TACTICAL differences have blown many a movement apart. Last weekend's Socialist Movement (SM) AGM showed the current to be politically mature enough to withstand the pressures created both by the volume of political work and by the fact that comrades are coming from different traditions.
This is a critical time for the move ment with the challenge of the new paper, socialist, and the forthcoming General Election.
Hilary Wainwright opened the meeting and outlined some of the tasks that lie ahead in the coming months and years. 'We have the huge task, she said, 'of reclaiming the word socialist.
Quoting the late Eric Heffer's words, Hilary talked of the need to root the SM in workplaces and in communities. The pre-election period is vital - the SM needs to prepare for the increase in confidence that would follow the election of a Labour government.
The task of the AGM was to orientate the movement in this direction. How do the different sectors and the campaigning priorities of the SM re late to the new paper and the structures of the SM at a national and regional level?
Both Hilary and Ruth Clarke spoke of the important work initiated and carried through by the different sectors - particularly illustrated during the Gulf War by Women for Socialism (WIS) and Labour Party Socialists (LPS), and by the work around the anti-union laws led by the SM Trade Union Committee (SMTUC).
The first debate of the meeting was around the proposed constitu tion of the SM. Comrades decided -correctly in our view - that this needed more discussion. Two complementary resolutions (from Coventry/SM Organising Committee and WfS) were overwhelmingly passed. A constitutional working group, involving all the sectors, will now be set up to prepare a draft to go to next year's AGM.
Alter a presentation of the new paper, socialist, due for launch in September at TUC conference, vanous suggestions were made for improvement.
Two key points were that socialist needs to reflect the major political priorities of the movement and it needs to draw more on the experience of activists.
The discussion of campaigning priorities was squeezed through pressure of time. The sharpest debates were around the General Election and around the national question in Britain.
After some close voting the meeting accepted all the resolutions -calling for a Labour government, a vote for Labour, but recognising that there would be SM members (particularty in Scotland and Wales) who would be voting and campaigning for other parties. This discussion will continue in socialist.
Resolutions were also passed, with very little discussion, about developing and campaigning around a socialist economic strategy, arms conversion, internationalist issues - particularly the debt campaign, 'Unshackle the Unions', education, and health.
Amendments were passed that brought Ireland and ecology into campaigning priorities and incorporated feminist perspectives into others.
It was also recognised that there were other areas of work - in particular local goverment and lesbian and gay oppression - that the SM wanted to get involved in.
The pressures under which the SM is working today meant that the AGM suffered from being less wellprepared and attended than we would have hoped.
The task for socialists now is to link up their work on the ground with the projects that the SM has set itself, through the sectors, through local groups and through socialist.