Tommy Tait of the Edinburgh SLP

Remembering our working class history.

Thomas Tait was born in Leith on 11 January 1889 and served in the Army during the Boer War where he became a socialist  through reading the pamphlet, What means this strike? by American socialist, Daniel de Leon. He joined the Edinburgh Branch of the Socialist Labour Party around 1905. The Party later split in 1912 and Tait continued in membership of the British Section of the International Socialist Labour Party, of which he was Secretary in the 1930s. There were 22 members of Edinburgh Branch in Dec 1932. In 1936 the Party was meeting at 55 Elder Street in Edinburgh. However, by 1939 they had moved to 1 South West Thistle Street Lane.The BSISLP in turn became the Revolutionary Socialist Party in 1936. Tait was a powerful orator. He was unsuccessful in contesting the municipal elections as a socialist, standing 17 times. He died on 12 May 1941. 

"It was as a speaker that comrade Tait excelled. And it was as a speaker that he was known to thousands of workers. At the Mound and the Foot of the Walk he propagated revolutionary socialism for thirty years, amusing and educating his hearers in his own inimitable way. His ability to mix socialist propaganda and humour, indignation against capitalist exploitation and a shrewd common sense made him a powerful influence for socialism. His kindliness, his simple directness, above all, his honesty, compelled the recognition of even his opponents."
From Thomas Tait's obituary, the RSP's Workers Weekly, No. 61, 16th May 1941

1931 - The Govan Workers Open Forum and the SPGB

A report of an address delivered by Comrade A. Shaw, Glasgow Branch of the SPGB; to Govan Workers Open Forum, at Robert Street on Wednesday, December 24th,, 1931. Other Party members also contributed to the discussion..

Why the Socialist Party of Great Britain is opposed to all other Political Parties

Opening Address: The Chairman opened the meeting at 8 P.M. by announcing that the purpose of the Govan Workers Forum was to get workers together for the purpose of examining the objects and principles of the many working class organisations, in order that, if possible, the way of emancipation from the thraldom of capitalism may be made clear to all workers who attended their meetings. Tonight Comrade Shaw, representing the Socialist Party of Great Britain would in the space of half an hour or so, address members on the position as held by his organisation relative to other political parties. Thereafter the meeting would be open for question and discussion. Comrade Shaw, in his opening remarks thanked the members of Govan Forum on behalf of the membership of Glasgow Branch, S.P.G.B., for placing a whole evening at the disposal of the Socialist Party in order that the position of that body may be made clear to all present. The title of the address would be: “Why the Socialist Party of Great Britain is opposed to all other Political Parties”.

Alex Shaw: The reason why the S.P.G.B was opposed to all other parties including the B.S.I.S.L.P (British Section of the International Socialist Labour Party) would become clear to the audience after an examination has been made of the conditions which gave rise to the present party system.

The system of society today, within which workers starved and suffered, was known as Capitalism. This form of society had not always existed but was the product of a previous system known as Feudalism. Feudalism had been preceded by a system known as Chattel Slavery and Chattel Slavery in turn was the product of the first form of society we know of – Primitive Communism. The different forms of society have expressed the changes which have taken place in the mode of production of society’s necessities of life. The basis of Primitive Communism was Common Ownership of the means of production with Social distribution of the product of food, clothing and shelter. No member of society then had too much of the good things of life and others with too little. Each form of society contains within it the seeds of its own destruction and in the course of time private property was the seed that destroyed Primitive Communism. From the fall of Primitive Communism until the present day, the ownership or non-ownership of property determined one’s position in society. Under primitive Communism equality existed and all the people had the same rights and privileges; a relationship of freedom existed which has been lost to the human race since private property was established and can only be recovered by the establishment of Socialism.

In the system known as Chattel slavery the relationship was Master and slave, under Feudalism Lord and Serf and in modern Capitalist society it is capitalist and worker. Between these divisions of people or classes in society a struggle went on. This struggle was known to all Socialists as a class struggle. The modern struggle is between Workers and capitalists and the reason is not difficult to understand.

The means of production today are privately owned, that is to say, a section of society own all the factories, mines, mills, workshops etc., through which ownership they are able to live a life of ease and luxury. The other section owning nothing are forced to sell themselves as workers to the owners of property in order that they get food, clothing, shelter for themselves and their wives and children. The mode of production being commodity production for profit, the return to the worker takes the form of a money wage. This wage is the money expression of the value of the particular worker’s labour power. A Navvy and an Engineer received different amounts of money as wages but both of these workers received the value of his particular labour-power. This value was determined by how much it cost to produce his kind of labour power. All commodities, labour-power included, had their values determined in the same way, by the amount of socially necessary labour embodied in them.

In the process of production the worker produced a surplus over what as returned to him in the form of wages. This was the reason his master the Capitalist employed him and was the sole aim of the Capitalist System.

The worker found through experience that his wage enabled him to purchase only the cheapest necessities of life and to maintain even this he had to continually struggle with his master. To assist him in his struggles he formed Trade unions some people advocated the formation of industrial unions but there were no difference between them fundamentally), but in spite of all his efforts his conditions gradually became worse and he was able to see that his life was one long story of poverty, degradation and misery.

Many political organisations professed to exist only for the purpose of assisting the working class. The Conservative Party, Liberal Party, Labour party, Communist Party and a host of others drew up programmes of social reforms which they all guaranteed would, if the workers would only trust them and vote for them; solve all the ills which afflicted the working class. The Socialist Party of Great Britain had no reforms on its programme and was opposed to all parties who asked the workers to support a reformist policy. Reform of Capitalism would still leave workers in their slave position. Reforms, apart from the fact that in many cases they had proven worse than the evil which they set out to remedy, were but the normal features of Capitalism. Capitalism and their representatives had been busy reforming the Capitalist System since it had been established but in spite of all their reforms the condition of the working class was worse today than ever it was in its history. It was the boast of such outstanding defenders of capitalism as A. J. Balfour, J. H. Thomas and many others of the same type that “Reform is the antidote to Revolution” and they were correct. The Communist Party, with its ever-changing lists of reforms should be an example to the workers of the futility of wasting valuable time and energy attempting to reform a system which could not be reformed in the interests of the working class.

The mere ownership of wealth was not enough; a means must be at hand to protect that ownership. This means was the armed forces of a society and were under the control of whichever Political party having a majority of representatives in Parliament. Whoever had control of these forces were masters of the situation. If the workers had not this force to contend with it would be an easy matter for them to dispossess their masters. In 1926 we had an example of the masters using their political control to smash discontent among the workers. History as a matter of fact was full of such examples. So long as the workers left this gigantic weapon in the hands of their masters they were helpless.

Social reform being no solution to the ills suffered by the workers the Socialist Party of Great Britain pointed out that all the evils could be traced to the one cause and to this one cause only –Private Property. When we looked around us we saw notices such as “This is Private Property” or “No admittance except on business ”. To the Socialist these were advertisements of the cause of poverty, slums, disease, crime, prostitution, war and all the other curses of the human race. Having found the one cause for all our troubles we find the remedy almost automatically - Socialism. Abolish private property with production for profit and establish a new system of society based on Common Ownership with production for use. This is what Socialism means. Under such new conditions would he be lifted above the sordid animal stage of existence such as he finds himself at present. This was something worthwhile fighting for and the way to achieve such a new system of society was by the workers first of all getting to understand their enslaved position in present day capitalism, to organise with others, in order to take revolutionary political action to control the State machine in order to transform society from the basis up. This meant the action of a class conscious majority of the workers. Minorities were of no use. We have a class conscious minority today yet it is helpless. That minority would have to go on broadcasting the principles of Socialism until the majority accepted them.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain was the only organisation in this country that faced up to the task other organisations shirked preaching the only solution, and, in shirking such an important duty, proved themselves enemies of the workers and unworthy of their support. Socialism is the only hope of the working class. The Socialist Party of Great Britain had been advocating nothing else since 1904 and since Socialism was our object all our activities were directed towards getting it established as soon as possible. For the aforementioned we are opposed to all other political parties.

The chairman announced that the meeting was open for discussion.

Mr McKay, Socialist Labour Party. After listening very carefully to the lecture delivered by Mr. Shaw (I have no intention of calling him comrade) I am trying to find just exactly where I stand. I am a Socialist, but I understand that, when we understand what Socialism is, we differ in degree. One thing we are agreed on, that is, the workers are quite as poor at the end of every year as they were at the beginning of the same year. That happens in every country with the exception of Socialist Russia. I put it to the speaker: he wants the majority of the workers to become class-conscious, he still wants that after all the years the S.P.G.B. have been preaching the principles of their doctrine to the workers. In spite of all their efforts the workers have no time for them. The speaker is not a Socialist; his party is not a Socialist party; if it was the workers would have more time for it.

Industrial Unionism, Shaw claims, is the same as Trade Unionism. Such a statement only shows his ignorance on the subject. Industrial Unionism is altogether different from Trade Unionism in that it will act along class lines as opposed to craft lines of the present day Trade Unions. The waste of time and energy of hundreds of Trade Unions in this country is made plain when we realise that only twenty Industrial Unions cover and control industry in Soviet Russia.

The S.P.G.B. is continually telling us that we must have a majority of workers class-conscious before we can have Socialism. If a majority of that nature is necessary then many future generations are doomed never to see Socialism. I have my doubts about such a theory. In the near future there will be such conditions as will compel the workers to take action. The majority may not understand the Materialist Conception of History, may not be able to understand and expound the intricate Marxian Theory of Value, but they will understand that their class must take over and run the economic system in their own interests.

Mr Kilpatrick, B.S.I.S.L.P. The speaker, Mr Shaw, opened his address in his usual slovenly manner by referring to the Anarchist B.S.I.S.L.P. as being the owners of these premises. Such a statement was ridiculous as it was well known that the premises were only rented by the B.S.I.S.L.P.

Another slovenly statement was; the basis of ownership since Primitive Communism had ended had not changed. It was patent to all that we have now arrived at the stage of the Trust, Combine, etc. The speaker must have had some glimmering of this when he first at all spoke of the private ownership of wealth and later on referred to the class ownership. This was a change the speaker and his party should take into consideration as it may alter their outlook a little when they examine Industrial Unionism.

The principal difference between the S.P.G.B. and the B.S.I.S.L.P. is that the Socialist Party believes only in political action, while the B.S.I. with its broader outlook understands that Socialist philosophy is all embracing thus including the place where goods are produced. The B.S.I. therefore advocate the economic and political organisation of the working class.

The working class has been bought into existence by Capitalist Class itself, and, being the mass of the people with no property tradition does not know where its real interests lie. On the economic field the workers are all at sixes and sevens because of their many Trade Unions, but a class instrument is being forged –The industrial Union. This instrument will be perfected to take control of production and distribution. It is the only organisation that is capable of performing a task.

Shaw did not define what Socialism was. Socialism meant that society would own and control the means whereby society lived.

If you understand how old parties came into existence with their class slogan of “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” you will know that it was because they owned the economic means which enabled them to rule. The class which owns the wealth is the class which dictates.

After all has been said, and all that may be said to the contrary, it is clear that the workers must develop the arms of their movement, the economic and the political (Applause).

W. Travers, S.P.G.B. It is rather curious that in spite of all that has been said about Industrial Unionism, not one of its advocates tonight has attempted to explain what it is. We had been solemnly assured that Industrial Unionism was an instrument by which the workers could control industry. Were we supposed to become enthusiastic about something which had not been explained? Industrial Unionism as a matter of fact was a flyblown species of thinly disguised Anarchism. The home of Industrial Unionism was America where Mr. Trauptmann, Mr. DeLeon. E. V. Debs and others had advocated it as the means of emancipating the proletariat. It central idea was that workers should organise on the economic field with the view of grabbing the means of production from the Boss. Workers had not, so far, accepted this theory which would bring them up against the murderous forces of the State. Perhaps this was the reason so many workers were alive today.

