Revolutionary Reform (1905)

From the June 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Two tendencies, apparently contradictory, manifest themselves in Socialist tactics on the subject of reforms.

On one hand, the very principle of Socialism is found in opposition to democratic illusions. Instead of seeing the solution of the so-called “social question” in the expansion of liberties, in therealisationof an ideal of Justice, in the perfecting of the republican regime by means ofuniversal suffrage, Socialism declares that all the social phenomena of our days are the results of capitalism, manifestations of the class war, which will cease only with the disappearance of classes. Therefore the Socialist Party is a party of class and of revolution.

On the other hand, the desire for some immediate bettering of his lot is too well engendered in the heart of man for him to lose hope, even against all logic. Logic is weak against the power of an instinctive desire. The political parties promise reforms to their electors just as a nurse promises the moon to a child.

The Socialist Party is thus caught between the logic of its scientific principle and the universal desire for an immediate amelioration - ”something now”. It cannot betray its principle, but it is likewise impossible that this party- of men - can escape this human desire for reforms.

This contradiction is, however, not without a solution, if we discriminate between the conditions of fighting and the conditions of existence of the working-class.

(. . . . .)

The conditions of existence of the wage-workers depends upon their wages. It is not determined by the legal law, but by the economic law of supply and demand.

The condition of existence of the wage-workers is determined in each corporate body, by the progress of the development of machinery, the concentration of capital, the proportion of the unemployed industrial reserve army, and the stock-in-trade of merchandise.

Social realities are outside of parliaments. The crowd of ambitious folk who jostle one another in the unhealthy atmosphere of the Houses of Parliament can do nothing -  absolutely nothing - to modify the real wage of the workers.

The legal law is of straw; the economic law is of iron.

Why change the tax-gathering plate if you do not change what is put into it?

Why agitate against clericalism if clericalism is a social necessity? You do nothing more nor less than substitute idolatry of the flag for that of the cross.

To dream of bettering the conditions of existence by political means is Utopia.

(. . . . . )

Although the bettering of the conditions of existence by way of political reform is impossible, it is not the same as regards the conditions of fighting, and it appears to us to be possible to make easier the struggle of the proletariat against the capitalist middle-class.

We do not here make a specious distinction. To distinguish between the conditions of fighting and the conditions of existence is not to split a hair. The difference is real.

When a soldier marches under a shower of rain, you better his conditions of existence in giving him an umbrella which protects him from getting wet, and you better his condition of fighting in supplying him with an up-to-date rifle instead of a stone-slinger.

By the very fact of capitalist production the proletariat is at war with the bourgeoisie. This struggle is sometimes hidden, at other times visible to the eyes of all, but it is without truce. Far from becoming less evident, conflicts increase daily. Some reforms would render the attacks of the proletariat more powerful, those of its adversary weaker, and would make the effort easier and more efficient.

One reform which is considered above all others as an amelioration of the conditions of carrying on the proletarian struggle is the reduction in the hours of labour.

The reduction in the hours of the working day makes the workers mentally and physically stronger and better equipped for carrying on the social struggle. Rebels are not made of the starved and wretched: rebellion is a luxury.

The reduction of the working-day facilitates the concentration of capital, thereby hastening the disappearance of the middle-class, making clearer the social struggle.

That is the revolutionary reform par excellence.

It is not an amelioration in the condition of existence. Applications of the reform already made in England and America prove that the amount of labour furnished is sensibly the same: labour-time diminished, work becomes more intense. The proportion of surplus labour is perhaps greater: the 8 hours day probably increasing the relative surplus-value would thereby increase the capitalist profits.

The 8 hours day is an amelioration of the conditions of fighting - nothing more. It is an immense gain.

(. . . . . )

The moment the Trade Unions take up the agitation in favour of the 8 hours day, of which Socialism hitherto took the initiative, when “labour” elected candidates will have introduced themselves into ministerial combinations and lose all thought of economic realities in the reforms pourrire of which the Radicals are so prodigious -the Socialist Party cannot, in my opinion, but find it profitable to direct its efforts towards the reduction of the hours of labour.

Without seeking to discover to-day what is the value of Parliamentary action to obtain this revolutionary reform, we will attempt to show in another article how it is possible to draft a law effectively reducing the working-day, because the difficulty does not consist in having a law passed, but in having it applied.

A. Bruckère in Le Socialiste

Editorial from the February 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

Editorial from the February 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

Several correspondents having recently asked questions with regard to the future revolutionary economic organisation, an attempt is made to deal generally with the matter in the following article.

In the first place the position of this party has always been, no matter whether it is the economic organisation or the Socialist Commonwealth that is in question, that all matters of detail most be left to those upon whom the necessity to consider and arrange them is imposed by social development. Social development does not impose this task upon the Socialist Party at the present day. In every walk of life the broad scheme comes first. No organiser ever proceeds from the particular to the general—from the detail to the whole.

That which has been placed before the working-class intelligence to-day is the need for the broad, undetailed social system based upon the common ownership of the means of life. We know that from that basis certain broad conditions must arise. Those conditions are of such vast importance as to dwarf all matters of detail into the elusive diminutive of “nothing,” just as the corresponding conditions which arise out of the present social basis (wage-slavery, for instance) are of such overwhelming moment, as to reduce all other matters to insignificance.

The Socialist, as the member of society upon whom the need for this change in the social base has been borne, accepts these broad conditions which he knows will arise as sufficient. He is aware that such changes may take place as will prevent the establishment of common ownership in the means of living (though he regards the contingency as so remote that it does not worry him), and in that case the whole and the detail would be equally vain. But he is convinced that, whatever changes may take place, or unforeseen circumstance arise, if such happenings are not of sufficient magnitude to prevent the social base being established, then all the effect of those changes must fall upon the details, and cannot affect the broad outline of the new social scheme.

In regard to the revolutionary eoonomic organisation the Socialist position is identical. That such an organisation will be called for as part of the organisation of the working class for the achievement of their emancipation must be admitted by every Socialist. That such organisation, since its aim is the organisation of the working class, must be upon class lines, is the simple logical implication of the facts. That such an organisation, since its object is revolutionary, must hare a revolutionary basis and be composed of revolutionaries admits of no dispute. But beyond certain general conclusions clearly arising from the given premises, and which no changes that do not first disestablish those premises can alter, the Socialist, and in an added degree the Socialist Party, is not called to pronounce.

The work the Socialist has before him is to make Socialists—to make adherents to the Socialist whole, not to any conglomeration of Socialist detail. The details can have no significance to the person who does not understand the whole, and to the person who does understand they do not matter. For the first thing that happens to the man who does understand—to the Socialist, that is—is that he perceives that his only hope lies in his class. If his class is not equal to taking every step necessary for their emancipation; if his class is not capable of considering and deciding every matter of detail when the necessity arises; if his class is not of sufficient mental calibre to lightly throw off the dead hand of any notions and determinations we might seek to impose upon them, then the working class is doomed.

