Tories and a lot more. We must prepare the working class for this opportunity, If anyone deciares that this aim is illegal we have onc very simple answer: the working class has always achieved anything worth having in a struggle againse the law from the Tolpuddle martyrs to the Freeing of the Five, every experience shows this. The ruling class has never hesitated to change the law, or even overthrow it completely as we have seen so recently and so borribly in Chile, The working class must be guided by its interests, which are those of the overwhelming majority of society, not by what the ruling class says is the law. This is the only way the working class But the election of Councils of Action in each area will do something mote than just ensure the strike is won. It will open the way for socialism. The fiest step in a socialist revolution is, after all, nothing but the transfer of all economic and pultical power into the hands of the working class.
When the decisions on what shall he produced and how it shall he produced are made by the working class according to their needs, and not by the employers or their state in the interest of protit, the first decisive economic step to socialism is being taken. When the policing of an ares is taken over by the working class organised trough elected Councils of Action, the political basis for sockalism is being laid. All that is necessary to do is te consolidate this power nationally and to break the resis tance of the ruling class. The basis for socialism has then been created Of course fully formed Councils of Actien could only appear, as they did in 1926, immediately before or during the strike itself. But even now the first steps can be taken to prepare such develupments. All that is necessary is to collect together on a local elected basis representatives of all those workers going into struggle against Phase 3 and an important step forward will Already some steps have been taken along this road. In Kotherham i00 delegates representing miners, engineers and steel workers, as well as tenants associutions, attended a conterene sponsored by the Trades Council to discuss the way forward, In Chesterfield 250 delegates. from al sections of the trade union movement. and the Labour and Connunist Parties, neid a similar conference. These types of activity can Jay the basis tor real Councils of Action in a general strike, Even more modest united actions now-through local action committees for example can bear big fruits as che struggle