Workers' Dreadnought

A Hero of the Wars

<> A Hero of the Wars

He couldn't fight the clever Huns in France; They forced him to his knees and broke his lance. Therefore, the Politicians called him home To cool his poor, spurred heels and scheme and foam, And spin a funny yarn of fairy snipers And battles lost that made him clown of Ypres. But when at last the Prime Ass did determine To exterminate the wretched emerald vermine, He sent him to the unregenerate isle, His honour to redeem in English style. there is no rival now eager to rob This hero of the English ruling classes, Who failed in France, of his notorious job Of shooting down defenceless Irish masses.

Battle

<> Battle

Last night I dreamed that in the deadly strife, Where privileged power rules ruthless might, I saw my body, a corpse still breathing life, Trampled and mangled, a bloody, blackened sight. If such should be my fate, I pray it will Come to me sudden-swift, a keen sword-dart, Sent deeply through my burning breast to still The rhythmic beat of my rebellious heart. So, I should have the grand end come to me, While following the only way of duty And questing for the soul of truth and beauty! I'd go convinced that there could never be A fairer life for truth or beauty's flower, While earth is ruled by man's imperial power.

Birds of Prey

<> Birds of Prey

Their shadows dim the sunshine of our day, As they go lumbering across the sky, Squawking in joy of feeling safe on high, Beating their heavy wings of owlish gray. They scare the singing birds of earth away As, greed-impelled, they circle threateningly, Watching the toilers with malignant eye— Birds of the darkness—human birds of prey, They swoop down upon us in merciless might, They fasten in our bleeding flesh their claws, In citied places bathed in bright daylight, And tugging and tearing without rest or pause, They flap their hideous wings in wild delight, And stuff our gory hearts into their maws.

Joy in the Woods

<> Joy in the Woods

There is joy in the woods just now, The leaves are whispers of song, And the birds make mirth on the bough And music the whole day long, And God! to dwell in the town In these springlike summer days, On my brow an unfading frown And hate in my heart always—

A machine out of gear, aye, tired, Yet forced to go on—for I’m hired.

Just forced to go on through fear, For every day I must eat And find ugly clothes to wear, And bad shoes to hurt my feet And a shelter for work-drugged sleep! A mere drudge! but what can one do? A man that’s a man cannot weep! Suicide? A quitter? Oh, no!

But a slave should never grow tired, Whom the masters have kindly hired.

But oh! for the woods, the flowers Of natural, sweet perfume, The heartening, summer showers And the smiling shrubs in bloom, Dust-free, dew-tinted at morn, The fresh and life-giving air, The billowing waves of corn And the birds’ notes rich and clear:—

For a man-machine toil-tired May crave beauty too—though he’s hired.

Re-Affirmation

<> Re-Affirmation

I am downhearted not, although it seems The new birth is abortive in the West, And men are turning from long-cherished dreams Of world-wide freedom to ignoble rest.

I am discouraged not, although the foe— Shameless, like boars disporting in the mud Of their foul fen where nothing fair can grow— Wallow obscenely in the workers' blood.

I am despairing not, though in our ranks, Hard-pressed and weak, are fools and fops and knaves, Who with their selfish aims and wanton pranks Would sell the Cause to be contented slaves.

What though I see the trusted and the tried For many a year turn traitor at the last, go over to the seeming stronger side!— My heart feels sick, but I am not downcast.

The babe bursts from the mother's womb in pain The night is darkest just before the dawn, The heavens turn black to bless the earth with rain, I am disheartened not, I will keep on.

Reality

<>Reality For one soul saved from wreck so many lost; For one fair flower so many loathsome weeds; For one calm sea so many tempest-tossed; One act of love so many hateful deeds.

For one slight ray of hope a million fears; One day of peace long bitter years of strife; One hollow laugh a thousand genuine tears; Such is the grim reality of life.

Review of Creative Revolution

Book Review: Creative Revolution by Eden and Cedar Paul (1920)

The authors of this book tell us that Creative Revolution is an endeavour to clear much prevalent confusion away from the path of socialist theory, but it is likewise a call to arms, and so on.

