Note For East London Readers. (1915)

Party News from the May 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

With a view to recommencing at the first available opportunity, and with renewed vigour, the propaganda that has boon carried out so successfully in Victoria Park by the East London Branch, local sympathisers are requested to communicate with A. Jacobs, 78 Eric Street, Mile End, E. The Branch meets at the above address twice each month (see "Branch Directory" on back page) and the comrades are anxious to enrol all those those who agree with the principles and policy of the Party for a concentrated and sustained attack upon the enemies of tho workers.

A Party Outing. (1915)

Party News from the June 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

On June 12th, 1904, a few members of the working class, recognising the need for a Socialist party as distinct from those organiaations then in existence and claiming to represent Socialism in this country, met together and formed the Socialist Party of Great Britain and gave the grand old men of the pseudo Socialist movement, those who had '*borne the heat and burden of the day," an opportunity of exercising their powers of prophecy. After weighty consideration they decided that the Party would not live six months. But, like most of their most learned utterances, they were wrong, and now, after eleven years of strenuous exertion, in the midst of the most frightful upheaval that capitalist society has seen, the Party stands forth as the only organization in this country that has consistently placed the Socialist position before the working class.

This is, indeed, an event that calls for some recognition, and were it not for the fact that our opponents—the master class—have smothered our ordinary political meetings, we should endeavour to utilise the date for a number of meetings at which those toilers who are with us in the fight for Socialism could celebrate the event and announce their determination to proceed with the task undertaken in 1904.

Unfortunately this is denied us, but while yet the columns of the "Socialist Standard" are open to us our readers may be assured that the interests of International Socialism and the international working class will be put forward unflinchingly.

In order that the event may not be forgotten, those members who are able to do so will meet together and spend a day in the country on Sunday, June 13th. All who wish to join us should get into touch immediately with the local Secretary or the Committee at 193, Grays Inn Road.

It is in such times as this that we realize more forcibly than ever how wide is the gulf between ourselves and the "orthodox," and how necessary association is to nerve us for the fight that is before us. 

The Committee.

That Blessed Word "Freedom." (1915)

From the July 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

"But any man that walks the mead,
      In bud or bloom or flower may find,
  According as his humours I ad,
      A meaning suited to his mind "

Thus sung Tennyson; but the sage, in his more dogmatic and definite way, said bluntly that "all things are relative.” And this profound truth is also illustrated in the various meanings given by different people to some of the commonest words.

Examine that blessed word "freedom," for instance, and it is at once plain that its meaning depends solely upon the point of view. Dismissing for the moment the philosophical content of the word —which itself is an everlasting bone of contention — and noticing only the commonest meanings, what an infinite variety there is! To no two men does that word call up the same mental picture. To nearly every individual it means no more nor loss in reality than some different interference with the freedom of others to his advantage.

Throughout historical times, indeed, the freedom of the few has been the concomitant of the slavery of the many, while the idea of freedom is itself merely the inevitable reflex of the existence of slavery in some form. The very idea of freedom, therefore, is surely doomed to fade into nothingness with the disappearance of slavery from the face of the earth.

That day, however, is not yet; and at the present time, though we wonder at the reckless use of the word in situations where the content of freedom is lamentably lacking, it is perhaps just possible that the whole matter would look right to us if we could only attain to a suitable angle of vision. Therein nevertheless, one common application of the word freedom which has been tried from many view-points and studied at many different angles of vision short of deliberate squint, without being made to come right. Since the reader may think that perhaps he will be more successful, the trouble may be briefly explained.

In the ‘Daily Chronicle" of June 1st a "special correspondent," seeking the cause of the deadlock on the western front in the European war, makes the following remarks :

  "Are we, therefore, ourselves inferior ? From a moral point of view we may at once state that we are superior. Tho Frenchman is still full of ardour, and the Englishman has on his side the superiority of the man who goes voluntarily to fight—the man who has not to he forced." 

There is, of course, nothing surprising to us in the above statement. After many months of war literature it would surprise us much more not to find that sort of thing in our daily paper. We have, in fact, been innured to such sentiments from our orange box days. Even the poet Dryden told us that "Freedom, which in no other laud will thrive,
Freedom, an English subject's sole prerogative."

And we have, moreover, been exorted so frequently of late to "fight for freedom with the strength of free men" that we no longer stop to wonder what freedom is meant, or whose it is that is to he fought for.

No. The trouble is simply that in another column of the same issue o( the paper that tells of the moral superiority of the Briton who "has not to be forced," there occurs the declaration of Mr. Aubrey Llewellyn Coventry Fell, chief officer of the L. C. C.  tramways, refusing a livelihood to those men of military ago and fitness employed by him up to the time of the late strike. This is followed by a Tramway Department official's statement that

   "It is no use saying that this is a form of conscription : it is merely the application of the decision of the highway committee of last September barring the appointment of all fit men of military age."

