Monthly Analysisand Discussion REVIEW September 1979

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BENN:THE WORKERSAVIOUR?

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BENN: THE WORKERSSAVIOUR?

The theme of this Issue is the Thatcher government'soffensive against our organisations and livingstandards, and the response from the labourm o v e m e n t :

Alex Callinlcos analyses the nature of the Toryoffensive. Roger Cox outlines the task of socialistmilitants on the shopfloor: re-bullding rank-and-fileorganisation.Stuart Holland MP puts the case for the left wing of theLabour Party. Jon Bearman puts the new Labour leftaround Tony Benn, Holland and others in theirhistorical and political context, while Steve Jefferyscompletes the analysis of the decline of the main forceto the left of Labour, the Communist Party, which hebegan in our last Issue.O n e o f t h e m a i n r e f o r m s u n d e r a t t a c k I s t h e 1 9 6 7Abortion Act. Mary Deaton describes the anti-abortioncampaign mounted by the new right in the US.The debate on women's liberation and socialism begunin our last Issue continues with Lindsey German'sreview of Beyond the Fragments by SheilaRowbotham. In our next issue, Alix Holt gives her viewso n A l e x a n d r a K o l l o n t a i ' s r e l e v a n c e t o t h e m o d e r nw o m e n ' s m o v e m e n t .

News/Analys is 2-12The Tory Offensive 13Rebuilding the Leadership 15S t u a r t H o l l a n d i n t e r v i e w e d 1 6O n w a r d M a r c h o f B e n n 2 1

Reproduction Rights in the US 23M a r c u s e 2 5R e v i e w s 2 6 - 3 2L e t t e r s 3 3T h e C P G B a t 6 0 3 5

Sociaiisl Review is a monthlymagazine of analysis and discussionsponsored by the Socialist WorkersParty.Contributions and correspondenceshould be sent to the editor by thebeginning of the month precedingp u b l i c a t i o n .

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E d i t o r A l e x C a l l i n i c o sBusiness Manager Tony PearsonProduc t ion J .C . , P.C .Printed by East End (Offset) Ltd,PC Box 82, London, E2

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N e w s &analysis

The legal offensiveThe lines of conflict between theTo r i e s a n d t h e o f fi c i a l t r a d eunion movement on the law arenow being clearly drawn.

T h e T U C i s t o c o n t i n u etalking with Prior and Co.—for' p r o p a g a n d a ' r e a s o n s , t odemonstrate how reasonable itis. But Tory changes are to beopposed, because they willcause ' industrial difficult ies'.

Two can play at this game.The proposals for legal changeson picketing and union immunity from prosecution havebeen deliberately pitched at anextreme level.

Taken literally, as the TUCand lots of lawyers have been

Q U O T E :'It is important that nothingshould done to impair theability of employers to reorganise their workforce andtheir terms and conditions ofwork so as to improve efficiency.'Lord Denning, 1977

pointing out, they'd make anys t r i k e a c t i o n o p e n t o a nemployer's legal comeback.This is not what the Tories, andcertainly not what the rulingclass, are after.

The Engineering Employers'F e d e r a t i o n — a n a c c u r a t eb a r o m e t e r i f e v e r t h e r e w a s

one—recently wrote to Priorurging much more limitedchanges to the law—whichw o u l d c o n fi n e t h e a t t a c k t o

p icket ing and unoffic ia lm i l i t a n t s b u t l e a v e t h e c l o s e d

shop and union immunity fromprosecution roughly as they are.

The stage is set for a majorTory 'concession' which couldseriously embarrass the TUC.

B u t w h i l e t h e T U C h a s b e e n

working itself into a froth aboutchanges to the law, the bossesand the judges have been

demonstrating that the old lawwh ich has been knock ingaround for a bit will do verynicely with a few 'interpretations' and 'developments'.

A carefully developed andfar-reaching attack has in factbeen taking place for some timenow—gathering pace since lastwinter's strikes—and is having apotentially much more seriouseffect than any changes to thel a w .

For far from resisting injunctions, massive fines—'costs'—and the erosion of trade unionrights, the leadership in everyu n i o n s o f a r a t t a c k e d h a s s a tmesmerised before the Majestyo f t h e L a w .

Denning's Rules,OK?This is producingan extreme

ly serious crisis, above all for theprint unions. The NGA has sofar forked out £84,000 to thecourts for its attempts to blackthe anti-union T. Bailey For-man {Not t ingham Even ingPost) outfit.

The NUJislikelytofaceabil lof over £100,000 by the end ofthe year as a result of legalattacks from scabs among itsown membership and from theemployers.

Finance is so bad that theu n i o n i s i n d i f fi c u l t i e s o v e r

providing legal aid for membersarrested on picket lines.

How has this happened?The answer goes back to the

summer of 1977 when in the

hysterical atmosphere causedby the Grunwick picketing,senior judges—above all LordDenning—set out to change thebalance of forces by applyingn e w r u l e s t o w h a t w a s a n d w a sn o t l a w f u l i n d u s t r i a l a c t i o n .

A key-note was struck byDenning when he s loppedSOGAT supporting a strike byj ou rna l i s t s on t he M i r r o r.

2

Barron Denning of Whi tchurch.

SOGAT members on t he Express refused to handle extracopies printed to grab theMirror's readership.

Denning said SOGAT wasn'tinvolved in the dispute, and theExpress was 'only acting in theway of normal commerce'.

To stop SOGAT Denningclaimed the blacking was not 'infurtherance' of the NUJ's strike,just a 'consequence' of it.

I t was treated as irrelevantthat SOGAT had an agreementwith the Express not to handlemore than a certain number ofp a p e r s .

N o t h i n g m u c h m o r ehappened—except harassmento f t he G runw ick s t r i ke r s—t i l lOctober last year, when Denning decided that the NationalUnion of Seamen's blacking ofa ship was outside the lawbecause they were only trying to

e n f o r c e I n t e r n a t i o n a lTransport Federation pay ratesand not acting in support of theship's crew.

This was followed very rapidly by an even more far-fetcheddec is ion . The NUJ wen t i n todispute with the NewspaperSociety (provincial newspaperemployers) and instructed thePress Association journalists tostrike in support. Only halfcame out, so Reet Street journalists blacked the PA.

Denning and his cronies(Lord Justices Lawton andBrandon) said the blacking ofPA was not in furtherance' ofthe NS strike: to do so it wouldhave to have 'some practicaleffect in bringing pressure tobear on the other side to thedispute'. The PA is part-ownedby the NS, but the judges didn'tthink this important.

Less than a month later thefull majesty of the law descended on Reg Fall, a T&G memberpicketing United Biscuits during the lorry drivers' dispute.

His picketing was held illegalon the grounds that he wasn'tacting directly in support of thedrivers' strike, that picketingUnited Biscuits wouldn't bringpressure on the Road HaulageAssociation, that he didn't havea genuine intention to further'the dispute and (a new one this)he was disobeying the T&Gcode of practice on picketingissued by Moss Evans afterfrantic talks with Callaghan.

Another six weeks went byand Denning popped up again,this time to suggest that NUPEand the GMWU might be guiltyof conspiracy during the councilworkers' dispute for preventingHaringey Council from keeping its schools open.

Just another 24 dayspassed—they work fast, thesejudges, considering they're soo l d — t h e N G A a n d S L A D Ewere hauled into the courts by ahost of companies—AssociatedNewspapers , Wes tm ins te rP r e s s , T r u s t H o u s e F o r t e ,Boots . . .—because they'dblacked advertisers who'd goneon placing adverts with theNottingham Evening Post.

'Outrageous' said Denning:in te r f e rence w i t h commerc ia lcontracts, contracts of employm e n t a n d — a n d n e w o n e t h i s —interference with the freedom ofthe press (advertisers?) which isa fundamental principle implicit in our law'.

The other two judges were alittle more modest—they said itw a s n ' t t h e m o m e n t t o d e c i d e s o

important a question!Rnally and most bizarre of

all came IDenning's decisionthat the whole of last winter'sjournalists' strike had beenillegal because there wasn't asecret ballot. NUJ rules saythere must be a ballot (with atwo-thirds majority) if there isto be a 'wi thdrawal of labouraffecting a majority of them e m b e r s . '

Denning took this to meant h a t b e c a u s e t h e N U J s s t r i k ea f f e c t e d t h e w h o l e u n i o n —blacking non-unionists andscabs e tc—then there shou ldhave been a national ballot ofall members (with a two-thirds

majority) before the 9,000provincial members came out!

R e a d e r s w h o h a v e f o l l o w e d

Lord Denning this far may nothave not iced that i t 's cur ioust h a t a c t i o n w h i c h w a s n o tapparently 'in furtherance of atrade dispute'—the blacking oft h e P r e s s A s s o c i a t i o n l a s tDecember—now seems to haveb e c o m e a ' w i t h d r a w a l o f

employment affecting a majority' of members of the NUJ.

They may also have noticedthat the noble Lord's decisionmeans that every time NUJm e m b e r s a r e c a l l e d o u t o ns t r i k e , i t n e e d s a t w o - t h i r d smajority in a national ballot—because every time the unionsends out an official instructionnot to supply copy to scabpublications.

A c l i m a t e o f f e a rAfter this slightly breathless

rush through the labyrinths ofprejudice, the most importantthing we need to note is theeffect on the bureaucracy ands e c t i o n s o f t h e r a n k - a n d - fi l e

leadership.The NGA is now resisting

calling out its membership on aone-day solidarity strike insupport of Nottingham, for fearo f t h e ' l a w ' . S O G AT L o n d o nCentral branch was recentlypersuaded to call off its blacking of the Stratford Express, forfear of the 'law'.

The TUG Printing Industries

Committee is said to be scaredof organising mass pickets ofNottingham because of thepossibi l i ty of conspiracycharges. The NUJ is unable topay its members fines fromcentral funds because of a courtdecision against it. The NUJ hasstopped instructing its membersnot to deal with organisationssupplying copy to papers indispute ...

The re i s a c l ima te o f f ea rc o m b i n e d w i t h c o w a r d i c epermeating previously strongs e c t i o n s o f t h e t r a d e u n i o nmovement that must be sweptaway if our organisations arenot to be paralysed. The firstsigns of this happening haveb e e n B a t t e r s e a a n dWandswor th Trades Counc i l ' sdefiance of injunctions againstpicketing.

The need is for this type ofdefiance to be organised andstrengthened to the level wheret h e N G A . N U J , S L A D E .UCATT or whoever puts twofingers up to Denning and hism a t e s . A t t h e m o m e n t t h eemployers are having a fieldday. Dave Beecham

ONE LAW FOR THE RICH

Almost as if to provide anobject lesson in the impart ia l i t y o f the law. LordDenning has recentlydelivered another importantjudgement.

This time he has sprung tot h e d e f e n c e o f t h e R o m -minster financial group andw h a t t h e E c o n o m i s t c a l l st h e i r f a m o u s s c h e m e s f o rtax min imisat ion ' .

T h e s e a r c h o fRossminster's Mayfair offices and of some privatehouses by the Board ofInland Revenue was, according to Denning, illegalb e c a u s e t h e w a r r a n tauthorising the searches didnot specify what the taxmenwere looking for.

Denn ing i nvoked thefamous 18th century case ofJohn Wilkes, the radicaljournalist whose papers wereseized by agents of GeorgeI I I . The se i zu re was dec la red

illegal because it was carriedout under a genera! warrant.

At least Denning has beenhonest enough to tell us whatthe f reedom' Thatcher andCo are concerned to defendi s a l l a b o u t . I n t h e I S t h

century it meant freedom forthe radical press to attackthe gove rnmen t . Todayfreedom' means the right ofrich people to evade taxes.

Wages;

The battlesaheadFor the first time in years thereh a s b e e n n o s u m m e r ' t r u c e ' o n

wages. The engineers' disputealone would have seen to that,but this year's pay battles havebeen marked by workers'determ i n a t i o n n o t t o s e t t l e f o ranything less than they haveto—especially since the budget.

There has no t been a mass i vewave of wage militancy yet.A p a r t f r o m C h r y s l e r a n dGEC—where management hasfirmly dug in i ts toes—thesignificant signs have been votesagainst accepting wage offersrather than votes in favour ofa l l - o u t s t r i k e a c t i o n .

Over and over again—thep o w e r w o r k e r s , I C l ,Pilkingtons etc—section aftersection has declared itself dissatisfied with what employershave to offer, without beingwilling to face a showdown.

T h e s h o w d o w n s t h a t h a v etaken place—at Chrysler, GEC,ITV in particular—have largelybeen of management's choosing. At ITV for example, thetechnic ians went on s t r ike inresponse to the employers' clearintention of locking them out.

W h a t e v e r t h e r e a s o n s f o r t h i s

mood—militancy up to a cert a i n l i m i t — t h e r e s u l t h a s b e e n

to put a sharp brake on paysettlements. Right across theb o a r d — i n w e a k a s w e l l a s

strong places—wage increaseshave been delayed two, three oreven up to six months.

The long negotiations overthe engineering agreement havealso meant people holding backat plant level. This effectively

means that the pay 'round', soloved by the newspapers andemployers alike, no longer exis t s .

The idea of a pay 'year' is alsodisappearing—as it did beforethe massive wages offensive ina u t u m n 1 9 7 4 .

I n t e r i m

Meanwhile quite large groupsof workers have been comingback for a .second bite at thecherrry before their 12 monthsdeals are up. This has happenedat Kodak and Shell.

And in a very interestingmove severa l o f the o i l companies—BP. Petrof ina and

Mobil—have pre-empted payclaims by tanker drivers withi n c r e a s e s b e f o r e t h e o l dagreements run out. Mobil hasmanaged to break away completely from the normalJanuary settlement dates.

Br i t ish Oxygen has hadsimilar hopes of moving awayfrom the 'dangerous' autumnwage bargaining period and oftrying to prevent BOC stewardsbeing the spearhead of any payo f fens i ve . I t doesn ' t l ook asthough the company is going toget away with it.

Nor does it look as thoughthe road haulage bosses' effortsto shift their settlements into thenew year is going to have thatmuch effect. The Birminghamdrivers from the container base(the 5/35 branch of the T&G)still have their deal runningfrom 1 September, and nothingthe RHA can do will stop themsetting the pace.

R e d O c t o b e r ?If there is going to be a

m a s s i v e b r e a k o u t f r o m t h eunofficial wage controls whichthe employers are trying toapply, it looks as though October could be the month.

There's likely to be a hugebuild-up of wage-claims bothnationally and at factory level.

with inflation pushing towardsthe 17 per cent level.

Of course, the second week inO c t o b e r i s w h e n t a x r e b a t e s

come through, which the Torieshope will take some of feelingo u t o f t h e c l a i m s .

Details of the most significant pressure points and ofsome other places where therecould be trouble are containedi n t h e t w o b o x e s .

A lot clearly depends on the

Wages—The Big Battalions

September

Rolls-Royce, CreweB O C

V a u x h a l lScottish & Newcastle BreweriesBirmingham Containerbased r i v e r s

Glass Container industrywire industryI C L

[.eyland Vehicles, ChorleyReed Paper

Wages—Places to Watch

SeptemberBritish SugarCaterpillar, GlasgowLi t t lewoods. Mal l OrderHoneywell, GlasgowMather & Piatt , ManchesterB e e c h a m s

Grimsby/Immingham DocksS u n d e r l a n d F o r g e &EngineeringR H M F o o d s

C l i m a x C o n v e y a n c e r ,WarringtonReyrolle (NEI)ITT, Bo l t onGainsborough CornardAlcan, SkelmersdaleBri t ish Aluminium, I>ancs.

outcome of the engineeringdispute and for that matter anumber of other outstandingclaims—government dock andm u n i t i o n s w o r k e r s f o rexample—as well as strength offeeling in defence of jobs.

I f r e s i s t a n c e f a l t e r s i n t h e

yards on the Tyne. Clyde andMersey a lot of people are goingto start looking over theirs h o u l d e r s .

Reg Halt.

O c t o b e r

Atommic Energy AuthorityBrit ish Nuclear FuelsMeta l BoxB B C

Rolls-Royce, DerbyM i c h e l i n

IMI, BirminghamTate & Lyle

O c t o b e r

Alcan, NewportD o w t y G r o u p ,Gloucester /Che l tenhamUnited Glass, Socttish plantsE lec t ro lux , Lu tonHawker Siddeley, BroughtonT h o r n C o l o u r T u b e s

Plessey, BeestonGEC, L incolnC r a n e F r u e h a u f

Eaton GroupLeyland Paints

and also—Breweries, Hul l andSheffield engineers.

d o n ' t£80 like hoursMondays,

A l l O u t

Engineers:

DefinitelyMaybeIt all depends on where youare. On one hand look at thtmass meetings in Leeds orB r a d f o r d w h i c h h a v e v o t e dunanimously for all out strikea c t i o n . O r C o v e n t r y a n dManchester where engineershave come out 100 per cents o l i d .

O n t h e o t h e r h a n d , w h a tabout London—hardly a picketin sight, let alone a mass

meeting to call for anything. OrLeyland, where opposition tothe two-day strike call has beene v i d e n t .

C o n f u s i o n i s e v i d e n t . N o t

only on the left, but in the ranksof the AUEW bureaucracy andthe Engineering Employers'F e d e r a t i o n .

One su re f ac t i s t ha t no r the rna r e a s — t h e W e s t M i d l a n d s ,L a n c a s h i r e , Y o r k s h i r e ,S c o t l a n d — h a v e b e e n m u c hb e t t e r t h a n L o n d o n a n d t h eS o u t h E a s t .

Once aga in the Londonb r o a d l e f t — i n o f f i c e s i n c ebefore the second world war— 'has been shown up as bankrupt.

And the worst thing is thatthis apathetic mood has spreadamong the rank and file; theworst example being a petitionin support of normal workingby women piece-workers atT r i c o .

I n t h e M a n c h e s t e r a r e a t h e

picture has been completelyd i f f e r e n t . F i r m s h a v e b e e nbreaking ranks, firms outsidethe EEF have been hit by thestrikes and are looking for waysto settle, stewards meetingshave been the best attended fory e a r s .

So far (prior to the two-daystrikes) the employers havepursued quite a cautious line.

Public Sector:

Clegg Sews-UpSell-Out

Nationally they were surprisedby the backing for the one-daystoppages; so far there havebeen only isolated attempts atl o c k o u t s .

The EEF has been waitingquite openly for frustrationwith the temporary stoppagesto set in, and they are prettyconvinced that the two-daystrike call will split the rank andfi l e .

Two-day strikes are as good away as possible to cause disunity and disarray; some people, incontinuous process plants, willprobably be locked out.

Others will go from Fridaynight to Wednesday morning

without any information .orinvolvement in the dispute,unless they turn up forpicketing. In the weaker areas—such as in London dr Br i t ishLeyland—there ^ a lot ofpressure to work normally.

Meanwh i le the * AUEWleadership is looking increasingly hard fo^ some sort ofcompromise. The EEF has asgood as offered new talks on aslightly improved offer, if theCSEU is more 'realistic'.

The AUEW right wing'sproblem is that they only have ashort time during which theycan sell this sort of shabby deal.Bill George

The first award.s made by theClegg Commission to the publicsector workers suggest that it iscarrying out its work exactly asit was asked to do by the LabourGovernment that set it up.

The comparability studies ithas done have produced resultsthat give little to the low paid,particularly the 600,000 part-timers, almost all women, whowork for the local authori t ies,and the awards to the highergrades not only restore different i a l s b u t m a k e t h e m w i d e r t h a ne v e r b e f o r e .

What Clegg has not done, hew a s n o t a s k e d t o d o . T h e t e r m s

of the references to Clegg didnot say that the commissionshould resolve the problem oflow pay. The fact that the unionl e a d e r s w h o r e c o m m e n d e d

s e t t l e m e n t o f l a s t w i n t e r ' s d i s

putes have fought shy of criticising Clegg shows that they havealways been aware of themeaning of the terms theyaccepted.Almost the left press hasdenounced Clegg for not givinghigher awards. We could jointhe denunciations but his wouldmean that we, too, would bemissing the point. The trouble isthat the Cleggawards have beencriticised out of context.

Looking back you mightremember how the nine percentplus £1, plus the promise ofcomparability exercises wassold. The Labour governmentwas in disarray with so manypublic sector workers on strikeand the public sector unionleaders were looking for away out.

D a v i d B a s n e t t , g e n e r a lsecretary of the GMWU, and aclose friend of Jim Callaghanwas the key instigator of theidea that a comparabilitypromise might get his membersb a c k t o w o r k a n s a v e , o rpostpone the crisis for, theLabour government.

At a press conference calledby the GMWU on the same daythat the first report of the CleggCommission was published,Basne t t and Char l i e Donne t ,t h e G M W U ' s n a t i o n a l o f fi c e rfor the public sector dispute,said that Clegg proved that theywere right to accept the comparability referenres as the'selling part' of the settlements

l a s t w i n t e r .

In fact Charl ie Donnet wasm o r e t h a n h o n e s t a b o u twhy the Clegg solution was soimportant for solving the disputes. He said, 'last winter wewere up to our necks in it andlooking for something to savethe national interest'.Bureaucratic quarrels

One of the many tragediest h a t o c c u r r e d i n t h e r u s h t osettle the public sector strikeswas the way in which the unionl e a d e r s i n v o l v e d f o r c e ddivisions among the members.

W h e n t h e N U P E m e m b e r sa n d t h e N U P E e x e c u t i v eattented to go it alone, leadersof the other unions involved,G M W U , T G W U , a n d C o H S E ,not only put very hard pressureon NUPE to settle, but were in aposition to outvote NUPE onthe negotiating councils, despiteNUPE's numerical strengthamong those involved in thedispute.

What was so cynical aboutt h e b u r e a u c r a t i cmanoeuverings was that theNUPE members are amongstthe lowest grades, and thereforethe lowest paid, the very groupsthat have done so badly out ofthe Cleggawards, and currentlythe ones most threatened by theTory job cuts.

The Tory government's reaction has been to say, in much thesame way as it has said to thecivil servants, that part of theincreases in earnings will haveto be financed through job-less,wi th in the contex t o f overa l l ,more astringent, budgets.

All this means that when thelocal authority and NHS ancillary workers come to puttheir claims this November andDecember they can have littletrust in their union leaders. Themuted response to Clegg byBasnett and Fisher is accompanied by complete silence on,how to fight this winter for eventhe ach ievement th i s t ime o fwhat so many struck for lastt i m e .

The lesson that the responsibility for Clegg's tiny increaseslies on the shoulders of the keyunion negotiators may be ahard one to swallow, but it maystop a lot of good, membersgoing up a blind alley again.J o n W a t s o n

5

There have been votes for all-out strikes in Leeds and Bradford. Anarrow vote against a total stoppage in Hull, a clear majority infavour of a total stoppage in Birmingham (the vote was not taken).The strikes have been near 100 per cent solid.

Meanwhile in London on the third Monday stoppage, a quickbike ride round the Park Royal area showed a number of factoriesclosed—whether on holiday or on strike no one seemed to know—acomplete absence of pickets, and Park Royal Vehicles, an old CPhaven, working normally.

Staff in Willesden's Lucas Aerospace factory also appeared to beworking—but it was probably only an alternative plan ....

Redundancy in SteelOutrage at the announceddecisions to close Shotton andCorby steelworks should notobscure the fact that these aresimply the latest incidents in amassive reorganisation of theBritish steel industry.

According to the FinancialT i m e s :

'Nearly 26,000 jobs have beenreduced from the Brit ish SteelCorporation's chain of iron,steel and construction works inthe past two and a half years—regarded as the most drasticrestructuring programme so farachieved by a member of theEuropean Coal and Steel Community'.

Total employment in theBSC has fallen from a peak levelof nearly 230,000 in 1974 tobetween 182,000 and 183,000today. Nearly 100 plants andoffices have been closed sinceJanuary 1977.

All this, note, took placeunder a Labour government.The new measures announcedby the Tories are simply ac o n t i n u a t i o n o f t h e r e s t r u cturing programme initiatedunder Wilson and Callaghan.The aim is to cut another 16,000jobs in the next 12 months.

Even this may not be enough.BSC'S target is to produce 15-16million liquid tonnes a year by1 9 8 0 - 8 1 w i t h a w o r k f o r c e o f160,000 to 170,000.

By world standards these

figures involve quite lowproductivity levels. The Frenchgovernment plans to cut its steelworkforce from 130,000 to110,000 while continuing toproduce over 20 million liquidtonnes a year.

Hence the persistent rumoursreported by the FT that in alast, desperate bid to get backinto profitabil ity, the BritishSteel Board might suggest to thegovernment the the closure ofone of the half-dozen majorsteel-making centres' such asLlanwern or Scunthorpe.

So in the end the closuresw h i c h s t e e l - w o r k e r s h a v egrudgingly accepted because ofappeals to the national interestby union leaders like Bill Sirs(plus sizable redundancypayments) will prove to be aprelude to yet more savagea t t a c k s .

Even then, the FT suggests,closing down Llanwern, forexample, 'would make Britishindustry even more dependenton imported sheet steel. Andimports already account forabout half the British market'.

W h a t b e t t e r i l l u s t r a t i o n o fcapitalism's crazy logic couldthere be? In order to make anindustry competitive, we havefirst to destroy it. Such is thelaw of the market preached tous by our Tory rulers.

Alex Cal l in icos '

Blue Murder

'Having handled all the stupida n d v i c i o u s s l a n d e r s o n t h e

Special Patrol Group superbly.Sir David McNee goes andspoils it by ordering an "investigation" into the role of theS P G . . . '

'Why. at a time when thelunatic left are bandying wordsa b o u t m u r d e r e r s a n d t h u g s ,does the commiss ioner makethe slightest concession to theclamour?' {Pol ice, monthlymagazine of the Police Federation, July 1979).

W h y i n d e e d ? A b i g g e rmystery, however, is what hashappened to the investigationi n t o t h e d e a t h o f B l a i r P e a c h .H e w a s k i l l e d o v e r f o u r m o n t h s

ago, and there is still not a word.The police clearly hope that ifthey wait long enough peoplewill forget. They won't.

Meanwhile, the competitionb e t w e e n L o n d o n a n d

Merseyside police forces for thepolice brutality award continues. On the.night of I AugustSam Singh Grewal died inSouthall police station. According to the police he choked onh i s o w n v o m i t .

When his family doctor wasfinally allowed to see the body,he saw bru ises on the l imbs anda s e v e r e b r u i s e o n t h e h e a d .Now the inquest has beenadjourned for police forensict e s t s .

IranT h e l a s t t w o w e e k s h a v e s e e n

the regime of the AyatollahKhomeini and the pettybourgeois masses who back himlaunch a mass ive assau l t on

The New Statesman recentlyl o o k e d i n t o t h e e v e n t s s u r r o u n

ding the death of Jimmy Kellyin Huyton police station inJune. A post-mortem revealedthat Kelly's jaw was fractured intwo places, a vertebra wascrushed and the upper part ofhis body was covered in bruises.

thei r real or potent ia l opponents.

The two major targets havebeen the Kurdish minority int h e w e s t o f I r a n a n d t h e l i b e r a land left-wing opposition in thecentral, properly Persian, partof I ran around Tehran.

T h e t r o u b l e i n Te h r a n c a m e

t o a h e a d w h e n t h e I s l a m i cG u a r d s — t h e K o m i t e h s —

Kelly died of heart failurebrought on by ser ious injuries, shock and drunkenness.

The NS's investigations uncovered evidence that Kelly'sdeath was preceded by a week ofpolice violence at the station.

Systematic beatings withtruncheons, boots and knotted

closed down the liberal paperAyendegan on 7 August.

Although the 'Ministry forNational Guidance' had alreadyimposed severe press curbs,including heavy punishment forinsulting religious leaders, thisnew attack ona paper which hadcarried much reporting of therigging tactics employed by thep r o - K h o m e i n i I s l a m i cRepublican Party in the election to the 'Council of Experts'on 3 August was seen by bothsides as an sa sign of a bigsides as a sign of a big increasein repression against the left.

On 12 August, 100,000 people ranging from liberals to themilitants of the left-wingguerrilla groups marched forpress freedom. They were attacked by Islamic extremistsand more than 160 people wereinjured. The following day theTehran headquarters of theFedayeen guerrilla group weresacked by a reactionary mob.

T h e I s l a m i c l e f t - w i n gg u e r r i l l a g r o u p , t h e

towels and repeated use ofcigarette bums left cell inmateswi th broken bones and o therinjuries requiring hospital treatm e n t .

W e k n o w t h e S P G a r e c o m

pletely out of control—now therest of the force are followings u i t .

Mojahadeen-e-Khalq, werebetter prepared and defendedt h e i r h e a d q u a r t e r s w i t harmoured cars and anti-aircraftweapons. Since then, pressurehas mounted in Tehran and all

left-wing publications are nowofficially closed down, althoughsome still appear in underground form.

T h e a t t a c k o n t h e K u r d s i s amuch more desperate adventuresince it involves a direct attackupon a traditionally militant,well-organised and well-armednational group.

The Iranian army is still in as t a t e o f c o n f u s i o n a n d t h eseriousness of the AyatollahK h o m e i n i ' s t h r e a t t o t h e K u r d s

was emphasized when he calledu p o n a l l a r m e d I s l a m i cmi l i tants to rush to Kurdistanto fight the Kurds.

