General strike now?

October 4, 2010 at 9:02 am

David Ellis

It is also the absence of anything to offer. A sort of political bankruptcy behind which a programless, perspectiveless sect could hide. The bureaucracy can often use the call for a general strike to suppress the smaller struggles that could build towards a general strike. `only a general strike can win’ so don’t bother with your little effort. No the left needs to be organising and building for the thousands of struggles that will eventually feed into a generalised final assault on the citadels of capital. The General Strike slogan cannot be treated with such casual contempt and without the perspective of turning that general strike into a struggle for power what is the point of it? It can only be reformist or ritualistic in intent. Of course if the TUC itself were to call a general strike or a series of one day general strikes for their own Duke of York type reasons we would be obliged to enthusiastically participate with the aim of ceasing the leadership from the reformists and driving these events towards a revolutionary conclusion. In the meantime, develop perspective, program, build committees of struggle, local and national united fronts but most of all build the revolutionary party.

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October 4, 2010 at 12:15 pm

Duncan

By my reckoning that brings us up to three, or is it four?

Too many generals, etc.

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October 4, 2010 at 5:09 pm

prianikoff

At the moment the left union leaderships don’t feel confident enough to defy the union laws by organising a one-day General Strike.
A coordinated political strike that didn’t connect with a rising mass movement would leave them vulnerable to prosecution and fines.
Hence the tendency to organise around sectional disputes that stay within the law.

However, I liked the tone of Paul Mackney’s speech in Birmingham on October 3rd, particularly his focus on the need to drive the Coalition from office over the issue of public spending cuts. That’s absolutely the correct approach.

excerpt:-

“… We defeated the Poll Tax on the streets and by a mass campaign of civil disobedience….
This time … with an alliance of union action and community campaigns, we will defend our public services and drive them from office.
……From all these actions we will build up a demonstration of hundreds of thousands which will dwarf the poll tax protests and wipe the ugly smiles off their smug face”

See the full text here:-
http://www.coalitionofresistance.org.uk/?p=1765

The RtoWorkCampaign, LRC, Campaign Group, RMT-FBU-PCS-NUT-UCU leaderships and Coalition of Resistance urgently need to coordinate their activities.

The November 27th Coaliton of Resistance Conference could be used create an elected leadership and organise a delegate based structure.
This would be able to test the water for a national demo, synchronising with a one day General Strike.

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October 4, 2010 at 5:14 pm

1) It’s a meeting and not a conference. Bit of a difference but one wouldn’t want to let an opportunity to snipe go by.

2) your attitude to the general strike call demonstrates nothing so much as an unwillingness to consider breaking with business as usual in the face of an enormous austerity program coming down the pike. The TUC has already called for coordinated strike action, and a general strike call is simply putting that into a concrete slogan as a means to push the TUC towards action.
And the sort of sneering attitude that is displayed here, instead of real analysis, is sadly typical of the left. Here in Ontario in 1995 we went from electing the most right wing Tory government in memory – throwing out the province’s first ever social democratic government – with a clear majority, at a time in which strike levels were at historic lows, to a series of one-day, city-wide general strikes within half a year. The process of radicalization and enthusiasm as the anti-Tory sentiment spread rapidly overcame the inertia of the union bureaucracy. If there hadn’t been people raising the bar inside the union movement that would never have happened. And the left would have fulfilled its own prophecies that “the class isn’t ready.”

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October 4, 2010 at 5:55 pm

Adamski

Shawn, I met a couple of activists at the Bristol Anarchist Bookfair from Ontario Coalition against Poverty, wondered what your take on this group is? A group in Britain inspired by them called London Coalition against Poverty has been going for awhile inspired by the idea and methodology of Direct Action Casework – http://www.lcap.org.uk/?page_id=55

I got some good ideas for organising and community mobilising from them, but it is hard to gauge from outside how succesful a group is.

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October 4, 2010 at 6:37 pm

Hey Adamski

OCAP has been around for quite a while and I’ve known some people involved but I’m not that up on them. They do strong case work, I’m told – defending people who face being cut off, etc. And they have spun off some other organizing as well, such as No One Is Illegal, which mobilizes around advocacy for immigrants’ rights. They are certainly anarchist in orientation, if not in their explicit politics – and I’m not an anarchist so I won’t pretend that I am in sync with their tactics or strategy. But I think there are better people than me to give an informed opinion.

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October 4, 2010 at 7:40 pm

Liam

It’s not clear what the point is of having an extra national event seven days after the COR event which is making pretty much the same promise of openess and will be looking at exactly the same problems. I’m only peripherally connected to COR but from what I’m told they are willing to collaborate with any other campaign. I also think that scheduling an event in direct competition with the climate change demo sends a strong signal that the left is willing to let the ruling class off the hook on the issue.