It is quite obvious that this is not a form of conscription. It is simply an application of the decision of the master clues to persuade their wage slaves into joining the fight with the moral superiority of men who have not been forced. This is quite clear. But it only makes it all the more difficult, to say the least about it, to locate this freedom that is so much in the air of late. It has not as yet become visible to tho anxious eyes of the workers, and many pairs of spectacles are likely to be worn out in the quest for it. Perhaps some ex-tramwaymen who have evaded the necessity to voluntarily go to the fight may be able to assist.

That the action of the L.C.C. is by no means isolated is common knowledge On many sides similar action is openly boasted about. In "Country Life" of June 5th the writer of the motor notes says regarding those two big organisations known as the Royal Automobile Club and the Automobile Association, that

  “In view of the correspondence which has reached us, we have communicated both with the Club and the Association, and in each case we are glad to nay that we have received a categorical statement to the effect that no road guides or scouts are now employed who are eligible for enlistment. The steps taken by the two organisations are practically identical. Iu each case every man employed upon the road was in the early days of the war required to produce evidence of his unfitness for military service, either through age or physical defect, and was warned that, failing the production of this evidence he would not be retained in his employment. . . .
  "In the case of the R.A.C. the result is that over 60 per cent. are now serving their country in one form or another."

So much for tho evidence.

Now, the only clue in the above which appears to help us to got this elusive brand of freedom into the right angle of vision, or even into sight at all, is the fact that this forced voluntary service applies only to the working class. The members of the capitalist class, since their livelihood is not in the control of an employer; escape all such pressure. But even that does not help much in our search, because those drawn from this class, although it is entirely their fight, form only a very small proportion of the armies of the Empire.

Conscription, indeed, might take no greater number of the workers, but it should certainly take a much larger toll of the shirkers in the capitalist class ; therefore tho freedom of the latter, who have, nevertheless, everything to gain by the struggle, is manifest. Yet must our quest be abandoned, for to get from this small proportion of the fighting forces, because it has gone voluntarily, an angle of vision from which to see the whole of these forces covered with a mantle of superiority on that account alone, must surely require a squint of such violence as to out-squint the most introspective fakir that ever tortured himself in that way.

F. C. Watts

50 Years Ago: Ruling Class Use of Religion (1980)

The 50 Years Ago column from the July 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the eyes of the class that is supreme in society, religion is for the people, as Napoleon once pointed out, but not for the rulers. It is something to stupefy or drive into a frenzy the mass of the people, as the needs of the ruling class demand. Since the days of the native medicine man, religion has been a prop and a handmaiden to each ruling class, and a priestly group has evolved parallel with the growth of government. So much has this been so that each social evolution of the past has had a religious glamour cast over it and has involved modifications of the creeds of the defeated rulers. Apart from its philosophic unsoundness, the success and the curse of religion has been its propagation of the myth of another world.

When the oppressed are weary from the hopeless struggle for existence and might be moved to rise and throw off the yoke of oppression, the deadening hand of religion stretches out to them, bids them to be of good cheer and be patient, and all will be well in the hereafter, where “all good people" will live in a heavenly rose garden.

From an article, The Cloak of Religion, by Gilmac, Socialist Standard July 1930.

Political Notes: Humbug & Heffer (1980)

The Political Notes Column from the August 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

Humbug & Heffer

In our May issue, we had a piece referring to the murky Stalinist past of the Labour MP Eric Heffer, who has now announced his intention of entering the race for the leadership of his pseudo-socialist party. As late as 1953, after the death of Stalin, he was extolling the virtues of the monster who had done to death millions of Russian workers in the process of building up the power of the state-capitalist regime. In the Guardian of June 28 there was a long interview with Heffer by John Torode, complete with the usual description of his fondness for smart clothes, good food and fine wine. (It is beginning to seem as though a would-be leader of these pseuds has first got to prove that he has all the worst attributes of a capitalist Pig.)

In the course of the article, Heffer is quoted as reviling the Fabians (who are of course members of his own party) as being “the other side of the Stalinist coin” and went on to remind readers of the way the Webbs had swallowed Stalin. No readers of this journal will have any illusions about the Webbs or any of their ilk; we have on many occasions publicised their appalling views, which fitted so ill with their claims for the Labour Party as a guardian of democracy.

There was never, at any time, the slightest excuse for the Webbs to eulogise Stalinism in the teeth of all the evidence of its atrocities. But by the time Heffer did his grovel, even those who had fallen into the Stalinist trap had, in the main, realised what a murderous dictator he had been. But not Heffer he was still kissing the dead tyrant’s feet. And yet here he is, a quarter of a century later, having the gall to criticise his fellow Stalin-lovers.

Workshy myth

This too is a headline taken from an article in the press (Guardian June 28). It is not bad enough that workers are made redundant (apart from those referred to in the previous note who cannot be thrown onto the scrap-heap because they simply live there and know- no other home). They have to be insulted as well. Workshy, lazy, do better on the dole than working. And the insults are not hurled merely by the capitalist class. All socialist propagandists will be familiar with members of our own class who are all too ready to heap insults on fellow members even less fortunate than they are. (They forget they are always liable to join them!)

