In the final part of our draft discussion document on the political perspectives for Britain, we examine the trajectory of developments in Scotland, and discuss the crisis of reformism in this epoch of deep capitalist crisis. The only way forward for society is along the path of the socialist transformation of society.
In the final part of our draft discussion document on the political perspectives for Britain, we examine the trajectory of developments in Scotland, and discuss the crisis of reformism in this epoch of deep capitalist crisis. The only way forward for society is along the path of the socialist transformation of society.
Where is Scotland heading?
Scotland has been on a different trajectory to the rest of Britain. The political earthquake of the September Referendum in 2014 represented a fundamental turning-point in Scotland. This had been prepared by years of Tory governments and right wing betrayals. The fact that the SNP could win an outright majority at Holyrood in 2011 under a system of proportional representation, which was introduced to usher in an era of coalition/minority administrations, was symptomatic of the changes taking place. In Westminster elections, Labour was still completely dominant in Scotland. The Tories had long ago been confined to the margins, especially after the experience of Thatcher and the hated Poll Tax.
After years of Blairism, which meant a continuation of Toryism for many, Labour’s support in Scotland was being systematically undermined. The Referendum, where Labour jumped into bed with the Tories in opposing independence, was the last straw.
As the SNP shifted to the left, Labour was shifting to the right, ending up with the Blairite Jim Murphy as leader in December 2014. This was the crossing of the Rubicon. In the 2015 general election, Labour got its comeuppance and lost 40 of its 41 seats. The SNP won an unprecedented landslide, scooping up 56 out of 59 seats in Scotland.
The Referendum had transformed the political situation. It was not simply about independence, but about austerity, the British establishment and the Tory Party. The result reflected an anti-establishment and even anti-capitalist mood in society.
The working class heartlands of Glasgow and Dundee voted for independence. Many people who had not voted before, especially the most oppressed layers, chose independence. The youth voted for independence in large numbers. Those who rejected the status quo voted for independence. In the vote, independence was rejected 45% to 55%, much closer than previous predictions.
Since the general election, support for independence has hovered around the 50% mark, increasing on the September 2014 figure. Given a Tory government at Westminster and the SNP pushing an anti-austerity line, the support for independence will increase. The fundamental reason for this is the betrayals of the Labour leaders.
It is likely there will be a second referendum in the next period. Pressure will build for it, especially if the SNP achieve another landslide in the Holyrood election in May 2016 and the Tory government becomes increasingly unpopular, as will be the case. In addition, if Britain votes to leave the EU and Scotland votes against, a new Referendum will be unstoppable. Under these circumstances, the Scots are very likely to vote for independence. This might be delayed if the EU referendum is won, but is nevertheless on the cards.
Will the Corbyn victory be able to reverse Labour’s decline? This is certainly not a short-term perspective, but will take a number of years depending on the fate of the Labour Party and the right wing. The Scottish delegation’s negative reaction to the FBU’s reaffiliation to the Labour Party is symptomatic. In Scotland, there is a deep distrust of Labour, even under a Corbyn leadership. While the Labour Party is split over austerity, Trident, and the bombing of Syria, the SNP is united in its opposition.
The Labour Party in Scotland has shown some signs of partially moving to the left in its policy, given the events of the recent period. For example, at its conference there was a 70% support to scrap Trident. But the problem for Labour is that people are so disillusioned with the party that this change is too little and too late. It has not increased support for Labour in Scotland to any real degree.
Such moves at the top have not resulted in any increase in membership as we have seen in England and Wales. An article in the Financial Times showed that whilst the LP membership in London increased by 40,000 since the General Election, but the party in Scotland only increased only 4,000. It is also important to recognize that a significant layer of these new recruits in Scotland will have come from the more conservative layers who opposed the YES Campaign. Labour is currently polled to get 19% in the Holyrood election, same as the Tories, whilst the SNP is on around 60%.
Again, Corbyn, it must be said, has a wrong position on the national question. Rather than understanding the nationalist sentiments of the working class, he follows the line of the Scottish Labour Left who tend to express a crude anti-nationalism. They make no distinction between the nationalism of the bourgeois and the nationalism of the oppressed, which has a different class content. Corbyn does not even offer Home Rule for Scotland, which would at least be a step forward on the past position.
