Twenty Years On !
We live in times of revolutionary change. The Second World War predicted by Socialists is now three years old. The tank, the bomber and the long-range submarine are re-drafting the political map of the world. Colossal forces, employing war engines that would have amazed Jules Verne himself, are deciding which group are to control the world’s wealth.
World-famous organisations have been swept into limbo. Dictators have appeared as heaven-sent “leaders” of war-like nations. Politicians, statesmen of long standing, have performed miracles of agility. One-time conscientious objectors become Ministers of Home Security. Strike leaders, Ministers of Labour; leaders of “Socialist Leagues,” who desired to utilise war time to “overthrow capitalism,” Deputy Prime Ministers.
Overnight, when Russia was drawn in, “the enigma, wrapped in mystery” became a “brave and noble ally.” Now Communism (so-called) so far from making a nation “abject and miserable in peace and beaten and humiliated in war,” is the explanation of the Red Army’s courage.
Oh ! unhappy politicians ! who sent a hundred thousand uniforms and greatcoats as well as arms, ammunition and guns, tanks and aeroplanes to Finland for use against Russia in 1940. Oh! unfortunate Sir Walter ! who proved how much superior Finnish democracy is to Russian dictatorship in his “My Finnish Diary.” With what alacrity they have run the Red Flag of Russia up on public buildings (except the Bank of England).
The Socialist, who keeps a cool head and sticks to plain facts, is hotly denounced by Communists. Large numbers of workers, knowing little about the subject, feel the effects of twenty years’ propaganda of “Socialism” in Russia. Once again the Communist Party is able to delude a fair number of temporary dupes, on the grounds that second fronts may speedily terminate the war, and usher in some social improvements. For this is now, they say, a war between Socialist Workers’ Russia and Capitalist Fascist Germany.
How utterly different this is from every anticipation of all Communists of the past, from Lenin downwards, is quite unknown to these latter-day converts.
Still further proof of the complete correctness of the Socialist Party’s stand on the Russian upheaval, its definition of the Russian system, and the present impossibility of Socialism there, is supplied by one of the best-known ex-Communist leaders, Mr. J. T. Murphy, in his autobiographical account of some twenty years’ activity, fifteen of which were spent as a Communist International official.—(“New Horizons.”)
Amid the reams of paper, gallons of ink, and tons of lead used in printing thousands of books on Russia, the short, plain, straight statements appearing in THE SOCIALIST STANDARD in 1918, 1919, and especially in 1920, stand out like the proverbial searchlight, casting a brilliant beam through a cloud of murky confusion.
More astounding still, twenty-two years later, when each and every party has performed a somersault, the Socialist Party statement does not require alteration.
The time will surely come when the obscure, self-taught, proletarian contributor to THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, “J.F.”, will receive due recognition for the merit of his remarkable analysis of the Russian revolutionary drama and the realisation of his clear firm anticipations.
Writing in THE SOCIALIST STANDARD for 1920 on the Russian Dictatorship, he declared : —
“This controversy (between Kautsky and Lenin), along with the events that have taken place since it occurred, adds considerable evidence of the correctness of the deduction we drew from the situation in 1918.
In the midst of the special conditions and chaos caused by the war, when the old exploiting regime had broken down and the new exploiting class were too weak to take hold of power, a small but resolute minority seized the political machinery and took control of affairs. The mass of the workers in Russia are not Socialists, neither do they understand the principles of Socialism, nor desire to see Socialism established. . . .
. . . . rule by a minority—even a Marxist minority—is not Socialism. Not until the instruments and methods of production have reached the stage of large machinery and mass organisation is it possible for social production to develop. . . When the workers. . . reach. . . an understanding of their slave position, and decide to supplement social production by social ownership, through the seizure of political power, then, and not till then, will Socialism be established.
The Bolsheviks may try to save as much of their system as possible, but the events will prove the correctness of Marx’s views on the failure of attempts to jump the stages in social evolution.
Their failure, however, will not be all disaster. They will have shown the workers of the world that the capitalist class is a useless and parasitic class in modern society.— (“Socialist Standard,” July, 1920.)
Did the Bolsheviks base their hopes on a Western rising. Let J. T. Murphy, delegate to the 1920 Congress of the Communist International, testify, writing in 1941 :
“It is as certain as anything can be that the delegates who arrived in Moscow in 1920 were too emotionally overwhemed to estimate calmly . . . The World Revolution had begun and it would quickly sweep Europe.
Zinoviev concluded his speech in Moscow with these words: ‘I happened to say (a year ago) somewhat enthusiastically that after one year we shall forget there had been a struggle for a Soviet Government. We were over-enthusiastic, indeed it is likely that we shall require two or even three years before the whole of Europe becomes Soviet.'”
Murphy, after explaining the circumstances of the day, goes on : “The Russian revolution was victorious but the European revolution was in retreat. These things did not stand out clearly before us. We thought of ourselves as the centre of the revolution which would spread wave on wave. We were playing leap-frog with history and did not know it.”
One may ask whether any party in history has been so absolutely right, when so many others have been completely wrong.
Even to-day, Mr. Murphy, after admitting twenty years of mistakes, still persists in them, and devotes his time to footling antics with “Popular Fronts” and “People’s Fronts,” now so rapidly discredited.
He recounts how, at the Conference of the short-lived “Socialist League” before the war, “Sir Stafford Cripps ‘swept the Conference’ and secured a unanimous vote.”
“He argued that we would have nothing to do with a war led by a capitalist government, and stated that the issue before us was ‘ War or Socialism.’ Our job was first and foremost to get rid of the capitalist government.”
To-day that same Cripps is Deputy Prime Minister of the capitalist government.
The most politically backward elements of the working-class are now pro-Russian. This experience will justify the prophesy of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD in 1920.
“When the workers awaken to an understanding of their class position . . . and begin to fight the class-war consciously in numbers that count, the rule of the Russian Bolsheviks will be a splendid lesson . . . on the ability of the working-class to manage its own affairs. It will have done its share in shortening and lessening the birth-pangs of Socialism.”
HORATIO