Of course it is true that some jobs are so badly paid that workers can actually do better on social security. A fine advert for capitalism that is, to be sure. But the report in the Guardian made it clear that “the vast majority of the unemployed experience serious financial difficulty . . . on average their benefits total only 44 per cent of their former earnings”. We are further told that the “mean benefit” (le mot juste!) for men is the vast sum of £26.34 per week. Also that only 19 per cent get redundancy pay from all sources totalling more than £200. Riches indeed.

Bitter price for youth to pay

The above heading is not our own, but appeared over an article by Shirley Williams, the former Labour Minister of Education, in the Observer (June 29). The article was on the subject of youth unemployment, the fearful prospect facing thousands of school-leavers of never having the privilege of becoming an employed wage-slave. One of the gems offered by Williams was that the government should pay special benefits to young people engaged in training or further education at least on a means-tested basis.

The very term “means test” was always calculated to make a Labourite foam at the mouth, and yet here is one of their own leaders advocating it — and not a single twitch in the paper’s letter columns. In all of its 700 words, there was not room for one single mention of the word socialism. How can someone like Mrs Williams pretend to be a socialist and yet manage to deal with ways of solving capitalism’s problems without even mentioning the word? Let alone understanding what it means.

Make sense of this

In Portugal there is a Conservative government acting under a recently enacted constitution whose second clause provides for the “transition to socialism”. (Taken from an article in the Times Literary Supplement of July 4 which points out that nowhere in the constitution is the term socialism defined!) 

Praising Mosley!

“What Mosley so valiantly tried for, could have saved his country from the Hungry Thirties and the second world war.” Michael Foot.
“Mosley is a superb political thinker, the best of our age.” A. J. P. Taylor.

Now it is well-known that Mosley is the hate-figure supreme of the Left. It is equally well-known that Foot has been a leading Leftie since time began and is now deputy leader of the Labour Party; and that Professor Taylor, that great historian, has also claimed to be a socialist. So it is possible that you might think the above quotes are figments of an overheated imagination. They may be incredible but they are still true. They are taken from the same edition of the TLS of the previous note and are part of the blurb to an advert of Mosley’s memoirs. Further comment would be superfluous.

L. E. Weidberg

Brexit and the Border (2018)

From the January 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Irish Border question has reared its ugly head again.

The Border’s roots go back to a split in the 19th and early 20th century between two sections of the capitalist class in Ireland. In the South were fledgling capitalists who wanted protective tariffs behind which to develop. In the North were the industrial capitalists – the Titanic was built in Belfast – who didn’t want to be cut off behind tariff walls from free access to markets in the rest of Britain and its Empire.

At the founding convention of Sinn Fein in 1905 its leader, Arthur Griffith, put the case for the petty capitalists in the South:

‘If an Irish manufacturer cannot produce an article as cheaply as an English or other foreigner, only because his foreign competitor has larger resources at his disposal, then it is the first duty of the Irish nation to accord protection to that Irish manufacturer … Under the Sinn Fein policy … no possibility would be left … for a syndicate of unscrupulous English capitalists to crush out the home manufacturer and the home trader’ (Sinn Fein Policy, 1907 edition, p. 15 and p. 23).

The President of the Belfast Chamber of Commerce, J. Milner Balfour, put the point of view of the Northern capitalists in his evidence in July 1911 to the Committee on Irish Finance:

‘I think that any attempt to set up an independent Customs in such a way as to enable the Irish Parliament to create a Tariff between Ireland and the United Kingdom would be a very dangerous thing’(Minutes of Evidence, Committee on Irish Finance, cmnd 6799).

Dragging the workers into it

Both sides involved the working class in their dispute. The Irish Nationalists and Home Rulers, representing the petty capitalists of the South, relied on the Catholic majority on the island of Ireland. When Home Rule became an issue in the 1880s the Unionists, representing the big capitalists of the North, decided to play the ‘Orange card’, appealing to the Protestant majority in the North East, beating the Lambeg drum and declaring that ‘Home Rule is Rome Rule’. As a result the working class came to be divided on religious sectarian lines.

In the end the matter was settled by force of arms, in the Anglo-Irish war of 1919-21. The Treaty that ended this war set up an ‘Irish Free State’ in 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland, with the remaining six in the North East staying in the UK, but with their own parliament. Politically, the fears of both sides came about. ‘Home Rule’ did indeed turn out to be ‘Rome Rule’ while Northern Ireland became a Protestant statelet where the Catholic minority were victims of systematic discrimination.

At the beginning the Border did not have much economic significance despite its immense political significance as it had never been accepted by a section of the Nationalists and was vehemently insisted on by the Unionists. It assumed economic significance after 1932 when the anti-Treaty wing of the Nationalists under De Valera came to power and began to pursue the original Sinn Fein policy of economic nationalism. The result was a tariff war between the Twenty-Six Counties and the UK which went on until 1938 and which involved the erection of a ‘hard border’ with customs posts between the South and the North East of Ireland.

