[twc]

Robbo.  While I await LBird to substantiate his accusations that #48 and #51 are 19th century materialist…Just reread what you wrote, stripping away the verbiage — the working class’s view is pro-capitalist because it supports capitalism. As explanation that is priceless!You fully agree with Engels’s view, which is ultimately a direct implication of the materialist conception of history, though you dressed it up in Hegelian jargon.As to moral indignation.  There are more morally indignant know-alls out there than you can poke a stick at, and none of them is socialist.  Marx gave his life to get beyond relying upon emotion.  Socialism is not going to be achieved through hysteria, but chaos can.As to persuasion.  Any leader can easily persuade a mob against its own deep conviction, but it’s a fickle unconvincing feat.  Socialism is not going to be achieved by political persuasion, but its opposite can.Perhaps we might acknowledge what a weak lot we 21st century folks, even the best, have become!Socialism doesn’t rely on indignation.  Indignation, like all emotion is impermanent.  It must be feigned to be kept alive, and then it becomes a mere self-serving pose.  Our opponents are expert poseurs at this.  We despise their subterfuge.Before getting carried away with indignation, first ask the indignant person just exactly what he is indignant about and then, from his reply, judge his sincerity and his socialism.  Typically he merely seeks to parade his sincerity in order to persuade you to accept his politics.  Such indignation is insincere but persuasive, and that’s why the dishonest resort to it.  Most indignation surrounding us both misses the true mark and is the reverse of “morality”.When Marx and Engels died they left us a science that could bring about world socialism by conviction through simple scientific comprehension of socialism and its implications.  That’s the only surefire legacy we have.Our opponents are persuasive indignant voluntarists.  They need to be.  They lack science.  They lack conviction.

[twc]

What specifically is 19th century materialist about #48 and #51?Please be explicit.

[twc]

Or in post #48 for that matter.

[twc]

Please explain, as clearly and precisely as you are able to, what’s 19th century materialist about anything in my post #51.

[twc]

Indignation as Morality?Engels, as always, is dependably clear and theoretically correct.His equation of working-class indignation with working-class morality holds precisely for us socialists.  And that I take it is the moralist case being supported in this thread.No doubt Engels was thinking of 18th century philosophe indignation prefiguring the French Revolution.  He was also foreshadowing groups like us aiming to bring about common-ownership and democratic-control [world] socialism.  [Perhaps by the 1870s Engels hadn’t explicitly claimed that socialism could only be world socialism.]However, for various reasons, many of which have to do with the anti-moral machinations of Communist parties in the name of the working class — especially those obnoxious Communist parties in the Western world — the working class is no longer receptive, i.e. is not yet at Engels’s intellectual or emotional receptive stage.Sure, indignation against oppression is everywhere in capitalism!Every group, and everybody, is indignant about “what’s patently obvious to them that we should do” but isn’t being done.  Indignation about the current state of affairs is the common theme of politics.  Indignation thrives in the capitalist air.But is it Socialist?Nobody, in their highest flight of imagination, could equate the everyday common-or-garden variety of personal or in-group indignation with socialist morality.Just examine by the “cold hard logic”, proposed in this thread, the familiar instances of such working-class “morality” as it manifests itself today.  Large sections of the working class indignantly hold xenophobic, individualistic and loutish conceptions that are the very opposite of socialist morality.It is not Engels’s theory that is at fault, but our blind application of it to current contingent conditions.General working-class “morality” is almost indistinguishable from capitalist-class “morality” because it arises on the same foundation — the necessity of capitalist society to daily reproduce itself, and with it to daily reproduce capitalist social relations.In the 1890s that is precisely what Engels said.  The working class thinks just like the capitalist class.Sickening state of affairs then, and the sickening reality of the present.Our socialist morality transcends most of what anyone could claim to be specifically working-class indignation today.  That’s the fertile breeding ground of Reformism.Working-class morality, in Engels’s sense, is still socially rudimentary, just as we are currently a socially minuscule force.It's always been thus for us since 1904.  That’s always been the spur!

[twc]