Why, then, should we trouble ourselves with details that we are not called upon to face? We could only consider them in the light of our present environment, and that, we know, is changing every day. It is a very essential, a fundamental, part of our Socialist position that our environment is changing every day. Upon our conception of the broad tendency of that change we base our general policy, but it is the details of that environmental change that must affect and determine the details of the future policy, and as to the details of the change which will take place in the multitudinous conditions that surround us, we are supremely ignorant.

This, however, we do know: before we can have Socialism we must have, not merely Socialists, but a Socialist working class; and before we can have even the Socialist economic organisation we must have the Socialist material with which to form it. It is a significant fact that those who claim to be able to form a revolutionary economic organisation with non revolutionaries are the same who have succeeded in framing a Socialist (!) political organisation without Socialists.

In the knowledge, then, of what we do know; of what we are sure will be necessary in spite of all changes that are not of sufficient magnitude to touch the fundamentals of our position, we concern ourselves with the work that is at hand—the making of the material necessary to the establishment of Socialism. And we do this, whether that material is to be used in the economic field or the political—or both—without imposing on the future the dead hand of unripe judgments—unripe because they must necessarily be formed in an untimely environment.

But as for the specific questions put by one enquirer, we may hazard a reply. The questions are: “How could the economic organisation work in complete unison with the political party if it was kept separate and apart by non-affiliation?” and secondly : “If the economic organisation is to consist of the same units which compose the political organisation, what structure will it (the economic organisation) take so as to debar from membership the non-revolutionary?”

The question of affiliation, as was pointed out in a former answer, is largely a matter of definition. What is certain is that between the economic organisation of the working class and the political there must, since they each will exist for the same revolutionary purpose, and will each be necessary to that purpose, be such close co-operation as will secure the end in view. There is no mystery about this. Just as the capitalist on the economic field and on the political field, can take consistent action in his own interest without affiliating his economic self with his political person, so can the Socialist. Whatever form of words may be used to designate the organisations, since they will, after all, simply be the revolutionary working class organised on the industrial and the political fields for the same object, they will in effect be different sides of one organisation. Nothing can keep them apart, and if there is no definite act of affiliation it will be because none is needed. For example, the workers, in their economic organisation, will be anxiously waiting for the opportunity to go to work on the co-operative basis, but being Socialists, they will know that they cannot do so until, in their political organisation they have taken certain steps. It is hard to believe that, politically, they can take certain conscious steps and, economically, not know they have done it. 

Regarding the last point, it certainly seems that provision for sound membership might be made in the same way that the S.P. secures it: by a declaration of principles—and discipline.

Anarchism and Socialism (1979)

From the April 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Plekhanov’s book Anarchism and Socialism is a treasure, Not only did he clearly state the case against the anarchists of his day but he also analysed utopian socialism. For Plekhanov, Anarchism was a decadent form of utopianism. For Eleanor Marx Aveling, who translated his book in 1895, "under any circumstances Anarchism is but another word for reaction; and the more honest the men and women who play this reactionist game, the more tragic and dangerous it becomes for the whole working class movement".

The book's central point, made equally effectively in the translator’s preface and the introduction by Robert Rives La Monte, to the 1907 Kerr edition, is the importance of political action. Both Eleanor Marx and La Monte point to the failure of the Socialist League as evidence that "every revolt from the Socialist Party in America, which is based on disgust with the fact that it is a ‘pure and simple’ political party of ‘ballot-worshippers’ is destined to repeat the history of the Socialist League” (La Monte).

Plekhanov begins, however, not with the Anarchists at all but with an analysis of utopian socialism:-

The Utopian is one who, starting from an abstract principle, seeks for a perfect social organisation.

The abstract principle on which utopian socialists like Morelly, Fourier. Owen and Saint Simon based their arguments was "human nature.” But scientific socialism showed that this was not constant: “while man, in order to maintain his existence, acts upon nature outside himself, he alters his own naure”. Since Marx, wrote Plekhanov, the revolutionary socialist movement was no longer founded on an abstract principle or an ideal of a "perfect legislation” in total conformity with human nature, but on “a scientifically demonstrable economic necessity”. The struggle between workers and the capitalist class, he declared, must become a political one:-

Every class war is a political one. In order to do away with feudal society the bourgeoisie had to seize upon political power. In order to do away with capitalist society the proletariat must do the same. Its political task is therefore traced out for it beforehand by the force of events themselves, and not by any abstract consideration.

Rooted in the class struggle and the interests of the working class, Plekhanov lashed into the Anarchists, dealing in some depth with their naive, crazy notions. There was Max Stirner: "for me there is nothing above myself”. Stirner’s League of Egoists, wrote Plekhanov, was "the Utopia of a petty bourgeois in revolt". Some of Stirner’s ideas still surface from time to time in eccentric Tory circles and leagues of small shopkeepers, imbued with the same spirit of "bourgeois individualism".

Proudhon's ideas on the social constitution and on ending capitalism without political action or class struggle are debunked by Plekhanov, who points out with irony the many blatant contradictions in Proudhon's theories.

Bakunin is dealt with next. "I detest Communism, because it is the negation of liberty, and I cannot conceive anything human without liberty”, he declared, thus revealing his basic utopianism. "I am not a Communist, because Communism concentrates and causes all the forces of society to be absorbed by the State, because it necessarily ends in the centralisation of property in the hands of the State".

Bakunin also expressed clearly the characteristic mistake of Anarchist thinking, that is, the idea that the State should be smashed since its oppression is the cause of exploitation. In this belief can be seen the Utopian’s ignorance of hard economic facts, of the historical process and of the role of the State, as necessary to class-based economic systems. As capitalism has become an intolerable fetter on the productive forces, the working class must abolish it. The State will not be abolished: it will wither away, like an uprooted weed. Rut as long as class ownership of wealth exists, smashing the State is futile—a new form of State will always arise, as weeds do when their roots are left in the soil.

The Anarchists are mistaken in believing the abolition of the State would achieve emancipation. The events of 1917, when Lenin, destroying the old State with his programme "All power to the Soviets", only succeeded in creating a new form of State, and new methods of exploitation, are evidence of the futility of such tactics. Capitalism can only be ended by the working class taking political action, not to smash the State, but to abolish the wages system.

Bakunin distinguished between social revolution and political revolution. Plekhanov answered, in memorable terms:-

Every class struggle being necessarily a political struggle, it is evident that every political revolution, worthy of the name, is a social revolution; it is evident also that for the proletariat the political struggle is as much a necessity as it has always been for every class struggling to emancipate itself.

