Throughout human history there have been atrocities of one kind or other visited upon its fellow man -inclusive term including women and children.

Atrocities continue to take place today.

It is eighty years since between 13 and 15 February 1945 members of the British and American working class, at the behest of their capitalist overlords, devastated fellow German workers at Dresden.

American novelist, Kurt Vonnegut was in Dresden as a prisoner of war at the time of the raid. He wrote Slaughter House Five based on his experience there.

“ Germans did not expect Dresden to be bombed, Vonnegut said. “There were very few air-raid shelters in town and no war industries, just cigarette factories, hospitals, clarinet factories.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut

Below is reposted from SOYMB 15 February 2013.

‘While Britain and America claim to be an advocates of human rights in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and many other countries around the world, history itself is corroborating evidence that they, the greatest human rights preachers, has also been the most flagrant human rights breachers.



With the Russians advancing rapidly towards Berlin, tens of thousands of German civilians fled into Dresden, once known as “Florence on the Elbe”, believing it to be safe from attack. As a result, the city’s population swelled from its usual 600,000 to at least one million. Dresden was known for its china and its Baroque and Rococo architecture and its galleries which housed works by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Botticelli.It had not been attacked during the war and was virtually undefended by anti-aircraft guns.



On the night of Feb. 13-14 1945, Allied bombers using the Dresden football stadium as a reference point, over 2000 British Lancasters and American Flying Fortresses dropped loads of gasoline bombs and phosphorus bombs every 50 square yards out from this marker. The enormous flame that resulted was eight square miles wide, shooting smoke three miles high. For the next 18 hours, regular bombs were dropped.



Twenty-five minutes after the bombing, winds reaching 150 MPH sucked everything into the heart of the storm. Because the air became superheated and rushed upward, the fire lost most of its oxygen, creating tornadoes of flame that can suck the air right out of human lungs. 70% of the Dresden dead either suffocated or died from poison gases that turned their bodies green and red. The intense heat melted some bodies into the pavement like bubblegum, or shrunk them into three-foot-long charred carcasses. Clean-up crews wore rubber boots to wade through the “human soup” found in nearby caves. In other cases, the superheated air propelled victims skyward only to come down in tiny pieces as far as 15 miles outside Dresden. People died by the thousands, cooked, incinerated, or suffocated. More than 100,000 people died, mostly civilians but the exact number may never be known due to the high number of refugees in the area.



According to the historian author Max Hastings, by February 1945, attacks upon German cities had become largely irrelevant to the outcome of the war. Austrian historian Jörg Friedrich agrees the RAF’s relentless bombing campaign against German cities in the last months of the war served no military purpose. This war was a “good” war. State-approved violence has been responsible for tens of millions of deaths. Robert Saunby, Deputy Air Marshal at Bomber Command commented after the war “That the bombing of Dresden was a great tragedy none can deny. It is not so much this or the other means of making war that is immoral or inhumane. What is immoral is war itself. Once full-scale war has broken out it can never be humanized or civilized, and if one side attempted to do so it would be most likely to be defeated. That to me is the lesson of Dresden.” Apologists for the bombing point to Nazi Germany’s own crimes. Following the war’s end, however, the U.S. and Britain occupiers were quick to allow all but the top Nazi leaders to play a role in western Germany.’

https://soymb.com/2013/02/mass-murder.html

HAVE YOU HEARD THE NEWS? (ZOOM)

Commercial Property

Commercial bids, sealed of course, are invited

For this intractable tract of land, freed

By eviction, coming with guaranteed

Vacant possession. We are delighted,

As appointed agents of the present

Administrators, this prime real estate

Is offered to those who negotiate,

On their own behalf, with the sole intent

Of maximising profit potential.

Partial demolition, but site clearance

Requires completion. Such a golden chance

Rarely comes to market. Need for quick sale!

While there’s unquestioned viability,

Vendors can’t accept liability.

D. A.

Below is the text from leaflets that The Socialist Party will be distributing in three London local by-elections.

On this occasion The Socialist Party will not be putting up candidates but is encouraging voters to cast a ‘write in’ vote.

What matters – profits or people?

All the parties standing in this by-election support capitalism (the profit system) and are squabbling over which of them should run the administrative side of it here at local level. So, there’s no real choice.

They think the profit system can be made to work in the interests of the majority. But it can’t, and they end up having to do the system’s dirty work of saving money on public services so that taxes on profits can be kept down.

