Introduction
Of course, while it is true that every epoch is different, nevertheless, experience is demonstrating that the knot of history is being retied, but on a higher level. The 1920s in Britain was a period of deep crisis, especially in the coal industry, which was the key industry at the time. Britain was being undermined by stiff competition from Germany. The ruling class came to the conclusion that the working class must be prepared to shoulder the burden of the crisis to “put industry back on its feet”. This was the message of Stanley Baldwin, the Tory prime minister. This meant savage wage cuts across the board. The showdown began in the coal industry, where the coal owners were demanding big wage cuts. In 1925 the Conservative government granted a subsidy for nine months, whilst forming a Royal Commission to look into the plight of the industry. The labour movement heralded this as a tremendous victory and called it ‘Red Friday’. But the ruling class were simply buying time to better prepare an all-out offensive against the working class. The labour leaders, meanwhile, did nothing but lull the working class to sleep and made no preparations for the inevitable showdown.
It was at this time that Trotsky wrote Where is Britain Going? In it, he analysed the position of British capitalism and the challenges faced by the working class. It is a brilliant Marxist analysis, which has many lessons for today, not least the crucial role of leadership. It was written as guidance for the young British Communist Party, which at that stage was struggling to assert itself.
It was also the time when, in the wake of Lenin’s death, the triumvirate of Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev had taken over the leadership of the Russian Communist Party so as to exclude Trotsky. They then created the myth of ‘Trotskyism’, which they contrasted to ‘Leninism’ and launched a campaign against him.
The isolation of the Russian Revolution in such terrible backwardness resulted in the growth of a mighty bureaucracy within the state and the party. Stalin became the figurehead of this bureaucratic caste, which now yearned for peace and stability so as to enjoy its privilege. The Stalinists therefore adopted the anti-Marxist theory of ‘socialism in one country’, which meant the rejection of world revolution. In 1928 Trotsky brilliantly predicted that the adoption of this theory would lead to the nationalist and reformist degeneration of the Comintern.
In early 1925, Trotsky was dismissed from his post as Commissar of War, and was gradually removed from all positions of authority. The Communist International was being transformed from an instrument of world revolution into a mere border guard for the Soviet regime.
However, by 1926 the triumvirate broke up and Stalin entered a bloc with Bukharin. This served to push the Communist International in an opportunist direction. In China, the Communists were directed to enter the nationalist Kuomintang and to subordinate themselves to the ‘progressive’ bourgeoisie, which led to the bloody suppression of the Communists in 1927 at the hands of Chiang Kai-shek, while in Britain, the Communists were pushed to align themselves with the left reformist trade union leaders, such as Purcell, Hicks and Swales.
The idea had been raised in Moscow – firstly by Zinoviev, who was always on the lookout for shortcuts – that the socialist revolution in Britain might come ‘through a different door’, namely through the agency of the ‘lefts’ of the Trades Union Congress (TUC). This was clearly falsified by the betrayal of these same ‘lefts’ in the General Strike of 1926. Trotsky’s book was an attempt to counter this idea of a ‘different door’, posing instead the need for the British Communist Party to fight to become a mass party that could lead the working class to power.
In Where is Britain Going? Trotsky brilliantly analysed the situation in Britain, the objective conditions preparing the way for revolution, and the real traditions of the working class, contrasting its revolutionary and conservative sides. He also gave a description of the character of the bourgeois leaders and the leaders of the workers’ movement. While he dealt with the ruthlessness of the British bourgeoisie, Trotsky displayed nothing but contempt for its agents within the labour movement: the MacDonalds and other carpetbaggers. He also accurately described the shortcomings of the official ‘lefts’ in the movement.
Within the Labour Party, “there took shape the so-called left wing, formless, spineless, and devoid of any independent future”, wrote Trotsky, referring to their ideological weakness and confusion.
In contrast, the right wing drew its strength from the fact that:
“… with them stands tradition, experience and routine and, most important, with them stands bourgeois society as a whole which slips them ready-made solutions. For MacDonald has only to translate Baldwin’s and Lloyd George’s suggestions into Fabian language. […]
The weakness of the lefts arises from their disorder and their disorder from their ideological formlessness.”
And:
It would be a monstrous illusion to think that these left elements of the old school are capable of heading the revolutionary movement of the British proletariat and its struggle for power.
He outlined the historic challenges before the working class, and explained how these would be overcome:
“The ideas and prejudices which have been handed down from generation to generation become a factor of great historical force… But material facts are nevertheless stronger than their reflection in ideas and traditions… Living facts are more powerful than dead ideas. […]
All her national traditions will undergo a test. What was shaped by centuries will be destroyed in the course of years.”
The greatest test to confront the British working class came with the General Strike of May 1926. It was called in defence of the miners, but it posed the question of workers’ power point-blank. In such a situation there was no room for prevarication or compromise. The strike would usher in either the greatest of defeats or the greatest of victories. The right wing, naturally, worked to betray the strike from the very beginning. But the ‘lefts’, lacking any perspective of taking power, simply capitulated to the right.
Rob Sewell
From ‘Trotsky’s writings on Britain: a treasure trove of lessons for today’, Marxist.com
14 July 2023