Trotskyism Today no. 11

TROTSKYISM

THE FIGHT FOR

REVOLUTIONARY

In this edition of Trotskyism Today we continue publication of the Perspectives Document for Britain adopted at In this edition of Trotskyism Today w the First Annual Conference of the Work from Part One "The Economic Crisis" and The Heath administration, elected in 1970 as the result of a mass absten- tion by workers disillusioned by six of Wilson's betrayals, years was unable directly to confront the work- ing class. The series of struggles against the Indus- • trial Relations Act and the three stages of State Pay Laws (every one of these fights taking place in spite of and not because of the political line of the TUC leaders, who were forced into protest action by the move- ment of the working class) brought a near General Strike to force the release of the Pentonville Five pickets, a defeat for Heath by the miners in 1972, and the final removal of his government in 1974 when he found himself without the support needed to press home a confrontation with the miners.

MANOEUVRES

The fall of Heath took place despite the frantic backstage manoeuvres and retreats by the TUC (and in particular the NUM) leaders. And when Heath finally sought a mandate to smash the miners in a witch- hunting election and failed to win it, only then was the minority Wilson government (led from the start by people who had done nothing to fight the Tories over the previous four years) thrust into office.

The election of a Labour government in this way reflected therefore both the class strength of the working class and its political weakness and reformist illusions.

Heath was driven out on the one hand, but on the other hand the Labour Party, built and supported by the mass of the but totally commited to a working class bourgeois leadership, turned at once to attack its own working class base in order to capitalism defend by whatever means IN Today we continue publication of the Perspectives the Workers Socialist League, held last December.

sis" and completes Part Two "The Labour Governme necessary. Relying from the start on the backing of the trade union bureaucracy which has characterised the present Labour govern- ment's every betrayal, Wilson proceeded to attack every principle of socialism and trade unionism.

DEFENDED

The Labour government defended the Tory Pay Laws; only reluctantly repealed the Industrial Relations Act after facing the prospect of a national AUEW strike; they left the Shrewsbury Two pickets (jailed by the Tories) to rot in prison; they defied repeated Labour and TUC decisions in order to join with Tories and Liberals in cam- paigning for the Common Market; they sent in troops to break a dustcart drivers' strike in Glasgow, stepped up the repression in Northern Ireland, passed the vicious SO- called "Prevention of Terrorism Act" giving massively extended police powers for use against militants, and authorised a police raid on the school of the Workers Revol- utionary Party. And now, alongside their retention of the reactionary anti-immigration legislation, the Callaghan government, by creating the social conditions of mass unemployment, falling living standards, inadequate housing and slashed social services, is opening wide the door to racialism and fascism.

WOMEN

In particular the cuts in social services push women further back into the isolation of the home and thus increasingly they become prey to reactionary propaganda.

"left' This is further worsened by the policy of import controls which seeks to persuade British workers to ally with their

IN SOUTHALL

OUTH HARMON

pectives Document for Britain adopted at ember. This, the Second Part, follows on overnment" 'own' employer against "foreign" compet- than to fight for socialist itors rather policies. the TUC's efforts to In this climate block any class action on jobs or wages stoke up frustration and confusion in the working class and open up the ranks of the proletariat to the poisonous propaganda of the racialists. There must be no artificial separation of "left' the roles of the and the right-wing within the Labour government. Both in their act in defence of capitalism, own way appealing to different bases of support.

While in 1974 the right wing within the Wilson cabinet got straight down to the preparation of long term attacks and deals with the employers, the 'lefts' were at once given prominent positions to carry through a new level of class-collaboration.

Foot in the Employment Ministry led the preparation of the "social contract" the £6 pay laws and the moves towards the 42% deal, while Benn's task in the Industry Department was to lay the groundwork for the Industry Bill and its National Enterprise Board, bristling with a battery of props and subsidies for private industry.

The operation of this wing of Labour strategy is typified by the plan for British Leyland drawn up by NEB chief Ryder.

Whole layers of the trade union bureaucracy, down to convenor and leading steward level, have been sucked into management through the Ryder "participation" scheme. They it their job now see to assist the emplovers impose huge speed-up and ration- alisation. "nationalisation" The of supposed Lyeland emerges as an elaborate disguise for running a ioint-stock company with a 95% government holding - in the interests of the wholly private car components industry.

