Conference Report (1972)

Party News from the May 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

The 1972 annual conference of the Socialist Party of Great Britain was held at Conway Hall, London, over Easter and was attended by delegates and visitors from many parts of Britain. Among the resolutions passed were ones criticising the format of the Socialist Standard for being too formal, calling for consideration of publishing Russia 1917-67 in German and committing the Party to contesting at least one seat in every General Election. Conference again discussed the Party’s attitude to reforms and the following resolution was carried:

That this Conference affirms that the Socialist Party of Great Britain has as its sole object the establishment of Socialism. It is a revolutionary Party based on the class struggle. All reforms are put into operation on behalf of one section or another of the capitalists in their own interests, even though some may contain incidental advantages to the workers. The Socialist Party of Great Britain is opposed to the workers wasting time and energy in attempting to improve capitalism by means of reforms, thus obscuring the class struggle. Consequently, the Party cannot support any action aimed at gaining or maintaining a reform as such support would not only confuse the workers but it would overlook the fact that the Party’s sole object is the establishment of Socialism. We must therefore confine ourselves directly to the furtherance of that object and not take any steps up the blind alley of reformism. This statement deals with reforms, not with the Party’s attitude to the struggle of the workers on the industrial field.

At one point the proceedings were undemocratically interrupted by a group calling themselves “the London Situationists” who noisily stopped a discussion on the need to develop Marxist theory in order to hand out An Open Letter to the SPGB. This turned out to be a peculiar amalgam of Freudian pseudo-psychology (both Marcuse and Reich, despite their opposing views), some organisational ideas and an ill-informed criticism of our policy of conscious political action, via the ballot box and Parliament, to establish Socialism. The organisational criticism boiled down to saying that the time was not yet ripe for a formal, centralised socialist group, while the political criticism failed to take into account that the Socialist Party has never said that the establishment of Socialism involves just a few million X’s for Socialism followed by a parliamentary resolution. We have always said that Socialism can only be established by a conscious, participating working class organised not only politically to capture and destroy the State machine but also outside parliament ready to take over and run industry and society generally.

The best—and most readable (most of it is written in mock political French)—part of the document which called for “the automated economy of abundance’’ was clearly influenced by our thinking anyway. Unfortunately, though they will the end they don’t will the means. The spectre of the Russian Revolution still haunts them: their alternative of our policy is “workers’ councils”, i.e. soviets!

Another Programme For Poverty (1972)

Book Review from the June 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

Family Poverty. Programme for the Seventies. Ed. David Bull. (Gerald Duckworth paperback. £1.25.)

Stand up, anyone who is not fed to the back teeth with politicians telling us that poverty is either abolished or is about to be.

Of course, this is a continuous process but sometimes there are notable watersheds, which mark schemes which are more than usually comprehensive— perhaps a tidying up of a mass of old legislation or a really massive reform— which give the politicians another chance to tell us that they are about to end the problem once and for all (yes, they have actually used those words.)

Such a watershed was the last war. After all the promises about the fruits of victory which would erase the bitter taste of the thirties, schemes like Beveridge and the National Health Act of 1948 came as surely as night following day.

The new laws passed by the Attlee government in the fields of pensions, insurance, health treatment and so on made it possible for them to claim, as they fought desperately to hold on to power in the 1950 election, that they had abolished poverty. Abolished it; it wouldn’t come back.

Many people believed them, although not enough to keep them in power for long. Then came the dawn, and a sickly one it was. First it was discovered that the old were still in desperate straits, their poverty outgrowing the meagre provisions made for them. Then the chronically sick and disabled were surprisingly found to be suffering economic hardship.

As the light on the problem grew stronger the men in power clung to the illusion of “full" employment, implying that if a man was in work his family were well provided for, that poverty was an accident of those who for one reason or another could not be fully employed. That held good until more evidence forced them to admit that working families can also be destitute and since then we have had schemes like the Family Income Supplement which are supposed to have cured that problem.

In fact as it becomes more and more evident that poverty is not dead, that it lives as hideously as ever, the investigation of it has become something of a growth industry. As all over the country the newly organised Social Services departments spring up, there is every reason to think that the growth will continue.

These essays, by men like Tony Lynes and Peter Townsend, do something to examine and illuminate the chronic problem of poverty under capitalism and to expose the complete failure of all the post war legislation to cure it. Unfortunately (or would a better word be predictably) they do not recognise poverty for what it is—an unavoidable product of capitalism—and so they must always conclude by arguing in favour of replacing one piece of ineffective legislation with another.

The essays are readable and informative and they leave this reviewer in sadness at the waste of ability and knowledge, which would be better used working to end the system responsible for family poverty.

Ivan.

Editorial: Is Mankind Doomed? (1972)

Editorial from the July 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

The sane and sensible method of using the ecological resources to meet the needs of all the people of the world is Socialism.

When a religious group predict the end of the world in the near future very few people sit up and take notice. But what happens when a group of scientists make it clear that they expect the breakdown of present society within the next fifty years? And, that when they are on about the Ecosphere they evince a deep knowledge of their subject and it seems that Man needs to wake up from the present dream and to do some serious thinking indeed. The group have formed a political movement called the Movement for Survival which they hope will become international. They may contest the next General Election. In the meantime they are trying to persuade governments, industrial leaders and trade unions throughout the world to face the facts and to take appropriate action while there is yet time. Their aim, according to their manifesto, Blueprint for Survival, is a new system of society seeking stability rather than expansion.

The ecologists’ case, which they are presenting strongly, concerns pollution in its many forms; “overpopulation”, disruption of the ecosphere by inorganic fertilizers and pesticides; the exhaustion of the world’s resources of petroleum and metals; and social disruption. The Blueprint deals with these symptoms in detail, and the picture it presents, though exaggerated, is grim and ugly enough. But here overpopulation is represented as occurring from an increasing demand rate and a decreasing capacity for the world to accommodate this demand. This demand is not simply based on human consumption of the necessaries and amenities of life, but on "the summation of all man’s demands on the environment, such as the extraction of resources and the return of wastes.’’ Surely they mean all capitalism's demands, for they use figures for this demand based on the UN Statistical Yearbook. They call it Ecological Demand. The annual rate of population increase is 2 per cent; the annual rate of ecological demand is 5 to 6 per cent. Should the world’s resources fail to meet this demand then the result would be “overpopulation’’ — they say. This is a case which Socialists categorically deny. The world has no overpopulation problem; the problem is capitalism’s inability to produce sufficient to feed and meet the needs of the world’s population.

On pollution the Doomwatchers make out an impressive case. Essential to the environment are such features as stability, organisation and complexity, but present trends suggest that “Industrial Man’’ is counteracting these basic requirements of the ecosphere and is thus bringing about its ruination as a fertile means of life. Marx pointed out the trend years ago and since he wrote pollution has multiplied. But the ecologists mis-state the real cause of pollution, which is capitalist profit-motivated production. Instead, they point to certain characteristics and symptoms of capitalism such as expansion, urban drift, and the increased ratio of capital to labour (here they mean the non-profit-creating to the profit-creating part of capital). They appear not to be hard up for euphemisms for capitalism’s dirty words; still, their account of the interdependence of the forms of life and the necessity of recycling the eco-processes are impressive.

