NOTES A N D REVIEW A R T I C L E S

THE P R O G R A M M E O F T H E C O M M U N I S T
MANIFESTO AND ITS THEORETICAL
FOUNDATIONS*
Y . WAGNER A N D M. STRAUSS
Tel-Aviv University

Hebrew University, Jerusalem

I

THECommunist Manifesto contains a programme of action which, far from implying a frontal
attack upon the whole of the bourgeoisie and the capitalist mode of production, regards cooperation with a section of the bourgeoisie and the continued operation of certain aspects
of the capitalist system as compatible with the early stages of the transition to socialism. The
purpose of this article is to show how this programme is related to Marx and Engels analysis of
theeconomic structure and the conflictspeculiar to capitalism, and their political manifestations.
The programme contained in the Communist Manifesto is expressed in the following manner:
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the
bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the
proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as
rapidly as possible.
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads
on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of
measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficientand untenable, but which in the
course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the social
order, and are unavoidableas a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode ofproduction.
These measures will of course be differentin differentcountries.
Nevertheless in the most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally
applicable.
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with
State capitalandan exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the
State.
7. Extension of the factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the
bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally
in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for
agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the
distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of childrens factory
labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production,
etc., etc.
* The authors wish to thank Dr Elena Lourie of the University of Michigan not only for
translating this article from the Hebrew, but also for her exertions in arranging for its
publication.
1 The Communist Manifesto in Marx and Engels, Selected Works (London, 1942), Vol. I,
pp. 227-8 (authors italics).

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47 1

This plan, which sketches in general lines the intermediate stage of the movement towards
socialism, assumes that political power is already in the hands of the socialist proletariat.
The plan is, therefore, the economic programme of the future socialist Government, a programme
which will direct the socialist transformation of society throughout a whole period.
Nevertheless, the plan does not include several important socialist measures which were
accepted-not least by the authors of the programme themselves-as essential to the completion
of a socialist structure. The plan does not include the total socialization of the means of production. It does not demand or necessitate the abolition of hired labour or the elimination of the
profit derived by the employer from its use. Finally, the plan does not include the nationalization
of commerce.
In order to understand these omissions as well as the general line of thought lying behind
the Manifesto, it is necessary to examine some of the positive points made in the plan and the
questions they raise.
The Introduction: The ten measures which have to be taken in a despotic way seem insufficient
and untenable because they constitute a partial intervention by the State in the economic mechanism of capitalism. The question then arises whether there is any guarantee that, as a result,
exploitation will be eliminated. The answer is that although it is true that in themselves they are
insufficient, they will outstrip themselves, leading necessarily to further reforms, and it will be
possible to use them in order to revolutionize the whole mode of production. Furthermore,
they are unavoidable, in that normally there are no other means which can be substituted for
them in the development towards socialism.
Clause 1: Abolition of property in land and the application of rents, etc. This means that the
ownership of land and natural resources will be transferred to the State, but their use will be
private. The employment of hired labour in general and on private farms in particular is not
prohibited. The intention of the clause is not to abolish the class of farmers, of the capitalist
employer of agricultural labour, but to eliminate the rentier. In addition, the intention is to put
an end to speculation in land, to abolish the profits derived, not directly from the exploitation
of labour, but indirectly as a result of rises in the price of land which are a by-product of the
work done on neighbouring land.
Clause 3: Abolition of the right of inheritance. Given the spirit of the plan as a whole, it
appears that an absolute abolition was not intended, that, for example, small-holders property
was not to be included in this ruling. The practical implication of this clause would be a matter
of degree. The careful reservations made in the two sentences preceding the enumeration of
clauses, have particular application here. In the resolutions adopted by the Communist League
about a month after the publication of the Manifesto and entitled The Demands of the Communist
Party in Germany,the ten clauses of the Manifestos plan appear in the form of seventeen clauses
including additions and changes peculiar to Germany; and it is worth noting that clause 14 of
the German programme says: The right of inheritance to be curtailed. All the other important clauses (abolition of property in land, banks, railways, etc.), are included without qualifications of this kind.
Clause 5: Nationalization of the banks and the creation of an exclusive monopoly for the
State bank. This does not mean the confiscation of deposits either big or small, but the transfer
of the management of banks and their profits to the State. The importance of this measure
is threefold: first, it involves the transfer of a considerable portion of the national income to
public ownership. In the second place it produces greater efficiency in the organization of money
and banks. Finally, it transfers the control over production, over industry and agriculture,
which banks possess, from private into public hands. This is particularly important when the
question is not of a loose control but of a veritable domination by the banks over spheres of
production.
Clause 6: Control of the railways confers an advantageous position in the whole economyand
enables those who control them to interfere in the management of various spheres of production,
1 Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, ed., D. Ryazanoff, trans., E. and C. Paul
(London, 1930),app. H., p. 347.

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by means of unequal transportation tariffs for competing 6rms. Control of the railways was
particularlyadvantageousbefore the emergence of the motor-car.
Clause 7: National factories. The intention here is to create a productive sector under public
ownership and constantly to widen it. The clause-and indeed the whole plan-does not imply
the creation of a public sector by expropriating private factories,but rather by setting up new
state factories. In Principles of Communism,a suggested draft for the manifesto of the Communist
Party, drawn up by Engels in 1847, there appears a list of measures almost identical with those
we are discussing. Yet under clause 2 he writes: Gradual expropriation of landed proprietors,
facrory owners. railway magnates and shipping magnates, partly through competition on the
part of the State industries and partly through payment of compensation in currency notesl.1
It appears, therefore, that in their h a 1 draft Marx and Engels decided to exclude the industrialist
from the general run of capitalists whose property is to be abolished, at that stage. It is worth
noting, moreover, that the expropriation suggested by Engels is not necessarily a direct legal
confiscation(cf. competitionon the part of the State industries)and, in so far as suchconfiscation
is suggested it is accompanied by the payment of compensation.
Clause 8: The term labour is usually subject to several meanings. Let us first examine it in
its narrowest sense. According to this interpretation labour is human activity which transforms
nature in order to supply a need or to make it into a means for supplying a need. This meaning
of the term includes the mental work done during production, or preceding and directing it.
Labour in this sense does not include social activity-activity which creates social relations
in the field of economics, politics and culture. Thus the activity of the businessman, the politician
and the artist, etc.. is excluded from this notion of labour. Yet, if we abide by this narrow
definitionof labour, it is obvious that even in a socialist society not everyone is a worker and one
cannot therefore talk of the liability of all to labour. Hence the narrow definition is not suitable
here. Furthermore, since the plan does not demand the abolition of the class of capitalist employers and merchants, it would be illogical to interpret this clause as if it were intended to
eliminate that class indirectly, without stating that intention clearly in a special clause. Hence
it cannot be assumed that the industrialists or merchants activity is defined here as non-labour
and that they would be bound to engage in real labour in thenarrow sense of the term,
The question then arises: if the term labour is constantly broadened, against whom, after all,
is this clause directed? It can be directed only against those capitalists who are not employed
in any economic activity and, in general, are engaged permanently in nothing but consumption.
Thesepeople will be asked to limit the time devoted to consumptionand to engagein some activity
which will be of use to the statecapitalist economy described in this plan. In the Demands ofthe
Communist Parry in Germany the following statement appears under clause 9: The landed
proprietor who is neither a peasant nor a farmer, has no share in production. Consumption
on his part is, therefore, unwarrantable.? The ruling on the liability of all to labour includes
the right to work for all who seek it. The creation of national workshops is a means to ensure
this right.
I1

