Labour or The Red Front?

LINDA RYAN

Labour or The Red Front? As election fever mounted through the early months of 1987 the disintegration of the Labour Party became a central theme of public debate. The left is the most immediate casualty of Labour's decline.

A panic-stricken Labour leadership has shifted further to the right and stepped up the attack on the left. Left wingers have been ordered to keep quiet and local party organisations in London and Birmingham have been placed under central control.

The leadership's onslaught on the left over the past three years has proved to be a very uneven contest. Left wingers have responded to the mounting attack from the national executive by retreating and keeping their heads down. When prominent members of the Militant Tendency were purged, the rest of the left made only perfunctory protests. Leading left wingers like Tony Benn publicly emphasised their loyalty to the Kinnock-Hattersley leadership.

When in January 1985 various newspapers speculated that Benn was considering a challenge to Kinnock, the left indignantly proclaimed its innocence of charges of factional activity: *An unholy alliance tried to provoke the left into challenging Neil Kinnock for the party leadership. Had the provocation succeeded then it would have been used in a propaganda campaign accusing the left of splitting the party."

8 Labour or The Red Front?

Since 1985 the left has made a virtue of not fighting back against the leadership. Yet the strategy of cowering in retreat has failed to deflect the accusation that the left is to blame for Labour's apparently inexorable decline. Indeed the left has become so firmly established as the villain of the piece that it is likely to bear the burden of the blame for the re-election of Margaret Thatcher for a third term. The term 'loony left' has become widely used in the labour movement itself and most of the left is now wary of promoting policies which the media might label as extremist.

The collapse of the Labour left is, in itself, of little consequence.

The problem is that, in the process of its demise, the left has discredited progressive ideas and policies throughout the working class. Even the most militant sections of the labour movement have been influenced by the left's paralysis, drawing the conclusion that now is not the time for resistance. The very silence of the left seems to confirm that there is no alternative to Kinnock. Meanwhile others are busy providing more right-wing options - such as tactical voting for the SDP/Liberal Alliance. To counter these trends it is necessary to begin by examining the defects of the strategy of the Labour left.

An unyielding dogma For the British left, it has long been regarded as beyond question that it should support the Labour Party in elections. Over the 80 years since the foundation of the party this position has become so firmly established that it has acquired the status of an incontrovertible truth. The left's devotion to the cause of electing Labour to government is such that the leadership can count on the • loyalty of the left irrespective of its conduct or policies. This is how Labour Briefing, the journal of one hard-left faction, sums up the left's approach: 'So the prospects for 1987 look gloomy. What should the left be doing?

Despite everything, we must campaign vigorously for a Labour victory.

Only a Labour victory can open the door to any of the political initiatives

Labour or The Red Front? to which the left is committed. A third Tory government would be a huge defeat for us - and for the cause of the oppressed.

*But as we fight for the election of a Labour government, we must say clearly that we have no faith in the capacity of the present programme — or leadership — to solve any of the severe problems facing the working class." The fact that Labour Briefing has no faith in Labour's programme has little consequence because it endows the party itself with special powers which hold the key to the future of the left. This standard *critical support formula is regarded as axiomatic for the Labour left. As long ago as 1922 the newly formed Communist Party of Great Britain was already calling for critical support for Labour in its monthly trade union journal: 'Wise tactics demand that we should do our utmost to return the Labour Party to power. Nobody knows the shortcomings of the Labour Party better than we, but we must be prepared to temporarily overlook those shortcomings and establish the political United Front."

The Communist Party's appeal for support for Labour caused little internal dissension. It required the Communist International to remind the British party that the task of communists was not to overlook but to expose the shortcomings of Labour. Over the past 65 years countless British left wingers, even some who considered themselves revolutionaries, have repeated the call for critical support for Labour. After the early twenties the Stalinist degeneration of the Communist International removed the external corrective to the powerful tendencies towards opportunism in the British left. The left's approach to the 1979 general election — the election that first brought Thatcher to power - provides a more modern illustration of the consequences of the critical support strategy. One now defunct far-left paper suggested that 'socialists inside and outside the party have to face the grim reality that there is no alternative but to call for the return of a Labour government.* The

