CENTENARIES

Mike Faulkner on Rosa Luxemburg

V Penn on The Paris Commune

Mike Cooley on Aspects of Technological Change (PARr rwo)

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firms. It is equally well known that our Rising Unemployment counterparts in other countries are being fed on the same diet. The ruling class are showing their skill by refusing to be put on the defensive by Productivity Oeals the growing unemployment . They are not resting content with the belief that higher Whilst it is true that Productivity Deals une~loyment will auto~atically reduce the do not cause une~ployment, they hasten its value of wage settlements but are seizing growth and help to create the frame of mind the opportunity to wage a battle of ideas which accepts unemployment as being due to to convince the working class that the inefficiency and the growth in wages out­ growth of unemployment is their fault for stripping the rise in productivity. being too greedy. The obvious development of this argument is that a wage freeze if Increases in productivity have been prob­ necessary in order to safeguard jobs and ably the highest in Electrcity Generating, a further development at a later stage in Steel making and Chemicals with the result which tne same argu~ent is used for an that the numbers employed in these industr­ actual reduction in wages. ies has fallen considerably over the past ten years or so. In Steel alone it is The Labour leaders are doing thei r best forecast that there will be 40,000 less to make capital out of the widespread feel~ jobs in 1975 than in 1967. 9,000 have al­ ing that the Tories are the Party of unemp­ ready disappeared and 11,000 more are due loyment. If we get taken in by this we to vanish in the next twelve months. will soon find ourselves back on the round­ Towns like Irlam will be transformed almost about pf 'fighting for the return of a Labour overnight from comparative affluence to Government.• distressed areas, already hard hit areas like Teeside will .be pushed further into The basic fact is that the current devel­ poverty. oping crisis of world capitalism has very little to do with the level of wage settle­ A sidelight on the question of unemploy­ ments or even wage levels. In France, It­ ment was notable in the radio programme aly ana·even Weit Germany and Sweden the nAny Questions• in which Calla9han, fo~mer sa~e problems are being thrown up and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, made the state saMe remedies advoeated. Those of us who -ment that unemployment can be controlled work in industries or firms geared to ex~ by Government action. This view was oppos­ ports are so often told that the kind of ed· by a Tory member of the team but unfort­ wage increases that we are demanding will unately no one asked why unemployment was render 'us' unable to compete with foreign allowed to rise to over 500,000 under the I abour Government whir.h was suppQsed to worker) large sums of money they wo~ld get. favour full employment. In these circumstances it i s very '~iffi The fact is, as Marx stated ov~~ a hun­ cult to get united mass action to ff~ht dred years ago, capitalism needs a reserve redundancy because, apart from the inherent army of unemployed in order that the sys­ difficulty of fighting on such an issue , tem shall run "efficiently". there is the additional factor that whilst some prefer to take the money in preference The sole argument between Tory and Lab­ to fighting, others hesitate to fight for our on this question is simply about what fear of losing any redundancy pay to which constitutes full employment. In the years they would be entitled. immediately following the 1939-45 war no politician dared openly question that full Action in individual factories against employment meant exactly what it said. specific cases of redundancy may or may Gradually the terms "over employment" and not be successful , depending on the local "acceptable levels of unemployment" have circumstances but if conducted on a •broad• been. introduced until now the uargumentu is enough scale and accompanied by a Marxist over what constitutes "excess" unemployment . explanation of why capitalism must have an army of unemployed as a condition of sur The Actuaries of the National Insurance vival, then a start will be made on :re Scheme have stated that their calculations ating a public opinion which will challenge for the next three years have been made on the ruling class on this issue. the basis of a Government assessment of 660 ,000 unemployed. After the Bill

This clearly shows that the "acceptable" In spite of one of the. biggest str&et or to put it more correctly, the necessary demonstrations in recent years and stti~s level of unemployment is increasing from by over one million engineering workers it year to year. is evident that the Bill is go1ng through without any significant change for the bet The ruling class foresaw this develop­ ter. ment and introduced the Redundancy Payments Act. This was hailed as a Workers• Charter On the Sunday demonstrati on ,alled b1 the but in practice it proved to be just one T.U.C. and those connected with the one more example of how the British ruling day token strikes, one could hear ~u h re ­ class know how to make concessions in order marks as "after this the Tories will have to divide the opposition. There is no to reconsider their atti tude 11 To que.st doubt that resistance to closures and re­ ion this was, in the main , regarded as ~r­ dundancies would have been much greater had etical and defeatist. it not been for the operation of this Act. There have been many cases of workers Basically, this attitude is a refle tion with long years of employment with one of the still strong influence of reform1sm company actually volunteering to be put on ov-er the working class. It is the belief the redundancy list because of the (for a that, in spite of everything, the ruling

2

··-~ class will bow to mass pressure and re­ the political understanding of those invol­ frain from becoming more reactionary. How ved in the struggle, it resorted to "scare" else can one explain the underlying supp­ tactics to get people to take action. By osition that whatever changes are taking this we mean that C.P. members of our acqu­ place in the economic and political situa­ aintance (and we believe this was wide­ tion of the ruling class, the trade union spread), tried to get workers to move into movement can still continue in much the action on the basis of such slogans as 1The same way (mergers, etc . notwithstanding). Bill will put us back a hundred years•, "Without the trades unions the working class The point is that the deepening crisis is is defenceless", thus giving the impression compelling the ruling class to revise its that the pass1ng of the Bill would be an act attitude towards all the political, econom­ from which the working class could not re­ ic and social institutions now in existence. cover or fight against until its repeal by They may still have room for maneouvre so the "democratic process'. that they can make tactical changes when faced with uncomfortably strong opposition, We do not consider this to be accidental; but the main objectives will not and can­ how better to assist the return of a Labour not be changed. majority to Parliament, along with some Communist M.P .s so that a "Left 1 Labour A fact of life Government can be formed in line with the policy advocated in 'The British Road to This is a fact of life that needs to be Socialism" . understood if there is to be any advance towards building a revolutionary move~ent . The alliance between the C.P . and the Trotskyists is also not accidental or tact­ The role of the Labour Party, C.P .G. B., ical, it flows from the same basic policy Trotskyists and most trade union leaders has of •pushing the Labour Party to the left been to direct attention away from this and and forming a new left Labour Government". into consitutional channels. An example of how this alliance operates As far as the Labour Party is concerned, in practice was provided by the campaign its electoral support is largely on the against the Industrial Relations Bill. basis of the lesser of two evils. It no longer has any positive appeal to the mass Even though the Socialist Labour ·League of the working class and its influence on was more loud-mouthed on the question of a day-to-day activities is practically non­ General Strike, its objectives were the existent. The Communist Party can still same, namely to compel the resignation of trade on its capital accumulated from its the Tory Government, force a General Elec­ more militant past and is still the best tion and return a "Left" Labour Government organised party of "the left". Its support for demonstrations against the Bill was Apart from Feather's argument that a Lab­ for the purpose of bringing about the re­ our Government would not necessarily be re­ turn of a Labour Government. Because this turned under such circumstances, it demon­ was its main aim and not the raising of strates that the aim of the Trotskyists, 3 like that of the C.P. is to attempt to con­ accommodate themselves to the provisions tain the struggle within the confines of contained in the Bill. parliamentary democracy. Its ultra-left slogans are only the cover for its attempts The contradictions between the various to bring workers back into Tweedledum­ interest groups within the trade union lea­ Tweedledee politics at the very time when dership will create strong pressures to they are seeing through them with ever­ "take advantage• of those provisions in the increasing clarity. Bill which are concerned with the body to be recognised as the bargaining agent. This The One Oay Token Strikes is the reason for the attitude of Jones and Scanlon when they correctly pressed for The decision of the A.U. E.W . to call for a T. U.C. decision to instruct all affiliat­ such strikes was a progressive step but the ed unions to refuse to allow themselves to notices issued by the E.C. did nothing to be placed on the Register. The fact that clarify the strategy or tactics behind them. the T.U.C. refused to take up this posit­ The struggle against the new laws will be ion opened up the almost absolute certain­ of a protracted character and can only be ty of some unions registering and the oth­ conducted as part of the general struggle ers following on behind for fear of losing against worsening living standards. It is members. in this context that we consider the deci­ sion should have been one of recommending The Ford settlement strike action along with the political rea­ sons for doing so. In this way the milit­ There is another aspect which is under­ ants would have been compelled to enter in­ lined by the settlement at Fords where Jones to political arguments about the Bill in and Scanlon overrode the accepted negotiat­ order to move the membership , thus assist­ ing body and agreed amongst other things to ing the growth of political understanding. a secret ballot and a no strike clause . This would perhaps have been less effective initially in terms of numbers of workers on Here we have two individuals who have strike but a start would have been made on been amongst the most vociferous opponents a really mass discussion of the politics of of the Bill voluntarily agreeing to some the situation and this is, after all, what of its provisions being included in a dir­ is most needed. ect Union-Employer agreement.

In the event, many shop stewards used the In the coming period the main struggle [.C. directive as a means of avoiding the will be to prevent such agreements being need of winning political conviction amongst made at any level and to adopt tactics the membership . which will leave each individual employer in no doubt that the operation of any of What Now the undesirable clauses in the Bill will be a very costly business for him. In short, The main immediate danger now is that to help breed an atmosphere and attitude of sections of the trade union leadership will mind amongst workers that to pass legislat­ begin, and indeed have already begun, to ion is one thing - to operate it is another.

