Pioneer

THE RETURN OF REASON. J. R. Macdtnald's Interesting Comment in the "Review." I A Marxian's Examination of The Bolsbeviki. Candid Capitalist Discusses The Future. Few issues of the Socialist Review, *'— $Our quarterly contemporary, edited for the I.L.P. by J. R. Macdonafcd, M.P.-haye 'Contained so much of interest and import- ance to the Socialist as the July-September -issue now before us. Although Mr. Mac- odonald in his Review Outlook reminds I us that Looking back upon the last three months is to survey disheartening times, still, one rises from a quiet hour or two •spent w ith the Review enswathed with -an atmosphere deeply tinged with the rosy- pink hue of optimism, and with new pride in membership of a movement that can give as such fine fare and sane level-headedness at a time when the everydoy journalists of the capitalist press are screaming hysteri- cally, and the learned pundits of our ..eavier quarterlies are losing themselves and their readers in remarkable rnazy abstractions in a \ain effort to prove that wrong is right so long ac it wears the proper uniform. A NEUTRAL S VIEW. Probablv the most important, section of the Review to the general reader is the Outlook" which J.R. contributes as an •editorial; and in which his crisp mind and euphonious pen combine to make of his pages a mine of rich ore for the Socialist who is called upon to face critics oi his faith from day to day. Mr. Macdonald leaves nothing of importance in international rela- tions or domestic politics untouched, and 10 particular is one by the following, which occurs alter a discussion of the French revalations the result of the publication during a fit of temper on the part of M. Oemenceau, of the Emperor's Karl's letter. Sa\s rr. Macdonald "An accom plished publicist of a neutral country told me a few davs ago that he thought we were facing two impossibilities the impossibility of a peace by war, and the impossvblty of a peace by negotiation, and that all that could j happen would be an end by collapse. That is a too p('rm!"t!c view, but It has this pro' a too pesinii-;zti(- .,iew, b ut it h,,ts thi's p.- o .r;:I.I"i: ,-h "t4. W. \>\ V.- WKKL iuution, wai ?' .h??A: ?' t' i.   ?.'? can gmduallv eliminate all possibility of peace except by exhaustion, and can make thoughts of negotiation a -iin idealistic futility. OUR PERILOUS PROGRESS. Bonar Law's financial statement showed how far we had already gone upon -the road to ruin. He warned us that we were coming towards the end of our re- sources, but bankruptcy will not be evident till after the war. I saw a dead man win -,1 fight,' said Douglas before Otterburn, •and that is not only true in dreams. Last e-a r ue hiid to borrow just short of 2,000 millions; this year we shall have- to borrow just over that sum, making the National Debt in round figures 10.000 millions. That means that anything between one- third and one-half of our nation's wealth has ceased to exist. It is only book figures. Conscription of wealth is not therefore a levy upon capital, it is simply a correction of our books so that their figures may re present reality. Germany shows, however, that finance alone will not end the war. If my foreign friend is right, the: collapse which is to bring sanity is to be a much more serious one than that. It is to be a collapse of the social system, a collapse like that of the villages within the battle zone. It will be a complete ending of the past, • economic, industrial, historical. Europe will fall away as internal Russia has fallen away. It is to that. and to nothing less chaotic, to which we go. and our expectations regard- bing" America are like wind filling our sails." A BRIGHTER PICTURE. That is a black conclusion, but Mr. Mac- donald has the artistic temperament, and having massed his cloudbank, dark and menacing, he next paints in the solitary sun- beam that streams down on a little scene of hope. He says: There is, however, a strong current of better reason in the coun- 'try. The iveighley bye-election—Somer- ville, 4,873; Biand, 2,349—was a sign. The coalition candidate was a strong man. His heart was with us, and if his declarations now were one thing and now another, he alienated none of the sections which to any degree supported the Government. He polled a maximum vote. Mr. Bland, on the other hand, was perfectly straight and per- fectly simple. He stood upon u" platform and expounded our ideas. W,ip.sneck was a still plainer sign. The Coalioct can -'i*dite, supported by the usual constellation of Par- liamentary stars and by the usual expendi- ture of the War Aims Committee, polled 5,814, whilst the Labour anti-Coalition re- presentative, supported by no outsider cf -note save Mr. Trevelyan, polled 5,627. The salecting conference deliberately chose a man whose war record wa3 consistent w'th! the Labour War Aims declar <*?n and peace! by negotiation, and they ha ? done the coun- 1 ?ry and their class signal service. The pons were taken when the fate ')j the 1" rench ports was trembling in the balance, and when no one could vote for our friends ex- 1 cept men who had thought the issues out and knew in what they believed. We polled a higher percentage of votes thac. ever La- bour candidate polled in Keighley, and the newspaper. did their best to suppress both results. That was one indication of the i- lent current. Another was the sensible speech which General Smuts delivered at Glasgow on the 17th May. He spoke of iciory, but he defined it as not being vic- Itorv.