Spgb Forum 1956 42 Oct Dec

8/2/2019 Spgb Forum 1956 42 Oct Dec

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Nn. 42 OCT.- DEC. 1956 NINEPENCE

FORUMubscriptions: 12 issues 10/6, 6 issues 5/3. Chequesand F.O's. should be made payable to E. Lake, S.P.G.B.SOCIALIST DISCUSSION JOURNALTOWARDS BETTER UNDERSTANDING

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Stalin~sAecolDplicesIt was possible to foresee in the verymanner in which the Bolshevik party wasborn the process by which the dictatorshipof the proletariat would be transformed intothe dictatorship of the Central Committeeof the Communist Party and its Politburo,then into the dictatorship of the Secretariat,and finally into the tyranny of a single man.Commenting on the Bolshevik-Mensheviksplit at the Social-Democratic Congress of1903, Leon Trotsky pointed out that Lenin'smethods would lead to a state of affairswhere" the Party organization is substitutedfor the Party, the Central Committee issubstituted for the organization, and finally

dictatorship is substituted for the CentralCommittee." I And Georgi Plekhanov, theintellectual mentor of both Lenin andTrotsky, predicted in 1905 that" in theendeverything will revolve around a single man,who, ex providentia, will centralize allpower in himself.">

IN THIS ISSUEEROS AND CIVILIZATION.Book Review.

SCOTT FITZGERALD.No. 4 in "Writers and Society."THE SOUL OF MAN.. UNDER SOCIALISM.Reassessment of Oscar Wilde.

THE SEXES IN A NEW SOCIETY.Notes of a lecture.

BEFORE THE COMMUNISTMANIFESTO.Early work by Engels.

The opinions expressed in FORUM are thoseof the individual contributors, and are not 'CObe taken as the Socialist Party's official views.

After Lenin's death his closest aidesspoke with undisguised passion of the needfor collective leadership. Zinoviev addressedthe Fifth Congress of the Cominternj rcaa):". . . the' international leadership mustbecome more collective. . ." he said,cc Lenin is no more; we must create a collec-tive organ, an organ of iron that will reallyplay ~ guiding role and embody the collectivemind of all the parties." And in I927 at theFifteenth Congress of the Communist Party,Stalin himself praised the leadership in thefollowing terms: " ... our Central Com-mittee and our Control Commission . . .are one of the most democratic and collec-tively functioning centers that our Party hasever had ... "Three years after the death of Stalin,however, Krushchev chose to give the worlda different picture of the Communist Party:for twenty-five years, he told his audience,there did not exist a collective leadership inthe party. Stalin made all the decisionshimself. Stalin committed monstrous,despicable crimes-by himself. Stalin sentthousands of innocent Communists to theirdeath-s-by himself, without the concurrenceof his closest "comrades-in-arms." Stalinfostered a cult of himself-without theapproval of the members of his Politburo.Stalin was a despot, a megalomaniac, aparanoiac-but they, the "Leninist core ofthe Central Committee "----were merely hishapless victims.Is this picture true? Is it true that thisvery man, absolutely devoid of prestige atthe time of Lenin's death, usurped thepower of life and death over a populationof some two hundred million souls throughhis own personal machinations, stealthily,furtively, unbeknownst to others? Theanswer is simple: No. Stalin did not attainhis exalted position all by himself-he hadaccomplices.Of the several men now in the "collectiveleadership," Lazar Kaganovitch, as the chiefartisan of Stalin's extraordinary politicalfortune, deserves special attention. A

cobbler by trade, and himself a Jew,

Kaganovich first attracted attention by hisinflexible hostility toward Jewish labourorganizations, particularly the Bund and theSocialist-Zionists. After the February-March Revolution he was sent by theSaratov Soviet to Petro grad, where he roseto membership on the Executive Com-mittee of the Soviet. In I918 he was sentto Nizhni-Novogrod as chief of the localCommunist and Soviet organs, and here hemet Nikolai Bulganin, then .an obscureofficial in the regional Cheka. In Voronezhin 19I9 Kaganovich came to the attentionof Stalin, who immediately recognized hisreal talents as an organizer. In June, 1922,Kaganovich was chosen chief of the CentralCommittee's Organization and InstructionSection. From that time until Stalin's deathin March, 1953, Kaganovich was thedecisive instrument of Stalin's will to power.At first his usefulness to Stalin was aschief of the Organization and InstructionSection, for this section controlled the voteof all party functionaries. At Kaganovich'swill party personnel were placed, transferredor fired. Working through Kaganovich,Stalin was able by transfers, demotions, andpromotions to remove all human barriers tohis ambitions and to reward those who wereready to follow him blindly. Stalin was ableto form the local and regional directingcommittees to his own liking, and in thismanner he attained control over the partyconferences and congresses. Soon he hadcollected the power to begin the reign ofterror which crushed all inclination to resistthe establishment of totalitarian despotism.Kaganovich rose in rank from year toyear. In 1924 he became a member of theCentral Committee, holding the position ofsecretary (under Stalin) until I92-5. In 1926Kaganovich became an alternate member ofthe Politburo; in 1930 he became a fullmember. Stalin recalled him to the partysecretariat in 1928 and Kaganovich remainedthere till 1939, taking over a number ofother functions, among them, from 1930 to2935, that of first secretary of the MoscowRegional Party Committee. In this latter

