Eagle-eyed readers of Emancipation & Liberation may have noticed two new additions to the RCN platform bullet points on the last page of this issue before the covers:-
ii) Independent working class organisation
iv) Internationalism from below
Many of those organisations once created by our class – e.g. the Labour Party and trade unions – have fallen under the sway of the capitalist class. New Labour is now openly committed to capitalism and imperialism. Most trade union leaders have settled for becoming a personnel management service for the bosses under ‘social partnerships’ with the employers and the state. Governments actively promote quangos, and work through NGOs, to undermine the independent organisations of the exploited and oppressed. It is now 20 years since Anti-Poll Tax Unions showed what independent class organisations could achieve. We need much more of this. This is why the RCN has decided to add this new bullet point.
The initial poor experiences of the RCN (and many others) in our dealings with the British Left have been further accentuated over the years since we were founded. The British left, often without even realising it, pursue a bureaucratic ‘internationalism’ from above strategy – it appears to be hardwired into their very constitution – which just further divides the Left and our class. The RCN has developed a democratic ‘internationalism from below’ strategy, which has succeeded in drawing together increasing numbers of socialists in Scotland, Ireland Wales and England. This principle also has much wider possibilities. This is why the RCN has also decided to add this other new bullet point.
The changes were made at the RCN’s Dundee aggregate on 21.2.10.