Toxic Nationalism, Poisoned Patriotism

 As the Russian invasion of Ukraine grows increasingly brutal, we say to our fellow workers in all lands that we have no quarrel with you. On the contrary, we appeal to workers in all other lands to refuse to slaughter one another for and at the behest of, our capitalist masters. We appeal to you to unite with us in the struggle to overthrow the system of capitalism which not only causes war but all the other social problems which our class endures throughout the world.

 Putin is not acting from a belief in self-determination for Ukraine's Russian-speakers, but from naked Russian nationalism. That is what is so amusing about those supporting him against the nationalists of Kyiv. 

Russian capitalism intends to use its power in order to implement its long-standing imperialist and expansionist aspirations. 

In Russia, Putin’s regime is trying to stoke Russian nationalism to divert attention from the growing workers' socio-economic problems: poverty wages and pensions, dismantling of available health care, education and other social services. 

In the noise of the nationalist and militant rhetoric, it is easier to complete the formation of a corporate, authoritarian state based on reactionary conservative values and repressive policies.

We will not succumb to the nationalist poison. To hell with their “nations” and their blood-stained flags.

The Easter Rising

 

“If you remove the English army to-morrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs. England would still rule you to your ruin, even while your lips offered hypocritical homage at the shrine of that Freedom whose cause you had betrayed. Nationalism without Socialism – without a reorganisation of society on the basis of a broader and more developed form of that common property which underlay the social structure of Ancient Erin – is only national recreancy.[a disloyality to a belief]” – James Connolly, “Socialism and Nationalism”

There have been 29 general elections to the Dàil, Ireland’s parliament, since independence. Ireland’s Labour Party have won precisely none. When socialism goes up against nationalism in a country where all civic politics is about the nation, then Labour doesn’t stand a chance. Eamon de Valera’s specific strategy – was to smother the Labour movement in the embrace of Fianna Fáil. His nationalist party talked the language of social democracy with enough rhetoric to rob Labour of a distinctive voice, while never delivering the goods.

After one week of fighting, the 1916 Dublin Uprising was bloodily suppressed. Lacking any real basis of support, the insurgents did not have the slightest chance of victory. Connolly was wrong when he thought that it would ignite the class movement in Europe. The idea that any group of workers can be incited into action by heroic example and martydom is a false one. Only when the conditions for struggle actually exist, only when the majority of people are prepared to do battle and make enormous sacrifices, can a revolution movement take place. Many of those who advocate the false tactics of the barricades and street-fighting today draw, in part, their inspiration from the Easter rising. If they removed their blindfolds they would discover that the actual experience of the rising proved the futility of such action. The conditions for revolution action expressly did not exist in 1916. They did not exist in Ireland and they did not exist in Europe. In Ireland, the IRB and the Citizen Army were only a handful in number. As a self-avowed Marxist, Connolly forgot that it will take the working class to change society, not a handful of individuals to do it for them

Connolly used his charismatic authority as a party leader, and a trade union organiser, to drag his men behind him. He ignored criticism from the other leaders of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union because his sights were set on action, no matter how futile. A large section of the of the workers’ movement was destroyed and into the vacuum stepped in bourgeois opportunists ready to lavish praise Connolly, in order to divert the working class struggle. It was made all the more easier because Connolly had not fought for a workers’ demands on the question of hours of work, of wages, of factory conditions, and of the ownership of the land and industry but a purely nationalist proclamation.

Those who advocate alliances between the workers’ organisations and pro-capitalist political parties on the basis of Connolly’s participation in the 1916 rising should heed the consequences. Connolly himself ignored his own advice. On January 22, 1916 he made a statement which many in the Left in Scotland who hang on to the coat-tails of the pro-independent nationalists should understand to-day: “The labour movement is like no other movement. Its strength lies in being like no other movement. It is never so strong as when it stands alone.” At the turn of the century the French socialist leader, Millerand, accepted a position in the French cabinet. Connolly denounced this betrayal, on the basis that a workers’ party should “accept no government position which it cannot conquer through its own strength at the ballot box”. He denounced Millerand’s stand by saying that “what good Millerand may have done is claimed for the credit of the bourgeois republican government: what evil the cabinet has done reflects back on the reputation of the socialist parties. Heads they win, tails we lose.”

