Trotskyism Today no. 10

TROTSKYISM

EPS Workers threatened with redundancy lobby the Oxford District Office of the GWU demanding officials break with the

THE FIGHT FOR

REVOLUTIONARY

adopted at the First Annual Conference of the Workers Socialist League last December. We begin here with the first section of the Perspectives document for Britain, which was written in mid-September last year.

5 BAD

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EPS Workers threatened with redundancy lobby the Oxford District Office of the TGWU demanding of job-slashing Ryder participation scheme.

In this and several coming editions of Trotskyism Today' we will be publist adopted at the First Annual Conference of the Workers Socialist League last De first section of the Perspectives document for Britain, which was written in mid-Sep The current disgraceful scramble by reformist politicians and TUC leaders (protected by 'lefts' and Stalinist hangers-on) to ingratiate themselves with British "on behalf of" their bankers and industrialists, offering and world speculators, silenced members to accept huge pay cuts in order supposedly to "save the pound" the political and economic crises of highlights today's interconnection capitalism. These combined crises drive the leaders more to betray as they drive the employers the more desperately onto the attack.

The end of the unstable economic equil- resolute, and stronger than at any time in ibrium of the period of post-war boom has their history. the late 1960s a marked The setbacks in Argentina and Chile, in brought since face of this movement, show clearly upsurge of class struggle on a world scale.

the Starting with the spectacular General Strike that these mass spontaneous

HOWEVEN

revolutionary upheavals in France in struggles are not in themselves sufficient to mid 1968, this upsurge expressed itself most defeat imperialism. Political consciousness clearly in Britain with the overthrow of the and a leadership steeled in the fight against Heath government in February 1974.

Stalinism and reformism are crucial to avoid The saw the downfall of the the possibility of defeat.

same year Greek Junta and Portuguese fascism victorious - fore- Indeed even without the the shadowing even greater and more developed struggles over last eight years The struggles in 1975, the year in working class has continuously contronted a imperialism went to crushing defeat along- Stalinist leadership reformist and more side its puppets in Indo-China.

The victory bankrupt and more desperate to sacrifice "peaceful of the MPLA forces against the CIA-South members on the altar of coexistence" capitalism African backed opposition in Angola this with than

•CVCI

year is a further indication of the growing before. of the colonial It is the limitations imposed by these strength and confidence masses as part of this world wide forward leaderships together with the mass following still hold the working class

HOCHCHE

Lney which they daily betray, and the dangers of

WEAKENED

the present situation that show us the vital tasks of the Workers Socialist League and of The last eight years, then, have been years the Fourth International we seek to rebuild.

of struggle in which a weakened imperialism It falls on Trotskyists to give political has been forced to contront workers and better organised, leadership to the worldwide struggle against oppressed masses

SUIC

Epg anding officials break with the e publishing the Perspectives documents • last December. We begin here with the mid-September last year. imperialism and for the overthrow of the Stalinist bureaucracy and political revolution in the degenerate workers' states.

The break up of the boom has opened up all those questions of political leadership. It has made impossible the militant but largely non-political pursuit of wage increases and improved living standards which character- ised the struggles of workers in the 1950s and early 1960s. It has turned each employer - striving to dodge his share of the crisis - to seek every avenue to drive up the rate of exploitation through urgent speed-up, rationalisation and redundancies.

MANAGEMENT

And it has forced the Labour and trade union leaders who seek simply to "reform" the crisis-ridden system into open advocacy of the employers' arguments, into actual "participation" management roles through close collaboration established the and between Labour government, CBI and TUC.

national And this change, (with some variations) has taken place in every major capitalist country simultaneously.

Through the 19th century, capitalism, despite- its vicious exploitation working class, played an overall progressive role in freeing the productive forces from the restrictions of feudalism and developing the division of labour on a world scale.