What do the ecologists propose as a solution to this “imminent’’ world crisis? They propose to create

"a society which is sustainable and will give the fullest possible satisfaction to its members. A society depending on stability, not expansion; but this does not mean that it will be stagnant. It could provide more variety than the present uniformity . . . The minimum conditions of this society are the minimum disruption of ecological processes; the maximum conservation of materials and energy; a population in which recruitment will equal loss; and a social system in which the individual can enjoy, rather than feel restricted by the first three conditions.”

In the meantime, they suggest, present trends must be arrested by the freezing of current pesticide commitments and a changeover from the "old playing for time” methods of pollution dispersal, etc. The Blueprint editors have arranged a series of talks with Environment Minister, Peter Walker, who says he wants to know more.

However, the situation is somewhat different to that presented by the ecologists, who reveal repressed insight into the real nature of capitalism. This system has often given some of its critics the notion that it is on the verge of collapse, and articles in the Socialist Standard have shown time and again how it fails to produce both the delightful and the dire results expected of it. The fluctuations in a profit-geared system, with its gluts and shortages, make hay of these corny predictions. Crises of inflation give way to crises of “overproduction” and the deliberate destruction of vast quantities of food and areas of production.

Another result of the ecologists’ failing to face up to capitalist reality is that they appear to believe in miracles. By implication, they wish to retain the fundamentals of the present system; i.e. money, profit-making, capital, a ruled and a ruling class, yet they expect to freeze expansion and to substitute stability under it. They seem to have in mind a form of élitist society in which small self-sufficient and self-regulating communities would take the place of large cities and centralised government. Significantly, they foresee that in the transitional stage a heavy burden would be placed on “our moral courage” and restraint.  “The operations of the police force and the courts would be necessary. “This would be reinforced by creating (concrete) conditions for full public participation and decision-making, and this would be far easier in small societies.”  The idea of decentralisation brings into relief the hopelessness of their belief that they can change capitalism, for it runs counter to the whole tendency of present day society. Capitalism is becoming more and more a world system with an international network of communications and control.

The sane and sensible method of using the ecological resources to meet the needs of all the people of the world is Socialism. The efficient production and distribution of wealth will be facilitated by the use of these institutions. It is true that a transformation in the basis and organisation of human society is necessary and this can only be a revolutionary transformation. It is only possible when the great majority of the workers come, through understanding of their identity of interests, to Socialism, regardless of “prestige”, colour or sex.

A Big Thank You! (1972)

Party News from the August 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has always been fortunate in the continual readiness of members to work for years at behind-the-scenes jobs: Branch secretaries and treasurers and members of committees, who have carried out their unspectacular work with quiet efficiency for as long as many of us remember.

Comrade Phyllis George has just given up the secretaryship of the Socialist Standard Production Committee after twenty-seven years. She began helping the old Editorial Committee near the end of the war, and her home became —and remained—the Committee’s regular meeting-place. Acquiring a thorough knowledge of how the Socialist Standard was produced, she was able to tidy-up every loose end and take a heavy burden of correspondence and endless minor details from the Committee members. In the nineteen-fifties she compiled a regular page of Party news for the Socialist Standard.

The Socialist Standard's debt to Comrade George is considerable, but its editors over the years have a special one for her hospitality. Every month her sitting-room was filled with spread-out papers and cigarette smoke and debate, while she supplied continual cups of coffee as well as unfailing stability and competence. Much as we regret her retirement, the rest is well deserved; and our gratitude extends to her husband Arthur, who put up with it cheerfully.

All who have served on or helped the Committee during those twenty-seven years join in expressing our appreciation: thank you, Phyllis. We hope that both the Comrades George will continue to take part in the life of the Party for a long time to come.

Is Socialism Left? (1972)

Pamphlet Review from the September 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is Socialism Left? by George Watson. (Unservile State Papers. 15p.)

This is a pamphlet published by the Unservile State Group, a small body of Liberals aiming to foster the growth of Liberal political and economic ideas.

Rather than refer explicitly to aspects of Liberal policy and principles, however, George Watson, lecturer in English at Cambridge and author of books on literary criticism and thesis writing, sets out to show how certain standpoints popularly referred to as Socialist (and therefore, in most people’s minds "left”) have very close parallels in traditionally accepted features of Fascist (and therefore "right”) ideology. The impressive array of evidence he draws upon to support his case includes the setting up of Bolshevik extermination camps in Russia in 1918, the policies of minority violence advocated by left-wingers such as G. B. Shaw and H. G. Wells, the undemocratic authoritarianism of the Webbs, the founders of Fabianism, the anti-working class policies practised in Britain by successive Labour governments, the conditions of savage political repression the people of Eastern Europe live under.

Nothing here unfamiliar to the Socialist critique of Labourism and State control masquerading as Socialism. But what a pity that in attempting to clarify terms, Watson adds to the already existing confusion about Socialism by defining it as ". . . a spectrum . . . that stretches from a totalitarian extreme in Stalin and Mao, through diluted forms of the same doctrine in Gomulka and Tito, as far (say) as the Swedish and British Social Democrats.” From this comment and others we can deduce that Socialism for this pamphleteer means State control, which he contrasts unfavourably with the private variety. Yet, at the same time, he shows signs of realising that both are forms of capitalism, for he states: "In the socialist countries beyond the Curtain, the state is the only capitalist, or the only major one” and "The power of a Western or private capitalist is necessarily less than that of a socialist one” (a socialist capitalist therefore — how’s that for semantic confusion?).

What a pity too that Watson, despite his hearteningly unexpected awareness of the existence of State capitalism in Russia, goes on to make the elementary blunder of equating Russian Bolshevism with Marxian Socialism. His uncritical assumption that Lenin’s setting up of a one-party regime of political terror constituted Marxism in action compounds the ignorance or misunderstanding of Marx’s writings inherent in such statements as "Marxian Socialism is little short of bloodthirsty” and "Marx himself certainly believed that socialism could only be created through violence on a world-scale”. Serious students of Marx know that he was never an advocate of mass violence and indeed, in his later writings, was quite clear that where electoral machinery existed a class-conscious majority could use the vote to take over the State preparatory to the changeover from commodity production (capitalism) to a system of common ownership and free access (Socialism). Engels, in his 1895 preface to Marx’s Class Struggles in France sums up the Marxist position:

  And so it happened that the bourgeoisie and the government came to be much more afraid of the legal than of the illegal action of the workers’ party, of the results of elections than of those of rebellion.
  For here, too, the conditions of the struggle had essentially changed. Rebellion in the old style, street fighting with barricades, which decided the issue everywhere up to 1848, was to a considerable extent obsolete . . . The time of surprise attacks, of revolutions, carried through by small conscious minorities at the head of unconscious masses, is past.

Marx’s writings, therefore, contain no warrant for the politically backward, minority violence of Bolshevism. Any association between Marxism and the events of 1917 and their aftermath turns solely on the dishonest use Lenin made of Marx’s terminology. In particular the terms socialist and communist, which for Marx were interchangeable, came, under Lenins’ distortion, to mean two separate stages of development, while Marx’s dictatorship of the proletariat, a political condition not a form of government, has nothing in common with the dictatorship over the proletariat established by Lenin.