Labour or The Red Front? 10 same sentiment of resignation led even organisations which remained outside the Labour Party to summon their supporters to the polls. 'We can't pretend that a call to vote Labour again can be made without choking back our disgust,' argued the Socialist Workers Party, "but at least the devil we know has one advantage for the left." The left often tempers its disgust at calling for a vote for Labour with attempts to discover something positive in Labour's programme. Back in 1922 the Communist Party argued that the Labour Party returned to power means a distinct break with the political past of this country: it means that the organised working class movement can have much influence on future legislation.* It is perhaps understandable that left wingers could have high expectations at a time when the Labour Party had yet to form its first government. Since that time Labour has formed governments on eight occasions (in 1924, 1929, 1945, 1950, 1964, 1966, February and October 1974). It should now be apparent even to those who are most resilient to learning from experience that putting Labour in government is no guarantee that the cause of the working class will prosper. It seems that on the British left dogma triumphs over reason time after time. In fact the left has generally become more reluctant to spell out what is positive about Labour's programme. One exception is the tradition associated with the Socialist Workers Party. In the early sixties it could discover radical elements in the policies promoted by a solidly moderate leadership: 'Nobody in the Labour Party will benefit from a split in the party; only the Tories will benefit... We of the left cannot reduce or minimise our differences with the Labour right; but we can fight in the same party for such radical proposals as Anthony Crosland's reforms for the educational system and proposals for really punishing redistributive taxation, which would lead on towards income equality."

After the Wilson-Callaghan governments of the sixties and seventies, it is rare for Labour's policies to receive such enthusiastic commendation from the left. Before considering the arguments the

Labour or The Red Front? 11 left now uses to justify its continuing support for Labour, let's look back at the revolutionary Marxist approach to the Labour Party.

The Marxist tradition In contrast to today's far left, for revolutionary Marxists it was inconceivable that the Labour Party could play a progressive role.

Whereas the British left has consistently emphasised the tactic of critical support, Marxists have always stressed the importance of independent working class organisation.

As early as 1881 Frederick Engels urged the English working class to establish an independent political party. The fact that the working class had 'contented itself with forming...the tail of the "Great Liberal Party"", he described as a political position unworthy of the best organised working class of Europe'. He noted that 'everywhere the labourer struggles for political power, for direct representation of his class in the legislature — everywhere but in Great Britain.' He bemoaned the fact that 'the English working class allows the landlord, the capitalist and retail trading classes, with their tail of lawyers, newspaper writers, etc, to take care of its interests. In the last 10 years of his life Engels encouraged all tendencies towards the establishment of a working class party.

Engels' efforts were in vain. A number of socialist organisations - including the Independent Labour Party and the Social Democratic Federation — were launched in the 1880s and 1890s, but no effective working class party emerged. It was not until 1900 that the trade union leaders set up the committee to push their interests in parliament that renamed itself the Labour Party in 1906.

Although the new party was supported by workers and socialists, it was itself neither working class nor socialist. It was directly sponsored and controlled by a labour bureaucracy that had already drawn closer to the state than it was to the rank and file. The bureaucrats' political outlook was closer to the British Liberal Party than to the European social-democratic parties.

The Labour Party's application for membership of the Socialist International in 1908 provoked a divided response. Right wingers

12 Labour or The Red Front?

argued that Labour should be admitted on the grounds that it was a working class organisation, independent of bourgeois parties and involved in waging the class struggle — even if its leaders denied its existence. Left wingers opposed Labour's admission until the party recognised the principles of class struggle socialism. Speaking for the Russian Bolshevik Party, Lenin rejected the right-wing argument as opportunist and the left's as formal and static. He recommended approval of Labour's application, not because of what Labour was, but because of what it could become. Although it was tied to the ruling class, the Labour Party was a move in the right direction. It was 'the first step on the part of really proletarian organisations of Britain towards a class conscious policy and towards a socialist workers' party'?

Lenin repeatedly urged British socialists to go beyond their organisational break with the Liberal Party and forge an independent political approach. He constantly criticised the policies of the Independent Labour Party, which now formed the left flank of the Labour Party. Focusing on the key word in its title, Lenin wrote that the ILP was 'independent only of socialism and dependent on Liberalism'. The strictures of the Bolsheviks reached a climax in the years after 1914. On the outbreak of the First World War, the leaders of the Labour Party and the leaders of European social democracy supported the imperialist policies of their respective national ruling classes and betrayed the international proletariat. For the Bolsheviks, the First World War was a watershed. It marked the total capitulation of the social-democratic parties (including the Labour Party) to the class enemy. To move forward the working class had now to establish new communist parties separate from the old socialist parties of the labour bureaucracy.

Once they had seized power in Russia in 1917, the Bolsheviks made the formation of a new Communist International to replace the discredited Socialist International a top priority.