Taking now the programme as a whole, what was the guiding principle behind these clauses?
A study of the plan shows that its authors did not think that during the first stage a socialist
Government had to eliminate the exploitationof workers by employers,but only profits of these
sections of the bourgeoisiewho did not exploit workers directly. It is possible then to ask what
made Marx and Engels think that direct exploitation should not at once be eliminated. Did they
consider it possible to take steps to eliminate the anarchy of capitalist production without
putting an end to exploitation? Does the Marxist analysis conceive of an effective difference,
within the capitalist economy, between exploitation, or the employment of hired labour, and
1 Manr and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, ed. D. Ryazanoff, trans., E. and C. Paul
(London, 1930) app. F, p. 331 (our italics).
2 Ibid., app. H, p. 346.

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anarchy? And even if there is, why should the socialist movement postpone the abolition of
exploitation until the second stage?
We must, therefore, examine to what extent Marx and Engels gave answers to these questions
in their theoretical writings. It is necessary to see how the practical plan follows from their
analysis of capitalism.
According to Marx and Engelsl capital has two main spheres of activityz: production and
circulation.
In the sphere of production capital is conceived of first and foremost as an accumulator of
materialized, past labour, labour which has congealed into means of production, and which
serves to subject living labour to the capitalist, to extract surplus values from living labour and to
add them to original capital. In this process of absorbing surplus-value that is, in the process of
labour, capital changes its physical form. Capital is the social form of physical process whereby
factors of production are transformed into products. It is in this sphere that capital appears as
an employer of labour.
In the sphere of circulation the activities of commerce, the banks and the Stock-Exchange,
take place. Here capital changes its physical form, alters and transforms itself from one usevalue to another without any work being done (in the narrow sense of the word), without any
additional use-values being created and consequently without the creation of any additional
exchangevalues. This is the sphere par excellence of capital, its unadulterated field of action,
one in which the movement of already-created surplus-values takes place.
What is the role of the sphere of circulation as a whole, in this view? It is conceived of as
complementing the activity of capital in the sphere of production. The chief concern of circulation capital3is the distribution of produce. By produceis meant first of all consumption-goods,
primarily wage-goods. From this point of view circulation capital mediates between the sphere
of production, producing necessities, and the production of labour-power for the productive
network as a whole, In fact, circulation capital regulates the proportions within the sphere of
production. Secondly, the means of production are also included in the product to be distributed.
Here too, circulation capital regulates the proportions between various branches of production,
between the sector producing means of production and the sector producing necessities.
To sum up: Marx views the sphere of circulation as the mechanism which regulates, through
the distribution of the social product, the division of social labour. The modem division of
labour, to which the industrial revolution gave rise, calls, even in its capitalist form for some
regulation in the sphere of production. All branches of production being interdependent,
regulation of their mutual relations, which, under capitalism, takes the form of a flow of capital
from branch to branch (in Marxs terms: a flow of materialized labour which trails living labour
after it), calls for a special activity. This activity is undertaken by the money-dealing capitalist,
i.e. bankers and the Stock Exchange operators, and is carried out by the respective financial
institutions.4 It may be asked in what way does this concept ofcirculation tally with the statement
often met with in Marx and Engels that production under capitalism is--on the social scaleanarchic, i.e. unregulated?* In view of the foregoing, their meaning must not be taken as implying
absolute anarchy. From the analysis in Capital, Vol. 111, it becomes clear that what is meant is
this: the manner in which the division of labour is regulated by capitalist circulation is not a

Marx and Engels.

1 The economic doctrine of Capital is taken to represent views shared by

2 We use the terminology employed by Marx in Capital; cf. ibid, Vol.

111(Moscow, 1959),
pp. 274,310-12, etc.
3 Not to be confused with circulating capital, which, like the fixed capital from which it is
distinguished, is part of any one independent, functioning capital. Circulation is a rnacroeconomic category: that part of the social category engaged in activities within the sphere of
circulation, and composed, likecapital generally, of fixed and circulating portions (cf. ch. XIX,
Capital, Vol. 111).
4 capital, Vol. III, p. 593 (banks); pp. 429-32 (trade in stock); see also Engels note on the
stock exchange, ibid, pp. 884-6.
5 e.g., Selected Works, Vol. I, pp. 140,176,261 ;Vol. 11, PP. 232,504; Selected Correspondence
(London, 1941),p.247; Engels, OriginoftheFamily, etc. (Moscow, 1948),p. 249.