But since the turn of the century, with the growth of monopoly and the complete division of the world between rival imper- NUMBER 10, Sth January 1977 5p. ialist powers, the social contradictions of capitalism had intensified to the point where capitalist private became property an absolute fetter on the further development of production. Lenin, analysing these developments in showed how our epoch was one "capitalism in decline or more precisely moribund capitalism" . He shows how the emergence of monopoly from capitalism, which reflected the incompatibility of the advanced means of production with individ- ual private ownership and foreshadows the centralisation of planning and production that would take place under socialism, threw an even greater burden of oppression onto the working class.

WAR

This emerged clearly in the first imper- ialist World War. By 1914, the imperialist expansion of European capital had ceased to be sufficient to offset the general tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Capitalism could no longer exploit new sources of surplus value on a sufficient scale to preserve the value of European capital.

already divided With the world up between competing super-powers, new fields for imperialist expansion could only be found in a redivision of the spoils. Thus the closing years of the last century saw the intensification of the imperialist competition for markets and for sources of surplus value, which engendered the conflicts leading up to World War I. Only war could undertake the redivision of markets and the destruction of excess capital on a sufficient scale to restore the rate of profit for the surviving capitalists.

the war, combined with the However, unprecedented resurgence and strengthening of the working class movement before and after the hostilities, not only failed to resolve these problems, but objectively worsened the plight of imperialism.

Tsarist Russia was taken out of its sphere altogether, while revolutionary upsurges throughout Europe forced the post-war bourgeoisie on to the defensive. In many states, sops and reforms were conceded to contain this upsurge, while a more compre- offensive and hensive political counter attack on living standards was prepared, using to the full the treachery of the social- chauvinists in the reformist parties.

UNRESOLVED

At the same time, although the world hegemony of British imperialism and of sterling as the major world currency had been shattered once and for all, the US dollar was not yet able to replace it. The political and economic crisis remained unres- olved throughout the 1920s and 1930s.

Throughout this period, capitalism rested not so much on its residual strength, but more on the crisis of leadership in the working class. The degeneration of the Comintern under Stalin on the one hand and the continuing treachery of social demo- cracy on the other combined to lead workers time and time again to defeat at the hands of imperialism. Where the betrayals of these leaders were not enough, the last card of fascism was played by a desperate bourgeoisie, driven to liquidate all vestiges of proletarian indepen- dence in order to restore profitability. And here too, in each case, the door was opened to the fascist dictatorship by the reformists and Stalinists. This is why, of all the possible variants discussed by Trotsky in his analysis of 1921, it was the worst of all that turned out to be the case: "If we grant - and let us grant it for the moment - that the working class fails to rise in revolutionary struggles, but allows the bourgeoisie the opportunity to rule the world's destiny for a long number of years, say two or three decades, then assuredly some sort of new equilibrium will be esta- lished. Europe will be thrown violently into reverse gear. Millions of European workers die from unemployment and mal- States will be nutrition. The United compelled to re-orient itself on the world market, reconvert its industry, and suffer curtailment for a considerable period. After- wards, after a new world division of labour is thus established in agony for 15 or 20 or 25 of capitalist upswing years, a new epoch might perhaps ensue.

Page 2 But this entire conception is exceedingly abstract and one-sided. Matters are pictured here as if the proletariat had ceased to struggle." (Trotsky, First Five Years of the Com- munist International, p.263) Trotsky could of course little anticipate the extent to which the great revolutionary tradition of Bolshevism would be liquidated by Stalin, enabling the bourgeoisie to engulf mankind for a second time in the holocaust of a world war. Twenty five years of economic stagnation immense followed by the and decay, destruction of the war itself, finally provided the conditions for the re-establishment of an equilibrium of world capitalist accumula- tion. The wholesale destruction of human and during the war, the capital resources emergence of American imperialism as the overwhelming economic and military power, together with the defeats inflicted on the working class worldwide through the direct treachery of the Stalinist and reformist leaders, combined to temporarily overcome the contradictions that had wracked world imperialism.

