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(11) WHAT THE 'LEFT' DIDN'T SEE
Unfortunately, the 'left' have learned very little about general strikes. Socialist Worker says "The release of the 5 jailed dockers is a milestone in trade union history. The magnificent solidarity strikes that swept the country and paralysed important sections of industry have proved that when the working class stands together and fights together then the power of the government and the law courts can be beaten. But we must not rest on our laurels. We have won a battle. The war is not yet over ... Thanks to the fighting determination of the rank and file this last, historic week, Jones and the rest of the union leaders will have to stand up and be counted. It is vitally important that TGWU members demand that Jones refuse to pay the fine and support his stewards' actions." And now, when the rank and file of the working class HAVE GONE BACK TO WORK, SW declares that there MUST be "No payment of fines ... Only strike action can defeat the law; the TUC must call a General Strike against the fines on the TGWU and to defeat the IR Act." (29.7.72) The Morning Star also declares in kind only a shade more moderately: "Many will regret that the General Council did not reiterate its call for a 24 hour general strike against the Act (nb: the official general strike, as the unofficial, was for the release of the 5 not against the Act; the Star attempts to enlarge the consciousness of the working class in pressurising the General Council here - NS) and will welcome the demand for this by the NUM Executive. The TUC delegates should be recalled to launch this type of action."
Having in the first instance stated correctly that trade union leaders act only in response to their rank and file, Socialist Worker then says that they ought to act without the instructions of the rank and file and call a general strike against the Act. Firstly, from whence does this moral imperative 'ought' derive, perhaps from the moral imperative that every one of us who is truly on the working class' side ought to will the revolution. If that were so, then revolution would be the result of the sum total of the majority's will - we could voluntarily will it if there were enough of us. This is a typical petty-bourgeois metaphysical notion of the world in the best of British Christian Socialist traditions. Revolution occurs not from the balance of class forces - which includes the political consciousness of each class - but from our belief that it ought to be. Secondly, you can't have it both ways: either leaders act in response to the stand of their rank and file or they don't. No doubt, if the TUC entered into a voluntary incomes policy, IS would be the first to shout (correctly) that they had no mandate from their rank and file to do so. But, it rubs the opposite way too. IS cannot argue from a materialist standpoint that the leaders should call a general strike when their rank and file have not forced them to do so; they are forced to argue from a moral standpoint - that it is right to do so.
By sliding into idealism, IS conveniently avoid seeing the material problem: changing the consciousness of the rank and file so that they can take a different stand which their leaders will be obliged to represent accurately or give way to leaders who will. This material problem falls squarely into IS' own lap: it is only politics and the political struggle that can alter political consciousness. But, outraged ISers will respond, Socialist Worker does just that: it tells the working class on page 1 that a "full-blooded, revolutionary socialist organisation" is necessary "that rejects completely the laws with which big business tried to bind us and the ruses with which it attempts to divide us." But, this full-blooded organisation is like the shining white knight in a sentimental fairy tale that appears miraculously "as if from nowhere" to save the princess in distress - indeed like the popular notion of the Official Solicitor. Revolutionary organisations are not simply revolutionary because that is their formal title - they must be analysed by their substance, for what they say to the working class. At the moment IS are saying three things to the working class - (l) you are behaving magnificently (2) your leaders should be two steps in front of you as well as with you (3) you ought to join IS. There is more reality in the Daily Mirror's analysis than in that of IS, Their only claim to being the revolutionary 'conscience' of the working class is revolutionary sentimentality.
The Morning Star's stance is a shade more refined - they are not sentimental, merely pious. They do not have the 'passion of revolution', merely the self-satisfied conviction that they are right and so is the working class. It is not an ethical question of whether the bourgeoisie are wrong and the working class right, but a question of the balance of class forces. At present, though the working class is the stronger force in production because of their place in the production process, they are less advanced in political consciousness than the bourgeoisie. Therefore, if the bourgeoisie take account of the working class' greater strength and allow for it accordingly in the positions they adopt in the class struggle, they can continue to ensure that capitalism continues after a general strike. A change in the political consciousness alone does not alter the balance of class forces. Even if the working class were more advanced in its political consciousness than the bourgeoisie, if it were not stronger in the production process than the bourgeoisie, it could not destroy capitalism. What advancing political consciousness does allow the working class to do is to use its position in the balance of class forces.
Standing out in defense of its own members against the state is the present limit of the working class' consciousness. Unless Socialist Worker and the Morning Star explain to the working class that it is possible for it to move further and make further demands on the basis of its existing position in the production process and what those demands should be in order to advance its interests, they remain appendages and parasites on the working class.
Even a General Strike against the IR Act advocated by Socialist Worker and the Morning Star is a defensive action addressing itself and aiming only at the manifestation of the material forces which made the Act necessary for the bourgeoisie. Getting rid of the Act will not get rid of the fact that the bourgeoisie must find some way of modernising British capitalism. The problem for the British working class is how to defend and further its interests under new conditions, in a modernised capitalism - not how to hold back the new conditions.