WHAT WE SAID (8)

The work of the Social Revolution can only be accomplished by men and women with a clear understanding of the economics of capitalism, that therefore a clear and definite program is the first essential, and in the interest of maintaining that definite program of the party it is imperative to expel out of the said party all speakers, writers, or even members who are not in the strictest harmony with its ‘clean cut’ principles,The work of the Social Revolution depends in the last analysis upon the growth of class-consciousness amongst the working class, that therefore the chief task of a socialist political party is to educate and direct that class consciousness along correct line. Therefore it must be made possible for all who have accepted the central principles of common ownership to become members of the party irrespective of their knowledge or lack of knowledge of economics, and that the development of the political struggle of the socialist movement must be depended upon to clear the minds of the members.

It is often said that the workers’ movement should have immediately launched strikes to avert the war. After all, hadn’t socialist international congresses declared such a policy. The SPGB however had previously explained the practice of canvassing support for socialism from non-socialists and the outbreak of the war amply demonstrated its truth. No ‘socialist’ party in Europe could say prevent mobilisation because no ‘socialist’ party could have the slightest reasonable prospect of having such a call obeyed. Had the socialist parties of France and Germany been able to declare general strikes, particularly in the transport, there would have been no war between France and Germany. But the French government knew, the German government knew, all observers around the world  keow, that the socialist organisations  could not have carried out such a threat even had they made it. Both politically and industrially their revolutionary organisations were ephemeral phantasms not solid bodies. Their votes were not from class-conscious workers, cast from knowledge and understanding of the socialist case,  but votes garnered by opportunistic appeals. A socialist party, as such, is helpless if it relies on the mandate of non-socialists. Only the power socialist majority has the power to stop the war machine.

World War One did however later spark off a class war, particularly within the engineering industry and on the Clyde where the militancy of the workers and their shop-stewards acquired it the title of Red Clydeside. The Socialist Party offered their support for their actions.

England's Engineers

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1917/no-154-june-1917/englands-engineers

Engineers have recently fought for the repeal of the Munitions of War Amendment Bill. For that particular purpose they fought solidly and well. The masters tried their damnedest to beat and overwhelm them with lies and conquer them with hunger. They placarded the Midland towns with crafty official notices. They tried to split the strike with lies and scorn and they tried to split it with bribes and threats. Yet the engineers ignored splendidly the Government promises, official and outside opinion, together with the cowardly threats.

For years the engineers were half-asleep. Hopefully, innocently, patriotically, they abandoned all those rules which they held to be valuable and precious in their union. Soon after the original sacrifice, as early in the war as the Autumn of 1914, they were bound to the benches and engines by sheaves of laws. Act after Act took away their strength as a fighting union. The men they trusted told them that the Allies could never win the war if the union remained as strong, or the men as free, as in the days of peace, so the engineers, like other large bodies, cheerfully gave over the ripest of their plans of advancement, the richest of their trade-union possessions. For it was promised by those they trusted that not a hair of their heads would be hurt through any concessions they made.

Then  Acts were passed in a trice; rapidly passed, almost secretly passed, so that after a few months of warfare the workers of Britain had their customary weapons of defence broken or blunted and the finest of trade union safeguards cast into the official dust-bin. The engineers, like the rest, surrendered the trade-union defences of their personal welfare in what they considered to be the national interest. The unions were emasculated....
... There was no relief from their insufferable toil. Holidays were stroked out. The intense strain, which commonly they experience, was increased. The Government pacified them with flattery and their trusted men lectured them on patience. Nevertheless the engineers began to regret the day when they broke their own weapons of defence and made their unions a dead letter...
...The Clyde trouble of Christmas 1915 is perhaps the best specimen of these sectional and local revolts. The principle of the men was strong, but they were driven down by lies, hunger, victimisation, deportation of their leaders, and, what is more important still, because the strike was local.

It is the mass of engineers only, and not a locality of engineers, who can successfully fight. Ten thousand engineers on strike in a town may gain something in a month for that town's men—or they may not; fifty thousand spread over one industrial area may force amendments to an  objectionable Bill from a reluctant Cabinet, while one hundred and fifty thousand men who leave their engines, with all their force concentrated on one particular principle, striking at a vitally important time, stand a good chance of getting what they ask for...However, considering the difficulties in their way, the engineers' struggle has been splendid...

...Slowly, too slowly, the workers are finding out their true friends and true principles, their cunning enemies and their delusive ways. The change they make must be vaster than the repeal or modification of one Bill or the establishment of one unconnected wish. The thing that would bring them rest and peace can be done with one wish stroke. Instead of abandoning the political machine to ambitious wiseacres and unscrupulous plotters, and letting them, in the secrecy of Cabinet conclaves, everlastingly scheme to set the social changes on you, see to it that those who are now proven the enemies of your class are no longer sent to represent you. Fill their places with class-conscious men of your own ranks, controlled and guaranteed by the political organisation of your own class.

Engineers! At an early date you will be confronted with other trouble. We want your demands to be more exacting, and more deep the principles you struggle for. Fight with your brothers of other industries for these bigger and nobler things as earnestly and solidly as you recently fought. Fight politically as well as industrially, then, with the principle of the class struggle to guide your fighting, you cannot help but win.

Read our Declaration of Principles on the back page of this paper; earnestly consider them; join with us and help to establish them. Then will slave and master be abolished, and a real peace come, to all, including England's engineers.

Socialist Standard 
June 1917