BUILDING THE INTERNATIONAL GROUP DRAFT PERSPECTIVES FOR THE MAY 1986 CONFERENCE 1. Introduction The founding conference of the International Group sets the seal on the split in the Old Organisation - a split which has occurred because of the programmatic and organisational collapse of that organisation, linked to a growing crisis in the world movemente.
Our conference comes at a time of both working class retreat and disarray and confusion on much of the left. We are setting out with less than 200 militants to provide a perspectibve for the advanced sections of the working class to halt the retreat, and through this process to build a Marxist organisation in the labour movement - a daunting task. But the conditions for beginning our work are not nearly so unfavourable as they might appear at first sight. The defensive battles currently being waged by the workers movement are shaking up the old certainties and established lines of political divide. New sectors of militants in the labour movement are looking for strategic and programmatic guidelines to guide them through the din of battle and the clamour of political confusion and ideological collapse. What we are witnessing is what cde Walter has referred to as the ‘dialectic of partial defeats’ Partial defeats of the working class, like the miners strike, while of course not the best variant for working class advance play an essential role in recomposing the workers movement and maturing a political vanguard. Of course this is not a spontaneous process; without the intervention of a Marxist organisation the capital of this maturation process can be demoralised and dispersed.
In terms of the cycle of the British class struggle, however, we have to recognise that our intervention is late - very late. The British section of the world movement has been through a long detour of political confusion and programmatic collapse. The organisational results of the 20 year period since the foundation of the old organisation are meagre, at least by comparison with what was objectively possible.
The roots of this failure need more discussion; but they are evidently associated both with the crisis in the world
movement and with the relative weakness of the Marxist trtadition and Marxist culture in Britain.
But as we argue below, despite al] the defeats and setbacks the bourgeoisie is far from having suceeded in inflicting the kind of crushing defeats necessary to restabilise British capitalism. We are not 'too late’ in the sense of having decisively missed the historical opportunity for constructing a revolutionary marxist party. We are in a long period of crisis and struggle in which there is still everything to play for. Nontheless, after our initial period of existence in which we have been preoccupied with actually founding the organisation and setting up its structures and basic fields of work, we must now rapidly turn outwards and establish our intervention on a more stable long term basis.
Consolidating this turn is the basic task of the conference. 2. Economic decline and governmental crisis The political situation combines three fundamental elements.
One the one hand there is a growing economic crisis which is placing a question mark over the viability of Thatcherism and leading to an acute governmental crisis; there is a huge bourgeois offensive against the organised working class and its political and social gains, which is leading to a series of serious defeats and setbacks for the labour movement; and stemming from this an accelerating recomposition of the workers movement, the overall character of which is a polarisation to the right. Untangling the way in which these elements fit together is the key to defining our tasks.
Thatcherism has been able to rise out Britains acclerated economic decline by utilising the free gift of the oil revenues which have essentially been ploughed into social security payments for the unemployed. The col lpase of the world price of oil is exposing the vulnerability of this option and casting a spotlight on the gravity of the economic situation. If the 1 in oil prices is maintained it will have severe repercussions for the Tories. It will lead to a further collapse in the value of the pound, which in turn will boost import prices and hence inflation; hit industry and a not insubstantial sector of Tory supporters (those with mortgages) through a hike in interest rates; and lead to a crippling loss of
tax revenue. 2 substantial increase in the PSBR, which itself will boost inflation and put an upward pressure on taxes. .
All this is catastrophiay for a government which has pledged simultaneously to reduce taxes and keep down inflation.
The upward spiral of unemployment, combined with the worsening economic situation, is leading to a crisis of confidence in the government among sections of the bourgeoisie, and indeed among middle class Tory supporters. The balance sheet of nearly seven years of Conservative government is that the fundamental claim of monetarist economics - that the defeat of inflation would create the basis for a new expansion and the @reation of 'real' jobs - is being more and more put into question. To put it another way, the defeats that the organiwsed workers movement has suffered, while very gratifying to the bourgeoisie, have not created the preconditions for accelerated growth of the British economy. Nor have they substahtially affected the earnings of unionised workers in work. The crisis of the Thatcherite project is the fundamental explanation of the governmental crisis which we are currently experiencing.
The way in which this has worked itself out can be clearly seen in the Westland affair. The crisis was provoked by the decision of Heseltine to resign from the government in order to stake his claim for the succession to Thatcher. But this move can only have been based on the assumption that either the Tories would lose the next election, or that they would in a panic replace Thatcher before the election as a 'liability'.
Either way, hig move points to the weakness of the government, the failure of its project at an economic level, and the fact that British politics will be increasingly dominated by prepartions for the next elections, which will shake up all the elements of the political situation.
