Rosa Luxemburg and the National Question (1978)

From the April 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is there some "right of nations to self-determination" which Socialists should support? This was a question debated by Social Democrats before the first world war, especially in Russia and Austria which were then both multi-national empires. Lenin, true to his opportunist view that any slogan was useful if it helped "mobilise the masses", answered yes. Among those who answered no was Rosa Luxemburg.

That this was so has long been known to us, but until the recent publication of a selection of her writings on The National Question (edited by Horace B. Davis, Monthly Review Press, 320pp., £9.25), we have not had the opportunity to judge the worth of the arguments she used. That her writings on this question—as opposed to those on economics and other matters—should have remained unavailable for so long is no accident. Left-wing publishers have just not been interested in publishing a criticism of what has become a dogma in left-wing circles: that Socialists are duty-bound to support struggles for "national liberation".

Rosa Luxemburg was born in 1871 in Zanosc (though she was brought up in Warsaw) which, on today's maps, is a town in eastern Poland near the Russian border. But in 1871 it was part of the Russian empire since Poland had not existed as an independent State since 1795. Over the period 1772 to 1795 in fact Poland had been partitioned amongst Russia, Austria and Prussia. About two-fifths of pre-1772 Poland went to Russia and about one-fifth each to Prussia and Austria.

When the Social Democratic movement grew in Germany and Austria towards the end of the 19th century it also spread to the Polish-speaking areas of these countries. At first Polish-speaking Social Democrats joined the German and Austrian parties, but in 1892 separate Polish parties were formed in both countries. Later that year these amalgamated to form, with representatives from Russian Poland, the Polish Socialist Party (PPS). The PPS made its principal demand the reconstitution of an independent Poland within the pre-1772 boundaries. The following year a number of young Polish exiles in Zurich, including Rosa Luxemburg, split off precisely on this point and set up the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland (SDKP).

The choice of this odd-sounding title was deliberate, for the "Kingdom of Poland" was the official name of Russian Poland. The party's name therefore proclaimed that it was a party operating only in Russia. And in fact when the Russian Social Democratic Party got off the ground the SDKP (or more precisely, after the adhesion of a Lithuanian group in 1899, the SDKPL) was its section in Poland and Lithuania.

The issue of whether or not Polish independence should be supported came up at the 1896 London Congress of the Second International to which the PPS had submitted a resolution which declared "that the independence of Poland represents an imperative political demand both for the Polish proletariat and for the international labour movement as a whole". Rosa Luxemburg was resolutely opposed to this and wrote a series of articles in the international Social Democratic press arguing that workers should organise irrespective of nationality within the frontiers of the capitalist State in which they found themselves and should not seek to re-draw these frontiers, the struggle to achieve which would merely divert workers from the class struggle and Socialism. The PPS motion was not in fact voted on but was replaced by a vague general resolution which nevertheless still referred to "the complete right of all nations to self-determination".

In opposing an independent Poland Luxemburg was going against a demand supported by Marx throughout his political life. She was well aware of this and did not hesitate to describe Marx's views on the Polish Question as "obsolete and mistaken". Since this is a position the Socialist Party of Great Britain has also taken up it will be interesting to examine Luxemburg's arguments on this point.

In 1848, she pointed out, western European democrats, amongst whom Marx must be included, wanted an independent Poland established to act as a buffer between Tsarist Russia and West Europe so as to remove the threat of Tsarist intervention to halt the extension of political democracy there. This, she said, was a tenable position in 1848 but not in the 1890's and 1900's (nor even in 1880 when Marx made a further declaration in favour of Polish independence). For in the meantime, thanks to the introduction of capitalism and with it of an urban industrial proletariat, Russia was no longer the monolithic force for reaction it had been. As capitalism and the working class developed in Russia so did-and had-developed the possibility of overthrowing Tsarism and establishing a political democracy there too. Turning to Poland, she argued that the introduction of capitalism had tied Russian Poland so close to Russia (Polish industry served the Russian market) that the proposal to re-establish an independent Poland was anyway a "utopian fantasy".

Luxemburg went on to point out that the demand for an independent Poland was a demand for the establishment of another capitalist-and inevitably expansionist and oppressive-State. This, she said, was not the task of the workers; what concerned them at that time was winning various elementary democratic freedoms. She thus urged Polish-speaking workers in Russian Poland to struggle, together with the workers of all the other nationalities to be found within the borders of the Russian empire, to overthrow Tsarism and establish political democracy in Russia. (Polish-speaking workers in Germany and the Austrian empire should likewise be struggling with their fellow workers there to establish political democracy). Luxemburg regarded an end to discrimination on national or language grounds-with full provision for the use of minority languages in all aspects of social and political life-as an integral part of the political democracy she was urging to be established under capitalism as a means of facilitating the struggle for Socialism. In fact she went further and argued in some detail, in a series of articles published in 1908–9, that Poland should be given autonomy within any all-Russia democratic republic. Thus the SDKPL countered the PPS demand for the restoration of an independent Poland with a demand for home rule for Russian Poland within a democratic Russia.

We would not deny that in the absolutist political conditions of Tsarist Russia the working class was obliged to struggle for political freedoms such as the vote, freedom of the press and the freedom to form trade unions and parties, but this should-and could-have been done in conjunction with a clear-cut and uncompromising struggle for world socialism. Luxemburg of course knew what Socialism was and did carry out propaganda for it, but as a Social Democrat was committed to the mistaken theory that a socialist party should have a "minimum" programme of political and social reforms to be achieved within capitalism as well as the "maximum" programme of socialism.

Nevertheless it can be said in favour of Luxemburg's formulation-that the workers of Russian Poland should struggle with the other workers in Russia for an all-Russia democratic republic-that it made no concession to nationalism; it appealed to them as workers not as Poles. She knew that a campaign to establish an independent Poland would unleash nationalist passions which would divert the working class in Russian Poland not just from the struggle to establish Socialism but even from the struggle to win elementary democratic freedoms. She was proved right on this point: when Poland got independence in 1919 an authoritarian nationalist dictatorship under former PPS-leader Pilsudski soon came to power.

But events proved her wrong for believing Polish independence to have been a "utopian fantasy". If she had confined herself to saying that an independent Polish State would continue to be dominated by Russia or some other big power she would have been right, but she was suggesting that even formal political independence for Poland was impossible. The fact that Poland got such independence in 1919 makes her arguments on this point quaint reading today, but it still remains true that Poland has never really been independent of one or other imperialist power. Twenty years after being "restored" Poland was again partitioned between Germany and Russia and since the war has been a mere Russian satellite. Indeed parts of pre-1772 Poland are now back in Russia again. Luxemburg's mistake here should be a warning to Socialists not to be dogmatic on issues such as this: capitalism can be very flexible in its political institutions.

The issue of the "right of nations to self-determination" came up again in 1903 when the Russian Social Democrats officially incorporated this demand into their programme. Once again Luxemburg opposed this not only as politically wrong but as theoretically unsound. Her arguments on this last point are the same as ours:

"A "right of nations" which is valid for all countries and all times is nothing more than a metaphysical cliché of the type of "rights of man" and "rights of the citizen".