Adrift from political action. Bakunin and his followers encouraged terrorist tactics—the "propaganda by deed” which still sporadically hits the headlines in many countries—Italy, Spain, Germany, Japan. Mexico, Argentina, US and England.

"Error has its logic as well as truth. Once you reject the political action of the working-class, you are fatally driven —provided you do not wish to serve the bourgeois politicians—to accept the tactics of the Vaillants and the Henrys", observed Plekhanov. After parliamentarism was discarded, the tactics of riots and isolated uprisings were abandoned since workers, sensibly, did not want anything to do with such suicidal tactics. What was left? For the Anarchist, either syndicalism (equally disastrous) or the individual gesture, the assassin with a bomb in his briefcase—"doing the work if not receiving the pay of a spy”, as La Monte put it.

The result of the Anarchist movement’s rejection of political struggle in favour of syndicalism or terrorism is to weaken the working class movement and to encourage the forces of reaction. Special police agents infiltrate all working class organisations, laws are passed and special measures enforced which handicap socialists in their activity. Workers become hostile and reactionary. Revolution becomes a dirty word. Socialism is seen as dangerous lunacy. As Plekhanov said, "An Anarchist is a man who—when he is not a police agent—is fated always and everywhere to attain the opposite of that which he attempts to achieve".

For its chapter on scientific socialism alone, clear and concise, this book deserves to stand alongside the best-known works of Marx and Engels.

C. Skelton

THE COMMUNE IN PARIS (1905)

From the April 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

MEETING IN LONDON.

[Specially reported THE SOCIALIST STANDARD]

The thirty-fourth anniversary of the establishment of the Paris Commune was celebrated by a well attended meeting at Sydney Hall on Sunday, 19th March. The meeting was organised by the Battersea Branch of The Socialist Party of Great Britain, and was creditable alike to the occasion which it commemorated and to the members of the Branch responsible for its organisation.

Comrade Crump presided, and after a short opening address called upon H. Neumann to deliver the first speech.

Neumann said that in honouring the memory of the men and women who participated in the struggle in '71, they were honouring some of the bravest pioneers of the movement of the working-class. The event known to history as the Commune of Paris was one of the most glorious, if saddest, in the annals of the proletariat. It showed the heroism of which the working-class was capable, while at the same time it demonstrated the fiendish brutality, the incredible cowardice and the all pervading treachery of the dominant class. Thirty or forty years ago, of course, the workers of France were in a different position to that which obtains to-day. Then Socialism was understood but by a few, but dim as was their perception of the nature of the class-struggle, confused as were their notions as to the economic reconstruction of society, the workers who in Paris in '71 raised the red flag over the Hotel de Ville and proclaimed the rights of labour, gave unmistakable evidence of the powers that were latent in the proletariat. When, through the incompetence and treachery of the French bourgeoisie, Paris had been occupied by the Prussians, the discontent of the metropolitan populace was great, but that discontent, though great, was ill-defined. Nobody, or at any rate no considerable section of the people, knew precisely what ought to be done, but when the corrupt Thiers government sought treacherously to disarm the National Guard, that is to say the working-class of Paris, some of the doubts were solved, and the workers, in successfully baffling the attempt to steal their cannon, were first thrown on the defensive and afterwards brought to a position when they had no alternative but, on the flight of the cowardly Theirs and his minions to Versailles, to set up the Commune and assert their rights such as they understood them to be. The working-class government of Paris under the Commune lasted only a few months. It was easy enough to see now that the Commune was doomed from the outset; but though the Commune failed and was deluged in a sea of blood, the lessons to be derived from the struggle were of first importance. They had heard a lot of talk nowadays, even from some professed Socialists, about the necessity of proceeding to revolution via reform, but let them learn a lesson from the Commune. How often had the Commune sent representatives to the capitalist government at Versailles for the purpose of establishing truces or entering into negotiations for the adjustment of their differences? Did not the working-class of Paris ask brother Capital at Versailles to arbitrate ? And what was brother Capital's reply? Thiers said there was to be no negotiation: he wanted the unconditional surrender of Paris. Surely if there was any truth in the contention that reforms were to be got from the capitalist class, here was an occasion on which a great opportunity was afforded to that class of granting "palliative" measures, and avoiding bloodshed; but what occurred? The material interests of the masters were threatened by an armed section of the working-class, the class-feeling and class-hatred of the bourgeois for the proletaire were aroused, and instead of granting reforms the capitalists waded ankle deep in the blood of the Parisian workers. Let the workers prepare themselves in the school of revolution to deal with the impending collapse of capitalist society.

F. C. Watts spoke next. It was a good thing to hold these Commune meetings. To many, even. the word "Commune," meant upheaval, anarchy and bloodshed; but to Socialists the Commune signified the fight between the working-class and the capitalist-class. They acted wisely and well. Schemes were set afoot for opening the disused factories, by handing them over to be worked co-operatively by the workers, and schemes for forming communes in other parts of France were promoted, but owing to the superior force of circumstances these and other proposals did not fructify. The Commune, however, was a great example of the international solidarity of the working-class. One of the, soldiers of the Commune, while at his post on a barricade, was asked what he was dying for. "Human solidarity" was the answer. That brave worker, dying for the brotherhood of man, was an example of what the Commune stood for. The Commune showed more clearly than any other movement that when the working-class really stand for their own, when they Commune, far from implying crime, denoted the absence of crime, for while the Commune held sway, a man or woman was safer in Paris with the Communards than in Versailles with the French Government, with its forgers, swindlers, and nondescript hangers on. Crime there was, but not on the part of the workers. The charge of incendiarism had been made, but when the working-class, driven to desperation, burned the public buildings, they did so because the Versailles Government cared more for the public buildings than for the lives of the people. The difficulties the Commune had to face were hardly appreciated. They were fighting their own countrymen outside the walls, with spies and traitors within, but notwithstanding these difficulties the Paris Commune, in many respects, really menace the interests of the capitalist-class, that class will use every means to crush the working-class movement. The capitalists resolved that they would crush the canaille and wipe out the whole breed. But though they succeeded in crushing the Commune, they failed in wiping out the working-class movement, which was immeasurably stronger to-day than it was then. The working-class movement, though it vigorously asserted itself in '71, did not, of course, begin at that time, for in '48, while not near so ripe as that movement was in '71, they became troublesome to their masters, and instituted the Social Republic. A quarter of a century produced changes, for in '71 the working-class to a certain extent realised that not alone must the political machinery be controlled but that industry likewise must be controlled. They realised, moreover, not fully perhaps, but anyhow more fully than before, that the master-class and not the foreigner was the enemy. As Karl Marx had said, there must fee no truce between the working-class and the master-class of France and of every country, and as heralding that great coming struggle of classes the memory of the Commune would always be cherished by the working-class.

