At its spring 1976 conference, the International Marxist Group adopted two documents — the United Secretariat Theses on Britain published in International, vol.3, no.1, and a resolution submitted by the National Committee entitled 'Implementing the United Secretariat Theses on Britain'. We print here the section on the action programme of the IMG which was contained in that second document.
Introduction — the line of the USEC Theses
The United Secretariat Theses on Britain (printed in International Vol. 3, No. 1) represent an important deepening and clarification of the line pursued by the IMG in the past period... The fundamentals of the line of the Theses can be summarised in five points:
*The economic and social crisis of British imperialism in the context of the world recession leaves the British ruling class compelled to mount a generalised attack against a working class which has been undefeated for forty years. Despite all the set-backs since last summer no qualitative defeat has occurred. The underlying tendency in Britain continues to be towards a test of strength between the classes.
*The basic precondition in determining the outcome of the test of strength between the classes in favour of the working class is the systematic mobilisation of the working class and its allies in extra-parliamentary struggle against the capitalist class, against the opposition of its labour lieutenants. While success in the struggle will require far more than the power of the mass struggle alone, without that power none of the conditions can be created in this period to create a conscious political alternative for the working class. All those, such as the Labour left, who do not understand this cannot take the first step along the road to the solution of the crisis.
*Any major struggles launched by the working class in this period will, in the context of a Labour Government in power, create a massive crisis in the mass organisations of the working class. Not only the mass vanguard but many layers of workers still under the influence of reformism and labourism will be thrown into conflict with the leadership of these mass organisations, particularly in the trade unions. This brings to the fore the question of the construction of an alternative leadership for the working class in the labour movement to that of Callaghan, Healey, Murray and Jones.
The chief goal and instrument in the creation of an alternative leadership is the struggle for the creation of a class struggle left wing in the labour movement. Such a class struggle left wing will fight to include all those elements who, no matter what their present illusions, are prepared to engage in a real struggle on the most burning issues facing the working class. In the first case this will be against the policies of the Labour Government.
*Within this struggle for the class struggle left wing, revolutionaries must find the means to strengthen the forces of the vanguard, and through this process build the revolutionary organisation. In this period of crisis on the far left, an important part of this task is the struggle for regroupment and unification of the revolutionary left.
[Part 1 of the Perspectives Document dealt with the international crisis of imperialism—in particular, the developing revolutionary crisis in Southern Europe. This analysis may be found in the various documents passed by the World Congresses, International Executive Committees and United Secretariats of the Fourth International. The first sections we print deal with the crisis of British imperialism and the economic, social and political institutions based within it.]
6. Within the generalised recession of the international capitalist economy, the position of Britain is the worst of any major imperialist power. Despite the decreases in the living standard of the working class in the last period, the bourgeoisie has succeeded in gaining no major recomposition of the rate of profit sufficient to launch a serious new expansion of production. The general perspective for the economy is for a recovery from the present depressed levels starting from spring 1976, but with this expansion quite insufficient to seriously reduce unemployment; with production scarcely exceeding and in certain sectors not attaining previously reached levels; with even this increase in production gained through a sustained attempt to rationalise production and increase the exploitation of the working class; with a new wave of inflation starting even earlier than in the expansion of 1972-73; with no possibility of any serious improvement in the living standards of the working class; and with no expansion of social expenditure but rather a severe assault on the welfare state. Only a sustained expansion of the economy with no serious attempt by the working class to make up the loss in its living standards or prevent the attacks launched against it—something which would imply a qualitative defeat, of which there is no sign—would allow a significant recomposition in the rate of profit. It is this which the British ruling class is now seeking. Its chief means of fighting for this are the reduction of the living standards of the working class, a major campaign of speed-up and productivity, and increasingly attempts to transfer resources to the capitalist class through a cutback in public expenditure and the welfare state.
7. The chief conclusion which revolutionary Marxists and the working class must draw from this situation is not merely the utmost importance of the present situation but that the present period is one in which the crisis of the economy is no longer merely cyclical but one in which an expansion of production on a capitalist basis can take place only on the basis of an important defeat of the working class allowing a serious increase in the rate of exploitation and rate of profit. The gaining of even the most elementary economic demands of the working class—maintenance of living standards, full employment, continuation of the welfare state—cannot be achieved on the basis of capitalist economy. No serious defence of the conditions of the working class is possible without the beginning of the breaking up of the capitalist domination of the economy and capitalist relations of production.
