has been further multiplied by the North Vietnamese and NLF military offensive which led to the fall of the province of Quang Tri and once again brought back the war as a major issue within American politics. This fact enabled McGovern to counteract the effect of Nixon's visits to both Peking and Moscow, which were and are used by the Republican administration for internal electoral purposes. Thus the effect of the offensive inside the United States should not be underestimated and the decisive votes cast for McGovern in the Californian primary may well have been decided by the fall of Quang TTE.
The second important fact which has aided McGovern's rise has been the economic measures carried out by the Nixon administration from August 15th, 1971 onwards. The cumulative effect of these has brought new pains for McGovern and it was undoubtedly the first flush of these which made him rashly promise far-reaching new reforms such as a minimum guaranteed wage, which would be the biggest reform in the entire history of capitalism.
THE AMERICAN WORKERS AFTER THE FREEZE Nixon's wage freeze has only legitimised a situation which has been developing since 1967, namely, that for the first time over three decades the real disposable income of the American working class has stagnated and has now begun to decline. This represents an extremely significant break for American politics as it implies that for the first time in 35 years we could begin to see political opposition developing from within the American working class. Thus after Nixon's measures were announced even the most reactionary of reactionary trade union leaders, George Meany, was forced to make demagogic references to the class struggle! None of this will happen overnight, but the very possibility of large scale radicalisation in the working class is enough to give the American bosses a whole series of nightmares. Already the militancy of the young workers in the General Motors plant in Lordstown (see The Red Mole, 37) is an indication of what could follow. An additional and extremely serious complication for the American ruling class is the fact that a politicisation of American workers would take place in a context where social layers on the periphery and the margins of the working class have already undergone a certain process of radicalisation, particularly ethnic minorities, students, and women. A working class radicalisation would thus take in the experiences of these layers and transcend them. That is why a SUBSCRIBE!
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Money Orders to Red Mole, 182 Pentonville Road, London N.I. political orientation to the problems faced by the working class is vital for all revolutionary groups, which have, up till now, mainly recruited their members from non working-class layers. If this orientation is applied it makes it possible to win over the most politicised workers direct to the revolutionary movement and enable them to fight against capitalist politics in the trade unions and the tactories.
AN UNDECIDED RULING CLASS? The potential dangers inherent in the political and economic situation of the United States at the present moment make a politician like George McGovern attractive to certain sections of the American ruling class. The reforms proposed by McGovern are related to the extent of the crisis which has gripped American society. If a large enough section of the American ruling class feels that reforms, of the sort proposed by McGovern, are the only or, at any rate, the easiest way of curbing militancy in the working class, co-opting some of the radicals of yesteryear, and generally taming the situation, then they would undoubtedly opt for them and boost McGovern as the man to bring in a new New Deal. Of course for the ruling class to decide on such a course would be an extremely serious step and the best indicator of American capitalism's crisis. Up till now the reaction of the millionaires has been the opposite and as McGovern appeared as the most likely Democratic presidential candidate, so his financial backers pressured him to retreat on some of his domestic proposals. As The Guardian commented approvingly in a leader: "...the McGovern delegates at the party's pre-convention committee meetings have surprised observers with their restraint and readiness to compromise. Several of the more controversial McGovern proposals have been dropped or fudged by the platform committee." (July 1,1972)
MILLIONAIRE SUPPORT/BACKSLIDING/MORE CLARIFICATIONS McGovern himself has been backtracking on a whole series of proposals and as Dick Roberts writing in the American Trotskyist weekly. The Militant noted: "The senator from South Dakota must convince the wealthy rulers of this country that no matter what he says in public, he is a loyal servant of the capitalists and has no intentions of rocking the boat if elected. So McGovern's real views are being aired in the financial press-safely distant from the overwhelming majority of American voters." Roberts went on to provide a summary of the thoughts of McGovern as revealed to the financial press. For instance the May 27th issue of the important Business Week summarised an interview with McGovern thus: "Now, with the 49-year-old South Dakotan out in front in the primaries, his thoughts on such matters as tax reform and income redistribution carry much more weight-and he is trying hard to sound less radical... "The closer he gets to the nomination, the more he seeks to broaden his political base and the more he modifies the details of the economic positions he has staked out."
McGOVERN AND THE AMERICAN LEFT McGovern's campaign has not only attracted the liberals as one would have expected, but has also won over many of the "ultra-left" critics of revolutionary Marxism. Thus a section of the Black Panthers, Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, Ramparts magazine and numerous others have declared their support for McGovern and his campaign. This failure to break with capitalist politics shows up the weakness of spontaneism and similar ideologies which have emerged from the massive radicalisation in the United States. The same people who opposed Leninist organisations and the mundane tasks connected with party-building with the illiterate slogan, "The groups are nothing, the movement is everything" are revealing their true colours by jumping on the McGovern bandwagon.
The largest group on the extreme left in the United States today is the Socialist Workers Party and the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA), its youth organisation. The SWP has put its own candidates for President and Vice-President in VI Militant/Ed Weaver Socialist Workers Party the field, Linda Jenness and Andrew Pulley respectively, not because it has any illusions in the American electoral system, but to use this period of heightened political interest to present socialist ideas to large numbers of people, and to stress at the same time its complete disdain of all the capitalist candidates. This has won them the wrath of the American CP, which has declared the necessity of building "independent formations to keep McGovern "honest"," and accuses the SWP of helping Nixon and Wallace by their attacks on McGovern. This attitude of regarding Nixon as the main enemy and his defeat as the mam prony lets une Democrats compietery off the hook and is contradictory to the C.P.'s decision to run its own candidates. But the CP slanders and Trotsky-baiting cannot cover up the fact that the SWP campaign is probably the largest campaign ever waged in the United States on a socialist platform. In Massachusetts for instance, the SWP collected 100,625 signatures to get its candidates on the ballot, nearly 50,000 more than were necessary. All this shows the enormous possibilities which open up for making revolutionary propaganda to explain the futility of the choice being offered to American workers, namely, of electing representatives of different sections of U.S. capitalism to the White House for another four years.
McGovern's candidature is designed precisely to obscure this fact and to prevent the emergence of independent working class politics. That is why the SWP candidates and their weekly newspaper The Militant are absolutely correct to lay stress in exposing the real nature of the politics represented by George McGovern and his party.
American students in Britain interested in helping the SWP campaign should write to: SWP Campaign, 706 Broadway, Eighth Floor, New York, N.Y. 10003.
Millant Howord retric candidates Linda Jenness and Andrew Pulley