SWEPT AWAY

The war, completely sweeping away the old pattern of inter-imperialist relations, eliminating a large part of British capital's foreign shareholdings and ending the basis for the British Empire, placed the USA, holding two-thirds of the world's productive and 75% of its capital in an capacity undisputed position as the dominant imper- ialist power. economic From this position of the USA was able to take on the dominance, role of defender of imperialism and political arbiter of the relations between nation states on a world scale. In the Bretton Woods Agreement and the General Agreement on the USA and Trade (G.A.T.T.) Tariffs forced the other imperialist powers to accept a world monetary system based on the dollar as an international reserve currency and a general reduction of preferrential tariffs on world trade. The agreement for the dollar to act as international reserve currency, formally tied to gold at 35 dollars to the ounce, rested on the strength of the USA and the world- wide demand for US commodities. With the dollar acting as an internationally accepted means of payment and the foundation of a stable monetary system, the basis was laid for the restoration and expansion of world trade and for the development of the credit system. Of course, simply the provision of a uni- versally acceptable world currency, was not of stable capitalist in itself a guarantee accumulation - certainly not to the extent of opening up over twenty years of the most sustained growth of the productive forces in its history. For this a massive restructuring and increase in exploitation. to of capital restore profitable production was necessary.

EXPLOITATION

The destruction of large parts of the most outdated plant and equipment in the war, and the concentration and centralisation of capital encouraged by massive the war contracts, together cleared the way for a substantial increase of exploitation and the productivity of labour to be forced through, while at the same time eliminating excess capital. Key to this was the collaboration of the Stalinist and reformist leaders during and after the war. These parties, continuing to hold the confidence of the masses (partly as a result of the huge objective difficulties confronted before and during the war by the small and still inexperienced forces of the Unemployed workers a Union officials join with manage on Productivity, conspiring to fo France, Italy and Greece.

In Britain, their backing during the war for rigid wage controls, anti-strike laws and Committees to jack up Production Joint exploitation through speed-up, was followed after the war by support for continued wage controls and for joint productivity commit- the most advanced tees which brought in American techniques. all the efforts of the Even so, despite their allies throughout bourgeoisie and whole sections of capitalist indus- Europe, realise an adequate could longer try no profit. In Britain this crisis was particularly acute. The mines, railways, electricity supply and other sectors with an especially high organic composition of capital could not be maintained, let alone restored to profitable investment production without massive which their owners were entirely incapable of carrying out. government stepped in to The Labour inject large amounts of cash and to take over of these the debts and the management interest of the whole industries in the the old holdings of The capitalist class. providing them owners were nationalised with lavish compensation for their run-down and unprofitable enterprises.

RATIONALISATION

This "nationalisation" of course, way served to benefit the workers in the industry. Management remained in the hands of the old managers, while jobs were reduced introduced to provide and rationalisation cheap inputs of basic materials to private state-takeover of for industry. The need industries highlights the inability of these take forward the capitalist production to development of the productive forces in a stable manner. At the same time, the state was also forced to massively extend the provision of education, welfare and health services as a concession to the strength of the working class, which in Britain had swept a Labour its biggest office with government. into maiority. This was part of the price ever paid by capitalism for the maintenance of a collaborationist leadership in the working class. Thus, it was on the basis of the system- atic betrayal of the working class over three decades, the renewal and rationalisation of capital on a massive scale during and after the war, and the stabilisation and expansion often dated by years of

TROTSKYI.

workers demonstrate in Trafalgar Square in the 1930s.

th management in 1945 in the Anglo-American Council tring to force more speed up on backs of workers.

US imperialism, that the post-war expansion of capitalism got underway.

world wars and after two But though years of depression and decay, capitalism was able finally to break through the barriers it had itself created and enter into a new equilibrium, the fundamental period of contradictions of capitalism in the imper- epoch could in no way be abolished ialist "boom" went on, these self-same As the barriers were inevitably re-created.

OVERPRODUCTION

The vast accumulation of capital during inevitably into over- boom turned the the overproduction of accumulation - goods, not insofar as they serve social needs, but insofar as they serve as capital.

capital (which The overproduction of Marx regarded as the essential phenomenon in all crises') is an expression of the fact that capital in its search for profit is driven to expand accumulation without limit but must do so on a base which is necessarily limited - exploitable living labour.

labour produces surplus As only living value, the amount of surplus value relative to the value of capital tends to decline and so the rate of profit tends to fall.

