‘Over three hundred thousand people in England alone are homeless. This is the worst part of the housing crisis, but the problem extends well beyond that.

There was a report recently about a woman who earns £50,000 a year and cannot buy a house; rent and bills take two-thirds of her income. It has been claimed that only one in eight renters can afford to buy where they live. Not even a half of those earning over £70,000 (twice the average wage) could afford to buy in their local area.

The house-building industry under capitalism exists to make a profit, not to meet human need, which would be the aim of housing in a Socialist society.’

The below is from the Socialist Standard May 1953

‘1. The relationship of landlord and tenant

The passage referred to is one in which Engels criticises the statement of a German follower of Proudhon who had written:—

“As the wage worker is in relation to the capitalist, so is the tenant in relation to the house owner.”

Engels points out that the above statement is incorrect. People who rent houses (whether they are workers or capitalists) are buying a commodity (the use of a house) from the house-owner. They are not in the position of worker to capitalist, for in this relationship the worker is the seller of a commodity (labour-power) and the capitalist is buying it

The capitalist exacts surplus value when he buys labour-power. He does not exact surplus value when he sells commodities, though it is in the act of selling commodities that he realises surplus value. If the Proudhonist argument were correct then all sales, not only sales of accommodation, would be an act of exacting surplus value—which would produce the odd result that the capitalists exploit each other, and also that the workers are exploited in production and everybody, capitalists and workers alike, is again exploited in the act of buying commodities.

2. That the landlord is not per se a capitalist

Our correspondent’s conclusion from Engel’s statement is that “ a landlord confronted by a tenant is not, per se, a capitalist.”

This overlooks the fact that the capitalist is still a capitalist after he has exploited the workers in production; he is still a capitalist when, as a seller of commodities, he confronts workers or other capitalists—but in the latter act he is a capitalist who is realising surplus value by turning commodities into money.

3. Landlords and Socialism

Our correspondent’s further conclusion is in the form of asking whether the ownership of houses is compatible with Socialism.

Socialism requires that the means of production and distribution shall cease to be privately owned and become the common property of society. This relates to the means of production and distribution and the consequence of their common ownership will be that the products will be freely accessible to the members of society.

In those circumstances the members of society will take the products in order to consume them. They will consume the accommodation by living in houses and will of course not do so by permission of an individual house owner any more than they will eat bread by permission of a bread owner. There will be no such owners.

Nothing that Engels wrote in “The Housing Question” is in conflict with this. Engels was merely correcting an erroneous statement. He did not draw or imply any conclusion such as these in the question.’

Editorial Committee

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2020/05/engels-on-relationship-of-landlord-and.html

‘Bristol, Brixton, Southall, Toxteth, Moss Side, Wood Green, Woolwich, Brixton again… A wave of civil disturbances has erupted in England. As livelihoods go up in flames and mindless destruction explodes on the streets, there is a stampede on to the political stage from both wings by politicians and assorted spokesmen. They hold forth loudly to the audience—the “general public”—about what must be done. They shake their fists and point angrily at each other. They make ominous warnings and each tries to win the support of the audience with promises to carry out the right policy. Political commentators arise and plaintive vicars descend to offer their planned remedies in the din.

A stern attitude has been struck by the government: “the law must be upheld, people must be protected” said Margaret Thatcher in her recent broadcast. Such a kind concern for people’s welfare doesn’t exactly square with her policy of closing down emergency casualty departments in hospitals and spending millions of pounds on murderous armoury, but then consistency is not one of her strong points. The Home Secretary, William Whitelaw, is planning measures to suppress the street violence. He advocates the use of water cannon, CS gas and increased power for the police to enable them to arrest anyone found in the area of a disturbance. He suggests that parents of those on the rampage should be punished for not controlling their children. There have also been cries from Conservative quarters to bring back the birch and to introduce the Army to “pacify” civil disorders. The idea behind these sorts of proposals seems to be that if some people become so frustrated with the dehumanising lifestyle which capitalism imposes on the majority that they rebel violently, then you have to teach them that violence is wrong and immoral. And the way you must teach them that violence is wrong and immoral is by beating them with truncheons and spraying them with gas.

On the other hand, supporters of the Labour Party argue that the real causes of the disorders are the reactionary economic policies of this Conservative government. Inner city decay, urban deprivation and high unemployment are all identified as precipitating the riots and the Tory administration is held responsible for having bred the causes. It is true that the economic policy of this government has done much to exacerbate living conditions for many in the working class, but this government has not caused the problems of unemployment and inner city decay and its removal and replacement by a Labour administration will not solve the difficulties of life in the profit system. Not so long ago there were less than half a million unemployed in Britain. Now there are almost three million living on the dole. There are approximately 30 million workers registered as unemployed across the continent of Europe, in countries operating a great variety of economic and political administrations of capitalism from totalitarian state control to “liberal democracies” with comparatively low degrees of state intervention in the economy. The evidence is clear enough that the trend of high unemployment, during periods of glutted production for the market, is one which moves on largely unaffected by the different economic schemes used in running production for profit. Similarly, the urban deprivation of places like Brixton, Toxteth and Moss Side was not something which grew out of the paving stones after May 1979 when the Tories won the General Election. Squalid housing and unemployment are problems which have been developing for decades and which successive Labour governments have been unable to alleviate. The recent spate of civil violence is the tip of an iceberg of discontent and frustration and it is a delusion to imagine that the problems which face us—the working class—can be eradicated by Labour plans to provide more employment (more exploitation) and more second-rate housing.

Supporters of left-wing organisations like the Socialist Workers Party have been greatly enthused by brick-throwing at policemen, which is somehow regarded as the kind of anti-establishment action of which revolutions are made, or at least from which they can be begun. The attempts to manipulate this collective aggression and stoke up more disturbance are made by ambitious crusaders who believe that if they could be elevated to positions of power on the shoulders of the angry masses, then they could charitably set to work on implementing revolutionary policies for the good of those who know no better than to oppose capitalism with damage and injury. As people who declare their support for the working class, those left-wingers have an offensively patronising view of the capacity of workers to reach socialist consciousness.

A similar enthusiasm for the rioting has been shown by the various extreme right-wing organisations like the National Front who, like the Left, regard the fury of the riot as fertile ground from which to recruit violent rebels. The nature of the political philosophy of parties like the SWP and the NF, and the degree to which the role of the rank and file membership is simply to put forward the changing slogans of the leaderships, means that enrolment to membership can be based on having your frustrations attributed to simple scapegoats which are easy to recognise like ‘Thatcher’ or ‘The Blacks’.

