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From Labor Action, Vol. 14 No. 26, 26 June 1950, p. 7.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The issue of European union and the Schuman Plan could have been an opportunity for a genuinely socialist Labor Party at the head of England to take the initiative in rallying the workers of Europe to the banner of unity. But the Labor Party executive, which is now being abused in the U.S. press for its “doctrinaire socialist” attitude, chose instead to present itself before the workers of Europe as the guardian of its own commonwealth and national interests.
The party declaration (in passing) even pointed to the conditions under which Europe could be united economically and politically. But this was done only in order to find reasons to reject any such orientation. It stated:
“Socialists would of course welcome a European economic union which was based on international planning for full employment, social justice and stability. But international planning can only operate on the basis of national planning. And many European governments have not yet shown either the will or the ability to plan their own economies.”
Instead of using this idea to take the initiative away from the capitalist “unifiers” of Europe, it is used to dismiss any thought of working in this direction. The LP executive clearly was not even interested in presenting any policy by which the workers of Europe could be moved to establishing the conditions they lay down.
Rather, the LP confines its proposals to the governments of Western Europe, to the very same governments which (it says) have failed to control their economies in the interest of their people, and which now intend, in its opinion, to set up a steel-coal pool which will be nothing more than a big cartel for dividing markets and restricting production.
Also in passing, the declaration says: “It is the duty of all who have European unity at heart to see that the Schuman proposals are shaped in the interests of the peoples as a whole. The decisive part in coordinating Europe’s basic industries must be played by the governments, as trustees for their peoples.”
Along the same lines: “It is also vital that the trade unions should be intimately concerned in the planning of Europe’s basic industries. Only they can guarantee that wage levels will not be set by the least progressive industries in the plan. With their help the planning of basic industry can be an instrument for raising labor standards throughout Europe.”
These undoubtedly correct remarks, thrown in to color the water, are left completely unrelated to the main line taken by the declaration—which is that of counterposing commonwealth unity (and vaguely, Western unity with the U.S.) as against Western European integration.
But they can be a starting point for a line by left wingers in the Labor Party.
The most elementary step is: They can urge that the British unions take the immediate initiative in calling a European conference of all the non-Stalinist unions. for the purpose of setting up a committee empowered to negotiate with theboby established by the Schuman Plan to control the coal and steel industries of Europe.
The trade unions need not endorse the Schuman Plan or its proposed supra-national authority. They need only state that in dealing with the workers of Europe thisboby set up by the capitalist governments will have to deal with a united labor movement, rather than with one divided along national lines.
What role could the British unions play in such aboby in view of the fact that their steel industry will not be under the control of the Schuman Plan board? They could join with the Continental unions for the purpose of giving assurance that they would not permit the British coal and steel industries to derive undue competitive advantages which might accrue to them through a substantial increase in the wages of European steel and coal workers.
Such a policy would be a powerful lever in breaking the workers of France and other European countries from their allegiance to Stalinism.
The BLP statement proclaims that “some of the existing barriers to economic co-operation would become less important if the workers felt they had a real stake in supporting European unity.”
But the workers of Europe cannot feel they have any stage in a European unity brought about by these governments. They can only feel they have a stake in such unity if it is brought about through their own efforts. Stated differently, they can only have confidence in unity if their own organizations, their parties and trade unions, are the vehicles by which such unity is achieved.
The left wing of the BLP could point this out insistently to the workers in Britain. Side by side with a trade unionboby united to confront the Schuman Plan board, it could urge that the BLP propose to all socialist parties in Europe that a united political movement be formed to win the workers in all countries to the idea that European unity can be achieved if THEY and their organizations break with Stalinism and with collaboration with capitalist parties in their own countries which cannot and will not plan their economies in the interest of the mass of the people.
The objection may be raised that a policy on the part of the British Labor Party designed to encourage the socialist parties of Europe to rally the workers against their governments would incur the hostility of the American government and the ruling parties in Europe. And as the BLP is in power in Britain, this hostility would be directed at the British government itself.
That objection can only be met head-on. The hard reality is that the American government favors only that kind of European unity which is achieved under its own control and on a capitalist basis. But the BLP asserts that it cannot be achieved on a progressive basis unless democratic socialism prevails in Western Europe. The militant socialists in the BLP could insist that the party follow the logic of its own assertions. If democratic socialism is a precondition for a union of Western Europe, and if the American government is determined to oppose the only social force in Western Europe which is capable of instituting democratic socialism, the BLP will have to risk the danger of incurring the opposition of the American government. It certainly cannot dream of achieving the socialist Europe of which it talks with the benevolent approval of U.S. capitalism.
Even from the nationalist point of view of the BLP, this risk is by all odds the lesser evil. For the BLP’s whole domestic policy rests on the economic stability of the rest of the world, of which Western Europe is no insignificant part. Yet the BLP recognises fully that the continuation of a wobbling capitalism in Europe puts a question mark over world economic stability.
But the clearest expression of a positive alternative to both the Schuman Plan for a capitalist (partial) integration of European economy, on the one hand, and to a completely negative approach on the other, is indicated by the idea of an Independent Western Union, put forward by the Independent Socialist League. This is based precisely on the political idea which the BLP specifically rejects: independence from the two war blocs in the world.
“Not a single one of the European countries can exist independently because it cannot exist as an independent economic unit. Such a union, therefore, would make possible the independence of these countries from Marshallization by American imperialism and at the same time would constitute a powerful assurance against assault and domination by Russian imperialism.”
The ISL statement continued, in part:
“An Independent Western Union demands a voluntary decision on the part of all the countries entering into it. It excludes any infringement upon the democratic right of national self-determination of any participating nation by any other. To begin with, its functioning requires no greater self-limitation upon the sovereignty of each nation than this: that placed at the disposal of the union are all the economic resources of all the participating nations, to be organized, exploited and shared in common. The primary prerequisite for this is the complete abolition of all customs barriers now dividing the Western European countries, and the establishment of a single stable currency common to all of them, which alone can make possible a harmonious economic reconstruction of these countries on the basis of economic independence from American imperialism.”
And further:
“An Independent Western Union is possible, and can be counterposed to all imperialist schemes parading under that name, only on the basis of the boldest and most thoroughgoing application of democratic principles. This means first of all the renunciation by all participants of any imperialist ‘rights’ to dominate colonies and possessions now under their rule. It means, at the same time, the most extreme democratic reforms of the political structure of every one of the countries in question. It means, in the second place, the full assurance of all democratic rights and unqualified equality, especially to such participants as Germany, Italy and Austria, namely, the withdrawal of all occupation troops ...”
“It means, in the third place, that the proper functioning of the economic machinery of the union shall be assured by unhesitatingly removing all obstacles to it constituted by private ownership of industrial or financial monopolies, and by unhesitatingly imposing the most drastic capital levies wherever and whenever they are required.”
Such a view of the road to Western European unity points squarely to the necessity of socialist governments to carry it out in practice, in our opinion, but it does not preclude the mobilization of workers behind the idea who may not yet be of this opinion. Popular support for the idea of unity is considerable on the Continent; it would be just as wrong merely to flatly counterpose socialism-in-general to this aspiration as it would be to accept the kind of integration offered by the capitalist class. The idea of a democratic and independent Western Union points the socialist road to the much-needed goal.
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