The Credibility Gap, Chapter 2: British Perspectives and Tactics

[page 16]

If one thing is, we hope, clear from the experience outlined above, it is that it is vitally necessary for revolutionaries to have a precise, accurate analysis of the situation in which they are working; moreover, it ought to be clear that when they make mistakes, as they will, they should recognise them, discuss them honestly and objectively, and learn from them. Our aim in this chapter is to present our analysis of the present situation in Britain and a critique of the SLL's, with asides on the international aspects, and to draw some conclusions concerning tactics and politicies.

We would have liked to have done so in the following way: first, to quote completely or extensively an analysis of the situation by the SLL, and then to criticise it and use it as a foil to set off our own analysis and proposals. Unfortunately, that is impossible, for several reasons.

The first is that, throughout the enormous volume of material published by the SLL, we can find nothing which we can regard as a serious analysis [1]. The second is that what the SLL does publish is couched in a strange jargon: "pabloite" revisionists, "political" everything in sight (all strikes are political, say the SLL) [2], permanent crisis (economic, social, "world", of every other political tendency, etc.), self-contradictory pseudo-dialectics of the worst sort; and all this reduces what they do produce to the level of semi-illiteracy and incomprehensibility.

The third is that the SLL never [3] produces balance-sheets of past experiences, evaluating successes and drawing lessons from mistakes. Consequently, any one statement of theirs is so a-historical as to be, for a Marxist, virtually useless.

In view of these difficulties, we intend to adopt the following course: we shall summarise developments in Britain in the period 1966 to 1969, giving special attention to 1969, and then go in some detail into the analysis and activities of the SLL, concluding with some remarks about tactics.

(a) the Statement of the PC of the SLL dated 23/12/68 published in The Newsletter of 4th Jan. '69, and the ATUA statement in the same issue;

(b) the resolutions and policy statement of its 11th Congress, May 25th-27th, 1969, published in The Newsletter of May 31st, June 21st and June 24th, 1969;

(c) the PC Statement "A Political Challenge" dated 24th Oct. '69 and published in Workers Press of 25th Oct. '69 (see Appendix).

"For the first time in history Trotskyists will be able to hit back against Stalinism where it politically hurts."

"You have placed great confidence in us. We will do our political best to be worthy of it."

"Although there were rumblings of discontent with the government between the autumn of 1964 and the summer of 1966 the marked change against the right wing began in the winter of 1966."

One would never guess that in 1965 they talked of a Tory comeback! It also contains some more analytical gems:

"We can therefore see that the main vehicle for political development in the working class is determined by their relationship to their unions."

In other words...?

[1] The main attempts at an analysis by the SLL are:

[2] Two examples of this strange language from The Newsletter of 10th May 1969, discussing the daily paper:

[3] The only partial exception is a speech of Aileen Jennings printed in the September 1969 Keep Left; unfortunately, this is extremely dishonest. It discusses "lessons" to be learned from the period 1964 to 1969:

[page 17]

Following its election at the end of March 1966 with a stable parliamentary majority, the Wilson government immediately began to implement the policies it had previously outlined to solve the historically accumulated problems of British capitalism.

Those of its policies since then which are important for us here fall into several groups: long-term measures designed to promote the modernisation and rationalisation of British industry; long-term measures designed to shackle the trade union movement to the bourgeois state; short-term steps taken in the face of particular economic difficulties; short-term steps taken to defeat particular struggles by sections of workers; international policies worked out on the basis of complete subservience to international capital.

The foreign policy of the Labour Government will not really concern us until we come to discuss the radicalisation of youth, but we note that, as was only to be expected, it is imperialist to the core: the relation between US loans to Britain and British support for the Vietnam war is obvious.

The three most important acts of the Labour Government in 1966 fall into (in chronological order) the fourth, third and first categories [4]. They were: (i) the attempt to impose the incomes policy, passed through Parliament later that year, on the striking seamen in May - an attempt which was only partially successful; (ii) the emergency economic measures taken in July, involving the scrapping of the ill-fated national plan, severe deflation, and the near-resignation of George Brown from the government; (iii) the introduction of Selective Employment Tax in the autumn, which resulted in a limited increase in the cost of living, and, over a period of time, in a fairly substantial movement of labour from service to manufacturing industries.

During 1967, the outstanding events were clearly the dockers' strike and the associated strike wave in the early autumn, and the devaluation of the pound sterling in November, which was largely triggered off by the effects of the dock strike on the balance of payments. That autumn strike wave was quite important, partly because the SLL made important gains among industrial militants during it, but mainly because it was of considerable scope, and because, following Gunter's notorious "Unholy Alliance" speech and the consequent press witch-hunt, it came very close to raising the question of revolutionary politics among significant layers of workers. We should also mention the widespread opposition among students in the spring to the quadrupling of fees for overseas students at British universities.

1968 began with government economy measures - including the reimposition of charges for National Health Service prescriptions - as a belated sequel to devaluation, which was followed by the March gold crisis resulting in the establishment of the two-tier system. The May-June days in France were not followed by any large-scale industrial struggles, but by widespread radicalisation of students. The May one-day strike in the engineering industry was, however, 100% solid, and had it not been for the sell-out by the dominant sections of the Confed bureaucracy, assisted in various ways by the "left", there would have been in the autumn a very large-scale industrial struggle. One could, however, have anticipated that sell-out - while of course fighting against it - because it took place on the basis of a productivity deal, the principle if not the details of which was, as it is now, supported by all sections of the union bureaucracy.

[4] These categories are, of course, analytical tools: we do not claim that they are separated by fixed, rigid barriers. It is also, of course, true that the policies in the different categories were worked out in relation to one another, and that even the "emergency" measures taken were the result of contingency planning in the light of long-term aims.

[page 18]

During 1969, questions of a political break with Labour by large sections of workers began to be raised, mainly because of the attempt by the Labour Government to force through laws imposing penalties on certain forms of trade union activity, particularly unofficial strikes. This attempt was defeated, because the resistance of wide layers of workers - exemplified by the May Day strikes of ¼m., the first political strikes in Britain for 50 years - was transmitted through the trade union bureaucracy and the Parliamentary Labour Party, and Wilson & Castle could obtain agreement to their proposals neither from the TUC nor from large numbers of their own backbenchers. Which is not, of course, to say that the position of either group was principled, or gave any lead to workers facing a serious attack on their basic defensive organisations; the compromise agreement between the TUC and Wilson, by which the union leaders agree to police their ranks on behalf of the employers, will in many ways, though not in all, serve the interests of the latter as well as the proposed legislation.

The Labour Party Conference, following a summer lull broken only by a number of small, if bitter, unofficial strikes (as at Port Talbot), was marked by a number of heated exchanges between the Labour Government leaders and the left bureaucrats Scanlon and Jones, which did little to conceal the refusal of the latter to put up any serious fight against the former. In fact the main struggle was over the Government's intention to maintain the Prices and Incomes Act, which had been rejected previously at the TUC conference, but was not at the L.P. Conference.

Events in Northern Ireland during 1968 and more so during 1969, while very interesting and important to an overall picture, are not directly relevant to our aims here, and we will leave them aside [5]. Following the Labour Party Conference, we have witnessed a wave of strikes, paralleling those in the rest of Europe, but far less intense. Although the impact of strike struggles in Britain tends, for a given number of strikes and degree of intensity of the struggle, to be much greater than in France or Italy, the recent British strikes have in no sense brought the country near a pre-revolutionary situation; they have not, in fact, come as near to raising political questions as those of 1967 did.

The general pattern of these strikes is important to note. What has, with minor variations, happened has been: first, the strikers come out unofficially in various centres, posing big demands, and the strike quickly spreads; then, when it is clear that the workers are serious, the trade union "leaders" step in and assert their right to negotiate with the bosses on behalf of the strikers. After a certain amount of negotiating, feeling the hot breath of the strikers on their necks, these same "leaders" and employers agree on a compromise falling somewhere between the demands of the strikers and what the leaders had previously been asking for, and usually having productivity "strings" attached. The deal being completed, the leaders then instruct the strikers to go back to work, and are obeyed by the less militant sections. Finally, having isolated the more militant elements, the leaders bring pressure to bear on them and, eventually, seeing the weakness of their position, they too return. Sometimes, but not always, there is government intervention and/or a press witch-hunt [6].

What this sort of experience indicates is that, while many workers, particularly the lower-paid, are putting economic demands far beyond those advanced on their behalf by the leaders, it is still possible for the employers to grant monetary concessions - especially on the basis of productivity deals - which enable the leadership to reassert their control over the [p. 19] men. While this reassertion of authority is by no means complete, and discontent remains within the unions, there is, except perhaps in the NUM, no sign of an opposition able to mount an organised challenge to the authority of the bureaucracies.

[5] A basically sound critique of the SLL's line on this question, and an alternative policy, can be found in Gerry Foley's article "What Strategy for Irish Revolutionists?" in Intercontinental Press for Oct. 27th 1969.

[6] The teachers' strike has, of course, followed a different pattern.

There are a few other aspects of Mr. Wilson's reign which need mentioning. The first is the electoral and organisational disarray of the Labour Party: it has suffered heavy defeats in a whole series of by-elections since 1966, and has been almost completely eliminated from local government. Moreover - a fact whose significance is sometimes underestimated - party membership has declined, the activists who ran the local machines, and are vital in any election, have in great numbers become demoralised and left the party; only about half the constituency parties were represented at the last conference, and party finances are not in good shape. In view of both these factors - the second of which cannot be easily changed by any swing in popular sentiment - it is probable that the Labour Party will be defeated at the next election.

The second change deserving mention is the concentration of industrial and financial capital which has been engineered by the Government, particularly through the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation. 1968 was certainly the year of the most intense merging: the Leyland Motors/BMH, GEC-AEI-EE and National Provincial/Westminster Bank mergers are only the most spectacular examples of what has taken place on a large scale in many sectors of industry.

The third significant development is the rise of racialism, particularly since the April 1968 speech of Enoch Powell. While this is very dangerous and must be combatted by all possible means, the prospects of a large, active racialist or fascist movement establishing itself are, in the near future, not very great; because, the necessary basis in social discontent does not exist. In particular, the growing right-wing tendencies in the Tory Party should not be confused with an imminent fascist danger. (The to-a-certain-extent related phenomenon of Welsh and Scottish nationalism, while indicative of discontent among Labour voters and the failure of the CP in those areas, is probably transitory).

The fourth change to mention is the change in the structure of the British trade union movement: extrapolating from present trends, in the early 1970's there are likely to be four large unions with well over a million members, resulting from the amalgamation of small unions with the T&GWU (transport workers), the AEF (engineers), the NUGMWU (general & municipal) and the ETU/PTU (electricians and plumbers), and also a number of expanding "white collar" unions, such as ASTMS (technicians), and of declining unions in declining industries: NUM (miners) and NUR (railwaymen), etc. Of those mentioned, let us note that the T&GWU and AEF are led by left bureaucrats who are responsive to a certain extent to the rank-and-file, as is ASTMS, while the ETU/PTU is led by avowed anti-communists of the worst kind, and the NUGMWU passed unanimously at its last conference resolutions endorsing everything the Labour Government, or its own leaders, had done.

Before recounting the role of the SLL in these events, we should look at the radicalisation of youth, which proceeded largely independently of them, as a response to, mainly, the well-known development of the Vietnam war.

This phenomenon of youth radicalisation outside the framework of the established labour movement has taken place on an international scale in the second half of the 1960s; in our opinion, the developments in the Young Socialists in the period 1960-64 were its heralds. If we are right, then it is even more remarkable that the SLL, the main benefactor of the first phase, should disdain, and gain nothing from, the second.

In any case, there is something of a mystery; for in the 9th May 1964 edition of The Newsletter we find an editorial, entitled "Whither Youth?" which shows that the SLL leadership understood quite well the situation then:

[page 20]

"Perhaps the most significant feature of the crisis of world imperialism is the hostility of young people to the bureaucratic leaderships of the Communist Parties and the Labour and Social-Democratic organisations"

although they probably overestimated the significance, or at least the endurance, of what they had already achieved:

"Both in the YCL and the YS there is a growing appreciation of the power of Marxism.

"Every informed member of the labour movement knows that the old bureaucracies have lost the youth and that a considerable number support the Socialist Labour League. Our organisation has every reason to be optimistic."

