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THE LEFT'S IDEA OF LEADERSHIP
Members of IS have defended the dockers struggle to the author on the basis that the docks are a centre of militancy and solidarity. If they run down and the workers disperse, their militancy and solidarity will be lost and the working class will be less powerful, more defenceless. Our reply is that IS must then believe that something fundamental and essential about capitalism has changed: i.e. they must believe that new working conditions and new jobs will be somehow so different that the workers there will never be militant or exhibit symptoms of being exploited. This leaves us to draw the conclusion that either there is something metaphysical involved in producing militancy in the first place: it does not arise out of material conditions but from 'spirit'; or that capitalism has changed fundamentally and no longer exploits workers and IS have merely neglected to tell us. Or perhaps they are suppressing the information and relying on the 'spirit' established by the old capitalism to bring the revolution.
The Morning Star justifies the dockers' present position by telling us they were treated like cattle in the past. Again, we see their pious morality: the employers have sinned against the workers in the past; therefore, they must atone and pay for that sin now and forever after. However, capitalism does not get its motive force from spirit or from moral justice. It gets it from reality, from the productive forces. And the dockers recognised just that reality by voting to go back to work.
Socialist Worker's advice to the dockers was to pay no heed to Jack Jones as he was obviously unreliable and politically bankrupt. Their reasons for this were that he had already allowed the docks to run down their labour force and that the Jones-Aldington Committee concessions could not possibly save the 12,000 jobs which would be lost in the next three years. Socialist Worker also revealed that Jack Jones would never have moved to get even the J-A Committee concessions had he not been "forced" to do so by the rank and file. It seems to us that SW's conception of leadership is anything but democratic. The logical conclusion from their statement is that Jack Jones should have moved without his rank-and-file and demanded nationalisation with workers control on their behalf. It seems that SW subscribe to the 'messianic' idea held by others in the petty bourgeoisie that all that is needed to solve our problems is a leader like Winston Churchill or Lloyd George. Only SW believe we need not Jack Jones but a Lenin who obviously made the Russian Revolution because he did not take the real position and consciousness of the Russian working class into account, but instead 'led' them.
Jack Jones was interviewed by the Daily Mirror on 11.8.72. He said, "The trade union must not be the 'boss' of its members. It must not be bureaucratic - it has to be responsive to the needs of ordinary people. They have a right to run their union and be involved directly or through their elected representatives when industrial agreements are made ... I have never given 'orders' to members - that's not my view of what the relationship is between a union officer and the members." Perhaps SW would disagree. Further, there is every indication that Jones and the TGWU officials not only recognise the shop stewards as the legitimate representatives of the rank-and-file and treat them accordingly but also aid them in that function. "Indeed, examining, as we have tried to do, the detailed sequence of events that led to the Midland Cold Storage confrontation, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the most likely plotters are the TGWU. There is ample evidence that, at every stage, the relationship between Vic Turner (one of 5 imprisoned and Royal Docks shop steward, NS) and the other T and G officials was extremely close. The union certainly collaborated in the blacking campaign - to the extent, at least, that firms wishing to be removed from the 'Cherry Blossom list' had to apply through the union. And the T and G, indeed, has got precisely what it wanted. Even a dock strike of modest duration is by no means against the T and G's interest. It will, after all, concentrate the employers' minds wonderfully. If that seems cynical, it is worth saying that we have good reason to believe that Lord Aldington - facing the task of pushing through his scheme - feels much the same way." (Sunday Times, 30.7.72)
Jack Jones and TGWU officials are 'led' by their rank-and-file insofar as the rank-and-file delegate to Jones and co the job of bargaining with the employing class. When the rank-and-file are satisfied with the bargain obtained, they return to work. Jones and co understand and work on the basis of this relation. They do not return to the rank-and-file until they have real concessions to offer them that are about as much as they think can be gained from the employers. And the rank-and-file pay some attention to that assessment of Jones. They do not trust him; they simply recognise that he is doing his job and does not have any ulterior motive for deceiving them. It should also be added that the employers and the Government understand Mr. Jones' relation to the rank-and-file. When they get round the bargaining table, they are ready to give way. The point at which the 'bargaining table' enters in is when both sides have assessed each other's strength and ability to hold out. Thus the Confederation of Engineering Unions recently settled for much less that they had come out for precisely because its rank-and-file had recognised that the employers were ready to endure substantial production losses and cuts in profit to resist the workers' demands. The rank-and-file therefore did not respond to the call from their leaders (starting with Hugh Scanlon going down through CP and IS militants) to pursue local action in support of their claim. What the rank-and-file are not demanding of their leaders is the pursuit of political demands. SW seems to want Jack Jones to act as the Bolshevik vanguard in pursuing political demands on behalf of his rank-and-file even though they have not made them. Perhaps they think that there is no change necessary in the understanding of the working class in order to make the revolution - all we need is to convince the leaders.