Before I became a Socialist I used to hold Propaganda meetings in Ireland with the late Jim Connolly. Jim, unfortunately, took a trip to America and had a conversation with Daniel Deleon, a conversation from which he never recovered. He came back to Ireland and acquainted many of us with the new revolutionary tactic – Industrial Unionism. At first we received this new idea with enthusiasm, but, afterwards having thoroughly examined Industrial Unionism we saw, clearly, that all the efforts put forth by workers organised in Industrial Unions or any other kind of economic organisations would be futile so long as the Ruling Class had control of political power. Attempts had been made in the past in America and elsewhere at forming Industrial Unions for the purpose of “Seizing and Holding” the means of production but in every case dissension among those organised had paralysed their activities. This disproved the theory of the Industrial Unionist who thought that all would be well if only the workers could be organised on an industrial basis instead of the present basis. Even if they were successful in forming Industrial Unions as desired they would still have to overcome the military forces of the State.

The only way of emancipation was that advocated by the Socialist party of Great Britain. Industrial Unionism, Social Reform. Seize and Hold methods and all the other alternatives put forward by the multifarious so-called Working Class organisations were so many obstacles which the workers must overcome before they can abolish Capitalism. Socialism is the only hope of the workers all else being illusion. It was up to all workers present to study the position of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, and, on understanding it, to join that organisation to take part in the great work of abolishing Capital and establishing Socialism.

Mr. C. Martin, B.S.I.S.L.P. Mr Travers in his contribution has done nothing other than attack the Anarchists. Travers and Shaw want the workers here to believe the wonderful S.P.G.B., but if they would come regular to these meetings and get an understanding of Industrial Unionism they could then speak on that subject more intelligently. The S.P.G.B. were, in spite of all they said to the contrary, mere physical force Anarchists. They wanted to obtain control of political power in order to knock hell out of all who opposed them. This proved they were Anarchists under their skins. The orthodox Anarchists in the past had made many mistakes, but they had guts. The S.P.G.B. were all mistake and no guts.

I would like to ask Saint Travers and Saint Shaw (I wish they were Saints) a few questions. What did Marx mean when he wrote in the “COMMUNIST MANIFESTO” that “the workers must organise into a class and consequently into a political party”? Shaw had objected to his [Martins] explanation of this passage on a previous occasion and he would now like to hear Shaw’s explanation. The S.P.G.B. had their own peculiar interpretations of such quotations from Marx. That was the sort of people they were. The quotation simply meant that the workers must organise at the point of production.

Another point: What did Marx mean when he says in the “COMMUNIST MANIFESTO” that we must wrest by degrees all property from the hands of the masters?

The difference between the B.S.I.S.L.P. and the S.P.G.B. lies in the different concepts of the State as held by the two organisations. The S.P.G.B. concept is muddled. They want a majority of workers to understand Socialism and to get control of the State through the Ballot box. We will not get a majority for three thousand years or so. Marx says we must establish a Dictatorship of the Proletariat. The S.P.G.B. being opposed to Marx on this point I would like to know what are they going to do with the State when it dies out?”

The Chairman announced at this stage that the meeting was now open for questions.

Questions to be asked only of the Speaker or of anyone who had taken part in discussion.

Question: When did Jim Connolly join the Socialist Party of Ireland? I deny that he did so. How can we overthrow Capitalism by the methods advocated by the S.P.G.B.?

Answer by Comrade Travers SPGB

“I was with Connolly when he joined that opportunist body known as The Socialist Party of Ireland and I attacked him repeatedly for doing so. The method of the S.P.G.B. is the only method applicable to highly developed Capitalist countries and is the scientific method advocated by Marx. Industrial Unionism, street fighting and other methods of force are doomed to failure and only means another bloodbath to those workers who would be silly enough to attempt them. Class conscious political action to get control of the State machine is the method – the only method open today”.

Question: “Was not Daniel De Leon speaking on the same platform in 1886 and assisting Henry George, an anti-Socialist into Congress?”

Answer by C. Martin B.S.I.S.L.P:

“Yes”.

Question: “Is a director of a company a member of the Working class?”

Answer by Mr. Kilpatrick: B.S.I.S.L.P:

“Yes, if he is dependent on his salary. No, if of independent means.”

Question: “Is the difference between the S.P.G.B. and the B.S.I.S.L.P. that the S.P.G.B. takes political action only whilst the B.S.I. takes both political and economic?”

Answer by Comrade Shaw:

“The S.P.G.B. advocates that the workers must organise on the political and economic field on class lines before they can abolish Capitalism. Political action is necessary to end the system, and the act of revolution is political”.

Question: “Is it not a fact that Anarchist methods crept into the S.L.P. during the years 1900 and 1907?”
Answer by C. Martin:

“There is a danger of such a thing happening but we guard against it in the same manner as the S.P.G.B. does –by insisting that members of our organisation be educated along the line of our principles.”

Question: “Comrade Shaw says that there is no Socialism in Russia. Will he explain why every Capitalist country is opposed to Russia?”

Answer by Comrade Shaw:

“Foreign capitalists are opposed to Russia for the same reason that Britain and Germany are opposed to each other. Russia is a trade rival competing in the World’s markets with other capitalist countries in order to sell her commodities. While opposed to each other for this reason, all are agreed that Private Property must be protected. Trading goes on between Russia and other Capital countries, loans are floated, and millions have invested in Russia by foreign capitalists. At the present moment advertisements appear in the press offering you a high rate of interest if you will lend your money to Russia. The interest accruing from such loans comes out of the exploitation of Russian workers. All countries where the capitalist mode of production, distribution and exchange exists are opposed to each other”.

Question: “Must we merely put a cross on our ballot papers in order to get Socialism, and the kind capitalists will then hand over?”

Answer by Comrade Shaw:

“No. when the workers understand Socialism and take the action necessary to obtain it, the capitalists will not be asked to “hand over”. The workers will take over and the bosses’ opinions on the matter won’t matter a tinker’s curse”.

Question: “Will Socialist Society be political or economic?”

Answer by Mr Kilpatrick, B.S.I.S.L.P.:

“Society under Socialism will be a social unit, instead of at present divided into economic and political classes”.

Supplementary question by the same questioner:

“Since man is a political animal, I would like to know if Kilpatrick’s organisation claims that politics will be abolished under Socialism”.

Answer by MR Kilpatrick:

“What I understand by “Political” is that state of affairs wherein we have different economic classes who struggle with each other. Under Socialism classes will be abolished and the political struggles of classes will cease. Society will have to have some method of conducting the affairs of the community and social Administration will be entirely different from the present political system. I would say that man is a social animal rather than a political animal”.

Question: “Did not the workers in Italy take possession of a number of factories and were driven out by their masters who used their control of the State forces through having political power”.
Answer by C. Martin B.S.I.S.L.P:

“The people of Italy who took control of the factories were not Socialists but Syndicalists who did not believe in taking political action. The S.L.P. and the B.S.I.S.L.P. believe in talking political action as well as economic action”.

The Chairman at this stage announced that questions would have to cease but further discussion could take place. Each participant would be allowed five minutes.

A. Thompson, S.P.G.B.:“Much had been said of political action tonight by the opponents of the S.P.G.B. but it was quite apparent that they did not understand what it meant. Marx and Engels made it quite clear (as did all literature published by the S.P.G.B.) that political action meant that action which had for its object the control of the governmental powers which controlled the armed forces of the State. Engels pointed out that the workers would have to be in a majority, and thoroughly understanding the necessity for such action before they could establish Socialism.

Much misunderstanding exists as to the Socialist Party’s attitude regarding Trade Unions. The Socialist Party of Great Britain had always made it quite clear that the workers must organise on the political and economic field on sound class lines. Such organisation could not be accomplished by unclass-conscious workers, hence the S.P.G.B. carried on Socialist propaganda everywhere it was possible to do so. Everyone present should study the works of Marx, and when they had done so, they would see that the only organisation they could join, if they wanted Socialism, was the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Mr McKay, S.L.P.: “Shaw’s position regarding Russia was the same as that told by the average bourgeois tourist who had spent a few days there then returned and spoke of things he did not understand. The facts are that the workers in Russia produce consciously in their own interests. Doctors, Lawyers, etc. are paid less than many of the manual workers. (Comrade Shaw: “What is your authority for making that statement”?). A friend of mine, returned from Russia recently, had been forced whilst employed in that country as a dentist to appeal to his clients who were members of unions to use their cards in order to obtain wine and cigarettes for him.

The delegates of the timber trade while in Russia had taken films of the Russian workers engaged in their employments and the films showed the workers to be strong, well fed, vigorous and healthy specimens of humanity. Work was done under ideal conditions, was not mechanical, and there was no compulsion. The workers, generally, were very satisfied and realised that in the near future all this work would rebound to their benefit. Every stage of the Five Year Plan was of interest to the International Proletariat.

A Socialist Revolution had undoubtedly taken place in Russia, but, as yet, Socialism proper had not been established. It was only a matter of time until it would become a living reality. Meanwhile, the S.P.G.B. theories against Russia but this only shows that they are feeling very sore about the matter, particularly the failure of their pet hates. Eventually the S.P.G.B. will spark out”.
Mr C MARTIN, B.S.I.S.L.P.: “Thompson of the S.P.G.B. says that Trade unions are necessary under Capitalism and that is the S.P.G.B. position. The SOCIALIST STANDARD, for March 1915, says that the working class must organise both economically and politically. Shaw says Trade unions are rotten. Shaw seems to be very inconsistent. However it is the main points of the S.P.G.B. position I wish to get after.

Marx digs the S.P.G.B. pretty hard in the “COMMUNIST MANIFESTO” when he says that: “The workers cannot lay hold of the ready made State machinery and wield it for their own purposes” etc.

The B.S.I.S.L.P. says that the workers must organise on class lines on both the economic and political fields. We oppose the Communist Party for advocating reforms and for their bad tactics generally.

The Russian workers got control of the main industries thus getting economic power. With this economic power they soon got political power. All classes in history had likewise to have economic power before they could attain political power. The S.P.G.B. say that the workers must organise economically and politically but take no practical steps to organise the workers on the economic field. They are purely and simply a political party, and as such, is no use to the working class”.

Comrade Travers, S.P.G.B.: “Industrial Unionism as a method of revolution has still been forgotten by its champions in their endeavour to deal with the scientific position of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. This is very significant. Instead of members of the S.P.G.B. studying Industrial Unionism, as desired by Mr Martin the boot is on the other foot for it is quite obvious that that the case for Industrial Unionism has been outlined by its opponents tonight than its advocates. If the opponents of the S.P.G.B. will only study the position of that organisation they will soon see that Industrial Unionism is a red herring which must be kicked out of the workers’ path (A voice: “Industrial Unionism is a bird with two wings”). A bird with two wings is of no use if it has no brains. The antidote to the fallacies of Industrial Unionism and the many other red herrings is a sound knowledge of Socialist Principles. Once the workers have that knowledge, and not until they have it, then the business of emancipation will be a relatively simple matter”.

Answer to discussion by Comrade Shaw, SPGB:"The wordy assertions of our opponents fail to touch even the fringe of the Socialist party’s position. Misrepresentation has been resorted to, but this misrepresentation by Mr M’Kay will serve to show up in its true light the attitude of the Socialist Labour Party towards the War. Mr M’Kay says that the Socialist Party of Great Britain deserted the workers when the war broke out in 1914, but let us see. [Mr M’Kay at this stage, on a point of order said that the Socialist party of Great Britain were never with the workers at any time]. I would remind you that his colleague, Mr Martin has in his possession the official organ of the Socialist party for 1915, which in itself gives lie to the statement that the S.P.G.B. “packed up” during the war. On that much vexed question of “guts” which annoyed Mr. Martin, let us see what kind of a show was put up by those who possessed, or claim to possess, so much of that commodity. First of all, what did the Socialist party of Great Britain do in 1914? Listen to this. (Quoting from the MANIFESTO of the S.P.G.B.):

“Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our goodwill and Socialist fraternity and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of Socialism”.That was the attitude of the S.P.G.B. towards the war, but let us see how the men with the “guts” the “Fighting S.L.P” as they called themselves, faced up to the issue. This is from the S.L.P. paper, “THE SOCIALIST”, December 1914:

“The S.L.P. – let us admit it freely, it has been taken by storm, though not so disastrously as other parties. What policy does the S.L.P. follow with respect to this war? We do not know. We are disunited. We are groping for a lead at the present time”.The Editor of the same journal wrote in the issue of November 1914, three months after the war broke out:-

“I cannot say what the official attitude of the Party is” [Loud laughter].
You have heard the quotations from the organs of both organisations relative to the war, and it will be obvious to you which is the correct attitude.

