The Burial of the CPGB
A question of traditions
 

In November 1991 the Communist Party of Great Britain formally ceased to exist. After a period of shambolic discussions about the future, the organisation which was the CPGB voted to end itself and be transformed into the Democratic Left. In so doing it abandoned its history, traditions and its entire political outlook. Its Secretary, Nina Temple, admitted during a Television interview that the party no longer believed in marxism-leninism, dictatorship of the proletariat, class struggle, etc., and was now firmly within the democratic framework, to the delight of the bourgeoisie media. After the collapsing facade, called communism, in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, this was the icing on the cake. And a happy time was had by all!

As the Communist Left (denounced as sectarian and unrealistic) have stubbornly defended marxism against all the various forms of revision, nobody should begrudge us a moment of satisfaction. The long slander by these people against marxism, begun we maintain during the days of Hyndman, has at long last come to an end. They twisted and distorted the proletarian critique and perspective into a conservative tendency at the end of the last century, grafted it on to national defence, later to the defence of another country – the Mother Russia of Stalin – allowing a real united front with virtually all of the British bourgeoisie during the Second World War. These were the halcyon days for the former stalinists, when they could mix well with the followers of Churchill and the priests of various denominations, urging ever onwards the production for war and destruction. The long decline of stalinism has left its residue hopelessly isolated, defending a heritage which is little better than a joke. From marketing the shining workers paradise of Russia, they were reduced to pushing Third World tee-shirts and Russian socks (all in the most modern, trendy style of course). And so they finally reached the end of the line. As any financial consultant would have informed them, if your market is shrinking and you can’t revitalise the product so it can sell sufficiently, then move into a different market. This is what the Democratic Left have done. Their once famous trade union base having died a death of boredom, a youth movement virtually without youth, a shrinking membership, all this called for a drastic overhaul. If in trouble, dump your politics and move in somewhere else. This they have accomplished... eventually.

The theoretical house magazine of the CPGB, Marxism Today, waited only a short time and then ceased publication. As far as ideas were concerned it had reached the end of the road, so it “threw in the towel”. For years the glossy trend-setter amongst some left-wing groups, it marketed its own ideas with the passion of door-to-door salesmen. Here were the latest ideas, post-fordism, the challenge of Thatcherism, the market ethos needing to be challenged, green issues, and so forth, a sort of mirror image of how the main capitalist parties go about their business. They were fascinated by the way that ideas developed within bourgeois institutions, especially think-tanks and then came to dominate the state and political parties. The eventual dominance of the “free market” approach showed a way they would have liked to emulate. If only the left could develop ideas in the same way and move in to conquer society in all its aspects, now that would be something they thought. And so they prepared a variation on the ‘march through the institutions’, a spear-head for ecological and oh-so-trendy issues. As Thatcherism and Reagonomics, along with its supporters and advocates, are being eased out of the bourgeoisie’s strategy for the recession, so its mirror image also goes into mortal crisis. At the wake organised to end Marxism Today the demise of all the ideas stemming from the end of the 70s was lamented. The think-tanks of that period, the stimulation of ideas, the drive for new perspectives, all of which would not be seen for another century or so. And for Jacques and co, the working class have nothing to look forward to for at least another dozen decades of continuing exploitation, war and destruction. Thanks very much. Thanks, but no thanks.

As its parting shot, no doubt to show it has genuinely changed and as a final confession, an account of subsidies from the Russian party was published. The lurid details of large bundles of money, sometimes hidden in attics, for the maintenance of the British party or destined for other ‘fraternal’ parties was described. Of course every single penny was accounted for, checked several times! During all the ballyhoo over this (it probably only surprised members of the CPGB), the editor of Changes, a fortnightly publication of the rapidly demising CPGB, said in a letter to the Guardian: Trotskyists may wish to defend the beginnings of the CPGB before it was stalinised – if so they are welcome to it. Obviously he was off somewhere else.

It is the issue of the traditions of the marxist movement which we attach a great deal of importance. As a part of this the formation of the CPGB looms large in importance in Britain. The fierceness with which certain issues were fought out need to be examined, the linked questions of parliamentarism and affiliation to the Labour Party, especially so. The inheritors of the Labour Party affiliation position have now done a bunk. Unfortunately many Trotskyists, as part of their defence of the first four Congresses of the Comintern, those which Trotsky himself was associated, rush to defend the ‘tactic’ of affiliation to the Labour Party as some sort of magnificent manoeuvre of finding a way to the masses/exposing the labourites. It was not at all like that, being nothing short of a grievous error which resulted in a stalinist party in Britain almost before the rise of stalinism in the Soviet party. The victory of stalinism in the British party was accomplished in an almost bloodless way, with very few expulsions and liquidations (unlike so many of the other CPs, in particular the original Italian CP, to whose traditions we lay claim).
 

Backgrounds of the Organisations involved in the formation of the CPGB

Those histories which deal with the events which lead up to the formation of the CPGB usually have as an object the revindication of a particular these, i.e., the justification of this person or that organisation. Whilst not against this method in principal, we make the point precisely because no one person or organisation was sufficiently developed in order to play the central role in the formation of the Communist Party in Britain. However, there was plenty of potential and given time there should have been an active (though small) Communist Party formed. The events of the first World War, the Russian October Revolution and the post-war revolutionary events pushed various organisations and individuals towards forming a single revolutionary body. It was in this situation that political perspectives were put to the test, and if not adequate then often abandoned. In many cases some organisations were not the same at the end of the First World War as they were at the beginning!

The four bodies which were involved in the negotiations to form a Communist Party in Britain were: the British Socialist Party; the Socialist Labour Party; the Workers’ Socialist Federation; and the South Wales Socialist Society.

In the official History of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Vol. 1, by James Klugmann, we find the following:

     «First, the oldest, largest and most important was the British Socialist Party (B.S.P.). The B.S.P. was the direct descendant of the Social-Democratic Federation (S.D.F.) founded in 1883 (or more strictly in 1881 as the Democratic Federation), renamed Social-Democratic Party (S.D.P) in 1908, and enlarged with some left members of the Independent Labour Party and some local socialist clubs and organisations to become, in 1911, the British Socialist Party...
     «Above all, in the almost 40 years of its existence it had educated, developed, and given to the working-class movement a succession of outstanding working-class leaders, and, though sometimes in a some-what narrow and doctrinaire form, kept alive the heritage of Marxist thought, challenging the pervading reformism» (p. 16).

If Klugmann’s history is taken at face value, then it would appear that the SDF was a marxist organisation with a fine tradition in the class struggle. This can hardly be further from the truth. We are dealing elsewhere with the relationship (or more correctly the lack of one) between Marx and Hyndman. More correctly it was a determined struggle between the two very different political outlooks. For instance, the supporters of marxism in the SDF fought it out with Hyndman and his clique in 1884 which led to a split and the creation of the Socialist League, with William Morris and others being leading forces. The publication of the letters of Marx’s daughters is highly instructive on the events around this split.

