[page 9]
The Socialist Labour League has its origins in the tendency around Gerry Healy in the old Revolutionary Communist Party. The great merit of this tendency was that it fought the sectarianism of the RCP majority, and called for an orientation towards the mass movement; in particular, entry work within the Labour Party.
We intend in due course to discuss the historical questions of the origins of the SLL and of what is, in our opinion, its continuing degeneration. Here we wish only to emphasise - by reference to what we think are gross errors associated with the break by the SLL from the Labour Party in 1964-65 - the need for revolutionaries to have a sober and realistic estimate of economic perspectives and the relationship of class forces in Britain today (indeed, anywhere anytime!)
The Labour Party established the Young Socialists in 1960 following its third successive electoral defeat at the hands of the Tories in 1959, with the aim of bringing young people into the machine of a rapidly ageing party. Without going into details here, we may say that most of the youth who joined the YS in 1960-64 were radicalised by various complex processes (coming out of CND, etc.), and were of predominantly petty-bourgeois or upper working-class origins. [1] Most of these radicalised youth were, during that period, recruited by the SLL, which intervened in the YS around the youth paper Keep Left.
Although Keep Left was proscribed by the Labour bureaucrats in May 1962, supporters of Keep Left won a majority of the elected seats on the National Committee of the YS at both the Easter 1963 and Easter 1964 Conferences of the organisation. The policy resolutions passed at those Conferences were, on almost every question, Marxist.
In our opinion, the SLL leadership were hypnotised by the increase in the membership of their organisation during 1962-64 (from say 300 to 1,000) and came to believe that the youth who were recruited were proletarians, the precursors of thousands more, who would be radicalised by a further, bigger economic and political crisis in the immediate future. Consequently, when they were faced by further repressive measures by the right wing (in May 1964) they took the decision - which they broke to their membership at the Summer Camp in the last week of July and the first week of August - to take the YS majority out of the Labour Party.
This contrasted sharply with what even the leadership had only recently believed:
"Finally, we take one aspect of the general line of SWP leadership. When the SLL first approached the SWP for a discussion on the disputed questions, Cannon wrote to members of the SWP National Committee that the SLL's wrong position would eventually be most clearly revealed in the consequences of its suicidal domestic policy. The SLL, said Cannon, had embarked on a sectarian binge, and was heading for the formation of an open party outside the Labour Party. The long experience of Cannon in these matters probably led SWP members to expect his predictions to be confirmed. All that happened in this case, in fact, was that Cannon's retreat from a revolutionary outlook was fully exposed [2]"
and, of course, with the whole history of their tendency (though it confirmed Cannon's [p. 10] prediction!). Even as late as April-May 1964 (in an assessment of the March YS Conference) they said:
[1] We counterpose this to the claim - indeed the belief - of the SLL that they recruited proletarian youth radicalised by the unemployment of 1962-63 and the Profumo scandal of mid-'63.
[2] "Revisionism & the 4th International" by Cliff Slaughter, Labour Review, Vol. 7, No. 5, Summer 1963.
"At last year's conference, delegates associated with the newspaper (Young Guard) supported resolutions calling for autonomy for the YS from Transport House. In this way they presumably hoped that their endless discussions could proceed unhampered by anything so mundane as a political fight against the bureaucrats within the Labour Party on the questions of youth employment and bans and proscriptions. The odd thing is that they are now accusing Keep Left of attempting to form a breakaway revolutionary Marxist League..."
"The rebellion of the youth and the desire of the working class for a Labour Government have the same root: opposition to the oppression and misery of capitalism. Within the apparent opposition there is complete unity. This unity does not yet exist in consciousness but has to be forged in the course of big class struggles. A conception of the Labour Government carrying out for five years, free from trouble or disturbance, its plans for making capitalism more efficient whilst the working class stands by indifferent, provides neither the programme nor the leadership for those struggles. It does the reverse. It sells out those struggles..." (Original emphasis [3])
The political and economic perspectives of the article we have just quoted seemed - to the SLL leadership - to be confirmed by the success of their summer recruiting drive: on September 27th they were able to mobilise between 3,000 and 4,000 youth for an independent YS demonstration in London. In fact it is probable that the youth recruited then were brought into politics by the general tide of sentiment among the working class (and other sections of society) for a Labour victory at the 1964 general election; a Labour Government was duly elected (though only just).
The SLL leadership was also carried away during 1962-64 by the increase in sales of their weekly paper The Newsletter - an increase for which, in our opinion, there were three causes. Firstly, the increase naturally caused by an increase in the number of sellers, consequent upon recruitment. Secondly, the inauguration of "pub sales" (in, so far as we can discover, mid 1962) following a group of people being sent from Leeds to Bradford to dispose of some surplus copies round the pubs, which they did very successfully. [4]. And thirdly, the fact that the paper - which at that time carried headlines such as "Labour to Power" - met with a ready reception among the growing number of people anxious for the return of the Labour Government [5].