Britain was one of the world's leading powers and had a highly organised working class movement. Lenin and the Bolsheviks devoted considerable energy to promoting the formation of a communist party in Britain. Lenin advised British communists to

Labour or The Red Front? 13 follow a distinctive anti-capitalist line on all political issues: *In Great Britain the communists should constantly, unremittingly and unswervingly utilise parliamentary elections and all the vicissitudes of the Irish, colonial and world-imperialist policies of the British government, and all other fields, spheres and aspects of public life."

Lenin was unrelenting in his condemnation of the Labour Party. It was a "thoroughly bourgeois party led by reactionaries'. It was 'an organisation of the bourgeoisie which exists to systematically dupe the workers"." Lenin advised a clear break with the Labour approach, advising British communists to work 'in a new way, in a communist way, in the spirit of the Third (communist) International, not the Second (reformist) International'.!?

Following Lenin's death Trotsky maintained the continuity of the Marxist tradition. In his writings on Britain in the twenties, Trotsky rated the issue of building the Communist Party as the *question of questions" . He emphasised that the Communist Party could only be built 'in the process of a permanent and irreconcilable struggle* against the politics of 'the conservative bureaucracy in the trade unions and the Labour Party": "The Communist Party will prepare itself for the function of leadership only by a merciless criticism of the entire dominating staff of the English labour movement, only by a constant unmasking of its conservative, antiproletarian, imperialist, monarchic, lackeyish function in all fields of social life and the class movement."3 The need to build an independent party, from scratch in the 1880s, through the Labour Party up to 1914, and by destroying it after the First World War, is the central theme of the Marxist tradition on the British labour movement. Marxists and the Labour left The Marxist tradition's emphasis on class independence stands out sharply against the practice of the British left. The contrast between the two approaches is particularly highlighted in their attitude to the

Labour or The Red Front? 14 Labour left. Although often critical, the British far left has adopted the cause of the Labour left as its own and it has often appeared indistinguishable from it.

At the beginning of 1923 the Communist Party rejoiced at the election of a new group of Labour left MPs. One party periodical commented enthusiastically that for the first time they have introduced politics into the Labour Party; for the first time they raised the standard of socialism in the Labour Party.* The experience of the past 60 years has done little to diminish the far left's affection for radical parliamentarians. Linking up with the Labour left against the leadership has become a standard far-left strategy.

In the early fifties the faction associated with Gerry Healy, which later became the Workers Revolutionary Party, paid tribute to the popular figure of Aneurin Bevan, then the leader of the parliamentary left: *The basis for a socialist programme already exists within the Labour Party — the majority of the party is prepared to fight for this "new policy" against the pro-capitalist policies of the right wing. This is the significance of the Bevan movement, which so far as it aims at mobilising the ranks against the right wing transcends all "sectional" and personal quarrels."

Healy's rivals in the faction that subsequently became the Socialist Workers Party agreed on his assessment of Bevan. Under the headline 'First task of socialists to defend Bevan', Socialist Review argued that 'in the course of the struggle wide sections of the rank and file will develop far beyond the ideas of Bevanism and will begin to forge a leadership really serious in its determination to achieve socialism. *16 In the steps of Bevan came Tony Benn. Three decades later the .

SWP made the 1981 campaign to elect Benn deputy leader of the party a key focus of activity. Noting that many militants were 'excited about Benn's stand" and were 'developing an interest in all ', the SWP boasted that it has become easier to sell socialist ideas Socialist Worker as a result.* Four years later the problem for the SWP was that Benn was not doing more: 'He has good ideas but no strategy for putting them into practice."® As in the fifties, the far left

Labour or The Red Front? 15 had its criticisms of the leaders of the Labour left. But given the fact that the left considered that its own future depended on the patronage of the Labour left these criticisms had little consequence.

