Despite the long-term assault launched against its living standards and democratic rights, over the past decade, the labour movement has gone no serious defeat. Its ability to repulse the assault by successive governments - leading, in 1974, to the miners' strike which toppled from office - lies in its reserves of combattivity and strength accumulated in the post-war years, which stem from:
a) its dramatic increase in size due primarily to the influx of women into the labour movement - reaching 2.6 million in 1971 - and growing unionisation of white-collar workers as in the casa of NALGO, CPSA or the NUT;
b) its consolidation and strengthening of union organisation within this numerical expansion as mirrored in the rise of shop stewards ( from an estimated 175, 000 in the early 'sixties to well over 300,000 in 1975).
While it has been this increased strength which has allowed the labour movement to defend its standard of living through mass 'confrontations! with various governments - from the time of the 1966 seamens' strike onwards - it has been this same strength which has set the political limitations on the radicalisation that has occurred over the past decade.
The post-war boom - facilitated - by the role of the Atlee government - had an important, if temporary, impact on the labour movement. The creation of the 'welfare & the ability to improve living standards through shop-floor militancy led to its partial 'fragmentation' and Ide-politicisation' clearly reflected in the strengthening of the right -wing in the unions and the Labour Party.
The importance of this trend - allowing Labour MPs such as Jay to evolve schemes for lending' trade union participation in the party - was that it created the framework within which the labour movement began to react, in the middle sixties, to the assault on its living standards and democratic rights spear - headed by the 1964 Wilson government.
The fact that, for a considerable period, the movement had 'retreated' back from politics into localised, industrial militancy meant that, when confronted with a generalised offensive, workers turned in the first instance not to the lefts in the Labour Party but to the trade unions in defence of gains won. It was figures such as Scanlon and Jones, under mass pressure from their members, who symbolised the growing opposition to ruling class strategy represented by Wilson's In Place of Strife to Heath's Industrial Relations , Act.
The confining of these struggles to defensive industrial action mediated through the unions set the political limitations on the process that opened up as ever-wider layers of the class - begin -ning with the 1966 seamens! strike - were drawn into the fight against wage restraint and attempts to impose a legal straightjacket on the unions.
This is not, of course, to downplay the importance of the escalating confrontations that opened up under the Wilson government and reached a climax - about a decade later - in the miners' strike that brought the Tories down. This process was of major significance in that it:
a) brought ever -wider layers, including more 'conservativel sectors such as postmen or newly unionised layers such as teachers, into class-struggle actions against the government;
b) forced these layers to move beyond the atomised consciousness of the boom period into rec -ognising the need to create a more united class response to the ruling class offensive - a trend seen most clearly in the 1972 campaign to 'free the five' or the 1974 miners' strike that threatened to overspill into 'general strikes';
c) blocked, through the strength and combattivity of the labour movement, the ability of the ruling class to change the balance of forces in its favour by inflicting a serious defeat upon sectors of the labour movement.
While reflecting the combattivity and strength of the labour movement, however, such a process also revealed its political weakness. While willing to 'down tools' in their thousands, while willing to initiate mass actions capable of bringing down a Tory government, the mass ranks of the labour movement were unable to translate this militancy into a political programme fought for in the Labour Party against the pro - capitalist policies of its own leaders.
This is why, on the eve of defeating the Heath government in a major 'trial of strength! - over 10 million trade unionists voted for the return of the same Labour government which had played such a treacherous role during its previous period of office. Disillusion with the Labour bureaucrats was by no means the same as a break from the politics these figures represented - the politics of reformism - which continued to tie them to the Labour Party.
It is important to stress this point since many sections of the marxist left 'mistook! the growth of industrial militancy - finding no reflection initially in the Labour Party - as an indication that layers of the labour movement were rapidly 'bypassing' the Labour Party and breaking free of its reformist stranglehold. Such an analysis was radically wrong. The fact that the labour movement was restricted to defensive struggles, unable to translate them into a political challenge to Wilson, meant that far from breaking free of the reformist stranglehold, they were as deeply • held as ever.
ES-B4 ax ten HE'LL CARRY NO MORE ROATS?
If anything, the growth of ever-wider confrontations in the late 'sixties and early 'seventies marked the initial response of the class as it began to move beyond the 'fragmented' militancy of the early boom years and generalise upon its consciousness. While ready to defend past gains by militant action, while confident and strong after decades of rising living standards and full employment, they had no political alternative to that of the reformist leaders. B) Labour Party Crisis This explains not only why over 10 million workers were ready to return Wilson to office in 1974 but also why - after defeating the Tories in a major 'trial of strength! - they have temporarily been willing to 'accept' the Social Contract imposed on them by the Labour leaders which has seriously eroded living standards.