A. Anderson, who followed, said that viewed from the standpoint of the working-class there was no revolution in '48, nor could it be said that there was a revolution 'in,'71. The upheavals of these periods were certainly not working-class revolutions, for despite the fact that the workers took part in these movements, their objective was not the advancement of the material interest of the working-class, and the Social Revolution would be a failure unless the Socialists saw to it that they had behind them the well organised support of the working-class. To get an example of what a revolution really meant that movement which culminated in France in 1789 would have to be studied. Then the whole of society was stirred to its roots by social development acted upon by the litterateurs and champions of the rising middle-class. Prior to '89 the bourgeoisie had diffused that knowledge which was necessary to dispel the old ideas of property, and by an educational propaganda the peasants through their material interests were enlisted on the side of the new order. The peasants burned the castles and the leases of the feudal aristocracy, whose reign was speedily brought to an end. The Voltaires and the Rousseaus of the middle-class had well prepared the ground and the bourgeois revolution triumphed. With regard to the working-class, they were not a political force at all before '71, and the Commune marked the baptism of fire of the working-class in the political field. The events associated with the Commune showed clearly that the capitalist-class is the most cowardly class that ever figured in the world's history,. They fled from Paris to save their skins, while the working-class were compelled to rise and take hold of the reins of government. A great deal had been said about the shooting of hostages—it had been said there was a bloody week, a bloody month. But it took longer than a week or a month to satisfy the ferocity of the capitalist-class, for between January '71 and January '72 the number of insurgents arrested by the Thiers government was 38,578: of these 10,131 were sentenced to imprisonment, and 23,121 were shot. Let the revolutionists of to-day teach the-workers that while for their own ends the Liberal and Tory sections of the capitalist-class were playing with them, to deceive and decoy them into supporting capitalism by promises of reform here and promises of reform there, when the workers determined to fight for their own cause they would be shot down just as mercilessly as were the men and women of the Paris Commune. The Commune failed because the moment had not struck for the Social Revolution, and before that could be brought about a large amount of educational work must be done. The working-class must realise that it is not by putting men into power over their heads and imagining that in that way a revolution would be brought about from the top, that their emancipation would be accomplished. The working-class revolution must commence with the working-class itself, intelligently organised and well-disciplined. Then and now the heart of the people was sound, but revolutions were not questions of the heart, a revolution was a question of the brain. The duty of the hour was to educate the working-class into a knowledge of its power and mission, to clear away the confusions created by Liberalism and Toryism and thoroughly discredit the pretensions of spurious Labourism and alleged Socialism, The flag of the Commune was the heirloom of the working-class, and if the banner of Socialism was let fall by one organisation, another party must spring into existence to rear it aloft. The Socialist Party of Great Britain guarded the flag-in this country, and had never compromised. Let its members go forward with good cheer and carry the ensign of freedom into every town and hamlet in the land.

J. Fitzgerald then mounted the platform, and referring to the statement frequently made by capitalist writers, to wit that in establishing the Commune the workers had chosen the wrong time, said that this was a favourite argument of the upholders of capitalism. When the workers tried to better themselves, they were always told it was the wrong time. In fact never had the-workers done anything that was not done at the wrong time. In 1830 the capitalists were compelled to give the workers some political power, and in 1848 the workers had political power, and weapons to defend it. The men of property never relished the idea of seeing arms in the possession of the men of no property, and the reason was obvious. Theirs saw that if the capitalists of France were to continue as the dominant class, the working-class must no longer have arms, and it was decided that the National Guard must be disarmed. These arms were not the property of the government, as they were paid for by public subscription : and moreover at the surrender of Paris to the Prussians it was clearly stipulated that they were not to be given up. But Thiers ordered them to be seized, and in the night a detachment of the military marched on Montmartre to steal the cannon of the National Guard. The-attempted governmental theft was discovered just in time, and the Parisian working-class-refused to be disarmed. That was the beginning of the revolt. The working-class, however, had not then realised that the only people the working-class could rely upon were the working-class themselves, and so they were looking for help and counsel from some middle-class men who only succeeded in muddling matters. The establishment of the Commune came as a surprise to the rest of France, for when the Commune issued a manifesto to the other towns, the people in the provinces said they did not know the men who signed the manifesto. This in itself was sufficient evidence-that the ground had not been prepared, and even in quarters where perhaps assistance might have been expected the Paris workers were sadly disappointed. The radical left, the men who were "coming our way," were determined to help the working-class, and to-day should a crisis involving similar grave issues be prehistory would repeat itself, and the are "coming our way" would be found wanting. Let the Socialist working-class beware of these men. From the Commune many important lessons were to be derived, the first being the unreliability of any section of the capitalist-class . Secondly it showed clearly that the working-class ought to look askance at the students, the class that provided the material for future "intellectuals," for during the struggle in '71 the Latin quarter, the students' quarter, went over to Versailles, whence they heaped opprobrium on the working-class. We were told by "Social-Democratic" papers to-day that the students in Russia were aiding the working-class, but the converse would be nearer the truth. The Russian revolution now in progress was a middle-class revolution, and it was misleading to say that it was a working-class revolution. He (the speaker) found all doubts on the subject vanish when he heard that the students in Russia were in the movement. Another point to be noted in connection with Commune was the fact that the working-class had not half enough hatred nor half enough organisation. The working-class will learn yet that the class struggle is war to the knife against capitalism, a war which allows of no parleying with the enemy. Thiers demanded the unconditional surrender of Paris, and to-day in like language, The Socialist Party of Great Britain demanded the unconditional surrender of the capitalist class. Organisation was of prime importance, for without a sound organisation of the working-class there would be another Commune—another wholesale slaughter of the workers. He had heard someone once say that what they ought to do is to wait for a while and then "make a rush for it." Make a rush with what ? Without organisation nothing could be done. Again, they had been told by some by worthy people, even by a man of the stamp of Morris, that the soldiers would fraternise with the people. Did the soldiers fraternise in '71 ? No, they did not do so, nor would they do it to-day, for the soldiers of capitalism are kept apart from the people, and do not sympathise with the people. The soldier as a rule only learnt to obey orders and would shoot when told. The Commune also showed the nature of the "religion" of the disciples of Christ, as the treatment of the wounded by the Sisters of "Mercy" testified. Finally, the utter uselessness of "humanity" in dealing with the foes of the working-class was shown during the Paris struggle. Let them realise that there would be no successful revolution of the working-class until that class had studied well the economic and political history of the workers; until the memory of the working-class is well stored with a knowledge of what has been done to them by the ruling-class. Cluseret, who in a manifesto told the Paris workers that without military organisation the workers could be relied upon to defeat the best strategist, was a dangerous fool. Let them beware of the of to-day, and learn above all that there was no hope from "Labourism," "bogus Socialism,", or any other manifestation of capitalist politics.