Profits first, people second, that’s the way the profit system works. It’s the only way it can work. Which is why Socialists say it must go. Support for any of the parties that want to run the profit system is a vote for more of the same: more insecurity, hardship and cuts, while the rich can afford the best of everything.

What’s the alternative?

If we are going to put an end to this we must act for ourselves, without professional politicians or leaders. We’re going to have to organise ourselves to bring about a society geared to meeting people’s needs – without a price tag – not profits.

But the only basis on which this can be done is common ownership and democratic co-operation. In a word, socialism.

The Socialist Party is not contesting this by-election but you can still say NO to a system based on profit, privilege and competition and YES to one based on equality, co-operation and meeting needs by writing “I vote for socialism” on your ballot paper.

Churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others. In socialism there will be true democracy but no ‘governments’

For The Socialist Party’s view on achieving socialism through using the democratic system even with its imperfections see the SPGB pamphlet, What’s Wrong With Using Parliament? Available to read online.

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/product/whats-wrong-with-using-parliament/

The chutzpah of the Ukrainian ‘leader’, see below, in providing reasons why elections are cancelled there ‘During this war, our population are against elections and, having an election would require martial law to be lifted. if we suspend martial law we will lose our army, he said, explaining that Kiev would not be able to keep the troops on the front lines otherwise.’

In the UK nine Council elections have been cancelled leaving more than five million people unable to vote in them this year.

The excuse given by Angela Rayner, The Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary, is a reorganisation to unitary authorites.

Social media is seeing an increase in people who, as a protest, say they will stop paying their council tax. Whether this ‘protest’ will be as large, or as effective, as the one against the ex Conservative Prime Minister and her attempts to introduce a poll tax, remain to be seen.

As has been said, if voting changed anything they would abolish it.

The only solution for the many ills within a capitalist system, whether it be assault on democratic rights, exploitation or involving innocents in devastating wars is the replacement of the minority benefiting system by socialism.

To quote William Morris;

‘One man with an idea in his head is in danger of being considered a madman: two men with the same idea in common may be foolish, but can hardly be mad; ten men sharing an idea begin to act, a hundred draw attention as fanatics, a thousand and society begins to tremble, a hundred thousand and there is war abroad, and the cause has victories tangible and real; and why only a hundred thousand? Why not a hundred million and peace upon the earth? You and I who agree together, it is we who have to answer that question.’

‘Holding an election during the conflict between Russia and Ukraine would be a disaster for Kiev for a number of reasons, ranging from popular disapproval to running the risk of losing its army, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky claimed.

Earlier, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy for the Ukraine conflict, Keith Kellogg, said Washington would like to see Kiev hold presidential and parliamentary votes before the end of the year. Elections have been suspended indefinitely by Zelensky, due to martial law.

According to Zelensky, having an election would require martial law to be lifted. We suspend martial law we will lose our army, he said, explaining that Kiev would not be able to keep the troops on the front lines otherwise.

People will come back home and will have every right to return home, he said, adding that those who do not would still lose their combat capability and morale.

Elections in Ukraine at this time would only benefit Russia, the Ukrainian leader claimed in an interview with ITV News. The topic of elections has been brought up by Russians, he said.

In his interview, Zelensky maintained that Russia only wants to see elections in Ukraine to bring about destabilization. He also claimed that the people do not want to have an election, and that he is absolutely not afraid of them.

During this war, our population is against elections, all people are against it.

According to Zelensky, having an election would require martial law to be lifted. We suspend martial law we will lose our army, he said, explaining that Kiev would not be able to keep the troops on the front lines otherwise.

People will come back home and will have every right to return home, he said, adding that those who do not would still lose their combat capability and morale. Ukraine launched a massive mobilization campaign after imposing martial law, following the start of Russian military operation in February 2022.

Kiev has faced criticism over its heavy-handed approach toward mobilization. Numerous videos have appeared on social media showing Ukrainian conscription officers chasing potential recruits in the streets and subjecting them to abuse.

The mobilization campaign was also marred by widespread draft dodging, corruption, and desertion. Last year, the elite 155th Mechanized Brigade made headlines after around 1,700 members reportedly fled the unit without firing a single shot.

According to Zelensky, having an election with the troops still in the trenches is not fair. He also described it as nearly impossible logistically, with around 8 million Ukrainians now living abroad. Earlier in the interview, he called on Kiev and Western backers to first provide Ukraine with security guarantees and economic aid sufficient to convince people who have fled the country to return.’