The lacceptancel of the Social Contract, measured in the dramatic downturn in strike action over the past few years compared to that against Heath's pay code, does not signify a 'retreat' by the class. The Labour government, returned to office on the basis of a powerful class mobilisation, is incapable of achieving this aim. The Social Contract was itself a voluntary agreement between the government and TUC born out of the disaster of attempting to compel the unions to abide by wage restraint.
What it does signify is that, while undefeated and combattive, the movement has found itself politically disarmed in the face of the pro-capitalist policies of its leaders. While wishing to defend living standards and job prospects, they have not yet elaborated a political alternative to the government's strategy which would give that struggle a perspective and, at the same time, keep out a possible return of the Tories.
The downturn in industrial action over the past few years has, in this sense, been increasingly paralleled by a 'molecular! movement within the class as it has sought to hammer out a perspective for the problems facing it no longer at a sectoral but at a national level. Since the vast maj -ority of the labour movement retain allegiance to the party which they built, this attempt to evolve a new political strategy has increasingly been registered in the Labour Party since there exists no other arena in which the class can, at this stage, politically express itself.
Such a process, while slow and erratic, has precipitated a growing crisis within the Labour Party as the discontent of ever - wider layers in the unions has come into head-on conflict with the pro - capitalist policies of the government. Deepening strains and tensions have emerged as the party finds itself the scene of opposing class forces - those of the workers' movement & those of the ruling class - mediated, at this stage, in different wings of the labour bureaucracy.
Such a crisis was reflected, most symbolically, in the resignation of Harold Wilson as leader of the party in 1976. Whatever the personal reason for Wilson's abrupt departure, his decision coincided with the growing impossibility of 'holding together! the broad coalition in the Labour Party, This was shown even more sharply in the election that followed when the combined votes for Foot and Benn represented a major swing to the 'left' against the 'right' symbolised by Jenkins who had to throw in the towel after the first ballThe polarisation within the party revealed by Wilson's resignation has deepened over the past period as the class pressures on the party have increased. The swing 'left' by the party rank-and-file (under mass pressure from outside) has forced the government to secure its 'basel on ever - more overtly bourgeois forces. Growing opposition at party conferences has not only led to shriller calls from the 'right' for a coalition government - or even to desertions, as in the case of Mayhew, to the Liberals - but to the alliance cemented in 1977 between Callaghan and Steel of the 'Lib-Lab! pact.
This growing crisis, although only at an emb -'yonic stage, is not of course unique. It represents the age - old contradiction embedded in the Labour Party as to whether it is a party reflecting the 'national' (i.e. ruling class) interest or that of the labour movement which gave it birth. The frictions building up over the past years between the party and government - reflecting the working out of this contradiction - have seen 1. Policies The first has been the growing opposition to the government's pro-capitalist policies reflected, in a confused and distorted form, in the positions of the Tribunites who dominate the Labour Party NEC and who have a substantial base within the Parliamentary Labour Party. The first example of this political 'cleavagel was revealed in the decision of the NEC to run a major campaign on the question of entry into the EEC against that of the government. Despite the chauvinist nature of such a campaign, it marked a major "watershed! in the relations between the party and the government as the former began to reflect the growing discontent with the Wilson/Callaghan leadership. Opposition on the issue of the EEC was soon to be followed by similar opposition to the govern -ment's unemployment policies or cuts in social expenditure which prompted the Tribunite MPsbolstered by conference feeling - to abstain on them in the House of Commons. The important aspect of this opposition is that, despite the weak and 'cowardly' role played by the Tribunites, the struggle against the government within party has increasingly mirrored and inter-related with that of wide layers outside.
The opposition at party conference to the government's proposed cuts, for example, was rooted in the mass discontent of major unions which led, in 1976, to a mass 60, 000 strong demonst -ration co- sponsored by the Labour Party NEC. In the same way, opposition to anti - abortion moves, to racist Immigration curbs and to anti-union moves (as at Grunwick) has been rooted in the mass pressure building up among the class and its allies which has seen the Labour Party drawn increasingly into supporting mass government action in the streets: e.9. the antiracist rally in 1976, the NAC march in 1977 and the mass picketting outside Grunwick more recently still.
The situation in which growing opposition in the party not only reflects but, in turn, helps to promote mass action outside presents a major problem for the government and its right - wing 2. Democracy The attempt by the class to make 'its' party respond to pressure has not only brought it into a head-on conflict with the government's policies however, but also with its undemocratic practicSOCIALIST ACTION
es which allow it to blandly ignore conference decisions.
The struggle for alternative policies, however confused and distorted they may initially be, been accompanied in this sense by a struggle to ¡democratisel the party revealed in numerous ways: the attempt by various branches to 'depose' MPs who refuse to abide by the Manifesto (as at Newham); the demand by figures such as Scargill that union-sponsored MPs should support union interests; the call at last year's conference that all MPs should be open to mandatory re-selection or that one, issued at the time of Wilson's res -ignation, that the leader of the party should be elected by conference as 'a whole and not merely by the PLP.
