Love, Marriage and Divorce In Russia (1948)

From the May 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the radical movement of the last hundred years or so the “woman question” has loomed large. In fact, amongst the self-styled “intellectuals” the enthusiasm for the emancipation of love from property fetters appeared to rival the enthusiasm for the emancipation of labour. Consequently, after the revolution in Russia had been accomplished and groups of “advanced” people abroad had swallowed the delusion that Socialism had been achieved in one country, it was accepted that woman in Russia had been freed from the shackles property had fastened upon her, and free relations between the sexes had at last become the social custom. Early reports gave some colour to this view. The Soviet Union was held up to admiring gaze as a model of sanity in sex relationship and we were regaled with stories of the love life of bright young women, married and unmarried, who had enjoyed the felicity of numerous husbands to the satisfaction and happiness of all concerned. Knowledge of birth control methods was widespread, abortion was permitted and, at the worst, the State cared for children, so that women were relieved of their worst burdens. It may be noted in passing that the benevolence of the State sprang from motives that had nothing to do with helping women to engage in untrammelled love affairs. Labour was urgently needed for industrial operations and women who were free from the burden of children provided a part of this labour.

Inspired by the false dawn in Russia an American biologist decided that the appropriate time had come to give the world at large views that he had long restricted to a privileged few, which contained his vision of humanity freed from evolutionary influences that were leading the human race to disaster. The book he wrote on the subject was entitled “Out of the Night” (published by Gollancz in 1936) and the biologist was H. J. Muller. He was professor of Zoology, University of Texas; Member, National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A.; and, finally, Foreign Member, Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. In his preface to the book Professor Muller writes, in connection with the views on eugenics he is putting forward:—

   “In the meantime, our airy imaginings concerning the future possibilities of co-operative activity on a grand scale are brought down to earth and given substance when we turn to the great and solid actualities of collective achievement which are becoming increasingly evident in that one section of the world—the Soviet Union—in which the fundamental changes in the economic basis have already been established. More intimate familiarity with these developments at the time of writing would have rendered available a mass of material pertinent to our subject. There the march of progress proceeds apace, while elsewhere discouragement and decadence admittedly deepen. This central fact of the present-day social world at once substantiates, and belittles our theorising. (P. 8.)

As we shall see, it is a pity that the learned professor did not leave his visions for a while and familiarise himself with the real foundations of Soviet Russia. However, let us first of all summarise the nature of his visions.

The professor advocates a form of eugenic procedure which, he claims, will ensure the improvement of the human race to such an extent that the next few centuries will concentrate within them biological improvement and terrestrial control equivalent to the progress achieved in the thousands of years between the amoeba and modern man. For example, he envisages a time when, on the basis of recent progress in biological investigation and experiment, the human egg-cell will be impregnated and germinate into the embryo and the child outside the human body; thus banishing from love relations the biological function of procreation. He looks forward to the time, now within the realms of possibility, when male cultures and female egg-cells will be stored and labelled, to be mixed later on principles that will ensure the procreation of only the best physical and mental types. This final fruition of biological genius he leaves, however, to the distant future. In the meantime he alleges that there are some things that can be done and he looks to Russia, the Mecca of his hopes, to initiate the first steps because, as he puts it, they can only be satisfactorily begun in a community from which private property has been banished. He argues that female insemination by artificial methods has now been advanced to a stage where woman can choose the father of her children without needing the intervention of sex relations. He argues that it is only a short biological step forward to be able to ensure the storage of male cultures for an indefinite period. The advantage of this would be that while it is impossible to determine during the lifetime of a prominent man whether or not he was of a superior type the lapse of, say, twenty-five years after his death should be sufficient to settle this problem and his culture would be available for insemination. Lest the reader has a vision of enormous storage spaces it is only fair to give the professor's estimate of what it might amount to. He assures us that if all the heritable characteristics (all that grows into legs, bodies, heart, lungs, eyes, brains, and so forth) of the whole of the next generation of mankind were gathered into a heap it would be about the size of an aspirin tablet. So that solves that worry! In a wild burst of ecstacy he asks:

   “How fortunate we should be had such a method been in existence in time to have enabled us to secure living cultures of some of our departed great! How many women, in an enlightened community devoid of superstitions, taboos and sex slavery, would be eager and proud to bear and rear a child of Lenin or Darwin! Is it not obvious that restraint, rather than compulsion, would be called for? " (P. 152.)

Well! the writer can imagine a lot of women that would not be enamoured with the project. After all it is they, and not the professor, who would have to undergo the pains of childbirth after insemination.

Still, we are not at the moment concerned with a discussion of the professor’s visions of the future. What we are concerned with is the false estimate that he, in common with others of his type, has made of the present shape of things in Russia.

Since Professor Muller’s book appeared a drastic change has been apparent in the attitude of Russia’s rulers to sex relations. This change has been bound up with the growth of Russia into a first-class industrial and military power based upon the following of methods previously adopted by Western powers to secure dominance. The wealth of Russian privileged groups has reached such a pitch that an English communist has had to write a pamphlet in defence of Russian millionaires. In this pamphlet (“Soviet Millionaires” by R. Bishop) mention is made of the change in the Soviet law of inheritance in 1945 aimed at securing priority to the children of the testator in the distribution of his property (page 11). The inference from this is obvious and partly explains the recent tightening up of divorce regulations. But there are other reasons as well, and of equal importance.

In the general tightening up of regulations concerning marriage and divorce the use of birth control methods has been restricted, abortion has become a crime, and divorce has been so hedged around by restrictions that it is almost impossible for any but the wealthy to obtain release from the marriage tie. In 1944 decorations were offered to women for the bearing of large families, but the limitations on divorce and the other methods aimed at increasing the birth-rate suggest that the answer of women to this empty flattery has not produced the desired result. Why does Russia so urgently need an increase in the birth-rate? To increase the measure of happiness of the people? No! The reasons are as sordid as those that inpired the Nazi regime and all modern states.. Russia needs children as exploitable material for her industries and as cannon fodder in future wars. Hence the sex relations are controlled and directed for these purposes and to secure the inheritance of property within a certain circle. Thus, in this sphere of human relationships the Russian regime is back behind its starting point. The accumulation of wealth in the hands of individuals has necessitated decrees securing the right of inheritance and this., in turn, demands that the parentage of children shall be put beyond the bounds of reasonable doubt. In other words, the property development that brought into existence the monogamic family is exerting its influence with increasing force in Russia to-day.

Thus the delusion that Russia was the Mecca of freedom in sex relations has vanished along with the immediate hopes of Professor Muller. But the imposition of restrictions has not yet finished.

The Manchester Guardian for April 9th contains the report of a lecture to a large audience in Russia on “Love, Marriage and the Family in Socialist Society ” by Professor Kolbanovsky. The lecture shows how drastically the Russian attitude has changed. The report is from Moscow and is by Alexander Werth. The following extracts need little comment:—

   “A special reason for this great interest in the lecture was that some drastic new marriage and family legislation is now being considered by a special Government committee . . .  The Soviet divorce laws were greatly stiffened in 1944, but he indicated that they would be stiffened still further. Without ‘prophecying' what the new laws would be, he spoke very harshly of the disastrous effect on a child's mind of his parent’s divorce, adding that 'for living parents to create semi-orphans is an act of criminal baseness.' "

     "In Soviet society to-day there were still many deplorable survivals of the capitalist way of thinking and acting. Also, some vulgar and unworthy ideas on 'free-love’ which flourished in the early days of the revolution—and which Lenin wholeheartedly condemned—had not yet been quite eradicated. Such revolting practices were unworthy of Soviet society.”

 .  .  .

