John Keracher and the Michigan Marxists (1996)

From the Jul-Aug 1996 issue of the Discussion Bulletin

John Keracher was born in Scotland in 1880. In 1909, be emigrated to the United States, settled in Detroit and. some time later, became a shoe salesman. Early in 1910. he came into contact with the Socialist Party of America, founded in 1901. In April, he joined the Party.

Despite its name, the Socialist Party of America did not have as its objective—its sole objective—the establishment of socialism. It was a basically left-wing, social democratic, reformist Party with, at that time, hundreds of thousands of members and supporters. And prior to the First World War, almost every kind of radical and reformer could be found in its ranks. Of the Party, and the various publications which supported it. Keracher observed:

. . . I heard some of its members speaking about the Materialist Conception of History. 1 had never heard the term before and was curious to know just what it meant. 

Approaching those members, 1 asked for an explanation. Soon, I discovered, as it seemed to me then, that there was something mysterious about it. They told me that they believed in it and were sure that it was quite scientific . . . 

meanwhile, I had subscribed to a number of socialist papers and started to read socialist books and pamphlets. Soon I noticed that there was much contradiction existing on socialist theory. The authors and editors held different views, often quite opposite, on important questions of principle. This was explained to me as a permissible difference of opinion on the part of the writers’. I was assured that everything was all right, that in a democratic movement, such as ours, much allowance must be made for individual opinion'. (How The Gods Were Made)

Keracher was not satisfied with such answers. Directly opposite views could not both be correct Something must be wrong, he felt which permitted such a wide tinge of opinion on the principles of socialism. John Keracher decided to find out for himself.

Among the books which I had bought were some by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels . . . I turned my attention to their writings and after a time began to grasp what was meant by the Materialist Conception of History. The more I read of their writings the clearer it became to me. I began to overcome my former indefinite position on religion, and upon other questions, such as social reforms, the function of industrial organizations (i.e. the unions), the State, and other institutions. I came to the conclusion that if Marx and Engels were correct, a great many others calling themselves socialists, must be wrong. (How The Gods Were Made)

Soon after, Keracher initiated an ambitious education programme, throughout Michigan, based on the study of the writings of Marx and Engels. Out of this grew what was termed the proletarian University, in which Keracher was its most popular lecturer Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the Socialist Party of Great Britain had published, in 1910, a pamphlet titled Socialism and Religion, an analysis of religion based on the very Materialist Conception of History which had concerned John Keracher when he joined the Socialist Party of America. Copies of Socialism and Religion soon found their way to North America, and began to circulate within both the Socialist Party of Canada and sections of the SPA. such as Michigan and Detroit.

War and the Revolutionary Tea Drinkers

The First World War came is a great shock to the Socialist Party of America. At first. America was not involved, but many American workers had relatives in Europe. So, reluctantly, many took sides in what was their masters’ quarrel. Many Socialist Party members did likewise. Not so in Detroit, however.

In Britain, right from the start, the Socialist Party of Great Britain opposed the war. But, because of its opposition, and the harassment of many of its members, some went on the run or escaped abroad. This was to affect the already militant Michigan section of the SPA under the influence of Keracher and others such as Dennis Batt.

Detroit was the centre of the automobile industry, and the auto workers suffered intense exploitation which tended to make them more militant, and sympathetic towards socialist ideas, than elsewhere in the United States. Not surprisingly, therefore, the SPA in that city began to look towards anti-war Marxists in Europe in general, and Britain in particular. The Michigan section soon came under the influence of the SPGB.

In 1915, an active and charismatic member of the SPGB, Moses Baritz, arrived in Detroit, to be followed some time later by another member, Adolph Kohn. Baritz was soon holding lectures in Duffield Hall and elsewhere, and was joined by members of the Socialist Party of Canada. By 1916, Moses Baritz had moved on (and was later jailed for his anti-war activities when America became involved) but Adolph Kohn continued propagating socialist ideas. Meanwhile, a small group in Toronto, across the border to north-east in Canada, had organized themselves as the Socialist Party of North America, and had adopted the object and declaration of principles of the SPGB. A number of members of the SPA in Detroit felt that it was time that Marxist socialists in the United States should break away from the reformist Socialist Party, and form a new revolutionary Party, also basing itself on the object and principles of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

John Keracher and Dennis Batt were themselves very sympathetic towards the 'revolutionary tea drinkers’, as the pro-SPGB group was called; but they thought that for the time being, Marxists should remain within the SPA, and try to influence it towards socialism, rather than organize a new, separate, political party

Workers and Proletarian Parties

Nevertheless, particularly at the urging of Adolph Kohn. a small group finally decided to organize a new Socialist Party. And on July 7 I916, the Socialist Party of the United States, adopting the Object and Declaration of principles of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, was formed in Detroit. About 20 members of the SPA resigned immediately, including a young socialist named I. Rab. But due to the fact that the organization was unable to make effective contact with socialists outside Michigan, and was without funds, they only began with 42 members Bill Davenport became the first secretary, Bill Gribble the first organizer and Lawrence Beardsley wrote the Party's manifesto The writer, Jack London just before his death, resigned from the SPA. and wrote the new party "I congratulate you and wish you well in your adventure." Meanwhile, the SPA in Detroit went from strength to strength, although the new Party's influence remained strong. Indeed, in August 1918, the SPA in Michigan, under John Keracher. founded a new journal, The Proletarian, and like the new Party adopted the Object and Declaration of Principles of the SPGB. The new Socialist Party of the United States, however, was informed that the SPA had copyrighted the name “Socialist Party” and so, for legal reasons, renamed their party the Workers' Socialist Party of the United States (WSP/US). (In 1947, it was renamed a second time as the World Socialist Party.)

John Keracher and the Michigan Socialist Party, which had become among the largest of the Socialist Party's state organizations, came more and more in conflict with the national leadership. In 1917, revolution broke out in Russia, followed by the Bolshevik coup d'etat. Although John Keracher was well aware that a socialist revolution had not occurred in Russia, he and most of the SPA members in Detroit, like many, workers and radicals elsewhere, became a vehement supporter of Bolshevism. Not only did this mean the parting of the ways between Keracher and the "revolutionary tea drinkers" of the WSP and the SPGB, but also, in May 1919, the expulsion of the Michigan section of the Socialist Party of America, ostensibly for the Michigan section's anti-religious stance, in violation of the Party's statutes.

At an emergency meeting of the expelled Michigan members in June 1919, a resolution was passed calling for a new revolutionary party, to be formed in Chicago on September 1; and on that date, Keracher, Dennis Batt and others from the expelled Michigan section of the SPA, took part in the founding of a Communist Party. (At two simultaneous conventions, in Chicago, two Communist parties were formed!); fundamental disagreements, however, soon made it impossible for Keracher and the Michigan group to remain in the newly-formed Communist Party. Almost alone (except for the WSP), Keracher, Batt and their comrades were the only "communists" who did not believe that a proletarian revolution as imminent in the United States. Keracher also opposed the Communist Party's clandestine and anti-electoral orientation, its dual unionism, its "federation of federations" and its reformism. So, within a few months, in January 1920, the so-called Communists first tried unsuccessfully to take over Keracher's Proletarian University by force and, then, charged him and the other Michigan members, with Menshevism, and expelled them.

Six months later, in June 1920, the expelled members and several others, founded the Proletarian Party.

Union activists

The membership of the Proletarian Party was never more than 500 at the most; its stronghold remaining in the industrial midwest, especially in Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Flint and Rochester. It sent a delegate to the third congress of the Communist International, in Moscow, in June 1921, yet despite efforts by CI officials to get the "Proletarians" to re-enter the American Communist Party, the Proletarian Party stubbornly refused to, and pursued its own course while still supporting the Communist International globally. Indeed, not until the mid-1930s, when Keracher opposed the Popular Front, particularly during the Spanish Civil War, did the Proletarian Party actually challenge the authority of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union internationally.

