• 1 'Anti-Parliamentarism' and 'Communism'
  • (part 2)
REVOLUTIONARY PARLIAMENTARISM  
We now turn to a more detailed examination of the precise meanings attached to ‘parliamentarism’ and ‘anti-parliamentarism’ during the period covered by the preceding chronological account. After 1917 the anti-parliamentary communists’ efforts to define their opposition to parliamentarism were mainly provoked by the Bolsheviks’ advocacy of Revolutionary Parliamentarism as a tactic to be adopted by the Third International’s member parties. Therefore an examination of the communist theory of anti-parliamentarism is best considered in the context of this tactic.  
The Bolsheviks were not suggesting that communists should enter Parliament in order to agitate for reforms. The Third International had been founded on the premise that the era in which reformist legislation benefiting the working class was possible had come to an end, and that ‘The epoch of the communist revolution of the proletariat’ had begun. [69] Nor were the Bolsheviks suggesting that the revolution could be carried out 'within the framework of the old bourgeois parliamentary democracy'. The 'most profound revolution in mankind's history' required 'the creation of new forms of democracy, new institutions', which the experience of the revolution in Russia had revealed to be the soviets or workers' councils. [70] 69. 'Platform of the Communist International adopted by the First Comintern Congress' in J. Degras (ed.), The Communist International 1919-43: Documents, vol, 1 (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), p. 18 (emphasis in original).

70. 'Theses on Bourgeois Democracy and Proletarian Dictatorship adopted by the First Comintern Congress' in J. Degras (ed.), The Communist International 1919-43: Documents, vol, 1 (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), p. 13.
The anti-parliamentary communists in Britain agreed with the Bolsheviks on these points. Rose Witcop stated that 'it is impossible for the working class to gain its emancipation by Act of Parliament', [71] and the WSF argued that the 'guiding and co-ordinating machinery' of the revolutionary struggle 'could take no other form than that of the Soviets'. [72] 71. Spur, July 1917.

72. Workers' Dreadnought, 3 December 1921.
The Bolsheviks, however, drew a distinction between 'the question of parliamentarianism as a desirable form of the political regime' and 'the question of using parliament for the purpose of promoting the revolution'. [73] Although the revolution itself would be carried out by soviets and not by Parliament, this did not rule out the possibility of using Parliament to 'promote the revolution' in the meantime. Whether or not communists chose to use Parliament in this way was entirely a tactical matter: 73. ECCI circular letter on Parliament and Soviets in J. Degras (ed.), The Communist International 1919-43: Documents, vol, 1 (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), p. 67.
'Anti-parliamentarianism' on principle, that is, the absolute and categorical rejection of participation in elections and in revolutionary parliamentary activity, is therefore a naive and childish doctrine which is beneath criticism, a doctrine which is . . . blind to the possibility of revolutionary parliamentarianism. [74]
74. 'Theses on Communist Parties and Parliament adopted by the Second Comintern Congress' in J. Degras (ed.), The Communist International 1919-43: Documents, vol, 1 (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), pp. 153-4.
The Bolsheviks acknowledged that the abstentionist position was 'occasionally founded on a healthy disgust with paltry parliamentary politicians' [75] but they criticised abstentionists for not recognising the possibility of creating 'a new, unusual, non-opportunist, non-careerist parliamentarism'. [76] According to the Bolsheviks, Parliament was a 'tribune' of public opinion which revolutionaries could and should use to influence the masses outside, while election campaigns should also be used as an opportunity for revolutionary propaganda and agitation. This was what the Bolsheviks meant by 'Revolutionary Parliamentarism'. As Lenin put it, 'participation in parliamentary elections and in the struggle on the parliamentary rostrum is obligatory for the party of the revolutionary proletariat precisely for the purpose of educating the backward strata of its own class'. [77] However, the anti-parliamentary communists in Britain doubted that this tactic could be put to any effective use and advanced three main arguments against it. 75. 'Theses on Communist Parties and Parliament adopted by the Second Comintern Congress' in J. Degras (ed.), The Communist International 1919-43: Documents, vol, 1 (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), pp. 153-4.

