Sick man of Europe

In Scotland life expectancy at birth is 77 for males and 81 for females. This compares to 81 for men and 86 for women in Spain, 81 and 85 in Switzerland and 81 and 85 in Iceland. Scottish boys born in 1990 could expect to live until they were just over 71. Girls born in Scotland in 1990 had a life expectancy of 77 years.

A study, by the Glasgow Centre for Population Health, NHS Health Scotland, the University of the West of Scotland and University College London, stated: “Life expectancy – a useful proxy for population health – is lower in Scotland than in any other western European country. However, this has not always been the case. In the middle of the 20th Century, Scottish life expectancy was similar to, or better than, a number of other European countries. Since then, however, Scotland’s health status has, in relative terms, deteriorated.”

While in absolute terms life expectancy has improved, it has done so more slowly than in any other western European country. This slower rate of improvement means that if these trends continue, life expectancy will soon be lower in Scotland than in a number of Eastern European countries as well. The study also found that Scotland is at the bottom of UK life expectancy league tables as well. For example, compared with England and Wales, and adjusting for differences in poverty and deprivation, 5000 more people die every year in Scotland than should be the case.

The report added: “These decades have been characterised by the emergence of higher mortality rates in Scotland from more socially-determined causes such as alcohol, drugs and suicide. These are what might be described as ‘diseases of despair’ and are associated with people living with, and attempting or failing to cope with, extremely difficult circumstances. Although usually expressed in statistical terms, behind such expressions lie genuine human tragedies. These include individual stories of shortened, wasted lives, pain, sickness, early death and grief, affecting individual men, women and children, their families, friends and communities.”

Professor Harry Burns, former Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, blamed rising inequality for Scotland’s appalling health record. He said: “The problem is that the health gap between rich and poor Scots has consistently widened since the 1950s and our average rate of growth has slowed as a result. But our relative position to other regions of Europe cannot be fixed solely by preaching to the population about damaging behaviour. The solutions are to be found in improving the social fabric and economic status of Scotland’s population.” He goes on to explain:

THERE is nothing inherently unhealthy about the Scots. Records of life expectancy which go back for around 160 years, show that for most of that time, Scots could expect to live as long as citizens of most countries in western Europe. Even now, life expectancy in Scotland continues to increase. However, it is not increasing as fast as our European neighbours and, in the past few decades, most of these countries have overtaken us. The problem is that the health gap between rich and poor Scots has consistently widened since the 1950s and our average rate of growth has slowed as a result. The Glasgow Centre for Population Health has considered several possible explanations for this. Recent studies have shown that the greatest inequality in mortality in Scotland, and particularly in West Central Scotland, occurs among young, working-age people and the gap in death rates is widest, not for deaths due to heart disease and cancer, but for deaths due to drugs, alcohol, suicide, violence and accidents. The inequality gap is primarily due to social and psychological factors. The report concludes that conventional explanations such as smoking “do not contribute to the high excess level of mortality”. Our relative position to other regions of Europe cannot be fixed solely by preaching to the population about damaging behaviour. As a surgeon in Glasgow’s Royal Infirmary, I used to tell patients that their smoking and drinking habits were damaging their health. “Ach,” they would reply, “what have I got to live for?” Smoking and drinking was their only source of pleasure in a difficult life. If the causes of health inequality are primarily social and economic, the solutions are to be found in improving the social fabric and economic status of Scotland’s population. Poverty, poor housing and a lack of a job to give them a sense of purpose seem to be the main drivers of our relatively poor life expectancy. Failure to find a way forward in improving the lives of poor communities will mean the average level of health in Scotland slipping even further behind other countries.”

The study cited several factors for Scotland’s grim record. These included high historical levels of deprivation, Margaret Thatcher’s social policies in the 1980s, and the decision by councils to plough resources into new towns in the 1950s and ’60s at the expense of inner-city areas.

https://www.sundaypost.com/news/scottish-news/scotland-set-sick-man-europe-life-expectancy-worse-former-communist-states/

Too Many People? 3/5

No one, not even us socialist “cornucopianists,” believes that the resources of the planet Earth are unlimited. Usually, the position we take is that there are more factors involved in the issue of overpopulation than simply the idea of too many people and not enough resources. The real problem is how those resources are distributed. This is the real problem–this class division among human beings. The widespread ownership of land is also a major problem to be combated. As land is a natural product, it should not be a commodity to be bought and sold. When the concept of land ownership is not in question, it becomes apparent that little land is actually needed to give most people comfortable living space. Some blame the “explosion” in population for problems such as environmental degradation, the crises of overproduction and the widening gap between the rich and poor, but the problem is not so much overpopulation as it is a distribution of resources.

Powerful forces have been spreading a myth for years that the world is overpopulated or heading in that direction. The facts, however, show otherwise.  False beliefs and wishful thinking about the human experience are common. They are hurting people — and holding back science and society. The truth is that we may be heading towards a "global depopulation" crisis, with the result that almost every single country in the world will be unable to replace itself. Despite the fact that overpopulation is a myth, it is still a commonly held belief. Many point to crowded cities as "proof" of overpopulation - however, this is really "over-concentration" or "overcrowding", not overpopulation. Note that people choose to live close together to share resources and increase living standards. And, a high population density does not equal poverty - there are countries that are densely populated which are some of the richest countries in the world. There are starving people in the world. However, it is not because the earth cannot produce enough food for them, but because there is a problem getting the food to the people. People often starve due to their governments, for political reasons, or because certain groups are intentionally oppressing others. People not having access to food in some countries does not mean the food is not available or that it is impossible to feed all of them. In fact, food production has exceeded population growth and better farming techniques have allowed producers to produce more food on less land. It is said that American farmers alone can feed 1/3 of the entire world's population. The fact is that there is enough room on the planet - and enough food capacity - for many times the number of people currently living on earth. There is no overpopulation crisis, but a real danger of under-population that threatens may parts of the world in the years ahead.

The world's population also has enough to eat. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the rate of global food production outstrips the growth of the population. People grow enough calories in cereals alone to feed between 10 billion and 12 billion people. Yet hunger and malnutrition persist worldwide. This is because about 55% of the food grown is divided between feeding cattle, making fuel and other materials or going to waste. And what remains is not evenly distributed — the rich have plenty, the poor have little.

“Overpopulation is really not overpopulation. It's a question about poverty,” says Nicholas Eberstadt, a demographer at the American Enterprise Institute. People who know the facts use it as an excuse not to pay attention to the problems we have right now, such as the example of economic systems that favour the wealthy. Where starvation in the world is present, it isn’t caused by a lack of food. Studies consistently show the world has and can produce enough food for the present and future population.

Of all the myths about Africa prevailing in the West, none is propagated with more vigor and regularity than the notion that overpopulation is a central cause of African poverty. Each new famine has given propagators of this myth fresh ammunition. Indeed, in many African regions, the problem is underpopulation: The people are so thinly spread over large areas that it is often difficult to create a meaningful infrastructure to promote the interaction crucial to development. Africa's average population density is only 16 per square kilometer, against China's 100 per square kilometer and India's 225. Furthermore, Africa has more arable land per capita than any other developing region. Africans also point to the case of India, condemned by many experts in the 1960s to perpetual hunger. Today India is producing the bulk of its own food.

