Vol. 3 No. 4, August–September 1958
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Vol. 3 AUGUST"SEPTEMBER 1958 No.4 SOCIALISTS AND TRADE UNIONS Three Conferences 97 'Export of Revolution' 104 Freedom 011 the Individual 119 Labour's 1951 Defeat '25 . Science and Socialism 128 SUMMER BOOKS_____ -. reviewed by HENRY COLLINS, JOHN DANIELS, TOM KEMP, STANLEY EVANS, DOUGLAS GOLDRING, BRIAN PEARCE and others TWO SHILLINGS 266 Lavender Hill, London S.W. II Editors: John Daniels, Robert Shaw Business Manager: Edward R. Knight Contents EDITORIAL Three Conferences 97 SOt:IALISTS AND THE TRADE UNIONS Brian Behan 98 . 'EXPORT OF REVOLUTION', 19l7-1924 Brian Pearce lO4 FREEDOM OF THE INDIVIDUAL Peter Fryer 119 COMMUNICATIONS Stalinism and the Defeat of the 1945-51 Labour Governments Peter Cadogan 125 Science and Socialism G. N. Anderson 128 SUMMER BOOKS The New Ghana, by J. G. Amamoo Ekiomenesekenigha 109 The First International, ed. and trans. by Hans Gerth Henry Collins 110 Germany and the Revolution in Russia, 1915-1918, ed. by Z. A. B. Zeman B.P. 110 Stalin's C(}rresp~ndence with Churchill, At-tlee, Roosevelt and Truman, 1941-45 Brian Pearce 111 The Economics of Communist Eastern Europe, by Nicolas Spulber Tom Kemp III The Epic Strain in the English Novel, by E. M. W. Tillyard S.F.H. 113 A Victorian Eminence, by Giles St Aubyn K. R. Andrews 114 The Sweet and Twenties, by Beverley Nichols Douglas Goldring 114 Soviet Education for Science and Technoiogy, by A. G. Korol John Daniels ll5 Seven Years Solitary, by Edith Bone J.C.D. 115 The Kingdom of Free Men, by G. Kitson Clark Stanley Evans 116 On Religion, by K. Marx and F. Engels Cyril Smith 116 A Cockney in Moscow, by Harold Elvin P. Bryan 116 Edito,.ial Three Conferences HE conference of rank-and-file industrial workers on their assembly, organization and political and T III London on November 16, called by the editorial ideological training no care or effort is too great. board of The Newsletter, will be welcomed by every militant. There is an urgent need for discussion ND so the forthcoming rank-and-file ~onfere?ce of tne problems raised by the continuing employers' Ahas a significance quite beyond the Immediate offensive. This is shown by the paltry l-!d. an hour problems which are the occasion of its calling. offered to the gasworkers, 3 per cent. to the engineers Not only will it be, as distinct from the TUC and and 75. 6d. to the portworkers. It is shown bv the the Labour Party conference, a purely rank-and-file shameful revelations in the report of the General gathering, dominated by no platform, run by. n? Council to the 1958 Trades Union Congress about the bureaucracv, steered by no officials; not only wlll It way the busmen were stabbed in the back. It is shown provide an- excellent opportunity fo: an exchange of by the latest provocative effusion of the 'Three Wise opinions among ordinary workers directly elected by, Men', foreseeing more unemployment and calling for and therefore directly answerable to, the lads on the smaller wage increases. It is shown by the alarming job; not oniy wiH it permit the pooling of expe~ien~e, extension of 'redundancy' sackings; by the ugly race the taking of decisions on mutual help and sohdanty riots in Nottingham and Notting Hill; by the fall in action; not only will it lay the foundations for a rank Labour's electoral support and the popular' demand and-file movement linking and co-ordinating the efforts for a Left-wing policy to prove that there is a Labour of militants in different industries; but it will also be Party. Ostensibly the problems now confronting the a milestone in the construction of a genuine Marxist British workers will be discussed at the two major movement in Britain. And what kind of a Marxist working-class conferences of the year: the TUe and movement? Not a group of embittered doctrinaires the Labour Party conference. But no active member v·,ithout roots or perspectives or· the ability to le~rn of the Labour movement has any illusions about the from their mistakes; not a coterie of well-meamng character of these two conferences. Both are domin universitv dons and writers who have something to say ated by the platform in such a way as to minimize on every' subject except the class str~ggle .taking. place the expression of Left-wing opinions and to block the under their noses; not a party paymg IIp-service to reflection of those opinions in the kind of resolutions Marxism but in fact dominated by whichever faction and decisions that w'iIl lead to action. Both the TUe happens to be in control in Moscow. No, the Marxist and the Labour Partv conference are run bv a bureau movement to whose construction LABOUR REVIEW is cracy which skilfully" controls