The initial acts of that government, taken during a severe balance of payments crisis for British capitalism, led to severe disappointment of the hopes of those who voted it to power. On taxes - which it increased, on pensions (which it didn't), on nationalisation - from which it retreated, on the Congo - where it assisted Belgian and US imperialism send in troops to smash the revolutionary struggles then taking place, on Vietnam - where it [p. 11] supported US bombing of the north; indeed, on all issues, it revealed in its first few months of office complete subservience to the dictates of international capital.
[3] "Fourth Young Socialists Conference" in Marxist, Vol. 2, No. 6
[4] This was extended nationally on the initiative of Cliff Slaughter, who was living in Leeds.
[5] It was the experience of this period, both with The Newsletter and with Keep Left (which was also very successful) which led to the newspaper-fetishism of the SLL and its international allies, culminating in the Workers Press and their many other journals. (See the international greetings to W.P. from the SLL's allies, first two weeks' issues).
The SLL during this period continued to grow. However, it failed to correct the mistakes it had already committed on the immediacy of a sharp economic crisis; on the duration of the Labour government (c.f. above) and its inability to grant any reforms or concessions; and on the perspective of a mass radicalisation of the working class and in particular of the youth. These mistakes date from, at the latest, the beginning of 1964.
For example, The Newsletter of 21st March 1964 carried extensive reports of the Sixth Congress of the SLL (14th to 16th March). Apart from its assessment of the importance of the SLL: "Fortunately, they have failed to prevent our organisation from growing stronger and stronger until today it has a decisive influence inside the ranks of the Labour movement (original emphasis)", which, nearly six years later, we may be forgiven for regarding as an exaggeration, it assessed the prospects of the Labour government as follows (completely in line with the quotes from Marxist already given):
"In such a crisis (as is coming after the 1964 election) it is difficult (!) to speculate how long a Labour government might last (original emphasis)",
and explained the SLL's attitude to that government:
"The Sixth national congress of the Socialist Labour League warned the working class that the Wilson government will betray it.
"We vote Labour in order to carry on the fight against Wilson under conditions where the practical application of his policies will be exposed to millions of people.
"A vote for Labour will be useless unless it is linked to building the Socialist Labour League as the alternative Marxist leadership."
That last bit certainly put 12 m. Labour voters where they belong!
In particular, The Newsletter outlined how the SLL would intervene in the crisis situation:
"There must be committees for nationalisation set up in all the main industries which put clear demands on the Labour government."
"All problems of housing, education, transport and social welfare will accumulate under a Labour government, from which the people will anticipate reforms."
"The Labour Party must become the storm-centre of the demands of the working class and everyone of those demands must be linked to the struggle against employers by workers in the factories."
That was the Congress resolution on Britain. Here is Gerry Healy reporting on the role of The Newsletter:
"Once the crisis develops inside the Labour government and the trade unions, the readership of The Newsletter will quadruple itself, said Gerry Healy when outlining the future of the newspaper to the conference.
"This readership would build up because of the "big vacuum" in thinking produced by the inadequacies of a Labour government.
"The Socialist Labour League would pose an alternative leadership through its newspaper.
"That is why we fight for this paper and fight to extend its sales, because we consider it as the highest point of development of our organisation, he commented."
[page 12]
Apart from enquiring whether that last paragraph meant anything, we are entitled to ask: what became of the committees for nationalisation? Of making the Labour Party the storm-centre of the demands of the working class? And, comrades of the SLL - bearing in mind that, in fact, the circulation of The Newsletter merely increased by 50% (from 10,000 to 15,000) before slumping - are the prospects of these very same tactics being carried through successfully with the daily Workers Press any better than they were for The Newsletter in 1964? [6]
But, to return to the mistakes of the SLL at that period. Cliff Slaughter, criticising the strike-breaking role of Wilson and the trade union bureaucrats, wrote in the 18th April 1964 issue of The Newsletter:
"A Labour victory on the basis of defeated strikes, even if it is possible because of the temporary political disarray of the Tory Party, will be a hollow victory.
"The Tories, backed by a strengthened, confident and rich class of big businessmen will return to power and impose a harsh dictatorship."
The anonymous writer in Marxist whom we have already quoted (probably also Cde. Slaughter) goes on to say:
"The youth movement represents the opposite side of the parliamentary course in conscious form. In the disciplined and responsible attempt on the part of the majority of delegates at the youth conference to hammer out a socialist policy to meet the problems facing workers in this country there exists the potentiality of a political leadership to fill the vacuum that will be created when the Wilson Government follows the example of every social-democratic government the world has ever known in administering on behalf of the monopolies against the working class. In the struggle to consolidate that leadership we are confident that large sections of workers will break from their reformist leaders."