Anglo-Irish Free Trade

Successive Irish governments continued with the old Nationalist agenda of encouraging the development of Irish infant industries behind tariff walls. By the 1960s, however, both Ireland and Britain were keen to join what has now become the EU, but De Gaulle kept vetoing this. Instead, in 1965, Britain and Ireland signed an Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement which provided for Britain to abolish from 1 January 1966 all tariffs on Irish imports while Ireland would gradually reduce and eventually abolish tariffs on imports from the UK. From that point on, the economic significance of the border was considerably reduced. Even more so after Britain and Ireland both joined the EU in 1973 and its customs union (erecting a common external tariffs on imports from outside the EU). The border still existed but, following the 1998 Good Friday agreement had become less politically contentious.

It has become a bone of contention again because of Brexit or, rather, because of the British government’s political decision to interpret Brexit to mean withdrawing not just from the EU’s political institutions but also from the customs union and single market and its common standards.

Withdrawal from the customs union means that the UK would no longer have to impose the same tariff on imports as the remaining members of the EU, including Ireland, have to on imports from outside the EU into their country. In fact, the EU would have to impose the common external tariff on all goods entering Ireland from the UK, including from Northern Ireland.

Ghosts from the past

In contrast to a hundred years ago, neither the capitalists of the North nor those of the South of Ireland want an economic border on the island of Ireland. Both parts of the island are now more or less the same economically. Both are eager to attract overseas investment. In this respect there is still a difference – the rate at which profits are taxed in the two parts of Ireland. In the South the rate is much lower.

The DUP have been campaigning for Northern Ireland to have the power to align corporation tax with that in the South rather than being tied to that in the rest of the UK. This shows that their public humiliation of Theresa May when she was first in Brussels at the beginning of December to sign a deal on the matter was politically motivated, a reflection of the sectarian backwoodsmen and women that they are. They no longer represent the interest of capitalists in Northern Ireland. On this issue they don’t even represent the views of those who voted in the referendum as a majority in Northern Ireland voted Remain, i.e., to keep the status quo with no change to the border.

The problem is that hatreds stirred up by rival sections of the capitalist class in the past cannot be turned off just like that. They have a tendency to continue beyond their usefulness to those sections and come to haunt their successors, causing political problems. In the case of Ireland the Theresa May government has found this out the hard way, especially as they chose to do a deal with the DUP to get a parliamentary majority. Sinn Fein, too, is a prisoner of dogmas inherited from the intra-capitalist disputes of yesteryear – if their 7 Westminster MPs took their seats they could counter the 10 DUP MPs, but they refuse to do so as they are not prepared to go through the empty formality of swearing allegiance to ‘the Crown’.

Trade and tariffs are not really an issue for the majority class of wage and salary workers. These – and the politics associated with them – are capitalist issues of concern only to the capitalist class which that class can be left to settle itself. The trouble is that, in such intra-capitalist disputes, the working class suffer collateral damage in the sense of being stirred up against each other. In Northern Ireland this impeded the development even of ordinary, reformist Labourite, let alone revolutionary socialist, politics. For years there was only one issue in every election, towards which parties had to situate themselves – the Border. It really would be a tragedy if the sectarian conflicts of the past were to be re-ignited by short-sighted political decisions, as happened in the 1960s.

Borders are borders separating one capitalist state from another and have always been a nuisance for workers, impeding their free movement. Creating new borders, or reviving old ones, only makes things worse. And, besides, is a step away from the socialist aim of a world without frontiers.

Adam Buick

50 Years Ago: Violence and secret organisation (1980)

The 50 Years Ago column from the August 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

On March 6th the American Communists organised a demonstration in Union Square. New York City. The police were ordered to clear the streets on the ground that the Communists had not obtained a permit for a parade. Five Communist leaders were arrested and the crowd beaten up by the police with great brutality. That, of course, is a common story. There is. however, an additional feature of some interest. The Police Commissioner, Mr. Groves Whalem, declared on the following day that he had his agents inside the Communist Party keeping him informed as to all their plans and the movements of their leaders. We refer to this because it illustrates once more the danger to the workers of organisations which advocate violence, and attempt to carry on illegal activities in the absurd belief that they can do so in secret. The only sound line for the socialist movement in countries such as Great Britain and the USA is to organise on a basis which makes secrecy unnecessary. This rules out the Communist policy of street fighting, but that policy is one which is of no use to the workers. On the contrary, it has, in many countries, often been engineered by the authorities themselves through their inside agents.

From an editorial, Police Spies and the Communist Movement: Socialist Standard, August 1930.

50 Years Ago: Labour Government Tells The Unemployed To Emigrate (1980)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

We recall how the Labour Party cried to high heaven when the Tories and Liberals told the unemployed to get out of the country and look for work elsewhere. Mr. Tom Shaw, at present Minister for War, was suitably ironical eighteen months ago concerning the “ecstasies" of the Imperialists" about the development of distant parts of the Earth”. The last Conservative Government set up a transfer board to move unemployed miners to imaginary areas where jobs were vacant. How the Labour Party scoffed at the idea of solving unemployment by moving the unemployed from one depressed area to another. But now the Labour Government, according to the Daily Herald of 12th August, is considering a big Empire settlement plan by which the unemployed will be employed on development schemes in the Dominions. So Mr. Lansbury and the Labour Government have nothing else to offer to the unemployed than to ship them off to the Dominions, in spite of the fact that the Canadian Government and the Australian Labour Government are faced with alarming and continuous unemployment of their own and firmly declare their determination not to receive Great Britain’s surplus workers.

