STRIKE. This is far more decisive than arguments about the exact day when the strike should begin - although of course in certain situations, like the arrest of the five dockers, it is necessary to place the emphasis on demanding that the strike should start immediately without delay.
Practical steps
But simply to issue calls for organisation and to pass resolutions through union branches on general strikes is not enough. It is necessary to know what practical steps must be taken to bring about the necessary organisation.
Some revolutionaries say that the immediate answer is setting up Councils of Action, that is local bodies with elected representatives of shop stewards committees, trade union branches, tenants, students and so on. Is this policy correct? The answer is that it depends on the relation of forces in any given area. In a real mass upsurge a Council of Action is an absolute necessity, but to play any useful role it must be deeply rooted in the masses. Nothing is more useless than a tiny handful of people declaring themselves to be a real Council of Action and claiming that they lead the working class in an area. But if a Council of Action with real roots in the class in an area can be established then it should be set up without delay.
The first and simplest step is the organisation of conferences in areas to discuss the struggle against the freeze and against the government. These should draw in the widest possible layers of trade unionists, tenants, students and so on. Some first steps along these lines have already been taken. The Ford shop stewards asked health workers and others in struggle to their national meeting to discuss their pay claim. Various elected committees of gas workers have tried to work out how to involve other sections. Health workers organisations such as the London Alliance of Shop Stewards in Health have called for conferences to discuss joint ways of fighting, and conferences have taken place or been planned in Manchester and Rotherham. The Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions Conference on 31 March could be a step forward - although unfortunately here the Communist Party's refusal to practise working class democracy will probably prevent as much being achieved as could be. At the very least, however, ad hoc committees for the planned strike on May 1st can be established.
These and similar conferences can and should be called throughout the country as an immediate step. They can be used to lay the groundwork for any future steps in organisation. In some cases it may be possible to establish permanent organisation at once out of such meetings. In most cases it will not. But at least the question of decisive working class organisation for struggle will begin to be raised in the minds of militants.
Coming struggles
The next decisive steps forward in the struggle for organisation can be taken during the big strike struggles which are coming. Already round local struggles various groups have taken initiatives. In the case of the CAV struggle attempts were made to organise real solidarity conferences. A national conference of solidarity was held for Fine Tubes. During the miners's strike solidarity between all sorts of social forces was established on a big scale. In East Anglia, for example, miners, other workers, unemployed and students organised picketing, accommodation, watches on the ports and other forms of solidarity action. Such moves must be made on a far bigger and more organised scale during any future big struggles.
In every big national or local strike all social groups and organisations should come together to pursue the struggle. A conference or support committee organised in an area can organise trade unionists to carry out blacking and solidarity strikes, students and tenants to provide accommodation, unemployed to picket, law students and claimants unions to deal with the police and social security, and so on. The response to the legal attacks on Briants where thousands of trade unionists demonstrated and students picketed round the clock shows the way here. Once again such immediate steps can begin to raise the question of organisation for big and decisive struggles. It is these practical and to the point measures which aid the present struggle and prepare future ones which now flow from the general slogan of organising for a decisive clash with the bourgeoisie. This is what real practical and decisive preparation for a general strike means.