Party members and supporters of the SPGB do not wear tinfoil hats. The complete opposite in fact, socialists are very aware of how capitalism operates and the lengths it goes to control the majority who run capitalism on behalf of the minority.

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean to say their not out to get you but the SPGB has never worried about the buff file on a Whitehall desk, or wherever the spooks live. As a political party the SPGB has always been fully clear and open about its purpose and aims ever since 1904.

The naïve, it has to be said, stupid individual who thinks the state is there to benefit them, and who says, if you’ve nothing to hide you’ve nothing to fear, is dangerously wrong in that belief. Read the Martin Niemölle poem, First They Came.

They are too many examples to list of states and governments, historical and contemporary, attempting, or being successful, in coercion and clamping down on free speech.

Below are two penlights shining into the dark pit. News sites are reporting ‘legally, the order notice cannot be made public.’

Did someone in the Labour government discover George Orwell?

From June 2024:

EU Commission is allegedly considering a major expansion of surveillance practices in the bloc that could potentially affect every single EU citizen, German news website t-online reported citing confidential draft recommendations it had seen.

A 28-page document, reportedly drawn up by a group of experts on behalf Brussels, lists a total of 42 suggestions of possible tighter surveillance measures in what the media outlet described as “unprecedented privacy limitation.”

The paper, titled: “Recommendations from the High-Level Group on Access to Data for Effective Law Enforcement” demands app developers create “backdoors” for the law enforcement agencies to get to any content they need.

The investigators should be able to circumvent end-to-end encryption in messenger services like WhatsApp or Telegram using some sort of a “general key” provided by the developers, t-online reported. Companies that would fail to meet such demands should face penalties, the document reportedly states.

The list of suggestions is not limited to messaging apps, though. The proposed changes also target the Internet of Things, calling for “greater standardization” of various home apps and devices, including “all forms of connectivity.” The measure is expected to particularly affect home assistants like Google Home, Alexa or the Apple assistant as well as anything up to smart refrigerators, allowing authorities to obtain data collected by such devices.

The paper also calls for the introduction of data retention, according to t-online. A data-retention regulation requires providers of telecommunications and Internet services to store the traffic data on all its users for a specified period of time and to be able to pass them to law enforcement if needed. Such data could include IP addresses, phone contacts or location data.

Germany’s Federal Administrative Court – the nation’s highest judicial body ruling on administrative law cases – had previously classified groundless and indiscriminate data retention to be a violation of EU law and banned it in Germany. Now, this may change if the EU Commission follows through on these recommendations, t-online warned.

The document reportedly justified the proposed mass surveillance approach with the need to “ensure effective prosecution” of cases related to organized crime and terrorism activities and in particular to identified terrorist-attack plots at an early stage.

A digital expert, Anja Hirschel, who is also a member of the German Pirate Party advocating digital privacy rights, warned that such plans represent “an unprecedented… leap right into a fully monitored society.” “Everything we do, where we go and who we communicate with, will be visible at any moment and without any barriers,” she told t-online.

Brussels has not commented on the report about the draft surveillance recommendations.

Last year, a Dutch MEP Sophie in ‘t Veld already warned that EU governments were using “totalitarian methods” to spy on journalists. She was commenting on allegations that some EU nations were using the Israeli Pegasus malware to surveil an editor of an EU-based Russian news site.’

From February 2025:

‘The UK government has issued a “technical capability notice” to Apple, compelling the tech giant to create a backdoor to its encrypted iCloud service, the Washington Post reported. The move would enable UK law enforcement and security agencies to access encrypted data stored by Apple users worldwide, according to the newspaper.

The UK’s Investigatory Powers Act (IPA), referred to by critics as the “Snoopers’ Charter,” grants authorities the power to mandate that tech companies permit access to users’ data for investigative purposes. It also makes it a criminal offense to reveal that the government has made such a demand. The recent notice requires Apple to provide a means for decrypting user data. It is currently protected by end-to-end encryption, ensuring that only users can access their information.

Creating such backdoors could weaken overall security and set a dangerous precedent, according to Daniel Castro, vice-president of the US-based Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. In a statement he has described the UK’s move as an “unjustified over-reach that threatens the security and privacy of individuals and businesses around the world.”

