Correspondence: Disarmament
Sir,
I was handed a copy of your leaflet concerning nuclear disarmament in Trafalgar Square and while 1 agree with much of your pamphlet, may I suggest that yours are the views with a limited horizon.
You refer to a “scrap of paper”. Obviously a scrap of paper could never succeed in eliminating the prospects of war and for this reason it is not a scrap of paper that we aim at.
The only possible solution is a form of world control which would emphatically mean the beginnings of a world government. Such a world government would inevitably be internationally socialist, since the idea of international capitalism is self-contradictory, although admittedly national interests may for a while preserve the bones of capitalism—but if the head of the body (the world government) were socialist it would remain irrational for the limbs to be capitalist—this giving rise to a truly international socialist community— and also a stable one.
On the issue of disarmament we have the opportunity to lay foundations for a world government—now. From then on it would be a question of time before true socialism arrived.
Now your object and a noble one is socialism in this country but can socialism on a national scale survive in competition with international anarchy? No. The limbs don’t survive without the head.
Russian communism turned into state capitalism because it was the only way it could survive. Socialism in Britain would go the same way, unless you have first a world government.
Thus the germ of true socialism lies in world government as does the only possible hope for the furtherance of humanity.
No it is not for us to broaden our outlook to national socialism—you must broaden your outlook to international socialism.
May I suggest that you therefore give your support to the CND not for the immediate end of national socialism but for the ultimate end.
Although my views may not be shared by others—who sit—and indeed these views were not my reason for joining the campaign, they are the logical conclusions.
Certainly we gain but little in proportion to the inconvenience of time in prison, but given sufficient support we can win, we can change the nation’s policy and light the past to international sanity.
And—we must.
If you find a flaw in my argument I would be glad for you to point it out.
NEIL COGSWELL Stamford Hill, N.16
REPLY
One point we must clear up straight away. The Socialist Party of Great Britain does not think that Socialism can exist in one country. We aim at an international system of society based upon the common ownership of the world’s means of wealth production and distribution. If that cannot be established all over the world then it cannot be established at all.
The object of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament—which has nothing to do with world government or with Socialism—can only be attained by all governments agreeing (tdestroy their nuclear weapons and promising not to make any more. But, as the leaflet which Mr. Cogswell refers to points out, “… if war comes or is thought to be imminent any such agreement would be scrapped and bombs—or something even worse—would again be made.” The agreements which capitalism’s governments make can never be worth very much, because they will not hesitate to break their word if their interests as capitalist powers require it. That is why they have broken the 1958 agreement to stop testing bombs. That is why they would also break a pact to stop making bombs.
Mr. Cogswell thinks that world control of armaments would lead to world government which would lead to Socialism. The unproductive negotiations at Geneva have shown us how unlikely it is that the capitalist powers will ever be able to resolve their opposing interests over armaments. When we think of the struggle which capitalism has to keep its international organisations like UNO going and when we remember that, say, the nations of Europe cannot even agree upon a uniform customs tariff, we know that world government is practically impossible. And even were it possible, there is no reason to believe with Mr. Cogswell that it would be what he calls “internationally socialist”. It would administer the affairs of world capitalism just as the governments of today administer the affairs of their national capitalisms.
The only way to solve the innumerable problems and anomalies of capitalism is for the world working class to gain the necessary knowledge to establish Socialism. This will not be one immense government ruling the world. It will be a social organisation in which men will freely cooperate for the common good.
We must not omit to point out that the state capitalism which exists in Russia today has not developed from the failure there of Communism (or Socialism, whichever name we care to use). Conditions in Russia in 1917 were such that only capitalism could have taken root there. It has never surprised Socialists that that is what has happened.
EDITORIAL COMMITTEE.