The future of the Left HOW NOT to fight Wilson

now be familiar with our occasional replies to articles which appear in the duplicated periodical 'World Outlook', • Issued from Paris and associated with supporters of the revisionist group calling itself The Fourth International'.

This Paris centre, in fact, long ago abandoned Trotskyism, the traditions of which are now carried on by the Socialist Labour League and its collaborators in the International Committee of the Fourth International.

The current issue of 'World Outlook' contains an article by a correspondent called Peter Kork. His purpose is to defend Mr. Peter Price, the Nottingham delegate to the Labour Party Conference at Blackpool.

Answered

I have already answered the accusation that my Newsletter reports on the Labour Party Conference were unfair to Mr. Price (last week's Newsletter), but Mr. Kork raises the question once more.

Kork says:

"These left-wing centrists are characterised by 'The Newsletter" as having exposed their "insincerity" in that one of them "congratulated Woodrow Wyatt on his courage"! The Wilson government intends to enact • Bill against workers defending their wages and conditions, similar to the Trades Disputes Act introduced by the Tories in 19z Workers showed their contempt for this Bill it: THE proposals of the Wilson government to introduce legislation on wages is but a short step trom even more vicious attacks on the rights of trade unions. The consequences for militant dockers contained in the Devlin Report and the talk about 'trouble - shooters' in the motor industry make this quite clear.

It is, therefore, valuable to look at earlier experiences in the history of the working-class when the employers launched similar attacks.

TOOK ADVANTAGE

Following the defeat of the General Strike in 1926, the Tory government and the employers did " not hesitate to drive home their advantage. In 1927, they introduced The Trades Disputes and Trades Unions Bill.

This Bill:

1. Restricted the power to strike, without affecting the employers' right to lock-out.

Made picketing

Bible.

Deprived the unions of the right to raise political funds.

Kept civil servants away from other trade unionists.

Limited the right of local government employees to strike.

Allowed the AttorneyGeneral to interfere in the administration of union funds.

The Bill declared any sympathetic strike illegal if it was intended or likely to coerce the government or intimidate a substantial part of the community'. Anyone taking part in or 'promoting' such a strike was liable to a fine of £10 or imprisonment for two years.

He then quotes my report which, incidentally, does not question at all the 'sincerity' or otherwise of Price and his friends. We have no instruments for measuring such things, and if we had we would see little point in using them.

For my part I have no doubt that Mr. Woodrow Wyatt, for instance, is a very sincerely convinced advocate of capitalism.

Kork makes the remarkable statement that 'the Nottingham speaker, Peter Price, said no such thing as that attributed to him'.

Press report

I already quoted in last week's Newsletter the record of Price's speech as reported both in the 'Daily Telegraph' and 'The Guardian', but now I must add that I happened to The Blacklegs® Charter Any strike not directly concerned with conditions of employment within the trade could • be declared illegal. Moreover, this decision could be retrospective. That is, a worker could take part in a strike which he considered was concerned with conditions within his trade, but if this was subsequently judged to have gone beyond these limits, he became liable to prosecution.

EMPLOYERS EXEMPT Such legislation did not, of course, apply to employers. They could lock out workers without any fear of criminal prosecution.

The second clause of this Bill was concerned to defend strikebreakers. Picketing was declared illegal if 'the number of pickets or manner of picketing is such as to make the person concerned afraid of injury, loss, violence or exposure to hatred, ridicule or contempt.

In effect, this meant that pickets could only approach blacklegs who were willing to be approached!

Violation of this clause carried a penalty of a f20 fine or three months' imprisonment.

In addition, no blackleg could be expelled from his union, or be punished in any way, for refusing to take part in a strike declared illegal. He could claim substantial damages from the union if this was done. And this included subjecting the blackleg to speak to a Mr. Kork at the Labour Party Conference immediately after the speech in question.

He 'apologised' for Price's speech, and in no way attempted to defend it, hoping only that he would perform better the next day on Vietnam.

Kork enthuses I believe this is the same Kork who writes in 'World Outlook' since they display the same rapturous enthusiasm for the conference speech of another Nottingham delegate, Ken Coates.

For example, in 'World Outlook', Kork talks about this as an 'important speech', 'a trenchant attack' , and says that it was 'widely described as the most sharply critical utterance at the conference.

When I spoke 'hatred, ridicule or contempt'.

Even the use of words like "blackleg' or 'scab' was dangerous.

This legislation was made retrospective, with the specific purpose of protecting those who had scabbed in the General Strike.

No wonder the Trades Disputes Act became known amongst workers as The Blacklegs' Charter!

An important feature of the Bill was the substitution of 'contracting-out' of the political fund by 'contracting-in' Unions could raise political funds only from those members who declared individually and in writing their willingness to pay them.

FEARED WORKERS'

STRENGTH This was an attempt by the Tories to keep the unions away from politics, and was inspired by their fear of the political consequences which could have arisen from the General Strike, when the working class had shown that it had the strength to take the power but lacked the leadership. The Tories wanted to take no more chances.

