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Early in April, following the huge coal strikes in Wales and Yorkshire, the strike struggles of dock, aircraft and engineering workers in Scotland and North Ireland, and the apprentices’ strike in Tyneside, the English bourgeoisie, alarmed by the militancy of the workers and definitely shaken by prospects of bigger and fiercer strikes in the near future, geared its machinery in order to extricate itself from the crisis by means of one of its most favorite methods—raising the red scare, unleashing a rabid, redbaiting campaign.
While the English press nationally began detecting everywhere “hidden hands,” “sinister influences,” etc., etc., the Gestapo squads of Scotland Yard raided Trotskyist headquarters, and even private homes from one end of the country to the other. Next came the arrests of four Trotskyist leaders: Jock Haston, Roy Tearse, Heaton Lee and Ann Keen, on the charge of having “incited and instigated” the Tyne strike. The Trade Disputes Act under which these revolutionists have been indicted is the notorious piece of Tory strikebreaking legislation, passed in 1927 after the defeat of the General Strike. This is the first instance in which the Tories have dared to invoke the provisions of the 1927 anti-union law, or more correctly, have empowered their lackey Bevin, Minister of Labor, to employ it against our English co-thinkers. For further details and for the general background of the case we refer our readers to the article of J.B. Stuart in this issue and to articles appearing in the weekly newspaper, The Militant .
We shall confine ourselves here to two points: (1) the primary motivations of the British ruling class and its agencies in engineering this frameup; and (2) the importance of this case not only to the workers in England but to those in the United States, as well as throughout the world.
CLASS ALIGNMENTS IN GREAT BRITAIN
The English capitalists, like their class colleagues in other countries, are now caught in the vise of the gravest crisis of their existence. Both the crisis and the war which engendered it flow from the decay of the capitalist system as a whole. The peculiarities of the development of English capitalism (its insular position, its early appearance on the world arena, the advantages resulting from its initial virtual monopoly of industrialization, its vast colonial empire, etc., etc.)—these peculiarities have hitherto enabled the ruling class to corrupt the English workers, buying off the top layers with sops from colonial super-profits, and imbuing the entire class with bourgeois ideas, habits and traditions. The English empire gave the semblance of immutability precisely because it rested on this bourgeosified proletariat.
The conservatism of the English working class as a whole enabled the bourgeoisie to emerge from the crisis of the first imperialist World War, and to surmount, with relative ease, the post-war shocks and convulsions, especially the world-wide economic depression and crisis that erupted in 1929 and continued right up to the outbreak of the second World War. Indeed, the passivity and docility of the English workers at the time came as a pleasant surprise to the rulers who had expected, feared—and prepared for—far greater conflicts than those which did actually take place. Throughout the first war and its aftermath only the advanced layers of the English proletariat moved forward, while its thickest and nethermost strata remained inert. The English capitalists owed this situation externally to the successive catastrophic defeats of the European working class; and internally, on the one hand, to the perfidious Labor leadership who helped quell and crush the isolated vanguard; and on the other, to the progressive degeneration of the Communist International under Stalin who further facilitated the task of the Tories by beheading the English vanguard.
AN ALTERED SITUATION
But the basic economic factors which formerly worked in favor of the bourgeoisie have in the meantime been operating, at first hiddenly and then more and more openly, to its gravest disadvantage. The country’s economic structure and it has remained virtually unaltered—which once fed the conservative tendencies within the proletariat is not only antiquated: it is decayed to the core. This gangrenous condition is inescapably the source of a development which is the polar opposite to that of the past. It cannot fail to lead to the rapid radicalization of the English workers who comprise the overwhelming majority of the population; seventy percent and more, according to official estimates. As a matter of fact, under the impact of a second World War within the lifetime of the same generations, the war-weary masses are already beginning to stir into motion not only among the topmost and advanced layers but also among their most backward and hitherto immobile sections. This is clear from the recent English strike statistics.
What will happen once this gigantic mass, seemingly so immutably fixed in the past, begins rolling? Prospects of such a social avalanche are precisely the stuff of which nightmares are now made in Downing Street and the City. This is what makes Churchill and his friends so acutely sensitive to the slightest disruption of the equilibrium on which they rest, and which must be maintained at all costs, if capitalism is to survive in England. The current name for this equilibrium is—“national unity” for the sake of the war effort. But what are strikes?
WHY THEY MUST EMPLOY FORCE
In war as in peace, strikes are one of the infallible indications of the disruption of equilibrium in capitalist society. Hence the rage and fear of the Tories. Hence their resolve to take the first steps in applying brute force against the proletariat as a whole—after these measures have been first successfully employed against the extreme left, the vanguard of the vanguard, today represented by the Trotskyists.
