[page 21]
background of 1920's Britain prior to the General Strike, and recounts the role of the young Com-
munist Party in this significant period in the history of the British working class
The Minority Movement and the early Communist Party
THE CAPITALIST crisis has reduced the lives of millions in 1986 to a bitter struggle for a decent life. Every day workers are faced with increasing pressures placed on them by employers attempting to maintain their profits.
In his book on The Conditions of the Working Class in England, Engels wrote that: "Strikes are the military school of the working man, in which they prepare themselves for the great struggle which cannot be avoided ...As schools of war, the unions are unexcelled. In them is developed the peculiar courage of the English"
Those words written over 100 years ago remain remarkably fresh. In British society in the past 10 years many new layers of workers have been 'bloodied' in struggle. There is a hardness about working people's characters which was absent in the boom years of the 1950s and 1960s. Even the struggles against the Heath government of the 1970s now look like tame affairs in comparison to recent struggles.
Post war crisis
The miners' strike of 1984-85 marked a new era in the relations between the classes in Britain. Trotsky's words in March 1926 on the eve of the general strike take on an entirely relevant and up-to-date meaning:
"The economic blind alley of the country which is most sharply expressed in the coal industry thrusts the working class onto the path of seeking a solution, that is on to the path of an even sharper struggle...
46 ...with regard to the miners' strike, it is not of course a question of an isolated strike, however big it may be, but the commencement of a whole series of social conflicts and crises"
Trotsky's Where is Britain going?, written in 1925, summed up the background to the period following the First World War:
'The displacement of Great Britain from the position of world domination occupied by her thus came to be openly revealed during the fourth quarter of the last century; and towards the beginning of the present century it produced a state of internal want of confidence and a ferment among the upper classes, and a profound molecular process of an essentially revolutionary character among the working class...
...The years 1911 to 1913 were
times of unparalleled class struggles of the miners, railwaymen and transport workers generally. In August 1911, a national, in other words a general, strike broke out on the railways. The vague shadow of revolution hovered over Britain in those days...
...In the years 1917 to 1920 the British labour movement again passed through an extremely strong period. Strikes were on the grand scale.
In January 1919 the Clydeside engineers, led by the Clyde Workers' Committee, came out on strike for a 40 hour week. The government responded by sending in tanks and troops to break the strike. A report of a January 1920 Cabinet meeting revealed the terror of the bourgeoisie at the prospect of a strike by the 'Triple Alliance' of the transport workers, the NUR and the Miners' Federation. Lloyd George even informed the Cabinet that: 'The Air Force would attack with bombs and machine-guns, if, as Churchill feared, ground troops could not be relied upon to put down an insurrection"
Later in 1920 organised labour in Britain came to the aid of the young Soviet Russia. The London dockers inspired the whole movement when they struck and refused to load the Jolly George with munitions bound to aid the capitalist armies of intervention. In August 1920 a Council of Action was established by the TUC and Labour Party to stop the attack on Russia "by any and every form of withdrawal of labour". . This action by workers in Britain and elsewhere in the capitalist world was decisive in forcing the capitalists to abandon their attempts at large-scale intervention against the young Russian workers' state.
This was the background to the foundation of the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1920. Militants like Willie Gallacher, Tom Mann and Jack Murphy were all founding members of the CP: Gallacher had been the leader of the mass movements on the Clyde and as Chairman of the Clyde Workers Committee was instrumental in
building the early shop stewards movement.
To head-off the movement of the
workers in the immediate post-war
period the Coalition government under
Lloyd George had been obliged to con-
cede major reforms, including sickness
and unemployment benefits, extended
22
subsidies to the coal industry etc on the basis of a speculative boom. But this came to an abrupt end in 1921.
Unemployment passed the million mark in February 1921 climbing to over two million by June. The post-war slump brought with it a determined onslaught by the employers on workers wages and conditions. At the and of March 1921 the miners were locked out-having rejected massive pay cuts. The miners appealed to the Triple Alliance for united strike action. But on April 15 1921 the right wing union leaders abandoned calls for a strike in defence of the miners. This day became known as "Black Friday"
From then on the employers pushed home their attack to cut the workers share of the wealth they had created in an attempt to restore profitability. By the end of 1921 wage cuts averaging 8/- a week had been suffered by six million workers. Between 1921 and 1923 membership of the TUC fell by two million.
