The Backward Countries. A Problem for Socialist Policy
Practically the whole world has now come under the domination of the capitalist, and the question of the policy to be followed by the workers in the countries where industrial development lags behind is one that Socialists have to answer. India, China and countries in South America and Africa give examples of highly developed industry as an oasis in a desert of peasant proprietorship.
Some backward countries are completely independent political units in themselves; some are political units but are incorporated in a larger federation that has at its centre a superior power ; others are subject nations where the centre of political powers is outside the boundaries of the territory. The workers in the third group are faced with the perplexing question of nationalist movements, and the problem for them, is shall they in the first place give support to the nationalist movement until the political centre has been transferred within the border and then take up the opposition to the capitalists. This view obtains strength from the difficulty of getting workers to organise on class lines while the air is full of appeals to patriotism backed up by the weight of tradition.
Nationalist movements have this fundamental objection. By lining capitalists and workers up together they obscure the class line by the assumption that they are brothers fighting a vital battle, and tend to push, the class antagonism of the two entirely into tlie background. Such movements are almost ahvays given a religious turn which adds to the confusion. In Ireland nationalism and religion were used for ages to keep the exploited divided.
There is the further objection that these movements have a harmful effect on the worker’s struggle in other countries. The heroic nationalist of one country is hand in glove with the oppressor of another.
The principle to be adopted is a simple one. Capitalism is capitalism the world over and its supporters everywhere are the enemies of the workers. A genuine Socialist movement is recognised everywhere by the adoption of identical principles, except in minor matters of detail. Consequently those who are the enemies of the workers in one country are recognised as the same in all countries.
To those who imagine it is necessary to help on the industrialisation of a country it may be pointed out that one nation learns from, and is helped by, another. By so doing it undergoes a hothouse development avoiding the pitfalls and being relieved of much of the painful learning experiences met with by the pioneer nations in their slow development. They travel from crude means of production to the latest methods at high speed, and in the course of a generation or two. This development can be safely left to tlu capitalists themselves, whose main interest it is, and need not involve either the thought or the energy of the workers. Time spent in this direction while it might assist industrialisation would ultimately be paid for by the increasing difficulty of developing an independent working class movement out.of a situation of conflicting policies. So many forces are at work to-day obscuring the class line that it is imperative for those seeking emancipation to keep it clear and prominent to the utmost of their ability. The Russian movement will eventually have to pay for indiscretions in this direction committed in its name, just as the Socialist movement in other countries is suffering from the twist Russia has given to the ideas of Socialism.
To Illustrate the view put forward let us take India, as an example of a country, relatively backward, and in subjection to a political control exercised from outside.
It is a country that has been for centuries a considerable source of income for British adventurers and investors. From the beginning, under the title of taxation, ingenuity has been pushed to extremes to devise methods of squeezing booty out of the inhabitants.
European traders found their way over the country and established commercial centres finally backed by the guns of the home country. England eventually won the fight for commercial exploitation and established supremacy over the country, subjecting the natives to a tyrannous rule, the results of which are seen in the servile attitude of sections of the coloured population and the swaggering dictatorial attitude of the whites. Capitalist industry began to make slow headway in the country until it reached its present level, where there is a considerable capitalist industry in existence—particularly in the textile trades, and iron and steel.
India is a large country with a huge population divided on the question of religion. Nine-tenths of the people are impoverished peasants living in villages. A large proportion of the rest float between town and village and look back to the villages as their homes where they will return to end their days on the savings they hope to accumulate from their work in the towns. In fact a part of their earnings go back to the villages to help their relatives : a position similar to that of the Irish peasant emigrant.
Since the English occupation capitalists from other countries have obtained entry, and English, American, Japanese, German and Indian capitalists compete for the wealth wrung from the exploited Indian worker and peasant, and each seeks to use the discontent of the exploited for its own ends.
The solution of the Indian question lies in the hands of the workers and not of the peasants, for if the peasant would lift the load of misery from his shoulders he must throw in his lot with the worker. Peasant culture, quite apart from the fact that it faces backward towards the time when man was entirely at the mercy of the forces of nature, is based on a method of private ownership that, with the growth of population, offers only a meagre existence at the best of times and breeds fratricidal strife over the division of property. However large a country may be, there is a limit to the cultivable area, and consequently a limit to the separate plots worked on primitive methods. Peasant culture is ultimately doomed in any event, so the peasant must face the fact.
In spite of the large proportion of the population living in villages it is only a question of time before modern methods of farming and mechanization transform the primitive village culture and bring into existence an agricultural proletariat of a similar standing to that of his industrial brother. The process is already well under way. Agricultural machinery, motor transport and the recently completed Sukker barrage are harbingers of the new era.
Until recently the villages have been self-supporting and the age-old love of the peasant for his plot of land has encouraged those who advocated a return to the primitive spinning wheel. But there arc forces at work which compel the peasant, in spite of himself, to throw overboard his independence, and will in any case ultimately defeat the advocates of this “back to the land” movement. The introduction of manufactured products has given the villager new outlooks and fresh needs which demand satisfaction and which bring him into the grip of modern industrial production. National aspirations will not be strong enough to kill the desire for the cheap products of advanced industry and for the new forms of enjoyment, such as wireless and the cinema which native capitalists will find it profitable to introduce.
While at the moment, then, the peasant will be a drag on the workers’ movement there is no need to compromise in policy on his account, as conditions will fight the battle and win.
Industrially, the Indian workers must take trade union action and fight the battle for better conditions, as their hours of labour and other working conditions are far behind their fellows in other countries.
Politically, they must organise as a unit of the International Socialist movement on a basis similar to that printed on the back page of this paper. Without a share in the franchise that gives the opportunity to control political power they cannot obtain control of the political machinery, and, therefore, however large their organisation, they are impotent. Their policy should.,therefore, include a demand for an extension of the franchise.
This raises the question of whether they should ally themselves with those advocating some form and degree of Indian self-government. On the one hand, there is no question about the wealthy, whose interests would be served doing their part in pushing forward autonomy. On the other hand, there is no doubt that India is becoming too unwieldy to be handled efficiently from this country and the fact is being recognised by those in power. This, together with the work of interested parties in other countries as well as in India, will eventually bring-about the concession of some form of Dominion status.
Capitalists, blinded by their greed for profits, have a tendency to go after the immediate end and leave the long view to look after itself. Time after time they have ignored the wiser counsels of their paid professors when a momentary advantage was to be gained, and turned a blind eye to the evil effects their policy might have on their brother capitalists. In spite then of the spread of Socialist ideas in India there is no reason to doubt that capitalist sections there, as long ago in England, will take up the workers’ franchise question in an attempt to secure support for private projects of their own. On the other hand, the growth of capitalism in India in the long run will itself compel those in power to concede the franchise and other modifications in the political machinery in a democratic direction to allow the smooth running of their exploiting system.
Workers in India, therefore, should unite on a basis of Socialist principles and organise for the establishment of Socialism. They should take what steps are necessary to secure a franchise for this purpose, but they should not unite with any other parties or give adherence to any other bodies, even those masquerading as pure and simple franchise organisations, as by so doing they would lose independence. So-called franchise organisations invariably have “interests” behind them. Whether India keeps in or falls out of the “British Commonwealth of Nations” is immaterial from the workers’ standpoint as long as they have machinery available to enable them to take political control out of the hands of the capitalists. Each Socialist Party in each country will be working to this end and the progress of all will roughly correspond in the end. When the movement in India has reached a point where the workers are nearing victory the progress in other parts of the Empire will bo such that the capitalists will have their hands full and will be unable to send forces to interfere with the Indian movement.
GILMAC.