50 Years Ago: The Right to be Lazy (1979)

The 50 Years Ago column from the August 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard 

According to the Daily Chronicle (2 July 1929) there are 1,142,400 out of work, an increase of 24,593 on the previous month. The total on 1 July comprised 889,000 men, 28,300 boys, 199,500 women and 25,500 girls.

In the same paper, same date, same column, we also read under the subheading “Society Acrobats”:

The diverse activities of well-known people have been keeping the photographers exceptionally busy, according to this week’s issue of that bright review, the Sketch. Half the social world appears to have shipped over to Le Touquet for the golf tournament of Buck’s Club, while the other half were either at the Peterborough Foxhound Show or the extraordinary circus held in a West End mansion. Polo and a water party at Roehampton claimed many notable people, some of who are seen doing complicated ‘physical jerks’ on Major Paget’s lawn to time set by gramophone.

We are not killjoys, nor arc we much concerned with these antics about which the tripe journalists write so much trash. What we do object to is the humdrum existence we, like the rest of the workers, have to submit to because they do not understand the case and comfort possible for all if the present means of wealth production were commonly owned and utilised for that purpose. 

(From an article by MacHaffie, Socialist Standard August 1929.)

Rod of iron (1979)

From the August 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Three months after the Tories won power, it is becoming more and more obvious that we are being governed by a curious mixture of people. On the one hand there is Willie Whitelaw, who may be considered by a few ungrateful electors not to have the most agile intellect in politics. On the other there is Keith Joseph, whose legendary brilliance has the political correspondents searching through their Thesaurus for some fresh adulation. When he was last a minister, Joseph startled many of his admirers by suddenly discovering something he called the Cycle of Deprivation and by declaring that he intended to do away with it. This cycle which Joseph had come across was in fact the process by which poor people tend to raise deprived children, who in turn do the same. It may not have been the most original idea ever to come out of a Whitehall office, but it provided Joseph with the material for a lot of speeches, so we should all be grateful.

But any shortcomings in the new government are more than compensated for by the fact that they are presided over by one of the most remarkable women in the entire history of the human race. Margaret Thatcher, it will be remembered, was once castigated as the Iron Lady by the Russian press. Perhaps the Russians were really trying to bring about Labour’s defeat at the election; at all events, their sneer did Thatcher no harm. It has, however, had its repercussions; she now seems to feel the need to act out the role which has been thrust upon her. For example, in a recent article in the Sunday Telegraph, Graham Turner wrote:

. . . Mrs. Thatcher’s own impact has been explosive, both within the Cabinet and in Whitehall, part of which she has turned into a distressed area within the space of a few weeks . . .

Nor is it only civil servants who go in fear of Mrs. Thatcher. Some ministers, too, are distinctly nervous of her. It needs an especially arrogant and assertive personality (one who springs to mind is Michael Heseltine) to stand up to the Iron Lady and, if we are to believe the Sunday Express, this government is not overloaded with such people. Indeed, the Express recently sneered at the Tories as a bunch of vacillating weaklings, with Thatcher the only ‘man’ (sic) among them. No eyebrows will be raised at the sexism in this, typical of the Express, but what should be said about the paper’s abrupt change of favour? It is, after all, only a few months since they were advising us to vote for those same Tory weaklings.

Leader

Perhaps, in attacking the underlings while bolstering the leader, the Express is showing its sensitivity to the fact that the Tories have had some unhappy experiences with their leaders over the past fifteen years. At one time they could go about their business under the comfortable assumption that they were the natural governing party of British capitalism and that this would last for ever. This assurance did not lessen the ferocity of their infighting, in which not a few of their leaders perished, usually because they had failed to win an election. The process by which the leader of the Tories came to the front was once described by one of their MPs:

Great leaders of parties are not elected, they are evolved . . . I think it will be a bad day when we have solemnly to meet to elect a leader. The leader is there, and we all know it when he is there. (Ernest Pretyman, 21 March 1921)

In theory, a leader chosen by that process could hang on to the job for as long as he liked. In practice, his hold was not that secure; if he lost the support of the party in Parliament he was disposed of as effectively as in any formal ballot.

That was what happened when the Tories got rid of Douglas-Home and, to some extent, when Edward Heath was forced to put his leadership up for re-election — and lost to Thatcher. But in calmer times it is usual for the Conservative Party to present the image of a happy, united family, at one behind the leader. It is almost as if the leader had come down from some supernatural existence to harvest the votes; every word they utter is treated with reverence, and when they speak at a Tory Conference they must be rewarded with a prolonged standing ovation, no matter how banal and boring (which it usually is) their speech has been.

This is the treatment which is now being given to us over Margaret Thatcher. Here, for example, is how one Tory MP describes her:

. . .  She has the power of total concentration, an immense capacity for work, and great physical stamina. This is unusual in a woman. (Nigel Fisher, The Tory Leaders)

Nobody need be misled by Fisher’s confident assertions about women’s alleged lack of concentration, industriousness and stamina into thinking that he knows anything about biology. Perhaps his knowledge of politics is also suspect; why, for example, did this woman he praises so fulsomely have such a hard time of it being recognised by the Tories for the unique genius Fisher says she is?

When the campaign for the leadership opened, Thatcher was not among the front runners; likelier candidates were Whitelaw, Joseph and du Cann. Enoch Powell, not noted for his tact, said bluntly that Thatcher’s election was a matter of chance (and therefore, presumably, not of merit); earlier or later, it would not have happened. And it is almost certain that if the Tories had still been choosing their leader under the old system, they would not have ‘known she was there’. An important element in that system was that there should be some sort of consensus in a candidate’s favour among the more influential members of the party. As Fisher points out, Thatcher did not have this:

Before Neave assumed control, there was very little declared or positive support for Margaret Thatcher. Most members were reluctant to commit themselves, many thought she was unelectable and a few were openly anti-feminist.

But all that is past now, and Thatcher is at Number Ten. For the present (which probably means for as long as she wins elections) the ranks are closed behind her and the Tories bend their minds to a relentless campaign to convince us that we are the luckiest people ever to have such a person running British capitalism. Of course we are wearily familiar with this; the late John Davies, for example, could not have been described as a dazzling success as a politician, even by the standards which capitalism applies. Still less should the working class feel any warmth or sympathy towards a man who so openly represented the social system which degrades and exploits them. But when Davies died, the praise for him gushed uncontrolled:

. . . delightful, modest and very able... a person who believed in serving others. (Margaret Thatcher)

. . . a delightful colleague, who never spared himself . . . (Edward Heath)

. . . a genuinely nice man. (Ian Aitken, The Guardian)

This sort of nonsense is depressingly capable of convincing most workers not only that their leaders are an exceptionally able and self-sacrificing lot, but also that leaders of one sort or another are essential. How, without leaders, would capitalism go about its daily business of exploiting the working class, designing slums, regulating poverty, prosecuting war, protecting the privileges of a parasitic minority? How could it convince so many people that it is natural and progressive for the majority to work all their lives for nothing more than the achievement of keeping that minority in their parasitism?

For example, at a recent party of ‘high society guests’ at the Dorchester, the first prize in a raffle was a £1,000 facelift by a top Harley Street surgeon. What sort of person, one wonders, would buy a ticket in such a raffle? Or go to such a party? What sort of ‘doctor’ would agree to be the prize? And what sort of people doggedly, even happily, allow themselves to be exploited to support it, and at election time vote in favour of its continuing?

Perhaps the working class do not object to being robbed and insulted provided that it is done artistically. Thatcher’s success or failure as a politician will be judged by that standard. At the present she is largely an unknown quantity, but one thing is clear: no one will try harder.

Ivan

Running Commentary: Carter's Collapse? (1979)

The Running Commentary column from the August 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Carter's Collapse?

After the blue-chinned scowl of Nixon and the fumbling, stumbling of Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter’s grin was meant to represent a new era in American politics.