“It was true, he said, that some marriages broke up owing to monotony and boredom. ‘Variety’ should, therefore, be provided by the wife herself. It was important, for instance, that the wife should develop and grow intellectually, that man and wife should have new interests, that these interests should be closely linked with those of the country and community; that they should also take a common interest in the upbringing of their children. . . .  As for the 'free-love' theories, the lecturer recalled that there were indeed some 'Marxist' theorists in the past who claimed that the family was a bourgeois institution, and that the State should take charge of the children. No! said the lecturer. Socialism rejected this 'stud farm' principle; nor was the family a 'property unit,' as in bourgeois society, but it was a vital 'social unit,' and, under Socialism, the monogamous family had a better chance than under any other system. Woman would be more and more freed of all drudgery and petty worries, her mental interest in her husband would increase, and that was a guarantee for a lasting association."

 .  .  .

   "Another peculiarity of Soviet society was, he said, that all conditions were being, and would continue to be, created for having an unlimited number of children ; the economic reasons for birth control would be eliminated.”

It will be noticed that it is the women who are to have the pains and the responsibilities and the subjection. They are to keep their husbands interested and to have large families. In other words, they are to be the slaves of the monogamic family. One is tempted to echo the phrase of the dustman in one of Shaw’s plays: "Bourgeois morality. Pah!"

Gilmac

Party News Briefs (1948)

Party News from the June 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

May Day in London was a battle of endurance in which members won a victory over atrocious weather. We had members along the route of the procession selling literature, and they all got a drenching. In Hyde Park we had a decorated cart for our meeting and our banner with the party’s name on it could not be missed. Prior to May Day we had been disputing with the Ministry of Works their refusal to permit us to use amplifying apparatus in the park, and the permission given by them to the London Trades Council. We told them that while we did not advocate the use of this apparatus in Hyde Park, we had no other means of defence when others used it. It would seem reasonable that its use should be permitted to all responsible organisations or none. In the event, the amplifiers used at the Trades Council meeting were pitched quietly, possibly as a result of the stand we had taken, and while they interfered with our meeting to some extent, we nevertheless kept the attention of a very large audience. On Sunday we had another large meeting in the Park, followed by our mass rally in the Conway Hall. This we very nearly filled and our speakers, Cash, Young, Groves and Turner were listened to attentively and applauded with enthusiasm by the audience who donated about £40 to our funds. Party members in good numbers played an active part in making the May Day celebrations in London a success in spite of the conditions; Glasgow also report a good day up there on the Sunday. They sold 20 doz. Socialist Standards along the procession, and widely advertised the evening meeting in the Cosmo Cinema by street-chalking, billposting, etc. We were not permitted to hold outdoor meetings in Queens Park as this was reserved entirely for Labour Party meetings. F. Duncan and C. May spoke in the Cosmo Cinema to an audience of about 300 and the branch were well satisfied with the meeting. The collection was approximately £7 10s. C. Lestor went to Bristol for a May Day meeting on Durdham Downs. We have a few members down there who keep pegging away in conditions that are not too easy. Lestor spoke for three hours to about 200 people and the effort stimulated the local comrades. So far we have not received Manchester’s May Day report, but will give it in this column when received. From the U.S.A. also comes news of a successful May Day week-end in Boston by the W.S.P. of U.S.A. A feature of these meetings (on Boston Common and at their headquarters) was the exceptionally heavy literature sales.

The Head Office Librarians require copies of early party pamphlets, as they wish to prepare bound sets for the library. Have a look at your library and send along what you can spare. Also old pamphlets of the S.D.F., I.L.P.. etc., and copies of Justice.

Kingston Branch’s outdoor meetings at Castle Street are as successful as was anticipated. Cold and damp weather has not stopped us getting a good audience every Saturday evening. On one Saturday evening A. Turner held an audience of over 300 for two hours. The branch is confident of producing two speakers from its strength in the very near future

Leyton Branch have how opened a new outdoor station at the “Elms,” Leytonstone, on Wednesday evenings and the first meetings have been very encouraging to members.

A General Election Fight in North Paddington has been decided upon by the Executive Committee as a minimum General Election programme. The Executive Committee have not excluded the possibility of fighting other constituencies as well. This decision must be backed up by members and sympathisers immediately. Money will be the main limiting factor in our forthcoming election campaigns. We have members able and anxious to do the work, and an organisation fitted to deal with the tasks involved. The membership is in support of the fight on the electoral field in the immediate future, but we must build up the funds. Do whatever you can as quickly as you can!

The Overseas Secretary reports that the W.S.P. of of U.S.A. is holding its Annual Conference at Boston at the end of May. Representatives of the Canadian party will attend. They are trying to make a big effort of it with a series of outdoor meetings and possibly a debate. The Dublin socialist group is planning to extend its activities with regular propaganda meetings both outdoors and indoors, and also is trying to form an educational class. The group now has its own headquarters at the Boilermakers’ Hall, 33, Lower Gardiner Street. It meets there on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings, having lectures on Sundays, a business meeting on Tuesdays, and plans in progress for an economics class on Thursdays. The hall was packed for the first lecture on May 2nd.

We have been asked by the Overseas Secretary to make a special request for members to assist him. He wants his correspondence with contacts in various parts of the world taken over by a member or members. Workers in other countries are now frequently asking for information from us. and trying to maintain correspondence with someone in Great Britain. The correspondence can be, if necessary, in English, but anyone who can correspond in a foreign language can be put in direct touch with a contact abroad.

Lewisham Branch are following in the footsteps of some other branches in running a Socialist Standard canvass every Sunday, and have already doubled their usual sales.

Bristol Group aims to run fortnightly outdoor propaganda meetings on Durdham Downs this summer and have already booked a series of speakers up to the end of August.

Islington Branch have at last nailed down the Communist Party to a debate. The arrangements are that Geo. Jones (late parliamentary candidate for Hornsey) for the Communist Party will be faced by A. Turner for the S.P.G.B. at Hornsey Town Hall on Tuesday, June 1st. A report of the debate will appear in our next issue.

The New Pamphlet “Russia since 1917,” due soon, will be sold at 1s. per copy. It is another lengthy pamphlet and there’s plenty for the money.

The New E.C. Member is G. Kerr (West Ham branch) and the new Central Organiser, J. D’Arcy Bloomsbury branch), both election results having been recently declared.

C. C. Groves,

General Secretary.

Mr. Shaw and the Dictators (1948)

From the July 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

After Mr. G. B. Shaw’s article in the Daily Herald on 13th May and the attack on him by Mr. Michael Foot in the Tribune, Shaw wrote to the Tribune on 28th May and again on 11th June. Some of his points deserve comment. He admits his support of the dictators in the following terms:

   “I may remind Mr. Foot that we all very properly stood by Hitler and Mussolini until they went wrong, exactly as we stood by Ramsay MacDonald. The first years of a dictator are always to his credit. Power corrupts, but not in five minutes.” (Tribune, 28/5/48.)

The last sentence raises a nice point. The other dictator, Stalin, has been in power for nearly a quarter of a century and must therefore have had time to be corrupted by power but Shaw has not withdrawn his approval as far as we know. In the later letter (11/6/48) Shaw tells us why the early years of a dictator are good. He tells us that Hitler put an end to unemployment and tore up the Versailles Treaty, and Mussolini drained the Pontine Marshes, started rebuilding Rome and made a Concordat with the Pope. It is, of course, the silliest of arguments for it justifies support of every kind of government, past present and future. They have all claimed credit for other peoples’ work and lent their names to monumental projects and the making or breaking of Treaties. Are we to give blind support to Roosevelt for the Tennessee Valley Scheme, to Napoleon and to those who destroyed him, to the Pharoahs under whom the Nile waters were used for irrigation and the Pyramids built, to all the rulers of the slave and feudal and capitalist regimes? Incidentally, if the tearing up of the Versailles Treaty shows how good dictators are, what about Stalin’s part in the agreements for the plunder of the defeated at the end of the second world war. Does Shaw now execrate him for lunacies worse than Versailles, and get ready to hail the new German dictator who will tear it all up?

