John Lennon (1981)

From the January 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Newspapers have described the tragic death of John Lennon as the end of an era. We wish they were right. We wish it was the end of a period of human society in which rock singers could accumulate millions of pounds from the sale of records while millions starve for want of a bowl of rice; we wish we could write an obituary to the violent social system of capitalism in which men like Lennon's alleged murderer can easily obtain and use a gun; we wish we could report the end of the wars and malnutrition and the inequality which Lennon sang about so well. But the era of capitalism is still with us and there will be others to grow rich singing about the miseries it causes.

Lennon was a talented musician and lyricist who understood the world he lived in more than most of his musical colleagues. Some of his songs showed definite political perception and what is generally considered to be his greatest post-Beatles record, 'Imagine', showed an understanding of the meaning of socialism which is almost unmatched in the history of rock music. The song urges people to imagine a world without possessions, countries, wars, hunger or religion. When a meeting of our companion party, the Socialist Party of Canada, was shown on Canadian TV, 'Imagine' was selected by the producer as the most appropriate theme song to sum up our views.

Rock critics regarded Lennon's message with predictable hypocrisy. While claiming that Lennon was a great musician and that they were in tune with what he was trying to say, they have disparaged such songs as 'Imagine' as an "idealistic vision". (Robin Denselow, the Guardian, 12.12.80.) They prefer to stress Lennon's more easily categorised leftist lyrics, such as those on 'Some Time In New York City' in which he expressed his support for the divisive nationalism of the IRA. Like many people, John Lennon vaguely perceived important socialist ideas, but these became confused with the pragmatic radicalism for which he will be remembered by the trendy sloganisers of the Left. For genuine world socialists the vision of a society of which Lennon sings in 'Imagine' is worth more than any of the sterile aggression of modern punk rock. The man may be dead, but the vision of a world of peace, equality and freedom lives on within the socialist movement which neither Lennon nor his supporters have had the wisdom to join. At the risk of being labelled a Marxist-Lennonist, this writer echoes the words of 'Imagine'

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope one day you'll join me
And the world will live as one.

C.

Vital Changes (2015)

Book Review from the December 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

'The Killing Fields of Inequality', by Göran Therborn. Polity £14.99.

Yet another book on inequality and its consequences? Yes, and one that contains a lot of statistics but that also has some new points to make about the types of inequality and their impacts on people’s lives.

Therborn distinguishes three kinds of inequality. The first is vital inequality, dealing with people’s life chances (life expectancy, likelihood of years without serious illness, etc). The second is existential inequality, referring to people’s autonomy, dignity and freedom (thus covering any discrimination on the grounds of gender, sexuality, ethnicity and so on). Lastly is resource inequality, primarily a person’s wealth and income but also including the support they receive from their parents.

As this suggests, one of the book’s strengths is its emphasis on inequalities other than those of income and wealth. Therborn argues that what should be aimed at is ‘equality of capability to function fully as a human being’ (taken from the writings of Amartya Sen) and ‘the rights of all children to a good enabling childhood’. As the book’s title suggests, vital inequality is an important aspect of this, and in Ukraine, for instance, life expectancy is three years less for men than it was in 1990. In London among many other places, your lifespan depends to a large extent on how well-off you are. In general, lack of control over your life is bad for your health: the poorer you are, you are not just likely to die younger but to suffer more years of ill health.

As for existential inequality, discrimination on the grounds of gender is decreasing but still exists and is sometimes quite extreme (in South Asia, for instance). Therborn argues that existential equalisation is a non-zero-sum game: if women or gay people are in general subject to less prejudice or oppression, it does not by itself affect the lifestyles of the privileged. In contrast, resource equalisation is zero-sum: if the share of the poorest in the world’s wealth increases, that of the elite will decrease. Hence the rise in resource inequality in recent years, with countries such as Brazil and South Africa being the most unequal. And it was recently reported that there are more billionaires in China than in the US.

But, as so often in books along these lines, it is in the last couple of chapters that the author disappoints. Therborn accepts that capitalism will be around ‘for the foreseeable future’, and he appeals to the middle class (vaguely characterised as the non-rich and non-poor) to align with the poor. This way they can combat both the suffering of the poorest and the exclusivism of the oligarchs, leading to ‘an egalitarian enlightened society’. But he gives no reason to believe that egalitarian capitalism is possible. 

Paul Bennett

Pathfinders: Fracking – A Bridge Too Far? (2013)

The Pathfinders Column from the January 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Earthquakes in Blackpool, flaming faucets in New York State. The hot new single issue of this year is surely fracking. Barely anyone even understands what it is yet but already the Greens are against it, and after the Chancellor gave the provisional thumbs-up including tax breaks to the new ‘unconventional gas’ industry in his December budget speech, right-thinking citizens everywhere will know in their hearts that fracking is definitely a ‘very bad thing’.

Fracking, or methane gas extraction through shale rock fracturing, is a text-book example of how capitalism periodically gets itself out of a fix by finding new commodities or techniques to replace old or unprofitable ones. The technique of fracturing rock with explosives and high-pressure water is being billed as new, but it isn’t. Nor is horizontal drilling, which is necessary because shale deposits are spread wide but thinly. The thing that is new is that getting gas this way is now economically and politically viable. Economical because ‘conventional’ gas is unevenly distributed and getting harder to extract, while it looks like everyone apart from Poland has got oodles of this unconventional shale stuff. And politically? Well, we all remember what happened when Russia spitefully turned off Ukraine’s taps in the middle of winter, and we don’t want to go down that unlit alleyway.

Fracking seems almost to have come out of nowhere. As is common in capitalism, and especially the USA, the smart money was straight down the well-heads before anybody thought to ask any awkward questions about regulation. And of course, first thing you know, cows are dropping dead after drinking poisoned water, flames are coming out of kitchen taps, and earthquakes are spilling cups of tea in northern England. Panic duly set in. The UK imposed a moratorium. Sarkozy banned fracking in France. Quebec and Poland followed suit. The main performance may yet turn out to be a success but the overture was certainly a disaster.

There can’t be many people who don’t know that the world is hitting an energy crisis. Oil is peaking, and tar sand oil extraction is a filthy, polluting alternative. Gas reserves are limited, and coal though plentiful is the dirtiest carbon culprit of the lot. Now after Fukushima nobody wants nuclear. Along comes shale gas, like a rabbit out of a hat, and hey presto, the opposition lobby is immediately in business. Protesters in Balcombe, one UK fracking site, insist that it is ‘a very, very short term choice. We really should be putting money into renewables’. Caroline Lucas of the Greens complains of the government’s ‘irrational obsession with hard-to-reach shale and with keeping the UK addicted to fossil fuels’ (BBC Online, 6 December).

These people don’t know what they’re talking about. If the Greens think that this or any government is going to be able to turn renewables, currently just 3.8 percent of the national grid, into a major energy source right in the middle of a depression, they are up a tree. What’s needed is a practical solution to an existing energy problem, and fracking looks like being it.

It’s not clean, but it’s 50 percent less carbon-belching than coal. It’s not easy to get but it’s getting easier. The much publicised fire faucets and poisoned water were almost certainly preventable accidents and cowboy carelessness at the well-head, rather than leaks from the kilometres-deep seams.

