CONTRADICTORY VOTE IN GERMANY
The German Social Democracy gained a new and significant advance at the polls in the general elections September 19, The party chalked up more than 12,000,000 votes, gaining 39.5% of the total, This compares with 30% in the 1949 and 1953 elections and is close to the highest it ever recorded -- 42.5% in the 1919 elections | for the national assembly during a revolutionary situation. ;
At the same time, the top leadership and party cadres were deeply disappointed because the figures were lower than the goal set by the reformist bureaucracy. For more than.four years the bureaucracy had feverishly prepared for the general election, dumping the rem. nants of the traditional program of the party, adapting itself even in choice of slogans to the ruling Christian Democrats, saying "me too" to that party's line on foreign policy and economics, all in. hope of either becoming the strongest party or of winning so many votes as to force the Christian Democrats to invite them into a coalition government.
Neither of these hopes were ealized. If the Social Democrats won a good slice of votes and 12 new seats, the Christian Democrats also increased their vote and number of seats and came within sight. of conquering an absolute majority (lacking only four seats to achieve this). In view of these circumstances, it is scarcely likely that. they will consider a "great coalition" *with the Social Democrats to offer much attraction,
The most striking and, at the same time, paradoxical feature of the September 19 elections was the fact that at the very time the right-wing bureaucrats who. head the German Social Democracy were proclaiming at the top of: their lungs that they are no longer a workingelass party and have become "a party of all the people," the party scored significant successes in the industrial working-class areas -«-and only there!.
Its main gains were registered in the industrial Ruhr where another 5.3% of the total shifted in its direction. Considerable gains were scored in the industrial towns of Duisburg (from 41% to 57% of the vote), Dortmund (from 51% to 57%); Miitheim (47% to 52%). In Cologne, the jump was from 34.5% to 42. 7%. Equally important victories were scored in the industrial centers of the Saar, Ludwigshafen (big chemical plants), Nuremburg, etc.
The Christian Democrats gained especially at the expense of their bourgeois allies of the Free Democratic party (right-wing liberals). The main gainer in the 1961 elections, the same party was the main loser this year.
The total vote for. the two bourgeois coalition parties dropped from 58.1% to 57.1%. The total vote for the Social Democrats and the DFU (a Communist party front organization) rose from 38.1% to 40.8%.
The rest of the vote -- some 2% -- went. to various extreme right-wing groups.
These results were all the more significant in view of the fact that the Social Democrats offered no real choice to the voters, ~ in fact repelling the potential opposition vote by advancing a platform practically identical to that of the Christian Democrats. It was likewise significant, -however, that the attempt of the Stalinists, with the help of the pacifists, to attract a petty-bourgeois opposition vote on a platform centered around foreign policy and slogans based on "peace and coexistence" failed miserably. This campaign ‘was waged around the German Peace Union which ordinarily draws the votes of. the Communist or pro-Communist voters (the German Communist | party was banned under a reactionary judiciary decree), and capitalism was not even questioned in the election material. Compared to 1961, ieee for this formation actually dropped, declining from 1.9% to 1.3%. .
The left wing had no significant candidate and no figure
emerged in the elections capable of crystallizing the slowly mounting discontent among the workers and the youth, But the leadership's lack of perspective, coupled with the obvious failure of its pettybourgeois "popular. party" line, will open the first lines of differ-~ entiation inside the Social Democratic party.
The trade unions continue to oppose the most reactionary trends of the right-wing Social Democratic bureaucrats. At the recently held miners union congress, the delegates refused to adopt a proposal advanced by the right wing that went in the direction of abandoning the demand for nationalization of the mines.
And the metal workers at their last congress came out strongly against a proposed law with "state of emergency". provisions which would have enabled the government to suspend all constitutional guarantees and democratic freedoms under certain conditions, The Social Democratic leaders had agreed in principle to accept this reactionary piece of legislation!
MITTERRAND -=- THE NEW MIRACLE MAN OF FRENCH POLITICS
By Pierre Frank —
A miracle has occurred in French politics. At the very moment when it appeared absolutely hopeless, the "left" found a common can-~ didate for the presidential elections next December 5, Frangois Mitterrand won the backing of both the Socialist and Communist par- . ties and various groups that classify themselves as in the "left,"
' How did it happen that whereas a similar attempt by Gaston Defferre ended in miserable failure, Mitterrand succeeded? To- understand the miracle, we must take into account what is going on among
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the politicians of the bourgeoisie and the Socialist party, on the one hand, and what is in the minds of the leadership of the French | Communist party on the other.
The main operator among the politicians is the general secretary of the Socialist party, Guy Mollet. He began by being over® 21%" whelmed by Defferre's attempt. Defferre was able to get the Socialist party to accept his candidacy. But Defferre understood this to mean his investiture in a Gaullist-type regime, in which the old parties would be brushed aside in favor of a "democratic and Socialist federation" put together around his figure, including the Socialists, Radicals and Christian Democrats. ‘To accept such a federation would have meant liquidation of the Socialist party. On this point, Mollet went to bat and Defferre resigned the nomination.
To maintain the equilibrium of his organization, Mollet could not then support anyone else from his own party. Consequently he turned to one of the bourgeois political figures standing somewhere between the Socialist and Radical parties. Mitterrand did not cone stitute an obstacle to the long-range calculations envisaging the period “after Gaullism." On this, Mollet seems to have a tacit understanding with former premier Antoine Pinay, a typical representative of the right, who, like Guy Mollet -- to their common sorrow today -~ joined in hoisting de Gaulle to power in 1958. Both of them envisage restoring a democratic regime of a kind after de Gaulle passes from the scene. In supporting Mitterrand, Mollet did not hide the fact that he is ready to abandon him in favor of Pinay if the happy event should occur,
Mitterrand is the kind of politician that stops at nothing. He knows Mollet's views concerning him, but, while waiting, he has no compunction against moving into the spotlight. He knows that he can hardly expect to win votes from the Mouvement Républicain Popu-' laire. If he wants to come out not too badly when the votes are counted, he must therefore seek the support of the French Communist party and achieve this without negotiating with its. leadership and without offering the slightest concession in that direction. Unlike Defferre, however, he is not averse to making the few gestures required by the leadership of the French Communist party to be able to say that they are satisfied and that they will appeal to the voters to cast their ballots for him.
Let us turn to the attitude of the leaders of the French Com munist party. They were aware that an agreement duly drawn up, signed and sealed, with the leaders of the Socialist party was exeluded., They also knew that a part of the electorate that tradi-~ tionally votes Communist would come out for de Gaulle in a presidential election and that a Communist candidate, or a candidate supported by only the Communist party, would result in a loss of votes for the party. For a long time they have sought a "left" candidate who would also be supported by the Socialist party and in such a way as to make it impossible to measure the decline in their electoral influence.
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Defferre completely disregarded the French Communist party; consequently he was entirely unacceptable. When the Parti Socialiste Unifié for a time considered running a candidate, the Communist party leaders at once bared their teeth to that possibility. But when Mitterrand personally announced his candidacy on September 9, they said nothing. For them, as for Guy Mollet, the insignificance of the bourgeois organization to which Mitterrand belongs was an advan=tage. Feelers were at once sent out through the proper intermediaries, ’
On September 21, Mitterrand held a press conference. He did not present a platform but offered "options." He tipped his hat to the role of political parties, adding that it was not up to him to determine their mutual relations; however, he was against excluding anyone. At the end of the conference he announced that he had received a letter that very day from Waldeck Rochet, the general secretary of the French Communist party, and that he had utilized the press conference to answer the questions raised in that letter.
