It is well-known on the left that THE WEEK was started by a group of people placing great emphasis on the need for marxists to be active in the Labour Party. When THE WEEK was started in 1964 this was an easily understood point of view: Labour was on the eve of being elected and the mass of organised workers looked upon the advent of a Labour Government as the way forward politically. Now after three-and-a-half years of Labour Government and the undeniable fact that big sections of the working class have become hostile or apathetic towards the Labour Government is there any reason to change this view?
First, it should be noted that the view that marxists should be active in the Labour Party was based upon an expectation that the Labour Government would seek to make British capitalism work rather than try to carry out a social transformation of the country. We did not, perhaps, expect the Wilson Government to go so far to the right so QUICKLY as it did but we had no reason to believe that it would pursue a socialist or even a left-reformist policy. Neither have we ever held out the prospect of marxists taking hold of the apparatus of the Labour Party without a deep-going and fundamental schism.
THE ROLE OF WILSONISM
We have always held the view that the right-wing leaders of the Labour Party are the representatives of the capitalist class within the Labour movement. Their most important social role is to get the working class to accept the burden of bolstering up capitalism when it is in trouble. Concretely, this means that the special function of the Wilson Government is to push through measures which are necessary for British capitalism to rationalise itself. It seeks to do this by using its influence on the trade unions to reduce working class resistance to these measures. The entire history of the British Labour Party and all other right-wing social democratic parties bears out this assessment.
Second, we must admit that one of our expectations has definitely not been borne out: namely that the election of a Labour Government making savage attacks on the working class would lead quickly to a mass left wing emerging within the Labour Party.
OPPORTUNIST AND SECTARIAN MISTAKES
The principal responsibility for this sad state of affairs lies, we believe, with two important sections of the left: those who have refused to fight (or even criticise, in some cases) the Wilson leadership; and those who pulled out of the struggle inside the Labour Party. TRIBUNE and the majority of the Parliamentary left are typical of the first tendency, and the Socialist Labour League of the second.
TRIBUNE and most of the Parliamentary left put their faith in those members of the Cabinet who were formerly leaders of the remnants of the Bevanite opposition. In most cases they sought to subordinate the fight in the Labour Party to the vagaries of policy struggles going on in the Cabinet. This precluded them from trying to get massive rank and file struggle against Wilson's policies. Even today, TRIBUNE opposes the slogan "Wilson Out" (because the alternative to Wilson is Jenkins, it says) and sometimes even poses the struggle in terms of supporting Wilson's team against that of Jenkins and co. This is taking the theory of the lesser of two evils to its final logical absurdity.
Their reward has been to see former leftists doing the dirtiest work for Wilson: Greenwood in the Colonial Office, Judith Hart in social security and now, most revealing of all, Barbara Castle in charge of the application of the wage freeze and incomes policy. In strict class terms (abstracting out subjective factors) one can say that these people have used their "left" reputations to carry out the most reactionary of Wilson's policies. Yet many in the TRIBUNE camp refuse to break their links with them.
It has been very difficult to organise an effective opposition within the Labour Party in conditions where left-wing rank-and-filers have seen their former leaders completely in harness with Wilson. A struggle against the Government's right wing policies - from the very beginning - by the people who were the acknowledged leaders of the left would have transformed the situation. Such a struggle would have, of necessity, included a special critique of the Greenwoods and Castles.
THE COMMUNIST PARTY
The role of the Communist Party in all this has been to re-inforce the worst features of the traditional left. In their desperate search for unity the Communist Party leaders, whilst making correct and valuable criticisms of the Wilson Government, have tried to form a bloc with the Tribunites and the Parliamentary left. Because "unity" to the Communist Party means, in essence, glossing over differences with the centre and, in some cases, the right (but never those on the C.P.'s left) they have refrained from making a fundamental criticism of TRIBUNE and the Parliamentary left. They have done this even on such glaring questions as the TRIBUNE MANIFESTO and the behaviour of those "left" M.P.s who supported Israel's war of aggression against the Arab countries. Is it any wonder, under these circumstances, that the Communist Party has failed to make any important gains from the thousands of disillusioned Labour Party members?
The behaviour of the traditional left leaders did much to encourage the sectarians who left the Labour Party. But many of the people who led the walk out, being marxists of some vintage, should have known better. Some of them claim that the basic reason for them leaving the Labour Party was the expulsion of large numbers of Young Socialists from the Party. It is true that a considerable number of Young Socialists were expelled - supporters of THE WEEK were to the forefront in protesting against these expulsions - but much larger numbers left of their own accord. Had the KEEP LEFT Young Socialists received the correct education from their mentors in the S.L.L. their main campaign after the expulsions would have been a re-instatement fight. Instead they concentrated almost entirely upon building their organisation on a basis quite separate and distinct from the Labour Party.
This had quite serious results: at a time when the Wilson Government had started attacking the working class, and when the questioning within the broad ranks of Labour had commenced, 200 to 300 activists were pulled out of the Labour Party to concentrate on such revolutionary activities as organising teen-age marches, football matches (usually seven-a-side because of lack of numbers), dances and selling KEEP LEFT.
THE SCARBOROUGH CONFERENCE
At the 1965 Scarborough Labour Party conference a handful of delegates supporting THE WEEK managed to polarise the conference on several key issues. Had there been 20, 30 or [illegible] delegates doing the same job, which was entirely within the capacity of the KEEP LEFT Young Socialists had they worked on the right lines, the whole situation would have been different and the basis for a big left could have been laid.
Just now the KEEP LEFT Young Socialists seem to have lost much of their initial impetus (the numbers on their recent weekend of demonstrations are eloquent testimony to this view) so they have the worst of both worlds. The experience of these sincere but misguided young comrades is a terrible warning for any others thinking of trying the same experiment.
But does all this mean that our attitude towards the Labour Party is exactly the same as it was in 1964?
TWO FUNDAMENTAL PREMISES
Before answering, we need to state the fundamental premises upon which we base our case. There are two main ones:
Firstly, we recognise that capitalism in Britain will not be destroyed until the workers have created a mass socialist party. In fact this is the aim of all our work. However, history has shown that in capitalist "democracies" such parties, on the rare occasions when they have been built, only arise out of crisis and schism in one of the existing traditional workers' parties. This is quite easy to explain on theoretical grounds: the basic reason being that the consciousness of large sections of the working Class changes slowly and through experience rather than as the result of propaganda (although traumatic events, e.g., war and catastrophic slump, will very much speed the process).
Secondly, the particular structure of the British Labour movement, with affiliation of the trade unions to the Labour Party at all levels, has created a tenacious and multi-million-threaded bond between the organised working class and the Labour Party. In a certain sense one can say that the Labour Party and the organised working class are virtually identical. Of course, the policies of the Wilson Government are placing a great strain upon this relationship but so far - apart from some marginal cases - there has been no large scale rupture of the links between the organised working class and the Labour Party.
It should be noted, however, that in some cases these "marginal" sectors can be of extreme importance and have considerable importance for marxists in determining their tactics. Typical examples of this are: Scottish and Welsh Nationalism, the lack of confidence in the Labour Party shown by the majority of immigrant workers and certain tendencies in technical unions to question the value of links with Labour. (to be concluded in the next issue)