But by 1923 there were signs of a growing confidence amongst sections of the workers. In January 1924 there was a national railway strike; in February 1924 a national dockers strike which won some wage increases and in March 1924 London's tramwaymen and busmen struck.
The founding of the
Minority Movement
It was against this background of growing militancy that Willie Gallacher reported to the Communist Party Congress in May 1924 that: "The growing opposition movements now springing up in the leading trade unions, industries and the Labour Party, are the first expression of the concrete raising of the demands of the
workers and of a definite challenge to the existing leadership... The many streams of the rising forces of the
workers must be gathered together into one powerful mass movement which
will sweep away the old leadership and
drive forward relentlessly to the strug-
gle for power. " Three months later on
August 23 and 24 the first conference
of the Minority Movement was con-
vened. 270 delegates representing
200,000 workers took part.
The aims of the Minority Movement
were spelt out at the Conference:
"to organise the working masses of
Great Britain for the overthrow of
capitalism... to carry on a wide agita-
tion and propaganda for the principles
[page 22]
of the revolutionary class struggle, and work within existing tions for the National Minority Movement programme and against the present tendency towards social peace and class collaboration and the delusion of the peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism; unite the workers in their everyday struggles against the exploiters; to maintain the closest relations with the Red International of Labour Unions (the industrial wing of the Comintern-Ed)." The Communist Party had carefully considered its role in launching the Movement. Lozovsky, a leader of the Red International of Labour Unions, had argued at the Fourth Congress of the Comintern, then still under the guidance of Lenin and Trotsky, that: "As far as Britain is concerned we see clearly that it would be disastrous if the Party were content to organise its forces only within its little party nuclei must be that our communist groups should act as a point of crystallisation round which the opposition elements will concentrate. The aim must be to create, to marshal, to integrate the opposition forces, Party will itself grow concurrently with the growth of the opposition. The resolution on the Minority Movement agreed by the CPGB's 6th Congress in 1924 declared: 'In the actual fight to achieve their immediate demands the workers will be brought up against the whole organised power of capitalism-the state. Therefore, as the struggle develops, the importance and absolute necessity of the CP to the working class becomes more and more clearly revealed. The opposition movements can only go forward under the leadership of a powerful Communist Party. Out of the struggle of the opposition movements of today will be forged the CP of tomorrow... the CP, while working inside the Minority Movement, will on no account sacrifice its separate existence or limit its freedom of agitation and propaganda. By this means it will win the workers to the Party in ever increasing numbers, and prepare the working class for the real problem that confronts them, that, of the conquest And JR Campbell writing in Communist Review in October 1924 was careful to spell out a policy on the left TU leaders: "It would be a suicidal policy, however for the CP and the Minority Movement to place too much reliance on what we have called the official left wing... It is the duty of the party and the MM to criticise its weakness relentlessly and endeavour to change the muddled and incomplete left wing viewpoint of the more progressive leaders into a real revolutionary viewpoint. But the revolu- The Miners'
Next Task An Open Letter to All Miners on the Next Big Step- ONE MINERS'
•. UNION..
ublished by th Price at dra Movemeer 1° RZ0K0205 The covers of two Minority Movement pamphlets. workers must never forget that their main activity must be devoted to capturing the masses." However this basically correct approach to the left union leaders came to be put to one side-with fatal consequences-in the period leading up to the general strike in May 1926. It is not possible to look at the early CP and the Minority Movement without-at the same time-taking note of international developments. At the end of 1924 Stalin began develop his policy of 'socialism in one country', reflecting the conservatism of a privaleged bureaucracy that was beginning to crystallise in Russia. The corollary of this 'theory' was the abandonment of the perspective of international revolution. The Soviet leadership encouraged the formation of the Anglo-Soviet Joint TU Advisory Committee, on the basis of verbal support of the Soviet Union by Hicks, Swales and Purcell, who were elected by the TUC General Council as the British representatives.
The Anglo-Russian Committee The support of the TUC General Council for the Anglo-Soviet Committee meant that the Communist Party was being pulled in two directions at once. On the one hand the June 1925 edition of the CP theoretical journal, Communist Review, 'The success of the Minority Movement is in reality a sign that the workers are coming to look upon the unions less and less as a means of improving their individual well-being within the framework of the capitalist system, and more and more as a weapon of struggle against the capitalist class...
