What the Soldier Wants and How to Get it (1941)

From the May 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

War brings a shortage of many things but not of would-be leaders of the workers, who profess to be able to shepherd us into the promised land after the war. But leaders must have followers and as the mood of the soldiers and civilians changes with the progress of the war the outlines of the promised post-war world as sketched by our J. B. Priestleys and A. P. Herberts, our J. M. Keynes and Harry Pollitts, will change too. When war breaks out it is easy for many people to take a rosy, romantic view both of the conflict and its aftermath. The lines seem clear and simple. First the brave fight against the forces of evil, then the brave new world to come after. First the comradeship of the trenches and the air-raid shelter, then the peace and the universal goodwill capable of surmounting all obstacles and solving all problems. This is the phase in which a man like the late H. H. Munro (“Saki") could say (as he did when war was declared in 1914), “I have always looked forward to the romance of European war,” it is the phase in which British statesmen could say that the war was not against the German workers but. only against those who mislead and oppress them. Then there comes another phase, after the destruction, hardship, and bitterness of war have wrought their changes. This is the phase summed up by the late C. E. Montague in. the word “disenchantment.” It is the phase in which Munro’s friends said of him, “He was thin and his face was haggard.” "It was evident that the strain of military life was telling on him.” Though determined to go through with it at whatever cost (he was subsequently killed), it is likely that Munro must by then have realised that war is not romantic and that the apparently simple lines of visionary future have become blurred and unrecognisable. Then, soldiers and civilians alike forget the early glimpses of promised lands after the war and ask only for more moderate things. Like Sassoon’s "Dreamers,”

“When the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives.”

They feel that the most desirable of all pleasures are the humdrum things they did before the war—“ bank-holidays and picture shows,” and “going to the office in the train.”

The soldier fighting in desert heat or freezing in mountain snows, and the munition worker toiling day and night, feels that he will be satisfied if after the war life returns to the “good old days,” but with certain concrete improvements. Subject to obtaining these improvements, his desires are confined to the wish for no more crash of bombs and guns, no more drone of planes and wail of sirens. No more rationing, no more regulations, filling up of forms, no more restrictions, orders, warnings, advice and lecturing. No more pep-talks and parsons exhorting us to lift up our hearts. No more sudden death and destruction, no more ruined homes, evacuated families. No more broken windows, no more black-out, no more interrupted sleep.

But with it goes a determination, mixed up with bitterness, to have a world in which poverty, unemployment, “profiteering,” slums and overwork, have been diminished if not abolished entirely.

The Socialist having a clear purpose in view and knowing the difficulties in the way of social change, does not share either mood. He knows that brave new worlds are not to be had for the asking and consequently he realises that the second mood in which the workers want concrete improvements of working and living conditions, is likely to be rather more useful and practical. Yet it, too, has its definite limits and dangers. It is not enough to want the pre-war world with improvements unless along with determination there is knowledge of the obstacles that will have to be removed and of the only way in which it can be done.

For after the war the world will still be a world run on capitalist lines and the capitalist too will have his expectation of reverting to 1939, and both capitalists and workers will be faced with tremendous problems arising out of capitalism, many of them even more acute than before. Peace will not only mean cessation of war strain and war restrictions, but also the release of forces now suppressed. The class struggle will still be on. The non-Socialist will say of this how stupid, how wicked, how unnecessary, but the Socialist sees that it is unavoidable unless a fundamental change in the basis of society is carried out. The world's resources will still be privately owned nnd utilised for the purpose of profit-making. There will still be two classes with antagonistic interests, one class living by rent, interest and profit, the other living by selling its labour-power for wages or salary. True, this is “wicked” in the sense that it is unnecessary, but it can only be removed by abolishing its cause, the private ownership of the means of wealth-production and distribution. While there is private ownership (including so-called “public” ownership or State capitalism) it is impossible to have harmony and identity of interest between the classes. The only way to abolish class struggle is to abolish the classes.

Now is the time, not for day-dreaming or for getting out plans for reforming capitalism, but for hard, laborious thought about the nature of the capitalist system and of its opposite, Socialism.

The post-war world will not just happen. It will correspond to the development of the ideas of the majority. Effort now devoted to thinking out the basic causes of the pre-war problems of riches and poverty, unemployment and strikes, will be more valuable than years of scheming to soften the rigours of the capitalist system.

Edgar Hardcastle

Put Not Your Trust in Commissars (1941)

From the June 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

On May 17th, 1941, the “Russia To-day Society” held a meeting in Glasgow, which was advertised under the title “We Need Russia’s Friendship.” The speakers were Mr. Ivor Montagu and Mr. P. Sloan, both well-known advocates of an Anglo-Russian Pact. Since Socialists do not hold the view that the Russian or any other Government is concerned with the emancipation of the workers, we do not have to inquire into the merits of the Pacts they make with each other. It is, however, necessary to dispel the illusion that one of these Governments, the Russian, has loftier and more disinterested motives than the others. We notice that a week earlier the Russian Government, according to the News Chronicle (May 10th, 1941) gave the Yugo-Slav legation in Moscow notice to leave the country on the ground that Russia no longer recognised its status as Yugo-Slavia had lost its sovereignty. The Yugo-Slav Minister to Moscow, M. Gavrilovitch, thus summarily ejected by the Russian Government, is the man who, only a few weeks earlier, had been “largely instrumental in bringing Yugo-Slavia into the war, and who negotiated the non-aggression pact with the Soviet just before the German invasion.”

It looks as if putting your trust in Commissars is like putting your trust in Princes.

Then, of course, there is the Russo-Japanese Pact, signed with great acclamation in Moscow on April 13th. The Manchester Guardian's comment
is: —

   “By the new agreement Japan recognises Russia's exclusive interest in Outer Mongolia and Russia recognises Japan’s in Manchukuo; that is not what they say, but it is what they mean. China, which claims the sovereignty, has protested.”

“Appeasement” seems to be all the rage in Moscow these days, though we seem to remember a time when, to the Communist, appeasement was spelled C-H-A-M-B-E-R-L-A-I-N.

The Pact produced a remarkable new doctrine in the columns of the Moscow Pravda. Often the Bolsheviks argued that in the modern world war is caused, and inevitably caused, by capitalism. Front this they went on to say that pacts and treaties could not prevent war. The new doctrine is that the issues between Governments only rankle because of the absence of “political accord which forms the essential requisite for a solution of economic problems.”