     «Into all the details I need not go. You and Paul have had your Brousse – and we simply had the same experience here that you have been, and are going through, with the Possibilists. Apart from the disgraceful vilification of everyone to whom he personally objected as not being a “follower” of himself, Hyndman forced things to such a condition that it was impossible to go on working with him... In the motion brought forward by Morris of confidence in Scheu (whom Hyndman has been maligning most shamefully), and of want of confidence in Hyndman, we had a majority... Our majority was too small to make it possible to get rid of the Jingo faction, and so, after due consultation with Engels, we decided to go out, and form the Socialist League. Bax is anxious that we should issue a weekly paper. But Engels is dead against this, so we will probably, for the present, content ourselves with a monthly journal. The General [a family nick-name for Engels] has promised, now that we are rid of the unclean elements in the Federation, to help us; many others who have till now stood aloof will come to us; also we shall of course (through Engels) have the Germans with us, and we also count on the Parti Ouvrier» (Eleanor to Laura - The Daughters of Karl Marx, Family Correspondence 1866-1898, Penguin, p.183).

After the demise of the Socialist League Engels played great store in the Independent Labour Party during the 1890s, at that time an outgrowth of the class struggle. Engels optimism was not borne out by events but at least at that time the ILP was the product of the class struggle, coming up against nationalised and municipalised enterprises, especially in the Great Northern Gas Strike, where pitched battles were fought against local council controlled utilities. The importance of this experience lay in the fact that they were fighting enterprises which some, especially the Fabians, were busily declaring to be socialism on the march! The ILP was soon to be sucked into parliamentarism and reformism in general. The space left was to be filled after the turn of the century by the SLP, in direct opposition to that of the SDF.

The SLP in Britain can be regarded as originating at the Paris meeting of the Second International held on 27th September 1900. The entry of right-wing French socialists into a bourgeois cabinet which contained the butcher of the Paris Commune, General Gallifet, and after the French state had recently ordered troops to shoot strikers at Chalons, became a very emotive issue. The meeting was polarised, with Kautsky playing the role of the compromiser, and left was ranged against right. Alone amongst the British delegation, a young Scottish worker, George Yates, stood with the left. On his return to Britain he began a campaign against reformism and opportunism within the SDF. This ultimately led to the expulsion of those who gathered around him, mainly in Scotland at that stage. The leadership of the SDF had long experience in dealing with dissent within its ranks and through a series of internal manoeuvres and stratagems delayed the emergence of an opposition in London until those in Scotland had been dealt with. This London opposition, unable to link up at the time with the Scottish dissidents, later formed the Socialist Party of Great Britain. The SPGB however did not break from a Parliamentary perspective and so stayed outside the revolutionary tendencies. The formation of the SLP was a healthy reaction to all the opportunism spreading throughout the Second International. Yates was soon joined by James Connolly of Ireland, who was equally repelled by opportunism and reformism eminating from the SDF. A working alliance between revolutionaries of Scotland and Ireland was forged. Even though the SDF had notionally taken an anti-war stand on the Boer War, this was merely a smoke-screen for a desire for a British victory desired by Hyndman. An open letter to the new King, crowned in 1902, calling upon him to use his position to better the position of his subjects, merely rubbed salt into the wounds of the left. This briefly gives an insight into the range of differences between the left and the official SDF.

The differences between the SLP and the SDF were deep running and could not be reconciled. The hostility between the two organisations was maintained over the whole period certainly until the changes within the BSP from 1916 onwards. With the past of the BSP the reluctance of the SLP to readily accept at face value the apparent changes in the former organisation is understandable. The differences over the class struggle, the usual one of industrial as opposed to parliamentary actions, emerged time and again in the most violent language. The preoccupation with the class struggle by the SLP, issues to come to the fore during the big strikes of 1911 as well as other events, led the new BSP to characterise it as “that Scotch heresy” as if it were some sort of temporary aberration from the parliamentary strategy.

Given that the BSP was in the process of changing and taken up better positions during and after the First World War, also wishing to affiliate to the Third International, a more open and truthful attitude to its past would have been expected. Given the past conflicts, this was the least that could be expected. It did not appear to happen.

Other groups had arisen before, during and after the First World War. The most significant one was the Workers’ Socialist Federation for some time confined to London. The most well known member was Sylvia Pankhurst, certainly a figure who can not be ignored. A member of the famous Suffragette family, Sylvia together with a small group of sympathisers became involved in the affairs of working class women. Because of the conditions of the working class in general meant widening of the struggle not only for universal suffrage (most working class men could not vote at that time either) but to more urgent social issues.

There may be criticisms of the WSF and its activities, but its ability to fight can not be in doubt. Klugmann in his “official” history of the CPGB characterises Sylvia Pankhurst, who came from the middle class, as a person difficult to get along with (like so many members of her class). As an aside, isn’t it strange that the theoretical hatchet-men of stalinism came also from the middle class (and some of them were also difficult to get along with) – one rule for some and not for others. To begin with, we will confront the question of Sylvia Pankhurst being a particularly difficult person to get on with. We will call to her defence none other then Harry Pollitt for a long time General Secretary of the CPGB – surely his opinion can not be lightly dismissed. His autobiography, “Serving My Time” records that as a young militant worker, disillusioned with the BSP, and on moving to London, Pollitt joined the WSF. Writing about this period of his life Pollitt is enthusiastic about Pankhurst:

     «My main sphere of activity at this time was with the Workers’ Socialist Federation, doing propaganda for Russia. Sylvia Pankhurst was, of course, the leading spirit in the Federation, and she had a remarkable gift of extracting the last ounce of energy, as well as the last penny, from everyone with whom she came in contact, to help on the work and activities she directed from Old Ford Street. She was loved in Poplar and, though I often heard that Sylvia was very difficult to get on with, I never found it so. I covered the greater part of London with her group. We held meeting. on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings, afternoons and evenings. The W.S.F. was made up of the most self-sacrificing and hard-working comrades it has been my fortune to come in contact with, and I felt for Mrs. Walker of Poplar [another W.S.F. stalwart], to whom I shall refer again, the same sort of affection as existed between me and my mother» (Serving My Time, Harry Pollitt, p. 109-110).

Pollitt also says in his memoirs that he was also active in the trade union movement, this at the same tine as being a member of the WSF. It also becomes clear in Pollitt’s book that it was the activity of WSF members that led to dockers refusing to load the ship “Jolly George” with arms for Poland to fight Russia. It is part of the mythology of the CPGB that this was the culmination of the “Hands Off Russia” Campaign inspired by the BSP. There is in fact no mention of the BSP being involved in the agitation around the Jolly George or the docks for that matter. It was the WSF which distributed masses of copies of Lenin’s Appeal to the Toiling Masses throughout this campaign.

The other main organisation involved in the negotiations to form a Communist Party in Britain was the South Wales Socialist Society.

