21-23 September 1979 LEON TROTSKY 1879-1940 Leutchar Friday paper at the same time.
year centenary Conway will celebration.
J. Thackara lony Ivicchau Brighton IMG R. Blackburn Week's total Cumulative total OUR FUND DRIVE THIS WEEK we're printing as the main item in this column the press the Marxist Group about the rally for the Trotsky's birth on 21 September.
Besides celebrating the centenary, we hope this event will raise a lot of money for our £20,000 Special Fund. So make it an evening out and help the celebrate the birth Leon Trotsky. In an era that lives under the shadow of nuclear devastation, and is once again haunted by the spectre of unemployment, the heroic physical and intellectual struggle of this revolutionary titan Leilali powerful example to all those who believe in the future of humanity.
on 2 Hall. ender at 7.30pm.
Hall, Lion Square, London WC1, the IMG — the British Section of the Fourth International, the movement founded by Trotsky holding centenary Our thanks this week to:
£12.50 5.00 10.00 1.00 'JP's petrol + inflation' 10.00 £38.50 'IN ONE SENSE the Commons is the most unrepresentative of representative assemblies. It is an elaborate conspiracy to prevent the real clash of outside from finding an appropriate echo within its walls. It is a social shock absorber placed privilege and the pressure of public consent.
Thus wrote Labour Aneurin Bevan many decades ago. But today even those of Bevan's heirs who might agree with the observation would probably not care to repeat it in public. For it would be considered an attack on 'democracy' Yet never has the economic situation in Britain needed an ideological assault on the institutions of the British bourgeoisie. The present elected earlier this overwhelming majority in the House of Commons. Its popular vote was the largest to be obtained by a British political party. In terms of bourgeois legitimacy the Tories are in a very strong position.
Wisdom This point is being stressed not simply by the Tories and their servile press. It has also conventional WISHUT wing of the Labour Party and the trade unions. In other words, workers are being told by Callaghan, Healey. Murray know what the Tories are doing is rough, but grin and bear it for five years and then we'll get Labour bäck.' Leaving aside the question of what a new Labour government would or • would not do, the argument is utterly bankrupt. In the face of a sustained attack U11 working standards through expenditure, and soon an ridiculous to expect workers to back and wait.
It is obvious that movement organised strength divided on. fight this Tory government. divisions will be exploited by the Tory leaders and their press to delay any uprising Thatcher governcle, happens they will be used to ensure that it is diverted into safe channels. Trump The trump card available to the class government is its political-ideological strength and the labour movement's political-ideological 1972-4 Heath attempted to use this political strength of the bourgeoisie to defeat the economic strength of the working class. He failed.
Wilson and then
succeeded to a limited persuading the trade unions to accept partial blame for the economic crisis of the capitalist economic system. The outbreak of earlier this year and government's ferocious verbal at!acks on them finally culminated in a massive Tory victory.
Thatcher governs with the benefit of hindsight.
the Callaghan experiences behind her.
From present Tory strategy it appears that Thatcher blunders to political weakness and a loss of nerve at critical moments of the previous Tory administration.
Audacious The Tory leader and her advisers are convinced that pursuit of reactionary policies is quite capable delivering because of the political backwardness of the working class movement. Any
House of attempt
oppressed resist the greeted with a opinion which exists the trade unions. between prepared political and mOre government was year an Royalty order:
become In Britain . of the right ideology ana Dully workers the living reality:
cuts in social unemployment policy • 1t sit during a labour despite its immense is seriously • the tactics necessary to against Conservatives. and by fighting democracy:
and the Tory proletariat weakness.
Callaghan extent by Old man struggles the Labour these remarks. talking unions as the democracy"?
She has the Heath and answer is yes.
Trotsky attributes Heath's the audacious the goods that ther by the workers or other sections of society to Tóry onslaught will be barrage of hostile propaganda centred on the defence of. "democracy' against the members of It is extremely important that the response to the Tory and right-wing Labour ideological onslaught is well and well argued. The function of bourgeois democracy is to secure the consent of the masses to their own exploitation and oppres sion. The price paid for obtaining this consent is the existence of important democratic rights: the right to form political parties, the right to publish and distribute political propaganda, the existence of trade unions, etc.
Such a system is clearly the best possible way of integrating the masses into the existing political and social Bourgeois ideology and bourgeois institutions - parliament; church, family, royalty and as a last resort the armed forces — are mere 1e ensure that there is no breach in the system of capitalist fortifications.
• of and institutions is more crucial than elsewhere in Western Europe because the overwhelming majority of the population consists of • Hence the importance of British social-democracy as a yital pillar of bourgeois democracy.
Trotsky remarked on this feature of British political life on more than one ¡occasion. A perceptive passage in his writings on German fascism revealed contradictory aspects of this Stronghold 'In a developed capitalist society "democratic regime, the bourgeoisie leans for support primarily upon the working classes, which are held in check by the reformists. In its most finished form, this system finds its highest expression in Britain during the administration of a Labour government as well as during the 'In the course of many decades, the workers have built up within the bourgeois democracy, by utilising it, against ll their own strongholds and bases of proletarian the trade unions, polítical parties, the educational and sport clubs, the cooperatives, etc. The within the forma can do so our mis Callut attain power democracy, bur can do so ully taking the road of revolution: this has been proved by theory and experi ence. And these bulwarks of workers democracy within the bourgeois state are absolutely essential for taking the revolutionary road.
Many readers will be shocked by Was the old man real rade 'bases of proletarian Our. heavily cratised, undemocratic unions? The was arguing that all working class organisations, despite their reformist leaderships, despite their bureaucracies, would have to be the centre of socialist activities before the victory of the revolution. Cleariy he envisaged the defeat of reformism, but he refused to equate the unions (as an institution) with •Compro mised leaderships.
The strength of bourgeois demo cratic institutions as far as the mass of workers are concerned does not he in the fact that they are bourgeois, but sanction certain funda
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Onslaught left-winger