Perspectives Document (Jones and Howard)

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_foree in the student field and on the political question of Ireland, ete. apologise to comrades that this document is so long. However thi made necessary by the profound nature of the problems confronting the organ: end the nature of the political differences revealed over the past period... oan skate over any points it is necessary to bring ovt in detail the real nature f the existing differences and pursue them to their most fundamental premises. then zembers of the leadership go so far as to declare that there are sections of the leadership who reject the fundamental positions of the Fourth international, then it is obviously the case that the nature of these differences must be speli out Guearly, Since the last conference a qualitative change tas taken. place in the work of the IMG, &% the conference last June practically no branch was doing re wort inside the working class. We were only just beginning to make an cr of the Labour Farty; we had no real base outside of about five towns io “his where poidtical situation is ba ginning to change, Virt tually every brench is new engaged in some activity in relation to the working class, the organisa Lon has established itself firmly in whole new areag of she country, we ore now 2 this change in work hes brought us up egainst tremendous new problems which oven now we are only: just beginning to deal with, Nevertheless it-is possible to draw us a balance sheet , and, for reasons which are dealt with later, it is indeed absolutely necessary to do so, Before doing this however. we may note two cormtin elements. which “have affected our work in -the last year 5 1 a , : - + eo + fa) 2 inex Lence © anisaocion, The IMG is an extreme: y neopie. new to politics, wbhon had only forty nensee Qo | as) a 7 ch > ® oon ‘Sy fe S 9 3 0 @ cl a Q = the srganieetion googra vhically. In order to be a serious notional o:geanisation and to build the structure necessary for work in the working 5 we had to try to. spread the orgenigation. This could only be done 2 by having an impact in those areas where it was ea siect to recruit student white-collar workers, ete, This stage is by no means over, there exists ¢ big 'hele’ in the North-East for example, but in some areas at least this process is coming to an end. The typical IMG branch is moving boves boing S~12 people in a “to (b) In the lest year we have been faced with the absolute necessity of sorecding ratal as ‘y helese, if we went to examine some of the ghort-comings of our work over the: aat year it is not in-these two factors that they are to be found, It ig in n various theoretical short~comings which a ve dire fected ovr work, 4 is particularly, the’ case Ww ith some of the pe i tical dis ments which have existed. within the leadership. Some.o the organisation have been resolved, This present fecuaent pins to how certain political positions heve, and would in the future, hern present anelysis bases itself on three daterrsleted theoretical points (1) That the difference between propaganda and agitetion is shat petw: senting many. ideas to a small number of people and pre esenbing 8 of ideas to a large number of people, and not between passivi to action?. : wee That. a transitional programme by ad: finition smasheg pee Sonar i.e, the secial relations of capitelist production, \ which defends them, There therefore exist no- ‘tran: ‘sectors’ e.g, women, blacxs, students, ete. but” at y gramme for the whole of society (within such a progr: vame ther: ee oF, course Bens at re

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on De demands relating to the position of various sociel groups, bub these are ‘not.demands ‘for! sections of the populetvion). (3) A key theoretical distinction oxists between the sector in which we intervene «Be students, unemployed) and the political ideas we put forward in these areas, .Or, put in other berms ; there exists a clear distinction between the political tasks of the organisetion and its orgenisational tagks.

The rest of this document is therefore devoted to ‘spelling cut in theoretics) « terms the inplications of these toints and the concret e perspectives which flow from them, This can best be done by placing the IMG's activities in the context of tue changes in the’ organisation's work over the last “period and the changed ne bu re-of the situation in -Europe. nging intornationel conte, and She development of the politics of the Fourth International.

The Fourth Internat tional 's policies after 1945 were greatly ma arked by mistaken conjunctural predictions which Trotsky hed made: the | first was that Seviet bureaucracy could not survive the Second “orld “ars; and the second wa, capitalism ¢ could not eseape from slump. These predictions were separable from the bulk of Tre ssky! s enalyses and in no wey invalidated them, All that has occurred is that the crises of both imperialism and Stalinism have proeceded in a differen ferm, but in essence remain determined by the same forces as Trotsky analyses. The firs. real attempt to come to grips with the changed situation was Michel Pablo's "The Coming Var". Thie was however completely dominated by a 'catastrephist’ economic perspective, In particular he held that the USA WES about to be wh into an immense slump ot the game time es phe colonial revolution was strat itself, . To protect itsslf in this situat the US bourgeoisie would have ts a preventive war against the workers tes. The CPs in this situation would forced to lurch to the left. But in + i “not possibly control the movement which | wou vom tion of immonse crises the Crs s soon far outrun both the decic A ' “and the control of the Pealint st PALGL EBs Incidentally this last point should deal with the Healyite lie that Pablo held thet the CPs could destroy canitalien. on the contrary he asserted that the revolutionary wave Seoul ésstroy the hold of Stalinist parties), The erisis into which the Stalinist and other workers pe would be piunged would lead to the formation of currents outside the contro... leadership whicn it was the task of revolutionaries to win to Trotekyism. Po & this they needed to enter the mass parties. This perspective was of course commie tiated by the fact thet what occurred was not a catastrophic slump, but on the contrary =n economie boom. By the mid 1959s this perspective, which was entirely in the light of the circumstances of the early 1950s, had been rejected, Bullt into Peblo's positio on, although not articuleted fully, was on essential oint concerning the reletion of the naes working class. parties to the proletariat.

This point was that the mass parties oreanisasionally dominated the working class.

Clearly 5 if one expected any Ss upsurge to be reflected ni wily in tom fen this to occur ob hy Ve of nternal erisis within the working class parties, then for had actually to be inside those parties, When therefore the verspec was abandoned two cssential ideas were carried over, The first was Uy penne y wave would "Pe y the working class, and the second thet this meen. , . seribed, that the movement would reflec This point was carried over oven to a very ke

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ted that 1O5% of the worke 2 These ideas were so firmly & militants that in pany cases In most countries in Europe the pre 2 i continue to adhere to the organisation (the roe ed in the minds of. a generation of Trotsky; sosed extreme problems to break with them. sections of the International vere not formed organically out of the old cadres in a struggle against them. The development of a new anti-capitalist struggle 1 a political sense by students was something many sections of the Internation could net grasp. <A philistine and-moralising attitude to the working class had been adopted, Statements such as ‘the working class will lead the revolution! , which ar the ABO of orion, were conceived of as busing immediate guides to tactics, Tne struggle of the students couid be written off as a'petit-bourgeois adventure’, — Turiensely favourable opportunities for Trotskyism were missed by, for creme the: . failure of the German section to work in the SDS, Only in France was of the student movement really understood, stage. Tor example-cde,-—Mandel,.. writing f Gt os a tu ok Lite a ba 5 this point it is necessary to commeat briefly on the historical in of the student movement to Trotskyisn. % meant the ability for the first ti decades to actually | dead. movements rather tha n to comme nt on the sins of otne: .. emp 4s of Trotskyist theory. For oxkan ample , the quisti st toxposurs! theor the 2.1 quite clearly correspond to the period of the 1950s and small propagn group politics. The student movement offered to the International the oppo to transform its practice, and thereby to transform its theoretical concepts. obviously however such developments produced acute problems corresponding te the particular social base from which recruitment occurred, The following p cre Bensaid snd Weber indicated both the problems and the gains. (JOR has be by ING taroughout), 'In its style of work the IMG is weighed down by the twin weights of student composition and its own past. The dominence of students in organisation maintains en influence of the modes of work of that milieu, ‘Being outside the productive process the student milieu escapes. the discipline created by work incenitalist society. Its political st: are conducted ingide the liberal atmosphere of the University which infinitely less marsh than the situetion in production ... In consequ the student does not feel the need for a firm strongly based organisa its organisations are woolly end sloppy .,. In its entryist past MG acquired other long lasting treits, which result from the fact th creating a fraction insid: another organisation requires very d cheracteristics from builcing an independent open organisation, . i an entryist fraction is based on propaganda work coupled with a few acts designed to aid the process of political maturation married on by the ; agan nda. Such work requires a very thorough political knowledge and ge apecity to intervene in polemics, It er eates > People who are basically opagandists, | c pe 'The activity of an open indevendont organisa: based pon an to intervene in a milicu with ol:

ITE.SP and organisa and organisers, iver “this second type of cadre. - ‘is basically propagandist forms of struggle, e ability. Such work creates basically gave Up entrytsi the ING has cruell =. ct * together, At the socio-economic level there had been the complete. inabili canitelis m to solve the problems of social expenditure, This had expressed

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r Qs in a whole series of areas in the United States and in Western Burope, and ineh among its effects en attempt to expand the education system without the neces finances. The conerete desert of Nanterre symbolised the results, At the level of © le. long term processes of the development of consciousness, by the end of the 1°60s generetion had emerged which did not rementer the defeats of the 1930s, and which wag not, for reasons dealt with . low, integreted into the Social Democratic and st apparatuses. The conjuncture of these twin processes produced eli the ons for a molecular, i.e. individual/instructured, radicalisation, The er focus which turned this molecular process into « movement was the Vietnrnm War. The student movement then appeared as the product of the long term social processes, the upsurge in the coloniel revolution and the apparent passivity of the fate working “The events of May 1968, while at one level the highest expression of the pot ity of the student struggles, at another level dealt 2 desth blow to ti student movement. The appearance on the revolutionary scene of the working class knocked away the previous base of the autonomy of the student actions. The entire ention held by revolutionary students of their place in the struggle e« % italisnm changed, The theories of Marcuse, of the ‘countryside and the of the 'new working class!, disarnsared over night. This vproasss wes intensified bry the strihe wave of 1969 in Italy, in Britain by the large scate strikes of the wintor of 1970-"1, by the generel European strike wave, and by the coming. immense e of the vorking class inside the United States. Underlying all these rapid ct in the political situation were the continuetion of the Vietnam War and the ix ly rapid decline of stability inside the international canitelist economy, By the autum of 1971 the United Stetes, Britain and Italy were all suffering recession and the United States wes desperately trying to soive the contradictions whi.

Vietnam War hed accentuated by economic manoeuvres at the expense of Janan and | HULCpS, | yy From 1968 onwards therefore the chief af old has been the upsurge of the Eurobean working cless, and in particular t the working class to unleash struggles which break dawn the old attempts o pourgeoisie to integrate the trade unicns into the mechanisms of capitalis poliey. it is only against this gcneral bockground that the situation within th working cless, the strategy of t!.. bourgeoisie and the development of the Fourth international can be understood.

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See Appendix T, The Histery of the last two vears.

It can therefore quite clearly be seen thet tho change which took pleco in 1°68, or rather the accumulation of elements of the situation which came to a heed jn 1968, marked another fundamental change in the political situation, and therefore imposed another shift in the stratesy and tectics of the F,I, The period up to 1963 can rougaly be described as that of intervening in the youth end student nevenents in. order to collect. the forees to replenish the Trotskyist organisations, Ye can therefore roughly say that in the period since around 1966 two turning pointe cen be ™ a ecen in the work of the F.f. The first wes the break with entry. The politiccl ¢ practical consequences necessary to carry this through were a revolutionisation the mode of functioning of the organisetion, The second was to use the forces ulated in the youth movement to begin to gain an implantation in the worlcin: in the case of the IMG these two processes have been telesconed, The practicel with entryism was carried out before a theoretical rationale was given, and the mn

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‘analyv-ed to some extent the structural causes of ‘youth radicalisation! and then wm Boe necessary steps to cae from a you -h movement, i.e. the establishment of the S.1., were taken afte jective situntion had destroyed the basis of the old movement. in a cor and uneve n way we were forced to Simultaneous sly gain our base in the youth, and to begin an implantation in the working class. It is only in terms of the strains imnosed by this objective basis that the development of the organisation over the last two years can be understcaod, We me‘r take as a starting point the decision to set up the S.L. This step was rethinking of its political positions by the IMG, in a sense the most fundeme: s history, Although the full theoretical implications or the decision were not ik éit at first, nevertheless they were to lead te a complete rethinking on the nabure of the political situation in Britain, This oecurred because of a conjuncture of two events. Firstly, it meant a.decisive practical break with previous conceptions cf work aul hence Jed to new needs being felt in the organisation, Secondly the organisation now possessed sufficient members to be able to undertake large scale open activities. This led to a fer quicker feedback from practice to theory thax. been possible vreviously and meant that the organisation was forced to rethink political positions, It was only after the new practice had been instituted th practical preblems could be encountered which led te e radical rethinking of pre positions and the working out of a consistent and rigorous new analysis.

The beginning of the theoretical break with the general framework of ideas on which entryism was based came for the IMG with the document 'From a Fropasanda to a league for Revolutionary Action', An uneauivocable position was. taken here that éntryism was not the correct tactic for building the IMG in Britain at the voresont period. This document was based on the analysis of a whole series of structural salting place in Western capitalism. The Ninth “orld Congress hed made the point that what was occurring was somthing much more fundamental than a mere politic isation of students. The partici«ation of young WOrKers » avprentices, school stu dents, etc. shoved conclusively that a differential radicalisation of youth and not simply of students was occurring, This was given the neme, perhaps rather unhanpily, o” the ‘youth vanguard', So far so good, It has slways been the esse that the youth are: the mest receptive to revolutionary ideas, but this phenomenon was accented by a a whole series of factors in the oresent period. On the structural causes of this vadicelisation there were no real disagreements. Nevertheless there was a a emt iguity | in whet the term ‘youth vanguard! meant, This became apparent at the World Gongress and in the period afterwards, The docvment presented to that om Ls toy the SWE and entitled 'Yorldwide Youth Eadicalisation and the Tasks of the FT, jectei from that the concept of a continuing youth moveinent. The later docum the Ligue Communiste (based on an analysis by Bensaid and “Melebrino) * Was cifferent in method in that it analysed the youth radicalisation not as someth disbinet., but within the context of the fundamental norabs ion of working class revolutionary organis sation, This difference. on the surface slight, is jy Eundamenval. Ib is these two differing me thodologie es which have in fac Dee otively the SWP and the various Eurepean sections in “she lest period, the differences is the distinction between an indivi movement. In addition it is only by breaking with the methodology of the SWP docunent 8 possible to understend the impact of Kay 1968 on the consciousness of the sed youth', The ressons why the SWP has not broken with its method are both j and objective, The most irnortant hes been that the relative passivity of the Ame rican working class co ou eames lang after the pest war calm had definitively Gisappeared in Europe» This that in the United States the mass move not affected by the working eles ” quotes in the way that they were in Europe. can now say however that this period is coming to an end. The SWP will be fe: rethink its positions or be unable to understand the collapse of its strateey cf movements. + u Implicit da 3 at Se fa as vidual radicalisation and a political

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Ducving the period of the VS0 the ING hed been greatly influenced by the ideas being develoved by the SYP on mas ments, To the extent that amy methodological t J S break had been made with entrvisr it was along those dines. This influence extended into obner fields es well, .At the Ninth “orld Congress for exemple some of the British delegates criginally supported the minority position on Latin America.

Happily the discussion at the Congress changed their views, ‘When it came to setting up the Spartacus League therefore the organisetion had not clearly thought ovt the differences between the SWP's and the Buropean’'s arproach, The historical weakness s IMG, its lack of cadre caused by the fact that the mainstream of British Trotskyism in the 1950s and carly 1608, passed throush toe SLL and not the Fourth Internaticnal, assisted this procesa,: In eons sequence, when it ceme to the fo: of tho Spartacus League although verbally the Tendenevy's call for ea specifical student orgenisation was rejected, nevertholess the general method of tre youth radicalisation, and particularly students, as a a separs ate category and n ; the relation of working class and the vanguard orgen sation, wes carried over from the previous period and from the SWP's anslysis, “vere 2 in fact Pishting tho.

Tendency on the Tendency's own ground. Hence the hopelessly confused discus: thet time. yo The “methodoLlosy of empiricism i.e, the breaking down of every ¢ inte separate parts characterises the orgenisation's approach. In vractice was a tendency for students to be analysed in isolation. This mistake was.

The historical importance of the student movement to Trotskyism wes the possi of gaining rapidly a large number of cadres who were on a high enough mont thos level to have broken ideologically with Sociel Democracy and Stalinism. aArov an initial cadre an organisation could be built with a qualitatively higher level than that of the old sections. Such en organisation could intervene | political way in the working class. The setting of the task of recruiting organising this political vanguerd was perfectly correct, and therefore i: necessary to pay the greatest possible attention to the dynamics of such a ion a -cédre youth organisction only made sense in terms of a vepidly expo ndi movement in which rapid growth ef the orgenisation would occur, A classic wisation. for collectin: end slowly training youth a8 not a cadre org omen. oh che same type. The S.L. type organisa tion therefore was promised 6 na ssibility of expansion in the universities from vnich a cedre could ‘oe to..intervene amongst voung workers, The possibility of such a. dynamic as we love mnalysed many times did not exist by 1970 because of the upsurge in the workers ovement, (There vere in eddition one Structeral and one conjunctural points which algo worked in that direction. The structurel one was the fact that the ate. tion and therefore low size of British universities meant a student mover nob have The depths to draw on that it had in Eurone. The conjunctural one the defeat of the February/March wave of sit-ins, This change in the situa the working cless and its political impact is not simply a matter of numbe a question of the political impect on the whole of society, After 1948, 7 particular in this country efter 1969-70, the workers struggles became the key | political issue in the whole of society end clearly the attention of all radi politica. elements, including amongst politicised students, became fixed on it. also mesit an entirely different political backcloth, The quiescence of the wo class meant the relative lack of weight within the political vanguard of the traditional ideologies of the working class (Social Democracy, Stalinign, However, the re-emergence of the political activity of the working class meant simultaneous re-emergence into the centre of the political scene of these tr deologies, Hence the disappesrance of the ideologies of Nercusism, citie ountryside, etc, and the re-emergence of the old political problems withi vanguard - elbeit cf course in =: different form to that of. the 1950¢ e.¢. the ocus being the left wing of the trade buresucracy and not the left. wing of 4 constituencies, ete, Again the whole process cannot be understood in terms methedology of the SAP, )o Q be o Ih is now possible to ses how the failure to break thesretically with cx . and with the method of analysis which considered the ‘youth venguard' in isoletion from the velation between the we king class and the revolutionary organi to a compounding of errors, The cadre organisation of the Spartacus z was premised on a highly roliticised student movement, therefore ail the iting

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& leadership was focused on something vhich was beginnine to digax the student movement was seen as something due to sudjecth August 1970 the N.C. stated thet ' ... at present the youth ally among students, is in a trough. The failure to react ‘age von and the downturn in the anti-imperialist movement show this very lure is mainly due to subject ive factors, especially the impetence of NSSF, It will be one of the mos > important functions of the Spartacus League to remecy this lack of leadershin,' At the same time as this theory was soins pe claimeé the vractice imposed by the objective situetion was leading the S.L, in quite another direction, It is significant for example that the first mejor activity of the Texdon S.L. was in soliderity with the dock strike. The IMG rapidly found itz at an impasse. It possessed an analysis of the objective structural causes of 'y 4 radicalisation' which hed been worked out in some detail and which was obvi Lots correct, Using the methodology of the SYP document, i.e. considerin isolation, this should have produced a radicalised movement, This one section of the organisation and it was stuck to, On the other of another section of the organisation was leading it to orie ent tate more and ry directly to workers struggles. Initially however the clash inherent in all this developed within the theoretical framework and methodology of the SWP document on youth re icalisation and the theoretical basis of entryism.

The era of confusion.

The rapidly che enging practice of the organisation was first with a decision of the P.C. to adopt a document produced by Oxford industrial work, This document aa leretnen several valuable pointe.

Firstly, i¢ contained a correct analysis concerning the coming upsurge of the working class and the fact that any organisation with even a tiny base in the working class would: expand, but if no base existed an organisation would not benefit. From this it was easy bo predict the orowth of I.5. and the comparative lack of growth of the IMG.

Second’y, in its analysis of the changing consciousness of students it % t etal began an analysis of what 168 meant in historicel terms, This document coincided a bee beginning of some serious industrial work by the organisation and led to 4 of a change in emphasis in the Re. Mole, This begen to give increased cove industriai struggles and the beginning of the appearance of matorial, o,g. the | histery series, which would eliow our comrades to understand the situation in whic? they were intervening. However the Oxford decument largely ignored the theoretical” framework layed down et the 19°70 conference end the shift in emphasis was seen by .. most comrades as occurring within the analysis established with the setting up wi Spartesus League. In other words » the changes were seen as adiiini strebivs A period of confusion now set in whose first fruits came in the greet aninos: s revealed at the February 1971 Spartac us League conference, The greater involvement of the organisation in the working class led to a realisation that the analysis of. 1970 *.ad keon incorrect. On + bhe other hand’no alternative theoretical fran i We athand., Tac objective impact of the introduction of the documents on indust work was therefore relatively traumatis, Worse still the document lereely sheret the methofology of the positions it wes oriticising in that it poged the volitical questions in terms of allocation of forces to different areas of intervention, Ore section of the organisation understood the necessity for greater of forces to intervene in the working class but saw this as an administratiy fnether section of the organisation had a theory, ‘the youth vangua rd 5 which actually simultaneously two different theories - one a sociological theory political theory. Under the impact of this extreme methodological confusion centrifugal tendencies were set up in the organisetion, The politics of inte: were being subordinated to questions of allocation of forces, and the geners talk of 'priorities' was far from being understood in a political sense.

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Tt must also be pointed out that other secondary manifestations of our incorrect political method were also rife at this period, One was a genuine ultva-left current, This was a direct product of entryist methodology, As we noted entryism had not distinguished between the ideological and the organisational hold of the Labour rarty.

Tn consequence, when comrades saw that the organisationa el hold no longer existed they, operating with this methodology, drew the obvious conelusion that the ideological hold did not exist either, Hence ultre-left Lem Another confusion, far less importent at the time but symptomatic, was e failure to understand the difference between social < democratic and Bolshevik concepts of "the difference between trade unionism and politics.

Social democracy makes the distinction by the place in which they occur, Bolshevism by the consciousness of the people involved. However if you take the Bolshevik principle of pursuing the political struggle but apply it to the social democra distinction rou ef course get the result of declaring that the struggle in the | is by definition economic end not political. In its “yltra- left guise this apoca in the ‘Lenin! issue of the Mole and in its reformist guise it of course under: the Tendeney's contention that e . greater allocation of forces to intervention in working class is 'workerism!. it ean thus be seen that the failure to break with empiricism was exacting a tremendous toll.

This period of confusion was probably an inevitable one to go through (only a radical change in practice could bring the new problems to the forefront) and a rapt developmert in dealing with the problems was being made in the period before the 19 7 conference: The framework of a new methodology was found in an analysis of the process the decay of post-war capitalism (the failure to solve the question of about expendi t ure) which produged a particular basis for a radicalisation of youth, and its interrelation with the key political process of the period 1945-68 (the continvation of the celoniel revolition with the simultancous political pessivity of the European . . ‘, working class, } This anelysis, which constitutes a general historicel analysis of the con}uncture both within the vanguard organisations and within the working class was firgt . . o> eo . spelt out in embryonic form in the Cxford document on industriel work. The relevant passages noted thet 'IMG's ebility to maintain and extend its position in the student field will depend on its ability to extend its base OUTSIDE the student field.’ 'If,wé do not adopt such an orientation the IMG will not only never be a serious force in the revolutionary ‘struggle, but it wilh rot even be able to maintain itself in thage | areas where it now has some age', and, in relation to the coming (i.e. 1970" truggies of the working cl lass, ‘In these conditions revolutionary organisations having tecnolds inside the class will be cble to grow very rapidly in influence, it will probably become harder to influence developments from outside. So tae IMG must establish these toeholds inside the class NOW or it will be unable to benefit from anc. contribute to the mobilisation of the class against the anti~union leys! and:' .,. if no small teeholds within the working class are created bef FOES, this oe we will be unable to gain.from or to influence the upsurge of the class,! 7 which must be seen egainst the background of a general ‘spilling over! theory of periphery and centre, were highly relevant and have been amoly confirmed, Lb must be admitted however that, as noted earlier, they were posed inside an administrative framework. A more political analysis of the samc points was made in a dooumer 'A turn to industrial work, e political and not an administrative question! produced for the 1971 conference, tt Wes eround the theoretical basis of this document that a commen analysis was worked out. The political voints made in thig document remain absolutely valid, and are therefore reproduced here in full; Heaa 4 The feature of, the. wor rid situation which has dominated all alse besn the economic boom-in the impe erlalist states. This has led to a re passivity of the industriel working class in these countries, In turn, the pattern of investment and exploitation it created, added to the con in the states dominated by Imperialism, and also in the workers states, ied to a great heightening of social tensions and greet increase in stru these states, in particular, the colonial and semi-colonial countries.