It would seem that the work was chiefly written for revolutionary leaders and propagandists especially those of an artistic temperament. The writers think that “The Dictatorship of the Proletariat” should be superseded by a newly-coined word “Ergatocracy” and the first chapter is a definition of it and its underlying principles. “Ergatos”, it is explained, is the Greek word for “worker”. The term seems so unfortunate; it savours of autocracy and suggests a smile when one thinks of “ergo”. But it might go into the language like ochlocracy–mob rule–without ever becoming popular like democracy.

The chapter on Social Solidarity is primarily address to bourgeois intellectuals. It deals principally with Bertrand Russell (who, by the way, puts Ethel Snowden in the shade in his polite attack on the Russian Communists in the Nation of 10th inst.) Ramsay McDonald and the Fabians. One gathers from it that while this gang would endeavour to capture parliament, and institute a reformist rule of labour, the workers should concentrate on the destruction of Parliament and the substitution of “regional and occupational soviets.”

In The Class Struggle the work of the Plebs League and Labour Colleges, the Syndicalists and the I.W.W. is lightly touched upon. Towards the end of the chapter we find the pronouncement: “We do not build too much on the possibilities of corrupting the armed forces of the Crown. There are other methods for ensuring the victory of the workers when the decisive moment comes.” But somewhere else the authors hint at the perils and hardships that a revolution in England might bring to the workers from her utter dependence on foreign countries for food. Such suffering would become unbearable, if a loyalist Navy controlled the trade routes and America and the great Colonies remained reactionary, and would inevitably result in an abortive revolution which might lead to a subsequent period of inaction and reaction. It seems that, as was done in Russia, some efficient means must be devised to disseminate propaganda among the highly-organised and trustworthy fighting forces of the world, unless the “other methods for ensuring the victory of the workers” are made known, tried and deemed feasible.

In appraising the Shop Stewards' movement, the authors declare that “we have no Lenin here, nor need of one”; a rather odd thing to say when, as Communists and Revolutionaries, we are always slating our official leaders for betrayal of the cause. Personally, I do not care what class the English Lenin comes, but I am sure it will require an iron will to mould the efficient minority that must carry on the work of the revolution during the transition stage.

The book is well prepared and it runs the gamut modernist literature from Whitman, Marx and Morris to Freud, Jung and Trotsky.

The quotations are copious This from Rosa Luxemburg's Revolutionary Socialism is very fine:–

“To-day we can seriously set about destroying Capitalism once and for all . . . If the proletariat fails to fulfil its duty as a class, we shall crash down together in the common doom.” There is another, exceedingly good, from Direct Action by Willie Gallacher and J. B. Campbell:–

“The workers have to create organisations to counter the State organisation of capitalism. The joint industrial and social committee should be the nucleus of working-class political power. As the industrial and social organisation grows strong enough it will be forced to fight the Capitalist State, not to take possession of, but to smash it.”

But there are also a strangely-involved passages like this which is apparently meant to explain the principle:–

“As Communist ergatocracy realises itself in practice; as the socialist mentality becomes generated under Socialist institutions; when the ownership rule, which is the essential characteristic of bourgeois democracy, has been destroyed beyond all possibility of revival; when the government of men has been replaced by the administration of things–then, with the passing of the phase of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the connotation of the “cracy” element of the term ergatocracy, will suffer a sea-change.”

Samson

<> Samson

Samson, the chosen Nazarite, who ruled The Jews for twenty years and judged their sins, Snared in the web of flesh, by woman fooled, Was captured by the hated Philistines. But God remembered him in his downfall And, in his blindness, gave him back his power, Which nobly used he, at the gaoler’s call, To save his soul in one grand crowning hour O sable Samsons, in white prisons bound, Wounded and blinded, in your hidden strength Put forth your swarthy hands: the pillar found, Strain mightily at them until at length The accursed walls, reared of your blood and tears, Come crashing, sounding freedom in your ears.

Song of the New Soldier and Worker

<> Song of the New Soldier and Worker

We are tired, tired, tired—we are work-weary and war-weary; What though the skies are soft-blue and the birds still sing And the balmy air of day is like wine? Life is dreary And the whole wide world is sick and suffering.

We are weary, weary, weary, sad and tired no longer Will we go on as before, glad to be the willing tools Of the hard and heartless few, the favoured and the stronger, Who have strength to crush and kill, for we are fools.

