Poland December 1970: A Clarification (1978)

From the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

In an article that appeared in the Socialist Standard in May this year we stated that "hundreds” of workers were shot and killed by government troops during the unrest over price rises that took place in Poland’s Baltic sea ports in December 1970. A previous article in September 1976 had stated that “at least six workers” had been shot dead in Gdansk (Danzig). The discrepancy between these figures is to be explained by the former being based on the highest unofficial estimates while the latter refers to the number officially admitted as having been killed on December 14, the first day of the unrest in Danzig alone.

The precise number, in the other ports as well as Danzig — and even one death would prove the brutal anti-working class character of the Polish state capitalist regime — is unknown. Keesing's Contemporary Archives says:

No definitive figures of the total number of casualties were available at the time but official spokesmen in Warsaw said early in January 1971 that 27 people had been killed in. Gdansk. Gdynia and Elblag and 346 injured, including 265 policemen; no official figures were given for Szczecin and Slupsk. On January 20, however, Polish newspapers revealed that 44 people had died in the December riots — 18 in Gdynia, 16 in Szczecin, nine in Gdansk and one in Elblag. It was also stated that there had been 120 injured, many seriously in Gdansk, where about 100 people were under arrest charged with looting, arson or attacking police. Unofficial estimates put the total casualties as considerably higher than those officially given (January 16-23 1971. p.24391).

Obituary: Ernie McKone (1978)

Obituary from the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Death struck Haringey Branch for the third time in recent months with the passing of Comrade E.L. (Ernie) McKone at the age of 79. Ernie first came in contact with the Party in 1918 through its outdoor meetings. He had been in the army during the First World War but deserted in France after stopping by a pond to take a drink and seeing a human arm floating in the water. At one point in the early forties there were four McKone’s in the Party — Ernie, his son and two brothers. Like a number of members, he had to drop out of Party activities during the 1939-45 War but rejoined in 1956.

Being self-employed he was able to speak his mind freely and would often button-hole passers-by outside his house and put the Socialist case to them. Despite declining health in later years he was a regular attender at the Branch and was constantly urging it into activity. Our sympathies go to his wife and family

Julian Vein

Obituary: George Edkins (1978)

Obituary from the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Another old member has left our ranks with the death of Gearge Edkins, aged 78. He joined the West Ham Branch in 1928, and was active at outdoor and indoor meetings in the area until the 1940’s, when he and his wife went to Devon to run a guest house. Although out of the mainstream George continued as a Central Branch member and retained contact with many London members some of whom spent their holidays at George’s establishment. To the end of his life he remained a firm and committed Socialist and after his retirement often regretted that his location prevented more involvement in Party activity. We extend our sympathy to his wife Phyllis.

Alice Kerr

SPGB Meetings (1978)

Party News from the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lives of the Left: Daniel De Leon (1990)

Book Review from the July-Aug 1990 issue of the Discussion Bulletin

Daniel De Leon by Stephen Coleman [Manchester University Press, "Lives of the Left" series] Manchester, England, 1990; cloth, 192 pp. U.S. readers see below for ordering information.

This volume differs from the two earlier De Leon biographies (Reeve 1972 and Seretan 1978) in that its author does not regard DeLeon's anti-reformist, anti-statist socialism as an aberration. Stephen Coleman'a political thinking derives from the same turn-of-the-century opposition to social democratic reformism from which De Leon and the post-1900 Socialist Labor Party sprang, and he can understand the political situation and the choices that faced the SLP and DeLeon.

Coleman has divided his book into eight chapters, which we can assume reflect his interests and concerns: The Enigma of Daniel De Leon, The Socialist Labor Party, Trade Unionism and the Abolition of the Wages System, the Battle against Reformism, De Leon and the Wobblies, The De Leon-Connolly Conflict, De Leon's Conception of Socialism, and the Last Years and Legacy of De Leon.

Part of the "enigma" Coleman sees is the irony that the man he characterizes as ". . . the most outstanding American thinker, writer, orator, and political organizer of the years from 1890 until the eve of the First World War" should be so hated by his contemporaries on the left and in the labor movement. In addition to a list of these historians of the Hilquit school of labor history, he points out what he calls ". . .  the legacy of contemporary vilification by the likes of Dubofsky et al., who have accepted without thought the prejudices of the Hilquitians."

In "The Socialist Labor Party" Coleman traces De Leon's influence on the SLP and the dynamics that brought about the 1899 split between the reformists and revolutionaries. As the European socialist parties of the Second International grew during the 1880s and 90s, the possibility of gaining political office and presumably bringing about socialism piecemeal through capitalisms political machinery became vary real. The success of "socialist' politicians in transforming the "immediate demands" of the socialist parties into their dominant programs caused splits in nearly all the parties of the Second International. In the U.S. the anti-De Leonists left to help form the Socialist Party identified with Hilquit, Debs, and Haywood. In Britain both the Socialist Party of Great Britain (to which Coleman belongs) and the British SLP left Hyndman's Social Democratic Federation. In Russia the situation produced the Menshevik-Bolshevik split and in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and elsewhere splits and factional disputes that were often resolved by events precipitated by the Russian Revolution.

In Coleman's judgment "The 1899 split was not essentially about specific SLP policies, but was a final effort by approximately half of its members to assert the compatibility between a socialist party and a possibilist [reformist] strategy or, conversely, to remove what they saw as the theoretical shackles of De Leon's uncompromising impossibilism." While recognizing that De Leon's confidence in his own wisdom and eagerness to combat error sight easily give rise to accusations of authoritarianism, he disposes of the charges of bossism by citing the record: ". . . De Leon enjoyed no power within the SLP to which he was not elected, and made no decisions alone but as a result of winning a majority."