They said Carter was clean — no hint of a Watergate hung about him. He was clever — no after-effects of playing too much American football without a helmet clogged up his mental processes. He was energetic, skipping from his campaign ’plane with the spring of a young deer.

And his smile — open, warm, ready, friendly. With his pretty wife and his photogenic daughter, he just had to be the greatest president since Roosevelt dominated American politics from his wheelchair.

Carter started as if he intended to be different, running his Cabinet meetings in open-necked sportswear and with the press watching. This, we were told, was truly open government, as if there has ever been, or is likely ever to be, a capitalist state which really allowed its secrets to be open to public scrutiny.

And then Carter kept talking about human rights, as if this was his own original discovery, and as if a politician mouthing about human rights had any significance for those humans.

Well, it has all collapsed very quickly, and the news from America indicates that the voters there are disillusioned with their grinning president, whose hold on his position gets more precarious each day.

Carter, it is said, fumbles and delays, changing his mind almost day by day over issues like the fuel shortage which is so hot in America. His financial policy is described as indecisive and inconsistent. Meanwhile, American capitalism gets deeper into crisis, with the threat of worse to come.

Even if Carter were decisive, clear and firm, it would make absolutely no difference to the grim realities of life under capitalism for the American workers. That is one lesson for them to learn from this, the collapse of their latest idol. Another is that all politicians are powerless in the face of the anarchy of capitalism, which means that the ecstasy with which their coming to power is greeted always turns soon to disillusionment and then to despair.

Jimmy Carter’s grin won a lot of votes, but for the American workers it is no laughing matter.

Crueller Cuts?

Like the Flanders swamps of 1914-18, there are many much fought-over fields in the politics of capitalism. One of these is so-called public expenditure, about which there promises to be an increasingly fearsome battle during the Tories' period of office.

The term public expenditure generally refers to money spent by government and councils. About this there are many myths, one of them being that public expenditure is good; it means hospitals, social services and — something beloved by millions of workers — big new roads.

Because of this, public expenditure is supposed to actually create something also beloved by millions of workers — jobs. (There is no actual record from earlier societies of slaves ever welcoming the making of new chains for themselves, but let that pass.)

One thing which must be said is that public expenditure also finances agencies like the police and the prisons which are, perhaps, not beloved by quite so many workers, and armed forces and armaments, which are beloved only by those workers who take sides in the matter.

But a myth we are going to hear a lot of over the next few years is that since public expenditure is good, it is something favoured only by the Labour Party and which the wicked Tories will do their best to abolish.

Memories in politics are notoriously short, so it is useful to remind ourselves that the last Labour government, like all its predecessors, made consistently savage cuts in public spending.

As a result of these cuts, hospitals were shut in the face of strong objections, social services were severely restricted, schooling was cut back. A Conservative government could hardly have been more Scrooge-like in its zeal.

This fact of history was clearly illustrated in a recent (June 19) article in The Guardian by Joel Barnett, who was Chief Secretary to the Treasury in Callaghan's government. This article, by a typical Labour sleight of word, was both an attack on the Tories for their planned cuts and a justification of those imposed by Labour:

I don’t believe present levels of public expenditure should be sacrosanct, nor that every programme should be, as it were, untouchable, and free from cuts.

In the battles to come, and in the increasing pressures on their living standards, workers will — as usual — be bombarded by lies, myths, distortions. It is vital that they remember: both Tories and Labour run capitalism as savagely as they need to. And capitalism cannot be coaxed out of its own basic savagery into benignity by spending money, public or private, big or small.

Anti-Social Insecurity

It is not often that any person — and still less, any capitalist agency — is given the gift to see themselves as others see them. It is even more surprising that this should happen to, of all things, the Department of Health and Social Security (for such it is described).

To explain this strange happening, let us go back a little into recent history. During the last war, the British capitalist class realised that mere patriotism was not enough to persuade the workers to accept what they were required to endure.

Something more was needed: a mixture of threats and promises. Out of this latter grew the assurances that after the war capitalism would bend all its efforts to building a better society, free of the mistakes which were made before 1939.

And out of that came the famous Beveridge Report, parent of the National Health Service and the National Insurance Scheme introduced by the post-war Labour government. A central principle of National Insurance was that its benefits would be available as of right to anyone in need — in other words, without being subject to the notorious Means Test — and that they would be enough to meet all needs. It was envisaged that a small minority of people in rare cases would need extra help, and for those there would be the Supplementary Benefits, which would be means tested.

Well, it has not worked out like that at all, and now the original idea of Beveridge is in tatters. About one-tenth of the population — something like six million people — need to apply for Supplementary Benefit, which pays out some £2 billion a year.

This increasing reliance on what was supposed to be only a safety net has meant that the scheme has become more and more complex something unwelcome to workers who are sick or old or infirm, and who need a simpler method of claiming benefit.

A recent report by the Supplementary Benefits Commission called attention to this crisis and suggested that, to meet the needs of applicants, the scheme needs an extra £200 million a year. The Commission chairman described the need as “urgent” and said that unless the government acted swiftly, “it will be impossible to maintain standards of service for people in Britain who are in real need . . .”

Those workers who rely on Social Security will be amazed to learn that the treatment they get from the DHSS is called a service and that it aspires to standards. On the receiving end, they know how this patch-up job of capitalism simply does not work. They may get some consolation to know that the SBC now thinks the same.

Would that some ghostie would give the same gift, of seeing themselves as others see them, to all the agencies of so-called reform within capitalism.

One law for the rich . . . (1979)

From the August 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

While there are many uses for law, two are fundamental: to enforce and maintain the barrier between those who own property and those who do not, and to perpetuate the illusion that a world of rich and poor is inevitable.

Most workers still have only occasional contact with the law, but when they do it is often a nightmare experience. Every day courts throughout the world haul workers before them and put them through a most degrading experience, treating them like animals — even locking them up in cages.

A common tourist attraction in London is the Old Bailey, one of the traditional sights conveniently near to St. Paul’s, to which it is remarkably similar. The latter is a monument to the cowering of the working class by the means of a very old, but still potent, myth. The former has the same purpose, but uses more direct means of coercion. Whereas most tourists go into St. Paul’s, few bother to enter the Old Bailey. If they did, they would find every day a bizarre sight — members of the working class (the jury) condemning other members of their own class. And for what? Mostly for offences which beside the large-scale crime that goes on every day — the theft by the capitalist class of the wealth produced by the workers — are positively trivial.

In the Thorpe case, for example, a working class jury carefully listened to the arguments, patiently sat through the speeches and (almost on the instructions of the judge) like good dogs, did not bite their masters. Next door, meanwhile, the swindler, bank robber or housebreaker was getting different treatment. Few people were watching, and even the jury who usually convict without too much persuasion were often inattentive. In the magistrates courts where most cases are heard, there is not even a jury. Sometimes magistrates convict on the word of the police alone.

Juries

Historically, there is some evidence to suggest that jurors used to be far more conscious of working class interests. Juries were not always mere sops, dutifully doing as the representatives of the authorities told them. They would frequently refuse to convict, especially where they knew that savage penalties would follow. But it was not just the cases of ‘hung for a lamb’ where juries asserted their independence. Right across the board they would try to redress the balance of savagely repressive laws by acquitting the ‘guilty’ as well as the ‘innocent’. This must not be exaggerated; many a poacher, for example, suffered death or transportation even though poaching was common and in some areas absolutely essential for families to exist at all. But juries, at least on occasions, provided some sort of buffer against the savageries of pre-capitalist and early capitalist legislation.

By contrast, juries now seem more docile. That could mean that the rule of capital has become even more effective as it has increased its insidious power over the minds of those it exploits. But if times are hard, then the efforts to counteract the prevailing ideas must be stronger. No amount of pleading, no amount of reforming, marching, demonstrating is going to alter the fact that capitalism is a society of haves and have-nots, rich and poor, owner and non-owner. From this follow all the problems faced by workers, including problems of spending part of their lives in cells or, in some parts of the world, of being officially murdered on behalf of those whose rule and property some workers appear to threaten. There can be only one verdict on capitalism — guilty: and only one sentence — death.