Christian MoralityChristian morality originally expressed the hankerings of the socially useless Roman proletariat,¹  a morality that could never survive in tact once Christianity became a world religion.Across the grain of its foundational doctrine, the Church was forced by material circumstances to resort to archaic theological terror:  Be moral or be damned!Christian Morality as Part of Class IdeologyMorality is a part of the social superstructure, and must ultimately prove itself to be socially useful or perish, to be replaced by an altered morality that does prove to be socially useful.The social superstructure’s essential role is to preserve the social mode of production that calls it forth.  In a class-divided society, it serves class rule.The morality of a class-divided society is communally duplicitous.  It appears to be universal but it is actually the property and tool of the ruling class.To play out this duplicitous role, class-divided morality must ultimately rationalize and absolve many of the anti-communal practices it forbids in theory but performs in practice, simply because the ethereal utterances of its abstract God prove absolutely incapable of curbing actual anti-communal behaviour.There is one exception.  Class-divided morality will never rationalize or absolve criticism of its material foundation — class ownership and control.And so the medieval Church obligingly caved in to social reality, and redeemed, through financial donation abetted by prayer, the socially necessary behaviour its “moral” teaching condemned in thought but was powerless to prevent in practice.[In this way, social being determined its consciousness.]PowerlessChristian morality settled into a moral sludge that purports to be, but never can be, a genuine expression of simple direct communality.Social circumstances inverted Christian theology to the extent that anti-God, and not God, became the enforcer of morality.  Satan is the unwitting Christian moralist, the divine punisher of evil, while a morally indifferent God remains remote from our moral dilemmas and sufferings, here and hereafter.Satan, and not God, is truly “the god of this world” [2 Corinthians 4:4].The tacit proof that God is not morally interventionist is amply demonstrated by the Church’s “show” commissions for establishing God’s occasional miraculous interventions that, if moral, do little more than condemn Him as immoral for not intervening more frequently.²The history of Church morality provides 2000 years of proof that morality follows social need and not the other way round.  It is proof, if such were needed, that pure moral thought is incapable of changing society.[Social being determines consciousness.]Abstract CommunalismThough religion and philosophy have proved powerless to alter society, they nevertheless expose to daylight the underlying communalism of society that persists, despite all social vicissitudes.This underlying communalism is no more than the now abstract recognition that we are social creatures, that we need each other, and what we are now we have inherited from our social past, and that we have a role to play in our communal present and future.This abstract recognition has often spurred humanity on.  The materialist conception of history shows us how it may be realized in a world in which communal morality, instead of the cash nexus, becomes the natural relation that binds us all together in one united society.Footnotes¹ The capitalist proletariat, in the West, is equally becoming communally useless as it becomes increasingly useful merely to financial capital.  Let’s hope it doesn’t thrust an equally insipid “morality” upon us all.  We see the Left eagerly taking up moralistic positions on every conceivable injustice under capitalism, a sign of anti-socialist imbecility. ↩ [Back]² The late Christopher Hitchins was “devil’s advocate” at Mother Teresa’s beatification, even though she had renounced Christianity. He wrote “I was invited by the Vatican into a closed room containing a Bible, a tape recorder, a monsignor, a deacon, and a priest, and asked if I could throw any light of my own on the matter of “the Servant of God, Mother Teresa.”  But, even as they appeared to be asking me this in good faith, their colleagues on the other side of the world were certifying the necessary “miracle” that would allow the beatification [towards conferring sainthood upon her] to go forward.” Revoltingly disgusting!  But what else can one expect of the “morality” adequate to a class-society. ↩ [Back]

[twc]

Marx had the terms “reality”  and “realism”  available to him — just like everyone else.

[twc]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

If we discuss abstract philosophical (or economical) questions then we should be relating it to practical politics.

That’s precisely what Marx’s materialist conception of history does for practical politics.The materialist conception of history reveals the following highly practical politics to our highly practical species:a part of our species possesses the means of life of the whole of our species;a class of society owns-and-controls all of our society’s means of production;the owning-and-controlling class of society lives at the expense of society;the owning-and-controlling class need not labour for society;the owning-and-controlling class can live off the proceeds of the social labour it owns-and-controls;the owning-and-controlling class exploits the dispossessed-and-controlled class;the owning-and-controlling class robs-and-rules society;a society, so constituted, is the possession of its owning-and-controlling class;a society, so constituted, is riven in two;a society, so divided, survives in part because material conditions — for long periods of history —  offer society-as-a-whole no viable alternative mode of production;a society, so divided, survives in part because it creates a social consciousness that justifies and rationalizes class rule;for its own survival, and thus for the survival of its own society, the dominant-class creates a dominant-class ideology;an indispensable function of dominant-class ideology is to unite actual social division into an imagined social unity;a society, so divided, necessarily breeds a class struggle between the possessors and the dispossessed;the dispossessed in a divided society can only transcend the divided society that dispossesses them by gaining ownership-and-control of the means of life;all political activity that is not directed towards gaining common-ownership and democratic-control of the means of life cannot transcend the bounds of a society based on private-ownership and private-control of the means of life;all political activity that is not directed towards gaining common-ownership and democratic-control of the means of life is socially reactionary;all other political action is, consciously or unconsciously, directed towards maintaining a society based upon class rule;the world socialist Declaration of Principles and Object are the only practical political means to socialism. 

stuartw2112 wrote:

No historian, not even those sympathetic to Marx, takes [the materialist conception of history] all that seriously.It tells us next to **** all about the real problems of history and is next to no help at all in the doing of it.[The materialist conception of history] has nothing at all to do with the question that started this thread.

