Paper presented by Harpal Brar
at the 1998 May Day international seminar in Brussels
www.icsbrussels.org , ics[at]icsbrussels.org
For working-class resistance to be meaningful and successful, it is essential that such resistance be led and directed by a party of the working class. During the 70s and 80s, the British working class waged fierce resistance against capitalist attacks. However, all this came to nought since the working class in Britain was in the grip of social democracy (the Labour Party) and its hangers-on, namely, Trotskyites and revisionists, all of whom unfailingly supported Labour.
Since the defeat of the British General Strike of 1926, the national coal strike of 1984-1985 was the most significant struggle waged by the British working class. Notwithstanding its most honest, courageous and brilliant leadership, as well as the heroic struggle by more than 150,000 NUM members, the strike failed thanks to the combined treachery of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the Labour Party - in other words, social democracy.
The collapse of the coal strike furnished yet more proof, if proof were at all necessary, that without an irrevocable break with social democracy, the British working class could take not a single meaningful step in the direction of its own social emancipation. The decision of Arthur Scargill, the President of the NUM, taken a decade after the defeat of the miners, to break from Labour and form the Socialist Labour Party, is of immense historical significance. It is therefore necessary to look at the reasons for his decision to form the SLP, and the latter's weaknesses and strengths. It is necessary to see if the SLP, notwithstanding its undoubted weaknesses, can really become the organisation required by the British working class for overthrowing capitalism, which is the declared aim of the SLP.
What caused Scargill to break with Labour?
Why did Arthur Scargill break his life-long association with the Labour Party? The answer is to be found in a document entitled Future Strategy for the Left, written in the aftermath of the Labour Party's 1995 decision to ditch Clause IV of its Constitution. Throughout this document Scargill peddled the illusion that the Labour Party was formed for the "eradication of capitalism, the establishment of socialism and common ownership," that it had hitherto always been possible to reverse right-wing policies, and that ONLY since Blair's accession to the leadership and the changes in the Labour Party's Constitution had it become impossible to fight for socialism within the Labour Party. This is the fatal flaw which throughout this document ran like a scarlet thread and derogated from the correct, and really courageous, step that Scargill had taken in breaking with Labour and forming the SLP.
The error Scargill shared (increasingly less and less so) with the Trotskyist and revisionist 'left' was the belief that the Labour Party was a mass party of the British working class with the potential to unify the British proletariat in its struggle for social emancipation, and be an instrument of socialism. We, however, we have demonstrated that "Labour never has been, is not now, and will never in the future be, a party of the British proletariat; that it was formed to defend the interests of the privileged upper stratum (at the time composed of skilled workers organised in craft unions, which at the time embraced a tiny minority of the workforce) of the working class; that since the privileged position of this upper stratum - the aristocracy of labour - depended on the loot from the Empire and the extraction of imperialist superprofits from abroad, Labour from its inception was committed to the defence of the British Empire and British imperialism alike - for it could not defend the one (privileges of the labour aristocracy) without defending the other (British imperialism); that, therefore, Labour has, throughout its existence, as its record over nearly a century amply proves, been an imperialist party - a "bourgeois labour party", to use Engels' remarkably profound expression." (See Preface to H. Brar, Social Democracy, the Enemy Within, 1995).
We were delighted that, at long last life had compelled Cde Scargill to arrive at the same conclusion that we had arrived at long ago. On this, the most courageous decision of his life, we offered him and his comrades our sincerest congratulations. We added, however, that it was not enough to break with Labour organisationally; one also had to break with it ideologically. For Cde Scargill to break with Labour and yet maintain illusions in Social Democracy - the politics of social democratism - as was only too evident from his Future Strategy - was to persist in errors which, if uncorrected, could not but do irreparable damage to the cause of the working class.
Whatever the weaknesses of Scargill's position, he had gone further than the Trotskyist poseurs and revisionist liquidators in exposing the Labour Party as a capitalist party, indistinguishable from the Tories and Liberal Democrats at home, the Democratic Party in the US and Germany's Social Democrat Party. This is how Future Strategy posed, and answered, the question of the socialist credentials of the Labour Party:
"Is the Labour Party Socialist? In addressing this question it is essential to examine the Party's policies together with the Constitutional changes which have been systematically introduced over the past four years, including one-member, one-vote, reduction of the trade union bloc vote, and now the abandonment of Clause IV and introduction of new Rules and a Constitution which embrace Capitalism and adopt the 'Market Philosophy'.
"Labour is now almost indistinguishable from the Democratic Party in the United States, Germany's Social Democrat Party or, nearer home, the Liberal Democrats."
It is clear from the above formulation that the deciding point for Scargill - whether to stay inside Labour or break from it - was the constitutional changes, including the ditching of Clause IV. What made the Labour Party for him indistinguishable from the Tories and the Liberal Democrats was not the practice but the pretence of the Labour Party, whose constitutional acceptance of the social ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange mattered more to him than the observance of this constitution in its flagrant breach. It mattered more to him that the unions had a large say, through the bloc vote, than the fact that the union coterie who exercised these bloc votes were as rotten as the Labour leadership, both being a product of the imperialist position of Britain, both representing the interests of the privileged layers of the working class (never the vast masses of the poor, let alone the oppressed people abroad), to defend whose interests they had to defend British imperialism, for they could not defend the one without defending the other, since the crumbs for the privileged stratum could only be maintained through the continued flow of imperialist monopoly profits. Yet for Scargill, everything was fine in the old Labour Party, while things have gone badly wrong with New Labour. But even at the risk of being suspected of supporting him, one has to admit that Tony Blair has introduced a modicum of honesty into Labour politics by so amending its Constitution as to bring it into concordance with Labour's practice ever since its birth. In doing so he has exposed the fraud of Labour's socialist credentials and compelled honest people to re-examine their position vis-Ö-vis the Labour Party. This is what divides Arthur Scargill from the demented fraternity of Trotskyists, revisionists and Labour 'lefts'. Scargill took his bible (Labour's constitution) seriously and he believed in it. When the chapter on Genesis (Clause IV in this case) was expunged from it, his faith was broken and he could no longer stay a member of this Church (the Labour Party). He broke away in revolt in order to re-establish the Church in its pristine originality. He left to "start to build a Socialist Labour Party that represents the principles, values, hopes and dreams which gave birth nearly a century ago to what has, sadly, now [only now!] become New Labour."