In fact the far left rarely questioned Labour left policies — only its willingness to fight for them. The implication of the far left's approach is that it is willing to provide the foot soldiers if only the reluctant generals of Labour would give a lead. Socialist Worker chided Benn in a tone more sorrowful than angry: *By refusing to take on Kinnock, he does a disservice to everyone who wants to fight Thatcher.*19 The deferential attitude of the far left to the parliamentary left is alien to the Marxist tradition. Take the views of Engels on Keir Hardie, one of the founders of the Labour Party, revered by generations of left wingers as a pioneer of British socialism. Engels had scant respect for his moralistic socialism, his chauvinism and his opportunism. He dismissed him as 'over-cunning' and as a man *whose demagogic artfulness one cannot trust 2° Trotsky was equally scathing in his polemics against the Labour left of the twenties. He concentrated his fire on George Lansbury, still praised by the left today as a pacifist and council campaigner in Poplar, and the Clydeside group of the Independent Labour Party - John Wheatley, James Maxton and David Kirkwood. In contrast to the far left today, Trotsky emphasised not what was distinctive about the left wingers, but singled out the crucial views they held in common with right-wing Labour leaders such as railway workers' leader Jimmy Thomas: *The characteristics of conservatism, religiosity, national conceit, will be found in varying degrees in all the present-day official leaders, from the extreme right Thomas to the left Kirkwood."21 Trotsky's scathing dismissal of the Labour left stemmed from his recognition of its subservience to the labour bureaucracy. The left wing of the party has no political alternative that is independent of the labour bureaucracy. Even if it wants to do something positive

Labour or The Red Front? 16 for the working class, the left lacks the power to influence events.

Inside the Labour Party it has to accept the terms set by the labour bureaucracy. If the left steps out of line it is vilified and threatened with expulsion. The suppression of the left is always an option for the Labour leadership. The recent expulsions of Militant leaders and the clampdown on the London left expose the sham of left-wing influence inside the party.

Why then does the labour bureaucracy tolerate the left? The Labour leaders recognise that the left plays a useful role in retaining the party's influence in the working class. Throughout the miners' strike it was left-wing activists who kept up links between the mining communities and the Labour Party, while the party leaders scabbed on the strike. The very people who despise Kinnock, but still cry that there is an alternative, play a crucial role in preserving Labour's image as a party of the working class. Without its left-wing activists the Labour Party could not continue to dominate the working class.

This point is well-understood by the more astute Labour politicians.

Former cabinet minister Richard Crossman explained how the leadership manipulates the left: *The Labour Party required militants... politically conscious socialists to do the work of organising the constituencies. But since these militants ', a constitution was needed which maintained tended to be "extremists" their enthusiasm by apparently creating a full party democracy while excluding them from effective power. Hence the concession in principle of sovereign powers to the delegates at the annual conferences, and the removal in practice of this sovereignty — through the trade union bloc vote on the one hand, and the complete independence of the parliamentary Labour Party on the other.*22 Excluded from effective power inside the party, the left is allowed to perpetuate the myth that Labour has the potential for advancing the cause of the working class. It is a myth shared — consciously or unconsciously -by much of the far left.

Labour or The Red Front? 17 The United Front Many left wingers who identify with the Bolshevik tradition point to the United Front tactic recommended by the Communist International to justify their policy of critical support for Labour. Indeed the United Front is invoked to justify virtually every tactical manoeuvre of the far left in relation to the Labour Party. In fact the left's conception of the United Front has little in common with that of the Communist International. The left has ignored the central purpose of the United Front and merely adapted some of its organisational aspects — notably Lenin's 1920 appeal to British revolutionaries to join or affiliate to the Labour Party.

The United Front tactic was a specific policy designed for specific circumstances. The tactic was developed in the period when the international working class upsurge that followed the Russian Revolution and the end of the First World War had passed its peak and was losing momentum. New communist parties had been established in most European countries, but often too late to take decisive advantage of the moment of revolutionary ferment. The result was that significant numbers of workers remained with the established social-democratic organisations. The problem facing the Communist International was how to overcome the isolation of the communist vanguard through winning the masses away from the influence of the reformist parties.

The United Front tactic was designed to help the communist parties win over the mass of the working class to the side of the international vanguard in the unstable situation that prevailed in Europe in 1920 and 1921. This tactic has no immediate relevance for the isolated currents of revolutionaries in Britain in the 1980s. We are forced to undertake more modest tasks: to create the class conscious working class vanguard that is the indispensable first step towards winning mass influence. Without at least a nucleus of a new working class leadership it is futile to attempt to win mass support.

The reasoning behind the adoption of the United Front tactic in the early twenties shows how inappropriate it is for modern conditions.