The YES movement on the left of the SNP has seen an ebb. While the SNP can ride high for quite a while, the party itself is based on a class contradiction. The working class base of the party, which now constitutes the big majority, will increasingly collide with the bourgeois elements in the leadership. The SNP will begin to be pulled in different directions as the slump hits Scotland hard. The party would tend to split on class lines. Signs of this have already been seen. At the SNP 2015 conference a motion was carried that argued for a more radical policy on land reform, despite opposition from the leadership. There was also a lot of debate with motions being passed at branch level against NATO and for an increased living wage.
These small signs are the embryo of future splits which would almost certainly come to the surface in and independent Scotland and possibly before. A layer of the rank and file would become very open to Marxist ideas, the ideas of John MacLean and James Connolly, namely a Scottish Workers’ Republic in a Socialist Federation of these islands, as a stepping-stone to a Socialist Europe and a World Federation of Socialist States. On this basis, a sizable revolutionary party in Scotland could be constructed, linking up with the Marxists throughout Britain and internationally. However, the precondition for this development is the building of a strong Marxist tendency in Scotland.
The crisis of reformism
The left reformist programme of Corbyn, namely to abolish Trident, renationalise the railways, increase house building, end austerity, etc., are measures we would support. Other measures such as the Peoples’ Quantitative Easing are utopian and will not work but make matters worse. The attempt to increase the money supply without increasing production will only lead to inflation in the long run. The examples of Venezuela or Zimbabwe are cases in point. However, the main problem of any reformist programme is the belief that these reforms can be won on the basis of capitalism. They are measures that aim not to destroy capitalism but to ameliorate its effects.
Reformists view their demands as “realistic” and “practical”, as opposed to a bold socialist programme, which they see as “ultra-left” and “impractical”. Nationalisation of the banks or monopolies is considered too “extreme” for the “electorate”. They try to appear “responsible” people by stressing that they are not in fact “deficit deniers”, meaning they will operate on orthodox lines. They too have promised to make cuts to “balance the books”, but not in the same way as the Tories. But in doing so, they are accepting capitalist orthodoxy. They think they can simply reform capitalism by using Keynesianism and spend their way out of the crisis. They accept the basis of the system without understanding the economic laws that cannot be overcome within the framework of the system. The reforms they propose are impossible on the basis of crisis-ridden capitalism. The system can no longer afford reforms, only counter-reforms. That is why the crisis of capitalism is also a crisis of reformism, not only in Britain but internationally, as we see in France, Greece and Venezuela. There is no room for reformism in the present situation. Their so-called “practical” measures are in fact completely impractical in the present context of organic capitalist crisis.
This has nothing to do with good or honest intentions. The left reformists can be really genuine in their beliefs but that is beside the point. It is the laws of capitalism that are decisive, not the subjective feelings of individuals. The right wing have openly abandoned reforms and instituted counter-reforms, not because of their immorality, but because of the crisis of capitalism. For them, there is no alternative to the market economy. The left reformists attempt to square the circle. Their economic programme of “growing the economy” is pure Keynesianism, which even certain bourgeois economists are flirting with.
But the idea that the problems of the British economy can be solved by tinkering with the system or by “reflation” of the economy, as the Keynesians believe, is completely utopian. They believe that “deficit financing” would create demand and therefore allow the economy to expand. In its turn, the deficit would be covered by the extra revenue obtained from increased taxes. This argument is fundamentally false. Capitalist crisis does produce a lack of demand, that is true and we can see that everywhere. However, that is only one side of the problem. Capitalist production is production for profit. It is not simply demand but profitable demand that is the issue. And profit arises from the unpaid labour of the working class.
Demand cannot be produced from thin air. Deficit financing, in the short term, like credit, may have a stimulating effect. But, as Marx explained, credit creates a market beyond the limits of capitalism. The problem arises in that you can only do this by pre-empting consumption, that is, you cannot spend the same money twice. Eventually, it leads to an inflationary credit bubble, as we saw before the crash of 2008, which cascades into a slump.
Further, government spending either comes from taxing the working class, which cuts demand, or it comes from the capitalists, which cuts into investment and therefore cuts demand for capital goods. It is a vicious circle. The proponents of “deficit financing” are unable to face up to the contradictions involved with an economy that remains on a capitalist basis. It is not this or that aspect that needs fixing – the whole system is in a complete impasse. Such Keynesian policies have no hope of patching up capitalism or eliminating its contradictions. Whatever they do, they will not force or bribe the capitalists to invest and “grow the economy”, provide jobs, etc. The capitalist system has reached its limits. This is what the left reformists do not understand.