Since they were also the first tendency to pose in Britain, about April/May 1965, the demand: "Victory to the Vietcong", one would have thought that they would be well-placed to benefit from the widespread support for that demand which was soon to manifest itself. As we have tried to show, however, by mid-1966 the SLL was, in terms of membership, political understanding, ability to manoeuvre, etc., a very different organisation from what it had been fifteen months earlier; nor can its difficulties in that period have failed to have had a deep effect on its organisation and internal regime [7].

Whatever the explanation [8], the SLL walked out of a VSC meeting in August 1966, and has since then, except at Liège [9], refused to participate [p. 21] in any such activities, merely sniping from the side-lines at a movement which, with their organisation, press and cadre, they could have led. In September of that year they embarked on the take-over bid for the National Association of Labour Student Organisations which was, after a certain amount of strife, to lead to the dissolution at their hands of that organisation.

[7] Particularly the characteristic hyper-activism, which was general by late 1963, but became all the more pronounced when the same tasks had to be fulfilled, the same face presented to the world, by a much reduced membership.

[8] The ostensible reason was that they were prevented from criticising Stalinism, but it is very difficult to accept. For example, why did they, on that particular occasion, find it necessary to denounce Stalinism as they did? While one must, undoubtedly, explain, in one's press and at one's own meetings, the danger which it represents to the Vietnamese revolution, there is no principle which states, nor any sound tactical argument to the effect, that one must always, in every meeting, do so. Even the SLL is aware of this sort of situation: on that famous occasion when Gerry Healy spoke in Trafalgar Square from the same platform as Harold Wilson, during the Labour Party's campaign against the Tories' invasion of Suez, he did not renounce the man next to him, even though he was well aware of the perfidious role played, historically, by social-democracy in relation to the liberation struggle of the colonial peoples.

[9] This weird episode needs bringing out into the light of day. What happened was that, at the invitation of the Belgian J.G.S., revolutionary socialist youth organisations from most European countries attended a demonstration, in Oct. 1966 in Liège, against NATO and the war in Vietnam. From Britain and France there came the YS and their sister organisation the Révoltes group. Undoubtedly they provided a large proportion of the demonstrators. For some reason best known to themselves, the top leadership chose, as the demonstration was assembling, to produce before their startled followers banners commemorating the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. (It was, of course, about the 10th Anniversary.) These banners were not among those agreed to at a previous meeting with the J.G.S., although all the banners then agreed upon were carried. In addition, the YS contingent were instructed to shout special slogans different from those they "fought for" in

While the fight in NALSO was continuing, after the overseas students' fees issue, a fairly large demonstration was held in London on October 22nd 1967 in solidarity with the Vietnamese, on which there was a fair amount of fighting with the police. During the next few months support continued to grow for the Vietnamese revolution, and on March 17th 1968 a very large demonstration was held in London, culminating in much fighting with the police in Grosvenor Square [10]. Just previously there took place a YS-SLL demonstration organised through students' unions in Yorkshire Universities over the cut in prospective increases in students' grants which had just been announced by the Government. In our opinion, this SLL initiative was absolutely correct; while the demonstration was unsuccessful, this was because the social democracy and National Union of Students leadership strangled it, the IS also playing an unadmirable, though very minor, role.

Accompanying and following the May-June events in France, there was an enormous wave of radicalisation in British universities and colleges: Hornsey, LSE, Hull, Guildford, Oxford, Birmingham, etc. Here the SLL's role was less than honourable: it generally stood back, shouting advice/abuse at the top of its voice [11]. Simultaneously it accentuated its attacks on Che Guevara [12], and on the culture of the radicalised youth. To take a recent example of this astonishing approach, Keep Left, September 1969, has an article - by one of the League's best writers, Brian Moore - on the pop concert last summer on the Isle of Wight. Its title: "Prophets of Profit". Now while that article, unlike most such, is well-written, it remains true that such an approach prevents one from finding any road to the youth. One can only conclude, after three years of snide attacks, gloating over difficulties of VSC and misrepresenting its policies, of sharp comments on cultural issues which are in no sense principled, that for some reason the SLL is content not to approach the youth.

Exactly what the SLL-OCI leaders imagined they were achieving is unclear; one can only say that, since they placed threats of expulsion on branches which did not meet their quota of demonstrators, it was very important to them that they were able to embark on that cross-channel ship with 496 cadres.

[10] For further details, particularly international aspects, of the anti-Vietnam war movement, see Marxist Youth Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1.

[11] At a later stage it played a better role at LSE, but not at Hull, Oxford, etc.

[12] While having quietly dropped the allegation that Castro murdered him.

[9, continued] Britain; for example, "Victory to the NLF" instead of "Victory to Vietcong"; and also "Forward to the Socialist United States of Europe". The banners about Hungary were, of course, out of place on an anti-imperialist united-front demonstration which included various YCLs (though not intrinsically incorrect). The SLL-OCI leadership alleged that police, with guns, were called by Mandel and/or his co-thinkers; this was presumably related in some way to the series of incidents about that time where, in Britain, CPs called the police to remove YS-SLL comrades from demonstrations.

[page 22]

During the summer of 1968, the start of the next University term and the October 27th Vietnam demonstration were major talking points in the British press. There was a witch-hunt, which was not, as Cliff Slaughter in "A Balance Sheet of Revisionism" tries to suggest, part of some subtle plot by the bourgeoisie to divert attention from the SLL, but an attempt not so much to intimidate the youth as to mobilise conservative middle-class opinion against the revolutionary left of every tendency, and (which Slaughter ought to realise) against the threatened engineering strike (remember the "Unholy Alliance"!). At the same time, despite some mistakes which, in our opinion, it made, the IS group grew very rapidly.

The October 27th demonstration was, of course, an enormous success, though the various struggles in the Universities, particularly at LSE, were less so. It took place, as Slaughter admits in "A Balance Sheet of Revisionism", and "Robert Black" recently slanderously denied, on the basis of calling for Harold Wilson to support the NLF, though, of course, no one imagined that he would, any more than the SLL imagines its latest campaign will prevent Wilson's visit to Washington.

Since then, of course, the youth movement has waned rapidly throughout Europe. The reasons for this are unclear: one can seek them in the turn, by most left organisations, away from defence of the Vietnamese revolution, and in the various peace manoeuvres, but one cannot be sure one has found them; moreover, even if one had it would not give one a magic key to solving the problem of how to reactivate it. (We suspect that the course of the Vietnamese revolution, through new NLF victories, may do so). But the time is appropriate for drawing a genuine, although tentative, balance sheet.

The first, and most important, lesson is that every left-wing organisation, with the exceptions of the CP and the SLL, has experienced a considerable growth of its forces, and these can, if necessary, be turned to work in other fields; thus the participation in the movement is justified. The second lesson is that, although considerable moral support has been given to the Vietnamese, the material impact of the movement has (except in the U.S.) been extremely limited; outside Australia, we know of no cases where it has been possible to organise workers to black goods, carry out sabotage, etc. [13]. The third lesson is that the 75,000 to 100,000 who marched fifteen months ago against the war in Vietnam must still be around somewhere, probably with much the same sentiments, and that it ought to be possible, perhaps on a local rather than a national level, to find a road to them. The fourth is - and it must be admitted - that the number of young people of middle and lower proletarian origin involved in the movement has been strictly limited, and a road to them must be found in the future; those who have been mobilised are, all too often, hostile to or suspicious of the workers' movement.

Most probably, in our opinion, one important way in which a road to the proletarian youth will be opened will be by contacting them as they are involved in the growing number of industrial struggles and movements which we confidently expect. Let us also not forget the need to link up with working-class women, particularly through the movement for women's equal rights.

* * *

Before going on to discuss how the SLL sees the world today, we should say what they did in the struggles mentioned above. In the 1966 Seamen's strike, they played an entirely honourable role, fighting against sabotage by the CP to extend the strike to the dockers who faced the implementation of the Devlin modernisation scheme. After it, however, the "dialecticians" of [p. 23] the leadership, in their strange world of two-valued logic, felt it necessary to counterpose to the CP's claim that the outcome was a victory, the notion that it was a defeat and a betrayal. In fact, it was far more complicated: substantial concessions were won, but their implementation was partially delayed, and productivity concessions were given by the leadership.

[13] The movement in the U.S. Army also seems promising.

In the 1967 dockers' strike the SLL again played an entirely honourable role; even though in a small minority on the strike committee on Merseyside, they were very influential among the men, leading them to win considerable concessions; this is, undoubtedly, one of the main factors behind the (economic) radicalisation of the working class throughout the Merseyside, who have seen the government defeated in struggle. In most other disputes in which they were involved, their role was essentially correct, though naturally enough they have a tendency to exaggerate it. Possible exceptions are the Barbican, ENV and Roberts-Arundel disputes, where they tended to make carping criticisms, from the side-lines and afterwards.

* * *

It is clear from the first section that the SLL was, during the first half of the 1960s, consistently making gross errors concerning the scope and immediacy of "the economic crisis", and over-optimistically assessing leftward movements and more militant tendencies among the workers. Indeed, as we have tried to show, during 1964-65 it became utterly disoriented, and suffered severe setbacks as a result.

We would be pleased to report that it learned the lesson of those events, and is more cautious and balanced today. Unfortunately, we cannot do so, since with one curious exception it seems to have learned nothing. And thereby hangs a tale!

For a while after the 1966 election, they continued to show the same carefree indifference to "the facts" of economic and political life; they were especially concerned with the danger of unemployment [14]. Keep Left in particular kept tilting at this windmill: the issue of Sept. 1966 carries a front-page open letter to the TUC, by the Editor, headlined: "Must We Be Unemployed Again"; it also carries a report by Jean Kerrigan of an (independent) YS NC meeting: "The working class has been told to expect a million unemployed this winter - this is a conservative estimate." In January 1967, we are told: "The end of the boom period, following the mass destruction of men and machines in the Second World War, is shown daily in the rising figures of unemployment throughout the capitalist world." In November 1967, we read of "the alarming growth of unemployment which is now beginning to affect large numbers of young people" [15]. A

"During the (1968 YS) Conference we shall be seriously discussing the possibility of adopting Parliamentary candidates for the next General Election. Although we disagreed sharply with Wilson in the last General Election we nevertheless supported the election of a Labour government against the Tories, but the time is rapidly approaching when a reappraisal is necessary." (Emphasis added).

Let us also remark that the same YS NC statement is exceptionally dishonest when it discusses the break with the Labour Party. demonstration [p. 24] and lobby of Parliament against unemployment were duly organised on Dec. 12th 1967.

[14] Healy, of course, joined the Trotskyist movement in the '30s.

[15] That issue features, under the headline "Make the Left MP's Fight", a YS NC statement dated 22nd Oct. '67, which reveals an impressionist reaction - of a type we will meet again - to the temporary strike wave then taking place. By way of illustration, compare the following quotation with the extract from the 1968 SLL Conference Resolution quoted in Chapter 4:

Some time during the next year the penny seems to have dropped that all this was not quite right, so that nowadays articles and statements in the SLL press never say the situation "is" such and such, "will" become something else, but rather "may be" and "might be", or "would" and "could" change in a given manner. Moreover, the opinions of bourgeois authorities are cited: "X thinks that", "it is widely feared", etc. Let us say that this refusal to commit themselves is a singularly undignified sight. It is, what is more, a thoroughly dishonest trick, since stress is invariably laid on the difficulties of capitalism, on authoritative predictions of disaster; the possible courses of action open to the bourgeoisie, the other authorities' attitudes, the less catastrophic possible courses of development, are neglected or by-passed completely. So that, as we shall see, the only conclusion one can draw is that in fact they believe that what they say "might" happen will happen, but are scared to say so explicitly. A fine "alternative leadership"!

Bearing in mind this new obstacle placed in our path, let us attempt to discover what analysis of the situation has been presented by the SLL during 1969.

Happily, the first issue of The Newsletter in 1969, that of January 4th, contains "A warning from the ATUA" which is unusually forthright:

"1969 promises to be one of the most decisive years in the history of the trade union movement. Government legislation, which makes unofficial strikes illegal and virtually destroys the trade unions, is on the way.

"A new world economic crisis is beginning to take root in all the major capitalist countries. As in 1931, the capitalists have only one solution to offer.