This of course points to the fact that from the viewpoint of the bourgeoisie it is not sufficient to deliver defeats to the workers movement, it is necessary to trzanslate those defeats into a restabilation of the economy. But the realities of the British political situation are that any alternative governmental formula, at least for the bourgeoisie, involves a coalition with the SDP/Liberal Alliance. It is the question of coalitionism which will come to the fore in all aspects of British politics, In any event, the task of a new coalition government would be to build on, rather than rverse, the anti-working successes of the Thathcer years.
3. The Tory offensive The success of Thatcherism in the struggle with organised labour has been based on a much wider and more thoroughgoing conception of rolling back working class gains than any previous post-war government. Essentially the Thatcherites set out to destroy and break up the whole post war ‘social democratic' consensus, based on full employment , a welfare state and strong state intervention in the economy mediated through a state sector. Massive strides have been taken towards these goals. Real unemployment is running well over 4 million and probably rising rapidly towards 5 million: there has been a drop in employment of more than 8 per cent since 1979.
One of the knock-on effects of this has been the destruction of job security and the casualisation of labour. Part time working in Britain now encompasses nearly a fifth of the workforce, of which over 90 per cent are women. Equally, this has been combined with a huge offensive aimed at lwering the value of labour of young workers, through reduction and abolition of state benefits to young workers, and the derisory allowance paid to those conscripted onto YTS schemes, backed up by the removal of the rights of wages councils to regulate the wages of young workers. Thus while unemployment has threatened the job security of many workers, this has been combined with a specific attack aimed at crushing the living standards and impoverishing a less well organised sector of the working class, which includes a disproprtionate number of women, youth and blacks. The danger here is of the opening of sharp divisions inside the workers movement, and the establishment of a ‘dual labour market', which a consequent lowering of the value of labour as a whole. There is a very real question of the possible lumpenisation of a whole section of the working class.
The privatisation offensive is still in full swing, with gas and water next in the firing line. Then will come the follow up to the Febuary 1985 Green Paper on local government privatisation, forcing local authorities to ‘tender out' many of their services. Cuts and privatisation, combined with the growth in private mnedicine, are already well on the way to creating a two-layer health service, such as exists in the United States.
The attack on the welfare state,the public sector and local government, have gone hand in hand with a direct assault on the organisations of the working class. But the Tory antiunion laws, on picketting, secondary action, ballots etc have been an adjunct to an all-round employers offensive aimed at cutting albour costs. While the most visible aspects of this have been around closures, there has also been a general offensivbe aimed at tightening up labour discipline and instituting ‘labour flexibility' and speed up affecting millions of workers.
re 4. The aftermath of the miners strike - The defeat of the miners strike has sent the workers movement ree@ling onto the defensive. The (at the time of writing) feeble response of the print unions to the attack by Murdoch would have been inconceivable without the defeat of the miners, In the trade unions as a whole the new realist right, the vanguard of yeliow business unionism, is on the offensive.
The objective basis for the offensive of Hammond, and in a different way of the AUEW right wing, has been created by the defeats, themselves a consequence of the countless betryals of the trade union bureaucracy, and in particular their betrayal of the miners strike. There has thus been created a powerful impetus towards a split in the TUC, and the danger of the formation of a right wing business union federation with close links to the alliance. Despite our general programmatic position in favour of trade union unity, concretely we should be for the expulsion of the EEPTU from the TUC, and a fight to win its members of TUC-affiliated unions. We should also fight against any proposed move by Hammond for a new super union involving the AUEW and ASTMS.
One of the most damaging elements of the reflux in the unions has been the emergence and consolidation of the Eurocommunist- Kinnockite wing of the NUM agains Scargill, which threatens to sabotage the moves which the NUM made towards generally aligning itself with the hard left and the oprressed.
Despite the polarisation to the right in the unions, sporadic militancy and determination to fight has not been crushed.
This is reflected, for example by the continued militancy of the teachers, the vote for strike action at Fords and numerous individual strikes like that at Silerfight in Barnoldswick and Forgemasters in Sheffield. But the preconditions for winning such struggles, those of general solidarity and secondary action such as boycotting etc have been made much more difficult by the outcome of the miners strike.
In the Labour Party the Kinnock-Hatters Jy leadership has used the aftermath of the strike to carry through its offensive against the left, with the aim of re-centering the party to make it ‘fit to govern'. In doing so it is using the
negative effects of the defeat of the miners strike and the strugale against rate capping with the overal]] messgae that struagle does not pay, only waiting for a Labour government will pay. This offensive has dealt a body blow to the old Bennite left, deepening the recomposition of the left already set in train after Labour's electoral defeat in 1983 - the division between the so-called ‘hard left' and 'soft left’.
