[Red Flag in Glasgow 1919: Lenin called on…]

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Red Flag in Glasgow 1919: Lenin called on Scottish militants to join the British Communist Party.

•THE OCCUPATION OF CLYDESIDE: FIRST STEP TOWARDS THE SCOTTISH WORKERS' REPUBLIC!"

In these ringing nationalist tones the International Marxist Group paper 'Red Mole' (forerunner of today's *Red Weekly') greeted the start of. the UCS work-in in July 1971.

The article itself went on to kow tow completely to the most reactionary illusion of Scottish nationalism:

"Thus the implication of the present situation is that only by pursuing the question of power in Scotland can the Scottish working dass avoid catastrophic defeat. It is make or break. At the same time this battle over the future of the lynchpin in the economy of Scotland raises the national The British bourgeoisie have no future in Scotland !!. At the same time they can't tolerate the loss of it. Its future must lie in the hands of the working class."

Readers will notice that the English working class rates not a mention in this summary of prospects. Their task is at best to cheer on the Scottish militants engaged in the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism north of Berwick on Tweed - while they themselves languish under a Tory IMAGINATION Of course such a picture bore no resemblance to reality. The concepbon of proletarian revolution in Sworland completely detached from moz or struggles throughout the entire British working class was only the product of a fevered middle class imagination.

But the IMG to this day remain determined to separate the political struggles in Scotland from those of the British working class as a whole.

Harsh experience has told them to moderate their demands a little, though. Instead of the call for a "Scottish Workers Republic" we no» find strident demands for the setting up by the Labour government of a devolved bourgeois Asembly in Scotland.

"REAL" POWER

Not a glimmer of socialist perspective breaks through the nationdism of Red Weekly's main Scotrish correspondent Neil Williamson, who laments only that the fake 20y Teal Assembly will not have power. •.. the White Paper means dat so attempt can be made in Scuriard to get hold of the real wealth in the hands of the oil companies or banks for use in the interests of working people.

(Red Weekly, 26/8/76)

Of course even a "real" Assembly would ensure that workers' barts were kept off the bankers' casti. That is what capitalism and the parliamentary system it has established is all about!

But this simple truth is a closed book to filiznson, #ho assures us tat Scottish Forkers hare a to sternoo only apply in any country after a social revolution has swept away the power of the bourgeoisie, who, backed by the machinery of the state and its armed forces, dictate the form of government imposed on the working class.

IGNORANT

The IMG seem completely ignorant of all this. They seem to believe that workers in England want to be governed the way they are, and that the only resistance to the present set-up is in Scotland.

This resulted in November in Red Weekly making the ludicrous statement that:

•.. parliamentarism leads the Labour lefts to a totally manipulative attitude to democracy, in favour of government imposed from above on the Scottish people."

(In Focus, 25/11/76)

Perhaps the IMG could tell us where on this planet bourgeois governments aboves are not imposed from • OT where "left" reformists do not in practice support the entire bourgeois democratic system?

Of course the IMG's whole notion of 'self-determination for Scotland' is utterly reactionary, effectively tying the independent interests of Scottish workers to the nationalist demands of the middle class and bourgeoisie.

This is obscured a little by their use of the abstract term "Scottish people" to lump together these very different class forces in a general category.

REACTIONARY

But Williamson goes much further than this brazen theoretical blunder to make an exer 2003 dangerous and reactionty 20o: Attacking the right TiE Geeri Sarterari nf Williamson tells us "Quite emphatically Scottish workers do not accept the claims of George Smith (or Michael Foot for that matter) to speak for them. They have a right, which the British labour movement has to wholeheartediy support, to speak for themselves.

Obviously Williamson's Scottish viewpoint has blinded him to the fact that it is not only Scottish workers who reject treacherous union leaders like Smith. Indeed in the ballot called by Smith to back his support for the TUC's 42% wage limit nearly half the votes went against him - despite his abuse of the UCATT journal and a fraudulently worded ballot paper.

ENGLISH

Out of this • opposition, thousands upon thousands are English workers.

Likewise millions of English workers agree wholeheartedly with their Scottish brothers and sisters in rejecting Foot's right to speak for them in accepting wage cuts, spending cuts and mass sackings.

The struggle against these reactionary leaders is a common one, North and South of the border, and not one that can be sidestepped by a declaration of Scottish independence or a simple call that only Scottish, as opposed to British workers be given the right to "speak for themselves"

Despite decorative statements denouncing nationalism, therefore, the IMG by conceiving of the class struggle in this segmented manner and talking abstractly of "Scottish people" as do the SWP demagogues give everything in advance to the nationalists.