Post-war Ireland saw the Limerick Soviet in the south and, in the north, the Belfast 40-Hour Strike where “Bolsheviks and Sinn Feiners” were leading astray many“good loyalist protestants” to the dismay of the Orange Lodge, where the composition of the strike committee was a majority of Protestant, but the chairman was a Catholic. Sectarianism was being challenged. Working class militancy had entered the Shankill Road and Sandy Row. The National Union of Railwaymen in a resolution at a conference in Belfast stated:“without complete unity amongst the working classes, (we should not allow either religious or political differences to prevent their emancipation) which can be achieved through a great international brotherhood the world over, no satisfactory progress could be made.”

Instead of a Connolly to seize the opportunity for working class unity and solidarity, we had De Valera declaring “Labour must wait”, the interests of the nation must come first (read “the interests of the capitalists”). It was to be national unity, not class unity. By pressing their interests the workers were said to be “endangering” the unity of the republican forces! On the land where the tenants were seizing the estates only to find themselves held back by Sinn Fein and the IRA, who even went to the lengths of carrying out evictions in order to break the back of the land-seizure movement.

The labour movement and working-class unity were the real victims of the 1916 Dublin Rising by subordinating their class interests to the nationalist interests of the capitalist.

The following is the text of a leaflet that dates from 1949, and was produced by the Dublin Socialist Group for distribution at events organised in the city to commemorate the 33rd anniversary of the execution of James Connolly. The socialists who made up the Dublin Socialist Group later helped form the World Socialist Party of Ireland.

FELLOW-WORKERS ! TRADE UNIONISTS !

May the 15th, 1949 – thirty-three years after his death which you now commemorate, and less than thirty-three days after the roar of guns ushered in “The Republic of Ireland”. What relationship is there between these two events? That is the question which, on this day, it is only fitting that you should ask yourselves. Once a year you can march through the streets in your thousands to commemorate his death yet every other day of the year your actions – your very ideas – are, apparently, in violent conflict with all that the man lived for. Is that an unwarranted assumption? Emphatically, we reply: NO. The truth remains the truth, however unpalatable it may be.

We have not the least desire to advance any claim to James Connolly, nor do we consider ourselves the especial inheritors of all of his ideas. But to-day, when everybody acclaims him and sings his praise, we think it very necessary to re-state the simple but vital fact, namely, that JAMES CONNOLLY WAS OF THE WORKING CLASS. His ideas are not, and never will be, the sole preserve, nor in the custody, of any particular section BUT THE WORKING CLASS. Here it is as well to recall – when many are clamouring to bask in the light of the but recently-discovered glory of Connolly – that his ideas were vehemently denounced, and his very person attacked, by the representatives of those interests who, to-day, so anxiously press their claim to his name. We would not be so much concerned at this were it not for the fact that the workers have been “taken in” by these spurious claims. You, fellow-workers, have been duped; for you have supported political parties which have acted in the interests of any and every class in and out of this county but the working class. And you have supported them and placed them in power mainly on the strength of their nationalism and Republicanism. You, who now march to-day in memory of James Connolly, have you forgotten his “Labour in Irish History”? Have you forgotten the thoughts he put on paper in order that you might the better be able to wage your struggle against a social system which condemns you to poverty and insecurity? We think you have forgotten. At the cost of remembering the symbolic moment of his death in a national struggle you’ve forgotten the toiling years of his life on behalf of the working class. Connolly didn’t struggle, and write and speak, and organise, in order that the workers might adhere to this or that Republican constitutional formula; no, not for that. There was no James Connolly if such a man did not desire and work to change the world, not its paper constitutions.

And you, fellow-workers, who, in your Trade Unions and political parties stoutly maintain that you strive to follow in his footsteps, do you direct your efforts towards changing the world? Evidence that you do is certainly very much lacking; for on every occasion you’ve entered the polling-booth you’ve either returned you out-going set of masters or merely changed them for a new set. Not yet have you evinced any great desire to get rid of the master class AS A WHOLE. And that, simply, is what is meant by “changing the world”.