The evolution of the SLP's position on unionism, which culminated in the organization of the Socialist Trades and Labor Alliance in 1895 was not, in Coleman's view, a sectarian plot by De Leon but had already been initiated in 1889 before De Leon joined the SLP by socialist trades unionists in Now York City, who had called for "New Trades Unionism' and split from the Central Labor Union to form the Central Labor Federation. Coleman sees the lack of success of the STALA as well as the isolation impossibilism entailed for the SLP as the reason behind De Leon's eager embrace of the IWW in 1905.

As one might expect, Coleman's SPGBist differences with De Leonism become clear in the chapter, "De Leon's Conception of Socialism." While giving De Leon credit for attempting to answer the hard questions workers ask about the nature of the new society, he expresses serious doubts about De Leon's answers, finding the source of much of what he considers the less desirable elements in De Leon's and the SLP's vision of the future society in Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward. He sees not only the idea of labor vouchers and of the socialism-in-one-country concept as arising from De Leon's association with Nationalism in the 1880s but the roots of the whole concept of socialist industrial unionism, which he relates to Bellamy's work-oriented, militaristic view of the social organization of the future. Coleman's conclusions here will offend not only the most orthodox of De Leonists but revisionists of various degrees as well. Space doesn't allow this reviewer to combat Coleman's findings. But we will find space for readers of the book to refute him.

Also offensive to some readers will be the final chapter in which, among other things, he examines what he regards as De Leon's efforts to break out of the isolation that anti-reformism (impossiblism) imposed on the SLP. These included the embrace of the IWW and its reformist SP contingent and the 1905-8 unity effort, which culminated in his Unity address. Interestingly Coleman presents Reinstein as De Leon's ally in 1908, not his enemy as official history suggests. He rather decently finds De Leon not guilty of the official SLP's claim [charge?] that his writings influenced Lenin. The final chapter also contains an interesting section on the differences between the British and American SLPs. Part of De Leon's legacy is the SLP. Here is Coleman's verdict: "De Leon stamped his authority upon the SLP because he was the party's most able and active thinker. That De Leon’s comrades offered him such deferential respect . . .  respect created a tradition that was abused terribly by the less intellectually vivacious, sterile dogmatists who succeed the De Leon role."

Although there are a couple of flaws—De Leon was referring in Reform or Revolution to the future socialist society, not the party of socialism, with his illustration of the orchestra director—, Coleman has done his reading and his research. Indeed this is a political biography in the finest sense of the term. Coleman in not a De Leonist and his critical stance and political differences are apparent, as indeed they should be. But I think that De Leon would not have wished for a fairer, wittier, more sympathetic treatment from a political opponent. We can only assume that had Coleman been afforded more time and more pages, he would have modified his views on Socialist Industrial Unionism.

Like all books worth reading, the price is steep even for a clothbound book. U.S. readers can obtain the book directly from St. Martin's Press for $29.95 or send a 25-cent stamp to DB for a flier that offers a 20 percent discount making the price $23.95.

Frank Girard

Is Increased Production the Solution? (1944)

From the November 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under the heading “Britain is Old-fashioned in Industry,” the Evening Standard (October 11th, 1944) reports speeches made at a Conference of the National Council of Women of Great Britain.

“Miss Barbara Ward, assistant editor of The Economist, said Britain must produce more goods and means of production must be more efficient.

Increase in a nation’s wealth depends on the amount of machine power behind each pair of hands.

We have fallen behind in industrial development, she declared. ‘We are old-fashioned.’

Thorough inquiry should be made into each industry—for instance, the steel industry—to discover why our costs were higher than those of other nations.

We should use our utmost enterprise and labour to increase our standards of living, she said.”

Miss Ward has failed to draw the logical conclusion in regard to what would happen if her suggestion were followed. If all nations become more efficient, and competition will force them to do so. then we shall be where we were—before the war.

“Increase in a nation’s wealth depends on the amount of machine power behind each pair of hands.”

Is not this also the cause of a nation’s poverty ? The amount of machine power behind each pair of hands in the United States before the war was greater than in any other country, and so was the amount of relative unemployment and poverty.

The assistant editor of The Economist is apparently unaware of the fact that the aim and object of capitalist production is not the production of wealth, but the production of profit.

Profit is something for nothing.

It is impossible to make something out of nothing, but the capitalist class give nothing and obtain abundant wealth for themselves as a result of playing a flim-flam game.

Labour applied to the natural resources of the earth produces all exchange values. The capitalist class do not labour, therefore they do not produce any wealth. They live by ownership. They own what is essential to the existence of the rest of us.

They allow us to produce exchange values for them in the shape of commodities under certain conditions. Before we are allowed to work we must agree to sell our wealth-producing material, our mental and physical energy, to them at its cost of production—that means, roughly, what we can live and work upon.

When we are working our energy is the property of those who have bought it, and what our energy produces the capitalist claims as his. Wages consist of the food, clothing and shelter the money will buy. The food, clothing and shelter the worker obtains as wages are all produced by those who labour, not by the capitalist class.

Consider the mighty effort of the working class during the war, and what they have lived upon, while doing it.

“Never in the history of human endeavour” has so much been produced on so little.

The working class have brought into being all the airplanes, guns, ships, etc., that were necessary to the carrying on of the war. What is to be their reward? The brutal truth is that capitalism cannot give them anything to compensate them for their efforts. The capitalist class will, however, continue to obtain their surplus values, rent, interest and profit.