NOTES A N D R E V I E W A R T I C L E S
unified social plan, based on a scientific understanding of the sphere of production, and the

474

proportionate changes within it as it grows in quantity and quality. This regulation, in fact,
consists of a series of private plannings of the social economy, the component parts of which are
interdependent. The private character of this planning contradicts the social character of the
planned object, a contradiction which manifests itself in the cyclical crises from which the
capitalist economy suffers. Regulation of the division of labour by way of circulation is, on this
view, merely the capitalist substitute for social planning.
The very construction of Capital is based on a distinction between the two spheres within
which capital is active. Volume I deals with the sphere of production, with the role of capital as
an employer. Volume I1 deals with the sphere of circulation, and here Marx is especially careful
to draw a dividing-line between activity which adds value and pertains to labour (e.g., transport),
and expenditure which pertains purely to circulation.1 Volume 11examines the two spheres as a
whole and the contradictions between them. And only then* does Marx arrive at the agents or
subjects of the different spheres and the different types of capital, i.e., at the social classes.
There is, therefore, a parallelism between the practical distinctions made in the Manifesto
and the theoretical distinctions which dictated the structure of Capital.
It becomes clear that the programme of the Manifesto is aimed at reforming fundamentally
the sphere of circulation, and only indirectly the sphere of production. Its purpose is to transfer
the sphere of circulation, in so far as it regulates the division of labour, from control of private

capitaliststothatoftheState.Thistransferenab1esittobecomeatoolwithwhichsocialplanningalbeit still only partialbe imposed on the sphere of production, which at this stage remains
largely in private ownership.
Although the sphere of circulation is one of which, by Marxs definition, no labour takes
place, nevertheless it needs the investment of capital. This capital is called for because of the
period of time during which the commodities (both the means of production and means of
consumption) remain within the sphere of circulation.3 Capital is also needed because production
for the market demands money, so that a part of the social capital is permanently to be found in
the form of money within the sphere of circulation.4 And since capital within the sphere of
circulation cannot at the same time function within the sphere of production, capital as a whole
is divided into two parts.
Just as the development of labour productivity depends on an ever increasing division of
labour into separate pursuits, so the development of capital depends on an ever increasing
division of the functions of capital and their consolidation into separate enterprises. An analogy
may be drawn between Marxsdescription of the relation between money-dealing capital and
productive capital in part V of Vol. 111, and his analysis of relations between the two departments of production, in part iii of Vol. 11,6where one department furnishes the means whereby
the other produces. This analogy between Marxs conception of the division of labour among
workers and the division of roles among capitalists has yet another aspect. Just as the first
sphere of labour (department I) supplies the technical means for the activity of the second
(department 11), so the first sphere of capital, circulation, supplies the economic means for the
activity of the second, production, or employment of labour. It is possible to regard the institutional mechanisms of the sphere of circulation (banks, the money-market), which regulate the
distribution of the product and thereby the division of labour generally, as economic means
or economic tools.
Just as in the capitalist economy the second productive department (necessities) buys the
product of the first (means of production), so the sphere of production as a whole buys the
services of the mechanisms of circulation. In other words, the sphere of production pays for
these services, for its use of the circulation mechanism, with part of the surplus value it extracts
Capital, Vol. 11,chap. 11.
Capital, Vol. 111, pt. vii, especially the fragment of chap. LII.
3 Capital, Vol. 11, pp. 121-33;also Capiral, Vol. 111, pp. 262-75,310-11.
4 Capital, Vol. 11,pp. 135-6;Capital, Vol. IU, pp. 311.
5 cf., Capital, Vol. II,267.
6 See Capital, Vol. 11, p. 395.
1
2

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from the living labour done within its own sphere. The splitting of capital into two branches is,
therefore, logically connected with the splitting of surplus value. Hence we find, as against the
industrialists profit, interest and the profit of the merchant.
Common to both branches of capital, and to all capital, is the fact that, as such it does not
create values, but only distributes values, appropriates values, organizes and regulates, for the
purposes of that distribution, the creation of values, i.e., labour. This is what is peculiar to the
capitalist or the activity of capital, in contrast to the workers activity or in contrast to labour.
What distinguishes the two branches one from another is that only productive capital creates
surplus value, that is to say, transforms values into surplus values, appropriates new values and
adds them to capital; whereas circulation capital arranges the distribution of productive capital
to the various branches of production and levies in return, as a tax, part of the surplus value
which productivecapital creates.2It is a matter, therefore, of two different kinds of appropriation;
the object of the first is labour, whereas that of the second is the result of the firsts activity, its
fruit3. As a result the subjects of the two kinds of capital are also opposed toeach other: Whether
the industrial capitalist operates on his own or on borrowed capital, does not alter the fact that
the class of money-capitalists confronts him as a special class of capitalists, money-capital as an
independent kind of capital and interest as the independent form of surplus-value peculiar of
this specificcapital.4
But the difference in the mode of appropriation, or of profit, appears as a mere difference
only to us, the observers, and only when examined in the abstract. In economic reality, however,
there is a contradiction as well as a difference. Hence, subjectively, from the point of view of the
capitalists within the two branches, the difference entails a struggle between conflicting interests.
The conflict is, first of all, a simple one between sellers and buyers-a quantitative conflict
over the price of the commodity, the cost of using the economic apparatus. But this struggle
entails a qualitative conflict over the nature of the commodity which is supplied. In his letter
to Schmidt on 27 October 1890, Engels discussed the contrasting modes of appropriation and
the conflict which was developing, together with capitalism generally, between the movement
of circulation and production capital:
As soon as trade in money becomes separate from trade in commodities it has-under
certain conditions imposed by production and commodity trade and within these limitsa development of its own, special laws determined by its own nature and separate phases.
If to this is added that money trade, developing further, comes to include trade in securities
and that these securities are not only government paper but also industrial and transport
stocks, so that money trade conquers the direct control over a portion of the production
by which, taken as a whole, it is itself controlled, then the reaction of money trading on
production becomes still stronger and more complicated. The traders are the owners of
railways, mines, iron works etc. These means of production take on a double aspect:
their operation has to be directed sometimes in the interests of direct production but
sometimes also according to the requirements of the shareholders, so far as they are money
traded.5
Two characteristics of the division of capital stamp themselves according to Marx, upon the
qualitative conflict between the two branches. First, there is no formula for establishing the
division of surplus-value between production and circulation capital.6 There is, for example,
no fixed ratio between the rate of interest and the rate of industrial profit. The changing ratio
between the employers profit and that of the circulators (if we may term them thus) is not
fixed spontaneously or objectively by technological factors (as is, for example, the organic
composition of capital-the ratio of the non-wage outlay to total outlay); it is fixed rather by
1 Also, by the same token, as against the farmers profit: rent, as against the dividend-bearing
share, the profits that come from tradingin shares. See Capital, Vol. 111,pp. 277,2865,369-72.
2 Capital(Moscow, 1957),Vol. 11, p. 55.
3 Capital, Vol. 111, pp. 351, 363.
4 Capital (London, Moscow, 1962), Vol. 111, p. 369.
5 Marx and Engels, Selected Works (Moscow, London, 1950), Vol. 11, p. 446.
6 Capital, Vol. 111, 351.

