Class struggle, ancient and modern (1988)

From the November 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The history of all hitherto existing society", wrote Marx and Engels at the beginning of the 1848 Communist Manifesto, "is the history of class struggle." To which Engels added the qualification, in the English edition of 1888. "all written history" to take account of the fact that humans had originally and for many hundreds of thousands of years lived in classless communistic conditions. So Marx and Engels were saying that the history of society since the break-up of primitive communism has been one of class struggles. 

But has it? Well, that depends what is meant by the term "class struggle". Certain historians, including some in the Marxist tradition, have understood this to mean struggles in which one or other of the contending groups recognises itself as a class and is consciously pursuing its interests. In other words, that class struggle has necessarily to involve an element of class consciousness. The drawback with this view is that class-conscious struggles have by no means been a permanent feature in all written history, thus negating the claim.

The Socialist Party, on the other hand, has always understood the class struggle to be a basic feature of any exploiting class society, whether or not those involved are aware of their historical role. The class struggle necessarily goes on whenever there is exploitation of one class by another; whenever, that is, part of what one section of society produces is appropriated by another section. It is the struggle between members of the two classes to maximise or minimise the amount appropriated.

The slaves who refuse to work hard and the slave owner who whips them are both engaged in the class struggle, even if neither consider they belong to one of two separate classes in society with antagonistic interests. So is the modern wage or salary earner who demands better working conditions, higher wages or shorter hours, or who resists having to work harder; or, indeed, who turns up late for work or takes days off. The class struggle — resistance to exploitation by the exploited class — is a daily, permanent feature in any class society.

One historian who has taken up this position is G.E.M de Ste Croix of New College. Oxford, in his 500-page book The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (1981). This is how he puts it in chapter II;

  Class (essentially a relationship) is the collective social expression of the fact, of exploitation, the way in which exploitation is embodied in a social structure. By exploitation I mean the appropriation of part of the product of the labour of others: in a commodity-producing society this is the appropriation of what Marx called "surplus value". A class (a particular class) is a group of persons in a community identified by their position in the whole system of social production, defined above all according to their relationship (primarily in terms of degree of ownership or control); to the conditions of production (that is to say. the means and labour of production) and to other classes. . . The individuals constituting a given class may or may not be wholly or partly conscious of their own identity and common interests as a class, and they may or may not feel antagonism towards members of other classes as such.
  It is of the essence of a class society that one or more of the smaller classes in virtue of their control over the conditions of production (most commonly exercised through ownership of the means of production), will be able to exploit — that is. to appropriate a surplus at the expense of — the larger classes and thus constitute an economically and socially (and therefore probably also politically) superior class or classes.

This is essentially the position we take up too, and why we say that class struggle is a permanent feature of any class society—governments continually seek to extract as much profit as they can from the wage and salary working class and workers resist in any ways they can. individually as well as collectively.

Applied to Ancient Greek society, this struggle over the level of exploitation went on mainly between slaves and slaveholders, but not exclusively. Ancient Greek and Roman society, it is important to realise, was not composed just of slaves and slaveholders, most people were in fact free (in the sense of not being owned by someone else) peasants who owned no slaves and lived by working on the small pieces of land they occupied.

At no time was the bulk of the wealth in ancient society produced by slave-labour, although Ste Croix estimates that in the early part of the period studied — which spans some 1300 years from the 8th century BC to the mid-7th century AD — the bulk of the wealth appropriated by the exploiting, propertied class was probably produced by slaves. As time went on. however — and this is the basic theme of his book — the propertied classes, identified by Ste Croix as those who had a sufficient income from their land owning so as not to have to take part in production themselves, came to more and more exploit the non-slave working population as well. This was done not by appropriating the product of their labour by virtue of being owners, but through rents (in money or kind) and taxes and through debt-bondage. By the end of the period under study virtually the whole working population of the Roman Empire (of which ancient Greece had been a part since the 2nd century BC) had the status of serfs, tied to the land and obliged to produce a surplus for their landlords, this included slaves, most of whom had by this time been settled on the land in small farms rather than working big estates in chain- gangs.

Since Ste Croix covers a period of 1300 years and an area comprising not just Greece proper but also modern Turkey, Syria, Palestine and Egypt — then within the sphere of Greek culture — his book could not be a chronicle of events. It is rather a history of the relationships between the three classes of slaves, peasants and the land and slave-owning propertied class and of how these changes affected the general course of history.

He argues that the increasing exploitation of the non-slave working population arose because, at a certain point, slaves had to be bred rather than simply captured in wars and raids. As breeding was more costly, the propertied class sought to maintain their standard of living — that is, the amount of appropriated wealth on which they lived — by taking a greater surplus from non-slaves. Ste Croix speaks of

  the fall in the rate of exploitation of slave labour consequent upon the widespread extension of slave breeding, and also an increased exploitation of humble free men. as a material result of the fact that the propertied classes were determined to maintain their relatively high standard of life and had all the political control necessary to enable them to depress the condition of others.

Thus did the class struggle — the struggle over the level of exploitation — determine the general trend of events in ancient Greek and Roman society and eventually led to its decline and replacement by a society based on serfdom rather than chattel-slavery.

Ste Croix's attitude to Christianity is refreshingly hostile. The Roman Empire adopted Christianity as its state religion in 313 AD and Ste Croix refuses to see this as an advance in civilisation, as we are taught, but regards it. if anything, as a regression. He points out that it introduced another layer of parasites — the bishops and higher clergy — who had to be maintained out of the labour of the working population, as well as instigating religious persecution (of other Christians regarded as heretics, rather than of pagans) which had not existed previously. Readers might find some of Ste Croix's comments here more in the rationalist than the Marxist tradition, but it should not be forgotten that Marx was an atheist and Jesus therefore an impossible bedfellow, whatever some might think.

But then, so is Mao. Which is why it is disconcerting to have to note that Ste Croix was a Maoist of some sort when he wrote his book. Just how a person capable of writing this excellent application of the materialist conception of history should at the same time have fallen for the ravings of a mad dictator like Mao, is difficult to understand. For a start, why didn't he realise that his analysis of class and exploitation applied equally to Mao's China as to ancient Greece?