The argument Williamson puts forward for support to the devolLice measures is one of complete =-son mirgled sith the let's Shot STEWAN IMI TEL IMG's orientation to *left' petty bourgeois groupings.

"Any attempt to sabotage that democratic right by rejecting even the most modest and opportunist proposals made by the Government to set up an elected Assembly will be disasterous for the unity of the British [!] working class.

The present trickle of confidence away from the labour movement as a vehicle for solving the problems of Scottish people will be turned into a veritable flood, throwing workers in Scotland into the camp of the reactionary bourgeois SN"

[26/8/76)

BRITISH ISSUE The "trickle of confidence" away from the labour movement is again not a Scottish phenomenon -but a British one, stemming from the historic betrayals by the TUC and the Labour government, as by-election results have shown.

While in Scotland the SNP has cashed in on this disillusion in Britain it has taken other forms including a Tory vote by former Labour voters in Workington.

The answer to this of course is not to seek to sidestep the Labour traitors through the setting up of a Scottish Parliament (in which the SNP will in any event, according to the latest figures, win control) but a common political struggle North and South for the removal of the right wing leaders and the buiding of new leadership.

The IMG however have rushed off in completely the other direction. Not only do they support a Scottish Parliament - they have also fully backed the break away of "left' MPs Sillars and Robertson to form the Scottish Labour Party.

WHOLE STRUGGLE

This split, too, must be understood as part of the political struggle in Britain as a whole.

Just as Heffer and the Tribunites would sooner chop off their right arms than wage a serious fight for the removal of the Callaghan leadership. so Sillars and Robertson tooked to the SLP split 25 a 02an5 left' face in Parliamentary votes against spending cuts.

The SLP was created as an arena within which Sillars and Robertson could reign supreme and hope to attract Scottish militants disillusioned by the Labour government.

And just as the "English" lefts uphold the nationalist policy of import controls with a view to protection of British capitalism from "foreign" competition, their Scottish counterparts now take a similar line - demanding protection of "Scottish" industry - and oil -from marauding "British" and other "foreign" capital.

However the IMG went hook, line and sinker for the bait extended by Sillars and Robertson. A 'left' Labour Party, set up by bureaucrats with a "mass" following seemed too good a chance to miss.

So regardless of the puny scale of the forces that rallied behind the SLP, the IMG began to campaign actively in its support, contrasting. it favourably with the "Labour Party bootboys in the Glasgow Chambers" [18/11/76] and as if this was already the new mass party for the working class.

.. the IMG had consistently explained why Scottish workers should vote for and support the SLP against the Labour Party."

[11/11/76] FRUITLESS Unfortunately the IMG's labours bore little fruit. Less than a thousand recruits were drawn into the shi. And,. predictably, that thousand contained two distinct elements - a middle class proSNP wing which now, according to Red Weekly holds a good proportion of the purged SLP; and a left socialist wing that genuinely believed the SLP could offer an alternative to the betrayals of.

Among these elements the IMG seems to have made little headway, if their own account is to be beieved.Red Weekly on November 11th pointed out that the IMG had not led the resistence to Sillars:

"Given that the main opposition came from the Cumbernauld branch where there is no IMG supporter (...) how a handful of IMG supporters can be held responsible I for the leftward move of SLP militants] escapes us" wrote an indignant Tariq Ali.

However despite (or perhaps because of this failure by the IMG to win roots among the left SIP forces. the pressures from this socialist wing grew more intense, making Sillars' position as a professional left' more and more untenable.

In such a tiny party he had no reserve ranks to mobilise in his. support. His choice was a blunt one - bend . to the demands of the SLP left wing, or drive them out.

EXPELLED

At the Party's Conference at the end of October he plumped not surprisingly for the latter choice, expelling an estimated half of the party's active membership, and has since charted a course towards accomodation with the SNP.

The IMG in Scotland are now • complete jam. Having thre everything into the campaig the SLP, they now find them? in a tiny group of 500 activists no real message for the the # of Scottish workers who, for their resistance to the policies Callaghan remain in the Lal Party: and must be mobiese struggle alongside English • if Callaghan is to be remored

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riew of "British Syndicalism 1900-1914: Myths and Realities" by B. Holton, Published by Pluto Press at £2.95 devolution? Lenin tells us that:

"To throw off the feudal yoke, all national oppression, and all privileges enjoyed by any particular nation or language, is the imperative duty of the proletariat as a democratic force, and is obscured and retarded by bickering on the national question. But to go beyond these strictly limited and definite historical limits is helping bourgeois nationalism means betraying the proletariat and siding with the bourgeoisie. (Critical Remarks on the National The "feudal yoke" is not a factor in Scotland - serfdom was abolished long ago. "National oppression" is only marginally greater in Scotland than in IMFdependent England. The "privileges" enjoyed by British capital and the English language are the product of the historical developmment of both British and Scottish capitalism. And equality of language in Scotland is a simple reformist demand which, if it had any mass support at all could be conceded as easily as it has been in Wales.