The following quotation from Pravda deals with the Russo-Japanese Pact and was reproduced in the Anglo-Russian News Bulletin (April 19th. 1941): —

  "The Neutrality Pact and Declaration clear the road for a settlement of the remaining outstanding issues between the U.S.S.R. and Japan, including the Fishing Convention. Trade Treaty, etc. All these outstanding issues, despite their importance, were often delayed because there did not exist between Japan and the U.S.S.R. political accord which forms the essential requisite for a solution of economic problems. Now when this requisite is created, when both Governments have solemnly declared that both Parties are striving for friendship, all obstacles which were in the way of the development of political and economic relations between the U.S.S.R. and Japan are removed.”

While we do not imagine that the Bolsheviks really believe this sort of thing, it is difficult to discover what they do believe. Cynicism is usually the fate of those who make a principle of opportunism.

P. S.

An Interesting Quotation (1941)

A Quote from the July 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

  “In travelling about the world I have perceived that economic and political systems are badly out of kilter and urgently require fundamental readjustment. Machines possess the potentiality of easily providing sufficient food, shelter, and clothing for every human being on earth. But I have visited country after country in which the foremost preoccupation of tens of millions is to obtain enough food each day to sustain life, in which they live in hovels unfit for domestic animals, with standards little above those of the Dark Ages. 

  “I have travelled through or flown over millions upon millions of acres of fallow land capable of feeding multitudes. I have seen millions jammed in cities living in poverty and degradation; elsewhere I have seen crops rotting in the fields and fruit dropping unpicked from trees because there was no market for the food.  

 “There must be some system, I should think, of bringing the capacities of production and the requirements of consumption together so that the whole world can enjoy the advantages made available by the machine. Science and machinery have solved many more intricate problems. And I am convinced that the Old World is being rushed toward destruction and annihilation by the very same forces that could make for its unparalleled material happiness and well-being. Instead of being used to provide adequate food, shelter, and clothing—the components of material happiness—and leisure—which could make for mental happiness—the power of the machine is being more and more concentrated upon manufacture of means of destruction and slaughter.”—Webb Miller (1891-1940), American International Correspondent. “I Found No Peace” (Penguin Edition, pp. 230-1).

Misrepresentations of Socialism (1941)

Editorial from the August 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is impossible to exaggerate the harm done to the Socialist Movement by those who, calling themselves Socialists, have taught the workers to believe that State capitalism and social reform are Socialism. Millions of workers all over the world have, through this misdirection, been led to support some form of capitalism, trusting that it would solve their problems. The result was that the way was paved for Hitlers and Mussolinis and other supporters of capitalism to reach their goal. The S.P.G.B. has always been careful to define what Socialism means. Nobody who grasped that definition ever made the error of supposing that State enterprise like the Post Office or public utility corporations like the London Passenger Transport Board had anything to do with Socialism. Nor did they imagine, even for a moment, that Hitler and Mussolini were Socialists or that Socialism could result from the Bolshevist dictatorship in Russia or from a Labour Government in Britain or Australia. But our critics who ridiculed what they called the “doctrinaire” S.P.G.B. all fell into these errors, with disastrous results.

A few recent illustrations will show how deeply those critics have fallen into the mire. In the Readers' Digest (July, 1941) the American writer, Mr. Max Eastman, who used to called himself a Socialist and was an admirer of Labourism and of the Bolsheviks, now dismisses Socialism because, he says, it ignores human nature. In the course of his argument he lumps together Socialism, Syndicalism, Bolshevism, “Guild Socialism,” and Anarchism, and by showing what has happened to the Bolshevist experiment is able to prove that Socialism is impossible. It will be useful to consider Mr. Eastman’s argument more fully in a later issue. At the moment it is sufficient to point out as evidence of his shallow thinking his remark on the Russo-German Pact of 1939 (his article was written before the Nazis invaded Russia): —

   “The Stalin-Hitler pact was not merely a new manoeuvre on the chessboard of nations. it was a drawing together of two halves of the same thing."

Thus is a superficial observer confounded by a hard fact, the Russo-German war!

Mr. Eastman mentions "Guild Socialism” as one of the forms of Socialism. He would no doubt be surprised to learn that when the so-called “Guild-Socialist” Movement was at its height twenty odd years ago it was analysed and denounced [in] the The Socialist Standard and given its proper name, “Guild-Capitalism.” We were right, and it is only necessary to recall that numbers of its advocates, bemused with their own muddled propaganda, recognised their own notions in Mussolini’s and Hitler’s corporate State, and were in greater or less degree taken in by these movements. In the January, 1941, issue of Plebs, Mr. W. T. Colyer quotes from the preface to Otto Strasser’s “Germany Tomorrow,” the following passage, written by those erstwhile “Guildists” and supporters of Bolshevism, Eden and Cedar Paul: —

   “Both brothers were Nazis at a time when the National Socialists were really Socialists as well as Nationalists, and they remained Socialists after Hitler had dropped this part of his creed.”

(Otto Strasser leads, from abroad, a dissident group of Nazis who quarrelled with Hitler. His brother, Gregor, was murdered by Hitler.)

Of course the Nazis were never Socialists or interested in Socialism; but how should the Pauls know this? Had they not for years been preaching various capitalist doctrines in the belief that they were Socialist?

It is forgotten now, but the I.L.P. was likewise deceived by Mussolini, though not so deeply, and its recovery was rapid. Not long after Mussolini obtained power in Italy the New Leader, (November 10th, 1922) published an article, “Fascism and Labour,” by an “Italian correspondent” (he later became a whole-hearted Fascist). In the article the writer, while regretting the destruction by Mussolini of Italian workers’ organisations and murder of workers, urged co-operation with Mussolini in furtherance of the “ new social order.” A typical passage was: —

   “The Fascist victory is a set-back to Socialism, regarded as a party movement and an economic doctrine. . . But Socialism is broader than a party; it is rooted in Labour as a whole, and Fascism desires to-respect the social aspirations of Labour. In the interests of Labour, therefore, we must cease from carping, and make the most of the situation.”

What is significant is that the New Leader, organ of the I.L.P., not only published this article (describing it as “illuminating”), but was unable to decide its own attitude and took refuge in the view that it was too early to decide: —

“Only events can test our correspondent’s optimistic reading of its (Fascism’s) new spirit.’’

What events did prove, in addition to showing the absurdity of the New Leader's wait and see policy, was that the S.P.G.B.’s insistence on the need for clear ideas about Socialism and for the rejection of all spurious imitations was abundantly justified.

50 Years Ago: What is Patriotism? (1965)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

This noble impulse of social solidarity is the common inheritance of all mankind. But being a powerful social force it has lent itself to exploitation. Therefore with the development of class rule this great impulse is made subordinate to the class interests of the rulers. It becomes debased and perverted to definite anti-social ends. As soon as the people become a slave class “the land of their fathers” is theirs no more. Patriotism to them becomes a fraudulent thing. The “country” is that of their masters alone. Nevertheless, the instinct of loyalty to the community is too deep-seated to be eradicated so easily, and it becomes a deadly weapon in the hands of the rulers against the people themselves.