FELLOW-WORKERS ! As you may march, as you may stand at the meeting-place, to-day, why not summarise your present position in your own mind – after twenty-seven years of native government, and after twenty-seven days of “The Republic of Ireland”? Line up your wage-packet (assuming you’re not one of “the 75,000”) alongside the cost-of-living figure: which is higher? Dwell a little on the plight of the thousands “living” in the tenements – that is, of course, if you happen to be blessed (!) with a suburban (!!) “working class house”. Recall the thousands who are unemployed (if you’re not one of them, of course), and remember they’re the ever-present threat of capitalism which hangs over your head – you may join their ranks to-morrow. Again, tuberculosis and other medically-classified poverty diseases are capitalism’s constant threat to the health and happiness of your children. And topping these and the other social evils you know only too well the experience is the threat of another capitalist war – yes, another, and promising to be everything (and much more) that all the previous wars of history weren’t together.

That is the real world you live in. Say – if you wish – that you reside in a portion of that world known as “The Republic of Ireland”. So what? Does that alter your position one bit? Of course not. And that world, reflected in the capitalist system of that country and the conditions of the Irish working class, surely deserves to go. And it will go WHEN THE WORKING CLASS WILLS IT. If James Connolly can be said to have left a message for the working class, it is this: THE WORKING CLASS MUST ACHIEVE ITS EMANCIPATION ITSELF AND IT CAN ONLY DO SO THROUGH THE ABOLITION OF THE CAPITALIST SOCIAL SYSTEM.

We are not given to lip-service, and much (judicious) quoting of Connolly, but the following, we think, is by no means out of place, and we especially commend it, on this particular occasion, to those who – to put it bluntly – have made a good thing out of such practices.

 “Ireland as distinct from her people is nothing to me; and the man who is bubbling over with love and enthusiasm for ‘Ireland’ and yet can pass unmoved through our streets and witness all the wrong and suffering and the shame and the degradation wrought upon the people of Ireland: aye, wrought by Irishmen upon Irishmen and women ithout burning to end it, is a fraud and a liar in his heart, no matter how he loves that combination of chemical elements he is pleased to call ‘Ireland’”. 'The Coming Generation' 1900 [our emphasis]

Fellow-workers, there is but one way to really commemorate Connolly, and all those – whoever and wherever they may been – who have fought and died for and on behalf of the world’s workers, and that is by striving to abolish capitalism and establish SOCIALISM, THE COMMON OWNERSHIP AND DEMOCRATIC CONTROL OF THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION (the factories, mills, mines, railways, etc.), BY AND IN THE INTERESTS OF THE WHOLE OF THE COMMUNITY WITHOUT ANY DISTINCTION WHATSOEVER. By devoting your time and energy to the achieving of such an aim you will be truly commemorating Connolly and all those of his kind every day.

THE DUBLIN SOCIALIST GROUP

The System

 

People talk incessantly about “The System”. “The System is bad”, “The System must be changed”. “Vote for me, because I am going to change The System”.

 What system, exactly?

The original theory of democracy envisaged popular participation in the running of affairs, what is called “participatory democracy”. This is the sort of democracy the Socialist Party favours but we know the most we will get under capitalism is the right to vote, under more-or-less fair conditions, for who shall control political power— a minimalist form of democracy that at least provides a mechanism whereby a socialist majority could vote in socialist delegates instead of capitalist politicians. This form of politics is an effective antidote to bureaucratism, radical in the sense that it is not simply concentrating on the issue of democracy but on the whole concept of leadership. Socialism is not the result of blind faith, followers, or, by the same token, vanguards and leaders. Nothing is more repugnant to socialism than clever strategies and conspiratorial tactics. Socialism is not possible without socialists.

Political action must be taken by the conscious majority, without depending upon leadership. It is upon the working class as a whole that the working class must rely on for their emancipation. Valuable work may be done by individual teachers, writers and speakers, and this work may necessarily raise them to prominence, but it is not to individuals that the working class must look. The movement for freedom must be a working class movement. It must depend upon the working class vitality and intelligence and strength. Until the knowledge and experience of the working class are equal to the task of therevolution there can be no emancipation for them. Democracy and majority decision-making must be the basic principle of both the movement to establish socialism and of the socialist society itself. The lure and fascinations of occupations and making demands is very attractive. It indicates how deep-rooted discontent with capitalism really is, and it demonstrates the latent strength of socialism once the masses wake up to the need for changing the system instead of adjust to it. The bond that makes us as one and inspires us is the recognition that capitalism can no longer be reformed or administered in the interest of the working class or of society, and the understanding that conditions are now ripe for socialism, which is the solution for society’s problems. All that is lacking is a socialist majority. This is the essence of our principles. The socialist movement is not only heart but is a combination of heart and head.