     «The South Wales Socialist Society (S.W.S.S.) was the fourth continuous participant in the main unity negotiations. The mining valleys of South Wales had long traditions of extremely militant struggle. The S.W.S.S. was descended from the Miners’ Reform Movement, a militant opposition to the right-wing trade union leaders that had grown up before the war.
     «Its trend was somewhat akin to syndicalism, mass revolutionary struggle through revolutionary trade unionism, suspicious of political parties and extremely suspicious of the official trade unions and their leaders.
     «South Wales had been the centre of great strikes and strong anti-war activity of a rather spontaneous nature in the course of the war. The S.W.S.S. was bitterly anti-parliamentarian. It was Marxist, but again, often in rigid doctrinaire form» (Klugmann, p.21).

We have dealt with the four main bodies involved in the Unity negotiations for the formation of the Communist Party in Great Britain during 1920-1 and also gave an insight into the different outlook and orientation of these bodies. It becomes easily apparent that forming a Communist Party uniting them all meant a convergence of political positions. If this was not possible, and all the old issues come to the fore, then the stage would be set for all the old debates to be fought out once again. Largely this is what happened during the Unity negotiations. The BSP was certainly not the healthiest of the four bodies concerned politically speaking, especially because of its past. To have played a leading role in forming a large and growing Communist Party would have meant dumping its past, and repudiating it; but this it was unwilling and unable to do. Thereby the fate of the Communist Party formed in Great Britain during those days was sealed.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

THE GREAT PROLETARIAN STRUGGLES AND THEIR REPERCUSSIONSON THE PARTY
 

Impotence and inefficiency of the PSI

On November 4th 1918 there was the Armistice with Austria and the war was over. The working class in the West galvanised itself into action following the Russian proletariat. Italy, fresh from the conflict, is in the throws of deep economic crisis, the workers take action straightaway, but the PSI prevaricates once again and shows itself incapable of taking the lead when proletarian struggles take place.

On November 13th, supporters of the war organised a campaign against certain local administrations with socialist leanings (Milan, Bologna). The working class replies with a demonstration and a manifesto signed by the Mayor of Milan, the CGL, and the leadership and Parliamentary group of the PSI. The manifesto makes a list of general demands without calling for class struggle. Another manifesto calling for immediate reforms is issued by the CGL on November 30th. This is echoed by yet another drawn up on November 7th but not published until December 7th and issuing from the leadership of the PSI, still associated with the CSL, the parliamentary group and the league of cooperatives. Thus the PSI would blindly adhere to the positions of reformist economic organisations. Avanti! would publish a report, truncated by the Government censor, on the Meeting of the Directorate (7-11 December). One notes that despite all, there is still resolute opposition towards annexation by Italy of the Slav territories still belonging to the ex-empire of Austria, but the order of the day is limited to adopting a programme of immediate political actions initiated already by trade-union organisations.

In short, once the war was over the socialist party, though officially led by “revolutionaries”, didn’t take up clear positions and assert itself as guide of the proletarian class movement. Instead, it gave fresh evidence of its organisational weakness and, de facto, the betrayal by some of the leaders.

On March 22nd 1919 the PSI adheres to the 3rd international which had been founded at the beginning of the month (we recall that there was no delegate representing the Italian proletarian movement). It was a time when the Italian proletariat would launch a formidable offensive lasting a good two year: the famous biennio rosso 1919-1920. This offensive would quickly be characterised by a prodigious increase in union membership, rising from 200,000 in 1918 to 1,000,000 in 1919. reaching 2,000,000 in 1920. Of particular note was the large-scale participation of agricultural labourers in these struggles. The vigour and force of the attack is also to be explained by the fact that the Italian proletariat was uncorrupted by the politics of the Union Sacrée and had been firmly opposed to the war, much more so than its party. The Italian proletariat’s magnificent postwar revolt was characterised by the variety and sheer number of struggles which took place throughout Italy. And though the class struggles in Naples were but one episode amongst many, they differed by clearly formulating the existing relations between the workers union movement and the political socialist movement in post-war Italy.

The extreme opportunism of the socialist section in Naples before the war had caused, by way of reaction, the differentiation of a Neapolitan extreme-left which fought to bring the PSI back onto class positions, both before and after the war.

Il Socialista, organ of the Neapolitan socialist federation, was substituted on December 22nd 1918, by Il Soviet which would soon develop the theses of electoral abstentionism. Tha proletarian struggles in Naples, which commenced in May 1919, would last for almost two months and be characterised by a large-scale trade-union movement supported and led by the extreme left of Il Soviet. It was certainly no accident that the Il Soviet office was in the Camera del Lavoro, alongside the metalworkers federation. But many other union and craft organisations grouped around it as well. These fifty days of bitter struggle regain a glorious chapter and confirmation of everything the left was asserting on the necessity of the split from the party and the foundation of the Communist Party. From January 18th to May 2nd 1919, a first great trial of strength took place between the metalworkers and industrialists. In May there was the big strike in which at least 40,000 metalworkers took part. Buozzi, secretary of the Metalworkers union (FIOM) would have his attempts at conciliation rejected. Only on June 12th would he manage to sign an agreement.

But the PSI was just is incapable as the unions of making the most of the opportunity offered by this proletarian battle, or rather it didn’t wish to. In fact the proletarian offensive revealed and accentuated the contradictions existing within these organisations. Remaining faithful to its Pact of Alliance with the CGL (which assured the unions independence from the party), the PSI swallowed whole the communiqués of the CGL and quietly published them, without comment, in Avanti! Thus on June 17th 1919 a CGL communiqué was published which denounced the work of groups of "secessionists" . This was clearly a reference to the extreme left of the party, which, though very active inside the unions, hadn’t proposed to split them.

Faced with the growth of the fascist movement Un April 1919 there would be the first clashes between fascists and workers) an adherent of the so-called "intransigent” fraction proposed some “vie nuove", new paths, namely; a parliamentary alliance with Nitti’s and Giolitti’s parties and even with the catholics, that is with all those who had, in due course, made declarations against the war. The PSI reacted in a spirited manner to such a proposal, yet without making any concrete proposals. The extreme left, in contrast, would never cease to insist that the defeat of the proletarian movement in Italy wasn’t directly dependant on the strengthening of fascism. The main reason being instead the work of sabotage carried out by opportunism. The extreme left actively fought to reorientate the FSI and propound the theses of electoral abstentionism. In June, Il Soviet published an article entitled “Elections or Revolution". Numerous sections and youth federations would adhere to the positions expressed in Il Soviet. The necessity of organising a fraction on a national scale was immediately made itself felt and in July 1919 the extreme left of the PS met at Bologna with a view to organising the abstentionists into a national fraction. Its programme was published in Il Soviet on July 13th, The programme contained a historical part and a political part. This programme would then be completed at the meeting of thes Communist Abstentionist Fraction held at Florence in May 1920, with a part on tactics and a critique of the opposing schools. This text showed that the question of abstentionism didn’t represent the central characteristic of the marxist programme of the Left. The group that had put forward this programme proposed to diffuse it within the socialist party in order that some sections and individual members might adhere to it, the intention being to create a communist fraction within the party,

The Fraction got ready to present its programme to the party’s national congress as a replacement for the Genoa one of 1892. On June 15th Il Soviet welcomed, with reservations, the appearance of the Turinese paper Ordine Nuovo. The two papers in fact stand for very different political and practical positions.