Although it’s still early days and nobody’s really sure how big the deposits are, the current global estimate is of around 250 years worth of shale gas at current usage, with the likelihood of revision upward not downward. This changes the whole energy debate at a stroke. Now the talk is of a bridging fuel to a low-carbon future, ie renewables, that could be a more realistic century away. The Greens are aghast. Their whole strategy relied on states having no get-out clause, and this doable solution is the last thing they want. They believe, not without justification, that ‘realistic’ is politician-code for ‘never’, and that fracking will allow governments to ignore any investment in renewables for the foreseeable future. They are no doubt entirely correct in this appraisal, but that’s an argument against capitalist politicians, not an argument against fracking.

This being capitalism, one would hardly expect the development of fracking to be straightforward and problem-free. One must remember that it is not a matter of answering the call of global need, which is fairly steady and predictable, but rather the call of profit, which certainly is not. Thus the US fracking bonanza has already depressed local gas prices, causing a minor energy slump and shareholder panic, but worse, investment has also slumped in conventional drilling and liquefied natural gas (LNG) technology. Since there is a decade-long lead time in the energy business between investment and return, we get the ludicrous situation, which only capitalism could create, that 10 years from now there could be a global shortage of gas due to its very abundance deterring current investors. If you want an example of capitalist absurdity you could do worse than this one.

Beyond this, it’s not really for socialists to take a position on fracking, either pro or con. It’s not a class issue, after all. If regulated properly, which is a big ‘if’ in some countries, there doesn’t at present seem to be much of a case against it. It’s true that methane produces 25 times more global heating than carbon, and there is some early and tentative evidence that it might leak up through the soil (New Scientist, 24 November), but it’s not a long-stay gas so its effect is not likely to be as severe. If every new technology was abandoned directly there was a small accident, we would not have cars, planes, electricity or even steam power. Fracking is new, and the idea of blowing up the ground under our feet may seem intuitively alarming, but geologically speaking it’s fairly insignificant unless some fool drills into an existing fault, and besides, what other immediate alternative is there? If the world miraculously mined its invaluable seam of common sense and abolished the real disaster  of private capital accumulation through the market system, we’d still have an energy problem and fracking would still look like a good bridging solution. Only in that case the world’s people might take the question of renewables with rather more seriousness than short-term capitalist politicians will. If the Greens ever want their arguments to carry any force, they should get real and support workers to abolish capitalism first.

PJS

Obituary: Charles Kincaid (1988)

Obituary from the December 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Charles Kincaid died last month at the age of 85. Despite suffering and considerable pain in his last few weeks, the one subject which he continued to be able to speak about with enthusiasm and lucidity was socialism.

Discovering a copy of the Socialist Standard in the West Ham library in the mid-twenties, he read it through and became a socialist, soon joining the West Ham branch of The Socialist Party. The family suffered extreme poverty during three years of unemployment in the early 1930s, and this situation was hardly improved when he obtained employment at Enfield Rolling Mills in 1934. Much of the journey to [and from] West Ham he often walked, not being able to afford the full fares throughout the week. For all but 2 years of his 34 years in the Rolling Mills he was a shop steward.

In retirement at Milton Keynes he formed a discussion group and followed up a number of promising leads. People showing an interest in the case for socialism were written to and visited, despite difficulties caused by his lack of personal transport in the urban sprawl of the area. He made significant contributions to the local newspapers through their letters columns, developing the case for socialism in lengthy contests with opponents.

One of his most unlikely encounters took place during the Blitz while on nightshift. The Rolling Mills Chairman and Tory MP, John Grimston, turned up and was treated to a discourse on socialism to the accompaniment of bombs and anti-aircraft fire. On subsequent visits, he was challenged by Chas to try his hand at chess.

Those fortunate enough to have known Charles Kincaid will sadly miss his good humour and determination in the struggle for socialism. His example can only inspire us to redouble our efforts to bring about the change he was committed to. We extend our condolences to his son Bill and the rest of the family.

CS

Brave New Towns (1980)

The Briefing Column from the October 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the New Town Acts of 1946 over a score of such towns have been designated in Britain. Its object was "to relieve congestion in the big cities and to provide pleasant and healthy conditions for people who would not have to travel elsewhere to find work". According to the Official Handbook of the Information Office, these new towns "represent a notable achievement". The handbook remarks that it was hoped to get rid of the existing slums of the big towns, although it is admitted that the high proportion of unfit houses in Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow was so high that clearance would take "longer than usual".

Among the havens of hope were Harlow, Bracknell, Basildon, Crawley, Corby, East Kilbride and Cumbernauld. Nearly a million people have been moved to the new towns in the past 30 years. Are they all living in pleasant, healthy conditions away from the polluted air and poisonous canals of the old overcrowded cities? Do they find it easier to find employment without the need to travel elsewhere? Far from it; unemployment and developing slums reveal the poverty of the planners' ideas and the actual poverty of the people who put their trust in the planners. Many people are saying that they are worse off than before they moved. Those living in Basildon and Pitsea have heard their haven described as a "rural slum"; Crawley reports hundreds more unemployed; while in Corby, thousands in the British Steel Works have lost their jobs, and a great many houses are in urgent need of repair.

What about the much-lauded Milton Keynes? According to the Corporation there is prosperity in MK.

Twenty-six thousand jobs have been created since 1967. More than half of these can be described as genuine new jobs. Most of the jobs are from overseas companies and from expansion of companies already allocated. A pool of workers wooed to the area by cheap housing is now keeping pace with business expansion which is not happening in other parts of the country. Business men here are not moaning about high interest rates or traffic jams or having to lay off their workforce. They moan about shortage of hotel space to put up their numerous clients and about the delay in opening up the new helicopter service to Heathrow.

However, the new £8 million station opens soon. New firms include a domestic wireware business from London and engineers from East Grinstead, Sussex. The manager of the local job centre says that "the recession hitting other parts of the country has barely touched us. Over the next five years there will be another 5,000 jobs here".

But these startling claims leave many observers wondering. Andrew Blowers, a sociologist of the Open University, says that: "Workers here earn up to 15 per cent lower wages than in other parts of the South-East. Rents are higher than in London and quarterly central-heating bills of around £150 a year are common." He blames the Corporation for giving the new city a prestige image and attracting firms offering low wages. Most people could not afford to furnish their homes and were at the mercy of door-to-door salesmen with HP cons and inducements. While denying this poverty, the Corporation says "MK is no way isolated from normal economic and social national pressures".

That hundreds of new city children are living in poverty became clear from recent reports in the local press. "Many families were without gas or electricity. A lot of people are on the breadline." And on top of "normal" wages, high rents and the increasing dearth of jobs, they are faced with pollutants such as sulphur-dioxide and flouride emissions from the brickworks, the dangers of asbestos exposure in the Rail Works, housing cuts and large numbers of unemployed, especially among school-leavers.

Looking through the property columns, however, gives one a different picture. There's a 300-year-old cottage at Great Linford—offers in the range of £70,000. One among scores ranging from £52,000 in Hanslope to £82,000 in Towcester. Or if you are thinking of returning to London, there's a nice penthouse in Kensington at £115,000 (99-year lease) and one near Hampstead (freehold this one) at £245,000.

As the end of the 20 century approaches these glaring contradictions expose capitalism as criminally inefficient and anti-social, fit only for the end that has overtaken all previous class-divided societies.