4 The role of the trotsky1sts 'militant' positions are at work on all those who are part of the union superstruc­ The fact that the trotskyists, and the ture. The tendency of the trade unions to Socialist Labour League in particular, are become part of the capitalist estabiishment having what appears to be a new lease of will gain momentum and those who take up life , is no accident either. The same leading positions will find their situation phenomenon is showing itself all over Eur­ untenable in terms of mass leadership as ope. As the old parties of the 'left' lose distinct from petty manoeuvering . their influence, particularly over the youth, the ultra~left moves in to fill the The confidence with which the Government gap. The S.L.L. is seeking to fulfil this is pushing through the Industrial Re lations role at the moment. We are not making the Bill is an indication that they have the error of saying that this is all part of a measure of the trade union leadership and plot hatched by the ruling class but are understand how to exploit the contradictions simply making the point that this develop ­ between the leaders and between them and the ment is to be expected and that it operat­ membership. They fully understand that the es in the interest of the ruling class. union leadership will not present any real threat to their position but are also just The demand for a General Strike to 1 Kill as aware of the potentialities of mass str­ the Bill' is in line with their usual uggle by the rank and file once it breaks tactics of making demands for action on out of the confines imposed on it by the matters which appeal to a realatively few trade union machinery and agreements. militants but for which the material basis does not exist. When the mass of workers, It is noticeable how the propaganda mach­ even organised ones, show little enthusiasm ine is now going to great pains to emphasise for such activity the frustration in the that the majority of shop stewards are not minds of some militants leads them to lose 'trouble makers'. The vicious attacks of a faith in the ability of the working class few years ago did not intimidate them so to learn lessons and, consequently, take 'sugar coated bullets' are now being tried. decisions for themselves. It leads to the The carrot as well as the stick. attitude that workers must be compelled to take action to save themselves from the After a short time as a shop steward one·; folly of their own backwardness. This is a recognises that self reliance is the keynote distortion of Marxism and certainly contra­ in any workshop or factory. To enter into ry to the teachings of Mao-Tse-Tung, the any struggle on any other basis is to court greatest exponent of Marxism. defeat and this will be even more true .in the future as _far as official support is Officials and Membership concerned. The question of whether trade unions will During the next few years aspiring Marx­ develop as organs of mass struggle or degen­ ists who see the trade unions as a power erate into organs of mass suppression on base will also be compelled to re-think the fascist model is one of the key factors their position. The same pressures which which will determine our perspective for make Scanlon and Jones move from their mass struggle in the future. ROSA LUXEMBURG, 187f - 1971 AN APPRECIATION.

Bt Mike F.Julkner

"An eagle may sometimes fly lower than a Lenin on such issues as nationalism and the hen but a hen can never fly as high as an party, many Marxist-Leninists have come to eagle. Rosa Luxemburg erred over the que­ regard her with the slightly awkward affec­ stion of Polish independence; she erred in tion reserved for the martyr whose heroism 1913 on the theory of capitalist accumulat­ was beyond question but whose politics, it 1 ion; she erred when in July 1914, along is felt, were less than pure 1 • But her with Plekhanov, Vandervelde, Kautsky, etc. centenary should not pass unnoticed for she she favoured unity between the Bolsheviks was a truly great revolutionary whose deep and the Mensheviks; she erred in her let­ confidence in the working class and unshak­ ters from prison in 1918 (although after able devotion to the cause of socialism her release she largely corrected her mis­ sustained her through the most bitter tri­ takes at the end of 1918 and early 1919) als and reverses and enabled her to make but, in spite of all these mistakes, she the supreme sacrifice with quiet serenity. was and remains an eagle". She was born in Poland in the same month Before commencing this appreciation of as the Commune arose in Paris and her en­ Rosa Luxemburg I think it necessary to say tire life was devoted to the cause for why I consider it important for Marxist which the Commune stood, To celebrate the Leninists to celebrate the centenary of her Commune and ignore Rosa Luxemburg is to birth. ignore the historic significance of the Commune. Rosa Luxemburg was a contemporary of Lenin's. Like Lenin she was throughout her In this essay I want to deal briefly with life wholeheartedly dedicated to the revol­ some of her ideas and to show how, in spite ution that would liberate mankind and, like of her mistakes, she never lost sight of him, she brought to the struggle a warm and the fact that the socialist revolution must dynamic personality, an indefatigable P.n­ be made by the masses of the workers. The ergy and extraordinary intellectual gifts. need to involve the masses in all stages of Unlike Lenin, she often failed to see the the struggle was her constant preoccupation wood for the trees and, as a result, made and it is this aspect of herthinking more serious errors of judgement on several im­ than anything else that links her with the portant theoretical and organisational que­ two greatest revolutionaries of this cen­ stions. Unlike Lenin, she failed to lead a tury - Lenin and Mao. revolution to victory and for that failure she paid with her life. Biographical background.

Because of her sharp differences with Rosa Luxemburg was born in the Polish

6 to~n of Zamosc on March 5, 1871 . She be­ war resolution. came a revolutionary while still at school and by the time she was 18 her activities Her most important theoretical work, 'The had come to the notice of the police. She Accumulation of Capital' was published in was forced to flee the country and, like 1913 and immediately it gave rise to a many other Russian and Polish revolutionary heated controversy in the SPD. emigres, she found her way to Switzerland. She entered the university of Zurich in With the outbreak of the imperialist war 1889 and soon became active in the social­ in 1914 the Parliamentary group of the SPD ist movement. She helped form the Polish voted in favour of war credits for the Social Democratic Party in 1893 . Kaiser's government _ Finally only one deputy in the Rei chstag· upheld the honour Germany was the centre of Social Demo­ of revolutionary socialism by flouting cratic politics and Rosa luxemburg made her Party discipline to vote against the war way there in 1898, just as the German party credits. That was Karl Lieb ::n< ;~t was engaged in the great controversy with Bernstein. She led the attack against rev­ From that time onwards the two names - isionism with a series of articles publish­ Luxemburg and Liebk r.echt were linked to­ ed in the party's paper 1Neue Zeit 1 entitl­ gether as symbols of socialist resistance ed 'Social Reform or Revolution'. to the Imperialist War in Germany. Togeth­ er, Franz Mehring and Clara Zetkin, Rosa Bad health prevented her from returning Luxemburg and Kar Liebknecht salvaged from to Poland immediately when the 19D5 revol­ the opportunist debris -uf the SPD a small ution broke out. She did return at the end group of principled revolutionaries who of the year, by which time the revolution became the nucleus of the Spartakus Bund. had passed its peak and the initiative had passed to reaction. She worked clandestin­ In February 1915 she was thrown into jail ely in Warsaw for a few months until in once again. From there she continued to March 19D6 she was arrested and thrown into agitate against the war , collaborating in jail. Her deteriorating health led to her the publication of the illegal 'Spartakus release later in the year. She was expell­ Letters• . In 1916 she issued under the ed from Poland and before returning to Ger­ pseudonym 'Junius' her famous pamphlet 'The many she went to a short time to Finland Crisis of German Social Democracy' which 1 where she summed up the experiences of the came to be known as 1The Juniusbrochure • 19D5 revolution in her pamphlet 'The Mass In it she submitted the leaders of German Strike, the Party and the Trade Unions •. Social Demo cracy to scathing denunciation and called for the establishment of a new, In 1907 she attended the London Confer­ revolutionary International. ence of the Russian Social Democratic la­ bour Party as a delegate from the Polish In November 1918 the revolution in Ger­ Party and later in the same year she spoke many released Rosa Luxemburg from prison. at the Stuttgart Congress of the Socialist She entered immediately into the political International where, together with Lenin, fray and, togetber with Karl Liebknecht and she introduced the famous anti-imperialist others she played the leading part in faun-

1 ding the German Communist Party. She be­ feature in co~mon - they both represented came the editor of the new party's paper, an abandonment of revolution in favour of 1Rote Fahne 1• reformism. When Bernstein said: 1The final aim of socialism, whatever it may be, does But the rightist politicians of German not matter to me; it is the movement itself Social Democracy into whose hands the reins which matters•, he turned his back on rev­ of state had fallen, put themselves in the olution. For the revolutionary potential service of reaction and acted as the execu­ of the masses he substituted the parliamen­ tioners of the revolution. They used the tary party establishment, acting on behalf armed forces of the old Prussian power to of the masses, in pursuit of social reform. crush the workers uprising in Berlin in It was against this betrayal that Rosa Lux­ January 1919. On January 15, Rosa Luxem­ emburg reacted so passionately. ~lthough burg and Karl Liebknecht were arrested. On she often had the support of Kautsky and the same da} they were brutally murdered by those who later formed the "Marxist Centre• their captors. Karl Liebknecht was shot in in the German Party, she was, fro~ the cold blood. Rosa Luxemburg was struck on beginning, distinguished from them in her the head with the butt of a rifle. Repeat­ belief that -the masses were themselves the ed blows smashed her skull. She was then makers of history. This profound confid­ dragged half dead into a waiting car where ence in the working class and equally prof­ she was shot at point blank range. Her ound distrust of anything that in her opin­ body was thrown from the Liechtenstein ion sought to cramp the workers• revolutio­ Bridge into the Landwehr Canal from where nary energies, was at once the source of it was not recove1·ed until the following all her strength and all her weaknesses. It May. sustained her where others sank into cynic­ ism or despair and it led her, through a Throughout her turbulent life she never sometimes too simple belief in spontaneity, for a moment flinched from the dangers that to make serious errors of judgement where confronted her and she well understood her political skill was needed. personal stake in the struggle. Less than two years before her death, in a letter to Her earliest controversy with Lenin occ­ Sophi e Liebknecht, written from prison, she ured in 1904 shortly after the historic 2nd had said: 1You know that I really hope to Congress of the RSDLP. Lenin had defined die at my post, in a street fight or in the Bolshevik position in 10ne Step Forward; prison•. Like so many brave fighters, be­ Two Steps Back", a sharply polemical art­ fore her and since, who have devoted their icle against his Menshevik opponents, which li ves to the revolution, she was finally dealt with the organisational problems of prepared to give up her life in its cause. the Russian movement at that time. It was to this work that Rosa Luxemburg turned her The period 1900 - 1914 was notable for attention in two long articles in 1 Neue the intense battles waged within the Euro­ Zeit• in 1904. pean Socialist movement against revisionism. We are not concerned here to recount the The early revisionism of Bernstein and details of her argument with Lenin but an the later revisionism of Kautsky had one outline of their differences over the nat-

8 ure and role of the party is necessary to decisive powers of this latter onto the an understanding of her conception of soc­ outermost periphery of the party organisa­ ial democracy as "the movement of the work­ tion ••• a central authority which alone ing class itself". thinks, acts and decides for all". (ii)