That the Labour Party was never socialist is beside the point. What is important is that Scargill has shown a degree of consistency, honesty and political courage which are completely absent among the totally degenerate pseudo-Marxists who are still mindlessly chanting: Kick the Tories out by electing a right-wing Blair government under pressure to implement socialist policies. It is as though people were campaigning for a tribe of cannibals to be elected to office for the purpose of instituting strict vegetarianism.
Illusions in old Labour
In the same document, Scargill noted "how Labour has changed its policies on all the fundamental issues which have been determined by the Party Conference over many years - including privatisation, national minimum wage, unemployment, pensions, health care, education, Europe, nuclear disarmament, anti-trade union legislation and the Party itself" (p.3). He examined these new policies and finds them wanting. Labour, he said, had abandoned not only its commitment to common ownership but also its policy on public ownership of key industries such as water, electricity, coal, gas, telecommunications and railways. As to minimum wage, Labour said that "any minimum wage could only be introduced in consultation with 'social partners', including the CBI and the Institute of Directors", i.e., "at a level acceptable to our class enemies." In the sphere of pensions, the Labour Party "is already departing from the essential principle of 'universal' pensions and is looking at ways" of requiring workers to pay an additional "insurance policy" to ensure a minimum pension. As to the National Health Service, New Labour was committed to the retention of the "beneficial freedoms" of fundholding and thus to undermining it as a service available on demand "for everyone from the cradle to the grave". Labour's policy on education did not "address the demise of opportunity and aspiration for working class children over the past 16 years" and continued "to support privileged private education which is a vital prop to our class-ridden society." Although at one time the Labour Party was "implacably opposed to the European Common Market [it] is now one of the most ardent supporters of international capitalism, ...." ... "Possibly the most shameful about-turn, however, is that on unilateral nuclear disarmament. After years of campaigning in favour of banning all nuclear weapons, Labour has now become pro-nuclear - ..." In regard to anti-trade union laws, the document noted that Labour "has declared that in government it will retain the vicious laws which have been used to boost unemployment and enforce low pay over the past 16 years. In other words, Labour is happy to pursue the Tories' claim of rendering trade unions ineffective and compliant." Very correct. Labour has always been happy to pursue this Tory aim. Before Thatcher, both Labour (under Wilson) and the Tories (under Heath) tried to pass vicious anti-trade union laws; both failed in the face of strong working-class resistance. Barbara Castle's In Place of Strife was scuttled by huge protest demonstrations, and Mr Heath's Industrial Relations Act fell as soon as the Heath government lost office in the election held in the aftermath of the miners' strike and the three-day week. The incoming Labour government had little option but to repeal it. The working-class movement had to be severely weakened through large-scale unemployment and a series of defeats before Thatcher's administration could succeed where others had failed. That is why it deployed such vast resources to defeat the historic coal strike of 1984-5, as a prelude to attacking other sections of the working class. The defeat of the NUM was of the utmost importance for the British bourgeoisie, since the miners were the most advanced detachment of the British proletariat. Precisely for this reason, the defeat of the miners was the first priority of the British bourgeoisie. Yet in inflicting these defeats, the bourgeoisie received the unreserved support of the Labour Party and trade-union leadership, in 1926 as in 1984-5. Neither of these strikes could have been beaten except through the treachery of the Labour/TUC leadership. It is a pity that despite his direct and personal experience of the Labour/TUC treachery during the Coal Strike of 1984-5, it took Scargill ten years before he tore up his membership card - for the betrayal of the miners was of far greater significance than the removal of Clause IV, which had been redundant from the very moment of its incorporation into Labour's Constitution in 1918.
Reformist illusions and the question of the state
When dealing with the question of unemployment, the SLP document lapses into reformist and Keynesian illusions of the worst type. Here is how Future Strategy put the matter:
"Labour has always had a commitment to full employment - but the Party now says: 'No-one pretends we can solve unemployment overnight' - a clear warning that unemployment will continue under a Labour Government.
"But a Labour Government could solve unemployment - even within a Capitalist society - overnight, provided it introduced a four-day working week with no loss of pay, banned all non-essential overtime, and introduced voluntary retirement on full pay at age 55 - measures which are fundamental to the regeneration of Britain, but which are anathema to private enterprise and Capitalism.
"It is economic insanity to pay out ú10,000 per year to keep a worker unemployed whilst half that amount would eliminate unemployment straightaway." (p.4).
