If one wishes
to name a particular moment, one can say that the old distinction between Right and Left
broke down when PICTURE POST was first published.
to name a particular moment, one can say that the old distinction between Right and Left
broke down when PICTURE POST was first published.
Orwell
A businessman’s first duty is to his shareholders.
Perhaps England needs tanks, but perhaps it pays better to manufacture motor cars. To
prevent war material from reaching the enemy is common sense, but to sell in the highest
market is a business duty. Right at the end of August 1939 the British dealers were
tumbling over one another in their eagerness to sell Gennany tin, rubber, copper and
shellac-and this in the clear, certain knowledge that war was going to break out in a week
or two. It was about as sensible as selling somebody a razor to cut your throat with. But it
was “good business”.
And now look at the results. After 1934 it was known that Germany was rearming. After
1936 everyone with eyes in his head knew that war was coming. After Munich it was
merely a question of how soon the war would begin. In September 1939 war broke out.
EIGHT MONTHS LATER it was discovered that, so far as equipment went, the British
anny was barely beyond the standard of 1918. We saw our soldiers fighting their way
desperately to the coast, with one aeroplane against three, with rifles against tanks, with
bayonets against tommy-guns. There were not even enough revolvers to supply all the
officers. After a year of war the regular army was still short of 300,000 tin hats. There
had even, previously, been a shortage of unifonns — this in one of the greatest woollen-
goods producing countries in the world!
What had happened was that the whole moneyed class, unwilling to face a change in their
way of life, had shut their eyes to the nature of Fascism and modem war. And false
optimism was fed to the general public by the gutter press, which lives on its
advertisements and is therefore interested in keeping trade conditions nonnal. Year after
year the Beaverbrook press assured us in huge headlines that THERE WILL BE NO
WAR, and as late as the beginning of 1939 Lord Rothennere was describing Hitler as “a
great gentleman”. And while England in the moment of disaster proved to be short of
every war material except ships, it is not recorded that there was any shortage of motor
cars, fur coats, gramophones, lipstick, chocolates or silk stockings. And dare anyone
pretend that the same tug-of-war between private profit and public necessity is not still
continuing? England fights for her life, but business must fight for profits. You can
hardly open a newspaper without seeing the two contradictory processes happening side
by side. On the very same page you will find the Government urging you to save and the
seller of some useless luxury urging you to spend. Lend to Defend, but Guinness is Good
for You. Buy a Spitfire, but also buy Haig and Haig, Pond’s Face Cream and Black
Magic Chocolates.
But one thing gives hope — the visible swing in public opinion. If we can survive this war,
the defeat in Flanders will turn out to have been one of the great turning-points in English
history. In that spectacular disaster the working class, the middle class and even a section
of the business community could see the utter rottenness of private capitalism. Before
that the case against capitalism had never been PROVED. Russia, the only definitely
Socialist country, was backward and far away. All criticism broke itself against the rat-
trap faces of bankers and the brassy laughter of stockbrokers. Socialism? Ha! ha! ha!
Where’s the money to come from? Ha! ha! ha! The lords of property were firm in their
seats, and they knew it. But after the French collapse there came something that could not
be laughed away, something that neither chequebooks nor policemen were any use
against-the bombing. Zweee — BOOM! What’s that? Oh, only a bomb on the Stock
Exchange. Zweee — BOOM! Another acre of somebody’s valuable slum-property gone
west. Hitler will at any rate go down in history as the man who made the City of London
laugh on the wrong side of its face. For the first time in their lives the comfortable were
uncomfortable, the professional optimists had to admit that there was something wrong. It
was a great step forward. From that time onwards the ghastly job of trying to convince
artificially stupefied people that a planned economy might be better than a free-for-all in
which the worst man wins-that job will never be quite so ghastly again.
II
The difference between Socialism and capitalism is not primarily a difference of
technique. One cannot simply change from one system to the other as one might install a
new piece of machinery in a factory, and then carry on as before, with the same people in
positions of control. Obviously there is also needed a complete shift of power. New
blood, new men, new ideas — in the true sense of the word, a revolution.
I have spoken earlier of the soundness and homogeneity of England, the patriotism that
runs like a connecting thread through almost all classes. After Dunkirk anyone who had
eyes in his head could see this. But it is absurd to pretend that the promise of that moment
has been fulfilled. Almost certainly the mass of the people are now ready for the vast
changes that are necessary; but those changes have not even begun to happen.
England is a family with the wrong members in control. Almost entirely we are governed
by the rich, and by people who step into positions of command by right of birth. Few if
any of these people are consciously treacherous, some of them are not even fools, but as a
class they are quite incapable of leading us to victory. They could not do it, even if their
material interests did not constantly trip them up. As I pointed out earlier, they have been
artificially stupefied. Quite apart from anything else, the rule of money sees to it that we
shall be governed largely by the old — that is, by people utterly unable to grasp what age
they are living in or what enemy they are fighting. Nothing was more desolating at the
beginning of this war than the way in which the whole of the older generation conspired
to pretend that it was the war of 1914-18 over again. All the old duds were back on the
job, twenty years older, with the skull plainer in their faces. Ian Hay was cheering up the
troops, Belloc was writing articles on strategy, Maurois doing broadcasts, Baimsfather
drawing cartoons. It was like a tea-party of ghosts. And that state of affairs has barely
altered. The shock of disaster brought a few able men like Bevin to the front, but in
general we are still commanded by people who managed to live through the years 1931-9
without even discovering that Hitler was dangerous. A generation of the unteachable is
hanging upon us like a necklace of corpses.
As soon as one considers any problem of this war — and it does not matter whether it is
the widest aspect of strategy or the tiniest detail of home organisation — one sees that the
necessary moves cannot be made while the social structure of England remains what it is.
Inevitably, because of their position and upbringing, the ruling class are fighting for their
own privileges, which cannot possibly be reconciled with the public interest. It is a
mistake to imagine that war aims, strategy, propaganda and industrial organisation exist
in watertight compartments. All are interconnected. Every strategic plan, every tactical
method, even every weapon will bear the stamp of the social system that produced it. The
British ruling class are fighting against Hitler, whom they have always regarded and
whom some of them still regard as their protector against Bolshevism. That does not
mean that they will deliberately sell out; but it does mean that at every decisive moment
they are likely to falter, pull their punches, do the wrong thing.
Until the Churchill Government called some sort of halt to the process, they have done
the wrong thing with an unerring instinct ever since 1931. They helped Franco to
overthrow the Spanish Government, although anyone not an imbecile could have told
them that a Fascist Spain would be hostile to England. They fed Italy with war materials
all through the winter of 1939-40, although it was obvious to the whole world that the
Italians were going to attack us in the spring. For the sake of a few hundred thousand
dividenddrawers they are turning India from an ally into an enemy. Moreover, so long as
the moneyed classes remain in control, we cannot develop any but a DEFENSIVE
strategy. Every victory means a change in the STATUS QUO. How can we drive the
Italians out of Abyssinia without rousing echoes among the coloured peoples of our own
Empire? How can we even smash Hitler without the risk of bringing the German
Socialists and Communists into power? The left-wingers who wail that “this is a
capitalist war” and that “British Imperialism” is fighting for loot have got their heads
screwed on backwards. The last thing the British moneyed class wish for is to acquire
fresh territory. It would simply be an embarrassment. Their war aim (both unattainable
and unmentionable) is simply to hang on to what they have got.
Internally, England is still the rich man’s Paradise. All talk of “equality of sacrifice” is
nonsense. At the same time as factoryworkers are asked to put up with longer hours,
advertisements for “Butler. One in family, eight in staff’ are appearing in the press. The
bombed-out populations of the East End go hungry and homeless while wealthier victims
simply step into their cars and flee to comfortable country houses. The Home Guard
swells to a million men in a few weeks, and is deliberately organised from above in such
a way that only people with private incomes can hold positions of command. Even the
rationing system is so arranged that it hits the poor all the time, while people with over
£2,000 a year are practically unaffected by it. Everywhere privilege is squandering good
will. In such circumstances even propaganda becomes almost impossible. As attempts to
stir up patriotic feeling, the red posters issued by the Chamberlain Government at the
beginning of the war broke all depth-records. Yet they could not have been much other
than they were, for how could Chamberlain and his followers take the risk of rousing
strong popular feeling AGAINST FASCISM? Anyone who was genuinely hostile to
Fascism must also be opposed to Chamberlain himself and to all the others who had
helped Hitler into power. So also with external propaganda. In all Lord Halifax’s
speeches there is not one concrete proposal for which a single inhabitant of Europe would
risk the top joint of his little linger. For what war-aim can Halifax, or anyone like him,
conceivably have, except to put the clock back to 1933?