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the world.’ In curn, population in the impe na * the leader ship of thess struggles only occasional successes have beon achieved . but the continuel uvheavals have trans¢ formed the situetion in two thirds of $h ; ws x i ‘ase events heve affected the consciousness of section jalist states themselves, | 12. The ecenomic boom was achieved ‘on the cheap', What increase there was in a the standard of Living of the working class wes confined almost entirely to consumti of "luxury! consumer goods, In perticula xr, the problems of education, health | enc housing were reletively untouched. The effects of .25 years of unresolved problems in these fields is now begi aning to make itself felt in en acute form, This is oce : at a time when capiteliar is less able than at any time in the lest 25 years to tresolu these porevlems (i.e. it ig now less able to throw sons to the working cless),' 13, These problems affect most acutely eroups Iporiphered to the indus. vrded WoL class. This is because these grouns have not had the 'pay packet reformism! working class ~ i.e. the ability through trade wion action to increase earni sufficiently to alleviate even slightly the effects of capitelism'’s inabi esolve the problems of social exo menditure. These peripherel groups ° directly and acutely from these failures, This effect is heightened ¢ present time by conjunctural factors related to the general contradictions of ca ism, E.g, students are affected by the need to expend education to cope with ism's need for specialised manpower but simulteneous inability to finance it; blacks are affected by the general racialism of imperialism and by the inabi! overcome tae problem of social expenditure, bub also conjuncturally by capite: need io split the working Giass in order to attack it im a way it hes not been forced to since 1%5,! + he ‘peripheral! grouns would pert 4 the In periods before 1945, the social un S bruggles of the industrial vorkrc have found its nebural Je sdership in the poli g ng class, However, due to the relative polit ssivity of the working class, this has aot occurred, Although the working class 4s tne only class whi ich : ig conpable of resolving the contredictions of capitelism which affect these other groups neverthe eless it does not aut omatically gein the leadership of all the oppressed sections of society. It only gains this leadership when it shows in i thet only the proletariat has the physical power, social cohesion, “politica 2, etc, to destroy the particular oppressions suffered by these other west the same way that a revolutionary party geins the leadership of the + 28 class in action and not through abstract propaganda, so the working class will only gain the leadership of these ather groups when its level ef political acti a BI is greatly raisec, The need to unite ell thease struggles under the leadershin ths working class will therefsre be resolved in aection.; 2" ° re) Pare wes est in tical s ical x Sa ck an gy ae: shi 2 Because the working class has been relatively politicelly passive it hag not. drewn teginé it in its struggle ‘ail the oppressed end exploited’, i.e. these ctner groups do not see that their particuler oppressions can only. be. ended by the section of the workiug cless in overthrowing capitalism, Pfu in different eeens chi means that these groups have had a view of their position which coes not see as the central feature of tha working class, This was made explicit in ‘Marcus b! th j but. exist in most of the idess dominant in these peripheral eroupes Because of this wo had the appearance of 4 whole series of apparently unconsel ous 'vanguards', which find | nei political inspiration in the colonial scrugg! 2, asthese Pat an apparent alternative politicel focus to thet of the struggle of industr c ing classof P the imperialist stetes, All these movements Ja ok their natural toons in the struggle of the industrial proletariat, !

[page 12]

10 15, “he relative politiost passivity of the working class in no way indicetes « decline in the fighting strength of the working clags, On the contrary, the wor ‘king class ig now stronger than at eny time in its history. In eddition, the British working class has not suffered ea major defeat in the lest 25 years, It is thercfore $4 a cless merked by confidence in its won strength, ! 16, With the slowing down of the boom, several processes are working to increase the combetivity of the working cless and to increese its receptivity to revolt & socialiss ideas. In particulier, the boom has created expectations which capitr is now no longer capable of fulfilling. In eddition es pay packet reformism! less possible the working class bezomes more siamerviaan of those areas where the boom had littie or nod effect. In these circumstances, the struggle of the working will take a sharo upwerd turn, ' 7, with an increase in the political struggle end ectivity the groups peripheral to the working class. will begin to find their ~ that of the industriel proleteriat. Therefore these sbrugglos wilt take royal plexion mere allied to that of the ideology of the working class -— i.e.

These ‘vangrards! will be seen, and will increasingly see for themselves, thet probiens and struggles can only be reselved through the victory of the preleterins In other words their conception of their relation to the general. struggle inside sucloty will siter.! ig, These develonments will increasingly show the bankruptey of erude 'sectory theorles «hich believe thet it is possible to build up strength in groups of aa population per .1 to the working class in isoletion from involvement in “the class struggle f, On the contrary, it will become increasingly obvious the! by intervention in she struggles of the working class ig it possible even to ma ‘Jet alone extend, a position gaine sd in these other creas, As the struggle of working classinereases, those other groups in society which we heve discussed , increasingly look to the working class for leadership, end therefore unless we implanted in industrial working class our position will become untenable even in these other areas. This is of course quite apart from the fact thet a revoiution organise tion which is not impianted in the working class remains en historical ivrelevence. This was the. political mesning of the Oxford decument on industrial work which the N.C. accepted,' TO, ° This does not meen that during the coming poriod we cannet expect ti greetest gins amongst sections other than the working class. The processe above sre ones woich will work overs a period of years not of days. In addi extremely small sige of all the 'revolutionary! groups will cnable them el gains in those areas for a period so coms, Nevertheless, the under yn G1 deseribed, meaning that it will become progressively harder to maintei ond our position in these cther ereas without en implantation in the wozking cles therefere repeat that this is the analysis underlying the Oxford document, way ic thet document simply an | adminis ESE St batement On how te cerry out ip 2 ‘i amenaT a See roe mar itt co name union vork. “Tt presuovoses the tyne of politi above and m:

Sense outsivie of that “ang lysis. To apres nth th tho. concrete pr but to disagree with the analysis is to miss the point of the document,.' ‘70, Greatly i are offered by tne situation created py the | Tory anti~union mene 2480 surrounding these proposals will increase the political struggles of she. wor! class, and will therefore increase the extent to which the social goups alroe.¢3 referred to will tend to see the industriel working class as the ieaders of the struggle,!

This analysis was then backed up by a document on the economy end sosi expenditure also produced for the 1971 conference,

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ee Ph Tho core of the enalysis which has now become 'Teonventional wisdom! in the organisation was that it was the conjuncture of inability of capitalism to solve the problems of socinl expenditure (in the many remificetions of this), the continuing upsurge of the coloriel revolution (including the erisis of bourgeois ideology which this prodiuced) and the reletive quicscence of the European working class which produced the relatively awtonomous movements of radicelised youth. The upheavel of 1948 changed therefore the entire political frame work within which the radicelised-lsyers found themselves opereting end hence destroyed the besis for the outesomous movement of youth, By differentiating between a molecular (i.e, individuel) redicelisation ends movement we were able to explain simultaneously why why we are recruiting differen ally from :youth (ise. why the youth redicalisetion continued) and why the | Snartecu Leegue ned not developed in the wey expected, From that point onwerds (2) the, a sion on orientation had the potential to be placed in a political fremewor iJ (b) YE POC ssible to give « political and not edministretive end/or demagogzic explencbion for the reason why ¢ highly centralised cedre youth organisation such as the Sel: was not the correct orgenisational form at the present, A new ‘conventional w3 ih had been errived at in the group. In this field ea few tidying up operations still. remain to be performed. Scme are under way. For example y the analysis of why students would now only respond to organisations which intervened in the working cless Gid not appear to explain why on issues such as student files far bigger student responses | were fowid then on working class issues, Here there was a denger of a frlse position, The comrades working in the universities knew ib was only poss recruit if the organisetion was intervening orgenisationally in. the wor'<ing and yet also knew the response obtained on student issues, in terms of the mag larger. Here was en opportunity for an apparent counterposition end hence for ec dangerous false debate. This auestion could only be resolved by a deeper analys i the student milieu in terms of the distinction already made between e moveme en individual radicelisation, Once this was done it was possible to see the radicelisnation, i.e. general ‘liensiion! of students wos deepening but thet plitier! focus it remaincd on a localised and low level, It was there to predict both the continurtion of short term upsurgces on issues concerne directly student issues but that (..) for a movement to oceur an overtly po must erise (b) thet the most advanced students would still only be ctieacted. organisations actually intervening in the working class {c) because (2) did not to be on the agenda, end because ia order to intervene in the working cless it necessary to be part of 2 political organisation which extends 8 beyond the there would be a decline of the socinlist society milia nolaris:tion between tendencies within the university, dynamics of tne student milieu could be anelysed. It was necessary to. co stressing within the university the interve ention of the reenisation within class, and to allocate forces accordingly, but at the same time to expect sha on pure y student issues to wnich we needed to react : and tales the te wes coufirmed, and understanding of the comrades of it, y our reec union autonomy issue. As faz as I sm aware not a single unit of “the either of the parallel mistekes of declaring thet this movement was the main interest of ‘students! (unghalysed) wes on working class struggles, nero believing that this represented the beginnihg of a new student movement. size and the extremely low level of the movement 2 predicted. a sense an acid test. If our ideas had remained purely empiricel (i.e. 2 gome banility such s gs ‘striking a balance between student and working cla the orgonisation would undoubtedly have been extremely cisorientated by thi ment over student unions. Some comrades,reacting to the pressure of the stbuc milieu end failing to distinguish between movements and moleculer processes WO Le doubtedly have gone on a 'youth vanguard! binge (the Tendency of course have done s:) and the aims of the movement would heve been addwed as a justification for “th Other comrades, sceing that the best students could only be won by showing ser ef intervention in the working class, would heve pkkyed down the struggle op desex a ersion and led ug into a fa aise abstentionist position. I% is only an analysis unat allowed the organisation regpond ina relatively homogenous way and $ 2 q : g

[page 14]

pany aw =~ Tae ea. with no real disagreement, ae practical Impact of a correct theoretical cn was shown, Undoubtedly our interve mbion was deficient in meny ways, bus thes for once subordinate to our much cleerer understanding of the situation, therefore able to make all the running within the LODSU, , waen the IMG began the process of working out the impact of Mey ve and of the working class it had (although no-one ectually mew ite upsurge ~ succeeded in breaking with most of the methodology carried over from the dc ant a youth redicalisation presented to the last Norld Congress, Jt meant placing otagelt ve the fremework of the Ligue Communiste's analysis. A process of bresking the . rganisetion from its whole pest politicel method had begun, It was however practical consequences thet were most important at first. Once the distinction between movement and molecular process hed been made the theoretical justificetion for the S.L. no longer existed, It was only » period of time before fusion took place, This was recognised by the 1971 conference, The number one priority of sdirect orientation to the working class wes decided upon. Nevertheless, at thir point, ile a ghost from the pest, the old methodology creme creeping uo. To meke further sbrides the organisation :1ust break with the old ghosts. me The seal neture of our political tasks became clesrer when the generesl an hua conjuncture was epplied to the problem of the specific stage of develope British capitalism. This was carried out at the Septer E The anelysis 1 then still remeins ebsolutely relevant so again itis fully 'In the medium term there is no solution to Britein's economic problems. only real question facing the bourgocisie is whether it can stabilise the situ temporarily, Ultimately its ability to do this dopends on the state of the économy, Given thet the world capitalist economy docs not deteriorate markedls editorial in Internationsl (vol, 1, No. 6)) the bourgeoisie has to have e strat based on omasculation, but not as yet a definitive destruction, of the Orgel and-pover of the working class. In the medium its strategics for doing th entry into the Common Market, (6) the IRB, However, the effects of the will teke time to work themselves out, and the IBB cannot as yet be u a the decisive sections of the working class « as it would not as yet be tolexet wight well produce uncontrollable upheaval which the Tories are not —— pren face, The only vigible strategy for the IRB is to introduces it gradusily, i first against week sections; so eas to intimidste the rest of the working cls this will take time the IRB does not constitute a short term solution.'! apitelism three real s ; Cisive defest of a secetier ) Incroased unemployment; Teor dealing with the short term problems of were open to the eovernnont. These were: (a) The d the working class, thus spresdin. demoralisation. (c) An ineomes policy,'!

Cc e b ‘During lest winter the Torics aimed to defcat e section of the working class decisively. They did succeed in altering the balcnee of class forces in their favour but net decisively. The defeats of the rower men and postal workers were sufficient | to intimidate weak sections such as teachers and others not so weak such a To that extent the Tories have shifted the balance of forces in thei: x Povo. other hand the power workers was not seen as an absoiutely clear cus “defeat, although the UPW was defeated it was a prolonged end costly battle which aia the working class that it could be defeated with ease by the government. In: words, Herth has not adhieved his aim of erecating the atmosphers inside the worki class where trade unionists are beginning to adopt the attituce that ‘it is impogsibic to win!! Tt is now seen as harder te win but not impossible, This situation is

[page 15]

increas! the sorking ciass wit organise 2 gections, {ih is the wes! still for seath, no sed workers in orivate industry, ; mean Victory, was a situation where the individvel comprny was its kces, A decisive defest for the government was only prever of Jones and Seanlon.! of the well organ ‘A cituation of extreme complexity therefore exists, I goversment has now established 2 strong position. However, in although defeats heve been sufferad, no reel impression hes noon mad organised, All that is clear. here, “however, is thet it is no Lon: sectional struggles at the level.of a si plant - hence the bi unofficial strikes. Given this situation in privete industry the “eniployers are a dg Jooking in two directions simultenescusly, One section is looking for a deel wi unions co as to cool the miiitancy. This is the meening of the CBI initictive prices. Another section is looking towards more desperate solutions, henes 4 carefully prepared BEF plen to destroy DATA which would undoubtedly have becn out into effect if it were not for the fact that DATA is now part of the ATEW, come of the struggle within the bourgeoisie will be determined br the attitude adopted by the unions toverds suggestions of en incomes policy.! he policy of incrcased unomployment as a solution to militancy in the shyct tern was being much cnanvessed emongst the bourgeoisic last winter, Now, it has run into several internal costredictions, The most - importent of that weile 2 stagnant economy coas not ha mM bourgeoisic!s competitive position all other economies are stngnant, ¢ petitive position if other economies are still expending , (even 1 ; or 4960s), the SEY in vorticular hes dooided that 23 of productivity etc. would now b. too great if unemployment were raised devel whi. appears necessary to defeat the working class. It must that this represents a marginel victory for the militancy of the working Under the old type of Paish ‘Economist! thin aking o level of unemployment 800,000 was considered to be sufficient to destroy the fignting spirit of + working ¢less. The bourgeoisi aw was prepared to tolerate the degree of which this would represent, However, although uncnploynent, in true terms, aching twice this figure, it has made no rec impact on working ° c : il 44 is doing is creating a gre r : oer blow to the working ciass the bourgeoisie now gelouls vbES thet a f around 1# ~ 2 million would be necessary and the decline in competitive position which this would represent is not yet acecpteble (partic ina period in which it is necessary to prepare for intensive European cor 2for ore, elthough the bourgeoisie certainly + will keep unemployment « ficcntly higher then in the early 1960s, possibly 700,0C0 ~ £00,000, conceive at present of unemployment as the decisive weenon in it 6 ERO now more interested in restimilsating the economy so ns to improve 14s compe than it is in outfacing the working clase in « provonges war of attrition the subject of unemployment. This morgine) victory = the working cless is entirely due to the militancy of inst winter, withous “ht the ruling class would’ undoubtedly be far more concerned with using unemployment as «a weapon, he a th iayiey SS or y smash a section of the working class iD ‘Having failed to decisivel es direct conronsetrons end seeing unemployment and stagnation as a two edged + Ms some sections of the bourgeoisie cre now looking tovards en incomes policy wi ha necessary corollary of ea deed with such union leaders as Jones and Scanion, Is 2... however, important to realise whet such a policy would meen at present - it » ; net mean that the govern mmont would make cceacessions to the ‘rade unions , but. it would hope to intimidate the rmnions into « deal. blatent vicious attecks would mav2 it impossible for Jones and Ser policy to their members, The bourgeoisie is therefore engeged in

[page 16]

vr de om delicate mnnocuvre of teying to be repressive enough to intimidate the burenucrats, without telng so repressive (2) to infuriete the renk and file end provoke. ‘oxplosi woes Luse of the extreme complexity of this manocuvre, quite considera ne S eee ons af e bourgeoisie sare con winced thet it cennot be carried out and ere O te any displey of 'weekness! which might be involved in oven cotherine to. conan with the unions. The bourgeoisie is therefore et present split and indecisive, Because of the acuteness of the situation, however, this situation of indecision cann continue. Which section of the bourgeois line is edepted depends not on developments within the ruling class, but on the bslance of forces within the working class.! ‘The position of the mein wnion leaders is et present extremely delicate. vn the one hand the-introduction of the IRB, the level of unemployment, etc., has forced their memberships in the direction of groater militency. This wes clearly shown at the TONG and. AUEW conferences, In order to maintain a left image the leaders sre therefore themselves foreed to talk more and more ‘left', On the other hand ; leaders, orobably better then the sank end file, understand the extent to which the government has upped the stakes in terms of whot commitment is ne scessary to wit & major strike, They know, for example, that to win the massive claims that wiil urcoub'edly be submitted this autumn by the dockers; municipal workers end, most important all, engineering workers, would involve. confrontetions on a massive scale that wot (a) completely elter the political situertion - in particular icad to 2 rapid righ ~ evolution of the bourgeoisie; (b) destroy all confidence both in foreign and Bri apital, A massive confrontation such as this would, therefore, precipitate eon acute ial and political crisis of a type not seen since 1945. This crisis would bs extremely sharp end harsh in that economically the British bourgeoisie cannot se the working class to burn itsolf out, as it is attempting to doin Iteiy, but would be forced to try to dep in end try to defeat the working class in a mejor confrontation, The trade union leaders are well aware of this and therefore are terrified of such 2 36r te, On the cther hand the 'lefts! sre extremely worried by th situation jin, for example , the AUEW, where a clear tendency more militant then Seenion has emerged. % merely, therefore, is thé tuation for the pourgcoisic extromoly tense but so is it for the lesders of the ste he ag. we) Yo Pe pay > qT decisive sections of the working eclasa.!

This basic analysis of the forces at vork has so fer been completely born cvt pened -- sec for exemple the first b ; D oS OQ a cyt y events and hes only needed subsequently to be dee ection of the miners strike pamphlet and Robin Blackburn's article on the government in the Red Mole. It is howover necessary to meke a modificstion 21 soncrete wey in which the forces have worked thomeol.ves out. qj “ck a CG The September N.C. document suggested thet giver the new sbretegy of government the most likely outcome wes thet the burceuerecy would not lnunch wage of ousive. Tne most likely outcome of csvents was ofter a possible last struggle « downturn of struggle, particular‘y of weakly organised sections, vu a sharp redicelisation of existins militents, Obviously the miners strike modi this assessment of the reletion of forces somewirt, although it docs not is , the besic analysis of the clements of wor’: in the situstion. This voint is in section six bolow. However the brsic structure of the en alysis remains untouched, Therefore again the conclusions may be still reteined intect, The modificetions are dealt with in seetion six, ‘If, however, there is a downturn in mass struvgle, exa etly the opposite 1 be occurrine for individual adie splisation inside the working cless. A rapic solecular radicalisation has already begun end is increasing in intens?

Some of ths nev layer of politicd sed workers will enter the GP, many are uno but a gignificent section i.e, several hundred, will probably onter {iS in the con period, It will, however , be intervention in this layer that will be. decisive us, We did not gain in the 1970-71 upsurge beceuse we had no base in the working eless (seu the 1970 Oxford document for an enelysis of this) and we will not in the next upsurge cither unless we do not begin to grin footholds now, If we crn

[page 17]

> 3 a VW 5 i do this goo possibilities exist as whet cen be definitoly predicted is thet the longer the next ups surge is deleyed the more violont it will be when it comes.

Fortunately objective > Circumstances for geining footholds in the working cless ere extremely favoursble, in that the leyer of newly radicelised militents is sub sioionbiy large the:, although e cortain number will join IS, there will stiil be a for us to work in, The swing to the right which Is taking piece inside the white collar unions will load to a sherp political polerisetion here, while in the la manual uxvions there are already signs cf a new Inyer emerging which will chails Seanlon end Jones from the point of view of more militancy. We ere. probably co: to the end of the pericd cf mesmeric hold over militants by the esteblished '2 leadership. (Tt-should be noted that this will create problems of en extreme neturs for the CP which will be forced to make a choice between boing cutflanked and a relation with the left bureaucracy). Indeed the objective situation hes never 6 better for reertl tm nt. The only reel question mark is the a 5O respond to it,'! 8 ~ sbility of the ove 'The key feature of the past period tas been that although the upsurge of militancy reached unprecedented le-els, its organised volitical reflection was vir ually nil, Sone of the reasons for this are due to the entire development of capitelisiz since 1945 (see A, Jones ~ ON THE TRADE UNIONS, THS LABOUR PARTY AND OTHER QUESTTO if STRATEGY, Part 2) and others are due to the particular conjuncture, ! ‘The veriod Nov. 1970 - March 1971 represented a great political failure for two orgenisations. These were the IWC and the OP. Both had the possibility to 2a politics al movement snd both were so tied to the union bureaucracy that they could nob.

The left wing of the constituency Lebour Party could not meke an interve bhecaus® (a) the ideology of Social Democracy does not allow for political lease of TASS industriel ¢ actions (b) | the Social bage oF the oe consti tuenc ies part s f their ‘role “under “the Wilson | ae pak foes 'Tre IVC and CP eonld have created a 4. to molecular ee at they did not, n ovement developed and the lsyer of newly politicised end radicalisec round no focus for their activities, In the coming period there is uch a focus eppearing a 2nd it is therefore almost certsi the present situati fa molecuier, fragmented redic: etermine to some extent the mode, although not the cries tion, if baey had broken away from the bureanercey, but given that political x tr 'The key long term factor in determining the course of the upsurge in working class will be changing attitudes to the Lebour Party. A detailed on this is given in Jones ibid. Inthe medium term the analysis still remains that there is likely to be no reel movement or return to ective invelvement constituency parties without 2 shift to the ‘eft inside these organisations themselve Given that this shift is unlikely °“o cceur for = number of se isl reasons and for reasons conuected with the ideolosy of social democracy ther e is no necessity ac yet to consider as a primary tectic that of roturning to entryisn Yithout such a return to the constituency parties on the part of the working class, " the i main, stouctarel contrediction within the working class movement wi trade unions and the leadership of the Lebour Party, and not betwe parties and Wilson and co,, still remeins velid, Inthe slightly Jon things need to be kept en eve on: a v 5 fe) There | is now quite det initely, an nd Jas been since approximately 1964 ‘ses tion of the Labour Fa ety which hes cbendonod .ttempting to base bourgeois politics sn 2 base us eround Roy Jenkins congti tutes a tendency ¥

[page 18]

in no sense, except that of formal leadershiv of the Labour Party, is a within the workers' movement. It is no longer seeking e base inside the go bub instead seeks to create a base within the bourgeoisie, In this sense the chou Party can now be characterised as a Ponular Front within one party. for the fact that no social base exists for a party based sociologically i an ourgesietie (c.f, continental radical and 'socialist! parties) Jenkins et al y W' not be in she Labour Party at all. However. the L.P. still remains a party of the working cless. If a struggle shovtd develop between this extra-working class current and an ortiiodox Social Democratic ving, interest in the DP misht be increased. This would not automatically lead to re-involvement in the constituency parties (as ay ea Gepends now mich struggle occurs there whether a return to activity oceurs cr not) but the situation needs to be watched. (The debate on the Common Market incicates she potential. that exists for a fight here), (b) One way the left T.U, bureaucracy will almost certainly try to get itself off the hook is by declaring that while they themselves (fer various reasons) cannot fi the Tories, it is nevertheless necessary to wage a political ficht, and everyods f work for the return of a Labour Government as the highest prisrity. The constituescy ‘lefts! will of course encourage this as it is their only chance of regeining a secial base, See a whole series of articles in Tribune}, For this reason in various areas specific organisations for trade unionists in the L.T. are either being set uo or talked about, Generel developments in this field need watching. Ih should be noted, however, that even if such a trend develops, (1) it does not invalidate our general orlentations as regards the pleces of structural strain inside the working eless movement, (ii) Even if Jones and Seanlon threw all their weignt in this . tion it is doubtful how successful it would be, and in any case the new more milit layers emerging to their left would almost certainly have nothing to do with it,' 'The only general point thst needs making is thet in areas of parbiculer political backwardness (e.g. New Towns, small outlying towns, etc, ) we can expect to see a revival of life in the L,P, in the coming period, and the question of allocating gome forces to short term 'reid' entry work may therefore be placed on the egende these areas, !