Notwithstanding the Proletarian Party's support for Bolshevism internationally, the Proletarian Party remained a "Menshevik" organization, with a kind of Marxism that owed much to Engels, and little or nothing to Lenin. Its members were, like Keracher himself, deeply influenced by not only Marx and Engels, but also by Darwin, Lewis Henry Morgan and Joseph Dietzgen. And, in this very much like the WSP and SPGB, its activities consisted almost exclusively of study classes, forums, debates, lectures and outdoor "soapbox" meetings. Many of its members, however, were active Trade Unionists.

During the 1933 Briggs Auto Body strike in Detroit, Proletarian Party members were very active; and, later, they were involved in sit-downs in Flint and elsewhere. In the early days of the United Auto Workers, their speakers spoke to large crowds, and for a small organization, the Proletarian Party provided the UAW with a large number of its best organizers, such as Frank Marquart who was initially influenced by I. Rab and Emil Mazey. Many other members of the Proletarian Party became top officials of other unions, including Carl Berreitter of the International Typographical Union, Al Renner of the Restaurant Workers, and Sam Meyers of the Retail Clerks. And many others. Yet the Party suffered a large turnover of membership. By 1940, it had lost much of its membership. And by 1971, the Proletarian Party just faded away. Nevertheless, John Keracher left his mark, not only in Michigan but even as far away as Britain.

He wrote countless leaflets, as well as articles for the Proletarian News. And some of his pamphlets, such as Producers and Parasites (1935), Crime—its Causes and Consequences (1937) and particularly How The Gods Were Made (1929), all of which were published, not by the Proletarian Party, but by Charles H. Kerr and Company of Chicago, which Keracher had taken over from an ageing Charles Kerr in 1928, found their way to Britain, and into the hands of members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain including this writer.

John Keracher left Detroit for Chicago in the late 1920s and remained there until about 1950, when he retired to Los Angeles. He died in 1958.

The World Socialist Party

Following the entry of the United States into the First World War in 1917, and the subsequent persecutions of radicals, socialists and anti-war groups, the members of the WSP were forced to go underground, curtail their activities or to move away from Detroit, to other parts of the United States. And, like Keracher some members of the WSP supported the Bolsheviks, at least for a time. During the infamous Palmer Red Raids of 1919, thousands of workers, including socialists, were arrested.

Nevertheless, despite the difficulties, members of the WSP in Detroit carried on as the Detroit Socialist Educational Society between 1919 and 1922. In 1921, I. Rab moved from Detroit to Boston where he worked tireless for socialism, for many more decades. The Detroit Local of the WSP came and went over the years; and at one period, during the 1950s, it took over the functions of the WSP National Headquarters. At the moment of writing, there is no active local of the World Socialist Party in Detroit.

Peter E. Newell, 

Colchester, England

Sources:

The Monument, Robert Barltrop.

Jack London, Robert Barltrop.

Encyclopaedia of the American Left, edited by Mari Jo Buhle and others. 

The Western Socialist, No.4,1966.

Crime—Its Causes and Consequences, John Keracher.

Producers and Parasites, John Keracher.

How The Gods Were Made, John Keracher.

Letter from Ronald Elbert, 30 March 1996.

World Communism: A Handbook, edited by Witold S. Sworakowski.

Blogger's Note:

I thought this short historical article from Frank Girard's Discussion Bulletin would be of interest to readers of the blog. The author of the article, the late Peter E. Newell, was a member of the SPGB in the '50s and '60s, and rejoined the party in the 1990s after long period in-between involved in anarchist politics. Peter had a longstanding interest in the history of radical movements in the Americas, and as well as writing a biography of Zapata in the 1970s, he also wrote a history of Canadian impossibilism in 2008.

Frank Girard's reasons for originally publishing the article are worth reposting:

"The DB isn't a socialist history magazine, but Peter Newell's article on John Keracher and Revolutionary Perspective's article on the British SLP both relate to a key period, 1918-20, when Lenin and the Bolsheviks were using worldwide enthusiasm among workers for the Russian Revolution and the unlimited cash they came into when they grabbed power in Russia to establish their hegemony over the revolutionary wing of the international socialist movement. I never met Keracher, but I knew one of his admirers, Clarence Ford, in Grand Rapids in the early fifties. Like many working class revolutionaries he was shockingly—to me in those days—uninterested in the relative doctrinal purity of socialist organizations and had been a member of both the SLP and Keracher's Proletarian Party, and from reading Newell's article I gather that the refusal of Keracher and his party to become a part of the CP was based on principle and not just personal antagonisms as I had assumed."

The Lies of Liberalism. A Record of False Pretence and Low Cunning. (1910)

From the August 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

Without a Blush.

In the course of his Budget speech. Mr. Lloyd George dwelt upon the wonderful extent of industry and trade. He indulged in the usual lies about working-class prosperity and foreshadowed “the better time coming,” in the following words :

“The commercial world everywhere is in better heart. There is more enterprise and everything makes the prospect much brighter. I am told, on authority, I cannot doubt, that we shall probably see a greater volume of trade this year and next than has ever been witnessed in the history of this country . . . All indications are that this year’s trade will be good, that next year’s trade will be better, that the people will be prosperous and that therefore the revenue will show an expansion.”

Will the people be prosperous ? If by the “people” is meant the workers we deny it and submit she following lesson from the past (provided by the Liberals themselves) as evidence in support of our point of view.

In the leading article of the Daily Chronicle (amongst other papers) for June 6th, 1903, we were told :

“Opportunely there are published this morning two official returns of great interest and importance with regard to British Trade. . . The figures tell a tale both absolutely and relatively of great prosperity. . . . They show that the whole volume of British Trade has increased from 764 millions sterling in 1898 to 877 in 1902 . . . we have such evidence before us that we are doing very well as we are.”

In the very same issue appears a report of the now famous speech delivered on the previous day in the City Hall, Perth, by Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman, who said :

“We know that there is about 30% of our population underfed, on the verge of hunger. . . The condition of the people is serious enough under Free Trade ; it is a question which haunts us, and surely the fact that about 30% of the population in living with the grip of perpetual poverty upon it, is and ought to be a sufficient answer to the Prime Minister.”

Our Splendid Civilisation.

It was also in that “boom” year that Mr. Winston Churchill made his speech at Edinburgh, during which he said :

“I have often asked myself whether our splendid civilisation really conferred blessings on all classes. Is it true to say that the poorest man in Scotland is not any happier than poorest Hottentot or the poorest Eskimo? I am inclined to think that he is not any happier but perhaps more miserable. He is homeless in the heart of great cities ; such as never was never seen on earth before and he suffers the privations of the savage with the nerves of civilised man.

“To compare the life and lot of the African aboriginal—secure in his abyss of contented degradation, rich in that he lacks everything and wants nothing—with the long nightmare of worry and privation, of dirt and gloom and squalor, lit only by gleams of torturing knowledge and tantalizing hope, which constitutes the lives of so many poor people in England and Scotland, is to feel the ground tremble underfoot.”

Despite the widespread poverty, the Liberal Party are very active just now, in claiming that unemployment is rapidly declining and that the conditions of life for all are improving because of the advance of commerce. But let the reader reflect on the facts given above showing the existence of terrible poverty at the same time as an unequalled increase in the amount of wealth produced and it will then be clearly seen that the claims of Liberalism are fraudulent.

A Fraudulent Claim Exposed.

We are continually told that the recent legislation of the Liberals is beneficial to the workers. An examination of the chief items will show how groundless is this statement.

The Board of Trade Labour Exchanges (opened February 1st, 1910) have been hailed with delight in many quarters. Below we give the returns published in the April, May and June issues of the “Board of Trade Labour Gazette.” It should be understood that the number of applicants practically represents different persons, because renewals are not again counted.

During	No. of applications for work	No. of vacancies filled
February	216,813	12,628
March	126,119	20,395
April	116,523	23,858
May	100,392	24,025
	559,847	80,906

These figures show how the Liberals have lied about unemployment and the influence of Labour Bureaux. What a fraud ! 80,906 jobs and 559,847 applications for them ! No wonder the number of applicants fell after the first month, seeing how few jobs could be had through them.

How greatly these Exchanges are opposed to the interests of the working class was indicated by recent instances in which they provided strike-breakers. One or two of these cases only are dealt with here, owing to this being an article and not a pamphlet.

Strike-smashing Up to Date.

