Aspect: Engels: The Man and His Work - Part One (1971)

Engels as a young man.

The Aspect column from the September 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

The first of a two part tribute to Marx’s co-worker Friedrich Engels

Seventy six years have passed since the death of Friedrich Engels, the friend and co-worker of Karl Marx. Much of the interest that has been shown over the years in the Socialist movement has tended to obscure the reputation of Engels by an exclusive pre-occupation with that of Marx — a process which Engels himself encouraged — so it seems more than fitting that we should pay tribute, in recognition of the debt present-day Socialists owe to Friedrich Engels.

Marx’s pre-eminence in their partnership was stressed by no one more emphatically than by Engels himself:

  I cannot deny that both before and during my forty year’s collaboration with Marx I had a certain independent share in laying the foundations of the theory, and more particularly in its elaboration. But the greater part of its leading basic principles, especially in the realm of economics and history, and, above all. their final trenchant formulation, belong to Marx. What I contributed — at any rate with the exception of my work in a few special fields — Marx could very well have done without me. What Marx accomplished I would not have achieved. Marx stood higher, saw further, and took a wider and quicker view than all the rest of us. Marx was a genius; we others were at best talented. Without him the theory would not be by far what it is today. It therefore rightly bears his name (F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach, Marx-Engels Selected Works Vol. II, Moscow, 1958). 

This leaves little room for doubt in so far as it concerns Engel’s generous renunciation especially in the reference to “we others.’’ If we differ from it, as in fairness we must, it can only be in respect of the fact which Engels passes over as of no account: the fact that but for Friedrich Engels, there is every possibility that Karl Marx would have been relatively unknown.

We do not refer only, or even mainly, to the possibility that, without Engels’ aid, Marx would have probably starved to death or been driven insane by privation and disappointment in the years after the failure of the revolt of 1848-9 in Germany and the suppression of the paper (Neue Rheinische Zeitung) in which he had sunk what little money he possessed. This is important enough, but it can be negligible in comparison with the fact that the capability of Marx was fully developed made stronger and richer by his association with Engels and the stimulus of his companionship and talented collaboration. The same process also applies to Engels and his enrichment by his association with Marx. So that the net result is much as Engels expresses it in a letter to Franz Mehring (July, 14 1893):

   If I find anything to object to it is that you give me more credit than I deserve, even if I count in everything which I might possibly have found out for myself — in time — but which Marx with his rapid coup d’oeil and wider vision discovered much more quickly. When one has the good fortune to work for forty years with a man like Marx, one does not usually get the recognition one thinks one deserves during his lifetime. Then, if the greater man dies, the lesser easily gets overrated and this seems to me to be just my case at present; history will set all this right in the end and by that time one will have quietly turned up one’s toes and not know anything any more about anything (Selected Works, Vol. II).

Now that Engels has “turned up his toes” it is his due that while reserving to Marx that pre-eminence which belongs to him, we must also appreciate and value the work of Friedrich Engels.

The friendship of Marx and Engels began in 1844, after having met previously in the office of the Rheinische Zeitung of which journal Marx was the editor. Neither was, at this meeting, much drawn to the other.

Engels, the son of a cotton manufacturer and importer, was born in 1820 in the town of Barmen, now merged with Elberfield and four small towns to form Wuppertal in the province of North Rhine Westphalia. At the time he met Marx, he had just completed his year in the army as a lieutenant in the guard artillery, and although he was deeply interested in the philosophy and and republican-democratic politics of that period, he appears to have been still a rather stiffs “officer of the Guards”. His background in a rigid Lutheran and commercial home was very different from that of Marx who had lived in an atmosphere of eighteenth century culture based on the Rabbinical tradition and legal studies of his father. Marx as a young editor had obtained his knowledge of classical German philosophy and democratic politics by a method opposite to that of Engels, although each was a man of intense feeling and wide sympathy, yet, at their first meeting they did not appear to. have had much in common.

Engels went to England to fill a clerical appointment at his father’s factory in Manchester where he found it necessary to take up the study of commerce. Marx, in his work as editor, found himself engaged in numerous conflicts with the authorities and the censorship. He found himself handicapped by a lack of knowledge of political economy and, what at the time, were new ideas about “Socialism” then prevalent in Paris and from there, spreading out into Germany.

When the Rheinische Zeitung was suppressed in 1844, Marx made his way to Paris expressly to study these subjects. A friend, Arnold Ruge, invited Marx to collaborate with him in producing, from Paris, a review-magazine — the German/French Year book, which was to feature critical philosophical studies upon all the topics then current in Germany. A magazine of this type was impossible to produce in Germany due to the censorship of that period. The collaboration of Radical writers in France and Germany (Feuerbach, Bruno, and Edgar Bauer, Heine and Proudhon among them) were invited and in response to this appeal, an Article “Outlines of Political Economy” was received from Friedrich Engels in Manchester. This led to an invitation from Marx to Engels suggesting a visit to Paris.

Engels’ arrival in Manchester in 1842 coincided with the second upheaval of the Chartist Movement with the strikes and rioting which accompanied it. He was deeply interested in the aims of the Chartists, and through that movement came into contact with the ideas expressed by the supporters of Robert Owen, which ideas overlapped with the Chartist Movement. As a student of commerce, he was naturally brought into a study of classical political economy. It was his association with the Chartists, Owenites and others, which made him aware of the critical conclusions, drawn from that political economy by the other champions of working-class aspirations. These studies, carefully combined with his knowledge of classical German philosophy, resulted in two works. The first, a study of the working class in England in 1844 upon which he was at work when he was invited to contribute to the German/French Year Book. The second was the article he sent in response to that request.

Engels followed his article to Paris, where he and Marx for the next ten days compared notes and views. As a result, they found they had each independently reached the same conclusions; that the capitalist system was historically a transitory phenomenon and bound to give place to a new system, based upon the common ownership of the means of production and that it was the historical mission of the working class to bring the new form of society into being. The fact that each had reached this conclusion by a different method; Engels by the study of classic English philosophy (political), Marx by a study of the French Revolution and its outcome on French proletarian movements, made them complementary to each other. The friendship born out of these circumstances lasted for the remainder of their lives. 

The immediate effect of their friendship was that they both commenced upon their life task; to get an understanding and acceptance by the working class of what they regarded as its historic role in society.

Each, in his own way, settled down to the work of propagating the ideas of scientific socialism as opposed to the Utopian ideas of that period. Engels wrote the opening instalment of the Holy Family which Marx completed and published Engels’ fine work The Condition of the Working Class in England was first issued in Germany in 1845. The following quotation is from the preface for the English Edition of 1892: “The author, at that time, was young, twenty four years of age, and his production bears the stamp of his youth with its good and its faulty features, neither of which he feels ashamed”.

This is a statement with which we must agree. There is certainly nothing to be ashamed of. It is a classic, readable and rewarding; a splendid record of working class life as Engels saw it in 1844, together with its historical background. This was in opposition to the "respectable” and complacent view that saw the working class as the ‘mob’ the 'lower orders’ and sometimes as the ‘swinish multitude’. Engels formulated the proposition that this despised section of society contained the force prepared by historical development for the overthrow of capitalist society, and which would make possible and necessitate the establishment of Socialism.