This tendency for the rate of profit to tall, re-emerging with renewed accumulation, is a fundamental historical contradiction of While capitalism capitalist production. the productive revolutionises constantly forces, driven on by the need to accumulate, in doing so the productive forces inevitably come into conflict with the limited social relations of capitalist production.

With every increase in labour productivity the amount of living labour embodied in commodity is minimised. Fewer and each fewer workers are required to set in motion dead labour an increasing quantity of (capital) in every sector. As only living labour power produces surplus value, the amount of surplus value relative to constant capital declines and the rate of profit tends to fall.

RATE OF PROFIT /

Competition between capitalists for the restricted mass of profit intensifies, with the ahility of whole sections of capital to yield an adequate rate of profit being called into question. The inevitable result is a tendency to the maintenance and develop- crisis, with ROTSK YISM TODAY, Wednesday 5th January 1977 threatened by the demand of capitalism for ever greater expansion of profit. The an itself becomes the existence of capital barrier to any further development of production. The decline in the rate of profit as the boom got underway did not at first lead to any restriction in production. The expansion of credit, together with the steady increase in state spending, for a whole period allowed a continued growth of production, but at the expense of a further undermining of the basis for capitalist production.

is a normal means of Credit itself financing capital outlay; the expansion of credit is viable in so far as it leads to an expansion of surplus value and of profitable the 1950s and 1960s, production. in however, with the rate of profit declining the expansion of credit, though it enabled production to continue at a higher level, meant also that sectors of industry with a low or non-existent rate of profit were maintained.

CREDIT

This extension of credit beyond the base of profitable production fuelled a steadily growing rate of inflation. This inflation is itself part of the attempt by capital to struggle against the effects of the falling rate of profit through cutting real wages.

As long as the working class was able to offset this inflation through wage increases then inflation was ineffective in restoring the rate of profit. In fact the mounting inflation itself has become one of the factors threatening the stability of capitalism. It wipes out profits in the very act of trying to preserve them and an uncontrollable spiral is threatened.

Alongside this increase in credit went a growth of state spending both on the nationalised industries and to finance ar expansion of government employment in social services, education, health and local and central government. on the nationalised The state spending industries, associated with massive speed-up and rationalisation, served largely to cheapen the costs of inputs essential to private indus- try. Though this expenditure was paid for via the state, out of the revenue of the capit- alist class, it served ultimately to transter surplus value through cheap inputs to sections of capitalists.

SOCIAL SERVICES

The expansion of other areas of state spending - the social services, etc - must be seen in a different way. Generally unpro- ductive from the standpoint of capitalism, the expansion of these services serves to exacerbate the falling rate of profit.

As the number of workers in manufac- turing industry fell, as productivity increased without a corresponding expansion in the overall market, successive capitalist govern- •ments were forced by the strength of the working class to maintain relatively full employment by an expansion of the state sector. A considerable part of this expenditure neither enters into the process of capital accumulation nor forms part of the value of labour power; it must be financed out of a deduction from surplus value and so exacer- bates the fall in the rate of profit.

of increasing proportion state The spending which has taken the form of hand- outs to sections of capital facing imminent collapse represents merely a redistribution of surplus value. In relieving the immediate problems of the least profitable sections of capital, this kind of expenditure worsens the problems of the rest. The consequent increase in state spending from 36.5% of GNP in 1957 to 51.4% in 1973 meant an increasing portion of total surplus value was being expended unproduc- tively by the state. Because of the resistance of the working class to wage cuts through tax increases and the already sharp decline in this additional expen- the rate of profit, diture was met by deficit financing, further expanding the money supply, fueling a further boost to inflation.

LOANS AND GRANTS

In the aftermath of the war capitalist industry in Europe and Japan was re-estab- with the aid of massive loans and lished grants from the USA under the Marshall Plan. The US imperialists' decision to restore their competitors' economies as an outlet for their exports, rather than maintain their domination of 'poor relations' perpet- ually threatened by their own working class, was to lead to an undermining of American dominance and of the stable monetary system. As world trade became re-established after the war, these countries, rebuilding on the basis of the most advanced techniques, began to challenge the market positions of first Britain and then the USA. Britain in particular, though it gained a head start in à number of markets (for instance, exporting production 1950 and 75% of its car cornering 52% of the world market) was challenged European industries by soon whose goods were produced more cheaply.