Capitalism, therefore, stands as the barrier the destruction of which will not only set free the productive forces of society for the good of all, but will also liberate human solidarity and brotherhood from the narrow confines of nationality and patriotism. Only victorious labour can make true the simple but pregnant statement: “mankind are my brethren, the world is my country.” Patriotism and nationalism as we know them will then be remembered only as artificial restrictions of men's sympathy and mutual help; as obstacles to the expansion of the human mind; as impediments to the needful and helpful development of human unity and co-operation; as bonds that bound men to slavery; as incentives that set brothers at each others' throats.

Despite its shameless perversion by a robber class the great impulse to human solidarity is by no means dead. Economic factors give it an ever firmer basis, and in the Socialist movement it develops apace. Even the hellish system of individualism, with its doctrine of every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost, has been unable to kill it. And in the great class struggle of the workers against the drones, of the socially useful against the socially pernicious, in this last great struggle for the liberation of humanity from wage slavery, the great principle of human solidarity, based upon the necessities of today and impelled by the deep-seated instincts of the race, will come to full fruition and win its supreme historical battle.

From the Socialist Standard, December 1915.

Letter: G. D. H. Cole and Hungary (1958)

Letter to the Editors from the January 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Glasgow, N.W.

8/8/57.

Sir,—

In the New Statesman on 20th April, 1957, in an article headed “Hungary is the Test,” G. D. H. Cole gave an interpretation of the Communist Manifesto. After dealing with the Communist Manifesto, he states: “ If this vision of contemporary and of coming society were true, it followed that, from the standpoint of the exploited class, correct, and therefore right, behaviour was simply that which would help to overthrow the rule of the bourgeoisie. Whatever would further the cause of world proletarian revolution was historically correct conduct, and therewith morally right. . . .  It was therefore justifiable and necessary for the proletariat to use any method and to take any action that would help it towards victory over its class-enemies ; and all squeamishness about such matters was entirely out of place. . . .  The Soviet Union forces, in overrunning Hungary and suppressing the so-called Hungarian 'counter-revolution’ were acting in strict accordance with this principle. . . . Any country that rejects the dictatorship of the proletariat in favour of parliamentary government thereby ranges itself in the camp of the enemies of the revolution. . . .  The logic of this position can be assailed only by those who reject the foundations on which the entire structure of Communist ideology rests.”

Does the S.P.G.B. agree that the interpretation of the Communist Manifesto given by G. D. H. Cole is correct ? If not, wherein is the interpretation mistaken ?

Yours, etc.,

D. Anderson

REPLY

We do not agree with G. D. H. Cole’s interpretation of the Communist Manifesto, and the latter certainly does not subscribe to the view that “any country that rejects the dictatorship of the proletariat in favour of parliamentary government thereby ranges itself in the camp of the enemies of the revolution.” By “Parliamentary Government” we take it Mr. Cole means parliamentary action. Let us see what the Manifesto has to say on this point. The paging is from our edition of the Manifesto.

   “The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of its means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated population, centralised means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralisation. Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class-interest, one frontier and one customs tariff.”—(Page 64.)
  “The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself. 
   “But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself: it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons—the modern working class—the proletarians.”—(Page 66.)
   "This organisation of the proletarians into a class, and consequently, into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves. But it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier. It compels legislative recognition of particular interests of the workers, by taking advantage of the divisions among the bourgeoisie itself. Thus the ten-hours' Bill in England was carried. . . .
   “The bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with its own elements of political and general education; in other words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie.”—(Page 69.)
   “Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is, so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word.”—(Page 78).
   “We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.”—(Page 79.) 

The Russian Revolution, from its inception, has never been concerned with “winning the battle of democracy.” Although it has borrowed Marxian phraseology, suitably amended, it has, in fact, been a capitalist revolution and has followed capitalist imperialist methods, of which its attitude in Hungary is an example. Like the French Revolution, it has inscribed on its banners, “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity,” and, like the French Revolution, these words have meant freedom for one group to oppress and exploit another; and like the French Revolution the people at the top engage in internecine struggles to annihilate one another.

G. D. H. Cole misses the fundamental facts and is misled by the phraseology.

Editorial Committee

Where Are You Going (1958)

From the February 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

By this time, you the reader, will once again have embarked on another year’s effort, which like all previous efforts, is a two-fold one—to maintain some kind of a living, the best you can get under the circumstances, whilst continuing to be the wealth producing agent for the minority who control your destiny; not a very dignified position to be in you will agree but one that you have accepted far too long.

You had your Christmas respite and indulged in the traditional manner. Throughout the holiday you strove to foster the spirit of good will; the “live and let live” idea. Now, it is once again all over and you must face up to the stern reality of life under Capitalism without the cap and bells. In fact you are expected, those of you who have one, to get back on “the job.”

It is at this juncture that we in the Socialist Party without wishing to be impertinent, ask the question “Where are you going this year?” Naturally we arc not referring to the spate of advertisements already filling the press, extolling the joys of wintering in the Bahamas, and other exotic places. We mean “What are your plans for improving your lot in 1958 ?” You will agree that 1957 took more out of you than you received in return. This situation is what industrialists would call “bad business.” and bad business indeed it was for the working class. This was true also for your fellow workers in the U.S.A., Russia and everywhere else. Everywhere, the sum total of dividends accruing to the world's workers in 1957 after payment of “overhead expenses” (food, clothes, shelter and an occasional “ break ”) was merely an increase in strain and stress; an increase in genuine, all-round fear. 1958 it now appears is already given over to an increase in the scientific armament race with all the above-mentioned evils attached and perhaps more.

The writer, has, for some time past, been in the habit of reading (in the same way as many renew the acquaintance with Dickens’ Christmas Carol) at the commencement of the New Year, some of the curious reasons and antidotes for the phenomena of poverty. He finds that the reasons are extremely varied and in most cases amusing. Economists and philanthropists together with our old friends the politicians and clergy offer all kinds of excuses including “sun-spots” which affect the weather and crops, mysterious psychological brain disturbances which affect the business acumen of industrial magnates and so on not forgetting the theory of the inherent wickedness of Man’s heart.

So you see, we are told to be patient, virtuous and hard working in the hope that, Micawber like, somehow, things will turn out all right.

In the light of all this, you may of course decide to run for the nearest hatchet, believing that humanity will not free itself “till the last Capitalist is hanged by the entrails of the last priest.” We don't think, however, that you are so foolishly energetic. Rather, you are more likely to put away your bells and lanterns, place the frost fairy back into her cardboard box and live in hope that you will be in a position to reverse the process next Christmas.

