marxist start-
ing point, building on the class strug
gle dynamic within the unions, and
seeking to raise demands which could
form a bridge between the day-to-day
reformist consciousness of the large
majority of workers and the revolu-
tionary politics needed for the strug-
gle for power.
These demands, elaborated and
explained at some length in the
Cominter's Theses on Tactics, begin
from mundane trade union issues
such as defence of jobs, pay and
living, but lead, through struggle,
working class at factory and neighbourhood level, raising the issue of socialism and state power.
Such demands were intended as a transition from fighting for improvements within capitalism to fighting for socialist revolution, and became known as transitional demands. They ran alongside a developing awareness among the early leaders of the Comintern that the mass of workers who still remained tied to reformist trade unions and Social Democratic parties could only be won to revolutionary politics through a process of struggle. Their own experiences would teach them political lessons in a way that no amount of Bolshevik propaganda leaflets or lectures could hope to
It was not enough for marxists to preach the evils of capitalism and the virtues of socialism: it was necessary to fight with and alongside the broad mass of the working class, to forge a united front between the Communist Parties and the mass reformist organisations on issues of key importance to the workers; in which through common experiences the marxists could show the bankruptcy of the reformist leaders and prove their own credentials as an alternative leadership ready to take their place.
Unfortunately this method of working was derailed almost before it began, firstly by the early sectarianism and inexperience of many of the new Communist Parties, and then by the bureaucratic degeneration of the Bolshevik Party itself under the influence of Joseph Stalin in the mid 1920s. Stalin's notion of the united front was in this early phase to seek
beginnings of a class struggle left wing regroupment in the unions, the
Minority Movement, which formed a
national framework involving mass support in 1924, was steered under
the influence of the Communist Party
towards a soft relationship with a
group of TUC "lefts', especially the
group which began to speak out in
favour of unity between British and
Russian trade unions and lent their
names to the Anglo Russian Trade
The bureaucrats cultivated by
Stalin significantly kept the Minority
Movement at arm's length, and were
to join the TUC right wing in the
betrayal of the 1926 General Strike: SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 18, October 1989
but the Communist Party line right up to the point of the sellout was to demand "All power to the General Council". As George Hardy, Communist Party member and secretary of the Minority Movement ad mitted:
"Although we knew of what treachery the right wing leaders were capable, we did not clearly understand the part played by the so-called 'left' in the union leadership. In the main they tumed out to be windbags and capitulated to the right wing. We were taught a major lesson; that while edevloping a movem to the left officially, the main point in preparing for action must always be to develop a class conscious leadership among the rank and file."
(G. Hardy: Those Stormy Years)
Of course the treachery of the TUC 'lefts' had not been entirely unexpected. Leon Trotsky, in casting a critical eye over the politics and orientation of the British CP had consistently wamed of the danger of overestimating the TUC 'lefts' and underestimating the British working class. But he was even more energetic in combatting the next phase of Stalinist policy, which from 1928 owards switched abruptly from cuddling up to 'left' (and not-so-left) reformist leaders to an extreme sectarian denunciation of social democrats as "social fascists'.
The root cause of Stalin's policy switch was not, as he proclaimed, the beginning of a new phase of world politics, a so-called "Third Period' of all-out confrontation of 'class against class' in which the reformist leaders were simply agents of reaction within the workers' movement: it was the onset of huge economic, political and social crisis in the Soviet Union itself. to which Stalin responded with brutal repression of the most prosperous section of the peasantry and a sudden switch to a crash programme of industrialisation.
As a political rationalisation for this about-face, Stalin announced the "Third Period", and a bureaucratised Comintern imposed suicidally sectarian policies on Communist Parties in every country, which were directed to form breakaway 'red' unions and to abandon any form of united front with social fascist leaders. The policy of the united front was rewritten to insist it could only apply 'from SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 19, November 1989
SUPPL M Trotskyist-led Teamsters fought pitched battles in Minneapolis, 1934 below, excluding the main mass leaders of the reformist organisations, and therefore on such a small scale as to make no impact on the broader layers of the social democratic workers.