E. J. B. Allen, who spoke next, wished to draw the attention of the workers to the fact that when the Commune rose, the capitalist-class who were previously divided, united against the working-class. The French capitalist government did not kill all the working-class because then the capitalists would have to their own work. In addition to the lack of organisation shown during the Commune, there was also the fact that the working-class did not understand its mission, but if the Commune was a failure it still stood as a beacon light for the workers of to-day. Let the watchword be "No compromise," for any movement that compromised was doomed to failure. 

C. Lehane said that it was indeed fitting that at meeting held to honour the men and women of '71 should be called together in Sydney Hall, the premises of the Battersea Branch of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. Battersea would go down in the annals of the Party as the Montmartre of the Socialist movement in Great Britain. As in '71 with the attempted seizure of the guns at Montmartre the Parisian working-class had the first brush with the enemy, so in 1904, with the passage of what was known as the "Battersea resolution," at Battersea, the working-class, of London exchanged the first shot with capitalism and all the forces of reaction. Well he remembered that engagement, for he was present when Ernest Allen, the previous speaker, who commanded the Battersea Battery on the 15th of May last, fired that well directed and penetrating shell which spread such confusion among the ranks of the enemy. As a result of that shot, The Socialist Party of Great Britain sprang into existence to fight and win the battle of the working-class. It had been pointed out that when the Commune issued a manifesto to the provinces calling upon them to act, the answer came that the manifesto was signed by unknown men. The manifesto issued on behalf of the "Battersea Meeting" calling for the formation of The Socialist Party of Great Britain was also signed by "unknown men," but he, the speaker, trusted that the response to that manifesto from provincial Britain would be more cheering and more decisive than that which came to the Paris manifesto in '71. Let the Socialists in the provinces rally to the support of those who in the metropolis were doing battle on behalf of the working-class of Great Britain and of the world. At the present time they should not calculate on any chance luck or happy accident, but they should go forward steadily with the work of organisation. Depending on the soldiers' to fraternise with the people in the hour of need was trusting to chance, for it was only a chance. Let them remember the "fraternising" that took place at Mitchelstown and at Featherstone. In Ireland the military police sent their billets-doux in the shape of bullets and in England the soldiers sent their love-messages at long range. The butchers of Featherstone served the soldiers with bullets capable of cutting through 35 inches of solid elm, and the capitalists would yet have reason to believe the workers were wooden-headed if they did not recognise that in the last resort they had nothing to rely on but their own well-disciplined strength.. Let them learn the coalescence of the French and German capitalist governments against the workings-class of Paris in '71, that the "patriotism" by which reactionaries tried to keep asunder the workers of all countries, was only a snare, and let them realise that the development of the economic forces demanded international action on the part of the working-class. International solidarity to-day transcended geographical boundaries, for rivers were bridged and mountains scaled by mankind in its onward march.

The meeting, having given hearty cheers for the Commune of '71, the Social Revolution to come, and The Socialist Party of Great Britain, was brought to a conclusion by the singing of "the International."

Marx, People and Society (1979)

From the February 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

These days it is fashionable to write long, confusing, dull books about Marx. The qualifications for the job are a commitment to Leninism, a selective bibliography and a capacity for dialectical distortions. The search to discover what went on in Karl Marx's mind has beaten the question of what a Scotsman wears under his kilt as the number one talking point in trendy pubs. To play the game you don't have to be a socialist - but it helps if you learn by heart the required Leninist cliches. Thanks to these modern Marxist scholars we have not just one Marx but many: Hegelian Marx, Young Marx, Mature Marx, not to mention Dead Marx who passed his words of wisdom beyond the grave to Young Lenin. One of the favourite topics of those who treat Marxism as a spectator sport is what they call 'Marx's ontology' (his conception of the nature of Man).

Marx's view of 'human nature' is essentially different from all others because it is historical (seeing people as socially developing beings) and dialectical (seeing humanity and Nature as two parts of the same whole). Marx speaks of 'reality' as being both 'naturally human' and 'humanly natural'. The idealist philosophers had always constructed their own model of the human race and placed it in Nature. It was not coincidental that these models corresponded to the ideals of the ruling class of the day. Thus, capitalist philosophers depict humanity as selfish, lazy aggressive and incapable of co-operation. Unlike the Utopian Socialists, Marx did not construct an ideal being to fit into a preconceived pattern of socialist society. His conception involved two questions, firstly, what are the general characteristics of a natural being, and secondly, what are the specific characteristics of a human being? He divided these human attributes into dialectically interdependent powers and needs.

Marx associates three powers and needs with human life; work, eating and sex. He did not say that people must work or eat or have sex in one way as opposed to another in order to be 'natural', but simply that these activities are in the nature of their being. The attributes of 'Species-Man' are more extensive, for it is these that separate it from the unthinking animals. Marx's concept of human nature, then, is concerned with natual and specific attributes of homo sapiens, not the particular moral predilections of the philosopher.

But he doesn't leave it that. Marx's view was that in private property society, an especially under capitalism, people are alienated from their real selves (or, to borrow a Feuerbachian term, alienated from their human essence). By alienation is meant - not surprisingly - the absence of unalienation, people living in accordance with their species and their nature: Socialist society. This is where the Redbrick intellectuals lose Marx's point entirely. He was not concerned with alienation as some kind of existential void to which 'modern man' is doomed. The existentialist, Hyppolite, has it wrong when he writes that alienation is a 'tension inseparable de l'existence' and is inherent in 'la conscience de soi humaine'. Marx consistently relates alienation in property societies to socialist unalienation:

[Communism is] "the complete return of Man to himself as a social (i.e. human) being - a return become conscious, and accomplished with the entire wealth of previous development."

This will mean:

"the positive transcendence of all alienation - that is to say, the return of man from religion, family, State, etc, to his human, i.e. social, mode of existence." (1844 Manuscripts).

In his only complete outline of his theory of alienation, Marx indicated four relations which cover the whole of human social existence. Firstly, people are said to be alienated from their activity. Marx especially refers to productive activity, for that is the most important form of human creativity:

" . . . labour is external to the worker, i.e. it does not belong to his essential being: that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself. He is at home when he is not working, and when he is working he is not a home. His labour is therefore not voluntary but coerced; it is forced labour. It is therefore not the satisfaction of a need; it is merely a means to satisfy needs external to it." (1844 Manuscripts).