Two days later the central committee of the French Communist party met to hear a report by Waldeck Rochet, the gist of which could be stated as follows: Mitterrand sent us a stenogram of his press conference; he's for the North Atlantic treaty and for Europe, but that's not so bad; he's not exactly clear on the need to struggle against the monopolies, but he is against the "personal power" [de Gaulle]; and he does not exclude us from the left. Consequently we must vote for him and make him the candidate of the unity of the demo-cratic forces and thus help forge this unity.
In the political bureau there were partisans, as everyone knows, for running Duclos or Frachon as a candidate; but since they stood on the same program as the others; namely, the establishment of a “renewed democracy," their opposition to Mitterrand did not last long. The political bureau presented a unanimous report to the central committee and the latter approved Mitterrand's candidacy .almost without discussion.
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It is still too early to say how all this will be received among the working masses. Parliamentary illusions, illusions about "unity" across class lines and without a program, favor support for Mitterrand. On the other hand, various feelings -- hostility among some to the former regime of the Fourth Republic which Mitterrand | represents perfectly, instinctive hostility among others to a bour= geois candidate, or sympathy for the anti-Americanism of de Gaulle --~ tell against Mitterrand, either to de Gaulle's advantage or in the direction of abstention. .
But if one judges the situation on the basis of the means through which Mitterrand became a candidate, the following conclusions can-be drawn: mo
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(1) Mitterrand is a bourgeois candidate running on an anti- Gaullist slogan and utilizing the working class as a "basis of sup=port" thanks to the policies of the two big workers parties. -
(2) In maneuvering to get out of a divisive situation in his- - own party, Mollet advanced a candidate to whom he owes nothing and manipulated the course of that candidate to obtain Communist. support without. giving anything in return. In this business, Mollet displayed matchless trickiness.
. (3) The leadership of the French Communist party signed: a blank check, Instead of advancing unity of action, it committed, the party to engage in a campaign it does not believe in, in which the’. enthusiasm that would have been engendered by a Communist candidate will be absent. Even though there will be no exact figures to goby, these leaders will not be able to conceal the decline of the French Communist party in the electoral field.
CP POLICY IN GREECE LEADS TO SETBACK
The political crisis in Greece is far from having ended although a stage has just been completed in which the most reactionary forces scored an advance. After two unsuccessful attempts, the king. managed to win a vote of confidence from parliament for the cabinet of Stephanos Stephanopoulos on September 25 by the slim margin of 152 to 148, .
This majority was put together through the usual means employed by bourgeois parties in such situations. Cabinet posts were promised to some, a better income to others, and ex-premier George Papandreou's Center Union party was whittled down like a salami during the 66=day crisis. There is not much point to shouting about the corruption, or to giving way to imprecations. Corruption is one of the constants in the politics of the Greek peninsula as in many other countries, although in Greece it can be said that there is little shame displayed over its rankness. The question that must be asked is why was it possible for the maneuvers of the court and the capitalist circles linked to it to finally succeed after 66 days?
Everyone was aware that more than one member of parliament resisted the "Circe of the palace" (to use one of Papandreou's expressions) out of fear of the popular masses, the street demonstrations in Athens and the vote of the peasants should new elections be held. But this fear gradually evaporated. In addition, the two cabinets set up by the king during this period, while they did not win a vote of confidence, were not inactive while they waited for the balloting in | parliament. They went ahead with "purges" in the army and the administration, Thus the forces of "law and order" were whipped into better shape to intervene with the club,
What did the other side do? The masses demonstrated vigorously and often, Their militancy was growing. They made the court hesitate about resorting to a military operation, and they prevented certain deputies from selling out too hastily. But the Greek Communist party -- which controls the majority of the proletariat -- told the masses to support Papandreou, who wanted to save the monarchy and the capitalist system no matter what the cost. In other words, the perspective . given to the masses by the Greek Communist party was maintenance of the status quo; whereas the crisis originated in the impossibility of doing this. Moreover, due to this perspective, or rather the lack of a perspective, the struggle consisted of a succession of demonstrations, day after day, and not the development of a struggle, beginning with. these demonstrations, that would have extended into a general strike aimed at kicking out the monarchy. In the absence of a perspective and a plan of battle, the mass movement was bound to lose impetus, to begin marking time, a development which the reaction counted on. .
A four-vote majority. That is not much, but it was sufficient to provide a "legal" cover for the measures which Stephanopoulos will undertake. It was this legal aspect which Papandreou and his supporters in the leadership of the Greek Communist party considered to be so sacrosanct. It is certain that the monarchy and its tools will utilize this situation to the utmost to advance their positions in preparation for the next stages. Because the battle is not finished.
The Greek masses are emerging from years of suffering the consequences of the defeat that followed the postwar revolutionary upsurge. The skirmishes that have just taken place did not lead to an immediately successful outcome because of the policy of betrayal followed by their main leaders; but the tests of strength did not end ina crushing counterblow.
- The main problem for the workers, consequently, is to draw the lessons of the experience they have just undergone in order to better prepare for the continuation of the battle.
During the crisis of the summer of 1965, the Trotskyist vanguard attracted youth who want to advance the struggle. Although the’: grip of the Communist party leadership is strong, it is not as strong as it was in the past. Thus favorable conditions exist for assembling a revolutionary vanguard capable of continuing the struggle with much stronger political and organizational capacities.
INFLATION IN COLOMBIA .
In the two-week period at the end of August and beginning of September, the price of bread in Bogotd jumped 25% and the price of meat 33%. Prices of other basic necessities rose proportionately. Many civil servants have received no wages or pension payments for as long as five months.
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JAPAN'S DEPRESSION -- AN "UNWITTING" MISTAKE
The bourgeois press in Japan. continues to express worry over the country's economic depression and to seek for its causes, which. they find to be puzzling after the years of unprecedented boom and lush profits.
A good example is a series of articles which Professor Ryokichi Minobe of the Tokyo University of Education has begun in Bungei Shun jun, attempting an analysis . in depth. In the first article, appearing in the September issue, he offers some statistics that are not without interest:
“Japan's index of economic growth in 1963 was 325 against the 1950 standard of 100, far higher than those for West Germany, Italy and Austria, incidentally all vanquished nations, which exceeded the 200 mark in the world.
"As for the economic growth rate, its average for 1958~63 was 12.8 per cent for Japan, 6.3 per cent for Italy and 5 per cent or thereabouts for most of the nations in the West except the United States which registered 3.8 per cent, The average for 1950-63 was 16.1 per cent for Japan, 9.9 per cent for West Germany, 8 per cent for Italy, 7.2 per cent for Austria, 7.2 per cent for Switzerland.
“What crucifies the Japanese industry now is the heavy capital investment it has made. Its index in 1962 was 334 against the 1955 basis of 100, far more than Italy's 197, France's 181, West Germany's 169, England's 134 and the United States! 113. Japan now suffers from overequipment and an inflationary trend as a result.