The monetarist “supply-siders” proceed from the opposite argument – that if you increase profits and the share that goes to the capitalists, they will invest and get the economy moving. That would create jobs and therefore demand.
But as Marx explained, the process of the capitalist economy is the production of surplus value from the unpaid labour of the working class. The working class can never buy back the full product of their labour as they only receive a small portion of this in wages. It is from this remaining surplus that the capitalist carries out investment and therefore production. When profits increase and are reinvested in new capital equipment, this must be used to produce more consumer goods. But if the workers do not get sufficient wages to buy them, there will inevitably be a crisis of over-production.
Either way, monetarism or Keynesianism will lead to a crisis and an economic collapse. There is no solution on the basis of capitalism.
No middle road
Left reformists before the war, such as Clement Attlee and Strachey, argued for emergency measures to deal with the crisis that would face an incoming Labour government. We must take up these arguments and give them a revolutionary content – to take over the banks and monopolies. An emergency situation requires emergency measures. We call on a Labour government to immediately take over the banks and insurance corporations! Take over the commanding heights of the economy – the 150 monopolies! Run the economy under workers control and management and democratically plan the economy in the interests of the majority, not the profits of the few. Only in this way can we end the austerity, end unemployment, give everyone a living wage, give everyone a decent home, retirement at 50 on a decent pension, free education for all, and rising living standards.
This is the only way to confront the inevitable sabotage of the ruling class, which a Corbyn Labour government will face from day one. The reformists think that if they do things slowly, bit by bit, they can avoid this problem. The ruling class will feel threatened. They will provoke the infuriated resistance of the capitalists. Corbyn will face a strike of capital, a run on the pound and all manner of blackmail by big business to force him to capitulate, as with Tsipras in Greece. This shows up the utopia of the reformists, including the most “left”, of changing capitalism a little at a time.
In 1966, Lord Cromer, governor of the Bank of England saw Harold Wilson and told him he had to bow to the dictates of capital. “We had now reached the situation”, stated Wilson in his memoirs, “where a newly elected government was being told by international speculators that the policy on which we had fought the election could not be implemented: that the government was to be forced into the adoption of Tory policies to which it was fundamentally opposed… The Queen’s First Minister was being asked to bring down the curtain on parliamentary democracy by accepting the doctrine that an election in Britain was a farce, that the British people could not make a choice between policies.”
This was not blackmail from foreign financiers but British big business. The ranks of the Labour movement were not told about this until Wilson published his memoirs five years after the event. Of course, Wilson capitulated. The same blackmail would face a Corbyn Labour government, only more relentless given the crisis.
There are only two alternatives, either capitulate or move to overthrow capitalism. There is no middle road. Either it can lead to the establishment of workers’ power or it can lead to a crushing defeat.
As George Brown, a former right wing deputy leader of the Labour Party, correctly said: “No privileged group has ever given up its power or privileges without a fight, with no holds barred.” Either the Labour government overthrows capitalism or capitalism will overthrow the Labour government.
In terms of foreign policy, the Left are just as weak as on home policy; one is a reflection of the other. The right wing’s position is absolutely firm: to support capitalism and imperialism in all its actions. However, the Left are very woolly and do not take a class position. Their ideas are tinged with pacifism and unconditional support for the so-called United Nations.
The United Nations is a collective of capitalist powers, but dominated by the main imperialist powers. The Security Council, made up of the key powers, has the right to veto decisions. The UN cannot “solve” problems when they collide with the interests of any key power, especially the United States. The UN has never resolved anything, except secondary matters where the imperialists can agree. It can then act as a fig-leaf for imperialist aggression, as in the Korean War and in Yugoslavia. It is a “thieves’ kitchen”, to use Lenin’s expression in describing the “League of Nations” before the war. But every time something happens, the Left calls for the UN to act. For the Left, bombing is fine as long as it has the approval of the UN. The struggle of the working class or the fight for socialism never enters their heads. World relations are determined not by evil intentions but by power politics and naked class interests. We can have no trust in the imperialists, including Cameron, or their institutions, such as the UN.
Unless you begin with a class analysis and sweep away the hypocrisy of the imperialists, you will be lost. This is the fate of the left reformists. Foreign policy is but a continuation of home policy. Capitalist policies pursued at home will inevitably be reflected in foreign policy. One cannot be separated from the other.