From an editorial "Labour Government's Solution — Unemployed to Emigrate", in the Socialist Standard, September 1930.

50 Years Ago: Wages Under Labour Government (1980)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the things Labour Governments are supposed to do is to keep up wages. Since the present government came in there have been big reductions in the wool, cotton and jute industries and there are now pending movements to reduce wages in building, agriculture, mining, boot and shoe production and railways. These applications for reductions cover about three million workers. Mr. Snowden, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, controls the Civil Service. Their cost of living bonus is governed by an agreement, made as a temporary measure in 1920. The agreement never gave them the full increase corresponding to the rise in prices, and it is admitted that their cost of living has not fallen by as large a percentage as is indicated by the Ministry of Labour index. The staff’s claim for a revised agreement was side-tracked by being referred to the Civil Service Royal Commission, and they therefore contend that until the Commission reports, no further reductions should have taken place. Mr. Snowden replied by giving them a five point reduction. When they protested, he replied by lamenting the ‘ingratitude” of the Civil Servants. Why workers in Government employment should be grateful when a Labour Government, contrary to the whole theory of the Labour Party, reduces their pay, it is difficult to understand.

From an editorial in the Socialist Standard, December 1930.

50 Years Ago: The Profit-Sharing Snare (1980)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

Great Britain is losing her hold over the world market. That means producing firms are finding it harder to compete successfully against producers abroad. Every scheme is being tried to regain lost trade and to increase the quantity of goods sold . . .  The most effective way to capture markets is to sell cheaper than your rivals.

* * * * *

Copartnership or shareholding by employees is the stale device which is being revived. One of the great examples of this scheme is the South Metropolitan Gas Works, who smashed their employees’ strike on the profit-sharing issue, and afterwards raised hours from 8 to 12 per day. That firm boasts that since "allowing employees to own shares, efficiency has increased, the price of gas has fallen, and — better still — profits have risen considerably. In this firm the profit-sharing scheme was made compulsory, so that all workers would take "a greater interest in their work”. It worked out in practice that fewer men were required to do the same amount of work.

From an article by Adolf Kohn, Socialist Standard, October 1930

50 Years Ago: Labour Government and Socialism (1980)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

It has been an argument of long standing among Labour Party supporters that the activities of their party, even if not directly concerned with socialism, arc justified because they are leading towards it. They have ridiculed our policy of working directly for socialism as "impossiblism”. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald repeated this justification for the Labour Party at its conference at Llandudno, in October. He said:

The Government’s pledges were those of socialists convinced that the capitalist system cannot be made to work. If his opponents objected that the government had not reached the socialist goal, he answered ‘No, we haven’t, but we are going to get there’.

Mr. MacDonald's statement is hardly compatible with Mr. J. H. Thomas’s admission at the Conference of the National Union of Railwaymen on 5 July 1929, that the Government proposed to tackle the unemployment problem "While accepting the present order of society”. Nor does it fit in with the significant fact that the Liberals put the Labour Government into office, keep them there, and are carrying on friendly, secret discussions with them. Are we to believe that Mr. Lloyd George and his party would support a Government which is going towards socialism?

* * * * *

To retain capitalism is a practicable policy, although an unsatisfactory one from a working class standpoint. To abolish capitalism and establish socialism will be practicable as soon as the working class have been won over to socialism. The Labour Party has sought to justify a third policy, which is that of trying to abolish the evils of capitalism while keeping the system itself. Events arc proving that the task is an impossible one.

From an editorial “The Labour Government and Socialism”, Socialist Standard November 1930.

What does the German Social Democratic Party stand for to-day? (1948)

From the January 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

Before the war we frequently referred to the German Social Democratic Party, pointing out that it stood for nothing more than the reform of Capitalism. During its long years of “exile” under the Nazi regime, it has not changed. Reconstituted, it is again pursuing its former policies, advocating n form of State Capitalism.

Recently a German, living in the British Zone, sent us a pamphlet, with a request that we give our criticisms of it. The pamphlet is “Dichtung und Wahrheit über die Sozialisierung ” (“Assertions and Truth about Socialisation”) and was written in 1947 by Arthur Mertins, a member of the German Social Democratic Party.

Throughout the booklet, Mertins repeatedly uses the phrase “we socialists assert,” and there can be no doubt that for him and his party this socialisation they offer is equivalent to Socialism. But, in actual fact, what is advocated is the nationalisation of such things as the mines, transport, power, the heavy industries and the Banks (p.8).

As a piece of socialist literature, likely to give the German worker a clear conception of Socialism, the pamphlet is useless. Nowhere does the author explain what constitutes Capitalism or Socialism. But the pamphlet may do much harm in that it will spread false and dangerous notions among the German workers.

In the introduction (p.3) we see the old reformist tactic being followed—the attempt to win support from the non-socialist. Here Mertins appeals to the patriotic and nationalist sentiments of the German workers. He writes : “Whoever still opposes Socialisation, is an enemy of Germany.” How like the use of the Union Jack, made by Sir Richard Acland in his bye-election campaign in Gravesend !