While being the most indomitable fighters for even the most partial demands of the working class, the revolutionary Marxists have to grasp this situation by attempting consistently to win the working class and oppressed masses to united action on the only demands which can begin to meet the present situation—qualitative demands, hinged on workers control and leading to the expropriation of the capitalist class, which start from the urgent tasks of defence of the working class and which lead to the breaking of the capitalist domination of the economy.
—against the erosion of living standards by inflation: rejection of the Healey measures and all forms of incomes policy under capitalism; sliding scale of wages, pensions, unemployment pay, grants and state benefits based on a trade union controlled cost of living index; £40 minimum wage; an immediate freeze, policed by committees of housewives and trade unionists, of the price of all basic goods in working class living standards; total freeze of rents; immediate nationalisation of food, oil and all other industries supplying the basic necessities of working class life.
—for the defence and extension of the social services: rejection of all social expenditure cuts; sliding scale of public expenditure; immediate injection of £1,000 million into the health service; immediate target of building 500,000 houses a year; for the integration of all private medical practice, all grammar and private schools, and all private child care provision into the public sector; nationalisation of the drugs, health supply and construction industries.
—against unemployment: workers control to impose work-sharing with no loss of pay; an emergency programme of useful public works; nationalisation without compensation and under workers control of all firms creating redundancy; for the right of women to work.
—for the development of a socialist plan for the reorganisation of the economy to ensure full employment and halt the decline in living standards: opening of the books of all capitalist firms, local government and economic departments of the state; immediate nationalisation of the banks, insurance and finance institutions; abolition of capitalist defence expenditure—not a programme of armaments but a programme of public works; penal taxation of all incomes over £10,000 a year and on capital and inherited wealth; take-over of all external portfolios and ban on the export of capital; full workers control of industry; drawing up of a plan for the expansion of the economy on the basis of nationalised industry; nationalisation under workers control of all basic industry.
The chief task is the creation of the united front action of the working class to fight for the most important and central of these demands.
8. The tremendous historical and conjunctural decline of British capitalism, and the inability to date of the [illegible] working class, provides the background for a major and [illegible] stability of society. The 'middle classes' have suffered very serious erosion of their living standards, even greater than those of the workers, under the impact of inflation, rising interest rates, dividend restraint and soaring mortgage rates. The position of oppressed racial minorities, both directly economically and through the pressures towards increased racism, has sharply deteriorated. The economic crisis in its aspects of inflation, unemployment and cuts has exacerbated the oppression of women under conditions in which the political products of the crisis simultaneously produce reactionary mobilisations against even the limited rights on issues such as abortion which women have won in the last period. Shedding of the reserve army of labour has produced a rate of increased unemployment among women and youth double that of the adult male work force. The cutting back in social services is part of this process (particularly evident in nursery care) and reinforces it as the burden for social care is thrown onto the family unit and hence women. The crisis of social expenditure powerfully exacerbates the already acute crisis in education, creating a social ferment and political divisions which penetrate into deeper layers of the student mass even than previously, and an offensive by the right wing in secondary education through the Black Papers and the de facto closure of William Tyndale school. The traditional social bloc which has dominated the situation in Britain for a century is thrown into ferment, providing simultaneously an historic possibility for the working class and, if it does not seize this opportunity, the potential for a new ruling class reaction...
9. While in the past period mobilisations of the oppressed strata of society— women struggling for the right to abortion, students, newly proletarianised layers, etc.— have tended objectively to the side of the proletariat, this is by no means an inevitable development or one that can continue indefinitely without the proletariat consciously advancing a programme capable of welding the oppressed layers of society under its banner. In the past period, the fascists, racists, religious reactionaries and others have attempted to utilise the social ferment to mobilise confused and backward layers of society. Since the crisis of winter 1973/74 and the February and October elections, however, this has taken a more organised and systematic form as the Tory Party attempts to recompose its support amongst intermediate strata and backward layers of the working class through launching or taking up a series of reactionary campaigns aimed against the vanguard and particularly oppressed or isolated layers of society. The assaults of the Tory leaders or spokespersons on the 'Soviet threat', 'terrorism', the restoration of the death penalty, abortion, against pickets, are not isolated phenomena, but part of a concerted push by a ruling class apparatus, designed to recompose layers of society around a reactionary project. Such developments will be a continuing characteristic of the coming period.