We will calmly fold our arms sore from labouring and aching, We will not still feed and guard the hungry, hideous, huge machine That yawns with ugly mouth, performs its grim task of life-breaking Like a fat whore, coarse and brazen and obscene.

O, to pull the thing to pieces! O, to wreck it all and smash With the power and the will that only holy hate can give; Even though our broken bodies may be caught in the crash— Even so—that children yet unborn may live!

Summer Morn in New Hampshire

<> Summer Morn in New Hampshire

All yesterday it poured, and all night long I could not sleep; the rain unceasing beat

Upon the shingled roof like some weird song Upon the grass like running children's feet.

And down the mountains by the dark clouds kissed, Like a pale girl in floating veiling dressed,

Slid slowly, silently, the wraith-like mist, Nestling softly against the earth's wet breast.

But O! it was so wonderful at dawn! The still air stirred at touch of the faint breeze,

The sun, a sheet of gold, spread o'er the lawn, The song-birds caroled in the dancing trees,

And every creature hailed with joy the day: But wearily, I turned away from all;

For you, who hold my heart, are far away, So far away, lost, lost, beyond recall.

The Beast

<> The Beast

The statesmen-hirelings its favour seek. And the world's news is under its control; Great are the powers of the mighty clique That owns the slaving peoples, body and soul. Down in its shops and offices and streets The toilers struggle, sullen, underpaid, And pinch-faced poverty proud Plutus meets, And pimps and harlots ply their wretched trade. And in its gorgeous halls where gold holds sway The smirking mother offers her young daughter To haughty men for whom all women are play Or babes, or ornaments, or sheep for slaughter: Its system makes men parasites or brutes And tends to make all women prostitutes.

The Capitalist Way: Lettow-Vorbeck

Lettow-Vorbeck

Lettow-Vorbeck, who commanded the German forces in East Africa during the late War, has written a story of their campaign. For the English rights of publication he is paid a tidy sum by British interests. Journalism has become a favourite pastime for the German junkers who have lost their jobs for the moment, and, let us hope, permanently. Ludendorf and Tirpitz have earned good money in America by their pens, and we may expect a flood of apologies and memoirs from the discredited Imperialists of Germany and Austria-Hungary.

For the English version of this useless mass of printed stuff, the American and British Empire workers pay directly. But, perhaps, the masses like to read what these notorious murderers have got tell of their orgies of blood-spilling.

We must pay tribute to the far-seeing policy of International Capitalism in noting how its press buys these books, reviews them favourably, and thus gives the writers a chance to live comfortably until their dark days are over. The capitalists soon forgive each other their mistakes. It is we workers who keep on hating each other on account of race differences, nationality and colour! We workers! we do not forgive so easily. And it is to the interests of our masters that we should not!

But back to Lettow-Vorbeck and his East African campaign. In his story, he tells of the exploits of his black troops, how faithful they were, how courageous and skilful under fire. England also used her black troops, and the whole nasty business shows to what depths Capitalism will descend to maintain its supremacy. Ignorant black men were pitted against their brothers to fight for a cause that was alien to them.

May-be, the exploiting classes have not considered the fact that if the blacks have fought so well for an inglorious purpose, they might fight yet better, when properly led and thoroughly aroused, for the economic and social rights, of which they are deprived in their native land.

In the Capitalist league, Smuts has inserted a clause to prevent the natives being trained to the use of firearms. Time will show whether the secret arming of the Negroes can be prohibited. The eyes of the Negroes all over the world are turned to South Africa, where the blacks are living under conditions that are more intolerable than those existing in the Southern states of America. South Africa, to-day, is a potential powder plant, which at any moment, may be blown up by the least spark of fire. The Negro delegates will go home from England to tell their people that the British Government can do nothing to remove the unjust restrictions that retard their social and economic progress. This news will only help to intensify the deep hatred existing between the white and black workers, not to mention the spirit of rebellion that is now being fostered by all Negroes subject to British Imperial rule. The Negro World, published in New York City, informs its numerous readers in Africa, the West Indies and the Americas of everything of interest that goes on amongst coloured people in every part of the globe. Happily, the policy of the Anglo-Saxon abroad, unlike English diplomacy at home, is driving coloured peoples of all classes and all shades into One Big Union of Revolt.

