the moment. The TUC leaders are being crushed between the militancy of their members. and the determination of the ruling class to weaken the trade union movement as a whole through persistent use of the Industrial Relations Court. Thus we see Jack Jones's decision to accept the Court's ruling on the one hand, by shelling out the £55,000 and trying to persuade the Liverpool dockers to call off their blacking. But on the other we see him putting down ultimatums to the TUC to pay a share of the fine on pain of not receiving any dues from the T&GWU. Thus we see the Railway leaders after accepting the cooling-off period forced back to negotiate firstly for a back-dating of the claim. secondly for a genuine 12%% increase (because the previous offer amounted to under 10% actual increase as it involved a consolidation into the basic pay of what had previously been bonus and piece rates). Nothing could better illustrate the dual nature of the bureaucracy than this constant vacillation. In the present situation, such slogans as Throw the Tories Out!" may well express the anger of the working class. But they do not indicate any line of struggle for it or point out the main obstacles in the way. To vent one's rage simply on the Tories and the "Tories" Act" only leaves the road open for the Trade Union leaders to cover up their inadequacy by posing for the way forward the election of a Labour Government- which would, they say, repeal the Act and even institute "Socialist Policies". Now when we say that it is the crisis of British The Red Mole 15.May 1972 Page 2 Capitalism which forces the government to operate in the way it has we do not mean it as an empty phrase. A government may come to office with all sorts of intentions. But so long as if conducts itself within the framework of bourgeois democracy then it will be forced to adopt courses of action which permit the capitalists to maintain their exploitation of the working class.
Of course it was the Tories who brought in the Act, but it is the crisis of British capitalism which requires it. Moreover it is the State, the bourgeois state which operates the Act. The Court is a state institution and the state is just not a neutral body whose courts dispense something called pure justice. No, the state is controlled by the ruling class-the bourgeoisie. It comes down hard on the T&GWU and the Railways unions because the ruling class needs this policy. But the Labour Party has always operated within the confines of bourgeois democracy; it has never challenged any of the institutions (Parliament, the Law etc.) which embody that ideology. And it is for this reason that the Party is incapable of fighting in the interests of the working class, for proletarian democracy.
For that is what it is all about! The "Democracy of the bourgeoisie is the freedom it gives to all other classes to intervene in politics only on its own terms. The limitations to these terms are the laws of its state. is it dem ocracy when the whole legal structure is des. igned to protect the private property and vital interests of a few against the vast majority? Of course, everyone is 'free" to use the courts.
But does any worker fighting for his interests as a worker against an employer dream that the Industrial Relations Court would settle in his favour? Of course not!
The court is an attempt to dictate to the workers how to conduct their struggle against the employers. But it itself is the employers' court and only they will leap to exercise the right" and "freedom" to use it.
We must counterpose to this law another lawthe law which protects and defends the interests of the mass of workers against those who exploit them. This law is not to be found in the leather tomes of the Inns of Court. It will be legislated by the workers themselves while fighting to defend and enlarge their interests. The Liverpool dockers, before they were forced to stop the blacking, began this legislation by continuing their action in direct defiance of the law of the land'. Only by extending and deepening their fight can the working class stake up the challenge to its own organisations and living standards and begin to tread the raod that leads to workers" power. The most treacherous leadership to be fought against will be the trade union leaders though differentiation is and will occur among them toowitness the split vote on whether to recall the TUC. The idea that the Labour Party would fight somehow for the interests of the working class is the most pernicious red-herring which will be dragged across the correct road for r the workers to struggle on.
It is with all this in mind that we can see the importance of the June 10 Conference of the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade ability to bring out hundreds of thousands of trade unionists against the Industrial Relations Bill. Only it has the organising capacity to lead a real struggle against the Act. If it does the implications for the Communist Party are clear. It would mean a break with the longstanding commitment to work with the left' trade union leaders and to work for an alliance with the Labour Party 'lefts". Instead it would find itself organising a rank and file movement against such leaders. If the Communist Party is prepared to lead a struggle with anti-capitalist aims and methods then the LCDTU may become an organisation of hundreds of thousands of workers. If it fails to make this choice, if it too contents itself on June 10 with platitudes against the Tories and a sham fight then the LCDTU becomes a diversion and a trap for militants.
It is important that revolutionary trade union militants see the June 10 conference as a focus for their activities and ensure their representation there. It is equally important that the LCDTU really projects itself as an ongoing, permanent organisation and encourages the formation of branches up and down the country. But lastly, it is essential if June 10 is to mean anything atall, that the LCDTU breaks with its manipulative practices and ensures that the conference becomes a real forum in which a line of strugele for the working class can begin to be hammered out in free and ind open debate. Those who, today, are afraid of revolutionary ideas will not be leading the working class in the turbulent struggles to come. They will be by-passed.
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Extracts from his speech to the recent conference of