The collaboration of Marx and Engels is best shown in the Communist Manifesto. So close was it, that in the final result it is hard to say which is Marx and which is Engels.

When Marx, driven from France, settled in London, Engels joined him and did his best to help Marx get a living by journalism whilst he, in order to get the money for their joint purpose, went to work in the factory owned by his father. Thereafter, for the rest of their lives they never lost contact.

How close their relationship was and how much Engels’ stimulus and encouragement helped in promoting the development of Marx can be seen by this extract from the Marx/Engels correspondence. Marx had completed years of work on his Capital and the first volume was ready for the printer. Marx writes to Engels:

      London, 16 August, 1867 2 o'clock at night 

Dear Fred, . . . So this volume is finished. It was thanks to you alone that this became possible. Without your self-sacrifice for me I could never possibly have done the enormous work for the three volumes. I embrace you, full of thanks! (Marx-Engels Selected Correspondence, Moscow, 1956). 

After 1869 Engels retired from commerce and in 1870 he came to live in London. The correspondence was now replaced by daily visits. He was also able to relieve Marx of the stresses of his early years by his kindly act of endowing him with a small annual income. It was fitting that it should be Engels himself who found that Marx had died peacefully in his chair and that to Engels should fall the task of making the speech over the grave at Highgate cemetery, March 17, 1883. It included the words: "On the fourteenth of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think . . ", "his name and his work will endure through the ages." (extract from Graveside Speech).

With the name and work of Marx which has endured must be coupled the name and work of Friedrich Engels. With the death of Marx, Engels, at the age of 65 undertook the monumental task of preparing from the notes left by Marx, Volumes two and three of Capital for publication, and spent the rest of his days, vindicating and popularising the work of his friend.

Of Engels’ personality, a word or two is appropriate. He appears to have been a genial person, fond of the open air and country walks, good eating and drinking. He differed from Marx insofar as he was more immediately likeable. But they were as one in their enthusiasm for their joint life's work. In all he did; in his studies and writings he gave all he could. To the Marx children he was an elder brother. When writing of a man like Engels, it is almost impossible not to use superlatives. He was a man in the best possible sense of the term.

In March 1895, he developed cancer in the throat. By August 1895, he was dead. At his own wish his body was cremated and the ashes thrown into the sea off Eastbourne.

(to be concluded)

Bob Ambridge

Aspect: Engels: The Man and His Work - Part Two (1971)

The Aspect column from the October 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

The second and concluding part of a tribute to Marx co-worker

The writings of Friedrich Engels are indispensable for the study of the growth and development of Scientific Socialism. His writings derive their importance from the fact that even when they were not produced jointly with Marx (as was the case with the Communist Manifesto), they were (until Marx’s death) produced in collaboration with Marx in the sense that the whole plan was discussed by them jointly before the works of either were written The result in each case was submitted for the critical revision of the other.

Engels capacity to explain in a popular manner the ideas and theories of Marx have probably never been excelled. The proof is to be found in the worldwide circulation of Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. Originally this consisted of portions of certain chapters in his polemic against Eugen Dühring. At the request (or suggestion) of Paul Lafargue, Marx’s son-in-law, a separate pamphlet was made out of these sections, which, with Engels’ approval he translated into French and issued in 1880. Translations into other languages and re-prints in the original German text were followed in 1892 by an English translation for which Engels wrote an Introduction which is probably one of his best essays. It has been translated and undergone re-prints in many languages. In 1892 Engels commented upon its great popularity. It remains to this day the best approach to the study of Marxism.

Engels qualities as a writer were shown no less well in his Ludwig Feuerbach. In this essay he shows the connection between the Marxian world-outlook and that of German classical philosophy which came to an end with Feuerbach. Engels skilfully compresses the most profound implications of the Marxian world-outlook into terms that are clear and at the same time carefully guarded against any possibility of over-statement.

In one sense, the essay on Ludwig Feuerbach is a summary of the main theme of Engels’ longest work, his Anti-Dühring. The two works differ in tone and temper; the larger work is a point by point argument against a pretentious, badly-built theory of Socialism while the shorter essay is a straight-forward exposition of the historical origin of the Marxian world-outlook. But while the essay gives that outlook in a summarised form, the Anti-Dühring reaches it in a succession of arguments in which the proposition of Dühring is fully exposed and finally the whole field of philosophical thinking is established for the Marxian view of historical materialism and of revolutionary class-struggle.

The most specialised work of Engels can be placed under three heads:— (a) Military studies, (b) Historical and Political Essays, (c) the completion of Marx’s Capital. Of the works in the first category we need not here concern ourselves.

Engels’s Historical and Political Studies form the largest single section of his writing. For convenience of characterisation they may be sub-classified as (a) the group dealing with the German Revolution, (b) social theory group, and (c) the group dealing with the English working class struggle.

In the first category is his The Peasant War In Germany (one of his neglected writings and now almost forgotten) dealing with events of the early 16th century. Engels traces the historical causation which led to the outbreak in 1515, from which he draws the moral expressed by Marx as “The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself”, The Peasant War is valuable for its handling of the historical causes of the alliance between peasantry and the working class. During 1851 and 1852 Engels also wrote a series of articles under Marx’s name on the events of 1848 in Germany for The New York Daily Tribune. These were later published as a book, Revolution and Counter Revolution in Germany and still erroneously attributed to Marx.

The social theory group consists of one polemic volume The Housing Question, a study of The Origin the Family, Private Property and the State and an essay The Mark dealing with the form in which tribal communal land ownership, all necessitating a consideration of the nature of the State.

The Origin of the Family deals, in method, with the sociological discoveries of Lewis Henry Morgan, who was the first to prove that human society had undergone a process of historical transformation before even the most ancient of historical records began. At the time when Engels wrote, the notion of a ‘history before history begins’ had barely been discussed. Today the amount of literature on anthropology and related subjects is so vast that the significance of Engels’s work tends to be overlooked. Engels did what modern writers are careful to avoid; he drew a moral from the lessons of the past. Just as Man existed for great lengths of time without developing the idea of such thing as a frontier, so it was possible to envisage a future in which frontiers had disappeared and mankind had become united into a co-operating whole. So with private property; as this, too, was an institution which had evolved by degrees, so it was possible to conceive it passing out of existence and giving place to a form of common ownership on a higher plane. So with the family. As this had its history in the past, it could not he doubted that its future form would change. On all counts the “necessary conditions” of human society — the State with its frontiers, property and the family — which were often regarded as sacred and fixed, were shown to be transitory products of social development and not its immutable causes.

Engels not only draws these Socialist conclusions from his subject matter in a general form; he draws them concretely in his analysis of the State, expounded Anti-Dühring as well as the Origin.

This he shows to be likewise a transitory phenomenon and the product of class divisions based upon property differentiation. He concludes here, that the working class will constitute itself a State force as the capitalists did before them, but under radically different conditions. Since the essence of the State is to coerce and since, further, the essential object of the working class struggle is to abolish class differences, the working class organised as a State, and using its State force, will eliminate all class divisions and must in the end achieve a result in which the State has ceased to be a State at all. So far as the working class eliminates all privileges based upon private property in the means of production and makes the means of production the common property of society, it converts all members of society into workers who are also collective owners. But in doing so, the working class will have abolished distinctly its own working class status. Its own class character will have disappeared with the disappearance of the property relations and the privileges by reference to which it was a class. Its State will therefore cease to be a State since there no longer exists any subjects over whom it can exercise coercion. “The function of the organisation of society will change”, Government over persons will be replaced by administration over things”, the State will die out.