A London firm of cabinetmakers recently refused to pay the union rate to their workmen. The men were called out by their union but the masters applied to the Labour Exchange for “hands.” (It is true that the regulations require all applicants to be told if a strike is on at the firm applying. But the regulations only exist on paper.) The Exchange wrote the firm asking whether a strike was proceeding as they had been informed so by the union. But the very morning that the letter arrived, and before a reply was sent, men arrived from the Labour Exchange and were taken on.

In June a strike arose at Newport Docks, and Messrs. Houlder Bros, had the good fortune to be supplied with strike smashers by both the Labour Exchange and Mr. Collinson’s Free Labour Association ! Down at Napsbury Pauper Lunatic Asylum, another wing is being built to accommodate the increasing number of workers whom the present system mentally cripples. The contractors for the work sought, in true capitalist spirit, to wring more unpaid labour out of the labourers, paying them 5½d. per hour. . The toilers, directly provoked by this starvation rate, remonstrated on June 15th, and were thereupon paid off. Before many hours had passed strikebreakers arrived from a London Labour Exchange, and supplanted the men on strike.

According to their own account, no mention of there being a strike down at Napsbury was made to the strikebreakers.

Another motive our Liberal capitalists had in establishing these Labour Exchanges. A quotation from Leaflet No. 16 (“Rough on Rates”) issued by their Budget League, illustrates this :

“These Labour Exchanges will contain accurate lists of unemployed men and women. By means of telephone a man will be able to find out if there is a job for him in a distant town without going on tramp to the town itself. This means that casual wards maintained by the ratepayers’ money will fall into disuse and large sums of public money will be saved.”

Bearing in mind that it is the property owners and not the workers who pay the rates, we can see whose interests this measure protects.

The same reason causes them to favour unemployment insurance, as the following from the pamphlet quoted above tells us :

“The principle of insurance is that you pay money when times are good and receive it back when times are bad (!) This scheme means therefore that during periods of depression, money will be put into circulation, thousands of families kept off the rates,” etc., etc.

A Hair of the Dog that Bit Him.

The Road Development Bill has been produced to lessen unemployment, we are informed. The real position is that commercial progress accompanied by the revolution in modes of transit from the horse-drawn vehicle to the motor, makes necessary to the capitalists the laying of roads more suitable for the heavier traffic of commerce and the pleasure cars of the idle rich.

The method is to have roads that will not need the constant repairing that the present ones do, and the alterations are brought under the control of the national executive of the capitalist class to ensure more economic maintenance, and results in less work being needed to keep the roads in good condition. To quote again from that Liberal bill:

“Improvements will then be effected at the charge of the Treasury, which would otherwise necessarily add to the rates of certain districts, and special attention will be devoted to laying down a more durable and less dusty surface to our highway. This again will relieve local rates.”

Here the old lesson is recalled, that economies effected under capitalism increase unemployment.

After the report of the Royal Commission on Home Work, the Trade Boards Act was passed, setting up minimum wages boards. Hence the cry of the Liberals : “Look what we have done for Labour !” They point out quite jubilantly, that this Act has been welcomed by many of the largest employers !

What actually results from this measure is the alteration of the methods under which exploitation is carried on. Large employers find it less profitable to employ home workers than before. They bring young and more energetic workers into their factories, where the latest wages saving machinery and “speeding up” methods are introduced under carefully adjusted systems of division of labour. The small manufacturer is forced out because of the advantage of the large factory with the big purse behind it. The older workers, who did manage to scrape along by taking work and slaving in their “homes” instead of in the factory, now find it impossible to get work. Thus on every hand these measures prove detrimental to our class owing to wealth being produced under the new methods with fewer workers than before. The larger output for less wages means accentuation of poverty all along the line. The Singer Sewing Machine Co. issued to clothing manufacturers in the North of England, a circular on “The Wholesale Clothing Trade and Labour-Saving Machinery,” drawing attention to an exhibition at Leeds of many wonderful new machines. An extract from it runs :

“The display has already been visited by large numbers of the clothing manufacturers of Yorkshire and Lancashire and more distant parts, and readers interested in the manufacture of clothing may be recommended to learn by a personal visit and inspection, what the new methods and these improved machines may mean to them, especially in view of the now Trade Boards Act which is now coming into operation.”

The Housing and Town Planning Act is also instanced by the Liberals as beneficial legislation and it therefore calls for a few words to show its essentially capitalistic character.

The trend of commercial development is to need wider streets and more luxurious surroundings for the emporiums of the capitalist class. Consequently under the above, as under other housing acts, the workers are driven further away from the main thoroughfares, slums are abolished in one place merely to arise elsewhere. 

The rents of the buildings erected on the sites of the slums (to yield greater profit to the property owners) are generally higher, and the workers, unable to pay more rent, are forced to turn to other quarters, and thus slumdom becomes intensified. In the model dwellings erected by “ten per cent, philanthropy” associations and municipalities, severe strictures are often made as to the number of persons and children per room. This leads the evicted of the slums to resort to worse tenements on account of their lack of resources and therefore the workers are made more uncomfortable than ever. This is the logical result of housing reform under capitalism. Most of the reforms touched upon in this article exist in Germany. Labour Bureaux, Unemployment and Invalidity Insurance, Housing Reforms—all have flourished for some time past over there, yet the Liberal Press and politicians are telling us that the condition of the workers is worse than here. So much for their “blessed” reforms.

We still hear the Liberals repeating the old lie—Free Trade means security for the worker. We have shown from the returns of their own Labour Exchanges how prevalent unemployment is under capitalism. Yet this unemployment exists in spite of the fact that more people emigrated from and fewer immigrated into Great Britain last year than for many years past. The figures in the June issue of the “Board of Trade Labour Gazette” relating to emigration from Great Britain and immigration into Great Britain to and from countries beyond Europe are :

	1909	1908
Emigration	474,374	386,411
Immigration	261,325	342,922

The brutal conditions imposed upon the workers by the employing class, Liberal and Tory alike, force them to leave the land of their birth, to scour the world in search of a job. They leave Great Britain, where unemployment, insecurity of life, and poverty press upon them, to face the same old “problem” thousands of miles away. It’s the old vain hops of expecting to do better in a strange land. More than half the emigrants went to America. The poverty of the workers there was depicted in the May issue of the Socialist Standard.

The Liberal papers have been filling pages with glowing accounts of the fine opportunities supposed to be awaiting the workers in the colonies, with special reference to Canada, where the workers (they say) are welcomed with open arms. Earl Grey, on his recent visit to this country, has been telling the same tale. How fraudulent this emigration campaign is may be appreciated by noticing the fact that on March 10th, 1910 the Canadian Government issued a new notice making entry into the country more difficult than ever. The new rules, while making more strict the medical and civil examination, demand that emigrants should be possessed of from 25 to 50 dollars per head (“their absolute property”) according to the time of the year. Surely if they were really pining for more wags-slaves in Canada they would not impose these onerous conditions. Since the new regulations were made scores of British workers have been sent back to this country. The great miners’ strike at Glace Bay and Spring Hill should show how real the class struggle is in Canada.

Concerning Australia, we have the testimony of social reformers (Mr. Ben Tillett and Mr. Tom Mann, for example) who on returning from there, told of the fierce struggle to live out there in spite Labour Ministries, wages boards, compulsory arbitration, and many other reforms that misled workers are advocating here. The strike of miners at Newcastle and Broken Hill, of the State employed Sydney trainwaymen (to mention only a few) serve to illustrate the fact that the worker who emigrates merely exchanges misery in one place for misery elsewhere. The May No. of the “Board of Trade Gazette” states that unemployment is rife in many leading industries “down under.” “United South Africa” offers little prospect for the worker. There the black slave has supplanted the yellow one, and the white slave is not required because the colored is cheaper.

The policy of the Liberal Party is made up of measures all quite as fraudulent as those we have criticised. Throughout their history they have been the consistent enemies of the working class, just as much as the Tory party. To-day both parties are crying “reform.” This eagerness of the capitalist class to pass reforms sheds light upon the real nature of reform under capitalism. Reforms are favoured by the ruling class for two reasons: firstly, because their immediate material interests are thereby served, and secondly, because they can be used to deceive workingmen and induce them to support capitalist parties. “The Repeal of the Corn Laws” was passed for capitalist ends, yet it was used to rally to the side of the Liberal Party, millions of workingmen. Richard Cobden said:

“The great capitalist class formed an excellent basis for the Free Trade Movement, for they had inexhaustible purses which they opened freely in a contest where not only their pecuniary interests, but their pride as an order was at stake.” (Morley’s “Life of Cobden.”)