"On the other hand, Japan's exports did not increase propor~ tionately. The export quantitative index for the entire world in 1963 was 247 against 100 in 1938, and 298 for Europe and 310 for North America, Lagging far behind, Japan's index in 1963 was 191 against the 1934-36 average of 100.
"Basically what supported Japan's economic growth was capital investment. As in advanced nations, capital investment has brought about an. inflation in Japan which has caused consumer prices to go increasingly higher.
"The consumer price indices in 1964 were 207 for France, 191 for Japan, 169 for England, 165 for Italy, 133 for West Germany and 129 for the United States, against 100 in 1959,
"Meanwhile, the domestic market has expanded primarily thanks to a rise in wages which was the highest in Japan of all nations, Real wages in 1963, however, were 147 for Japan, 242 for West Germany, 164 for France, 139 for the United States and 129 for England, all against the 1949 standard of 100." es
Trying to.interpret. these conclusions for. his. own readers, Chugo Koito offers the following in the September 12 Japan Times:
"Japan, once the boy wonder in the field of economic rehabilitation, now suffers under the stifling pressure of a depression, While it still manages to keep up its pace of growth, its industry is struggling desperately to get out of the worsening fix in which it finds itself,
"Why the struggle? The reason seems rather simple. In its frantic effort to catch up with advanced nations in technology and. productivity, the Japanese industry has committed a string of serious mistakes,
"For one thing, it unwittingly ignored the fundamental principle of economics -- demand and supply which never follows a set pattern of rise and fall. The cold fact is that the Japanese indus~ try has overequipped itself for its own good,'
These superficial observations boil down to little more than the statement that Japan's capitalists suddenly discovered that the country's productive capacity had expanded beyond the limits of the market. Unwitting or not, this periodic occurrence is one of the built-in features of the capitalist system -- and not only in Japan.
THE BRITISH TRADES UNION CONGRESS
By Susan Williams
London |
Against a background of increasing unofficial strikes, for higher pay or better conditions, the Trades Union Congress, representing some 8,750,000 workers in 172 unions, held its 97th annual congress at Brighton September 6-10. It is not surprising that the most controversial and important issue discussed was the prices and incomes policy.
The Labour party leadership set the atmosphere by putting great pressure on the general council (the top body of the TUC) to support the government's incomes policy. This policy is presented to the public as a means of solving the present economic. problems by limiting the rate of profits and wages. In actual fact it is designed to enforce a wage restraint.
Minister of Economics George Brown wrangled with the TUC leaders for nine hours prior to the opening of the gathering in an attempt to line up the TUC behind the government's policies. Minister of Labour Ray Gunter pleaded to the delegates that time was an important factor and that the TUC should act responsibly.,and quickly to the. government's plans, Failure to do so, he argued, would result in the
downfall of the government and the return of the Tories.
Despite this pressure, the vote on the incomes policy was only 5,251,000 for, as against 3,512,000 opposed. With a majority of only some 2,000,000 for the general council, it is dubious that the victory can be implemented.
A significant fact was the rise in the opposition vote, It was nearly double that cast at the conference of union executives last April.
More important, however, than the vote was the debate itself in which leaders of unions opposing the general council made it clear that the problems facing the Labour government could not be solved by wage restraint, whether secured voluntarily or by legislation.
Harry Nicolas, acting secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union ~- Britain! s largest trade union -- opposed the incomes policy in principle, He claimed that what had been projected as a-. programme for improving the standard of living was rapidly developing into a positive plan for wage limitation. Such legislation would give any future Tory government powers which it could never have obtained for itself from the trade-union movement, more powers, in fact, than were conceded in wartime.
Clive Jenkins, general secretary of the Association of Supervisory Staffs, Executives and Technicians [ASSET], Britain's fastest growing union, attacked the general council's analysis of Britain's economic problem as being a “pathetically and thoroughly and danger-~ ously wrong economic analysis." He pointed out that one way to tackle the deficit problem was to cut the bill for war preparations.
D. McGarvey of the Amalgamated Society of Boilermakers, Shipwrights, Blacksmiths, and Structural Workers declared, in opposing the incomes policy, that the boilermakers believed in planning. “But we believe in socialist planning."
He appealed to the delegates of the uncommitted unions to vote against the incomes policy. "If the General Council's recommendations are carried, your members will slaughter you when you return to say what you have done.!
While the leaders of the TUC worried over how much they can get away with in vetoing wage claims, the leaders of the five whitecollar unions,*+ which have put out a pamphlet arguing the case against the government's incomes policy, are planning to intensify their
*The five unions, with a total membership of nearly 160,000, are the Draughtsmen's and Allied Technicians! Association, the Association of Scientific Workers, the Association of Supervisory Staffs, Executives and Technicians, the Society of Technical Civil Servants, "and the Association of Giné and Television Technicians,
campaign.
Apart from taking advertising space in left-wing weeklies, they are planning to hold a "teach-in" on the threat to collective bargaining which they say the government's legislative plans present, This is projected for the eve of the Labour party conference at the end of September. They also hope to carry the fight to the rostrum itself with an emergency motion on the government's plans.
On the final day, by another majority of just under 2,000,000 votes, the conference amended a resolution which called for the with~ drawal of all foreign troops from Vietnam.
-Ralph Bond of the Association of Ciné and Television Technicians introduced the motion. He said that the United States had introduced troops and military bases in defiance of the 1954 Geneva agreement. “The war in Vietnam is being fought by bombing, napalm and the use of poisonous chemicals dropped on the crops on the theory that if you cannot burn them to cinders or blow them to bits, you try to starve them into submission."
The amendment, which was carried, called for "negotiations" to achieve a settlement along the lines of the Geneva agreement.
The issues discussed at Brighton will be debated again at the Labour party annual conference to be held at Blackpool. The outcome of the TUC conference clearly indicates that the Labour party leadership will carry its policies on the incomes policy and on Vietnam. Ever mindful of the government's tiny majority and fearful of the return of a Tory government, many of the. delegates will give the leadership their support at the Labour party conference.
The speeches and voting figures at Brighton reveal that a large section of the working class have no intention of accepting a wage freeze,
The government's attempt to solve its economic problems and to gain time for capitalism by legislation against the working class will meet with increased opposition from the organised workers,
LABOUR'S FIRST YEAR -=- MUST IT BE THE LAST?
[whe following article, taken from The Week, a publication specializing in news analysis for British socialists (54 Park Road, Lenton, Nottingham, England), is of special interest in our opinion, Written on the eve of the Labour party conference, it offers a per~ spicacious analysis of the bankruptcy of the Wilson leadership and the default of many well-known left-wing figures.
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[To meet this situation, the author, Ken Coates, advances pro-~posals of a transitional character for the consideration of the left wing of the Labour party. Discussion and action on proposals of this type are an essential step for the British vanguard if they arc to find the socialist road out of tho present impasse,]
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The preparations for the Labour Party Conference at Blackpool this. ‘September are nearing their conclusion. The atmosphere is heavyladen. After the cheers of last October died away, and after the warm, self-congratulatory mood of the December victory rally, which replaced the 1964 Conference, Labour's activists went home to their constituencies to meet a cooler mood among their supporters, This has not — lifted; . rather the gloom has intensified. As Labour's election pledges have been revoked, deferred, transmuted or forgotten, first in single apologetic announcements, then in clusters, curtly explained, and lately in wholesale bulk, So it has come home to the constituencies that their expectations for the future must be frigid, austere and possibly painful. No harvest festival, the Blackpool Conference will mourn lost hopes, console troubled consciences and prepare for dearth and discord.
