16.01.1997

Internationalism or social-imperialism?

An exchange on immigration controls took place in early 1917 in the pages of 'The Call', the weekly paper of the British Socialist Party. The BSP was to become the largest component of the Communist Party of Great Britain on its formation in 1920. BSP executive committee member Tom Quelch wrote an article opposing, in outrageous terms, the immigration of black labourers. He was answered in restrained but decisive tones by Georg Chicherin, the future head of the Soviet diplomatic service, who was in London at that time

Georg Chicherin was a Menshevik until shortly before the Russian Revolution, yet, for all that, he is head and shoulders above many modern-day ‘revolutionaries’, such as our friends from the Fourth International Supporters Caucus. Members of Fisc, like Socialist Labour Party general secretary Pat Sikorski and NEC member Brian Heron, would no doubt be outraged to have their views compared to those of Quelch.

Today not even the most rightwing mainstream bourgeois politician would use Tom Quelch’s language, although the fact that his article appeared in the most progressive, revolutionary, working class publication of the day should indicate how times have changed. It would not have raised many eyebrows. And Quelch himself seemed genuinely taken aback to be accused of bigotry: “Let us be done with all race prejudice,” he writes.

However, Georg Chicherin dismisses his racism with a few well chosen words. What really concerns him is Quelch’s lack of proletarian internationalism:

“The problem facing us is in no way a ‘racial’ one: it is the problem of the immigration of workers from ‘backward’ to ‘advanced’ countries, from the countries exploited from abroad to those whose capital exploits them and where the conditions are better.”

The Russian Marxist points out the futility of trying to prevent capital searching out cheap labour: it will do it either by exporting capital or by importing labour. In either case this continuous process serves to unceasingly undermine the struggle of workers for better conditions. There is only one solution: “Our weapon is to draw the labouring and exploited masses of the backward countries into the international labour movement.”

Chicherin concludes the exchange by firmly associating those who favour immigration controls with the existing imperialist ideology: “The policy of exclusion of immigrants means ... identification of labour with the capitalist divisions of the world.” Comrades who wish to maintain those divisions are - unconsciously, no doubt - playing the capitalist game.

Eighty years later, there are still socialists who believe that the scrapping of all immigration controls is “idealistic” (See, for example, ‘A socialist immigration policy’ Weekly Worker June 13 1996). They believe, in the words of the SLP’s policy on anti-racism, that it is necessary to “re-examine in the cold light of day all existing immigration controls within the framework of establishing a humane and non-racist immigration system” (Socialist Labour - our policies p31).

At the SLP’s founding conference in May 1996 Brian Heron ludicrously argued that controls might be necessary to bar “white South Africans”. Brian wants to give us the impression that an influx of millions of black workers “in flight from any oppressive regime” would be all right by him. It is only a few hundred reactionaries an ‘SLP government’ would ever dream of keeping out.

The truth is, in the name of ‘rational’ control, just as in 1917, reformists cannot see beyond the limits of existing class ‘reality’. Accepting the present “capitalist divisions of the world”, they believe that workers in ‘advanced’ capitalist Britain must take protectionist measures against the threat of cheap labour from ‘backward’ countries. Worse still, they transpose the present reality onto a mythical future ‘socialism’ in one country. An isolated Britain would, they imagine, need to erect even higher barriers to keep out those unfortunate enough still to be toiling under capitalist rule.

How reminiscent of Tom Quelch’s demand that

“the workers of this country, in their own interests and the interests of the movement, have the right to determine when and how [immigrants] shall come and in what numbers, without being accused of losing their internationalist faith”.

But it is precisely their lack of internationalist imagination that is limiting and distorting the vision of our SLP reformists. For a national, reformist ‘socialism’ you need immigration controls. With the revolutionary liberation of the entire world’s humanity, national borders will be swept away.

Alan Fox

Black labour

from The Call, January 25 1917

A grotesque shadow has been flung across the economic milieu of the workers - a shadow, dark and menacing - the shadow of the negro labourer.

... It was the Right Honourable Arthur Henderson who produced a memorandum “recommending the introduction of black labour for our consideration”, say the delegates of the building trade workers in a statement to their members ... “From the discussion it was evident that we were not alone in our determined opposition to the introduction of the coloured labour evil ... Having regard to the attendant evils - social, moral, industrial and economic - we are convinced that ultimately it would prove to be a most expensive as well as a most objectionable system of obtaining labour.”

... It appears that 50,000 men will be required for the building industry alone ... The organised workers must decide whether these thousands are to be white or black ...

Fifty thousand jolly coons, looking picturesque in ill-fitting European clothes with scarlet bandannas round their heads, boyishly larking as they toil, shufflin’ along in the approved fashion, bringing with them the romance of the wilds. ‘Surely there can be little harm in them,’ the average person will say, and capitalist press - following in the wake of the Manchester Guardian - will jibe at the supposed internationalism of the workers and rate them for their colour prejudice.

