Proletarian Strategy - Part 7

The Role Of The Partisans

In Part 6 I showed that the existence of workers property could provide an example to workers elsewhere. But, more than that. The existence of territory and production and distribution, and communication meant in WWII, that those irregular forces, the Partisans and Resistance Fighters, still trapped in enemy territory, could also be supported. Indeed, its likely that without that support they could not have functioned. In turn those irregular forces, too played a part in undermining the enemy, in providing information, in subverting its production, in channelling propaganda, and so on. They could never have won a military battle in their own right, only forces based in their own territory, with their own massive resources could achieve that. That continues to be the relation between the Partisans of the Trade Union struggle, and the regular troops built up on the basis of the Workers own property. We saw that in the early part of the 20th Century in Britain, where the Co-op provided food, credit and other support including its own expertise in organising communication and distribution, for workers on strike during the General Strike, and during the 1930's Hunger Marches. We have seen it too in Argentina, where the Worker Co-operatives that have developed rapidly over the last decade, have not only provided physical and material support for workers on strike, but have themselves, by being integrated into the local working-class communities, received support from those communities, in the form, for example, of advice from academics in local Universities.

If the partisans are to be supported, and if their actions are to be effective, however, they too need to be guided. By their nature, they will most often come in to action in a defensive role, as Marx and Engels said, attempting to slow down the attacks of Capital. The more the workers are able to build their own property, the more important the role of the Workers Party becomes in using that experience to demonstrate to other workers still enslaved by Capital, the route away from that enslavement, and the party's representatives within the Partisans/Trades Unions/Community Organisations have a crucial role in winning over those workers, on the basis of that example, still captivated by the dominance of bourgeois ideas.

I am reminded in that respect of the experience of Spartacus, at least as represented in the film with Kirk Douglas. In the same way that initially workers were forced to become workers as a consequence of being deprived of their own means of production, so the slaves found themselves in that position for the same reason. Having rebelled, they were able to break free of their captivity. But, without means of supporting themselves they could only exist as bandits, who eventually would be hounded down. Their salvation lay, once they were strong enough, to actually seize territory for themselves. And having done so, they could send out messages to other slaves, and oppressed to provide their example, as proof that their was an alternative to slavery and oppression. Not, only did their possession of territory provide them with a base to support themselves, but it provided something to defend, and a beacon to others to join them. In so doing, their task was made easier in extending their scope. A similar vision was put forward by Marcus Garvey in the US as a solution to the oppression of American Blacks.

In terms of the class struggle the Workers party has to fulfil this function, acting as a General Staff to co-ordinate action, to analyse tactics, to organise propaganda, to be the advocate of the workers in every available forum, to make alliances against the enemy. But, the role of the Workers Party deserves an analysis of its own.

The Orthodox Left Strategy is rather like the method of warfare prior to the 19th Century where two contending armies would meet at a predetmined date, at a place of battle away from non-combatants, and would fight it out. That battle fought, they would pick up or bury their dead and wounded, and wait until the next battle, until one side was ultimately victorious. But, Class War is not like that, it is a continual process. It is more like the concept of Total War, in which it is not just soldiers fighting the battles, but which involves whole populations. That was witnessed during the 1984 Miners Strike, which is the closest industrial action in Britain in recent times to what can truly be called a class rather than a sectional struggle. But, even in recent purely sectional struggles, such as that of BA Cabin Crew, or what we are likely to see at BAA, it is clear that as far as Capital is concerned, it will largely put the differences between individual competing Capitalists to one side, in order to present a common front, and it will use all of its resources in the media etc., to exploit the main weakness of any strike – that the main people who immediately suffer, are those workers who are dependent on the goods and services no longer being produced.

Workers on strike cannot allow that to prevent them from striking, but it has to be recognised that a weakness exists here, and tactics need to be developed to address it. Once again, the best solution to the propaganda put out by the bosses that they cannot pay, would be the existence of a worker-owned business that demonstrated that it COULD! At the start of the last century, the Co-op introduced the reduced working-week for its workers, it introduced paid annual holidays, it introduced funds to cover their sickness and so on. This was at a time when other workers in the Retail industry, according to USDAW, had pay and conditions no better than a hundred years earlier, and when workers generally were still working a 50-60 hour week, with no paid holidays. On the back of the example set by the Co-op, workers in these other industries could push through their unions for an equalisation of their conditions. The Co-op, because of its Wholesale and manufacturing business had good knowledge of costs and prices, and so was also able to join up with the London Trades Council and Labour Parties to form the London Food Vigilance Committee, that monitored prices, and profiteering. Imagine today, if a Co-operative Airport was run by its workers, what a tremendous propaganda tool that would be to counter the claims by BAA that it cannot afford to give its workers a decent pay rise, whilst it can pay its top bosses high salaries and bonuses!

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