It is important to grasp that the intention on the part of the bureaucracy is not only to marginalise the left, by to re-centre the policies of the Labour Party in order to produce an electoral manifesto accdpetable to the centre and right of the PLP. This process is already well under way. Already at the 1983 conference of the LP a [vas ‘adopted on the EEC which was essentially one of reform from within.
On defence, while the policy of a non-nuclear strategy within NATO just survives, the timescale of the 'non-nuclear' strategy is being fudged in order to create leeway for dissimulation and reversal of the policy if Labour ever gets into government.
On the economy the policies are anything but rgadical, and Hattersley has now spelt out the ‘priority to the fight against inflation'. These areas of Europe,NATO and defence, and the economy are decisive guarantees for the bourgeoisie. They are decisive guarantees for something else as well - the possibility of entering into a coalition with the SDP/Liberal Alliance.
The idea that the next Labour election manifesto will be in any of its essential aspects a 'left' manifesto should be rejected.Even a Kinnock government without the Alliance would be a government which carried forward essential elements of Thatcherism. THus for example renationalisation is very low on Kinnock's priorities, and it is doubtful whether it would occur. Important elements of the trade union legislation are likely to be maintained. While of course we are for a Labour government, we should not give the impression that a Kinnock government would be a '‘left' or ‘radical' government - it would be no more radical than a Mitterrand government in France or its wretched Callaghan or Wilson predecessors.
The likely outcome of the next general election poses the question of caolitionism point blank. The recent statemnents of the Chair of the PLP that 'we must be prepared to do business with the SDP' show the direction of Kinnock's thinking. This
points to the need to give increased emphasis in our propaganda to the guestion of gaplitionism and to rework our governmental slogans with this emphasis - ‘for a Labour government with socialist policies, not coalitionist policies!' might be a suitable formula. For Kinnock a decisive element in the fight to prepare Labour for coalition is the fight to marginalise the left. But in the event of a hung parliament the outcome could well not be a formal coalition but a re-run of the 'Lib-Lab pact'. In this case the emphasis on the fight against coalitionist policies would take on a special importance.
The fundamental aspect of the recomposition of Labour Party policies has been that of pulling a section of the former Bennite left behind Kinnock. Thus the LCC as a current,Tribune and well Known leaders of the left like Hain, Livingstone, Williamson and Blunkett have essentially gone over to the Kinnock camp. Of course this is a contradictory development, and there is no doubt that sections of the 'soft left' have tried to surround Kinnock with soft leftists in order to , Policy ; t : influence Kinnoek. But this has no# worked - Kinnock's fundamental alliance has been with the centre-right in the NEC and PLP.
But that changes nothing so far as the fundamental political stance of the soft left is concerned. They are prepared to ‘rally round the leadership to get power' which means essentially rejecting class struggle methods. and the hard left, amnd in the end being prepared to go along with Kinnock's policies.
There should therefore be no question in any ambiguity about of characterisation of these forces - they have gone over to Kinnock. This doesn't meagn that we can't have partical and conjunctural united fronts with them, for example on the question of the witch hunt, although even here some of them will vote for expulsions - cf the infamous Tribune editorial which virtually called for expulsions in Liverpool.
As against this development of the soft left a section of the former Bennite left has consolidated itself as a hard left opposition and even moved to the left. This includes the active core of the Campaign Group, which is a minority of that group but which centrally includes Benn and Heffer.
Their development, especially their sponsorship of a policy offensive which includes oppsotion to NATO, radical anticapitalist policies on the economy and so forth is one which
it is essentia] for us to link up with. Other importent components of the hard left are the section of the NUM leadership around Scargill and part of the loca] government left which genuinely tried to carry through an illegal strategy in the fight against rate capping., in addition to the currents around journals like Labour Briefing and an important part of the LLC.
A central component of our position in relation to these left leaders must be form them to organise their base. We support everymove no matter how partial and limited to organise the left in the Labour Party and the trade unions. Insofar as the left leaders refuse to organise their base, we are compelled to take initiatives to push this process forward.
Our central strategic line in the next period remains that of fighting to organise the left as part of the fight for class struggle left wing in the labour movement. 5. Ideological ferment on the left The defeat of the miners strike and the ratecapping struggle, together with the fragmentation of the Bennite left, have opened up a broad ideological debate on the left which is becoming a material factor in the balance of forces between left and right in the labour movement. Led by Marxism Today, this offensive has generally taken the form of an offensive against 'class politics', and the alleged sins of economig reductionism etc etc of the hard left. This debate is a complex affair which can hardly be dealt with within the confines of a pserpectives resolution. But we should note that some of the highways and by-ways of this debate - for example on market socialism, against nationalisation as an ‘old fashioed dogma’ and the like even have their effect on sections of the hard left. This element of the Marxism Today ‘discourse’ fits in nicely with the anti-socialist campaign of the Labour right wing led by people like Gavin Kitching. A particularly pernicious element of this 'new revisionism' is the attempt to appropriate feminism and the struggles of other oppressed groups to the Eurocommunists and the soft left, on the grounds that class politics are inherently white and male dominated.
