100 days that will not shake the world (1964)

From the December 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

The dear old ladies of Cheltenham can come out from hiding in the cupboard and the grizzle-headed sons of toil can stop throwing their cloth caps into the air. There will be no revolution, as of yet.

The Labour Government, now about six weeks old, won the Election on a programme called The New Britain. Somewhere buried in the pages of that manifesto the word Socialist makes just two hasty, shamefaced appearances. Nowhere was the programme indiscreet enough to attempt a definition of Socialism. But in Cheltenham and Bermondsey this is a mere detail; the very mention of the word is enough to frighten some, and to enrapture others, in reality, nobody had any reason for getting excited about the new government, and Mr. Wilson's men soon got down to the job of convincing them of this.

During the Election, the Labour leader asked that his administration be granted a First Hundred Days, as new American governments are, to settle into the saddle and take up the reins of government. This idea caught on. The Guardian, which lately has leaned over backwards not to be beastly to the Labour Party, is co-operating by publishing a little diary of the period, recording events like: “To meet expected £800 million deficit Government announced 15 per cent levy on all imports except. . . . and “Letter to Prime Minister from Institution of Professional Civil Servants complaining. . . .” This was a rather cosy idea but perhaps Mr. Wilson had little time for such indulgences. He was busy.

The new Prime Minister immediately showed that he meant business. On his first Sunday in office he went along to Ten Downing Street dressed in a nondescript sports jacket and baggy trousers. The press loved this but the tailoring world took a rather different point of view. They were obviously afraid that the Wilson look might catch on, leaving a lot of suavely fashioned jackets and elegantly tapered trousers on their hands. Yet Wilson's rumpled appearance that Sunday was probably due to anything but absent mindedness. He has always promoted the image of himself as the ex-grammar schoolboy—the placid, earnest middle-class fellow made good. Just the chap, in fact, who always wears comfortable sports clothes on a Sunday. That jacket and those trousers were politically comfortable. The new Premier was dressed as carefully as if he had been turned out in Saville Row.

From the energetic man in Number Ten came the lists of Labour's Ministers. Mr. Frank Cousins could forget about the days of strife when he went on Aldermaston marches and swung his union's massive vote in favour of the Labour Party going unilateralist. His new job gave him responsibility for this country's military nuclear research. There was a Minister of Defence, Mr. Healey, to work hard to make weapons and a Minister of Disarmament, Mr. Alun Gwynne-Jones, who is supposed to get rid of them. There were all the usual appointments of men to look after the economic, commercial and financial affairs of British capitalism. The list got longer and longer—far more than Sir Alec had had—which showed that Mr. Wilson meant to play his part in producing more, even if it was only jobs for politicians.

Yet there were still doubts and fears. The Wilson Government was said, by people who pretend to understand such terms, to be too “left wing.'' There was the Prime Minister himself. There was Frank Cousins. Dick Crossman. Barbara Castle. All of them dangerous revolutionaries. Perhaps there were capitalists who were thinking it would not be long now before they returned after a hard day on the grouse moors to find that their servants had taken over the stately homes. The New Britain had promised that the Labour Government". . . will frame the broad strategy for increasing investment . . ." but what capitalist was going to want to invest when he might any day come home to find the under gardener with his feet up on the library table just finishing on the best brandy? Clearly, something had to be done to reassure them.

It was Mr. Ray Gunter, Minister of Labour, who spoke first. His subject was the dockers, and he was not diverted from saying his piece by the fact that he could easily be mistaken for a dockworker himself. Mr. Gunter is one of Labour's tough guys and likes to think himself as a blunt speaker. There was, of course, no need for him to be blunt about the dockers taking anything over; nothing was further from their intentions. They were only after another twenty-five shillings in their weekly pay packets, and some of them were sufficiently-keen on this to think the negotiators on both sides might be persuaded to hurry things along a bit if they (the dockers) went on unofficial strike.

Now to Mr. Gunter, on what he called the bed of nails at the Ministry of Labour, there is nothing worse that an unofficial strike. Such a strike might even upset the trade of British capitalism, or indirectly cut the profits of some exporting capitalists. So he spoke out. The dockers' threatened walk-out, he said, could ". . . only lead to anarchy, I strongly condemn such action.''

This was heartening stuff to the employers, who in their sillier moments might have imagined that a Labour Government stood for improved wages. The National Association of British Manufacturers promptly sent Mr. Gunter a telegram which “warmly welcomed” his intervention and offered him “any assistance'' they could give.

Mr. Douglas Jay was another member of the new government who seemed rather nervous about the effect of Labour's undeserved reputation for revolutionary hellfire. Mr. Jay is now President of the Board of Trade and he is obviously anxious to do all he can to maintain the economic interests of Britain's ruling class so that they still have some Trade for him to be President of the Board of. It did not take him long to arrange a visit to his counterparts in Red China, in the hope of drumming up some export orders. But before he went Mr. Jay made it quite clear, in case anyone should get the wrong idea while he was away, that the British capitalist class has absolutely nothing to fear from a Labour Government:

  The new Government (he said) starts with no prejudice or bias whatever against private business and industry. . . . Profits, provided they are earned by efficiency and technical progress, and not by restrictive practices or abuse of monopoly, are the sign of a healthy economy.

The response to this was immediate: “Mr. Jay cheers the stock markets” (The Guardian); “Jay's Assurances Help Equity Shares" (Daily Telegraph); “There was hardly anything Mr. Jay said . . . to which an enlightened industrialist or merchant banker would have hesitated to put his name.” (Samuel Brittan, then Economic Editor of The Observer).

Directly after this Mr. Wilson reappeared on television to tell us some more about his government's plans to boost the trade of British capitalism. Mr. Wilson was grave and purposeful, and had clearly been having some attention from the make-up men. He attacked wildcat strikes and restrictive practices. His government had that very day announced the fifteen per cent surcharge on imports, but that was a restrictive practice which escaped Mr. Wilson’s condemnation.

The effect of this surcharge is to alter the Customs regulations so that, for example, “wood sawn lengthwise, sliced or peeled . . . of a thickness exceeding five millimetres" is allowed into the country at the old rate of duty, while ". . . wood planed, tongued, grooved, rebated, chamfered, V-jointed, centre V-jointed, beaded, centre beaded . . ." must bear the new levy. In the same way, “Clothing, clothing accessories . . . showing signs of appreciable wear. . . ." escape the surcharge, while clothing which does not show signs of “ appreciable wear ” cost its importers another fifteen per cent duty.

It was apparently part of Labour's contribution to productivity to set a vast array of customs officers, shipping clerks and the like to work calculating and paying this extra duty. Perhaps somebody was grateful for this; at the same time as they imposed the new levy, the government gave a hand-out in the shape of a tax rebate to firms which are in the export trade. This rebate, also, will take a lot of working out, checking and cross-checking — work which will add precisely nothing to production. But the emergency measures were welcomed in the places where they know a bull market when they see one. Applauded The Guardian: “The response in financial markets to the Government's first economic measures was uniformly favourable." And Lord Inchcape, leading a delegation of Middle East exporters to the Board of Trade, was moved to say, “We welcome the Government’s proposed tax rebate scheme."

It was thus obvious that the Labour Government were doing all in their power to reassure the British ruling class that their interests were as secure as ever. And the ruling class showed their appreciation for this considerate attitude in the usual way. The Stock Exchange, where all men are far more equal than the others outside, and which is a sensitive (some say over-sensitive) barometer of its members’ prospects, responded. No shareholders sold out and fled to South America. No directors committed suicide. They just went on doing business in the normal manner:

October 19th.  

Gunter’s attack on the dockers. 

Stock Exchange "nervous . . . prices tumbling in most sections ” (The Guardian) Steels and insurances fell sharply. Financial Times Index (FTI) 9.5 points down at 350. 

October 20th. 

Mr. Jay’s statement on private industry and profits. 

Recovery in gilts, steels firm. FTI 1.7 points up to 351.7. 

October 21st. 

Further advance in gilts. Equities ". . . staging a strong rally ’’ (Daily Telegraph). FTI 6.6 points up to 357.8. 