The evolution of the present system proceeds faster than the enacting of reform, and even any slight benefit going to the workers is soon more than cancelled by the operations of capitalist development. The working class must learn the simple lesson that while one class own the means of producing the necessaries of life, the rest of society is enslaved to that class. The Liberal and Tory parties alike stand for the maintenance of capitalism, and must therefore be opposed by us. The members of the working class must join the proletariat army fighting for political control: the power required in order that those things necessary for producing wealth may become the common heritage of all —be owned in common and administered in the interest of ALL. They must come into the fireing line and usher in a bright and joyful future for themselves and the race that is to be.

Adolph Kohn

The Revolutionary Proposition. (1910)

From the August 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.

That is the Revolutionary Proposition.

It is revolutionary by virtue of what it proposes.

Many people, hearing us speak of the revolution, conjure up a picture of armed conflict and carnage. These things, however, can only be a means to an end, not an end in themselves. Our proposition says nothing as to the means. It answers the question “what?” not “how?” It is revolutionary because of the end it proposes, and whether that end be achieved by peaceful means or violent makes no difference to its revolutionary character.

The proposal is to establish a system of society. What then is a system of society ?

A modern lexicographer tells us that a system is “an assemblage of things adjusted into a regular whole ; a regular method or order ; an arranged scheme,” and defines society as “a number of persons living in community.”

Accordingly a system of society is an arranged scheme or regular method in accordance with which a number of people live in community.

But people live in community at the present time, and it is not to be supposed without some method or order ; therefore the essential characteristic of the proposition must lie in its final terms—that the social system is to be based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth.

Common experience teaches us that these means and instruments (the land, factories, railways, mines, machinery, etc.) are private property, therefore present society cannot be based on the common ownership of these things.

It follows from this that the Revolutionary Proposition is destructive as well as constructive, that its proposal to establish is by implication a proposal to disestablish. One system of society is to be overthrown in order that another may be set up in its place.

The thoughtful man, before assenting to so momentous a proceeding as the overthrow of the social system, will demand the weightiest reasons for its condemnation and the fullest assurance that there is a better system to take its place.

The first question then is, why do social systems exist ?

Since that which is essential to social systems will appear as surely in the simplest system as in the most complex, and in the former may be most easily discerned, let us turn to one of the earliest social systems we have knowledge of.

In the form of savage society known as the hunting pack, it is obvious that people come together in social relationship to co-operate in the chase and in battle—to get their living together, in short. In all forms of society the primary object which holds people together in community is the need for joint effort in procuring food, clothing and shelter.

The first and most important function of a social system, then, is to facilitate the satisfying of the material needs of its component units, for it is for this reason that, consciously or unconsciously, those units enter into social relations.

Does the present social system fulfil this function ? If not, can it be made to do so ? If again the answer is in the negative, is there any other system which would fulfil the purpose for which people unite in community ?

Material needs are satisfied by material wealth. Statisticians give the amount of wealth annually produced in this country as approximating eighteen hundred million pounds sterling (£1,800,000,000) in value. On the indisputable authority of the census returns the population of the Kingdom is roughly forty millions.

So the ratio of wealth produced per head of the population is about £45 per annum, or, taking the average of families as 4½ persons, over £200 per family per annum.

There are very few working men indeed whose wages, even were they always fully employed, amount to half this sum, whilst millions of families have to subsist on an income of one-quarter (or less) of this amount per family.

It must be admitted, then, that material wealth sufficient to adequately (from a working-class view-point) satisfy the material needs of the whole of the people is produced under the present social system.

The production of the material wealth, however, is only the first step toward satisfying the material needs of the people. However much wealth exists, it must be accessible to the people before they can satisfy their wants. Is the wealth of capitalist society accessible to those who constitute capitalist society?

Responsible politicians and writers amongst the upholders of the present system, admit that nearly one-third of the population of this country are always on the verge of starvation,

A system which enables the people to produce ample wealth to satisfy, even with a degree of luxury, their material needs, yet leaves a third of them lacking bare necessaries, certainly appears not to fulfill its function. The wealth is produced, but the system fails in distribution.

The next question is, can this defect of the social system be rectified ? Before we can find the answer to this we must understand why the system of society does not fulfil its function.

All economic wealth is produced by labour. Labour-power applied to nature-prodded material, changes the form or position of that material and makes it available and useful to man—turns it into wealth. There is no other source of wealth, therefore all who produce wealth are workers.

When workers have produced wealth what becomes of it ? We know that generally the producer has no title to it. He is compelled to leave it in the possession of another, to accept a money payment called wages as the fruits of his toil. Why this is so does not matter at present. The result, then, of the efforts of those who come together to facilitate the winning of their livelihood is that the wealth produced passes from the possession of those who produce it into the hands of those who do not.

At the end of this process those who produced the wealth are not themselves without wealth, but theirs takes the form of money, which they can neither eat nor drink. This money, their wages, however, becomes their sole means of obtaining necessaries. It will exchange for them on a basis of value, so that the wealth of society becomes accessible to those who produce it in proportion to the amount of their wages. Obviously, then, the reason the social system breaks down at the point of distribution is because wages are insufficient to secure the necessaries of life.

If, then, the social system is to be made to perform its functions, it is necessary, at least, that it shall in the first place afford wages to all who are able and willing to work, and in the second place assure that those wages shall represent the fullest sustenance possible with the means and materials of production to hand.

It is our common experience that a person goes to the factory, mine, or other place of industry, labours, and is paid wages. Between the payer and the receiver of wages there is a transaction which must be actuated by motives. Undoubtedly the worker produces for wages, and by the same token, the non-worker pays wages because the worker produces.

The wages paid have the form of money, and the product of the worker’s toil is soon “turned into money” also.

The wages which the non-worker pays out and that to obtain which he pays them, are thus reduced to one and the same thing—he pays money to get money.

It is possible to argue, of course, that though, the payment of wages finally results in a return of money to the wage-payer, the reason which actuated him was the “altruistic” motive of producing for use. This, however, is disproved by the practice of adulteration. The ingenuity displayed in making soap carry the greatest possible amount of “standing water” adds nothing to the usefulness of the commodity, though it counts in the scales.

As there must be a motive there must be a difference of quantity between the two values—the worker’s wages and his product. From the wage-payer’s view-point the cycle must be Money— Commodities—Money plus more money, and that final term, the added money, must be the incentive of the wage-payer in paying wages.

Let us call that added money “profit” and see how we stand with the every-day facts o£ life. We know that every industrial concern of any standing keeps a profit and loss account, and that if such account does not show a profit there is an how-to-do about it, the outlook is considered “very serious,” the directors (if it is a company) have to “face the music,” and there is a deplorable slump in shares. Let such a state of things continue and we shall be “sacked” and the concern “closed down.”

This “profit” and the “added money” which we termed profit are alike in one respect—they are both value added to that invested in the concern, as the result of the operations of that concern. That added value cannot come from nothing. If the concern is a bakery and the value of 50 loaves is expended in hour and other material and a like value in wages, added value can only be shown by the production totalling more than 100 loaves. Human labour alone turns the flour into loaves, hence human labour alone produces the added value called profit.

That which appears as profit in the “profit and loss” account and without which the concern cannot be run, is the same thing which induced the wage-payer to pay wages.

So production is carried on for profit under the present system, and cannot continue when profit ceases to result from it.

We saw that both wages and profit are represented in the product of the worker’s labour.

Let us suppose the product to be 150 loaves, of which 50 represent material, and the remainder wages and profit, it is clear that the profit must depend upon the amount of wages, and the more goes to the worker as wages the less is left as profit. Thus if wages equal 75 loaves profit can be only 25 loaves, while if but 25 loaves go to the worker the profit rises to 75.