Shaw is angry with Mr. Foot for reminding him that Mussolini had Matteoti assassinated, and says that he (Shaw) was not a party to it. If the Labourites are in the absurd position of deluding themselves with the notion how nice capitalism would be if only it were freed from the evils that necessarily accompany it, Mr. Shaw is in the same silly position about dictators. He says in effect, how nice dictators would be if only they didn’t do the brutal things to their opponents that all dictators have to do.

Of course, when it is a question of flooring Mr. Foot, Shaw is on an easy thing. Arguing for industrial conscription (”compulsory civil service ”) he asks Mr. Foot what a Labour Government has to offer to make the workers work, in place of the whip of starvation. What he ignores is the fact that we still have capitalism, and as Socialists have always said, you can’t have an exploiting system without some bludgeon to drive the exploited to work. But what has this to do with Socialism?

Mr. Shaw gives his own version of events when he. tells us that “the careers of Mussolini and Hitler were produced solely by the disgust and disillusion of the proletariat with party parliaments . . . ” This is a gross misinterpretation, What made the workers disillusioned in Germany was not Parliament as such but the inability of the Social Democrats, alone and in coalition, to make capitalism function in the interests of the working class; but every Socialist knows that this is always impossible. If Mr. Shaw had added Lenin and Stalin to his list of dictators his argument would have exposed itself, for the Russians never had any experience of parliament and therefore could not be disillusioned with it.

On Shaw’s general argument that Parliament is too slow and faulty, and dictators speedy and efficient, do any of his dictators give proof? Hitler and Stalin were just as helpless as any Parliamentary government to prevent capitalism engulfing their countries in war. If dictatorship is swift why is it that 30 years after Lenin said that they must immediately introduce virtual equality of wages from top to bottom, we find Russia not only not doing so but producing greater and greater inequality between the privileged rich and the poverty-stricken masses? If dictatorship is sure and efficient how comes it that Russia, after spending years developing co-education, ease of divorce, and legalised abortion, then discovers its “errors” and sets about reversing all those trends in greater or less degree?

Mr. Shaw's defence of capitalism run by dictators is as weak as his opponents’ defence of capitalism run by Labour Governments.

P. S.

Must There Be A Transition Period? (1948)

From the August 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

The word “Socialism” has been used by so many people to mean so many different things that, to most workers, it has no clear meaning. We have heard of “National Socialism,” "Christian Socialism,” "Guild Socialism,” "State Socialism,” and a number of other varieties. The fact is, of course, that none of these things are Socialism at all. They are all conditions of Capitalism, or experiments within Capitalism, to which the name Socialism, with a suitable adjective, has been applied. The result has been to sow confusion. Hence, the Socialist finds that he must devote much of his time to explaining what Socialism is not, before he can make clear what it really is.

Not all of those who have. contributed to this confusion have done so with malice aforethought. Many are quite convinced that Nationalisation is Socialism or that the sermon on the mount was a Socialist lecture. Others will claim with conviction that the condition that prevails in Russia is Socialism or that workers’ control of industry is another variety.

One thing is common to all these confusion mongers. Without exception they do not understand the operation of Capitalism and, in consequence, they do not appreciate what Socialism implies. They do not agree that it is necessary for the majority of workers to understand and desire Socialism before it can be established. They consider that it is only necessary for a sufficient number of people to support the political party that advocates their particular brand of so-called Socialism to put that party into power. The party can then start serving out Socialism slice by slice. From the time that the party takes power until the last slice is handed out is a period that they consistently refer to as the “transition period.”

We are told that we cannot have Socialism overnight. There must he a period between Capitalism and Socialism is the argument. Then, the problems created by Capitalism are paraded and we are informed that this transition period is necessary in order to solve these problems before we can have "Complete Socialism.”

The Communists have been driven to substitute the word Communism for Socialism and then to explain away the present stage of Capitalist development in Russia as Socialism, this being, they claim, the transition period between Capitalism and Communism.

The Labour Party idea is that, with political power they can reform Capitalism, step at a time, until it is such a benevolent system to all members of society that it is nothing short of Socialism. On the strength of this they call themselves Socialists.. The step by step process is, for them, the transition period.

The Trotskyites. and others who would set themselves up as the revolutionary vanguard of the Working Class, attempt to so popularise themselves that the workers will, sooner or later, at the ‘‘psychological moment,” put them in a position of power. They will then establish the rule of the Working Class, more popularly known as The Dictatorship of the Proletariat. During this period of dictatorship (which would in reality be the dictatorship of their party) all the transitional problems would he ironed out.

These are the main points that lie behind the arguments, and the drawn-up plans for a transitional period. Not one of them is tenable if we recognise the fundamentals of Capitalism and Socialism.

Capitalist society is based upon private ownership of the means and instruments of production and distribution of the amenities of life. From this ownership comes the relationship of wage-labour and capital. Those who own, invest their wealth with a view to making profit. That is capital. Those who do not own must sell their ability to work for a wage—wage-labour. And from this condition of affairs flow poverty, unemployment, overwork, wars and all the subsidiary problems. Whilst the private ownership remains, these problems will follow naturally from it. There is no means of abolishing the effects whilst the cause remains. Attempts to do so are like trying to bail out an overflowing bath with a spoon whilst the tap is still running. The first necessity is to turn off the tap—remove the cause.

The first essential, then, is to abolish private ownership of the means of production. This is a legal ownership. The law guarantees both the ownership and the privileges that are derived from it. To trespass on another’s property, to damage another’s property, to steal another’s property, to in any way infringe on another’s property rights, will bring the law on to the trespasser, the thief or the infringer. Government, national and local, passes the laws, and the police force, the judges and the jailors, the soldiers, the airmen and the sailors, these all attend to the enforcement. Ownership of property is legal. The majority of the Working Class accepts and upholds this legality. It respects property rights.

Whilst the majority of the workers are prepared to support a system based on private property we shall have capitalism in some form or another. Whatever trimmings may be used to decorate it, whatever bluff may be used to hide it, whatever name may be used to disguise it, it will still he Capitalism. Industry can be Nationalised and it can be called “State Socialism,” poverty can be levelled out and it can he called Christian Democracy, the state can control almost every aspect of living and it can he called the transition to Communism, but if the ownership of the means of life is in the hands of a section of the community, the remainder will he a subject and exploited class.

How to change this? Parliament is the institution that attends to the law-making and controls the law- enforcing machinery. Political parties are organisations forgiving expression to class interests by striving to gain control of the law-making and enforcing machinery in order that the laws may be favourable to the class that is represented by the particular party. When the workers recognise the need to abolish this system of class ownership they must organise in a political party for this purpose. When they thus gain control of the governmental machinery they can, at a stroke, wipe out legal ownership. The claiming of property rights in the means of production and distribution can be rendered illegal. It will not require a transition period to do that.

With the machinery that was used to enforce recognition of lawful ownership taken out of the hands of the capitalist class by a working class that understands and wants Socialism, the Capitalist system is finished. There are then no longer owners of the means of. production to employ workers for wages. The relationship of wage-labour and capital is ended. Capitalism is dead. Socialism is established.

Organisations, such as Trade Unions, Stock Exchanges and Banks, which arose essentially to serve the needs of Capitalist society will dissolve immediately. New forms of organisation for the administration of society will be substituted. Other social institutions will also be adapted to the new economic basis.

All barriers to the solution of such problems as housing, unemployment, malnutrition, poverty and a host of others, will have been removed. Socialist society can then tackle the job unfettered by the claims of property, of profit and of class interest.

The technical process of production will continue to evolve, freed from the retarding forces of reactionary, Capitalist interests. Industry will continue but without wage-labour, without capital and without employers and employed.

