The Revolutionary Proposition (2)
To Socialists it is an almost pathetic spectacle to see the mass of the workers everywhere looking up to and voting for leaders though the latter have invariably let them down and failed to bring about any change in the great disparity between the status of the workers and that of the owners. The struggle between the two classes continues unabated. Every demand for an increase of wages is resisted by the employers as fiercely as ever. For, does it not curtail the Capitalists’ profits? Whatever improvements have been made in working conditions for the slaves in the industrially-advanced countries in the West, and in the backward countries in the East, have been and are in the interest of the employers themselves. All reforms have left the problem untouched. The rich have become richer, the poor poorer. The working-class continues to be excluded from ownership and control of the means and instruments of wealth production and therefore from the degrees of social dignity and economic independence that modern man could enjoy. Nationalisation of industries is still being dangled before the eyes of the workers as a panacea, but wherever industries have been partially or—as in Russia and elsewhere—almost completely nationalized, it has not altered the position of the workers one iota. In some respects it has made matters worse for the workers.
That the fallacy and uselessness of nationalisation as a remedy for working-class problems can on occasion be admitted even by its advocates, with impunity, would, show how deplorably slow the masses are to draw conclusions and move in the right, i.e., in the revolutionary direction. Thus, Jean Jaurès was recently quoted by the Vienna Arbeiter-Zeituny as having stated:
“Whether the worker toils for the State, the Department, the city-councils, or for privates, is all the same. Whether the employer is called State or tailor, the dependency and the misery are always the same. If the Socialist organization meant nothing but the extension of the present State enterprises and public works in their present-day form, it would be nothing but a colossal swindle . . . ‘ ‘. . . as long as the State does not stamp out the Capitalistic organisation and establish a new organisation in its place, the State is caught by this Capitalist rule in the same way as the private producers: its despotic hand is impotent against the terrible, steelhard juggernaut and so becomes, willy-nilly, the slave of the present social order of the brutal machines which trample on and squeeze the workers just as a steam press squeezes the grapes and pours forth riches for the fortunates of the world, but leaves for the people nothing but the useless residue of want and misery.”
And in another issue of the paper they quoted in a leading article:
“The transfer of all private capital to the State does not by a long way do away with the function of capital, and does not by a long way exclude the exploitation of the working-class—it is in truth FAR FROM BEING SOCIALISM.”
Yet, they call themselves Socialists while all the time doing the dirty work of the exploiters and calling for more State-control! Is it so difficult for the multitude of voters and the dues-paying party-members to perceive the fraud and swindle that is being perpetrated upon them?
Is it too much to expect that the two world-wars also would have opened the workers’ eyes after the smoke had cleared and shown the old great gulf between the two classes, the haves and the have-nots, unchanged in both the victorious and the defeated countries alike? And is the swindle not equally clear in Russia, where even the Western democratic facilities which the Russian workers had precariously grasped for a moment in 1918, were again lost under the bloody onslaught of the Bolshevik monster? Incidentally, the fact that the present enemies (East v. West) fought hand in- hand to destroy the “militarism” of an adversary whom they are now straining every nerve to re-arm. should convince the most credulous of workers that NOT ideologies, but sordid commercial interest and loot are the stakes in these’ conflicts.
If some innocent youngster, such as the writer was when he made his first steps in Socialism, were to suggest to these Austrian or, for that matter, any Continental “Socialist” or “Communist” leaders, that they might in the present “unique and fateful” emergency urge the revolutionary Marxian solution, i.e., the expropriation of the expropriators, and the establishment of a classless and moneyless society, as the only way to ensure real peace and prosperity for all, such a suggestion would only be considered as simply incongruous and impossible by these “Socialists.” It was only to be expected that the leaders of the S.P.O. and the Arbeiter Zeitung also would do nothing but just echo the great fears, add some sloppy sentimentalities and pretend standing aghast at this development.
No wonder that, in spite of the Capitalists themselves living now uneasily and even dangerously, armament manufacturers are reassured and consider their profits safe, just as “Nehru’s expose of the. Socialist pattern of society provided a stimulus for the Bombay stock-market. The market reflected the encouragement to investors from Nehru’s speech! it led to widespread buying, and the market is again buoyant.” Slyly, the Times correspondent described Nehru’s politics as
“Ghandian principles and modern politics, economic theories, and—what appears to be essential—a touch of humbug.”
If any of the exploiters of labour ever feared action by these self-styled “Socialist” leaders endangering the safety of their profits and dividends, they have now proof absolute that their fears were unjustified. What present fears persist, spring from the discovery of nuclear energy which, only under the idiotic system of Capitalism, is primarily applied to the forging of weapons for the most effective mass destruction and so becomes a nightmare to all humanity. The fears then stem from the existence of nuclear weapons and the uncertainty whether the Capitalists with their managers and statesmen in East and West, and in the other opposing camps, will be capable of containing and permanently controlling their fine virtues of greed, commercial rivalry in the world’s markets and resources, lust for power, jealousy, envy, hatred and mistrust engendered by the possibility of extracting tremendous wealth from the exploitation of a disinherited working-class, and so prevent a fatal explosion and world conflagration.
The writer felt it necessary to restate what the Socialist Standard has in much better form already pointed out on the situation. I wished that in particular Gilmac’S fine article: “Should we Despair?” in the January issue,’ were read and re-read, and taken to heart by all workers for the really welcome stimulant it is in these dark days. It is time indeed that the workers shook off the old dirty cloak of nationalism, the illusions of nationalisation, and that—in the words of Marx—“he faced with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.”
Much would have to be said about such words as “nationalism” and “patriotism,” so assiduously fostered among the people from the cradle to the grave. But taking: “Right or wrong my country” at its face value, we would say to the workers: “If you find it hard, or if you have any scruples in discarding your nationalist sentiments, since they have become the apex of the retreat from reason, here is an authority on the value of nationalist sentiments: Sir Winston Churchill. His words:
“What is the use of being a famous race and nation . . . if at the end of the week you cannot pay your housekeeping bill?”
should help you to discard nationalism and become CLASS-conscious!
R.