Readers of the Socialist Standard will know that it is not our custom to mouth empty platitudes and perhaps the phrase “Happy New Year” has fallen into nothing more than a platitude these days but what we do urge is that you take upon yourselves the business of seeing this year—1958 as the year in which you commenced to do something about putting things right You can best do this by supporting the Socialist movement which in your case is the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Better still send us a real New Year’s card—an application for membership.

W. Brain

The Ten Commandments (1958)

Film Review from the March 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Amidst much ballyhoo and publicity, with a prologue about “tyrants and freedom.” spoken by the famous Cecil B. de Mille. and a small orchestra to get one “in the mood” by playing excerpts from “Kismet” and other “Eastern” music, a film—“The Ten Commandments” is currently showing at the Plaza, W.1.

Like all other things, this film was made chiefly to create a profit and stimulate interest in the Christian religion, and when you ask the prices of admission you’ll realise that Mr. de Mille must be doing very nicely. The writer would like to warn anybody who may want one of the colourful programmes, that if you tender a shilling, expecting sixpence change, you will be requested (quite politely) to give the usherette another two shillings and sixpence! Of course, you could always take along a copy of the Bible.

One doesn’t have to be a Socialist to realise that if people will believe all that this film portrays, they’ll believe anything! But it did leave the writer of these words asking himself a few questions. How often are we, as Socialists, accused of having “our heads in the sky”? How often, when we put forward the Socialist case, do we hear words like “Fantastic!" — “Impossible" — “Nonsense”? The writer wonders how many critics of Socialism will applaud the obvious trickery of the cameras in “The Ten Commandments”? They may believe that wooden staffs can turn into deadly serpents, but the idea of production for use instead of profit—“Oh no, we must have competition! ”

The Israelites crossing the Red Sea (which, I was surprised to see, has a very dry bed!) is more easily believed than the idea of a world without social, colour or religious barriers!

The striking into rock, by fire, of the Ten Holy Commandments is “divine”—“heavenly,” much more to be believed than the object of the S.P.G.B. printed above the Declaration of Principles, which are probably too “down to earth.”

By all means, see this film which is an experience, although a bit of an expensive one! You’ll hear God speaking in a croaky American accent, yet declaring his Ten Commandments in Hebrew. One is left to wonder how those Israelites could have been so fickle in their loves of various Gods, especially after having apparently seen such marvels of miracles.

Of course, everything about Mr. De Mille’s production is a bit of a wonder, but the biggest wonder so far as I was concerned was how on earth people still believe implicitly that all of this was true. Rameses (beautifully acted by Yul Brynner) came pretty close to the most sensible part of the whole film when, during the plague which was supposed to have been sent down by the “merciful Father ” upon His people, he said. “ Bah, this is not the work of any God, this is the natural order of things! ’’

R. J. Otter

Another Economic Blizzard? (1958)

From the April 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

So the bread lines and soup kitchens have appeared again—in the United States and in Canada.

It looks as if the slump that would never come again is now on its way. At least that is the impression one gets from statements by leading financiers, here and in America, and from articles that have appeared in London papers recently.

The Times for March the 4th, under the heading, “World Unemployment Survey,” gives figures of unemployment in different countries. In the United States in January the figure was 4,494,000. This does not include unemployment among the 30 million who are not covered by unemployment insurance. Since January there has been a considerable increase in unemployment The Times gives the unemployment figure for Canada in January as 520,000. Here also the figure has increased since January.

The News Chronicle for February 28th contains an article on Detroit by Bruce Rothwell. From this article it is evident that the huge empty factories around Detroit, and the empty shops the present writer saw in Dearborn, when he was there last September, were the expression of something more than the shift of industry out of Detroit and the change-over to automation.

The News Chronicle writer has this to say

   “Signs of the slump are everywhere and this is frightening America.
   “For beyond this city millions more jobs depend on the car industry. One business in six is wholly concerned with it.
    “Steel, rubber, glass, leather; they all slump when the assembly lines slow; and soon it spreads to us all.
      “So Detroit, the centre of it, is harder hit to-day than in the ’thirties."

The writer states that there are 250,000 unemployed in Detroit now, and he tells of the soup kitchen run by the Capuchin monks which can only touch a tiny fragment of the thousands of hungry.

He goes on to tell of the workers who are "called in for only a few hours and then sent home with too much pay to qualify for unemployment benefit”; of the cars, bought on the hire system, and almost the only means of transport, that are seized because of failure to pay the instalments: “this is the heyday of the debt collector. In haulage trucks they cruise the streets checking their lists with parked cars. Two hundred a day are seized.” Of the City Welfare Office, where people queue all day in the hope of relief: “They queue all day, and the queue is lengthening for the list of men who have been out 26 weeks is lengthening, too—at the rate of 7,000 a month.”

This is a grim picture of the passing away of the boom times and the fraud of the Welfare State.

The seriousness of the position is emphasised by an announcement in The Observer, March 9th, that Eisenhower is proposing action to mitigate the effects of the slump:—

   “In an unprecedented move, President Eisenhower announced to-day a forthcoming Bill which guarantees that while the recession lasts jobless United States workers will not go without unemployment benefit—a fate that has been staring many of them in the face."

The Observer article points out, however, that only 60 per cent, of the jobless workers will be entitled to benefit under Eisenhower’s proposed measure, just as under the existing law.

The article also makes this general statement:— 

   "As many areas have been depressed for months, there are substantial numbers of United States workers who have exhausted their 26 weeks’ allowance, and many more are about to reach that stage. Without the President’s new measure, these workers would have had literally to stop buying anything at all, and to stop paying the time payments with which every American working-class family is saddled.” 

Another paper, The People, March 9th, had an article headed “They queue for free soup in Canada now” with a picture of a line of unemployed and destitute outside a soup kitchen at Marian Centre, Edmonton, where 400 free meals a day are being distributed. The writer of this article says:—

   “The emergency is not Edmonton's alone. In the last eight weeks an economic blizzard has swept over all Canada.
    “Only eight weeks ago I reported that, according to official figures, 300,000 people were on the dole, including many emigrants from Britain.
     "I forecast then that the figure would increase. It has— to an extent far beyond my worst fears."

From the extracts we have given it will be seen that the indications are that there are tough times ahead; for capitalism is an international disease. A collapse of industry in one part of the world soon makes its effects felt in every other part. So the Cohen Committee need not have bothered to assert the need of arranging for a certain percentage of unemployment—the system will more than take care of that in the fullness of time.

Gilmac.