Today production is social but distribution is not. It is necessary to harmonise production and distribution by making the wealth produced available freely to society as a whole. Standing in the way of this are the reactionary interests of the Capitalist class. The revolutionary act of dispossessing the capitalists and placing the means of production in the hands, and under the democratic control of society, will allow of this harmonising and social evolution to go forward at an accelerated pace.

The act of severing the bonds that keep the working class in subjection as an exploited, wage-earning class is practically instantaneous. When it is accomplished new productive processes that are stifled by capitalism, will be freed. Labour saving machinery that today serves to intensify the labours of the workers, will really be labour saving. Poverty will disappear. Housing schemes will no longer be subject to the dictates of capital. Social services will not have to be adjusted to the cost that a ruling class is prepared to pay. The solution to all will be real and permanent.

No clique of intellectuals will ever be able to shepherd the working class, via a transition period, to Socialism. A working class that knows its class status, that understands and desires Socialism, knows that “The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself.”

A warning to fellow workers. Those who talk to you of transition periods do not credit you with sufficient ability to understand and act in your own class interest. They seek to lead you. They want your un-class-conscious support in order that they may gain political power. Whether they know it or not, if they get that power they will have to use it to operate Capitalism. That is what their transition period will turn out to be; Capitalism, with them in the saddle. You will have exchanged one bunch of exploiters for another. And it will be a case of “out of the frying pan into the fire.”

W. Waters

The Wreckers: How our fair name is exploited. (1915)

From the August 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

That Evergreen Travesty

The ‘‘Daily News and Leader" in a recent leading article asks:

"What would be gained by ‘mobilising’ labour as it is called—that is, putting it under military law—if the organising faculty at the top is not present? We should  have destroyed the best asset of this country, the free, willing service of the people, in order to set up the machine of Prussianism without its driving power. The corollary of military law for the worker would be the abolition of capitalism in the workshop, for it would be manifestly impossible to hare forced labour to earn private dividends. Are our compulsionists prepared for such a vast experiment in Socialism?"

The portion of the above which has been italicised should be carefully noted. It is one of the commonest and most absurd of all the errors that are purposely advertised by the agents of the capitalist class that Socialism means the State ownership and government control of any or all of the means of wealth production. Those who advocate the State ownership of mines or railways or any other industry are dubbed Socialists and accept the name.

Mr. Lloyd George was evidently — or seemingly, at all events— under the impression that this was the meaning of Socialism when he said in one of his munition slanders:

   "They have great trade unions in France ; as the matter of fact they have a Socialist Government, and the gentleman who is organising the munitions supply in France is a young Socialist.”

The Bishop of Oxford writing to his sheep said:

   "It is strange to find 'The Times and the 'Spectator' advocating Socialism—for the period of the war— that is, that the State should take over the industries which go to supply munitions, and that all alike — employers and employed, should henceforth be employed by the State till the war is over."

The Straw Men.

When the true definition of Socialism, which is the Object of the Socialist Forty of Great Britain (the establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community) is quoted to any of these "State Socialists" they have two replies. First that it is impossible, which, of course, only means that it would not suit them, because it involves the abolition of capitalism the world over, and not merely the substitution of State for private control in the workshop; and secondly— the reply which is met with more frequently— that there are recognised authorities on the subject who say otherwise. But recognised by whom?

Fortunately, Socialism does not depend upon the utterances of any individual or number of individuals, however illustrious or prominent they may be. No man can be an authority on Socialism unless his statements are backed by evidence and his deductions and opinions will stand the test of common sense. It is mere bombast for men like Mr. George Bernard Shaw to construct elaborate theories, laying stress and emphasis upon them and dressing them up to look like essentials, when an intelligent examination shows them to tie unimportant and unsound—as he does with his theory of rent, which has no bearing whatever on the problems that face the working class— or as he does with his theory that the exchange-value of a commodity is fixed by supply and demand, an error that was exposed by Marx before Shaw espoused it. (The latter, apparently, is still unacquainted with Marx's suggestive and searching question, "What fixes the price when supply and demand are equal? ")

There are many writers of this type whose works receive friendly notice in the columns of the capitalist Press. The leader-writer and the politician accept them as standard works, refer to them and quote them as authorities on Socialism. But that does not make them such. On the contrary, the very fact that a so-called Socialist work has been received by the capitalist Press even in a spirit of friendly criticism should be sufficient to awaken the suspicion of those workers to whose notice it is brought.

They Deny the Class Struggle.

The main characteristic of all such works is that they deny the existence of the class war — possibly because the mass of the workers have not yet consciously engaged in the struggle. But they never attempt to disprove the fundamental antagonism that exists, nor can they deny that the capitalist class consciously enlist all the available forces, knowledge, and ability at their command in a continuous effort to keep the workers a slave class.

The fight put up by the workers is limited because of their lack of knowledge. Trade union organisation, strikes, demonstrations, and enrolment in pseudo-Socialist parties, together with a growing antagonism and suspicion against the ruling class constitute the sum total of their activities, but limited as these activities are they testify to the deep-seated causes that are bound to produce, and increasingly develop, hostility.

The growing suspicion of large sections of the workers is, perhaps, the most significant of all the factors, and is recognised as such by members of the Government. Mr. Lloyd George, in particular, had to admit, with sorrow, that the munition workers would have nothing to do with Government guarantees, preferring to hold fast to the trifling privileges they have gained by a policy of ca'canny, though they risked being charged with want of patriotism.

A Very Genteel Illustration.

Working-class resistance takes these particular forms because the nature of the struggle is not yet understood by the workers. To deny the existence of the class struggle because one side fights with full knowledge and up-to-date methods and the other side merely kicks and yells is paralleled by saying that there is no antagonism between the tramp and the insects that feed on him. because he is too tired to actively combat them, or is unable to afford the luxury of a bath with the necessary disinfectants.

When Mr. J. Ramsay Macdonald jeers at the ‘‘class war dogma," and Mr. G. B. Shaw denies the class war's existence, they range themselves on the side of the master class, whose wish that there should be no class war is father to the thought that there is none. Every labour hack inside and outside the House of Commons respects that wish and proclaims that the interests of the only two classes in society are, in the main, identical. For that reason they are pro-capitalist. because the emancipation of the working class depends upon their recognition of the antagonism of classes and the fact that they are enslaved for enslavement is in itself a calculated. pronounced, and continuous act of hostility. Consequently, Socialism can only be established as a result of the antagonism of classes and the successful prosecution of the class war by an enlightened working class.

For all the confusion that exists as to the cause of poverty and the meaning of Socialism we have to thank those who pose as the friends of the workers, and in many cases describe themselves as Socialists. These wolves in sheep's clothing propound their heresies and absurdities in sentimental and plausible language, to be taken up by the ignoramus and the trickster and scattered over the pages the workers read ; hence their confusion and ignorance.

Blatchford's Bally Balderdash.

It is the business of capitalism to produce commodities for the world's market. It is a characteristic of the system that scarcely any of these commodities are what they seem or what they are guaranteed to be. How, then, can we accept the capitalist's statement that periodicals like the "Clarion” and the “Labour Leader," for instance, are Socialistic? Periodicals such as these are the organs of confusion produced by professional confusionists. countenanced, and often assisted by, the master class.

The latest issue of the “Clarion" which is no exception to every number that has preceded it, by the way—contains a rehash of the old lies that have done service for the capitalist class for so long. “If the Government were to take over the mines that would be an act of pure Socialism,” says Robert Blatchford, and again, “Socialism means the collective ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.”