The workers, however, expect to be placed in a better position after the war than they ever were before. The interesting point is how are Ihe ruling class going to devise ways and means of continuing the exploiting process. As a result of their experiences on the batlefleld in various parts of the world, many of the wage slaves are beginning to realise that there is something fundamentally wrong in capitalist society.

They will not be easily handled in the piping times of peace and will be harder to deceive.

Bevin says, “There will be unemployment but victory is worth it” (see Star, October 11th). The victory is the victory of the capitalist class, although the fighting, etc., has been done by the working class. If there is nothing for the workers after the war, what have the workers won? The capitalist class still remain in secure possession of the means of life; the land, railways, mines and tools of industry still remain in their possession.

The workers are where they were. Unemployment can be depended upon to keep wages down to that low level that is strictly in accord with capitalist interests, and then the same old grind.

Those who have acquired wealth during the war out of Army contracts, black markets, etc., will return when peace is proclaimed and disport themselves in the charmed circles of society. Many of the workers, however, who have endured the agonies of the struggle and lost their loved ones in the process, will line up at the Labour Exchange or apply for the sweet charity of the Public Assistance Committee. The means test will continue to be applied—to the working class. Homes are to be built—by whom? The landlord class are anticipating pickings when they receive compensation for the property that has been bombed. The financier will come into his own when deflation occurs—some time after the cessation of hostilities. The capitalist will have the wage slaves controlled for him by the Government, assisted by the labour leader. All sections of the ruling class will be compensated—at the expense of the wage slaves.

Everything in the garden will be lovely, as usual, for those who neither toil nor spin.

How long, fellow workers, how long? Can you not see that until the means of life are made common property there is no security for you ? Can you not see that you are doomed to the eternal treadmill of wage slavery and misery so long as the capitalist system shall last? We must do away with production for profit.

We must no longer allow the exploiter to continue to live by obtaining something for nothing. Production for use must be made to take the place of production for sale.

We are the vast majority.

      Let us stand together,

           All we have to do is to will it.

      And the world is ours.

Let us get hold of the State, the public power of coercion, and use it to make the ruling class let go their hold on our bread and life. Those only are Socialists who stand for Socialism; those who stand for less are the allies of our enemies.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain stands exclusively for Socialism; no other party in this country has the courage to do so—at election times.

We propose to run candidates for Parliament on the issue. Socialism or Capitalism—which?

We want you to help us. If you are with us, let us know of your existence. The fight is on.

The useful portion of human society have one common enemy—the exploiting system under which we live. Miss Barbara Ward suggests that by increasing the productive power of the slave-exploiting mechanism the slave would benefit. She fails to perceive that the worker is not paid for what he produces, but for what it costs to produce him. Her remarks enable us to realise, how weak the defenders of capital have become. Against the united advance of those who live by selling their labour power, the capitalist class are absolutely helpless. The interests of the workers are identical on the class field. The class issue is ownership.

The enemies of our class will discuss anything but the real issue. It is never raised in Parliament. It will never be prominent in the capitalist press. The very thought of a revolutionary Socialist Party fills the exploiter with fear and foreboding.

Although we hold the largest meeting in Hyde Park, we are rarely mentioned in the public press.

Has word gone round that attention must not be drawn to our existence? Capitalist politicians read the Socialist Standard and listen to our speakers, but all are faithful members of the conspiracy of silence.

The Labour Party is now always referred to as The Socialist Party, although not one of its members stands for Socialism or has been elected on the Socialist ticket.

Why the silence and deception?

The reason is that the ruling class know what we are out for, and they do not want the bulk of the workers to become interested in the issue.

Working class emancipation is, however, on the order of the day.

Line up and do your bit—

The freedom of humanity is at stake.

When the wage slaves free themselves from capitalist bondage, they free mankind for ever from economic servitude and the fear of war.

Society can then assume a higher form. There can be no such thing as freedom for the individual so long as some people own that upon which all people depend.

Socialism will give man the opportunity to express the noblest and best that is in him.

In capitalist society the bias is on the wrong side. The worst man has the best chance.

To change capitalist society into a newer and better social order is the job of the common people; it is a working class proposition.

Moving circumstance is slowly but surely removing the web of lies which the henchmen of our masters have been spinning for generations. Take your place, comrade. You should know by now what you are called upon to do. Demand Socialism now. Support only those who do the same.

Charles Lestor

Political Ideas and Class Interests: A Glance at Argentina (1944)

From the November 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx wrote a century ago that all history, since the rise of class divided society, has been a history of class struggles. Constitutions have been made and unmade, kings dethroned and executed, treaties and alliances have been sworn (and broken), wars and civil wars have been fought, all involving the interests of rival classes; though the class interest at stake has always been half-hidden under the slogans phrased in terms of supposedly universal truths and philosophies.

Though modern capitalist writers are constantly having the real nature of the struggles forced on their attention, they usually abhor admitting it. When Liberals and Tories fight elections they are ready enough to accuse each other of having sinister designs against the workers, but neither—for obvious reasons—will admit that it fights to further the interest of its own section of the propertied class. So with wars, each of which has its appropriate collection of abstract aims and justifications—democracy, freedom of the seas, national independence, self-determination, rule of law, the just rights of superior races, etc., etc. On the Allied side in this war pride of place has been given to the idea of overthrowing dictatorship, and to suit this view politicians and the Press have studiously refrained from harping on the fact that a large number of the Allied countries are themselves dictatorships.

This expedient lack of candour has not, of course, been applied so rigorously to neutral countries. So when Russia made its treaty with Germany in August, 1939, it was permissible to refer to Russia as a dictatorship. “If war comes,” said the Daily Express (August 26th, 1939), “the issue will be clearer. The democracies will be ranged against totalitarian States.” Naturally that candour lapsed again when Russia became an Ally and is now customarily described as a democracy.

