Death of a "fixer"

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The Dneiper Dam - one uf the first products of planned production insisted upon by the Left Opposition.

consolidated its rule, and at the same time developed the necessary police and military repression within and outside the party to protect_itself against challenge or crițicism.

And when we talk of "bureaucracy" › we are not talking in small numbers. The parasitic social grouping which in this way usurped the political power in the world's first workers' state mushroomed and flourished in a manner similar but much greater in scale than the armies of officials and functionaries that feed off the trade unions in capitalist countries.

In Russia the bureaucracy could use as its empire not simply the labour movement but the entire state administration.

TWELVE PERCENT

By 1936, Trotsky calculated that the bureaucracy itself and its immediate circles constituted between twelve and fifteen per cent of the population. (Revolution Betrayed p 139)

•Whereas there are very definite demarcations and ranks within the bureaucracy itself, they are united by a bond of self-interest and privilege:

. "Where a separate room and sufficient food and neat clothing jare still accessible only to a small minority, millions of bureaucrats, great and smal, try to use the power primariy in order to guarantee their own well being. Hence the enormous egoism of this stratum, its firm inner solidarity, its fear of the discontent of the masses, its rabid insistence upon strangling all criticism, and finally hypocritically religious kowtowing to "the Leader", who embodies and defends the power unki privileges of these new lords" [Revolution Betrayed p 139)

The gains of the October revolution were enormous. Even the degeneration of the Bolshevik Party and all the incompetence, sorruption, narrow vision and caste privilege that the bureaucracy rought in its train did not prevent he nationalised property relations pearing fruit particularly after 1928 tapid industrial anu echnological -growth. impossible inder Tsarișm or capitalism.

But the continued parasitic ixistence of the Stalinist pureaucracy, which lives on to this lay, poses the task firmly before international workers' povement. In the struggle for thè evolutionary overthrow of apitalism internationally, the fight pust be pressed ahead for the ¡olitical revolution to overthrow he Stalinist Kremlin bureaucracy.

Only in this way can the jureaucratic shackles be severed, ind the full benefit of new echnology and world resources be trought to bear on the task of milding socialism in the Soviet nion and eliminating the last estiges of "the old crap" of rivilege and want.

A Trotskyist obituary Victor Grayson Hardie Feather, life-long advocate of class capitulation and anti-communism, and General Secretary of the TUC from 1969 to 1973, died on 28th July, just as our last issue was appearing.

Feather was a dedicated supporter of capitalist exploitation and an opponent every independent action by the working class. He never led the smallest strike nor won office through the support of any section of militant workers whatsoever.

Most of his life was spent within the deepest recesses of the TUC machinery, where he derived his support from the caste of trade union bureaucrats, and where his role was to bring them into closer collaboration with the employers and their state.

Feather WaS a " bureaucrat's bureaucrat, one step further away from the working class even than most trade union leaders.

He played a particular and important role in the growth of the special forms of collaboration between union leaders and capitalist state which have been foisted on the working class in recent years.

ENEMIES

Phat is special about Feather is not that he has obtained praise from the enemies of the trade union movement and the working class.

it is of course true that he was called "a great friend "by employers leader • Campbell Adamson, and that former Tory leader Heath thought he "always had the national interest at heart" -in other words the interests of capitalism.

But other union leaders of the past, like Jimmie Thomas in the 20s and Ernest Bevin in the 30s and 40s have been described as 'patriots' by the same sort of people.

Nor is there anything particularly new about Feather's virulent anti-communism. In this he was simply following in the footsteps of his predecessors at the TUC, particularly Citrine and Tewson, besides Arthur Deakon,: Jack Tanner and the other cold war warriors of the 1950s.

Pictures can of course be produced of Feather hobnobbing with aristocrats and generals, in formal dress sporting his Order of the Commander of the British a Tory Cabinet in 1973.

PREDECESSOR

But in doing this he was only following a precedent set as long ago as 1886, when his predecessor as TUC Secretary, Henry Broadment join visited stores Victoria in Windsor Castle.

What marks out Feather was not the outward manifestations of his craven betrayal of the interests of the working class.

His particular contribution was to channel the great measure of unity and strength achieved by the working class in the early 70s into collaboration with the enemy.

No TUC leader before Feather was in a better position to hold together and mobilise the deepfelt opposition to the attacks on organisation and conditions represented by the Labour government's In Place of Strite in Vic Not since 3rd May 1926, the first day of the General Strike, had the different sections of the trade union movement moved with such unanimity as they did on these questions.

Yet no other trade union leader fought harder than Feather to prevent this unanimity resulting in action against the employers and the Tories, and in defeating their allies in the Labour leadership.

DESPITE FEATHER it was despite Feather and not because of him that the attacks of trade unionism coinciding with his period of office as TUC leader were driven back.

In Place of Strife was withdrawn not as a result of the comings and goings in the corridors of Downing Street and Transport House, but because millions of trade unionists demonstrated, went on strike, and showed their utter unwillingness to accept any attack on their organised strength.

Nor was the 1971 Tory Industrial Relations Act defeated by the bleatings of Feather, or his famous 'Anti-Bill Kit' complete with a 33 rpm record of his call for 'Cooperation not Confrontation"

It was the defiance of the dockers and the engineers and the enormous strength of the miners that forced the defeat of this piece of reactionary legislation, and brought the Heath government tumbling down.

Feather was not the clever tactician who organised • the confounding of the Tories, portrayed in the capitalist press.

On the contrary, he and the other TUC leaders were negotiating both secretly and openly to prevent the overthrow of the Tories. The real victory was won by the millions. of workers who took action to defy the schemes of the Tories and employers.

