right fought back five years ago it seemed that the left was taking the party by storm ahead.
that Benn gained 80 per cont of the constituency votes (or nearly 25 per cent of the total), to per cene of the 51 per cent vote against him came from the union tops and the PEP. In the absence of left majoritics in most of the major unions, something which presupposes a very high level of class struggle and consciousness way beyond the situation in 1981, the left will always collide with this inbuilt domination of the PEP and the trade union leaderships. The old adage that the Labour Party is the political expression of the trade unions' — in some versions 'of the trade union bureaucracy' has a large element of truth in it. Thuslooked at objectively, the 'surprisc can surely not have been that Benn lost, but that he lost by such a slender margin. His defeat was a reflection of the current inbuilt bureaucratic domination of the party by parliamentary and trade union leaders. It was not 'chance' or an accident. It would be selt-deception to believe so.
The next major shocks for the left in the party were the Falklands war in 1982 and the general election in 1983. The two must be considered together, because the outcome of the latter was so affected by the events in the • tormer. As has been extensively • documented, the historical trend has been towards a decline in popular support for the Tories. In 1981 the Thatcher government was, measured by the opinion polls at least,
he most unpopular peacetime government
ver. And yet in 1983 it won with a 140-plus
Three things decided Labour's disastrous showing in 1983 — two major and one subsidiary Thatcher's successful prosccution of the war, combined with Labour's failure to oppose it, and the failure of Argentinian bombs to explode when they hit British aircraft carriers, massively boosted Tory popularity. The second factor of course was the clectoral showing of the SDP/Liberal intervention of the Labour right against the party's nuclear weapons policy during the general election campaign. Party policy itself
IN KRAMONA N! Coloredorker 1986
seemed, in the hands of the compromising Foot, inconsistent and incoherent espe cially on the cconomy and delence.
The 1983 electoral disaster was also a disaster for the left. For, despite the moderation of the clection manifesto for those who actually read it, nonetheless it could easily be presented as the defeat of a left manifesto, the defeat of the party because of the worries of the electorate about Bennite extremism. The 'common sense' explanation of the election defcat was that the party lost because it was disunited, and it was disunited because the left had been on the rampage. The message trom the right was we must never let this happen agam'.
From the moment of the election defeat and foot's resignation is leader, the drive was started to carry out the 'Kinnock operation'- — to put in place a new leadership which would recentre the party politically, adopt the face of "moderation', and roll back left encroachments in policy. The result was the Kinnock-Hattersley leadership, successfully installed at the 1983 Brighton conference. The extent of the shift in mood as a result of the clection defcat was signalled by the poor showing of the left candidates for the leadership —— less than six per cent of the clectoral college for Heffer standing asleader and just 26 percent for Meacher standing for deputy.
In the following period the newly installed Icadership — the dream ticket' of Kinnock and Hattersley — received its biggest chailenge not from internal party opposition but from the class struggle — above all from the miners' strike and the battle against rate capping. A change of mood in the class struggle was signalled in December 1983 when the NGA became locked into its fierce battle with Eddie Shah over union recognition at the Stockport Messenger. It showed that despite four million unemployed and the ravages of four years of Thatcherism, big reserves of resistance still existed in the most INIERNATONAL No. t, Ortobe/November 1986
militant sections of the working class, and thar workers given no choice but to fight or surrender would, it the leadership was there, fight rather than roll over.
This showed something significant that if the Bennite' let was being pushed back in the Labour Pares, de lorers on which it based itself, in two trade unions and the mass campaigns, were by no means finished. Hard on the heels of the Nod struggle came the start of the miners' strike, which itself set the scene for the rate capping tight.
The miners' strike was undoubtedly one of the most ditficult phases for the Kinnock leadership and the whole of the trade union bureaucracy which except for the extreme right wing gave verbal support to the miners but loathed Scargill and everything he stood for. It was a difficult tightrope to tread, to support the miners but to oppose their leadership. A victory for the miners would have created immense difficultics for Kinnock and his trade union backers. Their whole strategy of re centering the party depended on i declining curve of class struggle, it depended on retreat and demoralistion not on ascending victories. The TUC and Kinnock adopted the ractic of a negotiated defeat-compromise for the miners; but in its absence, thanks to the intransigence of Scargill, a simple defeat would do. The eventual defeat of the miners set the scene for the crumbling of the defiance to ratecapping. But before we discuss that we have to go back a bit and discuss some of the other consequences of Kinnock's accession to the Icadership in 1983.
