A capitalist analysis of the Labour government

6T HE TIMES of London has always been rightly regarded as reflecting some of the most informed and advanced opinion in ruling class circles.

Written for the 'top people', its pages cover a wide area of international news and provide considered opinions in the editorial columns upon the most serious questions.

Last week I dealt with the praise given to the Wilson government by the paper 'World Outlook', whose Pabloite editors referred to the Labour government as 'left social-democratic' and called upon socialists to support its 'progressive measures'. On Tuesday November 3, "The Times' provided a remarkable confirmation, in an indirect way, of our criticism of these revisionists.

In The Newsletter we said clearly that the Labour government represented not a gain by the working class so much as a reflection of the need of the bosses to use a Labour government for its own desperate purposes.

'Left trend'

Socialists must start from the strucele against the employart and against measures taken by the government in support of the employers.

'The Times' notes that the election of a Labour government coincides with similar developments in West Germany, France and Italy.

In West Germany the social-democrats made recent gains in local elections and may go close to a majority in next year's general election; after many years in the wilderness in France some sort of 'left front' is being mounted to fight against de Gaulle's Presidency; in Italy the socialists are near to taking part in government again, helped by the divisions within the Italian Communist Party.

It is wrong to think, says "The Times', that all this means a turn to the left in Europe: ... the trend is more in favour of the centre than of the left as such.' The editorial goes on to give a brief outline of the development of European 'socialist' politics since the end of the Second World War. After emerging powerfully from the war because of the upsurge of working-class desire for social change and the enthusiasm for Russia, these parties were replaced by 'centre' and 'Christian Democratic' parties during the anti-communist period of the Cold War.

Revival

"The Times' should add that this was only possible because of the deal made by Stalin with the capitalist rulers of America and Europe, followed out to the letter by the Communist Parties and fellow-travellers of Italy and France, and that the Korean war saw the beginning of a prolonged period of boom.

"The Times' notes two important developments which helped the revival of the 'socialist' parties: first, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, whuse suppression by Khrushchev weakened Marxism in Europe; and second, the decision of the German Social-Democratic Party in 1959 to remove all socialist demands from its programme.

The Newsletter insisted at he time of that social-democratic conference in Germany that this was a decisive turn by these agents of capitalism and that similar moves were afoot in Britain in Gaitskell's campaign to remove Clause 4 from the constitution of the Labour Party.

These were necessary in order to adapt these parties more adequately to the needs of monopoly capitalism. The capitalists themselves had long since abandoned any idea of pure competition, or property-owning democracies and recognised the need for more decisive state intervention in the economy.

"The Times' sums up:

"This rise (of the left), such as it is, derives less from the acceptance of traditional leftwing ideas than from their partial rejection by the left itself—as well, to be fair, as their partial acceptance by the right. ... The desire for change has been able to find expression only since the democratic left became respectable. If a swing is taking place it is a symptom of the growing consensus of the centre, where basic social and economic doctrines are no longer at issue . . a certain softening of political frontiers seems likely. Europe is not so much turning left as just turning.' What could be clearer? Capialism must make a turn in order to overcome its crisis. The counter-revolutionary policy of the Stalinist bureaucracy has helped prepare the ground for this turn to be possible through the capitalists' use of discredited parties like those of the social-democracy. No prejudice And 'The Times' more or less tells its readers, 'don't be put off by your past prejudices against people who call themselves socialists, they're in the club now.' Now the position of the revisionists within the Marxist movement over the last few years becomes clearer still. By Gaitskell: Attack on Clause 4 part of 'turn' selling Wilson as a 'left winger' they, in fact, assist the capitalists, who have decided that Wilson is all right by them.

For all its urbanity and sophistication, 'The Times' is unable to get to the bottom of the matter, however. Only the dialectical method of Marxism can do this, providing a basis for working-class political action.

As always, the spokesmen of the ruling class neglect the power of the working class itself. They constantly fall into the illusions of their own bureaucratic and parliamentary system, assuming that everything in the class struggle depends upon official programmes and combinations of people within the apparatus. It never strikes them that their very need for corrupting working-class parties arises from a crisis whose other side must inevitably be the heightening of the struggle of the workers themselves against all the results of this crisis.