In doing so, he called themain Kurdish party, the Kurd i s h D e m o c r a t i c P a r t y ,'devilish'; since this Is the samet e r m a s i s u s e d t o d e s c r i b e t h eShah and a l l h i s wo rks , t he

Fred Haliday, recently returned from Iran, wrote in the NewStatesman of 'the growth of irregular military units, recruitingyoung unemployed men to carry out vigilante tasks'—groups suchas the Regiment of Youth, the Blackshirts, the Army of Guards, aswell as the official Revolutionary Guards and the Komiteh Militia.

'Ill-trained and divided as these units may be,and in incapable offacing seriously armed foes like the Kurds, they are nonetheless afromidable force of urban repression and can be sure of furtherexpansion in a time of high unemployment. In late July up to 60.000of such irregulars paraded through the streets of Tehran ...

'Equally sinister is the rise of a new secret police organisationcalled SAVAME—SAVAK with one word altered ("Country"changed to "Nation"). According to one man who recently cameout of Evin jail, the imprisoned members of the former Counter-Espionage section of SAVAK were summoned to the central officethere some weeks ago and asked to start working again, forSAVAME. Some of the indictments against left-wingers now in jailare based on old SAVAK files'.

6

S P E C I A L P A T R O L G R O U P S I N T H E U K

F o r c e N a m e o f G r o u p D a t e S i z e *e s t a b l i s h e d

E n g l a n dA v o n & S o m e r s e t T a s k F o r c e 1 9 7 3 5 5

C i t y o f L o n d o n Special Operations Group 1 9 7 7 1 6D e r b y s h i r e Spec ia l Opera t i ons Un i t 1 9 7 0 11 ( 1 9 7 6 )E s s e x Force Support Unit 1 9 7 3 3 2 ( 1 9 7 4 )G l o u c e s t e r s h i r e Ta s k F o r c eGreater Manchester Tactical Aid Group 1 9 7 6 7 0 ( 1 9 7 7 )H e r t f o r d s h i r e Ta c t i c a l P a t r o l G r o u p 1 9 6 5 2 8

H u m b e r s i d e S u p p o r t G r o u p 1 9 7 8 4 7

L a n c a s h i r e P o l i c e S u p p o r t U n i t 1 9 7 8M e r s e y s i d e T a s k F o r c e 1 9 7 4 - 7 6 68 (1975 )

O p e r a t i o n a l S u p p o r t D i v i s i o n 1 9 7 6M e t r o p o l i t a n P o l i c e Special Patrol Group 1 9 6 5 2 0 4N o r f o l k P o l i c e S u p p o r t U n i tN o r t h u m b r i a Special Patrol Group 1 9 7 4 4 6 ( 1 9 7 7 )N o r t h Yo r k s h i r e T a s k F o r c e 1 9 7 4

N o t t i n g h a m s h i r e Spec ia l Opera t i ons Un i t 3 4 ( 1 9 7 6 )S t a f f o r d s h i r e Force Support Unit 1 9 7 6 2 3T h a m e s Va l l e y Support Group 1 9 6 9 4 1We s t M i d l a n d s Special Patrol Group 1 9 7 0 8 5W e s t Yo r k s h i r e T a s k F o r c e s 1 9 7 4

WaleisG w e n t S u p p o r t G r o u p 1 9 7 2 2 0S o u t h W a l e s Special Patrol Group 1 9 7 5 5 4S c o t l a n d

C e n t r a l S c o t l a n d Support Group _

S t r a t h c i y d e S u p p o r t U n i t s 1 9 7 3 1 4 5 ( 1 9 7 5 )N . I r e l a n d

R o y a l U l s t e rC o n s t a b u l a r y Special Patrol Group 1 9 7 0 3 6 8* 1978 figures except where stated

State Research Bulletin (vol 2) No 13/August-September 1979/Page 139

broadcast amounted to a cal lfor a savage attack on theK u r d s .

If the situation in Kurdistancontinues to get worse, there isevery prospect of large-scalemassacres of the Kurdish people.

The reasons for this suddenlurch into military confrontation with the opposition aresimple. The national minoritiesin Iran are angry that the draftconstitution promises themnothing in the way of self-government or national rightsand the demand not simply fora u t o n o m o u s a d m i n i s t r a t i o nb u t f o r n a t i o n a l s e l f -determination has recently beengrowing.

In some areas—among theK u r d s a n d t h e Tu r k o m a n s —peasants have begun seizingland f rom the landowners . Inaddition, Kurdistan at least hasbeen an area of relativelyliberalism in religious matterssince the overthrow of the Shah,with alcohol openly on sale andwomen having a far moreprominent place in political life.

T h u s K h o m e i n i a n d h i sfollowers had every incentive tosmash the best organised opposition before the tentativel i n k s b e t w e e n t h e v a r i o u snational minorities and the leftgrew to anything substantial.Also, to break the power of thebest-organised group would actas a warning to any otherminority which might want totry anything.

The left wing are victims ofanother aspect of Khomeini'sproblems: the economic situation. The vast mass of the poorwho brought down the Shahand catapulted Khomeini fromexile to power wanted far moreout of their revolut ion than ar e t u r n t o t h e l a w o f I s l a m .

They wanted food. jobs,decent housing and a better life.This they have not yet got.Inflation is funning at around50 per cent and unemploymentis estimated at between 30 and5 0 p e r c e n t . D i s c o n t e n tamongst the working class andthe urban poor is slowly risingdespite the hold of religiousi d e a s .

Khomeini spelt out his viewof this on 7 August:'With great sorrow, in thesedays after the revolution, whenall strata of society must joinhands to rebuild the damagesdone by the Satanic government, and make up for thelosses by supporting the government of thelsiamic Republic, itis seen and heard that str ikeafter strike, sit-in after sit-in.

d e m o n s t r a t i o n a f t e rd e m o n s t r a t i o n , a n d l i e s -spreading after lies-spreadingare being resorted to in attemptsto weaken the government byany deceit and any kind ofrumour-mongering ...

' I shou ld remind our muchrespected brothers and sistersthat in the same way that duringthe revolution sit-ins and strikesagainst Satan were pleasing toAlmighty God, at the presenttime when the government isIslamic and national ... sit-ins,strikes and rumour-mongeringa n d b a s e l e s s t u m u l t w h i c hc a u s e s a w e a k n e s s i n t h e

government and the strengthening of the enemies of Islam andthe nation, causes anger toG o d . '

The fear in the mind of thenew rulers of Iran is clear;unless they act now, the masseswho brought down the Shahmight start to listen to the leftand repeat their performance,this time against Khomeini.

The timing of the attack wasdetermined by the fact that inthe 3 August elections theIslamic leaders had managed,pa r t l y t h rough popu la renthusiasm but also throughcoercion and ballot-rigging, toshow that they commandedconsiderable support.

Despite a boycott by the mainforces of the opposition, ther e s u l t s o f t h e e l e c t i o n s t i l lc lea r l y i nd ica ted tha t thereligious leaders do retain substantial popular support.

Whether the reactionaryoffensive can succeed dependsupon the social forces at play.T h e r e a l s o c i a l b a s e o fKhomeini and his co-thinkers isin what is called the 'Bazaar'—that is the mass of old stylepetty-bourgeois merchants andmanufacturers who are veryn u m e r o u s i n I r a n .

They want to use the newstate to increase their wealthand power. In fact, this groupc o n t a i n s p e o p l e w h o a r every rich already and see therevolution ^ a tool to turnthemselves into fully-fledgedbig capitalists.

At the same time, the clergyhave considerable organisingpowers and control the networkof Komitehs which are the onlyeffective armed wing of the statein Iran. Immediately after theoverthrow of the Shah, thesec o n t a i n e d m a n y r a d i c a lelements, but they have nowbeen purged very extensively.

In terms of social composit i o n . t h e y c o n t a i n m a n ydifferent layers but their mainbase is amongst unemployed

youth. For these people, the payof 100 pounds a month is aw e l c o m e a l t e r n a t i v e t o t h e

misery of unemployment.The militias are organised by

the Mullahs and other loyalsupporters of Khomeini and areonly issued with weapons forspecific tasks. Thus, despite thec h a o s a n d c o n f u s i o n o f t h e

official state, and the frequentdis-organisation of the localK o m i t e h s , t h e r e a c t i o n a r i e sh a v e s u b s t a n t i a l s o c i a l ,economic and military power atthe i r command.

On the side of the opposition,the p i c tu re i s more complicated. Although the nationalminorities make up about 50per cent of Iran's total populat ion, they have very widedifferencies between them. Aswe have seen, the Kurds are thebest organised and most militant, but others are less per-pared.

T h e T u r k o m a n s h a v e

already, in April, fought thecentral government and manage d t o w i n s o m e c o n c e s s i o n s b u tthe largest group, the Turkishspeaking people of Azerbaijan,w h i c h i s a r e l a t i v e l y i ndustr ia l ised area, have so faronly engaged in a few>protests,being largely under the influence of the 'liberal' AyatollahS h a r i a t - M a d a r i .

The Arab m inor i t y i nK h u s e s t a n , t h e m a i n o i l -producing area, have been inrevolt since May, but the massmovement there seems to havebeen savagely crushed withmore than 5,000 people

r e p o r t e d t o h a v e b e e n i mprisoned. Since then, actionsseem to have been confined toguerril la attacks on the oilinsta l lat ions.

Although this is a majorthreat to the regime, since theoil workers' str ike was one oft h e d e c i s i v e f a c t o r s w h i c hbrought down the Shah and anyinterruption in the oil moneyw o u l d b e a s e r i o u s b l o w t oKhomeini too, the majority ofthe oil workers are Persians anddo not yet identify with theirA r a b b r o t h e r s a n d s i s t e r s .

The working class and the leftpresent a still more difficultpatchwork. Although the working class in Iran is large, andplayed the central role in theoverthrow of the Shah, a veryhigh proportion work in verysmall units of production andmany are still under the influence of religion.

W h i l e t h e r e h a s b e e n am a s s i v e g r o w t h o f s e l f -organisation, both in factorycommittees and in trade unions.Islamic groups, backed by theKomitehs, have managed todrive out or intimidate many oft h e l e f t i s t s i n t h e f a c t o r i e s .

Despite this, there is still verys t r o n g o r g a n i s a t i o n a n dmilitancy.

I n o n e t e x t i l e f a c t o r y,w o r k e r s h a v e r e f u s e d t o w o r k

nights. A manager of a chemicalfactory recently reported thathe can't stand going to work ashe has to face a long string ofdemands every time he walksi n t o h i s o f fi c e .

Most factories are working

i r r- (■ ^ U S S R

"vPM a h a b a d V . ^ i

Ki)RD\Saqqaz' /t:. • T E H R A NSanandaj

IRAQ \ I R A

under capacity since so muchtime is taken up by workers'meetings, but the managementare still forced to pay out fullwages. Thus despite its politicalweakness, the working classremains strong and confident.

Unfortunately, the left hasnotbeen able to build any realorganised base in the factories.B e f o r e t h e o v e r t h r o w o f t h eShah, the pro-,oscow Tudehparty was the only group witha n y r e a l w o r k i n g - c l a s smembership.

The struggle to overthrow theShah brought thousands ofworkers into sympathy with allof the left groups, but none ofthese has yet managed todevelop to the point where theycan turn supporters into activefighters.

In a very intersting movUS government has offered fivemillion dollars worth of spareparts and ammunition to theIranian armed forces to helpt h e m c r u s h t h e K u r d s .

A s t a t e d e p a r t m e n tspokesman explained that itw a s i n t h e i n t e r e s t s o f t h estability of Iran and of themiddle east as a whole that theauthority and effectiveness ofthe Bazargan government bestrengthened'. Washington isnow throwing its weight publicly behind Khomeini.

W h a t , t h e n , a r e t h eprospects? It does not look asthough there is likely to be anyquick outcome either way.There is no single force at

present which is strong enoughto take control of the whole ofI r a n .

It looks as though Khomeiniis wary of a fight to the finishwith the Kurds and is trying toreach some sort of deal throughsplitting the opposition andbribing the collaborators withoil money.

For their part, the Kurds arev e r y w e l l a r m e d a n d c o u l dprobably put up a stiff fightagainst the shaky Iranian armya n d t h e u r b a n m o b s o f t h eKomiiehs. But they are unlikelyto go for an all-out war either.

T h e I r a n i a n A i r F o r c e ,allegedly still supported byAmerican technical experts, isstill supported by Americantechnical experts, is still in goodshape and total air superioritywould lead to very heavy lossesboth military and civilian. Asone Kurdish leader said recently: 'We can resist the IranianArmy but not the Air Force'.

The working class representsa very different set of problems.T h e e i s n o d o u b t t h a t t h egrowing economic crisis and thelevel of working-class organisation will lead to major conflicts.

But there is no guarantee thatthese will automatically lead toeither victory or an increase inpolitical consciousness.

A great deal of what happenswill depend on whether anyrevolutionary group is strongenough and politically preparedenough to survive the currentwave of repression and to go on

to begin to build some seriousworking class support.

If that were to happen, thenwe could begin to hope for as o c i a l i s t o u t c o m e f r o m t h epresent crisis. Without it, thelikely outcome is one type oranother of repressive regime.

H o w e v e r, n i e t h e r o f t h o s etwo things are going to happenovernight. For the forseeablef u t u r e t h e s i t u a t i o n i n I r a n w i l lbe marked by sharp changes ofposition and increasing tensions. The next period will be agrim one.Colin Sparks

IraqIn June this year the NationalU n i o n o f S t u d e n t s v o t e d t owithdraw recognition from theNat ional Union of I raqiStudents. The decis ion, takenafter extensive deliberations,came as the culmination to aseries of events in which ArabBa'th Socialist Party students,who dominate the union, tookto settling their dispute with theIraqi Communist Party on thestreets and campuses aroundB r i t a i n .

In two incidents in Swanseaand Manchester, Ba'thists beat-up communists severely. Theupshot has been, not surprisingly. considerable disquiet andfr ict ion between the NUS and

Arab student unions, with theIraqis in particular, determinedt o r e v e r s e t h e d e c i s i o n i n t h e

coming year.R a t h e r t h a n e x a m i n e t h e

background to these events, ordefend the decision of the NUS,it might be useful to take a lookat today's Iraqi state andcurrent Ba'thisl regime.

Iraq's Ba'thists have held onto power uninterruptedly since1968, although they have beenthe dominant political forcesince when they first held powerin 1963. They claim to be therightful inheritors of a 'revolution' which, in 1958, overthrewthe Hashemite monarchy andlandowning rentier class andestablished a republic.

Today, already three yearsinto the first economic plan, theBa'thists are avowedly buildings o c i a l i s m . O i l r e v e n u e s f r o m

Iraq's flush reserves (said to beupwards of 95 bn barrels) haveb e e n p u t t o g o o d u s eeradicating illiteracy and constructing a significant degree ofindustry.

Heroic Iraqi workers arep ic tu red cu t t i ng i r r i ga t i onchannels at Diyala, or spanningbridges across the Euphrates,transforming a wilderness intoan advanced country.

As dynamic, wealthy rulers,with a mission to accomplish,t h e B a ' t h i s t s h a v e b e s t o w e dtheir favour generously. Theypaid the election expenses for-t h e f o r m e r g a u l l i s t p r i m eminister, Jaques Chirac, and

have acted as benefactors togroups on the British left.

They cast themselves in therole of the arch defenders of thePalestinians, their most steadfast supporters and determinedadvocates. Above all else, theBa ' th is ts l i ke to cons iderthemselves 'progressive'—andthey have spent a sizable summaking the image fit.

These outward appearancesprojected by the Ba'thists aremisleading. They hide a substant ia l record of heinousbutchery, a systematic attemptsince 1963 to deracinate allopposition to their power.

Countless Kurds, Communists and militant workershave, over the years, comeunder their hammer. Recentlytoo, 3,000 leading Shi'ites,followers of the AyatollahMontazeriwho (a close friend ofKhomeini's ) were arrested asIraq's rulers scrambled to prevent a spill-over from Iran.

Of all the groups that haveresisted Ba'thist rule in Iraq, theKurds have been the mostresilient and enduring. From1961 until the present day theyhave waged a sporadic andintermittent war against Iraqirepression for their own self-' determinat ion.

In 1966 the Bazzaz government of the time concluded abrief truce with the Kurds, anda n a m n e s t y w a s d e c l a r e d

(though this did not extend tothe Communist Party). But itwas short-lived since when theBa'thists seized power in 1968hostilities were resumed.

Eventually, after SaddamHussain, the effective Iraqileader, reached a deal with theShah, in 1974, that closed theKurdish supply routes, the Iraqiarmy managed to overpowerthe Kurds and impose a settlem e n t .

Even so, ending the costlyexercise meant concessions had.to be made: in particular aKurdish autonomy law and aNational Front with the Communist Party and the KurdishNational Party—a group withno real support among theK u r d s . '

None of these concessionse v e r r e d u c e d o r t h r e a t e n e dBa'thist power and, in time,tljey even proved useful, servingt^ diffuse the conflict. Bothhave now been jettisoned. Theautonomy law was always^oney.

It did not include traditionalKurdish areas and was drawnround places where oil waslocated. Parts of it were neverimplemented and the govern

ment retained a veto.

A c c o r d i n g t o A z z i zMohammed, the presentGeneral Secretary of the IraqiCP, the only alternative to sucha front for communists wassystematic a'nnihilation. Yetsystematic annihilation is whathas been occurring anyway.Last year, for example, 21communists were executed,hundreds more lie in prison. It isthis conflict that has been imported.

Since 1975, the Ba'thistregime has been physicallydismantling the Kurdish community. It is a process ofactually changing the characterof the population. Kurds arebeing deported and replaced byArab tribes such as the Jiboor,al-Hadid, al-Taiyawi and Shir-qat .

A scorched-earth policy isbeing operated and hundreds ofKurdish villages have beenlevelled. The similarities withthe Zionist occupation ofPalestine are striking. Whereasbetween 1948 and the present,some 385 Palestinian villageswere destroyed, just between 15June and 23 July last year, theIraqi regime razed 495 Kurdishvillages.

In their place modern, concrete, arab-style settlementshave been erected, like those atSelaivani, Sheikhan, Mariba,Atrosh, Zinawa, Ba'idhra, al-'Asi and Batofa. Kirkuk, Kana-qin and Sinjar have alreadybeen disinfected of Kurds andsimilar treatment is presentlybeing prepared for Siakan,Dinarta, Garda-Sin and Jojar(in the Aqra area) and Bela (inthe Barzan area).

The Kurds that have beenevicted from their homes andvillages have been deposited inw h a t i s c a l l e d ' c l u S t e r -villages'—a euphemism for aform of concentration camp onthe Rhodesian army model.Last year, some 28,000 Kurdishfamilies were deported to suchc a m p s .

At the beginning of this year,on the regime's own admission,a further 22,000 families, fromthe province of Sulaimaniyaa l o n e , w e r e e v i c t e d a n ddeported. Taking the two yearsas a whole, something like300,000 Kurds have been displaced.

At the present the Ba'thistregime is faced with a growingarray of opposition. Besides theKurds there is the mutilated butstill active CP, galvanisedShi'ite fanatics, a developingpro letar ia t and d isaffectedelements within the Ba'th Party

itself. Just recently it wasrocked by an attempted coup.

In response to this challengemore repressive laws have beenintroduced. It is now a capitaloffence to seek to persuade aBa'ath Party member to changehis allegiances. Six divisionshave been mobilised against theKurds. On 20 July, there was aclash on the Iranian border, 250Ba'th Party members have beenexecuted, and there have beensuccessive purges. In the currentsituation different groupswithin the Ba'th Party arefiercely competing for theleadership.

One of the most commonm>4hs deployed by the Ba'thistsi s t h a t t h e o v e r t h r o w o t t h e

Monarchy and landowners in1958 was a revolution. Undercloser examination this is totally spurious. It was a militarycoup amidst an upsurge ofnat iona l ism.

The impetus came from theland question. 58 per cent bf thepopulation lived on the land. In1957, 3.8m were landless. Evenby middle-east standards, thepeasantry were particularlypoverty-stricken. As for theworking class, in 1957 only90,291 workers were employedin industrial production, in22,460 enterprises. Of these, 45p e r c e n t w e r e o n e - m a n

businesses, and 93 per cent ofthem employed less than fiveworkers. The leadership behindthe upsurge came from thegrowing urban middle class, notthe workers.

The Arab Ba'th Social istParty, founded under theleadership of Michael Aflaqand Salah al-Bin Bitar in Syriain 1954, very much representsthis middle-class. In 1956, itjoined a National United Frontwith a liberal-bourgeois grouping, the National DemocraticParty, and the Communist Party-

In February 1963, Ba'thistarmy officers ousted GeneralKassem (who had been the rulersince 1958). Their rule lastedonly" nine months then, but inthose nine months they intensified the wave of repressionagainst the Kurds and CP.

Ever since the Ba'thists siezedpower again in 1968 it has beenthe same faction of the Partythat has held power. They are ar u t h l e s s g r o u p , r i f e w i t hnepotism, drawn from a narrowsocial base around Tikrit,Haditha, Rawa, Ana, Falluja.They promote their cousins,uncles and friends to posts inthe bureaucracy and army.

Saddam Huasain, now Presi

dent was cousin to the recentlydeparted President Bakr. Hisbrother, Barzan, was promotedhead of Intelligence in July, andhis first cousin. General AdnanTalfah, is minister of defence.Saadoun Chaker, the interiorminister, comes from Tikrit.And Latif Nassif Jassem, theminister of culture, also comesfrom this area.,

Iraq is not a socialist countrybut has, under their leadership,become an overwhelminglystate capitalist country.

The tobacco industry isnationalised; date processing(though not growing) isnationalised; large tracts of landhave been nationalised; andmost importantly, since 1972,oil has been nationalised.

The sudden collapse of theShah has had manyreprecussions for.Iraq. For theBa'thists, there is an increasingdestabilising effect. For international capital, Iraq is apromising alternative market toIran, for their penetration.

But most importantly, for theleft, is the dedicated struggle ofthe Kurds. The crushing of theKurds will be the pre-conditionfor the routing and defeat of theLeft throughout both Iraq andIran. Jon Bearman

TheCaribbeanJamaica. 8 January. Rocked bya virtual general strike for threedays, with rioting that leaves sixdead and half a million dollars*damage.

Michael Manley's social-democratic Peoples NationalParty government oversaw a 40per cent increase in the cost ofliving in 1978. The right-wingopposit ion Jamaica LabourParty had hoped a 25 per centincrease in the cost of petrolwould cause Manley to fall andcalled a demonstration.

Starting as a middle-classprotest it ended in a near revoltby the most oppressed sectionsof the Jamaican working class.The bauxite workers and manyothers struck in support of thedemonstration even thought h e i r u n i o n i s a f fi l i a t e d t oManley's party.

T h e c o m m u n i s t W o r k e r sParty of Jamaica attacks thestrikes because it is in electoralal l iance with the Government.The right wing which had

initiated the 'civil disobedience'realises it has burned its fingers.

T h e C I A a n d t h e J a m a i c aLabour Party are forced toretreat. The crisis is temporarilyaverted. With a huge inflationrate, 25 per cent unemployment, stringent IMF conditionso n r e c e n t l o a n s , J a m a i c a i sbankrupt.

Grenada. 13 March. A thousand mi les to the south-east.Eric Gairy, a former labourleader who has run the islandlike a Mafia godfather is finallyt h r o w n o u t . H i s C h i l e a n -trained army surrenders within24 hours to the revolutionaryforces of the New Jewel (JointEndeavour for Welfare, Education and Liberation) 'Movem e n t .

7 0 0 0 a r m e d y o u t h s(Grenada's total population isonly 100,000) take control ofthe island. The downfall of oneof the most corrupt despots inthe Eastern Car ibbean at thehand of the armed people sendsShockwaves throughout theregion.

St. Lucia. Nearby. The primeminister and his party immediately lose a general election. Their support for theousted Gairy was not appreciated by the electorate! Theworkers of the island's huge oilshipment terminal have sincebeen on strike, as have teachersa n d c i v i l s e r v a n t s o n t h eneighbouring island of St. Vinc e n t .

Dominica. 29 May. At theo t h e r e n d o f t h e W i n d w a r d

ZimbabweZimbabwe is a major Britishpolitical issue again, thanks toT h a t c h e r ' s i n i t i a t i v e a t t h eCommonwealth conference.

The move was promptedlargely by the fear that Britishrecognition of the Muzorewa-Smith regime would furtherdamage lucrative economicl i n k s w i t h N i g e r i a , t o d a yBritain's chief trading partner inA f r i c a .

S i m i l a r i d e a l i s t i c m o t i v e s w i l llie behind the political stancesadopted by Tory MPs in thecoming months.

The table opposite, takenf r o m C o u n t e r - I n f o r m a t i o n S e r

vices' latest report , shows thee c o n o m i c i n t e r e s t s i n Z i mb a b w e o f To r y M P s w h oopposed the renewal of sanctions against the Rhodesianregime last November.

1 0

Islands. 18;000 workers downtools and take to the streets in

support of the civil servants payclaim and against anti-unionand press censorship laws. Aquarter of the island's population are on the streets that dayto be met by gunfire from thea r m y .

W i t h i n a m o n t h p r i m emin is te r Pa t r i ck John has toflee the country to be replacedby A motley bunch of ex-ministers and oppositionpoliticians. (Patrick John hadbeen the author of the notorious' D r e a d A c t ' w h i c h a u t h o r i s e dthe shooting down of Rastas intheir homes by police).

G u y a n a . A u g u s t . N e a rgeneral strike. For the first timesince 1963 the mainly Asiansugar workers are united withthe mainly African bauxiteworkers. (Remember that raciald i v i s i o n s a r e c r u c i a l t o t h esurvival of nearly all the regimesin the Caribbean, especiallyGuyana and Trinidad).

S i n c e 1 9 6 3 F o r b e sBumham's Peoples NationalCongress has ruled Guyana.Brought to power by riggedelections, with the backing ofBritain and the USA, they haveruled with more rigged elections, rigged referenda, terroristgangs, Chinese, Russian andCuban backing, a tame trade-union hierarchy and a dose ofMarxist rhetor ic .

Today, like Jamaica, Guyanais on the verge of bankruptcy.August saw the most seriouschallenge to 15 years of PNC

ru le .

A new stage in the struggle ofthe black working class in theCaribbean is unfolding.

In Guyana this found expression in the rising fortunes of theWorking People's Alliance, oneof the many organisations in theregion that has been given thelabel 'new left'. Its politics arenot untypical. It calls for a'Revolu t ionary Soc ia l is tGuyana', but proposes as animmediate objective an alliancewi th the Sta l in is t PeoplesProgressive Party for a'government of national reconstructionand unity'.

Guyana also hosts the morer a d i c a l W o r k i n g P e o p l e sVanguard Party which, on theone hand completely rejects theparliamentary road, but on theother struggles for 'socialism'on the Chinese model.

I n coun t r i es l i ke G renada ,where a clearcut victory for the'new left' (in the form of theNew Jewel Movement) hasoccurred we see the contradictions more clearly. The newgovernment ■ applied formembership of the SecondI n t e r n a t i o n a l a n d s i g n e dtreaties with the Cubans.

New prime minister MauriceBishop disclaims any specificideology. As he put it in 1974:'If, for example, you say thatyou are a socialist, the obviousquestion is what sort ofsocialist? Democratic Socialist?Labour Party Socialist? 1 meant h a t i t h a s c o m e t o m e a n

virtually nothing'. In other

words. Bishop is arguing thatwith unemployment at nearly65 per cent, Grenada can'tafford an ideology.

But Bishop also expressed theneed for workers' and peasants'a s s e m b l i e s w i t h e l e c t e drepresentatives to run the country. It must be doubted whethere i t h e r C u b a o r M a n l e y ' sJamaica is going to be toohappy about that.

The 'new-left' organisationswere formed in the late 1960sand early 1970s: GuyaneseWorking Peoples VanguardParty in 1969, Grenadan NewJ e w e l M o v e m e n t i n 1 9 7 2 ,Movement for a New Dominicain 1971, and the Workers Partyof Jamaica in 1974.

They were born in the wakeof a massive black power revoltw h i c h s t a r t e d i n J a m a i c a i n1968 and rumbled through tothe general strike in Dominicai n 1 9 7 3 .

That revolt was an expressiono f d i s e n c h a n t m e n t w i t h t h emeagre fruits of independencewhich had le f t the Car ibbeancountries sti l l economicallydependent and in general with alight skinned ruling class.

