Socialist Action The need for principled politics The polemic below is published in response to an article in the 7 February issue of Socialise Action to which the editorial board of International asked for the right of reply. THREESS Esot Interational magazinchase appeared since detober 1985. The magazine was launched be members of the «ditorial board of Socialise Action, who leh the pumal after dilterenes bad developed on d range of fundamenal isses.
Anaccoume of these differences nas given in the 7 February Socialise Action be fames Francis. Francis claimed thar International supporters departure Won the edhorial board was due to tactica! differences on such matters as whether d let andidate shoukd have run against Neil Kinnork torthepost of party leader and chae our supposed accusa ton tha Socialise Action were guilty of Stalinism' on proco Stalinism' was merch a cover for our acal reasons for leaving.
This recomme is as ludicrous as in is false. Fist we have never charaderised Socialis Action as Stalinid. Seconds, dehavenever propose i any mccong of the left ol the about movement hilie the labour Leh Coordination or within the d abour Briefing editorial board or in the pages ot latera tional to support the ronning of a candidae for the post of labour Pared kader against Kimock on this time. This is annis of course a purely tactical decision.
Among those who left to launch Incrna dional were a number of comrades who have been delive for awo decades in support of revolutionary socialise policies in the labour movement, inclering a majority of Socialise Action's former editorial workers, design and layout workers. The idea that they would have suddenly decided to told their dents and leave the editorial board of a paper which they bad played a large role in actually launching and producing over questions of tactics should have made readers of Francis's article pause for thought.
The sad fact of the matter is that Soialist Action is no longer the paper it was when it was launched three years ago. Then it woes a paper which declared its aim as fighting to unify the let in the labour movement around a line of class struggle, rather than class collaboration. At the same time it combined this line for unity with a patien explanation of revolutionar Marvis ideas drawn both from the history of our own labour more
ment and from the experionce of the world revolution.
le was a reasonably successtul experiment.
While the newspaper's sales never exceeded 6000, it dies a range of contributors into a senous debacon the future of the Labour the supporters of the ideas of Marism Totesecar time developing is idcas of working class struggles. realitionisne. A aimed to inseve its suppor. ters in the life of the paper, and at that time cond come on many bandreds of organised paper sellers throughom de country.
Today the number of sellers for the paper has declined dramaicals. The paper, which was launched as a do page wackly, now is an megular 12 paper consisong largely of reprinted matonal and lengthe articles written be John Ross ander various noms de guene. Just botore the departure of the supporters of Intomational the sales of the
"political and
organisational factors lie
behind the decline of Socialist Action' paper were reponed to theoditorial board as having fallen to 1400.
A combination of politica and organisacional factors lie belund this decline.
In the first place the newspaper had radicals changed is project of organising a united lode on the basis of class struggle deton in the labo mosoment. Its new position was most dear spelt out in its 10 Jamaars issue. Cinder the headline of 'The paper the left needs, John Ross concludes that it is not Socialist Action. But the real interest of the arice is its andesis of the left inside the labour movement.
The artice divides up the left into what it called the 'Kinnockite lott', the class struggle loti' and the ultra lelt. The article correctly castigares the Kinnockito' left lor its capitulation in tront of the Labour leader, and also notes the contradictory clements in the position of such figures as Ken Living stone and David Blanket.
The author has more problems in his detinition ofthe class struggle leh, evident le trom the momendlaure his preferred i hoice. As he confesses, he can't decide "here to categorise the Militan condones (nor in fared can he find the righe slot for the Morning Star wing of the Communist Party, i rather more signiticans omission).
But he reserves his special ire for what he calk the ulua left' who be delinition are not class struggle forces. Ross singles out in
particular Labour Brieling, Socialise Viewpoint and Socialist Organiser. Neither is this list exhaustive. In previous issues it has also taken in tendencies outside the Labour Party, such as the Socialist Workers Party. Yet all these forces, whatever differences organised in support of the miners and other
Accusations are made against this current, in particular, that; Politically all accommodate to British imperialism to varying degrees. Now those are familiar with the history of the international working class will know that vou can't make a much more serious charge than that. The great crossroads of the working class movement in Augus 191t turned precisely on this question. Such an atitude (social chauvinism) has always been the line which has marked the divide berween reformism and revolutionary Marxism. But in Ross's schema all the far left currents accommodne to imperialism, while the honest left reformists who inhabit the 'class struggle' current do not!
Now until very recently Socialist Action was very prominent in Labour Briefing Supporters of International still are. It is clear why Socialist Action has pulled out. To be in any way associated with what you consider accommodations to British imperialism would be intolerable to anyone who considered themselves a revolutionary Marxist. But of course this is not the real reason that Socialist Action has withdrawn from Bricfing as we will explain.
But first we would propose an initial question to comrade Ross eral so that we can establish the ground on which are debating; are the supporters of International part of this group which supposedly capitulates to imperialism? If we are, of course, there can be no serious basis for any reunitienion with Socialist Action or anybody else who holds such positions and the appeals from comrade Ross to rejoin are simply humbug.
But there is another aspect to comrade Ross's views which is very dangerous. As every commentator on recent events in the Labour Party has remarked, Neil Kinnock's efforts to drive out the left have a deadly logic. He first aims to isolate the Militant and expel their leadership and then proposes to deal with what has been called the 'patchwork left, so-called because of their support for many different issues and campaigns on theleft. Tethen proposes to move on to the hard left, in other words the time-honoured "salami tactic" of slicing a powerful block
29 into smaller slices.
being Thatcher not Kinnock. That is also this one is, and by the largest current on the
Now the problem is that Francis, whater er his intentions, plays into Kinnock's hands on this count. The original project of Socialist Action, which remains that of International today, was to fight tor the unity of the whole left in action, detending the struggles of the oppressed against the Thatcher government and, within that framework, fighting for socialist policies in the labour movement. At the same time, noting the proliferation of Marxist journals within the labour movement, we were in favour of encouraging the greatest possible unitication process.