The Capitalist (1958)

From the May 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reproduction of a leaflet issued by the Socialist Party of Canada

The capitalist is another of those misunderstood people. He is often portrayed in something less than glowing terms. Not that his clothing is shoddy. Usually it is shown to be carefully tailored and made of costly materials. But he is offered to us as a smirking pear-shaped specimen, lips folded over a fat cigar, whose weight is mainly encompassed by his belt. Sometimes he appears as a banker, a big, bad banker, who has corralled all the money and won't let the rest of us have any except at impossible rates of interest. Sometimes he turns up as a munitions maker who plots to keep the world at war so that he may sell his guns and tanks and other wares and keep the profits flowing in. Then again, he may be a landlord whose girth is gained from high rents on slum dwellings inhabited by poor people.

He may be found in any of these categories, or he may be found in any of a number of other categories equally distasteful. Indignant people are the ones who portray him in these terms, people who believe that more of the good things of life could come to those in need if more money or cheaper money were made available, or that wars could be reduced in number or intensity if profits were removed from the sale of arms, or that better or cheaper housing would be possible if curbs were placed on his bad habits; indignant people, rebellious people, people who see wrongs in society that must be righted and who see in the capitalist the source of so many of these wrongs.

Then there are other people who portray the capitalist differently. They see in him a public benefactor, a philanthropist, a captain of industry, a financial genius, an all round fine fellow. Press reporters and politicians often tell of his benefactions and sterling qualities. Preachers and elderly ladies dote on his philanthropies. Educators discourse on his industrial and financial greatness. In the eyes of these good people he brings grace, goodness and distinction to a society which with all its faults already scintillates with fine features.

The way people look upon society has much to do with the way they look upon the capitalist. Those who see evils about them tend to place these evils at his door. Those who observe instead blessings in modern life tend to credit him with these blessings. He is truly the object of much attention.

And most of it is undeserved. It is unquestionably true that he picks up a dollar here and there through colourful banking operations, the sale of guns, the renting of rat traps and other indiscreet activities. And it is equally true that his industries provide jobs for people, that he contributes generously to churches and charities, that he gives his support to all kinds of groups engaged in social uplifting and public improvement, activities widely conceded to be of worth. But he is really not much different from the rest of us. There may not be patches on his breeches or holes in his socks, or calluses where ours are. He may have better clothing, a finer home, a more attractive bank balance. But he could walk along the road with any of us, and who could determine which one owned the alarm clock?

The thing that makes him a capitalist is not the thing that makes him good or bad in people’s eyes. Most people don’t even give a thought to the thing that makes him a capitalist. They content themselves with some particular feature of his activities and judge him accordingly. He is a wicked banker, a blood-stained munitions maker, a thieving landlord. Or else he is the embodiment of many virtues.

The most important thing to note about the capitalist is that he is a member of an economic category. He belongs to a class in society—the capitalist class. As such he shares with his fellow capitalists in the ownership of the mills, mines, factories, in fact, all the means that exist in society for producing and distributing the food, clothing, shelter and other things needed for the preservation and enjoyment of human life. He and his kind own all these things; the rest of society own nothing of importance. It is this fact of ownership that determines in the long run what he thinks and does and how he lives and how the rest of us live.

Consider the position of the capitalist and his factory. Into the factory go raw materials and workers and out of it come products that are sold in the market places to bring him a profit. The profit does not originate in the market places. People who manipulate wealth in market places do not in that way create profit; they simply shuffle it around in such a way that some capitalists benefit at the expense of others. The profit is created by the workers in the factory. It exists in that portion of the wealth which the workers produce in excess of their own wages. Not all of it is profit, but there is no profit to be found elsewhere. To increase the amount of his profit the capitalist must improve the methods of production, or he must induce the workers to work longer hours or at greater speed or to accept lower wages. And unless he is prepared to sweat in the factory beside the workers, a thought that is usually repellant to him, there is not much else he can personally do about the profit, except spend it. This he does with all the assurance of one who is entitled to it. 

The capitalist is a parasite. He lives without working. He lives on the results of other men’s toil and he is able to do this because he owns the means of production and distribution, a condition that is neither necessary nor desirable, but is allowed to continue because people have not yet seen in it the source of most of the harm in modern society. For even those who rise indignantly to condemn the capitalists, in most cases condemn only the wicked ones.

To replace wicked capitalists with worthy ones will not end the exploitation of labour. The workers will continue to live in need, in insecurity, in fear of the future, no matter what may be the quality of those who occupy the high places. What is wrong in society is not the wickedness of the capitalists, but the wickedness of the capitalist system; and until this system is replaced by one in which there are no capitalists, society can have no hope for a better life.

It is not proposed here to imprison or exterminate the capitalist; it is proposed simply to put him in overalls and make him a useful member of the community.

Comrade Ivy Groves (1958)

Obituary from the June 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is a sad duty to have to report the sudden death at the age of 50 years, of Ivy Groves, who had a heart attack on Sunday. May 4th. The not so very young members will well remember her as a loyal Comrade who, although not a writer or a speaker for the Party, was always ready with a smile and much energy, to help in any way. Until the last few years, when owing to domestic circumstances when it was not possible to be around so much, she regularly attended branch meetings and Head Office. It was 25 years ago when Comrade Ivy Groves joined the Chiswick Branch which via Wembley Branch became Ealing Branch Latterly, when living in South London she transferred to Camberwell Branch. Many Comrades well know that her help and thoughtfulness greatly assisted Clifford Groves in his work for the Party as a propagandist, E. C. Member and General Secretary for many years.

World Worth While (1958)

From the July 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Reproduction of a leaflet issue by the Socialist Party of Canada.) 

The average person will endure hardships, even dangers, in a cause that he believes to be worthy. But he does not resign himself to a lifetime of such conditions. He wants to experience the more pleasant things of life. He wants to live in a spacious well- furnished home; strongly constructed and free from the clutches of banks and mortgage companies. He wants his family to be properly fed and clothed and provided with the tilings they need. He wants freedom and opportunity to expand his mental and physical capabilities in the directions of his choice. He wants peace, security and the happiness that the potentialities of the modern world can make possible.