76. V. Lenin, 'Left-Wing' Communism, An Infantile Disorder (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1975), p. 104.

77. V. Lenin, 'Left-Wing' Communism, An Infantile Disorder (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1975), p. 52 (emphases in original).
First, the aim of winning votes would come into conflict with the aim of putting across revolutionary propaganda: 'the way to secure the biggest vote at the polls is to avoid frightening anyone by presenting to the electors diluted reformist Socialism . . . Whatever party runs candidates at the election will trim its sails'. [78] In her letter to Lenin in July 1919 Sylvia Pankhurst explained that 78. Workers' Dreadnought, 27 September 1919.
our movement in Great Britain is ruined by Parliamentarism, and by the County Councils and Town Councils. People wish to be elected to these bodies . . . All work for Socialism is subordinated to these ends; Socialist propaganda is suppressed for fear of losing votes . . . Class consciousness seems to vanish as the elections draw nigh. A party which gains electoral successes is a party lost as far as revolutionary action is concerned. [79]
79. Letter dated 16 July 1919 in Communist International, September 1919.
Secondly, the anti-parliamentary communists disagreed that Parliament could be an effective platform for revolutionary speeches. The Dreadnought pointed out that 'most people do not read the verbatim reports of Parliamentary debates'. The capitalist press never gave revolutionary speeches the prominence enjoyed by the utterances of capitalist politicians, and only reported 'those least wise, least coherent sentences which the Press chooses to select just because they are most provocative and least likely to convert'. [80] Guy Aldred argued that 'the value of speeches in Parliament turn upon the power of the press outside and exercise no influence beyond the point allowed by that press'. As long as newspapers' contents remained dictated by the interests of their capitalist owners, revolutionary speech-making in Parliament would be 'impotent as a propaganda activity'. [81] In his Shettleston election address Aldred maintained that 'street-corner oratory educates the worker more effectively than speeches in Parliament'. [82] This being the case there was little to be gained by entering Parliament: as the Glasgow Anarchist Group argued, 'fighters for Revolution can more effectively spend their time in propaganda at the work-gates and public meetings'. [83] 80. Workers' Dreadnought, 24 March 1923.

81. G. Aldred, Socialism and Parliament (Glasgow/London: Bakunin Press, 1923), p. 6

82. G. Aldred, General Election, 1922: To The Working Class Electors of the Parliamentary Division of Shettleston (Glasgow: Alexander Wood, October 1922).

83. Spur, May 1918.
Thirdly, the anti-parliamentary communists pointed out that 'it is the revolutionary parliamentarian who becomes the political opportunist'. [84] They saw 'nothing but menace to the proletarian cause from Communists entering Parliament: first, as revolutionary Communists, only to graduate later, slowly but surely, as reformist politicians'. [85] No matter what their initial intentions might be, communist MPs would soon 'lose themselves in the easy paths of compromise'. [86] As Pankhurst argued in September 1921, 'the use of Parliamentary action by Communists is . . . bound to lead to the lapses into rank Reformism that we see wherever members of the Communist Party secure election to public bodies'. [87] 84. Spur, May 1920.

85. Red Commune, February 1921.

86. Workers' Dreadnought, 30 July 1921.

87. Workers' Dreadnought, 24 September 1921.
When they sought to explain why out-and-out revolutionaries became tame reformists after entering Parliament, the anti-parliamentary communists referred to the class nature of the capitalist state, of which Parliament was a part. The entire function and business of Parliament was concerned with the administration and palliation of the capitalist system in the interest of the ruling class. Parliament was 'the debating chamber of the master class'. [88] Anyone who entered Parliament and participated in its business automatically shouldered responsibility for running capitalism. 'The result of working class representatives taking part in the administration of capitalist machinery, is that the working class representatives become responsible for maintaining capitalist law and order and for enforcing the regulations of the capitalist system itself.' [89] The only way to avoid such lapses into reformism or outright reaction was to shun any participation in capitalism's administrative apparatus -- and that meant rejecting any notion that communists should enter Parliament. 88. Red Commune, February 1921.