The Party and the Working Class She reacted so strongly against Lenin's emphasis on party centralism and a profess­ At the second congress of the RSDLP, held ional cadre because, for her, they were in­ in London in 1903, a serious split develop­ compatible with what she termed the "self ed amongst the delegates over questions of activation" of the working class. It was party organisation. Rosa Luxemburg , who not simply that she found the views exp­ followed developments in the Russian move­ ressed in "What Is To Be Done?" and "One ment very closely, found herself in strong Step Forward, Two Steps Back" inapplicable disagreement with Lenin on the question of to the different conditions prevailing in centralism and over his concept of a pro­ Germany; she regarded them as inapplicable fessional revolutionary cadre. Her views to Russia as well: were very close to those of the Mensheviks. 1Even from the standpoint of the fears entertained by Lenin - i.e. the dangerous She was working in conditions very diff­ influence of the intellectuals upon the erent from those prevailing in Russia . proletarian movement - his own conception For many years there had existed in Germany of organisation constitutes the greatest a mass socialist party working in condit­ danger for Russian Social Democracy".(iii) ions of legality and with considerable re­ In posing an alternative, the spontaneous presentation in parliament. Its leaders element was uppermost in her conception: were known and respected throughout the Eu­ "Social Democratic Centralism must there­ ropean revolutionary movement. She was fore be of an essentially different con­ acutely conscious of the need to involve struction from the Blanquist. It can be the masses of workers in political struggle nothing other than the imperious co-ordin­ and to her it appeared that Lenin's view of ation of the will of the enlightened and the political vanguard would preclude such fighting vanguard of the workers as con­ an involvement. She criticised him for trasted with its different groups and in­ attempting to stifle the initiative of the dividuals; this is, so to speak, a "self masses and accused him of wanting to impose centralism" of the leading element within a bureaucratic clique over the proletariat. its own party organisation". (iv) She believed that leadership should be ex­ ercised by way of example and had great But Lenin advocated neither Blanquism nor faith in the ability of the working class Jacobinism. He actually went to some spontaneously to generate its vanguard or­ length to point out that, in attributing ganisations which would carry the revolut­ to him the definition of a revolutionary ion to victory. She seemed to think that Social Democrat as the "Jacobin indissolub­ Lenin was advocating a form of Blanquism - ly linked with the organisation of the 1the absolute blind subordination of the class-conscious workers", Rosa Luxemburg different organs of the party to their was confusing "comparison of the two revol­ central authority and the extension of the utionary trends of the eighteenth and twen- 9 tieth centuries with identification of lack of confidence in the masses - its re­ those trendsw. (v) formism. Rosa Luxemburg was conscious of this relationship but she saw organisation There is no doubt that she failed to itself as a danger, rather than the partic­ grasp the meaning of the struggle in the ular type of organisation in the German Russian party. Party. This led her to an over-optimistic view of what could be achieved through the Her opposition to the Bolsheviks on org­ spontaneous action of the workers and she anisational questions expressed a deeply failed to understand the importance assign­ felt antipathy to all centralised rules and ed by Lenin to the vanguard political party discipline within the proletarian movement. integrally linked to the working class as She was reacting against the particular a necessary weapon in the struggle for type of organisation existing in the German power. For her, social democracy was •the Party where, long before 1914, the leader­ movement of the working class itself". ship had come to see their parliamentary role as all~important. The parliamentary During the decade and a half following group, the trade union leaders and the the 1903 Cong ress of the RSOLP, events were Party theoreticians came to regard them­ to show that the Bolsheviks were essential­ selves as the decisive fa ctor in the class ly correct. Only they were capable of struggle ; the working class would await "seizing the hour" in the revolutionary their command and act only when and as they months of 1917 in Russia. The course of chose . Mass action EY the workers came to the German revolution shows that , while Rosa be feared as it might disrupt the leader­ Luxemburg may not have underestimated the ship ' s smooth plans for the workers. The ferocity of ruling class reaction, she Party leadership was supposed to act on be­ never really came to terms with the quest­ half of the class; the class was expected ion of how it could be successfully fought to be maleable material in their hands. She and defeated. In spite of her deep dis­ expressed herself against the Party regime agreements with the right and centre of in a letter to Klara Zetkin in 1907: German social democracy and even after she WThe plain truth is that August (Bebel) had come to realise that the Party leader­ and still more so the others , have complete­ ship constituted a barrier to revolut1on, ly pledged themselves to parliament and she refused to effect an 0' ~ nisational parliamentarianism and whenever anything break with them. Ironically, her belief in happens which transcends the limits of par­ "self-activation" was, in part, responsib­ liamertary action they are hopeless - no, le for her failure to make such a break. worse than hopeless, because they then do She was hypnotised by the SPO even though their utmost to force the movement back she saw its faults. She seemed to think into parli amentary channels and they will that to break from the Party necessarily furiously defame as 1an enemy of the people 1 meant to isolate herself from the workers. anyone who dares to venture beyond their While Lenin and his comrades were building own limits". a "new type• of party in Russia, she con­ tinued to allow the opportunists to wear The German Party was heavily bureaucratic the mantle of leadership in Germa~y. Even and this feature was closely related to its at the end of her life, in her speech to 10 the foundation Congress of the German Com­ find itself on sure and firm ground". munist Party in January 1919, she had not The subsequent history of the revolution­ abandoned her belief in spontaneity as the ary movement has shown this to be true. decisive factor. DActivity itself educates Without the leadership of a revolutionary the masses" she said. As far as the polit­ party the workers can never take power; but ical education of the masses was concerned unless the workers control the party and Lenin had argued precisely the opposite. unless they are drawn fully into the admin­ istration of the state, they can never re­ It can be said that Rosa Luxembourg erred tain power. Since 1917 most communist par­ not in her deep faith in the creative rev­ ties throughout the world have gone the olutionary power of the masses but in her same way as the parties of the Second Int­ belief that a disciplined, centralised org ernational; they have become divorced from -anisation of the leninist type was some­ the workers and have degenerated into bour­ how incompatible with the revolutionary gois parties. That Lenin was awake to this will of the masses. lenin 1s "party of a danger is clear from much of his writing, new type" was not, as she believed, con­ particularly from his last articles and ceived as something apart from and above speeches. the masses but was, on the contrary, the One of the most important questions fac­ only effective expression of their will to ing the working class movement in a pre­ power. revolutionary situation is how to ensure that the Party is both democratic and cent­ But in pointing to her error it is im­ ralist and that it gives effective politic­ portant to remember what was positive and al leadership to the workers while encour­ good in her thinking. She was motivated aging their fullest participation in by a genuine revolutionary desire to remove struggle. One of the most important quest­ obstacles to the workers• path to power. ions after the seizure of power is how to She hated the opportunism, the intellectual ensure that the working class and the mass­ arrogance and the conceit of so many self­ es are drawn fully into the administration styled leaders and in their attitude she of the state so that the dictatorship of correctly detected contempt for the working the proletariat and socialist democracy be­ class. In the preface to one of her earl­ come a reality. In view of the terrible iest works •social Reform or Revolution", stultification of mass initiative that oc­ written in 1899 against the revisionism of curred in the Soviet Union and Eastern Eur­ Bernstein, she said: ope there is no room for complacency about questions such as these. In considering "As long as theoretical knowledge remains them, revolutionaries will find much that the privilege of a handful of •academicians• is of positive value in the ideas of Rosa in the Party, the latter will face the dan­ Luxemburg. ger of going astray. Only when the great mass of workers take the keen and dependab­ The National Question le weapons of scientific socialism in their own hands will all the petty-bourgeois in­ like Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg had no patien­ clinations, all the opportunist currents ce with those who attempted to use the let­ come to nothing. The movement will then ter of Marxism against the spirit of Marx-

11 ism. In one of her earliest works "The Ind­ Throughout her life Rosa luxemburg argu­ ustrial Development of Polandn (1896), she ed that socialists should not fight for opposed the petty-bougois nationalists in Poland's national independence. She argued the Polish Socialist Party who insisted on that the demand for separation served only clinging to Marx's view that it was the the interests of the Polish capitalists and duty of all socialists and democrats to drew its support from peasant backwardness. support actively the demand for Polish ind­ She argued that the workers of Poland and ependence from Russia. This standpoint had Russia should unite their struggle against been correct through the middle and later their oppressors in both countries on pure­ years of the nineteenth century when the ly class and not national lines. But in a centre of revolution was in Western and long article written in 1908 she went much central Europe. At that time Tsarist Russ­ farther than this, arguing that the very ia was still the bastion of counter-revolu­ concept of national "self determination" tion and, in the absence of mass democratic was wrong. She severely criticised the movements in Russia and other Slavic countr­ Russian Marxists for including the demand ies, the Polish landed gentry who led the for self determination of oppressed nations independence movement, assumed an important in their 1903 programme. role in the European democratic movement. On this question she crossed swords with But by the end of the nineteenth century Lenin who, in 1914, subjected her arguments things had changed. Independent democratic to an incisive critical analysis in the and proletarian movements began to arise in course of which he placed the problem in the Slavic countries, including Russia it­ its historical perspective. He warned ag­ self. The centre of gravity of the revolu­ ainst the chauvinism of even socialists be­ tion began to shift away from the west to­ longing to oppressing nations, recalling wards Russia. The old Poland of the landed ~arx's criticism of a young Russian social­ gent~y gave way to a new Poland of the cap­ ist for his attitude to Poland: italist bourgeoisie. In these changed con­ ditions Poland ceased to have the pivotal "Marx asks a socialist belonging to an importance it had in Marx 1 s day. Writing oppressing nation about his attitude to the on the national question in 1914, Lenin oppressed nation and he at once reveals the pointed out that in this respect Rosa lux­ defect common to the Socialists of the dom­ emburg1s standpoint had been correct: inant nations (the British and the Russian): "Therefore, the Polish Social-Democrats they fail to understand their socialist du­ were quite right when they attacked the ties towards the downtrodden nations, they nationalistic infatuation of the Polish echo prejudices borro~d from the bourgeoi­ petty bourgeoisie and pointed out that the sie of the "Great Powersn . (vii) national question was of secondary import­ ance for Polish workers when they, for the Such chauvinism in the ranks of the pro­ first time, created a purely proletarian letarian movement of an oppressing nation party in Poland and proclaimed the very was utterly intolerable to Lenin. He arg­ important principle that the Polish and ued that from the standpoint of the new Russian workers must maintain the closest proletarian parties during the period of ~lliance in their class struggle". (vi) the bourgeois democratic revolution in last

