INTRODUCTORY NOTES ON WHY I AM REPRINTING THIS LETTER.
Revolutionary Marxists since the Labour Party was formed in 1900 main strategy and tactics has been how to break millions of workers from Social Democracy and over to revolutionary politics. Engels explained during the 19th century that due to the dominance of British Capitalism and Imperialism the price has been Opportunism and Ultra-Leftism. Lenin and Trotsky both opposed dismissing battles within Social Democracy which involves millions of workers and at the same rejecting utopian Strategic Entryist policy of old Militant Tendency of turning Labour into a revolutionary party. Against such illusions both Lenin and Trotsky stressed that the Social Democratic Bureaucracy would attempt to exclude forces which threatened their hegemony over workers.
The relevance of this letter is that Ultra-Left Centrists are in crisis as they were during the early 1980s as Blarism is losing the Labour Party and Social Democracy is trying to regain their hegemony in this party. In the period that Swart wrote this letter Tariq Ali attempted to liquidate into this party. Ultra-Left currents still dominated the International Marxist Group (IMG) by not joining Labour to have a united front with the Bennite left against right wing Social Democracy.
Trotskyists should have entered Labour with that united front tactic in order to relate with millions of workers who were radicalising in a Socialist direction despite limitations of its Left Social Democratic leadership. They should have used the Transitional method to bridge the gap between their embryonic Socialist consciousnesses to take them towards revolutionary answers.
Eventually the IMG enter Labour and renamed themselves as supporters of Socialist Action. John Ross did a zig-zag from opposing entry to extreme opportunism. He opposed Tony Benn running for leader of Labour in 1988 because it hindered Livingstone’s chance to be leader at a later stage.
For a whole number of reasons the Social Democratic left was seriously weakened by 1994. Blairism did represent something new in that he attempted to Bourgeoisifly it. He failed. The radicalisation by millions of workers and middle class elements with the landslide weakened his coalition plans with the Liberal Democrats. Those Ultra-Lefts who prematurely wrote off battles between Social Democracy and Blairism broke with law of Uneven and Combined Development with the Blairite manoeuvres to Bourgeoisifly Labour and the resistance of Social Democracy.
Labour is still has a contradictory and dual character as a Social Democratic party which Blairsm has not destroyed. Trade Unions affiliated to Labour alongside thousands of Labour Party activists with some being councillors; and a sizeable layer of Social Democratic MPs sponsored by Trade Unions (even the unaffiliated RMT has 24 sponsored Labour MPs). Blarism still has a base among layers of MPs and in some of the constituencies.
This Social Democratic layer has to be taken into account when Trotskyists determine our tactics. For example when Labour lost councils, those who replaced them were Conservative and Liberal Democratic ones which soon afterwards moved secondary schools out of LEA control.
There is a big danger of a Conservative majority or Conservative-Liberal Democratic coalition government at the next general election. This would speed up the privatisation of the NHS; increase selection in secondary schools; and launch an even more vicious attack on workers and oppressed more than Blarism can get away with. Sensing this danger there is a whole layer of Social Democrats who are organising for John McDonnell in order to appeal towards millions of workers disaffected with Blairism. Trotskyists should have a united front with these forces in order to keep Conservatives/Liberal Democrats out of government and to take advantage of 95 Labour MPs against Trident to mobilise millions of workers; middle class elements; and oppressed against Imperialism and Capitalism. Upturn in class struggles e.g. strikes against low pay by Nurses could expose the reality of Cameron’s politics behind his demagogy on the NHS crisis by revealing his true class character.
Ultra-Leftism and Popular Frontist projects such as Respect is passing as a major danger. Social Democratic pressures of what Swart analysed could be the next danger for revolutionaries. There are such groups such as Workers Action and Permanent Revolution who have broken from Trotskyism and making major concessions to Social Democracy. Workers Action has called for building Social Democratic parties with revolutionaries not organising as a distinct faction.
Permanent Revolution thinks we have been in a boom but don’t mention the depression in the last ten years in the Tiger Economies and Japan. They think that the Chinese Workers’ State is Capitalist and concludes from that analysis that China is prospering indicating a new wave of Capitalist boom based on the Chinese model. This is an echo of the Cliffite line during 1948- 1973 period that Capitalism for a whole period has resolved its internal contradictions. It represents also adaptationism to Bernsteinite Social Democracy who argued in 1898-9 that Capitalism had overcome its internal contradictions. Rosa Luxemburg wrote defending Marxism in her work “Reform or Revolution” against Bernstein’s revisionism.
REPRINT OF BOB SWART’S LETTER TO BRITISH LEAGUE OF SOCIALIST ACTION’S PAPER SOCIALIST ACTION MAY 1981 EDITION ENTITLED: ”HOW NOT TO FIGHT FOR SOCIALISM IN THE LABOUR PARTY”.
In the March issue of Socialist Action, a review article attacked the sectarian attitude of groups such as the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) towards the Labour Party.
While correct, I think it is important to balance this out by setting the danger of adaptation within the Labour Party as well. Over the coming years, as ferment grows in the CLPs, I feel this will become a much more pressing problem.
This is particularly true for currents and individuals – which developed outside the labour movement and have no strategy towards it.
Most of the present Marxist left grew out of the youth radicalisation of the late 1960s. While showing a healthy hostility to the bureaucratic leaders of the labour movement, they are tended to identify these leaders with the unions and Labour Party to which they developed a sectarian attitude. The latter, in particular was written of as “bourgeois” or being “bypassed” in action.
The present ferment in the Labour Party was has, therefore hit them hard. The party that was written of as “moribund” has, surprisingly for them at least, not only been brought back to life but has become the central arena for discussion – and initiating the fightback against the Tories.
This has forced many of them, to “ditch” their old policies and begin a process of orientating to that party.
ADAPTATION.
The dangers, of course, that – lacking any clear strategy towards the Labour Party – the old ultra-left “zig” will become an opportunist “zag”. One can already begin to see danger signals.
Instead of arguing honestly for their policies in the Labour Party, with the aim of winning broad support for them, they become preoccupied with “getting posts”, with “outflanking” the right-wing on the various GMCs and other committees.
It needs to be pointed out that the type of practice is typical not only of the right-wing but also the old social democratic “left” who tried to combat the right not with policies but often with organisational manoeuvres.
For Marxists to get sucked into such bureaucratic methods reflects an opportunist adaptation, a mirror-image of their previous sectarian position on the Labour Party.
Marxists are not in the Labour Party for “take-overs”. They are there, as a viable current in the labour movement, to honestly argue for their policies and to win the widest support.
Getting involved in fake caucuses to arrange “takeovers” of GMCs is merely to repeat the discredited practices of the right-wing which puts manoeuvres before politics. Let us hope the left does not repeat these mistakes.
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