In his famous, but widely misunderstood, pamphlet, 'Left-wing' Communism: An Infantile Disorder, Lenin based his whole argument

Labour or The Red Front? 18 on the assumption that an authoritative class leadership was already in existence: •The chief thing has already been achieved: the vanguard of the working class has been won over, has ranged itself on the side of Soviet government and against parliamentarianism, on the side of the dictatorship of the proletariat and against bourgeois democracy. *23 Having clearly established this first step, Lenin proceeded to focus on the next step-the search after forms of the transition or the approach to the proletarian revolution Lenin repeatedly insisted that the proletariat could not move forward towards taking power unless the communist party had already won the vanguard: "The proletarian vanguard has been won over ideologically. That is the main thing. Without this, not even the first step towards victory can be made. Now that the vanguard exists revolutionaries can turn to the task of winning the proletarian masses to their sides. To do this requires that the masses must have their own political experience."

Lenin emphasised that the masses must see for themselves the dead end offered by the social-democratic parties. This was the purpose of the United Front tactic. By offering the hand of unity to the reformists, Lenin hoped to engage the masses in a common struggle in defence of working class interests. The object was that through the experience of joint struggle the masses would see the inadequacy of their reformist leaders and appreciate the relevance of revolutionary politics. The Bolsheviks emphasised that the United Front tactic was specifically designed for mass work. According to Lenin, 'As long as it was (and inasmuch as it still is) a question of winning the proletariat's vanguard over to the side of communism, priority went and still goes to propaganda work. Lenin was precise about the scale of "practical actions by the masses' he had in mind. He remarked that 'in these circumstances, one must not count in thousands, like the propagandist belonging to a small group that has not yet given leadership to the masses, in these circumstances

Labour or The Red Front? 19 one must count in millions, and tens of millions.'

Trotsky too gave precise guidance on circumstances in which the United Front tactic was appropriate: 'In cases where the Communist Party still remains an organisation of a numerically insignificant minority, the question of its conduct on the mass struggle front does not assume a decisive practical and organisational significance. In such conditions, mass actions remain under the leadership of the old organisations which by reason of their still powerful traditions continue to play the decisive role.

"Similarly the problem of the United Front does not arise in countries where — as in Bulgaria, for example — the Communist Party is the sole leading organisation of the toiling masses.

*But wherever the Communist Party already constitutes a big, organised, political force, but not the decisive magnitude; wherever the party embraces organisationally, let us say, one fourth, one third or even a larger proportion of the organised proletarian vanguard, it is confronted with the question of the United Front in all its acuteness.

In Britain in 1987 revolutionaries are a numerically insignificant minority. In the absence of a vanguard in the working class today, the United Front tactic is quite inappropriate.

It could be argued that the 5000 or so British communists Lenin advised to affiliate to the Labour Party in 1920 were a marginal political force. But any such parallel between revolutionaries in Britain today and 65 years ago ignores crucial differences. Although it was not a mass party, the early Communist Party influenced strategic sectors of the trade union movement. It brought together activists with two decades of experience in building trade unions and fighting for decent wages, and veterans of agitation among the unemployed and in support of women's rights and Irish freedom.

The communist militants enjoyed widespread influence in a working class in which a substantial section was profoundly hostile to the capitalist system and identified strongly with the proletarian movement which had seized power in Russia and was taking to the streets throughout Europe. In 1920 hundreds of thousands of British workers were prepared to take industrial action and march in solidarity with the revolt against British rule in Ireland. The difference from today is clear.

Labour or The Red Front? 20 The Labour leadership had only a precarious grip on the British working class. Beatrice Webb, the Fabian writer whose husband penned Labour's 1918 constitution, captured the anxieties of the labour bureaucrats in her diaries: *Meanwhile the leaders of the labour movement are distinctly uneasy about the spirit of revolt among the rank and file, which openly proclaims its sympathy with the lurid doings in Petrograd."

In these circumstances even the relatively small numbers of British communists had the potential to challenge Labour's hegemony over the working class. The radicalisation of the working class forced the Labour leaders to move carefully. The bureaucrats still lacked a secure hold on the Labour Party and had to deal carefully with dissidents lest they provoke the rank and file. Until 1924 it was still possible to be an open communist and a member of the Labour Party. Despite the protestations of the leadership, some constituency parties adopted Communist Party members as parliamentary candidates. In the November 1922 general election, two Communist Party members were elected to parliament-Walton Newbold in Motherwell and Shapurji Saklatvala in Battersea. Several other communists stood unsuccessfully as Labour candidates. Backed by a thriving international vanguard, linked up in the Communist International, the Communist Party of Great Britain had a fighting chance to connect with a radicalised working class and channel its energies into a challenge to the still feeble labour bureaucracy.