[page 19]

(“Althoush by the September N.C. a very eraat deal of esrcement had been racched on an assessment of tha conjunctura, and the main outline of this ansilyeis remains vaiid, neverthdless the problems of the organisation, and tha problems within its loadership. appeared to got little batter. This was due to “tho fact that tic first ettempts cf the IMG,.to relate in practical terms to the chenging reality were naturally mede in terms of the axisting mothodolcsy of the crganisation - thet is to say in terms of an implicity acceptance cf the capiricist mathcdclogy of the SWP dscument on youth radicalisation (and of the eaxiior break with entryism). What naturally cecured was that each sector of intervention was treated in 4a seperate sociological senso and not in terms of political en-ordinates, We have alraady looked at students, so it is now worth looking briefly at soma other oxamples. In fact every cde must be ewarg of tens of similar examples ~ even the very structure of most of our conferences with bhoir division into "youth work", "bleck work", Mywome ns wor", forkers work", young workers work" ete indicated the predominat train of thought, ‘ (4) SCHOOL'S WORK (this soction is taken from a document of C. Marshall) The "schools movement" cama into being in 1968 efter the May-Juno upsurge in France. Tt was.one of a series cf inter-relatad upsurgers of rebellion anong young people, other obvious examples being in highor cducaticn and the prest mass mobilisation for Oct 27th. zactly. ané& in the best traditions of the organisation, IMG sought : “in this movement of school students. Much less correctly, Wa went ints it cn an ideological br sis of (roughly speaking) peing the best Fighters: Sox an SAU and for "dom ads" of an essentially liberal ‘charactor which SAU ane xolated formations advanced; we conceived that we wore the best fighters “because wa had the thoory or crganisaticn ( (IB: an-clagss organisation! )) and also because we had "tha program". (Sees Schocis Work, “by Ni New & by lansky, It 1970 Conforence, also SL Founding Conf. "PB Resn on Youth") i.G: wa wens in on the basis of, on the one hand, presambation of liberal ("deme-~ ovatic!) idesas ana on the other of invocations of “tha program", socialism and the prelotariat. A related misconception was to present as "trensitional” demands" Gemocratic demands which the bourgeoisie will (in Britain) nevor be able to on s this being done partly in the hope of mobilising "masses" cf peoria, ons of thousands".

Quite | A Neoodtt exposition of this general approach can ba found in the text of Marveay €rlth in Inter 1/8 (Old Series, Dec. '68)3 the case ha discusses is _students, but the approach for school-students was the same. As is easily sean, #WG wore Zar too ready to accept the line propounded by SWP. (NB cdo Smith hes since @ changed his position).

The theoreticel onslysis of schools work remainod unchanged from its commercement Gill July 1971. The worst oxample is the 1970 statement that becausc yvorking class school students reject school they ara bad material for Sonwc) Unions (a concept never questioned at the tine) and by ‘“mplication for our schools work. Whoreas cne would have thought that, notwithstanding practical difficulties (on our part: vocabulary, cadre ctcs on tharrs, unfamiliarity ith politics, unreliability) any student who rejects in toto the bourgeois schoo. oughi to be ready-made me terial “for our scncols wor work. Should that @ case tho. “Wrauit' TILE + well bo bo supposed “to jie in our schools work and not the working class rebels. Tris sama thought ccntinues in the April 71 Schools Caucus textd, ed indeed in thosa of July-August. Tho whol. method is bourgeois sociology: endless speculation about ideas in voople Contradictions are define. as within idaolozy- or “potwoon “Fdeolo a: (All this antil very recently).

Tho discussion cn transitional memands - at long last a program of "democratic and txansiticnel demands" for school students is iene, HAVING BEEN TSSUED PUBLICLY! -- contains the germ of a new idea, One ides only was cf any value?

[page 20]

a OY ~ To = "ST am defining a J Eber fans na (demooretic demand) as a demand w vlutes (such as..'it isntt fair! or you've ¢ itional demand as a Camand which is oxplicitly cisss 2 18 3 bra. out the ci-ss character of a strugele. and therefore sides (A damand 'sides'! - om) woth the working class against the bourgeoisic., posing the question cf powar and contro? for the online ClaASS.zceuceo!

Now this was a step forward, but also two staps ba eee What. is inmediately obvious is thet tha definition cf a liberal demand is absurd idealism, wheraas ths nee thon of a transitional demand is more gibberish, especially in view of the iterated invocation of "the working clase" and the final conclusicn that 2 miniman progremmo was whet was needed, (2) “BRITISH OXYGEN WORK"In May this yeer A,Jone and R.H. wrote a pamphlet on British Gcyeon together with some militants in e depot of that company. This pamphlet was a limited success (about 200 boing sold ~ mainly by militants in British Oxygen). It was very well received and graatly raised our cradibiiity and prestige with the militants with whom we wore working. This pamphict was a strictly agitational pamphlet ~ that is to say it was designed to explain a ew idess to a relatively large number of people. In this caso the ideas wore thesa concerned with 2 wage negotiation. The slogans worked out wares *& straight £7 pay increase with no strings cor redundancies *An automatic cost of living increase to cover incraases in and. any government changos in tax.

Th depots to.be staffed by umion Labour *An individual vote by each depot on accepting any proposals affecting it *Pull involvemant of representatives of the depcts at ail stages of the negotiations. nm the cost of living The slogans were roughly corract for 2 pe dod - aig mmeddatly before astrike. Thu main idess expressed wero that productivity deals lod to redundancy and that British Oxygen was hoping to use the IRB vo weaken the workers organisation.

These slogans and ideas were ta-an up by the stewards in the depot we were in contact with and they pushed for them both amongst the members at Hackney ond on the area shop stewards committees. Js such thoy were the only coherent opposition group to the eventual defeat. Although the strike was dofeated + stewards still saw the demands as being corract and if anyt hing moved closer towards us. All in all it is possibisa to say that quite a gcod beginning to our vork was made, At. this point however tha mass-up bogan. The task that was set was defined as belns "British Oxygen work", that is te say as setting a base in British Ox, As «ach it became a sub-department of the woxk cf the organisation. What vos than pursued was ways of influoncing things in British Oxygen. This was completely the wrong question to ask. In fact two questions were involved. (a) The political question; what political ideas do wa put forward to being the militants wo are in contact with closer tc the idezs of the IMG? ) The organisational quastion; How do we omganise to gain a base in British Oxygen.

Ae a sesult of thosa two points baing confused the cdes involved saw their task as primarily trying to link up militents in POC, preduce bulletins otc.

All these ware parfectly corract things to do but they wera in ne way adequeta, All that would be achieved was for us to mako mora effiei ont trade unionis*.s out of people. Furthermore in practice the organisational rosourcas ware net available. If !BOCG work" was gcing to be a seperate item, than seperate mone power, seperate idoas, seperata leadership discussion would have to be alice: to it. In practico anyway we are too woak to appear credibie to militants ‘by doing this. Tha moment ancther larger tendency for exarnpie IS had started doing work in the companywe would heve lost our real relation with the miditants What in fact occurred was that ‘°..Jones had to undertake other work an nd in consecucnuca the work stagnated Jor a period. A promising beginning was nov

[page 21]

EISATTON the organisational cc msequences produced by this "sectoral! methodology ware of necessity disasterous. At the level of lesdsrship it meant a proliferation of bodies and crganisations dealing with all our "sectors" of work, At various times we have worked through at least the following bodies.

IMG, SL, Red Circles, SWGs, I5Cs, VSC, Black DCs3 Anti-Int.league, Sats, TUs, Trade Councils, NUS3 "student Orgs (eg SocSocs), WNCC, WAG(s), B.Desh ovens, defence cttees (Ceylon, Bolivia), Bleck orgns, tenants orgns; This works out at_ons organisation per 11 members} Wa operated througna a systen of coo oimittees ‘etc on a national level which includes the following: IMG NC, PC & Sects SL NG & PBs RM & Inter BBs; ISC ECs Inde-C NBs SW EBs Women's Commissions Irish Commission, Education Corra, :

Science Comms Economics Commissions TU Coras Unempleyment Comms Anti-Tiip & FL Comm: SL Stu SCttess schools aucus of SL. That is approximately cne leading body for every 19 members cf the organisation, and almost exactly one for gach member of the IMG NC. :

Furthermore, our invariable respcnse when faced with a problom was either a initiate a ‘literary discussion” or tc ... establish a commission. In th circounstances the laadership found itsalf at endless internal meetings ana nothing was ever achieved. In tarms of tha rest of the orranisation, the worst effects of this incorrect methodclogy were seen in London. These howaver are dealt with st length in a sepsrate document by ede Kiein, and ara therefore not sone into here, The final crowning absurdity was STUGs (Socialist Trade Union Groups). The Significanca of these can however be most clearly understood if placed in the context cf our developing analysis of the conjuncture and. are therefore dealt with thore. (See alse documents by king & C. Marshall) What was involved in the amazing amount of confusion involved in our work was a sgtematic confusion batwean two things; between where we intervene and on whet issue wae intervene, This cistinction is in fact glaringly obvious and indeed was dealt with in a classical form by Lenin in his polemic against tha Economists. .Lenin states “working class consciousness cannot be genuine volitical.consciousness unlas the workers ara trained to respond to all casas of tryanny, oppression, violence and abuse, no matter what _elass | is affacted - unless they ara traincd, moraovar, to respond from a Social-Demoer atic voint of view and no othar. Tha consciousness of the workings masses cannot be genuine class- conve sciousness, unless the workers learn, from concrete and above all from topical. political facts and events, to observe every cther social class in ab the manifestations of its int actual, ethical and pelitical life, unless. they 41 learn tc applyin practice the meterialist analysis and materialist ostinate of all aspects of tha life and ey of all. classes, strata end groups of the population. Thosa who concentrate the attention, observation, end consciousness of the working class sxelusively, om oven molnly, upon itself alone, are not Social-Demccrats, for the self knowledga of the-working class is indissculubly bound up. not solely with a fully clear theorstical understanding ox xrether, not so much with the theoretical as with the practical understanding - of the relationship between all the varicus classes of modorn sociaty, ace quired through the exporicnee of political Life." (Ss VOR R155) » In short what Lenin is saying is that tho issues revclutionaria aise amongst the working class, or any saction of the population, mist be not simply. the iseves of snat section but those of all political problems of society. For example we may ask tho working class to struggle on a political issue affecting, for example students. in short, as noted. there exists a distinction batwean where wa intervene, and on what we intorvenc, a The absolute simplicity of this idea was obscured at ona level by the yooabulery which we used. The terms "women's work", "black work", "student work" ete arc systematically ambignous between "work amongst women" and “work on the issuc of woman's oppression", "work amongst blacks" and "work.on the question cof black

[page 22]

rn ~ 2d N oppression", A Tailure to distinguish the two is disasterous, For exampla 1t is highivy dubious if the correct yay to do work emongst blacks is’ primarily n the quastion of black oppression yat wo had a "black caucus" in London which 1b one time moved close to arguing that so raise other political-issues other then black oppression amongst blacks was politically incorrect. This was feccnonisni! with a vengance, Obviously work amongst 2 section cf the population and woxk on the question of the oppression of a section of the population ney be interrelated, but they are in concoptual.torms completely distinct. For example we nay present anti-racist ideas in the trade unions, we reise the issue of unsmolo;vment amongst omployod workers, wa raise the issue of Ireland esmongst studonts, we raise tha issue of women oppression amongst malo trade unionists ete, Once thig clementary distinction is made, then much becomos at once clear, For exampl2 we sea that it would have benn entirely correct for a black caucus to raise the issua of Ireland, for us to do our schcol work on issues affecting those who rejected school atc.

It is ho.ever necessary to look deaper than thesa distinctions, although important. for the reasons for tha incorrect methodology of work and its practical consequences. At one level it eas certainly the concepts of “wormin's work", "studant work!, that was responsible for the orrors but wo must now ask where these concepts came from. It is at this point that the discussion at the NC's becoma crucial.

Supposa for the moment that it is the cass that it is possible to have transiti sectors. The jcb of the organisation is obviously to formulate a transitionel progranme for this gvoup - hance for example the S¥Ps transitional yrogranmes for blacks, women, chicano's ate. It is then the organisations task to povulartisa such &@ prosran ma, But whet ara the comensnts of the programme, Obviously, for example, the deme.d of a slidirys scale of wages or hours, or the formation of the workers militea is not a demand "fox" students, similarly the demand of free abortion on demand is not a demand "for" male trade unionists.

What in fact is the case is that these progranmes relate to the specific probi of the particular sector of the population. Hence the "transitional" preex raised relates to the position of that group of tha pepulation. Undar the guiss of "transitional" programmes whet is actually cccurring is tha intzo~ duction of a method of work whore we speak te blacks on the problam of blacks, to: women on the question of women, to students on the questions of students ot Thic is the logic behind the "single issue mass campaigns" approach but a moze subtle way behind all the balls ups wa have described. Consider for example cur intervention in the Jan 23rd student demenstration if we had accanted this methodology. Wheat we would have done would have bean to have soncoctad some "transitional programme" for students. Our political intervention wouid have bees focused around this. In practice we would have capitulated to the CP buresucrats who wantad to confine the demonstration to student issues, all . “we woul have done was chanted more "radical" slogans. . Take also examples such as black work otc. Thora is howover en even dsaper- level to which one can pursuc the question of transitional prozram "for" sectors. Quite claariy it is impcssible for a sector a.g¢. women, students etc. to overthrow capi- 40 have 2 transitional programms v h does not overthrow capitalism. The tendency a are of course quite axplicit about this in their theory of "demoors and transitional demands", __.Qnce the principle is accepted that there exists transitional 20s for sectors, than ow is logically bound to admit that there ca ex rensitional programmes wich do not destroy capitalism (and conversely or course if cna accepts that troansiticnal programmes do not smash capitalism but fulfill some function such as "mobilising tha masses" a raising consclousness ete then there ig’ no reagon why there cannot exist transitional ia

[page 23]

accepysd then the work of tha aRGuhe es end ssctors, 6 Clearl Lv rc ties) .ivancing prosramnes 2S which £ A8Co vt capitalism i programmes for sectors). Once this p organisation becomes fragmented into ona | find « some reason to “dafand 2 ad tb is f , Found ¢ “either in in “the rr of long iousnoss 3 reising" leads tu consciousness being equated with idaas) ox to. “yobilisin (i.e. to classic Economist pos itions). In the case of the e SWP this mothod is applicd logically and leads to the approach of tm mass (i.g, mobilising funeticn) singlo-issue (i.c. considered in isolation with confusion of whorg invorvening and on waat ‘intervening. ocorionism) © canpsign’ on. damocratie and transit dona (i.e. accepting capitalism/reformist) domands. In our case the influence of the Bensaid and ScalabPino methodology prevented us from going tha whole he and instead we.-finished up with the miserable electic hodge-~podge whesa results have already bean described. What we have to do now is the broak this empiricist methodology once and for all. This is what makes the theoretical points outlined at the begianing cf this document of immediate practical importance and not a mere nitpicking. What in fact happens with the methodol of the SP document, (a) Reformist programmes (b) talking to sectors only as tne problem od soctcrs and in short a tendency to adapt to various pettybourgeois movoments, + Ses Appendix Two

[page 24]

Me PRO hotning re bo et pr OP pogands, we OUPR 2 prop onan Group to a leagua fc fe) action, Much has’ changed in ous understanding of whet.thet meens but the strategic aim remains the same. Tn & rtais areca however, that of the vanguard of the working class, wa however nave a differant task - moraly to start work. In order to do that however wa have to assess the situation within the working class.

Phe task which the IMG set itself at the 1970 conference was for #oing fron r ra ry ty i ¢ The September N.C. fixed at least a relatively ccomnon analysis of the situation, hoyvyaver a sreat deal of confusion was also caused. A rather confused debate tock place on whether the main vriorit anisstbion shculd be wor on Trelanc. cr equal weight should be wiven to: work on “the question of unempl % is. now yossible to ses that this debate was misconceived in its torms > reference. in fact a great deal of argument ccvld have been avoided if oniy ay tk hen we had maneged to work ovt tha distinction betwean where wa intervene aud on what political issue we intervene. (i.e. the political tasks of the org the organisational tasks). Put in the correct term the point was and follows: It is clear that work on the politicel issue cf Ireland mst be 4 priority for British revolutionaries at tha present period. Howevar the has set itsalf the primary crganisational task of begirning to gain an i in the working class. inoue therefore political work on tha issue of Ire ulfill this organisational task? The answer given by the analysis Septembar NC document + was no. Prom this it followed that the organisat undertake another political task which would allow us to move tovards ace an imdlantation. However at that tine the : ot on G o.d conecapts of ‘womens work!, lunemployment work! atc, still dom aated thou ght. As a reguit two confusi ocgured o” a gexious nature, Firstly the wayin which the question cf whether 'Treland' ox tIreland and Unemployment! wore the priorities was posed appes suggest cuat the issue was of whether the two issues were of equal importance, iustend of saving that wa nead two main priorities comrasponding to different organissticnai tasks, Secondly, the concept of ‘unemployment work! was as usual totally ambiguous betwaan whether what was referred to was ‘work cn the pelitical issue of unemployment: or 'work amongst the unamployed!. What the author of the main parspactives documents intended was ‘work on the political issue oF unemployment with the organisational task of carrying out such work amcngss smployed workers!, However this was ambig a3 ; Pod f edeguata concepts. In conssquenca some paople FY Of whather organising the unemployed was as importar ni on the issue cf Treland. Quite correctly they asd a however ths appropriate ways of formulating the thi ing ware o sontod out agreement FS : reached by most of the les ndership. Unfortunately however this was a never worled cut explicithy and stated - hence the great confusion on the astion of tun auploynwnt work! inside the organisation. Some cdes say their ask a8 organising the unemployed, and aes thera apnpsared to be no rea of this bacame demoralised, when in fact it covld have been predicted beginning a mass unomployvad movemant oe not appeay, and the real aim was to make contact with trade unionists. Here asnin the practical impor hance or theoretical questions is shown. In fact work on tho iessua of unemploynunt nas in many areas beon our most effective method of making contact with trads unionists. jat in two areas in the past pexicd, despita the nm, Wa hevae quite catia itely made great headway, and eredibl politic foree in a living struicsi of Ireland, and on the student secter. In both ; tely made the transit on from e propeganda grov ap tog action, Amongst students we are quite definitely tho force in the TCDS U and even I.S. avo forced to concede this. This mikes an amazing contrast to say the situation in the cold RSSF. On the issu : : while @.fferences has exis sted on slogans, how to operate ete. nev are definitely established, despite onr inferior numbers to I[.5.. ; force. What is interesting 3 that in both these sreeas practica has forced the participants. to come to exips with the theoreticsl problams of intarventions sla Bo loading f

[page 25]

‘ith preci ly “the -d3 intervened on, * OxPord dccuuants on ind “tL a betieen Cho Graa WW cussed anviier.

La “and in the Jones ustzial work, & political adi qu idure at the time to 1 undoretend explicitly as concept r i 3 the social groun invelv« and ha Li ouinetees its consciousness, Or to 7p cf the ba: , the. organisation, 8 sharp Gistinction notwea an whera we intervers, and cn what nclitical issue wa intervene cn. (ox pub in other terminology, tetween the organisational.tasks and the political tasks). Wheat is sve atod vob US wet i. v that the political consciousness of radicalised giudents, became tical issue of the struggles of working class. Put in ‘Qly a re-iteration of Bensaid and Scalabrinc's position wth Meyiawien can only be understcod in terms of the relavion botwes and the working class. By far the most clear thinic:. > th nae oO nther y thangetigal distincticns made above however was thes Mi g Aad Vv “es ist conference. . This clear rin cistinguished betweon Wo on the is ff Ireland and work amongst the I It considered relation an the two, but kent them concaptu its insis on the importance of students the docum id not draw ovt explicity the implicit alysis.

Boing now mere able te she questions involved more clearly, now ask whethar political he issue of, Ireland, oz students, will ug to fulfill the key one Se ious task we hava seat ) an implantation in the + Here the Septe: ] complste Levant. endl s still ne, with the quali deep does alice ug bO ma iad ce Lor “pleally the young have been the most hat in every proletarian uprising fron L OB. However no-one ever ny th Vans a. and vhs ‘It is a scorpletely historical fa open to ~avclutionary ideas. the Commine, through 1917 rizi svacing this fact with the i “y dealt with under a wh Kors, gtudents, women atc. Thera ware , net intended to be a specific viow qd ha 3 ahi + at + fF ht 7 which related the role of youth. Phe #1... however, « t yard 3 & a S you th ‘angusrd’ to ba un stood in just this sanse so that, for examp Drafts Kasolu? in Europe talks of ‘a new phenomenon of r states, particularly in Europe - the ; % and Communist parties of a revol lutionary venguecé and leadershi; of the old formations." It was sly autonomous movemant which led to the introd:. vanguard’. This concept was useful to the exter s of a political precess and therefore enabled the 3 i ot ames in the sdvanced capi BOS to the left cf the old So Re composed by reject the po the anpearcaunca cf this re ion of the concept of the + at it identified element F to avoid the tran cither of centinuing with its dead end cricentation ‘of tory. struggles of the T.U. militants. However, tha concopt was originally rather confused and now dafinite ly noeds to be deapaned and modified." onomy of the mo proment + ore y of “individual radioalisation Wil conta muc, and stili - " among the youth, but a process of produce a movement. For a relatively autonomous movemar iné@ividunl radicalisa produces conjunctural features nead to be present as weil ss simply ve 0 j itically.

In particular the early onereance rf a relatively autonomous movuoment was G be atic ier & socio-ecornitic process leading to increased individual development pol LG Lt ol the conjuncture of 2 Long term soc. o-aconomic process leading tc increas of capitalism "from tha edge", the contimation of ths colonial revolution, and a colitical guiescenceof the. workin. class in the advanced industrisl states. . Those foatures bocame critical in particular in the pericd 1965 - 69, ay the end of this period one of the elements of the situation, the quiescence of the working ‘Class, W i (e) as beginning to disappesr. This denrived the movement. i i i i ' | i i

[page 26]

its comomy and swept the studento, in: of the working class. This cheracterises charactariscd as ona in which a mo} we (1.9. proceads at en accalarated rate. 1 autonomy ents, Movements hes bean removad by the working aless the continuation cf the scclo-sconomic procasgsas radicalisation combinue ard provida fertile work," of autonomy possessed by radicalised students even st of the. maent" in Britain is explained by the fact that a) the Br student rad -calisebion occured ralativaly iate and was therefore from 3 b adarly on in its development under the pressure of the working class unsurge . ) the small size of British universities (and for reasons cdes have daalt wit) lgewhere universities tend to be flashpoints of tha student milieu) means the students have relatively little autonomous depths on which they can dra inside their cwn constituency. This makes lass attractive the porspactive of an eutenomous student struggle, It is for this reason that it has baan parti pray to vierism. The fact that universivias are so small also has a deter~ mining efvect on the way in which -truggles occur. It means that in general it needs uternal unifying feature, a political issue such es the Vietnam war to.sat a ion to s is whera ee _issue invelved affects the students very directly.