The first riot in Southall was different from the others. The violence began there when several coach loads of racialists were ferried into the area, ostensibly to attend a pub concert. Shops owned by Asians were damaged and the proprietors assaulted. The violence was committed amid barked racialist slogans and provocative Sieg Heils. Local Asian residents managed to organise themselves against their aggressors while the police had taken almost their entire force away to another district, allegedly on a tip-off. In all of the other riots in London, Liverpool and Manchester, black and white workers were in the broil together. They were not race riots but poverty riots. Poverty, that is, both of wealth and ideas. The riot in Southall did not rage because local black and white residents found it impossible to exist peaceably side by side. It was fomented by violent thugs imported for that purpose. And to those who insist that there will always be an underlying tension when different cultures exist in the same district, let them travel to somewhere like cosmopolitan Kensington in London and witness how privileged “Englishmen” have no resentment living in the same community as wealthy Arabs and Nigerians and Iranians. They have no poverty to blame on anyone, and must feel quite safe so long as we blame ours on each other.

Priests and vicars have not been slow to get off their knees to give vacuums of sympathy to victims of violence and sinister warnings to the sinners. The practicality of their advice in the aftermath of the violence is well summed up in the words of the Archbishop of Liverpool, the Most Reverend Derek Worlock, who after the destruction in Toxteth proclaimed “Out of the ashes of these last days must come new life and new hope.” But then if you believe that the ultimate control of the affairs of mankind lies with a force beyond the skies, what else can you offer those suffering from socially produced hardship, but hope?

In certain degrees of poverty, especially at a time of economic crisis when there is no hope on the horizon, pent up frustration will be likely to burst into violence among those who have not considered the cause of their problems and sought to remove it. The dashed hopes and bitterness of most of those in the recent upsurges were not so much to do with the conditions of employment as the condition of unemployment. Hundreds of thousands of young members of the wealth producing class have left school in recent years to go directly on to the dole queue. The feeling of rejection and uselessness which this creates contributes to their resentment of their environment. In Toxteth, to take one example, with thousands of young people leaving school, significantly just about the time the riots broke out, the local career office was offering only 12 jobs. In the city of Liverpool, according to the latest unemployment figures, 81,000 people were chasing 1,019 job vacancies. Other factors like aggressive policing and routine stop-and-search tactics will have obviously aggravated the tensions.

The fact that the bursting frustration and desperation expresses itself in the ferocity of the riot is understandable. Capitalism is a social system which is shot through with everyday forms of “respectable” and institutionalised violence from the teacher’s cane and the policeman’s truncheon to the government’s tanks and bombs. From the most light-hearted comic book to the late-night documentary on the brutalities of Northern Ireland or Afghanistan we are confronted with images of violence as a method of trying to cause social change. The deeds of those participating in the riots were thoughtlessly destructive. Cars, shops and homes of fellow members of the working class were irrationally ruined. It was a foolish misdirection of anger.

Where do we go from here? It is possible for capitalism to attempt to quell the areas of extreme deprivation by pumping money into housing, industry and welfare for the poverty to become just endurable. The riots which broke in southern America in the late 1960s had their immediate causes treated with giant expenditure on welfare relief payments to the poorest families and training programmes for ghetto youngsters. The profit-system will not be burnt away, neither will it be dislodged or smashed with bricks. A few riots, even large scale rebellions, can easily enough be quashed by the authorities, and usually the rioters will be in a worse condition after the insurgence than before it. But, to borrow from Friedrich Engels, there is no power in Britain which could for a day resist the British working class organised as a body.’

Gary Jay

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1981/1980s/no-924-august-1981/running-riot-britains-urban-violence/

Emphasis by SOYMB

From the Socialist Standard August 1981

The American First Amendment to its constitution says:

‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.’

https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/

The Washington Times, 1 August, carries a piece suggesting that a majority of Americans think that the free expression ‘enshrined’ in the American Constitution’s First Amendment shouldn’t guarantee the ‘rights’ it gives them.

‘A quarterly poll has found that more than half of Americans think constitutional rights to free expression sometimes goes too far.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and Dartmouth College’s Polarization Research Lab reported that 53% of adults surveyed agreed at least slightly that the First Amendment “goes too far in the rights it guarantees.”

“Evidently, one out of every two Americans wishes they had fewer civil liberties,” said Sean Stevens, chief research advisor for FIRE, a Philadelphia-based free-speech group. “Many of them reject the right to assemble, to have a free press, and to petition the government. This is a dictator’s fantasy.”

According to FIRE, 56% of adults surveyed in January and 55% in April at least slightly agreed that the First Amendment goes too far.

ww.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/aug/1/more-than-half-of-adults-say-first-amendment-somet/

The below is from the Socialist Standard October 2023

‘In 1327 a Benedictine monastery in northern Italy suffered a calamitous fire which destroyed a magnificent collection of irreplaceable books and manuscripts. It was determined that the cause was arson. The perpetrator was an aged fanatical monk who sought to keep certain knowledge hidden away. Oh, that was fiction, Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose.

Marx was one of those whose books were destroyed by the Nazis, also keen to keep knowledge hidden. Burnt too were the works of Heinriche Heine. Heine’s 1821 play, Almansor, contains the line: ‘Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too’.

Science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury was also queasy at the repression being practised by the Soviet Union. Russians resorted to manual copying of literature (samizdat) and passing it from hand to hand.

In 1953, Bradbury’s dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451, appeared. Fahrenheit 451 refers to the temperature at which books burn. Set in a future America, it was the job of firemen not to extinguish conflagrations but to initiate them for the purpose of book burning.

‘Sticks and stones might break my bones but words cannot hurt me’ goes the old anti-bullying children’s rhyme, but publishing words can certainly lead to the violence it rails against.

Recent burnings of the Koran in Denmark and Sweden, which have freedom of speech enshrined in their constitutions, have led both countries to contemplate introducing laws to stop such actions. This is not the first time that such events have occurred and the consequences have, in some cases, resulted in extremely violent protests. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson warned that a spate of Koran burnings in the country has triggered ‘the most serious security situation since the Second World War’. One cannot believe he is referencing the Religion of Peace (sic).

Violent protests followed the publication in 1988 of Salman Rushdie’s novel Satanic Verses. Ayatollah Khomeini, then leader of Iran, called for the death of Rushdie. In August 2022 a stabbing attempt was made resulting in Rushdie losing the sight of one eye and the use of a hand.

A Pew Research Center analysis found that 79 countries and territories out of the 198 studied around the world (40 percent) had laws or policies in 2019 banning blasphemy, defined as speech or actions considered to be contemptuous of a god or of people or objects considered sacred. Twenty-two countries (11 percent) had laws against apostasy (abandoning one’s religion).

