Trotsky’s transitional method: How to win workers and youth for socialism?

Man, Controller of the Universe by Diego Rivera 

Photo: GUMR51/CC

Callum Joyce, Southern and South East Socialist Party

21/02/2024

The last two years in Britain and internationally have seen a big increase in struggle, 2024 will be no different. There has been the historic strike wave in response to the cost-of-living crisis and the huge protests against the Israeli onslaught on Gaza, with none of the issues driving these movements having been resolved.

A common feature has been people not just responding to immediate attacks on their living conditions or oppression as single issues, but more and more linking these problems together, starting to develop an understanding that capitalism is the root cause of them.

That is why an increasingly large number of young people (and many older workers as well) identify themselves as socialists, according to a recent study by the Institute of Economic Affairs. This represents part of the process of the development of what Marxists call ‘class consciousness’ – the conscious understanding that capitalist society is run on the basis of the exploitation of one class by another (the workers by the bosses) and that the organised working class will play the decisive role in the struggle for a socialist alternative.

At this stage, while many people see the problems with capitalism, a minority agree explicitly that socialism is the solution. Even for those who do, there is still a lower level of understanding around exactly what socialism means in practice and how it can be achieved.

Consciousness

Fortunately, consciousness is not fixed. It can develop very rapidly in the face of great events and struggles. The key question for socialists in this period is: how can we accelerate the processes by which the mass of workers and youth draw the necessary conclusions about the steps needed to transform society?

This same question was taken up by co-leader of the Russian Revolution Leon Trotsky and his international collaborators when they published the ‘The Transitional Programme’ in 1938 as the founding document of the Fourth International.

The text opens “The world political situation as a whole is chiefly characterised by a historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat [the working class]”, highlighting that, despite the countless mass movements and revolutionary situations that had spread across the world in the first part of the 20th century (and since), these movements had ultimately not been able to do away with capitalism due to the lack of mass, revolutionary parties with far-sighted leaderships and socialist programmes to establish a new socialist society. The one exception to this was the Russian Revolution of 1917 that brought the working class to power for the first time in history under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party and key figures within it like Lenin and Trotsky. (See ‘100 years after his death: Lenin’s revolutionary legacy’)

By the 1930s, the workers’ state in Russia had degenerated into a bureaucratic dictatorship under the leadership of Stalin. The communist third international (Comintern) acted not to push forward revolutionary movements internationally, but to preserve the narrow interests of the privileged Soviet bureaucracy.

Trotsky and his supporters drafted the transitional programme as a conscious break from the Stalinist Comintern, and in anticipation of a revolutionary wave that would follow a new world war.

The task of the Fourth International was to prepare for such events, to build new mass revolutionary parties of the working class, and overcome the fact that consciousness among most working-class people was not yet at the stage where they had drawn the conclusion that it was necessary to join and build such parties.

Transitional demands

‘The Transitional Programme’ set out a number of ‘transitional’ demands that aimed to deal with the current level of consciousness by taking up the immediate issues facing the working class at that time, while drawing a bridge from those immediate struggles to the need for the socialist transformation of society as the only way to permanently secure the interests of ordinary people.

Some of the demands included were: a sliding scale of wages that would increase automatically in line with inflation, the abolition of commercial secrecy or ‘opening the books’ to inspect the finances of companies that claimed they could not give pay rises to their workers, and the need for workers’ control of production in failing industries.

Taken individually, these demands only constituted reforms rather than being ‘revolutionary’ in themselves. Their power being that, taken as a whole, in a period of economic crisis, capitalism would be unwilling and unable to grant them all. The ensuing struggle over them would show the working class that its material needs cannot be satisfied within the bounds of capitalism. In the process of struggling for them, workers would draw conclusions about the need for the socialist reconstruction of society.

As Trotsky explained, the aim was “not to engage in abstract formulas, but to develop a concrete programme of action and demands in the sense that this transitional programme issues from the conditions of capitalist society today, but immediately leads over the limits of capitalism”.

A blueprint?

The programme outlined was not intended as a blueprint for every situation however, but was tailored specifically to the world situation in the 1930s. Not every demand raised would necessarily be relevant for us today, although those around wages that rise with inflation and for opening the books of private companies will become increasingly popular in this period of economic downturn.

But the key idea outlined in the text was the method needed to energetically take up the fight for every immediate reform in the interests of the working class, while also skilfully explaining that only a socialist society could guarantee these reforms permanently. This was not a specific innovation of Trotsky and his collaborators, but was built upon the same methods used by Lenin and other Bolsheviks in the previous period, and those raised by Marx and Engels even earlier. As far back as 1848, Marx and Engels explained in ‘The Communist Manifesto’: “The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement.”

This transitional method is just as useful for socialists today to connect with those workers who are not yet conscious of the need to change society but are forced to engage in day-to-day struggles to protect their wages and living conditions in the face of attacks by the bosses. For any serious socialist to separate themselves and their politics from these immediate issues and to only raise the ideas of ‘socialism’ and ‘revolution’ in an abstract way would be equivalent to separating themselves from the working class, and would fatally compromise any attempts to build a serious, fighting, socialist party.

The transitional method guides the Socialist Party in its orientation towards movements today. For example, throughout the strike wave, we put forward demands for coordinated strike action between unions where possible, including calling for a 24-hour general strike at one point. In battles for better pay we have raised the need for a £15-an-hour minimum wage – this demand on its own is not transitional, but it becomes so when taken with the rest of our programme calling for the need to open the books of companies that refuse to pay and for the nationalisation under democratic workers’ control of companies. In the anti-war movement we have raised the need for a ‘socialist intifada’ in Palestine, and here in Britain called for workers’ candidates to take on the warmongering Sunak and Starmer at the general election.

In each of these cases we have aimed to point out the next concrete step in the struggle while always highlighting the need for it to be part of the broader fight for socialism. This way we point out what can win the immediate demands of the movement while also increasing the political cohesion and confidence of the working class in preparation for future battles.

Connecting with workers

But how do we decide which demands are correct to put forward? How can we make sure that our programme connects with the immediate struggles of the working class and appears relevant to their situation without having to hide the socialist content of our programme?

Part of what influences our demands is the current consciousness among the working class, with all its diversity and complications. But also important is our perspective – what we think will develop politically and economically in the next period. Marxists do not have a crystal ball that we can use to predict the future, but we can analyse the trends in society and determine which issues and demands we think will become central in the future. By understanding the trajectory of current struggles we can then best position ourselves to engage with the working class when it moves into action.

A good example of this is our demand for a new mass workers’ party. This demand is not a matter of principle for us but a tactic chosen to suit the situation. In the past, when the Labour Party still maintained its working-class base (albeit with a pro-capitalist leadership), it would have been incorrect to call for a new party, as the working class already felt it had an organised political expression at that time. Members of the Militant (the Socialist Party’s predecessor) were able to fight to win support for Marxist ideas among this working-class base.

But with the shift to the right of the Labour Party during the 1980s-90s, culminating with the election of Blair and the scrapping of Clause IV, which had at least nominally committed the party to the ideas of socialism, the working class in Britain found itself without a political voice.

During the 1990s, we raised the idea that in the next period the working class would have to pose the question of the need for a new party – because the industrial and political battles to come would require this as a concrete step in taking the struggle to the next level.

The experience of Blair’s New Labour government did pose the question of working-class political representation. After a bitter pay dispute with Blair’s government through 2002-03, the Fire Brigades Union voted to disaffiliate from Labour in 2004. Months before, transport union RMT had been expelled after its decision to allow its branches to support other parties. Then RMT general secretary, Bob Crow, played an important role in the campaign for a new mass workers’ party, and helped to establish the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition with that objective in 2010.

