Analysis of MP expenses and Brown crisis

A BRIEF PROVISIONAL ANALYSIS OF POLITICAL SITUATION IN BRITAIN AFTER PARLIAMENTARY EXPENSE CRISIS AND THE ATTEMPT TO REMOVE BROWN AS PRIME MINISTER BY ANTHONY BRAIN.


Trotsky’s following comments in his work “History of the Russian Revolution” about the plot to murder Rasputin in Russia prior to Russia’s February 1917 revolution has similarities with qualifications to the Parliamentary expense crisis and the attempt to remove Brown in Britain. He wrote:

“After the murder of its “Friend” the monarchy survived in all ten weeks. But this short space of time was still its own. Rasputin was no longer, but his shadow continued to rule. Contrary to all the expectations of the conspirators, the royal pair began after the murder to promote with special determination the most scorned members of the Rasputin clique. In revenge for Rasputin, a notorious scoundrel was named Minister of Justice. A number of grand dukes were banished from the capital. It was rumoured that Protopopov took up spiritualism, calling up the ghost of Rasputin. The noose of hopelessness was drawing tighter.


... The murder of Rasputin played a colossal role, but a very different one from that upon which its perpetrators and inspirers had counted. It did not weaken the crisis, but sharpened it. People talked of the murder everywhere: in the palaces, in the staffs, at the factories, and in the peasant’s huts. The inference drew itself: even the grand dukes have no other recourse against the leprous camarilla except poison and the revolver. The poet Blok wrote of the murder of Rasputin: “The bullet which killed him reached the very heart of the ruling dynasty.”


... Robespierre once reminded the Legislative Assembly that the opposition of the nobility, by weakening the monarchy, had roused the bourgeoisie, and after them the popular masses. Robespierre gave warning at the same time that in the rest of Europe the revolution could not develop so swiftly as in France, for the privileged classes of other countries, taught by the experience of the French nobility, would not take the revolutionary initiative. In giving this admirable analysis, Robespierre was mistaken only in his assumption that with its oppositional recklessness the French nobility had given a lesson once for all to other countries. Russia proved again, both in 1905 and yet more in 1917, that a revolution directed against an autocratic and half-feudal regime, and consequently against a nobility, meets in its first step an unsystematic and inconsistent but nevertheless very real co-operation not only from the rank and file nobility, but also from its most privileged upper circles, including here even members of the dynasty. This remarkable historic phenomenon may seem to contradict the class theory of society, but in reality it contradicts only its vulgar interpretation.


... A revolution breaks out when all the antagonisms of a society have reached their highest tensions. But this makes the situation unbearable even for the classes of the old society – that is, those who are doomed to break up. Although I do not want to give a biological analogy more weight than it deserves, it is worth remarking that the natural act of birth becomes at a certain moment equally unavoidable both for the maternal organism and for the offspring. The opposition put up by the privileged classes expresses the incompatibility of their traditional social position with the demands of the further existence of society. Everything seems to slip out of the hands of the ruling bureaucracy. The aristocracy finding itself in the focus of a general hostility lays the blame upon the bureaucracy, the latter blames the aristocracy, and then together, or separately, they direct their discontent against the monarchical summit of their power”.

The above quote shows the similarities in Britain today. In Britain we are witnessing a deepening radicalisation which could develop into a pre-revolutionary crisis. Another important qualification is that the radicalisation is only at an early stage but due to a severe Capitalist crisis can be very explosive. On the positive side if a process of deepening world revolutions actually leads to more regimes being overthrown in other countries could influence developments in Britain.


Trotskyists should learn from the Rasputin crisis how to deepen the radicalisation into revolution in Britain. We also in developing our strategy have to see all the machinations of ruling class elements to prevent this happening, which has a long experience that cannot be under-estimated. The British ruling class have learned from revolutions such as 1789 in France and Rasputin-type crises.


Pressure from the masses has already led to certain ruling class elements blaming bankers for causing this economic crisis. There are two main reasons why the Telegraph has exposed the MPs expenses. One factor is Bankers hitting back at the MPs for deepening a hatred of millions against them. The other factor is splits within Britain’s ruling class over strategy and tactics. Conservative Bourgeois elements maybe trying to destroy Social Democracy and the Liberal Bourgeoisie through right wing Populism which is appearing in parts of Europe. This serves two purposes of attempting to smash the EU project and have a mass base to attack workers by divide and rule through xenophobia.


This Conservative Bourgeois moves on MPs expenses has had the opposite effect than intended. In my opinion this has deepened a radicalisation which has entered its third stage. The first stage was the 1997 landslide victory for Labour where millions of workers and sizeable middle class elements wanted privatisation to end with substantial more money invested in public services. An indication of this radicalisation was opinion polls showing in 1997 that 70% wanted the railways re-nationalised. Stage two of this radicalisation was the massive movement in 2002-3 against war in Iraq.


The MPs expense crisis may strengthen the Bourgeois Tory party; right wing Populists; and Fascists electorally in the European Elections. This represents a remnant of despair among middle class layers and workers at failures of the Labour Party to improve their conditions. Trotskyists need to understand that the main dynamic caused by MPs expenses crisis is that the ruling class politicians have lost authority to deepen massive attacks on workers and middle class. Despite this right-turn electorally the radicalisation will deepen and give those despairing layers hope that Capitalism can be fought through mass struggles.


Both Liberal and Conservative Bourgeois elements for different reasons want Brown removed as Prime Minister. Conservative Bourgeois elements could have two main devious motivations is a Blairite coalition with Tories which could implements hundreds of billions of cutbacks in public services which they hope will strengthen more right wing populist parties. They hope this leads to Britain leaving the EU.


Layers of the Liberal Bourgeoisie need a Social Democratic/Lib Dem coalition government in order to protect their EU project. Due to a deepening radicalisation the Guardian paper last week called for Social Democracy to have more influence in Labour. These Liberal Bourgeois elements fearing a pre-revolutionary crisis if Thatcherism and Blairism is continued will attempt to use Social Democracy to contain this radicalisation. That is why Trotskyists have to go through workers experiences of Social Democracy in order to win them to us. As Engels analysed in the mid-1840s that Britain’s ruling class most effective form of mystique necessary for their rule was a Liberal Bourgeois ideology that everything was determined in parliament rather than the streets as in France. This blow to the creditability of Parliament due to expense crisis is what these Liberal Bourgeois elements fear with that prop being weakened dramatically could lead to a pre-revolutionary crisis.