Todays renewed upsurgetakes place against thebackground of a world crisissharper than ever. As theCaribbean becomes increasingly ungovernable, so the need forthe revolutionary left to havethe clarity of ideas to direct theworking-class revolt becomesmore c ruc ia l than ever.K i m G o r d o n

Tory MPs with directorships In firms operating In Zimbabwe

MPs who voted to lilt sanctlonsCompany

F r e d e r i c B e n n e t t

Jul ian Amery

Geoffrey Oodsworth

M i c h a e l M o r r i s

T o m N o n n a n l o nJ o h n O s b o r n

C o m m e r c i a l U n i o n

Vaal Reefs Exploration& MiningWestern Deep LevelsGrindlays Bank

B e n t o n & B l o w l e s

C o m m e r c i a l U n i o nS a m u e l O s b o r n L i m i t e d

I n t e r e s t s

Property and InsuranceI n t e r e s t s I n Z i m b a b w eS u b s i d i a r i e s o fAng lo-Amer ican

Mult iple bankings u b s i d i a r i e sHandles FIsons, which hasI n t e r e s t s I n Z i m b a b w e

Holds Rhodesian subsidiaryv i a S a m u e l O s b o r n S o u t hA f r i c a

M P s w h o a b s t a i n e d o n s a n c t i o n s

Daniel AwdryBET Omnibus Services

D a v i d C r o u c h

E d w a r d D e C a n n

Russell FairgrieveJohn MacGregorAnthony Royle

John Stanley

R e d l f f u s l o n

Subsidiary of BET which

B u s t o n - M a r s t e l l e r

L o n r h o

W i l l i a m B a i r dH I M S a m u e l & C o .Brooke-Bond LiebigSedgewick ForbesW l l d l n s o n M a t c hR l o - T l n t o - Z i n c

Subsidiary In Zimbabwe

h a s I n t e r e s t s I n Z i m b a b w eH a n d l e s W l l d l n s o n M a t c hwhich has a subsidiary InZ i m b a b w e

Large, Divers and contentious operations InZ i m b a b w eAsbestos mining subsidiaryMultiple interestsAll these companies haves u b s i d i a r i e s I nZ i m b a b w eMajor mining andI n d u s t r i a l I n t e r e s t s I nZ i m b a b w e

Nicaragua is not a particularlyimportant country. In onesense, it is just one more bananarepublic, carved out of CentralAmerica by the United FruitCompany at the beginning ofthe century. Since 1937, it hadbeen ruled by a family—theSomozas—whose name cameto mean brutality, violence andcorruption.

Between 1927 and 1934.guerrillas led by a youngengineer — Sandino —maintained a war In the countryside against the Somozas andthe interests that protected anddefended them—above all United Fruit .

Though he was betrayed andassassinated in 1934, it is hisname that is written across thewalls of Nicaragua's capitalManagua.

And it is the victory ofSandinismo in a small andunimportant country that willstart the pendulum swingingagain in Latin America.Governments and guerrillas

The victory of the CubanRevolution on January 1st.1 9 5 9 l e d t o a d e c a d e o fguerrillas. Inspired by theCuban example, as it wasrewritten by Regis Debray,young revolutionaries all overLatin America moved into thecountryside.

One after another, theguerrillas failed—in Peru in1965, in Bolivia in 1967 (whereChe Guevara died), in Mexico,in Guatemala and so on. Some,of course were most successful;the Tupamaros of Uruguay, forinstance became almost legendary in their organisation andheroism.

The problem was that it was afalse lesson that had beenlearned from Cuba. Twentyyears of Stalinism had paralysedthe development of socialism in

Lat in Amer ica.

A r g u i n g t h a t a n u nderdeveloped continent neededto pass through the capitaliststage before it could considerthe transition to socialism, theLat in American CommunistParties compromised with therising middle class leadershipsand delivered the young labourmovement on a plate to oneoppor tunis t po l i t ic ian af tera n o t h e r .

P o p u l a r f r o n t s a n d'democrat ic al l iances' t ied thelabour movement to economicdemands, while populistpolit icians proclaiming'national blocs' or 'progressivealliances' became the politicalvoice of workers and peasants.

By the early 1960s a newgeneration had grown up jn ap e r i o d w h e n p e a s a n t smovements and the struggles ofw o r k e r s i n m i n e s a n d c i t i e sdemanded a new politics.Socialism had been devaluedand emptied of meaning by thecompromises and deals of theCommunist Part ies.

But the guerrilla strategys e e m e d t o o f f e r a n e wr e v o l u t i o n a r y p u r i t y, aguarantee against corruption.The revolutionary could actalone; and the European intellectuals who had given up onthe working class of the in-d u s t r a l i s e d w o r l d a n dpronounced them bourgeois,seized on this new hero figure.

Ye t w h a t h a d o v e r t h r o w nBatista in Cuba at the end of1958 was not just the heroism ofthe 80 guerrillas of the Granma,but a mass movement whichsupported and supplied theguerrilla movement, and whichhad undermined the politicalbasis of the Cuban dictatorshipthrough strikes and cosistentopposition.

No one disputes the heroism

and selflessness of the guerillas;they were wrong. The will of thebut they were wrong. The will ofthe revolutionary is no substitute for the actions of them a s s e s .

The Tupamaros could offerno po l i t i ca l a l t e rna t i ve i nUruguay; the fighters of theArgentine still fought for thereturn of Peron, even thoughthe Argentine workingclass hadshown its immense strength andits power to build new,autonomous work ing c lassorganisations in the struggles ofCordoba and Tucuman in 1968a n d 1 9 6 9 .

Chile and the Popular FrontThroughout the 1960s, the

Uni ted States—faced wi th theguerrillas and a rising popularstruggle—put forward its owns o l u t i o n — C h r i s t i a n D e m o -racy. Suddenly Latin Americawas teeming with academicsc o n c e r n e d t o ' h e l p L a t i nAmerica progress'.

The pressure was bothpolitical (fear of a more far-reaching, revolutionary solut ion) and economic. Lat inAmerica had always suppliedcheap raw materials for imperialist industry, cheap labourin the form of an exploitedpeasantry and abitterly represse d u r b a n l a b o u r f o r c e . B u tWestern capitalism also wantedn e w m a r k e t s .

So i t s so l u t i ons o f f e red aslow, gradual introduction ofcapitalism—but a dependentcapitalism. The new industrieswould be dependent on Westerntechnology, assembling cars orwashing machines under licencefrom the mul t inat ionals.

Agriculture would be put ona new footing; in Chile forexample, the plan was tonationalise the land and resell tothe peasants. The big landowners, properly compens a t e d o f c o u r s e , w o u l d t h e ninvest in industry, while governm e n t c o n t r o l o f c r e d i t a n ddistribution would make a moreefficient capitalist agriculture.

Politically, the plan wouldcreate a new reformism, apromise of slow but guaranteedchange that would expand them i d d l e c l a s s , a b s o r b t h eradicals, and extend the benefitsof the consumer society to aslightly larger percentage of thepopu la t ion .

But this was a continent thathad experienced four centuriesof a deepening backwardness.I t s r a w m a t e r i a l s fi l l e d t h ecoffers of the West, fed theAmerican imperialist power;the vast majority of its peoplelived under repressive and-

brutal regimes, on the edge of—or below—the subisistencel e v e l .

Its struggles for trade unionrights or political expressionwere sytematically smashedwith external aid; and its Stateswere dominated by t inyminorities who were rewardedwith wealth and power, inreturn for maintaining thats i tua t ion .

The re formis t so lu t ion tookthe lid off a seething pot an^released the tensions and conflicts of decades. The promisesof Land Reform—vaguethough they were—spurredwaves of land occupations bythe peasantry in Chile, Bolivia,Peru, Mexico.

Promises of workers chartersand trade union rights openedthe door to workers struggles inMexico, Argentina and Chile.The whole process becamei n c r e a s i n g l y r a d i c a l — ar a d i c a l i s m t h a t r e a c h e d i t shighest expression in Allende'sChile between 1970 and 1973.

Because it did not face thec e n t r a l p r o b l e m — L a t i nAmerica's unequal relationshipwith the developed world, itscontinuing dependence on thenew reformism only served toexpose the lie of gradualre fo rm .

There could be no reformwithout a struggle against imperialism, and there could be not r a n s f o r m a t i o n u n l e s s t h epromise of a new, 'reformed'capitalism were thrown out anda revolutionary alternative putin its place, a new model ofproduction and politics.

Ironically, Allende's projectfor Popular Unity took thereformist project to its logicalextreme—and exposed itsl i m i t a t i o n s i n t h e b l o o d i e s tpossible way—in the militarycoup of September 11th. 1973.

Millions of words have beenwritten about Chile—because itwas there that reformism cameface to face wi th i ts owncontradictions. The politicalleadership believed in apeaceful, gradual road. Butneither the ruling groups northe working class movementbelieved in the i l lusion. InOctober 1972, the mass movement prepared for the inevitablepower struggle—not in parliament, but in the factories, thefields and the streets.

Reformism proclaims theneed for solutions, but it canoffer none, because it fails to seet h a t t h e r e i s a f u n d a m e n t a lconflict of interest at the heartof the demand for chage. Therecan be no compromise between

11

opposites—between capitalism(still less the dependent kind)a n d s o c i a l i s m .

But Allende was frightenedby the very power of theworkers' movement that he hadunleashed—and he used hispolitical influence to hold itb a c k .

Under the slogan 'No CivilWar', the Popular Unity coalition delivered tens of thousandsof workers and revolut ionariesto the torturers and the concentration camps.

But it was not a personalfailure, it was the end of apolitical project, a programmef o r r e f o r m w i t h o u t w o r k e r spower that foundered and diedthere in 1973 (as it had inUruguay in 1971 and in Boliviain the same year).The years of the Iron Heel

Imperialism learned thelesson more quickly than theLa t i n Amer i can re fo rm is t l e f t(which was busy turning theChile of Popular Unity into anobject of almost religious devotion).

The Latin American rulingclasses and the United Statesabandoned reform and turnedinstead to the alternative project; the Brazilian model,military rule, repression, thedestruction of the labour movem e n t .

H e r e t o o t h e r e w e r e b o t h

political and economic reasons.In the confident expandingeconomy of the 1960s reformism could offer a growingmarket, expanding consumption in the 'underdevelopedworld' without endangering itsinequality.

But by the 1970s, the worldrecession had put the emphasison cheap production and conquering the markets of the west.The economic philosophers ofthe new age were called theChicago Boys Their formulawas very simple.

Latin America's job was toprovide cheap labour and rawm a t e r i a l s . To d o t h i s w o u l dmean huge unemploymentlevels, the destruction of tradeunions, and forcing down thegeneral standard of living. Thiscould not be done under 'normal' conditions, but only in asiege economy under militaryr u l e .

The success of the model hadbeen proved in Brazil. In 1964the military took power there,banning all opposition, destroying the trade unions and makingtorture an instrument central tothe terrorist state. For torture isnot used to gain informationbut to create a permanent fear.

Throughout the SouthernC o n e c o u n t r i e s o f L a t i nAmerica—Uruguay, Bolivia.Chile, Paraguay—the militaryruled through their terroriststate by the beginning of 1974.The exception was Argentina.I n 1 9 7 3 , t h e w o r k e r sm o v e m e n t — n o t t h eguerrillas—had destroyed themilitary regime that had been inpower there since 1966.

Peron returned to a waitingcrowd of around 2 million. Butthe contradictions of Peronismwere expressed as Peron lefthis plane at Ezeiza airport andleft and right wing peronistsshot one another.

The hope was that Peronwould contain the workersmovement, and control it; buthis old magic had gone, theworld situation changed. In theend he, like Allende, was facedwith clear alternatives; repression and military power, orworkers power, whose seedswere sown in the great strikes ofCordoba, Villa Encarnacionand Rosar io.

In 1976 the military returnedto power under Videla,strengthened and ready withtheir alternative model. TheWorld Cup served to remind therest of the world what savagerythat model demanded; theendless pictures of torturevict ims, the hidden campswhere militants and socialistsdie a lingering death, the rightwing terrorist squads with theirheadquarters in the policebarracks of Buenos Aires, orMontevideo, or Santiago.

There did appear to beanother possibility. In Peru, in1968 a rising of nationalistofficers offered a 'third way!—neither capitalism nor socialismbut popular power.

Under Velasco the o ld landowners were expropriated, thepeasants, workers and slum-dwellers organised, and newindustry created. It pulled Peruout of backwardness, but simply put it into a new dependency.

The middle way was a deadend; Velasco was replaced bythe right wing General MoralesBermudez who, in the name ofthe third way' turned the armyagainst the people, introducednew measures of austerity andaccepted new loans from theIMF with all their attachedconditions—depress the cost ofliving, accept shortages, unemployment, savage cuts inpublic spending.And now ...?

F o r L a t i n A m e r i c a , t h e r ewere important lessons to belearned from al l this. The

r e f o r m i s m o f t h e 1 9 6 0 s — agradual expansion of themarket under the cautioussupervision of the ChristianDemocrat parties—had failed—it had failed because of the-/world recession and because ithad exposed conflicts andcontradictions only socialismcou ld reso lve . And the samew a s t r u e o f e v e n i t s m o s trad i ca l—Ch i lean—vers ion .

T h e t a s k n o w w a s n o t t o

'restore Popular Unity' (as theCommunist Parties of the worldstill demand) nor to substitutet h e w i l l o f t h e f e w f o r t h eaction of the many, howeverheroic that action. 1979 hasbeen the year when the strugglecan begin again; and Nicaraguacan, in some ways, be a catalyst.

Somoza was toppled by am a s s m o v e m e n t o f t h eNicaraguan people; the politicald i r e c t i o n o f S a n d i n i s m o , aloose coalition of many forces,has yet to be decided—and thei s s u e s t h a t f a c e N i c a r a g u awil l be those that faced Chilesix years ago, a new version ofdependent capital ism orsocialism, workers power. But itis a small country and much will'depend on changes in the rest ofLa t in Amer ica .

In Bolivia, a massive nationalgeneral strike has stopped theattempt to stop Heman SilesSuazo, the left's presidentialcandidate, from taking power.The elections themselves werethe result of mass action and aseries of general strikes, pressedforward by the miners union,over the last 12 months. But theissue is not resolved yet, as thedecision was only suspended.

It is mass action that will tipthe balance there. But with its

long tradition of determinedpolitical trade union organisat ion, Si les wi l l be pushedbeyond his own wavering leftr e f o r m i s m .

In Chile itself, the trade unionorganisation is beginning to berebuilt. 10,000 marched inSan t i ago on May Day,and strikes and protests followed the arrest of some of themarchers. But is has to be saidthat Pinochet is not in danger ofdefeat; the new Chile exists, andit has rebuilt the economy onthe Chicago model.

The p ,iiic voice of politicalprotest is sti l l ChristianDemocracy, however ; ex -President Frei, the politicalinfluence behind the 1973 coup,is now attempting to regain hish o l d .

In Argentina, the torturersare still in power, but the aremore exposed, slightly less

secure, and the labour movement for all the repression is stilla c t i v e .

Even the monolithic Mexicanregime has been shaken byd e m o n s t r a t i o n s a n d o c

cupations which have leteveryone see that the jails of thismodel developing State are fullof political prisoners.

In Peru, despite the failure ofthe three day general strikee a r l i e r t h i s y e a r , t h erevolutionary left had gainedover 20 per cent of the popularv o t e t o t h e C o n s i t u t e n tAssembly.

The presidential electionsthat are scheduled for early nextyear will probably bring a hugeproportion of the popular voteb e h i n d t h e P r e s i d e n t i a l c a ndidate of the far left.

So the atmosphere is changing. Nicaragua has shaken themilitary calm; the generals ofArgentina and Uruguay quicklywithdrew all support fromSomoza, and the new socialdemocratic regimes of Ecuador,Venezue la and Panama were

quick to support the Sand i n i s t a s .

■"■"There is a mass movementand there have been victoriesfor the workers movement fromB o l i v i a t o t h e C a r i b b e a n( G r e n a d a , D o m i n i c a , S t .Lucia). But the fundamentalproblem remains to be solved.There is a desperate need for anew politics, a politics capableof combining the struggleagainst the terrorist State (andfor human rights)with strategy(or workers power.

Even the Pope has seen thatthe reformist dream has faded;he went to Latin Americ to tipthe balance against the Catholicl e f t .

The period ahead should beo n e o f s e l f - c r i t i c i s m a n d arebuilding of the left. The ikonsof popular fronts and failedreformisms must be left behindand the lessons learned fromArgentina, from Bolivia andfrom the Chilean October of1 9 7 2 .

L a t i n A m e r i c a ' s r o l e i n aworld capitalist system can onlybe subordinate, supplying the

. l a b o u r a n d r a w m a t e r i a l s i nexchange for consumer goodsand a growth of the middle

f c l a s s .

The only alternative is ac o n t i n e n t a l s e i z u r e o f t h ew e a l t h a n d t h e r e s o u r c e s o fL a t i n A m e r i c a . T h e h i s t o r yof struggle is there—it is for theLeft now to lead those strugglestowards the battle for power.

M i k e G o n z a l e z

12

After an election campaign of surpassingdullness, Britain has woken up to the factthat there is a tough right-wing Torygovernment in Whitehall . I t took theThatcher government very little time toforce through measures which will have asevere effect on jobs and living standards.

The increase in VAT to 15 per cent isbiting into real wages. Cuts in publicspending agreed by the cabinet, amountingto about £6 billion in 1980-1, represent anew phase in the grim hsitory of the rundown of the welfare state. Labour's cutsaffected capital-investment programmeschiefly. The Tory measures are designed to,reduce the size of the work-force in the!public sector.

The reductions in regiohal aid to industrywill also push more people onto the dole-queues. Public sector assets are to be sold ona large scale on the stock market. Legisla-|tion attacking the closed shop and the rightto picket will be placed before Parliament.

These measures, along with others in thepipe-line, represent an ambitious attempt to '■reshape British capitalism. Since socialists'over the next few years are going to be busyresisting this attempt it is important tounderstand its nature.

Nor more KeynesIdeologically, the Tory strategy amounts

to the conscious rejection of the consensus'which has underlain British political lifeever since the wartime coalition governmentof 1940-45. The economic and social policiesadopted then—in particular the acceptancethat it is the task of the government tomaintain full employment and the decision(embodied in the 1943 Beveridge report) tobuild a comprehensive welfare state—wereaccepted by Labour and Tory governmentsalike until the early 1970s.

The patron saint of the era was theeconomist J.M.Keynes. For Keynes claimedto show that it was possible to avoid themass unemployment of the 1920s and 1930swithin the framework of capitalism.Government spending, by increasing theeffective demand for got s and services,could revive a depressed economy andachieve' full employment without anyserious inroads into capitalist socialr e l a t i o n s .

And for 25 years Keynes' remediesseemed to work. Governments throughoutthe western capitalist world intervenedactively to keep their economies on a fullemployment path', apparently with a largemeasure of success.

Never mind that other factors were inreality responsible fpr the post-war boom—notably the massive arms expenditure whichhad already lifted the German economy outof slump in the 1930s and which continuedeast and west after 1945.

The point was that Keynes seemed to beright. Right-wing social democrats likeAnthony Crosland argued that, thanks toKeynes, capitalist crises had gone for goodand that significant reforms could be wonwithout challenging the structure ofbourgeois power.

No longer. The past decade has seen theworld economy resume the pattern of boomand ump which we were supposed to have

left behind us. There will be about 20 millionunemployed in the main western industrialcountries next year. 'No return to thethirties'? The thirties are nearing fast.

And Keynes solutions no longer seemapplicable. In the slumps of the pre-war era,prices, output and employment all felltogether. Today this is no longer true. The1970s have seen a classical crisis of overproduction combined with rising prices.

In these circumstances, governments areafraid to increase public spending in orderto revive the economy lest this acceleratesi n fl a t i o n .

A good example is the notorious 'Barberboom' of 1972-3, when Heath's chancellorof the exchequer pumped money into theeconomy after unemployment had goneabove the mi l l ion mark for the first t imesince the war, only to see industrialinvestment rise hardly at all, while priceswent through the roof.

Similar policies adopted by othergovernments, notably the Nixon administration in the US, helped guarantee aw o r l d - w i d e r e c e s s i o n e v e n b e f o r e t h emassive oil-price increases of 1973-4.Back to the market

Margaret Thatcher was elected leader ofthe Conservative Party largely in reaction tothe failures of the Heath government,especially in the economic field. The lessonof the Barber boom, the Tory right wing

argued, was that Keynes had to be scrapped.In its place was set another economictheory, 'monetarism'.

Monetarism, whose main exponent is theright-wing American economist MiltonFriedman, is basically a very simple theory.It starts from the idea, derived from classicaleconom is t s l i ke Dav id Hume and AdamSmith, that, left to itself, every economy willsettle at a certain 'natural' equilibrium level.

This equilibrium will be achieved purelythrough the forces of supply and demand onthe market. There is, for example, a 'naturalunemployment rate' at which the supply anddemand for labour balance each other out.

Any attempt by the government to makethe economy grow faster than the forces ofsupply and demand will permit can onlylead to distortions. Say, in order to keepunemployment at a level lower than the'natural unemployment rate', the government increases public spending rapidly. Inthe short term output and employment willrise.

However, the real economy will not beable to sustain such a level of economicgrowth over any longer period. The resultwill be too much money chasing too fewgoods. Something will have to gjve—theprice level. Prices rise.

TTius, according to the monetarists,attempts by governments to act in defianceof the 'natural' economic forces at work lead

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to inflation. This is what has happened inthe post-war era; Keynes, far from being asaviour, was the source of all evil since heencouraged governments to manage theireconomies instead of leaving things to them a r k e t .

The remedy offered by the monetarists isa simple one. Cut the money supply—thetotal amount of money in the economy. Theresult, in the short term, will be a recession.This is, however, the only way in which theeconomy can be purged of inflation. Oncethis objective has been achieved, steadyeconomic growth can be resumed, providingthe growth in the money supply does notoutstrip the 'natural' rate at which thee c o n o m y c a n g r o w .

The corollary of this economic analysis isan attack on the role of the state in post-warcapitalism. State intervention in theeconomy must be left to do the work.Excessive public spending is the main sourceof inflat ion.

The welfare services which claim a largeshare of this spending should therefore becut back (monetarists do not, however,seem to object to spending on defence andlaw and order). As far as possible the goodsand services an individual receives should

depend on the money he or she possesses,not his or her needs.

C a n i t w o r k ?

It is clear that the core economic team ofthe government—Howe, Joseph, Nott,Biffen, Lawson—as well as Thatcher herselfare firmly committed, to a monetaristeconomic strategy. The measures they haveannounced within barely three months ofcoming into office show that they areconcerned to make a decisive break with the

past. So we have a government faced withthe prospect of a world recession in 1980which is firmly committed to drastic cuts inpublic spending that year. Keynes is welland truly dead.

Will they stick to their guns? The ghost ofthe Heath government haunts Thatcher.Heath, too, came to power firmly pledged torestoring the market to its proper place.Within a year he had rescued Rolls Roycefrom bankruptcy, within two years he hadbacked down at DCS and was reflating theeconomy in a thoroughly keynesianmanner. Will it be any different this time?

British industry is in a highly vulnerablestate. The recovery in profits which began in1975 after Labour's wage controls wereintroduced has hal ted. Profits in the firstquarter were nearly 23 per cent lower thanthe previous quarter, while the CBI expectsthe real rate of return (excluding North SeaOil) to be three per cent this year (comparedto an average of 10 per cent in the 1960s).

Government policies have contributed tothis situation. A minimum lending rate of 14per cent makes borrowing by companiesvery expensive. One of the two main reasonsfor high interest rates (the other being theaim of limiting the increase in the moneysupply) is the policy, inherited from Labour,of keeping sterling high.

In part the rise in the pound (up againstthe other main trading currencies by 9%percent by late July, although it has fallen backa little since then) reflects Britain's position

as an oil producer at a time of rising energyprices. But keeping the pound high fits inclosely with the rest of the Tories' policies.

A rise in sterl ing relative to othercurrencies means that British exports,valued in other currencies, become moreexpensive, while imports become cheapersince the same number of pounds will nowbuy more foreign goods. SeVere pressure isthen placed upon British exporting companies to cut costs, increase productivity,resist 'excessive' wage-claims and thusimprove their competitive position.Otherwise, they will lose markets to theirforeign rivals. At the same time cheaperimports help to keep British prices fromrising too fast, thus encouraging workers to'moderate' their wage demands.

A high pound thus functions as anindirect form of wage controls. The government instead of intervening directly to keepwages down, leaves it to the market toenforce its discipline upon firms and theiremployees. Firms which do not adapt areforced out of business. Workers who make'excessive' wage-demands find themselveson the dole-queue.

The trouble is that it is not clear whetherthe medicine will work. In mnay cases thepatient is too weak. A number of industriesare now suffering severely under the impactof the rising pound and the falling dollar,(which makes American exports morecompetitive) notably chemicals, textiles, carcomponents, consumer goods and engineering. With forecasters predicting British andworld-wide recession for next year and highinterest rates and low profits causing asevere company liquidity crisis the outlookfor British industry is bleak.

The larger and stronger firms willprobably react by transferring capitalabroad. The decline of the dollar has madeinvestment in the US both cheap andnecessary for European firms. Last yearBritish multi-nationals were second only tot h e W e s t G e r m a n s i n n e w i n v e s t m e n tprojects in the US. The Tories'relaxation ofexchange controls will make the export ofcapital all the easier.

L a m e D u c k sThe weaker firms, however, will in some

cases find themselves close to bankruptcy. It

is here that the Tory resolve is likely to betested most severely.

According to the Economist (and therehave been similar reports in other papers)the more hardline ministers are talkingalmost openly about the likelihood of amajor bankruptcy, and claiming that theyare prepared to accept the political consequences'.

W e s h a l l s e e . T h e t r o u b l e w i t hmonetarism is that at its core is a Utopia—the ideal society of a private marketeconomy in which no firm is large enough todominate any industry and in which thestate stays out of industry. Today, however,100 manufacturing firms account for abouthalf Britain's net manufacturing output.These big firms dominate individualbranches of production, have multinationaltentacles across the globe and are closelyi n t e r w o v e n w i t h t h e s t a t e .

An individual bankruptcy can, therefore,have consequences right across the nationaleconomy. Lame ducks come bigthese days, as the Carter administration isnow learning. Chrysler, the 10th largest firmin the US, employing 250,000 workers, witha further 150,000 jobs depending on it, hasbeen saved from bankruptcy by loanguarantees worth 500-750 million dollarsfrom the federal government.

As the Guardian Washington correspondent put it, 'the plain fact is, and one that thefinancial market grasped extraordinarilyquickly, that Chrysler could not simply beallowed to go bankrupt ... The financialsystem and the economy as a whole were notin a position to cope with a collapse on theChrysler scale'.

It is these features of capitalism today—the size of individual capitals and theirintegration with the national state—whichexplain why prices continue to rise evenduring recessions. In the past, an economiccrisis would give rise to a wave of bankruptc i e s w h i c h w o u l d e l i m i n a t e t h e m o r einefficient firms and push up unemployment . The s lack thus c rea ted wou ld besufficient to bring down prices.

Today the fate of national capitalist statesis so bound up with that of individual firmsthat they stand or fal l together.Governments no longer dare to allowinefficient capitals go bankrupt if this willseriously weaken the national economy. Thecapitalist system is constipated. It no longerpossesses the mechanisms necessary topurge itself of inflation and thereby createthe conditions for renewed expansion.

The Tory challengeThese realities of modern capitalism

apply to the Tories as much as they do to anynational government. Will Thatcher and cobehave any differently to Carter whenconfronted with their Chrysler?

We should not, however, underestimatethe significance of the Tories' monetaristideology. By arguing that individualfreedom and economic prosperity todayrequire a sharp reduction in the activities, ofthe state they have been able to force right-wing social derhocracy, which alwaysaccepted the equation of socialism with thestate and has been thrown into crisis by thecollapse of Keynesianism, to make con-

14

cessions to monetarism. The last Labourgovernment progressively adoptedmonetarist policies—cash limits, spendingcuts, a strong pound, effectively preparingthe way for Thatcher.

Monetarism will not create the free-market society of Thatcher's dreams. But itmay facilitate a reorganisation of Britishcapital designed to ensure that sections atleast of British industry can survive in theharsh economic climate of the 1980s.

Industries which are too far behind in thecompetitive race, like merchant shipbuilding and sections of the steel industry.

wil l be run down. Resources wil l beconcentrated in those high-technology areasinto which western capital is rapidlyswitching. So the NED is not being clsoingdown, merely stream-lined, devoting thebulk of its attention to high-risk butstrategically important sectors like microelectronics. Regional subsidies to indsutryhave been cut drastically, but the government still has the power to make selectivegrants.

This will not be a happy future for most ofus. Much higher levels of unemployment (ifnot, perhaps, 4-5 million predicted by some

forecasters). Areas of the country effectivelywritten off and abandoned by industry. The'social wage' cut drastically.

A larger, better-paid and equipped policeforce to enforce order upon the victims ofthis rationalisation (the chief constable ofLiverpool has predicted that parts of thiscity will be under effective martial lawwithin ten years). Britain will be a grim placeto live in if the Tories succeed—much closerto the Britian of Stanley Baldwin andRamsay Macdonald than anything those ofus born in the last 40 years have known. Ourjob is to prevent this happening.

Rebuilding thLeadershipRoger Cox

A phrase often bandied about on the left is'crisis of leadership'. It's got the greatadvantage that if things don't go too well,you can always blame someone else. Butthere really is such a crisis at the moment.Not that many militants expect much of alead from the TUC against the cuts,unemployment, anti-union laws etc—theydon't. The crisis is that no alternative exists.