Legislation against the unions always raises the question of the connection between them and the Labour Party.

The unions gave rise to the Labour Party because no existing party could serve their interests. at the conference, immediately after Coates' speech, he was similarly enthusiastic, and even appeared agitated and wiping his brow as if the speech had taken as much out of him as it did out of the speaker himself!

No, I did not write anything about Coates' speech. It explicitly confined itself to the kind of criticism which is commonplace among liberal and "humanitarian' opponents of the Vietnam war, and expressed their point of view very well.

But I had not the space to develop a critical account of it, which certainly would have been necessary• Compromise For example, Coates insisted that if the delegates were in Vietnam they would have no choice but to be with the Vietcong, 'just as, during the war, In 1927 the Tories tried to force home their advantage following the defeat of the 1926 General Strike by introducing the Trades Disputes Act. Workers actively opposed this legislation in demonstrations like the one seen above.

In 1927, it was the Tories who tried to split the unions from the Labour Party by 'contracting in'.

In 1965, it is the actions of the Labour Party leaders themselves, who, by their threatened legislation, raise anew the whole question of the permanence of this relationship.

CIVIL SERVANTS BARRED Another way in which the Tories tried to weaken the working class in 1927 was by splitting off civil servants and employees of local and public authorities.

No civil servant was allowed to be a member of a union which admitted members outside the civil service, while any employee of a public or local authority was liable to a fine of f10 or three months' imprisonment if he 'broke his contract of service' (i.e., went on strike) in such a way that the authority could not 'effectively carry out its duties'.

This Act hamstrung the unions. Practically no strike was legal, and even those that were could be prevented.

For instance, the AttorneyGeneral could apply to the courts for an interim injunction against a strike which would be granted before the action was proved illegal.

Even if the union then proved that its action was legal, it had no redress against the Attorney-General.

Of course, the employers we had no choice but to fight with the communists. against fascism'.

Again, Mr. Kork agreed with me that the latter was at best an unnecessary compromise with the reactionary conceptions of many of the delegates at the conference concerning war and the struggle against fascism.

Carve-up

After all, I pointed out to Mr. Kork (and he eventually agreed), it was a question of Labour leaders making an agreement not to oppose the British capitalist government, while they made an alliance with the Stalinists, an alliance which ended in the carve-up of Europe and the betrayals of 1945.

How is it that this same Kork has nothing to say on this Tories felt confident in 1927 to launch a direct attack on the unions, because of the defeat which the cowardice of the trade union leaders had brought on the working class in 1926.

Today, in an economic crisis far worse than that of 1927 (or even of 1931), the capitalist state desperately needs similar restrictions on working-class action.

But 1965 is not 1927.

The working class is not defeated and demoralised, but strong and confident.

TORIES LOOK TO WILSON The Tories dare not carry out such measures themselyes -that is why they allow the Wilson government to continue in power. They hope that Wilson, assisted by those trade union leaders who voted with him at Blackpool (and by those like William Carron of the Amalgamated Engineering Union who repudiated the vote of his own delegation) will place anti-strike and anti-union legislation on the statute book.

This will give the Tories the jumping-off point for a fundamental onslaught on the rights and standards of the working class.

All workers must look closely at the 1927. Act and its results, and realise now that all legislation against wages and strike rights must be thrown out, and those Labour leaders who support such legislation must be repudiated. question in the columns of even SO "revolutionary' a journal as World Outlook'? Perhaps he is only prepared to criticise Coates behind his back and not in print.

Into the same category comes the issue of 'The Week' for October 7, which contains a report from Pat Jordan.

He notes four demonstrations of workers at the Blackpool conference, but manages to ignore completely the demonstration of 2,000 Young Socialists and trade unionists behind the policies of the Young Sedialists and the Socialist Labor League, which was by far the largest and most effective demonstration of the week. Labour leadership with new leaders, but it says nothing about the political reasons for the weakness of the 'left'.

We have pointed out in The Newsletter that the 'left' is still caught in the trap of social-democracy.

They fail to recognise that a new stage has been reached in the relation between the classes in Britain, for which reformism, left or right, has no answer. Only revolutionary leadership will suffice.

Out of touch' But 'World Outlook' simply says:

"The forces of the left are weak because in the constituencies, trade unions, parliament and in intellectual circles, they are out of touch with each other. They are fighting different battles and in different ways. The left must now unite, select the issues on which it will fight, and organise the fight on a nation-wide basis throughout the Labour Party and the trade unions.' But there is no point in confused people getting together unless the confusion is cleared up. This is the essential need in the British labour movement, the need for Marxist theory, for political perspectives to guide the struggle.

'The Week' and World Outlook' thus present very similar lines. They concentrate on influencing circles of left reformists and using talk about unity which does not disturb the confusion and political prejudice of these reformists. The fact that 'World Outlook' says 'find new leaders' at next year's conference to replace Wilson