Ronnie Warrington

Letter From Europe: SOS Longwy (1979)

The Letter From Europe Column from the August 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some miles before Longwy there comes into view the reddish cloud which permanently hangs over it and over nearby Rodange in Luxemburg. As you get nearer you can see on the top of the slag heap which dominates the centre of the town a sign flashing “SOS EMPLOI". Longwy, in other words, is a steel town, and a steel town threatened with massive redundancies.

The world steel industry has been in crisis since 1974—productive capacity exceeds what can be sold profitably—and this has had serious repercussions in the old steel-making areas of Europe, such as Lorraine. The Lorraine steel industry began to develop a hundred or so years ago when a method of using the iron ore found in abundance in the area was discovered. Now that there are more modern methods of production and cheaper sources of iron ore, Lorraine is inevitably suffering the measures to reduce capacity which, within the framework of capitalism, is the only way of “solving” the current crisis. That such drastic measures were going to be necessary was evident as far back as 1976 when, instead of expanding again after a year or so of recession as on previous occasions, steel sales and production continued to stagnate.

The French government waited until the general elections of March 1978 were over (and won) before considering what to do. By then the privately-owned French steel firms were virtually bankrupt. Towards the end of last year the government announced that it was going to take over the running of these firms, appointing its own nominees to preside over the “restructuring” of the industry—the suppression of “excess” capacity—and jobs.

Over Lorraine, the government had a difficult decision to make: where to build a new modern steel works, in Longwy or in Neuves-Maisons, 100 or so kilometres further south near Nancy? In the end they chose Neuves-Maisons. As soon as the announcement was made there was consternation and anger in Longwy since the whole population realised that, on top of the already announced loss of jobs, this meant mass unemployment and a slow decline for their town. Thousands of school-children were assembled in the town centre to release balloons bearing the message “Longwy vivra” (Longwy will live). International passenger trains were stopped; wagons carrying Swedish iron ore were emptied on to the tracks; the frontiers with Belgium and Luxemburg were blocked; and lorries carrying steel products from Holland and, in particular, Germany were stopped and unloaded onto the motorway.

CRS move in

At the end of January two top managers of the steel firm Usinor were held hostage in their offices in Longwy. This led to the first violent clash with the CRS (the para-military riot police with a justified reputation for brutality) when they intervened to free the managers. The local police station was attacked with stones and other missiles. But the attack of 30 January was mild compared with what was to happen on the night of 23/24 February. Members of the CFDT trade union had been occupying a television relay station on a nearby hill and interrupting programmes to screen written messages opposing the planned redundancies. In a surprise attack in the middle of the night the CRS recaptured the station. News of this was announced to the population by the sounding of factory sirens and in no time a crowd of several hundreds had gathered in the centre of town in an angry mood. A bulldozer was commandeered and used against the gates of the police station. The crowd only dispersed after the intervention of the local Communist Party MP, Antoine Porcu, who had arranged a tacit truce: retreat by the crowd and their bulldozer in return for the withdrawal of the CRS (but not the local police) to outside the town limits. Later on in the morning the leaders of the Communist Party (PCF) dominated trade union, the CGT, organised the sacking of the local office of the steel employers’ federation; furniture was thrown out of the windows and files burned.

By now Longwy had acquired a national, and even an international, reputation of being in a fighting mood. The authorities decided that discretion was the better part of valour and kept the CRS out of Longwy, well aware that their very presence there would provoke fresh violence.

But the violence was not yet over. The two trade unions, the CFDT and the CGT had both established radio stations the latter in Longwy’s town hall with the evident blessing and support of the PCF mayor. Since the state in France has a monopoly of broadcasting these stations were technically illegal “pirate” stations and on 17 May jamming began of the CGT station. Radio Coeur d’Acier (Radio Heart of Steel). The result was the worst violence to date. The population was again called out by factory sirens and in the course of five hours fighting during the night 25 people, from the CRS as well as the crowd, were injured and 5 arrests made. Unusually, these 5 were not held in custody and, when they came up for trial, the charges against them were dismissed. The jamming of Radio Coeur d’Acier also stopped.

Clearly, the population of Longwy has shown a remarkable degree of solidarity and determination and this has enabled them to restrict the authority of the central State which has seen itself obliged to keep its riot police away and to allow the trade union radios to continue broadcasting illegally. But, and this is why the central State can afford to sit back and wait, the working class in Longwy are fighting a battle they cannot win. For in trying to keep open an unprofitable and outdated steel works they are not simply fighting against a government decision but against the economic laws of capitalism. If central governments not only in France but in Britain, Germany, Belgium and other countries too have had to bow to the logic of capitalism and cut back their steel industries, then the action of a small town, however determined, is not going to be able to override the iron law of “no profit, no production”.

Defensive Struggles

The sad fact is that the loss of the steel jobs in Longwy is inevitable and the most that the workers affected can hope for is a short postponement of their sackings and bigger redundancy payments. Indeed, this is what their solidarity and determination may bring them in the end and. if it does, it will not have been entirely in vain. But, when analysed unemotionally, it’s precious little. Like its neighbouring town of Athus in Belgium (which also had its clashes with the police when its steelworks was closed—but who remembers this now, except a few old men wondering what’s going to happen when their three-year redundancy benefits come to an end?). Longwy is doomed to decline even if its working class population had chosen to go down fighting.

There are those who don’t share this analysis but who see the clashes in Longwy as “the first flames of a renaissant proletarian flare-up” (Revolution Internationale, April 1979) and who talk of “the flare-up of proletarian violence that has restarted from Longwy” (Jeune Taupe, March-April 1979). According to these starry-eyed idealisers of violence, the events are the beginning of a revival of the working class’ “lost” revolutionary consciousness. Let’s scotch this myth before it goes any further. First, willingness to fight the police is no gauge of revolutionary consciousness (otherwise Manchester United supporters would have to be regarded as hardened revolutionaries). What allows someone to be described as a revolutionary is the aim he seeks—a complete transformation of society. In Longwy, despite the violence, the struggle is purely defensive: to save jobs (and on an issue where, unlike defensive struggles over wages and working conditions, failure is inevitable). Even the fights with the police have been defensive in the sense of being responses to actions started by the police. As for the political consciousness of those involved, unfortunately it is at the same level as in similar industrial towns in other parts of France: mostly support for the so-called Communist Party. Longwy has a PCF member of parliament and a PCF mayor.

The French CP, although still hypocritically paying lip-service to Marx’s ideas, has gone completely nationalist and analyses the steel crisis in France as an attempt by the German steel barons to eliminate a competitor. The German steel barons are supposed to control the Common Market Commission in Brussels and to have instructed Viscount Davignon, the Belgian Commissioner responsible for industrial affairs, to draw up a plan involving the dismantling of the French steel industry. This analysis would be laughable did it not provide the basis for a deliberate campaign by the PCF to stir up anti- German feelings. The PCF mayor of Longlaville, a small commune between Longwy and the Luxemburg border, has put up the following slogan on his town hall: “1870-1914-1939. La Lorraine ne sera pas vendue aux trusts allemands” (1870-1914-1939. Lorraine will not be sold to the German trusts). The present writer has seen this with his own eyes and is therefore prepared to believe reports of similar sentiments being expressed by other PCF members, the worst of which is the following from a certain J Gillet, a local CGT trade union official:

What's going to come about is the domination of Europe and France by the German capitalists. What the Germans were unable to obtain in 1914 and 1939, they are conquering today. Our action can be likened to that of the Resistance. It is a struggle for national independence (quoted in L'Anarcho-Syndicaliste. April-May 1979).