Western journalists blamed the Ethiopian famine on "overpopulation," but that was simply not true. The Ethiopian government caused it by confiscating the food stocks of traders and farmers and exporting them to buy arms. That country's regime, not its population, caused the tragedy. In fact, Africa, beset with problems often blamed on "overpopulation," has only one-fifth the population density of Europe, and has an unexploited food-raising potential that could feed twice the present population of the world, according to estimates by Roger Revelle of Harvard and the University of San Diego.

Yes, there are cities that are overpopulated, crammed to the brim with people. However, the Earth is not overpopulated in area—most of the land area is empty. While the earth does have a finite number of resources and a finite area with which to cultivate those resources, again, most of it is political and economic, i.e., the world’s supply of crude oil running out due to the financial interests of those in charge of the oil companies, the lack of an alternative being developed due to capitalist interests holding back science, the crises of overproduction and waste due to the market, international conflicts and of course, poverty.

Over-population is a myth and it has no direct link to poverty, development, food scarcity or environment. The overpopulation myths are handy for the exploiters, giving them a "scientific" excuse for the misery they cause so they can enjoy their blood-money without remorse. As Murray Bookchin argues, "If we live in a 'grow-or-die' capitalistic society in which accumulation is literally a law of economic survival and competition is the motor of 'progress,' anything we have to say about population causing the ecological crisis is basically meaningless. Under such a society the biosphere will eventually be destroyed whether five billion or fifty million people live on the planet"

Too Many People 2/5

Our planet does possess limits.  However, the total number of people that can be supported by Earth’s resources cannot be predicted merely by knowing the total amount of matter or surface area on Earth. Humanity is NOT doomed to “destroy the planet”. How do we save the world from the burden of too many people? So much of the promotion of environmentalism is based on the premise of “overpopulation”.  Every time we get into a conversation with someone, we hear “well, everyone knows the earth is over-populated.” Yet this statement is directly contrary to the facts. We can start by clearing up a few misconceptions.

Globally, women today have half as many babies as their mothers did, mostly out of choice. They are doing it for their own good, the good of their families, and, if it helps the planet too, then so much the better. Nothing the priests say can stop it. Women are doing this because, for the first time in history, they can. Better healthcare and sanitation mean that most babies now live to grow up. It is no longer necessary to have five or six children to ensure the next generation—so they don’t. Lower infant death rates mean families don’t need to have as many children in order to guarantee that some will survive. At the same time improvements in quality of life make it less necessary to have many children working to support their families. Greater access to contraception gives families more control over fertility.

Countries with a fertility rate (FR) below replacement level (2.1 children per woman) now number more than 80 worldwide — and counting. This list includes the entire West, where populations whose ancestors birthed Western civilization are disappearing. As examples know that My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a big fat Greek myth: The cradle of Western civilization now has empty cradles with an FR of 1.34; Italy, whose Roman ancestors assumed the Hellenistic mantle, has an FR of 1.4. The sun has also set on native Britons’ fecundity just as it did on their empire; the United Kingdom’s overall FR has risen to 1.98 due to Muslim baby-booming, but indigenous Britons’ FR is lower. The same demographic reality is evident in most of Asia, with China (1.7), Japan (1.4), Hong Kong (1.2), Singapore (1.3), and South Korea (1.2) being prime examples. And many developing nations are on the same trajectory, with Costa Rica (1.9), Uruguay (1.9), Brazil (1.8), and Cuba (1.7) illustrating the point. Then there’s Mexico: While its women bore almost seven children each in the 1960s, the FR rate is declining fast and stands at 2.3 today. Overall, the world’s 1950 to 1955 FR of 4.95 has declined by more than half and now stands at 2.36. Professional demographers tell us this will continue and that perhaps as early as 2050 and no later than 2100, the Earth’s population will begin declining. The “graying” that has plagued Japan and Europe will envelop the planet.

Based on existing technological capabilities, the 9 to 10 billion humans now forecasted for this century – when human populations are expected to peak- can be sustained using existing resources.The world population is now estimated at 7.2 billion. But with current industrial technologies, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has estimated that the more than nine billion people expected by 2050. The idea that humans must live within the natural environmental limits of our planet denies the realities of our entire history, and most likely the future. We transform ecosystems to sustain ourselves. This is what we do and have always done. Our planet’s human-carrying capacity emerges from the capabilities of our social systems and our technologies more than from any environmental limits. There is no environmental reason for people to go hungry now or in the future. There is no need to use any more land to sustain humanity — increasing land productivity using existing technologies can boost global supplies and even leave more land for nature — a goal that is both more popular and more possible than ever. The only limits to creating a planet that future generations will be proud of are our imaginations and our social system. Societal collapses due to populations reaching “environmental limits” are not the norm. Existing technologies could sustain current and anticipated human populations while increasingly sparing land for nature.  Human well-being and improved stewardship of the biosphere are limited primarily by the type of social system and its technologies, not by population or environment.

The amount of so-called ‘arable land’ on the planet is according to Wikipedia about 14 million km2. If we only use this amount of arable land, we would have about 20 times the land we need (or 40 times if we use the last calculation above) to feed all of us on the planet. If we include permanent pastures, which amount to about 33 million km2 and is used for livestock, and grow vegetables there instead, we end up with more than 60-100 times of what we actually need. That is if we only eat veggies. But of course, we don’t need all that land, so there would be plenty of room for some grass fed beef or chicken with happy free ranging animals that can be managed holistically.

There is no overpopulation on planet earth. Actually, there is plenty of food in the world. We can easily provide in abundance for everyone here, and even double, triple or quadruple that if we really like. All we need to do that is to create a resource based economy, making sure food and resources are created where people need them, and empower people to create their own lives wherever they live. To be overpopulated, a nation must have insufficient food, resources and living space. Indian economist Raj Krishna estimates that India alone is capable of increasing crop yields to the point of providing the entire world’s food supply. Lack of food is not the problem but rather the need for more efficient distribution. Quite frankly overpopulation is a myth. It is a dangerous idea that is demonstrably wrong. In developed countries, it is actually population decline that presents social and economic challenges. In some underdeveloped nations the population is indeed growing extremely rapidly, however, the situation is ameliorated by humanist efforts such as education (particularly for women), access to contraceptives, and general economic and social empowerment of the population. Overpopulation isn't a problem, but even if it was, the solution would be to give people, particularly women, choices about their own destiny.

Today the reality is that the world is experiencing falling birth rates and rising life expectancy. Rapidly rising populations are a threat in the poorest countries, while low fertility is a threat to developed nations . The world population is getting much older: by 2050 the number of people over the age of 65 will triple from 531 million to 1.5 billion. In fact, perhaps the real issue of the world population is not those being born, it is those not dying. There is a growing life expectancy gap where the affluent may expect to live to 120 or more while the poor won't see 60 . In most developed countries actual fertility is lower than desired. If you believe that there are too many people on Earth already and have access to contraceptives and have had a child then your position is at best hypocritical. A consistent world view would hold that no one should have more children, but in the reality of human nature is that only those who have access to contraceptives can accomplish that. Perhaps we should allow immigration from overpopulated countries to keep the ratio of working age to elderly dependents constant. Unfortunately most immigration policies severely limit the migration of unskilled people.

The myth that overpopulation is the problem is not supported by evidence. We should reject anti-humanist solutions. We must celebrate humankind. The social and economic fabric of a place determines how populations will grow. The future has the possibility to be a place where more people live healthier, longer, and more meaningful lives than ever before. However, leaving half the world behind poor and unable to participate is a disaster for everyone.  The idea that growing human numbers will destroy the planet is nonsense. But over-consumption will

Too Many People? 1/5

There are many problems in the world but contrary to common wisdom overpopulation need not be one. However, there are many, some of them sincere socialists or environmentalists who consider that there are too many people on the planet to make the future sustainable. This month’s Socialist Standard carried an article that went a little way to allay such fears. This is the first of series of posts also addressing the issue of population numbers.

