On the eve of the Liaison Committee for Defence of Trade Unions (LCDTU) Conference, ALAN GIBBS takes a critical look at the industrial strategy of the Communist Party.
It is not only the revolutionary left which is critical of the political activities of many members of the Communist Party of Great Britain inside the trade unions. The doubts and fears of the Party's own strategists concerning their comrades in industry are real and of long standing.
If, for example, we turn back the pages of the Party theoretical magazine Marxism Today to December 1958, we find Bert Pearce in anguish: The powerful grasp on the (working class) movement of the right wing, both in reformist ideas and in control of the machine, will only be broken to the extent that we build a strong Communist Party and Daily Worker and break the barriers which prevent the rest of the Left from working in unity with us. How do our comrades overlook or misunderstand this essence of our programme? Maybe because it is a lot casier to accept in words than to put over and win support for in the workshop or trade union branch. But there is no other way.
Much more recently the same journal has featured a harvest of similar comments. As one contributor neatly put it in the May 1971 rue: There are plenty of CP members who are quite preoccupied with ten bob on the pay and half an hour off the day, to the virtual exclusion of any socialist politics." How is it that an organisation with some 50 years" experience of work in the trade unions, with access to the theoretical writings of Marx and Lenin on the workers' movement, with enthusiasm for socialism in its ranks, finds itself in this pessimistic state when considering ts own 'industrial wing?' PARLIAMENTARY ROAD It & easy, and correct, to point to the reformit programme of the modern Communist A Necessary Rejoinder ... As one of those responsible for drafting the IPSAG/ ISRACA statement published in last week's Red Weekiy, I would ask you, in view of the attacks made in Prorkers Press both on the statement tett and on the iMG and IS for publishing it in their respective papers, to print this rejoinder. Workers Press accuses the authors of this statement of taking's pacifist position of refusing to take up arme for Zionism'. The statament, of course, said nothing of the sort, but merely declared its solidarity with all those in Israel who have resisted enrolment in the amed forces, The inclusion of such a doclaration of support was felt to be necessary because of reports a persecuten and harpoment or draft resisters, Nowhere did we advocate a pacifist refusal to take up arms'.
In addition, Workers Preer cites IPSAG's postscript opposing the destruction of the Israeli state by crypt and ayl das prost or the roar character ou this declaration. Moreover, Socialier Worker and Fled Weekly are accused of a monstrous, unprincipled reality is rather diffarent, the SLL's paranoid imaginaton notwinsanding, une postscript reerred to was unilaterally added by IPSAG and issued in their name o far as ISRACA is concerned, therefore, the original statement still stands.
The SLL has every right to attack the real positions of its political opponents, but lying distartion and sheer had taith him no nigo in such a choate. Yours fraternally, Robert Slansky.
ne repeived contained no postscript; indeed, we oniy became avere of its existence through the Workers Press artide-Eds. Party and to the fact that their overall strategy places electoral and parhamentary activity at the centre of the road to socialism, rather than the industrial struggles of the workers' movement, This too is grudgingly half-conceded. Bert Pearce wrote about the Party's "British Road to Socialism' (in Marxism Today, January 1971) that: 'All too many comrades still treat it as a sort of clectoral programme, even a retreat to a supposedly easy, if unlikely. parlamentary road .
What exactly is the role allocated to the Party's trade union detachments under the terms of the *British Road' programme? Using our democratte rights to transform traditional institutions'the formula engraved in the programine -means in practice that priority is given in trade union work to influencing (and, where possible, capturing) the formal structures of the labour movement, with the assistance of any leftwing' (Le, temporarily sympathetic) individual bureaucrats holding office in them. HOLLOW INITIATIVES Hence the more hollow CP initiatives in Industry - the fiery resolutions passed by union branch meetings less than ten strong the official declarations on vital issues trumpeted in the name of 10,000 or even 100,000 workers of whom perhaps a dozen actively favour the policy concerned. Hence, more notoriously, the praise lavished on "progressive" trade union carcerists and power-mongers, and their defence in times of criticism from the rank-and-file. When Jones and Scenion sold out the 1971 Ford strike, for example, by imposing a hasty, company-organised secret ballot of the workers and a no-strike agreement, a CP leaflet circulated in the Dagenham plant whispered: Constructive criticism of trade union leaders is necessary, but it is very wrong to make wholesale destructive attacks which lead to an inability to distinguish between Right and Left, to cynicism and to , apathy attacks which help the right wing and the bosses.' This concentration on influencing official union structures and winning support from official leaders certainly does not exclude unofficial aptation by the CP as well. But it does gise such activity a strictly back-seat role. The CP needs the Liaison Commitlee for the Defence of Trade Unions and its unofficial papers and committees which exist in some industries, but this need has very definite limits.
