Notes by the Way
The New Lie About Stalin’s Dictatorship
Now that the Communists are denouncing Stalin’s dictatorship they are putting forward the pretence that his dictatorship was a departure from the principles of Lenin and the Russian Communist Party.
The following declarations made by Lenin and Zinoviev in 1920, give this the lie direct
“Now we are repeating what was approved by the Central Executive Committee two years ago in an official resolution! Now we are drawn back to a question that was decided long ago, in a manner approved of and made clear by the Central Executive Committee—namely, that the Soviet Socialist Democracy is in no way inconsistent with the rule and dictatorship of one person; that the will of a class is at times best realised by a dictator, who sometimes will accomplish more by himself and is frequently more needed. At any rate, the principle towards one person rule was not only explained a long time ago, but was also decided by the Central Executive Committee.”
(Lenin. Collected Works, Vol. 17, page 89. first Russian Edition).
“Every conscious worker must understand that the dictatorship of the working class cannot be realised otherwise than by means of the dictatorship of its advanced guard—the Communist Party.”
(G. Zinoviev in the Communist International, June-July, 1920).
How the Other Dockers Live
The £24 million Birmingham Small Arms group, manufacturers of motor cars, cycles, small arms and machine tools, has been in the news through the dismissal of Sir Bernard Docker from his position as Chairman and Managing Director and his replacement by Mr. John Sangster. Quite a number of interesting things have come out
First Sir Bernard Docker declared how small is the ownership of most of the shareholders:—
“There are 17,000 shareholders in the B.S.A. group. Anart from half-a-dozen or so big names, the average holding amounts to only a few hundred pounds.” (Evening Standard 1st June, 1956).
Then the report of an income tax case brought out how much one of the “big names” owns. Mr. John Sangster, the new Chairman of B.S.A. The following are extracts from the report in the Daily Mail (4 July, 1956):
“Mr. John Sangster, 60-year-old millionaire of the B.S.A. group, paid a cheque for £2,000,000 into his deposit account with a Birmingham bank. It caused him considerable trouble.”
(The “trouble” was about the correct amount of tax payable on the interest, not simply the trouble of owning £2,000,000.)
The Daily Mail explains how he came to have a cheque of this not inconsiderable amount.
“In 1951 he sold his Triumph motor-cycle company to B.S.A. for £2,400,000. He said then: ’The threat of death duties forced me to sell.’ ”
Then we learned interesting tit-bits about Sir Bernard, from Mr. Sangster and abut B.S..A. from Sir Bernard.
It appears from the statement issued by B.S.A. that
“in one year Sir Bernard received over £44,000 in fees and expenses. Five special Daimlers he ordered cost the company £50,000. He spent over £2,000 attending the Grace Kelly wedding in Monaco.” (Daily Mail, 17 July, 1956.)
Lady Docker also had some entertaining things to say about her ostentatious ways of living. Her main argument was that it was all good business for the B.S.A.’s Daimler car company. But she also claimed that she did it to please the workers. A Daily Telegraph reporter, who interviewed her, talked about her expensive clothes:—
“Another dress, of rose, fully embroidered, was stated to have cost £580, Lady Docker said she wore at a company dance. ‘I always like to look glamorous for the workers and everybody there. They expect me to. I always dress up, even when I walk round the factories.’” (Daily Telegraph, 13th July, 1956).
To the attacks on him and his wife Sir Bernard retorted by accusing the B.S.A. bosses of extravagance. He mentioned the £12,500 Glandyl Castle, bought by the company to hold records and management meetings, on which “something like £30,000 must have been spent” on furnishing. (Daily Express, 18 July, 1956). This latter expenditure was made without his knowledge and he did not approve.
With all this tossing about of large sums of money the workers were not entirely forgotten for in October last Sir Bernard announced that at “high cost to the company” the hourly-paid workers of B.S.A. were being offered the chance of entering Pension and Life Assurance scheme, on a contributory basis. (Economist, 10/10/55). Of course they would not be able to provide for their retirement on quite the same scale as Sir Bernard or Mr. Sangster.
The Daily Herald Editorial (19 July, 1956), joyfully welcomed all the rumpus and disclosures about B.S.A., ending, “Tell us more, tell us more, tell us more!”
Certainly we shall tell the Herald more. All of this sort of thing goes on in what the Herald calls the “Welfare State” and it was in full swing when the Labour Government was in office for six years.
Great Ike and Great Anthony
The Communist < em>Daily Worker often says nasty things about. Eisenhower and Sir Anthony Eden. It had better look out or it may find itself out of step with its new heroes Kruschev and Bulganin, for at a dinner in Moscow on 24 June, 1956, these two were toasting Eisenhower and Eden in more than glowing terms. The following is from the Moscow report in the Daily Mail (25 June, 1956):
“Another incident of an amazing night was Marshal Bulganin’s toast to Sir Anthony Eden: ‘Along with such a great man as President Eisenhower, to whose recovery my friend Kruschev proposed a toast, I propose a toast to another great man-our friend Eden.'”
The Daily Worker (25 June) carried a report of the same dinner but not the toast to the great pair. Their reporter did, however, record Bulganin as saying that Eden is “an honest, straightforward person, our friend.”
If the great, honest, straightforward Eden is a friend of Bulganin should not the Daily Worker be his friend too?
H.