Secondly, Marx explains how we are alienated from the product of our labour:

" . . . the more the worker by his labour appropriates the external world, sensuous nature, the more he deprives himself of the means of life in the double respect; first, that the sensuous external world more and more ceases to be an object belonging to his labour - to be his labour's means of life; and secondly, that it more and more ceases to be means of life in the immediate sense, means for the physical subsistence of the worker."1844 Manuscripts).

The third relation of alienation, according to Marx, is that people are alienated from each other because of class divisions and inevitable social conflict:

"Just as [Man] estranges himself from his own activity, so he confers to the stranger activity which is not his own . . . a man alien to labour and standing outside it . . . the capitalist or whatever one choosed to call the master of labour." (1844 Manuscripts).

Finally, men and women are alienated from their species-being:

"In tearing away from the object of his production . . . estranged labour tears from him his species life, his real species objectivity, and transforms his advantage over animals into the disadvantage that his organic body, nature, is taken from him. Similarly, in degrading spontaneous activity, free activity, to a means, estranged labour makes Man's species life a means to his physical existence. "(1844 Manuscripts).

There have been those who have questioned whether these early writings of Marx (only published in English in the early 1930's) should be treated as being consistent with his later developed theories, Clearly, any of Marx's writings, taken in isolation and detached from socialist conclusions, can be futile and even misleading. Used by socialists in the battle to free the working class from the world of capitalism, the concept of alienated people - with its dialectical negative, unalienated humanity - is a vital aspect of a coherent Marxist theory. For trendy academics the exercise is about as vital as a fortnight's holiday in Highgate Cemetery.
Steve Coleman

Lewis Henry Morgan and the Last 100 Years (1977)