From the Johannesburg International we glean the fact that Capitalism, through one of its organs, is demanding the removal of the colour bar. And it will be abolished if it is inimical to the selfish interests of the exploiters! Such an event would, doubtless, make the natives grateful to their real oppressors, while the cleavage between them and the white workers would become greater. It is the duty of South African Socialism, if it be genuine, to forestal any such action, or, if it is helpless in the matter, to prove to the natives, by propaganda, that the revolutionary white workers, who are making the fight for freedom, are with them in their struggle for justice.

In the January Liberator, Mary White Ovington, a woman of the Southern aristocracy, we think, declares that the brutalities practiced upon coloured people would be stopped at any time the Southern oligarchy willed it. This clear fact has been long apparent to all close observers of the strife between the races.

The exploiting classes will set black against black, white aginst black, and face right about, if necessary, to keep their power. If for nothing more than sheer self-preservation, it is of great moment, now, that the white and coloured workers should get together, to find a real basis of mutual agreement and co-operation in the industrial world.

Socialism should step in to bridge the gulf which has been created between the white and coloured workers by Capitalism and its servant, Christianity. There is plenty of work to be done, and no time should be lost, for who knows when the storm will break?–when rivers of blood will flow, bearing the souls of white and black workers into eternity? Then, perhaps, the Anglo-Saxon world will wake up to find, all at once, a thousand Amritsars on its hands!

CLAUDE McKAY

The Martyrdom of Ireland

The Martyrdom of Ireland

THE "TIMES" TURNS SINN FEIN

WILL SINN FEIN GO RED?

News matter from the "Times," September 27th:–

Early this morning the town of Trim was wrecked by armed men.

Large Force of Invaders

Two hundred of the "Black and Tans" entered the little town of Trim early this morning, singled out the the shops and business establishments of those residents alleged to be in sympathy with SinnFein and ransacked, pillaged and burnt all. At noon today the town had all the appearance of a bombarded town in the war zone of France. Furniture is piled in the main street, houses are still smouldering, and the people are panic-stricken.

At three o'clock in the morning a force of entered the town. They visited the Town Hall in Castle Street, licensed premises and a mineral water factory in Market Street, and a drapery establishment in High Street. The doors were smashed in. Petrol was commandeered and poured over the shops, and soon all were on fire. To-day nothing remains but the charred walls

Editorially the "Times" says:-

"Recognising that they had failed to wean Ireland from SinnFein by their proposal for self-government, Ministers have sought an alternative policy in rivalling the intimidation of the Irish Republican Army. Their agents are the "Black and Tans," whose methods have, apparently, been borrowed from their opponents. Presumably they hope that Ireland, between the upper and the nether millstone will be ground to docility. The hope may be rain. Even if we discount those racial characteristics which sustained the cause of Irish nationality against the oppressors of long centuries, we cannot discount the intelligence of the Irish people. The reign of the coercionist is conditioned by the life of the Government; there is no time to the reign of the local terrorist. [Italics ours.] Np Government can conceal from the Irish people the immense progress which their cause has made, and is making, in this country and overseas. Ireland may conclude that she can wait and that the Government cannot. The present conditions in Ireland will not react effectively against SinnFein, whose power will remain."

In thorough Northcliffian style the "times" does the Salome wiggle before stern SinnFein. But will it be seduced? Will SinnFein make a deal with the life-long imperial enemy of Irish labour and freedom to sell the sacred cause of the working people of Ireland? Who can say? Nevertheless, the duty of militant English revolutionaries is plain: support and aid the Irish Revolution and when Sinn Fein seizes the reins of political power, carry on the revolutionary fight with the Irish Workers, when a bourgeois government of little local capitalists will not be able to dope with reforms after Ireland's industries have been destroyed and disorganised in her struggle against imperial capitalism. The situation of Sinn Fein in Ireland can stand comparison with organised labour in England. Carson and his vicious crew in their crazy cupidity are but preparing the ground for Irish Communism. When British Capitalism, beaten and confused, decides to withdraw its shameless adventurous–the "Black and Tans," the regulars, the raw recruits of the R. I. C. , its monocled top dogs and those in Dublin Castle–the inexorable law of the self-preservation will force socialisation and make close co-operation a necessity in Ireland. If the sepulchral White "Times" turns green to-day, the peasantry and proletariat of Ireland may turn Red to-morrow.