The irony is that the political solutions to which these theorists point, a 're-centred Labour Party or even a coalition with the SDP, are the very essence of white,male-dominated
and bureaucratic politics. Unhappily some sections of the far left, for example the Militant and the SWP are badly equipped to deal with this ideological offensive being generally programmatically iadequate to take up these challenges. The only groups which have attempted a sustained riposte to the new revisionism are the New Left Review (see the article by Ralph Milband in NLR 150 and their recent scathing attacks on the Italian CP and Marxism Today) and a grouping of centrist intellectualsliincluding the editors of Socialist Register like Miliband and Panitch and parts of the old new left like Raymond Williams. The weakness of their challenge is their generally soft attitude towards the Morning Star wing of the CP. Nonetheless we should utilise every possibility for a comradely dialogue with these forces. Our journal has a particular role to play in this ideological debate. Given the complete confusion of Socialist Action in dealing with this problem, our journal is the only journal of intervention into the Labour movement which can act as a centre of ideological elaboration hostile to Marxism Today and the new revisionism.
We should consciously try to utilise it to reach out to those forces spontanesouly hostile to the soft left ideologues and to build it as a serious journal of Marxism in sections of the labour movement and among left intellectuals with whom we have no organised relationship. 6. Tactics in the labour movement he general framework of our intervention remains that of fighting for a class truggle left wing. Concretely this means striving to organise the hard left nd to build a Marxist organisation within that. In the Labour Party this means combining a fight for left wing and class struggle policies, building partial united fronts, and attempting to build a hard left current with revolutionary marxists at its core.
Our first and most urgent task is that of building the campaign against the witch hunt. This is not just a matter of self-preservation, but of rebutting the whole attempt of the leadership to put the left on the defensive. The witch hunt is aimed not just at expelling Militant or other leftists but at creating an attitude of hostility and distrust towards the militant left among a broad layer of party activists. While we should not underestimate the successes of this campaign so far, there is,a widespread mistrust of, expuls s and witchunting activities among a large num er oF party ac iviSts which can “be none on fo build
\ a substantia] campaign on this question. We have to have a dua] approach to this problem. While fighting to build an alliance against al] witch hunts and expulsions on whatever trumped up charges, we can also build a broader campaign against expulsions on directly political grounds, dragging sections of the soft left from their Kinnockite asylums.
We should aim to build, utilising the LLC and other forums, a conference in the summer at which we aim to get 100 constituency parties represented.There is no reason why, if this campaign is handled coirrectly, why it cannot deliver a major rebuff to the leadership on this question The LLC can act as a forum to reorganise the hard left in a series of initiatives around campaigns and policy struggles which can help the hard left to take the offensive in the party again. Crucial to this project of orgaising the hard left is fighting for the involvement of the different campaigning organisations of the Labour left - for example Black Section, the LCI, LCGR, the militant section of WAC etc.
A central element of LLC activity should be the fight on policy. Crucial elements of this are the fight on economic policy, elements of international policy like NATO and Ireland.
A vital element for our tactics in organising the hard left is the building and transformation of Labour Briefing. The split in the Labour Herald forces and the growing recognition of the need to actually organise the hard left, has created the precondition for the launching of a newspaper of the hard left in the Labour Party and the trade unions based initially on the Briefing network, ex-Labour Herald and Socialist Viewpoint. The objective of such a project should be to create a newspaper much broader in scope than the Labour left ‘house journal’ which Breifing still is, a newspaper which consciusly strives to build itself among militants in the trade unions and mass campaigns. The objective would be to utilise the impending demise of Labour #eral@ to make this new newspaper the key focus for the militant left in the Labour Party to the left of Tribune, and to fight to link up this journal with the active core of the Campaign Group. We are central to such a project, and its outcome will depend in large measure on our determination to see it through.
The question of whether it is possible to orientate Briefing in any way towards the trade unions has been answered by the role of Trade Union Briefing in launching the miners amnsety campaign. The field is wide open to us here to become a central element in the creation of the major voice of the far left in the Labour Party. We should fight for the transformation of Briefing in this direction whether the project lad
(1) of launching a new paper comes off or not. Sucha project is in no way counterposes to any initiative for a newsletter which the Campaign Croup may take, which we should support and build.
