The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 7, 1925, Page 9

in Moscow, I eng that “i have grasped ' that the economic relations between r. Bernard Shaw’s Excellent Satire on British “Socialism.” By KARL RADEK. ERNARD Shaw was asked by Izves- .. tia to express his opinion concern- ing Anglo-Soviet relations after the fall of the labor government. Isves- tia approached Bernard Shaw as a sincere friend of Soviet Russta, evidently overlooking the fact that he is at the same time, one of the greatest satirists in the world. The result is that a reply was received equally valuable both from the standpoint of politics and literature. Bernard Shaw is a first class satirist, not only when he directs his arrows against the philis- tinism and prudery of the British bourgeoisie, but also in his reply, he presents an excellent picture of the poverty of thought,-the philistinism and the national narrowmindedness of the best of the British petty bour- geoisie. In publishing his satire in the Daily Herald, the organ of the British labor party, and wishing completely to camouflage it, Bernard Shaw ex- pressed the fear that Izvestia would not dare to publish his “article”. The Daily Herald in publishing the article in full, stated that the author is exceedingly well able to mystify his readers; but we are convinced that the very first number of the Daily Herald falling into the hands of the more intelligent readers, would im- mediately expose the scheme of the brilliant satirist and would cause a hearty laugh at the expense of Mr. Hamilton Fyfe. Mr Bernard Shaw’s new satire is ten times more excellent than his “St. Joan,” for it takes as its subject, not the religious prejudices of the middle ages, but the burning questions of reality. It is reported that Bernard Shaw was not pleased with the manner in which “St. Joan” was produced at the Kamerny Theatre Bernard Shaw strives to give us a description of the philosophy of the British—pardon the expression—so- cialist intelligentzia. He says to us: If you wish to know where we get our MacDonalds, look where these gen- tlemen get their philosophy: “You Russian Bolsheviks were brought up on Marx and Engels. Marx and Bhgels lived in England in the pre-imperialist days when the British Empire was not as great as it is today and when capitalism was only in its first stride. Poor Marx, too poor to buy a postage stamp, or newspapers, was obliged to study in the British Museum the whole history of capi- talism; the whole history of England, and the whole history of England’s foreign policy. There is not a single English economist whom he did not know. There is not a single English philosopher whom he did not study, there is not a single secret of British foreign policy into which he did not penetrate. His trousers were ragged, he could not go to five o’clock tea to freethinking ladies of both sexes in English society. But, in the quietude of his study he learned all the secrets of capitalism and of the premier capi- talist state. Engels, obliged to engage in commerce, studied not only biology, but also the anatomy of capitalist England and helped his great friend in the study of all the details of the mechanism—of the great apparatus or exploiting the world—the British @mpire. And what did the British so-called intelligentzia understand of Marx and Engels? Hyndman tried to make of the great doctrines of Marx something in the nature of a collection of worthless recipes, a cookery book of revolution, but he failed to link it up with the vital work of the masses. And the MacDonalds and the Snow- dens?—they discovered the the living stream of the British labor’ move- ment, but they did nothing but render it turbid with the bourgeois mud they the | brought to it. Although they had at y- tattien their disposal the life work, of Marx, hal "ane Som : edy of the| they studied economics from Marsha] M Labor Government in and John Stuart Mill who. taught that England. competition would defeat mronopoly: ernard Shaw commences his satire by words of consolation addressed to Soviet Russia: “Don’t be afraid of Baldwin and Chamberlain, don’t be afraid or the conservative government, they are businesslike fellows. MacDonald dare not even look over the hedge but Baldwin would steal a horse. MacDon- ald dare not grant Soviet Russia a loan, and actually come to an agree- ment. If economic facts press with sufficient firmness upon Baldwin he will be ‘Marxist’ enough to draw all the political conclusions, You see to it they learn sociology from Spencer the last descendant of Robinson Crusoe. They imbibed their philosophy from parsons. What results could one expect? These people regard Mr. Wells as a great thinker because he hashed up a history of man, from Pithecantropus Erectus to MacDon- ald. It is a tremendous work, it has all about the stone-age and about the Great Mogul and about Queen Victoria. But what sort of science does this historian present to man with this hash of herring, whipped cream and Scotch whiskey. The ‘little’ Com- munist Manifesto of 20 pages was a contribution to the history of man concerning not only what had been in the past, but what would be in the future. It gave a key to humanity: it lighted up like a searchlight its future history. And you Bolsheviks holding in