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factors subject to the purposive influence of capitalists, not only by means of state intervention
but also by the activity of the circulation mechanisms. Consequently not only is the activity of
capitalist circulation mechanisms not aimed at increasing the sum of use-values at society's
disposal, nor even the total production of values (exchange-values),but it is not even directed at
increasing the total profit of social capital, for the portion of the profit which goes to the owners
of these mechanisms and their enterprises is not any fixed proportion of the total. The activity
of the organizers of these mechanisms is aimed at increasing their portions, and hence they
construct the mechanisms not according to the requirements of the employers, not according
to the needs of the capitalist process of production, but in accordance with their special mode
of appropriation.' They cease to be, therefore, agents of the whole capitalist class and become
instead a special class. It is, consequently, a logical corollary to make their expropriation a
special task which can be carried out separatelyfrom the expropriation of capitalists generally;
i.e., the very conclusion reached by the CommunistManifesto,before the theoretical premise had
been fully worked out.
Second, whereas the employer regulates the division of labour in detail in his individual
enterprise, the 'circulator' deals with the general division of labour between branches of production without which the division of labour in detail would be useless.2 For the owner of the
enterprise could organize the division of labour within it as efficiently as he pleased, but
without circulationhe would find neither the elements of production (raw materials, for example)
which he draws from the market as commodities, nor the purchasers for the product which
hein turnthrowsonto themarket.
This characteristic gives the owners of circulation capital an advantage.3 They hold the
commanding heights of the economy and, by the nature of their role, they are organized in a
more concentrated way. On the other hand, their concentrated organization facilitates the
transfer of their role into the hands of society's representatives. Now, the relation shown here
between Marx's distinction between the branches of capital and his distinctionbetween the division of labour in detail and in general, is of importance in understanding Marx's view of the
historical significance of capitalismas a whole. In this article we will confine ourselves to pointing out one major implication of this relationship: the contradiction-which Maw saw as
essential to capitalism-between the social character of labour and the private character of
appropriation, in other words, the contradiction between the division of labour as a whole and
its organization for private purposes-this contradiction is considered to be of a completely
different nature according to whether one is examining the division of labour in detail or the
general division of labour. The essence of the contradiction lies in the latter aspect of the division
of labour. Thus, for example, the periodic economic crises stem from it.4 The ten-clause programme in the Manifestooutlines a solution to the conflict between private appropriation and
the general division of labour and does not concern itself with the division of labour within
the framework of the individual enterprise: obviously this was considered a problem the social
solution to which involved a lengthier process.
111

Two attempts, both made at the end of the First World War, to revive the programme of the
Mmrjfesto as a practical plan for immediate political action, are relevant to the foregoing interpretation.
In 1872 Marx and Engels stated that in some raspects the Manifesto's programme was out of
date.5 This judgement represents the opinion of most Marxists, before the First World War,
about the ten-point programme of the Manifesto.When, however, a group of German Marxists
with Rosa Luxemburg considered, at the end of the war, the immediate establishment of

111, p. 532.
Capital, Vol. I (Moscow, n.d.), p. 351.
3 Manr dwells on this throughout chapters 29-34 of Capital, Vol. 111.
4 K.Marx, Theorienueber Mehrwert,ed. K.Kautsky (Berlin, 1923),Vol. 11,pt. ii, p. 286.
5 Marx and Ehgels, Selected Works (London, 1942), Vol. I, p. 190. (Preface to the German
edition of 1872).
1 Capital, Vol.

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socialism to have become a question of practical politics, they turned to the plan drawn up three
quarters of a century before.
In her speech in the programme to be adopted, given a t the founding congress of the German
Communist Party (Spartakusbund) which convened in December 1918 in Berlin, Rosa Luxemburg explained the reservations expressed by Marx and Engels about the Manifestosprogramme,
and the fact that it was later altogether set aside, as the result of a period of retreat by the revolutionary movement and of the temporary entrenchment of capitalism as it spread to new
countries. For the Social Democrats in that period the so-called minimal tasks of the hour were
the fist priority whereas socialism was no more than a star, shining from afar, as the final
goal. During the retreat the practical link between the immediate tasks and the final goal was
lost. Hence Rosa Luxemburg declared, For us there is no longer a separate minimum and
maximum programme.2 The immediate tasks must be defined in such a way that they will
constitute here and now the first phase in the achievement of socialism. . . . we shall now take
up the thread which Marx and Engels first spun with the Communist Manifesto exactly seventy
years ago. As you know, the Communist ManiJesto regards socialism, the realization of the
final socialist aims as the immediate task of the proletarian revolution. .They were both then
convinced, as were all the heads of the proletarian movement, that the hour had come for them
to make socialism a reality. After a while, as you know, Marx and Engels themselves fundamentally modified this view. And what is the wording of that passage which had been declared
out of date? (Rosa Luxemburg then read out the whole of the programme as given at the
beginning of this article)
You yourselves see that these are, with slight modifications, the
tasks which confront us today: to achieve socialism, to make it a reality; . . . We are returning
today to that same way of thinking which Marx and Engels later saw as mistaken and which they
abandoned. They were right to see it then as mistaken and to relinquish it. But the development
of capitalism, which has continued in the meantime to advance, has brought us to the point
where what was then an error is now ~ o r r e c t . Luxemburg
~
then went on to explain her views
on the method whereby socialism would be achieved from below and not from above, gradually
and not all at once. Although in the way I have described it this process will perhaps seem more
drawn out than we tend to imagine at first, nevertheless I am convinced that it is to our advantage
that we should see clearly all the difficulties and complications of this revolution which confront
us.4
It is noteworthy that, approaching the problem of socialization as a problem of practical
politics, Luxemburg stresses the graduality of the process, which raises the question of the order
in which the various steps have to be taken, and thus brings her back to the way of thinking of
the plan of 1848.
About a year before R. Luxemburg revived the plan of the Communist Manifesto in general
terms, Lenin, who likewise considered the transition to socialism to be on the order of the day.
drew up a detailed plan of measures to be put into effect by a Bolshevik Government, should
it be established in the near future. This plan follows that of 1848 in so far as a clear, even
explicit, distinction is drawn between the productive and other forms of capital, in view of
treating them differently in regard to expropriation. Lenin calls for the nationalization of
finance capital, including its important footholds within the sphere of production. A special
chapter of his article is devoted to explaining the first point in his plan-the nationalization of
the banks. Lenin suggested that this should be carried out not by confiscating property, but by
merging all banks into one bank and placing that unified bank under state supervision. The
following sentence has a special importance: The advantage accruing to the whole people from
nationalization of the banks-not to the workers especially (for the workers have little to do
with banks) but to the mass of peasants and small industrialists-would be enornious.J The
basic significance of this statement lies in the promise of advantage to a section of the bourgeoisie, and advantage which will be derived from carrying out measures of a socialist nature.