"They are considering raising the price of gold, devaluing paper currency and creating a world recession. This will bring with it millions of unemployed, great suffering, with the dangers of a third world nuclear war.

"The Labour government, which is continuously attacking the trade unions, will very likely be forced to resign should a second devaluation of sterling take place. In that event,a Tory government, pledged to all-out war against the working class and the trade unions, seems a likely possibility."

But the P.C. of the SLL is more cautious (emphasis added):

"We have now entered a period which, whatever its details, is characterized by an irreversible tendency to economic crisis and breakdown. These developments have already led to an intensification of the class struggle throughout Europe, the logic of which is a struggle for power by the working class ..."

"One serious clash with the trade unions, one major wage-cut or an attack on unemployment benefit, the next devaluation - any one of these or a combination of them could bring the fall of the government and the consequent large Conservative majority.

"Heath has announced the anti-trade union content of this next government's policy. Castle's new law is the response and indicates, as does the AEF sell-out, the role of Labour and trade union leaders in backing the Tory policy, or even joining the government ..."

"The crisis of the capitalist system has reached proportions where the class struggle must enter a new phase, in which the problems of revolution and counter-revolution are posed."

[page 25]

while Peter Jeffries, in discussing "Economic Prosepcts for 1969" on 7th Jan. is positively coy:

"Not only is there widespread expectation and preparation for a major trade war between the leading capitalist countries. There is also considerable fear of immediate convulsions in the world financial system ..."

"Nobody anticipates that world trade will expand at anything like this rate (i.e. 7% - TW) in 1969. Many commentators are convinced that the rate will be at least halved.

"And with good reason. There is considerable alarm about the course which the American economy will take over the next 12 months..."

"A large devaluation of the franc is expected in the early part of the year which would lead to an inevitable collapse of the pound only a little over a year after the last devaluation..."

"Under Johnson, the preservation of the existing dollar price of gold was an article of faith.

"A dollar devauuation would disrupt the entire monetary arrangements. It would reprssent a declaration of economic warfare by the Americans against Europe..."

"But many sectors of big business are clearly convinced that these plans (of Wilson) go nowhere near far enough and are preparing for the return of a right-wing Tory government.

"In any case (sic) a major confrontation between the unions and the state or further chaos in the world currency market would certainly force out this present government.

"These are some of the great changes which are being prepared by the development of the economic crisis over the next year (emphasis added)."

a well-advised policy which he also follows on the 11th:

"(American tariffs) could have a disastrous impact on world trade in the coming year.

"The Americans are responsible for one-sixth of world trade and they provide one of the richest markets for the exports of West Germany, Japan and Britain..."

"The possibility is that Nixon may opt for import controls as an alternative to an immediate rise in the gold price.

"Such a move would allow some time for the new Administration to work out its strategy for the international monetary system now on the edge of collapse.

"But the imposition of higher tariffs could in any case precipitate the devaluation of either the French franc or sterling.

"With world trade expected to expand only slowly in the coming year, any further tightening of American import policy could lead to a series of competitive devaluations by the European capitalists as they fight to gain access to this market.

"In other words, should the new American Administration decide to embark on tough import curbs, the result would only be similar to an increase in the dollar price of gold.

"It would accelerate all those tendencies towards a major trade war between the present capitalist economies which the present economic crisis makes inevitable (emphasis again added)."

[page 26]

There can surely, from this sort of stuff, be little doubt that the SLL did anticipate some, probably most, of the things it described as being possible. Particularly since it mentioned no other possibilities. Recalling conversations with SLL members, we take that as established.

How, then, should we react to such slipshod work? Well, first of all we can ask the comrades concerned for an explanation of it; meanwhile, we must try to understand it for ourselves. Fortunately, the lead articles in The Newsletter of January 7th and 11th provide a useful insight:

"T.U.C. PREPARING TO ACCEPT ANTI-STRIKE LAWS

by our industrial correspondent

"All the indications are that when the TUC General Council meets on Tuesday of this week (January 7) it will decide to accept the Labour government's new proposals for legislation against the trade unions."

"Behind the left talk

"T.U.C. WILL CAPITULATE

by G. Healy

"The decision of the TUC to reject the Labour government's proposal for curbing trade union rights is not worth the paper it was written on. Neither is that of the AEF.

"Trade union leaders, from the right-winger Woodcock to the so-called 'left-winger' Hugh Scanlon, will hide behind protests and resolutions but they will not take industrial action to defeat this government - and only such action is now of any use..."

"Right now, as they (Wilson &Co.) are preparing to curb trade unionism by what virtually amounts to an Order in Council, they know full well that a major economic crisis is on the way as soon as Nixon takes over the Presidency of the United States.

"Devaluation

"They know also that such a crisis may well lead to a second devaluation and that it is highly doubtful if a Labour government would survive.

"Under these conditions we could have a Tory government in Britain before very long. This would take over where the Labour government left off and the result could be a spate of the most reactionary legislation against the trade unions, as well as Public Order Acts against the working-class movement.

"The way would be paved for a Tory Bonapartist government..."

"The class-collaboration reformist (?) policy of the TUC is the road to dictatorship.

"The entire trade union movement is now in grave danger. It is being tied hand and foot to the capitalist state without a shot (?) being fired.

"This is the road of the German social democratic Weimar Republic. It was the road along which Hitler travelled to power.

"No effort must be spared to rouse the masses to action.

"It is far better to defeat the Wilson government in a political general strike than to allow the Tories to come to power in the wake of the TUC betrayal of a labour movement which they previously paralyzed by protests and 'left' talk.

"The trade unions founded the Labour Party. Now the Labour Party is > [p. 27] out to destroy the trade unions. The time has certainly come to join the Socialist Labour League in order to build the revolutionary party and defend the trade unions." (original emphasis)

We apologise for presenting at such length all these quotations; it is necessary to establish what the SLL leaders say, and presumably think.

Now in our opinion these quotations are all symptomatic of a crude oversimplication of reality, following from an abandonment of dialectical thinking. Recall Trotsky's words:

"Dialectical thinking gives to concepts, by means of closer approximations, corrections, concretisation, a richness of content and flexibility; I would even say a succulence which to a certain extent brings them close to living phenomena." ("In Defence of Marxism", p. 65)

Now one could hardly describe the League's prognostications as succulent...

Instead, it seems to us that their thinking is non-dialectical, evolutionary, fails to take into account the real interplay of social forces.

Thus: first, based on the knowledge that the bureaucracy tends to betray, we have the prediction that they will do so in a simple, straightforward way - irrespective of the masses - by capitulating. Then, when they don't, without a word of explanation of the previous mistake, we have the assertion that (because the bureaucracy tends to betray) it already has, its tactical manoeuvres are meaningless. The political consequences for the SLL are frightening. For read again the picture it presents. The trade unions are going to be destroyed (4th Jan.) There will be millions of unemployed, great suffering, possibly a third world war (also 4th Jan.) Moreover, who is going to do anything about it? Not the union leaders (7th Jan.). Still not the union leaders (11th Jan.) A fascist dictatorship is likely (Comp. with Hitler, 11th Jan.) What can prevent it? Only industrial action...a political general strike (11th Jan. again). What else is necessary? What should one do? Build the SLL (again 11th Jan.)

But hang-on there, says any worker who's actually followed it all that far. How big is the SLL? And how do I build it? Not getting any answer, he thinks a bit more, and says: well, things are bad and getting dreadful, and the only thing that can prevent a dictatorship is a political general strike. Moreover, everyone around except the SLL - which is really small - is hell-bent on bringing about this destruction. Can the SLL really stop it? If not - and the chances of a political general strike are small - is it worth my while sticking my neck out? So, if he accepted the League's premises, he probably concludes it isn't, since Hitler's concentration camps are not a pleasant prospect. More likely, he rips the paper up. But in either case, the SLL can hardly have been said to have "spared no effort in rousing the masses". "Cowing the mssses" would be a better term.

The economic perspectives show just the same impressionism, and just the same absence of any perspective which can lead workers to hope "the economic crisis" can be overcome, or its effects averted. The argument works very simply:

The price of gold is rising (e.g. The Newsletter, 14th Jan: "Gold price reaches a peak"), therefore it will go higher (17th Jan: "US Expert predicts (sic) GOLD PRICE MAY BE TREBLED". One had, of course, already predicted on the 4th some such increase).

There is talk in the press about Nixon changing U.S. policy on gold, therefore he will do so, and "a major economic crisis" will follow immediately.

There is talk in the press about the government falling, splits in the cabinet, etc., therefore a "Tory Bonapartist government" is on the way [p. 28] (for Healy says nothing about any other possibility).

Now we think that the failing of the SLL, which leads it to make all these unfulfilled prophecies, is impressionism; we don't intend here to go into the question why, foaming at the mouth against the impressionism of others, they make such mistakes... That is their duty to explain, not ours. What will be more valuable will be to examine the consequences politically of these mistakes for the SLL.

Firstly, the SLL leaders are unable to understand what on earth is going on in the world outside their offices; because they have some normative idea of "the crisis", which sometimes seems to correspond to 1931 in Britain, at others to 1929 in Germany, they spend their time contemplating the horizon on the hope that harbingers of the happy dawn will sooner or later be seen there. No surprisingly, they thus acquire a tendency to trip over the smallest obstacle. For example, at a time when there are revolutionary currents among the youth, but only ferment over economic demands in the unions, they put forward the proposal: a general strike to bring down the Wilson government! Not the slightest notice is taken of it, even by their own followers, who campaign for the more modest aim of a protest strike against the government's measures, to discourage it. But when an opponent brings it up, they become rather embarrassed...

Secondly, large numbers of youth and trade unionists are repelled by this sterile, dogmatic inability to see what is at the end of one's nose, by the continued never-fulfilled prophecies (since before it was elected!) of the collapse of the Labour government at the hands of the crisis.

Thirdly, many other militants, recruited on the basis of other, more positive aspects of the SLL's activities, either become disorientated too (particularly the YS members), or, after - for reasons into which we will not go - finding it impossible to change even the most elementary errors, leave the organisation.

Fourthly, as the months and years go by, the SLL presents itself to the world - under the banner of Trotskyism! - more and more as a malicious caricature of the worst features [16] of third period Stalinism. This has been analysed by Germain [17], in its early phase; we gave an example, in relation to the trade union legislation, just above.

In view of the importance for the British working class of the campaign against those laws during 1969, it's worth going into it in further detail. The high point of the struggle was undoubtedly the May Day strike of [illegible: fraction blotted, probably ¼] million workers; in the campaign for that strike, and the associated struggles, the SLL and its militants were to the fore. Most probably, the militants would have been able to extend the influence of their organisation considerably, were it not for the influence on them of the more esoteric ideas of their leadership.

These ideas were outlined in two lead articles in The Newsletter: "SLL says: Strike Against Anti-Union Laws on May 1st" on March 8th, and "All Out May 1. No Anti-Union Laws! Wilson Must Go!", on April 19th. The second of these in explicitly a statement of the SLL's PC, the first probably is, on internal evidence. They are worth reading!

The first occupies approximately 26 column-inches of the paper, of which 10½ are given over to a denunciation of the CP. Now the role of the CP, [p. 29] in its alliance with "left" bureaucrats in the unions, has been perfidious, and what is required is to build a fighting alliance with the discontented elements of the CP rank and file, through which present strug- struggles [sic] may be won, and at the same time, these CP members can be drawn towards revolutionary Marxism.

[16] The third period Stalinists, while raving about "the final crisis of capitalism", also took seriously "the battle for the streets"!

[17] "Marxism versus Ultraleftism", Ch. 11. To our knowledge, two members - Cdes. Mike Banda and Cliff Slaughter - of the ruling triumvirate of the SLL are familiar with that analysis.

In the struggle to do this, it is necessary: to combine, on the one hand, propaganda to and effective collaboration with CP militants; on the other, the offer of a United Front in specific campaigns to the CP leadership, so that workers, particularly CP militants, can judge by their actions the roles of CP leaders and of revolutionary marxists.

Clearly, then, propaganda directed to CP militants must be very carefully written; in particular, its tone must be such as to receive a hearing among some, at least, of the discontented. And it is here - echoing Thaelmann - that the SLL falls down:

"The Communist Party does not want a real showdown with Wilson. Its leaders are still up to their old bogus game of 'mass pressure'. That is the reason for their unprincipled alliance with Michael Foot, who has covered up all along the line for Wilson. This was also revealed when they forcibly and physically manhandled a young shop steward who is a member of the Socialist Labour League because (?) he dared denounce the reactionary right wing role of the TUC. And who can deny that the TUC's role is reactionary? (As a matter of fact, the millions of workers who still follow it - TW).