12 ern Europe and Asia, all nationalism must of other economists she concluded that acc­ be opposed on class lines, as it was always umulation within a closed system was im­ either bourgeois or feudal. But he also possible . insisted on the right of all nations to self-determination and stressed the partic­ Central to the problem of capital accum­ ular relevance of this demand to the curr­ ulation was, in her view, the realisation ently existing situation in which Tsarist of surplus value. In simple reproduction Russia oppressed numerous nationalities - surplus value is sold to the capitalists including the Poles. He thus made no con­ for their own consumption. In expanded re­ cessions to the "nationalism" of either the production the realisation of constant and oppressing or the oppressed nations but he variable capital is achieved through the fully recognised the rights of the peoples capitalists' replacement purchases and the of the oppressed nations such as Poland to expenditure of the workers. How are the self-determination - i.e. to secession . capitalists to realise that part of the surplus value they wish to accumulate? Concerning the national question, it can It cannot, as in simple reproduction, be be said that Rosa Luxemburg 1s passionate sold back to the capitalists themselves and internationalist spirit and commitment to the workers' wages are only sufficient to the workers' struggle was not balanced by a realise the variable capital. In this the­ sufficiently sober appraisal of the compl­ oretical construction of a 'closed capital­ exities involved. In this, as in other ism' the problem now becomes one of find­ matters, her Marxism fell short of Lenin's. ing a demand for the accumulated surplus value. In such a system that part of the The Accumulation of Capital surplus value not consumed by the capital­ ists cannot effectively exist in the form Rosa Luxemburg 1 s major theoretical work of additional means of production, as the is undoubtedly DThe Accumulation of Capital" only effect of such means of production which she wrote in 1912. would be to increase accumulation still further without solving the problem of de­ Bernstein and his supporters based their mand. Such a state of affairs, she conclu­ rejection of revolution on the premise that ded, was rather like a: capitalism could go on expanding indefinite­ "Merry-go-round which revolves around it­ ly and, while this theory was rejected by self in empty air. This is not capitalist the anti-revisionists, no serious attempt accumulation, i.e. heaping up of money cap­ has been made to develop a theoretical al­ ital but the opposite : production for the ternative to it. In uThe Accumulation of sake of production, thus, from the stand­ Capital" Rosa Luxemburg set out to provide point of capital, utter nonsense". (viii) one. Her way out of the insoluble dilemma Her reading of Vol. II of 'Capital" led posed by her own theoretical structure was her to the conclusion that Marx had not con­ to abandon as unworkable her a-priori ass­ clusively demonstrated the possibility of umption - the closed or 'pure' capitalist capital accumulation within a 'closed' cap­ system. That part of the surplus value italist system. After studying the writing which, within the structure could not be

13 profitably accumulated, now finds an out­ falis down. As Bukharin said: let in a non-capitalist sector which alone Dif one excludes expanded reproduction at can provide the effective demand enabling the beginning of a logical proof, it is the capitalists to accumulate. naturally easy to make it disappear at the end; it is simply a question of the simple This expansion to the non-capitalist en­ reproduction of a simple logical error" .(ix) vironment is the basis for Rosa Luxemburg 1 s theory of imperialism. The backward nat­ The flaws in her theory were well summed ions become drawn into the capitalist orbit up by Paul Sweezy: and when the non-capitalist environment has 0There is no a priori impossibility of been fully absorbed there once again emerg­ capital accumulation in a closed capitalist e& the closed capitalist system which she system; and if there were, the non-capital­ has already shown to be unworkable. It ist environment would in no way help mat­ will not work - and that will be the end of ters. · What Rosa Luxemburg really does is capitalism. to examine the problem of accumulation with the premises of 'simple reproduction' (from According to this theory the crisis of which accumulation is excluded) and then capitalismaimperialism occurs as a result call in the non-capitalist environment as a of the exhaustion of the non-capitalist sort of deus ex machina to get her out of market and the impending doom of capitalism the resulting muddle." becomes as mechanically inevitable as the destruction of a driverless car heading Although the logic of her argument led to full speed towards a cliff edge. the conclusion that capitalism was bound to collapse regardless of any conscious action The most glaring error in this theoretic­ on the parJ of the workers to assist its al construction is her assumption that the destruction, Rosa Luxemburg was too good a consumption of workers cannot realise sur­ revolutionary to accept the logical conse­ plus value. From this error she is led to quences of her own proposition. She con­ conclude that the sum of variable capital cluded "The Accumulation of Capital" with a remains fixed under expanded reproduction, passionate c.ondemnation of imperialism and and likewise the workers' consumption. In an appeal to the workers to prepare for the practice varidble capital does not remain revolutionary overthrow of the capitali st­ fixed with ac~umulation but is added to. imperialist S¥stem before 1t was allowed to When spent by the workers it realises sur­ drag the world into barbarism. That was plus value which takes the form of cons­ two years before World War 1. umption goods. Her book was greeted with a storm of hos­ Rosa Luxemburg thought that it was im­ tilo criticism from the party theoreticians possible for consumption to increase within in Germ?.ily. Not only was it attacked by the framework of capitalism and concluded the old-style rgvisionists but also ·by the that any addition to the total means of 1orthodox 1 lead~~s,like Kautsky. Almost the production would serve no purpose. Once entire leadership ot ·tr•c SPO had by this the dogma about the constancy of consump­ time come to fear revolution. The revision tion is shown to be false, the whole theory -ists openly repudiated it; the Kautskyists

14 always argued that the time wasn't ripe. elution and her life-long interest in bota­ They all, in one way or another, believed ny and ornithology; she found time to paint in the indefinite expansibility of capital­ and she painted well; she read and loved ism, so it is hardly surprising that they the great classics of European literature. reacted so strongly against a theory which Nothing of this detracted one iota from her treated revolution not as a possibility in total dedication to the cause of the prol­ the distant future but as a necessary con­ etariat. Her combination of emotional pas­ comitant of capitalism's impending collapse. sion and soaring intellect is perhaps most evident in the burning denunciation of imp­ Whatever the theoretical errors in this erialism with which she concluded her 'Jun­ work (and they were not inconsiderable) it ius Brochure•. It was written from prison was still an outstanding achievement that · in February 1915 as Europe was plunged into put her head and shoulders above most of the bloodiest war in History. The follow­ her cri tics. ing will surely stand for all time as the most eloquent condemnation of imperialist Rosa Luxemburg the Woman bestiality ever written: "Imperialist bestiality has been let It has not been possible to touch on more loose to devastate the fields of Europe than a few of Rosa Luxemburg's ideas and and there is one incidental accompaniment it is impossible to convey the full drama for which the "cultured world" has neither of her life and struggle in an essay. In heart nor conscience - the mass slaughter concentrating on the theoretical contrib­ of the European proletariat ••• It is our utions of outstanding revolutionaries, hope, our flesh and blood which is falling Marxists are often inclined to pay too in swathes like cor·n under the sickle. The little attention to their lives - to the finest, the most intelligent, the best trai kind of people they were. This seems to me -ned forces of international socialism, the a mistake, for if the struggle for social­ bearers of the heroic traditions of the ism is not about the quality of human life, modern working class movement, the advanced then it is about nothing. The greatest guard of the world proletariat, the workers revolutionaries have been outstanding of Great Britain, France, Ger.nany and Russ­ human beings. ia are being slaughtered in masses. That is a greater crime by far than the brutish Rosa Luxemburg was an outstanding human sack of Louvain or the destruction of Rhei­ being in every sense. She was a woman of ms Cathedral. It is a deadly blow against deep compassion and intensity of feeling. the power which holds the whole futu~e of For her the revolution was not an abstract­ humanity, the only power which can save the ion to which one devoted oneself by retrea­ values of the past and carry them on into a ting from the war ld of ordinary men and wo-­ newer and bet1er human society. Capitalism men into a political coterie. The struggle has revealed its true features; it betrays concerned the real lives of men and women, to the world that it has lost its historic­ their joys and their sorrows, their aspira­ al justification that its continued exist­ tions. She led a "real life" in the full­ ence can no longer be reconciled with the est sense. She saw no contradiction, for progress of mankind •••• example, between her commitment to the rev- "Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alles! 15 Long live Democracy! Long live the Tsar and paid to her by her old friend Klara Zetkin: Slavdom! Ten thousand blankets guaranteed "In Rosa Luxemburg the socialist idea was in perfect condition! A hundred thousand a dominating and powerful passion of both kilos of bacon, coffee substitutes - immed­ heart and brain, a truly creative passion iate delivery! Dividends rise and prolet­ which burned ceaselessly. The great task arians fall. And with each one sinks a and the overpowering ambition of this ast­ fighter for the future, a soldier of the onishing woman was to prepare the way for revolution, a liberator of humanity from the social revolution, to clear the path of yoke of capitalism and finds a nameless ·gra­ history for socialism. To experience the ve. The madness will cease and the bloody revolution, to fight its battles - that product of hell come to an end only when was the highest happiness for her. With a the workers of Germany and France, of Great will, determination, selflessness and de­ Britain and Russia, awaken from their fren­ votion for which words are too weak she zy, extend to each other the hand of friend consecrated her whole life and her whole ship and drown the bestial chorus of imp­ being to socialism. She gave herself com­ erialist hyenas with the thundersous battle­ pletely to the cause of socialism, not cry of the modern working class movement; only in her tragic death but throughout her 'Workers of the World, Unite!' whole life, daily and hourly, through the struggles of many years. She was the sharp It is appropriate to end with the tribute sword, the living flame of revolution."

References

(i) See Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 7, pages 476-477 and Rosa Luxemburg 1s "Marxism or Leninism" . (I.L.P. 1962)

(ii) Rosa Luxemburg 1s "Marxism or Leninism", page 11

(iii) Ibid, page 14

(iv) Ibid, page 12

(v) Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 7, page 477

(vi) Lenin, Selected Works, 1943 Edition, Volume 4

(vii) Ibid, page 274

(viii) Rosa Luxemburg 1 s "The Anti-Kritic", page 17

(ix) Bukharin 1s "Imperialism and the Accumulation of Capital", page 20

(x) Paul M. Sweezy. Review of 1955 edition of "Accumulation of Capital" New Statesman, June 1951