What came out of this victory was a Labour government, not prepared to press home the advantages that had been gained by the rank and file but determined to tie the working class to capitalism by other means.

It was Feather who played crucial role in channelling the unity and strength of 1972-4 into the infamous "social contract' and the various policies of wage cutting and attacks on the social services which have followed.

The legacy of Feather has been to provide the basis for turning the victories of the early 70s into the present cuts in living standards and rising unemployment.

It is precisely the collaboration between union leaders and Labour government that is the central method of inflicting these policies on the working class. It is as an architéct of this collaboration that Feather bears a significant responsibility for deteriorating living standards and fewer jobs.

NO LINKS Because of Feather's position in the more rarified atmosphere of him to claim any links with the working class at all.

For this reason it was necessary to place his biography in the working class movement of Bradford and in the labour pioneers whose names he bore.

Feather was born in 1908 in a of 'labour idealism . In Bradford the indenendent Tahaur Party mad not betrayals of the great class battles up to 1926.

Keir Hardie, who provided one of Feather's middle names, was noted as a leader of the ILP in its early period.

But despite all the mythology that has been put out around his name, Hardie was by no means averse to secret electoral deals with the Liberal Party which was part of the strategy of the early Labour Victor Grayson, who won the famous Colne Valley by-election in 1907 fought as an 'independent socialist' in defiance not only of the Liberals and Tories, but also the electoral pacts of the West Yorkshire ILP.

HERO

Grayson became a hero among workers in the area as a result, and it is not surprising that the infant Feather was named after him. The trouble with Grayson, however, was that he confused the struggle for socialism with making dramatic theatrical gestures.

He thus collapsed politically at the time of the imperialist war in 1914, joining the army, and personally became an alcoholic. He disappeared not long after the War, possibly murdered.

Feather's roots in "labour idealism' were typified by the names chosen for him. They were roots nurtured with middle class philanthropy and pacificism that in a Snowden or a MacDonald could lead directly to openly joining with the Tories in 1931.

Or they could grow into the hypocritical politics of a Jimmie Maxton who praised Chamberlain on his return from Munich in 1938 or a Fenner Brockway, who in 1976 is bemoaning the fate of the Angolan mercinaries.

For Feather the roots in the labour idealism of the ILP did not grow into political pacificism of this effete and ineffective variety. Instead he became a pacificist in class war; a manipulator whose purpose it was to hold back the fighting spirit of the working class.

From 1938, Feather served in the Organisation Department of the TUC. One of the main purposes of this: body, established • a decade earlier, was to dampen down any militancy within local organisations OI ine working class movement, particularly the trades councils, and this was one of Feather's special jobs.

In order to keep the active rank and file of the trade union in line with the dictates of the leadership, Feathet followed the examples of his predecessors Citrine and Tewson, in organising witchhunts against any trades councils that showed either independence or militancy.

He visited many of them over the years, and it was in his day that battles took place, when the particularly bitter cold war the historic London and Glas gow Trader Paramila --11 - -In the days before such bodies as 'Common Cause' , and the more active interest of Government intelligence services in the internal life of the working class movement, this must have been of particular value to the trade union bureaucracy and their capitalist masters.

As TUC General Secretary, Feather not only fought to or mise permanent capitulation to the enemies of the trade union movement, but also set up the regional TUC machinery to continue the process of taking the initiative within the unions as far as possible away from the base and place it instead in the hands of fullfull-time officials.

He also strengthened the industrial committees of the General Council, making it easier to arrange collaborationist planning with any capitalist government.

Feather was known as a 'fixer' because of his careful manipulation, through key individuals of the control of the trade union bureaucracy over the movement.

This was his role in his intervention at the end of the bitter struggle at Pilkington's in St Helens in 1970.

Feather came to offer 'mediation' at the end of a bitter dispute when the bureaucrats of the General and Municipal Workers Union had been utterly discredited and the workers had confidence in a rank and file strike committee.

Feather's role was to re-establish the position of the G&M leadership by convincing the men that their only hope was in a return to work.

As a result of Feather's efforts, the leaders of the strike were Feather victimised, and the original demands largely rejected, but the G&M bureaucrats, much to the relief of the employers, were back in the saddle.

That was the kind of 'fixer Feather was. He was able to effect a level of betrayal on a national level in the "corridors of power" not usually possible for an individual union leader, who. whatever the apparent • permanence of his position, always has his members breathing down his neck.

TUC leaders have no such constraints.

However, now the bargains struck by Feather and his successors are having their effect, as wages buy less and less, health and social services are subject to increasingly vicious attacks and unemployment climbs yet again to record levels.

The real results of high level 'fixing' grow obvious to widening sections of workers as they prepare for the inevitable battles ahead against the unprecedented attacks on their conditions and the unprecedented connivance in these attacks from the rotten bureaucrats who sit at the top of the trade union and working class movement.

Bureaucrats like Feathe aicng with the capitalist class!

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than they can afford to give up scrabbling after 'undue profits' -their survival depends upon it.

As the crisis-continues and their markets contract, capitalists face increasing competition, which must Tead to further, and wilder, attempts to exert "influence"

The dependence of Labour Ministers like Short on individual capitalists like Poulson is only a reflection of a political dependence of the Labour leadership in general, The effects of such a struggle would have reached far beyond the North East.

Milne's great weakness is his inability to see clearly the political or the real principles at stake in the struggle with which he is dealing, or to grasp the fact that only an independent working class can find the strength to carry that fight through successfully.

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Empire, and of his membership of the House of Lords by courtesy of