Another voice
Lennon and Leninism
Auberon Waugh
The death, at some preposterous age, of Aleksey Grigorievich Stakhanov, champion Russian coalminer, provides the opportunity for a soft, sentimental look at our own coalminers, the aristocrats of British labour. Aleksey Grigorievich it was who moved 102 tons of coal in one work shift, earning himself, in 1935, the title Hero of Soviet Labour and founding the Stakhanovite movement whereby Soviet workers were offered incentives to work harder.
As he lay dying during celebrations for the sixtieth anniversary of the October Revolution in Moscow, British miners were holding a million three-day gala in Blackpool in celebration of . . . well, in celebration of themselves, basically, although in theory they were celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of coal nationalisation Unfortunately, their merry-making was slightly spoiled by the fraternal power workers, who plunged Blackpool into gloom throughout the festival. Beautiful women arrived from all parts of the country to compete in the Festival Coal Queen contest but they were met by dim hurricane lamps at Blackpool station and hustled through darkened streets to the Opera House past melancholy little groups of miners vomiting on the deserted promenade.
If this is a foretaste of the workers' paradise ahead, it seems only just. British miners have indeed much to celebrate in the thirtieth year since the mines were taken over by the people for benefit of the people. After massive investment in new machinery, making our coal industry the most mechanically advanced in the world, and after huge pay rises to reward them for getting rid of Mr Heath in 1974, they now manage to produce less coal than ever. Output per man-shift has declined from 44.8 cwt in 1975 to 42 cwt at the last tally – scarcely more than a fiftieth of what Comrade Stakhanov managed to shift with his pick and shovel in 1935.
But of course the miners had more to celebrate than that. They were also celebrating the result of their ballot which decided by a very large majority to refuse the incentive scheme which might have increased productivity. No wonder they were able to let off more fireworks at Blackpool than the Queen had for her jubilee celebrations. No wonder all the pretty women were competing for the honour of a kiss from cuddly Joe Gormley, the Prince Charles of the North. The only fly in the ointment, as I say, was the fact that the power workers wouldn't give them any electricity. Next time round perhaps the fish and chip friers will be on strike, or the sanitary engineers, the transport workers, the bedmakers, municipal bonfire lighters or some other group of workers on whom their merry-making depends.
Of course the miners are a special case. This is not because their work is exceptionally hazardous because it simply isn't. Farm workers suffer many times as many deaths and more serious injuries although the figure for minor injuries may be distorted by the miners' tradition of malingering. Similar figures could probably be produced for lorry drivers, commercial travellers, police and armed forces. The reason they are a special case is that they have demonstrated their ability to bring the country to its knees in a matter of weeks. It was within the dispensation afforded by this knowledge that they were able to ask themselves the question: do we want more money for better work, or do we want more money anyway?
Not surprisingly, they chose the second option. But the same question is bound to arise wherever workers' democracy is allowed to prevail. It is not just that British workers are lazier than the workers of other countries, although I think they are. The important thing is that our society is now modelled in such a way as to support this laziness – through the statutory powers of the unions, the taxation system and the welfare structure underneath. Overmanning agreements which ensure that five and a half British steelworkers are required for every one Japanese are only in accordance with what we want, another product of workers' democracy. If we look at the figures for the docks published in the Daily Telegraph from a secret report to the National Ports Council, we see the usual figures for comparative productivity – the Antwerp docker is four times as productive as his London counterpart etc and also the revelation that despite grotesque overmanning, British dockers are much slower: ships take three and a half times as long to turn round in Hull and Glasgow as they do in Antwerp, three times as long in London and twice as long in Liverpool.
Perhaps all workers are lazy by definition (even some people of superior station) and it is only in Britain that this laziness has been allowed to emerge as the main social dynamic. But the fact remains that the nearest equivalent to Stakhanov in contemporary British society must be John Lennon, the poet and thinker, who was quoted in New York last week as saying: have made my contribution to society. I have no plans to work again.'
Lennonism, I maintain, is the dominant ethos of British society far more than Leninism, and I don't think there is anything to be done about it. The only aspect of workers' power rhetoric which has any popular appeal is the promise of more money for less work. The government can do nothing at this late stage except allow the workers to face the consequences of their choice.
Needless to say, neither the Labour not the Conservative parties are temperamentally capable of such inaction. To do nothing is a denial of the whole political impulse, and even if the Conservatives could persuade themselves that it was the right thing to do, they lack the moral courage, as Mr Heath demonstrated in 1972. Slowly, this inaction may be forced on them, as the welfare system underpinning our national mood is whittled away – Mr Ennals's closure of large parts of the Health Service is only a beginning.
In the harrowing time ahead while vve wait for events to take their course, there are surely two temptations we should avoid. One is to panic, and suppose that the onlY way the British workers will ever be per' suaded to work again is by the imposition of industrial discipline within a socialist carporate state. The other is to welcome such restraints, however imposed, ag a step in the right direction.
Nothing could be further from the wishes , of our Lennonist workforce than to accept ° Soviet system for the common good. TO 'workers' from Leylands who recently vis' ited a Soviet car factory on an exchange, were appalled by what they found. The le"et of their incomprehension may be gauged hY their first question on arrival: where did the workers park their cars? There can be no question of such a gigantic apparatus of repression springing up overnight in this couir try, or of workers voluntarily accepting the early stages of it. All that we, the intelligentsia, must do is to swim with the tide and wait until the consequences of workers' democracy are made apparent to the workers. Above we must avoid the temptation to let our understandable animosity against the workers persuade us that what they want is a taste of real socialism. The Moscow line has never been so tempting to conservative, intellectuals as it is now, but a more ratio0a4 response must lie in the discernible tell' demy of the English intelligentsia – tainly its more pleasing part – to get drunl
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