The road for industrial workers¶
Core Argument¶
The chapter argues that a profound reawakening of the British working class is underway, most visible in the industrial heartlands and the armed forces. Trade union membership has surpassed eight million, exceeding the peak of the 1920 revolutionary wave, with women joining in unprecedented numbers. The strike wave of the previous year, spreading from mines to shipbuilding and transport, is presented as the clearest symptom of this process. The factories and unions are identified as the central arenas of class struggle, where the conflict assumes its most direct form.
The core of the chapter’s argument is that this militancy is being systematically betrayed by the existing trade union leadership. The text catalogues a series of grievances that have prepared the ground for a coming crisis: union bureaucrats sabotaging wage claims against rising living costs, the burden of income tax, the fraud of “equality of sacrifice” while capitalists reap greater profits, shameful pension allowances, inequitable food distribution, and capitalist incompetence that forces added strain on workers. The union leadership’s refusal to protect shop stewards from victimisation has forced workers to seek alternative forms of organisation. Through shop stewards’ committees, workers attempt to defend themselves at factory level, but experience teaches that isolated factory forces cannot withstand the combined attacks of employers, union bureaucrats, and the Stalinists.
The chapter traces the historical trajectory of this search for broader organisation. The National Council of Shop Stewards, previously led by the Stalinists, partially fulfilled this need but has now been transformed into an auxiliary strike-breaking instrument of the Communist Party and has virtually collapsed. The new current of militancy has found its expression in the establishment of the Militant Workers’ Federation, initiated by militants on the Clyde, a traditional storm centre. This marks the third time in history that British workers have sought to build an independent industrial leadership.
The polemical thrust is directed against three enemies: the trade union bureaucracy, the employers, and the Stalinists. The chapter concludes with a strategic perspective: the coming crisis will immediately pose major political tasks before any such industrial organisation, and meeting them will transform it into an instrument of socialist revolution. A correct party policy towards this organisation will win the best militants and form the mass basis for a Trotskyist party of socialist revolution.