The increased recognition on the hard left of the need to organise is resulting in the development of a number of new left caucuses emerging in the constituencies. In general these are not formed as Briefing groups, reflecting the fact that Briefing is not recongnised as the central organiser of the hard left, but either as Campaign groups or merely left caucuses. We should try to ensure that any new paper links up with these groups and becomes effectively their voice.
Our ambition to become a central element in the recomposition of the hard left in the labour Party requires_a_ stepped up allocation of resources to Labour Party work. This may seem a strenge point to make, but we should recognise the fact that our intervention in the LLC, Breifing, the witch hunt campaign etc still revgolves around a far too small group of comrades. More central leadership resources are needed for this work. Moreover, we cannot hope to make this project effective if our local Labour Party work is half hearted and ineffectual.
WE cannot multiply our fields of work unless the bulk of our comrades are firmly rooted in local Labour Party work. We need to try to build a series of sttjong local bases in the Labour Party, and aim to have a major influence in say half a dozen constituency parties. Having comrades as GC delegates, and in a position to stand for delegate; to 6ii. Tactics in the trade unions The polarisation to the right in the trade unions has been documented above and in the journal. We suffer from the fact that the debilitating effects on our trade union work of the 'turn' and the general organisatjonal chaos of the OO have put us in a situation where we have a very limited trade union base, and are thus a hardly a significant factor in the current trade union battles. However it will be vital for the growth and development of the organisation, and our ability to win, militants that we have a coherent line on the tasks of union and that we utilise what small resources we have to develop trade union work where we can. Essentially this boils down to the public sector teachers and a few comrades in rail. Our fundamental line for the trade unions is for the building of a class struggle left, through the building of broad lefts or whatever happens to be the most appropriate type of left,.caucus which can begin to challenge the class collaborationist errisies of the bureaucracy. Tactical iy we should attempt Pp
to Jink these developments with the class struggle left in the Labour Party. While of course we hope to develop a broader trade union intervention over time, a frantic search to get our militants in to more trade unions would, given our limited rersources, be self-defeating.
Rather it is a question of developing such interventions that we have.
First of all this means developing a line for the public sector essentially local government. Our comrades must be central to the attempt to construct a broad left in NALGO which actually organises and functions outside of NALGO conference. The central issues to fight around are for mass action to fight the attack on local government ana for continued support for Lambeth and Liverpool; and for the public sector unions to organise a_fightback against privatisation (gas, water, local government). Other elements of our trade union policy should be: a) an attempt to link the militant left in the unions with the development in the Labour Party throught trade union Breifing. We should seek to get militants in NALGO,STA, etx to write for Briegfng and to identify with it. b) to build support for struggles through our trade union and Labour Party networks. While it is obvious that we shoulkd be raising trade union struggles like the News International dispute through the Labour Party, we can also utilise struggles like Silentnight both to win broad labour movement support and to make trade union contacts. This is in many ways one of the easiest ways to raise trade union issues; even the most hardened Kinnockites find it difficult to resist demands for financial support and speakers at LP meetings from struggles like Silentnight. When such struggles blow up, the leadership should organise for the whole organisation to raise them through their Labour Pasrties. c) to utilise our campaigns, especially international campaigns in the trade unions. Questions like South Africa,Ireland and the eitch hunt obviously provide us with opportunities to do this work. d) to build the Justice for Mineworkers campaign throughout the trade union and labour movement. Thic campaign obviously affords us numerous opportunities to develop trade union contacts - see below.
7. Work in the LPYS As noted above, the Tory offensive and the economic crisis have created the conditions for a massive attack on youth, concentrated on an assault on youth employment, and attempt to reduce the value of the labour of young workers, to magively reduce the educational opporeétunities of youth, and to destory the existing system of state benefits for youth. The target here is not merely the impoverishment of youth in order to make them pay a disproportionate part of the cost of the crisis but an all-round attempt to destory the economic and personal independence of youth by forcing them into dependence on their families.
This situation is creating a molecular radicalisation of youth, which is reflected on a Europe-wide scale. However in Britain this radicalisation lacks a focus, such as was provided in ealier periods by the ANL, and to a lesser extent by the YCND. Further, in the absence of a campaigning LPYS it often lacks an outlet at all, The criminal sectarian propagandism of the Militant in the LPYS creates a situation where the worsening of the situation of youth goes hand in hand with a decline of the LPYS.
