Introduction by Rob Sewell¶
Core Argument¶
In his introduction to Trotsky’s writings on Britain, Rob Sewell argues that these texts, republished amid a deep crisis of world capitalism, possess an urgent and timely relevance. British capitalism, Sewell contends, is in a state of catastrophic decline, having abandoned manufacturing for parasitic finance and speculation. The post-war reformist era has been replaced by austerity and counter-reforms, while the shocks of 2008, the COVID-19 collapse, supply chain disruption, war, energy crisis, and inflation have all been visited upon the working class. This, however, has reignited class struggle on a scale unseen for generations, with waves of strikes and the idea of a general strike now inherent in the situation. The old reformist assumption that tomorrow will be better than today has collapsed, and millions are now discussing politics. This, Sewell writes, is the molecular process of revolution in the minds of the masses; Britain has entered a pre-revolutionary period.
Sewell grounds this analysis in Trotsky’s 1925 work Where is Britain Going?, written as guidance for the young British Communist Party. There, Trotsky countered the notion, raised by Zinoviev, that revolution might come through the TUC ‘lefts’, arguing instead that the Communist Party must fight to become a mass party capable of leading the working class. He described the Labour Party’s left wing as “formless, spineless, and devoid of any independent future”, contrasting it with the right wing, which had tradition and bourgeois society behind it. The 1926 General Strike proved the ‘lefts’ would betray the working class, while the Anglo-Russian Trade Union Committee shielded the General Council’s treachery. The Communist Party’s slogan “All power to the General Council” disorientated the ranks. Trotsky’s Left Opposition argued for breaking relations with the TUC leaders. Sewell notes that the Stalinist bureaucracy’s adoption of ‘socialism in one country’ rejected world revolution, leading to the Comintern’s nationalist degeneration. The Fourth International was launched in 1938, but after Trotsky’s assassination its leaders proved incapable of applying his method. The central question, Sewell concludes, remains the crisis of proletarian leadership: whether a Communist Party will be built in time to draw the necessary conclusions from the intensifying crisis.