In the old days of piecework, shopnegotiations and economic prosperity afactory leadership emerged which had beentried and tested over years of smallbattles.When the Tories came to power in 1970,there had not only been an importantpolitical victory by trade unionists againstLabour's attempts to control the rank andfile, there was also a definite layer ofexperienced shopfloor leadership, confidentand agressive enough to take on theemployers.

The contrast now is very great. Not onlyhave we had the 'concordat' acceptedwithout a murmur by the TUC—left andright—but that layer of militants has beendemoralised by years of incomes policy,'don't rock the boat', kiddology and takingthe easy way out.

Shop stewards are in many cases muchmore powerful than they were even a fewyears ago; at the same time they havefrequently lost touch with their members,lost their own confidence and as a resultsurround themselves with myths about howstrong the trade union movement is whilebeing afraid to do anything because theymight get turned over by the members.

It is this crisis of leadership which we haveto deal with, not spend our time runningaround denouncing leaders who are scaredwitless by a threat of new laws, theemployers' use of current law against themand the volatility of the rank and file.

This is not goingto be aneasyjob—nor isit going to be achieved by massive greatgestures, by appeals to 'make the unionsfight' etc., by substituting ourselves for the

shopfloor leadership that has to be rebuilt.A heavy priority has to be put on smallthings, on arguments with handfuls ofmilitants in different areas and industries.

Trade unionism—the basic things that areright and wrong—has to be re-emphasised.It is actually a question of right and wrong—most workers know what is bad, whatrepresents the easy out, the road to ruin.

The arguments have to be put in detailover a period of time. Since the Rank andFile Conference in June we have taken stepstowards getting regular meetings going inthe Park Royal area, in north west London.Nothing too big—certainly not a 'rank andfile committee'—but a meeting of a fewstewards from places that went to theconference, together with any otherstewards and militants from local factories,who are interested. So far we haven't hadmeetings because of the holidays, but wereckon getting individuals from at least fourworkplaces in the autumn.

Stop the RotIf we are going to start the job of building

up the rank and file leadership's confidenceand self-reliance, there are several pointsthat will have to be hammered home againand again.

The first is that the fear ol being beatenhas to be overcome. Being turned over canbe the best thing that happens to a steward,because by sticking to his principles—towhat ought to be done—he's giving a lead tothe two or three, five or six blokes who canmake all the difference in the future.

A further aspect is democracy. Not justthe question of holding mass meetings toratify the joint shop stewards' decisions, butof allowing the membership to argue out theissues in sectional meetings before getting tothe stage of a big mass meeting, which in anylargish place can't possibly be reallyd e m o c r a t i c .

Apart from this, sectional meetings offerthe best possible assurance that the factory

leadership will take their members withthem, because all the natural worries aboutgoing on strike, or whatever, can beanswered i n de ta i l . . . and t he weakes tsections can be spotlighted and dealt with ina d v a n c e .

Thirdly there is the principle of accountability and of remaining with the rank andfile. It is all too easy to get into the positiono f w a n t i n g t o h o l d o n t o t h esteward's/convenor's/rep's job come whatmay- this is the short road to ducking theissues, to avoiding the difficult decisions.The end resu l t i s convenors l i ke DerekRobinson at Longbridge—or far morecommon—stewards who are actually afraidof their own rank and file, who don't darecall for even the most elementary forms ofaction or solidarity. Basic habits of the pasta r e l o s t .

O f fi c i a l M o v e sHowever good our arguments though,

it's obviously going to take events to shakepeople out of the dreadful apathy we've gotused to—particularly in the engineeringindustry, which is still the key to the Britisheconomy and the ruling class's prosperity.The first real conflict—the national stoppages called by the Confed—has beenofficial, and very widely supported basicallybecause of a massive loyalty to the AUEWas a union plus the beginnings of anti-Toryism right across the country.

Official disputes could easily become themain feature of the conflic t between theTories and the unions, specially over pay.It's in these conditions that the rebuilding ofsmall rank and file links, which have all butdisappeared in much of the private sector,gets very important.

Those people that clearly see what needsto be done to win in disputes can win a smallbut real audience. But winning thataudience depends a lot on the detailedarguments, work with contacts and sellingSocialist Worker over the next few months.

1 5

HARNASSING &TRANSFORMING

C A P I TA LInterview

0. You along with other MPs andactivists on the left of the Labour Partyhave become identified with the argum e n t t h a t s o c i a l i s t s i n B r i t a i n n e e d t o

develop and fight for an alternativeeconomic strategy. Could you outline theessential features of such a strategy?Hol land: I t has to be concerned w i thtransforming the structure of power incontemporary capitalism. In essentialsthis means changing not qnly the basis ofthe economy itself but also radicallychanging the whole relation betweenpolitical and economic power. In otherwords, although a major extension ofpublic enterprise has been and is anintegral part of the Labour Party'sprogramme many of us are well awarethat public ownership is a necessary, butnot sufficient, condition for changing thepower relations in the economy andsociety.

Similarly, it's important not only toreverse the prevailing relations betweenthe apparatus of the civil service andestablishment hegemony on the one handand government on the other throughmajor reform of the civil service but alsoto admit the extent to which within theLabour Party itself we lack effectivedemocratic procedures and accountability. We need to reverse the presentoligarchy by which a fraction of the Partyin government is in effect able to deny orreverse key features ofParty policy.

Some o f the ma in e lements o f the more

radical economic programme are verymuch know. They were founded on ananalysis that while keynesian intervention in the immediate post-war periodmay have been more effective than someof the u l t ra- le f t such as Mandel wereready to admit its policies depended on aparticular structure of capital and onlywere adequate to cope with one mainfeature of capitalist crisis., In particular it depended on relatively

small-scale national capital prevailing inthe economy since, as Keynes himselfpointed out in his concluding notes to theGeneral Theory on the kind of economicphilosophy to which he thought his ownanalysis might lead, his interventionconcerned essentially the demand side ofthe economy and the level of demandsrather than its distr ibution.

Keynes assumed that, provided thestate intervened decisively to managed e m a n d , t h e n , i n h i s w o r d s , t h emechanisms of perfect and imperfectcompetition for their part would ensurean adequate response. This impliedreliance on a competitive pricemechanism as did the main keynesian

16

m e c h a n i s m o f i n t e r n a t i o n a l t r a d e —exchange-rate changes.

This kind of prevailing orthodoxy hasbeen t ransformed by the t rend tomonopoly and multinational powerwhereby in practice the supply side of theeconomy is no longer merely 'imperfect'but now highly monopolistic with continued competition in many markets butfar from all markets and certainly asuspension of price-competition in majormarkets in the economy.

Also the fact that now a very few firms,literally a few dozen companies,dominate more than half of employment,output, pricing investment, assets andtrade and that these companies, certainly

The Tory victory has created af e r m e n t o f d e b a t e w i t h i n t h eLabour Party. What are the lessonsof the last Labour government?WIN the next one be any different?How do we fight the Tories? Is theLabour Party undemocratic?

O n e s e t o f a n s w e r s t o t h e s equestions is provided by a new left-w ing cur rent w i th in the LabourParty whose standard-bearer IsAnthony Wedgewood Benn. Manyo f t h e m a i n I d e a s o f t h i s c u r r e n twere presented by Stuart HollandIn a book, The Socialist Challenge'(Quartet £2.75), which has beenw i d e l y r e a d s i n c e I t s fi r s tappearance In 1975.

S t u a r t H o l l a n d I s n o w L a b o u rM P f o r V a u x h a l l S o u t h . H e t a l k e d

t o A l e x C a l l l n l c o s a n d J o n B e a r -m a n a b o u t t h e s t r a t e g y f o rsoc ia l i sm In B r i t a in .

among the top 100 hundred in the UK,are all effectively multinational, most ofthem on a major scale, has transformedthe basis of keynesian international tradetheory.

Whereas previously it was believedsince Ricardo, on the pr inciple ofcomparative advantage, that high wage-costs in a more developed country couldbe offset by lower unit costs due to greaterefficiency and therefore it would have anexport advantage over less developedcountries with low labour costs and whileit had always been assumed that interna t iona l t rade was predominant lybe tween d i f fe ren t compan ies andd i f f e r e n t c o u n t r i e s , w e n o w h a v e asituation where the foreign direct investment of British business abroad is alreadymore than double the total UK exportt r a d e .

The multinationals can employ if theyso choose the most modem technologyw i t h l e a s t - c o s t l a b o u r i n t h i r d w o r l dcount r ies o r in te rmed ia te count r ies inS o u t h - E a s t A s i a a n d L a t i n A m e r i c awhere they also have the advantage, intheir terms, of repressive regimes. Andthey increasingly become their owncompetitor abroad.

Th is undermines deva lua t ion in thesense that, for example, General MotorsUK has very little interest in followingthrough a major devaluation of sterlingvis-a-vis the Deutschemark (which was ofthe order of two-thirds from 1970 to 1976)because it is its own competitor in thesense of producing through Opel inGermany etc etc. So it simply tendseither not to export to any greater extentby producing directly abroad or to pocketthe export receipts.'

In these respects it is quite interestingthat one of the major issues in the LabourParty in the late 1960s—at least at thelevel of the gurus dominant at the time—was whether or not we devalued by theappropriate amount or at the right date.

Whereas in the early 1970s we arguedagainst that orthodoxy and, with thesupport of the National Executive of theParty, that such models of internationaltrade had been effectively underminedand tha t , on the b road range o fmacroeconomic policy, where a fewcompanies now dominate economicactivity, it was increasingly necessary toextend the traditional socialist policy ofpublic or common ownership of themeans of production, distribution andexchange and to direct intervention andplanning into this monopolistic, multinational heartland of the economy.

Some o f the mechan isms wh ich werecommended, including a very sizableextension of public ownership andplanning controls over big business in theform of planning agreements, wereacceptable in one sense to a considerablesection of the Party, in as much as somesocial democrats since Durbin, Jay,G a i t s k e l l a n d C r o s l a n d i n t h e 1 9 5 0 s h a d

admitted the case of what they called'competitive public enterprise'. But inthe i r v iew th is in te rvent ion shou ld bemarginal rather than central to economicpolicy and should be merely an instrument for reinforcing conventional modelsof price-competition rather than the mainvehicle for transforming the balance ofeconomic power.

Also whi le some former ministers inthe early 1970s were initially attracted tothe idea of planning agreements in thesense that they anticipated in them abetter defined liason between big businessand the state and greater ease forthemselves as ministers in coping with bigbusiness, they were strongly opposed tothe involvement of committees of shopstewards from the companies themselves,which was an integral part of the planningof agreements formula.

with Stuart HollandIn other words, in two key aspects, the

extnesion of public ownership into profit-making large-size business and the use ofplanning agreements as a vehicle forindustrial democracy, there was majoropposition to the policy. This was rapidlyil lustrated. Within 48 hours of thepublication of the initial oppositionGreen Paper on the National EnterpriseBoard, Harold Wilson attempted tolaunch a personal veto of the proposal totake a controlling public shareholding in20-25 of the top major companies. But atthe same stage he found himself taking onboth clause 4 and clause 5 of the Partyconstitution since as Party leader he hadno power simply to veto a proposal givingfrom the NEC to the Conference. And, ofcourse, the element of new dimensions ofpublic ownership had a considerableappeal to sections of the Party at the time.

But within government, by makingthose two measures voluntary rather thanobligatory, Wilson transformed themfrom potentially incisive instruments forchallenging the prevailing structures ofeconomic power and for harnessing thatpower more directly to the ends of theLabour Party and the labour movementinto passive responses, and ineffecutalmeans of either camoflaging failure, as inthe government's relations with Chryslerwhich resulted in a so-called planningagreement, or underwriting loss-makingactivities, as in most of the interventionsof the NEB.

Q. rd like to take up some pointsrelating to those ideas. First, in TheSocialist Challenge you tend to talkabout the British national economy inabstraction from the context of international capitalist crisis within which wefind ourselves. It at least appears that allthe major capitalist economies are confronted with a common set of problems-declining profitability, built-in inflationary tendencies, monetary instability, and so on. And so the sort of problemsthat socialist have to grapple with aren'tsimply to do with, the extent to which say,the British economy is in the grip of themultinationals but the degree to whichwhat we're confroted with is an international crisis. How would the sort ojproposals you discuss in your book, which -,concentrate on improving Br i ta in 'seconomic position as one component ofan ailing world economy, deal with theseproblems?

The Social ist Chal lenge wasv e r y m u c h c o n c e r n e d w i t h b o t h t h eBritish economy and specific mechanismsfor the extension of public ownership,economic p lann ing , i ndus t r i a ldemocracy for the socialisation of power.T h e f a c t i s t h a t t h e b o o k w a swritten essentially as a polemic andlinked to the specific proposals in Partypolicy, partly because I contributed to theshaping of the policy, but also to illustrate

the kind of rationale surrounding themand the kind of potentially feasiblechange associated with them. It becamerather extended polemic, relating mainlyto the Labour Party and labour movement in the UK, although I did drawsome parallels with the left in France andItaly, and some contrasts with statecapitalism abroad, where althoughthere'd been intervention by state holdingcompanies, there'd been no attemptchange the social relations of production,ie to ex tend workers ' con t ro l and industrial democracy.

In terms of my own views on the crisisand whether it can be in any sense beresolved I have in fact edi ted a bookcalled Beyond Capitalist Planning whereseveral contributors whose views I mainlyshare, from France, Italy, Germany andthe UK. We have a re la t ive lycommon perspective on the nature of thecrisis as the end of a phase of reconstruction after the war and sustained growthbased on the applying technologicalprogress in the forms of new products andindustries, including pharmaceuticals,electronics, computers, etc.

We argue, in a manner not dissimilar toMandel's The Second Slump, that thisgrowth cannot be recovered simply bytrying to resuscitate post-war orthodoxies. The chapter by Karl Georg Zinn onGermany is particularly instructive notleast because it shows the collapse ofoverall rates of growth in investment(gross fixed domestic capital formation)from nine per cent a year in the early1950's to six per cent a year in the early1960's and 0.2 per cent in 1970-74, whichshows very clearly that there was a crisis

of capital accumulation before the OPECoil price increases, in what is supposed tobe one of the strongest and mostsuccessful economies in the capitalistw o r l d .

Also, in the judgement of most of theseauthors, there is no evidence available atpresent of a round of innovationscreating new products, new industries,new employment, new demand sufficientto resolve this crisis for the system.

And I would argue in particular thatunless the left can succeed in establishings u p p o r t f o r t r a n s f o r m i n g t h emyths of recoverable capitalist growthinto a new model or modes of developm e n t b a s e d o n t h e s o c i a l i s a t i o n o fdemand, supply, and control in theeconomy, then there is little chance of ouravoiding either beggar-my-neighbourprotectionism, which would be a defeatfor liberal capitalism on its own terms, oranyway massive beggar-my-neighbourdeflation which governments are atpresent imposing on the world economicsystem, which has led in the short—andm e d i u m - t e r m t o a c o m b i n a t i o n o fmassive unemployment and rampanti n fl a t i o n .

Now there are various elements in thekinds of economic strategy at a nationaland international level which might befeasible to transform this crisis. Verydifferently from Mandel, whose SecondSlump is excellent in its general economicanalysis but ends in, to my mind, aderisory two and a half pages of politicalr e c o m m e n d a t i o n s f o r a c t i o n w h i c hamount to spontaneous mobi l isat ion of

1 7

the working class, demands for directaction, and workers' control etc, thecontributors to Beyond Capitalist Planning and others in the Labour Party thinkit is very important to specify elements ofa feasible strategy for transforming thec r i s i s .

Q. Are you talking about specificchanges for transforming the crisis withinthe context of individual nationale c o n o m i e s ?

No. It seems to me that only someeconomies could recover on a global scaleby import-substitution, protection, etc,that many of the less developed, orundeveloping, economies of the worldwould have very little chance of doing thisat the present moment, even by maoist-type policies of back to the land andspecific rejection of capitalism. I think it'simportant to realise the very greatpotential for joint international action,avoiding at least the worst aspects ofslump, despite the fact that with differentpolitical systems on a world scale the areaof common interests is naturally morelimited than on a national scale.

Q. This seems to imply that you see theintroduction of some form of importcontrols as less relevant to dealing withthe crisis than some sections of theLabour left think.

That's a fair comment. I've never beenpersuaded that import controls inthemselves are a progressive measure ora measure likely to increase socialc o n t r o l o v e r t h e e c o n o m y . I np r a c t i c e t h e y h a v e b e e napplied at least as vigorously bygovernments of the right or far right,inc lud ing some countr ies in Lat inAmerica, and Britain in the 1930s, as theyh a v e c o u n t r i e s o f t h e l e f t .

The main point that I argued in TheSocialist Challenge was that we cannoteffectively cope with specific forms ofeconomic cr is is in iso lat ion. You can' tresolve simply the trade problemirrespective of pricing and investment,job-creation and the distribution ofdemand. Since we're now in a situationwhere literally a few dozen companiesdominate the economy part of theconcept of planning agreements was thatthe government should take powersbased on new public enterprise to ensureeffective change in the performance ofthese extremely large firms.

To give an illustration of this on theexport side, despite there being literallyhundreds of thousands of manufacturingfirms in the UK economy, and somemi l l ion and a ha l f smal l fi rms overa l l ,there are only 10,000 regular exportingmanufacturing companies in this country. 220 firms account for about twothirds of our visible export trade, some 75firfts for half and about 30 firms for twofi f t h s .

It's quite clear that if you could harnessthis tremendous concentration of powerin the export sector, you would be able to |

make a very sizeable contribution tochanging the overall visible trade performance, especially if you challenged thedegree of multinationalisation of theeconomy, that's to say you either dis-invested.in some of the markets abroad orcertainly restrained the rate of growth offoreign investment relative to exportt r a d e .

This, however, doesn't necessarily copewith specific sectors that are in economiccrisis. If we'd had even an active state-capitalist policy for a company likeBritish Leyland, if we'd been as activewith them as Volkswagen under substantial public ownership were in a totalmodernisation programme which turnedthat company round in five to ten years orRenault, in France, which has becomeone of the most powerful motor vehicleproducers in the world, then it might havebeen that we could have stemmed theimport penetration in motor vehicles,which has now become so dramatic, oratleast have been in the process of stemming it now, half-way through the ten-year programme for modernisation.

But certainly in areas such as motorcycles, typewriters, where one's talking ofTriumph Meriden, Litton ImperialTypewriters and a range of electrical andelectronic production, and so on and soforth, there are specific sectors where itseems to me there is a very strong case forselective import controls aimed at themost developed capitalist countries,w h i c h a r e t h e m s e l v e s o v e r e x p o r t -dependent, not least Japan, and where wehave no obligation whatever to supporttheir social and economic system at thecost of the disappearance of major sectorsof our own industry.

However, it is increasingly becomingapparent that there has been no readinesson the part of the international financialcommunity to apply even qualifiedKeynesianism on a global scale, thatm o n e t a r i s m i s r a m p a n t i n t h ec h a n c e l l e r i e s a n d t r e a s u r i e s o f m o s twestern developed capitalist countries,and that our deindustr ial isat ion is nowproceeding at a very fast pace. Thereforeis it increasingly incumbent upon us toendorse political and economic strategieswhich involve a planned control ofoverall trade and, within that, a plannedincrease in imports, focussed on lessdeveloped countries.

Q . The a l t e rna t i ve economic s t r a tegyimplies a considerable expansion in theeconomic role of the state. This raises thequestion of the guarantees against thisexpansion simply providing the capitalistclass with a much more powerful engineof exploitation than it previously possessed. In other words, what guarantee ist h e r e t h a t t h e a l t e r n a t i v e e c o n o m i cstrategy will not simply lead to a moredeveloped form of state capitalism?

There are very few guarantees inpolitics, either on the left or on the right,either in the mature capitalist countries orby the now mature 'socialist' countries.Having said that, there is a rather famous

authority from within the socialisthierarchy who has suggested that statecapitalism can in fact be the antechambert o s o c i a l i s m .

I think that without endorsing in fullthe argument of the state monopolycapitalism thesis there is nonetheless avery clear and increasing involvement ofbig business and the state on a globalscale, wi th the state increasinglyproviding infrastructural and passives e r v i c e s f o r l a r g e - s c a l e c a p i t a lo n i t s t e r m s . W i t h t h e f a c t t h a t s t a t e

capitalism is for me state interventionw i t h i n a n u n r e c o n s t r u c t e d c l a s sframework in order to preserve prevailingclass relations, these are two of the key rfeatures of the state-capitalist rationale.

By contrast, the programme which Iadvocated in The Socialist Challengeandelements of which are reflected in labourParty policy was certainly conceived,promoted and initially endorsed by theParty in the context of changes ofrelations within society.

The key test issues for the labourmovement under a Labour governmentwere to prove the following.

One, whether state intervention waspassive or active, whether it actuallychanged what capital wanted to do orwhether it simply remained at its service.Two, whether public-enterprise intervention was simply in loss-making or high-risk areas rather than in profit-makingsectors. Three, the degree to which theextension of new forms of publicownership and planning control involvedtrade unionists at the shop floor levelthrough planning agreements as well astrade union leaders through sectorworking parties. Four, a policy ontaxation and public spending whichd e f e n d e d a n d e x t e n d e d t h e s h a r e o fpublic spending on the welfare sector ofthe economy. Five, and very importantly,the extent ' to which a wealth lax wasintroduced which really changed thebasic distribution of wealth.

Clearly, by these tests, the Labourgovernment failed to move beyond a statecapitalist rationale. Nonetheless such amove was in principle feasible. Forinstance, I argued that one of the ways inwhich we could afford to under take amajor extension of public ownershipwithout massive compensation in theearly 1970s was both very depressedstock-market prices prevailing in 1973-4in which in fact you could pick up controlof a couple of dozen of the biggerindustrial companies at prices equivalentto the annual profits of BPaloneandalsoa wealth tax which operated in the way asPAVE—at source. In other words, thereis a very strong case, which is of coursevery similar to the principle of compensation according to need, that any compensation for public ownership should berelated to a wealth tax and that tax ratesshould be highly progressive.

Q, What Vd l ike to turn to now is the sor t

of obstacles facing the policies we've beendiscussing. I want to talk about it at two

18

One could of course say that the morecapitalism is threatened in its home-basecountries by progressive social forces themore it woud be prepared to tolerate orsupport repression, or actively to subvertthe democratic process. But even thereone must look very carefully at thespecific circumstances.

For example, in the United Kingdom Ithink it is very significant that when therewas a general strike in Ulster(in 1974), anarmy already highly extended both byUlster and the Army of the Rhinebasically gave the message to the government of the time that there had to be apolitical solution in the short termbecause they simply could not continue torun gas, electricity, water supply, busesand other services as well as maintainorder. And that is with a community ofonly three million people rather than thewhole of the United Kingdom.

It is of course possible that if a socialistprogramme in one developed capitalistcountry were allegedly posing at aninternational level a threat to militarysecurity that the intervention of NATOforces from other countries would besought in order to defend a particularkind of order. But even there it's open toquestion whether this actually wouldhappen. For a fascist or highly repressivepolicy to succeed in one of the majormetropolitan countries you need either adegree of very brutal simplicity or veryconsiderable sophistication. In one senseat present I'm not convinced that themilitary is either that brutal or thatsophisticated in the more mature liberald e m o c r a c i e s .

Q. You mentioned earlier that a lot ofthe ideas which we've been discussingw e r e e m b o d i e d i n L a b o u r ' s 1 9 7 3programme and that nonetheless whenLabour came to power these policies wereeither not implemented or effectivelysabotaged. Can a repetition of thisepisode be prevented?

I'm not sure that we can prevent arepetition unless we have a quite sizabledemonstration by a broad section of theleft in this country that they are willing tofight for and support some oof thedemands of the mainstream left in theLabour Party and the labour movement.

With a government as reactionary-asthis and assuming that that governmentdoes not literally go over the precipice bysuspending fundamental aspects of thedemocratic process, then it seems to meprobable that the crisis which theirmeasures wil l provoke at both theeconomic and social levels could result inLabour winning the next general electionwith a decisive majority even if thecurrent Labour leadership doesn't movefrom its present posture of simplycriticising Tory policy. In other words, bythe standards of this kind of Conservativereaction, our own social-democraticfront bench is quite progressive.

That doesn't deny the fact that it wasthe Labour government which int roduced mone ta r i s t po l i c i es andmeasures from 1975, that cut public

spending in real terms over the period ofthe last government more than by £8billion which is the equivalent of oneyear's total spending in the HealthService, that sought yet again in the 1970sas in the late 1960s to harness and restrainl a b o u r r a t h e r t h a n t o h a r n e s s a n dtransform capital.

I think-^he conditions for preventingthis happening again are part ideologicaland part political. The social-demoratichegemony in north-west Europe in thepost-war period depended very much onthe success fo the economy. Whenpoliticians and governments from social-democratic parties became in effect thepolitical managers, of capitalism with ahuman face, their success depended, as inprivate management, on delivering thegoods.

Although there's been a move to theright in some unions recently, it's a verydifferent climate from the 1950s when onehad mainly frictional unemployment,real-income growth every year, realgrowth in public spending, and nofundamental attack on the welfare state,e t c .

Social democracy is in real crisis. It isnot even that it is stuck in the keynesianparadigm. Some of the monetarists iniheLabour Party have in fact moved soardently into friedmanite positions attacking public expenditure that they havemoved to the right of the Croslandposition of the 1950s and early 1960s.There are many activists in the LabourParty who previously would not haveconsidered themselves on the left whohave to my knowledge become radicalised by what happened under the lastLabour government.

Af ter ' a l l bo th the soc ia l -democrat ictradi t ion and the Fabian tradi t ion werethemselves based on certain implicit orexplicit values, such as defence of publicspending, defence of the welfare state,improving services like housing, healthand educat ion in what amounted to asociety open to talent but also involvingcertain principles of social justice.

This has collapsed. The result is acons iderab le inc rease in po l i t i ca lawareness among many members of theParty, opening up certain fundamentalquestions which it appeared to some hadalready been settled or closed 15 or 20years ago. It thereby has opened upfrontiers in what had previously beenconsidered the middle ground of theParty.

If in the coming months and years thedemands for explicit and greater accountability of power within the Labour Partywith a view to such accountability withingovernment do not win decisively withint h e c o n f e r e n c e s a n d w i t h i n t h e c o nstituencies, with the trades councils andwithin the trade unions, then we cannotexpect of itself &ny necessary improvemntif there be a return to office, in otherwords, we cannot expect to transform thetenure of office into exercise of power.

But if the case of the left, despite theactive distortion by the press and by someof the more uncomradely members of our

movement, can gain ground in this periodand can be reflected ot only in decisionsof the conference but also in a gutconviction among activists that thesepolitical changes in the structure andbalance of power are necessary conditions for the fulfilment of policy, thenwe have a chance in government nexttime round at least of having an advancesimilar in scale to the immediate post-warperiod, where Labour between 1945 and1951 changed the terms of reference ofpolitics for 30 years.

There is also, however, a furtherd imension: how does the le f t mobi l isewith this kind of Tory government? Wehear time and time again from virtuallyevery quarter of the movement that thereshould be a mass campaign, yet we don'tsee the evidence for such a campaign inpractice.

It is possible not only that certainunions will resort to strike action but thatthere will be arguments in favour ofgeneral strike action. In my own view it'svery important that we think of masscampaigning on certain convergent lineswhich consciously seek to bring togetherthose e lemen ts where the re i s b roadagreement on the left. We must think lessin terms of general strikes such, whichhardly have a good record in transforming the power structures in society, anddo very much constitute an invitation torepression, and ore in terms of politicalaction which extends the politicalbargaining power of the working class.

In other words, we need to develop anongoing challenge, whether it's in termsof local councils, area health authorities,t r a d e u n i o n s o n t h e s h o p fl o o r,throughout the whole range of politicalactivity, and to make clear that they arequi te s imply the most react ionarycapitalist government since the war.

If we are thinking, for example, ofdemonstrating collectively our opposit i o n a s a l a b o u r m o v e m e n t t o t h i s

government and its attacks on theworking class then I think we might welltake a leaf from the recent events in Iran.There, instead of the system beingchallenged after major incidents by onemass demonstration or one generalstrike, the ayatollahs declared followingt h e m u r d e r i n t h e s t r e e t s o f s e v e r a lnovices by the Shah's militia in the springof last year that they would take to thestreets every 40 days in demonstrationuntil the regime either withdrew or fell.

Instead of, for example, one-off protestdemonstrations, lobbies of Parliament,etc, ongoing and regular demonstrationsof this kind, with which broad sections ofthe population, and not simply those atpresent active politically, can identify andsupport, could be a very powerful meansof expressing opposition to the newgovernment and its regime.

This may well involve strike action, butit seems to me that the building up ofcollective pressure, against the regimerather than the cataclysmic and, byimplication, once-off approach to changecan relate to the kind of gramscianpolitics which the British left needs today.

2 0

THERE is a growing struggle forPower In the Labour Party. Thatmuch Is clear from the press andtelevision coverage. Ever since theParty lost the election In May It hasbeen subject to bitter and Intensefeuding. The NEC has endorsedproposals that represent a fundamental change in the structureand direction of the Party.

