under a national flag, frank richards, 1978

8/7/2019 Under a National Flag, Frank Richards, 1978

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UNDER ANATIONALFLAG


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R e v o lu ti o n a ry C o m m u n is t P a m p h le ts N o 2

Rev olu tio na ry Communist T en de nc yTypeset by Bread 'n Roses(TU)Printed by Interlink Longraph Ltd (TU) World copyright Junius Publications LtdFirst Edition January 1978Second Edition August 1978

/UNDERA NATIONAL.~D2r

I2I l e o

The view from the labour movementNews of the National Front (NF) f il ls the press of both the labour movementand the bourgeoisie. Prominent church leaders, bourgeois politicians and tradeunion bureaucrats have all spoken out and condemned the NF. This concernwith the NF stands in marked contrast to the s ilence of the labour movementon the quest ion of rac ism. At the 1977 conferences of the Labour Party andthe TUC, resolutions were passed pressing the Home Secretary to ban NFdemonstrations; but at neither of these conferences were s teps taken tocounter racial discrimination or to challenge immigration control. In itsannual report, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants noted thereluctance of those calling for opposition to the NF to commit themselvesto fighting racism:

' there are still many who sincerely join in condemnation of the National Front butremain unaware of the full injustice of the immigration control, or are unwilling totake a stand on sounpopular an issue.' (The Times, 29 October 1977)Racism is an 'unpopular issue' , as the record of the off icial labour movementindicates. Time and again the labour movement passes resolutions againstracism and time and again these resolutions prove to be so much rhetoric.When we examine its pragmatic approach to this unpopular issue wefind thatthe anti-racist credentials of the official labour movement are entirelyf icti tious. More often than not the dividing line between our pragmaticanti-racists and those they condemn is far from apparent. Former GovernmentChief Whip and Labour MPBob Mellish states:'1am not a-racist but 1am not a humbug. This tiny island of ours isnot much morethan a dot on the map and the t ime has come to face the prob lem. Itwon't go away.'We're bulging with more than a million unemployed, there's shortage of housing,and every family in the land, just about, is battling to maintain standards....my views are not really different than Labour's policy over the years. Weinstituted the voucher system and that, after a ll , isa system of entry control.'1am opposed to the floodgates being opened sothat everyone can come crowdingin, much asI sympathise with people who need help. ' (Daily Express, 19May 1976)This view, which purports to be anti- racist at the same time as it supportsimmigration controls, is prevalent in the labour movement. It issummed upin the familiar s tatement '1am not a racis t, but . .. '. Mellish isenormously


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sympathet ic to 'people who need help', bu t of cour se not at the expenseof the British nation. Asa true British nationalist Mellish understands thatchari ty begins at home and that black workers wil l jus t have to make do.Mellish is of course against the NF.Itis the strength of British nationalism in the labour movement thatprovides support for controls on the inflow of foreigners. The labourmovement 's acceptance of the r ight of the British s tate to controlimmigration renders its 'anti-racism' inconsequential. In periods of crisisthis nationalism can be directed against the immigrant population. Mellish,who sees the British nation as the instrument for solving the capitalistcrisis, makes a subtle link between Britain's crisis and immigration. IfMellish does not yet blame the crisis Oil immigrants, he nevertheless arguesthat immigrants make the life of 'our t iny island' more difficult . The viewwhich attributes many of the problems facing the working class toimmigration is widespread in the labour movement.The ruling class attack on the black populat ion is facil itated by thenationalism of the labour movement. There has been lit tle working classresponse to immigration control or to police attacks on black youth. Thisisbecause sections of the labour movement see immigrants asa threat totheir interests. The NF slogan 'one million unemployed, one millionimmigrants' draws out the chauvinist logic of Mellish's position.

the ideological hold of the bourgeoisie over the working class. The bourgeoispolicies carried out by the Labour Government have had a drast ic impact onthe immigrant population. The powers of discretion given to immigrationoff icers have led to the tightening up of immigration controls and to theregular harassment of immigrants. Systematic police attacks on blacks havebecome an everyday feature of British cities.Fascism is a force which gives a consistent organisational expression to thenational chauvinis t currents which exist in all classes in Britain . The NF andits growing influence reflect the strengthening of chauvinism and racism.Racism is. the central plank of the NF platform. This should not obscure thethreat that racis t ideas pose independently of that organisation. Forrevolutionaries, the NF and its campaign of physical intimidation is onlypart of the problem. The NF did not invent Bri tish chauvini sm - it has givenit an unambiguous political form.

The view from the bourgeoisieThe.bourgeoisie is attempting to solve the crisis .of capitalism with thecooperation of the working class. Itjustifies its demands for sacrifices byarguing that class interes ts must be subordinated to national ones. Thesuccess of the Social Contract indicates that the working class has beenprepared to make sacrifices in the interests of the nation. The bourgeoisieappeals to nationalist sentiments in the labour movement - the nation mustbe protected from a ' flood' of foreign workers - and reinforces the divis ionsin the working class. The strength of nationalism allows the bourgeoisie touse racial divisions to attack the working class as a whole.Capitalists meet with little opposition to their attacks on black workers.The isolation of blacks from the off icial labour movement allows thebourgeoisie to use racial divisions to its own advantage. Racial discriminationon the shop floor is widely tolerated by the trade unions.Throughout Europe white workers have been reluctant to defendimmigrants from redundancy, and in a number of cases white workers havesought to save their jobs at the expense of immigrants. The Europeanbourgeoisie has been successful in playing off one section of the workingclass against another. The backward Swiss Trade Union Federation hasplayed a major role in the right-wing campaign against immigration. So manyimmigrants have lef t Switzer land s ince 1975 ' that there appears to be verylittle unemployment: in December 1977 there were only 8500 registeredunemployed in Switzer land. In Germany the s tory is the same: today therea re 718,000 fewer foreign workers - 27 per cent less than in 1973. For theGerman labour movement immigrant workers are beyond the pale of thetrade unions. Since 1973 over 2 million foreign workers have been forced toleave the European Economic Community (EEC).Since the onset of the crisis the British ruling class has intensified itsattack on blacks. The racist climate which exploded in 1976 has strengthened

The historic mission of fascismThe exper ience of the working class has demonstrated time and again thatthere isno such thing as 'pure democracy'. Bourgeois democracy is neithermore nor less than the preferred polit ical form through which thebourgeoisie exercises its dictatorship. The democratic rights achieved by theproletariat under bourgeois democratic rule are important gains and must bedefended. However, the maintenance of bourgeois democracy is dependentupon economic and social stability. In times of crisis and intense class strugglethe bourgeoisie can no longer rely on par liament to sus tain i ts class rule.Lenin wrote:

' ...the proletariat, on all s e ri ous .p r of ound and f undamen ta l issuesgets martiallaw or p og rom s . .. T he mo re h ig hl y d ev el op ed a d emo cr ac y i s, t he mo re i mmi ne nta re p o g rom s o r c iv il w a r i n c on ne ct io n w i th a ny p ro fo u nd p ol it ic al d iv er ge nc e wh ic h i sdange rou s t o t h e bourgeo i si e .' (Lenin, 'The proletarian revolution and the renegadeKautsky', Col lected Works ,Vol 25, p245)Numerous examples of the overthrow of bourgeois democracy by thebourgeoisie itself have confirmed Lenin's analysis. This course of action isforced on the bourgeoisie by changing material conditions. In order tomaintain the capitalist system the ruling class resorts, when necessaryto openly repressive forms of state rule.The necessity for direct forms of coercion arises not from the bourgeoisie'sfascination Withauthoritarianism but from the requirements of capitalaccumulation. When even its most liberal sections fear the working class, thebourgeois ie does not hes itate to resor t to the most barbaric forms of polit icalrule. Reformism fails to understand this. Itabstracts democracy from the classnature of capital is t society and operates with a notion of pure democracy.The abs traction of bourgeois democracy from its class content leads to aconfused understanding of fascism. For many people fascism represents adangerous social movement which is associated with memories of Hitler andMussolini. Fascism is seen as a disease eroding the political institutions ofdemocracy, a pathological deviation from the bourgeois norm. The conclusionis then drawn that all classes have a common interes t in waging a 'democratic 'struggle against fascism. This view is superficially supported by the popularunderstanding of the Allies' war against Nazism.There isno common interes t in f ighting fascism which cuts across class

