Dirty Scotland

One million Scots are living in "dirty communities" blighted by an increase in litter, graffiti and flytipping, according to a report by Keep Scotland Beautiful.

The environmental charity found the most deprived neighbourhoods had been worst hit by a decline in local environmental quality. It said standards had reached their lowest point in more than a decade. It suggested that the gap in standards between Scotland's most deprived and most affluent areas was widening. The charity said "...the most deprived communities have experienced the greatest decline."

Keep Scotland Beautiful chief executive Derek Robertson said: "The national picture is one of declining standards and neglect.

"This national decline has been caused by the perfect storm of austerity, unsustainable consumption, lack of civic pride and concern, and perhaps an increase in irresponsible behaviour...Improving local environmental quality is not just about reducing litter levels and removing graffiti. There are wider consequences of living in a poor local environment. It impacts on health and wellbeing outcomes, contributes towards people's fear of crime and negatively impacts economic development."

The report was based on data from more than 14,000 surveys of council areas across Scotland.

Lenin and the Myth of 1917

A myth pervades that 1917 was a 'socialist' revolution rather it was the continuation of the capitalist one. What justification is there, then, for terming the upheaval in Russia a Socialist Revolution? None whatever beyond the fact that the leaders in the November movement claim to be Marxian Socialists. M. Litvinoff practically admits this when he says:

“In seizing the reigns of power the Bolsheviks were obviously playing a game with high stake. Petrograd had shown itself entirely on their side. To what extent would the masses of the proletariat and the peasant army in the rest of the country support them?”

This is a clear confession that the Bolsheviks themselves did not know the views of the mass when they took control. At a subsequent congress of the soviets the Bolsheviks had 390 out of a total of 676. It is worthy of note that none of the capitalist papers gave any description of the method of electing either the Soviets or the delegates to the Congress. And still more curious is it that though M. Litvinoff says these delegates “were elected on a most democratic basis”, he does not give the slightest information about this election. This is more significant as he claims the Constituent Assembly “had not faithfully represented the real mind of the people”.

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1918/no-168-august-1918/revolution-russia-where-it-fails

 Karl Radek, the Bolshevik leader (“Class Struggle,” Aug. 1919) justifies the dictatorship of the Bolsheviks in Russia on the ground that Russia “possesses a proletarian minority.” He says that in countries with a capitalist minority a dictatorship would be unnecessary owing to weak resistance.

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1919/no-184-december-1919/democracy-and-dictatorship-russia

Originally the Bolsheviks demanded complete power for the Soviet executive “until the meeting of the Constituent Assembly." After the Bolsheviks had assumed power for three months, they announced the elections for the Assembly (Nov. 25, 1917), and dispersed it when it showed the Bolsheviks in a minority. The so-called reasons for abolishing the Assembly still lack evidence in their support for the Bolsheviks permitted the elections to be held.

 The Bolsheviki have often defended their dictatorship by quoting Marx’s criticism of the. Gotha Program (1875) where he refers to the transition from Capitalism to Socialism as the Dictatorship of the Proletariat pending the abolition of classes altogether. Marx, however, refers to a dictatorship asserted by a working-class majority over the capitalist few, and not to the dictatorship of a minority attacked by Engels in his Criticism of the Blanquist Program.

 Lenin has admitted the Blanquist character of the November 1917 seizure of power—
"Just as 150,000 lordly landowners under Czarism dominated the 130,000,000 Russian peasants, so 200,000 members of the Bolshevik party are imposing their proletarian will on the mass, but this time in the interest of the latter.” — “The New International,” New York, April, 1918, a Bolshevik paper.

Lenin’s defence of this as due to the lack of knowledge among the masses is in these words:
“If Socialism can only be realised when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least 500 years. The Socialist political party, this is the vanguard of the working class, must not allow itself to be baited by the lack of education of the mass average, but must lead the masses, using the Soviets as organs of revolutionary initiative.’’—Lenin at Peasants’ Congress quoted in "Ten days that Shook the World.” 