Although there are now more people in the world than ever before, by any meaningful measure the world is actually becoming relatively less populated. Overpopulation describes a situation where there are too many people for the amount of resources available. It puts the blame for the environmental crisis on the sheer number of people on the planet. Natural scientist David Attenborough sums up this sentiment when he said, “We are a plague on the Earth. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us…” Not only is this idea of overpopulation oversimplified and inaccurate, it upholds a paradigm of scarcity and fear that goes against the core teachings of socialists. Overpopulation, as a topic, distracts from looking at the ways our current economic system fail us. The  root cause of human suffering is not overpopulation per se.

7 billion is a big number but most serious demographers, economists and population specialists rarely use the term “overpopulation” — because there is no clear demographic definition. If population density is the correct yardstick, then Monaco, with more than 16,000 people per square kilometer, has a far greater problem than, say, Bangladesh and its 1,000 people per square kilometer. There are plenty of densely populated regions that are prosperous. The Earth is a planet. It has a finite volume, mass, and surface area. Its surface area is 510,065,600 square kilometers—148,939,100 square kilometers of land. We draw resources like water, oil, and coal from that tiny surface to feed ourselves and fuel our economy. There’s only so much of the stuff to go around. The more people there are, the more they consume and the less they leave for everyone else. This line of reasoning seems plausible. But it rests on a false assumption, namely, that humans are mere consumers rather than creators. Of course, we don’t create from nothing. Our labour is enhanced by technology.

“What most frequently meets our view (and occasions complaint) is our teeming population. Our numbers are burdensome to the world, which can hardly support us . . . . In very deed, pestilence, and famine, and wars, and earthquakes have to be regarded as a remedy for nations, as the means of pruning the luxuriance of the human race.” This was not written by Paul Ehrlich. It did not even come from Thomas Malthus. It comes from Tertullian, a resident of the city of Carthage in the second century when the population of the world was about 190 million, or only three to four percent of what it is today. The catastrophists have been predicting doom and gloom for centuries. Perhaps the single significant thing about this is that the catastrophists seem never to have stopped quite long enough to notice that their predictions have never materialised

Mankind has always been worried about overpopulation. On an almost daily basis, we are fed a barrage of stories in the newspapers and on television—complete with such appropriately lurid headlines as “Earth Near the Breaking Point” and “Population Explosion Continues Unabated”—predicting the imminent starvation of millions because the population is outstripping the food supply. We regularly hear that because of population growth we are rapidly depleting our resource base with catastrophic consequences looming in our immediate future. We are constantly told that we are running out of living space and that unless something is done, and done immediately, to curb population growth, the world will be covered by a mass of humanity, with people jammed elbow to elbow and condemned to fight for each inch of space. But isn’t the world overpopulated? Aren’t we headed toward catastrophe? Don’t more people mean less food, fewer resources, a lower standard of living, and less living space for everyone?

The world has and is experiencing a population explosion that began in the eighteenth century. World population rose sixfold in the next 200 years. But this explosion was accompanied, and in large part made possible, by a productivity explosion, a resource explosion, a food explosion, an information explosion, a communications explosion, a science explosion, and a medical explosion. People are able to live healthier lives. Infant mortality rates plummeted and life expectancies soared.

Overpopulation must be overpopulation relative to something, usually food, resources, and living space. There has been a sixfold increase in world population dwarfed by the eighty-fold increase in world output. There is currently enough food to feed everyone in the world. And there is a consensus among experts that global food production could be increased dramatically if needed. The major problem for the developed countries of the world is food surpluses. In the United States, for example, millions of acres of good cropland lie unused each year. Many experts believe that even with no advances in science or technology, we currently have the capacity to feed adequately, on a sustainable basis, 40 to 50 billion people, or about eight to ten times the current world population. And we are currently at the dawn of a new agricultural revolution, biotechnology, which has the potential to increase agricultural productivity dramatically.

If the entire population of the world was placed in the state of Alaska, every individual would receive nearly 3,500 square feet of space or about one-half the size of the average American family homestead with front and back yards. Alaska is a big state, but it is a mere one percent of the earth’s land mass. Less than one-half of one percent of the world’s ice-free land area is used for human settlements.

Except in extreme famine and other natural disasters such as blight and crop failures, scarcity is a culturally mediated reality; it is largely created by industrial economics and power, rather than actual physical limits to growth. Overpopulation justifies the scapegoating and human rights violations of poor people, women, people of colour and immigrant communities. The subtext of “too many people” translates to too many poor people, people of colour and immigrants. In the 1970’s Puerto Rico, under the control of and with funding from the US government, forced the sterilization of 35% of women of child-bearing age . This is a human and reproductive rights violation. It also prevents us from dealing with the real social, political and economic origins of our ecological problems and places the blame on communities with less institutional power. This perpetuates a fear mindset, keeps people divided and blaming each other rather than being able to come together to organize for true self-determination and security. Overpopulation points the finger at individuals, not systems: This lets the real culprits off the hook. When we look at the true causes of environmental destruction and poverty it is often social, political and economic systems, not individuals. We see militaries and the toxic legacy of war, corrupt governments, and a capitalist economic system that puts profit over people and the environment. The founder of Social Ecology, Murray Bookchin said, “If we live in a grow or die capitalistic society in which accumulation is literally the law of economic survival and competition is the motor of progress, anything we have to say about population being the cause of ecological crisis is meaningless." Focusing on overpopulation prevents us from creating effective solutions and building movements for collective self-determination. The more we blame fellow humans and think we are bad and evil, it is harder to believe in ourselves, count on each other, and build a collective movement for social justice. Scholar, scientist, and activist, Vandana Shiva said, “Hunger and malnutrition are man-made. They are hardwired in the design of the industrial, chemical model of agriculture. But just as hunger is created by design, healthy and nutritious food for all can also be designed, through food democracy.” 

Socialist Standard July 2016

• Editorial: Let’s Really Take Control
• Pathfinders: Guns, Gays and the NRA
• Letter: What Kind of Revolution?
• Halo Halo! God, Broadband and Buddhists
• Cooking the Books: No Basic Change
• Greasy Pole: European Union? Civil War?
• Material World: Population - What Explosion?
• The World Socialist Party of the U.S. Turns 100
• The SPA: Dashed on the Rocks of Compromise
• The ‘Democratic Socialism’ of Bernie Sanders
• Looking Back on Edward Bellamy
• Cooking the Books: Saving Private Capitalism
• Proper Gander: Branded Comedy
• Book Reviews: 'Being Red', 'The Great Divide', & 'Twentieth Century Socialism - A Minority Rule'
• Exhibition Review: Lion Salt Works
• 50 Years Ago: The Seamen's Struggle
• Rear View
• Cartoon: Free Lunch

Make the Socialist Party

In today’s topsy-turvy world one never knows what lies in store for ourselves. It’s a world of fear and insecurity. Each new day brings more tragic news. With such threats in the world, it’s time to admit you need peace of mind which you and your loved ones deserve.