When we speak of the "right of nations to self-determination", we are using the concept of the "nation", as a homogeneous social and political entity… In a class society, "the nation" as a homogeneous socio-political entity does not exist. Rather, there exist within each nation, classes with antagonistic interests and "rights"."

Included in an appendix to Davis' selection of her writings on this question is a statement published in 1916 by some members of the SDKPL in an obscure Polish-language journal in exile. This shows a remarkable degree of understanding on this issue, especially the following:

"The so-called right of self-determination is also used with the proviso that it will become a reality for the first time under socialism and is thus an expression of our striving for socialism. This proposition is open to the following objections. We know that socialism will do away with all national oppression, because it removes the class interests that furnish the driving force of such oppression. We also have no reason to assume that the nation, in socialist society, will form a politico-economic unit. By all indications it will have the character of a cultural and linguistic unit; for the territorial division of the socialist cultural unit, insofar as this will survive at all, can only follow the needs of production, and this division would have to be determined, not by individual nations separately, from their own power (as the "right of self-determination" demands), but through the joint action of all interested citizens. The carrying over of the formula of "right of self-determination" into socialism arises from a complete misunderstanding of the nature of socialist society."

We could hardly express it better ourselves. Unfortunately most of those who expressed such views were later diverted by Bolshevism and the Russian revolution and soon disappeared from the scene of history.

Although Luxemburg knew what Socialism was and had an honourable record of opposing the First World War as well as both reformism within Social Democracy and the undemocratic practices of the Bolsheviks, she too made her mistakes. But on the question of nationalism, with her criticism of Marx's position as "obsolete and mistaken" she made an important contribution to socialist theory. The publication in English of her views on this issue will hopefully help towards debunking the slogan of "the right of nations to self-determination".

Adam Buick

Working till we drop (2006)

From the January 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

The motto of the ancient Roman slave owners was that slaves should work, or sleep. It seems the modern capitalists’ version of that term is that wage slaves must work till they drop. In November last year the media was filled with furore over the publication of the Turner Report into the future of the pension system – calling for the retirement age to be increased from 65 to 68 by 2050.

The proposals in the report appear to try and be balanced, playing off the increase in retirement age with an end to means-testing, restoring the link between pensions and earnings (so that pensions will rise with wages and thus be a more secure hedge against inflation) and compelling employers to contribute towards individual pensions of employees. It also proposed that individuals should be encouraged and facilitated in providing a personal pension for themselves. Essentially, the report seeks to spread the burden of the ageing population among all concerned parties. Turner himself told the BBC: “Unless we want the state pension to get meaner and meaner we either have to have higher tax or a higher state pension age, we have decided on both.”

That’s how it is presented in the media, that is. We are all getting older, and so pensions are going to cost more. How are we going to pay for them? Put another way, though, with the reality of the class struggle in mind, the problem looks more like: workers living longer means that the share of the national income going to the working class and away from the capitalists will rise if the current settlement is maintained. This is clear from Turner’s choice. The reality of paying for the pensions through higher taxes would have been to take the cost of pensions from the surplus value produced by the working class as a whole and channel it back into their total life-time wage packet. It would have meant a transfer from capital to labour.

It obviously cannot be about real privation, real shortages – there is more than enough food, clothing and housing to go round. What will happen, though, is that relative to capital invested – and more importantly capital put aside in pension funds – the cost of outlays will rise. From this comes the myth that we are not saving enough – as if in choosing not to eat a loaf of bread today, it would mean there will be two loaves of bread tomorrow. Further, many of these retirees go on to do much useful work in the community or in family life – but it is work which does not generate profits directly and so is invisible to the capitalist planners.

This is a clear example of capital holding back production and distribution – causing complications and distortions to rational economic activity by compelling us to play the game of turn-over. The system always ensures that production leads to the creation of more money and value and ultimately more money (and capital) for capitalists real and imaginary. Put another way: the advances from our labour – including an increased life span – are being clawed back by capital to its advantage.

In seeking, therefore, to try and spread the pain around, what the report is proposing is in fact to push the burden from the capitalists and onto the workers. We need to be clear: raising the retirement age of workers is a very real pay cut. We will be asked to work more years and for a greater proportion of our lives than we expected. For some this will be a very real loss.

Already there is a marked difference in life expectancy across income groups, with unskilled manual male workers having an expectancy of 71 years as compared to an average of 79 for professionals (and of course, these being averages means a great many do not reach them). That means that more than just cutting these workers’ pay, these proposals will actually cost them a great deal of any extra life expectancy they might gain by 2050.

The distinctly Old Labour reforms to pensions of ending means-testing, linking pensions to earnings and compelling employer contributions are just a way of buying off the unions and disguising the reality of the attack. Of course, this report is just a set of proposals and it will be up to the Government to implement changes which may include some parts and not others. Already Gordon Brown has been making ominous noises of concern – preferring his model of means-testing (he calls it targeting resources on the poor) to a general simplified and slightly increased state pension.

The unions, though, are obligingly making noises about the poorest and least well off being hit hard by these proposals, but are essentially content with them. Now that ‘class warfare’ is a term to be derided in the labour movement, these organisations are blinded to the reality of the situation and the working class is left intellectually disarmed before a media barrage of lies about people living longer meaning paying more.

Rousing the unions to defend the workers’ position within capitalism, though, isn’t the job of socialists. Even if these reforms were stopped, the next economic crisis, the next half-baked excuse would soon come along to try and roll back the workers’ share. Our mission is to show clearly both how we are robbed and exploited by the system ruled by capital and how we can untap the wealth of our collective productive power by taking control of the means of production directly.

In socialism everyone would have the opportunity to contribute to the community for as long as they could. Their contributions would not have to be strictly rationed nor controlled and all would be able to share in the common produce. The creation of second class cast-off workers known as pensioners would cease to be and in its place we could have a fair share for all. The struggle for such a society is in our immediate practical interest.

Pik Smeet

Obituary: Bill Clarke (1988)

Obituary from the September 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Bill" Clarke was born in 1899 at Litherland, County of Lancaster, of respectable, religious and teetotal parents.

When Bill was a boy, his father was dismissed from steady employment as a crane driver on the mighty Liverpool docks because he came to the aid of a boisterous workmate. He, a teetotaller, was falsely charged with being drunk. In the ensuing years, William senior went to sea, working his passage on the Adelaide Steamship boats around the Australian coast, with the intention of bringing his family to Australia. In 1911 the SS Koombana, pride of the coastal fleet, sailed into the eye of a cyclone off Port Headland and vanished with all hands (including Bill's father). 

The Clarke family's situation was now desperate. The older children sought employment, and young Bill got a job as "hugger off" in the local woollen mills:

Dean Clough Mills, ten stories high.
A thousand girls they do employ,
And if you are five minutes late
Down goes your name on a big black slate.

Jobs in the mills for 12-year-old boys were appalling. William resolved to run away to sea, stowing away on a French windjammer, but was unceremoniously bundled back home to a fearful mother by the harbour master. On land he flitted from one degrading junior job to another.