"This is a confirmation (?) of Stalinism was it was before, during and after the Second World War, and as it is now, 16 years after Stalin's death." (original emphasis)

Now most of the bits of this that mean anything are, except the physical manhandling of which we know nothing, not fundamentally wrong. But politically and tactically they are almost catastrophic, and the emphasis on Stalinism "as it was, is now, and ever more shall be" is wrong: one of the most important aspects of the current crisis of Stalinism is that it is now possible to approach CP militants, on a whole range of political and tactical questions, in a way which was not possible, particularly in Britain, before, during or immediately after World War II. Which is not to deny that the CP leaders have continued Stalinism, are still counter-revolutionary, and have abandoned even revolutionary language. But the way one approaches militants still influenced by these leaders is decisive.

It is also true that to say "Michael Foot has covered up all along the line for Wilson", while trying to express a correct idea, is insufficient in the text of an article which begins: "By voting against the government, Labour MP's have revealed the deepest split yet in the Parliamentary Labour Party." [18]

But we won't discuss the role of the "left" MPs further here; the rest of the SLL statement is more important. After the heaps of propagandistic abuse of the CP leadership, we have the following paragraphs:

"Our conflict with the Stalinists is something that can only be settled within the working class movement. We seek no allies whatsoever outside the working class. [19]

"..how is the discipline of the proletariat's revolutionary party maintained? How is it tested? How is it reinforced? ... Second, by

[18] And is printed next to an article containing a list of MPs who voted against Wilson...a list including Michael Foot!

[19] This curious remark, which undoubtedly represents a tactical principle of the SLL, should be compared with the following extract from "Left-Wing Communism":

[page 30]

"That is why we consider that the struggle against the anti-trade union laws is vital as part of our conflict with the reformist policies of the Communist Party..."

"Rest assured we will support (discontented CP members) in all forms of joint activity against the anti-trade union laws.

"We appeal to them in turn to defend the right of our trade union members to make their opinions heard in meetings and demonstrations during the course of this joint activity.

"We will fight shoulder to shoulder with all those in the working-class movement who fight this major threat against trade unionism, but we will politically differentiate ourselves (sic) from policies which we believe can lead the working class to defeat and disaster.

"The Political Committee of the Socialist Labour League believes that the next stage of the fight against anti-trade union laws should be a one-day strike on Thursday, May 1.

"We will work to make this a success and we are open now, as always, to any suggestions which may come from the Communist Party or others in relation to the possibility of a more suitable date being selected for such a demonstration."

Now that is not too bad! It proposes, quite reasonably and intelligently - though in complete contrast to the previous Stalinophobia - a fighting alliance between SLL and CP militants, a "United Front from below". What is more, almost imperceptibly, it proposes "A United Front From Above" to the CP: "We are open to any suggestion from the CP or others." It was not done well - merely as an aside in an unemphasised paragraph of an article which previously attacked CP leaders who "still retain their essential counter-revolutionary role" (why is one open to their suggestions?) - but the wonder is that it was done at all!

Unfortunately, any friends and well-wishers of the SLL who thought that it might be seriously, even if in a confused way, employing the United Front from above as a tactic to win to revolutionary politics people still following Gollan & Co., were soon to be disappointed [20]. Perhaps the previous suggestions were a slip of the pen or a momentary aberration; we do not know. But the next statement, on 19th April, contains no sign of such an approach.

Instead, occupying approximately 23 column-inches, it is divided up as follows: the quotation immediately below, about 5½"; propaganda, of an oversimplified sort, against the union leaders, about 8½"; propaganda for revolution, about 5"; the programme of the SLL, about 4":

"In order to save the declining value of sterling and improve the competitive power of the bankrupt British capitalist system Wilson, Castle and company have entered into the most sinister conspiracy against the organized (?) working class.

"They want to deprive it of its only (?) means of defence - the trade unions and the right to strike.

[20] But see our discussion of the latest turn in Chapter 5.

[19, continued] its ability to link up, maintain the closest contact, and - if you wish - merge, in certain measure, with the broadest masses of the working people - primarily with the proletariat, but also with the non-proletarian masses of working people." (Original emphasis. V.I. Lenin, "Selected Works", Vol 3, Moscow, 1967, p. 340).

[page 31]

"This is the only meaning of Mrs. Castle's White Paper 'In Place of Strife'. It is a declaration of war - total war - against the working class and its leadership. (original emphasis)

"Let there be no mistake about it. No amount of pressure or petitioning will make Wilson and Castle change their minds.

"The greatest crime is committed by those such as the Communist Party and 'left' Labour leaders who delude (?) sections of the working class with the illusory hope that Wilson's government can be forced to adopt different policies by pressure, or that the TUC, if recalled, will fight Wilson. (emphasis added)

"Those who live on such hopes must surely die in despair."

This is indescribably bad. The Wilson government was forced, by pressure, to change its policies. The new ones, we freely admit, are more dangerous in some ways, less in others. But they're not the same! Moreover, having in one column described the CP - apparently as a whole - as committing the "greatest crime", the SLL compounded the sin of erecting obstacles on the road to breaking CP militants from their leaders by having, in the next column, an article beginning:

"STALINISTS PLAY DOWN ANTI-UNION STRUGGLE (sic)

"Leading Stalinists who spoke at last Saturday's (April 12) conference of the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions have as little intention of fighting the government's anti-union legislation as the TUC General Council."

We are, as a matter of fact, very near to discovering the basic error in the SLL's strategic analysis, but just continue for a few more lines to investigate their criticisms of the CP. The author of the article just quoted explains the CP proposals, which include a demand that

"The (TUC) general council should (a) re-call the 1968 Trades Union Congress and (b) recommend the calling of a 24-hour national strike."

This he dismisses as follows:

"Everyone (?!) knows that the only (?) desire of the TUC is to find some means of compromising with Wilson."

Now his article criticises, correctly, the failure of the CP stewards to call explicitly for a 1-day strike on May 1st. But this last quotation is very strange in a paper whose editorial says:

"Of course (?), as a minimum (?) demand we support the re-call conference of the TUC, but it is necessary to say right now that nothing (?!) will come of it, because this government is going to continue regardless."

Now this is just incomprehensible. Why do we support, in the editorial, "of course", a demand of which nothing will come? Is this not, as D. Maude says in his accompanying article about the Stalinists, attempting to create illusions in people "everyone" has already seen through? If it were, if everyone had seen through them, then it would, of course, not be very successful in recreating those illusions... But since in fact rather few people have seen through the TUC general council, would it not be better to say: (i) that in our opinion the TUC leaders are all too likely to sell out in some way (not necessarily by a simple capitulation); (ii) that a movement of the rank and file must be built, which will fight to prevent the laws being put through, using the 1-day strike and other means; (iii) that, in order to involve in this movement workers who either have [p. 32] illusions in or see no alternative to the TUC leaders - and also to bring pressure on those leaders - we advance the demand that the TUC Congress be recalled, and propose that, when recalled, it should decide on a 24-hour national strike. That seems to us to be the right approach, and is one of ten different things that issue of The Newsletter tries to recommend. But a doctor who wrote on the prescription that of the items he was prescribing, half were no good, would he have a good effect on the patient?

That "everyone", however, was really the key to the SLL's disorientation. Recall the wild revolutionary phraseology of "total war" that the PC Statement began with. Now the legislation - which has been dropped - was fairly similar to the Taft-Hartley laws in the U.S., which have been in force for two decades without crushing the American proletariat beneath their iron heel. In Britain, a step towards reactionary American labour legislation is indicative of the plans of the bourgeoisie to change the relationship of class forces - and must be (and was, successfully) fought. But who can talk seriously of "total war"?

Well, the PC of the SLL can. Here is an extract from the revolutionary propaganda - which is the SLL's immediate perspective - in the middle of the statement (emphasis as original):

"Intervention by the DEP, PIB and CIR (Department of Employment & Productivity, Prices & Incomes Board, Commission on Industrial Relations - TW) - and now the proposed Industrial Relations Reform Bill - mean that the political struggle has assumed a revolutionary character.

"We say unequivocally:

"EITHER the dictatorship of Wilson and, after him, a right-wing semi-fascist dictatorship of Tories,

"OR a workers' government based on workers councils and the trade unions with a socialist home and foreign policy.

"That is the choice,"

(Why should the dictator Wilson step down for the semi-fascist Tories? It's a strange matter but we won't pursue it...)

Yes, as Germain said they ought to be, on their premises, the SLL are now putting forward the demand: "Workers Councils! SLL To Power!" The Workers Councils we have just seen explicitly, the rest is implicit in their denunciations of everyone else and the programme the PC concludes with:

"*For a gigantic anti-union laws strike on May 1! (Demonstrate with the YS-SLL on May 4th!)...

"*Out with all anti-trade union legislation!

"*Smash the White Paper!

"*Nationalize the banks and industries without compensation and under workers' control!

"*'Left' MPs oppose Wilson!

"*Join the Socialist Labour League and build the alternative revolutionary leadership!

"*Forward to socialism!"

This is a strange and repulsive mixture. First, as a slogan, "Join our Party" is strange...presumably the purpose of the party is to, among other things, recruit those who agree with it. What is more, presumably even [p. 33] the most backward worker, has he heard of the SLL, will recognise that one of its purposes in life is to recruit on those terms. Second, if workers councils are the only alternative to a dictatorship, as was claimed just previously, is not the SLL encouraging parliamentary illusions by calling on the Left MPs to fight? And third, while saying "Forward to socialism", don't these demands leave a large part of the route unclear? For, while we can demonstrate with the YS-SLL, we can strike on May 1st, we can carry banners with the other demands, we can even, if so inclined, join the YS-SLL. But where do we go from there? In this issue of their paper, the SLL give no answer: since they say "Workers Councils!" "Join Us!" "Forward to Socialism!", they seem to be putting forward the demand, if not absolutely explicitly, "SLL to Power", at the same time as calling on the Left MPs to fight... A curious state of affairs.

But of course, the SLL leaders don't really believe in the demand SLL to power. They know, as well as anyone else, that of the 55m people in Great Britain, at least 54m would not recognise the name of the SLL. And that of those who would, a large proportion, seeing Healy & Co. shouting "us to power" outside Clapham High Street, would carefully cross over and walk by on the other side of the road, perhaps pausing to telephone a doctor. That is why, in April 1969, the League had to disguise the demand, while giving an analysis from which no other demand flowed, and yet making other demands as well.

(As for us, we should, perhaps, explain our attitude to the demand "SLL to power". If the situation were correct for such a demand, we would support it. In the circumstances...)

Of course, this analysis was replaced, at the SLL conference in May, with a call for a recalled Labour Party Conference...yet more pandering to illusions, one might think, in a situation where Workers Councils were so urgently required. But the fact which explains the "revolutionary" phraseology (which in practice confuses the SLL's followers, if no one else) is: The SLL leadership believes, simultaneously, that there is and that there is not a revolutionary situation in Britian.

The second, we deduce from their more sensible slogans: Make the Left MPs Fight! Recalled Labour Party Conference! The first, which explains all the third period [21] language, is quite explicit. Let us therefore investigate this strange discovery, made by the SLL alone, that the situation is pre-revolutionary in Britain.

This is what The Newsletter said on May 10th 1969:

"The lessons are clear.

"The attacks by the Labour government on the unions now take place against the background of an economic and financial crisis that could explode within the next weeks or months.

"In such a crisis a further sterling devaluation would be certain as well as the collapse of an already shaken Labour government.

"This pre-revolutionary situation demands, more than ever, the building of the Socialist Labour League if the working class are to avoid (sic) the sort of defeats that were inflicted on them with the collapse of capitalism in the 1930s" (emphasis added. [22])

[21] Remember, Trotsky opposed the demand: KPD to Power which was the content of the irresponsible antics of Thaelmann, Manuilsky, Stalin...Trotsky called for a KPD-SPD United Front from Above to defeat Fascism, because only in that way could a revolutionary upsurge of the German workers be prepared. The SLL, as we shall see, has a different approach.