...There can be no doubt 92 WHAT THE MINORITY A MOVEMENT» ¡STANDS FOR Price :
ONE PENN!
that... many reformist leaders would rather swim with the current than against it. Without pushing away anyone who will fight, the task of the Communists in the Minority Movement is to see that this does not obscure in the eyes of the workers the fact that their fight is a class fight against a class enemy, and not a fight for small reforms".
On the other hand the CP did not want to criticise either the TUC or the left leaders for fear of harming the Anglo-Soviet Committee on which the Stalinist-led Communist International was placing so much reliance. This was shown by the response of the Communist Party to the events in the months prior to the general strike. In March 1925 the coal owners gave one month's notice of termination of the existing wages agreement, bringing a cut in wages and longer hours. Such was the rank and file pressurein which the Minority Movement and the CP played an important part-the TUC General Council threatened massive sympathy action. Baldwinthe Tory Prime Minister-surrendered and on 31 July 1925 announced a ninemonth $23 million subsidy to the coal industry thus averting any wage cuts. This victory for the miners became 'Red Friday'.
In reality, however, represented a tactical retreat by the capitalists. Britain was heading into a mighty clash of the classes. The capitalist class for its part was making preparations for a general strike. But the labour movement was completely unprepared. The right wing tried desperately to find a way to headoff the inevitable collision. The left, which had gained an apparantly dominent position on the TUC General Council through people like Cook. Purcell, Swales. Hicks and Brarley.
[page 23]
MIR Summer 1986: Minority
also failed to prepare the movement. Although Lon Swales of the ABU was chairman of the TUC 'Special Industrial Committee' which was responsible for strike preparations, nothing was done.
This incapacity bore out the warnings made by Trotsky in the months prior to the strike:
"Regarding international matters as a means of giving vent to the radical moods of the masses, these esteemed leaders are prepared to a certain extent even to bow to a revolution (in other countries)... It should be understood that leftism of this kind remains left so long as it has no practical obligations. But as soon as the question of action arises, the left wingers respectfully concede the leadership to the right". : The TUC strike organising committee first met just six days before the strike began!
The Minority Movement
grows
The British Communist Party failed to heed these warnings. Jack Murphy, writing in Communist Review in September 1925 could correctly argue that:
"Let us be clear what a general strike means. It can only mean the throwing down of the guantlet to the capitalist state, and all the powers at its disposal. Either that challenge is only a gesture, in which case the capitalist class will not worry about it, or it must develop its challenge into an actual fight for power, in which case we land into civil war. Any leaders who talk about a general strike without facing this obvious fact are bluffing both themselves and the workers"
But while the CP leaders took this formally correct position, under the pressure of the Comintern they failed to warn that the TUC lefts, without the perspective that a general strike poses the question, 'who rules?', would inevitably draw back from an all-out struggle against capitalism. Thus the party's paper Workers' Weekly 17 August, 1925) greeted 'Red Friday' with the words: "The leadership passed into the hands of good proletarians like Swales, Hicks, Cook and Purcell.
And this proletarian leadership and the proletarian solidarity it was capable of organising demonstrating was the real big thing that came out of the struggle.
The CP went on-uncritically - to support the left rhetoric at the September 1925 Trades Union Congress. Workers' Weekly, wrote on 18 September 1925 that: 'When Swales delivered his opening speech the real temper of the Congress began to
manifest itself. The more militant
became the mood, the more delegates
responded to this fighting challenge"
LIVETEEI
In fact, the failure of the CP leader-
, to offer a friendly but firm criticism of the TUC lefts, while giving them critical support in their fight against the right, began to come under criticism within the party. At the party congress in May 1925 a delegate from Sheffield drew attention to the fact that the miners' leader Arthur Cook had begun to drift away from some of the policies he had fought for in his election campaign. The Sheffield delegate pointed out that: "After we have praised and said nice things about these left wing leaders, what will the masses say about the Communist Party when these leaders fail them? We must give the necessary qualifications to our support of these left wingers". . Prophetic words indeed!
But far from offering criticism of the left leaders their 'proletarian leadership' continued to be praised in the party press. This emphasis of policy was to prove fatal in the period leading up to and during the general strike.