In the Spring of 1919 the deepening of the economic crisis, with a vertiginous inflation of the prices of basic necessities compells the proletariat to re-enter the struggle. In the major cities violent agitations break out which take the name of "lotta contro il caro viveri”, struggle against the high cost of living. There are also Committees of an inter-classist nature which are set up to defend consumers. Revolutionaries would denounce this absurd form of action, which would see the Confindustria [Italian equivalent to the British CBI] joining in the struggle against the high cost of living... because the bosses have an interest in seeing that the worker’s can eat at low cost! They would denounce the Labour Federation that echoed the appeals of the industrialists and which, substituting itself for the party, led the struggles of the masses.

In June the movement was radicalised by the strike movements. On June 16ih the Dalmine metalworkers strike and occupy the factory, and Mussolini makes his famous speech. The scheming political hack declares himself in favour of the workers’ demands, approves the strike, and speaks in defence of a trade-union movement linked to the fascist party. Only an “expert” on the workers’ movement could help the bourgeoisie to organise their dictatorship – in order to conjure away the menace of the RED dictatorship! In July the violence of the agitations against food prices reaches extreme levels with a great international strike planned for July 20th to halt the military operations against Russia and Hungary.

In 1970, a representative of our party had this to say on the subject of these proletarian struggles:

    «The war having ended with the victory of Vittorio Veneto, glorified despite being neither large-scale nor producing notable successes, there was an intensification throughout the country of hardship and economic crisis (...) The inevitable state of widespread discontent didn’t provoke the masses into a recovery of that collective historical consciousness that unfortunately the party had largely lost; the response, of course, was the reappearance of a veritable tidal wave of demands and agitations for immediate improvements, including of wages. The earth shook under the feet of the bourgeoisie, but it was still not enough to summon up the potential in the proletariat needed to take up arms to establish its dictatorship."
    «Today we can give a more exact formulation than "the situation was ripe for the socialist revolution in Italy in 1919"; it is better put this way: the 1st World War over, the proletarian parties could have placed themselves at the head of a victorious offensive movement, which didn’t happen only because those parties betrayed their own ideological heritage and the appropriate vision of how historical struggles would bring the capitalist era to a close. It, was therefore the right moment and the fateful juncture for reconstructuring the proletarian and socialist movement, for restoring its true doctrinal foundations both programmatic and tactical. It was to this task that Lenin and the Communist International promptly turned their attention, as did the left-wing of the Italian movement which showed – and can still show to today – that its work was entirely in harmony with the glorious historical line of the worldwide anti-capitalist revolution, which commenced with the 1848 manifesto of Marx and Engels».

Il Soviet on 20 July would declare: «The concept of expropriation simultaneous with insurrection and put into effect in a capricious way by individuals and groups, which is implicit in the phrase "expropriating strike", is an anarchoid concept devoid of revolutionary content».

The Left had to, therefore, fight on two fronts, on the one hand opposing the clearly counter-revolutionary stance of the right-wing, which was rooted in the parliamentary socialist group and the CGL leadership, and on the other, opposing the lack of clarity of the PSI leadership and its majority which declared itself, in words, in solidarity with the bolshevik revolution and for an attack against the bourgeois regime in Italy, but with chaotic methods and with a chaotic programme. The internal debates in the PSI were therefore focused essentially on the electoral question: ’’Revolutionary preparation or electoral preparation’’ was the headline in Avanti! on 21 August 1919. To this article, written by one of our comrades, the electoral maximalists turned a deaf ear.
 
 
 
 

THE BOLOGNA CONGRESS OF THE PSI
(5/8 October 1919)
Victory for the Maximalists and Reformists. Foundation of the Communist Abstentionist Fraction
 

In 1919 there existed at least four currents within the PSI:
    1) The Right, headed by Turati, Treves, Modigliani who placed themselves on purely legal terrain,
    2) The Intransigent Communist Fraction, "communist electoralists”, or “maximalists”, who had the leadership and Avanti! in their hands. This current was represented by Lazzari, Serrati, etc. revolutionaries in words, but reformists in practice; they had led a non-active opposition against the war and above all against any opposition of a revolutionary character.
    3) The Turinese Ordinovisti, with Gramsci, Tasca. Terracini, Togliaitti, allied to maximalism. They were gradualists and educationalists. With their watchword of the conquest of the municipalities and the factories they avoid the central problem of the taking of power and the party. According to the ordinovists, the party is a technical organ whose function is to coordinate the different socialist organizations.
    4) Finally the fourth tendency is the Communist Left which consisted of the embrionic nucleus of the future Communist Party of Italy. We have already traced the origins of this current in an earlier chapter. From immediately after the meeting in Rome on 6 July, the current set itself the aim of making a defence of the revolutionary marxist programme, diffusing it by means of Il Soviet and by articles sent to Avanti!

Eighty-three sections adhered to Il Soviet, with these more concentrated in the North and Central Italy than in the South. The Left took the name Frazione Communista Astensionista to distinguish itself from the electoral "maximalist" communists. At the regional congress in Naples on 14 September 1919, the abstentionists are victorious. For the communist abstentionists, the necessity of a split has far greater importance than the tactic of abstentionism.

At the 16th National Congress of the PSI (1418 sections representing 66,708 members are present) 3 motions are presented: one by the "Communist Electoralist Fraction", one by the "Communist Abstentionist Fraction”, and there is the "Unitarian Maximalist Motion".

The "electoralists" would recognise that the Party Programme (still as set down at Genoa in 1892) had been by-passed by events on the international scene, above all by the Russian Revolution; and that the proletariat, to win power and consolidate its revolutionary victories, must have recourse to the use of violence: but it reiterates the necessity of utilizing elections as a useful form of propaganda for marxist principles; they decide, after all. for the adherence of the PSI to the 3rd International,

The motion of the "abstentonists" is marked by the assertion of the inappropriateness of having as members of the party those who proclaim the possibility of proletarian emancipation within the ambit of a bourgeois democratic regime, and who repudiate the method of armed struggle against the bourgeoisie to achieve the proletarian dictatorship. The “abstentionists” would call on the PSI to take the name of Communist Party and become an integral part of the 3rd International, accepting its programme and pledging itself to observe its discipline. The party should refrain from electoral competition and intervene in the hustings only in order to make propaganda on the reasons for taking such a stance. The entire forces of the party should be pledged to spreading, inside the working class, the historical consciousness of the necessary and complete realisation of the communist programme, building up the proletarian organisations and adopting practical means of action and struggle in order to bring about the realisation of the cardinal programmatic points.

