Sibility of a general confrontation and the "country becoming ungovernable, it is necessary for the left to look carefully at its policies. Differences which now appear small may become of crucial importance in any mass upsurge. This article therefore looks at some of the most important debates at present going on in the left.
Except for a few nutty ultra-lefts, every organisation on the left is for getting rid of the Tory government. However the reasons given in favour of this are in general totally confused, The Labour Party suggests that getting rid of the government would almost by itself solve all the problems of the working class. This is nonsense. The economic attacks on the working class would continue, A simple change in government cannot control a capitalist economy. The Communist Party and the Labour left think that all would be well if the right sort of gover ment, one with 'left' or 'socialist' policies got into office, It could then nationalise decisive sectors of the economy and tackle the economic problems. This also is totally utopian.
The British ruling class is never going to allow its economy and wealth to be taken off its hands peacefully. Only if the working class had first smashed the capitalist class's army and police could a government proceed to take over the economy. It is these facts which have to be the starting point of any analysis of fighting the Tory government. Firstly to show that no government, including the best intentloned Labour one, could solve the problems of the working class without taking the economy out of the hands of the capitalist class without smashing the power of the bourgeois state. The Social Democrats and most of the left hide these simple facts from the working class. They say that the real struggle is over the government. They do not base themselves on the fact that any govemment of a party of the working class cannot deal with the real problems unless the capitalist state is first dealt with. When revolutionaries say things such as "All struggles must be placed in the context of the struggle against the Tory government ' they in lost mislead and miseducate the masses. the and file under control, and things haven't got so desperate yet that the ruling class is prepared to embark on such dangerous courses as murdering working class leaders. What is needed at the present time is a policy of economic and political confrontation with the the unions. For this the Labour party, which relies for money and votes on trade union support, is far less useful as a government to the ruling class than the Tory party. The bringing down of the Tory government would therefore most likely leave the ruling class with a weak flabby government which would find it far more difficult to carry out properly the tasks that were needed for British capitalism.
EVERY MEANS NECESSARY Once it is decided that a central task at the present time is to get rid of the Tory gover ment then of course the means to be used are clear. As only the revolutionaries are practical men they alone conclude that every means necessary must be used. There is no point in willing an end and then refusing the means necessary to get it. That is just utopianism. All that has to be decided on are what are the most decisive means to use in the SECON What are definitely not decisive means are the present way in which the working class is going into struggle. The present tactics of the working class are not confronting the general centralised attack by the ruling class with a general centralised attack by the working class. Of course, it may be that the gas men, the Ford workers and so on will win even in individual struggles. It is the task of every socialist and trade unionist to ensure that this does happen. But the present struggle is being carried out in a way that is extremely ineffective from the point of view of the real political strength of the working class and in a way that gives big and unnec revolutionaries suggesting that the actions of the bureaucracy are all important, they must all the time stress that it is possible for the masses to struggle without and against the bureaucracy. The job of the revolutionary party is to concentrate the attention of the working class on the steps the masses can take - not to concentrate attention on what the bureaucracy is doing.
Another big confusion on the question of the General Strike is on what its aims should be posed as. One variant here is to suggest that its aim must be the return of a Labour government (pledged to socialist policies') or to force a General Election. This is completely wrong. It is one thing to raise the demand for the strike to kick out the Tories. This is a necessary step in the class struggle whether they are replaced by another government within the bourgeois state or whether that bourgeois state is replaced by a proletarian state. It does not in any way place a limit on the aims of the struggle. What will follow the Tories will depend on the relation of forces at the time such a thing was achieved.
The demand for a General Strike to lead to a Labour government, let alone for a General Election, is something quite different. This is to accept in advance that the relation of forces during the struggle will not develop to a point where the bourgeois state can be broken. It is to project one of the highest forms of struggle of the working class while accepting that it will only achieve a result within the capitalist state. This is not at all the role of revolutionaries. Their task is not at all to draw a line and say the masses will not advance beyond this point. The task of a revolutionary organisation is to against the state as opposed to simply fighting against the government, at present means two things. Firstly it means beginning to educate the working class that the state despite its Parliamentary democratic forms, is a bourgeois state, a class state, and that the law is a class law. This means completely rejecting all arguments such as that the government 'does not have a mandate. To advance such an argument is actually to accept the present basis of the state and simply argue that the government is not functioning correctly as part of that state. It is to completely mislead and miseducate the working class as to the nature of bourgeois democracy. Secondly it means to begin to project in the working class struggle as it is unfolding today those steps and measures which will become decisive in any general head-on confrontation between the working class and the bourgeoisie. The key measures here are two. Firstly, it is hopeless for the working class to attempt to fight the centralised power of the state without drawing all the forces of the working class and its potential allies into the struggle. This means pointing out the need for a generalised confrontation against the bourgeoisie. The second task is explaining and showing in practice the necessary steps for success in any such confrontation. These political and practical steps are the decisive ones in preparing for a general strike.
HOW TO PREPARE While for the working class the demand for a General Strike means a call for a decisive clash with the ruling class, nevertheless it has to be realised that enormous problems exist with the slogan of the General Strike. In particular as a real weapon of war a general strike in itself, the mere stoppage of work, is a relatively weak weapon. It may do for