Materialism and Art. by George Plechanoff (Part 2) (1926)

From the October 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from last month.)

PART II.

Let’s go further. In discussing imitation, we mention as directly opposing it the inclination of contradiction.

This should be studied carefully.

We know what an important role the “beginning of antithesis” plays in the feelings of men and animals, according to Darwin.

“Certain states of mind lead, as we have seen in the last chapter, to certain habitual movements which were primarily, or may still be, of service ; and we shall find that when a directly opposite state of mind is induced there is a strong and involuntary tendency to the performance of movements of a directly opposite nature, though these have never been of any service.” [1]

Darwin brings many examples which convincingly show that “with the beginning of antithesis” very much is explained in the expression of feelings. We ask : Is its action visible in the origin and development of customs?

When a dog throws himself on his back before his master, then his pose, combining all that is possible to think of as a contradiction to antagonism or resistance, is an expression of obedience. The beginning of antithesis is obvious here. That is also seen in the case described by the traveller Burton. The negroes of the Vuaniamuazi tribe, passing by the village inhabited by their enemies, carry no weapons, so as not to inspire a quarrel. Nevertheless in their homes, where they are comparatively out of danger, every one of them is armed at least with a club. [2] If, remarks Darwin, a dog turns on its maw, as if to say to his master, “Look, I am your servant,” then the Vuaniamuazi negro, disarming when it seems he should be armed, in the same way tells his enemy : “The thought of self-defence is far away from me; I wholly rely upon your generosity.”

In both cases there is the same meaning and the same expression, i.e., expression through action, directly contrary to the one which would be inevitable in a case where instead of obedience, inimical intentions existed.

In customs serving to express grief there is also evident the beginning of antithesis. According to Du Shalie, in Africa after the death of a man who had occupied an important place in his tribe, many negroes attire themselves in dirty clothes. [3] David and Charles Livingstone say that a negress never leaves home without ornaments except on those occasions when she is clad in mourning. [4] In the negro tribe of Niam Niam, when a relative dies the near survivors cut off their hair, as a sign of grief. [5]

In all those cases the emotion is expressed by an action contrary to the one which is considered useful or agreeable in the normal course of life. And if there are many such cases to be pointed out, then it is clear that a great number of customs owe their origin to the action of the beginning of antithesis. And if this is clear, then we can suppose that the development of our aesthetic conceptions is also accomplished under its influence.

In Senegambi rich negresses wear slippers, which are so small that the foot does not go in fully, with the result that these dames are distinguished by a very awkward gait. But this awkward gait is considered extremely attractive. [6] How could it become such? In order to understand this, it is necessary first of all to remark that the poor, working negresses don’t wear the above-mentioned slippers and have an ordinary gait. It is impossible for them to walk as the rich coquettes do, because it would cause a loss of time. And it is only on account of this distinction that the awkward gait of the rich women is so attractive ; time is not valuable to them, for they are released from the necessity of work. In itself this gait has no sense or value, but becomes significant only in its force of contrast to the gait of the working woman. The beginning of antithesis is obvious here, but notice that it is called forth by the existence of inequality in property among the negroes of Senegambi.

Let’s recall what we said earlier about the morals of the English nobility during the Restoration of the Stuarts, and you will agree that the inclination to contradiction displays a peculiar reaction in the social psychology of Darwin’s beginning of antithesis. Such virtues as industriousness, temperance, strictness of family morals, etc., were very necessary for the bourgeoisie, whose aim was to occupy a much higher social and political position. But were the vices contrary to the bourgeois virtues necessary for the struggling nobility? No, these vices sprang up not as a means of struggle for existence, but as a psychological result of this struggle : hating the revolutionary inclinations of the bourgeoisie, the nobility began to feel a disgust also toward their virtues and therefore began to demonstrate vices just the contrary. The action of the beginning of antithesis also in this case was brought on by social causes.7

It is known from the history of English literature how strongly the psychologic action of the beginning of antithesis, brought about by class-struggle, has reflected itself upon the aesthetic conceptions of the upper classes of society. The English aristocracy who lived in France during their exile, became acquainted with the French theatre and literature which presented a standard quite singular in character, and in its way the product of the refined aristocracy and therefore suited more to their own aristocratic tendencies, than the English literature and theatre of the Elizabethan age. After the Restoration, French tastes began to predominate on the English stage and in English literature. Shakespeare began to be treated as the French treated him afterwards, as strongly holding to classical traditions, that is as a “drunken savage.” His “Romeo and Juliet” was considered then as bad; “A Midsummer Night’s Dream“—”foolish and ridiculous” ; “Henry VIII” was found too “naive”; “Othello”— “mediocre.” [8] Such criticism of Shakespeare does not fully disappear even in the next century, Hume thought that Shakespeare’s genius seemed large in the same way that all ugly, disproportionately built bodies seem large. He blames the dramatist for his total ignorance of all theatrical art and conduct.

Pope regretted that Shakespeare wrote for the people and did without the protection of his prince and the encouragement of court. Even the famous Garrick, the worshipper of Shakespeare, tried to ennoble his “idol” in his performance of the grave-digger ; to “King Lear” he added a happy conclusion. But the democratic part of the public in the English theatres continued to feel the deepest devotion to Shakespeare. Garrick confessed that in changing Shakespeare’s plays he risked a wild protest from this part of the public.

His French friends paid him compliments in their letters regarding the “courage” with which he met the danger; “Car je connais la populace Anglaise,” adds one of them. [9]

The licentiousness of manners of the nobility of the second half of the seventeenth century was reflected, as is known, on the English stage where it took indeed extreme measures. According to Edward Engels, comedies written in England between 1660 and 1690 almost all without exception belong to the domain of pornography. [10] After all this we can say a priori, that sooner or later in England, at the beginning of this antithesis, the appearance of dramatic productions whose main aim would be the representation and exaltation of bourgeois virtues was inevitable.

As far as it is known, Hippolyte Taine noticed and more ingeniously than others emphasised the significance of this in the history of aesthetic conceptions. [11]

In his illuminating and interesting “Voyage aux Pyrénnées” he related a talk with one of his “table neighbours,” Mr. Paul, because it adequately expressed the author’s point of view.

“You go to Versailles,” says Mr. Paul, “and are perturbed by the seventeenth century tastes. But cease for a moment to judge from the point of view of your own needs and your own habits. . . . We are right when we are charmed by a wild landscape, as they were right when such a landscape seemed tedious. There was nothing uglier than this mountain for the people of the seventeenth century. [12] It evoked many unpleasant pictures. People who only recently lived through the epoch of Civil Wars, and semi-barbarism, in view of this mountain, called to mind hunger, long rides on horseback under snow and rain, black bread half mixed with husk, served always in dirty, greasy hotels. They were tired of barbarism, just as we are tired of civilisation. These mountains give us a chance of retreat from our pavements, offices and stores. This is the only reason why you like this landscape and if it were not for this reason it would seem to you as ugly as it once seemed to Madame Mentenon.”[13]

We like the wild landscape as a contrast to city views, of which we are tired. City landscapes and trimmed gardens were liked by the people of the seventeenth century as a contrast to a wild site. The action “of the beginning of antithesis” is here undoubtedly patent. But just because there is no doubt, it clearly shows us to what extent psychological laws can serve as a source of explanation of the history of ideology in general and of the history of aesthetics in particular. The beginning of antithesis played an important role in the psychology of the people of the seventeenth century, as it plays an important role in the psychology of contemporaries. Why then are our aesthetic tastes contrary to the tastes of the seventeenth century? Because we live in an environment entirely different. Therefore we come to the known conclusion : the psychological nature of man makes it so that he can have aesthetic conceptions, and that Darwin’s beginning of antithesis (Hegel’s “contradiction”) plays an immense role, to this time unappreciated in the mechanism of those conceptions. But why does the given man have only these and not other tastes ; why does he like only these and not other things?—this depends upon his environment. The illustration given by Taine also shows well the character of those conditions; how the social conditions determine the nature and course of man’s culture.

The illustration by Taine shows social conditions, as a cause that makes the fundamental laws of our psychology, but in this illustration the discourse is only about our relations to the impressions made by nature. But the fact is that the influence of such impressions changes in accordance with our own relations to the change in nature, and our own relationship is determined by the course of development of our social culture. As an example Taine gives a landscape. It is to be remarked that in the history of painting a landscape in general takes a place far from perpetual. Michel Angelo and his contemporaries neglected it. It developed in Italy only at the end of the Renaissance, at the moment of its decay. Also for the French artists of the seventeenth and eighteenth century it had no substantial meaning. In the nineteenth century this is abruptly changed; the landscape is beginning to be esteemed for the sake of a landscape, and such young painters as Fleur, Kaba, Th. Reausseau seek for inspiration at the bosom of nature, in the outskirts of Paris, in Fauntenebleau, and in Medon; the possibility of such inspiration was not suspected by the painters at the time of Le Brens and Bouche. Why? Because the social conditions of France changed and as a result the psychology of the French changed. And in various epochs of social development man gets for nature different impressions, for he looks upon them from different points of view.

