B arnsley's Lenin

Jimmy Reid

C cargillism, if it goes unchecked, will L./consign Labour to the wilderness for the rest of the century. We are a movement in search of a philosophy: Blackpool was a shambles because we lacked a coherent and credible concept of modern industrial society. The late Antony Crosland, our only major theoretician of the post-war years, provided Labour with the idea of a potentially benign capitalism, a mixed eco- nomy and Welfare State which, with be- nevolent neo-Keynsian state intervention, could permanently banish unemployment, slumps, and the vagaries of uncontrolled market forces from our lives.

This theory was generally shared by the leaders of the Conservative Party and even the masters of our financial and industrial institutions: the consensus or bi-partisan post-war government of Britain was predi- cated on Crosland's theory. After all, it did seem to correspond to social reality. The old capitalist slump, the cyclical recessions which would plunge the masses into squalor and an ever-declining standard of living predicted by Marxist socialists didn't materialise.

Capitalism, or the world capitalist eco- nomy, far from crumbling into an ever- deepening crisis appeared to be delivering the goods. The economies of the West were booming, living standards were im- proving in contrast to the rigid, centrally controlled economies of the so-called socialist world based on the Soviet model. Of course there were hiccups or mini- crises, but government or inter- governmental intervention along neo- Keynsian lines appeared to resolve the problems.

By the late Seventies things started to go wrong. Large scale unemployment, world recession and all the other horrors of unmanaged, pre-war capitalism, once again were surfacing. In Britain, an eco- nomy which for a number of historic reasons was largely parasitic, based on the City of London, on banking and insurance and the paraphernalia of an Empire which no longer .existed, exporting capital rather than investing it in British industries, was the most vulnerable of all to world reces- slun.

The ability of Britain to sustain and fund the Welfare State, which underpinned the post-war consensus, was brought into ques- tion. The Tory Right was first to grasp the nettle. So-called Thatcherism cannot be explained by the personal eccentricities of a grocer's daughter. If Margaret Thatcher hadn't been born, the Tories would have had to invent her.

The Conservative Party's response to the crisis of world capitalism, at its most acute

here in Britain, was to retreat, back to the economic homilies of the 19th century. The Labour Party, on the other hand, became gripped by philosophical paralysis. Cros- landism collapsed and right-wing Labour, whose ideas were based on his concept of the world, lost its grip and control of the Labour machine, creating a power vacuum in the movement. The Left, or more precisely a mature, credible, democratic and responsible Left, sufficiently strong to provide a realistic alternative, hadn't materialised.

Into this power vacuum flooded a host of infantile, ultra-leftist, sectarian groupings armed with slogans as ready-made panaceas for the complex economic and social problems of Britain in the 1980s. Some Labour MPs who took pride in their lack of theory and boasted of being only practical men were suddenly confronted with young men and women in their constituency parties spouting phrases from Lenin or Trotsky and hadn't a bloody clue about how to answer or combat these idiocies.

The political pundits, analysing last week's Labour Party Conference, became absorbed with personalities or the minutiae of blatantly absurd resolutions. They know everything about politicians and next to nothing about politics. Scargillism, which swept the Labour Party Conference into orgasmic spasms, determided the proceed- ings. But like Thatcherism, it is an effect and not a cause.

Ten years ago, Arthur Scargill's rhetoric would have been scorned and scoffed at by any Labour movement conference. Today, in all its shallowness and superficiality, it is hailed as holy writ. This is a measure of Labour's ideological bankruptcy. The par- ty in a very real sense is a movement in search of a philosophy and Clause Four, the constitutional declaration of socialist aims, is no substitute for the coherent outlook needed as a guide to action. The British people and, above all, the British working class, sense this philo- sophical bankruptcy. They do not believe that a Scargill-dominated or an ultra-leftist Labour Party can govern Britain or be trusted with our hard-won democratic rights. These fears are justified.

Scargillism, to the extent that it is an ideological force, is based on seizing power, not winning it through the demo- cratic process. Arthur's contempt for democracy is manifest. The rules of the NUM are absolutely unambiguous on one issue. A national strike of miners cannot be official unless preceeded by a national ballot in which a majority of the members votes for strike action. There is no other possible or honest interpretation of the union's constitution. On two previous occasions, the miners, through the ballot box, rejected his call for strike action. BY October of last year, his stock was low and according to opinion polls his credibility was declining at an amazing rate even within the union. His criticism in a Trostskyist paper of Poland's banned Solidarity union and other excursions into interna- tional politics provoked a torrent of conde- mnation.

I'm convinced, and this is based on knowing him for more than 25 years, that Arthur actually considers himself to be Britain's Lenin. But Lenin's theories sprang from a society where democracy had been unknown. Leninism, or for that matter Trostskyism, are the theories of alienated intellectuals working within a backward, autocratic society, who con- sidered themselves to be the historically appointed leaders of the toiling and ignor- ant masses. They could only conceive of social change through revolutionary vio- lence.

In their scheme of things all moral values are relative. What is in the interests of the working class is moral. What is against the interests of the working class is immoral. Who decides, you may ask, what is in the interests of the working class? The work- ers? Oh no. They are brainwashed by the state, religion, the media, and a host of other Establishment ploys and therefore cannot really judge what is in their in- terests.