..

...

RosaLuxemburg, Ausgewaeklte Reden undSchrifen(Berlin, 1951), Vol. II,p. 659.

4 Ibid, p. 688.
3 Ibid, pp. 655-58.
Ibid, p. 666.
5 Lenin, The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat it, Collected Works (Moscow,
1964), Vol. XXV, p. 332.
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It was precisely this idea which underlay, according to our interpretation, the proposals of the
Communist Manqesto: the removal of the circulation mechanisms from private ownership and
their transfer into the hands of society will not only harm productive capital but is even calculated to help it. This idea is explicitly expressed by M a n and Engels in the Demands ofthe
CommunistParty in Germany (March 1848) :
A State bank, whose paper issues are legal tender, shall replace the many private banking
concerns now in existence. By this method credit can be regulated in the interest of the people
as a whole, and thereby the dominion of the magnates of the monetary world will be undermined. Further, by gradually substituting paper money by gold and silver coin, the means
of exchange (that indispensable prerequisite of bourgeois trade and commerce) will be
cheapened . . .Thismeasure in the long run is necessary in order to bind the interests of the
conservative bourgeoisie to the cause of the revolution.l
Lenin must have been led t o - o r at least confirmed in-his idea of the economic policy to be
pursued by his party when they came to power, through his work on the theory of contemporary
capitalist development. He then came to hold certain views on the relationship between production and circulation, which are all the more noteworthy, in connection with his economic plan,
becausehe did not fully develop nor consistently maintain them. Thus he writes :
It is characteristic of capitalism in general that the ownership of capital is separated from
the application of capital to production, that money capital is separated from industrial
or productive capital, and that the rentier who lives entirely on income obtained from
money capital, is separated from the entrepreneur and from all who are directly concerned
in the management of capital. Imperialism, or the domination of finance capital, is that
highest stage of capitalism in which this separation reaches vast proportions. The supremacy
of finance capital over all other forms of capital means the predominance of the rentier
and the financial oligarchy
2

...

This implied that the development of capital was bound up, in Lenins opinion, with the growing
separation between productive and financial capital. Financial capital is merely a special,
developed form of circulation capital which has come to control (as opposed to owning) the key
positions within the sphere of production.
As to the position of M a n and Engels in 1848, we have already seen that its theoretical
rationale had been worked out during the following two decades, in great detail, in the fifth
part of Capital, Vol. 111. The analysis of the relationship between industrial and money capital
led to such sharp formulations of their antagonism as the following:
The credit system, which has its focus in the so-called national banks and the big moneylenders and usurers surrounding them, constitutes enormous centralization, and gives to this
class of parasites the fabulous power, not only to periodically despoil industrial capitalists,
but also to interfere in actual production in a most dangerous manner-and this gang
knows nothing about production and hasnothing to do with it.

IV

It is clearly the connection between the political and the economic aspects of the road to
socialism, underlying the plan of the Communist Manifesto, which explains the acknowledged or
unacknowledged revival of that plan when socialist groups thought theestablishment of socialism
had become a task to be taken in hand.
The connection itself, however, has something paradoxical about it. It is a commonplace that
the politics of Marx and Engels in 1848 (as were those of R.Luxemburg in 1918 and of Lenin
in 1917) were revolutionary politics. Their planned economic policies, on the other hand,
1

The Communist Manifesto, ed. cit.. app. H, pp. 3 4 6 1 .

Capital, Vol. 111, p. 532.

* V. I. Lenin, Collected Works (Moscow, 1964), Vol. M I , pp. 238-9.

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479

were rather moderate. Put differently, from the point of view of its long-term aim, the eventual
realization of socialism, their programme could not be more revolutionary; but from the point
of view of its actual content, i.e., insofar as it dealt only with the immediate, partial transformation of the existing mode of production-the first step on the road to socialism-and, furthermore, insofar as it counted on a greater or lesser degree of consent to this process of transformation from sections of the bourgeoisie, it was in fact remarkably moderate.
This position is the reverse of that generally held by Marxist socialists before 1914. The
establishment of socialism was not regarded as immediately realizable, and the partial changes
possible within the capitalist regime (as distinct from spontaneous developments which were
supposedly maturing capitalism for a future socialist transformation) were never considered as
stages in the advance towards the full realization of socialism. The idea was that socialism was
to be established by a wholesale change, by a total, once-for-all elimination of the capitalist
regime. Since the abolition of capitalism was not a practical proposition, whereas the movement
was socialist precisely by virtue of its demand for that wholesale abolition, a distinction was
made between maximum and minimum programmes, based on assumptions absolutely contrary
to the assumptions of the 1848 programme. The maximum programme was the establishment
of socialism and the fact that it was described as maximum indicated that in the eyes of the movement this was not an immediate goal, it did not involve political action here and now. Any present
political activity-the minimumprogramme-could not under any circumstances be represented
as the realization of socialism. Thus, whereas for the authors of the ten-clause programme
and its like there is no fundamental divide, or only a minor one, between a socialist policy in a
capitalist regime and a policy abolishing capitalism and replacing it with socialism, for the
Marxist socialists of that period the divide between the two is absolute.
On the face of it, it is somewhat odd that the programme suggested in the Communist Manvest0
as one suitable to a socialist Government was then put forward, by the very same people, onlya
month later, in the Demands of the CommunistParty in Germanyas a programme for a democratic
German government which would represent sections of the bourgeoisie, as a programme,
in other words, which could be achieved by a coalition Government, that is, within a capitalist
society. But the paradox only exists if one accepts the premise of a basic separation between the
maximum and minimum programmes. For Marx and Engels themselves, however, the logic was
clear. Their view, expressed in the ten-clause programme, that the first step towards socialism
does not necessitate the total abolition of bourgeois property and the capitalist mode of appropriation, led to the conclusion that one must try to fulfil the programme with the political
cooperation of those sections of the bourgeoisie who would benefit by it. They thought that there
was room for continuity and an evolving development of socialist revolutionary policies within
thecapitalist regimeand during theprocess of transformation. They did not regard the transition
from the ten-clause programme to full socialism,nor from a democratic Government which would
carry out the plan, to a socialist Government, as a singlestep, but as aprocess.
To sum up. The programme cannot be represented as advice on how the proletariat should
behave towards the bourgeoisie only after it has full control of the Government. The theoretical
analysis which makes sense of the plan of action could not, therefore, be confined to an examination of thereaction ofthecapitalist economy to apossibleintervention by a socialist Government.
but had to include an analysis of political action within the capitalist regime, indeed, the conflict
between the industrial bourgeoisie and the financial bourgeisie was seen not merely as potential,
merely a latent economic distinction which socialists should try to enchance; it was not an economic differencewhich socialists, by clever manoeuvres, must transform into a political conflict.
If the programme distinguishes between two sectors of the bourgeoisie, if it sets out to guide the
socialist movement in capitalist politics, this can only mean that it was based on a political
difference or conflict which, its authors were convinced, existed in fact. To this aspect of the
analysis we shall now turn.
V