Taken out of context the United Front tactic ceases to be an effective weapon against reformism. If a vanguard does not exist, the tactic cannot provide an effective challenge to the labour bureaucracy. An insignificant movement cannot expose a mass party. Its plea for unity makes no sense to the working class since Labour already unites the masses behind it. Under such circumstances the plea for unity or its contemporary parallel, for critical support, can mean only subservience to Labourism.

Experience confirms that the left's indiscriminate attempts to pursue the United Front tactic lead only to its further subordination to the Labour Party. Advocates of the tactic have made careers out

Labour or The Red Front? 21 of finding and securing a niche in the Labour Party machine. This approach is antithetical to that recommended by the early Communist International, which intended to support Labour *in the same way as the rope supports a hanging man'. The original emphasis was on destroying the Labour Party, not on helping it to succeed. For Lenin there was no virtue in permanent residence inside the Labour Party: If the British Communist Party starts by acting in a revolutionary manner in the Labour Party, and if the Hendersons are obliged to expel the party, that will be a great victory for the communist and revolutionary working class movement in Britain.*26 This attitude stands in sharp contrast to the behaviour of the leaders of today's Militant Tendency. After being expelled from the Labour Party, they crawled to the capitalist courts to demand 'natural justice so that they could return to their home. The Bolsheviks understood that anybody who pursued Marxist policies would not survive long in the party of the labour bureaucracy.

The United Front tactic has no relevance for today. The most pressing task of the moment is the struggle to forge a revolutionary vanguard. Until we create a vanguard the influence of the labour bureaucrats in the working class will continue without an effective challenge and they will continue to get away with their betrayals.

Only by building an independent alternative can we give workers' anger with Labour a coherent focus.

The lesser evil The real reason why left wingers cling doggedly to the United Front tactic is their understandable fear of facing up to their isolation from the millions of workers who vote Labour. This is why the left has abandoned any attempt to take on Labour at the polls. The left has long settled for trying to push Labour in a left-wing direction, rather than pursuing the arduous task of challenging the arguments of Labourism. The instinct of self-preservation governs the left's relationship to Labour. Because of the irrationality of the loyalty of many left

22 Labour or The Red Front?

wingers to Labour, their arguments often appear muddled and incoherent. Some resort to the argument that because the Labour Party, like the unions, is supported by workers, left wingers have a duty to work within it. The simplistic equation of the trade unions and the Labour Party misses one essential point. Revolutionaries support the goals of trade unions, but consider that protecting wages and working conditions is not enough to defend the working class. Revolutionaries do not support the goal of the Labour Party — a reformed capitalist system. Here the problem is not that Labour's policies do not go far enough, but that they contradict the interests of the working class. This explains why every Labour government turns against the class that elected it into office.

The only consistent argument the left advances to justify its support for Labour is that it is not as bad as the Tories. Given the difficulty of quantifying degrees of evil it is not surprising that it is difficult to find a coherent argument for this point of view. Old campaigners sometimes reminisce about the achievements of the post-war Labour government and imply that Labour is still capable of great deeds. Such selective historical accounts ignore the fact that governments of all political complexions in all advanced capitalist countries implemented similar policies of nationalisation and welfare reform. These policies were necessary to meet the requirements of a restructured capitalist order. While state intervention in industry and welfare may have brought some benefits to the working class, it cannot be regarded as a monument of distinctively socialist achievement.

The left's attachment to the lesser evil argument also verges on the irrational. Thus two respected left-wing academics - Ralph Miliband and Leo Panitch — can conclude a rigorous critique of • social democracy with the following statement: *Socialists in Britain have to support the return of a Labour government; and American socialists, presented with no alternative in many states, may even have to vote for Democratic candidates. In the constricted choice offered at the present time, it is clearly of great importance that the most reactionary bourgeois politicians should be driven from office. "7

Labour or The Red Front? 23 Miliband and Panitch accept 'the constricted choices offered at the present time' as the starting point for their strategy. But why?

Marxists have never accepted the terms offered by capitalist society, but have always sought to project a new alternative. From a Marxist point of view there can be no justification for choosing the lesser evil. Indeed there is no justification for Marxists to vote for non- Marxist parties. And who are the 'most reactionary bourgeois politicians"? What is the difference in content between the policies of right-wing Thatcher, Reagan and Kohl, on the one hand, and leftwing Mitterrand, Gonzales and Papandreou, on the other?