89. Workers' Dreadnought, 6 October 1923.
The Bolsheviks' most telling response to the anti-parliamentarians' case was to argue that while opportunism, careerism and reformism were characteristics of capitalist politicians, there was no reason why communists should inevitably end up behaving in the same manner. Willie Gallacher, whose anti-parliamentary views were criticised by Lenin in 'Left-Wing' Communism, An Infantile Disorder, recalled arguing with Lenin that 'any working class representative who went to Parliament was corrupted in no time'. Lenin then asked Gallacher:  
'If the workers sent you to represent them in Parliament, would you become corrupt?'
I answered: 'No, I'm sure that under no circumstances could the bourgeoisie corrupt me.'
'Well then, Comrade Gallacher,' he said with a smile, 'you get the workers to send you to Parliament and show them how a revolutionary can make use of it.' [90]
90. W. Gallacher, Last Memoirs (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1966), pp. 152-4.
In retrospect, however, this was an argument from which the anti-parliamentary communists emerged victorious. The CPGB did use election campaigns to advocate all sorts of reformist demands. The few MPs who represented the CPGB in Parliament did not use Parliament as a platform for revolutionary speeches. Soon after the 1922 general election Sylvia Pankhurst observed that the CPGB's MPs had 'told the House of Commons nothing about Communism . . . Yet it is to secure Parliament for speeches on Communism, and for denunciations of Parliament as an institution, that they claim to have sought election'. [91] Where they won places on elected bodies CPGB members did participate in reformist or reactionary administration of parts of the capitalist state. The anti-parliamentary communists' case was strengthened by every 'incorruptible' communist who turned reformist. There was no need to develop any systematic explanation for this phenomenon for, in practice it inevitably occurred, and the anti-parliamentarians were able to point to a never-ending series of examples to support their contentions. 91. Workers' Dreadnought, 2 December 1922.
   
WORKING-CLASS SELF-EMANCIPATION  
   
The anti-parliamentarians' case against Revolutionary Parliamentarism was based on political principles which found expression not only in opposition to the use of elections and Parliament as weapons in the class struggle, but also in every other aspect of their political ideas and activities. It is to a discussion of these underlying principles that we now turn.  
The Spur argued that anyone who sought to abolish capitalism by first gaining control of Parliament was going the wrong way about it, because 'Parliament is not the master of capitalism but its most humble servant'. [92] The state, including the Parliamentary apparatus, arose from the conflict between social classes and serves the interests of the ruling class. But the fundamental source of the capitalist class's power lies in its ownership and control of the means of production. Therefore, the Glasgow Anarchist Group argued, 'the State cannot be destroyed by sending men to Parliament, as voting cannot abolish the economic power of the capitalists'. [93] In order to achieve revolutionary social change the working class had to organise its power not in Parliament but on the economic field. As Guy Aldred put it: 'the working class can possess no positive or real power politically until the workers come together on the industrial field for the definite purpose of themselves taking over directly the administration of wealth production and distribution on behalf of the Workers' Republic'. [94] Parliamentary action was therefore a futile diversion from the real tasks facing the working class. It was necessary for workers to 'look, not to Parliament, but to their own Soviets'. [95] 92. Spur, June 1918.

93. Spur, May 1918 (emphases in original).

94. Worker, 22 July 1922 (emphasis in original).

95. Workers' Dreadnought, 24 March 1923.
In order to convey this view to the rest of the working class, it was the duty of revolutionaries to reject parliamentary activity 'because of the clear, unmistakeable lead to the masses which this refusal gives. [96] The Dreadnought group believed that 'the revolution can only be accomplished by those whose minds are awakened and who are inspired by conscious purpose'. [97] The working class's attachment to Parliament would have to be broken as much in the minds of working-class people as in their activities: 96. Workers' Dreadnought, 24 September 1921.