Mikardo'ts Balance Sheet
The record is almost too dismal to bear recital, Few of Labour's major spokesmen have had the intellectual or political courage to assess it clearly. One who has is Ian Mikardo, perhaps the most significant Parliamentary figure who has been left to the left by recent events. Speaking at a conference of Labour students at the end of June, Mr. Mikardo was able to list three achievements on the credit side of the Government's performance. It had properly flouted the opinion of the bankers in order to augment pensions; it had laid out a commendable programme of legislation in the Queen's speech; and the Prime Minister had properly decided to govern as if he had a majority of fifty. But when the Government's pledges were compared with its actions, there were most serious deficiencies.
In at least thirty important sectors election promises had either not been sustained, or had actually been dishonoured, In the field of economic policy the failure to apply physical controls, even such obvious ones as exchange control, import controls, or effective regional development controls, forced the Government to rely upon fiscal manoeuvres, bribery and exhortation as its main "planning" weapons. Of course these are totally insufficient. No rational over-all fuel and energy policy was being elaborated. No transport plan was being counterposed to Beeching's measures, Taxes were not being used selectively. Concerning public ownership, no measures had yet been announced to take over water, and more important, the pledge to start new public enterprises ona competitive basis in growth areas of the economy was not yet being taken up. In the field of exports, the promised long-term contracts with Commonwealth territories, based on state trading, had not materialised. Neither had any significant
expansion of Hast-West trade. As for the question of incomes policy, no attempt whatever had been made to synchronise wage planning with over-all planning, which thus made Mr. Brown's policy quite unfeasible.
Concerning social policy, the balance sheet was no less un# happy. The minimum income guarantee was to be deferred until next session.* While this could be understood, it provided no reason at all for the deferment of action to rectify outstanding injustices, Many severe hardships existed which could be alleviated by administrative action which was not being taken. Educational expenditure | was being curtailed. As for housing, which had been Mr. Wilson's central election issue, the pledge to repeal the Rent Act was being honoured by a measure which threatened to introduce a most dangerous element of decontrol in rents, while building was being thwarted by sky-high interest rates. A two-tier system of finance, or cheap money, was essential to the housing problem, In_the field of equal pay, no steps were to be taken to ratify the ILO LInternational Labour Organ isation] Convention on that question. The policies which had been expected on immigration had not materialised.
Lastly, in the foreign and defence policy sectors the picture was alarming. The defence estimates had not been subjected to serious over-all cuts, whilst the Polaris base and the British nuclear arm were both preserved in flat contradiction to party policy. If anything, Labour's foreign policy showed an even closer dependence on the USA than did that of Sir Alec. This had revealed itself in innumerable areas: apart from Vietnam, in Guiana, in the total abandomment of disengagement in Europe, and in the equivocation about the supply of war materials to South Africa, among many cthers.
Callaghan's Measures
Since Mr. Mikardo elaborated this most discouraging catalogue, conditions have deteriorated with malicious speed, Yet further draconian and debilitating economic measures have been brought forward by Mr. Callaghan. Far from getting Britain moving, the Government has moved round to a new and resounding stop phase in its economics. With usual candour, the Financial Times led its account of these savage new restraints with the headline: "The Pound Before
*Soon after Mr, Mikardo had spoken, it was, of course, deferred still further by Mr. Callaghan's measures. Mr. Callaghan had, it must be said, warned us in advance. He told a Fabian gathering at the 1963 T.U.C. [Trade Union Congress] that, "A Labour Government must not rush its fences...its first job is to get industry moving again. Then we can start paying ourselves a dividend,". The Guardian reported that Mr. Callaghan felt this interval might be eighteen months. In this most dire case, which deals with Labour's pledge to the least fortue nate, most penurious of its supporters, the time limit has now more then doubled and is still extending,
Politics."' Small wonder that epithets like “Ramsay MacWilson" have begun to appear in the Economist, in columns by Malcolm Muggeridge, and among the maverick political commentators. Just how far before politics Mr. Callaghan has thrust the pound has scarcely begun to filter through to the understanding of Labour's rank and file, but it can clearly be discerned in extraordinary outcries of the liberal business press. The Economist reacted pugnaciously with a leader entitled "Labour Men -- Tory Measures" which speculated whether Mr, Wilson may be heading towards an October election on “what is virtually a National ticket."" The weight of these measures falls on precisely the people who returned Labour to office. If anything, a Conservative administration would have moved with greater caution, and would have placed heavier burdens on the business community, because it would not. have been labouring under the same drastic imperative to regain the lost confidence of the City. Hardest cut of all are the local Labour councillors, chafing at the reins of more than a decade of central restraint, and now, just as they thought the race was about to open out for them, savagely bridled in. The only truly astonishing thing about this raging mayhem of Labour's election pledges is the solemn quiet which has descended on the backbenches, The only substantial revolt which the Callaghan measures precipitated was the demand for cuts in military expenditure. To an outsider, it looks as if this upheaval was outmanoeuvred without a shot being fired. True, the Parliamentary Party accepted a motion, carefully filleted of any specific dates or figures, which demanded substantial cuts. The fate of this entirely proper decision will probably be found to turn upon the definition of "substance"; and Mr. Wilson is clearly capable of determining this in light of the needs of the pound,
While Mr, Callaghan was immobilising the production drive, Mr. Brown's attempts at acceleration in the control of incomes and prices were not abated. The fact that the members of his own union brusquely rejected the incomes policy, while neglecting to invite him to observe the event, was widely remarked. So was Mr. Cousins! flying visit to the conference of the T & GWU [Transport and General Workers Union],during which he received the ovation of a hero for discreetly congratulating his members on the stand they had taken. But the really ominous accompaniment to these events was the statement that Mr. Wilson made after the Callaghan measures had been revealed, that should the Prices and Incomes Board be found to fail in securing voluntary cooperation, it might quickly be given coercive legal teeth, Although in theory such sanctions might apply to refractory employers, the record of the Government does not encourage the hope that their main effect will tell in that direction. As one surveys the ruins of Labour policy, and the cautious and entirely orthodox pattern of Mr. Callaghan's economic policy, one cannot but conclude that Mr. Wilson's warnings are aimed preeminently at the unions. Such a confrontation would: be the reductio ad absurdem of the Wilson strategy: if it were to begin, the last fig leaf would fall away, revealing that hoary old Adam, Ramsay Mac., naked in all the vigour of his National impotence,
Surrender to Smethwick
As significant as these unhappy portents is the blow which Mr. Bowden has administered, on the eve of the adjournment. From the principled opposition to the immigration controls of 1961 which had been evinced from Mr. Gaitskell, Labour had already slid, before the election, into postures of equivocation, dissembling and vagueness, But. Mr. Bowden's White Paper on Immigration, far. from remaining equivocal, unleashed a truly shattering blow. Immigration from all Commonwealth territories was restricted to a maximum of 8,500 a year, including the 1,000 quota which had been guaranteed to Malta. Worse: the White Paper established a fine and sharply screened double mesh through which would-be immigrants must filter. This imposed checks along both national and occupational lines, establishing a sharp class preference for skilled and professionally qualified labour.