Here, however, the mobilisation tends tc be on a low nolitical level and lasts only a short pericd." fod 2. Movement, as opposed tc molecular radicalisation. The only except n a 1 monisis that of « potentially mobili around aur particular issue end the asmodic upheavals rather than in a WATLG gs likely to continue sa leng as rei stresses continua at their presant level oud until a cantral issue arisas which can provide a foous f 5 ation produced by ai1 thes GQ hich is, however, not organi fo G aa its oxistonca in tha hone the stratezy of "from the pert xy to the centre’ was first suggeste a oe stakes wore made. Firstly th a in the workers ox chet bh 3 ty @ tions anc. struggles on the stucern nm yeead they tended not to ba analysed et al aut ononnus routh ani student movement end therefore possible to work within it first before o work in orgar i nay or may net have been in Prance, but perfectly ssible to analyse beforah that this could not possi’ thig c ounte “y “in tha coming period "iy rospensible for setti:

Spartacus Loague made a serious error ig of he situ eon & shod This ted bo’ b a nsequenca too S.i, was ¢stebl nd theory by t es tha sitvatio concer a tries to fox mulate to underpin their 3 pon ions, but fortunatelh s~sponte tendency of the Ligue). Inatead tho mista. wero i fisd | leest in theory ice will bo dealt wit : ie uth decument hes & somewhat: clearer greasy ©. he situation. Row howovoxr it is i n f 3 2 sportant to understand Bhat wa 2 must not abandon the concept of periphery ertre Dit mast redefine th oo 5 a 3 1 : jen should work initially p a class. This ides collapsed with the collansea of tne you of a xelativealy autonomous youth and student movement. 1 vecoguised that it was necessary to work within the working class in order to neintain ourselves 4von within the petty bourgeois milieus. What, however, does remain valid sbout tha concept of periphery and centre is the idea that the pextod demands tha utmcest concentration of forces where the aneny is waake: rt is, however important to vemembar in that context that wha is ‘refs: to as concentration of ‘forces! in these peripheral, in the sense ‘When | ‘poripie ary and centre" was first used it was meant in a social sensu ; v Lewes ou rtaide Lie rom imarily among the 4, fe

[page 27]

ial times musu tine. Tous if wa tics of students just defined, arcas; nob a type of polita veflect whet is an tha carrtra of the politi antorvene in the student milieu we do not cor 3 1 the pol. although of course wa do deal with the ques: i Similerly in our intervention amonest women ‘womens politics, but just politics. | = 2 'Bowaver, it is also necessary to actually allocate forcas to work within the working class. WNo-cne will tako you seriously if you claim.to bo determined to eain an implantetion in the working cliss but ave not actually doing amything practical about it. In political terms it is important that cdes sea the compli - £ k mentary nature of work in the working class, otherwise edes will counter pose tha ths two types cf sctivitiss and ouvrierist and studentism currants will devalon, : d 8 real contradiction in terms of allocation of manpower. Phis teken 1 next sections but first it is necessary to analyse the dialectic ecesses of the fiolds within which woe work. 0: Vanguard Oxganisation, Radicalised Milieu, and Mass in the (This is merely a first approximation tea a thoory). "The studont milieu is a key one for a Woole series of reasons : i) It contsins a relatively concentrated area of work. ii} Students have a relatively casy access to Marxist ideas and can therofore rosdily develop critiques of society. iii) Being cutside the aroa of production the students are not under the same - prassure of bourgeois ideology ss axists in gher education is subject to a whele series pven azralysead olscaha re. v) Tho orgerisationsl structure of the student milieu is relat vely non-oxistent om non-influential which means that students can ba lised by RG relatively direct appeals from revolutionary organisations. and extant as workers dominated by Social Democr St ; sas. to distinguish batwasn nd lisabl Unlike workers! in dont : does not roly on universal bwolvenaat.. Tet his werd nob tha case no student struggles could aver gat ofr the ground as theroa ig no diract bloc interest which students have which is not complictely reformist or gvon reactionary (when tha bendency talk about an intasas in (clase?¢z3) Utrouth" they just reveal to what abysmal depths their abandonment of Merxisw has reached). b) Tho potentially mobiligable- ay. «t from the ass there exists a considerable layor whicr is wobilisable ht eben: s x uch ag YSC or ovor issues yy concarned with the secticnal ast £ is efcr unlikely to be involved or intarssted in workers! steugcies. This leyer is also not vocruitabia tiaterial. c) Tae semi-mobilised miiiau - there is another Layer 0. usually in a vague way ‘revolutionary! but not memnve2s of a ravolotionsary organisation they ara the mo i) they arc the modiating layor batween tha xa potentially mobilisable mass of students, ii) they are + It is for hegemornycover this layer that tho revolutionary groups stz semi-mobilisod milieu igs, because it is molitically Award, very sensitive to changing prcecesses inside society. It is the pra Bs * ne etanhicl 4 recruits. la, This wo Ae 3 a of the workers stru: ale Seyi rasgur on this milieu that has caused the present ovvrierist mood smongst molt ical students,

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26. astinctions.- which are rough ané@ ready but de for a will @ we can now make an analysis of the student milicu. The Ss a tions within tha universities which have beon analysed meny ect all students. It mst, however, ba roslised that com 3 pered to workers, students stil 2in Folatively privilaged. This explai the large size of group (2) and silso axpliains why it is so hard te get a 'F.U," consciousysss among students (shoves are other factors here of course such as bricf time students remain students, their discontinuous period cf attandenca at colleg:, ate). What those soci -economic structural contradictions do expisin, howaver, is tho growing size of grocp (bp). This second group is, es we have noted, growing really mobilisable arcund Camands that ai inootly atfoot then (ond 5 at the extreme heights of campaigns around iss wos). fhas moans that at carbain other posiods they cculd be mobilised by fascist olements and in 1 5 prey relatively casily te budding student bureaucrats, While : carricG on by the rovelutionaries in the universitics this group bo mobilised, but it is almos+ impossible ‘to mobilise it on any iss outside the immediate problems of students as students. - G 1 "his potentially mobilisable milieu can, hewaver, only be mobilt sed if me nein 1 struge.¢ is being carried on wnskee the univorsities and colleges. This moans that group (c). the semi-mobilised milieu, mst also be carrying on rn moin agitation inside the university. “the mein subjective factor responsibis for the present downturn of struggle inside tho student milicu is that group fo) is now mainly interested in arping its attentions away from the university end trying to make links with thu working class. This moans that oven if tho revolutionary groups, such as the IMG, did decide to devote most of thoir enersis to campaigning on studort issues thay would not avo 2 RIG i success because the milicu which acts as a transiticn bolt betwoon thoi and the mass cf mobilisabic students is ne longcr presont in tha areas in which tho y would be concentrating thoaiz energios. It is new only possible tc win this semi -mobiligable group by showing in practice that the IMG has an oriontation towards tha industrial working class. Wo should note, however, that this industrial work is not going to havea a big impact on tha mass of studants Some cdaes may say that this dces not a 3 cu oo meee any way because frouys a and b are not reeruitable anyway This posivicn aver, beer extremaly serious misteke. Firstly it woul a be a mistake sourse the siza of groups a,b ant c ara not st Matic. “Daring biz tne size of groups b and « incress: markedly and therefore ie inercasc otrugsglos is likely to cing more recruits, but more importantly it etalk regarding the way in which we are going to have to break the hold of bourgeois idaolo over tha working class, This point concerns the relation boetweon the studant and petty-bourgecois milious and the working class." ony Tha Roletion of Students and Political. Especially Young Workers "A now revolutionary currant wh yich gees against the dominant Historical trand at Q given moment first crystalli arcund mon who ard more or less out off from tha national life in any country" - Trotsky, April 1939, interview with C.L.R. JAMES” situaticn whereby revolu~ da the working class, Fs NT that quotation Trotsky oaxpresses very cloarly th bonuties find themselves concentrated in a was doaline with a period of ebb of workd Bevolu on. Now wo are in a nericd of upsur but this dees not mean that xtically the revolutionaries find thomsaives reintograted inte the workings “Class, it is relatively ce them to gain a position inside the non-prolotarian milicus ss the new m scising from tho upsures or novo elon taxes affect. Things ara however, foundly different inside the orking ¢ class. Hore the highly structurad lass crganisations and. the prosaur Ge of bourgeois ideology combine to Gha penetration of revolutionary ideas into the working class proceeds a slowor rato than in any other secticn of society. The consaquenca is the reeretable fact that long after tho situation cries out for a revolutionary strategy, the .revolutionarics ara isolated and on the periphery of the werkins class. Tha problom is therofora, aliveys one of how to nenotrate tha workers wilieu., An enormous disparity exists between the sizc of the class and tha size s ct QO

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the rovosutionary organisations." "One thing thet can be decided at cneo is that it is not going to ba possible to astablish rovolutionarios as a significant forea within the working class simply by arithnatical reoruitnent. Neither is it going to be possibla to break the power of bourge vorking class gimply by oncentrating on £ § ideclogsy ovar-the 3 Sconomic struggles. If anyone wa anted. @ Gdenonstration of this they nead only Look et the Bobrus axy 2ist demonstration against the anti-union logislation. Hers there ware 740,000 workers and the influence cf the revolutionaries over thon was nil, It was absolutely cloar that it did not matter if you had 4, or 46 ox ,00 workors memoars you were still in cxactly the seme infinitesimal Loague as heance vor tho working class goes. As ona member seid ‘Tha rovolutionaries covared arcund the demonstrationlike flies around shit.' By giving some idea of the numbers involved in having « decisive influence cver 2 of the working class, that demonstr: tion was 2 ecnelusive rebuff to I,S. or butte Ouveicre, conceptions of winning hegexony over the working class sinply by a procuss of arithmetical recruitment. "Peced with this situation we mst continually remember that it will bo by work on oversiy political issues that wa will succao@ in braaking mold of bourgeois idagology over dacisive sections of tha working cless. However, wa mist alse remomber that wo will only be sbla to capitalise on these campaigns inside the workers movarant. Wo will doal with the questicn of how to use thesa mucieii in another section. For now it is necessary te doel with tho ral lation of tha studont milieu «o work amongst tha working class and its relation to political ea campaign in any section cf scocioty more than an issue is nacassary, It is also nocessary to have a base to mobilizga. If an initial bese can bo mobilised than the movement can pick up steam and draw in wider layers.

Without thes initial basa however, revolutionariss would remain purely et tha leval of propagy base for amy polit a "In order to generat Me Tt is the student milieu that is the obvious initial va campaign. For this reason aven excluding its importance i nt the student milicv is still a key area for cur work Pistons paso in tha working class to directly start campai of the working class movement, The case of the Ligue 3 a 2 he Comminista and tho Barae trial is an oxcellant oxample of how tc do this. “Y¥SC is an oxcellent example of this type of dinlectic. Although at its haight at included far wider layers than students nevertheless its initiel "lift off point! and what gave it the inpotugto draw in wider layers, was its ability ‘so the students. We will be able in futurac to use the same sort of neo only difference beim: thet from the doginaing wo must seek to turn any such movement resolutely in the direction of the working class. yolvement in such campaigus the section wa will most como into contact with and 3 abie to reornit arg politically radicalised young workers, In the long run it is this section thet is the key tc everything. Bocause wa can get to young workess on a “political basis they san rapldly become the kay proletarian eadra of the organisation and in the long run “thoy will ba able to eassumo positions of tne lesedership amongst the working class in which they can function ag political cavolutionnries, This is a key point. It can unfortunately be said of meny clder political milatent verkers thet they are brnge upicnists first and socialist revolutionaries second. To be xble to build/¥eal proletarian cogmnics nerty wo need to have people who ara revolutionaries first and trade unionists second. te “Kithougzh young worker abe v ro the kay in the long torm, and as noted wa o gat to theses cn poli f S a cal issuss, in the short term the process is di t work, This time one within the working class another disiectic i 3 7 a a Young Polivical Workers and G1éd Trade Union Militants "ns economic strucgla against capitalism is an oxtremely ser 8 Q is rious business. Cus false strike may load to men losing thoir homas, to thoir being fr

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aod ~ £O = vaars, to them-being involved in huge losses of income through StXLkers » in addition the cconcemic class struge.o, for a militant worker, procaods at luast 12 hours a day 45 des ead in mest cascs 8 great deal moze, In addition to tho s' 2 the workplace, itia not st all uncoumon fox a intlitant worker to fin practically evary night of ths wook takon up with union business cf one sort or another. Evon apart from the struggia at work a shop steward is quite frequently porsconal aiviser on everything from the horses to how to deal with marriage problems. All this means that becausa of the onormous onergy, determination find toughness involvad in being a militant vnion lead the porn class 23 only willing to tako men who hava proved themselves in action ovar 2 long poricd of time as their leaders. At ona level this fact s absurdity “of all the romantic ‘we mist all go to work in tha fa attitudes but on the other hand it also moans that the key lead working Glass movement tend te be older men whe we aro unlikely able to win in the sare way in which wo can win younger workers. In order to make gains here we need to adopt se very differant approach.

Anctner roasnn why we cannot group this category of worker together with youog workers concarns ths questicn of trade union consciousness. ah "Bocause of its structure natura and cnormously time consuming nature trade -union activity is the centre of attention of many working clas i to tha exclusion of almost averyone alsa. .It is this layer, who hs frequently suffered a terrible pounding during years of a Ly the factory, who provice cna of the bases for Stalinism. 2 that they ara frequently isolated aven from the mon they ropresent and Ziven the axtramely tough job thay perform these men sec ae advantages of toughness, discipline end organisation. Hewevor, also their posi broads feelings for manipulation and bureaucracy. It isa "nde combinati cx wack solid trade union militant toxsether with perry bourgecis bureaueratc which forms the social base for Stalinist parties. It is extremely unlixely thet wa will be eab'> to win any section of those milita ants either in the 0.P. or outsis.., without having a considerably greater Traie Urion base than we have at the present time. We can of course infividueal militants either through political intexvoentions or logal trade union work. The kay problem will than bacome of = ETS these odes into the organisation. It has to be admitted that in tho Pom ax “student cdos thay are not capable of doing thie. Bhoir ce (porkires and style of work is well suited to the snotty 1 but is totally unsuited te work inside the verre Gl \Bor the xeasons for this sea thd quotation from Bansaid and Wobe un the documant presented at the last NC cn organise tion). In his a 5 ca situvjien the way of integrating older treda union militants into the organisation will depend vary greatly on our sucecass in politically aA educating young workors, Because they cen be reached on e diractly pol*tical level in theiz recruitment they can provide the nacsssary ‘ocnant! to integrate older trade union militants into the _craenisetion.

However, wa will be completely unable either to make any gains inside the working class or to inteozrste militants wre recruit unie wo uncarstend what a prolotarian orientation necns in political tonne and how to provide a focus for our intervention.!

A Working Class Base "Having a base inside the working class does not dust consist of havir a certain number of workers in tho organisation. It also means havein number of kay workers militants and kay in this. context actually meens workers who are pert of tha do facto Leadership of the working class i.c. shop stewards end convenora in “mos tant industrios, It is necosssry to understand that in the trade unior world thore is s definite status laider. For example, the i. xortanca of c oprentices and labourers is nil in rost vlaces. In soma inawustires, oe srangport » young workers can play a9 leading role, but in che key manufacturing industries virtuel!

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y] Mi entusa leadersivip is mon in -t least vasir fortias.

Thor is also e hinverchy in ceras cf which industries you work in. .Por ex.ople car workers and workers in “he engineering industry in general out for higher than say transport or plastic workers. he roeson fer this is quite simply that nobody counss for anything in tha trade ions unless they have proved themselves in str f rugegle and the. lovel of Srug@ie is highest procisely in the.car industry, the Gocks, etc. Wo % wa aim to fain & working class basa it caerafora have to roalive that.if vas te include reprosentatives in at least some kay hoavy industrios, o < y Saaso points are all as relevant as whan thay were first written. Now six months later, and after much thoorctical clarification, we can revwm diractly to the problem of dealing with the problems lysis poses.

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~ 30 + PART SIX ~ The year ahead, consol*dation ani growth.

Tha political situation we are now in Britain is defined by two main political themes, the crisis in Ireland and the ‘aftermath of the miners strike. We will deal with them in that order.

Ireland: (N.B. a word of warning the emergance of Soc.Democ ideol. as central in the vanguard since 1968 makes extremely dangerous any comparison of I8¢c and Vs¢c).

There will be a seperate paper on detailed developments in Ireland, and on our work in Britain. In this main perspectives doeument, therefore all that is outlined is the main guidelines.

As far as the actual situation in Ireland is concerned, it is dominated by two elements of the situation of the highest importance. Firstly the tramondous deapness of the crisis, which has now persisted for three and a half years. Sacondly the completa incompetence of any of the existing leader~ ships of the Republican population. This bankruptcy was shown most clearly in the period after the Derry shootings. An immense upheavel shook tha South, buy nona of the organisations knew in the slightest how to take advantage of it. The Provisionals because of their attitude towards the Southern bourgeoigie, and the Officials because they in fact (as opposed to in words) see the struggle in the south as seperated from that in the North. ‘The upheavol therefore came and went. <A strategic line on such things as arms to North from the Southern ormy were never powerfully raised, and in consequence lyncy amerged relatively unscathed. It is unlikely that the Southern bourgeoisis will not learn their lessons from that and step up attacks on both wings of the IRA, This incapacity of the Republican loaderships is an objective element in the situation in the North. It is not possible for the tension to remain at its prasant level if no way out of the situation can be seen, As long as the Republicans appear to offer a way forward tha population will support them.

If they are led into a dead end then the old and new bourgeois forces will ba given an opportunity try to regain the initiative, The coming manouvers of Heath will very mich be guided by these considerations.

As regards our work in this country we naed to ba extremely aware in our propaganda of the changing circumstances. Clearly our main axis of intervention is to axplain to the British working class that the defeat of tha forces of the British state in Ireland is in their own interests. (Hore again we sae the importance of the correct propaganda/agitation distinction. We ara not guided by some consideration of "mobilising the greatest number of . paople) “his would provide the main axis of our intervention no matter what organisational form was appropriste for our work. Whether, for axampla., we dacided jo work in AIL or through a solidarity campaign, is a purely tactical question concerned with how to make the greatest impact with our propaganda.

Naturally it is preferable to have a campaign on an explicitly sclidarity position if it is viable. There is no reason to suppose that it is not at present. In particular the coming Heath maneouverss, which inevitably will nave to deal with internment, will begin to cut the ground from the ATL. What we must watch for however is the movas of IS. In the student field they hava already accepted a United Front with us on 4 solidarity position. If Internment ceases to be an issue, tha may well shift their position to a solidarity ona, in particular as they have intense internal problems on the questicn.

This will present organisational quastions which cannot be specified in’ advancc.

What is clear is that wa must now clarify our political positions. This’ means in particular (a) Undertaking | Yigorous critique of the IRA (b) Clarifying our slogans, in particular to withdraw any implications that we believe. the IRA to be capable of defeating British Imperialism (i.e. of destroying capita~ lism in Ireland). There is no reason in basic theory why the IRA cannot defeat the British army, although grave ones in practice, but that is complately different to defeating Imperialisn.

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- 34 ~ So far the main sections of the population drawn into the campaign have been students and Irish exiles. The radicalisation amongst the latter is increasing, and amongst the students, particularly inside the NUS, the issue of Ireland, because of the resolutions we have got through the LODSU. will be the central focus of political activity. In short we can say that in tho ccming year, short of soma entirely unforsaeable development, the issuo of Ireland will continue to be of central importence to us in all our sectors of work, Nevertheless it will alsc not, unless again completely unforseen events ccour, become the central issue within the British working class. It can give us extremaly valuable contact with Irish trade unionists, and with political British trade unionists, but it cannot be our single priority of work if we are to aghieve the reorganisaticnal task we have set of achieving 4a base inside the working class. Howaver because of the central political importance cf Ireland within British politics fox the. ‘the ab= abz ity of the ING to make a national impact as a political force th. Jigue sue oF Trealand remains central and it mis 4 mist clearly ba ons of our main priorit ies of work.

Zhe situation in the working class after tho miners strike The perspectives document presented to the Sepbeniber N.c. noted, as already mentioned, the change in the strategy of the ruling class which the Heath government represented. It meant a change from a policy of trade union integration to one of attempting to weaken all sections cf the trade unions, including the bureaucracy. This had already been spelt out earlier. In an editorial in Red Mele appearing cn Ist Jan 1971 it was stated, "This attractive state of affairs (of productivity deals and co-operation cf bureaucracy with government) was however entiraly dependent cn employers ‘playing the game! and granting waga increases in return for the abandoning of work practices and conditions. When the emplogrs refused to play ball, all hell. broke lcocse. For example in the BTV it was ell Les Cannon could de last. year to pravent the power mon breaking the agreement with the CEGB when they foun? | that the gas and water workers, who had not been involved in as intensive pro ductivity bargaining as the power workers had, were going tc get higher increcses than the power men.

The Tory government hag now decided that it can no longer afford to 'play tho game', When thay declare that daspite the increase in productivity in the power industry, the workers cannot have large wage increases, 'becausa other gactcrs of workers have not shown the same producaivity gains', thoy show three things.

Firstly they confirm yet again that the state of tho British economy is now such that it allows the ruling class only a tiny amount of room for manoeuvre.

Secondly of course it shows that the Torios are up to their old game of trying to turn ona group of workers against another. They are trying to convince the power men thet the reason they cannot get a rise is not because the government is unwilling, but because other groups of workers are being lazy or uncocperative.

The third thing that it shows is that the Tories are baing forced to knock the bottom out of the whole productivity gama. Previously the employers said, ‘If you sell onough working practices and conditions you can have a large wage increase.' What the Tories are now being forced to say is, 'Hven if you sell all the work conditions wo canthink of, you still can't have a big wage increasa,!

The implications of this will deal a death blow to the strategy of th T.U. lsaders. From now on if they want to maintain their standing in the union thuy will actually have to fight the employer. This is of course unthinkable to a man like Chapple and will no doubt also give Jack Jones & Co. more than a few sleepless nights. The trade union leaders are only too well aware of the inplications of the Tories! new position. The present complaints of Chapple ara those of a man who has faithfully served a master for 15 years and now that master has turned round and stabbed him in the back." This analysis has been antirealy confirmed. In addition the pressures this would create inside the unions was also correctly analysed.

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- 32 - "What all this adds up to is that the internal struggle in the unions will be ereatly increased, Tt means that the traditional demands for alecvion of all union officials, for the right of recall of all officials at any time, for officials to receive the average pay of all members, etc., will become mora and mora relavent.

At the moment only the first signs ara epbeanene of the comings struggzies ingide the unicrs Tho attempt tc forca through © highor waza increasa for the miners © by an uncvfficial strike met with considaral Le guccess, but it wasn't strong enough ts shitt a right-wing bureaucracy-as well entrenched as that of tha WUM. In the ETU the attempt to defeat tie exeoutive in the unicn alections was . a welecme gign of the revival of the left inside the union, but it revealed also that there is a long way to go before the right-wing leaders can be removed. ..Nevartheless, there was in these two unions significant resistance to tne leadership ~ a sign that the militants.are becoming more conscious of tha probleis that face them and also that their voices is finding a wider, even if not at the moment decisive, sudience. What is hapngning is that the most active mombers of the trade umion-movement ara bocoming more aware of the role of the union leaderships, but that they hava not as yat been able to convince the masse of the ran’: and file of the need to fight these leaders." Sha tampo of events on this front was however misjudged, or rather it proceadad in an unoven wey. In the case of the miners, and without wishing to fall into any "Pabloite" formations, tho ‘mass pressure" from the base forced tha buresucracy to act in an unprecedentad way. Tho September analysis presented th aituation in the following way. "Given this state of affairs it is most unlikely thet the bureaucracy will launch & major WALES offensive this autum. if ron do it will cnly be because of tramendous prassure from the mase end it would meet with forocious resistanca from the gevernnent.