97. Workers' Dreadnought.
For the overthrow of this old capitalist system, it is necessary that the people should break away in sufficient numbers from support of the capitalist machinery, and set up another system; that they should create and maintain the Soviets as the instruments of establishing Communism. To do this, the workers must be mentally prepared and must also possess the machinery which will enable them to act. [98]
98. Workers' Dreadnought, 27 August 1921.
Revolutionaries could not assist this process of 'mental preparation' if they denounced Parliament as a capitalist institution whilst leading workers to the polling booths to elect communist candidates into that institution. Such behaviour would only create confusion. The use of elections and the Parliamentary forum was 'not the best method of preparing the workers to discard their faith in bourgeois democracy and Parliamentary reformism', [99] since 'participation in Parliamentary elections turns the attention of the people to Parliament, which will never emancipate them'. [100] 99. Workers' Dreadnought,
 

100. Workers' Dreadnought, 1 December 1923.
The anti-parliamentary communists emphasised the importance of widespread class consciousness because they believed that the revolution could not be carried out by any small group of leaders with ideas in advance of the rest of the working class: 'the revolution must not be the work of an enlightened minority despotism, but the social achievement of the mass of the workers, who must decide as to the ways and means'. [101] Parliamentary action restricted workers to a subordinate and passive role as voters and left everything up to the 'leaders' in Parliament: 'Any attempt to use the Parliamentary system encourages among the workers the delusion that leaders can fight their battles for them. Not leadership but MASS ACTION IS ESSENTIAL.' [102] Opposition to parliamentarism was vital, therefore, in order to 'impress upon the people that the power to create the Communist society is within themselves, and that it will never be created except by their will and their effort'. [103] 101. Spur, March-April 1918.

102. Workers' Dreadnought, 31 July 1920.

103. Workers' Dreadnought, 24 March 1923.
The term 'parliamentarism' was in fact used by anti-parliamentarians to describe all forms of organisation and activity which divided the working class into leaders and led, perpetuated the working class's subservience, and obstructed the development of widespread revolutionary consciousness. These reasons for opposing parliamentarism -- in the widest sense of the term -- were expressed in 1920 by the Dutch revolutionary Anton Pannekoek, who was one of the foremost theoreticians among the left communists in Germany:  
parliamentary activity is the paradigm of struggles in which only the leaders are actively involved and in which the masses themselves play a subordinate role. It consists in individual deputies carrying on the main battle; this is bound to arouse the illusion among the masses that others can do their fighting for them . . . the tactical problem is how we are to eradicate the traditional bourgeois mentality which paralyses the strength of the proletarian masses; everything which lends new power to the received conceptions is harmful. The most tenacious and intractable element in this mentality is dependence upon leaders, whom the masses leave to determine general questions and to manage their class affairs. Parliamentarianism inevitably tends to inhibit the autonomous activity by the masses that is necessary for revolution. [104]
104. Pannekoek, 'World Revolution and Communist Tactics' in D. Smart (ed.), Pannekoek and Gorter's Marxism (London: Pluto Press, 1978), pp. 110-11 (emphasis in original).
Parliamentary action -- in the strictest sense  -- was a paradigm, that is, the clearest example of the sort of activity which anti-parliamentarians opposed; but other forms of action were also open to criticism on precisely the same grounds. For example, Sylvia Pankhurst also described trade unionism as a 'parliamentary' form of organisation, since it 'removes the work of the union from the members to the officials, [and] inevitably creates an apathetic and unenlightened membership'. [105] 105. Workers' Dreadnought, 21 April 1923.
The principle of working-class self-emancipation implied that the revolution could be carried out only by an active and class conscious majority of the working class. The anti-parliamentary communists' opposition to electoral and parliamentary activity was an expression of this principle, since parliamentary action obscured the vital point that Parliament was useless as a means of working-class emancipation and diminished the capacity for action by the working class as a whole. Opposition to parliamentary forms of organisation and activity was the 'negative' aspect of the principle of working-class self-emancipation; its positive aspect was expressed in the anti-parliamentary communists' support for all forms of working-class activity which encouraged the development of the class's own consciousness and capacity to act by and for itself.  
   
