Comic Opera Policies from Spartagist Dream-machine

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Second edition of the opposition documents presented inside the WRP by the present leadership of the Workers Socialist League Price £2.50 plus 20p postage and package from Workers Socialist League, 31 Dartmouth Park Hil Allegations levelled at the International Spartacist Tendency that it has no perspective to offer the working flass appear to have done it less than justice.

The British section of the IST has clearly been doing some highly original work on the development of Marxist theory -and as a result of their exertions, are now able to offer BL workers a truly unique way forward against the Edwardes The November issue of Spartacist Britain turned over its main story to that perspective, under the headline 'Don't pay for the bosses' mess!' Unfortunately it is a perspective that has more to do with French farce and comic opera than socialism. ' Upbraided The Workers • Socialist League is upbraided for calling far occupation of threatened plants and blacking to stop the moving of work.

The IST in return calls for the occupation of every Leyland plant; accuses the WSL of 'parochialism': and solemnly "reveals" the unsurprising fact that the Edwardes plan is an atiack on all Leyland workers.

The WS would, of course, be in favour of an occupation of all Leyland plants.

We would be in favour of a strike throughout the engineering industry.

Our strategy is even more ambitious-it consists in politically preparing and building towards a general strike in which the füll strength of the working class is mobilised to bring down the Tories and press through the struggle for the socialist overthrow of capitalism.

We are no defenders of the divisions between crafts and workplaces which impede the united action of the working class.

But, unlike the IST, we are capable of observing that without a fight in the plants singled out for closure, the chances of supporting occupations throughout Leyland are nil.

Spark We are also capable of seeing that the 'narrow parochialism' which 'has encouraged the workers of St. Benedict's Hospital to take it over because it was threatened with closure, could be a spark for a generaiised struggle throughout the health service.

Does the IST scorn such calls for occupying threatened hospitals linked to calls for strikes in their defence?

Will they now call instead for the occupation of all hospitals-to avoid "parochialism"

No doubt further speculative debates will take place within the IST on this point.

Meanwhile, in the real world, the WSL and militants throughout BL are forced to fight in practice for supporting action to impede Edwardes closure plan and create conditions for a generalised struggle.

The blacking of work trans ferred from the threatened plants-an action scorned by the Sparts-means in practice fighting to mobilise BL workers, who have been told their jobs are "guaranteed" if they accept scab work, into refusing to accept it.

It is no easy fight. And, so far it has been spearheaded at the Cowley Assembly Plant, where the WSL has its strongest Never-never land But, determined at all costs to find a policy that is different from everyone else, the Spartacists' article lifts off abruptly from the real world to their own, unique, never-.ever land. Although much of the article is given over to pointing out that BL cannot be "saved" by alternative strategies put forward by the Stalinists and TGWU leaders, the same article is capable of telling us, straightfaced that it can be saved by Ford workers!:

"Leyland workers' brothers at Ford, for example, are right now pursuing their own claim.

"They must combine their fight to win much higher wages and better working conditions throughout the industry."

So • the fantastic vision becomes even more far-fetched. Now the (male!) workers at Fords are allotted the daunting task of unilaterally saving the jobs at threatened plants in BL, Chrysler/Talbot, and "throughout the industry!!

Flight of fancy

It would be amusing to see a Spartacist advocate such a position at a Dagenham mass meeting!

Meanwhile the IST has.. become so swept away by its flight of fancy that it pauses briefly to describe the WSL policy as "leftist social democratic cretinism".

And what is this social-democratic cretinism? The IST tells us:

«The centrist WSL advances the demand for opening BL's books to 'confirm the necessity for the nationalisation, without compensation of the entire automotive industry and the banks if jobs are to be protected.""

(Socialist Press, 17 October)

Then (ignoring the WSL's specific mention of the banks) the Sparts go on to argue against this demand saying it amounts only to "chauvinism" and the call for import controls (a call which the WSL has consistently lambasted).

Having. attacked the WL for its "reformist, inherently chauvinist formula" the Sparts go on to reveal the fuil horrors of their own policies.

Intellectual curiosity They are, they admit, in favour of opening the books of BL. But they see this not, like the WSL, as a means to spur on working class action against the capitalist exploiters and create conditions for the seizure of the banks. This, say the Sparts, is "'reformism"

No, these "communists" call for the opening of the books simply to satisfy their own intellectual curiosity-"to see how much Leyland really has been driven into the ground by the irrationalities of capitalist mismanagement" and how many "perks and baubles" it is hiding!

Poor Trotsky! What a piece of reformist nonsense he produced in the Transitional Programme. All that talk of "The right to employment is the only serious right left to a worker in a society exploitation."

Didn't he know capitalism cannot guarantee any such thing? Why call for the expropriation of the banks whenwith the aid of the Sparts-he could have come up with a real, revolutionary demand?

"If BL can be set on its teet, let the bosses try it-at their own expense. If not, the plants and assets which the workers have seized |! should be disposed of by the workersnot the capitalist state, not the bondholders-and all the money from the sale of assets be divided equitably on the basis of seniority among BL workers."

(Spartacist Britain No. 16, November 1979, (original emphasis).

It is this uniquely Spartacist demand which shows the true genius of the IST dreammachine, in which reformist illusions, sectarian frenzy and petty bourgeois anarchistic tendencies are given equal rein.

First, BL workers should occupy all the plants.

Next, for form's sake, they should have a quick look at the books.

Then they should demand that the BL management try to set it on its feet at their own expense-while knowing, of course, that this is impossible.

Then, the workers must sell the plants and assets to some gullible buyer and divide up the money 'equitably'-according to the old syndicalist principle of "seniority"

In this way 160,000 jobs in BL and 500,000 outside can be disposed of; and every worker gets a pay-off to take to the dole queue.

At one time there used to be a popular line amongst Paris con-artists. They "sold"-sorry "disposed of" -the Eiffel Tower to tourists.

VARDS C With a new introduction London NW5 1HR

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