We have been informed by our opponents that the condition of the workers in Russia are better than in any other country, they have a Socialist government there, but have not got Socialism. No evidence has been presented to us that there is a Socialist government in Russia, we are merely asked to believe the statement. I explained in answer to a question what was going on in Russia, that Capitalism is being built up and not Socialism.

Regarding the position of the Industrial Unionist which S.L.Per and B.S.I.S.L.Per alike take a stand on, I have enough material here to speak for two hours on the subject but I intend to deal with the main points only due to the lateness of the hour.

On the question of “Economic power” so much beloved by the S.L.Pers, and Industrial Unionists generally, if they mean the ownership of wealth, then history has much to say on this point which disproves the idea that mere ownership in some miraculous manner confers power on the owners. In England, from the 11th to the 14th century, the woollen merchants were the most economically important class, with all their wealth they were helpless and were fleeced right and left by those who had political power – the feudal aristocracy. The history of every country has been the same in this respect. The capitalist class, under Feudalism in spite of all their wealth were helpless until they wrested political power from the then dominant class in society. If we study the issues raised at a General election in modern times we see, plainly, the struggle between sections of the Capitalist class to get political power in order that their particular interests may be served. “Economic power” is another of the dangerous illusions that the workers must get out of their minds before they can win their emancipation.

Industrial Unionists claim that the Industrial Union has to be organised on a class basis, but Mr DeLeon the Pope of the S.L.P. has made it quite clear that non-Socialists must be recruited into the Industrial Union. Experience of the shop steward movement on the Clyde showed that the officials, mostly S.L.P.ers were just as reactionary and treacherous as the ordinary trade union officials. These individuals were outstanding as job hunters.

Another illusion of the Industrial Unionist is, that when we get economic unity we shall automatically obtain political agreement. But what are the facts? In America, we witnessed the two outstanding champions of Industrial Unionism, namely E. V. Debs and Daniel DeLeon, whilst in agreement as to economic organisation were deadly enemies on the political field. They were at daggers drawn all during their lives, one in the reformist Socialist Party of America and the other in the Socialist Labour Party. So much for the unity theory.

Industrial Unionism is essentially no different from Trade Unionism in so far as it, like the Trade Unions breeds its own scabs and, on occasion hands out definitely reactionary advice to the workers. During the miners strike in 1921, the advice offered by the S.L.P. in their paper “THE SOCIALIST” was: “Miners do not strike, seize the mines”. Fortunately for themselves the miners paid no attention to such nonsense, if they had done so they would have felt the weight of the Capitalist State. During the industrial troubles of 1926 the B.S.I.S.L.P. circulated the miners not to strike and this at a time when a savage attack was launched against the miners’ wages and working conditions.

The name adopted by the B.S.I.S.L.P. (British Section International Socialist Labour Party) is dishonest as the parent body, the socialist Labour Party in America, repudiates it. Why two Socialist labour Party’s anyway? Both organisations cannot be right, and it is quite plain to all that both are wrong.

The answer to all Mr. Martin’s questions are to be found in the works of Marx and Engels which he is so fond of talking about. Martin’s curiously worded question about the State is answered by Engels, when Engels describes the withering away of the State. The state will not commence to “wither away” until it is in the hands of the revolutionary workers who will slowly but surely build up the new order of society thus abolishing the State functions. The state is a necessary evil, as Marx shows, which is transmitted to the workers through revolution.

The pessimistic wail uttered by our S.L.P. opponents tonight that we will never get a class conscious majority is ably answered by Frederick Engels when he writes: (quoting from the “REVOLUTIONARY ACT”): “When it comes to a matter of the complete overthrow, the masses must participate, must know what is at stake”. All through the later writings of Marx and Engels we find the position put quite plainly that a class conscious majority of workers, in order to establish Socialism, must get control of the State machine.
Political power is the power to rule. The Capitalist Class have that power to-day and the Working Class give them that power at every election. When the workers understand and desire Socialism they will organise in the socialist party in order to raise themselves to the position of ruling class, by capturing political power. With that power in their possession they will set about the task of building a new order of society which will conform to the interests of all."

At this stage the chairman announced that owing to the lateness of the hour, the time now being 11-35pm, he, much against his will, was forced to draw the meeting to a close.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

This was the first time the Socialist Party of Great Britain ever held a meeting in Govan, and the workers present, hearing our position for the first time, were certainly impressed.

Every worker who attended this meeting was presented with a free copy of the SOCIALIST STANDARD. A number of pamphlets were sold.

GLASGOW BRANCH ORGANISER (PRO.TEM).

The Socialist Labour Party

Prior to about 1903, the SLP was a true socialist party. However, around 1903, DeLeon made the “discovery” that the Industrial Union is not only a more effective type of economic organization for the workers, but that it is a revolutionary weapon and the nucleus of the new society, socialism. Up until that time, with some minor and relatively moot exceptions, the SLP was sound on political action, reforms, and Marxian economics. Prior to about 1903, there would have been no reason to establish a WSP in the United States. The World Socialist Party is not in competition with other organizations for the privilege of inaugurating socialism, and the SLP was such an organization until then. Should there ever appear, at any time, an organization dedicated to socialism, we would immediately make overtures for combining forces. How can there be two socialist parties in one country? We recognise that it is not the WSM, but the working class itself that will use its political victory to overthrow capitalism. It is the politically organised conscious socialist majority that will use the World Socialist Movement as their instrument. As the Communist Manifesto emphasises: it is the party of the working class. The bond that binds us together.

On the surface, it would appear that there are so many basic points of agreement between the Socialist Labor Party and the World Socialist Party that there is really no justification for two socialist parties in the United States, both of whom claim to be Marxist, revolutionary and scientific. Both parties agree on the futility of reforms and on the validity of the Law of Value and the economic lessons it teaches. Both organizations accept the Materialist Conception of History and the Class Struggle. Granted, there are some differences between the two parties. The WSP holds that socialists are materialists and cannot be religious, at the same time. We do not regard the founding fathers of the United States with the same high esteem as the SLP. We consider Russia to have the social relations of state capitalism, and that the material conditions in 1917 were not ripe for any socialist characteristics; and the World Socialist Movement has taken this position. Further criticisms of the SLP are their position that religion is a private matter and not a social concern, thereby ignoring the scientific, materialistic basis of socialism; their “reverence” for the American founding fathers; and their dogmatic sectarianism, in the sense of ignoring reality and looking at history to prove their ideas instead of making their ideas harmonize with an understanding of historic forces.

But the basic and primary distinction between the two organizations is that we have different objectives. If both the SLP and the WSP had the same goals, there would be no valid reason for the existence of the World Socialist Party in the United States. Up until the early years of the 1900s, the SLP was the voice of Marxian socialism in the United States. DeLeon’s “What Means This Strike?” is a classic of socialist analysis. The object of the World Socialist Party is “The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of society as a whole.” The object of the Socialist Labor Party is “To inaugurate the Socialist Republic of Labor.”

But to make bad matters worse, the SLP, strange as it may seem, do not want socialism and have no concept of socialism as a system of society. They certainly do not have the same object that we have and are not fighting for the same things we are. Whilst we cannot make a blueprint of socialism, we can realise its general process because of our knowledge of the laws of motion of society. It is fundamental and basic to recognise that socialism would be but a fantastic, utopian dream if it were not for the fact that man has solved the problem of production and has become potentially the master over nature. Mankind is not confronted with the problem of how to plan and organise production. If he were, he would not yet be ready for socialism. In other words, the conditions for socialism would not be ripe, if the problem was how to organise the productive forces and processes. This blueprint chart with the wheel of the various industries in socialism is merely the projection of capitalism into socialism. This SLP wheel demonstrates that they have no concept of even the outlines of a socialist society. Even a superficial view of the world today, under capitalism, already reveals that the world is an integrated, socialised, interrelated unit, economically, and is not divided industrially. Socialism means a classless society (not an industrial union society), where the very social interrelationships are so closely intertwined that production cannot be conceived as functioning industrially.

History has passed the SLP by. The problems of a socialist society are everything but that of production, in spite of all those detailed charts of the clairvoyants. In socialist relationships the arrangements are for leisure, culture, refinements, sanity, each day being an adventure in living, square pegs in square holes, social behavior; in short, the identity of interests of every individual and of society as a whole. How ludicrous to those living in a socialist society will appear the SLP worries about industrial divisions and voting from where you work. The SLP doesn’t realise that when plenty and abundance become the order of the day, it completely changes people’s behavior and attitudes. But to show how far from having any grasp of socialism the SLP are, and how they are thinking in terms of capitalism, consider their notion that workers, under socialism, get the full product of their toil. In the first place, there are no “workers” under socialism. There is no working-class section of society, but all are equally members of a classless society. No problem of equal share with equal work could possibly exist in socialism; people in a sane society would not be that limited in vision or behavior. Just the reverse, the inspiration of socialism is that, being social animals, people give according to their abilities and receive according to their needs (without any thought of getting their “full” share — a meaningless concept in a sane society).

Their Industrial Union concept altered their concept of socialism and of the socialist revolution in a way that is not borne out by either evidence or analysis. the SLP “campaigns for Industrial Unionism.” That is one of the major points in the SLP analysis that not only distinguish it from the WSM but demonstrate the unsound understanding of the nature of capitalist society by the SLP. If the SLP were content merely to state that within the framework of capitalism industrial unionism might be a more effective form of resistance to the encroachments of capital than the craft unions, there would not be any serious quarrels and there would be no justification for two organisations on that score, itself. But to them industrial unionism is something far more than that. It constitutes a new contribution to Marxism. (Not that Marx is a biblical prophet and that there couldn’t be further contributions to Marxian science, since his days.) But, industrial unionism does not constitute any new addition to socialist science. In fact, it is erroneous, when examined scientifically in light of the workings of capitalism.

In this Industrial Republic of Labor, workers cast industrial ballots for a gradation of councils from a plant council, to a local industry council, to a national industry council, and finally to an all-industry council, the socialist Industrial Union Congress, composed of manufactures, public service, construction, food supply, lumber, farming and transportation. It also includes wages of a sort, in the form of checks which represent the “full” product of their toil.
The concept of socialism held by the companion parties of the World Socialist Movement is a social system which is possible, practical and necessary today, here and now. Due to the workings of capitalism, mankind has already solved the problem of production. Potential abundance prevails today. If this were not so, the material conditions of existence would not be ripe for socialism. Socialism is not a blueprint or a utopia, but a product of social evolution. The times are now propitious for a harmony of interests between all members of society and society as a whole. It is now possible for everyone to live useful, interesting and meaningful lives where everyone gives to the best of his abilities and receives according to his needs. The real problem of socialism will be not the organization of the productive process, but the enjoyment of genuine, meaningful leisure. Socialists, as social beings, will come to grips with problems as they arise democratically, because all are imbued with the common interests. Socialism is an administration of affairs by the members of society.
Unwittingly, the SLP projects the extension of capitalist relationships into its socialist society. The separate branches of industry of the 1904– 1905 period no longer typify the closely interrelated socialized technology and production of 1966. The SLP chart, like so many other plans, has been bypassed by the march of events. But equally sad is their stress on Labor in a socialist system. Socialism is a stateless society. It is also a classless society. Labor, as such, is a meaningless term in describing socialist relationships. The discovery of the Industrial Republic of Labor proved to be merely a matter of sounder union tactics within the framework of capitalism and nothing more.

