First Published: Worker’s England Daily News Release, No. 198, (special issue) May 1, 1973
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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In the last few months, vast sections of the working class have struggled against and struck hard blows against the British monopoly capitalist class These struggles have reached a new peak since the introduction of the fascist “Counter-inflation policy” by the Heath Government, which is designed to hold down the wages to the working class whilst, the monopoly capitalist class increases its already vast profit.
The working people however have shown that their revolutionary spirit of rebellion cannot be crushed by any amount of fascist legislation. The working people are not content to remain wage slaves of the capitalists and refuse to accept the burden of the economic crisis created by the monopoly capitalists themselves. As Comrade Stalin pointed out: “It (world economic crisis) is laying bare and intensifying the contradictions between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in the capitalist countries. The crisis has already increased the pressure exerted by the capitalists on the working class. The crisis has already given rise to another wave of capitalist rationalisation, to a further deterioration of the conditions of the working class, to increased unemployment, to an enlargement of the permanent army of unemployed, to a reduction-of wages. It is not surprising that these circumstances are revolutionising the situation, intensifying the class struggle and pushing the workers towards new class battles.”
Today the monopoly capitalists cut wages indirectly by limiting wage increases whilst accelerating inflation. In the face of this, workers have accelerated their struggles: during late February and early March, around one million workers were engaged in the struggle against the monopoly capitalist class and its present representative Heath Government. During this time hospital workers, railway workers, gas workers, civil servants, car workers, miners, airport controllers, dockers, teachers, engineering workers and BRS drivers have all fought against the “phase two ” of the Heath Government’s policy and hit hard blows against monopoly capital.
In the face of this great new upsurge of the English working class, the monopoly capitalist class has, on the one hand, stepped up its propaganda for fascism, claiming that “strikes are causing anarchy”, “striking workers are causing deaths” and causing bomb explosions in central London, and on the other hand, used various “friends of the working class” to suggest that “workers’ democracy” and “worker directors” can somehow hide the antagonistic contradiction between the bourgeoisie and proletariat, and to promote the idea that the present struggles can solve the problems facing the working people.
In the course of struggle, workers have learnt much about the nature of the so-called ”leaders” of the working class; these parasites in the Labour Party, the labour aristocracy in the trade unions and the so-called “left-wing” comprising the revisionist “Communist Party of Great Britain” and various trotskyite organisations, all tell the workers to wage their present struggles and not go any further. They all claim that higher wages will solve the problem, when the problem is the wages system itself which condemns workers to be wage slaves for monopoly capitalism and to continually struggle for a living wage. They are the agents of the British monopoly capitalist class.
Neither the British monopoly capitalist class, nor its agents among the working class, have succeeded in quelling the revolutionary spirit of the working people. Workers’ England Daily News Release salutes this glorious fighting spirit of the English working class and fully supports their just struggle against monopoly capitalism which are necessary to maintain a living wage in the face of the present onslaught by British monopoly capital.
The principal lesson from these straggles is that, by themselves, they will never solve the problem. Another year from now, and workers will be forced to fight precisely the same struggle again, just to keep close to their present standard of living. It is necessary to take the struggle forwards, to fight not – only for a living wage, but to fight for the complete overthrow of the monopoly capitalist system of exploitation, and for the establishment of the working class as the ruling class. There are no solutions within the capitalist system!
WORKERS, FIGHT FOR THE COMPLETE OVERTHROW OF THE MONOPOLY CAPITALIST CLASS! FIGHT FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE WORKING CLASS AS THE RULING CLASS!