The growing capitalist crisis continued to push the workers to the left. Support for the Minority Movement developed apace. At the second National Minority Movement conference held on 29 August 1925 there were 683 delegates representing some 750,000 workers. Two slogans dominated the conference: "Prepare for the coming fight" and "Solidarity spells success The influence of the Minority Movement was shown in the breadth of the delegations: Trades Councils 40, Metal workers 126, Building workers 103, Transport workers 75, General workers 72, Miners 33, Co-operative organisations 16, Unemployed organisations 45. Seven district trade union organisations were represented but only two delegates from trade union national executives (NAFTA and the Chemical and Drug Workers).
In March 1926 the Minority Movement was at its peak. It called a special 'Conference of Action' of 883 delegates representing some 957,000 workers. Delegations included: Trades Councils 52, Mining unions 37, Metal workers 153, Transport workers 121.
The main resolution spelt out a policy of preparation for the general strike. It called upon all supporters of the Minority Movement and workers generally to: "1. Urge each Trades Council to constitute itself a Council of Action by mobilising all the forces of the working class movement in its locality-the TU branches, the organised unemployed, the Cooperative Guilds, and the workers' political organisations; by organising 100 per cent trade unionism; special attention be paid to the organisation of young workers, and a campaign to be commenced to organise the unorganised women workers; building up workshop organisations; by calling
24
Movement
special conferences of affiliated members; by holding continuous mass demonstrations in support of the sections attacked; by bringing pressure to bear on the local authorities to secure relief for those rendered destitute during the struggles; by establishing as far as means permit a commisariat department in conjunction with the local co-operatives; by using every means to bring all the workers, men and women, organised and unorganised into the struggle.
"2. Urge thé General Council to immediately convene a National Congress of Action, at which plans shall be prepared for:
"(a) The complete scientific utilisation of the whole TU movement in the struggle.
'b) Securing the co-operation of the co-operative organisations.
"(c) Securing the active participation of the Parliamentary and national Labour Parties in the organisation of the struggle by placing themselves at the disposal of the General Council of the TUC.
"(d) Urging the General Council of the TUC to take steps to ensure the full support of the international TU movement for the struggle of the British working class."
The General Strike
The attitude of the Communist Party to the TUC General Council was marked by confusion and a lack of clarity. For example, in his opening speech to the Minority Movement 1926 Conference of Action Tom Mann said: 'Therefore, prepare at once. Let us perfect our relations with each other, let us have our industrial machinery ready for action. The real central body through which we must function is the General Council of the TUC. All unions should be loyal and co-operate loyally therewith".
And George Hardy, acting Minority Movement General Secretary wrote in Workers' Weekly on 9 April 1926 that members "should work for the establishment of Councils of Action in every area but that the Councils of Action were to see that all decisions of the General Council and the union executives were carried out"
Meanwhile the capitalists and coal owners were preparing to take on the working class. The coal owners demanded a 13 per cent wage cut and an eight hour day from 1 May. On 1 May-with the miners already locked out-the TUC voted by 3,653,527 to 49,911 votes for a general strike. Within a couple of days some four million out of 5½ million workers responded to the call and struck in a tremendous display of power.
Councils of Action were established in every part of the country and in
[page 24]
tsary MAURICE MOSCOVITCH
Southwark. London. A bus taken out of action is towed throuah a crowd of strikers.
many areas effectively became the organs of government. Every day more workers joined the strike.
CP members and Minority Movement supporters played a decisive role in the local Councils of Action. They produced local workers' bulletins and organised mass demonstrations and meetings. Despite police raids the circulation of Communist papers during the general strike was around 100,000. They were produced in impossible circumstances: party offices were closed by the police, CP organisers were arrested and imprisoned, including the Communist MP Saklatvala. The fear of the small Communist Party by the ruling class was shown by the imprisonment on seditious libel of 12 Communist leaders in the year before the general strike.
But it was not until 7 May that the CP'sWorkers' Bulletin contained the first criticism of the TUC: and even
then it did not deal with a single question beyond the winning of the strike:
"According to Baldwin, in the Commons yesterday, the TUC delegates on the eve of the strike were prepared to discuss the following formula drafted by Birkenhead: 'We would urge the miners to authorise us to enter into discussions with the understanding that they accept the report as the basis of a settlement, and we approach it with the knowledge that it may involve some reduction in wages'.