In Russia the Soviets arose spontaneously in opposition to the Tsarist (and later the Bourgeois) dictatorship. Parliament has never been the supreme power in the State because the bulk of the population had never been industrially concentrated and politically organised. Local councils acting independently to a large extent, and at most never realising the need for more than federal unity, were, therefore, the natural expression of popular opinion.
In adopting the Soviet constitution, therefore, the Bolsheviks did not invent a system: they accepted a fact! Their attempt to convoke a central assembly representative of the mass of the people had failed, as it was bound to fail, in a welter of illiteracy and disorganisation. The point is often missed that is it was not only the Bolshevik Party which was in a minority. The whole of the political parties in the Assembly put together were!
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1920s/1920/no-191-july-1920/russian-dictatorship
Marx, of course, is freely quoted by both writers. On p. 140 Kautsky, while stating that the Bolsheviks are Marxists, asks how they find a Marxist foundation for their proceedings.
"They remembered opportunely the expression ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’, which Marx used in a letter written in 1875."
Kautsky states that this is the only place in the whole of Marx’s writings where this phrase occurs, though Engels used it in his preface to the 3rd edition of Marx’s Civil War in France.
Lenin’s reply to this is to call the passage a "celebrated" one, and to call Kautsky several names. He then makes the following statement:
"Kautsky cannot but know that both Marx and Engels, both in their letters and public writings, spoke repeatedly about the dictatorship of the proletariat, both before and after the Commune" (p. 12.).

Here was a grand opportunity for Lenin to get in a powerful blow by giving some of these "letters and public writings", but, to the chagrin, no doubt, of his followers, he does not give a single case outside those mentioned above. There are endeavours to twist some of Marx’s statements on the Commune of Paris (1871) into a support of this claim, but they are all dismal failures. Only in the Communist Manifesto is found a phrase - "the proletariat organised as a ruling class" - that bears any resemblance.

But a more important point remains. Every student of Marx knows how he laid bare the laws of social evolution and claimed that, in broad outline, all nations must follow these laws in their development.

Kautsky uses this fact with great effect, and it forms the strongest argument in the whole of his pamphlet. On page 98 he gives the well-known phrase from the preface to the 1st Volume of Capital:
"One nation can and should learn from others. And even when a society has got upon the right track for the discovery of the natural laws of its movement - it can neither clear by bold leaps, nor remove by legal enactments the obstacles offered by the successive phases of its normal development. But it can shorten and lessen the birth pangs."

How does Lenin deal with this famous phrase of Marx’s? By entirely ignoring it. There is not a single reference to it in the whole of his reply. More than this, the quotation given above from page 140 of Kautsky’s pamphlet is printed by Lenin on page 11-12 of his reply. Immediately preceding the sentence quoted Kautsky says:
"The Bolshevists are Marxists, and have inspired the proletarian sections coming under their influence with great enthusiasm for Marxism. Their dictatorship, however, is in contradiction to the Marxist teaching that no people can overcome the obstacles offered by the successive phases of their development by a jump or by legal enactment."

Thus ignoring of one part of a paragraph while quoting the other part is full proof Lenin deliberately avoided this important question.

Lenin was no Hitler but what Lenin wrote or said, he trimmed and tailed to suit  circumstances, or whoever his audience was. He was a perfidious liar. One of the most amazing legacies of the Russian revolution and its aftermath is Lenin's image as a humane, even saintly figure, despite the wealth of evidence to the contrary. To this day thousands of people all over the world will revile Stalin but revere Lenin, yet the truth is that it was the latter who commenced the reign of terror after November l9l7 and who deserves his own place in history as a brutal, lying, ruthless dictator. Right up till the Bolshevik seizure of power Lenin had been agitating for the abolition of the state apparatus including the army, police and bureaucracy. Every official, he said, should be elected and subject to recall at any time. He was all for freedom of the press and the right to demonstrate for "any party, any group"' 

Immediately on gaining power he even promised to uphold the verdict of the coming elections for the Constituent Assembly
As a democratic government 'we cannot ignore the decision of the rank and file of the people, even though we may disagree with it ...and even if the peasants continue to follow the Social-Revolutionaries, even if they give this party a majority in the Constituent Assembly, we shall still say, be it so'
(Report on the Land Question,8 November 1917')

All of this was, of course, mere window dressing, for Lenin knew that the Russian people would never have supported what he really had in mind for them.  Far from abolishing the state apparatus he set about strengthening it, especially the secret police (Cheka), in order to impose the Bolshevik dictatorship. And instead of officials being elected and recallable the Bolsheviks simply appointed their own men who were answerable to them alone'

Gradually all opposition press was outlawed and their demonstrations forbidden' When the long-called-for elections for the Constituent Assembly resulted in a humiliating defeat for the Bolsheviks. Lenin dissolved the Assembly by force.Later on he explained away those earlier promises on the grounds that:
'This was an essential period in the beginning of the revolution; without it we would not have risen on the crest of the revolutionary wave, we should have dragged in its wake' (Report of the Central Committee to the 11th Congress of the Russian Communist Party 27 March 1922.)