The socialist revolution is the most radical break with oppression and exploitation in history and it will be won and built by the working class. The aim is to replace the world capitalist system with world socialism. The establishment of a socialist, planned economy, based on the needs of the people, will mean the end to the chaos of capitalist production with its lack of planning, and repeated crises.  Exploitation, oppression, and degradation will not exist in a socialist society. Commodity production, that is, production for sale or exchange on the market, will not exist. The system of wage labour will be abolished and the guiding principle of labour will be “from each according to ability, to each according to need.” The means of production will be held communally and private property will be eliminated. Socialism would change our way of life.

Opponents of socialism must exclude the idea that revolutionary change is necessary if mankind is to extricate itself from the overwhelming conditions of conflict and start on the road towards human development. The supporters of capitalism have nothing to offer mankind beyond the continuous existence of a system of society which totters on under the weight of crises inherent in that very system. Socialism will be possible only when the workers, those who meet the needs of society, decide that they are determined to lay the living conditions of mankind on a new foundation. The whole future of humanity rests on the emergence of a socialist conscious working class.

To have the necessity for socialism recognised without having explained the meaning is to have votes passed on words that have been emptied of their meaning. For communists, to speak of socialism without unmasking the fraudulent way this word is used by the Left.

Many unattached radicals who have been looking for a new political home have been disappointed by the failure of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn to build an independent revolutionary movement. The construction of a new socialist party would have required a clear conception of the kind of party that the workers need and of the objectives it would serve. Whatever miracles they expected – or others expected of them – did not materialise. And neither has any new party formation.

Socialism or barbarism, these are the alternatives before us. The capitalist system is destroying civilisation before our very eyes. Its wars have destroyed continents, massacred millions, left other millions to starve. Industry can no longer be perverted to serve interests of a tiny privileged class without forcing all mankind back to a new "Dark Age." We must go forward to a socialist society under which the productive capacity of modern technology will be used to raise the level of culture and to satisfy the needs of the people, and to establish a society without class privilege.

For those who are not content to be outside the organised movement for socialist objectives, the Socialist Party offers a principled vehicle for participating in the working class struggle for a socialism.

What level playing field?

By accidents of birth most children have reduced chances of fulfilling their natural potential and Scotland. Private schools have for centuries been used as the breeding ground for the ruling. It creates a divide between us, the plebs, and they, the masters.

The Sutton Report states the poor from Scotland are 4 times less likely to go to University than those from wealthy backgrounds. In England this figure is only 2.4 times.

MSPs are now five times more likely than the average Scot to be educated at a fee-paying school. Around four per cent of Scots have had the purchased privileges of an education at one of these facilities, yet fully 20 per cent of our elected representatives attended one.

A head teacher of a Glasgow secondary school which serves some of this city’s most disadvantaged neighbourhoods pointed to the “invisible discriminators” which diminished the chances of his brightest pupils fulfilling their potential. These ranged from being denied internships at big city private practices to large fees for CAT exams to universities routinely deploying artificially high entry qualification levels as a means of filtering out pupils from deprived backgrounds.

Beyond Tomorrow

In these days of bloodshed and strife, we, the Socialist Party, reaffirm our belief in world socialism and in the principles of human brotherhood as the only great force in the world that can bring order out of this chaos and prevent catastrophe. Never has the need been greater than now for socialists to conduct a campaign for their own objectives and in their own name against the political machinations of capitalism. We have witnessed a worldwide wave of mass demonstrations, strikes and revolutionary uprisings aimed at a whole string of despotic regimes. The rational system of socialism would mean more things to eat, to wear, to enjoy – and at the same time more leisure for farm and factory workers. Under capitalism, however, this splendid technological improvement turns into a great social disaster – fewer jobs, more unemployed, more worry, more hunger, more starvation. Capitalism means only a small section of the population controls production and is not answerable to the rest of the community

The Socialist Party stand for lasting and democratic prosperity and peace; Against race hatred; For freedom of speech, freedom of press, and freedom of assembly; For the common ownership of the means of production and distribution; For the principle of collectivism; For the principle of cooperation. Join hands with us for the removal of the cause as the only way to alter the effect, and that in place of the present struggle for a miserable existence we may so alter the conditions of that existence that everyone shall work, and in return shall get all that he or she can require, not only food, clothes and shelter, but leisure and means of enjoyment This can be done by associated effort only – call it communism, socialism, anarchism what you will. With this outlook we have every reason to send a message of encouragement to our comrades throughout the world.

The Socialist Party is the only party that stands in elections and point out that there is no alternative for the working class other than socialism. To go and try to get fellow workers to support our party merely because we promise them some immediate reforms is to enter into competition with all the pro-capitalist parties on their own ground for there is no sound reason why fellow workers should prefer our wish-list of reforms to those of the other parties. We can offer the working class no more and no better reforms than can any other party and the workers would be entirely correct if, on the basis of an appeal for reforms, they would turn their backs to us and vote for the more “pragmatic” parties with more “practical” policies. To distinguish ourselves fundamentally from all reformist groups by carrying on a campaign for only socialism is not only correct but common sense. We do not to claim that such a campaign would result in a large vote but we recognise that if we don’t conduct such a campaign there is no use having one at all. A huge vote can be piled up by a reformist party more easily than by a revolutionary party under non-revolutionary conditions. And to be disappointed or disheartened by a comparatively small vote is not to understand the nature of a socialist election campaign. Votes obtained by a campaign conducted solely on revolutionary lines mean that those persons who voted can be counted upon whereas votes obtained by offering all kinds of promises are votes of those who will vote socialist today and swing to some other party the next election. If the people who vote for a socialist do not do so because he or she is a Socialist but because they do not know that he or she is a Socialist, of what earthly use can that be for achieving the Socialist goal? The answer is “none whatever.” The view that we should, first be elected and then teach socialism to the masses is so utterly absurd that It should not even be suggested. An election campaign must serve as an educational campaign. If our campaign is one of education for socialism, then it follows that we must show why every other party is wrong and cannot solve the problems of the working class. We must distance ourselves from those parties that claim to represent the interests of the working class as well as those parties that are openly against the idea of socialism. Our political position is unique and we make no compromises with any other group. The attitude that we must get results no matter how we get them is self-defeating.

The Socialist Party primarily concern itself with analysing the capitalist system, pointing out its defects and advocating the replacing of the capitalist system by the common ownership and democratic administration of the means of production and distribution. The success of the socialist movement and the rapidity of its progress will depend very largely upon the method of education. The political aspirations of the Socialist Party is essentially constructive – to develop socialist ideas and build socialism. There is little place in the workers’ movement for the palace revolutions, midnight insurrections or cataclysmic conditions. Socialism does not advance necessarily in response to or because of great industrial distress. Economic crises may point out the fact that something is wrong, but the suggestion of the remedy and the cure for these ills is quite a different problem. Socialism cannot be introduced without a well-organised public opinion supporting the socialist idea. Whether that support is won at the ballot box or through trade union action is not so important as that it be won. One thing seems evident. If we cannot get people to vote for ourselves, there is little hope of getting them to man the barricades on behalf of our cause. It may be too early to decide definitely what course we shall finally have to pursue to gain the socialist commonwealth but there certainly can be no harm in getting as many votes at the ballot box as possible. As long as the ballot can be used, even under difficulties as it is today, it should be used.  It is not correct to say that the Socialist Party is a political party only to the extent that it succeeds in winning votes. The Socialist Party is and must be a political party throughout the year, and not only during election campaigns. While we are in favour of strikes or anything else which will advance the cause of our fellow workers and many of us busy ourselves, taking part in the class struggle through trade union activity and community action, the mistake that many make is in thinking that by engaging in the day-to-day struggles on the economic field that the workers will follow them on the political arena. We will gain the socialist commonwealth by the best means at our disposal.