Charles Kincaid

Labour's young lions (1964)

From the May 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent conference of the youth section of the Labour Party, the so-called Young Socialists, at Brighton, has again rejected the official party policy on many important issues. There are signs that the young Socialists have now become an embarrassment to the Labour Party as was the League of Youth in the past. The Labour Party has always been unfortunate with its youth section. They have always been captured by extremists. In the thirties it was the Communists; today it is the Trotskyists.

Trotskyist theory places great emphasis on leadership and slogans. It is their policy to take up the demands of any discontented group and to try and lead their struggle. The Young Socialists have been an easy target for them. In fact it is only here that their policy of boring from within has had any success. The youth sections of all "left-wing" parties tend to be more "radical" than the main party.

When the blatant vote-catching manoeuvres of the leadership of the Labour Party are considered it is not really surprising that the Young Socialists have gone the way they have. They don't like what they see but have not the political experience to explain it. It is young people in this frame of mind that the Trotskyist approach with criticism and an alternative policy. They move in and organise the discontented members.

There are at present four or five Trotskyist and similar groups operating in the Young Socialist movement. This in itself is noteworthy. For Young Socialist branches have tended to back the group which approached them first, though changes occur through the process of splitting to which the Trotskyist groupings are particularly liable. The most influential of these is Keep Left which the Labour Party has already proscribed. This takes the same line as the Socialist Labour League, the main British Trotskyist group, and has a clandestine organisation within the Young Socialists. There are other Trotskyist groups opposed to Keep Left in Liverpool, Nottingham, Glasgow and South Wales. Then there is Young Guard, which has a following in London and amongst students. Strictly speaking, this is not Trotskyist—its Trotskyist wing recently broke away—but it has the same technique of "boring from within."

An amusing aspect of all this is the factionalism and the disagreements between the various groups. The leaders of the boring-from-within groups—Healy, Grant, and others—are all older men who have been on the Trotskyist movement for twenty to thirty years. They fell out with each other soon after the Revolutionary Communist Party was dissolved in the late 1940s. The basic differences were over the nature of the Russian system and various theses of Pablo, a leader of the Fourth International, on Eastern Europe. These quarrels have been transferred lock, stock and barrel to the Young Socialist organisation. Wherever their branches meet these obscure differences are aired and the whole Trotskyist library of abuse is brought out—centrist, revisionist, Pabloite, elitist, Stalinist, Krondstadt, etc., etc. Added to this are stories and rumours of how the members of the groups have behaved at various conferences; how they allied themselves with the Right Wing; how particular groups have organised too many socials and dances. All this together with secret meetings and visions of armed uprisings may be good for laughs but has nothing to do with Socialism.

Generally speaking the members of these factions spend more time arguing against each other and Party officials than anything else. Such is the experience of boring from within. If Socialists were to join the Labour Party they too would be forced into petty disputes to the detriment of Socialist propaganda even if this were allowed. The Young Socialist Movement may have been easy to infiltrate but it has no power to do anything. When its members face the working class they do so as members of the Labour Party and on its programme. They do not control their own journal. They cannot campaign on their own programme. They have to campaign for a Western nuclear deterrent and for immigration control and for other policies which their conference has rejected. To campaign on any other programme is to render themselves liable to expulsion. This is the whole futility of boring from within. Inside the supposedly mass party your time is taken up with quarrels with bureaucrats; outside you campaign on their programme.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain holds that Socialism can only be established by a Socialist working class. hence the chief task of Socialists can only be to make their fellow workers Socialist. We hold that this can best be done by campaigning for Socialism and Socialism alone. To do otherwise is to get the support of non-Socialists and eventually to cease to be a Socialist party altogether. We accept the doctrine of the class struggle and base our policy on it. Thus we refuse to compromise with other political parties which, including the Labour Party, can only stand for Capitalism.

It is sometimes argued that the way to make Socialists is to back the demands of politically ignorant workers and show then that these demands can't be realised without getting rid of Capitalism. But this is an odd way of going about things. Why not tell the workers straight off that they're going down a blind alley? Why bother to lead them down it just to show them it is a blind alley? The logic of this is that the working class should try out all wrong policies just to see that they are wrong. We reject such nonsensical doctrine. But once this doctrine is rejected then the case for entryism falls to the ground. There is no longer any need to make a principle of leading workers down blind alleys because you think it will benefit them.

Nor does it make sense to argue that Socialists should work within the Labour Party because it is "the mass party of the working class." If the Labour Party is a mass working class party then so is the Conservative Party for just as many workers vote Conservative as Labour. But even if the Labour Party were supposed by the vast majority of workers this would still be no reason for joining it. Such workers would not be Socialists. It would still be the duty of Socialists to oppose the Labour Party and to point out its non-Socialist character. An independent Socialist party would still be necessary to spread Socialist ideas.

Basically, however, the Trotskyists don't accept the need for Socialist understanding. They are more interested in leading ignorant masses. This is perhaps why have been successful among the Young Socialists. The ordinary Young Socialist member has little knowledge of politics. He is merely discontented. The Trotskyists have channelled and assumed the leadership of this discontent. Thus arguments which we have heard many times before appear in Marxist and Trotskyist terms. But behind the words there is no understanding. The ordinary Trotskyist follower does not understand the principles of Socialism—some are even religious—he does not realise he is being used by a bunch of experienced political manipulators who have failed to gain a following elsewhere.

Some good may yet come from this confusion and ignorance. Some young people may be led to study the principles of Socialism and to think beyond the slogan level. Already ideas on Russia, nationalization and leadership which we have been expressing for decades are being discussed in some sections of the Young Socialists. We have something to contribute to these discussions. After all, we pioneered the view that Russia is State capitalist; we said even before nationalization was implemented that it would not benefit the working class; it has been a principle of our organization from its foundation in 1904 that the working class doesn't ned any leaders and must emancipate itself. It is not boasting, but a historical fact, that we have been consistently correct in our attitude to political issues. Those who are interested in politics do themselves a disservice if they ignore our case.

Adam Buick

What is the 'Islamic State'? (2015)

From the December 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

ISIS stems from the breakdown of Iraq. Its core is former officers of the Iraqi army that served under Saddam and were displaced by the Americans when they disbanded the Iraqi army after the conquest of that country. Those officers found themselves marginalised further by the capture of the state by an expressly Shia political party (under the sway of Iran). The army had been dominated by a confessional and cultural Sunni section of society. They were able to turn to their co-religionists to recruit support to mobilise against the new government. Although Islamic State (as a group) was already formed, and had emerged from Al Qaeda in Iraq and other Islamist insurgent groups, it was this lash up with experienced military commanders that allowed them to make their break through, around 2010.

It was their combat expertise, the poor moral of the new Iraqi army, and the general lack of government authority in several Sunni provinces, that allowed ISIS to capture the heavy weapons and advanced military equipment that enabled it to advance quickly and overrun Iraqi army positions to take control of vast swathes of the country in the north. The other contributory factor in its growth was the breakdown of civil order in Syria, which enabled ISIS to become a participant in that civil war.

Tellingly, in the unrest, Fallujah (already twice bloodily pacified during the US occupation) rose again. Whilst ISIS nominally maintains it controls the city, it is reported that the revolt was by local tribes, using ISIS assistance and military support. ISIS is thought to have about 30,000 fighters, and about 8 million Iraqis under their control. That is not sufficient military force to subjugate an entire population (before the uprising, about 1 in 20 of the Syrian population were employed in the Ba’athist security forces, which partly explains the regime's resilience, and gives an indication of the scale of resources needed to completely suppress a population). In order to hold this population, it projects an image, with global reach, claiming to want to create a universal Caliphate and convert the world to genuine (i.e. its brand of) Islam.

