The spectre of the 1930s has been vividly recreated by the Right to Work March on London. Workers of the older generation seeing the march pass by have been profoundly angered and moved. Promised by successive post-war Labour Governments that never again would they see the hunger marches and the degradation of the Thirties, they have been sharply reminded that the unacceptable face of capitalism can never be washed clean by Labour's reformist tinkerings.
wnat eise nas the march done! Inere is no doubt that toi small groups of workers, isolated by the treachery of a trade union leadership bound body and soul to the anti-working class Wilson Government, the march has acted as a tremendous boost: for the 50 technicians on strike at Rugeley in Staffordshire; for the 123 workers at Spear and Jackson in Dronfield near Sheffield; for the 70 electricians at the Taylor Woodrow site in Manchester.
But these positive features of the march also highlight its failures. The march was intended as a massive publicity stunt to build the Right to Work Campaign run by the Rank and File Organising Committee, a trade union front for the International Socialists.
There is nothing wrong with publicity stunts - the Jarrow hunger march was just such an action taken by workers who despaired of their plight ever reaching the eyes and ears of the labour movement. It was an action taken as a last resort, after years of struggle against unemployment had failed because of the treachery of the trade union and Labour Party leadership. But it led nowhere, because no political strategy and alternative was advanced for the working class. It moved the consciences of the whole country, it exposed the inequalities of capitalism, but did little else except act as a sign post of defeat.
The Right to Work marchers of 1976 claim that theirs is not a march of despair but one of anger. But anger is no substitute for politics. And that is why this march, which could have been a centralising force in a fight for jobs where central leadership is curomcany aosent, nas remamed a puonciy stunt waien will quickly fade from the minds and activities of the militants it паи encounterec There is another side to the Right to Work March. Right tu Work Committees established in the localities to fight unemploy ment have turned over all their resources to building the march instead of developing a real strategy and actions to beat unemployment. The Communist Party has attacked the march from the very beginning, counterposing it to the National Assembly on Unemployment on 27 March. Instead of meeting this attack correctly, using the march to build the National Assembly on Unemployment on a basis that could have fought the love-in between the Lefts and the Communist Party that will serve as a subsitute for action, the IS paper Socialist Worker has paid only lip service to this task, in practice ignoring it altogether.
Red Weekly has supported the march, and militants who follow its policies have participated and spoken at meetings organised by the marchers. However, we insist that the march could and should have been organised by all those forces committed to action against the policies of the Labour Government, instead of merely by the Rank and File Organising Committee alone.
In that way the march would have escaped the stigma in the labour movement of being merely a party-building stunt for the International Socialists, and could have provided a much wider basis for fighting the Stalinists - who have worked 24 hours a day to increase its isolation. It could have become part of a whole movement based on Richt to Work Committees where the policies needed to fight unemployment could have been nasnea our ana turned mto acuon This has not happened, and nor do we expect it to happen because of the blind sectarianism of the leadership of the International Socialists, who put the interests of their small organisation above the interests of fighting for mass united action of the class against the Wilson Government and mass unemployment.
The Albert Hall rally on 20 March, which is being built as the triumphal culmination of the march, will be a splendid memorial to a tragic misuse of resources in the workers movement.
as petulant back-seat demagogues. could provide a real alternative to reformism.
WILSON RESPONSIBLE the right-wing leadership.
the Tories. health housing mittee on abortion.
this country by Wilson and the Tories pressurising Wilson and Healey to change their policies. 'Pressure polities' have been the traditional excuse of the lefts and their Stalinist fellow travellers for not challenging the centre and right of the Labour Party. Kicking out Wilson and Healey would perhaps have the consequence of putting in lefts who could equally well betray the working class. The pathetic grovellings of Michael Foot are one clear indication of such a development. But even this would be a step forward for the working class; to see what the lefts do when they are actually in the driving seat rather than acting However, because such a battle would involve not only a fight in parlia mentary corridors but the mobilisation of the class outside Parliament, we think that the likelihood of the lefts taking such action is unlikely.
But in the event of any such struggle Red Weekly would join with the lefts one hundred per cent, even though we consider that the political solutions they offer amount only to reformist tinkering with the capitalist system. In the course of such a struggle we would fight for policies which Activists in the labour movement should demand that the lefts start to take a position on the cuts, unemployment and incomes policy. Meetings should be organised in all localities, and left MPs called on to address them through resolutions passed by trade unions and constituency parties At the National Assembly on Unemployment those left MPs sponsoring it should be asked point blank whether they intend to oppose the Government's anti-working class legislation, and above all vote against the budget - because that will be the basis on which the trade union leadership sell any recommendation on incomes policy to their union conferences.
The lefts should spell out the truth to Wilson and the working class. It is his Government which is speeding the removal of Labour from power through its anti-working class policies. Those who claim to defend the interests of the working class have no alternative but to vote against all such policies. If Wilson insists on tying the fate of the Government to the continuation of these policies, then the responsibility for any defeat and removal from office it may suffer will quite clearly lie at the door of Healey and Wilson had the nerve to accuse the lefts of conspiracy with But it was Healey, Wilson, Jenkins and Callaghan who conspired with the Tories to spit in the face of the whole labour movement by campaigning for British membership of the Common Market, it was Tory support for Wilson which secured endorsement of Labour's unemployment