Marx took the materialist conception of history extremely seriously all throughout Capital — “The general conclusion at which I arrived and which, once reached, became the guiding principle of my studies”.¹I don’t know what else Marx would have to say to convince you that he “took it seriously”.World socialists also take it extremely seriously — see my last two points above.  It is the foundation of their case against capitalism and for socialism.It is not a dilettante toy that you play with whenever it suits your intellectual fancy.Most “historians”, as prodigiously skilled analysts as many of them are, fail to see beneath the concrete contingencies of historical situations.  Few are consistent scientists like Marx, and cannot comprehend the scientific, and therefore testable, necessity to explain the concrete by abstract theory — the materialist conception of history — which is a non-trivial task.The sort of history you seem to allude to is largely descriptive, and ultimately like any pursuit that “restricts itself to the facts” finds that the facts themselves are tendentious, and so the “factual” historian is forced against his will to choose his own alternative theory of history to make sense of his “facts” or merely rest his “factual” case upon his own persuasiveness as an author.  Yes, Marx is no help to such an “historian”.The materialist conception of history has everything to do with it.  It is the only way of conceiving it.  Social being determines consciousness.Footnote ¹ Marx. “A Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy”, Preface. ↩ [Back]

[twc]

Too Fabulous to Last ForeverDavid Harvey, in his always entertaining and frequently excellent, though always [un]consciously anti-socialist, talks, proposes compound growth, which is merely the expression of capital itself, as one of the most alarming of his 17 contradictions of capital.¹There must be dozens of graphs of compound growth on the web, but I computed my own using Wolfram Alpha, the primary mathematical tool of the web.The inspiration is Capital, Volume 3, Chapter 24, where Marx discusses an entire British administration, under Pitt, falling for a certain Dr Price’s scheme of borrowing at simple interest but charging [the nation] at compound interest, and thereby solving the British national debt once and for all.  Such are:  “the fabulous fancies of Dr Price, which outdo by far the fantasies of the alchemists;  fancies, in which Pitt believed in all earnest, and which he used as pillars of his financial administration”. Dr Price’s Paradigm ExampleDr Price’s epitome of capitalist desire is:  “A shilling put out to 6% compound interest at our Saviours birth” (presumably in the Temple of Jerusalem) “would… have increased to a greater sum than the whole solar system could hold, supposing it a sphere equal in diameter to the diameter of Saturn’s orbit.”Marx’s discussion is worth reading for the litany of fantasies that arise naturally out of the institution of banking.²With regard to fixing the national debt, Marx proceeds: “With Dr. Price’s aid, Pitt thus converts Smith’s theory of accumulation into enrichment of a nation by means of accumulating debts, and thus arrives at the pleasant progression of an infinity of loans — loans to pay loans. “[Dr Price] regarded capital as a self-regulating automaton, as a mere number that increases itself (just as Malthus did with respect to population in his geometrical progression), [and] he was struck by the thought that he had found the law of its growth in the formula        s = c (1 + i)ⁿ ,       [1]in which s = the sum of capital + compound interest, c = advanced capital, i = rate of interest, n = the number of years in which this process takes place.”[Capital, Vol. 3, Ch. 24.] New Shillings for OldHere is the graph of Dr Price’s formula for c = 1 shilling, invested to mature after n = 2014 years.The horizontal scale from 0 to 10, represents the fixed rate of interest i (%).Thus 1 represents a fixed rate of interest of 1%, …, and 10 represents a fixed rate of interest of 10%.The vertical axis from 0 to 80, represents the yield s, as the number of shilling coins, amassed over 2014 years, in powers of ten.  This is a logarithmic scale.³Thus, 3 represents 1000 shillings [one thousand, or 10³],6 represents 1,000,000 shillings [one million, or 10⁶],9 represents 1,000,000,000 shillings [one billion, or 10⁹], …,80 represents one followed by 80 zeroes of shillings [10⁸⁰].  How to Read the Graph  i  s  1% 10⁸  2% 10¹⁷  3% 10²⁵  4% 10³³  5% 10⁴²  6% 10⁵⁰  7% 10₅⁸  8% 10⁶⁷  9% 10⁷⁵ 10% 10⁸⁵Reading from the graph, Dr Price’s 1 shilling, invested at 6% per annum compound interest, after 2014 years, would yield 10⁵⁰ shillings, or100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Visualizing ThisIf each shilling stacks 1 mm high, a column of them would reach:the Moon when the yield was 10¹¹ shillings [~400 AD]Pluto when the yield was 10¹⁵ shillings [~600 AD]Proxima Centauri when the yield was 10¹⁹ shillings [~750 AD]the Andromeda Galaxy when the yield was 10²⁵ shillings [~1000 AD]the edge of the Observable Universe when the yield was 10³⁰ shillings [~1200 AD]And we still haven’t got to Dr Price’s 10⁵⁰ shillings.⁴ Notes¹ http://www.thersa.org/events/audio-and-past-events/2014/the-contradictions-of-capitalism ↩ [Back]² Marx passes the [to me] fascinating observation that: “romanticism in all walks of life … is made up of current prejudices, skimmed from the most superficial semblance of things.  This incorrect and trite content should then be “exalted” and rendered sublime through a mystifying mode of expression.”Yet young Marx and Engels dabbled in romantic poetry, while mature Marx admired Shelley and Byron, William Morris is our socialist pioneer, Rosa Luxembourg loved German romantic Lieder, etc. ↩ [Back]³ Similar logarithmic scales in powers of ten are used to measure earthquakes [Richter], sound [decibel], acidity [pH].  A logarithmic scale in powers of two is used for camera apertures [F-stop], etc. ↩ [Back]⁴ If a shilling weighs 10 grams then a pile of them would weigh as much as the Universe when the yield is 10⁵⁸.  At a higher fixed interest rate of 10%, Dr Price’s shillings are destined to overflow the Universe’s volume before our current century is out. ↩ [Back]