Situations can change very rapidly but no one familiar with the British working class can suggest that the call for a general strike is likely to strike a chord with all but a minuscule vanguard. It was a major achievement to get the TUC to call a demo in March 2011, almost a year after the election. At the moment it is hard enough to give people the confidence to fight small scale defensive struggles and build well rooted campaigns against the cuts.

The slogan for a general strike, which in a sense poses the question of which class runs the state, just does not connect with the tasks of the next few months.

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October 4, 2010 at 8:06 pm

PhilW

The climate change demo will be a time for starting to map out a new strategy on climate change – one that does not look to international agreements to fight climate change. This is the message of a recent article by George Monbiot in the Guardian and on his blog, and I agree with him. Cancun will be a debacle.

Although I’ve been sceptical of the approach of pursuing the issue through international agreements since first considering climate change in 1989, it isw not easy to present an alternative to this. The left needs to have a worked out alternative line to put to the thousands who will be present on 5th December, to combat the demoralisation that could follow Cancun.

It is not a minor issue that the main organisation of the left in Britain chooses to organise a national meeting on the cuts on the same day.

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October 4, 2010 at 9:16 pm

Ronnie

Member of SWP are scared to discuss general strike in work places where they are union rep. Our branch is affiliated to RWC and when I asked our branch rep, who is a member of SWP, if he can inform the branch about the general strike discussion in the RWC he turned a blind eye and deaf ear. No answer…

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October 5, 2010 at 4:08 am

alf

If there was real support for a General Strike, with mass industrial action breaking out everywhere, then very few could turn a deaf ear. It is not a conspiratorial event but mass action.
Perhaps the leadership should consult the membership or is that in breach of CC rules?
For a far more serious discussion on the subject, I suggest that cdes reread the debates between Lenin and Luxembourg on the issue of a General Strike and mass action. Much to learn from those debates rather than the ones about false posturing.

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October 5, 2010 at 9:49 am

Climate Activist

Climate Change demo is on Saturday 4th December. Not the fifth.

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October 5, 2010 at 11:41 am

The Bunk

“I also think that scheduling an event in direct competition with the climate change demo sends a strong signal that the left is willing to let the ruling class off the hook on the issue.”

Fantastic stuff Liam. You don’t even allow the fact that the proposed meeting is in fact the day after the Campaign against Climate Change national demonstration get in the way of your congenital sectarianism.

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October 5, 2010 at 11:44 am

Liam

Silly me. It’s so unusual to do these things on a Sunday it hadn’t occurred to me. That is what happens when you read too quickly.

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October 5, 2010 at 12:12 pm

Liam

A good point well made Bunk. As for the matter of what this extra event offers that thel COR one doesn’t?

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October 5, 2010 at 6:29 pm

alf – “If there was real support for a General Strike, with mass industrial action breaking out everywhere, then very few could turn a deaf ear. It is not a conspiratorial event but mass action.”

I”m afraid Alf that referring to Rosa and Lenin as some sort of biblical text to explain the way that general strikes have manifested in the modern world is rather stale. The general strike is a complex phenomenon and not necessarily the product of a strike wave or even of a rank and file upsurge. Bureaucratic general strikes have been common for quite a long time in most of Europe – the union machine holds a one day event with a large set-piece demonstration as a lever to gain a better bargaining position (generally in the public sector) and to let off steam within the workers’ movement. There can also be – as was the case with the Days of Action movement in Ontario – pressure from the base that isn’t reflected in strike stats because while there is anger, there isn’t the confidence and organization to turn it into effective action. The union leadership are elected, after all, and do feel pressure from the members who might turf them out if they completely sit on their hands. In Ontario while the union leaderships preferred to do nothing (worse, actually, with the private sector unions actively blaming the public sector unions for the defeat of our Labour Party – the NDP – because they had resisted [feebly] the NDPs austerity budget). The move to the general strike movement, limited as it was, happened very quickly from a few smallish demonstrations, the largest being about 10,000 people as I recall.
So, the call for a general strike isn’t simply about measuring the level of strike statistics or organization – it is a more complicated measure involving levels of anger and consciousness. The fact that the TUC has already called for coordinated strikes in the public sector (a soft way of implying the threat of a public sector general strike) opens the door to push the implicit threat and demand an explicit commitment. That is what is happening with this. It is also a testing of the waters to see if the sentiment flies. How else does one attempt to lead if not by leading?

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October 5, 2010 at 8:57 pm

swp member

I think that it’s quite obvious what the 5th December is about. There are several competing networks, all pushing basically the same arguments. RTW, having organised what is I think (and do correct me if I’m wrong) the largest protest so far, is now suggesting that representatives of all of these networks should sit down together and talk. The CoR event doesn’t offer that because it is, well, the CoR event.

I think I understand your implicit argument to be that RTW, having organised a 7k strong demo, should just sign up to the COR inititive and wind itself up. Forgive me for thinking that this is unconvincing.

