Our industrial perspective in the light of 1AA¶
Core Argument¶
The chapter confronts the strategic implications of the 1AA legislation for the industrial work of the Militant Workers’ Federation (MWF) and the party. Its core argument is that the new law, while not halting strikes themselves, directly criminalises the extra-union coordination of militant activity—fundraising, resolution circulation, and strike advocacy outside official trade union channels—which had been the MWF’s principal function. The author insists that the law’s primary political effect is to shield the trade union bureaucracy by forcing all industrial action into constitutional, branch-based forms, thereby isolating rank-and-file militants from cross-district solidarity networks.
The chapter rejects two false responses. First, it condemns continuing MWF activity as before, which would invite state repression and decapitate the left wing—this is dismissed as “ultra-left adventurism.” Second, it refuses to treat the law as a mere dead letter until workers sweep it aside in practice, warning that such passivity would leave the movement exposed. Instead, the author advocates a disciplined tactical retreat: shifting the axis of work from the MWF’s unofficial coordination of strikes toward revitalising trade union branches and district committees. The MWF is not to be liquidated but transformed into a national all-union militant minority operating through official union machinery. Shop stewards’ and factory committee coordination continues, but with the added legal cover that branch-based activity provides.
The chapter draws on the historical experience of the Stalinist-led Minority Movement, whose mistakes and successes are to be studied for lessons. This reference frames the polemic: the author is arguing against both bureaucratic passivity and adventurist defiance, seeking a third path that preserves militant content while adapting to a hostile legal environment. The tone is resolute but sober—the retreat must be orderly, understood by the ranks, and executed with the confidence of the broadest layers of supporters. The ultimate perspective remains the revival of active branch organisation, but the immediate task is to manoeuvre through the narrowing legal space without sacrificing the movement’s cadres.