Economic Crisis and Class Struggle

A VERY popular theory among Left-wingers is the ‘kickin-the-pants’ theory of revolution. According to this theory only an economic depression, large-scale unemployment and severe poverty will make the workers realize the need for action tc challenge capitalism.

For some of those who accept this theory there follows the conclusion that in times of full employment and ‘prosperity’ political propaganda and agitation are useless, since they fall on stony ground.

One of the replies commonly given to this argument is that if the factories are closing, working-class unity is hampered by competition for jobs, the employed are split from the unemployed, and factory organization is greatly weakened.

The thirties are quoted as an example of a period of economic depression in which it was difficult to make the slightest political gains for the working class; there was a decline in industrial militancy and a drift to the Right in the Labour Party.

In this article I want only to start a discussion of this important question. The ideas and examples presented here are only a small part of the answer, and since it is a question that socialists have been discussing for a long time, I hope that some controversy will be aroused in which our mutual experiences will enrich the rather general ideas I put forward.

Truth is more complicated In the first place I think that both sides of the argument stated above are oversimplified. The truth is more complicated than either of these two points of view.

It is so easy to escape from political responsibility simply by saying that we have to wait for the big stick to come out. On the other hand, it is nonsense to deny that when the economic contradictions of capitalism—poverty in the midst of plenty, unemployment due to over-production and so on—stare people in the face, they ask bigger questions than they do at other times, and are more responsive to critical ideas.

It is a mistake to think of the working class as being the same thing at different stages of development, always responding in the same way to the same immediate experiences.

A simple example will show this; a young, inexperienced and small working-class movement, like that, say, of China during and after the first world war, is immensely strengthened and boosted in self-confidence by a period of industrial boom.

Tt grows in numbers, has a chance to build up more stable workshop and city organization, and is ‘helped along the road from cultural backwardness.

But if we take the British working class, betrayed and defeated first in 1926 by the trade union leaders and then by MacDonald and his crew, split and depressed by mass unemployment and poverty in the thirties, we find that the effects upon it of the post-war boom were politically negative. , Knew in their hearts The election of Labour to power in 1945 was the fruit of the experience and ideas of war-time, which clinched a determination never to return to the conditions of the slump.

But the replacement boom of the post-war years, full empoyment, new social services and higher wages all helped to bring a certain apathy, a refusal to consider the possibility that the bad old days could return, although most workers ‘knew in their hearts that this was on the cards sooner or later.

Clearly then, a change from depression to industrial ex-’ pansion can have opposite consequences, according to che stage of development of the working class concerned, according to the effects of its previous experience.

If we consider the opposite process, of a change from boom to slump, similar conclusions emerge.

The thirties in Britain saw demoralization and frustration; out of the same depression in the USA came the new and powerful CIO, the result of the workers’ own struggles.

Everything depends on the stage reached by the working class, and on its fighting capacity at the time when conditions begin to deteriorate, and not on some general psychological effect of depression.

Preparing workers for struggle The task of socialists is not to speculate on the possible scale of unemployment and its effects on the workers’ mood, but to find methods of preparing the working class for struggle.

This is done by participating in the day-to-day experience of the working class, for the class struggle does not stop in periods of prosperity, but simply takes place at a lower level of organization and intensity.

Socialists must test the existing forms of organization and help the working class to find methods of struggle which can defend standards and lead along the road to workers’ power.

Thus at the present time the formation of links among rank-and-file workers in struggle, fighting around the Charter of Demands adopted at the Newsletter rank-and-file Conference, is a necessary step to mobilizing the full fighting force of the working class.

One way of summarizing that is to say that the working

we ye class must be seen as a process, rather than a fixed entity.

If we take this ‘dialectical’ view, we see the working class responding ‘to this or that experience not passively, like a thermometer or a rock on the sea-shore, but as a dynamic force.

A complex of relationships It is not only different at different times, but is different within itself; rather than a solid lump from top to bottom, the working class has advanced and backward layers, some close to the bosses, others not fully drawn into the industrial system.