Can we be sure that the call for a trade union-backed new mass workers’ party is correct though? Is there not a danger that if Marxists call for a new mass party that may have a reformist program initially, that this will foster illusions in reformism among the working class and hold back a layer that may be starting to look more towards revolutionary politics?

A similar debate was held between Trotsky and some of his American collaborators in the 1930s as they formulated ‘The Transitional Programme’. To the question of whether or not the call to form a new party would risk being a negative step, Trotsky replied “Are we in favour of the creation of a reformist labor party? No. Are we in favour of a policy which can give to the trade unions the possibility to put its weight upon the balance of the forces? Yes.”

Similarly today we make clear that we do not call for the formation of a new reformist party, but for an independent working-class party that would allow workers in Britain to have a significant impact on events – not as a distraction from trade union and other forms of struggle, but as a complement to them.

A new party that was genuinely democratic could act almost as a ‘parliament’ of the working class, allowing the most conscious and combative layers to debate the tactics and ideas needed to go forwards – in such an arena, the Socialist Party would be able to effectively put forward our programme and reach a wider layer of workers. Whether this new party had a reformist or a revolutionary programme would not be fixed from its inception but would be decided in the course of struggle and under the pressure of events.

The question of the need for a new party will be posed by the working class – as has been seen especially during the current anti-war movement – regardless of whether or not we raise it. Therefore, to attempt to oppose such a demand or to refuse to engage with it would mean trying to hold back the working class just as it begins to take steps in the direction of a political struggle for power.

Many young people and workers can be convinced quickly of the need for revolutionary politics and to join our revolutionary party, we fight hard to build the forces of the Socialist Party. But as a transitional demand, addressing the majority of working-class people and youth, we put forward concrete steps forward to increase the level of organisation and combativeness of the working class – including the need for a new mass workers’ party.

Relevance

The relevance and correctness of these demands and our method will be sharply tested in the next period as capitalism lurches from one crisis to the next with no way out of the blind alley into which it is taking society.

For socialists who seek to build upon the legacy of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky, our key task is to fight for the leadership of future mass struggles of the working class and to build a party that is capable of pointing the way forward to transform society.

The original ‘Transitional Programme’ was formulated in an extremely difficult time for the ideas of socialism against a backdrop of world war, economic catastrophe, and numerous defeats for the international workers’ movement. But the genuine Marxists at that time were confident that, armed with the right ideas and approach, they would be able to build the forces necessary to end the rotten system of capitalism.

That same task is posed just as sharply today and the transitional method is a crucial tool to be studied and taken up by all those who want to fight back against the war, poverty and oppression meted out by capitalism. 

What the Socialist Party (FORMERLY THE MILITANT FACTION)  stands for

Capitalism is an ailing, crisis-ridden system based on the exploitation of the majority of the world’s population by a small, super-rich elite who own most of the wealth and the means of producing it. This way of organising society, in which the pursuit of profit comes before everything else, causes poverty, inequality, environmental destruction, wars and oppression across the globe. The Socialist Party organises working-class people to fight against the attacks from this rotten system on our lives and livelihoods, and for a socialist alternative: a society which takes the wealth out of the hands of the super-rich and is democratically run by working-class people to meet the needs of all not the profits of a few. Building fighting democratic trade unions in the workplaces and a new mass workers’ party is a vital part of the struggle to change society along socialist lines. Because capitalism is a world system, the struggle for socialism must also be international. The Socialist Party is part of the Committee for a Workers’ International which organises across the world. Our demands include:

Work, pensions and benefits:

• A £15 an hour minimum wage for all, without exemptions. For the minimum wage to automatically increase linked to average earnings or inflation, whichever is higher.
• Share out the work. A maximum 32-hour working week with no loss of pay or worsening of conditions. The right to flexible working, under the control of workers not employers. An end to insecure working, for the right to full-time work for all who want it; ban zero-hour contracts.
• All workers to have trade union rates of pay, employment protection, and sickness, parental and holiday rights from day one of employment. End bosses using bogus ‘self-employment’ as a means to avoid giving workers rights.
• No to austerity through inflation. For all wage rates to be automatically increased at least in line with price rises.
• Open the books of all companies cutting jobs or claiming they can’t afford to pay a real living wage. State subsidies, where genuinely needed, for socially-useful small businesses.
• For trade unions independent of the capitalist state, with members having democratic control over their own policies, constitutions and democratic procedures. For all trade union officials to be regularly elected, subject to recall by their members and paid a worker’s wage.
• Reduce the state retirement and pension age to 55. For decent living pensions.
• Replace universal credit and the punitive benefit system with living benefits for all who need them.

Public services:

• A massive expansion of public services including the NHS and council services. Reverse all the cuts, kick out the privateers. Bring private social care and childcare facilities into public ownership under democratic control, in order to provide free, high-quality services for all who need them. Expand services for all women suffering violence.
• For local councillors who are committed to opposing austerity and all cuts to local services, jobs, pay and conditions.
• For a socialist NHS to provide for everyone’s health needs, including dental and eye care – free at the point of use and under democratic control. Kick out the private companies! Nationalise the pharmaceutical industry under democratic workers’ control and management.
• Renationalise privatised utilities – including rail, mail, water, telecoms and power – under democratic workers’ control and management.
• Free, publicly funded and democratically run, good-quality education, available to all at any age. Abolish university tuition fees and write off student debt, end marketisation, and introduce a living grant. No to academisation. For all schools to be under the genuine democratic control of local education authorities, school staff, parents and student organisations.
• The right to a safe secure home for all. For the mass building of genuinely affordable, high-quality, carbon-neutral council housing. For rent controls that cap the level of rent. Fair rent decisions should be made by elected bodies of tenants, housing workers and representatives of trade unions. For cheap low-interest mortgages for home buyers. Nationalise the privately owned large building companies, land banks and estates.

Environment:

• Prioritising major research and investment into replacing fossil fuels and nuclear power with renewable energy and ending the problems of early obsolescence – where products are designed to ‘wear out’ and be replaced – and unrecycled waste.
• Nationalisation of the energy companies, under democratic workers’ control and management, with compensation paid only on the basis of proven need, in order to carry out a major switch to clean, green energy, without any loss of jobs, pay or conditions.
• A democratically planned, massively expanded, free to use, publicly owned transport system, as part of an overall plan against environmental pollution.
• For a major, publicly funded, insulation and energy transition plan for existing housing stock.
• Agribusiness to be taken into democratic public ownership. For a food processing and retail industry under workers’ control to ensure that standards are set by consumers, small farmers; and all workers involved in the production, processing, distribution and retail of food.

Democratic rights:

• For united working-class struggle to end discrimination on the grounds of race, gender, disability, sexuality, age, and all other forms of prejudice and oppression.
• Repeal the anti-trade union laws and all others that trample over civil liberties. For the right to protest and to strike! End police harassment. For the police to be accountable to local committees, made up of democratically elected representatives of trade unions, local community organisations and local authorities.
• For the right to choose when and whether to have children – for the right to access abortion, contraception and fertility treatment for all who need it.
• For the right to asylum – with democratic community control and oversight of emergency funding resources. No to racist immigration laws.
• Expand democracy. For the abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords. For all MPs to be subject to the right of recall by their constituents at any time, and to only receive a worker’s wage. For proportional representation and the right to vote at 16.
• For the right of nations to self-determination. For an independent socialist Scotland and for a socialist Wales, both part of a voluntary socialist confederation of Wales, England, Scotland and Ireland.
• Oppose the dictatorship of the billionaire owners of the media. For the nationalisation of newspaper printing facilities, radio, TV and social media platforms. Access to these facilities should be under democratic control, with political parties’ coverage being allocated in proportion to the popular vote at elections.
• For a new mass workers’ party, based on the trade unions, and drawing together workers, young people and activists from workplaces, and community, environmental, anti-racist and anti-cuts campaigns, to provide a fighting, socialist political alternative to the pro-big business parties.

