Fair enough. So I don't piss off the editor for starting another S. W. P. thread I'll post this here. BUT. I think people have to acknowledge, we all have such well established ideologies it is very unlikely we are going to agree. So instead of concentrating about what we disagree, can we not discuss a few generallities which may hold true for all revolutionaries?
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I think people have noticed I’m not the most well read person on the forum.
and I can’t remember an article that “instructed me” on what is the party line response to this question. So I will put down the understanding I’ve constructed from the general information I’ve gleaned from being in the party. Sorry if this is in my usual tedious and simplistic fashion.
PS. I hope S. W. members will correct me if I get this wrong.
I think for myself it is a “big picture” analysis. For example; If you look at the detail of the economy it could be in boom. So you could look at several indicators like the real wage growth, and increasing production, etc. but this then has to put in the context of long-term trends. To cut to the chase, though we can see booms in the nineteen thirties, and slumps in the nineteen fifties, we categorize the nineteen thirties as a period of depression and the nineteen fifties as period of boom. Yes?
Now class struggle itself go through booms and slumps. BUT like the whole of human experience it operates on two levels which can be divergent. On the material level one can measure the level of struggle By the number of strike days, the direction of real wages, and the achievement of reforms ect. But the class struggle also takes place on a ideological level.
Now because society is a dynamic ever changing whole one can see the first green shoots of the upturn of British working class ideological struggle in the nineteen thirties it might be argued, just like you can see the green shoots of capitalism within feudalism before the revolution, but and I think we can definitely say the postwar period saw the longest period of sustained British working class confidence in combativity. From 1945 to 1979ish there was a general ideological confidence of the British working class that they could fight for at least reforms of the capitalist system to make the world a better place. Because the post boom gave the bosses room to maneuver, and accede to reforms, this ideological viewpoint was never tested to the point of crisis.
The post war boom ended in 1972ish. Even before then you could see attempt to restructure capitalism [ie labor government “in place of strife”]. But by the heath government, needs to restructure British capitalism were desperate. The two sides fought to a standstill with the miners strike of 1974. but the only answer to the crisis from the reformist working class movement was a reformist government.
It was the labor government that made scabbing respectable. It was the labor government that brought in Thatcherism, “ You can't spend your way out of a recession" Callaghan. And by 1979 the British working class reformist labor movement had nowhere to turn. From having a offensive, solidarity, labor movement with hope for a better future, came a defensive, divided labor movement that resulted in defeat after defeat.
Now if you think as I stated above that a revolutionary opportunity is breif in nature. That it is pregnant with all kinds of possibilities for reform or fascism etc.. And that you need the biggest possible influence at that moment, if you re to win social revolution. And you can see your party hemorrhaging members to Bennism, reformism which is already bankrupt. You would probably want to reorganize your party.
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Respect, ResistanceMP3.
They stoop so low to reach so high.
