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Nationalization
From The Militant, Vol. VI No. 43, 16 September 1933, p. 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
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This article introduces a subject which has not formerly been discussed in the Militant, it is therefore accepted explicitly as a discussion article. The views expressed are those of the writer. Other contributions in discussion of this subject are invited, but they should not exceed 700 words – Ed. |
The bourgeoisie is presenting the National Industrial Recovery Act as the answer to the Soviets Five Year Plan, as the “better road” of capitalist planned economy. The “plan” which is to solve the present crisis and bring capitalism out of the wilderness into the promised land, envisages the formation of trusts along the lines of European cartels on a semi-voluntary basis for the purpose of regulating competition, allocating production, setting standards of minimum wages and maximum hours of work. It includes the aim of raising prices and increasing the purchasing power of the masses.
It is the obvious task of the Communist to expose this bourgeois method of solving the problems of the crisis solely for its own benefit with the most shameless and criminal disregard of the mode of existence of the working class. This exposure takes on a wide scope. What is here presented is part of a larger discussion on the new problems posed by NRA.
Not alone does the Communist expose the real nature of this bourgeois attack on the working class, but he participates in all the immediate struggles of the workers – whether for higher wages, better conditions, the right to strike, the rights of unionism for the rights of the worker to democratic justice, etc. – for the purpose of guiding the immediate aims of the struggle so that they coincide with the interests of the class as a whole, and also for the purpose of gaining the confidence of the proletarians through correctness of policy, and through struggle as to make the worker politically conscious in his resistance to the ruling class.
Lenin states that “the workers can acquire political consciousness only from without, only outside of the economic struggle, outside of the sphere of relations between workers and employers.” Hence our task
“is not merely to serve the labor movement at each of its separate stages, but to represent the movement as a whole, to point out to this movement its ultimate aims and its political basis, and to protect its political and ideological independence. Isolated from Social Democracy (read Communism) the labor movement becomes petty and inevitably becomes bourgeois: in conducting only the economic struggle the working class loses its political independence; it becomes the tail of other parties and runs counter to the great slogan: ‘The emancipation of the workers must be the task of the workers themselves.’ – To facilitate the political development and the political organization of the working class is our principal and fundamental task. Those who push this task into the background, who refuse to subordinate to it all the special tasks and methods of the struggle, are straying on to the wrong path and cause serious harm to the movement”.
The writer is well aware that Lenin used the terms “economic” and “political” above in the narrow, restricted sense in which they are counterposed to each other. In the broader sense of the term, “politics” is concentrated economics so that to the Communist every social problem the economic included, is a political problem. Nevertheless the narrower interpretations aid in applying a corrective to policies not sufficiently all-embracing.
At each stage of development it becomes the task of the Communist to search for that particular and precise intermediate slogan which will perform best the service first of being of actual benefit to the workers if achieved; secondly, which will aid in rallying the workers for resistance to the ruling-class solution and in favor of its own solution to a serious social problem, in this case the problem of the crisis; thirdly, that will lead the workers along the path of class struggle towards our final goal of the seizure of power. Is there such a slogan that presents itself at this time in any given industries? I believe there is but a few words are necessary before stating it in its general terms first.
The Communist must be quite clear as to what constitutes progressive development of economic forces. For example, no Communist can be opposed to the process of trustification. On the contrary we look upon this process as inevitable. What we do oppose is bourgeois control of the vast power embodied in highly concentrated industry, and we propose to substitute our own class content in place of the capitalist class content of trusts. In similar fashion we are not opposed to unions, but we are opposed to company unions; that is, to unions permeated by capitalist influence. No institution or social instrument is sacrosanct to the working class on this very account. Thus in the struggle for power Soviets arise. If these Soviets are captured by the bourgeoisie so that they become ruling-class instruments we stand opposed to them. Thus too we are against capitalist trusts, with the emphasis on capitalist. We assume no responsibility for the bourgeois mode of concentrating industry, but we intervene at all stages of the process to advance the working class movement along the path of revolutionary struggle.
Speaking still in the narrow but perfectly clear sense of the terms, it is rare that an economic struggle presents itself at the same time as clearly a political struggle involving the government and the state. It takes enormous labor on the part of the Communist to transform the ordinary economic struggle of the workers into a political struggle. In the case of the NRA the government has been forced to take the initiative and has thereby presented us with a problem which is at the same time economic and political, involving state power. How can we take advantage of this fact? On the whole the workers incline to accept the pretences of the ruling-class, the demagogy of Roosevelt that he actually desires to so organize the industries as to put the workers back on the job, and to increase their ability to buy goods. These illusions can be destroyed only by engaging the workers in a struggle which will put decisive tests and give decisive answers, which will call the bluff of Roosevelt. Why not have the coal miners demand the nationalization of the mines, and the railroad workers that of the railroads? In the eyes of the workers could not the government then put the workers back to work at once? And why should not the workers participate in the control of production and in the administration of the industry? The problem of nationalization cannot of course be “imposed” on any industry at all from without. It must link up with the concrete fighting slogans and arise as a working class demand along with and from these narrower slogans. With this in view we will attempt to show the applicability of the slogan of nationalization to mining and the railroads in later articles.
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