Socialism and internationalism:

• No to imperialist wars and occupations!
• Take the wealth off the super-rich! For a socialist government to take into public ownership the top 150 companies and the banking system that dominate the British economy, and run them under democratic working-class control and management. Compensation to be paid only on the basis of proven need, not to the fat cats.
• A democratic socialist plan of production based on the interests of the overwhelming majority of people, and in a way that safeguards the environment.
• No to the EU bosses’ club. Organise a campaign with European socialists and workers’ organisations to use the talks on post-Brexit relations to tear up the EU pro-capitalist rules. For a real collaboration of the peoples of Europe on a socialist basis as a step towards a socialist world.

At the Socialist Party’s conference in 2022, these demands were discussed, debated, amended and agreed alongside the text of a pamphlet going into greater detail than these demands and showing how we can fight for socialism and win. This pamphlet continues in the following sections. What We Stand For part two – System in crisis

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A tribute to Vivian

Vivian Silver was born in Winnipeg, Canada in 1949, and immigrated to Israel in 1974. For dozens of years, she was a social activist involved in projects promoting women’s rights

and advocating for peace.

Submitted by cathy n on 17 January, 2024 - 4:15 Author: Samah Salaime

Vivian Silver (1949-2023) was an Israeli peace activist and women’s rights activist. She spent much of her life campaigning for Palestinian freedom and an end to the occupation. She was killed during the Be’ere massacre by Hamas on October 7 2023. This tribute was first published on 14 November.

Samah Salaime is a Palestinian feminist and writer.

The last time I saw Vivian was in Washington, D.C., at an ad-hoc meeting of Palestinian and Israeli activists on the fringes of a conference. We met for a brainstorming session on the difficult question of how to revive our camp — the liberal-left-democratic camp, comprising both Jews and Palestinians — following the catastrophic Israeli election of November 2022 that brought to power the most far-right government in the country’s history. We laughed, jested, and joked, making fun of our situation, but there was great sadness in that room when Vivian said: “I’m too old to establish and build another political body; I have to join what already exists.

“What’s nice about being an old and sarcastic retiree is that I can say aloud what I think, and I have nothing to lose,” she continued. “Our camp has lost quite a few times; we’ve taken many hits on the jaw. And I’ve been through plenty in my own life as well. I’ve learned a lot, the hard way, about Arab-Jewish partnership, and I know that when it succeeds, it succeeds because every side understands that the justice it seeks depends heavily on the justice of the other side. Closing the gap comes from collaborative work, and not from struggling against one another.”

Nothing prepared me for yesterday’s bitter news of Vivian’s tragic end. I felt deep despair, like a bottomless sink-hole had opened under the foundations of humanity, where thousands are already buried – men, women, children, innocent Palestinians and Israelis. People who had wished for peace, and did not live to see that wish fulfilled.

Already 39 days have passed since that terrible Saturday, October 7. I have read the messages that Vivian and her son sent one another while she was hiding in a closet from the Palestinian militants who raided Kibbutz Be’eri. It was as though I could feel her heart beating, louder than the tramps of the murderers in her living room.

I tried, a thousand times, to imagine her being taken in their cars into Gaza. “What did she feel during those moments?” I wondered. I thought she might have looked with compassionate tears in her eyes at the dozens of ragged Palestinian children standing on the Gaza roadsides, and she might have prayed for them in her heart. Vivian knew what their lives looked like under Israel’s siege, and she would have known what was about to befall them when the Israeli army began its unprecedented assault on the Strip.

“Did you hear those bombs falling where you were?” I thought to myself. Those bombs you hated, because you knew, better than anyone, that they would not bring any sort of solution or security to any of us.

I had convinced myself you were someplace safe, trying to communicate in mangled Arabic with those around you, and trying to explain who you were and what you stood for: a born activist with no reservations. I imagined you comforting the children taken hostage with you, keeping them busy and calming the other women held underground while the earth shook from Israeli airstrikes. The images I had in my mind and the headline I kept imagining — “Peace Activist Released” — will never reach the media. Instead, last night we read: “Body of Peace Activist from Be’eri Identified.”

Until that moment, I did not believe for a minute that you were no longer with us. I was sure you would survive this evil, and would live to tell us about it, even entertain us with stories of the jalabiya you were given to wear — one made for a woman much larger than your tiny frame. Vivian, my dear, we will never have this moment.

An "iron sword" can only kill

Vivian Silver was born in Winnipeg, Canada in 1949, and immigrated to Israel in 1974. For dozens of years, she was a social activist involved in projects promoting women’s rights and advocating for peace. As the co-director of the Arab-Jewish Center for Empowerment, Equality, and Cooperation – Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Economic Development (AJEEC-NISPED), she worked to improve the lives of the Bedouin community in the Naqab/Negev, helping to advance a shared society. She was active in the organization Women Wage Peace, a board member of the human rights group B’Tselem, and a volunteer with The Road to Recovery, which helps transport cancer patients from Gaza to Israeli hospitals.

One of the things she used to say often, which I think sums up her life’s philosophy, is: “If the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail.” I told her once: “You know the Palestinian people are not a piece of wood, not even a piece of metal. We are made of hard rock, so it will be difficult for a hammer in the hands of an idiot to crush us.”

Vivian believed in the power of women, and the power of compassion and love — in the completely naïve, simple meaning of these words. She knew, like many of us Palestinians and Israeli peace activists, that the army cannot bring peace, and that an “Iron Sword” — the name the Israeli army has given to its “operation” in Gaza — can only kill. The hammer crushes everything in its path. Even those of us, Palestinians and Israelis, who survive this war will emerge from it crushed by grief.

We’ll erect a mourning tent out of misery and regret over the mountain of victims and the destruction that remains. And no “Al Aqsa Flood” — as Hamas named its own October 7 “operation” — will return the thousands of children who lost their lives in Gaza and the south; no flag of victory will fly over Gaza’s shores as they are pounded by the bloody waves of Israel’s assault.

There above, Vivian, I know you are meeting your friends — among them Eiman, Tofaha, and Maha, Palestinian partners in activism from Gaza. You will be greeted by thousands of other victims, including women who never stopped waging peace, and Palestinians who were murdered by the Israeli military and buried under the rubble while still holding their children as we prayed for their safety.

We are grateful to Samah Salaime for giving us permission to republish her tribute in Women’s Fightback.

Still a very capitalist condition

Roddy Slorach, author of A Very Capitalist Condition—history and politics of disability, spoke to Dáire Cumiskey about why the new edition of his book remains as crucial

The cover of A Very Capitalist Condition—history and politics of disability by Roddy Slorach

Tuesday 20 February 2024
SOCIALIST WORKER Issue 2893

SW: In your book’s new introduction, you identify some of the challenges to disabled people in the eight years since your book was first published. How has the Covid-19 pandemic impacted on people?

