question of French syndicalism

of leadership.

International. class struggle without this 'overhead'.

Marxism in one of his last articles: International April FIRST of all I must state my agreement with the general line of criticism of the section of my article that deals with French syndicalism. What I had attempted, and, as P.B. proves (The Newsletter balanced way, failed to do in a was to bring out the limitations of revolutionary syndicalism as an international tendency in relation to the type of party the leaders of the Third International were attempting to build in the capitalist states in the years following the end of the first world war.

In appreciating this criticism, however, we must be on our guard against 'over-correction'even if this is employed for the sake of emphasis. When comrade P.B. quotes from Trotsky on the pre-war history of French syndicalism, it is clear that Trotsky saw this as a period of 'preparation for the foundation of the communist party, only from its potential in relation to the intervention of the Communist International in the struggles of the French working class and from an appreciation of the historical limitations of revolutionary syndicalism drawn from the historical experiences acquired by the Bolshevik party in the struggle tor the leadership of the Russian working class. It was in fact this intervention, armed with this understanding, that made possible the fructifying of FROM HULL Continued from front page THE ONLY answer to this is nationalization. We've had 13 years of capitalist rule. Now it's time for the Labour government to go the other way. One proposal in the amendments that causes dockers concern is that dockers who go sick have to return to the pool and be reallocated.

What will happen to the old dockers under this system? They are going to have real difficulties in being re-allocated, and some JACK GALE ORTS the syndicalist rebellion against the class collaborationist politics of French social democracy.

Therefore I think it is vital to make central the question raised by comrade P.B.-that of the Party. When he states that It is in this, and only in this, that one could say that the role of revolutionary syndicalism has been, and remains reactionary', , he goes to the very heart of the problem. Trotsky himself said in his short article The Mistakes of the Right Elements of the League on the Trade Union question' (January, 1931) that:

'If the theoretical structure of the political economy of Marxism rests entirely upon the conception ol value as materialised labour, the revolutionary policy of Marxism rests upon the conception of the party as the vanguard of the proletariat' Thus in saying 'only in this' there lurks the possible danger of minimising the qualitative nature of the leap from the most revolutionary of syndicalist tendencies to their conscious realisation through the building of a mass communist party.. On this question, Lenin and Trotsky were able to unite with syndicalists such as Rosmer, and yet were forced to part company with many others.

Flowing from this crucial difference on the necessity of the party can be traced the development of all the social and polidockers will be branded as "trouble-makers' and won't get reallocated. This gives the employer the chance to get rid of the old docker and the militants. It will come to the point where you are frightened to go on sick.

Five million pounds have been spent on Joint Dock and £2} million on Albert Dock. Another and the profit should go to the public, but instead it is going to the employers, who are putting nothing into it.

We want nationalization run by the men in the industry. When the last Labour government nationalized road transport the men who had previously owned it were put in charge of the industry. We don't want that on the docks.

If Mr. Wilson is a true socialist he should nationalize the docks in this way-that is, with workers controlling the nationalized industry. This is our private opinion.

Terry Geraghty, Tony Fee, Ted Butler, (members of the Unofficial Portworkers' Committee, Hull). tical thinkers that have borrowed (or rather stolen) from the arsenal of syndicalism and even Marxism.

For Marxists, and today that means Trotskyists, the party is the process and means by which the working class grasps its own position in society and its unique role in history. It is the class become conscious of itself through the building of the organisation, enabling it to carry out its task.

Sorel, though not formally part of the working class movement, generalised the petty-bourgeois prejudices that still impinge on the working class in imperialist states, and formulated a whole theory of the class struggle and class action that ignored completely this self-conscious element in the revolutionary potential of the working class. His one-sided impression of the class struggle and his assimilation of only transient, superficial aspects of the working class itself enabled him to build a theoretical bridge to the most reactionary ideas when the working class failed to conform to his own subjectivist interpretation of class struggle and violence.