It is only by revolution that the native genius of the English people can be set free.
Revolution does not mean red flags and street fighting, it means a fundamental shift of
power. Whether it happens with or without bloodshed is largely an accident of time and
place. Nor does it mean the dictatorship of a single class. The people in England who
grasp what changes are needed and are capable of carrying them through are not confined
to any one class, though it is true that very few people with over £2,000 a year are among
them. What is wanted is a conscious open revolt by ordinary people against inefficiency,
class privilege and the rule of the old. It is not primarily a question of change of
government. British governments do, broadly speaking, represent the will of the people,
and if we alter our structure from below we shall get the government we need.
Ambassadors, generals, officials and colonial administrators who are senile or pro-Fascist
are more dangerous than Cabinet ministers whose follies have to be committed in public.
Right through our national life we have got to fight against privilege, against the notion
that a half-witted public-schoolboy is better fitted for command than an intelligent
mechanic. Although there are gifted and honest INDIVIDUALS among them, we have
got to break the grip of the moneyed class as a whole. England has got to assume its real
shape. The England that is only just beneath the surface, in the factories and the
newspaper offices, in the aeroplanes and the submarines, has got to take charge of its own
destiny.
In the short run, equality of sacrifice, “war-Communism”, is even more important than
radical economic changes. It is very necessary that industry should be nationalised, but it
is more urgently necessary that such monstrosities as butlers and “private incomes”
should disappear forthwith. Almost certainly the main reason why the Spanish Republic
could keep up the fight for two and a half years against impossible odds was that there
were no gross contrasts of wealth. The people suffered horribly, but they all suffered
alike. When the private soldier had not a cigarette, the general had not one either. Given
equality of sacrifice, the morale of a country like England would probably be
unbreakable. But at present we have nothing to appeal to except traditional patriotism,
which is deeper here than elsewhere, but is not necessarily bottomless. At some point or
another you have got to deal with the man who says “I should be no worse off under
Hitler”. But what answer can you give him — that is, what answer that you can expect him
to listen to — while common soldiers risk their lives for two and sixpence a day, and fat
women ride about in Rolls-Royce cars, nursing Pekineses?
It is quite likely that this war will last three years. It will mean cruel overwork, cold dull
winters, uninteresting food, lack of amusements, prolonged bombing. It cannot but lower
the general standard of living, because the essential act of war is to manufacture
armaments instead of consumable goods. The working class will have to suffer terrible
things. And they WILL suffer them, almost indefinitely, provided that they know what
they are fighting for. They are not cowards, and they are not even internationally minded.
They can stand all that the Spanish workers stood, and more. But they will want some
kind of proof that a better life is ahead for themselves and their children. The one sure
earnest of that is that when they are taxed and overworked they shall see that the rich are
being hit even harder. And if the rich squeal audibly, so much the better.
We can bring these things about, if we really want to. It is not true that public opinion has
no power in England. It never makes itself heard without achieving something; it has
been responsible for most of the changes for the better during the past six months. But we
have moved with glacier-like slowness, and we have learned only from disasters. It took
the fall of Paris to get rid of Chamberlain and the unnecessary suffering of scores of
thousands of people in the East End to get rid or partially rid of Sir John Anderson. It is
not worth losing a battle in order to bury a corpse. For we are fighting against swift evil
intelligences, and time presses, and
history to the defeated
May say Alas! but cannot alter or pardon.
Ill
During the last six months there has been much talk of “the Fifth Column”. From time to
time obscure lunatics have been jailed for making speeches in favour of Hitler, and large
numbers of German refugees have been interned, a thing which has almost certainly done
us great harm in Europe. It is of course obvious that the idea of a large, organised army of
Fifth Columnists suddenly appearing on the streets with weapons in their hands, as in
Holland and Belgium, is ridiculous. Nevertheless a Fifth Column danger does exist. One
can only consider it if one also considers in what way England might be defeated.
It does not seem probable that air bombing can settle a major war. England might well be
invaded and conquered, but the invasion would be a dangerous gamble, and if it
happened and failed it would probably leave us more united and less Blimp-ridden than
before. Moreover, if England were overrun by foreign troops the English people would
know that they had been beaten and would continue the struggle. It is doubtful whether
they could be held down permanently, or whether Hitler wishes to keep an army of a
million men stationed in these islands. A govermnent of , and (you can
fill in the names) would suit him better. The English can probably not be bullied into
surrender, but they might quite easily be bored, cajoled or cheated into it, provided that,
as at Munich, they did not know that they were surrendering. It could happen most easily
when the war seemed to be going well rather than badly. The threatening tone of so much
of the German and Italian propaganda is a psychological mistake. It only gets home on
intellectuals. With the general public the proper approach would be “Let’s call it a draw”.
It is when a peace-offer along THOSE lines is made that the pro-Fascists will raise their
voices.
But who are the pro-Fascists? The idea of a Hitler victory appeals to the very rich, to the
Communists, to Mosley’s followers, to the pacifists, and to certain sections among the
Catholics. Also, if things went badly enough on the Home Front, the whole of the poorer
section of the working class might swing round to a position that was defeatist though not
actively pro-Hitler.
In this motley list one can see the daring of German propaganda, its willingness to offer
everything to everybody. But the various pro-Fascist forces are not consciously acting
together, and they operate in different ways.
The Communists must certainly be regarded as pro-Hitler, and are bound to remain so
unless Russian policy changes, but they have not very much influence. Mosley’s
Blackshirts, though now lying very low, are a more serious danger, because of the footing
they probably possess in the anned forces. Still, even in its palmiest days Mosley’s
following can hardly have numbered 50,000. Pacifism is a psychological curiosity rather
than a political movement. Some of the extremer pacifists, starting out with a complete
renunciation of violence, have ended by warmly championing Hitler and even toying
with antisemitism. This is interesting, but it is not important. “Pure” pacifism, which is a
by-product of naval power, can only appeal to people in very sheltered positions.
Moreover, being negative and irresponsible, it does not inspire much devotion. Of the
membership of the Peace Pledge Union, less than 15 per cent even pay their annual
subscriptions. None of these bodies of people, pacifists, Communists or Blackshirts,
could bring a largescale stop-the-war movement into being by their own efforts. But they
might help to make things very much easier for a treacherous govermnent negotiating
surrender. Like the French Communists, they might become the half-conscious agents of
millionaires.
The real danger is from above. One ought not to pay any attention to Hitler’s recent line
of talk about being the friend of the poor man, the enemy of plutocracy, etc etc. Hitler’s
real self is in MEIN KAMPF, and in his actions. He has never persecuted the rich, except
when they were Jews or when they tried actively to oppose him. He stands for a
centralised economy which robs the capitalist of most of his power but leaves the
structure of society much as before. The State controls industry, but there are still rich
and poor, masters and men. Therefore, as against genuine Socialism, the moneyed class
have always been on his side. This was crystal clear at the time of the Spanish civil war,
and clear again at the time when France surrendered. Hitler’s puppet government are not
working men, but a gang of bankers, gaga generals and corrupt rightwing politicians.
That kind of spectacular, CONSCIOUS treachery is less likely to succeed in England,
indeed is far less likely even to be tried. Nevertheless, to many payers of supertax this
war is simply an insane family squabble which ought to be stopped at all costs. One need
not doubt that a “peace” movement is on foot somewhere in high places; probably a
shadow Cabinet has already been formed. These people will get their chance not in the
moment of defeat but in some stagnant period when boredom is reinforced by discontent.
They will not talk about surrender, only about peace; and doubtless they will persuade
themselves, and perhaps other people, that they are acting for the best. An army of
unemployed led by millionaires quoting the Sermon on the Mount — that is our danger.
But it cannot arise when we have once introduced a reasonable degree of social justice.
The lady in the Rolls-Royce car is more damaging to morale than a fleet of Goering’s
bombing planes.
PART III: THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION
I
The English revolution started several years ago, and it began to gather momentum when
the troops came back from Dunkirk. Like all else in England, it happens in a sleepy,
unwilling way, but it is happening. The war has speeded it up, but it has also increased,
and desperately, the necessity for speed.
Progress and reaction are ceasing to have anything to do with party labels.