RS: For the vast majority, the pandemic was very damaging for their mental health because humans are social animals.

It intensified the usual pressures of domestic life for people without the social support that lots of us had taken for granted. Disabled people were some of the most vulnerable to the virus.

In Britain figures show that two million people still have long Covid. This highlights that the impact of the pandemic still colours the situation today

Many people came out of the pandemic experiencing mental health difficulties that they hadn’t experienced before. Lots more people came out of it with their resilience worn down both physically and mentally.

One of the themes that I repeatedly go back to is that our society doesn’t just generate disability. In other words discrimination against people with impairments actually generates more impairments all the time.

Capitalism is more naked than ever and the idea of the welfare state is under attack, and neoliberalism generates ever-increasing misery for the working class.

SW: Climate chaos and war is another section of the new introduction. Could you explain the term eco-anxiety?

RS: We live in a world where the younger generation has been deprived of hope for a sustainable future. All around us we see climate disasters, wars and the prospect of more pandemics. No wonder people have anxiety.

SW: Britain saw the highest level of strikes in 30 years in 2022-3. How did disabled rights activists and campaigns fit into that wider working class movement?

RS: One in seven people in the workforce across Britain are now disabled. They are a great base of potential resistance.

I’ve seen a shift in my union, the UCU, with many more disabled people involved in leading big strikes in universities.

The ruling class is engaging in wide-ranging attacks on everyone from disabled people to migrants. Strikes that take up broader issues like racism and other forms of discrimination can be an antidote to that.

SW: The Tories have got rid of the disability minister. Is that reflective of their disregard for people with disabilities and their rights?

RS: That decision tells you all you need to know about the Tories’ attitude to disability.

A revealing submission to the UN by disabled people’s organisations in August 2023 found Britain to have “one of the lowest benefit rates relative to earnings”, and benefits in Britain are over ten percent lower than in 2010.”

SW: What about the Labour Party? Would a Starmer government be any different for people with disabilities?

RS: We know a Starmer Labour government has no plans to reverse all the cuts.

We have to look to the movement on the streets, the movement for Palestine, and the organised labour movement, which needs to make Britain ungovernable.

The movement for disabled rights needs to keep mounting the pressure on whoever forms the next government to make reforms that actually help people.

We who wish to save humanity from barbarism must do all we can to fan these flames of resistance and fight for a vision of a different world based on interdependence and solidarity.

Buy the book for £12.99 from bookmarksbookshop.co.uk

Workers produce wealth, and the rich then steal it

A woman worker in a wartime factory, 1914

The first in a series of columns that discuss What We Stand For, the Socialist Workers Party statement of principles, printed every week in Socialist Worker

What We Stand For

By Simon Basketter
Tuesday 20 February 2024

SOCIALST WORKER Issue 2893

Ray Charles sang, “Them that’s got are them that gets” and so they do.

So 148 of the world’s biggest corporations grabbed £1.5 trillion in net profits in the year to June 2023, a 52 percent jump from the year before. For every £100 of that profit, rich shareholders trousered £82. And as Charles pointed out, “If you gotta have something, before you can get something. How do you get your first is still a mystery to me.”

People are told that hard work and a good job means you can earn your way to prosperity. The truth is the most important factor to becoming wealthy is inheriting loot.

The other myth is that you can be a “wealth creator” like the vampires on Dragons’ Den sitting in large chairs next to piles of cash. But where does wealth come from? Wealth under capitalism appears as a collection of stuff — commodities.

These commodities are goods produced specifically for exchange in a market. This process is a relationship between people, not a relationship of things.

The ruling class controls what the revolutionary Karl Marx called the “means of production”—factories, offices and so on. Often they own them privately. Sometimes nation-states own them. The majority can only make a living if they work for someone else in return for a wage or salary. They produce the goods and services society needs— in workplaces they neither own nor control.

As the US socialist Eugene Debs described, “The capitalists own the tools they do not use, and the workers use the tools they do not own. The capitalists, who own the tools that the working class use, appropriate to themselves what the working class produce, and this accounts for the fact that a few capitalists become fabulously rich while the toiling millions remain in poverty, ignorance and dependence.”

So workers are actually key “wealth creators”. And as every slave knew, being a “wealth creator” doesn’t make you wealthy. The goods and services that workers produce belong not to them but to their bosses.

In the very process of producing things, the working class also reproduces the wealth of the capitalists. The worker only gets enough value to allow them to come back to work. An extra portion of value beyond the wage—Marx calls it “surplus value”— is taken by capitalists.

That’s what exploitation means. Workers produce vast surpluses, which end up in the hands of those who rule over them. The more they work, the richer and more powerful their exploiters become. There are layers of society to enable the robbery—from managers to cops.

Factory owners, heads of multinationals, and big farmers don’t exploit workers just because they are “bad people”. They do it because they are capitalists.

Firms regularly change owners. Bosses and managers are frequently fired and replaced. Yet the way they operate doesn’t change. What drives them is a systemic drive to produce wealth. “Accumulate, accumulate — that is Moses and the prophets,” as Marx described it.

Each capitalist does this. But every other capitalist is doing the same thing. While they might join together against workers, they are always competing with one another.

The system as a whole is driven by these two forces — the need to accumulate and the competition between capitalists. That creates instability. What is a constant is that those who own and control the wealth always want to make more profit.

New technology—looms or computers—can speed up production, and give one capitalist a temporary advantage over another. But what really makes the difference is the amount of work that can be squeezed out of each worker over and above what that worker has to be given to survive.

This means pushing workers to do longer hours and harder shifts while keeping down pay. The system is built on the labour of the working class. But the way it exploits that labour makes class conflict inevitable.

This is the first in a series of columns that discuss What We Stand For, the Socialist Workers Party statement of principles, printed every week in Socialist Worker (see page 12). Use the hashtag #WhereWeStand2024

Are the left and the Palestine movement awash with antisemitism?

We must not back off in the face of slurs and lies

Antisemitism? Marching for Palestine in January (Picture: Guy Smallman)

By Isabel Ringrose
Sunday 18 February 2024

SOCIALIST WORKER Issue 2892

Is the left, and even Keir Starmer’s Labour, saturated with antisemitism? That is certainly what you would think from a glance at the media.

Labour’s decision to dump its Rochdale by-election candidate Azhar Ali led to a renewed rush of allegations of antisemitism.

Azhar Ali’s claim that “people in the media from certain Jewish quarters” were behind Labour MP Andy McDonald’s suspension was wrong. It plays up the notion that “Jews control the media”.

In fact, between October 2022 and September 2023, of the 534 meetings between the press and the government, 218 involved the empire ruled over by Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch personally met with government representatives 12 times, and the prime minister six times—in a year.

This is an example of where the real media power lies.

But facts are noticeably absent from much of the furore about antisemitism.

The right and those who opposed Jeremy Corbyn have hammered home one basic lie for years.

It is that Israel equals all Jews. So if you criticise Israel, then you are antisemitic. And because the left is more likely to be pro-Palestinian and against what Israel does, then to be left wing is also antisemitic.

Last week there was a revealing intervention from former shadow chancellor Ed Balls after Graham Jones, candidate for the Hyndburn constituency was recorded saying “fucking Israel” at a meeting.

Balls said of Jones, “I know him well. He was an MP–he is not a Corbynite, not hard left. Absolutely not anti-Israel. I don’t think he was intending to send those kind of antisemitic messages at all.”

He’s not a lefty, so he can’t be antisemitic. If he had indeed been a supporter of Corbyn then he should have been thrown to the wolves.

