Cause of World Unrest - Nesta Webster




Chapter XV
British Socialism

The manifestations of the world conspiracy have not affected really closely the daily life of the average British reader. Revolutions in Russia or Turkey, the failure of the Peace Conference, or even disorder and bloodshed in Ireland, have less immediate result on every day existence than the menace of a German air raid. The subject now to be discussed is of intimate concern to the pocket and ambition of every citizen of the British Isles.

Since the Armistice, the clash between Capital and Labour, the increasing demands for more money and less work on the part of the labouring classes, have had a definite and concrete effect on every Englishman's pleasure and business. The main pillar of British supremacy has been our industrial predominance, and it is the object of this chapter to ascertain how far the attacks now being directed against that predominance are due to external influence and to "the programme of violence and hypocrisy" preached under the control of the "formidable sect."

The British working man is naturally "insular" in his outlook, and it is only through foreign influence that the "formidable sect" could bring him into line with the revolutionaries of the Continent. Such influence is mainly concealed, though sometimes the alliance between British Labour leaders and Russian Bolsheviks is flaunted before the world. No more comical example of this alliance could be discovered than the presentation of the Soviet Military Medal to Mr. Robert Williams, Secretary of the Transport Workers' Federation. It was to be expected that the Moscow authorities would be anxious to confer the same medal on Mr. Smillie, who has fought so nobly in the cause of Bolshevism.

Throughout Great Britain, an attempt is being made to create what Lenin would describe as "a revolutionary situation." It has been shown how continuous beneath the surface are the secret influences that control all revolutions. This fact is often ignored by the general public. It regards each outbreak of revolution as a peculiar phenomenon due to conditions of contemporary society, and quite unconnected with similar outbreaks in the past. The demands and methods of our present-day revolutionaries are regarded as quite modern, and as an evidence of advanced thought, if not exactly an indication of moral and social progress.

The Bolsheviks in Russia and the Left Wing of the British Labour movement are not the advocates of new and up-to-date doctrines, the result of the better education, and, in the words of Mr. Frank Hodges, "the awakened consciousness" of the workers, but they are putting before the proletariat a rehash of shibboleths that have been the stock-in-trade of the Internationalists and world-revolutionaries for well over a century.

To understand the revolutionary movement in Great Britain, it is first necessary to explain that the Socialist societies in this country are, with one or two exceptions, International organizations; and that their aims and methods and phraseology are derived from foreign sources—mainly from the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. We shall never really understand so-called British Socialism if we fail to grasp this important fact. It is the key to much that is otherwise inexplicable.

It is, of course, exceedingly difficult for those who are not familiar with the ramifications of International Socialism to perceive this alien influence in movements that are apparently of British origin. This difficulty is increased by the fact that in this country the known leaders of revolutionary organizations are generally of British birth. The International Jew does not usually appear as the leader, as he so frequently does on the Continent and even in the Labour movement of America. The British workman will not, as a rule, knowingly be led by men of an alien race. There are, of course, exceptions, as in the case of the Clyde strike in January, 1919, when the chairman of the Strike Committee was a Polish Jew tailor, and close study shows that the Left Wing of the British Labour and Socialist movement is completely dominated by anti-British sentiments; and the origin of these sentiments is to be found in the foreign influences operating on the Continent and in America.

An essential point in the study of the plans for a revolution in Great Britain and in other parts of the Empire is the connection between the theories and doctrines of the German Jew, Karl Marx, and the methods of our revolutionary Socialists and Syndicalists. The British leaders of Socialism in the latter part of the nineteenth and the beginning of the present century were influenced very little indeed by the writings of Marx. Mr. Robert Blatchford, for instance, has often admitted that he has never even read Marx's Capital. Mr. H. M. Hyndman was the best exponent of Marxism, but he is generally regarded by the modern Marxians as "unsound," because he is a "Social patriot."

Until recently, then, Socialism in England was more English in its aims and methods than International or Marxian Socialism. But just before the outbreak of war there was a noticeable drift of the young men in the Labour movement towards Marxian Socialism, with the consequent tendency towards Internationalism and revolution. Since the Armistice this Left Wing movement has grown considerably, and Marxian economic classes have been constantly increasing in numbers. Hundreds of workers now attend these classes, where they are taught the ethics of the "class war" and the need for revolution.

It was the demand of the Marxists for this type of "education" for the wage-earners that caused the split in Ruskin College and led to the formation of the Labour College, now financed by the National Union of Railwaymen and South Wales Miners' Federation, and by the recently formed Postal Workers' Union. This so-called educational movement is one of the most active Bolshevist organizations in this country. The staffs of the colleges, especially in the North, are almost entirely composed of avowed Bolsheviks and official members of societies affiliated to the Third International at Moscow.

The Labour Colleges and the local economic classes run in connection with these Colleges are mainly concerned with the promulgation of Marxism and the peculiar Internationalism, or anti-patriotism, that is the foundation of the revolutionary movement in Great Britain. Just prior to the outbreak of war negotiations were taking place for the establishment of an "International of Young Proletarian Students".

