Lis (left) looks less than delighted at winning a second term on the NEC in 1998 Dave Packer According to Peter Manson in Neekly Warker (March 15th) the CPGB took on the role of leading the "revolutionary bloc" at the Socialst Allance In a classic sectarian fashion, their cabal attempted to foist on to the Conference their version of a revolutionary prohe SA, towards becoming a ewa utonary Daty Ins d course would have and cut off the Alliance, not only from the mass of the working class but the broad worker's vanguard It was premature to try to moose such a propramme. it evealed a scane understanding of what the Socialist Allance is today, and of the methoo of the united frone that is involved The Socialist Aliance brings together diverse left wing currents and individuals united in struggle against the capitalist offensive and the Blair rovernment. It is a united front of a special type, which bears within it the dynamic potentiality to become a new workers party:
This emergent party must by definition be based on the class strugge, , must be democratic and - if lt is to provide a socialist answer - must at some poinc adopt a revolutionary platform.
To understand what is needed at any point is to understand a process, which in tum regures an understanoi* of the dialectic.
Ultra-left
A revolutionary party will be brought into being through a complex process of revolutionor revolutonaries and of the Intervention, regroupmene wider recomposition of the workers movement, The Socialist Alliance can play an important part in this process as long as we dont let the ultra-left sectarians wreck it.
The majority at the conferne were fakely acusco o huin our trnic movit worse of not telling the truth to the workers. This is of coure the stock in trade of the sectarian.
You cannot build a broad united movement in struggle on the basis of a full revolutionary programme, except in a pre-revolutionary or revoly SIAUOI!
This clearty does not exist today. Or does it? Weekly Worker certainly sugest this when they write. sity for workers' Bolshevik minimum - i.e.. These demands are certainly part of a full revolutionary proemands they are appropriate in this form only in a pre revolutionary crisis. As l argued in my speech at ward demands such as "Self-defence is no offence" - a stogan which has now fortunatel en incorporated into the SA But it is only at the highest lovels of class strugk that the highest form of the united front, built on demands for workers councils (or sovi ets) and workers' militias is appropriate.
Nobogy at the conlererice said, "we don't always have to tell the truth (to the workers)" as the Weekly Worker daimed fo paraphrase Lenin, there is a time for propaganda which can explain many ideas, including the full programme of revoluagitotion, which explains a few ideas, but which are more tai lored to the current levels of consciousness.
Absurd
We should not attempt to force the whole of our version of the truth, down the throats move into action - this can It's frankly absurd for Weekly Worker to write; "that by defnition the only programme to 'challenge capitalism is a revolutionary one.
The whole premise of the united front is that reformist workers can move into struggle against capitalsm, sometimes to high level of mobilisation, without being revolutionaries. We can buik unity in action on a whole range of anti-capitalise demands included in the Socialist Aliance programme.
This programme represents a frontal chalengo to capitalism in today's conditions. It challenges capitalist property righits, owmership, control and management and confronts free market with planning and Control It proposes to tax and expropriate the rich and big heine lt cleno c calist logic of globalisation and the destruction of the environwnc ano vorouyy proke the indernden class strugale of the workers nationally and internationaly:
Weekly Worker reached new depths in reporting that i called for more resources for the police. In fact I repeated one of the slogans we used in Peckhom in the context of the murder of Damilola Taylor"No to more policing, more mecources for the community."
Anyone who knows me or the ISG would have understood the point i was making Weekly Worker have made a long and difficult attempe to break out of their Stalinist past ,and nave in maty respee succeeded. This is to be welcomed, but the old baggage still weighs heavy. It often leads them to falsify opponents" positions - which ends up being a slide back to those sectarian methods of the