"In order to survive, Labour will be forced to polarize opinion, to create polemic and a more vital struggle than the ones that have animated British political life since the end of the last Labour Government in 195l. It has no choice but the tactie of divide and conquer. An era of real conflict, of partisan battles whose lines inevitably coincide at least partly with the lines of class. This is perhaps the most hopeful prospect in the first weeks of a new Labour Government." These words conclude the editorial of the latest issue (Number 28) of New Left Review. The issue contains a number of items which will help to provide the underpinning analysis upon which such a strategy could evolve. Key among these is the second instalment of Tom Nairn's "The Nature of the Labour Party", which combs through the recent history of the movement to lay bare the prospects of socialist advance. Tom Nairn shows how the basis of the passivity of class-consciousness among the workers is being undermined, and points towards new possibilities for the left.
Other items include an interesting article, "What is Schizophrenia?" by R.D. Laing, which socialists should certainly not skip. He points out that this label, while not corresponding to any discernable mental condition, does correspond to a social condition, amounting to a political event in itself. We nobble and brainwash the victims of this event, instead of learning from them. William Blake and Jesus Christ, right nut-cases the pair_of then, would have short shrift today, one feels. Laing looks forward to the day when more enlightened men will look back on our own age of darkness, and see that"what we call schizophrenia was one of the forms in which, often through quite ordinary people, the light began to break through the cracks in our all-too-closed minds."
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