In March 2023 the Spectator wrote:

‘No religion ought to be given the power to constrain political discourse or behaviour in order to protect its adherents from being scandalised, and no government should help it by silencing its critics. If a Wakefield resident was to burn the Quran publicly in protest at the pretensions of the fundamentalists (something, incidentally, that can now cause you to be arrested on serious public order charges by police increasingly desperate not to appear anti-Islamic, as happened some years ago), we should fight to protect his right to free speech in the same way as we would if he had been a secularist or left-winger who had burnt a Bible or an American flag’ (tinyurl.com/bdebukkd).

Theory at odds with reality?

Earlier in 2023 an American Tennessee pastor live-streamed a book-burning event urging his flock to throw their Harry Potter and Twilight copies into a bonfire. Because why? Because, he said, ‘IT’S WITCHCRAFT 100 PERCENT! All your Twilight books and movies. That mess is full of spells, demonism, shape-shifting and occultism. Stop allowing demonic influences into your home’. Does he know it’s 2023 not 1933? Or perhaps he thinks it’s 1633.

Whatever the literary merits, or otherwise, of J K Rowling’s works –Harry Potter has sold over 500 million copies since 1997– in an example that modern heresy will still get you burned at the stake, metaphorically, Rowling’s defence of biological women has seen her banned from events celebrating her own books and films. The three main actors whose careers were kickstarted in the Potter film series have been vocal in condemning her.

Not much support for Voltaire’s ‘I don’t agree with what you say but I will defend with my life your right to say it’ there. Nothing is free under capitalism but free speech increasingly comes at a price.

‘Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past’. In George Orwell’s 1984 the protagonist Winston Smith is employed in the Ministry of Truth’s Records Department. Here he altered historical newspapers and photographs to concur with whatever the Party line was at the time. The removal of ‘unpersons’ was often carried out in this manner in the Soviet Union.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union statues of Lenin were systematically removed from the state the Soviets had previously controlled. Understandable if you’ve been subject to repression for many years but the removal of literary figures seems churlish.

As part of its de-Russification, Ukraine has been removing monuments to Alexander Pushkin the Russian poet, playwright, and novelist, thought to be the greatest Russian poet and founder of modern Russian literature.

A few years back Iran was, allegedly, (the report comes from the American-supported Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) considering removing Persian astronomer, mathematician and poet Omar Khayyam from its education curriculum. Changes were because ‘Officials believe that in order to attract the younger generation they must increase the intensity of their religious and ideological propaganda in schools. They think that a large proportion of young people are turning away from religion and government ideology because of the weakness of propaganda in the education system and the mass media’. Shades of Goebbels?

When William Caxton introduced the printing press into England in 1476 he would have been unaware of the law of unintended consequences. Pity that so many are now experiencing them.’

DC

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2023/10/mad-monx-2023.html

The below is from the Socialist Standard August 2014

The introduction to our new pamphlet Strange Meeting: Socialism and World War One which brings together articles published in the Socialist Standard at the time.

Although the First World War (28th July 1914-11th November 1918) was not quite the bloodiest in history, it must surely be a leading contender for the most futile, wasteful and calamitous. That is not to say that nobody benefited from it, for wherever and whenever there is human tragedy you may be certain that there will be demand for ever more efficient and lethal weapons and rapid technological advance. It led to the creation of at least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires in the USA alone via the arms industry. As a League of Nations report concluded: ‘Wars are promoted by the competitive zeal of private armaments firms.’ Or, as the deeply disillusioned Major-General Smedley Butler, more succinctly put it: ‘War is a racket.’

With the advent of its hundredth anniversary, establishment apologists will be seizing every opportunity to justify this truly appalling war in the name of remembrance, seeking to glorify this callous implementation of state violence as a laudable defence of freedom and democracy, neither of which most of the combatants would ever have enjoyed in their lifetime. In reality, of course, the recurring purpose of war is the preservation of the particular financial and territorial interests of one set of capitalist powers against the encroachment of their equally ruthless rivals seeking a different outcome. Substituting ‘power and markets’ for ‘freedom and democracy’ in every history book would yield a narrative embracing far greater clarity and veracity.

In pursuit of capitalist self-interest, members of the working class are routinely regarded by their rulers as a disposable commodity, all too easily seduced into compliance with war by appeals to patriotic duty and cynical promises for a brighter future – only to discover that the ‘land fit for heroes’ is a mirage.

Unlike the French and German armies, the UK units of the Territorial and Regular Army consisted entirely of volunteers. So effective was the British recruitment campaign that between July and September 1914, the number of volunteers rose from 100,000 to 400,000 plus. When Lord Kitchener was appointed Minister of War in August, he announced the formation of a new army (Kitchener’s Army). Within 5 months numbers increased by well over a million; nevertheless conscription was introduced in January 1916.

The new army was first deployed at Loos and in 1916 fought at the Battle of the Somme – the initial catastrophic assault on 1st July unfondly remembered as the ’Big Push’. Lasting until the 19th November, the amount of territory gained was a paltry seven miles of muddy terrain. The 4½ months of brutal exchanges resulted in a combined total of almost a million casualties; the British losing nearly 60,000 men on the first day to move forward less than a mile. When Commander-in-Chief Douglas Haig finally called off the attack, the first day objectives of Bapaume and Serre were still three miles distant.

The original 400,000 volunteers formed part of the British Expeditionary Force – the ‘Old Contemptibles’.

The horrendous carnage reaped during the many bloody battles of WW1 serve as a grim reminder that, so far as the ruling élite are concerned, the  ‘Old Contemptibles’ were the ‘Old Expendables’. According to the French Army Commander, General Phillipe Petain ‘…success will come to the side that has the last man standing’. Given the large number of animals also sacrificed, as was the case, he should have added‘… or pigeon, or horse, or dog’. His gloomy prediction was made in 1916, the year that the Battle of Verdun was fought between the French and German armies. In the space of 10 months around a million or so soldiers were killed or wounded and the French forces finished up back where they started.

It has been well said that in time of war truth is the first casualty, an observation emphatically endorsed by all governments in the course of WW1. The state propaganda machine immediately sprang into action, ably assisted by the loyal cohorts of the press. Especially by Lord Northcliffe, proprietor of the Times and the Daily Mail which, in view of its mass circulation and mostly conservative readership was a useful outlet for promoting the official line. Indeed, Northcliffe himself was to be the director of propaganda bureau in enemy countries and became known to the Germans as ‘the Minister for Lying’ (the Allies were dubbed ‘the All-Lies’). As early as September 1914, a War Propaganda unit was set up utilising the literary talents of respected luminaries such as H.G. Wells, Conan Doyle and Rudyard Kipling.