We leave pupils in the Cliff Slaughter school of dialectics to puzzle out what all that means; note, however, that it does commit itself to something right at the end. In fact, the writer concludes his article by reaffirming the commitment to entrism:
"One last word to the Brighton delegates. Go out and fight to win more and more young workers to the programme you have passed. Use every bit of that experience to defeat the right wing leadership. Above all, refuse to tolerate the expulsion of John Robertson. Organise in every area meetings, petitions, campaigns and resolutions around the expulsion. For the fight against the expulsion is synonymous with the fight for the policies passed at your conference, and with the building of an alternative leadership to the right wing."
Indeed, there can be no doubt that the SLL leadership believed - even after they had decided on the break with the Labour Party - that they would be able to send new cadres into the party almost immediately:
"If the Young Socialists do not fight now, then they will be cut to pieces as they were in 1955.
[6] Incidentally, the Fraternal Greetings published in that issue show the SLL's allies in an interesting light. The Hungarians say: "In our opinion the English workers movement is today the key to a world party. I am aware that I am speaking to that party", and the French refer to "The SLL, the most important section in the International Committee". Why does the SLL have to exact such tributes (even supposing the Hungarians did not confuse the SLL with the world party) from its co-thinkers?
[page 13]
"If they fight, in all probability they will be closed down but with their organisation intact advocating a clear socialist policy, they will be able to organise their forces and train hundreds of new leaders for re-entry into the Labour Party in preparation for the coming crisis."
"We believe that in the next period substantial numbers of young members and cadres will join the Socialist Labour League from the Young Socialists.
"These developments have not in any way altered our conception that it necessary [sic] to build up a strong movement in the Labour Party to fight the right wing.
"We believe that this movement can only be built under Marxist leadership and at the moment the forces who will do it are mainly in the youth movement.
"By joining the trade unions and working in the Labour Party they will learn, as they learned over the past four years, that their most decisive task is to build a revolutionary party and leadership, which involves, from time to time, working in mass reformist organisations [7]."
This recruiting would be possible because of the effects of the economic crisis, which was assessed as follows:
"The outlook for 1965 must, therefore, be one of severe deflation and rising unemployment...
"In other words, the winter of 1965-66 must see unemployment rise to at least the million mark, assuming that there is no major break in world trade and that the decline of British capitalism does not speed up. Should either of these occur, then the position would be even more serious. ([8] Original emphasis)."
With this sort of outlook, the SLL was completely unable to understand what was taking place; in particular, they interpreted the initial discontent among workers with the Labour Government, as manifested in the Leyton by-election [9], as follows:
"Social democracy, whose capitalist policies rest upon a conservative layer of the working class, is now breaking up. [10]"
[7] Articles by "Frank Williams", "Trotsky's Advice to Young Socialists" and "The Opportunism of Ernest Germain", in The Newsletter, 26th Sept. '64 and 30th Jan. '65 respectively. In our opinion, "Frank Williams", who leads such a fleeting existence between the pages of The Newsletter, is probably G. Healy in disguise.
[8] "Economic forecast for 1965", by Peter Jeffries, The Newsletter, 16th Jan. 1965. This puts Cde. "Jeffries'" article "Mandel Revises Marx", Workers Press 2nd December 1969, in an interesting light!
[9] That was the occasion on which Patrick Gordon Walker, Wilson's first Foreign Secretary, was defeated in a by-election in a former "safe" Labour seat, which had been made available to him following his failure to be re-elected in 1964 at Smethwick, after an election campaign in which racialism was a prominent issue. Most probably, racialism, the workers' initial discontent with Labour, and their disgust at the treatment of Leyton's former MP, were the three factors involved in Walker's second defeat. After it he resigned as Foreign Secretary.
[10] "Robert Black", "The Meaning of Leyton", The Newsletter, 13th Feb. 1965.
[page 14]
For the economic basis of social democracy was disappearing; for example:
"Fed on government contracts for years, the aircraft workers, who include a big slice of the labour aristocracy, now march against Labour in defence of their jobs [11]."
The now so familiar analogy with the rise of Hitler in Germany was already drawn:
"Now, in an attempt to get even closer to the monopolies in order to avoid the fate of German social democracy in 1933, Callaghan's incomes policy is linked to a tightening up of immigration laws ... the right wing hope to preserve their power and privilege by tying the working class to the state, thus dispensing with the need for violent fascist regimes. Thus ... the right wing take another step along the road travelled 32 years ago by German social democracy [11]."