The working class is a movement, and the response of this movement to economic conditions depends on a complex of relationships. between top leaders, political and industrial, the lesser or middle officials of their machines, and the ordinary rank and file in different industries.

One other historical example will be useful. In the months following the first world war, capitalism was in grave danger There were workers’ revolutions, with varying of defeat. degrees of success, in Germany, Italy, Russia and some of:

the Balkan countries, and a tremendous flood of confidence among workers in all countries following the Bolshevik victory in Russia.

Because the movement was dominated by Right-wing Labourism, the workers were thrown back, except in Russia. On the heels of these political defeats for the workers came a severe bout of depression and unemployment, and many socialists expected that this would revitalize the revolutionary movement.

Trotsky pointed out that the effect of the economic decline was by no means so simple, and it is worth quoting at length from his Pravda article, ‘Flood Tide’, of December 25, 1921:

‘The commercial-industrial crisis of 1920 broke out in the spring and summer, at a time when the foregoing political . and. psychological reaction had already set in inside the working class. The crisis unquestionably increased the dissatisfaction among considerable working-class groups, pro-.

voking here and there stormy manifestations of dissatisfaction. But after the failure of the 1919 [working-class] offensive, and with the resulting differentiation that took place, the economic crisis could not by itself any longer restore the necessary unity to the movement, nor cause it to assume the character of a new and more resolute revolutionary assault. This circumstance reinforces our conviction that the effects of a crisis upon the course of the Labour movement are not at all so unilateral in character as some simplifiers imagine. The political effects of a crisis (not only the extent of its influence but also its direction) are determined by the entire existing political. situation and . by those events which precede and accompany the crisis, especially the battles, successes or failures of the werking class itself prior to the crisis, Under one set of conditions the crisis may give a mighty impulse to the revolutionary activity of the working masses; under a different set of circumstances it may completely paralyse the offensive of the proletariat and, should the crisis endure too long and -the workers suffer too many losses, it might weaken extremely not only the offensive but also the defensive potential of the working class’ (my emphasis—C.S.).

The whole of the article is worth reading for a development of the argument; it is published in “The First Five Years of the Comintern’, vol. ii.

Now, if we return to our example of present-day Britain, we will find that Our understanding is enriched by this dialectical, historical approach to the working class.

Incorporated into capitalist State What has happened to the working class since the war is not just that it has become ‘soft’ and ‘satisfied’, but something a little more complicated.

The established official machinery of working-class leadership, i.e., the Parliamentary Labour Party and the Right-wing trade union leaders, have become incorporated into the capitalist system, even into its ruling executive, the State.

During a period of full employment they were able (in the absence of any clear alternative) to keep the support of the majority of the workers, because British capitalism could spare a certain degree of concessions for the sake of social peace and undisturbed production for profit during the boom, Now Britain’s international position is bringing her to the brink of. crisis, and the old basis for bargaining and hobnaobbing with the bosses for a few concessions is being washed away as the resurgence of Germany and Japan, the victories of. the colonial liberation movement. and the ever-growing dominance of the USA in the capitalist world, force British capitalism into open cut- ‘throat competition on the world Faced with this prospect, the ruling class possesses only one major resource to fall back on: it relies on the reactionary leaders of the working-class movement to hold back the working class while the whole of the burden of the crisis is placed upon the workers.

Resist with full force ‘Exploitation at héme must at all costs be increased; that is the reason for the attacks on shop stewards and industrial militants, and for the financial manipulation of 1957 to create an army of unemployed.

The effect of the coming crisis will therefore depend above all upon the actions of the working class itself in combating its first manifestations.

No inroads into conditions and wages must be allowed; in such a period it is necessary to resist with all the force at the workers’ disposal, and to have a central strategy.

It is in this light that dockers and transport workers should view the fight to stop the closing of the coal-mines.

Solidarity is not just a question of ‘helping the miners’, but of winning an early battle for the whole working The prime need of the moment, in preparation for the employers’ attacks, is the creation ‘of a rank-and-file movement in industry able to counter the efforts of the official machine to stand as a buffer between the boss and the worker. This is the aim of the fight for the Charter of Workers’ Demands.