It is not possible for us to artificially createé-a focas-for the- youth radicalisation but we should note that the linked questions of racism and South Africa will have a continuing resonance among youth. But the central element of a policy for youth must be a charter of youth rights centred on the material conditions of youth and a system of demands of youth rights linked to an overall workers solution to the crisis. In the absence of a central campaign to focus the youth radicalisation there is no alternative to a long term campaign for fighting for a mass campaigning LPYS. Our central tagctic is to link up with class struggle forces and independent leftists through Youth Fightback.
However this project is fraught with tactical problems, particularly in view of the outcome of the December conference, where SO had a majority against us. The long term viability of this project must therefore be in question. Overall our intervention in the LP must integrate the youth question, and we must fight for left caug@cuses and Briefing network to take up the question of the LPYS and organise an intervention against the sectarianism of the Militant. In this regard, a re-launching of Briefing on a more campaigning basis would only be an aid to the work in the LPYS, enabling our comrades and allies in the LPYS to link up with a broader project more accessible and attractive to
militant youth. A key part of our policy for the relaunched Briefing. sahould be that it integrates the question of the LPYS at every level and attempts itself to become a focus of opposition to Militant inside the LPYS.
Our youth work is in need of serious reinforcement both in terms of numbers and cadres. A correct tactical policy in the LPYS will not in itslef overcome this problem in the short term. To win youth cadres in the short term requires a turn to students, a serious porject for at least making a propaganda effort in the colleges and hopefully at NUS conference. Every organisation of the far left which is growing has an important student intervention, 14. is true not only of the SWP but also of vile little sects like the RCP and SO. Our way into the colleges is through the South Africa campaign and di'es of the journal and IVP. But intervention in the colleges cannot be left to the LPYS fraction, but must become the responsibility of the leadership.
WE should establish a student commission consisting of our student cdes, representives from the LPYS fraction, and one or two cdes from the EC. This is now urgent.
The most pressing question of our LPYS work is whether to split with SO in Youth Fightback, or whether we can effectively lead YF despite the disruption of SO. This can only be tested out over a limited period.
We risk a long and fruitless detour if we persist with a united YF in the face of SO @trangulation. 8. A strict prioritisation of international campaigns lt te nS I cc heal A detailed evaluation of international work will have to be provided by the International cssn. Nontheless,in the light of our limited resources, and thus the need to concentrate our efforts we need a strict prioritisation of our international work. If we do not adopt this approach we shall be bogges down in terms of allocation of personnel and resources - _an organisation of our size cannot simultaneously run half a dozen international campaigns. The prioritisation I propose is South Africa,Ireland and NATO/CND. In the short and medium term these have the most objective importance and carry the most ideological punch. a)South Africa. The rise of the South African revolution combines an enormous threat to one of imperialism's most important 'relays' in the semi-colonial world, with a specific threat to a vital area for British imperialism. Given the historic links between Britain and South
e Africa the rise of the South African revolution wil] continue to have an enormous impact on British politics. The specificity of the South African revolution is its combination of the national liberation struggle of the black masses with the struggle against the super-exploit ation of the black working class, an enormously powerful proletariat.
This combination is an enormous threat to any kind of of ‘'Zimbabwe' solution, despite the stagist conceptions of the ANC leadership and the South African communist party.
The problem that we face from the viewpoint of our solidarity work -is the dominace of the AA by the Stalinists and their pro-ANC allies.
To counter this we need a ‘dual track’ policy of an intervention into AA at the base combined with an attempt to set up a specific campaign “lominated by the stalinsist and the bureaucracy. The contradiction they face however is that until now their membership has remained rather small - 5000 national members - in terms of the objective possibilities of this campaign. Since South Africa has now enetered a long period of instability and conflict an axplosion of AA membership is likely - creating a dynamic and currents which it will be more difficult pote Se to control. Nonetheless, given the privileged links of the AA and ANC with the trade union and LP bureaucracy, any campaign for a different type of AA movement is doomed to defeat in the medium or short term.