October 22nd. 

Dockers decide on official strike for December 1st. 

October 26th. 

Emergency measures announced.
New account on Stock Exchange opened confidently.
Gilts, electrical and engineering shares up. FTI rose 3 points to 359.6 

October 27th. 

Gilts up again. Engineering and motor shares up. Allied Ironfounders—one of the companies which have donated to Conservative Party funds—gained 1 /10½d. on the day FTI climbed to 362.8—a rise of 3.2 points. 

October 28th. 

Recovery on Stock Exchange halted, as speculators sold to realise their profits. Good day for gilts. Bovis (with Sir Keith Joseph back on the board) gained l/6d. on the day. FTI dropped 3.5 points to 359.3  

October 29th. 

Business slacker. Channel Tunnel shares one of the few to rise. FTI fell 2.8 points to 356.5

The Stock Exchange will continue to fluctuate, under various influences, throughout the life of the Labour Government. One thing it will not do is to go out of existence. It is an important part of capitalism’s financial mechanism and the Labour Party has no intention of abolishing capitalism. Fundamental social change is not to be the ally, nor even the nodding acquaintance, of the Wilson Ministry. They have no mandate for such change and indeed have never asked for one. To have campaigned on a programme of social revolution would have been to administer the Kiss of Death to themselves, and Mr. Wilson is a man who fights hard to stay politically alive. So he stood, in the Words of The New Britain, to " .. . make government itself more efficient. . . . rekindle an authentic patriotic faith . . . " This vague nonsense won many more votes than Socialism, which after all is only a clearly defined solution to the hardships and contradictions of the modern world.

By their records shall we know them. The first Labour Government was famous for the personal vanity of its Ministers, for its reliance upon Liberal support and for its bungling of a prosecution. The second went down in history as the government which presided over the doubling of the unemployed, which split over the proposal to cut the dole and which finally, in part, sold out to the Tories.

The third lasted longer. They will forever be connected with the austerity of post-war England, with the wage-freeze, devaluation and the dollar gap. And they will be remembered as the government which eventually disintegrated, personally and politically, as so many of its members were killed or incapacitated by the strains of trying to control the waywardness of British capitalism.

What shall we remember the Wilson Government for? Will it, also, be swept from power by an economic tornado? Will it have to fight the unions, to impose a programme of rigid austerity? Such is the unpredictable anarchy of capitalism that the government, for all its erudite advisers, cannot know the answers to these questions.

Mr. Wilson is said to want to be remembered as the head of one of the great reforming Ministries of British history. We have been warned. There will be a spate of Bills dealing with all manner of minor anomalies. Sometimes they will be measures designed to undo the work of previous reforms. Some of them may be a little useful to working class. Most of them will be the usual shifts and compromises, the weary rearrangements of the pressures of poverty exploitation and the degrading of human beings. And when Mr. Wilson has finished capitalism will still be there, waiting for the next lot of manipulators to arrive.

There will be no revolution, as of yet. But how long the “of yet" lasts depends on the knowledge and the wishes of the people who send the manipulators back to Westminster. And that, Mr. and Mrs. Average Voter—in Cheltenham, in Bloomsbury—means you.

Ivan

Our Bromley Candidate's Message (1964)

Party News from the December 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

  The Bromley "Advertiser” invited our candidate, E. Grant, in the Parliamentary Election to state his position. We print below his statement which appeared in the issue of October 8th.

“My message in unorthodox. I am not a leader. I make no promises. I do not ask for your vote. Our election statement does not feature my photograph, neither does it say what a wonderful fellow I am.

The membership of the Socialist Party of Great Britain decided that, in line with our democratic approach to politics and desire to disseminate the Socialist idea, we would use our limited funds to make a token stand in two constituencies. Bromley and Glasgow Woodside.

Here the real alternatives are made clear: either the continuance of capitalism, with all the miseries and indignities that flow from it, or the establishment of of world-wide social equality based upon the common ownership of the means of living. We seek a mandate for Socialism. Nothing less will do.

Faced with a world in which two-thirds of mankind is starving, a class-divided world wracked with war and haunted by insecurity, the Socialist is one who realises that to solve such problems our capitalist way of life which gives rise to them must be replaced by a new social structure. It is both necessary and practical for the working nine-tenths of humanity to organise, consciously and democratically, to dispossess the owning one-tenth, and to place in the hands of the community the means of providing comfort and plenty for all.

Socialism involves far more even than the provision of abundance, of which we would take freely according to our needs. When work ceases to be employment, it will not remain the meaningless drudgery it is when we are forced to do it for a wage or salary. When the world’s resources are held in common and things are made not for profit but solely for use, work will take on a meaning it cannot have today.

Craftsmanship will flourish and the gap between the creative artist and the automata of the offices and the workshops seeking escape into mass-produced leisure pursuits and hooliganism will be closed. We ourselves shall decide where we work, how long, and at what tempo.

Technology, now so largely devoted to developing means of destruction, will be diverted towards eliminating undesirable toil. All races will live together in harmony. We shall become integrated, creative human beings.

It is a mistake to believe that the Labour Party, with its petty national mentality and its list of palliatives, contributes towards Socialism. Like the Conservatives and Liberals, they aspire to administer capitalism and, in power, do all the terrible things this task involves. The “socialism” of the Labour Party, like that of the Communists, is a myth.

A word about I.N.D.E.C. They protest against one of the greatest dangers we face and imagine it possible to isolate the nuclear problem from all the others and solve it within the capitalist framework. The truth is that war itself dictates the weapons, and capitalism is war-prone. The urgent task before us, therefore, is its abolition.

I urge the electors to consider this revolutionary proposition, and to act upon it.”

Eddie Grant

The Passing Show: Merry Christmas You Suckers (1964)

The Passing Show Column from the December 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Merry Christmas You Suckers

— “A merry Christmas you suckers . . .” (Paddy Roberts).

This is the month when everyone is caught in a deluge of hypocrisy. It is the time of the year when the consumer goods market is stuffed with a horrifying mass of gadgets and gifts of all kinds, when traders are anxiously stocking their shelves in the hope of a sales recovery after the autumn slack, and when workers are getting their Christmas lists ready for the annual "exchange" of presents.

We mentioned hypocrisy. The G.P.O. takes on extra staff to cope with the mountain of mail which will appear in the fortnight or so before the 25th—a large portion of it greetings cards. Many of these cards will be sent to people whom, if you are honest with yourselves, you care little or nothing about; but such is the pressure of Yuletide tradition, that you convince yourselves to the contrary and then forget all about it for another twelve months.

Whatever one may feel about the religious origin of Christmas—and it’s worth hardly a shrug of the shoulders—we should perhaps examine the “peace and goodwill” message and ask ourselves whether it measures up to the world we know. First of all, is there peace in the world ? Maybe the various politicians would call it that, just because at this moment there is no major conflict going on. It could more truthfully be described as an uneasy lull while each side builds ever more terrible weapons, waiting for the day when they will be used. The conflicts leading to war are as strong as ever, and while they exist peace can never be a reality.

Then again, is there really goodwill to all men? Smethwick is a timely reminder of the conditions which make an empty mockery of the very sentiment. For the prejudices of Smethwick on October 15th are basically those of every non-Socialist the world over, on every day of the year. Prejudice between people takes many forms, racialism being only one of them, and will be with us in one shape or another as long as capitalism lasts. This is the system which throws us against each other in competition and provides the breeding ground for the petty snobberies, undignified squabbles, the race to keep up with the Joneses, the bitterness and often the outbreaks of naked violence.

No doubt many of you this season will eat and drink a bit too much, and tell your workmates what great guys they are. You will buy drinks all round on December 24th, and spew half of it up on the way home. You will listen to the maudlin platitudes of the Queen's speech the next afternoon, and tell yourselves it's not such a bad world after all. But in the bleary aftermath, the ugly truth will still be there. It will still be a capitalist world. You will still be members of the working class and the problems of twelve months ago will still face you in all their urgency.