No 11. 19th January, 1977 Price 5p Mass turn-out at Southall anti-racist demonstration Similarly in Chrysler, £160 million is handed over to the private employers with no steps taken towards nationalisation, while 8,000 sackings are forced through.

Else- where the role of the NEB can be seen as a provider of emergency cash transfusions for bankrupt private employers, or sometimes a stop gap donator of small sums for face- saving but doomed co-operatives.

The NEB of course, has always been the centrepiece of reformist strategy of the "lefts'. Its real task - attacking the working class and diverting away from the fight to force nationalisation of bankrupt industries - exposes the sometimes veiled support by the lefts' for the continuation of capitalism.

Their whole focus. is not on socialist for policies but on utopian demands reflation' of the capitalist economy, combined with import controls.

ARROGANT

The only difference between the 'lefts' and the right wing on such questions is that while the right wing openly and arrogantly advance pro-capitalist arguments and speak the line of management, the "lefts" feel forced from time to time to preach a sermon on socialist policies, and always attempt to dress up the wolf of capitalist policies in the clothing of left wing sheep.

But every one of the "lefts' gestures in this direction, starting from their complete dedication to parliamentary methods and legislated 'socialism' serves purely to divert the struggles of the working class into impotent attempts to "transform" capital- ism without mobilising their class strength against the capitalist state.

As soon as a determined struggle against the bourgeoisie is on the cards, the "lefts' compromising with the right melt away, wing to avoid a conflict.

For the lefts', under constant pressure from the working class, political action is restricted to manoeuvres in Parliament and demonstrative speeches, which have the effect of turning the political struggle of workers into the dead end of reformism.

For every revolutionary demand they seek a toothless parliamentary substitute Expropriation of the capitalists and the development of workers' management is turned into state shareholdings and "plan

Page 2 ning agreements" Workers' control is interpreted to mean workers' "participation" - which of course amalgamates stewards into management just as the lefts' themselves have been sucked into the state apparatus. Defence of the social services is turned into an occasion for pontification and mock in opposition Parliament. Nevertheless the 'lefts' claim they have a programme which they believe can solve the capitalist crisis. It must be our task to demonstrate to workers who might support this so-called alternative that not only are their demands mainly reactionary (import controls) but they seek only to solve the crisis within the confines of capitalism.

Benn Indeed the collapse of the 37 MPs, who for one rare moment went so far as to abstain on a vote for Healey's proposed cuts (not daring to vote against), but who next day obediently trooped into the lobby to endorse the government's economic policies showed clearly the subservience of the "left' to the right wing. This was then confirmed by the failure of any of those 37 to stand in opposition to the platform of right wingers and former "lefts' in the Labour leadership elections.

They allowed Benn and Foot - who have grovelled before Wilson - to carry the "left' vote. refusing to give a lead to the workers movement at that point, and by allowing the whole leadership election to be confined to the cloistered ranks of the Parliamentary Labour Party by Wilson rather fight for Conference to decide, the than "lefts' carried out a major betrayal.

Since the day of the famous 37 abstentions which actually brought a temporary defeat for the government, every Labour right winger and union bureaucrat has beaten the drum for the need to "unite" against the danger of Parliamentary defeat; General Election and a possible Tory govern- ment.

FORCED ELECTION

But if Callaghan were forced to an election by the 'lefts' taking up a fight against the cuts and a clear-cut vote against then even the election of a Tory them, government would not necessarily change conditions in favour of political the capitalism. The whole explosive issue of working class leadership would be opened up, and those "lefts' who had stood out in opposition to attacks on the working class would be called upon by advanced layers of workers to proceed with the fight to replace the existing Labour leadership.

Programme and policy would be newly debated throughout the Labour and trade union movement with, for the first time, the emergence of what workers would see as an "alternative" At the same time a stand by any section of the reformist leadership against cuts and sackings would strengthen every section of workers in struggle to defend jobs and wages. And such a forward movement running through the working class would remain, even if a Tory government were elected - creating the smouldering possibility of, at any point, the outbreak of an all-out fight against the employers' attacks and the government leading them. It is a deception, therefore, to say - as chorus Callaghan, Jones, Scanlon and some the preservation of the centrists - that Labour government at any price is a principle.