Many far-left groups in Britain which give critical support to Labour agree that a Kinnock government would be no less reactionary than another Thatcher administration. Yet they still call for a vote for Labour. Given the intellectual incoherence of this approach, we can only conclude that above all it expresses a reluctance to tackle Labour and to fight for an alternative. This reluctance is based on the understandable fear that in challenging Labour the left risks political isolation and the charge that it is splitting the labour movement. Whilst this is a fear that cannot be easily dismissed, it scarcely provides the foundation for a political strategy. The ultimate evasion If the British left came out and openly admitted that it was simply incapable of challenging Labour then at least the air would be cleared for further discussion. Unfortunately, sections of the left have tried to make the best of their subservience to Labour's electoral ambitions, by arguing that elections are not all that important anyway. The standard approach is to argue lamely that there is no alternative to Labour, but also to note that matters of great consequence in the class struggle are not resolved at the polls.

The alleged irrelevance of elections is supposed to minimise the embarrassment of recommending a vote for Labour.

Denouncing electoralism and parliamentarianism sounds very left-wing. Any Marxist can agree that the power exercised by the capitalist class through the state executive and repressive machinery

24 Labour or The Red Front?

effectively circumscribes the influence of elected assemblies. But the charade of bourgeois democracy is not under debate in Britain in 1987. For millions of people their vote in the general election expresses an important political choice. If there is no challenge to Labour at the polls, then its claim to be the legitimate representative of the working class will go unchallenged.

Those who dismiss general elections as irrelevant are simply justifying their fear of confronting Labour at the polls. After advising socialists to vote Labour, Miliband and Panitch suddenly discover the defects of parliamentary democracy: *The outcome of elections has certain effects. But the reforms that may flow from electoral outcomes are limited and vulnerable. That is why the purpose of political action for socialists must not only be the achievement of immediate defensive victories, but the widening of the basis of support for reforms which open the way for more fundamental transformations. *28 It is all very well to argue for 'defensive victories'. But why abstain from the arena which most people recognise as the centre of political life? If the working class has no distinctive voice in the political sphere it will not be winning many victories of any sort.

The Socialist Workers Party has been the most consistent exponent of the view that elections are not very important for the working class. Back in 1964 it urged workers to direct their energies elsewhere: *Rather than ask of a future Labour government to act in ways we know to be unrealistic, socialists should be directing their energies to the point of production where the real and ascribed interests of workers are to be found. 29 If it is unrealistic to expect anything from a Labour government, then why call for a vote for Labour? Dismissing the election and focusing on the point of production can easily lead to restricting the class struggle to the economic sphere and neglecting wider political issues. Encouraging the separation of economic from political activity, while allowing Labourism unchallenged sway in the political sphere, may well result in Labourism also extending its

Labour or The Red Front? 25 influence over the economic struggle.

Leading SWP theoretician Alex Callinicos has reasserted the old formula in relation to the 1987 general election: *The only way out is to break with electoralism altogether, to cease to make votes a criterion of success, and instead to focus on the consciousness and combativity of workers themselves. *30 Callinicos' declaration that votes are irrelevant sounds very revolutionary. In fact it amounts to an apology for giving up on the political struggle against Labourism. It means letting Kinnock get on with the job of defining the political outlook of the labour movement, while the SWP pretends that it is all an irrelevance. It seems a strange way to 'focus on the consciousness" of workers by ignoring an election that constitutes the focus of political concern and discussion for the vast majority of workers. At a time when workers are turning in desperation from the wreckage of the trade unions and consciously looking for solutions in the sphere of politics, the SWP leaves the field to Labour and looks back with nostalgia to the good old days of trade union militancy.

In reality the British left is well aware of the importance of the general election. That is why all those who proclaim the irrelevance of elections called for critical support for Labour from the moment the general election campaign started. If Callinicos and the rest really believed that votes were irrelevant they would not have consistently called for a vote for Labour at every election in living memory. The hallmark of the old opportunist error of economism in British politics today is the acceptance of Labour's right to dictate the terms of working class politics while restricting left-wing activity to dayto-day struggles in the workplace. The consequences are disastrous.