CP Chauvinism

This is not to say that the working class of Longwy are rabid German-haters. Far from it. They are ordinary workers worried about their future who, besides, being for the most part immigrants or children of immigrants from Poland and Italy, have no reason to see themselves as French chauvinists. This is why it is quite disgusting that the PCF should be exploiting the very real fears of the ordinary workers of Longwy in this way. Without exaggeration, their campaign can be said to be on a par with that of the pre-war German Nazis who blamed, again falsely, the problems of unemployed German workers on the Jews. To give credit where it is due, the smaller CFDT trade union has tried to counter this chauvinistic anti-German campaign of the PCF.

Those who see the combative attitude of the workers of Longwy as the beginning of a revival of a revolutionary, socialist consciousness among the working class are deluding themselves. We only wish that it was, but sober reality forces us to recognise that it isn’t. Yet it is an indication of the solidarity and determination the working class are capable of, a display which enables us to confidently conclude that when the workers really do want and understand socialism nothing is going to stop them getting it.

Adam Buick (Luxemburg).

Open letter to Arthur Scargill (1979)

From the August 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Arthur,

I read with interest the ‘profile’ article on you in The Observer supplement (17 June) and, in particular, your political views expressed therein.

You plainly believe that workers’ interests can best be served in the political field through the Labour Party, of which you are an active and committed member. I see also that you subscribe to the “Marxist interpretation of society” that there are “two classes in Britain, the ruling class which owns and controls the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the working class which provides the labour and is exploited by the ruling class.” Here you are dead right. You will also no doubt accept the view that the ruling class effects its rule through the state, which is the ‘executive committee of the ruling class’ and can only operate in the interests of that class.

But here we come up against a rather sticky problem. You say correctly that society today is a class society. What this means is that hitherto no ‘government’ (and this includes every single Labour government there has been, with or without majority support in Parliament) has done away with class ownership and control of the means of production, whether it has professed a desire to or not. The very fact that there still is a capitalist class — and a working class — is all the evidence we need for saying this. So every Labour government has lived with — and perpetuated — class ownership of the means of living.

But by perpetuating and not abolishing class ownership. Labour governments have therefore pursued the interests of the ruling class — the capitalists — for how else can a class-based society be run, except in the interests of its ruling class? Since the state is the ‘executive committee of the ruling class’, those who hold the reins of state power (governments), in order to perpetuate class ownership as every Labour government has done, must therefore be protecting, promoting and pursuing the interests of the ruling class.

However, since the interests of the workers and the capitalists, of wage labour and capital, are diametrically opposed — a fundamental Marxian proposition which I am sure your vast practical experience in the industrial field will bear out — how then can any Labour government, by acting in the interests of the capitalist ruling class, not be acting against the interests of the working class? In short, not to put too fine a point on it, how can you reconcile being a trade union activist as well as a member of what is in effect, despite all its appealing slogans, a capitalist anti-working class party?

This fundamental flaw in your thinking the belief that the Labour Party represents the interests of the workers is unfortunately shared by many trade unionists. The consequence of this is that the effectiveness of trade unionism itself is impaired. The so-called ‘understanding’ between the Labour Party and the unions has facilitated the task of Labour governments in imposing on workers anti-working class policies, some of which would even look bad coming from the Tories. It is therefore all the more important that trade unionists should extricate themselves from the spiders web of blind sentimental loyalty to the Labour Party which has kept them spellbound with promises of ‘jam tomorrow’ (always tomorrow!), and take a long hard look at what Labour governments, all Labour governments, have meant in practice (which in the end is what really counts).

Now you might agree with this criticism of Labour governments — it’s surprising the number of Labour Party supporters who would, yet still cannot draw the logical conclusion. Indeed, I see that according to The Observer you feel that the Parliamentary Labour Party has “betrayed its membership and the working class”. This is the usual excuse offered by the Labour left for the inevitable failure of Labour governments to run capitalism in the interests of the majority. The assumption behind this excuse is that the Labour Party is still worth supporting as a means to introduce socialism, if only a more ‘left wing’ leadership can be formed within the Labour Party. How the principle of ‘leadership’ can be reconciled with the opposing revolutionary Marxist principle that working class emancipation must be the conscious act of the working class itself, is something, of course, which the left does not care to explain.

But if past Labour governments have all been capitalist (there cannot be such a thing as a socialist ‘government’ anyway), are there any grounds for hoping that a Labour Party led by left-wingers will hasten the advent of socialism? Well, what is it that the Labour left are aiming for? No doubt that famous Clause Four of the Labour Party constitution which you call a “Marxist prescription for a new society” would be regarded by many of the left as an adequate description of their aim. This clause, as you know, calls for the ‘common ownership’ of the means of production, distribution and exchange, by which is meant ‘state ownership’, which the left would equate with a ‘classless socialist society’.

If the state is a product of class society, as Marxists believe, why would there be ‘state ownership’? Further, if goods and services are exchanged — bought and sold on a market — does this not suggest a private property set-up? If everyone owned all the means of production — that is to say, if there was common ownership — how could there be ‘exchange’ of what was produced? Exchange implies that sonic own and some do not.

In every exchange transaction there is a conflict of economic interests: it is in the interests of the seller to sell his commodity for as much as he can get, while the buyer’s interests would be to purchase this commodity for as little as possible. The commodity you as a trade union negotiator are especially concerned with is labour power, the skills of your members. Ironically, the buyer of this commodity is a state enterprise which, according to left wing theory, is the property of you, me and everyone else in the country. This, however, does not make any difference to the fact that workers in state industries have to struggle just as much as those in private industries for better wages and conditions, against employers who are determined whenever possible to intensify workers’ exploitation or, if insufficient profits are forthcoming, to make workers redundant. And despite the fact that ‘we’ are all supposed to own British Rail, for example, personally I don’t think I can afford to run the risk of taking this too literally by travelling on British Rail without a ‘ticket’, any more than I would be prepared to risk walking straight past the cash tills of ‘my’ local privately-owned supermarket with a bag-load of unpaid-for goodies. No cash means no goodies or railway trips.

In other words, there is basically no difference between private ownership and state ownership as far as the working class is concerned: the latter is just as much minority ownership and control of the means of living, except that this minority exercises its ownership collectively through the state rather than individually through private firms. State capitalism, as this is called, is still capitalism, with all the conflicts and contradictions that that implies.

There is an alternative to all forms of capitalism. Socialism entails that all wealth should be produced solely for use, not for sale or barter, and made freely available to all in abundance. Modern industry and technology is more than capable of producing this, but for capitalism and its restrictive rule: no profit, no production. Only in this sense of the word can we meaningfully talk about ‘common ownership’. Socialism, then, means quite literally ‘from each according to ability, to each according to need’. Unfortunately our task is made doubly difficult by the unsound views advanced by the left.

Yours for socialism, 

Robin Cox

Letter: Creeping greed (1979)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

I have been reading through several issues of the Socialist Standard which you were kind enough to send me and have found them interesting. Some of your principles are very attractive, and yet I am curious as to how they can be made to work in practice.

I must confess that this probably stems from my ignorance of socialism. However, your writers do seem to refer quite frequently to free access to goods depending on needs, and also there is reference to the idea of abolishing the wage system. I would like to know how all this can be made to work in practice. For example, what would replace the wages system, and what sort of society could we have which would provide goods and services according to individual needs without an element of greed creeping in?

Barry A. Todd 

(Prestwick, Manchester)

Reply:

It is not for us to describe in detail the social system that will arise following the establishment of common ownership of the means of production, for we cannot foretell what conditions will prevail at the time. All we can do is state the broad changes that we know must arise.

The most obvious is that the wages system would be abolished, since nobody would be in a position to exploit labour power. With the instruments of production socially owned, no one would wish to sell their ability to work for another’s profit, even if a buyer could be found. The very conditions of wage labour — the divorce of the majority from the means of life — will have ceased to exist, and all forms of exchange would disappear.