Ross cuts across both those important objectives. By crecung a schema of the divisions on the left, he militates agamst unity where it is most needed, an attitude reflected in the more and more disruptive tactics of Socialist Action supporters In united left bodies. In doing this Socialist
"To build unity against
the Tories you have to
fight against the Kinnock
leadership' Action plays into the hands of Kinnock and his Labour Coordinating Committee supporters who, as we have mentioned, have a similar analysis of the left.
Our attitude to unity on the left should be governed by the time-honoured united tront approach of judging people by what they do, not on whether they belong to a category called 'ultra-left' or 'class struggle left'. We should be fighting for the unity of that whole left which supports the working class in struggle and fights for an alternative to the disastrous course in which Neil Kinnock is Icading the Labour Party.
There is no contradiction between these two things as Ross would pretend there is. To build unity in the struggle against the Tories today you have to fight against the Minnock leadership, as the miners' strike and what has happened in the amnesty campaign since has demonstrated so graphically. Furthermore you have to explain that is what you are doing to the many rank and file activists in the labour movement who sup ported Neil Kinnock's election as party
cader and who are puzzled or demoralised by his violent switch towards the right.
Neither is there a contradiction at the level of the next general clection between calling for a vote for Labour and explaining that unless an alternative left is built in the labour movement now which is ready to confront Kinnock, the experience will be an even greater disaster for the left than that of Mitterrand in France.
All this was evident even a ycar ago for the majority of the editorial board of Socialist Action. The fact of the matter is that the majority have, along with the general mood in the labour movement, taken a sharp and quite decided turn to the right in their politics. That is the reason that they avoid a direct clash with the Kinnock leadership and 30 mouth platitudes about the main enemy
why they see the Marxist left, Briefing, as the main obstacle to their politics.
The swing to the right on domestic politics has its counterpart in Socialist Action's changed approach to international questions. In particular, with the new upsurge in South Atrica, the now supporters of International, along with others, proposed to the Socialist Action editorial board that wo should not only build support for the struggle of the South Atrican masses and especially for the independent, non-racial trade unions in the British working class, but also we should explain that the victory against apartheid in South Africa could only be finally and definitely established with the overthrow of capitalism in that country and • socialist revolution.
There was not a majority on the cditorial board for this Instead the largest current of opinion on the editorial board proposed that we should explain the necessity of a bourgeois parliamentary republic in South Africa under the leadership of the workers and peasants.
What cventually appeared in the paper was an cditorial which took a halfway position between the two counterposed views, but with which the pro-parliamentary democracy agreeing. This was only the last in a series of debates on the editorial board around central questions of world revolution.
Among the views put torward were those which can be properly described as Stalinist. In particular the view that the world today can be divided into two camps: the reaction. ary imperialist camp and the progressive anti-imperialist camp. This view, originated by the Kremlin idcologists, casts such reac-
'Among the views put
forward were those which
can be properly described
Tas Stalinist' tionary regimes as those of Khomeini, and Iraqi leader Sadaam Hussein as being in the progressive camp, because of past or present disagreement these regimes have had with US imperialism.
At the same time, in calling for unity of the 'anti-imperialist' camp, this view is antagonistic to, or plays down, the struggles of the working class and oppressed against such regimes. Not only that, but to maintain the unity of the progressive camp, it is cither openly hostile or fails to support dissident movements in Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union, even when, as in the case of Solidarnose, these movements are based on defence of the workers own interests.
It is interesting that Francis leaves out of his account of Stalinism's essential features this world view of the Kremlin. Is it because it was one of the central debates in the Socialist Action editorial board over the last period? Contrary to Ross's view that none of the essential ideas of Stalinism are supported by anyone associated with Socialist Action
editorial board. Another such idea is the 'stagist' view of the revolutionary process in the semi-developed countrics, again defended by this current in relation to South Africa.
Now it is not truc that holding a campist view of the world or a 'stagist' view of revolution makes you a Stalinist and contrary to what Francis says in his article
'editorial board meetings
have been characterised
by unprincipled blocs' supporters of Internationa/ have never made such a claim. However it does demand a fight against such views. And here we cometo the real causes of the split.
None of the very substantial differences outlined above would necessarily lead to a split in a journal. However unity is con• ditional on being able to continuc to seriously debate the issues in question. In the past Socialist Action's traditions have always been to urge freedom of discussion, but unity in action on the basis of a majority
But instead of honest debate, the editorial board meetings have been characterised by unprincipled blocs, crosion democratic discussion and autocratic editorial decisions. Major articles have appeared in the paper without discussion on the editorial board. Editorial board members turned up to editorial conferences to be confronted with chormously long documents on which they were required to vote immediately. Worst of all the papers' supporters were never given the opportunity to express their opinion on the line of the paper that they toiled to sell. Ii is principled politics which has been the major casualty of the decline of Socialist Action.
It gives us no pleasure to record these events. In fact we would have preferred not to enter into a public discussion with Socialist Action and to try and sort out our differences without recourse to public polemics, which damage both journals. However the Francis article has given us no alternative but to ask for the right of reply. 'supporters would turn up to editorial conferences to be confronted by enormous new documents'
INTERNATIONA No d. i June: 1486