Earlier still, on 8th August 1914, the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) was passed by parliament. This afforded the government enormous powers, enabling them to take over the coal mines, railway and shipping. Newspapers and magazines or any other publication could be censored or shut down and any land, factory or workshop placed under state control. A list of restrictions was published for public digestion. No one was permitted to buy binoculars, purchase brandy or whisky at a railway refreshment room, give bread to horses or chickens, stand a round of drinks in a pub or use invisible ink when writing abroad – an immense relief to all those in the habit of doing so at home. Publicans were allowed to water down beer, a practice widely assumed to have preceded the government edict. Any civilian in violation of the new laws could be put on trial. To ensure maximum daylight for the production of essential supplies such as food and munitions, British Summer Time was introduced.

Women, whose skills and potential had hitherto received scant attention from the state were suddenly deemed vitally important – that is to say important to the war effort. They were speedily recruited for jobs in government-owned munitions factories (munitionettes), in farming (Women’s Land Army), as fire-fighters, as bus conductors and for various non-combatant roles in the WAAC, WRNS and WRAF or the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY). Needless to say, as soon as the war was over the government was keen for them to return to their ‘traditional’ role as homemakers.

Reporting of the war was strictly controlled to ensure that only ‘good news’ was shared with the general public. A Ministry of Information was established and also a War Office Press Bureau. Any reports from the front were suitably watered down before being released. In essence, the ‘news’ consisted of a mixture of silence, distortion, half-truths, fantasy and misinformation (downright lies). Ludicrous rumours, purporting to be evidence of inhuman atrocities carried out by the Germans, were circulated by the various propaganda agencies. Special magazines were published that reinforced the picture of the war that the state wished to paint, drawing in readers by titillating titles: The War Illustrated, The War Pictorial, The Illustrated War News.

To stimulate recruitment to the army and boost morale on the Home Front a series of posters was commissioned that directly appealed to patriotism and duty. Ironically, the best remembered image, that depicting the pointing finger of Lord Kitchener, may not have been used. It was originally printed as a front cover for London Opinion magazine, 5th September 1914 and would have been seen by many people, but doubt has been cast that it was reproduced as part of the poster campaign. The official war slogan was ‘Your King and Country Need You’, but other posters were produced with the specific intention of invoking a sense of guilt and shame. One such example showed a little girl on her father’s knee asking: ‘Daddy, what did you do in the Great War?’

Music and song were also employed most effectively, appealing to a range of emotions. Comfort and reassurance: Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag; Nostalgia: Keep The Home Fires Burning; Duty: Goodbye Dolly, I Must Leave You and Pride: We’re The Soldiers Of The King, My Lads. Those would be performed nightly in music halls by strutting self-satisfied entertainers, oblivious to the conditions at the front. Their smug theatrical displays of flag-waving chauvinism prompted an enraged Siegfried Sassoon to write in one of his most scathing poems:

I’d like to see a Tank come down the stalls,Lurching to rag-time tunes, or ‘Home Sweet Home’,And there’d be no more jokes in music-hallsTo mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume.

All possible means were employed to generate anti-German sentiment – even board games and toys – and in 1916 a film was released entitled ‘The Battle of the Somme’. Sanctioning its showing was a massive risk as it contained footage of actual battles, including troops being killed. It was calculated that the shots of British soldiers cheerfully advancing would inspire a mood of optimism that trumped any negative reaction. It was judged to be a success, but almost certainly it proved to be a double-edged sword. By the end of 1916, as ’bad news’ was also starting to filter through the propaganda smokescreen, public perceptions were changing.

Regrettably, these changing perceptions did little to soften the hostility towards anyone who opposed the war. Indeed, the burgeoning resentment of those unfortunate enough to have lost loves ones – in some cases an entire generation of male family members – often led to the adoption of even more uncompromising attitudes. Men, eligible for military service but choosing not to enrol were commonly ostracised by their own families. The longer the war went on the more aggressive became the intolerance towards conscientious objectors, conscription dodgers and deserters.

At the commencement of the war things were not too unbearable for them; after all, as everyone believed, it would all be over by Christmas. Few paid attention to the contrary opinion voiced by Lord Kitchener. Also, prior to the 1916 Military Service Act, those who did not volunteer were in no way breaking the law. But after conscription was made compulsory for all fit men between the ages of 19 and 41, an exemption certificate was required to escape it. The grounds for exemption were few and some were more readily granted than others. There were four basic categories: 1) Men required for alternative work on behalf of the state. 2) The prospect of serious hardship due to exceptional financial or business obligations or domestic position. 3) Infirmity or ill health. 4) Conscientious objectors.

The reasons for conscientious objection were various; some objectors were pacifists, often but by no means always through religious conviction. Some were politically motivated and some by a combination of these and other factors or who remained unconvinced about the validity of this one particular war. Every conscientious objector was obliged to appear before a tribunal to face cross-examination. This procedure was rarely sympathetic and the questions were designed to trap the petitioner into giving an uncertain answer. A favoured technique was to demand a rational answer to a hypothetical question about an irrational situation. One such question that was very often triumphantly invoked asked ‘Would you save your mother if a German was going to kill her?’

Much of the unpleasantness sustained by objectors was fanned by the role played by women’s organisation like the Mother’s Union and the zealous, high profile support of the National War policy by Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst. The Mother’s Union and some other women’s associations encourage their members to persuade anyone of call-up age to enlist without delay and were an integral part of the government recruitment drive. One of the cleverest, but most insidious posters produced by the state propaganda team declared: ‘Women of Britain say – GO!’ Such was the impression made by this and other similar slogans that it was not unusual for a mother to shun a non-serving son out of shame.

Shortly after the start of the war, Admiral Charles Fitzgerald founded the Order of the White Feather, which Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst enthusiastically embraced. The feathers were meant to be presented only to those positively identified as young men avoiding military service. But, so indiscriminate did their distribution become that the authorities were forced to requisition special badges bearing the legend ‘King and Country’ for civilians working in state industries or government departments. Also, those servicemen discharged through injury or sickness were issued with the Silver War Badge. Unfortunately they failed to prevent challenges and sometimes physical attacks being directed at the wrong targets with a White Feather once famously presented to a holder of the Victoria Cross. Fenner Brockway, a pacifist member of the Independent Labour Party, and later a Labour Party MP, claimed to have received enough white feathers to make a fan. There were some cases, however, of men deciding to enlist subsequent to White Feather embarrassment.

The treatment of conscientious objectors was undeniably harsh, and universally so. In the UK alone they numbered over 16,000, though most were not absolutist and elected to do some form of voluntary service such as ambulance driving or agricultural work. 6,000 were given prison sentences and generally endured brutal treatment, abuse and extremely poor conditions. A number were sent by the army board to France, where they were classified as being on active service. Under French military regulations 36 were sentenced to death, later reduced by Earl Haig to 10 years’ penal servitude, but some were released as early as 1919. No conscientious objector was ever executed in Britain but 41 died in custody as a result of inhuman treatment.