To end unemployment overnight "even within a Capitalist society," the document prescribed measures (retirement at 55, etc.), adding, however, that these measures were an "anathema to private enterprise and Capitalism". If these measures are an anathema to private enterprise, and we agree that they are, how are these measures to be implemented under the conditions of capitalism? Capital is bound to put up furious, powerful and effective resistance to them, for which purpose it would mobilise its state machine - army, police, judiciary, civil servants, hardly any of whose personnel would take orders from the 'elected government' if the capitalist class which owns and controls the material wealth of society, its financial resources, opposed that government. An SLP government would be confronted with the question of state power; it would be confronted with the question of smashing the bourgeois state machine (the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie) and putting in its place the dictatorship of the proletariat. Measures of the type suggested in Future Strategy could not be introduced while capitalism remained intact, and, therefore, the problem of unemployment could not be solved "within a capitalist society", let alone "overnight". SLP claims to be based on "Marxist philosophy" and should therefore address this question of state power (which must NOT be confused with being in government as a result of an election held under the conditions of bourgeois state power):
"One thing especially was proved by the Paris Commune, viz., that 'the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes'". (Marx and Engels, 1872, Preface to the Communist Manifesto).
"It is often said and written," observed Lenin, "that the main point in Marx's teachings is the class struggle; but this is not true. And from this untruth very often springs the opportunist distortion of Marxism, its falsification in such a way as to make it acceptable to the bourgeoisie. For the doctrine of class struggle was created NOT by Marx, BUT by the bourgeoisie BEFORE Marx, and generally speaking is ACCEPTABLE to the bourgeoisie. Those who recognise ONLY the class struggle are not yet Marxists; they may be found to be still within the boundaries of bourgeois thinking and bourgeois politics. To confine Marxism to the doctrine of class struggle means curtailing Marxism, distorting it, reducing it to something which is acceptable to the bourgeoisie. Only he is a Marxist who EXTENDS the recognition of class struggle to the recognition of the DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT. This is what constitutes the most profound difference between the Marxist and the ordinary petty (as well as big) bourgeois. This is the touchstone on which the REAL understanding and recognition of Marxism is to be tested." (State and Revolution, FLPH Peking, 1965, pp. 39-40).
The SLP recognises the class struggle, but that is not enough; if it really wants to base itself on "Marxist philosophy", as is its insistence, it must extend this recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. By doing so it will lose its petty-bourgeois hangers-on, but also become greatly more capable of serving the interests of the proletariat than at present.
Capital produces capital
As for the "economic insanity" of a system which pays out ú10,000 a year to keep a worker unemployed (incidentally, it may not be long before these payments are stopped as well), when half that amount would eliminate unemployment straight away. This "economic insanity" is precisely one of the unavoidable traits of capitalist production, which cannot be wished away so long as capitalism subsists.
The reason is that the whole aim of production under capitalism is the making of profit. In the words of Marx:
"The direct aim of capitalist production is not the production of goods, but the production of surplus value, or of profit in its developed form; not the product, but the surplus product. From this standpoint, labour itself is productive only in so far as it creates profit or surplus product for capital. In so far as the worker does not create it, his labour is unproductive. Consequently, the sum-total of applied productive labour is of interest to capital only to the extent that through it - or in relation to it - the sum-total of surplus labour increases. Only to that extent is what is called necessary labour time necessary. To the extent that it does not produce this result, it is superfluous and has to be discontinued. (Theories of Surplus Value).
In its endeavour to cheapen production, thereby maximising profit, capital is forced to embark on a ceaseless course of technical innovation to replace human labour by machines, thus creating an industrial reserve army, the unemployed, which in turn provides the capitalists with a powerful weapon in their struggle against the working class. In the search for profit capitalism has no choice but to generate unemployment. To ask capital to implement the measures proposed by the SLP to cure unemployment is to ask capital to commit commercial suicide, to destroy its competitivity in the world market. Capital cannot and will not do it. If capitalists did comply, they would lose out to their competitors and be forced out of business, leading to loss of jobs by all their employees. The laws of capitalism are laws, not options. These laws decree that, except in brief extraordinary circumstances, there shall be mass unemployment so long as there is capitalism. This is how Marx describes this law:
"The greater the social wealth, the functioning capital, the extent and energy of its growth, and, therefore, also the absolute mass of the proletariat and the productiveness of its labour, the greater is the industrial reserve army. The same causes which develop the expansive power of capital develop also the labour power at its disposal. The relative mass of the industrial reserve army increases, therefore, with the potential energy of wealth. But the greater this reserve army in proportion to the active labour army, the greater is the mass of a consolidated surplus population, whose misery is in inverse ratio to its torment of labour. The more extensive, finally, the lazarus-layers of the working class, and the industrial reserve army, the greater is official pauperism. THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE GENERAL LAW OF CAPITALIST ACCUMULATION." (Capital, Vol I, pp. 569-60).
Such, then, is the "insanity" of the capitalist system of production, which cannot function in any other way.
Weaknesses of the SLP - Failure to understand the economic basis of opportunism and reformism.
The weaknesses in the position of the SLP arise from its failure, first, to understand the essence of the Marxian teaching on the state, second, to understand the imperialist character of British capitalism and thirdly, to recognise the consequent split in the working class. It does not fully understand that imperialism is able to use a portion of the superprofits it derives from plundering the world to bribe labour leaders and the upper stratum of the working class. This is the economic basis of opportunism and reformism in the labour movement.
"This stratum of bourgeoisified workers, or the 'labour aristocracy', who are quite philistine in their mode of life, in the size of their earnings and in their entire outlook, ... is the principal SOCIAL ... prop of the bourgeoisie. For they are the real AGENTS OF THE BOURGEOISIE IN THE WORKING-CLASS MOVEMENT, the labour lieutenants of the capitalist class, real channels of reformism and chauvinism." (Lenin, Preface to the French and German editions of Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism).