One hundred years ago, in March 1877, Morgan's final work, Ancient Society, appeared. Morgan was not a Socialist, but his book was the result of objective investigation into mankind and its social institutions. If anything, he was religious. The book is dedicated to the Rev. Mcllvaine, DD, a close friend, and describes the evolution of society in approximately 600 pages. Marx and Engels praised the work, and Engels, writing in the 1884 preface of his own work The Origin of the Family, said Morgan "in his own way had discovered afresh in America the materialist conception of history discovered by Marx forty years ago". Marx intended to present the result of Morgan's researches in the light of his own conclusions, but his death in 1883 prevented it. Engels took over the task and based The Origin of the Family on Morgan, but went far beyond Morgan by showing the political and economic implications, the changing political systems arising from the historic development of property, the emergence of social classes and consequently the State.
Working independently, Morgan provided the scientific corroboration of Marx's theories. He was the founder of the science of anthropology, but his work was largely ignored on both sides of the Atlantic when it was realized that his theories and discoveries clashed with the ideas and interests of the ruling class. The established capitalist view was that religion, property and the family are as old as man himself, and these institutions had always existed and were unchanging elements in society. Scientific ideas which challenged this concept were treated with hostility. Morgan, a Republican Senator and lawyer, spent forty years on the preparation of his book, his sole purpose being to explain the evolutionary process, but in doing so he inadvertently committed the cardinal sin of exposing the working of society. He showed that the idea of property had undergone the same growth and development as had society generally, and was far removed from being an eternal category:
    "Commencing at zero in savagery the fashion for the possession of property as the representative of accumulated subsistence has now become dominant over the human mind in civilised races." (Ancient Society, p.vii preface. MacMillan, 1877)
Part 4 of the book goes into greater detail and investigates the growth of the idea. The growth of property is shown to be closely connected with the increase of invention and discovery, and with the improvement of social institutions, commencing with the stage defined as Savagery. Human progress from a state of ignorance in Savagery slowly advanced as men gained experience, as nature forced them to obtain subsistence or perish. The procuring of the means of subsistence is intimately associated with the idea of property in the very early stages of man's development. The gradual accumulation of knowledge leading to greater control over nature pushes society along through its various stages up to Civilization: the idea of property is no longer based on subsistence but on its social power.
    "Since the advent of civilisation the outgrowth of property has been so immense, its form so diversified, its uses so expanding, and its management so intelligent in the interests of its owners, that it has become on the part of the people an unmanageable power. The human mind stands bewildered in the presence of its own creation, The time will come nevertheless when human intelligence will rise to the mastery over property, and define the relations of the State to the property it protects, as well as the obligations and the limits of the rights of its owners. The interests of society are paramount to individual interests, and the two must be brought in to just and harmonious relations. A mere property career is not the final destiny of mankind, if progress is to be the law of the future as it has been of the past." (Ancient Society, p. 552)
Views like these, backed up by factual evidence coming from a capitalist politician who was a rich man in his own right, shocked the capitalist class at the time. It was just as well that Morgan secured an audience at which he shook hands with the Pope in 1871. He certainly would not have received one after his book was published in 1877. These ideas attack the roots of capitalism and its claim to permanence.
But this was not all. The central theme in Morgan's work was that mankind had gone through several successive stages in its road to Civilization. The proposed ethnical periods described by Morgan commenced with the three stages of Savagery — the lower status, middle and upper. Then came the lower, middle and upper status of Barbarism, and finally the status of Civilization. Food supply commenced with the collecting of natural food in tropical forests and the gradual acquiring of the knowledge of the use of fire and a fish subsistence, The invention of the bow and arrow prepared man's entry from the upper stage of Savagery into the lower stage of Barbarism. This began with the invention of pottery and the domestication of animals, followed by the cultivation of plants and the use of clay bricks in the middle status of Barbarism. The upper stage of Barbarism commenced with the smelting of iron ore, the use of iron tools, and the development of field agriculture. Civilization was reached with the invention of the phonetic alphabet and the use of writing.
These seven stages, claimed Morgan were universal as were the forms of social organization based upon the gens which corresponded to them. From Australia in the south, the whole of Europe including Rome and Greece, the Eastern Mediterranean and India — all their respective social organizations were based upon the gens. Although Morgan commenced his researches among the American Red Indians (he was a blood-brother of the Iroquois) he made an extensive study of the known forms of tribal society, and studied the histories of all forms of civilization.
The point of Morgan's theories was that ethnic groups who had reached civilization had only done so after a long development through these seven stages, and that this general evolutionary principle governed all social development which had taken place. The fact that backwoods tribes discovered today in the state of savagery can be brought forward rapidly into capitalist civilization without undergoing the long development as postulated, does not invalidate the theory.
The materialist conception of history discovered by Marx forty years earlier had the same principles, but with the addition that the economic organization and social relations corresponded to the' particular stage society had reached in the development of its productive forces. Morgan proved the existence of a social organization which was neither political nor economic, but purely administrative. It was based on gentes, phratries and tribes, and he demonstrated how this form of organization held ancient society together and prevailed throughout the entire ancient world. The gens were founded upon kin; descent was linked to the female line and it embraced all persons who could trace their descent through a common female ancestor, and possessed a common gentile name.
These gentile institutions were thoroughly democratic. Two or more related gens organized themselves in phratries (brotherhoods), and a number of phratries constituted a tribe. Several tribes formed a confederacy, and eventually coalesced into a nation occupying common territory. Because the basic unit of organization was democratic there was no State or political society. As special social needs or objectives arose, the form of organization was enlarged to meet them, but its democratic function was maintained throughout. Bureaucracy could not arise because there was no separation between administration and people, as exists today in the form of the coercive state which has replaced the administration of 'people by territorial government administering and maintaining property relations in the interests of a small minority of people.
Morgan also showed that systems of communal ownership gave rise to and were the basis of this social organization for many thousands of years. The State, which according to the capitalists had existed throughout history, was a comparatively recent development, and arose with the advent of private property.
Theories such as these could not go unchallenged. The ruling class did what it will always do when its interests are threatened: ignore or misrepresent the facts. Anthropology was taught in universities in England and America, but up to very recently Morgan was ignored, although many of his theories and methods were plagiarized. His classification of ethnic periods was attacked, as also was his theory of the origin of the family, and the role of women as the original property owners. Morgan showed that the family had passed through successive forms commencing with consanguinity, which was founded on the marriage of brothers and sisters (own and collateral) in a group. This was succeeded by the Punaluan (intimate friend) family founded up on the intermarriage of several sisters with each other's husbands in a group. Also, the intermarriage of several brothers with each other's wives in a group. Then the pairing family founded upon single pairs, but without exclusive co-habitation and with voluntary separation. The patriarchal family founded upon the marriage of one man with several wives. Finally, the present monogamous family founded upon single pairs with an exclusive co-habitation.
The impact this information had on bourgeois Victorian society who bad barely recovered from the shock of Darwinism, was startling. Darwin at least dealt mainly with animals and man's biology, but the shame of being confronted in the respectable atmosphere of Victorian society steeped in cant about the dignity of the family and marriage, with tales of incest, group sex and polygamy, and all the other alleged vices (practised in secret by wealthy parasites) brought forth an avalanche of protest led by the religious hyenas of all creeds. The anti-evolutionary school of anthropology was founded by Dr. Franz Boas, Professor Westermarck, Malinowski, Lowie, Ashley Montague and many others. Their object was not so much to develop the infant science of anthropology as to prove Morgan wrong. The Catholic "cultural historical" school of anthropology led by Fathers Wilhelm Schmidt and Wilhelm Sylvester, and A Sieker, SJ, set out to oppose the theories of primitive communism. As far as the Jesuits were concerned Morgan's work was more beneficial to Socialists like Marx and Engels than any other section of the community. Lowie insisted that the State in various forms had always existed, and C. H. Stark and Professor Westermarck maintained that the present capitalist-type family had always existed. Dr. Franz Boas of Columbia University refused to admit discussion of the question because in his opinion there was no evidence, nor could there be any. He described Morgan's stages as arbitrary postulations. Morgan also upset the Jews by pointing out that Abraham married his half-sister Sarah.
The last hundred years have produced numerous controversies about certain aspects of Morgan's theories. For the most part these are peripheral and largely concern questions of detail. The main body of his work has stood up and remains the cornerstone of modem anthropology. The section in Ancient Society dealing with the origin of early Greek and Roman society is a classic by any standards, and brought particular praise from Marx.
Morgan has become the Marx of anthropology, and like his famous contemporary is always being repudiated — a periodical exercise which usually collapses through lack of evidence being presented by the detractors, Typical of the kind of criticism are the remarks contained in Peter Farb's book Man's Rise to Civilisation (Paladin Books, 1971):
    "He was a thoroughly conventional man, unquestioning in religious orthodoxy, and also a staunch capitalist, but he published his theories in Ancient Society at the same time Marx was working on the third volume of 'Das Kapital' (p. 100).
There is no connection between the two, but the object is to discredit Morgan by implying that if it bad not been for Marx Morgan's theories would have had no importance. Later Farb makes his position clear:
    "That bourgeois gentleman, Morgan, is to this day enshrined in the pantheon of socialist thinking," (p, 100)
Again the innuendo being: only because of Marx and Engels's influence. Rubbish like this is supposed to represent a criticism of Morgan's work, but Farb carefully refrains from going into the work itself. His other nonsensical statement that "By a strange irony the League of the Iroquois has become a model for Marx's theory" shows his ignorance of the subject and of Morgan's theories as well as Marx's.
The relevance of Morgan and Marx to modem Socialist thought and propaganda is in providing the positive proof that capitalist society is the culmination of a whole series of historical social changes. Men's ideas change, habits of thought and conceptions of life change. The man of today is not the man of tomorrow; the environment of today is not the environment of tomorrow, any more than the man of yesterday and his environment are relevant today. Capitalism is not the end of social progression, although the capitalist class and their servile adherents will claim it to be so, Morgan reckoned that out of an estimated 100,000 years that man bad spent on earth, at least 60,000 (three-fifths) had been spent in a state of Savagery; 35,000 years in the various stages of Barbarism, and 5,000 years in Civilization. Out of those five thousand years only the last 250 years have been spent under capitalism.
The intensity of capitalism's development, with its compression of time and space, has produced the subjective man with little sense of history, dominated by social conditions which are not only anti-social but obsolete and unnecessary. Man must become objective and not dominated by his immediate conditions. We must move on to Socialism. A Socialist society will organize itself on a democratic basis at every level. The social form will not, nor cannot be, tied to the past, but it will truly reflect the great contribution of the past in he form of the accumulated knowledge and social experience so painfully acquired which has made Socialism possible. It should not be forgotten that the principal institutions of mankind have developed from a few germs of thought and a few simple cells of organization. The natural form of social man is that which equates him with his fellow man, and that great equalizer is common ownership of the means whereby he lives.
Jim D'Arcy

The Futility of Reform (1904)

Editorial from the October 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has often been asked why they have not drawn up a programme of measures for the partial redress of those evils which most immediately affect the position of the working class. “Should we not strive to palliate the existing misery”? “Should we not seek to foster the sectional differences existing among the capitalists so that we may use them in the interests of the working class"? “Should we not temporarily support, or form temporary alliances with, other political parties while working for common ends”? These and other questions of like import are constantly being put to us by non-members of our party. We now propose to answer them.

The basis of modern society is, economically, the holding by one section of the community of the means necessary for producing and distributing the means of living of the whole of the community, i.e., the ownership by a class of the whole wealth of society. As against them there is the vast mass of the people owning nothing but their "labour-power,” their power of working.