Basically, people need to talk. It’s good to talk.

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October 5, 2010 at 9:44 pm

Prinkipo Exile

swp member: What is it about the Coalition of Resistance conference and activity that the SWP Central Committee find it so hard to support?

apart from the fact that it isn’t controlled by the SWP Central Committee of course …

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October 5, 2010 at 10:28 pm

huw williams

It seems that slogans can only be raised if they have immediate support. I don’t see the SWP stating that we are on the verge of insurrection but it seems to me a good arguement to raise inside the movement. Lets take the public sector- massive attacks in Birmingham, sheffield and no doubt lots of other places. Where I work the council are also looking to rip up redundancy terms prior to mass sackings. Can we not argue that those workers cannot be left to fight on their own.
The level of politicisation is pretty high but the level of confidence is low. The idea that mass action is going to be built up slowly through sectional struggles is trying to re see today through the prism of the 1950’s and 1960’s .
I have found in my workplace-local govt that the anger alongside the level of real fear is mounting. The idea that workers should come together to resist and not be picked off one by one has real purchase. The impact from the

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October 5, 2010 at 11:37 pm

PCS REP

swp member – is 7000 that exciting in a city with tens of thousands of redundancies announced by Tory council? We need to unite but RTW is seem as SWP front – as a PCS rep in DWP I have never seen RTW campaign outside a Jobcentre – RTW is unfortunately a SWP front and comrades from SWP should learn after their recent splits such fronts arent even accepatble to the SWP membership

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October 6, 2010 at 5:13 am

alf

Anger is mounting and opposition growing. For the record, the debates between Lenin and Luxembourg are not stale. We learn from history in context of today’s experience.We have a rich history to learn from and no one is saying they were always right either.

Re Cor and RTW, let us get it clear. COR from day one made it clear that they will work with all the campaigns, will not take over local campaigns and will respect local autonomy of local based groups, as that is the only way forward.

COR has and does work with all groups, including the Peoples Charter and supporting the initiatives of the RTW. COR is building for the 20th Oct rally / demo and invites all to participate. COR also welcomes joint initiatives beyond this.

Yes we must maximise unity and co-ordination, supporting all events without imposing one on the other.

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October 6, 2010 at 3:50 pm

alf – I didn’t say the debates were stale. I said your use of them as a sort of Biblical reference, sufficient in itself, was stale.

RTW hasn’t called the meeting for the same day as the CoR conference. The CoR conference is a series of workshops. The RTW meeting is a meeting to bring together delegates/reps from the different organizations – as a means to make actual decisions about united actions. There is no competition here and people ought not to wind one up. That, after all, wouldn’t be in the spirit of unity.

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October 6, 2010 at 4:56 pm

alf

Shawn please quote correctly “For the record, the debates between Lenin and Luxembourg are not stale. We learn from history in context of today’s experience.We have a rich history to learn from and no one is saying they were always right either” No biblical reference there as far as I am aware and I am an atheist.

How about simply agree we all go to each others events/ meetings/ activities. Publicise each others and support each others. A good start and evidence of real unity. This is what most in the anti-cuts movement are doing. All events help build the movement and let each campaign define itself.

Recognition of and respect for local autonomy of local based democratic campaigns and mutual recognition of other national and regional campaigns is the first step in building unity in action.

No campaign should impose itself on others. Hopefully the websites for all campaigns piblicise s and recognises other campaigns, as COR and People’s Charter does. Hopefully the RTW will update their website soon to include these campaigns.

This way we show that we go forward together.

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October 6, 2010 at 5:52 pm

Alf – to describe something as Biblical is to use a metaphor, not to suggest you are religious, which is irrelevant. Dogmatic imposition of a schema out of context, based solely on the authority of the reference would say the same thing only with more words.

It is unreasonable to expect everyone to go to everything by everyone else. People have jobs, families, lives. That’s the reason a meeting has been called – to better coordinate and combine activities. And point scoring about one group’s website or other is absurd. Did CoR have a speaker at the BIrmingham demo? Yes they did. Did other groups, including Respect? Yes again. Rather more important than the links on a website, I would think. And, finally, why are you sniping? The events aren’t in contradiction with each other and they serve two very clearly different purposes. You should be happy that a coordinating meeting of the different groups (which has nothing to do with local autonomy or not) is being facilitated by RTW.

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October 6, 2010 at 6:09 pm

prianikoff

Duncan up above
“….Too many generals”

Yes and the stupidity of the situation is highlighted by the fact that the NUS and UCU are holding a big demonstration against cuts in Further and Higher Education on November 10th.
While London Transport Region RMT, Inner London NUT, FBU. NSSN CWU are marching to the TUC event on Saturday 23 October.

This is just pathetic!
Strategic idiocy.
The likelihood is that both these events, along with dozens, if not hundreds of local protests will have very little impact and be ignored.
If history has taught us anything, it’s that anyone, any government, can be overthrown.