The "unitarian" notion rejected any break with the reformists promulgating «for all members the right of citizenship in the party and their complete liberty of thought». The modification to the old Genoa programme was solely platonic because no other programme was put forward.

The majority won the first motion with 48,000 votes; the "abstentionists" received 3,400 and the “unitarians” 15,000.

In the frequently recalled testimony of 1970 our comrade who participated in these events would write:

    «At the 18th socialist Congress (...) the Communist Abstentionist Fraction (...) didn’t differ from the other currents only in its proposal not to participate in the imminent political general elections and in Parliament, but also because they alone had supported the theses of the constitutive congress of the 3rd International held in March 1919; in which was distilled the great historical experience of the October 1917 revolution in Russia. These theses placed to the fore the conquest of power not through bourgeois democratic forms but through the advent of the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat and its marxist class party. The prospect of a big electoral campaign – and the real possibility of success for the one party which had truly opposed the bloody and ruinous war of 1915 – was rejected because it would defuse the tension in the Italian masses which had arisen from the immense and bloody sacrifice on the battlefields, and out of the grave economic crisis which characterised the post-war period. Such an outcome would openly contradict any possibility and hope of channeling that tension, that uneasiness, that widespread discontent, into the one direction history had shown could lead, not only in Italy but throughout Europe, to the socialist and revolutionary solution.
    «These fundamental positions, on which the entire abstentionist fraction had stood firm (...) obviously could not be presented and sustained before the other three currents at the congress. The latter instead were satisfied with anticipating a broad electoral success which maybe would allow the party, by use of the parliamentary manoeuvre, to usher in measures which might in part alleviate the anxiety of the masses and correspond to their hopes and expectations. Such an outcome one would mean definitively destroying the favourable aspects of the situation as it existed at the time, and barring the way to the one path which, once taken, would mean the entire movement of the exploited classes bringing its pressure to bear; it would mean clipping the wings of the revival of true revolutionary consciousness of the working class and its party.
    «The reformist Right would in fact openly condemn the vital communist theses. The so-called "maximalist" current, whilst it didn’t reject these theses outright, didn’t see how these principles, which formed a precise historical programme, must be binding not only on the party as a whole, but also on each of its parts, and on each of its individual militants and members, who in the event of obstinate opposition would have to be excluded from the ranks of the party. Only by such means could one arrive at the reconstruction of a new international movement which wasn’t hopelessly ensnared by the danger of a repeat of the horrendous catastrophe of August 1914, at which could be cured of the infection of social-democratic and minimalist opportunism. From the time of the Congress of Bologna, therefore, the Abstentionist Fraction put forward the demand that the unity of the socialist party be broken. The fact that implicit in this unity was a considerable membership and anticipated future electors, would deceive the proponents of the electionist tactic into making a grave error: that there could be a march towards proletarian socialism whilst repudiating the employment of violence and armed force, and the great historic measure of the dictatorship, the key to which consists in depriving of any electoral or democratic right (and even of organisation and propaganda) all stratas of the population not consisting of authentic workers (...)
    «The central thesis of our fraction wasn’t anti-electionism but was rather splitting the party, to leave on the one hand genuine revolutionary communists, and on the other, those who supported the “revisionism” of the principles of Marx regarding the inevitable catastrophic explosion of the conflict and the struggle between the opposing social clashes, already put forward by the German Bernstein before the war. Putting our theses to the test at the conference we proposed to the leaders of the maximalist electoralist fraction, counted amongst whom were Serrati, Lazzari and Gramsci. a specific proposal aiming to substitute one single text which would stipulate anti-revisionist far more plainly than the one they had prepared: in it we agreed there would be no talk of boycotting the elections if they would accept our theses on the split in the party. Our proposal was totally rejected by the maximalists. Regarding this proposal, it is worth recalling that Lenin, in writing his text against extremism as an infantile disorder of communism, stated he had received and read some numbers of Il Soviet and appreciated that our movement was the only one in, in Italy, to have understood the necessity of separating communists from social-democrats, through splitting the socialist party».

The unions would be compelled to recognise the de facto existence of the strikes and declare them ’official’ after the fact, but only in order to sow divisions and break them up. This time, however, the union mandarins from the Confederation would not find their ’flock’ so submissive and trusting. Not only the hangman’s treaty of July 31st ⁽¹⁾ caused them to be heckled and booed, but their record of years upon years of selling out; the false promises; the abandonment and suffocation of even the workers’ most elementary requirements; the shady deals and contracts struck with Government, in a word, collaboration with the bosses. The gauntlet has been thrown down in the piazzas at the union’s feet.

The union bosses response to these ’trouble-makers’, the only one they know, has been to shout them down, and call on the forces of repression for assistance. From the safety of their speaker’s platforms they would ask for police protection to allow them to continue to spew forth their lies and demagoguery onto the angry crowds below. Not even the most unprepared could have equivocated at that moment: those stony faces facing the demonstrators, surrounded by a bodyguard of police equipped with riot-shields and batons to maintain Law and Order. At demonstrations all over Italy, from Naples to Florence, from Ancona to Milan the union bigwigs would be showered with missiles, vegetables, fruit, coins, red paint and bolts and be drowned out in a rain of insults - "traitors", "sell-outs", "serviles". In Sicily the police would even be seen confiscating tomatoes from demonstrators busily engaged in vigorous target-practice sessions. Union offices would be occupied. These are not "leaders who mate mistakes", but representatives of the capitalist regime engaged in a show of strength. It is very revealing that Big union boss Trentin, under a hail of bolts, would accidentally let slip; "it’s hard, but that’s what we’re paid for".

The rank-and-file activists, those who like to present themselves as the "healthy body" of the CGL have been just as bad though. We saw them in Rome on October 2nd, batons in hand, side by side with the police regimenting and controlling the demonstrations, preventing heckling and protests, and laying the way open to police charges when required.

Impressive strikes notwithstanding, the Confederationists haven’t lifted a finger against the Government measures. Indeed, once warned that the pressure from below was easing off, the usual prevaricating would start which would lead eventually to everything being called off. They haven’t even bothered to try and save face somehow, apart, that is, from the usual CGL attempt at using the alibi of unity with the other two big Trade Union confederations (the CISL and UIL) which, as always, is used to justify the dirty tricks pushed through at the workers’ expense. It is at this point that an operation to head off the protests in the piazzas begins in earnest whose express aim is to prevent the protests developing in the direction of reorganisation in a classist sense, outside and against the Trade Union confederation, and recuperate them instead to the state trade unions.

As a matter of fact, in the course of these struggles the organisations which we have come to designate as "base committees" have been quite influential. In existence for some time now in various sectors of public employment and recently in industry as well, they are, with varying degrees of determination and coherence, mobilising against official state condoned unionism and issuing calls to class struggle and organisation.

