ganisation and struggle of the specially oppressed and fight for the adoption of their demands in the labour move ment; and inside these movements to argue for a socialist perspective.
The prolonged failure of the labour movement to adequate ly take up these questions creates enormous difficulties and tensions in this project. But this is compounded by the sus tained inability of the major far left currents, especially Militant and the SWP, to cope with these issues. in the case of the Militant, this has simply reflected the backwardness of the British labour movement. In the SWP and other groups, it has reflected a deeper problem: the model of socialist transition and the revolutionary party which they adhere to.
A flawed tradition There can be no argument with the need for an organised marxist force to give leadership to the struggle for socialism. Britain has never offered the left any easy shortcuts. The Russian revolution and post-war revolutionary crisis generated huge splits in the European workers movement, opening the door for new mass communist parties; but it failed to generate any such split in When in 1933 Trotsky concluded that the official communist movement was 'dead for the purpose of revolution and a new International had to be built, the British forces which rallied to this call were a small minority in relation to the al ready small Communist Party.
From the beginning British Tovo toni socialists were divided on tactics towards the Labour Party, while their small propagandist COLONGS ended to be dominated by individual personalities, inrigues and gossip In 1944 came the move to reunify British Trotskyists in one organisation, the Revoluționary Communist Party. From this organisation came the three personalities who were to neaa tne mam group ings of the British far left for three decades; Gerry Healy, Tony Cliff and Ted Grant.
Fierce debates broke out on two fronts; whether or not the Trotskyists should go into the Labour Party, as well as the unions, to fight for their political line and win support; and on the analysis of the huge events taking place in eastern Europe, as Stalin's armies presided over the overturn of the old capitalist regimes.
By 1951 when the British Communist Party broke definihive v tom eve avoretene of revolutionary politics, to embrace the parliamentary perspective of the British Road to far left Was divided into three traditions, each one in the Labour Party.
Gerry Healy was the first to come out of the Labour Party in 1959-60 following the proscription of-his Socialist Labour League. Cliff's International Socialists did not emerge until the 1960s, while Grant's political line, thoroughly adapted to the Labour Party milieu, is still one of transforming the party from within.
Much of the British far left comes from the tradition described above. It is a tradition which fundamentally underestimates the project of socialist transition as being based on the self- organisation and self-activity of the working class and the oppressed. In effect, it rejects the real Leninist tradition of respect for political pluralism in the workers' movement and the left itself.
In this siege-mentality 'Leninism' there are only those of the true faith and those to be led (the masses); other left organisations become revisionists', enemies to be treated with utter scorn and contempt.
The irony is that the Socialist Workers Party and its predeces sors base themselves theoretially on the coe n 'the workers'. In the 950s, SW leader Tony Cliff rejected Leninism, and his Learniy ade heed rous was spontaneism and syndicalism When in 1968 Cliff became a convert to Leninism, it was rather a modified form of the Gerry Healy variety that he turned to.
What is to be Done?
The British far left has not just got to prove its ability to win rebellious students (generally hundreds periods) for short or sell papers; it has to prove its usefülness to the class, in its ability to wrest the leadership of the labour movement away from the right wing and new realists.
To make this change means a fundamental re think. Militant supporters now have the o ortunity to make t with th earful crisis in their tendency (see article on these pages). But there is no getting away from the long slog of building an alternative.
Who are we to talk?
So what is so different about Socialist Outlook? Our supporters come from a variety of political traditions and currents, and are united on four fundamental issues that make us distinct from others:
rejection of undemocratic organisational methods, and an insistence that only through freedom of discussion can a correct marxist analysis be derived, defended and developed.
• A commitment to defending and building the self-organisation of the oppressed.
• A commitment to genuine internationalism as against the building of small, dependent, British-dominated clone groupings and circles of co-thinkers on the model of the WRP, SWP and Militant.
• Defence of the method of the united front, recognising that in the concrete context of the British labour movement this means working within the Labour Party as well as with forces outside it, building camaigns and promoting strug ›les that can show workers the need to break from reformism and build a marxist alternative.