The action of general laws on the psychical nature of man do not cease, of course, with only those epochs. But, as in various epochs, in consequence of variety in social relations, since different materials come into human minds, it is not strange that the results of its finish are different.

1 “Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.” (P. 50.)

2 Voyage aux grands lacs de l’Afrique orientale, Paris, 1862. (P. 610.)

3 Voyage and Adventures in Equatorial Africa. (P. 268.)

4 Exploration du Zambèse et de ses affluents, Paris, 1866. (P. 109.)

5 Schweinfurth; In the Heart of Africa v 2 (P. 33.)

6 L. J. B. Berenger-Ferand. Les peuplades de la Sénégambie. Paris, 1879. (P. 11.)

7 It is necessary also to remark that only because of their social position the nobility could put their brilliant vices against the common virtues of the bourgeoisie. In the psychology of the struggling peasantry or proletarian class the action of the beginning of antithesis could have been displayed in the same fashion.

8 Beljam. (Pp 40-41.) Compare Tains. (Pp. 508-512.)

9 About this see an interesting investigation by J. J. Jusserand. ”Shakespeare sous l’ancien regime.” 1698. (Pp. 247-248.)

10 Geschichte der englischen Litteratur. 3 Auflage, Leipzig, 1897. (S. 264.)

11 Tarde had a wonderful occasion to examine the psychological action of this beginning in his book, “L’Opposition universelle, essai d’une théorie des Contraries,” which came out in 1897. But for some reason he did not make use of it, and limited it with only few remarks about the indicated action. It is true, Tarde says, (P. 245) that his book is not a sociological treatise, but even in a treatise especially devoted to sociology, he certainly could not have mastered this subject had he not gotten rid of his idealistic view.

12 We must have in mind that the conversation is carried on in the Pyrenees.

13 Voyage aux Pyrénées cinquieme edition. Paris, 1867.

Translated for “Modern Quarterly” by Bessie Peretz.

(To be concluded).

Editorial: Slavery and slavery (2007)

Editorial from the March 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

This month low-key ceremonies are taking place to mark the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire. Slavery continued, with imported slaves replaced by plantation-bred ones, and was not abolished till 1833. It continued for a further 30 or so years in the Southern States of the USA.

By slavery in this context is meant “chattel slavery”, where humans were owned as the legal property of other humans just like any other movable property. It had been widespread in Ancient Greece and Rome where some slaves were used as domestics but the great bulk were put to work in agriculture and mining. As they were themselves the property of their masters so was the product of their labour. In other words, they were exploited by having what they produced taken from them. This was again the situation on the sugar, tobacco and cotton plantations of North and South America and the West Indies from the 16th to the 19th century.

Early capitalism benefited from the slave trade not only because it stimulated world trade generally but also because it contributed to the primitive accumulation of capital that was later invested in industrial production. But chattel slavery was not a suitable form of labour exploitation for capitalism. Which was why, in the end, it was abolished.

Capitalist factory-owners needed a flexible labour force and a reserve of workers they could draw on in times of expansion and who could be discarded in times of slump. They did not want to own their workers, precisely because they wanted, when business took a downturn, to be free of any obligation to maintain them as they would have had to with chattel slaves. They favoured “free” labour. They were only interested in buying their workers’ ability to work for a limited period.

“Free” labour meant more than that the worker was just not a chattel slave. It meant that he or she was also not tied to the land either as a peasant or a serf. It means that the only productive resource they own is their ability to work, their labour-power, which they are “free” to sell to some capitalist employer or other.

But capitalists are not philanthropists. They only buy labour-power if they think they can make a profit from using it. Karl Marx was the first to point out that while the capitalist paid the worker the full value of what the worker sold – that the wage  bargain was a commercial contract in which like any other equal value was exchanged for equal value – the wage worker was nevertheless exploited just as much as the chattel slave was.

The explanation lay in the fact that there is a difference between the value of what the workers sold – their labour-power – and the higher value of what they produced. Having purchased the worker’s labour-power the capitalist employer was just as legally entitled to the product of the exercise of that labour power as the slave-owner had been to the product of his chattel slaves.

The early working class in the first decades of the 19th century didn’t need Marx to tell them what this meant. They realised that they too were slaves robbed of the product of their labour. It it was they who coined the term “wage-slavery”, not to describe the fact that they were paid low wages but that they had to work for wages at all. It was they, too, who raised the slogan “Abolition of the Wages System”.

Chattel slavery was abolished in the British Empire over 170 years ago, but slavery still continued – and continues – in the form of wage slavery. Socialists are modern-day Abolitionists. We want the wage-workers of the world to act to abolish their slavery. To organise to make the means of wealth production – the land, farms, farms, warehouses, means of transport and communication, etc – the common property of the whole of society, so that one group of humans will no longer be dependent on another to live and no group will be able to appropriate the labour of another. A world without slavery in any form.

Party News (2007)

Party News from the March 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

On 30 and 31 January Comrade Miller of Central London Branch gave two talks hosted by the Edinburgh and Glasgow branches, respectively. Both talks were on the subject of intellectual property and Free Software. The Edinburgh talk was attended by about 15 people, over half of them first-time visitors. Many of the visitors were avid users and developers of Free Software, and the talk was followed by a long and generally positive discussion. The Glasgow talk also had a similar-sized audience, with two visitors.

Comrade Miller began the talk by introducing and comparing the concepts of physical property and intellectual property (IP), explaining how the law treats them much the same despite the fact that IP requires practically no labour to reproduce and does not spoil or wear out. The primary purpose of laws preventing people from copying music, software, literature, and other information, then, is to effect an artificial scarcity which helps secure profits for IP owners.

Comrade Miller explained how independent software developers, angry with the restrictions imposed by commercial IP owners, began to voluntarily license their software copyrights under terms which guaranteed that the software would always be free for others to use, study, copy, and modify. Since most new software is created by refining and combining existing pieces of software, this licensing scheme essentially returned control of the means of production of software to the community.

The Free Software licencing scheme has since been popularised and adapted to other forms of IP, most notably artwork and literature. Comrade Miller examined as a case study Wikipedia, a large online encyclopaedia which is collaboratively edited by thousands of volunteers from all over the world. The facts that editors contribute voluntarily and without compensation, and that the project operates in a largely democratic fashion without a government, serve to refute the common anti-socialist argument that people will not work and cooperate without coercion.

Though Wikipedia and other free content projects are not socialism, they are illustrative of how certain aspects of socialism could operate. If the artificial scarcity capitalism imposes on physical resources were abolished, as free licensing has done with certain informational resources, then what would be left to stop us from running the whole world through voluntary labour and free access?

Cooking the Books: Venture or vulture (2007)

The Cooking The Books column from the March 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

According to the GMB and T&G unions, the Sainsbury supermarket chain is under threat. It’s reported that the Sainsbury family – including former Labour minister and Labour Party bank-roller, Lord Sainsbury – want to withdraw their capital and that  “venture capitalists” are grouping to buy them out. That’s what they call themselves. Others have different names for them. A GMB official called them “plunderers” while one from the T&G said they “do not create wealth; they extract it for their shareholders” (Times, February). A German minister once called them “locusts”. Other choice descriptions are “corporate raiders”, “predators”, “vultures” and “asset strippers”. 

Socialists apply some of these descriptions to all capitalists, but what have these particular kind of capitalists done to earn such epithets even from non-socialists?

Basically, they borrow money to set up a short-term fund (usually for 5 to 7 years) which they invest in other companies either to start them up or take them over. The venture capitalists then run the business  hoping to make enough money over the period to pay a higher than normal rate of interest to those who put up the money and to make a profit over and over this for themselves. Rates of up to 40 percent a year have been mentioned.

The immediate effect on the business they take over is that its indebtedness increases. Ordinary shareholders only have to be paid a dividend if the directors think enough profit is being made. Lenders have to be paid interest irrespective of whether or not the company makes a profit. Venture capitalists are in effect agents for lenders who take over running the company to ensure that these get their pound of flesh and over a relatively short period of time Then they move on to the next company.

