Socialist Standard Past & Present Blog
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For those interested in that sort of thing, just a heads up that the entire issue of the December 1974 Socialist Standard is now online:
Link: December 1974 Socialist Standard
Content includes:
– Sir Keith Joseph’s on the feckless poor (famous speech where he warned of the moral degeneration of Britain ‘cos the D and E’s were having too many kids.
– Noise, Health and Capitalism
– Socialism Means Free Access
– Letters on Parliament and Dictators & the SPGB are bigots.
– ‘Celebrities’ tell us how they voted. (Including Kingsley Amis, Muriel Spark and John Osborne.)
– In Socialism: Who Will Do What?
– Whatever Happened to “Full Employment”?
– Film Review
– The reformism of the International Socialists
I’m sure there’s something for everyone.
For those interested in that sort of thing, just a heads up that the entire issue of the February 1964 Socialist Standard is now online:
Link: February 1964 Socialist Standard
Content includes:
– The coming General Election
– Kenyan independence
– A satirical guide for political candidates
– Left Communists and the development of capitalism in Russia
– Why prices go up
– Can we trust the population experts?
– A One-Act Monologue: Samson and the Philistine
– Book Review: The Trial of Charles de Gaulle.
– Book Review: A New Religion for China
– Magic of the New Year
– Open letter to Dick Taverne, MP
I’m sure there’s something for everyone.
For those interested in that sort of thing, just a heads up that the entire issue of the January 1929 Socialist Standard is now online:
Link: January 1929 Socialist Standard
Content includes:
– Sociology of Eighteenth Century French Drama. by G. V. Plechanov.
– The Economic League Discover Some “Socialist” Fallacies.
– Wealth and Directive Ability.
– The Kings of Capital and the Captains of Industry.
– Points For Propagandists.
– What is the Use of Parliament?
– Marxism To-Day.
– Champions of Labour
– “What Would We Do Without Leaders?”
– Lessons from the American Elections
– Sticking the boot into the ILP
I’m sure there’s something for everyone.
For those interested in that sort of thing, just a heads up that the entire issue of the November 1958 Socialist Standard is now online:
Content includes:
– Socialism, One World, One People by Ted Wilmott
– The Tory Pension Plan
– The Labour Party and Public Schools
– Terrorism and British Imperialism in Cyprus
– Advertising by Stealth by Robert Barltrop
– SPGB response to the recent ‘race riots’ in Nottingham and London
– Book Review: A History of Courting
– News from Wales
– SPGBer buys old safe for 30 shillings, and it turns out there is $250,000 of jewelry inside the safe. (true story)
– The Labour Party Conference
– Film Review: “The Defiant Ones” (Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier)
– A Propaganda Tour In America (SPGBer Jim D’Arcy visits the World Socialist Party of the United States.)
I’m sure there’s something for everyone.
For those interested in that sort of thing, just a heads up that the entire issue of the January 1923 Socialist Standard is now online:
LINK: January 1923 Socialist Standard
Content includes:
– Science and the Working Class.
– The Capital Sentence. (political hypocrisy in the aftermath of WW1.)
– Where does the Labour Party stand?
– Sex. (Yep, that’s the title of the article)
– What is Capital?
– Vote Swapping. (Labour Party hypocrisy)
– Book Review: “From Crow-Scaring to Westminster” (Biography of a Labour Leader.)
– Wells at the World’s End. (Sticking the boot into H. G. Wells.)
– Words and Deeds (Sticking the boot into the CPGB.)
– Murder! (Assassinations and political hypocrisy.)
– Is It Work We Want?
I’m sure there’s something for everyone.
For those interested in that sort of thing, just a heads up that the entire issue of the July 1941 Socialist Standard is now online:
LINK: July 1941 Socialist Standard
Content includes:
– War Overtakes Russia (Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union, and its ramifications for the war.)
– What the Labour Party Represents
– Gentlemen All (Political and military hypocrisy)
– The British Communist Party does somersaults.
– The rich in wartime.
– Who Will Do the Dirty Work Under Socialism?
I’m sure there’s something for everyone.
For those interested in that sort of thing, just a heads up that the entire issue of the April 1938 Socialist Standard is now online:
LINK: April 1938 Socialist Standard
Content includes:
– Will There Be Another War?
– Letter: Socialism and Equality
– CPGB opportunism
– Trotsky-Stalin Feud: An American View
– Letter: Further Criticism of the Object of the S.P.G.B.
– The German Drive Through Central Europe
– Letter: Land Values and Socialism
– Another Russian Sacrificial Feast
– An Open Letter to the Electors of East Ham North
– At the Graveside of Karl Marx
I’m sure there’s something for everyone.
For those interested in that sort of thing, just a heads up that the entire issue of the April 1984 Socialist Standard is now online:
LINK: April 1984 Socialist Standard
Content includes:
– What’s new about Tory racism?