Adam Buick

Sting in the Tail: The Birthday Girl (1989)

The Sting in the Tail column from the November 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Birthday Party

   

"If you've got it, flaunt it, baby” seems to be th motto of Mr. Malcolm Forbes, the American financial magazine magnate. According to the Daily Telegraph (21 August) his 70th. birthday party in Tangiers was quite an affair.

  The party, with 800 guests flown in in his private charter of Concorde and Jumbo jets, and corks popped from 250 magnums of champagne had cost 2 million dollars and was greeted as a business bonanza. . . .  Mr. Forbes was In no mood to apologise for his party. "You couldn't call It modest but how can you apologise for extravagance?" he asked. If you have money Just be grateful and have fun."

The obscenity of a millionaire spending 2 million dollars on a birthday party should be noted by all workers when they hear the apologists for capitalism prattling on about people becoming millionaires through hard work and thrift

It's an Ill Wind

The news that British Petroleum is to shed 1700 jobs in Scotland was met with howls of disapproval from opposition politicians, Trade Union leaders and clergymen.

Universal condemnation in fact. Well, not quite, because the news was welcomed by the City of London. Disgraceful? Not really, It’s just that the City is above all concerned about profit and BP’s smaller wages bill means more profit for investors.

So It's daft to blame BP or the City for putting their own interests first, but what's even dafter is the working class refusing to look after its interests and get rid of capitalism.

Tomorrow's Enemies

The thaw in the cold war means that the CIA is shifting its attention from possible military conflict with Russia to new priorities.

CIA director, William Webster, warned that:

  Our political and military allies are also our economic competitors. The national security implications of a competitor's ability to create, capture or control markets of the future are very significant. Intelligence on economic developments . . .  has never been more important.

The Guardian 21 September.

So while US politicians are pledging undying friendship to Japan, West Germany, Britain, etc., the CIA will be stepping up Its spying activities on them and any other countries which threaten US capitalism's economic Interests.

Catch 'em Young

At an early age every human being has to be taught the awful truth about how capitalism operates. This was recently illustrated in the correspondence page of The Guardian.

Betty Robbins of The Vicarage In Newbury wrote:

   In the course of a Sunday school lesson recently I asked my group of nine-year olds if they knew what a prophet was.
  To my astonishment, since this is generally unknown territory, their little faces glowed with understanding - "money, money, money" they told me delightedly.

In view of the recent revelations about certain American evangelic prophets being caught with their hands in the cash register, it seems that "a little child shall lead them" has a certain validity.

Pity The Poor Capitalists

Pity the poor capitalists. One of their biggest headaches is, should they spread the risk by Involving their enterprises in several different Industries (become "conglomerates") or should they concentrate on one industry only?

The trouble with conglomerates is that they may be taken over by some asset stripper like Lord Hanson who buy them up, sells off the various parts and pockets the profit

But capitalists who put all their eggs in one basket will be in big trouble when the industry they have invested in hits a bad patch as have, for example, package holidays, house building and DIY.

So what are the poor capitalists to do? They have an army of economists, bankers and city editors offering them advice but this is so contradictory that they might just as well toss a coin.

Our solution is for the workers to save the capitalists from any such headaches by relieving them of their ownership and converting it into common property.

A Glimpse of Truth

Professor Robert Petersen of the University of Texas claims that only about a third of the American population can give a remotely accurate definition of the word "capitalism". He says:

  Our study shows that when people are asked to define the word, they are as likely to give a definition of socialism, communism, bureaucracy or virtually any other conceivable philosophy as they are to give a correct definition.

Hmm, mildly interesting, but just about what we would have expected although we would like to know what the profs "correct" definition would be. After all we've heard some funny ones from academics before. However, he also reveals that:

  Most of the 1200 people who responded to the survey associated capitalism with its negative excesses and with . . . the idea that large companies are indifferent to individuals.

Now that is interesting because it shows that even the constant barrage of propaganda glorifying capitalism couldn't hide from all those people at least part of the true nature of the beast.

Not So Greene

Graham Greene, the novelist, now describes himself as a "Catholic agnostic" in the Catholic weekly, The Tablet, 23 September.

He doesn't believe in an afterlife, Heaven and Hell, the Devil or even almighty God himself, and only takes communion to please a friendly priest.

He supports contraception, rejects Papal Infallibility and says his only mystical experience was listening to a two hour sermon which seemed to last only half an hour. He’s lucky, for us it was always the other way round.

These heresies will not please 85 year old Mr. Greene's church, but socialists can be pleased he has finally junked so much mythology and shown that it is never too late to learn.

Obituary: Jack Thurston (1990)

Obituary from the November 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

We regret to have to report the death of our comrade Jack Thurston on 1 September at the age of 84. He had been a member since 1933 when he joined the old Wembley branch and was subsequently, successively, a member of the Chiswick, Ealing and West London branches.

Jack Thurston was born in that part of England where the borders of Surrey and Hamphsire meet. The area bristles with military camps and his father had been a professional soldier. At an early age, soon after the first world war to end all wars, he too joined the army. He was first sent to Ireland where, as he used to recall, he witnessed the atrocities committed by the Black and Tans, and then to Egypt and the Sudan where he witnessed the atrocities committed by the British colonial authorities as when they ordered the public hanging of scores of locals in reprisal for the killing of a British soldier.

When he left the army he got a job as a painter at the Watney's brewery in Mortlake. This was an anti-union firm and he probably got the job because he was ex-army but, unbeknown to the employers, amongst the workforce was a handful of socialists. Jack met one of them and eventually became a socialist himself. From that moment on he never ceased to argue the case for socialism, amongst both his workmates and his neighbours. For a while a Hounslow Group of the Party, composed largely of his neighbours, met in the large garage at the back of his house in Hounslow.

Jack Thurston will be remembered as a straightforward man who was an indefatigable campaigner for socialism.

50 Years Ago: Have we seen the last Millionaire? (1991)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a broadcast talk on September 7th. 1941. Professor T. Jones spoke of the high rate of taxation now imposed on large incomes and prophesied that “we are almost in sight of the last millionaire". The professor is being unduly optimistic and perhaps he has not very clear ideas of the way in which millionaires are made. The big fish devour the little ones and each other, and always there is fresh accumulation from the exploitation of the workers. Even if under war conditions large incomes are heavily reduced, war, and the post-war ups and downs of industry lay the foundations for new fortunes and for the increase of old ones. While during the war the prices of shares on the Stock Exchange have generally fallen this has been accompanied by a big rise in the wealth of landowners (. . .).