"Since there has been no repudiation, this statement is probably true. We hope the leaders responsible will now frankly admit that they made a mistake in agreeing even to discuss such an outrageous proposal.
It is almost unbelievable to see the similarity between the TUC position
during the general strike and their role today in the NGA dispute at Warrington and the miners' strike of 1984-5. They use the same phraseology as ine right wing Railwaymen's leader Thomas, who spoke on 19 April 1926 of "finding a solution honourable and satisfactory" They somehow believe that there can be a solution to problems, created by capitalism, which are "honourable" and "satisfactory to all sides". In reality they mean "satisfactory" to capitalism and the existing social relations. Their lifestyle has become removed and apart from the workers they represent. Their interest is in maintaining the status quo and not in overthrowing it.
of
On 7 May the workers of the USSR — who had collected £1,250,000 -offered their support to the TUC through the Anglo-Soviet Committee. It was flatly rejected. Left union leader, Hicks, was reported as denouncing "this damned Russian gold". . And while the TUC General Council continued to tell its members that the strike was "non political", Lord Balfour declared "that we are now threatened it seems with a revolution"
On 12 May the High Court declared that: "The so-called general strike called by the TUC committee is illegal" And on 12 May following an approach by Sir Herbert Samuel, the TUC General Council called off the general strike 'in order that negotiations could be resumed to secure a settlement in the mining industry, free and unfettered from either strike or lock-
25
out". They surrendered-with absolutely nothing.
Not only the right but left leaders like Purcell had participated in the negotiations to end the strike. Despite the opposition of the Miners' Federation both right and left capitulated.
On 13 May the Communist Party issued an appeal to "Stand By The Miners": ''The General Council's decision to call off the general strike is the greatest crime that has ever been permitted, not only against the miners, but against the working class of Great Britain and the whole world. The British workers had aroused the astonishment and admiration of the world by the enthusiasm with which they had entered upon the fight for the miners' standard of living..
66
. And most of the so-called left wing have been no better than the right. By a policy of timid silence, by using the false pretext of loyalty to colleagues to cover-up breaches of loyalty to workers, they have left a free hand to the right wing and thus helped to play the employers' game"
By then, of course, such criticism was too late. The workers' movement was in shock. Many workers even thought that the telegrams calling off the strike were forgeries. As they tried to return to work they found employers who wished to victimise and smash trade union organisation.
The Communist Party issued a call for a "national conference of delegates from strike committees" to continue the struggle. But they were not able to turn it into a reality. The loyalty to the trade union organisations and be shock at the actions of the rig.: =00 left, combined w. =* ::
preparedness c:::=
[page 25]
ty to the betrayals of the lett, meant that the CP calls for action did not meet with a ready response. Such a call came too late in the day. It appears that in the two weeks of struggle no call was made for the linking up of the Councils of Action. There was no really effective national opposition to the TUC General Council.
George Hardy himself admitted after the General Strike: "Although we knew what treachery the right wing leaders were capable of, we did not clearly understand the part played by the so-called 'left'. In the main.. they turned out to be windbags... we were taught a major lesson...the main point in preparing for action must always be to develop a class conscious leadership amongst the rank and file". Such lessons were learned too late for the Communist Party. In fact, despite the formal acknowledgement of their 'misunderstandings', their leaders never honestly attempted to analyse how they had come to follow such a mistaken policy. The Comintern must bear the major responsibility. Their support of the Anglo-Soviet Trade Union Committee was dictated by bureaucratic self-interest in place of the interests of the working class in Britain and internationally. An opportunity lost The publication of Trotsky's book Where is Britain going? in 1925 had ironically, been greeted by the Communist Party in Britain. W Paul wrote in the Sunday Worker:
"In this new and virile book the famous revolutionary easily surpasses all his previous efforts. He raises a series of most important problems for our movement. He states his case so well and sustains it with such an array of facts, drawn from British Trotsky himself wrote a preface to the second German edition of his book on 6 May 1926 (see pages 19-20). In it "Irreconcilable struggle against any act of treachery or sell out and merciless exposure of reformist illusions are the most important jobs for the truly revolutionary participants in the general strike".
Unfortunately the Communist Party in the crucial period leading to the general strike-and then during it— failed to apply the Marxist method The opportunity for the British workers was lost. And the Communist Party could have played a much more significant role if it had been theoretically prepared for those nine days in 1926.