In these organisations we have also seen evidence of an opposition to the so-called "union left". The latter’s representatives are groups and tendencies organised both inside and outside the official union confederation which claim to represent the disaffection and dissent that is affecting the rank-and-file, and aim to channel this potential rebellion into a fruitless and inconclusive opposition: into a "protest" against the line taken by the leaders, whilst offering the illusory prospect of a new-type of state union. On the organisational and programmatic level, this tendency manifests Itself in the attempt to discourage and prevent any revolt which aims at an open break with the union confederation and also to discourage any struggle and strikes which haven’t received its official sanction. Often the pretext for adopting such positions is that such actions allegedly wouldn’t muster a sufficient following, or that they would result in isolation, a "coming unstuck" from the majority of workers. It is a tendency which also finds representatives amongst currents within the confederations comprising functionaries and leaders who, hitherto, have been busily involved in cobbling together the dirty compromises of the nationalist patriotic unions. Bertinotti and his Essere Sindacato ["Union Being"] - note the exquisitely existential flavour - is a good example, as are the group of CGL "colonels" who have recently begun to adopt the same language. Equally this tendency may also be found in organisations which have already left the confederation but which, under its influence, still end up carrying out a work of recuperation by stifling initiatives aiming at an open break.

There is no doubt that this "left-wing unionism" will meet with a considerable degree of success given the immaturity of the movement which, whilst it has come to understand that the union leaders have betrayed them, isn’t yet strong enough to jettison the CGIL and start the work of reorganisation into a classist union from scratch.

Left-wing unionism and moves to bring about a "renewal" of the GGIL are entirely barren, directed as they are towards hindering the movement which has found expression over these last couple of months. Only now that the spontaneous mobilisation has reached the point of exhaustion do we see this "renewing" tendency emerging out of the woodwork with increased confidence. Today it is the selfsame confederation bosses who are pushing in this direction. We see them agonising over the crisis in the CGIL and suddenly opposing the very line which they initiated. Even the media has taken up the cause, and suddenly there is much tub-thumping about how the union has become ’bureaucratic’ and doesn’t respect the workers’ opinions. There must be reforms, renewals, changes, modifications!

All seem to be agreed on one thing: that there must be more "internal democracy". All decisions should be made by assemblies and referendums of the workers (the so-called ’binding consultations’), and leaders should derive their mandates from these as well. To guarantee this there is even a call to get the State to pass a law which would allow the rank-and-file to appeal to tribunals to invalidate decisions taken by the union leaders which hadn’t met with their approval ⁽²⁾. This doesn’t give us a picture of a class union. Above all, a class union can be considered as such insofar as it expresses a political stance and a line of action, consistent with the workers interests, which is recognised, endorsed and legitimated by mass mobilisation of the workers. This isn’t the same thing as formal consultations and referendums, where workers who are real fighters carry the same weight as blacklegs and all the tinpot leaderettes, and where the most combative and farsighted workers’ sections are put on a par with those most prone to adopting purely sectoral and particularist positions. In this sense we agree with Trentin who, worried about ’balkanisation (...) where each abdicates a general role and deals with reality is a piecemeal fashion’, declares that ’to speak of binding consultation is pure demagoguery’. laterally we are aiming at opposed ends, but it is still true that no organisation, the government union maybe but certainly not the class union, can exist on such a basis.

From demagoguery these gentlemen thence proceed to open repudiation of the principles of classist unionism by calling in the State, representing the class enemy, to pronounce on the rules of the workers’ union. Their wish may well be granted, with additional rules that ’democratically’ establish when a strike is allowed to take place, as in Germany for instance where there must be a 70% consensus expressed in a referendum. What a brilliant achievement that is! It almost appears that left-wing unionism wishes to march in the direction of a fully fledged State union even faster than the leaders we’ve got at the moment!

All of a sudden the Factory Councils, more or less in thrall to the confederations, realise that they are the first to suffer pressure from the rank-and-file. Operating as a kind of shock-absorber between the discontent and anger of the workers, the bosses, and the line imposed on them by the confederations, they have resolved to embrace the positions of the union left. The reality is that in their meetings we see a struggle going on between totally pissed off workers and a leadership that aims at all costs at preventing a split and at leading the movement back into the confederation sheepfold. The leaders have prevailed and, given the immaturity of tbe movement, we couldn’t really expect otherwise. Thus it is that the councils movement is portrayed as the ’healthy heart’ that yet beats in the corpse of the union in order to take on the function of point of reference for the recuperated workers protests.

The confederationists wish to avoid recommending strike action, and leave it to the councils to do so. Trentin gives his support: "We must congratulate them [the councils.- ed.], they are making an important contribution to the entire trade union movement”. Will there be a break with Union boss Del Turco, the CISL and UIL who are hostile to the strike? There is a contrived atmosphere of tension but nothing happens: everyone is happy that that it should be so. The mobilisation is in the hands of the CGIL via the councils and not in the hands of the "extraconfederal rebels". That is the important thing. The workers fall in behind the confederal banners and stop heckling the union.

The ensuing assembly of the Councils doesn’t fix a date for the strike but decides to "consult the rank-and-file", a fine excuse to postpone everything indefinitely.

At the CGIL meeting in Montecatini, Cagna, one of the leaders of the council movement, gives a very clear description of the latter’s function; "this movement, the Councils of delegates which took action when all seemed lost, are keeping the workers behind the Union. But it is we who are now at the hub". Yes, surrendering your accounts in the eye of the storm. This particular tempest may have blown over, but it won’t be the last, and next time we suspect we may see you, Cagna, Bertinotti and Co., up there on the platforms with the Trentins - ducking the bolts and being heckled at.

For the time being, the CGIL will be marching to order, but even if Trentin and Montecatini are running with the hare and hunting with the hounds in order to keep the sideshow going, they nevertheless concede to none of the councils demands who return home empty-handed. But no-one is greatly traumatised down at CGIL Ltd: the opposition, in the shape of Bertinotti has simply been playing his part and isn’t dismissed from the board of directors, meanwhile there is the ’third pole’ blandished by the councils which provides a ’left’ cover for Trentin, who for his part avoids breaking with Del Turco, the CISL and the UIL. In a game of brinkmanship and compromises, the union parliament draws to a close, and once again the bond of anti-worker solidarity which links all the different union currents is reasserted.

What is certain is that path to class reorganisation will not come about through such meetings. Abandoning the government unions, renouncing the false opposition, opportunism and mystifications of the union left, that is the way forward.

Let us then draw our conclusions. The spontaneous nature of the recent attempts to reject the old union apparatus meant that it was doomed to failure. To maintain a struggle of such wide significance and generality there is a need for an organisation which unifies and marshals the forces available, the co-ordinations and vanguard workers. Determination is needed in the struggle, but also knowing when to put a break on the movement at the right moment. This is important in preventing wasted energy, and also means that the continuity of the movement can be a maintained even in periods of reflux, when preparations can be made for ensuing struggles. In a word, this organisation must allow the workers to move as a class in defence of its own interests.

It isn’t possible for this organisation to be the CGIL as it is indissolubly linked to the fortunes of Capital and its regime. A new organisation must arise: the class union.