What the Socialist Party says is that democracy can and does change things, that it is not democracy that is the problem, but rather that it is the system underlying the democracy, that makes it imperfect. What we have to do is push for more democracy, not less. We want to protect the idea of democracy but not the idea that voting someone into power will solve your problems for you. Nor the idea that voting for something is in itself enough. We protect the idea of democracy by propagating the case for it and by practising it. It is not merely a formal majority at the polls that will give the workers power to achieve socialism.  It is the quality of the voters behind the vote that, in the revolutionary struggle, is decisive.

The easiest and surest way for such a socialist majority to gain control of political power in order to establish socialism is to use the existing electoral machinery to send a majority of mandated socialist delegates to the various parliaments of the world. No doubt, at the same time, the working class will also have organised itself, at their various places of work and in their communities, in order to keep production going, but nothing can be done here until the machinery of coercion which is the state has been taken out of the hands of the capitalist class by political action. The political machine is the real centre of social control – not made so by capitalist rulers but developed and evolved over centuries and through struggles. It is in the political field that the widest and most comprehensive propaganda can be deliberately maintained. It is here that the workers can be deliberately and independently organised on the basis of socialist thought and action. In other words, socialist organisations can proceed untrammelled by ideas other than those connected with their revolutionary objective.

To repeat once again the SPGB case, the institution of parliament is not at fault. It is just that people’s ideas have not yet developed beyond belief in leaders and dependence on a political elite. Control of parliament by representatives of a conscious revolutionary movement will enable the bureaucratic-military apparatus to be dismantled and the oppressive forces of the state to be neutralised, so that socialism may be introduced with the least possible violence and disruption. Parliament and local councils, to the extent that their functions are administrative and not governmental, can and will be used to co-ordinate the emergency immediate measures to transform society when socialism is established. Far better, is it not, if only to minimise the risk of violence, to also organise to win a majority in parliament too, not to form a government , but to end capitalism and dismantle the state. Political democracy is not just, a trick whereby the capitalist class get the working class to endorse their rule; it is a potential instrument that the working class can turn into a weapon to use in ending capitalism and class rule.

Capitalist democracy is not a participatory democracy, which a genuine democracy has to be. In practice, the people generally elect to central legislative assemblies and local councils professional politicians who they merely vote for and then let get on with the job. In other words, the electors abdicate their responsibility to keep an eye on their representatives, giving them a free hand to do what the operation of capitalism demands. But that’s as much the fault of the electors as of their representatives, or rather it is a reflection of their low level of democratic consciousness. It can’t be blamed on the principle of representation as such.

There is no reason in principle why, with a heightened democratic consciousness (such as would accompany the spread of socialist ideas), even representatives sent to state bodies could not be subject – while the state lasts – to democratic control by those who sent them there.

There is an alternative

 No government wants war, and yet all are preparing for it. Socialists know that war is the final arbiter in the bitter struggle between rival capitalist groups. So long as capitalism remains, the threat of war is ever-present, casting a dark and dreadful shadow over the happiness and peace of mind of millions of human beings. The only effective measure would be the rapid growth of socialist knowledge among the workers of the world, so that capitalism may be replaced by socialism, and international rivalry abolished.

It is never “us” which is the potential aggressor, but always “the other side.” Of course, the governments of the UK, United States, Russia, France, Germany, etc., are busy telling their own workers the self-same story. 

Do you get fed up with the threat of war with the promises of the politicians?

So why not come to grips with society itself? Begin to study the world in which you live. And when you understand it, your position in it, the causes of the problems that worry you, and make you insecure, join with others who know about our present system—capitalism—and with them help to change it to a society free from insecurity, poverty, the threat of war; to establish a socialist world—a class-free, money-free system of society. Why not start now?

All the rottenness doesn’t have to plague us. There are enough men and women who want and have the ability to be—good doctors, nurses, teachers, hospital and school-builders and organisers, to make mankind healthy, happy and secure. Only the capitalist system, which the vast majority of workers support, maintains need amidst potential plenty in every sphere of human life.

Why not vote that system out of existence?