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October 6, 2010 at 6:55 pm

prianikoff – while your frustration is understandable, this is just how these things develop. It starts with anger and then fragmented mobilization. If there momentum and suffiicient consciousness in the movement the fragmentation begins to give way towards coordination and organization. But it rarely starts out with coordination – patience is required.

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October 6, 2010 at 7:12 pm

alf

Shawn please read carefully. I am not sniping. I welcome the fact that COR and RTW can work alongside and work with other campaigns.

However the point I made is that it is not appropriate to call for a general strike now. why stop there, lets go for a revolution? The article questioned the relevance of the sloganising around a general strike now. I referred cdes to the past debates on the general strike and suggested we need to learn from present and past experiences. This is not dogma, this is what I would expect of any student attempting to analyse and evaluate a situation, with critical awareness.

I merely asked if COR could be added to the RTW website and hoping for a positive response. Is that sniping-no. It is simply making a suggestion.

Anyway the issue is that we must support each others initiatives and not imply one is better than the other. The movement and the class need all campaigns to accept each other exists and work together based on mutual recognition and unity in action.

As for Respect, well Salma and others do support both initiatives and that it is for Respect to answer. Hopefully they to will update their websites also.

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October 6, 2010 at 7:15 pm

alf

Shawn by the way, anger can also turn into a negative and reactionary response if their is lack of clear alternative leadership .

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October 6, 2010 at 7:25 pm

alf – There is no corollary between calling for a general strike and calling for a revolution – except that both are conjunctural. The point I made in detail above – based upon recent experiences with responses to neo-liberalism – is that it is not simply the case that the call for a general strike must come out of a strike wave. There are different types of general strikes and different context in which they can be called for. In Ontario in 1995 most of the left also considered a general strike call premature and then… there were general strikes, even though the situation was considerably less favourable than it is now in Britain. The only thing you have argued to counter this is that we should read 100 year old debates from a context that is almost entirely different and that there need to be mass strikes breaking out. I am disputing that with plenty of contemporary examples.

As for CoR being added to the RtW website, it is sniping because it is a WEBSITE. keep it in perspective. It’s hardly a priority. And given that CoR had a speaker at the RtW rally in Birmingham why not focus on that as evidence of a desire for unity? The fact that you have chosen the rather unimportant issue of a links list on a website over the Birmingham rally – the most important even that RtW has organized – is significant and telling.

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October 6, 2010 at 7:27 pm

“Shawn by the way, anger can also turn into a negative and reactionary response if their is lack of clear alternative leadership .”

Of course it can. Who said anything different? But saying that doesn’t mean that the movement can avoid the rather chaotic process of development that attends all movements. The point is to provide a focus – politically and organizationally (rather like calling for a general strike and an organizing meeting of representative from different coalitions…).

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October 7, 2010 at 4:54 am

alf

Shawn It is sad that you consider supporting each others inititiatives,” It’s hardly a priority”. I would have thought solidarity is a priority and mutual recognition a key to this. However I am pleased that a majority in the RTW do not take the same view as you on this.

As for general strikes, again read. I suggested ” we need to learn from present and past experiences”. I just question the relevance of it now given the scenario. Yes maybe as developments occurr it may be appropriate but the debate was about now calling for it.

RTW,COR, Peoples Charter and many local campaigns have organised many significant events. No one can and should have the monopoly on this. The movement needs to cometogether ues, but based on mutual recognition, support and solidarity. Not one is better than the other. That is frankly a poor arguement.

So in the name of solidarity, what is one more link on a website but mere evidence of mutual recognition and in todays IT world a few seconds to do.

Now forward together to building the movement.

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October 7, 2010 at 7:44 am

prianikoff

RedBedhead wrote:-

” If there momentum and suffiicient consciousness in the movement the fragmentation begins to give way towards coordination and organization. But it rarely starts out with coordination ”

The fragementation isn’t a result of a lack of consciousness, but sectionalism within the TUC.
The leaderships of the Unions could just pick up a phone. But they shy away from doing so because of the fear of what they might unleash.
The TU laws reinforce this situation.

But the privatisation of services and cuts are an all-out assault on the working class and its lving standards, which also will affect private sector unions.
Sectionalism and lack of coordination undermines the fight back. It won’t go away unless it’s consciously fought within the union and anti-cuts movement.

The left union leaderships have a big responsibility to take a lead over this.

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October 7, 2010 at 8:40 am

Liam

From what I’m given to understand, and I’m open to correction, the first thing anyone involved in any of the other campaigns knew of the December meeting was when the leaflet was distributed in Birmingham.