It is extremely difficult to place Engels’s works in any precise order of merit and having in mind the undoubted pre-eminence of the Anti-Dühring, it can be said categorically that Origin of the Family is very necessary for a proper grasp of the ideas expressed by Marx.

The essay, The Mark, is in one sense a foot-note to the Origin. It is useful, however, as showing Engels’ grasp of the various changes and exchanges possible in the ownership of land during its transformation from primitive forms of common ownership to private ownership.

The ‘English’ sub-group contains two works. Engels’ first work The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, and a later work, a series of articles which appeared in the Labour Standard in 1881 (since re-published under the title of The British Labour Movement.)

In the decade after the Paris Commune of 1871 the independent labour press had practically disappeared but the London Trades Council produced their paper the Labour Standard. Its editor, George Shipton, invited Engels to contribute a series of articles. From May to August Engels wrote ten articles, in which by means of current events he demonstrated that old style trade unionism whose objectives were summed up in the slogan “A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work” was absurd. It is in the article “Trade Union of May 28, 1881, that he stresses the need for a movement for the “Abolition of the wages system altogether”. Simply worded, quietly and carefully reasoned, these articles are as readable today and as rewarding as when they were written.

These articles, along with the Condition bear testimony to the fact which a perusal of the Marx-Engels correspondence will verify, that Engels’s association with the working class in Britain continued from the time of his contribution to Owen’s New Moral World and O’Connor’s Northern Star down to the date of his death. To the last, he showed pleasure at the memory of the Chartists’ struggle and he never lost his conviction that the British working class would sooner or later find its place in the forefront of the world revolutionary movement of the working class.

The final group of Engels’s writings consists in his completion of volumes II and III of Capital. It was characteristic of him, that with the death of Marx, he should undertake as a matter of course, the completion of the immense work which illness had compelled Marx to leave unfinished. Engels realised and understood that the full importance of Marx’s analysis of the laws which underlie capitalist society could not be appreciated from the first volume alone. Volume I looks at the process of capitalist production only in a general and abstract form. The work of Volumes II and III is to carry forward the analysis to a study of the concrete process which links together production, circulation and consumption. It is these later studies that show the contradiction of capitalist society as a developing whole. In order that Marx’s scientific discovery (The Law of motion of capitalist society) should be presented to the world complete, Engels, at sixty five years of age undertook a task whose immensity can be appreciated by all who have studied the result and compared it with what had been done before in the field of economics.

In connection with his completion of Capital must be considered the number of prefaces written by Engels to new editions of his own works and those of Marx. During the later years of his life, he congratulated himself upon the fact “That there is but a limited number of languages that he could be called upon to assist translators” (Preface to Volume III of Capital). Added to this mass of work of a uniformly high quality must be the enormous amount of correspondence. Nothing Engels wrote ever failed to be interesting and informative. Without the work of Engels, the theories of Marx would be much less known than most people realise. Marx and Engels both stressed the importance of correct theory arising out of historical development as a preliminary to any revolutionary activity. A last quote from Engels’s 1880 preface to The Communist Manifesto is a fitting end to a tribute of this character:

The proletariat cannot obtain its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class — the bourgeoisie — without at the same time, and once and for all emancipating society at large from all exploitation, oppression, class-distinction and class struggles.

Bob Ambridge

To Join or Not to Join? That's not the question (1971)

From the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

It has been claimed that Britain’s application to join the Common Market has been made ‘without a mandate from the people.’ If the issue is so vital and opposition to entry so widespread, why are ‘the people’ continuing to give their support to the Labour and Conservative parties which, when in power, negotiated with the Six? It is because they accept the present social system from which trade with its international rivalries; markets and tariff walls; cost of living; national sovereignty and grouping, such as the European Economic Community, are inseparable. This gives a clear indication of the level of political maturity of ‘the people’ of Britain. The idea that ‘the Nation’ is made up of people having a community of interests within it, and conflicting interests outside it, is a myth which is accepted to their detriment by the working-class majority in all countries.

The most important social division is world-wide between the minority which owns and controls the means of living and the majority who are propertyless wage and salary workers. Between them there is an antagonism which cannot be reconciled. The interest of workers in pursuit of better wages and working conditions is detrimental to those of the capitalists who must maximise their profits. The so-called national interest is, in fact, nothing but the interest of the owning minority — the capitalist class. The problems of trade and sovereignty are their problems. Hence the working class, who own no part of the country they live in and are faced with an antagonism of interest, with those who do own it, can have no national interest! In fact, they share with other workers throughout the world common problems and interests associated with their wage slave status.

“The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.” This was a fact noted as long ago as 1848 by Karl Marx and is as true today as it was then! The Common Market debate has shown this well. The Labour party now say they are against entry on Tory terms, although some of their leaders claim that these terms are not different from those they were prepared to accept. The Common Market debate was the highlight of this year’s TUC conference. They decided against and found themselves in the same political bed as the so-called Communist party, Enoch Powell, and the National Front. Neither the pro- nor the anti-marketeers have ever questioned the relevance of their attitudes to the working class as a whole. This comes as a result of accepting the capitalist mode of production with the wage labour and capital relationship as unalterable.

For the Socialist Party of Great Britain there is only one question — capitalism or Socialism? In other words, should the workers of the world continue to operate a social system that can only serve the interests of a minority; or establish a system that works in the interests of the whole of mankind. The Common Market involves changes within a private property society. Socialism involves the abolition of private property in the means of production along with all markets and the profit motive and replacing them with common ownership and production solely for use. The interest of the working class of all lands is to unite to achieve this end

Joe Carter

Non-Revolutionary Unionism (1971)

Book Review from the December 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

Revolutionary Syndicalism in France, by F. F. Ridley. Cambridge University Press. £4.20.

This is a study of the theory and practice of the French equivalent of the TUC, the Confédération Génerale du Travail, in its syndicalist period from 1900 to 1914.

The basic unit of worker organisation in France at this time was the syndicat, or local union of workers in the same trade. Hence “syndicalism”, which on its own is really just the French word for trade unionism. The CGT leaders described their policy as “revolutionary” syndicalism. They were anarchists and wanted the unions to stage a general strike to overthrow capitalism and set up a moneyless, wageless, Stateless society where the unions would control production.

The bulk OF the CGT members, however, were just militant trade unionists, interested mainly in fighting the day-to-day struggle to improve wages and conditions within capitalism. Most of the CGT’S policies for this struggle—political neutrality so as not to divide workers who need unity to defend their economic interests; recognition of the class struggle between the workers and the capitalists and their government; strike action; the only real gains are those the workers get by their own action—were just good trade unionism. Others such as sabotage and intimidation were, as we shall see, a sign of the movement’s weakness.