Scottish rich get richer

Scotland’s richest 10 per cent saw the largest increases in income over 2014/15, while the proportion of working households entering into poverty levels has increased, according to the latest figures from the Scottish Government. The proportion of people in absolute poverty – lacking basic human needs like food and shelter – remained unchanged, though decreased slightly if housing costs were factored in.

The top 10 per cent saw incomes rise by 15 per cent more than the bottom 40 per cent combined, the report says. In 2013/14, the same group saw incomes rise by 12 per cent more.

The report says a move into part-time work has seen those in lower income brackets fall behind the trend for wage rises in the middle and the richest households. The report says: “The proportion of people in poverty in working households increased in the latest year. The move into employment was largely into part-time work, especially for women, meaning that while people were in employment, they remained in poverty.”

Jamie Livingstone, head of Oxfam Scotland, told The Independent: “It is clear that not enough progress is being made on tackling poverty in Scotland. There are still over 940,000 people living in relative poverty after housing costs (AHC), the same number as 2013/14. Worryingly, the proportion of people experiencing in-work poverty is on the rise. In 2014/15, 58 per cent of working age adults in poverty (AHC) were living in working households, as were 66 per cent of children.”

Who are the outsiders?

The answer to people fleeing conflict, deprivation and brutal regimes is to remove the root causes of such misery—minority ownership and control of productive resources which generates rivalry. Not only does this global minority ownership and control of productive assets cause people to flee and seek better lives elsewhere, it also influences where such migrants try to reach. Politicians and the media accuse asylum seekers for not staying in the “first safe country” they reach, alleging them of seeing Britain as a “soft touch”. Those travelling long distances through fear or desperation are people no different to ourselves. Multimillionaires and billionaires, thanks to exploitation of the working class, re able to fly first-class anywhere in the world at a whim and are the real migrant “spongers” who need to be kicked out.

Xenophobia flourishes with new-comers subjected to racism and abusive languages by the host nation's population as "bloody foreigners", "parasites", "aliens", "refugees" and "patriotic” citizens are quick to assert, nationalistically, that the "outsiders" have come to take their jobs, their houses and what have you. However, though the grievances of the masses may be related to economic factors, it is unreasonable to blame it on their fellow poor workers. It is often objected that migrants move from one country to another in order to claim benefits and live off the backs of ‘indigenous’ people. But there is no reason to think this is true in the vast majority of cases. Benefits are low, and most migrants are not entitled to them anyway. The migration journey can be expensive and hard, often indeed fatal, with many dying at sea on leaky boats or while trying to cross a frontier. Migrants are rarely well off in the country they move to, forming an underclass with little if any security of employment or housing.  In order to ward off unrest various tactics are employed by governments. One of them is creating divisions among the poor workers by, for instance blaming foreigners and whipping up nationalistic feelings. In response to the official propaganda, the masses who are hungry and illiterate are taken in by the government policy. Since anger is emotional it often overpowers reason. Many workers will be misled by those squawking about the need to defend British jobs, by politicians bleating about defending Britain from being swamped by scroungers; but local workers will be no better off for siding with British capital against their fellow workers. As soon as the going gets tough, the capitalists will without hesitation pull up their money and send it elsewhere to make better profits without the slightest regards for the workers who would be swamped by the resulting unemployment. Migrant workers are a convenient scapegoat, and can be blamed for everything from unemployment to inner-city riots. Politicians therefore find it all too easy to play the immigrant (usually, race) card and claim to defend the national way of life. The truth is that it is not fellow workers who cause poverty and unemployment, but capitalism and its unyielding drive for profits.

In its quest for profits, capitalism is prepared to look anywhere for cheap labour power. One consequence has been the massive growth in numbers of migrant workers, who travel, (legally or illegally) to another country for the sake of employment. Capitalism relies on immigrant labour, despite all the anti-immigrant noises its political representatives make. Migration is part and parcel of the global economic order. Nationalist, protectionist and anti-foreigner views flourish when people, who already mistakenly consider themselves to be a nation, feel economically insecure. They tend to turn to the ‘nation-state’ to protect them from world market pressures and the competition of other states. It is all too easy to blame immigrants for causing or at least aggravating problems such as unemployment, bad housing or crime. Whether it is a matter of people from Eastern Europe or South Asia in Britain, or Hispanics in the United States, or Germans in Switzerland, a finger can always be pointed at ‘them’ for making things worse for ‘us’. People are right to protest about their situation, but they need to be more discerning and choose the right target. It’s not migrants who are to blame for their plight. It’s the world-wide capitalist system of production for profit. That’s what they should target.

Capitalism cannot work in the workers' interests. Its creed is profit. Capitalism is a society of haves and have-nots, of winners and losers. The working class should not side with any of our class enemies. It should stand for its own interests—freedom from wage slavery and exploitation; socialism: a society of production for use and free access, where all will contribute according to their abilities. We're compassionate; our capacity to empathise with others is nothing short of amazing and is surely the key to our unity and social order. Why would we do things to others that we wouldn't want done to us? If we rediscovered our empathy, imagine the impact on the treatment of refugees. The task confronting us is to build up a union of the working class, organised to put an end to the property system that divides and oppresses us. Working people, whether migrants or not, face a common enemy, the world capitalist class and their system. Instead, to free ourselves we need the World Commonwealth of Humanity. 

The same old slavery

In the slave system, it was considered “natural” for one group of people, the slaveowners, to own other people, the slaves. In our capitalist society, this idea is regarded as criminal and absurd, because the bourgeoisie has no need for slaves as private property (at least not in its own country). But it has every need for wage-slaves, proletarians. So it presents as “natural” the kind of society where a small group, the capitalists, own the means of production and on that basis force the great majority of society to work to enrich them. The slaveowners and the capitalists have one fundamental thing in common–they are both exploiters, and they both regard it as the correct and perfect order of things for a small group of parasites to live off the majority of laboring people. They differ only in the form in which they exploit and therefore in their view of how society should be organized to ensure this exploitation. As humanity advances towards socialism, society as a whole will consciously reject the idea that any one group should privately own the means of production. Then wage-slavery, based on the ownership of capital as private property, will be seen as just as criminal and absurd as ancient slavery, based on the ownership of other people as private property. The working class, by its own nature as a class, has no interest in promoting private gain at the expense of others and every interest in promoting cooperation. Only in this way can workers emancipate themselves and all of humanity.

The capitalists have exercised their dictatorship over the working class for hundreds of years, and they believe they should go on doing so, however much they cover this up with talk about “democracy.” The capitalists cannot eliminate the working class - and, certainly, cannot convert the working class into capitalists–for then whose labor would the capitalists live off! The working class, on the other hand, can run production and all of society much better without any capitalists at all. When all of society has been transformed and the community of associated workers has been established, then there will no longer be the need for the state since there will no longer be any class to suppress, and the state will be replaced with common administration by all of society. Socialism eliminates the anarchy of capitalism and its crises, by collective ownership of the means of production and collective planning of the economy. The nature of work itself will change completely because the labor of the workers will no longer go to enrich capital to further enslave the working class, but to improve life today, while providing for the future, according to the conscious plan of the working class itself. The pride that workers have in their work will be unhindered by any sense that they are working themselves, or someone else, out of a job, or that they are being driven to produce for the private benefit of some blood-sucking employer, under the scrutiny of his overseers and the constant threat of being fired. The organization of work will be the province of the working class itself. All this will unleash the stored-up knowledge of the working class, based on its direct experience in production, and inspire workers to make new breakthroughs in improving production. Work itself will become a joy and enrichment of the worker’s life, instead of a miserable means to sustain existence, as it is under capitalism. Machinery will no longer be weapons in the hands of the capitalists to grind down the working class, and workers will no longer be a mere extension of the machine as they are under capitalism. Instead, technology will become tools in the hands of the working class in its own struggle to revolutionise society. The working class will have a variety of organisations and agencies to involve the masses of people in the process of ruling and remaking society. Nothing can save capitalism in the long run, because it has long since become a barrier to progress and long since prepared the conditions for its own destruction.