[twc]

Marx’s Response to Dr PriceIf capitalists seek compound interest, why doesn’t Dr Price’s formula totally overwhelm us all?Marx responds¹  “The process of accumulation of capital may be conceived [if you really want to conceive it this way] as an accumulation of compound interest [only] in the sense that—the portion of profit (surplus-value) which is reconverted into capital, i.e. which serves to absorb more surplus-labour, may be called interest.  But …” [Marx reveals the processes that limit the accumulation of capital.  As a scientist, he must draw upon his underlying theory, as developed in Capital Volume 1.  There he explains interest as one of several forms of surplus-value.  Consequently, the special form interest must also, like general surplus-value itself, ultimately depend upon the division of the social working day into necessary and surplus labour times.  This is Marx’s crucial theoretical insight.  The following explanation is therefore a crucial test of Marx’s theory.²]“Aside from all incidental interference, a large part of available capital is constantly more or less depreciated in the course of the reproduction process, because the value of commodities is not determined by the labour-time originally expended in their production, but by the labour-time expended in their reproduction, and this decreases continually owing to the development of the social productivity of labour.”“On a higher level of social productivity, for this reason, all available capital appears to be the result of a relatively short period of reproduction, instead of [the result of] a long process of accumulation of capital.”“As demonstrated in Part III of this book³, the rate of profit decreases in proportion to the mounting accumulation of capital and the correspondingly increasing productivity of social labour, which is expressed precisely in the relative and progressive decrease of the variable as compared to the constant portion of capital.”“To produce the same rate of profit after the constant capital set in motion by one labourer increases ten-fold, the surplus labour-time would have to increase ten-fold, and soon the total labour-time, and finally the entire 24 hours of a day, would not suffice, even if wholly appropriated by capital.” [Here, by the way, Marx is calling on external determinisms — that of the astronomically-limited working day and that of the biologically-limited working day that intrude crucially upon the capitalist mode of production — in addition to the determinisms inherent in the capitalist mode of production itself.]⁴“The idea that the rate of profit does not shrink is, however, the basis of Price’s progression and in general the basis of ‘all-engrossing capital with compound interest’.”“The identity of surplus-value and surplus-labour imposes a qualitative limit upon the accumulation of capital.  This [qualitative limit upon accumulation of capital] consists of the total working-day, and the prevailing development of the productive forces and of the population, which limits the number of simultaneously exploitable working-days.”“But, if one conceives of surplus-value in the meaningless form of interest, the limit is merely quantitative and defies all fantasy.”Notes¹ Capital, Volume 3 Chapter 24 is stunning.  It begins “The relations of capital assume … their most fetish-like form in interest-bearing capital.  We have here M — M′, money creating more money, self-expanding value, without the process that effectuates these two extremes.” ↩ [Back]² The exponential growth of profit creates an insuperable problem for the Sraffians, whose 1960s conception of Marx demolished Marx in the 1970s, and held sway to the end of the 20th century, until the TSSI school restored Marx’s original conception of his work.  The Sraffian school, following Ricardo, are “physicalists” in the sense of equating profit with physical goods.  On their conception, if profit grows exponentially then physical goods must also grow exponentially, and our Universe must fill up exponentially with Sraffian products, bulkier than Dr Price’s shillings.  [None of this is intended to denigrate the fine scholar Piero Sraffa himself, who remains the skilled editor of the collected works of David Ricardo.] ↩ [Back]³ Capital, Vol. 3, Part III.  The Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall. ↩ [Back]⁴ Autonomous robots, that in imagination work continuously for free — and so escape astronomical and biological determinisms — create a terminal problem for capitalism.  They render surplus labour-time meaningless; they thereby annihilate profit.  The fact that they produce goods of zero value, and so of zero price, is merely incidental to the terminal crisis they pose, if we ever get that far, for the capitalist mode of production. ↩ [Back]

[twc]

Sorry, I screwed up this post.