Abroad, everything but the cost of Mr. Wilson's commitment East of Suez has been crumbling around him. His farcical and demagogic peace mission to Vietnam was exploded before he had finished the blueprints. . Mr. Davies, who bravely put in jeopardy all his friendships in Hanoi in a loyal effort to voyage to the rescue, returned, chastened, home to the muzzle. Trouble in the Rann of Kutch has been transferred to Kashmir. Cruellest indignity of all, Malaysia, that most streamlined essay in neocolonialist intrigue, carefully assembled to the credit of the pound and as a fearful deterrent to Indonesian "bolshevism," suddenly and without warning blew up. Britain's autonomous imperial zone revealed its true crisis level of instability, Meanwhile, President Johnson intoned sympathetic dirges about the agonies of sterling, as he fortified the dollar by the slaughter of Vietnamese children.
In unrelieved gloom, this record may be left where it stands, incomplete and undocumented, because, partial though it is, it establishes beyond reasonable doubt the most important thing about the Government: its tendency -- the line of march, the main drift, which implies that unless there is a sharp reorientation, amounting to e complete reversal of policy, the Fourth Labour Government will be the most catastrophic ever. Later, socialists will have to itemise this — balance sheet with miserly precision and analyse its every grey nuance. Now, the key question is not the charting of cach isolated, broken pledge and shattered hope, but the appreciation of the wood rather than the leaves of the tree. -
The Bankers! Way
Some socialist journals have already begun the labour of analysis and explanation which is urgently required. New Left Review, in the introduction to the July-August number, quite rightly indicating that "Few regimes have so immediately lost all credit or respect," went on to insist: _
"The first task is...to try to understand the logic of the political experience we have witnessed since Cctober, 1964, Why has
Labour administration performed so badly, even in its own terms? Why has it abandoned so much of its programme, so soon?...The Labour Party's abysmal record since October reveals much about its own char= acter; but it has revealed, more clearly than ever before, the real. secret of the impasse of British society today -- the at once indispensable and insupportable heritage of imperialism,"
In elaborating and refining this insight, the article by Tom Nairn, "Labour Imperialism," makes some extremely telling points. Tracing the structural integration of industrial capital into the. nexus of finance capital's interests, as all the major industrial . giants like ICI, BMC, Unilever expand their networks of direct foreign investment and association, Nairn shows that this “annulment of old frontiers" leaves an insoluble dilemma: whereas Wilson had aligned himself with the dynamic soul of the industrial enterprise against the restrictive spirit of conservative rentiers and bankers, the two ghosts in fact inhabit one machine, and there in torment savage one another, This must lead direct to the question, succinctly posed by Nairn: is it possible for any government to "master the British ~ dilemma in quite the way which seemed entailed by Wilson's original - approach? May it not be too late for even a 'radical' solution of . that kind, given the effective unity between financial and industrial capital? May it not be too late, in other words, fcr any solution to the problem which remains within. the terms of the national capitalist system itself, in any of its form?” Trade Union Independence
This is clearly a central question. Part of the answer, though, was offered years ago by Lenin, when he remarked that there were no "final crises" from which capitalism could not escane, its replacement was not at hand. And there are other contradictory features of British capitalism which need an examination as careful as that which Tom Nairn. has begun to devote to the relationship between industrial and financial capital, if all the potentialities for capitalist survival are to be thoroughly evaluated. Principal among these is the prolonged and-apparently inexhaustible intractability of the British trade unions, which are proving markedly defiant about the:degree of integration into neocapitalism which Mr. Brown is attempting to secure with the Prices and Incomes Board. In most European countries the trade unions have been far more effectively assimilated into the structure of neocapitalism than their British equivalents, It is true that with the exception of the Germans, European workers are cursed with sectarian and political fragmentation in their unions. It is equally true that there are repeated resurgences of militancy in the labour movements of practically every Common Market nation. But if we are to.search out, the basic distinction between labour in Britain and Europe. it is not to be found in. the hallmark of sturdy independence which is branded on every British buttock. Careful examination of the appropriate limbs of Sir William Carron or Mr, Jack Cooper would be likely to reveal a quite cosmopolitan clarity of skin complexion on their part, The basic reason why British capitalism has shown a marked inability to
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restrain ‘and contain the appetites of its labour force is that it has had no long-term counterweight to full employment. Wage drift has thus constantly pushed to take up the diminishing slack that an ailing economy had to offer. In Italy, large+scale unemployment with a declining rural population have produced effective disciplinary force during much of that nation's postwar history. Before Herr Ulbricht's wall intervened, the Federal German Republic had abundant labour quarries in the East. Since, it has threshed about for substitutes as far afield as Greece and Spain, but without effectively replacing the East as goad and stimulant to a loaded labour market. De Gaulle, too, in his agrarian rationalisations, and later with the pied noirs | (the returned colons from Algeria) has found easement for labour shortage. In the United States, the depressed Negro population has provided its reserves of labour. But in Britain, only limited immigration has taken place, and that counterbalanced by a constant outflow. As Labour has been forced to abort its housing programme, the pressure of a strident minority of xenophobic electors has brought it in a shamefully misguided way to staunch even that limited trickle to the large discomfort of George Brown and the business press, whose liberal sympathies may not be large, but whose appreciations of the labour shortage in Britain are certainly realistic. Each stop that has been imposed on British economic: growth has produced its momentary growth of unemployment, but the check to that growth has not been administered simply by renewed expansionist opportunities: rather it has flowed from the inevitable and sharp recoil that an independent and undefeated labour movement can administer in the political field.«
The work of rationalisation could not proceed uninterruptedly in such a context. Capital found itself confronted by persons who not only claimed rights, but were able to punish their violation, It was surely for this reason that successive governments were forced to tread into the most dangerous terrain of a search for a political solution to the problem of labour costs and wage-control. And Mr, Wilson's usefulness to capital can scarcely be appreciated outside this field. What is most noteworthy in the record of this administration is the valiant way in which its opponents have striven to keep it alive. Tory chairmen who cast their votes in chivalry; Tory MPs who with touching gentility lose themselves between the bars and the lobbies when the fatigue of Government supporters proves greater than the will to rule; these remarkable phenomena scarcely signal a ‘return to the sporting traditions of British parliamentarism. They do appear to make sense in a context in which the opposition does not wish to prevail, until the Government has performed the role which has been alloted to it. As more and more of the unions! teeth are drawn, as the Prices and Incomes Board recruits first whips, then scorpions to its armoury, and as usual, all the while, the unions are disarmed by Mr. Wilson's rhetoric, so the opposition can begin to flex its muscles and prepare for the resumption of control. Is this not a natural way for Mr, Heath to think? Meantime, the Government
*These points have been elaborated in detail in a paper which has been written by Pat Jordan, to which I am much indebted.
continues to develop all the rationalisations of Dr. Beeching on the railways, and to drive through the explosive reorientation of the mining industry, as if its one object in life were to establish the truth of this pessimistic view of its role, (It is even rumoured that, in order to secure the complicity of the railway trade unions! leader-: ship in the creeping denationalisation involved.in the liner train scheme, Mr. Wilson has promised extensive new nationalisations after the on ootion. Alas: Mr. Heath need have no sleepless nights on this matter.) — St
Incomes policy, cuts, rationalisations: all these amount to the classic solution which capital, itself sick, prescribes for labour as well. JI am too ill; here, you take my pill...all that is new in this situation is the ministering physician. And what is astonishing is the way in which Mr. Wilson plays the role. Malicious gossips even claim that he enjoys it....