There were a thousand women conscientious objectors as well and since they included a high percentage of absolutists, half of them were sent to prison. Interestingly, most of the soldiers who fought in the trenches were better able to understand and respect the stand taken by the conscientious objectors than those civilians who behaved so vindictively towards them at home.

Between 1914 and 1920 over three thousand British soldiers were sentenced to death for ‘cowardice’, ‘desertion’, ‘striking an officer’, ‘falling asleep on sentry duty’, ‘casting away arms’, ‘refusing to obey an order’ or various other violation of military regulations. Of these, 306 were executed for purely military offences. A further 40 were shot for committing offences of a criminal nature, including murder, in addition to breaking military laws.

Many of the 306 charged and found guilty of purely military violations were among the estimated 80 thousand British soldiers who were suffering shell shock, a condition not recognised by the military courts martial. Some were simply overwhelmed by sheer fatigue or, unable to cope with the sustained mental pressure of unrelenting conflict, lost their nerve. While it is true that they were granted legal representation of a sort, the trials rarely lasted longer than half an hour, often no more than 20 minutes and no appeal was allowed. Military justice was assuredly swift.

Surprisingly most of those executed were volunteers which, by itself, is sufficient to suggest that they were hardly unwilling to do their ‘duty’. Following a prolonged campaign all of the 306 were posthumously pardoned in August 2006. The death penalty for such ‘crimes’ was banned by parliament in 1930. In his fictional story (based on fact) of just such a soldier, entitled The Secret Battle, the author A.P. Herbert provides a poignant epitaph in the very last lines:

“This is the gist of it, that my friend Harry was shot for cowardice – and he was one of the bravest men I ever knew.”

Although there were 16,000 individuals who, commendably, took a stand against WW1, it was the Socialist Party of Great Britain alone who did so unequivocally as a matter of political party policy. We argued that this conflict was not caused by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, or by German military imperialism, or by an arms race. These happenings were offered as justification at the time, but were nothing more than the consequences of a deeper underlying and ongoing cause. Sadly, truth is not a requirement for ‘A’ Level history. The abiding reality is that this war, as others before it and since, was the result of the ever-present struggle by competing national powers and alliances for territorial supremacy and market dominance. Nothing has changed!

WW1 was not only the inevitable result of rampant class-riddled capitalism, but it provided graphic evidence of the obscene lengths to which those who support such a system are prepared to go to perpetuate it. This ridiculous war involved over 30 countries and resulted in over 9 million soldiers being killed and 21 million injured. A mind-boggling 12,000 miles of tunnels were dug by both sides, creating a rat-infested, disease-ridden environment. For this purpose the British and French between them used no fewer than 140,000 Chinese labourers (Chinese Labour Corps). Coal miners were recruited to dig tunnels and place explosive devices in enemy territory – tunnels in which some remained entombed.

Poison gas was employed as a weapon of war (used first by the French) and an act of genocide by the Turks eliminated 1½ million Armenians. In addition, of course, it brought untold grief to thousands of families. Nothing was resolved by the war; it ended in stalemate rather than checkmate. But further seeds had been sown that would yield an even more destructive conflict.

Few, if any, lessons have been learned about the fundamental flaws of a society which continues to be run by a few to the detriment of the many. For as long as the abundant resources of our planet are exploited for profit rather than produced for need, wars will continue. Just as the Socialist Party has been pointing out for over a hundred years. We will keep on doing so until common-sense prevails.

Richard Headicar

Copies of the pamphlet are available from the Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 for £4.50 including postage and packaging. Cheques to be made out to ‘The Socialist Party of Great Britain’. Online purchase at:

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/product/strange-meeting-socialism-and-world-war-one/

Austerity Circles

The last time a party fell from office,

It found itself very quickly being blamed,

As the new government loudly declaimed

Details of the national debt and the price

Of a necessary austerity;

So obvious, everyone must surely see

How the previous crew incompetently

Managed to crash the economy.

Now though, with new hands on the fiscal reins,

The Chancellor sombrely explains

A policy of tightened purse strings, pain

That might look like austerity again.

Only, it’s not, in any shape or sense,

Rather, it is the return of prudence.

D. A.

It’s reported that, ‘The US national debt has skyrocketed in recent years under the leadership of President Joe Biden and his predecessor President Trump, who had repeatedly pledged to reduce it during his 2016 campaign.

When Trump left office, the debt had grown by $8.4 trillion to $27.7 trillion, with over a half of the borrowing related to Covid-related measures. The trend continued under Biden, with the incumbent president now smashing through the $35-trillion mark. While the borrowing rates somewhat slowed during the first half of Biden’s tenure compared to the Trump era, they have now accelerated, with the US adding a further $1 trillion to its debt this year alone.

According to the House Budget Committee’s calculations, the debt now equates to $104,497 per person, $266,275 per household and an eye watering $483,889 per American child. Over the past 12 months, the debt increased by $2.35 trillion, with the rate of increase equating to $74,401 in new debt per second.

The persistent “misalignment” of US fiscal policy was harshly criticized by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) late last month, with the body calling Washington’s budget deficit and debt rates a “growing risk” for the whole global economy.

“Such high deficits and debt create a growing risk to the US and global economy, potentially feeding into higher fiscal financing costs and a growing risk to the smooth rollover of maturing obligations,” the IMF said in a statement, adding that “these chronic fiscal deficits represent a significant and persistent policy misalignment that needs to be urgently addressed.”’

Public sector net debt, excluding state-controlled banks, reached 2.742 trillion pounds ($3.47 trillion) or 99.8% of annual gross domestic product in May, up from 96.1% a year earlier, the Office for National Statistics said.

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-public-debt-rises-highest-since-1961-election-nears-2024-06-21/

The below is from the Socialist Standard November 2020

‘‘The UK’s national debt hit a record £2.024 trillion at the end of August, £249.5 billion more than the same time last year’, reported the Evening Standard (25 September). Presumably seeking to be helpful but actually confusing the picture, the report went on:

‘To put the figures in some perspective, the debt level works out at roughly £30,000 per person living in the UK’.

So we are all on average £30,000 in debt, are we? No, it’s the government’s debt not ours. What is popularly called the ‘national debt’ is the outstanding debt, accumulated over the years, of the capitalist state and so is no concern of ours. To be fair to the statisticians at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) who compile the figures, their official name for it is the ‘General Government Gross Debt’. The total debt owed by persons is called ‘Household Debt’. At the end of March 2018 this totalled £1.28 trillion, most of which was mortgages. The two statistics are quite different.