The people most interested in the formation of this International organization were the Germans. The German Social Democrats were to be mainly responsible for the financing of the whole scheme. Here in England, the persons chiefly concerned with the plan were the Marxists, including German and Russian Jews. The scheme should have been launched at the International Congress which was fixed for August, 1914. The war prevented the Congress being held. It is not without significance that the persons in this country who were conducting the negotiations with the Germans became, on the outbreak of war, actively associated with various pro-German and Defeatist societies, and some of them got into trouble with the authorities in consequence.

This German-inspired scheme for the International education of the proletariat of every country contained the following proposals:

"(1) An International Federation of such Socialist and Labour Colleges as are provided and controlled by working-class organizations independently and not in co-partnership with those bulwarks of Capitalism—the Church and the Universities.

"(2) An International Working-class Students' Union, in order to secure the rank and file character of this union, the unit to be not the Labour 'Leader' or the Great Committee of such 'Leaders' but the class (controlled by the workers) for the study of the principles of International Socialism.

"(3) A system of International Travelling Scholarships to facilitate an interchange between various countries of lectures on International Socialism, and also to make it possible for working-class students (men and women) to visit and study the conditions in other countries than their own, and to report to their organizations.

"(4) An International Socialist Library, in order to bring within the reach of working-class students translations of the best works on International Socialism published in various countries, and in connection with this library an International Journal of Education showing the developments in education in different countries."

The war prevented the realization of this plan, and now that Germany is scarcely in a position to finance the scheme, efforts are being made to link it with the Third International and to make the Soviet Government responsible for its direction and control. The Labour delegates to Russia brought back a letter from Tchicherin on this matter in which he promises to consider how this scheme can be put into operation.

The recipient of this letter, Mrs. Bridges Adams, writing to a Bolshevist paper, the Socialist, official organ of the Socialist Labour Party, states that some months ago, if peace had been made with Russia, it was proposed to send from Britain this summer a party of students of the many classes now being held for the study of Marxian economics and industrial history—about two hundred, including a contingent from the James Connolly Labour College in Dublin, to Russia, the others to Italy, Germany, and Switzerland.

Mrs. Adams adds that at the present time, in order to meet the cost of this Mission, Mrs. Ethel Carnie Holdsworth, the ex-mill-girl authoress, is appealing for £2000.

"However, if the money is not forthcoming in Britain, an international appeal will be issued. From Russia, when once the difficulties of which Tchicherin has written me are removed, the response will be generous, even to the extent, if necessary, of sending a ship for the students and defraying the cost of the Mission. Comrades will see the great possibilities of this movement."

Mrs. Adams expresses the hope that this International of Young Proletarian Students will work "within and as an integral part of the Moscow or Third International." She desires support for Tchicherin's policy:

". . . to bring together our Socialist Labour students and Russian students; to support him by an earnest propaganda on the movement here outlined in the factories and in the mines, and in the branches of working-class organizations.

No mission from Britain would be more welcome in Russia than a proletarian students' mission. The Russian Socialists understand the meaning of International Labour solidarity, and will not visit upon young British workers the hellish crimes of British Imperialism against Soviet Russia. . . . Long live the youth of the Red International."

From the above statement it seems that the Soviet Government, with its overwhelming Jewish influence, is now likely to take the place originally assigned to the German Social Democrats for the control and direction of the "education" of the Labour movement in Great Britain and other countries. In either case, however, the International Jews would be the controlling power, and we know that the instruction provided for the wage-earners at the economic classes and at the Labour Colleges is based on the writings and theories of Jewish authorities in the world of International Socialism.

The "Young Socialists' International" is a movement to capture for Bolshevism the boys and girls of the working class. At an international Conference held at Berlin last December, it was decided to call it the "Young Communist International," and to affiliate to the Moscow International.

The British Section is the "Young Socialist League," and its official organ, first issued in May last, is the Red Flag. The editor is Nathan B. Whycer. The leaders in London are persons with such British names as Saphire, Zeital, and Troubman. In the first issue of the Red Flag there is an article on the Berlin Conference of young Socialists, written by A. Fineberg. This article is followed by a letter from the "Executive Committee of the Young Communist International," dated Berlin, February, 1920. The letter concludes with the following statement:

"Just as the Russian youth in Russia are defending the Socialist Republic in the front rank of the Red army, just as in Germany the Socialist youth are the standard bearers of revolutionary Socialism, so the proletarian youth in the countries of the Entente will enter the struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeois Governments and the destruction of the Capitalist States, and for the victory of communism through the dictatorship of the proletariat."

