Digested Morsels. (1916)

From the December 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

Having read so often during recent times of the great wave of working-class prosperity which has swept over this land of free and enlightened (?) people, accompanied by the acquisition by them of pianos and various other items of a grossly “extravagant nature,” I am somewhat at a loss to understand how the following tit-bit succeeded in finding a place in our masters’ journal.

  The Glasgow School Board yesterday decided to send to the War Secretary, the Scottish Secretary, the Education Department, and to Members of Parliament, a statement showing that there had been a large increase in the number of scholars requiring attention owing to the lack of adequate clothing, due entirely to the condition of the dependents of soldiers and sailors, whose allowances had not been increased to meet the increased cost of living. The Board asked that allowances should be increased, and that this should be a charge upon the Imperial Exchequer, and not upon the School Board rates.—"Daily News,” 10.11.16.

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While day by day we read and know of cases of hardship to dependents arising from the inadequacy of separation allowances, the shipping and cotton lords and other people of that ilk are amassing fabulous sums. At the same time we hear much talk about the “equality of sacrifice,” which, being interpreted, means greater sacrifice of the workers—sacrifice of hard-won Trade Union rights, sacrifice of health in an endeavour to increase production, and sacrifice of even life itself in a cause which, at its termination, will leave the remainder of the working class in a position of intensified poverty and still subject to the callous indifference of an international ruling class. Here follows an announcement which I recently observed, and serves to show the “sacrifice” made by the wealthy class:

  Gentleman’s only daughter, aged 19, desires to live with London family or lady of high social position having large circle of young friends, make up parties for theatres, dances, golf, riding, etc.; up to £100 per annum paid ; highest references given and required.”—”Daily Sketch,” 28.9.1916.

The above was quoted in an article in the paper mentioned under the heading of “The Insolence of Wealth,” and with such a theme the writer was able to expatiate at great length on the disparity of the affluent and the rewards of a grateful country to its wounded heroes.

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From the early days of the war onwards we have from time to time case after case of supposed Virgins and Crucifixes left intact after nearly everything else had been blown to smithereens. Pictures in pictorial papers have appeared to show the alleged remarkable occurrences and suitable wording has been dished up to suggest the miraculous intervention on behalf of the religious emblems. But in due course arrives further information as to how these effects are manipulated in order to deceive the credulous and unsuspecting. Let me quote:

  There seems to be a good deal of misapprehension going about in connection with some of the stories of images of the Virgin and Crucifixes left intact in French towns when all else was wrecked by shell fire. I have seen a letter from a gentleman of undoubted authority, who says that some even of the pictures of these things are pure romances. He cites in especial a representation of the Virgin of Montauban standing erect on a pile of ruins with a large shell in front of her. The statue was knocked down, but only slightly damaged ; my informant apparently saw it raised to its present position by British soldiers. The shell in the picture is probably British. One would have thought that there was romance enough in a world war without invoking imagination’s artful aid to heighten it.—”Daily News,” 27.10.1916.

S. T.

Children or Ore? (1917)

From the December 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

The question of Alsace-Lorraine has received considerable attention from the political and journalistic hirelings of the capitalist class. A vast amount of sloppy sentiment has been thrust upon us with the object of covering up the real facts at issue, a good example of which comes from Mr. Lloyd George.

“However long the war may be,” says that worthy, “however great the strain upon our resources, this country intends to stand by her gallant ally, France, until she redeems her oppressed children from the degradation of a foreign yoke.”

What noble words! How can this high character resist the temptation to take part in such a righteous cause! It may be that Mr. Churchill has given him advice on the subject. 

Knowing the history of the capitalist class, Socialists reject with scorn their professed sympathy for the workers of any nation. Material interest dominates their every action, as the following demonstrate?.

“If Germany could secure a peace based on her present military position” says a writer in the “Daily Chronicle,” 24.10.17, “the whole of this wealth of iron ore, estimated at some 5,000,000,000 tons, would pass under her control.” And further on we read : “Liberate those provinces from her clutch with their 21,000,000 tons of iron ore a year, their 3,800,000 tons of iron smeltings, their 2,300,000 tons of steel smeltings, and useful coalfields of the Somme Valley, and a long step has been taken towards peace.”

The thoughts of that iron ore will no doubt urge “our gallant ally” to “redeem her oppressed children.”

Terrible as is the idea of that 21,000,000 tons of ore, not to mention the iron and steel smeltings, passing into the hands of the German capitalists, there is something even worse in view.

“Suppose,” continues the article coolly, “Germany were to win and were to annex the greater half of the ferruginous basin that lies on French soil. Territorially it would be a very small acquisition. Economically its value would be inestimable. It would mean that after the war Germany would be able to raise some 46,000,000 tons of iron ore a year, while the French output would be reduced to a bare 4,600,000.

What a nightmare to the French capitalists! We can almost hear them moaning with Asquith that “no sacrifice can be too great when 46,000,000 tons of iron ore are at stake.”

Numerous other figures are given by the writer of the article. We are told, for instance, that with an Allied victory “France would be in a position to extract about 43,000,000 tons of ore a year and Germany would have to remain satisfied with a maximum yield of 8,000,000 tons.”

And to the importance of an Allied victory is established, as also is the fact that iron ore, and not oppressed people, is responsible for the particular interest centred in Alsace-Lorraine, "in the fate of which,” we are told, “is involved nothing less than the industrial supremacy of Europe."

A glance at the final paragraph, here quoted, will explain the British capitalists’ new-found love for the “children” of Alsace Lorraine.

  "It is clearly an almost vital interest, both for France and Great Britain, that the formation of a huge Franco-German cartel, based on the reciprocal exchange of coal for ore, should be prevented, that we should ourselves supply France with the coke that will enable her to do her own smelting, and that we should take from her in return the iron ore that we now import from Sweden and from Spain.”

The evidence given shows the capitalists in their true character as a cold-blooded, profit-seeking tribe, ready to slaughter millions of workers to gain an advantage over a commercial rival. Hypocrites that they are, the shedding of crocodile tears with one eye while using the other to calculate the tons of iron ore the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine would provide is to them a simple matter.

The value of their sympathy for oppressed people can be measured by the fact that the toilers of all countries are oppressed. Murdered with work and starvation that wealth may be piled up in ever-greater abundance for the benefit of those that exploit them, the life of the workers is one round of oppression no matter who their rulers may be.

Their conditions are general; they do not change in essentials as we cross frontiers or land at different ports. The workers are slaves and capitalists live by their robbery the world over. An attempt on the workers’ part to secure a larger portion of the wealth which they alone produce is met, when necessary, with the armed forces of the State, used by the capitalists to uphold their position as exploiters of labour and to defend their interests against the capitalists of other countries.

The State to which we belong does not trouble us; our object is to get control of the fighting forces for the purpose of overthrowing the present system of society and establishing Socialism, the system wherein wealth shall be produced to give comfort and happiness to the whole community.

Then and then only shall we be freed from capitalism and its horrors of peace and war. To us, therefore, Socialism is the only thing that matters.

E. L. Wake

Editorial: Fools and Their Folly. (1919)

Editorial the December 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

There seems to be a determination in certain directions to push the demand for nationalisation to the arbitrament of a national strike. We have dealt with this question of nationalisation on many occasions in these columns, and our views thereon are pretty well known to all old readers ; we do propose to return to them now. Our antagonism to nationalisation in all its forms is as bitter and uncompromising to-day as ever it was. It is not passive and negative— it is active and positive. With such questions as Home Rule for Ireland, while we are hostile critics, we can concede that the sooner the Irish workers get Home Rule the sooner will they discover that the remedy for their miseries must be sought in some other direction. But with nationalisation we cannot associate even that good point, as the political backwardness of all circles of civil servants clearly shows.