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l ines. Fascism is not a disease that suddenly attacks the body politic ofbourgeois society. It is a political form through which the bourgeoisieattempts to resolve intense class conflict. This bourgeois solution can onlybe defeated through the struggle against capital.The development of fascism in Germany and Italy was the specificproduct of the crisis of European capitalism in the 'twenties and 'thirties.In looking at that period it is possible to out line the main tendencies offascism in the imperialist epoch.Fascism arose asthe political expression of the inability of thebourgeoisie to resolve its economic crisis. The general conditions prevailingin the world economy and the balance of class forces within the nationstate were an obstacle for capital in its search for further profits. Unable torely on 'normal' methods of mainta ining the rate of profit it sought a wayout. This provided the foundation for the fascist option. In these conditionsfascism was to re-establish the basis for profitable production. In order tobring about the centralisation and concentration of capital and increase theproductivity of labour, fascism destroyed the organisations of the workingclass because they stood in the way of the restructuring of capital.From the point of view of capital in crisis, there was nothing irrationalabout fascism. After the defeat of the German proletariat, the bourgeoisiewas able to lengthen the working week, increase the rate of exploitation ofthe working class and push up the productivity of labour through the Naziregime. Ithas been estimated that the profits of large German companiesrose by 433 per cent between 1932 and 1936. Under the Nazi regime capita lwas able to raise the exploitation of the working class 300 per cent abovethat of the Weimar republic.In order to re-establish a new form of political regime, the ruling classrelied upon the mass movement of the angry petit bourgeoisie. Far frombeing the result of a conspiracy, the mass fascist movement hac!a solid socialfoundation. It arose asa result of the economic problems facing certain strataof capitalist society. The intensification of the crisis undermined the socialand economic position of small propertied groups, the traditional salary-earners and other sections of the so-called middle class. Together with sectionsof the peasantry and unemployed workers, these strata formed the socialbasis for the fascists. Seeing the organisation and militancy of the workingclass as a threat to its own interests, the petit bourgeoisie turned its wrathagainst the proletariat.A prerequisite for the development of a mass fascist organisation was thecollapse of the confidence of the petit bourgeoisie in its traditional partiesand leaders. Fascism as a mass force could only grow when the conflict

between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat had reached an impasse wherethe proletariat, due to the absence of a revolutionary leadership, was unableto go forward to the seizure of state power.. Historically, reformism acted asa barrier to defeating fascism. Although11attempted to struggle against fascism, it failed to recognise that thisstruggle was inherently a struggle against the capitalist system of production.In I~aly, the so.cial democ!ats attempted to defend the working class throughParliament while the fascist squads were overthrowing the institutions ofbourgeois democracy with the approval of the bourgeoisie. Unlike thevacillating reformist leadership the fascist bands moved decisively onto thestreets, attacked the.organisations of the working class and in the process

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won the desperate petit bourgeoisie to their side. The acceleration of fascistactivity during the period of impasse increasingly tipped the balance ofclass forces in favour of the bourgeoisie. Thus a revolutionary situation wassquandered by the reformist leadership, the proletariat was defeated andthe bourgeoisie opted for a fascist dictatorship.Although fascism and bourgeois democracy are two forms of thedictatorship of the bourgeoisie, it is essential to understand the differencesbetween them. Trotsky wrote:'These two systems: the one parliamentary democratic, the other fascist, derive theirsupport from different combinations of the oppressed and exploited classes, and they

unavoidably come to a sharp clash with each other .'The Social Democracy, which is today the chief.representative of the parliamentary-bourgeols regime, derives its support from the workers. Fascism is supported by thepetit bourgeoisie. The Social Democracy without the mass organisations of the workerscan have no influence. Fascism cannot entrench itself in power without annihilating .the workers' organisations.' (Trotsky, The struggle against fascism in Germany,Pathfinder Edition, pplS4-S)The position of social democratic parties derives its strength fr - 'TI the massorganisations of the working class. In Germany and Italy, the precondition forthe restructuring of capitalist relations of production was the destruction ofthese. Under the threat of fascism, the social democrats continued to placetheir faith in the bourgeois state, rather than in the independent mobilisationof the working class.The rise of the fascists to power should not be confused with other forms ofnon-parliamentary rule, such as military dictatorship. It differs from these in

that it is based on the pol it ical support of a mass movement and therefore doesnot rely upon coercion alone, Fascism became a mass movement preciselybecause it appeared to offer an alternative to a large section of society. Totalk simply in terms of fascist lies and demagogy isto fail to understand thatthis apparent alternative can win widespread support. In the past revolution-aries have paid a high price for concentrating on the military aspects offascism and ignoring its ideological success. Klara Zetkin's warning to theCommunist international has contemporary relevance:'The Italian Communist Party had seen in fascism only a militarist terroristmovement, not a mass movement with a broad socia l basis which had already won apolitical and ideological victory over the working class before it came to power in Italy.'

(K Zetkin, motivation for the resolution 'on fascism, 23 June 1923, in J Degras,TheCommunist International J9I9 - 1943, Documents, Vol 2,p39)Having reduced fascism to its military aspects the Italian Communists werenot able to of fer a political alternative to Mussolini. As we will show later,the same mistake haunts the left today.The separation of fascism from capitalism, or the reduction of fascism toi ts mil itary aspects , s tems from a fai lure to understand that i t is thecontradictions of capital in times of crisis which create the basis for fascism.There always exist groups of right-wing extremists who propagate populist,chauvinist and racist ideas. But it isonly in certain material conditions thatfascist ideas begin to grip the masses and pose a credible alternative to thenormal forms of bourgeois rule. The bourgeoisie and its state apparatus growcloser to the fascists and in turn stimulate the development of the fascistmovement.

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T he q ue st io n o f fa sc is m i n B rit ai nThe tendency towards fascism today can only be understood by an analysisof the circumstances within which it has developed. Despite the deepeningcapitalist crisis, bourgeois democracy still provides an adequate form of classrule. The Labour Par ty acts as an important vehicle for integrating theworking class into the institutions of the bourgeois state. Capital'sdomination of the working class through a bourgeois Labour Par ty hasmeant that the proletariat 's s truggle has been contained by its ownleadership. The relative success of the Social Contract demonstrates thecontinuing viability of this bourgeois strategy.The capitalist class has no need to encourage fascism when its interestsare so successfully pursued by the labour bureaucracy. Even the mostmilitant strikes - such as those of British Leyland workers , Heathrowmaintenance workers , the power workers and)the f iremen - have claimedthat their demands constitute a ' special case ', not a challenge to theGovernment's Social Contract. This has enabled the Labour Government topick off one section of the working class after another .The cumulative effects of the crisis have provided fascist organisationslike the NF with new opportunities . Despite the NF's relat ive weakness , wecannot be complacent about the polit ical threat posed by the forces of thefar right . The rise of the NF is a symptom of the crisi s of the Bri tishbourgeoisie. The fear and insecurity generated by the crisis have providedthe NF with a growing audience.In the course of the pas t four years sections of the petit bourgeois ie.

small capitalists and the salaried middle class have seen their positionundermined. During the year 1974 there was a record number of bankruptcies(1532; see The Sunday Times, 5 January 1975) and s ince then the posit ionof the small businessman has worsened. Unemployment and demoralisationhave provided the NF with a limited degree of support f rom sections of thelabour movement. At the 1976 Conference of the National Union of Dyers ,Bleachers and Textile Workers, over a third of the delegates supported amotion calling for a ban on immigration (Financial Times, 26 May 1976).The fact tha t this motion wasdeba ted in a union whose members faceunemployment in a declining industry shows that i ts origins are to be foundin the capitalist crisis.Working class support for the NF comes mainly from depressed areassuch as East London, areas which have particularly severe social and economicproblems. There, problems of housing, social services, and job insecurityprovide the NF with a hearing. The NF exploits the fears engendered byeconomic instability. In declining areas the NF blames real social problemson immigrants, and puts forward its racist propaganda as a solution:'You know that Islington's Labour Council has a really shocking record for housingour own people. Immigrants have poured into our borough and found accommodationwith incredible ease. Some parts of Islington seem almost to have been taken overcompletely by foreigners and even the shops and businesses are immigrant owned andstaffed. Hotels are given over to immigrants awaiting accommodation, staying there atour expense while they wait to move into f la ts and houses which our people urgentlyneed.' (Why we need National Front councillors, leaflet produced by NF Islingtonbranch,1976)

Using this sor t of propaganda the NF has been able to develop a limitedbase of polit ical support in areas such asLeicester and East London.6

. The success of the NF has been closely related to per iods when racismhas come to the surface as an immediate polit ical issue. Events such as theNotting Hill race r iots , Powell' s ' rivers of blood ' speech in Smethwick and thecontroversy raised by bourgeois politicians over the arrival of East Africanand Malawian Asians have served to st imulate the growth of the NF. Thesuccess of the NF has been based on its racis t anti- immigrant campaigns. Thecampaigns in support of the Uls ter Unionists and the Rhodesian Whites, andthe campaign against the EEC brought few recruits and little publicity.The inabili ty of the NF to obtain support for i ts broader policiesdemonstrates the limited appeal of this organisation; it also indicates thatthe mater ial bas is for a mass fascist movement does not yet exist . However,the abil ity of the NF to push rac ism to the foref ront of Br iti sh poli ti cal l ifeshows the threat that chauvinism poses for the working class today.Itisest imated that the membership of the NF (around 12-14,000) hasbeen stagnant dur ing the past two years. So far, the at tempts of the NF touse s treet demonstrations to widen its base have not been a success . The