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ity he placed Malenkov at the head ofcadre section and had Bulganin electeddent of the Moscow Soviet. At thatKaganovich singled out a lowly militant,. a Khrushchev, to be secretary of the(rayon), and in 1935 Khrushcheveded him in the secretariat of theow Regional Committee. Kaganovichntoneto hold a series of top-level posts:issar of Communications (1935-1944),missar of Heavy Industry (1937), Com-of the Fuel and of the Petroleumstries (1939), as well as many others.ll of these posts Kaganovich distin-ed himself by his ruthless implementa-of Stalin's every order. By the time. died Kaganovich had risen to be aber of the Party Presidium and alsoDeputy Chairman of the Council of

though he collaborated with Stalin for30 years Molotov's biography ismparably duller than Kaganovich's.ther as Secretary of the party, Chair-of the Council of Commissars, or asissar or Minister of Foreign Affairs,articipated in. all the crimes that thelective leadership" is now denouncingt so slavishly as to make his role almostus to detail. Some reproach him'ally for his role in concluding theith Hitler, in the talks with Ribben-in the partition of Poland, for his triperlin during the war, his protestationsendship towards the Nazis and insolenttoward the liberal democracies. Butomplicity with Stalin was total-noterin one case than in any other.roshilov, whom Stalin raised to theof People's Commissar for War andership in the Politburo, might likewiselong and complete complicity withMore than anyone else Voroshilovsponsible for the legend of Stalin'snry genius, especially by his signing ofmmeless apologia entitled "Stalin anded Army" (1929) and by his subse-[mendacious articles, primarily" Stalin,of the Red Army" (1939) and "Aas Leader in the Great Patriotic(1949). Small wonder that VoroshilovStalin so lavishly-for he had a-in all Stalin's crimes, especially in theof more than 30,000 officers. Andthe crowning irony-Khrushcheve s Voroshilov to muster the courage tothe truth about Stalin-that is, tot the "genius as leader"!.tikoan's career, like that of Molotov orshilov, owes nothing directly tonovich, He served under Stalin asof the North Caucasus Regionalittee at a time when Voroshilov wascommander of that military district.sferred to Moscow in 1926, Mikoyanromoted to alternate in the Politburoumed the post of Commissar ofence. A full member of the Politburo3 - he became vice-chairman of theof Commissars in 1937, i.e., at the.- of Stalin's terrorism, and he retained?OS t through all the sinister turns ofreign.

Add to the four oldest accomplices of thedead tyrant the three above-mentioned pro-teges of Kaganovich: Bulganin, Malenkov,and Khrushchev.Bulganin, going from the regional Chekaof Nizhni Novgorod to the central Chekain Moscow, devoted himself especially todiscipline in the army, in which capacityhe came into intimate contact with Voro-shilov. After the Civil War Bulganin heldposts in many high-level economic agencies,and then presided over the Moscow Soviet,working in close collaboration with Kagano-vich and Khrushchev. He was rewarded forhis loyalty during the terrible purges of1936-38 with the position of deputy chair-man of the Council of Commissars, in whichcapacity he held various important jobs.During the war he carried out some ofStalin's most diabolical schemes, amongthem the abominable provocation of theWarsaw uprising, which the Nazis were ableto drown in seas of Polish blood. Stalinrewarded him by appointing him an alter-nate (1946) and then a full member of thePolitburo (1948) and also(in 1947)Ministerof the Armed Forces.Malenkov had also gained the favour ofthe "morbid monster," as George Kennanhas dubbed Stalin. It would be tiresome todetail his career as a Stalinist official andpolice aide from his debut in the cells ofthe institutions of higher learning to thepost of personal secretary to Stalin and theleadership of the Central Committee's cadresection. He was an alternate (1941), then '1member (1946) of the Politburo. He be-came a member of the Central Committeein 1939. Stalin appointed him to a numberof posts-especially during the war-notablyin the Defense Committee, and finally inthe Secretariat of the Party (1946), fromwhich he was dislodged only after the deathof Stalin. For nearly a quarter of a centuryhe shared the collective complicity of Stalin'ssuccessors.Khrushchev is the same type of leaderof which Kaganovich is the prototype. Aworker lightly dusted with pseudo-Marxistinstruction in a School for Workers, theEncyclopcedia edited in Moscow in 1955,says of him that he was "one of Stalin'sclosest companions in arms," a title whichhenceforth no one will envy him. After aperiod at the Industrial Academy he heldvarious positions in the Moscow Party underKaganovich, whom he succeeded in 1935;in 1938 he was sent to the Ukraine toreplace Stanislav Kossior as Secretary of theParty. In the Ukraine he held differenthigh-level party and government posts, andin 1949 Stalin elevated him to the positionof Secretary of the party in Moscow. In1939 he was admitted to the Politburo,having been an alternate member since 1938and having been admitted to the CentralCommittee in 1934, which gives some ideaof the services he rendered Stalin. After thelatter's death he supplanted Malenkov asFirst Secretary of the party and became thespokesman for" collective leadership."As such, at the Twentieth Congress, hepronounced the famous indictment of Stalin.

He denounced Stalin "monstrosities," thecrimes and tortures, saying of Beria, hiserstwhile colleague: "That criminal scaledthe various echelons by stepping on anenormous number of cadavers." But that islikewise true of Khrushchev himself, ofKaganovich, of Molotov,. Voroshilov,Mikoyan, Bulganin, and Malenkov. Whichof their names would be known to-day ifthey had not contributed to the extermina-tion of Lenin's comrades? They are allperched on mountains of corpses, all accom-plices of Beria and his predecessors Yezhovand Yagoda-they are all accomplices ofStalin.Reprinted from" Problems of Communism'

(U.S.A.)BORIS SOUV ARINE.

Book ReviewEROS AND CIVILISATION

A Philosophical Enquiryinto Freud(Routlege & Kegan Paul, 25s.)

