[proletariat, ceases to be a purely negative act…]

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proletariat, ceases to be a purely negative act of ideologicalpolitical self-defence, and acquires all its revolutionary content only in the event that over against the conservative defence of the antiquated national fatherland we place the progressive task, namely the creation of a new, higher "'fatherland" of the revolution, of republican Europe, whence the proletariat alone will be enabled to revolutionise and to reorganise the whole world.

Herein, incidentally, lies the answer to those who ask dogmatically: "Why the unification i Europe and not or the whole vorld?'. Europe is not only geographic term, but a certain economic and cultural-historical community. The European revolution does not have to wait for the revolutions in Asia and Africa nor even in Australia and America. And yet a completely victorious revolution in Russia or England is unthinkable without a revolution in Germany and vice versa.

The present war is called a world war, but even after the intervention of the United States it is Europe that is the arena of war. And the revolutionary problems confront first of all the European proletariat : :. IN THIS interview Tony Benn pinpoints for the first time exactly how the EEC would be an obstacle to a left government in Britain.

'The EEC Commission are very realistic people, they don't want to have a punch-up with Britain, and the European Court would adjust its judgements. The British courts would be used by Capital " (emphasis addeu).

In terms of real social forces, the problem would be the British courts, not anything in Brussels. EEC law would simply be one possible pretext for the bitterly Tory British judiciary to obstruct radical change.

It could have plenty of Britishborn-and-bred pretexts. *After all, the British constitution requires the Queen's say-so for every law. She is hardly likely to give her approval to socialist measures, and there is no constitutional way of removing the Queen's power unless she agrees to it.

The real problem does not lie with the pretext. The ultimate defence of capitalist power is not this or that law, written on a bit of paper, saying 'socialism is illegal ', but the material force of the capitalist state: courts, police, prisons, bureaucracy, armed forces...

The main enemy, as the old revolutionary slogan said, is at home: The main obstacle for us is the repressive power and the ideological power of the British state. The policy of 'Britain out is misleading - directing our energies against a subsidiary obstacle (Brussels) and missing the real enemy.

Tony Benn disagrees. He argues that if Britain remains in the EEC, 'the British electorate (will) lose the right by their vote to determine their economic and industrial policy ... (it's) reversing the Chartists. and the suffragettes."

He is right that the EEC is undemocratic. The EEC Commission is not controlled by the European Assembly éven to he extent that the Whiteh?! bureaucracy is controlled by Westminster.

Why not respond to that by fighting for the European Assembly to have more power? Tony Benn replies that this notion of a parliamentarydemocratic EEC is a "dream", an "illusion", a "great new theory" floating above the battles here and now. We should instead focus on defending what parliamentary democracy we have in Britain.

But why is winning something on an EEC scale more remote and unrealistic than winning it within Britain? if a struggle is broadened to the EEC scale, the enemy becomes a broader one • _ the allied capitalist classes of the EEC, rather than just the British capitalists. But the forces that can be mobilised on our side are also broadened - from the British working class to the EEC working class.

Winning radical demands on an EEC scale is a "dream" only so long as real EECwide workers' unity is a dream.

We are in fact a long way off from effective EEC-wide workers' unity. But remedying that failure is not optional.

So long as capitalism continues to exist, it will create international connections and strategies. It is a world system, not a series of national economies loosely tied together. Social. ists have to recognise this, and develop working class internationalism to match. Trying to turn the clock back is no answer.

Tony Benn is quite right to indict the EEC as anti-socialist. The question is, how to fight it.

'Britain out' is no answer. It would not touch the essential obstacles to radical change. It would not stop international capitalist coordination, only change its form.

Inevitably, despite the best intentions of some of its supporters, the 'Britain out' policy means the labour movement slewing away from the path of class struggle, towards a nationalist path. Class struggle, and maximum internationa coordination of that class struggle, is the surer answer.

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Socialist Organiser, August 1983 Page 18