taking on the axe-men?

In the struggle over wages and conditions, like the character in “Alice in Wonderland” we have to keep running in order to stay in the same place.


A leading British trade union has called for a 24-hour general strike in a show of opposition to the government's spending cuts program.The Communication Workers Union unanimously backed calls for the Trade Union Congress to co-ordinate a nationwide walkout against the government's "attacks" on pay, pensions and services. Delegates at the Bournemouth conference also agreed to moves aimed at coordinating campaigns and strikes with other unions. "We need to work together with other unions, and the TUC should co-ordinate a 24-hour strike”, said the union's general secretary. "If the Tories carry on it will be too late and we will be back to the levels of inequality not seen since Victorian times"

Trade union leaders are good at making speeches, but their words are worth nothing as long as the majority of workers are followers. Instead of assuming that great leaders are needed to force the workers into combat, it must be recognised that only on the basis of class consciousness will workers show their power. Class-conscious workers will no more need leaders than the sighted need guide dogs.

Every means that strengthen the workers in the class struggle are good in so far as they do so. The strike is the force behind all trade union organisation. Strikes are necessary if workers are to prevent themselves from being driven into the ground by the never-satisfied demands of profit: as workers we must organise to defend and improve our wages and conditions of work. The strike is one of the workers’ weapons and, within the confines of the profit system, is a weapon that can limit the capitalists’ aims. Those who tell us not to strike "for the good of the nation" are, whether they know it or not, mouthpieces for the good of the bosses. While we’re fighting these essential defensive battles, we must also lift our eyes from the present fight and consider whether it’s a fit one for us and our children and grandchildren. It is our job as socialists to stand with our fellow workers in their necessary battles to defend themselves, but to point out at all times that the real victory to be achieved is the abolition of the wages system. The easy way to behave when a strike is on is to shout pious slogans of support. There was no shortage of such "we’re with you brothers" condescension from so-called Marxists on the Left who accept the Leninist doctrine that workers cannot understand more than the struggle for crumbs. Only dishonestly can socialists tell striking workers that we believed in the possibility of forcing the state to ignore the dictates of the market and not act in accordance with the perverse, anti-working-class rationality of the capitalist system. This does not mean that workers should sit back and do nothing. Within capitalism the trade-union struggle over wages and conditions must go on. But it becomes clear that this is a secondary, defensive activity. The real struggle is to take the means of wealth production and distribution – the factories, farms, offices, mines etc. – into the common ownership and democratic control of the entire world community. We must organise to win political power if we want a new society.

Strikes can serve a useful purpose in resisting wage reductions or securing increases, but they cannot overthrow capitalism. To begin with, the workers themselves have not that purpose in mind. We know that desperate men and women will take desperate action when goaded to it by the hardships of their life under capitalism. But we have seen in the General Strike of 1926 and from revolts of workers attempted in many countries at different times how such spontaneous outbursts are always crushed by the forces at the disposal of the ruling class through their control of the machinery of government. So long as the workers are prepared to resign themselves to the evils of capitalism, and so long as they are prepared to place in control of Parliament parties that will use their power for the purpose of maintaining capitalism, there is no escape from the effects of capitalism. The workers will continue to suffer from the hardships of the capitalist system and from the aggravated hardships during trade recessions such as this one. To struggle for higher wages and better conditions is not revolutionary in any real sense of the word; and the essential weapons in this struggle are not revolutionary either. This is where socialists have their most vital contribution to make – a clear idea about alternatives is not mere utopianism, but an important ingredient in inspiring successful struggle. An upturn in class war, such as we’re seeing here and elsewhere is the basis on which socialism can begin to make sense and seem like a credible and possible alternative to capitalism for the working class as a whole. When trade unions take action on sound lines it becomes socialists to remember their class allegiance and give them support.

see our attitude to the 1926 General Strike