Starmer adopted a version of this “criticising Israel equals antisemitism” slur, and now it has returned to savage him.

The Telegraph newspaper last week said Starmer is under pressure to investigate five MPs and candidates who “have been involved in controversies over Israel”.

These so-called controversies include shadow cabinet minister Thangam Debbonaire saying in 2015 that selling arms to Israel was a “grave concern”.

Shadow justice secretary Shabana Mahmood is under attack for urging people to “boycott Israeli goods” in 2014.

These basic shows of solidarity with Palestine are not antisemitic. It might be tempting to say just that Starmer is now reaping the bitter harvest that he has sown.

But the spread of these antisemitism allegations has to be opposed everywhere.

Backers of Israel, including the Labour right, have a long history of deliberately conflating antisemitism with anti-Zionism to tarnish support for Palestine.

Corbyn sent shivers down the spines of Zionists. Members of his own party tried to sabotage him by proving that Labour was “institutionally antisemitic”.

In 2016 the media feasted on news that Oxford University’s Labour Club chair had resigned in protest at the club’s support for Israel Apartheid Week.

The right as a counter to the growth of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement—and fury at Israel—accused Corbyn of encouraging antisemitism.

Former London mayor Ken Livingstone’s blundering and inaccurate—but not antisemitic—claim that “Hitler was supporting Zionism’’ was also seized upon.

Of course, the media that took up these issues have no problem in playing down the tidal wave of Islamophobia at the top of British society.

They ignore the antisemitism that infects the right and the far right.

Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, is a good friend of the Tories—and of Binyamin Netanyahu. He is also a vile antisemite who targets Jewish financier George Soros as the shady power behind the global bankers.

One Orban speech had the classically antisemitic passage, “We are fighting an enemy that is different from us. Not open, but hiding. Not straightforward but crafty, not honest but base, not national but international, does not believe in working but speculates with money, does not have its own homeland but feels it owns the whole world.”

The British media also slated former Labour leader Ed Miliband’s father as a “man who hated Britain” for being a Jewish Marxist—and poked fun at Ed Miliband for eating a bacon sandwich.

The right raked up evidence to “prove” Corbyn was an antisemite—such as being part of a Facebook group where some members shared conspiracy theories, or attending a Seder feast with the left-wing Jewdas.

In an inversion of reality, the anti-racists were fingered as racist. The people who had compromised with racist views saw a chance to smear their opponents.

Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who called Corbyn “a fucking antisemite and a racist”, conveniently forgot she backed the Nazi BNP’s policy in 2006 to prioritise “indigenous” people on council house waiting lists.

Pressure, from the Labour right, including from Starmer, mounted on Corbyn to accept the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism and all its examples.

Producing and popularising such a definition seems entirely uncontroversial. But the process was used to target supporters of Palestinian rights.

In July 2018 Labour adopted the IHRA’s definition but without the examples that would silence criticism of Israel.

This included banning people from “claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavour”.

Corbyn’s allies, including trade union leaders, said accepting the full IHRA would make the problem go away—even at the expense of standing up for Palestine.

By September 2018 Labour accepted the full IHRA definition, meaning it was antisemitic to call Israel “a racist endeavour”, and talk about Israel’s ethnic cleansing or a one-state solution.

But it only opened the door to more attacks on solidarity with Palestine.

The IHRA definition has been weaponised by the Tories and right at an institutional level in councils, trade unions and universities to silence support for Palestine.

It’s wholly positive that recently workers have felt more able to speak out against it and for free speech on Palestine as they campaign against the Israeli assault on Gaza.

The great movement in support of Palestine since October has again terrified Zionists. And that’s why the media is again pushing false antisemitism claims.

They not only distract from the Tory crisis, they also seek to shatter support for Palestine, particularly from Muslims.

The right wing Guido Fawkes website posted last week, “The thing that nobody says yet we all know, is that the Labour Party have chosen to seek unsophisticated Muslim community support for numerical reasons at the expense of sophisticated Jewish support.”

The post managed to be both Islamophobic (“unsophisticated Muslims”) and antisemitic (the “sophisticated Jew” is the sort of thing Orban might say).

It was taken down because of the antisemitic element.

Home secretary Suella Braverman tried to say waving a Palestine flag or chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” was antisemitic.

But the Palestine movement did not concede to such outrageous claims. Instead, hundreds of thousands have continued to flood the streets with their flags and their chants. Braverman’s gone, and we’re still fighting.

Such defiance is the exact opposite of what Corbyn did. He capitulated to the attacks and that just led to more assaults.

Antisemitism has to be combated—and there are occasions when people on the left also swallow the lie that Israel equals all Jews.

It’s antisemitic to say that all Jews are to blame for the horrors that Israel is carrying out in Gaza.

And it weakens our movement to select the wrong target.

The enemy is Israel and its imperialist allies, not Jews.

That’s why we need to build a mass movement against Israel and its murderous backers in Downing Street and the White House.

We have to proudly proclaim that many Jews also stand against Israel—and are deeply anti-Zionist.

Look at the Jewish contingents on the London marches or the big Jewish mobilisations in the United States in support of Palestine. There are Jews who are anti-Israel, and non-Jews who are Zionists, such as the US evangelical right.

Zionism isn’t about religion. Israel, founded on and justified in its own terms by Zionism, is the key outpost for the US in the Middle East.

As the US’s watchdog, defending Israel is about defending imperialism and the West’s interests in the region.

These imperialists did not back Israel because they were in favour of Jewish rights. They were seeking their own interests.

Claiming that anti-Zionism is antisemitism also wipes out the views of Palestinians who cannot object to their expulsion and oppression without being accused of antisemitism.

They are stripped of their rights to oppose the racism that is integral to Zionism.

And they are also cut off from a place in the wider battles against colonialism and imperialism.

The right’s attacks are, and always have been, part of a wider assault on anti-imperialism, as well as on Muslims.

Confidently combating the lies about antisemitism now is crucial to strengthening the movement for Palestine.

Read moreAntisemitism—the far right, Zionism and the left, by Rob Ferguson, £3 Go here

The challenge of antisemitism by Anna Gluckstein, go to tinyurl.com/ISJ1023

Israeli settler colonialism is at an end, a lecture by Ilan Pappe go to tinyurl.com/PappeIHRC

YOU ARE A WAGE SLAVE

worldsocialism.org/spgb – Part of the World Socialist Movement

The Passing of Lenin. (1924)

From the March 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the significant facts brought into prominence by the great war was the intellectual bankruptcy of the ruling class of the Western World.

A gigantic field of operations and colossal wealth at their disposal, failed to bring out a single personality above the mediocre, from England and Germany down the list to America and Roumania.

The only character that stood, and stands, above the Capitalist mediocrities, was the man lately buried in Moscow – Nikolai Lenin.

The senseless shrieks of the Capitalist henchman against Lenin was itself evidence of their recognition of their own inferiority. All the wild and confused tales that were told by the agents of the master class (from Winston Churchill to Mrs. Snowden) to suggest that Lenin was “the greatest monster of iniquity the world has ever seen,” largely defeated their object, to every person capable of thinking clearly, by their sheer stupidity and extravagance.

One result of this tornado of lies was to cause a corresponding reaction on the other side. The various groups of woolly headed Communists, inside and outside of Russia, began to hail Lenin a new “Messiah” who was going to show the working class a new quick road to salvation. Thus does senseless abuse beget equally senseless hero-worship.

From sheer exhaustion the two-fold campaign has died down in the last year or two, even the “stunt” press only giving small space to Lenin and Russia.