Turbulence ahead
The crisis will bear down on the youth far more than other sections. They will search for a revolutionary way out. They are not held back by the cynicism and scepticism of the older generation, weighed down over a long period by the experience of bad leadership and defeats in the labour and trade union movement.
Young people in this period are increasingly open to revolutionary ideas, especially Marxism. Throughout history, youth has been the backbone of the revolutionary movement in its early stages of development. The same will be the case today. They have the necessary energy and the élan, as well as the willingness to make big sacrifices, needed to carry through the revolution.
The youth will not necessarily be won to revolutionary politics by transitional demands, but by the broader vision of a new society, which can be easily linked to the world socialist revolution.
There has clearly been a qualitative shift in the situation. The winds of change have cleared away the suffocating atmosphere of the past two decades. For the first time in many years, the Labour Party has begun to change.
While there has been a massive growth in the membership of the Labour Party, the active involvement of the new layers varies from place to place. Many parties remain under the control of the old guard, who are seeking to hold the line. Others have seen an influx. The emergence of Momentum has provided a vehicle for new members, as well as other activities around the party, but it is still in the process of formation.
Given the turbulence of events, the past is not necessarily a complete guide to the future. We must examine the new features and draw the necessary conclusions. We must keep our finger on the pulse and follow events carefully, which will assist us in fleshing out our perspectives.
It is the duty of every Marxist to prepare themselves for the epoch we have entered. Everyone must educate and train themselves in the fundamental ideas of Marxism, which are our weapons. This will allow us to withstand the pressures of capitalism, reformism, opportunism and ultra-leftism.
“The conclusion to be drawn from all this” explained Trotsky in 1935, “is that the British proletariat must not reckon on any historic privileges. It will have to struggle for power by the road of revolution and keep it in its hands by crushing the fierce resistance of the exploiters. There is no other way leading to Socialism…
“Everything in Britain is heading for a revolutionary explosion. A happy issue from the economic crisis – and this is quite a possibility in itself and even inevitable – could never have more than a transitory character, and would quickly yield once more to a fresh and devastating crisis. There is no way to salvation through capitalism.”
We need to fully understand that all the objective factors for revolution have begun to ripen. We have entered a very stormy period. The only factor that is missing, which is the most important fact of all in this epoch, is the subjective factor, the revolutionary party. It is our role to create this factor. Nobody else will do it for us.
WHERE IS SCOTLAND HEADING?
Scotland has been on a different trajectory to the rest of Britain. The political earthquake of the September Referendum in 2014 represented a fundamental turning-point in Scotland. This had been prepared by years of Tory governments and right wing betrayals. The fact that the SNP could win an outright majority at Holyrood in 2011 under a system of proportional representation, which was introduced to usher in an era of coalition/minority administrations, was symptomatic of the changes taking place. In Westminster elections, Labour was still completely dominant in Scotland. The Tories had long ago been confined to the margins, especially after the experience of Thatcher and the hated Poll Tax.
After years of Blairism, which meant a continuation of Toryism for many, Labour’s support in Scotland was being systematically undermined. The Referendum, where Labour jumped into bed with the Tories in opposing independence, was the last straw.
As the SNP shifted to the left, Labour was shifting to the right, ending up with the Blairite Jim Murphy as leader in December 2014. This was the crossing of the Rubicon. In the 2015 general election, Labour got its comeuppance and lost 40 of its 41 seats. The SNP won an unprecedented landslide, scooping up 56 out of 59 seats in Scotland.
The Referendum had transformed the political situation. It was not simply about independence, but about austerity, the British establishment and the Tory Party. The result reflected an anti-establishment and even anti-capitalist mood in society.
The working class heartlands of Glasgow and Dundee voted for independence. Many people who had not voted before, especially the most oppressed layers, chose independence. The youth voted for independence in large numbers. Those who rejected the status quo voted for independence. In the vote, independence was rejected 45% to 55%, much closer than previous predictions.
Since the general election, support for independence has hovered around the 50% mark, increasing on the September 2014 figure. Given a Tory government at Westminster and the SNP pushing an anti-austerity line, the support for independence will increase. The fundamental reason for this is the betrayals of the Labour leaders.