In the run-up to the November coup Lenin and the Bolsheviks had won widespread support with their slogan "peace, bread and land". Of course, the
promises of politicians are always easier to make than to fulfill, as the Russian workers and peasants very soon discovered. The peasants, having got rid of the landlord, now had their grain and cattle forcibly taken from them in return for worthless paper money. Those who resisted were shot and many villages were burnt. Lenin claimed that his policy of robbing the peasants was necessary to avoid famine but inevitably, the peasants retaliated by burning their crops and killing their cattle and so Lenin's policy produced famine anyway. In the cities and towns unemployment was rife and the workers, in or out of a job, were starving.
Lenin's response to the plight of the Petrograd workers was to tell them to ...set out in their tens of thousands for the Urals, the Volga and the south,
where there is an abundance of grain, where they can feed themselves and their families . . ( To The Workers of Petrograd, 12 July 1918.)

How the workers and their families were to get to these areas in view of the fact that the civil war had broken out in each of them, Lenin didn't say.

Early in 1919 many strikes and protest demonstrations were crushed with great loss of life. Starvation continued to be the workers' lot for several more years but anyone who argued that the chronic food scarcity could be eased by allowing the peasants to trade their produce instead of having it stolen by the state should, said Lenin, be shot. This argument was "counter-revolutionary" - until Lenin himself made it official policy early in l92l.


Another myth surrounding the period of Lenin's dictatorship is that at least there was democracy within the Communist Party. This is the so-called "democratic centralism", but Lenin no more welcomed opposition from his own comrades than he did from anyone else' Communists who criticised him or his policies were denounced as "unsound elements", "deviationists" or worse' and their arguments “mere chatter", "phrase mongering" and “dangerous rubbish".

Lenin's anger boiled over at those communists who wanted free trade unions independent of party control' He raged at the “loudmouths" and demanded complete loyalty or else they would throw away the revolution because “Undoubtedly, the capitalists of the Entente will take advantage of our party’s
sickness to organise a new invasion, and the Social Revolutionaries will take advantage of it for the purpose of organising conspiracies and rebellions.” (The Party Crisis, 19 January 1921 )

He also complained that the debate on the trade unions had been . . an excessive luxury. Speaking for myself I cannot but add that in my
opinion this luxury was really absolutely impermissible' (Report on the political activities of the Central-Committee to the l1th Congress of the Russian
Communist Party, 8 March 1921.)

In short, shut-up and don't rock the boat. Faced with this attitude the dissidents had no chance. Their various groups, such as "Workers' Opposition", were expelled (even when they agreed to abide by majority decisions against them) and many of their leaders and members were jailed or exiled.

All Lenin's actions were the result of his single-minded determination to seize power and hold onto it, even if it meant that millions of Russian workers and peasants died in famine and repression. The seizure of power was' given the chaotic condition of Russia at the time, comparatively simple: to hold on to power he had to create a state apparatus which, under his personal direction, was used to terrorise all opposition into submission.

The Leninists of today will argue that all of this was a case of the end justifying the means, that it was done in order to bring about socialism. But undemocratic means can never bring about democratic ends; any minority which seizes power can only retain it by violent, undemocratic methods. In any case, even before 1917 the Mensheviks and many European social democrats had used Karl Marx's theory of social development to demolish the idea that socialism could be established in a backward country like Russia.

The absence of large-scale industry and the consequent smallness of the working class, both of which are essential ingredients for socialism, plus the presence of a vast, reactionary peasantry made socialism impossible. This earned them Lenin's undying hatred, a hatred which only increased as he saw their view justified by events. All that was left to Lenin in the circumstances was to commence building up state-capitalism.

Matt Culbert

The Choice is Yours to Pick

 Capitalism not only exploits people as its main engine of domination but now renders increasing numbers of people disposable.

 Our principles seems rather a "handful” at first, but once you get a firm grip, then the difficulties will vanish. They have served as solid foundations, on which a real world socialist movement has been erected. Our case, at first, probably appeared startling to you because of its tremendous difference from that of all other parties. That difference is not superficial, but fundamental in character. The ideas of the Socialist Party throws an entirely different light on our life and world problems—it puts them in their true perspective.

 The Socialist Party has put a clear and consistent case for socialism at all times. Unlike all the other so-called "socialist" groups, we have never supported futile attempts to patch up the profit system. All political parties, other than the Socialist Party, fall over themselves in wanting to do things for you. They promised work for all, higher wages, a raised standard of living, cheaper prices, etc., etc. All very acceptable. Labour, Tory, nationalist and LibDem—they stood to carry out various policies whilst accepting the present social set-up—capitalism. We in the Socialist Party put a very different case. After studying the problems confronting us, we claim that capitalism has outlived its usefulness. Other parties tell you that by a series of social reforms, the rough corners of your life can be smoothed over, and yet after years of “running repairs,” a general overhaul is necessary. It is this overhaul that we consider is important. You have probably heard our speakers say that a social revolution is needed. Yes, it is a drastic measure, but such action is called for when dealing with serious complaints. We want a complete change in the basis of society—the common ownership and democratic control of the instruments of production and distribution. By its very nature the profit system will always put the profits of the few before the needs of the majority.