Nonetheless until the return of the miners in November 1926 the Communist Party continued to build. This is revealed in a report to the Com- Report to the CP Executive on Party membership, August 1926 LONDON: 36 branches. 1,560 members (260 women), Increase in year 25%. 44 factory groups with 232 members (1 year ago less than 30). 24 factory papers with circulation of 8,000. Workers' Weekty sales in Lon- SOUTH WALES: 41 branches. 1,500 members (200 women). 66 pit or factory groupe. 16 pit and factory MANCHESTER: 30 branches. 680 members (101 women). Workers' Weekly sales: 9,700 FIFE: 8 branches. 502 members (124 women). Last year 79 mambers in 5 branches.
BIRMINGHAM: 18 branches. 326 members. Last year 10 branches, 200 members.
LIVERPOOL: 12 branches. 576 munist Party executive in August 1926 (see table).
The treachery of the TUC leaders in abandoning the general strike clearly boosted recruitment efforts. Ву Осtober 1926 the party had 10,730 members. It also underlines what could have been achieved by the Communist Party if they had acted effectively as a national force with the correct perspectives and policy. The labour movement took a severe hammering as a result of the defeat of the general strike. The TUC General Council turned on the Minority Movement and the Communist Party and in 1927 instructed Trades Councils to disaffiliate from the Minority But worse was to come. From 1927 onwards the Communist International dictated a change of policy which was to effectively destroy the Minority Movement. The Labour Party was described as a "third capitalist party" and the leaders of the Labour Party and trade unions characterised as 'social fascists'. The Minority Movement was counterposed to the trade unions themselves as the CP encouraged the establishment of new 'red' In 1927 and 1928 the number represented at Minority Movement conferences fell dramatically. By 1929 party membership had fallen to 2,500. The Minority Movement effectively died-although formally remaining in for several more years.
Nevertheless the founding of the National Minority Movement represented a very significant development for militant workers. Its organisation and publications are worthy of study On 9 February 1924, the Worker wrote: "A small minority of the rank and file are struggling against the members. Last year 8 branches, 150 members. Circulation of Workers* Weekly doubled.
GLASGOW: 1,105 members (increase in past year 80%.
LANARKSHIRE: 433 members (increase in 3 months 3091.
STIRLINGSHIRE: 120 members (last year 34 members). Contacts in 17 surrounding villages.
BRADFORD: 250 members. 5 pit groups. 3 textile industry groups. TYNESIDE: 1,900 members 1300 women). In this district we have witnessed the heaviest recruitment to SHEFFIELD: 1,200 members (trebl. ed in past year). Sales of party papers OTHER AREAS: Progress most marked in Dundee, Edinburgh and Lothians Over 1,000 members in outlaying passivity and ignorance of the mass of the officials and the mass of the workers. Until the broad popular masses can be reached and quickened through the activity of the left wing, the enlightened union officials are weighted down and cannot move. That being the case, the struggle of the left wing for leadership is not merely an anti-official struggle.
'Tasks remain'
"It is a struggle to reach the ordinary worker, to convince him of the need for new policies and new methods Minority Movement is not merely to wangle positions for those who support its policy. It is the more fundamental task of capturing the rank and file, of recreating the will to fight". That remains our task today years later. Time and again workers have demonstrated their willingness to make substantial sacrifices in pursuance of a strike. The miners and their families in 1984 and 1985 lived in poverty for months. The women hospital cleaners at Barking and Addenbrookes showed a quite remarkable strength. Isolated and few in number fought on for months and It is this resilience-coupled with Marxist leadership-which will enable British workers to transform society. Engels captured the potential of the British working class when he wrote: "In this lasting determination which undergoes a hundred tests every day, the English working man develops that side of his character which commands most respect. People who endure so much to break one single bourgeois will be able to break the power of the whole bourgeoisie".
[page 26]
Economic Note
By Bob Mck
Britain and the
boom
IF THE boom is coming to an end as the evidence seems to suggest, then what the prospects for the British economy? The best way to judge that would be to see if the British capitalist system has improved during the current world expansion of 1982-6, making it ready. 'leaner and fitter" , to cope with worsening trade and production conditions.