If one wishes
to name a particular moment, one can say that the old distinction between Right and Left
broke down when PICTURE POST was first published. What are the politics of
PICTURE POST? Or of CAVALCADE, or Priestley’s broadcasts, or the leading articles
in the EVENING STANDARD? None of the old classifications will fit them. They
merely point to the existence of multitudes of unlabelled people who have grasped within
the last year or two that something is wrong. But since a classless, ownerless society is
generally spoken of as “Socialism”, we can give that name to the society towards which
we are now moving. The war and the revolution are inseparable. We cannot establish
anything that a western nation would regard as Socialism without defeating Hitler; on the
other hand we cannot defeat Hitler while we remain economically and socially in the
nineteenth century. The past is fighting the fixture and we have two years, a year, possibly
only a few months, to see to it that the future wins.
We cannot look to this or to any similar government to put through the necessary changes
of its own accord. The initiative will have to come from below. That means that there will
have to arise something that has never existed in England, a Socialist movement that
actually has the mass of the people behind it. But one must start by recognising why it is
that English Socialism has failed.
In England there is only one Socialist party that has ever seriously mattered, the Labour
Party. It has never been able to achieve any major change, because except in purely
domestic matters it has never possessed a genuinely independent policy. It was and is
primarily a party of the trade unions, devoted to raising wages and improving working
conditions. This meant that all through the critical years it was directly interested in the
prosperity of British capitalism. In particular it was interested in the maintenance of the
British Empire, for the wealth of England was drawn largely from Asia and Africa. The
standard of living of the trade union workers, whom the Labour Party represented,
depended indirectly on the sweating of Indian coolies. At the same time the Labour Party
was a Socialist party, using Socialist phraseology, thinking in terms of an old-fashioned
anti-imperialism and more or less pledged to make restitution to the coloured races. It had
to stand for the “independence” of India, just as it had to stand for disarmament and
“progress” generally. Nevertheless everyone was aware that this was nonsense. In the age
of the tank and the bombing plane, backward agricultural countries like India and the
African colonies can no more be independent than can a cat or a dog. Had any Labour
government come into office with a clear majority and then proceeded to grant India
anything that could truly be called independence, India would simply have been absorbed
by Japan, or divided between Japan and Russia.
To a Labour government in power, three imperial policies would have been open. One
was to continue administering the Empire exactly as before, which meant dropping all
pretensions to Socialism. Another was to set the subject peoples “free”, which meant in
practice handing them over to Japan, Italy and other predatory powers, and incidentally
causing a catastrophic drop in the British standard of living. The third was to develop a
POSITIVE imperial policy, and aim at transforming the Empire into a federation of
Socialist states, like a looser and freer version of the Union of Soviet Republics. But the
Labour Party’s history and background made this impossible. It was a party of the trade
unions, hopelessly parochial in outlook, with little interest in imperial affairs and no
contacts among the men who actually held the Empire together. It would have had to
hand the administration of India and Africa and the whole job of imperial defence to men
drawn from a different class and traditionally hostile to Socialism. Overshadowing
everything was the doubt whether a Labour government which meant business could
make itself obeyed. For all the size of its following, the Labour Party had no footing in
the navy, little or none in the army or air force, none whatever in the Colonial Services,
and not even a sure footing in the Home Civil Service. In England its position was strong
but not unchallengeable, and outside England all the key points were in the hands of its
enemies. Once in power, the same dilemma would always have faced it: carry out your
promises, and risk revolt, or continue with the same policy as the Conservatives, and stop
talking about Socialism. The Labour leaders never found a solution, and from 1935
onwards it was very doubtful whether they had any wish to take office. They had
degenerated into a Pennanent Opposition.
Outside the Labour Party there existed several extremist parties, of whom the
Communists were the strongest. The Communists had considerable influence in the
Labour Party in the years 1920-6 and 1935-9. Their chief importance, and that of the
whole left wing of the Labour movement, was the part they played in alienating the
middle classes from Socialism.
The history of the past seven years has made it perfectly clear that Communism has no
chance in western Europe. The appeal of Fascism is enonnously greater. In one country
after another the Communists have been rooted out by their more up-to-date enemies, the
Nazis. In the English-speaking countries they never had a serious footing. The creed they
were spreading could appeal only to a rather rare type of person, found chiefly in the
middle-class intelligentsia, the type who has ceased to love his own country but still feels
the need of patriotism, and therefore develops patriotic sentiments towards Russia. By
1940, after working for twenty years and spending a great deal of money, the British
Communists had barely 20,000 members, actually a smaller number than they had started
out with in 1920. The other Marxist parties were of even less importance. They had not
the Russian money and prestige behind them, and even more than the Communists they
were tied to the nineteenth-century doctrine of the class war. They continued year after
year to preach this out-of-date gospel, and never drew any inference from the fact that it
got them no followers.
Nor did any strong native Fascist movement grow up. Material conditions were not bad
enough, and no leader who could be taken seriously was forthcoming. One would have
had to look a long time to find a man more barren of ideas than Sir Oswald Mosley. He
was as hollow as a jug. Even the elementary fact that Fascism must not offend national
sentiment had escaped him. His entire movement was imitated slavishly from abroad, the
uniform and the party programme from Italy and the salute from Germany, with the
Jewbaiting tacked on as an afterthought, Mosley having actually started his movement
with Jews among his most prominent followers. A man of the stamp of Bottomley or
Lloyd George could perhaps have brought a real British Fascist movement into existence.
But such leaders only appear when the psychological need for them exists.
After twenty years of stagnation and unemployment, the entire English Socialist
movement was unable to produce a version of Socialism which the mass of the people
could even find desirable. The Labour Party stood for a timid reformism, the Marxists
were looking at the modern world through nineteenth-century spectacles. Both ignored
agriculture and imperial problems, and both antagonised the middle classes. The
suffocating stupidity of left-wing propaganda had frightened away whole classes of
necessary people, factory managers, airmen, naval officers, fanners, white-collar
workers, shopkeepers, policemen. All of these people had been taught to think of
Socialism as something which menaced their livelihood, or as something seditious, alien,
“anti-British” as they would have called it. Only the intellectuals, the least useful section
of the middle class, gravitated towards the movement.
A Socialist Party which genuinely wished to achieve anything would have started by
facing several facts which to this day are considered unmentionable in left-wing circles. It
would have recognised that England is more united than most countries, that the British
workers have a great deal to lose besides their chains, and that the differences in outlook
and habits between class and class are rapidly diminishing. In general, it would have
recognised that the old-fashioned “proletarian revolution” is an impossibility. But all
through the between-war years no Socialist programme that was both revolutionary and
workable ever appeared; basically, no doubt, because no one genuinely wanted any major
change to happen. The Labour leaders wanted to go on and on, drawing their salaries and
periodically swapping jobs with the Conservatives. The Communists wanted to go on and
on, suffering a comfortable martyrdom, meeting with endless defeats and afterwards
putting the blame on other people. The left-wing intelligentsia wanted to go on and on,
sniggering at the Blimps, sapping away at middle-class morale, but still keeping their
favoured position as hangers-on of the dividend-drawers. Labour Party politics had
become a variant of Conservatism, “revolutionary” politics had become a game of make-
believe.
Now, however, the circumstances have changed, the drowsy years have ended. Being a
Socialist no longer means kicking theoretically against a system which in practice you are
fairly well satisfied with. This time our predicament is real. It is “the Philistines be upon
thee, Samson”. We have got to make our words take physical shape, or perish. We know
very well that with its present social structure England cannot survive, and we have got to
make other people see that fact and act upon it. We cannot win the war without
introducing Socialism, nor establish Socialism without winning the war. At such a time it
is possible, as it was not in the peaceful years, to be both revolutionary and realistic. A
Socialist movement which can swing the mass of the people behind it, drive the pro-
Fascists out of positions of control, wipe out the grosser injustices and let the working
class see that they have something to fight for, win over the middle classes instead of
antagonising them, produce a workable imperial policy instead of a mixture of humbug
and Utopianism, bring patriotism and intelligence into partnership — for the first time, a
movement of such a kind becomes possible.
II
The fact that we are at war has turned Socialism from a textbook word into a realisable
policy.