Consequently, "The Times' does not consider, for examole, the other result of the crisis of Stalinism surrounding the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. From various Communist Parties came not only renegades from the movement but cadres who learned from that Revolution the lesson of the necessity of a Fourth International of revolutionary parties based on the teachings of Trotsky; this happened in Britain and in Times' ignores the crisis Stalinism Hungary itself, to name only two examples.

As part of the same process the Hungarian workers showed the path of political revolution to the workers of Eastern Europe through workers' councils, confirming the programme of the Fourth International, that the political bureaucracy of Stalinism must be overthrown, but not the planned socialist foundations of the economy.

All the crises and civil wars called up in the period of imperialist decay, to gether with their reflections within the camp of the Stalinist bureaucracy, provide revolutionary opportunities for a working class led by a Marxist party, based on the only scientific theory which can see the world system as a whole, in terms of one struggle between capitalists and workers. Such parties in fact are being built in the course of the real struggle against the capitalists and their agents in the Labour move.

ment.

'The Times' is unable to achieve this overall view of the contradictions of the system, because it remains within the bourgeois world view of formal logic and accepts the capitalist order as natural and eternal. Only the conflicts under its very nose call for treatment of a different kind.

Generosity

For example, in its first editorial the same day, a different question is taken up. "The Times' comments upon a speech communist president of the Electrical Trades Union.

In this speech to the ETU policy-making conference, Cannon pledged support to the incomes policy of Wilson and spoke strongly against 'restrictive practices'. The next day he had strong words for the unofficial strikes by ETU members on power station construction sites.

"The Times' welcomes his generosity but warns that fine words butter no parsnips:

'Mr. Cannon's sentiments do him credit, they cannot be too often urged by trade union leaders or too closely heeded by those to whom they are addressed, but it is possible to expect too follow from them.' 'The Times' is here drawing attention to the fact that whatever leaders might say, the workers will insist on fighting, and attention should be paid to this.

Doom

They cannot understand the workings of the whole capitalist system as one which is going to its doom through a series of international and inter-connected conflicts, with working-class leadership settling the historical issue-that would involve rejecting the whole bourgeois outlook-but they insist on being able to root out troublemakers in their own backyard.

They write:

'Trade union leaders are on the whole responsible and knowledgeable men willing to give their co-operation on reasonable terms. But they can be easily outflanked by unofficial leaders who are assisted by the fact that in an inflationary economy the interests of some employers join with the pressure for higher pay to defeat any prolonged attempt to hold earnings below the market rate.' This has the same meaning as the first "Times' article we analysed. Some employers must change their traditional attitudes and accept the vital role of the opportunist leaders in the trade unions and Labour Party in regulating the economy.

Limited

In this case "The Times' can see the immediate difficulties in the demands of rank-and-file workers. But that is the limit of their understanding; they only give the working class credit for being able to understand and fight for its immediate economic demands. They assume that the workers, like themselves, will continue to accept the limits of bourgeois society, only challenging for small adjustments within it (such as getting the 'market value' for their labour!).

Shrewdness, cunning, and the ability to corrupt many geneThe Hungarian Revolution, 1956: Many came from Stalinist movement to learn the lesson of the necessity of the Fourth International rations of labour leaders, have enabled the British capitalist class, with "The Times' always well to the fore, to ensure up to now that the working class does not go beyond reform demands and reformist leaders.

But the present crisis of British capitalism brings home to roost all the chickens of a hundred years of bloody exploitation and super-profit on a world scale.

The struggles it brings will see the downfall equally of the capitalist class itself and its faithful servants the Labour leaders, because from these struggles we have begun to build in the Socialist Labour League a revolutionary leadership which presents the challenge of Marxism in living, active form to the British workers.

tion from the Labour Party, the Independent Labour Party twisted and turned, trying out every policy to hand, avoiding only one-that of revolutionary Marxism.

It is a sad tale of failure and hypocrisy, ending where it began-back with the rightwith

WORLD NEWS ROUND-UP ovember Three