At the outbreak of World War I, the army mistakenly dragooned Bill, then under age, into military service in his older brother's stead. Once in the army, there was little chance of getting out. But, rather than accompany the Northumberland Fusiliers into Ireland to quell civilians whom the Asquith government deemed to be hindering the war effort, Bill slipped away to sea and landed in New York.

His adventures as a young hobo resembled those of Jack London. American jobs for 15-year-old boys were just as degrading as English ones. Always poor because he sent his earnings home to mum, and ever on the move, he rode the "rods" from town to town, dodging railway cops on the lookout for freeloaders.

Eventually he returned to sea, joining the British Mercantile Marine Gunnery Unit, and escorted convoys throughout World War I. At night he would stroll the deck, reading his bible, and pray for the destruction of German U boats, until it occurred to him that doubtless there were young German boys praying for exactly the opposite. Religion then lost its charm for him.

After the war he worked in a lighthouse tender in the Gulf of Mexico. The state of Texas was then dry, and bootleggers from the West Indies frequently dogged the tender boat to hide from the machine-gun-toting excisemen of the coast guard.

In 1919 he joined his first Australian ship and, on arrival at the dock, immediately succumbed to the spell of his chosen country. Before reaching his majority, he was already spokesman for the union, insisting on award conditions. He had read Darwin's Origin of Species with the help of a dictionary, was writing verse and had taught himself Esperanto and shorthand. He even subscribed to the celebrated Literary Digest. He was self-educated in the best sense.

In Australia he met many of the then feared IWW radicals (Wobblies) whom Billy Hughes had jailed for their opposition to conscription, but instinctively he steered away from these celebrities towards a tiny group of men: Jack Temple, Bill Casey, Barney Kelly, Jacob Johnson and Stan Willis, who espoused the democratic socialism of the small Socialist Party of Great Britain. Their vehicle was the ballot box: you can only create a democratic world democratically - you can't impose it. Their method was education.

Having reached this position, Bill never wavered. He knew that majority class consciousness was a long way off and accepted that he might never see socialism in his lifetime. In succeeding years, as the handful of supporters dwindled, he never despaired. He understood man's social being and was confident.

Then followed the dramatic years: the founding of the Socialist Party in Australia in 1924. Bill ran open-air and indoor meetings, lectures, classes, debates and edited the party's journal. In the mid-1920s it took rare courage and political understanding to hold that the Russian Revolution was merely a revolution against feudalism - just like the English and French revolutions before it - and that Russia had become a totalitarian capitalist state.

This was the time of the celebrated attempt by the Bruce-Page Government to deport Jacob Johnson and Tom Walsh, officials of the Seamen's Union; the exposure of the defalcations of the Communist Party officials by Johnson, Casey and Bill, and the rise of the Socialist Party officials. Bill became Federal Secretary of the union and editor of its journal.

Then followed the disastrous 1935 seamen's strike, foolishly started by posturing Communist Party officials. Bill openly opposed the strike in grounds accepted long after by historian Brian Fitzpatrick. The collapse of the strike saw the setting up of a scab union by the Communist Party in league with the ship owners and the Labour government, and finally the smashing of the legitimate union. Throughout this period, the tiny group of socialist union officials had a national influence far greater than their numbers.

In the 1934 federal election, when Bill stood as socialist candidate for the seat of Port Melbourne, he urged his huge personal following 'not to vote for me personally but for socialism. I only want votes from people who understand what socialism means and who appreciate its implications". He polled 10 per cent of first preference votes in a three-way contest against Holloway, who had previously unseated Prime Minister Bruce.

Major political parties offered him plum jobs, but these had no allure for him. He stood solely for a world in which people have risen to a mastery over property, not one in which people are mastered by it. As such, he was the world's first democratic-socialist candidate: the first to stand solely for a vision of socialism.

During this period he met Marie Stanley, a young woman who shared his vision and became his lifelong companion. It is not easy to survive in a world in which the overwhelming majority of your fellows totally oppose everything you stand for, and yet somehow this couple managed to do so with the quiet aplomb of conviction.

In the late 1930s Bill and Marie ran a small poultry farm out of an old 1860s goldrush hotel in country Victoria. His companions at this time included Charles Sundberg, last survivor of the old timers. After World War II he took up journalism (the Communist-dominated union determined to prevent him from returning to sea) and for 25 years had a congenial job, retiring in his mid-70s.

In retirement he contributed socialist articles and returned to Esperanto, French and German. After Marie's death in 1982 he continued to write and publish political and historical articles, he was writing verse in January, prior to a debilitating stroke. In the previous twelve months he had typed 60,000 words of critical Australian industrial and political history.

Bill died on 15 May having kept alive the elusive vision of a world free from poverty, hunger and war throughout his adult life of almost 70 years. Those were pearls that were his eyes.

World Socialist Party of Australia

Bill will be fondly remembered, not only by his Australian comrades but by members of the Socialist Party who met him on his infrequent landings here. We strive to follow his example.

Greed is Good? (2002)

From the December 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism would call the property baron Nicholas van Hoogstraten a success, if he hadn't arranged a hand grenade attack on one business rival back in the 60s, or been convicted of the manslaughter of another, for which he was jailed for 10 years in October. Apart from such violence, the likes of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, George W Bush et al have frequently praised and encouraged us to develop Hoogstraten's other traits: his ruthless competitiveness, his desire to acquire profit, his obsessive love of money, and his hierarchical survival-of-the-fittest view of human life, where rich go-getters are good, and poor tenants renting his flats are worthless "filth", who deserve to be exploited and abused.

If he hadn't gone a bit too far, transgressing laws designed to stop the system descending into barbaric chaos, the political servants helping capitalism to run as smoothly and fruitfully as possible would have been holding Hoogstraten up as a role model to be celebrated and emulated along with Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and other "self-made" moneybags of the world.

It is an appalling fact that, without the Hoogstratenisation of society, capitalism would be in dire trouble. Our education system under government control must, and will, Hoogstratenise children, teaching them that competition, entrepreneurship, employment, market forces, profits, personal fortunes and money are all splendid, so that the system is perpetuated by maintaining the thinking and behaviour at its core.

And though other capitalists and their political puppets would now distance themselves from Hoogstraten, the actions of millions of Britons and the imprisoned businessman are much the same. The working class are urged to work hard to get on. Hoogstraten also "worked" hard to get on, buying properties cheaply with sitting tenants, then "winkling them out" (as he put it) in order to sell on for far more with vacant possession. If our income is threatened by possible unemployment, we might be minded to work harder and longer so that if anyone's sacked, it'll be someone else. When Hoogstraten's income was threatened by an imminent fraud trial, he was minded to send in a pair of tooled-up heavies. We want to possess a nice home, so did he–a new £40 million copper-domed pad called Hamilton Palace in East Sussex. We are driven by capitalism (the cause of property crimes) into trying to keep strangers away from our homes by fitting good locks and burglar alarms. Hoogstraten blocked off a footpath that came near his home with barbed wire and big industrial refrigeration units. We are urged to save for our retirement. Hoogstraten has saved some £60 million.

And just as Joe and Jane Public are aware that there are more powerful people who can help or harm their finances, and who have to be sucked up to, like a bank manager, so it was, too, with Hoogstraten, who tried (and failed) to curry favour with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, hoping that extensive land he owned there would escape invasion and seizure by squatters.