It is easy to see why the unions don’t like this since the main means venture capitalists use to increase the short-term profits they are after is to hive off or close down the less profitable sections of the business with resultant job losses, so as to concentrate on the most profitable ones. The screws are then tightened on the remaining workforce to extract more work – and surplus value – from them than before.

The unions have promised an “ultimate showdown” with any venture capitalists that might assume control of Sainsbury’s. It is not evident that they have the industrial clout to organise and sustain the sort of strike this implies. More probably this is just a bluff to try to deter the venture capitalists from proceeding. The unions are also lobbying to end the tax concession on the money that venture capitalists borrow; in this they have the support of some ordinary capitalists who feel discriminated against when it comes to taking over other companies.

In the end, nothing much is likely to be done about “venture capitalism”. After all, from capitalism’s point of view, they are not doing anything wrong. In fact, they are only doing what comes naturally to capitalists: trying to make the biggest profit they can.

This land is your land (or maybe not) (2007)

Book Review from the March 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Author Kevin Cahill is wrong. Wider landowning is not the answer as we are excluded from ownership of the means of production in general not just land

So you’ve paid off your mortgage and now you own your house and the land on which it stands. No, you don’t — the land still belongs to the queen, who is the sole legal owner of land in the United Kingdom. So-called freeholds are actually leases from the Crown. This is one of many startling facts revealed by Kevin Cahill in Who Owns the [World] (published by Mainstream at the end of last year).

In fact the queen also owns all the land in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and a number of other Commonwealth countries. In all, according to Cahill, she owns well over six billion acres (one-sixth of the earth’s land surface), making her by far the largest landowner on the planet. She’s not the only monarch who claims ultimate ownership of their country’s land, and various kings, sultans and sheikhs make up the rest of the list of the largest landowners. Countries without kings or queens may still operate on a comparable principle: in Ireland the state is the sole owner of land.

When there is no such system of legal ownership by a monarch or state, there can still be massive landholdings. The Catholic church, for instance, is the second-largest  landowner in New York, and the other big religions are pretty wealthy too. Although they are in theory just tenants of the queen, the British aristocracy own plenty of land — around a billion euros’ worth in the case of the Dukes of Atholl and Westminster. The biggest landowner in the US is Ted Turner of CNN fame, though other individuals or families have more valuable holdings as the land is in richer areas. Fewer than one-fiftieth of one percent of the population of Europe (77,000 people) own 5 percent of the farmland and receive massive subsidies from the government.

At the same time, all this massive concentration of landownership is largely concealed from the general public. Few countries have comprehensive, accurate and easily available land registries, so it is difficult, if not impossible, to discover who owns what. A comprehensive account for the UK (then including the whole of Ireland) was published in 1872-6, as The Return of the Owners of Land. At that time, 96 percent of the population, over 27 million people, owned no land at all, while a third of a million owned more than an acre. Nothing of comparable scope has been published since then. But in 2006, Cahill argues, only 30 percent owned nothing, while 70 percent had a stake in land, i.e. a home. This is one of the themes of his book, the way in which private home-ownership has increased and so made most people relatively prosperous.

If Cahill had simply compiled and organised a mass of information about landownership throughout the world, his book would still have been a most useful work of reference. And there’s no doubt that that is what it is. If you want to find out, say, the largest landowners in Estonia, this is the place to look (it’s the Estonian state, a Finnish milk cooperative and IKEA). However, the book is far more than that: it is also written in support of a particular analysis of capitalism and a programme for change. The argument, basically, is that enabling people to own land and a home outright, with a proper free market in land, will lead to ‘universal prosperity’. Further, it ‘creates the essential condition for the universalisation and democratisation of capital.’ The claims here need to be assessed very critically.

For a start, what difference does it really make if in the last analysis the queen owns the land your house is on, supposedly making you and everyone else serfs rather than free individuals? In Britain the government can no longer legally seize land in the name of the Crown, but in theory the queen could sell Canada (just as Russia sold Alaska to the US in 1867). However, converting land to be genuine private property of its owner rather than something held on a kind of sufferance from the monarch would have not the slightest impact on workers’ daily lives. Those who now really owned a bit of land would still have to work for a living, just as they do now, and just as those in rented accommodation have to under any system.

Furthermore, home-ownership, whether true ownership or via Crown lease, is not all that it’s cracked up to be. It does not in itself remove a person’s status as a wage worker, and a mortgage is an enormous burden on most workers (witness the number of repossessions). Cahill asserts that increased home ownership leads to increased prosperity, but he never considers that the causality might be the other way round, that higher wages might lead to more workers owning their homes. In fact, from a comparative viewpoint, there seems to be no necessary connection here at all: his figures for owner-occupation in Europe show that Ireland, Spain and Greece have the highest rates (over 70 percent), while Sweden, Germany and France are at or just under 50 percent. Cahill’s bizarre description of Ireland as ‘the most advanced capitalist country on earth’ only makes sense on the basis of a very odd idea of how to measure such advancement.

He also goes wrong in describing a home as ‘capital’: the house you live in is not used for investment or productive purposes. And there is no such thing as a right to shelter, nor any point in putting such a ‘right’ in a country’s constitution. What matters is the effective ability to buy or rent a house or flat, not some abstract unenforceable ‘right’.

Much of this book is directed at landowners, complaining about the kind of subsidies they get from the taxpayer, which means other members of the ruling class. The capitalists think that landowners are unproductive and merely monopolise something which is in short supply and can therefore receive massively high rents, which are a drain on the capitalists’ profits. The idea of taxing land values as a way of hitting landowners and cutting taxes on other capitalists has been around for many years and was recently revived as a way to ‘make the New Labour project actually work’ (Ashley Seager, Guardian, 8 January). Socialists have always refused to take sides in debates about how the capitalist class distribute the paying of tax among themselves.

Cahill’s pro-capitalist views are clear from a throw-away remark about the unions having been out of control and needing to be tamed by Thatcher. He does at one point come close to seeing the real problem, when he writes that poverty is caused by exclusion, specifically by exclusion from ownership and use of, and access to, land. However, there is an extra step (or giant stride) which needs to be taken, to realise that this exclusion must be seen in terms of workers being excluded from ownership and access in the means of production in general, not just land but also factories, offices, shops, warehouses, etc. It would be unreasonable in the extreme to think that one book, written by one individual, could have assembled information about the ownership of all this as well as the land. But increasing home ownership and letting people own land directly will make no impression on the capitalist class’s monopoly of the means of production, and that is what needs to be done away with.

Paul Bennett

Burberry applies the law of profit (2007)

From the March 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last September Burberry announced that its Treorchy factory was no longer viable and would close this March with the loss of 309 jobs

Until the summer of 2006, it is probably true to say that the village of Treorchy was little known outside Wales – except to devoted enthusiasts of Welsh male voice choirs. Nestling in the shadow of steep and rocky hills, the village lies at the head of the Rhondda Valley and is typical of the abandoned communities that were originally established to mine the now worked-out coal of the South Wales valleys.

The Rhondda Valley is today an area of demoralising deprivation, characterised by dire poverty, poor housing and a drug problem that is almost out of control. Many of Treorchy’s ageing 8,000 strong community have chronic health and anxiety conditions. Unemployment is abnormally high and such local jobs as exist, mainly in retail, are difficult to come by. The village has one large employer of note – the factory owned by the iconic brand name Burberry.

Burberry was established in the middle of the nineteenth century when its founder Thomas Burberry invented a method of waterproofing cloth, which he called gabardine. Since the 1980s the company has successfully expanded the brand into a variety of luxury and fashion goods, including clothing, sportswear, watches, and perfumes and has enjoyed rapid international growth. Burberry’s first half results to September 2006 showed an increase in the company’s turnover of 10 percent to nearly £400 million and an increase in operating profit of 7 percent to £84 million. (burberryplc.com, 14 November 2006 .) The employees of Burberry in Treorchy had every reason to feel assured – after all, it had been their sacrifices that had contributed to the company’s startling success. But the events that were about to unfold showed their confidence had been seriously misplaced.

At the beginning of September Burberry announced that its Treorchy factory was no longer viable and that it would close in March 2007 with the loss of 309 jobs. The company said that rising costs could no longer be recovered by raising worker productivity and that skill shortages and a decline in the local supplier network meant that the factory no longer had a future. Burberry had been the community’s main employer for generations, and its workers, many of whom had been employed for 40 years, were stunned. Their union, the GMB, had received no warning of the closure or of company plans to transfer the production of designer polo shirts to China.