The attempt to carry nationalisation of mines by a colossal strike is either the folly of fools or roguery of rogues. Fools are usually led by rogues. These latter, having tasted the sweets of office, are seizing every opportunity of building up their prestige and power, in which game the workers are their pawns.

A Plaster for a Wooden Leg. (1920)

From the December 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Threefold State. The True Aspect of the Social Question. By Dr. Rudolf Steiner. London: G. Allen & Unwin, Ltd. 5s. net.

The Adaptability of Capitalism.

Capitalism is a wonderful system of society. Its powers of production are colossal: its products more amazing than any dream of the Arabian Nights. Huge structures, mighty engines, gigantic ships, tremendous means of transport, mark its march across the earth. But along with the giant powers and products exist problems of such seeming complexity, and so far-reaching in their effects, that all the spokesmen, defenders, apologists, and believers in the system are bewildered at the appalling appearance of these problems, and vainly seek a solution within the limits of the system.

Their failure to find such a solution raises the hopes of those who, with fiery enthusiasm taking the place of knowledge, look to the overthrow of capitalism as a result of the insolubility of these problems, in the immediate future.

Capitalism, however, has shown remarkable powers of recovery from shocks, and it is easy to overestimate the speed at which it may succumb to its own contradictions.

The world war lasting over four years was a terrific strain upon its powers ; yet it not only supported millions of men as combatants, but supplied stupendous quantities of materials of a solely destructive character in addition to maintaining both the combatants and the producers.

The Strain of "Peace."

If ever, it stood the shock of a mighty war tolerably well, it is sustaining the shock of partial peace badly. The inherent contradictions of the system come to the front with greater force because the war pushed forward mechanical and scientific developments in industry as a hothouse develops the growth of a plant. As a result of this development the problems inevitably bound up with capitalism loom larger, show sharper, and press harder than before.

Pannicky "Intellectuals."

Apologists and defenders of capitalism are growing uneasy, and even alarmed, at the menacing aspects of these problems. The bolder of them seek for some reorganisation of the system that, while it leaves the capitalists secure, will palliate the evils existing. In this country perhaps the chief example of this idea is Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb's Constitution for the Socialist Commonwealth.

It is claimed that on the Continent the chief work on this subject is Dr. Rudolph Steiner's Threefold State. The collapse of Austria as a result of the war, and the appalling condition of Eastern Europe generally, have shown the evils and dangers of the present situation more clearly there than they appear here. Under such conditions the primary need for food places all else in a secondary position. Hence the professional sections find themselves pushed into the background and in danger of being submerged in the chaos.

Sounding the Alarm.

This book, with its threefold State as a solution for the evils of capitalism, is a vivid expression of the professional's attempt to restore order out of confusion.

The author first draws attention to the attitude of the working class. He warns the master class that the workers have become "class-conscious," are students of Marx, and are developing a scientific mode of thought.

He claims

that the most powerful driving force in the world of labour is the system of thought," and says that it is to some extent the first of its kind in the world to take its stand solely on a scientific basis. (P. 34.)

According to him the great evil of the present system is not that it robs the workers of the material wealth they have produced, though the fact of the robbery is admitted, but —

It is because machinery and capitalism could give the working man nothing to fill and satisfy his soul as a human being that the working class movement was driven to seek for its fount of inspiration in the direction of modern science. (P. 12.)

What the Workers Want

It is true that the worker is not really conscious of this "soul aspiration" and if asked would deny it, claiming that what is required is freedom from exploitation ; but our author denies that such freedom alone would solve the problem, and on page 34 asks :

Suppose we find anywhere signs that there is a life of the soul having its source in the spirit of the times, bearing mankind up and down with it as it goes, and rooted in a spiritual reality, then from this soul life may come the force which shall give the right impulse to the social movement also.

and on page 87 he says that —

in the domain of mind and spirit there reigns a reality that transcends material external circumstances and bears within itself its own matter and substance.

Meaningless jargon of this sort prepares the reader for the author's remedies. According to him human societies should function in three independent but connected channels. He admits that to-day the economic factor pervades — nay overrides — all other activities in society but this he holds is one of the great causes of the growing chaos. Mankind has three sides to its character, and the State should be reformed in harmony with these characteristics.

Here is the New Utopia.

First should come the Economic State, concerned with the production, circulation and consumption of commodities.

Secondly should come the "Equity State" that deals with the common rights, the relation of man and man in social affairs.

Thirdly there is the "Spiritual State." This "must comprise all that concerns the life of the mind and spirit" or "everything that must play a part in the body social by reason of those natural attributes of the individual being, whether those aptitudes be qualities of mind or body." (P. 57.) Here we reach a world of shadow and vagueness, in fact, the only thing standing out clear and definite in this threefold State is that private property in the means of life will still

The Equity State must not prevent the formation and control of private property in capital, so long as the connection between the capital-basis and individual ability remains such that the private control implies a service to the whole body social. (P. 131)

Nothing New Under the Sun.

It is to be under control that is on lines curiously similar to those laid down in the British Government's new Agricultural Bill, where, having guaranteed the farmers a price for their goods, it is enacted that if a farmer does not carry on production efficiently the Government will take control of the land.

Dr. Steiner's scheme covers all branches of production, but there the Government does not take control itself, but merely hands the business on to another capitalist or group. The capitalist concerned, however, will have the right to pick out an individual or group to whom the property shall be transferred.

Under this section the worker is not to treated as a commodity, but must have "the conditions of a decent human existence." These conditions being a question of man to man, will be arranged by the "equity State." To prevent the latter becoming contaminated by economic interests it must be rigidly excluded from any management of economic processes and must get rid of those now managed by the State, such as the Post Office, etc.

Forgotten Trifles. 

Who, then, shall decide the conditions of production ? The Spiritual State. This State will lay down the methods and details of the economic system, though the management will be in the hands of the Economic State.

The Spiritual State will lay down rules for guidance in Education— but not State Education. The author's ideal is to see State Education completely abolished, and all education left to private persons. Children are to have the "right to education," and the father of a family will have an income in excess of that of a single man to provide for his children's education.

The critical reader may here ask "How are these States to be formed?" the answer to which will be that of Masefield's vagabond—"Dunno." Whether they are to be elected or selected, nominated or appointed, hereditary or periodical, the author does not say. It is all left in beautiful, vague, one might almost say "spiritual" condition.

Steiner's Ignorance. 

How deeply the author has gone in his examination of present conditions is shown by his statements about the "useful functions" of the capitalists, and his childish belief that the "entrepreneur"—or "initiator" as his translator calls-it—still exists in modern capitalism. He has no idea that the same factor in economic development killed both these personalities at the same time. The joint stock company wound up the "useful functions" of the capitalist and converted the initiator into a salaried servant.

A Funk Hole Book.

The book is an interesting example of the attempts of the "non-productive labourers"—as Loria calls the "intellectuals"—to produce a plan that will show the capitalists a solution to their present difficulties, while still leaving them a ruling class, and which will lead the workers on another wild-goose chase by promising them a decent existence.

How imbecile these attempts are is shown by one simple factor in the system of capitalism.

Under private ownership of the means of life goods are produced to sell. In order to sell there must be buyers—that is, people able to purchase. Mere desire for, or even pressing need for,. The goods is not sufficient. One must be able to produce the cash. The market will thus be determined by the number of buyers multiplied by their purchasing power. Every student of economic development knows that the methods of production have improved and increased by leaps and bounds until the products have gone far beyond both the increase of buyers and their purchasing power. To meet this situation one of two courses must be followed.