It is likely there will be a second referendum in the next period. Pressure will build for it, especially if the SNP achieve another landslide in the Holyrood election in May 2016 and the Tory government becomes increasingly unpopular, as will be the case. In addition, if Britain votes to leave the EU and Scotland votes against, a new Referendum will be unstoppable. Under these circumstances, the Scots are very likely to vote for independence. This might be delayed if the EU referendum is won, but is nevertheless on the cards.
Will the Corbyn victory be able to reverse Labour’s decline? This is certainly not a short-term perspective, but will take a number of years depending on the fate of the Labour Party and the right wing. The Scottish delegation’s negative reaction to the FBU’s reaffiliation to the Labour Party is symptomatic. In Scotland, there is a deep distrust of Labour, even under a Corbyn leadership. While the Labour Party is split over austerity, Trident, and the bombing of Syria, the SNP is united in its opposition.
The Labour Party in Scotland has shown some signs of partially moving to the left in its policy, given the events of the recent period. For example, at its conference there was a 70% support to scrap Trident. But the problem for Labour is that people are so disillusioned with the party that this change is too little and too late. It has not increased support for Labour in Scotland to any real degree.
Such moves at the top have not resulted in any increase in membership as we have seen in England and Wales. An article in the Financial Times showed that whilst the LP membership in London increased by 40,000 since the General Election, but the party in Scotland only increased only 4,000. It is also important to recognize that a significant layer of these new recruits in Scotland will have come from the more conservative layers who opposed the YES Campaign. Labour is currently polled to get 19% in the Holyrood election, same as the Tories, whilst the SNP is on around 60%.
Again, Corbyn, it must be said, has a wrong position on the national question. Rather than understanding the nationalist sentiments of the working class, he follows the line of the Scottish Labour Left who tend to express a crude anti-nationalism. They make no distinction between the nationalism of the bourgeois and the nationalism of the oppressed, which has a different class content. Corbyn does not even offer Home Rule for Scotland, which would at least be a step forward on the past position.
The YES movement on the left of the SNP has seen an ebb. While the SNP can ride high for quite a while, the party itself is based on a class contradiction. The working class base of the party, which now constitutes the big majority, will increasingly collide with the bourgeois elements in the leadership. The SNP will begin to be pulled in different directions as the slump hits Scotland hard. The party would tend to split on class lines. Signs of this have already been seen. At the SNP 2015 conference a motion was carried that argued for a more radical policy on land reform, despite opposition from the leadership. There was also a lot of debate with motions being passed at branch level against NATO and for an increased living wage.
These small signs are the embryo of future splits which would almost certainly come to the surface in and independent Scotland and possibly before. A layer of the rank and file would become very open to Marxist ideas, the ideas of John MacLean and James Connolly, namely a Scottish Workers’ Republic in a Socialist Federation of these islands, as a stepping-stone to a Socialist Europe and a World Federation of Socialist States. On this basis, a sizable revolutionary party in Scotland could be constructed, linking up with the Marxists throughout Britain and internationally. However, the precondition for this development is the building of a strong Marxist tendency in Scotland.
LEFT REFORMISM
The left reformist programme of Corbyn, namely to abolish Trident, renationalise the railways, increase house building, end austerity, etc., are measures we would support. Other measures such as the Peoples’ Quantitative Easing are utopian and will not work but make matters worse. The attempt to increase the money supply without increasing production will only lead to inflation in the long run. The examples of Venezuela or Zimbabwe are cases in point. However, the main problem of any reformist programme is the belief that these reforms can be won on the basis of capitalism. They are measures that aim not to destroy capitalism but to ameliorate its effects.
Reformists view their demands as “realistic” and “practical”, as opposed to a bold socialist programme, which they see as “ultra-left” and “impractical”. Nationalisation of the banks or monopolies is considered too “extreme” for the “electorate”. They try to appear “responsible” people by stressing that they are not in fact “deficit deniers”, meaning they will operate on orthodox lines. They too have promised to make cuts to “balance the books”, but not in the same way as the Tories. But in doing so, they are accepting capitalist orthodoxy. They think they can simply reform capitalism by using Keynesianism and spend their way out of the crisis. They accept the basis of the system without understanding the economic laws that cannot be overcome within the framework of the system. The reforms they propose are impossible on the basis of crisis-ridden capitalism. The system can no longer afford reforms, only counter-reforms. That is why the crisis of capitalism is also a crisis of reformism, not only in Britain but internationally, as we see in France, Greece and Venezuela. There is no room for reformism in the present situation. Their so-called “practical” measures are in fact completely impractical in the present context of organic capitalist crisis.