Yet all sociologists concede that there is a race problem - that there is a physiological difference between white and black ...

Nor is that all.

England is at present denuded of a large portion of its men, while English women and girls are crowded into the heated atmosphere of munition factories and government workshops. Girls mature quickly under such conditions. It is impossible to repress natural desires ... The sex appetites of the women are being starved.

To dump thousands of negroes into the country under such conditions - whether in ‘compounds’ or not - is simply asking for trouble ...

Of course, the masters do not mind a mixed proletariat to exploit ... A numerous black labour force in this country would be of inestimable value to the employers as blacklegs and strike breakers. Ignorant blacks are cheap and unorganised ...

The masters are not concerned as to racial purity, patriotism, or anything else. There are no bowels of mercy or high moral sentiments in capitalism - profits only matter. If it is right to bring blacks, why not yellow and brown men? ... The working class movement would be rent with internecine strife, race and economic hatred. The workers of Australia insist upon a ‘white’ Australia because they know a little of the blighting effects of ‘coloured’ labour.

The menace of the cheap negro is here - what will the workers do?

Tom Quelch

The attitude of the International towards ‘immigration’ was defined in 1907 at the Congress of Stuttgart: we must oppose importation of strikebreakers and indentured labour, but we must also oppose any restriction of free immigration (if it is really free, of course). The Congress has condemned as “reactionary and fruitless” every exceptional measure against some category of foreign workers, especially “the exclusion of foreign nations or races”.

Let me remind Tom Quelch of the excellent speech made by the representative of the SDF, comrade Kahan, in the commission about ‘immigration’ at Stuttgart, who warmly spoke of the extreme mischievousness of splitting the labour world by racial distinctions and restrictions. What is now contemplated by the government in Britain is state import of black labour, and state import is not free immigration ...

No immigration under unfree conditions - such must be our watchword. But at the same time we must absolutely condemn the setting up of racial distinction between workers.

The economic system of the world is growing more and more unified, and the labour market of the world likewise; either at home or abroad, and if not through import of labour, then through export of capital, the ruling class will find cheap labour; capital migrates more and more to backward countries in quest of such cheap labour; our weapon is to draw the labouring and exploited masses of the backward countries into the international labour movement.

International solidarity is one force, and it is the product of the economic position of the proletariat. Racial distinctions and restrictions are the greatest hindrance to the universal development of labour solidarity. Advocating such restrictions means playing the game of capitalism. How can the masses of the backward countries be drawn into the international labour movement if the labour organisations of the more developed countries consider them as inferior beings and exclude them? Let us oppose state import of labour; at the same time let us remain true to labour solidarity all over the world.

G Chicherin
February 8 1917

Elementary socialist under-standing ought to enable us to realise that it is far easier for the Japanese, African and Hindoo proletarians to work out their economic solution in Japan, Africa and India, where they can organise and develop their political understanding as capitalism grows and spreads in their respective countries, than for them to come to Europe and America, and be used as economic pawns by the masters.

... It is the duty of the International to see to it that the immigration of workers is so regulated that trade union and socialist organisations of the respective countries can absorb and organise the immigrants.

The working class movement in this country just now is certainly not ready for the task of organising thousands of negroes.

Let us be done with all race prejudice, but let us face the issues as they are ... We must develop our International by conferences, by sending our propagandists abroad and inspiring our coloured fellow workers with socialism ... If they come to this country, then we must freely admit them into our organisations: but the workers of this country, in their own interests and the interests of the movement, have the right to determine when and how they shall come and in what numbers, without being accused of losing their internationalist faith.

Tom Quelch
February 15 1917

In view of the importance of the question of coloured labour, I hope you will allow me to reply to comrade Quelch. What he considers ‘racial’ differences are in reality economic differences ... The problem facing us is in no way a ‘racial’ one: it is the problem of the immigration of workers from ‘backward’ to ‘advanced’ countries, from the countries exploited from abroad to those whose capital exploits them and where the conditions are better.

Modern capitalism is world capitalism: we cannot prevent it from finding cheap, ‘backward’ labour ...

But when the workers of the ‘backward’, exploited countries see the organised workers of the ‘advanced’, exploiting countries shutting them out, the labour movement itself becomes in their eyes a weapon of the exploiters directed against them ...

In the ‘advanced’ countries, whose capital endeavours to corrupt labour by the mirage of advantages from a large ‘national income’, where the lure of ‘profit sharing’ in its broadest sense is the historical basis of the curse of social-imperialism, the policy of exclusion of immigrants means for labour the acceptance of this lure: it means identification of labour with the capitalist divisions of the world.

G Chicherin
February 22 1917