HERBERT MARCUSE has written aninteresting and important book, althoughit is rather difficult to follow in places unlessone is accustomed to Freudian phraseology.The work abounds in such terms as Ego,Eros, Oedipus Complex, Sublimation, etc.Marcuse is not a strict Freudian. Thedust jacket tells us that:-"This important and original contri-bution starts from Freud's thesis (particu-larly in Civilization and its Discontents)that civilization requires the permanentsubjugation of men's instinctual drives,the methodical sacrifice and deflection oflibido-in short, the rigid restriction ofthe' pleasure principle.'" Marcuse questions this thesis on theground of Freud's own theory and on theground of the possibilities of maturecivilization. He believes that the veryexistence of civilization depends on thegradual abolition of instinctual constraint,on the strengthening of the life instincts,and on the liberation of the culture-build-ing power of Eros." Marcuse holds that the achievementsof Western civilization have created thepre-conditions for the emergence of anon-repressive civilization, and he attemptsto show sociological and psychologicaltrends which make for such a develop-ment."Marcuse only uses such terms as Socialismor Capitalism once or twice in his book,preferring such terms as "industrial civili-zation" or "a truly free civilization." Forexploitation, he says "domination." Andyet most of the book is a critical analysis ofmodern capitalism, with its antagonisms,repressions, tendencies towards totalitari-anism and basic contradictions. His alter-native: a non-repressive, non-dominatedsociety where all instinctual needs aresatisfied . . . a free civilization!

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lVriters and Society-4

It is a convenient fact that American out-look in recent years, and consequentlyAmerican Literature, can be divided fairlyaccurately into decades-the 'twenties, the'thirties and the 'forties. After the firstworld war, the first period takes us to thefinancial crash and the depression, and thenext lasts until the beginning of the secondworld war.The 'twenties were remarkable years inAmerican history, and the films, plays andbooks of the periol bear convincing testi-mony of the post-war disillusionment, the'denial of former moral values, and thegangsterism and political corruption of thetime. It was an age of bitterness and frus-tration, but a frustration that was expressed,at least among the middle and upper classes,by wildness and irresponsibility. Hip flasks,cocktail parties, speakeasies, petting parties,flappers and jazz-mania were all aspects ofthis breakdown of pre-war values.As far as literature is concerned, the mostsignificant spokesman of the age was F. ScottFitzgerald, who actually gave the period itsname-" the Jazz Age." Fitzgerald himselfwas one of that class fresh from Princetonor Yale, who found themselves pushed intoa war whose causes they were unable toappreciate. The war over, they found lifeunreal and purposeless. The sons of the richfamilies, or poorer boys infected by the easymoney ideology, they had no time for theoutmoded doctrines of Carnegie or Rocke-feller exhorting them to "win wealth byhard work." The pace of life for themquickened until it became a crazy merry-go-round that crashed to the ground withthe stock market in 1929.Fitzgerald's earlier novels, "The Beautifuland Damned" and "The Far Side ofParadise," are skilful and often movingaccounts of the emptiness and pointlessnessinto which these people's lives werechannelled. They do show, on Fitzgerald'spart, a struggle to express himself and alsoto express the frustration of his age.Although not a "social critic" in the directsense, he became a far more important socialcritic in the sense that he accurately pre-sented the lives of people in this situation,of whom he was one, and consequentlymade the greater impression. The first novelis an account of the childhood, schooling,and college days of one of these sons of therich, and the second isalmost a continuation,dealing with the lives ofa young man and '1flapper, and their hardening by the condi-tions of the futile world that they knew.The focal point in Fitzgerald's career was" The Great Gatsby." Although some might

SCOTT FITZGERALD

and having their psychological problemssorted out at the clinics of Zurich. Even ifif does not come up to Fitzgerald's intentionof making it the best American novel of thecentury, it certainly presents a superb andengrossing picture of the lives of thesepeople.Fitzgerald's last and unfiished work,"The Last Tycoon" (published in I94I ina form edited by Edmund Wilson), revertsto the earlier successful method of "Gatsby"and the story is told through the eyes ofCecelia Brady, a daughter of a Hollywoodproducer. Here also, we have a story oftragic failure, this time of a "wonder-boy'producer of the order of Irving Thalberg.Many of the characters are recognisablyreal-life Hollywood titans, and the bookrepresents the most convincing and authenticaccount of Hollywood in literature (with thepossible exception. of Nathanael West'ssatire, "The Day Of The Locust). Inpossessing this authenticity, it becomes adamning indictment of the American filmfactory, and clearly indicates that the horrorsof "The Big Knife" and" The Day Of TheLocust" are no exaggerations.Some of Fitzgerald's short stories, too,well repay attention. Many of them are triteand banal, and were produced not as 3.labour of love, but merely as a means toprovide the wherewithal to pay for anextravagant existence. On the other hand,some of them are brilliantly contrived, andrank with the novels as examples of efficientand persuasive writing. "May Day" or"The Diamond As Big As The Ritz" areare stories which favourably bear comparisonwith any American short story writing of theperiod. The best of the stories are publishedin a collection entitled" Borrowed Time."As with many other novelists, much ofFitzgerald's work it plainly autobiographical.The first two novels are apparently based onhis early life at Princeton and after, andeven in his later works, the echoes of hisown existence are apparent. Dick Diver'sfailure in "Tender Is The Night" is areflection of Fitgzerald's own failure in life,and even the reference to Diver's publicationof a " popular" work on psychology and theperennially unfinished treatise, seems toindicate a conscience troubled by the glibshort stories that Fitzgerald turned out inorder to raise easy money, at the expenseof his serious work."The Last Tycoon" too, reflects Fitz-gerald's own experiences in Hollywood.With regard to this part of his life, "TheDisenchanted" by Budd Schulberg, is basedon Scott Fitzgerald's experiences as a script

