Of course, the Social Democratic distinction between trades unionism and politics was always institutionally defined, but there were times when it was at least momentarily transcended in the course of struggle. For the most part, however, the ideological hold of Labourism remained intact. The protracted post-war boom offered little hope of widespread political radicalisation, and the absence of a political force capable of combatting bourgeois ideology meant that economism could prevail in a movement so attuned to its acceptance. So it was then, that the reduction in rank and file involvement in the Labour Party-which left the constituencies firmly in the hands of right-wing litancy in the trade unions- which forced a "left" appearance on the part of trade union officials. This therefore entailed a radical switch in the perceived nature of the class struggle. Whereas in the "affluent" fifties the city's Labour Party gave many militants the impression of moving to the Left and the trade unions the appearance of going to the Right, in the sixties the position was reversed. This is not unique. It has occurred in every industrial area of the country. Its consequences are obvious. There are literally hundreds of isolated militants highly receptive to Marxist politics. Moreover, this same change has meant that many groups of workers have remained separated from the broad Labour movement. A second feature exacerbating the isolation is the difference in rates of pay. Above all, this is true of dockers. As they will tell you, "Because we earn a few bob more than other workers, they are never prepared to support us". It has to be said that few dockers have, in return, been prepared to support them. Barely half-a-dozen, for example, turned up at an unemployment conference of 400 trade union fact serves to disguise a substantial drop in the volume of trade. This is clear from a companson of the two columns in the following table.
Value of Foreign Trade and Tonnage of Traffic Hull Docks 1964-1970 Value of foreign trade (H.M. Customs & Ex- imports& LOES cise Statements) exports Year £ million Tons 000 1964 10,198 9,908 1966 9,507 1967 9,129 1968 1969 7,585 7,526 Last year's figures do little to lighten the gloom. Cargoes passing through Hull docks in 1971 slumped by a further 1,279,628 tons. With the substantial development of a container depot at nearby Leeds, and with port facilities being extended along the East Coast, miles south of the Humber, the writing is clearly on the wall.
In terms of the percentage manpower loss, Hull has already suffered more than any other port as the following table shows Registered Dock Labour 1969 1970 % loss London 18,259 16,573 9.2 Liverpool 11,430 10,789 7.0 Hull 3,544 3,126 12.0 1,959 1,861 5.0 South Coast 01031 1,728 7.0 Nationally (all ports) 48,785 44,588 9.0 Since 1970 the labour force in the Hull docks has been further reduced to some 2,500 men. It has to be emphasised that this enormous reduction has been made possible only through the sacrifice of dockers themselves. Many are coming to realize that they have been digging their own graves. They argue that traditional areas like Hull are being systematically run down so that employers can operate elsewhere with cheap labour from outside the National Dock Labour Scheme in unregistered ports such as Felixtowe, Shoreham and Newhaven. Also, as inflation whittles away the sugar coating on the pill, they are coming to taste the bitter core of increased exploitation. The initial profits to be made out of containerisation are absolutely fantastic, and bring home the full implication of Devlin. The McKinsey Report estimates that whereas under conventional methods one man could normally unload 30 freight tons a week, with containerisation it would come to 600 freight tons-an amount 20 times greater.
N.O'Neill
From the standpoint of the workers' movement, the May 7 elections had wo decisively negative results. First, the Christian Democrats, who have made a clear shift to the right, essentially maintained their positions and are thus more susceptible than ever to right-wing pressures. Secondly, the MSI [Movimento Sociale Italiano -Italian Social Movement, the neo-fascists) had a notable success in consolidating its base and will be better able to serve as an instrument of pressure in the parliamentary and governmental spheres, as well as to promote acts of intimidation in the classic fascist style. If we underestimated these developments, our analysis would be distorted, with all the political and tactical errors this would involve.
In parliamentary terms, the class enemy can take comfort in the fact that although its credibility has been deeply croded and it is bankrupt in practice, the centre-left has retained a majority. At the same time, the possibility still exists for a centre government although with less room to manoeuvre. The climate for a centre coalition, of course, is more favourable now in several respects than it was in the previous legislature. As has already been misciosco, this tsun was tacktated by an electoral law which placed serious restrictions on proportional representation and in practice deprived more than a million left-wing voters of a voice in parliament. In making a general assessment of the clection results, however, we cannot overlook the factors that have different if not directly opposite implications. In the first place, we must not Jorget for an instant that while electoral laws can give a distorted impression of political relationships, they cannot eliminate forces existing in reality from the political struggle. This goes for the million "second-class citizens" already mentioned. But it goes even more for the youth between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one who did not vote but who will continue to exercise a weight in social struggles jest as they have often decisively done in the last four years. Nor should the fact be underestimated that certain strata of workers who contanue to support the bourgeois parties in the electoral field support antimanagement positions in factory and union conflicts, fighting a quest uomo? sation (and what is worse, this is an organisation that is still in the process of formation and that lacks any clearly defined theoretical or political basis).
During the campaign there was no lack of sectarian manifestitions, especially at the local level, and these contradicted Manifesto's attempt to project itself as an alternative for the whole anticapitalist and antireformist spectrum. All sorts of petty obstacles were put in the way of collaborating with other forces. Even the Vietnam demonstrations were accompanied by incipient attempts to try to exclude some forces. Finally, the inexperience of Manifesto's speakers made dialogue with broader strata difficult if not impossible. The excessive use of the "in" language of the far left alone would have prevented reaching out to broader layers. It would be wrong, however, to draw the conclusion that the attempt failed completely and that it would have been better not to try it. The results themselves, as modest as they were, show that not insignificant forces look to the far left for leadership, even in the electoral field and at a particularly difficult time. Nothing of the sort has been seen before in Italy or in other West European countries, except for the Krivine candidacy in France in 1969. And there better results were achieved because the Ligue Communiste has a stronger organization than Manifesto and because the project had a greater political coherence. The fact remains, and it is not an unimportant one, that an electoral campaign was conducted, and achieved some unquestionable successes in mobilizing people, on the basis of a platform that broke with reformist practices and reestablished a link with communist traditions of taking advantage of the opportunities offered by bourgeois democracy without encouraging electoralist or parliamentary illusions. It would also be wrong to interpret the vote for the Communist Party as meaning that this organisation has maintained or reconfirmed the support of broad sectors of the masses because they place their full trust in the party or really support the options and methods of the leading groups. I think it is safe to say that just because they voted for the PCI does not mean that these people did not feel perplexity, uncertainty, or critical reservations.