The going over of Sorel to monarchism and the Action Francaise was in this sense very much part of the process of degeneration at work in the Second International in the years prior WE AGREE with The Newsletter'. • There should be nationalization of the docks with workers' control over the industry. We don't want the sort of nationalization that was carried out in the mines and railways thousands of workers have lost their jobs under that sort of nationalization.

Without workers' control, nationalization is a trap for the workers.

The worst thing about these proposals is that it places discipline in the hands of the employer. The employer will have the power to return a worker to the pool. In fact, after a time the pool will become non-existent. In effect, the employer will have the power to return the docker to the Labour Exchange.

Decasualisation must be opposed and • dockers must campaign for nationalization under workers' control.

Arthur Atkinson (Sec., Branch 4 NAS&D, Hull), George Richmond (Branch 4 NAS&D), Victor Newdich (Branch 4 NAS&D), J. W. Milner (Branch 4 NAS&D), to and during the First World War.

I was not trying in this instance to prove the influence of Sorel upon the syndicalist movement in France (P.B. is right on this point) but to show (unconvincingly as it turned out) the process by which an incomplete and subjectivist approach to the workers' movement can evolve rapidly to the right in a period of war and revolution.

P.B. correctly shows that these same conditions can serve as an impetus towards a break from incomplete conceptions, and clear the way for the building of Bolshevik-type parties. What was not grasped, and therefore not brought out in my article, was the dialectical and not mechanical nature of this split in international as well as French syndicalism; that the split in the syndicalist leadership precipitated by the war and the Russian Revolution was a stage in the releasing of the revolutionary potential of the working class, which till then had found its highest possible expression in the fight against opportunism through the development of revolutionary syndicalism.

On the question of the corporate state, Italy would have served better as an example, for there many prominent syndicalists crossed over during and after the war to ultra-nationalism. Most WE WANT nationalization of the docks-but it's no good if it's nationalization which leaves the same employers in charge. Nationalization should be a partnership between the docker, who does the job, and the government.

We need unity of dockers in Hull, London and Liverpool to resist these proposals. At the moment, the docker has no say in the industry.

Under these proposals private firms will refuse militant dockers, or perhaps take them on and get rid of them later. Militants will be offered unsuitable jobssuch as in the warehouse-and if they refuse, after a time they will be put off the dock. the employer can't lose Board If these proposals go through National Dock Labour can't lose. The only loser will be the docker.

Walter Cunningham (Secretary, Unofficial Portworkers' Committee, Hull—in a personal capacity, Brian Toomey (member of the Unofficial Portworkers' Committee-in a personal capacity, Ron Fisher notable were Corridoni (killed during the war and claimed after it as a fascist martyr), De Ambris, Bianchini, Rossoni, Pasella and Rocca. Several of these syndicalist renegades in fact went into opposition after a taste of the corporate state in action, and were driven into exile by the regime they helped to create.

Comrade P.B. has correctly drawn the attention of myself as well as the readers of The Newsletter to the weaknesses in my analysis of French syndicalism and its underestimation of the class consciousness that this tendency reflected in the face of betrayals by social democracy.

1 also agree that this question of syndicalism, both in its historical and current political context, is of paramount importance for those comrades engaged in the building of a genuine communist movement in France. It is in the spirit of that struggle for political clarity, in its essence an international process, that the criticisms were made, and they have been taken in a like manner.

Robert AT THE HIGHLY successful Morecambe Conference, the unification of the Young Socialists and class-conscious militant trade unionists created nucleus around which the only alternative revolutionary leadership can be built which will sweep aside the so-called parliamentary and trade union progressives.

An outstanding example of this type is one of our local MPs who, when questioned on the proposed anti-trade union laws at a public meeting, said he would certainly vote in favour of such laws as this would disicpline the 'unruly element' in the trade unions. This same man held up the Labour Party manifesto and said: 'This is not a socialist manifesto. Socialism will not come in my lifetime.' What hypocrisy! Standing as a socialist MP but advocating anything but socialism in order to induce the Liberal element to vote Labour.

After further conflict and betrayals by Wilson, Brown, Callaghan and Gunter, the leadership started at Morecambe will win the support of the working class.

Brian Lavery, Wheldale Colliery,