Outraged Burberry workers and their union organised themselves to resist the closure. While public protests against factory closures are not new, what was different about this campaign was its success in turning the threat of closure into a public relations battle that rapidly mobilised public opinion. They lobbied politicians and successfully sought the support of celebrities to keep the issue in the public eye to shame the company into reconsidering and to persuade customers not to buy the its products. The campaign quickly became a public debate about whether a successful company hailed as a British icon and already enjoying healthy profits should simply be ‘allowed’ to pack up and abandon a small community.

Burberry is heavily dependent on the sales of its goods in other countries. In these countries the company has always marketed itself as a quintessentially ‘British’ brand, an appeal that has been summed up by the journalist Janet Street-Porter with the words, ‘To many, Burberry is just as British as the Union Jack’. Burberry workers and politicians have endeavoured to exploit this connection to argue that if the company’s success is so dependent on its ‘Britishness’, then it has an obligation to take care of its workers in Britain and treat them ‘fairly.’ Such appeals to economic patriotism have invoked issues of corporate accountability and nurtured a view amongst politicians that, while this type of behaviour may be expected from ‘foreign’ companies, this does not mean it is acceptable from a British employer.

The support from celebrity figures, many representative of the kind of people who have the money to buy the Burberry brand, has been an important factor in keeping the closure in the news. Amongst those who have offered their support – promoting their ‘Welsh credentials’ and enhancing their own public image in the process – are Bryn Terfel, Emma Thompson, and actor Ioan Gruffudd, who until recently modelled Burberry fashionware. More recently the tax exile entertainer Tom Jones, who hasn’t lived in Wales for decades, has added his support and Manchester United’s Sir Alex Ferguson has also lent his name to the campaign. Other objectors include the Prince of Wales and interestingly the Church of England, which has investments in the company and has written to Burberry questioning its proposals to close its factory. There is no evidence, however that, as a shareholder in the company, the Church is offering to forgo its dividend if Burberry keeps its factory open.

The politicians – with an eye on this May’s Welsh National Assembly elections – have also been trumpeting their support for the stricken workforce. In October last year Leighton Andrews, Assembly Member for Rhondda, put a ‘Statement of Opinion’ to the Welsh Assembly deploring the closure, and Rhondda MP Chris Bryant put down an Early Day Motion at Westminster calling for Burberry to reconsider its decision.

In November 2006 the workers gained further publicity by staging a public protest outside the company’s prestige New Bond Street store in London. After he had seen which way the wind was blowing, muted criticism also came from Wales and Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain, who said such an ‘iconic British brand’ should not be made abroad.

The public relations battle continued in January 2007, when Burberry chairman John Peace and its chief executive Angela Ahrendts were called before the Commons Welsh Affairs Select Committee to give evidence to its inquiry on globalisation. This intervention followed criticism of Burberry bosses over the insensitivity of Christmas bonuses given to its Treorchy workers – a Burberry scarf and a £30 voucher to spend in its stores. As well as this, Chris Bryant MP is urging Parliament to revoke Burberry’s Royal Warrant if the company proceeds with the closure, asserting that these should only go to British companies with a ‘fair employment policy’ (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/6305703.stm). The issue has even gone to the European Parliament, MEP Jill Evans saying, ‘I will be calling for corporate social responsibility to be made legally binding’ (South Wales Echo, 9 January 007). It is hard, however, to see these activities as other than cynical and meaningless gestures designed to placate disgruntled voters who are threatening to give Labour politicians in Wales a rough ride in May.

Burberry, for its part, has continued to resolutely defend its ‘Britishness’, recently saying, ‘We are proud of our British heritage and we continue to design and manufacture in the UK’ (Observer, January). The company has been keen to point out that after the closure it will still employ some 2,000 workers at its Castleford and Rotherham factories in Yorkshire. Its third quarter results for 2006 (announced in January 2007), show, furthermore, that the high profile campaign against the brand has done little to dent sales and profitability. Chief executive Ahrendts said, ‘This outstanding quarter has been led by Burberry’s strong retail performance,’ prompting broker Merrill Lynch to hail the company as ‘one of the most promising stories in the sector’ leading to forecasts that Burberry revenue could exceed the £1 bn mark by March 2009 (www.yorkshiretoday. co.uk, January). Burberry’s management appears to have correctly calculated that the bad publicity arising from the closure of its Treorchy factory would not arrest rising sales and profitability. This is because Burberry is a brand that is aimed almost exclusively at an elite of shoppers who mainly live in other countries. Its products are outside the purchasing power of the average working class shopper and the company has nothing to fear from a boycott by workers on the minimum wage, including those employed at its British factories.

The anticipated closure of the factory bringing the prospect of hardship, misery and trauma to Treorchy should of course be condemned, not only in South Wales but everywhere where workers daily suffer a similar fate. But however well meaning and sincere this condemnation, it is not enough, and cannot alter the mechanisms that make such events an accepted part of the economic system in which we live.

The workers at Burberry are engaged in a battle against capital, which like workers everywhere they ultimately cannot win. Employment is created only when there is an expectation that the goods produced by workers will realise profit when sold on the market. Profit comes from the employment of working people and continued employment is dependent on continued profitability. Capital investment follows profitability, which means that if profitability cannot be maintained or the prospect of greater profit arises elsewhere, then the jobs upon which wage and salary earners are reliant will be terminated.

Like many other successful brand names, Burberry is looking to divest itself of its traditional productive workforce and, through sub-contracting mechanisms, to have the actual production of its goods take place in Asian sweatshops. Although labour costs represents a minimal proportion of its total costs, every penny saved in the production of its goods means a penny added to profits and more importantly improves the company’s attractiveness for future investment.

In capitalism such decisions are inevitable because profit is more important than people’s welfare. Decisions must be taken without regard for the social consequences or for patriotism, which amounts to a misguided notion that as a British registered company Burberry should have some allegiance to the country where it was established or where many of its employees live. The fact that Wales already suffers dire poverty and that comparable jobs will be virtually impossible to find is of no consequence on the balance sheet, where the only consideration can be the bottom line. Companies have but one goal – the maximisation of profits for their shareholders.

The proposed Burberry closure shows how the interests of wage and salary earners are everywhere diametrically opposed to the interests of the owners of the means of production. But it also shows something about capitalist politicians. The politicians do not condemn Burberry for exploiting the workforce that is the source of the company’s rising profits. Nor do they condemn a system that brings prosperity to the few by perpetuating the poverty and insecurity of the many, by reducing wage and salary earners to conditions not much better than slavery, and whose very wellbeing is dependent on how successfully they can be exploited. Legally binding ‘corporate social responsibility’ that would restrict a company’s ‘flexibility’ will not be allowed to happen because this would effect capital accumulation and lead directly to a migration of capital to other less restrictive and more profitable parts of the world.

The experiences of the Burberry workers have happened time and again in the past and will be repeated time and again in the future, for as long as the working class believes that there is no alternative to the capitalist economic system. Working people everywhere would do well to reflect on the fact that capitalism cannot operate in any other way and is incapable of being reformed to do so.

Steve Trott

Who caused global warming? (2007)

From the March 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Global warming is caused by mankind, is here to stay and is getting worse, leading scientists have concluded”.

So the Times (3 February) summarised the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued at the beginning of February. As the IPCC is made up of hundreds of scientists from all over the world, specialists in the field, its findings are fairly authoritative.

However, blaming “mankind” in general for causing the problem is misleading since this suggests that people have deliberately chosen to engage in the activities that have led and are still leading to global warming. Whereas this is not the case. Most humans performing these are just carrying out the orders of those organising them while these latter are in turn constrained to act in the way they do by the economic laws of the capitalist system that currently dominates the world.

Capitalism is the impersonal process of the accumulation of capital out of the surplus value produced by the wageworking class and involves competition to transform this surplus value into money by selling the products in which it is embodied. This battle is won by those enterprises that can sell their products at the lowest price due to their employment of more productive methods. This investment in new productive methods depends on making enough profits (converting enough surplus value into money). So, capitalism is the pursuit of profits to accumulate as more capital. Such “growth” is built into it and cannot be stopped. If ever it was, the whole system would seize up and there’d by massive worldwide unemployment.

It is capitalism that has forced some humans to organise and order other humans to burn fossil fuels, cut down tropical forests, etc because this is cheaper and more competitive than the alternatives. So, the real conclusion of the IPCC report is that, to the extent that it is “anthropogenic” (as they put in scientific language) rather than caused by solar radiation, volcanic activity or some other force outside human control, “global warming is caused by capitalism”.