The struggle for the liberation of women, against racism and fascism, to take up the crisis of education, to struggle against chauvinism, to come forward as the chief defenders of democratic rights are tasks which are not in the slightest sense luxuries, but a burning task for the working class. They are the only way to ensure the basis for working class unity, defeat attempts to recompose the ruling class bloc, and assemble the ranks of the oppressed around the proletariat.
—for the liberation of women: free abortion and [illegible] is the [illegible] demand; equal pay for equal work; free 24 hour community controlled state nurseries; implementation of the Working Women's [illegible].
—sliding scale of grants and pensions; full state system of free comprehensive education; immediate expansion of teacher training; all grants to be independent of parents' income; married women to receive full grant; minimum grant of £1,000 per year.
—[illegible] and other oppressed minorities to form caucuses within the labour movement and to organise to defend their communities; rejection of the right of organisation for fascists and racists.
—for the defence of democratic rights: abolition of the crime of conspiracy; repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism and Incitement to Disaffection Acts; against the proposed Criminal Trespass law; immediate release of Des Warren and all other political prisoners; defence of working class struggles through the organisation of mass and flying pickets; disbanding of the SAS and the Special Patrol Group; ending of joint police-army exercises; full trade union and political rights in the armed forces.
—for an end to the oppression of homosexuals; an end to discrimination in jobs or facilities on the grounds of sexual orientation.
10. The increasing economic and social crisis of British imperialism and the inability of the ruling class to find a solution through the defeat of the masses has been reflected in a severe weakening of the position of the traditional party of the ruling class—the Tory Party. While the relatively autonomous crises of the North of Ireland and Scotland undoubtedly exacerbated the crisis of the Tory Party at the February and October elections, there is no doubt that it was the defeat of the ruling class at the hands of the miners, and the relation of class forces which this demonstrated, that was the primary reason for the crisis of the Tory Party and the two phenomena which lost it the election—the departure of a large number of 'middle class' voters to the Liberals and the Nationalists, and a qualitative (around 50%) fall in its vote in the working class. The last elections were lost by the Tory Party not because of a move to Labour [on the contrary, the Labour proportion of the vote was the lowest since 1931] but because the crisis of the Tory Party and its loss of votes, was even worse than that of Labour—reducing the Tory proportion of the vote to the lowest this century.
11. Despite the limited gains made by the Tory Party in the past period through its reactionary initiatives and through the demoralising impact of the treachery of the Labour bureaucracy, the Tory Party has not succeeded in developing any project or relation of forces which can in this period constitute a strategy for the ruling class. The central problem confronting the ruling class is not the mobilisation of petty-bourgeois forces and backward layers of the working class, which would correspond to a fascist or strong state solution, but of finding a way to deal with the problem presented by the organisational strength and combativity of the labour movement within bourgeois democracy. In the immediate past months, the Tory Party has itself attempted to orient towards an integrationist perspective through discussions and overtures to the union bureaucracy. This policy, however, cannot provide a solution to the problems of this party—if the ruling class needs a policy of integration, the Labour Party is the logical option—and can cut across the other projects of the Tory Party. To win over the intermediate strata and backward workers is not merely a question of promising reactionary solutions, but of actual ability to take on and defeat the labour movement. It is this which the Tory Party is unable to offer any prospect of achieving at present—indeed, the very moves by Thatcher towards the trade union bureaucracy are a sign of weakness and not of strength.
12. The crisis within the bounds of the British state, which goes beyond that of a crisis of political parties, is fuelled by the struggle of an oppressed nationality in the North of Ireland. There have been small gains by British imperialism in the last period—Craig's split from the UUUC; the establishment of close collaboration with repressive forces in the South; the utilisation of absurd tactical mistakes by the Provisionals (their retaliation against sectarian attacks by the Loyalists and the fratricidal war against the Officials) to drive a wedge between the Republicans and the masses in the ghettoes; the ability, flowing from the Provisionals' errors, to begin to make the label 'criminal' stick against the nationalist fight; the consequent increasing weight of the SDLP amongst the minority population. Despite this, no qualitative change in the relation of forces has occurred—the weight of the paramilitaries on the ground has resulted in the isolation of Craig, and the Convention has proved a total flop in its aims to recreate some middle ground and re-embark on the Sunningdale project. This latter is still not possible in the present relation of forces. And so, despite the increasing bankruptcy of the Provisionals' political strategy, it is only the continuing treacherous role of the labour bureaucracy, and the chauvinism of the British labour movement on Ireland, which prevents the situation in the North of Ireland [illegible] of the major elements of the political [illegible].
