Swps Left Talk No Answer to Bureaucracy Group

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Stalinist Leyland Convenor Derek Robinson: SWP covered up Last week's article in this series showed how the Socialist Workers Party's theory of the spontaneous development of working class consciousness flies in the face of everything Lenin stood for.

For the SWP, political preparation for a victorious overthrow of capitalism is no more the than the linking together of advanced worker militants.

This is an administrative, not a political theory of the role of the revolutionary party.

Those who address themselves to the struggle for leadership and programme are regarded as 'substitutionalists'.

Perhaps the greatest 'substitutional' act that Trotskyists are guilty of in the eyes of the was the formation of the Fourth The SWP argues that parties can only grow out of the struggles of the working class and that the formation of an international party must await the growth of strong national parties.

Latched on to Now this does not mean that the SWP completely neglects the building of sympathetic organisations in other countries.

What it does mean, however, is that it looks round for virtually any group with significant membership and to the left of social democracy and Stalinism to latch onto.

A complete list of these is beyond the scope of this article.

But it is worth reminding SWP members (and those within the International Marxist Group who wish to build 'unified revolutionary organisation' with them) that throughout the course of the upsurge in Portugal the SWP acted as an atourney for and cheerleader of the PRP.

That group systematically adapted to the 'left' wing of the Armed Forces Movement and its fake 'workers' councils' policy.

The disastrous politics of the PRP culminated in the ill-fated 'insurrection' in November 1976 which was a complete adventure and an important weapon in the hands of the right-wing.

The PRP however had the initial advantage of being largeand that was enough for the SWP.

The objection which the SWP has to the formation of the Fourth International in 1938 and to substitutionalist' internationals today is rooted in their objection to the very concept of transitional demands embodied in its founding programme-the two cannot be separated.

Upposed

The SWP's notion of workers spontaneously developing revolutionary consciousness drives them to challenge and oppose those Marxists who consciously fight to bring about such a development through fighting for demands which start from r today's problems and today's conscipusness of the working class, but lead workers PHOTO: John Sturrock, Report up his role in struggle to grasp the tor socialist revolution.

For opposing such an approach to the political development of working class consciousness, the SWP naturally oppose building the kind of parties necessary to develop such programme, defend it and fight for it.

Their attempt to tailor their politics to fit in with the existing level of consciousness of the working class means that they reject the constraints of any international line or centralist international:

National Instead their 'programme' and perspective starts firmly from the national level, referring to the international class struggle and international capitalist crisis only in passing or for general interest.

In this respect, also, the SWP flies in the face of everything Lenin and Trotsky fought for in the formation of the Commu nist International.

So when the IMG declares that it would like a 'unified revolutionary organisation' with the SWP. within which it would fight for affiliation to the 'United' Secretariat, it is biting off more than it can chew.

The IMG is in fact setting itself the task of convincing the SWP to stop being anti-Leninist.

On the other hand perhaps the IMG would find it easier to get round the problem by convincing the SWP that the rest of the USFI is not an organisation of 'substitutionalists' fighting for the Transitional Programme!

In short the road to a joint organisation with the SWP involves either convincing the SWP to be Trotskyists or stopping being a Trotskyist yourself.

It is no wonder, then, that the USFI leadership is so alarmed by the IMG's courting of the SWP-and that a substantial section of the IMG itself is opposed to the project.

Our differences with the SWP can be best outlined by looking at the practice of our two organisations.

We shall start by examining the SWP's attitude to the For the SWP the election was seen as an intrusion into the real day to day class struggle.

Their rejection of the contrick of parliamentary elections is essentially one in which they reject any notion of politics which is outside the scope of 'build the SWP' The WSL like all revolutionary socialist organisations, recognises the dead-end of parliamentary road but we do not regard social democracy or what happens in parliament as irrelevant.

We recognises the importance of the hold over the working class exercised by social democracy primarily via its 'left' variety which is bolstered and defended by the trade union bureaucracy and the Stalinists.

Time and time again while workers were in struggle with the last Labour government, prominent 'lefts' descended on mass meetings to confuse and misdirect workers with promises of 'a real fight'-with the Secretary of State for Industry, or with the government in general.

