JEFFERYS the Industrial Discusion Bulletin.
HOW in the present conditions of mass struggle should revolutionaries operate? What kind of strategy can we ofter? Can pontical organisation vacuum be filled? Can tnc mausunar mulancy or 1919 be given a political content or direction?
The first point to make is that there is no simple answer. This article is just a contribution to the discussion. need to have an open debate about 11....
My own view summarised as follows:
1. The continuing crisis of British capitalism, combined with five years of Labour government, has squeezed the left reformist leaderships in the trade unions and Labour virtually out of existence.
The working class remains ready to fight for class goals, but the lack of any organisational Cane alternative capable of generalising and leading that struggle leadership increasingly in the hands of the class collaborators, the conscious right reformists.
2. In the past we have placed too great an emphasis upon the fact that the trade union bureaucracy sells out because IL IS full-time, enough on the fact that trade union leaderships at all levels because of their politics.
The "left" leaders sold out not primarily because they were full-time officials, but because they started as left reformists who pushed further and further to the right. Our work in the trade unions must recognise this and be much more political in future.
3. Equally, in the past we have exaggerated the independent potential of the shop stewards basically because they WeTC rank representatives.
While it is true that this means they are both well-placed to give leadership to the class and to sustain shop floor there inherent in being a rank and file worker (or leader) that guarantees political protection from ruling class Our activities in the workplaces must also recognise this and be much more political in the future. THE FACT that the militant struggles against the government's 5 per cent pay limit have stopped short of a political challenge to Labour has aroused much discussion on the left.
This has been reflected not only in the pages of Socialist Challenge, but also in the press of the Socialist Workers Party.
Below we print extractsfrom one such contribution by STEVE February/March issue and working class independence.
can be briefly EETPU and AUEW amalgamation which we should move. 5. The Party political dence.
leaves leaders. Instead initiate them where they don't.
and organised reformists.
inevitably got and strengthen our reformists.
their The turned out to be.
necessary nothing systematic ness of the SWP's 4. The immediate threat to the working class is the danger of a major retreat by the right reformist trade union leadership before a new ruling class offensive (which we can expect just as soon as it recovers its nerve).
In this situation we must fight for a united front of all those ready to defend basic trade union rights, shop floor organisation and the notion of The work of our comrades in the Broad Left' supporters and CP members on wages, union democracy, and the is une direction in united front on specific issues within the trade unions is the key. But to work correctly inside it we have to be absolutely clear on our organisational and political indepenThis means that we do not dissolve existing Rank and File organisations which are politically independent of the reformist Labour and trade union WC work strengthen them where they exist, and But as revolutionaries working with non-revolutionaries in Rank and File groups we argue for joint work on specific issues with individual and 6. Working inside a united front which includes left reformists makes it even more crucial that we establish organisational and political independence from the For when workers are facing a Tory government and a TUC led by the gang of 12', Moss Evans and Alan Fisher can easily appear almost as welcome as Jones and Scanlon did in the late 1960s, and we know what organisational and political independence has to be built both through our industrial strategy - stressing the need tor self-activity and opposing collaboration with the employers and reliance upon the reformist trade union leaders - and through consistent and SOCIalISI propaganda (through Socialist Worker, meetings and bulletins) winning workers away REVOLUTION is not just something that we're all in favour of - it's the name of a youth paper. A youth paper initiated by the IMG to help establish a new revolutionary youth organisareformism which fails represent working class interests whenever capitalism faces a crisis.
8. The unevenness in consciousamongst workers cannot be overcome by sloganising. workers are open Lo our revolutionary programme, and hence must be recruited direct from picket line and workplace to the SWP.
Others are only open to a part of our programme (e.g. the demand for cal acmocracy luc unons. or 1o militant opposition to wage controls). In periods of struggle such workers often realise in practice the limits of reformist organisation and look for organisational forms that extend and strengthen the struggle.
Rank and File groups and action WHY has the far left failed, on a European scale, to emerge credible alternative to democracy or the Communist Party?
Richard Kuper, a member of the Socialist Alliance, argued at the joint school 'Revolutionary Strategy and Revolutionary Party last weekend that part of the problem lies in the conception held by revolutionaries about how to organise.
For John Ross, speaking on behalf of the International Marxist Group the answer to the crisis of the far lefi The 'in loco parentis law allows the school authorities to take over the *rights' of parents. Youth are forced humiliating school uniforms, subjected to petty rules, beaten and aries as well as strike and picketing committees spontaneously thrown up by the struggle can play this role.
We must encourage their development and after the struggle dies full attempt to keep the number of workers possible involved the in sustaining the organisational links created in the struggle.
This rank and file work is not ar alternative to SWP SWP activity in which we should be totally open.
9. We must not exaggerate our size and immediate potential. There are only a tiny handful of revolutionary socialists in the working class today In a small-scale struggle our views might get noted; in the present mass The work of our comrades in the AUEW with Broad Left supporters and CP members is the direction we should move in. right many questions. ional Leninist forms of revolutionary organisation.
The school, organised to allow the IMG and the ISA -the socialists who agreed with the appeal for revolutionary unity published in Socialist Challenge on 4 January - to discuss new areas or those where there are outstanding differences.
These schools were proposed some time ago, but it was felt that they would be most useful once joint worl At the same time, thousands of youth are already concluding that the only final solution oppression, and that of other sections of society, is socialism. And that the confine maximum working class. activity, but is heartedness can be found in its inability to get was underway on a local level where fundamental strategic there and he defended traditincluding one of a series, was comrades, as well as other independent attended.
Suggestions *The least £4,000.
to their have much struggle they get swamped.
But this must not mean that we ourselves DUTC propaganda role. Only by fighting, arguing and trying out our politics in practice in the actual struggle -around one hospital, one ambulance depot, in a school, an employment office, in one factory — can we begin to create a new leadershp within the We have to use the opportunities thrown up by the struggle - the bankruptcy of Labour, the halfthe trade leaders, the sense of frustration felt by hundreds of thousands - to build the SWP and Rank and File organisation so as lo be in a more effective situation in the struggles of the 1980s.
are members of both Forty people attended the school, good number independent socialists. Big Flame invited although they refused to sign the joint appeal, also for future schools include such topics as Internationalism and the Fourth International';
revolutionary party and autonomous movements'; "Revolutionaries and the Labour Party'; and "Socialist Democracy'.
An added problem is that the youth - virtually by definition do not To depend on Revolution readers to raise the cash is
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