Tony Benn and Eric Heffer haver e f u s e d t o s e r v e I n t h e S h a d o w

Cabinet, turning to build-up suppor t among the Par ty 's ebb ingbase. And Frank Atlaun, Chairmanof the Labour Party, has pledgedthe Party to resist the sweepingand reactionary measures proposed by the Thatcher Government.Seemingly, from the outside, theLabour Left Is well organised, onthe upswing, threatening a sharpbreak with the present capitalistordering of society.

But Is this realty the case? Forw h i l e w e c a n a c c e p t t h a t aburgeon ing le f t - re fo rm ism i s aforeboding prospect to the Cityand private capitalism, what does Itmean for the working class? Overthe coming months the presentl e f t - r e f o r m i s t g r o u p i n g I n t h eLabour Party will become Increasingly Influential among sections of the working class.

I n o r d e r t o u n d e r s t a n d I t ' s

development we must set It againstthe experience of Its forerunners.L e f t - r e f o r m i s m I s n o t a n e w o c

curence, It was not grafted on, butI t was the re-asser t lon o f a s t ra inthat always present In the LabourParty.

In 1950 Tony Benn was selected to succeedto Sir Stafford Cripps's seat at BristolSouth-East. He was a keen young man, justdown from Oxford,possessing.a handsomewallet of good connections and recommendations. His tutor, Anthony Crosland,recognised in him the fine qualities of an

T H E O N WA R DMARCH OF

B E N Nby Jon Bearman

able publicist and energetic campaigner.E v e n W i n s t o n C h u r c h i l l , w h o f o u n d h i sambition and drive promising.ventured tosuggest that he would rise 'close to thesummit of his party'.

29 years later, after a career embracingboth the struggle against his peerage and thechairmanship of the Fabian Society, TonyBenn is the outstanding figure of a seriousleft-reformist regroupment in the LabourParty. In this respect it is appropriate thatBenn should represent Cripps's old seat, forit was Crippsinthe 1930s who was the leaderof another left-reformist alignment—theSocialist League.

The Socialist League combined smallerbodies such'as the Society for SocialistInformation and Propaganda and the NewF a b i a n R e s e a r c h B u r e a u . I t i n c l u d e dacademics like G D H Cole, H N Braiisford,R H Tawney and Harold Laski. and drew onsome support from the higher echelons oft h e t r a d e s u n i o n b u r e a u c r a c i e s .

Standing on a programme demanding the'na t i ona l i sa t i on o f t he banks , l and , t hemines, power, transport, iron and steel,cotton, and control of foreign trade,' therewas a strong emphasis on an 'extra-parliamentary' approach which was bestdeveloped in Cripps's pamphlet CanSocialism Come by Constitutional Means?

Here he argued that a Labour Government should take emergency powers to forcethrough its programme against capitalistopposition.

The climax of the League was the attemptto commit the Labour Party to a unitedfront with the Communist Party and theIndependent Labour Party.

In the end, Cripps failed because of theweight of the trades union block-votes atLabour Party conferences. The League wasdisaffiliated from the Labour Party andCripps was expelled. He was only allowedto return when he had mended his ways,advocating Lord Halifax, a prominentappeaser of Hitler, for the premiership in1940.

At the height of the League, 1936, LabourParty constituency membership reached430, 614; by 1942, after its death, it hadfallen to 218, 783 (largely because of thewartime truce between the major parties).O v e r t h e s a m e t i m e , t r a d e u n i o nmembership had risen by 211,911.

The left revived in the 1950s under theleadership of Aneurin Bevan. But theBevanites, too, were bludgeoned intosubmission by the huge block-votes wieldedrepeatedly at TUCs and Labour Partyconferences throughout the 1950s. Thesewere the years when a 'triple alliance' ofDeakin (TGWU), Lawther (NUM) and

Tomlinson (National Union of General andMunicipal Workers) ensured that all left-reformist proposals were soundly beaten.

The Bevanites had their base among theconstituency parties and, by 1952, six out ofseven of the constituency seats on the NECwere held by Bevanites, but to no avail. Attheir zenith, 1952, constituency membershipstood at 1,014,685. But by 1960, after theyhad been demolished, it slumped to 790,192.Meanwhile trade union membership inc r e a s e d f r o m 5 , 0 7 1 . 7 3 5 t o 5 , 5 1 2 , 6 8 8 —nearly half a million!

The present left-reformist grouping in theLabour Party (the Bennite left) is the firstmajor presence since the Bevanites. Forsome time, perhaps a decade, it hasassembled out of smaller, peripheral groups.Like the left in the 1930s it is fragmented andincohesive.'claiming support for 'extra-parliamentary' action. And like that of the1950$, it has built its base among theconstituency parties. Yet over the last fewyears const i tuency membersh ip hasplumetted; in 1977 it was only 659,737.

T h e t r a d i t i o n a l w o r k i n g c l a s smembership, centred on older and heavierindustries, is becoming depleted as the socialbasis of the the party is shifting. Increasingly. constituency activists are drawn from the' n e w m i d d l e c l a s s ' — a r c h i t e c t s , s o c i a lworkers, white collar workers, etc.

Benn himself was an active member of theBevanites in the 1950s, participating inCND and the campaign against Suez. Butwith the collapse of the Bevanites, and theforced dissolution of Campaign for aSocialist Victory the left-reformists werefaced with barren years. Benn, along withother lefts such as Barbara Castle and DickCrossman, spent those years building acareer in government. However, since theWi lson Government fe l l i n 1970, he hasdevo ted cons iderab le t ime and e f fo r t toreconstructing and re-rooling the Left insuch a way that no right-wing party leadercould tear it up as Gaitskell did in the 1950sBenn has emerged as the leader of this Left.

The Bennite Left consists of several keyactivist organisations that have been instrumental in this process. There is theInst i tute for Workers Control ( IWC),

21

the Labour Co-ordinating Committee(LCC), the National Register of TribuneClubs, the Campaign for Labour PartyDemocracy, some university based groupsand Clause 4 in the student field.

These groups, which may seem marginal,have actually made significant headway inre-defining a left-reformist position inBritish politics. They originally pioneeredand sponsored the package of measures thath a s b e c o m e k n o w n a s t h e ' a l t e r n a t i v estrategy'. It has been a gauge of their successthat support for this strategy has come fromthe TGWU, NUPE and it is hoped that nextyear Scargill can deliver support from theNUM. But beyond this, as the movementagainst the Tories sets underway, an evenstronger pull will be exerted throughoutsections of the working class.

Of all the groups, the IWC hasundoubtedly been the most inlluential.From 1968 onwards it has engaged in thework of re-building a left-reformist base inthe unions. Concentrating on thebureaucracies, such eminences as Jones,Scanlon, Daly and Wright have all, in time,been associated with the IWC. But alonethis would prove inadequate, so it hasendeavoured to bring Combine committeesand alternative plans such as LucasAerospace and co-operatives such is IPDKirkby and Meridan within it's orbit. But itis not in the business of building amongstthe rank and file, mainly operating as apropaganda group.

In the last few years. Independent LabourPublications (formerly the IndependentLabour Party) has emerged committed to'building the Labour Left.' Through itspaper. Labour Leader, it is hoping toprovide a focus for 'extra-parliamentary'activity towards this end. So far it hasatt racted a smal l core of act iv ists—PeterHain, Peter Jenkins and Geoff Hodgson, tomention a few. Even so, it is in no waygeared to industrial work.

To draw together the strands of thepresent, diffuse, incohesive Left, Benn and

P u b l i s h e d O c t o b e r 1 s t

I N T E R N A T I O N A L S O C I A L I S M 6A U T U M N 1 9 7 9I n c l u d e s

T O N Y C L I F FThe Balance of Class Forces In Britain inR e c e n t Ye a r sS W P a n d U n i t e d S e c r e t a r i a tDebate the Perspectives of the FourthI n t e r n a t i o n a lJ O N B E A R M A N

Anatomy of the Bennite LeftD A V E A L B U R YThe Lucas Plan: Alternative Productionand Revolutionary Strategy

his leading colleagues—Stuart Holland,Br ian Sedgemore, Michael Meacher,Frances Morrell and Audrey Wise—at thelast Labour Party conference, launched theL a b o u r C o - o r d i n a t i n g C o m m i t t e e .Originally it was supposed to spawn lots of.local groups, but up to now. the 'innerc i r c l e ' ' h a v e r u n i t o n t h e b a s i s o forganising joint action for conferences andt h e l i k e .

As for the 'alternative strategy', it did notbegin life as an alternative strategy, but asofficial Labour Party policy. It was formulated in the period after the 1970 electionwhen the left-reformists seized the chance,amidst right wing disarray, to buildthemselves ins ide Transpor t House,dominating the committees.

The forthcoming proposals decantedf rom these commi t tees thus a t ta ined anauthority against a backcloth of risingworking class militancy. Most of the planksof this strategy became policy via thisprocess; being fought for, and won, underthe conditions of an upsurge of the classstru^le. Since then it has been added too,though it was basically replete by 1976.

This much vaunted strategy for whatHolland has called a 'public enterpriseeconomy' does represent a challenge toprivate capital. Indeed, it is essentially astate capitalist position, meaning a considerable change in property relationships,but not a change in the relations of product i o n .

It stems from underlying premises thatdepict Britain as a declining industrialpower, becoming incompetitive becausecapitalists have failed to invest, and arechannelling funds abroad, into property andspeculation. Therefore, they argue, the Statemust control and plan 'the economy',harnessing the power of large companies,breaking the chains that interlock Britaininto the world economy and thus aggravatethe situation, and establish a state tradingmonopoly. That is to say, they propose torestore the competitiveness of British capital

I A N B I R C H A L LSocial Democracy and the Portuguese' R e v o l u t i o n 'Plus much more in special issue expandedto 144 pages but still only£1 (plus 17ppostage and packing)Subscription rates (for 4 issues) UK, Eire£4 ( inst i tuations £6) Europe £4.80(insti tut ions £6.80) Elsewhere, surface£5 (insti tut ions £7) airmail £6.50( inst i tu t ions £9.00)F r o m I n t e r n a t i o n a l S o c i a l i s m , P Q B o x8 2 , L o n d o n E 2 .

by pursuing a vigorous strategy for nationaleconomic development.

The resounding cal ls for industr ialdemocracy or 'workers control' are but ameans to saddle workers with the burdensand responsibilities of production. Only ifworkers have some form of responsibilitycan they ensure both the required surplusfor investment and the increased productivi-t y.

This strategy only became an alternativestrategy when then the Labour Government, elected in 1974, reneged on the officialpolicy and embarked on a vicious anti-working class policy, cutting living standards to sustain profits. Throughout 1975and 1976 the left put up a pitiful rearguardaction that dissipated into defeat.

Since then the battle has been waged forinternal democracy and accountabilityinside the Labour Party. The Campaign forLabour Party Democracy has come to theforefront to organise the efforts. At the lastLabour Party conference an attempt wasmounted to make all Parliamentary candidates undergo mandatory selection. It wasonly lost because Scanlon reciled on adelegation decision. But bigger storms areaugured for the future over the responsibility for draughting the manifesto and theelection of the Leader.

It is this internecine feuding that willconsume the major part of the Left'senergies over at least the next two years.From a left-reformist standpoint, neithermass actions like that which toppled Heath,nor e laborat ing grandiose economics c h e m e s a r e w o r t h w h i l e i f a t t h e e n d o f t h e

day, the newly-elected Labour Governmentspurns the movement and didiscards theschemes. For them, the inaccountability ofthe leadership has always been the sustainedinadequacy of the Labour Party.

Of course, the Bennites will try to stage afocus of opposition to the Tories. They will,no doubt, make nasty, vitriolic speeches andhold occasional ra l l ies and marches. Butwhat they will not do is build an actionbased rank and file movement that can be anagency for change.

T h e c o m m i t m e n t t o a f o r m o f ' e x t r a -

parliamentary' approach isy only affordedfor the purpose of mobilising the LabourMovement behind the 'alternative strategy',not in organising resistance to the Tories. Inthe words of Stuart Holland: 'It will only bethrough the negotiated and bargainedsupport of the trade union movement thatsuch critical change will prove to be possib l e . '

Presently, the odds are stacked wellagainst the Bennite Left succeeding. UnlikeCripps and Bevan they have taken more careto build a base among the unions, but interms of block-votes, they are still outnumbered. Their support from the TGWUremains unsteady and Scargill hasn't yetbeen elected. On the oth^r hand, everydaythe right-wing is becoming more vocal andtheir demands for an inquiry into the partystructure more accepted. Soon the balancein the Party may be tipped against the Left.At most, their chances are slight.

Sometimes when you cross the streamyou can be swept away by a strongerc u r r e n t .

I N T E R N A T I O N A LS O C I A L I S M STHEORETICAL JOURNAL PRODUCED BY THE S(XIAUST WORKERS PARTY

2 2

Reproduction RightsUnder A t tacki n A m e r i c aby Mary Deaton

Women's right to choose li not onlyunder threat in Britain. Mary Deaton, ofthe International Socialist Organisation( U S ) , d e s c r i b e s r e c e n t a t t a c k s o nreproductive rights In the United States.

It was supposed to mean the end of back-alley abortions. On 22 January 1973 theUnited States Supreme Court handed downa ruling saying individual states could notpass laws interfering with a woman'sd e c i s i o n t o h a v e a n a b o r t i o n .

By 1979 nearly six million abortions hadbeen performed in clinics and hospitals at anaverage cost of $280. But, in 1977, RosieJimenez, young, poor and Chicana, died ofan illegal abortion in New York. Morewould die. Many would suffer irreparabledamage to their bodies. What happened tolegal abortions?

The Supreme Court ruling was only adelayed sanction of what had alreadyhappened. Beginning in Colorado in 1967, anoisy, militant women's liberation movement had been demanding, and getting,liberalised abortion laws in some states. Bythe t ime the federal courts extended therepeal of the restrictive laws to the entirecountry, however, the women's movementhad already begun its decline intoseparatism and the respectable feminism offormer congress woman Bella Abzug andBetty Ford.

W i t h n o m a s s m o v e m e n t t o d e f e n dabortions, the enemies of women's rightswere free to organize and attack. Hidingbehind the dishonest labels of'right-to-life'and 'pro-life' they mounted a massivelegislative and legal campaign to restrict ordestroy legal abortion.

To nobody's surprise, the funding camef r o m t h e C a t h o l i c C h u r c h a n d a l o o s ecoa l i t i on o f r igh t -w ing po l i t i ca l andreligious groups like Phyllis Schlafly's EagleForum, Direct Mail, Inc. (the largest right-wing fund-raising company in the country),television preachers like the Rev. JerryFalwell, and union-buster par excellenceJoseph Coors.

A massive propaganda campaign in thecountry's churches and parochial schoolsportrayed the anti-abortion position as 'thegreatest civil rights issue of the century'.

Kindergarten children were shown gorypictures of the products of dilation andcurettage procedures. Foetuses becamebabies, pregnant women became mothers.

and abortion became murder. Decryingchild abuse, hunger, racial genocide, wifebeating and other issues normallyassociated with the women's movement, theanti-abortionists created an image ofthemselves as the true protectors ofmankind's right to live, the last greatcrusaders in a world gone mad.

Their first major national success was thepassage, in 1977, of the Hyde amendment,cutting off federal abortion funds for allwomen except those who could prove theirpregnancy was a result of rape or incest orposed a serious threat to their health. Manystates followed suit, some paying only fort h o s e a b o r t i o n s n e e d e d t o s a v e a w o m a n ' slife. Jimmy Carter told angry poor womenthat 'life is sometimes unfair' and abortions

paid through welfare programs declined 99percent.

At the end of 1978, a federal agencyestimated that 72,000 women were in dangerof seeking, and getting, illegal abortionsbecause they could not afford to pay forlegal ones. Many thousands of others weredangerously delaying the procedure whilethey begged, borrowed and, maybe, stole, toget money for a legal operation.

In 1979, more thousands will be endangered. This year, the Hyde amendmenthas further tightened its restrictions onfederal monies. Massachusets stopped allabortion funding. California severelyrestricted funding. Ohio is debating a severecut-back of state money which would alsoend state-paid abortion referral and educat i o n s e r v i c e s .

When the anti-abortionists fail to passrestrictive laws, they resort to violence.More than 20 abort ion cl in ics have beenfirebombed or burned in the last 4 years. Sit-ins at clinics are becoming more common

and increasingly threatening to the safety ofpatients.

The zealots chain themselves to operatingtables, or block access to procedure rooms.A Cleveland Ohio bomber temporarilyblinded a clinic worker and sent women insurgical gowns screaming into the streetswhen he ignited a gasoline bomb in theclinic. Often, women entering clinics areverbally abused and called 'baby-killers'.

Abortion is not the only reproductiveright under attack. In Los Angeles, fiveSpanish speaking women lost a lawsuitcharging a public hospital with forcing themto sign consent forms for sterilization whilethe women were drugged and in child-birth.The forms were in English.

Two 12-year-old black, Alabama twinsw e r e s t e r i l i z e d u n d e r a c o u r t o r d e r b e c a u s e

they were mentally retarded. In chemicalplants and factories where lead is used,companies are demanding women besterilised before they are allowed to work.Over a ^ quarter of all Native Americanwomen and one-third of al l Puerto Ricanwomen of child-bearing age are nowreported to be sterile.

Child-care centers are closing for lack off u n d s . S e x e d u c a t i o n a n d b i r t h c o n t r o l, information is being prohibited in schools.|A California midwife was charged with^murder when the baby she helped deliverdied. She was released when the parentsrefused to testify against her. Gay parentsare losing custody of their children.

While the attacks are sporadic andsometimes fail, they succeed often enough tobe frightening. The danger of women losingeven the most minimal of the gains made inthe last ten years is very real.

Losing abortion, of course, means womenwill die, especially poor and minoritywomen who can't buy safe, illegal abortions.Women who refuse forced sterilisations willlose welfare benefits, jobs or needed abort i o n s .

No abortions means nothing less than areturn to compulsory pregnancy and mandatory motherhood. While the MargaretThatchers run governments and the GloriaSteinheims run magazines, the rest of us willbe treated like so many cattle, bred orneutered according to government dictuma n d t h e c o l o r o f o u r s k i n s .

The right-to-lifers are gleeful. Women,after all, were made to bear children.W o m e n a r e t h e b a c k b o n e o f t h e n u c l e a r

2 3

family, and it is the family they are trying tosave from death. To do that, they know theymust prevent women from making furtherdemands for equal work, equal pay andcontrol over child-bearing.

They must stop women workers fromorganizing for an end to discrimination andsexual harassment on the job, or, worse yet,from joining with their union brothers in thefight against speed-ups and wage cuts. Theyknow they must destroy women's hopes forequality if they are to destroy women'spotentially revolutionary desires. Keepingus barefoot and pregnant is one of theirw e a p o n s .

These champions of Christian morality—thou shalt not kill—are capitalism's battering ram against women. TTtey posture as adissident minority scaling the walls ofgovernment resistance. In fact, however, thegovernment stands aside and pleads coerc i o n .

T h e s e e d o f t h e a n t i - a b o r t i o n m o v e m e n t

grows in the economic crisis of capitalism.Working class women are forced by inflation and unemployment to work, yet, theburden of child-rearing falls ever heavier aschild-care and other social services are cut.

To protect falling profits from thedemands of women for higher wages andm o r e c h i l d - c a r e , t h e g o v e r n m e n tcol laborates wi th the moral is ts to fur thersubject us to our biology.

If we want to work, we must give upchildren. If we want children, we must giveup work. If we dare to want both, we arepenalized with low wages, poor benefits andthe poor health which comes from workingtwo full-time jobs. If we are black, Chicana,Native American or Asian, we have no rightt o e i t h e r . f

The anti-abortionists know which side ofthe class line they are on. The largest of theorganizations trying to defend abortiondon't think there is a class line amongwomen or. if they do, want to be on thecapitalists' side of the line and be rewardedwith abortion for their loyalty.

The National Abortion Rights ActionLeague (NARAL) and t he Na t i ona lOrganization of Women (NOW) respondedto the attacks against abortion with anincrease in lobbying and back-room politic-ing with legislators, a stepped up campaignto have the Democratic Party adopt aposition supporting abortion and media andelectoral campaigns costing hundreds ofthousands of dollars.

Rather than send women into the streets,

they send lawyers into court. Ratherthan support free abortion on demand, theyquibble over how much money should beallotted for abortions and who is going totax whom to pay for it. Rather than raise theissue of forced strilisations, they claim it will'confuse' and 'alienate' abortion supporters.

One mainstay of the pro-choice (they liketo use the word abortion) movementactually funds and administers forcedsterilization programmes internationally—Planned Parenthood.

The liberal abortion supporters wantlegal, safe, cheap abortions for white,middle-class, married women. They pay lip-service to the needs of the poor and working,but refuse to budge from their single-issue2 4

mania and link up other reproductive rightsissues with abortion. Eleanor Smeal, presid e n t o f N O W, c a l l e d a c o n f e r e n c e i nFebruary, 1979, and invited the anti-a b o r t i o n i s t s t o a t t e n d .

She hoped to get the cooperation of theso-called pro-lifers in organizing around

'Other issues such as child abuse and battered

wives. The righi-to-lifers refused to attend.The conference carefully avoided discussinga b o r t i o n . W h e n t w o C l e v e l a n d w o m e nshowed up at the press conference with deadfemale foetuses and demanded an end to 'themurder of our sisters', the attempt at detentec r u m b l e d .

If Ellie and the two body-snatchers hadbothered to talk to each other, they would

have found they had much in common.They all defend capitalism and they alldefend the family. Ellie proudly calls herselfas housewife, just as the leader of the anti-Equal Rights movement, Phyllis Schlafly,a housewife, just as the leader of the anti-she has been a lull-time right-wing agitatorfor nearly 20 years.

Fortunately, the growing attack againstwomen's reproductive rights has begun toproduce a new militancy among the rem

nants of the women's movements left-wing.Early this year, a coalition of socialist-feminists, women's health care groups,abortion clinics, socialist organizations andreproductive rights groups from around thecountry met in Chicago to found theReproductive Rights National Network.

On 23 June, while the National Right toLife Committee was holding its annualconvention in Cincinnati, Ohio, 1200 angry,militant women and men marched throughdowntown Cincinnati demanding an end togovernment funding restrictions, forcedsterilization, violence against abortionclinics and safe, effective birth control for allw o m e n .

Forty of the marchers spent their morningfending off an attempted clinic sit-inorganized by convention delegates. AftertJie march, 100 protestors picketed theconvention site, throwing coat hangers inthe hotels entryway and tearing down thesign welcoming the anti-abortionists. During the International Days of Action inMarch, nearly a hundred thousand womenin cities all over the country marched or heldmeetings to protest abortion restrictions.

This growing left-wing of the reproductive rights movement has brought a newmilitancy, energy and politics to the fight.Although many of the local groups hesitateto revive the 1960s demand of free abortionon demand because of its association withsocialism, they don't hesitate to point outthe racist intent of forced sterilization.

Some are afraid a demand for gay rightswould put-off people, so they talk, instead,of freedom of sexual expression. And, thisnew left wing is primarily white and ofmiddle-class backgrounds, a weaknessc o m m o n t o t h e m o d e r n w o m e n ' s m o v em e n t .

Socialists and revolutionary feministshave been instrumental in organizing thereproductive rights movement. It is crucialwe stay involved and contend for leadership.We need to argue for the struggle to winreproductive freedom always to be fought aspart of the fight for women's liberation andsocialist revolution. The role of women inthe capitalist family must be central to ourpropaganda.

To attract working women, we must insistthe fight for abortion and against forcedsterilisation be tied to the fight for jobs anddecent incomes. Minority women can beattracted to the movement if we push anuncompromising line against racialgenocide and in favor offree abortions forall women. And, the position on gay rightsmust be a strong one.

We have our first opportunity in nearlyten years to rebuild a fighting women'smovement and to make that movement oneof working class women. We can't blow ourchances by compromising politics to attractthe liberals' money arid support.

Rather than soft-pedal the socialistcontent of this movement*, we must bring itto the fore. The right-wing has attempted toattract working-class women to its side bypresenting an easy answer to the fears andconfusions generated by an economy incrisis and a society in chaos. We have abetter solution, and we must not hesitate tos a y s o .

London July J 967; The Roundhouse whenit was still an engine shed; Anti-psychiatristson acid. Stokely Carmichael glinted withblack pride, Paul Goodman cruising andvarious heads. Marxists, layabouts andhippies .... banks of them, listening.

Herbert Marcuse rises to give his lecture;gaunt, a bit haughty, grey face veiled withlines, '1 am very happy to see so manyflowers here and this is why 1 want to remindyou that flowers, by themselves, have nopower whatsoever, other than the power ofmen and women who protect them and takecare of them against agression and destruction'. Much marxist mirth and hippydiscomfort; a genuinely Hegelian joke. Butmade by a man who had resigned from theGerman SPD almost fifty years earlier overthat Party's complicity in the murders ofLuxemburg and Liebkneeht.

A m a n w h o s e o b s t i n a t e M a r x i s moverarched the century and plunged backinto the closing years of his life intodelighted and defiant solidarity with therevolutionaries of black America, thestudents of Berlin and the peasant army ofNorth Vietnam. And a man who ended his'67 oration with what should, against hisreputation, be considered his motto: 'Noillusions, but even more, no defeatism'.

Marcuse is known by some marxistssolely as a man who thought the workingclass were finished as an agent of socialchange and most liberals as the brainsbehind the student revolt. He was neither.

It is true that his tone was more often ofI intelligent pessimism rather than irresponsi

ble optimism. He can be hard to followbecause he is always striving to write whathe means rather than find sentiments that fithis vocabulary. But his preoccupations inthe intellectually dark decades of the 1940s

and 1950s were to be curiously prophetic, asif his intellectual life had been a plannedpreparation for what was to happen inNorth America in the late 1960s.

The central concern of Marcuse's earlywriting was the relationship with marxismand Hegel's thought, the problem that soconcerned Lenin. But between 1933 and '41he published over a hundred articles andreviews for the Frankfurt School's journalZeiischrift fur Sozialforschung and it wasfrom a project on sexuality and the rise ofNational Socialism terror sponsored by theIns t i tu te- in -Ex i le tha t h is 1955 Eros andCivi l isat ion arose.

The book broke nearly fifteen years ofnear-silence, an era in which marxists whohad escaped the catastrophe of Europe wereobliged to face the virtual annihilation of therevolutionary Left in Russia, Germany, andSpain. Yet despite its Aesopian languageand the fact that just about everyone fromAuden to Fromm were also searching for aFreud-Marx synthesis, (mostly abolishingthe latter in the name of the former), Erosand Civilisation is a unique and passionatevision of a non-repressive order where sex isdethroned from the genitals, the elders andt h e m e n , r e s c u e d f r o m s a d i s m a n dmasochism, and returned to life and work... . echoing not only Marx but Fourier andM o r r i s .

Marcuse's next two books, Soviet Marxi s m a n d O n e D i m e n s i o n a l M a n a r e e xuberant books too, despite their measured,difficult prose. The former is concernedmainly with a philosophical critique ofStal inism, one of the weaker elements inorthodox Trotskyist theory, the latter withcapital ism's apparent abil i ty to baffleb a m b o o z l e a n d n e u t r a l i s e t h e f o r c e shistorically destined to abolish it. Here

history has shown Marcuse and many of thedescendents of Frankfurt to his right to bestatic and superficial about modern classconsciousness. But the force of Marcuse inthe early 1960s lay not in his politicalpredictions, which were wrong, but hisblistering attack on the brain police, on thestate of hnfreedom known as 'normality'and the moral squalor of the affluentsociety,

This was Marcuse's great refusal; it wasthe philosophical No that preceded therevolutionary Yes. Writing of a closecolleague Fritz Neumann, Marcuse said 'Inhis last years, he tried to find the answer tothe terrible question of why human freedomand happiness declined at the stage ofmature civilisation when the objectiveconditions for their realisation were greatert h a n e v e r b e f o r e . ' M a r c u s e d i d t h i s a n d

more, he witnessed and joined with thoseforces which were the human answers tothat terrible question, the 3D replies to theo n e d i m e n s i o n a l m e n .

M a r c u s e ' s s h o r t , l a s t b o o k C o u n t e rrevolution and Revolt is, in my view, hisfinest, a passionate return to the ranks of thestruggling, a fraternal embrace for theWomen's Liberation Movement, a polemicon revolutionary art. Most of all a newinsistence on the role of the organised andthe committed 'bending' the objectivet e n d e n c i e s w h i c h m a k e f o r s o c i a l i s m —

bending them now; today and tomorrowand the days after tomorrow . . .'

M a r c u s e o u t l a s t e d t h e R o u n d h o u s eflower people but I think he would haveappreciated that in the week of his death,there was a punk record in the Top Twentywhich summar ised h is fi f ty years oftheoretical work in five words: 'Babylon isburning with anxiety'.