To build a sound Socialist movement, it is useless to rely on the support of people who do not understand Socialism. Hitler’s rise to power ought to have shown that to the Labour Parties of the world. Patriotism and nationalism are in conflict with the ideas of a Socialist party. Socialism is an international system of society; it cannot exist in a single country, but can be established only by the majority of the world’s workers acting in unison. The Socialist movement, therefore, will grow in proportion ns the workers shed their patriotic illusions and adopt an international attitude. Appeals to patriotism and nationalist sentiments delay the dawning of Socialist understanding among the workers.

The system advocated by Mertins will have all the characteristics of Capitalism and will, in consequence, be but a form of Capitalism. When industries are nationalised, he says (p.4), compensation will be paid to the present owners. But how are they to be compensated? Presumably they will he given State Bonds in exchange for their company shares—State Bonds upon which interest will be paid. Not in this way can privilege be abolished, nor Socialism established. Indeed, this is precisely the way to perpetuate privilege and reinforce Capitalism. The State will run and control industry; the present owners will he assured of their “interest,” the State seeing to the profitable functioning of industry.

After reading the above, readers will not be surprised to learn that the system Mertins advocates has its prices, wages, etc., these to be fixed by the State (p.5).

This brings us to the crux of Socialism. The wages system is Capitalism. As Marx pointed out, wage- labour and capital can only exist together: the one is the complement of the other. If you wish to abolish profit-making—and capital is wealth used to make a profit by the exploitation of wage-labour—it can be done only by the abolition of capital and wage-labour. By this we are not suggesting that Socialism will destroy factories, mines, machines, etc., any more than we are suggesting that Socialism will destroy the workers. What we are saying is that Socialism will strip the means of production of their capitalist function (i.e. the making of profit) and will put an end to the necessity of workers selling their labour-power for m wage. In other words, Socialism will abolish the capitalist class and the working class when it abolishes capitalist production. Under Socialism production will he carried on by all capable members of society solely to satisfy the needs of society.

And to do that there will be no need for banks, money, prices and wages. Capitalism needs those things because it is, par excellence, the system of commodity production. In other words, Capitalism is, above all others, the system which produces for exchange. But exchange presupposes private owners and because of exchange money arose. Socialism brings common ownership of the means of life, production solely for use. Hence there will be no exchange of goods and so no prices. Wages, too—the price of the workers’ commodity labour-power—will disappear. In place of all this, society will produce what is needed, will own what is produced and each member of society will have free access to the means of life.

The pamphlet contains many anti-socialist suggestions (e.g., Mertins would leave untouched peasant private property—is this another vote-catcher?). But enough has been discussed to show that the German Social Democratic Party has learnt nothing during its years of tribulations, judging from this pamphlet, it is as reformist and anti-working-class as it was before the rise of Hitler. It is in fact a worthy companion of the British Labour Party which Mertins hails (p.13) as “our Socialist (!) sister party.” 

Clifford Allen

The Wallace Case (1948)

From the February 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Presidential election in the United States is due this year. The difference between tiie Democratic and Republican policies is so small that the intrusion of Henry Wallace, as third candidate, seems to many as the only alternative for the workers of the United States.

Mr. Henry Wallace, one-time vice-president to the late President Roosevelt, claims to speak for the “freedom loving people “and against “the reactionaries in the Democratic and Republican Parties." His present pro-Russian leaning has ensured him the support of Moscow’s overseas agents, the Communist Party. The London Daily Worker greeted him in no uncertain terms when he announced that he would stand for President.

  “The basic significance of the Wallace decision is that the flag of a real democratic American policy has at last been raised in the United States in the form of a challenge to the Presidency.’’ (Daily Worker, 1/1/48.)

This friendship of the Communist Party however, may lose for Wallace the support of the rival radical faction—the Americans for Democratic Action (led by Eleanor Roosevelt). As the Observer (4/1/48) put it: “Mr. Wallace has forfeited the support of all true progressives and intelligent conservatives in the United States.’’ Already the Political Action Committee of the trade union federation, the C.I.O., has refused to endorse his candidature. As the C.I.O. in an election only supports what it considers the “friends of labour ” it is apparent that Henry Wallace, even in their eyes, does not compare too favourably with their rival candidates. This does not come as a surprise to the Socialist movement. Socialists have seen before these radical rockets careering through the sky, who, despite their electioneering speeches, prove in power to behave like the rest of the capitalist politicians. Mr. Wallace —out of power—speaks of the sinister activities of reactionaries who support the Marshall Plan, though he conveniently does not mention his own editorial commenting very favourably on the nomination of General Marshall for Secretary of State. 