The inefficiency of private capitalism has been proved all over Europe. Its injustice has
been proved in the East End of London. Patriotism, against which the Socialists fought so
long, has become a tremendous lever in their hands. People who at any other time would
cling like glue to their miserable scraps of privilege, will surrender them fast enough
when their country is in danger. War is the greatest of all agents of change. It speeds up
all processes, wipes out minor distinctions, brings realities to the surface. Above all, war
brings it home to the individual that he is not altogether an individual. It is only because
they are aware of this that men will die on the field of battle. At this moment it is not so
much a question of surrendering life as of surrendering leisure, comfort, economic
liberty, social prestige. There are very few people in England who really want to see their
country conquered by Germany. If it can be made clear that defeating Hitler means
wiping out class privilege, the great mass of middling people, the £6 a week to £2,000 a
year class, will probably be on our side. These people are quite indispensable, because
they include most of the technical experts. Obviously the snobbishness and political
ignorance of people like ainnen and naval officers will be a very great difficulty. But
without those airmen, destroyer commanders, etc etc we could not survive for a week.
The only approach to them is through their patriotism. An intelligent Socialist movement
will use their patriotism, instead of merely insulting it, as hitherto.
But do I mean that there will be no opposition? Of course not. It would be childish to
expect anything of the kind.
There will be a bitter political struggle, and there will be unconscious and half-conscious
sabotage everywhere. At some point or other it may be necessary to use violence. It is
easy to imagine a pro-Fascist rebellion breaking out in, for instance, India. We shall have
to fight against bribery, ignorance and snobbery. The bankers and the larger businessmen,
the landowners and dividend-drawers, the officials with their prehensile bottoms, will
obstruct for all they are worth. Even the middle classes will writhe when their
accustomed way of life is menaced. But just because the English sense of national unity
has never disintegrated, because patriotism is finally stronger than class-hatred, the
chances are that the will of the majority will prevail. It is no use imagining that one can
make fundamental changes without causing a split in the nation; but the treacherous
minority will be far smaller in time of war than it would be at any other time.
The swing of opinion is visibly happening, but it cannot be counted on to happen fast
enough of its own accord. This war is a race between the consolidation of Hitler’s empire
and the growth of democratic consciousness. Everywhere in England you can see a ding-
dong battle ranging to and fro — in Parliament and in the Government, in the factories and
the anned forces, in the pubs and the air-raid shelters, in the newspapers and on the radio.
Every day there are tiny defeats, tiny victories. Morrison for Home Security — a few yards
forward. Priestley shoved off the air — a few yards back. It is a struggle between the
groping and the unteachable, between the young and the old, between the living and the
dead. But it is very necessary that the discontent which undoubtedly exists should take a
purposeful and not merely obstructive form. It is time for THE PEOPLE to define their
war-aims. What is wanted is a simple, concrete programme of action, which can be given
all possible publicity, and round which public opinion can group itself.
I suggest that the following six-point programme is the kind of thing we need. The first
three points deal with England’s internal policy, the other three with the Empire and the
world:
1. Nationalisation of land, mines, railways, ha nk s and major industries.
2. Limitation of incomes, on such a scale that the highest taxfree income in Britain does
not exceed the lowest by more than ten to one.
3. Reform of the educational system along democratic lines.
4. Immediate Dominion status for India, with power to secede when the war is over.
5. Formation of an Imperial General Council, in which the coloured peoples are to be
represented.
6. Declaration of formal alliance with China, Abyssinia and all other victims of the
Fascist powers.
The general tendency of this programme is unmistakable. It aims quite frankly at turning
this war into a revolutionary war and England into a Socialist democracy. I have
deliberately included in it nothing that the simplest person could not understand and see
the reason for. In the form in which I have put it, it could be printed on the front page of
the DAILY MIRROR. But for the purposes of this book a certain amount of
amplification is needed.
1 . NATIONALISATION. One can “nationalise” industry by the stroke of a pen, but the
actual process is slow and complicated. What is needed is that the ownership of all major
industry shall be formally vested in the State, representing the common people. Once that
is done it becomes possible to eliminate the class of mere OWNERS who live not by
virtue of anything they produce but by the possession of title-deeds and share certificates.
State-ownership implies, therefore, that nobody shall live without working. How sudden
a change in the conduct of industry it implies is less certain. In a country like England we
cannot rip down the whole structure and build again from the bottom, least of all in time
of war. Inevitably the majority of industrial concerns will continue with much the same
personnel as before, the one-time owners or managing directors carrying on with their
jobs as State employees. There is reason to think that many of the smaller capitalists
would actually welcome some such arrangement. The resistance will come from the big
capitalists, the bankers, the landlords and the idle rich, roughly speaking the class with
over £2,000 a year — and even if one counts in all their dependants there are not more
than half a million of these people in England. Nationalisation of agricultural land implies
cutting out the landlord and the tithe drawer, but not necessarily interfering with the
farmer. It is difficult to imagine any reorganisation of English agriculture that would not
retain most of the existing farms as units, at any rate at the beginning. The farmer, when
he is competent, will continue as a salaried manager. He is virtually that already, with the
added disadvantage of having to make a profit and being pennanently in debt to the bank.
With certain kinds of petty trading, and even the small-scale ownership of land, the State
will probably not interfere at all. It would be a great mistake to start by victimising the
smallholder class, for instance. These people are necessary, on the whole they are
competent, and the amount of work they do depends on the feeling that they are “their
own masters”. But the State will certainly impose an upward limit to the ownership of
land (probably fifteen acres at the very most), and will never permit any ownership of
land in town areas.
From the moment that all productive goods have been declared the property of the State,
the common people will feel, as they cannot feel now, that the State is THEMSELVES.
They will be ready then to endure the sacrifices that are ahead of us, war or no war. And
even if the face of England hardly seems to change, on the day that our main industries
are formally nationalised the dominance of a single class will have been broken. From
then onwards the emphasis will be shifted from ownership to management, from
privilege to competence. It is quite possible that State-ownership will in itself bring about
less social change than will be forced upon us by the common hardships of war. But it is
the necessary first step without which any REAL reconstruction is impossible.
2. INCOMES. Limitation of incomes implies the fixing of a minimum wage, which
implies a managed internal currency based simply on the amount of consumption goods
available. And this again implies a stricter rationing scheme than is now in operation. It is
no use at this stage of the world’s history to suggest that all human beings should have
EXACTLY equal incomes. It has been shown over and over again that without some kind
of money reward there is no incentive to undertake certain jobs. On the other hand the
money reward need not be very large. In practice it is impossible that earnings should be
limited quite as rigidly as I have suggested. There will always be anomalies and evasions.
But there is no reason why ten to one should not be the maximum normal variation. And
within those limits some sense of equality is possible. A man with £3 a week and a man
with £1,500 a year can feel themselves fellow creatures, which the Duke of Westminster
and the sleepers on the Embankment benches cannot.
3. EDUCATION. In wartime, educational refonn must necessarily be promise rather than
performance. At the moment we are not in a position to raise the school-leaving age or
increase the teaching staffs of the elementary schools. But there are certain immediate
steps that we could take towards a democratic educational system. We could start by
abolishing the autonomy of the public schools and the older universities and flooding
them with State-aided pupils chosen simply on grounds of ability. At present, public-
school education is partly a training in class prejudice and partly a sort of tax that the
middle classes pay to the upper class in return for the right to enter certain professions. It
is true that that state of affairs is altering. The middle classes have begun to rebel against
the expensiveness of education, and the war will bankrupt the majority of the public
schools if it continues for another year or two. The evacuation is also producing certain
minor changes. But there is a danger that some of the older schools, which will be able to
weather the financial storm longest, will survive in some fonn or another as festering
centres of snobbery. As for the 10,000 “private” schools that England possesses, the vast
majority of them deserve nothing except suppression. They are simply commercial
undertakings, and in many cases their educational level is actually lower than that of the
elementary schools. They merely exist because of a widespread idea that there is
something disgraceful in being educated by the public authorities. The State could quell
this idea by declaring itself responsible for all edilcation, even if at the start this were no
more than a gesture. We need gestures as well as actions. It is all too obvious that our talk
of “defending democracy” is nonsense while it is a mere accident of birth that decides
whether a gifted child shall or shall not get the education it deserves.
4. INDIA. What we must offer India is not “freedom”, which, as I have said earlier, is
impossible, but alliance, partnership-in a word, equality. But we must also tell the Indians
that they are free to secede, if they want to. Without that there can be no equality of
partnership, and our claim to be defending the coloured peoples against Fascism will
never be believed. But it is a mistake to imagine that if the Indians were free to cut
themselves adrift they would immediately do so. When a British government OFFERS
them unconditional independence, they will refuse it. For as soon as they have the power
to secede the chief reasons for doing so will have disappeared.