The years of world recession 1979-81 coincided with the election of a Tory government determined to boost the profitability of British industry at the expense of the wages and jobs of the workers in those industries. To begin with, sharp increases in productivity ie the amount of output per worker, were achieved the easy way. The collapse in the world market both forced and made it possible for employers to lay off labour, close down factories and shackle the ability of the trade unions to fight back.
Profits rise
As world markets picked up after 1982, the economy began to grow slowly, but the main result of the destruction of British industry was a sharp increase in profit levels for those companies that were left, particularly in manufacturing. There was a dramatic fall in raw material costs while prices of manufactures continued to rise, if at a slower rate of inflation than in the 1970's. (Table 1). The inevitable consequence of this was a substantial rise in the level of profits for British companies.
In the last four years, profits for the non-oil sector have risen by 70 per cent and now the rate of profit for industrial and commercial companies has reached 10 per cent from its all-time low of 3 per cent in 1981, restoring the levels achieved
in the
But how have the British capitalists used this surplus value squeezed out of their employers? They certainly have not invested it back into industry. Manufacturing investment is still over 17 per cent below what it was when the Tories took over in 1979. The so-called new 'leaner and fitter' British industry is much more lean than fit. Productivity was raised by cutting back the number of workers not by raising investment and production. And there is a limit to that process.
The dangers of this for British capitalism are now being revealed. Wages for those still in employment have been rising by an unchanged average over the last two years at about an annual rate of 7 per cent. But wage costs per unit of output have sharply risen from an annual rate of 3.9 per cent in 1984 to a current rate of 8.9 per cent now. This is over twice as much an increase in costs as British industry's main rivals. British industry is becoming more and more uncompetitive compared to its major trading rivals at a time when world markets are tightening up with a slowing of the current world boom. The situation could be particularly serious for the UK if there is major world recession in the next 18 months.
Clearly this relatively poor performance for costs has nothing to do with greedy workers demanding high wage increases as the Tories continually argue. Wage increases have been stable for two years. It is unit wage costs that have risen. What has happened is that, despite big profits and better profit rates, British capitalists have not raised productivity by introducing new machinery and new plant to industry. They have preferred to use those profits either to invest abroad or to buy up other companies and use their assets than invest in new ones. Merger activity is now at breakneck
27
1970's.
Table One
Producer
prices % change on previous year
Table Two Real rates of return ndustrial and commercial companies
Sources: Treasury,
Dept of Trade and 1
Industry 197 pace with bids for major UK companies announced in the city every day. In the first quarter of 1986 the value of merger deals has been equal to the total value of such takeovers in the whole of 1985, itself a record year.
British manufacturing industry, upon which much of expanding service industries depend for a market,
UK
unempipyment-
more facts about
the misery
LAST TIME in this column we reported the recent survey from the Employment institute which showed that the UK unemployment rate was now higher than in the 1930s at an equivalent point in the years of the recession; and that for those aged between 25 and
15 10
Output
prices
1985
Input prices
1984
86
5J
5
10
15
14 12
compa
niesi Non-oil
10
8
80 82 whatever the Tory government may say, is still in no fit state to compete, and any downturn on a world scale must leave Britain especially vulnerable to a catastrophic loss of their share of world trade, making the last recession of 1979-81 seem like a mild decline.
76
78
86f'cast
54 years, the UK's 11 per cent jobless rate was twice as high as the average for the rest of the industrial world.
Now a new survey on unemployment from the London School of Economics shows that if you have been without a job for over three years your chances of getting one are now as low as 6 in 100. And it is even worse for unskilled workers whose unemployment rate is now five times greater than skilled workers.
[page 27]
Northern Ireland
LETTERS
Dear Comrades,
I would like to congratulate Peter Hadden for presenting a very sober and realistic assessment of the dangers and effects of the Anglo-Irish agreement (Issue No 31 MIR).
Particularly important was the passage where he explained that not only is the agreement "a dangerous movement in the history of the Irish labour movement" but that open sectarian conflict "would be a setback of a serious character for the working class of Britain also."
In many areas of Britain, such as London, Liverpool and Scotland, there are large Irish communities of Catholic and Protestant working class families. Only 15 miles from where I live, in Luton, Bedfordshire over 50 per cent of the population are of Irish origin.
Imagine, therefore, what the net effects of a possible incipient civil war in the North couid have for Irish workers living in Britain-as a result of the bosses so-called solution to the political and economic crisis in Northern Ireland.