The organisation is concerned with having a fearsome reputation, just as every bandit, feudal baron and Mafioso has needed in the past, in order to protect itself and continue its business. It is all about respect and appearance. Hence the, frankly, incompetent terror attacks on Paris, which were more about show and spectacle than about any sensible military strategic goal. Indeed, it has been noted that when they first encountered significant resistance (the Kurds of Kobane) poor morale and training of ISIS forces saw them handsomely beaten.

Their reputation, though, allows them to carry out their commercial operations. According to Channel Four News ISIS has been able to seize over $400 million in bank robberies. A further $40 million comes from kidnap and ransom operations. Its main source of regular income, though, is the $100 million it makes through selling oil, most of it, surprisingly, to the Assad regime in Syria (http://tinyurl.com/oxp3nfv). The American historian and blogger Juan Cole:

“I would argue that Daesh (ISIS) is analogous to the pirate enclaves of the early modern period. Al-Raqqa, Palmyra, Mosul, Falluja and Ramadi function for it as desert ports, as Tortuga and Port Royal did for pirates in the Caribbean and St. Mary’s on Madagascar did for pirates in the Indian Ocean. It is easy to be misled by the organization’s language of “state.” It is a militia of some 25,000 fighters who conduct raids. They don’t actually do much governing of the places they dominate, and mainly extract resources from them. Tribal raiding states in it for the loot have been common in Middle Eastern history, as with Nadir Shah in the eighteenth century. Looting one city pays for the raid that lets you loot the next. They even make the people who want to emigrate and escape their rule pay a sort of exit ransom” (http://www.juancole. com/2015/11/modern-raiding-pirate.html).

Essentially, then, in his view ISIS is the most spectacularly successful mafia operation in history.

ISIS, far from being an existential threat to the western way of life, is in fact a species of a phenomenon seen time and again in history. Its economic basis is the availability of a natural resource which can be extracted with little labour but which commands a high price (other examples are metals and diamonds in Africa, or narcotics in South America). It complements this resource by the proximity of a disposable, largely uneducated population, whom it can recruit to do its dirty work and fighting. It extends this principle with the mass kidnap of woman, and institutionalised forced marriage and rape as a reward for its soldiers. It is, in essence, no different from the Mexican drugs cartels that terrorise the border regions of that country, and infiltrate and direct the governments there.

Essentially, unlike capitalists who live off surplus value, ISIS and its leadership live off the direct expropriation of material surplus wealth, much as a feudal aristocracy did. Hence why its medieval economics rely on medieval methods of rule. The local populations do not have to be disciplined or mobilised into its system, the way workers have to be, merely passively present to extract wealth of fighting manpower from whenever it is necessary.

The role of religion in this context is to keep the local population compliant, and to help attract recruits. A common confession of faith creates the idea of a common identity, and legitimises the excesses of the ruling gang. It also helps to attract ideologues and recruits from abroad. Its most useful role is in attracting money and support. ISIS follows the Wahabbist trend of puritanical Islam that is prevalent in Saudi Arabia. This (and links between Iraqi and Saudi tribes) allows it to obtain funding from Saudis. That Saudi Arabia is itself locked in a regional power struggle with Iran, which in its turn uses the Shia strand of Islam to spread its influence, means here are geostrategic elements to the precise doctrine followed by ISIS.

The other use for Islam by ISIS is to set its stall out against the Great Powers of America and Europe, and their legacy in the Middle East. ISIS expressly rejects the boundaries drawn up by the colonial powers, and seeks to mobilise people in the region behind it against the Western Powers. Islam is embedded into the culture and history of the region, and in the state building manner of ‘selective invented traditions’ it is trying to forge a polity against the great gangsters of the Western militaries, who are sufficiently successful to make their grabs (which tend to be in terms of the territories and the resources in the ground, rather than their movables directly) almost invisible to the eye.

Whilst Islam as a religion is not the only mobilising factor in the Middle East, it’s clear that it has managed to take the role of being at the forefront of nationalism from the state capitalism of an earlier period as expressed in Nasserism, the Ba'athist regimes in Iraq and Syria and the PLO.

Pik Smeet

A Quack's Confession (1968)

A Short Story from the February 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

The man was certainly ill. We all agreed about that. He was unconscious. He had a high fever. His breathing and pulse-rate was irregular. On rare occasions he would regain consciousness—but then he would just babble nonsensically, or leap about making frantic gestures. Everyone had to admit that there was something wrong. This was not how folk ought to behave. Undoubtedly, he was ill.

Furthermore, we all said something should be done about it. A few advocated prayer, others punishment. But most of us rejected such foolish advice. We were determined to treat his illness properly, medically and effect his cure.

"The correct treatment is quite apparent," said one. "The patient is unconscious, so we must wake him up. We can do this by shaking him vigorously, and by sounding loud noises in his ear."

"Perfect!" cried another. "And since he has a temperature we must cool him down. Let us submerge his body in icy water."

"Naturally," said a third. "And to regularise his breathing we must connect an air pump to his lungs, and be careful to work it by the clock."

In due course they fixed on a plan by which the sick man would receive all these types of medical care. To their surprise, however, after days of the most intensive treatment the patient did not seem to be improving. I thought his condition had worsened, but my companions indignantly rejected this suggestion, and not a few of them maintained (with deep conviction) that our man was on the mend. "Only a soulless cynic could deny that we have made progress," someone remarked, with a contemptuous glance in my direction.

At this I felt I had to speak out. "My knowledge of medicine is very slight," I told them. "But I do think we've been setting about this problem in the wrong manner. It seems to me that these disorders which you have been treating: the temperature, the irregular pulse and so on—these are but symptoms of something deeper. I think we should discover the cause of the illness and treat that."

At this there was, first of all, a great deal of laughter, but when I persisted, amusement turned into annoyance. One of my friends, a little kindlier than the rest, told me: "I can appreciate your concern. When I was your age I too had these high-flown ideas. However, we've a practical job to do now, and we're doing it as well as we can. These abstract notions of yours may sound all right in theory, but you must remember: medicine is the science of the possible."

"The so-called treatment you're using isn't curing the patient," I remonstrated. "If you never tackle the roots of the ailment, he will never recover. You may even be responsible for his death."

"That's going too far," I was rebuked. "Cherish your own ideals if you want to, but don't cast aspersions on decent people who are doing a necessary job. We're extremely devoted to our medical work, and it makes my blood boil to hear the irresponsible suggestion that it's all in vain. We cannot expect overnight miracles, after all."

Throughout all these conversations, the patient was groaning pitifully, and was therefore ducked in even colder water, shaken yet more roughly, submitted to louder and louder noises, etc. I was infuriated and went off to consult some books on medicine and physiology, where I soon discovered the cause of our patient's infirmity. As a matter of fact it is quite a simple virus, and very easy to eradicate.

But I could never persuade the others to listen to me, and they came increasingly to think of me as an obstructive person with a dangerous obsession. At length I was becoming such a nuisance that they had me locked up. I have been in this prison cell ever since. I am allowed newspapers, and in all of them I read that the patient is about to recover.

Yesterday I had a visitor—my fiercest opponent, the one who had denounced me more heatedly than anybody else, the one who was most dedicated to the view that only symptoms should be treated. "I'm genuinely sorry to see you here," he said. And I could see that he was.

