7/29/2019 In Defense of Tactics

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In Defense of TacticsIn our last issue we pu blished an article on the use (and

misuse) of the general strike slogan in the context of Brit-ains 1974 Winter of Discontent. The article was excerp tedfrom one that appeared in the 1 March 1974 Workers Van-

guard(WV), newsp aper of the Spartacist League (SL). Thequestion of the general strike is just as important today asit was then, but the SLs attitude tow ard it has und ergonea substantial devolution. This is evident in its attitudetoward the recent series of one-day token general strikes(Days of Action) across Ontario in opposition to theattacks of Mike Harris Tory government.

In our prop aganda w e have sought to expose the half-steps taken by the union leadership, by calling for a generalstrike organized an d controlled by dem ocratically-electedstrike committees in every w orkplace coordinated throughdelegated regional and provincial assemblies. The SLsCanadian sup porters have, by contrast, made a point ofnotcalling for generalized, province-wide strike action, andhave instead counterposed a call for building a revolution-ary partyi.e., their group.

This sectarian absu rd ity is not confined to Canad a, as wepointed out in a letter sent to the former SLers of theInternationalist Group in February 1997:

We think that the question of the general strike is posedfor French Trotskyists in the mid-1990s as well. As weexplained in our article in 1917No. 18, the situation inDecember 1995 seems to us to be a circumstance whererevolutionaries should have m ade th eir agitational focusthe call for a general strike to bring down Jupp, concre-tized w ith calls for elected str ike comm ittees in each work-place, coordinated on local, regional and national levels.This could h ave intersected the consciousness of the moremilitant union mem bers who were attempting to push thebureaucrats in this direction, and have provided an open-ing for revolutionary militants to extend their political

influence. Yet, while calling for extending the str ikes intothe private sector, the Ligue Trotskyste de France[LTFthe SLs French affiliate] deliberately refrainedfrom calling for a general strike, instead asserting that thequestion of power is posed. Its central slogan was a callto build a new revolutionary lead ership , (i.e., the LTF).

While the Spartacist League has yet to offer an explana-tion for its new policy on the general strike, SpartacistCanada (published by the Trotskyist League of Canada[TL]), respon ded to ou r criticism in its Fall 1997 issue. Theybegan by contrasting the current situation in On tario withthat of Britain in 1974, when there was a nationwidepolitical crisis in wh ich the ru ling class wa s deep ly split.But surely everyone can agree that the December 1995strikes in Paris posed a n ational crisis for the French bour-geoisie? And even in Toron to, in October 1996, the capital-ists decided to close down for the d ay rather than risk anopen clash with tens of thou sands of strikers.

A general strike against the Harris government w ouldnot likely lead to an immediate struggle for proletarianpower. But a defensive victory won through mass actionwou ld certainly alter the entire political land scape in favorof the workers and their allies, and m ake it easier to w infuture stru ggles.

The core of the TLs polemic is the assertion that ageneral strike poses the question ofpowerwhich classshall rule, the bourgeoisie or the proletariat? Having

framed th e issue in these terms th ey dismiss our call for ageneral strike to defeat a capitalist offensive, and bringdow n the government that is spearheading it, as nothingmore than pressure tactics aimed at a p arliamentary shake-

up . The SLs 1974 article was directed against exactly thisbrainless syllogism. While acknowled ging that victory can-not be guaranteed in advance, the then-revolutionary SLasserted th at:

it would be the w orst kind of scholastic passivity to argu ethat the w orkers mu st accept, without struggle, whateverthe Tories do to them because their leaders m ight betraya general strike that could w in.

If a general strike were only appropriate in situationswhere the struggle for power is immediately posed, itwou ld be d ifficult to justify the Toledo, Minneap olis or San

Francisco general strikes of 1934. All of these began aslimited an d d efensive local actionsbut they tou ched off alabor up surge that finally established indu strial unionismin North America (see American Labor Besieged, 1917

No. 19).Dur ing th e 1970s the SL itself called for general strikes

in a variety of situations where the level of social strugglewas n o higher than it is in Ontario today. For examp le, WVNo. 41 (29 March 1974) reported that the Bay Area SL hadpublished a leaflet entitled For a Political General Strike!For Full Labor Solidarity! advocating the expansion of apu blic sector strike wave into a city-wide genera l strike.WVNo. 55, (25 October 1974) raised the call For a GeneralStrike Against Proposition `L in response to attacks oncivic workers in San Francisco. The front page of the 17Janu ary 1975 WV featured a picture of an SL contingent inSan Francisco carrying a banner calling for a state-widegeneral strike in defense of the United Farm Workers. Thema in head line on th e 16 April 1976 issue again called For

an S.F. General Strike!, this time in response to a union-busting offensive against the m unicipal unions.

The revolutiona ry SL did not limit su ch calls to the BayArea. The 6 June 1975 WV called For a Citywide GeneralStrike Against Layoffs in New York. A few months later,in N ovember 1975, WVran a n article calling For A Genera lStrike to Restore Labor Govern men t in Austr alia. Over th eyears it also called for general str ikes in France, Spain andelsewher eeven, in 1976, in Can ada !

The fight to forge a revolutionary leadership for theunions is not something that can be accomp lished by exhor-tation. It requires the intersection of the communist pro-gram (embodied primarily in revolutionary cadres in theunions) with the actual, living struggles of the masses. Insituations where the w orkers are confronted by a general-

ized assault by the capitalists the job of Marxists is toprom ote a generalized response, and to focus attention onthe necessary next step, as we explained in our previousissue:

The masses want a general strike. The bureaucrats areafraid to initiate one. In this circumstance, the call for ageneral strike can both expose the bureaucrats coward iceand demonstrate to militant workers (who may even beanti-communist) that, at least on this one question, thecommunists are right against their existing leaders. Thisis the only way that revolutionaries can begin the struggleto `politically defeat and replace the m isleaders.

1917, No. 19

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