A long term campaign of open assasinations, death squads and attacks similar to those carried out by the NF on Asians, but instead in the form of sectarian attacks between Catholics and Protestant workers, cannot be ruled out. In some cases we could also
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Vivisection debate continued
Dear Comrades,
I was very interested to read Jim Hensmans' article on famine and the replies in the last issue of the Militant International Review.
The question of animal rights is one that should be taken seriously by all socialists. Animals should be given equal consideration of interests. The fact that we are more intelligent or have the capacity for 'abstract thought' is often used to justify the exploitation of animals. As socialists should we go along with this argument? The very fact that humans are more intelligent should be the reason why we don't exploit animals. We have the ability to survive without the abuse of animals.
Why is it then that animals are still exploited?
Animals, like humans, are a source of profit for the capitalists. The pharmaceutical industry is a good example. In 1982 the industry spent £81 million of its £1.4 billion UK sales on research involving animals (4,221,801 experiments were performed on animals in 1982). Animals are a cheap and convenient way of getting new products onto the market fast, with public confidence. The majority of these tests are carried out without anaesthetic and cause great suffering to the animals involved. Often they are duplications of experiments carried out by other companies producing a similar drug.
Animal tests have many times proven to be unreliable. Thalidomide,
Opram, Chloramphemicol, Ibufenac and Eraldim are good examples of drugs that were ful-
ly tested on animals and proven 'safe' , yet turned out to be dangerous to humans. News often comes through of drugs that have been withdrawn from the market because of unforeseen side effects, but only months after being found to be dangerous. Many of these drugs are used in the third world after being taken off the shelf in the western world, or even before they are used in the west. The capitalists use the third world as human guinea pigs! It is also the case that some drugs, having been 'proved'
dangerous in animal tests, such as penicillin and digitalis, have had their entry onto the market delayed.
Yet, while penicillin kills guinea pigs, and digitalis (used to treat heart patients) causes raised blood pressure in dogs (!) they have saved countless lives. There are many such examples where animal tests have been proved to be misleading (see Slaughter of the Innocent by Hans Ruesch). Scientists who support vivisection use the principle of what applies to animals applies to humans. This is just not the case for every animal, including humans, reacts differently to situations. All animals have developed differently. Dogs are often used for experiments on their lungs, yet they have a totally different lung structure to humans.
Even with the lack of investment, there are already alternatives available which are more reliable than animal tests such as chromatography, chemical analysis, cell and organ culture, theoretical techniques and clinical obser-
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vations with patients suffering from an illness (rather than trying to inflict it on an animal, in which it may develop in a totally different way) and the use of computers. The Polio vaccine used today was developed without the use of animals, and even the discoverer of the original vaccine says that it is better than his!
The capitalists do not use technology for the benefit of mankind, they use it to make profit. The struggle for animal liberation must be linked to the struggle to change society-for human liberation. While a handful of capitalists control the pharmaceutical industry with profit as their only motivation
witness a similar situation to the 1984-85 miners' strike, where instead of workers calling other workers "scabs" sectarian abuse would be banded about and all of the Orange Order bands could come crawling out from the woodwork.
It is my opinion that in the event of a civil war in Northern Ireland Catholic and Protestant communities in Britain and in Ireland will be torn apart and divided down the middle.
It is very necessary, when socialists discuss the situation in Northern Ireland in the British labour movement, to see that the sectarian tensions that could spill over in the North can escalate over the water and effect workers here.
But as Peter explained, there can never be a solution to the national question on the basis of capitalism. Only by adopting the slogan "of a socialist united Ireland and a socialist federation of Britain and Ireland" will the Catholic and Protestant working class of these islands be freed from sectarianism, repression, poverty and the capitalist system itself, which has directly allowed the political nightmare in Northern Ireland to exist.
Fraternally
Jackie Walsh
Stevenage CLP
and NALGO
animal abuse in the laboratory will go on and dangerous drugs will continue to be put onto the market for human use.
The pharmaceutical industry must be nationalised by the next Labour government, so technology can be used to benefit mankind and animals. With the profit motive removed more reliable, cruelty free methods could be found-in Russia 90 per cent of all drugs are produced without the use of animals. Animals are not an essential part of research they are just another source of profit for the capitalists.
Yours fraternally,
Jeff Walker,
Newham East
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