Watson’s conclusion that the repressive social, political and moral features of Russian society represent conservatism far in excess of anything found in the West is incontrovertible and a view shared by all objective observers. Next to this, however, the question he poses of whether such a set-up can be legitimately referred to as "left” is of little importance. For whatever label a government in the modern world attaches to itself, right, left or centre, its function remains the same — to administer as efficiently as possible a system of production for profit which, come what may, cannot be run in the interests of the working majority. This applies just as rigorously to State capitalism in Russia (and in East Germany, China, Cuba, etc. for that matter) as it does to Watson’s implied favourite, private capitalism in the Western world.

Howard Moss

The I.L.P. as the 'Open' Party (1972)

From the October 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

It would be impossible to describe within a single article of reasonable length the policies of the Independent Labour Party. They stand for just about everything. No cause is too small to merit their attention: Black Militancy; Irish Nationalism; Military Strategy; Liberation of Vietnam; and now, Workers’ Control. These are in addition to their almost unlimited stock of reforms in Housing, Education, Health. You name it, they’ve got it — that is, with the notable exception of a Socialist policy.

With such a universal platform the ILP continues to decay and is, in fact, a political joke. The reasons are that the big battalions of social reform, the Labour and Tory parties, have monopolised the field leaving the ILP and its associates in the position of the small shopkeepers opposing the supermarkets. Another reason is that the policies of the ILP have become so discredited over the years that it appears to them nothing less than a new approach based on new policies will stop the rot. 

At its 81st annual conference held at Scarborough earlier this year the new face-lift (third in its history) was performed. The conference made the discovery that they had been wrong all the time, and had a sectarian approach to politics. Sweeping changes in the constitution were made. By a large majority the delegates agreed that there was no value in participating in parliamentary or local elections at the present stage of the class struggle, and voted that no branch or division of the Party should put up candidates in the future, unless in exceptional circumstances. Coupled with this decision was support for “workers’ control” to subvert the organisation of the capitalist class (Socialist Leader, 8 April 1972), and also that members of the ILP would be free to join other political parties and work within them. (This ancient policy was advocated by the Communist Party forty-five years ago, and described as “boring from within”. It proved to be useless as well as dishonest, but this is lost on the ILP).

Confusion

Their position on Parliament, despite the conference decision, is confused. On page 3 of their pamphlet Towards Socialism they state:

There is little to be gained by relying on the procedures of Parliamentary Democracy. The ILP must therefore recruit members in local communities, in colleges and universities, and at the point of production, for organised subversion.

But on page 4:

Meanwhile the ILP advocates policies and initiates activity, including direct action and Parliamentary activity, designed to strengthen the institutions of the working class and subvert the organisations of the capitalist class.

This contradictory position is all things to all men, and is nothing more than political opportunism. The curious logic which impels the ILP to partly repudiate Parliament arises purely from the fact that they cannot get in there. Political power, which they have courted dearly and cannot have, now they regard as useless. The Parliamentary system is blamed for the failure of their policies. Forgotten is the fact that the first Labour government in 1924 largely consisted of ILP members, including 45 MPs. The second Labour government contained 111 members.

So we return to direct action and workers’ control — theories which are at least 150 years old. This is the “modern” ILP! These emotive policies, borrowed from other antiquated organisations (anarchists, Trotskyists, etc.) are dear to politically immature workers and students. They have that romantic ring, and are removed from a clear and objective appreciation of what makes capitalism work. Incidentally, they have never satisfactorily explained, and none of the organisations which support workers’ control has explained, how you get the capitalists to relinquish their control. 

Cartoon by Jack Gold.

Whose Power ?

The claim by the ILP “that real power exists outside Parliament and the Courts” (page 3, The Way to Workers' Control) is rubbish. This is based on the assumption that the workers have economic power and can use the strike weapon to enforce political reforms as well as wage demands. They are wrong on both counts. It is the capitalists who have economic power, it is they who can and do dictate the conditions under which they will produce, hire or fire. The economic power of the workers is restricted to fighting a series of rearguard actions through trade unions against the unending encroachments of capital. In the field of political reform, no strike action by unions over the past 150 years has produced any reform even in trade-union legislation. Political power and economic power is the prerogative of the capitalists. They dominate society, and the workers support them. Direct action could only be carried on by isolated minorities, and is doomed to failure as long as the majority of workers give their political support to capitalism.

The most recent example of the workers’ “economic power’’ and “control” was at the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders. This was inspired and led by Communists, supported by the ILP, Trotskyists, SLL, and IS. Viewed as the revolution they thought would be, it proved to be an utter fiasco. Based on the absurd principle that the workers work for nothing, being paid by other workers’ donations, they produced things for the capitalists to sell. No wonder the capitalists did not bring in the forces of law and order, having reaped the benefits of unpaid labour! It eventually deteriorated into a position where the militants led by Jimmy Reid, a prominent CP member, agreed to sit down with the new owners Marathon, a group of American capitalists, to discuss redundancies. Home-grown capitalists were evidently not good enough.

There are numerous instances which show that sporadic gestures of workers’ control are worse than useless. The ILP, SLL, CP, Trotskyists, etc. — the “militants” — are really the running dogs of capitalism. At election times they will come to heel and urge the workers to vote for the pro-capitalist Labour Party. The strange philosophy which impels these people is one which regards trade-union militancy and reform movements as permanent conditions of the workers’ existence. They see no way out.

None of these organisations understands Socialism, and they do their damnedest to make sure that the working class will not understand it either. They are fighting a losing battle, however. The policy and principles of the Socialist Party of Great Britain are easily understood, and we offer them to workers who are prepared to learn something new. Without the understanding of the Socialist Party’s policy and principles the workers cannot achieve Socialism. The Socialist Party of Great Britain will not repudiate Parliament — on the contrary, we aim at political power for the sole purpose of establishing Socialism.

Jim D'Arcy

The Presidential Election: "As Long As It's Black" (1972)

From the November 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

Presumably it will change as the day draws near, but the American presidential election has had a hard time competing for the attention of the working class in Britain against the Ugandan Asians, Heath’s £2, Northern Ireland and the antics of their favourite TV star or footballer.

It is said that the personalities of the two candidates have not helped. In the past, the Kennedys always had the capacity to arouse the strangest responses among British workers, who were somehow persuaded that these ruthless, rich politicians cared about the desperations of poverty, racial suppression, war. When one of them was assassinated, it was almost as if a favourite child had died. It is sad fact that workers like to be able to choose between politicians who are puffed up as exciting, glamourous men—men who can make gimmicks. The 1968 election seemed boring—although it was a very close run race—because neither Nixon nor Humphrey came over as dynamic or handsome or alluring.

Writing Them Off

This election has been affected in the same way and additionally because it has always been assumed that Nixon was the winner. It is, apparently, as boringly predictable as if Leeds United were playing Barrow in the Cup. McGovern’s only defence against the damaging assumption that he is a loser is to point out that he was once written off as an impossibility for the Democratic nomination :

   . . .  I won the Democratic nomination through hard work, careful planning, a willingness to move ahead decisively, greater public participation and a determination to take nothing for granted. And this is just the way I intend to win the presidency. (The Guardian 20 July).

The publicity men will be most grateful to McGovern, if he manages to make a contest of it.

To the supporters of either side, this election is described as a struggle between right and wrong, good and bad. There is said to be widespread disillusionment among the voters, at the lack of any real differences between the candidates, as the buyers of Henry Ford’s cars might have felt when they could have chosen any colour as long as it was black. It is fair to ask why there should be such a feeling about only this election —why haven’t the workers in America grasped the fact before now, that the candidates of all the capitalist parties are basically the same? The gloomy prospect is that there will also be a disillusionment with elections and politics as such, that the workers will blame the tools which are misused rather than realise how they misuse them.