The most catastrophic consequence of this 7-ycar phase of Cominter policy, against which only the Trotskyist Left Opposition dared to argue consistently, was in Germany, where a massively organised, powerful workers' movement was left cynically divided in the teeth of Hitler's drive for power, and then crushed after the Nazis' preventable victory in 1933.
The bitter lessons of this historic defeat for the working class were learned only by the Trotskyist op position, which recognised that a Comintem which had followed such a bankrupt policy so blindly and unquestioningly, and which even after the German defeat made no attempt to analyse the errors it had made, was hopelessly bureaucratised and dead for the purposes of revolution. A new intemational movement would be needed to raise once more the banner of revolutionary marxism and offer Icadership to the working class.
As Stalin's subservient band of bureaucrats betrayed in Germany and then switched course yet again, lurching in 1935 from ultra-left sectarianism to the crass class collaborationist opportunism of seeking 'Popular Front' alliances with sections of the so-called "democratic bourgeoisie', the small forces of Trotskyism kept their eyes firmly on
E IN T the development of class struggle in Europe and the USA, and nailed their colours firmly to the mast of work in the trade unions. As early as 1932 a key text summarising the principles of the International Left Opposition insisted upon:
"Recognition of the necessity for systematic Communist work in the proletanan mass organisations, particularly the reformist trade unions ...
"Recognition of the necessity to mobilise the masses under transitional slogans corresponding to the concrete situation in each country..."
(Writings of Leon Trotsky 1932-3, p 53)
In the United States, the class struggle principles defended by the Left Opposition were given a practical expression by the struggles of the Communist League, led by James P. Cannon, himself previously a union organiser for the "Wobblies' (IWW, Industrial Workers of the World) and a member of the US Communist Party until he embraced Trotsky's critique of Stalinism. In the early 1930s the still tiny US Trotskyist forces, who had begun by concentrating exclusively on winning workers from the Communist Party, found openings to engage directly and play a leading role in industrial struggles, including strikes by hotel workers, but most significantly the huge unionisation drive in the trucking and warehouse industries from 1934 which tumed Minneapolis into a union town and recruited tens of thousands of low-paid workers into the formerly conservative, craft-minded Teamsters
- "In the early 1930s the still tiny US Trotskyist forces found openings to engage directly and play a leading role in industrial struggles, including strikes by hotel workers, but most significantly the huge unionisation drive in the trucking and warehouse industries in Minneapolis from 1934" Page 19
Further reading: From Militancy to Marxism - ALAN THORNETT (Left View Books Teamster Rebellion (and three more volumes) - FARRELL DOBBS (Monad Press, New York) Page 20
Unity is Stre Fighting In Place of Strife, May Day 1969 union.
The tremendous victories achieved under Trotskyist leadership in Minneapolis and the American north west helped attract other class struggle forces, notably militants of the centrist American Workers Party led by A.J. Muste, who were engaged in unionisation battles in the US car industry. The Communist League merged with the AWP to form the Workers Party, as a wave of sit-down strikes and pitched battles were fought against company goon squads, police and the National Guard in Toledo, Flint, Detroit and other car industry centres.
