Under the impulse of a profound economic, social, and political crisis, the British proletariat has in the last four months launched a series of struggles which in their breadth and political impact have no equal in that country since the General Strike of 1926. Not simply the traditionally combative sections of the working class but whole strata of the proletariat with little or no previous history of struggle have been drawn into the fight. The bourgeoisie, caught between the two millstones of, on the one hand, the deteriorating international position of British imperialism in a period of developing world economic recession and, on the other hand, the rise of the proletarian struggle, has been forced, in an attempt to isolate the miners and break the workers struggle, to generalize the struggle throughout the working class through the imposition of a three-day week. Four million workers are engaged or potentially engaged in struggle against incomes policy, and fifteen million are affected by the three-day week.
In Britain we clearly see the outlines of a confrontation between the whole of the working class andthe bourgeoisie. The outcome of the series of struggles at present under way will be significant not only for the relationship of forces in Britain but also for those in Europe. A victory of the British proletariat in the present struggle would undoubtedly open up a whole period of tumultuous rise of social struggles and governmental instability, which are capable even of assuming a prerevolutionary height, and which would prevent even a temporary period of political stability in a country which, for all its historic decline, still represents one of the important links in the imperialist chain.
The key elements in the development of this crisis have been the following:
1. The grave historical and conjunctural deterioration of the economic situation of British. imperialism. This already decadent capitalism now has an inflation rate running between 10 and 15 percent a year, a balance of payments deficit running at £1,500-2,000 million a year, and interest rates of 11-13 percent. Unemployment, already over 600,000, has been swelled by over a million more as a result of the three-day week. The crisis imposed by the government's measures threatens whole sections of small capital with bankruptcy and complete dislocation of the economy if prolonged for any significant period of time.
2. The continuing crisis in Ireland, which saps the political credibility of the ruling class and continues to tie down large sections of the repressive apparatus of the British state.
3. The inability of the bourgeoisie to break the rise of the 124 working-class struggle—a curve which has now been ascending sharply for five years. Even in the periods of lull in mass strikes, as in 1973, the actual number of strikes has continued to escalate. In addition, the proletariat has produced or rediscovered qualitatively higher forms of struggle than those of the 1950s and 1960s. The use of mass flying pickets and the occupation of factories is beginning to become a permanent feature of the working-class struggle. The first tentative experiences of workers control have taken place. This ascending curve of the workers struggles has now reached a new qualitative extension. Miners, engineers, rail drivers, ambulance drivers, power workers, firemen, building workers, have all been in the struggle, while the struggle of students has been on a larger scale than in 1968-69.
4. The combination of this economic crisis with the rising curve of mass struggle has produced a profound crisis of government and political structure. The whole evolution of the bourgeoisie’s policy is towards the creation of a strong state. This appears clearly in its Industrial Relations Act, Immigration Acts, use of the conspiracy laws, reinforcement of the police, frequent use of declarations of state of emergency, introduction of joint police-army maneuvers, and so on. At the same time, however, the ruling class is unable to impose a strong solution without first breaking the rise of the workers struggle. The bourgeoisie'’s inability to do so in the present phase, with its social and economic consequences, threatens to tear apart the ruling-class bloc. The soaring inflation and interest rates repulse the petty bourgeoisie from the traditional ruling-class political structures and the main political party of the bourgeoisie—the Tory party. Contradictions within the ruling class are openly expressed. Only a decisive victory of the ruling class in the present round of struggles can re-cement ruling-class political homogeneity and stability. A defeat at the hands of the working class would open up an immediate period of governmental and political instability, which, in a situation of sharply escalating struggle, could open up crises even of prerevolutionary dimensions. It is this perspective which greatly increases the significance of the rapidly escalating repressive acts of the bourgeoisie, such as the jailing at Shrewsbury of building workers for organizing flying pickets, the escalating campaign of hysteria against "terrorism," the police and army maneuvers at London airport, and so on.
Despite the rising repressive activity of the bourgeoisie, the key to the current situation at present lies in the political struggle between the social contestants. Against a combined struggle of even the forces which are at present in struggle, let alone those which are potentially mobilizable, the ruling class has no politically usable repressive apparatus capable of containing the situation. It is only if this wave of struggles remains uncoordinated and without clear political perspective that the bourgeoisie can Intercontinental Press hope to be successful. The imposition of the three-day week and other measures could hardly be better designed to expose the political bankruptcy of the bureaucracies of the working class and to divert and atomize the working class by fragmenting its struggle into thousands of individual defensive fights. In this project the ruling class has not misjudged the nature of the bureaucratic leaderships of the British working class. While the great resistance and combativity of, in particular, the miners have so far prevented the bureaucracy breaking the present wave of struggles; nevertheless the bureaucracy has undertaken a whole series of acts of open betrayal. It has refused to organize in any way the coordination of the working-class actions; it continues to propose to the bourgeoisie plans for calling off the struggles; it refused even to protest, let alone act over, the imprisonment of the Shrewsbury victims; it votes for the continuation of the state of emergency imposed by the government; and it in no way outlines working-class political counterstrategies against the ruling class. Under these conditions the bureaucracy continually helps to pass the initiative in the situation into the hands of the bourgeoisie, disorients the working class, and prepares the way for working-class defeats in the political and trade-union fields which, in a period of recession, rising unemployment, and increasing racist hysteria on the part of the bourgeoisie and extreme right, cannot be without their effect on sections of the masses. Only the great combativity of the masses has so far allowed the combat against the bourgeoisie to be maintained.
In this situation, which will determine important changes in the relationship of forces between the classes in Britain, the tasks of revolutionaries remain very clear. They are in particular:
1. First, and above all, to combat the attempts of the bourgeoisie and bureaucracy to fragment the workingclass struggle by refusing to unite the offensive struggles and by attempting to divert the working-class responses to purely defensive ones. This means that the slogan of the General Strike and the formation of strike committees, action committees, and councils of action must remain the central point of the whole campaign of the British revolutionary vanguard.
2. To sustain and organize solidarity with all those sections of the working class who are at present engaged in struggle with the ruling class.
3. Within this framework, to combat all the acts of repression, and in the first place the Shrewsbury trials, together with the three-day week and the army-police maneuvers carried out by the bourgeoisie.
4. To develop an intensive campaign of propaganda and, where possible, initiatives for a working-class solution to the crisis, centering on the theme of workers control and the nationalization of the decisive sections of the economy to implement an economic plan against the anarchy of capitalism.
In the struggle to implement these tasks the International Marxist Group (the British section of the Fourth International) will receive the support of all the sections of the Fourth International, who are already explaining the significance of the struggles in Britain to the workingclass vanguard of Europe and who also remain ready to wage an intense campaign of solidarity in the event of attempts at international strikebreaking or intensification of openly repressive acts by the British ruling class.
Solidarity with the struggle of the British working class! Forward to the General Strike to bring down the Tory government!
Break the attempt of the British bourgeoisie to impose the strong state!
Long live the British Socialist Revolution!