 Capitalism is based on class ownership—the factories, shops, offices, etc., belong to a small group of people—the capitalist class. They are able to live a life of luxury and ease, they want for nothing. Have you ever thought why articles are produced? It is not because they meet the needs of people, but because they are to be sold so that their owners can derive a profit from selling them. As a worker, it is hardly necessary to describe your lot under this system. Work, work, and more work, when the bosses are willing to let you. For your food, clothes, and shelter, you rely on your wage, and we know it only just about goes around. Your life is one constant struggle to make ends meet, and yet you, with other workers, produce the wealth of the world BUT IT BELONGS TO THE CAPITALISTS.

  The Socialist Party has never held up the Russian régime or any of the other state dictatorships as examples of "socialism". Socialism means a world-wide, democratic system of society. Productive resources would be owned in common and production would be for direct, free use — not profit or sale. There would be free access to wealth. Although the groups referred to above halfheartedly criticise present-day Russia, their idea of socialism is, in fact, a model for state dictatorship of the same kind. The Socialist Party has always stated that socialism means the end of government and "law and order”, and the beginnings of people controlling their own lives democratically.
The Socialist Party has never posed as a "vanguard" or leadership for workers to follow or be "organised" by. We are simply a tool or vehicle to be used by workers wishing to take political action to end capitalism. Likewise, within The Socialist Party, there is no leadership, no "instructions from the Central Committee" such as you will find in the Trotskyist groups. The movement for a democratic society must clearly be democratic itself, based on shared understanding and principles, rather than on leaders and their sheep. As socialist understanding spreads among workers, these self- appointed “revolutionary vanguards" will be seen increasingly as irrelevant to the struggle for socialism. Common ownership and democratic control of the world's resources will come about through a socialist majority, transforming society by democratic means. Only then can universal suffrage be, as Karl Marx put it a century ago, "transformed from the instrument of trickery which it has been up till now. into an instrument of emancipation" (1880 Programme of FPSWF).

The establishment of socialism can be achieved when the majority of people see the need. This will alter the very foundations of society. Property will be owned by all mankind with democratic administration. The motive power in industry will then be the fulfilling of the people’s requirements. Goods won’t be sold because there will be no buyers or sellers. No wages, no money. Major problems of today will vanish because the basis of the new system will be such that harmony will exist between one human being and another.

 We appeal to all fellow-workers who believe that the economic forces working through the development of capitalist society demand a revolutionary socialist party; who believe that the emancipation of the working-class can only be obtained by the combined action of the members of that class, consciously organised in a socialist party, and who recognise that the class-struggle can alone be the basis of such a party; that therefore socialists must avow themselves in opposition to all non- socialist parties and politicians, to throw in your lot with us and help us in building up a strong and healthy fighting party, organised on definite class lines for the emancipation of the working class from wage-slavery under which they exist — from the capitalist society of which they are the victims. Conscious of the correctness of our principles and the soundness of our policy, we ask fellow-workers to help us to carry them into action.

While ere I live, I still will hurl my shaft
Of what I may possess of intellectual light.
Against the power and ignorance that bars the way
To freedom of the common needs of life,
And holds back the dawning of that brighter day
When man shall cease at last from social strife.
Despair not. . . But let us carry on.
And by our efforts help the cause along.
Remains the movement after we have gone.
Its object sure, its principles still strong.
(Extract from For Socialism August 2, 1948).

Shooting Hares to Protect the Grouse

Mountain hare populations in some upland areas face "local extinction" despite promises to protect their numbers. 

Grouse shooting estates have previously promised "voluntary restraint" to keep hare populations healthy in areas such as the Cairngorms. But a coalition of environmental and outdoor organisations said there was evidence that culls were causing harm. The coalition includes: RSPB Scotland, Scottish Wildlife Trust, Scottish Raptor Study Group, Badenoch and Strathspey Conservation Group, Cairngorms Campaign, National Trust for Scotland, Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, Mammal Society, John Muir Trust and Mountaineering Scotland.

Conservationists claim mountain hares are routinely culled on a large scale across many grouse moors in Scotland. They claim that in some areas it has been shown that the culls are leading to severe population declines and potentially even local extinctions.

