We're not ready for a General Strike

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start to replace the Stalinist .. г THE Socialist Organiser editorial of 24 September entitled "Organise tor a General Strike" was a serious political error and only serves to : continue: the confusion about this demand which has plagued the revolutionary left for too long.

Your editorial put forward the following strategy:

1. There should be united strikes against the Tories 4% limit. In this way the strong unions will help the weak.

2. Strikes against the 4% limit must be generalised with the TUC calling a 3. Such a general strike will be lead by local action committees who will develop the strike so that it a) breaks the 4% limit; b) wins the rising scale of wages; c) brings down the Tories; d) has the potential of raising a workers' government.

In order to show the danger of such a strategy in the present period we must first realise precisely what a general strike is.

There is a world of difference between national strike or one day stoppage and an indefinite The reality of a general strike is that even if it is entered into for limited demands (e.g. break the 4%) it creaies a position of dual power between the working class and ruling class. It would (as your editorial points out) pose the question of state power. The result of a situation of dual power is either the working class replaces capitalism or the working class retreats, which would certainly result in years of demoralisation and confusion - like the period after the 1926 Reaction In fact a failure to move forward from a general strike to seizing power could well lead to the triumph of reaction like in Italy in the 1920s.

Clearly then a general strike is the ultimate weapon of the working class this side of taking power. The demand should not be lightly used and is only relevant in a pre-revolutionary situation when the working class is everywhere challenging the authority of capitalism. It is meaningful to agitate for a general strike in a period of growing dual pion it is inrelevanther situa- olner The first duty of revolutionary socialists is to look the facts in the face. The reality of the present situation is that the working class movement began to suffer from considerable confusion and demoralisation under the Callaghan government. This developed into a major defeat with the election of Thatcher. Now on the question of jobs and prices the working class is in retreat.:.. Struggles … against unemployment have-been in Added to this sad story is now the rightward lurch of the leadership of the Labour Party and some major trade unions. Revolutionary policies have gained no serious hold over the mass of workers.

Comrades, this is hardly the situation to be demanding a general strike.

The most worrying thing about your editorial was the call for the TUC to call a general strike. For weeks Socialist Organiser has rightly been slamming the TUC for its inability to lead any kind of fight. To now wish to place the fate of the labour movement in their hands by calling on them to start what would be a struggle for power must confuse many • of your readers.

I am all for calling upon those in a position of leadership to lead so that their shortcomings can be exposed through the experience of struggle, but let us not attempt to do that in such a dangerous manner.

Perhaps you believe that once a general strike is underway the working class will in the course of events be won to a revolutionary position. Unfortunately hinter hae chown this Anes not happen.

The working class rarely, if ever, changes horses in mid race. They go into battle with a fixed set of ideas, any rethinking is done after the fight. To ask workers to go into a general strike with all its implications, when there is no revolutionary party, nor sight of one, is irresponsible.

As there is no revolutionary leadership any general strike would have to be led Litt manant rafarmict Ipodetchin Meteat would De For a successful general capaun HIYULITE soviets, and have realised ther necessity of seizing power.

This is not the case at the moment.

The demand is relevant not to use the demand indeAS . Milil like Davi few 1 Hert sup! they papt bece ent opin YS. pendent of the political situation. One organisation who were for ever guilty of such an offence was the Workers Revolutionary Party.

Their ritualistic demand for a general strike (usually every May Day!) could only result in workers seeing the demand as irrelevant or mistaking its fundamental revolutionary character. The demand is only worth raising in a period when workers will fight for it.

Please do not misunderstand what I am saying. I am in favour of strikes against the 4% and hopefully such strikes would spread. But 1 hope that 1 have explained why a general strike is an entirely different kind of strike and a nondemand at present.

Your editorial debased the general strike demand and was a collapse into syndicalist politics.

Yours fraternally, V. O'BRIEN

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only at a specific stage in the class struggle. We must learn