A complete severance of the two countries would be a disaster for India no less than for
England. Intelligent Indians know this. As things are at present, India not only cannot
defend itself, it is hardly even capable of feeding itself.
Perhaps England needs tanks, but perhaps it pays better to manufacture motor cars. To
prevent war material from reaching the enemy is common sense, but to sell in the highest
market is a business duty. Right at the end of August 1939 the British dealers were
tumbling over one another in their eagerness to sell Gennany tin, rubber, copper and
shellac-and this in the clear, certain knowledge that war was going to break out in a week
or two. It was about as sensible as selling somebody a razor to cut your throat with. But it
was “good business”.
And now look at the results. After 1934 it was known that Germany was rearming. After
1936 everyone with eyes in his head knew that war was coming. After Munich it was
merely a question of how soon the war would begin. In September 1939 war broke out.
EIGHT MONTHS LATER it was discovered that, so far as equipment went, the British
anny was barely beyond the standard of 1918. We saw our soldiers fighting their way
desperately to the coast, with one aeroplane against three, with rifles against tanks, with
bayonets against tommy-guns. There were not even enough revolvers to supply all the
officers. After a year of war the regular army was still short of 300,000 tin hats. There
had even, previously, been a shortage of unifonns — this in one of the greatest woollen-
goods producing countries in the world!
What had happened was that the whole moneyed class, unwilling to face a change in their
way of life, had shut their eyes to the nature of Fascism and modem war. And false
optimism was fed to the general public by the gutter press, which lives on its
advertisements and is therefore interested in keeping trade conditions nonnal. Year after
year the Beaverbrook press assured us in huge headlines that THERE WILL BE NO
WAR, and as late as the beginning of 1939 Lord Rothennere was describing Hitler as “a
great gentleman”. And while England in the moment of disaster proved to be short of
every war material except ships, it is not recorded that there was any shortage of motor
cars, fur coats, gramophones, lipstick, chocolates or silk stockings. And dare anyone
pretend that the same tug-of-war between private profit and public necessity is not still
continuing? England fights for her life, but business must fight for profits. You can
hardly open a newspaper without seeing the two contradictory processes happening side
by side. On the very same page you will find the Government urging you to save and the
seller of some useless luxury urging you to spend. Lend to Defend, but Guinness is Good
for You. Buy a Spitfire, but also buy Haig and Haig, Pond’s Face Cream and Black
Magic Chocolates.
But one thing gives hope — the visible swing in public opinion. If we can survive this war,
the defeat in Flanders will turn out to have been one of the great turning-points in English
history. In that spectacular disaster the working class, the middle class and even a section
of the business community could see the utter rottenness of private capitalism. Before
that the case against capitalism had never been PROVED. Russia, the only definitely
Socialist country, was backward and far away. All criticism broke itself against the rat-
trap faces of bankers and the brassy laughter of stockbrokers. Socialism? Ha! ha! ha!
Where’s the money to come from? Ha! ha! ha! The lords of property were firm in their
seats, and they knew it. But after the French collapse there came something that could not
be laughed away, something that neither chequebooks nor policemen were any use
against-the bombing. Zweee — BOOM! What’s that? Oh, only a bomb on the Stock
Exchange. Zweee — BOOM! Another acre of somebody’s valuable slum-property gone
west. Hitler will at any rate go down in history as the man who made the City of London
laugh on the wrong side of its face. For the first time in their lives the comfortable were
uncomfortable, the professional optimists had to admit that there was something wrong. It
was a great step forward. From that time onwards the ghastly job of trying to convince
artificially stupefied people that a planned economy might be better than a free-for-all in
which the worst man wins-that job will never be quite so ghastly again.
II
The difference between Socialism and capitalism is not primarily a difference of
technique. One cannot simply change from one system to the other as one might install a
new piece of machinery in a factory, and then carry on as before, with the same people in
positions of control. Obviously there is also needed a complete shift of power. New
blood, new men, new ideas — in the true sense of the word, a revolution.
I have spoken earlier of the soundness and homogeneity of England, the patriotism that
runs like a connecting thread through almost all classes. After Dunkirk anyone who had
eyes in his head could see this. But it is absurd to pretend that the promise of that moment
has been fulfilled. Almost certainly the mass of the people are now ready for the vast
changes that are necessary; but those changes have not even begun to happen.
England is a family with the wrong members in control. Almost entirely we are governed
by the rich, and by people who step into positions of command by right of birth. Few if
any of these people are consciously treacherous, some of them are not even fools, but as a
class they are quite incapable of leading us to victory. They could not do it, even if their
material interests did not constantly trip them up. As I pointed out earlier, they have been
artificially stupefied. Quite apart from anything else, the rule of money sees to it that we
shall be governed largely by the old — that is, by people utterly unable to grasp what age
they are living in or what enemy they are fighting. Nothing was more desolating at the
beginning of this war than the way in which the whole of the older generation conspired
to pretend that it was the war of 1914-18 over again. All the old duds were back on the
job, twenty years older, with the skull plainer in their faces. Ian Hay was cheering up the
troops, Belloc was writing articles on strategy, Maurois doing broadcasts, Baimsfather
drawing cartoons. It was like a tea-party of ghosts. And that state of affairs has barely
altered. The shock of disaster brought a few able men like Bevin to the front, but in
general we are still commanded by people who managed to live through the years 1931-9
without even discovering that Hitler was dangerous. A generation of the unteachable is
hanging upon us like a necklace of corpses.
As soon as one considers any problem of this war — and it does not matter whether it is
the widest aspect of strategy or the tiniest detail of home organisation — one sees that the
necessary moves cannot be made while the social structure of England remains what it is.
Inevitably, because of their position and upbringing, the ruling class are fighting for their
own privileges, which cannot possibly be reconciled with the public interest. It is a
mistake to imagine that war aims, strategy, propaganda and industrial organisation exist
in watertight compartments. All are interconnected. Every strategic plan, every tactical
method, even every weapon will bear the stamp of the social system that produced it. The
British ruling class are fighting against Hitler, whom they have always regarded and
whom some of them still regard as their protector against Bolshevism. That does not
mean that they will deliberately sell out; but it does mean that at every decisive moment
they are likely to falter, pull their punches, do the wrong thing.
Until the Churchill Government called some sort of halt to the process, they have done
the wrong thing with an unerring instinct ever since 1931. They helped Franco to
overthrow the Spanish Government, although anyone not an imbecile could have told
them that a Fascist Spain would be hostile to England. They fed Italy with war materials
all through the winter of 1939-40, although it was obvious to the whole world that the
Italians were going to attack us in the spring. For the sake of a few hundred thousand
dividenddrawers they are turning India from an ally into an enemy. Moreover, so long as
the moneyed classes remain in control, we cannot develop any but a DEFENSIVE
strategy. Every victory means a change in the STATUS QUO. How can we drive the
Italians out of Abyssinia without rousing echoes among the coloured peoples of our own
Empire? How can we even smash Hitler without the risk of bringing the German
Socialists and Communists into power? The left-wingers who wail that “this is a
capitalist war” and that “British Imperialism” is fighting for loot have got their heads
screwed on backwards. The last thing the British moneyed class wish for is to acquire
fresh territory. It would simply be an embarrassment. Their war aim (both unattainable
and unmentionable) is simply to hang on to what they have got.
Internally, England is still the rich man’s Paradise. All talk of “equality of sacrifice” is
nonsense. At the same time as factoryworkers are asked to put up with longer hours,
advertisements for “Butler. One in family, eight in staff’ are appearing in the press. The
bombed-out populations of the East End go hungry and homeless while wealthier victims
simply step into their cars and flee to comfortable country houses. The Home Guard
swells to a million men in a few weeks, and is deliberately organised from above in such
a way that only people with private incomes can hold positions of command. Even the
rationing system is so arranged that it hits the poor all the time, while people with over
£2,000 a year are practically unaffected by it. Everywhere privilege is squandering good
will. In such circumstances even propaganda becomes almost impossible. As attempts to
stir up patriotic feeling, the red posters issued by the Chamberlain Government at the
beginning of the war broke all depth-records. Yet they could not have been much other
than they were, for how could Chamberlain and his followers take the risk of rousing
strong popular feeling AGAINST FASCISM? Anyone who was genuinely hostile to
Fascism must also be opposed to Chamberlain himself and to all the others who had
helped Hitler into power. So also with external propaganda. In all Lord Halifax’s
speeches there is not one concrete proposal for which a single inhabitant of Europe would
risk the top joint of his little linger. For what war-aim can Halifax, or anyone like him,
conceivably have, except to put the clock back to 1933?
