THE NEW LAWS proposed by Employment Secretary Tebbit aim to do away with the compulsory unions. In this article, 1926 under the title of 'The Trade Unions and Bolshevise, ussian Trotsky, leader revolution, comments parliamentary debate on the same question of the political levy to finance the Labour Party. histormally datedhe sunteas the Some reference to recent trade union support for the Liberals. essence of the argument exactly applies today.
THE TRADE UNIONS have as their object the improvement of the working and livconditions labourers. For this purpose, the members of the unions contribute certain fees.
unions have been considered - at least in form neutral; in actual fact, they have often followed in the train of the Liberal Party.
Needless to Liberals, as well as the Conservatives, who sell honours of all kinds to the rich bourgeois in return for generous contributions fo treasury, have not needed the financial aid of the trade unions, but only their yotes.
The situation changed as soon as the workers, through the trade unions, had created the Party. Once having brought the latter to life, obliged to finance their party. Additional contributions were needed for this purpose from the trade organisations workers.
The bourgeois parties unanimously raised a howl against this 'crying violation of individual liberty'. "The worker is not only a worker, but also a citizen nd a man', MacDonald profound! instructs us. 'Precisely so', is the ech Baldwin, Asquith and Lloyd George. In his quality as a citizen, the worker, whether he supports the trade unions or not, has the right to vote for any party he likes. Compulsion To collect from him a compulsory contribution to the Labour Party is a violation not only of his purse, but also of his conscience. And finally, it is an outright violation of the democratic constitution which forbids any form of compulsion in the matter of support given to this party or that!
As a matter of fact, these conclusions must have considerably impressed the leaders of the Labour Party, who would gladly have renounced the compulsory anti-Liberal, almost Bolshevik methods of the trade union organisations, had it not been tor this cursed need of shillings and pounds, without which it is impossible representative's mandate even in the Arcadia of democracy.
the democratic principles that shillings and pounds are the weapons that give black eyes and bloody noses. Such is the imperfection of this best of all worlds...
If we may believe the report in the Times (March 7, 1925) about 10 per cent of all the members of the trade Socialist Action 22 Julu 1983 tions.
Norman political levy in the collected written in contribute...
Leon anti-Liberal, context But the liberty' ties.
of wage of In matters, the trade - as say the their very badly.
the trade unions were For inis through of the unions.
the more unions, state.
uisten, tion is socialist.
sad destiny of dividual Thus the principle of individual liberty has been saved at least in part. A full victory of 'liberty' would be attain ed only it the contributions could b only those who should declare their willingness to an essence or me maters o course in the fact that the organisations, having established their 'despotic', Bolshevik rule of compulsory collection contributions, in this fighting for an actual, real, not merely metaphysical possibility of a parliarepresentation while the Conservatives and Liberals, who advance the principle of 'personal actually attempting disarm the workers materially and thus to drive them over to the bourgeois paris sufficient to consider the distribution of roles: the trade unions are for the unconditional right of compulsory collection of political contributions; the House of Lords is for the unconditional prohibition of such collections, in the name of the sacred pinciple personal liberty; finally, the House •i commons rorces a concesson non the trade unions, which amounts in fact to a rebate of 10 per cent in tavour oi the principles of liberalism Even a blind man can here perceive the purely class character of the principle of personal liberty which in the present concrete conditions means nothing more or less than an attempt ov the possessing classes to expropriate the proletariat politically, by reducing its party to nothing...
Tyranny The Liberal Cobden once declared that he would. rather live authority of the Bey of Algiers than under that of the trade unions. Cobden was thus expressing his Liberal indignation against the Bolshevik tyranny involved in the very nature of the trade unions. From his standpoint, Cobden was right. The capitalist who falls into the hands of the trade unions will fare The Russian bourgeoisie can tell a tew tales in this connection But the essence of the matter is that the worker actually has over him a permanent Bey of Algiers in the person of his employer, and the tyrannical power Bey can weakened only the activity of the Of course, the worker must make some sacrifice for this purpose, not only in money, but also personally.
However, individual liberty will in Again incomparably than it loses through termediation of the trade unions is the class point of view from which it is impossible to get away, and which is the basis of the right to collect political contributions.
The bourgeoisie, in the mass, at pre sent considers it necessary to itself with the existence of the trade but it wishes to keep their activities below the line where the struggle with the various groups of capitalists becomes a struggle with the capitalist The Conservative member, Macqpointed out in Parliament that the refusal of the trade unions to pay contributions chiefly in the small and scattered branches of industry while in the concentrated branches of industry, he regrets to say, there is observed moral pressure ana mass inuridalion. This observaextremely interesting characteristic of the English Parliament that it should be spoken by an extreme Tory, the author of the proposed prohibitive legislation, not i nis observanon means that the refusal to pay political contributions is found in the most backward branches of industry, in which a powerful petty-bourgeois tradition and consequently also petty-bourgeois conceptions of inliberty, coupled with voting for the Liberal and even for the conservative Partv In the newer, more modern ches of production, class solidarity and proletarian discipline are found, which impresses the capitalsis ana tneir ser• members workers manner to as terrorism..
political contributions, opposition al ever workers liccule Elucidating tions of the trade unions, tributions fund of 250,000 pounds.
the in- strong This Resources reconcile frank recognition proletarians! should be sufficient to observed These very of strike. Members' workers are engaged in usually with strikebreakers who of the right to work.
bran- In any AN UND Trotsky was denied political asylu vants, the deserters from the workers, During the debates concerning the , the author of the prohibitive legislation, Macquisten who has already been mentioned, made a remark on the subject of this same democracy which was received by the with gay laugnter. but which should, as a matter of fact, not only be engraved on the walls of Parlia ment, but proclaimed and expounded with figures the significance of the political contribuMacquister declared that before the Liberal Bill of 1913, the trade unions had expender annually only about 10,000 pounds for the legalisation of the political conthev have in their hands a Of course, says Macquisten, the Labour Party has When have 250,000 pounds of annual income, you can create a party for any purpose.
The infuriated Tory said somewhat more than he intended. His remark is a that parties can be made, that they can be made with the aid of money, that funds play a decisive Must we point out that the financial resources of the bourgeoise are incom parably more plentiful than those of This fact disperse the hypocritical vapours of democracy Every wide-awake English worker should sav to MacDonald: it 1s not true that the supreme criteria for our movement are the principles ot democracy principles are under the thumb of financial resources, and ma! be distorted and falsified at will.
The trade unions are • in spite of all the subtleties of Liberal casuistry -a class organisation of wage worker: for combating the greed and avarice of capitalists. One of the most important the trade unions is the contributions go support strikes. In times of strikes, the fierce struggle are the product of another Liberal principle, that general strike, the union needs political support, it must turn to the parties the parliament.
The hostile attitude of the Liberal press