Vote Labour! Expose Wilson's reformist policies

[p020] VOTE LABOUR! Expose Wilson’s reformist policies IN MAY AND JUNE 1969 the British working class, despite a weak leadership, gave an unforgettable demonstration of its power and unity when it forced the Wilson government to shelve its reaction- ary White Paper. This was a double blow aimed not only against the traitorous Labour leaders, but also against the employers and the Tories who supported Wilson without cavil. Today, although the line up of forces has_ been re- arranged, the issue remains the same. It is the independ- ence of the working class as a class and the defence of the most important conquest of the British working class—its trade unions—from the suffo- cating embrace of capitalist dictatorship. While Wilson tried to open the door to state control and failed, the Tories are trying to batter the door down altogether. We declare unequivocally that June 18 is the direct continuation of the historic struggle begun by the trade- union movement last year. We further state that the only way to defend the tac- tical gains of 1969 is to keep the Tories ‘out in 1970 and complete the struggle which has been.-going on, particularly since the enactment of the Prices and Incomes Act, 10 against the misleadership and treachery of the Fabian re- formists. Our task We will never concede the task of defeating Wilson to the bankers and businessmen of the Tory Party. Wilson is a traitor to the working class, not to the em- ployers. If the Tories want to get rid of Wilson today, it is only because they want to get at the working class more effec- tively and also because they realize that Wilson’s credi- bility in the working class is very low. The existence of a Labour government paralysed by the massive resistance of the trade unions, which in turn is fed and strengthened by the vic- tories and advances of the international working class from Cambodia to California, is an unbearable provocation to the Tories. It is not Wilson the Tories are after but us— the workers. : Wilson’s betrayals are too well known to need repetition: the seamen’s strike, the July 1966 measures, the attack on the dockers, devaluation in 1967, deflation in 1968, the wage freeze and clause 4, un- employment, Vietnam, Mid- East, Rhodesia and now Ulster. Nauseating It’s a nauseating record and we make no apologies for it nor will we.cease our struggle against Wilson. Nevertheless as we have pointed out already, the poli- tical struggle against the Tories transcends (but does not negate) the struggle against the perfidy of the Wilsonite Fabians. If Marxism is the science of contradictions, then the task of Marxists in this election is to determine which is the principal and which is the secondary contradiction in the struggle and not to lump the bureaucracy promiscuously with the employers. Only sectarian idealists and middle-class muddleheads in the revisionist movement ask voters to abstain. Serious revolutionaries, however, who know where the real enemy lies and who have grasped the method of Marxism, will not be con- fused or distracted by sec- tarian diversions, but will vote Labour today. The General Election is more than a national event. It takes place in the context of the greatest economic crisis in the capitalist world since 1929 and at a time when both world Stalinism and imperial- ism are faced with the biggest and stormiest upsurge of the working class since 1917. Integral In a distorted way the elec- tion represents an_ integral part of this world-wide struggle of the working class. A defeat for the Tories today will have as much signi- ficance for the European workers as the defeat of de Gaulle in the 1969 referendum. But whereas de Gaulle’s defeat came in the aftermath of May-June 1968, the defeat of the Tories would signify the prelude to much bigger events in Britain. Not to vote Labour is to betray not only the British workers but the European workers and the entire struggle against the Com- mon Market and for the Socialist United States of Europe. It would also seriously affect the prospects of the trade- union movement in the USA, which for the first time is beginning to participate in the anti-war, anti-Nixon move- ment and is taking the first tentative steps towards in- dependent political action. To vote Labour is not a surrender to Wilson. In this struggle the Marxist opponents of Wilson will march separately but strike together with trade unionists and Labour Party members and co-operativists at the common enemy—the Tories. In this way we will not only participate in the real experi- ence of the workers, but, more important, we shall have the opportunity through the Workers Press and the work of the Socialist Labour League and Young Socialists of intro- ducing our programme to new layers of the class and of helping to raise its conscious- ness in the course of the experience during and after the General Election. In this way we_ shall broaden the bases of the Socialist Labour League and raise the level of conscious- ness generally in the class. Fourth International. Winter 1970/71