Tricky Strategy

Nixon, as many incumbents do, has fought the election from a long way above it, leaving his Vice-President Spiro Agnew to tangle with the opposition. In itself this is of course a political move, since it implies that Nixon is more concerned with running America to the benefit of all its people than in the sordid mess of political squabbling. He has worked hard during the past four years to lose the old labels like Tricky Dick and, on the standards by which capitalist leaders are judged, he may have succeeded.

Politicians make or lose their names not upon any fundamental issues but upon superficial changes in capitalism. In 1968 Nixon fought on the well worn theme of Law and Order, so in order to claim success he must be able to show some progress in making America a more peaceful place to live in. Four years ago there was plenty of scope for improvement; the war in Vietnam seemed to be lasting for ever, organised protest against some of the symptoms of capitalism was often a bloody, murderous business, the city ghettoes periodically erupted into fire and warfare. It was an event almost predictable when Bobby Kennedy was gunned down.

Past and Present

What does Nixon claim as he goes to the polls this time? American capitalism has made, or is about to make, a deal with China and North Vietnam which will carve up anew a piece of South-East Asia and probably halt the war in Vietnam. The diplomatic burrowings of Kissinger have brought home to the American ruling class that they cannot hope to win the war there, only to finish it. As in 1968, Nixon is promising to end the war, by which he means to provide an interval before the next conflict and to set up the battle lines for it.

At home, Nixon can draw comparisons between 1968 and 1972 which are to his advantage. When the Democrats met at Chicago in 1968, they did so within a barbed wire stockade and behind a tight security screen while outside tear-gassing, troops with fixed bayonets and rioting police were accepted sights. Although this was a heavy over-reaction by Mayor Daley, it was also a climax of years of protest in which pitched gun battles and deaths were common. The conventions this year went off with hardly a whiff of tear-gas or swing of a truncheon. Symbolically Bobby Seale, who was gagged at the trial which followed the Chicago 1968, is now standing for Mayor at Oakland, California. The figures say that violent crime is increasing in America and New York (which is not the worst city) recently notched up a new record for the number of murders in a single day. But there is enough scope in the statistics to enable the Administration, with a bit of juggling, to claim that the increase in violence is slowing down and it is with such material that successful election campaigns are fought.

The Real Issues

During Nixon’s term American capitalism has been faced with the customary economic problems which, in the customary way, he has promised to control with some “fine tuning” of the economy. In a nation of car owners, this phrase is easily understood and accepted. In August the American government “floated” the dollar, slapped a duty surcharge on imports and declared that they were going to control prices and wages. Such measures in fact have no effect on capitalism’s economic crises, which are a matter of cycles out of the control of politicians or anyone else. At the crucial time in terms of his re-election, Nixon can claim that the rate of inflation is slowing and that unemployment has fallen; the cycle is running his way and should help him to victory.

Although none of these changes is fundamental, or permanent, they are the stuff of which electoral victories are made and will continue to be made as long as the working class fail to face the real issues. Until they do that, they will continue to vote for a modified capitalism. Against the Nixon record, McGovern has had a hard time to convince the American workers to prefer his modifications.

Deceit, Confusion

McGovern’s campaign has been fascinating for its apparent confusion and hopelessness. He first made his name as an opponent of Johnson’s policies on Vietnam (which did not prevent him trying to get the ex-President to support him) and since then, whenever he stuck to a policy long enough for it to be analysed, he has usually got himself classified as what is known as “a dangerous radical”. McGovern was once well known for something called a “wealth redistribution plan” which was a programme to guarantee a basic wage and to increase some income taxes. This would better have been called a poverty redistribution plan; workers in this country are well familiar with similar attempts to paper over the deprivations of capitalism.

McGovern missed out on the simple fact that as he must work to deceive and confuse workers as to the nature of capitalism, so they are liable to react in a confused and misled manner and to find an attempt at reorganising their poverty very threatening. Seeing some of this rather late, McGovern quickly dropped his “radical” plans and since then made a name for himself as one who organises his retreats like a Napoleon. Once he was specifically committed to cut American troops in Europe by more than a half; then he promised only to “review” the matter. He was once known as an anti-war candidate but he told the nostalgic warriors of the American Legion, when a man of principle might gladly have offered defiance:

   . . . my budget will give us enough fire power to destroy Russia and China simultaneously 20 times over. (Times, 24 August).

Another Goldwater?

McGovern has run on what is called a populist line; he implies (like George Wallace) that he is on the side of the common people against the crafty, manipulating politicians who exploit them. Yet there could be no more cynical examples of political manoeuvring than his performance over the election of his running mate, his appeal for Muskie’s support to get the trade-union vote, for Humphrey’s to get the Jewish and other “racial” votes, for Kennedy’s to cash in on the glamour which that ruthless family still holds for the American working class.

When Johnson was riding high in 1964, the Republicans chose a candidate whose stated policies were more likely to alienate voters than attract them. It is possible that this time the Democrats have accepted the invincibility of the president and that they have chosen their Goldwater, a ludicrous interval of sacrifice who can be quickly forgotten after the election.

Expectant Voters

It is useful to recall here what happened to Johnson, how he fell from his overwhelming popularity of 1964 to the man who would not run in 1968, when he was exposed. The Democrats are possibly calculating that their opponents are also due for disillusionment, which they can exploit in the election of 1976. Perhaps by then they will have settled on a candidate of greater voter-attraction than McGovern. While the election is on they mostly unite behind their man but when the votes are cast the in-fighting will immediately start again, with the candidacy of 1976 as the prize. By then the Republicans will hope to have done what Wilson hoped to do for the Labour Party — to change from the alternative government into the governing party of American capitalism.

The election of politicians to power in a capitalist state is a business in which the expectations of the electorate play an important role. To begin with, the working class like to feel that their leaders are strong men who can control and influence events, even if for most of the time they are not sure of how this is to happen. In many ways this means that something is expected to happen simply because a politician says it will; it is enough for one of them to spout a slogan like Johnson’s Great Society for the problems of poverty, bad housing, social despair, to melt like snow in the sunshine.

Tough at the Bottom

At the same time the workers prefer their leaders to have some contact with what they, rather selectively, see as reality; only in extreme situations like wartime will they accept what they call extremism. Thus it is established now for politicians to fight over the “middle ground” of policies, which means over which party can distort facts and fashion its deceptions successfully enough to appeal to a wide majority of workers. This is the party which usually wins the elections—and on this reckoning 1972 looks like the Republicans’ year.

Nixon is a strange case of a politician who was discredited before he came to power and who since then has won a fair amount of support in his opponents’ traditional ground. This should be enough to keep him in one of the toughest jobs in capitalism, head of the most powerful state in the world. But tough as it is, the people who suffer as a result of it all are those who will vote to send him there.

Ivan.

Work As You Please ("It Would Never Work") (1972)

From the December 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists are, rightly, wary of “giving a blueprint” when asked how Socialism will work. On the other hand, when we have sometimes suggested that, even assuming the type of production known under Capitalism would still exist in a Socialist society, many of the stresses known to-day would disappear, we have been accused of being Utopians, not understanding the requirements of these methods. However, strange things seem to be happening.

