What does the word “politics” mean to the average worker? It brings to mind bribery and corruption. If he sees a public figure (or sometimes a figure in the trade union movement) doing something under-handed in order to line his pockets or to climb up the ladder of careerism, he or she says, “That is politics.” This is based upon the realities of capitalist politics, which is always accompanied by corruption, office-seeking. Politics as conducted by the capitalist politicians is usually dirty and sordid.
Even the left-wing politics leaves much to be desired. Left organisations who call themselves "the vanguard" are, in the whole, adherents of Leninism. In their view, Marx’s concept of a workers’ party has been reduced to the idea that all that is needed is a “correct programme” and a democratic-centralist organisation. The title of “the Marxist-Leninist party” is synonymous with their having that “correct programme”. A trademark of the “revolutionary party” is also their manner of “intervention”. Some members of a group will be assigned to intervene among formations attempting to reach people on one issue or another. The real goal of these interventions is the cannibalise movements and organisations in order to gain more members. If it is so decided that the issue or protest group is no longer conducive to party-building, its members will disappear as suddenly as they appeared.
A political struggle cannot be fought successfully by the workers unless they have a political weapon, which means, their own political party. The capitalist class has its own political organizations. It sees to it that they remain committed to its basic interests, the maintenance of the capitalist system. It sees to it that they remain under its control. It provides them with a press. It provides them with funds, running into millions of dollars each year. In some places, the capitalists are in direct control of these parties, in others, its agents and sworn friends are in direct control. Even if, under certain conditions, a “progressive” breaks through to a nomination and gets elected, the capitalist class still maintains control of the political machinery and is able to realize its aims in the end. The workers need a party of their own. It is the first big step in breaking from the capitalist parties and capitalist politics, and toward independent working-class political action.
We’re all part of the same struggle for liberation. But what is this ”liberation” we’re working for? To build that socialist society we have to recognize who the enemy is. Our enemy is capitalism –the bosses, the big corporations and the politicians who work for them. The capitalists always try to tell us you’re wrong to fight us because if our profits go down you’re going to go down the drain. When the bosses speak of sacrifice, what they mean is that the workers should sacrifice. But the only choice is to fight harder.
The actual work of the unions is based upon an acceptance of capitalism. They are not organised for the purpose of liberating the working class from the condition of exploitation and oppression to which it is doomed under capitalism. Instead, they confine themselves to the attempt to raise the wages of the workers and obtain favorable social legislation while keeping the capitalist profit system. The longer capitalism is allowed to exist, the more acute become its problems. The more acute its problems, the stronger and more urgent its drive against the workers' living standard. The most that the unions can do – given the way they are now constituted and led – is to resist this drive, try to slow it down. If they remain committed to the capitalist system, the unions, and the workers in general, are limited to defensive actions and, in the long run, to defeat. The class struggle is a political struggle, but the unions, by themselves, are not equipped to conduct it successfully. The problems of the workers cannot be solved in the form of a “better contract” between one local union and one employer, or even between one industrial union and a large capitalist combine.
If we think only in the most narrow “wage” terms, the most modest victory of the workers in one plant or industry depends upon the organized strength of the workers all over the country, in all the important plants and industries. In other words, the progress of any group of workers depends upon the strength and organization of their class, upon its ability to contend with the capitalists as a class.
But the struggle between the two is not confined to the economic field. The state, the government, is an instrument of the capitalist class in this struggle. It intervenes in the struggle more and more directly. The closer capitalism comes to collapse, the more frequently it breaks down – the more active and direct is the intervention of the government to “organise” it, to maintain it. Capitalism is intertwined with the machinery of the government. It is not an accident, and not a whim of some group of politicians, that the government and its agents are increasingly present and dominant in the economic life of the country. It is the inevitable result of a capitalist process.
Consequently, the attempt to solve the labour movement’s problems on the purely economic field, yields fewer and fewer results. To solve their economic problems, the workers find themselves forced to go deeper into the political field, to engage in political action. Even such matters as wages, work-day and working conditions are no longer simply settled between one union and one employer. They must be taken up with the government, or one of its bureaus or boards, which have acquired the power to settle them. This serves to bring about a clearer understanding of the fact that the class struggle is a political struggle. The trouble is that the unions are not equipped for effective working-class political action.
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