The same old story

The past year or two have seen a lot of talk about a national wages policy. All the main political parties had this in their recent election programmes, suitably hedged round with meaningless adjectives such as “just,” “realistic,” “planned” etc . . . . But stripped of the verbiage, what does it mean in practice? Simply that workers’ demands for higher wages will be resisted, as always. True, the politicians will talk about “national interest” and the need to make ‘‘our” goods more competitive on the world market, and “sharing the burden more fairly.” They will try to convince us that increased production and static wage rates will mean a higher standard of living for all.

Do they themselves really believe what they are so persistent in telling us? If they do, you'd think they would be the first to cut their own incomes to the bone, but a glance at the salaries of some of the new Labour government ministers will quickly give the lie to this. And the rank-and-file M.P.s will probably be quick to vote themselves a rise of several hundred pounds a year if the opportunity presents itself.

But if you think that this is a peculiarity of English politics, you'd better take a good look elsewhere. All over the capitalist world, pressure for wage increases meets with the same bitter opposition as here. Some really hefty strikes have been fought out in such countries as Germany, France and U.S.A. over the past few years, to the usual claptrap talked by those in power. New Zealand, that example of state-subsidised paradise so beloved of the left, has certainly not gone unscathed in the field of labour disputes, and currently is suffering an economic crisis similar to Britain's. Prime Minister Holyoake has called for ‘‘common sense, restraint, and adjustment” (Guardian Oct. 24th) to meet the situation, although only a few days previously, M.P.s had awarded themselves a 39 per cent salary increase.

Over the water in Australia too. Parliamentarians have been setting a grand example in abstemious living. Says The Guardian of Oct. 29th :

  The salaries of Members in both Houses are increased from £A2,750 to £A3,500, plus an additional £A250 on their constituency allowances which may vary between £A800 and £A1,050 a year. . . . All Ministers, Parliamentary officers, and Leaders of Opposition in both Houses receive higher salaries and allowances. The Prime Minister . . .  receives additional salary and allowances bringing them to a total of £A17,100.

Labour opposition leader Calwell supported the increases. He did not think it could be said “that members had been avaricious or greedy.” Of course not. They have just forgotten the dire warnings which they themselves have uttered about the disastrous consequences of higher wages. But then, they don’t believe what we’re told, and neither should we.


A touch of Smethwick

Despite the politicians' protests, the racial issue poked its ugly nose into the recent election campaign and two Labour candidates were toppled by it — Fenner Brockway at Slough and Patrick Gordon-Walker at Smethwick. Even by the accepted standards of capitalist politics, the new Tory M.P. for Smethwick, Alderman Griffiths, was said to have fought a dirty campaign; he accepted the help of avowedly fascist workers like Mrs. Crow, and lost no opportunity of appealing to working class ignorance and prejudice along racialist and nationalist lines. His meetings were noted for the deliberate way in which he played upon the baser emotions and feelings of his audiences. In this way it was fatally easy for Gordon-Walker, whose popularity anyway had been falling in the area with each election, to be out manoeuvred and lose the fight. His party now supports immigration control, but apparently he was unable to square this with his opponent's taunt that Labour voted against it when Gaitskell was their leader.

To all accounts, Gordon-Walker fought a “gentlemanly” campaign, but what about his own feelings on the racial question? During the election he hotly denied that his daughter was marrying a “black” or that he owned a house in Smethwick and let it out to coloured people. Perhaps at the back of it all he is not so full of brotherly love for those of darker skins as many people may have thought. Nor should we forget the record of the Labour Party when last in power.

Then, Gordon-Walker was their Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations. In 1950, he had no hesitation in exiling the Bamangwato Tribe’s elected leader Seretse Khama, from Bechuanaland, when he had the temerity to marry a white woman, Ruth Williams. There was strong suspicion that he had been influenced by the South African government’s hysterical opposition to mixed marriages: nevertheless, he maintained a gentlemanly but stubborn refusal to publish the report of the official enquiry into the affair.

However, times change somewhat, and with the emergence of more African independent states, the astute capitalist politician realises that overt racialism can be a very hot potato indeed. Even Alderman Griffiths has toned down his remarks since the election, as was obvious from his maiden speech, which played down the issue. Anyway, there will be an increasing “coloured” vote in Britain over the next few years, and Griffiths will probably not be the only one trying to forget the things he said in 1964.

Allowing for all this, however, colour prejudice is likely to be with us for some time to come. Why do we say this? Because in their ignorance of the real cause of their problems, workers will always seek a scapegoat. No legal enactment can deal with that. At the turn of the century it was the Jews of London’s East End who were blamed for overcrowding and squalor, among other things. Then it was the turn of the Irish. As these minorities have become assimilated, antagonism towards them has lessened, although by no means disappeared. With the Negro or Indian worker it is a different story. Their dark skin will pick them out in a crowd and provide a ready focus for the outbreaks of frustration and violence which are so much a feature of private property society.

Yes, workers everywhere have a lot to learn. They have yet to grasp the idea that what really matters is their class status, not the colour of their skins. It is a depressing picture —but not a hopeless one.

Eddie Critchfield

Stalin at the Gates of India (1939)

From the December 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

The British Empire is in the throes of a metamorphosis, and what is emerging we cannot even dimly discern, our masters are in the same fix as ourselves, the forces of capitalism are far stronger than their puny minds; the British Commonwealth of Nations may shortly assume a form not altogether to the liking of those who live by exploitation, though it may be more in accord with the aspirations of those who at present carry the ball and chain of wage slavery.

The Dominions are now a power in the Imperial sphere: the mother country no longer dictates; she tries to keep harmony in the family, but the rapid growth of her numerous offspring, together with the fetters which capitalism places on production, results in developments which are not perhaps strictly to her liking but which she must accept.

No sooner was war declared than the cry of "Dominion status” was raised in India: the rising capitalist class of India saw their opportunity and seized it. Great Britain finds herself on the horns of a dilemma; to refuse the demands of the dusky inhabitants of this portion of the Imperial domain would be to alienate the sympathy of millions at a time when it is necessary for all to pull together; to grant them would foster the ambitions of those who want India to break away; the Hindoos may get their demands acceded to, with a string attached to them.

Economic evolution in Asia has been rapidly unsettling the social order surviving from unnumbered years. The consequences of the fundamental changes that are now proceeding are looked upon by the Conservative element as the work of the passionate agitator, who gives voice to the discomfort of the masses ruthlessly shifted from their accustomed environment.

The dissolution of the self-contained village communities brought about by the stealthy penetration of exchange economy is bringing results similar to those capitalist development brought in Europe.

Mass production has invaded Asia and set millions of peasants on the move; they are trying to get rich and losing their land; as they come tumbling into wage-slavery and inquire as to the why and wherefore the spies of Stalin orient them to the mecca of Moscow, which becomes more and more their inspiration and their hope.

Moscow has for many years had amongst its many inhabitants those told off to educate the visitors from the Orient; it is interesting to observe in the one-time throne room of the czars how patiently the delegates listen to the remarks of a Hindoo, Malay or Chinaman, and how the Mahommedan visitor is carefully piloted along the path that leads him into the labyrinth of Soviet diplomacy.

Elphinstone wrote in 1819: “If we can manage our native army and keep out the Russians, I see nothing to threaten the safety of our Empire—until the natives become enlightened under our tuition, and a separation becomes desirable to both parties."

In 1824 another Indian official wrote to the same effect: "We should look upon India, not as a temporary possession, but as one that is to be maintained permanently until the natives shall, in some future age, have abandoned most of their superstitions and prejudices and become sufficiently enlightened to frame a regular government for themselves and to conduct and preserve it. Whenever such a time shall arrive it will probably be best for both countries that the British control over India should gradually be withdrawn. That the desirable change may, in some future age, be effected in India there is no cause to despair. Such a change was at one time in Britain at least as hopeless as it is here. We shall in time so far improve the character of our Indian subjects as to enable them to govern and protect themselves.”

The air of detached superiority pervading such statements enables one to understand why a sensitive people refused to co-operate with those so anxious about their "improvement.”