16 THE PARIS COMMUNE

by Vir&inia Penn

J One hundred years ago, for just 72 days - France, occupying many of the main cities, March 18-May 28 1871, the working people of bringing untold suffering and sorrow to the Paris exercised the first Dictatorship of French people. the Proletariat after seizure of power from the ruling bourgeoisie. Ever since the In Se1tember 1870 the completely discred­ French Revolution at the end of the eight­ ited i.a; oleon fled, leaving others to save eenth century and the defeat of Napoleon France from the ruins. A new government in 1815 the reins of govern r8nt had been calling itself the 'Government of National shifted about among var:GLs s_s-8~:s of t:1 e Defence 1 took over, a ruling class govern­ bourgeoisie - in the torm of a restored ment later stigmatised by Lenin as a 'Gov­ monarchy, a 'republic', then another empire ernment of National Betrayal'. The Pruss­ under Napoleon III. During this unstable ian intention was to seize Paris, which period the conditions of the people, both was beseiged for nearly five months, but peasants and workers as well as petty-bour­ the invaders were frustrated by the staun­ geois elements, had become increasingly ch determination of the armed workers. In hard to bear. Peasants who could not live January 1871 the upper-crust 1Government 1 off their meagre land drifted to the cities surrendered Paris to the Prussians, later seeking work in the young but growing ind­ removing itself to the safety and comfort ustry, swelling the ranks of the unemployed of Versailles, well away from the nearly and the under-employed workers. At the starving city. same time a wealthy and corrupt capitalist class had come to dominate the scene. Str­ Even so the working people won a victory ife among sections of the ruling class en­ for they prevented Bismark's soldiers from abled Louis Napoleon Bonaparte to seize occupying their Paris except for one small power, becoming Emporer Napoleon Ill, with corner. They had been preparing their de­ an ostentatious and glittering court for fences, setting up their own armed Workers' the people to maintain. Battalions and National Guard. They had

set up Committees of Vigilance and taken j This was a period of bitter rivalry be­ over some of the Paris fortresses. Fear­ tween France and Prussia to dominate Europe ing the workers more than the foreign in­ when the latter was growing fast in size vader, the 1Government 1 sought by force o and power under the astute leadership of and persuasion to disarm them and to seize the ruthless Bismark. In 1870 the less in­ their fortification but all their efforts telligent Napoleon was outwitted in a dip~ failed in the face of the workers' unbending lomatic contest, as the result of which he and united determination. was provoked into declaring war, leading to his downfall. The Prussians swept through On March 18th the people of Paris awoke

17 to the jubilant call of the Commune leaders his Civil War in France: the armed workers. Having made careful '··· this was the first revolution in preparations for months , the day had arrive which the working class was openly acknow­ -ed to go into action. The Manifesto of ledged as the only class capable of social the Commune urged: initiative, even by the great bulk of the ' The proletarians of Paris, amidst the Paris middle-class shop-keepers, trades­ failures and treasons of the ruling classes men, merchants - the wealthy capitalists have understood that the hour has struck alone excepted ••• 1 for them to save the situation by taking into their own hands the direction of pub­ The Commune had saved the former from a lic affairs •• They have understood that it morass of debts and, as for the peasants , is their imperious duty and their absolute he continued, 'the Commune was perfectly right to render themselves masters of their right in telling (them) that "its victory own destinies by sei zing governmental was their only hopen. power' . (Quoted by Marx in Civil War in France) Lenin stressed the point in his 1908 speech in Geneva , commenting that in the The leaders of the Commune movement had national crisis of that time , with the been alerted by a nocturnal attempt by the German victors settled in the main cities 'Government' to seize the artillery of the of France, the bourgeoisie showed their National Guard, a move frustrated by the true colours when they consorted with the workers with the assistance of some of the enemies of their own people. Moreover, the very soldiers instructed to disarm them. Parisian working classes have taught 'the European proletariat to deal concretely The Seizure of Power with the problems of Socialist Revolution' and that only the proletariat could be re­ This heroic action was warmly acclaimed lied on to do so . by Marx, Engels and , later, by Lenin and by the Chinese Communist Party. On the 95th Smash the Bourgeois State! anniversary of the Commune the C.C .P. jour­ nal, Red Flag (no. 4, 1966) , stresses the Not only had the Parisians seized power international significance of the struggle: from the renegade 'Government of National 1The Paris Commune ••• was the proletari­ Defence' which fled to Versailles but they at ' s first rehearsal in taking up arms to revolutionised the state, In each sector overthrow the dictatorship of the bourgeoi­ of Paris the Committees of Vigilance were sie and establish the dictatorship of the responsible for safeguarding the people proletariat, to overthrow the. capitalist and the National Guard was manned by work­ system and establish the socialist system. ing men, at the service of the dispossess­ The heroes of the Commune bequeathed us in­ ed classes. The first decree of the Comm­ valuable lessons and experience gained at une was the abolition of the National army the cost of their blood". ' and its substitution by the people's own National Guard. The police was transford Paris was firmly in the hands of its wor­ from being an agent of the old central gov­ king people, as Marx clearly described in ernment to become an elected force respons-

18 ible to the people. The proletariat took press and by letter or personal representa­ over the functions of the former mayors of tion to the individual or committee concer­ Paris districts, the judiciary and all ad­ ned. For instance, a letter dated April ministration. Judges and other officials 27th and published in a Paris paper said; were to be elected and subject to recall 'Please give members of the Commune a and all reactionary functionaries were dis­ jolt from time to time, ask them not to mi~sed. There was to be no separation be­ fall asleep, not to procrastinate in carry­ tween legislative and executive organs; ing out their own decrees. Let them make the elected committees of the Commune con­ an end to their private bickering because trolled all aspects of administration. In only by unanimity of view can they with other words, the new state machinery was greater power, defend the Commune' (quoted completely in the hands of the working in Red Flag, no : 41966). Similarly, the people; law enactment and enforrement was Commune was sharply criticised for not ta­ their prerogative and responsibility. king resolute action against counter-revol­ utionaries, deserters and renegades. A barrier to careerism, bureaucracy and corruption by office-seeker~ was erected by It was the aspiration of the Paris Commu­ the treatment of salaries. The lowest were nards that their example would be followed raised and no functionary could draw more throughout France but the situation in gen­ than the average worker. The holding of, eral was not ripe for such a widespread and payment for, more than one post was revolutionary movement. forbidden and all special privileges and emoluments were abolished. On April .6th a Bourgeois deceit resolution was passed abolishing the rank of General as 'incompatible with the princ­ The proletariat of the Commune sought to iples of democratic organisation of the Nat establish a state where 'supreme justice' -ional Guard' , a resolution which was untor and universal magnanimity prevailed; where -tunately not implemented. All factories there would be no more human exploitation and workshops which had been closed by tim­ but their objectives could not be attained. orous or fleeing owners were taken over by The Versailles government carried on 'peace' the Commune, to be operated as social prop­ negotiations with the Commune, all the erty. Other measures included the cancell­ while secretly preparing for an armed ass­ ation of all arrears of rent and debts, the ault. From Versailles, Thiers, head of the secularising of education to break the reac Executive, declared on April 27th; -tionary control of the clergy and laws to 1I repeat it again and again. Let those protect workers, such as that against the impious weapons fall from the hands which onerous night baking, which was forbidden . hold them and chastisement shall be arrest­ ed at once by an act of peace, excluding Not only were all functionaries elected only the small number of criminals. ' and subject to recall but the people met regularly in their 'clubs' to express their The Paris Commune was a serious obstacle views, make proposals and above all to su­ to the domination of both foreign invaders pervise the elected committees and offici­ and national reactioraries. It was there­ als. Criticisms were freely aired in the fore natural that Versailles should seek

19 the collaboration of the Prussian command, itutions such as the Bank of France. In which was only too willing to assist in the their sincere desire to consolidate their demolition of this proletarian dictator­ victory in a truly 'socialist' style, they ship. The Prussians were urged, and they did not d&~troy their enemies but sought agreed, to release French prisoners taken 'to exercise moral influence on them', to in the invasion, to reinforce the weak mil­ show benevolence' and ' magnanimity' in itary forces of Versailles. The counter­ order to achieve true 'fraternity'. revolutionary attack on Paris succeeded in breaking down the fierce resistance of the Also, in the exciting and awe-inspiring Commune and, entering the city on 28th May attempt to construct an entirely new socie­ was followed by a widespread massacre which ty, the Parisians became engrossed in elec­ continued well into June. Fighting to the tions and the supervision of their committ­ last the valiant defenders of the Commune ees, police, Nat1onal Guard, to the unfort­ were overcome and slaughtered, assisted by unate neglect of m]litary vigilance. Above traitors within the gates. all, the crucial factor was the absence at that stage of the revolutionary proletarian An example to all revolutionaries struggle of a Marxist party to lead the way .

Although it lasted only 72 days , the Nevertheless, the Commune provided unfor­ initiative of the working people of Paris, gettable lessons for all later revolution­ their noble attempt to set up an entirely aries; it was appraised by Lenin as 'the new type of socialist state surrounded by greatest example ' of the great proletarian corrupt reaction, their staunch fi ght end­ revolutionary movement to date (1908 Speech i ng in bloody sacrifice, has ever since in Geneva). It was an illustration of the been honoured by revolutionaries everywhere. principle that the emancipation of mankind The positive lessons and analyses of the can be achieved only under the leadership causes of defeat have inspired and guided of the working class, themselves led by a future generations of fighters for the Marxist party and with guns in hand; that emancipation of all oppressed people. the whole bourgeois state apparatus must be replaced by a state of the working class; Lenin saw the destruction of the Commune and that victory must be consolidated in a as the result of a number of causes. In continuing revolution to prevent a come­ their inexperience, the communards were de­ back by the old reactionary forces. The ceived by the words of 'peaceful' agreement heroism of the Communards has been an ins­ emanating from Versailles, so that vigil­ piration to all later revolutionaries and ance was relaxed. They were unable to dis­ the Red Flag flying over the Paris Hotel de tinguish between friends and enemies , so Ville has been a symbol of future victory that reactionary agents had been free to by the oppressed everywhere. move about on their nefarious business. The Commune did not seize the opportunity in The Management Committee welcome comment, the hour of victory to advance on Versaill­ criticism and suggestions for future es to wipe out the bourgeois reactionaries articles. We also welcome letters for in their lair. They had not completed the publication. Please write to Tom Hill, takeover within Paris of react1onary inst- 11 Barratt Avenue, Wood Green, London N. 22

20 WAGES PRICES AND INFLATION

Inflat±on, Deflation, Revaluation, Deval­ of inflated money, those with fixed inco•es, uation. Tariffs and quotas. Imports, Ex­ such as pensioners, lose in real consum~ng ports and the balance of trade. Unemploy­ power. Workers who secure higher wages ment. Taxation. Rising prices. Rising suffer through the time-lag between the wages and the Government's proposals for rise in prices and the adjustment of their clamping a new legal framework around the wages. Those with money who are actively trade unions and factory struggles. engaged in business can, if they are adroit with timing, be one jump ahead, as it were, This catalogue could easily be extended of the inflationary process. They pay but it indicates how economic and financial costs in terms of original prices and sell questions have dominated the headlines and in terms of inflated money at higher ~rices not merely as remote pieces of news. Ris­ and put the proceeds, in a new cycle of ing prices and the struggles they bring production, back into costs at lev~ls still over how to live, affect the widest number not fully reflecting, because of time-lay, of people. These economic and monetary the measure of monetary depreciation·. Thus questions often involve complicated tech­ in addition to a "normal profit', they pro­ nical points and people are open, there­ fit from the situation of inflation. · The fore, to be "blinded by science" and thus entrepreneur's gain from inflation is the capitulate to seemingly plausible ideas counterpart to the pensioner's loss. publicised with persistence. The effect of inflation differs in relat­ The Temple of Money has long endured but ion to varying types of asset . People who­ its pries±s change. What is unchanging is se ownership is expressed in terms of· money the complexity of the priestly doctrines. (e.g. holders of bonds, savings certific­ It is a bold man that claims their mastery. ates, cash) suffer a la ss of command over Without pretence to genius, we feel that real resources as the value of money falls. current developments centred around infla­ Those with direct title to real resources tion are important enough to compel some such as land, factories and goods (and this attempt at their clarification. includes title through shareholdings in companies,) in general see the money valu­ When Money Changes Value ation of these assets move higher.

