The People's Convention

"Against the proletariat class rule is no longer able to disguise itself", Marx

Never before in the history of the working class movement has there been a greater need for political clarity and understanding of the situation which confronts us Yet in the face of the most acute crisis we find instead of clarity nothing but political bankruptcy and confusion.

Socialist theory and ideology have been successfully "blacked out" and In their place has been substituted the most blatant opportunism and reaction An opportunism which finds its highest expression in the latest brainstorm of the C.P The People's Convention for a People's Government.

Quite apart from the Marxian conception of the state and its function one would have thought that the collapse of German social democracy, the experience of the French popular front, and the Fascist uprising in Spain would have been sufficient to kill, for all time, the belief in parliamentary action as the road to working class power.

Apparently however, the C.P. are reluctant to shed their illusions and profit by past experience. So, in the face of the most ruthless manifestations of class rule the proletariat are urged to participate in a convention to achieve that historical impossibility, a People's Government.

Why do I say a People's Government is a historical impossibility? Marx, in his analysis of Capitalism, defined the state as an instrument of class rule. He perceived that the state machine was not an entity existing ~ itself, free from the conflicting interests of both Capital and Labour and so amenable to the interests of both that it could be taken over and used by either class according to majority rule. He realised that the state machine despite the democratic trappings was essentially an integral part of the capitalist system, a weapon of capitalist domination and oppression serving solely the interests of capital and never those of the workers.

Moreover, once It had outlived its usefulness, it would be immediately scrapped and superseded by something more ruthless and more suited to the Job of bludgeoning the Proletariat.

A nation at war has no time for playacting. Capitalism in crisis cannot afford to indulge in democracy. The insoluble contradictions of the system are so manifest that it is no longer possible for the ruling class to find even a breathing space within the framework of the old parliamentary regime. In order to stave off for a time at least the inevitable collapse it renounces its so-cal led democratic rule and resorts to the most flagrant and unabashed methods of class domination, otherwise fascism

The proof was only too regrettably evidenced by the recent Spanish tragedy. There the people, weighed down by poverty and oppression, endeavoured by purely constitutional means to obtain some slight amelioration. To achieve this they returned to parliament not a Red but only a reformist Government. Yet the incensed ruling class repudiated even their own bourgeois legality and unleashed the most bloody butchery of the proletariat the world has ever witnessed.

In the face of such savagery the Spanish people were compelled to go beyond their initial demands and engage in a life and death struggle in open class conflict. Here indeed, "against the Proletariat class rule was no longer able to disguise itself". For over three years the heroic workers of Spain, isolated and betrayed by the workers of the world, fought on, until battered and exhausted they went down to defeat before the onslaught of international capitalism. Despite their differences the capitalists are ever ready to unite against the rebellious Proletariat.

The tragedy of Spain is that of the world proletariat. The increased tempo of the class struggle brings with it increased measures of repression. Yet so great is the political myopia of the "organised" labour movement that this intensification of the class struggle passed unnoticed by all but a few. Even those who are aware of the need to prepare resistance to the capitalist onslaught are so hidebound in political orthodoxy that they are incapable of seeking a way out beyond the orbit of conventional political activity. To them, parliament is the supreme arbitrator. The theatre of struggle is the ministerial benches and not the workshop.

Even assuming that it was possible to bring about the defeat of the National Government, and vote a government prepared to accede to the workers' demands, can we believe for one moment that the British Ruling Class would continue to respect their own institution and jeopardise the war effort upon which their very existence depends? Certainly not! At the first threat of resistance to their will, they would immediately establish a military dictatorship and by sheer force of arms smash any attempt at progressive legislation.

To the Bourgeoisie the class struggle is very real. The spectre of communism forever haunts them, and to exorcise that spectre they will resort to any measures which will protect their interests and ensure the continuation of their hellish system. Against such despotism the workers' resistance must take a form more revolutionary in character than ordinary parliamentary action, and anyone who advocates this limited type of struggle is nothing short of a traitor to communism.

As Lenin said when answering Kautsky on this point - "Kautsky has stated that 'the aim of our political struggle is the conquest of power within the state by the gaining of a majority in parliament, and the conversion of parliament into the master of the government.'

This is nothing but the most vulgar opportunism, a repudiation of revolution in deeds while upholding it in words. Kautsky's imagination goes no further than a government willing to meet the proletariat half way. Kautsky will have to realise his beloved unity with the reactionaries of the social democratic movement. All that lot will agree to fight for a government 'meeting the proletariat halfway'

But we shall go forward to a break with these traitors to socialism. We are working for the complete destruction of the old machinery of government in such a way that the armed workers themselves shall be the government.

The opportunists can work for a rearrangement of forces within the state, the gaining of a majority In parliament and the supremacy of parliament over the government.

This is a most worthy object to the opportunists In which everything remains wirr1in the framework of a middle class parliamentary republic.

We however shall go forward to a complete break with the opportunists, and the whole class-conscious proletariat shall be with us - not for a rearrangement of forces but 'for the overthrow of the capitalist class and the destruction at bourgeois parliamentarism. Our aim is the building up of a democratic republic after the type of the Commune, of soviets of workers and soldiers deputies. in short the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."

What is required is not a People's Front for a capitalist 'peace' but a Workers' Revolutionary Alliance to destroy Fascism and War by overthrowing the cause - World Capitalism.

M.G (November 1940 - January 1941)

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