Money drives and heavily influences the daily lives of non-wealthy working, unemployed, sick and retired people, as it did Hoogstraten. Was his money mania significantly different from anyone else's pursuit of this tool of capitalism? Hoogstraten's fixation with money caused him to tell the jury at his Old Bailey trial "whatever money you have, it's never enough". Even after he was found guilty, and told by the judge that he must pay one third of the prosecution's costs (£120,000), his preoccupation with his monetary worth reared its ugly head again, with the tycoon retorting "and you're suggesting I'm not the victim, I suppose?".

Capitalism wants us to believe that by copying people like Hoogstraten (minus bombs and murder), we can go from rags to riches. Just as this multimillionaire landlord began his empire by supposedly selling his stamp collection as a teenager and buying cheap property, you too can acquire great wealth through competition, investment, speculation and exploitation for profit, if you succumb to the brainwashing.

Which brings us to the psychiatric report that the judge requested, and Hoogstraten went along with. The psychiatrist who examined him told the court that Hoogstraten was not mentally ill, but exhibited "narcissistic and paranoid" personality traits. But narcissism, being an exceptional interest in oneself, is a capitalist requirement for making lots of money. You don't get rich by worrying about how chasing profit may be causing discomfort or upset to others. And paranoia is necessary in business, as a failure to be highly suspicious and wary about the activities of similarly ruthless competitors can bring financial ruin.

Me-first thinking and extreme concern about others getting the better of you are actually necessary personality traits within capitalism, and Hoogstraten had become so heavily influenced by these, and the goal of obtaining ever more money that accompanies them, that in reality he had become mentally disturbed. But his sickness is our sickness. Anger, arguments and violence caused by money are rife in our society, and there have been many other deaths involving poor working class people attacking one another because of it. Capitalism is a sick system that requires mental sickness for it to continue. The cure is socialism.

Max Hess

Against the State (But Not Quite Yet) (2014)

Book Review from the August 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

Noam Chomsky: On Anarchism. Penguin £6.00

This is not a book with new material but a collection of articles and interviews published originally between 1969 and 2010. It is therefore not a place to look for an overview or consistent statement of Chomsky’s approach to anarchism. It is, however, interesting to see how close some of his political positions are to those of socialists.

For one thing, he rejects any idea that Bolshevism is ‘Marxism in practice’ and quotes approvingly Paul Mattick’s critical remarks on Leninism. Moreover, he says, a consistent anarchist must oppose private ownership of the means of production and the concomitant wage slavery, which he describes as ‘intolerable’. Capitalism is anti-human, and its unbridled version (one subject to less state regulation) would lead to extreme authoritarianism.

On the other hand, it is not clear if Chomsky’s conception of socialism is quite the same as ours. He is against the idea of providing a detailed plan of a future society, preferring to rely on general principles. He favours making changes piecemeal, since we cannot know the effects of large social changes; and if one change works out well, make further changes. But he does not explain how a major change to abolish the wages system could be carried out piecemeal.

And many anarchists will disagree with him when he advocates defending and strengthening some aspects of state authority. His stance is that only the (US) federal government can protect people from the tyranny of corporations. He gives the example of environmental regulations, but admits that these have only a limited effect.

The longest chapter here criticises the way the Spanish ‘Communist’ Party undermined anarchist-run areas in the Civil War. The volume as a whole has much worthwhile content, as long as you do not expect a fully-developed argument.

Paul Bennett

The Covenanters: the Scottish Taliban? (2014)

From the August 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the run-up to the Scottish referendum we conclude our three-part series exposing the myths of Scottish nationalism.

Over 18,000 and possibly as many as 30,000 Scottish Presbyterian Covenanters gave their lives for their beliefs during the seventeenth century. To understand the background to this, we have to remember that religion and politics have been interwoven throughout Scottish history. For instance, there was the Calvinist Reformation where John Knox was able to bend much of Scotland to his will and control Parliament. From the signing of the Scottish National Covenant of 1638 to the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 there was a movement to make Scotland a theocratic state. These dissenters were the staunch supporters of Presbyterianism, the radicals of their day, who strictly followed the rules of John Calvin, John Knox and latterly Andrew Melville. It was their desire for a theocratic government and rejection of the king`s claimed supremacy of the church that branded them as zealots and a threat.

The Kirk was the focus for the Presbyterians in which the senior members of a congregation were elected as the Elders. They and the minister held great sway through the ‘Kirk Session’ – the local church court. It was through the workings and authority of this court that the day-to-day life of the congregation was overseen. The Kirk Session was responsible at local level for matters of conscience and religion which in practice ranged across practically everything. Their role extended to dealing with excesses and behaviour of all kinds, whether drink or style of dress, fornication or lewdness, oppression of the poor by over-taxation or deception in buying and selling. The local nature of a punishment, both the publicity and enforcement locally, meant that action was swift. The most common civil penalty imposed by the Kirk Sessions was the fine. In some places this was according to a set table, in others there was a quite enlightened approach to fines according to the estate of the offender (proportionality as we call it today). Non-payment of fines could result in imprisonment or being locked in the ‘jugs’ – a lockable metal collar attached to a wall by a length of chain, for the duration of the sermon. The penalty for adultery was to stand dressed in sackcloth, bare headed and bare feet at the kirk door; then sit on the stool of repentance in front of the congregation for perhaps six months or longer.

Sometimes the punishment included fines and whipping too. Few resisted as under a law of 1581 the adulterer who refused the kirk`s punishment could be put to death. In the period 1574 to 1612 Puritanism and the zealous Presbyterianism of Andrew Melville gained a foothold that punished a wide range of alleged excesses. This Puritan zeal included attacks on Christmas and traditional holidays such as Midsummer Eve. Pilgrimages, dancing, carol singing, merrymaking at weddings, and wakes; and failing to work on Christmas Day, were all subjects of condemnation. In 1579 a law was passed banning Sunday travel, recreation and drinking. A second and more intense phase of Puritanism appeared after 1638 when much of the country was imbued with fervour following the National Covenant. The Puritan vigour was subsequently endorsed by Oliver Cromwell when he subjugated Scotland during his republican rule. In 1656 the ultimate law was passed that forbade frequenting taverns, dance, listening to profane music, washing, brewing ale or baking bread, travelling or conducting any business on a Sunday. This, for example, led to the punishment of children for playing on a Sunday, and a public warning about carrying water, sweeping the house or clearing ashes from the fire place.

The National Covenant was drafted by Sir Archibald Johnstone, and Archibald Henderson. It was in three parts – a reproduction of the Confession of King James VI (later James I of England) in 1580; a detailed list of the Acts of Parliament which confirmed Presbyterianism and condemned Popery; and, thirdly, a protest about the changes in worship which was an attempt to force episcopal reforms on the nation. King Charles over-reacted and regarded the Covenanters as rebels. In June 1640, during an uneasy truce, the Scottish Parliament assembled in defiance of the King's attempts to postpone its sitting. A number of acts were passed that radically altered the constitution of Scotland. A new Committee of Estates was appointed to govern Scotland when Parliament was not in session. The Committee's primary responsibility was the defence of Scotland, for which it was granted powers to borrow money and to raise taxes. The Committee was dominated by Covenanters. The Committee remained in power whenever Parliament was not sitting throughout the turbulent 1640s. The fundamentalist Kirk Party became the dominant political force and governed Scotland as a theocracy from 1648-50, characterised by regular purges of officials and soldiers regarded as ungodly or ‘malignant’. The Kirk's desire to stamp out sin and to enforce moral reform, in accordance with the principles of the Covenant, resulted in one of Scotland's periodic ‘witch-crazes’ during 1649-50, in which hundreds of alleged witches were persecuted, with many burned at the stake.

