Letters
Russia & China
Dear Sir,
You state in your journals that China and Russia are state capitalist countries but this is different to what Engels had to say on capitalist countries:—
“Active social forces work exactly like natural forces, blindly, forcibly, destructively, so long as we do not understand, and reckon with them . . . and this understanding goes against the grain of the capitalist mode of production and its defenders . . . With this recognition, at last, of the real nature of the productive forces of today, the social anarchy of production gives place to a social regulation of production upon a definite plan, according to the needs of the community, and of each individual” (>em>Socialism, Utopian and Scientific).
With Russian and Chinese plans for production this would surely mean that they are in no way capitalist.
HAROLD BROWN, Carshalton, Surrey.
Reply:
It is true that we deny that Russia and China are socialist and describe them as state capitalist. We say this because we see in these places the basic features of capitalism, namely, class rule, production for sale and the wages system.
We don’t of course believe that a quotation from Engels can settle anything. Even so we can’t see how Mr. Brown’s quotation helps this case at all. In the passages he quotes Engels is saying what socialists have always said: under capitalism where production is for sale anarchy reigns as it is the market and not society that controls production. As soon as the means of production are commonly owned production for sale is abolished and replaced by production for use. Production for use, by its very nature, involves planning for the various needs of people, both as individuals and as a community.
Mr. Brown implies that in Russia and China “social anarchy of production” has been replaced by the “social regulation of production upon a definite plan, according to the needs of the community and of each individual”. We must ask him to prove this since what socialists mean by anarchy of production is the results of production for sale. And production for sale has most certainly not been abolished in Russia and China.
In fact in the passage following where Mr. Brown ends his quotation, Engels, discussing distribution in a socialist society, makes it quite clear that he is talking about the abolition of production for sale:
“Then the capitalist mode of appropriation, in which the product enslaves first the producer and then the appropriator, is replaced by the mode of appropriation of the products based upon the nature of the modern means of production: upon the one hand, direct social appropriation, as means to the maintenance and extension of production—on the other, direct individual appropriation, as means of subsistence and of enjoyment.”
Direct appropriation means what it says: people (and society) get what they need not by buying them but by taking them directly.
Is this so in Russia and China?
In a later passage Engels is just as explicit:
“With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the producer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, definite organization.”
Has commodity production (that is, production for sale) been done away with in Russia and China?
We think we have shown that the passage Mr. Brown quotes from Engels does not mean what he takes it to mean. We can only suggest that he reads the excellent socialist pamphlet that Socialism, Utopian and Scientific is once again, this time more carefully.
EDITORIAL COMMITTEE
Religion
Dear Sir,
I believe Socialists who attack religion are acting against the interests of the people and against the establishment of Socialism.
I am referring specifically to your article “Catholics In Confusion” in the April SOCIALIST STANDARD. Of course there was much in that article which is true—where it describes the evil doings of some clergy— but evil doings are not religion they are just evil doings.
The point is that true religion is pro-Socialism and anti-capitalism. The Bible is very anti-usury which is the corner stone of capitalism.
Did not Jesus knock the rich money-lenders? He was in fact a Socialist as every decent religionist must be.
By all means knock bad religionists but praise the Socialist principles in true religion—such as brotherly love and compassion. There are many good Socialists who believe in God—for example the Rev. Hewlett Johnson, the Red Dean. Indeed I would go so far as to say that to be a sincere believer in God one has to be a Socialist.
To be an out-and-out materialist is getting a bit old-fashioned. Universities (even in Russia) are devoting part of their efforts to research into such things as telepathy and prediction and even survival of the human soul after bodily death. 1 have had cast iron proof of such things as telepathy, prediction, yes and even survival.
There is no irreconcilable conflict between Socialism and religion.
H. HORWOOD, London, N.W.9.
Reply:
Mr. Horwood claims that his is the true religion but so do the clergy whose “evil doings’’ he condemns.
Usury is not the cornerstone of capitalism; it is only one branch of capitalism’s structure which derives its unearned income from the surplus value produced by the working class. The basis of the workers’ exploitation is not usury; it is private ownership of the means of wealth production.
Even if we accept the Bible story of Jesus turning the money-lenders out of the temple it does not alter the fact that the basis of religion belief in the supernatural and a life after death is directly opposed to Socialism.
The religious person accepts the conditions in this life because he thinks that there is a better life coming. His philosophy explains society in terms of “good” and “evil”; the Socialist explains it in means of society’s economic development.
Dr. Hewlett Johnson is a well-known supporter of capitalism in Russia, China and Eastern Europe. These countries are run by dictatorships which show little brotherly love and compassion to their political opponents.
Universities have been studying telepathy, life after death and so on for a very long time. Up to the present, despite all the investigations, there is no scientific proof whatever to support the claim that such things exist.
There is no reason to believe in the existence of a supernatural. This is the only life which we know of and Socialists work to make it the best possible, by establishing a humane world: In this, one of the barriers we meet is religion.
EDITORIAL COMMITTEE
Then and now
Recently I was presented with a bound volume of the SOCIALIST STANDARD for 1911/1917. Reading of the events of those far-off days gives one a weird feeling of having been here before.
Of particular interest is the leading article of July 1911, which stated the attitude of the SPGB to the strike of the British Seamen’s Union. The tangible and known enemies of the seamen were clearly the Shipmasters (the owners), the Liberal government and all their agencies. But their intangible, unknown enemies were their own leaders, officials. Labour M.P.s who were knifing them from behind.
Now the 1966 strike of the National Union of Seamen was certainly not premature—the last one, 55 years ago, seemed to have dispirited them thoroughly and laid them under a spell which lasted right through two major wars, through two “Brave New Worlds” and through all the intervening years of “good” and bad times.
From Australia it appears the seamen again had the usual open enemies to face as well as the Labour government and the TUC. Yet it must be conceded that this is the very set-up the seamen in particular, and the working class in general, so vigorously support.
PETER FUREY, Melbourne, Australia.