[p021] VOTE LABOUR! Expose Wilson’s reformist policies IN MAY AND JUNE 1969 the British working class, despite a weak leadership, gave an unforgettable demonstration of its power and unity when it forced the Wilson government to shelve its reaction- ary White Paper. This was a double blow aimed not only against the traitorous Labour leaders, but also against the employers and the Tories who supported Wilson without cavil. Today, although the line up of forces has been re- arranged, the issue remains the same. It is the independ- ence of the working class as a class and the defence of the most important conquest of the British working class—its trade unions—from the suffo- cating embrace of capitalist dictatorship. While Wilson tried to open the door to state control and failed, the Tories are trying to batter the door down altogether. We declare unequivocally that June 18 is the direct continuation of the historic struggle begun by the trade- union movement last year. We further state that the only way to defend the tac- tical gains of 1969 is to keep the Tories out in 1970 and complete the struggle which has been.-going on, particularly. since the enactment of the Prices and Incomes Act, 10 against the misleadership and treachery of the Fabian re- formists. Our task We will never concede the task of defeating Wilson to the bankers and businessmen of the Tory Party. Wilson is @ traitor to the working class, not to the em- ployers. If the Tories want to get rid of Wilson today, it is only because they want to get at the working class more effec- tively and also because they realize that Wilson’s credi- bility in the working class is very low. The existence of a Labour government paralysed by the massive resistance of the trade unions, which in turn is fed and strengthened by the vic- tories and advances of the international working class from Cambodia to California, is an unbearable provocation to the Tories. It is not Wilson the Tories are after but us— the workers. . Wilson’s betrayals are too well known. to need repetition: the seamen’s strike, the July 1966 measures, the attack on the dockers, devaluation in 1967, deflation in 1968, the wage freeze and clause 4, un- émployment, Vietnam, Mid- East, Rhodesia and now Ulster. Nauseatin g It’s a nauseating record and we make no apologies for it nor will we.cease our struggle against Wilson. Nevertheless as we have pointed out already, the poli- tical struggle against the Tories transcends (but does not negate) the struggle against the perfidy of the Wilsonite Fabians. If Marxism is the science of contradictions, then the task of Marxists in this election is to determine which is the principal and which is the secondary contradiction in the struggle and not to lump the bureaucracy promiscuously with the employers. Only sectarian idealists and middle-class muddleheads in the revisionist movement ask voters to abstain. Serious revolutionaries, however, who know where the real enemy lies and who have grasped the method of Marxism, will not be con- fused or distracted by sec- tarian diversions, but will vote Labour today. The General Election is more than a national event. It takes place in the context of the greatest economic crisis in the capitalist world since 1929 and at a time when both world Stalinism and imperial- ism are faced with the biggest and stormiest upsurge of the working class since 1917. Integral In a distorted way the elec- tion represents an integral part of this world-wide struggle of the working class. A defeat for the Tories today will have as much signi- ficance for the European workers as the defeat of de Gaulle in the 1969 referendum. But whereas de Gaulle’s defeat came in the aftermath of May-June 1968, the defeat of the Tories would signify the prelude to much bigger events in Britain. — Not to vote Labour is to betray not only the British workers but the European workers and the entire struggle against the Com- mon Market and for the Socialist United States of Europe. It would also seriously affect the prospects of the trade- union movement in the USA, which for the first time is beginning to participate in the anti-war, anti-Nixon move- ment and is taking the first tentative steps towards in- dependent political action. To vote Labour is not a surrender to Wilson. In this struggle the Marxist opponents of Wilson will march separately but strike together with trade unionists and Labour Party members and co-operativists at the common enemy—the Tories. In this way we will not only participate in the real experi- ence of the workers, but, more important, we shall have the opportunity through the Workers Press and the work of the Socialist Labour League and Young Socialists of intro- ducing our programme to new layers of the class and of helping to raise its conscious- ness in the course of the experience during and after the General Election. In this way we_ shail broaden the bases of the Socialist Labour League and raise the level of conscious- ness generally in the class. Fourth International. Winter 1970/71