Without doubt, one of the major stresses imposed not only on workers in factories, but also offices, is the inflexible hours they are expected to work in order to obtain full use of office and production space and machinery. This not only means the tiring frustrations of rush hour travel, but the amount of time spent apart by partners working different hours, the inability to take time off from work for special occasions without loss of earnings, as well as the struggle to get up in the dark for several months of the year and early-morning sluggishness which seems to beset the majority of us, while the minority who feel bright in the mornings wilt at the tail-end of the working day.

The magazine Woman, in the first of a series of articles on life today, deals with this very subject. It appears that the suggestion put forward by Socialists — called “impractical” by our more friendly opponents—is being put into practice by a growing number of large as well as small capitalists. The most common method adopted is to have a ‘hard core’ period —say, 10-4, when everyone is expected to attend. Apart from this, so long as a given number of hours are worked each week or month, employees suit themselves as to which days and when they will put in the remaining hours between the time the factory or office opens at, say, 8.00 a.m. and closes 10 or 12 hours later.

Employers have found that the extra overheads are more than compensated for by reduction of absenteeism and better productivity. Doctors approve the scheme as, not only does it lead to more relaxed people working at their peak capacity, but the chances of spreading infection during rush-hour travel are much reduced. This, of course, leads to less absenteeism due to illness and consequent improvement in productivity.

On the continent of Europe this system of flexible hours is already quite widely used, and investigations are taking place as to how the hard core period could be reduced or eliminated. In this country there are already twelve organisations who have introduced the scheme. As among them are ICI’s Petrochemical Division, Pilkington Glass and Pakcel Converters (one of the three giant producers of cellulose film), we can take it that the system is efficient (that is, under capitalism, profitable!) as well as benefiting the workers concerned. The latter, under capitalism, is a side issue but, in a Socialist society, would be the governing factor.

Eva Goodman

Foreign Debt and the Workers (1933)

From the January 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

The continuance of the world depression drives the spokesmen of capital to all kinds of shifts to account for the trouble, and for the growing army of unemployed.

One of the “explanations”—the international debt question—is very much to the front just now and causing much heartburnings to small investors, who see their savings dwindling under the stress of the economic situation. The latter are always the most vulnerable material for the propaganda of reduced taxation, and while they throw up their hands in holy horror at the suggestion that Ireland should be so unprincipled as to back out of previous debt arrangements, they wholeheartedly support the idea of repudiating England’s debt obligations to America.

The matter is one that concerns the master class exclusively and is no concern of the working class. It is just a question of which group of masters shall reap the principal share of the surplus wealth wrung from the workers and is simply the peace-time reflection of the war-time process. Incidentally, the anxiety of the capitalists to get rid of their foreign debts shows the absurdity of the Labour Party argument that the capitalists can pass such burdens on to the backs of the workers.

The present international debt ferment originated in the capitalists of one country giving credit during the War to those of another. country for war material, on the understanding that the lenders would obtain substantial interest for their obliging conduct. Many years have passed since the debts were incurred, and the material that was purchased, being of an unproductive nature, mostly went up in smoke—carrying multitudes of workers with it. The capitalists of the debtor countries look with growing dismay at the constant drain on their profits caused by the recurring interest payments on this unproductive expenditure, and with still greater dismay to the dwindling prospect of getting rid of the capital burden for a long time to come. Consequently, by emotional appeals, veiled threats and various financial dodges, they seek to cajole the creditors into allowing them to back out of their “sacred” pledges and to throw overboard as much of their liabilities as possible. It is just another aspect of the shady side of commerce,

The international intertwining of business relations helps the debtors’ game. This was well illustrated by the financial conduct of German capitalists a year or two ago, when they threatened to go bankrupt if forced to meet certain short-term loan obligations. The creditors were faced with the threat of losing all if they forced the immediate payment. While the creditors politely fell out among themselves, Germany just smiled and sat tight.

In the middle of the present debt discussion a report came through from America which pointed again to the real source of low prices and business depression—a too lavish nature and a too highly developed productive force for a social system based on production for profit instead of production to meet the needs of all. The following quotation is from the Evening Standard for December the 9th, and appeared under the heading, “Another Cotton Crop Shock”:—

   The market estimates of the American cotton crop this year have been all along quite out of touch with actualities. Successive shocks have been administered by the monthly publication of the official estimates, which have been well in excess of private forecasts. The biggest shock of all has come from the latest Bureau report just issued.
  This estimates the crop at 12,727,000 bales, an increase on last month’s official estimate of 780,000 bales, whereas the market was looking for, at most, an increase of about 250,000 bales. As a consequence the price in Liverpool has fallen from 5.64d. per lb. a month ago to 5.03d. per lb. now, while the price in America has dropped from 6.30 cents to 5.75 cents per lb.
  Evidently the private estimators have misjudged the probable effect of weather conditions and the possibilities of boll-weevil damage. That the latter has been very small is demonstrated by the high average yield of 162.1 bales per acre.

The settlement of the debt question will not of itself set the wheels of business turning rapidly again. The easing of that problem is reserved for bankruptcies and the boll-weevil.

Anyhow, from the workers' point of view it is not unkind America or France that is the root of their troubles, but the ruthless exploitation by capitalism for the profit of the few

Gilmac.

Marx and the Labour Party (1933)

From the February 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Arthur. Woodburn, writing in Forward (September 3rd), tries to meet Socialist criticism of the Labour Party’s programme with the retort that Marx, too, was a reformist. This he does by reproducing the list of measures drafted by Marx and Engels in 1847, and incorporated in the Communist Manifesto. (See Section II.)

Mr. Woodburn leaves out the essential explanation without which his statement is grossly misleading. Marx and Engels were socialists, that is to say, they aimed at dispossessing the capitalist class as a necessary preliminary to establishing a system of society based on common ownership of the means of production and distribution. The first step was that the working class must obtain political supremacy. They must then use this political supremacy to dispossess the capitalists. Marx and Engels put forward, in the light of their reading of existing conditions, certain measures as a beginning of the process of dispossession.

     Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois, production; by means therefore which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production. These measures will, of course, be different in different countries. Nevertheless, in the most advanced countries the following will be pretty generally applicable.

Now the important thing to notice is that these measures were proposed as the way in which the working class, after conquering political power, would begin the task of dispossessing the capitalists and instituting common ownership. This is something poles apart from the Labour Party’s aim and programme. The Labour programme is something so acceptable to large sections of the capitalists that you can have a Labour Government’s public utility schemes modelled on Conservative schemes, and carried on without material modification by subsequent Conservative Governments. The Labour Party, in fact, does not aim now or ever at dispossessing the capitalists. Mr. Snowden, when Chancellor of the Exchequer in the two Labour Governments, repeatedly insisted that the Labour Party does not believe in making despotic inroads on the rights of property, and the Labour Party still holds that view and confirmed it at the Leicester Conference.

To illustrate this we need only point to two of the measures suggested by Marx and Engels, viz., “abolition of property in land ” and “abolition of all right of inheritance.” Mr. Woodburn knows quite well that the Labour Party has never committed itself to those two proposals. It dare not do so, and thus it has no intention of beginning an attack on private ownership.

In passing, it is worth while recalling what Engels, looking back in 1888, had to say of the 1847 proposals: —

  The practical application of the principles will depend, as the manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded to-day.” (See Preface written in 1888.)