Lenin’s sudden death, despite his long illness, has brought forward a flood of articles and reviews entirely different in tone from those that greeted his rise to power.

The shining light of modern Conservatism – Mr. J. L. Garvin – does not know whether Lenin was famous or infamous, whether he was a great man or a great scoundrel, so, wisely, leaves the verdict to posterity to settle.

A Fabian pet, Mr. G. D. H. Cole, in the New Statesman, for the 2nd February, makes the claim that Lenin’s great work was the “invention of the Soviet”! It is difficult to understand how the editor of a journal, supposed to be written for “educated” people, should have allowed such a piece of stupid ignorance to have passed his scrutiny. The word “Soviet” – that seems to have mesmerised some people – simply means “Council.” Every student of Russia knows that the “Council” has been an organic part of the Russian Constitution since the middle of the 16th century. But there may be another explanation of Mr. Cole’s attitude. As one of the leaders of that hopeless crusade to turn back the hands of the clock (known as “The Guild System”) he sees around him the ruins and the rubbish of the various experiments in this system and maybe he hopes by claiming Russia as an example of “Guildism” to arouse some new enthusiasm for further useless experiments. His hopes are built on shifting sands.

Michael Farbman, in the Observer, Jan. 27th, 1924, takes a more daring and dangerous line. He claims to understand Marx and Marxism, and yet makes such statements as:-

  “When Lenin inaugurated the Dictatorship of the Proletariat he obviously was unhampered by the slightest hesitation or doubt as to the efficacy of Marxian principles. But the longer he tested them as a practical revolutionist and statesman the more he became aware of the impossibility of building up a society on an automatic and exclusively economic basis. When he had to adopt an agrarian policy totally at variance with his Marxian opinions, and when later he was compelled to make an appeal to the peasants’ acquisitive instincts and go back to what he styled ‘State Capitalism,’ he was not only conscious that something was wrong with his Marxian gospel, but frankly admitted that Marx had not foreseen all the realities of a complex situation. It is probably no exaggeration to say that the greatest value of the Russian Revolution to the world Labour movement lies in the fact that it has replaced Marxism by Leninism.”

The above quotation has been given at length because it not only epitomises Mr. Farbman’s attitude but also that of many so-called “Socialists.”

It will, therefore, be a matter of astonishment to the reader unacquainted with Marx’s writings and theories to learn that almost every sentence in that paragraph either begs the question or is directly false.

In the first sentence we have two assertions, One that Lenin established the “ Dictatorship of the Proletariat,” the other that this is a “Marxian principle.” Both statements are deliberately false.

Lenin never established any “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” – whatever that may mean – but only the Dictatorship of the Communist Party which exists today. In the whole of Marx’s writing that he himself saw through the press the phrase Dictatorship of the Proletariat does not occur once! This, of course, Mr. Farbman knows well. The next sentence contains a phrase that Mr. Farbman may know the meaning of, but which is idiotic nonsense from a Marxian standpoint. To talk of a Society “on an automatic and exclusively economic basis” is utterly in opposition to all Marxian teachings.

If Lenin ever made the statement attributed to him in the sentence that follows – “that Marx had not foreseen all the realities of a complex situation” – which is at least doubtful as no reference is given, that would only show Lenin’s misreading of Marx.

But the last sentence is a gem. Not only has the Russian revolution not displaced Marxism by Leninism (for as showed above Marxism never existed there) – it has displaced Leninism by Capitalism.

To understand Lenin’s position, both actually and historically, it is necessary to examine the conditions under which he came to the front. Early in 1917 it was clear to all observers that the corruption, treachery and double-dealing of the Czar and his nobles had brought about the collapse of the Army. (See M, Phillips Price The Soviet, the Terror and Intervention, p. 15; John Reed, Ten Days that Shook the World, etc,).

This was the most important factor in the whole Russian upheaval, and is the pivot upon which all the rest turns.

The Romanoffs and their crew had fallen from power when an efficient armed force was no longer at their disposal. Kerensky, who replaced them, tried to keep the war going without men or munitions. Lenin obtained permission to leave Switzerland for Russia and tried to stir up a revolt in March, 1917, but this failed, and he had to fly to Finland. Confusion grew, and finally it was decided to take steps to call a Constituent Assembly to draw up a new Constitution for Russia. The Bolsheviks hailed this move and loudly protested against the dilatoriness of Kerensky, who was afraid of losing office. At the same time the various Councils of peasants, workers and soldiers began to send representatives to Petrograd for an All-Russian Congress. At once a struggle began between the Kerensky section – or Mensheviks – and the Lenin section – or Bolsheviks – to obtain the majority of representation in this Assembly. For days the struggle continued and almost to the last moment the issue was in doubt, but the superior slogan of the Bolsheviks – “Peace, Bread, Land” – finally won a majority over to their side.

A day or two before this Lenin had come out of his hiding place and placed himself at the head of the Bolsheviks.

The first thing Lenin did when in office was to keep his promise. He issued a call for peace to all the belligerents on the basis of’ “no annexations, no indemnities.” This astonished the politicians of the Western Nations to whom election promises are standing jokes.

It was at this point that Lenin made his greatest miscalculation. He believed that the working masses of the western world were so war weary that upon the call from one of the combatants they would rise and force their various Governments to negotiate peace. Unfortunately these masses had neither the knowledge nor the organisation necessary for such a movement, and no response was given to the call, except the snarling demands of the Allies that Russia should continue to send men to be slaughtered. This lack of response was a terrible disappointment to Lenin, but, facing the situation, he opened negotiations for a separate peace with Germany. And here he made a brilliant stroke. To the horror and dismay of all the diplomatic circles in Europe he declared that the negotiations would be carried on in public, and they were. Thus exposing the stupid superstition still so beloved of Communists here, that it is impossible to conduct important negotiations in public.

Of course the conditions demanded by the Germans were hard. Again and again Lenin’s followers demanded that war should be re-opened rather than accept these conditions. Radek reports a conversation (Russian Information and Review, January 26th, 1924):-

  “The mujik must   the war. ‘But don’t you see that the mujik voted against the war,’ Lenin answered. ‘Excuse me, when and how did he vote against it?’ ‘He voted with his feet; he is running away from the front.’”

Large tracts of territory were detached from the Bolshevik control, and the greatest blow was the separation of the Ukraine, whose splendid fertile soil would have been of immense value for the purpose of providing food.

Still the problems to be handled were enormous. The delegates to the Constituent Assembly had gathered in Petrograd, but Lenin, who shouted so loudly for this Assembly when out of office, was not running the risk of being deposed now he was in office. He had the gathering dispersed, and refused to let the Assembly meet. Sporadic outbreaks among the peasantry were a source of continual trouble, particularly as the Bolsheviks had only a poor force at their disposal. The signing of the Armistice however solved this problem. The Communists are fond of claiming that Trotsky organised the “Red Army.” This claim is absurd, for Trotsky knew nothing of military matters. The upheaval in Germany, after the signing of the Armistice, threw hundreds of German officers out of work and Lenin gladly engaged their services, at high salaries, to organise the army. By the offer of better food rations, better clothing and warmer quarters plenty of men offered themselves for enlistment. The main difficulty however was not men but munitions.

Lenin and his supporters expected that the victorious Allies would turn their combined forces on Russia. But the Allies were so engrossed in trickery, double-dealing and swindling each other over the sharing of the plunder that they largely ignored Russia. Still to show their good will and kind intentions they subsidised a set of thieving scoundrels – Koltchak (assisted by that British hero “Colonel” John Ward), Deniken, Wrangel, Yudenitch, etc., to invade Russia for the purpose of taking it out of the control of the Russians.