The chief function of this stratum is to act as corrupters of the labour movement. On the basis of its monopoly profits, and the bribing of its labour aristocracy, the bourgeoisie of each imperialist country secures for itself a bourgeois labour party. This is what the Labour Party is and always was. The SLP has not fully understood this, which is why it blames all the misfortunes of the working class on evil-minded leaders rather than explaining the latter in terms of the economic and material interests of the class/es involved.
In the history of British imperialism there has always been a split in the working class. The SLP's failure to see this clearly is perhaps due to the fact that this split has until recently been obscured by the exceptional economic conditions which pertained after the end of the Second World War. In fact there have been two brief periods during which British capitalism, while sustaining the privileged position of the upper stratum of the working class, was nevertheless able to provide adequate living standards to the masses of the working class. These exceptional periods were, first, the years of 1848-1868 and, second, the 30 years following the end of the Second World War (1945-1975). During the latter, the post-war conditions of boom produced the Keynesian consensus, when, at the expense of the increased exploitation and oppression of the colonial peoples, British imperialism reconstructed its economy, and instituted the National Health Service, universal benefits, full employment and a rising standard of living for the entire working class.
Just as the challenge to Britain's monopoly position in the last quarter of the 19th century put an end to the consensus of that period, likewise the deteriorating condition of British imperialism - its relative decline in comparison with its rival imperialist powers - has caused the breakdown of the Keynesian consensus, and with it the end to full employment, universal benefits and the National Health Service, at least in its hitherto existing form. No longer can British imperialism sustain the privileged conditions of the upper stratum of the working class and the petty bourgeoisie while at the same time providing an adequate, let alone a rising, standard of living for the vast masses of the working class. From now on, as indeed has been the case since the end of the 1970s, the privileged conditions of the former can only be maintained at the expense of the increased exploitation poverty and misery of the latter.
The deep split within the working class is today once more laid bare: on the one hand a minority of privileged, self-seeking and reactionary workers - an aristocracy of labour - who are prepared to do imperialism's bidding; on the other hand, the overwhelming majority of the working class, the low-paid and the unemployed.
These realities are what lay behind Tony Blair's appointment to the leadership of the Labour Party, the dumping by it of Clause IV and the constitutional changes, etc. The imperialist crisis, and the resultant widening split in the working class, compelled the Labour Party to drop even the pretence of representing the entire working class, concentrating instead on representing the interests of imperialism and the upper stratum of the working class.
Nearly half the employees in Britain earn less than the European Decency Threshold; 15 million people receive means-tested benefits; but British imperialism is intensifying its attack on these poorer sections of the working class by reducing not only their pitiful wages, but also the benefits and services on which they rely. Therefore. we are poised for a massive increase in poverty and a further widening of the split in the working class.
Labour, however, will not represent this vast mass of the destitute. Labour lost four elections in succession because the privileged stratum of the working class deserted to the Tories. To win, Labour needed the electoral support of the upper stratum as well as a section of the petty bourgeoisie. Since as a result of the breakdown of the Keynesian consensus it is no longer possible to reconcile the interests of the labour aristocracy and of the lower stratum, Labour has, after each election defeat gradually moved away from the lower layers. Until Blair, however, the shift was too gradual to succeed in wooing the upper layers and the petty bourgeoisie. Labour lost the 1992 election because its commitment to a mild increase in spending on the National Health Service (ú1 billion) and education (ú600 million) proved unacceptable to the petty bourgeoisie and the upper stratum of the working class. As a result, Labour dropped all such commitments in the expectation that the lower strata would, encouraged by the pseudo-Marxists, vote for it anyway, as they have no affinity for any other party.
Given that it is no longer possible for British imperialism to "provide anything like adequate" standards of life "for the vast majority of ordinary working people", as the SLP recognises, political parties have to state plainly on whose side they are - the privileged minority or the vast majority comprising the poorest, the most deprived and the underprivileged. The Labour Party has firmly come down on the side of the privileged minority. The SLP has not yet focused on the problem. If it fails to do so, it will drift towards labour aristocratic opportunism and probable annihilation as there is no basis for having two social-democratic parties. The task of communists is to recognise the split in the working class, to fight against the "bourgeois labour party," and "to go down LOWER and DEEPER, to the real masses," for "this is the meaning and the whole content of the struggle against opportunism." (Lenin, Imperialism and the Split in Socialism).
Will the SLP take such a bold step? Will it give up its baggage of 'left' social-democratic reformism? Only time will tell. In the meantime, we are presented with the question of what attitude to adopt towards the SLP.
Our attitude towards the SLP
Notwithstanding the political and ideological weaknesses of the SLP, of which we have provided a comradely critique above, it is our considered opinion that communists ought to give the SLP support, and this is for the following reasons.
Its constitution says that it stands for the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by a socialist system (Clause IV, para 3), for the "common/social ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange" (Clause IV, para 4), the abolition of the House of Lords and the monarchy and the establishment of a republic (Clause IV, para 10). It preaches defiance of unjust laws such as anti-trade union legislation through direct industrial and other extra-Parliamentary struggles; it promises to give voice to those who are disenfranchised and marginalised in our society, becoming a natural home to campaigns for peace and the environment.
It promises to defend the NHS, protect the environment, and abolish private schools. It advocates Britain's withdrawal from the IMF, the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation and the imperialist war-mongering NATO. In regard to Britain's oldest colony, Ireland, the SLP advocates a complete and immediate withdrawal of British troops from the occupied 6 Counties so that Ireland may be unified and the Irish people exercise their right of self determination.
The SLP stands for quitting the European Union and advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament.
