On Jeremy Corbyn

(Letters)

24 March 2016

British Ruling Class Bares Its Teeth

Dear WV:

Regarding your article “Britain: Banana Monarchy” (WV 1082 [29 January]): Are the working class supporters of Jeremy Corbyn aware of the military’s threats to overthrow a Corbyn government? If so, what is their reaction to that? I would think that this is a golden opportunity for the Spartacist League/Britain to drive home two truths that are usually very difficult for people to believe:

1. The enthusiastic working class response to Corbyn’s campaign shows that winning over the masses to support a radical program is possible: there is massive discontent with the ravages of capitalism. What is needed is an organization that is big enough and well-known enough to fight for that program (therefore, people should join the SL).

2. The panicky ruling class response (the generals’ threats) proves that realizing such a program using Corbyn’s methods (i.e., bourgeois elections) is impossible; shows that there is indeed a ruling class and that it will throw aside the make-believe of bourgeois “democracy,” if it must, to preserve its power (therefore, people should join the SL).

Fraternally,
Jack L.

WV replies: The fact that tens of thousands of working-class people joined or rejoined the Labour Party in support of Corbyn is a welcome development. As the article Jack refers to pointed out, “Corbyn’s political platform goes beyond the parameters of what is acceptable to the British ruling class, who convinced themselves that, with the demise of the Soviet Union and apparent death of old Labour ‘socialism,’ the class war had been resolved in favour of the capitalists.” While addressing issues that are deeply felt by working people, his election represents a working-class-based opposition to the rightist Blairite wing of the Labour Party. The Blairites are unashamedly committed to free-market capitalist exploitation. They carried the Labour Party’s support to imperialist military slaughter to new heights and wanted to sever all ties with the unions. However, there is a very wide gulf between the level of political consciousness required to support Corbyn’s Left-Labourite parliamentary “socialism,” and the understanding needed for Corbyn’s mass base to be won to the revolutionary internationalist program of the SL.

Historically, the consciousness of the British working class is heavily imbued with illusions that the interests of working people can best be served by electing a “socialist” government. Corbyn’s supporters are surely well aware of the statement on BBC television by General Houghton, head of Britain’s armed forces, that Corbyn is unfit to become prime minister. As Jack correctly suggests, the general’s intervention confirms an elementary truth understood by Marxists: that Parliament is a talk shop whose purpose is to provide a democratic cover for the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, which is maintained through special bodies of armed men. But it would be wishful thinking to assume that, from this one incident, the mass of the working class would draw the same conclusion as Jack does, namely that the ruling class “will throw aside the make-believe of bourgeois ‘democracy,’ if it must” and “therefore, people should join the SL.”

For the SL/B and ICL, Corbyn’s election represents an opening to reach a wider audience with our propaganda. It opens up a political debate about socialism and the means to achieve it, into which Marxist revolutionaries can intervene. While we support many of the elementary reforms Corbyn stands for, we also counterpose our revolutionary program to his parliamentarism. It will be in the course of tremendous class and social struggles, and through the application of tactics by the nucleus of a Leninist vanguard, that the mass of the working class (as opposed to exceptional individuals) will make the leap from supporting Labourite reformism to achieving the consciousness needed to build a revolutionary party.