Where Is the Left?
Yet this is not all that is strange. Perhaps the most truly amazing thing about the post-October situation is to be found in the becalmed tranquility of Labour's back benches. After the storms of the unilateralist campaign perhaps the largest left intake into any Parliament since 1945 has appeared, only to discover that discretion is rather the more responsible part. of valour, This strange event has staggered the Economist, which returns week after week to discuss the reason why, half in malice, half in pique. The leaders of the traditional left, Anthony Greenwood, for instance, were wisely coopted by Mr. Wilson into peripheral complicity in his arrangement. Their behaviour has been scandalous, Whether Mr. Greenwcod has gained a final victory over the schoolchildren he gassed in Bahrein, as they threatened to undermine the East of Suez design, it is too early to say. What does, however, appear quite clear is that he has finally routed and liquidated his own conscience. Perhaps this is the most significant political victory Mr. Wilson has scored: he has ~ benumbed, confused, and outwitted the left in a manner that outbids the most bizarre predictions of the most hostile opponents of that grouping. Perhaps the fact that the Government had its own left cover has given other members of Parliament pause. With very few honourable exceptions, the Parliamentary left has bought every dud Peace Mission, every hoax and placebo that has been offered. The | flight of Steel Nationalisation through the lobbies is a significant case in point. If Mr. Gaitskell had attempted such manoeuvres as those which Mr. Brown (and presumably Mr. Wilson) have accomplished, he would have been denounced from every platform in the land. Instead of raising hell, the left has melted into the .landscape.
The significance of this must not be underestimated. Had the left spoken out, the constituencies would by now be in a turmoil. The unions are already full of bewildered, often bitterly disappointed men... At the local level, the party preserves its peace, because 7 loyalty is the first rationality of one who knows rightly that unity
is strength. Monolithic in its piety, the traditional left leader-. ship defers to that peace, as if it were the ultimate in political wisdom. In fact it is the reverse. If there were any hope for Mr, Wilson, it would lie in an outery from the Labour movement. Only the strongest pressures from his supporters could prevail over the ruthlessly implacable logic of the bankers, which grows more persuasive each day as the vacuum left by its application yawns wider through the party. if anyone had spoken earlier, perhaps the first fatal steps might have been turned aside. But if is no answer: the problem of the left was not shortage of force, lack of numbers, or even lack of faith or goodwill. What the left lacked was any sense of programme, any notion of the direction of events, any first faint beginning of a strategy. It- fenced, in the foggy lobbies of the politics of previous decades, bound by the imagined supremacy of institutions which were in fact at their last gasp,*+ while the real rulers enmeshed its
*On August 6, Michael Foot wrote in Tribune about this question, He spoke of the potentially dangerous gulf between leaders and led, and called for sustained left pressure, "Sustain the left pressure and sustain the Government." This in itself is not an objectionable call: nobody would suggest that "the Government should be torn to. pieces by the actions of the left inside the party," as Mr. Foot puts it. What the left should do is move towards an integrated focus both in terms of policy and organisation. What the sundering of the left into sectarian fragments, which is a present fact, not, as Mr. Foot seems to think, a future possibility, involves is the continued fostering of the illusion that there is no alternative to Wilson's policies. The left must look to its own problems: it must continually hammer out its own suggestions, and then promote them. This is the only realistic way of "putting pressure" on the Government, and until it happens, the incidental outbursts of resentment at this or that intolerably reactionary measure will all be met and deflected by Mr. Wilson, without occasioning him the need for any significant change”
of policy.
**Pparliamentary cretinism is a polite term compared to that which is necessary to characterise most of today's left. Not the slightest attempt has been made by the overwhelming majority of M.P.'s to do anything at all to mobilise external pressure on the Government. For | years more and more of Parliament's perogatives have passed away from it: to the hands of banks and oligarchies, to the executive, to the international organisations, and of course through them to Washington, Parliament no longer knits the bourgeoisie into a coherent grouping: the concentration of economic power does this outside its confines, In a world in which their leaders were hemmed in and surrounded by such hostile forces, one would have thought that M.P.'s would have sensed the need to mobilise some effective countervailing power at the grass roots, Not so. The only significant demonstration of © socialist activists, that on Vietnam, was carefully handed over to Mr, Wilson by its parliamentary spoke smen almost as a thanks offering for his piddling peace mission,
protectors and champions in their own completely alien: objects, © Recriminations. are the very last thoughts that this’ sad history should inspire: there but for the grace of the polls goes every last fundamentalist red sectarian also. What does emerge is the paramount need for a strategy of socialist advance which rests on solid theoretical foundations, and which lives in the present world. A New Programme
The work of elaborating a programme is not one which can: be passed across to three part-time research workers. It involves a whole protracted labour of discussion and education within a very wide area of the Labour movement, Precisely what has gone wrong with the fourth Labour Government has been this old, elitist conception of programme. Policy is left to the wise, to the ones who know,* Everyone else knocks doors. In the event, the knowledge of the wise was insufficient: what they needed was no longer an insight into the wickedness of the world, but the social understanding and the political staff with which to assault that wickedness. This can only | be created in painstaking political discussion and organisation, ‘° starting from the fundamental premise that the richest source of socialist potential is the self-confidence and self-activity of the © workers themselves,
The natural tendency which will emerge from the accumulating disillusionment of Labour's activists will-be to seek immediate, partial solutions to what are global problems. There is diminishing: scope for effective, purely local, trade-union militancy though, Labour needs a socialist perspective, designed for practical application. To those who see the impossibility of piecemeal solutions, there may arise the alternative of self-immolation in a purely abstract and doctrinal socialism. The failure of labour to meet its. immediate, bread and butter commitments may impel many on the left to reject all bread and butter demands as a deluding distraction, and to seek in their place to elevate a purified and spiritualised vision. of commonwe at as the motivating goal of socialist activity.
While it is acutely important to discuss the idea of socialism, and to widen constantly the circle of people for whom its problems — are already a living reality, this can never be a sufficient answer ~ to the difficulties in which we find ourselves today. It will not help the railwaymen to be told. that “socialism is the only answer to
*They haventt known anyhow. The complete mental laziness of empiri-~ cal British socialism was sharply revealed by Emanuel Shinwell in his autobiography, when he wrote that in 1945 he arrived at his desk in the Ministry of Fuel and Power, with a mandate to nationalise coal, electricity and gas, expecting to find detailed plans all ready. They were not. He had to start from scratch. Under this Government, despite all the noise about an integrated transport system, the new ministers have carried on in the grooves established by their predecessors, witness: rails and mines.
