LEONORA LLOYD
Facing Up To new world nf the 80s loo often it bas seemed more The Future The Left has deet in retreat for a decade It has Even ture seriously, it has failed to address the interested in the part than the future. The Lahour Inst out badiy in its contest with Thatcherism the reconstruution of the Left Farher this year the Nits congress last November, the Communist published in 1977, was a pioneering documentin Parry is seeking to respond to this problem Harry decided to redraft its propramme, The Aritish Road To Socialism, which, when last tawugh ite Policy Review for the 1990% Marxism Today VIE W THE BRITISH ROAD to Socialism has gone through several RE The British Capitalism Road to C P
of traditional inclustry, the rise of high tech and scivice industries - this does not at all mean that cumpletely frec hand, on a discussion document as radically changed world in which we now live, and British Road To Sociolism nest year The group took as its main brief, in preparing Facing Up To how that requires us to rethink the Belt's policies a preliminary to the actual redraftine of The Martin Jacques, Monry Johnstone, Paulo Lanning: Communist Party's executive committee appointed & group of eight to work, with a Coromunist Party supplement, will also he carried, The group that prepared the docuincur were: Margarer Woddis as secretary. Facing Up To The Beatrix Camphell, Monian Darke, Bill foxes, fogether with subsequent discussion, in 7 Duyr, Charlie Leudbeuter and eff Rodrigues, with Future, which we publish here as a special The Future, the need to confront the the Commumst Party weekly and perspectives. tory. The coonomic struggle of the working parate groups, whose interests are contradic transformations since the original 1951 version of the CP's programme dropped onto the mat at King Street in an envelope from Stalin. The most drastic revision was the 'Eurocommunist version produced in 1977. Now the Communist party is revising its programme once again, and a new draft appeared in the September issue of Marxism Today. PHIL HEARSE looks at its • Thus "class cannot straighifor- wardly provide the collective in- Socialism is thus not the objoctive pressed at the political level, it has to be constructed through the forging of alliances berween dis- terest for modern socialism?. interests of the working class ex This new programme is significant not so much in that it presents very right wing ideas about socialist strategy - that is hardly something new for the CP-but in that it presents a series of ideas about objectives - the kind of society we Indeed this current draft abandons man col- should be fighting for - which are not in any recognisable way socialist at all. content.
Third, it is just untrue that everybody" the working class as a collective subject or his- cornes to their sense of class through their sense of gender, ethnicity, or religious faith. This is just an unproved and dogmatic assertion. Mar- sism Today sets up a false dichotomy between other, by confining "class struggle" to the sphere of production and the workplace? it- self. Ironically, the idea that class struggle is and the economic denounced by Lenin in a pamphlet written 86 ycars ago! The new dratt also takes it for granted that the only progressive alternative to: a stalinist, totally nationalised, burenucratical- ly planned seige cconomy is a democratically class on the one hand, and sex and race on the struggle is a typically economist notion, one The new draft ofthe British Road, then, con- regulated and controlled capitalist economy torical actor is heing chiminated. • This is especially so since there is no such thing as "pure class". Everyone comes to their sunsc of class through their sense of gender, eth- nicity, as well as regional or religious. Socialists should counterpose to Thatcher's hands, but requires democratic regulation and Market and 'Europcanisation" in gencral - nisation programme. This involves recognising that most of the cconomy will remain in private • Internationalism. Britain's international role is crucial for socialism. The labour movement should support integration in the Common through a fight to democrative the Common mindemnisation programme their own moder class is just one among many such interests. Of course. Mr Martin Jacques and his co- thinkers are not so stupid as to put up a sign cial democrats and Morning Star stalinists on saying "we no longer believe in socialism: Their sales pitch has always heen that they arc They argue that capitalism is changing, the working class is being recomposed. the cconomy is being restructured - and therefore the old social-democratic post-war consensus is useless - we need a new way forward, This There are massive changes to capitalian and the working class in the Thatcher era: the ques- fion is, what conclusions should we draw trom these changes. Do they lead to an abandonmen of'class politics and collectivist solutions? That Time of argument always catches right-wing so- the hop, because at a descriptive level it's Truc lectivist, let alone socialist, aurns and values. adapting