NF's national demonstrations, which have rarely mobilised more than 1000,have had a tendency to decrease this year.The organisat ional s tagnation of the NF stands in marked contras t to i tselectoral gains . In terms of electoral support the NF is the fas test growingpolit ical par ty in Britain . During the general elect ion of February 1974, inwhich it f ielded 54 candidates, the NF obtained 75,870 votes . The total NFvote represented an average of 1405 vo tes per cand ida te - 2.3 per cent ofthe vote in the constituencies that i t fought. In s ix seats (al l Labour-held)the NF obtained more than four per cent of the vote. In the October 1974election the NF ran 90 candidates and increased its total vote to 112,000votes . Again its average share of the vote was about the same asin February- 1200 votes per candidate.Since the 1974 elections the NF has been able to obtain increas ing supportin by-elections and local council elect ions . In the 1977 Greater LondonCouncil (GLC) elections the NF received 119,000 votes. The recent electoralperformance of the NF issymptomatic of the demoralisat ion of sections ofthe British working class. A significant and increasing proportion of voters isprepared to giveelectoral support to the par ty despite i ts stagnantmembership. Ithas been widely observed that a large proport ion of theNF's vote comes from former Labour supporters. This indicates the potentialsupport for the nationalist and racis t polit ics of the NF which exists in sectionsof the working class . The real danger that the NF reveals is the nationalism ofthe British working class. The NF's campaign of physical intimidation mayobscure the central political threat that i t poses for the working class .TheNF has been able to transform the quest ion of race into a pol it ica l issue inthe labour movement. Asa result, the reformist leadership of the workingclass has made one concession after another to racism. The reformistleadership's policy on immigration has been des igned to take the steamout of the fascists' campaign. Former Cabinet Minister Crossman'sref lect ions on his visi t to Smethwick in 1970 make this point clear :

'Racialism has been extremely violent in this area but there were many morequestions about doctors and nurses and secondary schools. There isno doubt thatstopping immigration, which was one of Callaghan's great achievements, has do~e anenormous lot for us and that in places like Smethwick the racia l undertone, whichwas enormously strong in 1964, is now even weaker than in 1966.' (The CrossmanDiaries, Vol 3,p34, in The Sunday Times, 20 November 1977)

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Callaghan's 'great achievment' was to adapt to racism and stop immigration.In 1977, we can see that Callaghan 's antidote to racism has not made thisissue disappear. On the contrary, by institutionalising racism, reformism hasprovided racist politics with a cloak of respectability.

inequality between capital and labour in the latter's favour.The premise that the working class share of material wealth and politicalinfluence can be progressively increased within the capitalist system is thebas is of reformist policies. Central to this s trategy is the belief that the s tatecan be influenced to operate ill defence of working class interests. For thereformists, class coercion by the s tate isnot understood as the polit ical formthrough which the domination of capital isexercised. Although they willoften acknowledge that a cer tain government acts in the interests of capitalagainst the working class, reformists will always argue that the labourmovement, through its par ties and unions, can transform the s tate to workfor i ts own ends. The s tate is seen asan essential ly neutral agency whichunder working class pressure could serve the interests of the labour movement.Reformism sees the s tate as an organ of ' the people' and endorses theconcept of the nation as a natural supra-class entity which unites. andrepresents the interes ts of the British people. Today we can see that Britishnationalism is a central component of the reformist strategy.In response to the crisis reformists accuse the capitalists of beingunpatriot ic because they export capital abroad rather than invest in Britishindustry. The same nationalist theme is emphasised when reformists demandthe imposit ion of import controls. In arguing for these, the reformists wantto protect British capitalism from foreign competition. Thus Tribune writes:'Britain simply cannot hope to compete in these labour intensive sectors which manydeveloping nations with ample labour, employable at a cheap rate, are now exploit ing.The lesson for Br it ain i s e ithe r to toughen up on import control s or to concent ra te onca~ita1 intensive industries. ' (S Kelly, 'A Tribune investigation into a dying industry',

Tribune, 21 October 1977)In offer ing advice to the capital is ts , the reformists fai l to draw out the logicof their economic nationalism - that, for British capital to be reallycompeti tive, i t needs 'ample labour employable at a cheap rate'. In t imes ofcrisis, when the logic of the.capitalist system becomes inescapable, reformisminexorably reaches the point where it asks the working class to makesacrifices in the interes ts of the nation - supplying labour at a 'competit ive'rate.Since reformists accept the nation state and capitalist productionrelations as natural, in times of crisis they do not question the capitalistsystem as such but the way in which it i s run. Itis not capitalist productionwhich is blamed for the deter ioration of the standard of l ivingof theworking class: instead, the reformists blame the crisis on bad policies,mismanagement, greedy monopolies or the International Monetary Fund(IMF). The cause ofthe crisis is explained by something other than thefundamental contradictions inherent in capitalist production.In their superficial explanation of the crisis the reformists show theiracceptance of the bourgeois world view - a view that is shared by the NF.The NF also blames the crisis on bad policies, mismanagement, the EECand the IMF. Although its explanation of the crisis places a particularlyheavy emphasis on the theme of 'national betrayal' , its analysis parallelsthe dis tr ibutionist approach of the reformists. Writ ten by an NF member ,this let ter indicates where the fascists think the problems lie:'A manual worker myself, I am all in favour of proposals which make life easierfor the working class . But if the Labour Party isserious about i ts aims for improving

Re fo rm ism and r ac ismWhy is i t that Callaghan 's response to racism wasto capitulate to i t and jointhe a ttack on immigrants, though in a less extreme way? How can weexplain the existence of reformist and racist views in the labour movementand the fact that today a sec tion of Labour voters i sp repared to support theNF? To answer these questions we must analyse the ideological premiseswhich are common to both racism and reformism.Marx demonstrated that the strength of bourgeois ideology is due to theway it arises spontaneously out of capitalist production. The fundamentalclass antagonism which isinherent in capitalist production is obscured bythe 'f ree' and 'equal' exchange that takes place between labour and capitalin the market. Since the mode of exploitat ion of the proletariat is maskedby the 'free' exchange between labour and cap ita l ('a fai r day's work for afair day 's pay ') there appears to be nothing inherently exploitat ive incapital is t production. Hence the inequalit ies that exist appear not asanecessary consequence of capitalist production but as something incidentalto i t. Inequalit ies are seen asa result of the greed of the individualcapitalist, of the way in which wealth is distributed, or of unfair transactionsin banking and trade. That is why radical cri tics of society have alwayscampaigned against the stock market and speculators, against the middleman, or against the excessive consumption of the ruling class. Marx hasdemonstrated that far from threatening the domination of capital , theseredistributionist notions serve to hide fundamental class contradictions.Because the domination of capital over the working class is indirect andismediated by a voluntary contract between the worker and capital is t, thebourgeois views about freedom and equality are confirmed in the operationof the market . The economic bondage of the worker is hidden underneaththe apparently equal exchange relationships. Therefore the domination ofcapital over labour can ingeneral be exercised through the operation of themarket. It is capital, as social power, that dominates the working class.When capital needs to exercise coercion, this appears as political rather thaneconomic domination: the despotism of capital simply appears as politicalpower exercised by the s tate. Coercion isnot seen asa necessary form ofthe domination of capital , but asa policy option selected by government.This apparent separat ion of economic and polit ical domination leads to theview that i t isposs ible to eliminate the polit ical domination exercised by aminority without destroying capitalism. It is these views that provide thebasis for the reformist approach.Reformism ignores the real domination and exploitation of the workingclass in production and restricts i ts focus to the inequalit ies that appear onthe surface of capitalist society. (The slogan 'seven per cent of the populationown 84 per cent of the wealth ' is a clear expression of this s tandpoint. )Reformism seeks to defend the interests of the working class throughobtaining concessions from the bourgeoisie. Reformists do not challenge theexistence of capital ist relat ions of production - they want to modify the


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thelot of thosewhofacedailydrudgeryin thefactory,office orbuildingsite,whyin heaven'snamedo they continueto repudiate those areaswhereworkingclassownershipis reallyneeded?....Publicownershipof industriesand servicescannotgivereal control unlessthe financialsystemis in publichands. Aslongas orthodoxsocialistsignorethis fundamental fact of economiclifewewill stillremainthe puppetsof financeregardlesswhateverelsethey choose to nationalise.' (Bristol Evening Post,5 August1974)This letter could have been written by a radical reformist. Depicting theproblem of capitalism as one of circulation rather than as one of production,fascists and reformists put forward explanations that are strikingly similar.Starting from a superficial bourgeois viewpoint, both the NF and thereformists advance a na tional so lut ion to the cri si s.The national solution to the crisisBecause they accept the legitimacy of capitalist production and restrict theiraims to a fairer redistribution of wealth, reformists are caught in a dilemmaat a time of crisis. Capital must attack working class living standards in orderto restore profitable production; reformists must choose between theirrhetoric about redistributing wealth to the working class, and their accept-ance of capital 's need to redistribute wealth in favour of the bourgeoisie. Thereformists decide to abandon their ' left ' positions and ask the working classto make sacrifices in the interests of the nation. Thus Tony Benn argues:'Wemust showthe Britishpeoplethe way out of the crisisso that wecanharnesstheefforts andenthusiasmof the nation to the urgenttask of reconstruction anddemocraticsocialistreform.' (The Times, 4 October 1977)

