing party, in 1956 an army was built with the aid of the peasants of the Sierra Maestra. After a period of struggle the Fidelistas took complete control and the new regime was established in January 1959. 

Having gained political power, what was Castro to do with it? He had no efficient political organisation and, apart from his radical nationalism, no real programme. Breaking the US domination of the Cuban economy and being seen to be conducting a foreign policy independent of the USA were a vital requirement for Castro if he was to keep power.. However, in the conditions of the 'Cold War' a foreign policy independent of Washington, especially from a country only 90 miles from the US coast, could only be construed by the American Government and 'public opinion' as pro-Soviet. Further, the nationalisation of many American firms (prompted by the need to further concentrate and plan the investment of capital) led to the cutting off of all aid. The shortage of spare parts, new machinery and above all technicians and administrators led Cuba to seek increasing aid from the USSR and it was ultimately that country which replaced America as the major purchaser of Cuban sugar. 

The re-organisation of the Cuban economy and state required a political movement to ensure its success. Castro, by taking the Communist Party ready made and merging it with his own organisation, was merely creating the necessary instrument for his purposes. His claims of a long-standing adherence to 'Marxism-Leninism' provided a justification for union, with the CP, the introduction of a 'one-party state' and the establishment of his own rule. In pre-Castro Cuba the dominant social relationship was that of wage labour and capital. All that the Castro regime achieved on gaining power was the nationalisation of much of the economy (state capitalism) and a number of social reforms — not the abolition of capitalism. 

Brian Philips

Inequality – high and rising (2015)

Book Review from the July 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

'Inequality and the 1%'. Danny Dorling. Verso. 2014.

Dorling is a social geographer, some of whose books have been reviewed in these pages previously. This is his latest work, focused on examining inequality, mainly in Britain but with reference to other comparable countries too. In particular, Dorling looks at trends in wealth and related phenomena, focusing on the position in society of the top 1 per cent, who have got richer and richer in recent decades.

He examines statistical data and trends on inequality with regard to categories such as childhood, work, wealth and health, and much of what he uncovers is unlikely to come as much of a surprise to readers of this magazine. Some of the statistics bear repeating all the same:

-        After tax, the proportion of UK income received by the top 1 per cent each year is now around 24 percent;
-        The top 1 percent own 53 percent of the personally tradable wealth;
-        The richest 1 percent in the UK now have wealth that is equivalent to the bottom 30 per cent put together with everything they own, and this effect is worsening;
-        The national minimum wage would be £18.83 if it had kept pace with rises in FTSE100 Chief Executive ‘salaries’ (as opposed to £6.19 when this was written);
-        While most people have had real pay cuts since the onset of the financial crisis, the accumulated wealth of the richest has grown in recent years by around 11 percent per annum.

Dorling makes many of the same arguments as Oliver James in Affluenza and Pickett and Wilkinson in The Spirit Level, namely that more equal societies tend to be happier and healthier on a range of measures, and that countries like the UK and US are heading for ever greater disasters because of it.

For all the positives to this book – and there are many – Dorling, like these other writers, has a tendency to assume that the right sort of governments and attendant economic and social policies can make a massive difference. But at best they can only tinker around at the margins, and since the real globalization of capital in recent decades, their ability to do even this has all but disappeared. He calls the type of tax and banking reform that he alludes to as a ‘slow revolution’ that is needed, but also concedes towards the end of the book ‘it may be that a slow revolution is not enough’. We would suggest that the history of the last two centuries of capitalism illustrates this point precisely.

In essence, the rich do not get rich because of historical accidents that some governments fail to act upon and reverse – they get richer because accumulating and reinvesting capital is the lifeblood of the market system and when the flow gets clotted (like in the 1970s) the people who really own and control society will act to remove that clot, so that capital can flow freely again. This has happened across the world, and is presently in the process of happening in countries like Greece. Capital normally flows to where profit rates are most lucrative – this is the economic logic of the system. And capital accumulates from the exploitation of the rest of us – and it does so primarily to the owners of capital.

The reason we live in an unequal society dominated by the richest 1 percent is because while we have socially co-ordinated production and distribution carried on by billions of people across the planet, creating and doing all the things we need to survive, the wealth they produce (and the wealth invested to produce it) is owned by this tiny minority. And this minority has a supreme economic incentive to keep things running that way, ie in their direction, which is the natural direction of flow.

This means there is only one way to get rid of inequality in the modern world and that is to abolish its source – the class-divided profit system we call capitalism. Otherwise it would mean more doomed attempts at trying to defy economic gravity – and on that front, we’ve seen more than enough already. In fact, it was repeated failures to humanize capitalism by the social democrats and reformers that has led us to where we are now.