The intentions of well-meaning men are often fruitless when formulated with an air of condescension; the exploitation of India was undertaken, not for the good of the inhabitants of the country, but in order to benefit the ruling class of Imperial Britain; in spite of this, however, it must be admitted that, of all the conquerors of India, Britain has consciously or unconsciously proved the best from the standpoint of India’s future; the culture upon which British rule has been based and the novelties adopted in the enforcement of the law have put India into the way of ruling itself. Britain has shepherded India into the orbit of modern nations; capitalist development let loose an economic force, the social institutions now being created are to some extent shaped from the ideas generated by British influence.

The reader may form the opinion that the apparently hide-bound caste system would retard or prevent altogether those changes necessary to enable India’s proletariat to get in step with their Western brethren, but this is not altogether as formidable an obstacle as is generally supposed. The caste system does not operate entirely as the Western observer might expect; in some ways it is curiously democratic. Each caste is internally a self-governing and self-ordering community, rather like a guild in mediaeval Europe. It imposes on itself, without the assistance or intervention of the State, its own laws through its own committees and councils, on which each member has a vote. The caste is, moreover, a kind of brotherhood, often stretching over wide areas, within which all caste-fellows are equal, regardless of wealth or position in life. The caste also performs charitable functions, and is bound together by common reverence for the caste deity. And, curiously enough, the whole system, despite its antiquity, is remarkably flexible and adjustable to new conditions. Some castes were originally purely occupational, such as goldsmiths, grain merchants and (lower in the scale) weavers. Still other occupations, such as leather working, are considered degrading; and those who practise them are outside the caste system altogether. The economic factor can be seen working changes in the caste system similar to that which may have taken place in the trade unions; for instance, in some parts of India chauffeurs and electricians are now forming something like a caste, and, true to the old principle of specialisation, are relegating certain duties, regarded as menial, to other incipient but inferior castes. Also, if a caste abandons an occupation which carries some social stigma and adopts another, it tends to rise in popular estimation. An increase in the wealth of a particular caste, due to some change in economic conditions, may also raise its prestige, and it then tends to adopt the social practices of higher castes. Enough has been said to indicate it will not take capitalism long to cause the Hindoos to adapt their caste system to the exigencies of modern wage slavery with its snobbery, etc.—they haven’t even as much to learn, as many people would have us believe, to make them good commodity producers—caste consciousness may be a long way from class consciousness, but the remorseless march of the machine will eventually cause the one to evolve into the other. Before 1918 no trade unions as such existed in India, to-day there are probably a million members of organised trade unions in the country. In the present scramble Indian labour will make its presence felt and in the days to come its voice will be decisive. The revolutionists of India in exile came into contact with the Socialists of other countries and the movement has been enriched by the literature which these Reds have from time to time contributed; students and travellers have also played their part; the one-time Dominion Secretary of the Socialist Party of Canada, a Hindoo named Rahim, proved himself an able and faithful comrade during a trying period; Socialism is at work in India, and although at present confined to a few, conditions are becoming favourable for its growth.

India’s workers have not been allowed to emigrate and settle in the Dominions on the same terms as their white brothers, and this has been one of the causes of friction between the wage slaves of India and the other countries of the Empire. Stalin and Co. have not been slow to take advantage of the situation; the Labour movement of India, as a consequence, is not controlled from London so much as from Moscow; ignorance of this fact by the workers themselves does not detract from its truth.

Many motives induced the demand for a White Australia, but, unquestionably, in addition to racial prejudice there operated most powerfully the economic motive. At the Imperial Conference of 1911 Lord Crewe denounced the attempt of New Zealand to exclude the employment of Indians on any vessels trading to the ports of that Dominion. "There is nothing morally wrong,” he argued, “in a man being a vegetarian and a teetotaller, and his wife and family also, and being able to live very much more cheaply than people who adopt the European standard of comfort. . . . If a man is content to live on rice and water, and does not require pork, beef and rum, he naturally is able to support his family on a very much lower scale.” He wanted cheap labour for his class. The belief that Asiatic workers in general either force out the white workers or compel the latter to adopt the Indian scale is widespread, and in large measure it is justified.

How fervently the belief in the policy of a White Australia is held is proved conclusively by the fact that any hint of the mere possibility of opening up the Northern Territory to Asiatic immigration is deeply resented and the deliberate policy of the Commonwealth is to postpone exploitation and development indefinitely rather than in the slightest relax the strictness of the exclusion principle.

In New Zealand the movement against Asiatic immigration, directed against Chinese and Japanese, and only in a minor degree Indians, was contemporaneous with that in the Australian Commonwealth. Public opinion is unanimous in opposition to Indian immigration. No country has been so anxious to build high standards for their workers as New Zealand, and it is thought that the pressure of competition from Indians would tend to minimise progress in this direction.

Canada has had an unfortunate record in her dealings with the problems. Freda M. Houlston and B. P. L. Bede, in their book, “India Analysed,” point out that it was Chinese and Japanese penetration into British Columbia which aroused the keen anxiety of the people on the Pacific coast. The motive again was predominantly economic. In the lines of occupation taken up by them the white population of the province soon found itself unable to compete, and, great as was the economic advantage to the country as a whole of these busy and effective workers, it has long waged war with the end of extinguishing the competition they create. As against the Chinese, though the trouble is not over, the province has in the main been victorious, for China has no treaty with Canada to impose restrictions on Canadian federal or provincial action. As regards the Japanese, the matter is different, for Canadian need for trade outlets has rendered it necessary to secure Japanese goodwill, and the stationing of a Canadian Minister at Tokyo and the reception of an envoy from Japan at Ottawa are significant proofs of the deep concern of Canada with maintenance of friendly relations. Japan, for her part, has acquiesced in the decision of Canada that immigration on any large scale is banned. A limited number of Japanese can enter the Dominion each year, the whole matter being regulated by the grant of Japanese passports duly visaed by the Canadian representative at Tokyo.

Hindoos in Canada have fared worse than Japanese, although the former are British subjects. It was in part the recognition that the immigration regulations under the Act of 1910 were more unfavourable to British Indians than to Japanese that prompted the effort to coerce Canada into admitting the shipload of would-be immigrants in the “Komagata Maru” about 1914. The result was not wholly favourable to the position of Indians in the Dominions, nor, of course, did it in the least effect the purpose of compelling the Dominion to facilitate entrance. At the Imperial Conferences the attitude of Canada has been at once courteous and conciliatory in tone, but in action it has been adamant against concession of the right of immigration, save in the case of wives and children of de facto monogamous marriages of Indians themselves lawfully resident in the Dominion. Nor has the Federal Government succeeded in persuading the legislature of British Columbia to abandon the needless exclusion of Indians from the right to acquire the franchise. The retention of this attitude cannot be regarded as compatible with the good feeling requisite between parts of the Empire.

While the small number of Hindoos in Canada render the issue one of academic rather than of practical importance, the issue in South Africa involves large numbers of people whose original home was India and deeply affects inter-imperial relations. In Natal the Indian population was deliberately introduced to build up the prosperity of the country by the use of indentured labour at a time when no other form of labour was available, and that by now the Indians of Natal are largely descendants of those who stayed on with the permission of the Natal Government after the expiration of their indentured service. In the Transvaal the problem assumed another form, which space forbids me to elucidate. Certain concessions were made as regards the proposed setting aside of areas for Indians and a promise made to consider on equitable grounds any cases where hardship would be caused by enforcing the clauses of the Gold Law prohibiting the presence of Asiatics in certain areas.

The right of Indians is denied unless they determine to reach Western standards of living. Competition by Indians with lower standards of living has proved the difficulty for certain classes of Europeans to make a living, and it is hoped to eliminate this pressure by the removal of those Indians whose competition would be formidable.

I have dealt with this phase of the subject at length: the sellers of labour-power compete with one another: the cheapest commands the sale: the discrimination against the Hindoo worker by his white brother has not prevented the development of capitalism or retarded the downward trend: race antagonism has undoubtedly interfered with the movement for class unity, but both brands of labour- power are being forced by bitter experience to recognise that the exploiter can only be successfully opposed when fought from the basis of the class struggle.