British Labour Impotent

The solid phalanx of the bourgeois Press raises it voice in protest againy the machinations of the British militants in Ireland. The "Manchester Guardian" calls on British Labour to put an end to the indescribable agony of the Irish workers – an agony that is well-nigh impossible of visualisation. No sensitive mortal mind can bear to contemplate events in Ireland and the inevitable aftermath. And British Labour refuses to take action. Is there any thing that can stir the beer-sodden emotions of the sluggish British mind? Thomas, Clynes, Smillie, Bob Williams, Bevin and Gosling will not raise a finger to help Ireland. To offset criticism they ask: is public sympathy behind us, can organised labour stand the consequences of a general strike? Well, even liberal public opinion is in sympathy with Irish Freedom. The cocoa millionaires and the Quaker bourgeoisie would even pledge themselves to put the Labour leaders in power, and yet these creatures of preferment are afraid. Because they feel they are an incompetent lot. Are they not fed, fat, and contented with their comfortable houses, their salaries and emoluments? Why should they jeopardise their splendid positions? The labour delegates jauntily proceeded to Russia; they returned lauding and criticising, but they learnt nothing. Whenever the the officials are pressed to take action they conjure up the bugbear of the general strike. They will not follow in the steps of that Italian Labour took to stop their Government taking any action, open or covert, against Russia. These methods might easily be copied by organised Labour here to stop England's war on Ireland. The issue could be localised–the dockers, the seamen, the transport workers and the railway men could prevent the perpetuation of this great capitalist crime upon their brave fellow-workers across the channel. And if the local workers were victimised by the British capitalist vultures, should not organised labour in Great Britain, the greatest and richest in the world, give them security and protection. Are not the poverty-stricken and ruined Irish compensating their men who, refusing to fight against their country' freedom, resign from the R. I. C.? Are they not supporting the victimised railwaymen who refuse to transport arms and armed men and the Carson-terrorised workers of Belfast. A scheme of local action, worked out, to prevent all munitions and military officers and men being transported from England to Ireland can and should be put into operation immediately. It would demoralise and disintegrate the forces of reaction and even win public approval. The Labour leaders will not act. They tacitly approve of the Government's war in Ireland. The Imperial rape of the Irish people must be laid squarely at the door of British labour. The Irish workers may well hate and despise the British workers, who benefit from their martyrdom. The Labour leaders who who told Lloyd George during the Council of Action crises that if he persisted in his aggressive attitude to Russia a situation would arise in England which they could not handle, that Labour leaders who are now selling the miners by way of a datum line to Capitalism, these men will never budge to save the honour of British Labour unless the Rank and File put a bayonet behind them and force them to move.

C. E. E.

The Revolution in Currency

At the moment of writing, the Capitalist nations of the world, and the bankrupt nations, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria, are met in conference at Brussels, to find new ways and means of carrying on the rapidly failing business of international trade and finance. The big international financiers who dwelt in a fool's paradise during the war, gambling excessively and rioting in the enormous surplus wealth produced by the sweat and blood of the working-class, are now panic-stricken, being faced with a worldwide breakdown of credit and finance.

Do British working men realise that the great Eastern lands contain vast stores of commodities which cannot be exchanged for lack of controlled and regulated trading power and liquidation in Western lands? Still, while the granaries and warehouses of the East are overflowing with raw materials, the proletariat there is ground down in poverty.

While Russia has solved the problem by a sweeping system of socialisation, the Continent, endeavouring to bolster up the old rotten structure, is practically bankrupt, and a revolution in currency, affecting the entire world, is going on in the keenly competing capitalist countries––England, Japan and America. In the latter country, the only remaining one which still maintains a gold standard of circulation, credit currency has risen from 25 billions dollars before the war to 70 billions dollars at the present day. Actual paper money has increased from 7 to 50 billions, while the gold reserve is but 7 billion dollars––an increase of one billion over the pre-war quantity. Because of the backwardness of organised labour in America, and the apparent stability of the Capitalist system, that country might comparatively easily depreciate her currency to the point where commodities can appreciably be expressed in terms of gold. This policy, however, would involve a certain dislocation and readjustment of industry, with a consequent decrease in accumulated capital, which the government dare not face.