"This may surprise you, but I personally feel there may be a lot in what you say. I couldn't come out on your side though. All these ideas about viruses are far too much in advance of the thinking of ordinary people. We must educate them gradually. In time, if we keep on treating symptoms, they will come to see that we must eventually eradicate the cause as well. I admire your stand, but we must be realistic, and not move ahead of the times."

With that, and a promise that I would be more comfortable, he shook me warmly by the hand and left.

All the same, it is extremely lonely here in the cell, and sometimes, at night, I am awakened by the patient's screams of agony.

David Ramsay Steele 

The Enemy on the Left! (1973)

The Enemy on the Left Column from the June 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

A regular column dealing with the antics of those who call themselves socialists but in practice do nothing but harm to the cause.

The material in this month's column is drawn from an article in a recent issue of the intellectual periodical Encounter who in turn are quoting from the leading ultra-left magazine in West Germany, Kursbuch. The German paper featured reports from a number of contributors, all known for their leftist views, about conditions in some of the so-called "socialist" countries. There is not room in this column to give more than a sample of the quotes from these reports but one can mention at the outset the remark of the editor (himself a well-known German left-winger) that it is noticeable that members of western communist parties are prepared to travel around Europe, even to such places as fascist Greece, but carefully avoid places like Hungary or the Ukraine. "The comrades just don't want to look at revolutionary reality."

However, the contributors did take the plunge and we follow with some excerpts from their reports. "The social system of Czechoslovakia is not socialist, but centralist, bureaucratic and totalitarian." The reporter has shied off the term capitalist, but not bad for a left-winger. As for North Korea, the state is described as an "authoritarian, nationalist, Fuehrerstaat". I prefer the term "red-fascist" but we see what he means. The North Koreans are forced to honour Kim Il Sung and his family as a holy family. Schoolchildren must recite: "The leader loves all children; all children  love the leader". Shades of Stalin. Not to mention Hitler. Party functionaries speak to the citizenry like army commanders and nobody dares get too close to the limousines in which they drive to their own separate shops and private theatre entrances.

"Cuba has been turned by Castro and Guevera into a living hell." (Yes, the same Che who was such a cult figure among the leftist students only yesterday; the name means rather less today. Tomorrow: "Che Who?") Castro's rule is a "hyphenated monstrosity: Hunger — Fear — Chaos — Terror". The support for the régime comes from the "partisan aristocracy", the old cronies of Castro and the Officer Corps. This "closed group" lives in luxury and enjoys exclusive privileges. Their favourite car is the Alfa-Romeo deluxe 1750. "This is the new class which preaches self-denial and sacrifice to the masses and speaks lightly of 'material differences', which propagandizes for the New Man with a Rolex on the wrist and an Uppman cigar between the fingers." (Shades of Animal Farm; how these red-fascists don't change.) There are no fewer than 20,000 political prisoners — but you won't find leftist creeps like Tariq Ali shedding any tears for these poor devils when they attend Castro's junkets, or leftist scribblers like the Guardian's Gott. It remains to add, sadly, that the German editor entitles the article "The Dilemma of Socialism and State Power". Schweinerei!

L. E. Weidberg     

Violence and the Social Revolution (1924)

From the December 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is customary for our opponents to represent the Social Revolution as an orgy of bloodshed. They profess to believe that violence, in various forms, is its essential feature. Thus Mr. Arthur Henderson, Secretary of the Labour Party, in an article in the "Daily Herald" (November 19th), refers to "the odour of blood and hatred, etc, which clings to the idea of the Social Revolution." He wishes this "odour" to be dissociated from the programme of "fundamental economic transformation" proposed by the Labour Party, and expresses the opinion that the Party has suffered from some of its adherents talking about the "iniquities of the capitalist class," and "the class war."

Before proceeding to examine this conception more closely, it is worth noting that the above Mr. Arthur Henderson was for some considerable period a member of a Government which, among others, was officially responsible for the slaughter of millions of members of the working class. Apparently Mr. Henderson's aversion to blood and hatred does not prevent him from helping to carry on a war in the interests of the ruling class.

The same remark applies to numerous other members of the present-day "party of peace."

Another point which calls for comment is the fact that none of the proposals of the Labour Party which have found practical legislative shape involve any "fundamental economic transformation." On the contrary, every one of these proposals has always recognised the legality of the ownership by its present proprietors of the mass of wealth which we refer to as the means of living, that is the land, railways, factories, etc.

An economic transformation could only be fundamental if this legal right of the owner-class was abolished, through the conversion of the means of life into the common property of the whole community. The dispossession of the master-class by the wage-slave class, that is alone a fundamental change since it upsets the very basis of the existing social order; and that is precisely the essential feature of the social revolution. Any violence there may be will be entirely incidental, and will obviously depend upon the nature of the resistance offered by the master-class to the abolition of their privileges. So long as the master-class control the political machinery and along with it the major force in society it is clear that a revolutionary organisation is not in a position to use force with any chance of success, and consequently has no interest in doing so. On the other hand, once the revolutionary party has conquered political power the force it will exercise to carry out its object will then be "constitutional," i.e., the act of established authority.

The Labour Party along with their Communist supporters encourage the idea that revolution and political activity along peaceful and legal lines are in some way opposed to one another. The Socialist Party denies such opposition. With the social revolution as its avowed object it proclaims the necessity of the workers becoming organised consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government (see Declaration of Principles) as the means of accomplishing that object. Its activity consists in endeavouring to convince the workers of the need for Socialism, which consequently brings it into conflict with all parties which seek to persuade them that some other object is worthy of their support.

In conducting this activity we are guided by the fact that the interests of the workers and their masters are opposed to one another. The established order is responsible for poverty; it is therefore to the interests of the workers to abolish it.

At the same time the present basis of society provides the few with wealth. We need not be astonished then they they defend it. This elementary fact is continually being obscured by reformers of every description.

They profess to be able to harmonise class interests and see no harm in exchanging political support with the parties of the masters. Thus the Labour Party held office by consent of a majority of Liberals and Conservatives in the late Parliament. Such a position would be inconceivable in the case of a Socialist Party. Acting in the interests of the workers, it would oppose the parties of the masters at every step, and would consequently meet with their opposition in return. Such a party can only exist and develop as a result of an increasing mental grasp by the workers of their own position.

Mr. Arthur Henderson and his associates fear such a development. Hence their aversion to any discussion of the class war. The fact of such a conflict in society, evident throughout every section of economic life, must be kept apart from political issues to suit their ambitions to be successful statesmen. But economic evolution is no respecter of personal ambitions.

The class war continues and becomes more intense in spite of all efforts to hide it.

The question is not fundamentally one of morality. The Socialist Party does not talk of the iniquity of the master-class. They, like ourselves, are the creatures of social development. Consequently we do not howl for their blood. Candidly, it is their property we want, and if they are determined to die rather than yield, die they must; but we do not imagine that social evils are due to their sins or that any altered outlook on their part will remove these evils. The system is the cause of these evils, and the system must be abolished. Instead of abolishing the system the Labour Party proposes to camouflage it by turning shareholders into Government Bondholders. They simply propose to paint Capitalism red (like a pillar-box) and call it Socialism.

The social revolution is the only logical outcome of the existing struggle between the classes. The master-class cannot exist without a slave-class and that class in its turn cannot exist except as a result of a continual conflict with its masters for its means of subsistence.

