adamant insistence that there is nothing "political about their struggle. In the words of Arthur Scargill, "The miners have made a wage claim. Our aim is simple. The Torics: have made it political. We do not believe gaing outside these confines will help the miners or the trade union movement.' In the same vein is MeGahey's statement, "This is a wages struggle. It is not poutically motivated, Sunilar cornments have been made by aUtost every NUM left-winger.
The Communist Party and the trade union lefts seem to see things developing in the following way: first sections of the working class will go into struggle, making Tory policy unworkahle; then the Tories will call an election in desperation, finally, the Labour Party will rally workers at the polis and turn out the Tory Government. This scheme fits in ncatly with all the political prejudices of the trade union lefts. it does not require the development of a mass struggle going beyond the bureaucratic boundaries of the official trade union movement, it respects the division of labour between the trade unions and the Lahour Party on "industrial' vs. "political" What solutions do the NUM leaders propose to these problens? Of course there are working class solutions to each of these questions -solutions which could rally milhons of workers against the Tories hut they cannot be put lo deny that his struggle has any poultical objectives at all.
Moreover, by setting up a wall between the Industrial struggle and the political struggle' the NEM lefts make it more difficult for workers to driw poblical conclusions from their industrial struggles. Yer every time a Tory Gorernment is clected it is with milions of woeking claas votes, so the defeat of the Tory Government depends first and foremost on establishing ant understanding of the connection between the industrial struggle and politics.
Of course, if the NUM left fails to lance up to its political responsibilities, there is a politscal alternative to the Tones - the right-wing, Parliamentary leadership of the Labour Party The NUM lefts are all ardent socialists. and harsh trilics of the Labour Party right. But by arguing that the question of Government must be settled in Parliament, they lead the working class right into the fold of these right-wing traitors.
The political weaknesses of the NUM lefts. like those of their predecesors Cook and Smith, hold great dangers for the struggle ahead. The only way of avoiding these dangers is by adopting a clear-cut position on the way forward and the central steps which the working class movement must take to defeat the Tories and emerge victorious from the coming confrontation.
Every trade union mitant must demane that the lefts - both in the NUM and elsewhere -take a clear position in favour of a general strike to bring down the Tory Government, and against any retreat or suspension of struggle in the face of an election. These must not be just paper positions or calis for someone else to act: they must be the basis for a campaign of political education, and in favour of direct tank-and-file action, throughout the workine Class movement * BRIAN SLOCOCK Red Weekly 8 February 1974 Pao 5