The Battle Between London and New York,

On the other hand, England is indebted to the United States for over £865,000,000, which daily tends to grow greater, as the exchange rates move against this country. The National floating debt is 50 per cent. more than the foreign. The annual interest that the workers of England must pay on this huge foreign debt, practically amounts to more than what can be paid off yearly in instalment on the principal. We must pay this debt in goods or gold. We haven't enough of the first to give, for we can no more obtain cheap raw materials on long terms of credit. And much what we might give America would not care to take. Hence the insistent demand of the American financiers for gold payments.

This urgent demand creates a panicky feeling in banking circles in London, for it is plainly an American bid and threat to have the financial centre of the world, the gambling mart, transferred from London to New York. The workers of England should guess what lies in store for them, between these two opposing forces, if they do not effect the social revolution here before the crisis comes to a head.

The Labour Party's Policy,

Among other things, the Labour Party urges a deflation of the currency, and a League of Nations' international loan to meet the exigences of the situation. Close observers of the financial and labour world should know that a quiet deflation of the currency has been in operation for weeks––a fortnight ago, over half a million pounds currency notes was withdrawn from circulation within a week––resulting in thousands of workers being forced out of employment. And an international loan is improbable as, barring the United States, no country can afford to lend very much. The Labour Party has no international policy. It flouts Moscow, the real heart of Internationalism to-day, but it has nothing to offer us. Winston Churchill was right when he said: "Labour was not fit to govern." The Labour Party thinks it can solve international problems by mouthing Christian platitudes through the columns of the Daily Herald. Its chief point, depreciating the currency in terms of gold, to bring down prices, is worthless. It would certainly bring distress and disorganisation to the working class, and make commodities cheaper only for the the already wealthy classes. The production of gold has diminished by 27 per cent. during the last decade, whilst the metal as expressed in commodities, has been reduced to nearly 50 per cent. of its pre-war value. No-one knows how much more valueless gold, in spite of its scarcity, might become in proportion to the necessities of life. It were better for revolutionaries if the value should keep on decreasing.

The Gold Standard Destroyed,

The gold basis of commodities in Europe is destroyed for ever. If it be maintained in America, it can work little harm to the rest of the world, if we establish Soviets in all of Europe. In the different countries, Government bonds have taken the place of money currency for the international exchange of goods: international exchange is regulated either by goodwill in currency or barter. There is a Continental school, which would try and stabilise the currency as it is, opposed to a conservative British school that hankers after the dead order of things. Behind the Continental school, centred in France, is a group of big British financiers, on whose strength the French gamblers (so that they may continue their military exploits), buy and sell the English pound on the American market, thus keeping the exchanges in an ever-fluctuating state.

The Slave States of Germany and Central Europe,

Such is the condition of Central Europe, on account of the White Guards' activities, that the workers there can hardly work, but are reduced to a despairing rabble. And our German bothers and sisters deprived of their productive machinery, are toiling in virtual slavery for the French gamblers. This is the chaos that the International Capitalists and their bourgeois servants are trying to straighten out in Brussels, a the expense of the workers of the world.

The Jingo Capitalists are solely responsible for the terrible plight of the working people of the world to-day. Yet our wretched masters appeal to the crude patriotism of the workers and try to fix the blame on the war, the Germans and the Jews. Belgium, which was overrun by the German hordes, is on the Capitalist road to prosperity. Even Northern France, in spite of the brazen militarism of her Imperialists, is in a fair way of rehabilitation. But Germany, which was not devastated, cannot get on her feet––nor can Central Europe. Why? For the vital instruments of production, tonnage, rolling-stock and coal, have been wrested from them by the Allied Capitalism, which lacks the necessary material, equipment and capacity to us the looted machinery for needful productive purposes. The workers of Germany and Central Europe are now helpless slaves and the slaves of the Allies are exhorted to toil harder and harder to feed and clothe their victimised fellow-workers of the Continent, and the thousands of black and white soldiers that the Allies maintain in the occupied areas to prevent Germany and central Europe adopting the Soviet system of government––the only way out of the capitalist chaos that the workers can choose. The capitalist drones proclaim the Word of Humanity and the harlot church, the prostitute press and the little labour leaders parrot the pious lie: "More production in the old way", which means keener competition and greater exploitation of labour. That is the concern of Capitalism for Humanity.