Doctor Beeching,” true though that aphorism may be. Unless we can offer some practical immediate steps to socialism, our railwayman is likely to choose either to belt hell out.of someone in the wnion, or, more probably, to look for anather job.. Even slogans which in themselves could contribute to the growth of an explicitly socialist awareness, like the demand for an integrated transport policy, need to be linked inseparably with a whole series of complimentary conceptions, which taken together can form the mental bridge over which the workers may pass from capitalist to socialist forms of reasoning and action. Simple reiteration of demands for nationalisation alone do not form such a bridge. -
The programme which we need to. elaborate, neither maximalist and entirely abstract, nor minimalist and blind, needs to lead from the particular ills of capitalism, as it is, to the general solution we have to offer, and from the partial, schizoid outlooks which are fostered by capital to a fully socialist world view. Such a pro-=gramme must attack, not only the organisational failures, but the feel of capitalism, of subordination: it must expose its alienating effects plainly, so that they are devoid of mystery and terror. Clearly, in the fight against alienation which the workers suffer as producers, the major answering socialist response is the demand for workers! control. This becomes increasingly urgent as neocapitalist rationalisations gather force. Workers't control of job organisation, the speed of work, retooling, is.no mere panacea. It can very well be understood by shop stewards and local: union officers as: fitting present needs. But neocapitalist reorganisation extends from new practices in the shops up to the attempt to elaborate a comprehensive policy for incomes: and so too can the fight for workers! control, as it takes up the demand for complete and democratic accountability, the opening of the books, and the abolition of business secrets. All the work of elaborating a detailed campaign on such lines can only be done in the creation of a movement for industrial democracy: no amount of blueprints will replace its living agents in the factories. At the same time, the struggle for self-management in the nationalised sector can feed and inspire such a movement. This already began to shape up in the steel industry in the discussions around the new Bill: and its embryos can be clearly seen in the mines, the railways, and, among the white-collar staffs in particular, in the other nationalised industries.
Outside the sphere of production, the New Left has frequently documented the manipulation of men as consumers. Here too, the socialist movement has a traditional answering response: the transition to welfare forms of distribution. Free public transport, free ~ housing;-these are no more utopian in modern Britain than the National Health Service or free compulsory schools. To a nation embarking on the structural change from capitalist. to socialist organisation, they would not be frills, but essential means of obtaining a. human focus on the inherited economic difficulties. If the Bow Group can put forward the notion that the roads be metered as a counter to the fact that rail computes its costs comprehensively while roads do not, can-
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not we respond by demanding the opposite kind of parity? Here surely is a real answer to Beeching, which would enable some true picture of the travelling needs of .Britain to be compiled. .
In a context of public welfare, norms of consumption, the pressure for extended public control of industry becomes enormous, Arising out of the pioneer movement of a fight for more welfare and a fight for workers' control at every level, the arguments about ‘the need for more nationalisation cease to be ritual incantation, and take on a more and more immediate necessity. Around the central core of such a programme as this, there are many issues to be resolved, But if someone speaks out, to say that socialist options are possible and practical, then there will be an answering call from very many people in the unions and the workshops, Only if the left is silent is there danger, for then each worker feels alone, his doubts his own, his conscience an isolate, and therefore, his will paralyzed. Voices must be found to enunciate the. new socialism, The left must organise,
FIRST WORK BY RECABARREN APPEARS IN CHILE
The first volume of the Obras Escogidas [selected works] of Luis Emilio Recabarren, founder of the Federacién Obrera de Chile - [Chilean Workers Federation] and the Partido Socialista Obrero ©... «. Socialist Workers party], was recently issued in Santiago de Chile.
As the main figure in the successful work of establishing a section of the Third International in Chile, the Chilean Communist: ::party still hails Recabarren as of historical importance; however, the Chilean CP has never published his works. The reason is that Recabarren, like Marigtegui and Ponce, helped establish Latin-American Marxism. His words therefore sound like a condemnation of the present-day policies of the Communist party. oo
In one of Recabarren'ts pamphlets, included in the first volume of Obras Escogidas, the following appears: "The (Russian) Communist party did not believe that it could win power by electoral means, by legal means as the Social Democratic parties, the parties of socalled order, continually urge us, since by means of the legal use of the vote, the election of parliamentarians, the working class will never succeed in taking power and abolishing the capitalist system of exploitation and oppression."
Another source of embarrassment to the present-day leaders of the Chilean CP is Recabarren's attitude toward certain leaders of the Russian Revolution. After founding the Chilean CP in 1922, Recabarren visited Russia the following year. Upon his return, he published a small book of 96 pages entitled Workers -and--Peasants Russia -which has — been included in the present collection. He failed to mention Stalin
once. On the other hand, he had some glowing things to say about» Leon Trotsky, and cited long extracts from Trotsky's report to. the Fourth Congress of the Communist International. Recabarren described the organization of the Red Army and the outstanding role Trotsky played together with Lenin. ~
The editors of the collection are Jorge Barrfa, Julio C. Jobet and Luis Vitale. In presenting the first volume, Luis Vitale observes:
"An abyss of almost three decades separates the previous revolutionary generation from the new one, a long period of political | retrogression in which the original thought of the genuine socialist fighters was systematically buried. The linking up of the previous...” generation -- which responded with exhiliration to the appearance of the first socialist revolution in Russia -- with the new generation that arose after the Cuban Revolution, was a prolonged and often cruél period for the handful of fighters who sought to maintain the genuine Marxist tradition in face of the brutal ideological terrorism of contemporary history. But the laws of history once again proved to be stronger than all the power of the bureaucratic machines; and today we are witnessing the restoration of the truth, promoted by the new generation which is seeking its natural connection with the heritage of its ideological forefathers. To the rediscovery and publication of the works of Ponce and Maridtegui, we now wish to add the theoretical legacy of a Chilean thinker: Luis E. Recabarren, whose selected works we present for the first time after the laborious work of bringing together his pamphlets, many of them mutilated, deliberately hidden, or mysteriously removed from the big libraries. Recabarren was not only the founder of the Chilean workers movement and of the CP but was Chile's first revolutionary Marxist thinker and one of the outstanding social thinkers of Latin America, a precursor of Ponce and Maridtegui."
THE THESES OF THE WFTU CONGRESS
By Livio Maitan
The "theses" which the outgoing executive committee of the World Federation of Trade Unions [wert] adopted for consideration at the Warsaw congress, scheduled to be held October 8-22, offers nothing new that could claim the attention of trade-union militants or observers. What is involved, in short, are routine documents presenting a series of generalities, confirming concepts and orientations that have been explained many times, which cannot be said to have been put into practice,* repeating many banal things in a stereotyped style. When allusion is made to specific problems or to particular cases, a quite prudent eclecticism is adopted or recourse is had to vague cir-
“For example,” the hypocritical reaffirmation of the independence of. the unions in relation to political parties and governments.
cumlocutions; and the estimates that should. in principle refer to concrete situations offer in reality only a conventional optimism,
The first of the two documents -- bearing the interminable title of "Theses on the Examination and Application of the Program of. Trade Union Action and the Unifying Initiatives of the WFTU, the Evolution and:-Present Development of the World Trade Union Movement, the New Possibilities for Unity, Solidarity and International Trade Union Relations" += repeats the well-known things about war and coexistence, with some minimum concessions in the "Chinese". direction while remaining essentially on a line that could be called moderate Khrushchevism. The only concrete position taken in the document is with regard to Vietnam, support being offered to the demands of the Front for National Liberation and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, ©
On the international economic tendencies and the characteriza-~ tion of the Common Market we quote verbatim:
"The West European Common Market is one of the fields where this struggle Leompetition among. the capitalist countries] is unfolding. It is tending to reinforce the position of the West. German: mono polies at the same time as the American monopolies are obtaining a-‘'<: preponderant place there through massive investments." (Paragraph 18.)