Only the self-appointed vanguard of the working class — the Leninists or Trotsyk- ists — can decided what is truly in the interest of the working class and therefore what is moral. Arthur Scargill's guru is Professor V. L. Allen, who wrote a book called The Militancy of British Miners. In it he argues: The primary division in the trade unto° movement is ideological and relates to the understanding of the cause of union orga' nisation, methods and purposes and there- fore to policies and strategies to achieve these . . it divides those who believe that reason can prevail in industrial relations from those who believe that force dominates [p. 319].

He also has a chapter on 'Solidarity Through Force' dealing with the 1972 strike, which starts:

The miners were constantly urged by their officials to engage in peaceful picketing only. During the actual operation of the strike, however, this was a meaningless exhortation for insofar as the miners were determined to win their strike, violence was implicit in it [p. 1941.

In the 1972 and 1974 strikes, this theory of implicit violence was held in .check by the leadership of Joe Gormley and Law- rence Daly, In 1984, there are no such constraints from the leadership and explicit violence is being morally vindicated be- cause it is in the interests of the working . class as perceived by the current leaders. So, too, is the cynical betrayal of the union's democracy. All things can be morally justified by men who believe them- selves to be the sole arbiters of what they call 'class morality'. Reason goes out the window. In the same book, Allen con- demns Lawrence Daly 'for not having the ability to resist intellectual arguments in the interests of solidarity'. In essence, this is obscurantism posing as socialist theory. Underlying the whole approach of Scargillism is a contempt for working people, who are seen as pawns to be used by an 'elite' as they plan and scheme revolutionary change. This aim Justifies the means. It doesn't really matter to them if you devalue the vocabulary of trade unionism. A picket is made to assume mystical significance. 'You cannot cross a picket line,' is proclaimed in abso- lute terms.

Many years ago workers operating a bus service in the West of Scotland went on strike because a Pakistani had been em- Ployed. A few workers, to their everlasting credit, crossed the picket line and went to Work as a matter of trade union principle. A picket can only derive moral authority from representing the expressed opinion of a majority of a workforce. Pickets where no . vote has been taken, or where a majority has voted against strike action, have absolutely no moral authority in trade union terms. In January 1983, the staff at the old NYM headquarters in London went on strike and Arthur Scargill continued work-

ing While his employees picketed outside. A scab is a worker who participates in a

vote where the majority decides to go on strike and then refuses to abide by this decision. Workers who vote by a majority

,11°t to strike cannot, in trade union terms, ue described as scabs for honouring such a decision.

Scargill waves the Plan for Coal and argues that its provisions exclude the clo- sure, of uneconomic pits. Whatever the merits of the current dispute, the Plan for Coal was based on the elimination of uneconomic colliery capacity. The 1977 Coal Industry Bill introduced by the Labour Government, based on the Plan, used those very words.

_Tony Benn, as Secretary of State for nergY, said in the House of Commons on 4 December 1978:

I have never found the NUM in any way unreasonable where closures are necessary because of exhaustion or because pits are out of line in economic terms.

A pit in Yorkshire was closed in Decem- ber 1979 after being taken through the national appeals procedure because it was uneconomic. At that time, the president of the NUM in Yorkshire was Arthur Scar- gill.

I think a case can be argued for revising the Plan for Coal so that factors other than economic can be considered when examin- ing the whole question of pit closures. In fact, the British Labour movement has argued for the last 20 years that the criteria for major industrial decisions should be widened to include the consideration of social consequences. If the life of an isolated mining community depends entirely on a pit, even on a grotesquely uneconomic pit, then its lifespan should be extended until alternative employment is brought to the area. Such an argument would command, I'm certain, the support of the great majority in this country.

Arthur Scargill is arguing something different. He is absolutely insistent that economics should play no part whatsoever when reviewing the operation of a pit. This is mind-boggling. If coal in a particular seam costs £10,000 a ton to extract so be it: that is his logic. But wouldn't it then be rather expensive to burn? You would have to burnish it, put it in pendents and sell it in jewellers' shops.

Labour's Conference actually endorsed such nonsense, yet the Party cannot poss- ibly contest the next general election on a programme which asserts that economic considerations are irrelevant when taking decisions in publicly-owned industry. This is an absurd proposition, is untenable in any system, capitalist or socialist, and is bizarre coming from someone professing to be a Marxist.

Indeed, the Labour movement must come to terms with the new technological revolution. We must see it as a means of liberating workers from dirty and danger- ous jobs. The right to work must mean shorter working hours for everyone. In the long term, this cannot be achieved by claiming a person's right to work at a specific job for the rest of his or her life. This would freeze the division of labour and would preclude any economic or tech- nological progress. If jobs had been frozen 200 years ago, we would still have thousands of stagecoach drivers in Britain today, presumably driving stagecoaches.

By the end of this century, I would hope that modern technology, among many other things, will have ended the need for human beings to work like moles in the bowels of the earth. To envisage people working down the pits for evermore is not just Luddite, in the worst sense of that word, but thoroughly reactionary. Yet even to air such views in the present climate of intolerance within the Labour movement is considered, at the least, anathema or an act of 'class' treachery. As long as Labour tries to develop a relevant socialist philosophy by closing minds and mouths, it will fail.