Gradually in the post-war period, the pattern of world trade shifted away from Britain and the USA towards Europe and Tony Qt a the TISA

TROTSK YISM TODAY, Wednesday Sth January I Mines - nationalised in 1945, but under state-appointe world exports declined from 35% in 1948 to only 25% in 1968 and continued to fall.

DECLINING

With sharpening competition on world markets as the imperialist nations fought to maintain their share of a declining mass of profits, this shifted pattern of trade came into conflict with the monetary system established post-war. The Bretton Woods agreement had established the dollar as an international means of payment, tied to gold at 35 dollars to the ounce, and with other currencies tied to a fixed dollar exchange rate. The link between the dollar and gold was not of immediate importance in this period as the overwhelming strength of the US economy meant that what foreign capitalists wanted with their dollars was not gold, but US commodities. However, as Germany and Japan began America's to contest position on the world market, and the USA's growth balance of payments rate slowed and its went into deficit, increasingly large dollar holders demanded they be converted into gold by the US treasury and the dollar's position was challenged. August 1971 to the This lead by complete suspension of convertibility by the government and the devaluation of the dollar. With the exchange rates of currencies severed from any connection with gold as an objective standard of value, the existence of any stable means of payment on the world market is increasingly endangered, threaten- ing a collapse of world trade itself.

This severance of the link between the dollar and gold was the result of the decline in the relative strength of the United States in relation to the other imperialist economies.

CONSEQUENCE

The immediate of the consequence suspension of dollar convertibility was to relax the external constraints on the monetary and credit policies of each domes- tic government. To aid the efforts of their own industries to expand production and exports, each national government moved to expand credit, assisting the development of the "mini-boom" 72-73, while at the January 1977 e-appointed managers. same time giving a massive boost to inflation. No policy, however, could monetary alter the fact of the steady decline in the rate of profit. With the collapse of the "mini-boom?" imperialist all the major countries were faced with a crisis of historic proportions, the grounds for which had been laid in the preceding two decades.

In each country, production slumped, bringing record unemployment and a string of bankruptcies in major industrial companies, commercial while inflation climbed to record levels. All the measures (expansion of credit, state spending, govern- ment subsidies) which had served to disguise the falling rate of profit and stave off the crisis were immediately identified by the bourgeoisie their opposite as the as - cause of the crisis itself. But the roots of the crisis do not lie in any particular measure taken by the bourgeoisie; what the crisis signifies is the complete historical impasse reached by capitalist production.

Having developed the productive forces and the productivity of labour beyond the limits of the existing capitalist social relations, capitalism turns now to devour and destroy the wealth it has created.

While capitalist society produces too little relative to human needs, it produces too much relative to the surplus value available for the further accumulation of capital.

This social crisis can only be resolved in the interest of the whole of mankind by the working class under revolutionary leadership establishing the dictatorship of the prolet- ariat and replacing the stagnation, chaos and destruction of capitalism's death agony by conscious planning of production.