This characterization of the Common Market, which has dis= pleased certain rightist currents (particularly those represented by the Italian Socialists), must be criticized, not because it is false, but because it is put in such a banal way. The objection, moreover, should be lodged against its absolutely unilateral estimate as to the beneficiaries of the Common Market --. who belong in reality to the capitalist sectors of all the European countries -- and the clear exaggeration of the role of American capitalism at this stage which cannot be.correotly characterized as “preponderant."
Another point has troubled the rightists (including those in the Italian Communist party, to judge by the declaration made by Lama, a leader of the CGIL LConfederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro]). This is a paragraph that mentions planning in a capitalist society: "The attempts at planning undertaken by the monopolies are nothing: but attempts on the one hand to overcome their own contradictions and on the other hand to intensify the exploitation of the workers," (Paragraph 22.) Once again, the statement is a little summary but not false, :
In addition, the whole section of the document dealing with the situation in the advanced capitalist: countries is confined to generalities and platitudes. The impression one gets is that the authors preferred to beg the question rather than make a real analysis. The result is ‘that even where things are stated that are not false, a whole series of problems that cannot be ignored in the West European countries and the United States, are evaded. We would wager that not a single Social Democrat would be led to doubt his ideas and
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options reading such stuff. It can be added that when the document broaches an analysis of a situation in the workers movement, it is limited to summarily hailing a series of strikes and struggles, all stuffed into the same sack and given evaluations that correspond very little to the reality.* ;
In setting their ‘objectives, the theses of the outgoing execu= tive committee again run along well-known grooves. "The working .class and its organizations, in face of the supremacist and antidemocratic - policies of the monopolies, propose the democratic and antimonopolist alternative which, on the basis of the present economic and social . needs of the broad layers of the population, tend to provide satisfaction for those needs, while reducing the political and economic power of the monopolies." (Paragraph 26.) At the same time, the theme is again sounded about the need to establish an alliance with the non-= proletarian social layers, victimized by the monopolies.
The section on the workers states is still worse, The prob-= lems arising in the transition phase are not even touched on. All the themes advanced by the bureaucracy since the days of Stalin are repeated on the role of the unions. In fact these paragraphs arenothing but an insipid résumé of the official propaganda of the various parties and governments. Here the rightist tendency, in which the CGIL has already been mentioned, unquestionably scored some points in their polemics.
‘For the colonial countries, or those that have recently gained their independence, the WFTU made a special effort, by adopting -- in addition to more than a section in the first document -- a special document, Nonetheless the results are not any more remarkable. With regard to countries still under direct colonial rule and those in the grip of neocolonialism, completely banal affirmations are again repeated in a style discouraging to the most patient readers. When the crucial problem of methods of struggle is considered, the main preoccupation is not to displease anyone and not to risk being given the lie by this or that possible development: “the workers struggle has forms, methods and procedures that are very diverse and which go from strikes and mass demonstrations up to armed insurrection" (paragraph 6 of the second document) and the same thing is repeated in the specific case of Latin America (paragraph 12). The effort to characterize.the evolution of certain Asian and African countries is certainly not an excessive one: "Algeria, Egypt, Guinea, Mali, Ghana, Indonesia, etc., are countries that have carried out an active. mobil-= ization of resources and domestic forces in the struggle against neo-
*Paragraph 243 states: "Currents favorable to a consistent attitude in the class struggle are growing stronger in all the capitalist coun= tries, even those where the unions have had a contrary attitude." In paragraph 46, one reads: "In all the capitalist countries, the work ers are affirming their desire for unity and their support is growing for the efforts of the organizations working for its realization."
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colonialism, for national independence and social progress. A number of these countries have already openly attained a stage of social. transformation." (Paragraph 25.)
The tasks indicated for this sector of the world are defined as mainly bourgeois-democratic and the well-known formulas are offered on the role of the so-called national bourgeoisie. (Paragraph 12.) In line with certain recent Soviet generalizations, the "noncapitalist" road is spoken of in addition, but it emerges rather: clearly that the "noncapitalist' road does not necessarily mean the "socialist" road.* Thus once more we are served with arbitrary schemas, which, : in the final analysis, are of Stalinist origin. |
A single hasty allusion seems to introduce an interesting note in the "anti~-Fanonist" sense. “The working class," it is said in paragraph 31, “not only is the main enemy of all oppression, but it is also the least contaminated by the disintegrating influence of the. reactionary feudal forces," However, the real problem is: evaded. It is clear that the working class suffers much less than any other social layer from the influence of the "reactionary feudal forces." But the question which some, like Frantz Fanon, pose is whether in the context of a colonial or semicolonial country the working class, if only relatively,-is not a privileged. layer -compared to the broad peasant masses and the plebian masses of the towns. _To this question, the theses of the WFTU offer no answer,
Let. us stress finally that the judgment on the recent regional conferences of the African and Latin-American trade unions, and the affirmation concerning "the end of the split in the trade-union movement on the basis of a program of unity and anti-imperialism" in these sectors of the world are also marked by undue optimism,
We do not as yet know the attitude of the Chinese trade unions with regard to the theses. For several years they have attacked the majority pro=Moscow leadership of the WFTU from the left.
As to the rightist current represented by the Italian unions, to which we have already alluded, we can add a few words. The Italian members of the Executive Committee voted against the theses and the Socialists even utilized them to open a new round in their battle to take the CGIL out of the WFTU.
Now if, as we have said, the Italian criticisms on the section concerning the workers states are well founded (abstraction made of the viewpoint they express, particularly that of the Socialists), and if it is true that the documents offer an extremely summary and schematic picture of the reality in the advanced capitalist countries,
“Aa number of them [freed colonial countries] are hastening their march along the road of noncapitalist development. Some of them have taken a road that is actually socialist.!* (Paragraph 31 of the first document, ) .
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it cannot be overlooked on the other hand that the Italians, includ- ing the leaders of the Communist tendency, do not accept a characterization of capitalist planning which nonetheless is considered a mate ter of course among Marxists. Even more unacceptable is the remark made by Lama and Mosca (Lama is’ also one of the leaders of the Italian Communist party) about~the picture presented. by the theses on the world situation, . , vo
This “analytic" picture, according to them, advanced "on many points an a priori ideological choice." Even the language speaks volumes. Are these bureaucrats making an “a priori ideological choice" in lining up with the workers states against imperialism and capitalism? Would they prefer to take a neutral attitude or play the role of fair-weather friends in the struggle?
At bottom, neither the Italian Socialists nor the Communists are very much interested in the WFTU, its theses and its congress, Both currents would like to utilize the occasion to move away on dif ferent levels from the workers states and the organizations linked with: them ih,order later on to come out for "independence" and "auton omy,'' the better to apply their national rightist policies.
their enthusiasm for "“democratizing" the Italian unions, that the CGIL determined its attitude toward the WFTU theses without consulting the membership or cadres in any way. They did not even have a chance to read the documents which were nonetheless rejected in their name. The Italian translation appeared only on the eve of the opening of the congress in Warsaw.
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Directeur-Gérant: Pierre FRANK. l'éditepr)..