- He scouted the knock-out blow. He asserted that diplomacy should be active all the time." A CANDID CAPITALIST. -k C A -N Ireland, the American Mission, and all the icurrent problems arc dealt with in the "Out- look," and some interesting book talk fol- lows. Amongst the articles is an interest- (-)f the W ar," Reconstruction in Education touches upon some thorny problems. The Confesion or a Capitalist are enlightening, apart from the'story of watering-stock" and the usual camouflage that passes cur- rent for morality in business. For instance our A Capitalist informant tells us fear ,trikes more thi; t: The employers fear strikes more than anything else, and their main efforts ;c,rf, to prevent or counteract them. They hope. through the Whitley Report and Con- I ciliation Joint Councils, to come to the point when strikes will be made illegal an. arbi- tration made compulsory. At the worst they are ready to face considerable indus- trial trouble with equanimity. Should em- ployees in any trade adopt guerilla war- fare-the employers may retaliate by a general lock-out. One line of attack they appear to be ill prepared for-namely, the <tay-in strike, which, however, can only be of short duration. Their main defence is, of course, all the time, Divide and coti- quer.T hey have their faithful informants in every large shop, and they always try to detach the ablest of working-class leaders by offers of office or flattery. They are also skilful in setting up one section of men against another, and the multiplicity of Unions and their mutual jealousies is worth much to the employers. It is very apparent the employing class dO not fear the Parliamentary Labour wea- pon. A great extension of franchise and democratising of political machinery has been given by a Government verv--sympa- thetic to Capitalism. What is to prevent Labour getting a majority and legislating power from Capital over to the side of La- IDourr Probably cmplo) crs judge political La- bour by its attitude during the war, and its reprcseritatix-es in the Government. If this were a safe guide, they certainly have no riason to fear. In any case, the authority and reputation of the House of Commons has been sadly undermined, and we may see a well-developed oligarchy, or even a dicta- torship in this country—and in any case a powerful press will be able to do much toi thwart any attempt at gaining poli- tical power by the workers. It is advisable to use all weapons and not neglect the poli- tical, but the greatest battle seems to pro- mise on the industrial field in the near fu- ture. THE FACTORS. 1. Is it possible to forecast the result of the com inn struggle? It is only practical to enumerate the factors as a means of guidance", and they are partly moral, partly material. Against the present capitalist system has arisen opposition, because of its using the circumstances of the war unduly to enrich a class. Profiteering has become a byword, and there is no definite line be- tween this and ordinary profit-making. The Conscription Acts have driven the young men into the Army, but nothing has been done to drive wealth into the coffers of the State. The contrast in treatment has had a big effect. Consequently wealth does not rest on that broad basis of public sanction that it once did. The wealthy know this, and arc nervous. Financial papers recom- mend overseas investments, because they are immune from coming Labour trou- bles. ELIMINATION OF THE SMALL MAN. I A large number of small tradesmen and employers have been driven out of business by the war, or by conscription and loss of men, etc. Those who remain are likely to suffer most after the peace. This class will range itself against the proprietary class. The war has quickened thought everywhere. It has hurried up tendencies already in operation against the present order. The conception of the State has grown enor- mously, and private interests are propor- I tionately reduced in their power. proved that private enterprise ed trusted to help the State, and Sta j crept in everywhere. Restriction 4, enterprise will remain after the war. sez-faire is now quite dead. The pr' of the public over-riding private into has become so generally accepted as ously to damage private interests in long run. It is admitted the State has 1 friendly to capital, but it is an enu rassing friendship which cannot be shak off Organised Labour has become muc keener and more self conscious, but it is questionable if its greatly increased mem bership, mostly raw recruits, untried and lacking cohesion, can stand the test of a period of unemployment. This most demor- alising experience may be artificially created by federated employers, in order to put La- bour in its place, and incidentally to squeeze out a crowd of small or financially weak competitors outside of the various rings." I BOLSHEVIKS AND MARXIANS. I But the most important article is unques- tionably a translation of an article by Hein- rich Weber from Kampf," entitled rhe Bolsheviks and the Marxians," in which we are told the Bolsheviks represent only a minority of the Russian people, but they maintain themselves in power by the armed force of the Red Guards and a great propor- tion of the army. They can only hold their position by keeping down the hostile ma jor- ity; they were obliged therefore to supress the newspapers, to imprison the opposition leaders, and to disperse the Constituent As- sembly. The Bolsheviks thus now repeat throughout the whole of Russia the attempt which they made fifteen years ago on a small scale within the party organisation to establish a dictatorship of the Revolution- ary Minority over the ignorant undiscplined Majority, but if fifteen years ago they based their claim to the dictatorship over the party organisation