It is only by revolution that the native genius of the English people can be set free.
Revolution does not mean red flags and street fighting, it means a fundamental shift of
power. Whether it happens with or without bloodshed is largely an accident of time and
place. Nor does it mean the dictatorship of a single class. The people in England who
grasp what changes are needed and are capable of carrying them through are not confined
to any one class, though it is true that very few people with over £2,000 a year are among
them. What is wanted is a conscious open revolt by ordinary people against inefficiency,
class privilege and the rule of the old. It is not primarily a question of change of
government. British governments do, broadly speaking, represent the will of the people,
and if we alter our structure from below we shall get the government we need.
Ambassadors, generals, officials and colonial administrators who are senile or pro-Fascist
are more dangerous than Cabinet ministers whose follies have to be committed in public.
Right through our national life we have got to fight against privilege, against the notion
that a half-witted public-schoolboy is better fitted for command than an intelligent
mechanic. Although there are gifted and honest INDIVIDUALS among them, we have
got to break the grip of the moneyed class as a whole. England has got to assume its real
shape. The England that is only just beneath the surface, in the factories and the
newspaper offices, in the aeroplanes and the submarines, has got to take charge of its own
destiny.
In the short run, equality of sacrifice, “war-Communism”, is even more important than
radical economic changes. It is very necessary that industry should be nationalised, but it
is more urgently necessary that such monstrosities as butlers and “private incomes”
should disappear forthwith. Almost certainly the main reason why the Spanish Republic
could keep up the fight for two and a half years against impossible odds was that there
were no gross contrasts of wealth. The people suffered horribly, but they all suffered
alike. When the private soldier had not a cigarette, the general had not one either. Given
equality of sacrifice, the morale of a country like England would probably be
unbreakable. But at present we have nothing to appeal to except traditional patriotism,
which is deeper here than elsewhere, but is not necessarily bottomless. At some point or
another you have got to deal with the man who says “I should be no worse off under
Hitler”. But what answer can you give him — that is, what answer that you can expect him
to listen to — while common soldiers risk their lives for two and sixpence a day, and fat
women ride about in Rolls-Royce cars, nursing Pekineses?
It is quite likely that this war will last three years. It will mean cruel overwork, cold dull
winters, uninteresting food, lack of amusements, prolonged bombing. It cannot but lower
the general standard of living, because the essential act of war is to manufacture
armaments instead of consumable goods. The working class will have to suffer terrible
things. And they WILL suffer them, almost indefinitely, provided that they know what
they are fighting for. They are not cowards, and they are not even internationally minded.
They can stand all that the Spanish workers stood, and more. But they will want some
kind of proof that a better life is ahead for themselves and their children. The one sure
earnest of that is that when they are taxed and overworked they shall see that the rich are
being hit even harder. And if the rich squeal audibly, so much the better.
We can bring these things about, if we really want to. It is not true that public opinion has
no power in England. It never makes itself heard without achieving something; it has
been responsible for most of the changes for the better during the past six months. But we
have moved with glacier-like slowness, and we have learned only from disasters. It took
the fall of Paris to get rid of Chamberlain and the unnecessary suffering of scores of
thousands of people in the East End to get rid or partially rid of Sir John Anderson. It is
not worth losing a battle in order to bury a corpse. For we are fighting against swift evil
intelligences, and time presses, and
history to the defeated
May say Alas! but cannot alter or pardon.
Ill
During the last six months there has been much talk of “the Fifth Column”. From time to
time obscure lunatics have been jailed for making speeches in favour of Hitler, and large
numbers of German refugees have been interned, a thing which has almost certainly done
us great harm in Europe. It is of course obvious that the idea of a large, organised army of
Fifth Columnists suddenly appearing on the streets with weapons in their hands, as in
Holland and Belgium, is ridiculous. Nevertheless a Fifth Column danger does exist. One
can only consider it if one also considers in what way England might be defeated.
It does not seem probable that air bombing can settle a major war. England might well be
invaded and conquered, but the invasion would be a dangerous gamble, and if it
happened and failed it would probably leave us more united and less Blimp-ridden than
before. Moreover, if England were overrun by foreign troops the English people would
know that they had been beaten and would continue the struggle. It is doubtful whether
they could be held down permanently, or whether Hitler wishes to keep an army of a
million men stationed in these islands. A govermnent of , and (you can
fill in the names) would suit him better. The English can probably not be bullied into
surrender, but they might quite easily be bored, cajoled or cheated into it, provided that,
as at Munich, they did not know that they were surrendering. It could happen most easily
when the war seemed to be going well rather than badly. The threatening tone of so much
of the German and Italian propaganda is a psychological mistake. It only gets home on
intellectuals. With the general public the proper approach would be “Let’s call it a draw”.
It is when a peace-offer along THOSE lines is made that the pro-Fascists will raise their
voices.
But who are the pro-Fascists? The idea of a Hitler victory appeals to the very rich, to the
Communists, to Mosley’s followers, to the pacifists, and to certain sections among the
Catholics. Also, if things went badly enough on the Home Front, the whole of the poorer
section of the working class might swing round to a position that was defeatist though not
actively pro-Hitler.
In this motley list one can see the daring of German propaganda, its willingness to offer
everything to everybody. But the various pro-Fascist forces are not consciously acting
together, and they operate in different ways.
The Communists must certainly be regarded as pro-Hitler, and are bound to remain so
unless Russian policy changes, but they have not very much influence. Mosley’s
Blackshirts, though now lying very low, are a more serious danger, because of the footing
they probably possess in the anned forces. Still, even in its palmiest days Mosley’s
following can hardly have numbered 50,000. Pacifism is a psychological curiosity rather
than a political movement. Some of the extremer pacifists, starting out with a complete
renunciation of violence, have ended by warmly championing Hitler and even toying
with antisemitism. This is interesting, but it is not important. “Pure” pacifism, which is a
by-product of naval power, can only appeal to people in very sheltered positions.
Moreover, being negative and irresponsible, it does not inspire much devotion. Of the
membership of the Peace Pledge Union, less than 15 per cent even pay their annual
subscriptions. None of these bodies of people, pacifists, Communists or Blackshirts,
could bring a largescale stop-the-war movement into being by their own efforts. But they
might help to make things very much easier for a treacherous govermnent negotiating
surrender. Like the French Communists, they might become the half-conscious agents of
millionaires.
The real danger is from above. One ought not to pay any attention to Hitler’s recent line
of talk about being the friend of the poor man, the enemy of plutocracy, etc etc. Hitler’s
real self is in MEIN KAMPF, and in his actions. He has never persecuted the rich, except
when they were Jews or when they tried actively to oppose him. He stands for a
centralised economy which robs the capitalist of most of his power but leaves the
structure of society much as before. The State controls industry, but there are still rich
and poor, masters and men. Therefore, as against genuine Socialism, the moneyed class
have always been on his side. This was crystal clear at the time of the Spanish civil war,
and clear again at the time when France surrendered. Hitler’s puppet government are not
working men, but a gang of bankers, gaga generals and corrupt rightwing politicians.
That kind of spectacular, CONSCIOUS treachery is less likely to succeed in England,
indeed is far less likely even to be tried. Nevertheless, to many payers of supertax this
war is simply an insane family squabble which ought to be stopped at all costs. One need
not doubt that a “peace” movement is on foot somewhere in high places; probably a
shadow Cabinet has already been formed. These people will get their chance not in the
moment of defeat but in some stagnant period when boredom is reinforced by discontent.
They will not talk about surrender, only about peace; and doubtless they will persuade
themselves, and perhaps other people, that they are acting for the best. An army of
unemployed led by millionaires quoting the Sermon on the Mount — that is our danger.
But it cannot arise when we have once introduced a reasonable degree of social justice.
The lady in the Rolls-Royce car is more damaging to morale than a fleet of Goering’s
bombing planes.
PART III: THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION
I
The English revolution started several years ago, and it began to gather momentum when
the troops came back from Dunkirk. Like all else in England, it happens in a sleepy,
unwilling way, but it is happening. The war has speeded it up, but it has also increased,
and desperately, the necessity for speed.
Progress and reaction are ceasing to have anything to do with party labels.