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argue that it is not his best novel, it iscertainly the hub of his work. The earlyworks look forward to it, and the latter onesseem to refer back to it. It is the story of anambitious nobody, Jay Gatsby, who achieveshis riches by racketeering, and becomesalmost a legend in the display and extrava-gance of his parties and style of living. Histragedy is basically that of all the peoplearound him-they have not what they want,and do not even know what it is they want.The irony of the novel is that in spite ofGatsby's lavish hospitality and the enormousparties that he gives, he is almost completelyfriendless, and his funeral produces onlytwo mourners-the one friend who tries tohelp Gatsby find his desires, and one out ofthe thousands of people who had takenGatsby's hospitality.The novel is much tighter in constructionthan the earlier works, and has a much morestimulating plot. The narrator is Gatsby'sfriend, and, because it is the view of an outsider looking in, the tragedy is made themore intense.This was a period when current psycho-logical thought had a considerable effect onAmerican, and other literature. Fitzgeraldhimself, although sufficiently interested inFreudian psychology to make extensive useof it in his novel" Tender Is The Night,"never closely examined the background ofthe life of his characters, and never enquiredinto the basic motives and causes that gaverise to them. It could be said that this isthe secret of Fitzgerald's success as a writer.He does no more than honestly and skilfullydepict the lives of people as he knew them,and for this reason his characters and situa-tions have far more conviction and applica-bility to life than the intentional propagandaworks of writers such as Upton Sinclair orJack London."Tender Is The Night," has beenregarded by many literary critics as a failure,although Fitzgerald himself thought highlyof it. In order to overcome what he con-sidered to be the main flaws in construction,he revised the form of the novel in I940,and it was subsequently published in thisform (it is available in Penguins). The latterversion certainly seems to have gained clarityand interest, but the basic faults remain,that is, the veering between an onlooker'sview and the writer's omniscience, and atendency to over-complicate the story byan unnecessary wealth of characters andincident.This novel takes us from the world offlappers and speakeasies to the world of theolder rich expatriates at play on the Riviera,


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r, and is well worth reading as a novel,ddition to the light that it throws ongerald'slife and Hollywood generally.competent biography of Fitzgerald-e Other Side Of Paradise" by Arthurer, also mkes interesting reading, andconsiderably in an appreciation oferald's work, as does a collection ofand observtions entitled "The Crack-which also gives an insight into thedy of Fitzgerald's last days. Fitzgerald's

life, like those of his heroes, was a failure.Like so many of his contemporaries, he sawhis age, tied to a thriving industrial andfinancial giant, come crashing down in 1929,and after this he never again really got togrips with the world. He suffered nervousbreakdowns, mainly caused through heavydrinking, and eventually died in 1940.So much then, for the work of an absorb-ing writer, who in the words of FrederickHoffman in "The Modern Novel in

America,'; "was successful beyond all of hiscontempories in keeping his work free ofthe pretentious intellectual faking that hashandicapped so much of American fictionsince Norris and Dreiser." In spite of allhis flaws, Fitzgerald sums up an age ofcapitalism in an entertaining and stimulat-ing way, which is more than can be said fornine-tenths of the so-called social historians.A.W.I.

The Sexese cannot lay down detailed plans of lifeSocialism, including the relationen the sexes. Each of us can, however,adow in a general way what wee is likely to happen on the basis ofparticular knowledge-an perhaps our

m concerned with the average memberciety: that is, with the bulk of thee generation that steps into Socialismund to carry with it a crop of rubbisheritedfrom the past. The breaking ofg restraints may also lead to exaggera-before the pendulum swings back, ased for instance in the French Revo1u-and the Russian upheaval.e must not judge the future by theof the present. Habits and ways,of pleasure and luxury, views of con-and personal relations, born out of thenping conditions of the present, willar under the free and co-operativetions of the future. In sex relationswill be a freedom and broadness ofce for each that is absent to-day.e dipsomaniac, the drug addict, theand the sex fanatics are products ofs of exploitation and sex segregation.er private ownership systems sex hasomeargely the subject of the grin andeer, although it is just as normal aattribute as eating and drinking.

ople and society have evolved in ideasattitudes. Our feelings and attitudesebecome more refined in a variety ofover the centuries. For example inpainting, workmanship and relationseach other, in spite of the deadeningtof commercialism and the decline indirections of craftsmanship, altruismflourishes-people risk their lives for

10 aNew Societyvarious purposes: scientists, explorers,doctors, nurses and so forth.Sex love has also evolved-from forms ofanimal promiscuity to forms of humanmonogamy. Consideration of the forces thatbrought about this change are outside thepresent subject; we simply note the fact.Evolution will still go on because the presentmonogamous forms are not the end.Social development takes the form of aspiral: it returns, but above the startingpoints. Thus society will return to a formof communism that will be immeasurablyabove the communism of tribal society. Sexlove has undergone centuries of develop-ment; it will not disappear but will flowerin a form impossible to-day with the tiesthat bind it.Mutual respect will be the basis of futuresex union. To be successful, each will haveto inspire a conviction of worthiness andhence will strive to be acceptable in thatsense to the loved one.To-day most women are in a more or lessdependent position and hence put up with a

good deal that they would not accept underfree conditions, Likewise, most men aremore or less dependent on having "someoneto look after the home and the children. 'There is an attitude current to sneer atlove as outmoded. This is mistaken, for loveis real, so real that is sometimes makes assesof us all. Take for example the instance ofNelson, Parnell, Mary Wollstonecraft,Eleanor Marx and Edward VIII. In theseinstances, sacrifices were made on the altarof love. Will the emotion die when thesacrifice is not necessary? Surely it will bestronger under Socialism where it will have

