Monthly libertarian socialist discussion meetings in Leicester

Here are my fleshed-out notes on the January meeting in Leicester. Sadly, I don't have a record of the many interesting contributions that followed. I suspect Socialist Party members will agree with a fair bit of it, but maybe other parts not so much. It'd be nice to see an SPGB presence at the February discussion on the Rusian revolution. Cheers! Is the working class movement dead? What is the role of pro-revolutionaries in the current social, political and economic climate? Pre-discussion comments by an AF member to a libertarian socialist discussion meeting in Leicester, 25 January 2017. NB: this is not verbatim but more the speaker’s somewhat sketchy notes re-assembled into a more readable format. Just to say that this discussion lead-in mainly deals with the situation here in the UK, reflecting my own knowledge and experience. I accept that there will be similar elements which apply to the situation in other countries, as well as differences. So, is the workers’ movement dead?  In short: no. But it is on life support.  Since the early 1980s there has been a marked decline in class consciousness, class cohesion, solidarity and such like. Now we have a working class that is de-educated, de-politicised, atomised and individualised. In terms of class struggle politics, it is as if we are starting from scratch. The 1970s was the post-war high point in class struggle and the organised working class which featured significant struggles with miners and other industries, events such as the battle of Saltley Gate, the fall of the Heath government and culminating in the “winter of discontent”.  On the continent, such mass wildcat strikes were known as “the British disease” which seems hard to believe when we look at how things are now. Prior to this meeting, I received a document from the CWO (Communist Workers Organisation) which quoted statistics from the UK Office of National Statistics which noted that in 1979, 2.95 million working days were lost to strike action.  I’ll repeat that figure so we can all just take it in: that’s 2.95 – almost 3 million days – lost because of strike action. Forward closer to the present and the same Office of National Statistics gives the figures for 2015 as 170,000 strike days – a tiny fraction. What that figure doesn’t tell you either is the quality of the action taken. I am assuming that the majority of those days would be official actions, one day strikes, often token and with limited effectiveness. What stands for a working class movement has retreated into reformism and identity politics –  world where Corbynism and the Labour left even seems comparatively radical.  Meanwhile, sites of genuine class resistance are now like virtual oases in the vast capitalist desert. That said, it’s possible I’m offering a somewhat rose-tinted view of the past.  After all, while the 1970s saw inspiring acts of working class activity, it was also a period of chronic racism at all levels of society, where sexist attitudes were endemic and violent homophobia more or less the norm.  Over the years, such reactionary views became increasingly unacceptable – although, more recently, it looks as if there’s something of a backlash with racist, xenophobic and conservative attitudes apparently on the increase. As for the mass industrial action and wider class consciousness of the 70s, yes it was often militant and often wildcat in nature, but it was also solidly tied to labourism or the CP, reformism and orthodox trade unionism.  It was also followed by Thatcherism.  And let’s not forget the open collusion of the trade unions themselves in the collapse of the organised workers’ movement over the last 30-odd years – yet another failure of social democracy. So if it’s all so dire, is it worth reviving?  Yes, because class struggle is fundamental, the ONLY way to ever abolish capitalism.  This is because, ultimately, capitalism can only be abolished by the workers of the world seizing the means of production – however unlikely it may seem in the here and now. So what should be the role of pro-revolutionaries?  All those years ago, the First International declared that the emancipation of the working class was the task of the workers themselves, and this holds true today – however far away the notion of the working class emancipating itself may currently seem. Nevertheless, there are no short cuts to this – well no short cuts that won’t end in disaster in one way or another. That means no substitutionism – in other words, substituting your particular group, party or political movement for the working class. Likewise, no Jacobinism, Marxist-Leninism, or so-called insurrectionism (whether anarchist, Maoist or some other Marxist-Leninist variant) either.  All of these, in their own particular way, aim to act for (or in the name of) the working class rather than the working class acting for itself.  They are all every bit as much a dead end as the reformism of those who have opted to throw in their lot with Corbynism and Momentum. The alternatives to all that may not be very exciting but they are essential.  Those of us who advocate a revolution to establish a society based on the principle from each according to ability to each according to need, whether we call ourselves anarchists, communists, socialists or whatever, need to maintain a revolutionary intransigence, serving as a class memory – the “thin red line” so to speak. But also, we need to be practically engaged in struggles as and when they arise – involved, whether active within or supportive externally to those “oases” of class struggle I mentioned earlier.  This also means being proactive in things such as residents’ groups, claimants’ organisations, autonomous workplace activity… or by establishing or re-establishing such organisations but without repeating past mistakes.  I’m also aware that these days, such types of organisation are few and far between. Nevertheless, where we are active, whether actively participating within or offering solidarity from outside, we need to engage with action that is meaningful.  I’m minded of the quote from the old group, Solidarity: Meaningful action, for revolutionaries, is whatever increases the confidence, the autonomy, the initiative, the participation, the solidarity, the equalitarian tendencies and the self-activity of the masses and whatever assists in their demystification. Sterile and harmful action is whatever reinforces the passivity of the masses, their apathy, their cynicism, their differentiation through hierarchy, their alienation, their reliance on others to do things for them and the degree to which they can therefore be manipulated by others – even by those allegedly acting on their behalf.