What we want

Human society has been propelled forward by the struggle for freedom. Today the rich and powerful,  try to claim the banner of freedom for themselves.  For the rulers, freedom means the freedom to structure everything in society to serve their own interests. Meanwhile, for the great majority, the freedom preached by the rich means only the freedom to choose between a rock and a hard place, between selling our laboUr to them to enrich them further and starving to death. But The Socialist Party has a different vision of freedom. The great majority women and men want freedom from misery, from exploitation, from the jackboot of the authoritarian state, from living our whole lives in alienation and insecurity. We want our freedom to become fully human, to develop all our talents and abilities. And millions of us sense that this cannot be done by each of us as individuals, but only by the pooling our collective strength and sharing our wisdom.

Freedom is not a thing that can be won for a few. If any are in chains, no one is truly free. Nor can freedom be given as a gift. It must be taken by the many because only in doing so can we learn to use and expand it. The rich hate the thought of socialism so much that they call socialist any reform in the system that cuts into their wealth in the slightest—from free higher education and a rise in taxes to environmental regulations and a universal healthcare system today. Such reforms, however, needed they might be, are not socialism. Real freedom requires the destruction of the whole current social order based on the rights of the wealthy to keep everything they have and constantly grab for more. Real freedom, socialism, will mean organising society and the economy on a totally different basis, where the wealth created by the labour of the many goes to serve the people and not to enrich a tiny handful of parasites. It will mean that people will have the opportunity and resources they need to develop their potential as human beings and to increase their contributions to the wellbeing of all. The working people will rule, learning to become the masters of society. The wealth of society, produced by the labor of millions, will go to benefit the many, not to fatten the few. Because the highest law of capitalism is “expand or die,” enormous waste, suffering, and environmental destruction are built into the system we live under. In place of this dog-eat-dog madness, we need cooperation, collectivity, and planning. We, the working people, make all of society run, each and every day. Why shouldn’t we run all of society?

After we have overthrown the capitalists we will establish socialism which will mean the rule of the majority. It will put an end to the exploitation of man by man. It will bring freedom to all those oppressed by capital and open up a new period of history. Workers will participate directly in running the economy and society from top to bottom. Gone will be the anarchy of capitalist production. Gone, too, its resultant economic crises which today bring so much misery to workers. Socialism is the future of humanity, a radically new society where classes and the state will have been completely eliminated. It is possible to do away with classes and the state since these only exist during a specific period of society’s development. Humanity has not always been divided into classes. In the primitive communal societies, all the members cooperated together to assure their survival. The state is simply an instrument by which one class dominates another. It became a necessity when society split into classes. Just as the ancient slave state served the slave owners to suppress the countless slave rebellions, so too the modern capitalist state is a tool of the bourgeoisie to maintain its dictatorship over the working class. There will be no rich and no poor, and all members of society will contribute to the common good. The immense advance of the productive forces and the tremendous abundance of social wealth will allow for the application of the principle: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Each person will contribute to society according to his or her capacities, while society in turn provides for his or her needs. The differences between workers and farmers, town and country, and manual and intellectual work will have disappeared.

Where's there life, there is hope

Socialism is not yet dead for the good reason that it is not yet born. The struggle against the capitalist class is a struggle against a parasite class who live off the labour of others, and against all exploitation. It can only end by the transferal of all land, instruments, factories, machines and mines to the whole of society for the organisation of social production under which all that is produced by the workers and all improvements of production must benefit the working people themselves. The working class movement is the gravedigger of capitalism. The struggle of the working class for its emancipation is a political struggle. The emancipation of the working class is the revolutionary act of self-emancipation.

There is growing fear, anger, despair among people about the future of our planet. Some of it is undoubtedly misplaced and expressed in violent and destructive ways as religious fundamentalism and a nationalistic xenophobia hatred towards others. There is no such thing as revolutionary nationalism. All nationalism is reactionary. Nationalism has been used by native ruling classes and the removal of the foreign ruler through national struggle has never really changed the oppression suffered by the mass of the people. Nationalism is a weapon in the hands of the ruling class in order to mislead the people. Still, there are also thousands of organisations and people all around the world engaged in positive nonviolent and collective action. There is a long history of social critics and progressive thinkers offering critiques of human society. Among those who are better known is Karl Marx. He repeatedly exposed the way people fell victims of deceit and self-deceit in politics until they learned to discover the interests of some class behind the moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises.

The course of history is taking a turn towards world socialism. To blaze a trail which will lead to the constitution of a real Marxist party is our main task. We approach this problem with confidence and humility. We need both. Our confidence is born of the knowledge that we are equipped with the principles of Marxism. Our adherence to principle is openly admitted by the whole membership of our party.  We have been able to resist all attempts on the part of those on the Left to have us renounce those principles who have accused us of being dogmatists and sectarians. This charge is our badge of political honesty and sincerity. It’s a declaration of acknowledgement of our persistence and perseverance. These are precious attributes and we shall strive to keep them. But we need more than that. We require the understanding and cooperation of our fellow workers and we are humble enough to admit that we are lacking in this particular support.

What is basically wrong with capitalism? You will get a number of different answers from socialists which will depend on their vision of what socialism might be like and on their ideas as to what political action is all about. Members of the Socialist Party see these things very differently from the Left with their crude vision of mankind. All would be well, they say or imply, if as a result of their capture of state power. Capitalism is completely incapable of solving the problems of the world. The task of the Socialist Party is not to lead the workers nor to concoct utopian schemes but to enlighten and organise fellow workers. Humanity is not so vile as to tolerate the foulness of capitalist "civilisation" indefinitely. Capitalism has been found wanting. The handwriting is on the wall. Life under capitalism is a struggle for a better existence for all living creatures in the future society—the industrial commonwealth of labour. Class power is the essential condition for far-reaching social change. The object of the Socialist Party must, therefore, aim to consolidate that power, and put an end to the political, economic and social power of the capitalist class. We can transform Parliament into the effective instrument of the people’s will. Our ambition in the Socialist Party is to help our fellow workers to achieve socialism for the whole of mankind. It is a hard and difficult job.

Lenin 6/6

After the overthrow of the Tsar in March 1917, capitalism had to develop in Russia in one form or another. That it took the form of state capitalism under a brutal one-party dictatorship was the result of the Bolsheviks' seizing power in November on Lenin's programme of State Capitalism for Russia. Lenin and the Bolsheviks did completely uproot and destroy semi-feudal Tsarism. Which can't have been a bad thing. A bit like Cromwell here. Nothing to do with socialism, either of them, of course, but with clearing the way for the progress of capitalism.

Many people assume that Marx believed the working class would only be able to come to power by smashing the State in a violent uprising. They do not realise that this was Lenin's view and one which he tried to pass off as Marx's in his dishonest pamphlet The State and Revolution.