P. S.

A Challenge to the Socialist Party of America. (1933)

From the March 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

[As our American comrades, the Workers’ Socialist Party, have no journal of their own, they have asked us to publish the following statement. We are willing to allow reasonable space for a reply by the Socialist Party of America.— Ed. Comm.]

In every capitalist country there are organisations that call themselves Socialist and claim to stand in the interests of the working class, while their activity consists in misrepresenting Socialist teachings, distorting Marxism, and generally seeking to keep the workers’ attention focussed on any or everything but their real interest, the attainment of Socialism. The Labour Party in England is an example; their would-be imitator in the United States, the so-called Socialist Party of America, is another, amongst many others. Innumerable instances have been quoted in the Socialist Standard giving evidence of the unsound and treacherous nature of these Parties. Below is presented a further example of how such organisations make their sly attacks on the Socialist movement, and how they hedge and evade when brought to task by Socialists.

James Oneal, editor of The New Leader (New York), an official publication of the Socialist Party of America, wrote an article in his paper in which he misrepresented the Workers’ Socialist Party; whose Executive Committee thereupon sent a reply (appended below) asking for publication in The New Leader. We considered this to be no extraordinary request, more especially in the light of the following occurrence:

A news item recently appeared in the New York World-Telegram, which is an open supporter of capitalism, telling of internal controversy in the S.P. of A., pointing out a split between two of their “leaders” and their respective factions over their trade union policy. One of their members wrote to the capitalist sheet, setting forth his claim that the reporter had erred. Incidentally, this letter, signed by another S.P. of A. “leader,” Julius Gerber, contains the admission:

   "The Socialist Party permits its members the widest latitude of opinion and expression, and Mr. Thomas, differing with the majority, not only of the national executive committee but of the membership of the party, has a right to hold and express his opinion.”

We submit that the sentence quoted bears out in full all that we claimed against the S.P. of A. in our letter to The New Leader. The New York World-Telegram printed Gerber’s letter within five days. We thought the “Socialist” paper, which claims to be interested in all the problems of the working class, would show at least as much courtesy.

Our letter to The New Leader follows: —

Letter of the Workers' Socialist Party to the Socialist Party of America.To the Editor, January 13th, 1933. 

New Leader,                             7E, 15th Street,
New York, N.Y.

          Dear Sir,

   Under instructions from the Executive Committee of the Workers’ Socialist Party, I am sending you the enclosed letter, which concerns itself with an article, signed by yourself, which appeared in the New Leader of January 7th, 1933.
  In our estimation, your article contained an error, which should be corrected through the same medium in which it was made. Therefore, as a matter of courtesy to us—and the facts—will you please publish the enclosed in the New Leader at your earliest opportunity?
                                           Yours truly,
                                               (Signed) Scott Frampton,
                                                              National Secretary.

"To the Editor, New Leader, 7, E. 15th St.,
                                              New York, N.Y.

“Dear Sir:
   
       “Mr. James Oneal’s musical number, ‘The Chorus of Chaos,’ in the New Leader of January 7th, 1933, very carelessly includes the Workers’ Socialist Party in a list of what Oneal designates as Socialist organisations. The accurate heading for his inventory is ‘Organisations that advocate use of the ballot.' Only one of the groups listed can successfully maintain its claim to be Socialist: that is the Workers' Socialist Party. The others may bear labels, but it can be easily demonstrated —by a Socialist—that they are all not only not Socialist, but anti-Socialist and anti-working-class. It is worthy of note that Oneal considers his own Party, the so-called Socialist Party of America, a member of the Chorus of Chaos. The Workers’ Socialist Party declines the nomination, and maintains itself to be the only Socialist Party in the United States.
 
   “Says Mr. Oneal, anent the groups listed by him, ‘ . . . let them endeavour to formulate a fundamental programme and philosophy and they will find some difficulties,' the inference being that none of the groups have a fundamental programme. The Workers’ Socialist Party refusing to be included, this inference is correct for the remaining organisations.

   
     “Mr. Oneal writes : 'If we could get representatives of the whole twenty groups into an orchestra, what a symphony this amalgam of communism, syndicalism, parlour bolshevism, socialism, impossibilism, opportunism, liberalism, progressiveness, intellectualism, technocracy, radicalism and agrarianism would be! ’ Why the 'If’ ?

   
     “Let us give ear to Mr. Hillquit for a moment. He felt it necessary lately to call upon the ‘Socialist Party of America’ to 'determine fundamental questions of Socialist principles . . .' (The American Socialist Quarterly, April, 1932). After a third of a century of its existence he admits his Party does not yet know the fundamental principles of Socialism. Says he (same place) 'It must appear before the people with a clear-cut, convincing and aggressive programme and a consistent and harmonious social arid political philosophy. And it is on this point that our Party is somewhat weak.'

   
   “On this point, as well as on fundamentals, the Workers' Socialist—Party is clear and Socialist. It holds—

 
   " 'That society as at present constituted is based upon the ownership of the means of living (i.e., land, factories, railroads, etc.) by the capitalist or master class, and the consequent enslavement of the working class by whose labour alone all wealth is produced. That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as a class struggle, between those who possess but do not produce and those who produce but do not possess. That this antagonism can be abolished only by the emancipation of the working class from the domination of the master class by the conversion into the common property of society of the means of production and distribution, and their democratic control by the whole people.' Furthermore, there is no confusion of the issue by a clutter of prescriptions of social paragoric reform ‘demands.' Of course, the clear-cut Socialist programme does not attract non-Socialist support. Mr. Hillquit knows this.

 
  "Hillquit had this in mind at the New York City convention of his Party, January 16th and 17th, 1932, when he was voicing his opposition to the proposal to restore the reference to the class struggle to the application card. ‘He felt that 75 per cent. of new members signing the blank would not know what the class struggle meant.' (New Leader, February 6th, 1932.) Evidence is at hand that they would be unable to find its meaning, after signing, within the 'Socialist' Party of America. At their convention in May, 1932, Hillquit explained this in part, as follows:

   
   " 'There is opposition to me because I represent working classes, Marxian Socialism as against three other trends which have appeared in our party,' Mr. Hillquit declared. 'One of these trends is the militant group, a well-meaning, immature movement that will eventually settle down but is at yet untamed and dangerous. Then there is the movement of extreme opportunism, appealing to intellectuals and college men. Then, thirdly, there is the practical, 'get-something- to-day’ school of socialism; get control of a city and show the people a good sewer system as an achievement. That is not my type of socialism, and to-day all these factions are in unholy alliance against me.’ (Herald-Tribune, May 24th, 1932.)

   "Thus a 'leader’ agonised. In contrast, the Workers’ Socialist Party declares that the emancipation of the working class 'must be the work of the working class itself.' But then, we are not a member of Mr. Oneal's orchestra.

   "At this same convention (see report quoted) 'Charges of Ku-Klukism in the party, anti-Semitism and sectional bitterness were hurled by supporters of Mr. Hillquit in more than three hours of furious debate. Mayor Hoan’s backers pleaded for a party more popular and practical, one not fashioned along the lines of doctrinaire Marxism.’ j

   "The Workers* Socialist Party declares that '. . . the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex.' But then we are not angling for politically ignorant votes for Milwaukee, office-holders.