The outcome of the 1983 general election and the change of leadership set in train two linked and vitally important processes political recomposition on the left and the witch hunt. The recomposition' of the left meant the emergence of the "soft-left' axis in the party and its detaching of a section of the former 'Bennite' coalition from Benn himself and the hard left in general. The soft left
opcrations was spcarheaded organisationally by the Labour Co-ordmating (committee (at one time, lest we forget, a Bennite operation) and politically spearheaded by the ideologues of Marxism Today, who however to this day remain on the extreme right wing of the process. Key factors in this were the emergence of the 'BlunkettSawyer' axis on the Labour NEC, and the eventual defection of Livingstone from the hard left camp. As opposed to the hard left's simple oppositionto Kinnock, the I.CC. proposed what might be called a strategy of 'unity-contradiction' - given critical support to Kinnock but trying to influence policy to the lett. This has, as it turned out, been a hopelessly utopian ploy, as Kinnock took the support but not the criticism, as has recently been recognised in a shame-faced way by the lcd: itself in a recent internal newsletter.
The final stages of the fight against ratecapping were pivotal in the emergence of the soft left bloc including Livingstone and Blunkett, and thus in finally breaking up the 'old' Bennite left. At the Gro:, the decision of whether or not to set a rate encapsulated the divide between 'realism' and 'confrontationism', or more preciscly between a class struggle 'parliamentarist-
'the miners' strike was
undoubtedly one of the
most difficult phases for
the Kinnock leadership' constitutionalist' approach. Livingstone's argument for giving leadership' and setting a rate was that it was the only realistic option to allow the cil.Cto continue, and prevent its functions being taken over by government representatives. A year later the GiLC was abolished, and its functions dispersed or taken over by the government appointed 'residuary body'. Livingstone's capitulation had an important effect in strengthening the soft left in a dozen or more Labour councils which bad promised to fight to the end.
But the collapse of the rate capping fight was not just the responsibility of the Living stone and Blunkett, and all the little Livingstones and Blunketts in Labour councils, but also of the local government trade union bureaucafts who had never wanted a fight but found it necessary to go along with the 'no rate demagogy. In this context it is necessary to record that the Militant-led Liverpool council, despite some appalling tactical errors stuck to a policy of defiance until it was completely isolated and overwhelmed. The parroting of Kinnock's attacks on Liverpool by the soft left and the union leaderships is sickening hypocrisy. Those who didn't fight and who never wanted to fight are not in a good position to attack those who fought but made some mistakes along the way.
The success of the soft-left operation has to be recognised and analysed. Why did a section of the formerly Bennite left crumble?
Simple-minded explanations of betrayal and carecrism, while containing an element of truth, will not suffice. The truth of the matter is that the lcd: homed in on the different strands of opinion inside the old Bennite left itself, its contradictions, political fudges and lack of clarity. For the left which fought for constitutional reforms was never homogenous or totally united. It included a section of the left trade union burcaucracy which could go along with left policies a certain distance but never all the way. The old Bennite left was a partial and temporary political alliance around certain minimal
events presented themthe class struggle and inside the party a section of the Bennite forces, today represented by the active core of the Campaign group and the torces which support it, radicalised and moved to the lett. Benn's own political development has undoubtedly been in this direction, as his policies on questions like NATO and Ireland shows. Another section of the old Bennites polarised in the other direction, towards the
Something else has to be recognised here however. The soft left operation was only made possible by a certain style and approach from Kinnock himself. The installation of the Kinnock-Hattersley tcam was a stroke of inspiration. Kinnock did not simply repesent a return to the old-fashioned right. He was not Callaghan reborn. He had a long record as Tribune MP and supporter, as Wilson had had in 1963 when ho beat George Brown in the clection for party leader. He showed the truth of the old adage that the party is best led from the left'.
The ploy of putting Kinnock in the leadership was one which implied not a return tothe right, but the stabilisation of the
Ton the basis of acceptance of the constitutional reforms, and no major rolling back of the left wing policies accepted by the party conference and thus a leader who could create 'unity' in the party. Of course this implied stance contained within it a 'hidden agenda', an agenda of the very careful. deliberate and little-by-little marginalisation of the left and creeping assault on left-wing policies. Two things happened at the 1983 conference which installed the new leadership which indicated crucial mechanisms for this process. On the one hand a new
was adopted scrapped any vestige of opposition to the BEC, and on the other the expulsion of the Militant editorial board was confirmed.
