Th International, at the IMG rally against the Common Market in London on 30th April. which the right wing of the Labour Party will try to get this Government to apply in the coming six to twelve months.
On the other hand, a victory for the 'Yes" campaign would shift the relationship of forces not only between the classes in Britain. but also inside the labour movement. And by no stretch of the imagination can ahybody prove that a victory for the 'Yes' campaign will shift the relationship of forces inside the rade unions or inside the Labour Party in Favour of the left.
So we cannot be abstentionist or indifferent to the outcome of this referendum. We have to take a clear cut stand in favour of "No' When I say that we have to be an active force the 'No' camp, I do not mean that we can mit our struggle just to that 'No', because we ave to accuse those who organise the struggle get Britain out of the Common Market side the Labour Party and the labour movelent of both reactionary and utopian ideology. If they had put before the British working lass a clear cut case- - this is a class conflict tween capital and labour, and we have to in with the workers against the capitalists oth in Britain and on an international scale, id for that reason we are against the Common arket'-the outcome would at least be unsure, ven the relationship of forces between the asses today in Britain. But once they started campaign for national sovereignty-that is to y, on a nationalist basis against the Common larket-the outcome was not very unsure. On at basis you're not going to mobilise tremenous enthusiasm in the British working class, ou're not going to unify the class forces rainst the supporters of a 'Yes' vote, and it's early certain that you're heading for defeat aless there is some miracle.
Why is such a campaign utopian? It is utoan because the whole emergence of the Comon Market proves that to defend national vereignty today within the framework of pitalism against the international amalgamaon of capital is the same thing as to defend nail capitalist combines against big capitalist onopolies. That's completely hopeless, it's topian, it is trying to turn the wheel of story backwards.
And it is utterly reactionary because instead a class line up, it creates an inter-class comnation with many innuendos which are not ly nationalist but racist, and with many nuendos which can lead to very serious conquences it workers are taken in by this type reasoning. Once you give such a big imporfactory occupations; tance to national sovereignty, to national parliament, to national economy, then you will be caught very quickly in the trap of being called upon to make sacrifices at the expense of the class interests of the working class to uphold these shining 'national' institutions-the capitalist parliament, capitalist law, capitalist national sovereignty, the capitalist government, and the capitalist state apparatus.
For all these reasons we say that a successful campaign for a 'No' vote in the Common Market referendum is only possible from the point of view of the class interests of the working class if it is an internationalist campaign, if it counterposes to the capitalist Europe of the bankers and the monopolies a socialist Europe of the workers. But when we say we have to make an internationalist campaign, a campaign for the United Socialist States of Europe opposed to the Common Market, we don't oppose a 'socialist' European-centred type of approach to a capitalist European-centred type of approach.
We are internationalists on a world scale. We know for example that if today there is a tremendous opportunity for a victorious socialist revolution in Western Europe, this is due in the first place to the heroic struggle of the Vietnamese people, who have created that possibility on a world-wide scale. We know today that if there is a tremendous upsurge of the Portuguese revolution, this is due to a large extent to the heroic struggle of the peoples of Angola, of Mozambique, and of Guine-Bissaubecause it was their struggle which created the political preconditions for the upsurge of the proletarian revolution in Portugal today.
When we call for the United Socialist States of Europe, we only call for that because we think that the political and social relationship of forces between the classes in Western Europe today is more favourable for a breakthrough towards socialism than anywhere else in the world. We would consider that only as a platform out of which the struggle for the United Socialist States of the World would start, because you have really no basic problems today in this world which can be solved on a continental basis.
We are not going to create socialist plenty in Western Europe while millions and millions of people are starving in India, in Bangladesh, in Pakistan, in Sri Lanka, in the Sahel area of Africa, or anywhere else in the world. That kind of socialism would be unworthy of conscious workers any where in any country.
IMMEDIATE STRUGGLE Nor is the struggle for a United Socialist States of Europe something abstract which remains at the level of very vague, general propaganda. We think that there are two join the Europe of mediate sense. States of Europe ent. basic thrusts inside the class struggle in Europe which push in this direction in rather an imThe first is the growing awareness among militant workers everywhere on our continent that against the multi-nationals which operate on an international scale-which divert orders, production, and the setting up and closing down of factories on an international scalenationally limited trade union activity, not to mention nationally limited revolutionary activity, will become less and less efficient.
When the British firm of Plessey wants to close its Portuguese subsidiary, and when the shop stewards from the Portuguese factoryamong whom we are happy to see Trotskyists, indeed one of our candidates in the Portuguese elections was a Plessey shop steward-come to Britain to see the Plessey workers in Britain to say we have to make a common struggle against the international operations of that combine, then you have the beginning of a concrete trend in the class struggle which leads in the direction of the United Socialist Europe. CONQUEST OF POWER We will have more and more occurrences of that type in the coming months and years, and revolutionary socialists should be in the forefront of all concrete practical attempts to create a new instinct, if I can call it that, among radical militant shop stewards right through Europe. Over any new demand which is raised in a factory which is part of a multi-national combine, level. over any attack by the employers against the workers in such a factory, the first reaction of a socialist shop steward should be to pick up his telephone and contact his comrade the socialist shop steward in Belgium, in Holland, in England, in France, in Italy, in Spain or in Portugal who is working for the same combine.
The second thrust is still more important, though less immediate than the first one because it is a political one. The United Socialist States of Europe means the overthrow of capitalist state power, means the overthrow of the capitalist state machine, means the conquest of power by the working class, the setting up of a real workers' republic based on democratically elected workers' councils-first in one, then in two and then in many other countries throughout our continWe are convinced-and that is one of the other reasons we are opposed to the Common Market-that while the building of socialism cannot be achieved in one country, nor will the overthrow of capitalism be simultaneous in all countries, because you have different join the Europe of the big rise in social and political relationships of forces at different moments in different parts of the Today the Portuguese workers are at the forefront of this struggle, much more advanced than any other working class in Western Europe. although they were so much behind a couple of years ago. Tomorrow we are sure-as are the Portuguese comrades-that the Spanish workers will step in their place and be in the forefront of this struggle, because they have greater objective strength, they have higher class consciousness, more experience of struggle. a better relationship of forces, once they succeed in overthrowing the dictatorship POWERFUL IMPETUS And the day after that, probably France and Italy will line up on the same plane, and that will give you a very powerful combination of which we hope the results will be felt very quickly in countries like Britain, my own coun try Belgium, and other countries in Western This concrete way in which the revolution will spread throughout Western Europe in the coming months and years implies again a concrete content for the struggle for the United Socialist States of Europe, because we will need to spread these revolutions in order to protect them, we will need to organise huge solidarity movements which can become a powerful impetus in different European coun tries to get the revolution itself on a higher Under these circumstances what we have to say is: don't join the Europe of the trusts; don't join the Europe of the bankers; don't join the Europe of the riff-raff of the generals and the admirals and the police chiefs; don't join the Europe of those who are organising a strong state, who are starting on the road of torture, who are starting on the road of limiting and suppressing workers rights and democratic rights all over the place.
But by all means join the Europe of the workers' commissions in Spain and Portugal; join the Europe of the factory occupations; join the Europe of the soldiers' committees and the soldiers organisations in Portugal, in Spain, in France, in Holland, and in many other countries; join the Europe of the big rise in working class struggles; join the Europe of the workers councils, which we will see as the new emergence of the new implantation of the soviet idea in the coming months and years throughout our continent COMMUNAUT FONTAINE 3 COMMUNAUX CoSp ARCINT T
common market/third world red weekly 2L may 19is
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REACTIONARY AND UTOPIAN