those of social democracy.
The essence of the politics of social democracy is to fight the class struggle according to the rules of the game laid down by the bourgeoisie. What this means in relation to the freeze was made only too clear by Wilson when the White Paper was announced: he categorically refused to back any attempt to break the law thereby telling the working class that it must not lead any open struggle against the Government. The consequence of this "strategy" is not simply to end the fight. It means that the weakest sections of society hardest hit by inflation will have no choice but to turn to the Government's pay board and price commission and be thankful for the few crumbs they can get from it.
COMMUNIST PARTY It is true that the C.P. stands to the left of the Labour leadership and does call for industrial action to smash the freeze. The Communist Party can be expected to play a leading role in organising solidarity action in support of those workers who try to smash the pay laws. But what answer has the C.P. got for those who have been forced by their economic circumstances to turn to the state for the few crumbs offered in the pay package? It is here that the question of offering an alternative practical solution becomes crucial. Either the working class must offer an organised alternative to the state machine for the mass of working people, or they will be won over to political support for the Tory Government and will oppose the action of workers against the freeze. The Communist Party refuses to deal with this problem, for the simple reason that it would have to be prepared to fight the awe and majesty of the parliamentary state: the forces at the disposal of the Tories to enforce the bourgeoisie's rules for the class struggle onto the working class. But by dodging this issue the C.P.'s answer to the problem of strategy is not qualitatively different from that of the Labour leadership. To both these strategies we must counterpose the fight for our practical solution to the problem of inflation. But secondly, we must combine that programme with the struggle to organise all sections of working people in such a way as to enable that programme to be implemented independently of the bourgeois state and against its fierce opposition. In this way the struggle against the Tories can Take on an explosive force.
UNITED ACTIONS But such policies can only be implemented in the course of developing the present struggle through united actions to smash the Tory government's pay laws: the overriding task of today is to establish the broadest possible unity of action of all those prepared to struggle to defeat the government's pay laws and to destroy all legal shackles on working class organisation. In order to pull all possible forces into the struggle we must use every conceivable lever. Whatever our differences may be on other key issues, organisations prepared to participate in and develop such actions must be welcomed into the ranks of those engaged in the struggle.
If bureaucrats like Feather or, for that matter, Wilson offer to join the struggle we must not reject their interventions. Of course we know that Wilson and Feather are mainly interested in the electoral prospects of the Labour Party and subordinate everything else to achieve that aim. Hence they will always attempt to divert that struggle into reformist and electoralist channels. But neither this fact nor the knowledge that Feather, Wilson and other bureaucrats are reactionaries must prevent us trom supporting demands for the recall of the TUC or pushing forward a campaign for action projected by the TUC General Council.
Those sectarians who reject these tactics are profoundly mistaken. What they fail to realise is that the number of workers who look to the revolutionaries in the labour movement for a lead are extremely small, while the TUC General Council can bring into action large sections of workers who would not be mobilised in other circumstances. In the actual struggle itself it is the revolutionaries and the militants who will be able to prove that it is they who have the policies which could take the movement further and not the Feathers and the Wilsons of this world. But the broader the masses involved in the struggle, the easier this task will be.
But secondly, we must not rely on the official leaderships, we must not depend on them, we must not wait for them to give a lead, before we start the struggle: instead, the work of