It was a most hopeful undertaking, this sending in of marauding bands! The peasant, who had just got rid of his age-long enemy the landlord (sometimes rather summarily) was expected to assist in restoring that gentleman. To help them in reaching a decision, these marauding bands, with strict impartiality, plundered friend and foe alike. The only result of these various raids was to unify the mass of the people in Russia in accepting the Bolshevik rule. Slowly the Russians began to gather arms. Their army was already in good order, and although the enormous distances and lack of transport prevented them reaching many places, yet whenever the Red Army met the looting bands mentioned above the latter were defeated, with monotonous regularity.

Of course compared with the battles on the western front these engagements were mere hand skirmishes, as neither side had any heavy artillery, high-velocity shells, poison gas, nor bombing aeroplanes.

A greater enemy to Leninism than any of these gangs, however, and one which had been exerting its influence for some time, now greatly increased its pressure, this was the individualistic conditions of the peasant, combined with the wants of the townsmen. Various decrees had been passed forbidding private trading in the towns and villages (apart from special licences) but the Bolsheviks had never dared to enforce these decrees in face of the food shortage. The result of this increased pressure was the famous “New Economic Policy,” that caused such consternation in the ranks of the Communist parties. In this country Miss Sylvia Pankhurst nearly died of disgust when the news arrived.

But once more Lenin was right. He recognised the seriousness of the conditions and tried to frame a policy to fit them. His own words describe the situation with great clearness:-

  “Yet, in 1921, after having emerged victoriously from the most important stages of the Civil War, Soviet Russia came face to face with a great – I believe, the greatest – internal political crisis which caused dissatisfaction, not only of the huge masses of the peasantry, but also of large numbers of workers.
  “It was the first, and I hope the last, time in the history of Soviet Russia that we had the great masses of the peasantry arrayed against us, not consciously, but instinctively, as a sort of political mood.
  “What was the cause of this unique, and, for us, naturally disagreeable, situation? It was caused by the fact that we had gone too far with our economic measures, that the masses were already sensing what we had not properly formulated, although we had to acknowledge a few weeks afterwards, namely, that the direct transition to pure Socialist economy, to pure Socialistic distribution of wealth, was far beyond our resources, and that if we could not make a successful and timely retreat, if we could not confine ourselves to easier tasks, we would go under.” (Address to the Fourth Congress of the Communist International.) (Italics ours.)

The most significant phrase in the above statement – the one we have underlined – now admits at last that Marx was right, and that the whole of the Communist “Theories and Theses” are rubbish from top to bottom.

Mr. Brailsford, the £1,000 a year, editor of The New Leader, in the issue for January 25th, 1924 says:-

  “Alone in the earthquakes of the war period, this Russian revived the heroic age, and proved what the naked will of one man may do to change the course of history.”

What knowledge! What judgement! What intelligence! Where has the “course of history” changed one hair’s breadth owing to Russia? And the above specimen of ignorance, that would disgrace a school child, is considered worth £1,000 a year by the I.L.P.! Doubtless the measure of their intelligence.

The chief points of Lenin’s rule can now be traced out. He was the product of the “course of history” when the breakdown occurred in Russia. At first – nay even as late as the publication of Left-Wing Communism (p.44) – Lenin claimed that it was “a Socialist Revolution.” He also claimed that the Bolsheviks were establishing “Socialism” in Russia in accord with Marxian principles. Some of the shifts, and even deliberate misinterpretations of Marx’s writings that Lenin indulged in to defend his unsound position have already been dealt with in past issues of the Socialist Standard and need not detain us here. To delay the victorious Allies taking action against Russia, large sums were spent on propaganda in Europe by the Bolsheviks. “Communist” Parties sprang up like mushrooms, and now that these funds are vanishing, are dying like the same vegetable. Their policy was to stir up strife. Every strike was hailed as the “starting of the revolution.” But somehow they were all “bad starts”!

When the Constituent Assembly was broken up by Lenin’s orders he had the Russian Soviet Constitution drawn up. He realised that if the Bolsheviks were to retain control this new Constitution must give them full power. We have already analysed this Constitution in detail, in a previous issue, but a repetition of one point will make the essential feature clear. Clause 12 says:-

  “The supreme authority in the Russian Soviet Republic is vested in the All Russia Congress of Soviets, and, during the time between the Congresses, in the Central Executive Committee.”

Clause 28 says:-

  “The All Russia Congress of Soviets elects the All Russia Central Executive of not more than 200 members.”

Innocent enough, surely! But – yes there is a but – the credentials of the delegates to the All-Russia Congress are verified by the officials of the Communist Party and at every congress it turns out – quite by accident of course – that a large majority of the delegates are members of the Communist Party. The others are listened to politely, allowed to make long speeches, and then voted down by the “Block.” This little fact also applies to all “The Third Communist International Congresses,” and to all “The International Congresses of the Red Labour Unions.” No matter how many delegates the other countries may send, the Russian delegation is always larger than the rest combined.

By this “Dictatorship of the Communist Party” Lenin was able to keep power concentrated in his own hands.

Lenin made desperate efforts to induce the town workers to run the factories on disciplined lines, but despite the most rigid decrees these efforts were a failure. The Russian townsmen, like the peasant, has no appreciation of the value of time, and it is impossible to convert a 17th century hand worker into a modern industrial wage slave by merely pushing him into a factory and giving him a machine to attend. Lenin’s experience proves the fallacy of those who proclaim that modern machines, because they are made “fool-proof” in some details, can be operated by any people, no matter how low their stage of development.

Another idea was tried. A number of minor vultures on the working class, of the I.W.W. and Anarchist “leader” type, had gone to Russia to see what could be picked up. There were 6,000,000 unemployed in America. Lenin called upon these “leaders” to arrange for the transport of numbers of mechanics and skilled labourers to form colonies in Russia, with up-to-date factories and modern machinery. These “leaders” pocketed their fees and expenses, but the colonies have yet to materialise.

Such was the position up to the time of Lenin’s illness.

What then are Lenin’s merits? First in order of time is the fact that he made a clarion call for a world peace. When that failed he concluded a peace for his own country. Upon this first necessary factor he established a Constitution to give him control and, with a skill and judgement unequalled by any European or American statesman, he guided Russia out of its appalling chaos into a position where the services are operating fairly for such an undeveloped country, and where, at least, hunger no longer hangs over the people’s heads. Compare this with the present conditions in Eastern Europe!

Despite his claims at the beginning, he was the first to see the trend of conditions and adapt himself to these conditions. So far was he from “changing the course of history” as Brailsford ignorantly remarks that it was the course of history which changed him, drove him from one point after another till today Russia stands halfway on the road to capitalism. The Communists, in their ignorance, may howl at this, but Russia cannot escape her destiny. As Marx says:-

  “One nation can and should learn from others. And even when a society has got upon the right track for the discovery of the natural laws of its movement – and it is the ultimate aim of this work to lay bare the economic law of motion of modern society – it can neither clear by bold leaps nor remove by legal enactments the obstacles offered by the successive phases of its normal development. But it can shorten and lessen the birth pangs.” (Preface Vol, I. Capital.)

The Bolsheviks will probably remain in control for the simple reason that there is no one in Russia capable of taking their place. It will be a question largely as to whether they will be able to stand the strain for the task is a heavy one, and they are by no means overcrowded with capable men. But this control will actually resolve itself into control for, and in the interests of, the Capitalists who are willing to take up the development of raw materials and industry in Russia. The New Economic Policy points the way.