Strikes and lock-outs are not the results of mere differences of opinion. They proceed from an antagonism of interest. In order that the masters make a profit, wages must be kept as low as will allow the worker to produce that profit. Both sides realise this in practice, however little they grasp its implications in theory; but it is not the workers' interest that the masters should make any profit out of them. Hence their struggle over wages questions.

Wages, however, become more and more insecure; unemployment increases and wages fall. What outlook, then, has the wage-slave? No hope, certainly, under capitalism.

Emancipation from want can only with the abolition of class-ownership of the means of life, i.e., in the social revolution.

The common ownership of the means of life, with production carried on in a socially-organised manner for the provision of food, clothing and shelter for all, that is Socialism, the object of the Socialist Party, the party of the Social Revolution.

Eric Boden

"The environment will force the hand of the world (2015)

Interview of Howard Pilott, The Socialist Party's Brighton candidate in the last election and a member of the Brighton Discussion Group by the University of Sussex Students' Newspaper, The Badger.

It doesn’t feel like the setting for talk of revolution. It’s a rainy day in Lewes, and I’m sat in Howard Pilott’s large open plan kitchen as he stands distractedly making tea. His springer spaniel Rose nestles against my leg, and I’m a little intimidated by the affluence of my surroundings. He dismisses the idea that this conflicts with his socialist ideals: “In order to advance the case of the working class in this society I’m not sure it particularly serves for me to say: Right, I’ve got to live in sackcloth and ashes for the rest of my life”.

Pilott is passionate about socialism, that much is clear; a self-confessed ‘political-butterfly’ (he’s been a member of both the Labour and Green Party), Howard Pilott contested Caroline Lucas’ seat for Brighton Pavilion in the 2015 general election for the Socialist Party of Great Britain. What does socialism mean for him? He’s clear that it is, and will be (although not within his lifetime he wearily concedes), a  leaderless movement. He looks at me seriously as he discusses how our government is structured towards the representation of vested interests, a system supported through clever spin and media monopolies, and yet “there seems to be this consensus that there is no alternative”.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain envision instead a system of local organisation: “Decisions about what are in the interests of the majority of the population should be taken by the majority of the population; local collectives organising on a local basis with other local collectives”. There’s no monetary system, no particular political agendas: “People freely choose what they aspire to, what needs to be made. They contribute what they can”.

I ask Pilott if his running for MP was in line with this conception of a leaderless movement, and whether the change for which he speaks, a socialist revolution, the end of capitalism, is something that could be achieved by working from within: “Voting for me wasn’t about my intentions to become an MP, to go to the House of Commons, be a backbencher…It’s not that kind of thing. A vote for us is a statement of rejection of the current society. Saying you want something very different. To reject capitalism. A rejection of the idea that power is in the hands of the few”.

“We’d gradually get a large sector of the community turning round and saying ‘we don’t want this’. That a large part of the population are outside of this [system of governance]. At some point sooner or later the majority of the population will have to seize power; turn around and say, actually we’re not playing by these rules anymore”. Pilott maintains the necessity of a peaceful revolution, and he’s evidently wary of being associated with the legacies of former communist states: “To seize power tends to conjure up images of storming the Winter Palace. I don’t think it would be like that – violent revolutions don’t get you very far”. He reflects on Iraq, Serbia and Afghanistan, observing that violence is cyclical and self-repeating; a poor foundation for an egalitarian society: “If you start off being violent, it’s hard to stop – you’re on the road to notown”.

When I first heard Howard Pilott talk, during the first waves of Corbyn mania, I was surprised by his hostility to the new Labour leader and the wider Labour party, which he criticises enthusiastically and with a seemingly greater regularity than the Conservatives; is this an explication of the much lamented fracturing among the British political left? The problem with Jeremy Corbyn, according to Pilott, is that he represents “a kind of sense of false hope. Joining the Labour party may be a bit like giving to charity or buying a copy of the Big Issue in order to change things – because they’re in bed with capital”. He contends that the Labour party is tearing itself apart: “It has got this really difficult path to tread, because it’s not talking about abolishing capitalism, it’s talking about running capitalism a bit more nicely than the Tories can”. However, Corbyn is not entirely dismissed: “I welcome the existence of everybody on the Left, because they may be asking the right questions”, although Pilott wrily adds that Labour’s solutions are often “half-baked”. Either way, for Howard Pilott, questioning the system will eventually lead to answers; to the structural change anticipated by the SPGB.

Indeed, Pilott considers that Jeremy Corbyn may be the recruitment drive the SPGB desperately needs. He contends that newer members of the Labour party, enthused for a new voice platforming popular dissatisfaction with mainstream politics, will begin to see that in actual fact Corbyn’s Labour represents more of “the same old same old; squabbling over Trident, talking about bombing Syria, not doing anything about tuition fees”. To be in Labour, according to Pilott, is to be “bogged down in the minutiae of managing capitalism”. Yet, despite Howard Pilott’s passions for the advancement of socialist ‘rationalism’, the SPGB struggles with attendance at public meetings, even in Brighton. Does he get dejected? “It’s a bit demotivating at times. We’re not a big party at the moment (he laughs, adding that he only got 88 votes in the general election), we’re not going to make a major dent in the world”.

“I think it’s a bit like ‘what did you do in the war Daddy?’, ‘what’s the bit you’re doing towards the environment?’ It’s about what you’re doing in these areas on a personal level. I think it’s really important to keep the flag flying. We’re still here: this is the alternative, opportunities are available for you”. Whilst Howard Pilott thinks that there’s “not a chance” capitalism will end within his lifetime, he thinks there’s already steps being taken: “The thing that is going to force the hand of the world is the environment. Even Bill Gates now has said that he doesn’t think the market system can deliver [a solution to climate change]. What will happen is that there will be an increasing polarity of interests”.

The consequence of environmental pressures could go either way, Pilott says, according to this polarity; he’s afraid of the alternative: “Society could become more oppressive, more fascistic”. Yet he’s mentioned previously that socialists should vote Tory. He laughs when I ask him about this, but admits that “this is something I’ve always struggled with. I subscribe to the Marxist idea of false consciousness – people are arguing in favour of things that are not in their interest”. He ascribes UKIP’s popularity to this notion: “What is Nigel Farage? A city trader, a millionaire. They think that because he’s got a pint and a fag in his hand he’s one of them. What does he want to do? Cut taxes for the rich”.

If there is a false consciousness, as Howard Pilott attributes, how can there be the break necessary for a socialist revolution? Pilott smiles, “well you can talk to them, which my party has tried to do for 110 years. Or alternatively, you can wait for capitalism to do its work for you. For things to begin to get so bad that people start to become more agitated”. This is his logic behind the idea of voting Tory – the necessity to shock people from their inertia: “You get more full-blown capitalism [under a Tory government], less of the amelioration of a welfare state; workers rights are removed, social provision is scrapped, markets are let rip…Maybe what would happen is that the inequalities, the deprivations this creates will wake people up”. Pilott’s uncertain however of this tactic: “That was a facetious remark I made – I don’t know whether or not it’s true”.

One thing is clear for Howard Pilott though: we are reaching the final crises of capitalism. He thinks people need to be shocked in order to ‘wake up’ to the oppression and inequality inhered in a capitalist system, and that this will happen through environmental pressures, through climate change, as we fail to take effective mitigative action: “The environment will certainly wake people up, but the trouble is, it may wake them up too late”.