The anarcho-syndicalist leaders of the CGT were in the same sort of position on the industrial front as the Social Democrats were on the political front: workers supported them not because they wanted to overthrow capitalism, but because they felt that their policies would bring some improvements within capitalism. Like Socialism for the Social Democratic parties, the General Strike became for the CGT a more and more ultimate aim which had little reference to its day-to-day activity, except perhaps as an inspiration. Ridley brings out this point well.

The CGT was no more an anarchist organisation than the Social Democratic parties were socialist. Its pretensions too were exposed at the outbreak of the first World War, though it seems to have been a reasonably good trade union body for its time.

Ridley brings out a number of other valid points. Wage and salary earners were a minority both of the population and of the electorate in the France of this period. Of the 12 million wage and salary earners, only about 836,000, or less than 7 per cent, were organised and less than half of these were in the CGT. The CGT, in other words, only represented about 2 to 3 per cent of the working class. As Ridley says,

  in a sense, violence is the only path open to the weak. There is a close relationship between weak, unorganised labour movements and the outbreak of revolutionary or anarchist activity in Russia, Spain and Italy, as well as in France.

French industry too was backward. The syndicalist slogan “The Workshops to the Workers” was taken literally to mean that the small-scale workshops where many French workers were employed would be run by the syndicats, or local unions. It is significant that the nation-wide unions representing workers employed in large-scale industry—mines, textiles, railways, post office—though in the CGT were opponents of its anarchist leaders.

The General Strike was originally put forward as an alternative to the ballot box as a peaceful way to end capitalism. But, as the Socialist Party of Great Britain pointed out at the time, experience of much lesser strikes showed that any such move would be met by the violence of the State. And. why if a majority can be persuaded to strike for Socialism don’t they at least try the easier way—the ballot box—first?

The cult of action, or action-for-action’s sake, some syndicalist theoreticians espoused was shared also by extreme nationalists and monarchists which, as Ridley suggests, is why after the first World War so many of them found it easy to go over to fascism. Mussolini himself, though never an anarcho-syndicalist as such, was a leading figure on the direct-actionist wing of the Italian Socialist Party before the war. Ridley also says that it is wrong to see Sorel’s Reflections on Violence as a statement of syndicalist principles since Sorel was not a syndicalist leader or militant; he was only someone who happened to sympathise with some aspects of syndicalism at the time he wrote his book.

Unthinking activism and contempt for democratic discussion and peaceful persuasion—break-up of meetings, lectures and sports matches, confrontations with the police, physical attacks and threats against people with different views—is again being indulged in by the assorted followers of Mao, Guevara and Trotsky without their realising its dangers. This is vehemently opposed by the Socialist Party.

Professor Ridley’s book is a good analysis of syndicalism, though some may find the philosophical discussion in the third part a little abstruse.

Adam Buick

A Duke on Hard Work. (1919)

From the January 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “Daily Chronicle” of December 11th ult. gave us the following intoxicating toothful in spite of the no treating order:

HARD WORK THE REMEDY. 

According to the Duke of Northumberland the only firm foundation for reconstruction was self-denial and hard work, and politicians should draw attention to this instead of trying to persuade people that they could get something for nothing.

One would hardly have thought that the noble gentleman would have deemed it necessary to point the way to politicians just at the present moment, at all events, for ever since “reconstruction” showed its head above the political horizon politicians have done precious little but preach toil and abstinence on the part of the workers.

In all the election promises which have recently flooded the country—mere humbug to catch the wage-slave’s assent to his own undoing—there is not one but which is found on analysis, if it means anything at all, to mean hard work and penury (for this is what the duke really means by “self-denial") for the working class. All their schemes of “reconstruction,” from Adult Education to Afforestation, are schemes for securing hard work for the class which does not include the Duke of Northumberland, while the politicians’ idea of the importance of “self-denial” in the scheme of “reconstruction” reveals itself in the provision of a paltry dole equal to FOUR DAYS’ COST OF THE WAR to tide their teeming millions of human cattle over the hard times of the “transition period” !

How little respite the political and other hirelings of the master class intend to fall to the lot of the toilers is shown in a score of ways. No windy gasbag from the Welsh Messiah to the Lib-Lab Pensions Minister who declared that no soldier was going to get a pension out of him in order to live without working, has held out any hope of the worker getting something “for nothing.” Everywhere the claims of the broken warriors to not by any means “something for nothing,” but to something for all they have suffered, and all they have given of health and limb, to keep contemptible and useless dukal parasites safe in their lordly domains, are being repudiated without scruple. No poor cripple, tormented by the agony of his wounds, is there but must, if he has within him any atom of industrial capacity, be “trained” in order that he may yield it up—a paltry additional “something for nothing”—to those who are not satisfied with having robbed him of his joy in life, but desire to “reconstruct” him on the basis of what little strength he has salved from the shambles—to pare down his niggard pension. Even the blinded soldier is not prey beneath the contempt of these ghouls, and St. Dunstan’s “reconstructs” on the foundation of “hard work," and not of “something for nothing."

It is only the master class who get anything for nothing, and they get everything for nothing. This “reconstruction" is THEIR RECONSTRUCTION and it is quite true that it must be founded upon hard work and “self-denial". But it will be the hard work and the forced abstention of the wage- slaves, not of the Duke of Northumberland and his like.

There are signs, however, of the approach of the day when we, the workers of the world, will undertake a “reconstruction," and it will be upon the foundation of the labour of all who are capable of labour, including those who are quite strange to work nowadays. No dukal coronet will then protect loose jawed humbugs from sampling the work they are so fond of prescribing for the workers, and the Duke of Northumberland may yet support the “dignity of labour” with a scavenger's broom in the glorious day when, in William Morris’s beautiful words—

“. . . a man shall work and bethink him, and rejoice in the deeds of his hand,
Nor yet come home in the even too faint and weary to stand.
Men in that time a-coming shall work and have no fear
For to-morrow's lack of earning and the hunger-wolf  a-near.
I tell you this for a wonder, that no man then shall be glad
Of his fellow’s fall and mishap to snatch at the work he had.
For that which the worker winneth shall then be his indeed,
Nor shall half be reaped for nothing by him that sowed no no seed.

B. B. 

Letter: Every Point But The One At Issue. (1919)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Sir,

May I, as one who disagrees with your remarks in this month’s Socialist Standard with reference to the Socialist Labour Party and the fight for their Press, be permitted to say a few words on the subject?

You give as the reason for the Government being able to force strikers to accept their terms the fact that they, the Government, control the “armed forces of the nation.” This is certainly true, but it is important to remember that the “armed forces of the nation” are composed of workers who do not understand the fight that is being waged against their own class, so as to enable the masters to obtain a maximum return for a minimum expenditure. For one can hardly conceive class-conscious workers obeying the commands of the Government to shoot down their fellow-men who had come out on strike. So we find that the power of the Government rests upon the ignorance of the workers, and not upon the “armed forces of the nation” at their command. For it must be clear to all that once the workers realise their position, the “armed forces of the nation” cease to exist. Even the Government have realised this, and attempt to prevent the workers from obtaining the truth, by suppressing such papers and pamphlets from which they would be likely to obtain it.

Therefore it appears to me that what we have to do is not to work for the capture or control of the “armed forces,” but to educate the workers, and to do this one must at least have a free Press. It is because the Socialist Labour Party realise this that they are fighting so hard to recover their Press.