When we say that socialism means revolution and that we are revolutionaries, experience leads us to expect that we shall be misunderstood unless we take care to make our meaning plain. On the one side it will be assumed that we are advocating violence and anti-democratic methods, and on the other side, as we are frequently told by those who do advocate these things, our refusal to do the same stamps us as non-revolutionaries.

What then do we mean by revolution?

We see that the workers are poor as a class because as a class they do not own the machinery of wealth production and distribution.

Nothing will serve to secure the desired end, except the abolition of the private ownership of these instruments. But private property is the corner-stone of the existing laws and the very foundation of capitalist society. So that in order to abolish private ownership, we, the workers, must obtain control of society. Revolution consists in using the power we shall then possess, for the purpose of destroying the present property rights and refashioning society on the basis of common ownership. As our aim, socialism, can be accomplished only by this revolutionary change, we are revolutionaries and our method is revolution.

Socialism, in brief, means the taking over by the working class of all wealth in society and from then on running society in the interests of all. When all wealth is owned in common it will mean that it is no longer possible for houses to stand empty whilst people are homeless. Homes will be built for use.

 What is needed to achieve a society where it will be possible to solve the problems of the physical needs of all?

Men and women ready and willing to take the steps necessary to bring it about, fully aware of what the transformation of society requires.

 “For the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness, and for the success of the cause itself, the alteration of men on a mass scale is necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement . . .” (Marx and Engels, The German Ideology).

The instrument of that movement, the Socialist Party, is ready and eager, it is now up to the reader to investigate further.

Phrase-mongers of the world unite.

  

Socialism can only be achieved by the organised political action of a socialist working class and the factors making for the growth of the World Socialist Movement operate in all countries. But nobody has ever suggested that all conditions (economic, political, climatic and geographical) are identical in all countries and therefore the growth of socialist parties must be at identically the same rate everywhere. These present variations are of little importance, and as the World Socialist Movement grows stronger they will probably decrease since the numerically stronger sections of the international socialist movement could help the others to overcome some of the difficulties.

A professional revolutionary called Bronstein adopted the then fashionable idea of a nom de guerre (Ulianov became Lenin; Dugashvili, Stalin) and became the Trotsky who is now having such a mysterious rise to fame thirty years after his death at the hands of a thug employed by his former comrade Stalin. He must at least have had a sense of humour for he took his new name from his Tsarist gaoler at the beginning of this century. And before we finish with it, the new name did not quite succeed in rubbing out the old one. When he fell foul of Stalin, the latter used to see to it that '“Bronstein” used to appear in brackets after “Trotsky”. Thus, without laying himself open to the charge of anti-semitism, Stalin was able to inform ignorant readers of Pravda that his opponent’s real name was obviously Jewish. (The Trotskyists in turn used to refer to “that dog Dugashvili”. Much good it did them. The Bolsheviks inherited the anti-semitism of the Tsars. And cherish it to this day.)

At the time of the abortive 1905 revolution, Trotsky was an opponent of Lenin. In due course he changed his mind and by the time of the 1917 revolution was Lenin’s chief supporter in the seizure of power. Not of course from the Tsar. That job had been done six months before by risings in St. Petersburg and Moscow while Lenin was in Zurich (he not only had no hand in the overthrow of the Tsar; he did not believe it when they told him). The Bolsheviks overthrew Kerensky who stupidly tried to keep up the slaughter in the war with Germany. Trotsky himself never made any special mark while Lenin lived except as his faithful henchman. The only episode he stamped with his own brand was the massacre of the Red Sailors at Kronstadt — the very sailors who had enabled Lenin to smash Kerensky in the Winter Palace but had the audacity to ask: “What about some freedom and democracy now we have overthrown the Tsarist tyranny?” 

After Lenin’s death, Trotsky and Stalin fought for the crown. As to what the quarrel was about, all the pundits used to write incomprehensible twaddle about revolution in one country, permanent revolution, etc. etc. ad nauseam. The Bolshevik Stalin murdered his rival gangster in the same way that the Nazi Hitler murdered his rival Roehm in the same grisly era. And is there any real point in retelling the story now? Hardly. It is merely that when one wonders what all the Trotskyist splinter groups are doing in the current recrudescence, it is as well to see who the original Trotsky was. And then we might know the explanation of the current Trotsky epidemic? Quite the contrary. We merely know that Trotsky was just another Leninist opportunist and had no special theory to contribute to present-day thought whatever. That he twisted and turned like any Stalinist, right to the end. And that the .imbeciles who now proclaim themselves his posthumous followers (and would cheerfully murder the other Trotskyists who do likewise) have no more connection with Trotsky than they have with Socialism. They would be horrified to hear it but Stalin and Trotsky were just Tweedledumski and Tweedledeeski.