Given that organisations like COR, the NSSN, People’s Charter et al have easily available contact details and their own decision making structures it may have been presentationally better to have involved them in the decision to call a meeting to discuss joint work. And, at the risk of getting repetitive, no one has really explained what could be done on a Sunday in December tht couldn’t have been acheived at the previous week’s COR meeting.

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October 7, 2010 at 9:20 am

The problem is that RTW is an SWP front. That’s easily established by looking who’s in charge of it and I’m sure its referred to as such inside the SWP. There’s the usual doublespeak where they deny in public what they believe in private. But everyone’s used to that by now.
The problem for the RTW is that the SWP are by now totally discredited as an organisation of struggle. All they do is build themselves. And the RTW is no exception.
IMO there is no point in participating inside the RTW except to oppose it. In Lewisham for example they have invited a Labour Councillor to speak at their meeting, who supports the budget and will implement the cuts.
His opposition to the cuts is entirely rhetorical. Fits the SWP quite well me thinks?

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October 7, 2010 at 9:45 am

David Ellis

True to SWP form the RTW front is being built as an alternative to the labour movement or an alternative labour movement. Where does the SWP put its own program? Answer: nowhere. In actual fact it doesn’t have an independent program but adapts to the handful of left reformists and trade union bureaucrats it occasionaly attracts. At least COR is pulling different elements together even if it is in a worryingly apolitical way. It does mean that it can be entered with a view to exposing procrastonators and winning large numbers to a fighting socialist program.

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October 7, 2010 at 11:12 am

skidmarx

IMO there is no point in participating inside the RTW except to oppose it.
So you respond to a united front by trying to drag it down? I think there’s a word for that.

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October 7, 2010 at 11:24 am

robm

David, the basis for ‘entering’ COR is simply a willingness to get stuck into opposing the cuts so, by all means, please do so.
If along the way you are able to expose some procrastonators and win large numbers to a fighting socialist program, then so much the better.

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October 7, 2010 at 12:16 pm

David Ellis

Quite so robm, quite so.

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October 7, 2010 at 1:57 pm

“The fragementation isn’t a result of a lack of consciousness, but sectionalism within the TUC.”

These two things – consciousness and sectionalism – are related. At the risk of being pedantic: they are dialectical. Were there sufficient consciousness, there would be organizational and mobilizing pressure to overcome the inevitable and eternal sectionalism of union leaderships. The point is that pressure is starting to exist and the TUC call for coordinated action is a reflection of that. Making sure that the call doesn’t remain a dead letter will be the job of activists and rank and file union members within and without the official structures of the union movement. But, it seems to me from a distance, there are tentative moves towards this.

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October 7, 2010 at 2:14 pm

Liam – fair point: I can’t speak to the process of how this was done, if anyone was contacted, etc. But the difference is clear – the CoR conference is a series of talks delivered by movement figures. The RtW initiative is meant to be strictly a working meeting. Could they have done it the same weekend and coordinated it with CoR, perhaps. I don’t know the basis for their decision to do it the following weekend – my guess is that they felt there wouldn’t be sufficient time given the schedule of the CoR event.

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October 7, 2010 at 2:19 pm

alf – “It is sad that you consider supporting each others inititiatives,” It’s hardly a priority”. I would have thought solidarity is a priority and mutual recognition a key to this.”

That is a bizarre reading of what I wrote and I won’t repeat what I already put in very plain words above.

re: Lenin and Luxembourg – you suggested that people read their debates on the general strike. My point: those debates are mostly irrelevant in the present context and there are more germane experiences from which to draw. I gave several examples viz various forms and permutations of bureaucratic mass strikes, none of which have you addressed.

“Not one is better than the other…” Sorry, friend, we just disagree. Some campaigns will be more rooted, more effective, more strategically placed. I’m not saying and have never said that they should be excluded or shunned but we’re not liberals. We shouldn’t pretend that everything is the same just because it makes us feel good.

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October 7, 2010 at 2:49 pm

bill j

The RTW isn’t a united front. Its a front.
I attended (for my sins) its Manchester and its London rallies. There was an “election” of a steering group, those elected were in their majority SWP members. Where they weren’t they were the placemen and women of the SWP.
None of its local groups function as real forums for struggle. In every case its run by the dictat of the SWP.
After everything the left has experienced about this group over the last years my preference is not to promote another one of its fronts.
Time to smell the coffee.
There’s a word for that.
But I can’t remember what it is.

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October 7, 2010 at 4:45 pm

justpassing

“So you respond to a united front by trying to drag it down? I think there’s a word for that.” lol
That does seem to be the modus operandi of Bill j and his comrades. Luckily they seem to have extended this practice to their own organisation.

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October 7, 2010 at 6:45 pm

alf

Shawn so sorry if you misunderstood once again but you seem to fail to get the point. You fail to be willing to learn from history and you ignore the obvious. Well rather than continue this , lets just reiterate:
1. Support for all campaigns and initiatives against the cuts.
2. Solidarity with all initiatives.
3. Publicise each others initiatives.
4. Unity in action based on mutual recognition.
5. Respect local autonomy of local based democratic labour movement campaigns.