What happens as the value of money is al­ Of course we are over-simplifying. There tered by inflation? Some gain, others lose. are many complexities in the detailed work­ ~s prices rise to reflect the reduced value ing out of the effects of inflation in a 21 particular situation . . But the essence rem­ The struggle is waged forcefully. When re­ ains that in its alteration of the relation cently Copper, with a production cost of -ship between money and real resources, in- . ertiund £450 a ton, moved 1rito a market sit­ flation favours those with wealth who use uation permitting its price to be increased, their money actively and who command the this went to £750 a ton. But there was no course of business, at the expense of those howl against the copper producers. Copper on wages or pensions who are under the com­ users did not like the high price but they mand of their employers and who respond to paid it. They had to, because unless they price charges rather than initiate them. did they were not supplied.

Wages and Prices Why then should attempts to put up wages be so denounced? Why the anger over strik­ Is it true that higher pr1ces cause wage es, the equivalent way for workers to say increases or do wage increases cause higher that, except at their price, supply of prices? Mr. Heath has assumed the latter their commodity, labour-power, will not be in his denunciation of nwildly excessive forthcoming? wage demandsn. But we should avoid getting imprisoned in a chicken-and-egg argument. The reason is that, although capitalists Each situation has to be studied specific­ accept market struggle as the determinant ally to trace its sequence of political of prices, they regard wages as a special and economic developments. Two things need case. Profit is derived from the differen­ to be said about wages, however. First, ce between what the worker is paid for the producing arguments for keeping them down hire of his labour-power and the value his is as old as capitalism itself. Second, labour creates. Capitalists have a common the fixing of wages touches different sens­ interest in maximising this difference. itivities from the fixing of other prices. The prices the capitalists charge for their goods affect the distribution among themsel How are prices fixed? Clearly not on the -ves of the profit extracted from the work­ basis of moral or social judgements since ers and each is concerned to secure a dis­ otherwise a sewage worker doing essential tribution to his advantage, which means and unpleasant work would get more than a clashes over these prices. But the capit­ fashionable model. What fixes prices is alists have a common interest in extract­ the push and struggle of the market. Bus­ ing the profit itself; hence their special iness monopoly or government intervention attitude towards wages. may appear sometimes as qualifying factors in this struggle but ultimately the qualif­ As with other commodities, the price of ications affect form more than substance. labour-power has ups and downs which centre Prices are fixed by market struggle with around its cost of production. What is the advantage going to the strong. cost of production of labour-power? It is the cost of maintaining the worker and his Capitalists take no exception to this str family (thus ensuring his replacement by a -uggle as the general basis for commodity following generation) at the standard · pricing. Indeed they exalt the market as which, at the given time in a given society the necessary means of getting "efficiency". is regarded as acceptable. This standard

22 changes, of course, with social and econom­ Waqes in Britain ic developments but in a given situation there is an area of earnings which reflects What are the facts about the wages explo­ expectations of what is reasonable. sion which is said to necessitate the new measures proposed by the present government? The actual fixing of a wage is somewhat "The Economist 0 of September 19th, 1970, different from fixing the price of another tabulated important wage settlements and commodity, say bicycles. The capitalist claims. There were settlements ranging up selling bicycles fixes the price himself. to 12% increase with current claims often Of course he will be influenced by product­ considerably higher. But these are gross ion costs and what he thinks the market figures. The worker lives on what he takes will bear but in the end he de cides a pr­ home after deductions, expenses and taxes, ice. The worker cannot fix his wage by si­ not on gross pay. With taxation biting milarly taking a decision. He has to agree harder as money pay rises, a good part of with his employer which means negotiation any increase is immediately negated. The and time. In general , therefore, wages rest is, in general, offset by rising prices tend to respond to pr1ces rather than the which, notwithstanding Mr. Heath's election other way round. Capitalists may argue - campaigning, have continued to go up since this 1s the position of the present govern­ he won. For it to be true that the British ment - tha t they over-respond ; but this re­ workers were taking more out of the econo­ ally only makes the question one of f1gures my, their real consumption would have to go since the very concept of response involves up. But, in fact, from the early days of admission that the initiative lies elsewhere . the Labour government, there has been virt­ Argument over wage8 is not just a theore­ ual stagnation in real consumption. tical exercise. Wages are the price not of The Spread of Inflation inanimate things hut of men with thinking heads and with the power to reshape society What has been the depreciation of money if they become agreed on what they want to throughout the world? Some measure, even do and how to do it. Influencing the thin­ if we need not regard it as precisely accu­ king of the workers is therefore a practic­ rate, is given in the September Economic al and important matter for the capitalist. Letter 1970 published by the First National Hence the propaganda against 'excessive' City Bank, which includes the following : wage 1 · l m~ . ~trikes and trade union prac­ tices with promises of good things to come Depreciation of Money : Annual Rates• in the future if these are modified and Industrialised with appeals to patriotism and national in­ Countries 1959-69 1968-69 1969-70 terest. Thus those whose whole economic strength rests on the market and its settl­ Japan 5.0% 4.CJ1, 7.5% ing of issues by the strength ' t t.; Ontending United States 2.2% 5.1% 5. 7% interests advocate a different attitude Franee 3. 7% 5.7% 5.4% when they clash with their workers. Their United Kingdom 3.4% 5.1% 5.3% 0theory" in this regard is clearly the ser­ Italy 3.6% 2.5% 3. 7% vant of their interest. West Germany 2.4% 2.6% 3.6%

23 Less developed ments and central banks to ease some of Countries 1959-69 1968-69 1969-70 these strains {e.g. the Basle Agreement in Brazil 31.4% 18.8% 17.9% 1968 over support for sterling; the French Indonesia 58.2% 5.8% 12.0% and German Currency changes in 1969; cent­ India 5,61 0.8% 4.8% ral bank "swap" arrangements for support­ Pakistan 3.6% 3.1% 4.5% ing currencies), the basic trend has been for contradictions to sharpen. Problems which may be temporarily pushed into the The figures show : future become more acute. {a) Inflation is widespread (b) A striking change in the rate of infla­ Internally, inflation affects living $tan tion in the U.S. From a moderate rate -dards and the relative position of differ­ averaging only 2.2% a year over the ent social classes; alters the valuation of period 1959-69 it accelerated to reach capital held in various forms and the rela­ 5.7% between 1969 and 1970. tionship between those who owe and those {c) The acceleration of inflation in the who are owed money; and it changes the con­ U.S., the ~ost powerful capitalist ditions in which governments and central country, has been accompanied by its banks determine their fiscal and financial acceleration in other countries al­ policies. Moreover - a longer range but though with variations of pace, giving very important point - persistent infla­ rise to uneven ~h anges in the value of tion which brings stresses and strains into national monies and hence to exchange relationships between capitalists and work­ rate problems. ers, creditors and debtors, buyers and sel­ lers, is a powerful dissolver of social st­ In this situation, inflation has brought ability. For example, the galloping infla­ to countries internal problems and inter­ tion in Indonesia in the period before the national problems. military coup of 1965 was undoubtedly a ma­ jor factor leading to the overthrow of the *The table shows the rate of decline in regime; things could not go on as they were domestic purchasing power and not rates of and a shift one way or the other, to left inflation. Inflation, bringing 100% in­ or right, became inevitable. As inflation crease in prices, is expressed on this ba­ has persisted, the consideration, although sis as 50% depreciation in the buying pow­ not as yet made too mu(~ Jf pu b~i c ly, has er of money. begun to be of increasing weight in ruling circles. Their fear of the social and pol­ Effects of Inflation itical consequences of gathering inflation has contributed to their concern to curb it. Internationally, inflation has brought problems of exchange rates and currency re­ The City of London serves, of balance of trade and balances of payments and of relationships among indus­ British Imperialism, which at its peak trialised countries and bet~~en them and embraced a quarter of the globe, has chara­ the "under-developed" countrie&, Despite cteristics reflecting the conditions of its some measure of co-operation among$t govern- ~ reation and growth in earlier years - the

24 primacy of Britain with the Industrial Rev­ from the American resources which it hoped olution and her naval supremacy which ass­ to turn to profitable use; the counterpart ured free access to the undeveloped countr­ to persistent British investment overseas ies whose peoples were not as yet politica­ has been the flow of investment, mainly Am­ lly aroused. Britain was able to take and erican, into Britain. exploit territories and populations quite disproportionate to her domestic base. An Hence the policies backed by the City in­ island of BO,OOO~uare miles and with ab­ cluded massive arms spending and full mili­ out 1t% of the world ' s population dominated tary collabor~tion with the U.S. and const­ a quarter of the world. The trading and ant efforts to enlarge the resources for financial profits of imperialism , flowing overseas investment by squeezing living back to this base, made for 'parasitism•, standards at home and by limiting domestic for reliance on the inflow of easy money investment. As Britain, year by year, has from commercial and financial manipulations, fallen back competitively in consequence of from the quick plundering of mineral res­ these policies, so even more emphasis has ources. Domestic British industry was sub­ been placed on the financial earnings of ordinated to this money-spinning. Already the City. But the Chancellor's recent con­ by about 1870 British industrial suprema­ gratulations on the City's achievements cy had passed away and with intensifying should be seen with their accompaniment - international competition there was all the the warning on October 2nd 1970 by Mr. more attraction to Britain ' s rulers in the Catherwood, then director-general of the profits from finance and trade. National Economic Development Office, that Britain is •very near the point of no re­ While the City of London certainly should turn• in its decline as an industrial pow­ not be thought of as separate from and op­ er. He said: posed to British industry, since financial and industrial capital interlink and the 1If, in the next two years, we do not spreading activities in recent years of the strengthen and restore our international merchant banks and other financial institu­ competitive power, we will drop out of the tions have been making the association clo­ ranks of major industrial powers ••• In the ser, yet the City, as one of the greatest 1950s we were one of the richest nations international money centres, does have its in the industrial free world. In the 1970s own conceptions of interest. It fought we will be one of the poorest ••• High wage hard to maintain the international status demands, inflationary settlements, wildcat of sterling. Forced to retreat, it estab­ strikes and rigid exchange rates are all lished a new role as the main arena of the problems but they are problems common to Eurodollar market and co-operated with Ame­ other countries. There is no easy solution rican banks to this end , (London now hous­ to be had in preaching restraint to the es around thirty Americ an banks whose busi­ unions ••• We simply have not put down ness is rapidly increasing). The City has enough industrial capacity'. stood for the fullest association with the u.s.; partly in the hope of benefitting We anticipate that Catherwood's warning from American help against anti-imperialist will go unheeded. There may be some tink­ popular movements and partly to borrow ering but under the Tory Government the

