Towards Socialism & Communism

The election of a left government committed to the alternative economic and political strategy (AEPS) and its left-wing programme (LWP) will mark the transition of the revolutionary process to a second stage.

This stage will be characterised, above all, by a combined parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggle to implement major policies of the LWP. The left government will need to work closely with – and be held to account by – the labour movement and the other forces of the popular democratic anti-monopoly alliance, mobilising the maximum support inside and outside parliament.

Every effort will have to be made to involve the labour and progressive movements, and new organisations formed in the course of mass action, in the formulation of policy, tactics and strategy and in the enforcement of government measures based on the LWP.

Because European Union (EU) fundamental treaties and institutions cannot be radically reformed without near-unanimous agreement among all member states, Britain will almost certainly have to withdraw from the EU in order to implement policies.

Such an assertion of popular sovereignty will also be necessary if British governments are to develop free and equal trade, commercial and political relations with other countries across the globe, acting in solidarity with oppressed peoples and promoting such values in the United Nations (UN) and other international bodies.

The drive to implement the LWP will undoubtedly meet with resistance from powerful sections of the capitalist class and from within the state itself. The British ruling class will seek support from anti-socialist allies within Britain and abroad, in the world’s financial and currency markets, the boardrooms of transnational corporations, the institutions of the EU, the United States (US) government, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The example of Chile demonstrates the willingness of the US and British ruling classes to destroy long-established parliamentary democracy in defence of imperialist interests. In 1973, the elected Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende was overthrown by a military coup orchestrated by the US administration, carried out by Chilean generals and backed by US transnational corporations (TNCs) and Chilean landowners. Policies of progressive nationalisation were reversed by ‘made in the USA’ neoliberalism. British governments subsequently lent military, financial and trading assistance to that murderous dictatorship.

The defeat in Chile confirmed the importance of limiting the opportunities for outside interference, understanding the difference between government office and state power, replacing reactionary personnel in top state positions, consolidating broad alliances (and curbing ultra-leftist adventurism), building a Communist Party able to exercise decisive influence and developing a military policy that relies upon the mass of the people.

In Britain, the popular movement – with the organised working class at its core – and the left government would need to be organised and ready to overcome all covert and overt counter-revolutionary activities.