It is a sobering thought that fifty years after the so-called General Strike, the working class as a whole and the trade unions in particular, are still fighting the same defensive struggle. Though it is a truism that while capitalism and the wages system remain, workers must organize to struggle at the industrial level, over wages and working conditions, it is a truism which gets no further forward. To continually grope along the same well-worn path and still harbour the illusion that some day, it may lead somewhere, has all the ingredients of a farce gone mad.
In any other field of human endeavour, if there had been so much trial and error for so little result, it would long have been questioned whether the right course of action was being taken. But determined, it seems, to retain their blinkers at all costs, the trade unions plod on, never noticing the signs that say “Hey, you’ve passed this way a thousand times before! “Since 1926 there have been 86,578 recorded strikes in the UK, an average of 1767 each year.
At the time of the General Strike, the SPGB praised the solidarity of the workers and condemned the conniving treachery of the TUC leaders. We ridiculed the so-called Communist Party who meekly demanded the replacement of one set of leaders by another. We pointed out that reliance on leaders was fatal to working-class interests. We argued against the procedure of “the tail wagging the dog”, whereby the General Council of the TUC called the strike on and off without consulting those involved. Since then, two generations of essentially similar empty-headed leaders have come, and uneventfully gone, leaving their rank-and-file meal-tickets precisely where they found them. The CP and the “left” have continued to play their nefarious rôle: unenlightened themselves, they are powerless to spread enlightenment.
Over the years there have been many cries of “victory” as workers have won the day, or at least wrung concessions in particular strike actions. While it is better that the workers should win, rather than crawl back defeated on the bosses’ terms, the significance and durability of such victories has yet to be seen in their class perspective by most of those concerned. However well the workers fight industrial struggles, no final victory is possible in this field. At the end of the day their position in society remains that of a non-owning, exploited class of employees. Ironically, even their solidarity (itself a fine and noble attribute) in such struggles can be turned against them, because the employers can better afford a long drawn-out struggle, without being reduced to the pittance level of welfare starvation. If a particular firm goes broke, capital can always regroup and seek other profitable fields for exploitation. For the workers whose livelihood depends upon a regular pay-packet, such situations mean worsening poverty, if not disaster. One need only look at the plight of one-and a-quarter millions unemployed pathetically demanding “the right to work” to see who has the whip-hand. It also provides further illuminating insights as to how far they have got with these struggles in fifty years.
Clearly, it is contradictory and nonsensical to vote continuing political power to the parties of capitalism, and then rely on the hopelessly inadequate strike weapon to redress the balance in a disjointed series of skirmishes over wages and conditions with individual employers or particular industries: having voted acceptance of the system, to settle down to a lifetime of fighting its inevitable results. Unless we are to resign ourselves to an eternity of bickering over wage rates, the vicious circle has to be broken.
From the standpoint of the capitalist, “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds”, but for workers, the key factor in the struggle is that they are selling themselves. The permanency of such a system is untenable. The missing element that holds the solution is working-class awareness. Awareness of what needs to be done to end capitalism. Awareness, that in the political field alone lies the power to terminate the existence of class society.
Industrial Actionists who urge workers to see more in trade-union struggles than merely defensive actions, are nothing more than so many posturing cardboard revolutionaries. They sneer at political action to gain control of the state because, they say. Parliament is a capitalist institution. Then, virtually to a man, they urge workers to vote the Labour Party into power to use this “capitalist institution” for running capitalism. Failing to see the need for majority understanding, they think the political field is tainted but the industrial field is clean and this is where the final struggle will take place. There are however not two sets of workers, those in unions and those who vote at elections. They are the same workers, and the lack of Socialist knowledge prevents them from pursuing class emancipation as the immediate issue.
It is worth noting that with widespread unemployment and capitalism in yet another crisis, according to their funny theories, this should be their finest hour — but the workers in trade unions are not rallying to the banner of Industrial Action. With the onset of this current slump, the number of strikes declined dramatically. In 1975 806,000 workers were involved in strikes. This was less than half the number for 1974. There was a twenty-three per cent, decrease in the number of stoppages in the same period. Some of the “militant” shop stewards who should be spear-heading the onward rank-and-file rush to “workers’ control” (or some other equally vague objective) have been falling like ninepins. They are dedicated to erroneous theories. If they had any sound ideas they would not now be in disarray. They have nothing new to offer and despite their delusions of grandeur, they are as muddled as those they expect to follow them.
Throughout the period of the General Strike, as indeed for our twenty-two years of existence before it and fifty years since, the Socialist Standard has consistently argued for class-conscious action in the political arena, as the only way to achieve Socialism. Any objective assessment of those fifty years of working-class history, can only confirm our case.
Political power through control of the state machine is the means whereby the owning class is able to dominate society. There are no capitalists at factory gates reading proclamations about their ownership rights. Any disturbance at the factory gate is handled by police or, if it gets nasty, by the armed forces. These coercive agencies are under the direct control of the political machine. The legality of private property institutions, is decided by the state. To gain possession of all the means of production and distribution by the whole community it is an inescapable necessity to capture political power. Obviously only a world-wide working-class majority with Socialist understanding would be interested in gaining political power to end class society. Parliament is a capitalist institution now, because the great majority of workers vote for capitalist parties. When the quality of the vote changes, so will the purpose to which it is put. Then, Parliament will be used to strip the capitalist class of their ownership of the means of living. What, in the final analysis, gives the licence for continuing capitalism is the workers’ approval of it. Fortunately, the democratic process cuts both ways. When the workers cease supporting capitalism and exploring blind-alleys, they will vote for Socialism.
The capitalist class, which, according to leftist folklore, could do nothing to stop the workers taking over the factories, suddenly becomes endowed with mystic powers the moment the political field is discussed. The left haven’t even learned that the capitalist as 'such does nothing. It is workers who run his state for him, just as they run his factories. What they are really saying is that workers in the Civil Service and armed forces would continue supporting capitalism. Even if this were true it could not determine the outcome of events. But there is nothing to insulate workers in government jobs or armed forces from the spread of Socialist understanding. Socialist ideas will permeate all sections of the working class. The leftist industrial-actionists fail to grasp the significance of a world majority wanting Socialism. This is part of the weakness of élitist thinking. They cannot visualize the workers being self-reliant and having no dependency upon leaders.
Leftist humbug about the capitalists closing down Parliament, can easily be put to the test without bloodshed. They have never tried to explain and work for Socialism. But, given the continuation of their present state of confusion, fifty years from now on the centenary of the General Strike, they will still be demanding the “right” to work.
Harry Baldwin
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