Charles II was proclaimed King of Scots in February 1649, but the Kirk Party insisted that he should first accept the Covenant and promise to establish Presbyterian church government throughout the Three Kingdoms. Realising that he needed a Scottish army to help him regain the thrones of England and Ireland, Charles was obliged to sign the Treaty of Breda in May 1650 and reluctantly took the Covenant upon his arrival in Scotland the following month. The Kirk Party struggled to keep Charles under its control by banishing most of his closest advisers and by insisting upon purging the Scottish army of all but strict Covenanters in the weeks before the Battle of Dunbar against Cromwell. Up to 80 veteran officers and 3,000 experienced soldiers were judged unfit to serve and were replaced by inexperienced recruits, which contributed to the Scottish defeat at Dunbar and discredited the Kirk Party. The Kirk Party was further weakened when hard-line Covenanters broke away to form the Remonstrant movement.

On 14 December 1650, the Commission of the Kirk decreed that it was Parliament's duty to employ all lawful means to defend Scotland against the English invaders, which opened the way for the re-admission of Royalists and Engagers into the army once they had undergone suitable penance. Pro-Royalists were known as ‘Resolutioners’ because they supported the resolutions of 14 December. They were opposed by ‘Protesters’, a group which was led by Remonstrants but included many who had not supported the original Remonstrance. The Protesters continued to object to the relaxation of the strictures against ‘malignants’ but the Royalists rapidly gained influence in the military and civil administration of Scotland after the coronation of Charles II culminating in the fall of the Kirk Party.

The Restoration of Charles II in 1660 was greeted with some euphoria among the general populace who had endured over twenty years of almost constant war. But it was short lived. Charles turned upon the Kirk and its leaders who had given him such a tough time in 1650 - 1651 when he had tried to take up his throne following the execution of his father (Charles I). At his Restoration he took his revenge, executing the Marquis of Argyll, James Guthrie and Archibald Johnstone. He next caused legislation to abolish all that Presbytery had achieved and restored episcopacy along with compulsory attendance at the approved church on pain of heavy fines for non-attendance.

From about 1670 the country was under military rule as Charles intensified the persecution of the people and prompted the ‘Killing Time’ of 1684-5. To quell unrest in south-west Scotland some 3,000 Lowland militia and 6,000 Highlanders (the 'Highland Host') were billeted in the Covenanting shires. The Highlanders were responsible for many atrocities, robbery and rape, pillage and plunder. Covenanters were flushed out and hunted down as never before and the common soldier was empowered to carry out summary executions of any suspect without the requirement of a trial. A Covenanter once caught by the King's troops was shot on the spot. Usually it was done without any evidence. Brutality in these days defied the imagination and the persecution had no mercy on man, woman or child, irrespective of circumstances. These policies provoked armed rebellions in 1666 and 1679, which were quickly suppressed. Following the Battle of Bothwell Brig some 1200 prisoners were taken and incarcerated in a make-shift prison at the Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh, where many died of suffocation. Of these prisoners, 257 ringleaders and ministers were sentenced to be transported as slaves. The vessel set sail but struck rocks off Orkney. It is said that the captain despite the pleas of the prisoners ordered the hatches to be chained. Thus it was on December 10, 1679, that 211 Covenanters went to a watery grave.

Cameronian was a name given to a section of the Scottish Covenanters who followed the teachings of Richard Cameron, and who were composed principally of those disavowing allegiance to Charles II and the government of Scotland, in the name of ‘true Protestant and Presbyterian interest’. They opposed government interference in religious affairs, and were anti-Catholic, refusing to take the oaths of allegiance to an uncovenanted ruler. They wished to restore the ecclesiastical order which had existed between 1638 and 1649. The Cameronians saw themselves as early Christian martyrs by holding steadfastly to their beliefs in the face of torture and death. It was from these rebellious religious militants that the famous Cameronian Rifles regiment was formed, not as some suppose, from the family clan Cameron, and it was why each new recruit to the regiment was issued a bible.

Were the Covenanters essentially Protestant theocrats? Or were they really democrats challenging an absolutist regime? Presbyterian beliefs meant an opposition to the King`s claim of supremacy in church matters, although they acknowledged his supremacy in civil matters. Yet to safeguard their religious rights required a clerical influence on the civil government. Covenanters stood up to the powers of the Crown but never, at any point in time, challenged the Crown's right to rule.

Some historians have tried to portray the Covenanters as an early revolutionary movement. The Covenanters are regarded by some as freedom fighters who bravely opposed attempts by the English crown to destroy the Scottish religion, culture and identity and it is also claimed that those Protestant rebels were sidelined in Scots' history. The King had indeed been defeated in his attempt to dictate the religion of his subjects, but it was, nevertheless, the Covenanters’ intention to deny the religious freedom they sought for themselves to all others. Being Episcopalian wasn't good enough; to be Catholic was unforgivable. Inspired by the theocratic spirit, the bigoted creed of the Covenanters sought to create a fundamentalist Scotland. In many ways, they can be seen as a sort of tartan Taliban, our very own Scottish ayatollahs, who tried to turn Scotland into a theocratic state, with its communities controlled by the church. In that respect, they do not deserve too much of our sympathy.

ALJO

Why the War Was Not Worth Shedding a Single Drop of Working Class Blood (2014)

From the August 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

The introduction to our new pamphlet Strange Meeting: Socialism and World War One which brings together articles published in the Socialist Standard at the time.

Although the First World War (28th July 1914-11th November 1918) was not quite the bloodiest in history, it must surely be a leading contender for the most futile, wasteful and calamitous. That is not to say that nobody benefited from it, for wherever and whenever there is human tragedy you may be certain that there will be demand for ever more efficient and lethal weapons and rapid technological advance. It led to the creation of at least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires in the USA alone via the arms industry. As a League of Nations report concluded: ‘Wars are promoted by the competitive zeal of private armaments firms.’ Or, as the deeply disillusioned Major-General Smedley Butler, more succinctly put it: ‘War is a racket.’

With the advent of its hundredth anniversary, establishment apologists will be seizing every opportunity to justify this truly appalling war in the name of remembrance, seeking to glorify this callous implementation of state violence as a laudable defence of freedom and democracy, neither of which most of the combatants would ever have enjoyed in their lifetime. In reality, of course, the recurring purpose of war is the preservation of the particular financial and territorial interests of one set of capitalist powers against the encroachment of their equally ruthless rivals seeking a different outcome. Substituting ‘power and markets’ for ‘freedom and democracy’ in every history book would yield a narrative embracing far greater clarity and veracity.