If one wishes
to name a particular moment, one can say that the old distinction between Right and Left
broke down when PICTURE POST was first published. What are the politics of
PICTURE POST? Or of CAVALCADE, or Priestley’s broadcasts, or the leading articles
in the EVENING STANDARD? None of the old classifications will fit them. They
merely point to the existence of multitudes of unlabelled people who have grasped within
the last year or two that something is wrong. But since a classless, ownerless society is
generally spoken of as “Socialism”, we can give that name to the society towards which
we are now moving. The war and the revolution are inseparable. We cannot establish
anything that a western nation would regard as Socialism without defeating Hitler; on the
other hand we cannot defeat Hitler while we remain economically and socially in the
nineteenth century. The past is fighting the fixture and we have two years, a year, possibly
only a few months, to see to it that the future wins.
We cannot look to this or to any similar government to put through the necessary changes
of its own accord. The initiative will have to come from below. That means that there will
have to arise something that has never existed in England, a Socialist movement that
actually has the mass of the people behind it. But one must start by recognising why it is
that English Socialism has failed.
In England there is only one Socialist party that has ever seriously mattered, the Labour
Party. It has never been able to achieve any major change, because except in purely
domestic matters it has never possessed a genuinely independent policy. It was and is
primarily a party of the trade unions, devoted to raising wages and improving working
conditions. This meant that all through the critical years it was directly interested in the
prosperity of British capitalism. In particular it was interested in the maintenance of the
British Empire, for the wealth of England was drawn largely from Asia and Africa. The
standard of living of the trade union workers, whom the Labour Party represented,
depended indirectly on the sweating of Indian coolies. At the same time the Labour Party
was a Socialist party, using Socialist phraseology, thinking in terms of an old-fashioned
anti-imperialism and more or less pledged to make restitution to the coloured races. It had
to stand for the “independence” of India, just as it had to stand for disarmament and
“progress” generally. Nevertheless everyone was aware that this was nonsense. In the age
of the tank and the bombing plane, backward agricultural countries like India and the
African colonies can no more be independent than can a cat or a dog. Had any Labour
government come into office with a clear majority and then proceeded to grant India
anything that could truly be called independence, India would simply have been absorbed
by Japan, or divided between Japan and Russia.
To a Labour government in power, three imperial policies would have been open. One
was to continue administering the Empire exactly as before, which meant dropping all
pretensions to Socialism. Another was to set the subject peoples “free”, which meant in
practice handing them over to Japan, Italy and other predatory powers, and incidentally
causing a catastrophic drop in the British standard of living. The third was to develop a
POSITIVE imperial policy, and aim at transforming the Empire into a federation of
Socialist states, like a looser and freer version of the Union of Soviet Republics. But the
Labour Party’s history and background made this impossible. It was a party of the trade
unions, hopelessly parochial in outlook, with little interest in imperial affairs and no
contacts among the men who actually held the Empire together. It would have had to
hand the administration of India and Africa and the whole job of imperial defence to men
drawn from a different class and traditionally hostile to Socialism. Overshadowing
everything was the doubt whether a Labour government which meant business could
make itself obeyed. For all the size of its following, the Labour Party had no footing in
the navy, little or none in the army or air force, none whatever in the Colonial Services,
and not even a sure footing in the Home Civil Service. In England its position was strong
but not unchallengeable, and outside England all the key points were in the hands of its
enemies. Once in power, the same dilemma would always have faced it: carry out your
promises, and risk revolt, or continue with the same policy as the Conservatives, and stop
talking about Socialism. The Labour leaders never found a solution, and from 1935
onwards it was very doubtful whether they had any wish to take office. They had
degenerated into a Pennanent Opposition.
Outside the Labour Party there existed several extremist parties, of whom the
Communists were the strongest. The Communists had considerable influence in the
Labour Party in the years 1920-6 and 1935-9. Their chief importance, and that of the
whole left wing of the Labour movement, was the part they played in alienating the
middle classes from Socialism.
The history of the past seven years has made it perfectly clear that Communism has no
chance in western Europe. The appeal of Fascism is enonnously greater. In one country
after another the Communists have been rooted out by their more up-to-date enemies, the
Nazis. In the English-speaking countries they never had a serious footing. The creed they
were spreading could appeal only to a rather rare type of person, found chiefly in the
middle-class intelligentsia, the type who has ceased to love his own country but still feels
the need of patriotism, and therefore develops patriotic sentiments towards Russia. By
1940, after working for twenty years and spending a great deal of money, the British
Communists had barely 20,000 members, actually a smaller number than they had started
out with in 1920. The other Marxist parties were of even less importance. They had not
the Russian money and prestige behind them, and even more than the Communists they
were tied to the nineteenth-century doctrine of the class war. They continued year after
year to preach this out-of-date gospel, and never drew any inference from the fact that it
got them no followers.
Nor did any strong native Fascist movement grow up. Material conditions were not bad
enough, and no leader who could be taken seriously was forthcoming. One would have
had to look a long time to find a man more barren of ideas than Sir Oswald Mosley. He
was as hollow as a jug. Even the elementary fact that Fascism must not offend national
sentiment had escaped him. His entire movement was imitated slavishly from abroad, the
uniform and the party programme from Italy and the salute from Germany, with the
Jewbaiting tacked on as an afterthought, Mosley having actually started his movement
with Jews among his most prominent followers. A man of the stamp of Bottomley or
Lloyd George could perhaps have brought a real British Fascist movement into existence.
But such leaders only appear when the psychological need for them exists.
After twenty years of stagnation and unemployment, the entire English Socialist
movement was unable to produce a version of Socialism which the mass of the people
could even find desirable. The Labour Party stood for a timid reformism, the Marxists
were looking at the modern world through nineteenth-century spectacles. Both ignored
agriculture and imperial problems, and both antagonised the middle classes. The
suffocating stupidity of left-wing propaganda had frightened away whole classes of
necessary people, factory managers, airmen, naval officers, fanners, white-collar
workers, shopkeepers, policemen. All of these people had been taught to think of
Socialism as something which menaced their livelihood, or as something seditious, alien,
“anti-British” as they would have called it. Only the intellectuals, the least useful section
of the middle class, gravitated towards the movement.
A Socialist Party which genuinely wished to achieve anything would have started by
facing several facts which to this day are considered unmentionable in left-wing circles. It
would have recognised that England is more united than most countries, that the British
workers have a great deal to lose besides their chains, and that the differences in outlook
and habits between class and class are rapidly diminishing. In general, it would have
recognised that the old-fashioned “proletarian revolution” is an impossibility. But all
through the between-war years no Socialist programme that was both revolutionary and
workable ever appeared; basically, no doubt, because no one genuinely wanted any major
change to happen. The Labour leaders wanted to go on and on, drawing their salaries and
periodically swapping jobs with the Conservatives. The Communists wanted to go on and
on, suffering a comfortable martyrdom, meeting with endless defeats and afterwards
putting the blame on other people. The left-wing intelligentsia wanted to go on and on,
sniggering at the Blimps, sapping away at middle-class morale, but still keeping their
favoured position as hangers-on of the dividend-drawers. Labour Party politics had
become a variant of Conservatism, “revolutionary” politics had become a game of make-
believe.
Now, however, the circumstances have changed, the drowsy years have ended. Being a
Socialist no longer means kicking theoretically against a system which in practice you are
fairly well satisfied with. This time our predicament is real. It is “the Philistines be upon
thee, Samson”. We have got to make our words take physical shape, or perish. We know
very well that with its present social structure England cannot survive, and we have got to
make other people see that fact and act upon it. We cannot win the war without
introducing Socialism, nor establish Socialism without winning the war. At such a time it
is possible, as it was not in the peaceful years, to be both revolutionary and realistic. A
Socialist movement which can swing the mass of the people behind it, drive the pro-
Fascists out of positions of control, wipe out the grosser injustices and let the working
class see that they have something to fight for, win over the middle classes instead of
antagonising them, produce a workable imperial policy instead of a mixture of humbug
and Utopianism, bring patriotism and intelligence into partnership — for the first time, a
movement of such a kind becomes possible.
II
The fact that we are at war has turned Socialism from a textbook word into a realisable
policy.