So who are the Trots?

They really all stand for the same thing. Reform of capitalism. However much some of them prattle about Russia having been state-socialist (but Trotsky insisted it was worth defending every acre with working-class blood right to the end), they all stand for “involvement in the workers’ day-to-day struggles” and similar claptrap. And not only is it difficult to detect the difference between the various warring groups and tendencies; it is quite impossible to see where they differ from the older gangs of capitalist reformers masquerading as socialists — the Communist Party and the Labour Party. 

What Stops Socialism?

 

Are the planet’s resources of energy, and raw materials coming to an end? Is a real society of abundance only a dream, impossible to realise because there are not enough resources to do it? A yes answer to these questions is a common assertion against socialism. It comes from environmentalists who think that capitalism is quickly depleting the earth of its supplies of forests, minerals, etc. 

Instead of a society of abundance with free access to all that is produced — eco-activists often talk about a return to “a simpler life”.

It is true that because of its profit motive capitalism is abusing the earth’s resources so as to give rise to the fear that, nuclear war or continued massive pollution, really destroys the potential for abundance which is necessary for the establishment of socialism. But it has not done that yet and this possibility only underlines the urgent need for socialism here and now.

When the Socialist Party is told that socialism is impossible because of lack of resources, we reply that there is no direct connection between capitalism’s consumption of various raw materials and the standard of living of the majority. Socialism will abolish all the waste connected with capitalism: no labour, energy or raw materials will any longer be wasted on banks, armament production, parking meters and the thousands of other articles which are only needed in a commodity-producing society.

Socialism will also be economical with the earth’s resources by only producing what is best. Instead of cheap consumption articles which will soon wear out, it will produce durable articles which will last.

Still, many critics are not satisfied.

“In any case”, they say, “it can only postpone the time when the earth has been emptied of its resources.” And they generally seem to think that this postponement will not be very long. Sometimes they are even producing “evidence” for this in the form of statistics on the world’s supplies of various raw materials and how long they will last with various paces of consumption.

In reality, no one knows how big the earth’s absolute supplies of different raw materials are. No such investigation has ever been made. What has been investigated are supplies and resources that capitalism needs. And that is something very different.

worldwide

Socialism will be a world-wide system established by a politically conscious majority. We should expect support for it to grow first in the “advanced" industrialised capitalist countries, where the contradictions of capitalism are most glaring and the need to replace it most obvious. Here, in America and most of western Europe for example, political democracy is well-entrenched. This is no accident. Capitalism demands free movement and a free flow of information, and this is the form of political organisation which enables it to function most smoothly. The pressure for a democratic state comes from the capitalist class—which then exhorts workers to regard this “freedom” as an end in itself. A growing socialist movement will itself have profound effects on the political situation in the world at large. As it gathers pace workers anywhere will be able to see that this is where their interest lies and will organise politically. A working class aware and organised enough to work for socialism could take the establishment of political democracy in its stride.

Political education is necessary before we can get socialism, and working-class at the moment most workers are politically ignorant since they believe problems like poverty and unemployment can be solved within capitalism. The main job of the Socialist Party is to combat all the political parties which spread and reinforce this belief. But the case for socialism is not complicated; it can be understood by anyone of normal intelligence (the majority, by definition). And once again capitalism works in our favour It makes ever more apparent the possibility of an abundance of wealth without being able to make it a reality. Sooner or later this must be understood.

The idea of socialism arises from the material conditions of capitalism and would continue to exist even if the Socialist Party were formally suppressed. Suppression means difficulties, expense and unpopularity for governments supplying it. Other people than socialists advocate free speech and would oppose any such move. For our part, we recognise that freedom of discussion is necessary for the growth of Socialist ideas and we, therefore, argue with our opponents rather than trying to silence them. Finally, policemen and soldiers are themselves workers who will not remain immune to socialist propaganda. But after the capture of political power through the ballot box they will in any case be controlled by the working class through Parliament so that there can be no question of effective resistance to the setting-up of the new society. And when that has been done the coercive forces will cease to exist.