Before a revolution can take place in any country, much preparatory work must be done. A revolutionary situation must first be created, and if the natural conditions of society do not tend in this direction, efforts must be made to force them into the right channel for revolution. This is the purpose of the revolutionary Socialists and Syndicalists in this country. Our revolutionaries, working in conjunction with foreign revolutionaries, who are mainly International Jews, have to find ways and means of creating in Great Britain an industrial crisis of such a magnitude that a revolution will be practically inevitable. This is the immediate problem of the revolutionary movement here. How will this crisis be brought about?

A very significant quotation has already been given:

"Want and opinion are the two agents which make all men act. Cause the want, govern the opinions, and you will overturn all the existing systems, however well consolidated these may appear."

This is sound revolutionary doctrine. Now, the whole case for Marxism rests on the entire breakup of the existing social order. Marx himself believed that this would be brought about by hunger and want driving the masses into a violent revolution. The theory was that the development of the capitalist system would be in the direction of an ever-widening gulf between the rich and the poor. He wrote that "the rich are getting richer, the poor poorer, the middle class is being crushed out," and he predicted that the condition of the workers would become worse until they were driven by sheer desperation to revolution.

"Then the knell of the capitalistic system will have sounded. The producers will assert themselves under the pressure of an irresistible impulse; they will repossess themselves of the implements of production of which they have been so long deprived,"

These predictions of Marx have been falsified by events. The extreme poverty and sufferings of the workers, on which his anticipations were based, have not been experienced, least of all in this country. The British worker has, on the whole, greatly improved his economic position since Marx made his predictions. And this comparative prosperity of the British worker is the greatest obstacle, not only to a revolution in this country, but to the world revolution planned by the foreign revolutionaries. It is admitted by Trotsky and by Dr. Hermann Gorter, author of The World Revolution, that their plans for a worldwide revolution cannot be successful so long as there is a united British Empire. This was also the opinion of Karl Marx.

The problem of the international organizers of revolution consists of (1) how to destroy Britain's industrial prosperity, and (2) how to break up the British Empire. The first of these objects is to be realized by strikes, the reduction of output, and by constant demands for higher wages until the profits of each industry are absorbed by Labour. The second object is to be attained by supporting and organizing rebellions and insurrections in various parts of the Empire. The cumulative effect of this policy, if successful, would certainly be extreme poverty and suffering for the masses, and a "revolutionary situation" would undoubtedly exist.

If at the same time opinion were properly controlled it would be possible to overthrow the existing social order, and to set up a Dictatorship of the kind advocated by the International Socialists. In the International publications of the Bolsheviks, which are widely circulated in this country, will be found proposals for the destruction of our industries, the break-up of the Empire, and for the control of opinion by a Minority acting as a Dictatorship. In this effort to bring about a revolution all sorts of methods are proposed. A writer in the Worker, the organ of the Scottish Workers' Committees, states:

"It must not be supposed that, though we pin great faith in improved industrial organization, we are industrial absolutists, relying on industrial action alone to bring about the workers' emancipation. As Karl Radek so finely puts it: 'Victory has got to be earned by a daily combat with the bourgeoisie on all the domains of social life, a combat developing finally into direct revolutionary strife, class against class.'

"The industrial weapon will have to be supplemented by other weapons evolved by the workers as the struggle increases in intensity. The strike, supplemented by the other weapons, will have to be used against the State, as well as against the employers, until the Capitalist State has been brought to the ground and the workers, under the shield of the proletarian dictatorship, are building up the new Communist Republic."

What the Jew, Karl Radek, means is indicated in an article he has recently written for the Call, the organ of the British Socialist Party—a party of which the members in London are mainly foreign Jews, as any one can see who attends a London meeting of the party. In this article, Radek states that if Great Britain does not come to terms with the Soviet Government, the British Empire will be attacked by the Bolsheviks at its most vulnerable point—India. The quotation the Worker gives from Radek recalls the boast of the "Elders of Zion" that they have instilled class hatred into the peoples.

The revolutionaries in Great Britain, acting on instructions from the International at Moscow, profess to believe that the capitalist system cannot recover from the economic effects of the war, and they quote in support of this conclusion a book, Capitalism Today, by Ernst Kahn, an American Marxist. This book is very popular with the Marxian economic classes, and a cheap edition is shortly to be published by Charles Kerr, publisher for the American Socialists. Under the economic crisis that is developing, the workers will be driven:

". . . to rebel against the whole regime, and will substitute their own power. It is here that the function of the Communist arises. The workers, as a whole, rebel against a regime of which they feel the pricks, without any preconceived doctrinaire theory. It is the business of the Communist to guide their movements into its realization in the dictatorship of the proletariat."

This advice is, we find, generally acted upon in Labour disputes in this country. For instance, in an article on the gas strike at Manchester, in the Workers' Dreadnought, July 17th, 1920, it is stated that:

"Communists ought to be on the spot wherever such spontaneous revolts occur, doing vital propaganda, endeavouring to communistically educate discontent."

The writer goes on to express satisfaction with this strike, and states that this working-class power:

". . . if used in the general strike would bring, not merely a wage increase for a few, or all, but create in the industrial world right and ripe conditions for full proletarian control."