It is no wonder that the SLP has never really described the economy of Soviet Russia. For a long time, they maintained a critical but friendly attitude to the “socialist” nature of the Bolshevik Revolution. Later, because of unfolding events, they branded Russia as “bureaucratic statism,” and other similar terms, none of which described the social relations. At no time, up to the present, have they recognized that the system that prevails in Russia is state capitalism. This attitude flows from the similarity of the SLP’s concept of the industrial union basis of the “Socialist Republic,” and the Russian Soviets’ form of the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat.” One of the finest descriptions of the transition period that has ever come to my attention: “The political organization necessary to vote capitalism out and to vote socialism in.” (our emphasis.). It is Sunday Supplement stuff that the Russian Revolution did stir and inspire large segments of our own members? Have we forgotten the sneers and scorn heaped on us by those who should have known better because we “did not recognise a socialist revolution when it took place”? In light of developments, which revealed a healthy “instinct” (groping) for a society, the World Socialist Movement would be a far greater force and factor today had it not been for the wasted energies and illusions of the Bolshevik counterfeits as far as a genuine socialist revolutionary movement is concerned.

The socialism the present SLP envisages is but an extension of capitalist relations, even though they retain the language of a “classless” society, much as do the Bolsheviks. No wonder Lenin praised DeLeon’s “contribution” of Industrial Unions as the basis for the “Soviets.” Their socialism is the Industrial Republic of Labor and they have a blueprint (the famous wheel) to illustrate its operation.
The outstanding historic factor that lays the groundwork for socialism is that socialism is based upon abundance made possible by the strides in the means of production: technology. This very technology is no longer industrial but overlapping and integrated into a cohesive whole; production is socialized, in almost a literal sense, today. Socialism is not confronted with problems of the organisation of production, but rather with problems of leisure, full lives and conditions worthy of human beings. (How far superior and more scientific is the Marxian projection of socialism.)
The SLP and the WSM do not have the same objective.

Further, this misconception of socialism arises from their viewing the Industrial Union as the revolutionary weapon. It can be conceded that the industrial union has advantages as economic organizations of resistance for workers within capitalism over craft and trade unions. But the SLP goes on to project the industrial union as a revolutionary weapon: “The ballot is as weak as a woman’s tears unless backed up by the economic might of the workers.” This splitting of the workers into two sections presumes that the majority of socialists who vote for socialism will support capitalism in their economic activities. In spite of some fine SLP pamphlets on the nature of the state, they have forgotten that whoever controls the central organ of power, the state, gains control of economic power, by the same token. Peculiarly enough, they have confused economic bases, economic influence, etc., with economic power. It is the development of economic social relations that gives rise to the state, but it is state power that gives rise to economic power. In order to get economic power, the new rising social class must first get in possession of the state powers. (The classic illustration, of course, is the revolution from feudalism into capitalism. For example, with all their economic influence the rising capitalist class in France and England were economically and politically shackled by feudalism and the absolute monarchy. It was necessary for them to achieve political supremacy in order to make secure and extend their economic power, as the French bourgeoisie did in the French Revolution. Also note that no two revolutions are the same, but here we are dealing with the Materialist Conception of History.)

Let us examine industrial unionism in two aspects: As the road to power and as the germ of the new society. The Socialist Labor Party stated their practical program:— “Not a ‘general strike’ of the workers but a ‘general lockout’ of the Capitalist Class is our slogan. And this can only be done by organizing the workers, industrially, to take and hold the means of production.” Of course, “only” eliminates any other means. The SLP Manifesto of 1921 is stated flatly: — “the might of the Working Class lies on the economic field and there alone” (emphasis theirs).The lip service the SLP have always paid to what they term the “political arm of labor” is seen here in its true colors. A study of history will show that control of economic resources is only made secure by control of the State. The SLP can say “Without the industrial might and organization, the political vote would be nothing…” But is it conceivable of a worker being a socialist in the factory and not, at the same time, a socialist in the voting booth, or vice versa? And just what strength has the worker got industrially? He has two alternatives: either starve or be driven back to work by the armed forces.
What gives title and deed to ownership of the factory? It is the state, the central organ of power! The highest expression of the class struggle is the political phase. On the economic field, the working class is impotent. What do they possess, aside from their muscles and brains? They are propertyless. All that the workers can do on the economic field is to attempt to slow down the worsening of their condition, so far as wages, hours, shop conditions are concerned; but they cannot stop the direction: downward. If they go out on a strike, who starves first, the workers or the owners? The trouble is not that the workers are not organized into the proper kind of economic organization, but that they are not socialists. Socialists know what to do and will utilise all the tools and weapons that are available. Actually, the essential thing is the realisation that in order to introduce socialism, the workers must first gain control of the state machinery in order to transfer the means of living from the hands of the capitalists to the hands of society — after which the state disappears and in its place we have an administration of affairs.

The SLP maintains that the ballot is as weak as a woman’s tears unless it is backed up by the economic might of the workers. This concept presupposes that workers who are clear-thinking socialists politically will not be socialists economically. It is inconceivable that people who are socialists in the political field are not likewise socialists everywhere they may be, whether at work in the shop, going to the movies, or wherever they may be. People are not divided in half, one half of the body socialist and the other half not. Once they are socialists politically, they are by the same token socialists economically. Whoever gains control of the state machinery (and the gaining control of the state machinery is a political act) also, by the very same act, gains control of the economic resources. The capitalist class itself maintains its control and ownership of the economic resources through their control of the state machinery. The revolutionary act is the political victory of the workers, which puts them in a position of power, with the resulting control of the military, every organ of propaganda, the police, courts, etc. The objective of the socialist movement, i.e., a socialist working class majority, is accomplished, by the conquest of political power. This is the essence of understanding the nature of the state, the central organ of power.

Furthermore, to talk of the economic might of the workers in their industrial unionism is not correct when society itself is examined. On the economic field, the working class is impotent. What do they possess, aside from their muscles and brains? They are propertyless. All that the workers can do on the economic field is to attempt to slow down the worsening of their condition, so far as wages, hours, shop conditions are concerned; but they cannot stop the direction: downward. If they go out on a strike, who starves first, the workers or the owners? The trouble is not that the workers are not organised into the proper kind of economic organisation, but that they are not socialists. Socialists know what to do and will utilise all the tools and weapons that are available. Actually, the essential thing is the realisation that in order to introduce socialism, the workers must first gain control of the state machinery in order to transfer the means of living from the hands of the capitalists to the hands of society — after which the state disappears and in its place we have an administration of affairs.

It is impossible for the working class to take and hold industry as long as the state is in the hands of the capitalist class. All the industrial unions in the world are powerless in face of the armed forces of the modern states with their machine guns, cannon and tanks. Moreover, this power is placed in the hands of the capitalist class by the workers themselves. To expect these workers to do two diametrically opposite things simultaneously, is going it a bit too strong. On the economic side the working class is weak. They are propertyless. They own nothing but their ability to work, which they must sell to the capitalist class in order to live. The objectives of a union are confined to questions of hours, wages and conditions, problems within the four walls of capitalism. A union, regardless of type, to be effective today must depend primarily on numbers rather than understanding. Ever changing productive methods as well as the continuous introduction of new industries, make unions powerless to cope with even their immediate problems. Their view that the industrial union is the only means of taking and holding industry, is but the pipe dream of the SLP. In the light of this review, it should be apparent that our concern is not what “practical” measures to advocate. Our task at the moment is to carry on the work of socialist education. The capitalists rule today because the workers sanction and uphold the existing form of property relationships.

What stands in the way of socialism, today? It is not the limitations of technology, nor of the material conditions of existence. It is not the lack of literacy, scientific information or democratic forms. The only material condition lacking is a majority of class-conscious revolutionary socialists determined to inaugurate the new social system. Building that majority is the task of the socialist movement. Our great ally is the workings of capitalism and the lessons of experience. That is the latent strength of socialism. Once the workers wake up and the ideas of socialism spread like wildfire, they have the tools ready to hand — the ballot. All that the capitalist class can do is to submit to the inevitable. It is significant, isn’t it, that there is no reference in any major work of Marx and Engels to the “Transition Period.” The first step in the socialist revolution is to capture the powers of the state for the sole purpose of transferring the control of the means of living from the hands of the ruling class to where it belongs, the hands of society.

“The possessing class rules directly through universal suffrage. For as long as the oppressed class, in this case the proletariat, is not ripe for its economic emancipation, just so long will its majority regard the existing order of society as the only one possible … On the day when the thermometer of universal suffrage reaches its boiling point among the laborers, they as well as the capitalists will know what to do.” (Engels, Origin of the Family, p. 211.)

Also based on the work of Isaac Rab

The SPGB - World Socialists

The Socialist Party of Great Britain are not the socialist "party" that Marx (or even our Declaration of Principles) envisages, ie the working class as a whole organised politically for socialism. That will come later. At the moment, the SPGB can be described as only a socialist propaganda or socialist education organisation and can't be anything else (and nor would it try to be , at the moment ). Possibly , we might be the embryo of the future mass "socialist party" but there's no guarantee that we will be ( more likely jusdt a contributing element). But who cares? As long as such a party does eventually emerges .At some stage, for whatever reason, socialist consciousness will reach a "critical mass" , at which point it will just snowball and carry people along with it. It may even come about without people actually giving it the label of socialism.

In 1904 the SPGB raised the banner for such a single, mass socialist party and proclaimed itself as the basis of such a party . Not only did the working class in general not "muster under its banner" but neither did all socialists. So although with a long history as a political party based on agreed goals, methods and organisational principles we were left as a small propagandist group, but still committed to the tenets set out in our Declaration of Principles. But we have never been so arrogant as to claim that we're the only socialists and that anybody not in the SPGB is not a socialist. There are socialists outside the SPGB, and some of them are organised in different groups. That doesn't mean that we are not opposed to the organisations they have formed, but we are not opposed to them because we think they represent some section of the capitalist class. We are opposed to them because we disagree with what they are proposing the working class should do to get socialism -- and of course the opposite is the case too : they're opposed to what we propose. Nearly all the others who stand for a classless, stateless, moneyless, wageless society are anti-parliamentary ( the old Socialist Labour Party being an exception). For the SPGB , using the existing historically-evolved mechanism of political democracy (the ballot box and parliament) is the best and safest way for a socialist-minded working class majority to get to socialism. For them, it's anathema. For the SPGB , some of the alternatives they suggest (armed insurrection or a general strike) are anathema. We all present our respective proposals for working-class action to get socialism and, while criticising each other's proposals, not challenging each other's socialist credentials .

The SPGB is the oldest existing socialist party in the UK and has been propagating the alternative to capitalism since 1904. A Marxist-based ( but perhaps a William Morris - Peter Kropotkin amalgam , some may say might be a better description ) organisation . It is a non-Social Democrat 2nd Internationalist , non-Leninist 3rd Internationalist , non-Trotskyist 4th Internationalist political organisation that is a formally structured yet leader-less political party ( under UK electoral law , a registered political party , which we are, has to name its leader and to comply the SPGB simply drew a name out of a hat and it is doubtful if any member recollects who it was ). We were in pre-1914 accusing the 2nd International of being non-socialist , and while we were throwing cold water on the 2nd International , the Lenins of the world were still adhering to the mistaken strategies and tactics .The SPGB never had to leave the Second International because we were never in.
The failures of post -1917 has only confirmed the SPGB case that understanding is a necessary condition for socialism , not desperation and despair . There is no easier road to socialism than the education of the workers in socialism and their organisation to establish it by democratic methods. Shortcuts have proved to be cul de sacs.

