“A socialist must be 'class-conscious', recognizing his identity as a member of the working class and understanding his interests as permanently against those of the master class.” SocialismClass ConsciousnessSpbg Author:Robert Barltrop
“Labourism was to be the bete noire of the Party, hated as much as the capitalist system itself. Its growth was to lead to the hardening of Party attitudes almost to the point where even the wish to improve everyday conditions was considered iniquitous. The resentment was heated by the fact that many of the rising Labour leaders had been fellow members of the Social Democratic Federation and once professed the revolution.No words were strong enough for the Party's contempt. In the the Socialist Standard they were 'fakirs', a strong allusion to self-seeking piety, and on the platforms 'Labour bleeders',...” RevolutionLabour PartySpgbReformism Author:Robert Barltrop
“...an anarchist paper, stung by an attack in the Socialist Standard, recalled the SPGB having petty criminals and fraudsters, and a couple who ran a call-girl agency in its ranks.” SpgbFraudstersAnarchists Author:Robert Barltrop
“The Socialist Party had a slight, sympathetic contact with the Bolsheviks. In March, 1915, the Socialist Standard had on its front page a statement headed A RUSSIAN CHALLENGE. The Russian party, finding itself uninvited to a London conference of social-democrtic parties of the Allied nations,sent a declaration which every left-wing paper refused to publish before it was recieved by the SPGB...the statement condemned the war and the 'monstrous crime against socialism' of the labour leaders who had entered war governments.” BolsheviksLeninSpgb Author:Robert Barltrop
“The Party's Object...' The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole community'......was precise and legalistic. Correctness of definition and theory was all-important: in the minds of the men of new party, the failures of the existing organisations were simply the fruits of false theories. For the same reason, the Object did not mention the means of exchange. It was held that socialism, with free access to everything, there would be no exchange of goods; hence, to talk of the common ownership of the means of exchange was to show misunderstanding from the start.” SocialismSpgbCommon Ownership Author:Robert Barltrop
“The first premises of the Party...were two rooms above a corner junk shop, up two flights of rickety stairs. 'One felt' said a veteran member forty five years later in the Socialist Standard, that one was entering 'the heart of deep red revolution'.” SocialismSpgb Author:Robert Barltrop
“Little attention was paid to current events. The view was taken that if a man knew Marx's Theory of Value and the progress of society from early times he was equipped to analyze anything.” MarxSpgb Author:Robert Barltrop
“...the Party member's books represented ammunition in the class struggle rather than any desire for knowledge for its own sake.” Class StruggleSpgb Author:Robert Barltrop
“What distinguished these revolutionary socialists from other 'characters' was the seriousness with which they practised unconventionality and assailed the world around them. Rebels and bohemians were confused emotionalists; only scientific socialism showed morality, respectability and conventional learning as despicable props of the capitalist system.” SpgbScientific Socialism Author:Robert Barltrop
“The pressures and penalties of existence in the modern capitalist system are intense; and they are penalties not for what is consciously chosen, but for ways of life which are forced like strait-jackets on people. At its superficial level, there is a common feeling of being conned by mass communications, extorted by commerce, lied to by politicians and treated like dirt by bureaucrats.” CapitalismSpgb Author:Robert Barltrop
“Everyone outside the Party was a fool or a knave. They wrote up Professor Joad in the Standard, and a gentle reader complained of the epithets - 'ignoramous', 'fathead', etc; the EC informed him that they thought the words precise and correct.” SpgbProfessor Joad Author:Robert Barltrop
“The end of the war was not celebrated in the Socialist Standard...The four year's madness had shown the so-called socialists of the world in their true colours: Kautsky, Jack London, the advocates of international brotherhood everywhere had chosen nationalism and militarism in the hour of trial.The ILP in Britain had rejected the war, but its association with the Labour Party deprived it of all credit in the eyes of the SPGB.The members who had come through the war were confirmed as never before in the belief that they,and no one else, held the truth and menaced the system.” Labour PartySpgbThe Great WarIlp Author:Robert Barltrop
“The fundamental issue was the class struggle...its prosecution remained the vital principle...and even the scurviest expedient was seen in terms of possible gain by the working class from the masters.” Class StruggleSpgb Author:Robert Barltrop
“A severe-looking man who always wore a stiff collar and dark clothes, he was a passionate revolutionary to whom work meant self-abasement before the capitalist class.” SpgbCapitalist Class Author:Robert Barltrop
“...he composed his own quotations from Marx and Engels to confound the most learned communist, and recommended others to do the same. 'Twist the book', he would yell: 'Twist the book, so the Party always wins!” SpgbCpgb Author:Robert Barltrop
“The road to the new society had lengthened and become overgrown sadly since 1904. The working class in many thousands had been shown its errors in thinking, but persisted in them. Very well: the working class must have the rigours of capitalism, and if the rigours were harsh - it serves them right for not accepting socialism.” CapitalismStupidityWorking ClassSpgb Author:Robert Barltrop
“What is most remarkable and disquieting about this dangerous organisation (SPGB) is that the members are unquestionably higher-grade working-men of great intelligence, respectability and energy. They are, as a whole, the best informed socialists in the country, and would make incomparable soldiers, or desperate barricadists. As revolutionaries they deserve no mercy; as men, they command respect.” RevolutionariesSpgb Author:Robert Barltrop