The protests in the piazzas against the union bosses have only been a first step in this direction. The majority of workers didn’t move beyond it. What is nevertheless certain is that there has been a reinforcing of the positions of those groups of workers who have been operating outside and against the unions for some time, who have declared, more or less clearly, for the reorganisation of the class union. Particularly now, with the movement falling back, is it necessary that such groups and committees should become a point of reference and clearly distinguish themselves from the government union and its policies, and the first task is to establish an unbroachable barrier between themselves and the union left. Neither giving in to the illusions still harboured by workers, nor demanding immediate successes or mobilisation at all costs, that is the way forward to the real class union.

----------------------
(1) Refers to the agreement signed by Bruno Trentin, the ’charismatic’ union leader, with the Government and Confindustria (Italian equivalent to the CBI) which eliminated the sliding scale (relating wages to the cost of living) and froze wage bargaining In the private sector. The removal of the sliding scale hits the lowest paid workers particularly hard, whilst the wage freeze has more effect on those in industry. The ’gains’ that the workers are supposed to celebrate are a pathetic 20,000 lire gross extra per month, starting from January 1993! This agreement follows similar arrangements instituted by law in the public sector.

(2) Precisely such legislation has formed a significant part of the employment legislation in Great Britain over the last ten years or so. The upshot there has been to strangle fast and effective action and make virtually everything subject to government supervised ballots. In Britain however, such legislation was drawn up, submitted to parliament, and made law under various Tory Governments - not by ’the Left’. Virtually everything now has to be voted on, the closed shop, strikes, etc. Indeed the 1980 Employment Act even makes available public funds to hold pre-strike ballots!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Since October 1992, with the announcement of the closure of 31 pits with as many as 50,000 jobs disappearing, still the axe hangs over the coal Mining industry. Within a few weeks the outrage from all quarters forced the Government to retreat, promising to review the future of the coal milling industry. The indecision of Government Ministers is because they are on the horns of a dilemma. Not only is the crisis facing the Government deepening, with the much heralded recovery of the economy still not making its appearance. The dilemma is that they can’t keep on going the same way as before, the same Thatcherite nonsense of free-marketeering, but to change the course against an impending growth of class struggle also has dangers for the bourgeoisie. This is the reason for Government indecision and not just personal prevarication of this or that Cabinet Minister.

The vicious hostility of the Tory Government to the mining industry is because they remember that they had been defeated before by the miners – Thatcher could never forget the humiliations inflicted on the Heath Government: the three day week, power cuts and a climb-down before the National Union of Mineworkers. A further confrontation early on in the Thatcher administration was deferred, the purpose soon being made clear. The stage was being set for a major confrontation with the miners – the year long strike of 1984/5. The Government had set everything up, large coal stocks, imports of coal by road from easily controlled smaller parts, special preparations of mobile police forces to counter flying pickets, new anti-strike legislation in preparation for the confrontation. It is unfortunate that the workers movement doesn’t at least learn from the ruling class; prepare your own forces before a sustained fight.

Over the last decade two essential measures were taken, which were to split the miners into two opposing camps (the easier to divide them), and then see about doing without the coal industry completely. It is the fulfilment of the Thatcherite strategy which sections of the bourgeoisie now baulk at. They succeeded into splitting the miners, hiving off whole sections to create the Union of ‘Democratic’ Miners, a truly state sponsored union. The UDM is the Tory jewel in the crown, a pliable trade union which acts like a puppet on a string. Just splitting the miners was not enough for the Thatcherites. With the privatisation of the power stations here was a golden opportunity of getting rid of most of the rest of the coal industry as well. Enough of these troublesome miners; use gas, import coal and have done with coal mining in Britain! This was the Tory strategy coming to fruition.
 

The Campaign against the Pit Closures

The announcement over massive pit closures not only stunned miners but also large numbers of people in other industries. Verbal outrage poured forth from Labour and TUC leaders (but nothing else), along with disquiet being expressed from other MPs and politicians, embracing some Tories, Liberals and others. Some even said they would go down pits, stage sit-ins (not actually do any work while they are down there, of course) and maybe even vote against the Government! Here was a trans-class alliance which the former Stalinists would have loved. It set the tone for the whole campaign, much sympathy, public protest, heart searching and... prayers. The massive demonstration on October 25 in London of approximately a quarter of a million did give clear expression of the popular indignation against the threats to the miners. Some point out that this broad sweep of political beliefs (a united front) led to such a massive number of people gathered together. We would ask the following question – how many workers had been put off by all this class collaborationist, political back-scratching and quaint phrases from Bishops? How many more would have been on the streets through a real class mobilisation! Host of the demonstrators did not even go to the meeting, corralled off to keep it under control: the speakers didn’t wait until the rest of the marchers arrived (the march was three hours long). Those who did go to the meeting to heckle the more hated of the speakers were frozen out by some of the class non-warriors enthralled by this outbreak of unity.

This trans-class block was not for a defence of the miners as workers, rather for the mining industry and the national interest, which is completely different. The only way to preserve the interests of a specific industry, also that of the nation, stands in stark contrast to that of the workers employed there (irrespective of what all the trade union leaders say, which includes Scargill). The logical conclusion of what needs to be done to preserve the coal mining industry as a competitive business was shown by the bid by the UDM to take over a section of the privatised coal industry as part of a private consortium. Roy Lynk, former UDM President (according to The Independent 14 Dec 1992), recommended the following measures in order to make the management of the coalmining industry: split the industry into two – North and South (with UDM taking over the Southern section) – in order to make united strike action more difficult; the undermining of the role of the pit deputies (organised in a separate trade union, NACODS), without whom pits can’t be worked; new contracts of employment enforcing longer shifts: and even the removal of rights of workers to go to industrial tribunals. It has been little wonder that Lynk has been paraded at Tory Conferences and awarded the Order of the British Empire by the Queen. And after all this class collaborationist some of the Nottinghamshire pits are down for closure. This explains why some politicians are uneasy about the pit closures – it is also a dagger aimed at the heart of the UDM!

A form of campaign over the pit closures was ’organised’ by the TUC, a sedate affair struggling not to offend the ruling class. The scraping and grovelling before the national interest was given a left cover by Scargill and Benn, uniting fiery rhetoric for import controls with an urge for more democracy. Some of us have already had a belly-full of democracy Mr Benn! Of course pertinent points are raised about the use of child labour in coal mines in Colombia, coal emulsion from Venezuala which threatens the environment but not one word of uniting the interests of workers in various countries. That would be too rhetorical, leading to a stampede of TUC leaders to quieter climes. And in what lies the real interest of child labour in the coal mines of Colombia but their organisation along class lines rather than starvation via unemployment at the hands of the Colombian bourgeoisie. This is not an isolated point. Scargill was calling for subsiding of British coal and exporting it to Europe thereby undercutting and throwing coalminers in other countries out of work. Strip away the fiery talk and then sections of the bourgeoisie will find something of interest in the speeches of Arthur Scargill. The health of a mining industry reaches out and clasps hands with the weakness of other sections of industry, expressing concern over the state of exploitation of the working class across the country.