2 5

Picking upthe PiecesBeyond The FragmentsSljcila Rowbotham, Lynn Segaland Hilary WainwrightSecond printing forthcomingfrom the Merlin Press. £1.25' Publishing event of the year forall of us pondering the problemsof "the way forward" must beyond the Fragments, by

Sheila Rowbotham, Lynn Segaland Hilary Wainwright. 'Themovement for socialism mustaccept an autonomous feministmovement. And it must itself bechanged by the demands andinsights of that movement', saythe authors. Well, every once ina while, someone sits down anddraws together all the thingsthat we've all been thinkingabout and puts them down inone book, which then becomesour book. So it is with Beyondthe Fragments. It's absolutelyessential reading for anysocialist, ,whether feminist orlibertarian (and, for Levellerreaders, it really describes whatthe Leveller is, or shoiild be allabout.)'The Leveller August 1979 issue.Many socialists and would-besocialists are seeing this book asthe answer, the way out pf thefragmentation of the left, thesolution to building a newsocialist movement. In fact thisbook, written by three socialistfeminists, is none of thesethings, although it is asignificant contribution to thed e b a t e .

The author of the main essayThe Women's Movement andOrganising for Socialism isSheila Rowbotham. who putsforward three main aims for thebook: 'How I think some of theapproaches to organising whichgo under the heading ofLeninism and Trotskyism areflawed; how 1 think theassumptions of what it means tobe a socialist carried withinLeninism and Trotskyism andwhich prevail on the left nowblock our energy and selfactivity and make it harder forsocialism to communicate to

2 6

most people;'why I think thewomen's movement suggestscertain ways of reopening thepossibility of a strong andpopular socialist movement.'

The aim of the book is to take

the experience of the Women'smovement and to generalisefrom it on the question ofbuilding socialist organisationand social ism, in otherwordstos e e t h e w o m e n ' s m o v e m e n t a s amodel for social istorganisation.

It is impossible to take up allthe points raised in the book.Many of them are examples ofpersonal experiences to which itis impossible to reply; manyothers contain distort ions and,in one or two cases, dishonesty,which aren't worth replying topoint by point. The aim of thisr e v i e w i s t o l o o k a t t h e

propositions Sheila advancesand to look at her strategy forsocialism. The first question iswhether leninist and trotskyistapproaches to organisation areflawed as Sheila says. By thisshe is referring to the emphasisthat Leninists put on theworkplace as the centre fororganising the working class'certainly it is still possible tofind among Trotskyists anassumption that classconsciousness comes solelyfrom the experience of work.There is still a preoccupationwith the moments ofconfrontat ion—1917, or thebetrayals of the trade unionleadership aided by the CP inthe general strike for instance.

The problem of why workersaccepted such leaders ise v a d e d . '

Sheila feels that firstly theworkplace is not the sole or evenmajor source of classconsiousness, or secondly that itis wrong to focus on the majorevents in history as the means ofdeveloping and changingconsciousness. Her analysis isof course typical of the women'sm o v e m e n t i n t h a t i t s e e k s t o

justify methods of organisingoutside the workplace and thewhole concept of consciousnessraising.

Yet what is the reality? Classconsciousness can be and isderived from many complexsources. It derives from thewhole pattern of people'slives—their culture,background and so on. But thatis not the key question. Weknow that most people do notgrow up with revolutionary, oreven reformist, socialistconsciousness. So the problemis, how does consciousnesschange?

What is it that transforms theideas of tens of thousands ofw o r k e r s a n d m a k e s t h e m

challenge the whole ofbourgeois society, instead ofbeing dominated by bourgeoissociety's ideas. Someindividuals change their ideasby reading or by argument on ao n e t o o n e b a s i s . M o s t d o n o t .

Most people change their viewswhen their own preconceivedideas come into conflict withreality. That usually only

happens when they are involvedin activity which is out of theordinary—strikes, elections,evictions etc which begin toshow to them the way in whichsociety works—and their powerto change society rather than bepassive spectators.

Examples abound of changesin consciousness—on a verywide scale; Portugal 1974/5,Iran for the last year, France1968. Or, on a more modestscale, a whole series of strikesinvolving firemen, hospitalworkers or lorry drivers, withmany of those striking not partof traditionally strong sectors.

Now of course that change ofconsciousness isn't static.Unless those workers see a c lear

alternative to present society,and unless they think thatalternative can be won, they caneasily sink back into acceptingt h e o l d i d e a s . T h e r o l e o f

revolutionary socialists hasalways been to try to provide aview of that alternative ands h o w h o w i t c a n b e w o n .

That is why Leninists placeemphasis on the 'high points ofhistory' as Sheila calls them;that is where large numbers ofpeople change theirconsciousness in ways thatc a n n o t b e d o n e o n a n i n d i v i d u a lbasis. That too is why theemphasis for Leninists has to beon the workplace.

Not only is the working classthe only class with the power asa class to change society, butalso the way in which workplaceorganisation encourages

collectivity means that thepotential for workers bindingtogether to fight commongrievances is greater, and thatthe potential to changeconsciousness is also greater.

T h e s e c o n d a r e a w h e r e S h e i l a

seeks to prove that leninist andtrotskyist forms of organisationdo not work is where she tr ies to

s h o w ' h o w l e n i n i s t a n d

trotskyist assumptions of whatit means to be a socialist blockour energy and self activity andmake it harder for socialism tocommunicate to most people.'Here she focuses on two things;democratic centralism and theconcept of leaders and cadres.

Sheila argues that democraticcentralism is not a neutral formto be adopted in certaincircumstances, but is inherentlyundemocratic. She cites ase v i d e n c e o f t h i s t h e C o m m u n i s t

Party, and the arguments ofthose who left the CP in 1956.S h e c o n t i n u e s :

'If you accept a high degree ofcentral ism and defineyourselves as professionalsconcentrating above everythingupon the central task of seizingpower you necessarily diminishthe development of the self-activity and self confidence ofmost of the people involved.'

Yet it is clear that Sheiladoesn't really understand whatd e m o c r a t i c c e n t r a l i s m i s a l labout. She is right about onething: democratic centralism isnot neutral. The concept asformulated by the BolshevikParty and by Lenin could notfor them be separated from thetype of organisation that theywere trying to build. For them,the party did not represent theclass, or was it a substitute forthe class. The party learnt fromthe class, from class struggle,and also tried to lead the class,

through developing its theoryand practice in relation to theexperiences of the class.

The only form oforganisation which could fitsuch a party was democraticcentralism. Democracy had toexist for maximum debate ofthe issues facing the class,centralism to try to obtain themaximum unity in practice, toimplement the democraticallydecided perspectives of thep a r t y.

That form of organisationdoesn't fit any other type ofparty. Ifyoutryto substitute forthe class then the experiences ofthe class don't matter to youanyway. If you believe thatparty and class are synonymoust h e n t h e r e i s n o n e e d f o r

centralist organisation.

It is no wonder that CPmembers in 1956 felt that theirmanipulative andsubstitutionist party was notdemocratic—they were right.N e i t h e r w a s i t d e m o c r a t i c

centralist, nor was it Leninist. Ithad a high degree ofcentralisation, and nodemocratic debate. Theneutrality of democraticcentralism is a nonsense, as isthe idea of applying the form toorganisations which are non-L e n i n i s t . T h e a l t e r n a t i v e w h i c hSheila puts forward is that ofparticipatory democracy. Sheherself condemns this form of

organisation.'TTie problems of

participatory democracy areevident. If you are not able to bepresent you can't participate.Whoever turns up next time can

w r i t e r s a n d s o o n .

These people are seen asrepresenting, as speaking for,the movement as a whole, bothinside and outside it. There istherefore a legitimating respectfor permanent spokespeople. Iwould far rather argue aboutand vote for people I wanted torepresent my views.

A further point which needsto be taken up; dpr e v o l u t i o n a r i e s a n d t h estructures of their organisationsput people off? Do they stopworkers—or anyone else fromjoining the socialist movement?As far as I can see, most

working class people regardm o s t s o c i a l i s t s a n d m e m b e r s o ft h e w o m e n ' s m o v e m e n t a s a

little odd. That is hardlysurprising in a non-revolutionary period.

reverse the previous decision. Ifvery few people turn up they arel u m b e r e d w i t h t h e

responsibility. It is a very opensituation and anyone with thegift for either emotionalb l a c k m a i l o f a c o n v i c t i o n o f t h e

n e e d t o i n t e r v e n e c a n d o s owithout being checked by anyaccepted procedure.'

Despite all this, she claimstha t ' i t does asser t the idea tha t

everyone is responsible equallyand that everyone shouldparticipate. It concedes nolegitimating respect forpermanent leaders ofspokespeople.'

Ye t t h e r e a r e l e a d e r s i n t h eW o m e n ' s M o v e m e n t a n d i nother participatory democracybodies like NAC. They areusually women who have sometime to spare for working in thegroup, a certain level ofeducation and articulacy, andsometimes a certain recognitionthrough being journalists.

particularly in a country wherepolitical consciousness is fairlyl o w .

Yet what prevents them fromjoining is not that. Rather it isthe fact that the gap betweenwhat we are arguing and whatmost workers perceive as thereality of their lives is large.That can change very quickly.But that is the problem. Sheila,by posing the problem as thebehaviour or att i tudes ofrevolutionaries is actuallyfalling into the dangerousmisconception that if weappeared 'nicer' or more'normal' more people wouldb e c o m e r e v o l u t i o n a r i e s . I t

simply is not true.Sheila's third proposition is

t h a t t h e w o m e n ' s m o v e m e n t

suggests certain ways ofreopening the possibility of astrong and popular socialistm o v e m e n t . S h e c r i t i c i s e s t h e

party for trying to manipulatespontaneous struggles and for

having a fixed concept of thevanguard. As earlier, she feelsthat there is an obsession withthe workplace.

Most movements eruptspontaneously. Any number ofcontributing factors may triggeroff a movement, or a strike, or arevolution. They may be themost unexpected things. Oftenthose spontaneous upsurges donot come from sections oft radi t ional t rade unionmilitants or from the politicalparty. It is often true that such amovement or upsurge may takeparty members—who haveargued with their fellowworkers so long they feelnothing can change them—bysurprise, and that theirconsciousness may lag behind.

This process of course makestotal nonsense of a fixed orpermanent vanguard. In suchsituations the leadership of theclass becomes a very fluid thing.B u t s u c h s i t u a t i o n s d o n o t l a s t

forever. So it is no goodsocialists merely cheering onsome sections of the class whichhave suddenly shown the will tofight, whether against the bossor against the state.

The role of the party is toabsorb the experiences of thesestruggles, to learn from themand to generalise from them.For socialists the question is notwho is going to erupt next, buthow do we weld together

/ different sections of the class inorder to advance the fightagainst capitalism.

The position of Sheila andt h e w o m e n ' s m o v e m e n t i sinstead to tail these struggles,n o t t o a d v a n c e t h e m .

What then is Sheila's strategyfor socialism?

'The recognition which waspresent within pre-leninistradical movements of theimportance of making valuesand culture which could sustainthe spirit and help to move ourfeelings towards the future, hasbeen reasserted by the women'sm o v e m e n t . T h i s m e a n s w e c a n

begin to think again about theproblem of how we movet o w a r d s s o c i a l i s m . L e n i n i s mhas been particularly weak inrelation to the actual transitiont o s o c i a l i s m . '

She quotes Sarah Benton inRed Rag approvingly. 'It's notenough for the individualwoman to "know" she ispossessed or dominated, indeedin order not to want to be, theremust be an alternative culture inwhich such values are seen to bedominant and to be practised.'

What Sheila is arguing for is a'prefigurative political form',

2 7

one which contains at leastsomething of the socialist futurewe want, 'such forms wouldseek both to consolidateexisting practice and release theimagination of what could be.'

It seems to me that this formof organising, whatever itsother points, contains twoserious misconceptions. Firstlyit allows for a large amount ofindividual choice. Mostworkers, men and women, dono t have the cho ice as to where

they live or work, or spend theirleisure time. Such choice is notopen to them.

Secondly the idea could onlywork if you believed in a war ofattrition against capitalism.

That brings us to the question ofstate power. Can socialism bethe minds of more individuals,by building counter-hegemonicblocks, or by taking over certainsectors of society wiwithoutchallenging the capitalist stateat a global level? What willhappen then? Will this war ofattrition continue, or will thecapitalist class attempt to smashany emergent socialistm o v e m e n t ?

I believe the latter, which isthe experience of revolutionsthroughout capitalism,culminating in the bloodbath ofChile. It is not enough forworkers to assert their rights—they also have to wrest control

of society from those whopossess it at present. They havet o s e i z e t h e f a c t o r i e s a n d

destroy the institutions of thestate. They have to smash thearmy and the police andanything else that fights for theo l d o r d e r .

Workers wil l have to buildtheir own organisations, theirown society, on the ruins of theold. All that requiresdetermination, organisationand a clear idea of what workershave to do, and the lengths towhich the ruling class will go tohang on to their power. •

Sheila doesn't accept any ofthis. She doesn't accept the needto organise in this way to take

control. Nor does she appear torecognize the centraHty oftaking on the state in order toachieve socialism. She believesin a form of organisation whichsimply tries to change ideas, anddoesn't recognise that theworking class has to show itselfcapable of leading in order tobuild up the confidence of itselfand of other oppressed sectorsof society to win.

It is because she never comesto terms with this problem thatin the end the only strategy shehas for socialism is one whichdoes not go beyond the reformof individuals within capitalistsociety.Lindsey German.

Voice ofStruggleLet Me Speak — Testimonyof Domi t i l a , a woman o f theB o l i v i a n m i n e s .

Domitila Barrios de Chungarawith Moema ViezzerStage 1. £2.95How is it that the life-story ofthe wife of a Bolivian tin-minerbecomes internationallyacclaimed, translated into 11languages within a couple ofyears, read by people who haven e v e r b e f o r e e v e n h e a r d o fBolivia? Can such a thing occurwithout distorting the struggleof which it tells? What is itabout this book that makes itmuch more than just anothertale of misery and exploitation,making us feel sympathetic butinadequate?

As the title announces, it is atestimony. Domitila is bearingwitness, not simply telling astory. The idea for the bookoriginated at the Tribunal forInternat ional Women's Year inMexico in 1975. This wasattended by women who werenot official governmentrepresentatives, and Domitila,one of the few working-classwomen who were invited .toattend, made a huge impact.

While the book itself isdirected at a wider tribunal,consisting of all its readers, it isstill asking to be consideredcarefully, to.be sifted throughand interrogated, not simplyenjoyed.

Nonetheless it is an extremelygood read—hard to put down.This is because even with theproblems of translating aSpanish coloured with the

Looking for an Alternativeidioms of the Indian languagethat Domitila grew upspeaking, it is a real voice thatspeaks.

Every sentence rings true andvivid. There is an extraordinaryabsence of cliche, of pre-packedmessages and ideas. AsDomitila herself keepsstressing, all she has done in herl i f e h a s b e e n b a s e d o n d i r e c t

experience, both her own andthat of people around her.

She was born in 1937, thedaughter of a member of theRevolutionary NationalistMovement who lost his jobbecause of his politicalactivities. Her mother diedwhen she was nine and she hadvirtually sole responsibility forher four younger sisters.

Her husband got work inSiglo XX, the huge TwentiethCentury tin-mine that made itsformer owner, Simon Pat ino,one of the five richest men in theworld. Here she soon gotinvolved in the housewives'committee, which had beenformed to support the miners intheir struggles against the state-owned mining company.

Domitila was soon secretary-general of the housewives'c o m m i t t e e a n d i t i s h e r a c c o u n tof the continuing violentconfrontat ions with thegovernment over the last 15years that forms the major partof the book. In the course ofthese struggles she has beentwice in jail, tortured, beatenup, her husband dismissed fromwork because of her activities,several times on hunger strike,exiled to the tropical lowlands,many times thrown out in thes t r e e t .

B u t a l l t h e s e e v e n t s a r e t o l d

without a trace ofsentimentality or self-pity, noti n o r d e r t o s h o c k o r e x c i t e

sympathy, but as part of a veryclear-headed and engaginganalysis of her owndevelopment as a politicall e a d e r i n t h e c o n t e x t o f r e c e n tBolivian history.

She writes as a leader and as ahousewife. About politicalleadership she has manyinteresting things to say: what al e a d e r o w e s t o t h e r a n k a n d fi l eand vice versa. She isdispassionate—evenhumorous—about the defeats,and about the reasons why shen e v e r s o l d o u t . T h i s a s s h e

points out is not so much apersonal achievement as a resultof the extraordinary courage ofthe Bolivian working class, theirc o m m i t m e n t t o t h e i r h a r d - w o n

organisations, their refusal tobe smashed into submission.

But above all she speaks as awoman and a housewife, and itis this that is the most strikingaspect of the book. Thehousewives committee in SigloXX was fighting over the costsof reproduction of theworkforce well before we hadeven invented the 'domesticlabour debate' in this country.

Mining communities,oriented solely towards thee x t r a c t i o n o f m i n e r a l o f t e n h a v e

f e w a l t e r n a t i v e s o u r c e s o f

employment and thus rely moreexclusively on the family wage'(so-called) than other sectors ofthe working class, but thestruggles organized by Domitilahave not only been for food andhousing and education, but alsoinvolved taking hostage USengineers, denouncing over thelocal radio those men who beattheir wives, coping with a longsaga of sexual jealousy, violenceand drunkenness, hungerstrikes for the release ofimprisoned miners.

In a country as poor asBolivia it has long been thestrategy of whoever is in powert o m a k e t h e m o s t o f i n t e r n a l

divisions within the exploitedclasses, for example betweenworkers and peasants, betweendifferent organizations, and inthe.mines between thehousewives committee and theirhusbands who in a male-dominated society wereobviously sensitive to jokes andabuse about their wives.

One of the many ways thatthe book can serve as a usefulbasis for discussion as it wasintended is in thinking aboutthese internal divisions, andinstead of treating them asdiversions from the mainstruggle taking them asseriously as does Domitila.

It is because the book is achallenge that it goes waybeyond the recent Thames TVfilm about the same mines byJonathan Dimbleby, which forall its correct analysis andmoving scenes of poverty wasintrinsically a middle-classv i e w. I t m a d e v i e w e r s f e e l

shock, pity, with they could dosomething to help, and sincethey can't do much go back tothe washing-up, switchc h a n n e l s o r w h a t e v e r .

Domi t i l a , and MoemaViezzer who wrote it all down,did not wish just to drawattention to the struggles of theBolivian miners, but to providea manual of lived experience forall people involved in struggle.It is our book and should beread as widely as possible.O l i v i a H a r r i s

The Workers' Report onV I c k e r s

Huw Beynon and HilaryWainwrightPluto Press £2.40

T h e V i c k e r s ' C o m b i n eC o m m i t t e e h a s s u c c e e d e d i n

having a book written aboutitself. It has almost certainlyfailed in its bid to keep 650people working at Vickers'Scotswood plant in Newcaste.

In the north east—heart ofthe old Vickers empire—closurepiles upon closure, and the Torygovernment's spending cuts canonly speed up the process. 1,500jobs lost at Courtaulds'Spennymoor plant, 560 atMonsanto, 850 at SpillersFrench, 2,000 at Plesseys, 330 atTress Engineering (with a littlehelp from the NEB), over 1.000(so far) at Swan Hunter and 487at Doxford Engines and this listis nowhere near exhaustive.

At the very end of last year,according to a report from theConfederation of Shipbuildingand Engineering Unions, therewere 593 welders on Tynesidechasing just one job, (leaving592 Social Security scroungersfor the Tories to hammer). 759painters were after 17 jobs and

even in traditionally securea r e a s o f w h i t e c o l l a r

employment there were nearly3,000 clerks seeking interviewsfor just over 400 empty desks.

With so many battles to befought, is there any point insitting back and writing a book?Fortunately. Beynon andWainwright have producedsomething good enough for theanswer to be yes.

Their' report on Vickers—the Combine Committeeprovides just three pages ofint roduct ion and innumerablequotes—is much more than anisolated account of just onecompany. It is a picture ofdevelopments in Britishindustry and the beginnings ofthe trade union response.

At one time, Vickers

employed nearly 20,000 at itsTyneside engineering plants,today it is chaired by formerLabour MP Lord A l f Robens,who thinks that engineering is' fi n i s h e d a s a t r a d e i n t h i s

country*. (The book is not shorton juicy quotes but this onemust have arrived after it hadgone to press)

The Workers' Report chartsthis progress. A ruthless logicofprofitability that allowed plants

to decline through lack ofinvestment and maintenance:Vickers estimate that it woudcost £4 million alone to repairthe roofs and buildings of itsScotswood plant. Leaving itsworkers to stand under

dripping roofs working onantiquated machinery, thecompany was happy to rakeinthe profits they produced,even in the difficult years of1 9 7 3 - 7 6 .

In the meantime, Vickers wasgetting out of armaments andinto plush London offices forwhich they make all their own—and many other peoples—desks, filing cabinets andduplicating machines.

The pace of the changeoverwas dramatic. 'By 1971 almost athird of the company's saleswere from businesses acquiredsince 1964.' 20 companies weretaken over in 11 years. In theearly 1960's. Vickers wasnowhere in Europe; by 1976 ithad 22 subsidiaries on theCon t inen t .

All this is carefullydocumented and analysed bythe authors, as is the closerelationship with the Britishstate. Readers of this bookcould not wish for a more vividillustration of why the CBIrushed breathless to DowningStreet to try and stop the cuts inaid to industry. To steal just oneexample from the book: intaking over the machine toolcompany KTM, Vickers ha«ltothank the government forwriting off £5.2m worth ofliabilities, giving £1.9m infinancial assistance togetherwith an unsecured loan of £lmand buying £900,000 worth ofnon-voting shares. Vickers paid£803,000 for 86 per cent of thevoting equity. Not surprisingly,the deal 'was celebrated by aparty at Millbank Tower withrepresentatives from theDepartment of Industry asguests of honour.'

Neither did the companyhave any worries aboutnationalisation. Apart from£16m in compensation, Vickersw a s a b l e t o h i v e o f f i t sburdensome steel and aircrafti n t e r e s t s a n d r e t a i n i t s m o s t

profitable shipbuilding—or asthe company calls it, 'offshoreengineering'—work. It is only am a t t e r o f t i m e b e f o r e t h e *

government hands back anyprofitable naval yards that arestill part of BritishShipbuilders.

2 9

The picture painted ofVickers clearly justifies theauthor's argument which beginsthe second half of the book: forthere to be an effective tradeunion response 'plant basedorganisation is not enough'But it is here that the bookbegins to pose as manyquestions as it answers. Thesolution for the Vickers workerswas to establish a combinecommittee aimed at bringingtogether workers at all thecompany's plants.

One of the benefits of plant-based organisation is that it is,at least potentially, highlyresponsive to rank-and-filedemands. A combinecommittee may be a challengeto that democracy. The bookquotes a steward talking aboutthe Combine at Ford; 'Wherethere used to be a gulf betweenthe officials and the steward,they're now developing it wherethe gulf will be between theconvenors and the stewards,and the stewards and the men'.

The authors say there isnothing inevitable about this.Rightly so; but it is notable thatthey have to record just a fewpaves previously that 'acomprehensive pattern ofreport-back meetingsinformation and discussion hasnot been establishedconsistently within the Vickerscomb ine . '

The combine also'established the principle thatall struggles over redundancyand plant closure will besupported throughout thecompany.' The unsuccessfulcampaign to Save Scotswoodillustrates the difficulty ofturning principle into practice,and it is a pity that the authorsonly devote three pages to anissue that highlights the majorproblems facing combines.Problems such as unitingunskil led laboureres inBrighton with time-servedcraftsmen on Tyneside, in otherwords of translating tradeunionsim into political action.

As a solution, the authorsdevote a chapter to 'AlternativePlans' as piloted by LucasAerospace. But does makingkidney machines—and Lucasprofitable in the process—reallyoffer an alternative life for theworkers involved? Is the aim oforganisation based on suchplans as the authors suggest 'toplace a far more effectivepressure on corporate andgovernment decision making'?

Perhaps no clearer answercould come than from an'Economic Aud i t ' on3 0 •

Scotswood prepared by suchworthies as Stuart Holland MP.It estimated that Scotswoodcould be viable again in threeyears. Viable for Vickers to takefurther doses of state aid. creamoff the profits and close downagain in five more years.

A short review cannot dojustice to Beynon andWainwright's perceptivediscussion and neither can thesecond 100 pages of their bookdeal with the problems anddevelopments of combinecommittees. We should be gladthat they have opened thed e b a t e s o w e l l . A B o o k m a r xClub choice: choose it.I a n J a m e s

LookingBackwardsThe Educa t i on o f t he Fu tu reStephen Castles and WiebkeWustenbergPluto Press, £3.95

This is a curious book. We aretold nothing about the authors,what their own involvement ineducation is, what inspiredthem to produce this analysisnow, and how appropriate theythink it is to current positionsamongst socialist educators inBritain today. And the title issomewhat misleading since thebook is essentially historical.

Its historical basis is'Owenism', the principles onwhich Robert Owen ran hisschool at New Lanark, his own'Utopian' model factory. I thinkit is a pity that the authorsbegan from there because'Owenism' was based on amajor educationalcontradiction: i t was awardedfrom above to its recipients, notnegotiated within a communityof political equals.

Far more radical, andrelevant today, was theprogramme the Chart ist ,William Lovett, wrote in prisonin 1840, 'Chartism; A NewOrganisation of the People'. Inthis programme. Chartismclearly displayed, which RobertOwen did not, a profounddistrust of state education:'Bowed down and oppressed aswe are, we manage to keep alivethe principles and spirit ofliberty; but, if ever knavery andhypocrisy succeed inestablishing this centralizing,state-moulding, knowledge-forcing scheme in England, soassuredly will the peopledegenerate into the pestilentialcalm of despotism.'

Even if, argued the Chartists,

they won universal suffrage,they wouldn't trust the statewhen it came to education.

Having argued that, there ismuch that is very useful andi n f o r m a t i v e i n t h i s b o o k . I td e s c r i b e s w e l l t h e e d u c a t i o n a lideas of Marx and invaluablycollects together many of theearly Soviet proclamations oneducation, still breath-takinglyradical today. It looks ateducation in East Germany andChina as representative of self-proclaimed systems of socialisteducation, and examines theseclaims critically, yet generously.

Two major omissions,though, are the absence of anyreference to Bronfenbrenner'svery important study. TwoWorlds of Childhood, which

detailed the effects of Sovieteducation, compared to thoseof American education, on theacquired politicalcharacteristics of the students,and Gramsci's writings one d u c a t i o n .

There is a pre-occupation inthe book with boarding-schoolexperiments and children'scolonies. This of courserepresents a strong traditionwithin one kind of socialisteducation, but personally it fillsme with horror and dread.

I can only see a positivesocialist education arising in thesecular and contradictory worldof everyday life, in the streets,amongst the young and the old,in the midst of the conflicts ofcultures and temperaments—not in the socialist equivalent ofa monastery or a borstal.

That is why I query verystrongly their advocacy of theTvind schools in Denmark as amodel of how things could be.Having stayed there myself for aweek about four years ago to seehow it worked, I felt on returnthat I had been on a journey ofsocialist penance. For the mostpart it is a self-containedcommunity which regards theoutside world as corrupted andtherefore incapable of makingsocial ism.

The characterist mode ofpolitical belief begins with aconfession of previousworldliness: 'I used to live aterrible life, squatting inCopenhagen, listening to JimiHendrix, getting drunk, butnow . . Sexual relationshipsare discouraged asdiversionary, babies andchildren disqualify membershipof the community: this is not theroute to the future, ineducational or any other terms.

Nevertheless, it's a usefulbook to have because there are

many important discussionswithin it, which aren't currentlybeing raised, and even if itseducational and socialisttendencies are rather too statistfor my own liking, its well-informed and provocative. KenWorpole

Dissidents in'Sociali ^StatesPower and Opposition inPost-RevoiutionaryS o c i e t i e sI I Mani festoI n k L i n k s

This book contains a selectionof contributions made at aconference in Venice in 1977.Organised by the Italisn groupII Manifesto, it broughttogether part of the Europeanleft to discuss the problem ofopposition in the co-called'social ist world ' .

However, despite an impressive list of speakers whichincluded dissidents l ike LeonidPlyushch, the majority of contributions add litt le to ourunderstanding of 'power', 'opposition', or what the organiserscall 'post-revolutionarysocieties'.

Most of the western European contributions consist ofheart-searching rather thananalysis, although all are agreedthat something rotten has beenenacted in the name ofsocialism. The problem is what,and how do we relate to it?

It is here that the book's realinterest lies—as a record of theassessment of these societies bypart of the European left. Inessence this was really a conference of eurocommunists andtheir left-wing camp followers,ail of whom have a lot moreheartsearching to do than someothers on the left.

Welcome though it is to atlast have these societies put atthe centre of the debate on theleft the discussion is disturbingin two senses. Firstly, many ofthose present were clearly takenwith the notion of 'post-revolutionary societies','societies of a new type' etc.

But what do these phrasesmean? The old categories ofsocialism and degenerateworkers states at least had thevirtue of being wrong. Thesecategories are another matter.They are what I think of'kitchen sink' concepts in thatthey are so vague as to include

'everything but . . and sobecome meaningless.

They serve to hide both whatexists in these countries andwhat socialism really means. Ifas Althusser argues here, we arefacing a liberating crisis ofmarxism, then let us liberateourselves from the kind ofthinking that leads IstvanMeszaros to say 'post-revolutionary societies are alsopost-capitalist societies in thesignificant sense that theirobjective structures effectivelyprevent the restoration ofcapitalism.'