   "We could go on almost indefinitely, covering the whole history of the 'Socialist' Party of America, showing that its aim is not socialism, that it is not made up of Socialists—in fact, a Socialist would not even apply for admission. The New Leader columnist, S. A. de Witt, put it nicely: 'And we simply just cannot go on much further along the line of opportunistic social reform, and still keep our identity as Socialists.' (New Leader, Aug. 30th, 1930.) 'Identity as Socialists,' indeed! amongst a pack of pedlars of every imaginable half-baked quack nostrum, from early Christianity, through advocacy of the capital levy, and to 'controlled' inflation, pleading to help the capitalist dunderheads to monkey with the currency, and weeping to the workers what a whacking they will suffer if the inflation does take place! (Thomas’s column in the New Leader, June 25th, 1932.) Out of their own mouths they stand condemned of having no claim to call themselves Socialist. They are the 'orchestra' that Mr. Oneal suggests; but that they make a symphony playing all those old, worn-out reform tunes of capitalist composition— really, that would be carrying the simile a little too far.

   "On the other hand, Mr. Oneal could easily have informed himself of the fundamental programme of the Workers’ Socialist Party; it appears in the form of a brief, but sufficient, Object and Declaration of Principles,  on every piece of literature that Party distributes. He can find it on the back cover page of the Socialist Standard, to be had at the Rand School bookstore. We have quoted it, in part, above. This programme is the one clear note that Mr. Oneal's unmusical (that is, un-Socialist) ear failed to distinguish above the clash and clatter of his Chaotic Chorus, the so-called Socialist Party of America."

The Executive Committee.

Workers Socialist Party of the United States.

The Socialist Party of America Refuses Publication

In the New Leader of January 21st appeared this reply: —

  We have received from Scott Frampton, national Secretary of the Workers’ Socialist Party, nearly five pages disagreeing with the item in the New Leader of January 7th, entitled “The Chorus of Chaos.” The letter presents the case for the Workers’Socialist Party, which “maintains itself to be the only Socialist Party in the United States.”
  We have a high respect for the devotion of this group to education in fundamentals of Socialist philosophy, but we submit that the sentence we quote above justifies the caption we gave to our item. The claim of the Workers’ Socialist Party is the claim of the S.L.P., the Socialist Party, the Communists and others, and these mutually conflicting claims constitute a “chorus of chaos.” The letter of Comrade Frampton enumerates the reasons for the claim his party makes.
  We have no desire to open our columns to a general debate between the organisations we mentioned regarding the respective claims of each. Our statement was a general one. It did not single out the Workers’ Socialist Party, nor did it exclude the Socialist Party.
   If there is to be a debate on this theme, the New Leader is content to call attention to the theme, but not to provide the forum for discussing the merits of the various organisations.

Their last paragraph can only mean that they are ‘content' to attack the Workers' Socialist Party, but refuse to discuss the matter. The reason for this is dear. There are workers, now members of the S.P. of A., who are honestly and sincerely anxious to find out about Socialism. The leaders dare not face a discussion in their press with Socialists; they know how easily we can demonstrate their anti-Socialist character, and that they, would lose members as a result. They also know that the ‘claim of the Workers' Socialist Party' is NOT 'the claim of the S.L.P.' S.P. of A., etc. The S.P. of A. is the result of a split in the S.L.P., more than thirty years ago, because of that party’s unsound, un-Socialist make-up, its 'chorus of chaos.’ The ‘Communist' Party is the result of a split in the S.P. of A. for the same reason. And the 'chorus of chaos' is not made up of  'these mutually conflicting claims,' but is exactly what we showed it is in our letter to the New Leader.

To say that the Workers' Socialist Party was not singled out is weak. The inclusion of Socialists in with a mess of anti-Socialists is nothing else but 'singling out’; it is an attack. This same New Leader, of January 21st, claims editorially, that ‘ . . . this evident desire for thorough knowledge of Socialist principles is welcome.’ We insist that if they mean welcome to the S.P. of A. ‘ leaders,' then they would have taken up our challenge and thrashed the matter out for the benefit of all those workers who read the New Leader. But evidently they are content to remain the anti-Socialist Party of America.

The National Executive Committee of the Workers' Socialist Party (U.S.A.), 

per Scott Frampton, Nat. Secretary

The Meaning of Class Consciousness (1933)

From the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

What does the Socialist mean when he claims to be “class-conscious” ? Class is one, the most important, of the social groups into which human beings tend to be divided by the mutual association of individuals with like interests. It is the most important of these groups because the common interest involved is the primary one of bread and butter. The class structure of society rises immediately out of the prevailing mode of production and distribution: and in general every individual must belong to one or other of the classes existing at a given period, though he may belong to comparatively few of the sets and circles which serve his secondary activities.

From this standpoint, class-consciousness is thus one kind of “group-consciousness,” about which many academic sociologists have offered various confused and unsound views. Particularly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the capitalist class rose to political supremacy, the “Nation-State” was exalted to the skies by political and social writers who spoke of the “spirit of the people,” of the “will of the nation,” of the “group mind,” as something which had real existence over and above the brain-boxes of the individuals brought together in the group. Much as the ancients conceived the sky as an inverted bowl fixed over the earth, so Hegel’s “Absolute Spirit of the Universe” became for him incarnate in the kingly representative of the Nation-State—thus moulding to capitalist needs the idea of the divinity of the sovereign power which is inevitably generated in every society divided into classes, into exploiter and exploited.

To the Socialist, the "mind” of a group is but a mental abstraction of the common features of thought of the individuals belonging to it, by reason of their like reaction to like conditions. Another word for the thoughts and feelings which constitute the common mind of Socialists, or to a less degree of the capitalist class, is class-consciousness.

Notice that we do not say “of the working class”: for the principal element in class-consciousness, the recognition of a paramount class interest opposed to the interest of another class, is not a common feature of the minds of the workers as a whole. On the one hand sectional differences still loom largely in their minds; and on the other hand, consequently, they are all too easily beguiled into believing that they have some common interest (of “nationality” or trade, for instance) with their masters, the capitalist class.

The workers still tend to be split by differences of occupation, by slight differences of dress, or speech or education, unable to see the working-class wood for the trees, because they have not thoroughly grasped the common economic bondage of all who have to sell their energies for bread, that unemployed labourer and “disengaged" expert are dike under the necessity to beg for a job from a master.

Nor does the capitalist openly recognise that his interests are opposed to those of the workers. He is, indeed, anxious to impress upon the worker that they have a common interest in the running of the nation. It goes without saying, however, that this “community of interests" lasts for the capitalist only so long as the workers are content to accept the economic status of wage-slaves, and to maintain the master class in their privileged position as owners of the means of living. The class-consciousness of the capitalist is thus little more than an instinctive conviction that existing conditions are best—the natural conviction of a dominant class, in contrast with the class-consciousness of a subject and revolting class, which tends to he altogether more virile of thought in proportion as it questions the validity of current ideas and institutions, in proportion as it becomes revolutionary.

The class struggles of society, because they grow out of its economic foundations, work themselves out, as more or less blind trial and error adjustments of conflicting interests, whether or not the participants in a struggle realise its historical meaning as a social process having a necessary origin and a necessary outcome. And it is the peculiar feature of capitalism that it generates in the workers just that historical perspective which other classes have lacked. Forced to question the beneficence of the existing order, and the need for its continuance, by the pressure of unrelieved want and anxiety which the defenders of capitalism can neither remedy nor explain, armed with the scientific knowledge which is one of capitalism's essential products, the working class has in addition the lessons of all other class struggles to learn from. Because the working class is the last class needing emancipation, because the struggle between capitalist and worker is the last of all class struggles, capitalism only can provide the historical material for an analysis of all class struggles, of class in general.