No matter how militant particular workplace struggles become, they will remain dominated by the politics of Labourism. Class consciousness cannot emerge from militancy alone — it requires a struggle against the Labourist politics that influence the working class. Some left wingers are embarrassed about drawing out the

Labour or The Red Front? 26 consequences of their economism. When challenged on the urgency of making a stand against Labour in the elections, their standard reply is that this is merely a matter of tactics. It seems that the left's tactical flexibility is highly selective. The attempt to confront Labourism in the here and now is just a tactic, while the evasion of this task can readily be justified with reference to the eternal United Front tactic. The Red Front After languishing for 65 years in the shadow of Labour it is not surprising that the left remains isolated today. In the past the Communist Party used to boast that although it did badly in elections, it had considerable support in the unions. A closer look at this base in the unions would have revealed that much of the Communist Party's authority in industry rested on the organisational and administrative efforts of a layer of trade union officials. However, most workers who supported communist shop stewards at work generally voted Labour in elections. This division of functions between the Communist Party and Labour has been implicitly accepted by other left-wing groups. The result is that the left has become a prisoner of the Labour Party. At the same time the left's silence on the wider political front has given the message to the working class that there is no alternative to Kinnock.

The Red Front is an attempt to forge an alternative political focus to Labour. At the same time it is an invitation to choose. Those who genuinely want real change have to ask themselves whether they want to put their faith in the Labour Party or in the working class.

For those who want to fight for the working class, not just in words, but also in action, The Red Front provides an opportunity to construct an alternative. Given the inability of the Labour Party to make any headway against the Tories after eight years of Thatcher, the urgency of this initiative is self-evident.

The decline of Labour has inevitably been interpreted as meaning the demise of working class politics. Labour's decline has led many to question the relevance of class politics. Others have simply lost confidence in the power of the working class. For those angry with

Labour or The Red Front? 27 Labour's betrayals there is no coherent focus through which their class anger can be expressed. The Red Front is a direct response to this state of affairs. It fights to re-establish the credibility of class politics. It aims to provide an argument for fighting back through example. The experience of the past 65 years has shown that without an independent organisation the working class cannot enforce its will on society. This experience has also shown that it is not possible to live in peace with Labour. The very creation of an independent proletarian movement demands a consistent struggle against Labour.

The Red Front aims to take on Labour in the very area where it has been allowed to operate without any serious challenge — at the polls. No effective movement can be built on the sidelines of political life. The British left will have to learn to work independently if it is to influence events. The alternative is another 65 years in the wilderness.

The future of the British working class depends on the fundamental re-orientation proposed by the Revolutionary Communist Party. At a time when the employers stand ready to launch a new offensive the labour movement will pay a heavy price for lack of solid organisation and clear direction. Only by getting Labour off our backs will we succeed in advancing the historic destiny of the working class.

NOTES

1 Morning Star, 14 January 1985.

2 Labour Briefing, 15 January 1987.

All Power, November 1922 Socialist Challenge, 15 July 1978.

5 Socialist Worker, 5 August 1978.

All Power, November 1922.

7 Socialist Review, April 1962.

F Engels, 'A Working Men's Party' in K Marx and F Engels, Articles on Britain, Moscow 1978, pp374-76.

9 VI Lenin, "Meeting of the International Socialist Bureau, Collected Works, Vol 15, Moscow 1963, p235.

Labour or The Red Front? 28 10 VI Lenin, Left-wing' Communism: An Infantile Disorder. (1920), in Collected Works, Vol 31, Moscow 1974, p98.

11 VI Lenin, 'Speech on Affiliation to the British Labour Party', (August 1920), Collected Works, Vol 31, op cit, p258.

VI Lenin, 'Left-wing' Communism, op cit, p98.

12 L Trotsky, Where Is Britain Going?. (1925), in Leon Trotsky on Britain, New 13 York 1973, p144. 14 Labour Monthly, January 1923.

15 Socialist Outlook, October 1952.

16 Socialist Review, April/May 1952.

Socialist Worker, 27 June 1981.

17 Ibid, 12 January 1985. 18 19 Ibid. KO Morgan, Keir Hardie: Radical and Socialist, London 1975.

20 21 L Trotsky, op cit, p63.

RHS Crossman, "Introduction' to W Bagehot, The English Constitution, 22 London 1983. VI Lenin, 'Left-wing' Communism, op cit, p92.

23 L Trotsky, The First Five Years of the Communist International, Vol 2, 24 London 1977, p92. B Webb, The Diary of Beatrice Webb, Vol 1, London 1984, p294.

25 VI Lenin, 'Speech on Affiliation to the British Labour Party', op 26 cit, p263. R Miliband and L Panitch, 'Socialists and the "New Conservatism"', in 27 R Miliband, L Panitch and J Saville (eds), Socialist Register 1987, London 1987, p510. 28 Ibid. 29 International Socialism, No 17, Summer 1964.

A Callinicos, "Looking for Alternatives to Reformism", International 30 Socialism, No 34, Winter 1987, p116.

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