MR ROBERTS REVOLUTION

Ernie Roberts, well-known trade union 'left' and assistant secretary of the engineering union, has taken up, in a book published this week called 'Workers' Control', the question of how socialism is to be achieved in Britain.

Roberts describes how the working class can achieve political power without revolution by adding more and more to their degree of control over industry until the capitalists completely undermined.

'At the present time, capitalist control and workers' control are out of balance, with the scales heavily weighted in favour of capitalism.

'But previous struggle has ensured that some measure of control exists even at this stage, and every gain made by the workers, every battle won, encroaches upon the power of the employers, and will eventually increase the workers' power to the stage where they can make an open challenge to the capitalists.

'At this crisis point, one more victory for the working class would "tip the scales" 'Of course, the nearer the working class get to the achievement of complete power, power, the fiercer will the capitalist class fight, but still every gain by the workers contributes towards the eroding of what Bert Ramelson calls "the Same woon capitalism"' Roberts does not say what is to happen to the state fected over centuriesndy the ferter over renturies nu capitalist class to keep state power in their hands.

He does not say what the various branches of the police and the secret service will be doing at this moment of 'tipping the scales', organizations which devote the whole of their time and vast amounts of manpower and resources to nothing but surveillance and harassment of the working-class movement.

Roberts offers not a word of explanation of what the working class should do about the standine armv. awvuL LIAN JUIMILIO navy and air force at the decisive moment.

The armed forces are not only commanded by representatives of the ruling class and trained to defend the status quo and act in the interests of protecting property in this country or abroad, but they are also receiving special training in dealing with strikes, riots and insurrections by workers. "winning over Lieut reality means the officers'. armed forces would be,' Roberts continues, 'during a General Strike when they could be used not only as strike-breakers but also as a disciplinary measure against the strikers.' And that is it. Roberts runs away so fast that he leaves the question just dangling in mid-air.

He adds some comments about how the Chinese workers in the 1925-1927 revolution were beaten bv the armv because they 'had allowed TILLY control of the army to remain in the hands of a bourgeois élite'; quotes Mark Twain on a soldier being a blind killing machine; and ventures an oninion that it seems that 1 L PITIATO 1511 the army" in winning over