Later in the war most of the South American Republics, many of them dictatorships, gave support to the Allied side, with, however, the notable exception of Argentina, which has been much criticised for showing no enthusiasm. Criticism has been levelled against the near-Fascist dictatorship in that country, and the unilluminating explanation that has contented the capitalist press has been that the Argentine Government is anti-Ally because its own ideas are against democracy, and it therefore “sympathises” with Nazi Germany. Such an “explanation” is obviously inadequate. If sympathies and abstract ideals were a real guide to international alignments, half the history of all the Powers would be utterly incomprehensible, since they have all of them waged wars in the past in alliances which contained Christian Powers on opposite sides, Christian and non-Christian Powers on the same side, democratic powers and dictatorships, kingdoms and republics, white and yellow peoples all in seemingly inexplicable groupings. Let us, however, look further at Argentina.

The first curious fact to notice is that democratic U.S.A. and democratic Great Britain are at loggerheads over the attitude to be adopted towards Argentina. Roosevelt’s Government—in the name of democracy—wants stronger action against this South American Republic which is out of step, but the British Government holds aloof and wants to continue its existing trading relationships. The Economist (August 5th, 1944), putting the British capitalist point of view, admits that something else enters into the question besides abstract ideals, that something else being “British long-term trading interests.” “For decades,” says the Economist, “Argentina has been one of the main suppliers of cheap food for Britain’s industrial population. In return, it has been a valuable market for British goods, and a fertile ground for British capital—to the great benefit of both Countries.”

The article goes on to remark rather acidly that “In British eyes, American policy in Argentina is suspected of being moved less by the desire to defeat Hitler than by the desire to extend the influence of Washington from the northern half of South America to Cape Horn—in short, by a doubtless beneficent but none the less real imperialism.”

Then the writer quotes the President of the American Import-Export Bank, who admitted that when U.S.A. interests lend money to South American borrowers, the U.S.A. insists “that all machinery and materials not available in the country of the borrower shall be purchased or leased in the United States, and that such machinery and materials shall be transported in American ships.”

This is a usual procedure when capitalism lends abroad, and has its counterpart in a British-Argentine agreement of 1935, which forced Argentina “to discriminate against American goods.”

In short, Britain and U.S.A. are both moved by the capitalist necessity of finding markets and favourable areas for investment of capital.

Further light is thrown on the situation by a candid letter from an American correspondent, Isobel Fisk, in the Economist for September 23rd, 1944.

She largely admits the charge of imperialism against the U.S. Government, but urges that on a long view Britain and U.S.A. should act together because if they don’t it will be worse for both of them. Her case, in brief, is this : Argentina has been almost entirely an agrarian country producing wheat, meat, etc., for export, and importing machinery and other manufactured goods from Britain. This has suited both the British industrialists and investors and the Argentine landowning class, the latter having fought “tooth and nail” against efforts by rival Argentine interests to build up manufacturing industry in that country. (According to the Statesmen’s Year Book, 1940, there were in the whole country only 36 factories employing more than l,000 workers, in a population which totals 13,000,000.)

The rival Argentine interests are those behind the present dictatorship of President Farrell. They want to build up industry and end Argentina’s dependency on the British market. Their argument, in the words of Colonel Labarca, a member of the Argentine Government, is that “in the twentieth century all countries are trying to process their own raw materials; they know, that they can obtain very low prices by direct sale; they know that, on the other hand, when industrialised they will manufacture a wide variety of products and will utilise by-products, which will give work to their labourers. . . . Everybody now knows that a country has either the economy of a colony or of a world power, and that only the countries which are capable of elaborating what nature places within their reach are worthy of preserving their independence. . …”

The issue, then, in Argentina is not just one of democracy and dictatorship, but whether the landowners or the growing industrialists shall dominate, and the latter are prepared to use dictatorship and armed force to impose their will.

Miss Fisk, though the words she uses are that British and American interests should join together to try “to put down this American brand of Fascism which has sprung up in Buenos Aires,” makes no attempt to conceal the real issue. If Colonel Farrell and his fellow-Fascists succeed, “British investments,” she says, are “in mortal danger.” and “the system by which Britain bought Argentine meat and sold manufactures is doomed to go.”

The Economist, however, doubts whether an attempt to coerce Argentina now would be practicable, and is not prepared to support such a policy if the outcome is to be that of enabling American capital to get control there. Rather the Economist would prefer to wait till the end of the war in the evident hope that the changed situation then will put back the state of affairs that existed in 1939, with the landowners in power and British investments and exports safeguarded not only against Farrell’s group but also against U.S.A. interests. So much for the proclaimed concern of the British and American Governments with the establishment of democracy and overthrow of dictatorship.

There is another class interest that neither the Economist nor Miss Fisk takes into account, the world-wide interest of the working class. We are not concerned to prop up one or the other propertied class in Argentina, nor to try to safeguard British investments, or to make an open door for the products and investments of U.S.A. capitalists. The paramount interest of the working class inside and outside Argentina is to destroy the capitalist system and institute Socialism. Then there will be no problems of markets and investments to solve, and no country will have to face the choice between being a colony or a world power — all will be Socialist.

Edgar Hardcastle

Why Some Employers Favour a Forty-Hour Week (1944)

From the November 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

More and more State and enlightened employers are realising that a shorter working week is needed if they are to hold their own in the world’s markets, and continue to reap profits from the labour of their workpeople.