The peasant problem will take longer to solve because of the immense areas, and lack of means of communication. Until the capitalists develop roads and railways the peasants will, in the main, follow their present methods and habits. When these roads and railways are developed, modern agriculture will begin to appear worked at first with imported men and machines. But then Russia will be well on the road to fully developed Capitalism.

The Communists claim that Lenin was a great teacher to the working class the world over, but with singular wisdom they refrain from pointing out what that teaching was. His actions from 1917 to 1922 certainly illustrate a certain lesson that is given above, but the teacher of that lesson was Karl Marx.

Jack Fitzgerald

https://www.worldsocialism.org/

Museum workers start historic strike in Liverpool

Coventry Amazon workers held picket lines 

Museum workers picket in Liverpool Photo Credit: PCSLiverpoolMuseums

Tuesday 20 February 2024

SOCIALIST WORKER Issue 2893

Some 217 PCS union members working at the National Museums Liverpool (NML) kicked off eight weeks of strikes last Saturday. The dispute is over the failure of NML to pay the £1,500 cost of living payment agreed as part of the PCS pay dispute settlement last year. A lively picket that swelled to 80 began at the World Museum in William Brown Street.

Tracey Hylton of the PCS NEC addressed the strikers and Audrey White of the Merseyside Pensioners Association described it as the “happiest picket line I have ever attended”. At 10am strikers discovered that management was attempting to open another site at the Museum of Liverpool Life at the Pier Head so the picket relocated. The other five sites—the Walker, Lady Lever and Tate Northern Art Galleries and the Maritime and International Slavery Museums— remained closed.

Both the International Slavery Museum and the Maritime Museum have planned redevelopment projects costing £58 million. Some of this could easily be used to resolve the dispute. PCS Livepool Museums said, “The problem is, the secret to our museums isn’t the priceless objects. “It’s the priceless staff. About time you invested in them.”

The Museum of Liverpool stated it was open for its usual hours last Sunday. PCS responded by identifying that it was “opened with the slimmest numbers of staff” as most were picketing. The union added, “Good scousers don’t cross picket lines.”
Picketing is every day between 8am and 11am until 14 April but may move between sites depending on which management try to open. Send messages of support to PCS@ liverpoolmuseums.org.uk

Dave Owens

Coventry Amazon workers unfulfilled

Hundreds of Amazon workers joined big picket lines outside the BHX4 fulfilment centre in Coventry on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday last week. Around 400 striking GMB union members held up workers going into the Coventry Amazon depot for more than half an hour. They tried to convince them not to cross the picket line.

Amazon worker Darren Westwood tweeted last Tuesday, “Amazon BHX4 is out again. “As Amazon boss Jeff Bezos sells £1.6 million worth of Amazon stock, we are asking for £15 an hour. Every worker should be getting this as a minimum.”

On the second day of the three day strike, workers chanted, “No work today,” and, “What do we want? —£15.” And workers continued to join the union on the picket lines. Since the summer of 2022, over 1,000 have joined the GMB at BHX4.

The company’s internal online bulletin board is bombarded with messages from workers supporting the union with links to join, usually deleted by admins within minutes. Management is doing everything to try to break the strikes—such as bringing in new starters. But many of these new starters joined the GMB— and are now among the most enthusiastic pickets.

Amazon is also trying to convince workers that they would be better off not joining the union. Amazon managers sent an email claiming, “Union recognition may mean that BHX4 employees will not automatically see pay increases offered at other sites.” Management is trying to bribe workers to cross the picket line with a pathetic offer of a £2.50 voucher to spend in the canteen.

That’s barely enough for a coffee. The company pretends to ignore the union, but pay has increased from £10.15 to £12.50, already a rise of 23 percent. Workers at other Amazon fulfilment centres also need to join the action. Last month, workers at the newly-opened Minworth site near Birmingham went on strike for the first time.

Andy Petti

West’s weakness is exposed by Ukraine war

Western leaders think that Ukraine's war with Russia is the best, cheapest way of protecting its own imperialist interests

Russian tanks abandoned by the Russian army in the retreat from Izyum Ukraine (Picture: Ukrinform TV)

Alex Callinicos
Tuesday 20 February 2024

SOCIALIST WORKER Issue 2893

The second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine falls amid panic in European capitals unprecedented since the Cold War. There are two reasons for this. The first is the realisation in Nato that, when it escalated its military support for Kyiv in response to the invasion, it had underestimated Russian power.

It is what lies behind the warnings— starting with Tory defence secretary Grant Shapps and British chief of the general staff Sir Patrick Saunders— of the prospect of war between Russia and Nato.

Russia’s “land forces have been degraded in Ukraine, but its air force and navy are largely intact, and Russia is still a major nuclear power,” a British defence official told the Financial Times.

“Degraded” or not, Russia’s forces have just compelled the Ukrainian army to abandon their bridgehead at Avdiivka, close to the Russian-held city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

The Financial Times went on, “One reason for Western officials’ alarm is Russia’s revival of its industrial defence machine over the past year, which took place at a speed many in the West had thought impossible.

“Russia churned out four million artillery shells and several hundred tanks during the year. It will recruit another 400,000 men this year without resorting to full-scale mobilisation, Ukrainian officials forecast.”

There are signs of a clampdown in Russia. Boris Nadezhdin, who was running as an anti-war candidate in next month’s presidential elections, has been blocked from standing.

Another critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war, the Marxist sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky, has been sentenced by a military court of appeal to five years’ imprisonment for the absurd charge of “justifying terrorism”.

Whether these actions are signs of confidence or fear on Russian president Putin’s part, they show he’s not going away.

The weakness is more evident on the Western side. Europe’s huge manufacturing economy has failed to switch to producing the weapons and ammunition Ukraine needs.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is now calling for government subsidies for arms production, breaching the free-market dogma that reigns in Brussels.

Meanwhile, Republican opposition means that president Joe Biden’s new military aid package for Ukraine remains stuck in the US Congress. Interestingly it’s neoliberals who are increasingly strident in their calls for more support for Kyiv.

Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor of the free-market Economist, told Jon Stewart that “aiding Ukraine, giving the money to Ukraine, is the cheapest possible way for the US to enhance its security. The fighting is being done by the Ukrainians, they’re the people who are being killed.

The US and Europe are supplying them weapons, and in doing so we are pushing back against Putin.”

Martin Wolf of the Financial Times pompously lectured us that “Ukraine fatigue is unpardonable”.

But his bottom line is the same. “Aiding Ukraine is also cheap. No Western soldiers are at risk. The sums to be agreed this year amount to less than 0.25 percent of the combined GDP of the EU, UK and US,” he argued.

Comments such as these confirm that Socialist Worker was entirely right to describe the war from the start as a struggle in which the US and its allies were arming Ukraine as a proxy to weaken a dangerous rival.

As Beddoes puts it, the West thought it could push back against Putin on the cheap.

The Russian invasion was quite wrong. Ukrainians have the right to national self-determination.

But the West’s response was quite wrong as well. Ukraine is being torn apart in the struggle between two imperialist titans.

It’s now widely accepted that Boris Johnson sabotaged a possible settlement between Kyiv and Moscow in the early weeks of the war. There are rumours that a new proposal by Putin for a ceasefire has been dismissed in Western capitals. Mass pressure on both sides will be needed to end this disastrous war.