Related to this is the problemof what went wrong in the onesociety which did have agenuine workers' revolut ioninstead of one by proxy—theSoviet Union. We must allrecognise and explore the hundred different ways in which theRevolution was born crippledand deformed but we must alltoo hold on to one of the keylessons that the success andfailure of 1917 teaches us—theneed to smash the state—the

necessity of building socialismon a capitalist society that hasbeen torn asunder.

This is not what we have here.We are back to Kautsky andtransitions to new forms ofstate. Yet it was after all acertain Karl Marx who dismissed those who sought the root ofall evil, not in the essence of thestate but in a particular stateform, in place of which theywant to put another state form.'

This does not eliminate theproblem of revolutionarypolitical power but it doesd e fi n e i t .

These are crucial issues for allof us. A successful revolt inEastern Europe is only likely toc o m e a f t e r a r e v o l u t i o n i n t h e

West, but in turn we will notsucceed unless we cast as ide our

illusions. As Plyushch puts it wego 'forward together or downtogether.'

But in the meantime goingforward in Eastern Europe is noeasy matter as the East Europeans make clear. Marxismhas been exterminated thereand it is not surprising thatisolated groups of dissidentsshould be hostile to it. We needto relate to them critically butsympathetically. Through thelabour movement we need tolink up the question of humanrights with social rights, toattack the structure of repress i o n .

It is Plyushch who spells out akey link here the movement'spresent failure to take up thequestion of the right to strike

amounts to depriving the working class of its most basicweapon and its most essentialright . . . (it) is a kind ofguarantee of all other rights—which is precisely why theSoviet constitution lists nearlyevery other right except theright to strike. As long as thishas not been achieved, all theother rights will remain effectively suspended.' Mike Haynes

REVIEWSbrief

This summer a number ofjournals have published articlesthat are worth noting, readingand/or borrowing where theyare expensive. Stale Researchhas published the results ofresearch into the size and role ofthe Special Patrol Groupsaround the country in issue 13.It is available from StateResearch, 9 Poland Street,London W1 for 50p(cheques/P.O.s should be madeout to Independent ResearchPublications). This issue alsoconta ins in format ion onTruemid, the right wing backedorganisation at Work in theu n i o n s .

Capital and Class, the journalof the Conference of SocialistEconomists, has published anarticle by Richard Hyman inissue No 8, on 'The Politics ofWorkplace Trade Unionism'. Ifound Hyman's article worthreading despite mydisagreements, but histheoretical observations arealmost completely underminedby his lack of empirical data andthe absence of a dynamic for hisframework of analysis.

This cannot be said of JohnSuddaby's bizarre article inNew Left Reviewfio llbon'theP u b l i c S e c t o r S t r i k e i nCamden: Winter '79'. Suddabyis an honest man fallen amongvoyeurs who appears to havetailored his views to those of theNLR editorial board, for here isan article that argues forsocialism in one borough.

I n C a m d e n a l m o s t t h e w h o l eof the NUPE claim for £60 for35 hours was met, due, it seems,to the homogeneity of theproletarian forces, the marxistpenetration of working-class

consciousness and thesuccessful achievement of dualpower in one borough.

Westminster, where theoffices of NLR are located, wasrather different. There, thedustmen were, as the crudeeconomists of Socialist Workermight have put it, 'bought off atan early stage by the offer oflarge bonuses to clear ther u b b i s h .

Imagine the despair in 7,Carlisle Street, ta be served bypublic servants who were lesshomogenous, dominated bybourgeois ideas, steeped in falseconsciousness, who, let it beclarifyingly articulated, weremore interested in money thandual power.

Camerawork No 14 is anexcellent issue on Reporting onNorthern Ireland. It is availablefor 60p from the Half MoonPhotography Workshop.119/121 Roman Road. LondonE2. Camerawork 'makes noclaim to provide answers to theproblems of Northern Ireland;but we feel that we can publishphotographs in a context thatwill demistify the issues thataffect the Six Counties—acontext in which they can be

understood.' This issue ofCamerawork is a BookmarxClub Choice.

The debate initiated by E PThompson's book The Povertyof Theory has been takenforward a little by articles inHistory Workshop No 7 and theAmerican journal RadicalHistory Review no 19, which isavailable in left wingbookshops. Several essays ineach journal take up the issue ofmarxism and history. TheBenwell Community Project inNewcastle have published aReport on The Making of aRuling Class: Two Centuries ofCapital Development onTyneside. It is available for£1.50 from the Benwell,Community Project, 85/87Adelaide Terrace, Benwell,Newcastle upon Tyne. Thereport shows the central rolethat local ruling-class familieshave played in the post wart r a n s f o r m a t i o n o f t h e n o r t heast region, and the way thatformer bankers, industr ial istsa n d c o a l o w n e r s h a v e b e c o m e

key figures in the contemporaryworld of large-scale financialinst i tut ions and mul t inat ionalcorporations./i/a^/oir Hatchett

CAMKIUWORK

31

^ EVIEWS

REVIE\yThe NuclearNightmareThe China SyndroneBy the time you eye scans thispage, just about everynewspaper and journal in printwill have carried a review of TheChina Syndrome, the new filmabout a nuclear power accident.

None will have failed toremark on the unplanned sequelwhich followed three weeksafter its release in the States—areal emergency at the powerstation on Three Mile Islandwhich almost ended in a 'meltdown', the most horrific of allthe potential nuclear disasters.

All the indications are that inthe absence of the real accident,the film would have been givena rough time, labelled more as afantasy than a forewarning.

In the event, some couldn'tresist having a go all the same.The London Evening Standardpiled in, attacking what it calledthe protest-prone outcries of aglamour-coated, semi-skilledi n t e l l e c t u a l l i k e J a n e F o n d a 'and even arguing that thereexist scientists' who will say thata melt-down just could nothappen. So what, you mightsay, who wants to bet on a longs h o t l i k e t h a t ?

But what the Standard, to its

fury, picked up and what manyother critics missed is that thefilm's stren h lies not in thdemonstration that a meltdown could happen, nor inshowing that offialdom tries tokeep us in the dark about thedangers that accompanynuclear power.

We know both of these thingsalready. No, the real guts of thefilm are in what follows both the'incident' and its cover up.

A senior plant worker, verystraight and vehemently pro-nuclear discovers that quality-control procedures on a pumpweld were faked by a firm ofcontractors, and as a matter ofroutine informs his bosses thatthe part should be replaced.

The problem is that fixing agiant pump inside a radioactivecontainment building isn't like

changing a light bulb — thewhole plant would have to beclosed and the safety clearancefor the proposed building of asimilar power station would bedelayed.

The power company hascash-flow problems, and thedelay would finish them off. Sothere's a second cover-up, moredesperate than the first, as thecompany employs the mostruthless means to keep the faultsecret while running the plantup to full power and hoping fort h e b e s t .

The brilliance of the film is inits exposure of each one of tjjeseries of madly irresponsibledecisions as being, to those whomake them, quite rational ande s s e n t i a l : f r o m t h e s u b

contractors' employees whoprivately concede the tests arefaked but point out that theyhave to do it to keep the costsdown, to the power companyexecutives who will losemill ions of dollars and their

company if the new plant isdelayed'. After all, no-one canbe expected to do all these tests,and the risk is very small . . .

The film is uncompromisingin its message: even if it werepossible to build risk-freeplants, the capitalist systeminsists that things are done on

the cheap, corners are cut andrisks are taken.

And no matter how manypublic watchdog bodies andenquiries are set up, there is nofoolproof answer to outrighttrickery. Sooner or later,someone will be caught out—only we will be the ones whop a y .

That is what upset theEvening Standard so much—Fonda's film strikes not only atthe danger of nuclear power butat the economics and resultantethics of the system that makesan already dangerous piece ofhigh technology into a machinef o r c e r t a i n d e a t h .

There is a story that goessomething like this. Asked whatit felt like as his rocket took off,an American astronaut repliedthat foremost in his mind wasthe thought that he was sittingsupported by hundreds ofthousands of vital functioningpieces of equipment—each ofthem built by the lowest bidder.

As the camera in The ChinaSyndrome wheels throughthe concrete silos and past theroaring turbines of the plant itbecomes clear: this is just howwe will feel for the rest of ourlives if the nuclear powerprogramme contines. ColinB r o w n .

L E T T E R SPO Box 82L o n d o n E 2

Arming tKe Workers#

Recently the radio news herein New York State told us ofa n i n c i d e n t i n o n e o f N e wYork City's long queues forpetrol. One car had bumpedanother whose owner was soenraged that he produced agun and shot the offendingdriver—dead. That story waspar t i cu la r l y h igh l i gh tedbecause of America's 'gascrisis', but stories of citizensshoo t i ng each o the r ove r3 2

details of their personal livesare fairly common.

Then, in the May/Junecopy of Socialist Review Iread tha t as i t s fi rs t ac t thePar i s Commune decreed ' thesuppression of the standingarmy and the substitution forit of the armed people,' theimplication being that everyself-respecting dictatorshipof the proletariat will dolikewise. It's a point whichhas been made over and overagain in the revolutionary left

press, usual ly without anyfurther expansion or clarificat i o n . I t h a s b e c o m e a n

obligatory item of the socialistc a t e c h i s m .

What does it mean? Does itm e a n t h a t w e w i l l a l l h a v eguns to keep in our broomcupboards so that we canpour out in to the st reets andsRoot at any capitalist stooget h a t c r a w l s o u t o f t h ew o o d w o r k ? I f w e u s e t h ephrase 'armed population'often enough as a cliche, theimage we conjure up is justthat. Lotsofguns in the handsof you and me.

I f t h i s i s o n e o f t h e r e

quirements for 'a far higherdegree of democracy' thenAmerican society is halfwaythere. Its population is veryw e l l a r m e d — a n d t h e r e s u l t sa r e d i s a s t r o u s .

You can' t point out thatc a p i t a l i s t A m e r i c a h a sd i f f e r e n t c o n d i t i o n s f r o m af u t u r e p r o l e t a r i a n d i ct a t o r s h i p , b e c a u s e t h a tdoesn't answer the point.Socialism will not do awayw i t h p e r s o n a l c o n fl i c t o rnasty tempers . Indeed in thei m m e d i a t e p o s t -revolutionary period there is

likely to be more hardship,more chaos and more opportunities for injustice andtragedy. The prospect of an'armed population' then, is afrightening one.

So what does the phrasemean? How can we exerc ised e m o c r a t i c c o n t r o l o f t h eguns? How can we explain itto non-revolut ionar ies so thatit will really seem like a moredemocratic and just^ way ofdoing things? After Southall,after Northern Ireland it is notdifficult to see that the army,its guns, coshes and mountainous stockpiles of atomicwarheads must be scrapped.

J u s t a s w e m u s t t a k ec o l l e c t i v e c o n t r o l o f o u reconomic production so wem u s t e s t a b l i s h c o n t r o l o v e rthe machinery of violence notas individuals butasapeop/e.It seems to me that the gunsm u s t b e l o c k e d a w a ysomewhere, maybe in smallarsenals available locally, butunde r t he con t ro l o f e l ec tedr e p r e s e n t a t i v e s a n d w i t htheir use subjected to debatea n d a v o t e .

O n c e w e d e c i d e t o u s ethem, that use must be disciplined in order to be effec-

t i v e , b u t t h e n h o w i s t h a tbattle-order discipline to beorganised? Who is to cont ro lit and how are they, in turn, tob e c o n t r o l l e d ? T h e r e i s ap r o b l e m h e r e w h i c h s h o u l dnot be evaded. The need fors p e e d , e f f e c t i v e a c t i o nagainst our enemies, confl i c t s w i t h t h e n e e d s o fdemocracy.

T h e P a r i s C o m m u n a r d s 'National Guard of 300.000men were smashed by 'thedregs of the Bonapartistsoldatesca' numbering only40,000 (see The State in theTransitional Period by ArrighiE m m a n u e l , N L R 1 1 3 - 1 1 4Jan-Apr 1979).

Pe rhaps we shou ld no tallow ourselves the luxury of'an armed people' unt i lSocialism is assured—(untilthere is no one left to fightagainst? . . .) But in that caseare we not in danger ofinstituting the dictatorship oft h e p a r t y — n o t o f t h eproletariat? So the idea of 'anarmed people' far from beingan automatic vehicle leadingto higher forms of democracyseems to me fraught wi thproblems. How are we goingto carry it out in practice?

Please tell me if I'm wrong,but although I agree thatM a r x ' s c o m m e n t s o n t h ePar i s Commune rema in va l i dtoday, they need to be explained. expanded and discussed in everyday terms,their implications drawn outuntil they become alive againafter the death by a thousandrepetitions which they havesuffered at our hands.

I w o u l d w e l c o m e s o m ed i s c u s s i o n i n S o c i a l i s tReview on this question.E W A B A R K E R

Gay Movement: 1

Lionel Starling's article onthe gay movement in SR 12makes some useful pointsand some pertinent criticismsof the Gay Liberation Frontand its tradition. However. It h i n k t h a t t h e r e a r e s o m eimportant inaccuracies in hisd i s c u s s i o n o f t h e c o n t e mpora ry gay movemen t , wh i chhe uses to justify an incorrectconclusion about the strategyfor gay liberation.

The article statesor impliesin several places that no partof the radical gay movementis interested in involving non-gay organisations, and thel a b o u r m o v e m e n t i n p a r

ticular. in the gay struggle.Thus: The central drive in thegay movement is therefore toinvolve homosexuals per se.The result is that non-gaysare systematica lly or indirect-l y e x c l u d e d f r o m g a ys t r u g g l e ' . o r : ' G a yliberationists (presumablymeaning people involved inthe gay movement—JG) arelikely to emphasise theiro p p r e s s i o n o v e r a n d a b o v etheir exploitation on the basisof their experience of theworld'. Congruent with this,t h e i n fl u e n c e o f t h e G L Ftradition on the gay movement now is enormously exaggerated.

I n f a c t , e v e r s i n c e 1 9 7 0 .t h e r e h a s b e e n a s m a l l b u timportant current in the gaymovement which has arguedfor an practised an orientat i o n t o t h e l e f t a n d t h e l a b o u r

m o v e m e n t ; t h i s c u r r e n t h a sconsistently grown over thisp e r i o d a s t h e l e s s o n s o fsuccess ive s t rugg les hereand abroad have been learn tby the movement. (In somecountr ies, e g Spain, th iscurrent is the majority).

I t i s a u t o n o m o u s g a yg r o u p s w h i c h h a v e i n i t i a t e dthe fight inside the unions forsupport for gay rights; withthe back ing tha t th is hasg a i n e d f r o m t h e l e f t i n t h eu n i o n s , s e v e r a l u n i o n s h a v enow been won to positionsa g a i n s t d i s c r i m i n a t i o n( N A L G O , N U P E . C P S A ,SPSS). The left of the gaymovement has a long andhonourable tradition of supp o r t f o r b r o a d a n t i - f a s c i s tmob i l i sa t i ons and has never,even in the heyday of the GLF.had a perspective of merelyfighting Nazis 'as homosexu a l s i n g a y a n t i - f a s c i s tgroups ' as L ione l c la ims.

The article urges homosexuals to go 'on the Right toWork marches arguing support for gay liberation'; exactl y t h i s w a s d o n e b y a nautonomous gay group in1 9 7 6 ( a n d w i t h n o e nc o u r a g e m e n t f r o m t h eo r g a n i s e r s ! )

Lionel mentions approvingl y t h e d e m o n s t r a t i o n i nF e b r u a r y 1 9 7 8 ' w h i c hmobilised a large section ofthe left in defence of GayN e w s ' . W h a t h e o m i t s t om e n t i o n i s t h a t t h i s d e m o w a s

organised by an ad hoc groupwhich, though i t cor rec t lystated its openness to all whowanted to organise againstWhitehouse. was set up by anautonomous gay group and in

the event consisted entirelyof gay people.

I agree with Lionel that thetask is to win the workingclass as a whole to the fightfor gay rights. I agree that weneed a mass party that canlead this fight. But the factremains that nei ther of theseth ings wi l l happen wi thoutc o n s t a n t p r e s s u r e f r o m am o v e m e n t o f g a y p e o p l eo rgan i sed a round a soc ia l i s tperspect ive. Surely this isobvious from the history ofthe last ten years?

It is undoubtedly true that alarge part of the gay movement (in this country) doesnot have this perspective, andthat (this side of socialism)part of i t never wi l l . But thatdoes hot make the fight fort h i s p e r s p e c t i v e l e s si m p o r t a n t — r a t h e r t h er e v e r s e .

A movement of gay peoplewi th a soc ia l is t or ientat ion isthe best way of drawing inother gays into the struggle.For particular campaigns itcan initiate groups open togays and non-gays and todifferent political tendenciest o c r e a t e m a x i m u m i n v o l v em e n t . T h e a r t i c l e d o e s n o tseem to rule out this last typeof group, but the only positiveproposals are for the involvement of gays as individuals incampaigns other than thosearound gay issues, and to jointhe party. These are laudableproposals, but inadequate.

Lionel argues, in short, thata n ' i n d e p e n d e n t 'organisational form for thestruggle against gay oppress i o n . . . ( i s ) a c r u c i a lweakness in the organisationof the working class . . .' Infact, it is a response to thatweakness, and a way ofovercoming it.J A M I E G O U G HN o r t h - W e s t L o n d o n

Gay Movement: 2So Lionel Starling [SocialistReview 12) thinks that theg a y m o v e m e n t i s s e p a r a t i s t .Perhaps he has forgotten theway in which the early GayLiberation Front participatedin demonstrations againstthe Vietnam war and Heath 'sI n d u s t r i a l R e l a t i o n s A c t ;perhaps he has forgotten thev i s i b l e g a y p r e s e n c e a tL e w i s h a m a n d c o u n t l e s sother anti-fascist activit ies;perhaps he has forgotten theregular and wel l-organisedl e s b i a n p r e s e n c e o n t h e

Grunwick picket tine.The gay people who par

ticipated in these activit iesthought it was important noto n l y t o b e t h e r e w i t h t h e i rcomrades but to be seen to bethere. That way we are takingpart in the common struggles(along with our comrades inthe SWP e t c ) and g i v i nge n c o u r a g e m e n t t o l e s sorganised, closeted gays atthe same t ime.

If that's what separatism isabout, then Lionel will have toexpla in what 's wrong wi tht h a t . H e m a y w o r k I n apar t i cu la r manner bu t tha t i shardly sufficient reason to putdown the attempts of otherorganised gays to take the gayquestion into other areas ofcontemporary life.

But what is equally alarming about his article is itst o n e . T h e r e i s n o s e n s e i n i t o fthe message 'Gay is Good'. Ibecame involved in the gaym o v e m e n t b e c a u s e I f e l t

oppressed about fancy ingm e n a n d o f t e n d e s p i s e dmyself for doing so.

In the gay movement, instruggle with other gay people, I began to shake off thatself-oppression and value mydesires more positively. That,in turn, affected my view ofmany other things. It affectedmy view of my relations withw o m e n a n d c h i l d r e n a s w e l l

a s o t h e r m e n .

I began to re-examine thenature of all authority and thesupposed centrality of sexua l i t y I n r e l a t i onsh ips . I tmade me question, too, myv i e w s o f e d u c a t i o n , o f t h ewelfare state, of the media, ofw o r k , o f r a c i s m — a n d o f t h ew h o l e a n t i - c a p i t a l i s ts t r u g g l e .

My attempt to gain somecontrol over my identity didn o t m a r k t h e e n d o f m ysoc ia l is t po l i t i cs : ra ther i tmarked a new beginning. It isa pity that Lionel did not writea b o u t t h a t k i n d o f

e x p e r i e n c e — w h i c h i s n o tuncommon in the gay movement . H is apo loge t i c andderogatory lament did us agrea t d isserv ice .

I h a v e n o c l e a r a n s w e r t o

the problem, of l inking ups e x u a l p o l i t i c s w i t htradit ional left polit ics. Nordoes anyone else, it seems,a l t h o u g h m a n y o f u s a r estruggling to find answers.B u t o n e s o l u t i o n I w i l l n o t b e

c o n s i d e r i n g i s L i o n e lStarling's leninist closet.B O B C A N TN o r t h L o n d o n

A

B O O K M A R XBOOKMARKS has just expanded. We now have TWOfloors containing an almost unparalleled selection ofbooks and pamphlets for socialists and trade unionists. The expansion will make it a great deal easierfor customers to see and browse among our stock, aswell as allowing us to add a few new attractions to ourrange—a proper display of second hand books.

But Bookmarks has never been Just a bookshop. Wes e e t h e d i s t r i b u t i o n o f s o c i a l i s t l i t e r a t u r e a s a v i t a lfunction of any socialist organisation and there'smore to that than waiting for customers to walk in thed o o r .

Bookmarks began in 1967 as a £30 float to buy abox of books and pamphlets called, rather grandiosely, the IS Book Service. In the days before the upsurgein socialist publishing of the past few years, the BookService was a method for the Internat ional Social istsbranches {now SWP)and individual socialists to get atleast the Marxist classics by post. As it developed theB o o k S e r v i c e w a s a l s o d i s t r i b u t o r f o r t h e I Spamphlets. It quickly grew and, as IS Books, was sooncapable of employing a full-time worker, finallyopening as a full retail shop in 1973.

Since opening as a shop we have continued toexplore new ways in which we could encourage thespread o f soc ia l i s t i deas . In 1976 we launched theBookmarx Club—now in its third year and eleventhquar ter ly se lec t ion . In 1977 we p ioneered theSocialist Bookfair together with a number of socialistp u b l i s h e r s , a n d t h e t h i r d B o o k f a i r w i l l b e h e l d i nL o n d o n t h i s N o v e m b e r .

Last year we were Joined by SW Recordings andwith them we cooperated in putting the SocialistBookbus on the road. Under the umbrella of SocialistsUnlimited the SWP's pamphlets are now distributed

from Bookmarks, together with recordings, badgesand other 'aids in the struggle'. Our latest venture, theTrade Union Book service, fulfils a long-standing aimto provide for active trade unionists in a single mailorder service books and pamphlets useful both in theunion and in everyday struggles. The initial responsehas been extremely encouraging.

Whereas there was a time when we started that wedid practically all our trade by mail order, this has nowbecome a relatively small part. Partly this must be dueto the many socialist and alternative bookshopswhich have opened up and down the country in thelast decade, partly, of course the need is filled by theb o o k c l u b , b u t o u r m a i l o r d e r s e r v i c e r e m a i n s a ni m p o r t a n t e l e m e n t .

In particular we are keen to encourage SWPbranches to use books and pamphlets in theireducational and general political work, and specialdiscounts apply for branches buying in bulk. We arealso very ready to supply bookstalls for particularm e e t i n g s , c o n f e r e n c e s o r o t h e r e v e n t s w h e r e t h eorganisers can guarantee to return the unsold booksreasonably quickly.

But the service we are most proud of is being a goodbookshop. This shop is no cobwebbed and sleepyresting place for tired and musty tomes, but part of aliving movement, and using its resources to theutmost in building that movement.

So come along and visit us as soon as you can. Weare half a minute's walk from Finsbury Park Stationon the Piccadilly and Victoria tube lines and theBritish Rail services to Hertford, Welwyn and pointsNorth. Bus routes too numerous to mention run rightpast our door from al l over London.

See you soon.

Out of theGhettoThe SocialistBookfair

Socialist publishing and bookselling has emergedfrom the ghetto of tiny pamphlet houses and of out ofthe way shops with a couple of shelves of dusty booksand grey pamphlets among the Jars of coriander andthe clusters of rope-soled sandals.

In the years since 1968 socialist publishing hasblossomed a number of medium-sized, specificallyradical publishers, as well as innumerable tit lesslotted into the listsof almost every leading publisher.There are now some hundred social ist and alternativebookshops up and down the country. Every largegeneral bookshop now stocks a growing number ofs o c i a l i s t b o o k s .

The Bookfair is a celebration of these facts. It is alsoa demonstration to the book trade in general

that we are here. The flop that was the 'freedombookfair' put on by Aims of Industry can only havereinforced this message.Finally the bookfair is a place in which information isexchanged and deals are struck. Publishers presentnew and old titles, booksellers exchange gossip andput down their orders and the public at large enjoys arare chance to see under one roof the whole widerange of socialist books.1979 Socialist Bookfair—Camden Town Hall Fri/Sat2 / 3 N o v e m b e r .

3 4

The Communist Party (CPGB) in 1979

o u rA T6 0 ?( P a r t 2 )T h e P o l i t i c a l

D i s a s t e rby Steve Jefferys

The Communist Party of Great Britain isdeep in crisis. Part one of this article (inthe July/August issue of the SocialistReview) pointed out the collapse inclaimed CPGB membership from 30,000to 20,000 under the last Labour Government. The reason for this decline laypartly in the shipwreck of the CP'sindustrial strategy.

For ten years from the mid-!960's theprospect of 'Left advances' through thetrade unions seemed very real. But withthe trade union bureaucracy's near totalacceptance of the social contract in 1975and 1976, the CP saw a whole series offormer 'progressive' trade union leaders'slip away'.

As a consequence the CP are nowattempting a new turn to industry' withmore emphasis on the 'rank and file'. But,as was argued in part one, the continuedreliance on 'left' officials (both full-timeand factory convenors) makes it unlikelythat this turn' can be carried throughconsistently.

What makes a regeneration of thepresent CP even less likely is the internecine warfare between the 'right' andthe 'left' eurocommunists. This politicalstruggle is the subject of this seconda r t i c l e .

T h e C P G B a n d R u s s i a

From i t s foundat ion un t i l 1968, theCommunist Party was publicly uncriticalof the Soviet Union. Indeed, for a largeproportion of its members, the SovietUnion was the principal inspiration intheir struggle for socialism.

In the rightward moving climate ofBritain in the middle 1970's. however, the

leadership of the CPGB looked toF r a n c e , S p a i n a n d I t a l y, t o t h e' s u c c e s s f u l ' m a s s C o m m u n i s t P a r t i e s a n d

saw an argument called eurocommunismgaining ground. This trend can besummed up as the acceptance of western-style parliamentary democracy as theframwork for achieving socialism and arejection of the Stalinist one-partysystem.

A f t e r 1 9 6 8 a n d t h e C P ' s c r i t i c i s m o f t h e

Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, theearlier informal requirement of 'supportfor Russia at all times' was first qualifiedand then virtually dropped out of use.After 1968, the CP recruited largenumbers of members who felt no need todefend Russia, o f ten f rom the s tudentm o v e m e n t w h e r e t h e s e r e c r u i t s h a d a l s o

rejected the struggle perspectives of therevolutionary groups.

As the eurocommunists gained groundacross the Channel, they were alsogaining ground in the tiny CPGB. Indeed,the argument developed that it was as aresult of the continued presence of openStalinists within the CPGB that the CPr e m a i n e d s m a l l a n d d i s t r u s t e d .

In January 1976, the^ former generalsecretary John Gollan, wrote a mealy-mouthed art ic le in Marxism Todaygently suggesting that Stalinism might noth a v e e n d e d w i t h S t a l i n . T h i s w a s t h e

opening shot in a strategy aimed atbreaking with the open Stalinists withoutwrecking the Moscow connection (whichis still largely responsible for keeping theMorrting'Star in publication through the14,000 daily copies sold to EasternEurope).

Gollan then toured the major centresarguing the case for a more critical

3 5

attitude towards Russia as the basis forthe new draft British Road to Socialismthat was extensively discussed in the CPthroughout 1977. The long, carefulpreparation paid off.

In the summer of 1977. with a l i t t leencouragement from the Russian embassy (who wanted to keep their optionsopen), Sid French led a small breakawayof 500-1000 CP members to form the NewCommunist Party.

They broke exclusively on the issue ofthe CP's new attitude to Russia, arguingthat the advance to socialism in Britainrequired more stress, not less, on theachievements of 'socialism in Russia'.

By the 35th CP Congress, in November1977. the political committee deemed thatits 'de-stalinisation' had gone far enoughand bent the stick the other way. A 60thanniversary greeting to the Soviet Unionwas sent describing Russia as 'themightiest country in the socialist family'to which there were only 10 dissentingv o t e s .

But the argument did not stop there.The 'r ight ' eurocommunists, havingscored one victory in alliance with thePC, wanted to go still further. Theywanted a complete break with the closetStalinists within the party. After Congresstheir attack cont inued.

The fight sharpened with the 25November 1978 issue of Comment, theCP fortnightly discussion publication. Itslead article on 'Stalin—the missing 10million—and us' was illustrated by afront page drawing of a stream of bodiesdisappearing down Stalin's throat.

The flippancy of this provoked anoutcry which mingled with the deepresen tmen t o f t he c lose t S ta l i n i s t s . A floodof angry letters hit Comment and SidEaston. old-timer prominent in the-TGWU, resigned as official publisher ofC o m m e n t . W h e n t h e e x e c u t i v e c o n d e m ned the cover as an 'error of judgement',they were attacked by the right wing.

T h e c l o s e t S t a l i n i s t s w a i t e d f o r t h e i r

chance t o s t r i ke t he nex t b l ow. The ba t t l er e n e w e d w h e n t h e P C d e c i d e d t o s e n d

p rominent an t i -s ta l in is t MontyJohnstone along with Bert Ramelson ona delegation to an international conference in Budapest against the explicitw i s h e s o f t h e ' L e f t ' E u r o c o m m u n i s t -

c o n t r o l l e d L o n d o n d i s t r i c t c o m m i t t e e .

