MSF PING • SCIENCE CE Supporters of the Marxist Bulletin participated in the Socialist Labour Party for two years. They have recently resigned and are establishing a group outside the SLP. Here they draw a balance sheet of the SLP, which we publish despite our disagreements with it as a contribution to the debate on recomposition.
The Socialist Labour Party was contradic tory from the beginning. wide spectrum of the left, seeking an alternative to the ever rightward moving Labour Party, responded to Arthur Scargill's call for a working class party that would really answer the needs of the class.
The initial pronouncements of the leadership were far from perfect, staying firmly within the bounds of old Labour left social-democracy, with a touch of the old CP's British Road to Socialism. But Scargill also talked of the need for 'revolutionary' policies, of destroying capitalism and creating socialism. It was a historic opportunity, containing the potential for a real break from the Labourism that has long handicapped the British workers' movement. The necessity for socialism, and for a party committed to it, had been asserted. But a fundamental question was posed: How do we get there?
The revolutionary Trotskyists who publish the Marxist Bulletin joined the SLP at its foundation, Set up a maze of obstacles - Scargill committed to discussing this within the party. The job of Marxists is not to try to salvage reformism, as so many of the British 'far left' are doing. The task in this period is to seek to split working people away from reformism, and to build an alternative to it.
In the General Election, we argued against a 'tactical' vote to Labour in seats without an SLP candidate, pointing out that this would negate standing against Labour in the The first place. SLP has been Our position of No shipwrecked by Voté to Labour', led the incapacity of its to substantial disfounders to lead a cussion, although real break from never a firm position from the leadership.
Within the formal programme of the SLP lay the seeds, but only the seeds, of a transitional programme which could lead the working class to power. The leadership failed to make the link. However, in discussions on a whole range of subjects, we were able to argue for a bridge from the immediate demands of today. to the goal of a society run by the working class.
We knew the SLP might be shipwrecked by the incapacity and unwillingness of its founders to lead a real break from the Labourite betrayal. Now, two years later, that has indeed hap-