The robotisation of Russia has enabled that country to move rapidly along capitalist lines, but the bureaucracy finds itself unable to compete successfully with its opponents of the Western world. It is all very well for its devotees to talk about one-sixth of the earth’s surface being under a Socialist government, these understand neither geography nor Socialism. Most of the Russian rivers run the wrong way; her natural resources, although vast, are not conveniently placed. The rulers of Russia know what they are up against if their dupes do not. It is to be noticed that those industries that enable armaments to be produced have been those that have been principally fostered and developed. From the very first, expansion has been aimed at, the object being to plunder under the banner of Communism those countries to which they could gain access. The tools of the Russian Czar, Stalin, and his Grand Duke commissars have been used to organise groups in all countries that could be penetrated; bodies that would implicitly obey the instructions of the Moscow Mogul. India has been the object of Russia’s ambitions for more than a century, and Stalin is making a bid to carry out the aspirations of his predecessors.

Capitalist Britain is the enemy of Russia. Stalin’s group have for years been busily at work undermining the power of their foe. In the great diplomatic game of the past few years, Stalin and Co. fell victims to the illusion that they had fooled the British ruling class as to their intentions.

Britain was apparently blind to what Russia was doing in Singkiang or even in Canada and every part of the Empire; Communists were apparently allowed every opportunity to get their work in. They did not realise they were being headed off—not until it was too late. Russia strove desperately to get Britain involved in Spain; if only the Western countries were tied up Russia could have a free hand in Asia. Britain did not bite. The Front Populaire failed to function at the critical moment. The French Government was wise, too. Austria and Czechoslovakia were allowed to pass under Hitler’s control, but suddenly, when Poland was invaded, Germany’s bluff was called, and so also was the bluff of Russia. There was hurrying to and fro, consultations, threats and moves in the Baltic. Britain and France countered with the treaty with Turkey. Russia is now desperately striving to obtain defensive and offensive positions in the Baltic, and her dupes in the Far East are commanded to compel Chiang-Kai-Shek to use all his forces immediately against the Japanese, otherwise he will be deposed by Moscow.

Singapore is completed. Britain, Holland and France stand ready. The bear will, for a while, ride rough-shod over certain parts of Eastern Europe. He may even retake Bessarabia, but he will find himself in a jackpot when the revolution in Germany, now within measurable distance, isolates him. Need is compelling Russia to show her hand, to disclose to the observing proletariat of the Western world what she really is. In the Near East and across Asia, through Iran, Irak and in Afghanistan, her spies and agents are actively at work teaching “Communism”; in reality building up an Imperial Russian organisation against Imperial Britain.

Russia is compelled to act now she perceives her enemy has anticipated every move she made, and she fears, unless she strikes now, it may be too late.

The discussion going on re Indian status is apparently outside what I have dealt with above, but it is vitally connected with it. Stalin and his group plan to place themselves at the head of 1,000 million Asiatics and make a bid for control of Asia and the world. In spite of the courage and tenacity of his Chinese Communists, China is still China, and refuses to be Stalinised, and if Russia eventually marches to the gates of India it may be that Britain, by giving the hope of Dominion status and the vision of independence to India has caused Stalin to be opposed, not alone by the armies of Imperial, Britain, but by those whom he was planning to bring under the hammer and sickle.

How fascinating it is to watch the loom of time turning out history! It is good to be alive and to know and feel the full meaning of what is unfolding.

Capitalism is approaching its death agony: the proletariat of the world are gathering around its death-bed.

Charles Lestor

Notes by the Way: An Imaginary Incident After the War (1939)

The Notes by the Way column from the December 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

An Imaginary Incident After the War

Mr. Burgin is the Minister of Supply. Speaking at a luncheon given by the Institution of Production Engineers on November 17th (The Times, November 18th), he told an admiring audience of the vast sums of money being spent on the war; how “in the 75th day of the war £160 millions had been expended by his Department alone. In the week ended November 7th the amount in sterling of new orders was over £20 millions.”

So pleasing was this news that one of Beaverbrook’s papers hailed Mr. Burgin as one of the real discoveries of the war. Sir John Simon says that the war is already costing the Government over £6 millions a day.

On Friday, November 10th, the Director-General of Munitions Production in Mr. Burgin’s Ministry of Supply, Vice-Admiral Sir Harold Brown, spoke enthusiastically about the way the workers are working: —

  We are all grateful for the way in which employers and labour have joined in. I do not recall a single case as regards labour where the men have not given of their utmost.
  The behaviour of the men in the shops and the way they have worked has been simply splendid. They have not only given of their utmost, but in a most astonishing way they have tackled jobs they had never done before.
 lt is amazing to see how those who may have £3,000 or £4,000 worth of work under their responsibility at a lathe, but who are not paid large amounts, accept responsibility quite cheerfully and successfully. —Daily Telegraph November 11th.

Now imagine the following scene in Parliament after the war: —

Mr. Burgin, on behalf of the Government, proposes that, as the workers are “not paid large amounts” and are doing work of great responsibility in an admirable way, there shall be an immediate all-round increase of wages, of a handsome amount. Mr. Burgin then quotes Sir Harold as witness, and is followed by one speaker after another generously paying tribute to these splendid fellows, the workers. Then—after Mr. Burgin and Sir John Simon have explained that money is no object and, anyway, the propertied class are only too willing to make sacrifices—Parliament agrees unanimously.

Curtain!

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Professor Haldane on Democracy

Writing in the Daily Worker (November 16th), Professor Haldane discusses ancient and modern conceptions of democracy and puts in a plea for careful definition of terms. Yet he falls into curious mental blindness when discussing the Russian dictatorship (which he calls a democracy). This is what he says: —

  It is often stated that the Soviet Union is not a democracy in the British sense because very few elections to the Supreme Soviet are contested, so the electors have no-choice between candidates.

His answer to this is to recall that centuries ago contested elections were rare under the English parliamentary system, and it was only with the struggle between capitalists and landlords that party contests became the rule. Then he adds: —

  “But with the end of the class struggle it is natural that electoral contests should also become unusual."

All of which is ingenious, or muddled, because Professor Haldane is knocking down an Aunt Sally put up by himself. Nobody states that the Soviet Union is not a democracy in the British sense merely “because very few elections . . . are contested," but for the reason that the contesting of elections by any political party except the Communist Party is rigidly forbidden! A very different thing.

Professor Haldiane should continue his examination of Bolshevik totalitarianism.

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The Stalin-Hitler Pact Reaches Spain and Portugal

The following is from The Times (November 17th, 1939):—

  German agents in Portugal have been instructed to say that Nazism is only another name for a better form of Marxism; both meet in the triumphant cause of anti-capitalism. The aim here is to disrupt the Republic and to confuse popular opinion.
  From Spain comes evidence (confirmed from German sources) that the Germans have established contact with the anti-Francoists and Communists still in Spain, and are actually supporting them financially.
  They want to put pressure on General Franco, and they hope that by creating anxieties within Spain they will at any rate prevent Spanish exports from being sent to Great Britain and to France.
  This is cynical, but no more so than the German dispatch of arms secretly to the Spanish Republicans over a year ago . . .

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German Convicts more Humane than Nazis

An interesting comment on Nazi concentration camps appeared in a letter from a German refugee, published by the Manchester Guardian (November 9th, 1939). Below is an extract from his letter: —

 "My experience as a prisoner in one of the concentration camps agrees with the White Paper; but I feel obliged to raise my voice in favour of a category of camp prisoners repeatedly mentioned in the reports. These are the so-called “professional .criminals." Maybe they were employed as “overseers" by the camp commander and were intended to act as tools of cruelty and for the disparagement of the non-Aryan prisoners. But in my personal experiences they did not behave like that.
  They did not try “to curry favour with the S.S. by maltreating us” (page 35-6), but they declared themselves from the first day not to be our superiors but our comrades. They had to fulfil the commands given by their superiors, the brutal and cruel S.S. men, but when they could avoid it and be helpful to us they did.
 If ever I had a prejudice against the sentenced criminal I lost it in the camp. Most of the “professional criminals” were never inclined to the sadistic brutality of the S.S. I dare to say that without the buffer formed by our criminals life in the camp would have been far worse than it was.”