13. Even without a major upsurge of solidarity between the British proletariat and its strategic ally of the Republican masses of the North of Ireland, the situation in the North continues to be a problem of extreme intractability for the ruling class, which exacerbates all other political crises. In addition to its general characteristic of demonstrating the weakness of the ruling class, it is a feature which plays a direct role in exacerbating the crisis of the political bloc of the parties of the ruling class. An alliance of the Tories with the Loyalists, despite the desires of the Neave wing of the Tory Party, is ruled out as long as the resistance of the minority in the North continues and the British labour movement, despite its chauvinism, is not prepared to accept a policy of naked, bloody repression in the North. However, the recreation of an acceptable partner in the ruling class bloc, that is, a remodelled Taylor-Craig Unionism, cannot be achieved in the present relation of forces. Despite setbacks, the situation in the North of Ireland continues to be one of weakening the ruling class and a great strategic lever which could be seized by the British labour movement in the interests of both the Irish and its own working class.
To achieve this requires the advancing of a clear programme against British imperialist domination of Ireland. Such a programme at present must centre on: —immediate withdrawal of British troops from Ireland; release of all Irish political prisoners; self-determination for the Irish people.
14. The crisis of the traditional political blocs of the British ruling class under the combination of imperialist decline and an undefeated working class is particularly vividly demonstrated in Scotland—where under the combined impact of social crises, the Scottish national question, and a split in the ruling class, a real crisis of state structures is developing. The roots of this crisis lie in the combination of three elements which distinguishes the situation from that of, for example, Wales—let alone a region of England.
The first condition is the social and regional oppression of Scotland—a structural phenomenon not merely of the development of British but also of European capitalism. It has been a primary factor throughout this century, and before, in making the Scottish working class the most advanced section of the working class in Britain. Furthermore, today it gives a particularly sharp edge to every struggle, especially on jobs and cuts. However, a regional and social oppression alone does not produce the type of relatively autonomous political development seen in Scotland today. Severe regional and social oppression leads to [illegible] to demands of the type seen in Scotland today.
While not suffering a specific national oppression in a form analogous to Quebec, Croatia, or [illegible] attempts to eradicate language, specific national institutions, culture — Scotland still retains undoubted elements of specific national institutions capable of giving a national coloration to a social radicalisation.
The third development is the split within the ruling class, between sections of finance capital based in Scotland and the main bulk of the British ruling class, over control of the financial offshoots of the North Sea oil revenues. Given untramelled operation of the market, the institutions of the City of London would take these against the local Scottish financiers. The only way that this can be prevented is through these elements finding a political mechanism to prevent this — at a pinch even total separation from Britain, but preferably just control of oil revenues through some less drastic Assembly or other mechanism. The SNP represents the ability of this section of the bourgeoisie, in conditions where their belief in the viability of bourgeois strategy as a whole is eroded, to attempt to gain at the expense of their British bourgeois cousins through using oil finance to make a certain number of bribes to layers of society in Scotland. The aim of the operation, in the phrase of the SNP, is to produce a state more like Switzerland than an industrial state.
15. While the SNP represents a dangerous development for the working class in Scotland, the split within the ruling class in Britain which it reflects and consolidates creates another intractable crisis for the ruling class. Particularly in relation to some of the main pillars of the Tory Party there is a real contradiction in economic interests between important sections of the British bourgeoisie and finance capital in Scotland represented by the SNP. This makes the Tory Party even more strongly resistant to devolution — despite the fact that it is the party which has so far lost most to the nationalists — than the Labour Party, and creates great obstacles to a Tory-SNP alliance for an alternative government to Labour. Furthermore, politically the ruling class considers that the game of the SNP is a very dangerous one — that the section of the ruling class they represent is too weak, the social contradictions in Scotland too acute, and the working class too strong for the SNP to mount any serious Bonapartist type operation, and that its development weakens the position of the ruling class as a whole.
While there is no class contradiction between the SNP and the Tory Party, or the ruling class as a whole, there are extremely acute problems in any SNP-Tory alliance. Furthermore, a Tory government in Britain would be without any serious base of support in Scotland — perhaps with as little as 20-25 per cent of the population supporting it. There is a real danger that it would not be regarded as a legitimate or authoritative government and that demands for devolution of powers could become a source of real mobilisations of the class, with radical schemes being propounded for what should be done with these powers.