In that type of situation, caught between a romorseless government and an infuriated class the burcaucracy would behave as it did in Fords and a magor defeat of the working class could wall result." This wes an entirely correct assessment ag far as the buld of the trede union buresucracy wara concernad, They all avoided struggie eithor by straightforward canitaluation (e.g. Powsr workers) ox by "doing a Fords" a.g. Engineers. ‘Tho miners leaders Lowovar, bacausa of the history of opprassion built up in the mines over | twanty years, wore not able to pull off the same trick. It was a very clese run thing, Gormley seid that if the government oft had been made before the strike it would heave been accepted, mrt never when ix came to a government refusal to budge an inch, which in turn wa. dictated by their need to re-cxpand the economy, the burceucracy was fox: to fight. Quite clearly also, as was noted in the same document, by fighting a strvggle in the present circumstances the buraaucrecy unleashed forces which got outside tis control. The picketing, attitude to arrests etc., in fac carried the whole struggle into the realm of complete flouting of bourzeois law. Both the bourgeoisie and the trade union bureaucracy is scared of that. ae u yea aS The cutconsa of the miners strike has howeve and tha basic political forces in the situa in a modified form to the original suggestion: most now be worked out, (1) Within the rank and file of the trade unions, The most likely perspectire suggested at tne Sept. N.C. was of a down turn in the mass struggle althoug naturally not down to pre 1969 levels ‘but an increase in the bitternass or individual disputes with new forms of struggle emerging. The basic premises of this were that individual unions could not defeat tha goverment without unleashing forces which went outside the control of the bureaucracy. This perspective remains correct, but with important modifications, Firstly the best organised sections of the working class will clearly’ be encouraged tremendously by the miners struggla. In ‘tha car industry . and othar dacisiv sections of enginsering in necitigal or we can expect a real woturn in demand:

Clearly therefore the individual struggle s allowed for in the origzinal outli BG Lie

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_ a5 will be more Yrequont. This tendency will ba increased by the policy decided ucon by ths Engineering unions of going in for a policy of local agreements. Ya can clearly wher rorore expect some quite large settlements or struggles in the economically decisive sections cf industry. What. happens to the workers outside these sactions however depends on what policy the ruling class decides vo adopt. (2) the situation inside the ruling class - what tho miners strike has ouite clearly producad is an acute orisis within tha ruling class. Por the first 18 months of his governmont Heath and quite clearly succecded in gaining the accoptance of his policy by the decisive sactions of the ruling class. "Ha had achieved this evan more clearly than Wilson had in the pra 1964 period.

In September the situation was, to repeat, analysed as follows, "Ona section (of the uling class) is looking for a deal with the unions go as to cool militancy....:Another section is losking towards a more desperate solution.!!

What Heath would have suceaded in doing if he hed smashed the miners «would have been in hegemonising the ruling class round the eacond alternative. Now this aim has recaived a savers set back. Tha sec Bao ns of the ruling class looking fox a daal with the trade unton- bureaucracy - have bgen immensely strengt thenoa de (For an analysis of Heath's strategy se APPENDIX THREB) understand what has occured it is necessary to make a clear disthis point between the interests of the ruling class, and the the prasent dominant sections of tha Conservative Party, The : word Heath would a it ext roncly aifficuit, if not for him to actuelly tern back to the policy cf trying to do a 1a brace union bureaucracy. Tha only xcad open for nim therofore, tion of the Consorvative Party he represents, is an abrupt switch ut the present situetion takes him back to square one. At n ho had mora or less four years to completely rally the ruling d His policies. if 5s had echieved this he could hava gone into ot ba '3 QO toch WY ra) fQ Oo be & ary ¢ “goneral alection on 1974-75 with grout confidence as to tha cutcoma. Lov howayer ha has very little hon. It) will clearly take, aven if th hardess line possible is taken, at leest many months, probably a year at least, to whip the working-class back into the shana it was in befora the miners “strike.

That takes him to 197% and leaves very little timo to re-unite the ruling class in time for a Goneral Blsction. Nevertheless Heath will probably te forced to try for this option in order to maintain his own position. If he goss then he will still be abla to stop most sections of workers getting really big increases, In + é F pectiva of September remains strictly correct with the modi iLndivicual struagles. occur “poula ba fow armegoddon ype strugclos with the government , dnvoleing the Industrial Relations Bill, atisa social security ote. However a question mark must De placed over whather the ruling class will actually allow Heath to try this, or whether it is too alarmed to permit such a oorspective. This refusal could show itself in two forms, either a move to raplace Heath within tha Conservative party. or a move by sections cf tha ruling class back to Labour. It is now necessary to consider the implications of this opticn. : ; (3) Tha Intogretionist perspective The outcome of the miners striko will have greatly strengthoned that section of the ruling cless wheses. basic strategy is to do a deal with the trade union bureaporaaqy., Stokes and his ilk. must be cursing and swoaring at Heath at tha present tima because of the trouble he has non mada Lnovita vble for them within the motor industry. However any policy of co operations in particular to 4a formal 2ncomes policy, would need a complete change in strategy by ‘the Conservative party. Indeed this change would he so abrupt that it is probably incapable of accomplishing it. In any case the logical party of government if the basic strategy cf the ruling class is a deal with the trade union

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pureaucracy, is the Labour Party. This opens up completely new perspectives fox the Labour leadership, and indeed ona of the people to gain most from the ig.ners strike has been Harold Wilson. He has besn ablo tc simultancousiy offar to the ruling an altornativa policy to that of Hoath, and in a cortain demagogi.

His way forward nog quita clearly koy to Wilsen's strategy all along urging of the government to negotiate “tka boradshoa’t produced by the Red ho government was to gat round a Cc Hee "U0, Tn wesk five oF the strike Hoy Nason revcaated the same . _abvamptad to put the inteerative line of Labour into practics. His “ to have the occupation called off a a far groator sig- . a narely the fact that he doas not Like having cecupatic bis constituency. What ha attempted to show was that while ct policy of Eeath produced factory occupations and immense visk for capitalisn, the policy cf Labour was a better way of dc ; f trade unions and involved far less risks. ‘hase intentions now koy in fairly oxectly with the motivos of the leadership of the trade unicns. If the Labour Party wishes to vekindle tho policy of imtegration, then there is nothing that the trade union bureaucracy would Like mora then to go back to thy s cosy chats with Labour lcaders, rather than opan confro ontation strife and struggle. This can be soon in tha policy which is being pet forward t miners exo a “special casa far as the 7 norm is concerned. What thi means is bres while the prassura of tha rank and filo is toa great at presons to accept oponiy that the minors must ba contont with whet they are offered, ae ty 5 vavartheloss | thoy ara prevared to accept, in p¥inciple, the idea of a norm for wage increasas i.0. of an incomes policy. This provides the onan door for an agreorent betwoon tha Labour leadarship and the trada union bureaucracy, and. for an alternative policy to be prosonted to the ruling class if Heath fails.

This is what oxplaing the bellicose natura of soma Wilson's rocent statments. 4 Ta a cortain sense he seas that it is in his interest if the miners win a limited victory. If Heath defeats tha miners then he will ba able tc present himself as the man who kept his nervo when others panicked. Ha will appear as a bourgeois ‘leader cf real stature, Wilson will be unable for years to ro~ convince the ruling clas would be marginalised in terms of the plans of the ruling class. Of course Wilson cannot accept an cutvight victory for the miners eivher. In the first placa he mist dread tho thought of an early ganeral clection putting him in . charge of tha prasent Geoncmic » gocial and political problems of tha bourgocisic.

And sacondly, ha cannot be seen by she waling class to be actuslly supporting the trade union fight apninet the - 7p OPM. g that Labour's policy wes the correct one. Labour a 4 a Tha corractness of this analysis has been entirely ccenfirmed in the event ing te the endine of the strike. Wilson hes lost no time in tolling the miling class that when it came to the real crunch Heath was foresd to adept Labour nethods in their entirity ~ right down to the midnight dash to 10 Downing ‘ ~ Streat, If Wilson can now only aain the agroemont cf tha Trade Union bureavcracy for an incomes policy, only accontable under a "humane" Labour govarnmont oO rsa, then ha would have suparfically viable policy to sell te the ruling class. As Long as Heath was suecessivl. Labour was being movee towards being margin: ed from the main strean of Bri tich politics. Now Wilson has the Chance to move wight back into tha centre of the stage Tt may be that {class is too actuely aware of the soric vusness of the econemis crisis, case does not trust Wilson end the Jre n leadership to keep the rank and file. under comtrol. In that casa ome onts policies will. net wea the support of the ruling class. Nevertheless they will define the main line of his strategy in the coming. pexiod.

S&S fan Ae mM (4) Tao trade union burcaucra sracy. Tha outcome of tha strike will sections of the trado won leaderships in very difficult posit For example the leadmrs of the Power Men look really idiotic acs a few waeks before tho miners ged £4 to £6. We emn confidently + shora? fora axpool i a cvisis within the right wing unions including such groups: as the NUR, the cS

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NUT etc. all these heva clains in tho vime~Line and all tho lcaderships of these unions will bs under severa prossure from the rank and file. Thosa unions would cnly to be too glad to do soma sort of deal with tho Labour Perty. They would roughly speaking like to be able to arguo that Heath was too string in the aconomic field to be challenged and therefore while the trada union struggle could not ba pursued, the main ain must bo for the return of a Labour govornmont. Ina few cases this would aven bo served up in a little 'Loeninist" rhetorie abour reising the aconomic struggle te a political level. This move would also suit the left wing of tha constituency Labour party who are looking for a way of regaining somo credibility. In these circumstances wo sould gat everyone from Harold Wilson and Lord Cooper to Hugh Scanlon to Gory Healy lined up on the slogen of "Labour to Power on 9 Socialist Programme". Tha effect of coursa would be to couutorposa the "political" struggle to the "trade union" struggle, thereby effectively onsuring that there would not in fact be any struggle at all. In these circumstances it is precisely tho continuation of the trada union struggle which is the political policy for it is this which cuts across the policies. of beth Hoath and Wilscn. NO TO ANY FORM OF INCOMES POLICY mist become an ebsolutely cantral slogan cf +ho coming poriod, Whether in fact tha whole of the trade union bureavoracy could in fact do a new deal with Wilson is a difficult point to answar. Coerteinly the TUC will try.

However given the resentment building up inside tha working class, and given the ancoureagement to tha militents given by the miners strike, it is extremely doubtful if, for example, Scanlon coul? actually promise an incomes policy.

Cextainly if he did, there would be tho formation of a left curront within the AUEW which would break vita thea goneral Scanlon machina Without the support of tha onginoars of course, any incomes policy neans nothing It therofora appears that the bourgeoisie is in for n sevar crisis of leader hiv. One section moving extremely rapidly to tha right, witness for example soms of tha suggestions in the Telegraph, and somi-fascist ravings in some of tha local papers, and another attanpting to come to soma understanding with the trade union Emreaucracy. WNoavertheless wo can be sure of one things that is that any incomes policy will not work and will not solve the problens of British capitalism. Clearly therefore, no matter what the temporary vacillations ara, tha bourgeoisie will comtinue to swing to the right. Its basic medium terns strategy will be to continue to use its great political and organisational strength to defoat the cconomic strength of the working class. Unless one adonts a naive view that the class struggle will grow linearly until capitalism is overthrown, this means that at sone veint in the intarmodiate future the working class will suffer govere sctoacks. Wa must he prapared for this and not build on a cloud of euphoria. um The political development of tho working class vanguard.

One of the most important things about the destruction of the organisational hold of the Labour Partyovar the working class, has been the way it affacted the process of working class radicalisation. In the 40's or 50's the working class political radicalisation occurred in or axzcund cither the LP. or the c.P. A rolatively stable layer of politicised workers existed and a collective momory of previous struggles was ercated. his did not oxist in the radicalisation occurring in the graat uphcavels of “4969-71. In the period, which constituted ahe beginning of the reoreation of poL4 isyer within the working class after its destruction during tho becom, the radicnlisation occurrad in a fragmented way grouped around none of the tr addtional working class partics, This has cxtremely importent consequencas for tho way in which we intervene in the class struggle. fo SS © j++ it teh ct F QO 6 io 4 im a period when tho working class is radicalising around existing political ganisetions, tho modo of intervention of a revolutionary group is of nocessity propagandist, i.e. axplaining a large number of ideas to a rolativaly mall number of poopie. In this type of context “dominated by Social Donoox tatic ideology" moans quite specifically to accept as at loast a

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to solve tha dockers problems. by economic action alona and any political understanding. However if this strugele had not occurrad in a period of x lative capitalist stability, and one in which ths revolutionary organisations wero nob-axtremely weak, the whole struggle would probably heva taken an en-troly difforant course, and become the Shortens point for a national struggle against tho-trada union burcsaucrac Such 2 dovelopment would heve icd to a vary rapid development of conscicusness #i thin the working class. What cloarly omorges from this is that thera is no predetormined stagos through which the working class must pass to arrive at political consciousness. To believe that thero is to succumb to the type of ampircist ganeralising that can be found at its worst in the RSL. ; Tn the prosent contoxt : Me os oe what would bo the precise significance of a move by tho trade union buraaucracy to urga that tho main task wes to return. a Labour government. This is a parfect example of the "counterpositioniss" school of reformism i.e. to say that your present struggle is a diversion, and you should in fact be struggling for something clsa. The aim cf the trade union bureaucracy in counterpesing the "struegio" for the raturn of a Labour governnont to the aconomic struggle would be to demobilise tho working class and in fast ensure that there was no struggle st all. In this situation the pracisaly political-demand political-in that it cuts across the policies ef both Wilson and the bureaucracy, is for the continuation, of the economic strugpie. Ags a conjunctural. slogan SMASH THR To WORM ts therefore of the greatest significanca, and in the longer term NO TO ANY FORM OF INCOMES POLICY must become a cantral slogan in our work, ; In the coming poriod 1 we Tay see attempts to whip up pro-Labour rhotoric inside a ~ = tL u the working class. nto this mood will fit pwrociscly the type of rhetoric woich the IS and tho 2 Sin will be putting out. (Incidentally the bankruptoy of the methodology of "exposure politics" is seen completely in this situation.

The SLLts slogan of “Labour to power on-a Socialist programne” in particular fits in -porfectly with tho line of the Labour leadership and the sims of the bureaucracy. ®ho call for a Genoral Election was put up in the Miners strike from precisaly two places - Harold Wilson.and Gery Healy. The SLL's slogan and these of tho tondency's which are completoly theorotically revisionist at sil tines, become positively counter-revolutionary in the praesent period), Undoubtedly theses groups will ¢ in from this mood. Ours will be uphill task. Ta order to operate proparly we “need the wimost clarity. When the workors raise the slogan of "Down with the Tories" wa accapt this sentiment. The defeat of an 3 oventy ruling class government is cloarly in tha emsores ts of tha working class and wa would strugele alongsida any worker who nad the most iaieehangiees illusions in tha Laboux Party for this end. . Neverthaloss wa do not support the Labour Party, Wo at all times explain to the working class that a ‘Labour govarnmant wil not solve their problams. To paraphrase Lenin, we fight with the Labour Party members against Heath, but we do not support tho Lebour Party, it is a subtie distinction but a vital one.

However refusing to support the Labour Party means nothing if not posed conometaly. <A policy of anti-government agitation and simltancous oxplanations of the role of the Labour Party in gonernl while all part of our propaganda (i.e. the complex set of ideas which only a fow pooplo will listen to in their totality) are not essential part of our agitation. This agitation must bo diracted against the main imnediate thing which the Labour Party is doing against Will bo the manoouvers for an incomes policy. We naad therefore to fully teke up this question and devote time eat our meetings, in our press, to explaining the assential political features of an income policy, how it suggests that tho working class and not capitalism is responsible for the plight of the low paid; how it is used to build up profits otc. In this way our agitation against the Labour Party become ¢oncrote and understandable by the working class. we ara not tolling them to hava no trus¢ dn it in abstract, but to have no trust in it because of cortain things which they can see with thoir own eyes it is doing. ee the interests of the working cless. ‘That quito clearly in the coming period

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~39- (h) The Rare economic deviation, This gonoral woy of dsaling with things brought up in the previous section is axtromely important with rogerd to our trada union work, There ars many misunderstandings abont what is meant by political trade unionism in the organisation and in tha general left and these need to be stamped out. This is particularly necessary in tha coming pariod when one of our main axes of . intervention is to explain tha political importanca of continuing the economic struggela, and also because of the “ponoral political climate that will ba created in cortain soctions of tha working class by the outcoma of tha mirers strike, Ono great trend within the working class which will be greatly strengthened by the outcome of the minars strike is that of "pare", ‘hilitant". trade unionism ewt,a. the fealinge that all the that is required is a willingness to fight, naxinmum unity, and all'is weli. ‘This political view, to which the IS in “particular is geared in, was beginning to wear a bit thin before the miners strike. In a gituetion whera the government is clearly beating all the unions in. sight, “pure" "militant" trade unionism appears a bit unrealistic. Now hovaver it will eppcar that thosa who said trade union action alone was sufficient hava boon proved correct. (For this reason incidentally we mst axpoct the IS to reorvit heavily in ths coming period), Again in this situation the utmost clarity in ideas is called for. Two key issues, both concerning important, theoretical questions must bo sorted cut to avoid balls-ups in the = coming poriod. Tha first is the "salls to action" approach to egitation, the other is the secia a" ane seratic concant of pPclitical trada unionism In vractice beth ara intertwined however and will therefore bo dealt with together. ra As wa have noted many tincs befora, tha Sccial Democracy draws a lina between trada untionism-and politics on the basis of where they occur. Politics 3 defined as boing concerned with tha legislativa functions of tha stete,. and trada unionism being dofined as what occurs within tho factory. This then leads to.a social domocratie thoormy of whet a political trade unionist is. He is somaone who brings issuos from outside the factory into the factory. He cannot be defined in any othor way, beceuse procisely the affairs within the factory are by Gofinition trade union matters and not politicel. Hence for the Social Democrat a political trade unionist is one who pursues political activities outside the factory, and brings thaso issues into the factory, but whose role in the strugvle of the factory itself is idential to that cf a non political trade union militant. Tha syndicalist (strictly dafined that is to say. not just a pbre and simple trade union reformist) is of course just the mivzor imace of the social democratic political trade unionist. He just refuses to bring the issues from cutside the factory i.e. the "pelitical® issues into the factory at all. In his trade union work he too functions like a non-political trade unionist.

Now let ve consider how a revolitionary noses the question. The classic starting point is of course “What is to be Done’ and the strucele egainst Economisn.

But a ereat danger lurks here if one is not eware that Lenin in fact uses an ‘entirely different distinction betwean trade unionism “and. polities than do the c¢ial Democrat. What occurs if this is not understood is roughly the following The aspring Bolshevik. notes that Lenin criticises the Hconomists for nerrowing the range of their itation to that of the factory. He therefore drayg the lesson that political activity mist include things yawn from outsids the fiold of activity of the factory. So far so gcod. It is _ that point that tho trouble starts. If he then, ususally consciously, uses a Social Danocratic distinction betwaen tradoa uniorism end politics, then he comes to the conclusion that his main role must be to agitate within tha factory on issues from owtside the factory. Carried to its extreme conclusion, what tis means is that he takes no role in the activity of the workers, and may even condemn it as “economism" and becomes generally known as the man who continually puts down union resolutions.on the struggle in Afghanistan just when the men are engaged in fighting a bitter battio against redundancy. As such he be~ comas a complete outcast within the “factory and can never energe as a leader

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2 s of the working closs., Literally hundrads of gocd youns wi pas= bean ruined in this way. What goncrally happons is they see a ee litesats have in the : ntradicti on between their trade urion work and thoair political work. ‘hey therafore either, ag we said, becomea_outcasts, or. more usually, abandon politics altogether for pure trade unionism. The way the SLL in particular gets round this problem is by saying that the situation of being completaly isolated and evon despised by the mss of the workers indicates that you are giving "leadership". Hence by a urious shift the greater tho vilvication the more correct your lino must bo.

Honea the bizarre spectacies of SLL members gumping up in the middle cf strike meotings and denouncing the shop stewards for "failing to bring dialectical matorialism into the struggle". e by we = ® an] Lees Ferd £ & fo way cut of this dilemma, most notably adopted by IS is the "striking « "parallel activity" empircist rubbish. What this means in practice actic combin vw is an acl ation of militant trade union activity and political, i.e. outsida tha factory issues. The net outcome cf this is of course cconomisr caneo it onsures in practice that trads unionism and politics era kept py: put separate (either that or the Hallas line is adopted of declaring the tinction between trade unionism and political activity to be "ouk of dat go that the problem, in IS's eyes at loast. simply disappears) This sepe has four main effects. (a) It allows IS members to at least retain = base inside the trade unions, but . ar on an antirely non-political basis. (b) It in no way ccmbats Social Bom ati 2sciousness becavea it accanpts, just Jike social demecracy ° ch listi ion betwoon trada unionism and politics is on the basis of whore thay occur. (c) Starts on a justification for printing militant trade unionists who form kbone of bureaucracy within IS. é ~_ ‘ ” . . + * : 3 iyi {a) It actually laads to complete cock ups in their trade union work. ‘+o understand the lattex however it is necessary to pursue the quostion further.

Sc far we hava pured to soma of their conclusions the implications of accepting, whather consciously or unconsciously, the Social Damceratic Gistinction bo~ twaen politics end trade unicnism. However at this voint an immediate problen arises for the revolutionary. It sypéars as if being e revolutionary has no affect on trade union activity. This is obvicusly ridiculous, thersfora he searches for soma way of differontiating himself from ordinary trade unionists.

Thea answer is found in tha Econcmist definition of the difference between propaganda and agitation. It is cloarly tha role of the revolutionary, so thinks, to "call tha class to action" while the ordinary trade unionist romeins locked in yvassivity. Hence when the trade unicnist calls for go-slow the revolutionary calls for a one day strike. When the trade unionist calle for o one day strike. the revolutionary calls for an unlimited strike. When the tz unionist calls for an indefinte strike, the revolutionary calls for a Genaral Strike. Hence is norn the whole "strike happiness" of the papers Like Socialist Worker. The answer of IS fo everything is to call a strike. Similerly tho imnumerable calls for 2 General Sirike, on every conceivable issue, which are pub cut by the SLL. Given the Boonomist "calls to action” theory it is by these endiess strike caiss that the rovolwhionaries show that theyara in advance of the rest. What actually cccuvs in these circumstances is that the revolutionary becomes known as "strike happy" and is either isolated from the meni or is lured into mad acts and cestroyed by the monagement. It is precisely this type of widiculous attitude to industrial acticn that allows the CP to characterise tho Trotskyista as irrosponsible twits with no idea of how to carry on trade union work. nin a theoretical error, the "calls te action" thoery can cost very daar. ; ts Fp x a I - Just to take a conerete example of how this works, we nay take tha esxampla of the April 1971 Liaison Committea for the Defence of Trade Unions mosting. Hora the IS accepted totally tho iine of the CP because it was a militant trade union a line, and thon, looking for someway of. differcntiating themselves, proposed the

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/) AL ~ 'oall to action" ofs, ona day strike on the day on which the strike became Lew.