Six storylines

The IPPC report (Summary for Policymakers at www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf) offers six scenarios, or “storylines”, of what could happen by the year 2100. All of them assume the continuation of capitalism. Given this assumption, however, four of the scenarios can be dismissed as unrealistic in that they are incompatible with the way capitalism works. Two of them are those favoured by Greens and assume, respectively, that “the underlying theme is self-reliance and preservation of local identities” (which the report labels A2) or that “the emphasis is on local solutions to economic, social and environmental sustainability” (B2); both imply a slower rate of capital accumulation than hitherto (and also a slower decline in the rate of population growth). A third (B1) assumes a “rapid change in economic structures toward a service and information economy, with reductions in material intensity and the introduction of clean and resource efficient technologies. The emphasis is on global solutions to economic, social and environmental sustainability, including improved equity”. But this just isn’t going to happen under capitalism and would require the establishment of a world socialist system to be applied.

The fourth unrealistic scenario (A1T) envisages “a future world of very rapid economic growth, global population that peaks in mid-century and declines thereafter, and the rapid introduction of new and more efficient technologies” but where the technological emphasis is on “non-fossil energy sources”. What’s unrealistic about this is not the first part – which is likely, if not so “rapid” as assumed (see later) – but the second, i.e.,the early abandoning of the use of fossil fuels to generate energy. Fossil fuels are currently cheaper than the alternatives, and will be for a while, and so will continue to be used for as long as this is the case. The two remaining scenarios share the assumption of the fourth about economic growth and the introduction of new technologies but assume that the technological emphasis will be “fossil intensive” (A1F1) (the present situation) or “a balance across all [energy] sources” (A1B). The latter seems the more likely, if only because as fossil fuels become rarer their price will rise relatively to non-fossilsources so making the latter relatively cheaper.

The IPCC report gives a “best estimate” for the likely rise in world surface temperature by 2100 compared with the 1980-1999 average for each of the six scenarios (see Table). As can be seen, the best in terms of lowest temperature rise is B1 (1.8 degrees Centigrade). The worst is A1F1 (4 degrees Centigrade). The one that an understanding of the way capitalism works suggests is the most likely (A1B) gives a rise of 2.8 degrees Centigrade. It is interesting to note that the two localist, Green scenarios come out badly at 3.4 and 2.4 degrees Centigrade respectively. “Think globally, act locally” doesn’t seem such a good idea after all.

A 2.8 degrees Centigrade rise in average temperature is going to cause many problems – melting ice-caps, rising sea-levels, droughts, migrations – which capitalism, because it is divided politically into competing states, will be unable to tackle rationally; in fact, in some cases they are likely to lead to wars. These problems could only be tackled successfully within the framework of a world socialist system where there would no longer be armed states or frontiers but a global administration able to take effective global action.

Saved by a slump?

Ironically, the only thing that may save the world from the problems that a 2.8 degrees Centigrade rise would cause is that the economic growth and technological innovation will not be as rapid as the IPCC report assumes. Economic growth (the accumulation of capital) is the general trend of capitalism – in fact that’s what it’s all been about – but, although the long-term trend is upward, the graph of this growth is by no means a steady, continuous line. Due to the uncontrolled and uncontrollable, anarchic nature of capitalist production, the accumulation of capital proceeds by fits and starts so that the graph is rather a series of peaks and troughs with each succeeding peak normally higher than the previous one.

The assumption that there will be no world economic slump or prolonged period of stagnation between now and 2100 is quite unrealistic. Given capitalism, something like this is bound to happen during this period, so that the use of fossil fuels won’t be as rapid as this IPCC’s scenario assumes. So, perhaps, global temperatures won’t rise so much either. But the fact that the accumulation of capital won’t be as rapid as assumed is hardly a reason for retaining capitalism and would not be offered as one by its supporters.

What is required to stabilise the rise in temperature is a worldwide political and social revolution to end capitalism and put “mankind” in full charge of its interaction with the rest of nature (production). Which can only be done on the basis of the Earth’s natural and industrial resources becoming the common heritage of all Humanity.

Adam Buick

Red Rhymes (2007)

Book Review from the March 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bob Dixon: Make Capitalism History: Poems and Other Communications, Artery Publications £4.50. (available from 38 Pembroke Road, Bromley, Kent, BR1 2RU)

Socialists have made rather little use of poetry as a way of putting our ideas over, so a book of poems (and a few prose pieces) with such a title is at least eye-catching. Dixon is in fact an old hand at political poetry, and one of his previous books was reviewed in the Socialist Standard for May 2000.

The present volume contains some decent stuff: ‘War is of widows, of woe and of weeping . . . war is not glory, not  glinting gold medals.’ A nice deceit depicts ‘colladeral’ as a disease which originated in a US military establishment. A poem titled ‘Demockracy’ contrasts anti-war demonstrators with the lack of those with banners saying ‘WE WANT WAR!’ or ‘POLLUTION IS FUN!’.

Yet there are a couple of problems. One may be gleaned from the title: there is no vision at all of what to replace capitalism with. Another is a tendency to apportion blame in the wrong quarters. The final poem in the book is called ‘To the parents of British soldiers killed in Iraq’, castigating them for not stopping their children from enlisting, and concluding, ‘I cannot extend my sympathy to you.’ This is misplaced — British generals, politicians and rulers more generally should be criticised, not the victims and their relatives.

Paul Bennett

Cooking the Books: Is Ian Paisley a socialist? (2007)

The Cooking The Books column from the March 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is not often that the business pages of the capitalist press refer to socialism. Past experience suggests that when they do they make fools of themselves. A recent article in the Times ( 9 January) by Tim Hames confirmed this. “Northern Ireland”, he wrote, “is in danger of replacing sectarianism with socialism”.

If only this were true. Unfortunately socialism (common ownership,democratic control, production for use not profit, distribution according to needs) is not on the agenda there and in any event couldn’t be since socialism cannot be established just in one country let alone one province.

But this is not what Hames had in mind. After pointing out that state spending represents 60 percent of all spending in Northern Ireland, he went on: “The Rev Paisley and Mr McGuinness will find little difficulty making common cause in asking for ever larger public spending to be showered, equitably, on their constituencies”.

While it is true that politics in Northern Ireland is characterised by what on the continent of Europe is known as “clientelism” – where different politicians appeal to a different group of identified “clients” on the basis of getting material benefits for them in particular – Hames is wrong in thinking government spending and subsidies on and for the poorer sections of society is socialism. If it did then the Reverend Inane Paisley, with his client basis of poor Protestants, would indeed be a socialist. An absurd conclusion which is proof that the original proposition is wrong in accordance with the principle of logic the Ancient Romans used to call reductio ad absurdum.

Government spending on measures to help the poor has nothing to do with socialism. That’s reformism not socialism. At most Paisley is a reformist, even a “leftwing” reformist compared with the UK Labour Party which used to take up this position (now it cuts back on benefits for the poor).

But if Paisley isn’t a socialist, what about President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela? He features on the business pages more than Paisley. Following his re-election as President in December, Chavez announced plans to (re-)nationalise telecom and power companies in Venezuela. Horrified, the Times (9 January) declared: “Mr Chavez begins his third termtomorrow, promising to complete what he calls  Venezuela’s Socialist Revolution of the 21st century”.

More people would find it easier to regard Chavez as a socialist than Paisley, but this is based on another misconception about socialism – that it means government ownership. If this was socialism then all sorts of people just as unlikely as Paisley would be socialists.

Capitalist governments everywhere, whatever their political colour, whether political dictatorships or political democracies, whether “rightwing” or leftwing”, have had recourse to nationalisation. Very early on socialists, basing themselves on the experience of Imperial Germany under Bismarck, identified this as state capitalism since with government ownership the workers remained exploited and bossed. The 70-year experience of Russia under the dictatorship of the Bolsheviks confirmed this, as did the experience of the nationalisations carried out by the postwar Labour government in Britain.

Nationalisation – government ownership of industry – is state capitalism because it leaves all the essential features of capitalism intact: production for sale with a view to profit, surplus value produced by wage worker, monetary calculation. Only the management changes, from private capitalists or their appointees to state bureaucrats.

Chavez’s renationalisation programme is no different. His “Socialist Revolution of the 21st Century” is the State Capitalism of the 20th Century all over again.

Greasy Pole: If John were Prime Minister (2007)

The Greasy Pole column from the March 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Withdraw British troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, and scrap Trident,” promises John

When the SWP’s wish is granted and Phoney Blair finally goes, there will be a Labour Party election to replace him as Leader by Gordon Brown, the dour son of a Presbyterian minister who wants us all to display the Union Jack on Empire Day or whatever he proposes to call its replacement. But he’s not going to get a free run. There are, apparently, still some people in the Labour Party who consider themselves socialists.

Last year, soon after Blair announced that he’d be stepping down, they selected a champion to do battle with Brown: one John McDonnell, the MP for Hayes and Harlington in West London and chair of the Campaign Group of Labour MPs.