Marx conceives of capitalism as altogether more of a political creation than any preceding
economic order. Capitalism does not emerge until the worker is cut off from the means of his

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labour, until labour power becomes a commodity, over against which stand the means of labour
as capital. This process was achieved by a political, legal and violent process which was drawn
out over hundreds of years. Whereas the content, so to speak, of the capitalist transformation
of economic relationships was the work of industrial and agricultural (i.e., productive) capital,
the political methods used in this process, were in increasing measure, connected with the special
functions of circulation capital. Marx deals with this relationship in Capital, Vol. I, ch. 24.
He there describes how the creation of the capitalistic mode of publication brought about the
national debt, the modem system of taxation, modem banking, commercial wars, colonial
systems, etc. With the national debt arose an international credit system. As the national
debt finds its support in the public revenue, which must cover the yearly payments for interest
etc., the modern system of taxation was the necessary complement of the system of national
loans.Z Taxation is a function of government; Government financing is a function of money
capital. It is the same thing seen from two aspects-the political and the economic. However,
the conception of the relations between politics and economics is not exhausted by these remarks
concerning the role of circulation capital in the historical process of the formation of capitalism,
nor by connecting the political alignments and struggles of this phase with the conflicts between
property-owning and bourgeois classes, as for example, the struggle between manufacturing
and agrarian capital on the one hand, and pre-capitalist money capital on the other, or between
industrial capital and large-scale landownership, struggles which took the form of historic
political conflicts and which in the course.of development received a political solution.
We have already seen that, for Marx, the contradiction peculiar to capitalism between social
labour and private appropriation has a different significanceaccording to whether one considers
the general division of labour or its division in detail. This contradication is revealed not only
between labour in general and capital in general, but also between the two forms of capital,
between the two modes of private capitalistic appropriation, and hence, between two sets of
capitalist interests.
The modern mechanism of credit, like the other functions of circulation capital, could not,
it is true, emerge until industrial capital had first attained a relatively high degree of development.
But this mechanism itself served as a basis for the acquisition of a dominating position for circulation capital. Thus speaking of the bankers, Marx says: For the entire vast extension of the
credit system, and all credit in general, isexploited by them as their privatecapitaL3
Thus, on the one hand, since the economic division between the two kinds of capital, and
between the two corresponding main capitalist strata or classes, is regarded as belonging to the
structural peculiarities of capitalism as such, this division is conceived of as growing with the
growth of capitalism; and on the other hand, the question of thc relation of the state to the
economy becomes more involved in proportion as the main division between the capitalist
classes assumes ever new aspects. Changes in the attitude of the State towards the economy,
whether in a negative or positive direction, cannot remain matters of indifference to capital,
since State intervention alters the modes of action of capital. The less monolithic capital is, the
more divided the interests of capital are, the more distinct will be the influence of State intervention on the various interests. Indeed, insofar as theinterests of the branches ofcapital are opposed,
the influence of state intervention will have an opposite effect on their position, and therefore
those branches will adopt different attitudes towards state action. The conflict of economic
interests entails, therefore, a political conflict.4
In the fifth part of Capital, Vol. 111, Marx quoted lengthy passages from the parliamentary
enquiries into the effects of the 1844 Act, using them to expand his discussion of the conflict
between bankers and industrialists over credit legislation. Thus Marx noted that when Palmer,
one of the directors of the Bank of England, was asked by the commission of enquiry what had
been the purpose of one of the clauses in the Act dealing with the reserve requirements, the
Capital, Vol. I, p. 755.
2 Ibid, p. 756.
3 Capital, Vol. 111, p. 467.
Different aspects of this translation of economic into political conflicts are discussed in
The Class Struggles in France, Selected Works, Vol. 11, (London, 1943), pp. 192-3; The 18th
Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, ibid, pp. 334-5, 344; Capital, Vol. I, ch. 24; Capital. Vol. ILI,
pp. 387-390.
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48 1

banker answered I cannot answer that question, and Marx adds his own explanation: The
purpose was to make money dear. He quotes the Birmingham banker Attwood, who, when
asked: How do you think the act of 1844 has operated? replied, If I were to answer you as a
banker, I should say that it has operated exceedingly well, for it has afforded a rich harvest to
bankers and (money) capitalists of all kinds. But it has operated very badly for the honest
industrious businessmen . . 2 When he was asked when money is dear, would you say that
capital would be cheap?, he answered Yesy3Marx did not confine himself to analysis of the
contrasted influence which the 1844 Act had on the interests of bankers on the one hand and
industrialists on the other, but went on to show how a cleavage between the two kinds of capitalists was reflected in their attitude to the Act, how, in short, thiscleavage became political.
The fact that legislation has for its basis the conflict of the opposing bourgeois interests is
expressed by Marx, a propos the Act of 1844, thus:

The whole endeavour of Mr. Overstone (the then governor of the Bank of England)
consists in representing the interests of loan capital and industrial capital as being identical
whereas his Bank Act is precisely calculated to exploit this very difference of interests to
the advantage of money capital.
The economic subjects are the bearers of political action. The political struggles themselves
are variegated, connection between them being provided by the (objective) reference they have
to a definite economic subject, which becomes a political subject by the very fact of becoming
engaged in such struggles. Thus Engels writes of the Corn Law struggle: The repeal of the Corn
Laws was the victory of the manufacturing capitalist not only over landed aristocracy, but over
those sections of capitalists too, whose interests were more or less bound up with the landed
interest-bankers, stock-jobbers, fund-holders etc.S
In a developed situation various economic subjects are seen to form permanent political
alliances, then constituting the concrete subject of political activity. The dimensions of the
political cleavage within the bourgeoisie widen as there develops an alignment of various
economic groups brought together by their conflicts with other groups. The unfinished chapter
on classes at the end of Capital, Vol. I11 is still based on the classical trinity of revenues-wages,
profit (and interest), and rent; but the analysis itself juxtaposes capital engaged in production
to capital engaged in circulation, dealing with landed property (rent) immediately after moneydealing capital (interest), and in many observations of Marx and Engels, concerning the political
scene, as we have shown, the idea is expressed that there is a drawing together of agrarian and
moneyed interests into one political block.6
In an article in Volksstuat, in 1874, Engels, commenting on the elections in Britain, writes:
If the Liberal Party in England does not represent large-scale industry as opposed to big landed
property and higher finance, it represents nothing at all.7
Years before this, Engels had written of Prussia, at a time when capitalism was making rapid
progress in that country:
The bourgeoisie never rules as a whole. Apart from the feudal castes, who have still retained some part of their political power, even the big bourgeoisie, as soon as it has defeated
feudalism, splits into a ruling and an opposition party-which are usually represented
by the bank on the one side and the manufacturers on the other. The oppositional, progressive fraction of the big and middle bourgeoisie then has common interests with the
petty bourgeoisieagainst the ruling fraction, and unites with it in a common struggle.*

Ibid., p. 547.
Capital, Vol. 111, p. 546.
3 Ibid., p. 548.
4 Ibid., p. 502.
Preface to the Conditions of the Working Classes in England in 1844, Marx and Engels,
On Britain, (Moscow, 1955) p. 25, The old compact between the landed and financial aristocracy
no longer guaranteed the Corn Laws, ibid, p. 441.
6 Insofar as different rents influenced the geographical distribution of capital, they acted on the
economy in the same way as circulation capital in general. From this point of view, as a form of
capital fulfilling a circulation function.
7 Marx and Engels, On Britain, ed. cit., p. 466.
8 The German Constitutional Campaign, in Marx and Engels, Werke (Berlin, 1964), p. 113.
1
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The assessment of the changes which were taking place within the economic and political
structure of capitalism, led Engels, in 1885, to the following broad generalization on the significanceof the latest developments:
Here the new franchise will overthrow the whole former party position. The alliance
between the Whigs and the Tories into one great Conservative party having as its basis the
entire body of landowners, which has hitherto been split up into camps, and including all
the conservative elements of the bourgeoisie: banking, high finance, trade, a section of
industry; beside it on the other hand the radical bourgeoisie, i.e., the mass of large-scale
industry, the petty bourgeiosie, and, for the present still as its tail, the proletariat now reawakening to political life-this is a revolutionary starting point such as England has not
seen since 1689.
In this passage there are several points which are worth considering at some length.
1. Engels points to the major division between capitalists who operate within the sphere of
production and all the others as determining the decisive political dividing line for the future.
2. Engels saw the union of landowners and circulators in one political camp as a new development. We have already discussed this point and there is no need to elaborate on it further
here.
3. Engels noted that the camp to which the landlords, financiers and bankers belonged was
the conservative camp of the bourgeoisie; a description which was of course determined by a
political orientation from the socialist point of view.
On what ground did Engels think that finance capital and its allies were by their very nature
conservative? Engels is merely articulating here a result which is implicit in the sections of
Capital, Vol. 111, dealing with money-capital. Circulation capital was not interested in making
circulation more efficient except insofar as there was competition among the circulators.
But since already before the end of the nineteenth century competition had disappeared from
most of the key positions within the mechanism of circulation, or at least had become very
restricted, it followed that circulation capital no longer had much interest in streamlining the
circulation mechanism. On the contrary, it had an actual interest in making the mechanism
inefficient. The money-dealing capitalists were interested in fortifying their monopoly over all
forms of trade in money (stock-exchange operation, coming more and more to the fore as the
century wears on, included). In general, the circulator was interested in making the process of
circulation expensivewhereas industry wanted to make it cheaper. This gave rise to a quantitative
conflict between them.
Another aspect of the Marxist analysis lay in the consideration that circulation capital was
better off during periods of stagnation, depression and crisis-better off than industrial capital
at such times, and better off than its own position in periods of expansion. In the first place low
commodity prices in a depression placed a high value on money. In other words a new division
of social capital takes place in respect to its value and money capital grows at the expense of
industrial capital. Secondly, the new division according to value entails a new material division:
Finance capital gains control of productive enterprises whose position has been undermined.
Thirdly, the prices of commodities in a crisis continually drop and this benefits the creditor
at theexpense of the debtor, the banker at the expense of the industrialist. The debtor who repays
the sum fixed on his bond returns more than he received. In a depression, therefore, not only
does cash capital gain but liquid capital in general. Direct political consequences followed
from this insofar as the power of State-creditors over the State was enchanced.
Consequently, money capital operated the mechanism of circulation not only in such a way
as not to create industrial expansion but also, as far as possible, to prevent it, i.e., to hinder the
powth of production at a steady rate. Here it is a question of the way in which thecarrying out
of circulation functions influenced the field of production. From this point of view there is a
qualitative conflict between circulation and industrial capital.
According to both criteria the private operation of the mechanisms of circulation, their
Engels to BebeL24July 1885. Marxand Engels, Correspondence(London, 1934),p. 423.