your hands the torch of Marx were able to see how competition gave birth to monopoly, how class antagonisms were becoming more acute, how this led to world revolution. Meanwhile the MacDonalds and the Snowdens armed with the works of Wells and their guides to ‘construc- tive socialism’ with their Fabian text books under their arms waited for the class antagonisms to die out, for capi- talism to grow into socialism, for the era of peace and for the time when liberalism will become permeated with socialism, when the war broke they became terrified by the thunder of the guns: they shed copious tears over the bloodshed, but they were incapable of teaching the workers how to overthrow the domination of the class which flung the British and the world proletariat into the horrors of the war, which drove Welsh miners to the deserts of Kut-el-Amar, to the graves of Gallipoli, to the forest of Archangel and the tundras of Siberia. Some of them, frightened by the war shed tears and wrung their hands; others more seared by the prospect of revolution flung themselves on their knees before Moloch and themselves brought sac- rifices to him, “I, Bernard Shaw, have not studied Marx, but you will remembér how Soviet Russia and the rest of the world are strengthened, Wait, and Mahomed will come to the mountain.” Can a more witty satire, on the British labor government be im- agined than this from the pen of Bernard Shaw? Picture to yourself: Bernard: Shaw, member of the labor party, and friend of MacDonald comes forward and says to the British work- ers: Rapprochment with Soviet Rus- sia is one of the central questions of the world, one of the central questions affecting the international proletariat. Fortunately, the economic interests of the British bourgeoisie demand the improvement of relations with the Union of Soviet Republics. MacDon- ald and the labor government could have taken up the fight on this ques- tion, if they had only dared. But they lost their heads and quailed before the camorra of foreign office officials and the professional prisoners of public opinion of the yellow press. Baldwin could and would dare to steal a horse, but these cowards dared not even look over the hedge. How then can they lead you to the fight. for emancipation from the domination of capitalism? Why, in that fight, it will be necessary not only to look over hedge, but. over a barricade. One can recognize the genius of the satirist at the first stroke. repcnatey - Moses, Marx, Wells and lish Simpletons. NDICATI G by a motion of his eyebrows the direction in which he intends to direct his arrows, Mr. Pickwick on Communism I exposed the war in my ‘Arms and the Man.’ If you think that I wrote only about the Bulgar-Serbian war, them read the articles I wrote at the beginning of the war on ‘The British Lion on the Edge of a Precipice’ (?) Or my pamphlets published prior to the Versailles Conference,., But these other fellows understand nothing, they laugh at Marx as if he were a queer relic of the Victorian age, and fail to see that they are laughing at them- selves. Mr. Wells wrote a book entit- led: ‘Mr. Brittling Sees it Through’ but he could have written a better one entitled ‘Mr. Pickwick, Socialism and War’. These simpletons, these intel- lectual cowards and heroes of phrases ridicule you, ridicule the young British Communists who are striving to take possession of the only weapon capable of destroying the British bourgeoisie, and call them pupils of Moscow. Stupid asses, they fail to realise that all their lives they have been merely pupils.in Sunday schools of the British bourgeoisie.” Bernard Shaw says all, this with incomparable art. .The author takes up the role of the hero in a_ petty- bourgeois socialist comedy of errors: he speaks in the name of the British philistine intellectuals in order to express their thoughts clearly as MacDonald, Snowden, Webb and Wells could never formulate to them, for they fear even to express their coward- ly thoughts. Factors Which Exist and Factors Which Should Not Exist. FTER this brilliant gem of satir- ical humor at the expense of the philosophy of the “socialist” intelli- gentzia of England, Bernard Shaw presents in a new-setting a picture which is frequently drawn in his sa- tires. Bernard Shaw is an Irishman and therefore is better able than any- one else in England to ridicule the Englishman’s conceit, in other words, the attitude the Englishman takes in regarding himself as the center of the universe, as not having any con- néttion With" the éxternal world and his demand that the only relation that the external world shall have to England, is that of a worshipper and slave. In one of his dramas Bernard Shaw pictures a young Englishman of good family who travels in Europe after leaving the university. It is well-known that ‘a young Englishman. of good family would dress for dinner, even if he was stranded on an unin- habited island and had to dine alone. | On- the ship, however, where he dined | with Germans, he wore his loung suit.’ In reply to his tutor’s query as to why he did not preserve the good old Brit- ish customs, the young man said: “I am going to dine with foreigners.” The most witty Austrian writer and statesman, Pernesdorfer, relates that once on the Danube he met a young English woman and, like the gallant gentleman he was, he offered her his services, explaining that, as she was a foreigner, she no doubt re- quired his aid. The pert young Eng- lish miss retorted: “I, a foreigner— No, you are a foreigner.” Since Eng- land is the axis of the universe, it follows’ that all those who are not English, are foreigners, Englishmen however, are never foreigners any- where. On one occasion, I was visited by a young and not very clever Eng- lish diplomat, who had long lived in Russia and had traveled abroad gen- erally. He was ®urprised at the fact that it was necessary to secure a pass to enter the Kremlin, and the Krém- lin, as is known, is the headquarters of our government, When I asked him whether I could enter Buckingham Palace or Downing street straight from the street without permission, he looked at me in astonishment as if to say, how can one compare the form- alities that are required to enter a royal palace in England or the prem- ises of the British government with what is required for the Kremlin? For an Englishman there are two cate gories of facts, those that exist in England and those which are known to exist somewhere in other countries. Before British facté, even if it is the stupid wig of the speaker of the house of commons, one must bow, all the rest can be regarded as none exist- ing; if they desire to be recognized, let them go down on their knees be- fore the highly respected British facts, and then perhaps, they may be favored with the latter’s gracious ob- servation. All his life Bernard Shaw has been scourging and ridiculing* his slave- owners’ outlook of the British, incul- cated into them by centuries of train- ing. In his letter in “Isvestia’”, he de- sired to show that even the so-called socialist intelligentzia, as well as the entire British bourgeoisie, were im- bued with this imperialist arrogance and conceit. And how charmingly he exposes them. On hehalf of this intelligentzia, Shaw says to the Soviet Union and to the Comintern: Messrs, Russian Com- munists, chuck this Comintern, really it is just.a cinema farce. The idea of a world revolution is all nonsense. You have made a revolution in an enormous country, but that fact is of much less importance than the dis- pleasure which your revolution has caused to the British lords. How do you expect to live if our lords do not please to consent to this? The inter- vention did not work out, they failed to crush you. But if they did not kill you with bullets—they will kill you with pounds. Stop agitating, calm down, submit. Mr. Rakovsky has re- membered that at one time he could wear a dress coat. He eats and han- dies a knife and fork quite like a re spectable person. Make this general. Stop messing about with Cominterns and such like, and behave like re- spectable people. What? You say hat the Comintern has nothtng to do with the Soviet government? Well, perhaps someone will believe it. But why should you have anything to do with this Comintern even privately? Remember revolution is a serious bus- iness. Chuck these stories out of old romantic pamphlets and sensational cinema films, You talk about revolu- tion in China, about 400,000,000 hu- man beings taking the broad histor- ical path sand. shaking, the. whole world. Yes,onr jearned: «Bertrand Russell and our clever Wells have also chattered about this; a writer writes and a reader reads. But our lords, except for a few freaks, do not read anything, and consequently world. revolution doesn’t concern them. Do we not keep 300,000,000 Indians in subjection? When the time comes, we will prohibit the Chinese revolution. Look at these Egyptians; they too attempted to show British. imperialism that there was an Egyp- tian revolution. Well, how did their little game end? For one British offic- er they had to pay 500,000 pounds, although that officer was not even a lord. Moreover, they lost the Sudan, and that’s what they got out of revo- lution. Only British facts exists, the facts of British might—all the rest is just nonsense, romance and cinema icting. Real politics takes no notice of romatitic raving, but crawls on its belly before British imperialism, Perhaps the reader will think that this, Bernard Shaw’s satire is over- drawn. Nothing of the kind. The en- tire so-called “socialist” intelligentzia has been trained to worship’ British imperialism. It worships it ‘even when it thinks it is fightifg it; At a certain conference of three interna- tionals, I had occasion to take up the cudgels against a friend of Bernard Shaw, Ramsay MacDonald. When the latter at this conference brought for- ward the program of liberating the Russian border countries as a s0- clalist program, I asked him why he had forgotten Egypt and India. Pub- licly he made no reply, but at din- ner, he confessed that it was very difficult for an Englishman to aban- don the idea that all that lies in the English belly, is all right, When Mr. MacDonald came to power, he hasten- ed to prepare more food for the Brit- ist stomach; he spread his nets in South Persia and made preparations for intervention in China. No, Bernard. Shaw is not exaggerating in the least. His vatire hits straight at the mark, right in the very midst of the British socialist intelligentzia which is imbu- (Continued on page 6) a