Marx's theory of the State is quite clear. When the early communist communities under which mankind originally lived broke up into class societies, a new social institution to protect the interests of the dominant class was needed. This institution was the State, which is essentially an armed centre of social control. The class that controls the State is thereby able to control also society, in the end by force of arms; it is the ruling class. In the course of history, the State has been controlled by various classes — Ancient slave-owners, feudal barons and, now, modern capitalists. Today's subject class, the workers, can only achieve its freedom by itself winning control of the State and using it to abolish class society by establishing the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. With the end of classes the need for a State, as the special social organ of coercion, also disappears. The classless society of Socialism has no State, but simply a democratic administrative centre for settling social affairs.

Throughout his political life, Marx insisted that the working class must capture the State before trying to establish Socialism and that Socialism would be a society without a State.

In the early days, Marx expected that the workers would only be able to win power in a violent insurrection. In the 1840's this was not an unreasonable proposition. Universal suffrage existed hardly anywhere and the insurrection — barricades, street-fighting, the seizure of public buildings — was a method used even by capitalist politicians. Marx later realised that universal suffrage was an alternative method the workers might be able to use in their struggle to win State power. In 1872 in a speech at the Hague, where the congress of the First International was being held, Marx commented that he thought the workers might be able to achieve power peacefully in America, Britain and perhaps Holland—countries where they made up a majority of the voters. In 1880 a French Workers' Party was founded. Its manifesto had been drafted, in Marx's study and spoke of turning universal suffrage from a fraud into "an agent of emancipation". Engels in his Introduction to Marx's Class Struggles in France (an account of French politics from 1848 to 1850) explains how he and Marx came to regard the insurrection behind barricades as an obsolete weapon for the working class and goes on to show how universal suffrage could be much more effective.

Marx, then, left open the question of how the working class would win State power and did not rule out the possibility of their winning control of the State by peaceful means. As to what the working class should do with the State once they had won control of it, Marx always insisted that they should immediately establish a democratic republic. After the Paris Commune of 1871, he declared that the workers would have to make other, more radical changes in the structure of the State before they could use it to establish Socialism.

Marx views can be summarised:

1. The working class must first, either peacefully or violently, win control of the State.

2. Then they must make it completely democratic, and,

3. Use it to dispossess the capitalists and establish the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production.

4. This done, there would no longer be any need for the State, which consequently would cease to exist in Socialism.

Marx's views were distorted in two opposing ways. First, by some Social Democrats who made him stand for a gradual, peaceful transition to Socialism by means of social reform measures passed by parliament.

Secondly, by Lenin:

When Lenin returned to Russia in April 1917 after the overthrow of the Tsar he began to advocate that his party, the Bolsheviks, should aim to seize power in the near future. He knew that they could only do this in a violent uprising. Forced into hiding in August and September he wrote this pamphlet The State and Revolution in which he distorted Marx's views so as to justify in Marxist terms the Bolsheviks' planned insurrection.

Lenin's basic distortion is to take Marx's statements about the need to break up Napoleon's bureaucratic State machine after the workers had won power and to argue that he was referring to the State generally. This made Marx appear to say that the State should be smashed by the working class before they could win, or while they were winning power.

Lenin quotes Marx's The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and emphasises a passage which reads "All revolutions perfected this machine instead of smashing it" (our emphasis), clearly a reference to a particular State apparatus; in this case the centralised French State. But see what Lenin makes Marx say:

“. . . all the revolutions which have occurred up to now perfected the state machine, whereas it must be broken, smashed.” (p.45, our emphasis).

Another example occurs in Chapter III where Lenin quotes from one of Marx's letters (to Kugelmann, 12 April 1871). In it Marx is saying that the passage from The Eighteenth Brumaire just discussed means that it was essential for "every real people's revolution on the Continent" not "to transfer the bureaucratic-military machine from one hand to another, but to smash it".

Lenin inserts the word "state" into Marx's "the bureaucratic-military machine" and uses the phrase "bureaucratic-military state machine" in the rest of the Chapter as if this is what Marx had written.

Again, Lenin quotes Marx's statement that "the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made machinery and wield it for its own purposes" and says:

“Marx's idea is that the working class must break up, smash the 'ready-made state machinery', and not confine itself merely to laying hold of it”. (p. 59).

Taken quite literally, this is true. Marx did advocate that parts of the old State should be broken up. The real question, however, is when he advocated this should be done: Was it before or after the working class had won State power?

Lenin argues that Marx meant "before". Engels, on the other hand, made it quite clear that Marx meant "after". Engels was specifically asked about this passage from Marx and replied:

“It is simply a question of showing that the victorious proletariat must first refashion the old bureaucratic, administratively centralised state power before it can use it for its own purposes”. (Letter to Bernstein, 1 Jan. 1884).

In fact, Lenin later (Chapter IV) himself quotes passages from Engels' Introduction to Marx Civil War in France which show that Marx was talking about what the workers should do after, rather than before, they had won power:

“From the very outset the Commune was compelled to recognise that the working class, once come to power, could not go on managing with the old state machine; that . . . this working class must ... do away with all the old repressive machinery previously used against it itself …” (p. 123).  

and,

“. . . the state is nothing but a machine for the suppression of one class by another . . . and at best an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy, whose worst sides the victorious proletariat, just like the Commune, cannot avoid having to lop off at once as much as possible …” (p.127).

Oddly enough, in Chapter VI Lenin, on three occasions, formulates Marx's views so as to mean that the bureaucratic-military parts of the State must be smashed after the workers have won power. This is all the more confusing in that only a few pages away Lenin had accused Kautsky of admitting "the possibility of power being seized without destroying the state machine" (p.171). Lenin confused the two separate issues of breaking up the old bureaucratic state machine and how the working class could come to win control of that machine. It suggests that Lenin, when he makes statements like:

“Marx meant that the working class must smash, break, shatter ... the whole state machine” (p.169).

and

“From 1852 to 1891, for forty years, Marx and Engels taught the proletariat that it must smash the state machine” (p.170).

He means his readers to think Marx's view to be that the State must be smashed by the working class while seizing power. This would mean that Marx thought a peaceful capture of State power impossible. Quite apart from Engels' clear explanation, the fact that Marx did not rule out this possibility is in itself sufficient to disprove Lenin's distortion. Marx would have seen no contradiction between the working class winning power peacefully and then later smashing the bureaucratic-military machine.

There are a number of other distortions in Lenin's pamphlet which we will briefly record.

In that part of Anti-Dühring later published as Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, Engels in the course of describing the establishment of Socialism wrote:

“The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production in the first instance into state property. But in doing this, it ... abolishes . . . the state as state.”

Despite the fact that Engels goes on to explain this (that the State, as a means of class oppression, becomes unnecessary when it has become the representative of the whole community as it would after thus ending class property), Lenin makes the absurd claim that "Engels speaks here of the proletarian revolution 'abolishing' the bourgeois state . . ." (p.28)

Lenin describes as "this panegyric on violent revolution" (p.33) another passage from Anti-Dühring where Engels writes about the role of "force" in history. Here Lenin disguises the fact that Marx and Engels understood by "force" not necessarily and exclusively "violent insurrection" but also the mere exercise of State power, whether accompanied by violence or not.

Lenin quotes (p.96) from an article in an Italian journal without making it clear that the passage he reproduces is not really Marx's own words, but Marx's summary in heavily sarcastic terms of the arguments that might be used to refute a pacifist anarchist.