[twc]

Early Press Photographs of World Socialists Yesterday, I discovered fascinating photographs of World Socialists among the newspaper archives incorporated into the National Archives, in Canberra.  The photographs were taken in 1925–28.They show Jacob Johnson, Bill Casey and Bill Clarke, all members of the [World] Socialist Party of Australia, and officials of the Seamen’s Union of Australia.  In effect, they are photographs of socialists “in action”, even if only on union matters, then of national significance.I have posted these superb-quality images in our World Socialist forum, as Installment 9 of the “1935 Australian Seamen’s Strike”, at: http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/world-socialist-movement/1935-australian-seamen%E2%80%99s-strike#comment-12768.

[twc]

[10] PASSING THE BUCK —   WHAT WENT WRONG WITH   THE SAVE THE SEAMEN FUND The Australasian Seamen’s Journal of 25th October 1935 carried the following correspondence between William Orr, Secretary of the Miner’s Federation, and Bill Clarke, as Journal editor Correspondence

Seamans Journal, 25 Oct 1935, p. 9, wrote:

  THE MINER’S SECRETARY OBJECTSOctober 2nd, 1935.  The Editor,  “Seamen’s Journal”.Dear Comrade,In your last issue (page a suggestion is made that the Miners’ Federation was insincere in their offer of support to the Seamen’s Union during the recent strike.  The statement referred to reads:— “The £250 alleged to have been received from the Miners’ Union never turned up.  Neither did the £50 alleged to come from the Printing Trades’ Union, although the meetings in Sydney were told by members of the strike committee that the money had been received. “That much of the promised support came from individuals, and not from or with the knowledge of the members of the Unions concerned.”We must deprecate this suggestion of an absence of sincerity and honesty against my organisation.  The facts are that on August 17th following an appeal by your NSW strike committee, my executive met in Newcastle and decided to recommend a donation of £250 for support of the Seamen.  On the following day, Sunday, August 18th, I attended a series of meetings on the South Coast [of NSW] and at the same time secured endorsement of our Southern Councilors for our recommendation.On Monday, August 19th, I notified your NSW Branch of our recommendation, and that approval of all our Councillors was being sought by wire.  On the same day I had to proceed to Lithgow [NSW] with a strike involving all of our members at the State [Coal] mine, and was unable to return until the end of that week.As soon as possible, August 26th, 1935, I wrote to C. Herbert, NSW Secretary of the Seamen’s Union, and explained the delay and that our recommendation had been unanimously endorsed, and even though the strike had been called off our letter stated:— “If you still require assistance, I am sure our Central Council will assist from the grant which had been agreed upon.”This offer was endorsed by my Council, and by the members voting on the Minutes.In reply, I received from your NSW Branch a letter dated August 29th and signed C. Herbert, Secretary, which, inter alia, said:— “On your (Miners’ Union) letter being placed before our stop-work meeting of Tuesday, 27th instant, I was directed to, on behalf of the members assembled, express our appreciation of the solid backing and assistance rendered by yourself on behalf of your members through the support pledged at the meeting of the Trades and Labour Council, 8th instant. “With regard to the offer by your organisation to our members to the extent of £250, I am glad to inform you that the dispute being called off on Saturday last, renders now no necessity for financial offer.”This offer by my organisation was made at a time when the members of my Union were supporting disputes at Mt. Coolon, Queensland; Leadville, NSW; Lithgow, NSW; Ayrfield, NSW; and unemployed struggles at Wallsend and on the South Coast, NSW, all of which were keeping our officers very busy.I hope you will publish this reply, since there is an ever-growing need to eliminate suspicion and defeatism from the ranks of the trade union movement and inspire confidence and solidarity in the workers’ struggles against capitalism.   Fraternally,     William Orr     General  Secretary

 ↩ [Table of Contents] THE 1935 SEAMEN’S STRIKE — Installment 10

[twc]