My friends and I would he much obliged if the Editor would allow the above to appear in next month’s “Standard.”

—Yours, 

G. Manne.

Reply:

It is evident from the first sentence of his letter that our correspondent has failed to grasp the claim of the S.L.P.

Clearly it was not the fight for the S.L.P. Press that was in dispute, but their claim that this fight was one for “the Principle of a Free Press.” Here is the quotation from their own letter published in the November “Socialist Standard”:

  Quite apart from the fact that we are at a great disadvantage and suffering considerable loss, . . . the Principle of a Free Press is at stake.

We showed quite conclusively that no such principle existed, or could exist under capitalism, therefore it could not be “at stake.” This was the essential point of our criticism, and as our correspondent carefully avoids this point, his letter calls for no further comment.

Editorial Committee.

Editorial: The Phelps Dodge Mining Corporation. (1919)

Editorial from the March 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

On our front page we print an invaluable report of an outrage perpetrated by the Phelps Dodge Mining Corporation, with the assistance of the local authorities, upon striking workers. Read it.

This is not the first case of a similar kind that we have given the publicity of our pages. Older readers will remember the Lawrence affair, and the ghastly firing of a camp over the heads of the trapped workers in another case, and the shooting of the poor wretches who tried to escape. We draw especial attention to these items of capitalist villiany in America at the present moment for the reason that they show with perfect clearness the hollow fraud and sham of all the drivel about the Americans entering the war to “make the world safe for democracy.”

From Peterloo to Tonypandy and Belfast in the British Isles, from Homestead to Bisbee in the United States, the same tale is to tell. All the forces which political supremacy everywhere places in the hands of the master class are and will be used to keep the capitalist world safe from democracy. There’s a difference.

Editorial: What We Want. (1919)

Editorial from the April 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

A lot of make-believe capitalist sympathy has been slobbered over the working class recently as the result of the revelations of some of the horrors of working-class existence in the mining districts and in the East End of London; That the capitalists may make a genuine effort to improve these conditions is quite possible. The war has shown them that they have a C3 nation of workers, and the latest births and deaths returns have revealed to them the unpleasant prospect that unless they bestir themselves they will soon have no nation of workers at all on which to found the military and commercial supremacy of their Empire. But even if they do improve the workers conditions; if they stable them in palaces and harness them in “Workmen’s Charters"; if Lord Leverem finds that he can exhaust his men in six hours and does it, and Mr. Ford discovers anew that high wages, as the Dutch say of paint, cost nothing—what then?

Such things, realised far beyond the realms of possibility, would leave us unmoved. We are out for LIFE for the workers. The world is beautiful. Life is glorious. Even work is joy if a man may, as Morris said, “rejoice in the work of his hand.” Evolution has given us the possibility of producing by work, as distinct from toil, wealth in such abundance that the amenities of civilisation shall be the portion of all, without stint.

A place in the sun, a draught of the sweet air of the meadow, the tranquility of the country sunset, relieved of the shadow of our slavery—are they not worth fighting for? Are the workers for ever to be content with the mentality that can raise a singer to fame and fortune on such a song as “Champaign Charley”? The earth sings a better song after rain, but how many of us have heard it? The World with all its beauty is for the Workers if they will but take it.

A Few Words To Those About To Celebrate "Peace." (1919)

From the May 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

Six months now have the dogs of war been leashed, yet still their snarling is the most audible sound throughout the world to-day. Orlando has gone back to Italy, and the jingo Press of Allied Europe foams ink at the mouth at Wilson, the Peace with honour—the clean Peace—indeed all those Peaces of which we have heard are still in the balance. For as the war was confined to this unhappy planet alone the dogs of War have only one bone between them.

Yet what is this Peace of which you talk so much? How will it effect the Working Class? ("How absurd the writer is," you are saying, “everyone; knows that Peace is the cessation of War.") Will Peace then resuscitate the dead? Will it restore sight to the blind, limbs to the limbless? Will it strike off the shackles of slavery that bind the proletariat? Will it demolish the sunless slums of Bethnal Green or make it possible for women to obtain bread without selling their bodies? Will it prevent future War? If it will not do these things it is no Peace for me.

Peace to me means the end of wage-slavery. The abolition of private ownership of the means of production and the passing of them into the hands of those who produce. It means the creation of a new and beautiful world by the overthrow of the system of society which makes wars and widows and blind men.

But, perhaps, I am exacting, think you. Maybe I am not satisfied to remain a slave on the promise of a Peace which affects my slave position not at all. You are. Ah, well, perhaps I am only a Socialist after all, and you are—well, what are you, friend ? I have heard you call yourself a Free Citizen. What are you free to do? Can you exist without selling your labour to a master? Have you access to those very tools even with which you manufacture the wealth of the world? What proportion of that wealth do you receive back in exchange for your labour power? Is it enough to satisfy you; does it suffice to clothe, feed, and educate your children, as you would wish them to be clothed, fed, and educated? Or are you not forced to send them out on the labour market at the very earliest moment? And suppose you cannot find a master to employ you, does not your boasted freedom resolve itself into the freedom to starve?

What, then, if Italy does have Fiume? Will you or the Italian worker be any better off? If the German colonies be divided between the Allies, will the German workers be the losers and the Allied workers be the gainers proportionately ? Not a bit of it! The capture of foreign markets as the result of War means nothing more to you and me than the continued exploitation of the working' class. You wear two gold bars and four service chevrons, you have fought, and captured cities, in all theatres of war, but if you cannot find a master to employ you, you must starve. But was not that your position before the war? If, therefore, the division of territory, the readjustment of national boundaries, the “reparations, indemnities, and effectual guarantees" do not alter one iota the slave position of the international proletariat of which you are a member, why in the name of Reason do you worry yourself about them?

In conclusion, if you are interested in Wars, why not take an interest in your own War—the Class War—and join up in the ranks of the Socialist Party, organise with your fellows consciously and politically to overthrow Capitalism with its bloody wars and hollow peaces, and to erect in its place the Socialist Commonwealth.

Stanley H. Steele

Free Lunch. (2017)

Free Lunch cartoon from the September 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of America. (1919)

From the June 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of America was always one of the most weird travesties of a Socialist organisation, among the many such, affiliated to the late “International.” A confusion of elements, seemingly as distant as the poles, found a haven in the S.P of A. Booze reformers, Municipalist and Nationalisation cranks, anti-corruptionists, trust-busters, Anarchists of the I. W. W.—all were held in its “embracing unity."' Its many journals—mostly privately owned— advocated a multitude of doctrines often directly contradictory. The really Socialist elements—before the war, at any rate, were few and were powerless in the organisation.

As was to be expected, the war split asunder the S.P. of A., as it did most of the pseudo-Socialist parties of the world. A pro-war and an anti-war section appeared, the latter again being divided into pacifists and revolutionists. Of course, many who were “pacifist” for the first two years became “pro-war” when the United States became a belligerent.

For over four years little news of the American labour movement has reached us here, but now, by piecing together that which is filtering through we are able to make a partial estimate of what these four years of world-ferment have done towards generating a true Socialist tendency.

Still Opportunist.