THE MEANING OF COMMUNISM  
   
The belief that widespread class consciousness was one of the essential preconditions of revolutionary working-class action -- a belief which played such an important part in determining the antiparliamentarians' opposition to parliamentary action -- also meant that descriptions of socialism or communism (the two terms were used interchangeably) occupied a prominent place in the anti-parliamentarians' propaganda. The anti-parliamentary communists believed that 'until the minds and desires of the people have been prepared for Communism, Communism cannot come', [106] and that 'since the masses are as yet but vaguely aware of the idea of Communism, its advocates should be ever vigilant and active in presenting it in a comprehensible form'. [107] The subject of the final section of this chapter is the idea of communism which the anti-parliamentary communists presented to the masses. 106. Workers' Dreadnought, 15 April 1922.

107. Workers' Dreadnought, 24 March 1923. 
According to the anti-parliamentarians, communist society would be based on common ownership of all wealth and means of wealth-production. The abolition of private property would be decisive in overthrowing capitalism: 'Social revolution means that the socially useable means of production shall be declared common-wealth . . . It shall be the private possession of none.' [108] As soon as private property had given way to common ownership all men and women would stand in equal relationship to the means of production. The 'division of society into classes' would 'disappear' [109] and be replaced by 'a classless order of free human beings living on terms of economic and political equality'. [110] Communism would also mean the destruction of the state, which, as an institution 'erected for the specific purpose of protecting private property and perpetuating wage-slavery', [111] would disappear as a consequence of the abolition of private property and of the division of society into classes. This classless, stateless human community, based on common ownership of the means of production would also involve production for use, democratic control and free access. These three features of communist society will now be explained and examined. 108. Commune, December 1924.

109. Spur, March 1919

110. Workers' Dreadnought, 3 July 1920.

111. Workers' Dreadnought, 1 June 1918.
Under capitalism, virtually all wealth is produced in the form of commodities, that is, goods which are produced to be sold (or otherwise exchanged) for profit via the market. In other words, there is no direct link between the production of wealth and the satisfaction of people's material needs. Such a link is established only tenuously, if at all, through the mediation of the market and the dictates of production for profit. Regardless of their real material needs, people's level of consumption is determined by whether or not they possess the means to purchase the things they require. What the system of commodity production means in practice is that the class in society which owns and controls the means of production accumulates vast extremes of wealth, while the class which is excluded from ownership and control of the means of production -- the vast majority of the world's inhabitants -- exists in a state of constant material insecurity and deprivation. The solution to this problem would be: 'The overthrow of Capitalism and its system of production for profit and the substitution of a system of Communism and production for use.' [112] Communism would abolish the market economy and undertake production to satisfy people's needs directly. 112. Red Commune, February 1921.
This takes us to the second feature of communist society mentioned earlier - democratic control, or 'the administration of wealth by those who produce wealth for the benefit of the wealth producers'. [113] Just as the struggle to overthrow capitalism would involve the conscious and active participation of the mass of the working class, so too in the post-revolutionary society of communism would the mass of the people be able to participate actively in deciding how the means of wealth-production should be used. In institutional terms this would be realised through the soviets or workers' councils, which would be 'the administrative machinery for supplying the needs of the people in communist society'. [114] The soviets would be 'councils of delegates, appointed and instructed by the workers in every kind of industry, by the workers on the land, and the workers in the home'. [115] Council delegates would be 'sent to voice the needs and desires of others like themselves'. [116] 113. G. Aldred, General Election, 1922: To The Working Class Electors of the Parliamentary Division of Shettleston (Glasgow: Alexander Wood, October 1922).

