The Socialist A.B.C.

When that I was a little tiny boy, Me daddy said to me, ’The time has come, me bonny bonny bairn To learn your ABC’. Now daddy was a Lodge Chairman In the coalfields of the Tyne, And that ABC was different From the Enid Blyton kind. He sang; A is for Alienation that made me the man that I am and B’s for the Boss, who’s a bastard, a bourgeois who don’t give a damn. C is for Capitalism, the boss’s reactionary creed, and D’s for Dictatorship, laddie, but the best proletarian breed. E is for Exploitation, that the workers have suffered so long; and F is for old Ludwig Feuerbach, the first one to see it was wrong. G is for all Gerrymanderers, like Lord Muck and Sir Whatsisname, and H is the Hell that they’ll go to, when the workers have kindled the flame. I is for Imperialism, and America’s kind is the worst, and J is for sweet Jingoism, that the Tories all think of first. K is for good old Keir Hardie, who fought out the working class fight and L is for Vladimir Lenin, who showed him the Left was all right. M is of course for Karl Marx, the daddy and the mammy of them all, and N is for Nationalisation, without it we’d crumble and fall. O is for Overproduction that capitalist economy brings, and P is for Private Property, the greatest of all of the sins. Q is for the Quid pro quo, that we’ll deal out so well and so soon, when R for Revolution is shouted and the Red Flag becomes the top tune. S is for sad Stalinism, that gave us all such a bad name, and T is for Trotsky the hero, who had to take all of the blame. U’s for the Union of workers, the Union will stand to the end, and V is for Vodka, yes, Vodka, the one drink that don’t bring the bends. W is for all Willing workers, and that’s where the memory fades, for X, Y and Z, me dear daddy said, will be written on the street barricades. But now that I’m not a little tiny boy, Me daddy says to me, ’Please try to forget the things I said, Especially the ABC.’ For daddy’s no longer a Union man, And he’s had to change his plea. His alphabet is different now, Since they made him a Labor MP.