Barrier

In the aftermath of the Tory victory, the fake lefts are once again parading their 'socialist' credentials.

These people represent a barrier to political development which must be broken.

Our campaign for a Labour victory in the election was directed to combining a vote for Labour with a fight against the right wing leadership.

In the process of that fight we can train workers in the real nature of the lefts' Our election policy was a continuation of the line fought for before the election and we continue that policy under the Tory government.

The SWP rejects such a fight and in the process-no matter how ultra-left their rhetoriccapitulated entirely to Labour.

In Voting Labour without illusions. '(S.W. 28/4/79) we read the following:

"whoever wins on May 3rd there will be further attacks on working class living standards and working class organisations.

"Then does it make any difference who wins? Yes, it makes a difference.

«Labour and Tories alike are bent on propping up British capitalism whatever the cost to the working class. But the methods they can use depend on the nature of their support.

"A Tory victory will make it easier for the bosses, the police and the racists."

This penetrating analysis of the difference between Labour and Tory misses out the importance of putting Labour back in power as part of the struggle to break workers from reformism.

Instead it breeds illusions that the severity of attacks from a Labour government will be not so extreme as that from the Tories.

Off the hook

Littie wonder then that the SWP's main slogans-one of which is reproduced below the editorial quoted above-were 'Defend our unions-keep the Tories out' , and 'Labour isn't working-the Tories never will' Both of these slogans completely let Labour off the hook and despite the occasional insertion of 'Build the socialist alternative' into the first slogan, the thrust is entirely towards asserting that there is a difference even if the SWP isn't much interested in it between The culmination of the confusion paraded by Socialist Worker during the election came in the May 12th issue which under the headline 'Defend our class' announced that The ruling class is back in power'!

The refusal of the SWP to carry the battle for a 'socialist alternative' into the Labour Party• has led to disastrous results in respect of weakening the fight which is going on there against the right wing.

In the aftermath of the election Socialist Worker carried two articles by Labour Party activists who left the party and joined the SWP.

In. the May 26th issue Bert Ellicot, Chairperson of the Stalybridge and Hyde Constituency Labour Party announced that he had quit the party for the SWP.

On June 2nd Denise Fenn wrote that her 4½ years fighting the right-wing in Newham NE had been a waste of time and she was joining the SWP.

Strengthen right

deally placed to deepen the ›oth these comrades wer fight against the right-wing and raise a revolutionary programme within the Labour Party-their not doing so will weaken the left and strengthen the right.

The battle against Prentice has been of the most enormous significance in the fight against reformism.

A leading Labour right-winger has been forced to show his true colours. All the quesSWP leader Tony Cliff FOUR of a series ticles by Keith on the politics Socialist Workers and of the Interal Marxist "unity" tiors of the relationship between an MP and his constituency party and the programme on which professed socialists should fight have been raised over the last few years.

The task now is to deepen that development by fighting to expose and defeat the fake 'left' - the Tribunites.

The winning of Newham NE to a revolutionary position would be a qualitative development in the struggle against reformism.

The SWP have abandoned the fight for this.

But let us not forget when we are castigating the SWP for its refusal to go into the Labour Party and fight that when the IS group was in the Labour Party it didn't fight the rightwing then either.

When the crunch with Wilson came in 1964 iS members did nothing to oppose the mass expulsions of Trotskyist supporters of the Socialist Labour League in the Young Socialists.

In the late 60s the student radicalisation-particularly around Vietnam-and the hostility in the working class to Wilson's policies led IS to walk out of the Labour Party-they didn't need to be helped out by the right-wing!

Disaster

The whole logic of the SWP's attitude to social democracy is the adoption of an abstentionist position in elections coupled with the standing of 'revolutio. nary' candidates.

The SWP. however, does not do this-for basically three reasons.

Firstly, their period of electioneering was a disaster in terms of votes and recruitment; secondly because they think that elections don't matter much anyway: and thirdly because to argue for abstention when the working class was voting Labour as a class respons response to the Tories would bring them into conflict with the layer of trade union militants they want to accomodate to..

This "lowest common denominator" approach to trade union militants was graphically shown in the SWP's recent Rank and File conference.