greater scope and where, if incompatibility

does occur, the bonds of union will besevered as a mtter of course and withoutsuffering.Nowadays cynical young people areinclined to gibe at love and extol the meritsof promiscuity, but as an onlooker I havenoticed that they go to heaven or hell muchas we did in our day.The merely animal desire for indis-criminate sexual intercourse is a productof brutish conditions and not a physiologicalnecessity. It will not persist under therefined conditions of Socialism, where there

will be no obstacles to loving and beingloved, and hence no need for an artificialoutlet for natural emotions.Idleness, over-eating, over-drinking andunhealthy conditions are generally the basisof brutish desires. Our sex information ismostly gained in the gutter and is tingedwith the gutter afterwards .Unbalanced eating and drinking arerecognized as such, but lack of balance insex relations is largely unrecognized. Allexcess is harmful, and people bent onmaking the best out of life will avoid it

when conditions allow them to do so.Sexual excess exists among the leisuredclass more than among the poor because theformer live artificial lives without an incen-tive to healthy activity. Socialism offersthem salvation also.The Memoirs of Count Grammont givesa picture of the sexual promiscuity of ournobility during the seventeenth century thatillustrates the effects of idleness and luxury.There is another form of excess thatis cultivated because it is thought to be"advanced," or a sign of cleverness or

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With the coming of Socialism, boys andgirls and men and women will be able towalk into the sunshine of love withoutmercenary or other obstacles to bar theirway. They will love each other with anintensity, a constancy and a mutual respectthat are beyond Our reach to-day.One sole principle will determine theirassociation-mutual wishes. Whether or not

they wil11ive together is problematical.The monogamic family will change, butthis does not mean that relations betweenthe sexes will paralled the promiscuity ofanimals-though even this. is overestimated.When the most intimate relations are freeof the fear of consequences then theserelations will be based on niutual desire andrespect.Mutual desire originates in admiration oresteem in one form or another-beauty,

intellect, harmony of inclinations and soforth. Such passions do not arise and passin a moment but last long or short accordingto the individuals involved. Where everyoneis free to love and change his or her associa-tion at will, the passion is likely to be morelasting than it so often is now.Under the new free social conditions allwill enjoy the bloom, the charm and thesmile of life, and the drab, the toil and thetears will vanish-in sex relations as in allother relations. GIL MAC.These are the notes of a lecture given tomembers at Gloucester Place in 1941. I havelooked at the notes again and still hold theviews set forth!

PUBlIICrryA recent FORUM article com-mented on the extent to which femalelegs are featured in the popular press.A Party wit, noticing a display of ninepairs of legs recently, thought what amarvellous opportunity of publicity it

offered if we could afford a few minuteson commercial T.V. If the letters"S-O-C-I-A-L-I-S- T" were displayedon each left leg of the ballerinas andthe letters "S-T-A-N-D-A-R-D-4d.'on each right leg, the Socialist Standardwould get some notice. Regretfullywe have to report that this form ofpublicity would be too expensive. Wehave to confine ourselves to moremodest methods. We would, however,like to increase our efforts in theadvertising, and other fields. TheParty Treasurer will gladly receive,and acknowledge, all donations.

Study Class Notes

The Refol'mationThe economic and social background (see

also" Merchant Capitalism" syllabus).

The Crusades. Discoveries and Inven-tions. Fall of Constantinople. The Revivalof Learning. The Printed Word. Thegeneral decay of Feudalism. Rise ofCentralised State and Nation. Rise ofCapitalism.The Religious Change. Wealth and Power

of Gt. Med. Church. Its Feudal Character.The spread of heresy. Albigenses, Lollards,Hussites, etc. The Reformation in Germany. Luther'sattack on Church. Its popularity. Thepeasant's war. The princes-the burghers-the emperor. Luther's support of princes.

The Reformation in England. Policy ofHenry VIII. Dissolution of Monasteriesand the game of plunder. The NationalChurch. The spread of Calvinism. Itsbourgeois and republican character.

'.'he Puritan IlevolutiollThe Political and Economic Situation.

Class divisions. The use of State machineryby large landowners and Monarchy. Griev-ances of trading and capital farmer class.need to control State to promote interestsof rising capitalism. Political unity of com-mercial elements. Conflict clothed inreligious guise.The Armed Conflict. The immediate

causes of Civil War. Roundheads andCavaliers. The rich House of Commons.Parliament's control over finance. Themilitary struggle. Cromwell. The newModel Parliament and the Army. Defeat ofthe Royalists.The Commonweal t h. ParliamentaryPolicy. Social policy. Dictatorship of

Cromwell. The Restoration and its signifi-cance.Democratic elements in the struggle.

Lilburne and Levellers. Winstanley andthe Digger Movement.Function of the Puritan Revolution. The

achievement of political supremacy 'by thetrading and producing capitalist classtogether with its ally, the small capitalistlandowners.Books of Reference: Pease-The Leveller

Movement. Trevelyan-England under theStuarts. Berens-The Digger Movement.Bernstein-Cromwell and Communism.Gardiner-The Civil War in England.

The Reformation and counter-Reforma-tion in other lands.Protestantism and economic individualism.

Individual judgment. Revolt against authority"The Calling." Predestination and economics.Thrift and work. Bourgeois property andreligious ideals.The Purpose of Reformation. The adap-

tation of religious ideas and institutions offeudalism to the economic needs and interestsof capitalism.Books of Reference : Smith-The Age

of Reformation. Engels-c-Fuerbach. Flick-Decline of Medieval Church. Robertson-Economic Individualism.

