Black of nerve. Noedless to say, Britain's large armaments the main danger off our epoch is the most eloquent general statement it British foreign policy and was an explicit attempt to nem up the us tung cun.
-AND AT HOME so tar E have concentrated on the main areas or toreign policy in assessing the nature of the Heath regime. Cerlainly it has been able to transform the orientation of policy in this area more sumply at immeontery than nas yer neen possible on the home front. The most intractable problem of all heino of course, Northern Ireland where the Institutioned structare of the Conservative Party tied as it is to the Nortbern Irith ruling class, reduces its room for clearly has the ability to embarrass the British government and place it under strong pressure, this is not the same as having a strategy for winne Heath is not easily going to b. persuaded to abandon his kith and kin at Starmont. So long as the British government can count on the majority of the populden an the more, incasing to trotestant working class, and so long as they can work with the Church and the miserably reactionsty regime in Dublin, there is no chance the fact that Heath hus been foroed to endorse the vicious internment round-up shows that it faces a political as well as a maurary tarea In the mujor fields of domestic policy the government face the same syndrome of backwardness which has defeated it solicy is unsparing resort to the most sevape weaponrin th as the use of capitalist market foroes to pruse awas deadwood in British industry if the complemenary ent of the giant heir operations. As The Economi Sep 17 1971) pots i *What Britain a note doing it tofer up's competitive IT DEMET A WHERE CONTOR TAC OMDUDE M at a pline when there are a l sandied agueal as and new methods of tending" The ango co ine governal nas miroduced in the cod. covering the conduct of commercial banks will fres must of their enormous resources (more than ET? hallion in вштепип depos accounty tor more excitin employment than the purchase of povernment bands and bills, The effect Sectors of British monopoly capital. Thin could pital as at tries to find in way in an era of intense inter or of the strong points of Britis serialist rivalry namely the relatively large size of the major Brtish com panies. Though the Heath government's revel ofthe decline of British imncilam, they and ton Conservative governments.
THE ASSAULT ONTHE WURKING CLASS The fate of Heath's cohemic package is very much dependent do its godheal siegess in waging the domests class strugsh • As Andrew Glyna and Bob Sutcliff have Pee real Candie or it apter Lef NR 66) there has been a periloby collipse in the mate of profit in British industry over the lint dechde, Even if the Were not to be atthbarenes ovet helmingls to successful wage struggles at Glynhan sult sugges, bus are acher to be cataten by d persistently depressed condition of industrial productio it is still the case that an assault on the workers mik be part of any ruling class strategy for breaking out of the present iergasse. It seems that the core of Heath's policy pottrica strength of the British bourgeoisie to help Squidate its economic weakness There Grin the "20s and "30s when an represented by Chechill's actions darleg the 1926 Genera asecution of the class war best Strike helped to anest the decline of British capitalism wich basequently strengthened its position throughout the Grest Depressing, Hesth shows none of his predecessor's inclination Date to strengin or The trade unions His approach to the electricity and postal strikes showed har he know aledarity between comes to a heal struggle with capital. The rapid passage of the Industral Relations Bill sugpests that he is not over Jones and Scabion and that the feeble threat of a re-fu- 192h holds no terrors for him would inevitably attend any General Strise domicated by the TOC would be the suret rgeois severament could hope for.
Of couse areal General Strisu with fectory occupations, warkers commitres revery locality, Too begunies of probetarian control ver communication dinated by effective political leadership. would be a differest marter, Bus Hestb knows full wel ate of the Pit sour this past. the way eur like this is possible in the present resporded la the occupation at rhe Plessey plant have furnished balushle reminders of this to anyone who doubtsir. Hesth is prahably no rare than an averagely competen: Hourgroa litician but it appeurs thst he con see through the holle Labor is chetand which atremors are mute redundant and aut of place in thie contest of the posernment's present political assault or organied Lahour though no doubt the time will com some now variant of wage restraint, in return for a seat at the negotinting tahle.
In the mcastime, the domestic policy of the Heath regime ertainly promises a drastic sharpening of the class struggl ind the abandonment of attempts to go very far in conc Ing the organised working class If any balf way adequal political force existed within the British Iphour mopefient then this might be a dangerous policy. Hut the C that have any real implantation in orgamised Asbour are quite incapable of furnishing an aggressive fader Party, In the past the German and Japanget bourgeoisies inve been able to use the relatingfeone their proletariats to wage sucueist imperialist rivalry In the coming period we alay oxffect the British and American bourpesisie yo attempt to use the relative p be saw to hake an neatenine strategy the Make an ageressive strategy the The &vernment will presurally think carefully about TR.B. At the same time otber measures of a mone fullresort war made to the suppression of p police and army units, not to speak of all manner of STEL WAL ONLY THE DEARERO NONE OLEHESE METHOOS HEE Fe be excluded in the coming period and some have indoed already been tried. But we can regard the Special Branch's efforts so far as a faint augury of things to come-after ill, The deportation of a convalescent German student and tb apprenion of an underground magacine or teo are just still to be won, namely the taming of the workers econor REPRESSION AND BOURGEOIS DEMOCRACY It should be added that a British government can wage a vicious campaign of repression without in any way ahandoning hourgeois democracy, Indeed to begin with the government will exploit for all it it worth traditional reverence for the treppings of parliamentary democracy: the sanctity of legislation, the majesty of the Law, the capitalist media will give a unanamous and the Lahour Party Mansty's most lowl Opposition. Given its chormon ileologieni and material securas lu sassament balevery chance of winning its firit evengements with organised hour. In short the stereotyped sormulatino to wisch E objected at the beginning of this article is seen to be true in I has Somone than avernge need to find such a soluti in tie short rie A NEGATIVE PROSNOSIS?