How modest these desires are, yet how far from the grasp of the average person! Those who guide the affairs of the world are overwhelming in their assurances that no aim is closer to their hearts, that no goal receives more careful thought. But—ah, that fatal but!—there are so many obstacles that stand in the way, so many things that have to be done first There are depressions to be offset or overcome, trade agreements to be signed, international problems to be solved. There are billions of dollars worth of satellites to be sent spinning into space, billions of dollars worth of atom bombs and guided missiles to be perfected and stockpiled, freedoms to be preserved, mighty creations of man to be destroyed, rebuilt and destroyed again. There are so many things that have to be done—first

No crisis or emergency is so great as to prevent the flow of luxuries into the possession of the idle class, the capitalist class. Only the wealth producers have to wait for the ending of the current depression, war, or other disaster before there is enough for them. Always there are obstacles, never-ending obstacles. Neva can the statesmen say. "You have produced abundance. It shall be yours.” The best that even the greatest of them can say is that none shall starve, and even this is said with reservations. Modern man lives under the capitalist order of society, and capitalism cannot be made to operate in such a way as to benefit alL

The workers today live steadily in the shadow of want and terror. They don’t have to. There is no law of the universe condemning them to live in this way perpetually. The evils of the modern world arise from the class ownership of the productive agencies. They can be ended, at any time the workers choose, by changing these agencies from the possession of a class to the possession of society. Not the government ownership of "public utilities” or “ basic industries,” which is of no practical value to society, but the common ownership of all the means for producing and distributing the needs of life.

A change of this kind does not convert stockholders into bondholders. It puts an end to stockholders and bondholders and transforms the beneficiaries of both these forms of parasitism into wealth producers. It ends the production of goods to be sold on the world’s markets at a profit and institutes the production of goods to be made freely available to all. It means the ending of profit in all its forms, the ending of the local, national and international antagonisms engendered by the quest for profit and so the ending of war, the struggles for military supremacy, the building of hydrogen bombs, guided missiles and all the other terrible things man has devised to destroy man. It means the passing of the foul propagandist activities of the huge publicity agencies, the educators and moralists, whose function it is to guide the workers in ways designed to preserve their enslavement. It means the liberation of human thought and the sources of knowledge. It means the ending of crime, since crime is rooted in a class divided society that will come to an end in a sane world.

Common ownership means the release from their present occupations of the judges, the jailers, the clerks of the court, the lawyers, the politicians, the bankers, the profit counters, the butlers, the valets and boot-polishers, and their transformation, along with the armed forces, the producers of munitions and all others engaged in socially unnecessary activities, into producers of things that will add to the comfort and pleasure of all.

It means the ending of the struggle between Capital and Labour over the division of the wealth produced by Labour, and it means the ending of Capital and Labour as class entities and the merging of these classes into a family of humans intent on making life worth living.

It means the ending of the system of society in which the mass of people are deprived of the fruits of their labour and the establishment of a system in which poverty will give place to plenty, privilege to equality, slavery to freedom. It means a world worth while. It means Socialism.

"In the Twilight of Socialism" (1958)

Book Review from the August 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

"In the Twilight of Socialism" by Joseph Buttinger (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London.)

The Socialist Party has always maintained that the Labour and Social-Democratic parties were useless for the purpose of introducing Socialism. We saw that their reformist programmes would permit them to enact measures of reform and no more and that to enact their puny reforms these parties would be forced to cooperate openly with capitalist governments, or would have to form governments themselves. In either case they would be involved in the administration of the Capitalist system.

We saw further that the voters and members behind these parties lacked political knowledge and were befogged by pro-capitalist illusions, such as the necessity for Leaders, the impartiality of the State, the permanency of the Wages System, etc., in short, the boasted strength of these parties was but a sign of their fatal weakness. Since their massive support was fugitive in nature it could only be kept by pandering to the backwardness and the prejudices of the supporters; thus the progress in numbers was but the building up of political inertia. An inertia that could not be overcome by brilliant or forceful leadership, since the leaders that would be permitted to rise would be precisely those who most faithfully corresponded to the needs of these backward masses.

From the very foundation of our Party we were able to demonstrate that unenlightened, reform-seeking masses were unfitted for the Revolutionary Act and the years that have passed since then have piled up proofs of the accuracy of this Socialist analysis. Further proof of the soundness of our position is provided by Joseph Buttinger (alias Gustav Richter) in his Twilight of Socialism.

In this work, sub-titled, “A History of the Revolutionary Socialists of Austria,” we have an absorbing and highly detailed account of the Social Democracy of Austria, from the formation of the Dollfus Government in 1932 until the early post-war period. The bulk of this book deals, therefore, with the impact of Austrian and German Fascism on the Social Democrats and with the bodies they set up in exile and underground.

After 1918, we learn, the Austrian Social Democratic Party grew to be a “mass organisation of unique size and vigour,” so much so that when in March, 1924, the police announced the ban on Social Democratic bodies, they could list no less than fifteen hundred associations as falling under this ban. Here Buttinger, himself one of the two top leaders of the Social Democrats during their underground period, gives an account of the nebulous basis on which this giant party grew. “Its broad organisational structure had room for all trades and professions. It enabled all ages to organise their entertainment requirements, their educational plans, their purposes in life, their cultural desires, their hobbies, even their follies, and to fuse them ‘ideologically’ with the aims of the party, in serious or ridiculous fashion. Labourers and Bohemians, white-collar workers and moral reformers, winegrowers and teetotallers, soldiers and nurses, physicians and prison guards, lawyers and policemen, writers and innkeepers, newspapermen and rabbit-breeders, actors and generals, educators and acrobats, philosophers and football players, boy scouts and free thinkers, Catholics and nudists, economists and psychiatrists, pacifists and arms smugglers, stamp collectors and funeral orators were what they were, and they did what they did, not as such but ‘ ideologically ’—in the real or imagined behalf of the party and ‘ Socialism'.” (Page 21.)

When Dollfus moved against the Social Democrats and arrested their leaders (and here it was the possession of arms by the Social Democratic Defence League that provided him with the pretext for action), the impotence of masses who, lacking political understanding, had left their thinking to leaders, became at once obvious. Dealing with the leaderless, disorientated Social Democrats Buttinger says that, “All their lives, these people had experienced political events through their work for the party, had acted in line with party directives, and thought only in a fixed framework of party doctrines. Now was the moment when they most urgently needed the voice of party authority—and now, for the first time in their lives, it was mute. The members ran to their organisers, the minor officials to intermediate ones—who were helpless, for they, too, were given to functioning in line with revelations furnished for every event by the supreme authorities of the party, and now these revelations failed to arrive.” (Page 29.)

Buttinger sums up the pathetic plight of these people thus, “It was not the weakness of their social philosophy, but a lack of insight, determination and strength, to take responsibility . . .  that brought about the sudden helplessness of thousands. . . .” If by ‘social philosophy’ the author means those vague yearnings for a better form of life that are present in the 'Labour’ movements, and the criticisms in this book seem to confirm that this is his meaning, then we can agree with him, for 'insight, determination and the strength to take responsibility,’ are exactly the qualities that our class needs in order to emancipate itself, and it is only on the basis of Socialist Consciousness that such qualities can arise. Hence our insistence on the need for understanding.