They have prepared leaflets, stickers and videos and are currently trying to recruit people to join the Labour Party just so they can vote for him. “I am campaigning,” he says, “for a Labour Party which puts people before profit, defends jobs and services, and supports peace over war. Join me.”

Until the 1990s this is what Labour used to say when not in office but what they never did when they were elected. John (as we’ve been invited to call him) doesn’t seem to have understood why. He seems to think that the putting of profits before people, cutting jobs and services and supporting war rather than peace which all Labour governments have always done were just mistaken policy choices, rather than something imposed on any government charged, as all governments are, with running the political affairs of a capitalist country in the interest of its capitalists.

All governments have to put profits before people because capitalism, the system within which they have to work, runs on them. They are what makes it go round. If profits are not given priority then problems begin to appear. Capitalist firms don’t have enough incentive to go on investing at the same or a higher level and unemployment and relocation to other countries result.

Rewards

John’s opponent, Gordon, has understood perfectly well that, where you have production in the hands of profit-seeking businesses, to keep production going you’ve got allow these businesses to make profits. As he told an “Enterprise Conference” in 2005: “My message today – and my mission in government – is that Britain should be not only the most stable environment but the most attractive location to do business and to create new businesses . . . We will continue to look at the business tax regime so that we can provide the best possible incentives for investment in wealth creation and rewards for success.” (Times, 4 February 2005)

It is this understanding that businesses must be allowed to do what they exist to do and seek and make profits as “rewards for success” that makes Gordon a far more suitable chief administrator of British Capitalism PLC than John with his illusion that under capitalism people can be put before profit.

Once you’ve given yourself the “mission” – actually, faced up to the realities of governing capitalism – of seeking to create the best conditions for profit-seeking businesses to operate and flourish, the rest follows.

John wants to “defend jobs”, but that’s not the way capitalism works. Competition means that there are losers as well as winners. While the latter enjoy the “rewards for success” in the form of higher profits, the losers suffer the penalty of failure in the form of lower or no profits. Losing firms have either to cut back on production or go out of business altogether or be taken over by more ruthless competitors. In whichever case, the result is job losses. John doesn’t say how he would prevent this but we can guess that it would be either by subsidising loss-making businesses or by trying to protect them from foreign competition behind tariff walls.

This could be done (after Britain had first withdrawn from the EU and the World Trade Organisation) but, now that capitalism is more global than ever before, the results would be disastrous for the economy of any country whose government tried them. There’d be an economic slump and mass unemployment.

Reforms

It’s the same with the reforms John is promising. “I will increase the Basic State Pension to £114 a week and immediately restore the link to earnings”. “I will introduce a Real Living Minimum Wage of at least £7 an hour”. The only chance of these figures being attained is if there’s an inflation of the currency – highly likely under a left wing Labour government – leading to an increase in the general price level.

If they were to be attained by taxing profits to pay for them, this would be a disincentive for businesses to invest. In fact, it is because he doesn’t want to do this that Brown, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, has been seeking to reduce taxes on profits. Which is why he and the present Labour government have been cutting back on public services of every sort, from local libraries, post offices and sports facilities to hospital wards and care for the aged.

A leftwing Labour government would, John promises, “withdraw British troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, and scrap Trident”. It is now clear that the Bush and Blair governments made a big mistake, in terms of their aim of ensuring secure and reliable oil supplies for capitalist industry in the West, in invading Iraq. They have made matters worse and are now desperately seeking an exit strategy that will minimise the advantage they have given to Iran, their main rival for hegemony over the Middle East.

John, however, thinks that British capitalism need not be concerned about oil supplies from the Middle East or anywhere else. If I were PM, he says, “I will implement a green energy policy based on renewable power sources”. Easier said than done, given that British capitalism depends on burning fossil fuels for 90 percent of its energy and that (in fact, because) renewable power sources are more expensive. If Britain under John opted to just use wind power, tidal power, hydro power, etc this would so raise production costs generally as to render practically all UK-produced goods completely uncompetitive on the world market and we’d be back to mass unemployment.

John government would have the power to “scrap Trident” nuclear weapons but this would be tantamount to deciding to relegate British capitalism from a second to a third rate power. We don’t know who John is going to appoint as his Foreign Secretary – Jeremy Corbyn, perhaps – but whoever it is will have to realise the worst nightmare of another one-time Labour leftwing firebrand, Nye Bevan, of going naked into the Conference chamber. As Frederick the Great of Prussia, who knew a thing or two about these things, put it, “diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments”.

In short, John and his colleagues are not living on this planet. They have a quite unrealistic programme that, if implemented, would lead to economic chaos and mass unemployment. The only thing that could be said in their favour is that it is not really meant to be implemented. That it’s just a harmless list of pious wishes. So, no John, we shan’t be joining the Labour Party just to vote for you. What would be the point? We have seen the past and it doesn’t work.

Adam Buick

50 Years Ago: the Unification of Europe (2007)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

The MacMillan Government, with the general support of the Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress, is going ahead with the scheme to associate Britain with a European free trade area that is being built up round a separate, more closely integrated “common market” of Germany, France, Italy, Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg.

The six countries in the “common market” aim by stages to abolish customs barriers and free movements of labour and capital within the area. The larger “free trade area” is a sort of half-way house to full integration; in particular British food production and imports would continue to be on the basis of preference for Commonwealth countries.

The motive for the decision of the Government to go in is the powerful one that British industry cannot afford to keep out. When the European “common market” area is formed, with a protected market of 50 million people,thus enabling mass production industries to operate on a scale that will justify the necessary enormous investments of capital, British manufacturers fear that they will be undercut, not only in Europe, but in world markets; for the 50 million population of Britain is far too small a market to serve as foundation for modernised industry.

For British Capitalism it is a question of getting into the European group or being crushed by the three great production areas that will then exist, America, Russia and United Europe.

(Editorial, Socialist Standard, March 1957) 

The Downfall of Dictatorship. (1940)

From the April 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

The followers of Moscow are beginning to cut a rather ridiculous figure; doubt has permeated their ranks; they no longer possess the arrogance of old; they are commencing to reap the harvest they have sown; the tactics of opportunism and compromise caused them to march in a circle in unemployed parades, etc., and now they are either forced to abandon their leader or line up in support of the imperial policy of Stalin and Co.

The late Prince Kropotkin stated at the outset of the Russian revolution : “The Bolsheviks are not what the Western workers think they are.” He was correct. The Western workers thought them to be Socialists; they were mistaken.

Socialism is the noblest cause that ever appealed to the world or to man; the Bolsheviks defamed those who would not accept their leadership and have dragged the working-class movement into the sewers of opportunism and corruption; they used their organisation, the Communist Party, as a means of enabling them to influence the Labour movement of the Western world in the interests of Soviet Russia; the Communist Party became the foreign office of the bureaucracy of the Kremlin, and now, under the dictatorship of Czar Stalin, functions as the ruthless tool of imperialism.

The worker who investigates stands aghast when he discovers what lies behind the purges; he is fast arriving at the conclusion that he has been fooled : “those fellows are not to be trusted.”

The Bolsheviks were more influenced by Bakunin than by Marx; they worked on the principle “the end justifies the means” ; they did not aim at freedom. “Freedom,” said Lenin, “is a bourgeois prejudice.”

He also said, “Socialism is Soviet power plus electricity,” and many other things which indicated he used a Socialist vocabulary in an attempt to gain his imperial ends. Sometimes he spoke the truth; it is on record that he stated he was the logical successor of Peter the Great. “Only by a dictatorship can humanity be brought to happiness,” was the idea held by the leaders of the Russian revolution.

Marx said that the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself, but this did not fit in with Bolshevik aspirations; the Bolshevik leaders got themselves free from oppression. Stalin and Co. are now oppressing the proletariat.

Let us look at the foundation of this peculiar mentality. First I will quote E. Preobraschenski, a pupil and follower of Lenin and the founder of Bolshevik ethics: —

“Whereas in a society in which there are no classes, lying is a disadvantage in itself, because it compels the members of the society to use their energy in discovering the truth, the case is quite different in a society based on class. In the struggle of an exploited class against their enemies, lying and deceit are often very important weapons; all the subterranean work of revolutionary organisations actually depends on over-reaching the power of the State. The Workers’ State, surrounded as it is on all sides by hostile capitalist countries, finds lying very necessary and useful in its foreign policy. Therefore the attitude of the working class and the Communist Party of the open recognition of the right to lie is quite different from that of the Western European Socialists, those God-fearing petits bourgeois who are systematically treated as fools by the representatives of capital.”

