The New Left May-day Manifesto, which has sold out and reprinted already in ; less than one month, and which is triggering off a national series of eee nes ‘is not only a timely declaration of socialist independence from the increasingly ‘disgraceful politics of Wilsonism, At a time when even the Observer can editorialise against the complicity of the Cabinet in apartheid, appealing desperately, and of course, vainly, for one member of the administration to lay down his office in protest against the South African policies, it is not new for socialists to express their dismay at, and revulsion against, the Government's behaviour, If this were all it did, the New Left Manifesto would be a welcome but unexciting addition to a growing literature of disillusionment. . It is more important than that. At the same time that it takes issue with the Government, the Manifesto also reworks the original ground occupied by the New Left, and produces a striking and adventurous revaluation. In class terms, many of the old postures of the independent left are analysed and found wanting. For this reason it is extremely important that the discussion on the Manifesto should be extended, and be made as inclusive and exacting as possible, The essential themes of the pamphlet cover five main issues: neo-capitalism and the Labour Government; poverty, welfare and inequality; modern imperialism; war and peace; and the socialist outlook, In each of these fields there has been a systemisation and development of the thought of the New Left, a tightening of its conceptual apparatus, heightening its sense of reality. The sections on neo-capitalism and the managerial ploys of the Wilson team, and on poverty and welfare, will win immediate support from readers of The Week. That on welfare owes a great deal to the fabian researchers, Townsend, Abel-Smith, and Titmuss, on which we have already commented enthusiastically, When one turns to the section on neo-imperialism, one is bound to register the fact that this represents a marked advance, ‘The old, unfortunately too glib, assumptions about 'positive neutralism' have taken a fierce knock from the CIA, during the past three years. The frightful Indonesian bloodbath, the overthrow of Nkrumah, the subversion in Nigeria, the US intervention in Dominica, and the constantly intensified horror of Vietnam, all speak out sharply for the need to take sides, to identify and separate victim and aggressor, and to engage in the most direct and effect-~ ive possible struggle for the hungry against the strong, All this is sharply implied in the Manifesto, with its clear recognition of the United States influence at the centre of the Western bloc, and with its hardheaded analysis of the mechanism of imperial exploitation, which depends not only on brutal extortion, but also, and indeed primarily, on the mechanism of the world market. All those devices yet discovered and launched upon the world as. "aid" for underdeveloped lands have, as yet, only served to intensify their plight, In this context, the "cold war" has increasingly become a colonial war, for liberation on the one side, of punitive, forced integration inte capitalism on the other, No man can be "non-aligned" in such a battle, We have our sharp commitment against the authorities who both dominate our own lives and torment the peoples of the Third World,
The New Left Advances continued
As the Manifesto puts it:
"The fight egainst imperialism on an issue like Vietnam is substant<
ially linked with the fight against direction of our own economic
and political policies, not only by the Americans, but specifically
by the international institutions of monopoly capital which include
elements of our own society, In fighting anywhere, we are fighting
everywhere,"
This restatement of the imperative need for solidarity with the colonial
revolution will be of profound importance for the future of the left, For
too long the recognition of this need has been confined to isolated and
weak groupings, and has been able only to promote partial, if significant,
responses, But the fact that this Manifesto is selling thousands of
copies, taking these vital arguments to thousands of young people all over
the country, will bring powerful new forces into the battle,
At the same time, the work done by The Week, The Voice, and CSE in the
field of agitation for workers! control has been warmly accepted into the
heart of the new Manifesto, Indeed, the whole section on the need for
a renewed British Socialist Movement is the most difficult, most tentative
part of the New Left programme, Few answers are agreed, and much work has
necessarily to be done, It is therefore significant that the demands for
the Trade Unions are among the sharpest, most crystal of its prescriptions.
Some work has been done already to lasting effect. :
The sooner that the New Left, with all its strands, can coalesce again into
an inclusive movement, able to not only put forward this vital discussion,
but to begin to engage the enemy directly, the sooner we shall break out of
the present frozen impasse of betrayal surrounded in apathy, and apathy
bouyed up by betrayal. For this reason all of us should take part, in the
keenest way, to distribute this call, to organise discussion of it, and to
assist in the mobilisation to which it can lead,