Whether Blatchford and the rest of his kidney publish those errors through ignorance or as acts of enmity against the working class I, not being conversant with their "inner consciousness," am unable to say, nor have I time to waste in so vain a speculation. They are errors, and Socialists can only denounce the authors of them, pointing out at the same time to the workers where they are false, and inviting them to use their intelligence that they may speedily understand Socialism for themselves— when the confusionist will disappear because there will be no market for his adulterated, distorted, and injurious commodity.

F. Foan

Jottings. (1915)

The Jottings Column from the September 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

  "I have confined myself intentionally to only one aspect of the cotton question ; but undoubtedly we have been supplying our enemies with the means of destroying our troops ever since the beginning of the war." Sir R. W. Ramsay, "Daily Mail," July 1915.

And what will they, the masters say when their children ask "What did you do, daddy, in the great war?"

*     *     *     *

Upon the declaration of cotton as contraband the same paper sums up in the following terms.

   "How many valuable lives have been lost by this gross ineptitude it is impossible to say. Next to the blundering of the negotiations with the Balkan States and the Shell Tragedy it is easily the worst feature of the Government's connection with the war, bad as that is.” - “Daily Mail" editorial, Aug. 21st, 1915.

*     *     *     *

War the Leveller.

  "Mr. Ben Tillett, addressing a labour meeting at Bristol yesterday, said that the hell at the front had made brothers of dukes sons and labourers' sons.
   "I wish people at home could be as united in their efforts to crush the foe,' he added.”

"Daily Express," July 26th, 1915.

Well there now! we always asserted the certain conviction regarding the worker and this resurrection-era of affluence, but we scarcely thought it would be achieved through the crushing of some other section of the working class. Sickening, ain't it ?

*     *     *     *

Just as water finds its own level, so too do the labour misleaders find their true groove - that of dutiful devotion to the master class in time of national conflict. We were waiting for news of that peerless "Daily Herald" sun-god, Tom Mann, and here it is ("Daily Express" 21.8.15) "Since the war began Mr. Tom Mann has visited all the ports to help in the manning of transports.” D-------- if we didn't think so.

B. B. B.

Editorial: The War Against The Workers. (1915)

Editorial from the October 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Lobby correspondent of the London "Daily News'’ on Sept. 13th made the following significant statement:

                           French Strike of 1910. 

There are grounds for saying that some of the Ministers who are in favour of the compulsory organisation of the manhood of the country have been influenced by the history of the national railway strike in France in 1910. They believe that in case of a serious strike in this country imperilling the national safety, the power of calling up the men as soldiers would break the strike. This was what happened in France in 1910: By Oct 11 the national railway strike was general, the food supply of Paris was gravely threatened, and the whole of the country disorganised. On Oct. 13 the ringleaders were arrested under the Railway Traffic Law of 1845, and at the instance of M. Briand, the Prime Minister, 130,000 of the railway servants were put under mobilisation orders for a period of three week's training.

 The action of the French Government in calling out the railwaymen in their capacity of reservists had a double effect. It appealed to the sense of patriotism and of military discipline which animates the majority of Frenchmen, and it gave those men who returned as reservists to their work on the railway, an assurance of protection against the violence of strike pickets, and a sense of solidarity with their comrades of the active Army in full uniform who were guarding the railway stations, signals, and points. By these means the strike was broken, and on October 18 the railwaymen were ordered back to work by their own Strike Committee.

The matter of tho French strike was dealt within the “Socialist Standard" at the time and the moral of the necessity for the rapture of political power by the workers was driven home, but in the present connection it is to be noted ; that the mobilisation order of 1910 was utilised to break a strike in time of peace. Clearly, then, the utility of compulsion to the ruling class is not confined to the period of war. It is as well, therefore, not to overlook the permanent consequences of  conscription when analysing the motives behind the compulsory service "conspiracy.” It is, indeed, almost unthinkable that our rulers would let such a splendid opportunity as the present war slip by for making us more completely n nation of serfs.

Munition workers are already subjected to forced labour. Their work in accelerated to the point of exhaustion. .They are fined for losing a few hours. They are punished if they seek better terms and forbidden to change their employer without a certificate of permission. And they ore abused by "labour lenders," by cabinet ministers and by journalists as slackers and worse, although they are the only portion of the nation who are actually doing the war work. The employers are not punished. The members of the idle class are not controlled or penalised. Not at all. The compulsion, the hardships, the punishments and the abuse are concentrated upon the working class who have nevertheless no share in the ordering of their industry.

The facts are so plain and the class nature of the governmental activities is so obvious that it is quite unnecessary to say more here under this particular head. Every workman who exercises his intelligence upon the statements of Ministers, of so-called labour leaders and of journalists, and ponders the findings of the munitions courts, can see a far more damning case against the ruling class in this matter than could be baldly stated. And after all is there not something of similar import in the whole history of the war?

We have long known the hollowness of much of the so-called Socialist movement in Germany, in France, and in this country ; yet such as it was all the governments have been mortally afraid of it. A prominent German statesman once said that there was a certain cure for the Socialist movement, and that was war! Prominent men in other countries have said similar things. It is part of the creed of re-action. Undoubtedly the German democratic movement in particular was most imposing, and appeared truly formidable to its ruling class. The French movement also was growing and threatening. In Russia it could only be kept under by the most violent measures of repression. In this country it was sought to emasculate the proletarian menace by absorbing its pretended leaders into the governmental party. In France this policy hud been very thoroughly carried out as the Millerands, the Briands and the Vivianis still testify. And does not this obvious capitalist fear of the working class suggest a possible reason for war, supplementary to the ordinary one of direct commercial interest ?

In France, England and Germany the workers were swept off their feel in a wave of patriotism and became an easy prey to the intrigues of the capitalist class. Russia, seemingly, continued its brutal repression simply in order to obviate any violent break with the traditions of its government. In all the belligerent countries the workers are expected, nay, compelled, to sacrifice on the altar of their master's country all the poor concessions which industrial necessity had enabled them to win. In this sea-girt isle tho hardly won rights of labour are being rapidly annulled. Tho soaring cost of living, the destruction of trade union conditions of labour, the speeding up of work, the forced labour and the menace of compulsory military service, all tend irresistibly to crush working class conditions of existence out of recognition, Even some patriotic workers are beginning to ask whether “victory" may not be too dearly bought if it is to be purchased only with the sacrifice of all the poor liberties for which their fathers fought, and at the cost of everything which to them had appeared to make working-class life barely tolerable now.

After the war the old conditions will be restored, they tell us; but who believes it? The so-called national necessities which are the pretext for the present measures will be obviously still more imperative after the war. Our masters are insistently urging the workers (with whom saving is too often a crime against the mind and body of themselves and their dependents) to put money by for the awful times that will inevitably follow the war. In view of these hard times to come what chance will there be for the restoration of pre-war conditions of labour? In any case is it not a foregone conclusion that capitalist greed and armed power will effectually bar the way ?

Although we may dimly perceive the golden gleams amidst the dark and thundrous clouds of the future, it would be folly to deny that the immediate prospect is gloomy indeed. Hemmed in by penalties and virtually gagged and bound, the free expression of opinion is rendered impossible for the present. But the seething discontent is not stilled, nor is it rendered innocuous by being denied an outlet. As they sow the wind they shall reap the whirlwind.

Many a man this day is troubled by a burning thought set alight in him by the flaming hoardings of murderous association. He sees the workers of the world being crushed to death or to worse than death between the exploitation and oppression of the ruling caste and the savage massacre of warfare. But what shall I say, he reflects, what must I say to my children years hence when they ask me, "What did you do, daddy, in the great war?" Shall I have to confess in sadness that during this great attack upon the toilers, that in this tragic episode in the class war I have failed to play a man's part?

Editorial: Conscripts or Volunteers? (1915)

Editorial from the November 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

Freedom, we are told, is the birthright of an Englishman; but of what Englishman other than the English capitalist? Capitalism, as we know, was inaugurated in the sacred name of freedom. Free competition, free speech, freedom of the Press and freedom of contract wore once holy objects of its worship. And where those have been deposed it has only been to promote a higher freedom—the freedom of the ruling class to do what it likes with those it rules.