Dubious Alternatives.

Either the workers must have their hours of work reduced until, even with increased means of production, only the amount of commodities required by the market is produced, or a sufficient number of workers must be thrown out of work to allow the remainder to stay at production to turn out the goods required.

The capitalists, of course, have not the slightest intention of adopting the first method. The second is in full swing now, though modified by a few doles.

The idiotic paradox of millions of producers being in want because they have produced so lavishly that their products are piled all around them will not be abolished by patching up administration. The evil is rooted in the private ownership of the means of life, and cannot be cured until that ownership is abolished.

Fabian quackeries and Austrian paper lids on volcanoes are equally ineffective. The only remedy is for the workers to capture political power and use it to abolish capitalism root and branch.

Jack Fitzgerald

Plechanoff, Engels and Kautsky (1921)

Quotes from the December 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

  “The Bourgeoise destroyed the feudal conditions of property; the proletariat will put an end to the bourgeois conditions of property. Between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, a struggle, an implacable war, a war to the knife, is as inevitable as was in its way, the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the privileged estates. But every class war is a political war. In order to do away with feudal society the bourgeoisie had to seize upon political power. In order to do away with capitalist society the proletariat must do the same. Its political task is therefore traced out for it beforehand by the force of events themselves, and not by any abstract consideration.” 

G. Plechanoff.

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   “The entire development of human society from the position of savagery began from the day when the labour of a family resulted in the production of more than was necessary for its support, from the day when a part of the labour was no longer expended on mere means of living but was transformed into means of production. A surplus of labour product over and above the cost of the maintenance of labour, and the creation and increase of a social production and reserve fund out of this surplus was, and is, the foundation of all social, political and intellectual development. In history, up to the present time, this fund has been the property of a certain superior class which has, with its possession, also the political mastery and spiritual supremacy. The approaching social revolution will make this social production and reserve fund—that is, the entire mass of raw material, instruments of production, and means of life— for the first time really social property, in that it will put an end to its monopolisation by the superior class and make it the common possession of the entire society.”

Engels.

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   “But however necessary were the capitalist system and the conditions which produced it, they are no longer so. The functions of the capitalist class devolve ever more upon paid employees. The large majority of the capitalists have now nothing to do but consume what others produce. The capitalist to-day is as superfluous a human being as the feudal lord had become a hundred years ago.”

K. Kautsky.

Christmas Shops. (1922)

From the December 1922 issue of the Socialist Standard

In England Christmas is our one surviving festival. Others have fallen into neglect as we have left behind the manner of social life in which they flourished. Christmas lives, despite the passing of its religious significance, because humanly it is as dear to men of the twentieth century as to those who, five hundred years ago, brought ia the boar's head with ceremony and rejoicing. While people love to play as well as work, to practise hospitality, to remember and be remembered of friends, so long will Christmas or something like it be set in our calendar.

When November was scarcely half spent, the shops began to make their special display. Now as I write the wares of the world are heaped behind the shining windows. Like so many Aladdin's caves, they will yield their store to him who has the golden key: to all others the frail glass pane is a barrier impassable.

And who are they that can command the best and largest share? Those who took no part in producing it. Is there not something strange, comrades, in this? Alaskan furs, Chinese silks, ivories of Japan, Sheffield cutlery, Spanish, Arabian and Tasmanian fruits, do not create and convey themselves, even at Christmas time. That which shaped, transported and arranged them was your work, and that of your fellows in all corners of the earth.

These goods and the pesters that advertise them, the factories where they were made and the machines within the factories, the engines and ships that carried them here —you made them all. Yet your part in the season’s celebrations is to watch more fortunate folks enjoy them, and feel your own needs more bitterly in the face of inaccessible plenty. You who have distant friends and families—why cannot you visit them? You fathers and mothers of children, do not even their small delights mean the sacrifice of something necessary to yourselves? There are young men and girls among you who dreamed of homes of your own; and this winter finds you further off than ever from your desire. Was there ever a situation so topsy-turvy? Would you credit, if you did not know by grim experience, that having done so much, you should stand outside the windows, and those who made nothing in their lives should go in and buy? Wouldn’t it sound like a crazy tale? In a sane order of life, would not the very contrary be the reality—the idle without and the workers within? Add to this that the idle are maided and valeted, driven about, entertained and guarded by you, and surely you and they appear as characters in a tragic farce! If a crowning absurdity were lacking, it is supplied by the presence of multitudes who are not even allowed to work. The strength and skill that could provide anew, even after the spoilers had helped themselves, must remain locked in their shoulders and fingers, wasted and wanting.

What is the explanation of it all? You know before I tell you. It is that this wealth of good things is not here for the purpose of satisfying human needs. It is here because its production and sale pays someone. The very toys, naive and roguish things as they are, were born to serve this all-important end of profit. That is the way you allow the business of production to be arranged. What does it matter to the corn broker and the wool dealer that you need food and clothes? The question is, Have you the means to buy? And if your wife would look lovely in a silken dress, how does that concern the silk importer or the modiste? Your whole livelihood is what you can get by selling your strength and skill. And since the corn, wool, or silk merchant (or whichever other of their class employs you) purchases them for just as much as will keep you alive and moderately fit, you never will enjoy more than a mean living—so long as you serve a master.

Are you satisfied? Perhaps you would have matters no otherwise I said you allow the present arrangement. Do you know, comrades, that is absolutely true? That you can change matters whenever you determine? Look boldly and searchingly at the men who exploit you. It is they who depend on you, not you on them. Without your lifelong service they would cut sorrier figures than you, waiting your turn at the Labour Exchange. What has bewitched you, that you allow yourselves to be shorn? I think I know the lie that keeps you hopeless. It is as old as the relation between oppressor and oppressed, and it runs: “Thus things have always been.” And your lifetime is too short and too full of care for you to learn that it is a lie. Have done with it now. Lift your heads and take a look back—and forward. There was a time when this class that now sits on your shoulders was fighting to throw off its own Old Man of the Sea, and was denounced by the Old Man—the nobility— just as it denounces your spasmodic struggles. It was resisted, as it means to resist you, but it won, and its victory was not accidental. It won because it commanded and could develop something which the feudal land-owners could not: the labour power of a proletariat—people like you and me, who have no property and must find employment in order to live. This new productive force, our labour, was an infant then; to-day a giant, too big for our masters to manage. We can produce far more than they can sell. Now we arise and resolve that capitalists with their “private enterprise” must give way in their turn to us. We do not fight at hazard either. Our victory also is sure, because we control a new force. We can develop what the lords of capital cannot: our own labour power, the labour power of co-operatively associated men and women. Isn’t this a destiny worth fulfilling? Determine that next Christmas shall not find you spreading the feast for others and stealing humbly into the shadows to famish and grieve. Thirty years ago William Morris demanded:

  Why, then, and for what are we waiting? There are three words to speak ; we will it; and what is the foeman, but the dream-strong wakened and weak ?

Now our masters no longer even dream that they are secure. You have shaken their rest by the noise of your discontent, never yet articulate nor united enough to be very dangerous, but loud enough to prevent their ever sleeping again. They listen for the word you will presently say: “We have no more use for masters. We declare the land on which we labour and the instruments we use, to be ours; and every man who would share the common wealth must also share the necessary work, were he fifty times an Inchcape or a Coats!”

Then, when Christmas morning brightens on a world possessed by the workers, the day will be a festival indeed.

A.

The Policy of the I.L.P. (1923)

From the December 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

The New Leader, October 5th, published a statement outlining the policy of a “Socialist Government” on the question of unemployment. This statement was drawn up by the National Council of the Independent Labour Party, and is the first of a series on “outstanding political questions of the day,” to be issued weekly.