Such developments, which will grow in the period ahead, reflect the initial attempts by the class to create a democratic mechanism for the implementation of policies in their interests. The reaction such moves have triggered in the government - particularly the witch-hunting attack on Trotskyist 'infiltration' pioneered by both Wilson and Shirley Williams - shows just how serious they are considered to be.
Benn & Callaghan: two sides of the same reformist coin.
The only reason the 'right! have not resorted to the 'guillotine! to silence their critics is due to the major swing left in the mainstream of the party which would not allow them to get away with any 'blood-letting'. The Labour Party NEC decided to Ishelvel Underhill's witch - hunting report into the activities of 'Trotskyist infiltratSuch tensions, while only at an lembryonic! stage, will deepen in the period ahead as opposition to the government's pro-capitalist policies finds ever-deeper reflection in the Labour Party. Such a trend - far from being groups such as the SWP maintain - is a major step forward since it is only by translating such discontent into a political challenge to the Labour right-wing that a serious opposition can be built which can begin to break out of the 'reformist stranglehold around the neck of the class.
Breaking out of this stranglehold' cannot be achieved by ignoring the Labour Party or hoping that growing waves of militancy will 'by-pass' it. It can only be achieved by transforming this mil¡tancy into a political programme fought for within the party against the right-wing which can begin to offer ever-wider layers a clear alternative to the pro-capitalist policies of the Callaghan government. C) Dangers of Centrism While the Labour Party has swung to the 'left' over the past period, under growing discontent, such discontent has been politically 'hegemonised! to date by the Labour 'lefts' from Benn to the Tribunites whose origins can be traced back to the Bevanites in the late 'fifties.
While opposing government policies at conferences, and occasionally abstaining in Parliament, these figures have consistently refused to mobilise the labour movement, and its allies, around clear class-struggle policies in a challenge to the government. This was revealed most recently in their virtual silence on the government's decision to form the 'Lib-Lab' pact on a programme hostile to the interests of the labour movement.
No doubt, under mass pressure, these figures have been forced to support mass actions by the class (and its allies) such as the 60, 000 strong anti-cuts demonstration in late 1976. Their main role, however, has been to channel this pressure within the confines of parliamentary democracy, providing them with a 'basel with which to manoeuvre with the right-wing. This is particularly true in the case of Benn whose continuation within the cabinet both justifies, from the 'left', support for the existing leadership and gives him increased authority - and flexibility -within that leadership.
In this sense, the Tribunites and Benn have acted as a major curb on the rise of a clear class -struggle tendency within the Labour Party. Not onlyhave they tried to direct the mass discontent building up in the unions into Isafel channels but they have sought to blunt its biting edge around policies which are in no way a solution to the real problems facing working people.
Despite the radical image they have received, particularly Benn with his populist appeal, their position on 'workers' democracy' is merely a smokescreen to smuggle in major rationalisation schemes by encouraging unions to identify with the profitability of private enterprise. Their support for increased loans to private firms is not a means of extending public ownership but of using vast reserves of public expenditure - as at Chrysler - to bail out lame ducks at the expense of jobs and working conditions.
Their call for 'import controls' or to 'leave the EEC' are equally reactionary in the sense that they counterpose the viability of British capitalism 'going it alonel to the socialist position of calling for a 'United Socialist States of Europe!.
The latter demands are not only inadequate, however, but dangerous in that they foster a narrow 'nationalist! spirit by suggesting that the cause of the present crisis is not capitalism itself but 'foreign workers' or 'immigrants'. This narrow nationalism has also been revealed in their hostility to the fight for democratic rights in No Ireland or Scotland (where it was the left which iscuttled' the Devolution Bill).
Such an attitude, instead of uniting the workforce in a clear anti-capitalist perspective, can create dangerous divisions within it and help develop a climate in which the ultra-right will find it ever more easy to spread their racist and chauvinist poison.
The fact that Benn and the Tribunites have received a more radical image than their policies deserve should not obscure the fact, however, that they represent, in however confused and distorted a form, the political evolution of growing numbers in the labour movement hesitatingly seeking an alternative to Callaghan.
This is an important point. The fact that there does not exist in Britain a revolutionary party capable of politically centralising the struggles that will develop means that the Labour 'lefts! can increasingly pose as a political focus for thousands in the coming years.
The development of 'left reformist' or 'centrist' currents in the Labour Party is not inevitable, of course. Lacking any alternative political perspective, due to the weakness of the revolutionary left and strength of reformist illusions within the workers' movement, such a perspective seems the most likely. The strategy of the Communist Party, seeking alliances with the Labour 'lefts' whom it has been wooing for decades, adds to the liklihood of such a variant.
The main danger facing the labour movement, in this sense, is not that of a 'defeat' for the class in a major confrontation. It is the hegemony of its growing discontent by left reformist or centrist currents which can both politically confuse it and channel its combattivity into 'safe paths' within the confines of parliamentary democracy.
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A) Generalising Consciousness