Foot In short there seems little or no reason to view the issues at stake for workers in Scotland as greatly different from those at stake in Newcastle, Liverpool, the West Country, or any of the areas of Britain in which capitalism has driven workers into mass unemployment and falling living standards.

On the other hand to call as do the IMG for. separate workers organisations in Scotland such • as the SLP • based on this 'national question' flies in the face of Lenin's warning:

"Working class democracy counterposes to the nationalist wrangling of the various bourgeois parties over questions of language etc the demand for the unconditional unity and complete amalgamation of workers of all nationalities in all working class organisations - trade union, cooperative, consumers' , educational and all others - in contradistinction to any kind of bourgeois nationalism. Only this type of unity and amalgamation can uphold democracy and defend the interests of the workers against capital - which is already international and growing more 50 ...

If we were at the gos: abere workers 2: 2: 2:»* choose it=s :== :. ment we =:.- * = favour r:: -*icratic "Ase=.:*: ..= 500000 but of alo-zi #EN COKE system of soviets c: acciers detegates, within which BESE REGIOE would have equal voide. 250 through which an integrated pis for the British economy could be drawn up.

SECEDE

If under such conditions a clear majority of workers in Scotland or wales expressed a wish to secede, they would of course have the right to do so.

But until such time as the workers themselves are free to express their opinions on the matter without the dominant influence of the bourgeois media and capitalist exploitation, we can only call on Scottish and Welsh workers alike to reject the fraudulent moves of the Labour government towards "Derolution" , and to join the common struggle for revolutionary leadership in the labour moveBeat.

PART TWO Syndicalism was movement born of the struggle against ruling class violence and bureaucratic betrayal in the years before the outbreak of the First Imperialist War in 1914.

In the last issue of Socialist Press we gave some details of these great battles in Britain, and in this we will say more on the guiding ideas of those who played a prominent part in them.

Syndicalism is defined by Holton as a movement that:

"projected a definite and more or less sustained conception of revolutionary class struggle by industrial means.

This movement reflected and developed a particular phase in the history of the class struggle in Britain and most of the other main industrialised countries.

Its great achievement from the point of view of the British working class was that it represented the first serious attempt to build a revolutionary leadership through workers struggle and in opposition to the betrayals of the bureaucrats.

MILITANT

There had been militant class fighters in Britain before, and there had been people calling themselves "social democrats' , since 1881.

In the 1880's, Engels had tried to turn the small group of his supporters in Britain to programmatic questions like the legal Eight Hour Day and the building of a But although they participated in the building of the workers' movement, the revolutionaries were not yet in a position to assume the By the early years of the twentieth century, the main Marxist group, the Social Democratic Federation, characterised as a 'sect' by Engels, was unable to put forward policies for the workers other than fighting elections and exercising pressure for reforms.

Because of these policies there were a number of splits from the SDF, one of which resulted in the setting up of a Socialist Labour Inspired by the American Daniel De Leon, this aimed to defeat the bureaucracy by building incorruptable 'red' unions called the Industrial Workers of the World.

SECTARIAN

SO: = 3EE:

pome: it mis seriare crisis i= eristing mass organisations, and rer! small.

It was at the end of 1910 that the Industrial Syndicalist Education League was set up to make propaganda about the need to link industrial struggles with the replacement of capitalism.

This first brought these ideas beyond the fringes of the working class movement, and its leaders included Tom Mann, well known as a militant leader since the days of the 1889 London dock strike, and Guy Bowman, an imaginative propagandist well acquainted with the French syndicalists.

MEDIUM

The ISEL went well beyond the old 'dual unionist' notions of the SLP. Howarth, who had formerly supported them now considered that the existing workers' organisations:

*must be the medium through which me work to recruit our future members e if the resolutionart force me wish to create. leaders of the movement, argued for propaganda in favour of a. general strike with the aim of the workers:

"evolving that unity of action and sameness of inspiration which will make them think and act as a class for the direct and forcible expropriation of the capitalists."

ARISTOCRATIC

The ISEL won support from those who were opposed to the methods of the "aristocratic' union leaders and wanted to see the divided organisations of building workers, engineers and railwaymen united in powerful joint bodies.

Their efforts to break down sectionalism won the support of many sections of workers, and they took up with success campaigns to set up industrial unions, to coordinate the trades councils, and other ways to develop unity action.

Syndicalists or those influenced by their ideas, played a leading role In many of the great struggles described in the first part of this Noah Ablett was with the T:= Mann Te Mes 51 * 3:

1915.