While the bureaucratic united front road show of TUC and Labour Leaders got into some sort of order, a group of miners marched from Glasgow to London as a protest of pit closures. A strange sort of solidarity was being expressed. Here was a march by miners being threatened by unemployment being welcomed by all sorts of local Labour Councillors who are directly enforcing worsening conditions on those who work for local government, Not only are same workers facing redundancy at the hands of Labour Councils, but what about all those millions of people being hounded for poll tax payments through courts, with the assistance of bailiffs, organised by these same Labour Councillors. With ’solidarity’ like this who needs enemies.

With many of the pits not being worked, miners being sent home rather than having coal produced, morale fell in some areas. Many thousands of miners ‘voluntarily’ took redundancy money (sometimes under duress, vital bus services being cancelled, unions officials being harrassed) rather than wait around for the big chop. Waiting for succour to cone from the TUC leaders is a dispiriting experience. It was at that point when one of those paradoxes peculiar to British society took place. The miners unions took the Coal Board and Government’s decisions over closures to the High Court as the relevant consultation over the pit closures had not taken place. Just before Christmas the High Court declared the decisions to be unlawful as the correct procedures (laid down in the original nationalisation legislation) had not been carried out. High Court judges were being toasted over Christmas in miners areas – the miners received more temporary relief from the courts than whole battalions of TUC leaders.

The fundamental purpose of the bourgeois state is to preserve the long-term interests of the ruling class, that is why there is sometimes a difference between what is taken up by the Courts against short-term actions of Governments. The Government Minister, Heseltine, denied knowledge of how this had come about and blamed the management of British Coal. With some legal experts expressing the opinion that the Government Minister could be held liable personally for the costs of those shut down and ’moth-balled’, the Tories dilemma was complete. Promising to look at all possible options, including possibly short-term subsidies, nothing was ruled in and nothing ruled out. Months later still nothing has been decided by the Government over how many of the 31 pits have been "saved”.
 

Heated Discussions Within the Ruling Class

With the Government backing off from the original wholesale slaughter of the coal industry all the various experts and pundits are trying to get into the act. For instance the Institute of British Geographers at its conference heard the notion of «In a high-wage economy, the decline of deep-mined coal is inevitable in competition with oil or gas». As with all professors the opposite viewpoint was put about not throwing away £7 billion cf economic investment. «We should intervene in the short term to give coal some breathing space and give it some protection in the energy market, while long-term problems are addressed». Economists then waded into the discussions. Let the markets decide over the production of coal and other sources of power some say. There is plenty of cheap coal on the world market, so who needs coal production. Others say that such markets are unstable and can be jeopardised during world conflicts. What these experts had not allowed for then began to happen. Some of the supplies of cheap coal suddenly disappeared. Polish coal miners In Silesia went on strike and British Coal needed to buy coal from privatised mines in Britain to make up for what was missing. The old stand-by, Polish coal supply could no longer be guaranteed. While the cold war continued and Stalinist rule was secure, the exploitation of Polish miners could be taken for granted. Supply by the boat load arrived when needed to break the miners’ strike in 1984/5. Now all this is in jeopardy. The meeting of the needs of the national economy became the centre of discussions.

Everybody involved in all these arguments have their own solutions to the problems of the national economy, for the well-being of the market system. All types of experts are dug out from Universities, Business Schools and the like to lecture a bored public about what would happen if such-and-such takes place. Instead of redundancy payments, keep the pits working to help keep others in work. Hypothetical multipliers are used, each worker in the pit sustains two others in employment. The optimists think that most will get work eventually (retraining, moving from the area) with perhaps three per cent never working again! Of course the real social effects of unemployment, of changing employment, of broken lives, demoralisation is never calculated because it never appears in any of the business plans and balance sheets. For these advocates of the market system the working class only appears as a variable cost on financial accounts, the physical effects of employment / unemployment, of wasted time and wasted lives, are not really of their concern. Just so long as the working class are there at the beck and call of the employers, that’s all that matters.

Other options are being examined by the Government. There are long-term plans for the privatisation of the coal mines. The original plan was to sell off British Coal as a single enterprise, but British Coal doesn’t want to work all the pits under threat. Nor will it take kindly to letting others take them over to run as competition. Better to declare them uneconomical, and whatever can’t be stripped out, might as well leave buried under the ground. But the drive to ’secure’ the future of the mines only increases the pressure on the miners. The relentless drive for more profit means higher productivity, more output with less labour, fewer pits with a future even if the market for coal can be increased. The review in which the Government is involved in looking at American methods of production – longer shifts to increase the production at the coal faces (because of ever lengthening travel time to the where the coal is being cut), As an aside, bourgeois ’experts’ have always derided Marx for statements about the need of the bourgeoisie to lengthen the working day – well, here it is again. More productivity per worker, even with a static market will mean fewer miners and more unemployment. All the collaboration over the years between the employers and union leaders of various hues has extracted a fearful price from the working class.
 

What Now for the Miners

The uncertainty over the future of the 31 pits has been going on for five months. Still no sign of the review of the pits future or the prospective Government white paper has come forward. This has been one of the reasons why there has not been much of a campaign for the last couple of months. Government indecision has been a lifeline for the TUC leaders. Obviously no need to do anything so might as well forget it. Only when the plans for the future of the mining industry goes through Parliament can we expect to see an upturn in the fight.

The miners find themselves (surprise, surprise) in a similar position as in 1984 as coal stocks are about 40 million tonnes. Winter has passed, no threats of power shortages can directly help in a direct confrontation through a strike by the miners alone. Some of the Left, particularly Trotskyists, are putting forward the same old tired slogans. Occupy the pits (in this situation a recipe for isolation and loss of pay), which is nothing less than a refusal to learn from past experiences (Turin workers in 1919/20, France in 1968) and leave the state in control of events. If that isn’t bad enough, the demands for Make the TUC leaders Fight, followed by the TUC should, organise this and that is an invitation for the workers to have an even worse defeat inflicted upon them. The TUC should be kept out of any struggle, on the basis of know thine enemy!

If it is seen as purely within the limits of the mining industry then the miners have an up-hill struggle with little chance of reversing closure plans. It should be remembered that it is the Government which prepares the attacks on the miners, and it is the stability of state preparations which is the key to the situation. The Government is on the verge of a period of instability, possibly on the scale of the crisis which affected the Conservative Government of McMillan in the early 1950s. The Thatcherite strategy of taking on one section of workers at a time has been undermined by Indecision, financial crisis and political turmoil. During this year the prospect of an effective wages offensive, possibly uniting different sections of workers, bringing millions into conflict with the Government, is a strong possibility. It is by participating in this movement that miners may yet turn the situation in their favour. Fighting alone is a recipe for defeat; a class offensive opens up the prospective of inflicting defeats on the common enemy – the ruling class.