The Socialist Forum
Mr. W. Langham (W. Ealing) writes as follows :—
“You often condemn the Russian Five Year Plan as not being Socialism, and being apparently a wrong method of attaining Socialism, but according to the ideas of the S.P.G.B. Socialism must come through Capitalism, it could not come through any other economic system, and as Russia under the Czars had been kept industrially backward for many years, it follows that the Five Year Plan is a necessary step towards Socialism. At least State Capitalism will make the change over much easier than from the Individualistic Capitalism which exists in other European countries.
You also condemn the l.L.P. for advocating Nationalisation, but this if brought about would tend to put the whole control of industry into the hands of Parliament, and production and distribution would at last become subject to the direct will of the people. Surely the fact that such services as the Post Office being of no advantage to the workers at present, only proves the necessity for taking over all services of production and distribution, and not make one pay for the inefficiency of private enterprise. It seems to me that this must be the way Socialism will at last come.”
Our correspondent is in error. We do not “condemn the Russian Five-Year Plan” ; what we do is to condemn the Communists here and in Russia for propagating the falsehood that it is Socialism.
The further question about the technical development of Russia is answered by the condition of things in Great Britain, Germany, the U.S.A. and elsewhere. It is true, as Marx pointed out, that a country cannot jump from a backward, pre-capitalist, stage of development straight into Socialism; and we condemned the Bolsheviks for attempting to do this. But it is also true that something more than mere industrial efficiency is required in order to establish Socialism. Otherwise we would have had Socialism in the advanced capitalist countries decades ago.
State capitalism may, in certain circumstances, bring about the development of industry more rapidly than if it were left to private capitalist enterprise. It is, however, useful to remember that State capitalism has been little resorted to in the U.S.A.—a country which the Bolsheviks are taking as their model for industrial efficiency. There are, too, many observers who doubt whether State capitalism in Russia has achieved this end more quickly or more efficiently than would have been the case if private capitalism had been given greater freedom.
The more important point is, however, the argument that State capitalism “will make the change-over much easier.” It is an old argument, but is there any foundation for it? Germany and Australia are two countries in which vast experiments in State capitalism have been tried out over a long period. Have they in consequence made greater strides towards Socialism? We know of no evidence whatever to that eflect. We challenge our correspondent to prove this assertion.
May we also point out that the question of nationalising industries is one which the capitalists themselves will continue to decide so long as they remain in power, and they will decide it in their interests, not in ours. During the past ten years the process all over Europe has been in the direction of handing over State capitalist concerns to private corporations. Almost the first action of the late “Labour” Government was to ratify the agreement transferring State cables and wireless services to Imperial and International Communications, Ltd.
We certainly do condemn the l.L.P. for pretending that nationalisation and public utility corporations are Socialism, or are steps to Socialism; and our correspondent admits that we are justified in so doing, when he confesses that State ownership as in the Post Office is “of no advantage to the workers at present.” Socialism can only come when the workers have become Socialists. The l.L.P. and the Labour Party have made the work of propagating Socialism infinitely harder by pointing to nationalised industries as instances of Socialism. The worker who believes the Post Office to be a Socialist institution and who observes, like our correspondent, that it is “of no advantage to the workers,” quite naturally looks without enthusiasm at Socialist propaganda. Before we can get the workers to listen to our propaganda for Socialism, we have to undo the harm wrought by the l.L.P. and Labour Party.
To talk about putting industry under the “direct will of the people” by nationalising it is absurd. Is the Post Office under the direct will of the people? It is one of the most bureaucratic and hidebound bodies in existence. The unfortunate postman is hedged about with ancient and stupid regulations which most private capitalists have abandoned long ago. He may not even unfasten his collar in a heat wave ! Is this the will of the people?
Parliament is the dominating factor in the situation for all industries, not only nationalised ones. When the workers determine to do so they can control Parliament and, consequently, control the whole situation. The need is to get the workers to have the will to establish Socialism, not to interest them in minor questions about the form of capitalist control. Converting the workers to Socialism is still in its infancy in Russia as in other countries.
Ed. Comm.
A correspondent objects to our statement made in the September issue that it is a hoary fallacy to suppose that capitalism will collapse of its own accord. He asks, “How is it possible for it to survive another world war? And under capitalism another war seems inevitable. Such a war would smash past repair the financial systems of Europe.”
To this question we would reply by asking another : “How was it possible for capitalism to survive the last war?” It is certainly true that capitalism did survive it, in spite of the hysterical prophecies of the believers in that hoary fallacy that it would collapse “past repair.”
What our correspondent overlooks is that no matter how great the damage a war might cause to parts of the capitalist system, the survivors of the war, unless they are Socialists, will turn to and build it up again. There is no way of getting Socialism without Socialists.
Ed. Comm.
Editor of SOCIALIST STANDARD.
Sir,—Your notion that the relation between gold and trade depression is “an illusion,” and that it can be “easily dispelled” is erroneous. The relation is not, as you seem to imagine, such that the stock held by individual countries can secure their prosperity in face of world depression. The relation is between the rate of increase of the world’s stock of gold as against that of other primary products, and the statistics for the period 1850-1913 show that when this relative gold supply was increasing primary prices rose, and that when it decreased their prices fell—vide the figures and chart of Professor Cassel and Mr. Kitchin re-published in the first interim report of the Gold Delegation of the League of Nations. The ill effects of a downward trend of prices upon industry and employment are well established, and the relation between gold and trade depression is now only disputed by those who are concerned to maintain a deflationary policy, or who are ignorant of Professor Cassel’s work.
GEOFFREY BIDDULPH.
Church Street, S.W.7.
October 18th, 1931.
Mr. Biddulph “corrects” a notion which we do not hold. That he attributes it to us can only be due to careless reading of the article in question. We made it quite clear that we were concerned (as indeed, we always are) with the main problem of the workers, not with the problems of different sections of the capitalist class.
The difference between Mr. Biddulph and ourselves can be illustrated from his notion that rising prices, due to an increasing supply of gold, mean prosperity. We do not deny that prosperity may come to the manufacturing and trading capitalists : but what of the workers?
The table to which Mr. Biddulph refers us, and from which we have ourselves quoted recently, shows a very great increase in the world supply of gold from 1890 to 1914. Do we, then, find the workers prosperous? In 1901 Mr. Seebohm Rowntree found a third of the workers below a very meagre level of existence which he called the poverty line. In 1903 Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman endorsed Rowntree’s findings and declared that “about 30 per cent. of the population is living in the grip of perpetual poverty.” In 1904 Sir Leo Money (then Mr. Money) ascertained that 96 persons out of every 100 died owning less than £100, while the other 4 out of every 100 possessed an average of over £9,000 each. He found that about one-seventieth of the population owned far more than half of the entire wealth of the United Kingdom.
If this is what Mr. Biddulph means by-prosperity—i.e., prosperity for the few—we do not dispute it. But we repeat our statement that the main problems of the workers have nothing to do with the supply of sold.
Ed. Comm.