How a “Socialist” can hope to create a form of society worth living in out of, or by means of, trained liars is a conundrum, but there it is.

Lunacharski, one of the brightest minds the revolution produced, stated, when referring to Fedor Dostoevski, the writer: —

“Russia goes forward on her thorny but glorious way, and behind her stand her great prophets, who bless her on her path. Among them, the most enthralling and splendid of all, rises the figure of Fedor Dostoevski.”

In reading Dostoevski you get the key to the understanding of Bolshevism. Let me quote from one of his novels, “The Possessed” : —

“Since it is absolutely necessary to fix the social order of the future now, at this very moment, since we are at last preparing to act, to avoid future uncertainty, I put forward my own system for a new world order. … I must first point out that my system is not yet completed, not yet entirely worked out. For I have become entangled in my own arguments ; my final conclusion is diametrically opposed to my original idea. Although I started from the notion of unrestricted freedom, I arrived at the end at absolute despotism. I may add, however, that there can be no possible solution but mine. . . .”

The above is a statement by one of the characters, named Shigalev, a member of a secret society. His remarks are commented upon by another member : —

“Mr. Shigalev has devoted himself too conscientiously to his task, and is also much too modest. I know his book. In it he proposes to divide mankind into two unequal parts. Only the smaller part, about a tenth of the whole, will enjoy personal freedom and unrestricted power over the other nine-tenths. These nine-tenths must entirely renounce all personality and become, so to speak, a herd, in order, through absolute obedience, by a series of regenerations, to regain their original innocence, almost like the old Garden of Eden, although, as may be remarked in passing, they will have to work. The measures proposed by the author for depriving nine-tenths of humanity of their personal will and for turning them into a herd by means of a new education during whole generations are uncommonly remarkable and are, in addition, based on the facts of nature and are highly logical. …”

Now we have Peter Verkhovenski speaking to Stavrogiri on Shigalev’s ideas: —

“One thing about his book is good, the idea of espionage. In his idea, every member of the society spies on the others, and is bound to inform against them when necessary. All are slaves and equal in their slavery. . . . First of all, the level of education, science, and innate natural talent, falls. A high intellectual level is possible only to superior talents. Superior talents have always seized power for themselves and led to despotism. Men of talent cannot help becoming despots, they have always done more harm than good; therefore they are driven out or put to death. . . . Slaves must be equal; without despotism there has never yet been freedom or equality; but in the herd all must be equal, that’s Shigalevism. Does that seem extraordinary to you ? I am for Shigalevism. . . . Listen, Stavrogin; to level mountains is a fine idea, not a ridiculous one. Education is not necessary and we have enough science. Even without science we have material enough to last for a thousand years, but first we must enforce obedience. The thirst for education is an aristocratic impulse; with family and love you have the desire for property. We will destroy this desire; we will spread drunkenness, slander, espionage; we’ll spread incredible demoralisation; we’ll murder every genius in infancy. Everything will be reduced to a common denominator, complete equality will be enforced. . . . Only the indispensable is indispensable; henceforth this is to be the motto of the universe. But it needs shocks; we’ll provide for them, we the directors. Slaves must have directors. Complete obedience, complete impersonality; occasionally, however, every thirty years or so, Shigalev will let them have a shock, and then they will begin to suddenly devour each other, of course only up to a certain point, for the sole purpose of preventing boredom. Boredom is an aristocratic feeling; there will be no desires under Shigalevism. Desire and suffering for us, Shigalevism for the slaves.”

The above was written in 1871. The reader will perceive how the ideas of Dostoevski have found expression in Bolshevism; in them you have a forecast of what is developing in the only “Socialist” country in the world.

In 1879 Dostoevski gave us the following, in “The Brothers Karamazov” : —

“Oh, we shall convince them that they cannot be free till they renounce their freedom in our favour and submit to us. … Too well, all too well, will they know the value of submission once and for all! Men will be unhappy till they grasp this. However, the flock will collect again and submit once mere, and then it will be for ever, for ever. We will give them a quiet, modest happiness, the happiness of feeble creatures such as they were created. Oh, we shall convince them at last that they have no right to be proud. . . . Yes, we will force them to work, but in their free time we will make their life like a game, with songs, choruses, and innocent dances. Oh, we will even permit them to sin—for they are weak and feeble—and they will love us like children, because we allow them to sin. We shall permit or forbid them to live with wives or lovers, to have or not to have children—according to whether they have been obedient or disobedient, and they will submit to us gladly and joyfully. . . . And they will all be happy, all the millions, except the hundred thousand who rule over them. For we alone, we who guard the mystery, we alone shall be unhappy. There will be thousands of millions of happy children and only a hundred thousand martyrs, who have taken on themselves the curse of the knowledge of good and evil.”

Read the Russian writers who influenced the ideas of the revolutionists, study Russian history and you will understand why this Bolshevik religion, for that is what it is, has failed to obtain control of the Western mind; it is alien and foreign and blind to the real aspirations of the modern world.

In order to win freedom we must prove ourselves worthy, we must show that we have developed in the working class the knowledge and the ability to enable society to function on a higher plane. We must appeal to the best that is in the human make-up. Bolshevism appeals to the worst.

The sands of capitalism are running down in the glass : the world may not for long be solidly established upon the economic basis of production for sale.

The common ownership of the means of life and the establishrnent of a system of production for use is the next stage in human development; the war cannot end satisfactorily until the working class carry out their historic mission.

Let them take their stand openly and honourably for Socialism; history is on their side; the emancipation of mankind is involved in the issue.

Charles Lestor

Oil and War. (1940)

From the April 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since man found a motive force, other than the energy of his own body, for operating machinery, fuel for power production has had to be an important consideration. With the development of the internal combustion engine and its application to road, sea and air transport, petroleum has assumed a position of outstanding importance among the products of the world.

The machinery and instruments for producing petroleum, like all other means of production in a capitalist world, are privately owned. Likewise, the tankers, pipe lines and other things necessary for the transport and distribution of the oil, together with the laboratories and machinery for its distillation and refinement—all this is privately owned and operated with a view to the production of profit. The profits that have been derived from the exploitation of the oil workers have been, and still are, stupendous.

The various oil companies of the world have struggled desperately with one another for control of the oilfields and for markets for the disposal of their produce. Capitalist governments, recognising the vital necessity of ensuring adequate supplies of oil, especially in war-time, have placed state resources at the disposal of their respective national companies. Governments invariably give official backing to their national companies in their struggles for concession lands and their endeavours to oust rivals and competitors. The strained relations that have existed between different capitalist governments during the last thirty years have frequently been the direct result of the conflict between their respective oil groups. More than once troops have gone into action to settle disputes over oil lands.

There is the possibility that one of the campaigns of the present war will be fought for the control of the world’s most prolific oilfield, the Russian Caucasian field. The British Government is prepared for large-scale military operations in the Near East. Military men and journalists have been emphasising the strategical importance of these Russian Caucasian oilfields for weeks past.

Brigadier-General C. F. Aspinal-Oglander, C.B., C.M.G., in the Evening News, March 5th : —

“In this connection the news of large German troop movements in the direction of the Caucasus assumes considerable significance; and this potential threat may account for the presence of strong allied forces in Syria and Palestine.”

Then “Scrutator” in The Sunday Times, March 10th: —

“The deadliest blow we can deal to Germany is to cut off her supplies of oil for which, if she is to undertake large-scale military operations, she must be dependent on Russia. Nor are the chances of success in such an operation by any means hopeless. Turkey would give us access to the Black Sea from which we might defend the Roumanian wells against German appropriation, or, if the war is extended, attack the Russian wells at the eastern end. Even if there were difficulties about the use of the Black Sea we have a way of access from Syria and Mosul.”

The Evening Standard, on March 15th, reports what are claimed to be plans for “an immediate counter-attack on Russia’s rich Caucasian oilfields” in the event of a Russian attack on Roumania. The report adds : —

“Then General Weygand’s Near-East army, soon expected to be 1,000,000 strong, was expected to attack across the Turkish-Russian frontier with the Turkish army of nearly 2,000,000 men.

Supported by battleships of the tri-Power fleet, one army would move on the port of Batum, only ten miles from the Turkish frontier.

Another starting from Kars, in Turkey, would move on Alexandropol, in the Soviet Republic of Armenia, the observers said. A third would strike across the frontier near the junction of the Turkish-Iranian-Russian frontiers toward the city of Eriwan.

The extreme Eastern army, after capturing Eriwan, would wheel north-east to Baku and the shores of the Caspian Sea.