ARErouATTENDING

HEAD OFFICEEDUCATIONAL

CLASSES?

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The Soul of Man under SoeialislDost people think of Oscar Wilde as theof The Picture of Dorian Grey, The'ianceof Being Ernest or that greatThe Ballad of Reading Gaol. Fewof him as a propagandist of socialism,en a revolutionary thinker.' Very fewtaken seriously an essay written in-The Soul of Man Under Socialism,yet this short work has much to com-it.

ilde was not a "professional revolu-y " ; he had little understanding - ofmics, and had probably never read aof Marx. He was a "Utopian." Still,to-day, The Soul of Man is worthg-s-even by scientific socialists.ism and Reformism.ilde was no reformer. Of the "veryced " school of reformers he said:y try to solve the problem of poverty,stance, by keeping the poor alive" ;--or,dded, by amusing the poor. But, heued, this is not the solution to theblemof poverty-it is an aggravation.ordingly, 'with admirable, thoughirected, intentions, they very seriouslyvery sentimentally set themselves theof remedying the evils that they see.their remedies do not cure the disease:merely prolong it. Indeed, theiries are part of the disease."lde also felt that the worst slave-ownersthose who were most kind to theirwho were the most altruistic anditable, as they prevented the horrors ofsystem being realized by those whoed from them. "Charity," he wrote,ates a multitude of sins." The onlyand lasting answer to poverty was tostruct society on such a basis thaterty would be impossible; to establishlism (or Communism) where "eacher of the society will share in thel prosperity and happiness of thety ... "dualism and Authority.converting private property into

on property and substituting co-oper-for competition, society will becomeorganism; it will give life its

proper basis, its proper environment,Socialism, thought Oscar Wilde, will lead toIndividualism, or what we would probablyterm" individuality "-the free expressionand development of each individual in hissociety. Socialism would be,: must be, acompletely free society, a way of life freefrom authority and coercion. He sawauthority and compulsion as the negationof a society of free individuals, as the enemyof" Individualism." He writes:-

" What is needed is Individualism. Ifthe Socialism is Authoritarian; if thereare governments armed with economicpower as they' are now with politicalpower if, in a word, we are to haveIndustrial Tyrannies, then the last stateof man will be worse than the first. Atpresent, in consequence of the existenceof private property, a great many peopleare enabled to develop a certain verylimited amount of Individualism. Theyare either under no necessity to work fora living, or are enabled to choose thesphere of actvity that is really congenialfor them, and gives them pleasure. Theseare the poets, the philosophers, the menof science, the men of culture-in a word,the real men, the men who have realizedthemselves, and in whom all Humanitygains a partial realization."But the great majority, says Oscar Wilde,

have no property; they are compelled to douncongenial work, " and to which they areforced by the peremptory unreasonable,degrading tyranny of want. They are thepoor ... " Later in the essay Wilde returnsto this lack of Individualism in our present-day society and the dangers of authoritari-anism in future society. For, he says:-

"It is clear ... that no AuthoritarianSocialism will do. For while under thepresent system a very large number ofpeople can lead lives of a certain amountof freedom and expression and happiness,under an industrial-barrack system, or asystem of economic tyranny, nobodywould be able to have any freedom at all

... Every man must be left quite free tochoose his own work. No form of com-pulsion must be exercised over him. Ifthere is, his work will not be good forhim, will not be good in itself, and willnot be-good for others."Wilde thought that private property had

crushed " Individualism" and the creativespirit in general. But, with the abolition ofprivate property, there would be a healthyand beautiful Individualism; for no onewould waste his life accumulating thingsand symbols of things. Most people exist,but in a socialist world they would reallyl'nve,Here Wilde runs parallel with Engels

when the latter says that with the seizing ofthe means of production by society, manfor the first time emerges from mere animalconditions into really human ones-fromthe kingdom of necessity to the kingdom offreedom. "Man, at last the master of hisown form of social organization, becomesat the same time lord over Nature and hisown master-free" (Socialism, Utopianand Scientific).Engels and Wilde.Engels was a "scientific socialist." He

was in the main scientific, analytical, in hisapproach to social problems. Wilde wasnot. He saw poverty, degradation, a lack offreedom or " Individualism," and he did notlike it. It revolted him. He looked uponSocialism not only as the solution to theproblems thrown up by private property butas something desirable in itself,as some-thing beautiful, ennobling. Engels saw itas the logical outcome of social processes.But for all that, The Soul of Man Under

Socialism does give us something. It warnsus of the dangers of authority; and it givesus a vision of a future society where all candevelop their individual capacities quitefreely. Wilde was probably the last of the" Utopians "~and the most human. Letus also be - a ' little "utopian" at times." Progress is the realization of Utopias."

PETER E. NEWELL.