This was completoly. ridiculous. Thore had alraady baan four cno day st the RUC had capitulated and aryone with amy. sense would have mown shat a ono day strike would have boen unsuccessful, However IS given its approach, was driven into calling the strike in order to find somo way of differentiating itself. from the CP and fitting into the "militant" syndrome. In consequence the C.P. ware able to portray the IS as just a lead cf idiots with no aar to tha mood cf the class at all, And overy trade unionist in the room know that the CP was right. A call for « ona day striko would havo met no responsa at all. Tha image cf? the "ultra~loft, "unrealistic! Trots and the "stable" "realistic! C.P, must have boon confirmed in the ayas of many tons of trada unicnists that day. What is Tomar ekable is that it would hava been so easy to have in fact Castroyed the C. line. A wore ona spocker to soma extont did it. He simply stood uy and soda shat the line of tha CF in accepting tha’ TGs docision was completely inoerract., and tha reason why there weren't going to bo anymore strikes was bacause how could you simitanocusly tell somoone ts carry out tho [UC decision when the TJC had becn opposed to the LCDIU all along.

If you were. logical, and bolieved the TUC Should ba followed, thon logicaliy cu should disband your own Liaison Committ This simple idea, oxplained . actually by an ex-momber of the SLL, had a Pos exocater impact than all the rantings by the IS. Tuo single militant was absolutely impogsibla to danounce as a mod unroalidtic ultra-loft yet at the same. time completaly dastrayed the whole of the C.P.s line of trying similtanoously to cuddle up alongside tha trade union buresucracy and retain. credibility with the rank end fila by organising unofficial movements, s of the utmost importance that we learn this lesson. There are going tec Tt i ba quira: enough times when wo are going to be roletively cut off within tha working class anyway because of cur politics without gobting curselves inte inextricable confusions becausa of an antirely incorrect methodology. We can eac sclaarly once again how the theorctical question directly affact our work . Onca you are looked into the "calls to action"/"social democratic definition of politics" lina then you are stuck. You either become an ixreievmnce ("waging the politics trugalo")» s _strike hapey Cai svcumb 4 %O oconomisn wor Neoapin, ameter ) or most likely of Git, you just ado an coloctic. conbinat ination < of. ae Thore is no woy out. it is iaportent toa note that some banelity : such as Yopriking a balance" is hopoless. All it preducas is a tendoncoy for tha organisation as it gets bigger, to fragment ee differant . people pun'sange ai ant lines. The only way such an orpan-~ Sation-could bo held together is by a superimposed buraaucracy. (Gace by now. will sea cloarly the cours ’ slopment of ES). tha only way cut of Q A, y cS - AS mr — rot mae . a of this situation is Dy fa-posing tho queation in a different way. a QO S 3%) us What the above analysis shows dearly is that the questdon of what constitutes political trade unionism cannot ba answered at the level of bringing other issues inso tha trade unions. Clearly a revclucienary must de this, but so Goes a social demccrat, What dafinas the difference between the social deroorat. conception of trade unionism and tho ravoluticnary conception, is . therefore the way in which the trade unior Strunicte is wagaod,. Or 3 more pracisoly. what idcas concerning tho factory struggle tho revolutionary puts ACP OSES wacther in agitation (axplaini ngs Pfau icons. toa largo number of. poopla) oz in propaganda (explaining a large number of ideas to a smali number oO oo oe h S basa of people), It is the solf bivity of the working class thab is + sa of. the revolutionaries poli That is to say not to "call-tha masses to action! but to rely on the masses to bring themselves into acticn, and for hin to imtervene to attempt to explain tha significance of tim struggle. (SES APPENDIX TWO) The role of the party is to explain the characteristics of the situation, and present a rounded conception of it so that the working class itself can respond to any changes in that situation which may occur suddenly also to any changes producad by its own activities. For examples the main ain of a party in the struggle against the Industrial Relations Bill is not to formulate demands for a strike on. such and such a day but to explain why the Bill in being introduced, what ore its aims, how it is a product of tha |

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~ 42 ~ aconomic crises. of cupitelism end nob of the porsonal nastiness of the Tories, how @ Lebour government would introduce 2 simila i ete. Within ar act and why F this context: the rank and file workers can show far mora ingenuity than any part in deciding wpon.tho precise forms of struggla. Certainly tha party is active in. orgenising all and evory action of tho working class but this is 4 subordinate. function to its main political task. As Lenin notes tho view that.-the role cf the party is to issue "calls to section" is shaer nonsance, becausa tho ( call, as a single act, cithar naturally and inevitably supplements the theoretical treatise, propagandist pamphlet and agitational speech, or roprosents’ 2 puroly oxecutive function." This is tho basis of tha famous point that the difference betwaen agitation and propagendist is not the diffarence betwoen activity and simply explaining idoas, but the difforenca between explaining a few ideas. to a larsa numbor cf paopla., . Thus when, for example, & revolutionary advances the domand of work or "full ‘maintaince for the unemployed": or "five days work for five days pa} what he is not calling for is simply more money cr men out of work. He is attempting to set across in a single slogan tho idea that it is capitalism which creates unemploymens and not the workers. The idea that men should get less than full wages whon unemployed is sean as some sort of admission that in someway the working class is responsible for unomployment. The assertion that man should get. full waga is therefore a way of explaining that it is capitalism which creates unemployment and. tha working class refuses to be rasponsible for any of the consequences.

Simiiarly in the casa of the armanonts of the capitalist state. The Marxist slogan hore as always boon for the refusal cf one singla poany for the armanants of the capitalist state. This is bacause thea essontial idea which revolutionarics wish to convey is that the state is not above classes but is an instrument of the bourgecisie which tho working class imst regard as its eneny immnerable other examples could be found, For cxammle Marxists do not call for the bourgeois state to ettack fascism becausa they wish the workars to understand that it is tha bourgeoisio which produced fascism and the state is a bdourgaois.. stata. Marxists always cppose the uso of imperialist treops anywhere even if they appear to be "protecting" the population because they wish to explain in the idea that it is imperialism which is the onsimy. They oppose all laws on immigration because to accapt even tha sligntes$ limitation is to accept the arguuont that it is inmigratvion and not capitalism which creasas tha problem of the working class. (Once the aim of Marxist intervention is understood it is possible te understand what ccmpromise is. If you believe that the reason jou demand full meintainance for tha unemployed is because they shold get more monay ther to demand a £5 increase instead of whatever is the aniount of full maintainance is to make a compromise but not to sacrifice principle. . However if the essentisl pvoint is that you are trying to gat across ths idea that it » capitslism which creates unemployment than evan to accept full maintainance mins one penny is not to comprorrsa but to accapt that in some way the unemployed are responsible for their situation.

Similarly if you believe that the reason wo should oppose armaments is because they are. "a waste" than to call for a raduction in armaments is to make a sonpromise but not to sacrifice principle. Howaver for a revelutionary to call for e reduction in armaments. is not to maka a.compromisa but to acceyt the principle of the right of tho capitalist class to possass arms. To call for 2 reduction in armaments thoreforda.no longer conveys the sama idca as to opposs all arms payments for capitalism. 1% is this type of voint which shows “how the Communist Party is not "realistic! but has abandoned armaments.

Cortainly a revolutionary will fight for limited aims. but he will do so on an ontiraly different platform -to that of a vraformist. It is from this that tho vossibility of unity in action and the United Front emergas.

Ay i Thesa apparently abstract princivios ara in fact of extreme importance oven in the. evoryday class struggle. Taka an oxample ‘such as the Fords 1971 wage claim. Hero the Transport and General Workers Union presented a wage claim.

The demands were takon up by the man. However the union. and the Commmnist Party and cortain "xevolutionary" groups, carried on its campaign on the basis thet more.wages. should be obtained because the company was moking high profits.

This however is a complately class collaborationist concapt as 2% links tho

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- AR» question of pay to the prosperity of tho company i.¢. it accepts the rignt of tha company to maka prot’ its and hence for the panerel oconomic syaten of capitalism which is basad on profits | $o aoxist. Tho job oF fevolustonarios is to explain the idea so that what the workings class should demand is for the ending of the capitalist system. Givan that this obviously. cannot be achiaved within one factory then the balanca of foreas makes the workers fight for the mere linited.aim of meinteining their standaxd of living. In those circurstances what is demanded is tho wage incroase but tho argument rosts of never Linking it to the question of profits but to the question of the right of the working clase to itiprove its standard of Living regardless of the state of the company.

Hoenee the revolutionarias and the roformists a. are Q fighting for tha same limited: goal but thair arsuments are totally eee Furthermore it is not tho rovolutionarigs who are unrealistic. Thorse a definite Logic te the reformists argument. If you should demand ni chon’ wagos because of high profits, thon obviously if the company is not making high profits then you should not domand higher wages. This occurrol for oxample at tha British Leyland plant at Bathgate where the company persunded the mon not to demand 4 pay incraase procisely because the firm was not uaking profits, Wo can now soa why the Gifferonce between egitation scon as calls to action, and agitation scon as oxplaining idoas is 8 crucial cno. If the primary job of revolutionarics was seen as issuing "co to action’ thon it ibviously a very effective rhetori 2 le to call for stvikus by saving the company is making & vary large profits therefora wo demand a wage ineraase. As tha majority ef tho working class is dominated by bourgeois ideology this obviously is a mora offective argumant in obtaining action than is a revolutionary linc. ‘The logic however is the Bathgate experiance, It is onhy bysceing agitation as explaining ideas that a really revolutionary approach would be adopted (Another o.g. is the casa of the troops in Iroland). Tho idoa of agitation 3 @ “call to action! is both disastrous and 2 typically Social Domocratic ministrative conception of tha ralation botweon party and class. c on OQ 38S if this is not in the slightest a passive approach, what it means However is tho most careful possible salection of tho. slogans which wa use. so that they do in fact sum up tha main characteristics cf the period. We hava already noted the NC TO ANY FORM OF INCOMZS POLICY as a cantral slogan of the coming poriod. What others can assume central importanco?,.

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We have already dealt with sone a the conajunectural slogs - in particular NO TO ANY FORM OF INCOMES POLICY - which are ; ortent in the coming pexrioad. Our slogans on Ireland a will bo dealt with elsewhore. What it is necessary to dgsl with here is the main long term slogtins which we will use to gat across the politica al ideas on tm basis of which we attompt to fain a base inside tho working class. This is an immensely practical question. Our inter- ‘venticn in the miners and other strikes have shown that it is now relatively simple to get contacts inside the working class, what we do not have at present howaver is anything to offer thom in terms of a distinchive policy to that of pure militant trade unicnism.- One of tho roasons why most of our trade unicnwork up to preset has beon fairly fruitless is because we have applied tho uscless concepts of "mobilising the masses" to it. What this means in practica is that. wo feact to issuos which are thrown up in the course of the struggle, instcad of intorvening in a long term way on slogans which will actually changa the wey the strugele is occurring. dn axcollont example of this has boon, ‘our intoryontion in rank and file teacher. It is not insulting tho cdes concerned to say that basically wo got nothing ont of this. The reason Fas quite simply that we woro Aiming at "mobilising the messes! and not attempting to explain certain ideas.

In short wo had basically an identical approach to I.S. I+t is only since we abandoned this apnproach ard began a theorctical critique of ‘how I.5.'s general politics load to thoir particular policies in schools that we-hava bogun to make any hoadway, This varticular problom is going to recurr over and over again. In most industries we are going to find ourselves working around united fronts with other tendencies. If we Go not work out our ideas clearly wa will simply be swallowed uy. Therefore clarifying what wo want to say, in order te be. able -to consolidate a stable nuclous, is our first practical task. In short whet we necd to begin to seriously think about is the cloments of a transitional programme for the presont situation. &) The genora]l characteristics of a As dealt with in appondix two, a transitional prograrme must smash the social relations of capitalist production and of the ste to machine which doefands thom.

However cloarly it is not the case that eny programme which does this is the transitional programme for the prosent circ cumstances. For example in Russia this was achioved by the Sovicts on a particular programme whith high emphasis on ehe issves of land and peace. In Gormany Drotsky was of the opinion that the factory ccuncils could be the organs for the establishment of the proletarian sictatorshi De and the Sovicts could only come into oxistence after the bourgeois state had been dastroyod. It is thorafore entiraly incorrect to fotishisa any orgenisational form, to do so allows an opening for all sorts of varitics of roformism (a.2.

Stalin's position thet thera could be no revolution in 1922 in PoeBeny becausa thore ware not Soviots. Whet constitutes the nature and correctness of a spocific transitional programme is the way it interlinked with the prasent strugelos ef the working class (and cther rovelutionary messes if they oxist).

Tha starting point of our prasent analysis. as outlined on many occassions in the Rod Mole, ics that the working class is not relating te the struggle against capitalism at the praesent time through the orgounisetions of the Labour Party.

Thoy aro still dominated by Sociai Pomeeneey Sdooloay (still makes the dis- Sinction betwaen trade unionism and polities on the basis of whera they occur) but we do not cali for the workers "2 enter the Labour Party and fight, because tho fact thet many at least bolieve it is Paposs fre to change labour is a stap forvard and not backward for tho working class. ‘This is an essential rovelutionary point, it, because one of the most charactoristi © foa tures of social democracy and xoformism is the fact that they Countszpose song “imagined "desirable" form of strugglo to tho setual way in which the workir 1@ class is struggling. _ this can ba soun classicallyin the case of Troland. Hero every sort of reformist trond, notably the RSL and SLL, countorposa some alternative struggle to the presen fight against _the army on the national question. Thay say "You should not be fighting the army, you should bo fighting to niticnalise tha banks /f orea the Rorias to rosin /ncke the loft M.P.s fight/Domand the SDLP scize state power.

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ox whatever is tho fashionable siocgan of the mcmant. What this means in practice of course is to, Ge~ascalate tha real strugglo or oven to actively oppose it on tha grounds that it is "diversion" from an infallible plan for taking state powor, Wo hava always completely rejected this approach. In ireland what wa saylis "So you wish to fight the national strugele. Execllent. This struggle is in the interest of the working class. However, you need te understand how this struggle can actually bo carried to victory and that thie can only bo achieved by turning it into o war against the Irish boursccisic as well as against the British Acmy." In othor words wo do nct counterpose an alternative struggle to tho presant ong, Ww) show how tha prosent strug can bo extended into a successful onc, Simiisrly at peesont tha British working class is fighting through forms of struggle such as strikes, trade union activity atc. What thu reformists do is to counterpose to this some othor struggle c.g. to forca a ganoral claction, to ight inside the Labour Party constituencics. This again is the politica of reformism. Wa do not counterpose tha present form of struggle to some other struggle, out show how the prasent way in which tho working class in fighting against eapitalism can be turned into an effective political strugela. In short what wa sey is not that tho trade union struggle must be ebandoned in order to fight inside tha Labour Party. or, ultimate horror, to "build tho party" but that the aimos of tha struggle cf the trade unions must be changed, Wa say "It is oxcaiLlant that you fight inside the 7T.U.s. It is corroct that it is not pcessible to change the Labour Party. However your prasont gecals ara tco limited. They must ba extended to take up the fundamental questions of the aconomy and of tha state", This poing was clearly spelt out in a contre sereed which was eccepted at the last conference. This stated that; Qu br "As wo noted the main struggle in the present period is going to be between the trade union movament and the capitalist class and betwean tha trade unions and tha labour leadership. In this situation it is: not the task of revolutionarics to say that workers must first gc through the "stage" of angaging in years of impossible strugzio inside tha Lebour Party. On the contrary, tha task of revolutionarics is to say, "Yos, wo agree that the trade unions are at the momont the cnly crganisaticns actually fighting the bourgeoisie, and that it is therefore necessary to work steadfastly within the trade unions. But it is impossible to fight capitalism's attacks simply through trade union action. If you believe the trade unions ara a waapon of strugels, then you must saq@ that they must alse bacome the core of a political movaemont against the present leaders of the working class. In short, any anti-capitelist, that is workers government, must basa itacif on the trade uniens and tho trade vntiions must become a key instrument in struggling for such a government. It is this orientation which the slogan "A Workers Government based on the trade unions" sums up (I would not wish to modify the oxact formulation now). It indicates a line of advance and not some abstract and immediate call for the dictatorship of the proletariat. Neither is it a slogan to be counterposed to voting Labcur at any olecticn. Nor is it a substitute for conercte demands aimed at showing the real nature of tha Labour leaders, - It’ simoly lays down the main lina of ergument for a real strugele against the prosent Labour leaders, and it retains that validity whether that struggle is conductad mainly inside or outside the Labour Party. It can of ccoursa in certain circumstances become an agitaticnal demand and cne counterpesad to tha Labour Party.

This would be tho case if, fox example, any future Lebour government enterad a coalition with the Torios to "save the country", "prevent anarchy’ ete. In these circumstances it bocomds a direst call te the Trade Unions to break with the Labour Party and organise politically indepoendentiy of it. In. the coming poriad howsver its mein significance is to define an orientation of making the trade unions into tha core cf a struggle against the Labcur loaders, and making trade nnionists conscious of the fact that this is the casa." Tho particuler formula of "A WORKERS GOVERNMENT? BASED OW THE TRADE UNTONS" will bo dealt with later. For now wa will continue the analysis.

Wheat is clear from tho analysis cf the situation inside the Labour Party is thet forns of slogans aimed at getting a mass of workers to. break organisationally with tho Labour Party to form a Party with the aim of creating a eevernriont which would do certain things for the working class is ruled cut. That type cf

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ae of _ EE. phe Fayeys } alid in, for example a poriod of ncute crisis within a mass working class Party in which the ad vanced 1 wor rkors 6 ara: ore wnisationally invelved. Hsnca amceratic Parties to form mist Parhies, nnd thon to. ‘of faz & unite 2a fron’ government to tho social rats, i.c. a classical "workers govoernmont" tactics was an cxample of how to apply a trarsitional program in such’a situation. ow however such a tactic s ruled out. The demands for a govarnment to oe cortain things fox the norking class (nationalise this, ban that ete.) in the present circumstances raduce’ themselves cither to rovisionism and reformism, or to storiio cect politics, We may take as e concrete axample the demands raised at the ond of the third | iners broadsheet. This calls on a government to fraoza prises, take ovar tha banks ate. The way this is formulated is as a complete abstraction countorposad to tho present struggle of the working class. Suppose any workers agreed with theso slogans, how would he fight for thom? What organisation is capable of pursuing such a policy? I trust no one is advocating that wo say he should i xr Labour to accept such a program. If he is. he is merely raising the slegan of Nabe to powar with socialist policios" without having at le st the virtue of being axplicit (incidentally, this is how avory other tendency will interpret it -.wo are calling four a Labour government but don't think it sounded Nravolutionary" enough to do 80). if evaryons is agreed Labour cannot form such a governmont, who doos ha believe can? Quite clearly cniy the IMG can. In short, the formulation in the broadsheet amounts to: "join us in the hope that in the futuro wo cam form such a government". This point was aise dealt with in the centra spread accapt cod ty the last conference, Tb states: "In short, the position as regards the LP is as follows: - Oxganiaationally it has suffered a catastrophic acciine. This mist not hovevar be confused with an onding of its ideological domination of the working class. @his hold cannot be broken without a struggle Within tha labour movement. The task of revolutionarias is to heighten tha struggle by incxeasing at all timas the tension between the LP ant the TU.s. Such an orisntation is now summed up in the slogan "A Workers Government based on the trade unions" (again wea Will take up this slegan lator). It is only by adopting such an oxientation that the socialist demands for workers control. nationalisation atc caase to be mero propaganda and becoms instruments of struggle. WITHOUT If, THE ONLY ANSWER YOU CAN GIVE TO THE WORKER WHO SAYS "T AGREE WITH YOUR POLICIE:

HOW AM I TO ORGANTSE 0 IMPLEMENT IT" FS TO SAY “JOIN US" AND THIS TS. A PORMOULA FOR A SECT, NOT A STRUGGLE. Tha agitationel demands which flow from this oricntation say “organise politically inside the 7. Ue 8S, use your trade union as a wey of organising the ‘fight inside, af no side the LP. It is only in this way that tha demends for nationalis Sion onl Workers control move out of the realsm of Yaxposure™ politics and intc the realm.of class struggia". These coments remain absolut a venas as regards any formulation of a government te de certain things for the working. class - as opposad te giving the right to workers organisations themselves to “ao certain things A sacondary, but conjuncturally extremaly important, reason wry tha rormulation of "doing something for" is complataly incorrect, is givan by the gonaral political co-crdinates cf the present situsaticn. As we have noted already, one of the main aims of tha labour leadership is to come to a deal with the TU bureaucracy over the question of an incomes policy, As has been explained cn nany ocassions, the advantages of such a deal to tho :-TU-bureacracy is that it ongpnes them to avoid waging a struggle against the government and in defence f the working o asses living stancacds. . They will say.theat the TU struggle is andmporbeatt . and ¢ fight is for tha return of a Labour government.

Te aim of this moanosuvrs is clear.-. What is important to notice however is tnat it is a perfect example of the count Lou school of roformism. What the TU bureaucracy in fact 6 does is to ¢ counberpose the struggle for a Labour government to the TU struggle. Tha effect cf this is of coursa to demobilise the strugglc.

An essential aim of our intervention is to explain precisely that this is in fact & manocuvra, that the bureaucracy has not realisad tha need for political struggle but on the contrary merely wishes to counterpose another form of struggle with the aim of ensuring that there is no struggla at all. This is another, sscondary albeit important reason why we insist that the use cf thea trade unions for struggle against capitalism be extended and not be raplaced with another form of struggle.

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~ 47 We do not sey "abandon the strugele through tho trade unions for the "political struggle", but “turn the strugeic throuszh the trade unions into a political strugeio", The form of demands that logically express this are demands which tho trade unions as organisational forms can etruggle for and which would destroy the ulation of the economy by % she a of value and reyiace it with production cf 7? oint that this is impossible moroly through tho trade unions is 5] a Lh a CoO uso values, The poln precisely encapsulated in the domend for ' government which gives the rights.....!

The broadsheets formilatic R noarposings the "tha strugelo for an orranisation which can form a government whi an ate" therefore completoly plays into the hands of the buresucracy to say thet the trade union struggle can go on Sinuilteancously witt at | for an organisation which can form a government which-can etc! for 4 it is not co-cktstonce that makes the two strugglos gnteriinkad. ‘IP ES ONLY AN ORGANTC CONNECTION IN TERMS OF AIM, PROGRAM AND ORGANISATIONAL FORM. That connection is completely broken dewn in the breadsheates formilation. What we in fact doing when carrying this discussion concerning organisational form and programme, is discussing conscisusnoss of the working class. NOT CONSCIOUSNESS AS UNDERSTOOD IN THE ROURGHOTS SENSE OF IDEAS IW ECPLES HEADS, BUT IN THE MARXIS? SENSE OF THE ACTIVE RELATION OF TO ITS CIR- UMSTANCES AND THE PROSLEMS WHICH CONFRONT IT. (seo appendix tuc). It is this and not to ‘ideas" that the formila "leading from the present conscicusness of the working class" loads. Taking tho point that a transitional programme must destroy the social rolations of capitelist production, end of the state machine which dafends thom, what the organisational aspect of this moans is "leading from the present organisations of the working class to organisations capabla of smashing tho bourgcois state." In short our ossential task is not simply to explain that tha trade unions sro not adequate instruments for taking state power, which of course they are not, but how the presont organisation nf the working class could ba transformed into wevoluti onary instruments, and therefora how should any new organisations thrown up in the course of struggle bo constructad. Tn st raguira an orgenisational programme which can be applied gither tec any onieting organisations, or to any now organisations. Let us take a conerete exampic o this. 2 i The most fundamental peineiple of one, is that it is completely independant of “tho. oumecots 4 general idea wa wish to convey to the working class. Th _of it can vary, of course, Honcoe for example in Russia concretely posed was the ending of thse "Co-ordination Committe and the Provisional Covernment. in ths present situacior iven the existing organisations of the working class (end the ralation to circumstances which this implies) the conercte form of this is for the complete indepandence of the trade union from the bourgoois stata, Our conerate slogans would therefore run somothing along the lines of NO TO CO-OPERATION WITH THE CAPITALIST STATE, NO LAWS AGAINST THE TRADE UNICNS, NO REGISTRATION, etc... The essential idea we wish to gat across is the necassity for the complete indapondence of all working class organisations from the bourgeois state. This goneral idea cen then be applied to any furture conjuncture and any future forms of organisations - soviots. actory councils etc. thrown up by the struggloa of the working class in other words we do not arbitarily select some orgenisational form from which we insist the working class moveriont must pass through on its way to power, but dascriba the characteristics which any “such orgarisations must have. This is an extranely important point ss any revolution will undoubtedly throw up forms of organisation which it is quite impessilba to predict at tha present time.