The inefficiency of private capitalism has been proved all over Europe. Its injustice has
been proved in the East End of London. Patriotism, against which the Socialists fought so
long, has become a tremendous lever in their hands. People who at any other time would
cling like glue to their miserable scraps of privilege, will surrender them fast enough
when their country is in danger. War is the greatest of all agents of change. It speeds up
all processes, wipes out minor distinctions, brings realities to the surface. Above all, war
brings it home to the individual that he is not altogether an individual. It is only because
they are aware of this that men will die on the field of battle. At this moment it is not so
much a question of surrendering life as of surrendering leisure, comfort, economic
liberty, social prestige. There are very few people in England who really want to see their
country conquered by Germany. If it can be made clear that defeating Hitler means
wiping out class privilege, the great mass of middling people, the £6 a week to £2,000 a
year class, will probably be on our side. These people are quite indispensable, because
they include most of the technical experts. Obviously the snobbishness and political
ignorance of people like ainnen and naval officers will be a very great difficulty. But
without those airmen, destroyer commanders, etc etc we could not survive for a week.
The only approach to them is through their patriotism. An intelligent Socialist movement
will use their patriotism, instead of merely insulting it, as hitherto.
But do I mean that there will be no opposition? Of course not. It would be childish to
expect anything of the kind.
There will be a bitter political struggle, and there will be unconscious and half-conscious
sabotage everywhere. At some point or other it may be necessary to use violence. It is
easy to imagine a pro-Fascist rebellion breaking out in, for instance, India. We shall have
to fight against bribery, ignorance and snobbery. The bankers and the larger businessmen,
the landowners and dividend-drawers, the officials with their prehensile bottoms, will
obstruct for all they are worth. Even the middle classes will writhe when their
accustomed way of life is menaced. But just because the English sense of national unity
has never disintegrated, because patriotism is finally stronger than class-hatred, the
chances are that the will of the majority will prevail. It is no use imagining that one can
make fundamental changes without causing a split in the nation; but the treacherous
minority will be far smaller in time of war than it would be at any other time.
The swing of opinion is visibly happening, but it cannot be counted on to happen fast
enough of its own accord. This war is a race between the consolidation of Hitler’s empire
and the growth of democratic consciousness. Everywhere in England you can see a ding-
dong battle ranging to and fro — in Parliament and in the Government, in the factories and
the anned forces, in the pubs and the air-raid shelters, in the newspapers and on the radio.
Every day there are tiny defeats, tiny victories. Morrison for Home Security — a few yards
forward. Priestley shoved off the air — a few yards back. It is a struggle between the
groping and the unteachable, between the young and the old, between the living and the
dead. But it is very necessary that the discontent which undoubtedly exists should take a
purposeful and not merely obstructive form. It is time for THE PEOPLE to define their
war-aims. What is wanted is a simple, concrete programme of action, which can be given
all possible publicity, and round which public opinion can group itself.
I suggest that the following six-point programme is the kind of thing we need. The first
three points deal with England’s internal policy, the other three with the Empire and the
world:
1. Nationalisation of land, mines, railways, ha nk s and major industries.
2. Limitation of incomes, on such a scale that the highest taxfree income in Britain does
not exceed the lowest by more than ten to one.
3. Reform of the educational system along democratic lines.
4. Immediate Dominion status for India, with power to secede when the war is over.
5. Formation of an Imperial General Council, in which the coloured peoples are to be
represented.
6. Declaration of formal alliance with China, Abyssinia and all other victims of the
Fascist powers.
The general tendency of this programme is unmistakable. It aims quite frankly at turning
this war into a revolutionary war and England into a Socialist democracy. I have
deliberately included in it nothing that the simplest person could not understand and see
the reason for. In the form in which I have put it, it could be printed on the front page of
the DAILY MIRROR. But for the purposes of this book a certain amount of
amplification is needed.
1 . NATIONALISATION. One can “nationalise” industry by the stroke of a pen, but the
actual process is slow and complicated. What is needed is that the ownership of all major
industry shall be formally vested in the State, representing the common people. Once that
is done it becomes possible to eliminate the class of mere OWNERS who live not by
virtue of anything they produce but by the possession of title-deeds and share certificates.
State-ownership implies, therefore, that nobody shall live without working. How sudden
a change in the conduct of industry it implies is less certain. In a country like England we
cannot rip down the whole structure and build again from the bottom, least of all in time
of war. Inevitably the majority of industrial concerns will continue with much the same
personnel as before, the one-time owners or managing directors carrying on with their
jobs as State employees. There is reason to think that many of the smaller capitalists
would actually welcome some such arrangement. The resistance will come from the big
capitalists, the bankers, the landlords and the idle rich, roughly speaking the class with
over £2,000 a year — and even if one counts in all their dependants there are not more
than half a million of these people in England. Nationalisation of agricultural land implies
cutting out the landlord and the tithe drawer, but not necessarily interfering with the
farmer. It is difficult to imagine any reorganisation of English agriculture that would not
retain most of the existing farms as units, at any rate at the beginning. The farmer, when
he is competent, will continue as a salaried manager. He is virtually that already, with the
added disadvantage of having to make a profit and being pennanently in debt to the bank.
With certain kinds of petty trading, and even the small-scale ownership of land, the State
will probably not interfere at all. It would be a great mistake to start by victimising the
smallholder class, for instance. These people are necessary, on the whole they are
competent, and the amount of work they do depends on the feeling that they are “their
own masters”. But the State will certainly impose an upward limit to the ownership of
land (probably fifteen acres at the very most), and will never permit any ownership of
land in town areas.
From the moment that all productive goods have been declared the property of the State,
the common people will feel, as they cannot feel now, that the State is THEMSELVES.
They will be ready then to endure the sacrifices that are ahead of us, war or no war. And
even if the face of England hardly seems to change, on the day that our main industries
are formally nationalised the dominance of a single class will have been broken. From
then onwards the emphasis will be shifted from ownership to management, from
privilege to competence. It is quite possible that State-ownership will in itself bring about
less social change than will be forced upon us by the common hardships of war. But it is
the necessary first step without which any REAL reconstruction is impossible.
2. INCOMES. Limitation of incomes implies the fixing of a minimum wage, which
implies a managed internal currency based simply on the amount of consumption goods
available. And this again implies a stricter rationing scheme than is now in operation. It is
no use at this stage of the world’s history to suggest that all human beings should have
EXACTLY equal incomes. It has been shown over and over again that without some kind
of money reward there is no incentive to undertake certain jobs. On the other hand the
money reward need not be very large. In practice it is impossible that earnings should be
limited quite as rigidly as I have suggested. There will always be anomalies and evasions.
But there is no reason why ten to one should not be the maximum normal variation. And
within those limits some sense of equality is possible. A man with £3 a week and a man
with £1,500 a year can feel themselves fellow creatures, which the Duke of Westminster
and the sleepers on the Embankment benches cannot.
3. EDUCATION. In wartime, educational refonn must necessarily be promise rather than
performance. At the moment we are not in a position to raise the school-leaving age or
increase the teaching staffs of the elementary schools. But there are certain immediate
steps that we could take towards a democratic educational system. We could start by
abolishing the autonomy of the public schools and the older universities and flooding
them with State-aided pupils chosen simply on grounds of ability. At present, public-
school education is partly a training in class prejudice and partly a sort of tax that the
middle classes pay to the upper class in return for the right to enter certain professions. It
is true that that state of affairs is altering. The middle classes have begun to rebel against
the expensiveness of education, and the war will bankrupt the majority of the public
schools if it continues for another year or two. The evacuation is also producing certain
minor changes. But there is a danger that some of the older schools, which will be able to
weather the financial storm longest, will survive in some fonn or another as festering
centres of snobbery. As for the 10,000 “private” schools that England possesses, the vast
majority of them deserve nothing except suppression. They are simply commercial
undertakings, and in many cases their educational level is actually lower than that of the
elementary schools. They merely exist because of a widespread idea that there is
something disgraceful in being educated by the public authorities. The State could quell
this idea by declaring itself responsible for all edilcation, even if at the start this were no
more than a gesture. We need gestures as well as actions. It is all too obvious that our talk
of “defending democracy” is nonsense while it is a mere accident of birth that decides
whether a gifted child shall or shall not get the education it deserves.
4. INDIA. What we must offer India is not “freedom”, which, as I have said earlier, is
impossible, but alliance, partnership-in a word, equality. But we must also tell the Indians
that they are free to secede, if they want to. Without that there can be no equality of
partnership, and our claim to be defending the coloured peoples against Fascism will
never be believed. But it is a mistake to imagine that if the Indians were free to cut
themselves adrift they would immediately do so. When a British government OFFERS
them unconditional independence, they will refuse it. For as soon as they have the power
to secede the chief reasons for doing so will have disappeared.
A complete severance of the two countries would be a disaster for India no less than for
England. Intelligent Indians know this. As things are at present, India not only cannot
defend itself, it is hardly even capable of feeding itself.