As soon as investors believe that the end of the war is in sight with a defeat of Germany the prices of shares on the Stock Exchange will leap ahead and new millionaires will be in the process of creation. Already it only needs reports of moderate Russian successes to send up prices. Marshal Budenny's succcsful withdrawal of his armies from Kiev was sufficient to send prices “sharply ahead". (Daily Express, September 24th.) 

[From “Notes By The Way”, Socialist Standard. November 1941.]

King Market kills King Coal (1992)

Editorial from the November 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

Even die-hard supporters of capitalism were stunned by the announcement. Over the next six months 31 of Britain’s 50 remaining pits were to close, throwing 30,000 coal miners onto the industrial scrapheap.

Michael Heseltine, once billed as the acceptable face of capitalism, spoke as if he were Margaret the Mad Marketeer herself. There was no alternative. It was a straightforward commercial decision. Gas had out-competed coal in the marketplace. "British Coal cannot go on producing coal that cannot be sold". To subsidise coal for power stations would be to keep electricity prices 3 per cent higher than they need be. British manufacturing industry had to "compete in an increasingly competitive world". That meant "we have to search for opportunities to lower costs". This was one and the government had seized it. The electricity companies were right to go for gas. British Coal was right to shut down more than half the British coal industry. The economic case for this was "unanswerable". Tough luck on the miners and too bad about past government promises of no compulsory redundancies. Well, to tell the truth, he didn't actually say this last. But that in effect was what he was saying.

In terms of the logic of capitalism he was right. Under capitalism production is in the hands of business enterprises, private or state, all competing to try to make profits. To stay in the race for profits you have to keep your costs down. If you don't then you go to the wall. Which is what happened to British Coal. They cannot supply coal to their main customers, the privatised electricity companies, at a competitive price, and they are suffering the consequences.

The Market has given its verdict and the sentence has to be carried out. As usual the victims are members of the working class. Not only the miners and their families, and the communities in which they live, but the tens of thousands of other workers employed in servicing the pits and in transporting the coal. They will join the 3,000,000 already on the dole in this, the biggest slump since the 1930s.

British Coal is crying "unfair competition" and some are saying they have a point. Nuclear power, originally developed as a by-product of the Bomb, is being subsidised, partly still for military reasons. Gas, it is predicted, will only temporarily be cheaper than coal. Maybe, but even if governments don't have to let so short-term market considerations apply as the Tories now are, they still have to take market trends into account. You can’t buck the market. But the way the market is going to jump can't be predicted very far in advance. The relative prices of the various fuels — coal, oil, gas, nuclear power — are continuously changing.

The fact is that the market nature of the capitalist system rules out the adoption of any rational, long-term energy policy. In the 40s and 50s coal was the cheapest fuel and the government based its energy policy on this. Then in the 60s the price of oil fell below that of coal and the Labour government of the day embarked on a massive pit closure programme. In the 70s oil prices again rose above that of coal and the miners were able to exploit the situation to win two national strikes over wages, in 1972 and 1974. The government turned to nuclear power. In the 80s oil prices fell again and the government took on and, as we can now see, completely smashed the miners union. Now gas has emerged as the cheapest fuel and a "dash for gas” is on. It is not difficult to see where this is going to end. Already the papers are talking about a "massive overcapacity in generation if all the plans for gas-fired capacity go ahead" and saying that "many of the new gas power stations face a limited life". (Daily Telegraph, 14 October)

So in a few years time some of the gas power stations will be closing because, just as with coal today, productive capacity will be beyond market capacity. The Market will be demonstrating its madness again.

The case against the market system is unanswerable. What we need is a society where all the means of producing wealth are owned in common, so that they can be used to produce what we need not what the market dictates. Only then, in the absence of market forces and vested capitalist interests, can a rational energy policy be adopted.

Anyone for the vanguard? (1993)

From the November 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

This month the SWP holds its Conference but it won't be like the Conference of a working- class organization, with delegates, resolutions and contested elections. The SWP is not that kind of organization. As a Leninist vanguard it is a top-down organization controlled by its leaders, not its members.

Power in the SWP is in the hands of a small Central Committee whose members are all full time officials of the organization. Nominally the Central Committee is elected by the Conference but in practice it is a self- perpetuating body whose membership is renewed by co-optation.

What happens is that the outgoing Central Committee proposes its own slate of candidates for the incoming committee. This allows them to continue in office as long as they like, while being able to exclude any of their number who may have become awkward and to include any promising leadership material they have spotted and consider worthy of elevation to their ranks.

The rulebook does allow Conference delegates to vote against, but this never happens. One disillusioned SWPer has complained:

   "Have you ever had a vote on who should be the leader of the SWP or on the Central Committee? The way this is decided on at SWP conference is very dubious. You 're given a list of the new proposed CC and asked whether you agree or disagree. I’ve never heard of anyone not agreeing"! (Republican Marxist Bulletin, Nov-Dec 1992).

So the official list is always rubber-stamped. Just like in Russia under Brezhnev and in the late unlamented Communist Party. This is how Bob Darke, who was a CP borough councillor in Hackney in Stalin's day, writing in 1952 described the way the local borough Secretariat was chosen:

   "Each year the existing Secretariat draws up its own panel of names for the new Secretarial. It does this after it has consulted with the London District Committee (which is the coordinating authority of all branches in the London area). The Secretariat is often so satisfied with its work during the past year that it suggests that it should be re-elected en bloc. Of course, the London District may not agreed, in which case changes will be made in the list.
   "The panel is then placed before the aggregate meeting and comrades are invited to vote on it. They have absolute freedom of choice. They may vote Yes or No. Of course No would be a wasted vote, for there is no alternative to the panel. They are entitled to reject the suggested panel out of hand and suggest an entirely new one. I say they are at liberty to do this — but I have never known of it being done." (The Communist Technique in Britain, p. 23).

The likeness is not accidental and explodes the SWP's claim that Lenin did not lead to Stalin. The fact is that the emergence of a self-perpetuating leadership is an inevitable consequence — indeed, is one of the aims — of Leninist organizational principles.

The SWP Conference is completely dominated by the Central Committee which, quite literally, sets the agenda. Once again, on paper branches have the right to put down resolutions but are strongly discouraged from doing so:

   "Branches can submit resolutions if they wish, and these may be voted on. But in recent years the practice of sending resolutions to conference has virtually ceased" (Socialist Review, September 1983).