In an article which appeared in the Daily Herald dated July 31st, 1944, entitled “Forty Hours Shalt Thou Labour,” George Thomas stated : “The standard working week in most industries within five years would be forty hours instead of the present 47 or 48 hours.” He also said: “They (the employers) know that in a highly mechanised industry it is much more important to get full employment for one’s costly machines than to get long hours of work from the individual workers.” Amongst other things a shorter working day will save the employer light and power, which mean more ease and comfort for them and additional profits into the bargain.

The writer continued : “Long before the war, one of the chiefs of a great Midland engineering firm told me we could introduce a four-hour working day here without difficulty and without any real (money) sacrifice by our men.” A more recent statement by another Midland factory chief, Mr. H. M. Crankshaw, this year’s president of the Birmingham Exchange : “As a practical industrialist I am perfectly satisfied that if every one really worked on an efficient basis for four days a week, we could keep the world going and have three days a week for recreation.” A shorter working week would be a real benefit to the workers if other things remained the same, but they do not. Herbert Tracey, writing in the “Labour Press Service” for June 28th, 1944. shows that the reduction in working hours increased production in a number of factories engaged on war production. On the workers’ side it is true they will have more time off, but this will be counter-balanced by the fact that they will be speeded up and will need more rest to recover from their tiredness.

As a machine minder in the bedding trade, I have realised by experience that I get tired more quickly tending a machine than, say, ripping a remakes by hand or filling mattresses by hand. The introduction of machinery has the effect of continually reducing the number of people needed to produce a given amount of wealth. Every advance of machinery at the same time makes greater the difference between what the worker produces and what he buys back (because his product increases while his wages remain stationary). The result is that production increases more rapidly than demand in the established trades, and consequently the workers find their labour-power unsaleable.

Machinery being introduced in the factory is not an evil in itself : it is because this machinery is privately owned by the employers, whilst the workers own nothing but their labour power. When articles are produced solely for use instead of for profit, when all are workers and there are no idlers, when wealth can be turned out quicker, shorter hours will be a real benefit to society as a whole instead of what we have to-day—two warring groups in the capitalists who want more profit, and the workers who want more wages.

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” So when the workers decide to abolish the wages system, they will destroy once and for all time the last stage of human slavery, and introduce for the first time in history human happiness and freedom for all. Speed the day for classless society!

J. E. Roe

Editorial: Trade Union Congress re-affirms its Belief in Capitalism (1944)

Editorial from the November 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

While re-iterating trade union demands for a higher standard of living and for changes in the structure and control of industry, the T.U.C. at Blackpool accepted the continuance of capitalist industry and trade and the exploitation of the workers through the wages system. Always the formula is the same, that of condemning particular abuses and coining vague phrases asking for sweeping changes, while at the same time voting for detailed schemes which accept the fundamentals of capitalism.

One resolution called on the Governments of the United Nations to insert in the peace settlement a statement of social principles and objectives as recommended by the International Labour Conference at Philadelphia (Daily Herald, October 20th, 1944). We only need to concern ourselves with two points in the “Declaration of Philadelphia” to see what a fraudulent document it is from the standpoint of working-class emancipation. The first clause is the short affirmation “Labour is not a commodity.” Technically, of course, this is true since the commodity the worker sells is not “labour” itself but “labour-power”; but no doubt those who drafted the clause were only being slipshod in using the wrong word. What they thought they were doing was giving an answer to the Socialist charge that under the wages system the worker is merely the seller of a commodity, his own mental and physical energies. They thought that if in some formal document signed by the capitalist governments it is affirmed that labour-power is not a commodity, then it ceases to be a commodity. Yet every observer who looks at things as they are, including the Labour representatives who endorsed it at the I.L.O. and the T.U.C., knows that labour-power is and remains what it has always been under capitalism a commodity bought in the market, just like the other commodities the capitalist buys. In effect, the I.L.O.’s reply to the question, “Will you abolish the wages system?” is the assurance that there is no wages system. Just as if a fireman, asked if he would or would not put out a fire that is consuming a house, replies “There is no fire.”

A later point in the precious Philadelphia Charter betrays the truth. Having declared that labour-power is not a commodity, the Charter goes on to define the conditions under which this allegedly non-existent commodity is to be sold, by demanding—

“Policies in regard to wages and earnings, hours and other conditions of work calculated to ensure a just share of the fruits of progress to all, and a minimum living wage to all employed and in need of such protection.”

Another T.U.C. resolution endorsed the General Council’s Report on Post-War Reconstruction. Although the Report attacks the existing organisation and control of industry it has nothing to offer but well-worn phrases about public ownership as a description of its proposed schemes of a slightly changed private ownership. Some industries are to be “publicly owned,” by which the Report means “taken over by a public corporation” (Daily Herald, October 3rd, 1944). The present owners will give up their shareholdings in the existing concerns and receive in return Government bonds. “Basis for buying out the present owners, it is suggested, should be ‘reasonable net maintainable revenue’— that is, on the actual earnings over a period of years and on the probability of their continuance” (Daily Herald, October 3rd, 1944).

Industries not ripe for the public corporation form of State capitalism are to be regulated by Industrial Boards set up by the Government. Workers and employers are to have equal representation on the Boards, but the chairman and a small number of other independent members are to be appointed by the Government. The chairman and his “independent” colleagues will be able to decide all issues on which employers and workers are equally divided, but in what way they will be independent the T.U.C. does not explain. They will, of course, be entirely dependent on the capitalist state, committed to trying to keep capitalist industry running smoothly.

This, by the way, is a familiar device by the Fascist countries. In the name of democracy, the workers, who outnumber the capitalists by, say, ten to one, are to have “equal” representation with them.

