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Britain: The real situation Contents Editorial: Britain - The real situation.
Gorbachev and the left.
By Peter Taaffe.
MIR Exclusive: Eyewitness in Armenia Women in the Soviet Union. By Jen Pickard.
A reader's letter and a reply: why has the slump been delayed? A day does not pass without a new upheaval in social relations in the countries of the ex-colonial world. The poorest country in the Western hemisphere, Haiti, has experienced a new stage in its continuing revolution since the overthrow of the Duvalier regime. General Namphy has been expelled by an NCO coup in the army and many Duvalierist generals have been arrested or retired. The dreaded Ton Ton Macoutes who renewed their reign of terror under Namphy have fled for their lives. In Chile, the collapse of the Pinochet dictatorship is in its beginning after his defeat in the October plebiscite. In Algeria there was a virtual insurrection as the poor revolted against the austerity imposed by the privileged strata within the ruling FLN at the behest of the International Monetary Fund.
These developments are like the heat lightnings before a new storm of class struggle in the Third World. These new nations have seen one upheaval after another since 1945, but there are even more momentous battles ahead. Workers and peasants in these countries show no lack of will to but what is missing is the struggle, subjective factor: a party capable and willing to go all the way and with the Militant International Review 3/13 Hepscott Road London E9 5HB. Editor: Alan Woods.
The market economy or .3 socialist planning..
By Bob McKee .7 ecosystem breakdown.
By Ronnie Sookhdeo 15 19 part nine...
By Alan Woods .24 Book Reviews..
Editorial theory, perspectives and sure understanding of the tasks of revolution. For the first time, there is a simultaneous crisis throughout the Stalinist countries: with Gorbachev's attempt to improve the state of the economy leading to political upheavals in many of the nations, such as Armenia and Latvia, which make up the bureaucracy's fiefdom. And this prothroughout Eastern Europe as recent developments in Poland and Czechoslovakia demonstrate. But the solution will not be found in 'a turn to the market or in, decentralisation' as the economic crisis in Hungary and the events in Yugoslavia prove. This issue of the MIR again takes up these developments and shows the complete failure of the leaders of the labour movement, both right and left, to understand the processes unfolding in the Stalinist regimes.
Superfically, in contrast to these other sectors of the world, there appears to be comparative social peace in the advanced capitalist countries. ..26 Global pollution threatens .32 The history of Bolshevism, .35 .44 But this merely masks underlying processes which are leading to period of upheaval unequalled since the inter-war period.
In Britain we have had nine years of 'Thatcherism'. The Tory government of the 1980s has systematically attacked the 40 per cent of the population who are below or around the poverty line. The rich have made a killing through a bonanza of tax concessions to higher above all to property and financial speculators in the City of London. In the last few years of the Tory government there has been a 'boom' in the economy. Manufacturing production has finally passed its peak last, achieved in 1979-it has taken nine years under Thatcher for British industry to recover trom the ravages of the 1979-81 slump. Nonetheless the Tories have managed to win three elections in a row, despite their attacks on working people. The reasons are threefold: firstly, the luck of a quick General Galtieri with victory over relatively few casualties; secondly, the relative boom in the world and British economy; and last but by no means least, the complete failure of the labour and trade union leaders to provide an effective socialist alter- 3
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native to the Tories.
Each defeat electorally and industrially has tended to confirm the weakkneed prejudices of the labour and trade union leaders. They have begun to ape the ideas of Thatcherism. That was easy for the small capitalist parties of the Liberals and Social Democrats to do, but now the right-wing of the Labour Party is following suit. Neil Kinnock's attitude towards British capitalism and Thatcherism was expressed most clearly when he baldly stated to delegates at the October Labour party conference: "we have to face the fact that the kind of economy we will be faced with when elected is a market economy, and we have to make that work better than the Tories"
The Labour leaders have abandoned all the socialist content in Labour's programme and, without openly dropping Clause Four, Part Four of the party constitution, have in reality returned to Gaitskellism. Gaitskell's affirmation of capitalism in 1959 also reflected the belief then that capitalism had solved its problems and it was the job of the Labour leaders to make it work better or 'fairer'. In this issue of the MIR we explain again the basic superiority of democratic socialist planning over the workings of market forces in meeting the needs of people.
Neil Kinnock received 90 per cent of the vote in the leadership election, although it was nearer two-thirds if you take off the minority votes in the local parties and the unions that went to Tony Benn. And yet he is disliked by trade union leaders, by MPs right and left, and by the rank and file. He won so clearly however, because there is no viable alternative and because the memories of the policies of the last Labour government are becoming dimmer in the minds of the party membership. They do not recall that the Labour government of 1974-9 cut public spending more severely than even Thatcher (by £8bn), and doubled inflation and unemployment, in their efforts to make capitalism work better than the Tories'. Neil Kinnock's claim that the most important thing is to win the election without any consideration of the policies, which in fact is to assume that socialist policies are unpopular
and would lose an election, is the main
argument used to sway trade union leaders and party activists.