Necessity alone will dictate industrial activity. If goods are produced in excess of demand, production will be curtailed; should needs be unsatisfied, production will increase. Individuals will determine their own needs, and society will devise means by which people can make their requirements known (not a difficulty, given computer technology). All who were capable would work to the best of their abilities and take freely from the social wealth. We do not accept that, having opted for a non-cocrcive society, people will act against their own interests and refuse to co-operate in productive work.

The view that people are innately selfish is a fallacious one, fostered by the society in which we live. The concept of greed can only have meaning where access to wealth is restricted and scarcity is commonplace. Under capitalism the ruthless pursuit of self-interest is encouraged; in socialism it would be an absurdity. And even the pig will turn away from the trough when it can eat no more.

Editors.

Unemployment in Australia. (1928)

From the May 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

Melbourne.

26/12/27.

A Letter from the Socialist Party of 
Australia.

While Australia is being boomed abroad —by emigration touts—as a paradise for the workers, and thousands are flocking to her shores in search of work, in the capital cities the unemployed are marching the streets, registering at the Government Labour Bureaus, and sending deputations to the State Governments asking for sustenance or work.

All the old fallacies that have done service for the last century are being trotted out by the pen-valets, politicians and other hangers-on of the Capitalist class. Free Trade and protection hold pride of place, although in countries in which either of these fiscal policies is in operation, unemployment still remains a problem.

According to Steads Review, June, 1927, the figures submitted by the League of Nations demonstrated that the percentage of unemployed in Australia was greater than any other nation associated with the League.

The following figures were given by Mr. Tunnecliffe, deputy leader of the Victorian Labour Government: That from 6 to 9 per cent. of the workers of the Commonwealth are workless all the time. This represents 136,000 workers.

When the Labour Government came into power in Victoria, it set out valiantly to deal with unemployment, but after six months unemployment is worse than ever. The Premier’s (Mr. Hogan’s) explanation is that the sole cause of the unemployment problem is the adverse trade balance. One million pounds of the imports were clothes, and in this the workers themselves were the guilty parties. For a working man to wear imported clothes is sheer stupidity. 

For “sheer stupidity” this would be hard to beat, for during the year 1925-26 the total factory production for Australia amounted to £400,342,392, while wages were £86,724,683. It should be obvious, even to Mr. Hogan, that if the workers bought Australian goods with all their wages, a surplus of £313,617,710 would remain for the employers to sell. In spite of the inroads upon this by our masters, there still remains a surplus that must be disposed of in the markets of the world. But production the world over has outstripped all markets, hence the glut and world-wide unemployment. 

One of Mr. Hogan’s supporters, Mr. Hayes, has another view. He says that the failure of past (Nationalist) Governments to give consideration to the problem of unemployment was the cause of so many being out of work to-day. Yet in Queensland, where a Labour Government has been in power for twelve years, unemployment has been so bad that it has been found necessary to increase the contributions to the unemployment insurance fund.

A few weeks ago the Nationalists routed the Labour Party in New South Wales, and the workers were told that a time of prosperity was in store for them; since then the police have dispersed the unemployed with batons. Nationalism hold sway in South Australia, where 2,000 railway workers have been put off by the Government to swell the already swollen ranks of the unemployed.

There are many who think the present conditions are transitory, and that with the further development of Australia they will improve; but they are doomed to disappointment. Capitalism here is developing hothouse fashion. The Flinder’s Lane wholesalers, whose name a few years ago was synonymous with solidity, to-day find themselves in a financial quicksand through the development of the departmental stores. The establishment of large industrial concerns from England and America is making for the most scientific methods of production, with the consequent crushing out of the small and inefficient factories and the reduction of those employed.

But the most glaring instance of the displacement of labour by machinery is in the farming industry. The cry of those who formerly had an easy solution for unemployment by advising the workless to go to the country instead of hanging round the cities, has a fitting answer in the following) figures from The Age, 23/2/27:

“ In 1915-16, 213,719 individual farmers employed 259,409 persons, farming 28,883,364 acres, which produced crops valued at £75,475,427. In 1924-25 the number of individual farmers had decreased to 207,046, a reduction of 6,673, and the number of employees had fallen to 219,917, or 39,492 fewer than in 1915-16.

“ The acreage farmed 1924-26, however, was 33,156,308, an increase of 4,272,944 on the acreage of nine years previously, and the value of the produce was £107,096,393, which was £31,620,966 more than the value of the crops in 1915-16.”

Since then the Production Bulletin No. 20 gives the number of displaced farm hands, 1924-25 to 1925-26, as 15,255.

The Age proceeds: 

“ . . . and, as this machinery has been invented to meet the special requirements of Australian farmers, it is enabling them to produce more with a gradually decreasing volume of paid labour . . . Factories are making for the farmers machinery . . . To the employees in these factories farmers sell their produce in the best market in the world. Prosperity is interdependent; prosperity is mutually shared.”

This effusion is put forth as if it were a truth so rare that it would be sacrilege to doubt it. The Age conveniently forgets about the 39,492 farm workers while it talks about prosperity for the implement workers. But is the implement worker in as enviable a position as The Age would have us believe. The implement making industry is already being carried on “with a gradually decreasing volume of paid labour,” as the following figures from the Commonwealth Year Book will prove :—

From 1915 to 1924-25, percentage of increase of employees was 53.49 per cent., while in the same period the total production rose by 152.67 per cent., and the year 1923- 24 to 1924-25 saw the enormous increase of £149,701 with a reduction of 49 employees.

Thus we see the object of Capitalism is to increase the output with a constantly diminishing number of employees. Such a condition of affairs may be satisfactory for those who own the means of wealth production, but to the wage slave it means misery and ruin. And all the noise of the workers, employed or unemployed, the protests, the shouting, “We want work,” the street processions, the deputations to Slipper-tongue, the Premier, who will either turn them away with soft words or the policemen’s club, will not alter the economic laws of Capitalism.

While the working class is content to support Capitalism, it is getting the only possible result. There is only one course, and that—to understand that the gigantic means of production, which the workers operate to turn out wealth in abundance, must become the common property of society, to be used in the interest of the whole of society instead of in the interest of the Capitalist class as at present.

J. S.

Saklatvala on Socialism. (1928)

From the May 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. W. Graham recently moved an official Labour Party amendment in the House of Commons, setting forth his party’s views on what they are pleased to call “socialism.” Mr. Saklatvala, for the Communist Party of Great Britain, replied to Graham and told him forcibly that the State ownership advocated by the Labour Party is not Socialism at all. The Conservatives were highly delighted with Saklatvala’s criticism, and the Capitalist Press was unusually generous in its praise of the Communist M.P.’s eloquence and logic.

But those who turn up Hansard (21st March) to enjoy some gems of oratory or to discover what is the difference between the Communist reformist and the Labour reformists whom they support, will be disappointed.

There are, however, some passages in Saklatvala’s speech which deserve to be placed on record.

Mr. Graham outlined the growth of trusts and State capitalism and the decline of competition, and instanced the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Post Office as his party’s ideal of “public ownership or socialism.”

Who owns the Post Office? 

Saklatvala replied by asserting that such institutions as the Post Office are not Socialism, their “soul” being purely capitalistic whatever the appearance of their body. When he was pressed by Labour M.P.s to explain his meaning he was quite unable to do so.

The Labour Party makes the childish mistake of describing State concerns as being the property of all the citizens, and Saklatvala, as ignorant as themselves, readily admitted this. He talked of public and municipal undertakings being owned by “the citizens of a whole borough, town or city,” and described the Post Office as being the property of “all the citizens of a country or nation.”

Naturally it was then quite beyond his powers to explain why he did not support the Labour Party’s demand for more so-called “public ownership.”