That's why &&£e best possibilities are to interverr at a local level, in AA groups, in the trade unions, students and the LP, especially round the axis of solidarity with the trade union movement in South Africa. The most important thing is for our cdes to get stuck into this work locally, as well as supporting the intervention around Azania worker. ii) Ireland The Anglo-Irish accord marks a new stage of the attempts by British imperialism, in alliance with the Fine Gael government in the south, to derial the natyionalist struggle and strike a blow aimed at marginalising Sinn Fein. This is a high risk strategy which runs the risk of playting into the hands of both the republican movement and the Loyalist ultras if the accord collapses. The accord however has played the role of bringing the question of Ireland once more into the centre stage of British politics. The feeble vote against the accord in the PLP -only 123 members of the Campaign Group - marks a temporary setback
for the solidarity movement in this country and especially for the more rightist elements in the LC]. Nonetheless the LC] represents a signal gain in the labour movement for the fight to break bi-partisanship in the Irish question. We should continue to build and intervene in the LCI and prepare for the coming collapse of the Accord. It would be foolish however to put any timescales on this process. Despite the relatively good showing of SF in the by-elections, there is no doubt that the Accord made an ideological impact in the softer part of the SF electorate: the death agaony of the Accord could be a long and drawn out process. In this context it will probably be difficult to translate the continuing support among wide sections of the left in the labour movement for a policy of withdrawal into a major disruption of bipartisanship. Our participation in the solidarity work stems from a long-term understanding of the strategic centrality of the Irish question in the struggle against British imperialism and the fight for socialism in brBritain. iii)For a campaign against NATO Our analysis has always been that a central part of the militarisation campaign of US imperialism, and especially the missiles and Star Wars offensive,has been towards linking the European bourgeoisies and capital ist states much more firmly to the interests of the US. The Westland affair has demonstrated the extent to which the United States is intervening with every weapon at its disposal to disrupt even marginal challenges to its economic-military dominance. A central question of foreign policy therefore, for socialists as much as bourgeois politics, is bound to be around the question of the overall international orientation of britain. A remarkable feature of the Westland affair was that the Allkiance and the Labour Party leadership had little to say on this question. In the case of the Alliance this was because its 'europeanism' has a distinctly Atlanticist flavour to it, especially in the SDP variant; and because the Labour leadership has no global foreign policy strategy other than the traditional Atlanticism of the Labour right(indeed sections of the Labour right openly intervened in favour of the Sikorski deal).
The question of NATO therefore encapsulates the whole qquestion of foreign policy orientation, and goes hand in hand with any project of fighting for ‘socialist policies' inside the Labour Party.
This of course is spontaneously understood by the Labour right who have been much more keen to ensure the defeat of any moves against
U NATO than with the problem of defending the rusting Polaris missiles -which is not to say that in the end it will not defend some form of” independent nuclear deterrent.
The fact that Benn and Heffer have, in an extremely bold and significant move come out against NATO, has great importance for pursuing this debate. Benn will soon publish a pamphlet attacking NATO, a follow up to the Glynn pamphlet on the economy, which will help to focus the debate. We must of course continue to pursue the fight to maintain the commitment against Cruise and Trident. It has to said, however, that the Labour leadership does not expect to be put in apposition after the next election of actually haveing to fullfil a pledge on this issue.
The question of NATO, and the fight for an independent socialist orientation for Britain which breaks with NATO but which avoids the deadly embrace of the Warsaw pact contains an enormous ideological punch for us, in a way that the pacifist ideology of the vast bulk of CND did not. It is quite feasible, utilising the sponsorship of Benn and Heffer and others to launch a campaign on the NATO question and the general question of the fight for a socialist Europe free of US militarism. We can launch such a campaign with the initial sponsorship of Briefing,sections of the Campaign Group, independent socialist intellectuals etc., but providing the essential organising cadre ourselves. This anti-NATO campaign should be the main focus of our intervention into CND, which given the move to the right can no longer be any attempt to organise a general left on the overall orientation of CND as a mass ca ign. Insofar as we have an organised, intervention into CND it should be left to a few specialists who have already built a base. There can be no question of a general turn to CND or YCND groups The eGenral advantage of the kind of campaign whcih is being suggested is that it can put us in the driving seat of deteremining the foreign policy oreintation of a significant section of the hard left of the labour movement, which is at the moment programmatically disarmed on this question. The precise tactical form of the campaign is of course a matter for more detailed discussion. 9. Our regroupment policy A central element of our policy for constructing the organisation stems from the growing convergence between ourselves and the Socialist Group.
This organisation has seen a marked development of its politics since its previous incarnation as' the old WSL. In particular its polciies
have movedon the questions of the Labour Party,international politics. and the question of the world movement. We can only welcome these developments. Our policy should be that we are in favour of fusing our two organisations into one organisation which is an integral part of the world movement. However there are still various questions or orientation and policy to be overcome with these comrades. Thus we cannot expect this to be a very short term process. Nonetheless, at this stage we should remove any ambiguity about what our position is - we are in favour of fusion. A successful fusion would undoubtedly act as a pole of attraction for a whole number of militants, and strengthen and reinforce our trade union work. The leadership should be charged will acclerating this process of fusion.
