How the bosses view Labour leaders

Scan page 6

by Peregrine Worsthorne.

But the clearest exposition of a worked out capitalist assessment of social democracy is to be found in the pages of "Letters to Leaders" (Deutsche Fuhrerbriefe), the confidential bulletin of the Federation of German Industry circulated in 1931 and 1932 to the financial leaders of German capitalism.

It is worthwhile quoting at some length these documents, issued in the run-up to Hitler's seizure of power in 1933, to give a clear picture of the views of big capital.

In issue number 72 the writer comments:

"The problem of consolidating the bourgeois regime in postwar Germany is generally determined by the fact that the leading bourgeoisie, who have control over the economy, have become too small in order to uphold this rule alone., They require for this rule, if they do not wish to rely on the extremely dangerous weapon of purely military force, an alliance with strata which do not belong to them socially, but which render them indispensable service of anchoring their rule in the people, and thereby being the actual final bearers of this rule.

This last, or outermost, bearer of bourgeois rule was, in the first period of post war consolidation, Social Democracy"

We might bear this in mind when considering the "achievements" of the 1945-51 Labour government, but let us continue and see how the bourgeoisie see this process working.

"In the first reconstruction era of the bourgeois post-war regime, in the era from 1923-4 to 1929-30, the split in the working class was founded on the achievements in regards to wages and social policy into which Social Democracy capitalised the revolutionary upsurge".

Thus social democracy is seen not as a serious opponent, but as a means of splitting and diverting the working class away from the struggle for power.

Special character

It could do this because its special character as supposed workers' party.

"Thanks its social Thanks, being originally a character as workers' party, Social Democracy brought into the system of reconstruction at that time, in addition to its purely political force, something more valuable and enduring, namely the organised working class, and while paralysing their revolutionary energy chained them fast to the bourgeois state".

Social democracy therefore acts for capitalism as the equivalent of a sluice gate, stemming the tide of revolutionary working class struggles by obtaining periodic minor concessions on wages and social policy-none of which ever actually challenge bourgeois rule:

The German bourgeois leaders recognised however that because reformism rests on the ability to win reforms its political hold is threatened in a period of economic crisis:

"The process of the transition which we are undergoing at present, because the economic crisis necessarily destroys these achievements, passes through the stage of acute danger that, with the disappearance of these achievements, the mechanism for disrupting the working class which is based on these achievements will cease to operate, with the result that the Attlee working class will begin to turn in the direction of communism and the bourgeois rule will be faced with the necessity of setting up a military dictatorship. This stage would mask the beginning of the phase of the incurable sickness of bourgeois rule."

Thus, while the social democrats cling desperately to the eternal virtues of parliamentary democracy, for the bourgeoisie this form of rule is no more than one of the possible options.

"A bourgeois regime based on a liberal bourgeois constitution must not only be parliamentary; it must rely for support on Social Democracy and allow Social Democracy adequate achievements. A bourgeois regime which destroys these achievements must sacrifice Social Democracy and parliamentarism"

The parliamentary fetishists of the Militant group would do well to remember this.

For the bourgeoisie reformism is a useful tool which is ultimately dispensable.

For the working class reformism represents an historical barrier, which must be totally broken down.

The struggle between opposed class interests in the period of capitalist crisis therefore become centrally the struggie to smash the grip of reformism before it lines up to smash and dissipate the strength and fighting capacity of the organised working class.

We urge readers to join us in that struggle.

Scan page 7

SOCIALIST Wednesday