The introductory paragraph by the New Leader says ‘‘the I.L.P. is the militant socialist wing of the Labour Party.” In bold type is printed the headlines :

 "How to deal with unemployment. What a Socialist Government would do. ”

There is no mistaking this definite claim by the I.L.P., not only to the title of Socialist but also to this particular policy as being Socialistic

The statement opens with an absurd contradiction :—

   “Before the war even in time of trade prosperity, there were always at last 200,000 persons out of regular employment.  “The primary cause of unemployment is the capitalist system of society. The operations of capitalism result in (a) violent productive fluctuations ; (h) violent financial fluctuations; (c) constant international disturbances. These in turn create unemployment."

How these create unemployment when it already exists in /the most prosperous times, i.e., when the fluctuations and disturbances are absent, is for the council to explain.

The point to be noted, however, is not so much the contradiction as the pretended analysis contained in the paragraph quoted; (a), (b), and (c) are reputed to be the three causes of unemployment, and the statement of the National Council is divided into three sections as follows: “(a) methods of preventing violent productive fluctuations; (b) methods of preventing violent financial fluctuations, and (c) methods of preventing international disturbances.” It is quite unnecessary to go further than this supposed analysis, together with the methods denoted in the sub-headings to show conclusively that the statement is not drawn up from the working-class standpoint, nor does it explain unemployment in the light of socialist knowledge. Fluctuations in production when they occur are the result of fluctuations in demand, and are the bugbear of capitalist politicians, economists and captains of industry. The boom in trade catches them unprepared, and the slump finds them with unsaleable goods on their hands. It is their concern to find the mean level and abolish fluctuations. But the finding of such a mean level does not alter the amount of unemployment; all that it does is to diminish the numbers during the slump and increase the numbers during the boom. The result is best seen by taking a production chart over a number of years,' and cutting off the peaks to fill in the depressions ; when it will be seen that a straight line will result somewhere between the highest and lowest points.

It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that this line bore any definite relation to the amount of unemployment, or even to the quantity of wealth produced. For while the amount of production might show an enormous rise over a period of, say ten years, the number of workers employed in its production might have decreased considerably in consequence of new machinery, new methods, and. speeding-up generally.

It matters but little to the workers whether the growth of unemployment proceeds spasmodically through fluctuations or whether it proceeds evenly without them. The fact for them to notice is that unemployment does increase with capitalist development, and that the National Council produce no evidence, nor show any reasoning to prove that the elimination of crises, industrial or financial, would benefit the workers. On the other hand it is almost safe to assume that such elimination would in reality diminish the number of workers required to produce a given quantity or wealth. Chaos and uncertainty invariably cause wastefulness in the expenditure of labour power.

During the 19th century, when crises occurred periodically, Capital was often expended in anticipation of booms that never matured, and mistaken ventures by capitalists frequently resulted in gluts that compensated the workers to some extent by falling prices.

If the capitalists knew always the extent of the market, production would be arranged to that level. Mass production would be introduced more extensively. Competition would be eliminated by the closed formation of rings and combines, and the workers, as a result of these very reforms, advocated by the National Council, would be in a worse plight than now.

Nor must it be forgotten that without help from the I.L.P. capitalism is already developing rapidly along these lines. Prices, over extensive markets, are fixed, and maintained by agreements between the capitalists concerned. In many cases the demand is known, and shared, by arrangement between the associated concerns.

For the workers to organise politically with the object of smoothing away difficulties in the path of the class that exploits them is folly. Such action could only follow from lack of knowledge of their actual relationship towards the master class. Given the facts of Socialism, every worker of ordinary intelligence can reason for himself how he stands in relation to every question that engages public attention.

The paramount fact of every worker’s existence is his poverty and insecurity, and those who trade on his poverty or play on his fears without helping him to understand the antagonism of interests between the working-class and the master-class, together with the reasons for that antagonism, are guilty of trickery and fraud.

On this question of unemployment the National Council have utterly failed to explain either the cause or tbe cure. Their contribution to the general discussion might have been published in any capitalist newspaper without fear of enlightening a single worker to the fact of his slavery. It barely scratches the surface. It analyses the subject from a purely capitalist viewpoint, and proposes reforms to patch up the existing system, with no proof that such reforms would benefit the working-class in any way whatever. It claims to stand for the workers yet fails to lay down the working-class position on the most prominent question of the day. It calls on the workers to consolidate for the achievement of capitalist ideals; a system of exploitation without trade upheavals or international conflicts; a system where dividends would be assured; where the percentage of unemployed would always be sufficient for capitalist needs, but never so high that it threatened the system.

F. Foan

The Class War . . . And The Facts Behind it. (1924)

From the December 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. J. H. Thomas recently said that the “talk about a class war left him cold.” In a leading article, 14/11/24, the “New Leader,” while agreeing with him in “denouncing class hatred,” says :—

  But we think it almost the gravest mistake which a Labour Party could make to ignore the fact that a process which is usually called the Class struggle is the most vital fact of our lives.

According to the “Daily Chronicle,” 15/11/24, Mr. C. G. Ammon “remarked that they all agreed that, so far as possible, they were not desirous of carrying on a class war. . . . They must admit that the class war was with us.”

From the same source we get the following : “Dr. Salter, M.P., also declared that class war was a fact. It was a struggle between the people who were exploited and those who exploited them, and there was no possible method of reconciling the interests of the two.”

One it leaves cold. To another it is the most vital fact of our lives. Another admits its existence, but would not prosecute it; while the fourth declares it a fact with no possible method of reconciliation. Surely it is time that the Labour Party seriously considered whether they do or do not believe in the existence of the class war.

But neither the declarations of these gentlemen nor the flaring headline of a Sunday picture paper "No more class war” proves or disproves the existence of that struggle. The class struggle and its growing intensity is the one outstanding feature of modern times. The pathetic denials of capitalist agents like Mr. Lovat Fraser deceive no one, except those who want to be deceived. The facts are patent to anyone capable of observation and thought. Millions of workers organised on the industrial field to defend themselves against the constant efforts of still more strongly organised employers to reduce their standard of living and bind them more completely to the wheels of industry.

Modern society is split clean across by the antagonism between those who produce wealth but do not own it, and those who own wealth though never assisting in its production. Disputes follow one another in rapid succession over the whole field of industry between the class that owns and controls the means of wealth-production and those who own nothing but their energy.

It is in this last elementary fact that the germ of the class struggle lies. Unable to obtain access to the means of life, the propertyless human being is compelled to sell his energy to those who own. He becomes a wage-slave and must bargain with the capitalist for a wage that will satisfy his wants. As the number of workers seeking to sell their energy is nearly always in excess of the demand, bargaining power is on the side of the buyers, or masters. It is a simple business axiom that when a commodity is plentiful it is generally cheap. But cheap labour-power means a low standard of living, and the owner of labour-power being human and more or less intelligent resents being thrust ever more deeply into poverty; while at the same time those who cut down his rations make huge additions to their bank balances and finding that markets have somehow become glutted, stop production for a time and turn their workers on the streets. Slow starvation on the dole for a time and then, back in the factory to repeat the process with, possibly, a lower wage and managers and overseers hustling and driving with feverish haste that they may be first with their goods on the awakening market.

On the one hand a super-abundance of wealth. On the other poverty to the verge of desperation. Whether they do little or nothing, those who own the means of life increase their wealth daily beyond their power to spend it. The propertyless wage-slaves are driven by the fear of the sack, and the more they yield the poorer they become.