The plain fact is that the Post Office is every bit as much private property, run for private profit, as is the London General Omnibus Company or Selfridges. The Post Office, telephone and telegraph plant, etc., are valued at about £116-million. The £116-million thus sunk in plant and machinery represents money borrowed in one form or another from private investors by this and previous Governments, and it ranks along with other items in the total National Debt. The owners of the Post Office are not “all the citizens,” but the investing class, who draw their income from holdings in Government stock of different kinds. If the Government sold the Post Office for £116-million and used this to pay off part of the National Debt, the new private investors (or the same individuals) would then draw their profits from the Post Office direct as a private concern instead of receiving them at second-hand through the Government. The difference is one of appearance only.

Similarly it is the practice of Labour supporters to talk of the L.C.C. trams belonging to the citizens of London. In fact the London County Council has borrowed over £120-million to build its trams and other works, and of course has to pay interest on these loans out of the revenue from the trams, etc. These investors are the actual owners, just as much as if they held shares in a private tramway undertaking.

The Australian Governments pay more than £50-million a year in interest on the money borrowed to set up the so-called “public” undertakings which simple Mr. Saklatvala thinks are owned “by all the citizens.”

Why Do Communists Support Nationalisation?

Saklatvala then declared that “the poor postmen working in the Post Office are no better off than men working for a private corporation or company,” and again, “The nationalisation of the coal industry in one country . . . may even strengthen the capitalist atmosphere and the capitalist structure of society, in which this sort of nationalisation is practised.”

We heartily agree with the above condemnation of State capitalism, but cannot refrain from asking why the Communist Party, in face of it, still supports the demand for nationalisation of the mines.

Saklatvala—Syndicalist.

Finding it impossible to explain wherein he differed from the Labour Party, Saklatvala then disclosed that his aim is not social ownership but syndicalism, whereas our aim is to make the means of production the democratically controlled property of the whole of society. Saklatvala wants to “secure the control of the miners themselves over their own industry.”

Capitalism in Russia.

Saklatvala rashly denounced MacDonald for attacking “the one country which has achieved Socialism,” and was at once asked “which country is that?”—a question to which no reply was forthcoming.

He later talked about Russia, and said : 

“M. Stalin’s argument is that, deplorable as the industrial development of Russia is at the present time, the needs and requirements of the people of Russia make them dependent upon other countries for manufactured articles which cannot be supplied in Russia owing to the backwardness and the apathy of the working classes, who have not yet developed as far as a Socialist revolution.”

As it is obvious that the “one country which has achieved Socialism” cannot be Russia, where the workers are too backward and apathetic to have “developed as far as a Socialist Revolution,” we are left in the dark as to the whereabouts of this one bright spot known only to Saklatvala.

It is also interesting to note his opinion that “It is a mistaken notion to imagine for a moment that Socialism can be introduced alongside capitalism side by side, and gradually, and so on and so on. Such a thing would never happen; such a thing cannot happen.”

Edgar Hardcastle

Labour Party Warmongers. (1928)

From the May 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

During recent years the extraordinary progress of aviation has brought increasingly to the fore the question of the use of aeroplanes to defend the interests of the ruling class of this and other countries in their conflicts with each other.

In the month of March of this year the question came up again for discussion and decision in the House of Commons, and according to the East Ham South Citizen (April issue), a local paper issued by the London Co-operative Society, Ltd., their President, Mr. Alfred Barnes, M.P. for East Ham South, delivered a “courageous” and “eloquent” speech for the abolition of aerial warfare.

Mr. Barnes, in moving an amendment calling for aerial disarmament, and speaking on behalf of the Labour Party, said in the course of his speech—

“We on these benches take up no equivocal position at all. We say without hesitation and without qualification, that the whole energy of this Government should be used not for perfecting the Air Force of the country, but how to abolish the Air Force in consultation and in agreement with other countries.”

It is sometimes convenient for these Labour M.P.s to forget what their own party did when they formed the Government in 1924. Mr. Leach (Under-Secretary of State for Air in the Labour Government), in reply to Sir S. Hoare, then said—

“The right hon. and gallant Gentleman wants me to define the attitude of the Government towards national defence. He asks in plain, explicit terms, are we going on with the expansion scheme? I am going to tell him in plain and explicit terms that there is no change in the policy of the Government for the time being on this matter.” (Parliamentary Reports, 19/3/24, Col. 1670.)

Later in the same speech, in reply to Commander Burney, he said—

“We are vitally interested in seeing that the lighter-than-air ships shall be explored, encouraged and fostered in every proper way that is open to us.”

Many keen supporters of the Labour Party are loud in their denunciation of the Tory Government when the latter vote further credits for the maintenance and improvement of the armed forces, and we are repeatedly told that the Tories are insincere in their proposals for disarmament and their attempts to prevent another war.

During the same speech by Mr. Barnes he expresses the opinion of the Labour Party of the insincerity of the Tory Government :

“We believe the Government are not sincere in their proposals for disarmament. I should be sorry, on an occasion like this, to judge the sincerity of any person or group of persons or party, but I do think that in human affairs we must judge the sincerity of people by their deeds, and I do not think that anyone who looks back on the post-war period and considers the approach to universal peace can be proud of the record of the present Government during its three years of office.”

This sentimental slobbering is patently dishonest. He cannot be ignorant of the action of the Labour Party when in office in 1924. Let us turn to the Parliamentary Reports for 19/2/24. During the course of the debate on air defence, a Liberal, Captain Wedgwood Benn, observed—

“In the first place, I understand the Government to accept this Resolution. It surprises me, although I applaud it, that they are prepared to go on with the programme which the right hon. Gentleman initiated. That was stated in terms by the Under-Secretary. I think they are right, although I am surprised, because the Labour Party only six months ago pledged themselves in the Conference to oppose it.” (Col. 1680.)

A most unpleasant way, to be sure, to remind the Labour Government of their deliberate decision to continue the programme laid down by the previous Conservative Government. Mr. Thurtle (Labour M.P. for Shoreditch) confessed to a certain amount of misgiving at the decision of the Labour Government towards the Air Force. He said—

“I did think we might expect from the Labour Government that, in whatever other things they might compromise, there would be a certain firmness of principle in regard to this matter of disarmament. We are told they are to stand by the programme which has been laid down by the past Government. There is, in my opinion, no justification whatever for a Labour Government, pledged as the present Treasury Bench is pledged to the principle of disarmament, taking up an attitude of that kind. As I look at the Treasury Bench I imagine there must be a number of uneasy consciences on it.” (Parliamentary Reports 19/2/24, Col. 1698.)

The Labour M.P.s, just like the Liberal and Tory, are fearful of the consequences should another war be declared. They dread the uprising of the working class, dread the possibilities of revolution, a movement for the overthrow of Capitalism. Says Mr. Barnes—

“Aerial warfare will inevitably lead to widespread revolution, such as we have not hitherto experienced, and that, indeed, should such a war occur, civilisation must come down in chaos before any military conclusion has been reached.” (Same paper.)

A gentleman, a recent addition to the ranks of the Labour Party—Commander Kenworthy—also had misgivings. He delivered himself during his oration of the following gem :—

“If the peoples of Europe are again to experience the horrors of modern, scientific aerial warfare in an intensified form, I am convinced they will rise in sheer desperation and overthrow the existing order of society.” (Parliamentary Reports, 19/2/24, Col. 1693.)

On this question of air armaments, as on all other questions vital to the interests of private property, the Labour Party, like the other two parties, continue to support the armed forces which are necessary for the maintenance of Capitalist interests.

C. F. Carter

The Atrocities of Peace. (1928)

From the May 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

A shareholder at the annual meeting of the London and North-Eastern Railway Company told a painful story of the pitiful condition which exists among his unfortunate fellow holders of shares. 

“He knew women who had to work initials on handkerchiefs because they had got no return on their capital invested in this company” (Star, March 2nd).

The horrible position of these unfortunate women “who had to work” because they got no return on their capital, cannot fail to rend the hearts of the millions of working men and women who “have to work” because they do not own any capital in this or any other company.

Edgar Hardcastle

Correspondence: The Ballot or the Barricade? (1928)

Letter to the Editors from the May 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent writes asking questions as to the need for the Socialist movement to make use of methods of violence. Here is his letter :—

East Street, S.E.