As an old New Dealer he stands for private capitalism with a certain amount of State intervention which he calls “economic democracy.” But occasionally Henry lets the cat slip out of the bag. In an interview he was asked by Mr. Dwight Macdonald (editor of Politics): “What do you mean by ‘economic democracy’? ” Mr. Wallace answered: “I’ve written a lot about that. But one thing I mean is a mixed economy—as much corporative, small business, cooperative and government ownership as will produce the goods. I wouldn't allow strikes in government-owned industries; we’ve got to find some better way.” (Politics, March-April, 1947.) These are indeed fine words for a man who, in the opinion of the Daily Worker “represents the democratic aspirations of millions,” but the Communist Party always have had their private definition of “ democracy.”

So we can see that Mr. Wallace certainly does not stand for Socialism and the interests of the working class. When, during the thirties, he was Secretary for Agriculture he showed himself to be the friend of the large farmers. Incidentally, both Mr. Wallace’s father and grandfather were large-scale farmers. When the economic crisis broke out in the United States in 1929 agriculture was hit even worse than industry. Even during the “prosperous” twenties agriculture was worse off than industry. The farmer had to sell his commodities at low prices and buy manufactured commodities at high prices. Therefore when Mr. Wallace became Secretary for Agriculture his aim was to raise agricultural prices. In the words of Mr. George Peek, the first administrator of the Agriculture Adjustment Administration, “the sole aim and object of this Act is to raise prices.” The Act which Mr. Peek was referring to was the Farm Relief Act (12/5/33). This Act was in two parts. The first part set up the A.A.A. This gave substantial payment to farmers on condition that they destroyed and restricted their production of all the basic farm crops and products in accordance with the proposals of the Department of Agriculture. The second part of the Act was the Farm Credit Administration which allowed farmers loans at low interest to pay off their existing mortgages. As can be seen this Act by Mr. Wallace and the New Dealers had no benefits for the working class or the thirteen million people in tenant farm families or the three million in sharecropping families. The Act only helped the owners of land. In fact it brought about a greater concentration of ownership and reduced many of the tenant farmers to mere wage-labourers.

Therefore it is apparent that whatever may be the result of the presidential election in the United States the working class will be in the same predicament— wage labourers. The workers of the United States and the rest of the world will not arrive in Easy Street by giving their allegiance to politicians of the calibre of Mr. Henry Wallace. What the workers must do in every country of the world is to form Socialist Parties whose only object is the common ownership and democratic control of the means of producing and distributing wealth. The only party in the United States worthy of working class support is the Workers’ Socialist Party (companion party of the S.P.G.B.).

Those supporters of Wallace who call themselves Communists should recall the words of Marx in the Address of the Central Council to the Communist League:

   “But they themselves will have to do the most for their final victory by becoming enlightened as to their class interests, by taking up their own independent party position as soon as possible and by not allowing themselves for a single moment to be led astray from the independent organisations of the party of the proletariat by the hypocritical phrases of the democratic petty bourgeois.” (Karl Marx, “ Selected Works,” Vol. 2. Published by Lawrence & Wishart. P.168.)

G. Clark

Notes by the Way: You Have Heard This One Before (1948)

The Notes by the Way column from the March 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

You Have Heard This One Before

Mr. Hector McNeil, Minister of State in the Labour Government, spoke at Brussels about the new European grouping:

   “If we are to have a Western Union then this will not only entail immediate sacrifices for both of us but it will also mean important political decisions by both of us.
    “It almost looks as if Europe has taken a new decision.
    “She not only once more maintains that no dictatorship will be accepted but she announces that she is taking immediate steps now to combine to produce the conditions preventing the emergency and the advance of any dictator or any authoritarian system.
  "That is the thought, I believe, behind the Marshall Plan, the Paris Conference, and certainly activating the recent speech by Mr. Bevin.
   “The price in cash, in effort, and in sacrifice of all kinds will be worth while if we are able to ensure that no kind of authoritarian rule will arise in Europe, from whatever quarter it originates.”

(Daily Mail, 6/2/48.)

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The Policy of the “Daily Herald”

In evidence to the Royal Commission on the Press Mr. Francis Williams, former editor of the Daily Herald, disclosed how conflict arose between Odhams and the T.U.C. about policy. The following is from the Times (13/2/48):

   “Minutes of evidence taken on October 15, when Mr. Williams avid Mr. Hannen Swaffer appeared before the commission, were issued yesterday as a White Paper (Cmd. 7318, Stationery Office, Is. 3d.).
  ‘‘Mr. Williams, whose editorship of the Daily Herald lasted from 1936 until just after the beginning of the war, spoke of difficulties which arose in borderline cases, where it was not easy to differentiate between commercial policy (for which Odhams Press, the majority shareholders, were responsible) and the political policy (which was decided by the trade unions, who were minority shareholders). Conflicts occurred, particularly before the war and at its beginning, when the general editorial policy was to emphasize the seriousness of international developments and the dangers in Germany, and to criticise much of the Chamberlain Government’s policy.
  “Often the commercial proprietors felt that such a policy, if vigorously conducted, might drive away some public and advertising support. On a number of occasions leading articles, were, without consultation with the editor, sub-edited by deletion of a fair number of passages by the then chairman of the commercial board of directors. It was the culmination of a clash of that kind which led to his (Mr. Williams’s) resignation.”