WRONG DEMAND

But it is clearly wrong also to demand abstractly, as do the Workers Revolutionary 'Bring down the Party, for workers to Labour Government!' The issue for us is to focus attention on the refusal of the lefts' to give a lead in fighting the right wing Labour and trade union leaders - on their grovelling and spinelessness in the face of every right wing policy. most advanced We must direct the layers of workers towards exposing the "lefts' in practice by demanding they break from their present policies - and by demon- strating their inability to do so. This is the importance of our slogan 'Make the 'Lefts' Fight!' Our direction in short must be towards the issue of leadership and not towards The lefts' have a duty votes in Parliament. to the Labour movement they cannot fulfil, and we must expose this. Their capitulations in Parliament are therefore to be taken up in this context and not as 'Parliamentary" questions. Our demand that the lefts' fight to remove the Callaghan-Healey leadership, and themselves take responsibility for forming a leadership answerable to the working class must therefore be understood as part of the bridge we must build between the conscious- ness of the masses (who still retain illusions "lefts') and in the grasping the necessity to fight for state power and the socialist revolution. It is in this way that we develop the culminating demand of Transitional

TAP

for a government' Programme workers - that the parties and leaders of the working class break from the bourgeoisie and develop government responsible to the working class. Focusing the demand on the 'lefts' who have the allegiance of important sections of workers, LO remove me night wing Leader- ship can lead to their exposure in practice, and demonstrate both the treachery of the "lefts' and the impossibility of the working class ruling through the institutions of the Dourocols State At the same time our call on the "lefts' to fight the right wing is facilitated by our giving firm but critical support at each stage to any correct stand, call to action or state- ment that might be made by them.

In this way we will speak directly to those layers of workers who retain confid- - but in a way that will ence in these leaders strengthen our dand in altacking every sub- betrayal "lefts' sequent and retreat the carry out. Part Three The Unions The sharp rightward turn of the union bureaucracy over the past period has been the necessary result of reformist leaders accomodating to the unprecedented crisis of capitalism. Accepting at every point the logic and the very arguments of the employers - 091 'viability' and profits are crucial for jobs and that the pound can and must be wages; "saved" by wage cuts; that public spending NOPE Sang

NEPL SATS:

FIGHT LI

FIGHT

FIGHT

THE CUTS

/1

THE CUTS

35

RUPE SAYS:

SAVE

FIGI

JOBS

THE I

SP

TROTSKYI

The platform of the First Conference of the Campaign for be slashed to direct "investment" to must industry. - (private) the manufacturing union officials and their hangers-on within the stewards' committees and regional and district bodies now stand in the front line action to prevent struggles by workers of in defence of jobs and living standards.

NATIONAL AND LOCAL

If the most open national face of these the form of the bureaucratic took moves imposition by TUC leaders of the 42% pay policy - using a series of manoeuvres out- in the resolution to the lined in detail Wage Control and Democracy Conference - at local level the most spectacular straight- jacketing of the shop floor strength of the unions has been in the Longbridge events, "participation' machinery mobil- with the ised to the full to enforce acceptance of dictatorship management manning over levels on the new mini - on plant that has not yet even been built! These reactionary moves at Longbridge have rested throughout on the complete collaboration of the Stalinists with the Ryder Participation set-up, and the slavish Stalinist convenor Robinson advocacy 1 by of management positions. elsewhere But right wing the are increasingly unable to win the support of the collaborationist working class to their policies, and this results in a sharper lurch towards tightening the stranglehold of the local and national full-time officials over the stewards movement and the rank and file.

DEAL WITH CP

The union which has most rapidly and openly adopted this course has been the T&GWU, where the right wing has for a long period had a deal which has neutralised the Stalinists completely, and where, in any event, no officials are subject to re-election once appointed, or in any way answerable to the membership. To further strengthen the hand of the have officials the

T&GWU,

elections in where necessary been blatantly manipulated that hand-picked right wingers to ensure were elected. At the same time the attacks on the stewards movement have come both through "participation' imposition of and the attempts to force in corporate bargaining on the Ford's model, and where necessary, by the blatant assertion of bureaucratic control Hall With the by Regional Office - as in with the withdrawal of credentials of stewards and their replacement by appointed officials in negotiations.