However, it is an argument that did
not hold sway at all times at the Labour
Party conference. As the week went on
Neil Kinnock's 'mandate' to 'review
policy, in other words to abandon
socialism, looked less secure. The
party leadership saw conference carry,
against its advice, motions for a
statutory minimum wage of £135 for a
4
Nell Kinnock stated that Labour should make "a market economy...work better than the' Tories."
35 hour week; for a boycott of the Tories' Employment Training scheme; and most notably for the reaffirmation of the party's commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament. The party leadership was also forced to make a vague commitment to full employment and more spending on pensions and social services; and even public ownership of the utilities that have been privatised by the Tories.
Over the next year however, the Labour leaders will attempt to reverse all these defeats through the policy reviews. They will attempt to jettison all the socialist policies that the party membership joined the party for. Interestingly, in this regard, a recent survey of party members-not activists-of two constituencies in Sheffield, carried in the New Statesman/ New Society magazine, found that over 50 per cent wanted the next Labour government to nationalise the top 200 companies and more than two-thirds wanted unilateral nuclear disarmament.
Artificial boom
Neil Kinnock, however, has swallowed the Tory myth that their policies have revived British industry and prosperity. But the present 'boom' and its accompanying apparent social harmony hide the stark truth: that Thatcherism has been a disaster for British capitalism. Relative peace in industrial relations has been bought at a price by employers conceding wage increases above the rate of inflation-in the teeth of opposition from the Tory cabinet, who then took the credit for the rise in the standard of living for those in work to win the last general election.
But the rise in profits for British industry which made possible these concessions on wage increases, has
been at the expense of the sinews, nerves and energy of a reduced workforce. The intensity of labour has been sharply increased so that industry now produces the same output that it reached in 1979 with 30 per cent less workers. The results of this were shown in a survey reported in the Daily Express which revealed that 44 per cent of workers in Sheffield had seen their doctor as a result of general stress and illness directly related to the pressure in their workplace.
But workers have grudgingly acceded to this speed-up, partly through what one economist called a climate of industrial relations altered by "fear, competition, decentralisation and collective bargaining" , and partly through obtaining increased real wages. But that fear of redundancy has now changed into frustration and even boiling anger at the methods of management in the workplace. The rash of strikes that continues to break out to disturb the industrial peace under the Tories is a product of that growing discontent: the Post Office dispute over management measures and casualisation; the Barrow workers who struck for months over the attempt of employers to reduce holiday entitlements; the seafarers who went into their momentous struggle over shift schedules that would have made them virtual slaves of the P&0 management; and the Lancashire textile workers who went into their first strike in 40 years over their poverty pay against the background of rising profits. The class struggle at the workplace is not dead. The recent disputes are just the first bars of the music of the future.
As 1988 passes, the real legacy of Thatcher's policies are being exposed.
The present boom was artificially fuell-
ed by the government budget tax cuts for the rich and by an uncontrolled
expansion of credit and money. The
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Tories have doubled the money supply in three years. As a result inflation is accelerating towards 6 per cent a year and soon could reach the figures of the 1970s. When the Tories faced a rise in unemployment they solved it by fiddling the statistics, now they are planning to do the same with rising inflation by removing mortgage rates from the prices index.
immediately, Lawson has resorted to raising interest rates to try and 'cool down' demand. British industry under Thatcher has recovered by increasing the work rate of its reduced work force during the 1980s, not by increasing investment in machinery and new techniques. As a result when the credit and money boom took off it could not take full advantage, and foreign imports have flooded British market, driving up the balance of payments deficit to a forecast £15bn by the end of the year. Britain now has a trade deficit which as a proportion of national output is equal to the USA, whose financial and market power is much greater. Lawson has raised interest rates to try and reduce demand, but this threatens to cut off investment and production while keeping the value of sterling artificially high exchange markets and so make the deficit worse.