[22] "New Economic Crisis on the Way (sic)" by Peter Jeffries. In truth, we are sorry to keep picking on this comrade, whom we regard rather as the victim of orders to hew to the Triumvirs' line than as genuinely culpable.

[page 34]

We will try, later on, to discuss the contradiction between the delusions of grandeur expressed in the SLL's theory, and their day to day practice. Meanwhile, we shall content ourselves with further documentation of their "analysis".

For it would be extremely unjust of us to judge the SLL by the writings of even its most distinguished economic analyst. It would be especially unjust to do so when the political perspectives resolution of its XIth Annual Conference, May 25, 26 & 27, 1969, are available in The Newsletter (issues of 21st and 24th June, 1969).

This resolution, "The political perspectives of the SLL", is, in our opinion, typical of the low level of theory in that organisation. It contains the usual dishonest criticisms of "the Pabloites" and "the revisionists". It is incoherent, self-contradictory. While it is utterly unable to evaluate what the SLL has done in the past [23], it devotes paragraph after paragraph to a marxist-sounding, but essentially mechanical, analysis of the "struggle inside the SLL" and "the development of revolutionary theory". We don't want to deal with its more confused, jargon-ridden sections, because we shall discuss the SLL PC's statement "A Political Challenge" in detail, and one can have too much of a good thing. But we urge our readers to get hold of those issues of The Newsletter and see if our comments are not justified. [24]

Here, however, is the resolution's assessment of the current (May '69) situation in Britain:

"Wilson's decision to press ahead for an early decision on this (anti-union) legislation reflects the urgency of the problem facing the ruling class. In this situation the problem of political leadership of the working class in a struggle for power (sic) is decisive.

"In short, the situation is rapidly becoming pre-revolutionary as a result, firstly, of the inability (?) of the ruling class to continue to ensure its dominance through the old methods (?) and secondly, the combativity of the working class, which enables it to raise demands which are incompatible with continued bourgeois rule. Wages struggles merge directly (??) with the political struggle against the government's anti-union legislation." (original emphasis)

It assesses the prospects of the Labour Government:

"These last months (sic) of the sixth Labour government in Britain

"As the decisive struggle approaches, the pressure inside the SLL becomes very great because of the steps taken by the bourgeoisie to put off the crisis. The effect is contradictory in the dialectical (sic) sense: these postponements of crisis allow crucial time for the political preparations of the revolutionary party; but they also place intolerable strain on the idealist, formal conception of automatic or simple development of revolution; and this strain is increased by the demands made on these same idealists by the conscious elements in the SLL leadership in the fight for the daily paper and changed methods of work."

To us, it is clear that "the conscious elements in the SLL leadership" have an "idealist, formal" notion of "the crisis" - which, unfortunately, like the rainbow's end, keeps eluding them in practice.

"The predominance of the industrial working class in British capitalist society, more marked than anywhere else in the world, places a tremendous political concentration on the reformist bureaucracy in the trade unions and Labour Party." mark [p. 35] the transition between two great historic stages in the development of the working-class movement..."

[23] With the exception of the following:

[24] Or content themselves with the following specimen:

"The question of emergency government to meet a sharp deterioration in the economic situation could provide the occasion for such a new government coming to power whether by a snap election in a crisis atmosphere or by some form of coalition government of 'men of good will' following an electoral defeat of the Labour Party."

It explains how it sees the workers' attitude to reformism:

"At the level of politics in the parliamentary sense the working class has become rapidly disillusioned. The desertion of the reformist party has been almost complete."

Evidently the SLL leadership are confusing their dreams with reality. Having given our general analysis above, the main lines of which we think cannot be shaken, we shall not waste space refuting fantasies of workers having "almost completely deserted" reformism, of the imminent collapse of the Labour government. We assert - and the future will see who is right - that the Labour government will last out its term, and that, whether or not it wins the next election, millions of workers, including the most conscious, the majority of trades-union members, etc., will vote for it then. We shall turn, noting that the SLL still thinks economic catastrophe is round the corner, to two questions which seem to arise: Why are the SLL leaders living in cloud-cuckoo land? What will be the consequences for their organisation?

The answer to the first question can hardly be sought in any personal qualities of the leadership; we should not replace Marxism with demonology. In fact, it is very difficult to answer it; most probably, the explanation is that their rapid recruitment in 1960-64 was just too much for them. They could neither understand it nor do anything successfully with those recruited; moreover, it served as justification for and encouragement of their split with the rest of the Trotskyist movement (see below). Consequently, the Fourth International has been unable, despite its best efforts, to correct the increasingly incorrect course of the Triumvirate and its followers.

We must admit that we don't feel too happy with that explanation; it seems sound, but too many of the details are left out, the ideological aspects of the SLL's evolution are ignored. Accordingly, we will return to the problem elsewhere.

As to the consequences of the SLL's course, one's opinion of that depends on one's assessment of the prospects of self-reform. After what we have outlined above, we must admit we assess them as rather low. Moreover, in the light of the recent SLL PC statement "A Political Challenge", they look lower than ever. So let us look at that statement, bearing in mind that it was published four weeks after they embarked on the practice of their tactic of a daily paper.

We propose to show, in detail, that "A Political Challenge"

1. is utterly unable to correctly analyse the relationship of class forces in Britain in late 1969;

2. is equally (and consequently?) unable to propose any orientation for revolutionary socialists;

3. suffers, at the same time as it makes an ultra-left analysis, from a number of errors which are typical of opportunism.

"A Political Challenge"

We have had offered to us by SLL members four interpretations of the title of this document: that the strikes (i) represent a political challenge by the working class to the Labour government (ii) are the result of a political challenge by the Labour government to the working class; (iii) [p. 36] are a political challenge by the working class to the SLL itself; and (iv) that the statement was a political challenge from the SLL to the working class called forth by the strike wave. Unfortunately, the document itself fully justifies this variety of interpretations.

For at first reading, the Statement gives the impression of being illiterate, a collection of assertions, some true, others false, many meaningless, strung together in no particular order; it seems to lack any unity of thought and to fail completely to develop any argument.

Further study confirms this judgement. To take the worst individual example of confusion, one paragraph reads: "Imports will be further reduced to cut consumption of workers and their families." Quite clearly, the writer does not mean what he says - unless the PC of the SLL is acquiring a previously unsuspected sense of the macabre. The idea he is trying to express is: "Imports will be further reduced in order to cut the living standards of workers and their families." Unfortunately, those readers of Workers Press who managed to divine this will also - we are entitled to hope - realise that it is untrue; in fact, the real situation is that the living standards of the working people will be further reduced, in order to cut imports in the interests of the financial and banking sector of British capitalism, and for various other reasons in specific industries. More precisely, taking into account both the electoral schemes of the Wilson government and the present militancy of the workers, we can say that some such attempt is probably on the way (but not yet here!), particularly if the Tories win the next election.

Having noted this perhaps most glaring error - and remarking that its political content is the replacement of Marxist analysis with ultra-left propaganda - let us try to assess the Statement as a whole. The first question to ask is: towards whom is it directed? [25] Certain paragraphs, particularly in the first and third quarters, suggest that it is general, anti-Wilson socialist propaganda. But in late October the world wide circulation of Workers Press (including all those sent to the SLL's hapless allies), even the Saturday edition, the most widely sold, was not more than 15,000. So, since the SLL leadership are not stupid, and would not waste their only major political statement for months on something with such a marginal effect, that hypothesis must be rejected.

The only other possibility is that the statement is directed at those most sympathetic to Workers Press - regular readers, i.e. SLL members, YS activists and TU militants close to the League - and at CP militants, particularly in the miners union, disturbed by the role of the CP leadership (and those it supports) during the recent strikes. In which case, the Statement must be assessed, firstly on scientific grounds (is its analysis right? what road forward does it indicate?) and, secondly but subordinately, on how well it explains its answers to those questions.

"Dialectical" Verbiage

To touch on the second aspect - but gain a good idea of the first! - parts of the statement are simply meaningless. For example, the sentence: "Speed-up and closures...are the only way capitalists can restore their rate of profit on return from international trading." Perhaps Cdes. P. Jeffries and T. Kemp, having respectively exposed how Mandel, prisoner of empiricism, has revised Marx, and the hideous destination towards which he has chosen to travel, will explain to us the "rate of profit on return from international trading."

While they are thus engaged, we hope some other graduate of the Cliff Slaughter school of dialectics will enlighten us about: "Whatever the form taken by the strike struggle...the content of them goes very deep because whole sections of the class are acting independently of their leadership [p. 37] in response to the deepest crisis of the system." "Form" of the strike struggle? "Content" of the strike struggle? Are these concepts - no doubt united opposites - exactly clear? Are they clearly explained, even? We think not, and refer doubtful readers to the Appendix. How about content which "goes very deep"? Into what, or down where? No one cares to inform us. But, wherever this content is going, it's doing so in response to the "deepest" crisis of the system. Political, economic, social crisis? - we're not told ("world" crisis we reject). "Deepest" ever, or since the war, or in the last two weeks? The same answer as before. We're afraid that, unless and until one of the materialist dialecticians of the SLL leadership expresses himself on the subject, we must consign some parts of the statement to the bin marked: "Dialectical Verbiage - Out".

[25] A general question, perhaps, about almost everything published in Workers Press?

On the Trade Unions and the Labour Government

"There was a tendency to feel that the SWP, as it was at that moment in 1946, was capable of being catapulted into the leadership of the revolution if only it could show the workers its ability to lead them in this or that mass action. Thus the party tended to minimise two important obstacles to its leadership of the masses - the Communist Party and the trades union bureaucracy."

Tim Wohlforth [26]

(1) "All the Labour, trade union and Communist Party leaders conceal from the workers that this (the taking of power from the capitalist class) is what is at stake. The Socialist Labour League, with its daily paper, the Workers Press, devotes all its efforts to the recruitment and training of the forces to achieve this revolutionary task."

This is blatantly wrong. For while it is true historically that what is posed is the taking of power from the capitalist class, and it is true now that a fight against the bourgeois state is posed by government intervention in current industrial disputes, the overthrow of capitalism remains a long-term task, the achievement of which is conditional upon breaking millions (not just a few thousands) of workers from their present bureaucratic trade union and political leaders. Contrary to what the SLL thinks, or says, Britain is not yet in a pre-revolutionary situation; moreover, although the prospects of building a revolutionary organisation are good, there remains the probability of the return of a Tory government at the next election, and the time to launch a revolutionary party has not yet come. So, while revolutionaries have the duty to make revolutionary propaganda, they must also have a policy during the intervening period, designed to encourage the mass movement and break it from the bureaucrats. Specifically, within the factories and unions, they must fight to weaken the stranglehold of the bureaucracies, on a programme of transitional demands. They must also, of course, participate in every strike and other movement of the class, fighting to strengthen the position of the workers vis-a-vis the employers nationally and within each area or industry.

Consequently revolutionaries must explain to the most conscious workers whom they can influence, the whole range of betrayals of the Labour, CP and union bureaucrats, which are not just "concealing from the workers" something the necessity of which neither the bureaucrats nor (unfortunately) most workers recognise, but also selling out specific strike and redundancy struggles, using their prestige to introduce anti-working class legislation or to foist productivity deals on the workers, imposing a dictatorial regime within the trade unions in collaboration with the bourgeois state, etc.

[26] In his "history" of the SWP, "The Struggle for Marxism in the United States", Part IV. SLL's Fourth International, Vol.3, No.2, April 1966, p.90.

[page 38]

But, amazingly, "A Political Challenge" contains not a single transitional demand. It does not mention the fight for trade union democracy. It does not seriously attempt to explain to workers the treacherous roles of the bureaucracies, to analyse the ways in which this treachery has developed recently.

(2) While it is, to a certain extent, true that "The massive wave of strikes now engulfing British industry is the beginning of a major change in the class struggle in Britain", one must be careful about the quantitative and qualitative aspects thereof. For there are major changes of various kinds - the Russian Revolution and the ascendancy of Hitler - and revolutionary marxists adopt different tactics in the different cases. (Though third-period ultraleftism claimed the latter as a victory also!) Unfortunately, "A Political Challenge" is silent about the nature of the "major change" which "is beginning"; we shall have to try to deduce what the writers envisage.