DAP

Obituary: John Robertson (1994)

Obituary from the February 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are saddened to have to report the death between Christmas and the New Year of John Robertson, a member of the Party for over fifty years.

John Robertson was born in 1914 in South Shields where his father had a butcher shop. After the General Strike and subsequent defeat of the miners the whole family had to move to London. His desire to do something about capitalism led him first to join the Labour Party which he soon left after the miserable failure of the 1929-31 Labour government. Later, after listening to Socialist Party speakers in Brockwell Park and at Hyde Park, he joined our Lewisham branch in 1938.

During the war his registration as a conscientious objector was turned down and he decided to go on the run. Naturally as a socialist he wanted no part in killing his fellow workers, and was prepared to suffer for his principles. It wasn't a very secure life but it was possible to survive on false papers and given the acute labour shortage in certain "non-essential" trades like hotels and catering. During this period "Robbie" was a member of our Hackney and later Islington branches but also spent some time in Oxford. It was here some time after the war that he eventually settled, running his own agency typing theses for students.

He was an active participant in the various activities the Party organized in the Oxford area over the years, including for a while a branch. He was always interested in current affairs and socialist theory. He and his wife Tessa were also keenly interested in music and were pleased that their son, Paul, came to be a founding member of the well-known Medici String Quartet.

John Robertson was not a member at the time of his death, but he remained a supporter of socialist ideas and meetings to the end.

Brixton explodes (1981)

From the June 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

After the riots, the deluge. As the fires died in Brixton, the smouldering passions there were doused in words hosed out from all kinds of social and political analysts. Most of them claimed dolefully that they had been expecting just such a thing to happen for a long time; all of them were alert with theories about the causes, and thereby with suggestions to stop it happening again.

One who did not offer any analysis was the very man in the whole of Britain who might be expected to know more about civil disorder than anyone else—Home Secretary William Whitelaw. But apparently he had so little idea about what happened and why that he had to set up an enquiry to tell him. In charge of the enquiry is Lord Justice Scarman, who did similar jobs on the Red Lion Square confrontation in 1974 and Grunwick in 1977 and who, if he doesn't get a rest from it soon, may come to think that open air life in London is about as peaceful as the North Bank at Highbury when Spurs are playing there.

The analysis of the Brixton riots covered a pretty wide field. On the one hand there was the Labour leader of Lambeth Council, Ted Knight, whose role in the affairs of London becomes daily more obscure as people begin to wonder whether he is a councillor or a comedian. Knight declared (Guardian, 16/4/81):

We went to see the commander of the police tonight to demand that he withdraw his men. He won't do it.

And he then went on to advise:

... a future Labour government must dismantle the Metropolitan Police and replace it with a new force "responsible and answerable to the working class people".

Knight is one of those "practical socialists" who, while not actually being delirious, suffer from these dreams in which the police don't have to be a coercive, property protective force but can assert the minority privileges of capitalism in the interests of the unprivileged majority , This is a common sort of delusion among "practical socialists", who deceive themselves that capitalism doesn't have to be capitalism—and Knight's problem is that when he talks like this he is not joking.

On the other hand there was the reaction of Margaret Thatcher—and nobody is in any doubt by now about her role in capitalism's affairs. There was no surprise when Thatcher resisted the invitation to agree that pressures like racial discrimination and unemployment could have influenced the riots. And in between Knight and Thatcher there were the senseless trendies and liberals, like the teachers who tried to get the NUT Annual Conference to debate an emergency motion which called for the restoration of government grants for housing, education and social services.

One thing all these analyses hold in common is the notion that basically there is nothing wrong with capitalism. They all agree that the priority is not to abolish the system but to patch it up; any conflict between them is over how much patching up is needed, and where, and whether it can be afforded right now. The most visionary among them misconstrue Brixton as the result of malignant government policies and harsh police methods; the least visionary misinterpret the riots as .the malignant response to a benevolent, natural order of things.

From this it is clear that capitalism is OK; Whitelaw would hardly have chosen anyone who was likely to say differently. The Home Secretary is a tirelessly courteous man who resembles a friendly sea lion but that should deceive nobody. His plump, fatherly demeanour hides an iron determination to do as capitalism requires, at whatever cost to an undoubtedly kindly disposition.