Despite the fact that certain of the most notorious traitors to the working-class movement in the U.S.—Spargo, Russell, and others—together with a considerable patriotic element, left tbe party when tbe American Government declared war, tbe S.P. of A. is still dominated by reformism, and tbe majority of its members have as yet no real grip of Socialist principles. Its anti-war attitude was not consistently maintained. and where manifest was grounded, not on a clear understanding of internationalism, but, like that of the I.L.P. here, upon Liberal “pacifism,”

The discipline, as well as the “principles” of the party mar be judged horn the fact that its “lone Congressman," Meyer London, who has not only adopted an anti-Socialist attitude on practically every matter before Congress, bat has, while in office, repeatedly ignored, in the most contemptuous manner, the decisions and instructions of his own party, was re-nominated as party candidate in the recent elections.

The “Left Wing.”

Nevertheless the collapse of the late opportunist “International” together with the militaristic brutality of their “democratic” government appear to have done much, in conjunction with the spread of revolutionary education, to open the eyes of a growing section of the Party to the glaring defects in its policy and organisation. This so-called left wing is not by any means a united or nationally organised movement. The size of the country makes independent propaganda on a national basis extremely difficult. The “new outlook” has developed independently in several localities and, in accordance with local influences both of social environment and propaganda, has taken on different forms. The constitution of the Party, which admits of each State division forming its own platform, by fostering a concentration upon the State organisation, has hindered the formation, by sections with like views, of a common programme throughout the Party.

“Left Wing” factions are in practical control of the Party machinery in the States of Washington, Minnesota, Ohio, and Michigan, and in the city of Philadelphia. Journals expounding the different views of various groups were started usually by a few individuals, and later were in several cases adopted or endorsed by Locals and State Parties. They include the “Socialist News” (Cleveland, Ohio), “Revolutionary Age,” (Boston), “Class Struggle” (N.Y. City), and “The Proletarian” (Detroit, Mich.)

The variety and confusion of ideas represented by this movement of revolt against the official attitude of the Party may be estimated from the statement of one who ought to know, Karl Dannenberg, who, in his “Radical Review” (Oct.-Dec., 1918) says, “Amongst the left-wingers we will find reform-repudiating Socialists, Mass Actionists, Direct Actionists with Syndicalist tendencies, Socialist Industrial Unionists, American Bolshevists aspiring for an American Red Guard, even moderate reformers and, of course, the customary chronic kickers.” Such a conglomeration, if united in a separate party, would, it is obvious, form one in no way superior to the old body.

The fact is that in the so-called Left Wing there are not one but many currents, in numerous respects antagonistic. Much more Marxian educational work requires to be done before a sound, strong Socialist Party emerges from the present confusion. Nevertheless the fact that a considerable and growing section of the S.P. of A. have seen the folly of the old opportunist tactics is gratifying, and evidence is not wanting that in several quarters the need is strongly felt for disciplined organisation and for Socialist political action, revolutionary and uncompromising.

One of the most hopeful signs is that most, if not all, of the L.W. groups have definitely decided against the advocacy of palliatives and reforms—a stand which the S.P.G.B. was the first to take at its inception fifteen years ago. The Socialist Party of Michigan (incorporated in the S P. of A.) claim to have held this position since 1914. The S.P. Of Ohio have adopted as their “complete platform’’and “only demand,” “The World for the Workers.”

“Mass Action.”

A considerable section of the “Left-Wing,” including those responsible for and endorsing the “Revolutionary Age” and the “Class Struggle,” are advocates of what they call Mass Action as a means of achieving the Revolution.

The exponents of this policy avoid definite criticism because of the indefiniteness of their proposals. Louis C. Fraina, editor of the two journals named above, tells us in his book “Revolutionary Socialism,” “Mass action is the instinctive action of the proletariat, gradually developing more conscious and organised forms and definite purposes.” Delightfully explicit! So Fraina and his school are going to rely upon the instincts of the working class to achieve Socialism. This is so much better than relying upon their reason and knowledge, for, whereas the latter needs developing by the tedious method of education, the former only requires directing. Quite the Hyndman touch !

Fraina, of course, does not explain it quite like this, but such is the logical outcome of his statement. The use of the term “instinctive” to explain the actions of social groups is objectionable; particularly the absurd statement that the proletariat are “instinctively revolutionary.” If there is one thing the workers would appear, to the superficial observer, to have a rooted, natural predisposition for it is capitalism. In a future article I may be allowed to enlarge on this.

The fact is, as the reader may have guessed, that the term “Mass Action” is a shibboleth used to cover a multitude of different forms of activity and as a convenient means of shelving the “problem” of Socialist tactics. Street meetings, demonstrations, strikes, insurrections, all those are forms of “Mass Action” as “soon as they acquire political significance,” say the exponents of the doctrine. What are we to understand by “political significance?” If the Government suppresses a strike this strike is obviously of political significance, even though the strikers had no conscious political end in view. The gate is open for the most un-revolutionary, palliating activity to be included in these “new revolutionary tactics." There is a division of opinion among the Mass Actionists as to whether parliamentary action can be Mass Action or not, even though it is obviously so on the above definition, for an election is mass demonstration of political significance.”

The whole conception is loose and capable of all manner of interpretations. Such confusion is just what it is essential to avoid in Socialist propaganda. “The Proletarian” (March 1919) hits the nail on the head when it says : “Is it [Mass Action] just our old friend Direct Action come back with a new suit of clothes on? We will do well to enquire into the meaning of the phrase before accepting it. At present it seems to be a rallying cry for all the elements who have repudiated the old parliamentarism. But we have had rallying cries before as a substitute for education, and they have only proved to be a snare and a delusion.”

A New York Programme.

Only two “official” declarations of principles and policy by the above-mentioned groups have been received by the.present writer.. Of. these one is that adopted by a convention of the I.W. section of the New York locals on Feb. 16th this year. This group has a central committee which represents about twenty sections in the State of New York. It endorses the “Revolutionary Age,” published in Boston, and is now merged with the original “Mass Action”group, the “Socialist Propaganda League.”

The programme opens well:

1. We stand for a uniform declaration of principles in all party platforms, both local and national, and the abolition of all social reform planks now contained in them.
2. The party must teach, propagate, and agitate exclusively for the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of Socialism through a Proletarian Dictatorship.
3. The Socialist candidates elected to office shall adhere strictly to the above provisions.

It then goes on to endorse “revolutionary industrial unionism” and demands a party-owned Press, the repudiation of the old “International,” and the affiliation to that recently formed in Moscow about which so little is really known in this country.

As we have repeatedly pointed out, no form of industrial organisation can be revolutionary at the present stage of the mental development of the working class, and at the same time be strong enough in numbers to function effectively in the immediate struggles of the workers on the industrial field. A union cannot be correctly described as revolutionary unless the majority of its members are conscious revolutionists. As Socialist education is the only deliberate means of hastening the formation of the latter, it is a waste of valuable time to advocate now the formation of revolutionary unions before the ground has been adequately prepared, as the New York Left Wing suggest doing.

In addition to this positive error the programme commits an error of omission in failing to point out the necessity for political action in order to obtain control of the armed force of the State. The programme bears a strong family resemblance to that of the American S.L.P., the mistakes of which have at last been partly realised by its British namesake.