English capitalism is shaking. If the existing political set-up in the country still fails fully to reflect this, it is because political processes always tend to lag behind economic processes. Periods in history arrive, however, when such gaps are bridged swiftly and in giant strides. It took the far more politically backward masses in Czarist Russia only 8 months in 1917 to leap from conditions of Asiatism and medievalist to the establishment of the first workers’ state. The tempo in Britain may differ, but the process in its essential features is the same.
The ferment and the strikes constitute one expression of the growing mass radicalization. No less significant is another aspect of the process—the moods now prevailing among the ruling summits, and especially the Labor Party flunkies.
TORY PRESS SPEAKS OUT
The London Times and Telegraph, two of the most influential and authoritative capitalist dailies in close contact with government circles, have been publicly hinting of late that the rank and file in the unions is getting out of the control of the Labor bureaucrats; and they have been pressing for action—i.e. repressions—against the “irresponsible” elements. Prevalent among bourgeois circles is the conviction that now is the testing time for Labor leaders’ participation in the government. If, at one extreme, the awakening workers are demanding that an end be put to the perfidious Labor-Tory Coalition, then, from the other extreme, the most conscious leaders of the capitalists are likewise adumbrating the same step: For, after all, if Bevin and the TUC and the Labor Party Ministers in the government cannot restrain the workers, of what earthly use are they to the bourgeoisie? In such situations the labor lackeys are unceremoniously booted out.
That such is actually the trend among bourgeois tops is confirmed by the reactions and deeds of the Labor bureaucrats who are far more sympathetically sensitive to moods of their masters than to those of the rank and file. It is not for nothing that Bevin boasted that there has been far less industrial strife in England in 4_ years of this war than there had been in 3_ years of the last one. Bevin of course cites the record as an argument for retaining his ministerial post. But the fact that the Labor leaders have held the masses in check for 4_ years counts for exactly nothing in the face of the current and, what is more important, impending developments. The bourgeoisie, unlike the purblind bureaucrats, looks ahead. It demands proof that their flunkies can continue to be of service.
BEVIN’S ANSWER
What is Bevin’s answer? It is at one and the same time a tacit admission of bankruptcy and an open assumption of the role of jailer and, if need be, of executioner. The most reactionary section of the bourgeoisie and the labor lieutenants of capital are agreed that the only recourse left is brute force. Bevin and his contemptible crew require and beg for help from the police and state apparatus of repression in the fight against the militants and their own rank and file. Nothing is too despicable for these traitors.
At the same time that Bevin applied the provisions of the Trade Disputes Act of 1927 against the Trotskyists, he also introduced Regulation IAA in Parliament. The chief aim of this “Defense Regulation”—which was adopted—is to bolster up the vanishing authority of the union bureaucrats by applying penal measures against those who “incite, instigate or act in furtherance of strikes” in any industry classified as “essential work.” This is a direct blow at the shop stewards. Regulation IAA like the Trade Disputes Act, states that “officially convened” union meetings do not come under a prohibition, that is, a union member may advocate strike in his own local union. But outside the local he would be liable. A shop stewards’ meeting in the shop gives no protection from the regulation.
Churchill—through Bevin—could hardly have made it clearer from the very outset that the persecution of the Trotskyists is an integral part of a general anti-labor drive.
WHAT OUR DUTY IS
American workers, who are in ever increasing numbers learning the lesson that Roosevelt’s railroading to jail of the 18 Trotskyist leaders was likewise part of Wall Street’s unfolding offensive against American labor, must now assimilate another, and no less important lesson, namely, the inseparable connection between the defense of their own interests and organizations and the struggle that is being waged in England to beat back the Churchill-Bevin onslaught on their English brothers.
If Big Business emerges triumphant in England, the effects will be felt not only throughout Europe, but here at home as well. Wall Street and all its agencies will become all the more emboldened thereby. Conversely, if the aroused English workers beat back the attack, it will lift the self-confidence of workers everywhere, in Italy as well as in Germany as well as in USA.
The interaction between events in various countries operates with even greater force in wartime when all processes are greatly speeded up. American workers have a great stake in the struggle now unfolding in England. In the last analysis and this is what really counts-they can serve their own interests and promote their own welfare only through international solidarity.
It is the duty of every class-conscious militant to raise his voice in protest against the persecution of the English Trotskyists; to expose the abysmal treachery of Bevin and the Labor leaders; to help rescind the totalitarian Tory anti-labor laws, the like of which, otherwise, may be instituted here on the morrow. It is an elementary working class obligation to extend to the chief targets of this vile attack—the English Trotskyists—every possible moral and material aid.
We feel confident that the readers of Fourth International will support and help spread the appeal: ALL AID TO THE TROTSKYIST CLASS-WAR VICTIMS IN ENGIAND!
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