Is there no hope then for socialism? Howard Pilott I think is quietly optimistic; he possesses the certain dogged idealism necessary for the contemporary socialist, trusting in the ‘ingenuity of humankind’: “I don’t believe that a society which can come up with triple heart bypass surgery, that can effectively bring people back from the dead, can take a piece of machinery on this planet, fire it at another planet that is further away than the sun and get it to land on an asteroid smaller than Lewes, can’t arrange things on this planet other than a way where a handful of people have to own half of it, and millions of people have to starve. I simply don’t believe it. It doesn’t strike me as sensible, rational or intelligent, and I’m sure actually we’re beyond that”.

Kathryn Cheeseman

Material World: Burma - More Rounds To Go (2015)

The Material World Column from the December 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Burmese generals throw in the towel’ was the headline in the Times (12 November). ‘President Thein Sein, the former Junta general, promised to hand over power to Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy.’

Office maybe, but not power. The fact is that the military of Burma (these days also called Myanmar) have not yielded political power to the will of the people. 

On the Common Dreams website Mark Farmaner explains the constitutional reality (LINK.): to end economic sanctions and their pariah status, but having no wish to surrender control of the country and aware that they couldn't win an election, the solution for the military elite was a new constitution which has the appearance of democracy yet which still left them in control.

The democratically elected MPs will be joined in the new parliament by another 116 MPs, all appointed by the head of the army, 25 percent of the total, who will choose one of the two vice presidents, and like them, will be a soldier. The head of the Burmese army also gets to choose key government ministers. The Defence Minister, Home Affairs Minister and Border Affairs Minister who will all be serving soldiers. This puts the armed forces outside of the control of the new government. The new government will not have control over the police, justice system, security services or issues in ethnic states where the army, according to numerous human rights organisations, have been committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Without control of the police or being able to create a truly independent judiciary people will still be able to be jailed for their political beliefs or actions. A National League for Democracy (NLD) government won’t be able to use the military budget to try to rein in the army. The army sets its own budget. The government has to make do with the money left over. No surprise, then, that military spending is higher than health and education combined.

Just in case an NLD government should still try to implement policies the military doesn't like, above both parliament and government is a 'National Defense and Security Council'. Constitutionally, it is the most powerful body in Burma. It has eleven members, six of whom come from the military, so it has a built-in majority. It could overrule decisions made by an NLD government. If these checks on the power of the government were not enough, the military also inserted clauses in the constitution that give it the right to retake power for vague and unspecified ‘national security’ and ‘national unity’ reasons. In the special case of Aung San Suu Kyi, the military placed a specific clause in the constitution that a president can't have children who are citizens of foreign countries, which she does, just to prevent her ever becoming president.

Perhaps the constitution can now be amended? The generals foresaw the possibility and this is the importance of the 25 percent of seats quota for the military in parliament. To change the constitution, more than 75 percent of MPs have to vote for it so the military have a veto over constitutional reform. No change unless they agree to it.

This is not political democracy. The military dictatorship has tried to ensure that the state continues to be their ‘executive committee’ while offering the sop of token democracy. The military are fully integrated into the commerce of Burma, trading as capitalists in their own right, and to preserve their business interests they want to remain in control of the state. Mark Farmaner aptly describes it as ‘democracy on a leash’. Even so the NLD won enough seats to be able to appoint the president.  In Western democracies, a situation where the military are not under the control of the government and where the military appoint key government ministers, would be considered completely unacceptable.

The fact is the global capitalist system is willing to turn a convenient blind eye to reality if it provides access to Burma’s resources and markets. Aung Suu Kyi’s international reputation will help attract business and the multinationals are eager to see many more ‘Made in Myanmar’ labels. Despite what the Times claimed, there are a few more rounds to go before Burma attains political democracy.

ALJO

Stalin in Eclipse: They came not to praise him but to bury him . . . (1956)

From the June 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

On March 5th, 1953, one Jospeh Vissarionovich Djugashvili, alias Stalin, died.

In the Soviet Weekly (12:3:53), under a large photograph of the late Russian dictator, the following words were written:—

"The immortal name of STALIN will always live in the hearts of the Soviet people and all progressive mankind!"

And in a statement published on the same day as Stalin's death, by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R. and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, we are told that: The heart of Jospeh Vissarionovich Stalin, comrade, in arms and continuer of genius of the cause of Lenin, wise leader and teacher of the Communist Party and the Soviet people, no longer beats." The Russian Communists, in their statement, also inform us that: "Comrade Stalin led our country to victory over Fascism during the Second World War . . . "

In his funeral oration Georgi M. Malenkov, now Soviet Minister of Power Stations, spoke of Stalin—the "Great" Stalin—as the greatest genius of mankind, the great thinker of our epoch and the greatest theoretician on national questions. And he continued:—

"The strengthening of the country's defence capacities and the consolidation of the Soviet armed forces have been the object of Comrade Stalin's tireless concern."

Malenkov then bid farewell to "our teacher and leader, our beloved friend . . . !"

After Malenkov had finished Beria, who has since been shot as a traitor and an enemy of the Soviet State, reminded those present that:—

"Our great leaders Lenin and Stalin taught us untiringly to increase and sharpen the vigilance of the Party and the people, against the designs and intrigues of the enemies of the Soviet State. We must now still further intensify our vigilance."

And they did—against the Secret Police Chief, Beria, himself!

Three Years Later
Three years after the death of the "great" Stalin, "Comrade" Khrushchev, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in his report to the twentieth Congress of the Party, shocked many of the "comrades" present by saying:—

"Many of the shortcomings we are now working to eliminate would never have arisen of not for the complacency that at one time gained currency in some links of the Party, and for the tendency to give a rosy picture of the real state of affairs . . .
   "If Party unity was to be further consolidated and Party organisations made more active, it is necessary to reestablish the Party standards worked out by Lenin, which in the past had frequently been violated.
    "It was of paramount importance to re-establish and to strengthen in every way the Leninist principle of collective . . .
       "The Central Committee was concerned to develop the creative activity of Party members  . . . It vigorously condemned the cult of the individual as being alien to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism, a cult which tends to make a particular leader a hero and miracle worker and at the same time belittles the role of the Party and the masses and tends to reduce their creative effort. Currency of the cult of the individual tended to minimize the role of collective leadership in the Party, and at all times resulted in serious drawbacks in our work."

(Cominform Journal, 17.2.56).

This was only the first shot against the late "leader and genius" of the Soviet Union—Joseph Stalin.

M. A. Suslov also condemned the cult of the individual: and said that collective leadership had at least been re-established. And A. I. Mikoyan admitted that in the past three years "after a long interruption, collective leadership has been created." (Applause). (Cominform Journal, 2.3.56, emphasis theirs). He continued by saying: " . . . for approximately 20 years we had no collective leadership . . . " And:

"In analyzing the economic position of present-day capitalism it is doubtful whether Stalin's well-known thesis in the 'Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.' can be of any help to us or is correct—in relation to the United States, Britain and France—the thesis that with the break-up of the world market the volume of production in these countries will shrink! This assertion does not explain the complex and contradictory phenomena of present-day capitalism and the fact of the growth of capitalist production in many countries after the war."

(Cominform Journal. 2.3.56).

Dealing with Stalin's book 'The Short History of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of the Soviet Union' Mikovan says that it is inadequate and inaccurate. After attacking other books on Party History and the Civil War, he admits that "Such historical scribbling has nothing whatever in common with Marxist history."