Syndicalists were 35a)5 = :: fore in developing the resistance o: the working class, in attacking it= rapacity of the em2.0y23 z=i opposing the treachery of the 30105 leaders.

STRENGTHS

Holton provides much information on these strengths and achievements of the syndicalist movement, and is well worth reading if only for its summary of the great class battles that brought the movement to birth.

However, the fact that the book is published by Pluto Press, associated with the International Socialist group, recently transmogrified into the 'Socialist Workers Party" should warn us about the political limitations of the approach of Holton.

He is quite effective in arguing about the strengths and enduring influence of syndicalism and in showing the positive qualities that went on into the shop stewards пютет i the Fist World War and to Commissi Party and SM He is less than adequate in setting out the weaknesses and failings of syndicalism, even in its own time.

In trying to dispose of alleged *myths perpetrated by previous writers on the subject, Holton goes a long way to constructing myths of his own.

He rejects the characterisation of "neglectful of the politics of the syndicalism as 'atheoretical' state' On these course the syndicalists had theory, but it was a one-sided and inadequate view of the development of workers' struggles.

They preached the necessary militancy, but thought that by changing the form of the struggles of the organised workers, they Tom Mann in 1889 could also change their content.

They wrongly thought that more violent attacks on authority and greater organisational unity were in themselves sufficient for complete victory against capitalists and their state.

INCONSISTENT

Bette medicalists themselves, 50 3: 20 cent =*X=: 23 23%..

vas by radicalism being quite sompatibie with more efficieni reformisin™ That is true, yet the call for industrial unions was in practice one of the main ways in which syndicalist influence was exercised Holton shows that when the ISEL was set up, its:

"immediate strategy centred • • • on the need for industrial unionism"

He later points to the great success of the syndicalists in arguing for the setting up of the National Union of Railwaymen, Amalgamated Engineering Union, and so on. This was a step forward for the working class, but it did not in any way prepare it directly to achieve state power.

The syndicalists certainly did have a theory of the state, but it was a false one. They reacted to the treachery and ineffectiveness of the first Labour MPs by arguing that the way to success rested on industrial organisation alone.

John lochen Labour Party and the SDF wanted politics to be separated from indus trial struggle, the syndicalist: argued the opposite and equally false idea that industrial struggle by itself could replace politics.

Their opposition to state social ism' was more of a reaction to the false notions of the reformists thal the capitalist state could be taker over politely than a serious attempl to formulate any alternative.

As Trotsky put it in his 1925 article The Errors in Principle o1 Syndicalism' , arguing against thos who maintained such theories a generation later:

"The proletariat's historical tast is to wrest this most powerfu instrument of oppression from thi hands of the bourgeoisie.

The syndicalists were wrong te think that industrial organisatior alone was sufficient to captur power from those who currently held it in the capitalist state. Their was a healthy but incompleti reaction to the problems involver the working class seizure o power.

BOLSHEVIKS

Only the Bolsheviks were able t link the political and industri aspects of this problem to brin about proletarian victory.

In 1923 Lenin set out his poin in a way which embodied all th experience of the struggle for th practice of these ideas in the work ing class:

"Only the political party of th working class, ie, the Communis Party, is capable of uniting, trainin and organising a vanguard of th proletariat and of the whole mas of the working people that alon will be capable of withstanding th inevitable petty-bourgeois vacillal ions of this mass and the inevitabl traditions and relapses of narror craft unionism or craft prejudice among the proletariat, ie, of leadin it politically, and through it th whole mass of the working people.

Without this the dictatorship o the proletariat is impossible."

(Collected works Vol 32, p246 The strengths and achievement of the syndicalists were immense a a particular stage in the history o the class struggle.

They had a theory of the state but a false one; a practice c militant class struggle, but a inadequate one. But their courag puts them head and shoulder above a hundred petty-bourgeo theorisers of today, even thoug they lacked all the instrument necessary for the victory of th working class.

The best of them, like Mann an Murphy joined the Communis Party: later to be distorted an figured by Stalinism. The other! we Purcell and Hicks becam uncomprehending cogs in a trad union bureaucracy their trainin gave them no capacity to unde TESTED When tried and tested in ti struggles of a later period they t unable to separate themselves fron a right wing leadership with bos they had always preached unity".

These were fighters, but fitte who went into battle with the eyes closed, and left the outcom to other generals who had atread arranged the terms of sumoade with the enemy.

Read this book. Study t strengths and achievements of th syndicalists. But in rescuing tha from unmerited obscurity and si representation, do not forgy bo their inadequacies made them id 'efficient reformists 15 failed revolutionaries.

Those who uncitizly rate a their traditions will folos the

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certainly in the interests of the proletarian class struggle, which is