What We Stand For, Militant, 1981, 20p.
In the period leading to the expulsion of Militant's editors from the Labour Party, very little was said from right or left on the policies or activity of the paper's supporters inside the Labour Party.
This 'lapse' on the part of the perpetrators of the witch hunt is unsurprising — since their target was not merely (or even mainly) Militant, but the Bennite Left as a whole. However the Left does have a duty to understand why the organisation it is committed to defend from these attacks is today's target for Golding's inquisition, and what it stands for,
The witch hunt which resulted in February's expulsions began in earnest at the time of the capitulation of the Callaghan government to the dictates of the Treasury and the International Monetary Fund in 1976. Callaghan and Healey expected a sharp reaction from the left wing of the party to conditions which finally killed off the fine promises of the 1974 election manifesto. But the acknowledged representative of the Left in the Cabinet, Tony Benn, remained there until Thatcher's victory in May 1979. The Left ducked the issue.
To its credit Militant was the only centralised opposition force inside the Labour Party during that time which acted as a focus for the widespread discontent, Its sharply increased recruitment during this period reflected its unwonted prominence. It was vital that the right wing acted to show the rest of the Left that they would strike back hard at any attempt then or later to seek retribution for the great betrayal. Reg Underhill's famous 'report' was the result,
However the growth and victories of the Bennite current from Spring 1980 removed Militant's justified claim to be the only force on the Left fighting against the right wing leaders. Nevertheless the witch-hunters only temporarily relented. So why does Militant remain the target?
In some ways Militant is an obvious target for the Labour Right. Tight-knit and easily identifiable, its control of the Labour Party Young Socialists gives it decisive influence over an important instrument of the party's structure. But what Taafe's pamphlet illustrates is that the politics of the tendency leads it to a stance which is simultaneously sectarian and opportunist, Its isolation from the rest of the Left makes it an easier target than the leadership of the Left; its political weaknesses disarm it in the face of the Right's ideological attacks.
At no time has this been shown more clearly than during the South Atlantic war. Militant found itself not only isolated from the best elements of the left wing, but actually in alliance with Foot and Co. The crucial issue was to stop British intervention in the South Atlantic through the straightforward demand for the return of the fleet, which united all those opposed to British imperialism's intervention, whatever their position on the issue of Argentinian sovereignty over the Falklands.
Militant rejected this demand. Arguing the need for solidarity with the workers in uniform (the British expeditionary forces) it argued that the only realistic way to end the war was to gain a socialist Labour government which would conclude an arrangement for a 'socialist federation of Argentina, Britain and the Falkland Islands' (Militant 21.5.82). However even this prospect of socialist empire involved more conquest since, as the Militant International Review informed its startled readers, socialist Britain would declare war on fascist Argentina.
It may be speculated why Militant arrived at such a bizarre conclusion. Certainly there was no clue in the opening sentence of the first major article which considered the Falklands crisis, in which Militant urged its readers to study the class relations between the two countries, But this injunction was then ignored by the author who gave no attention to the fact that this relationship is an imperialist one.
The result of this lack of concreteness is that Militant, in one of the two main military engagements of British imperialism since Suez, came out on the wrong side. This could perhaps be excused as an aberration under extreme pressure from the right wing of the bureaucracy. But the problem with this argument is that in the other main military commitment of British imperialism the same is true — namely in Ireland.
Now here is a peculiar thing. The question of Militant's policy in relation to Ireland does not appear either in the 20 point programme nor in the body of the text of Peter Taafe's 30 page pamphlet. There are two possible explanations for this omission. The first, and most charitable, is that it is a mistake. The second, and the most likely, is that this struggle against British imperialism (another absent concept in the pamphlet) is not considered important enough to figure as a major plank of Militant's policy. This is not a mistake but a capitulation to social chauvinism.
Of course the capitulation has its theorisation. Socialism, Militant argues, is the solution to the problems of the Irish working class — which no one from Jim Callaghan leftwards would disagree with, But, in the same way as the Labour Right and (in this case) most of the Labour Left, it counterposes the struggle for socialism to the national struggle. In the past it has sternly argued for; 'Firmly opposing the methods of individual terror used by sectarian organisations like the Provisional IRA and the Loyalist UDA ...' (Militant 26.9.80), A campaign for the simple demands of troops out now and self determination for the Irish people as a whole are opposed by Militant which ties it instead to the necessity of creating a trade union defence force from a northern Irish trade union movement, which is divided by ... the national question!
It is this pressure on Militant to adopt social chauvinist positions which reduces its Marxism to the most mechanical ambiguous and deterministic formulae,
The same disease effects the pamphlet when it addresses itself to the struggle for workers' power. In a passage dealing with a critique of the Alternative Economic Strategy it points out correctly that it is naive of the Labour Party Left to think that even a minimal programme for a 35 hour week and nationalisation of the twenty five top monopolies would be implemented without fierce opposition from the bosses and international capital.