The capitalist class has been accused of falling away from the cult of the goddess of Liberty, but a moment's thought will show this to be more apparent than real. For whose benefit were the graven images of Freedom ever raised up by the burgher class to be worshipped? Never for the advantage of the workers. These have always been excluded as far as possible. The supreme god of which the fair-faced goddess is merely the symbol, and which alone is worshipped with a whole-souled devotion by the capitalist class, is their own recognised material interests, their own narrow class liberty. This, their real deity, is only occasionally identical with the goddess of freedom as recognised by common humanity today. Yet, when it is clearly to their profit to do so, the ruling class never hesitate to do homage. They are, indeed, ever full of a lip service to ideas of liberty which they identify with their interests. What, in fact, is more characteristic of them, or more to their advantage, than the dissemination among the toilers of the idea that capitalism is the embodiment of freedom? Do not they even assert that the worker benefits by the glorious right of freedom of contract? The worker, they say, is under no compulsion to labour for a master. If the terms offered by employers are not good, he need not accept. These are not the days of chattel slavery. Should he honestly prefer to be starved to death with bis family rather than accept bad terms, he is quite free to do so—or rather, we should say, he was free until recently. But even if Orders in Council and Munition Courts now deny this freedom to the worker, it is only being done in the cause of freedom itself. Are we not officially informed that the great war that is the pretext for these restrictions is a War for Freedom? And since the rulers of both Britain and Germany proclaim this from the heights of their wireless stations, it is doubly vouched for by the world-renowned reliability of both German and British official news.

But where British capitalism scores heavily over that of the continent of Europe is in the vital matter of the freedom of military service. Whereas other countries fill the ranks of their fighting forces by the crudest methods of compulsion, Great Britain raises a huge army upon the glorious principles of freedom. Under the voluntary system, an official poster informs us, Britons fight for freedom with the strength of free men. The freedom of contract overcomes all obstacles. Men whose very least desire was to abandon the arts of peace, find themselves, by the judicious operation of liberty, drawn willy- nilly into the maelstrom of military service. Official committees issue appeals, in the name of freedom, to employers urging them to “release for service" men of military age. The free men thus “released,’’ on applying for another job, find themselves confronted with the notice, “Men of military age need not apply." The result is a great triumph for the voluntary system. Thus is the birthright of an Englishman saved the contamination of compulsion.

But this is not the only factor called in aid of the freedom to enlist. The freedom of speech and the freedom of the Press are carefully manipulated in order to influence eligible men for the good of the ruling class. Awkward facts are made to disappear. Encouraging facts are spread in the sun or manufactured to order. The generosity of the pensions or lack of them provided by a grateful country for its disabled warriors, is not commented on. The prospect of many war-broken “saviours of their country" hiring to sell matches or bananas for a livelihood after the war, is a subject that is taboo. We are even told by Arnold Bennett, in the London "Daily News," that the Government have instructed newspapers not to publish cases of hardship among discharged soldiers. And it is, of course, obvious that the open discussion of such matters would be a serious interference with the freedom of enlistment.

And what a tribute it is to national courage to find well-to-do men over military age, and even weak women innocent of the hardships of either work or war, among the bitterest denouncers of the Germans and the firmest in their demands for the ruthless prosecution of the war to the very last fit man! Even old men and idle women nurtured in the lap of luxury do not flinch from informing young men what they would do in their place; indeed, their courageous endeavours to force other people to sacrifice themselves are beyond all praise.

The part played by strident women has been of immense service to the cause of militarism. A great and influential meeting of women at Queen's Hall (boomed by the "Daily Mail”) lifted up its voice as one woman in its demand for immediate conscription for men. The Suffragettes also are doing their bit. None were, before the war, more bitter against man-made government. They showed conclusively that women really ruled the world both in ancient days, and from the cradle upwards in our own times; the only drawback was that tyrannical man would not let her. They burnt churches, slapped burly policemen, harried nervous statesmen. spoilt letters and championed the right of women to blackleg male labour; and in short conducted a bitter sex warfare against mere man. To day, however, their tactics have altered. The sex warfare has taken a new form. The government they once hated is now supported through thick and thin. The country they once endeavoured to destroy is now the object in the preservation of which they deem the utmost male sacrifice to be needful. Despite their change in tactics, however, it does not appear that their attitude toward man has changed. The active males, egged on by challenge to their courage which they have not the pluck to withstand, are being decimated. The dearth of men is opening innumerable avenues of employment to women who, in nearly every case, accept worse conditions and depreciate the proletarian standard of living; all endeavours to maintain this standard being characterised by Suffragettes as attacks on the rights of women. None, indeed, are more unselfishly active than these Suffragettes in urging their competitors, the males, to go away and get shot and leave the women to manage the country.

Private firms, public corporations and authorities all over the country are particularly keen, for economical purposes and to aid voluntary enlistment, in replacing males by cheaper female labour. Even the London County Council is still endeavouring to “release" its few remaining tramwaymen by the employment of women. Its education department is also withholding scholarships and appointments from pupil teachers and others of 18 years and over, until after the war in order to “enable” them to enlist. The railways also are not behind in this despite the semi military nature of their work. In the "Daily Chronicle" of Nov. 2nd the following paragraph appeared:

  The Midland Company has also decided that "all clerks of military age must be spared." Steps are being taken to ascertain the number of men who come within the category, with a view to their positions being filled by females and men above the requisite age.

The sudden stoppage of much Government work co-incident with the commencement of Lord Derby's scheme is by no means a negligible factor in the great recruiting boom. The Post Office is bringing increased pressure to bear on enlistable employees, who are, indeed, marked men: and a growing and almost irresistible pressure is being felt by eligible members of the employed class up and down the country. Certainly the difference in the attitude toward the army, of a man in a normal job, and the same man faced with the alternative of enlisting or starving, is directly conducive to the success of voluntary service.

So great is the pressure brought to bear upon the working class in order to make them join the army of their own free will, that some working men are saying that conscription would involve fewer hardships and be more equitable. However this may be, it is certain that the voluntary system is admirably calculated to promote the traditional freedom of members of the capitalist class. The present pressure to enlist falls almost exclusively upon the workers. Only an employed person can be discharged and faced with the alternative of either starving or voluntarily enlisting. The scions of the ruling class completely escape. The workers are compelled to join in overwhelming numbers.

Is it then strange that the master class hesitates to abandon voluntary recruiting in favour of conscription? Voluntaryism guarantees complete liberty to the employing class to enlist or not, as they please; it only acts as compulsion upon the workers. Conscription itself could only with difficulty get more men from the working class, though it might get them more quickly; but the numerous exemptions that it would be necessary to make in each a scheme in order to secure the traditional freedom of the propertied class, might create greater difficulties, or open the eyes and arouse the hostility of the workers. It is, therefore, hardly likely that conscription will be readily resorted to by the powers that be, in view of the manifest advantages to them of the present system. The chief danger to the voluntary system would seem to be the failure of employers, in a desire to avoid sacrificing immediate profits, to discharge all fit men. As has already been seen however, such conduct has been condemned as unpatriotic, and every effort is being made to compel the working class to ensure the success of the voluntary system. As a prominent statesman has said: no sacrifice can be too great when freedom is at stake. And the workers will doubtless be called upon to make ever greater sacrifices in order to preserve the sacred birthright of freedom which is the prerogative of all members of the propertied class. A birthright of freedom, indeed, which exists only by virtue of our birthright of wage-slavery, and which is deliberately built upon, and buttressed by, the hardships and lack of freedom of those who labour.