As we have remarked, the British strike wave of autumn 1969 is not unprecedented, and in some ways that of autumn 1967 came nearer to raising the political issues in the minds of millions of workers. But the recent wave is important, first, because it took place at the same time as the strike waves in Europe, second, because it was rather larger in scope than the 1967 wave, third, because it took place about a year before the next General Election.

But the comparison with France and Italy puts it in proportion. For while there is undoubtedly a pre-revolutionary situation in both these countries [27], there is not in Britain. Social tensions are in no way so sharp. For example, in Italy and France millions of workers are called out on official strike by the bureaucrats, who feel the pressure of the rank and file, and the struggles have gone far beyond economic demands, involving factory occupations, fights with the police, etc. Whereas in Britain the bureaucrats, taken by surprise though they were, have been able, almost completely, to reassert their control.

This, as we said, has taken place for two reasons. Firstly, economic concessions can still be granted, especially on terms involving productivity deals, and secondly, while discontent with the TU leaders exists and must be developed, it is still limited, partial and to a certain extent transitory. At the moment, revolutionaries may hope, in Britain, to combine building an organised movement of opposition inside the unions with recruiting a number of the most advanced militants. They can also, in those cases where they have a base or can effect an intervention, influence favourably the course of the strikes. (But only marginally: keeping one Yorkshire pit out for an extra 24 hours was not a major victory and confirmation of the SLL's line!) To suggest that the as yet limited revolutionary forces can generally have a decisive influence is to abandon a scientific analysis and to invite confusion and disillusionment among the SLL's own militants.

"Pre-revolutionary situation

"MASS STRIKES SWEEP ITALY AND FRANCE"

with which we entirely agree. The accompanying article does not mention Britain. Another article in the same issue advances "All U.S. Troops out of Vietnam Now" as a slogan on Vietnam; the 10th Nov. '69 issue does the same on the front page. Moreover, while we are missing on one issue - which may be relevant - the American proletariat does not seem to have heard of the "great victory" at Swindon. The Workers League better watch out!

[27] Curiously, the American allies of the SLL do not agree with it that there is a pre-revolutionary situation in Britain. The Bulletin of 1st Dec. '69 has headlines:

[page 39]

(3) "Whatever the form taken by the strike struggle...the content of them goes very deep because whole sections of the class are acting independently of their leadership in response to the deepest crisis of the system."

We have remarked on this example of the SLL's "dialecticians" at work already, but it repays further examination. For behind the "form" of dialectics we detect a "content" which is anti-dialectical and unscientific, namely the same old stereotyped, mechanical overassessment of the militancy of the workers and the severity of the economic situation which the SLL has been purveying these past six years, and which have so spectacularly prevented it from making the gains it anticipated and might have made.

The real situation is: Some of the workers are beginning to move independently of their leaderships. But they are doing so for economic demands which can generally be granted. Consequently, while this provides the basis for an oppositional movement within the unions, at least in a number of cases, it does not herald an immediate break of "whole sections of the class" from the bureaucracy (indeed the bureaucrats have reasserted control). Moreover, if the SLL claim that it does, those workers who are beginning to break from the bureaucracy will surely not follow their leadership!

It would seem that the comment of the SLL's ally on the SWP in 1946 should, perhaps, be directed rather at them in 1969.

On Marxist Sociology and Political Perspectives

(4) "The government's policies and the employers' plans are one and the same thing."

This is absolutely false and will be accepted by no thinking worker. What is true is that, since it came to power, the Labour government has been guided mainly by considerations of modernising British capitalism, even against the resistance of sections of the British capitalist class. But that is not to say (as ultra lefts would) that nothing else has influenced or can influence the policies of the Labour government, which are identical with the employers' plans.

To take one issue, central to the struggle in Britain: the Labour government's trade union legislation. This began as a thin sugar coating around laws against the trade unions. But, by virtue of the working class "stopping the Labour government's plans for laws against the unions" - which the SLL said was impossible - and thus "leaving itself with the ability to wage the strike struggle against the employers", the legislation has been reduced to almost an irrelevancy, which even grants a few trivial concessions, and is by no means uniformly welcome to the employers.

Indeed, the Confederation of British Industries is waging a campaign against the government on this very issue, claiming (which is of course hardly true) that the planned legislation is entirely concessions. The Times of London, representing important bourgeois interests, dismisses proposals for legislation along the lines formerly intended by Wilson, on the grounds that experience since the proposals were dropped has shown they would anyhow be ineffective; it calls for collaboration at a local level between the TU machine and the employers. The Tories, seeking to return to power on the basis of middle class hostility to the trade unions, announce their intention of legislating against the unions once elected, and even of provoking and defeating strikes. Very probably, should they be returned to power, they will attempt to carry out these plans.

[page 40]

That, in our opinion, is the line-up on the question of anti-union legislation in Britain today. It is, of course, not obligatory to give a detailed analysis (and much more can be said than we have here) in every statement. What is obligatory is not to make blatantly inaccurate assertions of an ultra-left variety.

(5) "Finance and heavy industry always win out against the manufacturing industrialists in such critical periods, and the manufacturers, like the motor industry, then take advantage of the repressive and right-wing policies imposed on their workers.

"That was the situation before Hitler's rise to power in Germany."

Here again we have the familiar parallel with Germany which the League has been drawing throughout the past five years. The very fact that the analogy has been made for so long makes one suspect that it is arbitrary, since the period 1918-1933 in Germany was characterised by sharp changes in the political situation, not the least of which was the rise of Hitler. We can't give a history of Germany here, but there are a number of significant differences between the situations which we should mention:

(i) there is no fascist movement comparable in strength to Hitler's even as it was in 1928, and racialism is not so virulent as it was in Germany even in the mid '20s;

(ii) the economic and social crisis is in no wise so serious as it was in Germany; social tensions are not as sharp as in Germany in 1928-29;

(iii) nor have they been so sharp in the recent past - there has been no empire overthrown, no insurrection, no foreign occupation, no putsch, no devastating inflation, no mass Communist Party, in Britain in the last fifteen years;

(iv) there is not yet the discontent among the middle classes with capitalism or with bourgeois democracy which existed in Germany in 1928-29.

All these considerations suggest that the invocation by the SLL of this particular historical analogy is probably unjustified. What is certainly unjustified is the substitution, for an analysis of the real difference of interests between light and heavy (not manufacturing and heavy!) industry, of an empty propaganda point.

On the other hand, the SLL's militants are, to their cost, finding in practice that this contradiction (although, of course, limited in comparison to the contradiction between capital as a class and labour as a class) is very real; for example, the restriction of home demand does cause the motor industrialists difficulties which force them to lay off workers, introduce short time, etc. (As well as providing the opportunity for sacking long-hated militants!)

On the Common Market, Youth, Vietnam

"No attempt was made (by the SWP) to reach the radicalised students and intellectuals, some of whom went to the Shachtmanites but the bulk of whom were recruited into the C.P." (Tim Wohlforth [28]

We explain in discussing the Swindon by-election why we consider the line of "A Political Challenge" on EEC opportunist. We would also have hoped that, rather than publish the meaningless, disconnected paragraphs which follow that section, the authors would have mentioned the radicalised youth and/or Vietnam.

But not a word! Yet more evidence that Wohlforth's comments on the SWP, justified or not, are a devastating critique of his allies in the SLL. For despite the pretentious "Launching the Young Socialists Student Societies" [p. 41] (Keep Left Oct. '67), or as Bulletin would have it, the Young Socialists' "Invasion" of the universities, the SLL has made negligible gains from the radicalisation of youth. Moreover, while the C.P. has made no gains, the I.S., whose leaders (like Shactman) do not defend the USSR, have recruited hundreds of students.

[28] Wohlforth, loc. cit., p.92.

We have said before that the abstentionist attitude of the SLL towards the youth is incomprehansible; we ourselves certainly don't understand it. It seems likely that the leaders agreed, most atypically for them, to take part in VSC in 1966 because they were bitterly aware of their failure to build the "mass revolutionary socialist youth movement" in the previous two years. But why they withdrew we cannot say; the logic of their political position, which since then has included, as well as propaganda against Cuba, black power & student power, also a justification of that split and a denunciation of the youth, has certainly driven them further into isolation. Even locally, for example in Hull, they stood back and let the I.S. take the leadership and make the gains. Wohlforth tries to provide a "theoretical" justification for all this in "Revisionists in Crisis", but it's difficult to accept that he can really believe what he writes, and until the Triumvirate breaks up the matter must remain a mystery.

Once Again, on the Trade Unions and the Labour Government

(6) "The present wave of strikes is an essential preparation for the struggle against unemployment, because these strikes accelerate the unification of the working class."

Unfortunately, this is not true. Perhaps a million workers (out of at least 20m!) have been directly involved in the strike wave. Moreover, there are important contradictions between the different sections: many teachers, for example, are thinking something like: "If the (nasty, smelly) dustmen can get £20 p.w. why can't we?" That is an example of how the "competition" between different sections of the working class is also accentuated by the present strike wave; the isolation of the different industrial and geographical groups was anyhow one important factor in the trade union leaders bringing the strikes under control. (And how do those who struck feel about those in the same industry who scabbed? 'United' with them?)

Furthermore, despite the superstitious belief of the SLL leadership in the imminence of large-scale unemployment, which is, as we have seen, virtually unshakeable, we can say with reasonable confidence that in Britain unemployment is not going to become severe in the near future, and that, if and when it does, the effects of the 1969 strike wave will have been superceded by subsequent political and economic struggles.

One reason why we believe that unemployment is not imminent is that there is a General Election on the horizon, and if the best Tory prime minister of this century does not follow the example of all his recent predecessors and engineer a pre-election boom we will be very surprised indeed. Other reasons are (a) that, while the tendency of recessions in the advanced capitalist countries to coincide is more marked than during the '60's, the developing American recession will probably be accompanied by continued boom in Germany and Japan, and (b) that, while nothing the Wilson government has done has changed the relative backwardness of British capitalism in the decisive sectors, electrical and mechanical engineering, [p. 42] the current balance of payments surplus is unlikely to be undermined by either that weakness or the pre-election boom for some time.

(7) "...what is the role of the union leaders in these strikes?

It is here, in answering this question, that the SLL's PC really takes leave of this world. First, they make some correct propaganda points to the effect that the union leaders had not been seeking gains as big as those won by strike action, and they make elsewhere propaganda points about the TU bosses selling out. But they "ignore the central lesson of this - the (leadership) was able to get away with it" (Tim Wohlforth). Why the SLL should "minimize" this "important obstacle to its leadership of the masses" we cannot say, but it does.

For example, the miners union:

"The resignation of Ford, Daly and the NUM executive has been demanded all over Yorkshire and Derbyshire, and they have lost the confidence of miners everywhere" (emphasis added).

This shook even the present writer. For only one third of the miners came out on the unofficial strike (120,000 out of 360,000). And while it is true that the resignation of the leaders, who played a criminal role, has been demanded in Yorkshire and Derbyshire, it has not been demanded in South Wales, Kent, Nottinghamshire, the North East, Scotland...Presumably not even the SLL leadership would maintain that miners who did not take part in the strike lost confidence in the leadership when it sold out.

What we do think is that the role of the NUM leaders must have disturbed many miners, and that there is the opportunity now to build, at least in some coalfields, an opposition to them. This seems to be particularly true in Yorkshire, where the SLL's miners are campaigning for the resignation of Lawrence Daly, the union's general secretary. Now, provided he were replaced with someone who would fight, that would be desireable, and he must certainly be criticised; moreover, the other issues the SLL is taking up in its campaign certainly make us wish them every success. Our only worry is that they will be content to make a few individual gains rather than build an effective opposition movement.

The statement goes on to criticise the role of Scanlon and Jones, especially the latter. They criticise him, absolutely correctly, for signing, along with the right wing, an agreement (dated 19th Oct.) with the CBI which the employers described as 'a breakthrough in employer-union co-operation at national level'. We thoroughly agree with their criticisms, though we don't think they propose any effective way of fighting him.

But then they lose their way completely:

"This attempt (?) at an agreement with the employers follows the failure (which, we repeat, the SLL said would not happen) of the Labour government to impose its legislation and the blastfurnacemen's successful killing at one blow (?) of the TUC's proposal for settling disputes

"The trade union bureaucracy is only carrying forward logically (?) its reactionary policy of the June special TUC conference."