The choice of Militant as the tendency in the party to attack was an obvious one, because Militant could simultancously be presented as big enough to be a 'danger' to the party, while its policies could be attacked from a supposedly 'left' stance, the better to
disorientate sections of the left. Thus Jim
Mortimer's conference report on Militant
singled out its lack of support for (NI and
womens rights as crucial evidence for its sectarianism and dogmatism. In the light of
the politics of most of those sitting on the
platform next to Mortmer this may seem
bizarre, but it was typical of the way that the
leadership used the political sensitivities of
President Mitterrand — a lesson in austerity for Kinnock the left, and especially of the LCC-soft left, to push forward its project.
Subsequently, it has been on the crucial terrain of economic policy where the leadership has scored some of its biggest successes on policy questions against the left, and this has been done by quite openly picking up the ideological themes of the soft left. Roy Hattersley has for eighteen months been attacking nationalisation, but on the
'the leadership want to
avoid the U-turn that Mitterrand made by starting off where he ended up' grounds that nationalisation is bureaucratic, insensitive to the needs of ordinary people and so forth. In its place he has argued for more stress on co-ops and 'new forms of social ownership' like employee share ownership schemes. These policies were litted word for word, from the LCC and soft left theoreticians like Geoff Hodgson. The irony of the whole thing is that it has always been the Marxist left in Britain which has attacked the shortcomings of capitalist nationalisation, and argued for a socially-owned economy under workers control. The LCC ammunition for the right wing to take up lett wing themes, gut them of their radical content, and present them as 'new' (startlingly radical policies. On economic policy the role of the soft left in this process is amply demonstrated by the fact that coauthor of the NEC's document on employee share ownership schemes, a warmed version of the Liberal Party's long-standing proposal for 'co-ownership', is none other
The effect of the witch hunt against the Militant and others has not been primarily
organisational, but idcological. Militant, despite nearly forty expulsions, has not been prevented from operating in the party. The bulk of the hard left has not been expelled. But the witch hunt has very effectively drawn a dividing line between the 'accept-
'constructive' left and the hard, 'irreconcilable' and above all 'anti-democratic' left which moreover is damaging to Labour's electoral prospects. The objective of the L.CC, quite openly stated in its manifestos, to 'isolate' and 'marginalise' the hard left have been the perfect foil to the witch hunters and the right wing. It has provided crucial ideological implement, taken up in Kinnock's Fabian lecture, and due to be codified in an overall statement of "democratic socialism', that the main divide in the berw in pro-capitalist and anti capi list between right and left,
'democratic socialists' 'vanguardist sectarians'. In Livingstone's first public statement of his defection from the hard left, his Marxism Today interview with Bea Campbell, he utilised this distinc tion as that between the 'vanguardist' left (otherwise the "Stalinist' left) and the participatory' left. This outrageous came directly from the pages of Marxism Today and from the LCC, and makes Living stone's recent adherence to the LCC pertectly
To say that to date the witch hunt inside the party has had primarily an ideological rather than organisational effect does not of course mean that in the future it could be utilised to try to inflict real damage on the
hard left's participation in the party. Indeec
the leadership shows every sign of to bring all parts of the party structure under its own control. The proposals for the future of the Young Socialists, effectively putting a large section of its membership outside of the LPYS, is one indication. And Kinnock has been quite ruthless in driving the left out of crucial NEC sub-committees. But it has of course been the balance of power on the NEC
which has been vital to pushing through Kinnock's assault on left policy in the party. That takes us on directly to a consideration of the motor forces of the leadership's project.
We have identified three crucial events
which acted to push back the left - the defeat of Benn in the deputy leadership fight, the general election defeat, and the defeat of the miners strike. We have also discussed the crucial role of the LCC-soft left. But the most
powerful allies of Kinnock and Hattersley
have not been the right wing thinkers of
Marxism Today and the LCC, but the trade
union bureaucracy who have held the deci-
sive power in the party, and exerted a key
role in course of the mass struggle, and
especially during the miners strike and rate
capping struggles.