HUPE BATO:

MUPE SAIS

BETE

MTS

JE

THE I

NUPE SAYS

Al

JOB

OL NUPE contir TROTSKYISM TODAY, Wednesday 19th January, 197 In the AUEW the strategy to impose such a line had to be different, since there was initially a left wing majority, and a system of elected officials still operates There the move to the right had to be carefully prepared through the orchestrated introduce the postal ballot campaign to system, combined with the witch-hunting of movirate andidates. left-wing and the advertising of slates of extreme right wingers through the media. This tactic of using the press to reach ill-informed and less active layers of the working class, attempting to whip them into voting for right wing candidates is now being by the applied and more widely more employers and the right wing.

Councils as we have In the Trades of repeatedly pointed out, the assertion bureaucratic control revolves around the introduction and application of the new "gag" Model Rule 15 which - carries threats of disaffiliation for Trades Councils which (for example support campaigns against the cuts) which run counter to TUC policy. The collaboration of the Stalinists with essential to the right wing has again been forcing this rule into the Trades Councils.

A clear example of how far they are prepared to go has been the disaffiliation reconstitution' of the Oxford Trades Council - steps masterminded and covered oust the by the Stalinists in order to within the Trades principled majority clearly Council leadership were prepared to lead struggles in defence of the social services while the Stalinists were up to their ears in collaboration with manage- ment. While the WS might have been slow to recognise the importance of the fight for trade union democracy, we have very that position and changed launched major initiatives around the issue locally and nationally and through the pages of our press. We have exposed ballot abuses, the bureaucratic dictatorship of union officials.

and attacks on the stewards movement.

clearly seen in practice that We have the fight for democratic rights without within the unions our fight for programme can only be blocked by the bureaucracy at each successive stage. But perhaps more important, our throw- ing attention in the unions onto the bureau- cratic abuses and corruption within the unions is a powerful political lever, which, a: we have shown in our work in Cowley in

FIGHT

'HT

THE

STOR

CHITS

'UPE SATS

TA Cla

HUPE SAYS

FIGHT 21

4)

NUPE SAYS:

FIGHT

THE CUTS Y

SAVE

THE CUTS

JOBS

UTS

SAVE NE

JOBS

NUPE contingent on the November 1 7th demonstration.

Communist International and also the practical struggles of the American Trotskyists, who led militant struggles for unionisation in the mid-1930s.

TROTSKYISM TODAY, Wednesday 19th January, 197 particular, can mobilise mass support.

is our a movement Our strength as ability to combine this fight for democracy within the unions with a fight for pro- gramme which itself also poses the need for new leadership, and marks out a clear alter- ahead towards the struggle for native road workers' control and socialist revolution.

We have also fully supported the initia- tive of the Campaign for Democracy in the Labour Movement, whose initiative on Wage Control and Union Democracy has opened up a discussion among broader layers of workers, linking programme to defend living standards with a political analysis of the role of the bureaucracy.

INITIATIVE

This initiative must be followed through in the coming period as part of our overall struggle against wage control and on the central political questions of working class leadership, in which the strength of our principled fight in the working class will be decisive. It in thir strength, the bied ing the the working class unbroken strength (which continues to break out in isolated but extremely militant struggles, as with the wave of Leyland strikes, the seamen's ballot continuing the Ford's riot ealth and social result, struggles throughout the makes it possible to look services) which bureaucracy in towards defeats for the gains certain areas, and important political from our trade union work At the forefront of our fight in many industries will be our principled opposition participation" as to all forms of "workers' enshrined in the Ryder report and now (in by all shades of various forms) supported reformists, the Communist Party and the Tory Party. Scanion In opposition to participation' in speed- we must fight for workers' control of up manning levels, for the opening of company books to elected trade union committees to reveal to the trade union movement the workings of the industry, and, where work schedules are cut, we must lead the fight for work sharing on full pay.

In these struggles we have already as a movement established an outstanding record of principled struggle to draw upon; important experience in building opposition to participation'. Another common move by employers to defuse struggle over jobs is the device of "voluntary redundancy" sheds - which labour while avoiding any crunch confron- tation through compulsory sackings. Such manoeuvres (though hard to fight effective- ly) must be firmly opposed, pointing to the and unemployment they create speed-up and pointing the finger at the refusal of the union leaders to defend jobs and conditions.

COMPREHENSIVE

We cannot predict in what order or on precisely what initial issues struggles in the unions will emerge most powerfully in the next period. So comprehensive is the attack of the Labour government and the employ- ers, and so craven the betrayal of the union to wage cuts, bureaucracy, any resistence sackings or social service cuts immediately takes on a major importance.