Last March, in a submissionto the a parliamentary committee, Apple expressed concern that the IPA could be used to force companies to “break encryption by inserting backdoors into their software products.” Apple asserted that it “would never build a backdoor” and would rather withdraw “critical safety features” from the UK market affecting the security of British users’ data.

Ross McKenzie, a data protection partner at law firm Addleshaw Goddard, told The Guardian that the UK order could lead to a clash with the EU, potentially affecting agreements that allow the free flow of personal data between the UK and Europe.

UK security officials argue that encryption can hinder efforts to combat crime and terrorism. “Maintaining proportionate, lawful access to such communications in the face of ever-more prevalent encryption is sometimes our only means of detecting and understanding these threats,” Ken McCallum, head of the UK’s domestic intelligence agency MI5, stated last October. He believes that “privacy and exceptional lawful access can coexist if absolutist positions are avoided.”

The UK Home Office has declined to confirm or deny the existence of the notice, stating, “We do not comment on operational matters,” according to The Guardian.

Apple has long defended the encryption of its operating systems, notably challenging the FBI in court in 2016 over a demand for a “backdoor” to access the iPhone of a suspect in the San Bernardino, California, terrorist attack. In legal filings, Apple argued that the US government was requesting something it did not possess and that creating such a tool would be “too dangerous.”

The FBI eventually unlocked the phone using an Israeli spy tool, though it reportedly found nothing of value. Later revalations showed that other Israeli spyware, called Pegasus, had been used to hack tens of thousands of iPhones worldwide, targeting journalists, dissidents, and even heads of state.’

Further proof that capitalism sees wars and military conflicts as a profit generating bonanza and cares not for the human suffering it engenders.

‘Washington is sending obsolete weapons to Kiev and replacing them with new systems ordered from private contractors, the Ukrainian leader has claimed

The Ukraine conflict has been a bonanza for the US defence-industrial complex, which has benefited from massive contracts for weapons meant to supply Kiev and replenish domestic stockpiles, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has said.

In an interview with British journalist Piers Morgan Zelensky argued that a significant portion of the billions the US has allocated to Ukraine has in fact circulated back to boost US domestic arms production.

“Part of the money that people in the US talk about was actually financing production in the US,” the Ukrainian leader said. “The companies that were producing weapons [for Kiev] received this money… American companies now have contracts for these arms at the highest prices in the last 50 years because there is such huge demand due to the Russian offensive.”

A significant part of the funding went to “specific companies, specific plants, making profits for specific people. It went toward the salaries of US citizens working in those companies,” he added.

According to Zelensky, the campaign to support Ukraine has also helped the US renew its arsenal, as Washington has in many cases supplied Kiev with relatively obsolete weapons produced in the 1970s and 1980s. He added, however, that Ukraine is grateful for the help, despite earlier criticizing the West for delays and the amount of weaponry being sent.

On top of this, Zelensky argued, “the US received from Ukraine the experience of modern, large-scale land warfare. Americans and Europeans – but Americans in the first place – have all the information… on what in American weapons works and what does not.”

As Marx once said, I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would have somebody like me as a member. Not Karl, but Groucho who said that.

In the Marx Brothers 1929 film, The Cocoanuts, Groucho as the proprietor of a failing hotel is challenged by the bellhops, who haven’t been paid for two weeks. They want to be paid. Do you want to be wage slaves, asks Groucho. No, they reply. What makes wage slaves asks Groucho. Wages!

We don’t want to belong to the club that is capitalism. Who, after all, wants to continue to be a wage slave all of their lives? There’s only one answer, socialism. To quote Del Boy, you know it makes sense!

The below is from the Socialist Standard January 1963

‘The value of the commodity human labour power is determined by the cost of reproducing the worker’s expended skill and energy and, also, of reproducing future wage workers. On the average, wages equal this value.

However, in different countries, according to circumstances, the value of labour power varies. In the lesser developed countries we find, as a rule, a lower standard of living and therefore a lower value than in more advanced industrialised areas. Important factors in the more developed areas are a greater consciousness in workers, and organised arrangements for the protection and advancement of their interests.

Wages are not, as some people think, the workers’ share of the wealth they produce. Capitalism is not a national share-holding concern. Let it be clear —Capital is wealth used in the reproduction of wealth in order to realise profit. Variable capital, the wages fund, together with constant capital, are both in existence before the act of production takes place. The workers’ labour power is bought by the capitalists and is used to create wealth. The worker, having worked, has a legal claim to the agreed wage. A sale and purchase have taken place and no question of shares arises. Shares are exclusively for the owners and shareholders, and they come from the surplus value wrung from workers.