A recipe for success .No to sectarianism.

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October 7, 2010 at 6:47 pm

alf – what are you talking about? I gave a specific set of historical examples from which we can learn and you didn’t address them – the Ontario Days of Action movement, the use of bureaucratic mass strikes by European union leaderships, particularly in France & Italy. The only “specific” example that you pointed to was a debate between Luxembourg and Lenin from around the turn of the last century. And you didn’t even address the substance of their argument.

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October 7, 2010 at 9:17 pm

alf

Read-i said learn from present and past experiences. This is getting silly so good night and good luck. Enjoy.

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October 7, 2010 at 9:31 pm

And I gave a specific set of examples to back up my argument – none of which you responded to but just kept repeating the mantra “learn from the past”.

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October 8, 2010 at 10:15 am

bill j

My point is why not be honest for a change?
Everyone knows – including the SWP members – that RTW is an SWP front. That’s why they stitched up the election of its committee at the various conferences. That’s why its secretary is the noxious Chris Bambery, that’s why they refer to it in their own internal documents as an SWP front.
So instead of this charade let’s not dance around what everyone knows and decide whether or not we want to be part of another SWP front.
I’m guessing if you’re not in the SWP then the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
People don’t want to go to meetings that have been stitched up in advance are run by a secret cabal of apparatchiks in their own interests.
But sure if you want to kid yourself on the carry on with the doublethink/double talk.

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October 8, 2010 at 5:53 pm

johng

Its worth noting that there have been a spate of general strikes in europe.

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October 9, 2010 at 5:53 am

shug

And one in Spain,ten million they recon turned out,and its still business as usual.

As these retrenchments start to kick in it will effect a broad spectrum of society,not all socialist minded,yet as the socialist minded,they will also be feeling the pain anger and resentment.How to utilize that feeling toward a effective force for change is the obvious challenge.And a knee jerk national strike is not the answer.

It seems the best way is for individual communities and their multitude of social organisations to form a collective,with the view of targeting and protesting at the work places, the hospitals, the councils, the manafactures, the gov departments, the schools,where and when these cuts are proposed.

Sound daft, and certainly not a doddle to organise,but that is what it is going to take.And it will be a long battle.One thing is sure though, forget the barricades.

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October 9, 2010 at 3:03 pm

skidmarx

billj – I am glad that you continue to exhibit your usual honesty, and it does make a nice change from some other commenters.
Granted that RtW is a useful recruiting tool for the SWP, what is the alternative? Noone else is offering a campagin on this scle on this issue. When you talk of ‘placemen’, it makes me think that what is meant is those outside the SWP whose hostility to it is less than the value they think is added by RtW.When you talk of bureaucracy and apparatchiks it makes me think of the campaigns the SWP has invloved itself in led by organisations I think show those tendencies. Just because you don’t like the internal organisation or external m.o. isn’t by itself a reason for abstention. But you obviously think that it this case the game’s not worth the candle.

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October 9, 2010 at 5:15 pm

What is the alternative to RTW?
What’s the alternative to slashing your wrists?
Anything.

What is the RTW all about? The SWP bureaucrats trying to control the anti-cuts movement before it really exists. What’s good about that?
Nothing.

What has the RTW done has it done? Called a couple of demos.
Will that beat the cuts? Of course it won’t.
Could it beat the cuts if it grew massively?
Not if that movement is lead by the SWP/RTW, who will mire it in bureaucracy and limit to their own sectarian interests.
What will beat the cuts is the working class locally fighting each and every cut and nationally where possible its organisations fighting against the cuts. Will any of that involve the RTW?
Perhaps.
But if we are going to beat the cuts we need to ensure that the bureaucrats from the SWP are not able to control the anti-cuts movement through the RTW.
Abstention from RTW – in fact opposition to it – is not the same thing as abstention from the anti-cuts movement, which if it is to succeed must be built through the self-activity of the workers, not through a load of bureaucrats deciding they want to run things.

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October 9, 2010 at 5:45 pm

SteveH

How is the self activity of the workers to be developed? Will it arise spontaneously one fine morning?

p.s. shit choice for the lyric competition winner, pretentious bollocks! Middle class fakery! But I am not bitter.

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October 9, 2010 at 6:46 pm

Stuart King

I think we should welcome the SWPs decision to call for general strike action against the cuts. It represents a change of policy as they always opposed such calls in the 1970s (campaign against the Industrial Relations Act) and 1980s (during the miners strike).

Liam is trying to change the argument into “are we in favour of a General Strike Now”. I don’t think anyone is raising that – if he means by that next week. But do we think we can defeat the government’s onslaught by a series of isolated actions – a strike here in the PCS, a strike there by the Firefighters, over there by Unison members in each Council? Clearly we can’t. This is a class wide offensive that demands a class wide response.