In hisappeal to the enthusiasm of the nation, Benn obscures the fact thatthere is no 'way out of the crisis' for the working class within capitalism. Thecrisis of capitalism can be resolved in one of two ways: either in the interestof the working class or in the interest of capital . The defence of the workingclass must be based on the rejection of all bourgeois solutions to the crisis;it must lead to the overthrow of the capitalist system. All the plans advancedto beat the crisis (for example the 'Left Alternative Strategy' put forwardby the Communist Party and Tribune) pose national - that is ,capi ta li st -reconstruction as the task of the working class.The reformist solution to the crisis is a nationalist one. Asthe experienceof the Social Contract shows, this strategy subordinates the interest of theworking class to that of the nation. The national solution to the crisis seeksto establish class harmony in order to strengthen the British nation. It callsfor the regeneration of British industry, without pointing out that in aperiod of crisis the restructuring of capital must lead to loss ofjobs. Itblames the rise of food prices on the EEC, rather than indicating thatinflation is a consequence of the capitalist accumulation process. Itwants toban the export of British capital without showing that a precondition forrepatriating capital to Britain is cutting the real wages of workers. It demandsbans on imports and attempts to save the jobs of British workers at theexpense of workers elsewhere'; In sum, the national solution to the crisis seeksto make capitalism more efficient without spelling out that the preconditionsfor efficient capitalism are cuts in state expenditure, unemployment and amassive fall in the living standards of the working class.The popular support for import controls shows the strength of nationalismin the working class. Rather than pursue an independent working class

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strategy, sections of the working class seek to unite with their bosses againstthe danger of foreign imports. The NF simply takes the reformist solutionto the crisis a few steps further. Reformist platitudes about the 'interests ofthe labour movement' disappear under the NF's all-embracing British flag.Agreeing with the reformists, the NF argue 'there isnothing. wrong inwant ing to protect our own people and our own indust ries from cheapforeign goods flooding into the country ...' (P Gegan, 'The fallacies ofeconomic liberalism', Spearhead, August 1977, pI 0). Appealing to popularprejudice, the NF depicts the crisis of capitalism as the inability of theBritish nation to assert its will in the face of foreign competition:'Nevermindhowmany foreignmanufacturedgoods,manyof them subsidisedor producedby cheaplabour, are dumpedhere, undercuttingour ownproductsanddrivingthem off the shelves,out of the shopsand showrooms.Nevermindhowmanyof our industrialistsareforced into bankruptcy, howmanyfactories are closeddownor howmanypeopleare thrown out of work, liberaltrade policiesaremaintainedinthe nameof free trade. Thissuicidalpolicyis enshrinedin theTreaty of Rome,whichprohibits tariffs on industrialgoodsenteringBritainfrom the CommonMarketCountries,aswellasin termsof ourloansfrom the lMF.' (ibid)

The difference between the economic nat ional ism of the NF and that of thereformists is only one of emphasis. The reformists argue:'Thetextile andshoe industrieshaveboth sufferedcatastrophicallyfromimports.AndthereWiIibemore until thegovernmentrealiseswhatis at stake and ispreparedto takemoreeffectivemeasuresto stem the tide of imports that hasbecomea flood.'(Tribune, 21October 1977)

The NF will s imply concur and draw out Tribune's chauvinist logic: whystop at 'stopping the flood of imports'? The argument for import controls,for savingBritish jobs at the expense of workers elsewhere, leads to supportfor immigration controls. In the case of the NF even immigration controlsare insufficient - nothing less than the repatriation of blacks will savetheBritish nation. When it comes to following the logic of chauvinism toracist conclusions, the NF has no monopoly. In the late ' forties, the TUCfelt that national reconstruction meant restricting the employment ofEast European immigrants to jobs for which British workers were notavailable. Aspart of its contribution to national reconstruction, theCommunist Party proclaimed:'Allemigrationshouldbe stoppedfor three years until weare throughthe crisis.I askyou, doesit make sensethat weallow500,000 of our bestyoung peopleto puttheir namesdownfor emigrationabroad,whenat the sametime weemployPoleswhoought to be backin their country and bringto workin Britaindisplacedpers0!lswhooughtalsoto be sent back to their owncountries?'.(CHPollitt, Looking Ahead, London,

1947, p72)'Send them back' said Poll it t in 1947; in sodoing he spelled out thereactionary nature of reformism. Despite their disagreements the reformistsand the NF share a national is t s tandpoint - one isjust more extreme thanthe other. The reformists' anti-racism isnothing but empty moralism. Basedon a 'Great Britain' and an acceptance of capitalist relations of production,the reformist perspective cannot counter racist arguments. It is thisperspective that has led to Callaghan's 'great achievement' of immigrationcontrol.Reformist nationalism cannot offer an ideological alternative to racism.It is only since racism has become an immediate threat to the organisationsof the labour movement that the reformist leadership has attempted to

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counter its influence. Inevitably, the reformists' own nationalism limits thescope of such steps to appeals to humanitarian conscience. In the summerof 1976, when the exacerbation of racial tensions stimulated the growth ofthe NF at the expense of electoral support for the Labour Party, the reformistbureaucrats launched an anti-racist campaign. Speaking for the NationalExecutive Committee at the 1976 Labour Party Conference, Joan Lestorboasted that Labour could no longer be accused of keeping a low profileover race problems: 'we are on the offensive and must keep i t that way'(Financial Times, 30 September 1976). However, this 'offensive' consistedof nothing more than the occasional press conference, one demonstration,and the product ion of a few leaflets. In the meantime the LabourGovernment's repressive immigration policy illustrates that reformism canonly make concessions to racism but cannot fight it.Not only can reformism not fight racism: i t is the strength of reformistnationalism in the working class that offers a potential audience for the NF.John Tyndall, the chairman of the NF, has noticed this. He states:

'~en it ~as a case .offighting Hitler: labour politic ians didn' t hesitate to stir uppeople s feeling of patriotism. We see things now in the same terms: we are threatenedwith invasion, with destruction, and we have to stimulate the will to resist.' (TheTelegraphSundayMagazine,2 October 1977, p7)The Labour politicians have provided Tyndall with a reservoir of patriotism inthe workers' movement. But matters go further. The trade union movement'scommitment to defending the rights of workers rarely extends to blackworkers. Every.year the TUC passes resolutions condemning racialdiscrimination. The contrast between these resolutions and reality was?l~ntly spelled ~ut.Jr~ the g~neral secretary of one of the largest unions:Its the same WIth-mis as Withso many other union matters - the bullshitbe~ts.the brains every time' (quoted in D J Smith, Racial disadvantage inBritain, the PEP report, 1977, p143). From the standpoint of Britishnationalism, immigrant workers are not really part of the labour movement.The acquiescence of the trade union movement to this view provides the NFwith a hearing in sections of the working class.T he S ec on d I mp er ia li st W a r a nd f as ci smThe reformist strategy against fascism during the Second Imperialist World Warhas important lessons for today. In developing a strategy against racism andfascism it is important that the past experience of the working class iscarefully evaluated.T?e .se~backs that the working class in Europe suffered during the 'twentiesand thirties threw the labour movement into.ideological disarray. Fascism wasnot seen asa form of the dicta torship of the bourgeoisie but asa pol it icalforce that threatened all classes. The extreme forms that bourgeois rulea:-sumed unde~ Hi~le.ran~ Mussolini confirmed most people in the simpleVIewthat fascism lS irrational, aggressive and above all anti-democratic. Thereformist leadership separated the struggle against fascism from the anti-capitalist struggle. The role of the working class was reduced to fighting forbourgeois democracy. Fought in the name of peace and freedom the warreinforced illusions in democracy. Bourgeois democracy, which i~nothingmore.than the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, acquired new virtues in theworking class. For many in the workers' movement the aim was no longer

12

socialism but democracy itself.The class basis of the Second Imperialist War was obscured by thereformist approach which depicted the conflict in terms of democracyversus fascism. The Leninist position - that the working class must struggleagainst the war efforts of it s bourgeoisie and turn the imperia lis t war into aclass war - was abandoned by the official communist parties . They, like thesocial democrats, argued that this war was a special case; for them thisinter-imperialist conflict had become a struggle between democracy andtotalitarianism. The communist parties and the other labour apologists for thecapitalist war argued that all forms of class struggle had to be postponeduntil the fight against fascism was over.The communist parties were in the forefront of those who argued thatall class interests must be sacrificed for the national interest. In the UnitedStates, the Communist Party advised blacks to forget about the civil rightscampaign asit weakened the Administration's war programme. After the1943 pogroms against blacks in Detroit, the Communist Party urged blacksto forget what it termed the 'so-called race rio ts ', te ll ing them to get backto work immediately. When the development of resistance to British rule inIndia led to a campaign of civil disobedience in 1942, the British CommunistParty (CPGB) took a lead in denouncing the Indian masses because theirstruggle undermined Britain's war effort. In its role as recruiting sergeant,the CPGB told the colonial peoples that now was not the t ime to struggleagainst imperialism. In a statement on the colonies and the war, it said:'They will understand the need for the immediate building of a greatunited front for the defeat of Hitler. This takes precedence over every other

issue at the moment.'By supporting the imperialist war, the CPGBand the labour leadershipstrengthened nationalism in the working class. The war was seen in the labourmovement asthe fight of the British nation against fascism, a foreignideology. The dominant viewin the labour movement - that 'Fascism isnot Briti sh' - indicated that the working class had no independent classposition on the war.In making the distinction between the 'progressive' democracies and thefascist dictatorships and in extolling the virtues of democracy and nationalism,the communist parties reinforced the domination of capital over the workingclass. The movement today still suffers from the destruction of Marxistideas that occurred during this period.When the left today attempts to use the experience of the Second WorldWarto fight the NF, it is using the national ism of yesterday to fight thenationalism of today. The anti-Nazism of th-epast is far from progressive:it served to mobilise the working class around the imperialist war effort. Inevoking the spi rit of Dunkirk to fight the NF, the left s imply st irs up thenationalist prejudices of the labour movement. The left adapts to the samenat ionalist sentiments in the working class that are the basis of the appeal ofthe extreme right. The fascists have not missed the point. The NationalParty argues:'Racially, economically and militarily, Britain has been frighteningly weakened overthe past hundred years. The British people were victorious in the two world wars, buthave lost the freedom and guarantee of national survival for which they have fought.'(At iast...someone who speaks upfor the British, National Party leaflet, 1976)