How then should an enquiry into Brixton proceed? Well first there is the character of the place and the question of whether this is unique or even unusual. Brixton is not one of the world's beauty spots. Arterial roads suck in heavy traffic; there is the prison of grim infamy and, near the Town Hall, there is Rushcroft Road, where the fascists once jammed the streets with their malignant prejudices. The area was largely an Edwardian development and it has streets of substantial villas of that period, now run down and multi-occupied by the more depressed strata of workers. A study of the southern part of Lambeth in 1976 found 18 per cent of the housing in poor condition and 42 per cent of the people there in shared accommodation. These statistics represent workers whose deprivation is such that they must concentrate where the rents are lowest, even if that also means where the walls are damp, where the rats run and the floors are rotten. For these workers, survival takes a desperate toll; they are capitalism's social misfits or its unemployable—single parent families, weary pensioners and, inevitably, immigrants.

Like many parts of London, Brixton has immigration written into its history and by no means all the immigrants have come from what is evasively called the New Commonwealth. But it did receive the first imported workers from the West Indies in the early fifties, and they have stayed, raised families and are easily identified by other, similarly desperate workers venting their frustrations on the most accessible scapegoat. 

So, Brixton has become famous for tension as well as for its seedy buildings and its street crime. The Metropolitan Police say that Lambeth ranks second in their entire area for violent crime: in 1980 they recorded 2859 cases. In 1975 a police report stated that 80 percent of muggings—quick, violent, usually small scale street robberies—were committed by young blacks and that 85 per of the victims were whites. These figures were triumphantly used by racist organisations like the National Front, would not be anxious to emphasise inherently subjective element involved in any criminal statistics. Workers who were already in a panic at the decline in the fabric of the area might have concluded that they were surrounded by black thugs, that 80 per cent of the black youngsters were muggers. But the same report said that only 4 per cent of youngsters were involved in street crime, suggesting that the overwhelming majority of them keep to the law. 

Brixton's street crime gave it a deserved reputation for being about the most intensively policed part of London. It regularly returned the highest figures, outside the West End; for arrests for Sus, the offence which ropes people in not for actually committing a crime but for a couple of policemen think that they are contemplating one. Brixton has also had unusually frequent attention from the Special Patrol Group, which stopped thousands of people in the streets for spot checks and arrested hundreds of them. The police justified these tactics by a sharp fall in reported street but in the process, to some extent, they replaced the muggers' violence with their own. Contact with the SPG is not a tranquilising experience. Brixton bubbled like a volcano; the police tried even harder to hold the top down but in the end it had to blow up.

The riots were seen by many workers as authentication of the doom laden prophecies which have emanated from Enoch Powell, beginning with his infamous 1968 Birmingham speech in which he foresaw "the River Tiber foaming with much blood". Perhaps Powell feels that his reputation for rigourously logical thinking has been sustained. But there were others who also foretold the trouble which can be expected from crowding a specially depressed population into a decayed area and subjecting it to pressures such as racial discrimination, chronic poverty and state violence. Powell's contribution—if it can be described as such—is to blame the riots, and indeed much of the conditions in which the riots happened, onto the skin colour of the rioters. The famous logician Powell is here indulging in the fallacy of a self-fulfilling prophecy, which may be comfortable for him and which may appeal to the more ignorant and prejudiced among the working class but which is not logical or reasonable .

Even Scarman will probably be aware that Brixton is not unique, either now or in the past. In 19th century Britain, for example, the appetite for labour stimulated by the Industrial Revolution drew masses of Irish workers to this country. They came mainly to escape from the appalling famines in Ireland; with only their working abilities to sell for their living they came looking for employment, cramming into towns like Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow. By 1851 they made up nearly 3 per cent of the population and, doing mainly unskilled work in textiles and building, they were in competition with equally desperate English workers for jobs and housing.

These were the roots of the discrimination which was practised against the immigrants, with "No Irish" signs up at .the windows and 'employers keeping English and Irish workers apart to avoid trouble at work. Even so there were riots and battles over many years, as one group of degraded workers fought with another over who should be exploited and repressed at one particular place and time. By the end of the century the Irish had become largely absorbed but they had been replaced as the butt of popular prejudice by the Jews, with an Enoch Powell—Tory MP Major Evans-Gordon—rousing mob ignorance for his own political advantage.

Then, as now, deluded workers were avoiding the reality that problems like slums, unemployment, poverty and competition for jobs cannot be laid at the door of an immigrant work force. Capitalism both creates the demand for that work force to be mobile and the urban concentrations in which it must try to survive. For capitalism works by the production of profit, which means by the exploitation of the majority of its people. For capitalism, profitable is beautiful: cheap is beautiful; so often slums are beautiful; conflict is beautiful; ugliness is beautiful. Brixton is beautiful.