In its document on youth, the SLP denounces parliament in the following trenchant terms:
"The Socialist Labour Party is an independent party fighting for the overthrow of capitalism, to achieve a better world through international socialism. Parliament is a corrupt talking shop. The SLP is standing candidates to raise the issues and fight for socialism - the real power to be won however is in the workplace and on the streets. We recognise that without the participation of youth there can be no socialism."
Finally, the SLP not only denounces New Labour as a capitalist party but also, unlike the cowardly Trotskyite-revisionist fraternity, is prepared to challenge Labour during local and parliamentary elections.
These are reasons enough, despite the serious weaknesses of its ideological and political stances, to give the SLP support.
Recognising that the formation of the SLP is an extremely important development, specially in the fight to loosen the deadly grip of the Labour Party over the masses of the working class, we must do our best to help, to push, the SLP in a Marxist-Leninist direction. In the present conditions in Britain, this can only be done by joining the SLP and fully participating in its further development. Those who are yet not prepared to take this step can at the very least legitimately give electoral support to the SLP. The SLP says openly that it bases itself on "Marxist philosophy", that it has borrowed its name from the Socialist Labour Party of the legendary Clydeside Bolshevik, John Maclean, that it has taken its logo from the equally legendary Irish communist and national liberation fighter James Connolly, and that it will "abolish capitalism." Sceptics should take the SLP at its word and say: Come on, show us how you do it. Hic Rhodus hic salta (Here is the river you say you can jump over: well, then, jump!).
Trotskyist and Revisionist hostility towards the SLP
Nothing demonstrates more clearly the degeneration of the various Trotskyist and revisionist organisations in Britain than their hostility towards the SLP. Since the SLP is likely to adversely affect the Labour Party, especially in electoral terms, it is not surprising that it has been attacked by most Trotskyist and revisionist organisations, the 'left' appendages of social democracy whose main concern continues to be the electoral interests of the Labour Party.
The SWP's hostility to the SLP
The Socialist Workers' Party (SWP), degenerate even by Trotskyist standards, was at sixes and sevens in its criticism of the SLP. Not knowing whether to attack the SLP from a pseudo-left position or from a right opportunist angle, it did both. It attacked the SLP's "electoralism", contrasting it to "class struggle" and "struggle outside the Commons". In an attempt to appear more revolutionary than, and to the left of, the SLP, the Trotskyites of the SWP pontificated:
"A Socialist Labour Party will soon face a choice. In words it is possible to talk about combining serious interventions in elections with struggle outside the Commons. In practice the two pull in opposite directions," adding that the socialist party "must have clear socialist politics and one that must be based on struggle, not elections". But what was the SWP's position? Their 'left' trend got thoroughly exposed when they tore the mask off their own faces by maintaining in their Pre-Conference Bulletin, 1995, that it would be a "disaster" for the working class not to support the Labour Party at the next election! By the time of the Hemsworth by-election the SWP had changed its mind yet again: it decided to support the SLP candidate Brenda Nixon after all. The SWP's position then changed again to advocate electoral support for the SLP but only when the latter put up candidates in "safe Labour seats", not in marginal seats, for that might "split the vote and let the Tories in."
Yet "Arthur Scargill," the SWP was saying, "is absolutely right in his assessment of Tony Blair's New Labour." The SWP's "absolute" agreement with Scargill's assessment of New Labour, however, was entirely subordinate to its overriding concern for Labour's electoral requirements. So, while agreeing "absolutely" with the SLP's evaluation, "Socialist Worker will still be urging a Labour vote in most areas at the next election." (Socialist Worker, 10 January 1996). The SLP's policy on the NHS, education, privatisation, the environment, and on a whole host of other issues is a thousand times better than that of the Labour Party. The SLP says that it will abolish capitalism, while Labour's claim is that British capitalism would be better managed by them than it has been by the Tories, that it will be safer in Labour rather than in Tory hands. All the same, the SWP worked overtime at the last election for a Labour victory - all in the name of some perversion of 'socialism' and 'revolution'! And these degenerates and social-democratic cretins have the audacity to attack every proletarian regime that ever existed in the world for allegedly betraying socialism and revolution!
Trots of Socialist Outlook attack the SLP
The entryist Trots of Socialist Outlook greeted Scargill's initiative with an editorial entitled Wrong formula, wrong time. While expressing ritual agreement that we need a "qualitatively different kind of party and programme", the editorial went on to object that "the new party threatens to divert from the fight to organise the left at the base of the unions, and from the necessary challenge to Blair inside the Labour Party itself." Well, everyone knows what success the likes of Socialist Outlook had in organising the 'left' to challenge Blair, his plans to ditch Clause IV of Labour's Constitution. Socialist Outlook issued blood-curdling threats and promised to fight to the death against Blair's attempt allegedly to cause "a profound shift in the politics of the Labour Party" by reversing "the working-class nature of the Labour Party" and thus "change its identity". Nothing came of these noisy threats. Blair got the constitutional changes he wanted and presumably, according to Socialist Outlook's own logic, reversed "the working-class nature of the Labour Party." Notwithstanding this, Socialist Outlook continued working studiously for the election of a Labour government to kick the Tories out.