The capitalist increases his wealth by machinery and methods that enables one worker to do the work of many and then reduces that worker’s wages. He does nothing to assist production, but his overseers—themselves urged on by fear of the sack—in his interest, are constantly sacking and speeding up and reducing wages. This is the class war, waged from the employers’ side and accompanied by an avalanche of propaganda that attempts to reconcile these conflicting interests.

But the antagonism cannot be hidden. It cannot be smoothed away by patriotic blather or glib phrases about the indivisible interests of employer and employed. Whether they want to "carry on a class war” or not the workers are compelled to fight back. Whether they understand how to carry the fight to a successful issue or not millions all over the world realise that it is necessary to organise against the capitalist class.

The knowledge that should go with that realisation awaits them in Socialism. Let them acquire it and, instead of being always the victims of capitalist aggression they will fight back on an equal footing. There is a class war; consciously fought on one side, it is true. Talk of it may leave Mr. Thomas cold, and Mr. Ammon may not be desirous of carrying it on, but the “New Leader” is right for once when it says that it is the most vital fact of our lives; however much they may qualify it next time the Labour Party takes office.

F. Foan

The Industrial Revolution (1925)

From the December 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

By the Industrial Revolution is meant that rapid and complete change in the methods of production and distribution, which, becoming increasingly evident during the first three-quarters and very marked during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, has continued without intermission to the present day. It involved the breaking up of the old forms of the organisation of production and their replacement by others; the superseding of the skill of the craftsman by machinery; the widespread application of mechanical power to manufacture, and later to transport both on land and sea. It was the cause of the rise of new social classes, and new social relationships with their own peculiar problems requiring to be solved.

An enormous increase of population was made possible, concentrated in fresh areas, and industrial towns arose which in turn led to important developments in sanitary science and alterations in local government. With this progress new ideas were spread abroad which were in keeping with the changed conditions.

In the middle of the eighteenth century this country was still largely agricultural. The bulk of the population (at that time about six millions) was engaged in agriculture, and even as late as 1773 corn was regularly exported. Many even of those workers who worked at other occupations also relied partly on their small plots of land. The country was, on the whole, prosperous, its population and its trade were increasing steadily, and it stood in importance second only to France. By far the largest industry was the wool and cloth manufacture, which was regarded by the Government as of great national importance. The cotton industry was small but increasing, and there was already a distinct tendency for both to concentrate in Lancashire and Yorkshire, with a consequent decline of the Eastern counties.

Owing to the scarcity of wood for charcoal making, the iron industry, never very large, was scattered and more or less stagnant. Coal had not yet come into general use for household purposes and means had not been found then of using it successfully for iron smelting. The amount raised each year was only 4½ million tons. The roads were so bad as to be often impassable after wet weather, and these being the only means of internal transport except where there happened to be navigable rivers, the amount of traffic was exceedingly small. Coal, for instance, was brought to London by sea from Newcastle.

As with goods so with people, for there was usually little need for people to travel or change their place of living.

The spinning and weaving of wool and cotton were carried on in the main in the homes of the workers, who were not, as now, brought together in the employer’s factory.

The development of machinery to replace hand labour began in the textile trades. With an increasing foreign and colonial demand for cotton goods it was found that spinning by hand could no longer suffice. Workers were also semi-independent and in a position therefore to demand high wages. As a consequence great efforts were made to invent machinery to supplant hand labour, and in 1761 Hargreaves was successful with his spinning jenny. This was supplemented by Arkwright’s water frame four years later, and in 1775 Crompton’s mule further extended the sphere of the machine.

Evidence of the revolution in the cotton industry is that the import of cotton wool rose from 11 million lbs. in 1780 to 56 million lbs. in 1800.

Similar progress was made later in the woollen industry.

When the use of coal became more general great difficulty was experienced in keeping the mines from flooding, because as the shafts went deeper hand pumps became useless. About 1700 Savery and Newcomen invented steam pumps, and Newcomen’s engine partly solved the problem for a while. In 1782 Watt so far improved on the old pattern of engine as to reduce the consumption of coal by three-quarters and his engine soon superseded Newcomen’s. The amount of coal raised had increased by 1816 to 15 million tons, the demand coming now chiefly from the iron industry. As has been said, this industry had been languishing for lack of fuel. A series of inventions, particularly those of the Darbys, made it possible to use coal instead of charcoal. Henry Cort and others found a method of purifying the iron and the development then was extraordinarily rapid. The production of pig iron, which in 1783 was only 90,000 tons, had risen hy 1820 to 400,000 tons and by 1860 to 4 million tons.

During the early years of the nineteenth century steam power was being applied to the textiles and other industries, and each of these developments in iron, coal, etc., had its reflex in a corresponding stimulus to other industries.

The last half of the eighteenth century also saw great activity in improving communications. The great turnpike roads made wheeled traffic possible, and the building of canals, which by the end of that century had become almost a mania, gave the first real solution of the problem of transporting bulky goods.

Then Stevenson built his steam locomotive, which completed the solution as regards internal communication. Railways turned this country into one big market of which no considerable area was any longer inaccessible. Steamships were built, and with the opening up of America, Russia, and later Africa, India and Asia, by means of railways the stage was reached in which the enormous powers of machine production could be adequately used in supplying the manufacturing needs of a world market, from which in turn our food and raw materials were drawn.

Another great forward leap was made when machines were produced capable of reproducing in unlimited quantities the parts of machines themselves, thus laying the foundation of the modern engineering industry.

Accompanying the process outlined above came the growth of the factory system with the massing of hundreds and thousands of workers under one roof, and the concentration of a huge industrial population in a few coal areas in South Wales, the Midlands and the North.

This led directly to struggles by the workers to organise themselves and the growth of the labour movement, with bitter conflicts between employers and workers, and the spread of new ideas of class interest and Socialism unknown to eighteenth-century England.

The nineteenth century also witnessed the political struggle for the extension of the Franchise, changing the. whole basis of government.

The State has developed wholly new functions. The growth of industrial towns and the rise of the factory system have led respectively to the systematic study of sanitation and public health, and the building up of a code of protective legislation for the workers necessitated by excessive exploitation in the factories and mines; first, for children and women, and, latterly, for men as well. The new methods have again produced the need for a wholesale raising of the level of education and the present State activity in this direction, in order to cope with the technical development of industry.

The Industrial Revolution is the general description given to the complicated movement outlined above.

To understand why the Industrial Revolution came in England it will be useful to make a brief comparison with the other nations of Europe. The only nations at that time of any serious industrial and commercial importance were France, England and Holland. Spanish sea power had been shattered in the sixteenth century and she was no longer a serious rival; Russia had but recently entered on a course of industry and commerce, and Germany was still suffering politically and economically from the exhaustion following the thirty years’ war, 1618-1648.

The population of England and Scotland was about 9 millions in 1780, that of France 20 millions and that of Holland only 3 or 4 millions. The Dutch had lost their seafaring advantages and were already declining in importance. They had in any event always specialised in financial and commercial rather than industrial undertakings, and at that time the internal condition of Holland was disturbed. The choice, therefore, lay between England and France. Why, in view of France’s larger trade and greater industrial activity did the industrial Revolution occur in England and not in France?

France had a population nearly three times as great; her foreign trade in 1780 amounted to £40 million as against £22 million for England. Domestic industry in France was developing rapidly with the removal of legal hindrances in 1762, and French peasants were in comparison with those of most other European countries fairly prosperous. French foreign trade was extending, and with America, for instance, was larger than ours. The rate of increase between 1715 and 1787 was also greater. Paris had a larger population than London, and not only in Europe, but in the West Indies, Canada and India, France had a decided advantage.