It is this historical attitude, this scientific analysis of the past used to illumine the present class struggle, which constitutes the essential core of the class-consciousness of Socialists.

The Socialist is simply the worker who has become class-conscious, and who organises with his fellows who are like-minded. But if the numerical strength of the world's Socialist Parties is thus a measure of the number of workers who have achieved mental emancipation, it is by no means the exact measure of capitalism's remaining days. Elements of class-consciousness are present in the minds of large numbers of workers who are still confused and unclear. In any large gathering of workers, such as the recent unemployed demonstration in Hyde Park, there can be seen writ large on the faces around a grim antagonism to some dimly conceived enemy, a half articulate knowledge of a conflict which knows no reconciliation, a muddled but profound resentment against the mounted representatives of capitalist law and order who ride ruthless through their unarmed fellows. These vague feelings of solidarity with the “poor" against the "rich," so long as they remain uncrystallised by Socialist principles, into clear-cut class-consciousness, readily lend themselves to exploitation by the numerous brood of Communist and Labour leaders, and indeed by every politician who is in opposition to the Government. The reformist Labour and Communist parties are no less parasitical in the political field than is the capitalist in the field of production. These “leaders of the masses" suck up the discontent of the workers, leaving them politically anaemic and helpless. They feed upon the mass emotionalism which, uninformed by sound knowledge, degenerates into hooliganism and hysteria. The Communist Party attempts to reconcile its reformist activities with its revolutionary pretensions by the tragi-comical plea that the way to generate in the workers a revolutionary Socialist outlook is to concentrate on immediate reforms of capitalism. The “tactical" value of going out for particular reforms is recognised no less by the capitalist than by the Communist Party. For such activities divert the workers from the main issue, befog their minds, pit one section of workers against another, and all too often turn their political energy and enthusiasm into exhaustion and despair.

It is only the Socialist, the class-conscious worker who has analysed his class position for himself in its historical setting, who is at once independent of leaders and proof against their entire stock-in-trade of sentimentalism and reformism. It is he alone who cannot be sold, because he has no need to put himself in pawn. It is he alone who realises that the defensive struggle to resist the encroachments of the capitalist class upon the workers' standard of living is essentially subordinate to the aggressive policy of dispossessing the capitalist class at their political seat of power.

The function of the class-conscious worker, organised in the Socialist Party of Great Britain, is to fertilise the discontent of his fellow workers with this knowledge, which alone has power to make the master class tremble. It is in this sense that the formation of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, and comrade parties abroad, their steady growth in numbers and activity in the face of every obstacle, is the vindication of the Marxian prediction: "What capitalism produces above all are its own gravediggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are alike inevitable."

Frank Evans

America and Haiti (1933)

From the May 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Valuable “inside” evidence of the capitalistic aims at the back of the professedly “humanitarian” intervention in Haiti by the U.S.A. was recently revealed by a gentleman who is not at all likely to overstate his case. We lift the following from the Nation, New York, January 18th, 1933: —

   “That the military forces of the United States are merely 'a glorified bill-collecting agency’ was the declaration of Major-General Smedley D. Butler, U.S.M.C., retired, before a Brooklyn forum, according to the New York Herald-Tribune. He related further that he had been 'canned’ in Haiti because ‘I didn’t want to make the Haitians raise sugar’ for a New York bank. . . . The authorship of this testimony makes it valuable. General Butler served extensively both in Nicaragua and in Haiti. He was reputed to be the roughest of all the treat-’em-rough marine officers. The Nation has long contended that the whole Haitian episode was motivated by the desire of American concessionaires to cash in on their dubious investments.”

No wonder the Japs give a half-veiled sneer when the U.S.A. protests against their intervention in Manchuria in order to make their economic interest secure. The Haitian affair, and those in Nicaragua and Panama were merely Manchurian affairs on a smaller scale as the Japs have been unblushingly bold enough—in defiance of traditional diplomatic “tact”—to openly point out.

R. W. Housley

Without Comment (1933)

From the June 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following appeared in the Sunday Express (April 23rd): —

“ BEDTIME STORIES.

  “ The depression has produced some queer happenings in the show business, but the height of something or other is the story in this week’s Variety, the American showman’s bible, about a certain super-cinema in New York.
  “ The permanent stock chorus-girls at this palazzo receive less than the minimum scale allowed by Chorus Equity, although they often work fifteen hours a day.
 “ They also have to conform to a number of house rules, of which No. 10 is that they must not intermingle or converse with male members of the show.
 “ The other week this notice was pinned up on the board: —
 “ 'There will be a cut of 10 per cent. in chorus salaries effective April 6th, at which time Rule No. 10 will be suspended.’ ”

Editorial: Newspapers and Politics (1933)

Editorial from the July 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many people are sceptical when we point out that the capitalists will always be prepared to take over reform demands after they have been made popular through the spadework of the reformist Labour Parties, thus destroying the value of the work as a basis for working class organisation. It has been argued by our opponents that this may be true with regard to some unimportant items, but that the really first-class demands in the Labour programme would never be stomached by capitalist politicians or by the capitalist press. Recently we have had some remarkable illustrations to show that our criticism has not been overstated. Most outstanding is the London Passenger Transport Act. Introduced by the Labour Government, it has been adopted with secondary alterations by the National Government, and we see the City editors of most of the newspapers telling their readers that the shares of the undertaking are quite a sound investment. Among them is the Daily Herald, the City page of which carried a special article recommending the various classes of shares to its readers.

Then there is the entertaining struggle for bigger circulations carried on by the Daily Herald and the Daily Express. Finding that the Labour daily was capturing his readers, Lord Beaverbrook gave his Daily Express several new policies. If the Labour Party stood for higher wages so would he, and for two years or more the Express has vigorously attacked wage reductions, and has even stolen a march on the Herald by including the Co-operative Societies among the wage-reducers, whom it denounces.

When the I.L.P. launched its programme of State control of the banks, Lord Beaverbrook replied post-haste with a demand for complete State banking. When he saw that peace propaganda was something of a draw he launched (during May, 1933) a vigorous campaign for “ No More War.*' On the question of the “gold standard” he is ahead of the Herald, because he claims that he consistently opposed it for years. He opposed “economies,” and chides the Herald with having backed up the wage reductions and economies imposed or planned by the Labour Government in 1931 prior to its break-up.

The narrowness of the line of demarcation between the "Labour” Daily Herald and the Tory Daily Express can also be illustrated by the transfer of journalists. The Daily Herald's first move after Odhams took over the management was to hire a number of well-known journalists at that time on the staff of the Daily Express —almost like the transfer of professional footballers from one team to another. One of these journalists publicly stated at the time of his transfer that he still retained the political views which endeared him to Lord Beaverbrook, and one appears now to have returned whence he came.

An interesting sidelight on the relative importance of finance and politics in the publication of political newspapers was provided on June 1st, when readers who were wasteful enough to pay twice for the day's thimbleful of news, by buying an Express as well as a Herald were able to read two signed articles by the same journalist, one being prominently featured on the leader page of the Express and the other similarly displayed on the leader page of the Herald. With small alterations of phraseology the two articles (dealing with the political situation in Austria and the political situation in England) could have been transposed without the readers feeling that there was anything amiss.