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Core Argument¶
This chapter presents a strategic prognosis for Britain in the immediate post-war period, arguing that the election of a Labour government in 1945 does not signal stable social democracy but rather the opening of a revolutionary epoch. The core narrative thrust is that the Labour Government is a “Kerensky government”—a bourgeois-reformist administration that will inevitably be forced to expose its true function as a manager of capitalism, thereby preparing the ground for a revolutionary confrontation. The author insists that the period excludes “stable and tranquil development”; instead, sharp turns in mass mood and tactics are the norm.
Key claims rest on an analysis of the weakness of the British capitalist class, which is described as “revealing extreme weakness, demoralisation and decay” after the war. Having lost its traditional self-assurance and conscious of its secondary position to Wall Street, the bourgeoisie has no recourse but to “ride the tide of revolution by reliance on their reformist agents”—i.e., the Labour leadership. The chapter predicts that the initial confidence and unity of the working class, especially among youth, will be met by the Labour government assisting employers and taking “repressive and strike-breaking measures” against workers. This betrayal will provoke temporary moods of “despair, apathy, cynicism and inertia,” but these are only transitional. The setback will generate a more thoughtful, radicalised movement that will turn to the ideas of the “Transitional Programme.”
The chapter draws heavily on the historical precedent of the Russian Revolution of 1917, specifically the period of the Provisional Government under Kerensky, to frame the Labour Government’s role. However, it explicitly cautions against mechanical repetition, stating the British revolution will likely be “long drawn out” rather than matching the tempo of Russia. The theoretical context is Trotskyist: the analysis of the Labour Party as a bourgeois workers’ party, the necessity of a transitional programme, and the expectation that the petit-bourgeoisie will swing to reaction under crisis.
Notable polemics are directed against reformist illusions. The chapter argues against any notion that Labour in power can deliver working-class interests, predicting a “new MacDonald experience”—a reference to Ramsay MacDonald’s 1931 betrayal and formation of a National Government—but with a “far greater social base” among Labour MPs. It also warns of a coming reaction: the “younger wing of the Tories,” figures like Randolph Churchill, will move toward reactionary organisation, and later the bourgeoisie will seek a “royalist or military dictatorship on the lines of the Spanish Primo de Rivera.” The text thus polemicises against both the Labour leadership and the conservative establishment, while also implicitly arguing against any fatalism or passivity on the revolutionary left, insisting that the party must be built precisely through the ebbs and flows of this new epoch.