course theoretically conceivable It is of that as in the 1920s decades of reaction accompanied by the massive destruction of forces, together with productive a major the rival redivision of the world between imperialists and the suppression and degra- dation of the working class through unem ployment and fascism could restore capital- ism once again to new equilibrium. But for this to occur capitalism must confront a working class movement stronger than ever before. Obsolete machines - capitalism continuo British shipbuilding industry : with aircraft, the lates rationalisation. This strength too is a consequence of the years of "boom" • Right throughout the 50s and 60s capitalism in period of the general avoided any head-on confrontation with the working class. Unemployment was kept to a relatively low level and standards of living gradually rose (though by less than the growth in productive capacity). It is this strength of revealing itself in the the working class, forward movement of the working class internationally, which capitalism must now crush. At the same time, of course, the years of relative prosperity allowed a right wing bureaucracy to entrench itself at the head of the trade unions and mass workers parties in many countries and fostered all sorts of illusions in unprincipled compromise and simply trade union methods. It is to this • bureaucracy that imperialism now turns to defend itself. In Britain, it is through the Labour government that the ruling class moves to mount a massive attack on the strength of the class. Through the 'social working contract and two years of wage restraint, real wages are introduced, massive cuts in while the pretence of price control is rapidly abandoned. Alongside this goes the attempt to drastically cut all the social services estab- lished in the of "boom" , attacking years the jobs of workers in the public sector and the millions of workers who benefit from these services. At the same time in the state- nationalised industries and those run financed by government handouts, speed-up and rationalisation are imposed to increase the level of exploitation and cut the bill of government finance. this is a programme of Going alongside closures and rationalisations systematically planned by the industrialists and aided by government loans and subsidies. Every one of these depends for its implemen- moves tation on the willing help and assistance of the reformist and Stalinist leaderships in the unions. Even so, vicious and drastic as they are, the cuts, redundancies and speed-up imposed by. the Labour government remain trifling a continuously seeks to replace labour by machinery.

Page 3 , the latest candidate for government-backed compared to the destruction of capital and the increase in exploitation necessary to even preserve British capitalism..

The Labour leaders, "left" and right, who bind the working class to their reactionary schemes to restore British capitalism economic whether by expansion and reactionary import controls or by restraint and retrenchment, not only destroy jobs and living standards today, but pave the way for more vicious attacks tomorrow.

The economic recovery looked to by both capitalists and labour leaders alike, will not bring with it any abatement of the crisis either in Britain or internationally.

The combination of anti-working class measures through which capital attempts to resolve its crisis makes clear that the resis- tance of the working class can only be successful if it is based on the Transitional Programme of the Fourth International.

The demands of the Programme corres- pond individually to each of the measures which is taken by capital. The demands in their totality represent the only basis for a independent completely working class response to the crisis - one which will lead to a socialist resolution of the capitalist crisis. 1 E .COl

*COHSE

NO CUTS

• DON T

SAVE THE

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news

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newsflash

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OH Health workers march against the cuts.

The slight economic upturn developing over the last six months has scarcely reduced the level of unemployment in any of the imperialist countries and leaves major production still well below the level achieved at the height of the 1973 "mini-boom" while already inflation rates are beginning to creep upwards. Whether the major economic powers opt to encourage another short-lived boom through monetary expansion or to try to curb inflation by restrictive policies (and it seems the latter is the case) the international crisis will be in no way resolved.

ANTAGONISM

Both inflationary expansion and continued recession will serve to intensify the antagonisms between the imperialist challenge each other for powers as they shares of the world market.

For British capitalism, either will bring a further sharpening of the crisis, whether by the continued strangulation of its economy in recession or a short lived boom sending inflation upwards once more, followed by a series of bankruptcies as it collapses.

Already the last six months have seen the value of the pound tumble by more than 10% on international markets with no appreciable increase in its exports. Constrained by its massive indebtedness to banks, British capitalism international already faced with a small, but significant increase in money supply, will be unable to resort to any large degree to an expansion of credit to boost output, but will be forced to attempt all the more sharply to push through their attack on the working class.

In these conditions the crisis of leader-

Page 4 ship in the working class can only deepen as the bureaucracy is pushed more and more openly to act as the policeman for the capitalists and to come into conflict with the resistance of the working class to these attacks. These underline the impor- conditions tance of the building of the Workers Socialist League and the taking of its programme and principles into every struggle of the working class, as part of the inter- national task of reconstructing the Fourth International. As the pound plummets in the international markets, the power of the working class, although muted in this period by the betrayals of its has opened with the leadership, seamen's settlement a jagged crack in the wage-cutting social contract.

This throws into question how long this reactionary deal, drawn up with the Labour government by Jack Jones and the TUC bureaucrats, can last in the face of growing working class resistence.

Indeed the working class have succeeded in cracking the social contract despite the fact that the vote for strike action by the seamen drew out into the open as never before the logic of the reactionary policies of the reformist leaders of the TUC.