Any sector could be the first to break into spontaneous action in defiance of their But we must certainly official leaders. expect eruptions of sharp struggle in the next period, in which rich political lessons of can be learned by advanced layers workers and gains made by the Workers Socialist League. But here the break from propagandism is most decisive for our movement. Some to grasp comrades who have been unable some of the lessons of our struggle initially within the WRP or our subsequent struggle to break from WRP methods within the WSL may for a period feel themselves isolated from the mass movement. There must be the most detailed and thorough attention to the struggle within the unions in each area, to the defence on every (even partial) issue of trade union and political principle, and to the development in this fight of a periphery of active trade unionists in dialogue with our comrades with a view to recruitment. Fresh forces must be brought into these struggles to add their strength to the fight against bureaucracy. And we must maintain consistent intervention. into the daily struggles of the working class in each locality in order to root the WL deeper into its leading ranks. uary, 1977 "The demands of the Transitional Programme but cannot be achieved under capitalism."

Communist International and also the practical stru (Above) Minneapolis Teamsters battle with scabs an When Trotsky declared that "The signif- icance of the programme is the significance of the party" , he thereby expressed the fact that the revolutionary programme cannot be reduced to any simple formula.

What he also meant is that those who abandon the programme of the party, either explicitly or by turning it into an icon reserved for occasional adulation, abandon at the same time the essential step in the revolutionary party's struggle for the over- throw of capitalism. strength of the WSL is The political accurately expressed by the fact that, as the opposition within the

WRP,

it took its stand on the ground of the defence of the Transitional Programme, seeking to grasp strategy, which are its method and its expressed in certain key tactics.

The WRP opposition was thus forced to pit itself against the revision of Marxism by which the WRP leadership abandon the programme in the name maximum formulations, sectarian when advanced in the present pre-revolutionary situation.

opposition rightly insisted that The for the leadership of the the tasks set working class by the programme meant a struggle to actually forge the instruments of workers' control and the germs of workers' power within the day-to-day struggles state ogramme... crystallise in a popular, fighting form, what is nec As the basis for these demands, Trotsky took both the ex ctical struggles of the American Trotskyists, who led militant st th scabs and police in their fight for union recognition.

of the working class. This is the importance the Transitional of fight to make the Programme the programme of struggle for the mass movement of the trade unions.

Thus the struggle with the WRP centred not simply on demands and slogans but on which is decisive if the small method, relate to the forces of Trotskyism are to movement of the working class and mass mobilise that class in the successfully struggle for state power.

For seeking a bridge between our clearly understood aim of socialism and the spon- developed by the taneous consciousness working class in daily trade union struggles slandered as "reformists" by the we were Healy WRP leadership. Today's crisis means that the operation of the law of value throws the whole of society into the most savage and anarchic convulsions as the forces of production collide with the social relations within which they have come into being.

UNCONTROLLED

The entire social order - not merely the visible productive process - is thrown into crisis, a crisis which the bourgeoisie itself is unable to control. With this crisis comes the prospect not of sharpening and only class struggle attempts by the ruling class to shift massive- ly the distribution of wealth in their favour, but at the same time the threat of destruc- tion of the accumulated productive forces themselves - such is the nature of the death agony of capitalism. facing modern With this prospect society, the working class is the only class Hull docks Page 3 what is necessary if workers are to defend themselves oth the experiences of the Bolsheviks and the early militant struggles for unionisation in the mid-1930s.

capable of revolutionary leadership. This i both because capitalism can only survive b throwing the full burden of the crisis ont and because only th the working class, working class, the living instrument of th process of production, can replace the chao and misery of capitalist crisis by continuou ly controlled and planned production of us values. Transition The demands of the Programme are thus transitional not merel because they crystallise in a popular, fightir form what is necessary if workers are t defend themselves but cannot be achieve under capitalism. also transitional in the sens They are that they point to the practical politic course along which the working class ca educate itse test its strength in action, seler politically and organisationally, and the leadership it needs for its historic tas of governing society. The Second and Third Congresses the Communist International laid stre on the struggle for organs of worker control, propaganda and agitation aimed pretence that imperialis puncturing all could guarantee economic stability: Fo the same reason, the Transitional Programm insists that only through the struggle ic workers' control, and the establishment workers' management in the state and th economy can the forces of production an as a whole be preserved an culture developed.