– Review of Alec Nove’s The Economics of Feasible Socialism
– Leninism v Democratic Socialism
– Socialism or Reformism?
– Letters: Socialists against religion
– Editorial: A Lesson for CND
– Death on an empty stomach
– Letter: Sceptical about Socialism
– Fabianism
– Cuba under Castro
I’m sure there’s something for everyone.
For those interested in that sort of thing, just a heads up that the entire issue of the August 1988 Socialist Standard is now online:
LINK: August 1988 Socialist Standard
Content includes:
– Editorial: Political organisation
– Apartheid, Capitalism and the ANC
– Money games (football and big business)
– Herewego — Where next? (aggro culture in Britain)
– Czechoslovakia’s brief Spring (A look back at the Prague Spring)
– Afghanistan: the Russian Withdrawal
– Armenia: the Background to Events (Ethnic unrest in the Soviet Union)
– Between the Lines: A speculative review (What will tv be like in a socialist society?)
– Book Review of Inequalities of Health: The Black Report edited by Peter Townsend and Nick Davidson; The Health Divide by Margaret Whitehead. Penguin Books
– Official Secrets (Britain’s secret state)
– 50 Years Ago: Churchill on atrocities (He’s in the news, click on the link)
– Book Review of Status. Power and Conflict in the Kibbutz by Eliezer Ben-Rafael
– Marx, class and socialism
– Why socialists do not vote for capitalism (Internal party drama played out in the pages of the Socialist Standard)
– Piper Alpha oil rig disaster
– Film Review of Cry Freedom (Denzel Washington as Steve Biko)
– Film Review of Wall Street (“Greed is good . . . ” that bloke)
– Book Review of Anti-Parliamentary Communism by Mark Shipway
I’m sure there’s something for everyone.
Just a heads up that if you’re on Twitter, I’ve just set up a Twitter page for the Socialist Standard Past and Present blog. Please follow, retweet . . . etc, etc:
Just finished scanning in the January 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard. Published in the aftermath of the 1923 General Election, and just before the incoming first Labour minority government, Details below:
LINK: January 1924 Socialist Standard
Content includes:
– After The Poll: Report on the 1923 General Election
– Socialism and Ethics: William Liebknecht
– The Reward of Genius: The tragedy of Johannes Sophus Gelert
– Tom Mann Retracts!: Tom Mann and the General Strike
– Rates, and Rates of Wages: The cost of living for the working class.
– Items of Interest in the Election: Winston Churchill and Ben Tillett
– Editorial: Election Reflections
– Where the Labour Party Fails: Labour Party reformism.
– The Capital Levy: The Labour Party’s economic policy.
– On Reading: S. P. B. Mais
– By The Way: British Capitalism in recession.
I’m sure there’s something for everyone.
Finished scanning in the August 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard.
Of especial interest in this issue is the detailed report of a debate between the SPGB’s Alex Shaw and the Communist Party’s Peter Kerrigan in Clydebank. Though Kerrigan may not be a well known name nowadays, for many decades he was a leading member of the Communist Party in Scotland and, at the time of the debate, was the CPGB’s Scottish Organiser. That such a ‘leading’ member of the CPGB was prepared to debate a SPGB representative suggests that the SPGB were making enough of a nuisance of themselves in Glasgow and the West of Scotland, that the CPGB had to take them seriously.
In the same issue there are details of Alex Shaw being physically attacked after another meeting in Clydebank. It appears the SPGB were stepping on various political and religious toes at this time.
LINK: August 1931 Socialist Standard
Content includes:
– The Socialist Party and War: The Socialist attitude to war.
– Letter: The Value of Emotional Appeals.
– Letter: A New Reader Asks Some Questions.
– Movements Abroad: Socialist Party of Australia and the Socialist Party of New Zealand
– Editorial: The German Crisis
– Brutal Attack on A Speaker: Socialists physically attacked.
– A Tribute From An Unexpected Quarter: Labour Party careerism
– The Socialist Party v. The Communist Party. A Debate: SPGB’s debates the CPGB’s Peter Kerrigan.
– A Great Thought for To-day: J. H. Thomas, the Labour Party and divine intervention
The Twitter hashtag #OnThisDay is telling me that Tony Benn died on this day in 2014.
From the January 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard, an interview with Tony Benn. The timing is interesting because this period would have been the height of ‘Bennism’ and Corbyn, if nothing else, is a political heir of Benn:
Another one from the archives that’s just been scanned in. From a 1953 issue of the American socialist journal, The Western Socialist, ’30 Years of Scottish Bombast’.
An article written by a Scottish SPGBer for an American readership. Note in the article the opportunistic Anti-Americanism of the British Communist Party, and its leader Harry ‘Pollute’:
Link: ’30 Years of Scottish Bombast’
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