Exsctly the same principle applies when wa come to explaining the "internal structure" of any revolutionary workers organisations. Again it is quito useless to try to predict what will be the exact organisational form through which tha working class will seize powor., We heve already noted tha examples of Russia, Germany and China. It should further be notad that the Soviets in Russian actually gvaw out of organisations set up by the Cauarist Government (which should settle any organisational fotishism), In this country of course one can Spocutete as to form. For example, while it seams cloar that tha officiel trade union structures would be hopeless in any revolution, thera seems littlo reason why factory i i i i i i i t H

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ommittecs coulda not grow quite organically out of ths system. Nevartheless it is net the aim of revolutionaries to crystal ball gaze.

Wheat we can do is to bogin to spoll out the gonurel characteristics of any corganisation cf real workers power, Those must include quite clearly y tho right of full cisction and rocall. Quite cloarly tha workers in the nit ef production mist ba organised ~ (facts ory committees). as must other sections of tha working class, including the unomployod, on, for exemple, housing ostates (loci committoas). he army and polica mist also be broken up and the bourgeois chain of command reoplaced with an altornative structure of the workers, Finally all those units must ba Linked up on a gaographical basis (soviets). If woe anply those principles to ie oxisting yorkers organisaticns wo get a sorias of demands somothing like the following:

THE RIGHT OF ELECTION AND IMMEDIATE RECALL OF ALL SHOP STEWARDS THE FORMATION IN ALL ARRAS OF TINANES COMMITTEES BASED ON FULL HIECTION AND THE RIGHT OF IMMEDIATE RECALL.

THE RIGHT OF TRADE UNION ORGANISATION, INCLUDING THS ELECTION WITH RIGHT OF RECALL OF SHOP STEWARDS WITHIN THE pouch AND ARH THE FORMATION OF COMMUSTEES OF UNEMPLOYED WITH FULL SIEOPION AND RICHT OF RECALL OF REPRESENTATIVES {HE EXTENSION OF TRADES COUNCILS 10 INCLUDE THE REPRESENTATIVES OF SOLDIERS, THES POLIOZ, THU UNEMPLOYED AND TENANTS COMMLTTEES. ALL DSLEGATHS TO ) BE ELECTED AND SUBJECT TO INSTANT RECALL.

Tho main thing which nocds to ba added to that is THE FORMATION OF WORKERS DEFENCE SQUADS IN GVERY AREA, Such a programme, if cazri ied cut. would quite cl fs * aan discussed latex, tho contzal trade union links were yes te factory councils and sovicets, Presumably on one is g 2 that not seize power. They quite clearly vould ba completaly tronstione al if mover woxe transformed to then, in that they wovld by their orgunisation form, smash the social roletions cf the bourgacis state machine Of eccurse it is uniikely that things would develop straight forwardly in this fashicn. For example, trade councils ara almost cartainly too burenucratisad te bo "trans forned » aven in the most revolutionary uphoaval, into organisation of the type d xibed. In jase these circumstances wa would change our call to one for local Councils of Action. aration, as obviously the Covneil of Action na ores ational base as wa wera campaigning for tha tradsa council “to adopt. Indeed, in a revolutionary situation what would probably occur is thet some trades councils could ba transformed and some could not. This would not poso us with tho slightost problsm. All that would be important would bo the basis of any local orgenisaticn, its origin is 2 purely tactical question which can only be solvad o¢ oneretoly in every instance, The above serics of demands constitute = concreto, if not necessarily complataly satisfactory or comprehensive, application of a transitional programme, i.a. they taka as their starting point the need ta smasn tho social relations of the capitalist state, and then show how this can de dona taking the present way i which the working class is relating tc ite circumstances, and the ontonisations through which it is doing it, as a starting point. It shows how these organisations could ba transformed, Almost cartainly uew organisations of workers power wil ba thrown up in the course’ of the struggle. This however poses no real problezus as we can simply apply the and, destruction of social relations, to the naw consciousness {and organisation) without in the slightest altering the content of whet wo are saying to the working class. So far the question of organisation form has boon dealt with. Hewevar, far mora important than that is the question of the corttent of the programme of any workers organisations. ve

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If wo take the centyel domands of any the field of ore 2co8 nic struggle, then are those related to workers centrol. occassions. i. i n tha Third International, the the trade unions mist be for workers control of of workers cornbzcl are by no moans unambiguous.

The central concept of workers control in i the dootzuction of the social relations of truction of tha law of value. This howsvar at ones ra reletions of capitalist production are by no mans simp?

Thev consis: cof a gonieralised series of rolaticns including relations weet is factory. al betucen factories. For this reason positive control 1.0. produced etc. can only be carried cut Sf the working outenee the individual factory. After tho aricty of ways in which this can bo dona, initislly dong via tho trade unions. (sce and its first rogulations’ on we Ta the kors control). guch positive control can be put forward in situations industry aro under the control of the workers. in 1968, consciousness within individual factories is very hig working class is still pessive. continue running for a period with the runnin in this an point that undar capitalism tho workers ming of at the ga an , al torna Va social reguleting mechanisn conditions tha essential demands here ares ak ND @ RICHT OF VETO GN St THR RECHT OF VETO ON PAYMENTS SYSTEMS TEE RIGHT OF VETO DANGEROUS WORKING VETO SPEED UP VETO nee Wi Ne ONO” chy ~ THE RIGHP TO VETO JOB LOSS.

In the coming period wa should take these in the trads unions, they should form our on he MO b of the workers can ba seen to be VETO THE CONTENT OF THE PRESS n capitalisy 1s ohenonsary nee at the workers mus ° way In which tha qu uostion stiastion is in terus of the veto domends. i no f production, Al] that is deal therefore is the concept of workers control as 4 transition organisations complex ie os innumberabl aZomend for agitation wi thin Rowever tha ideas 4. u nel, demand. ts transitional sanse capitalist production Qo Faises mali 5 altara: classes power coxtan conquest of stata power there | USSR for the programmo of Even without the conquest whore large grcups An axample of this | was at Howover the far more usual way in which the question is ha Eh, but where tho rest of Here it is eiaee that the factory is #cling t end uncer thease circumstances it ‘ala example “ a i 4 & probicen ha tolation of the sion of Fo. with hore 3 quite clearly ed. thea des~ » ‘the social it wa the Bolshevik osed is BeQ & Ww responsibility whatever for of control Agitation on this can ba posed theme makes can taka no responsibility for tha the principle we cima assorts to the xb 00 Sad tt bx. h improved if. and sigul tanoously no concessions are made to theoricas o 6 THE RIGHT OF VETO CF MOVEMENT OF WORKERS WIT penaen 2? BOHENS $ND OVERTT bo Ean a4 & ct o bf 5 1 should ba found. In addition we neod to spocify pracaices, now plant, spaed up che. wa want FCN Ha. intively easy to apply the Tf we adopted this schamd te 5 orm, this means of course is that the demends mst ba concretaly applied industry.. Obviously in any particular industry other demands wheat yarttoular ¢ dangerou Hevertheles bE CNTRODUCTION OF NEW PLANT AND OTIER PUBLI as the Vato. re) ‘thos: ma ao aw of val oe id, IN THe PLANT ipa ati ivf i UO 6 that S ware 16 in United Fronts ats ait thora iis Tho achioved ve Amongst central onas in ovr work Wheat to each of the same aoe t is raof tha demands to various industries. . also have a coherent po siti mae in cach industry and union which would give a coherence to ony In addition the demands are completely political in that te understand then.

Linn fully it is necessary to also to understand tho stru modity production atc. Wea should ba clear however what is meant by for such demands, it is not "calling the workers to action", what clearly announcing that these demands form a long term aim, and then makin agitation around conerete struggles relatad to thase can 4 4. u ion to put forward srade union work. eture of capitalism, com~ + 1s 5 iT "oampaiening" tral slogans. means is oa tho

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Neturaily it would be tho task of tho newspaper and other publicetiong to explain the nature, justification ete for thoesa domands.

Onca the content of cur agitetion in the trade unions is clarified, then the question of our Zovernmental propaganda alsc becomes relatively clear. Wa noad to explain that the stato is far stronger than the working class organised in trade unions and thet a governmont is nocessery which will give to the workars organisations the right to carry cut such measures of control. Quite whether this is the demand for "A Workers gsovernmeant based cn tha trade unions" or not is ralativoly immaterial. I personally favour the slogan "A WORKERS GOVERN-~ MENT BASED ON TRADE UNION ACPLON". but that agein is not absolutaly procisay beceuse tho crganisationa involved to form the base cf a government would not simply be trade-unions. The assentiai content however must ramain the same ; no matter what the precise slogan is. Theo essential point is that we are demanding a goverment which gives certain rights to tha workars organisations. Why this form is oxtroemealy important, is that it is tho only one which gives an organic connoction betwaen the struggle for a government, and the present struggioas of the working class (i. e, the woy in which it is relating to its circumstances = its consciousness). Quite clearly a government bascd on organisations changad in the way alroady deseribed with a programmo containing the elements just outlined would ba a government complatoly incompatable with tho existance of capitalism, however such 2 governmont can be errived at from many points of departure. In the unlikely event of the IMG becoming a mass party within the noxt year, then clearly what we would ask to workers to do would be to vote for us as a government to implement such 2 programme. Given that no party exists capable of forming such a government, then we can still continue to campaign within the unions for such demands while also explaining the noecassity for a government with such a programme. Our attitude to the Labour Party is eslso than clearly defined. We Ficht alongside. bebour workers against the Tories, but va give ne support to any party which do og nob accept a programma of the typa cute lined. In short such a programme links completely in e political way with our work inside tho trado unions.

The third point which bécomes of contral importance in such a policyis the guastion of the domocratisation of the trade untons. The organisations which we eall for the control production are the shen floor organisations of the working class. ‘haso organisetions at presant however are subject to the control of tha bureaucratisad trade union apparatus In the type of policy just described therofore the question of who controls production cannot be saparated from the XG gues ba on ef who contrcls the trade unions. Quite clearly as lceng as the burcauvatised trade union structures oxist., then the workers organisations would not in fact defend the interests of the working class. Tho koy sections of our. pro-_ gramme mast vhoxefore xrelatad to the question of trade union bureaucracy. Here however the transitional demand take on a new meaning in the context just deseribed., ha asscntial demands ara: 1) All officials to bo elected and subject to instant recall 2) No bans and proscription 3) No secret negotiations A} AlL decisions to bo taken by mass meetings, or, whera this is impossible, by eee tings of directly olected represontatives of the men. All union officials o be bound by such decisions.

These sets of demands concerning organisational forms, workers control, and democracy of the trade unicn could form tho core of a transitional programne forth presant situation. Which domands wa would place which strass on at which tima is of course 2a practical question, at present thoir main function is on a political base for United Front within the. Prado Unicns. In the present circumstances of questioning concerning tho rola of the Labour Party, it seams to me that the demands which we stress aro those relating to a. workers government and to workers control. The assentiel political work of the organisation over the uoxt ysoar should therefore be that of explaining. our ideas concarning workers

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— 31.0. control and a workers fovernment. Unr aim showla ho to atbemph ta dvaw tudistetal workers around us who accept thase slogans.

In order to achieve this target the nature of tho nawspaper must be radically changed. So far cux newspapor has bean aimed at organising a group who hava either navex baen influencad by Social Democracy or who have broken from that influence. The demands raised abova ara damands for breaking people from Social | Democracy. This means that tha entire political character of the nawspapor must be changed so that it too bacomes part of the now political task we have sot ourselves.

Work amongst womon The demands manticned above would be the main content of our intervention in all sections of tho population, or to ba more preciso thoy would be the main backdrop to our work - obviously thoy are nuanced by the sector of intervontion and by other conjunctural events which may take precedency at any point in timc.

Obviously therofere in our intervention amongst women we would try to oxplain tho main ideas reised and why only tho implemontation cf thesa ideas can form the bases for a scolety capable of solving the prebloms which women face. WNeverthaloss, like black and other oppressed groups, even the destruction of capitalism would not automatically stop the oppression of women, and women suffer forms of oppression not dealt with in the above demands, The precise nature cf the demands we raiso are defined by the conjuncture. They will bo dealt with more fully in a sayorate decument. The main feeling of women ades seems ta ba that they should attempt to gain industrial contacts through a low pay equal pay campaign.

The success cf this should be reviewad aftor, say. six months. In order to gain tha maximum gain for the Fourth International from this, "Socialist Wonan" must ba clearly indentified as a Fourth International payor.

Studonts There will be a sonorate papor on work amongst studants. The general political line should be that of the Marshall /Clynes Red Mole cantrespread.

Work amongst blacks Our work amongst blacks is still on a vary small propaganda scale. Given the suspicions croatad by white racism it is Likely to romain so for a long period.

To clarify our intarvention howaver two theoretical points must ba spelt cut, a) Racism is an entirely different phenomena to the super exploitation of, for exanpia, immigrant Buropaan workers; b) Racism has a different social base to anti-semitism; co) While we suppert seporate black organisations, a democratic centralist sectoral organisation, including a democrstic centralist black organisations, is @ contradiction in torms. 7 Other anti-imporialist and international work oe Treland is clearly the centre of our anti-imperialist work in the coming poriod.

Varions other issues come vy however as pressing - in particular S.Asia work and the need for solidarity with the NLF. These will be dealt with in anothar PADAT e | | | i

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”

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the chic: ohed 3 the tendency of the workin ISS GO unio g} : ‘Los iah als coin the old | attempts of the bourgcoisic 7 he. of capitalist cconomic policy. ich have attempted this integration "by stcalth’, ond in those such as Bealgium or Spain where suck curse of sovere, or in the case of Spain, decisi Under the economic conditions now prevailing in mont of the highest . Significance. Only the beckg however.

In the case of Spain the inve oO unions and statc took place following the victory of Fascism in the Civil War. However the apid capitalist development of Spain in the late 1950s end 1960s di cteted osening of the old ibie any rational union orgrniseations, n g state structure whict had maie imposs apid Lor i 8, and tho 1962 ¢ strike wave. Tn an o 2 fe) eo os tion of the cconomy.

The fixst fruits of this wor: a rap 4 re ad i Ww © Q Fy PBs ss ja t s % we OH vy ba} fo ch iO fu ee @ ck 0 oO HY 3 m assuming revolutionary overtones, & er can) 5 ot foe CMe AQ » xr oD On kyo fee ‘3 bet pete aw ct for an oxtension of the te in the iatc 1950s, called "Workers Commissions” orkors sot bp the first on the formation of factory ec comms wheres From cwoin importance tnd ections imluded the large 7 and in meny cases the srrar vonent 6 of the verse The development of this movement, anc € o regime has develonad te tho point whore %t wing frouns, oxclu ding the CoP a, union elections, The success aved in-some factorics around sque sreas and most of Catalonia. and the Communist Party. lo] e i om @ iS B M HI Ps:

Q& fo sO or fo oo ; QO ou ted ran Qs 3 oD ch @ pot Pe 8 ts won pu a 1 :2an to etaiaen from astu uri ss is bel by QO B ck ts" os = ¢ o BR ma ra) Q OQ 1,8 E en > be G aenonstr=bions of Ge struggles at the time of t the gencral declin in the 1971 sreet felt able to call tak wm & GS by 36.0 = byt ee be FR bd TQ sh O ct ct bet ok So i} Fay) O00 Fh HY rho @ s ct ry ok Ft og fet fae) ct Mra G at the boycott ¥ x Barceions, end ‘abstontio This was desvite tremendous int 4 + mn.

Sa ouke) oO “4 4 20 Q be te oO a ok fe 2 5) ce 4 4 ct EP O og Q 3 5 3 Q Ss ct ¢ Spain is of course cxcopvional in that the very cxistonos of real workers tr: unions becomes a political act against the rcogime, and of course in no other West Buropcan country doos the intcgretion of unions and state cxist in anything like the same dc ge ec, Noverthcless, the same besic processes can be seen in other countrios in whick the tredc unions have come to play a particularly class collaborationery role, ard in all these states a break-up of the old order is urnder.way, This is oven the case in the two countrics where proletarian passivity has been most merked, and wheres attempts to intcgrate the unions heve becn most succossful - e.g. W. Germany and Sweden. the trade unions into tho ap Tho attcmpt of ‘the bourge naratus of the statc is of course 2 con at work for the whole of this century at lors. frotsky not one common fcaturc in the dewicpmant st more correctly the deogonerat tor n.trads union orgenissticns in the entire world: it is thoir drawi growing together with the state power. his srocess is cqually charrctcoris trel, the Social Democratic, the ommunist and the “anarchist” fact elenc shows that the tendency towards "growing together" is ¢ is or that doctrine as such but aerives from the gocial conditions common unions. .T% must be borne in mind shat there is also a contradictory aspeet tondcney, which is that it is i Lact impossible to incorporate ily. Only Fascism can sceure this particular task. In consccucnce, ly cvery country the state secks Simultancously to weaken the tr and to utilise them in the defonec cf the position of the ruling class, overy Single case from the attemp% of the Belgien government to i Nog unique" right. up to the February an May 1969, Deecmbcor 1970 and Ja ch lst and 18th strikes in Britein, clash after clash with tho work: een provoked by this attempt. It is only the dire economic need of th ich oroncls them to oontinue the attempt.

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example, finds 2 Direct ; involve ME ple France and fats: ante erventi of the government in the sottlement of or — i ae. participation of representatives of the trade unions in the implementing of the laws regulating industriel relations. a cs The involvement of the trade unions in the central planning of wage agreements.

The use of trede unions in the running alsecurity systems. eta tion of workers representa manag ment of nationalised france) or in industries such as ectricity (Belgium), 02 The use of these methods has increase’ in virtually cvery West European state ag they virtually all attompt to take up some sort of sconomic "programming". In practice, of course, it is impossible to plan the esnarchic commodity >roduction of capitalism, particularly given the increasing degree of inter€@cneniencc of nations the increasingly large "basic unit‘of investment, and in fact the — sat te can really attempt to “paln" is labour costs. This too manot be achicved without-the working class, but it is at =. re effective than other forms of programming, and gets to the soot of “the > problem in attempting to increase the rate of surplus valuc. In certain countrics short periods such attompts can in fact be quite sffecotive From the point of view of the bourgeoisic, For example, in Gormany in 1966-7 and in Italy in 1964 various overt attempts by the state at increasing si of tk respective cani i ere successful. In Brite governments “prices and ) olicy"™ was a She sta t @ planned wages pol . ercated in 1] ic and in Austria such a have not gereralliy las’ contradictions inside Pe) countrias are boo “intense in " the a (and American and Japancse) competition, and tie strength of th ia 4 ds of the necessary order to reign. More typ are toc great for period & ically, such policies run into immediate fierce confrontation with the unions (Belgiuin) or merely not ‘temporsrily to builé up tensions towerds flsshpoint (France , Britain, Italy).

Under cortein very favoursble ben oisie cana succeed in emagculating the trede unions for a soried, Never rtholess S, even in these caces the present upsurge of class strugel r i r precarious cain.

For exampis, in W. Germany the ne ; completoly efter 1945, 9 and 2 situatio fan working class had beon annihilated by u t foot oppor y vo restructure the oa Pu . (3) of the 3 Ss * g03 7 ade unions, the whole Law is so phased jE as to re 1 as aism. Another t of the ruling class's po é was th g up of the expli citly clas s collaborationist Enterpriss Committes. Despite @ with the trade unions over the question of co-determinations the boom, e of the D.G,38., the organs of class collaboration within the firm, orate serics of “informal” discussions between trade union lceders and tne sovernment did succeed in securing relative industriel peace for a period of 20 years, The wildcat s Ruhy in 1969 were therefore a profound occurrenme for the German working cle s “he unions stepped in rapidly to control the situation, but the mere soe ence of the existence of large scale strikes if a radical changs from the precee ding per riod which has forced on the unions as shwon for example in the chemical indus try strikes of 1971

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Tluenced by first real outbreak of Pier strugrle came with the miner’s re This was particularly important in that it wes the first nflict to occur for 25 years in a » country which hed boon. dominated ning this since the 1930s. sur ehormoe?s right from the begin crised by the cmergencs of orgsnisetions, such as elceted strike re charactefistic of edvanced levels of struggle. In addition % meeting held by the strikers a thousend workers attended that called rs end less than a that called by the official union. his were in no way aécidental, but Plowed from the structure of u irgsining. in Sweden. Since 1928 all strikes during the neriods ectively signed contracts cover, are illegal. This means in effect moe the vast majority of strikes arc ilicgal, except for those used te strengthen th 1. u le position of whe union bureaucrats during wage negotiations. These laws are packed up by 2 whol ange of sanctions. If a local trade union body calis an illegal strike its funds can bo seized to pay any loss suffcred by the employrr, the local orgenisations can be oxpelled from the national union, and the local officials can be dismissed In this wey the union virtually cessed to pecome a weapon of struggle for the working class. . Its main function becomes that of telling strikers to return to work, However, even in Sweden the trade unions can be foreed into action in extremes, and during 1971 the government found itsclf forced into implementing a law temporarily declaring strikes illegal. In addition, this new upsurge of struggle produced the emergence a politicaily motivated current within the trade unions, the "Trade Union Opposi~ tion", This went into a state of decline due to its confused sponmtancist _ conceptions, but in a working class dominated almost totally by Social Democratic ideology, such a development is of extrem @ significances. The forms of integration utilised in ¥, Gormany and Sweden are based on an economy capable of making considersble concessions bw) 8 to the working class. Under these circumstances, es noted, the “ruling class can beve considerable su€ecss in its attacks. In other cconomics this is less possible, but even here the ingenuity of the bourgeoisie, and its allies in the trede union bureaucracy, knows no bounds. Vor example, in the Belgian cement industry a bonus: is: paid to unionised workers by the employers, This apparently curious situation allows the burcaucrats to carry on a policy of collaboration with the employ rs with ous fear that the union members will become so disillusioned thet they lerve and thus. acprive the unions of income. * nowover, such manoeuvres cannot crsily be extenied to the whole economy without an cxtremely Tavoursble economic conjuncture, sand therefore in most Suropean states the end of the Dook has led very rapidly to an incrcase in class conflict, The. Europern states .in which, in differcnt ways, the class struggle has reached its highest point, ere France and Ttely. Herc all the old treditional problems of working class organisations and See ee neve been posed. In particular, in terms of (a) how revolutionaries are to operate in and orientate towards a union, and (b) _how to raise tansitional demands. Many of the issues involved here heve not, as yet, been completely theoretically clarified, but it is to sketeh wut an outline of the =roble ems that are invoived. Uhs czample the a tiate to which the trade union ae v4 fu be @ rh |} . Ltalian and French situatior very markedly is 2 degre burcaucracy is capable of maintaning control of the situaticn, and the relat on of forces within the verious unions. In France the hold of the PCF, as mediated particularly via the CGT, is immensely strong. The PCF is quite capable of organising armed squads to physically beat or even kill revolutionaries. It has done this in the past, and in May 1971 attacked members of various left groups in la Courneve, a, . Suburb of Paris, and outside the various Renault plants, with razors, ciubs and. nn shown in 1968 when it could awey from the workers on a 1 tee Jick knives. The strength of the P.C.F.‘s apparatus was mobilize a force of 20,000 stewards to keep the students +r 7 the May 13%h demonstration in Paris. The: Party has no qi ebout expelling from the CGT even leading militants who will not toe the party linc, Under such conditions revolutionary currents vithin the trade union frequentiy find their exprassinn in 2