Fainthearts The critics of Thatcherism within the Tory party are now raising their heads above the parapet again. lan Gilmour has predicted that "it is only a matter of time before the party is through with Chancellor Lawson's policies" and Biffen has called Tory Britain a society" which will rebound against the government. Now the average wage earner will lose more from increased mortgage costs than was gained from the tax cuts-a recipe for Tory unpopularity. The truth is, as several public opinion polls have revealed, that Thatcher is disliked and loathed by nearly half the population. She is remote from the people and the Tories in the polls only on the one hand, Thatcherism is apparently working and, on the other, there is no real alternative presented to their policies. Thus the labour and trade union leaders are desperate to avoid campaign that might be 'unlawful' and yet the latest measures of the Tories will force people to break the law-and at the same time present wonderful opportunities for defeating Thatcher. With the poll tax and the Housing Bill Thatcher has bitten off more than she can chew. These two laws alone will provoke a wave of explosions against the government. Already sections of the left, including the Marxists, are leading major movements in Scotland against the poll tax. The labour and leaders just plead for wait for the next Labour government. But people cannot wait who cannot pay and there is no given Neil Kinguarantee anyway, nock's policies, that there will be any relief under Labour in 1991-2. The labour and trade union leaders are cut off from the mood of frustration and anger in the working-class. They are looking backwards at the past relative passivity of the workers under the Tory assault. (Of course, it was only relative, given the movement of the miners, the printers, Liverpool council etc and the possibilities that were there to defeat the Tories in each of these struggles.) They are not looking forward to the fight back against the Tories now in its beginnings. These fainthearts have already conceded that they cannot win the next election. A recently thought Thatcher would win The Tory government is now heading for stormy waters. It has survived because it appeared to deliver the goods, at least for some sections of the working-class: relatively stable UES ALUE prices, but faster growing than any major competitor; comes, although slower than any other major competitor; and falling unemployment, albeit still well above two million. But the economy will enter a calamitous reverse within the next period, as we explain in this issue, and with it the grudging support of millions of workers for the government will vanish like the snows of yesteryear. The collapse of the Tories in Scotland will be repeated in England and Wales through the 1990s.
Socialism A recent poll found that over 50 per cent of the electorate would prefer some sort of socialism. Socialist policies would gain immense support if they were explained and campaigned for, while Thatcherism with fairness'-the policy of Neil Kinnock-rouses no enthusiasm and Labour continues to fall behind. But neither Thatcher nor Neil Kinnock can ignore the coming economic storm and the political and industrial struggles that will ensue in a period of unexampled turbulence. Then the ideas of Marxism and socialism will begin to transform the trade unions and the Labour party into fighting organisations of the working-class. 5
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Business Manager's Reporl
Step up sales drive 1
bimonthly MIR
Sales of MIR number 37 were the highest ever recorded for a single edition! This magnificent response to our appeal to build the MIR saw many areas comfortably surpass their previous highest sales including Birmingham, the Pennines, South East Lancashire,
Manchester
Liverpool Withington, Garston, Knowsley and the London boroughs of Southwark, Lewisham and Hackney. Bristol, consistently good sellers, sold over 100.
Sales were made not just to regular Militant readers. Newham North West supporters sold five MIRs on a Saturday morning street sale. Comrades in Watford, having sold out of papers on an estate sale, went round with the MIR on its own.
While Andy Blake sold four copies to members of his east London Union of Communication Workers branch committee.
Readers'
comments revealed that all the articles were well received. But the article discussing strategy and tactics in the battle against the poll tax was particularly welcomed.
This is significant, for it is precisely this type of materlal that a bimonthly MIR would be more able to carry-articles to arm labour movement activists in struggle.
This task
UCW
UNION or COMMUNICATION WORKERS
PERTILINY AgAMATEr BRANCH
One reader sold 4 MIRs to UCW members. Wherever the Militant Is sold the MIR can, and must, be sold as well.
balanced by articles of a more general theoretical character examining the fundamental processes taking place in the economy, in society and In the consciousness of the working class.
Discussions
Marxism gives us a scientific understanding of society, with a predicative ability. As Peter Taaffe explains in his article, Trotsky's Revolution Betrayed, although written 50 years ago, provides a more modern explanation of the crisis unfolding in the Stalinist regimes than any of today's 'analyses'
by the leaders of the labour movement, right or left.
A bi-monthly MIR would allow a more timely examination of the pro-
cesses underlying contemporary events, enabling a less general prognosis of likely developments to be drawn. And a more refined analysis provides a more defined guide to action.
Of course, for Marxists, perspectives always have a conditional character, never absolute. They are
incomplete inevitably and provisional as facts not available at the time come to light. As we explain in our reply to a reader's letter, this is particularly true in regard to the exact timing of Important changes in the world economy.
A more frequent MIR,
fed by such correspon-
dance from our readers,
could play a vital role in
checking out the pers-
pectives of Marxism-
and its programme,
strategy and tactics-against the actual course of events. This essential participation in the journal by the readers could best be achieved by systematically discussing the contents of each edition in local Marxist Discussion Groups, with readers encouraged to send in their comments.
Cash
Clearly then a bimonthly MIR would be an important weapon in building the influence of Marxism. The sales achieved for MIR number 37 show that a bimonthly could be financially sustained-if what is now the best sale becomes the 'norm'. The responsibility for achieving that, however, lies in your hands.
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