without schools, In addition, from 1963 to 1968, prices have Increased 72%6, thus sharply cutting down the living standards of the leas favoured classes.
An expionice situation Thanks to the electoral faree in 1961, the Democratic Party came to power under the name of the Justice Party (Adulet Party); it is still in power today.
At the same time the Turkish Workers Purty was founded by All Aybar and some socialderocratic union leaders. It has a reformist and parliamentary line: It organises a union, DISK, to oppose the official unionism of the Union Confederation of Turkey (Turk IS) set up by American specialists and the ruling party (900,000 members as against 70,000 in DISK).
Since 1967 struggles have intensified. The student movement which gains nourishment from the workers struggles plays an important role in them, notably in anti-imperialist demonstratons unken vo tae cans class scrugge -1968: mobilisations against the presence of American bases. -June 1969: occupation of the Unversity of Ankura and Istanbul, confrontations with the police, soon relieved by the Army.
As well as unisersity struggles, more than 200 important strikes have taken place: in the Americun bases (1967), in the Zonguldak mines (1968). Often violent strikes with occupations, clashes with the police or the Army. Even though the right to strike only dates back to 1963, the working class has demonstrated great 182 Pentonville Road, London N.1. 01-837 9987 TROTSKY The Revolution Betrayed 25/In Defence of Marxism 21:Permanent Revolution The Essential Trotsky Stalin 30/My Life 35/History of the Russian 10,Revolution (3 vols.) each Writings 1937-3H 25;25)1939-40 25/MANDEL Europe versus America? 35.An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory 8/6 POLEMIC The Credibility Gap: Tho Politics of tbe SLI (An IMG pamphlet) 5,The Inconsistencies of "State Capitalism" by Ernest Mandel 4/6 Open 10 a.m. -5.30 p.m. (Monday - Saturday) 1934 Republican Congres 6iThe Making of Northern Treland by D.R. O'Connor Lysaght 3JTheobald Wolfe Tone by Frank Macdermot 7/6 JAMES CONNOLLY Labour In Ireland 21/Socialism & Nationalism 21/3/6 T-SHIRTS Red Mole T-Shirts. Black on red & red on white showing large Mole giving Red salute. 20/- per shirt, small, medium & large. Enclose 1/- postage.
The Red Mole 8-22 March 1971 Page 13
the great betrayal? One of the myths that helps to keep the Labour left going is the belief that at some time in the past the Labour Party was a party which really stood for the interests of the working class. What is needed, we are told, is to "recapture" the Labour Party from the right wing. The truth Is completely different. The Labour Party has never been a party representing the interests of the working class. We can see this very clearly if we consider what we are always told was the greatest "betrayal" of the Labour Party leaders, that of 1931. In that year the main leaders of the Party entered into a coalition with the Tories with the aim of cutting unemployment pay. The Labour "lefts" tell us that this was a betrayal, but in fact it was completely in line with the traditional policies of the Labour Party, and it is in fact today not merely consis tent with the policies of the Labour leadership, but also with the policies of the "left" wing. The Tribunites and their supporters are merely less rdalistic than the right wing in that they do not see the consequences of the policies they advocate.
The early Labour Party Right at the Labour Party's beginning, at the 1900 conference of the Labour Representation Committee, it was made clear that the Labour Party was not going to be made a party of real struggle. A motion that the representatives of the working class movernent in the House of Commons would form a distinct party based on might actually do something which really the recognition of the class war and having for its ultimate object the socialisation of the means of Commons. What I feared most about this of production" was defested. Not until 191B was the famous Clause 4 adopted which committed the party to a policy of nationalisation, and then it was only adopted because of the huge impetus to working class development given by the Russian Revolution.
The first of many maneouvres entered into by the Perty came in 1903 when the Party leaders Mac Donald and Hardie entared into a secret electoral agreement with the Liberal Party. This resulted in the Labour Party sup porting in Parliament a government which used troops against the South Wales miners and which threatened to use gunships to sheil strikers in Liverpool. After this stirring spisode came the flag waving of the First World War in which the Labour Party supported the use of armies to defend the colonies of the British Empire. This habit of defending the Empire was Union Act, which declared illegal sympathy continued by the first Labour government in 1924 which appointed as Minister for the Colonies J. H. Thomas, the railwaymen's leader, whose main enjoyments were dressing Mr, and Airs Ramsey MacDonald?
up in evening suits and carrying out campaigns against the militants inside his own union. Needless to say, it was never even suggested by this government that the British Empire, which exploited and crushed a quarter of humanity. should be given up. This government was also notable for a superb scandal in which it was revealed thag the Prime Minister MacDonald had received a Daimler and 30,000 £1 shares from the head of the McVitie and Price company. This government was so ineffectual it could not even enact a bill giving a minimum wage to agricultural workers. Totally unsurpris ingly, when this government fell, the working class did not bother to elect it a second time.