Labour 'left' fraud and the SLP
By their opposition to Scargill, the so-called 'left' within the Labour Party, too, has been compelled to come out in its true colours - as the fraud it always was. Its leading lights - Tony Benn, Dennis Skinner, Jeremy Corbyn and others - have been thoroughly discredited as people who value their careers as Members of Parliament a thousand times more than they value the working class. They all devoted themselves to bringing New Labour to power in violation of every single shred of socialist principle they have feigned to uphold. The biggest 'left' charlatan of them all, namely, Ken Livingstone, frightened by the danger represented to Labour by the SLP, and being unable to deal with the political and ideological side of the issue, stooped to this disgusting smear against Scargill:
"My guess is that if Arthur had been serious and had pushed on with this project, the Tory Party would have given him a million pounds to get it off the ground because it could take just enough votes from Labour to give the Tories a chance. I'll bet Stella Rimington went to work on it immediately."
Well, Scargill has pushed on with his project, without Tory gold or assistance from the intelligence services. What he does have is political honesty and courage, concepts incomprehensible to Livingstone and his ilk, who can never understand considerations other than those of greed, pelf or place.
CPB and the SLP
The revisionists have not lagged far behind in assailing Scargill's initiative. Through the columns of the Morning Star, leading lights of the CPB claimed that Scargill's new party would "divert the efforts of many committed socialists into a dead end" (Coyle, Diverting Socialist efforts into a dead end, 4 March, 1996). Kenny Coyle, with not a shred of evidence, asserted that Scargill's call for a new party was based on "an underestimation of the left and the overestimation of Blair's transformation of the Labour Party" (ibid). His article's only coherence was its faultless incoherence. While it correctly maintained that the Labour Party "was not originally founded as a socialist party", and that "In government, regardless of Clause IV, the Labour Party never seriously challenged the foundations of capitalist society, not even with the great reforms of 1945," it went on nevertheless to say that the SLP was "wrong to write off the working-class character of the Labour Party's base." If so, the SLP was in very good company, that of V.I. Lenin: "It is not so much a question of how many members there are in an organisation," says Lenin, "as what is the real, objective meaning of its policy: does this policy represent the masses? Does it serve the masses, i.e., the liberation of the masses from capitalism, or does it represent the interests of the minority, its conciliation with capitalism?" (Imperialism and the Split in Socialism, 1916).
"Of course, for the most part the Labour Party consists of workers, but it does not logically follow from this that every workers' party which consists of workers is at the same time a 'political workers' party'; that depends upon who leads it, upon the content of its activities and of its political tactics. Only the latter determines whether it is really a political proletarian party. From this point of view, which is the only correct point of view, the Labour Party is not a political workers' party but a thoroughly bourgeois party ... " (The Communist Party and the Labour Party, Speech at the Second Congress of the Comintern).
Coyle, who claims to be a Marxist-Leninist, ought to ponder over the meaning of these observations of Lenin's.
The trump card for Coyle is Labour's connections with the trade unions. Here is what he writes:
"Trade unions retain 50 per cent of the Labour Party conference vote and directly elect 12 out of 29 national executive members and have the largest vote in deciding the five seats reserved for women.
"This makes Labour a party entirely unlike the US Democrats or the Liberal Democrats in Britain. The Labour Party remains a mass working-class party with strong ties to the trade unions, many of which remain committed to full employment and the welfare state." (Op. cit.)
Lenin responded to this type of false reasoning as follows: "One of the most common sophisms of Kautsky is his reference to the 'masses'; we do not want to break away from the masses and mass organisations! But think how Engels approached this question. In the nineteenth century, the 'mass organisations' of the English trade unions were on the side of the bourgeois labour party. Marx and Engels did not conciliate with it on this ground, but exposed it. They did not forget, ... that the trade union organisations directly embrace the minority of the proletariat ..." (Imperialism and the Split in Socialism).
Coyle and people like him are guilty of this 'forgetfulness'. They 'forget', first, that today, out of a workforce of 27 million, only 7.5 million workers, that is, just over a quarter, belong to trade unions. The remaining 19.5 million, which includes the poorest and the lowest paid, do not. These teeming millions have no existence for our Kenny Coyles. Secondly, there is nothing in the record of the trade unions which encourages one to believe that they are more progressive than the Labour Party and might therefore be able to exercise even a mildly healthy influence on the latter. The trade unions are increasingly dominated by a new labour aristocracy of non-manual, educated, managerial, professional and associated workers. And the unions, instead of collective representation of the workforce, are concentrating on the provision of personal services such as credit cards, private health insurance and cheap holidays, a factor which contributes to declining membership, as the low-paid, who cannot afford these services, see little reason to become, or remain, members of a trade union.
Coyle concluded by saying:
"The Communist Party believes that no matter how unfavourable the current balance of forces, only a patient and determined battle for a left alternative strategy inside the labour movement, as it actually exists, can begin to break the influence of reformism and challenge the economic and political power of the monopolies.
"In our view, that represents the best future for the left and for socialist advance."
If this were indeed the case, there is then only one course open to the CPB, and other organisations, such as the New Communist Party (NCP), advocating a similar line and that is, to liquidate themselves and joint the Labour Party in order to wage "a patient and determined battle for a left alternative" and to "begin to break the influence of reformism and challenge the economic and political power of the monopolies," for "that represents the best future for the left and for socialist advance." !! Scargill has challenged them to explain why they do not do so. Neither the CPB nor the NCP have even attempted to give an answer.
Mike Hicks' incongruities
In an earlier article entitled Not too late to think again (Morning Star 14 February 1996), Mike Hicks, the former General Secretary of the CPB, droned on even more mindlessly than Kenny Coyle. Hicks informed us that "within the Communist Party of Britain, ... [the SLP] has been discussed and resoundingly opposed politically."
The reason for this opposition of the CPB's was (and continues to be) that while "... there is a massive attempt [only an attempt!] by Blair and the modernisers to shift the aims and constitution of the Labour Party away from the potential of securing a government capable of winning socialism in Britain", nevertheless ... "there is a great gap between right-wing aspirations and the ability to achieve them."
