952 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Even the Communists say that theirs is socialism and I want to know why they call themselves Communists if they are only Socialists. It would lose all the terrors which the word ‘Communism’ has for many people and they might easily have won a victory in Andhra if they had made a change in name. What I wanted to tell my friend Mr. Pant is—I hope he is listening to me………..
Mr. Chairman: Of course he is listening with the greatest attention.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: What I wanted to tell him was this, that this is quite interesting. Anyone who has studied the legislative programme of the British Labour Party, after the close of the War, will see that the Labour Party, in accordance with the report of the Trade Union Congress, published in
1945, carried out nationalisation of various industries and various services including the Railways and even the Bank of England. I have not understood what changes have been made by the Labour Party in the working of the Bank of England by nationalisation. I am a student of currency and I know something about the Bank of England but there it is that they had it. But what I wanted to tell my friend Mr. Pant is this, that in everyone of those cases where the Labour Party has carried out nationalisation, they have paid full compensation—full. That is to say, they have paid the market value for the shares that they have acquired. Payment of compensation, therefore, cannot come in the way of nationalisation but as I said, I am quite prepared for that proposition because the values of the shares are not due merely to the share capital that is invested. It is due to a variety of social circumstances. It is social causes which have brought about the rise in the value of the shares and there is no reason why a private shareholder should be entitled to appropriate to himself the social values which have become part of the values of his shares. I don’t also understand how the theory of no-compensation can be supported. In Russia they paid no compensation, it is true. But it must not be forgotten that the Russian Government undertakes to give employment to people, to feed them, to clothe them, to house them, to scrub them and to provide for all the human needs.