Introducing ourselves
Number 1, SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT Editor HARRY SLOAN explains the reasons for
launching a new left wing magazine. OUR PRIDE and satisfaction in presenting this, our first issue of Socialist Viewpoint is tempered by our knowledge that we are offering a new addition to what many workers already find a baffling array of left wing publications in Britain. It is not enough to offer what we believe to be informative, interesting and useful articles: we must also explain our decision to enter the fray and set up in competition with existing journals and papers.
Firstly, we should say clearly that our decision was not entirely voluntary. Most of those who support, write for and sell this first issue of Socialist Viewpoint were until recently supporters and sellers of the paper Socialist Organiser. We disagreed with its policy and perspective on certain issues, but felt that these could be argued through in comradely fashion within a single broad organisation. Unfortunately, when we began to argue our positions and use our right to put forward a line opposed to that of Socialist Organiser, we found that the much-vaunted openness of its columns as a forum for discussion was swiftly abandoned. "Discussions" swiftly degenerated into insults and abuse; and eventually organisational steps were taken to drive out several dozen SO supporters who held independent Views - to the extent of excluding them from the SO Summer School.
This intolerance of legitimate opposition on the part of the Socialist Organiser leadership has been matched by a political degeneration visible in the content of the paper itself, particularly since the June 1983 General Election. Since then, SO has failed to put forward any detailed analysis of the new situation, or develop any strategic orientation towards the current stage of the struggle in the Labour Party. From its previous strong point as a political and organisational focal point of the most determined fighters in the Labour Party, SO has become merely a camp follower, occasionally reprinting speeches of left wing Labour MPs.
This turn away from giving leadership to the Labour left has been
Autumn 1984. matched by a dwindling analysis and a failure to offer direction or policy for industrial disputes. Even the current campaign of energetic fund-raising and support for the striking Notts miners is not linked in SO to any development of a deeper analysis of the stages of the struggle, the manoeuvres of the TUC, or the tasks of the period ahead.
Retreating from concrete analysis and leadership at home, Socialist Organiser has also largely withdrawn from active international solidarity work, and from any serious analysis of the class struggle on a world scale. It has become a paper which we could not in all honesty urge workers to buy, or hope, in the absence of any democratic procedures or Editorial Board, to put back on the right lines.
The topics raised in this criticism of Socialist Organiser are pointers to the priorities we see for Socialist Viewpoint and for any workers' publication aimed at building a Marxist leadership in Britain.
Socialist Organiser has gone to the dogs — but our decision to launch Socialist Viewpoint comes not just for negative reasons. We are confident that as comrades with our own political history, our own combination of traditions and strengths, with long-standing roots in a range of unions and experience of leading and intervening in disputes, with an active involvement in struggles for women's rights and other organisations of the oppressed, we have something useful to say to today's workers movement.
We believe that the political programme and method which we are fighting to develop, and our consistent fight against sectarianism and bureaucratism at every level of the workers' movement are tools that can help build a healthy left wing current in Britain and regroup Trotskyists on a world scale around a principled programme. Socialist Viewpoint is the shop window for our politics.
We intend future issues of Socialist Viewpoint, like this one, to carry a mixture of news, analysis and international coverage, historical and theoretical material. This issue also carries as a special feature documents from the newly-formed Socialist Group, explaining the recent split in the Workers Socialist League. Socialist Viewpoint is open to debate and discussion; we welcome readers' letters and written contributions.
We hope that discussion and the positions we put forward will persuade many of our readers that they should become supporters in the coming months. Socialist Viewpoint, No. 1, Autumn 1984. Page 1
TUC 1984: A