Note that since 1974 a ‘trillion’ means only a thousand billion (not the billion billion it used to be). But it makes a more sensational headline to say that the government’s debt is £2.024 (with a full stop) trillion rather than £2,024 billion (with a comma).

Governments (unless they are directly involved in capitalist production themselves) generate no income of their own. The money they spend comes from two main sources, mostly taxes. If a government wants to spend more than what this brings in it has to resort to borrowing. This is normally done by selling short-term (Treasury) bills or longer-term bonds (gilts). The interest on these has to be paid from tax revenue.

Another statistic we are urged to get worked up about (but needn’t) is the ‘General Government Deficit’. This is the difference between what the government spends and what it raises through taxes and which has to be made up by borrowing. At the end of June it was £128.8 billion. If, on the other hand, a government’s income from taxes is greater than what it borrows, then there is a surplus which can be used to pay off a part of its debt.

Marx had something to say on the origin and consequences of the ‘National Debt’:

‘The state’s creditors actually give nothing away, for the sum lent is transformed into public bonds, easily negotiable, which go on functioning in their hands just as so much hard cash would. But furthermore, and quite apart from the class of idle rentiers thus created, the improvised wealth of the financiers who play the role of middlemen between the government and the nation, and the tax-farmers, merchants and private manufacturers, for whom a good part of every national loan renders the service of a capital fallen from heaven, apart from all these people, the national debt has given rise to joint-stock companies, to dealings in negotiable effects of all kinds, and to speculation, in a word to stock-exchange gambling and the modern bankocracy.’ (Capital, Penguin edition, Volume I, Chapter 31).

This is a fair description which still applies today but, unfortunately, is a source of many currency crank theories. Marx was aware of this and warned:

‘The great part that the public debt and the fiscal system corresponding with it have played in the capitalization of wealth and the expropriation of the masses, has led many writers, like Cobbett, Doubleday and others, to seek here, incorrectly, the fundamental cause of the misery of the people in modern times.’

The fundamental cause of this misery is not the financial system but the class ownership of the means of life and production for profit. What is required to remove it is not monetary reform but common ownership and production directly to satisfy people’s need.’

 ‘Junior doctors’ leaders in England have agreed a new pay deal with the government, which could lead to their wages rising by 22.3% over two years.

The agreement comes after 44 days of strikes since junior doctors first took industrial action in March 2023 in pursuit of a 35% pay rise.

Stoppages by staff across the NHS since December 2022 have led to the postponement of 1.5m appointments, procedures and operations at an estimated cost of more than £3bn’

The Guardian 29 July

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jul/29/junior-doctors-leaders-agree-pay-deal-over-two-years

The below is from the Socialist Standard February 2023.

The reference to P.M. Rishi Sunak’s government is no longer applicable.

‘Over the past decades, employers have been fierce and unrelenting. Companies laid off workers, attacked unions and demanded concessions. Governments of all stripes helped by eroding labour standards, de-regulating industries, privatising services and permitting job out-sourcing. Being in a weak position the union leaders recoiled from the prospect of waging an all-out class war to challenge the employers so they accepted the new contracts, no matter how damaging, in the hope that lost ground could be regained. Emboldened by this, employers demanded workers forfeit more established practices, even as the stock market boomed and profits soared. With few notable exceptions, strikes were defeated, union recruitment drives failed and workers became demoralised.

But now trade union militancy and strikes have returned to the forefront of British politics. The Socialist Party does not minimise the necessity and importance of workers keeping up the struggle to maintain the level of wages and protect working conditions. There are now once again some signs that general combativeness is rising. Unions are the single most effective way organised workers can counter the bosses. Workers who risked their lives during the Covid pandemic and are now suffering from a cost of living crisis not of their making say they deserve substantial pay raises, and are prepared to go on strike to try to get it. Employers can no longer expect their workforce to compliantly roll over and be strong-armed into conceding cuts in wages and conditions. Increasing numbers of workers across all sectors are saying enough is enough. The current labour shortage means they have a bit more leverage. It has got the bosses worried.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government intends to introduce new laws that are aimed at trade union industrial action by insisting key workers must maintain essential services during any strike. The government wants to make it more difficult for ordinary working people, firefighters, nurses and teachers to express their democratic wishes and to take industrial action in defence of their jobs and pay. Make no mistake. The government’s legislative plans are an assault in the class war on workers’ ability to resist the employers’ offensive. Trade unions are workers’ front line of defence against their employers under capitalism.

The legislation will permit employers to sue unions and sack employees if legal minimum service levels are not met. Union members who are instructed by the employers to work and refuse to do so could lose their jobs. The new law will also back employers bringing an injunction to prevent strikes or seeking damages afterwards if they go ahead with unions facing court actions and possible sequestration of funds.

When workers strike or work to rule, the bosses find out who really runs the workplace, who keeps the machines humming, production going, and the money flowing. But that said, it’s important to clarify that the employers have the power of the state behind them and when push comes to shove, they do not hesitate to bring that powerful institution to bear upon the workers. In addition, most workers have practically no savings, so cannot afford to stop working for long.

Hence the strategy of a series of short strike stoppages. Adapting to match the new reality, rather than calling for a general strike, individual unions seek to coordinate their actions for increased effect. Solidarity is one of the greatest weapons we possess. Many workers are realising that it is the worker and the worker alone who has to take care of their economic interests, as they’ll get nothing from the politicians who fill parliamentary seats and cabinet posts or the bureaucrats in their professional union posts.

When the government goes on the offensive against workers on behalf of the capitalist class, this may lead workers’ organisations to more radical actions, to the capitalist society exposing its class nature, to the general public opening up to revolutionary ideas, and consequently, to the class struggle becoming conscious and political rather than just defensive and economic.

To be sure, participation in strikes does not automatically make workers class-conscious. Even when workers acquire revolutionary consciousness they are still compelled to engage in the non-revolutionary struggle. As workers we fight in the here and now, where we are and where we can. We don’t see such day-to-day struggles as a diversion.

Our preferred trade union strategy is to be active in unions where they exist, but not to do it with a parochial perspective but with a class-wide viewpoint that involves all groups in society that have no opportunity to participate in unions and to engage them as much as possible in a conscious class struggle. The strike weapon is not a sure means of victory for workers in disputes with employers. There are many cases of workers being compelled to return to work without gains, even sometimes with losses. Strikes should not be employed recklessly but should be entered into with strategy in mind.