In spite, however, of whatever initial advantages France may have possessed, her position became hopeless with the disastrous internal struggle of the Revolution and the external wars which followed. It is true the outbreak of war in 1793 immediately lost us our trade with Holland and France, but already English foreign trade had doubled between 1782 and 1792, and France, on the other hand, was at once cut off from her own colonies and lost her important American trade. The internal state of chaos, while contending classes fought for mastery, meant the complete cessation of the industrial development which had begun, and, in fact, normal commercial activities became almost impossible.

Even prior to the Revolution, however, the conditions existed whieh gave the victory to the English capitalists.

While it is true that the French peasants were prosperous, their main desire was always to own land, and their savings became absorbed in this rather than in industrial investment. In England the Bank of England had been formed in 1694, and since then there had been considerable accumulation of capital, which, by the legal prohibition of Joint Stock trading, had been turned to industrial undertakings. In France, again, through a deplorable financial policy, the State was well-nigh bankrupt, currency was bad, and, owing to the failure of big financial schemes in the early part of the century, people had no faith in investments. When it is remembered how expensive were the experiments which led to mechanical inventions, how costly were the new machines, and how large were the new undertakings in comparison with the old, the importance of big and easily accessible capitals is obvious.

England’s second advantage appeared at first to he a misfortune. France had no lack of workers, but throughout the 18th century continual complaint was made in England that the shortage of labour and the consequent high wages made competition with the French well-nigh impossible. Many workers had small holdings and were to a large extent independent of the manufacturers who employed them. A scarcity of labour, however, always encourages the installation of labour-saving machinery. The shortage creates the demand, and this is invariably satisfied by inventions when it arises. It is instructive to note that it was in the spinning industry that machinery first became important, because weavers had long been handicapped by the insufficient supply of yarns. When machinery had solved that problem, inventions to remedy the consequent shortage of weavers were at once in demand, and before long the demand was satisfied.

Again, England enjoyed large and expanding markets, without which naturally these developments would not have occurred. Had there not been a constant and ever-growing demand for cotton goods, it would have been worth no one’s while to invest money in the large-scale production of cotton. Holland, owing to the competition of England, France and Germany, and her loss of her semi-monopoly of the world’s shipping, had a declining trade, and it was not to the interest of individual producers to commit themselves to the expense of enlarging their production.

In this country, too, the population was free from the restrictions of movement which were still the rule in France and Holland at that date. Peasants in France were tied to their birthplaces by their ownership of land and by the dues they had to render to their feudal lords. How, in such circumstances, could there have been such migrations and concentrations of population as took place in England? Without such massing in the coal areas there could have been no developments of production such as did take place with the introduction of mechanical power.

The Guilds in France and Holland were still largely in control, and were able successfully to oppose factory production. In England they had by this time long decayed. In England, too, there was a degree of security unknown in any other European country, and, of equal importance, this country (except Ireland) was economically one market. It was not split into tariff divisions, of which France had three, Holland seven, and Germany 300. While the financial institutions were by no means so delicate and complex as to-day. one has but to observe the effect of the actual, or imagined, political insecurity of the present i Russian Government to realise how incompatible are flourishing trade and a lack of political confidence.

Further, in England, coal and iron are found conveniently near each other. In the days before the building of railways even a distance of ten or twenty miles was sufficient to prohibit transport cheap enough for iron making. This need not have proved fatal to France, as wooden machines and water power were the first stage of development, but by that time French industry was already half in ruins.

Lastly, English merchants had had long experience of large-scale production and export in the wool trade, and the experience so gained was available for the many directions in which it was now needed.

The combination of these advantages gave England the certain lead over most countries, and France, the one serious rival, was—owing to the Revolution—out of the running for forty years.

Edgar Hardcastle

Should We Join The Labour Party? (1926)

From the December 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our Position Vindicated. 

We have always maintained that the only place for Socialists is inside a Socialist organisation, completely independent 'of all other political parties. This, we say, is the only way of carrying on Socialist propaganda free from compromise and from distracting side issues. Those who differed from us on this point have urged that it was worth while to make a sacrifice of some amount' of independence in order to keep inside the Labour Party and carry on progaganda there. But what has been the result of their policy? Never have events shown so plainly as now, how unsound that policy and how poor its fruits.

As a political machine the Labour Party is a success, but its successes are not for Socialism. It has just won some 200 seats in the local council elections, but as is pointed out by a correspondent in the New Leader (November 12th), the Labour programme in Cardiff contained "little that could not be supported by any well-meaning Tory. . . . Only one candidate mentioned Socialism in his election address.” And as he rightly adds, "these shortcomings are by no means peculiar to Cardiff.” The winning of elections on non-Socialist programmes may give power for certain things to those who come into control of the political machinery, but it will give no power for the furtherance of Socialism. So also the enrollment of non-Socialist members will make the Labour Party larger, but it will not make it more favourable to Socialism. One of the recent notable recruits—Commander Kenworthy— has confessed (Daily Herald, November 15th) that just before his decision to leave the Liberals he was invited to join and receive the support of the Conservative Party. A man who was in the Liberal Party and is considered fit to receive Conservative support is not a Socialist, whatever he may be. The ex-Liberals who flock in with Kenworthy are no more Socialist than he.

John Beckett, of the I.L.P., a Labour M.P., laments that those who control the Labour Party are rapidly turning the "Labour movement . . . into a carefully controlled pawn in the political game.” (New Leader, November 12th.) He wants the I.L.P. to carry on the fight against reaction in the Labour Party, but is then compelled to admit that, "The Left must fight in the I.L.P. almost as hard as in the wider movement.”

The present situation, then, is this. The I.L.P. tries to permeate the Labour Party, but in the process has itself reached such a state that the permeators must "fight in the I.L.P. almost as hard” as in the Labour Party. The Labour Party wins elections on non-Socialist programmes, and the permeators are compelled to assist at these elections and suppress their own opinions for the sake of their loyalty.

George Lansbury makes a humiliating confession of his own position inside the Labour Party in explaining why he recalled a promise to support the candidature of Dr. Dunstan in West Birmingham. Dr. Dunstan was a Labour candidate and a Communist, and was replaced by an "official” Labour man in accordance with the Labour Party decision to refuse to endorse or accept to membership all members of the Communist Party. Lansbury writes to Dr. Dunstan (Lansbury’s Labour Weekly, November 13th): "I still think your position in West Birmingham entitled you to the support of every working-class elector . . . and I am only sorry that circumstances connected with my membership of the Labour Party and the loyalty which such membership involves prevents me carrying out my promise.”

Dr. Dunstan is in Lansbury’s view "entitled to the support of every working-class elector,” but is not going to receive Lansbury’s support because of the latter’s loyalty to the Labour Party, and while Labour Party discipline prevents the permeators from propagating Socialism, the Labour Party goes on absorbing Liberals at a rate which makes it possible for its leaders to continue to change its programme in an anti-Socialist direction, and make it a "pawn in the political game.” All the time the permeators find that their efforts to keep their own organisation straight are hampered by association with non-Socialists. How can a Socialist hope to convince electors that they should support non-Socialist labour men and programmes, if at the same time he is trying to preach Socialism? One or the other must suffer. In fact the Labour Party grows in size with the help of the I.L.P., but both the Labour Party and its would-be permeators become too much bound up with seeking for votes to have time for Socialist propaganda.