In pursuit of capitalist self-interest, members of the working class are routinely regarded by their rulers as a disposable commodity, all too easily seduced into compliance with war by appeals to patriotic duty and cynical promises for a brighter future – only to discover that the ‘land fit for heroes’ is a mirage.

Unlike the French and German armies, the UK units of the Territorial and Regular Army consisted entirely of volunteers. So effective was the British recruitment campaign that between July and September 1914, the number of volunteers rose from 100,000 to 400,000 plus. When Lord Kitchener was appointed Minister of War in August, he announced the formation of a new army (Kitchener’s Army). Within 5 months numbers increased by well over a million; nevertheless conscription was introduced in January 1916.

The new army was first deployed at Loos and in 1916 fought at the Battle of the Somme – the initial catastrophic assault on 1st July unfondly remembered as the ’Big Push’. Lasting until the 19th November, the amount of territory gained was a paltry seven miles of muddy terrain. The 4½ months of brutal exchanges resulted in a combined total of almost a million casualties; the British losing nearly 60,000 men on the first day to move forward less than a mile. When Commander-in-Chief Douglas Haig finally called off the attack, the first day objectives of Bapaume and Serre were still three miles distant.

The original 400,000 volunteers formed part of the British Expeditionary Force – the ‘Old Contemptibles’. The horrendous carnage reaped during the many bloody battles of WW1 serve as a grim reminder that, so far as the ruling élite are concerned, the  ‘Old Contemptibles’ were the ‘Old Expendables’. According to the French Army Commander, General Phillipe Petain ‘…success will come to the side that has the last man standing’. Given the large number of animals also sacrificed, as was the case, he should have added  ‘… or pigeon, or horse, or dog’. His gloomy prediction was made in 1916, the year that the Battle of Verdun was fought between the French and German armies. In the space of 10 months around a million or so soldiers were killed or wounded and the French forces finished up back where they started.

It has been well said that in time of war truth is the first casualty, an observation emphatically endorsed by all governments in the course of WW1. The state propaganda machine immediately sprang into action, ably assisted by the loyal cohorts of the press. Especially by Lord Northcliffe, proprietor of the Times and the Daily Mail which, in view of its mass circulation and mostly conservative readership was a useful outlet for promoting the official line. Indeed, Northcliffe himself was to be the director of propaganda bureau in enemy countries and became known to the Germans as ‘the Minister for Lying’ (the Allies were dubbed ‘the All-Lies’). As early as September 1914, a War Propaganda unit was set up utilising the literary talents of respected luminaries such as H.G. Wells, Conan Doyle and Rudyard Kipling.

Earlier still, on 8th August 1914, the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) was passed by parliament. This afforded the government enormous powers, enabling them to take over the coal mines, railway and shipping. Newspapers and magazines or any other publication could be censored or shut down and any land, factory or workshop placed under state control. A list of restrictions was published for public digestion. No one was permitted to buy binoculars, purchase brandy or whisky at a railway refreshment room, give bread to horses or chickens, stand a round of drinks in a pub or use invisible ink when writing abroad – an immense relief to all those in the habit of doing so at home. Publicans were allowed to water down beer, a practice widely assumed to have preceded the government edict. Any civilian in violation of the new laws could be put on trial. To ensure maximum daylight for the production of essential supplies such as food and munitions, British Summer Time was introduced.

Women, whose skills and potential had hitherto received scant attention from the state were suddenly deemed vitally important – that is to say important to the war effort. They were speedily recruited for jobs in government-owned munitions factories (munitionettes), in farming (Women’s Land Army), as fire-fighters, as bus conductors and for various non-combatant roles in the WAAC, WRNS and WRAF or the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY). Needless to say, as soon as the war was over the government was keen for them to return to their ‘traditional’ role as homemakers.

Reporting of the war was strictly controlled to ensure that only ‘good news’ was shared with the general public. A Ministry of Information was established and also a War Office Press Bureau. Any reports from the front were suitably watered down before being released. In essence, the ‘news’ consisted of a mixture of silence, distortion, half-truths, fantasy and misinformation (downright lies). Ludicrous rumours, purporting to be evidence of inhuman atrocities carried out by the Germans, were circulated by the various propaganda agencies. Special magazines were published that reinforced the picture of the war that the state wished to paint, drawing in readers by titillating titles: The War Illustrated, The War Pictorial, The Illustrated War News.

To stimulate recruitment to the army and boost morale on the Home Front a series of posters was commissioned that directly appealed to patriotism and duty. Ironically, the best remembered image, that depicting the pointing finger of Lord Kitchener, may not have been used. It was originally printed as a front cover for London Opinion magazine, 5th September 1914 and would have been seen by many people, but doubt has been cast that it was reproduced as part of the poster campaign. The official war slogan was ‘Your King and Country Need You’, but other posters were produced with the specific intention of invoking a sense of guilt and shame. One such example showed a little girl on her father’s knee asking: ‘Daddy, what did you do in the Great War?’

Music and song were also employed most effectively, appealing to a range of emotions. Comfort and reassurance: Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag; Nostalgia: Keep The Home Fires Burning; Duty: Goodbye Dolly, I Must Leave You and Pride: We’re The Soldiers Of The King, My Lads. Those would be performed nightly in music halls by strutting self-satisfied entertainers, oblivious to the conditions at the front. Their smug theatrical displays of flag-waving chauvinism prompted an enraged Siegfried Sassoon to write in one of his most scathing poems:

I’d like to see a Tank come down the stalls,Lurching to rag-time tunes, or ‘Home Sweet Home’,And there'd be no more jokes in music-hallsTo mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume.

All possible means were employed to generate anti-German sentiment – even board games and toys – and in 1916 a film was released entitled ‘The Battle of the Somme’. Sanctioning its showing was a massive risk as it contained footage of actual battles, including troops being killed. It was calculated that the shots of British soldiers cheerfully advancing would inspire a mood of optimism that trumped any negative reaction. It was judged to be a success, but almost certainly it proved to be a double-edged sword. By the end of 1916, as ’bad news’ was also starting to filter through the propaganda smokescreen, public perceptions were changing.

Regrettably, these changing perceptions did little to soften the hostility towards anyone who opposed the war. Indeed, the burgeoning resentment of those unfortunate enough to have lost loves ones – in some cases an entire generation of male family members – often led to the adoption of even more uncompromising attitudes. Men, eligible for military service but choosing not to enrol were commonly ostracised by their own families. The longer the war went on the more aggressive became the intolerance towards conscientious objectors, conscription dodgers and deserters.

At the commencement of the war things were not too unbearable for them; after all, as everyone believed, it would all be over by Christmas. Few paid attention to the contrary opinion voiced by Lord Kitchener. Also, prior to the 1916 Military Service Act, those who did not volunteer were in no way breaking the law. But after conscription was made compulsory for all fit men between the ages of 19 and 41, an exemption certificate was required to escape it. The grounds for exemption were few and some were more readily granted than others. There were four basic categories: 1) Men required for alternative work on behalf of the state. 2) The prospect of serious hardship due to exceptional financial or business obligations or domestic position. 3) Infirmity or ill health. 4) Conscientious objectors.