Since the product of the worker is the object of both the receiver of wages and the taker of profit, they will naturally each endeavour take as much of that product as they can. How, then, is the relative share of each determined ?

If we credit each with being thoroughly greedy—a pretty safe assumption—then each will endeavour to seize the whole of the product. The limitations of each must be, on the one hand, the worker must leave some profit or the other will not allow the machinery of production to be put into operation, while on the other hand the worker must be given something or he will not produce. Between these points how is the decision arrived at ?

The power to labour can only be created by the consumption of material wealth, therefore a new limitation is set up. Obviously not only must wages be given the worker or he will not work, but they must be sufficient to reproduce his efficiency or he cannot work.

The downward limit of wages, then, is clearly marked, but what prevents them from rising until all profit ceases and production collapses?

In any other market than the labour market the price of commodities or goods is regulated by the relation of supply to demand. If the demand outbalances the supply prices will be high, while if the supply is in excess of the demand prices will run low. Can we apply the argument to labour-power, of which wages are the price ?

We know that there exists at all times a redundancy of labour-power in the shape of a vast army of unemployed. These unemployed, in their endeavours to secure work, necessarily depress the price of that which they have to sell—their labour-power.

This unemployed army supplies us with the conditions of the competitive market, wherein prices are regulated by supply and demand.

We see then that production, under the present social system, can only be carried on while profit results, and profit can only result while an unemployed army exists to depress wages.

The defective distribution of wealth cannot be rectified under the present system therefore because in the first place unemployed are necessary to enable production to be carried on at all, and secondly because the competition of the unemployed reduces wages, not to the point of satisfying the needs of the working class, but only of producing and reproducing so many of them as the labour market requires. Hence the present system cannot be made to fulfil its function.

A. E. Jacomb

[To be Continued.]

The way out. (1910)

From the August 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

The greatest problem before the working class to-day, the problem that requires immediate attention, is poverty. On all hands the existence, of poverty amid extreme wealth is admitted. All parties, no matter what their label, admit the existence of this problem and trot out one scheme or another that they claim will alleviate the evil. Before considering remedies, it is necessary to discover the cause of the evil, and having found that, to endeavour to, if possible, abolish the evil by removing the cause.

The first important fact that confronts us in this examination is the fact that poverty is confined to one section of the community, and, strangely enough, to that section which alone produces the welter of riches we see around us. We find that it is the hewers of wood and the drawers of water that are poor, while the idle class are rich.

Why is it that those who produce wealth in abundance receive but sufficient to keep them alive ?

It is not that there is not sufficient wealth in the country to supply the needs of the whole people, for we find it admitted on all hands that that wealth is increasing by leaps and bounds, while at the same time the poverty and misery of the workers increase.

The very fact that men able, and willing to produce are unemployed shows that there need be no scarcity of wealth.

There is sufficient for all, but the working class are denied the opportunity of consuming it; nor are they allowed to operate the tools of production in order to produce what they need.

We are forced then to see that members of the working class, while desirous of producing, are prevented from so doing by another class, who own the means of wealth production. This class are thereby enabled to dictate terms to the workers, who are forced to accept them in order to obtain sustenance.

The terms are that they shall create a value far in excess of the amount paid to them in wages. The difference between the value they receive and the value they create is taken by the capitalist as his profit.

This surplus, the result of the robbery of the worker, is piled up by the capitalist, who is unable to consume it fast enough, with the result that sooner or later the markets are glutted and the workers discharged. With the growing productivity of labour we find these periodical gluts recurring with ever greater rapidity. The unemployed army, growing greater and greater, clamouring for a purchaser at almost any price, force down the wages of those employed to the lowest possible level, despite all attempts on the part of the latter to raise them.

The class that produce the wealth are in poverty because that wealth when produced is stolen from them by the capitalist class.

The capitalists are enabled to steal the workers’ product because they own the only means by which they can live.

As we have seen, the working class are compelled to produce more than they receive because they are forced to accept the masters’ terms in order to live. Should they endeavour to take those things necessary for their maintenance, or try to use the means of production for themselves, they are faced with the police and, these not sufficing, the military.

The master class control the fighting forces and are prepared to use them to maintain their position. They are enabled to use those forces through their control of the political machine—which they hold by the votes of the class they have robbed. In a word, the continuation of the workers’ poverty is due to the fact that they have voted their enemies into power.

What, then, is the remedy ? How are the working class to regain that which has been stolen from them ? How are they to stop the robbery in future ?

Obviously by the removal of the root cause ; the ejection from power of the capitalist class ; the control of political power by the working class, in order that they may throw off from their shoulders the class which oppresses them and theieby gain access to the means of wealth production.

This can only be accomplished by the organisation of the working class into a party hostile to their enemy the capitalist class, determined to end capital, capitalist and capitalism.

The capitalist hirelings, led by the “statesman of Labour,” John Burns, tell you that the poverty of the worker is due to his thriftlessness and excessive drinking habits. While telling you this they are compelled to publish figures proving that poverty is on the increase while the expenditure on intoxicating liquors de-creates year by year.

Despite an increased expenditure of £93,000 on wines (certainly not a working class drink), the total drink bill for 1909 shows a decrease of £5,897,997 compared with that of 1908. Taking into consideration the increase in prices the total decrease in the consumption of liqour amounts to about £11,147,997.

Capitalist statisticians and others, while attributing the greater amount of poverty to drink, are compelled to admit that it is not possible to eradicate the “drink evil” while the housing condition of the workers remains as it is. Drinking habits, they admit are largely due to the vile housing accommodation and the course and indigestible food of the workers.

The workers live in the slums and consume bad food because they are poor, so we are brought back again to the original cause, namely, poverty. The Tory party, in order to get the votes of the working class, bring forward a proposal which they call Tariff Reform. They tell us that a tariff placed upon foreign manufactured goods will keep out foreign competition and at the same time raise, by the tax (upon the goods that are to be kept out), sufficient to enable them to finance measures of social reform.

The Tory leaders, however, have admitted that Tariff Reform will rot solve the poverty problem, and a little enquiry into the conditions of the working class in those countries where protection has been established will show that Tariff Reform is no solution.

The Liberal party have been compelled to admit that they have no remedy. Free Trade, they say, is the workers’ real protection, whereas under free trade capitalism the workers starve. Both parties are pledged to support the present system of class ownership and are consequently enemies of the working class,

The Labour Party are pledged to support capitalism through the Liberal party, while in its turn the I.L.P. has sunk its political identity in the Labour Party.

The S.D.P. has all along shown its ignorance of the working-class position. While at times preaching the antagonism of interest existing between the two classes it has constantly blurred the issue by advising the workers to support sections of the master class. It exists merely for the purpose of advocating reforms of the present system, such as State maintenance for school children, the right to work, etc., none of which touches the poverty problem at all. They also have endeavoured to make alliances with the historic enemies of the working class and can be lumped with the other parties as being worthless from the point of view of the worker.

The only party that stands for the entire abolition of capitalism and all that capitalism involves ; the only party that has laid down a clear and definite set of principles in accord with economic truths, and stood by them consistently ; the only party that aims at, and steadfastly works for, the elimination of the causes that make for poverty, is the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Twel.

A Lesson from a “White Paper.” (1910)

From the August 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

The futility of palliatives, amongst which we must perforce reckon conciliation boards, is strikingly illustrated by the consideration of the Board of Trade White Paper containing the preliminary statement relating to the railways of the United Kingdom for ’09. The result of a few of the decisions of the conciliation boards operate in favour of the men, but only on comparatively unimportant questions. By judicious “wangling,” ruthless cutting down and agreements between companies, any slight advantage to the men has been more than out-weighed, smd there is more despotism than ever. The financial results of the year’s operations compared with 1908 were as follows :

	1909	Inc. Or decrease
	£	£
Passenger receipts	51,198,000	-467,000
Goods receipts	68,971,000	+742,000
Working expenses	75,033,000	-1,375,000
Net receipts	45,130,000	+1,649,000

Maintenance of way, works, etc., cost £60,000 more, but there was a saving of £1,422,000 in locomotive power. Such facts invest the dryest figures with interest. The quantity of minerals and general merchandise conveyed increased by 7,727,000 tons, but the number of train miles declined by 3,035,000.