Stalin the Terrorist
Since the termination of the twentieth Communist Party Congress in Moscow, it has been reported that Khrushchev made another—more pointed—attack on Stalin at a secret session. He is reported to have accused Stalin of making mistakes in regard to Soviet agriculture, of weakening the Russian Army prior to the Second World War by killing 5,000 Russian army officers—and of terrorism. Even Harry Pollitt, the British Communist, admits that "Stalin . . . ignored warnings about Hitler's invasion plans . . . " (Daily Worker, 24.3.56). He also admits in his first article condemning Stalin, that Stalin made serious mistakes in connection with agricultural policy, and later in his relations with Jugoslavia.

According to the Manchester Guardian (28.3.56), the first reliable report of what Mr. Khrushchev actually said about Stalin appeared in the Polish Communist Party paper Trybuna Lubu. In an article bu Jerzy Morawski, a leading Polish Communist, he says:—

   " . . .  the degeneration of the security organs could, and indeed did take place. They became independent of the Party authorities and were used to consolidate the personal power of Stalin."

And:—

"Later on repression was used automatically and blindly."

And further:—

   "As a result many honest people were sent to prison penal camps or shot."
  "Almost all the leaders and the active members of the Polish Communist Party then in the Soviet Union were arrested and sent to camps."

For many years both Socialist and non-Socialist critics of the Russian régime have said that Russia was in fact a dictatorship, that Stalin was a ruthless dictator, that the Soviet Union was a police State, that many innocent people had been thrown into slave camps, and that neither democracy nor Socialism existed there. And for as many years Communists, in all countries, have denied these allegations. Yet now, scarcely three years after Stalin's death, the Communists themselves are admitting much, if not all, of the truth about Stalin and his bloody dictatorship.

Perhaps in time more will be admitted. The Communists may even deny that Socialism exists in Russia.

Peter E. Newell

Pathfinders: Digging Optimism (2015)

The Pathfinders Column from the December 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

There's a bit of a revolution going on in archaeology at the moment. It started a few years ago with the excavation of the temple complex of Göbekli Tepe in southern Anatolia in Turkey. The structure consists of concentric circles of 20 ft high, 20 ton stones and the earliest phase of building is dated to the Epipaleolithic, a period of post-glacial hunter-gatherer groups that came before the Mesolithic era, and long before the agricultural developments of the Neolithic. At somewhere between 10,000  and 20,000 years old, Göbekli Tepe is the oldest known temple structure in the world.

That's if it is a temple. So far nobody is quite sure, and guesses have ranged from a sanctuary to a banquet and festival venue to a proto-religious centre devoted to Sirius, the dog star. If a sanctuary, it's not clear what guests might have been fleeing from. If it turns out the structures were roofed over, the stargazing theory will be dogged with an obvious problem (New Scientist, 14 August 2013). The festival centre idea is the most novel, and the most troublesome.

What nobody disputes is the remarkable fact that there is no sign of agriculture anywhere near the temple, nor any trace of a permanent settlement. In archaeological terms this is an anachronism, and it's not just Göbekli Tepe. At the Syrian site of Tell'Abr, dated 11,000 BP, and also at Dja 'De and several others, pre-agricultural villages - consider the significance of the phrase - have been excavated with large communal buildings, while at Wadi Faynan in Jordan what looks like an amphitheatre has been excavated, dating to 11,600 BP. Somehow hunter-gatherers who knew neither the potter's wheel nor the plough were doing large scale monumental building 3,000 years before settled farming, and 7,000 years before the Pyramids (New Scientist, 2 October 2013).

To say that these discoveries have blown a hole in orthodox theory is putting it mildly. The assumption has been that environmental limitations, possibly population growth, or global warming or some other factor, caused distressed humans to abandon their hitherto successful foraging life and develop settled agricultural techniques. You could sum it up as 'necessity is the mother of invention'. Marxian materialist thought has been in agreement with this narrative, and indeed through Marxist archaeologists like V. Gordon Childe may even have been the parent of it.

Some modern archaeologists are now asking themselves whether we've got it all wrong. Instead of changes in material conditions creating changes in overlying cultural strata, could major changes in the cultural superstructure instead have caused seismic changes in the material basis of society? To a socialist, that's rather like asking if you can boil a pan of water without turning the gas on.

Something's certainly wrong with the picture. Evidence is gathering that, instead of a sudden headlong rush into farming spurred possibly by some calamitous event, an extended period of 'proto-farming' grew up alongside and complementary with hunting and gathering, in which human groups acquired the knack of managing forests and game. In other words, there was slow agricultural evolution, not fast revolution, and it took place independently on every continent. Moreover, the great advances of farming technology, such as hybridisation of different strains for higher yield, tended to come about during phases of material plenty, not need, quite the opposite of what orthodox theory predicts (New Scientist, 31 October).

A plausible explanation for this is that while foraging provided the main diet, proto-farming was a sort of hobby which produced not the basics but the luxuries, and groups were in no hurry to rely on it as a main food source. This makes sense because the technology of hybridisation must have been a lengthy, trial-and-error business, and not one to be conducted in a hurry when times were particularly tough. Indeed some Scandinavian sites show that when the farming failed, the groups went back to foraging, and not the other way round.

If this view is right, it lends sustenance to the idea that early 'temples' like Göbekli Tepe were really feast-centres for gatherings of otherwise nomadic tribes, perhaps coming together to celebrate some seasonal prehistoric equivalent of Christmas, and that settled living and farming grew, organically and much later, round such established centres.

There is another factor to consider. It has been well documented in studies that humans have a bias towards loss-aversion, meaning that they are more likely to act to prevent a loss than to achieve a gain.

In the context of the pre-Neolithic this implies that agricultural technology could have developed after the fact of material plenty, in order to preserve it, rather than before it, in order to acquire it.

What's wrong then is not materialist thinking in itself but a particular iteration of it. If we factor in loss-aversion as a material motivator, we see that human social change can still be understood perfectly well in materialist terms, just not quite in the way we imagined.

And what, queries the impatient reader, does any of this have to do with the cost of my gas bill?

Just this: there are many people out there who, although sympathetic to socialist ideas, have failed to lend a hand or get involved in promoting the case for socialism for the simple reason that they have a fatalistic, even millennialistic view of social change. In short, they imagine that socialism, or any large-scale upheaval, can only come about after some global cataclysm which knocks out the entire governing apparatus of capitalism. That this amounts to an argument for doing nothing is almost beside the point. It's not a political stratagem, it's a suicide note, and a more depressing view of humanity and of the future would be hard to come by.

What if such people have got it backwards? What if recent work in archaeology is telling us a different story, that instead of being driven forward by disaster and desperation, humans are spurred on by success? Other things being equal, how much more motivating is it to offer a vision of the future based on a history of successes, than to offer dark and gloomy forebodings based on a history of failures? After all, we humans have got a lot of things right as well as wrong, and despite capitalism's rat race and rigged laws, values of tolerance, empathy, equality, mutual aid and democratic cooperation are surprisingly resilient in almost every country.

If we want people to come together in support of collective liberation from an economic system that's outdated, restrictive, destructive and viscerally unequal at every level, perhaps we ought to start creating arguments that build on the abundance of energy and creative genius that humans have, and not do what everyone else does, beat people over the head with a big nailed stick.

That way, maybe we could finally extend the season of goodwill to a year-round phenomenon.

PJS