T H E   1 9 3 5   A U S T R A L I A N   S E A M E N’ S   S T R I K E¹W. J. Clarke [1] INTRODUCTIONThe following work was intended to be part of a larger [history],² but publication [in 1981] of “The Seamen’s Union of Australia 1872–1972: A History”³ makes it incumbent on me to publish this extract from the larger work.⁴I chose to do this because I believe that much of the material in this “History” is not only laced with deliberate departures from the facts of actual history, but contains errors based upon ignorance of many significant details of the subject matter.It is imperative that readers should have an opportunity to ascertain the truth of that part of their⁵ history this extract relates to.Illness and other misfortunes⁶ have delayed my complete history and, in these circumstances, I have chosen the chapter on “The 1935 Seamen’s Strike” for two reasons:It is probably the most important point in the history of the union.It is that part of the work by Fitzpatrick and Cahill which contains the most errors, intentional or otherwise.W.J.C ↩ [Table of Contents] Editor’s NotesFootnotes are linked to the text.¹ The original title was the “The 1935 Seamen’s Strike”, but I have added the adjective “Australian” because the chapter has been lifted from its intended context within a projected work on the Australian Seamen’s Union and to avoid possible misunderstanding because it is being published on a British website. ↩ [Back]² I have transcribed the author’s own photocopy of his original typewriter script prepared during the 1980s.  The text is complete.  It contains minor typing errors, which I have minimally edited, solely for readability, in order to do justice to the author’s content.  Where I felt it necessary to amend his text, for more than readability, I have gone further than standard, but silent, book editorial practice, and have placed my alterations inside square brackets, as [here].  These may be checked by future historians against the original, to be deposited in the archives of the SPGB. ↩ [Back]³ Brian Fitzpatrick and Rowan Cahill, “The Seamen’s Union of Australia 1872–1972: A History”, [Seamen's Union of Australia, Sydney, 1981].  Clearly the publication of this work forced Bill Clarke’s hand. ↩ [Back]⁴ The remaining chapters are incomplete, and are distributed, non-systematically, among numerous folders and boxes.  It would take considerable effort to compile them into a completed work.The author considered this chapter to be the most important.  It should eventually be supplemented with a transcript of “The Crooks Exposed”, and Bill Casey’s report to the union of the First Red Trade Union International (in the Tom Walsh papers at the National Archives in Canberra).  Originals, or photocopies, to be deposited for safekeeping with the SPGB. ↩ [Back]⁵ Clearly Bill Clarke intended this chapter to be read by members of the Seamen’s Union of Australia. ↩ [Back]⁶ Bill Clarke, born in 1899, wrote this work during the 1980s.  His gentle life-long companion, Marie, born in 1906, died suddenly while he was writing it in 1983.  They had been deeply close over six decades, and he suffered her loss deeply.  Debilitating illness hampered his writing as he approached his 90th year.  He died in 1989. ↩ [Back] ↩ [Table of Contents] THE 1935 SEAMEN’S STRIKE — Installment 1

[twc]

                        [2]  PRELUDE TO DISASTER*The most disastrous strike in the history of the Australian Seamen’s Union occurred in the year 1935.An ominous overture to the strike was the ‘Returned Soldiers Preference Act’¹ introduced by the [State] Premier of New South Wales, Bertram Stevens.This Act, on top of the ‘Transport Workers Act’², introduced by the Federal Government for the purpose of crushing the Waterside Workers’ Union in 1928, signalled further threats to the union movement.  [The] government was intent on increasing its efforts to hamstring Australian workers.It was in this period that the Communist Party, [its] Militant Minority Movement (MMM)³ and other subsidized [affiliates]⁴ were outpouring pernicious propaganda against the trade unions and trade-union officials in order to gain control [of the unions].As far as the Seamen’s Union was concerned, these groups were allied to Tom Walsh⁵ and all sorts of [similar] reactionaries, who were intent on sabotaging any attempt by the seamen to maintain their conditions in the face of a worsening economic [climate] and deteriorating industrial [circumstances].[The Seamen’s Union] had previously defeated the combined opposition of these [Communist] cliques and the Intra-State shipowners, when the shipowners attempted to set up a scab seaman’s union in the Intra-State coastal trade.The [Federal] government had combined with the shipowners in an attempt to smash the Seamen’s Union, and was engaged in a barrage of abuse against the Union’s Federal Secretary, Jacob Johnson⁶.  The government had already jailed Johnson twice, and it had issued writs against the present writer⁷; for claiming compensation for the parents of a seaman who had been lost overboard during a collision [at sea].The nature of the abuse hurled at the Union by both the shipowners and the Communists sounded so similar that it could have spewed out of the same mouth.Meanwhile, the calumnious Communist Party slander sheet was pouring its blessings on the strike-breaking tactics of the [West]† Coast American shipowners against Vancouver longshoremen‡.  This too, was an attempt [by the Communist Party] to discredit the officials of the Seamen’s Union of Australia and its members.It was in this [poisonous] atmosphere that the “Murada” Dispute unfolded. [First “Murada” Report]The [first] report in The Australasian Seamen’s Journal of the “Murada” dispute appeared in the August 1935 issue.

