The Battle for Unions

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of permanent revolution was attacked by thase who supported Stalin. He was driven out of the Communist Party and eventually out of Russia as well.

Nevertheless, he continued to criticise this Stalinist theory which began immediately to lead to disastrous consequences for the Communist movement, starting with the wrong orientation of the Chinese CP resulting in the decimation of the best cadres at the hands of Chiang Kai Shek's bourgeois nationalist party, the Kuomintang.

As its revolutionary roots show, the theory of Permanent Revolution is no abstract historical question, but of vital importance for workers and peasants involved in struggle today. Since Stalin's death, the Communist Parties of the world have continued to advance the theory of socialism in one country which has resulted in the deaths of many Communists in the "third world" at the hands of the national bourgeoisie, which receives continued • support from the Moscow DEMANDS In opposition to this, the Trotskyist movement today fights on the basis of the Transitional Programme, which embodies the kernel of the theory of Permanent Revol ution. It states:

"Back ward countries are part of a world dominated by imperialism. Their development therefore has a combined character: the most primitive forms are comb ined with the last word in capitalist technique and culture.

In like manner are defined the political strivings of the proletariat of backward countries: the struggle for the most elementary achievements of national indep endence and bourgeois democracy is combined with the socialist struggle against imperialism.

Democratic slogans, transitional demands and the problems of the socialist revolution are not divided into seperate historical epochs in this struggle but stem directly from one another. When the Comintern of the epigones tried to revive the formula buried by history of the 'democratic dictatorship of the proletariat formula of the wore and formula of peasants government' a completely dilferent, purely 'democratic, i.e. bourgeois content. . . .

when the party of the proletariat refuses to step beyond bourgeois-democratic limits, its alliance with the peasantry is simply turned into a support for capital".

The building of the Fourth International in the "third world" means organising the working class in their own independent parties representing the independent class interests of the working class. At the same time, transitional demands must be fought for around which the peasantry can be drawn to the side of the proletariat.

These demands must start from the democratic tasks that are posed in the struggle against imperialism and for the redistribution of the land. The masses must be shown in practice that the achievement of these demands can only be carried out by the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat: from democratic slogans to transitional demands, developing awareness of the need for the seizure of power.

Full support must be given to liberation struggles throughout the world, including direct military and economic assistance. Only in this way can the reactionary theory of socialism in one country be fought against. This task of leadership falls to the Fourth International. (A review of W. H. Fraser Trade Unions and Society. The Struggle for Acceptance 185 2-1880, published by Allen and Unwin at £5.95)

In the period covered by this book many of the institutions and attitudes of the modern working class movement were born. With British capitalism at the peak of its strength and prosperity, the trade unions were transformed from tiny localised bodies of conservative craftsmen into powerful organisations wielding considerable social and political power. Their leaders ceased to be portrayed in the capitalist press as 'payed agitators', but instead as upholders of all the respectable and individualist values of bourgeois society, even if their members were still at times 'greedy' or 'unreasonable'.

Fraser's book is not a continuous history of the trade union movement of a century ago, but sather a series of snap-shots of many important aspects of its development. For anybody with some knowledge of the main events of the history of trade unionism in this period, his book provides an analysis of many important aspects of the formation of the working 'class movement. This review will consider some of them.

One point which should be made clear at the outset is that however prosperous and secure British capitalists were a century ago, they never made any concessions to trade unions willingly or without a struggle. If employers recognised or bargained with the unions, it was only because they were compelled to do so in their most elementary interssts.

The period covered by this book is between the collapse of the great wave of the Chartist agitation in the 1840s and the revival of the socialist movement in the 1880s. Although Fraser makes much of the 'apathy' of many trade union members on general political questions, he says little or nothing about the continuing echoes of the Chartist campaigns in the generations of the 50s and 60s, nor of the involvement of many trade unionists, not just the well-known leaders, in the International Working Men's Associations (the First International) from 1864. Without the maintenance of this tradition, there would have been no basis for the development of new forms of working class action in the 1880s, and of the battles of the 1890s that led to the foundation of the Labour Party.

The 'struggle for acceptance' was an important one, and in many ways formed the bones and sinews of the modern working class movement. However, as capitalist society "developed, such 'acceptance' could never be stable or continuous, nor could it represent in any way a final resolution of the struggle between capital and labour.

The period after 1850 saw a number of important events for the working class movement. The Amalgamated Society of Engineers, set up in 1850, was later seen as a "'new model' union by virtue of its alleged pre-occupation with friendly benefits. In fact, within imonths of its foundation it had to tight a bitter battle for its very existence, with the employers determined to establish piecework systems that took away the inde pendent power of the craftsmen The Amalgamated Carpenters, and other unions of skilled workers in the building industry tried also to emphasise their respectability. But they too, in 1859-60 came up against efforts of their employers to get every one of their members to sign a 'document' renouncing their organisation.