only on some paragraphs in the constitution of that organisation, they base it now on the actual power of the Red Guards. Thi* being the situation, the Socialism of tile Bolshevik receives a peculiar imprint whid) is foreign to the Socialists of Western and Central Europe. Firstly, it places itself in opposition to the traditional methods of democracy. The goal, which has hitherto been striven for, of a democratic republic represented by a par- liament elected by universal and direct stiff- rage, is now regarded by the Bolsheviks as a lower middle-class ideal. They bring forward in opposition to it their new State ideal: a Soviet of Soviets." A Central Committee of the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils of the whole of .ussia is to rule the State. Thus the bourgeoisie, the lower middle classes, and practically the majority of the peasantry, lose all influence on the formation of that power of the State to which they are subject. The industrial workers and the soldiers alone rule the State, although they form the minority of its population. The existence of the capitalistic social order is incompatible with the interests of the proletariat. When in possession of po- litical power, the proletariat ought to have made its first aim the bringing of industrial production nnder its control. The Revolu, tion had, however, destroyed the old bureaucratic machinery without building up a new democratic administrative organisa- tion. The Bolsheviks coul,; n >t, therefore, place industry under the conrnl of any or- gan of the democratic community; they placed each industrial undertaking under control of the wurkeis, the textile manufac- tories under the textile workers, etc. In so doing they abandoned the social principle of organisation which places every branch of industry under the control of the commu- nity, and approached more nearly to the social ideal of syndicalism. MUST FAIL. I It was inevitable that the Russian prole- tarians whose victories in March, May, and October had raised their consciousness of strength to the higEest pitcfi, who had arms in their hands and the army on their side, should have made the attempt to shatter the rule of Capitalism and to realise Social- ism. This mighty effort was made under the leadership of the Bolsheviks. But in- evitable as this attepmt was, so certainly must it fail. Karl Marx has explained why French proletarian movement in 1848 and 1871 was bound to fail. The develop- ment of the industrial proletariat is depen- dent on the development of tITe industrial bourgeoisie. Only under its rule does it (the proletariat) acquire the extended na- tional level, and is it capable of creating for itself the modern menus of prov'v;.»'on whieii also are the means of its revolutionary liberation. The industrial bourgeoisie can, however, only rule wfiere modern industry has shaped all the conditions of property in accordance with its requirements, and in- dustry can only acquire the power to do this where it s conquered the markets of the world, for national boundaries do not sufifce for its needs. The industries of France were, however, only able to main- tain themselves even in the national markets by a more or less modified prohibitory sys- whici But the fa indust. removal the subst. Th. The Menshev opponents, inasfu-, fact that the Social sible on a certain level opment, and that Russia ed this level. But in the \\as going through a bour. they demanded of the prolct; sisting renunciation of its powc in favour of the bourgeoisie. L tinual fear of a counter-revolutioi might be roused by any over-bold a, the proletariat, they shrank ff.>ni pur a consistent, courageous policy within framework of the bourgeois revolution. this manner they alienated the proletaria and drove it into the arms of the Bolshe- viks. The Bolsheviks placed themselves at the head of the proletariat against the bour- geois revolution. In the storms of the Re- volution they gave expression to the will, the feelings, the ideals of the Russian prote- I tariat. But proceeding from the prcie- tariat on to experiments which could only lead to a defeat. There arc also in Russia Social Demo- crats who are free from the illusions both of the Right and of the Left. These are the Mensheviki Internationalists under the leadership of Martov, Martinov, Semkov- skN-, and the minority of the Bolsheviks, which to-day under the leadership of Rjasa- nov combats the dictatorship of" Lenin and Trotzkv. We sum up these groups under the title of Internationalists. I H E IN TE R NT ATI O N A LI ST S. Ever since May the' Internationalists have combatted the coalition of the Men- sheviki with the bourgeois parties, their support of the \\ar policy of Kerensky, their concesions to the bourgeois parties. When the Coalition became impossible they demanded that a coalition of the democratic parties, the Social Revolutionaries and Social Democrats, should form a Govern- ment, carry out the elections for the Consti- tuent Assembly, and then hand over the leadership in the State to the party which commanded the majority in the Constituent Assembly. But to-day they combat the dictatorship of the Bolsheviks not less ener- getically than the opportunism of the Men- sheviki., They combat the terror of the Red Guards, the forcible dissolution of the Con- stituent Assembly, the mania for 'decrees' \vhich imagines that a new order of society can be built up by continual new decrees tor the execution of which no administrative machiucn" cxists. The Internationalists combated the Mensheviks because they turned against the proletariat. they now combat the Bolsheviks because they