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The Russian Concentration Camps

The following arc extracts from a Manchester Guardian leader under the heading “Forced Labour” based on “Forced Labour in Soviet Russia” by David J. Dallin and Boris I. Nicolaevsky (published by Hollis & Carter):

   “The existence of ‘corrective labour camps’ in Russia is, of course, well known and even officially admitted. As long ago as 1931 Molotov told the Sixth Congress of Soviets of ‘these mass projects employing those deprived of liberty.’ A good deal of information about them may still be gleaned from the Soviet Press. But the vast scale of the system, which may ‘employ’ over ten million people, and the terrible conditions in those camps can be judged only from the stories of those men and women who have experienced them . . . All of them, naturally, are 'prejudiced’; some of them are clearly untrustworthy. Yet the total impression is so convincing that an impartial reader is forced to conclude that if only half is true it still remains a damning account of an inhuman system.”
  “The prisoners are paid—but so little that it hardly counts. They are fed—but only enough to keep them working and not always enough for that. If they die, as they do in hundreds and thousands, it is not because the State wishes them to die, but because the conditions in the swamps and forests of Siberia are so fearful that only the strongest can survive.”

(Manchester Guardian, 20/1 /48).

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A Great Game

“Major Frank (Bring ’em back alive) Buckley is what the reference books call 'a football manager out of the top drawer.’ And the Major certainly knows a Soccer player when he sees one. When he puts over a deal it is more reminiscent of Big Business in Lombard Street than the simple relaxation of kicking a piece of leather around.
 “Major Buckley was the manager who sold £100,000 worth of players when he was at Wolverhampton.
  ‘‘Now at Hull he announces that nine young players are for sale on the transfer list.
  “It is a curious sort of auction in humanity, for the football business, which has a turnover of millions, is not noticeably sentimental or generous to the lads who do most of the hard work and provide all the skill.
  “Will these players easily get another job? Are they affected by the Direction of Labour Order? And, if it is policy to train a surplus of players., who looks after the welfare of boys who don’t quite make the grade, or get abruptly put on the transfer list?
  "It’s a great game—while it lasts.”

(Cassandra, Daily Mirror, 2/1/48.)

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The I.L.P.

The I.L.P., which once had over 200 of its members in Parliament as Labour M.P.s, has now faded out as a Parliamentary party. The loss of the deposit by the I.L.P. candidate at Camlachie set the seal on it and one proposal to be considered at the Annual Conference is that the Party give up fighting elections and devote itself to propaganda.

It was reported (Manchester Guardian, 26/1/48) that at the Conference of the Scottish division a proposal was on the agenda to alter the name to “The Socialist Party (with which is incorporated the I.L.P.)”. But it would take more than a change of name to turn the I.L.P. into a Socialist Party.

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Too Many Shoes

“NEW YORK, Saturday. — American manufacturers predict that production will exceed sales of shoes by 40,000,000 pairs in 1948.”

(News Chronicle, 21/12/47).

Editorial: The Railway Strike in Queensland (1948)

Editorial from the April 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the S.P.G.B. pamphlet “Is Labour Government the Way to Socialism?” there is a brief description of the conflict between the Queensland Labour Government and the railwaymen in 1927 which helped to defeat the Labour Government at the elections two years later. A similar conflict broke out in February of this year, and for weeks Queensland’s State railways were at a standstill. From reports in the London newspapers it appears that in the first place railway workshop workers struck for increased pay, refusing to wait the long time before their claim would have been heard by the Arbitration Court. The rest of the railwaymen came out in support and refused to go back when ordered to do so by the Arbitration Court. Thereupon the Labour Government took drastic action. They “proclaimed a state of emergency, under which the police have power to arrest all strike pickets . . . . To-day the Government announced that all workers must return on Monday or they would be dismissed from the service.” (Times, February 28th, 1918.) Then they hurried a Bill through the legislature "giving the police drastic powers to deal with unauthorized strikes.” (Times, March 10th, 1948.)

Dockers, both in Queensland and New South Wales came out in sympathy with the railwaymen and in protest against the measures taken by the Government. Here is a report of an incident during the strike : — 

    "The police drew batons to-day in their first major clash with Queensland railway strikers. About 400 of the strikers, carrying placards and yelling, broke through the police cordon in a march through Brisbane streets. Pickets fought the police as they seized placards and several men were hit by the batons.” (Evening News, March 15th, 1948.)

According to the Daily Mail (March 16th, 1948) "the Federal Labour Government has now become involved, as the powerful Seamen’s Union and the Waterside Workers’ Federation have declared for the Queensland strikers. They are both ‘Federal’ unions, and Communists hold key positions in them.”

Naturally the Queensland Labour Government has seized upon the convenient excuse that the Communists are responsible for the strike, but workers who still believe that the Labour leaders can do better than the avowed supporters of capitalism at running their system should not be misled by that red herring, but should wake up to the fact that strikes against capitalist exploitation are inevitable no matter which party runs the system. And railwaymen who have just been holding celebrations for the nationalisation of the British railways should observe from the example of Queensland (where the railways have been nationalised for many years) that nationalisation does not remove the need to struggle to maintain the standard of living.