This practice of culling has developed relatively recently, in the belief that it protects red grouse against the tick-borne louping ill virus and so increases the surplus of grouse to be shot at the end of the summer. However there is a lack of scientific evidence to support this claim, says the coalition of campaigners.

Duncan Orr-Ewing from RSPB Scotland, said "In 2014 we had serious concerns that the notion of voluntary restraint would be ignored by many in the grouse shooting industry and, with the evidence of culls continuing on many moors over the last three years, it seems that these fears have been well founded.

Fine for some

Celtic chief Peter Lawwell has enjoyed a wage increase of nearly £168,000 - 17 per cent - in 12 months, leaving him with a salary of £1.167 million according to the club’s annual report.

The Futility of Reform

Socialist Standard, Issue 2, October 1904

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 is 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 the 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 exists. We 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 as, 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 was 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 age, 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 the 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 the 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.

We wish nothing better to fellow-workers than good health and a better system in which to enjoy it.

Those of us who believe in socialism must get revolution back on the world agenda. The class struggle has to be resolved by the overthrow of the global class of capitalists by the global working class, to bring about a society where each person contributes to the commonwealth according to his or her ability, and takes from it according to his or her self-determined needs. Our aim is to help create a socially just and environmentally sustainable society based on common ownership and democratic control.

Socialism will be a world without classes, without nations, and without money. It will be without classes because the proletariat cannot free itself by becoming a new exploiting class: the reappearance of an exploiting class after the revolution would, in reality, mean the defeat of the revolution and the survival of exploitation. It will be without nations because the productive process has already gone well beyond the framework of the nation, and in doing so has rendered the nation obsolete as an organisational framework for human society. The socialist revolution will put an end to the division of humanity into nations. It will be without money because the notion of exchange will no longer have any meaning in socialism, where abundance will allow the satisfaction of the needs of every member of society.  Buying and selling and therefore the exchange economy will disappear.

The Socialist Party doesn't promote the abolition of money but rather the establishment of socialism in a move to a totally differently structured system/world society which will have overcome the need for money. Simply calling for the abolition of money is a  bit like placing the cart before the horse. The many social problems we suffer are the result of private ownership of the means of production and production for profit. Money is the RESULT of the exchange economy and likewise, the rendering obsolete of money will be the RESULT of common ownership and production for use. The solution is not to 'remove money from the system' but to transform the basis of the system itself, one of the effects of which will be the end of exchange value and money.

The working class gives their votes for the continuance of capitalism. They have yet to learn where their class interests really lie, and the coming years will show once again that capitalism offers no way out, not even any worthwhile alleviation, no matter what the complexion of the government by which it is administered.  The Socialist Party does not waste its time and space on issues such as humanising the sweat-shops, that is to say, whether such sweat-shops shall be bigger or better, whether there shall be central heating or air-conditioning or not. Instead, we explain at length the REAL causes of their poverty, squalor, and war. We take great pains to explain why they must continue to live for the best part of their lives in slum housing or shoebox-sized estates. We don’t just leave it at that. We always tell them that the remedy for those horrors lies entirely in their own hands. In short, they will have to do some hard thinking. They will have to acquire that revolutionary knowledge and understanding to organise politically and consciously to obtain control of that piece of machinery known as the Powers of the State. They will have to use it for their own advantage, namely, to dispossess the ruling class of their ownership of the whole earth and the fullness thereof. That includes the factories, railways, airways, etc. They, the working class of the world, will have the task of emancipating the whole of society themselves. No leaders can do it for them, and certainly no Messiah or Saviour. No other political party can tell that. Indeed they dare not tell them that.
If we want a problem to be solved, we must not leave it to leaders to put things right. The workers of the world are the most powerful class. The time is long overdue for this class to democratically take control of the world's resources, and to use them for everyone's benefit.

When the working class arrives at that stage of revolutionary knowledge and understanding, cries will be heard from many lands. “What are we waiting for? ” They won’t wait very long. Startling things will happen. They will take possession of all the wheat-fields, the flour mills and the bakeries of the world. What will be done with that nutritious bread and tasty cakes that will be produced without money or price? Even children will reply, “You will eat them, of course.”

The working class will not be content with this alone.

They will take possession of all the textile machines and all the luxuriant cloth and produce beautiful clothing. What will be done with those beautiful clothes? Again even children will reply, “You will wear them, of course.”  This will be done without money or price.

Still the working class won’t be content.

They will take possession of the whole planet and the wealth thereof. They will take possession of all the stone, clay, concrete and the steel. They will then produce sturdy spacious houses. Again without money or price. What will be done with those houses? Again children will reply, “You will go and live in them.” They will do so without let or hindrance. There will be nobody to stop them now. In a very short time, it will be obvious to everybody there won’t be required such things as rent books, estate agents, no mortgage or building society.