114. Workers' Dreadnought, 4 February 1922.

115. Workers' Dreadnought, 2 November 1918.

116. Workers' Dreadnought, 16 February 1918.
In this way 'the average need and desire for any commodity [meaning here, any object] will be ascertained, and the natural resources and labour power of the community will be organised to meet that need'. [117] Decisions about what to produce, in what quantities, by what methods and so on, would no longer be the exclusive preserve of a minority as they are in capitalist society. Instead, the soviet decision-making machinery would 'confer at all times a direct individual franchise on each member of the community'. [118] All decisions concerning production would be made according to the freely-chosen needs and desires expressed by all members of society. 117. Workers' Dreadnought, 27 April 1918.

118. Spur, June 1918.
We come now to the third feature of communist society mentioned earlier: free access. The abolition of commodity production and the establishment of common ownership would mean an end to all forms of exchange: 'Money will no longer exist . . . There will be no selling, because there will be no buyers, since everyone will be able to obtain everything at will, without payment.' [119] Selling and buying imply the existence of private property: someone first has to have exclusive ownership of an object before they can be in a position to dispose of it by selling it, while someone else first has to be excluded from using that object if the only way they can gain access to it is through buying it. If common ownership existed there would be no reason for people to have to buy objects which they already owned anyway. In short, access to wealth would be free. 119. Workers' Dreadnought, 26 November 1921.
As a classless society of free access and production for use, communism would also mean an end to exchange relations between buyers and sellers of the particular commodity labour power (that is, between the capitalist and working classes, or bourgeoisie and proletariat. No-one's material existence would depend on having to sell their ability to work in return for a wage or salary. Sylvia Pankhurst wrote that 'wages under Communism will be abolished' [120] and that 'when Communism is in being there will be no proletariat, as we understand the term today'. [121] The direct bond between production and consumption which exists under capitalism would be severed: there would be no 'direct reward for services rendered'. [122] People's needs would be supplied 'unchecked' and 'independent of service'. [123] On the basis of the principle that 'each person takes according to need, and each one gives according to ability', [124] everyone would share in the necessary productive work of the community and everyone would freely satisfy their personal needs from the wealth created by the common effort. 120 Workers' Dreadnought, 13 August 1921.

121. Workers' Dreadnought, 10 December 1921.

122. Workers' Dreadnought, 23 September 1922.

123. Workers' Dreadnought, 21 February 1920.

124. Workers' Dreadnought, 20 May 1922.
The establishment of free access to the use and enjoyment of common wealth would facilitate the disappearance of the state's coercive apparatus. The concept of 'theft', for example, would lose all meaning. Thus, 'Under Communism, Courts of Justice will speedily become unnecessary, since most of what is called crime has its origins in economic need, and in the evils and conventions of capitalist society'. [125] For the same reasons, 'stealing, forgery, burglary, and all economic crimes will disappear, with all the objectionable apparatus for preventing, detecting and punishing them'. [126] 125. Workers' Dreadnought, 20 May 1922.

126. Workers' Dreadnought, 26 November 1921.
Common objections encountered by advocates of communism are that a society based on free access to wealth be open to abuse through greed and gluttony and that there would be no incentive to work. Such assertions are often based on a conception of human nature which sees people as inherently covetous and lazy. The standard communist response is to deny that any such thing as human nature exists. What these opponents of communism are referring to is human behaviour, which is not a set of immutable traits but varies according to material circumstances. Such a distinction (between human nature and human behaviour) is useful in making sense of some of the anti-parliamentarians' arguments. However, a conception of human nature does appear to lie beneath other arguments that they used -- albeit a conception radically different from that which sees people as naturally idle beings. Rose Witcop argued that 'the physical need for work; and the freedom to choose one's work and one's methods' were in fact basic human needs and urges. [127] Indeed, this could be taken as another example of capitalism's inability to satisfy basic human needs. Within the capitalist system workers are not free to choose what work they do and how they do it. Such decisions are not made by the workers, but by their bosses. Only when the workers manage the industries', Sylvia Pankhurst argued, would they be able to make decisions about the conditions of production 'according to their desires and social needs'. [128] 127. Spur, August 1917.