How do we get it? By popularising the idea first, not pooh poohing it like Liam is doing (ie playing the role the SWP used to play in the labour movement in the 70s/80s). But we need to recognise the problems.

The rank and file organisation, shop stewards, work place reps, is much weaker – we have to rebuild it at the same time we fight the cuts. Building confidence through a series of strikes and other actions, drawing support from communities and service users and through them popularising the idea of general strike action to break the government’s offensive.

Two dangers: 1. holding back on strike action in the belief that some “public sector alliance” of TU leaders will call action or focusing everything on the TUC to “call a one day general strike”. They will only do this as a demonstration to “let off steam” ie the Irish example.

2. To believe, as the SWP seems to, that the scale of the cuts themselves will “spontaneously” drive the workers to general strike action. General strikes have to be built, organised and led, and we know this will be in the teeth of a ferocious attack not just by the bosses but by the TU bureaucrats. Therefore we need to build along the way powerful rank and file organisations in the unions – something the SWP is still unwilling to do.

There is the contradiction.

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October 10, 2010 at 2:02 pm

Liam

Stuart, yesterday I went down to the local Tesco to do a stall with a friend and while both of us have many fine qualities we could not accurately be described as newly radicalising. We’d been given to understand that other people would be there with a table, leaflets etc. After hanging around for 20 minutes we gave up.

This movement is still so embryonic that basic things like gettting a table to a supermarket are proving a bit of a struggle. Calling for a general strike now, without evidence of a vibrant mass campaign to support it, never mind some industrial militancy, is very radical but not much of a guide to what to do next.

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October 10, 2010 at 6:23 pm

prianikoff

Maybe Liam’s experiences outside his local Tesco are only half the story.
Had he been on the Boffin’s protest outside the Treasury on Saturday, he might have formed a different impression.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11508226

Who knows what might happen with a bit of leadership?

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October 12, 2010 at 7:38 am

Stuart King

I am sure, on reflection, Liam will realise that going from his experience with a few hapless lefties who clearly could not organise a welkstall, to dismissing the ability of the working class to mount an effective fightback against the cuts, might be an over reaction!

But the SWP and SR do represent two poles in the left. The SWP looks at the objective situation and the general strikes in Europe and says “we can have general strikes here”. Its tendency to rely on the spontaneous struggle means it neglects many of the necessary steps to get it – genuine united front work, clear ideas of who your enemies are (Labour and TU leaderships), strenuous effort to build up rank and file networks and even basic TU’ism in workplaces. It thinks all these problems will be swept away in the struggle – they wont.

SR on the other hand is crippled by its tailism and pessimism. It starts from the awful state of the workers and TU movement and says “lets start from what we can get” and that is not very much. We know we need general strike action to really defeat this ruling class offensive, we can’t get it or argue for it, so lets settle for something that will result in defeat ie it is roughly the line of the TU bureaucracy.

I’d rather the optimism and subjective will of the SWP, for all its faults, than the passivity of the SR position.

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October 12, 2010 at 2:55 pm

Liam

This section from an article by Sean Thompson in the upcoming issue of SR seems to me to be a more transitional approach in the next few months.

And while I don’t want to dob anyone in, the two PR chums I was in the pub with on Sunday night had a pretty similar view on the general strike slogan. Is anyone immune from this tailism and pessimism?

“rather than waste our breath making demands of the trade union leaderships that they call general strikes or take illegal action that we know they are not going to do, we should be making demands that they may find more difficult to oppose and which would make a real difference in developing a popular movement of local resistance.

We should be demanding that the unions start giving practical support to community based opposition. Keep our NHS Public, for example, is struggling to maintain an excellent campaign with no full time staff and virtually no money. The health service unions should be pumping in funds and seconding staff to assist the campaign. We should be demanding that all unions with a political fund should be spending at least as much as they donate to the Labour Party on providing practical support to the grass roots community based campaigns and that all unions organise anti-cuts levies and fighting funds amongst their members. “

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October 12, 2010 at 3:54 pm

skidmarx

the Boffin’s protest
Given the subject matter, perhaps it would be appropriate to point out that it should be the Boffins‘ protest.

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October 12, 2010 at 6:33 pm

Stuart King

Well, it’s a “transitional approach” to call for a few dollops of money to appoint some full-time staff for some campaigns. Away with all these ultra-left calls for TUs to defy the anti-TU laws or for mass action against the cuts, lets have more administrators!

Surely Trotsky would be turning in his grave to see what the British “Fourth International” was arguing today.

As my SR chum bemoaned to me in the pub after the Jerry Hicks rally last night, the only one who bothered to turn up I think, the British section moves ever rightwards while the French and Irish move left.

Something in the water perhaps?