Seamens Journal (26 Aug 1935) p. 5, wrote:

MELBOURNEDuring the month [of August] the repercussions of the “Murada” dispute made themselves felt in Melbourne.In order that members may become acquainted with the circumstances surrounding the dispute, the following information is given:On June 23rd the “Murada” was [berthed] in Port Kembla [near Sydney, NSW].  The watches were set at 2 am.  The time on the board [for departure] was 4.30 am.  [However,] the ship did not leave [Port] Kembla until 10 am.The firemen [consequently] claimed overtime for all work done before 7 am, and deferred sailing for the delay.  The claim was lodged, but no reply was received.When the vessel arrived in Melbourne, nearly a month later, the matter was still in doubt.  On the company being approached [by the crew], the claim was rejected.[So] the men declined to leave Melbourne [keeping the ship tied up in port] until their claim was acknowledged.  [Whereupon] they were instantly dismissed, logged, fined five shillings, given “bad” discharges, and denied repatriation to their home-ports.Deciding to prosecute, the men returned to Sydney.  The Melbourne Branch [of the Union] decided that, if the company wanted the ship manning [to sail the “Murada” out of port], the company would have to bring the [ship’s] crew back from Sydney.[Meanwhile the crew, having arrived] in Sydney, placed the case in the hands of the [Union’s] General Secretary⁶.  Before the case could be dealt with by the Court, one of the crewmen was rejected [for employment] by the engineer of the “Zealandia”.Scenting in this [refusal of work] an indication that the “Murada” men were being selected for victimisation, [Union] members in Sydney refused to offer [for work] until this [work] ban was lifted.  Later, there was another case of rejection [of a “Murada” crewman] by the engineer of the “Mildura”.This strengthened the [general] belief that the “Murada” men were being singled out for persecution, and in a very short time many vessels became involved.[Union] Executive MeetsA special meeting [of Union members held] in Melbourne instructed the General Secretary to convene a meeting of the Union Executive in view of the seriousness of the situation.  The Executive met in Sydney, and simultaneously the Chief Judge of the Arbitration Court convened a compulsory conference [with the Union Executive and the shipowners].A special meeting of the Union [members] held in Sydney, before we [the Executive] left to attend the [compulsory] conference, instructed us to obtain the best possible terms and to report back to [the members in] Sydney.We attended the conference and, risking any ridiculous allegations suggesting secret agreements, etc., we revealed the [conference rulings] to nobody until the [pre-arranged] meeting of the members [in the Sydney Town Hall].We reported [to them] that the owners had agreed [1] to lift the ban on all “Murada” men and [2] that if the ships were manned they would select crewmen without victimisation or discrimination, regardless of the discharges⁸, whether “V.G.”, “G” or indifferent.  That meant that all men would face the line-up on equal terms.As this meant the lifting of the [shipowners’] ban from the “Murada” men, the Executive recommended [to Union members] that the terms be accepted.  After a lively meeting lasting over two sessions, the recommendation was adopted and the dispute was ended.Lying TacticsSeveral outstanding matters were [then] dealt with by the Executive, the first being in reference to the crew of the “Mungana”.It was stated [to the Union members] from the platform by one of the Strike Committee that the crew of the “Mungana” had been sentenced to 30 days’ imprisonment for coming out with [i.e. in support of] the other ships’ crews.  Although this statement had a profound effect on the meeting, upon going [further] into the matter, the Executive discovered that the statement was a lie.(It is deplorable that such [Communist] tactics are used during a period of strike [merely with the intention of inflaming the situation], and members must keep this in mind for future occasions.)Within a couple of days after the resumption [of work] several members of the “Murada” crew were selected at the pick-ups.Owing to the dispute and my absence in Sydney, the “Journal” is late this month.  In the circumstances, I ask members to excuse the delay.

 [Second “Murada” Report]More on the “Murada” Dispute[Here follows another clipping from the “Seamen’s Journal”⁹ reiterating the theme “things to remember”.]

Seamens Journal (prob. 26 Aug 1935) wrote:

THE “MURADA” DISPUTEThings to RememberThe following pertinent points ought to be borne in mind by members when discussing the recent “Murada” dispute:—There was no extension [of the strike to other vessels] until the [work] ban was placed upon the “Murada” men.The victimisation of the “Murada” men led to the extension, and it was at this point that the remainder of the ships were brought into the dispute.The cardinal point was, therefore, the lifting of the ban from the “Murada” men and any others who received “bad” discharges during the dispute.  This cardinal point was conceded by the owners at the conference with the Union Executive.The £250, alleged to have been received from the Miners’ Union, never turned up.  Neither did the £50 alleged to have come from the Printing Trades’ Union, although meetings in Sydney were told by members of the strike committee that the money had been received.That much of the promised support came from individuals and not from [those Unions] or with the knowledge [and approval] of the members of the Unions concerned.The statement made by the leader of the strike committee at the meeting at which the dispute was called off, i.e., “That the crew of the “Mungana” had been sentenced to thirty days’ jail in Port Kembla”, was an absolute lie.That a thing¹⁰ Dwhich had actually scabbed TWICE in recent years was in the Town Hall meeting in Sydney and was voting for “strike”.  What was the motive?That the strike committee cost £100.Consider these points and ask yourselves if the Executive officers acted wisely in the stand they took in Sydney during the dispute.