Note On Nationalisation (1948)

From the September 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under the various methods employed by the Government when fixing the compensation to be paid to the shareholders when their industries are nationalised some groups of shareholders do better than others. It looks as if the shareholders of McNamara & Co., the transport contractors who have for a hundred years carried mails for the Post Office, do not do so badly. It is reported in the Evening News (13th August, 1948) that the purchase price paid by the British Transport Commission will work out at about 33s. for the 12s. stock units. Nevertheless the shareholders were expecting more and the same paper reports that when this purchase price was announced the market price of the shares dropped from their recent high level of 33s. 9d. But, says the Evening News, the shares were selling at only 23s. 6d. last October when the negotiations began. 

Another interesting note was published in the Sunday Express (15th August, 1948) on the possibility of the Government nationalising the tobacco industry. Some stockbroker has been calculating how much the shareholders of the Imperial Tobacco Co. might expect to get if nationalisation takes place. If the compensation were to be worked out on the same basis as that applied to road haulage nationalisation the compensation would be 119s. 7d. per share. If the basis is that applied to the coal maines it would be 114s., and if the Government paid the market price of the shares before the General Election it would be 160s. As the shares are now standing at 101s. 3d., the Sunday Express sees that nationalisation on either of the three bases would be a good thing for the shareholders and “it’s bad luck for shareholders that there is no talk of nationalisation yet.” !

Edgar Hardcastle

No Compromise. (1926)

Editorial from the April 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

If the Socialist Party’s policy can be summed up in a phrase, that phrase is "no compromise”; we are not phrase-worshippers, however, and therefore wish our phrases to be clearly and definitely understood.

The Socialist Party opposes all other political parties without exception, "whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist.” The necessity for a party which is out for Socialism arises from the fact that the existing social order, which we call capitalism, holds no prospect of improvement for the majority of the population—the working- class. Parties which openly exist to preserve that social order, with or without modification, are therefore so many barriers to be surmounted before our goal can be achieved.

The simple, easily intelligible, fact is, nevertheless, frequently made the subject of misrepresentation on the part of some of our opponents. "Half a loaf is better than no bread" we are told, and the outsider is sometimes misled into thinking that the Socialist Party has a conscientious objection to accepting half-loaves, and he is seldom slow in voicing his contempt for such (quite imaginary) “pig-headedness" on our part. We have often observed, however, that people who lightly accept this view of the matter are not to be trusted to distinguish between half-loaves and packets of sawdust —between measures that might conceivably benefit the workers for a short period to some slight extent, and measures which merely tighten up the machinery of capitalist administration at the expense of the workers.

We have exposed in these columns times without number the fraudulent character of the reforms advocated by "progressives” of all shades, from the old-age pensioners and insurance schemes of Liberals to the nationalisation projects of the "left wing,” but we still find trustful souls who believe in the possibility of getting "something now.” These good people are simply in a fog. They do not realise that "now" the workers are politically powerless and will remain so until they organise as a class for the establishment of Socialism. To expect "something now" is to expect charity from the master-class. It is to fly in the face of history, which shows that such concessions as conditions have allowed the workers to wring from the masters in the past lose their value with the progress of industry. The victories of Trade Unions in their early days, resulting in shorter hours and higher wages, have been neutralised by the improvement in machinery and productive methods, speeding-up, intenser exploitation and more unemployment.

Not only is this the case, but even the ability of Trade Unions to obtain such concessions grows manifestly less with the increased concentration and international organisation of capital. Yet in spite of this we find individuals, in the name of “Communism,” encouraging the workers to “demand,” from the capitalist state, £4 per week and a 44-hour slavery!

If economic laws could be legislated out of existence, if capitalism could be made to serve the interests of the workers, then there would, indeed, be no case for Socialism. It would long ago have perished, a sterile Utopia. The work of Marx, ignored by the “Communists” who pay him lip-homage, was to emphasise the inability of governments to work miracles. Relying firmly upon political action, he stressed the need for understanding the conditions and essential limitations of that action. It is characteristic of the inverted logic of the “ Communist ” and “minority movers” that in one breath they avow their contempt for Parliamentary procedure, and in the next call upon the workers to send in petitions—to the House of Commons!

The Socialist Party is out to obtain all that can be obtained for the workers under capitalism. We know sufficient of capitalism, however, to realise that the only way to obtain the smallest advantage is to oppose the enemy, both on the economic and political fields. We do not propose, to give our support in exchange for a mere promise—and the more the enemy concedes the harder we shall hammer at his fortress, i.e., working- class ignorance, apathy and disunity. The political supremacy of the workers will only be achieved by organisation for an object which will unite, inspire, and enlighten them. That object is Socialism—our object.

Other parties may tell you fellow-workers that if is their object also—“ultimately"; but you will, if careful, notice that they do not make it a plank in their election addresses. They cannot find room for it. They have too many requests to make of the master-class to propose to abolish them.

Fellow-workers, we apologise to no one for our existence as a party. We have watched for years the baffled efforts and disappointed hopes of sections of our class, acting in ignorance of important factors in their problems. It is our mission to make those factors clear, and we invite you to study our literature, come to our meetings, ask us your questions, confident that when you. understand our case you will join us.

A Reader Discovers a Mare’s Nest (1933)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Editor,                                                                                                                                                        Tottenham.

Dear Sir,

Being a regular reader of the Socialist Standard I observe the continual change of its policy towards Marxian Socialism and can only come to one conclusion, that there is a mental mix-up of those who form the Editorial Committee of the Party. To state a definite case for Socialism in previous Socialist Standards and then to contradict it in a following issue certainly needs an explanation, for to continue such tactics is certainly not in the interests of the working class.

Having made my charge I will now proceed to substantiate it. Firstly, in the Socialist Standard, March, 1925, page 297, after criticising the Minority Movement and condemning its reformist policy, it states: “To appeal, therefore, to Capitalists and their Labour agents to pass certain legislation, is to support the present system and those who rule it.” This is the policy that Marx always advocated, and never did he modify his views in favour of accepting capitalist reforms. This cannot be said for the S.P.G.B., who—as I will prove—now show a complete disregard for Marx on this point.

For in the Socialist Standard, April, 1926, page 122, there appears the following: “The Socialist Party is out to obtain all that can be obtained for the workers under capitalism.” Thus we see that after criticising both Communist and Labour Parties for advocating and accepting capitalist reforms, the S.P.G.B. are doing exactly the same thing. I wonder what Marx would have said and whether he would recognise the S.P.G.B. as a genuine Socialist movement?

I could continue giving examples of the inconsistency of this party from more recent issues of the Socialist Standard, but I consider that the above facts are quite sufficient to warrant a justification for the S.P.G.B.’s criticism of other political parties, if such is possible.

Finally. I shall look forward to a reply in the Socialist Standard.

I am,

                    Yours, etc.,

                                  H. Timmins.

Reply.

Our correspondent describes himself as a “regular reader," but his letter could not have been written if he had read the two articles with reasonable care. Had he done so he would have seen that there is no contradiction whatever. The two articles express exactly the same viewpoint. This can easily be made clear by giving some further quotations.

The first article (March, 1925) dealt with the fallacies underlying the so-called Minority Movement. The article pointed out that a minority is in the hopeless position that if it demands something which the capitalist ruling class do not wish to give, then its demands are ignored and the minority is helpless to enforce them. This would apply to a demand for Socialism made by a minority. Consequently, minorities which wish to appear effective (the Minority Movement, for example), put forward programmes which the capitalists may be willing to agree to and able to agree to without injury to capitalism. In other words a majority movement can enforce its demands, while a minority movement can only appeal to the Capitalist Government to do something.

The article runs as follows: —

   The fact that they call themselves a Minority Movement damns them from the start, for, on the economic field, numbers count when a contest is on for obtaining some advance. Not minorities, but majorities, are then required, and a minority left to fight for some demand is doomed. The mass of the workers must be united in support of a national advance before we can expect them to obtain it.