The reasons for conscientious objection were various; some objectors were pacifists, often but by no means always through religious conviction. Some were politically motivated and some by a combination of these and other factors or who remained unconvinced about the validity of this one particular war. Every conscientious objector was obliged to appear before a tribunal to face cross-examination. This procedure was rarely sympathetic and the questions were designed to trap the petitioner into giving an uncertain answer. A favoured technique was to demand a rational answer to a hypothetical question about an irrational situation. One such question that was very often triumphantly invoked asked ‘Would you save your mother if a German was going to kill her?’

Much of the unpleasantness sustained by objectors was fanned by the role played by women’s organisation like the Mother’s Union and the zealous, high profile support of the National War policy by Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst. The Mother’s Union and some other women’s associations encourage their members to persuade anyone of call-up age to enlist without delay and were an integral part of the government recruitment drive. One of the cleverest, but most insidious posters produced by the state propaganda team declared: ‘Women of Britain say – GO!’ Such was the impression made by this and other similar slogans that it was not unusual for a mother to shun a non-serving son out of shame.

Shortly after the start of the war, Admiral Charles Fitzgerald founded the Order of the White Feather, which Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst enthusiastically embraced. The feathers were meant to be presented only to those positively identified as young men avoiding military service. But, so indiscriminate did their distribution become that the authorities were forced to requisition special badges bearing the legend ‘King and Country’ for civilians working in state industries or government departments. Also, those servicemen discharged through injury or sickness were issued with the Silver War Badge. Unfortunately they failed to prevent challenges and sometimes physical attacks being directed at the wrong targets with a White Feather once famously presented to a holder of the Victoria Cross.

Fenner Brockway, a pacifist member of the Independent Labour Party, and later a Labour Party MP, claimed to have received enough white feathers to make a fan. There were some cases, however, of men deciding to enlist subsequent to White Feather embarrassment.

The treatment of conscientious objectors was undeniably harsh, and universally so. In the UK alone they numbered over 16,000, though most were not absolutist and elected to do some form of voluntary service such as ambulance driving or agricultural work. 6,000 were given prison sentences and generally endured brutal treatment, abuse and extremely poor conditions. A number were sent by the army board to France, where they were classified as being on active service. Under French military regulations 36 were sentenced to death, later reduced by Earl Haig to 10 years’ penal servitude, but some were released as early as 1919. No conscientious objector was ever executed in Britain but 41 died in custody as a result of inhuman treatment.

There were a thousand women conscientious objectors as well and since they included a high percentage of absolutists, half of them were sent to prison. Interestingly, most of the soldiers who fought in the trenches were better able to understand and respect the stand taken by the conscientious objectors than those civilians who behaved so vindictively towards them at home.

Between 1914 and 1920 over three thousand British soldiers were sentenced to death for ‘cowardice’, ‘desertion’, ‘striking an officer’, ‘falling asleep on sentry duty’, ‘casting away arms’, ‘refusing to obey an order’ or various other violation of military regulations. Of these, 306 were executed for purely military offences. A further 40 were shot for committing offences of a criminal nature, including murder, in addition to breaking military laws.

Many of the 306 charged and found guilty of purely military violations were among the estimated 80 thousand British soldiers who were suffering shell shock, a condition not recognised by the military courts martial. Some were simply overwhelmed by sheer fatigue or, unable to cope with the sustained mental pressure of unrelenting conflict, lost their nerve. While it is true that they were granted legal representation of a sort, the trials rarely lasted longer than half an hour, often no more than 20 minutes and no appeal was allowed. Military justice was assuredly swift.

Surprisingly most of those executed were volunteers which, by itself, is sufficient to suggest that they were hardly unwilling to do their ‘duty’. Following a prolonged campaign all of the 306 were posthumously pardoned in August 2006. The death penalty for such ‘crimes’ was banned by parliament in 1930. In his fictional story (based on fact) of just such a soldier, entitled The Secret Battle, the author A.P. Herbert provides a poignant epitaph in the very last lines:

"This is the gist of it, that my friend Harry was shot for cowardice – and he was one of the bravest men I ever knew."

Although there were 16,000 individuals who, commendably, took a stand against WW1, it was the Socialist Party of Great Britain alone who did so unequivocally as a matter of political party policy. We argued that this conflict was not caused by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, or by German military imperialism, or by an arms race. These happenings were offered as justification at the time, but were nothing more than the consequences of a deeper underlying and ongoing cause. Sadly, truth is not a requirement for ‘A’ Level history. The abiding reality is that this war, as others before it and since, was the result of the ever-present struggle by competing national powers and alliances for territorial supremacy and market dominance. Nothing has changed!

WW1 was not only the inevitable result of rampant class-riddled capitalism, but it provided graphic evidence of the obscene lengths to which those who support such a system are prepared to go to perpetuate it. This ridiculous war involved over 30 countries and resulted in over 9 million soldiers being killed and 21 million injured. A mind-boggling 12,000 miles of tunnels were dug by both sides, creating a rat-infested, disease-ridden environment. For this purpose the British and French between them used no fewer than 140,000 Chinese labourers (Chinese Labour Corps). Coal miners were recruited to dig tunnels and place explosive devices in enemy territory - tunnels in which some remained entombed.

Poison gas was employed as a weapon of war (used first by the French) and an act of genocide by the Turks eliminated 1½ million Armenians. In addition, of course, it brought untold grief to thousands of families. Nothing was resolved by the war; it ended in stalemate rather than checkmate. But further seeds had been sown that would yield an even more destructive conflict.

Few, if any, lessons have been learned about the fundamental flaws of a society which continues to be run by a few to the detriment of the many. For as long as the abundant resources of our planet are exploited for profit rather than produced for need, wars will continue. Just as the Socialist Party has been pointing out for over a hundred years. We will keep on doing so until common-sense prevails.

Richard Headicar

Copies of the pamphlet are available from the Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 for £4.50 including postage and packaging. Cheques to be made out to ‘The Socialist Party of Great Britain’.

Our peace policy (2003)

From the April 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

It requires no crystal ball, no advanced degree in foreign affairs, to observe that the “healthy competition” of capitalist rivalry has become more vicious and ruthless recently. The increase in US military expenditure this year is greater than any previous year ever, signalling not only that there are profits to be had, but that they will be fought over. The current US-led military campaign for control of Iraq's oil is just part of a wider game plan for the Western corporate elite.

The foolish and the fearful might delude themselves that this new weaponry might never be used, that it is defensive. The reality is that the US arsenal of the 21st Century is being built for use, and the reasons for its use are increasing with new challengers, armed with their own weapons of mass destruction, fast arriving on the scene. It is only a matter of time before capitalism turns very nasty and threatens to blow us all up. The ticking of this potential time-bomb is all too audible to those whose fingers are not placed tightly in their ears. The world is a dangerous place

All of the major parties have “defence” policies which are really war policies. Even if they are opposed to an attack on Iraq, as the Liberal Democrats were, they are more than ready to give a nod to a different war elsewhere. Or, to be blunt about it, they all have strategies for killing large numbers of people. That is what they are doing when they ask you to vote for their “defence” policy: choose their strategy for murdering people you have never even met in preference to that of the next party. To vote for these parties is to become a willing accomplice in the preparations for mass murder. The current and absurd deterrence strategy is best described by the dictum, “If you want peace prepare for war”. That is the policy accepted by most of the parties aiming to run capitalism. It is like saying if you want virginity among teenagers build brothels in the schools. You do not achieve peace by preparing for its opposite: if you prepare for war there will be a war.