prognosis for opened up by Heath will gate a situscon in which at bas lutionary polirios con Sueblish a bridgehead among Pillars of bourgebis Britain: among them presely thos ase mentioned sbove. This entry into the Eurapea and ideologies above all H will further weaken the already waning power of Partiste Nirom's bourgeois point of les those wen argue agriast chipy an the grounds that i will sap the integrity of Britan's indeed the ic, are perfectly correct. Like many of the nest of o ore backward and depressed national dustri Labour Party might sho be very aduerady Necteiby the post entry political climate. We lave shown abbye in which the Labour Party he ped to pioneer the hol Atlantic orientation of Britali espitalism and was tho good position a chim the dividends of audacious cles collabocation. Things may be rather different in the approsching Europeat dispensation, Eabour bas chosen for ITSelf the comparatively modest role of being the chauvinist roaction to the new course even this function it has enforced without much credih lity, In fact the Labou arty as yet to cone up with any very convincing cantr utica it can mace to bourgeois politics in this new period Asa schicle for integrating the working class it has already take Jiselt to be nocably ion importent them therem One shandni mina balloons Drug the workme cless: namely the Labour Park ancthe Communis!
plationary left: working clam. The underlying Chat precise form this will take it is dilficih to my wich group of workers is to be made the first victim of the bbcations, the provocations-of which the forgery of the so-called Zimoviev nspherica" that leave the real prize of class conflict All Marsiste must of will play out the familiar role of Her da better than average expectation of being able to do *Labour to lower monstitation". or lack o the organised wurkers to the bourgeois state. But any weakening of the Labour Party's role in touggeois politics influgnces igro the bourgeois political arena. In the short • Conservative Party has reasop/to congratulate itsel r haying discredited and enfeebled its pseudo-adversaryin Ure long run it is ocly preparifig the ground for a real THE MEANING OF THE NEW COURSE FOR REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS The brazen ritalist rationslity of the new course and the weakening frip of tradirfonal mystifications will not lead in the firs instanoe toyfy mass proletarian revolt but thes e most adryned and militant workers, Thase workers an emerging from a period in which bey won significant gains i econennie pass struggie been now, well unempogwen. rising to the million mark, the trade unions ate still growing pufferically, an unprecedented combination which roverso British workers ace discovering new mechodsior struggle which will enable them to greatly extend the are of class struggle. NEELU IS INCLE NONUS OR TONEERED REDACTIC organisation of British workers that the ruling class is shifting the lerrain of struggle onto its home ground legislation, legality, "public apinion" of the trade union burcaucracies rhemselves responding apressivel and creatively to this shift is the locus of combat, this is certainly not the case with the younger and more determined militants who have no nostalgia for the gentleman s agreements and procedure of the ch dispensation. They do not want to put their foot inside the door of the mansion of privilege, they want to put the boot in the awner's flahby micriff. Homever fuch a reaction small minority of the most active and class conscious That is the real flaw in the otherwise intelligent ant coherent strategy of the new course. The great advantage which the British capitalist class at present enjoys is one that will tend to disappear precisely to the extent to which it is fully exploited. British imperialism can no longer provide as coacical and materulencent to the gomeshe eas struggle In these conditions the political loyalty of the workers will be not jost used but abso wed up The rulers will he foroed to expend political capital to defend economie capital It is most unlikely that the British bourgeoisie renlly inderstands this. They naturally see the moderation and teformism of the British working man as an eternal fact of nature. They will aDow that the British worker has many defects but be in after all British and thus shapes the national reverence for cocipromise, corimonsense, negotiation and respect for all duly established authority. These national traits are not soon as transent and hustorically determined enfities which history, especially the experience of imperial decline and of the new course itself, in in the process of eroding. The British bourgeoise has successfully fotgotten those regrettable occasions when British workers failed to conform so typer that is why it will be prepared to tak provoicine them, Moreover the fact that the first few times its expectations will probably he confiresed can only fortify it in what with ultimately prove to he its fatal error. For a permanent and thorough-going implant Lion c revolutionary politics in the working class, a coherent Marsist political intervention is an absolate pre -candition, course know how to leach from the masses but equally they must know how to confroat and combat the agreeive and basicward features of popular consciousness. Otherwise the radicalisation provoked by the new course could be simply another quasi syndicalist apisade in the Tustocy sEtbe Dritish Isbour-mevement. The practical political implications of the present analysis go far beyond the soope of a pretiminery lovestigation such as I have essayed above. But at least a recognition of the political weakness of the organised working class in Britain and of its role in the current stategy of the ruling class is dispensable for waging a struggle for Marxist potirice Unfortunalely those groups on the Left which have an almost exclusively British basus of support find all this very hard to accept The very circumstance that they, the "internationa:" vanguard, , exist more strongly in Britain than anywhere else is itself seen as a tribute to the sound poitical instincts of af least some British workers. They find it difficult not to pander to Labourism and other manifestations of Brirish political retardation They have a tendency simply to rurn up the volume of conventional Labourist cant rather than seeing the necesity for a break with it. If the Labour Left calls for "nationa Tation theo the "revolutionary" Left calls for "nationalisation with workers" control" as if the class character of nationalisation by the bourgeois state could in some way he cancelled our by workers' purticipetion. 1l Tribune calls for a return to Labour, then the Left calls for with Sociaust polices IF Jack Jone: tales about a one day General Strike, then they ask for an indefinite General Strike rarber than insisting on all the measures necessary to tum a coventional passipo stoppage Or baume really revolationary politics can only be forged in maripulated by the TUC into a revolucionary mass action Sik he is bertainly not a bourgeois politician of real stature like Ceteral Be Gaulle-and we should regerber that even De Gautes atherly political manoeuvrin? detonated forces If unty Britise Marxists tan arandon their ersational
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