The party’s role¶
Core Argument¶
The chapter’s core argument is that the party’s primary role in the present period is political education, not tactical concession to trade-union sectionalism. It insists that redundancy and unemployment must be treated as political issues, not merely industrial ones, and that the party’s task is to raise the political consciousness of the working class by teaching the necessity of class unity on a political basis. The chapter directly polemicises against the “nons go first” position, which it identifies as a serious error. This slogan—advocating that non-union workers be sacked before union members—is condemned for maintaining the division of workers along trade-union lines in a fight that is fundamentally political. The party’s aim, by contrast, must be to unify workers on the widest possible basis.
The chapter acknowledges the gap between the party’s strategic perspective and the current reality. A nation-wide struggle against redundancy based on the transitional programme is described as remote, though sharp struggles in isolated factories are possible. The party’s opportunity lies in relating the transitional programme to immediate issues. Its role in industry is therefore essentially that of an educator. Slogans such as the sliding scale of hours, wages, and full employment are designed to serve this end. The party must prepare and educate workers for what lies ahead through an all-sided political exposition of the issues, explaining the real basis of redundancy again and again, while giving leadership and striving for the widest possible political and organisational support for its policy—but also recognising the limitations.
The chapter draws on a Marxist understanding of the relationship between economic struggles and political consciousness, and on the Leninist conception of the party as the vehicle for raising the working class to a political level beyond trade-union consciousness. The polemic is directed against an editorial position that advocates “nons go first”, which the chapter characterises as an opportunist concession that destroys the basis of the party’s political attitude towards redundancy. If faced with sackings, the party does not take sides on who is to be sacked; to do so would be to abandon its perspective. The party’s members give leadership in struggles only so far as the workers are prepared to go, and beyond that, they prepare them for the next stages.