Again, Lenin quotes (p.113) a passage from Engels' criticism of the German Social Democrats' 1891 programme where he says that "the democratic republic ... is even the specific form for the dictatorship of the proletariat", (our emphasis). This did not fit in with Lenin's views so he argues that Engels only meant that the democratic republic was "the nearest approach to the dictatorship of the proletariat" (our emphasis).

Finally, in Chapter V Lenin makes a false distinction between Socialism and Communism in a bid to prove that, according to Marx, the State would not finally disappear till "Communism" and so would still exist under "Socialism". Marx and Engels, in fact, made no distinction between Socialism and Communism; they were terms they used interchangeably to refer to future classless, Stateless society based on social or common ownership.

Lenin's The State and Revolution is not, as it claims, a re-statement of Marx's theory of the State but a gross distortion of it.

Lenin 5/6

When the Bolshevik Lenin first appeared on the Russian political scene he accepted the views of people like Plekhanov – whose acknowledged pupil he was – Axelrod, Deutsch and others. Lenin's first important work, The Development of Capitalism in Russia, published 1899, put forward the view that Capitalism was developing in Russia and nothing could stop its continuance. This development he argued was historically progressive in relation to the then existing semi-feudal economy of Russia. While one could not oppose this development he said, nevertheless workers should organise to resist its evils and steps should be taken to prepare for its eventual supersession. Lenin's book was part of an ideological campaign which the Russian Social Democratic Party were waging against the Narodniki (Populists) who maintained that Russia had a social development which was peculiar to itself and therefore did not have to pass through a normal and full capitalist development which other countries had experienced. In fact, they averred that Capitalism was a kind of Western disease against which the people of Russia could and should he inoculated. Let us, they said, get rid of the tyranny of Tsarism and we can, on the basis of our rural collectivism (the Mir), establish Socialism, i.e. free peasant communes and cooperatives of workers.

It was Lenin who after the meagre achievements of “War Communism” re-introduced the idea of a homegrown Russian Socialism when he announced his “New Economic Policy.” It was the “Marxist” Lenin who proclaimed the myth that State Capitalism although a step backwards from the earlier Bolshevik aims had in it, nevertheless, socialist implications. It was Lenin who repeatedly put forward the view that a Soviet State could be both the means and guarantee for realising Socialism in one country, and the further myth shared by both Stalin and Trotsky that what was taking place in Russia then was different from anywhere else in the world. Lenin's own views on Marxism had through the years undergone a considerable change from his earlier standpoint. How much so could be seen in the attitude he adopted in the closing years of the 1914-18 war. Lenin had come to believe more and more that Capitalism was doomed. that it would be unable to finish the war it had started. Peace was to come by a victorious proletarian revolution in the advanced capitalist countries. For that reason, the traditional difference between bourgeois and proletarian revolutions had for him lost significance. Given the right leadership in Russia, a socialist revolution not a bourgeois one would be the order of the day. At the first All-Russian Congress of Soviets, of which his party was only a small minority, he declared their willingness to take over immediately. In the August of that year, he flatly asserted that “majority rule was an institutional illusion.” Lenin's predictions of what was going to happen to capitalism were falsified by the actual events. The capitalists did finish the war and no proletarian revolution took place. So Lenin's main justification for a socialist revolution went by the board.

It is true the Bolsheviks did come to power in Russia. But it was neither with the acclamation nor assent of the Russian people. It was in the quiet of the early hours of the morning of November 7th that Bolshevik military cars occupied the centres of business and communication in Petrograd. This sealed the fate of Kerensky Provisional Government and assured the Bolsheviks of political power. Thus did the population of Petrograd discover when they woke a few hours later that their “Proletarian dictatorship” was an accomplished fact.

That the Bolsheviks concluded peace with Germany, dispossessed the private capitalist and against their own judgment gave the land to the peasants is a matter of history. They were successful because in war-weary, exhausted Russia they conceded to the inevitable. Behind the facade of their concession they planned, however, a new discipline and developed the latent forces for a new social order – new to Russia – but, in its exploitation based on wage labour. as old as capitalism itself.

Nor was the undemocratic seizure of power by the Bolsheviks merely the fortuitous result of filling the vacuum caused by the indecision and incompetence of Kerensky's Government. Such action by the Bolsheviks was in keeping with their political ideas which the circumstances arising from the collapse of Tsarist Russia enabled them to exploit.

The Bolsheviks, mainly recruited from the Russian bourgeois intelligentsia, had long regarded themselves as the born leaders of the Russian people, an illusion they shared with the Fabians and other reformist parties. By identifying themselves with the aims and aspirations of the non-socialist mass and securing their confidence the Bolsheviks believed that, with such backing, they could ride to political power at an opportune moment. Because they believed themselves to be the commanding officers of the politically less conscious majority it is easy to see why the spreading of socialist ideas was subordinated to the preoccupation of tactics, unity of command and the strict discipline of party organisation. Within such a party it was obvious that freedom of individual action and opinion were gravely limited. Ideas for them were not something to be accepted because of their integral and logical structure but as an ideal means for successfully waging political struggles. Theory for the Bolsheviks, as it became later for the various Communist Parties meant a creed a dogma to be inflexibly held against all comers.

The Bolsheviks themselves, however, became the victims of their own anti-democratic pressures. From “all power to the Soviets” it passed to “all power to the Communist Party.” The checks and balances of ordinary democratic procedure were absent. The struggle of rival groups had to be carried on within the Communist Party. Intrigue and plotting under ideological disguises became the effective means for realising political ambitions.

Among the first to describe the Russian economy under the Bolshevik government as "state capitalism", was Lenin himself in 1918. By this term, he meant state control of capitalist-owned industries. He had been impressed by the system of industrial control which the German government had built up during the war. If the Kaiser and the Prussian Junkers could control capitalist industry for their purposes why, thought Lenin, could not the Bolshevik Party control capitalist industry for the benefit of the workers and poor peasants of Russia?

After seizing power in November 1917 the Bolsheviks did not go on to nationalise all industry; they merely exercised state control over it. In some instances, this brought them into conflict with workers who under the syndicalist slogan of "workers' control" had taken over the factories in which they worked. A number of Bolsheviks denounced as "state capitalism" the policy of subjecting these factories to state control and to speed-up, one-man management and factory discipline.

Lenin's reaction was extraordinarily honest. He admitted that his government was pursuing a policy of state capitalism, but argued:

“State capitalism would be a step forward as compared with the present state of affairs in our Soviet Republic.” (Left-Wing' Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality)

In admitting this he was admitting that Russia lacked the large-scale production on which alone Socialism can be based.

The civil war and foreign intervention forced the Bolsheviks to take a number of emergency measures — like nationalising factories whose owners had fled, requisitioning grain from the peasants, causing inflation by an over-issue of paper currency. Some Bolsheviks regarded these as measures to set up a moneyless economy in Russia, but this was absurd. As soon as the Civil War was over in 1921 they were abandoned and Lenin again advocated a policy of state capitalism. The New Economic Policy (NEP), introduced that year, was described as a policy of developing capitalism in Russia under the control of the Bolshevik government.

In calling their policy "state capitalism" the Bolsheviks were being unusually honest. But this was not to be expected to last in view of the political advantages to be gained from using the word "socialist". Lenin himself often used this word merely for its propaganda effect even though he knew that strictly speaking he was not using it properly. Stalin took over this opportunist technique and used it to great effect.

What to do today in the EU referendum