LOYAL MILITANCY Bert Ramebon reminded us of those limits in his 1970 pamphlet on Productivity Bargaining': Militant struggle from below, far from creating difficulties for the official leaderships of unions, is positive assistance to those trade union leaders who are actively fighting to ad vince the interests of their members... but it must be made clear that such activily is no substitute for official trade union action, Its main fanc tion is to stimuiate and assist the officia! movement,"
In short, the industrial shock-troops of the Party, its relatively numerous array of militants. in key positions in factories, docks, and depots, are expected to charge into battle when the bugie sounds, only to stop dead when sufficient noise has been made to stu their own generals, One-day strikes, preferably on the date of major official delegate conferenoos, remain the chosen weapon; and no heavier armour is brought up when, as on May Day this year, the bureaucrats successfully channel the 'pressure" from below into blind alleys of "acquiescence" in government policy. loyal to the bureaucratic machine, POLITICAL ISSUES issues. dictate. ments accepting the "Treeze" REVOLUTIONARY LEFT ing political power. As ao perspective for independent working class action and organisation genuinely outside burcaucratic control is offered by the Party, so its industrial membership increasingly gains a reputation (not cast among some ful-time union oflicials) for militant and energetic trade unionism, always altimately, if reluctantly, If the industrial weight of the CP is used only to lean on trade union officialdom, rather than to dislodge it, the Party nevertheless distinguishes itself from many social democratic trade unionists by raising, inside the workers movement, a wide range of highly political No Stalinist party, tied even remotely to the powerful ruling bureaucracy in the Soviet Union with its distinct interests around the world, could display indifference to dramatic developments taking place in South-East Asia or Latin America, The CPGB will bring into the unwilling arena of the trade unions, at many levels, the burning issues of the fate of the Chilean working class or the war in Indochina, or even the question of British delegates to World Peace Congresses, as circumstances However, given the methods of CP industrial work outlined above, this produces campaigns that are effectively bureaucratised, Union branch motions aim to secure national-level long union and TUC co-operation, on paper, with the Party's line — not to stir thousands of workers into active solidarity actions or greater political understanding. This neatly provides many union bureaucrats with an easy militant" image at little expense, They will sign public petitions on Vietnam or Spain with an air of concern, using the same pens with which they sign vicious productivity deals or pay agree Many sections of the revolutionary left find it difficult to come to gripe with the fact that the Communist Party does raise political issues in the trade union movement. For example, a lengthy analysis of the recent history of the Communist Party in International Socism 62, completely skips over this probiem. The reason is that groups like the International Socialists base themselves upon an economistic political strutegy which leaves them disermed in the face of CP political initiatives. Thus, faced with growing intervention of the state into industrial struggles and the unfavourable bulance of class foroes that creales for separate groups of workers, I5 has bitle to offer but the cill for yet more militancy. Yet, over three years ago, CP indistrial organiser Bert Ramelsole was writing, in criticism of the idea of achieving workers control under capitalism: "The more one examines the slogan, the less real it becomes... difficult as it may be, there is no substitute for political action, guided by a revolutionary political party, aimed at securThe coonomism of the International Socialists can offer no effective reply to arguments such as these, which will find growing acceptanoo among the working class as the need to unite and centralise their struggies to take on the Government becomes an even more burning necessity. Nor can the empty speech-making of the Socialist Labour League, which bas got the art of exposing "Stalinist betrayals" wellperfected, but is unable to offer any other way forward for the working class except the historic slog to transform the SLL into the CEYLON SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN: Public meeting. Friday 19 October, 7,30 pm at Convey Hall Hod Lion Square - The Chilean experien and its significance for revolutionary movements Lancaster, NOTTINGHAM RED CIRCLES: Wide-ranging series of discussions based on the politics of the Tuesday in the month. 8.00 p.m. at the Lion LEAFLETS, PAMPHLETS, COVERS, ETC:
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POLITICAL STRATEGY The revolutionary left will never be able to undercut the influcoce of the Communist Party over industrial militants unless it can put forward a revolutionary political strategy for the organisation of the struggles of the working class, It is the failure to do this which has left the field open to the Communist Party for so Such a strategy would show that the reformist politics of the Communist Party — the politics of electoralism, of pressurising and collaborating with the existing, treacherous, bureaucratie leaderships of the working class movement - is not the only form of politics possible. There is aso a revolutionary politic the politics of the organisation and unifying of the struggles of the mass of the working class, of the development of an alternative leadership from the ranks of the masses themselves. Such polities cast the mass of organised workers (rather than their bureaucratic chiefs) in the centre of the stage, unifying and leading the struggles of all oppressed social groups against the capitalist ruling class INITIATIVES It is such a conception of poities that has continually led the Interpational Marxist Group to call for, support end launch initiatives designed to streageben the organisation of the rank-and-file within the trade union movemen! and at the same time unify the struggles of separate groups of workers: the organising of conferences against the Tury Government and is incories policy, support for rank-and-file defence committees for the Shrewsbury 24, the call for an organised defence of picketing, the call for shop stewards quarteries and a national meeting of shop stewards" delegates to pian industrial action in support of the engincering claim. etc. At this present time when the need for a working class offensive to smash through the Tories wages policy is prenter than ever and, given the engineers" and miners claires, a real possibility - the contrepiece of a revolutionary politicil strategy must be the call for the proparation of a general strike to unify all those forces saftering from Tury policy to bring the Government down, It is significant that such a perspective is not even seriously discussed by the Communist Farly, and that the international Marxist Group is almost alone among urganisations on the revolutionary left in consistently putting forward and explaining this central political idea. GAY MARXIST: No.3 now out-revolutionary burnal from the Marcists within GEF. Price 10plus p&p, from: Lancaster GLF, 19 Vincert Street GAY MARXIST CONFERENCE: 14 Normha White for datalis as soon as possible to Gay Marxist Conference, 14 Hope Street, Lancaster. CEN THAL LUNDON AIL PUHUM; srael: An Lister in the Middin East', Speaker: Alan Adler. Friday, 19 October, at 8.00 pm in the General Picron pub, Caledonian Reed 15 mins Kings X HULL RED FORUM: Repression, speaker John Ross Thursday, 26 October, Rose pub, Beverley Rood, Half, BLACKBURN THREE DEMO: Postponed from 20 to 27 October assemble 2.00 pm in Delton Square, Lancaster, 10 merch to prison and court house. Rally with speskers from Sinn Fain, Clanc