Kinnock has constructed an alliance of the
union bureaucracy, left and
around his leadership and the project of
getting a Labour government installed which
they can again 'do business' with. Inside the
party he has linked up directly with the right
wing trade union leaders on the NEC,
exemplified by the role of gross right winger
Ken Cure on the Organisational Sub-
INTERNATIONAL No. 6. October/November 1986
Committee. But he has, with the notable exception of the NUM, brought the left' bureaucracy into line, with Ron Todd of the TGWU playing a vital role, and the sott-lett influenced NUPE leadership as a uscful outrider. Even in the NUM, there is a crystallising bloc, led by the CP and encouraged by Kinnock, which wants to drive Scargill out of the leadership. This role of the trade union leaders, able to produce the bloc votes at conference, is of vital strategic significance for the left; a left which fails to confront this question will always be defeated.
The upshot of the whole process which we have been discussing is that the hard left inside the party is more isolated than at any time since 1979, and that we have in place a leadership which, with strong backing from
'few of the policies the
left fought for are going
to find their way into the
manifesto' the trade union bureaucracy, is driving towards the formation of a right wing Labour government which will maintain some crucial aspects of Thatcherism. Against that, we have to note the continuing strength of the hard left both in the party and outside, still of qualitatively organisational strength, with a larger social base than exited before 1979.
What are the conclusions which we must draw from this process to arm us for the tasks ahead, about the character of the INTERNATIONAL No. 6. October/November 1986
Labour Party, the Labour left, and the forms of organisation which we have to adopt?! would put forward four points as a basis for understanding what has happened: * The 'Bennite' left which 1979-81 period, was a coalition with conflicting tendencies within it, which remained dormant so long as they fought together for the inner-party constitutional changes. The main contradiction in this left was between those who wanted to base themselves on the class struggle and mass action and those who, while rejecting the right, mainly based themselves on inner-party manoeuvering and a left-parliamentarist perspective. The conflict between these different tendencies only crupted at a later stage of the class struggle, and especially over the miners strike and the rate capping right. It was, however, inevitable, that this coalition should break up; the emergence of the soft left', and the radicalisation of a section of the Bennite leadership (including Benn himself) was the result. * During the 1979-81 period, and especially during the deputy leadership campaign, Benn's base inside the party and the trade union's was able to exert pressure on the trade union burcaucracy. Thus, for example, a series of unions were compelled to vote for Benn in the deputy leadership clection. However, with the sole exceptionof the NUM leadership, none of the left trade union leaders based themselves on a class struggle perspective. When the pressure at the base slackened they quickly swung behind Kinnock.
* The constitutional reforms adopted in 1981 have not reversed the inbuilt structural domination of the Labour Party by the trade union bureaucracy and the right-dominated PLI. Breaking this hold requires a huge level of class struggle and class consciousness; it cannot be achieved through Given the character of the manocuvres. Given Labour party as the "political expression of the trade union bureaucracy, the destruction of the bureaucracy's grip on the Labour Party would require the level of class struggle which resulted in huge conflict between the bureaucracy and the rank and file inside the trade unions, probably leading to a split in the Labour Party itself. * Constructing a left wing which does not suffer the fate of the 1979-81 Bennite left means learning two lessons. First, a left which fights must base itself on policies which cannot, like those of the L.CC-soft left by co-opted by a right wing leadership, but on the contrary are anti-capitalist demands, which break with the interests of capitalism on the economy and on foreign policy, and which support and extend the struggle of the working class.
Secondly, if a left which fights on anticapitalist policies wants to confront the right wing in the labour Party, it has to contront the right wing union leaders. While not abandoning the struggle inside the Labour Party itself, the left has to pursuc a fight for Icadership inside the trade unions. Any policy which is based on pursuing the inner-party struggle, and relying on the good offices of left wing friends' inside the union leaderships is bound to be defcated.
As Tony Benn makes clear in his interview elsewhere in this issuc, few of the policies
'the "Bennite" left was a
coaltion with conflicting
tendencies within it' which the left fought for are going to find their way into the manitesto tor the next election. Whatever the outcome of that election, the hard left in the party is going to have to sharpen up its policies and organistaion. It has not won' the fight in the party since 1979. But anyone thrown into despair or resigntion by that fact can only have a light-minded and hugely over-optimistic view of what 'winning' the right entails. Breaking right-wing burcaucratic domination of the Labour Party means renovating the entire British labour movement. It is a gigantic task, historic In Its aims and scope. The left faces the period up to and beyond the general election with much of its human and political capital intact.
The kcy thing is not to throw our hands up in horror at the defeats we have suffered, but to grasp that the left in the British labour movement is stronger than for decades; that Kinnockism can never workas a governmental project; and that if we raise our sights to the necessary strategic objective — an anti capitalist lett which fights in the party and the unions — the onward march of the hard left can be resumed with a vengeance.