The lesson here is clear and plain. Any tinkering with conditions of labour, whilst the chain of wage slavery remains unbroken, can only, if it affects matters at all, result in a tightening up of the links. After all, the bargaining with employers, be it through conciliation boards, deputations, recognition of Union officials or what not, is not progressive. It is only the half conscious effort of the workman to recover the ground that capitalism ever pushes away from beneath his feet. It is a struggle against retrogression. Only in Socialism do we find the larger hope. Let us, then, abandon trying to patch up a rotten system ; let us desist from the fatuity of endeavouring to make worse more bearable. All such effort is mere resignation to the slave condition. There is far better work to do than to struggle for such crumbs as your leaders lead you on to. When those leaders led you into the “conciliation boards” trap they delivered you, bound hand and foot, into the hand of the masters. We said so at the time and events prove us correct. Join the S.P.G.B. . . . and concentrate on your freedom.

Wilfred.

Buy ’em out. (1910)

From the August 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

The text for this article is the following abstract from a speech delivered by Mr. P. Snowden in the House of Commons, July 4th, 1910.

“Mr. P. Snowden (Lab. Blackburn), speaking as a representative of Socialism, said he was not appalled by the figures of the Budget ; on the contrary, he hoped to see the day when the Chancellor of the Exchequer would bring in a Budget for 3 or 4 hundred millions . . . The Labour Party supported last year’s Budget because it was a good beginning. He would not tax landlords out of existence, but would buy them out.

A Unionist Member: Where would you get the money ?

Mr. Snowden : That is a question often put by ignorant men at open meetings. (Laughter.) If they tried to float all the public-houses of the country as a trust with assurance that they would be free from increased taxation there would be no difficulty in obtaining the money. (Labour cheers.)” Daily Chronicle, 5.7.10.

Mr. Snowden’s claim to be a Socialist representative is soon disposed of. His election address and speeches at the last General Election, to say nothing of an analysis of the votes cast for him, amply disprove that claim. Goaded, possibly, by the disaffection in the ranks of the I.L.P., he blossoms out, on occasion, as a ‘”Socialist representative.” This is part and parcel of the political game he and his colleagues are playing.

But I wish to deal with his piffle about buying up the land.

How Mr. Snowden and his like can rave to an I.L.P. audience about the robber landlords whose ancestors filched the land from the people, etc., etc. Of course he knows his audience. He has to tickle their political palates in order to earn his lecturing fee, with one eye on a return engagement. But to a more “respectable” audience, such as the House of Commons, he adopts another tone. He appears to be quite unconcerned as to the lack of consistency (I had almost said lack of honesty) in raving at one time against the robbers and parasites on the body politic, and at another time admitting the claim and title to their monopoly by talking about “buying them out.” If this is not confusion, what is it ? To the Socialist, with regard to the land and ALL other means of capitalist exploitation, there is no question either of “compensation” or “confiscation,” but simply RESTITUTION.

Again, taking Mr. Snowden’s remarks on the level of his own verbosity, which is not the Socialist level by any means, we observe his smart wangle in reply to an interjector who asked “Where would he get the money from ?” Possibly the writer is equally ignorant; anyway, I repeat “Where would he get the money from” to buy out the landlords ? Obviously such a transaction could not be concluded in the coin of the realm, as there is not sufficient coinage minted in this country with which to do it, and moneymanias will doubtless tell us that if such an enormous sum was specially minted for the purpose, when put into circulation it would swamp the money market, etc., so as to make it just about valueless. Therefore it would have to be done with scrip, treasury bonds, and the like, and to be of any value these bonds would have to be interest-bearing.

So, here you will see the drift. Here, with very little imagination to fill in the gaps, we can foresee the birth and result of a new side-tracking agitation for another “drastic reform.” Shout it from the housetops; sing it in the music halls. “Land Purchase.” “The Land for the People.”

Miles of fulminations and perorations on the platform and in the Press over a course of years, perhaps generations, would induce the landowning section of the capitalist class to “reluctantly” give way (with their tongues in their blasted cheeks), and accept in exchange for their rent rolls, treasury bonds bearing perpetual interest of certainly not less amount than their present incomes—the dominant political power, the capitalist class, will see to that. And the result to the gullible members of the working class who had been bluffed by the afore-mentioned perorations ? Simply, as you were. They would still have to provide the luxuries for the parasites, the only difference being that they would be called “interest” now.

Let us suppose that “hand” John Smith’s wildest dream is realised and in consequence of this very revolutionary change he lives “rent free,” what happens ?

“Times are bad,” says the employer to John, “Business is rotten, and I really cannot keep this place going in face of the foreign competition unless you accept less wages. You can easily do this: you have NO RENT TO PAY now; therefore I must dock your wages 10s. per week.”

“But,” protests John, “my rent was only 5s. per week.”

“Indeed,” retorts the boss. “Then let us compromise and call it 7s. 6d.”

Of course John will fight, but after tightening his belt daily for a few weeks and watching his wife and kiddies starve while he is on strike, he will return to work at 5s. per week less than formerly ; meanwhile his boss has got rid of his surplus stock at enhanced prices and treats himself to a new aeroplane. John soon forgets, in his anxiety to get a living, all the balderdash he swallowed during the “drastic reform” agitation (unless the wicked Socialist is there to jog his memory). He has got the reform all right, but he has yet to learn that he and his class will never, while capitalism lasts, receive more on the average, than a bare subsistence.

Poor John ! Is it any wonder that some people think that he only get his deserts ? Well, he must thank, amongst others, Messrs. Snowden & Co. for the condition in which he finds himself, and in which he will remain until he learns the one grand lesson—that Socialism is the only remedy.

W. E.

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For August. (1910)

Party News from the August 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

Editorial: Labour Party Programme For The Year 2000 (1955)

Editorial from the August 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

The idea of encouraging the donkey forward by dangling a carrot a short distance in front of his nose is an ancient one but even the oldest tricks can be changed and Mr. Albu, Labour M.P. for Edmonton, has discovered a startling variation.

Like other Labour M.P.s he has had to realise that the Labour electoral carrot offered to the voters in the recent General Election was not successful in enticing them to the polling booth for 1,500,000 of former Labour voters this time refused to go in and put their cross. So Mr. Albu,_who is a member of the Executive Committee of the Fabian Society has been thinking up a new programme for Labour. He spoke about it at a meeting of the Central London Fabian Society on June 29. He said:—

“There should be adequate incentives, but property ownership should be reduced by estate duties and a capital gains tax so that by the year 2000 the distribution of inherited wealth would be similar to that of taxed income today."

(Manchester Guardian, 30 June, '55.)

Mr. Albu is not proposing that inequality of accumulated wealth be eliminated but only that it should be lessened, so that it would not exceed the smaller, but still very great, difference between the annual income of the rich man and the wages of the poor. So we progress! Many years ago the Fabian Society, and later the Labour Party, planned to do something “immediately” about this inequality. Now Mr. Albu suggests postponing the completion of half a plan until a date 45 years ahead, by which time most of the present generation will be dead. 

The basis on which Capitalism exists is the monopoly by a minority, of the accumulated wealth of society. It is the cause of the poverty of the many. This has been the central theme of the Socialist case against Capitalism and it was known to Mr. Albu’s Fabian Society long, long ago.

Two thirds of a century ago Mr. Sidney Webb wrote in the Fabian Essays 1889 (“Historic” page 60).

“If private property in land and capital necessarily keeps the many workers permanently poor (through no fault of their own) in order to make the few idlers rich (from no merit of their own), private property in land and capital will inevitably go the way of the feudalism which it superseded.”

In 1908 the Fabian Society had phrased the known inequality of wealth in the statement “about one seventieth part of the population owns far more than half of the entire accumulated wealth, public and private, of the United Kingdom.” (Fabian Tract No. 7 Capital and Land. Page 10.). 

Sometime later they expressed it in the form “ten per cent. of the population own 90 per cent. of the wealth.”

In this form it was used in articles in the Daily News in 1916 and reproduced in the Fabian Tract When Peace Comes. (P. 28).