We share in common with the Industrial Workers of the World the view that unions should not be used as a vehicle for political parties . The SPGB have always insisted that there will be a separation and that no political party should , or can successfully use , unions as an economic wing , until a time very much closer to the revolution when there are substantial and sufficient numbers of socialist conscious workers . And thats not in the foreseeable future . It is NOT the SPGB's task to lead the workers in struggle or to instruct its members on what to do in trade unions, tenants' associations or whatever , because we believe that class conscious workers and socialists are quite capable of making decisions for themselves. For the Lenininist , all activity should be mediated by the Party (union activity, neighbourhood community struggles or whatever .) , whereas for us, the Party is just one mode of activity available to the working class to use in their struggles.
Even when the worker acquires revolutionary consciousness, the Socialist Party acknowledges that it is still necessary to engage in the non-revolutionary struggle of every-day life . But it is advocating the idea that THROUGH a policy or programme of reforms that the workers' situation can somehow be intrinsically improved or that it can progress towards the establishment of a socialist society that the SPGB adamantly refuses to recognise.The existence of the wage-workers depends upon their wages and it is not determined by legal law, but by the economic law of supply and demand. The condition of existence of the wage-workers is determined by the progress of the development of machinery, the concentration of capital, the proportion of the unemployed industrial reserve army. Social realities that are outside parliaments. Although the bettering of the conditions of existence by way of political reform is impossible, it is not the same as regards the conditions of fighting. To distinguish between the conditions of fighting and the conditions of existence is not to split hairs. There is a real difference. Some reforms would render the struggle of the proletariat more powerful, weakening capitalism - the right to strike and the right to picket, for instance.
The SPGB reject ALL forms of minority action to attempt to establish socialism, which can only be established by the working class when the immense majority have come to want and understand it. This is why we advocate using parliament. Not to try to reform capitalism but for the single revolutionary purpose of abolishing capitalism.What our capitalist opponents consequently do when the majority prevail will determine our subsequent actions. If they accept defeat, well and good. If they choose not to accept the verdict of the majority which is given through the their own institutions and contest that verdict by physical force, then the workers will respond in kind , with the legitimacy and the authority of a democratic mandate.

Clause 7 of our principles does commit the SPGB to "there can only be one socialist party" in any country in the sense of only one party aiming at the winning of control of political power by the working class to establish socialism. How could there be more than one socialist party in any country trying to win political power for socialism? It just doesn't make sense. If this situation were to arise then unity and fusion would be the order of the day.

Mandating delegates, voting on resolutions and membership referendums are democratic practices for ensuring that the members of an organisation control that organisation – and as such key procedures in any organisation genuinely seeking socialism. Socialism can only be a fully democratic society in which everybody will have an equal say in the ways things are run. This means that it can only come about democratically, both in the sense of being the expressed will of the working class and in the sense of the working class being organised democratically – without leaders, but with mandated delegates – to achieve it. In rejecting these procedures what is being declared is that the working class should not organise itself democratically.

Those who know of the SPGB have noticed that we don't go out of our way to recruit members. Some would in fact say we do just the opposite. At first sight, we seem to have an odd approach to recruitment of any political party in existence - we actually have a test for membership.The SPGB will not allow a person to join it until the applicant has convinced the branch applied to that she or he is a conscious socialist. Surely it must put some people off? Well, that may be, but it can't be helped. There would be no point in a socialist organisation giving full democratic rights to those who, in any significant way, disagreed with the socialist case. The outcome of that would be entirely predictable.
This does not mean that the SPGB has set itself up as an intellectual elite into which only those well versed in Marxist scholarship may enter. The SPGB has good reason to ensure that only conscious socialists enter its ranks, for, once admitted, all members are equal and it would clearly not be in the interest of the Party to offer equality of power to those who are not able to demonstrate equality of basic socialist understanding. Once a member, s/he have the same rights as the oldest member to sit on any committee, vote, speak, and have access to all information. Thanks to the test all members are conscious socialists and there is genuine internal democracy, and of that we are fiercely proud.
Consider for a moment what happens when people join other groups which don't have this test.The new applicant has to be approved as being "all right". The individual is therefore judged by the group according to a range of what might be called "credential indicators". Hard work (often, paper selling) and obedience by new members is the main criterion of trustworthiness in the organisation. In these hierarchical, "top-down" groups the leaders strive at all costs to remain as the leadership , and reward only those with proven commitment to the "party line" with preferential treatment, more responsibility and more say. New members who present the wrong indicators remain peripheral to the party structure, and finding themselves unable to influence decision-making at any level, eventually give up and leave, often embittered by the hard work they put in and the hollowness of the party's claims of equality and democracy.

The SPGB hostility clause ,"to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist" is certainly unique and even within the SPGB it has always been subject to regular debate. Concerning the hostility clause, it is one issue that can justifiably put down to the 19th century social democrat roots of the SPGB since it stems from the early members experience of the SDF and the Socialist League. William Morris together with Aveling, Eleanor Marx, Belfort Bax and other members of the SDF, resigned and issued a statement giving their reasons, for "a body independent of the Social Democratic Federation". Yet they added : "We have therefore set on foot an independent organisation, the Socialist League, with no intention of acting in hostility to the Social Democratic Federation” . The main weakness, as some saw it, of the Socialist League was that it "had no intention of acting in hostility" to the SDF. When the Socialist Party was formed, its members made certain that their Declaration of Principles would include a hostility clause against all other parties (such as the SDF) who advocated palliatives, not socialism. Given the context when it was drawn up that the early members of the SPGB envisaged the party developing fairly rapidly into a mass party, not remaining the small educational group that it has done up to the present ), what it says is that when the working class form a socialist party this party is not going to do any election or parliamentary deals with any other political party, either to get elected or to get reforms. Basically, the hostility clause applies to political parties, organisations aiming at winning control of political power. In fact, in the eyes of those who drew it up, it was about the attitude that a mass socialist party (such as along the lines of the German Social Democratic Party was then seen to be albeit with its warts and all ) should take towards other political parties.
Importantly , the hostility clause doesn't mean that we are hostile to everything . There are a whole range of non-socialist organisations out there, ranging from trade unions to claimants unions to community and tenants associations to which we are not opposed. Clause 7 does not mean that "if you are not with the SPGB, somehow you are automatically anti-socialist". Of course, there are, and always, have been socialists outside the party in the sense of people who want to see established, like us, a classless, stateless, wageless, moneyless society based on common ownership and democratic control with production solely for use not profit. The party has in fact always recognised this, right from the start, seeing some other groups as socialists with a mistaken view of how to get there. Clearly, such people and such groups are not in the same category as openly pro-capitalist groups . What about some of the anarchists, the original SLP? Of course there are socialists outside the SPGB, and some of them are organised in different groups, some (like us) even calling themselves a "party". That doesn't mean that we are not opposed to the organisations they have formed, but we are not opposed to them because we think they represent some section of the capitalist class. We are opposed to them because we disagree with their proposed method of getting rid of capitalism rather than because of the hostility clause. That opposition doesn't have to go as far as hostility. Our attitude to them is to try to convince them that the tactic they propose to get socialism is mistaken and to join with us in building up a strong socialist party. Of course, if we think that the tactic they advocate (such as minority action or armed uprising or a general strike by non-socialists) is dangerous to the working-class interest then we say so and oppose them. We are opposed to them because we disagree with what they are proposing the working class should do to get socialism -- and , of course , the opposite is the case too , they are opposed to what we propose. We agree to disagree . Comradely disagreements. We cannot see any alternative to the present situation of each of us going our own way, putting forward our respective proposals for working-class action to get socialism and, while criticising each other's proposals, not challenging each other's socialist credentials. In the end, anyway, it's the working class itself who will decide what to do. For the moment, "our sector" , the thin red line, is condemned to remain an amorphous current. At a later stage, when more and more people are coming to want socialism, a mass socialist movement will emerge to dwarf all the small groups and grouplets that exist today. If this situation were to arise then unity and fusion would be the order of the day.

In the meantime, the best thing we in the SPGB can do, is to carry on campaigning for a world community based on the common ownership and democratic control of the Earth's natural and industrial resources in the interests of all humanity. We in the SPGB will continue to propose that this be established by democratic, majority political action. Other groups will no doubt continue to propose your own way to get there. And , in the end, we'll see which proposal the majority working class takes up. When the socialist idea catches on we'll then have our united movement .
The SPGB does not claim that socialist consciousness will come to dominate the working-class outlook simply as a result of the activity of socialists. The movement for socialism 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 revolution there can be no emancipation. The SPGB's job is to shorten the time, to speed up the process - to act as a catalyst. This contrasts with those who seek to substitute the party for the class or who see the party as a vanguard which must undertake alone the sectarian task of leading the witless masses forward.

As a matter of political principle the SPGB holds no secret meetings, all its meetings including those of its executive committee being open to the public. This means that all its internal records (except, understandably , for the current membership names and addresses which remains confidential ) are open to public consultation. In keeping with the tenet that working class emancipation necessarily excludes the role of political leadership , the SPGB is a leader-less political party where its executive committee is solely for housekeeping admin duties and cannot determine policy or even submit resolutions to conference (and all the EC minutes are available for public scrutiny with access on the web as proof of our commitment to openness and democracy ). All conference decisions have to be ratified by a referendum of the whole membership. The General Secretary has no position of power or authority over any other member being a dogsbody. Despite some very charismatic writers and speakers in the past , no personality has held undue influence over the the SPGB.

We need to organise politically, into a political party, a socialist party. We don't suffer from delusions of grandeur so we don't necessary claim that we are that party. What we are talking about is not a small educational and propagandist group such as ourselves, but a mass party that has yet to emerge. It is all about understanding limitations and they will be subject to change when conditions change. The main purpose of the SPGB at the moment is to (a) argue for socialism, and (b) put up candidates to measure how many socialist voters there are. The SPGB doesn't go around creating myths of false hopes and false dawns at every walk-out or laying down of tools but will remind workers of the reality of the class struggle and its constraints within capitalism and as a party unfortunately suffers the negative consequence of this political honesty.

Anton Pannekoek, the Dutch writer on Marxism, writing in an American magazine, Modern Socialism, said: "The belief in parties is the main reason for the impotence of the working-class . . . Because a party is an organisation that aims to lead and control the workers". He qualified this statement. "If . . . persons with the same fundamental conceptions (regarding Socialism) unite for the discussion of practical steps and seek clarification through discussion and propagandise their conclusions, such groups might be called parties, but they would be parties in an entirely different sense from those of to-day"
The SPGB position is that it was not parties as such that had failed, but the form all parties ( except the SPGB) had taken as groups of persons seeking power above the worker. Because the establishment of socialism depends upon an understanding of the necessary social changes by a majority of the population, these changes cannot be left to parties acting apart from or above the workers. The workers cannot vote for socialism as they do for reformist parties and then go home or go to work and carry on as usual. To put the matter in this way is to show its absurdity. The Socialist Party of Great Britain and its fellow parties therefore reject all comparison with other political parties. We do not ask for power; we help to educate the working-class itself into taking it.
Pannekoek wished workers' political parties to be “organs of the self-enlightenment of the working class by means of which the workers find their way to freedom” and “means of propaganda and enlightenment”.

Which is almost exactly the role and purpose hoped for by the Socialist Party of Great Britain's present members .

Impossiblism by Steve Coleman

Once more , Darren at Inveresk Ingrate has proved his worth .

He has transcribed a chapter in the book 'Non-Market Socialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries'. Edited by Maximilien Rubel and John Crump, and published by Macmillan Press in Britain and St Martin's Press in the United States, this 1987 book has long since been out of print, but because of the continuing relevance of socialism as both a critique and alternative to present day class society, it's important that efforts are made to ensure that this chapter (and other chapters) from the book, are made available on the Internet to be discovered and re-discovered by both old and new activists alike.


In the editors own words, the book sought to:

" . . . re-establish the genuine meaning of socialism. We are not arguing that absence of the market is the sole defining feature of socialism. On the contrary, socialism is not merely a marketless society, it is also a stateless society, a classless society, a moneyless society, a wageless society . . ."

As well as the chapter detailing the tradition of impossibilism - best represented by the Socialist Party of Great Britain and its companion parties - the book also included chapters on other currents within the 'non-market socialist' sector, such as the Council Communists, Anarcho-Communists and, perhaps best known of all, the Situationists.

At the end of the article there is postscript that gives links to the other chapters in the book that have since found a home on the internet.