Socialism demands the revolutionising of the workers themselves. This does not mean that workers should sit back and do nothing, the struggle over wages and conditions must go on. Workers are learning the hard lessons and it is becoming clearer that this is a secondary, defensive activity. The real struggle is to take the means of wealth production and distribution – the factories, farms, offices, mines etc. – into common ownership. That is the larger, political struggle.’

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2023/02/enough-is-enough-is-not-enough-2023.html

The start to the 2024 Paris Olympics appears to have gotten off to a dodgy start with the opening ceremony appearing to have ruffled quite a few feathers. Aspects of the display have enraged the religious fantasists who are screaming on social media, satanic! God will not be mocked! As SOYMB has already noted; the Olympics are sport as warfare. .https://soymb.com/2024/07/the-olympics-sport-as-warfare.html

As far as can be judged, this Blog being completely indifferent to the nationalistic propagandising of the French, it is aspects of the French Revolution which are being extolled. There seems to be a lack of awareness of eighteenth century history on the part of many of the ‘disgusted’ on social media.

In 1793, in his essay, ‘Considerations on the Nature of the Revolution in France’, Jacques Mallet du Pan wrote, ‘Like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children.’

On 28 July, 1794, Jacobin leader, Maximilien Robespierre, was guillotined.

‘Whatever may have been Robespierre’s reasons for justifying the dictatorship of the Jacobin Committee of Public Safety, the bulk of the members of the national assembly (and indeed some members of the Committee itself) supported it as a necessity to win the war, both external and internal, and were ready to relax it once this had been achieved, as it had been by the summer of 1794. This was fatal for Robespierre who was overthrown on 27 July (9 Thermidor, according to the revolutionary calendar) and guillotined with his immediate followers the next day.

The Right to Unequal Property Ownership Re-asserted

The overthrow of Robespierre and the Jacobins marked the end of the radicalisation of the French Revolution and a return to its original aim of establishing a constitutional government by and for property owners. The only difference with 1791 was that this was now to be achieved within the framework of a Republic rather than of a constitutional monarchy. The Republican Constitution of 1795 reintroduced the property qualifications for being an “active” citizen, an “elector” and a deputy.’

[Taken from the Socialist Standard July 1989:1789: France’s bourgeois revolution.

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2013/07/1789-frances-bourgeois-revolution.html

Note: the excellent article referenced above gives an in-depth socialist analysis of the events of 1789, before and after. Readers are encouraged to study it at source as it is an absorbing but long read.

The below is from the Socialist Standard July 1989.

This document should be read alongside 1789: France’s bourgeois revolution https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2013/07/1789-frances-bourgeois-revolution.html that also appeared in the July 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard. This manifesto, drawn up by Sylvain Maréchal, for an attempt to organise an insurrection in Paris in 1796 known as the “Conspiracy of the Equals”, was never formally adopted by the conspirators. It is nevertheless a fine appeal for the establishment of the same sort of classless communist society as Winstanley and the Diggers had advocated in the course of the English revolution some 150 years previously.

PEOPLE OF FRANCE

For fifteen hundred years you have lived in slavery and in misery. And for the last six years you have existed in the hourly expectation of independence, happiness, and equality.



Equality is the first principle of nature, the most elementary need of man, the prime bond of any decent association among human beings. But in this you, the French people, have fared no better than the rest of mankind. Humanity, the world over, has always been in the grip of more or less clever cannibals—creatures who have battened on men in order to advance their own selfish ambitions and to nourish their own selfish lust for power. Throughout man’s history he has been gulled with fine words, he has received only the shadow of a promise, not its substance. Hypocrites, from time immemorial, have told us that men are equal; and yet monstrous and degrading inequality has, from time immemorial, ground humanity into the dust. Since the dawn of human history man has understood that equality is the finest ornament of the human condition, yet not once has he been successful in his struggles to bring his vision to life. Equality has remained a legal fiction, beautiful but baseless. And today, when we demand it with a new insistence, our rulers reply: “Silence! Real equality is an idle dream. Be content with equality before the law. Ignorant and lowborn herd, what else do you need?”



Men of high degree—lawmakers, rulers, the rich—now it is your turn to listen to us.



Men are equal. This is a self-evident truth. As soon say that it is night when the sun shines, as deny this.



Henceforth we shall live and die as we have been born—equal. Equality or death: that is what we want. And that is what we shall have, no matter what the price to be paid. Woe to you who stand in our way or try to thwart the realization of our dearest wish!



The French Revolution is only the forerunner of another, even greater, that shall finally put an end to the era of revolutions. The people have swept away the kings and priests who have been leagued against them. Next they will sweep away the modern upstarts, the tyrants and tricksters who have usurped the ancient seats of power.



What else do we need other than equality before the law?



We need not only this equality as it is written down in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen; we need it in life, in our very midst, in our homes. For the true and living equality we will give up everything. Let the arts perish, if need be! But let us have real equality.



Men of high degree—lawmakers, rulers, the rich—strangers as you are to the love of man, to good faith, to compassion: it is no good to say that we are only “bringing up again the old cry of loi agraire.” It is our turn to speak. Listen to our just demands and to the law of nature which sanctions them.



The loi agraire—the division of the land—has been the instinctive demand of a handful of soldiers of fortune, of peoples here and there governed by passion, not by reason. We intend something far better and far more just: the COMMON GOOD, or the COMMUNITY OF GOODS. There must be an end to individual ownership of the land, for the land is nobody’s personal property. Our demand is for the communal ownership of the earth’s resources. These resources are the property of mankind.



We say that an end must be put to the situation in which the overwhelming majority of mankind, living under the thumb of a tiny minority, sweats and toils for the sole benefit of a few. In France fewer than a million persons own and dispose of wealth that rightfully belongs to twenty millions of their fellow men, to their fellow citizens.



There must be an end to this outrage! Will people in times to come even be able to conceive that such a situation ever existed? There must be an end to this unnatural division of society into rich and poor, into strong and weak, into masters and servants, into rulers and ruled.



Age and sex are the sole natural distinctions existing between men. All men have the same needs, all are endowed with the same faculties, all are warmed by the same sun, and all breathe the same air. Why then should not all receive an equal share of food and clothing—equal both in that quantity and quality to which all shall be entitled?

But a howl arises from the sworn enemies of a truly natural order of things. ‘Anarchists! Demagogues!” they shriek. “You are nothing more than instigators of mob violence. That’s what you are.”

PEOPLE OF FRANCE,

We shall not waste time dignifying such charges with an answer. But to you we say: the high enterprise which we are engaged upon has a single purpose— to put an end to civil strife and to the sufferings of the masses.

No vaster plan than ours has ever been conceived or put into execution. Once in a long while men of vision have discussed it, cautiously and in whispers; none of them has had the boldness to speak out and to tell the whole truth.