The worker being compelled to sell this power of working on the labour market, in return for his means of livelihood, has interests diametrically opposed to those of the employer who buys his activity. Hence two classes with conflicting interests, constantly meeting on the labour market, must necessarily engage in a struggle in which each combatant can gain only at the expense of the other. Such a struggle between classes forms a class war.

Economically, the working class are impotent so long as the employing class has possession of political power. Therefore, the class struggle must manifest itself as a political struggle for class supremacy. The working class can only gain their ends by taking possession of the political machine and using it so as to gain their own economic emancipation. This can be done only by themselves, and the struggle in which they must take part to secure this is a class war—the working class against the employing class.

The basis of a Socialist Party in any country must, therefore, be a recognition of the fact that the material interests of the working class are in entire opposition to those of the employing class, that is, the recognition of the class war. Any party which declares that no class war exists rules itself, by virtue of that declaration, out of court as a Socialist party. It is, necessary, therefore, in forming and organising a Socialist party to have a clearly defined class war basis, and in every action of the party to always keep the class-conscious character of the party clearly to the front. Any action tending to obscure this position, any position keeping the class struggle in the background, is a virtual betrayal of Socialist principles, serving only to confuse the issues in the minds of the workers and to make it more difficult for them to understand their class position and the reasons for it, and to see the road which must be followed if they are to achieve their emancipation—serving only, in brief, to retard the development of their class consciousness.

Any alliance, either permanent or temporary, with a party which does not recognise the class war is therefore out of the question. For does not every such alliance, whether openly avowed or tacitly understood, make less clear the class opposition which exists between the various political parties? How can we claim to be essentially distinct and, in fact, diametrically opposed to all other political parties, if we can find sufficient common objects to make possible any common ground of working? We think that the teaching of our principles is hindered by every such concession to the anti-class war parties, and is, therefore, opposed to the true interests of Socialism. We, therefore, avow ourselves in hostility to all other political parties, and can have nothing in common with them.

And this has been tho experience of the Socialist parties of other countries. Wherever those parties have maintained an attitude of open hostility to all other political parties they are strongly organised. Whenever any of those parties, strong or weak, have formed temporary alliances, as they did, for instance, in Belgium, with the Liberal Party, for the purpose of securing universal suffrage, they lost strength, and remain as far from securing their desired reform as ever they were. Thus, then, is our first objection that such action confuses the issues and hinders our success.

Our next objection lies in the fact that any such dependence upon other political parties for their assistance assumes the maintenance of a majority of members on our legislative bodies who are not class conscious representatives of the working class. So long as that remains the case, so long will the legislature be controlled by middle class men, by capitalists. Every such capitalistically controlled legislature secures the control of the administrative and judicial functions by the capitalists.

The result of this is that every measure carried through Parliament is carried through by those whose position makes it necessary that these enactments should be piecemeal and ineffective. They will, therefore, endeavour to reduce every concession to the point of impotency except in cases where they think to maintain their power by greater concessions. In this latter case they know they can depend upon their second line of defence—the administration of those laws which will cause the laws to remain a dead letter.

We have only to study the legislation of the last half of the nineteenth century to find that each of those phases of the economic legislation of the middle class parties plentifully exist. Wo find that the administration of the law being in the hands of the capitalist class, will be carried on by them in such a way as not to be dangerous to their own class interests.

Any “blue-book” dealing with any phase of working class life, will show instances innumerable of the neglect of the Local Government Board, or of the Borough Councils, or of the County Councils, in applying the laws already in existence. Housing Acts and Public Health Acts and Acts for the prevention of women returning to work at too early a period after child-birth, and Factory and Workshop Acts are not efficiently carried out, while powers vested in governing bodies are hardly ever exercised. Thus we read with regard to the pollution of the atmosphere by smoke, that:

“There are people in Manchester who systematically pollute the air and pay the fine, finding it much cheaper to do so than to put up new plant. The trial of such cases before benches of magistrates composed of manufacturers, or their friends, creates an atmosphere of sympathy for the accused, and it was alleged that magistrates who had sought to give effect to the law encountered the indifference and sometimes the positive opposition of their colleagues."

Just so! And this is only one case which may be cited from among innumerable others which lie before us.

We have to point out further that sometimes it happens that a reform asked for by the working class can be granted them without any serious danger to the capitalist class. In such cases they make graceful concessions and the working class are usually called upon to hail the party granting such a "concession” as their truest friends.

Another case is that sometimes a measure is passed which, while benefiting certain individual workers, proves disastrous to another and larger section. Such was, for example, the Workman's Compensation Act. This Act was passed to benefit those workers in certain selected industries who met with accidents while in the performance of their duties. It is to be observed that the Act was again the minimum of possible concession. It benefited those workers who in consequence of meeting with accidents which disabled them, received compensation where, before the passing of the Act, they would have obtained nothing. But while they were benefited, a larger section of the working class were affected to their detriment. The employing class ever on the watch where their class interests are concerned, immediately claimed that the old men they employed, the men over a certain ago, who were rendered infirm by the hard toil to which they had been subjected, were liable to more accidents than men in their earlier manhood, and that when they met with accidents, such accidents were more likely to prove serious or fatal than if they were younger. These men were in consequence immediately discharged. And what has happened since? A committee, on which was Mr. George N. Barnes, of the A.S.E., has reported:

"That with reference to the employment of aged, infirm, or maimed persons, amendments should be made to enable the employer to offer work to such persons without incurring undue risk of paying compensation." ,

We are, therefore, forced to tho conclusion that the trying to secure measures for the palliation of the evils of the existing class-governed society is useless. The men in control of the legislative, administrative, and judicial machinery of the community can always dodge any such partial attacks upon their position, can always find loopholes to escape from any concession appearing to endanger their position.

The only thing which will secure the alleviation of our misery and our wage slavery is the propagation of the principles of Socialism and the building up of a class conscious Socialist party, prepared to wrest at the earliest possible moment the whole powers of government from the hands of those who at present control them.

When a strong Socialist party, fighting directly for the establishment of a Socialist regime, and prepared in their progress to secure any advantage which will act as a new vantage ground in their further fight is organised, then the capitalists will be only too ready to offer and to give each and all of those palliatives as a sop to the growing Socialist forces in the country.

We have, therefore, to recognise all the time that it is only possible to secure any real benefit for the people when the people themselves become class conscious, when behind the Socialists in Parliament and on other bodies there stands a solid phalanx of men clear in their knowledge of Socialism and clear in their knowledge that the only way to secure tho Socialist Commonwealth of the future is to depend only upon the efforts of themselves and those who have the same class conscious opinions. Therefore we have no palliative programme. The only palliative we shall ever secure is the Socialist Society of the future gained by fighting uncompromisingly at all times and in every season.