Impossibilism

by Stephen Coleman

Like other terms of political abuse which have been absorbed into our political vocabulary, the term 'impossibilism' tells us as much or more about the labellers as it does about the idea being described. After the French legislative election of October 1881, in which the Fédération du Parti des Travailleurs Socialistes de France won only 60,000 of the 7 million votes cast, a group based around Paul Brousse and Benoît Malon began to advocate a more pragmatic, reformist policy for the Fédération. 'We prefer to abandon the "all-at-once" tactic practised until now', proclaimed those who referred to themselves as Possibilists. 'We desire to divide our ideal ends into several gradual stages to make many of our demands immediate ones and hence possible of realisation.'[1]
The Possibilists regarded socialism as a progressive social process rather than an 'all-at-once' end. Those who regarded capitalism and socialism as mutually exclusive systems and refused to budge from the revolutionary position of what has become known as 'the maximum programme' were labelled as impossibilists.[2]

It did not take very long for the term to find its way into British use. For example, in 1896 Ramsay MacDonald, in urging 'socialists more frequently to put themselves in the position of the man in the street', warned that:

We can talk socialism seriously to him and we will likely disgust him; we may gas sentimentalities to him and we may capture a member who will only be one more impossibilist in our movement.[3]

While MacDonald and the Independent Labour Party (ILP) pursued the propaganda of condescension, assured in their own minds that the presentation to workers of the revolutionary alternative to capitalism would cause disgust, the majority of the members of the nominally Marxist Social Democratic Federation (SDF), led by the dogmatic capitalist, H.M Hyndman, moved increasingly towards the possibilist policies of parliamentary reformism and opportunist party-building within the trade unions. At the turn of the century a small group within the SDF - some based in Scotland, some in London, but numbering no more than 400 out of the membership of 9000 - began to oppose the Federation's drift towards possibilism. The story of the impossibilist revolt need not be repeated here; it is sufficient to point out that the leadership of the SDF pursued a minor purge against those who insisted that the Federation should stand for clear-cut non-market socialism and nothing less. [4] T.A. Jackson refers to the expulsion of Jack Fitzgerald as a 'trumped up charge', [5] and the obituary of Fitzgerald, published in the Socialist Standard in May 1929, commented upon the fact that he:

was jeered at by the official group, who tried to silence him by the charge of “impossibilism.” He, and the group that was with him, were confronted by a solid wall of opposition, which was the more difficult to get over because the officials held the strings, and meetings were closed to the unauthorised.

The most typically impossibilist and historically enduring product of the split in the SDF emerged in 1904 when the majority of the London impossibilists, having exhausted the possibilities of turning the SDF away from its reformist course formed a new party: the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB). Although labelled by opponents as impossibilists (a term which we now use solely for historical reference and not because we have any sympathy with the assumptions upon which it is based), as in the SDF paper Justice. the workers who formed the SPGB rejected the label and its implicit accusation:

At the outset let us insist that we do not believe in impossible political tactics. None the less, our political action must be such as to awaken the workers of this country to full class-consciousness, and to the desire to abolish wage slavery. We therefore feel the necessity of avoiding any action that will endanger or obliterate our socialist identity, or allow us to be swallowed up by a Labour Movement which has yet to learn the real meaning of Class Struggle. [6]

We are not . . . . 'Impossibilists', if Justice's definition be correct, but we doubt its correctness, for we have usually seen what is described as 'Impossibilism' associated with Socialist science, working-class sincerity and correct tactics. [7 ]

In fact, the SPGB contended that the real impossibilists were the self-proclaimed realists who sought to humanise capitalism by means of legislative reform. [8]

Before considering the non-market socialist outlook of the SPGB - and of the parties and individuals in other parts of the world adhering to its principles - there are two other groups which deserve to be examined as examples of impossibilism in Britain.

WILLIAM MORRIS AND THE SOCIALIST LEAGUE

The Socialist League split from the SDF in December 1884 in circumstances which closely resembled the impossibilist revolt two decades later. [9] Hyndman asserted that the 'antagonism' between the SDF and the League was 'similar to that which existed in France between the Marxists and the Possibilists', and although the arrogant Hyndman cast the SDF in the role of the Marxists, the analogy is, in fact, appropriate insofar as the SDF was comparable to the Possibilists and the League represented impossibilism. [10] The League rejected the idea of having a reform programme, like the 'Stepping Stones' of the SDF. William Morris, who fed the best revolutionary ideas in to the League, declared that 'The palliatives over which many worthy people are busying themselves now are useless.' [11] Morris's conception of socialism, which he advocated both in the League and in the years after he left it, was characterised by an awareness - uncommon amongst those claiming to be socialists, both then and now - of the nature of the social transformation which socialism would entail. Socialism would 'put an end for ever to the wage-system'; [12] it would allow everyone to have 'free access to the means of production of wealth'; [13] it would 'not know the meaning of the words rich and poor, or the rights of property, or law or legality or nationality'; [14] and, if News From Nowhere is a guide to Morris's conception of socialism, it will be a moneyless society in which the 'extinct commercial morality of buying and selling relationships will be utterly incomprehensible to anyone but historians.' [15] These features of non-market socialism are presented by Morris with a particular clarity of vision and experimental relevance, in a way that makes it hard to understand without at the same time desiring the nature of the social revolution which he is proposing. A particular quality of Morris's conception of socialism, comparable in certain respects with the situationists of the following century, was his eagerness to relate to the down-to-earth concerns of workers. Above all, Morris saw what work could be like in a society which no longer sacrificed creative labour to commercial profit:

all work is now pleasurable; either because of the hope of gain in honour and wealth with which the work is done, which causes pleasurable excitement, even when the actual work is not pleasant; or else because it has grown into a pleasurable habit, as in the case with what you may call mechanical work; and lastly (and most of our work is of this kind) because there is conscious sensuous pleasure in the work itself; it is done, that is, by artists. [16]

That Morris was dismissed as a utopian dreamer by many self-styled socialists in his own day and since, tells us more about their conservatism than his vision. As Karl Mannheim commented, with a relevance to the concept of impossibilism of which he was not aware: ' The representatives of a given order will label as utopian all conceptions of existence which from their point of view can in principle never be realized.' [17]

Unlike the SPGB, which was to accept Morris's general picture of socialism as an immediately realisable objective, Morris himself and the Socialist League asserted that such a system could only be established after a period of transition. Morris's transition period was conceived as being a society in which property would still exist and in 'which currency will still be used as a means of exchange'. [18] Such a transition was not envisaged as being a long-lasting phase, [19] but the idea of a society of property and exchange relationships being defined as socialist - albeit qualified by the adjective 'incomplete' - must be regarded as an abuse of the term. We are not here disputing the fact that such a transition might have been necessary in the last century (Marx certainly considered that it was [20]), but that is no excuse for creating the conceptual confusion of regarding the pre-socialist transition period as the first stage of socialism.

DANIEL DELEON AND THE SOCIALIST LABOUR PARTY

The same criticism must be levelled against the Socialist Labour Party (SLP), which broke away from the SDF a year before the SPGB. This party modelled its ideas on the industrial unionist policy of Daniel DeLeon and the American SLP. Like the Socialist League and the SPGB, the mainly Scottish impossibilists who formed the SLP advanced a conception of non-market socialism which can be seen to fall within the tradition of thought being considered in this book. But, while stating that 'There will be no money under Socialism', the SLP goes on to state that:

With the establishment of a system of production-for-use, labor-time vouchers, which the workers may exchange for goods and services, will take the place of money.

Accordingly, under Socialism the worker will receive a labor-time voucher from his union showing that he has worked a certain number of hours. This time voucher will enable him to withdraw from the social store as much as he contributed to it, after the necessary deductions are made for replacement of wornout equipment, expansion of production, schools, parks, public health etc. [21]

An economy based on labor-vouchers would, in effect, be a non-socialist society: first, because the law of value would still exist, measuring the worth of labour input and allowing certain amounts of goods and services to be used on the basis of equivalent value (no mention is made of those who do not work); second, because the limitations of access to the common store by means of vouchers could easily lead to the circulation of vouchers, which would be in effect monetary circulation; and finally, because the absence of free access on the basis of self-defined needs and self-restraint (where materially necessary) imposes a form of economic alienation which is incompatable with the freedom of a non-exchange society sought by socialists. As early as 1918 the SLP (in Scotland) published Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme under the title of The Socialist Programme. In that work Marx makes the case for the use of labour vouchers in the very early days of socialism, but points out that 'these defects' will be transcended when 'the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly'. [22] The case for the immediate abolition of the law of value and its monetary expression is argued by the SPGB, which rejects the relevance of Marx's ideas about labour vouchers, [23] while the SLP (no longer active in Britain, but still existing in the USA) persists in advocating a form of 'socialism' without free access. It must be emphasised that the SLP's abuse of the concept of socialism is more serious than that of the Socialist League, for in the latter case it was at least proposed that labour vouchers would exist only in the brief transition period, while the SLP sees a need for such a rationing system within the period that Morris might have called 'complete socialism'.

Having criticised the SLP on one crucial point, it can still be said that it and other DeLeonists have made an outstanding contribution during the course of the century to propaganda in favour of the abolition of class monopoly and wage labour. Between 1903 and 1917, in addition to its very limited success in the creation of socialist trade unions, the SLP in Britain did valuable work in providing basic Marxist education for workers. After the Bolshevik coup d'état of 1917 one section of the SLP turned enthusiastically to Bolshevism (even though they were criticised by Lenin for taking Bolshevik propaganda at its face value [24]), while those who rejected the Bolshevik tactics maintained a dwindling party in Britain until quite recently. Today in the USA the DeLeonist movement has split in different directions, with journals like The Socialist Republic and The Industrial Unionist, as well as The People, published by the SLP, providing valuable analyses of the class struggle.

THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN

In June 1904 the Socialist Party of Great Britain adopted an Object and Declaration of Principles which it has not since changed. In September of that year the first issue of the Socialist Standard was published and the Object and Declaration of principles have appeared in every monthly issue since then - not a single month's publication having ever been missed, despite the difficult circumstances of two world wars and frequent financial crises. Consistency has been the hallmark of the SPGB - a persistence of outlook which has infuriated, intrigued and won respect from those aware of it. The ideas of the Party have travelled: parties in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the USA and Ireland, groups in Austria, Sweden and France, and active supporters as far apart as Jamaica, India and Hong Kong hold tight not only to the principles of the Party (which refers to itself internationally as the World Socialist Movement), but also to a certain political style which steers an unsteady course between uncompromising clarity and doctrinaire intolerance.

The Object shared by the SPGB and the other parties and groups of the World Socialist Movement does not tell us in much detail what they stand for:

The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.