This proposition has been doing service ever since in the propaganda of the Labour Party. It was featured in their election programme of 1918, Labour and the New Social Order and 31 years later, in 1949, a Minister in the Labour Government confirmed that it still represented the division of wealth. (Mr. Glenvil Hall, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, ‘Hansard' May 18, 1949). After all these years and though we have had three Labour Governments, nothing whatever has been done to end the state of affairs that the early Fabians recognised as the cause of poverty. Incidentally, the Fabian Society in 1908, proposed to take over the land and capital “ without compensation (though not without such relief to expropriated individuals as may seem fit to the community.") (Fabian Tract Capital and Land 1908. P. 18.).

The Fabian Society named itself after a Roman General, Quintus Fabius Maximus, known as the “Delayer,” who perfected harrying tactics described as “masterly inactivity,” and whose motto was said to be “make haste slowly."

But Fabius did win some notable battles and would have been surprised if he could have known that an organisation named after him was to do nothing at all to win its major battle for some 70 years and an executive member was then to propose aiming at some slight action 45 years later still.

Muddled as the early Fabians were in their twin notions that capitalism would disappear of its own accord or alternatively could be modified by reforms into becoming an equalitarian society, they were mental giants compared with those who have followed them in the Labour Party.

In the meantime the rich one-tenth still own nine-tenths of the accumulated wealth; and there is still no solution to the poverty problem except the Socialist one of transforming the means of production and distribution into the common property of society as a whole.

Maureen ! (1955)

A Short Story from the August 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

Maureen was such a nice girl. Everyone was delighted when she landed a good job. Some people had been a bit worried when she was in the third year. Got into bad company and caught smoking in the lavatory! But later, thank goodness, after a few talkings to she had responded splendidly.

Just before leaving she had been a modest girl. Her speech had improved, so had her manners and appearance. There was no difficulty in recommending her for a good job.

She got a post with one of the best firms in the City. “I am pleased!” said Miss Prim.

She had done so well in the dramatic class. Why, her new employers were so good that when she asked for a day off, only a day after she had started, they said “ Certainly!” You shall have full pay and we hope you will continue your drama studies! “What better treatment could you have than that? ”

Maureen came back after the first week to tell us how happy she was.

Imagine our surprise when she came again just before the Easter holidays to say that she was no longer there.

But why? Maureen! Surely the money was good, and it’s one of the best firms for staff welfare in the whole of London!

It appears that in three short weeks Maureen’s rosy dreams of a bright and happy future had evaporated.

The first week was jolly. The second a bit dull. The third very nearly drove poor Maureen barmy. Her job was examining banknotes, in a room full of other girls examining banknotes. All day long she sat at a table with a strong concentrated light looking at banknotes, hundreds of banknotes, thousands of banknotes. In the room she met and spoke to girls who had been examining banknotes for five years, and would go on looking at banknotes for another 25 years.

Maureen had looked hastily round. Girls can still pick and choose. She is now working in a dressmaking factory. At least the colours of the dresses are different.

Funnily, enough, I happen to know one of the directors of Maureen’s first firm in a purely private capacity.

“Pity about that Maureen kid!” I said. “Oh! I dunno! was the reply. She didn’t do so badly. Three weeks is about the average. We only get one in 20 to stay longer. Of course, it’s repetition work, but they can get used to it.”

There you are! That’s the trouble with the youth to-day. When I think of all the time spent at interviews. The Youth Employment Officer, the Headmaster, the Teacher. The letters and references, and now she’s gone to a dress factory where they don’t ask for references at all.

It makes you sick! Why, for all the good it’s done we might just as well have told her to go where she liked at first.

I nearly felt like telling her so when I saw her last week if she hadn’t told me first that she’d just been after a new job.

It appears that at the dress factory she had to sit at a machine sewing buttonholes. All day long, buttonholes, hundreds of buttonholes—thousands of ’em.

“CYNICUS”

Letter: The Class Struggle and Socialism (1955)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

(We have received the following letter of criticism, to which is appended our reply—Ed. Comm.)

Golders Green, N.W.11.

4.7.55.

Dear Sirs,

The July Socialist Standard reprinted a quotation from an issue of 50 years ago “ Militant the workers’ cause is identified with class; triumphant, with humanity.” Recently (Oct. 1954) you reprinted the same quotation, which seems to indicate that you endorse it to-day. I have given considerable thought to the attitude to Socialism which is summed up in these few words, and I would appreciate it if you would allow me to state my point of view, together with whatever reply you may consider necessary or desirable on behalf of the S.P.G.B.

The first thing that strikes me about the quotation is that it states an obvious—even tautological—truth about the class struggle that characterises all property societies The “cause” of the people who are organised as a class in society can only be seen as a class cause—they are on one side or other of the struggle between those who buy and those who sell labour power. These causes and this struggle—militant or otherwise—are unquestionably a major feature of capitalist society. In so far as there is any triumph in this struggle, it is when one side gains a victory at the expense of the other—a class victory.

There is, however, another kind of struggle going on in society—the struggle for Socialism. On the one hand are Socialists: people who believe that a classless society is both desirable and practicable. On the other are those who are not Socialists, and who either support or acquiesce in the continuation of Capitalist institutions. The struggle between these two groups of people is a different kind of struggle from the first because it is concerned not with class interest but With social interest. Triumph here means that co-operation, harmony, social equality, will have ousted competition, warfare (including class warfare) and commodity relations.

Bearing this in mind, it seems hardly possible for the appeal to establish Socialism to be a class appeal. Much more is it a call to all people to be “integrated in a carefree world of humans,” as one of your writers puts it. This, of course, is not to say that Socialists should, in their propaganda, disregard the fact of the class struggle within Capitalism. It is a plea that the case for Socialism should be presented clearly for what it is—the triumph of humanity through the work of humanity.

I would like to add a few words on another point quoted in the S.S. that “the interests of the human race are bound up with the aspirations of the oppressed working-class in its struggle with Capitalist domination.” Everyone championing a sectional interest claims that it really represents the interests of all. At a recent political meeting I attended, several speakers tried to persuade the audience that movements for colonial self-government (i.e. nationalist movements) were really international in character. How easily Socialists can see the fallacy of that claim! Yet does it not appear that the S.P.G.B. is a victim of the same fallacy in claiming that a class movement can establish classless society

Yours sincerely,

S. R. Parker.

Reply:

The quotations to which our critic refers are those published under the heading “Fifty Years Ago” in our issues of October 1954 and July 1955.

The two articles from which these quotations were reproduced appeared in our issues of October 1904 and July 1905. They both express the point of view of the Socialist against that of the Reformists who, while reluctantly having to admit that the class struggle is a fact, want to disregard it. The first was an attack on Keir Hardie, who was one of these, and it included a quotation from Belfort Bax, who wrote of the “Benevolent old gentleman who says, 'Let us ignore classes, let us regard each other as human beings.' "

The second article (July 1905), again attacked those who, admitting the reality of the class straggle, refused to recognise the necessity of basing working-class political action on that reality, on the ground that “it is immoral, that it stirs up strife and sets one class against another.” It admitted that this was logical for those (Keir Hardie was one) who based their “Socialism” on the New Testament and its injunction “Resist not evil”; it also pointed out how this injunction serves the interest of the Capitalist class and fits in with their class morality which teaches the workers that any resistance by them against their exploitation is immoral. The article went on to show that as no propertied class ever voluntarily gives up its privileged position, and as the ending of class society is in the interest of humanity, “the only class that can be relied on for the abolition of privilege and power to exploit, is the unprivileged propertyless working class.”

One point made in the article was:—"Not indeed that we must hate the individual Capitalist, for he is the product of his circumstances; but in the interests of humanity the firmest action must be taken. The power to exploit must be wrested from the parasites.”

It should not be necessary to reproduce again the passage quoted in our July issue, but we do so because our critic’s letter so grotesquely misunderstands what it contains.

The quotation was:—

“The victory of the Socialist working-class is the only possible ending of this great struggle. This, however, does not mean the subjection of the Capitalist class by the workers: it means the abolition of Capitalism and the end of classes, for the great unprivileged masses cannot secure equality of opportunity without abolishing class privilege, and privilege is based on private property. The triumph of the great working majority thus involves the emancipation of all from class oppression, for the interests of the toiling masses are fundamentally the interests of humanity.