share and nourish the illusions of the proletariat. The October revolution was a victory of the Russian proletariat, and their fate is bound up with that of the Russian working classes, and our sympathy is due to them and also our assistance, as far as we are in a position to render it, just as it is due to the struggling proletariat of alt countries. Vindictive attacks—such as that of Otto Braun, member of the party committee of the Reichstag—(also made by the war So- cialists in this country in support of bour- geois views. Ed. )—are a gross dereliction ot the duties which arise out of fhe interna- tional solidarity of the proletariat, just at this moment when German Imperialism has entered the field against the Bolsheviks in the name of bourgeois law and order. In face of the bourgeoisie which is fighting the Bolsheviks with the calumnies of its press and the bayonets of its soldiers, we are bound to place ourselves on the side of the Bolsheviks with wlijm we are and will Ie- main united through the International com- munity of the class interests of the prole- tariat and the common ideal of Socialism. 'it does not, however, follow that uc nnt share all the illusions of the Bolshe- viks, approve all their methods, or accept all their theories. The Marxist method en- ables us to explain every variation ot the proletarian mentality in each separate coun. I trv bv the conditions of existence of the in- dividual proletariat. Hut t would be a mis- take to believe that the task of the Marxist is confined to giving expression to the pre- vailing feelings of the proletarians of his country; that he must go with every aber- ration of the proletarians of his country and haree their illusions only because all these mistakes and Illusions which arise out of the vital economic conditions of the proletariat can be explained by Marxist principles." oi. show, ever the, in the war w. and with reg.. secret treaties, it Imperialistic aims The government concerned with the of these treaties. mingham Labour f war participated wl Trades Council in th considered the secret in this way it was revea. purposes of our own gov tically the same in charaet cratic and imperialistic as the enemy governments, th Sasaed a week or two ago, a re. emning ia the strongest terms these treaties, and calling upon the ment to repudiate them. Similar things happening in various forms in other parts o. the country, to the seeming alarm of the government. WHEN WE, WERE RECRUITING. Enumerating the compacts, and drawing attention to the significance of their being drawn up at conferences secret from the people, Mr. Kneeshaw mentioned that the first was dated March, igi -S-England's treaty with Russia consenting to annexation of Con- stantinople in return for a similar benevol- ent attitude on Russia's part towards the political aspirations of Britain in other parts —the second in April of the same year, a treaty drawn up by representatives of Britain, France, Italy and Russia, the bargain which brought Italy into the war. And this in 1915, when the gigantic recruiting campaign or- ganised in 1914 to get Britain's young man- hood into the army on appeals for the restora- tion of Belgium, the sanctity of international law, and the freedom of small nations was going on. And now we discovered that whilst young men in their thousands were then sweeping jinto the army, Sir Edward Grey and representatives of the allied countries were meeting in a series of secret confer- ences formulating treaties of this kinji., One of the territories by the April, 1915" treaty, to be handed over to Italy was Dal- matia, a province not Italian, and where no more than five per cent. of the people were Italian, the great bulk of this small propor- tion lived in one town. This treaty meant that if the Allies got their way in this war, Italy would be backed up in entering Dal- matia, and the Dalmatians would be com- pelled to bow to Italian rule. What was the moral difference between that and the Ger- mans and Belgium ? None. Another instance: the agreement for similar entry to Abyssinia. This war is to be a war to end war. People of partitioned countries would not bow to foreign rule without fighting, and the flood- gates of war would be opened again. It was against the principles of democracy to em- body such a thing in a treaty. FUTILITY OF WAR. Mr. Kneeshaw, after dealing specifically with each of the six recent treaties in turn, stated that in none of them was there any quality of democracy-nothing but imperial- istic greed. History showed that not one of the 8,000 wars waged prior to this war had brought a peace the average duration of which was more than two years, although each of the treaties was drawn up with the intention of ensuring an everlasting peace. War had never and could never bring any- thing permanently beneficial to mankind. The Union of Democratic Control, for whom he was speaking, endeavoured to teach the futility of war, and held that if the same fac- tors were allowed to operate in this war as had operated in past wars, then the same un- satisfactory and unstable results must follow. In conclusion, he urged political agitation for the extension of Democracy's power over foreign affairs and until the people controlled the foreign affairs as they did home affairs. For a democratic peace, the first step necessary was for Democracy to win the power to make it. The only way the world could be made safe for democracy was by democracy itself taking charge of the world (Applause). Mr. Bdvard Soermus, the Russian violinist, gave a characteristically fine recital at the conclusion of Mr. Rneeshaw's address.