MacDonald in Power

The 1926 English strike and the events in China in 1927 (…) both resulting from the huge upheavals in the English economy caused by the pressure of American encroachment onto the World market, these events have clearly demonstrated to the English proletariat that direct action is necessary: action which could still lead to revolutionary struggles of colossal importance for the entire world proletariat. And there has been no lack of proletarian action, and from the very beginning this action has been marked by the same features, i.e. in the printers’ movement, as those seen in the proletarian movements of Western Europe. In England, as elsewhere, it is no longer a matter of the class struggle being contained within the ’English’ limitations of respect for… legal niceties but of direct struggles in which the question of force clearly arises, and in which the proletariat clearly expresses its determination not to give in or back down whilst defending class interests. In the presence of these hugely important events, the present chief and general staff of the trade unions were in the front line in order to suffocate the movement, discovering in the process that the Anglo-Russian Committee served as their indispensable back-up to accomplish their task of betraying the proletariat’s interests. Everything the Anglo-Russian Committee has done – right up to its shameful capitulation in 1927 when the representatives of the Russian trade-unions sanctioned the shameful principle of non-involvement in the affairs of the English proletariat – everything it has done stands condemned by the initial stance it took up during the General Strike. At that time the communist party – under the banner of the Anglo-Russian Committee – instead of advocating the kind of political conduct that could have won the strike, instead of setting itself the problem of paying close attention to the developing situation, getting involved and reserving the option of issuing the movement with a direct call for a revolutionary solution, urged the English proletariat instead to prostrate themselves before labourist policies which would result in disaster for the English proletariat. The collateral support which the communist party and the International gave to the labourist leadership by means of the stance of the so-called trade-union opposition had an analogous consequence (…)