Gerry Cohen first resigned as Londondistrict organiser, then withdrew hisresignation after the 1 April emergencyexecutive committee meeting voted by 28to 6 to endorse the PC decis ion. The affa i r

had brought the fight into the open inreadiness for 36th CP Congress inN o v e m b e r 1 9 7 9 .

Inner-party democracy

Yet the dispute was not merely aboutStalin and Russia. It is also about thenature of a Stalinist party. The CPtradition has been that the 'line' is decidedby the Political Committee, endorsed by3 6

Living with a difficult past: The cover condemned by the executive

the Executive Committee and carried bythe membership without question and,certainly, without on-going debate.

But the official adoption of'pluralism'under 'socialist democracy', that is, the'continuing rights of parties hostile tosocialism' at the 1977 Congress 'by a fiveto one majority), meant that members feltthemselves free to continue inner-partydebates even after the Congress hadsupposedly settled them.

TTie initiative was, or course, taken bythe clearest of the 'pluralists', the 'right'eurocommunists. And it was deeplyresented by the 'left' eurocommunists andthe traditionalists. They were angered notonly by the policies presented by the'Rights'. They also objected to the partypress being transformed into a continuous debating forum.

T h e fi g h t a b o u t ' i n n e r p a r t ydemocracy' is now focused on the Reportof the Commission set up to look into theproblem by the 1977 Congress.

In forty-five detailed pages, the 16Commission members looked at virtuallyevery area of CP policy-making andconcluded with 54 proposals whichbasically imply—more of the same: moredemocracy (PC minutes to be available tothe EC, etc) within the same structure.

Yet 6 Commission members, led byDave Cook, CP national organiser, wentfurther. In another 15 pages they arguedfour alternative proposals which, theybelieve, will radically shift the structure.Their perspective was absolutely clear.For them, the 'new edition' of the British

R o a d i s t a n t a m o u n t t o a n e w r o a d :

'The new edition of The British Roadto Socialism is in accord with existingcondi t ions in Br i ta in and the wor ldand with new developments in marxism...The principal task of this Commission, and the Congress, is to bringthe way we work as a Party intoconformity with the approach of then e w e d i t i o n o f t h e B r i t i s h R o a d a n d

the decisions of our last Congress.This will mean making a decisivebreak with those parts of our practicewhich bear the stamp of the negativea s p e c t s o f o u r h e r t a g e . ' ( m yemphasis—SJ).They then put forward proposals to

allow CP members to form factions in the

pre-Congress discussion period, to disagree publicly with decisions taken byParty committees on which they sit, toremove the dominance of the full-timerson the Political Committee by making it50 per cent non full-time and forcing it tomeet in the evening, and to elect the 42-person executive directly at Congresswithout an EC/ PC recommended list.

The Nicholson/Fosler Tendency

The struggle within the CP has,h o w e v e r , n o t b e e n c o n fi n e d t o t h erelevance of wages militancy, the ghost ofStalin and inner-Party democracy.

During most of the 1977 Congressoverwhelmingly the CP bureaucracy wasin alliance with the 'rights' to defeat the

Fergus Nicholson/John Foster tendency(some of whom describe themselves as the'Bolshevik' tendency within the CP). Thisgrouping spoke against the abandonmentof the centrality of the class struggle,argued against the idea that the Statecould be reformed and even questionedthe validity of earlier editions of theB r i t i s h R o a d .

The 'rights' and the bureaucracydescribe those CP members who continuetoday to use Marx and Lenin as guides toanalysis and action as 'sectarians', andterm their defeat at the 35th Congress as avictory for the 'mass' or 'broad' party ideao v e r ' s e c t a r i n a i s m ' .

The result of their defeat at congresswas for many of the • 'Bolsheviks'profound disillusionment. It was clear itwould take years of beavering awayinside the CP for them to accomplishanything. Several dropped out. Othersresigned themselves to the long haul. InGlasgow, where they continue to have asmall semi-organised base amongst a fewCP activits, tensions between this groupand the Glasgow CP mainstream of'left'eurocommunists (basing their reformismon the holding trade union/positionsrather than the community action orientation of the 'Righs') still exist.

But since the Nicholson CongressFoster grouping has ceased to operate asa national force within the CP. So despitethe battle between the 'Left' and 'Right'Eurocommunists there is now no oppositional anti-eurocommunist tendencyin existence offering a 'third' way.

The Morning Star

T h e b a t t l e w i t h i n t h e e u r o c o m m u n i s tblock began even before Congressended.The issue? The Morning Star. JonB l o o m fi e l d , f o r m e r C P s t u d e n torganiser, and Birmingham organisersince 1976, a leading 'right' eurocommunist, moved a successful amendmentcalling for a 'thorough review of thecontent, role and presentation' of theS t a r .

The amendment was opposed by GerryCohen for the political committee and theE C . T h e b u r e a u c r a t i c c e n t r e , s t i l ldominated by the pre-1968 leadership int h e f o r m o f i n d i v i d u a l s l i k e B e r tRamelson, the industrial organiser until1977, resisted strongly the 'right's' moveto open up another Pandora's Box.

The real issue, Cohen argued, waswhether everyone had "made the fi^t forthe circulation of the Morning Starpriority No 1'. The style, content andmethod of control by the CP of the Stardid not need wider discussion than tookplace through the regular channels.

Yet the EC was defeated—for the onlytime at Congress—by 193 to 137, reflect-ting both the major disquiet felt by the CPmembership with the Star as well as thereal strength of the 'right'.

Since then the Morning Star hascontinued to be the subject of continuousinternal debate in the CP and in 1978 itsaverage circulation fell by 2.000 copies a

day. A letter to Comment one year afterthe 35th Congress directly attacked theeditor, Tony Chater, for having failed tocarry Congress policy and for producinga lousy paper.

It was printed by the 'right' eurocommunist edi tor of Comment and d iv idedthe Morning Star staff and the CP full-time apparatus into two camps withindays. 37 Star staffers wrote to Commentdenouncing the publication of such'malicious personal abuse'; 19 otherstaffers then replied arguing 'we feel it isimportant that people should be free tocomment on any matter of legitimateconcern to the left—which includes theright to make criticisms of those inpositions of leadership, either of the partyo r t h e S t a r ' .

The review of the Star set up byCongress significantly failed to come togrips with its problems.

Many CP members hoped it wouldcome up with answers to the boringpresentation, the narrow news coverageand the lack of political argument. Some'rights' had tentatively raised theproposal that the daily paper should bescrapped and replaced by a big. brightweekly paper less closely tied to the party.

Ye t t h i s w a s u n t h i n k a b l e t o t h o s e w h obelieved the Star had to relate to the dailyindustrial struggle; and the centre waswell aware that the daily was now the keydifferentiating feature between the CPa n d t h e S W P.

A compromise was reached on theMorning Star : the da i ly would beretained but from 21 April 1979 itsSaturday edition would be an expanded8-pager. This would enable more featuresand political argument to be included.

Yet in order to be financially viable, thesales had to rise. It needed not only thethousand' sales volunteers fought forduring the autumn of 1978 to try andrestore the average daily sale to over20,000; it also needed En extra 10,000 Star'specials' sold every Saturday.

By mid-June 1979, however, thet h o u s a n d ' v o l u n t e e r s s c h e m e h a d

disappeared—the last total they reportedwas 340. Joe Berry, the Star's circulationmanager wrote that 'Daily sales so far thisyear have held fairly steady, but nowthere are signs of decline setting in again'.

In a 'normal' year this might not havebeen too ominous: in a general electionyear in which the CP had just stood 38candidates, the situation was desperate.Even the extra orders for the Saturdayspecial had only just lopped 6,000, abouth a l f w h a t w a s n e e d e d .

But the 'compromise' remained unsatisfactory, especially to the 'Rights'.The present formula for control of theStar—editorial policy and editor decidedby the political committee, actual financial ownership in the hands of thePeop le ' s P r i n t i ng P ress Soc ie t y -remained unchanged.

Formal democracy; in reality, tight CPcontrol over an organ which is allegedlytrying to mobilise the 'broad democraticalliance'. While the 'rights' continue to

believe this narrow control is a majorhindrance to the expansion of supportand readership for the Star, they areapparently now resigned to the status quowhile the key fight over inner partydemocracy takes place.

D e m o r a l i s a t i o n

T h e c o m b i n a t i o n o f t h e r e n e w e dcriticism of Russia, of the open challengeto aspects of the bureaucratic Stalinismwhich pervades the CP, and of thepersistent nagging doubts about theMorning Star, has proved disastrous formorale. And not solely for those most onthe defensive: the trade union militants,t h e c l o s e t S t a l i n i s t s , ' l e f t ' e u r o c o mmunists, the majority of the 50 CP full-timers and the Morning Star staff.

The entrenched conservatism of wholeareas of the CP meant that although the'rights' won a battle at the 1977 Congress,they had not won the war. In his majorarticle in Marxism Today in December1978 ('The British Road to Socialism andthe Communist Party'), Dave Cookadmi t ted ,

'Although the new edition of theBritish Road provides the theoreticalapproach with which to tackle theseproblems (declining membership,circulation and votes)... the fact of itsadoption is not enough in itself toovercome them. The significantminority who do not understand, orwho oppose the new programme,remain uneasy or hostile. Some of itsmost enthusiastic supporters havetended to lose heart', (my emphasis,SJ)

The loss of confidence by the 'rights'was most clearly illustrated by the drop ina t t e n d a n c e a t t h e 1 1 t h C o m m u n i s t

University of London. The CUL haslong been a stronghold of the student'rights' within the CP, yet attendance inJuly 1979 was down to some 600compared to the record 1100 in 1978.

Once the 'right' eurocommunists turned from their victory over the 'marxistsectarians' to trying to shift the leadershipand the party as a whole they had run intosevere problems. They wanted thegenerally elderly or middle-aged CPbranches, steeped in electoral routinismand the middle reaches of the trade unionbureaucracy, to embrace and give a leadt o t h e r a d i c a l m o v e m e n t s o f t h e l a t e

1970's: the anti-fascist struggle, thewomens' and gay movements. local anti-cuts campaigns etc etc.

In just one edition of the Morning Starv e r t i c a l c o l u m n s o f t e x t w e r e a b a n d o n e don page two in an attempt.to address the'punk' movement. This tokenism wasreflected in the rest of the turn'.

In practice the CP largely missed outon the biggest of these movements, theAnti-Nazi League, because in most areasi t w a s u n a b l e t o o v e r c o m e i t s s e ctar ian ism towards the SWP and couldnot work within an organisation it did not' c o n t r o l ' .

On its own, however, the CP fared even

3 7

worse. When it called its own unemployment lobby on 14 February 1979, theaffair was a total disaster. The responsefrom CP districts was very poor; fromnon-CPers it was virtually non-existent.And then came the 3 May 1979 GeneralE l e c t i o n .

In 31 of the 38 constituencies contestedthe CP vote declined. The CP polled only16,858 votes in total compared to the17,426 votes polled for 29 candidates inO c t o b e r 1 9 7 4 . I t s v o t e s w e r e n o tsignificantly higher than those of theother left groups who also stood candidates.

I t remains to be seen whether th is la test

election disaster provokes serious self-criticism. It is likely however, that bothwarring tendencies will sit on the evidenceof the bleakness of the 'parliamentaryr o a d ' . T h e ' r i g h t s ' w e r e d i v i d e dbeforehand: some argued the CP shouldnot put up any candidates so as not toupset the Labour Party; others believedthe CP should put up at least 50candidates so as to get TV time for the'broad democratic al l iance'.

And the 'lefts' are inextricably linked toelectoralism. Indeed, since they consciously separate their trade union workfrom their political activity, the abandonment of parliamentary and or municipalelectoral activity is for them tantamountto liquidation of the CP altogether. Sorather than the most dramatic evidence ofthe failure of the CP's total strategy—itselection results—being the occasion of amajor reassessment of the British Road,both sides will grit their teeth and staggero n .

B D A v e r s u s A M A

Introducing the new draft British RoaddiXthe 1977 Congress, the lacklustre CPgeneral secretary. Gordon McLennan,emphasised its continuity with earlieredi t ions,

'The new draft of our programmeestimates these changes, draws lessonsfrom them and, building on theessential postions of previous editionsof our programme, further developsour strategy'.The PC majority and old-time CP

bureaucracy didn't mind a change ofwords to accommodate their new grams-cian wing. They welcomed the fact that'Congress has decisively rejected thedogmatic sectarian challenge' of the anti-eurocommunists; and they remained{they believed) in the driving seat.

The ' r ight ' eurocommunists wawthings differently. Dave Cook began hisMarxism Today article,

'Since World War 2 there have beenmajor shifts in strategy by communistparties in most advanced capitalistcountries; a recognition that insurrectionary models from past eras anddifferent conditions are totally inappropriate. 'The adoption of the firste d i t i o n o f t h e B r i t i s h R o a d t oSocialism in 1951 was part of thisprocess. Subsequent editions have

developed the general orientation, butthat adopted at our last Congresscontained important new strategicideas', (my emphasis—SJ)

The most crucial new idea was the broaddemocrat ic al l iance.

The s t ra tegy o f t he CPGB hastraditionally centred on the notion of an'anti-monopoly al l iance' unit ing theworking class with all those social strata(including sections of the capitalist class)exploited by the big monopolies.

The broad democratic alliance, bycontrast, is less a class alliance than anattempt to bring together a variety ofdifferent struggles—those of trade union-sits, of 'the various movements againstoppress ion , women, you th , b lackpeople's etc'. The objective of thisstrategy is 'transform the political understanding of the majority of people inBritain', winning their support for a 'leftgovernment ' that wi l l 'democrat ise'British society.

The struggle to weld together thed i f f e r e n t f o r c e s i n v o l v e d i n t h e B D Aunder the 'political lead' of the Communist Party requires intervention faroutside the workplace and the unionbranch: 'Starting from now "working-class leadership" will have to penetrateareas of the state—neighbourhood councils, local radio, boards of nationalisedindus t r i es , wa tch commi t t ees , counc i lsub-committees and beyond...

'Bound up with this is the need to winidelogical leadership'.T h e t w o o t h e r i d e a s t h a t C o o k c l a i m s

are 'new' and 'strategic' are that,' the achievement of social ist revolution is seen as a lengthy (but notgradual) process of struggle...aboutalternative ways of running things—about ways of expanding the controlworking people are able to exert... Tot a k e i t s o i t s c o n c l u s i o n w i l l i n v o l v ethe fullest democratisation of the statei n B r i t a i n ' .

In other words the transformat ion ofthe existing capitalist state into a'socialist' state without a decisive break inhistory, a revolution.

And thirdly. Cook discovers theimportance of the

'dense undergrowth o f ac t iv i ty,organisation and ideas by whichpeople live their lives and express theiraspirations, ranging through work,family, lesiure, sports, culture, etc.'These three ideas—the BDA, revolu

tion as a 'lengthy process' and the 'denseundergrowth' of civil society—hardlysupport Cook's claim that 'within the leftover the previous decade... marxism hasreceived potent reinforcements from ahost of important thinkers and experiences'. They are as old as reformismi t s e l f .

I n J u n e 1 9 7 9 , M i c k C o s t e l l o , B e r tR a m e l s o n ' s s u c c e s s o r a s C P I n d u s t r i a l

Organiser, wrote an article in MarxismToday openly attacking Cook. 'TheWorking class and the Broad Democratic

Alliance' is essentially an attempt tor e d r a w t h e B D A t o m e a n t h e o l d'ant i -monopoly al l iance' (AMA).Costello redefines the BDA thus:

'The broad democratic alliance is notonly 'workers plus others'. It is alsoworkers acting in different ways,bringing pressure to bear on capitalistrule from many different angles, fromw i t h i n d i f f e r e n t d e m o c r a t i cmovements, in association with otherstrata who are oppressed by themonopolies'.C o s t e l l o r e i n s e r t s e l e m e n t s o f a

struggle against the capitalist state andthe monopoly-capitalist ruling class intohis perspective. He emphasises the need to'force through changes which encroachon the powers of the ruling class, weakenthe state machine and make possible thewinning of power by the working class'.

Costello also sees the BDA/AMA asessentially a working-class alliance whichalso has the responsibility of winning to it'forces beyond the working class', ratherthan being a 'democratic' multi-classalliance within which the working-classmerely plays a significant part. For anyworking-class alliance, 'the daily classstruggle thoughout the land' is central.Costello argues,

'It is only in struggle around the issuesthe working class is already willing todo battleon, that the politically cons c i o u s s e c t i o n s , t h e l e f t a n d t h eCommunist Party above all, canusefully conduct that propaganda forbasic social change'.And so, l ike McLennan, Costello

emphasises the continuity of the 1978version with the earl ier edit ions of theB R T S a n d a t t a c k s ' C o m r a d e C o o k ' sinterpretation of the 'new' which puts it incont rad ic t ion wi th the 'o ld ' and wouldgive the impression that the 1978 editionof the British Road to Socialism was thefounding document of a new party thatwas writing off its roots in the labourm o v e m e n t ' .

The 'left' eurocommunists, includingthe majority of the political committee,have therefore mounted a major attemptto roll back the influence of the 'rights'.T h i s i n v o v l e s b o t h t h e d e n i a l o f t h e'newness ' o f the 1978 BRTS. and thereturn to the idea of an anti-monopolycapitalist alliance based on the fightingstrength of the working-class organised int h e u n i o n s .

But there is a problem when arguingfor the continuity of a line that haspatently failed. Either you have to admitits failure and then argue the 'new'circumstances which 'now' make it relevant in a way it wasn't in the past; or youhave to deny its failure. Costello takes (helatter course. He ignores the reality ofScanlon and the massive defeat in theA U E W a n d t h e s u b s e r v i e n c e o f t h eTribune group to Wilson and Callaghan.

The central political lesson arisingfrom the 1974-79 Labour Government isthat faced with major capitalist crisis,Left reformism totally failed. The denial

3 8

of this reality is essential for the 'left'eurocommunists since their strategy isdependent upon building a 'left alliance'which under the pressure of massworking-class action will deliver leftreforms.

The l e f t r e fo rm is t s s ta r t w i th in t hef ramework o f the ' na t iona l i n te res t '—what is 'good' for the firm and for thenation. The 'Left ' Eurocommunists haveno disagreement with the 1978 BRTSwhen it argues.

'The fight to safeguard Britain'si n d u s t r i a l f u t u r e i s c e n t r a l t o t h efuture of the working class and thedevelopment of revolutionarystruggle'.Their 'alternative economic strategy' is

essentially a plan for the 'national'salvation of British capitalism: importcontrols, departure from the EEC, statedirection of investment into manufacturing, 'industrial democracy' as the pricethe capitalists have to pay for being putright. They are proposals based upon thefalse idea of'viability'. And by acceptingthe notion that 'your firm or countrycould be profitable if...' they ultimatelyreinforce right reformist and classcollaborat ionist ideas.

There has clearly been no death bedconversion to the need for a revolutionarystruggle for power on the part of the CPleadership. The nub of their programmer e m a i n s t h e b e l i e f t h a t B r i t i s hn a t i o n a l i s m c a n b e d i r e c t e dprogressively—against monopoly multinational companies, for import controlsand 'non racist' immigration controls.

The 'Br i t ish' solut ion remains cr i t icalfor them. So the Star frequently attemptsto portray working-class act ion asaction for Britain—on 22 January 1979its banner headline on the public serviceday of strike action was 'LOBBYINGF O R B R I TA I N ' .

And t he ' Le f t ' eu rocommun i s t s a recorrect when they assert the fundamentalcontinuity of the British Road. Theagency which It has held since 1951 can bemoved to the 'left' in order to implementthe 'alternative economic strategy' isParliament and within that institution,the Labour Party. Thus on 13 June 1979,Costello wrote a Star feature on 'WhyLabour lost' in which he began from anearlier article by Ken Gill:

'The cen t ra l task remains . I t i s tochange the policies and leadership ofthe Labour Party'.T h i s p e r s p e c t i v e s e c u r e d a n

overwhelming majority at the 1977Congress. The latest BRTS states unequivocally,' The Commun is t Pa r t y does no t ,however, seek to replace the LabourParty as a federal party of the workingclass, but rather strengthen its originalfederal nature... '

And the proposal to delete this infavour of the need to replace the LabourParty by a mass revolutionary CPreceived the smallest opposition vote (just14) at Congress.

The June 1979 Rank and File Conference.

During the last five years the CPstrategy of shifting the Labour Party tothe left didn't work. The Labour government and the trade union bureaucracyshifted steadily to the right.If you were serious about fighting this

you either had to accept that an entirelynew socialist force was needed to act as acounter pole of attraction to the LabourParty (as we in the SWP believe) or youcould follow the logic of the CP's case. Ifthe Labour Party could be shiftedleftwards, then surely good socialistsshould be inside the Labour Party to fightthe good fight?

W h a t n e x t f o r t h e C P G B ?

Today, with the decision of Tony Bennto try and build a new grass roots leftre formis t movement ins ide the LabourParty and a forthcoming conference inNovember of this new grouping, this logicis likely to be even more compelling.

In the past the CP had sufficient pulland prestige to be able to argue (even ifunconvincingly) that it could best assistthe Labour left by organising outside theL P .

But now the CP has one third fewermembers than in 1974 and it is rent with amajor internal political feud. Many ofthose who take seriously the CP'straditional argument that the LabourParty can be won to the left are. morethan ever, likely to draw a personalconclusion as to where they should placetheir political activity.

The Tory Government of 1970-74 sawa temporary turnaround in the fortunesof the CP. Many CP members willdoubtless be expecting the same thing tohappen again. But the intervening years,and the current disputes, have taken theirtoll. In 1970 the CP took the first broad-based initiative against the Tory Industr ial Relat ions Bi l l .

Although the Liason Committee forthe Defence of Trade Unions may pull anew conference out of the bag thisAutumn, the June 1979 Rank and Fi le

Conference which at t racted over 1000delegates has already made its mark.Even i f the CP does lumber in to realactivity against the new Tory laws (to dateit has only done some huffing andpuffing), it will not have anything like thecommanding lead in that area that it hadten years ago.

Political parties survive if their politicsaccurately reflect existing class interestsand if they can organistionally hangtogether to express these interests publicly and articulately, On both these scoresthe Communist Party's survival as a realparty past its 60th birthday next yearmust now be in doubt. It will, of course,continue as a bureaucratic rump—itsproperty assets (King St. and the Morning Star building) and the interests ofmore than one hundred CP and Smrfull-timers ensure that.

The likely victory of the 'left' eurocommunists at the 36th Congress inNovember 1979, or at very least, thehalting of the advance of the 'rights', willdo nothing to stop this process. A stalepudding is every bit as unpalatable as anu n c o o k e d o n e .

For the Communist Party of GreatBritain 1980 will be '60 and Out' as a

living force within the working-classm o v e m e n t . T h e p r o b l e m f o rrevolutionaries is that despite the smallpresence of the Socialist Workers' Party,no credible alternative is yet 'in'.

We cannot crow about the defeat of theCP. The long decline of the CP as a leftreformist tendency within the class hasnot been compensated for by anequivalent expansion of revolutionarystrength.

O u r n u m e r i c a l w e a k n e s s m e a n s t h a t a

split of any size away from the CPtowards the SWP is highly unlikely. Butthere are st i l l many individual CPm e m b e r s w h o c a n b e w o n f r o m t h e r u i n sas well as a host of other trade unionactivists who up till now have alwaysl o o k e d t o t h e C P f o r a l e a d b u t w h o a r enow increasingly open to what we have tos a y.

3 9

K

.SocuJlat ^ B C

F is for FeuerbachObviously Ludwig Feuerbach(1804-1872) never was 'the firstone to see it was wrong", asAlex Glasgow's song claims.Speaking as one myself, 1 canreveal that it has never actuallybeen necessary to be anunemployed philosophylecturer as Feuerbach was to seeihai the exploitation in classsociety is wrong.

Only in the last issue, on thispage, Phil Evans gave us theexample of the cartoonistGillray, who had managed towork out that much, fifty yearsbefore Europe was favouredwith the idealist philosophicaltheories of radicals likeF e u e r b a c h .

And by straining our wits alittle we could make up quite alist of others who also saw thai

exploitation was wrong a goodfew years before Feuerbach—people such as GerrardWinstanley, Wat Tyler, Jesus ofNazareth, Robin Hood, MaryGary, Spartacus, and a fewmill ion more, named ornameless, fighting andsuffering—or just suffering.

So it was hardly original ofF e u e r b a c h t o s e e t h a t

exploitation was wrong. Norwas he unique in producing apowerful intellectual challengeto Christianity, for which he isbest remembered. By the timethat Feuerbach came along,that process had been buildingup with increasing force formore than 200 years.

What Feuerbach really didcontribute was the beginningsof an understanding of whaiwas wrong, of just howexploitation managed, and stillmanages, to be accepted by somany people as 'natural' or'inevitable'. His partialunderstanding was taken upand transformed by Marx, as 1shall explain. Marx didn'talways do full justice toFeuerbach, but that's anothers t o r y .

We can start to see whatFeuerbach's contribution to ourcontinuing struggle for humanfreedom was, by letting him tellus in his own words, for whichhe was never at a loss.

'It is a question today ... nolonger of the existence or nonexistence of God but of theexistence or non-existence ofm a n ; n o t w h e t h e r G o d i s a

4 0

c r e a t u r e w h o s e n a t u r e i s t h esame as ours, but whether wehuman beings are to be equalamong ourselves; not whetherand how we can partake of thebody of the Lord by eatingbread, but whether we haveenough bread for our ownbodies; not whether we renderu n t o G o d w h a t i s G o d ' s a n d

unto Caesar what is Caesar's,but whether we finally renderunto man what is man's; notw h e t h e r w e a r e C h r i s t i a n s o r

heathens, theists or atheists, butw h e t h e r w e a r e o r c a n b e c o m e

men, healthy in soul and body,free active and full of vitality...

'I deny God. But that meansfor me that I deny the negationof man. In place of the illusory,fantastic, heavenly position ofman, which in actual lifenecessarily leads to thedegradation of man, I substitutethe tangible, actual andconsequently also the politicaland social position of mankind.'

Though he owed much to hiscontemporaries. Feuerbach wassupreme amongst them in hisability to confront religion, andits intellectual cousins inphilosophy, aesthetics andsocial theory, with that mostdevastating of all opposition,the opposition whichunderstands the enemy betterthan they do themselves. (Thetechnical term for this, by theway. is 'critique'.)

In crushing detail andpowerful scholarship he showedhow religion is the pervertedand self-deceiving child ofpeople's hopes and desires forthis life, made over into emptytales about the next, in whichthe fantasy projections ofthemselves enjoy the power,happiness, creativity etc ofwhich they are systematicallydeprived in real life.

In short, he showed howreligion had been for manythousands of years what firstthe novel, then cinema, sportand T.V. were later to become,after his books had beenpublished! And he spared noirony in pointing out the way inwhich religion, like itsideological companions,actually cheats and oppressesthe very needs out of which itsprings, for which services it isof course duly rewarded by theexploiters of every age.

Feuerbach again:The more empty life is, thefuller, the more concrete is God.The impoverishing of the realworld and the enriching of Godis one act. Only the poor manhas a rich God'.

A n d :'Above morality hovers God, asa being distinct from man, abeing to whom the best is due,while only the remnants fall tothe share of man. All thosedispositions which ought to bedevoted to life, to man—all thebest powers of humanity—arelavished on the bSing who wantsnothing . .. The bloody humansacrifice is in fact only amaterial expression of theinmost secret of religion.'

A n d t h e r e a l c o n t e n t o f

religion, and all otherdepartments of ideology, as wehave seen him say above, wasfor Feuerbach ourselves andour actual human relationshipswith other people. The effect ofhis Essence of Christianity wasoverwhelming, on the youngM a r x a s o n m o s t l e f t i s tintellectuals of the day. AsMarx made clear in his writingsfrom this period, it provided agenera! method for the critiqueof bourgeois institutions andtheir supporting theories, withenormously fruitful results.

B u t M a r x s a w t h a t i t c o u l d

never be enough merely toexpose the divisive and

contradictory forms ofideological oppression. Herejected Feuerbach's idealisthope that sweet reason alonewould suffice to put thingsright, that if we could juststraighten out everyone's ideasthen all would be well—a mythwhich endures today with ourGramsci-ological 'new left'intellectuals, for whom it is soimportant that 'the revolution'should be possible withoutworking-class activity, withoutswear-words, without thedirtying of hands, without theshedding of blood, and, oh,above all without the loss ofwell-paid jobs!

Instead of Feuerbach's safelyabstract, and hence reallyidealist, 'materialism' of theory,Marx saw that the realquestionwould always be which socialforces upheld the oppressivestatus quo, ideas and all, andwhich could be mobilisedsuccessfully against them.

By a brilliant transition, heshowed how the critique of theproduction of ideas, and inparticular the critique ofbourgeois ideas aboutproduction, could only becompleted by workers' 'critique'of the actual practice ofproduction under capitalism.And so Marx argued that. . .But something has to be left forthe rest of this ABC! RipBulke lev