As the strike deadline approached, the confrontation came not with the shipowners as in the past, nor even with the Labour government as in 1966, but with Jones, Scanlon and the General Council of the TUC in the employers' chair. Massive pressure was applied to the NUS Jones was quoted negotiators. as asking General Secretary Slater if he was prepared to destroy his union, the economy and the Labour government. "destroying' the seamen's The talks of union could only have been an open threat by Jones that if they took action, he would use the power of the T&GWU to attempt to smash the NUS as a union.

EXPULSION

Central to this was the threat to expel the NUS from the TUC. This step would then have been used as a pretext for arguing that the seamen were "no longer in the labour movement". And this would have been followed up by issuing instructions to dockers and transport drivers to work "blacked' ships. • Slater, who has been a consistent supporter of the capitalist arguments used to back up the social contract was in no position to resist this pressure.

Had he opposed the social contract from the start, and adopted a clear position of standards of his defending the living members through demanding a sliding scale of wages to keep pace with inflation he would not only have been able to defeat the TUC leaders but also in a position to smash the entire wage-cutting strategy of the Labour government. In the result, Slater's betrayal in using his casting vote to call off the strike was that his action prevented the seamen from smashing the social contract there and then on behalf of the whole working class.

about the Battered arguments economy and the pound and the need to *save the Labour government' at any price, Slater was in no position to see that the strike-breaking policies of the TUC would have stood little chance of success. Already key sections of workers were declaring support for the seamen.

STRENGTH

These solidarity moves by workers reflec- ted the strength of the working class. That same strength found its expression on the seamen's leadership in the seven votes which held out consistently for strike action and against the eventual compromise.

Indeed the problem for Jones and Murray acting on behalf of the shipowners was that they were not in reality fighting Slater - who had already accepted the social contract and voted for the 42% deal - but the working class behind him, who have not accepted the 42%, and were pressurising Slater into action. The 42% as we have consistently argued was not accepted by the working class, but on their behalf by the TUC bureaucrats, who manoeuvred bogus "majority' support for it by denying workers either a voice or a spark of principled leadership.

DIŚNGS TON

VUIL

Indeed such is the hostility to the 42% deal that even extreme Teacer Duffy, Midlands

AUEW

Executive Com- mittee delegate, was forced to admit alter the seamen's deal that: "You have no idea of the hostility I have already encountered from men reluctant to swallow pay restraint for another year."

It was a hostility that forced Duffy to further point out that: fringe *If the seamen are awarded members will want each and benetits. every one as well." And in the wake of the seamen's settle- excess of five million workers are ment m now lined up to pursue fringe benefit claims Given leadership, there is no doubt that this body of workers would take up the fight for wages rather than fringe benefits.

New Building at Leyland's Longbridge works: CP leadership there has already conceded Company dictated manning levels - before the new Mini lines are even built !

But even while the seamen forced this crack in the social contract, enormous lessons for the working class are posed by the treachery of their leadership in this fight.

That the TUC leaders, backed by their army of full-time officials and their Stalinist hangers-on have now openly emerged as the chief strike-breakers for the employers in front of the working class is a development of fundamental significance.

And it links up with their policy in every industry. 1 new surike breaking nas oCen blatantly extended into British most Leyland, where official T&GWU and AUEW policy is now to maintain full production at all costs, outlawing even strikes which they of the 'viability of Leyland.

To defend even the most basic trade union rights in Leyland now means to confront not simply the employer, but local union officials, national officials, the TUC, and of course the Labour government itself.

But the problem the bureaucracy now face in implementing these policies is the open way in which the class struggle is now reasserting itself, with resistence to wage control now linking up with a willingness to fight spending cuts, sackings and speed up which daily piles more pressure on to the bureaucracy. And this resistence is strengthened also by the fact that every militant worker can now see that despite all the cringing wage- cutting policies carried out by the TUC over the last period, inflation has continued to exploding the myth that wage escalate increases cause inflation.