After criticising the specific demands put forward by the Minority Movement, the article continues:—

  The political proposals of this movement could only be carried out if those in control of Government passed the demands into law. To appeal, therefore, to capitalists and their Labour agents to pass certain legislation is to support the present system and those who rule it. It is to ask the workers to prolong capitalism by voting for those politicians who have a programme of properly selected reforms. 

The other article referred to by our correspondent (April, 1926) puts forward precisely the same argument. Our correspondent by quoting three lines and ignoring what goes before and after discovers an entirely imaginary difference.

This is the whole relevant passage:—

   It is characteristic of the Communist and “Minority Movers” that in one breath they avow their contempt for Parliamentary procedure, and, in the next, call upon the workers to send in petitions to the House of Commons.
   The Socialist Party is out to obtain all that can be obtained for the workers under capitalism. We know sufficient of capitalism, however, to realise that the only way to obtain the smallest advantage is to oppose the enemy, both on the economic and political fields.

It will be seen that the two articles are identical in condemning the policy of petitioning or appealing to the capitalists, and identical in urging the very opposite policy of coming out in complete opposition to the capitalists.

So much for the the first of our correspondent’s mare’s nests. We await the others he promises.

Before concluding, we cannot pass over the inaccurate and illogical references to Marx.

Our correspondent quotes the passage beginning, “To appeal therefore to capitalists . . . .” and says (quite correctly), “This is the policy that Marx always advocated,” i.e., the policy of opposing the capitalists instead of appealing to them.

Then our correspondent concludes his reference to Marx with the words, “Never did he modify his views in favour of accepting capitalist reforms.” Now the first statement about Marx is correct. The second is false. Our correspondent, however, seeks to convey the impression that the two statements are really identical, which they are not. What he has done is to use the word “appeal” in the first, only to replace it by “accept” in the second.

So far from telling the workers to refuse to accept reforms (how they could do so our correspondent does not explain), Marx welcomed such reforms as the shorter working day and valued them highly (probably more highly than they deserved). But he never advocated the useless policy of appealing to the capitalists for such reforms.

Ed. Comm.

Letter: The Socialist Party and Reforms (1948)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

Answer to a Correspondent

H. Timmins (South Tottenham).—Your letter of 1st September received. As we find that it covers almost exactly the same ground and uses (and fails to understand) the same quotations as the letter from you that we published and replied to at length in the issue for October, 1933, we are not prepared to publish it again. We refer you to that reply and suggest that you try to make up your mind what is the precise nature of the charge of alleged inconsistency you wish to make. In brief it is correct, as you know, that the Party’s Declaration of Principles has never been changed. From time to time the Party has discussed the application of Socialist principles to particular issues and did so about 1910 on the question of reforms. The attitude defined then has never been altered and was reaffirmed at Conference this year. There is no inconsistency whatever in being opposed to having a programme of reforms, opposed to reformist parties and opposed to the policy of appealing to the capitalists for reforms, and at the same time being prepared to obtain anything that can be obtained by opposition to the capitalist class both on the economic and political fields. If you could show us that we have ever advocated the former or departed from the latter there would be a case to answer, not otherwise.

In your letter of October, 1933, you charged Marx with advocating the policy of appealing to the capitalists for reforms. You do so again and now you also say that in that issue of the Socialist Standard we published “the glaring statement that 'Marx welcomed reforms'." You seem to be confusing your own argument with our repudiation of it and you were quite right to say in your present letter that no doubt we would accuse you “ of just using small extracts,” except that the term should be not even using but “misquoting.”

You say, for example, that we wrote “Marx welcomed reforms.” What we actually did write, as yon will see if yon look it up, was:

  “Marx welcomed such reforms as the shorter working day and valued them highly (probably more highly than they deserved). But he never advocated the useless policy of appealing to the capitalists for such reforms.”

You make one new point: “In view of the recent new Health Insurance Act, it brings to the fore the question of Reforms, of which even members of your Party will receive some benefits in different ways.”

You have overlooked the fact that the new Scheme is partly financed by deductions from wages (incidentally a reversal of the early Labour Party policy); that it is introduced at a time when prices are rising faster than wages and in place of wage increases; that some workers, e.g. new entrants to the Civil Service, will now have deductions made from wages for old age pensions but will have the pensions deducted from the Civil Service pension they would get in any event; and that the scheme as a whole is so far from being attractive that hundreds of thousands of people refused to enter it and the threat of prosecution had to be made to force them to do so.

Ed. Comm.

The "Unofficial" Strikers (1948)

From the November 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

For months past much space has been taken up in the daily press to condemn the “unofficial” striker. The Editorials vie with each other in vilifying the “Reds” who are behind all these movements. The Daily Mirror, whose contribution to the culture and art for the people, consists of Jane, Ruggles, and Buck Ryan, is among the latest to join up in this tirade. Though their daily slogan is “forward with the people," their sympathies seem to lie more with our masters in their drive for more and harder work for the worker. Accordingly, their Editorial (17/9/48) welcomed “the sign of deep responsibility in the Trade Union movement as a whole that the proposal for a token strike among the engineers as a protest against the recent wage award should have been turned down." It went on to mention how the “respectable” leaders have influenced the majority to proceed in the constitutional manner, and keep on working hard while negotiations are carried on. “Unfortunately there are places where the reasonable view did not prevail”— it goes on—“and despite the ban by the A.E.U. on unofficial strikes, certain men in Glasgow have called token stoppages for Monday.”

“Now what is behind this minority movement? ” asks the Daily Mirror. “ Possibly’’—they think— “some of the men are unaware that the 'rebel policy' within the Trade Union movement is inspired all the time not by industrial but by political motives.” Considering that all the wealth of the world is produced by the application of the workers’ energies, physical and mental, to the nature-given materials, through the use of machinery which he has in the past produced, there is nothing “unreasonable” or ”unofficial” about the use of his only weapon (the strike) for demanding a larger share of what is produced by his energies. Even more so, when one considers that from the total of wealth produced he receives on the average just sufficient to keep him in that physical state to keep on producing more and more wealth with a view to sale and profit. His share, one might say, is just the grease to keep the “machine” going. The Daily Mirror mentions political influence. Well, it is possibly correct that “Communists” wish to gain control in the Unions to further their political line, but to assert that their influence is so much that they can be all over the country at the same time is more likely to flatter them and give them much undeserved publicity. Strange that no one ever mentions a Tory minority in the Union movement out to embarrass the Labour Government! The charge would, of course, be equally ludicrous. With the slow progress of negotiating machinery, and the meanwhile rising costs of living, the worker "feels” the reduction in his standard of living. No "minority" has to tell him that. He organises and discusses strike action, according to the degree of his class-consciousness and militancy. One notices that the deploring of these so-called unofficial strikes always comes from those who are secure in their four square meals a day and in their home, and servants to attend them. Of course the press is always full of the harm to the “public” or the “community,” as if the worker had never known anything but "comfort” and “security” all his life !! What they never mention is that profits are threatened and as they (the press) are supporters of the capitalist system they must needs protect that system and invent all kinds of phoney phrases to keep up that support. As socialists we say that while there is capitalism there will always be strikes, ”unofficial” or otherwise, but at the same time we say the greatest need of the moment is to organise for socialism, a system vastly different from capitalism, and one in which all the means for producing and distributing the wealth of the world will be the common property of all mankind irrespective of race, colour or sex. Then there will be no more need for unions, or strikes, or disputes. Everyone will have free access to what is socially produced. There will be no need then for a “minority" to “rock the boat” (as the Mirror puts it). The "majority” will have sunk the “rotten boat” of capitalism, and settled on the ”new liner” of Socialism.

G. Hilbinger