THE SOCIALIST Workers Party has produced two pamphlets on the Labour Party - 'Can Socialism Come Through Parlia ment?' and 'A Dream Betrayed' -in an attempt to explain reformism in Britain.
The easiest part is showing that the ruling class would not peacefully give up power and that Labour governments have always managed capitalism rather than bringing about socialist change. But the explanation is partial. We are told 'Labour's betrayals are not due to a right wing stranglehold on the party. They stem from the very politics of "parliamentary socialism", of Labourism'. But this does not explain why Labour has always been reformist.
The SWP says that while Labour has an organic base in the working class, this is in fact a political expression of the union bureaucracy, and because of the bureaucracy's role of workers, this constitutes 'an absolute obstacle' to the Party becoming socialist. But what prevents the left overthrowing the bureaucracy in the unions and the Party?
Missing is any explanation of how and why the role of the unions under capitalism is reformist - trying to secure a larger share of the cake, but not the whole cake, for their members.
But this would sit uneasily with the SWP's view of industrial struggle and how workers' consciousness changes. Their view of industrial struggle is rosy in contrast to their view of the struggle in the Labour Party. It is not explained why the rise in strikes in the '70s, should have led in 1979 to a Tory government. We are told 'every one of the Left's "successes" in the early 1980s (in the Labour Party) has proved illusory: One might as well say the gains made by all the industrial disputes in the '70s has proved illusory'.
The SWP also say that nobody is