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The Communist International Forgets Fascism

Poor Mr. Harry Pollitt stumbles from one blunder to another. In a meeting he addressed at Glasgow (reported in Forward, November 11th), he pointed out that the Allied governments do not wish to offend Italy, so they do not proclaim “Fascism” as the enemy, only “Hitlerism"—“Not one member of the British Government has yet said that we are fighting against Fascism." He cannot have digested his Daily Worker of November 7th, in which the Communist International issued a lengthy "Call against War.” Hitherto the Communist International has always denounced Fascism and demanded action against the Fascists. This time—since the pact with Hitler —their manifesto nowhere mentions Fascism except to deny the British and French claim that the war is “for the salvation of democracy from Fascism.” Instead of “Fascism” the Communist International now finds (as it used to, back in the early ’nineteen-twenties) that the enemy is “Reaction.” So under cover of a hardly noticeable substitution of words the Communists make way for a return to their old policy of denouncing “reaction,” i.e., the French and British ruling class (who were, until two months ago, "democracies” when Russia wanted their aid), and simultaneously denouncing the Labour parties as the friends of reaction.

The next act in the farcical tragedy was the abject apology published by Mr. Pollitt and Mr. J. R. Campbell in the Daily Worker (November 23rd). Mr. Campbell says: “I narrowed the perspective in such a way as to concentrate oh German Fascism as the main enemy of the British working class. .  . .”

Mr. Pollitt likewise: “My hatred of Fascism had developed by five years' intensive anti-Fascist propaganda, which led to a position where I did not see in time the true role of British imperialism, and saw only German Fascism as the main enemy of the British working-class movement.”

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Labour Party Peace Aims

At the Caxton Hall on November 8th, 1939, Mr. Attlee made a speech setting forth the War and Peace Aims of the Labour Party. The speech was reproduced at length in the Daily Herald (November 9th). In all ways the statement was typical of the Labour Party belief, that the world can be put right if only the democrats stand firmly by a policy of “Justice for all.” Standing firm means at present waging war, and justice after the war is to mean the following six principles: —

1. Restitution to victims of aggression, but no revenge; peace by agreement of all nations, not by dictation of a few.
2. Recognition of the right of all nations to live and to develop their own civilisation.
3. Complete abandonment of aggression; outlawry of war; and acceptance of the rule of law.
4. Protection of minority rights by international authority.
5. Europe must federate or perish.
6. No imperialism; equal access for all nations to markets and raw materials.

The Times, from whose columns the above summary of the principles is taken, speaks very favourably of Mr. Attlee's statement. In its leader (November 9th) The Times says: —

  Mr. Attlee’s pronouncement yesterday on Labour’s peace aims was clear and decided. It matches well, though it was the speech of the Leader of the Opposition, with the declaration of the Foreign Secretary the day before. In no essential particular is there any divergence of opinion, and once again it is proclaimed to all the world that this country is of one mind and purpose in choosing the terrible resort to war rather than submit to the repetition of faith-breaking aggression which makes life intolerable for nations of free and civilised instincts.

Supporters of the Labour Party must think it odd that the organ of Toryism should find itself seeing so nearly eye to eye with Mr. Attlee, for has not the Labour Party often declared—though without real understanding—that war in the modern world is a product of capitalism? Has not the Labour Party also declared—again without understanding—that its aim is to abolish capitalism ?

The explanation of this ability to agree on war and peace aims can be found in the statement itself, for it nowhere mentions Socialism !

Mr. Attlee and the Daily Herald would reply, no doubt, that when he asks for “social justice within states" Socialism is what he means. But though he may make that defence in good faith what he envisages as Socialism is only the old capitalism with its worst evils seemingly pruned away by means of reform legislation. That this is so can be seen by the Daily Herald's belief that the Forestry Commission is “Socialist enterprise” (Daily Herald, November 20th) and by Mr. Attlee's description of the functions of a more powerful International Labour Office after the war: —

 It should be given the task of preparing international minimum standards of wages, hours and industrial conditions, in order that by increased production, by a more just distribution and by the wealth released from expenditure upon arms, the standard of living of the workers shall everywhere be raised. 

Surely the Tory Times can be benevolent about these aims—so could Hitler. But even if such developments were seriously attempted—and capitalism will always provide ample excuses in the shape of crises and “paying for the war” and “recapturing foreign markets” why the attempt should be postponed indefinitely—it will still be capitalism, not Socialism.

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Communist versus Communist: The Argument Continues

Below are some further extracts from Communist Party declarations about the war : —

From “Why This War?” (Mr. Palme Dutt—published by the Communist Party in November, 1939): —

  We are told that this is a war in defence of peace against aggression and that therefore all defenders of peace and collective security should support it. There never was a bigger lie.—P. 8.
  This war is a fight between imperialist powers over profits, colonies, and world domination.—P. 4.
  This war is not a war for democracy against Fascism. It is not a war for the liberties of small nations.—P.. 4.

From “How to Win the War” (Harry Pollitt— published by the Communist Party in September, 1939. Now withdrawn from circulation): —

  The Communist Party supports the war, believing it to be a just war which should be supported by the whole working-class and all friends of democracy in Britain.—P. 3.
  These fundamental principles of liberty, peace, and Socialism now at stake have determined the decision of the Communist Party. To stand aside from this conflict, to contribute only revolutionary- sounding phrases while the Fascist beasts ride roughshod over Europe, would be a betrayal of everything our forbears have fought to achieve in the course of long years of struggle against capitalism.—P. 4. 

From Daily Worker, September 19th (after the collapse of Poland)

  Not only is every European people viewing the fate of the Polish people with sympathy. It is also viewing it with apprehension. Where will the next blow fall? Who will be the next victim?
  That is why it is impossible for the British and French people to even contemplate a surrender to Nazi aggression. The war to halt Fascist aggression must go on with redoubled energy, and the British people will insist on a people’s Government capable of prosecuting that war.

From a Manifesto issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Daily Worker, August 4th, 1939—a month before war broke out) : — 

  It would be wrong to see the situation to-day, therefore, as a mere repetition of 1914-1918. In the last war, two alliances of great Powers, equally anxious to seize each other’s territory, equally aggressive, confronted each other.
  To-day there is only one alliance of aggressors— Germany, Italy, and Japan—which is, however, being tolerated and encouraged by the pro-Fascist big business elements in other countries.

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Correction: "The Strange Case of Professor Mamlock”

In the November The Socialist Standard a statement was quoted from the Daily Herald to the effect that the Russian authorities withdrew their anti-Nazi film, ‘‘Professor Mamlock,” after the pact of friendship with Hitler was signed.

Mr. Ivor Montagu, in a letter to the New Statesman (November 18th), says that the film “is not now banned and has not at any time been banned in the Soviet Union.”

Edgar Hardcastle

Editorial: Wages in War-Time (1939)

Editorial from the December 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

Not only in a military sense has this been a "strange war." It has been strangely disarming on the home front also. The politicians and employers and the trade union officials have all remarked on the “good relationship" existing between masters and men.

The Government gave orders that the Departments of State were to seek co-operation with the unions. No big strikes are threatened, and conciliation and arbitration appear to be the order of the day. Primed with the experience gained in the last war, it must seem to those in authority that no cloud can arise to darken this fair scene. Have not the Government declared against profiteering and against a serious rise of prices? And has not Mr. Arthur Greenwood answered that the “trade union leaders have made no attempt to make class capital out of this war"? (Daily Express, November 17th, 1939).

Can anything go amiss with so happy a union? The answer is that it can and certainly will. Rising prices will break down the seeming harmony. Up to November 1st the cost-of-living, as measured by the Ministry of Labour Index, had risen by 14 points, equivalent to nine per cent., or a loss of purchasing power of 1s. 9½d. in the £. To meet this rise some four million out of 18 million workers have obtained war-time increases of wages; and instantly the Press, the City editors, and the economists—with the politicians waiting discreetly in the background—have struck a stout blow against higher wages and in defence of a lowered standard of living. Mr. Keynes, in his scheme for compulsory saving (i.e., the stoppage of part of wages for payment after the war), stated the case in full detail (The Times, November 14th and 15th), and although his plan has not been accepted, the problem as he stated it remains. With more workers at work there will be “a demand for labour in excess of the supply,” wages will rise, and overtime will be worked—in short, the normal peace-time capitalist check on wage increases will not operate.