What the delegates discuss are not resolutions coming from the membership organized in branches, but a report submitted by the Central Committee on the political "perspectives". This is a document of pamphlet length and is the main item on the agenda. It is discussed section by section; at the end of each discussion a committee is elected to draw up a report which the delegates then vote on. This is said to make resolutions unnecessary:

  "The advantage of this procedure is that conference does not have to proceed by resolution like a trade union conference. “

This is not the only trade union procedure that the SWP rejects:

  "Delegates should not be mandated . . . Mandating is a trade union practice, with no place in a revolutionary party."

The idea of deciding some important issue by holding a ballot of the whole membership is equally obnoxious to the SWP. In the first volume of his hagiography of Lenin, SWP leader Tony Cliff wrote:

   "In January 1907, Lenin went so far as to argue for the institution of a referendum of all party members on the issues facing the party — certainly a suggestion which ran counter to the whole idea of democratic centralism" (T. Cliff, Lenin, Volume I. Building the Party, p. 280).

It certainly did, but Lenin only proposed this because at that time he didn’t control the Central Committee.

Mandating delegates, voting on resolutions and membership ballots are not just trade union practices; they are democratic practices for ensuring that the members of an organization control that organization and as such key procedures in any organization genuinely seeking socialism. Socialism can only be a fully democratic society in which everybody will have an equal say in the ways things are run. This means that it can only come about democratically, both in the sense of being the expressed will of the working class and in the sense of the working class being organized democratically — without leaders, but with mandated delegates — to achieve it.

In rejecting these procedures what the SWP is saying is that the working class should not organize itself democratically, but should instead follow a self-appointed, undemocratically organized elite. This is pure Lenin. According to him, left to themselves workers were only capable of developing what he contemptuously called a "trade union consciousness"; to go beyond this they had to be led by professional revolutionaries taking orders from an all-powerful centre. This is the model the SWP is following.

So, if you have a low assessment, like Lenin, of the intellectual and organizational abilities of your class, join the SWP! If you want to be in an organization where you’ll never mandate a delegate, put forward a resolution for conference or vote in a ballot of members, join the SWP! If you are prepared to be a follower in a leadership-run organization, join the SWP! On the other hand, if you want to organize democratically to get socialism, look no further . . . 

Adam Buick

Boom Without Bust: John Major dreams again (1994)

From the November 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

The present phase of the trade cycle in Britain is one of partial recovery and according to the Prime Minister this will stretch into long-term prosperity with recessions consigned to history. Under the headline “Major forecasts boom without bust”, he was reported as saying “Britain is at an historic turning point. This is a broadly based recovery set to last. The overall direction is clear. Britain is on course for long term economic recovery” (Independent, 20 September). Yes, we might say, we’ve heard it all before.

Major’s remarks are not made more convincing by his idea that a prime cause of recessions is inflation. Hence his stated determination to keep it down. “We are going to take no risks whatever with inflation,” he said. But most of the 19th century and early 20th century' were marked by regular boom and bust with no inflation at all. It appears that Major is trying to talk up confidence whilst having little understanding of the causes of boom and slump.

Marx not Major

It is doubtful if Major would ever bother to consider Marxian theory, which is a pity because if he did he would learn a lot. This knowledge wouldn't help him in his job but he would at least be better informed. In fact, present economic trends are entirely predicted by Marxian theory which states that "capitalist production moves through certain periodical cycles. It moves through a state of quiescence, growing animation, prosperity, over-trade, crisis and stagnation". It appears that at present we are in a phase of “growing animation” and, contrary to what Major thinks, this will eventually lead to further crisis and stagnation.

Marx also described the circumstances which generally cause one phase of the cycle to move to the next. For example, during a boom, industry and manufacture work flat out with each enterprise trying to capture as big a share as possible of the markets for its products. Inevitably, in search of further profits, this scramble leads some industries to produce too much for their markets and this leads to unsold stock; output is reduced and workers are sacked. Then, if the cut-backs are deep enough this spreads to other industries and this may cause a downward spiral of decline in which millions of workers become unemployed.

But just as a boom creates the conditions for crisis and recession so does the reverse eventually happen. The conditions of recession bring back the opportunities for renewed profit-making and growth. Many businesses go bankrupt and their stocks and equipment are bought up cheaply. This reduces competition. Those that survive are re-structured with fewer workers working harder for the same or less wages. Prices come down, or rise less quickly, productivity increases, interest rates are lowered and all these factors combine to improve the prospect of profit-making.

After a period of growth in the late 1980s the crisis struck in 1990 and, after two years of decline, the Central Statistical Office dates the trough, or the last low point of the cycle, as April 1992. All this took place under a Tory government so what happened then to their alleged powers to sustain growth? Since 1992 a range of factors which also have got nothing to do with so-called government management have come into play and tended to reverse the downward trend.

Profitability restored

The amount spent on wages and salaries to produce each unit of manufacturing output was 5.3 percent lower in May 1993 compared with May 1992. This was the biggest one year fall since records began in 1970. Output per employee in manufacturing was 5.5 percent higher in June 1994 compared with June 1993 whilst workers average nominal earnings were only 3.75 percent higher over the same period.

Interest rates fell. During 1992/3 base rates fell from 15 percent to 10 percent, then after returning briefly to 15 percent fell down to 6 percent after Britain left the ERM.

Output increased. National output rose by 1.1 percent during the second quarter of 1994 and in May 1994 industrial production was almost back to the pre-recession output of June 1990.

Profits increased in some sections, not least in banking. For instance the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, owner of the Midland, paid out less than expected for bad debts during the half-year to June 1994 and increased its profits by almost 25 percent to £1.5 billion. ICI gained half-year pre-tax profits up to June 1994 of £234 million, an increase of 40 percent. Hanson, the industrial conglomerate reported a 26 percent rise in pre-tax profits to £965 million over the same period.

With the unemployment figures discredited because of political manipulation, it is difficult to get an accurate picture but, to date with employed workers producing more and working substantial overtime, industrial growth has not resulted in a proportionate fall in the unemployed. Officially, the present figure is about 2.5 million.

