between different sections of the soft left over what attitude they should take to Liaison (LLL).
In the unions the situation is different. Here right gaining overall with the serious development in the TGWU. Signs of the emergence of a new 'soft left' grouping around NUPE, GMBATU, and USDAW are only a small counterbalance to the threat of the left losing the support of the single largest union — one of whose vote it has been able to gain on important inmain areas radicalisation in the trade unions today are in the public sector and white collar unions - the NUT and CPSA being the most important examples. Blatant state prepared to try to decapitate NUM.
In a number of ways the situation in the labour movement is moving more towards the pattern that existed from the 1920s to the late 1960s -wing LLIs ana youth organisations, and a clear right wing fake left majority in the unions. The tactics of socialists have to be to consolidate the left wing's position in the and youth organisations, and to build a left wing minority in the unions. The possibilities for this are more favourable than in the 1920s and the 1930s because the defeats suffered by the trade union movement today, while serious, are nothing like as crushing as in that interwar period.
Political developments within the Labour Party reflect this situation. The development of the Campaign Group of Labour MPs, of Labour Left Liaison, constituency-based campaigns, TABLE 1:
Employees Unemployed Working class elf-employe lomemaker Students Sick and disabled Retired Other Total TABLE 2:
White male workers Black male workers All black workers Left Tortes are most the of the the working class. has promoted before domestic manufacturing base.
doned the important millions o of total population 21.0 17.2 20.1 2.9 23.0 42.6 2.5 4.6 3.5 6.5 54.0 100.0 This task requires a programmatic development by the left in Britain and by Marxists. The CLPs and Labour's youth organisation are a base where the left today can maintain a majority — a platform for activity which must be consolidated. But the majority of the working class is never going to be in the CLPs and neither are youth the majority of the working class. Winning the majority of the working class means winning the majority of the working class organised in the trade unions — a task which will take very many years and very long-term effort. The fact that socialists are in a protracted struggle for socialism in Britain means they must have a longterm strategy and programmatic goals for that fight. This is particularly important as the Thatcher government does have a clear strategy for British society, both for the ruling class and Within the ruling class Thatcher La concentration of capital and an expansion of its inter national operations. Never has British World War Il has its operations been so international. Thatcher has promoted the most powerful and international sectors of British capital - at the expense of the size or thi In its policy for the working class the Thatcher government has aban'one nation' framework that dominated the Tory Party from Disraeli to Heath. Unable any more to make concessions to all sections of society British imperialism is now consciously sawing society in two -artempung to consondale a relalvery privileged section of the population, including a significant section of the society.
starting % of population. of 'working age' :
60.9 8.8 sky 69.7 7.6 10.6 reality, cess.
100.0 of working clas British 55.2 2.0 42.6 100.0 3.9 working perfecting methods of repressive rule against those to whom it can no longer offer concessions.
This policy is seen in every sphere: in the move to the system of 'core' and 'peripheral' workers in industry, in the increasing north-south division in politics, in the increasing pay differentials between skilled and unskilled workers, between men and women workers, white and black workers, older and young workers, between those in jobs and those who are unemployed, between the employed population and the pensioners. It can be seen again in the teachers pay dispute, in the attempt to widen the differences in pay between grades. Every differential and division within British society is being increased as the key to Thatcher's strategy.
To deal with this assault socialists must Have a prustallic, as concielll and as all embracing as Thatcher's -a true hegemonic strategy in British This programme cannot be reached in one attempt. There must be systematic study of British society to develop such a programme.
that urgent socialists are to capitalise on any gain: made in the last perio A central part of that programme, its starting point must be the interna tional situation. Without a consistent attitude to imperialism to Eastern Europe, to the necessity of British withdrawal from Ireland, there cannot be a developing socialist strateg) in Britain itself however, is to anderstand the internt, crucial aspect, structure of British society. , As Trotwrote: It is false that world economy is simply a sum of national parts of one and the same type. It is false that the specific features are "merely supplementary to the general features, like warts on a face the national peculiarities represent an original combination of the basic features of the world pro This originality can be decisive significance for revolutionary strategy for many years.' The study of the overall structure British society Jonson and Bush, do not only Anatomy coales such a systematic overall study society. The result is that a series of studies and activities — class analysis, struggles of women, trade activity, the fight against racism etc — go on in parallel without being integrated into an overall analysis of the structure of British society and the programme which flows from it. The aim of this article, the first of a series, is therefore to outline briefly some features of British social structure and their implications.
The most British society are shown in Table 1. The total population of the British state, excluding the north of Ireland is approximately 54 million women, of course, men by approximately 52 per cent to 48 per cent. Out of that population of 54 million approximately 12 million are under the school-leaving age and 9 million over the Therefore 39 per cent of the population are not eligible for waged work.