Disucssions are being opened with the Chartist minority tendency. The problem of defining a precise policy in relation to them is their extremely small size, their heterogeneity and their confusion of the role of left currents in the Labour Party itself with democratic centralist organisations. Further we have a major theoretical difference with them on the question of the Labour party aand the possibility of it being utilised as an insrtument of socialist transition. Any moves towards fusion with this current, given their central role in the Briefing project, must be based on absolute clarity on the role of the world movement and their active support for it; and it must be based on a clear-cut comprehension of our conception of democratic centralism and the need for disciplined unity in action in the class struggle. Any fusion with these forces which did not incorporate these vital elements would lead to an explosion. 10. Building a propaganda group An overall idea of our tasks must be based both on a grasp of the development of the political situation and a firm idea of the level of development of our own organisation - what are our resources and what it is possible to accomplish with these limited resources. It is clear that the overall political situation is dominated by the impending denouement of Thactherism, crystallised by the outcome of the next general election, in a situation of working class retreats. At the general election all the elements of the situation will be shaken up.
Anything other than a new Tory government will create a different situation both for working class struggle and the davancement of the socialist left. Our task is preparing for that turn. What is seriously possible is the establishment of a solid revolutionary nucleus of some #
(Aj hundreds, and a reorganisation of the hard left in the Labour Party and the trade unions to meet that situation. The main question which we have to answer in terms of building ourselves is not what is our general line on organising the left, but through what mechanism are we going to recruit and train cadres and stabilise our organisational functioning. In part of course this depends on the success of our our general political intervention. But it was often an error of the old organisation to assume that party building was an automatic function of political intervention and required no special measures of propaganda and training. This cannot be our approach to the question.
Propaganda - the explanation of a large number of ideas to a relatively small number of people will be the stock in trade of our work. This involves several special elements: a) an ideological fight for Marxism _ in the labour movement This has been referred to already. The general recomposition of the labour movement is leading to an upheaval on the far left. In the past period we have seen splits in the CP,Socialist Action, Socialist Organiserand the WRP. This puts a special responsibility on us to defend the basic concepts of revolutionary marxism in the labour movement at a time when everything is being put in question. b)_ the need for regular propaganda forums and schools So far we have had some limited success in holding regular forums , especially in London. This work must be maintained. In addition we must organise regular schools for members and contacts, especially utilising speakers from the International. While a lengthy residential school is probably outside our resources at the moment, we should organise a number of weekend schools between now and mid-1987. c)the need for our press to reflect a propaganda function The launching of a monthly will give us the opportunity for more regular coverage of the class struggle. But it must also be utilised to carry on a more regular educational role in relation to basic Marxist concepts, which we can no longer assugMare common currency among our members and contacts. This should be axised around explanation of the history of revolution and revolutionary movements in the twentieth century. If revolutionary Marxism is anything it is the codification of the lessons of the international class struggle. Those comrades who were in the old organisation for a decade or more cannot assume that the neweer comrades automatically have been educated on these
— — daaoarty sre Ug) Sy PAO? IM ormbren arvevediun ye pose’ pone j mM onda b mpaprve yrg WW 29 t ‘grocsvooum § — oR Pyppoyme an poner ya uo pesiBo pei Viowuddo c, a5 CP TTR ~ EY YUsuilaboy > SIA VY Vo ira py ey TY Nervoeyy »y ot : ¢ sap] TOUS AM UY ' (ays B wo Wayne Tere4 VIF ) VX) ew 11 Pyed me 2M ST 95 Voy | Peon |r "ALN We 4) ex From 0) 1g BOB Sug eres! a ‘ ey Redvyrap 21 Jv} DIME Ira. Say ~pdRey | why COMMS T Sy TS} ASD gdmocompy vor wok “11 +t OF pomwsd aap ‘my “pian om ocbyovewny Bee vom 00 proanry on = anyone her UY Taps on nee Few oneal oy EBORD TL
guestions.The politica] period which we are entering wil] require above all an organisation of trained Marxist propagandists. The press itself can only play a limited rolein education, however. It does not replace the need for a strong education commission which can actually generate education through the branches. d)_the need for stronger integration into the world movement A much fimer linking of our comrades with the debates in the world movement is a vital necessity. Overall these debates do not go much beyond the leadership, but they can be a central elements in the education of our cadre. The world movement is going through a vital period of programmatic debate and re-thinking, which we can play a role in and must play a role in. We should institute regular reports on the world movement to our steering committe and the branches. The distribution of documents is at the most severely limited. The internal bulletin must be utilised to ensure more regular distribution of information and texts from the world movement.
" ‘@ dy] WU dias @-wvampo Spe} dr emagne D> 92 WEL WON Mot, Bopy SHTETWID BFW VPI Mar -— sy wv sap MEONIO DUDISNCG ~ Vrasrreema ora UO, © 7 “CYOSIANITV 25 - Wye’ Swuns ne, Srey ekg [sa vem op — WL XD s =