The crisis in Scotland is both profoundly intractable for the ruling class and further weakens its potential to create a credible alternative government to the present Labour one. For the working class it offers an historic opportunity to realise the more advanced nature of the crisis in Scotland and turn the country's labour movement into one of the essential leverage points for the creation of class struggle policies in Britain as a whole. For the labour movement in Scotland it means advancing and fighting for a clear social programme against the bourgeois nationalist policies of the SNP and the treacherous right wing line of the labour bureaucracy. For the working class in England it means joining the struggle for demands capable of resolving the crisis in Scotland while simultaneously making absolutely clear its recognition of the right to self-determination, if it ever wishes to exercise it, of the Scottish working class. It means advancing the clear perspective of a Socialist Federal Britain.
—against the social, economic and political oppression of Scotland: the right of self-determination for Scotland; immediate elections to the Scottish Assembly open to all political parties in Scotland; rejection of all the limitations of the powers of the Assembly; nationalisation of North Sea oil; nationalisation of all banks, trusts and financial capital in Scotland; a programme of useful public works to tackle the urban squalor of Scotland; drawing up of a social and economic plan for Scotland.
16. The inability of the ruling class in the present relation of class forces either to confront the working class or to create a viable alternative government to Labour has in the last period left the capitalist class with no option but to rest its rule directly upon the labour bureaucracy through the medium of the Labour Government. This Government, composed of part of the bureaucracy of a workers party, is by its very nature not suited to confronting the working class in head-on struggle. Its role is to attempt to repress the vanguard, confuse and mystify the masses, and strengthen the position of the bureaucracy at the expense of the working class. In the past period, where large-scale mobilisations of the working class have declined under the combined influence of rising unemployment and illusions in a Labour Government, the ruling class has gained certain undoubted successes through this government.
This government has retreated before every reactionary assault on the international and domestic social and political crisis: membership of the EEC has been affirmed, unemployment moved over 1½ million without mass resistance from the working class, the living standard of the working class has fallen 6% in six months, the last TUC and Labour Party conferences saw the endorsement of some of the most anti-working class measures since the Second World War, the revolutionary left outside the Labour Party has, for the most part, not merely stagnated but declined; there are small signs of recomposition and a new confidence within the Tory party, and with the acquiescence so far of the working class in huge wage cuts and unemployment there are even tentative signs of an amelioration of the economic crisis. Most importantly, despite the six years of working class mobilisation after 1968, the essential state structures of British imperialism outside of the North of Ireland and potentially Scotland, remain as yet unchallenged in any way comparable with the situation in Portugal, Spain, Italy and France.
17. In the past months, the labour bureaucracy has passed to an offensive on a real institutionalisation of the 'integration' approach to coupling the working class to the 'planning' needs of capitalism, i.e. the project which the Labour Government attempted, and failed in, during 1964-70. The agreement concluded at Chequers in November 1975 is not merely a paper pact, but has spawned a number of bodies where the trade union leadership collaborates on a permanent basis with the employers. This is particularly clear in the case of the car industry, where Jones and Scanlon are now members of a committee along with the British bosses of the 'Big Four', which aims to police that agreement. The same process has been initiated with the Ryder proposals on participation in British Leyland at local level. These developments are part and parcel of the recognition by the ruling class of the need for state intervention to restructure British capitalism. Under the Labour Government the necessary precondition of the involvement of the trade unions at every level has been hastened.
18. Such a process of integration has necessarily been accompanied by a series of assaults against the democracy of the workers movement (for example TUC new Rule 14, forbidding trades councils to enter into political activity against TUC or Labour Party policy or to form alliances with any parties other than the Labour Party) and support for laws aimed directly against the working class vanguard—for example the Criminal Trespass law. The most right-wing sections of the bureaucracy are undoubtedly prepared to consider moves for compulsory postal ballots and other moves for a further institutionalised eroding of democracy in the workers' movement. Despite these attacks however, and despite an undoubted swing to the right in certain unions, it is equally clear that the bureaucracy has not succeeded either in qualitatively undermining democracy within the mass organisations themselves, or eliminating major opposition to their policies. In addition to the continuing mobilisation of a vanguard on abortion, the oppression of women, Portugal, Ireland, private practice and other questions, mass resistance and struggles continue on the most basic questions to confront the masses. The contrary examples of the 26 November demonstrations, the steel strikes, the rapid development of the rail strikes, the struggle at Linwood, the 40% vote in the NUM against the £6 limit and the calling off of the overtime ban on Langwith—all struggles starting without or against the bureaucracy or rapidly going beyond the limited mobilisation it had summoned—all show that despite the downturn since last summer, the basic strength of the working class and its capacity for resistance continues. Furthermore, despite localised disasters such as that of the Chrysler leadership in Coventry, the basic rank and file membership of the working class of the last six years remains intact. The working class and oppressed masses are more cautious, more aware of the need to win over and utilise the mass organisations, and more inclined to seek generalised movements than to take part in isolated clashes, but it has suffered no basic defeat.
