1950s >> 1956 >> no-628-december-1956

Day-to-Day Runners of Capitalism – Part 1

Before we get down to the matter in hand, it would be as well to make quite clear our own position on the question of political power. We shall be concerned with the plight of those who form governments under Capitalism and who try to persuade us that, with the proper policy and leadership, this system can run in the interests of everybody and even gradually disappear and become something other than just plain Capitalism.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain is often accused, when we argue with Labourites and so-called Communists, of “splitting the workers.” They claim it would better serve the interests of Socialism if we stopped being “puritans” and joined them in the “day-to-day struggle.”

Our answer to these assertions is, and always has been, that we will join with any organisation provided it devotes its activities entirely to Socialism, and we have always pointed out that there can never be more than one Party in any country standing for Socialism, for the instant (supposing it so happened) two identical parties arose both firmly based on the principle of the class-struggle and clearly advocating political action for Socialism and Socialism alone, they would already be AS ONE and could but merge to form one body.

While they claim to stand for Socialism, such organisations as the Labour Party, Independent Labour Party, and the so-called Communist Party all have reform programmes of “immediate demands” on which they seek votes and, because their “something now” policies attract the support of non-Socialist voters, when elected they INEVITABLY find they have no mandate to do anything other than run CAPITALISM.

Clearly their behaviour brands them, one and all, as mere parties of capitalism, and denies them any real claim to being part of the “working-class movement for Socialism.” We in the S.P.G.B. have always clearly explained Socialism, and when contesting elections have asked for votes on that ALONE; therefore, we could never become the guardians of the system we detest.

For us Socialism can have only one Party and only one meaning; i.e., a system of living under which the means of production-land, factories and machinery, etc., are in the COMMON holding of the WHOLE community. The wages system will cease to exist, there will be no classes, and instead of buying and selling for the profit of the few, goods and services will be freely available for USE by all. We further hold that this can only arise as the result of the conscious political triumph of the world working-class in their struggle against their only real enemy, the world capitalist class.

While the left wingers clamour for a change of government, we concern ourselves with what really matters, not a change of office boys, but a change of system.

We maintain that the wages system the world over is proof of workers being exploited, either for the benefit of private shareholders or government bondholders. Those who pretend that the State can be identified with the workers would ask us to accept the absurd notion that in Iron Curtain Capitalism workers really pay themselves wages and get the profits they create back, after due deductions for the H-bomb war machine, etc. Capitalism means wage labour for the majority precisely because they are PROPERTYLESS and have no “means of living” other than hiring themselves out to an employer. Need we add the claptrap about “raising living standards” (if only workers work harder) was in common use in the capitalist world long before the present Russian rulers appeared. It is obvious to us, as it was to Marx, that it is for the wealth workers produce OVER and ABOVE the value of their wages that they are employed, and from which alone all interest, rent and profit can be explained.

It is a fundamental difference between ourselves and all other parties that they embrace LEADERSHIP while we reject it. Workers only need leaders while they do not, know either the objective or the method; no “spearhead” or “thinking minority” can ever lead the working-class to Socialism, because leadership implies the ignorance of the followers. Like Marx and Engels, we have always maintained that the movement for Socialism is the “conscious movement of the immense majority in the interest of the immense majority.” (Communist Manifesto).

We find our work of propagating Socialism made very much harder by the confusion spread amongst workers by these “left wingers.”

An example of their confusion emerged from the reports of Mr. Tom Driberg, on a recent interview in Moscow with Mr. Krushchev, which appeared in Reynolds News for the 9th and 16th of September, 1956. At this interview, before the word spinning about the British Labour Party began, comment was made on the activities of the so-called French Socialist Party (S.F.I.O.). Mr. Krushchev did not deny this party’s claim to the title “Socialist,” but merely bemoaned the fact that they had “formed a government which was waging a colonial war in Algeria, and its leaders were obliged, in order to retain power, to take account of right wing views.” The fact that S.F.I.O. sought no mandate from its electors for Socialism and is therefore engaged in the business of running capitalism goes unnoticed by both Krushchev and Driberg; since the latter are themselves concerned in the same system, it is necessary for them to ignore fundamentals.

Labour Government
Referring to the Labour Party, Krushchev said: “God knows what it presents, it is not Socialist in aim,” and further on: “I think some Conservatives are to the left of Gaitskell.” He did not say why the Daily Worker and the British Communist Party support (at the moment) the Labour Party under Gaitskell against the more “left wing” Conservative elements. He also failed miserably to understand that left and right wings are inseparable parts of the same capitalist vulture.

Driberg in explanation said: “Our PROGRAMME for the next election could not yet be discussed, since it had not yet been worked out; that we are at present issuing statements on many aspects of POLICY which would be discussed at our Annual Party Conferences; and that a basic PRINCIPLE of the Labour Party was the basic Socialist principle of common ownership of the means of production” (his emphasis). The error contained in the end of this statement went unchallenged by Krushchev because to him, as to Driberg, common ownership means nationalisation. The Labour Party has no “basic” principles except the desire for power; if it had it would not be looking for a “programme.” From time to time the phrase “common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange,” has cropped up, but the inclusion of “exchange” nullifies the rest. Common ownership can only mean free access, “exchange” is a relationship between owning groups or classes.
Krushchev, still blaming “wrong” leadership, said: “Take your existing leaders—they are more afraid of Socialism than the Conservatives are. They talk about Socialism because the word is popular with the intellectuals now as well as with the masses. It is the same elsewhere: even Mr. Nehru, who is neither a Communist nor a Socialist, talks about a Socialist Plan for India. It’s the same in Burma and Indonesia . . Interesting to note that when the interview ended Mr. Krushchev dashed away to a “luncheon” that Bulganin was giving in honour of the President of Indonesia!
Russia, of course, claims to have no “imperialist motives,” but her “peaceful co-existence” in her quest for world markets is capitalist co-existence, for exactly the same COMMERCIAL relationships confront the whole capitalist world.
Mr. Driberg wrote that people “ often use the same words—words like ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ and ‘socialism’ to mean different things,” but he “would remind Mr. Krushchev, with respect, that Soviet leaders themselves have repeatedly told us that they agree that there can be more roads than one to Socialism.” It is sadly true that the words freedom, democracy and, above all, Socialism mean different things to different people, and two great contributors to this lack of clarity are the Labour and so-called Communist Parties. As for ‘“Soviet leaders” who agree there are “different roads to Socialism ” this only shows that Mr. Nehru is not the only one who has found Socialism a word “popular ” with the masses.
Shifting to the Conservative Party, Mr. Driberg said: “Now I do hope that, just because Mr. Krushchev happened to meet a few individual Conservatives who talked in a progressive way, he is not misled about the essential character of the Conservative Party itself. It exists to promote the interest of capitalist big business. It is the Tory Party, and nobody else, that is the ‘enemy of the working-class.’ ” Too bad the Labourites and Muskovites did not know this when, during the war, they lined up and formed a coalition with these “real” enemies to fight the Germans. A shame also that Mr. Driberg’s memory of rising profits and frozen wages under the Labour Government which left “capitalist big business” as they found it, having secured government guarantees for State bondholders in the industries they nationalised, should have failed him.
Their insistence on not seeing the wood for the trees and their avoidance of obvious conclusions from their own position, inevitably made an utter farce of the whole interview.
Harry Baldwin

(To be continued).