There is, of course, another group believing in permeation—the Communist Party. Their present undignified position is a further justification for our attitude. The Labour Party, not unnaturally, only wants assistance from those who will help it to get into power. It does not want to be hindered by affiliated bodies which propagate policies which have no electoral value, and since the mass of electors are not Socialist, Socialism is thus ruled out. Thus it accepts the I.L.P., which, as Mr. Beckett says, differs little from itself. But if the I.L.P. tried to justify its argument by concentrating on Socialist propaganda, it would be summarily ejected. The Communists have so far not been accommodating enough, and therefore are refused admission.

To preach Socialism inside the Labour Party just as much as to preach it outside means condemning its programme and its methods. If, therefore, the Socialist Party desired entry into the Labour Party, it must consent to give up its work for Socialism and devote at least part of its energies to promoting non-Socialist candidatures which it honestly knows are of no value to the working class. We cannot accept such conditions.

We are Socialists because we believe literally that Socialism is the sole hope of the working class. We are independent because that is the only safeguard against confusion and compromise and the growth of non-Socialist tendencies in our own ranks.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Class Struggle in Soviet Russia (1927)

From the December 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

Owing to the deplorable suppression of opinion and rigid censorship of news in Russia it is well nigh as difficult now to obtain reliable information as it was 10 years ago when the censorship was that erected by the Allied Governments. The policy of suppression is always deplorable and usually utterly useless for the end it has in view. Where there is smoke there is fire. Where there are the economic conditions for class conflict there will inevitably arise the discontent of the ruled class with the ruling class and its agents, followed by spontaneous attempts to organise for the removal of the cause of the discontent. It is impossible in the long run to prevent the individual members of a class with a grievance drawing the same general conclusions from the same set of facts. It is possible to delay the spread of ideas from one to another, but not to prohibit it for all time. In the last resort, if class demands are ignored or suppressed, there will inevitably arise organised movements to enforce them, peaceably if possible, but violently if need be. Suppression cannot prevent discontent, it can only direct it into secret and more destructive channels.

These elementary lessons of political history were forgotten in the turmoil following the Bolshevik seizure of power. Suppression of the voting rights, newspapers, and political organisations of the landowners and capitalists, led naturally to the similar treatment of every opponent and critic not only of the acts, but also of the persons of the governing party. The culminating point is the exclusion and threatened criminal prosecution of Trotsky and other once honoured revolutionaries. (One of the charges against Trotsky is the fatuous one of “insolence.”) This degradation into the methods of royalty, with their major crime of “lèse majesté,” is the normal course of all such suppression.

We are then compelled to seek for information about events in Russia, either in the columns of the official Communist Press (where it is naturally coloured in favour of the official point of view as against the critics), or else piece together the fragmentary reports smuggled out of Russia and reprinted (usually with exaggerations) in the opposition journals abroad or the capitalist newspapers.

For two years or more Trotsky has been the figurehead round whom various opposition groups have centred inside the Russian Communist Party. His main criticism appears to be based on his view of an old subject of controversy, that is whether it is possible to build up Socialism in Russia alone. Trotsky, like ourselves, says no. Russia, in his opinion, must aim at rapid industrialisation (with the aid of foreign capital but prohibiting, as far as possible, any foreign control), thus building up a numerous working class in Russia. At present the Russian workers represent at most 15 per cent. of the population, being hopelessly outnumbered by peasants, the great majority of whom are quite naturally more interested in maintaining and extending their private ownership of land than in Socialism. The development of Russian industry will, Trotsky argues, enable the Russian workers to withstand the reactionary pressure of the peasants until such time as the world working class come to their aid.

At present, so the opposition maintain, the trend of Government policy in Russia is steadily in favour of the peasants as against the workers. If this is so, then sooner or later working class discontent will manifest itself in organisation and attempted resistance, at least to the extent that the Russian workers understand their class position and have not been deceived by propaganda aimed at obscuring the fundamental conflict of interests between the workers, on the one side, and the peasants and capitalist traders and concessionaires, on the other. In justification of his view Trotsky maintains that the Russian workers and their trade unions are rapidly developing an attitude of hostility towards the Russian State, the relations with which being more and more clearly recognised as the normal capitalist relations between employers and employed.

The Manchester Guardian (November 15th) summarises a German translation of Trotsky’s programme which has been published in Hamburg. The following passages are taken from it and may help readers to understand the meaning of the present conflict. It is, of course, to be understood that this reproduction of Trotsky’s views is not an indication that we can guarantee the accuracy of his estimates of conditions, nor that we share all his views on policy :—

   “A new bourgeoisie of bureaucrats and of private traders is emerging in the towns and of kulaks (wealthier peasants) in the country, while industrial labour is losing its share in the management both of the Communist party and of the workshops and factories. Since October, 1925, the upward movement of real wages has ceased, although the output per man has risen by no less than 15 per cent. At the same time the rights and privileges of the managements and of the administration have grown.
 
   The increase in employment stopped this year, and there has been a big and rapid increase in unemployment. For two years the prices of industrial products have been nominally stable, but in reality they are rising, for the quality of the goods (especially manufactured goods) has conspicuously deteriorated. Wholesale prices have risen steadily since July, 1925, while the quality of wholesale articles has likewise deteriorated. Retail prices sank in 1924 and 1925, but rose again in 1926, and are now (if the inferior quality is considered) roughly as they were in 1923.
   
   The increased output of Russian industry has been accompanied by a deterioration of plant and machinery, and a steady increase in the number of accidents in the factories has resulted. 

   Although wages are not rising, the so-called intensification of labour is being steadily forced by the authorities. The maximum output of the most efficient workman is being made the standard for all. The sifting out and rejection of the more inefficient men is going on with ever-growing rigour, while the wages for piece work are not rising, and in some cases are sinking. Wages are at best no higher than they were before the war. Industry is worse equipped now than it was then, but the output per man is considerably greater. 

   Thus the wear and tear on the health and constitution of the individual workman is very great. Low wages do not allow workmen to enjoy tolerable housing. The amount of room space, allowed to each family is steadily diminishing. The reintroduction of 40 per cent. vodka has injured the health of the working classes, especially of the younger generation, and has increased the number of accidents. State revenues from the sale of alcohol are being won at heavy cost in human misery. 

   Economy in the factories is being enforced with growing severity. A system of penalties has been introduced under which a workman is dismissed if he arrives a minute late. Men who report sick are now assigned to so-called light labour and health insurance benefit is refused on the slightest pretext. Overtime is increasing in spite of the vast unemployment. Special labour is growing more frequent. Regular workers who cannot legally be dismissed without a fortnight’s notice are got rid of by being dismissed and then being re-engaged as casual workers after which they can be dismissed at one, two, or three day’s notice. 

  The power of the management is steadily growing. It has the exclusive right of dismissal for default or misdemeanours, and no appeal is possible. Men are also engaged by the management, the function of the factory Soviets being limited to mere registration. The workmen no longer share in the control and management of these factories. Their opinion and criticism are disregarded more and more. Conditions in the factories are again approaching what they were in Tsarist times. 

   The workmen are becoming indifferent or even hostile to the trade unions. Meetings are poorly attended, embryonic illegal unions have come into existence when illegal strike committees are formed (that is to say, when there is a strike, the men having lost confidence in the official! Communist trade union organisations, form a secret strike committee of their own). The struggle of Russian labour for better conditions is being conducted either in disregard of the trade unions and of the Communist party, or sometimes even against them. The election of trade union officials has become a mere formality; workmen join these unions because they cannot obtain employment without a membership card. 

   The Soviet State and system is undemocratic. Members of the Government and of the administration are not elected but selected. The electorate is denied the right to recall its delegate whilst the Communist bureaucracy has the right to get rid of any delegate whom it does not like without regard for the opinion of those who voted for him, nor are the delegates themselves in the least responsible to the electorate. For the working-class balloting has become an empty formality and an irksome obligation. 