When asked what made him think there was a gap between right-wing aspirations and the ability to achieve them or that a Labour government could win socialism in Britain, Hicks inconsequentially replies that the Labour Party was never socialist and clause IV had nothing to do with socialism, being inserted merely "to divert the Labour Party from becoming revolutionary following the 1917 revolution in Russia". He went on to say that clause IV proved pretty powerless to prevent either the MacDonald government of 1924 from being anti-working class, or the TUC from betraying the General Strike of 1926 and subscribing to Mondism. All this is very correct, and refreshing to hear. But it proves just the opposite of what Cde Hicks set out to prove, namely, that Labour is capable of winning socialism and that nothing must be done to weaken it, and thus rock the boat. Unless, of course, it be Cde Hicks' proposition that only a party which is not socialist is capable of winning socialism! Cde Hicks' reasoning, self-annihilatory at every step, is, to borrow Lenin's expression, full of "obvious incongruities which deserve to be published in an anthology of logical absurdities for junior high-school boys." (Collected Works, Vol 16, p.31).
Tony Chater, another CPB luminary, expressed similarly liquidationist views in the Morning Star of 18 November 1995: "All those we say are on the broad [i.e., liquidationist] left have in common an understanding that the Labour Party is the mass working-class party and has to be won for the policies of the left if there is to be advance to socialism in Britain."
Since the Labour Party is incapable by nature of being won over to socialism, this is merely an indirect way of saying that there can be no advance to socialism in Britain! With communists like this, who needs social democrats!
NCP and the SLP
In an editorial in its paper, the New Worker, the NCP, having made the customary ritual reference to Labour's betrayal of the coal strike of 1984-5, and to the Labour leadership's "policy of abject class collaboration", went on to say: "But Scargill is gravely mistaken in thinking that the only answer to Blair and Co is to set up a new party of labour in opposition." (What future strategy for Scargill's party?).
Like the Trotskyite SWP, the NCP, being unsure of whether to attack the SLP from a pseudo-left position or from a right opportunist angle, attacks it from both directions. In reality, however, its objections to the SLP, as those of the SWP, are of a right-opportunist nature and its overwhelming concern is to protect the electoral interests of the Labour Party. Vying with the SWP and the CPB in giving utterance to "obvious incongruities which deserve to be published in an anthology of logical absurdities for junior high-school boys," the NCP's 'left' and right opportunist objections to the SLP were stated thus - one following the other:
"It will become a focus for Trotskyite groups. It will plainly be social-democratic - albeit of a left-wing orientation. It will probably be anti-Communist and it will certainly divide the trade-union movement.
"If the political will and resources exist for the establishment of a new workers' party with a left wing programme, then surely those same attributes can be used to change the disastrous, anti-working class policies of the Labour Party today.
"In fact, to speak of the 'Socialist Labour Party' is to speak of defeat. It is an acceptance of the view that the right has won its historic contest with the left inside the Labour Party, and that the left is incapable of re-grouping with the view of recapturing the party for the working class.
"We must reject this defeatist and deeply pessimistic argument."
If the NCP is unwilling to endorse the SLP on the grounds that it "will become a focus for Trotskyist groups", that it "will probably be anti-Communist", how come that the NCP has no qualms about supporting the Labour Party which has been and still is a focus for scores of entryist Trotskyite groups, which has always been and is now social-democratic, and of a very right-wing orientation, which has been and is now rabidly anti-Communist? This does not make sense. These, however, are not the NCP's real reasons for opposing the SLP; these are merely 'left' phrases to cover the NCP's right opportunist stance in support of social-democracy. The real reasons of the NCP are set out in the very next two sentences in which it states that if the "will and resources exist" to found a new party with a left-wing programme, these can and ought to be used inside the Labour Party "to change the disastrous, anti-working class policies of the Labour Party today", and that Scargill is being defeatist in speaking about the SLP, for in doing so he is guilty of "an acceptance of the view that the right has won its historic contest ... inside the Labour Party, and that the left is incapable of re-grouping with the view of recapturing the party for the working class." - "a defeatist and deeply pessimistic argument," which the NCP invites us to reject. All this disgusting rigmarole amounts to is: nobody should rock the social-democratic boat, notwithstanding the fact that to the sure knowledge of the NCP, the next Labour government "will [!!] inevitably betray the movement" for its "main priority" will be "to hold office and perpetuate capitalism". Still the NCP wanted "a sweeping Labour victory at the next [May 1997] general election." Displaying a peculiar sense of humour, and little realising how these utterances on its part were in the nature of a self-portrayal, the NCP editorial stated:
"Reformism is mirrored by revisionism within the communist movement", but "we cannot fight reformism with more of the same kind, even if it's led by the President of the National Union of Mineworkers." Knowing the NCP's stance on the question of one's attitude to the Labour Party, it could only mean that reformism can be fought "with more of the same kind" as long as the fight takes place within the Labour Party but not outside of it !! The editorial concluded with the following mishmash in defence of social-democracy to the accompaniment of 'revolutionary' rhetoric:
"We want a sweeping Labour victory at the next general election but we need to fight to end the system of exploitation once and for all. The socialist answer must be heard throughout the labour movement and the fight to build the communist movement begun."
There is comfort in the above words only for social-democracy of the worst type.