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Before theCOIDUlunist ManifestoThe following is from Engel's manuscript for a Pamphlet, "Principles ofCommunism," prepared in 1847. This extract is taken from the editionpublished by Lanka Samasamaja, of Colombo, Ceylon

Question I. What is Communism?Answer. Communism is the doctrine ofthe conditions of the liberation of the pro-letariat.Question 2. What is the proletariat?Answer. The proletariat is that class insociety which lives entirely from the sale ofits labour and does not draw profit from anykind of capital whose weal and woe, whose

life and death, whose whole existencedepends .on the demand for labour, henceon the changing state of business, on thevagaries of unbridled competition. Theproletariat, or the class of proletarians, is, ina word, the working class of the nineteenthcentury,Question 3 . Proletarians, then, have notalways existed?Answer. No. There have always beenpoor and working classes, and the workingclasses have mostly been poor. But therehave not always been workers and poorpeople living under conditions as they arcto-day; in other words, there have notalways been proletarians, any more thanthere has always been free unbridled com-petition.Question 4. How did the proletariatoriginate?Answer. The proletariat originated inthe industrial revolution which took placein England in the last half of the last(eighteenth) century, and which has sincethen been repeated in all the civilisedcountries of the world. This industrialrevolution was precipitated by the discoveryof the steam engine, various spinningmachines, the mechanical loom, and a whole

series of other mechanical devices. Thesemachines, which were very expensive andhence could be bought only by big capitalists,altered the whole mode of production anddisplaced the former workers, because themachines turned out cheaper and bettercommodities than the workers could producewith their inefficient spinning wheels andhandlooms. The machines delivered industrywholly into the hands of the big capitalistsand rendered entirely worthless the meagreproperty of the workers (tools, looms, etc.).The result was that the capitalists soon hadeverything in their hands and nothingremained to the workers. This marked theintroduction of the factory system into thetextile industry.

Once the impulse to the introduction ofmachinery and the factory system had beengiven, this system spread quickly to allother branches of industry, especially clothand book-printing, pottery and the metalindustries. Labour was more and moredivided among individual workers so thatthe worker who previously had done acomplete piece of work now did only a partof that piece. This division of labour madeit possible to produce things faster andcheaper. It reduced the activity of theindividual . worker to simple, endlesslyrepeated mechanical motions which couldbe performed not only as well but muchbetter by a machine. In this way, all theseindustries fell, one after another, under thedOmlnince of steam, machinery, and thefactory system, just as spinning and weavinghad already done. But at the same time theyalso fell into the hands of big capitalists,and their workers were deprived of what-ever independence remained to them.Gradually, not only genuine manufacturebut also handicrafts came within the pro-vince of the factory system as big capitalistsincreasingly displaced the small mastercraftsman by setting up huge workshopswhich saved many expenses and permittedan elaborate division of labour.This is how it has come about that incivilised countries at the present time nearlyall kinds of labour are performed in factories,and in nearly all branches of work handi-crafts and manufacture have been super-seded. This process has to an even greaterdegree ruined the old middle class, especiallythe small handicraftsman; it has entirelytransformed the condition of the workers.and two new classes have been createdwhich are gradually swallowing up all otherclasses. These are:-(I) The class of big capitalists, who in allcivilised countries are already in almostexclusive possession of all the means of sub-sistence and of the instruments (machines,factories) and materials necessary for theproduction of the means of subsistence.Thi.s is the bourgeois class, or the bour-geoise.(2) The class of the wholly propertyless,who are obliged to sell their labour to thebourgeoisie in order to get in exchange themeans of subsistence necessary for theirsupport. This is called the class of prole-tarians or the proletariat.

Question 5. Under what conditions doesthis sale of the labour of the proletarians tothe bourgeoise take place?Answer. Labour is a commodity like anyother and its price is therefore determinedby exactly the same laws that apply to othercommodities. In a regime of big industryor of free competition-as we shall see, thetwo come to the same thing-the price of acommodity is on the average always equalto its costs of production. Hence the priceof labour is also equal to the costs "fproduction of labour. But the costs ofproduction of labour consist of precisel ythe quantity of means of subsistencenecessary to enable the worker to continueworking and to prevent the working classfrom dying out. The worker will thereforeget no more for the labour than is necessaryfor this purpose; the price of labour or thewage will, in other words, be the lowest,the minimum, required for the maintenanceof life. However, since business is some-times better and sometimes worse, it followsthat the worker sometimes gets more andsometimes less, just as the industrialistsometimes gets more and sometimes getsless for his commodities. But again, just asthe industrialist, on the average. of goodtimes and bad, get no more and no lessfor his commodities than what they cost,similarly on the average the worker gets nomore and no less than his minimum. Thiseconomic law of wages operates the morestrictly the greater the degree to which bigindustry has taken possession of all branchesof production.Question 6. What working classes werethere before the industrial revolution?AnswJr. The working classes have always,

according to the different stages of develop-ment of society, lived in different circum-stances and had different relations to theowning and ruling classes. In antiquity, theworkers were the slaves of the owners, justas they still are in many backward countriesand even in the southern part of the UnitedStates .. In the Middle Ages they were theSerfs of the landowning nobility, as theystill are in Hungary, Poland and Russia. Inthe Middle Ages, and indeed right up tothe industrial revolution, there were alsojourneymen in the cities who worked in theservice of petty bourgeois masters. Gradually,as manufacture developed, these journey-men became manufacturing workers whowere even then employed by largercapitalists.215


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7. In what way do proletariansjer from slaves?The slave is sold once and forthe proletarian must sell himself dailyhourly. The individual slave, propertyne master, is assured an existence, how-miserable it may be, because of theer's interest. The individual proletarian,erty as it were of the entire bourgeoiswhich buys his labour only wheneone has need of it, has no securetence. This existence is assured only toclass as a whole. The slave is outsidepetition; the proletarian is in it anderiences all its vagaries. The slave countsthing, not as a member of civil society;proletarian is recognised as a person, asember of civil society. Thus the slavehave a better existence than the prole-while the proletarian belongs to aber stage of social development andtands on a higher social level thanslave. The slave frees himself when, ofthe relations of private property, he