And all of this, in 1981, can come into focus on the streets of some urban desert, when a black youngster is stopped by a policeman whose uniform gleams with the authority of one whose job is to protect the minority rights and privileges of the capitalist class which is responsible for the desert. If that same policeman also represents working class prejudices he may treat the youngster to some racist insults. If the focus becomes sharper, like the rays of the sun, there can be a conflagration in which those youngsters might feel that in some undefined way they are getting some of their own back as they riot and burn and loot.

And in that too there was an irony, in Brixton, because as a working class area, the shops specialise in the tawdry rubbish which is all that impoverished workers can afford. The looters were not getting their own back; in what they thought of as their freedom to take what they liked they were in fact affirming their own degradation. .

The conclusion of this enquiry then is that Brixton is not unique in either time or place. There have been many other, similar, riots in many parts of the world and there will be many more for as long as capitalism continues to exploit and repress the majority in the sordid interests of the minority. Here are the roots of Brixton's agony; they will not be approached by any official enquiry no matter how rigorous. The workers of Lambeth, of London and of the world are in a crisis which it is in their own power to end and they should need no judge to tell them what is wrong with society.

Ivan

Aneurin Bevan (1960)

From the August 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

The death of Aneurin Bevan was a terrible blow to the Labour Party. Here, we were told, was a man of humble birth who night have been Prime Minister. A man who burnt with a sincere passion against the world's harshness and injustice. But did Bevan bear any responsibility for making the world what it is? Truly, Labour have need of him now, of his scornful wit which could hold the Tories in sullen silence—or have them laughing at themselves. More even than that, Labour need his ability to unite the party in acceptance of policies which as individuals they may find distasteful. Bevan was a master at this because many Labour Party members believed that, if Nye could say with his hand on his heart that a certain course was regrettable but necessary, then it must be so. So it was at Brighton in 1957, when he made his famous speech on the H-bomb which shocked his followers and shattered the movement which up to then had been known as the Bevanites.

Now why should the death of one man be so disastrous to a party which has hundreds of thousands of other members? It seems too obvious to say that the party which can offer the most attractive leaders usually gets the most votes. Since the heyday of the Attlee era, Labour have lacked appealing leaders. No more Ernie Bevin, with his rough manner and the straying aitches. No more Herb Morrison, smooth and, eloquent. Bevan seemed to be the only outstanding one left. And now that be has gone, Labour are asking themselves: What shall we do without him?

A man like Bevan is important to a party which offers itself as a potential administrator of capitalism. At election time, it must angle for the floating voter—and there is no more tempting bait than a colourful leader, to answer the tricky questions which stump the candidate, to shake hands all round and tell everyone how worthy he is, and to explain away the hard facts of capitalist life and persuade the voters to bear the insecurity and the squalor of the system which his party wish to organise. He must justify the promises forgotten or broken, and skate over the stirring enunciation of principles which were upheld at the last election and are being quietly contradicted in this. He must, in fact, be all that the politically ignorant expect a leader to be.

Bevan filled this role to perfection. First of all, he had what they call the common touch. Who better than a one time down-trodden miner to justify the anti-working class policies of his party? One of these was Bevan's pet, the National Health Service. This must have gained a lot of support for Labour in 1945, for many people thought that the scheme would entitle them to free access to the best possible medical treatment—and who wouldn't vote for something like that? In fact, National Health was a rearrangement of working-class poverty, which made no difference to the fact that the surest way of getting decent medical attention is to be able to pay for it. A royal birth still sends a whole clutch of doctors hurrying to the bedside. And Bevan himself died in the care of a titled personal physician. Is that an indication of what he thought of the National Health Service? The record does not end there, Bevan was a member of the Labour government when they were busy breaking strikes and getting involved in the slaughter of workers in Korea and other parts of the world. This was the government which promoted the great swindle of nationalisation, which made the shareholders more secure than before and left the workers no better off. Yet—and here is the swindle—this was said, by Bevan and others, to be Socialism.