Again, even we were shaken. For the policy of the special conference was, essentially, what they agreed with Wilson later in June: the TUC's proposals for settling disputes. Yet the SLL leaders apparently believe the bureaucracy was "carrying forward logically" something the blastfurnacemen "killed at one blow"; if that were the case, we would have little to worry about...

Unfortunately, both for the SLL leaders and, more important, the [p. 43] mass of the British working class, while the unofficial strike of blastfurnacemen was an important, bitterly fought struggle, in the end victorious, it did not "kill at one blow" the proposals of the TUC. On the contrary, the TUC will continue to intervene in other disputes, trying especially to force the workers to call off their strikes before talks begin. And this policy is very much alive! Moreover, the October agreement was a further development (or, if you insist, a "carrying forward logically") of this June agreement with Wilson. What the SLL fails to understand about this issue, mainly because it has to pretend the situation is pre-revolutionary, is that while the bureaucrats and bosses don't like losing one contest, their main aim is to shackle the whole of the working class, proceeding cautiously over a couple of years or so. Thus, Feather predicts that the TUC will eliminate 40% of unofficial strikes in 1970. And, although the victory of the blastfurnacemen encourages other sections of workers to have a go (as do the rest of the gains made this autumn), it does not really destroy the TUC's plans. Nothing prevented the union bureaucrats from going further, in the middle of a strike wave, last October.

(8) "...surely this experience settles the disputed questions of leadership in the unions."

This is contained in an appeal to C.P. militants. As such, it has a certain validity: the C.P.'s militants were, as is well known, in many cases very disturbed by the role in the recent strikes of the bureaucrats whom their leaders support. But, at the same time, it reveals a severe weakness of the SLL: their inability to distinguish between what is settled for them, and what is settled in the minds of most workers (or, which is must [sic] the same thing, practically).

For the statement appeared once in Workers Press, in a Saturday edition. Mercifully, no use of it as a propaganda hand-out has been made. So how many CP members and supporters read it? Obviously, we don't know the exact answer. But a few figures are relevant. The C.P.'s membership is rather over 30,000 (not, of course, all activists). The circulation of its paper Morning Star is between 50,000 and 60,000. The C.P. probably plays a significant or decisive role in the leadership of 1 or 2m organised workers. While the circulation of Workers Press on Saturdays is probably around 15,000, on other days 10,000, the difference coming from "pub sales".

Of course, those figures do not tell the whole story. Workers Press sellers attend as many as possible of the strikes which take place. More important, SLL industrial militants can explain the analysis their paper makes to CP members and others, and the criticisms of the union and CP bureaucrats are a regular feature. But, even so, we think the figures reveal the basic relationship of forces: the disputed questions are not yet settled in the minds of many CP members; of course, they are not even raised in the minds of those millions of workers who still follow the reformist trade union leaders.

On Politics and Economics

It is not worth our while to analyse in detail the prospective develpment of British politics according to A Political Challenge; we [p. 44] content ourselves, first with pointing out that the authors get themselves involved in contortions when facing the prospect (at that time widely talked of in the press) of the re-electoin of the Labour government, and second with the following quotation:

"The temporary voting swing back to Labour reflects the great and growing feeling in the working class against the employers.

"But the plans of the employers have actually been implemented by the Labour government and will continue to be so,"

which reveals mainly the strange tendency of the SLL to revert to elementary propaganda against Wilson - of course with no measurable effect - in the middle of a supposedly serious analysis.

The economics are all too familiar.

(9) "Instead of the predicted 10-15 per cent increase in investment this year, there was only 5 per cent.

"That means a worse crisis in balance of payments is being inevitably prepared because economic growth falls further behind. (?)

"Further and more severe attacks on the working class would follow." (emphasis added)

Yet again, we see the unfortunate reluctance of the present-day SLL to commit itself: a worse crisis "is being inevitably prepared" and severe attacks "would" follow. After what we have already quoted, this reluctance is perhaps wise!

* * *

We have tried to show that the answer to our question: is the analysis made in A Political Challenge correct? is a resounding NO. We have also, we think, shown that it does not explain what it has to say too well.

The other question we posed was: what orientation did A Political Challenge propose? The amazing answer is: NONE. For let us admit that it tells us, three times, that the essential question is to build an independent Marxist leadership. We know that already, and we suspect many readers of Workers Press do too; the question of interest, is how? And to that we get no answer whatever. The statement contains, as we said, not a single transitional demand, not a single policy on which militants might fight in any union or industry, not even a suggestion as to how to organise such struggles, and fails to mention the youth.

Instead it informs us that a leadership can be built, of which we were already confident, that the Workers Press is the instrument, which on ground of its circulation as well as its politics we rather doubt, and concludes:

"The road now opens for the building of the revolutionary working-class party which every worker is beginning to recognise is needed.

"The Socialist Labour League, recruiting hundreds of new members and building new branches, supported by the Young Socialists and the All Trades Unions Alliance, calls upon all workers to join with it in the task of constructing that party."

We do not believe that this is true. We doubt that the SLL is making the gains it claims, we are sure that "every worker is" not "beginning to recognise" that a revolutionary working-class party is needed. We are convinced that only through a struggle for transitional demands, only through the actions of the most advanced workers will the masses of workers be convinced of the need for revolution [p. 45] or the party. And we regret to say that, along with its opportunist line on the Common Market and its silence on Vietnam, A Political Challenge reveals the complete absence of any such approach on the part of the SLL.

* * *

We have said that the question must be raised: What do the SLL leaders think they are doing? How to explain the 'unity' of theory and practice as manifested in this particular case? We will try to answer it partially.

We do not think the best elements of the SLL leadership believe that the situation in Britain is prerevolutionary in any accepted sense of the word among Marxists. We may be wrong, and if we are then they sink lower in our estimation, but in our opinion they use this language for two reasons.

The first is that their mis-estimation of the situation in Britain, in particular of their own recruitment, was the real basis on which they established their own international tendency in opposition to the reunited world Trotskyist movement. Thus their American followers attempted to convince the SWP that the SLL was right as follows:

"It is extremely significant that it is the SLL which should assume the leadership in opposing the (SWP) majority's turn to Pabloism. It is precisely the SLL which has emerged over the past several years as the largest Trotskyist group in all of Europe, almost entirely proletarian in composition (sic) with deep roots in the working class of Great Britain. A sectarian group is incapable (?!) of such growth and thus the majority's charges against the SLL do not stand up against the objective reality of the continued growth of the SLL" [29]

No doubt the SWP leaders were sufficiently acquainted with the growth and subsequent decline of revolutionary tendencies throughout the world not to be convinced: the Left Opposition is a case in point. Unfortunately, some of the youth recruited by them from the Shactmanites were not, hence Tim Wohlforth and the Workers League.

But having carried out this split, the SLL leaders are forced by the logic of their previous actions, to carry on down the lonely road into the wilderness. Moreover, they are forced to proclaim their successes ceaselessly, to give moral if not material succour to their followers, and to proclaim those who do not follow them to be damned. For, deep in their minds, they believe that they cannot turn back.

The second reason for the disorientation of the SLL is that, while the leadership know that the propaganda effect of all their wild talk is negligible, they also know that its effect on their membership is very great, and that their whole organisation only exists on the basis of driving the membership at top speed while they last. (We do not, of course, deny that the leadership drive themselves also) In fact, looked at in this light, the SLL leadership begin to resemble an acrobat on an oil drum which is rolling helter-skelter down a steep slope.

Let us look at that second point more closely in relation to their various fields of work.

[29] Statement by the Reorganized (& how!) Minority Tendency, SWP, 20th April 1963.

[page 46]

The Young Socialists

Since 1964, as we have emphasized, the independent Young Socialists have not been a success. A typical branch has one or two activists, and at times nothing more. At other times, either through painstaking door-to-door work or through social activities (dances, etc.), a selection of young people is gathered together. They probably meet in an unattractive church hall or room in a pub, occasionally they have good premises. The level of politcal discussion is low, conformity being the order of the day. Thus solemn discussions are conducted, not on the need for socialsim, how to gight in industry or against the war in Vietnam, but on the absolute correctness of "Making the Left MPs Fight" (we don't want any Kerensky's"!), on the counter-revolutionary role of the Vietnam Solidarity movement, on not talking to fascists. Attempts are even made occasionally to discourage people from enjoying Bob Dylan or Stones records: they are the Prophets of Profit.

The only times the Y.S. branches, despite the extreme activism of the League members in them, break out of this sterile round are, when social activities (usually dances or trips) are particularly successful. (All too often, SLL members wear themselves out running social clubs with no political gains whatever.) What happens then is that a group (rather than an assortment) of young people begin to conduct organised activity. Unfortunately, after a certain number of "recruitment campaigns", "classes" and "schools", after the latest apocalyptic prophecies have not been fulfilled, they tend to drift away again.

It might be wondered how the YS paper maintains its vaunted high circulation. Now firstly let us say that the claimed circulation has not risen nearly as much as the SLL leaders hoped or predicted: 20,000 - the current claim - was once anticipated for the beginning of 1964. But the circulation is certainly impressive: the main reason is that the YS activists spend an enormous amount of time selling the paper, door-to-door, on High Streets, in shopping centres, etc.

That they do this becomes more difficult to explain when it is realised that virtually nothing is gained, in the medium or the short term (and we predict: not in the very long term) from all this literature selling (partly because the literature sold is these days so unspeakably bad). Now why the leadership insist on it we cannot say, but insist on it they do, and the membership certainly do it. The main reason why they are willing to do so is their devotion to the revolutionary organisation, a subordinate one is that they know the money has to be found to pay for the papers anyhow (with, we admit, some exceptions). For "Keep Left debts" and "Newsletter debts" are familiar terms among the ranks [30], and eventually have to be paid off. We know of areas where these debts are to the value of three months nominal sales, which can be quite a lot of money.

None of this prevents "circulation drives" of the most bureaucratic kind; the usual way these work, so far as we can tell, is that the centre decides that an area's quota shall be increased by say 50 or 100, and the members duly try to sell the extra copies. Very little account seems to be taken of the strength, or indeed of anything, [p. 47] in the different areas in determining these increases.

[30] We rather suspect "Workers Press debts" may have replaced the latter.

Of course, the top leadership know all these details of the state of the YS, but, having embarked on the present course they cannot alter it significantly without catastrophe. More, they cannot even admit in public that the thing has been a failure: on the contrary, an endless series of successes is claimed (c.f. Swindon). Recently, a turn has taken place and we discuss its political implications later. From the viewpoint of the Y.S., this sudden concentration on Vietnam obviously represents an attempt to reach the youth, who are vitally needed for the running of the daily paper. But even this turn is carried out without any admissions of previous failings, indeed with an ingenuous air of great things past.

The Workers Press of 24th Dec. '69 is a typical example. The front page carries a report of the progress of their petition to stop Wilson's visit to Washington, laying emphasis on the number of members of other groups who have signed it. In the next column we read:

"1970 will be the 'Year of Lenin and Trotsky' for the Young Socialists - a year in which item number one on the agenda is the building of a mass revolutionary youth movement.

"The Young Socialists have pledged themselves to politically commemorate 100 years since the birth of Lenin and 30 years since the death of Trotsky with a programme of expansion for their youth paper Keep Left and recruitment never before embarked upon by this youth movement.

"Already YS branches up and down the country are driving full steam ahead for the first great event in 1970, the Weekend Rally of their paper on January 10 and 11.

"Right from the word 'go' (sic) this campaign has got off to a particularly good start.

"Branches are finding an enthusiastic response to the rally with its variety of events."

If this "building of a mass revolutionary youth movement" stood any chance of becoming a success, we would be all in favour of it. But unfortunately there is little reason to suppose that it will be. Firstly, the YS has cut itself off even physically from the radicalised youth; its members don't do the same things, go to the same places - partly because they spend so much time on the door-step. Secondly, and more importantly, the YS-SLL line, on so many questions, is either so wrong, so sharply presented, (or both), as to make it very unlikely that the youth whom they do recruit will stay around very long. So our hope is that, when they leave the YS, they will be able to find their way to some other form of revolutionary politics.