This has nothing to do with good or honest intentions. The left reformists can be really genuine in their beliefs but that is beside the point. It is the laws of capitalism that are decisive, not the subjective feelings of individuals. The right wing have openly abandoned reforms and instituted counter-reforms, not because of their immorality, but because of the crisis of capitalism. For them, there is no alternative to the market economy. The left reformists attempt to square the circle. Their economic programme of “growing the economy” is pure Keynesianism, which even certain bourgeois economists are flirting with.
But the idea that the problems of the British economy can be solved by tinkering with the system or by “reflation” of the economy, as the Keynesians believe, is completely utopian. They believe that “deficit financing” would create demand and therefore allow the economy to expand. In its turn, the deficit would be covered by the extra revenue obtained from increased taxes. This argument is fundamentally false. Capitalist crisis does produce a lack of demand, that is true and we can see that everywhere. However, that is only one side of the problem. Capitalist production is production for profit. It is not simply demand but profitable demand that is the issue. And profit arises from the unpaid labour of the working class.
Demand cannot be produced from thin air. Deficit financing, in the short term, like credit, may have a stimulating effect. But, as Marx explained, credit creates a market beyond the limits of capitalism. The problem arises in that you can only do this by pre-empting consumption, that is, you cannot spend the same money twice. Eventually, it leads to an inflationary credit bubble, as we saw before the crash of 2008, which cascades into a slump.
Further, government spending either comes from taxing the working class, which cuts demand, or it comes from the capitalists, which cuts into investment and therefore cuts demand for capital goods. It is a vicious circle. The proponents of “deficit financing” are unable to face up to the contradictions involved with an economy that remains on a capitalist basis. It is not this or that aspect that needs fixing – the whole system is in a complete impasse. Such Keynesian policies have no hope of patching up capitalism or eliminating its contradictions. Whatever they do, they will not force or bribe the capitalists to invest and “grow the economy”, provide jobs, etc. The capitalist system has reached its limits. This is what the left reformists do not understand.
The monetarist “supply-siders” proceed from the opposite argument – that if you increase profits and the share that goes to the capitalists, they will invest and get the economy moving. That would create jobs and therefore demand.
But as Marx explained, the process of the capitalist economy is the production of surplus value from the unpaid labour of the working class. The working class can never buy back the full product of their labour as they only receive a small portion of this in wages. It is from this remaining surplus that the capitalist carries out investment and therefore production. When profits increase and are reinvested in new capital equipment, this must be used to produce more consumer goods. But if the workers do not get sufficient wages to buy them, there will inevitably be a crisis of over-production.
Either way, monetarism or Keynesianism will lead to a crisis and an economic collapse. There is no solution on the basis of capitalism.
Left reformists before the war, such as Clement Attlee and Strachey, argued for emergency measures to deal with the crisis that would face an incoming Labour government. We must take up these arguments and give them a revolutionary content – to take over the banks and monopolies. An emergency situation requires emergency measures. We call on a Labour government to immediately take over the banks and insurance corporations! Take over the commanding heights of the economy – the 150 monopolies! Run the economy under workers control and management and democratically plan the economy in the interests of the majority, not the profits of the few. Only in this way can we end the austerity, end unemployment, give everyone a living wage, give everyone a decent home, retirement at 50 on a decent pension, free education for all, and rising living standards.
This is the only way to confront the inevitable sabotage of the ruling class, which a Corbyn Labour government will face from day one. The reformists think that if they do things slowly, bit by bit, they can avoid this problem. The ruling class will feel threatened. They will provoke the infuriated resistance of the capitalists. Corbyn will face a strike of capital, a run on the pound and all manner of blackmail by big business to force him to capitulate, as with Tsipras in Greece. This shows up the utopia of the reformists, including the most “left”, of changing capitalism a little at a time.
In 1966, Lord Cromer, governor of the Bank of England saw Harold Wilson and told him he had to bow to the dictates of capital. “We had now reached the situation”, stated Wilson in his memoirs, “where a newly elected government was being told by international speculators that the policy on which we had fought the election could not be implemented: that the government was to be forced into the adoption of Tory policies to which it was fundamentally opposed… The Queen’s First Minister was being asked to bring down the curtain on parliamentary democracy by accepting the doctrine that an election in Britain was a farce, that the British people could not make a choice between policies.”