In these conditions, and in particular with an industrial upturn from the spring and a growing disenchantment with the government's measures as the working class standard of living continues to decline, the preconditions clearly exist for a further upturn in the struggle of the working class against the integrative and other attacks of the ruling class and the government.
—for workers democracy: democratic election of strike committees; all major decisions to be taken by mass meetings; annual election, with right of recall, of all union officials; no official to receive more than the average wages of a skilled worker; automatic resubmission to selection at elections of all MP's; election of party leader, Prime Minister and Cabinet by the Labour Party Conference: subordination of the Parliamentary Labour Party to the decisions of the Party Conference and the National Executive Committee; for the abolition of all bans and proscriptions in the trade unions and the Labour Party.
—for the right of women and oppressed minorities to self-organisation within the organisations of the working class.
19. As in Britain as a whole, the mass organisations of the working class in Scotland are increasingly polarised between the policies of Callaghan/Healey and the protest opposition of the Labour left. The weight (and consequent contradictions) of the CP inside the apparatus of the movement, above all in the STUC and in local trades councils, only accentuates a running crisis of perspective (debate/discussion) inside the institutions of the labour movement. But the growing political crisis introduces a series of distinct elements into Scottish working class life which result in a more dramatic and spectacular explosion of social democracy.
The continued identification of the LP in Scotland with decades of social deprivation (higher unemployment, migration, housing, etc.) and the absence of any real challenge to the right-wing policies from inside the ranks of the LP allows the radical national populism of the SNP to make sweeping gains into the traditional electoral base of the LP.
The labour bureaucracy has responded to this in different ways, but unlike a party solidly linked into the ruling class, the Labour Party comes up against no structural barriers in making an opportunist/electoralist capitulation to this political pressure (e.g. the hurriedly proposed Assembly). In the absence of any real coherent alternative inside social democracy to the right-wing policies, the bureaucracy has split essentially on the terrain of the nationalists themselves (how much devolution) with the formation of the SLP as the most dramatic illustration of this. This is not to say that there is no link-up between opposition to the Government on cuts/unemployment, etc. and opposition on devolution. The SLP clearly contains a partial fusion of both elements (as the STUC does). However, the pressures which are producing the crisis inside Scottish social democracy come from two distinct directions: from the emergence of a national left social democratic current, and secondly from a Scottish radical populist movement. It is this twin pressure which tears the atrophied corrupt LP apparatus in Scotland apart — with spectacular losses at the polls, and open public splits in the previously monolithic leadership. It is clear that the acute political paralysis of the leadership of both major classes in Scotland cannot continue indefinitely, and the present dynamic electoral success of the petty bourgeois/finance capital layers in the SNP only conceals the basic stalemate of class forces in the post-UCS period.
20. The combination of economic, social and political crisis, together with an undefeated working class, defines clearly the far more explosive potential of the present situation compared to the previous integrative attack carried out by the 1964-70 Labour Government. At that period, the policy of integration could be presented as promising considerable gains in the medium term for the working class, and even in its direct effects involved neither significant falls in living standards nor serious attacks on the welfare state or full employment; the working class had passed through no period of mass extra-parliamentary struggles for 40 years; no serious large vanguard breaking with the reformist bureaucracy at that time existed in the working class; and in the event of a Labour failure, a clear potential government existed in a reorganised Tory Party. Today, none of these conditions exist: far from promising substantial gains for the working class, the policies of the Government already substantially cut living standards, destroy full employment and promise the severe curtailing or even destruction of sections of the welfare state, and are unable to hold out serious prospects of improvement even in the intermediate or long term. The working class since 1968, far from passivity, has passed through six years of the highest level of struggles since the early 1920s—including the experience, for the first time in history, of bringing down a government by essentially extra-parliamentary activity. A definite number of workers has been created within the working class who either have decreasing illusions in all sections of the bureaucracy or who consider that at least a powerful left trend in opposition to the present open right-wing bankruptcy must be advanced. Finally, it is clear that, in the event of the integration tactic failing, the ruling class possesses at present no clear authoritative or credible government with which it can replace Labour and stem a mass upsurge.