The lessons drawn from these precious experiences of mass agitational work in the trade unions not only underlined the organic link between Trotskyist politics and the class struggle, but also laid the basis for further development of the system of transitional demands taken forward from the early Comintern. In particular the Teamster strikes and the car industry battles developed practical experience of workers' self-defence and of strike
Other lessons were also leamed in the struggles against Stalinist and reformist politics. In the fight for a united front policy against Hitler in Germany and the attempt to develop agitation around an alterative workers' plan to meet the economic and social crisis, the issue of workers' control of production was further
Sped. This was also strengthened from the experiences of the workers in Barcelona and other parts of Spain as they took control of industries in the fight to defeat Franco, while the Stalinists lined up alongside the so-called 'democratic" bourgeoisie to oppose workers control and murder the most class con-
ONTA 1OдI AIM TANTAIT scious militants. In France, too, militant sit-down strikes and the es calating governmental crisis were
P PLEMENT
keenly followed by Trotsky, who spelled out boldly the need for an action programme coupled with the fight for an anned workers' militia to defeat the threats from the fascists. The last issue of Socialist Outlook contrasted the line of the Trotskyists with that of the reformist parties and Stalinists during World War 2. The line of divide has remained the class line in the years since the end of the war. Class battles in which Trotskyists have played prominent roles - on the London buses and the docks (1950s and 1960s), in the car industry and engineering (1960s and 1970s), in the NHS and hotel and catering (1970s and 1980s) - have repeatedly found the Communist Party lined up with the most conservative and right wing Layers of the trade union bureaucracy in opposition to escalation of the struggles or in implementing sell-out
In Britain the Labour Party has had periods in govemment managing capitalism and periods in opposition advising the Tories how to manage it better. The unions have on occasion clashed Labour ministers, (notably in 1969 Wilson's anti-union In Place of Strife proposals and during the winter of discontent' of 1978-79) but never embraced a serious socialist alternative going beyond the pursuit of annual pay demands and piccemeal demands within the framework of an increasingly crisis-ridden capitalism.
1989 Labour Conference seems to have set the stage for yet another demoralising period in which a Labour government sets out to attack its own base of supporters rather than seek to overturn capitalism. It will be more important than ever to ensure that such developments are fought tooth and nail by a conscious, class struggle opposition in the trade unions.
The Communist Party of Great Britain, which in 1951 at the behest of Joe Stalin renounced any revolutionary aspirations and embraced instead the Parliamentary policy of the British Road to Socialism, has continued since the war to cuddle up to sections of the trade union bureaucracy in the hopes of increas ing its own influence. The CPGB has
itself now split into warring factions, focussed around rival publications -the more overtly right wing Eurocommunist Marxism Today (CPGB) and the more traditional Stalinist Morning Star (now run by the Communist Party of Britain). But it was only a few years ago (in 1983) that both wings were united in silencing class conscious youth shouting anti-Tory slogans on the People's March for Jobs, for fear of offending the various platforms of bishops, bigwigs and anti-Thatcher Tories' assembled as part of this latter-day
While Marxism Today has now shifted its ground so far to the right that it offers political guidance for the Kinnock Labour leadership, Morning Star has set out to hold its base of support in the unions (and in the union bureaucracy) by projecting the image of a class struggle wing This has led to some interesting if fleeting alliances between Morning Star supporters and Trotskyists, and now the involvement of the Morning Star and the Liaison Committee for Defence of Trade Unions in the Socialist Movement and its Trade
Of course unity in action against the Tories and the employers' offensive must be built on the broadest possible basis: where the policies of the Morning Star coincide with the interests of the working class and the demands of other left currents it would be unprincipled not to strike together. However history shows us that such coincidental agreement can be short-lived, and that the legacy of Stalinism in the unions is a far from happy or progressive one. While socialists should welcome any forces making a genuine break from Stalinism, there must be no attempt to fudge over genuine political differences.
The development of a new current of marxism in the unions as the conscious alternative to Stalinism and the blinkered politics of reformism and "non-political' trade unionism is the key issue for the British workers' movement. Hopefully the escalation of class struggle under the combined hammer blows of inflation and Tory government attacks will open fresh opportunities for marxists to reach industrial and other workers, showing practical solidarity, explaining the manoeuvres and waming of possible sell-outs by bureaucratic leaders, and putting forward a more developed political programme for the battles to come. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 18, October 1989
Chinese leader Deng (centre) sticks to traditional methods of repressing