Further proof that the gang in charge of the official organisations of working-class resistance have been completely bought off.
Image caption: The wretched stance of the trade union movement in relation to the war in Ukraine, which has been characterised by abject support for British imperialism up to and including vocal support for open Nazis, exposes once again the truth of Josef Stalin’s description of social democracy as ‘the moderate wing of fascism’. Today, as the imperialists seek to convince working people that they should be backing the continuation of Nato’s war and the provision of ever more arms and money to its fascist proxies, TUC leaders are not only not opposing this drive to war but are actually demanding it go further and faster.
It is commonly acknowledged across the broad spectrum of opinion that describes itself as ‘left wing’ that the British working class has been under siege by the bourgeoisie for over 15 years now – since the 2008 economic collapse, in fact. The mandarins of the TUC even comment upon this in their usual mournful, faux-serious fashion during conference season.
So at a time when wages have seen real-terms cuts, unemployment is climbing and the organisational level of the working class remains chronically weak, what are the great and the good of the trade union bureaucracy focusing on?
Is it on organising industrial action to force Keir Starmer’s Labour government to save Grangemouth (Scotland’s only oil refinery) from being closed down by the asset stripper Jim Ratcliffe? Is it to tackle the housing crisis that is seeing more and more families shoved into poor quality temporary accommodation? Is it to demand a real jobs programme from the government to tackle the unemployment crisis?
No. The TUC, under the leadership of the weasel-featured buffoon Paul Nowak, has instead chosen to back a national demonstration in favour of continuing the war in Ukraine Ukraine war and the British government’s financial backing for it. This financial backing has been confirmed recently by prime minister Keir Starmer to amount to at least £3bn a year for “as long as it takes”.
So why are TUC leaders going so far as to openly demonstrate for the continuation of a war that has likely killed over a million working-class Ukrainians and as many as 100,000 Russians?
Defending imperialism’s fascist proxies
Before answering this, it’s useful to remind ourselves of the kind of regime that Paul Nowak is so keen to defend.
The current Ukrainian regime stems from the coup of 2014, which saw a pro-US junta imposed on the country backed up by armed bands of fascists. Upon coming to power, the new regime immediately instigated attacks on working-class organisations and led a pogrom of communists, socialists and trade unionists at the union hall in Odessa.
Since then, both President Petro Poroshenko and his successor the actor-stooge Volodymyr Zelensky have been selling off the industry, farmland and natural resources of the country to imperialist corporations. The working class has seen its ability to organise severely restricted, and the Ukrainian communist party has been banned.
This is the regime that the TUC leaders are endorsing and insisting that the British government should continue to prop up. But why should they be endorsing such a regime?
TUC leaders are acting in this way because the order has come out from Downing Street to try and mobilise working-class support for a war that has already played its part in making workers in Britain poorer via increased energy bills and rising inflation.
The hard truth is that the TUC has been incorporated into the workings of the British state for over a century now. The bureaucrats at the top see their job as managing the class struggle and making sure it doesn’t go ‘too far’ in terms of the militancy.
This involves them in taking on the task of reinforcing ruling-class propaganda within the working class, which is exactly what is happening in the case of the Ukraine war.
And this is not a new phenomenon. In fact, this is how the TUC has operated since the early 20th century. The truth is that they are not the leaders of the working class but the representatives of a narrow layer of better-off workers who still obtain some benefits from the rapacious rapine of British imperialism.
This is another key reason why the TUC always advocates for imperialism: because the TUC’s leaders are beneficiaries of the system. If the working-class movement is to progress, if we are to get even our minimum demands realised, we must free ourselves from the wretched leadership of the two social-democratic (democracy) pillars of the British ruling class within the working-class movement: the Labour party and the leadership of the TUC.
Our movement (if it is to achieve anything) must escape the control of both these entities. In fact, they must be consigned to the dustbin of history.