The pamphlet proposes this solution to the problem: 'It is for this reason that Militant has put forward the demand for the nationalisation of the two hundred monopolies including the banks and the insurance companies ... these measures would be carried through in parliament by means of an enabling act ...'. It continues that: 'Nothing could stand in the way of a Labour government which campaigned around such a programme.' But this takes us back to where we started; namely that the capitalists will show little respect for parliament when their profits are threatened.
Anticipating this argument the pamphlet goes on to explain Militant's attitude to the use of violence in the struggle and whether socialism can be achieved without the spilling of blood. Again correctly it points out that it is the capitalist class which perpetrates violence and terror in order to maintain its rule, as it did in Chile. But having got this far the pamphlet again ducks the issue and argues that the way to combat such ruthlessness on the part of the bosses is by understanding that: 'All the scheming and conspiring of the capitalists can come to nothing on the basis of a bold socialist policy backed by the mass mobilisation of the labour movement ... a peaceful transformation of society is possible in Britain, but only on the condition that the full power of the labour movement is boldly used.'
This of course is the famous debate on the relation between parliamentary and extra-parliamentary action, raised to recent prominence by the Foot-Tatchell dispute. But what must be stated clearly in any such discussion and eventual strategy is whether it is the extra-parliamentary struggle which determines activity in parliament or vice versa. Without this Foot and Tatchell are reunited and the distinction between a reformist and revolutionary approach blurred over. And this blurring is exactly what happens when the pamphlet refuses to specify how 'the full power of the labour movement' is to be organised and through what institutions it will challenge the institutions of ruling class power.
In the Chilean case the crucial issue was the army — an institution which could not be wielded in the interests of the workers but was to be the sword of the bourgeoisie in drowning the Popular Unity 'experiment' in blood. The key issue is whether the 'power of the labour movement' should be expressed as the popular will through parliament and the existing mass reformist parties or whether special instruments are needed to harness that popular will directly. Every single revolutionary situation in the advanced capitalist countries has seen the emergence in some shape or form of workers' councils. Where the armed might of the bourgeoisie has loomed there has been likewise the formation of workers' militias or defence forces — a tendency towards the arming of the working class in self-defence.
But where the pamphlet should explain this as the historical experience of the working class from the Paris Commune to Portugal, instead it proposes that to avoid such circumstances the working class be armed with the Marxist programme. Again the argument is circular and ambiguous. What should this programme say about working class self-defence? Taafe has no answer in his pamphlet nor in the 16 pages that appear weekly under his editorship. In fact when debating Shirley Williams in the Guardian prominent Militant supporter Nick Bradley felt confident to assert unequivocally to her demand as to whether socialist objectives can be achieved through parliament: 'We answer yes'.
In practice Militant relies on the enormous strength of the British working class to intimidate the capitalists. But this ignores the Political strategy needed by a working class leadership to channel that enormous organisational power to smash the resistance of the capitalists. Instead Militant offers a combination of cheering on the economic struggle and socialist propoganda; assuming an attitude of complete hostility towards struggles around democratic and partial demands, which can weaken the political position of the ruling class and win the working class allies from the rank of the oppressed.
This overall approach partly accounts for the isolation of Militant from the mass struggles and campaigns. CND in particular is branded by Militant ideologues as a petty bourgeois pacifist movement. This is part of a practice in the classic social democratic mould whose programme is not one of action spelling out the steps from here to our future goal of socialism, but a list dividing up what we can do now and what we can do in the future. Hence the approach which says that there is no point in campaigning against the Bomb since it won't be defeated until we get rid of capitalism. The contribution that a movement built against the Bomb can make to the struggle against capitalism is minimalised.
A similar approach informs the attitude of the pamphlet towards divisions within the working class on racial and sexual lines. From its assumption that the working class is already homogenous the pamphlet fails to outline a strategy for winning both class unity and the unity of the oppressed with the working class as part of the struggle against capitalism.
The notion of the working class vanguard as a tribune of the oppressed is absent in Taafe's account. From this point of view the necessity of black or women's self-organisation is seen as inevitably divisive.
This static view of class relations is related to the content of the propoganda line put forward by Militant. Economic determinism is presented as an external force leading to a socialist transformation, not the actual relations between classes or the contradictions within them. Thus countries like Syria or Burma are declared workers' states because of the extent of nationalisation in these countries: completely ignoring the actual relationship between these countries and imperialism and their political institutions organising society,
The pamphlet's persistent claim is that it is the policies of Militant that have brought down this cowardly bureaucratic attack from the right wing of the party, However this is only true in so far as it shares those policies of the Left of the party which are under attack by the Labour leadership. In so far as Militant distinguishes itself from the rest of the Left it is through a sectarian approach which isolates it and makes it a point of attack for the 'divide and rule' tactics of the witch hunters.
The lesson for fighting the witch hunt is therefore that the attack is not only against Militant but against the whole of the Left. That is why the defence of the Militant must be the first task for every activist in the Labour Party and the trade unions,
JUDITH ARKWRIGHT is a former women's correspondent for Socialist Challenge, and currently a member of the NUR.