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Jus t l ike the lef t, the fascists are prepared to use the patriot ism evoked bymemories of the Second Imperialist Warfor their own ends.The lef t makes the mistake of abs tracting the NF from the materialconditions that have given r ise to this organisat ion. Labour MPJoe Ashtonsays: 'The Front has been pinching votes from all par ties. They are gettingsupport f rom 18-20 year olds, people who have never seen the war ' (EveningNews, 8 December 1977) . Ashton believes that he can undermine thecredibili ty of a fascist organisat ion through linking it to the Nazis . But the119,000 votes that the NF received at the las t GLC elections werenot theresult of a mass infatuation with swastikas and Hitler . The NF appeared toprovide a solution to the problems that these voters face. The abs tractapproach of identifying the NF with Nazism fails to deal with the concreteconditions which stimulate the growth of fascism today. The justificationgiven by the International Marxist Group (IMG) says that:

'The workers movement hates fascism, and rightly so. The Front does not presentitself as a fascist party, but cultivates its "respectability" by posing as a workers'organisation through taking up political issues on which workers often quitespontaneously take reactionary positions. Byexposing the Front for what it is -a fascist organisation - it ispossible to lead the workers movement to question manyof its backward traditions by showing how dangerously exposed it actually istofascist infiltration.' (Fascism, smash it now! The casefor no platform, IMG pamphlet,p 13)What the IMG calls ' exposing the Front ' means nothing more thanassoc ia ting it with the past deeds of the Nazis. The IMG hopes to draw onthe past hatred of Nazi Germany and direct this against the NF. This exercisehas nothing to do with confronting the polit ical bas is of the NF's support .Rather than challenge chauvinism in today's conditions, the IMG wants totake the working class on a sentimental journey back to Dunkirk.The exper ience of the Second World War shows that being anti-Nazi canbe consistent with British chauvinism. That is why the Federation ofConservative Students (FCS) can produce 130,000 leaflets equating the NFwith Nazism. When the radical lef t appeals to the anti-Nazi tradition it isbound to s tir up memories of how Britain fought the Germans . The radicallef t has never understood the grave defeat that the working class sufferedwhen it marched for British imperialism. In its use of anti-Nazi s logans suchas 'Never Aga in', the le ft a ttempts to turn the re formist tr adi tion of theBritish working class to anti-racist ends. However, it is this patriotic traditionof reformism that the NF seeks to integrate into its own programme. Jus tas it is impossible for reformism to fight racism consistently, it is impossibleto s truggle against racism without confronting the reformist tradition in theBritish working class.T he le ft a nd the N atio na l F ro ntT he C PG B.Today the CPGB advances the anti- fascis t s trategy that i t pursued in theSecond World War in a new form. Despite i ts abhorrence of racism, theCPGB shares the same ideological terrain as the NF. Nationalism runsthroughout the polit ics of the CPGB. From its fai lure to support thestruggle of the Irish liberation movement against British imperialism, to itscall for import controls, the CPGB adapts to every chauvinist prejudice inthe labour movement.14

The CPGB accepts the r ight of the British state to impose immigrationcontrols as long as these controls are 'not racist '. How the immigrationcontrols of an imperialist s tate can be.anything other than racis t has yet tobe explained by the CPGB's theoreticians . The CPGB does not challenge thefears that exist in the labour movement over immigration; ins tead it arguesthat these fears are not warra; t\ t~4 by 'the (acts ':'The FactsO nly 3 .2 p er c en t o f the B ritish population i s b l ack . 'I' jitLas t y ea r 40,000 m o re p eo pl e l ef t B ri ta in t ha n c a r ne in . "i. 'Black people make smaller demands on the social services than white people, mainlybecause more of them are ofworking age.'(CPGB, anti-racist leaflet, 1977)Accepting the chauvinist sentiments that are widespread in the labourmovement, the CPGBis reduced to arguing that the NF has got i ts f igureswrong. Itreassured the British working class that only 3.2 per cent of thepopulat ion are black. I t tel ls workers that blacks are not spongers on thesocial services after all . What would it say if black people did make a greaterdemand on the soc ia l serv ices? In its a tt empts to match the NF fac t fo r fac t,the CPGB reinforces the framework that the bourgeoisie has established fordebating immigration. The CPGB's 'facts' are nothing more than chauvinismwith a human face.The CPGB isunable to combat the NF. The CPGB's national-reformiststandpoint prevents it from challenging the racist ideas that have provided. the bas is for the growth of the NF. The CPGBcan argue against racismonly on the basis of humanist ideal s - 'One Race the Human Race'. Thisslogan isnothing more than a fraudulent abs traction which obscures thedivis ion of the human race along class lines. Rather than approaching thequestion of racism from a class pos it ion, the CPGB looks to the Britishs tate to solve the problem. Commenting on Callaghan 's speech at theopening of Parliament, the CPGB noted:

' It was good to hear his condemnation of the National Front and the calls forracia l harmony. But f ine words butter no parsnips. Where was the commitment to usethe Race Relations Act to the full in stopping the racist propaganda from theNational Front? Totally absent. Where was the promise to strengthen the Act so thatracist demonstrations would be banned? Totally absent. (Morning Star,4 November 1977)The CPGB can only express it s dismay tha t Ca llaghan has not turned out tobe a s taunch anti- racist mil itant. In the bes t utopian tradition of reformism,it wants the bourgeois s tate to legis late racism and fascism out of existence.The posi tion of the CPGB on the quest ion of raci sm expresses the view of alarge number of mili tants in the trade union movement. Based on nationalistpremises, this view looks to the state for a solution. For revolutionaries,an important par t of the s truggle against racism is to defeat this reformists trategy and its attempts to f ight the NF with radical nationalism.T he r ad ic al l ef tThe organisations of the radical left (the IMG, the Socialist Workers Party[SWP] etc.) are unable to offer a polit ical alternative to the CPGB'sapproach to the question of racism. The radical lef t cri ticises the CPGBfori ts moderate tactics but i t never takes up the CPGB's polit ical approach.

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The radical left's cri tic ism is that the CPGB does not go far enough. In thisvein the IMG writes:

' Instead of denying the fascists a pla tform, the CPcall for a "broad democraticalliance" like that with church figures in Lewisham, sayingthat it isby the developmentof this "politica l massaction" that the NF will be defeated. Wehave seen only too wella t Lewisham - limiting actions of the Front to that which isacceptable to the churchfigures - and dispersing the anti- racist forces as soon as the police step in to defend thefascists.'We too a re in favour of po li tica l mass act ion to s top the Front . We too a re infavour of imposing a ban on the fascist marches. But westar t from mobilising thelabour movement to impose the ban" The CP's tailing behind local church figures leadsthem to ignore this task. ' (Socialist Challenge, special issue on Lewisharn , 1977)The IMG merely criticises the CPGB's lack of militancy and not the reformistcontent of its anti-NF strategy. In reality, the CPGBagrees with the IMG thatmobi lis ing the working classis necessary if a ban is to be imposed on the NF.As Dave Cook, national organiser of the CPGB, puts it:

'While it isessential to campaign for these events to be banned, it isa lso necessaryto work to mobilise the biggest possible demonstrations to express militant and united~~~. . .'A ban on racist propaganda only seems likely when, alongside resolutions andpetitions, the mass ofthe people demonstra te they willdr ive racism off the street. '(Morning Star, 26 August 1977, p2)Attacking the CPGB on the nature and scale of its mobilisation misses theessential point. The question revolutionaries must pose is whether the CPGBhas the political basis for mobilising for an effective campaign against racism.This is the question the radical left never asks; it is merely satisfied to notethat it is more militant than the CPGB. The reformist views that characterisethe CPGB act as a barrier to the development of an effective anti-racistcampaign. The radical left cannot provide a Marxist critique of the politics ofthe CPGB. Hence it cannot lead a revolutionary struggle against r~cism.The commitment of organisations like the SWPand the IMG to the struggleagainst racism and the NF is unquestionable. Nevertheless, they have failedto deal with the real questions at stake. They have fai led to understand that i tis the chauvinist traditions of the British labour movement that provide thebreeding ground for the NF. Fascism cannot be fought simply by calling foropposition to fascism; it can only be fought by developing a stronginternationalist current in the working class. The narrow concept of 'anti-fascism' determines the strategies of the radical left. Despite the varioustactics advanced on this question, the radical left groups have one commonfeature: an inability to grasp the need to fight reformism as part of ananti-fascist strategy. The radical left at tempts to mobi li se against the NF onthe basis of the existing consciousness of the labour movement.The inevitable consequence of this narrow 'anti-fascism' is the separationof the struggle against racism and chauvinism from the fight against the NF.Racism is taken up only rhetorically, for the radical left's arguments againstthe NF rest on parallels with the Nazis. The radical left emphasises thedistinctive features of the NF, its extreme racism and violence, rather thanits nationalism and opposition to immigration - ideas which are widespreadin the labour movement. Once the NF's political characteristics are reducedto those of a Nazi organisation, al l that remains to be done is to smash i t.In justifying this position the radical left offers the horrors of Nazi Germany