The western army, after seizing Batum, would advance up the coast, under the protection of battleship guns, to the Caucasus mountains. A further coastal push towards the oilfields of Maikop, in the province of Adyghai, might be ordered.”

So many young workers from Empire countries who are now in the Army may find themselves transported to the East to endure the inconveniences of a military campaign there. If so, they will march and fight in the company of those same Turks who, a few years ago, they were taught to regard as infidels, slaughterers of Armenian Christians, perpetrators of the vilest atrocities.

The British Government’s statement, “We seek no material advantage for ourselves,” will be worth remembering whilst watching the events in this part of the world. The claim that the Caucasian oil wells must be seized for strategical purposes has a vaguely familiar sound. The expedition under Major-General Dunsterville, which occupied Baku during the last war, set out from Persia to prevent a supposed German march on India. When, on the signing of the armistice, and after an intervening German-Turk occupation, the General Thompson expedition entered the district, the British set about making themselves at home. They took over the banks, the post and telegraph offices, and assumed the function of policing the country. Louis Fischer, in his “Oil Imperialism,” quotes an article by Arthur Moore in the London Times of July 10th, 1922, dealing with the reasons for the subsequent withdrawal of British troops from the Caucasus: —

“. . . . we announced we had come to keep the Bolshevists away. But as soon as the Bolshevist menace began to materialise, it was we who faded away. Why, then, did we go there at all ? Islam knows the answer. We went to try to get hold of the Baku oil-fields, but we were not prepared to fight for them.”

When the Russians re-occupied the district in 1920 (the British garrison withdrew from Batum on July 7th, 1920) the Bolshevik Government proceeded to nationalise the oil industry.

The British statesmen at the peace conference in Paris wished to have Batum set up as a free state under the League of Nations, but failed in their effort. Whilst the states of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijhan were anti-Bolshevik there was hope for the foreign oil concerns. These states were officially recognised by the British Government and White Russian generals received support to commence operations from Georgia against the Bolshevik Government.

Opposition to the Russian nationalisation of the oil industry was the keynote at the Geneva and Hague conferences. Whilst the statesmen met and wrangled in one part of the towns, the oil magnates met in another part and fought over the Russian oilfields. Davenport and Cooke, in their “The Oil Trusts and Anglo-American Relationships,” suggest that “this was the Hague Conference which really mattered.” The Russian Government would not relinquish its control of its oilfields but it was prepared to grant some generous concessions. The conferences came to a standstill mainly because the different oil companies wanted monopoly concessions and none would give in to the others.

After the conferences a general blockade and boycott of Russian oil was agreed upon. But the rival oil companies were so anxious to get a foothold in the Caucasus that they were soon double-crossing one another and defeating their own boycott efforts. The boycott forced the Russian Government to set up its own distributing agencies and Russian Oil Products (R.O.P.) came into existence. A price war ensued. The Royal Dutch-Shell Group, under Sir Henri Deterding, took up the war in earnest.

After a period of price-cutting both the Russian Government and the Royal Dutch Company were financially embarrassed. The Russians hoped to barter oil-land concessions for recognition by other governments and loans from foreign finance houses. A London bank had arranged a loan for Russia. The day following the bank’s decision the offices of the Anglo-Russian Trading Co. in London were raided by the police on the plea of seeking espionage documents. The raid was wrapped in mystery. The Home Office denied having given instructions, but the British Government found it necessary to break off negotiations with the Russian Government and to forbid the loan.

Of late years the struggle for Russian oil has been carried on mainly between the Royal Dutch-Shell and the American Standard oil companies. Each has bought Russian oil in large quantities, striving for monopolies, and then carried the struggle to India, where they have competed for the market for the disposal of the spoils.

In the preparations for the present war the British Government’s manoeuvres in South-east Europe have been carried on also with an eye to safeguarding its own oil supplies : the recent Anglo-Turkish arrangement is an example. Mr. S. W. Alexander, City Editor of the Daily Express, pointed out in that paper on October 24th, 1939, that—

“Turkey’s decision to come in with Britain and France leaves the sea route open for the transport of oil.”

The recent attempts to placate the Arabs by limiting the purchase of land by Jews indicates an attempt to win them to a support of a British Near-East campaign.

The Allied Powers distributed the Mesopotamian oil lands amongst themselves during the last war and fell to quarrelling about the division after the armistice.

Now oil is once more playing a great part in the rivalries of the Powers. It should serve to remind us that wars are not fought for “moral” reasons but are caused by the conflict of material interests inherent in the capitalist system of society.

W. Waters

Press Cuttings. (1940)

From the April 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

They are all Socialists now—or are they?

“In his last speech Dr. Goebbels said this war was between the ‘German Socialist State and British capitalism.'” — (Manchester Guardian, March 5th, 1940.)

“Britain is being turned into a Socialist State. Not by a revolution and red flags. It’s all done by Tories.”—(Daily Express, February 9th, 1940.)

“The Socialist daring of the Red Army man and the Socialist technique of the great Soviet Union is smashing through fortifications second only to the Maginot and Siegfried lines. Their fight is our fight. The army of liberation is on the march, capitalism shudders under its blows.”—(Daily Worker, February 23rd, 1940.)

* * *

Another Way to Stop War—More Money for the Secret Service.

“An effective Intelligence service can keep a great nation out of war: for without it a government— no matter what party—is bound to make mistakes. If we had spent £1,000,000 a year on such service during the twenty years of armistice, instead of the paltry sums voted for this huge Empire, we should be saving £7,000,000 a day now.”—(From a letter in the Daily Telegraph, February 17th, 1940.)

* * *

Mr. Churchill—the Man the Communists wanted to be a Minister in the Popular Front Government.

“The sea breezes blow. The House of Commons feels the salt.

It is Mr. Churchill speaking. Mr. Churchill reviewing the Fleet.

What does he want ?

“A few men, some ships and a little money.”

What is he given ?

The men, the ships, the money, and the confidence of the nation.

The right man is at the helm.”—(Daily Express, February 28th, 1940.)

“Rome, February 25th.

The Popolo di Roma to-day describes Mr. Winston Churchill as “a survivor of that race which is dying out in Britain—the race of Marlborough and Drake, of those genial and unscrupulous men who in the past made the greatness of the Empire.

“Between an honest civilian like the umbrella-carrying Mr. Chamberlain and the ascetic lost in politics like Lord Halifax,” it adds, “Mr. Churchill stands out like the only man of iron among a dozen men of wood—like a pirate in a circle of honest and spineless gentlemen.”—Press Association War Special. —(Manchester Guardian, February 27th, 1940.)

* * *

Capitalism “having died out” !

“Is my right hon. Friend not aware that, Capitalism having died out, there cannot be any incitement to disaffection in regard to it.”— (Commander Locker-Lampson, in the House of Commons, February 29th 1940.)

* * *

The Russian Government’s interest in Finland.

“The Soviet Government will start a decisive battle to force British economic interests and influences out of Finland and out of the whole Baltic region. Soviet Russia will free Finland from all trade treaties which have been forced upon Finland by foreign imperialists. Until now Finland has been forced to import unnecessary materials from Egypt and Tunis. Now Soviet Russia will be the main source from which Finland will buy her raw materials.”—(Isvestia, March 25th, 1940. Reproduced in News-Chronicle, March 26th, from Moscow radio broadcast.)

* * *

Mr. Herbert Morrison in 1926.

In 1926 Mr. Herbert Morrison was one of those who signed the following pledge: —

“We, the undersigned, convinced that all disputes between nations are capable of settlement either by diplomatic negotiation or by some form of International Arbitration, hereby solemnly declare that we refuse to support or render war service to any government which resorts to arms.”

At the Albert Hall “Peace Letter Campaign Meeting,” on December 5th, 1926, he said: —

“We know from past and all too real experience how the declarations of parties and individuals towards wars are likely to fail when the testing time comes, and it may be that even many of those who have signed this declaration will fail, for wars have a terrible effect upon the public mind and upon the public psychology.”

(“Why We Will Not Fight,” published by the Peace Letter Campaign, 1926.)

* * *

What Dictators cannot do.

“A nation of peasants does not pass in one generation from medievalism to the machine age simply because a dictator has decreed it.” — (Daily Telegraph, January 3rd, 1940.)

* * *

Industrial Service for French Women.

“Within two months a register of women volunteer workers is to be prepared.

These women will then be drafted to various industries in which employers have asked for them. All will have to pass a medical examination before being accepted.

If the voluntary system does not yield enough female labour the Minister of Labour can order the compulsory registration of women fit for industrial work. Women will then be called up individually as they are required.” — (News-Chronicle, March 2nd, 1940.)