The working class, as a whole, will have more money to spend just at a time when it is considered essential that productive capacity should be concentrated on war purposes. If workers have this additional money, and spend it, the result will either be a shortage of the goods workers buy or a big rise of prices—a shortage if the prices are kept down by Government action; a rise of prices if they are not kept down by such action.

Mr. Keynes' remedy is to defer payment of part wages until after the war and thus lower the worker’s standard of living while the war is on; in his own words: “It is a proposal . . . nearly as good as a 10 per cent. fall in real wages, while doing no lasting injury to working-class consumption.”

To minimise the effect of the rise of prices the Ministry of Food (Manchester Guardian, November 17th) has already set about showing how a rise in prices can be almost an advantage to the workers. If, says the Ministry, a worker buys margarine because of the increased price of butter he gets “a much, cheaper article, say one-third of the price of butter. The change-over may mean some sacrifice of personal taste, but it is the result of war conditions, and the consumer gets from his lower expenditure on margarine the same vitamin qualities as from his previous expenditure on butter."

Applied all round, this kind of adaptation will, of course, enable the workers to live more cheaply— on a lower standard of living.

Precisely the same argument was used in the last war against workers who complained that wage increases always lagged far behind the rise of the cost-of-living index figures.

But will workers be satisfied to accept quietly a lowered standard of living, either through higher prices or compulsory saving? Or will they be content to make up their wages by working overtime or working more intensely on piece-rate systems and thus suffering in health and vitality? It can be said with certainty that workers will not. The numerous applications for war-time increases of pay indicate already what will happen—an increasingly tense struggle between workers demanding cost-of-living increases because a still lower standard of living is intolerable, and employers resisting the demands.

As the Economist sadly reflects: —

  So far there is no sign that they [the trade unions] have departed from the attitude that, whatever happens to anybody else, the standard of living of their members must not be touched.—Economist, November 18th.

With the aloofness of the economic expert, to whom workers are just “the labour problem,” this writer cannot see the difference between the rich losing part of their superfluous wealth and the poor losing part of their necessaries of life.

Similarly, The Times' City Editor (November 20th) shows a characteristic propertied-class attitude in the matter. His criticism of Mr. Keynes is not on the ground that the Keynes’ plan means a lowered standard of living for the workers but that it would not go far enough.

  Nor does he demonstrate how the maintenance of something not much worse than the pre-war standard of working-class consumption is compatible with the present rate of Government expenditure—except by a correspondingly greater reduction in that of other classes of the population. Most of these people readiest to approve such a plan as this have hitherto assumed that the standards of living of no class could be generally maintained in war-time.

Of course the stock argument of such people is that the war is for national aims and all should be prepared to make sacrifice. To which Mr. Greenwood, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, though he supports the war, is constrained to reply that: ‘‘There is too ready an assumption on his (Mr. Keynes’) part that the workers of this country were having a fair share of its wealth, anyway, before the war started.” And the Manchester Guardian pertinently reminds its readers that: "Before the war, Sir William Crawford estimated, eight million people lacked wages sufficient for the bare minimum of food regarded as essential to health by the British Medical Association ” (Manchester Guardian, November 3rd).

So, war or no war, we are back again at the basis of capitalism, the ceaseless struggle between the “haves” and the “have-nots.” Not all the academic theorisings of Mr. Keynes and all the honeyed words of the politicians will prevent the struggle from proceeding, with its customary periodic outbursts of industrial strife.

Mr. Churchill may persuade himself that ours is one of the peaceful parliamentary countries “which aim at freedom for the individual and abundance for the mass” (broadcast reproduced in News Chronicle, November 13th), but he cannot dispute the unchallengeable facts of working-class poverty. Nor can Lord Halifax’s assertion that the Allies aim at a new world which "will enlist the co-operation of all peoples on a basis of human equality . . ." hide the fact that within this democracy, or elsewhere under capitalism, vast inequality is the permanent rule.

All of these people may think they are filled with goodwill towards the workers at the moment, but those who are determined to retain capitalism are maintaining a social system which breeds poverty, strife and class hatred, as surely as it breeds war.

Capitalism for the workers will be no different after the war. Mr. Keynes may promise that the deferred wages (if his plan is eventually adopted) will be paid after the war, but vast numbers of workers will then be suffering from the closing down of war production. Already the City Editor of The Times is considering what will happen “if the usual slump supervenes upon this war as it did upon the last . . .” (The Times, November 16th, 1939).

So this is the prospect for the workers. A struggle to resist a lowered standard of living during the war, and after it a post-war slump in which to celebrate victory.

Here and There: New Words for the Old (1939)

The Here and There column from the December 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

New Words for the Old

It is a cynical world, a brutal world, particularly for idealists. A few years ago millions placed their hopes for peace in the League of Nations and all that it was supposed to stand for: the “rule of law” in disputes between the national capitalist groups and the "independence” of small nations. The great hopes which were centred in the League have foundered on the rocks of reality. The test of experience showed that the "rule of law” was applied in a quite arbitrary fashion; that it was interpreted quite differently in different cases. Abyssinian "independence” was apparently a small matter compared to the ‘‘independence” of Poland. The latter, to the British capitalists, is worth incalculable risks in money and working-class lives. The truth is, of course, that the suppression of Polish “independence” expressed a growing dominance of German capitalism and a threat to the dominance of France and Great Britain. Hence the importance of Polish “independence” to the latter powers. Circumstances alter cases. And the circumstances which influence the greater powers of the world are those which affect their own interests. The fact that Germany swallowed certain small powers which were set up by her enemies under the Versailles Treaty is in itself evidence that the independence of those small powers was part of the defence policy of the powers who imposed the Versailles Treaty. It suited the interests of Franco-British capitalism to support "independence” for these small powers. The constitution of the League of Nations gave the appearance of support for the equality and independence of all nations as a general principle. The strain which the rivalries of the various capitalist groups imposed upon the League in recent years exposed that myth. Consequently, the “idealists” who pinned their faith in the League suffered bitter disillusionment.

Some show signs of having learned from the events of the past twenty years: others are chasing new panaceas. One such is the proposal for Federal Unionism. Several prominent people are toying with it. The basic proposals are world government on a federal basis. One writer (W. B. Curry) instances the Federal Government of the U.S.A. as an example of the form the proposal might take. If the governments of the world could enter a federal union and accept the authority of the Federal Government much in the same way as the states which comprise the U.S.A. accept the authority of their Federal Government, then world peace would be secured. The limitations to the application of the idea are enormous. And to do them justice many of the authors of it are not unaware of some of them. The baffling task, for example, of persuading nations with different traditions and in varying stages of development to be. bound by Federal decisions is met with the suggestion that the Federal Union should at first include Great Britain and its self-governing dominions, France, the U.S.A., and the smaller “democracies.”

What the supporters of Federal Unionism do not realise is that the proposals contain no principle which has not already broken down very pathetically in the League of Nations. It would not be difficult for all capitalist governments to accept “the rule of the law” as a form of words. It would be in the interpretation and application out of which the conflicts would arise. There could be no guarantee that those nations which refused to accept the “Federal Government’s” decisions would not break away and form alliances opposed to it, as happened in the League of Nations.

To expect the capitalists of the world to accept the judgments of a Federal Government regarding their rivalries is romanticism. What decisions would a Federal Government make different from those the League of Nations made on the Manchuko, Abyssinian and Spanish disputes? None whatever. What law would compel a nation in the Federal Union to go to the assistance of a “victim of aggression” when that nation sympathises with the aggressor and not the victim? Advocates of Federal Unionism would argue, of course, that these difficulties would not arise. That the markets of the world and raw materials would be open and available for all capitalists, that the resources of colonies would be pooled. In short, those capitalist powers who have the dominance and the power to use it would share their advantages with the weaker powers.