128. Workers' Dreadnought, 15 April 1922. 
At this point it might be helpful to draw a distinction between 'work', meaning freely-undertaken creative activity, and 'employment', meaning the economic compulsion to carry out tasks in order to earn a living. The anti-parliamentarians felt that an aversion to the latter was perfectly understandable, since employment in this sense could be seen as 'unnatural': 'a healthy being does not need the whip of compulsion, because work is a physical necessity. and the desire to be lazy is a disease of the capitalist system'. [129] In a communist society employment, or forced labour, would give way to work in the sense of fulfilment of the basic human need for freely-undertaken creative activity. As Guy Aldred pointed out, the urge to satisfy this need was evident in workers' behaviour even under capitalism; communism would provide the conditions for its most complete fulfilment: 'Men and women insist on discovering hobbies with which to amuse themselves after having sweated for a master. Does it not follow that, in a free society, not only would each work for all, but each would toil with earnest devotion at that which best suited and expressed his or her temperament?'. [130] Sylvia Pankhurst shared Aldred's expectations: in her vision of communism 'labour is a joy, and the workers toil to increase their skill and swiftness, and bend all their efforts to perfect the task'. [131] Thus the severance of all direct links between 'services rendered' and 'rewards' would not result in any lack of inclination to work, because in a communist society work would be enjoyable and satisfying in itself, instead of simply a means to an end. 129. Spur, September 1917.

130. G. Aldred, The Case For Communism (London: Bakunin Press, 1919), pp. 4-5.

131. Woman's Dreadnought, 3 March 1917.
The anti-parliamentary communists approached the problem of abuse of free access in a number of ways. First, on a common sense level, Rose Witcop pointed out that 'a man can consume two lunches in one day only at his peril, and wear two suits of clothing, or make a storehouse of his dwelling, only to his own discomfiture'. In the unlikely event of anyone wanting to discomfit themselves in such a way, 'we will be content to humour such pitiful perverseness. It is the least we can do'. [132] 132. Spur, August 1917.
Secondly, the anti-parliamentary communists argued that greed was a behavioural response to the scarcity which characterised capitalist society. Different material conditions would produce other forms of behaviour. The establishment of communism would 'provide a soil in which the social instincts of mankind will rapidly develop. The anti-social propensities not being stimulated by unbearable economic pressure will tend consequently to die out.' [133] Sylvia Pankhurst also argued that as a behavioural response to scarcity greed would disappear when the circumstances which stimulated it were abolished. While suggesting that a communist society would not permit anyone to 'hoard up goods for themselves that they do not require and cannot use', she went on to argue: 'the only way to prevent such practices is not by making them punishable,' it is by creating a society in which . . . no-one cares to be encumbered with a private hoard of goods when all that they need is readily supplied as to need it from the common storehouse'. [134] 133. Spur, May 1918.

134. Workers' Dreadnought, 10 December 1921. 
These comments suggest a third way of overcoming the problem of abuse of free access. 'Over-indulgence' presupposed a continuation of scarcity: if one person consumed more than their 'fair share' there would be insufficient left over for everyone else. However, if there was sufficient wealth to satisfy everyone's needs, no matter how much any individual wanted to consume, then the problem of abuse of free access would disappear, along with any need to refute such an objection with arguments concerning altruism, human nature and so on. This was the main way in which the anti-parliamentary communists addressed the problem of abuse of free access. According to Sylvia Pankhurst, in a communist society there would be 'Abundance for all' [135] and people's needs would be satisfied 'without stint or measure'. [136] 135. Workers' Dreadnought, 1 April 1922.