It was in the face of such threats as these from the employers, as well as others from the courts, that different groups of workers found it increasingly necessary to work together to defend their right to picket, to protect their funds, and much else besides. A particularly vitriolic press campaign in the mid-60s concentrated on 'outrages' committed against blacklegs in Sheffield. In defence of the right to organise, trades councils were set up, national meetings and lobbies were held, and the TUC It was not the wheeling and dealing of the trade union leaders in the corridors of press and Parliament that secured the legal and political recognition by 1875 of the rights of the trade unions to exist. It was the growing strength and independence shown by the movement in the early 70s. The farm labourers, dockers and many others began to set up their organisations for the first time. In 1872, gas stokers were imprisoned when they plunged London into darkness in a partic'ularly dramatic demonstration of trade union strength. In 1874, trade unionists refused to support Parliamentary candidates who would not agree to their legal protection. With the establishment of a Labour Party becoming a distinct possibility, the Tory government was forced to concede measures to give the trade unions protection which they subsequently enjoyed for a century.

Much of the dynamic of this process, of the desperate struggles to begin and to continue trade unionism, is missing from Fraser's account. However, there is much to be learnt from what he says about the development of the forms and methods of trade unionism.

Fraser emphasises the conservatism and exclusiveness of early trade unionism: "The desire of workers to protect their job from the competition of outsiders is fundamental to the emergence and development of most trade ünions" • Most early unions, he says, were "concerned with resisting change , through the enforcement of apprenticeship regulations and other means.

However, even in the middle of the nineteenth century there were already many factors pulling the movement in other directions. From the beginning unions fought to obtain 'standard rates' for the job and to put an end to disparities between different firms and different areas. National wage negotiations were the culmination of this process. At the same time, trade unionists were consistently forced to come together for the defence of their right to organise. For any one section of workers to to make advances, the whole movement had to be defended. The unions could thus be schools of class war even when at their most limited and conservative.

An interesting chapter of Fraser's book describes the views of the professors of economics in the mid-nineteenth century that trade unions could do nothing to improve wages and conditions. He quotes one sympathiser of the movement to the effect that the economists were 'mere partisans of the strongest side, on a level with paid agitators or special pleaders, while assuming the function of imperial judges. Such statements are an indication not jast of the fact that there is not much new under the sun, but also that, however much trade union leaders crave for absorption into the machinery of capitalism, their members always in the end come into conflict with it.

At the centre of the developing trade union movement of a century: ago was the desire of its leaders to be accepted as a legitimate and normal part of the functioning of capitalism. The mass political and social agitations of the 1830's and 40's had provided a general challenge to the system, but they had been defeated and pushed back. The British employers had the most advanced technology, the greatest self-confidence and the largest empire the world had ever seen. They were easily in a position not only to impose their standards at least for a time on the employers of other nations and the colonial peoples, but also on their own working class.

A capitalist class with such wealth and power could easily afford to buy off those sections of the working class organised in trade unions. Now that methods of mass production were acceptea, sections of workers in many industries could easily be incorporated into the employers' system. The skilled printworker, the engineer who had served his time, the bricklayer who had painfully acquired scarce skills, these sections and many others, accepted the ideology of the employers about 'self-help' and 'independence'. With the help of higher earnings they could maintain a certain distance from the mass of the unskilled and unorganised workers.

The new centralised trade union organisations led to retaliation by the employers of the kind seen in engineering in 1851 and in building in 1859-60.

After trade unions were established the employers began to use the reformist trade union leaders to contain the organised strength which was emerging. These leaders could also be used by such middle class political leaders as John Bright in their war against the landed aristocracy who still dominated the political institutions of capitalist Britain. In this way was cemented an alliance between the Liberal Party and the mainstream trade union leaders which lasted for two generations.

This period of the 'acceptance" of trade unionism thus did mush to establish the role of the movement and its leadership. Yet the position which was then established was very much a reflection of the dominant strength of British capitalism. Attitudes developed then which persist to the present day have now become a block to the further service of the interests of the working class. The 'aristocracy of labour' achieved much in building the first perm. anent trade unions. The first generation of the caste of union bureaucrats were able to claim the credit for the legalisation of trade unions. But all traces of aristocratic spirit and bureaucratic leadership will now have to be swept away in an epoch when quite new chapters of the history of the working class are about to be written.

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its centralised constitution, its moderate industrial policies, and