Nobody should be taken in for one minute by the Labour Party lie that they are, by acting pre-emptively against Saddam, presenting a more peaceful policy. On the contrary, theirs is an alternative war policy—a policy dependent on conventional methods of mass murder, while at the same time remaining in loyal alliance with the NATO nuclear murder gang. It is like a gang of muggers saying that in the future they will give up using knives and will rely on beating up the same people with wooden sticks. But at the same time they will remind their victims that their friends in the bigger gang still have knives. If anyone sides with the warmongers of New Labour in the belief that conventional weapons are about decent warfare they should go and talk to the conscript soldiers of Iran and Iraq, or the victims of the Falklands war.

Wars are not the result of workers in Iraq, Russia or China falling out with workers in the USA. Most of the British workers who unthinkingly accept Labour's line that “we must defend ourselves effectively” do not have any enemies in Moscow or Baghdad or Beijing or Pyongyang. Most workers in Britain have never met an Iraqi, let alone fallen out with one sufficiently to want to blow them up. Most Iraqis have never met an American. If you repeat a lie often enough people may begin to believe it and so they keep telling us that we must be defended against Iraq and other errant Islamic countries. After a while “Iraqis” are seen as monstrous, threatening, inhumane begins, blind followers of a mad dictator fit only to be killed. And to many Moslem workers, indoctrinated by the same lies from their owning class, workers in the West are perceived similarly as a wicked enemy, often a satanic enemy. What you must never forget – because then you have been finally brainwashed – is that there is nobody out there you need to kill and there are no enemies out there with a grievance against you. War is not about our interests, but those of the bosses who rob us so that they can be rich and powerful. War is about the competition between capitalists. If we are to die it will be for them. Ponder that as the masters of war ask for your support in the coming weeks.

Capitalism is the cause of war in the modern world. The Socialist Party is unequivocally opposed to the world-wide capitalists system. We are opposed to it in the Middle East as much as in Britain, Africa or the USA. The rivalry over profits, trade routes, markets and raw materials which is generated by capitalism makes war inevitable. It follows from this that you cannot simply oppose war unless you are out to end capitalism. Sadly, all too many workers, who are sincere in their belief that war is an outrage, nevertheless unwittingly support capitalism's conflicts by simply voting for capitalist politicians at election time, by remaining within political parties which are out to defend the capitalist system in its various forms and guises. It is futile to try to remove an effect without removing its cause. Thus campaigning against war now, whilst not objecting to capitalism, simply means that you will be out again protesting when the next war breaks out.

Workers have no country. Nationalism is based on the lie that workers have their own country; that the British have an obligation to Britain and likewise with the workers of the USA and Iraq. Workers who do not own or control Britain have no obligation to the bosses who do own and control it. Our sole interest is in co-operating with our fellow workers across the world who similarly have no country. Why should we die defending what is not ours and which we will never benefit from? On the contrary, our object is to obtain what is not now the possession of our class - the earth and its natural and industrial resources. The only war that need concern us is the class war between the parasites who possess and the workers who produce over the ownership and control of the Earth's resources. But to win we need not initiate the violence which is characteristic of capitalism's wars.

What we advocate is a war on war to be waged on the battlefield of ideas—for the hearts and minds of the world's people. And once we unite there will be no force that will stop us taking the Earth into our common possession.

Socialism will allow humanity to co-exist in peace. There is nothing natural about war. Are we born with a desire to kill people who speak a different language or who have a different skin hue? No! In fact, peaceful co-operation is more fitting for human beings, who are potentially rational beings. Once we live in a world of common ownership and democratic control of resources there will simply be no reason to kill one another. No Empires to build or markets to expand or profits to increase. Socialism will be a social system in which war will be pointless. Peace will be the norm. There will be no socialism without socialists to bring it about, just as there will be no capitalism or war without workers to support such insanity.

Stop and think the next time you hear Bush and Blair present their case for this war, the next time you read a tabloid headline supporting the government line and praising “our boys”. Think of the peace which could come about and think of the screams which are the human sound effects of war, and for your own sake, think hard!

John Bissett

Cooking the Books: The Falling Rate of Profit (2) (2014)

The Cooking the Books column from the August 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

The May/June issue of Philosophy Now also mentions the ‘law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall’ (as it’s called in the first English translation of Part Three of Volume 3 of Capital). In a generally fair article on Marx in their Brief Lives series, poet Roger Caldwell ventures into the field of economics:

‘Marx takes over from economist predecessors such as Adam Smith the notion of the falling rate of profit, although he is nowhere able to show that such a tendency exists, not least because, in the buoyant economy of the middle to late Victorian period, rates of profit were manifestly rising.’

It was indeed the opinion of Classical Political Economy that in the long run capital accumulation would theoretically eventually come to a halt because the rate of profit would have fallen to nearly zero. Adam Smith thought this would happen because capital would become too abundant (a view shared by some moderns, Keynes for example). Marx regarded this as merely a passing phase of the business cycle which would not be permanent.

David Ricardo thought that it would happen because of diminishing returns from agriculture which would eventually lead to all surplus value (to use Marx’s term) being absorbed by ground-rent at the expense of profits. Marx wanted to explain the phenomenon from the internal working of the capitalist economy, not from some external ‘natural’ phenomenon such as Ricardo was suggesting.

Starting from the basis that surplus value arose only from that part of capital invested in the purchase of labour-power, and noting that as capital accumulation proceeded the proportion of capital invested in this would fall as more was invested in plant and machinery, Marx deduced a theoretical tendency for the rate of profit, as newly created surplus value as a percentage of total capital invested, to fall because total capital would increase at a faster rate than total surplus value.

This was Marx’s contribution to the debate amongst the Classical Political Economists. But no more than Smith or Ricardo would he have thought that the rate of profit would actually fall to zero, simply that there would be a ‘tendency’ for it to move in this direction. The very fact that he chose the word ‘tendency’ shows that he did not think that there would be a steady downward movement. This is confirmed by his listing of a number of ‘counteracting’ tendencies that would work to increase the rate of profit, the implication being that at one time the tendency might win out and that at another the counter-tendencies might.

Any such fall for the reason Marx gave would be a long-run tendency, discernible only in generations rather than decades (not that Marx expected that the workers would wait generations to overthrow capitalism) and is to be distinguished from the short-term falls that occur for different reasons just before and during the economic downturns that capitalism regularly goes through from time to time.

Marx was well aware that profits were rising in ‘the middle to late Victorian period’ and notes this not only in Volume I of Capital but also earlier, in 1864 in his Inaugural Address of the IWMA. But an increase in the amount of profit is not the same as an increase in the rate of profit. Not that Marx was particularly concerned to show that the rate of profit had been falling during this period, nor did he need to be. A ‘tendency’ is only ever a tendency and does not have to manifest itself all the time. That’s why it’s called a tendency and not an iron law.