“Good Stuff" in Michigan.

The platform of the Socialist Party in Michigan is a much more satisfactory declaration. I append it in full:

   We, the Socialist Party of Michigan, in Convention assembled at Grand Rapids, February 24th 1919, reaffirm our allegiance to the uncompromising principles of international Socialism.
   We declare that the capitalist system has outgrown its historic function and become utterly incapable of meeting the problems now confronting society.
     In spite of the multiplicity of labour-saving machinery and the improved methods of industry, the position of the workers becomes ever more insecure, and the class straggle between the exploited. and the exploiters becomes ever more acute. The boasted prosperity of this nation is only for the owners of the means of production and distribution; to the proletariat it means only hardship and misery.
     It is the capitalist system that is responsible for the increasing burden of armaments, wars, poverty, slums, child labour, much of the crime and insanity, disease, and the commercialised prostitution. These being some of the manifestations of the present mode of production they can only be eliminated by the removal of the cause—the capitalist system. The method adopted by the Socialist Party of Michigan for the abolition of the present social order is that of political action.
  The politics of the working class are comprised within the confines of the class struggle; and conversely the class struggle is necessarily waged on the political field.
   By this statement we do not imply that the political action of the working class is always confined within the bounds of parliamentary procedure; nor that the means employed in waging the class struggle must everywhere be the same. Political action we define as any action taken by the exploited against the exploiters to obtain control of the powers of State; or by the master class to retain control, using these powers to secure the means of life.
  The Socialist Party of Michigan, recognises the full significance of working-class organisation for the capture of the political State, and we call upon the workers in this State to unite with us to the end that we may socialise and democratically manage the means of production and distribution, and eliminate for all time the exploitation of the working class.

The basic principles outlined in the above declaration are essentially correct, though there are in it one or two errors in detail and faulty statements.

Exception must be taken to the reference in par. 4 to the “burden of armaments.” The growing cost of armaments does not decrease either the price or the value of labour power. The wages of the workers are not appreciably affected. The expense of armaments is borne by the propertied class, and by some of these it is certainly considered a burden. It is also true that, viewed from the standpoint of an “ideal” distribution of production armaments are a sheer waste of labour; but so, from this point of view, is more than half the activity of the workers. The statement shows signs of improperly digested economics, and it is calculated to sidetrack the workers into the reformist camp.

The fifth paragraph, though well-intentioned, is weak. The “politics of the working class” are mainly Liberal and Tory or Republican and Democrat, and. if “within the confines of the class struggle” at all, are on the side of the capitalists. It is hardly true to say that the class struggle is “necessarily waged on the political field.” It will culminate, be decided, and largely end there, although it may partly revert to the economic field if the capitalists resist the process of expropriation upon the Socialist workers achieving political supremacy.

The Convention at which the above platform was adopted, and at which the Socialist element was dominant, took steps to eliminate reformist elements from within the party, in Michigan, or at all events to suppress their activities, by amending the State constitution as follows:

   “Any member, Local, or Branch of a Local, advocating legislative reforms or support organisations formed for the purpose of advocating such reforms, shall be expelled from the Socialist Party. The State Executive Committee is authorised to revoke the charter of any Local that does not conform to this amendment.”

An attitude upon religion identical with that of the S.P.G.B was adopted and enforced by the constitution of the following clause: “It shall be the duty of all agitators and organisers, upon all occasions, to avail themselves of the opportunity of explaining religion on the basis of the materialist conception of history as a social phenomenon.” The Convention unanimously endorsed as its literary expression “The Proletarian,” though that paper as yet remains in private hands.

A resolution was carried condemning the national E C. and demanding the convening of a special national conference of the party to determine the vital and urgent matters of principles and policy. That this attempt to reconstitute the entire party upon sound lines will fail is a foregone conclusion. Probably the authors have no very great hopes in this direction. What will be the attitude of its Michigan organisation if the national party adheres to the old opportunist tactics? Probably, almost certainly, the question of separation will arise. To one over here it would seem that secession would be followed by unity with the already existing Workers’ Socialist Party of the United States, the principles and tactics of which are closely similar to those of the Michigan body, and which has its centre in the same locality—Detroit.

In conclusion, let me state that there is every reason to believe that not the least of the factors which hare contributed to the forward movement in Michigan and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere in the U.S.A. has been the far-reaching educational influence of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

R.W. Housley

Scapa Flow. (1919)

Editorial from the July 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

The comic element for the month has undoubtedly been supplied by the scuttling of the interned German fleet at Scapa Flow. One’s first thoughts, naturally, upon hearing the news, were to congratulate the naval authorities upon the arrangements they had made for the safe-keeping of the “enemy” ships. It seemed so child like to leave the vessels in the hands of German crews, under the command of German officers, without any sort of a guard on board — so like the simple sailor of tradition!

But the simple sailor won’t have it. He with eager promptitude reminds the world at large that he never had the opportunity of preventing the scuttling, that the German war-ships were not surrendered, but interned, and as such had certain rights under international law which precluded the proper safe-guarding of them, and he throws the blame on the statesmen who failed to secure the surrender instead of the internment of the “enemy” fleet.

The incident and its sequel reveals again the sordid reality behind the mask of undying and fervid loyalty with which the Allies have endeavoured to hide their countenances, must as, all through the war, or at least until their prospects of getting licked properly “put the wind up ’em,” the Allied nations have been grasping each at its own coveted share of the spoils, striving to occupy “enemy” territory on the principle that possession is nine points of the international law, and because they could not trust each other, in spite of all the secret treaties —secret because they were too foul with filthy traffiking to stand the light of day—so they could not trust each other with the German ships. All the talk of the “honour of our gallant Allies” has been so much tosh. They have known each other for the thieves they are, and that is why they choose rather to trust the German fleet to German crews than have them surrendered, with the prospect that those to whom they were surrendered might find it too painful to part with them again.

And that is why the German ships lie at the bottom of the ocean.

The Police v. The Police (1919)

From the August 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

The capitalist Press has been busy explaining to Simple Simon that the action of the police in "breaking their oath" is not only mutiny, but "a crime." Of course, it is always a crime when the bulldog turns and rends its master's hand, notwithstanding that that hand was doing things with a stick. But there is another side to the question.

During the long period when the workers were more somnolent than they are now, and that condition was reflected in a far more incomplete organisation and a far greater trust in and submission to their union officials, the bosses were not so much afraid of the "labour unrest" as they are to-day. Consequently they did not attach the same importance to the bobby as they do now, and they made the mistake of paying him accordingly.

The result was inevitable. Notwithstanding his oath, the policeman was forced to struggle for a betterment of his miserable condition. More even than in other trades—if that were possible—this necessarily meant organisation. A union was formed, and as the aspect of industrial affairs became darker, a police trade union, affiliated possibly with other trade unions, deriving a certain amount of its strength from those unions, was regarded as an extremely sinister thing.

The bosses got a bit nervous. They made panic concessions, and then they started to cut out the "cancer" - in other words, to smash the union.