25 main emphasis is likely to be on more not DO YOU EVER HAVE THE FEELING YOU HAVE BEEN less of the old medicine, even though it HERE BEFORE? may be poured into new bottles. Pressure against wages will be intensified. Legis­ lation to register and control the unions "This Congress calls upon all Communist is intended permanently to reduce their ef­ Party members and sympathisers to work un­ fectiveness in order to squeeze more out of ceasingly to win the mass of trade unionists British living standards to provide resour­ officials and members alike, to a recognit­ ces for the City 1s policies. · ion of the need for combined action between the unions and a united political Labour Unquestionably wage claims are an element Movement for the purpose of bringing down in the merry-go-round of inflation. But the National Government, tnus creating con­ what can workers do but try to keep up? ditions which will facilitate the further They do not frame the policies which have growth of working class unity and political weakened Britain. Modifying their claims understanding and will accelerate the ad­ would not lead to change in these policies. vance to working class power and the build­ ing of the classless Socialist society ." Indeed, whatever advantages the capital­ ists can wrest from the British workers will be used to apply these polic1es more "Unity can bring to the working-class the intensively. fundamental idea of their own strength and power, the sense that they can transform This is a reprint of part of 0Inflation the Labour Party into the united body that and the Politics of Money' in the October­ W' ds together for one common purpose, the November issue of Politics and Money, a whole organised work ing-class movement." journal obtainable by postal subscription from Politics and Money Publishing Co., 14 South Hjll Park Gardens, London, N.W.3. DWe declare our firm opposition to all attempts to disrupt the Labour Party, either Annual subscription rates (issued normal­ by disaffiliating those workers and organis­ ly monthly but a minimum of 10 a year): Br­ ations that desire work ing class unity, or itish Isles 30/-. Europe (airmail) 40/-. by defeatist conceptions that the Labour Rest of World (airmail) 50/-. There are sp­ Party cannot be won for a policy of un1ty. ecial rates for students who should state In order to combat both these tenden cies 1~ the institution attended and subjects stu­ is necessary to demand with increased energy died. that within the Labour Movement there shall be full demo cratic rights for advocating The next issue of The Marxist, out in views and policies which will help the move­ August, will include ment to free itself from the disastrous Education in China policies of its present leadership." Open Letter from Italian Workers Workers' Control Red Trade Unions? (Harry Pollitt, Report to 14th Congress Communist Party of Great Britain . 1937)

26 ASPECTS OF TEC HNOLOGICAL CHANGE Part Two by Mike Cooley

"Machine labour is simplified in order to make a worker out of the human being still in the making , the completely immature human being, the child - whilst the worker has become a neglected child. The machine accomodates itself to the weakness of the human being in order to make the weak human being into a machine"

Karl Marx. !The Meaning of Human Requirements". (Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844).

The ever increasing complexity of the Basic research is generally carried out in products made possible due to advances of State or non-profit making institutions. Technological Change necessitates enormous research and development programmes. The The cost of Research and Development is drive of vast companies and even nations to now so great that in some leading areas of maintain their "technological monopoly" technological endeavour private enterprise over their competitors further compels them is totally incapable of meeting it. There to embark upon research and development is, for example, no company in the world programmes on unprecedented scales. In the capable of developing an advanced aircraft United States g2,000 millions were spent on system on its own resources. The capital research and development in industry in problems of developing an advanced aero 1950. This figure has increased to ~11,000 engine have been amply demonstrated by the millions in 1961. Rolls-Royce crisis. Private enterprise attempts to overcome this problem by using Industrial "research" effort is concerned its State Machine to provide State funds almost solely with !applied research• - ad­ for "Development Contracts" or Government vancing new scientific knowledge in order Research on projects for the "National to exploit commercial objectives. However , interest" or for reasons of "National Sec­ the expenditure on nDevelopment" - the tran urity•. Thus Private Enterprise retains -slation of research findings into actual the right to commercially exploit products products and processes accounts for some developed at the taxpayer's expense. three-quarters of industry's Research and Development costs. Few companies will spend In the United States today less than amounts which are of any significance on 40% of all research is financed by private •Basic Researchn. Even when they sponsor enterprise compared with 70% in 193D. The research through fellowships and other historical trend is shown by the following means at universities it is usually on pro­ table:- jects of specific commercial interest. Expenditure on Research and Development

27 1930-1959 (Millions of dollars) Chemicals 1 ~ 073 877 196 1930 1953 1959 Machinery 896 610 286 Government 23 21810 71200 Motors 802 628 174 Business Firms 116 21370 41500 Scienti fie Un1 versi ties .11 _llQ _jQQ Instruments 384 212 172 TOTAL 166 5,400 121000 Petroleum 294 286 8 This tendency will result in industries requiring a high research and development Primary effort being 'nationalised' to provide a Metals 160 151 9 technological service to private enterprise. (Rolls Royca will probably be a case in Rubber point. Demands by the labour movement that Products 126 88 38 sections of industry be 'nationalised' should be carefully analysed since nation- Fabricated alisat1on in capitalist society is actually Metal a means of increasing the rate of exploit- Products 118 90 28 ation of the working class. The simple be- lief that nationalisation is necessarily Food and 'Socialistic' is entirely erroneous. (M.I.5 Kindred in Britain and the U.S. army in Vietnam are Products 105 105 0 both nationalised and certainly neither of these institutions are socialist emmissaries) Stone, clay and glass The distribution of research and develop- products 103 95 8 ment effort when examined on an industry-by industry basis provides a remarkably accur- Paper and ate picture of the true nature o~ our sac- allied iety and its concept of priorities:· products 60 60 0

Research and Development in U.S. Industry Textile and in 1961. (Millions of dollars) apparel 33 33 0

Industr~ TOTAL Financed b~ Financed b~ Lumber and Com~anies Government Wood Aircraft & products 9 9 0 Missiles 3,957 392 3,565 Other Electrical Industries 348 127 221 Equipment & Communicat•s 2,404 871 ..1 ,533 TOTAL 10,872 4,631 6,241

28 Economic consequences Some of these are as follows:-

Some of the economic consequences of (1) It is designed with the minimum technological change at this stage of devel "brain" to fulfil its task; i.e. no tape -opment are:- or electronic control if a manual or simple (a) Increasing costs for the means of type would suffice. production of most commodities. (2) Minimum maintenance service to (b) Increased rate of obsolescence of keep it operational for designated life all capital equipment. span. (c) Increased Research and Development (3) Minimum. housing. If capable of costs. operating in primitive surroundings then it (d) Diminishing rates of profits. will not be housed in a·temperature con­ (a) and (b) are considered in detail in trolled room. The Marxist No. 16 and (d) in No. 14. (4) The unit will be operated on the crudest fuels and materials consistent This means that the manipulation of mar­ with the requirements of production. kets (to effect economy of scale), takeovers and 8 rationalisation" becomes the prime func Since man is a product of his environ­ -tion of top management. A moribund stage ment and since the capitalist controls is reached in which in fact the production that environment, he will seek to apply of capital becomes more important than pro­ the above criteria to the "A nimate U~it of duction itself. Hence we will see more Production" - the worker. financiers such as Arnold Weinstock in ind­ (1) The worker will have the minimum ustry and fever technicians such as Sir "brain 8 (education) necessary to do his Oenning Pearson. job. Trained to do it docilely, not educ­ ated to think as a developed human being. We will now see how man as a worker re­ Vance Packard quotes in "The Hidden Per­ lates to technological change. We have suaders" the instance of an engineering seen (in part 1) that the increased rate of trade college, National Schools of Los technological change increases the rate of Angeles, which in effect certifies its fragmentation of skills, i.e. the division graduates to be co-operative candidates for of labour. We demonstrated with concrete industry through a process known as Human examples that man is increasingly subordin­ Engineering. A Trade Journal "Diesel ated to the machine and treated as a "man Power• describes it this way:- component• in the total man/machine system. "Human Engineering , as we refer to it Only when we grasp fully that the capit­ here is the science of moulding and adjust­ alist sees the worker merely as a unit of ing the attitude of industrial personnel" •• production can we fully understand the implications of technological change in a Truly here is the "custom made man" of class divided society. today, ready to help build a new and great­ er era in the annals of diesel engineering. When a unit of production - a machine - (2) A National Health or factory is designed, certain criteria are observed. medical service to keep the worker just 29 healthy enough to work up to his retirement In 1848, Marx and Engels said:- at 65. Consider the directive of the Medical Officer of Health at Willesden "Owing to the extensive use of machin­ hospital that no N.H.S. patients over the ery and to the division of labour, the age of 65 need be resuscitated. The direct work of the proletarians has lost all -ive was immediately withdrawn and was said individual character and, consequently, to have been a mistake when there was a all charm for the workman. He becomes public outcry. an appendage of the machine and it is (3) Appalling housing is provided for only the most simple, most monotonous the working class and minimal shelter for and most easily acquired knack that is the worker and his family. Millions of required of him" (1) slum dwellings exist in spite of the feasi­ bility of mass-produced unit construction We observed that more workers seem to homes. be induced to work three shifts to exploit (4) Minimum food and clothing to high capital equipment for twenty-tour merely sustain the working class as units hours per day whilst the permanent pool of of production. There are still thousands unemployed grows. of famili s 1n London alone which are below the subsistence level. Even free Engels stated:- school milk is to be withdrawn . "Thus it comes about that the econom­ Thus the drive, as Marx put it "to make ising of the instruments of labour be­ the weak human being into a machine", has comes at the same time, from the outset, spread out from the point of production - the most reckles& waste of labour power the direct interaction of man and machine - and robbery, based upon the ~ ormal con­ to 1nvade every facet of working class ditions under which labour functions; existence. that machinery, 1the most powerful inst­ rument for shortening labour time, be­ We have seen that the more advanced the comes the most unfailing means for plac­ means of production becomes through techno­ ing every moment of the labourer 1s time logical change, the more the worker is and that of his family at the d1sposal dom1nated by the machine. The products of of the capitalist for the purpose of the worker 1s labour are increasingly alien expanding the value of his capital (4) to him as a human being. He increasingly Thus it comes about that the overwork of sees that the products of his own labour some becomes the preliminary condition confront him as an independent power. for the idleness of others and that This we have demonstrated by examining con­ modern industry, which hunts after new crete examples and trends at the point of customers over the whole world, forces production in a 1970 context. Most militant the consumption of the masses at home workers would readily identify the situat­ down to a starvation minimum and in do­ ions descr1bed . However , few unfortunate­ ing destroys its own home market." (2) ly would recog~ise that the fundamental problem involed can only be fully We showed how the introduction of numer understood th rough a Marxist analysis of it. -ically controlled machines is eliminating