According to governments, when the economy is in recession it is caused by factors which are beyond their control, but then when growth is resumed they claim the credit. They are right only in the first instance. The alternate phases of boom and bust are normal features of the capitalist system which operate both ways in varying degrees according to the circumstances of any given time. The only prospect for workers is that it goes on and on grinding through its cycle of exploitation.

Behind the particular features of boom and bust already mentioned there is a general cause which is the nature of capitalist production itself. In previous societies, what mainly happened was that productive resources were used to their full capacity and what was produced was distributed. Under capitalism goods take the form of commodities for sale on the markets and this means that the distribution of goods is limited to what can be sold and in turn this limits what is produced. The process is chaotic with rival capitalists producing for shifting markets never knowing what the market will buy. For example, in Britain 48 rival car-makers are selling cars and no-one knows what the capacity of that market will be at any given time. They are engaged in a scramble to get the biggest share of whatever is going. It is inevitable that, eventually, too many cars will be produced and it is at this point when things begin to spiral down.

The only way to end the boom-bust cycle is to abolish the capitalist system and replace it with socialism. Instead of the market determining what is produced, the community will decide this as part of caring directly for the needs of all its members. Unemployment, exploitation, profit-making and all, the destructive effects of boom and bust will be impossible. In their place, with production solely for needs, the community will be able to use all its productive resources in line with its policy decisions. This is what socialists mean by democratic control. 

Pieter Lawrence

Withdrawing willing co-operation (1995)

Book Review from the November 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Question of Judgement by Charles Derrick (May be ordered through Morley Books Library Service, Elmfield, Morley, Yorks.)

This unusual autobiography dealing mainly with the author’s wartime experiences will be of interest to Socialists. It gives a picture of life (and death) as it was in the trenches, on the minefields, as an escaped POW in Italy and Germany, and finally back home but still on the run, from an unusual point of view — that of a class-conscious worker unwillingly conscripted and sent to serve as a stretcher-bearer at El Alamein.

Having put the socialist case to everyone he encounters, from the Conscientious Objectors Tribunal to his captors in an Italian POW camp, he escapes and is sheltered for several months in the supposedly hostile Italian countryside. He is recaptured, sent to Germany, escapes again and finally arrives home where he decides to opt out of the British army as well.

For those who believe that the state can only be overcome by violence, there is a lesson here in how authority simply collapses when willing co-operation is withdrawn.

On arriving home and being given two weeks’ leave the writer is told to await notification of further duty. His orders arrive and are ignored, every month he writes off for his pay which is duly received. When the War Office finally write seeking an explanation for his absence, and then enclosing a rail pass and orders to return to his regiment in Perth, he informs them that he has been awaiting their instructions and applies for further leave. He is ordered to return immediately and arrives back at base nine days later after visiting the relatives of two missing army friends. Being sent to give an explanation for his long absence to the Commanding Officer, he is waiting to be seen when . . . 

"the RSM came along . . .
'What's your name?' he barked.
'Derrick, sir,' I replied.
'Have you had your embarkation leave yet?' he shouted.
'No sir,' I replied.
'Then go to the Orderly Room and get your rail warrant and pass,’ he shouted again . . . While I was on the train I decided that I had had enough of the army." 

How could the capitalist system possibly survive that kind of treatment from a majority of class-conscious workers? 

Nick White

Papering over the cracks (1996)

Theatre Review from the November 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Wallpaper by Sophia Kingshill (Bridewell Theatre)

In 1913 Lenin, James Joyce and the founder of the Dadaist school of art all chanced to be in Zurich at the same time. And in Travesties Tom Stoppard imagines them becoming unavoidably involved in a production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest which is managed by staff at the British Embassy. The result is an irresistible verbal pyrotechnic in which revolutionary politics, avant-garde art and literature, and the day-to-day lunacies of so-called diplomacy are hilariously admixed courtesy of Wilde's play.

In Wallpaper Sophia Kingshill  attempts something similar and largely succeeds. She imagines that William Morris and Bernard Shaw "encounter one of Shaw's creations, Liza Doolittle the upwardly mobile flower seller (of Pygmalion/My Fair Lady) and try to turn her into a socialist". Wallpaper is described as "a Shavian melodrama portraying the adventures of Mr William Morris, Miss Eleanor Marx and Miss Eliza Doolittle". The title suggests that it is Morris and his popular image as a designer of wallpaper who is the focus of the play, but this is not the case. It is Shaw rather than Morris who stands at the play's centre.

Kingshill is clearly anxious to put the record straight and to acknowledge Morris’s activities as a revolutionary socialist, but in this she is only partially successful. The play fails to give the audience more than an inkling of Morris's political thinking and it avoids, almost completely, an examination of the way in which Morris's position as a social revolutionary stands opposed to Shaw's attachment to reformism And she is not helped in the latter enterprise by articles in the programme by Stan Newens MEP, Denis McShane MP and other Labour Party luminaries, which claim Morris as a key figure in their movement. It's rather like members of the Flat Earth Society enrolling Copernicus as an honorary member.

Kingshill is at her best when dealing with her characters as people rather than when dealing with their political views. There is a convincing truthfulness about the bluff, avuncular Morris, the mordant, ironic Shaw, and the selfless, benevolent Eleanor Marx, which allows us better to understand their behaviour. And Eleanor’s travails at the hands of fellow socialist(ic) Edward Aveling, should give us cause to ponder. How can those whose own behaviour is based on the selfish pursuit of their own inclinations act as credible advocates of a society founded on fraternity, cooperation and mutual self-interest?

If it seems odd to involve Eliza Doolittle in the seemingly real-life activities of Morris, Shaw, Aveling and Eleanor Marx, Kingshill uses Shaw's authorship of Pygmalion to good effect. Aveling seems a model for the fictional Henry Higgins, and Alfred Liddle (a friend of Morris) re-emerges as Freddie, Eliza’s rejected swain. Moreover, Kingshill parodies several of the songs and set pieces of My Fair Lady to stunning effect. Higgins's song in celebration of Eliza’s mastery of upper-class pronunciation "By gosh, she’s doneit", becomes “You've done it. You've really gone and done it", sung by three policemen before a chilling parody of the Ascot racing scene now transformed into the infamous Trafalgar Square siege of 1887. And who would have thought to hear "Get me to the church on time" turned into a celebration of the revolutionary potential of the international working class?

