The daily worker., 1926-05-22


workers of Britain:
The whole world proletariat follows
the gigantic struggle of the working
class of Britain with the greatest at
tention. No matter how the strike
may end one thing is clear: Britain
has entered upon a new epoch, the
old Britain no longer exists, a new
Britain is being formed The old Bri-
tish conservative trade unionism is
dying and new forms of the working
class movement and the proletarian
class struggle are arising and taking
root. What Lenin wrote of the Bri-
tish working class movement since
1911 is now proving true. Lenin fore
saw all the essentials of the evolution
of the British working class move
ment which is now taking place be-
fore our eyes. When Wilhelm Lieb-
knecht lived in exile in London he
wrote that the British working class
movement was a powerful steam ham
mer not in use. The steam hammer
is now commencing to move and it's
first movements are shaking the capi-
talist world.
Communist Tasks.
Needless to say, all British Commu-
nists must enter the strike movement
with all their forces. They must sac
rifice themselves and offer everything
to support and develop the strike.
Even the advanced British working
class movement still has remains of
the old social democratic federation,
particularly remains of the doctrin-
aire ideas of Hyndman The social
democratic federation of pious mem
ory and its leader Hyndman believed
that real Marxists only needed to pro-
pagate the theory of socialism and
that questions of wages, working
hours and the workers daily life were
very unimportant details of little in
terest for Marxists. That is no Marx
/ ism but a caricature of Marxism
formed in quiet study. The tasks of
| the real Communists of Britain is to
stand in the front ranks in the small
est daily questions concerning the
workers life, wages, working hours,
| the needs Of the unemployed, the
necessity for obtaining milk for the
workers children. Communists must
be the most experienced, the most
logical and the most energetic defend
ers of all the workers interests.
Il Ina ,ssrks-
must understand how to connect the
daily problems of the working class
with the important political problems
Of the day. To speak of the strike as
a purely economic struggle is either
not to understand its real character. or
to deliberately mislead the workers.
~ Political Significance.
The strike commenced from econo-
mic causes, but from its first moment,
however, it acquired an extreme polit-
ical significance. The working mass
/ es will recognize this more clearly
day by day. Class against class, that
is the formula for understanding the
present struggle. Each class strug-
gle is a political struggle. The strike
leadership on the side of the work
ers is the general council of the Trade
Union Congress, but in, the other
camp, in the bourgeois camp, who is
the strike leadership? 1t is the con-
servative government. 1t is Baldwin's
cabinet. This alone shows the sharp
political character of the strike.
The tasks of the proletarian ad-
vance guard is to make this fact clear
to the broad masses. The task of
the party is to point out the way to
millions of workers, to assist them
and to work out and spread slogans
and intensity them according to the
growth of the mass movement and
finally to raise this movement to the
highest forms of the struggle for free
dom, the struggle for power.
The Baldwin Role.
Collisions have already taken place,
working class blood has already been
shed. Baldwin has already given the
J proletariat sufficient number of OBJ
| JSSL AeSSOuS upOu lue CldSS SIFuBSle
and now the British bourgeoisiel will
provide the workers with new les
sons hour by hour upon the transform
alton of an economic into political
struggle. The conservative govern
ment pretended to play the role of in
termediary between the miners and
the mine owners. But the masks have
now fallen, the conservative govern
ment appears practically openly as
the executive organ, as the strike
leadership" Of the capitalist class
The conservative government has al.
ready loaded its conscience with many