True, Bevan sometimes produced a scathing condemnation of the Tories. He was good at this—he made a mess of Selwyn Lloyd over Suez. Yet he could be nationalistic when he wanted. Macmillan, in his House of Commons tribute, called him a patriot. This is what he had to say at Bradford on 17th October, 1953:
Let the British nation take the position it is entitled to, the moral leadership of the world. That leadership does not belong across the Atlantic because America is being dominated by the same kind of mentality as dominates the government of Great Britain.
He could be scathing on the Conservatives' colonial policy—yet, for example, it was his party which imprisoned Nkrumah. (Strangely, Bevan forgot this and in the debate on Cyprus on 19th March, 1959, he actually attacked the Tories for imprisoning the Ghana Prime Minister. The Tories had a good laugh and Bevan had to withdraw—which, of course, he did without turning a hair). He could make a touching plea for peace and security—yet he insisted that any future Labour government must have the right to make any weapons which the emergencies of capitalism may force onto them. This is what he said about the H-bomb at the Scarborough Conference in 1958:

We are not pledging ourselves to making it. We are not pledging ourselves not to making it. We don't know what kind of weapons we need. We must leave ourselves some room for manoeuvre.

There is no reason to pin this sort of inconsistency on to Bevan alone. For he was only one of the many leaders of capitalism. Such men must have at least two faces—one for their public, always responsible but kindly, suggesting that its owner is incapable of hurting a fly; and the other for: the Cabinet Room realities of capitalism, for the brutal and inhuman actions and decisions which they must always be taking. It is never pleasant to hear of a death. But this must be said: Bevan played the game with the rest. He played it better than most. That is why they will remember him for a long time.

Ivan

I. S. STAND FOR - CONFUSION (1974)

From the December 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Socialist Worker”, the weekly paper of the International Socialists, regularly publishes a statement of their main principles called “What We Stand For”.(1) We would expect this organization to stand for Socialism. Surprisingly, Socialism is nowhere defined in the statement and it only appears as a word upon which various people and organizations have placed many different interpretations. Still it is possible to get some idea of what IS stand for by a careful reading of their statement. It is also possible to get very confused. For instance, the statement starts off:

We believe that socialism can only be achieved by the independent action of the working class.

Whereas, the last part says they are

For the building of a mass workers’ revolutionary party . . . which can lead the working class to power . . .

(our emphasis both times)

Now, unless the workers are supposed to be getting power for something other than Socialism, it is simply ridiculous to say that someone who is being led is taking independent action. Could IS tell us which statement they stand for and which is this week’s deliberate mistake? It would also be interesting to know just how large a “mass” the workers of this “revolutionary party” are to be. Presumably, if it attracted too many workers the working class would be leading themselves!

The second part of the statement reads:

We believe in overthrowing capitalism, not patching it up or gradually trying to change it. We therefore support all struggles of workers against capitalism and fight to break the hold of reformist ideas and leaders.

We would wholeheartedly agree with this although we wonder if they only mean reformist leaders in the last bit. However, IS don’t appear to agree with this part of the statement themselves. Later on they say they are:

Against unemployment, redundancies and lay-offs. Instead we demand five days’ work or five days’ pay, and the 35-hour week. For nationalization without compensation under workers’ control.

What is this if it is not an appeal to patch up capitalism? No form of nationalization ever has or could solve the problem of unemployment in capitalism. This is a strange way to fight reformist ideas. As another example, at the two general elections this year they have supported the return of a Labour government. This is despite acknowledging (although their election posters made no mention of the fact) that such a government would be anti-working class and reformist. This is another strange way of supporting all struggles of workers against capitalism and fighting reformist ideas. Again, perhaps IS could explain?

The fifth part of the IS statement at least gives us some idea of what they stand for. It contains the sentence:

The experience of Russia demonstrates that a socialist revolution cannot survive in isolation on one country.

This holds the definite implication that a Socialist revolution took place there. So, we must go back to the Russia of 1917 to find out what they mean by a Socialist revolution. There, in a backward, predominantly agrarian country which was collapsing under the strains of a modern twentieth century war, the Bolsheviks took power in a minority insurrection. They did so on the promise that they would provide “Peace, Bread and Land” and not Socialism. The Bolsheviks had also expressed the wildly optimistic hope that the workers of other countries would follow their example and take power also. When these workers, who at the time were butchering each other in defense of their masters’ interests, did not do so any hope of establishing Socialism was obviously futile. In this situation, which could have been predicted from the start, the Bolsheviks consolidated their position by establishing a dictatorship which suppressed all opposition and under Lenin’s guidance, embarked on a program me of state capitalism.

If this is the IS idea of a Socialist revolution it is easier to understand their opposition to parliamentary democracy with an almost universal franchise and their preference for soviets (or “councils of workplace delegates” as they put it) which have at best only a haphazard democracy. Their stated reasons are that

The state machine is a weapon of capitalist class rule and therefore must be smashed. The present parliament, army, police and judges cannot simply be taken over and used by the working class.