Nor do the eight principles offer great help in outlining the non-market socialist aim: in Clause 3 the points made in the Object are repeated in different words; Clause 4 makes it clear that socialist emancipation will be 'without distinction of race or sex' (an advanced proposition for 1904); and Clause 8 refers to 'comfort', 'equality' and 'freedom' as being benefits to be gained in socialism. The SPGB has traditionally shared Marx's caution about devising utopian blueprints for socialism. None the less, much more has been said and written by SPGB-style impossibilists about socialism than is to be found in the Object and Principles. In his 20th Century World Socialist or Communist Manifesto, published in 1951, M. J. Panicker explains that:

Socialism is a universal system of society where there will be no buying and selling. Consequently all institutions which are now functioning only for the running of this buying and selling will disappear. Money, banks, insurance companies and several other institutions will disappear. All the resources of the world, the means and instruments of wealth production and social services necessary to the sustenance of mankind will be held in common by the whole people of the community as you and I breathe air or drink water. All the people will happily work and they will have free access to their needs. Each and everyone will determine his own needs. [25]
Panicker has spent years advocating these ideas in India. It is accepted by all SPGB-impossibilists that socialism will entail the immediate ending of the capital/wage-labour relationship:

there can be no wages system. Wages, of course, mean that somebody is working for somebody else - they imply rich and poor, two classes. To talk of wages under socialism is ridiculous. [26]
Similarly, it is seen as being ridiculous to speak of the existence of money in a society of common ownership. In 1943 two chemists by the name of Phillips and Renson (writing under the name of Philoren) wrote an excellent book introducing the idea of socialism (without using the term socialism) entitled Money Must Go; in it they argued that:

What I do propose is, that the whole system of money and exchange, buying and selling, profit-making and wage-earning should be entirely abolished and that instead, the community as a whole should organise and administer the production of goods for use only, and the free distribution of these goods to all the members of the community according to each person's needs. [27]

What about the state? Long before widespread nationalisation took place in Britain, the SPGB had pointed out 'how little difference there is from the workers' point of view between State capitalism and private capitalism, whether under a Conservative or a Labour government'. [28] According to the SPGB, socialism will be a stateless society:

The State, which is an organisation composed of soldiers, policemen, judges, and gaolers charged with enforcing the law, is only needed in class society, for in such societies there is no community of interest, only class conflict. The purpose of government is to maintain law and order in the interests of the dominant class. It is in fact an instrument of class oppression. In Socialism there will be no classes and no in-built class conflicts . . . . The phrase 'socialist government' is a contradiction in terms. Where there is Socialism there is no government and where there is government there is no Socialism. [29]

A distinction between government and democratic administration is made. The SPGB has tended to refrain from extensive speculation about the precise organisation of the stateless society, pointing out that such decisions must be made by those establishing socialism, in accordance, no doubt, with ideas and plans formulated in the course of the revolutionary process. Many different kinds of bodies might be used by the inhabitants of socialist society:

there is intrinsically nothing wrong with institutions where delegates assemble to parley (Parliaments, congresses, diets or even so-called soviets). What is wrong with them today is that such parliaments are controlled by the capitalist class. Remove class society and the assemblies will function in the interest of the whole people [30]

Advocates of soviets or council communism will note that their insistence upon how socialism would have to be organised is not ruled out by the SPGB. The point emphasised is that those establishing socialism will be free to determine the nature of its administration. Of course, such a decision will not be based upon utopian fancy, but will have to accord with the historical circumstances existing at the time of the revolution:

The basis of industrial organisation and administration will start from the arrangements existing under Capitalism at the time of the transformation, and this will present no difficulties because the Socialist movement will already be thoroughly international, both in outlook and practical organisation. As far as the machinery of organisation and administration is concerned, it will be local, regional, national and international, evolvong out of existing forms. [31]

The quotations given demonstrate clearly that the essential features of non-market socialism are advocated unequivocally by the SPGB and those sharing its principles. One does not have to search long to find within such literature clear and simple statements of what socialism means. Indeed, one strength of impossibilist literature is its tendency to get to the point. Perhaps at the cost of being repetitive - and after eighty years that is forgivable - the SPGB remembers (usually at least) to address itself to the uninitiated who do not want to read about one hundred new positions before they have been told the facts of life. Poets write stirring poetry and philosophers polemicise well, but it takes a straight talker to deliver a plain and urgent message; even its enemies have never accused the SPGB of being other than straight talkers.

CONSCIOUSNESS AND DEMOCRACY

Two political terms which are important in explaining the SPGB position are Consciousness and Democracy. This is because of the particular emphasis placed by the impossibilists upon the inseparability of means and ends. If socialism is to be a society in which the conditions of life 'hitherto dominating humanity now pass under the dominion and control of humanity, which now the first time becomes the real conscious master of its own social organization', [32] then such a system is not to be created by minority imposition. The SPGB insists, therefore, that majority socialist consciousness is a prerequisite for socialism. The task of spreading socialist understanding and desire is not to be evaded, even though:

the faint-hearted may shy away, aghast at the prospect of trying to convince the world's workers of the need for Socialism. It may seem an enormous task but there is no choice in the matter. Socialism . . . depends upon the conscious support of its people. Unless people understand Socialism and want it, they will nevr establish it. [33]

This socialist consciousness requires workers to experience 'a process of complete mental reconstruction. Years of thoroughly impregnated prejudices and attitudes towards social behaviour must be overcome . . . the whole ideology of capitalism will be rejected lock, stock and barrel.' [34] Images of The New Socialist Man come to mind - but socialists do need to think very carefully about this question of what it means to have achieved the necessary consciousness for social liberation. Two points can be made here about the SPGB and the recruitment of members - a subject about which there are more than a few myths. First, while it is true that the SPGB will not allow a person to join it until the applicant has convinced the branch applied to that she or he is a conscious socialist, this does not mean that the SPGB has set itself up as an intellectual elite into which only those well versed in Marxist scholarship may enter. The SPGB has good reason to ensure that only conscious socialists enter its ranks, for, once admitted, all members are equal and it would clearly not be in the interest of the Party to offer equality of power to those who are not able to demonstrate equality of basic socialist understanding. Second, the SPGB does not claim that socialist consciousness will come to dominate the working-class outlook simply, or even largely, as a result of the activity of socialists. As the Socialist Party of Australia puts it:

if we hoped to achive Socialism ONLY by our propaganda, the outlook would indeed be bad. But it is capitalism itself, unable to solve crises, unemployment and poverty, engaging in horrifying wars, which is digging its own grave. Workers are learning by bitter experience and bloody sacrifice for interests not their own. They are learning very slowly. Our job is to shorten the time, to speed up the process. [35]

This contrasts with those who seek to substitute he party for the class or who see the party as a vanguard which must undertake alone the sectarian task of leading the witless masses forward into the next stage of history.

According to the SPGB, the revolution must be a democratic act. Political action must be taken by the conscious majoirty, without depending upon leadership:

it is upon the working class that the working class must rely for their emancipation. Valuable work may be done by individuals, and this work may necessarily raise them to prominence, but it is not to individuals, either of the working class or of the capitalist class, that the toilers 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 revolution there can be no emancipation for them. [36]

This brings us to the controversial question of how the independent, conscious, democratically organised working class will establish socialism. To say - as many superficial critics and vague advocates of the SPGB have - that the SPGB stands for 'socialism through parliament' or 'parliamentary socialism' is misleadingly incomplete. When Alex Anderson, the great orator of the SPGB's first years, was tackled by a syndicalist with the question, 'Does the SPGB really propose to establish socialism through the ballot box?', his reply was 'Yes, but more importantly we must win it through the brain box.' This linking of the conquest of state power with the concept of a consciously and democratically organised working-class majority, even if regarded as strategically incorrect, must be distinguished from the reformist parliamentarianism of those who, in the name of 'socialism', seek to enter parliament for other purposes than to express the majority mandate formally to abolish class rule. Engels rightly points out that the conquest of state power will be the final act of the working class; [37] the significance of such political action may be ignored by those within the 'anarchist tradition', but in the historical future it might be ignored at a tragic cost. Whatever may be thought of the SPGB's case for the working class, in the course of the socialist revolution, sending mandated delegates to parliament as well as organising industrially to keep production going, it is clearly those who insist that ballot boxes and parliaments can play no part in the establishment of socialism and assert that socialism can only be established via industrial organisation alone, who are being dogmatic and historically fetishised in their thinking about revolution.

The non-dogmatic impossibilist position on the relationship between parliament and the socialist revolution was best summed up by William Morris:

I believe that the Socialists will certainly send members to Parliament when they are strong enough to do so; in itself I see no harm in that, so long as it is understood that they go there as rebels and not as members of the governing body prepared by passing palliative measures to keep 'Society' alive. [38]

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

In considering the strengths and weaknesses of the SPGB's impossibilism, one is forced to conclude that these characteristics are not politically separable: that which in one sense manifests itself as a strength appears from another angle as a weakness. Therefore, the temptation to list the 'good' and 'bad' points of impossibilism will be avoided and this chapter will conclude with general observations which are intended to assist the readers in deciding the strengths and weaknesses of impossibilism.

The first feature which distinguishes the SPGB from other non-market socialist traditions considered in other chapters is its endurance over eighty years in a single organisation. In short, we are not just examining an intellectual tradition, but can observe the tradition as being contained within an essentially unchanged political party for a far longer period than any other concept of non-market socialism has survived organisationally. Thousands of workers in Britain have at some time been members of the SPGB and today, with a membership of 600, the Party has quite tangible support from many more workers than that. If one turns to the Socialist Standard of 1904 one can read basically the same analysis of capitalism and statements about socialism as would be found in 1934 or 1984. There are some who would see such consistency as a strength and others who would regard such a record of unaltered social perception as a serious weakness. As an example of the former, the SPGB propagandist of the late 1970s, arguing against the reformism of the 'Right to Work' Campaign and pointing out that full employment cannot be created by governments and even if it could such a condition amounts tto no more than the right to be exploited, is able to argue with even greater credibility when he or she can point to the Socialist Standard editorial of November 1904 in which precisely the same argument is presented. Having existed long enough to have seen the possibilists' 'somethings now' burst to life and vanish into disillusion more times than the reformists care to remember, the SPGB has served as an observation post, charting the failed short-cuts of reformist history and storing them up for reference when the next possibilist rushes into the capitalist slaughter-house loaded with promises for the cattle.

The record of accurate prediction and sound analysis for which the SPGB can claim credit is an impressive one. Before 1906, when the Labour Party was founded, the reformist nature of that political movement was predicted. In 1914, when 'socialists' across the world succumbed to the temptation of national chauvinism and supported the imperialist war, the SPGB stood out in unqualified opposition to the war, producing at the time probably the finest anti-war manifesto ever to be published in English. [39] In 1918, shortly after the Bolsheviks seized state power in Russia, the SPGB presented a Marxist analysis of the 'revolution' which foresaw its state capitalist outcome. [40] In the 1920s, the SPGB was virtually the only British contender for the theory of Marxism against its Leninist distorters within the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). In 1926, the SPGB predicted that syndicalism, or trade-union militancy without conscious political action, was doomed to failure. In 1939, another world capitalist war was exposed as being nothing like a 'war for democracy' and was opposed[41] and, subsequently, the bogus socialism of Labour government nationalisation and welfare reform policies was predicted and charted.[42] It has been, in one sense, an impressive record of predicting historical failures: national liberation, CND, environmentalism, charities - the SPGB warned them all that, even on their own terms, these possibilist movements would end up faced with frustration.

A record of being right about the futility of other people's hopes and energetic actions has led to the conclusion on the part of many reformists that the SPGB is somehow opposed to improvements within capitalism. It would not be unfair to state that this misconception has been accepted by a few SPGBers themselves. A. E. Jacomb, writing in the October 1905 Socialist Standard, explains well the position of the impossibilist worker:

I claim it as a fundamental truth that the object of every Socialist, as a Socialist, is the realisation of Socialism alone. As a husband, as a father, as a human animal, he has many other interests . . . but in his Socialist position none. As a man he may favour palliatives, the feeding and clothing and comforting of the destitute and suffering, but as a Socialist such matters are of interest only so far as they affect the attainment of his objective.

This distinction cannot be more than 'an abstract separation' (as Jacomb goes on to concede), but it is a necessary one for those less interested in short-term concessions than fundamental transformation. The SPGB states that it is opposed to reformism, but not to reforms.

The price of long-term persistence and validity of argument has had to be paid by the SPGB. Although many possibilists have a definite respect for the endurance and soundness of their impossibilists rivals, whom they would regard as being theoretically correct but practically unrealistic (an absurdly illogical conclusion), there are other possibilists who find few labels more contemptible than SPGB. This hostility was not unknown before the 1920s, when parties like the SDF and ILP devoted more words to attacking the SPGB than the Party's small size deserved. But it was in the 1920s, when the CPGB's Leninist mission began, that the organised attacks upon the SPGB commenced. By the 1930s, CPGB policy was to break up SPGB public meetings and CPGB members were actually instructed by their leaders not to speak to SPGBers lest they be tempted to believe the SPGB's 'propaganda' about the state capitalist tyranny of the Stalinist regime. When, in the 1940s, the West Ham branch of the SPGB invited the local CPGB to engage in a debate, they were told that 'The Communist Party has NO dealings with murderers, liars, renegades or assassins' who must be treated as 'vipers, to be destroyed'. [43] After the Second World War. CPGB union bureaucrats conducted a vicious campaign to oust from trade union positions SPGBers who had refused to do their 'patriotic duty' in the war. The legacy of anti-SPGB slander has been slow to die, and it is common to meet Leninists even today who will repeat their intellectual predecessors' resentful attacks upon the party that would not fall in line with Stalinism; such prejudice is all the more tragic/comic when it is considered that many of the anti-impossibilist young Leninists of today are Trotskyists who are repeating - now that it is fashionable to do so - many of the arguments against Stalinism which were put by the SPGB half a century ago.