The All Trades Unions Alliance

This is one of the most difficult aspects of the SLL's work to understand. Their own appraisal in the last Conference resolution was:

"The All Trades Union Alliance was formed in order to organize together all those trade unionists moving towards the political struggle of the Socialist Labour League for revolutionary leadership in the trade unions. It is not, therefore, simply an alliance of all those who agree on one or more immediate policy questions in industry. This is what is meant by saying that the Alliance is the political arm [p. 48] of the League in the trade unions. In this sense the Alliance, like the Young Socialists for the politically developing youth, is a training-ground and preparation for League membership. Thus it is not a trade union in any sense but a rallying of all (?) the advanced political elements in all (?) unions, trained to take their place, as first, and foremost, fighters for a revolutionary leadership in the trade unions." (Emphasis added) (The Newsletter 21st June 1969)

A Political challenge explains that:

"(The Labour government) will not stand back and watch the development of the struggle in Britain and political preparation (this follows a reference to troops in Northern Ireland -T.W.) is necessary against them.

"That is why the All Trades Unions Alliance has such an important role; its aims is to build alternative socialist leadership in the unions."

Unfortunately, neither explains, nor can we find any explanation elsewhere, how the ATUA proposes to go about achieving that aim, which makes a critique to a certain extent difficult. But some points can be made. First, it seems to have few branches; its main "activity" seems to be the frequent Conferences. These, however, very rarely get down to any discussion of building a movement, either on a national level or on that of one industry. The last all-industry Conference, on 5th July 1969 (see The Newsletter July 12th et seq), consisted of a long speech by Gerry Healy ("Be prepared to Give Leadership"), followed by a series of soliloquies by various militants, and also by the other two Triumvirs - Central Committee members Cdes. Mike Banda and Cliff Slaughter. Most of the soliloquies merely repeated particular points Healy had made, or recounted "successes"; the inevitable resolution pledging to "redouble our efforts" was passed.

The second critical point is that, as the Conference resolution we quoted suggests, the leaders don't really want to build a movement. The aim of "organizing together all those trade unionists moving towards the political struggle of the Socialist Labour League for revolutionary leadership in the trade unions" is the "theoretical" basis for the practical measure of excluding I.S. militants who accepted the aims of the ATUA and were prepared to collobarate with the League in building the ATUA. (The aims are given in the ATUA warning we already quoted; they talk about British trade unions, but not the USSR. There is also the usual passage to the effect that membership is open to all who accept the aims.) That is to say, rather than have an oppositional movement of the masses of workers in any particular union, the League wants to recruit a few individuals. There is a theory, evolved recently under the impact of their failure to grow, which "justifies" this: summed up, it is that "Leadership is Decisive". More explicitly, the general idea is that if a few militants, preferably shop stewards, can be recruited in a factory, then they will be able (& prepared) "to give leadership" to the masses. There are two things wrong with this theory: that the issues raised by the activities of shop-stewards are almost entirely day-to-day trade union questions, and that the only opportunity provided for changing the politics of the masses are propaganda speeches and discussions (which, of course, are necessary [p. 49] but not sufficient). This theory is related to the almost comlete failure of the SLL these days to give any attention to the strategic problem facing British revolutionaries: to break the masses from reformist leaders, Labour and trade union. At times, we have seen, the SLL leadership seems to imagine the task has been completed, but no one will agree with them (except the Maoists), for around 10m workers, including most trade unionists, will vote Labour at the next election.

The third critical point is related to the second: that the policies on which the ATUA campaigns are either specific trade union demands - which, of course, are necessary, but bourgeois - or the most hair-raising ultra-left propaganda (of which we have given examples) produced by the leadership. We suspect that to a certain extent this is recognised; most of the efforts these days (see A Political Challenge) seem to be devoted to recruiting C.P. militants, and, if these are discontented with the complete absence of revolutionary propaganda or practice from the C.P.'s activities, there is a strong possibility that they will be attracted rather than repelled by the wild talk of the SLL. Unfortunately, however many C.P. militants one recruits, that will not solve the problem of breaking British social-democracy.

While discussing the trade union work of the SLL, we should perhaps point out that, because this is something which the leadership (in its own inimitable way) takes seriously, there is a complete absence of the hypocrisy and hysteria which characterises some of their other activities.

Thus, while attacking IS, IMG, etc, for taking part in joint activities with the Stalinists over the defence of the Vietnamese Revolution, they are quite happy to sit in strike committees, shop stewards' committees, etc, not only with C.P. members, but also with: Liberals, Tories, right-wing social-democrats, even racists. Of course, they don't hide their differences with these people, and fight for their own viewpoints within such activities, But in the trade unions, they do not strikebreak if they can't get their own way (usually). While on Vietnam...

What is more, when they do sit in these committees, they don't attack C.P. members over such issues as the Moscow Trials, the Hungarian Revolution, etc. (c.f. Liege). In fact, we are willing to bet that they don't even mention them. No, they put forward, of course, their own conceptions of how the struggles involved should be waged, and (as over the May Day strike) suggest struggles and courses of action which seem to them called for by the situation. Let's illustrate this point. To judge by a recent issue of Workers Press, shop stewards influenced by the SLL within the British Leyland combine committee supported the suggestion that 6d per week be levied, if possible, from all workers within the combine for a combine committee strike fund. We agree, it would be a good idea, provided only that it would not contradict the rules imposed by the union bureaucrats (and that only because those rules could not be successfully defied at present.) Apparently this suggestion was voted down by the C.P. and the right wing, and the C.P. and the right wing were denounced by Workers Press. Presumably some similar sentiments were expressed in the combine committee and at report back meetings to stewards committees locally. We are 100% certain that the Moscow Trials, the Hungarian Revolution, the colonial record of social democracy, class collaboration in two world wars, etc, etc, were not mentioned. So we can only conclude that all the chatter about Stalinists, & so on, in relation to V.S.C. is just not intended to be taken seriously (except possibly by the YS-SLL membership).

[page 50]

Workers Press

While the level of activity of ATUA members, unlike that of Y.S. members, has typically been what people might bear over a long period during the publication of The Newsletter, this has probably changed with the appearance of Workers Press. So it is worthwhile investigating what the SLL hopes to achieve with it.

The apaer was, of course, launched under completely different circumstances from those envisaged in 1963-64 when it was first decided to try to launch a daily. At that time, it was believed that the circulation of The Newsletter would continue to grow, with a minimum of 30,000 before the launching of the daily, and that the League's membership would continue to increase (see all the reports of recruitment at that time). This was linked to the perspective of a short-lived Labour government and mass unemployment, and by 1965 it was confidently anticipated that the paper would be launched in 1967. Unfortunately, the SLL had misjudged the situation, as we have seen, and things have developed along different lines.

One impact of these difficulties has been to change the character of the paper. Even in 1964-65, The Newsletter still carried mainly medium length reports and analyses, and the "Industrial Newsletter" on the back page was exceptionally good. These days, Workers Press presents a very different picture. Firstly, we have the interminable polemics against other tendencies, which are virtually meaningless anyhow, not to say in bad faith, and cannot conceivably interest any worker who buys a copy in a pub or on a street corner. Secondly, we have very good cinema and theatre critics, some very good stuff on Zionism and the Middle East (significantly, this is usually by a non-member of the League), and a number of very good industrial reports. But thirdly, we have the sloppy, outdated news reports, evidently poor rewrites of agency material, and fourthly [31], we have the unbelievable politics, particularly headlines such as "Leadership is Decisive", "Protests Against our Exclusion Grow", "Tory Press ban David Maude". We find it difficult to believe that the paper is intended to be read by average Labour-voting workers, even though it purports to be.

Moreover, the question still remains: why a daily? Except where militants can sell it on the strength of up-to-date industrial news, analysis and suggestions, what possible advantage does it have over a weekly or a twice-weekly? The fact that it is manifestly not an agitational paper only emphasizes the question, for the extreme organisational problems show no sign of being alleviated through a growth of circulation leading to sales through normal channels. The present writer can only conclude that the SLL leadership, having decided to have a daily when they had one assessment of the situation, are unable to change course, and remained determined to have a daily come what may.

We doubt, for the reasons outlined, whether they or the revolutionary movement as a whole will gain very much from it in its present [p. 51] form. But we reject predictions that it will collapse, because we know the devotion and self-sacrifice of the SLL's members and supporters. So we can only hope that in the future it will play some fruitful role in building the mass revolutionary movement.

[31] Fifthly, The Newsletter used to carry, and the signs are that Workers Press is going to carry, long unoriginal and frequently confused historical articles on the General Strike, the English Civil War, the degeneration of the Soviet Union, the French Revolution, the rise of Hitler...The British crisis of 1931 is a favourite topic - usually the occasion for arbitrary and mechanical analogies.

* * *

In closing this section with our views on tactics and party building, we shall try to put the matter in a long perspective.

Throughout the 1950s, both the SLL and the "state capitalist" IS - under their names of that period - carried out entry work within the Labour Party. The SLL was able to make much greater gains than the IS from the post-Hungary crisis of the British CP, partly because it had a better analysis of the Soviet Union.

Once the ferment in the CP died down, and particularly after the formation of the "open party", the SLL, in 1959, the League devoted itself again almost entirely to Labour Party work, particularly in the YS. At the same time it was "developing theory" in such a way as to put it at cross purposes with the rest of the world Trotskyist movement, and, encouraged by its successful recruiting, it saw fit to split. Since then, its perspectives have not been fulfilled, and it has undergone political and organisational degeneration.

This has been so marked that it has been unable to benefit from the radicalisation of youth in the late 1960s, which has renewed and invigorated all other political tendencies to the left of the CP. It now finds itself in the position of a sect, isolated, by virtue of its language, politics and tactics from large sections of the leftward-moving currents; even in the trade unions, its special field of work, few will be attracted to an organisation which predicts the imminent "virtual destruction" of those same unions.

Meanwhile, the IS has undergone enormous growth, and the Fourth International has been able to re-establish a section in Britain. This growth of revolutionary forces, however, while it is very welcome (particularly the growth of the IS, IMG, and also the relative growth of the SLL since 1960), has taken place under unfavourable conditions: outside the labour movement at a time when demoralisation was spreading through that movement, afflicting particularly the ranks of the Labour Party. So far as the fundamental task of breaking that party's hold on the British working class is concerned, we have still to start seriously on that task, though circumstances are more hopeful after five years of Wilson than they were.

One of the main difficulties, of course, is the sectarianism and factionalism, so irresponsible in the face of the tasks which remain to be achieved, of the British left. So far as the IS is concerned, there are signs of organisational and political difficulties within that organisation, the end result of which is likely to be a marked improvement in IS. But the Socialist Labour League, which along with IS shares most of the revolutionary-minded militants in industry, is a more difficult case: it combines pretensions to Trotskyism with extreme discipline, ultraleftism and sectarianism. So the qustion must be posed: can it overcome them? Can the SLL return to Trotskyism?

The immediate prospects are not good; unless a split develops in the very top ranks of the League. But sooner or later it will become clear, if not to the leadership then to the majority of the membership, that their present course is fatal, and - unless altered - will lead to the destruction of their organisation and cadre. In order to try to hasten that day, revolutionaries must, where the circumstances permit, try to overcome the factionalism, not only but especially, of the SLL.

[page 52]

These problems are likely to be posed much more sharply if - say as a result of a severe election defeat for Wilson - 'entry' work within the Labour party again becomes necessary. For undoubtedly a combination of 'entry' and 'open party'work will be called for, and under those circumstances a measure of co-operation (at the least) between revolutionary tendencies will be vital if redundant and duplicated work - not to mention faction fights - are to be avoided.

With these things in mind, what should revolutionaries do? Three points seem particularly important to recognise.

First, that while the crisis of the C.P. provides the opportunity both to recruit and to form temporary alliances, "destroying Stalinism" in Britain is not the main task; cadres should be educated with that in mind.

Second, that the relationship between the trade unions and the Labour Party is one of the peculiarities of the British working-class movement; it is likely that, on a local level, it will provide a means by which the fight against the Labour bureaucracy may be taken up again directly; and this has implications for the nature and aims of trade union work.

Third, that some cooperation between revolutionary groups may well be necessary - or at least desireable - as the time for building a mass revolutionary party draws near. So criticism of the IS's opportunism (say on Ireland), or the League's sectarianism (say on Vietnam), should be made in a way which will not render such co-operation impossible.

A firm hold on political principles, combined with a lack of organisational exclusiveness: these are the qualities revolutionaries need in Britain today.