True, the state machine is a weapon of the ruling class but there is little logic in saying that because someone uses something as a weapon then nobody else can use that weapon. And of course the present parliament, army, etc. cannot simply be taken over and used by the working class. In the words of Engels:

. . . the victorious proletariat must first refashion the old bureaucratic, administratively centralized state power before it can use if for its own purpose . . .(2)

The IS preference for soviets may also be due to the fact that they are less representative and thus provide a better opportunity for a minority to come to power as the Bolsheviks did. It is to be hoped that IS have a greater love for democracy than their counterparts of 1917 who dissolved the first and last completely democratically elected Russian assembly (the Constituent Assembly of 1918) when they found they were in the minority.

To return to the point about “the independent action of the working class”. The statement also says that

To achieve socialism the most militant sections of the working class have to be organized into a revolutionary socialist party . . . 

Taken in conjunction with the apparent endorsement of the Bolsheviks’ tactics this would seem to indicate that IS hold the Leninist “vanguard” theory. This theory says that far from taking independent action for Socialism, the mass of the present working class will never understand Socialism anyway and will have to be led by professional revolutionaries who will introduce it from above. Whatever way you look at it, the IS statement is either confused or dishonest. Quite possibly it is a mixture of both as any "vanguard" can only survive on the confusion of its followers.

The Socialist Party, in contrast to IS, has a clear line on what Socialism is, and how it will be achieved. Socialism will be a society in which all the means by which wealth is produced and distributed will be under the common ownership and democratic control of the whole community. Of necessity, it will be a worldwide system because the means of production and distribution are worldwide. There will be no wage or price system as things will be produced solely for use and not for sale. People will work to the best of their ability and take according to their needs. The nature of Socialism shows that it can only be achieved by the conscious and independent action of a clear majority. It is the job of Socialists to help build that majority. We do not deprecate the struggles of workers but we insist that they must understand the class basis of those struggles. Without that consciousness all their efforts will eventually be futile.

Once Socialists are in the majority they will have to get hold of the state machinery to prevent it being used against them. Socialist delegates elected to the various assemblies of the capitalist nation-states by a Socialist working class would have this control, and would leave any recalcitrant capitalists in a virtually helpless position. The capitalist class only maintain their order with the active support or acquiescence of the workers. Once they lose this and are faced with an organized, uncompromising working class it will be plain to all what they are—a socially useless, parasitic minority living off the backs of the workers.

Con Friel

(1) The quotations in this article are taken from the statement as it appeared on 24 August, 1974.

(2) Extract of a letter from Engels to Bernstein on 1 January, 1884.

B.U.F. and the Jews (1968)

Book Review from the July 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anti-Semitism and the British Union of Fascists by W. F. Mandle (Longmans. 12s. 6d.)

In the popular uproar over immigration it is sometimes forgotten that the term racial problem was not always synonymous with colour problem. Before the war, and for some time after it, the Jews were the racists' favourite chopping block. They were blamed for the shortcomings of capitalism; they were subjected to the same hate, the same malicious lies, the same apocryphal horror stories, that coloured immigrants are subjected to now.

Jews were denounced as flashy and vulgar (although insidious also!); as a sexual threat; as devotees of archaic and disgusting rituals. They were supposed to be clever at despicable things and to be a threat to "Western culture" (Blackshirt, the BUF paper, had an article in December 1934 entitled "Jazz Goes With Jewry" and in January 1936 described Jews as "venereal-ridden vagrants"). These same lies are now being levelled at coloured people.

Anti-Semitism was accompanied by violence and hysteria which often was infectious. I remember a Fascist meeting at Ridley Road, in the hot summer of 1947, which jammed the streets with a frantic mob, parts of which were desperate to scream insults, and to assault anyone who took their fancy. One sweat-streaked face shouted at me that a nearby photographer "should be done up—he's probably from the Jewish Express." I'm sure she didn't even know if such a paper existed.

W. F. Mandle, who has made a considerable study of Fascism, has examined the pre-war records closely to trace the course of the BUF's anti-Semitism. At first, although it was clear they did not like Jews, the BUF did not include anti-Semitism in their propaganda; on April 1 1933, in fact, Blackshirt proclaimed that "Jew-baiting in every shape and form was forbidden by order in the British Union of Fascists before the Union had been in existence two months". But inexorably their attitude became more hostile; it was tempered by the alliance with Rothermere in 1934 (the reason for the famous Daily Mail headline "Hurrah for the Blackshirts!") but when the alliance collapsed the BUF became more extreme in its anti-Semitism.