Then as private property has been abolished, and the causes of war removed, there won’t be required such institutions as armed forces, etc. There won’t be necessary such things as Secret Police, such as F.B.l or M.I.5, KGB or the Gestapo. There won’t be needed such people as a Prime Minister or any other Cabinet Minister. There won’t be any JobCentres or a Stock Exchange or banks of any description, and many other institutions of a slave order of society.

Finally, when the working class almost throughout the world proceed to act on those lines, they will then cease to be a working class. At the same time, there will cease to be what is known as a ruling, privileged class. It will then be the end of what is known to-day as the capitalist society. A new social order will be born, and it will operate throughout the whole world. It will be known as socialism. The task of spreading this knowledge is left to the Socialist Party. With our scant means, and all the wide channels of propaganda closed against us, it is indeed a heavy task. There is only one ally for opening the workers’ eyes and driving home the lesson that nothing but a fundamental change as proposed by socialists, can help. That ally is the constant deterioration of conditions and the glaring failure and futility of all efforts and measures to cope with it. With all the long and painful experience before them, the workers should certainly no longer be as ready as they have been in the past, to swallow the rubbish that capitalism is the only possible system and that common ownership and democratic control of the means of life by society as a whole is supposed to be a Utopia. There is the task, a hard task admittedly, but well worth doing. Life to the socialist means unremitting struggle in the cause of socialism, perseverance in spite of all discouragement, the marching onward in the face of all doubts and difficulties. Even if we of this generation do not see and taste the fruits of our sowing, yet even then we shall have our reward—in the knowledge that we have fought on the side of energy against apathy, of youth against the decrepit, of life itself against death. The Socialist Party pursues its course as steadily and uncompromisingly as ever. The first and only Socialist party established in these isles, it has consistently held aloft the banner of socialism. It throws a welcome light on the world of political and economic darkness and illuminates with an undeniably working-class view-point.

Capitalism's Despicable Prorities

A statue of Mikhail Kalashnikov was unveiled amidst much pomp and ceremony in downtown Moscow on Sept.19. Amongst the hoopla, a priest sprinkled holy water on it, though it would have been more fitting if he had sprinkled body water. Kalshnikov's great contribution to humanity was the invention of the AK-47 rifle, which has killed more people than any other single weapon, including the atom bomb.

Russia's minister for culture, Vladimir Medinsky called the rifle,'' a Russian cultural brand, which equates it with Americas Coca-Cola and Levis.

Thankfully there was some negative reaction. A protester held up a sign saying, the creator of weapons is the creator of death. He was promptly arrested. 

One thing is crystal clear- capitalism's despicable priorities.

For socialism, 
Steve, Mehmet, John & all contributing members of the SPC.

Caledonia and Catalonia

A useful article on the Counterpunch website about Scottish and Catalan nationalism by Boris Kagarlitsky, a historian and sociologist who lives in Moscow. It is worth quoting extracts.
"...The situations of Catalonia and Scotland are, in fact, similar in two respects. To begin with, in both places we are dealing with the revolt of the rich against the poor. More developed regions with a high standard of living do not want to give up their resources to support less prosperous and backward provinces. ”We don’t want to feed Andalusia anymore”, they say in Barcelona. “We don’t want to feed Belfast anymore”, they say in Glasgow and Edinburgh. The local bureaucracy dreams of having an exclusive control over the financial flows. The reluctance to share with the neighbors is being justified by cultural and racial claims. “We are the real Europeans, not provincial islanders, like the English”, they say in Glasgow. “We are the real Europeans, descendants of Goths, not dirty descendants of the Arabs, like the Spaniards”, they say in Barcelona..."

"...The unexpected aspirations of Scotland and Catalonia for independence have one more, less public, though no less significant underlying reason. For many years, both regions have been implementing European Union programs aimed at creation of a new system of institutions, separated from the regional state and directly tied to the Brussels bureaucracy. This is the essence of the program entitled “Europe of the Regions”. Every Scottish county has a program financed by the EU, while England or Northern Ireland do not get help on a comparable scale. Brussels was consistently and consciously created the “Scottish factor” as a counterbalance to Britain, which traditionally opposed the Eurocrats.