30 some of the most highly skilled jobs on the Britain are being thrown on the dole shop floor. Marx foresaw this tendency . queues. At the same time the results of literally several millions of pounds spent 'Modern industry never looks upon or on research and development (paid for by treats the existing form of a production the taxpayer) will be abandoned. process as final. The technical basis of industry is therefore revolutionary, We demonstrated (by the analogy with a while all earlier modes of production machine) that the worker will be provided were essentially conservative. By means with the minimum education , housing, main­ of machinery, chemical processes and tainance and even food and clothes consist­ other methods, it leads to continual ent with his satisfactory performance as a changes not only in the technical basis unit of production. of production but also in the function of the labourer and in the social com­ Marx expressed it in this manner:­ binations of the labour-process. At the ~Political economy conceals the estrange­ same time, therefore, it revolutionises ment inherent in the nature of labour by the division of labour within the soc­ not considering the direct relationship iety and Incessantly transfers masses of between the worker (labour) and production . capital and of work-people from one It is true that labour produces for the branch of production to another. Large rich wonderful things but for the worker scale industry by its very nature , there it produces privation. It produces palaces -fore necessitates changes in work , vari - but for the worker , hovels. It produces -ability of function, universal mobility beauty - but for the worker - deformity. of the labourer; on the other hand, in It replaces labour by machines but it its capitalistic form, it represents the throws a section of the workers back to a old division of labour with its ossified barbarous type of labour and it turns the particularities. We have seen how this other workers into machines. It produces insurmountable contradiction robs the intelligence - but for the workers - stup­ worker's situation of all peace, perman­ idity- cretinism• . (3) ence and security; how it constantly threatens by taking away the instruments "He (the empirical businessman) shows: of labour, to snatch from his hands his means of subsistence and, by suppressing (1) By reducing the worker ' s need to his particular sub-divided task, to make the barest and most miserable level of him superfluous. We have seen, too, how physical subsistence and by reducing his this contradiction works itself out activity to the most abstract mechanical through incessant sacrifices by the wor­ movement, he says: Man has no other need king class, the most reckless squander­ either of activity or of enjoyment. For Ing of labour-power and the devastation he calls even this life human life and caused by social anarchy•. (4) existence. (2) By counting the lowest possible The Rolls-Royce collapse is a glaring level of life (existence) as the standard, example of this social anarchy. Thous­ indeed as the general standard - general ands of the most highly skilled workers in because it is applicable to the mass of 31 men. He changes the worker into an insens­ This fact expresses merely that the ible being lacking in all needs, just as he object which labour produces labour's changes his activity into a pure abstract­ product - confronts it as something ion from all activity. To him, therefore, alien, as a power independent of the every luxury of the worker seems reprehens­ producer. The product of labour is lab­ ible and everything that goes beyond the our which has been embodied in an object most abstract need 8 be it in the real1 of which has become material: it is the ob­ passive enjoyment or a manifestation of jectification of labour. In the sphere activity - seems to him a luxury. Politic­ of political economy this realisation al economy, this science of wealth, is of labour appears as loss oi realisation therefore simultaneously the science of raa for the worker~; objectification as a nunciation , of want , of savin~ - and it loss of the object and bondaQe to it; actually reaches the point where it spares appropriation as estrangement , as alien­ man the need of either fresh air or physic­ ation. al exercise. This science of marvellous industry is simultaneously the science of So much does labour's realisation app­ ascetism and its true ideal is the ascetic ear as loss of realisation that the wor­ but extortionate miser and the ascetic but ker loses realisation to the point of productive slave.• ()j starving to death. So much does object­ ification appear as loss of the object He indicates how , through technological that the worker is robbed of the objects change , computers 1proletarianise 1 the most necessary not only for his life but intellectual worker (the designer) and for his work. Indeed labour itself be­ the C.A .V, airveyor 1ensnares 1 its shop comes an object which he can obtain only floor operator. We said that the worker with the greatest effort and with the feels that the products of hi& labours are most irregular interruptions. Sa much increasingly an alien power ~hich domin­ does the appropriation of the object ap­ ates him. Harx explained this in the the­ pear as estrangement that the more ory of •the alienation of the worker in his objects the worker produces , the less he object .• can possess and the more hs falls under the sway of his product ••• capital ••• 1The worker becomes all the poorer the The alienation of the worker in bis pro­ more wealth he produces, the more his duct means not only that his labour be­ production increases in power and size. comes an object , an external existence , The worker becomes an ever cheaper coJ­ but that it exists outside him, indepen~ modity the more commodities he creates. dently, as something alien to him and With the increasin~ value of the world that it becomes a power on its own con­ of things proceeds in direct proportion fronting him. It 'eans that the life the devaluatioA of the world of men. which he has conferred on the object Labour produces not only commodities; it confronts him as something hostile and produces itself and the worker as a com­ alien.' (3) modity - and this is the same ~eneral proportioR in which it produces commodi­ We said that the contradictions stem from ties. the ownership of the means of prod~ction

32 Harx demonstrates that ownership gives rise our and the product of labour belongs, to alienation since the worker does not own in whose service labour is done and for the product of his labour. whose benefit the product of labour is provided, can only be man himself. 'What then constitutes the alienation of labour? If the product of labour does not be­ long to the worker, if it confronts him First the fact that labour is extern­ as an alien power, then this can only be al, i.e. it does not belong to his ess­ because it belongs to some other man. ential being; that in his work, there­ than the wGrker. If the worker's acti­ fore, he does not affirm himself but vity is a torment to him, to another it denies himself, does not feel content must be a delight and life's joy. Not but unhappy, does not develop freely the gods, not nature but only man him­ his physical aod mental energy but mor­ self can be this alien power over man. tifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore feels himself only We must bear in mind the previous pro­ outside his work and in his work feels position that man's relation to himself outside himself. He is at home when he only becomes for him objective and act­ is not working and when he is working ual through his relations to the other he is not at home. His labour is there­ man. Thus if the product of his labour, fore not voluntary but coerced, it is his labour objectified, is for him an forced labour. It is therefore not the alien, hostile, powerful object indep­ satisfaction of a need; it is merely a endent of him, then his position towards means to satisfy needs external to it. it is such that someone else is master Its alien character emerges clearly in of this object, someone who is alien, the fact that as soon as no physical or hostile, powerful and independent of other compulsion exists, labour is shun­ him. If his own activity is to him re­ ned like the plague. External labour, lated as an unfree activity, then he is labour in which man alienates himself, related to it as an activity performed is a labour of self sacrifice, of mort­ in the service, under the denomination, ification. lastly, the external charac­ the coercion and the yoke of another ter of labour for the worker appears in man.• (3) the fact that it is not his own but To end that domination is the historical someone else's, that it does not belong task of the proletariat. Technological to him but to another. Just as in re­ change heightens the contradictions and is ligion the spontaneous activity of the another important factor in providing the human imagination, of the human brain fertile ground for revolutionary change. and the human heart, operates independ­ Whilst on the one hand it tends to dominate ently of the individual - that is, oper­ and impoverish the workers, on the other ates on him as an alien, divine or di­ hand it brutally demonstrates to them the abolical activity- so is the worker's need to attack the whole system at its activity not his spontaneous activity. source and bring about a revolutionary It belongs to another; it is the loss of change, a change in which the working class his self. The alien being, to whom lab- seize political power and the means ef pro-

33 THE CASE OF SMULLEN AND DOHERTY strict surveillance at all times, more fre­ quent physical searches, not allowed to On May 25th 1971, at the Royal Courts of work in the open. Justice in London, an appeal against con­ viction and sentence of two Irishmen was Both these men were the victims of a po­ heard. lice frame-up .

'>~;·. The decision of the L~rd Justices, one of Not only should they be withdrawn from whom was the Lord Chief Justice of England, the rigours of Category 'A' , they should be was that the original sentences of eight released immediately. years imprisonment in respect of Eamonn Smullen and four years for Jerry Doherty Jim Kean should be reduced to five years and three years respectively. Continued from p. 34 These simple facts were duly broadcast by the B.B.C. in the afternoon of the same day duction and create circumstances "when the and reported in the press as a news i tem. enslaving subordination of the individual Thus it would appear that their Lordships, to the division of labour and with it the in their infinite wisdom and mercy and with antithesis between mental and physical lab­ due regard to the facts had , in the inter­ our, has vanished; when labour is no longer ests of Justice, been 'fair' . merely a means of life but has become life's principle need; when the productive forces An arms dealer in Huddersfield acting have also increased with the all round under the instructions and guidance of the development of the individual and all the police, furnished a list of armaments which springs of co-pperative wealth flow more he was never in a position to supply , in abundantly - o~ly then will it be possible order to arrange discussions which were completely to transcend the narrow outlook tape recorded and arraigned as evidence of of bourgeois right and only then will a conspiracy to purchase arms. No deal society be able to inscribe on its banners; was ever concluded. The two men were arr­ From each according to his ability, to each ested when they left the dealer's premises. according to his needs." (6) These events took place in October 1969 . These men were held in custody until their References:- trial in February 1970. 1. The Manifesto of the Communist Party (English edition 1888) After sentence they were placed in categ­ 2. F. Engels. Socialism, Utopian and ory 'A' classification by the Home Office. Scientific Category 'A' is defined by the Home Office 3. Marx. Estranged Labour. Economic and as deserving maximum security on the reas­ Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 oning that an escape would constitute (a) a 4. Marx. Capital danger to the public and (b) a danger to 5. Harx. Meaning of Human Requirements - the security of the State. The conditions Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of imprisonment within category 'A' include 6. Harx. Critique of the Gotha Programme

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