the proceedings. making dedicated will be rooted in the pits and workshops and sure that what is decided does not overstep the limits on the building sites; it will unite the efforts of workers of class collaboration, challenge the capitalist State for whom 'intellectual' is not a dirty word and intel machine or endanger the 'gentlemanly' conventions of lectuals who have no dearer wish than to serve the parliamentary opposition. This does not mean that it working class in struggle; it wiII carry forward those is futile for militants and revolutionaries to work for traditions of revolutionarv ardour, discipline, stead the enlightenment of their fellow-trade unionists and fastness and internationalism to which the word fellow-members of the Labour Party. by pressing for 'Bolshevik' is properly applied, and will marry them, ward as energetically as possible for the ending of th.! in new conditions, to all the best traditions of our present Right-wing domination of the policies and native working-class struggle. The Marxist movement in leadership of these bodies. On the contrary, patient. Britain \\Jill be the worthy heir to the Chartists, the painstaking and consistent work within the traditional Clydeside strikers. the councils of action, the Com organizations of the British working class is the only munist Party of 1920-24, the National Minority Move way in which Marxists can effectively participate in ment, the Marxist .~roups of the thirties and the Revo the experience of their class and shmv their fellow lutionary Communist Party of the forties. workers the need for a Marxist alternative to leaders who are in the last analysis agents of the employing Eare convinced that the bus strike was a dress class within the ranks of Labour. But no one who takes W rehearsal, an overture during which there up this arduous task of Marxist activity in the workers' appeared in outline all the principal themes movement should expect easy victories. even at a time which \vill reappear, fully orchestrated, in the coming of growing militancy. It is uphill work: a reader of our c1a<<; battles-above [111 the theme of the bankruptcy literature won here, a contact gained there. a discus and treacherv of the Riqht-winq leaders. We are con sion group formed. a resolution passed. a group Df vinced that the need of the hour is the emergence of militants won for thc Marxist col1Cepti(111 (1f struggle new Jcader~, whose horizons are not bounded by reo and strategy. Before the revolutiol1arv cri<;is ma!ure~. forms within the framework of the caoitalist order. bringing ovcr to the banner of Marxism tens and hut who nre thnroUi.'h-!!oing revolutionaries. Therefore hundreds of thousands of workers. those who see (he Lu>nCR REVIEW pledge;; full supnort for the conference need for such a comprehensive strate~y as only Marx c~.I1ed bv The Newsletter and appeals to its readers to ism has to offer are relativelv few. Thou!!h few. these helD the- success of this conference by every means in are the precious cadres of the future workers' party: their nower. 97 August-September 195~ LABOUR REVIEW Socialists and the Trade Unions Brian Behan THE bilCkgroUlld to the struggles in industry today js THE CRISIS OF LEADERSHIP the ilttempt of the employers and their Tory Govern The Riaht-wina trade union and Labour leaders noL ment to solve the economic crisis at the expense of the only had ~o poii~y of mobilizing the whole n~ovement \,orking class. In particular the employers are trying: in support of the busmen but worked conSCIOusly to (l) To offset the fall in the rate of profit, and the isolate and destroy them. For ~he busmen to. have Wall effect of growing; competition on a limited world a complete victory, an extenslOn .of the stnke to the market, by holdmg down wages; Underground, road haulage and 011 w~s necessa~y. The (2.\ To solve the balance of payments problem by Government would have been fmced eIther to gIve way cuttina the purchasing power of the working completely or to move troops in and face the biggest class ~nd middle class, thus reducing the home industrial stoppage since 1926. Ther~ ~een:s ;;to .doubt demand for consumer goods; that the Tories were unable and unvn!lmg LO iace such a stoppage. Out of such an extension could have come (3) To prevent the working class from regaining in the removal of the Tory Government and the return of waoe increases the cuts in wages caused by the Re~t Act and other political decisions; and Labour to power. Right-wing trade ur;tion leaders <;lid not attempt to argue against an extenSIOn of the stnke (-ll To create, by means of the cuts in purchasing on the ground that such an extension would not b~ pGwer and the credit squeeze, a pool of un successful.