 ↩ [Table of Contents] Editor’s Notes* Readers have no choice but to read the added text in [square brackets] as if the brackets weren’t present.Bracketed text, [such as this], explains context and terminology assumed as understood by seamen readers in 1935.Italic text, such as this, was underlined by W.J.C for this history.↩ [Back]† West Coast.  Clarke mistakenly wrote “East Coast”, but he was probably thinking from an Australian perspective of the East Coast of the Pacific Ocean [which, of course  is the West Coast of the USA]. ↩ [Back]‡ Vancouver longshoremen.  Clarke mistakenly wrote “Vancouver Longshoremen’s Union”, which is the name of the scab Union. See Installment 7 (below).  [There is evidence from his mistypings and these two errors that Clarke was unwell when he wrote the preliminary text to this Installment.] ↩ [Back]¹ The ‘Returned Soldiers Preference Act 1920’ stipulated that absolute preference of employment must be given to competent returned soldiers. The Sydney Morning Herald of 4 July 1934 reports on the renewal of the Act:

SMH 4 July 1934 wrote:

Returned Soldiers Preference Act —Government IntentionsThe government intends to take action to see that the spirit of the Returned Soldiers Preference Act is observed. … The government, said the Premier, intended to amend the Preferences to Returned Soldiers Act and set up a board with powers to police the provisions of the Act.  It would see that its spirit was complied with.  With its appointment many of the existing difficulties would be overcome.

↩ [Back]² The ‘Transport Workers Act 1928’ required stevedoring companies to engage wharf labourers under a license, referred to contemptuously by the men as the “dog collar”, as a means of breaking the Waterside Workers’ Federation through forced employment of non-union and scab-union labour. ↩ [Back]³ Militant Minority Movement.Most accounts overflow with tendentious Communist adulation, such as http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/interventions/minority.htm.Seamen’s Union “historian” Brian Fitzpatrick describes them with pride, while unconsciously writing a damning indictment of this disreputable anti-working-class organisation [“The Seamen’s Union of Australia”, page 72, footnote]. “Created in 1928, the Militant Minority Movement (M.M.M.) was the Australian section of the Red International of Labour Unions (developed by the Communist International as an organisation with the aim of appealing to militant trade unionists). It operates within the trade unions and in work places, pursuing a policy of rank and file organisation based on industry not craft, and election of work place committees.  It expounded the policy of the Communist Party and sought to get “revolutionary policies adopted by large sections of workers”, recruited for the Party, and promoted strike offensives as a prelude to a general strike.  In addition to its official organ, The Red Leader, the M.M.M. roneoed numerous job sheets and bulletins written by workers on particular jobs. Members of the M.M.M. put themselves forward as alternative union leaders, took vanguard roles in struggles, and generally gained reputations for militancy and courage.”This says it all, especially the last sentence!  The M.M.M. was clueless, unprincipled and disruptive of the workplace, for its own vainglorious ends of gaining “reputations for militancy and courage”.  Instead of putting working class concerns first, they put their own ambitions first.  So naturally they turned out to be no more than anti-working-class union-wrecking thugs — self-styled Red Leaders over the working class.  They were anti-revolutionary, and must remain forever throughout subsequent history as beneath contempt, and most adequately damned as servants of the disgusting Soviet Union. ↩ [Back]⁴ W.J.C’s original text for “affiliates” reads “cockroach incubuses”.  An adequate description, but moderated here because it anticipates W.J.C’s forthcoming evidence. ↩ [Back]⁵ Tom Walsh.  See the typical Wikipedia account on such folks at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Walsh_(trade_unionist). ↩ [Back]⁶ General Secretary = Federal Secretary [i.e. Jacob Johnson].  Johnson has been written out of radical history by its standard bearers, the Communists.  He lacks a Wikipedia entry. ↩ [Back]⁷ W.J.C [i.e. Bill Clarke] ↩ [Back]⁸ A reminder that text in italics was underlined by W.J.C for this history. ↩ [Back]⁹ Probably also from the August 1935 issue, as the next quotation [to come] is from the 25 September 1935 issue, a month after the previous one. ↩ [Back]¹⁰ “Thing”.  Contemptuous reference to a strike-breaker, or “scab”. ↩ [Back] ↩ [Table of Contents] THE 1935 AUSTRALIAN SEAMEN’S STRIKE — Installment 2

[Author]

Posts