CONCRETE FORMS

The present social crisis presents itself an attack on the political rights and livi standards of the working class in a numb of concrete forms. State control of wages in combined wit wage cuts, the reduction of state spendi goes hand in hand with unemploymen and inflation affects everything.

The fight against unemployment tak as its starting point the demand for wo sharing on full pay, in other words the tot amount of work available to be divid amongst the total work force with no loss earnings. The jobs of part-time worke must, in a similar way, be defended.

This demand brings the working cla immediately into conflict with the measur that capital must take in order to restore t rate of profit: the rationalisation of produ tive forces, to enable them to functio again as capital. The work-sharing-on-fu pay demand, fought for by factory occup tions, thus encapsulates the contradicti between the capitalist relations of produ tion and the further development of t productive forces. Of course this demand is inseparab from the struggle for the subordination the entire economy to planned productic

Page 4 for use. The revolutionary organisation fights to demonstrate this practically to the working class through the call for opening the books to elected trade union committees and an end to business secrets.

In those struggles where we have been able to place the demand for the opening of the books in front of the mass movement of the working class, we have been able to show how this demand represents a perspec- tive of offensive struggle against the employ- powerfully raising the elements of ers, workers' control When directed outwards from an individual struggle towards subsidiaries, suppliers and the banks, the open the books demand becomes an important vehicle for both mobilising struggle and raising the consciousness of the working class, while directing towards control on an ever wider basis. The struggle for this demand involves the construction by the working class of organs of dual power - workers' commit- tees - at the factory and at industry level.

At the same time the demand must be directed towards the nationalisation of the industry without compensation for the major shareholders. Opening the books both establishes the case for nationalisation and mobilises workers for that fight.

MANAGEMENT

At the same time the next stage of the struggle is also contained in the demand.

Workers must demand not capitalist nation- alisation, but nationalisation under workers' management. And the basis for workers' must be the committees of management workers' control set up to examine the books, the inner workings of the company or industry. In this way the one key demand prepares the ground both for nationalisation and for workers' management.

The fight against unemployment must not remain at the level of preserving existing jobs, but must also take up the question of resuming the employment of those workers who have already been deprived of their livelihoods. All the time we must emphasise in our tragic absurdity of idle propaganda the with idle productive forces coexisting a situation of falling living hands in standards. We must show how capitalist profit is the sole barrier to workers setting the productive forces in motion once again for the benefit of themselves and society as a whole. Against unemployment, therefore, and on the basis of the nationalisation of key industries obstructed by capital, we demand works, of public whose a programme content should be decided by the working class itself.

YOUTH

We should fight actively as we have already begun in some areas to involve the umemployed and youth in these plans to be worked out by trade union committees.

And at the same time we must insist that all this way are paid at full obs created in irade union rates, and the workers fully organised in unions. The defence of the social services,. ogether with the general demand for a Programme of public works (like the struggle or workers' control in the private sector) moves out into other parts of the economy.

To defend the health service against flation the opening of the books and the sation of the cunnly industries must be called for. A programme of public works the question of also raises component supply. Such a programme conflicts directly with the capitalists demand for cuts in public spending, since social services and to the extent that the public works, resources for them are going to be purchased from the capitalist sector, require massive increases in spending. Reformists argue that such a programme is 'impractical', that it will push up the rate of inflation, etc. Our programme however does not start from the problems of capital- ism but from the requirements of the working class. Our answer is twofold: firstly, the must defend itself working class against inflation through the fight for a sliding scale of wages. And secondly, if keeping open un- profitable sections of capitalist industry through state credit can only be done by massively increasing the rate of inflation, we say that these private industries then be taken over by the working class must through nationalisation under workers' management.

INFLATION

The defence of the working class against inflation cannot be done by the state but only by the fight for the sliding scale of wages in accordance with a cost-of-living index established by the workers through committees of trade unionists, housewives and claimants. Only this demand can be counterposed to the imposition of state wage control and massive spending cuts on the working class today as the reformists' "solution" to the inflationary crisis.

for In fighting such programme a come into irreconcileable workers will conflict with the operation of the law of value, which now works itself out through inflation, unemployment, and the conse- of redundancies, quent capitalist policies wage cuts and reductions in state spending programme brings In this the way together the battles of the working class to defend and preserve its position under capit- alism with the tasks of the socialist revol- ution. It neither capitulates nor adapts to the opportunism of the trade union struggle spontaneously responding to the capitalist crisis, nor does it idealistically erect the for revolutionary leadership and struggle standine above state

TROTSKYISM

Trotsky and beyond the problems faced by the mass of workers. The slogan - or set of slogans - direc- ted at building workers control of produc- starting point of tion a main the are "bridge" to the socialist revolution. Their full significance must be against an seen overall Marxist understanding of the crisis of capitalism. The demand that the working class defend itself not merely by struggling Sheffield steel works: nationalised industries pose for concessions, but also by trying to establish its own control over the process of production, over distribution, and over the spheres of state spending, is the hallmark of concrete revolutionary politics.