• Rejection of any notion which subordinates the actual struggles of the working class to the narrow sectional interests of a particular left group.
Our current is by no means and legest on the British left.
has much to prove. But we believe that our record in constructively building labour movement campaigns and promoting broad-based initiatives such as the Socialist Move ment while consistently arguing our own political line offers a welcome break from the sectarian legacy of the British left.
After all, it is not enough to define what is wrong with the British left: our task is to do something about it. outside the Labour Party orientation. radely fashion. added to this pressure. new 'real' Labour Party did not exist. ly gives Kinnock 'free rein'. is put in the perspective of united front activity, work becomes clear. and the upsurge of racism are vital components of socialist activity. party; and in any case whether a new party is possible at this time. turmoil inside the Labour Party which socialists cannot avoid. against the witch hunt, which Militant has never seriously fought. participating actively in solidarity campaigns. the left as a whole. The crisis in the Militant tendency poses hard questions for all their. supporters. At a surface level the dispute is about whether to prioritise activity outside the Labour Party, including standing independent candidates, and possibly establishing a 'Real Labour Party'. Founding theoretician of the tendency, Ted Grant, bitterly opposes the One thing is clear: Militant does not have mechanisms adequate to deal with major differences among their supporters in a democratic and comThe moves towards abandoning Labour Party activity stem especially from the pressures of Militant's experience in the campaign against the Poll Tax. New supporters came forward, especially in Scotland, without much experience of labour movement activity. Kinnock's anti-Militant witch hunt, the crushing of the LPYS, and the huge lurch to the right inside the party Walton The outcome was the decision to stand Lesley Mahmood in the Walton by-election. Her 2,613 votes in a Militant stronghold did not vindicate the new 'outside the Labour Party' perspective. It showed that the base for a Peter Taffe has argued in successive Guardian letters that Kinnock cannot be given 'free rein' - and therefore the tendency will prioritise activity outside the Labour Party. But this is illogical. Declaring a new party with no significant support and abandoning the struggle in the Labour Party preciseThe problem for Militant is that the type of Labour Party activity it has traditionally conducted is very difficult in today's conditions. The tendency has always conducted essentially propagandistic activity in the party, aiming at winning people to socialist ideas', selling papers, and recruiting to the tendency. No real attempt to utilise the weight of Militant supporters to build the left for a real fight against the right wing has ever been made.
That is the weakness of Ted Grant's position. If the sole criterion for Labour Party work is supporters recruited and papers sold, then the party is indeed today an unpromising terrain of work. But once Labour Party work building the left, and preparing for the new crises which are inevitable, the importance of this New realism This does not imply that the sole work of socialists today should be debating resolutions in Labour Party branches - but then it should never have been. The fight against new realism in the unions and building mass campaigns on a range of issues including the NHS, local government cuts The key question is whether this activity needs the building of a new In an historical sense the renovation of the labour movement to win socialism will necessitate a party qualitatively different from today's Labour Party. But to attempt to declare a new party now is suicidal. Any result from the general election - victory, defeat or a hung parliament - will create new In the anti-poll tax movement they sought at each stage to maintain an iron grip on the movement's structures, rather than build a genuinely united and democratic movement. Sectarianism has even disrupted the fight Its position on ireland and other oppressed nationalities has been appalling; and it is only recently that its old time positions on the struggles of the specially oppressed, opposing the womens movement, ignoring the fight for lesbian and gay liberation and only making propaganda about racism have changed for the better. Internationalism for the Militant is a matter of pious words and supporting their clones in other countries, never The current crisis in Militant should be the occasion for serious marxists in the tendency to stand back and take a long look at their activity. To justify its existence a marxist tendency has to go beyond being able to explain socialist truisms, but be useful in the fight to defeat the right wing, promote workers struggles, build the movements of the specially oppressed - and not counterpose its narrow interests to those of the workers movement and An organised movement of marxists is certainly necessary today. Militant's sectarian propagandism, marked by narrow nationalism and numerous concessions to labourism, belongs in a museum of antiquities.
No. 8 Sept. 28, 1991 Page 7
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