[p022] The Young Socialist-All Trades Unions Alliance demonstration on June 5, 1969—the day of the special TUC conference to discuss anti-union laws. During this period the working class gave an unforgettable demonstration of its strength by pushing back government plans. ‘Unlike the revisionists we do not think that because we are a minority in the working class we cannot therefore play an important role. On the contrary, it is not the numerical weakness of the League, but the strength of our cadre and the con-. tent of our policy and pro- gramme which is decisive and which must have a sub- stantial effect on the more advanced as well as some of the more backward sectors of the class. Consciousness ‘The proletariat,’ as Trot- sky once pointed out, ‘moves toward revolutionary consciousness not by pass- ing grades in school, but by passing through the class struggle, which abhors inter- ruptions . . . the words in the Communist Manifesto which state that the Com- munists are not to be opposed to the proletariat, that they have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole, carry within them the meaning that the struggle of the party to win over the majority of the class must in no instance come into opposition with the needs of the workers to keep unity within their fighting ranks... . ‘... The task of the party consists in learning from the experience derived from the struggle, how to demonstrate to the pro- letariat its right to leader- ship.’ (‘Germany: What Next?’, L. Trotsky.) Vote Labour The sense of this question is totally opposed to the sec- tarians of revisionism as much as to the opportunists of Stalinism. The latter play an extremely pernicious and_ reactionary role in this election by posing, fraudulently, as the party with the ‘only socialist policy’. We appeal to Communist Party members and potential CP voters to reject the spurious socialism of the CP and vote Labour. We say so because the CP programme is a_ reformist and reactionary programme which consciously deludes workers about the nature of imperialism and tries to reconcile the interests of the working class with those of its oppressors. s e Foreign policy This is particularly revealed in its foreign policy or, as the CP statement says, its ‘pro- posals for peace’: ‘Britain’ to support the demand for a conference of all European governments to establish a system of collec- tive security in Europe, based on the recognition of the post- 1945 frontiers and the exist- ence of the two German States.’ We could not find a greater travesty and a more monstrous betrayal of socialism than this. A Party that states un- equivocally that it is prepared to collaborate with the re- actionary regimes of Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France and Austria to keep Germany permanently divided is not a Communist Party, but a col- lection of reactionary patriots who have no right to speak for communism. ‘Collective Security’ in Europe is ‘security’ for the capitalist class to oppress and exploit the working class and smash all democratic and socialist opposition. It is the condoning of mili- tary dictatorship and police oppression. It is the negation of com- munism which connotes the abolition of private property and the national state and, therefore, national frontiers. Chauvinist It is indeed a measure of Gollan’s chauvinism that the CP should be proposing two Germanies exactly 100 years after the unification of Ger- many, a historically progres- sive task which Marx and Engels critically supported. We ask Gollan: why two Germanies? Why not unwind the spool of history and go back to the principalities of feudal Germany? This policy of peaceful co- existence and collective security now enables the CP to whitewash the overt break- ing of strikes in fascist Spain and Ireland with Polish coal and cement and Stalinist sup- port for the reactionary junta in Greece. It has nothing in com- mon with the spirit of the Communist Manifesto which states categorically: ‘The working men have no country.’ CP policy is a_ political expression of counter-revolu- tionary Stalinism and is a reformist diversion in the election. More and more workers are beginning to see through the pacifist-reformism of the CP in the same way as they are seeing through Wilson and are fighting him. Votes fallen That’s why the CP vote has fallen so catastrophically over recent years. The CP intervention does not help to unite the work- ing class in a struggle against the Tories, nor does it pre- pare the workers for the struggle against Wilson after the election. Since its policy is to per- suade workers that Wilson can be changed by pressure from within ahd without the Labour Party, it leaves .Wil- son’s control of the Labour Party intact. For all these reasons we urge workers not to vote Communist, but to vote Labour today. The Socialist Labour League is not standing any candidates in the elections for the reasons already advanced. When the situation demands it we shall stand candidates with the same determination and success as when we launched the YS and the daily paper. This, however, is not the position today. Our main task is to de- feat the Tories today and use this tactical victory to prepare the ground for a major victory against Wil- son, Powell and Paisley at a later date. In the coming struggles as much as in this one socialist policies will play a decisive and preponderant role. We urge all workers, in voting Labour, to read our policy for the crisis and sup- port our struggle against the dangers of war, unemploy- ment and capitalist dictator- ship. Only Trotskyist policies and leadership can and will guide the working class out of the chaos of capitalism to the successful establishment of socialism in Britain, Europe and the world. 1