WORLDWIDE the class struggle is being driven forward by the deepening world crisis of capitalism. This dictates to the bourgeoisie that its survival depends on it being able to crush the working class and destroy all of its basic rights and basic gains.
Witness the US where the working class is on the march, as the mass movement for Sanders showed, and the UK where the masses defied the established order to carry out the Brexit mutiny, despite all of the prophesies of doom that were made. This class struggle is now going to be fought out to a finish!
Elections are now very dodgy, and unpredictable for the ruling order. This is why the Tory 1922 Committee stopped the Tory leadership election to appoint May as Premier, just as she was about to start her election campaign. The new Premier sought to present herself as the friend of the poor. However class realities cannot be wished away. Her most significant appointment was the reappointment of Health Secretary Hunt, who had assumed that he was to be sacked. He was put back on his horse so that he could do what was necessary for the ruling class – carry on with his war on the junior doctors and the NHS, to prepare its privatisation.
So now we have an NHS that is being cut and closed every single day, and the response to this – the junior doctors leader, Ellen McCourt’s letter to her members saying: ‘In response to the Government’s silence, JDC Exec has today made a formal request for a special meeting of BMA Council to authorise a rolling programme of escalated industrial action beginning in early September.
‘During several meetings with the Secretary of State, I have asked the Government to demonstrate a commitment and willingness to act on the priority shortfalls of the contract: had they done so, we might not have been forced into this position. We have been reasonable throughout, but cannot stand idly by as we move towards the Secretary of State’s arbitrary date of imposition.’
The junior doctors are moving forward to new mass actions, and it will not just be limited to BMA members – the JDs won the support of the whole of the working class in their last series of strikes – the scene is being set for the TUC trade unions being forced to take strike action along with the junior doctors to win their struggle and defend the NHS.
Today the whole of the working class is being driven forward – witness the mounting struggles of the railworkers to defend their jobs and the safety of the passengers, who are supporting the demands of the trade unions for re-nationalisation. Behind them there are millions of workers fighting for their jobs, wages and pensions, as well as against zero hour contracts, and sky rocketing rents and homelessness.
Politically, we have seen the masses lift up Corbyn inside the Labour Party, with the right wing routed and unable to rid themselves of Corbyn, whatever tactic they adopt.
The right wing is blaming Trotskyism for this crisis. This is nonsense and they know it. It is the working class being driven forward by the crisis of capitalism, and the austerity measures that the bourgeoisie have heaped onto it, that is responsible for this crisis. The masses are displaying a determination to achieve socialism. This is what is causing the big problem for Labour’s right wing and the ruling class.
We have to tell the Trotsky baiters that their problems have only just begun. As the working class is driven forward by the world crisis it has begun to display its essence, that is a class hatred of capitalism and its ruling classes that is truly Trotskyist, and makes the working class the only really revolutionary class in capitalist society.
This class hatred is vital, and irreplaceable, but by itself does not develop the theory, the revolutionary strategy and tactics necessary for the mobilisation of the working class to take the power and establish a workers government. This requires the revolutionary party.
We therefore call on all workers to join and build up the revolutionary leadership of the WRP and the Young Socialists so as to be able to mobilise the working class to take the power as soon as the historic opportunity presents itself.