Congress decided by a 4 to 1 majority that the German people share the guilt of their Nazi rulers. Sir Walter Citrine, saying there has been too much mushy sentimentality about this business, told Congress that when the Allies march into Berlin “we shall find so many anti-Nazis full of assurances that they have always been against the Nazis that it will be difficult to know who has been carrying on the war in Germany” (News-Chronicle, October 19th, 1944).

Millions of German workers (but by no means all) have indeed supported the interests of their capitalist exploiters in the Nazi Party, but Sir W. Citrine and the majority of T.U.C. delegates are surely the least fitted to protest against people who support what they profess to oppose, for has not the T.U.C. for decades re-iterated its denunciations of capitalism while continually supporting capitalism, and on occasion (as at present) giving its backing to avowedly capitalist politicians and governments? Since capitalism is the cause of war, none who support capitalism can disclaim responsibility for war.

According to the Daily Mail (October 20th), one proposal accepted by Congress was that utility goods should be continued after the war. This very humble request just about typifies present relationship of the T.U.C. with the capitalist class “We are only poor workers,” the proposal says in effect “we don’t ask for the good things we make for the rich, but please see we have a regular supply of the second-rate, the substitute the cheap and nasty.”

With equal humility Congress passed about its 15th protest resolution against the 1927 Trades Dispute Act though at present it is only protesting because the Prime Minister has continued, like his predecessor in office the late Mr. Neville Chamberlain, to withhold even the token concession asked for. The T.U.C. missed the bus by not getting something done four years ago. As it is they have waited until the capitalists— free from preoccupation with Germany—can give them undivided attention. They will no doubt get what they deserve.

It is sometimes instructive to take notice of what your opponents say about you. The T.U.C. is allegedly anti-capitalist, while Lord Beaverbrook’s Evening Standard is openly in favour of capitalism. What the T.U.C. does ought on this assumption to meet with the disapproval and apprehension of the capitalist press.. Instead, the Evening Standard assures its readers that the T.U.C. (despite its attack on non-union journalists sent as reporters) is quite harmless. Any who think the T.U.C. has moved “to the left,” says the Standard can be comforted. Congress accepted policies that are satisfactory to many people on the right. Congress for example, agreed that labour should continue to be directed— in other words conscripted— after the war. Congress steered steadily towards that Trade Union-Big Business collaboration which is anathema to the left.” (Evening Standard, October 20th, 1944).

The millionaire Press may be comforted, but present T.U.C. policy will bring no comfort to men and women trade unionists in the hard years before them.

“Something Worse Than War” (1944)

From the November 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

“From 1939 to 1942 the deaths from tuberculosis in Great Britain were greater in number than the total killed in the first four years of the war (United Kingdom Forces).”

“During 1942 the deaths from tuberculosis were three times as many as for factory, mining and road accidents combined.”

This very revealing information we quote from the July 1944 issue of the Monthly Journal of the A.E.U. The accompanying figures were as follows :—

Thus we see the damage to human life that has been wrought by this silent killer in the years that our senses have been deafened by the din of war. But however disturbing these statistics may be, they do not give the complete picture. The evidence that 123.000 and more people succumbed to this disease from 1939 to 1942 makes it quite clear that there are many more living sufferers from the disease. Of this we can be certain, since a large number of people are living and working in similar conditions. The medical men emphatically declare that tuberculosis is an acquired, not an inherited disease. We accept their conclusion, but would add that while it may not be possible to inherit tuberculosis by birth, we note the inheritance of the living and working conditions in which tuberculosis is acquired. From the standpoint of biology, tuberculosis does not “run in families,” but by fact of the economic circumstances of the mass of wage slaves, the disease does run very largely in one big family—that of the working class.

As quoted earlier, the Monthly Journal of the A.E.U. compares the deaths from tuberculosis in 1942 with the figures of fatal accidents from factories, mines and roads for the same year. In spite of the ratio of three to one, we say without hesitation that tuberculosis is no accident! At this point it is interesting to take cognisance of a paragraph dealing with this matter from “The Household Physician” J. M’Gregor-Robertson, revised by David M’Kail, Vol. I., p. 212 (Gresham Pub. Co.) :—

“If all consumptive patients were to expectorate only into special utensils regularly disinfected, and were segregated when helpless and most infectious; if bovine tuberculosis were stamped out or if only sterilised milk were used, and all tuberculous meat and pork were destroyed; if authorities were to insist on a good standard of housing, air space, general hygiene, and to secure the abolition of back lands, ill-lit and ill-ventilated tenements, workshops, and factories, this disease and many others might soon become as extinct as the dodo.”

It is not necessary to point out that the problems of housing, air space, hygiene, back lands and unhealthy tenements, workshops and factories are problems with which the working class are faced. These are our inheritance.

The master class will see to it that not too many wage slaves fall to tuberculosis, otherwise their own profits will be jeopardised. Apparently a mere hundred thousand is not too many. In the political field, therefore, the Socialist Party asks workers to view the state of affairs with determination—determination to abolish a mode of living in which the only consideration for human welfare is that workers shall be able to produce a profit for their masters. And in its place to establish a system of society wherein will obtain equal relationship between every man and woman, and accordingly, the absence of a class whose privileged position demands the exploitation of a working class. For out of such exploitation emanates the poverty, insecurity, squalor and disease of which tuberculosis is but one example.

F. T. Burvill.

What should Women do to be Free? (1944)

From the November 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Looking through an old copy of the Socialist Standard, the writer came across a series of articles based on lectures on that seemingly eternal subject, “The Women’s Question.” Like unemployment, it is always with us, and will remain so until the inception of Socialism.

