I was going to see if our resident revolutionary Dave Dudley fancied writing another diary item before the weekend but I am begining to suspect he has been rather busy writing under another name for another publication – splitter!
The only agency that can change the world, we know, is the working class. How does it develop that capacity? Through collective organisation and struggle. We know the arguments, we’ve read the articles, heard the speakers, even argued it ourselves.
Then, at work, we look around. Oh dear… Where’s the self emancipation of the working class now? Jane’s off sick with stress. Terry’s not speaking to John. It’s hot, and only the boss, the smug bastard, has air conditioning in his office.
Bill’s always crawling to management, hoping for promotion. Ahmed’s gay, and terrified people will find out. Sarah argued yesterday that the government is too soft on “fake refugees”.
Only seven people came to the last union meeting-or, worse, there’s no union at all. Milly sometimes used to buy Socialist Worker, but she left. There never seems time to even talk these days, everyone’s so busy, what with the new schedules.
Lonely? Frustrating? The contradictions work themselves out in feelings-we get hopeless, angry, bitter, depressed… I could go on. As good old Lenin once asked, what is to be done? Mind, he had it easy, sitting in exile and saying be a tribune of the people, setting up an all-Russian socialist newspaper. He didn’t have to work with my lot!
Read it all. You could make it up but there’s really no need!
(And just a little after thought – I wonder who ‘Ahmed’ is terrified will find out that he is gay? The bosses who operate under equal opportunities legislation passed by the useless reformists? Or the SWP’s new conservative Muslim allies? Or is this just a sly attempt by the SWP to allay fears that they have dropped the ‘shibolith’ of gay rights. If so, interesting they should choose fiction to make that point.)
