the sparks fly-rising class struggle in britain

if as i do you resist those stupid national stereotypes in relation to class struggle,it is nevertheless possible to believe that whilst the system in britain creaks wsith age its very age,fullness,depth means that it will never change.i have never accepted that the working class has dissappeared but perhaps that it took has become stuck in its ways.

and yet the movement is now not just visible but also comparable with the processes at work elsewhere.

last autumn and winter the students lit the fuse and indeed seem to have provided inspiration around the world.the reality that students are sociologically as well as often geographically on the move from one place to another is relevant.they are less tied by both traditions/history and having less ties to the social structure,they are unpredictable and can be faster of the mark than workers,tied by workplace relations,family,employment,responsibility and much else.

last autumn their militancy and enrgy was positively inspirational.i was pleasantly surprised that so few appeared as willing as the press to condemn.

that clearly had an influence on the huge power and energy of the march cuts demonstration,which was much less tied to the old traditions of being led by an old guard union leadership wiuth banners and brass bands.

then despite the efforts of the con-dem regime and the established press,something around 800,000 were on strike on thursday in the biggest trade union mobilisation since the general strike of 1926.

there has not been such anger,energy or disenchantment in a generation since the 1970s,and again the atmosphere is very different to the past.thousands who have not been aware of any tradition has been thrown into action for the first time.workers and young people and others are making the connections that their class is back,that maybe,more than maybe they have the power to change everything and to see both the need and the possibility and the potential of united continous action.

so the question is to name the day,likely to be in october 2011 and to organise maximum effort.there is open discussion about unified action and that once out,its not just all out-on strike-but to stay out.

we can make the general strike,the mass strike a real probability.pressure from below is important to keep the pressure on union leaderships to call for such action and to maintain those pressures so that a class conscious leadership in our class itself can take leadership and keep it that way.the reality that the bosses depernd on is that we work.labour,toil everyday.we need to realise that it is not just our labour they depend on but that we have the knowledge,energy and creativity to lead our own combative activity and indeed to run the whole society to the benefit of the whole class and its allies.we can show ourselves as well as those who assume they rule ourlives that they need us more than we need them,and that actually we dont need them at all.