The first Conference of the newly-independent YS was held on Feb. 27th/28th 1965. It adopted policy resolutions calling for the recall of a Labour Party Conference (a demand which has since been repeated many, many times - without any impact, still less success!), stressing the danger of the Tories' return, calling for US troops out of Vietnam (not "Victory to the NLF", which came later), etc. (See The Newsletter, 6th March 1965, and Keep Left, March 1965). It also confirmed the commitment to, if not the practice of, entry inside the Labour Party, by adopting a constitution which included, in its section on "Objects":
"(b) To fight throughout the Labour movement for socialist policies decided democratically at Annual Conference, in order to win the support of all workers. To encourage all members of the Young Socialists Movement to be active in their trade union and Labour Party Wards and Constituencies.
"(c) To preserve and strengthen the national organisation of the Young Socialists against the witch-hunting measures of the official leadership of the Labour Party. To demand and fight for the reinstatement of of all young socialists expelled from the Labour Party, and the reopening of all branches closed down by the Labour Party leadership"
and a membership regulation:
"Membership of the Young Socialists is open to all young people who agree with its policy and programme and who wish to fight against the Tories and the employing class for a socialist Britain. All members of the Young Socialists shall be members of their appropriate trade union and where possible of the Labour Party [12]."
The prospect, of course, was one of building a mass YS in the struggles which were coming; this was summed up in a front-page article in the May 1965 [p. 15] Keep Left:
[11] Ibid.
[12] We give all these quotations, firstly to prove that the SLL did not know that it was abandoning entry for a whole period in 1964, secondly to show that the SLL was not free from the mistakes of the British left concerning the desireability and possibility of a left-wing opposition to the Wilson government inside the Labour Party. Anyone who cares to write to 186A Clapham High Street for the humorously entitled pamphlet "How to build the YS" will find these references to the Labour Party have disappeared from the YS Constitution. This change took place - with no discussion - at the 1968 YS Morecambe Conference.
"Build the YS!
"Summer Campaign - 5,000 new members
"by National Committee secretary Dave Ashby
"One thousand new members in five weeks - this must be the new aim of Young Socialist branches throughout the country. Make a big all-out recruitment drive in this first stage of a campaign to build the Young Socialists, starting on June 9.
"In the course of the summer months, we must recruit 5,000 new members into the Young Socialists ... we shall prepare to make a political intervention in the struggles arising from unemployment on a scale never before possible [13]."
The political perspectives, on the basis of which it was thought that such gains might be made, were summed up by Gerry Healy, as reported in "7th National Congress of the SLL" (The Newsletter, June 12, 1965):
"'We have had seven months of a right-wing Labour government in power, he said. 'It is no secret that the Tory Party is on the way back.'"
All this, of course, was drastically wrong. From their wrong economic analysis it followed for the SLL that the Labour Government was unable to grant any reforms or to manoeuvre at all. From both the numerical gains of the SLL (wrongly understood) and the initial working class hostility to the policies of the Labour Government, it followed for the League that the workers were abandoning the Labour Party and moving to the left ("Social democracy is breaking up") - this despite racialism (which was, however, grossly overestimated as part of the general picture of deepening social crisis).
Thus, when the Labour Government retreated, when workers won an average wage increase of 9% during 1965, while the wave of sentiment for Harold Wilson and his happy band mounted throughout the working class, the SLL-YS were meeting a stony reception from the workers. Although they correctly pointed to the danger of Wilson's anti-trade union laws (although exaggerating by far the danger of strikers being imprisoned), they were totally unable to recruit, despite enormous efforts on the part of the rank-and-file. Many rankers - and some leaders - resigned. Even full-time workers were displaced. And so, in the following months, tired of knocking their heads against brick walls, hundreds of demoralised youth left the YS and the SLL. Branches were closed down. By the time the Labour Government was re-elected, in March 1966, with a majority of nearly 100, the membership of the SLL was probably cut by half.
This experience has never been publicly evaluated by the SLL leadership - and we challenge them, for the education of their own militants, if nothing else, to publish material on it, or to seriously dispute our account.
We have recounted these events mainly to illustrate and to emphasise, for revolutionaries, the need for a serious, realistic perspective and corresponding tactics; other lessons are, perhaps, that the leaders of revolutionary organisations should not drive the rank-and-file to carry out impossible tasks (most of all, not with ultra-left policies and apocalyptic predictions!) and that the "record" of the SLL, which they so frequently invoke these days, is not quite as spotless as they claim.
[13] This campaign resulted in the massive decline of the YS mentioned in the text. It was more of a failure - in terms of the proportion of existing members who resigned - than the Autumn 1968 campaign ("From YS Summer Camp to the Biggest Recruitment Drive Ever!" - front page headline in the Sept. 1968 Keep Left). We predict that "the Young Socialists' drive forward next year to build a mass revolutionary movement" (Workers Press, 16th Dec. '69) will be as big a flop.