In a rally at the Albert Hall in 1934 Mosley defined his organisation's attitude and two years later he came more to the point, when he said he would be " . . . fully entitled to take any measures necessary for the preservation of the British race." The BUF knew what these "measures" were to be; although their official policy was deportation. Blackshirt said on 31 October 1937 that some European countries had already got rid of Jews and "it will not be long before science will find a means of eradicating this pest from England once and for all." Mick Clarke, one of their speakers, echoed Himmler when he described Jews as "lice of the earth [who] must be exterminated".

There is no mistaking the terrifying import of this stuff, but it won considerable support in areas which had a large Jewish population. In the 1937 LCC elections, the BUF got over 3,000 votes in Bethnal Green N.E., over 2,000 in Limehouse (Stepney) and about 2,500 in Shoreditch.

But this was the nearest they came to power. They lost a lot of their glamour when the Public Order Act of 1936 banned political uniforms in public; unemployment did not again reach the heights of 1931 and finally the war removed much of their support, helped by a government anti-racialist campaign as part of the official war propaganda.

It is, of course, an open question, what would have happened in England if events had taken a different course or had been differently timed. The danger of racism is still there; workers are still ready to vent their frustrations on a minority. Consider how closely Mandle's description of conditions in 1931 resembles those of today:

"In that year there was developing . . . a distaste for party politics; indeed the three major parties, Labour, Liberal and Conservative were in a state of internal tension that only the Conservatives survived. There was a feeling that parties did not have the answer to deepening economic crisis. And the crisis was deepening: unemployment was rising. Britain's credit overseas was declining and there was a frantic search for nostrums."

Ivan 

Terrorism is not Revolution! (1976)

From the January 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

The increase in the activity of terrorist organizations has produced the usual denunciation from all public figures and the press. Mr. Justice Donaldson at a recent bombing trial sentenced members of the IRA to life imprisonment; he did not spare them the additional punishment of listening to his epilogue on the virtues of law and order and the British abhorrence of violence. Nauseous cant like this from overpaid servants of the State, reminds us of Belfort Bax's description of the High Court judge, whom he referred to as "whited sepulchres in wig and gown" administering the law he did not make, much in the same way that Bill Sykes did not make his own jemmy—he only administered it.

Sir John Donaldson has probably forgotten when he was at Cambridge University he was chairman of the Federation of University Conservative and Unionist Associations, to which the Ulster Unionists were affiliated, and which formed the government of Northern Ireland from the very beginning. Those who have followed the course of events in Ulster will know that one of the features of this government was to arrange the voting procedure in such a way that their political rivals, Republicans and SDLP among others, could not wrest political power from them, even should they obtain a majority, which in the nature of things was high unlikely. Gerrymandering, or the corrupt use of the ballot box, made their return to power at each election a virtual certainty. It was largely the Catholics being for all practical purposes disenfranchised, and the frustration of being unable to do anything about it, that produced the very conditions for violence that Sir John now rails against. He is not alone in failing to see the logic of the situation which is created by the actions of those who are now loudest in their condemnation. This is capitalist society, and we must expect every backwoodsman of both sexes and all parties to depress and sicken us with their double standards of morality: by their "shocked horror" at bombing, murder and kidnapping. This hypocritical pattern is world-wide now that practically every country in the world has spawned a terrorist organization — yet another expression of class society.

Terrorism is as old as capitalism itself, although most people believe it to be something to have arisen with the IRA. Unquestionably people are shocked at bombing and murder, but they would be shocked even more were they to look at the number of ex-terrorists who are now respectably installed as heads of government, or ministers of state, etc., within the areas of their previous activities. Who remembers the Stern Gang, the Jewish terrorists of the forties; the Mau-Mau of Jomo Kenyatta; the Algerian and Moroccan terrorists of a few years ago? Very soon we shall have Yassar Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization, whose main talents consist in organizing the hi-jacking and destruction of airliners, the slaughter of airline passengers, and attacks on school-children with Russian arms, becoming a head of state somewhere in Palestine. The ex-terrorist, like the ex-prostitute who has become respectable, is more virtuous and dedicated to upholding the state authority on the one hand and while the other hand is firmly riveted to the state coffers. That's what terrorism is all about — who shall have the legal right of exploiting the working class within their borders, and who shall own and control the wealth of that community.

The fact that most terrorist organizations have high-sounding objectives like freeing the population from the tyranny of Imperialism, or restoring the rights of minorities, which incidentally is invariably coupled with territorial demands usually for mineral-bearing land or sea, does not alter the capitalist nature of their objectives, nor will it make any difference to the end result as far as the working class are concerned. A successful coup by a terrorist organization will only produce a change of masters, as capitalism will continue. The entire history of terrorist organizations from the 19th century onwards is proof of this.