We can imagine the great capitalist powers accepting a form of words which gives the appearance of that rosy picture. But giving reality to the fiction is as conceivable as Unilever sharing its advantages with a village soap-boiler.

The authors of the Federal Union proposals suggest that Great Britain should take the initiative in starting the new Federal era. Unconscious humour? Perhaps. Anyhow, Mr. W. B. Curry, in particular, might try his arts of persuasion on the gentleman who recently broadcast for the British Government and boasted that Great Britain had been at peace for only a few weeks in the past three hundred years!

An easier task for him would be to get to grips with the implications of the Socialist case: that the rivalries and wars between the various groups of capitalists in the modern world are conflicts which arise out of the competitive private property basis of capitalist society and can only finally disappear with the abolition of capitalism and the introduction of common ownership in the means and instruments of production and distribution.

Mr. Brockway Learns

 “The Labour Party are defending capitalist interests in this war, not working-class rights. They are failing completely in their duty to the nation now and to the memory of the men who, in the past, fought, were imprisoned and banished, and who died to secure us the right of democratic representation.
 “This Bill (Government Bill, suspending local elections) is thoroughly reactionary. rockwTwenty years ago I would not have believed that I would live to see a Labour Party agreeing to a measure for the defence of the ruling class in war.
  “The right of the electors is a safeguard that ought to be retained, unless the Government wants to drive the people and their discontent into channels of insurrection.”

Life must be full of painful surprises for Mr. Brockway. We should hate to add to them deliberately. But we must remind him that the Labour Party did agree to measures for the defence of the ruling class little more than twenty years ago. And little less than twenty weeks ago the I.L.P. were negotiating with the Party that does not defend “working-class rights” the conditions for the re-affiliation of the I.L.P. and Labour Party.

Nasty? Well, Mr. Brockway, it somehow does not seem to square.

The “Real” War

Mr. Alexander, City Editor of the Evening Standard, has no illusions about the cause of war: —

   How goes the war behind the war? Most of us know that real wars, with their gunfire and bombs and bloodshed, are due largely to the breakdown in our commercial arrangements to secure a proper exchange of goods and services between nations. Normal trade itself is not war.
   It is only when the failure to exchange persists for a considerable time that trade takes on the nature of war. . . .
    More than that. We must carry the trade offensive into the enemy’s former territory . . .    Where shall we strike with this weapon, deadlier than any secret one that Hitler holds? Let us go through those German trade returns! Let us find out where they sent their chemicals and their machinery, their iron and steel goods, and then go into those markets in such a way that every ship that leaves these shores will be packed with British goods—and if needs be under a merchant captain who also knows how to sell. (Italics are Mr. Alexander’s.).—Evening Standard, November 2nd, 1939.

Enthusiasts in the fight for democracy and against aggression might do worse than letting the implications of the above really sink well in.


Squaring the Circle

The following, reproduced in the New Leader (October 27th), is a copy of a memo, issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party dealing with that Party’s recent support of the war policy of the Government: —

   Actual practice proved that the “struggle on two fronts” was a contradiction in terms. The only way of carrying on the struggle on the front against Hitler was by supporting the military measures of the Chamberlain-Churchill Government. How could we support those military measures and at the same time fight Chamberlain?
  Those contradictions quickly landed us in difficulties which resulted in the weakening of the fight against Chamberlain, shown markedly in the fact that (a) the Party lagged behind in the struggle of the workers against the capitalist offensive in Britain which quickly assumed enormous proportions; (b) no fight was waged against the Imperialist aims of the Chamberlain Government and the Party propaganda even tended to support the Churchill group, the exponents of the war to the knife policy.

We like that “ . . . even tended to support the Churchill group, the exponents of the war to the knife policy.”

Very delicately put. But it was the Communist Party which, only six months ago, wanted Churchill in the proposed Popular Front Government.

Anyway, most observers would say that it was the Communist Party who set the pace, not Churchill. In Communist Party propagandist jargon it is always they who formulate the correct line; others merely follow.


Mr. John S. Clarke on Revolution

Mr. Clarke, in Forward (October 14th), brings Marx into a controversy in support of the British capitalist class. The Labour Party, he says, "has followed the dictum of Karl Marx—to fight side by side with the bourgeoisie when it acts in a revolutionary way” (Mr. Clarke’s italics).

With Marxism and Christianity to inspire them, the British ruling class certainly appear to have a wide moral support.

However, Mr. Clarke amplifies his argument: —

   When the late Herbert Spencer wrote his memorable attack upon Socialism, "The Servile State,” even he did not foresee the full horror of a Nazi regime. He did not foretell the utter malignancy of the “Socialist” bureaucrats—the padlocked tongue, the family divided against itself, the imprisoned conscience, the tortured body, the concentration camps with their electrified barbed-wire entanglements, and the hangings, shootings and beheadings for political peccadilloes.

One can understand the point of view, though it is difficult to understand Mr. Clarke sharing it.

Mr. J. S. Clarke might ponder the question: Will the sacrifice he and others call upon millions of young workers to make achieve its purpose ?

At least he ought to be sure!

Harry Waite

Answers to Correspondents (1939)

Letters to the Editors from the December 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent (Miss H. S., Cheltenham) asks the following questions: —

(1) “It has been explained to me that it is theoretically impossible to institute Socialism until the country involved has passed through a period of capitalism. I realise the immense practical difficulties involved, but fail to see why this should not be theoretically possible on the basis of Marxism.

(2) "It has been said also, that, on the basis of Marxism, the Russian October Revolution could not have been a proletarian revolution, and was bound to degenerate into state capitalism, because of the comparatively small size of the Russian proletariat and the immense number of peasants.

“Would you kindly explain this, and say if you think it is wrong to consider that, with the innovation of collectivisation in agriculture, the peasant stands in the same relation to the proletarian state as the industrial or factory worker ?” 

Reply.

(1) INABILITY OF A COUNTRY TO JUMP FROM FEUDALISM TO SOCIALISM.

Regarding Marx’s own view of this impossibility, see his preface to the First German Edition of ”Capital,” Vol. I. Towards the end of the preface he points out that a country cannot leap over the normal phases of development.

It is not theoretically (or practically) possible for Socialism to be instituted without Socialists, and the widespread acceptance of Socialism by the workers presupposes a highly industrialised society, which alone makes Socialism economically possible. In short, the idea of Socialism, to be widely accepted, must rest upon a solid foundation of industrial development. Some workers can, it is true, dream of equalitarianism, and so on, although they live in a society which is only at the beginning of capitalist development, but they have not the economic and human material with which to make Socialism a practical possibility.

(2) BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION.

In October, 1917, the overwhelming mass of the Russian population did not understand Socialism or want Socialism. A minority of town workers did so, but the great mass of peasants wanted their problems solved, e.g., reduction of taxation, dividing up the estates of the landowners among the poor peasants, etc. Therefore the Bolshevik Government had no Socialist mass behind them.

Subsequent events have proved this. If the Russian town workers and collectivised peasants understood and wanted Socialism, the various developments of Russia now noticeable would be impossible, e.g., the pact with Hitler, the big and growing inequality, and the creation of privileged sections of the population, the piece-work systems, etc., the alleged or real conspiracies and purges.

Of course, in time Russian town and rural workers will turn more and more to Socialism, but that development will be slow, as in other countries.

Editorial Committee

The Russian Invasion of Finland (1939)

From the December 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx Condemns Stalin's Policy of Conquest

The Russian excuse for invading Finland is that military considerations necessitate frontier revision. Marx, writing in 1870, had something to say about such claims when put forward by Germany towards France.

The passage below is quoted in “Karl Marx,” by I. Berlin (Home University Library, 1939. P.223).

  “If limits are to be fixed by military interests there will be no end of claims, because every military line is necessarily faulty and may be improved by annexing some more outlying territory: they can never be fixed fairly or finally because they always must be improved by the conqueror or the conquered, and consequently carry within them the seeds of fresh wars. History will measure its retribution, not by the extent of square miles conquered from France, but by the intensity of the crime of reviving, in the second half of the 19th century, the policy of conquest ” (italics Marx’s)