16

'J)

as proof. This timeless anti-fascist formula has the virtue of simplicity,if not effectiveness. The bankruptcy of the radical left's strategy isrevealedin its position of 'no platform for fascists' . This position isjustified by theradical left on the grounds that the NF is a violent and racist organisation.Itseparates the nationalism and racism of the NF from the nat ional ism andracism of reformism. The centra l problem - the chauvinism shared by thelabour movement and the fascists - is ignored by the radical left; instead itrestr icts it s focus to the extreme racism of the NF. This concentration onfighting the NF as an organisation provides no challenge to its ideologicalappeal. The SWP argues:

'The Nazileaders of the National Front are faced with a major strategic problem.They have succeeded in attracting a considerable protest vote, especially from workingclass voters disillusioned with Labour, suspicious of the Tories and willing to blame theblacks for all the problems under the sun. But the membership attracted bythe NF'sracism isvery different from "thehardened Nazi cadre that Tyndall and Webster needin order to succeed.' ( A Callinicos & A Hatchett, 'In defence of violence', InternationalSocialism, No 101,1977, pp27-8)The radical left concludes that by preventing the NF from marching andspeaking, it will prevent ordinary racists from being transformed into 'ahardened Nazi cadre'. This position never addresses itself to the tasks ofchallenging the view which 'blames the blacks for all the problems'. Inits abstract presentation of the problem that the NF represents, the radicalleft avoids confronting the chauvinist views of reformism. The 'no platform'position draws attention to the excesses of the NF's politics whilst leavingthe ordinary racist to another day.The radical left bel ieves that support for the NF can be scared away byphysical and organisational tactics. For revolutionaries confronting fascistsisone aspect of the defence of the working class and other oppressedsections of society. But fascism cannot be defeated at this stage by pre-emptive physical action; it isa product of a particular political and economicclimate and can only be defeated by the political struggle of the workingclass. This demands a relentless ideological and political campaign againstracism and chauvinism. By diverting attention away from the everyday,drab chauvinism in the labour movement, the 'no platform' positionactually hinders this struggle. The radical left denies that it separates thestruggle against fascism from the struggle for socialism and it claims tohave a political alternative. In practice however the political struggleagainst the NF isleft for the future. This is how the Central Committee ofthe SWPsees the problem:'The way to stop the Nazis altogether isto build a mass movement for realsocialism that offers working people in this countrya genuine alternative tocontinued crisis and appeals for sacrifice, whether from Labour or Tory governments.'But we canalso obstruct the Nazi menace - by stoppirg them today. Bydemonstra ting that thousands of socia lists and trade unionists are not going to "turn theother cheek" wewill impress on any who may have the slightest sympathy for thefascist ideas of the NF Nazis that these ideas are dangerous.' (Nazis ott the streets,13 August 1977, statement handed out for Lewisham mobilisation, SWPCentralCommittee)

Here we can see that the 'way to stop the Nazis al together ' bears norelationship to the Lewisham mobilisation. Incapable of waging a politicalcampaign against racism, the SWPshows that NF ideas are 'dangerous' with

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its fists. The split between today's struggle and the socialist struggle - thesp lit b etween the minimum and maximum programmes - is characteristicof th e politics of reformism. For r evolu tionaries, physical v io lence is anintegral part of a political strategy. In seeking to mobilise against the NFwithout attempting to transform the consciousness of the working class, theSWP is merely demonstr ating its sub servience to spontaneity. Lenin wrote:

'The economists and the present day terrorists have one common root, namely,subservience to spontaneity; the economists bow to the spontaneity of the "labourmovement pure and simple", while the terrorists bow to the spontaneity of thepassionate indignation of intellectuals, who lack the ability or opportunity to connectthe revolutionary struggle and the working class movement into an integral whole.'(V.1. Lenin, 'What isto be done?', Collected Works, Vol. 5, p418)In bowing to spontaneity the SWP reduces the struggle against racism toskirmishes with the NF. This can only have disastrous consequences for theworking class .The left, racism and the bourgeois stateThe confused response of the left to the dangers of racism can be seen in itsattitude to the bourgeois state. Revo lu tionaries have always understood thatracism cannot be fought through the state machinery. The attempt to use thestate to fight racism can only reinforce the prevailing view that the state candefend the interests of the working class. Revolutionaries can demand that theLabour Party places its resour ces behind the strugg le against fascism and thedefence of the gains won by the working class; but they cannot call on thebourgeois state to defend these r ights. As revolutionaries we figh t for thedemocratic rights of all opp ressed strata. Today it is essen tial to campaignfor the abo lition of legal discrimination such as the racist Immigration Acts:in this way we fight against the state's discrimination and oppression of theb lack population. But this struggle for democratic rights has nothing incommon with the refo rmist approach of relying on the state to fightracism.1On the contrary the struggle for democratic rights involves a fight against thestate. This is why the struggle for democratic rights can only be waged from arevolutionary per spectiv e. The fight against immig ration contro l requires adetermination to challenge the bourgeo is state, f or a consistent struggleagainst racism will inevitably come up again st its coercive powers - bothlegal and physical.

In response to reformist pressure the bourgeois state is quite prepared topromise that it will fight racism. One such promise is the Race RelationsAct. The aim of this type of legislation is to curb the more excessive formsof discrimination. In theory th is legislation makes the incitement of racialhatred a criminal off ence. But we shou ld not be surprised that legislationpassed by the bourgeois state p rovides no weapon against racism. Racerela tions legisl at ion merely provides a channel through which capi ta l' soppres sion of blacks can be regulat ed .

Reformists believe that this legislation can be used to fight racism and thefascists. That Tribune seeks to legis la te fasc ism out of exis tence is indicatedby MP Frank Allaun:

'The way to stop the National Front isunder the Race Relat ions Act. Democraticsocialists believe in freedom for all polit ical parties - Left, Right and Centre. What wedo not believe in is freedom to incite racial hatred. New legislation isnot required;

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under the Race Relat ions Act racial incitement isa crime.' (Tribune, 30 September 1977)Frank Allaun's faith in race relations legislation is shared by t?e ~PGB. ~heCPGB for its part wants to turn the Home Office and the police into anti-fascist fighters:

The Communist Party in Leicester has argued that i t does not wish t~ seerestrictions on democracy and free specch, but a_lso,~at. the Race Relations Actisquite specific: the incitement of racial hatred ISa crlffima~offence.i.The tas~ ofthe anti-racial is t movement is to ensure that the Ra~ Relat ions Act ISprop~ ynf ced The job of the anti-racial is t movement. ..1s to ensure t~t the police:ndo~o~~'Office are bombarded with complaints about the racialist charact~r ofthe manifestation of the ultra-right.' ('How Leicester pushed back the Front,Comment, 3 April 1977, p312)The national-reformist approach of the CPGB le~ds i~ t? po se the en~orcementof the Race Relations Act as the 'task of the anti-raclali~t move~ent . Itoffersthe dead end strategy of pressurising the racist ~tate t~ fight racism. .,The approach of sections of the r ad ical left IS a variant of th e reformistsanti-racism. Organisation s like th e SWP and the IMG have called for . bans onNF demonstrations. Both the SWP and the IMG welcomed the .ban Imposed onthe NF march in Tameside. The SWP convenien tly forgo t th.at _ltsmarch wasalso banned and called for a victory demonst ra tion (see Socialist Worker,24 September 1977). .' I d t fUnder capitalism neither fascism nor racism can be legis a~e ou ~ .existence Fascism arises out of the contradictions o f capitalism, and 1Deriods of intense class conflict the bourgeois stat~ - no ma~ter whatp ment is in power - draws closer to the fascists. In calling ~or ~ans the;~;;c~ left is cutting its own throat. All limitations on ~e~ocrahc rightsunder capitalism, whether in the form of bans or pro~cnptlO~~, ~re sooner ~rlater directed against the working class. The bourgeo is state inevitab ly use~ ItScoerciv e power _ physical and legal - against its class enemy, the proletanat.Trotsky wrote:

'Under the conditions of the bourgeois regime, all.suppressi?n ?f P?litical rights andeedoms no matter whom they are directed agamst In the beginning, In the end~evitabl; bear down upon the working class, particu~ar:lYit~ most advan~e~e~me~ts. dTha t i s a l aw of nistorv. The workers must learn to dist inguish betwee~ ~~t e~t~ :"thei r enemies according to the ir own judgement and not according to e In sopolice.' (L Trotsky, Writings 193940, pp132-33) .

The IMG has discovered from the events at Tames~de that th e bourgeoisstate is just as likely to ban working class demonstratlo~s as thos~ of t~ef scists The IMG position on the bans takes the Tameslde expe:,ence mto.account and argues that it only supports those bans which are due~te~ againstthe fascists. I n the best tradition of Briti~h jurisprude~ce the IMG indicatesthe sort of legislation it wants as the baSIS of the bans.

