Letter: The Class Struggle and Socialism
(We have received the following letter of criticism, to which is appended our reply—Ed. Comm.)
Golders Green, N.W.11.
4.7.55.
Dear Sirs,
The July SOCIALIST STANDARD reprinted a quotation from an issue of 50 years ago “Militant the workers’ cause is identified with class; triumphant, with humanity.” Recently (Oct. 1954) you reprinted the same quotation, which seems to indicate that you endorse it to-day. I have given considerable thought to the attitude to Socialism which is summed up in these few words, and I would appreciate it if you would allow me to state my point of view, together with whatever reply you may consider necessary or desirable on behalf of the S.P.G.B.
The first thing that strikes me about the quotation is that it states an obvious—even tautological—truth about the class struggle that characterises all property societies The “cause” of the people who are organised as a class in society can only be seen as a class cause—they are on one side or other of the struggle between those who buy and those who sell labour power. These causes and this struggle—militant or otherwise—are unquestionably a major feature of capitalist society. In so far as there is any triumph in this struggle, it is when one side gains a victory at the expense of the other—a class victory.
There is, however, another kind of struggle going on in society—the struggle for Socialism. On the one hand are Socialists: people who believe that a classless society is both desirable and practicable. On the other are those who are not Socialists, and who either support or acquiesce in the continuation of Capitalist institutions. The struggle between these two groups of people is a different kind of struggle from the first because it is concerned not with class interest but With social interest. Triumph here means that co-operation, harmony, social equality, will have ousted competition, warfare (including class warfare) and commodity relations.
Bearing this in mind, it seems hardly possible for the appeal to establish Socialism to be a class appeal. Much more is it a call to all people to be “integrated in a carefree world of humans,” as one of your writers puts it. This, of course, is not to say that Socialists should, in their propaganda, disregard the fact of the class struggle within Capitalism. It is a plea that the case for Socialism should be presented clearly for what it is—the triumph of humanity through the work of humanity.
I would like to add a few words on another point quoted in the S.S. that “the interests of the human race are bound up with the aspirations of the oppressed working-class in its struggle with Capitalist domination.” Everyone championing a sectional interest claims that it really represents the interests of all. At a recent political meeting I attended, several speakers tried to persuade the audience that movements for colonial self-government (i.e. nationalist movements) were really international in character. How easily Socialists can see the fallacy of that claim! Yet does it not appear that the S.P.G.B. is a victim of the same fallacy in claiming that a class movement can establish classless society
Yours sincerely,
S. R. Parker.
Reply:
The quotations to which our critic refers are those published under the heading “Fifty Years Ago” in our issues of October 1954 and July 1955.
The two articles from which these quotations were reproduced appeared in our issues of October 1904 and July 1905. They both express the point of view of the Socialist against that of the Reformists who, while reluctantly having to admit that the class struggle is a fact, want to disregard it. The first was an attack on Keir Hardie, who was one of these, and it included a quotation from Belfort Bax, who wrote of the “Benevolent old gentleman who says, ‘Let us ignore classes, let us regard each other as human beings.'”
The second article (July 1905), again attacked those who, admitting the reality of the class straggle, refused to recognise the necessity of basing working-class political action on that reality, on the ground that “it is immoral, that it stirs up strife and sets one class against another.” It admitted that this was logical for those (Keir Hardie was one) who based their “Socialism” on the New Testament and its injunction “Resist not evil”; it also pointed out how this injunction serves the interest of the Capitalist class and fits in with their class morality which teaches the workers that any resistance by them against their exploitation is immoral. The article went on to show that as no propertied class ever voluntarily gives up its privileged position, and as the ending of class society is in the interest of humanity, “the only class that can be relied on for the abolition of privilege and power to exploit, is the unprivileged propertyless working class.”
One point made in the article was:—”Not indeed that we must hate the individual Capitalist, for he is the product of his circumstances; but in the interests of humanity the firmest action must be taken. The power to exploit must be wrested from the parasites.”
It should not be necessary to reproduce again the passage quoted in our July issue, but we do so because our critic’s letter so grotesquely misunderstands what it contains.
The quotation was:—
“The victory of the Socialist working-class is the only possible ending of this great struggle. This, however, does not mean the subjection of the Capitalist class by the workers: it means the abolition of Capitalism and the end of classes, for the great unprivileged masses cannot secure equality of opportunity without abolishing class privilege, and privilege is based on private property. The triumph of the great working majority thus involves the emancipation of all from class oppression, for the interests of the toiling masses are fundamentally the interests of humanity.
“Socialism, is then, the ethics of humanity, the necessary economic foundation of a rational code of morality. The interests of the human race are bound up with the aspirations of the oppressed working-class in its struggle with Capitalist domination. As it has very truly been said: ‘Militant, the workers’ cause is identified with class triumphant, with humanity’.”
(In our July issue the word rational in line two of the second paragraph was in error given as national).
Our critic misrepresents the substance of this quotation by the peculiar and quite incorrect meaning he gives to the term class struggle and by his failure to read simple phrases in their obvious unmistakable meaning.
He thinks, as will be seen from the second paragraph of his letter, that the class struggle consists of “the struggle between those who buy and those who sell labour-power.” Historically class struggles have sometimes been between propertied classes, as for example between Feudal landlords and the rising Capitalists. In modern society the predominant class division is between the Capitalists who own the means of production and distribution and the property-less working class. This is the basis and substance of the class struggle; the struggle over wages is merely a restricted aspect of the class struggle, the one to which the workers are normally confined because the State power precludes other activities on their part. The culmination of the modern class struggle is the political struggle of a Socialist working class for Socialism.
But even for non-Socialist workers the wages struggle does not represent the whole of their aspirations. In our own time we have seen workers, when conditions made this temporarily possible, seize possession of the employers’ factories, as in Italy after World War I, and the Syndicalist movement before that war aimed at “taking and holding.” In the early 19th century workers’ movements (e.g. the co-operative pioneers) aspired to create a new society, though their aim was vague and they failed to understand the means necessary for its achievement
Next our critic evidently fails to notice that our quotation begins with a reference to “the Socialist working-class,” and fails to notice the reference in the same quotation to “the aspirations of the oppressed working class in its struggle with Capitalist domination.” “Aspiration” is defined in the dictionary as “noble ambition,” and Capital domination does not merely mean the employers’ resistance to wage increases. So, departing entirely from the plain meaning of the passage, he criticises it as if what had been written there was something like this:—
“The victory of those non-Socialist workers whose aims extend no further than the struggle for another 3d. an hour embodies the aspirations of the Socialist working class and is in the interest of humanity.'”
In the light of what the quotation actually says the criticisms of it contained in the letter are almost entirely irrelevant
Rejecting the Socialist conception of a working-class becoming Socialist, and taking political action to end class society, our critic offers us instead the conception of a “group” of Socialists struggling against a “group” of non-Socialists, but omits to tell us how this is to lead to Socialism.
He concludes by asserting, without any discernable reason, that a Socialist working-class, constituting the great majority of society, cannot have a classless society though that will be its aim, but informs us that a “group” (a section only of society) can do so by struggling against the defenders of Capitalism.
What the example of self-styled Nationalists claiming to be Internationalists has to do with the case we do not know.
EDITORIAL COMMITTEE