Woman cannot expect emancipation, any more than can her fellow-worker, man, under the existing system, capitalism. The amount enjoyed now by the male is merely a question of degree, conditioned mainly by his class position ; if of the working class, he is at liberty to sell his labour power or to starve.

Morgan, in his great work “Ancient Society,” shows clearly that the subjugation of woman did not come about to any great extent until the importance of private property was realised. Woman then became part of it; she was as important as flocks and herds, because she was reproductive, and she had no more freedom. Companionship and affection between the male and female had not yet been realised, and could not enter into the contract. The husband punished infidelity with severity, whilst reserving for himself the right of promiscuity. A section of women became courtesans, thus filling the needs of man for enjoyment outside his own home. These were found in the early civilisations of Rome and Greece, where the married women had no rights or freedom. Man then became the head of the family, over which he exercised power of life or death; property descended through the male line instead of the female, as heretofore, and the female lost all right of expressing herself and putting her point of view as she had been accustomed to so doing in the savage tribes. Her place became the home, whilst the man developed for himself a life outside it and generally had some voice in public affairs. Thus began the possibility of the charge so often still levelled against woman, that her mind can only appreciate trivialities. Small wonder, she was for so long debarred from all else, and the education available for her brothers was denied her.

Time, coupled with the progress of capitalism, has modified her position somewhat. To the capitalist she has appeared in the guise of a worker who will accept less wages than the male. Her centuries of subjugation were exploited to their fullest extent during the Industrial Revolution. Marx, in “Capital” (Vol. I.), gives a telling quotation from Lord Ashley’s speech on the 10-hours Bill. “Mr. E., a manufacturer, informed me that he employed females exclusively at his power looms . . . gives a decided preference to married females, especially those who have families at home dependent on them for support; they are attentive, docile, more so than unmarried females, and are compelled to use their utmost exertions to procure the necessaries of life. Thus are the virtues, the peculiar virtues of the female character, to be perverted to her injury; thus all that is most dutiful and tender in her nature is made a means of her bondage and suffering.” (Page 100, Glaisher edition.)

During the present war the calling up of men for the armed forces, and the subsequent conscription of women for industry, has once again given the capitalist a golden opportunity for getting more surplus value from his workers. Army pay has been so low, has borne so little relation to the needs of life, that women with small children have been compelled to go into the factory. That it has been the design of the representatives of the capitalist class, the Government, is evident by their provision of war-time nurseries. They are learning how better to enslave their workers from their co-belligerent Russia, who provides factory creches for war workers’ babies, so getting their cheap labour without damaging the next generation of wage slaves. Britain has hitherto been too crude in her methods to make such provision. Mothers have gone out to work and left their children under little or no supervision, which has been one of the causes of infant mortality and disease.

Woman has awakened sufficiently at this time to strive for “equal pay for equal work,” but not enough to demand the abolition of the wages system. She, like her male fellow worker, does not realise the theft that is being perpetrated upon her when she becomes employed. Such slogans tend to increase any antagonism that may exist between the sexes, instead of uniting them against the common enemy, the master class. The possibility of further antagonism may be manifested after this war, when men return from the Army to find, as after the last world war, that the women ensconced in their seats are unwilling to get down, and it will doubtless be exploited by Governments when unemployment once again becomes rife—as indeed it must, despite all “reconstruction schemes.”

An organisation called “Women for Westminster” has recently been born. It has a self-explanatory name and object. What a waste of time and energy such an organisation causes, and what future disillusionment must there be among its adherents ! Supposing they were to have a measure of success according to their aims, and get a predominance of women in the House of Commons. They would find that women, merely as women, can run capitalism no better than can the Labour or Tory Parties.

The Suffragettes have been appalled by the lack of enthusiasm for the vote, following their desperate efforts to gain it. Their lack of knowledge of the make-up of society is the reason for their indignation. Despite the constant propaganda of the press, screen and radio, woman as well as man is sceptical, often unconsciously so, regarding electioneering programmes, which cater for all tastes. Speaking generally, members of the working class are apathetic and not politically conscious. Many, unfortunately, are led away by reform parties, by idolaters of Russia, or by mushroom growths such as Commonwealth.

Many of the reforms regarding women have been implemented since Mary Woolstonecraft wrote her book “The Rights of Women.” These may, in the main, be attributed to the rise of capitalism, which has made it necessary for woman to take her place as part of the industrial army. In countries such as Turkey, for example, where after years of seclusion woman has removed her veil and gone out to work in the factory, it does not merely indicate that opinion there is becoming more liberal, but that the forces of industrial capital are at work looking out for cheap labour. The benefits woman has received in the field of education have been essential for her to take her place in the professional groups, and whilst giving her some individual freedom, have exchanged her quiet home life for that of a competitive existence.

Many women intent on emancipation have sublimated their natural instincts. This is undoubtedly possible for the possessor of an interesting and absorbing job, but as most work has been reduced to routine by the division of labour, characteristic of capitalist organisations, little permanent satisfaction is obtained thereby. With the present knowledge of birth control, the modern working woman denies herself the pleasure of children rather than bring them into a world, for them, of abject poverty. Frustration is thus found on all sides; denied an interesting and creative job, denied the rightful expression of her normal instincts, woman becomes, like the male worker, another machine for productivity and exploitation by the capitalist.

Whilst capitalism lasts, women will remain, like men, in a subject position, no matter how far progress is made towards equality with men. The interests of women are therefore identical with men in struggling for the overthrow of the present system, as it is only under Socialism that both will find real emancipation.