ishes only the relation of slavery ande:eby becomes a proletarian; the prole-can free himself only by abolishingate property in general.8. In what way do proletariansr from serfs?The serf possesses .and uses anument of production, a piece of land,xchange for which he gives up a part ofproduct or part of the services of hisur. The proletarian works with theruments of production of another, foraccount of this other, in exchange for aof the product. The serf gives upjtheetarian receives. The serf has an assured

nce, the proletarian has not. The serfutside competition, the proletarian is inThe serf liberates himself in one of threeeither he runs away to the city andbecomes a handicraftsman, or, insteadroducts and services, he gives money.his lord and thereby becomes a freet, or he overthrows his feudal lord andf becomes a property owner. In short,one route or another he gets into theing class and enters into competition.proletarian liberates himself by abolish-competition, private property, and alls differences, .9. In what way do proletarians

r from handicraftsmen?10. In what way do proletariansJerfrom manufacturing workers?The manufacturing worker ofsixteenth to the eighteenth centuries stillwith but few exceptions, an instrumentproduction in his own possession-his, the family spinning wheel, a little plotland which he cultivated. in his spare. The proletarian has not of thesegs. The manufacturing worker almostays lives in the countryside and in a.oreor less patriarchal relation to his

landlord or employer; the proletarian livesfor the most part in the city and his relationto his employer is purely a cash relation.The manufacturing worker is torn out of hispatriarchal relation by big industry, loseswhatever property he still has, and in thisway becomes a proletarian.Question 11. What were the immediateconsequences of the industrial revolutionand of the division of society into bourgeoisieand proletariat?Answer. First, the lower and lower pricesof industrial products brought about bymachine labour totally destroyed in allcountries of the world the old system ofmanufacture or industry based upon handlabour. In this way, all semi-barbariancountries, which had hitherto been moreor less strangers to historical developmentand whose industry had been based onmanufacture, were violently forced out oftheir isolation. They bought the cheapercommodities of the English and allowedtheir own manufacturing workers to beruined. Countries which had known noprogress for thousands of years, for exampleInaia, were thoroughly revolutionised, andeven China is now on the way to a revolu-tion. We have come to the point where anew machine invented in England deprivesmillions of Chinese workers of their liveli-hood within a year's time. In this way bigindustry has brought all the people of theearth into contact with each other, hasmerged all local markets into one worldmarket, has spread civilization and progresseverywhere and has thus ensured that what-ever happens in civilised countries will haverepercussions in all other countries. Itfollows that if the workers in England orFrance now liberate themselves, this mustset off revolutions in all other countries--revolutions which sooner or later mustaccomplish the liberation of their respectiveworking classes.Second, wherever big industries displacedmanufacture, the bourgeoise developed inwealth and power to the utmost and madeitself the first class of the country. Theremit was that wherever this happened thebourgeoisie took political power into its ownhands arid displaced the hitherto rulingclasses, the aristocracy, the nobility, byabolishing the entailment of estates, in otherwords by making landed property subjectto purchase and sale, and by doing awaywith the special privileges of the nobility. itdestroyed the power of the guild masters byabolishing guilds and handicraft privileges.In their place it put competition, that is, astate of society in which everyone has theright to enter into any branch of industry"the only obstacle, being a lack of the necessarycapital. The introduction of free competitionis thus public declaration that from now. onthe members of society are unequal only tothe extent that their capitals are unequal,that capital is the decisive power, and that

therefore the capitalists, the bourgeoisie,have become the first class in society. Freecompetition is necessary for the establish-ment of big industry, because it is the onlycondition of society in which big industrycan make its way. Having destroyed thesocial power of the nobility and the guild-masters, the bourgeoisie also destroyed theirpolitical power. Having raised itself to theactual position of first class in society, itproclaims itself to be also the dominantpolitical class, This it does through theintroduction of the representative systemwhich rests on bourgeois equality beforethe law and the recognition of free com-petition, and in European countries takesthe form of constitutional monarchy. Inthese constitutional monarchies, only thosewho possess a certain capital are voters, thatis to say, only members of the bourgeoisie.These bourgeois voters choose the deputies,and these bourgeois deputies, by using theirright to refuse to vote taxes, choose abourgeois government.

Third, everywhere the proletariat developsin step with the bourgeoisie. In proportionas the bourgeoisie grows in wealth the pro-letariat grows in numbers. For, since pro-letarians can be employed only by capital,and rince capital expands only throughemploying labour, it follows that the growthof the proletariat proceeds at precisely thesame pace as the growth of capital. Simul-taneously, this process draws members ofthe bourgeoisie' and proletarians togetherinto the great cities where industry can becarried on most profitably, and by thusthrowing great masses in one spot it givesto the proletarians a consciousness or theirown strength. Moreover, the further thisprocess advances, the more new labour-saving machines are invented, the greateris the pressure exercised by big industry onwages, which, as we have seen, sink to theirminimum and therewith render the condi-tion of the proletariat increasingly unbear-able. The growing dissatisfaction of theproletarian social revolution.Question 12. What were the furtherconsequences of the industrial revolution?Answer. Big industry created in thesteam engine and other machines the meansof endlessly expanding industrial production,speeding it up, and cutting its costs. With

production thus facilitated, the free corn-petition which is necessarily bound up withbig industry assumed the most extremeforms; a multitude of capitalists invadedindustry, and in a short while more wasproduced than was needed. As a conse-quence, finished commodities could not besold, and a so-called commercial crisisbroke out. Factories had to be closed, theirowners went bankrupt, and the workerswere without bread. Deepest misery reignedeverywhere,(To be continued).

Published by the Socialist Party of Great Britain, 52 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 and printed by Gillett Bros Ltd IT (J all depts. i.Jewel Road, Walthamstow, London, E.17.

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Spgb Forum 1956 42 Oct Dec