Conclusion
In view of the foregoing, it is clear that the Trotskyists and revisionists opposed the formation of the SLP, and continues to oppose the SLP now, because of their overriding concern for the electoral interests of the Labour Party. According to our information, both tendencies have lost quite a few members to the SLP. On this account alone the birth of the SLP was something to celebrate.
The formation of the SLP opened a debate on the question of the socialist alternative to capitalism among wider sections of the working class than has been possible for the last decade. The job of those who call themselves communists (Marxist-Leninists) is to bring to the fore in this debate the importance of revolutionary theory, to insist that "without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. This idea cannot be insisted upon too strongly at a time when the fashionable preaching of opportunism goes hand in hand with an infatuation for the narrowest forms of practical activity", to emphasise that the "role of vanguard fighter can be fulfilled only by a party that is guided by the most advanced theory." (Lenin, What is to be Done?).
Our decision to join the SLP, notwithstanding its weaknesses as outlined above, has been proven correct by the second Congress of the SLP. Many of the noisy and fractious Trotskyist groups, who had joined the SLP with the purpose of hijacking it, suffered serious defeat at that Congress. Their entrist plans in ruins, they left the SLP, shouting abuse at the "Stalinist" Scargill. Their departure gave added strength to the SLP, cleansed as it was of the filthy scum whose constant endeavour is to sap the vitality and self-confidence of the working class; to keep working-class struggle within the boundaries of the capitalist system by slandering the all-encompassing and earth-shattering achievements of socialism.
"The chief endeavour," said Stalin, "of the bourgeoisie of all countries and of its reformist hangers-on is to kill in the working class, faith in its own strength, faith in the possibility and inevitability of its victory and thus to perpetuate capitalist slavery."
Trotskyism is one such variety of reformist hangers-on of the bourgeoisie which over a period of nine decades has done all it could to attack the revolutionary positions of Leninism on questions of revolutionary theory and organisation, which, through its denunciation of the achievements of socialism in the former USSR, has assisted international imperialism's relentless assault on socialism aimed at destroying the faith of the proletariat in its own strength, "faith in the possibility and the inevitability of its victory and thus to perpetuate capitalist slavery."
Since the Second Congress, the SLP, through its Industrial Committee, initiated the Reclaim Our Rights campaign, aimed at mobilising the British proletariat for the repeal of the anti-trade union legislation put on the statute book over the last two decades. Nearly 700 delegates, representing three-quarters of a million workers, attended the Reclaim Our Rights conference, held on March 28th 1998 in Central Hall, Westminster. Cde. Jean Pestieau and other Belgian comrades, who attended this important conference, would be able to corroborate the fact that the conference was a breath of fresh air after years of retreat by the British working class, a retreat due to the nauseating class collaborationism of the TUC and the Labour leadership. The actions of the SLP compelled quite a lot of trade-union leaders to support the Conference and many others, who did not attend the Conference, are under pressure from their membership to do something about the plethora of anti-trade union legislation.
Since the Conference, a new Committee has been established under the Chairmanship of Cde Bob Crow, a member of the Executive Committee of the SLP, which is working towards a massive demonstration of the working class to coincide with May Day 1999. All the signs are that this movement against reactionary anti-trade union laws will gather momentum in the coming months.
The SLP, although less than two years old, has made a significant intervention in the arena of electoral politics. It stood over 60 candidates at the last general election and secured, on average, close to 4% of the votes in the constituencies it contested. While we have every right to condemn parliamentary cretinism, we are duty-bound not to leave the electoral arena in the hands of our enemies. The SLP understands this very well. It is contesting 200 seats in the Council elections to be held on 7 May1998. We shall soon know what impact it has had.
As to extra-parliamentary campaigns, the SLP advocates defiance of anti-trade union legislation; it has been the most ardent supporter of important industrial disputes in Britain, e.g., the Liverpool docks dispute, the Hillingdon Hospital workers' strike, and the strikes at Magnet and Critchley. In doing so, the SLP has won the enthusiastic support of the workers involved. In addition, the SLP is associated with other extra-parliamentary struggles, such as the fight against new motorways which blight our countryside, the struggle against open-cast mining, the fight against nuclear weapons, fight to defend social services, etc.
Last, but not least, unlike the revisionists and Trotskyists, the SLP honours and cherishes the great achievements of socialism in USSR. It refuses to denounce that legendary communist, Joseph Stalin. For that reason, deservedly in my view, Comrade Scargill has been denounced by the counter-revolutionary Trots and revisionist liquidators as a dictatorial 'Stalinist' - a badge that I have told him he ought to wear with honour.
In view of the above, it is the duty of Marxist-Leninists to join the SLP and bring to bear upon its development their knowledge of scientific socialism. There is a dichotomy in the British working class movement. The SLP contains within itself the most advanced workers but sadly lacks a thorough grounding in the science of Marxism Leninism. Marxist-Leninist groups, on the other hand - at least some of them; - have this knowledge, but have absolutely no contact with the working-class movement. Is it not time that the two elements, so essential for the development of a revolutionary movement anywhere, were joined together?
There will be many, comrades, who will be inclined to pour scorn on our efforts; there will be many who will say that the SLP is not the kind of new party that V I Lenin would have set up. While conceding this, we are of the opinion that we are dealing with a situation to which no textbook of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin gives a direct answer. Nevertheless that answer has to be deduced from the teachings of these great proletarian leaders. We are firmly of the opinion that it is right, in the present circumstances of the working-class movement in Britain, to join the only organisation - the SLP - which contains the possibility of imbuing the advanced workers in Britain with the science of Marxism-Leninism and thus helping to establish a mighty revolutionary mass movement of the British proletariat.
This is all I have to say, comrades. Thank you for listening to me.