W. P.

A Change in the Catholic Attitude to Russia? (1944)

From the November 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Times (September 16th, 1944) prints a report from a special correspondent in Rome on an expected Papal pronouncement dealing with the relationship of the Catholic Church with Russia. Here are two extracts from the correspondent’s article : —

“There is reason to believe that the Pope is preparing to make a fresh pronouncement on the subject of Communism. Such a step seems highly probable in view of the decisive role which Soviet Russia is assuming in world affairs.”

“At the present time the Catholic Church’s two stock guides on the attitude to be adopted towards Communism are Pius XI’s two famous encyclicals, Quadragesimo anno, issued in 1931, which denounces its atheistic basis, and Divini redemptoris (1937), which attacks its propagation of the class war.

“The reconciliation of the Soviet Government with the Orthodox Church deprives the former pronouncement of some of its point, while recent declarations of Communist leaders such as Togliatti, who was for years vice-secretary of the Comintern, that Communism envisages neither the destruction of the middle class nor of private property, are bound to leave some doubt in Catholic minds. The fact that a political group could be formed in Italy under the name of the Catholic Communists shows clearly how much new directives are needed.

“It is possible that the Pope may not go to the length of indicting a new encyclical in answer to these questions, but he may issue instructions in a simpler form, explaining how far collaboration is permissible between Roman Catholics and Communists in practical matters, and where it must cease.”

"Irish Freedom" Declines our Advertisements (1944)

From the November 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Although the journal “Irish Freedom” solicits paid advertisements and had agreed to insert a notice of our July issue, the Editor, Mr. Pat Dooley, later wrote saying that his Editorial Board had decided it was unable to insert it. Could it be that they did not approve the Socialist comment on the Irish General Election?

SPGB Meetings (1944)

Party News from the November 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Voice From The Back: Land of the Free? (2006)

The Voice From The Back Column from the November 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Land of the Free?

The following report from Washington paints a dreadful picture of modern capitalism. “In the world’s biggest economy, one in eight Americans and almost one in four blacks lived in poverty last year, the US Census Bureau said on Tuesday, releasing a figure almost unchanged from 2004” (Reuters, 29 August), The report went on to say: “In all, some 37 million Americans lived below the poverty line, defined as having an annual income around $10,000 (£5,300)) for an individual or $20,000 (£10,600) for a family of four.” 200 quid a week for a family of four, and they wonder why they have a crime problem?

Homeless in Britain?

The Department for Communities and Local Government announced that the number of homeless families in England had dropped to 19,430 between June and April this year, down 29 percent on the same period in 2005, but charities have queried these figures. “There are as many as 380,000 hidden homeless people, predominately single, in Britain living out of sight,” says Duncan Scrubsole, head of policy and strategy at Crisis” (Inside Housing, 15 September). Adam Sampson, the chief executive of Shelter, also queries the government’s figures. “Any drop in new cases is to be welcomed, provided this is brought about by genuine work to prevent people from losing their homes in the first place, rather than preventing them from registering to get the help they need” (Times, 19 September). Anyone taking the government figures at face value, should remember the old saying “figures don’t lie, but liars can figure.”

Fat Cat Britain

When the Labour Party came to power we were told “things can only get better” and so they have – for the super rich. “A global survey of the lists of the wealthiest people in 27 leading countries shows that Britain and Switzerland have by far the biggest communities of foreign-born super-rich in the world. Switzerland, with its reputation for banking secrecy and strict regulations, has long been regarded as a magnet for multi-millionaires. But Britain, with the special attraction of tax incentives for billionaires from overseas, is fast catching up as a new refuge for the rich” (Sunday Times, 24 September). Britain now has more billionaires per head of its population than America. Was this what members of the working class envisaged on election day when they sang “things can only get better”?

Interested in Interest?

The Koran prohibits something called riba, loosely translated as interest and this has hindered the development of capitalism. Something similar happened in medieval times when the christians banned usury, but the theologist soon found a way around that and now we have thriving banks in the Vatican. Islam theology may have taken a little longer but now they have joined the capitalist bandwagon. “Islamic banking scholars have found ways of accommodating their philosophical abhorrence of money as a commodity with the need to create financing tools. Typically, this involves converting interest into a rent or a profit share” (Times, 30 September). The Koran may hold sway in the mosque, but outside in the real world capitalism dictates.

A Fistful Of Dollars

Being homeless in Britain may be awful, but think how much worse to be sleeping rough in a Russian winter. That is a problem that does not confront the Russian billionaire Roustam Tariko to judge by this item. “At a palace in St Petersburg, which has been converted into a disco for the night by Moscow’s most fashionable party organisers, the vodka flows and a New York disco diva sings Thank You for the Music, while ballet dancers pirouette around her. … Roustam Tariko, the man picking up the $3 million (£1.6 million) tab for the party, turns to me: ‘People like you are already tired of $100,000 parties. They are nothing special for you’” (Times, 7 October). If a Moscow winter proves too severe he can always flee to his house in New York or Sardina, an escape that is impossible for the Russian homeless.

A Handful Of Pennies

It is reckoned that 1.9 million children under the age of five die every year from diarrhoeal diseases and that the means of saving their lives only cost a couple of pence. “The result, according to the World Health Organization (WHO): 3 million people a year still die from diarrhoeal complications, including 1.9 million children under the age of five, or 17% of the estimated deaths in that age group” (Time, 16 October). All that is required is a large pinch of salt and a fistful of sugar dissolved in a jug of clean water, but in the crowded cities and remote areas of the world’s poorest this has proved impossible. Capitalism breeds poverty and ignorance and makes this madness possible. The establishment of world socialism will almost immediately save these 3 million people from premature death.