V. I.

Lenin

The British Socialist Party was founded in Manchester in
1911. It included the former Socialist Party, which had earlier been known
as the Social Democratic Federation, and several isolated groups and
individuals, among them Victor Grayson, a very fiery socialist but one not
strong in principles and given to phrase-mongering.

The Second Conference of the British Socialist Party was held in the
seaside town Blackpool from May 10 to May 12 (N S.). Only 100 delegates
were present, less than one-third of the full number, and this
circumstance, coupled with the bitter struggle of the majority of the
delegates against the old party executive, produced a very bad impression
on outside observers. The British bourgeois press (exactly like that of
Russia) does its best to pick out, colour up and make a splash of episodes
from any particularly acute struggle between the party and its executive.

The bourgeois press is not concerned with the ideological
content of the struggle inside the socialist movement. All it needs is
sensation, and a spicy bit of scandal....

The ideological content of the struggle in the B.S.P., however, was
very serious. The old executive was headed by Hyndman, one of the founders
of the party. He has been acting for a number of years without any
attention to the party, and even against the party, on the important
question of armaments and war. Hyndman has got it into his head that
Germany is threatening to crush and enslave Britain and that socialists
should, therefore, support the demand for a “proper” (i.e., strong) navy for the defence of Britain!

Socialists in the role of supporters of a “strong” navy—and this in
a country whose navy helps enslave and plunder in the most shameless,
feudal manner the three hundred millions of India’s population,
tens of millions of people in Egypt and other colonies.

Understandably, this fancy idea of Hyndman’s pleased the British
bourgeoisie (the Conservatives and Liberals). It can also be understood
that British Social-Democrats—be it said to their credit—would not
tolerate this disgrace and shame and heatedly opposed it.

The struggle was a long and stubborn one; attempts at a compromise were
made, but Hyndman was incorrigible. It is greatly to the advantage of
British socialism that Hyndman was forced to leave the executive at this
Conference and the composition of the executive was, in general, changed by
75 per cent (of its eight members only two were re-elected—Quelch and
Irving).

The Conference adopted a resolution against the old executive which
reads as follows:

“ This Conference congratulates our French and German comrades on their vigorous opposition to the increase of armaments in their
respective countries, and pledges the British Socialist Party, as an
integral part of the International Socialist Party, bound by the
resolutions on war passed at Stuttgart and Basle, 1912, to pursue the same
policy in Great Britain, with the object of checking the growth of all
forms of militarism and of reducing the existing abominably high
expenditure on armaments.”

The resolution is sharply worded. But the truth has to be told, even if
sharply. The British Social-Democrats would have forfeited their right to
struggle against the opportunists of the so-called Independent (independent
of socialism, but dependent on the Liberals) Labour Party if they had not
sharply opposed the nationalist sins of their executive.

Let the bourgeois press display their wrath and their buffoonery over
the internal struggle among Social-Democrats. The Social-Democrats do not
regard themselves as saints; they know that now and again the proletariat
becomes

infected by some dirty disease from the bourgeoisie in its
environment—this is inevitable in filthy, disgusting capitalist society
But the Social-Democrats are able to heal their party with direct and
fearless criticism. In Britain, too, they will certainly cure the disease.