Wages must be considered from three aspects. The first, nominal wages, or the actual amount of money paid: second, relative wages, i.e., the proportion of wages paid to the total wealth produced: third is the actual purchasing power of wages—real wages.

The basic conflict between the two classes, capitalists and workers, shows mainly in the first two aspects (wages and profits). Provided that other factors remain constant, an increase in one must cause a decrease in the other. In this, the productive sphere, the social relations are direct between owners and producers (employers and workers) regarding rates of pay and conditions of labour. The amounts of nominal and relative wages are determined here.

We can now consider briefly the conflict between wages and profits. To begin with, let us assume a weekly wage of £10 for a 40 hours week and a rate of exploitation of 100 per cent. An increase of five per cent. in wages would enable the workers, other factors remaining constant, to get 10s. p.w. more for the same quantity of labour. His standard of living is improved and the necessary labour time increased, while surplus labour time is reduced. The rate of exploitation is reduced from 100 to 93 per cent, and the relative wage now represents 55 per cent. of the total product as against the former 50 per cent. A reduction in the working week may also be beneficial for workers; they may obtain the same pay for less work.

The above situation is a most unpleasant one for the capitalist. In the first instance it means an increase of 5 per cent. in his variable capital. It reduces his surplus labour time and his surplus value. The rates of exploitation and profit have also fallen. But although temporarily defeated, the capitalist is undaunted and adamant. He is well aware of his excellent facilities for recovery.

It is quite possible, and it frequently happens, that increased wages or reduced working hours can be offset by a fall in relative wages. This can be brought about, for example, by increased production as a result of better organisation and supervision, etc. The introduction of more efficient machinery and the displacement of labour is another way. An increase in output of 6 per cent. would in some ways offset the five per cent, increase in pay or the reduction of hours. In such conditions, although the nominal wage is higher, the relative wage is lower. More wealth is being produced for slightly less pay.

Other means by which earnings may be increased as distinct from increased rates of pay are, overtime, piece work, or bonus on output systems. These methods entail longer hours of labour, or more intensive labour, or both. Increased earnings in such cases are at the expense of extra sweat and toil and in these conditions workers cannot increase their earnings without increasing the profit of their masters. The working classes’ only gain, if such it can be called, is in having the rates of pay increased or the hours of labour reduced. The struggle between wages and profits is unending and the employers are as a rule better placed.

Social evolution has produced three distinct forms of exploiting societies. In chattel slavery men were owned bodily. In feudalism, the serf, semi-free, was compelled to provide a certain proportion of his labour for the overlord. In both cases the surplus was easy to see. But modern wage labour, unlike the other two, appears to be fully-paid. In all three systems men were, and are, deprived of the fruits of their toil by an owning class. Private ownership of the means of production and control of the ability of men to work has enabled the ruling classes, in all cases, to own the wealth produced.

Slaves, serfs and proletarians all had to obtain food, clothing and shelter. This subsistence differed in amount, quality and kind in the different periods. Today the wage worker is legally “free.” Socially he is compelled to sell his ability to work in order to live. But he may select where and to whom he will sell it—in theory only!

Capitalism is the highest and most efficient form of exploiting society and its wages system conceals to a great extent the legalised robbery of its wealth producers. The separation of labour power from labour is responsible for the appearance that workers’ wages are the full value of their labour. The fact that the value of the embodied labour may be £20 or more, and wages £10 or less, is not so evident.

High wages and low prices, security, and a happy, prosperous and carefree working class, are illusory. A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work is a fallacy. The abolition of capitalism with its wages system is an indispensable task for the workers. Working men and women can only attain their freedom, independence. and control of the wealth they produce. in a Socialist system of society. Production to satisfy human needs as distinct from privileged greed, is the Socialist object.’

John Higgins

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2020/01/what-are-wages-1963.html

Barriers

Close the borders of the land of the free,

Throw up interlocked fences, build a wall

Or, better still, both, thereby keeping all

Clamouring criminal migrants at bay.

Call out the National Guard, a show of strength

By bristling patriotic warriors.

Next, time to erect tariff barriers

And be prepared to go to any length

To make this a country of succeeders.

 Promise the people they’ll be securer,

Even when everyone’s so much poorer,

Everyone, that is, except the leaders.

It seems the question of security

Is finally solved through ethnic purity.

D. A.