No — You Can’t Do That
Posted on June 9, 2008
You may have seen comedians marching up and down with their placards proclaiming unconditional support for far right reactionary forces such as Hezbollah — forces implacably and violently opposed to socialism and workers’ organisations — instead of offering their solidarity to those who struggle against both the aggression of the Israeli ruling class and rejectionist religious right and feudalist islamist totalitarianism. Islamist forces are not national liberation movements, but the expression of another privileged elite seeking to enslave workers under the yoke of their own backward feudal ideology. Socialists should oppose imperialism independently of so-called ‘anti-imperialist’ reactionary forces — we must not become the left jackboot of fascism or theocracy.
Besides presenting a ridiculous spectacle, support for Hizbollah pushes the limit of what is ‘legal’ under current British law. This fact does not seem to concern the comedy ‘anti-imperialists’ — and fair enough too. However, when their opponents do something to which they object, they squawk ‘you cannot do that — that’s illegal!’ rushing to huddle under the umbrella of bourgeois law. As if socialists should be concerning themselves with the procedural fig-leaves of the bosses or seeking dispensation from our ‘masters’, wagging our tails and waiting under the table for scraps and bones. As if revolutionary socialism is ‘legal’. What is legal about advocating the seizure of state power and overturning the existing social order? The only law we should concern ourselves with is socialist law — that is law enacted in conditions of actual democracy, under equal and not exploitative social relations. Socialists cannot scoff at bourgeois laws one minute and then beg their protection the next. Of course, if we trouble ourselves to look beneath the surface, we find that most of this inconsistent and hypocritical rabble are not revolutionary socialists at all, merely scions of the ruling class, striking radical poses before entry into one of the sheltered workshops of the bourgeoisie — banking or the law.
As leninist or libertarian socialists we are no strangers to ‘illegality’, as it is necessary to work within workers’ organisation and the democratic socialist parties — often against union and political élites — to build the revolutionary consciousness of the members.
Illegal work is work in the mass organizations — for the ILP it is systematic entry and work in the trade unions, co-operatives, etc. In peace-time and in war, it is the same. You will perhaps say: “They will not let us in. They will expel us.” You do not shout: “I am a revolutionist,” when working in a trade union with reactionary leadership. You educate your cadres who carry on the fight under your direction. You keep educating new forces to replace those expelled, and so you build up a mass opposition. Illegal work must keep you in the working masses. You do not retire into a cellar as some comrades imagine. The trade unions are the schools for illegal work. The trade union leadership is the unofficial police of the state – The protective covering for the revolutionist is the trade union. Transition into war conditions is almost imperceptible.¹
Workers’ democracy and workers’ control is attacked — and labelled ‘loony’ or inexpedient — by the reactionary and bureaucratic leadership of social democratic parties and trade unions. In Britain the Labour Party has adopted the cult of managerialism, a sort of Friedmanism-lite with minimal redistributive characteristics, and is busily eroding pubic services, presiding over a flurry of privatisation, while working hand-in-glove with the over-salaried bureaucrats of the Trade Union leadership — ‘New Labour’ is just another bourgeois machine offering a career path for the shiny and faceless managerial élite. The British Labour Party which was once part of the struggle for workers’ rights and workers’ democracy, has become a party which hunts down and expels members who organise as socialists within the party!
Notes:
¹ Once Again the ILP — L D Trotsky interviewed by E Robertson, New International, February 1936.