The hour for decisive action has now struck. The people’s suffering has reached its peak; it darkens the face of the earth. For centuries chaos has reigned under the name of “order.” Now the time has come to mend matters. We, who love justice and who seek happiness—let us enter the struggle for the sake of equality. The time has come to establish THE REPUBLIC OF EQUALITY, to prepare an asylum for mankind. The time has come to set the earth to rights. You, who are oppressed, join us: come and partake of the feast which nature has provided for all her sons and daughters.

PEOPLE OF FRANCE,

A glorious and historic destiny has been reserved. for you.

Hidebound tradition and blind prejudice will set barriers, as they always have, in the way of the establishment of the Republic of Equality. True equality—that alone provides for all human needs without sacrificing some men to the selfish interests of others—will not be welcome to everyone. Selfish and ambitious people will curse us. Men who have grown rich by thieving from their fellows will be the first to cry “thief.” Proud men, living in privilege or in idleness, who have grown callous to the sufferings of others, will do battle with us. Men who wield arbitrary power, or who are its creatures, will not unprotesting bow their stiff necks beneath the yoke. The shape of things to come, the common good, their blind eyes cannot see. But how can a handful of such people prevail against a whole nation that has at last found the rapturous happiness it sought so long?

The day after the revolution for true equality has taken place people will be amazed. They will say “The common good was so easy to attain! We only had to will it! Why on earth didn’t we realize that sooner—why did we have to be told so often? It’s absolutely true: when one man is richer and more powerful than the rest of us, everything is spoiled; crime and misery flourish”.

PEOPLE OF FRANCE,

What is the hallmark of excellence in a constitution? Only true equality can serve as a foundation on which to base your Republic and satisfy all your needs. The aristocratic charters of 1791 and 1795 did not break your chains: they riveted them upon you more firmly. The Constitution of 1793 was a giant step toward true equality, the greatest that we have yet taken. It was dedicated to the goal of the common good, but did not, even so, fully provide the basis for organizing it.

PEOPLE OF FRANCE,

Open your eyes and hearts to full happiness: recognize the REPUBLIC OF EQUALITY. Join with us in working for it.

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2018/07/manifesto-of-equals-1989.html

Workers of the World Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!

July 2024 has seen lots of Bread and Circuses taking place. It’s not surprising if events from one hundred and eight years ago are hardly impinging on the consciousness of many. Perhaps a few historians are recollecting the events of 1916 when the British, French and German armies fought each other in a campaign, known as The Battle of the Somme, which occurred from July through to November 1916. The three armies suffered a combined total of 311,645 casualties during the month of July. At the end of the campaign there were 1,364,402 causalities in total on the three sides.

The below is from the Socialist Standard August 2006

‘The recent 90th anniversary of the human tragedy of the Somme saw the politicians, the churches and the organisations charged with remembrance giving history a makeover.

The Allied warlords planned a massive assault set for mid-summer 1916. The offensive was to be carried through by the combined Allied armies and was intended to break through the German lines on the Western, Eastern and Italian fronts imposing a defeat of such magnitude on Germany as to bring a speedy end to the First World War.

Doubtless it all worked out well for the generals and marshals as they threw clay representatives of thousands of human beings into homicidal battle against one another on the sands table. But battles are not won on sands tables and in the early spring of 1916 the Germans spoiled the plot by opening up a massive assault against the French city of Verdun which absorbed French divisions planned into the attack on the Western Front at the Somme.

In the week before the 1st of July Allied artillery carried out a ceaseless bombardment of German positions on a five mile stretch of the front. In all they fired 1.6 million shells but many of the British shells failed to explode and the German fortifications not only proved largely resistant to the shelling but also provided subterranean tunnelling where soldiers could take refuge from the bombardment.

Such was the confidence of the British Command that an enervated German line would crumble before the ferocity of a massed attack that they ordered their 11 divisions to walk steadily across No-Man’s- Land towards the German fortifications. At 7.30 hours on July 1st the men arose out of their entrenchments in response to the blowing of whistles and proceeded to walk towards their objectives.

Immediately they were confronted with a deadly fusillade from German machine-guns. Like lemmings they offered their bodies like blades of grass before a scythe; wave after wave of them, the cared prodigy of wives and mothers learning the falsehood of patriotism or paying the price for volunteering away from poverty or the dull, hum-drum meanness of wage slavery. 60,000 of them fell that day, 20,000 dead, the rest flawed statistics.

The chaplains were busy intoning their prayers to a remorseless god and the generals, too, were brutal and remorseless for it didn’t stop; it continued the next day and for four more months. In October the torrential rains came changing the blood-soaked ground into a quagmire where putrefying human flesh mingled with the mud and obstructed men as they were striven to further slaughter. When this single phase of the hellish conflict was exhausted in mid- November those designated as ‘British’ were 420,000 fewer while the French lost 195,00 men and the Germans over 600,000. There were no generals killed or wounded and the Allied forces had advanced 5 miles over wasted, barren land.

The Somme, Passendale, Salonika, Suvla Bay, names of strange places that became prominent in the lexicon of war and its brutalities. ‘Lions led by donkeys’ was the popular alibi for the monstrous slaughter and the ineptitude of warlords like the British Somme commander, Earl Haig became the focus of bitter criticism and sick jokes. There was no poetry now in the killing; the avalanche of stereotyped telegrams expressing official regret at the death of a husband or son began to speak louder than the xenophobic vapourings of politicians and the media and officialdom may well have been haunted by the thought that workers turned soldiers might catch on to the duality of their exploitation and the brutally obvious fact that a social system that required periodic bloodletting was fatally flawed.

Time has accounted for those who survived the battle; those who ploughed through the detritus of decaying human flesh and wept for dead comrades.

If you were a tourist from Mars attending the Somme commemoration the vital question you might want to ask is why were millions of men, men of no property and no financial interests, men who had never met those they were now told were their enemies and with whom they did not share a language that would allow them to curse at one another, why were they killing? Why were they dying?

The answer is that they were fighting over markets and the political and economic appurtenances of trade; that war was, and is, simply a logical extension of a brutally competitive system of social organisation predicted on profit and ongoing expansion; a system that dominated their lives, took away their human dignity and reduced them to the status of wage slaves and cannon fodder.

So the question must be avoided at all costs; capitalism’s obsequious apologists, its politicians, its beholden clergy and media hacks will change the script: Tell the fools how brave they were and how proud they should be; that’ll keep them happy to the next time.

“Give a benediction, bless them with a prayer, And tell them how the son of God was longing to be there!”

In the circumstances of the conflict bravery is an empty virtue; an abuse of language that must surely add insult to injury.’

Richard Montague

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-battle-of-somme.html