   The prestige of the Soviet has sunk so low in the eyes of Russian Labour, that the authorities sometimes use compulsion so as to make the workmen vote at all.

 The “Proletariat Opposition” within the party is being expelled. In the factory “cells” only favoured persons receive promotion, and those in disfavour are degraded or even dismissed. There is a growing army of Oppositional unemployed. Dissatisfaction is being suppressed and hushed up, and there has been an epidemic of suicides.

  The broad Communist masses are excluded from some of the most vital discussions of the party leaders. The Communist bureaucracy exercises an uncontrolled and irresponsible domination. 

  Relations between the workmen and the management are becoming more and more what they were before the revolution.”

The Manchester Guardian’s correspondent states that the memorandum goes on to give a similar analysis of conditions in the rural areas, where the poorer peasants and the agricultural labourers are exploited by the wealthier peasants, whose power is increasing.

Among the points in Trotsky’s programme, the most important is the restoration of democracy within the Communist Party, which would, among other things, make impossible the suppression of such a document as the one quoted above.

Edgar Hardcastle

Corrupt America and Pure England. (1928)

From the December 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

In our October issue we left Mr. Baker gravely pointing out to a sullen House of Commons that there were many right honourable gentlemen, whose conceptions of what was right and honourable were inadequate. Doubtless the right hon. gentlemen will endeavour to put other conceptions of those qualities before Mr. Baker, before the Wireless and Cable Merger question goes off the stage. He went on to speak of some of the big people, as he called them, in the business. There was Sir Robert Kindersley, mentioned before, who was managing director of Lazard Bros., and also one of the directors of the Bank of England. His firm, Lazard Bros., were represented on the board of the Newcastle-on-Tyne Electric Supply Co. Lazard Bros, and S. Pearson & Sons, Ltd., were associated with the Whitehall Securities Corporation, Ltd., which holds half the share capital of Messrs. Pearson & Dorman & Long, Ltd., whose electric power interests in the Kent coalfield interlock with the County of London Electric Supply Co. S. Pearson & Sons completely controlled Whitehall Electric Investment, Ltd., along with the Power and Traction Finance Co. Ltd., in the Hungarian Trans-Danubian' Electrical Co., Ltd. Messrs. S. Pearson & Sons are associated with Metropolitan Vickers Electrical Co., the G.E.P. of Berlin and Callenders Cable and Construction Co. Mr. Baker expressed himself as puzzled at the attitude of The Times newspaper, in view of his previous feeling that The Times at least is a national newspaper. And then he made the discovery that the Hon. R. H. Brand, one of the directors of The Times, was also a director of Lazard Bros. Another director is Sir Campbell Stuart, who is a member of the Imperial Wireless Conference, which is settling the whole thing. After briefly referring to the ramifications of Hambro’s Bank, he next referred to Mr. Szarvasy. So far as is known, he was a mere shareholder in this country in 1910, but from 1912, became substitute director for Baron Springer, of Vienna. To-day he is managing director and chairman of the British, Foreign and Colonial Corporation, and a director of the Dunlop Rubber Co. When Lord Rothermere formed the Daily Mail Trust, it was through Mr. Szarvasy that the British Foreign and Colonial Corporation issued a mortgage debenture for £9,000,000. Mr. Szarvasy is also a director of the Danube Navigation Co., the Guardian Assurance Co., and Martins Bank. With the late Alfred Lowenstein, and Albert Pam, of J. H. Schroeder & Co., he is on the directors’ committee of the Hydro-Electric Securities Corporation of Quebec. This last belongs to the group of interests which control the power used by the Canadian Marconi Co., Ltd. Mr. Szarvasy is also chairman (and Lord Derby, president) of the Anglo-French Banking Corporation.

Proceeding with the big people, as Mr. Baker put it, there is Sir Charles Coupar Barrie, who is linked with Mr. Szarvasy on the directorate of the Danube Navigation Co. Sir Coupar Barrie is a member of the Post Office Advisory Council. There is Mr. F. R. S. Balfour, associated with Mr. Szarvasy on the Guardian Assurance Co., is also a member of the Bank of Montreal. Both these gentlemen have recently been added to the board of the Marconi Company. A third addition is Sir Frederick Sykes, who has been appointed Governor of Bombay. He was a director of the Daily Mail Trust, the Marconi Telegraph Co., the Underground Railways of London, the London Express Newspaper, Ltd., the Sunday Sketch and the Sunday Herald. And to-day he is Governor of Bombay. Of course as a Governor, he should give up his other jobs as director. But still, it is interesting, isn’t it: yesterday a Daily Mail governor, to-day a Bombay Governor!

There are a few more columns of similar engaging facts, and it will be well worth the while of anyone interested to obtain a copy of Hansard, for Thursday, August 2nd. It should be carefully read over two or three times between now and the next General Election. Then, when you are passively listening to the fervid oratory of the sleek, oily, persuasive gentlemen who are anxious to serve their country once more, permit yourself to reflect on the vast and intricate network of interlocked capitalist interests, and to wonder just where the orator before you, fits in. At the moment, it may be useful to remember that the catchword for the next Election has not yet made its appearance. Doubtless behind closed doors, what they will call the plan of campaign is now being carefully sketched out, including possibly Another “Red Letter,” or some similar fooltrap. But this can safely be prophesied. Each of the capitalist parties will assure you by all they hold sacred, that never in the whole history of the planet was there such a set of moral, virtuous, upright, self-sacrificing patriots as those now seeking your suffrages as so-and-so candidates. Likewise, never hitherto, has this burdened earth been required to support on its suffering breast such a vile, scurrilous, inept rabble as is comprised in the other party. You will be emphatically assured that between the one party and the other, there is fixed a great gulf, a yawning abyss.

But then, if you have read your Hansard, and your Socialist Standard aright, you will perceive that interlocking directorates and international capital make light work of any gulf. You will see your Melchetts and your Derbys, your Szarvasvs and Lowensteins, your French Bankers and German Barons, your Hungarian financiers and Canadian company promoters, all without distinction of race, religion, sex or creed, joined in one happy family whose name is PROFIT. It is for you to see behind the trickery of Elections, the pomp of ceremonial, the intoxication of oratory, to the reality beyond, capital exploiting labour. You will notice, if you listen to one of our speakers, that we do not divide our political opponents into good men and bad men, clever men and numbskulls, upright men and tricky men, rich men and poor men. No! We go deeper than that. We see society divided into two distinct classes, those on the one side who own our means of existence, and on the other, those who have to work for them and who are in consequence the slaves of the first. This system is an excellent one—for the Melchetts, the Derbys and the rest of them. One does not expect them to favour an alteration of it. Therefore, when they, or their friends, appear before you at Election time, a vote for them however obtained and however given, is a vote that society shall remain divided as at present, with a few very rich and a vast number poor. But the system is not an excellent one for you, and for me. It is necessary, therefore, that we band our greatly superior number together, and appoint our own representatives to Parliament who will not spend their time in delivering marvellous, flowery speeches, to sullen, bitterly hostile opponents, but who, when in a majority shall use the whole powers of Parliament to take our means of life from the hands of private profit-makers and convert them into socially owned tools of production. As Mr. Baker’s speech has revealed and as we have tried to make clear frequently in our columns, day after day, at amazing speed, capital is actively engaged in linking up the civilised world’s life-units into closely knit monopolistic trusts. There is only one alternative, Socialism, and there is only one party fighting for it, the Socialist Party. Capital is moving, rapidly, ceaselessly, remorselessly. What are you doing?

W. T. Hopley