'The fasc ist s a re not inTameside to defend "free speech '.' , but to a t~ck the r ight of aracial minority today. , . . For that reason a sP~ctifi~ban a;: :~~~~a~:~~r u:~e~t:elfclause of the Race Relat ions Act or an anti-raclS c ~u~ 0t b o sed on the basis of some abstract principle.ca~;his ~so:: t what has happened in Tameside. A non-specific clause has been used toban everyone.' (Socialist Challenge, 6 October 1977, p4)We can now see the rhetorical nature of the IMG's crit~ci,sm o! ~he CP?B. Atthe end of the day the IMG can only repeat the CPGB s specific bans m a

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more radical form. In terms of legal cretinism the IMG goes beyond the CPGB.I t has even found an 'anti- racist ' c lause in the Public Order Act which it'cannot oppose '. For the IMG the problem with the Tameside bans was thatthe wrong clause was used to ban the NF. If an 'anti-racist' clause had beenused ins tead it would have been an unambiguous victory for the working class .In haggling over the form of s tate coercion itwould like to see exercisedagainst the NF, the IMG carries opportunism to the extreme. By relying onthe state machinery, the IMG and SWPlegitimise the r ight of the state toimpose restrictions on certain forms of political activity.The posit ion of the IMG and the SWPon the bans stems from thei r radica lbourgeois politics. Unable to advance a strategy based on a Marxist analysis,their polit ics change from day to day in response to immediate events. Theirapproach is no more than a radical refl ect ion of the sta te of the labourmovement - i t can never transform the exist ing consciousness of the workingclass by givingit a revolutionary direction. Unable to counter the dominanceof bourgeois ideology in the labour movement, the radical lef t capitulates toi t, fai ling to advance a strategy to defend the independent interest of theworking class.The logical product of the radical lef t' s narrow 'anti- fascism' is theAnti-Nazi League. Monotonously repeating how different the NF is fromother organisat ions, the radical lef t draws the conclus ion that all otherorganisat ions may have a common interes t in f ighting the NF. In November1977, this shortsighted approach led sections of the radical lef t to support theestablishment of the Anti-Nazi League - an all-class all iance formed tocampaign against the NF. In the words of one of i ts supporters , SocialistChallenge:'The sponsorship for the campaign isbroad, involving over 30 left MPs who see thecampaign as "an alternative to street-fighting" . .. . Even Liberal and Tory MPswho feelthey should unite against the Nazis are invited to join the campaign although whetherthey would extend their support for a campaign of action seems dubious.' (SocialistChallenge,17 November 1977, p2) t

As during the Second World Warthe nation' s f inest sons and daughters haveunited against fascism. The class character of the struggle against racism isobliterated under the moralis tic s logan of 'Never Again '. The narrow andabstract 'anti-fascist' politics of the Anti-Nazi League are spelled out by itssecretary, SWP organiser Paul Holborrow:'We want f irstly to inform people, asmany people aspossible what exactly theNational Front stands for , and secondly to encourage them to take up actively thecampaign against the Nazis.' (SocialistWorker,19 November 1977, p7)

On occasions when sections of the radical lef t are not calling on the bourgeoisstate to ban the NF they cal l on bourgeois poli ti cians to unite wi th them forthe purpose of disseminating information.The Anti-Nazi League is the opportunist corollary of the radical militancyof the 'no platform' position. Both lines of approach are equally dis tant fromthe struggle for socialism. As an all-class alliance the Anti-Nazi League doesnot even pre tend to re la te the fight aga inst the NF to the st ruggle forsocialism. The warnings issued by the radical left about Nazism serve toreconcile British nationalism with anti-fascism. In the Anti-Nazi League theworking class has no independent role to play. Incapable of s truggling forinternationalism in the labour movement, the radical lef t resorts to

20

patronising working class youth. The An~-Nazi L~ague leaflet for schools tudents advances the pathetic s logan - The NaZINF. me~s No Fu~ure, NoFreedom, No Fun'. But a s trong dose of l iberal m?ralism will not win sch~ols tudents to an anti- fascist pos it ion: ins tead of tel ling s tudents that they Willhave no fu ture with the NF, revolut ionaries point out that they have 'nofuture' today under capitalism. . .. ..The radical left's all-class opposition to fascism ISJust w~~t the bourgeoisielikes. Pointing its finger at the 'extremist' NF, the bourgeoisie can maintaini ts 'moderate ' chauvinism intact. Thus we find tha~ To~ deputy . leaderWhi te law is only too happy to demonst rate his antl -Na~1creden tia ls. In .launching the FCS anti-NF campaign, he s tat~d: '~t a t ime ~~en . the Front ISmaking every effor t to recruit young people into I tSranks, I t I~vital th~tyoung people themselves show that they will ~ave no truck With the evils ofreligious or racial discrimination' (The Guardian, 8 November 1977).Whitelaw, who called for strict immigration controls at th~ 1976 !ory PartyConference and who presided over OperatlOn Motorman inthe SIXCo.untle.sof Ire land ~ against the NF. He has an open invi tat ion to j oin the A~ti -Naz iLeague. Blacks who are brutalised by immigration control and the Insh whoare tor tured and maimed by British imperialism will be glad to know that theAnti-Nazi League disseminates good information. . .The mili tant pos turing of 'no platform' has the same polit ical content asthe Anti-Nazi League's search for bourgeois anti-fascist patrons. Trotsky'swarnings need to be repeated today:

'The very concepts of "anti-fascism" and "~ti- fascist" are f i~tions ~d lies. M~ismapproaches all phenomena from a class standpomt. Azana (a radl~al p~tlt-bOurge01s .l it ic i _ FR) is"ant i-fa sc is t" on ly to the ex tent tha t faSCISmhinde rs bourgeoispo clan ... k ThS hintellectuals from carving out parliamentary or other careers." (L Trots Y, e pantsRevolution, Pathfinder, p339)Sections of the radical lef t have abandoned the class s tandpoint required ofMarxists. The IMG isnot concerned with the polit ical bas is of the s truggleagainst racism but with how broad the moveme.nt is. The IMG can say of the

Tories 'Whatever thei r motives, the FCS campaign coul~ broa?~n t~e ..anti-racist campaign. Their tactics, however, are totally msufflcle.nt (SoctalistChallenge, 8 December 1977, p8) . In i ts quest for .'~road' campaigns the IMGis reduced to criticising the tactics of the bourgeoisie.The abstract anti-fascism of the radical left abandon~ th~ struggle ~or anindependent working class strategy. It accepts ~he dorrunation of na~onalreformism over the working class and tnes to f ight the NF by appealing tothe conscience of reformism. This 'anti-fascism' does not g~ beyond moral.outrage and can in no way defend the interests of the working class andoppressed strata.What a re t he t as ks f or r ev ol ut io na ri es ?The perspective of abstract anti-fascism is a consequenc~ of the inability todevelop a strategy based on scientific socialism ..T~e rad~cal.left d?es not. gobeneath the extreme forms of racism and chauvinism - I t directs I tStacti~s atwhat it sees as the immediate problems. Its empiricist approach preve~ts Itf rom seeing the connection between the NF and the domi.nan~~rendsm thelabour movement. Whatever the radical left's motives, its mability todistinguish between a bourgeois reformist and a revolutionary approach to

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workers the need to defend the immigrant populat ion. The lack of workingclass response to the state's vicious 'anti-mugging' campaign demonstrates thatthe reformist conception of ' fair play' does not extend to the immigrantpopulation. It is the national-reformist sentiments of.the la~our mo~ementwhich have led to the isolation of the black commuruty. This consciousnesscannot be mobilised for anti- racist ends - itmust be transformed through thestruggle for the establishment of a proletarian vanguard.

fascism means that opportunism always has the fast say.Our analysis of racism and fascism in Britain today reveals that the dangersfacing the proletari at cannot be rest ricted to the threat posed by the NF. Theabili ty of the NF to attract support f rom former Labour Par ty voters indicatesthe political weakness of the labour movement. The dominance of reformismin the working class means that i t has no s trategy that is independent ofbourgeois influence.The s truggle against racism in the labour movement can only take placethrough the training of a working class vanguard. Today revolutionaries mustarm politically advanced workers with a Marxist understanding of thequestions facing the working class . There are no short cuts to the achievementof this task. Militancy alone will not lead the working class to oppose racialdiscrimination or to question the role of British imperialism in Ireland. Eventhose workers who have begun to question the reformist s trategy of theLabour Par ty will not spontaneously question the r ight of the British s tate tocontrol immigration. The role of revolutionaries is to ensure that thespontaneous opposit ion of workers to aspects of the reformist s trategy istransformed into a conscious class opposition to British imperialism. Throughthis process a vanguard will emerge which isable to respond to all forms ofoppression from the standpoint of proletarian internationalism. For theRevolutionary Communist Tendency the f ight against racism and the NF isinseparable from the task of training a vanguard.The NF poses two specific problems to which revolutionaries must addressthemselves. Firstly, it gives an organised political expression to racist andother reactionary views and hence has strengthened chauvinism in backwardsections of the labour movement. Secondly, the NF presents a physical threatto blacks and the lef t.