To the Editor, Socialist Standard.

I wish to put some questions to the S.P.G.B., and hope you will answer them in an early issue of the S.S., as there are several sympathisers of the S.P.G.B. resident in Bermondsey who await your reply with considerable interest. Now, for my questions.

1. You say in your “Declaration of Principles” that the S.P.G.B. is out to conquer Political Power, etc. Now, as the Party disavows “Violent methods,” how are you going to do it?

It seems to me, that by this disavowal the Party cannot claim to be “Revolutionary” in any sense of the word, nor Marxian, either. Marx, in his “Address to the Communist League,” insists that the workers “must prepare for the bloody struggles that lie ahead of them.” Engels also says much the same in his “Revolutionary Tactics.” Lenin, in his “State and Revolution,” page 25, says, “We have already said above, and shall show more fully at a later stage that the teaching of Marx and Engels regarding the inevitability of a violent revolution refers to the Capitalist State—it can not be replaced by the Proletarian State (the Dictatorship of the Proletariat) through mere withering away, but, in accordance with the general rule, can only be brought about by a violent revolution.” See also “Hymn of Praise” sung in its honour by Engels, and fully corresponding to the repeated declarations of Marx, in the concluding passages of the “Poverty of Philosophy” and the “Communist Manifesto” with its proud and open declarations of the inevitability of a violent revolution. Lenin, himself, said, “The substitution of a Proletarian State for the Capitalist State is impossible without a violent revolution.” (Page 26 Ibid.)

2. My own point of view is as follows : Assuming that the whole of the working-class voted the Socialists into “Office” or “Power,” it is in the power of the oligarchy to refuse to let the workers’ Socialist representatives take their “seats,” and declare their election to have been gained by fraud, etc. Assuming this to have taken place, the Socialists could only contest the legality of the election in the Courts. The Courts being dominated by capitalists the result would be a “foregone conclusion,” the workers would then have to appeal to force of arms.

3. As the S.P.G.B. has opened an Election Fund, with all that is implied by Election Funds, how is this going to bring about a speedy termination to the present system of exploitation? I have written this under the impression that although anti-Socialist papers like the “Herald,” “Sunday Worker,” and “The Communist,” etc., often ignore letters and criticisms, the Socialist Standard always gives a straight forward reply to relevant questions, etc. 

I remain, Yours faithfully,

Robert Chapman.

Reply:

Is Violence Revolutionary?

It will be seen that our correspondent starts off by assuming that revolution implies violence, and that since we do not advocate violence, therefore we are not revolutionary. This is an assumption which will not bear examination. The Socialist Party aims at changing the foundation of society, at replacing the private ownership of the means of production by common ownership. It is therefore a revolutionary party. Conversely, the use of violent methods to secure minor reforms does not turn a reformist party into a revolutionary one. The use of violence by the suffragettes in pre-war days did not entitle them to be described as revolutionary ; they were not seeking to revolutionise society. The American miners on strike at Herring, Illinois, a few years ago, who used machine guns against the employers’ armed strike breakers, were only resisting a wage decrease; they did not want to overthrow Capitalism, and were not revolutionary.

Violence, What For?

On looking closely into our correspondent’s statements and quotations, we see that he has himself not troubled over much to define precisely what is the object of the methods of violence advocated by him. The Socialist Party lays it down that Socialism pre-supposes the conquest of the powers of government and the conversion of the machinery of government, including the armed forces, from “an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation.” We lay it down, further, that the vote is the only means open to the workers in developed Capitalist countries to conquer the powers of government. Mr. Chapman (see paragraph 2 of his letter) says that the workers “have to appeal to force of arms,” but he does not explain what would be the purpose of the appeal to arms. This is a very important point, because, having rejected the possibility of conquering the powers of government by means of the vote, he is forced into the position taken up by the Communists, and illustrated by his quotation from Lenin. That position is the setting up of a “Workers’ State,” based on Soviets, in opposition to the existing State at present under Capitalist control, and the destruction of the latter by the former.

Thus we have the Workers’ Weekly (official organ of the Communist Party) stating that, “The power of the Capitalists must be wrested from them. The workers must set up their own State” (February 24th, 1923); and again, “The workers must destroy the Capitalist State, and set up their own Workers’ State, before they can make any real change” (March 17th, 1923).

Now this doctrine, shared by our correspondent and the Communists, is a piece of impractical and dangerous romanticism. It is not revolutionary. It leads not to Socialism, but to the shambles.

 That it is impractical will be obvious to those who will give it serious consideration, and remember that the conduct of warfare has developed and is developing even faster than industry itself. The Capitalist State has a strongly disciplined regular army, possessed of all the latest, most costly and most highly technical means of destruction. Mr. Chapman talks lightly of the workers “appealing to force of arms.” What arms? Where can the workers get and keep and manoeuvre tanks, bombing planes, poison gas and liquid fire plant? Where is the money with which to buy them ? How could they learn to use them even if they had them? And, above all, will the Capitalist class permit this concentration of hostile forces and implements? It is too fantastic for words. Mr. Chapman himself exposes its colossal unreality. He says the workers would have to appeal to force of arms against the hostile decision of Capitalist courts : does he imagine that these same hostile Capitalist courts would have turned a blind eye on the rebels during the years of preparation for the appeal to force of arms?

Lenin's Inconsistency.

But Lenin on occasion contradicted his own Communist doctrine. Writing in 1916 (reprinted in the Class Struggle, May, 1919), he said :—

“Socialists are willing to utilise the present Government and its institutions in the struggle for the liberation of the working class, and also insist on the necessity of so using the Government in the creation of a suitable transition form from Capitalism to Socialism.“

Lenin’s claim that Marx’s and Engels’ writings give him support in his other doctrine is fantastic. Throughout their works both of them emphasise the necessity of obtaining possession of the State machinery, and point the way to that end through the use of the vote. It is implicit in the Marxian theory.

The Attitude of Marx and Engels. 

Our correspondent refers to certain writings of Marx and Engels. A significant point about the quotations is the dates at which the various passages were written. “The Address to the Communist League” was written by Marx in 1850; “The Poverty of Philosophy” was written by Marx in 1846; and the ‘”Communist Manifesto” in 1847. Of the works referred to, the only one written late in life is “Revolutionary Tactics,” by Engels. This is a preface to Marx’s “Civil War in France,” and was written by Engels in 1895. We will return later to this question of the dates of these works.

Mr. Chapman says that Engels in this preface (Revolutionary Tactics) gives support to the advocacy of violence, but curiously enough our correspondent does not quote any passage to support his claim. This is all the more curious when it is remembered that Engels devotes a large part of his space precisely to this question.

The simple fact is that Engels draws exactly the opposite conclusion, and unhesitatingly condemns armed revolt. It is impossible to avoid the belief that our correspondent made his statement without troubling to verify it from Engels’ writings. Let us see what Engels says in 1895 :—

Engels on the Use of the Vote.

“The Communist Manifesto had already proclaimed that the conquest of universal suffrage, of democracy, was one of the first and most important tasks of the fighting proletariat, and Lassalle had raised the issue again. When Bismarck now found it necessary to introduce universal suffrage as the only means of interesting the masses of the people in his designs, our workers were not slow to make a serious use of the opportunity, and they sent August Bebel to the first constituent Reichstag, From that day to this they have utilised the suffrage in a manner which has rewarded them a thousandfold, and been an example to the workers of all other lands. The result of all this was that the bourgeoisie and the Government grew far more afraid of the constitutional than of the unconstitutional activities of the working-class party, and came to dread the results of an election far more than they dreaded the results of a rebellion. For here also the conditions of the struggle had been notably modified. Rebellion in the old style, street fighting and barricades, the methods that had proved universally decisive, down to the year 1848, had in effect become obsolete.“ (Translation by E. & C. Paul in the Plebs, January to April, 1921.)