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developments within the COT which, of the COV, Fn Ttaly, howcver, a than eny revolutionery groupht Ny strength as they do in Freneo, The i © wanceuvres., For example, in one i nave tried to wh militents Fo the Pourth tntcrnetion thom: full time p on the basis of cllowing suc to orgrnigs Factorics whacre they slre Tov ke sd thst they leave the "CPI factories" alone. In «addition, it hb r revolutionaries to stend openly in 5 unions in industries such : tn the first case they have socedres as much 1s 20% of the vote ter of roprescnutetive was elected to the central committee of the unto > in France militents heave to work cla niestinely within the CGT end hes specialised in printing the names of revolutionnry trade union militants in order to allow the bosses to ca C nl Whil victimisetion, While Fs: ssible for revolutionarics to wor's open CFOT, only inside the. s' union has it beon possible to croete a rosl current. ftere + she teniency "Eos le Manancipee". receive’. 14% of the votes, comparcd to the 54% rec ied by the tendency of the PCF, Given the weaker grip of the PCI over the: OG? than of the PCF over the CP, dissatisfaction has shown itself more in rank 2nd file regroupmont ; in Italy, rether tha nettenpts to le:ve the C,P. controlicd unions, cs a if howover the strength: of the apparctus v:iries. between the two currents, the tactics: of the burenucrats do not. In particuler, there is the cortinual aim to break down the movement of the workers to manageable rroportions by confining it cither. to protest strikes or to localise the struggles. In some cases this policy has been so far at variance with the necds of the working class for united action . that revolutionaries have been able to gssin important victorics in outflarkin ng the burcevcrets. This has happended in, for example, the Italian steel industry. In ‘ most ceses in France however the ICP has hanages to control the movement despite | the Stalinist xzrip is woakensa by temporsry sctbacks. However, the strength 0 such events as the Remault strike, which eres an in Avril 1971 when workers at Le Mans cecupied their fectorics This was followed sympeth occupations at Cleon, Billancourt and Flins. ~The PCR, which wosat the fe under severe atvsck for its terror tactics in deeling with the left initially penicked when faced with this UPSUTES. t declared thet there was. no strike, and that the factories had been occupied to ¢ property of the ncople of Freneco", At Le tans itself they forecd 2 scorct belliot on whethcr to continuc the strike. These me sures were too oe) erude howrver, cond 1,500 workers left he fectory mecting in dissust serios of confused votcs at Cloon the Party dcclarcd there wes “a vrs the ratioraliscd industrics". At “illancourt a C ; . re et age GP leeder wes shouted down snd the strike continucd. In the ond, the CGT brought thestrugglc back under its” t its prestige hed progressed to the voint of clicting + rans end Pile strike ub committcc., As Froncce hes no tr dition of such orgrnisctions, this wes a t forward in the strugsle. - ° Given the relative impossibility of remo Yang the entrenched treée union buresacrats in anything short of . rcvolutions ion, thy uestion of renkec end file; orgenisstions obviously becomes of gr in ell “uroncen stetes. In France, «s noted, there is no roal tr guch renk end file orgenisctions, and this nartly eccounts for the rela Q which the POF wes able to pring the May-June events under control In addition, the entice of the various Vaoist groups, who have rvfuscd to nside the unions snd herve instead tried to nd G cescd the suspicion of renk rnd file 3 . set up scparatc org-nisstions, f : bccn 2 massive develo iso org*nise tion. In Ttely hovweve ations, created in the course ond file committocs hive put: Torws he workers! representatives dems 4 ct

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{a} of workers wibhin the vlant. (ii) ing and overtime to be subject ta veto by the il dccidcd upon by a mess mocting of workers. (441) A a york oa: a ubjeet to veto by the workers ided upo \ ng of workers. (iv} Yorkers G cempicte tro cg lrd to all questions arfecting the working s to include not morcly sofety PEgul ations, of ding noy, otc., but also the speod of work. {y) All cucetions E tion of new plant to be subject to veto until bro of workers, This ass ombly to decide whether the int tion wipment and method of working is in the interosts ef the workers they decide it is not, to heve the right to veto its introduction. ndvanced bases is aly in light of the rtuel complete to omerge outside jt. wt ck oh ck 2 insids the working class Italy provides a strange spectacle indecd. of workers struggic for control of thc pace of work, for the control of pic & id 3 £ VE yi have hold prisoner managers and foremcn, yot never cven spoak of the term "workers control", Under these conditions, the movement. can be canalised by the bourgeoisic G St Vette and the trede union burcaveracy, They have ove n taken up the strategy of setting “aD their own workers ' cone™ is, The seerctary cf the FL.I,E,-C.5.I.L, inioed claims that in Italy there are 500 councils set up by the unions as compared to only 100 set up spontenoonaly § by the workers, Under those circumstances the unity of the workers, which was one of the me aims of thc sp ontancously ¢ crcated councils, is split up by the purcauczts with manoceuyres such as running union approved lists in the clection for delegates.

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he gusstion of onary party and of trans a terminology. in previous discussions cf this stion a systematic molgus ty has existed in looss formulations of the terms bee ensitiona 7 prog= ra. transitional demands. Quite clearly a programme of an oraantsavson will contain many points. Tris is inevitable for a programme must present 3 coherent analysis of society. n particular it mist indicate tha nature of the mein sccial relations of ye Quite clearly an organisation in practice never assigns equal in agitation tc all parts of its programm However this pos i problam for, as was pointed out in the document The problem of itions! demands, a clarification,' the whole cetermines the parts.' In cther words any single or few demands, singled out in isolation, are neither transitional nor reformist, nox anything in particular, As the document just quoted noted tone of the demands on which the Bolsheviks most campaigned in Russia in 1917 was for an end to eee WAL» This constituted nart of a transitional wrogramme. Takon in isolati how~ over. this demand vas in no way transitional. It covid ba taken up by pacifists, religious mainics, ete. In no case would we say that these elements had 'eccepted some of our transitional demands.! What made the demands transitional was that the Bolsheviks explained that it could only be achieved through the scizure of state power. Although therefore in an. axtromely strict sense the concept of tr. ans itiona! demands is incorrect (but then so is that of a transitional programme which does not contain an infinity of demands), nevertheless the term is characterietical Ly used to rafer to ithat part of the transitional »vrogramme which is made tha ossential content in agitation,!

As such it is used synomously with an oxtromely limited (condensed) transitional programme, For example in his "Tha Impending Catastrophe and how to combat it" Lenin advanced demands for tha compulsory amalgamation and nationalisation of the banks, for the nationalisation of the syndicates, for workers control of production and consumption etc. the whole to be. achieved by the transfor of power to the Soviets. These damands were of course morely theo key ones of the Bolsheviks programme. (Tho 1917 programme of the Bolsheviks contained no less than 38 demands with many svbdivisions), It is to this limited "programme" that we would refer when we vse the term "the transitionel demands of the Bolshaviks"., Whon thorafora tho texms “rransitional dem a (s)! ie used in this paper and in provicus documents it is to this limited sat of ‘demands drewn from tha fuli progranme wrich is reforrad to, oa A second point is that many cdas saem to misundsrstand the terms Minimum n/ Meximum in relation to the nature of programmes, The maximum programma of social domocracy was not a programme for the seigura of power i1.a. the des- =r triction of the capttorest state. It was & programma for implementation after the scigura of power. What prociscly characterised tha essentially reformist natura of this approach was that it had e programme for implementation within oapitalisn, a programme for implemontation aah the scigura of state power but precisely no programme for the seigure of power i.e. for he actual destruction of capitalism. This is whet enabled social damocracy to always avoid any real discussion cf how to take power and hence sllowed reformists and ravolutionaries to co-exist within the same organisation. da As in many similar cases tha answer to the theoretical probiems involved in the problem of transitional demands programme can only ba found by a raturn to basic principles and a "reconstruction" of the probiem from there. In tha case of transitional programme this obviously involves a consideration of the fundamental need for such a programme. Onca tho functicn of the programme is understood then wo are in a position to clarify its essential fosaturas.

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mpey oA re thre We THE ACYUALITY OF ¢ £ ai, thaoratical feature which divides commnism from scoial democracy, and which unites sll the classic theroretical differences, is 9 conception of the cpoch. Commrism helds that capitalism has finished its work of the davelopment of the productiva forces, and conssquentiy the hourgeoisie had no progressive role to play. It is from this that the theory of permanent revolution the rejecticn cof the popular front, the theory of fescism etc. flow. ‘The social democrat (and now the Stalinist) hold implicitly that the bourgeoisie still has a progressive role to play. Hence, for example. while the communist sees the gpresont epoch as one of the undermining cf even bourgeois democracy, the secial democrat hold to the ridiculous theory that bourgaois democracy is actually being extendod, that we are "moving forward gradually" otc. From this. flows the belicf of the alliance with the bourgeoisie in the colonial states, the possibility of uniting with ths bourgeoisie to fight fascism etc. The communist conception of the epoch is usually summed up in Lukacs famous phrase "The Acsuslity of the Revolution. he concreta social content cf the cpoch is the inability of capitalism to solve aven the immediate neads of the massas, This was stated in its classic form in the first thesis on aims and tactics of the Communist International. "The present epoch is the epeck of the disintograticn and collapse of the antire capitalism world system, which will drag the whola of Buropean civilisation down with it if capitalism with its insoluble contradictions is not dastroyed". It is clear of course that this fcrmuleation must ba understood in a apochal and histerical sense i.c. it dces not mean for example that an absolute improverishment of the proletaxiat is going on, cr that wo are in a linear dascent into barbarism.

What it means is that taken on a historical end global scale capitalism cannot solve even the immediate needs of the masses, This fact has the profoundest affect on the dyhanics of the mass struggle in the epoch cf imperialism. If mass struggles are launched on the perspective of reforms, then they are based on the promise that tho immediate problems of the working class can be solved within the framework of capitalism which is thereject the Marxist conception of the epoch. When the masses struggle for these ends, then whet they realise at some point in the struggle is sither thet the aims of the strugmie would not solve their problems even if achieved, cr still worse, these aims are achieved and do not solve the problems. The result of this realisation is demoralisation, apathy, despair, the seeking of individual solutions to social problems, decline of the workers orgenisations etc. with a consequent rapid growth of counterrevolution. JInnumberable examples could be found of this. For example the failure of the Italian Socialist Party to take power aftar three years of factory occupations following the First World War. The classical case is that ef the French Popular Front. Here millions wara mobilised only to find that reforms would not solve their problems. The result was a mass collapse of. tha workars militancy and ths collapse of the entire French society into inertia and despair. The conclusicn is thet ccmmunists must fight for those objectives which solve the immodiate problems of the masses, and that this can cnly be done by the. destruction of capitalism. As Trotsky put it "The presant epoch is distinguished not for the fact that it frees the revolutionary party from day-to-day work but because it permits this work to be carried on indissolubly with the ectual tasks of the revolution". Is is also in this sense that luxembourg's famous remark that "Socialism is the minimum we must demand" must ba understood. It is not a moral statement that it would somehow be morally incortect or not revolutionary sounding enough to demand a minimum programme but in the literal sense that th advance demands which were within capitalism would only lead to massive despair and demcralisetion of the masses, Hence we se the real nature of the communist objection to reformism, it is not that the reformists will never destry capitalism, it is that the reformists will actually destroy the militancy and organisation of the working class. Once this essential point is understood that it can be clearly grasped why a transitional programme must involve the destruction of capitalism and why the reformist variants of "transitional" programmes mist ba rejected. It therefore becomes quire clear why the concept of transitionsl programmes for sections of the population is entirely incorrect in conception. It completely misunderstands the fact that

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. -~ 3 = the nature of programme i ¥ datermingd, at the most fundamentsl level, by fact that capitalism cannot even s t solve the immediate problems of the masses,” A programme which doas not dastroy capitalism, as a progreme for sectors cannot do, is therefore fe) na against tha vory essence of commnism, that is to However once if is understcod that s transi L programma would destroy capitslism, then an imecdiate problem arises. A situation in which the masses ware struggling on a programme which would dastroy capitalism is by definition, a vavolutionary situation. This is the type of idea which is held by. some sections of the organisetion that you can onky have a transitional programme in 4 revolutionary situation. However this line of approach is extremely dangerous. It imsacdiatly xaises the question of "What programme do wo advance outside a vavolutionary situation", If one holds that a transitional programme. is only advancable in a xovolutionary situation, than it appears outside that situation wa mist advance denends which do not destroy capitalisn.

But this is morely to open up 2 minimn/transiticnal dichotomy and you are back to square ona, because you are asking the massas to struggle on damands which cannot solve thoiz problems.

At this point: apdaront impasse is reached. A transitional programme must destroy capitalism, but wea cannct "mobilise tho masses" to destroy capitalisn outside a revolutionary situation. Only two ways appear to lie cloarly open.

One is a bordigist "build the party and wait for the situation". The other is the Tendencies of mobilisi. masses on reforms but disnifying that be called it a "transitional and denooratic" approach. This however breaks with the antire thooretical basis of communism by rejecting its characterisetion of the epoch. However the only reason this impassa appears to exist is becausa the relation of party and class is understood wrongly, it is understcod in the administrative sense of the Party “mobilising the masses or "calling them to action", This however is a profoundly non Loninist conception of the party. lenin specifically, and at great length, rejects the ides that it is the task £ the party to call the masses to action, Lenin declares that he egrees completely with Plekhanov's formulation that the task of the party is to explain ideas to people. In terms of tha fundamental tasks of propaganda and agitation Plekhanov dofines that "A propagandist presents many ideas to one or a few persons, an agitator presents only one or a fow idens, but he presents them to a mass of people" (What is to be done §$.Vol 1 pi52, C Vol 5 p409), Martynov, the chief spoksosman of the Economists countorposes the following "By propaganda wo would understand the revolutionary oxplanation of. the present social system entire or in its partisl manifestations, whether that be dono in a form intelligible to individuals or to broad masses. By agitation.....We would understand the call upon the masses to undertake definite concrete actions and the promotion of the direct revolut_onary intorvontion in political Life" (Ibid wy emph-sis - hoy nany tinos nave we heard from the tendency that the underlinod section of the last santence) Lenin replics, in a statement which encapsulates a complete conception of the relation of party and class, thas "To single out a third sphere, or third function, of practical activity and te include in this function the call upon the messes to undertake definite concrete actions" is sheer nonsencta, because the Teall", as 2 single act, either naturally and inevitably supplements the theoretical treatise, propagandist pamphlet, and agitational spsech, or represents a purely executive function." Oncaea this point of Lenin's is understood, i.a. that the party doos not "cell the masses to action" or ‘mobilise’ them then of course the problem wa posed about the transitional programma disappears. It is perfactly possible to present a programme which destroys capitalism at any time’, it is only if you conceive tha party as c lling to masses to action or the function of the party as mobilising the masses that you land yourself in either a bordigist or tendency position. : ; We may now summarise, The fundamental basis of communism as oppcsed to reformism is a conception of tha epoch. From this it flows that the programme of tha party even in relation to the immediate noacds of the masses must be 2 programme cf the destruction of capitalism. Therafore not transitional

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= Am 7 programmes for soctors. If however you conceive cf the relation of the party to class as “mobilising” the class or “calling it te action" thon you are in an inextricable dilomma, because obviously you cannot mobilise the masses for struggle on a programme which destroys capitalism outside a revolutionary situation. This however is a feisc dilemma, because it accapts a non-Leninist conception of the relation of party and class. Once the Leninist concepticn is returned to the apparent dilemme disappears. However if one doas not accept Lenin's thacry onc is back in a mess with no way out. It was for this reason that cdes ware very emphatic at the last N.C. about rejecting any formulations of motilising the masses or promoting "their direct revolutionary intervention in political life", At this point however it is necassary to stop and deal with a source cf confusion. 4 One thing which cdes appeared to bo extremely concerned about was that tha Leninist formilation of propaganda and agitation appaared to imply a puraly passive typa of activity ~ reciting holy scriptures from books, reading learned lactures to the working class etc. This however is due to confusion on the concept of “idesa" and what therafore "presenting of ideas" means. (It should ba noted that this confusicn is in fact built into the bourgeois vocabulary of ideas and into theories such as that of "reflection" ~ a theory incidentally it is doubtful if Lenin ever held in the sensa generally attwibuted to him). The point is the following. ‘he fundamental distinction which bourgeois thought makes is batween mind and matter, idea and reality etc. In this vocabulary "explaining ideas" quite clearly means altering the way people are thinking and can be completely divorced fron activity. In this framework quite clearly “explaining ideas" would mozn scmething like the activity of the SPGP. This however is only the case if the bourgecis concept of ideas, or more specifically cf conscicusness, is accepted. Marx however, being ea consistent materialist entirely rejects the mind/matber distinction and instead defined consciousness in terms of the reletion of individual (not mind) and circumstances. As such the relation is entiraly an active one. Innumberabl4 quctations could be used to show this. The following, taken from tha very end of Merx's life should illustrate the point.

Men never start 'to be in that theoretical relationship to the objects of the external world!. ‘They start, like any other animal, by eating, drinklag ate, i.e. not 'to be! in a velationship, but to bo active” (Notebook on Wagner) Hence in Marxist terms the concept of consciousness or idea is a ralational active one. in applying this concept to the Party and class Lenin therefore has the concapt of the rolation of party not to "mobilise the masses" but to relate to the already activa mass. . » + is this which means that Lenin's thoory has not the slightest aspoct cf passivity oz contemplation about it. This is the base cf Lenin's endless statements that the party lags behind the class, and it is what makes entirely superflous for him tha concept of the party as calling the masses to action.

This is the logic behind the following formulation of Lenin. "As for calling the masses to action, thet will come sf itself as soon as energetic political agitation, live and striking exposures come into play. To catch soma criminal red-handed and immediately to brand him publicly in all places is of itsalf far mora effective than any number of "calls"; the affect very often is such as will make it impossible to tell exactly who it was that "called" upon the masses and who suggestod this or that plan of demonstration ate" (Lenin op cit). It was precisely this point that was mede in a passag in an carlier document on transitional demands. ‘This passage stated that "(the role of the party) is to explain the characteristics of the situation and present a rounded concaption so that the working class itself can respond to any changes in that situation which may occur suddenly and also to any changes produced by its own actions." This formulation was precisely ex-~ tremely Leninist, because it emphasied the political relation of the party to the already active mass. It is this fundamental point which leads to the rejection of the "Calls to action"

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-~ 5 and makes them entirely superflous in the context of the Leninist theory of the party. It is also whet makes superbly Leninist statements such es "The proletariat sensed sconex than its leaders tha changa in the objective struggle and the need for a trensition tc an uprising. As always practice marched anead of thaory'" -(S.Vol qT 7579) and the famous thesis, which is the heart of Lenin's insistence on the nead for revoluticnary theory "Practice is highor then (theoretical) knowledge, for it has not only the dignity cf universality. but also of immediate actuality" ( .vol 368 p213). Once the fendamental distinction betwean tha bourgeois and the Marxist concepts of consciousness are graspad then ony formmlation of "ucbilising", "calling to action" is at pest redundant and more usually represents en administrative concept of the party.

Far from being "passive" or "scholastic" the question cf the relationef party and class as not being based on calls to action is precisely the least “contemplative! cf all theories bacause it fundamental premise is the (self. activity cf tho masses, It is precisely because wo hold that "History as a whole, and the history of revclution in particular, is always richer in content, more multiform mere livaly and in gonious than is imagined by even the bast parties, the most class conscious vangusrd of the mest advanced classos.,....because evan the finest of vanguerds exprass tha class conscicusness, will passion and imagination of tens of thousands, where as at moments of great upsurge and the oxertion of all human capacities, revelution are made by the class consciousness, will passion end imagination of tens of millions" (S.Vol 1 p401) and bectuse we raject completely any passive conception of the party that we reject absolutelyany conception of the parties relation to the class being in terms of calls to action or mobilising thea masses. 2 One of the immediate consequence of the above analysis Once the fundamental bases of analysis are clarified, thom many of the problems which have proved confusing and baffling immediatly bacome clear. fo taka just one example it is now possible to formulate a sensible theory of tha Labour Party. If you formulate the qguastion "is or is not the working class dominated by social democracy" in terms cf a bourgeois thecry of consciousness, than the question bécomos a ridiculous one of trying to work out wnat people ara thinking about. Presumably ta do this'one conducts a gallup pole, sees how they vote atc. A trivial debate on whether voting is a more sienificent indicator than attendance at branch moecings is entered. into, the realn of the tendency's ridiculous "I know tan shop stewards whov..." is entered, It leads to no sensible method of analysis whatever excapt trying to investigate what paople are thinking. If however tho problem is formulated in terms of how people are relating to their circumstances thon immodiatly the correct line of analysis is suggested. If posed in terms of the Labour Party it becemes claar thet tho quostion must be how people are relating to ths various organisations cf the Labour party. It is this that leads to the analysis et the fundamental structural differencas botween the way a social demoaratic yarty is limited to the working class and tha wsy in which a stalinist party is. The way in which the Labour Party functions immediatly becomes apparent.

If ona concieves consciousness in terns cf "mind" then to say the worker's are dominated by social damoeracy leads te ue conclusions regarding the structure of a social democratic party. If however the concept of consciousness is posed in terms of "relation" then quite clearly to say that somsone has a social Gamocratic consciousness means to sayy that he relates to his circumstances in a particular way, and hance the organisations of the Labour. Party must embody that relation. Similerly « person who is a stalinist ralated to his circumstancas in a different way and in consaguence the organisational relation of stalinist party and working class is different tc that of social democratic party and working. class. The analysis of the fact that social-democracy has two links tc the working class ~ via the constituencias and through the trade unions, but no direct link at the point of production, which is what underlies our analysis of the Labour Party, the decline of the Labour Left, the political role of the trade union burenucracy etc - therefore flows directly from an essential featureof Sociel-Democratic consciousness, i.e. that the divisicn

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between politics and brada unionism is. made in terms of whsre thay occur.

Given this analysis, the rubbish that tho tha Labour Party. & also becomes clear what is methcdologically wrong with Lb, the RSL. the tendency etc., keep turning cut on consciousness. they quite clearly are ret the Labour Party. Whan they therofore tarting point not tha consciousnass of la When they talk about Social Daemocrati farring to ideas in pecples heads abe formulate slogans thay take as thair tha class 1.a. the way it is actually rolating to its problems, the struggle against capitalism atc., but in terms of (supposed) ideas they have in thair heads. This is what leads to thair ccntinuel habit of counternosing some other struggle to the actual strugele of the masses. a pb a Fi 9 2 aeo 3 Once the real meaning of the concept conscicusness is outlined, than the meaning of the term "raleting to consciougnass" becomes apparent. It means basing itself of the way which the working class is relating to its circumst ncas. to the problems that confront it and to its existing organisaticn, and showing how that struggle can be oxtended inte a struggle dixectad against the social relations of capitalist production and of the state machine which defends them - sae section Six.

Footnote : (N.B. just in case anyone clai propaganda with passivity and agitation with activity G finition) just lat them think ahout some of the ganeral ways of talking in the organisation.

It is incredibly frequent, for example, that if somaone talks simply of putting an articla in a newspaper (commenting) ox issuing a leaflet instead of intervening we say that this is e "propagandist" approach by which we mean passive. ms that we nevar aquate a 3 t have an Eeonomist de e Row o Similarly when the differences between propaganda group and leagua for revolutionary action was formulated many, or even the majority. of cdes say it ideas not in terms of making a transition from explaining a larga number of to a small mumbaer of paople, to explaining 2 few ideas to a relatively large Instead they saw it ss a transition from sitting around number of people. a the politics of "lan", the hyperactivity of (passivity) to activity. -Henc demonstraticn activity, tho nultra-laft actions etc.

The second point is that the correct Marxist analysis renders meaningless the counterposition fraquantly made in the organisation between theory and practice.

Tf consciousness and.all its ralated ccncepts, e.g. ideas, theory, are relations then theory is an essentially active question and in consequence why avery theoretical position has practical consequences. This is not true in a merely contingent sonsy, but is true in a logical sense. Similarly what it means is that any systematic way of relating to circumstances constitutes a theory even if the person is incapable of stating it. Henca it is perfectly consistent to talk of people having a "Labourist" consciousness who are eppesed to the Labour Party, or who (theoretically) have neven even heard of it). i : | & 4 i j 3 Q | { i : i % {