“Socialism, is then, the ethics of humanity, the necessary economic foundation of a rational code of morality. The interests of the human race are bound up with the aspirations of the oppressed working-class in its struggle with Capitalist domination. As it has very truly been said: 'Militant, the workers’ cause is identified with class triumphant, with humanity'.”

(In our July issue the word rational in line two of the second paragraph was in error given as national).

Our critic misrepresents the substance of this quotation by the peculiar and quite incorrect meaning he gives to the term class struggle and by his failure to read simple phrases in their obvious unmistakable meaning.

He thinks, as will be seen from the second paragraph of his letter, that the class struggle consists of “the struggle between those who buy and those who sell labour-power.” Historically class struggles have sometimes been between propertied classes, as for example between Feudal landlords and the rising Capitalists. In modern society the predominant class division is between the Capitalists who own the means of production and distribution and the property-less working class. This is the basis and substance of the class struggle; the struggle over wages is merely a restricted aspect of the class struggle, the one to which the workers are normally confined because the State power precludes other activities on their part. The culmination of the modern class struggle is the political struggle of a Socialist working class for Socialism.

But even for non-Socialist workers the wages struggle does not represent the whole of their aspirations. In our own time we have seen workers, when conditions made this temporarily possible, seize possession of the employers’ factories, as in Italy after World War I, and the Syndicalist movement before that war aimed at "taking and holding.” In the early 19th century workers’ movements (e.g. the co-operative pioneers) aspired to create a new society, though their aim was vague and they failed to understand the means necessary for its achievement

Next our critic evidently fails to notice that our quotation begins with a reference to “the Socialist working-class,” and fails to notice the reference in the same quotation to “the aspirations of the oppressed working class in its struggle with Capitalist domination." “Aspiration” is defined in the dictionary as “noble ambition,” and Capital domination does not merely mean the employers’ resistance to wage increases. So, departing entirely from the plain meaning of the passage, he criticises it as if what had been written there was something like this:—

“The victory of those non-Socialist workers whose aims extend no further than the struggle for another 3d. an hour embodies the aspirations of the Socialist working class and is in the interest of humanity.' "

In the light of what the quotation actually says the criticisms of it contained in the letter are almost entirely irrelevant

Rejecting the Socialist conception of a working-class becoming Socialist, and taking political action to end class society, our critic offers us instead the conception of a “group” of Socialists struggling against a “group” of non-Socialists, but omits to tell us how this is to lead to Socialism.

He concludes by asserting, without any discernable reason, that a Socialist working-class, constituting the great majority of society, cannot have a classless society though that will be its aim, but informs us that a “group” (a section only of society) can do so by struggling against the defenders of Capitalism.

What the example of self-styled Nationalists claiming to be Internationalists has to do with the case we do not know.

Editorial Committee.

Marxism: Past and Present – pt.1 (1955)

Book Review from the August 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marxism: Past and Present by R. N. Carew Hunt. (Published by Geoffrey Bles)

This book is a mine of reference on Marxism. While the author may have diligently quarried for his treasure, precious little has been brought to the surface that materially adds to existing stocks of knowledge on the subject. The book in fact is not so much a solo as a sound track for a massed anti-Marxist choir: so much so, that the author’s voice seems but the sotto voce of a “whispering baritone.” In addition, he attempts to decant the whole quart of Marxism into the half-pint bottle of 175 pages, thus making impossible any systematic treatment of the many issues raised.

The author essays to show that the totalitarian empire of Russia is the melancholy sequel to Marx’s doctrine of “the dictatorship of the proletariat.” Presumably, had there been no Marx there would have been no Lenin, no October Revolution. The sequence of events in Russia might then have told a happier story. Once again, then, Marx takes on the legendary role of history’s “wicked uncle,”

One of the author’s contentions, then—the one we shall deal with—is that both Leninism and Stalinism are rooted in Marx’s doctrine of “the dictatorship of the proletariat.” The author adopts, however, the dubious procedure of interpretation rather than testimony, of inference in lieu of evidence. He selects passages from Marx and Engels compares them with statements of Lenin and stress similarities. He never selects passages which reveal differences.

Yet those differences are of an order to show not a crucial connection but antithetical relations between Marxism and Leninism. While Marx and Engels were never specific as to what they meant by “the dictatorship of the proletariat,” they were always consistent with the generally accepted notion of democracy. Lenin’s political doctrine did not characterize democracy but only caricatured it in a debased Soviet form. Marx’s political theory carried no suggestion of a one-party device for the capture of political power. On the contrary, it presupposed “free elections” via the polling-booth. That was the method of the Paris Commune—and that, said Engels in his most vigorous statement on the subject, was “the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

Engels, in the Critique of the Erfurt Programme, declared : “Our party and the working class can only gain political supremacy under the political regime of a democratic republic. This is even the specific form the dictatorship of the proletariat as the great French revolution has already shown.” (Marx Engels Correspondence, p.486)

For Lenin the organizational form of the proletarian dictatorship was political centralism, with its military dictatorship and denial of any right of appeal from decisions made by the ruling body. The sinister sequel to this was dramatically summed-up by Lenin himself when he stated:

“The Soviet Socialist Democracy is in no way incompatible with the rule and dictatorship of one person . . . this was explained to and accepted by the Central Executive Committee a long time ago ” (Socialist Party of Canada Pamphlet The Russian Revolution, p. 14).

Mr. Carew Hunt’s arrangement of quotations serves to conceal, not reveal, the antithetical views of Marx and Lenin. Thus, Lenin is quoted: “The transformation of the proletariat into the ruling class is identical with democracy,” While this in the letter agrees with the Communist Manifesto’s statement “The constitution of the proletariat into the ruling class is the conquest of democracy,” in the spirit it is utterly at variance.

In fact, Lenin’s notion of the conquest of political power by a class-conscious proletariat was perfectly consistent with his anti-democratic outlook. By giving the term “proletarian” an ideological twist, Lenin was able to include in the term his own Bolsheviks, who by and large had no working-class origin but had sprung from the Russian bourgeois intelligentsia. These for Lenin were not only “proletarians” but formed in the main his “class-conscious proletarians.” That is why Lenin made a decisive distinction between “the class-conscious proletarians” and “the masses.” While he often adroitly manipulated the term “proletarian” for demagogic purposes, he always made the capture of political power by the class-conscious proletariat synonymous with the supremacy of an élite.

Yet Mr. Carew Hunt blandly informs us that this is all perfectly in line with Engels’s statement in the preface to Class Struggles in France “that in a complete social transformation the masses themselves have grasped what is at stake, what they are going in for body and soul. The history of the last 50 years has taught us that.” The author is able to say that because he never informs us as to the real content of Bolshevik doctrine. He only misinforms us of its relation with Marxism. Because the author’s proofs of most of his assertions are so constricted, he stretches his imagination to the point of rupture.

The Bolshevik seizure of power is paralleled also with Engels’s statement in his article On Authority, February, 1873, that “a revolution is an act where one part of the population imposes its will on the other part by rifles, bayonets and cannon.” (Selected Works, p.578) But in this particular instance Engels specifically cites, as an example of the armed authority of the people, the Paris Commune, which was no Leninist usurping of power by a minority but authority democratically conceived and arrived at.

Also the Communist Manifesto’s statement, “The Communists are the most resolute section which pushes on all other sections,” the author suggests, is the originating idea of Lenin’s professional élite. Undoubtedly his penchant for reading between the lines of Marxist literature has given him a bad squint.

The authority of the Communist League (1850) is cited as good Marxist paternity for Leninism. Marx then advised workers to agitate on behalf of the Democrats, who represented the German lower-middle class; and, in the event of their forming a government, to foist on them “revolutionary demands,” thus weakening the power of the upper bourgeoisie and strengthening the revolutionary potential of the workers. This political immaturity of Marx was never repeated. Afterwards, he made working class political maturity the measure of working-class development. All the essential features of Leninism, however, were missing from the Communist League. There was no separation of intellectuals from workers, no proscribing of working-class activity, no envisaging seizure of power by a political Junta.

Ted Wilmott

(To be concluded)