136. Workers' Dreadnought, 18 March 1922.
The question of how a communist society would be able to provide abundance was tackled in a number of ways.  
First, the meaning of abundance was related to the level of needs which people in a communist society might be expected to express. Rose Witcop observed 'how few things we really need' : food, clothing and shelter by way of material essentials, and work, comradeship and freedom from restrictions by way of non-material essentials. [137] This might sound more like austerity than abundance -- but if a communist society satisfied only these basic needs and nothing more it would still be a vast improvement on capitalism for most of the world's population, since capitalism has never shown itself capable of providing even these most basic of needs for more than a small minority of the world's inhabitants. 137. Spur, August 1917.
Even if abundance is defined merely as the adequate provision of basics such as food, clothing and shelter, this still begs the question of how communism would be able to provide everyone with such things when capitalism patently cannot. To answer this question we must move on to a second argument put forward by the anti-parliamentary communists. Through its constant development of the means of production and distribution capitalism itself had laid the technological foundations upon which a society of abundance could be built. So long as the level of production remained fettered by the dictates of production for profit via the market, the potential for abundance which capitalism had created would never be realised. The communist revolution would smash these fetters and institute direct production for use. New inventions and technology in the field of production would be applied to the satisfaction of human needs. They would 'constantly facilitate' greater and greater increases in society's productive capacity and 'remove any need for rationing or limiting of consumption'. [138] In short, there would be 'plenty for all'. [139] 138. Workers' Dreadnought, 26 November 1921.

139. Spur, May 1918.
Thirdly, the anti-parliamentary communists argued that levels of production would also be boosted by integrating into socially-useful productive activity the vast numbers of people whose occupations were specific to a money-market-wages system:  
Just consider the immense untapped reservoirs for the production of almost unlimited supplies of every imaginable form of useful wealth. Think of the scores of millions of unemployed, not forgetting the useless drones at the top of the social ladder. Estimate also the millions of officials, attendants, flunkeys, whose potentially valuable time is wasted under this system. Consider the wealth that could be created by the huge army of needless advertising agents, commercial travellers, club-men, shop-walkers, etc., not to mention the colossal army of police, lawyers, judges, clerks, who are ONLY 'NECESSARY' UNDER CAPITALISM! Add now the scandalous waste of labour involved in the military machine -- soldiers, airmen, navymen, officers, generals, admirals, etc. Add, also, the terrific consumption of energy in the manufacture of armaments of all kinds that is weighing down the productive machine. Properly used, these boundless supplies of potential wealth-creating energy, could ensure ample for all -- not excluding 'luxuries' -- together with a ridiculously short working day. Likewise, there would be pleasant conditions of labour, and recreation and holidays on a scale now only enjoyed by the rich! [140]
140. Solidarity, June-July 1939.
Finally, the anti-parliamentary communists argued that communism had to be established on a global scale, so that to assist its aim of bringing about abundance for all communism would have the productive capacity and resources of the entire world at its disposal.  
Only when abundance was not assumed did the anti-parliamentary communists fall back on a view of people as naturally altruistic beings. Sylvia Pankhurst acknowledged the possibility of 'some untoward circumstance' producing 'a temporary shortage'. To cope with scarcity in such circumstances everyone would 'willingly share what there is, the children and the weaker alone receiving privileges, which are not asked, but thrust upon them'. [141] 141. Woman's Dreadnought, 3 March 1917.
When the anti-parliamentarians described themselves as communist, therefore, they meant that they stood for the establishment of a classless, stateless society based on common ownership and democratic control of the world's resources, in which money, exchange and production for profit would be replaced by production for the direct satisfaction of people's needs and free access to the use and enjoyment of all wealth.  
The description of communism was a vital element in the anti-parliamentarians' propaganda, since it held out the prospect of a solution to the problems confronting working-class people every day of their lives. However, the description of communist society was more than just a pole-star guiding the direction of the class struggle. After the Russian revolution the anti-parliamentary communists were confronted with a regime under which, it was widely believed, the distant goal of communism was actually being brought into reality. In Chapter 2 one of the issues which will be discussed is the extent to which the anti-parliamentarians were able to evaluate this claim by using the conception of communism outlined above as their yardstick.  


Go to Chapter 2


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