TROTSK YI

Part of the h While living standards continue to fall, and while the TUC leaders pontificate - about the 'evils' of unemployment caused by government spending cuts, the cuts in both social services and local government are well way in They are being under every area. forced through with the full collaboration of trade union officials, in spite of the massive hostility to such policies within the working class itself. Indeed, the only consistent voice raised in calling for a policy of all-out strike action and occupations to halt the cuts and closures has come from the Workers Socialist League.

This policy now emerges as the only possible way of preventing the continual erosion of jobs, conditions and services. And it has found amongst workers in a response struggle, as at the Elizabeth Garrett Ander- ks: CP leadership there has already concedea the new Mini lines are even built!

son hospital. It is clear that as the full impact of the successive rounds of cuts, combined with inflation still at 15% begins to be felt throughout the public sector, this policy will really come into its own - providing a living means of advancing the struggle and challenging the bureaucracy.

Within the workers' movement today, therefore, we see the most glaring contra- diction, as the bureaucratic betrayals come into increasingly sharp conflict with the unbroken strength of the working class.

This is of enormous importance when we remember that the whole anti-working class reformist strategy of the Labour government - and with it the government itself as it is today - rests on the continued ability of the TUC leaders to restrain the working class.

INTRICATE

If the TUC leaders' grip is weakened, it could spell disaster for the whole intricate arrangement whereby a peaceful coexis- tence' is maintained between "left' talkers and the right wing throughout the organised labour movement, opening the door to major political development for new layers of workers thrown forward into struggle.

This danger is intensified for the Labour and TUC bureaucrats because today's crisis of British capitalism, far deeper than the 1930's has dealt a savage blow at reformism.

basis of sweeping the objective away conceding reforms, and, through increasing indebtedness world's bankers, the compelling the abolition of many reforms conceded in the past. ROTSK YISM TODAY. Wednesday Sth January 1977

HAL

MACT

SIPE SATS

S rt of the huge November 17th march against the Cuts.

Gone for good is the period of the fifties and early sixties, in which capitalist stability seemed assured, enabling the bourgeoisie to make concessions, while the trade union leaders and Labour leaders strengthened their following by championing and winning improved wages, conditions and social services. Rather we are now in a period as described in the Transitional Programme, when: 6C ... in general, there can be no discus- sion of systematic social reforms and the raising of the masses' living standards; when every serious demand of the proletariat and even every serious demand of the petty- bourgeoisie inevitably reaches beyond the limits of capitalist property relations and of " (p.8) the bourgeois state. The leadership which emerged in the "boom' period of the 50s and 60s was able to achieve concessions in response to the developing strength of the working class, own collaboration despite its with capitalism.

SAME LEADERS

But now we see it is these same trade union and Labour leaders (following essen- tially the same political lines as before, though now in a period of sharp crisis and slump) which defends capitalism today in the name of vague and illusory "reforms" promised for "tomorrow". As successive rounds. of government spending cuts have shown, the twin policies of mass unemployment and wage-cutting are not alternatives now for capitalism, but are to be employed side-by-side in rationalising capitalist industry, attacking and weakening the working class, and driving up the rate of exploitation. The plans to rationalise British Steel and British Leyland (under the Ryder plan) both show clearly the direction of the govern- ment's reformist policy of preserving and re- equipping capitalism. Massive sums of state finance are being made available to sustain an investment programme in these two industries. The money is coming, in good part, from the huge cuts in social service spending in successive Healey budget packages. This step itself of course creates further unemploy- ment and eats away at the living standards of the working class as a whole.

And yet the money when invested in Leyland or BSC will take the form not of additional labour, but of new plant and which will again slash the equipment, lumber of avalable iobs and force up the exploitation of the workforce.

This pincers strategy - attacking jobs on two simultaneous fronts - is at the very crux of last year's "Chequers Plan" drawn up jointly by Labour government, CBI and

TUC.

And central to the whole survival of this plan is of course a continuing full-scale collaboration between the Labour leaders and the TUC bureaucrats in forcing speed-up on to the backs of the working class.

Only this can enable the Callaghan government to get away for the time being with policies which it would be impossible for a Tory government to carry through peacefully. Continued in Next Edition