Turning to those eligible for waged work the official statistics do not accord exactly with the categories a socialist would wish to use. Those living from the profit of capital are not specified: 1 ne figures employment' mix up 'labour-only self employment' reasons and those that would be employers termed 'petty-bourgeois' But categories such as shopkeepers, small if farmers, etc. The employees, those living from wage and salaries, contain a significant proportion of simple flunkeys of capital, and a tew whose main source of income is profit from capital.
Despite these distortions, there is no reason to doubt that the official statistics give an overall accurate picture of the social structure of the country. Provided the taken as indications of the orders of magnitude. and not as calculations to the nearest decimal characteristics of the structure of the country are clear.
The first feature, of course, is the massive predominance of the working class in British society. "Employees', inose working ior wages or salames and the unemployed, who are almost all looking for waged work, constitute of 23 million people: 43 per cent of the entire population and 70 per ent of the eligible work. the real situation because a significant number of women who would take paid work do not unemployed.
After the working class the largest category is the 3.5 million people who look after the home, women, who form 6 per cent of the total population and the population of After these 2.9 employed, and 1.3 million students.
These figures show that, contrary to what is sometimes asserted, the working the chief society.
general features of with outnumbering retirement age. tally divided. for 'self- which is frequently registered as self-employed their own the figure for of the ty, the ligures are point, the cloroni waged Furthermore this understates register almost all 11 per cent of sullity 'working age' million selfthose selling their labour power, are not the majority of What is clear, however, is that the working class community is the massive majority of society that is, taking into account not simply those in work but the women In Le working class community who are not in waged work, the children of working class families, and those who have retired as workers Britain is com pletely dominated by the weight of that working class community.
That working class, and working class community, is however substanApproximately 4 per cent of the working class is black, a far higher proportion in the big cities. Almost 43 per cent are women.
While the standard caricature is still of white male worker the truth is that by 1984 only 55 per cent of the working class were white male the proportion is constantly falling. Already by 1984 45 per cent of the working class where either women or black. Add in the proportion who are gay and Irish and there is no doubt that white male British heterosexuals, 'standard worker', are now minority of the working class. thermore, as we will see, white male British workers are particularly concentrated in the most privileged sections of the working class. The majority of the most oppressed sections working class are already black, females, or Irish.
Inside the working class community, where women are the majorisituation is clearer still. reasonable guess would be that 60 per cent of the working class community, and the least privileged, are eithe women, black, or gay. Again if the Irish population is included the proportion is even higher.
This is why those in the labour movement wao counterpose so-called class issues to the demands of women or black people are so wrong. Firstly these so-called class issues pointed to are almost invariably found to be economic demands are counterposed to specific demands of women and black people, the least privileged sections of the working class. Second it is even more ludicrous to present women and black people, or lesbians and gays, or the Irish population, as being outside the working class. On the contrary they represent, as we have seen, almost 50 per cent of the working class, and the majority of the working class comWhat is true is that this working class is tremendously fragmented by industry, occupation, and other divisions. That is the feature we will look at in the next article in this series.
WHAT was taking place in Grenada was not a socialist revolution, but a •DOCCS of social changes. i believe that the basic factor that opened the TOGON - Ilal servea le Unled olales à pretext on a silver platter for invading thạt country, political price — were the activities of an ambitious and extremist sectarian group. in mv view. the mam responsibility for the domestic situation created there lies with Coard. An alleged theoretician of the revolution who had been professor of Marxism in Jamaica. he protited trom his reputation as a theoretically wellprepared man and used this reputaton as a theoretician to promote his personal amibitions lower (Bernard)
colspirc there have That more, for the future.
gave ali Socialist Action 19 Dec 1986 He did not work openly. He did not dissolve that group; he kept it as a faction. Very quietlý, and gradually, he placed his sworn followers in key positions in the army, as political instructors, in the Ministry of Security, and in some positions in the party. He had resigned his position member of the Bureau a year earlier as a gesture of setlessness. He went off to a small island and was there laving the role of an isolatea man self-isolated, but he continued beIn That mas miss was style So, this developed very subtly, very quietly. And Coard gradually gained a ma jority on the Centrat Committee -and always in the name of principles.
Now then, there's no doubt that Bishop was very noble and, I'd say naive, because he never gave much thought to the problem. Hi never imagined that a tendency of type, aimed at isolating him develop I believe he underestimated the importance Coard's activites.
When Bishop stopped in Cuba on his way to Europe, he spoke with me in the house where he was staying. We talked a lot about the airport under construction, the economic situation, the way projects were going, and ideas He returned to Cuba and stayed two days. The day before he left, we intimate reception his honor, to which I invited all the com-
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Structure of British society (1984) Und retirement age.
Women workers Total
Sexual and racial division of the working class 23.0