This was not blackmail from foreign financiers but British big business. The ranks of the Labour movement were not told about this until Wilson published his memoirs five years after the event. Of course, Wilson capitulated. The same blackmail would face a Corbyn Labour government, only more relentless given the crisis.
There are only two alternatives, either capitulate or move to overthrow capitalism. There is no middle road. Either it can lead to the establishment of workers’ power or it can lead to a crushing defeat.
As George Brown, a former right wing deputy leader of the Labour Party, correctly said: “No privileged group has ever given up its power or privileges without a fight, with no holds barred.” Either the Labour government overthrows capitalism or capitalism will overthrow the Labour government.
In terms of foreign policy, the Left are just as weak as on home policy; one is a reflection of the other. The right wing’s position is absolutely firm: to support capitalism and imperialism in all its actions. However, the Left are very woolly and do not take a class position. Their ideas are tinged with pacifism and unconditional support for the so-called United Nations.
The United Nations is a collective of capitalist powers, but dominated by the main imperialist powers. The Security Council, made up of the key powers, has the right to veto decisions. The UN cannot “solve” problems when they collide with the interests of any key power, especially the United States. The UN has never resolved anything, except secondary matters where the imperialists can agree. It can then act as a fig-leaf for imperialist aggression, as in the Korean War and in Yugoslavia. It is a “thieves’ kitchen”, to use Lenin’s expression in describing the “League of Nations” before the war. But every time something happens, the Left calls for the UN to act. For the Left, bombing is fine as long as it has the approval of the UN. The struggle of the working class or the fight for socialism never enters their heads. World relations are determined not by evil intentions but by power politics and naked class interests. We can have no trust in the imperialists, including Cameron, or their institutions, such as the UN.
Unless you begin with a class analysis and sweep away the hypocrisy of the imperialists, you will be lost. This is the fate of the left reformists. Foreign policy is but a continuation of home policy. Capitalist policies pursued at home will inevitably be reflected in foreign policy. One cannot be separated from the other.
THE FUTURE
The crisis will bear down on the youth far more than other sections. They will search for a revolutionary way out. They are not held back by the cynicism and scepticism of the older generation, weighed down over a long period by the experience of bad leadership and defeats in the labour and trade union movement.
Young people in this period are increasingly open to revolutionary ideas, especially Marxism. Throughout history, youth has been the backbone of the revolutionary movement in its early stages of development. The same will be the case today. They have the necessary energy and the élan, as well as the willingness to make big sacrifices, needed to carry through the revolution.
The youth will not necessarily be won to revolutionary politics by transitional demands, but by the broader vision of a new society, which can be easily linked to the world socialist revolution.
There has clearly been a qualitative shift in the situation. The winds of change have cleared away the suffocating atmosphere of the past two decades. For the first time in many years, the Labour Party has begun to change.
While there has been a massive growth in the membership of the Labour Party, the active involvement of the new layers varies from place to place. Many parties remain under the control of the old guard, who are seeking to hold the line. Others have seen an influx. The emergence of Momentum has provided a vehicle for new members, as well as other activities around the party, but it is still in the process of formation.
Given the turbulence of events, the past is not necessarily a complete guide to the future. We must examine the new features and draw the necessary conclusions. We must keep our finger on the pulse and follow events carefully, which will assist us in fleshing out our perspectives.
It is the duty of every Marxist to prepare themselves for the epoch we have entered. Everyone must educate and train themselves in the fundamental ideas of Marxism, which are our weapons. This will allow us to withstand the pressures of capitalism, reformism, opportunism and ultra-leftism.
“The conclusion to be drawn from all this” explained Trotsky in 1935, “is that the British proletariat must not reckon on any historic privileges. It will have to struggle for power by the road of revolution and keep it in its hands by crushing the fierce resistance of the exploiters. There is no other way leading to Socialism…
“Everything in Britain is heading for a revolutionary explosion. A happy issue from the economic crisis – and this is quite a possibility in itself and even inevitable – could never have more than a transitory character, and would quickly yield once more to a fresh and devastating crisis. There is no way to salvation through capitalism.”
We need to fully understand that all the objective factors for revolution have begun to ripen. We have entered a very stormy period. The only factor that is missing, which is the most important fact of all in this epoch, is the subjective factor, the revolutionary party. It is our role to create this factor. Nobody else will do it for us.