The General Strike naturally had the Labour Party terrified. The darling of the Labour Party, Beatrice Webb, summed up their feelings when she said, The failure of the General Strike of 1926 will be one of the most significant land. marks in the history of the British working class. Future historians will, I think, regard it as the death gasp of that pernicious doctrine of workers control of public affairs... This absurd doctrine was introduced into British working class life by Tom Mann and the guild socialists... On the whole, i think, it was a proletarian distemper which had to run its course and like other distempers it is well to have it over and done with at the cost of a lengthy convalescenos." J. H. Thomas was even more open in his fear that the working class threatened capitalism. He stated in the House strike more than anything else was this-if by chance it should have got out of the hands of those who would be able to exercise some con trol, every sane man knows what would have happened. I thank God it never did." These are the true ideas of the Labourite. Whenever they enter a fight they are more scared of the working class actually doing something than they are concerned about fighting the employing class. The 1929 Labour government The sell-out of the General Strike in 1926 led to the damoralisation of the mass of the working class. This demoralisation lasted for nearly 20 years. This was not completely apparent at first, however. The ruling class pushed home their complete triumph a little too openly. The most hated of their measures was the extremely repressive 1927 Trade Disputes and Trade strikes, forbade civil servents to belong to trade unions affiliated to the TUC, and placed the political levy to the Labour Party on a contracting in and not a contracting out basis, As a result of resentment against these and similar measures, in the 1929 General Election Labour was elected as the largest single party in Parlia ment. It was, however, still not a party with an overall majority.
The key problem facing the Party was unemployment, which stood at over a million. This represented nearly 10% of the insured working forces. The test by which any Labour government would be judged was by how it attempted to solve the problem of unemploy. ment. But here the reformist nature of the Labour Party was to be fatal.
In 1929 the entire capitalist system was in a state of economic collapse. In all countries unemployment was increasing at a tremendous rate. In the United Statos the stock market had collapsed. In Germany raging unemployment was leading millions of the German working class to support Hitler's Nazi Party. In a period of collapse of the capitalist economic system, it was impossible to solve the problem of unemployment by capitalist methods. Only the establishment of a totally nationalised economy and a break with the world market could do so. This would have involved using the full strength of the working class against the capitalist system, and this of course the Labour Party refused to do. It set out to solve the problem of unemployment in capitalist terms and from that moment on it was doomed.
By 1931 the economic situation was completely out of hand. Unemployment had reached the staggering total of 2,707,000. Trade union membership had fallen to half its size in 1920. The answer of the committee set up by the Labour Party to investigate the problem? It recommended a cut in unemployment benefit of 20%, Initially the government hesitated, but its hand was forced when in the summer of 1931 a series of European banks collapsed, leading to massive panic amongst all financiers and the withdrawal of investments from Britain.
In response to this the entire Labour Cabinet agreed to savings of E56 million including the introduction of a means test for the transitional benefic paid before unemployment benefit proper was paid, and the raising of insurance pay for supporting the unemployed ones.
It is only at this point that the members of the Labour "left" start taking up the story. The betrayal for this consists of the fact that in order to get through a cut in unemployment pay MacDonald then led the lesding members of his Labour Cabinet into a coalition with the Torles. But this was merely the straw which broke the camel's back. The entire Labour Cabinet had agreed to the majority of welfare cuts and MacDonald was only carrying the policy of accepting the dictates of the capitalist econom to its logical conclusion. He was in fact far mc realistic than the members of the Cabinet whe opposed the cuts in unemployment benefit. They accepted the policy of supporting capita lism and then refused to accept the consequences-MacDonald supported the policy anc was prepared to accept the consequences Having accepted the policy, the opponents of MacDonald had no alternative to offer, and became a historical irrelevance. What happene in 1931 was not the betrayal of the Labour Party but the fulfilment of its historical rolethat of the last line of defence for capitalin.
The lessons 1931 did not finish the Labour Party. On the contrary, after a period the Labour Party emerged with a stronger hold over the working class, It was to play the role of saving capitalis once again in 1945-51. What lessons can we draw from this?
Firstly it is quite clear that the capitalist class sees the Labour Party as a weapon for attacking and dealing with the working class. Lord Samuel pointed out in 1931 that, "In vie of the fact that the necessary economies woul prove most unpalatable to working classeg it would be in the general interest if they were Imposed by a Labour govemment." What he meant by this was of course that if a Labour government introduced measures attacking the working class, sections of the working class would be confused by this and would not figh the Labour goverment. This was the same argument as was used by, for example, the Economist magazine in 1964. They believed that the trade unions would not fight an incomes policy introduced by the Labour Party, Secondiy, It is clear that the policy of the Labour Party, including its "lefts", of trying t find solutions to problems affecting the working class within the framework of capitalism, and that the frequent open onslaughts o the Labour Party against the working class-fc example, the 1931 unemployment cuts, the attempted imprisoning of strikers during the post-war Labour government, the in Place of Strife anti-union proposals are not "betrayal: of the Labour Party, but on the contrary resu inevitably from its refusal to mobilise the full strength of the working class against capitalisr Most revolutionaries have learned these lessons, but some at least have not understooc a third lesson, and that is that it does not at al follow that because the Labour Party openly attacks the working class, the working class w turn to a revolutionary solution to its problem To believe that is to fall prey to the "passive, fatalistic attitude to the fundamental tasks of the revolution" which Trotsky condemns so bitterly. On the contrary, if the working class enters a period of social crisis without its illusions in the Labour Party being challenged, th most likely outcome of a Labour government. which attacks the working class will be a mass disillusionment with politics on the part of th majority of the working class. This means tha revolutionaries should not advance slogans suc as "Labour to power with a socialist programr but on the contrary the main thrust of their contributions thus making the employed workers argument must be with slogans which make it clear that workers have nothing to expect at a from the Labour Party. The lesson of 1931 is not simply that the role of the Labour Party to defend capitalism, but also that even when does so openly, workers will not automatical!tum from the Labour Party towards revolutio ary alteratives.
Alan Jones