The struggle for the programme poses the question of state power in a number of ways. Economically it does so because its implementation requires the working class to society-wide organs of establish power to prevent the state from carrying out capitalist economic policies, and force planned to of production under the control the workers because Politically it does the SO struggle for the programme will drive the ruling class to seek more and more the use of state power to weaken the working class through the courts, the police, the military, as well as giving their tacit consent to attacks by fascist thugs.

Against such actions, the working class must see to its own defence by creating groups of workers ready to deal with them.

This is the starting point for the demand for a workers' militia, and the disbanding of the police force and standing army.

In our presentation of the Transitional Programme to the working class we must avoid two complementary errors. On the one hand we must recognise that the transitional demands provide a concrete, but revolution- ary perspective for the day to day struggles of workers. We must absolutely oppose any concept that the demands of the programme in the least absolve WS members from fighting question arising in the daily on every struggles of the working class. Our task on spearheading, the contrary consists in wherever the opportunity struggles arises, for trade union organisation for defending and improving working conditions, for equal rights, pay and opportunity for working women - and a whole host of demands which in themselves are not actually specified in detail in the Transitional Pro- gramme. but are key to winning a firm base SKYISM TODAY, Wednesday 19th January, 1977 in the working class. As Trotsky writes: "The Bolshevik-Leninist stands in the front-line trenches of all kinds of struggles, when they involve only the most even modest material interests or democratic rights of the working class. He takes active part in mass trade unions for the purpose of strengthening them and raising their spirit of militancy. However, in the propagandistic presen- tation of our programme we must indicate the fact that the struggles of the working class. can ultimately only: be successful through the creation of a socialist society.

NATIONALISATION

To make this goal clear means advancing the slogan of nationalisation of the economy as a whole in connection with our calls upon the "lefts' to fight for socialist policies. In this way the essential foundation of a workers' state is put consistently before the working class in a clear form.

The break from the WRP was a break from the sectarian abstention from workers' daily struggles which characterises both Healy's ultra-leftism and his opportunism.

Thus with the developments in the situation since 1938, new issues have come forward which demand the intervention of revol- utionaries. The development of the social services, free education and the NHS are examples of such developments. Though the Trans- itional Programme contains no formulated demand on such questions, the extension of the method of the Programme leads to our scale demand for a sliding of NHS and education spending to defend these gains against inflation, in conflict with the aims of capital.

POST-WAR

puts forward Similarly, Trotsky no Programme for demands the 1938 'nationalised' industries as found in today's These were a post- state sector in Britain. war But the method of development. approach in the sections on workers' control in the Programme furnishes a key to the way forward, and from this we derive our demands for trade union committees to have stries pose question of fight for workers' management.

access to the books and knowledge of the inner workings and links between 'national- ised' industries and the private sector; for the sliding scale of hours to be administered 'nationalised' industries as in private in industries by trade union committees; and for programmes of public works.

These full worker preparator end toe fight for full management of these state-run monopolies, given the fact that in each of these industries national- isation was imposed from above under management selected by the capitalist state thus denying workers the development of knowledge necessary. to manage the industry.

DAILY STRUGGLES

The transitional demands begin there- fore with the daily struggles over wages and jobs, and end with the call for the setting up of Soviets. In the struggle for the programme the party must be built which, within these Soviets when they are established, can lead the actual struggle from dual power to the taking of state power, the smashing of the machinery of the bourgeois state and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. For the small numbers of the SL, therefore, the most decisive question is how we follow through each intervention, each fight on programme, with recruitment and party building. The essential pre-requisites for revol- ution are both a revolutionary situation and a revolutionary party. Our struggle for the demands and the method of the Programme is crucial in preparing both these factors.

Concluded next edition.