While undoubtedly the fight back against the policies of this Government will start with localised or partial expressions, and proceed by uneven routes, nevertheless the explosive potential of the situation is clear. The task of revolutionary Marxists is to develop this resistance; clarify, centralise and homogenise it; lay before it the objective tasks which confront it, and render conscious the objective process of its development.
21. The conditions under which the class struggle unfolds in the present period bring sharply to the fore the contradictory role of the mass organisations of the working class. Dominated by a bureaucracy totally tied to the defence of the capitalist state and the capitalist mode of production, these organisations nevertheless remain firmly rooted within the proletariat and are regarded by the masses not as instruments of capitalist domination, but as the vehicle for defending the fundamental interests of the proletariat. This applies as yet, except for a vanguard of some thousands, not merely to the trade unions, but also to the Labour Party which, despite the constant betrayals of its leadership, is regarded as a party capable of being converted in an historic sense to the needs of the working class. While in relation to the Labour Party this belief is wrong, and in relation to the labour movement as a whole, the lack of understanding of the difference between the interests of the mass organisations of the working class and the interests of the bureaucracy lays the ground for several defeats, nevertheless there are no indications whatever that the working class is prepared to see this movement and its organisations transformed into instruments for policing the working class in the needs of capital in the manner of the present government. On the contrary, any fight back by the working class will transform itself into a crisis of these organisations from top to bottom.
22. Today, under conditions of deep economic crisis, dislocation of the parties of the bourgeoisie, and with a working class which has not suffered any major defeats in a direct clash of strength with the ruling class, every serious social and political struggle is accompanied by a profound struggle within the labour movement.
It is only through resolving this crisis of the mass organisations in its favour that in this period the capitalist class can hope to secure the goals it has set itself and defeat the working class. For the working class to prevent this outcome and instead utilise the mass organisations to launch a renewed fight against the ruling class is the only way in which sufficient forces can be gained to resolve the crisis in favour of the working class. The most vital task confronting the working class and oppressed masses is precisely to tear these organisations away from their collaboration with the bourgeoisie, to resolve the crisis of the mass organisations not in favour of the capitalists but in favour of the working class, and to begin on the course of class independence and class struggle against the bourgeoisie.
The fight for class independence and class struggle against the bourgeoisie by the working class and oppressed masses can only be achieved in this period through the struggle for a mass class struggle left wing in the labour movement—a movement which involves in a united front based on united action many different political currents in the labour movement, but which is united in its opposition and action against the decisive forms of bourgeois attack and class collaboration of the day.
In the formula of the Transitional Programme, the position we advance in all struggles and address to all those who claim to lead the working class is BREAK WITH THE BOURGEOISIE.
The crucial task in revolutionary tactics in fighting for the building of a class struggle left wing, a current which applies this policy systematically to every field, is to clearly identify these class collaborationist links and to organise the maximum forces to smash them and embark on a course which meets the needs of the working class.
23. In fighting for such a class struggle left wing, revolutionary Marxists clearly understand that in this period the forces which will fight against the decisive forms of class collaboration will not at all be confined to those forces which have broken with all illusions in reformism and in all sections of the reformist bureaucracy. In this period, two currents find themselves clashing with the policies of this government. The first is precisely the mass vanguard which has emerged in the past years, a current which has broken or is breaking with illusions in all sections of the bureaucracy. The second is those sections of the masses and the base of the mass organisations which, without at all having lost all illusions in reformism and the bureaucrats, are nevertheless propelled by the impact of the economic, social and political crisis into the struggle against the capitalist class and the class collaboration carried on by the Callaghan Government and its supporters. Between the struggle of these masses and the immediate forms of class collaboration vacillates the left bureaucracy—attempting to serve the ruling class in every way it can, completely incapable of breaking with the historic interests of the capitalist class but forced on occasion, in order to maintain the base from which it derives its position, to timidly embark on the road of opposition to the immediate interests of the ruling class.
The task of the IMG in fighting for a class struggle left wing is to organise into a united front all those prepared to fight, taking all measures to strengthen the position of the vanguard within this and to force all elements attempting to straddle the two positions to define themselves. It is around this axis that the core of those forces opposed to class collaboration can be hammered out, the labour movement polarised, and all the currents within that movement forced into a clear relation for or against the needs of the class struggle.