On the night I saw the play a small and inept audience seemed to miss most of the humour and sat silent and passive. Those on stage deserved better; perhaps especially Julia Stubbs who played Eleanor Marx with illuminating sensitivity. and Russell Churney whose reptilian Aveling was splendidly convincing.

People expecting a political polemic will be disappointed — but then perhaps the theatre is not the place for such an enterprise? This said, Wallpaper seems to me to be a considerable achievement. Given more attention to the ideas which inform the revolutionary and reformist positions of the major players, and a more sophisticated realisation of the text, what is already a drama of considerable merit might become a truly significant piece of theatre.

Michael Gill

Wild Guess Chase (1997)

From the November 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anyone who spends any time observing the erratic workings of capitalism will realise that it almost never lives up to the claims made for it. It is a social system supported by mythology. One myth—that it provides for everyone—is easy to debunk. You only have to look at the Third World, or even the poor sections of the West. Another—that its competitive motor always produces the best products—is also easy to debunk. Here one may point to the market success of theVHS video system over the superior Betamax. or again that of IBM/Intel computer chips over the vastly superior Apple/Risc chips.

But the biggest myth—that which keeps people voting for political parties to run capitalism—is that it is indeed possible to "run” capitalism. With no steering wheel, no brakes and no happy end in sight, capitalism is nevertheless not short of prospective "drivers" who will do and say anything for a chance to sit up front with the big hat on. Governments of the world govern by the myth of control. They persuade us that they can control market forces, but only until the next crisis, whereupon they blame market forces or foreigners, or both.

Evidence for the chaotic nature of capitalism is not scarce. Since the days of Adam Smith in the 18th century, economists have been trying in vain to find the right combination of knobs, levers, sliders, switches and buttons with which to control the monster reactor of the money and market system. Each would-be government has to claim that it has everything finally figured out. so that you will vote for them. If they admitted that they can’t control capitalism, nobody would bother electing these self-styled "market managers" at all.

Peter Day (In Business, BBC Radio 4, 8 August) presented the curious proposition that the present boom might actually continue forever—that is, without the presumed inevitable slump. The wishful thinking behind this daring notion tells you a lot about how much of economics is real theory, and how much is wild guesswork. Peter Schwartz of the Global Business Network points to the fact that where 50 years ago the ratio of measurable to unmeasurable growth was around 60/40, today it is the other way round. In other words. 60 percent of the modern US economy is “invisible" and cannot be measured.

This gives you some idea of how difficult the "experts” find it to measure growth in capitalism. Naturally, all policies and strategies for the future are based on these vague measurements, which should confirm us entirely in our lack of faith. The problem with new technology, says Schwartz, is that you have to wait for the society to learn to use and apply it. And you may have to wait some considerable time. Electricity was around for 40 years Henry Ford in Chicago realised that you could use it to revolutionise the factory, and as a consequence the growth rate for Chicago between 1900 and 1930 was 68 percent per annum, where previously it had been nil. In today's terms we have the silicon chip, but apart from a few geeks on the Internet, this technology has not yet come into its own. Beyond the telecommunications revolution stretches the even more awesome potential of nanotechnology—the building and application of molecular machinery. What the world will look like in 20 or 30 years from now is anyone’s guess, and what the world's economy will look like is also anyone's guess.

So the "experts" frankly don’t know. They can’t predict what the market will do. And they can't control it anyway. It is on this basis that they are suggesting a slumpless economy. In short, when nothing is predictable then anything is possible.

Makes you wonder why people bother listening to them, doesn’t it? In all the breathless excitement about the hi-tech future, those predicting “No end of a boom” are enthusiastically ignoring the past. They do not have the evidence of history on their side, and so are obliged to claim that today's economy is not like yesterday’s. Because telecommunications are exploding, and productivity relies on telecommunications, they reason that productivity will explode too. But in that case the demand also needs to grow, and although it will do for an unpredictable period, the time will come when demand slackens its pace (for instance because people only have so much to spend). Productive forces are never able to anticipate this, and always overshoot the mark, like a man walking over a cliff. It doesn’t matter what is being produced. If it is a commodity in capitalism, it relies on buyers. If there are no buyers, the ground disappears from under foot and production takes the long drop.

The most enduring if not endearing thing about capitalism and the market is that its supporters, fully recognising what has unfailingly happened in the past, always insist that this time it will be different. Allow us therefore our own little prediction, and you can hold us to it: No, it bloody well won't!

Paddy Shannon

The Military and the Environment (2018)

From the July 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

The two main threats to the survival and wellbeing of humankind and the biosphere — war and the environmental crisis – are usually considered separately. In fact, however, the two problems are closely connected: neither of them can be solved without at the same time tackling the other.

On the one hand, the environmental crisis generates conditions that make war more likely. Soil erosion, desertification, deforestation, acidification of the oceans and similar processes intensify competition for control over arable land, sources of freshwater, fishing grounds and other natural resources. Alternating flood and drought augment the flow of refugees. Cross-border impacts fuel new international tensions.

On the other hand, war and other military activity — development, manufacture, testing and maintenance of weapons and equipment, military training, military games and exercises, disposal of waste — themselves make a major contribution to the environmental crisis. Danger and secrecy impede attempts to gauge this contribution and assessments of environmental issues usually ignore it. That is one of the main reasons why global heating is proceeding so much more rapidly than predicted. Even in peacetime, for example, the Department of Defense is the largest consumer of fossil fuels in the United States, causing CO2 emissions roughly equal to those of Denmark, but military emissions are excluded from international climate agreements.

War devastation

The list of countries and regions devastated by war is long and growing longer, from Congo and Libya to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, the Gaza Strip, Yemen and Kashmir. War devastation takes many forms. Some are well known – the bombed-out buildings, the piles of rubble, the landmines lying in wait for their victims. Less well known but no less noxious are the diverse forms of environmental devastation, including:

* toxic heavy metals (e.g., lead, tungsten, mercury, molybdenum, cadmium, cobalt) and white phosphorus deposited by bombing in the soil and the water supply, causing tumors, congenital deformities and other serious effects

* radiation from the depleted uranium (DU) used in manufacturing munitions, spreading cancer, cerebral palsy and other diseases (militaries like bullets made of DU fused with metal alloys because they are better at penetrating armour.)

* radiation and toxins released into the environment by the bombing of nuclear power stations and chemical plants

* urine and excrement in the streets and streams as a result of destruction of the sewage system

* oil pollution from damage to pipelines and refineries (Iraqi troops retreating from Kuwait in 1991 torched 630 oil wells, turning the sea and sky black.)

