Break the Coalition

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Tilbury power station burns during firemen's strike Every aspect of the propaganda and practical work of the Workers Socialist League since March 1977 has centred on the political necessity for a break in the Lib-Lab coalition and to assert the political independence of the working class.

We have taken this line into our work in the unions, into day-to-day struggles against wage controls, against the cuts and into the work of Socialist Press supporters in the Labour Party.

Confused

But the fact that the working class remains confu: sed on the issues involved has meant that the fight has had to be carried on at all levels labour movement.

We have in our press exposed the way in which the Callaghan government is tied hand and foot to the bourgeoisie and its parties, and the ways in which the wishes of the labour movement are subordinated to those of the Liberal Party.

We have fought at the same time to develop Councils of Action-most tangibly in the Firemen's strike-as the organisational basis for the new, independent working class leadership.

Complicity

Socialist Press supporters inside the Labour Party have fought to raise resolutions and to focus discussion on the need to break the coalition, and the complicity of the 'lefts' in their tacit acceptance of the Lib-Lab deal.

PHOTO: John Sturrock, Report Tribunite coalitionist Frank Allaun But at the same time, whenever these 'lefts' have been faced in Parliament with the question of whether or not to vote in favour of the coalition and its policies we have spelled out the necessity for them to vote against it, and for them to launch struggles against it throughout the labour and trade union movement.

And whenever, predictably, these 'lefts' have trooped like sheep into the coalition lobbies we have drawn out the implications of their actions so as to ram home the point fo those workers who might expect them to fight.

We have pursued all of these avenues work seriously, since we understand that workers will not spontaneously develop to a political understanding of their leaders or of their own accord jump over decades of parliamentary illusions.

Our movement has always stressed that workers learn political lessons like this not solely from books, theoretical magazines or even from leaflets.

Practical

Workers learn in the course of practical struggles in which their established leaders are put to the test.

We have aimed at proving to workers in practice that the 'lefts' in voting confidence in this bourgeois coalition are committing a class betrayal. And we have combined this agitation with propaganda for our programme and the need for a revolutionary leadership.

However it is necessary to further develop our demand for the breaking of the coalition in the light of the present situation.

The government, fearing working class resistance, is moving increasingly to reliance on the repressive machinery of the state to control the labour movement -using troops against strikes, riot police against pickets, courts against unions, etc.

But as it does so, the "lefts' who prior to March would utter a protest here or there at government 'excesses' have with one or two exceptions fallen stony silent.

Absence

Last year's Labour Party Conference confirmed the complete absence of any 'left' challenge to the coalition.

Of the parliamentary 'lefts', only Denis Skinner is on record as publicly declaring his willingness to vote against the Lib-Lab deat-and he has done nothing to follow up these words.

We can expect this silence to be transformed into a blather of words under pressure of the mass movement, with the 'lefts' moving to head off any prospect of working class independence (as with the firemen's strike), but we must reckon with the positions actually adopted by the lefts' whose role complements that of the TUC.

Demands

Any leader that refuses to challenge the coalition government must now be sucked in to defence of the 10% pay limit. We must ensure that those demands we place upon the 'lefts' are directed towards drawing from them a clear statement of position on this in front of the working class.

Indeed for all the bankruptcy of the Labour lefts' we are not yet at a stage where we can pose any credible alternative form of government and political organisation to workers.

Our programme, in so far as it is adopted and fought for by workers, obviously leads towards the formation of independent working class bodies-open the books committees, price committees, workers' defence squads and councils of action.

But we must recognise that the fight for such bodies is only at an embryonic stagc.

To demand at this point that workers turn from their official leaders 'left' and right alike and build such bodies; and to assert that this is a "governmental slogan" could at best be termed a vain gesture and at worst an ultraleft adventure.

The technique of counterposing "higher", "more revolutionary" bodies which do PHOTO: Chris Davies, Report not yet exist, to the actual trade unions and mass parties built in centuries of struggle by the working class is a hallmark of petty bourgeois "revolutionism" and a rejection of the method of the Transitional Programme.

The WS must fight to raise the working class from today's conditions and today's consciousness to the understanding of the need to overthrow capitalism and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat.

And, as the Transitional Programme spells out, this involves the exposure of the existing reformist leaders:

"The central task of the Fourth International consists in freeing the proletariat from the old leadership, whose conservatism is in complete contradiction to the catastrophic eruptions of disintegrating capitalism and represents the chief obstacle to historical progress.

The chief accusation which the Fourth International advances against the traditional organisations of the proletariat is the fact that they do not wish to tear themselves away from the political semi-corpse of the bourgeoisie.

Under these conditions the demand, systematically addressed to the old leadership' "Break with the bourgeoisie, take the power!" is an extremely important weapon for exposing the treacherous character of the parties and organisations of the Second, Third, and Amsterdam Internationals.

The slogan "workers and farmers government" is thus acceptable to us only in the sense that it had in 1917 with the Bolsheviks, i.e. as an anti-capitalist and anti-bourgeois slogan, but in no case in that 'democratic' sense which later the epigones gave it, transforming it from a bridge to the socialist revolution into the chief barrier upon its path."

Of course Callaghan context the anti-capitalist slogan "break from the bourgeoisie, take the power" must mean much more than simply calling on the Labour leaders to terminate the Lib-Lab coalition and take the power in their own name.

Situation

This would amount to asking for no more than a return to the situation before March this year.

The complexity of the political situation demands a precise system of slogans and tactics which can lead workers to an understanding of the need for a government politically independent of the bourgeoisie.

As communists we stress above all the need for the mobilisation of the working class.

Labour Party Conference Not one important question can be solved while the masses trust their fate to the antics of reformist parliamentarians and trade union bureaucrats.

The WSL must pose the need, at each stage of the struggle, tot transitional and partial demands, for the proletariat to control its leaders and drive out those who betray.

For the coming period the Slogan 'Build Councils of Action' stands at the centre of OUr propaganda and agitation, as we have said not only as the best means of immediately coordinating the struggles of the working Class, but of preparing the apparatus through which the proletariat will be able to assert its power over the bourgeoisie.

Return

The working class has the task of preventing the return of an unprecedentedly vicious Tory regime.

The first step must be to break the undeclared coalition between Labour and the Liberals. The WSL pours scorn on the reformists pitiful excuses for their anti-socialist 'Pact'.

Labour could be assured of power if it was willing to mobilise the strength of the working • class against the bourgeoisie-but instead the reformists prefer to cite their lack of a parliamentary majority, to manoeuvre with Steel, and to pave the way for Thatcher.

Thus, alongside our call for Councils of Action we say "Keep out the Tories! Break the Lib-Lab coalition!"

But such a fight is unthinkable under the leadership of Labour's coalitionist traitors. Whilst constantly exposing the 'left' talkers of Labour's NEC and • the Tribune Group, the WSL specifically calls for the removal of Callaghan, Healey, Rees, Mason and the gang of cabinet coalitionists.

Fake 'lefts'

The mobilisation the labour movement to drive out these lackeys is at the same time the best means of compromising the fake 'lefts' by exposing their refusal to break with the right wing.

The spectacle of the firemen, marching in London at the beginning of their strike, chanting 'Rees Out!' even while on their way to a rally addressed by Tribunites Wise and Allaun is something from which we must draw the correct lessons.

Such situations indicate the importance in the fight to end coalitionism of the demand "Make the 'lefts' fight"-in conjunction with the demand "Kick out the Callaghan-Healey leadership"

Continued next week.

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PHOTO: Derek Speirs, IFL Speirs, IFL