SLANDER HISTORY OF BRITISH WORKING CLASS

What the revisionists seek at all points to do is to write off the unions. or, more accurately, to confuse the rank and file of its unions with the leadership.

This is particularly clear in the article by A. Jones of the International Marxist Group when he deals with the early unions of the skilled workers, formed after 1850 of which the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE) was typical.

'In this situation the trade unions of the "aristocrats" could quite plausibly see themselves as having just as much, if not more, in common with the employers than with other sections of workers, writes Jones.

Now we do not need the IMG to tell us that the aim the leaders TAP 'New Model' unions was class collaboration with the employers. But this was never an absolute development, Jones wishes to present it, but a relative one. However narrow the outlook of the craft union leaders, they remained at the head of working class organizations which at that period (the 1850s and 1860s) were unique in Europe.

And at a later stage, towards the end of the century, when international competition began to intensity and technical changes undermined partially at least the privileges of layers of the old "labour former 'New Model of unions aristocracy', many of the were at the centre of crucial developments in the working class movement.

This was true of the ASE itself which from the 1890s allowed first semi-skilled and later unskilled workers into Its ranks and was at the heart of the movement during World War I which saw the creation of the shop stewards' moveAgain, what this IMG 'theoretician' ignores is the great impact which the emergence of imperialism had upon the working-class movement. The relations between the leaders of the New Model unions, the employers and the state could trend within movement.

Reformism has drawn its strength from the exploitation by British capitalism of a vast pool of labour throughout the colonial and semi-colonial world. It is because this Empire has now disappeared and capitalism internationally is in deep crisis that all the reformists inside the working class movement are thrown closer and closer towards the capitalist state in service of its most direct needs.

Unlike Jones and his revisionist friends, Marx paid the greatest attention to the development of the British trade union movement.

While acutely conscious of its many weaknesses and limitations he realized always its great potential. Yet Jones is forced to slight Marx's entire work with the English trade union movement during the period of the First International. After the collapse of Chartism, there was a 'degeneration' in class consciousness, according to Jones.

'Even the brief interlude when some of the trade unions were involved with the First International did not really reflect any real change in attitude.' And later: 'The English trade unions affiliated to the International took nO real political action however'.

Here again we see the idealist search for a 'perfect' working class. However 'confused' the union leaders were about the historical implications of the decision to found the International in 1864 (and such confusion was in case an inevitable starting point) without the active support of the union leaders and members who affiliated to the International Marx would never have been able to defeat Bakunin and later draw the real lesson from the defeat of the 1871 Paris Commune.

It was in this period that the orinciple of the legal eight-hour day was made part of the policy of the International, a demand which provided the rallying call for the resurrection of the International (as the Second International) in 1889 the weaknesses of Hyndman and other SDF leaders; but this did not for moment affect the patient way in which he tried to turn the young and inexperienced movement towards the unions and the working class as the only way in which its isolation could be And whatever hatever faults the SDF might have had it certainlye eared leading role developments of the great moves to unionize the unskilled (New Unionism) from _The late 1880s onwards People like Will Thorne who worked with both Engels and daughter linism (the force which betrayed the Russian revolution and then proceeded to murder al those in Russia and internationally who defended that revolution) with Bolshevism (the force which made sible the 1917 revolution, Pos!

Here alone is living proof of the absolutely principled nature of the split within the Fourth International in 1953 when the International Committee (to which the Socialist Labour League is affiliated) broke. from all those who wished to capitulate to Stalinism and destroy the theoretical basis of Trotskyism. tire strategic line because it feared being outflanked to the left in the industrial struggles within the company' And later on the same page: 'Because a CP is directly organized at the point of production, it also means that there is relatively little room for manoeuvre by a CP trade union leader in a Stalinist party • • • These features together create a situation where trade union leaders are directly under pressure of the working-class in struggle and like the CPs he must frame his policies accordingly!

Here is the clearest example