Engels then goes on to show how the development of the instruments of war and the organisation of the armies had themselves, apart from other factors, utterly destroyed the possibility of armed workers overpowering or demoralising the regular armed forces.

In face of this, our correspondent’s claim is astounding.

Europe in 1918.

Now for the earlier works. Our correspondent refers to “repeated declarations of Marx in the concluding passages of the ‘Poverty of Philosophy’ and the ‘Communist Manifesto.’“ It is surprising and regrettable that he did not give us some of these “repeated declarations.” The “Poverty of Philosophy” does, it is true, end up with the quotation of two flamboyant lines from a poem by George Sand, in which she referred to the choice between “Combat or death; bloody struggle or extinction.” Our correspondent surely does not ask us to read into the selection of a purple passage of this kind to round off a peroration, the intention of Marx to convey a serious general lesson to the workers?

But our correspondent, in selecting these early works, has overlooked the essential point that Liberal and National movements in Europe in 1848 are not a model for a Socialist movement in a fundamentally different Europe in 1928, and, moreover, neither Marx nor Engels, then or thereafter, drew such a conclusion as he fastens on them ; they never omitted to stress the importance of gaining control of the machinery of government, as distinct from destroying it.

Except France and the Rhine Provinces and England, Europe in 1848 was still predominantly feudal. The capitalist class had not yet won their way to political supremacy, and the modern centralised nation-States had not come into being. To the force of Nationalism and Liberalism was added the largely blind discontent of a working-class movement just coming to birth. Marx and Engels thought that it might be possible for the workers to take advantage of the conflict between capitalist Liberals and the absolutist monarchies and their feudal supporters to win away the support of the State troops and rush the revolutionary movements forward to Socialism over the heads of the Capitalist and Nationalist leaders, who, of course, would not want to achieve by their revolt any such a result as that. The justifications for that error of judgment (frankly admitted to be such in later years) were many. Lack of experience led Engels and Marx to underestimate the potentialities of growth and expansion which lay in the Capitalist system. They also counted (not unreasonably at that period) on the possibility of demoralising the State troops by means of barricades and armed street demonstrations. Again, at that time there were not in existence throughout Europe, as there are to-day, either an immense administrative civil service and local government or a stable system of democratic government based on an extended franchise.

Engels, writing in 1895, candidly admits his error (“Revolutionary Tactics“).

“Yet upon us, too, time wrought her revenges, proving illusory the views we then entertained. Nay, history went farther than this, for the march of events served not merely to trample down our errors, but served further to bring about a complete transformation of the conditions in which the proletariat has to fight. The campaigning methods of 1848 are utterly obsolete to-day. . . .“

Engels particularly points out that even before 1848 victory of the armed workers over regular troops was “among the greatest of rarities,” and that by 1895 “there have been many further changes, all in favour of the regular troops.”

Since 1895, and especially since 1914, the position has changed again almost out of all recognition, and such an armed revolt to-day is ludicrous.

The Need to Capture Political Control. 

The “Communist Manifesto” (page 21; Reeves’ edition) says : “We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of the ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.”

The “Address to the Communist League,” to which Mr. Chapman also refers, was an address to the German workers dealing with the actual situation facing them in Germany in 1850, and proposing methods of action to be followed before and after the anticipated victory of the German Capitalists over their feudal absolutist enemies. It did not pretend to apply to the working class outside Germany, where different conditions existed, still less to conditions which came into existence during the following 30 or 40 years, and which, as Engels confesses, he and Marx could not, and did not then foresee.

In any event, the phrase which Mr. Chapman claims is a quotation from the Address is not to be found in the text taken from Max Beer’s ”Inquiry into Dictatorship,” and published in the “Labour Monthly” (September, 1922).

Marx urges the workers to obtain arms and organise independently of the capitalist liberals before and during the struggles which were expected to give the capitalists supremacy, but for the period “after those struggles, during the time of their ascendancy over the defeated classes and the proletariat” he lays down definite plans for contesting elections and running workers’ candidates in opposition to the democrats, and “for whose success all must work with every possible means.” He deals further with the policy to be followed by the workers with reference to the budget and other parliamentary work. In this section Marx made no mention whatever of an armed struggle by the workers.

Marx on the Franchise. 

If further evidence is needed of the value placed by Marx upon the use of the vote for the conquest of power, we have only to remember how he worked for the winning and the extension of the franchise. The following two letters to Dr. Kugelmann illustrate this :—

“K. Marx to Dr. Kugelmann. 

January 10th, 1866.

We have been very busy organising a large meeting in favour of universal suffrage, and at this meeting only working men spoke. The effect was very great and “The Times” in two consecutive numbers discussed the question in a leader.“ (Printed in “Social Democrat,” May, 1902.)

K. Marx to Kugelmann. 

October 6th, 1866.

“The agitation for universal suffrage here, in which I have had a large share, is growing more and more.“ (Social Democrat, May, 1902.)

Let Us Suppose  . . . !

Then Mr. Chapman asks us to consider the situation which might arise if the capitalists destroy their own constitution in order to prevent the workers coming into control after the winning of an election. He omits, however, to consider the effect of such a move on the capitalist system and on the capitalist class themselves. Democratic, representative government is essential to the stable and continued working of the capitalist system. It is the foundation on which rests the political machinery and its enormous and complex administrative departments. If the ruling class destroy this basis by repudiating the very means by which they themselves gained their control, they not only risk early administrative chaos, they also commit eventual political suicide, even although the move may serve their immediate purpose. It is the imperative pressure of the needs and developments of the capitalist social system which has compelled and is still compelling the capitalists to broaden the electoral basis of their control. If they cannot resist this pressure now, what chance have they of putting back the clock after further years of representative government during which ever-increasing numbers of the workers learn to use and to value the vote? The capitalist parties everywhere exploit the electioneering value of being “constitutionalists.” Even the so-called dictators invariably parade the fact that they are constitutional in origin and practice ; they all know the value of preserving certain legal forms and formulas. Mussolini, who came into power through the deliberate action of governments elected by popular vote on a wide franchise, so far from repudiating the elective basis of his position, has added millions to the number of electors. In January, 1925, the voting age was reduced to 25, and is now to be reduced to 21, and even to 18 for married men.

The capitalist class could not prevent this development in its infancy; they cannot now stay its growth. Every year it becomes more difficult and the consequences more dangerous to them to narrow the franchise.

But let us suppose that at the eleventh hour the minority of capitalist “die-hards” does succeed in rushing the more timid and more circumspect majority into a rash venture of this kind. The possibility is small and remote, but were it big and imminent, that would only add weight to the Socialist policy as against the policy of armed revolt. If the final struggle takes on non-parliamentary forms, then it is of the utmost importance that the Socialist working class should have on its side the powerful plea that its position is constitutional. Once the working class are predominantly Socialist it is a simple matter, involving; no sacrifice or material delay for them to record by means of the vote that they are the majority. Mr. Chapman wants the workers to throw away a card of so great value. If the workers are compelled to make use of their economic organisation to bring industry to a standstill, and to appeal to the armed forces to support the constitutional majority against the usurping minority, nothing at such a time could exceed in importance the possession of the backing of constitutionalism. This will strengthen them and serve to undermine and split the backing of the capitalist parties and armed forces.

In his final question, our correspondent talks vaguely about “all that is implied by election funds,” but gives no inkling whatever of his meaning. If Mr. Chapman thinks that he has read in these columns or elsewhere a statement by the Socialist Party that we believe that the opening of an election fund will “bring about a speedy termination” to capitalism, I can only suggest that here again he is criticising without taking the trouble to read and understand. If he will consult our Declaration of Principles, he will see that we claim that the political organisation of a Socialist working class and their use of the vote to capture the machinery of government, and thus control the armed forces, will put them in a position to bring about a speedy termination of this system of society. If Mr. Chapman has further objections to this position, or any feasible alternative, we shall be pleased to hear it.

Edgar Hardcastle