Nuclear war and nuclear winter

Even a 'minor' nuclear war would be an ecological disaster felt throughout the world. The best studied case is that of a 'limited' regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan in which 100 Hiroshima-sized warheads (less than half of these states' nuclear arsenals) are detonated mainly over cities. Besides the 20 million projected short-term deaths and longer-term victims of radiation, such an exchange would inject up to 6.5 million tonnes of soot into the upper atmosphere, cooling the global climate for several years and reducing summer crop yields in various countries by 12-16 percent over a 10-year period.

In a full-scale nuclear war between Russia or China and the United States, direct casualties would of course be far higher and the amount of soot much greater. A prolonged 'nuclear winter' would ensue, leading to the extinction or near-extinction of Homo sapiens and other species (with the exception of primitive organisms in the deep ocean that do not need sunlight).

Routine activities

Even in times of peace the military does enormous harm to the environment in the course of its routine activities. Thus the Department of Defense is not only the largest consumer of fossil fuels in the United States, it is also the largest polluter, generating more toxic waste than the five biggest American chemical companies combined (according to an estimate made in the late 1980s – a tonne per minute).

Let us consider three specific activities: weapons testing, waste disposal and war games.

Weapons testing

Large tracts of land are devoted to weapons testing. For example, Jefferson Proving Grounds in Indiana, 250 square kilometers in area, is so badly contaminated that it has been cordoned off and abandoned.

Before 1963, when the Soviet Union, Britain and the US banned nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere, these powers conducted a long series of tests of atomic and hydrogen bombs in Kazakhstan, the Australian outback and the Pacific islands, respectively, inflicting radiation sickness on the indigenous people of these areas, who were not evacuated or even warned but used as guinea pigs. China continued nuclear weapons testing at its site in Xinjiang until 1996.

Waste disposal

The manufacture and use of weapons generate a huge quantity of radioactive and toxic waste that somehow has to be disposed of. Often waste is just dumped into the sea. Much is stored in the ground under conditions that do not prevent leakage.

A 100-acre basin for the storage of military waste at Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado has been called 'the earth's most toxic square mile'. However, there are probably sites in Russia that are no less toxic and perhaps even less safe, such as Kildin Island in the Barents Sea, home to used-up nuclear reactors and other parts of old nuclear submarines.

War games

War games and military exercises are a source of less drastic but still considerable environmental damage, both on land and at sea. Naval war games, for instance, poison or otherwise harm numerous species of fish, marine mammals and other sea life. The sensitive auditory systems of many whales and dolphins are injured by underwater sonar from submarines. Many non-marine species are also harmed by noise from military aircraft.

President Trump's decision at his summit with Kim Jong Un to suspend the annual war games in South Korea is some small consolation.

Armaments manufacturing

Then there is the harm to the environment caused directly or indirectly by the process of manufacturing armaments. The production of explosives, for instance, requires toxic chemicals that leak into soil and groundwater.

A telling example of the complex interaction between war and environmental damage is provided by the mining, processing and use of rare metals and rare earth elements. Besides civilian applications, these substances are widely used in military electronic systems for guidance and control, targeting and communications as well as in jet engines. Their extraction causes severe pollution (see The Socialist Standard, MW, May 2011). Moreover, there is high potential for conflict over control of deposits, as in the war in eastern Congo – a rich source of the rare metals cassiterite and coltan (see The Socialist Standard, MW, January 2009).

Thus rare metals and rare earth elements are needed for use in war and war is waged to control them, while both their processing and their use in war cause great harm to the environment.

One World

The problem of war and the environmental crisis will find their joint resolution – if, that is, they are to be resolved at all – in the creation of One World – an undivided global community. Material and human resources will no longer be wasted and destroyed in war. People will devote their energy and talents to repairing a poisoned planet and devising an ecologically sustainable way of life.

Stefan

Obituary: Mike Bathurst (1997)

Obituary from the July 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mike Bathurst, a member of the Party for over 30 years, died prematurely—a victim of cancer—in late April. Mike was a founder member of the Colchester Group in 1990, and three years later he became treasurer of what is now the Colchester Branch of the Party.

Mike was a steadfast socialist, loyal and true, and all his friends in the branch will miss him dearly. His father, Stan, was a member of the Party and so, too, is his brother John.

It's easy in the welter of minutes, conference papers and the like, to forget why people are socialists: the vision of a world free from poverty, wars and social hostility, where co-operation, freedom and democracy are the order of the day. But Mike never forgot. He was the most thorough of administrators—a careful and punctilious treasurer—but never forgot why we were holding meetings, distributing leaflets, trying to involve others in our enterprise. And when—often after a glass or two of red wine—Mike would talk about socialism he conjured another world—a better, brighter world—and his eyes would shine, his voice would become animated, and his excitement was there for all to see and to hear. Like many of us Mike was transformed by the possibilities of a better, freer, co-operative and caring world.

We will miss him.

Trotskyism in Poland (1996)

Book Review from the July 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Revolutionary History, Vol. 6. No 1, Winter 1995-96, £4.

The latest issue of Revolutionary History features "Trotskyism in Poland". Almost all the articles are written by Prof. Ludwik Hass or are about him. This well illustrates the situation of Trotskyism in Poland—there are only a few of them, shouting at each other because of personal quarrels.

Already in the introductory editorial the false claim is made that "Hass played an active role on the left of Solidarity." The editorial committee want to give the impression that he had some links with the workers movement. But it was quite the opposite—he never had any particular connection with Solidarity spending his time rather in the saloons of Central Committee of the PUWP (the ruling Communist Party) trying to soften party censorship.

After October 1956 he was so animated by his belief in a better future for the Polish "People's Republic", that he applied for—and was granted—membership of PUWP. For 13 years he applied every year for a job in the Central Committee of the PUWP. He even appeared on TV soon after the introduction of martial law in 1981 applauding order.

The Editorial Committee also claims that pre-war Poland was one of the few countries where the Trotskyists had a big workers following. It could look like this, because they chose to enter the Polish Socialist Party, the Jewish Bund and the Communist Party. But this reflected the lack of enough members to organise themselves separately in their own independent party.