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October 12, 2010 at 8:17 pm

Mark P

The French section moving left? There are certainly things to be said for the NPA experiment, but moving from revolutionary organisation to an SSPish formation is not a move “left”.

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October 13, 2010 at 5:58 am

alf

I found that late night chats over a few drinks never provides an opportunity for clear and objective analysis.

The issue is whether a section, group or party has betrayed the interests of the working class, collaborated with class enemies or demobilised militants from organising solidarity actions in defence of the working class.

Oh unless that means failing to call for the latest opportunistic, ultra left slogan that fails to reach the consciousness of those it is intended to liberate.

Those who wish to so easily misread what others have written or said to uphold sectarian views. Lets break with this poor failed tradition .

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October 13, 2010 at 5:58 pm

TinaP

The French section moving left? There are certainly things to be said for the NPA experiment, but moving from revolutionary organisation to an SSPish formation is not a move “left”.

Well in the sense that forming the NPA was a departure from alliances with reformists that the LCR traditionally sought, towards an broad organisation that is overtly “anti-capitalist, yes that is a move to the left in terms of tactics around left unity tactics.

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October 13, 2010 at 7:32 pm

Mark P

Tina:

That’s a tactical point, and even then an unclear one given the NPA’s bizarre mix of three contradictory electoral tactics last time around. What exactly is the NPA’s approach to the main reformist organisations? They don’t seem to know.

On a strategic level, it represents a move from a self-proclaimed revolutionary organisation, to an SSPish one, a move to the right any way you look at it.

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October 14, 2010 at 8:35 am

I was speaking to the Socialist Democracy people a few weeks ago and that was certainly their view too.
I’m not so convinced.
The top down sect style organisation that characterises the whole left, SP, SWP, LCR etc. needs to be broken with decisively. The NPA is a step towards this. Its not clear on a lot of things. Personally I think that’s great compared with being clearly going into a dead end.

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October 14, 2010 at 8:37 am

shug

Hey the paddy that Liam, seems to be hitting the nail on the head,albeit it with a joiners hammer.Its about a conclusive effect,these cuts.It would seem that because of financial circumstance those effected by these inhumain cuts, do not factor into a inclusion of the battle

Unions and their actions will effect the profit of the exploiters,that is only a time limited effect,a action of the employed.What about those without work,those retired,those trying to get into the exployted work force.What about those.I like the collective idea of action.Orginised from a point a building or room being union or else, is no diffrence.Its about getting together and the cherished dialecticts of some can be left to a later date.

The idea is to change the direction of this scum bag Tory government,that the actions will not do,yet maybe cause a crack in their coalition,that will force a election by the people voting in a more socialist form of mind.

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October 14, 2010 at 2:33 pm

Mark P

Billj:

You are making a common mistake in the Trotskyist movement – equating “moving left” with doing the correct thing and “moving right” with getting it wrong. More often than not, that’s correct, but not always.

The NPA is clearly a move “right” for the LCR, but it might (or might not) still be a useful thing for them to do. T

here is also the issue that English leftists can easily be starry-eyed about something going on in France, but generally had a more realistic assessment of a similar development like the SSP where proximity and a shared language meant that they generally had a more accurate picture of what was going on, both postively and negatively.

The SWP, Socialist Party and LCR have (or had in the case of the LCR) three very different structures by the way. Equating them is misleading.

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October 14, 2010 at 4:57 pm

bill j

Well fair point moving right isn’t necessarily wrong. So instead of the loaded language why not say whether or not we think the NPA is a step forward or backward?
I think its a step forward as it enables the left to co-ordinate its action to whatever degree that is better than before and also provides a forum to debate out political differences.
The LCR/SWP/SP certainly may have differences. But imo and experience not qualitative differences, they all suffer from the same hierarchical top down method, are all stuffed full of and run by their particular apparat and have all shown over and over that they are not the way forward.

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October 14, 2010 at 6:51 pm

Mark P

Well broadly speaking, I tend to agree that it’s a step forward although I think that as with all political processes it’s contradictory. So the NPA represents a real opportunity, but that opportunity has also been accompanied by unnecessary political concessions and a certain amount of confusion. I think that those Marxists in France who are currently outside it should join it and engage with the debates inside it.

I think that only the most zealous and one-eyed SWP, SP or LCR member would tell you that their organisation is THE way forward, by the way. That’s certainly not the formal position of any of them. In addition, these organisations do evolve and frankly all of them have much more impressive records than most of the tiny groups which complain about them so bitterly.

For instance, the Socialist Party now takes the view that internal discussion will often become public and that trying to suppress that process is neither possible nor desirable. That’s a view which PR only came to very recently as I understand it, and one which its members argued against when still members of Workers Power.

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October 14, 2010 at 7:36 pm

Actually I don’t think their records are at all impressive, but be that as it may.
And as they say life teaches.
Thank god.

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