Of course, like any nationalism of a small nation, the ideology of Scottish and Catalan independence appeals to various injustices of the past, representing its nation or territory solely as a victim. For Scotland this does not work very well, since the last serious oppression of the Scots happened in the middle of the XVIII century. The main oppressors were not the English, but the Scots themselves, the inhabitants of the lowlands, who were settling scores with the inhabitants of the mountains, who, previously had been robbing them. Now, in the process of enclosure these were the inhabitants of highlands, who were ruined so much that they had only two options – to sign up with the royal army or brew a local moonshine that became known throughout the world as Scotch whiskey. In the next two centuries, the Scots became the most privileged population of the British Empire, constituting a disproportionately large part of its military and civilian elite, forming key cadres of the colonial administration in India and Africa...

...The transformation of national discrimination from real experience into a political myth is the most important factor conducive to the rise of nationalism. Those who are discriminated against are fighting for the abolition of discrimination, whereas the nationalists turn the grievances of the past into symbolic capital to justify their ambitions...Catalonian rebellion, like Scottish separatism is the uprising of the rich against the poor, the protest of a liberal society against the remnants of a redistributive social state...  This is a continuation of the general logic of de-solidarisation, privatization and fragmentation characteristic of neoliberalism. It was this political economic logic that underlay the collapse of the USSR, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.  This logic assumes not only rejection of solidarity based on class and rejection of common humanistic values, but also substitution of the national values by the ethnic ones. It is ethnic nationalism that proves to be an ideal “substitute” for class or civic solidarity. It preserves the necessary sense of “community” for people, while narrowing it down to the size of an imaginary large family...

...Rosa Luxemburg cautioned other leftists of the dangers of flirting with the petty-bourgeois nationalism of small nations...Alas, the modern European left, which developed in the context of deindustrialization and decline of class solidarity, is itself a product of neoliberalism and is completely imbued with the spirit of petty-bourgeois romanticism. Therefore, the left does not dare to openly say that the nationalism of minorities in no less damaging for the working class cause than any other nationalism..."

Socialist Courier blog finds much of worth in the analysis. Sadly, his conclusion does not stand up to closer scrutiny. 

"...The success of Jeremy Corbin and his renewed Labor Party in Scotland returns class agenda to the region once considered the backbone of the labor movement. Nationalist demagogy quickly loses appeal among the masses whenever a real, substantial left alternative appears..."  

All belongs to all

Socialism has meant many things to many people. Ask someone what socialism means and you get various responses - it means government control, state ownership, regulations and legislation, economic intervention by government, redistribution of income, progressive taxation. It’s the welfare state, the mixed economy, or the command economy and central planning. When someone does proclaim that he or she is “a Socialist”, they have difficulty defining what that actually means other than they are for good jobs, full employment, national health care, etc. The problem with such “Socialisms” is that they all leave capitalism in place. By understanding capitalism and how it works, we come to a clearer understanding of what socialism should mean.

 If Socialist politics means a radical break from capitalism, then all the premises of capitalism must be fundamentally challenged. Capitalism is a system of capital creation and accumulation. Capital must not only be created, it must be necessarily accumulated and expanded (and unless accumulated to a great extent the system breaks down resulting in recession and economic crises). The existence of capital presupposes two things - first, a working class which is divorced from does not own the means of production. The only thing that workers really possess is their labour power, their ability to labour which they must sell for a wage or salary. Secondly, the existence of a class which owns or controls capital, which buys the labour power of the workers and uses it for the creation of surplus value, profit. Thus, capitalism is a class-divided society. On the one hand, those who own only their labour power, on the other hand, those who own capital. On the one hand, those who survive by selling their labour power, on the other hand, those who gain their existence by living off the profit (surplus value) created by the other class. The distinguishing feature of capitalism is not that capital/property is privately owned or that production is anarchic, that there is no planning. It is that labour is alienated, exploited.  If the State intervenes or nationalizes property and eliminates private capitalists the State itself becomes the single capitalist, its bureaucracy the de facto owners of capital. Capitalism as the ‘system of capital’ remains unchanged. It simply transforms into state-capitalism. The actual existence of capitalism as a ‘system of capital’ imposes limits to what that system can do. In the end, the system cannot work in a way that is detrimental to capital and all action within this system of capital (reforms, taxation, public works, health care, issues of the environment and ecology, etc.) are determined and restricted by the inevitable fact that capital must accumulate. Capital not only limits what one can do it also divides people against each other in an acknowledged ‘Rat Race’ that lays the foundation for the politics of despair, racism, sexism, ethnic division as people compete for the crumbs offered.