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operation, in other words, by circulation capital, is shown, in the Marxist analysis, to be a

stumbling block for production capital and for production itself. This, in political terms, is the
meaning of conservativeas applied to this group.
4. Finally Engels saw in these developments a revolutionary starting point such as England
has not seen since 1689. This view, which has far-reaching implications, especially in view of
the traditional interpretation of Marxs and Engels position, deservesdetailed analysis.
In Capital, Vol. 111, Marx analyzed the contradiction between the development of the modem
circulation mechanism and its private use.
The banking system, so far as its formal organization and centralization is concerned,
is the most artificial and most developed product turned out by the capitalist mode of production
The banking system possesses indeed the form of universal book-keeping and
distribution of the means of production on a social scale, but solely the form . This social
character of capital is first promoted and wholly realized through the full development
of the credit and banking system . . It thus does away with the private character of capital
and thus contains in itself, but only in itself, the abolition of capital itself. By means of the
banking system the distribution of capital as a special business, a social function, is taken
out of the hands of the private capitalists and usurers. But a t the same time, banking and
credit thus become one of the most effective vehicles ofcrisesand swindle. Finally, there is
no doubt that the credit system will serve as a powerful lever during the transition
from the capitalist mode of production to the mode of production of associated
labour.

. ..

..

..

We shall only deal with one of the ideas expressed in this passage: the notion that the circulation mechanism already constitutes a potential means of realizing the socialization of the organization of labour and that the potentiality is hindered from becoming actual because of the private
ownership of the mechanism; and with the conclusion which necessarily followed: that the
direct social operation of the mechanism would be an important stage in the transition of
socialism.
This line of thought-which is no other than the theoretical basis for the socialist programme
in the Manifesto-gives meaning to Engels statement about the revolutionary starting point.
It is worth noting that Engels saw the division he described within the bourgeoisie as a starting
point comparable to 1689 and not, for example, to 1832; what does this mean in Engels terms?
In 1832, as a result of parliamentary reform, the industrial bourgeoisie of England was for the
first time made a partner in political power. This reform was undoubtedly one of the most
important in the political history of England. Nevertheless, 1689-the Glorious Revolutionconstituted, in Engels view, the politically decisive victory, because it was a decisive victory
for what he termed the capitalist mode of production as a whole. If Engels found his analogy
precisely in 1689, it could only be because he believed that the formation of the new political
camps would serve as a revolutionary starting point for the transformation of the capitalist
mode of production as a whole, in other words, for the transition to socialism.
And indeed, as we have already seen, the authors of the 1848 programme did not define the
realization of socialism as a single act and hence did not define it as an event taking place somewhere in the distant future, beyond the present day politics of the existing capitalist regime, at
some date when politics within the capitalist regime will have somehow come to an end. For
them the policy which would realize socialism was a continuation of socialist politics within
capitalism, and the revolutionary starting point of the former was to be found in the latter.
This meant that the splitting of the bourgeoisie into two camps had an immediate bearing on the
struggle for socialism and it permitted a start to be made towards the full realization of socialism
by fighting for the political destruction of the conservative camp within the bourgeoisie, in
other words, for the expropriation of the sphere of circulation.
According to this view the full realization of socialism involved a whole series of steps, spread
out over a more or less lengthy historical period; each step constituted an essential structural
1

Cupital,Vol. 111, p. 593.

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change in its own right and only all of them together would add up to an absolute transformation
of the old mode of production into that of associated labour.
The 1848 programme, like Engels statement in 1885, looked to changes in the direction of
socialism, which were to be based upon the division of forces within capitalist society. The
assumption on which these programmes rested was that their realization would not injure the
industrialists and therefore it was not impossible to interest the latter, in some form or another,
in their achievement.

SOME WEAKNESSES I N T H E F U L T O N R E P O R T
O N T H E B R I T I S H H O M E CIVIL SERVICE
GEOFFREY K. FRY
University of Leeds

REVIEW O F T H E C I V I L SERVICE?
A T a time when a Labour Government felt that many British national institutions would be
invigorated by having their activities reviewed by a committee or Royal Commission, it was not
to be expected that the Civil Service would escape an investigation. In recent years there seem to
have been even more attacks than usual upon the Civil Service, and particularly its Administrative Class, from outsiders who, among other things, have questioned the Services ability
to conduct some of its more important functions-notably as regards advice about the management of the economy-and who have criticized the Services structure and organization. In a
word, the Civil Service has been accused of being amateur when the need was for professionalism.2
Few observers were surprised, therefore, when, on 8 February 1966, the present PrimeMinister,
Mr. Harold Wilson, appointed what he called a strong committee, under the chairmanship
of the then Vice-Chancellorof the University of Sussex, Lord Fulton, to examine the structure,
recruitment and management, including training, of the Home Civil Service. The Prime Minister
wanted the Fulton Committee to conduct a fundamental and wide-ranging inquiry into the
Civil Service. But he himself lessened the prospects of such an inquiry when he emphasized that
the Governments willingness to consider changes in the Civil Service does not imply any
intention on its part to alter the basic relationship between Ministers and Civil Servants. Civil
Servants, however eminent, remain the confidential advisers of Ministers, who alone are answerable to Parliament for policy; and we do not envisage any change in this fundamental feature
of our Parliamentary system of democracy.3 When the Fulton Report was published on 26
June 1968, it was evident that this rider to the Committees terms of reference had inhibited
1. A W I D E - R A N G I N G A N D F U N D A M E N T A L

1 This paper is mainly based upon some passages contained in my recent book, Statesmen in Disguise. The Changing Role of the Administrative Class of the British Home Civil Service
1853-1966, a postscript to which contains some observations about the Fulton Report. This book
was published by Macmillans on 26 June 1969, and the passages from this copyrighted work
are reproduced with their permission. I take this opportunity of thanking my colleagues Professor
A. H. Hanson, J. H. Macdonald and 0. A. Hartley for their constructive criticism of the draft
versions of this paper.
2 Among recent books in this vein have been Hugh Thomas (ed.), The Establishment (1959);
Michael Shanks, The Stagnant Society (1961); Arthur Koestler (ed.), Suicide of a Nation (1963);
Brian Chapman, British Government Observed (1963); Peter Shore, Entitled to Know (1966);
Max Nicholson, The System. The Misgorernment of Britain (1967); and Hugh Thomas (ed.),
Crisis in the Civil Service (1968).
3 House of Commons, OfficialReport (1965-66), Vol. 724, Cols. 209-10. This and the other
referencesto Parliamentary Debates are taken from the Weekly Hunsard.