What did these Trotskyists want? What program did they have? First of all, to seize power and establish a national republic under a "worker-peasant's government", with support from elements of the petty bourgeoisie, under the leadership of the vanguard party, of course. This would simply be the next governing group, a new authoritarian power—only with a different name.

To achieve this, in line with Lenin's ideas, they supported national minorities in cultivating their nationalistic separatism and the creation of new states. In the event of war. they wanted to stage an immediate coup d'état and introduce “the dictatorship of proletariat"—in fact dictatorship over the proletariat. All standing against their order would be deprived of their political rights on the grounds of the special needs of the state.

Work would be compulsory, with a guaranteed minimum wage, social insurance and the like—so what would be the difference with the current situation? The economy would be nationalised and centrally planned, small enterprises would be kept in private hands—which is the same as what did in fact happen in Poland after the war. This was simply state capitalism. There was no trace of socialism. Trotskyism is not at all a revolutionary tendency, it is merely a type of reformism, patching up the current situation, not a radical change of it. Trotskyists don't believe that workers, the huge majority of society, are capable of organising their own mass movement to change the system. Maybe that is why so few workers believe in their propaganda.

Jan Tomas

Getting means to survive (1996)

Book Review from the July 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Modern Environmentalism: An Introduction by David Pepper (Routledge, 1996)

This textbook for students provides a comprehensive survey of the ideas of those who are concerned about environmental problems.

The coverage ranges from the sinister Dark Greens and so- called "Deep Ecologists", with their anti-humanist (and anti-human) philosophy and their irrational Nature-worship, at one end. through other less unreasonable "ecocentrics" who imagine that Green values can be imposed on capitalism (the Green Party), and the reformist "technocentrics" who believe that technological fixes can solve or at least contain the problem within capitalism (the official Establishment view), to, at the other end, people like ourselves who hold that capitalism, with its production for profit and its built-in drives to cut costs and accumulate capital, is the cause of current environmental problems and that humans won’t be able to achieve a sustainable relationship with the rest of nature until it is replaced.

All these views are discussed and compared, including ours (in a section entitled "The moneyless economy and eco-socialist society").

One point though. Pepper implies that it is an exclusively "ecocentric" position to hold that the things we perceive don't exist as separate, independent things but are only parts of an interrelated and interacting universe which alone has an independent existence ("holism", as it is now called) and that everything in the universe is composed of the same "stuff’ or material ("monism”).

It is true that this is a view held by many ecocentrics, but generally in some mystical form. In a non-mystical form it has been the view of Marxian socialists since the time of Joseph Dietzgen in the last century who expounded it under the name of "dialectical materialism" (not to be confused with the official ideology of the former state-capitalist countries which had the same name).

It was in fact because ecology is a science of interrelationships that socialists have always realised its significance. Indeed, because it emphasises the importance of the way living things get their means to survive it is the application to the world of nature of the same approach that Marx's materialist conception of history takes to human society; it is a materialist conception of the world of living things. As such it has nothing in common with the mystical nonsense with which some Greens and ecocentrics have surrounded it. 

Adam Buick

Anarchism and the failure of direct action (1995)

Pamphlet Review from the July 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Anarchist Movement in Japan by John Crump (BM Hurricane, London WC1N 3XX. 1995.)

This is a brief, but informative, account of anarchism in Japan by the author of The Origins of Socialist Thought In Japan.

Crump traces the origins of anarchism in that country to Kotoku Shusui who first edited an anti-war journal, Common People's Newspaper, in 1903 until its forced demise at the beginning of 1905. Kotoku was originally a Social Democrat who, together with Sakai Toshihiko and others, formed a short-lived party of that name. In 1904, Kotoku and Sakai translated Marx's and Engels's Communist Manifesto into Japanese. But shortly after, when in prison, Kotoku read Kropotkin's Fields, Factories and Workshops, followed whilst travelling to the United States, by his Memoirs of a Revolutionist. In America, he read Kropotkin’s The Conquest of Bread, and later he came under the influence of the Industrial Workers of the World—the "Wobblies".

On his return to Japan, Kotoku held many meetings and wrote many articles attacking what he called Social Democratic parliamentarianism, and advocating direct action. In an article in 1907, he wrote:

   "I hope that from now on our socialist movement in Japan will abandon its commitment to a parliamentary policy and will adopt as its methods and policy the direct action of the workers as one."

Thus began the anarchist movement in Japan. Crump emphasises that the ideas which Kotoku brought back to Japan from America were a mixture of anarchist-communism, syndicalism and terrorism, although Kotoku was foremost an anarchist-communist. or Kropotkinist; and that anarchist terrorism never really took off in Japan. Before the First World War, both anarchist-communism and anarchist-syndicalism had their advocates and activists: but. together with mounting repression by the state, the anarchist-communists and the anarchist-syndicalists became increasingly antagonistic towards each other. By 1927, there was a complete split between the two factions according to John Crump.

The Japanese anarchists, like many others at the time, were largely sympathetic towards the Bolsheviks following the 1917 coup d'état. Some even joined the Communist Party, only to leave it again soon after. But after the Bolsheviks' suppression of the Kronstadt Revolt in 1921, one prominent Japanese anarchist, Osugi, "concluded that there was nothing to choose between Russian state capitalism and Western private capitalism".

In 1923. both Kotoku and Osugi were murdered by the Japanese state, and some anarchists attempted a number of rather insignificant acts of terrorist revenge which were, of course, counter-productive. Mass arrests inevitably followed. During the 1930s the anarchist movement in Japan went, according to Crump, into rapid decline. There was. however, an attempt by some anarchist-communists to form an Anarchist Communist Party in 1934. It claimed to be committed to bringing about a stateless and free communist society; yet it used Bolshevik (i.e. Leninist) organisational methods. It was founded as a highly secretive organisation, whose existence was not openly proclaimed, and whose membership was a hand-picked ''élite''. Its main tactic was to manoeuvre its members into positions of influence in other organisations—just like the Leninists! Not surprisingly, it was soon destroyed by the Japanese state.

During the Second World War, Japanese anarchists largely went underground, and many were killed in air raids together with hundreds of thousands of other members of the working class. Following the war, attempts were made from time-to-time to revive, or recreate, an anarchist movement in Japan, but as Crump indicates, anarchism in that country (as elsewhere, but not mentioned by the author) has merely existed on a much reduced scale compared with earlier times

Peter E. Newell