This book is a moving and tragic history of workers so saturated with the ideas of the ruling class and so confused by the failures of their reformist movements, that instead of seeing that their destinies lay in their own hands, they approved of the very system that thwarted and warped their lives, even to the extent of surrendering what democratic institutions they had and embracing Fascism. It is a history of worker against worker, but because it is History, it is something we can draw strength from in the struggle to unite worker with worker. Properly used, the lessons drawn from this and other chapters of working class history, can help non-socialist workers to rid themselves of their induced servility, and their immature need for guidance from above.

The author himself has learnt and is still willing to learn, as he makes clear in his last pages. His final political position is not too clear cut, but then he admits that he is still trying to clarify his ideas. He declares that he still adheres to basic Socialist ideas, but rejects the view that the mass ’Labour’ movements are the guardians of these ideas, and for him, “Socialism is no longer advanced by the Socialist Party (of Austria).” On nationalisation his 'new spirit’ of enquiry, “no longer reliably told him whether nationalisation of key industries was necessarily already a step on the road to Socialism.” He is convinced, however, that “the policies of Leon Blum or Clement Attlee were wrong.” He confesses that he is, “unable to reach reliable conclusions about Soviet economy, the social structures of the new Russia,” what he does find, nevertheless, is that the Soviet system. “Retained the most objectional characteristics of the capitalist system.” He. is convinced. “That Soviet society was no Socialist society. Soviet Socialism, to him was no more genuine than the democracy claimed by Stalin’s regime.” The view that the Soviet dictatorship is the inevitable result of “ Marxist doctrines,” he finds contemptible.

Of the claims that the last war would bring freedom and justice to the world he has this to say, “At best a restoration of pre-Hitler conditions in parts of Europe could be expected, which meant the restoration of all the evil conditions and contradictions which made Hitler and the war possible.”

The book ends with Buttinger looking for a new way to Socialism, that is one distinct from the futile paths trodden by the Leninists and the Social-Democrats, but whether or not he will discover his 'new way’ to be in fact the old and only way as pioneered by our Companion Parties, one cannot be certain, but of one thing we can be very certain and that is that the lessons of this book will help others to find the will and the way to the Classless Society.

Melvin Harris

Class Interests, Not Morality, Determine Policies (1958)

From the September 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the Sunday Times on the 10th August Rebecca West wrote an article in a series “The Destiny of Man” that commenced with an article by Julian Huxley.

We are not here concerned with her contribution to the discussion apart from a particular paragraph in her article. After referring to certain statements of Ovid on morality and comparing them with statements by Julian Huxley, Rebecca West makes the following comment:

   “Sir Julian is perfectly right; this idea is bound to inspire men to mighty moral and intellectual efforts; and that is just what it has done, People throughout the centuries have gone on and on, lending an ear to the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount and the pagan moralists, building hospitals and homes for the old, treating children kindly and trying to establish justice, instead of taking the easy path and turning into handsome young bulls and going off after Europa.” (The last phrase is a reference to Ovid’s statement.)

Now let us take a glance at these “mighty moral and intellectual efforts.” But before doing so let us make it clear that we are concerned with what has in general happened, and not with the well-meaning efforts of a few people here and there who have been inspired with a desire to help humanity to better things.

In the early years of the present century Lloyd George, a British cabinet minister, admitted the shocking conditions of the aged poor in what he called the richest land under the sun. The origin of hospitals was largely due to the need to renovate soldiers wounded in battle so that they could rise and fight again. When Britain was undergoing the industrial revolution that made it the most powerful country of its time children of tender age were working long hours in factories that have been described as veritable hells. Every capitalist government, as well as those on the way to being such, have claimed, when embarked upon imperialist policies, that they were “trying to establish justice.” But what justice was meted out to the hundreds of thousands of Africans that were transported in coffin ships to America and elsewhere during last century for the profit of slave-owners and slave-traders? Where do the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount apply there?

Coming to more recent times we may ask what moral motives were behind the two wars that have devastated the world, or the Korean war, or the other instances of armed savagery that have devastated vast areas and brought misery to millions of the earth’s inhabitants..

On the same page of the Sunday Times the Prime Minister of Australia, R. G. Menzies, has a defence of the sending of British and United States forces into the Middle East. He uses the old threadbare argument that it was “purely defensive.” Every nation taking armed action makes the same claim. It is true they are defensive actions, but not in the sense that Mr. Menzies wants us to believe. They are actions for the purpose of defending the profit hunting of sections of the capitalist class.

The United Nations Charter was supposed to provide an assembly that would settle disagreements between nations and thus prevent the recourse to armed conflict. All disagreements were to be submitted to this body before action was taken. In fact the opposite has happened ever since the Assembly was founded.

Mr. Menzies, who claimed to be aiming at true national independence and ordered peace, makes the following statements in his article:

    “That Great Britain and the United States had a right, without any violation of the United Nations Charter, to send forces for purely defensive purposes into the Lebanon and Jordan is, I think, clear. The reasons for this view are essentially practical, and are affirmed by many actions already taken by leading members of the United Nations, without challenge in that body. . . . With the invitation or consent of the established Government of the receiving country, it is quite clear that the 'sending in’ of forces is completely legal and proper.”

That let's out Russia's action in Hungary and also shows what a complete fraud the United Nations Charter is. But it also shows up the hypocrisy of the propaganda by Western official spokesmen in favour of national groups oppressed by a tyrannous government. For instance it would be “completely legal and proper” for the Western powers to send armed forces into Russia at the request of the Russian Government to quell any rising against the Government of Russia! But of course Mr. Menzies would probably reply. “Ah. that’s different!”

The ex-president of the United States, Mr. H. S. Truman, also made a contribution supporting the armed intervention in the Middle East. In an article in the Daily Express, 21st July, 1958, he said:—

  “The President has made a momentous decision and proclaimed a policy which every citizen of the United States should support."

In his enthusiasm he goes further, stating that it ought to be made clear to Nasser and the Arab leaders that the Western nations were not going to be blackmailed because of their need for oil.

   “The fact is that the free world now has access to ample oil resources outside the Middle East, from which they can supply all their industrial, domestic, and strategic requirements.”

Behind this statement is the fact that America has a surplus of oil—but American capitalists are still determined to keep a firm grip on Middle East oil, and any other sources they can get their hands on.

He slipped up on one point, however. He says:—

   "Nor is there any hope of a better future for the Arabs if, on the pretence of freedom, so-called republics are set up by brutal military coups such as occurred in Iraq.”

