Michael Kidronts complaints about my review of "Incomes Policy legislation, and the Shop Stewards" is very helpful in drawing attention to certain internal inconsistencies in the book, The authors! use of the metaphor (for local shop steward activity, and trade wmion spheres) of 'walkinz on two legs! is particularly illustrative . For the whole weight of their characterisation of the trade union tlegt is to suggest that it is so infected with gangrene that it should be cut off{ The workers can then hobble on the healthy leg, Amputation is sometimes inevitable, but no-one would be grateful to the surgeon who performed the operation on the strength of an incorrect diagnosis. Even very complicated fractures can be mended} Concerning the question of 'reforms!, I agree that I should have acknowledged the use of that term by the authors, in their phrase "'do-it-yourself! reforms", It is I think clear from the context that where I took exception to their dismissal of reforms as 'reforms from above', I am dealing with their attitude to political programmes, political reforms, The Cliff/Barker "do-it-yourself" reforms are, it seems to me, confined within narrow and defensive limits. It remains incontrovertiblethat the defence and orgmisation of shop stewards is of great importance, The authors are entitled to use the word 'reforms'! to describe these activities, though I think it confuses the issue. Unless the shop steward base reaches outwards and upwards towards a political programme ("working-class politics" as Reg Birch puts it in his introduction to the book ~ by the way is he also accused of not reading the pamphlet?) the shop floor movement will fail.to engage in the building of a socialist movement ~ something required now, and not in some distant futereeThis thesis has some support in history. ‘ The shop stewards! movement during and after the last war lacked a sharply defined programme of anticapitalist reforms, and under the influence of the revolutionary sitjation in Europe it moved towards a maximalist position m which did not capture mass support in the British context, At the same time, building on programmatic propaganda and agitation reaching back a number of years, railwaymen and miners were confronting the Government with effective pressures for anti-capitalist reforms. Both movements had their weaknesses and strengths. With the impact of mass unemployment the opportunity for both passed away, From the terminology of the Cliff/Barker pamphlet, I am not at all sure whether they would not regard the demands of miners and railwaymen for nationalisation with joint union-state control, which occupied the government in manoeuvres against them from 1919 to 1921, as "reforms from above", I remain convinced that in today's context, there is a real need for sharp programmes (certainly with less ambiguity than the ! joint-control formula), which are neither Fabian "reforms from above” nor simply the "do-it-yourslef' defences of Cliff and Barker, I sai:dthat a short rewiew would hardly do for thia book. Kidron's attack is useful in stimulating me to expand a bit. I intended no "disservice to your readers", nor did I read the book "in order to misconstrue it", Surely we can differ in interpreting an important piece of work, and on a vital question of socialist strategy, without these rather personalised comments. on our motivs creeping in,
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