For a political struggle against racismOur approach to workers ' defence indicates that even this elementary s tepmust be based on a s truggle for working class independence. In the absence ofa working class vanguard the NF has been able to act asa reactionary pressuregroup on the labour movement. By givinga clear polit ical express ion tochauvinis t sentiments in the labour movement, the NF is able to reinforce theideological fragmentation of the working class. The NF can exercise thisinf luence because its conceptions already exist in an embryonic form: thenationalist traditions ofthe movement provide the breeding ground of fascism.Racism cannot be fought merely on the basis of militancy. Militant tradeunionism does not spontaneously lead to an internationalist position. Sloganslike 'Black and White Unite and Fight ' beg the question. The attempt to unitethe working class in the struggle against fascism without challenging theexisting consciousness of the movement will have partial results. Theprecondition for unity is the struggle of the vanguard for independentworking class politics.The central task is to struggle for proletarian internationalism in the labourmovement. Racism and nationalism cannot be fought in the abstract.Nationalism in the labour movement crystallises around' concrete politicalquestions, questions which the NF itself takes up. Immigration, Ireland, theEEC and import controls - these are issues which reformists consider to beabove class interests. Reformism and chauvinism must be fought by takingthem up, for they are the issues on which class l ines appear most blurred, andwhich therefore provide the potential for the NF to grow.The struggle against racism has to be directed against the bourgeois state.Workers wil lnot be won to an anti- racist pos it ion solong as they accept theright of the state to cont rol immigra tion and the right of the police to harassthe black population. Revolutionaries must demonstrate to politicallyadvanced workers that the s tate cannot be used to defend either blacks or theworking class. In our propaganda we have to show that an imperialist state isof necessity racist and that with the intensification of crisis these tendencieswill be strengthened.The RCT ins is ts on the primacy of the s truggle for proletarianinternationalism because this approach alone can destroy the nationalistbreeding ground of fascism. Today the labour movement 's support ofBritain's domination of Ireland is in general implicit; but as the tendencytowards inter-imperialist rivalries is strengthened chauvinism. may take onmore explicit political forms. Unless revolutionaries develop a stronginternationalist current in the workers ' movement potential support for the NFwillbe transformed into actual political support for rigbt,wing chauvinist ideas.Racism cannot be effectively challenged without a struggle against allexpressions of chauvinism and reformism. This is why the struggle against .racism must be conducted from a revolutionary perspective. At present I t IS

Workers' defenceThe most immediate issue posed by the NF is the need for workers ' defence.The black populat ion must be defended against the wave of physical attacks.However, the immediacy of this task should not make us forget that defenceis a political question. Blacks have organised various forms of self defence tocounter the physical danger to their survival. These are important s teps inchallenging the threat posed by racists. But while these measures arenecessary, they provide only the f irst s teps in counter ing the danger posed byracism. The physical danger faced by blacks s tems not merely from the NF -not every racist attack on blacks is carried out by the fascists. The systematicattacks mounted by the police also pose a ser ious threat. The physical dangerfaced by blacks stems from the strength of racist sentiments in British society.The existence of racism creates the possibility of pogroms with or withoutthe NF. This i swhy the quest ion of defence must be related to the st ruggleagainst racism.Asthe crisis deepens and the barbaric tendencies of capital ism come moreto the fore, the question of defence will take on an even more importantdimension. Minorit ies wil l only be defended when the working class iswon toan independent class pos it ion. Aslong asblack people are isolated from thelabour movement, they will be vulnerable to racis t attacks . Workers have tobe won politically to provide physical support for the defence of theimmigrant communities. Appeals to human kindness and fairness do not show

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not poss ible to win the mass of the working class to this pos it ion: the s trugglefor revolutionary internationalism must begin with the development of avanguard from amongst the most advanced workers. An important step in thisdirection is to challenge the far r ight on its home ground. Through taking upquestions such as the domination of Ireland and the oppress ion of women itis possible to train a revolutionary working class leadership.The fight agains t the NF must be conducted by combatting the specificarguments put forward by the fascists. Abstract calls against the fascists arepolitically irrelevant. People support the NF not because it is fascist butbecause it appears to have answers to their real problems. Spearhead and otherNF publications consistently discuss major political issues. Through articleson the EEC, inflation, the crisis, trade unions, housing, the family educationIreland and immigration, the fascists attempt to show the relevance of their 'strategy to the problems facing British society. Their strategy will not bedefeated by evoking images of concentration camps. When the fascists arguethat the IRA must be smashed, or that sexual permissiveness must beer~di~ated, they do no more than address themselves to views that alreadyexist inthe labour movement. When they organise demonstrations for importcontrols they are givingpolitical coherence to a strategy that has strongsupport in the working class. Tell ing trade unionists not to support the NFbecause it is fascist is trying to fight today's NF with yesterday's memories.The racist ideas of the NF cannot be challenged simply through anti-NFactivity. Many liberals will denounce the NF without being prepared toco~fron~ racism. Yet this unpopular issue must be at the centre of any seriousanti-fascist strategy. For the RCT the campaign against immigration controlprovides the main axis for combatting racism in the labour movement. Thestruggle against racism will only have practical consequences if it contributesto the development of a working class movement of opposit ion to the racis timmigration laws. This is how it ispossible to advance proletarianinternationalism in a practical way. Opposition to all immigration controls isa ~ecess ity for th~ defence of the entire working class. The precondition forthis development IS the recognition of the common interes ts of theinternational working class against capitalism.T?e struggle against immigration control cannot be left for another day.Immigration control confers legal respectablity on racism. In failing toc?~d.uct a campaign against immigration control, the left accepts the legal

~IVlSl.O~S that the bourgeois s tate has imposed on the working class . Theinactivity of the labour movement in this area has allowed the NF to take the?ffensive. While sections of the labour movement may react to particularmsta~ces of racial discrimination, only class conscious workers will questionthe right of the s tate to control immigration. Yet everything s tands or falls onthe development of a class conscious opposition to immigration control.Unless anti-racists adopt this political strategy they will be reduced to shadowboxing with the NF.The revolutionary movement will not make a single step forward unlessthe defe~ce of blacks isplaced at the centre of i ts programme. The training ofa revolutionary vanguard today is inseparable from the struggle against racismand c.onversely the de~elopment of an internationalist current in the workingclass IS the only effective defence agains t the NF. The task facing the

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revolutionary movement is to build a campaign based on the standpoint ofproletarian internationalism against all forms of immigration controls.Frank RichardsJanuary 1978

Afterword to the second editionThis afterword provides an opportunity to develop a number of pointscontained in Under A National Flag. The events of this year have conftrmedthat the NF has no monopoly on racis t poli tics. Under the pressure of thecapitalist crisis, bourgeois public opinion has come to voice the essentials ofNF propaganda. The Daily Express can now argue:

'What we want from the Tories are pract ical ideas for cracking down on illegalimmigration, stopping all "amnesties", and encouraging, where possible, a fair amount ofagreed repatriat ion. Labour could follow suit. Weneed to tackle this problem, and not ina mean or partisan spirit. ' (DaOyExpress, 16January 1978, pl0)In the interests of 'Bri tain ' the major par ties took up the call. On 30 JanuaryThatcher called for a tough approach to immigration and warned that ' th iscountry might be swamped by people with a different culture'. 'Nonsense',shouted the Labour Government. In order to demonstrate that i t neverwavers from defending Britain's interests, Home Secretary Rees denied thatthe Labour Government was ' soft ' on immigration - the country was not indanger of being 'swamped' by immigrants. To prove that he meant business,Rees announced that in 1977 he had s igned over 1100 deportat ion orders andthat 500 'illegal entrants' had been 'removed'. Shortly afterwards theParliamentary Select Committee Report on Immigration recommended thetightening up of immigration controls. Committee members from Toryright-winger Dudley Smith to Labour 'Marxist' Sydney Bidwell stoodshoulder to shoulder in this bipartisan approach.The assault on blacks launched by responsible politicians in Parliament wasaccompanied by a series of physical attacks on the Asian and West Indianpopulation. From Brick Lane to Wolverhampton physical intimidation of theblack populat ion has become part of everyday life. The black community isunder constant threat not only from card-carrying NF members but also fromordinary British racists and the police.Many on the left have come to realise that their ' anti-fascist ' tactics arenot adequate to the task of f ighting racism. But they have yet to understandthat these tactics are in fact an obstacle to the struggle agains t racism. The lef tstill focuses its campaigns on exposing 'Nazism' and is powerless to confrontracism in its contemporary form. While the labour movement is almostunanimous in its opposit ion to the NF, not one signiftcant section of thetrade union movement has pledged its opposition to immigration controls.But the radical lef t has a different standard against which to measure itsachievements, for in i ts new role of impresario for radical rock concerts i t hasmade considerable gains. The organisational success of the ANL, and inparticular its massive Carnival in April, have reinforced 'anti-Nazism'.In political terms the ANL's carnivals and discos have provided an outlet

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for the frustration and anger of youth. The ANL has given no direction toyoung workers but has only to ld them what they al ready suspec ted - that'Hitler was bad' and 'rock: is fun'. Itcame asno surprise to school kids thatblack bands play good music. Yet while their older mentors pontificated atthe recent ANL conference about the sor t of carnivals they will be organis ingagainst the 'Nazis' , racist intimidation continues unabated.The polit ics of the ANL are bourgeois through and through. Itis-not thesocial composit ion of the ANL that is the problem but i ts polit icalfoundation. As the tired Stalinists of the CPGB remark, i t is the sort of'broad' campaign that they used to build in the ' thir ties. The ANL's campaignis based on respectable bourgeois 'anti-fascism'. Evoking the bombing of'great cit ies l ike Coventry and London', ANL leaflets attempt to turn Britishpatr