24. It is this crisis of the mass organisations, driven by the economic, social and political crisis, which begins to lay the basis for the construction of an alternative leadership in the labour movement and the defeat and removal of the Callaghan-Healey leadership.
In laying down such a task as the chief one confronting the working class we once again do not derive artificial schemas, but show the conscious logic of the contradictions of the objective situation and the struggles which the working class and oppressed masses are already engaged in. Every section of the working class or oppressed masses which goes into struggle to defend itself or gain its interests today collides centrally with the Callaghan [illegible] standards; to defend jobs in Chrysler, Leyland or any other major company; any attempt to defeat the cuts; to withdraw troops from Ireland; the fight for the right to abortion; to defend democratic rights, collides with the government. This process therefore has not been blocked, but expresses itself through the conflict at every level in the labour movement between those who oppose the policies of this government, however confusedly, and those who remain the faithful servants of the bureaucracy. The question of who should lead in the labour movement is posed at every level, and the touchstone remains, whether the leaders support the central leadership of the social democratic bureaucracy both in the trade unions and in Parliament. This evidently is because the Labour Government and its backers in the TUC remain the principal executors of the bourgeoisie's strategy at the present time. It is for this reason that the slogan 'Unite to fight the policies of this government and to remove the Callaghan-Healey leadership' is central, not only because matters previously dealt with on the level of economic matters now become the business of governments, but because the crisis of leadership of the class is revealed at every level in the working class, from the shop steward and ward secretary to the leadership of the trade unions and the Labour Party. The touchstone of that crisis is the attitude to this Labour Government and what alternatives there are to its policies.
The project of fighting for such a class struggle left wing corresponds to the whole basic thrust of class polarisation and working class advance in this period.
Today the acuteness of social and political contradictions and the increase in size of the vanguard is such that the class struggle left wing is not a concept of a current led for a prolonged period and in a relatively unchallenged way by left bureaucrats, whether social democrats or Stalinists, but on the contrary of a united front driven right from the beginning by struggles for leadership within the united action. While revolutionaries will initially undoubtedly be a definite minority, nevertheless, right from the beginning they will be a part of and challenging for the leadership of such a movement, indeed, precisely one of the most important aspects of the interventions such as the National Coordinating Committee Against Cuts in the NHS, the Troops Out Movement, the National Abortion Campaign, the Working Women's Charter etc. is precisely that they show that even on a national scale the revolutionaries are not an insignificant force; on the contrary, they are capable of taking a leading role in actions by sections of workers and oppressed masses, and they constitute a powerful lever through which we are able to project ourselves into being a component, if minority, part of the leadership of such a development of a class struggle left wing. Our task is not to be merely an opposition in the base but an opposition within the leadership of such a current. In that sense, the analogy in our line is that of the Minority Movement or of the SWP in the 1930s, not that of entryism as practised in the 1950s and '60s.
Right from the beginning of the construction of such a class struggle left wing there will be the sharpest clashes to increase the weight of revolutionary forces within such united action and united front. This means a confrontation with the bureaucracy, and projection of an independent revolutionary presence, right down the line and on every field and aspect of the class struggle.
25. The starting point for the struggle for a class struggle left wing must be a programme which, starting from the objective task of resolving the crisis facing society and the masses, provides the links to the consciousness of the working class and oppressed layers of society, and is therefore capable of mobilising them ever more clearly against the bases of capitalist power. Such a programme in the entire period leading to the revolutionary crisis and working class seizure of power can only be the full Transitional Programme of the Fourth International. Explanation of this programme in full, and of the theoretical conquests of Marxism which underlie it, is at all times a chief task of the revolutionary organisation and one whose importance is in general continuously underestimated. However, in the method taught by Trotsky in his theses of the first four Congresses of the Comintern, Strategy and Tactics in the Imperialist Epoch, and his many writings and analyses, it is also necessary to concretise this programme in every conjuncture so as to encapsulate the chief and most central tasks which confront the working class and its allies in any particular conjuncture.
Such a programme constitutes the programme of action in a conjuncture. The demands which we have outlined above, flowing from our analysis of the objective situation and relations between the classes, thus constitute the Action Programme of the IMG which we lay before the working class and oppressed masses and the vanguard in the present conjuncture. The chief task of the IMG in the present period in the fight for a class struggle left wing is to find the ways to force united action of the class and oppressed masses around the demands of this programme of action.