Now it is quite clear that the men owed every jot and tittle of the improvement in their condition to the union. Their oath availed them nothing. It was only intended to bind them to vile conditions of pay and tyrannical discipline. They might have stood meekly by it till doomsday, nothing would have been done for them. Only when they seriously threatened to commit the "crime" of leaving their oath to look after itself, as butcher Asquith did his registration and other pledges, and Lloyd George did his pledge concerning sending young boys to the "front," did the masters deign to give them some measure of alleviation.

It is quite plain, then, where the crime comes in. It is certainly not in breaking their oath, which they had been driven to do by the callous indifference of the bosses to their claims, but in their desertion of the instrument which had gained them so much. To allow that to be crushed out, and those who had undertaken the task of organising them for the struggle, to go down in the hour of victory is both a mean and cowardly crime.

Writers in this paper have previously pointed out how extremely unlikely it was that any sort of union that could be any good to the men would secure official recognition. The forecast seems to be pretty correct. Had the police, however, behaved with sufficient courage and intelligence as to force the question of recognition to a successful issue, the simple and inevitable result must have been the increased use of bayonets instead of batons in industrial disputes. The masters have more strings than one to their bow.

A. E. Jacomb

Editorial: The Pint Pot. (1919)

Editorial from the September 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

The capitalists are very much concerned just now to teach the workers something of economics—of the capitalist variety, of course. We have before us as we write a whole pile of effusions which have recently appeared in the capitalist Press, or have been let loose upon the workers in the form of capitalist leaflets, to which, in most cases, those who issue them have not the courage to put their names.

Of the latter—the cowardly (cowardly because the issuers shirk the obligation of publicly defending their lying statements)—two of the most ludicrous are entitled “Does Capital Rob Labour?” and ‘‘The Soldier’s Return.” respectively. A series of articles from the pen of a Canadian professor now appearing in the “Sunday Express” is a further case in point, while that fine old capitalist servant, Frederic Harrison, issues a touching appeal to labour “leaders” to “make those who look to you for guidance see it [capitalist economics as expounded by F.H.] as clearly as yourselves.”

Most of the literary efforts have one specific object — to induce the workers to produce at a cheaper rate. Thus Frederic Harrison tells us that “slack work releases capital, to go elsewhere,” and also that “higher wages mean rise of prices to the millions,” while the “Star” (September 8th) says “we have got to fill up the pint-pot to the brim before we can get a pint out of it.”

It appears that it is Lord Wrenbury who provides the “pint-pot” simile in a letter to the “Times,” and the “Star” quotes his lordship as saying “If the labourer says he must have a pint-and-a-half [out of a pint pot] he cannot have it because it is not there to have. If he says he will have a pint he will not get it because the beer will never be brewed if the master brewer is to get no return.” The “Star’s” assertion was thus effectively answered in advance.

Of course ca’canny drops in for it all round. The unfortunate thing about the argument that the less the workers produce the better it is for them is that pushed to extremes it brings us to the proposition that if nobody produced anything the labourer would be in his second Golden Age. The “Star” adopts this line under disguise when it argues that “if each of us leaves; say, half of his work to be done by others, the total wealth of the country will be half what it might be.” Of course our contemporary fails to see that this depends upon whether or not the work left is done by the others—a point of peculiar interest to those thousands who are unable to get work to do.

The Press may call it a poisonous doctrine, that the lees work anyone does the more work there is far others to do, but the fact remains. The workers are only paid while they are filing the pint pot. The harder they work, therefore, the sooner it is filled and the fewer are required to fill it. The capitalists would like the analogy of the pint pot to be abandoned at this point, but it is just here that it becomes most interesting to the worker.

John Stuart Mill, the beloved economist of the banking profession, holds that it is capital which presents the limit to production. The pint pot is formed of capital arid increases or decreases according as capital is added to or subtracted from its walls. This is a very comfortable theory for bankers, who like to believe that it is capital that makes the world go round. But capital itself is tied up in filling the pint pot—in other words, the master brewer’s pot gets smaller as it gets fuller; he must sell his beer or he will find the put full. And when the pot is full the worker ceases to get anything out of it because he is no longer required to put anything into it. It behoves the worker, therefore, to see that the pot does not get full, by putting into it as little as he can and taking out of it as much as he can.

Nevertheless, it is not in this direction that the worker must expend his main energy. He must see to it that the pot and all he puts into it are his. Then only can he quaff the full pot.

What The Socialist Party Has Done. (1919)

From the October 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

"What has the Socialist Party done during the fifteen years of its existence?” This is a query that Socialist lecturers frequently meet with at propaganda meetings. The answer is quite a simple one, in fact, so simple as to appear flippant: “The Socialist Party has remained in existence!” But, as I have said, because of its seeming flippancy, I will go further and explain my meaning.

Fifteen years ago what was the position of the working class? There were strikes, "industrial unrest,” unemployment, poverty, and misery, just as there are to-day. The worker was forced upon the labour market to debate the price of his labour power and go to the wall when his usefulness to the capitalist had ceased. This sounds very much as if I am decrying the Socialist Party, as if I am arguing from your side that the Socialist Party has done nothing to justify its existence. You come to that conclusion because you do not know what the Socialist Party is and what it stands for. I cannot blame you for your ignorance. You live in a world of benefit clubs, slate clubs, goose clubs, Liberal, Tory, and Labour parties anti profiteering associations, and others equally ephemeral and useless. It is, therefore, quite apparent that you would imagine we had something to offer. You are used to the election posters: "Vote for Bloggs and cheap workmen’s fares,” "Vote for Horatio Bunkum, the people’s friend,” "Hands off the people’s beer," and so on. And thus, when at the end of fifteen years the Socialist Party has not manufactured a slogan of that ilk or joined issue with any of the popular reform movements, you naturally would think that it had not done much if anything.

Now what are the facts ?

The Socialist Party is simply another name for the class-conscious workers organised in one body for the overthrow of the capitalist system and the consequent emancipation of the toilers from the thralldom of wage-slavery. Knowing and understanding that you will realise that until the working class desires its emancipation the Socialist Party can serve no other purpose than to keep propagating Socialism until the consummation of that desire. Thus it is we work patiently, tolerantly, ever pointing out the right path while the workers chase up and down the side streets of Reform and beat themselves stupid upon the walls of cul-de-sac strikes and direct action. We know, as Marx has pointed out, that the working class will try every road before it finds the right one, and that eventually we shall be rewarded for our long and arduous fight.

For fifteen years strike after strike has occupied the industrial arena, reform after reform has been enacted on the political field, and still the proletariat is the slave class in society. But we see that on all hands more and more attention is being given to the doctrine we teach and the philosophy we expound. At every propaganda meeting held now thoughtful interest and a desire to understand is manifested, while intending members come forward in larger numbers than before. And we tell the working class, as we told them fifteen years ago when first we challenged capitalism, that only in our ranks will they achieve their victory.

Thus when pseudo-Socialist organisations waver and foil, when politicians have so turned the workers from this stunt to that that they do not know where they stand and are an easy prey to the political harpies who batten upon their ignorance, we can repeat: "We have remained in existence! ” Our clarion call has not wavered one semi-tone. We challenge all traducers; we flaunt our principles pennon-wise, stainless and unrent, and call to the straggling proletariat to come with us out of the blood and tears and agony of Capitalism into the joyous, sun-litten new world of Socialism.

Stanley H. Steele