Since he wrote that the Iraq republic has been recognised by the U.S., Britain, Italy, Japan, and others. With cold-blooded cynicism the British Government stated its recognition two days after the memorial service to King Feisal. The reason for the speed? According to the diplomatic correspondent of the Express (Daily Express, 2nd August, 1958) the reasons were as follows:—

   “The first is that Britain wants to give every chance to the new regime to prove its loyalty to 'international obligations,’ like oil agreements and membership of the Bagdad Pact. The second is that the Government is determined that Britain shall not be beaten by Germany—one of the first to recognise the new regime—Italy, Japan, and other countries in the trade race in Iraq."

There it is in a nutshell without any humbug. The kind of inspiration that is behind the policies of all capitalist nations. As another correspondent put it, even more bluntly, the matter of prime importance is “ to keep the oil flowing.”

Rebecca West’s moral uplift moves in curious ways. Another illustration of them is contained on the same page of the Sunday Times from which we have already quoted, but this time in its editorial column.

Commenting on the cruise of the “Nautilus” under the Polar ice, the editorial column has this observation:—

   “The strategic implications of the voyage are revolutionary and will fundamentally alter concepts of global warfare,"

Historically Rebecca West’s idea of moral uplift may be fantastic but there is a moral in all this; that as long as the actions of governments are determined by economic class interests there will be cynicism, brutality and war. The only way to remove these evils is to abolish the source of class interests—the private ownership of the means of living. Only the establishment of Socialism can do this—there is no other way.

Gilmac.

WPA Strikes (1939)

From the December 1939 issue of The Western Socialist

Karl Marx, in his writings, predicted that some day the capitalists would have to take care of their slaves; that they would be forced to feed and otherwise keep alive an ever increasing army of unemployed workers. Modern capitalism has fulfilled this prediction with a vengeance.

In this era of chronic depression millions of workers are forced to remain idle. Their mental and physical energies cannot he utilized in a society based upon production for profit. These unemployed workers and their dependents must be either left to starve or be given a handout in the form of a dole or work relief. Handouts become the order of the day because the exploiting class cannot kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Furthermore, it is impossible to place these millions of workers in cold storage until they are again needed. The problem of what to do with these "useless” slaves would be rendered much simpler to the capitalist class if a few million were killed off in a war. (It must he remembered, however, that the capitalist nations do not wage wars with the object of getting rid of the unemployed.)

The following "solution" was actually proposed by John D. C. Weldon in the Magazine of Wall Street, Dec. 1935, who said. "Ten million potential workers and a total of possibly 30,000,000 people are outside the circle of work, production, and income. They are not only a burden — they are an economic loss — to speak with grim realism, the country would be relatively prosperous if they were annihilated.”

One of the mockeries of capitalism is that in the midst of this growing reserve army of unemployed, there exists a shortage of skilled workers. This is quite conspicuous in Great Britain and Germany. Only this month the N. Y. Times has been carrying British advertisements for skilled engineers. Thousands of industrial workers and farmers are being shipped into Germany. Even in the United States, there exists a shortage in many trades, notably airplanes. shipbuilding, and toolmaking.

Experience demonstrates that the old method of private charity can no longer cope with the conditions resulting from widespread unemployment, and thus the government is forced to administer relief. Though many capitalists oppose relief expenditures by the government as “wasteful extravagance” “harmful to business’, and that vague abstraction, “demoralizing the recipients”, unfolding events compel the capitalist class, through its executive committee, Congress, to hand out a dole. Buying off the discontent of hungry workers is more efficient than maintaining an enormous police force or employing other repressive apparatus to keep the workers in subjection. Disorders, riots, and possible insurrections of desperate workers are thereby averted.

Despite the realization by the property owners and their political representatives of the effective role that government-sponsored work relief and welfare play in the continuance of the status quo, their efforts are directed toward the reduction of the cost of relief. Economy measures are pushed in an effort to reduce the amount of dole paid welfare recipients and work relief employees, tending to bring the payments down to the bare subsistence level. Added to this is the old attempt to discourage the taking of welfare by placing a moral stigma thereon. The most recent application of this policy manifested itself in reduction of the rolls by quota cuts, extension of the work month to 130 hours, pay slashes and "30-day starvation furloughs.” These, together with the red tape, and the contemptuous attitude adopted toward welfare clients and WPA workers, are the typical methods employed to rid the relief rolls of idle workers. The result of these constant harrying attacks is to impair the precarious and already too low economic standing of the workers.

The tendency is to drive the standard of living towards and below the subsistence level. Yet, at the same time, for obvious reasons, they must see to it that this standard of living does not fall below the starvation level. There does arise, however, a point where the workers must and do resist. Through their limited WPA unions and unemployed organizations they attempt to withstand the pressure. This determination not to submit is inevitable and is the result of necessity and experience. Success can and has been obtained for the limited objective of resisting this pressure. Resistance has taken on various forms of activity including mass demonstrations, delegations, work stoppages, and strikes. In regard to the A. F. of L. strikes on the WPA in July 1939, there arises an interesting situation. The capitalist government ruling the U. S. A. refuses officially to recognize strikes on the part of WPA workers on the trumped-up grounds that "the people” can not strike against themselves. F. D. Roosevelt said, "You can’t strike against the government.” This statement becomes absurd in the face of the antagonism between workers and capitalists.

The real objection by capitalists to strikes of this kind is that they indicate a tendency that may develop into a threat to the capitalist state. This situation can be compared to the sit-down strikers disregard for private property. Though it is not a clearly formulated threat to the capitalist system, it does constitute a definite measure of loss of respect for the sanctity of the state. Confronted with these WPA strikes, the New Deal government loses some of its glamour and "benevolence.” The F. B. I. investigations, threats of arrest, removal from jobs, and the barring of home relief to WPA strikers betrays the real character of the New Deal. Whenever it becomes necessary, the capitalist state, as employer, confronting recalcitrant workers, is quick to strip off the velvet glove and wield its naked iron fist.

In view of this fact, it become apparent that victory for the working class depends upon control of that power, the state, which now strives to keep the workers in subjection and attempts to allay their discontent by offering them work relief and doles, which are. as other reforms, insufficient. The capture of “state power”, rather than the resisting of "state pressure”, must become the objective of the workers.

The concessions in the nature of reforms given to the workers under capitalism may temporarily alleviate but will never eradicate the misery of the working class. The continuation of capitalism with or without relief will only serve to perpetuate the hardships and suffering of the workers, both employed and unemployed. Capitalism has to have relief in order to exist. Ridding society of capitalism with its inevitable unemployment is the only solution. It can be seen that no amount or variety of reform will ever be able to abolish the workers' discontent. On the day that this discontent becomes crystalized into socialist understanding, we will see the end of capitalism and all its evil effects.

Peter Martel