One of the criticisms hurled at Socialist Party is that we are starry-eyed, utopian dreamers, not versed in the art of ‘practical politics’. The answer to this is that those who defend and work through the system of capitalism and expect a society fit for human beings are the ones who are the utopians.  Their pragmatism cannot go beyond the limits of capital. Their proposed solutions to very real problems are bound up with this inevitable limit.  Socialism is desirable, necessary and achievable. It is in every way feasible, not a utopia conjured from out of the sky and imposed upon society. In place of profit-seeking enterprises,  organisations would be formed by people themselves for the purposes of self-help and mutual aid. The tendency to this free association even exists in modern capitalist society - in the form of people supporting strikes and other forms of working-class solidarity, international railway and air networks, even the Red Cross and the RNLI  lifeboat associations. These voluntary associations are limited and distorted by capitalism; however, they give us a glimpse of what free agreement has in store for us if we establish a stateless society in the future.

People think economics has something to do with bosses, accountants, economists, money, the market, profits, production, the division of labour, work or wage labour. Capitalists claim that all the things listed above like money and the market are natural, and it is impossible to have anything else.  Instead, we need to talk of the economic means for the satisfaction of the needs of all human beings with the least possible expenditure of energy and resources to achieve them.  To satisfy these needs, we need to re-organise society. We need to have a revolution to abolish all classes and wage-labour.

 Socialists reject the market, money, and profit as both exploitative and unnecessary. Instead, we need a society of common ownership and voluntary labour to meet these shared needs and wants. 
The first is the taking into possession of all of the wealth of the world, on behalf of the whole of humanity, because that wealth is the collective work of humanity.  This requires the abolition of all property and the holding of all resources in common for the well-being of all. The abolition of property requires the abolition of the wage system.

The second is organising society around the principle “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.” This means everything should be produced, distributed and exchanged for free according to need. Everyone would be the judge of their own needs and take for free from the common storehouse whatever they needed. If there was scarcity, things would be rationed according to need.

Socialism is not some impractical dream. Even in today’s capitalist society, we have public roads, parks, museums, libraries and piped water which is 'free' for anybody to use according to their needs. For example, the librarian does not ask you what your previous services to society have been before they get you a book from the shelves or stacks. Again, these are token examples which give us a glimpse of what is possible under a class-free and money-free society.

In summary, socialism is :
(1) The means of production will be owned and controlled communally, and production will be geared towards satisfying everyone’s needs. Production will be for use, and not for sale on the market;
(2) Distribution will be according to need, and not by means of buying and selling;
 (3) Labour will be voluntary, and not imposed on workers by means of a coercive wages system;
 (4) A human community will exist, and social divisions based on class, nationality, sex or race will have disappeared
(5) opposition to all states, even the ones who falsely proclaim themselves to be ‘workers’ states’.

Adapted from here
https://libcom.org/files/CommonVoice2.pdf

Finding a solution to crime (1987)

From the November 1987 issue of the SocialistStandard Never a day goes by without politicians, policemen and the press calling for measures that will make "law and order" enforcement more effective. Many of these schemes are suggested by fully-fledged crackpots like James "off with their goolies" Anderton and are viewed as ridiculous by most people. Heart of the Matter (BBC1. 10.40pm. 4 October) offered us an insight into the latest schemes for detecting and solving crime. We were given a glimpse of the pilot scheme known as "Crimestoppers Anonymous" which is currently in operation in Great Yarmouth where you stand to gain a reward for information that leads to the apprehension and conviction of someone who has committed a serious crime. The local media are used as a means of advertising the specific crime that the police want solved, and of course the reward money. Who are the sponsors of this reward money? Well, guess what, they just happen to be local businessmen who of course want to retain their anonymity. No doubt they just couldn't stand being congratulated for their humanitarian service to the community! Some expert saw it as an extension of the neighbourhood-watch schemes and the high-profile TV programme Crimewatch UK. A holy bloke from the Church of England Board of Social Responsibility came on and was sad that "Merrie England" seemed to be losing its sense of "civic duty". A lefty came mumbling in with remarks like it was a scheme for Thatcher's '80s. ie the privatisation of criminal information. The most sensible statement about Crimestoppers Anonymous was that it resembled game shows —simply phone in and get your reward. Think of the possibilities and the TV ratings. You could grass on your grandparents, finger your father, nark on your neighbours, or simply find the felon in The Price is Right. None of the experts and civil libertarians on this show had anything to say about why people commit crime, they simply talked about the morality of paying for information and wondered why people didn't come forward with information to help the police solve crimes. No one seemed aware that the porkers have been paying for information (unofficially) since they were set up. No one accepted that many people may well be justified in their suspicion of the police, and of course nobody phoned in with information about the cops having assaulted demonstrators, black youths, passers-by. or men and women on picket-lines. And. incidentally, no one asked why local businessmen were putting up the reward money! Derek Devine (Dundee and then Edinburgh Br)