have taken part in mobilisations against the evils of capitalism and the bureaucratic dictatorships. This reflects the fact that humanity face widening dangers. Ecological, miltary, social and economic devastation faces millions of people.
Many more people recognise the barbaric nature of canitaism, In a situation where the inability of the social derocratic an communist parties to provide socialist solutions is becoming clearer, the task of creating new leaderships remains ahead.
Soctalist Outlook is written and sold by socialists I committed to this struggle. We are the British supporters of the world-wide marxist organisation, the Fourth International, We stand for the revolutionary transformation of society and a pluralist, socialist democracy world wide.
The overall goal which we pursue is the emancipa7 ton of all human beings from every form of exploita. tion, oppression, alienation and violence, Socialism must be under the control of ordinary cratic, pluralist, multi-party, feminist, ecologist, anti-militarist and internationalist. it must abolish wage slavery and national: oppression.
The working class is the backbone of unity among all the of crisis. as those who wear them". exploited and oppressed. The working class and its allies must uncompromisingly fight against capitalism autonomy. and for a clear programme of action in order to gradually acquire the experience and consciousness needed to defeat capitalism at the decisive moment The movements of woren, lesbians and gay men, and black people to fight their particular forms of oppression make an essential contribution to the human race. struggle for a different society. They are organised around the principle "None so fit to break the chains The whole working class needs to fully commit itself to these struggles, Furthermore we fight for a strategic alliance between workers and these organisations - an alliance which respects their legitimate By building simultaneously revolutionary organisa tions in each country and a revolutionary International, we aim to guide and encompass the elobal interests of the workers and oppressed. By building a united struggle against exploitation and oppression we aim to ensure the survival of the If you think this is worth fighting for, and you like what you read in Socialist Outlook, why not join us? Drop a line to us at PO Box 1109, London N4 20U, and we'll be in touch. ultimately be broken down, Orwell argues, only by involvement in political struggles alongside the proletariat.
The need for English socialism to reflect its social and cultural background is set out at greater length in The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, a pamphlet written in 1941, when the war imparted a new urgency to the task of overthrowing the bourgeoisie and building a socialist society.
Here Orwell argued that a native socialist revolution could not be achieved by attempting to transplant onto English society the experience and ideas of the revolution in Russia or anyOutlook
where else, without regard to local circumstances.
Instead, an English revolution would take up the best elements of the country's culture and traditions: the distrust of unaccountable power, the belief in democracy and fair play, the 'common decency' and also the patriotism that Orwell sees as a progressive, not a conservative, force, "since it is a devotion to something that is always changing and yet is felt to be mystically the same". These things would be given a new, socialist content, infusing the country's plebeian traditions into a new political and economic regime, characterised by nationalisation of the means of production, constraints on personal incomes and democratisation of the educational system.
Orwell believed that the struggle against Hitler could be victorious only by turning it into a revolutionary war. Although the course of events did not bear out the book's prognosis, there is much to be said for its central idea - that socialism must, in part, be a progressive development of the existing national culture, not an alien This argument needs to be taken far more seriously by the left, despite the rather sentimental and ahistorical way in which Orwell presents it (not to mention various other problems, such as his neglect of the Scottish and Welsh national questions).
The critique of Stalinism Among the targets in The Road to Wigan Pier are the Stalinists, whom Orwell sees as isolated from the British working class, not least because of their uncritical adulation of the Soviet Union. It was through his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, however, that he saw Stalinism at its worst. Homage to Catalonia - perhaps his most important book, in political terms - describes how he went to Spain with to help defend the their liberal allies.
On Orwell's second visit to Barcelona in May 1937 it was clear that bourgeois normality was being restored. When political tension erupted into street-fighting between the two forces on the side of the Republic, the POUM was suppressed and its members, along with many anarchists and other revolutionaries, were thrown into prison, tortured or murdered by the Stalinist-controlled secret police. Orwell himself narrowly. escaped.
The experience convinced him that the 'official' Communist movement was a counter-revolutionary force, which consistently subordinated the interests of the working class to the dictates of Soviet foreign policy, with its alliances of convenience with bourgeois powers Homage to Catalonia was attacked by many on the left - far beyond the Communist Party itself Ken Loach's film Land and Freedom revived interest in the politics of the Spanish civil war awareness that the distortions spread by the Stalinists and their fellow-travellers represented something qualitatively different from the propaganda that had always been associated with major political and military conflict.
The development of totalitarian movements and regimes had been accompanied by the development of totalitarian habits of thought among the pro-Stalinist and profascist intelligențsia.
It was no longer enough for such people simply to attack their political adversaries: they had to attribute motives and associations to their opponents that made their ideas and actions appear too disingenuous or corrupt to be worthy of consideration. Thus, the Stalinists they attributed the views of their opponents to the deliberately disruptive activities of the "Trotskyfascist fifth column". These lies were repeated unquestioningly by pro-Communist press agement' has today attained a degree of sophistication that allows invasions, wars and repression to be perceived as necessary and desirable - as rebel intellectuals like Noam Chomsky and John Pilger have shown in detail.
And meanwhile, much of the far left continues to speak an incomprehensible, jargon-filled language that cuts it off from the very workers whose support it so desperately needs. We still have a lot to learn from Orwell: Reclaiming the legacy I have picked out just a few of Orwell's key ideas, but his writings are rich in social observation, insights into human relations and a determination to deflate the pomposity and disingenuousness of the rich and powerful. Orwell was never a Marxist, although he admired and defended (up to a point) both Marx and Trotsky. His arguments for socialism were often more emotional than scientific, but given his lack of a definite analytical method to interpret of the events he lived through, his judgement and political integrity show a creditable consistency. The books that I have mentioned, and the many shorter pieces found in The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters (4 vols.) should be essential reading for all socialists today, likewise the classic biography of Orwell by Bernard Crick. We need to reclaim the revolutionary and democratic ideas that ran through Orwell's work, if we are to maintain the link between the fight for socialism in the twenty-first century and the best traditions of the British left.