No modern capitalist state will allow its authority to be undermined by a minority using violence. Only in a backward country under Colonial rule where the franchise is absent, and political representation stifled, can a nationalist terrorist organization have any chance of success. In any case, most nationalist movements are sponsored and supported by one or other of the big powers. In the world today the independence of little powers only exists on paper. Their rulers are errand-boys for the well-established world powers like America, Russia, Britain, France, and now China. There is always an antagonism between these major powers due to their conflicting interests, consequently they will support and encourage any action, violent or otherwise, which will weaken their opponents. The terrorist organizations of all countries receive aid in the form of arms, or financial aid, and ideological support in the form of propaganda from the erstwhile pillars of law and order. The present struggle in Angola between Russia and America is an example of what happens in fact.

Murder, assassination, kidnapping, are not just the preserve of the terrorist organizations. The Sunday Times of 23rd November 1975, carried a long account of a Senate Committee report on the activities of the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency of America. According to this report, the CIA made eight attempts to have the President of Cuba, Fidel Castro, assassinated at the behest of President Kennedy. The Mafia was even enlisted on some occasions to help out. Earlier, President Eisenhower directly ordered the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of the Congo, and the assassins of Rafael Trujillo, the Dominican dictator, received vital aid and arms from the American government. President Ngo Dinh Diem, the President of South Vietnam, was assassinated in 1962 with the connivance of the CIA. President Nixon is alleged to have been involved in the military coup in Chile which led to the death of Allende, and also the assassination of General Schneider, the Chilean army chief. This report makes very interesting reading, and shows the utter disregard for the alleged moral propriety where American capitalists' interests were threatened. All governments, like the Russians, are armed against dissidence either at home or in organizations abroad. The number of coups, purges and assassinations carried out by the Russian dictatorship will never be fully known, but the savagery and ruthlessness of those within our knowledge are almost beyond belief.

Violence is not something which is natural to men: on the contrary, the overwhelming mass of people are peace-loving. They may not love their neighbours, but they have a mutual respect, an understanding and affinity with each other. The capitalist plays upon this when it suits him. If violence has to be deprecated, as at present in this country, they will open the dustbins of parliament and release the hordes of resident neophytes, many of whom, given half the chance, would bring back the Rack. This unseemly bunch of tattered intellects then proceeds to denounce violence and talk about protecting civilized communities. There is, however, a distinction which they make (there could hardly be a difference) between official violence and unofficial violence. When the first atomic bomb fell on Japan in 1945, a number of Japanese schoolgirls were boiled alive in the swimming pool where they happened to be at the time. This was only one of the hideous results of official violence. Since then, millions of people have been killed or maimed in the multifarious official violent incidents known as modern war. Where is the condemnation from these opponents of violence? There is a difference in degree but no difference in principle. An official bomb will kill just as surely as an unofficial one, yet they are silent on this fundamental aspect of violence because the are ignorant, or hypocritical, or both, but above all because they are committed servants and spokesmen of the system of violence — capitalism.

War, violence and terrorism are not instruments which can be used in the establishment of Socialism. The modern state represents the ultimate development of the social power of coercion and destruction. The armed forces are under control of the political machinery. The control of the political machinery is based upon universal suffrage. This means that if the workers vote capitalist representatives to the seats of government, as they habitually do, they can, if they have a mind to, vote them out of office. It is not that the working class are enthusiastic supporters of capitalism — their experiences have taught them to expect little from any party. It is because at the moment they see no alternative to capitalism. This is the situation Socialists hope to remedy. The establishment of Socialism is not just based on the control of political machinery: this is the end of the process. Socialism is not a change of government, it is a fundamental change in the nature and purpose of society. It is a democratic body of social opinion which provides the mandate for the continuance of Socialism.

For this reason terrorist organizations can never be revolutionary or Marxist (a) because they are dictatorial (b) because they repudiate the class struggle, and (c) because their objectives are non-Socialist. By the same token, terrorist organizations, or any other form of minority insurrection, could never succeed in removing Socialism once established. Force cannot be successfully deployed against a body of ideas. Unless the working class are prepared to stand idly by and allow the capitalists of the world to wrangle over the division of society's wealth as if they, the workers, did not exist at all, they have to get control of the political machinery for Socialism. In the meantime, let the supporters of capitalism reflect on terrorism: their system caused it.

Jim D'Arcy