One does not want to paint a picture of the SPGB as the offended innocent, treated with hostility without cause. It must be remembered that the SPGB's Principles commit it 'to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist'. [44] This it has done without compromise and, at times, without making the necessary distinction between hostility of principle and of style. The SPGB has made clear that it is opposed to those so-called socialists, communist, Marxists and radicals who would appear to be its allies, and in so doing it has gained a reputation - largely, but not wholly undeserved - for a certain sectarianism. This latter characteristic has been stronger at different times in the Party's history, depending largely upon the outlooks of the most active organisers and propagandists in a particular period.

Another problem arising from the SPGB's longevity is that of credibility. After more than three-quarters of a century, a party calling upon the working class 'to muster under its banner to the ned that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system' [45] is open to the accusation that, as the workers have not yet mustered and the termination has thus far been less than speedy, there must be something wrong with its policy. Of course, the reasonable historical answer to this is that lack of numerical support does not disprove the validity of a proposition. But, as the years have passed, cynics and empiricists have been able to contemplate with complacency the negative historical confirmation of their lack of hope for the SPGB's success.

The second concluding observation to be made about impossibilism, which can be seen either as a strength or a weakness, depending upon one's perspective, is that it has held tight to the basic tenets of Marxist theory. Indeed, two comments are made frequently about the SPGB: first, that if nothing else it possesses a fine knowledge of Marxism and plays a major role in spreading such knowledge; second, that the SPGB represents an orthodox, purist version of Marxism which has remained remarkably close to that which was revolutionary in the thinking of the theory's founders. The study of Marx's writings was frowned upon in Hyndman's SDF - the ex-Etonian demagogue thought that SDF members would do better to study his books - and it was partly as a result of organising unauthorised Marxist economics classes that the young Jack Fitzgerald was hounded out of the SDF. From its inception the SPGB placed great emphasis upon the study and propagation of political economy. Indeed, it is the political link between the Marxist theory of value and profit and the revolutionary implication that class exploitation can only be ended by the abolition of wage labour which provided the most forceful theoretical justification of the SPGB's aim. SPGB propagandists, especially in the early years , placed great emphasis upon the concept of legalised robbery: the robber class and the robbed. Possibilists were forced to defend their palliative policies in terms of adjusting the operation of class robbers. In recent years, since many 'Marxists' have rejected economic determinism ( a dogma which Marx and Engels were at pains to dismiss), it has become fashionable for 'Marxist humanists' to understate the significance of Marxist political economy. The SPGB has not followed this trend; it is still expected that official SPGB speakers should have a comprehensive knowledge of Marxist economic theory before they take the platform on behalf of the Party.

Whilst the SPGB has not failed to make clear those matters upon which it disagrees with Marx, some of which are far from peripheral, [46] its presentation of its ideas as Marxist has led to many difficulties. These are mainly difficulties faced by any Marxist in the twentieth century who does not want to be associated with the opportunists and tyrants who claim to be following in the Marxist tradition. The extent to which modern Marxists can rescue themselves from such awkward intellectual associations depends to a great extent upon whether Leninism can be regarded as part of, or in opposition to, the essential principles of Marxism. The impossibilists have devoted much energy to demonstrating the extent to which Marxism and Leninism are opposed to each other. [47] If such an interpretation is accepted, then the state ideologies of the modern 'communist' police states can be seen as Leninist, but not Marxist.

Like any theory, Marxism is open to dogmatic abuse, and, although impossibilist writers and speakers have tended generally to treat Marxist theory with a proper degree of critical reasoning, examples of Marxist dogmatism are certainly to be found sprinkled throughout the recorded history of impossibilist propaganda. But, despite the very real dangers of theoretical dogmatism, a distinction must be observed between the intellectual conviction which is a product of a theoretically defensible Marxist positivism, and the religious adjustment of social perception to fit in which dogma which is the product of a mind which has descended from reason to belief.

The third noteworthy point about the impossibilists - which is not unrelated to the origin of the SPGB within the English autodidactic tradition - is their tendency to argue in accordance with the strict standards of formal logic and empirical proof. Although such an admission would be regarded by certain European 'Marxists' as a confession of philosophical deficiency, impossibilists have always been suspicious of philosophical formulae and have never been impressed by the dialectical gymnastics of the fluid logicians, whose sophistication of thought is usually regarded as a refined front for evasion and confusion. [48] The impossibilists have always preferred clear-cut definitions, quotations, statistics, and logically comprehensible deductions to the methodological abstractions against which E.P. Thompson has written persuasively. [49]

Of course, it may be commented by critics that the price of impossibilist simplicity has been over-simplification. Faced with the choice between abstruse detail and simplification which may lack theoretical refinement, the impossibilists have erred in the right direction by opting in general for comprehensibility, even if it is occasionally at the expense of sophistication.

This concern for comprehensible propagandism is at the very root of the impossibilists' conception of their revolutionary mission. Always identifying their role within an activist, rather than contemplative, context, the impossibilists have seen their purpose, in the words of William Morris, as being 'to make socialists'. And when all the grandness of revolutionary rhetoric is brushed aside, it is, at the end of the day, the worker putting the case for the abolition of wage labour to her mates during the lunch break, the man on the soapbox who is cultivating new social visions in the imaginations of his listeners, the man who is known in his local pub as the fellow who is always talking about a world without money - it is these who are doing the real work of giving their fellow workers a taste of the impossible. When the taste turns into a hunger it will be time for those who need socialism to show, in ways which will ultimately be determined by them, that they possess the courage and strength to realise the impossible. [50]


Notes


[1] Prolétaire 19 November 1881 (emphasis in the original).

[2] Aaron Noland, The Founding of the French Socialist Party, 1893-1905 (New York: Fertig, 1970) p. 13. I would not regard Guesde, Lafargue and the other French 'impossibilists' as impossibilists in the sense in which the term is used in this chapter.

[3] Rochdale Labour News, October 1896.

[4] Stephen Coleman, 'The Origin and Meaning of the Political Theory of Impossibilism', unpublished Ph.D. thesis (University of London, 1984). See also Chushichi Tsuzuki, 'The Impossibilist Revolt in Britain', International Review of Social History, 1 (1956). Tsuzuki's article, whilst being very acceptable as a work of narrative scholarship, places less emphasis upon the intellectual conflict between possibilism and impossibilism than does my own study.

[5] T.A Jackson, Solo Trumpet (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1953) p.66.

[6] Circular statement issued by impossibilists within the SDF in May 1904. I possess a copy of this document.

[7] Socialist Standard, September 1907.

[8] See 'Who Are the Impossibilists?', Socialist Standard, November 1912.

[9] Coleman, 1984, ch. 6. See also Stephen Coleman, 'What Can We Learn From William Morris?', Journal of the William Morris Society, VI (summer 1985) pp. 12-15.

[10] H. M. Hyndman, Further Reminiscences (London: Macmillan, 1912) p. 2.

[11] 'Art and Socialism', in Collected Works of William Morris, vol. XXIII (London: Longman, 1910-15) p. 208.

[12] Manifesto of the Socialist League, reproduced in E. P. Thompson, William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary (London: Merlin, 1977) appendix 1. Also reproduced in Socialist Standard, July 1985.

[13] True and False Society (Socialist League, 1888) pp. 16-17.

[14] 'The Society of the Future', in A. L. Morton, Political Writings of William Morris (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1973) p. 201.

[15] William Morris, News From Nowhere (London: Routledge, 1970) p. 31.

[16] Ibid, p. 78 (emphasis in the original).

[17] Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia (London: Routledge, 1936) pp. 176-7 (emphasis in the original).

[18] See Morris's and E. Belfort Bax's Notes on the Manifesto of the Socialist League, in Thompson, 1977, p. 738.

[19] See Adam Buick, 'William Morris and Incomplete Communism: a Critique of Paul Meier's Thesis', Journal of the William Morris Society III (summer 1976) pp. 16-32.

[20] See his Critique of the Gotha Programme, in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, vol. III (Moscow: Progress, 1970) pp. 9-30; and proposed policies listed at the end of the second section of The Communist Manifesto, in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works, vol. VI (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1976) p. 505.

[21] Socialism: Questions Most Frequently Asked and Their Answers (New York: Socialist Labor Party, 1975) p. 20.

[22] Marx and Engels, Selected Works, vol. III, p. 19.

[23] See the articles by A. Buick and P. Lawrence in The World Socialist, 2 (autumn 1984).

[24] V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. XXXI (Moscow: Progress, 1966) pp. 77ff.

[25] M. J. Panicker, 20th Century World Socialist or Communist Manifesto (London: Panicker, 1951) p. 66.

[26] Socialism or Chaos (Melbourne/Sydney: Socialist Party of Australia, no date) p. 19

[27] Philoren, Money Must Go (London: J. Phillips, 1943) p. 16.

[28] Socialist Standard, April 1930. See also Nationalisation or Socialism? (London: Socialist Party of Great Britain, 1945).

[29] Questions of the Day (London: Socialist Party of Great Britain, 1978) pp. 97-98.

[30] Socialist Principles Explained (London: Socialist Party of Great Britain, 1975) p. 15.

[31] Socialist Standard, February 1939.

[32] Frederick Engels, Anti-Dühring (Peking: Foreign Language press, 1976) p. 366.

[33] The Case For Socialism (London: Socialist Party of Great Britain, 1962) p. 42.

[34] Socialist Standard, September 1980.

[35] Socialism or Chaos, p. 35.

[36] The Socialist Party - Its Principles and Policy (London: Socialist Party of Great Britain, 1934) pp. 22-3.

[37] Engles, Anti-Dühring p. 362

[38] Letter to Dr J. Glasse, 23 May 1887, in R. Page Arnot, William Morris: the Man and the Myth (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1964) p. 82.

[39] Reprinted in The Socialist Party and War (London: Socialist Party of Great Britain, 1970) pp. 60-2.

[40] See Socialist Standard, August 1918. For detailed analysis of the SPGB's response to the Bolshevik coup, see Coleman, 1984, ch. 5.

[41] The SPGB's statement on the Second World War is reprinted in The Socialist Party and War, pp. 62-4.

[42] See Beveridge Re-Organises Poverty (London: Socialist Party of Great Britain, 1943), and Family Allowances: a Socialist Analysis (London: Socialist Party of Great Britain, 1943).

[43] Socialist Standard, May 1943.

[44] Declaration of Principles, clause 8.

[45] Ibid, clause 8.

[46] For example, the SPGB does not endorse Marx's ideas regarding struggles for national liberation, minimum reform programmes, labour vouchers, the lower stage of communism. On some of these points, the SPGB does not reject what Marx advocated in his own time, but rejects their applicability to revolutionaries now; on the other points, the SPGB approaches social problems from a different angle from adopted by Marx. There are, of course, other issues (not listed above) upon which the SPGB might appear to be at variance with Marx, but is in fact only disputing distortions of Marx's thinking.

[47] See Lenin Distorts Marx (Victoria: Socialist Party of Canada, 1979).

[48] See The Socialist Party of Great Britain and Historical Materialism {London: Socialist Party of Great Britain, 1975) ch. 7 on 'Dialectical Materialism', pp. 39-48.

[49] E. P. Thompson, The Poverty of Theory London: Merlin, 1978). See title essay.

[50] A quotation from the anabaptist Thomas Müntzer in Mannheim, 1936, p. 192.


POSTSCRIPT

Many of the Socialist Party of the Great Britain pamphlets and Socialist Standard articles that are cited in the article can be found at the following link.

The following chapters from Rubel and Crump's book can be found on the internet:

Anarcho-Communism by Alain Pengam (this version of the article does not include the end notes that appeared in Rubel and Crump's book).
Council Communism by Mark Shipway
Bordigism by Adam Buick