Jenkinsky

AFTERTHOUGHT TIBOR SZAMUELY

Our Government maintains it is socialist. 'The Labour party is a Socialist party or it is nothing,' as Ramsay MacDonald used to say (or perhaps it was Keir Hardie or Jimmy Thomas). Well then, is it not time, as so many of its enthusiastic supporters have been demanding for ages, that it tries to learn some- thing from the practical experience of genuine, full-blooded Socialist regimes? Does the Government not know that there are at present fourteen socialist states in the world?

The next question is: which socialist country does one copy? Cuba, clearly, is dearest to the leftist heart. The one difficulty about adapting the Cuban economic model is that there is no Cuban economic model. In fact, there is no Cuban economy. But: the USSR gives Cuba, entirely free of charge, one ruillion dollars per day. Or, in other words, nine shillings per week for every man, woman and child on the island. Not bad, considering the low price of beans and rice, and the unavailability of any other goods. It is worth bearing in mind, provided we find someone to fork out nine bob per week per head.

Next in the popularity stakes comes China. But one must realise the problems involved. In the last couple of years the Chinese city- dwellers have been moved over to the villages and the peasants transported to the towns; steel is produced in little furnaces in the fields while rice is grown in city squares. Not bad, not at all bad. Yet there are so few peasants left in this country (having all been killed off by the monopoly capitalists and their running-dogs) that it is hardly worthwhile to cart them over to the cities. One could emulate the Chinese in other ways though, like making the Electricity Board run British Rail or putting the Egg Marketing Board in charge of gas production. At least this would be more socialist and no less productive than our present methods.

But on the whole, I suppose, it would be more useful to learn from the industrially advanced socialist countries. Take Czechoslovakia, for instance. I am sure that many left-wing Labourites are delighted at having recently found in Czechoslovakia overwhelming proof for their old contention : a socialist state needs no armed forces whatsoever—it can always rely on its allies. So no more defence budget, which could simply be handed over to Miss Jennie Lee. Imagine : we would have a museum of modern art and a subsidised theatre of violence in every town in the country,. together with the smartly uniformed (and possibly armed) People's Culture Wardens needed to ensure full attendance. But we must face the fact that we are (at the moment) too remote geographically from the socialist states. Besides, we are an island. more's the pity.

Speaking of islands: what about East Germany? Now there's a well-run, highly indu.trialised socialist state for you! Think of the prospects for our building industry alone: Great Britain has a coast-line of 4,650 miles, which would have to be surrounded by a fifteen foot high cement wall (plus the usual trim- mings). And Northern Ireland would need a double wall, to make it a true, peace-loving 'People's Democracy' fit for Miss Bernadette Devlin and her peace-loving movement.

A friend of mine recently returned from a

visit to the two Germanies much admired the ingenious East German device for reducing

consumer spending by complicating the pro-

cedures for buying goods in the state shops to such a degree that this operation becomes well-

nigh impossible. However, 1 must regretfully point out that the East Germans have twenty years of hard, red-tape-producing work behind them. For us to catch up rapidly would inevitably entail vast expenditure, at present quite beyond our means (and let the four-and-a-

half wasted years of half-hearted red-tape production remain the most bitter Socialist indictment of the Wilson government).

Quite obviously, the only genuine source of inspiration for any true socialist government is the glorious Soviet Union. But in the past ten or fifteen years interest in the `great socialist ex- periment in human engineering' conducted by Uncle Joe and his genial though brisk execu- tives (or executioners) has inexplicably waned. True, even quite recently there have been several commendable efforts to transplant Soviet experience to our backward conditions. Thus, on 30 June 1966, the amazing Mrs Renee Short suggested in the House of Commons that productivity be increased by the introduction of

the title 'Hero of British Labour.' On that never to be forgotten day Mr Wilson outwitted this courageous pioneer by referring to the demise of the Stakhanovite movement in the USSR. And a great opportunity was lost.

But not, I trust, for ever. There is much that we can learn from the Soviet Union. Indeed, I hope we already are learning: it was clear from the recent remarks on genetics made by Mr Edward Short (not to be confused with Mrs R.S.) that our Secretary of State for Education and Science is a close student of the works of Academician Lysenko. Yet I refer to something infinitely more important.

Stakhanovism may be dead, but a new mass movement is now sweeping the USSR (typically

unreported in the British bourgeois press): the

subbotnik movement. The name may sound vaguely familiar but it has nothing to do with either sputnik, noodnik or no-goodnik (though combining elements of all three). Briefly, subbotnik means Sabbath-nik or Saturday-nik. Even more briefly, it means working on Satur- day for nothing.

On 2 April Pravda announced to a startled populace that Saturday week would mark the fiftieth anniversary of the first Communist Subbotnik, when Lenin himself had helped to lift a log at a Moscow railway station. More- over, it transpired that hundreds of thousands of Soviet workers, peasants and toiling intellectuals had long been beseeching the party central committee to permit them to mark the festive occasion—as well as an indefinite num- ber. of occasions in the future—by reintro- ducing the subbotnik and donating a-day's work to their beloved country. The party, benevolent as ever, found it impossible to resist the frenzied public demand. The great day of 12 April—`the holiday of Communist labour' —arrived: everyone, from minister to milk- maid, turned up for a full day's work; school- children and housewives were set to sweeping the streets. 'This was,' as Pravda wittily remarked, 'unremunerated shock labour for the good of the country' (and shock is certainly the word for it).

Here, then, is the proper socialist solution to all our problems. The calculation is fairly simple. Our annual national income stands at about £30,000 million. The number of work- days per year for each British worker, peasant and toiling intellectual is about 240 (I exclude losses through strikes, since under a true socialist government there would be no strikes). Divide the first figure by the second and you get the amount of national income produced in one national work-day, namely £125 million. Well then, if we were to have just three subbotniks (we might call them wilsonniks) a year, the paltry sum- so laboriously extracted from us by Mr Jenkins and his petty-bourgeois advisers would be over-subscribed—and we could all guzzle potato crisps to our hearts' content.

The trivial details of actually implementing this miraculous scheme (and I say this without any false modesty) I leave to the Government. As Mr Wilson never tires of reminding us. it was elected to govern. Then let it get on with its job, as any self-respecting Socialist govern- ment should.