For the IMG the most important thing about this conference was its size-producing a grovelling response: / "A determined national lead in the fight against Thatcher's union-bashing plans came from 1,100 delegates at last Saturday's 'defend our unions' conference in Manchester"

(Socialist Challenge 27/6/79)

According to Socialist Worker there was discussion on unionisation struggles, unemployment, redundancies, cuts in public spending, and incomes policy and the Tory offensive.

However, at no stage does there appear to have been any policy put forward by the SWP other than its minimal code of practice:

"1) No lines.

2) For defence of 100% closed shop and for sanctions to be applied against any individuals breaking closed shop. crossing of picket

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SOCIALISI PRESS, K'ednesday 11 July 1979 Page 7 Mase strikes forced release of Pentonville dockers: IS tailed behind movement The Garners Conference: will SWP really fight to remove TGWU traitors?

Branches: (S.W. 16.6.79)5 in inter the failowing cementie through thrmites to investate pritor mempers enforced enforced PHOTO: John Sturrock, Report 3) For full rank and file discussion and decision making by traditional democratic procedures-no enforced secret ballots.

4) Strikes to be run by 'elected strike committees. Pickets to be positioned at whatever locations necessary to win the dispute and in sufficient numbers to ensure that picket lines are observed.

5) All appeals for blacking and financial assistance for disputes to be carried out wher. ever practicable.

6) Support calls made by strike committees for mass and sympathy pickets.

7) No settlement of disputes without full report backs to, and decision making by, the stande de mad do co one -mammal concernea-no 'arbitration' or 'official' settlements."

Unity

The whole thing was topped off with continual calls for "solidarity' and 'unity'.

Now the WSL is not and never has been opposed to unity. We will fight alongside anyone who takes a principled stand against the employer and their agents in the labour movement.

But we have denounced the simple slogan of 'unity' on two counts.

Firstly, as a slogan it is consistently abused and exploited by the trade union bureaucracy in order to whip militant sections into line.

Secondly we are opposed to 'unity' at the expense of the struggle for a clear perspective and programme.

Our practice brings us into conflict with the SWP for the simple reason that every time we put forward policy on the crucial questions facing the working class-be it unionisation struggles, inflation, unemployment or the cuts we are saying something different from the SWP.

Our policies are centred round the struggle for leadership theirs around simply linking up' existing struggles.

The abandonment of the struggle for leadership has led the SWP to a position where it rejects the need to confront and defeat the existing leadership of the working class.

Living in the real world of courst yuu edmur avuru rewuy- nairen unil pannnit sumid ranna. nising the existence of Stalinism and social democracy and issuing routine denunciations. However, if you have no recognition of the hold of social democracy and Stalinism over important sections of the working class then you cannot have a strategy for destroying that hold.

If you start as do the petty-bourgeois leaders of the SWP from what you perceive to be the _consciousness of workers you could quite easily deduce that the working class has no interest in the Labour Party.

If vou do not recognise that ary to breast wore is tre ary to bre: workers TrOM social democracy and Stalinisn and you have purely a militan trade union policy, you end up inevitably capitulating to, or are simply bamboozled by, the Speke fight One example which illustrates the hole into which the SWP digs itself in relation to the trade union bureaucracy and Stalinism is that of the struggle to defend jobs in British Leyland, Speke.

In Socialist Press 108, we summed up the struggle as follows:

... When Leyland announced their derisory planned voluntary redundancy payments thousands of workers, who had been held back and demoralised by weeks of bureaucratic haggling and deliberately created confusion, came to a mass meeting ready to follow any lead given by the platform.

"They found none. Leyland Combine Committee chairman and Longbridge convenor Derek Robinson, a leading CP member and part of the 'participation' set-up that planned the Speke closure, took the stage and in a conscious display of completely hollow left' rhetoric on resisting the closure steered the meeting away from any prac tical action whatever.

"Speke stewards following Robinson's lead, omitted any call for occupation.

"This lack of leadership at a crucial turning point proved the key to the eventual closure of the plant six weeks later.

"At each point Socialist Press . stressed the need to combat this crisis of leadership. But all these lessons have been deliberately concealed by the SWP whose members and supporters-in the guise of their front 'Right to Work' organisation-failed at any point to take up the call for occupation, and whose paper Socialist Worker gave over its entire front page on April 22nd to an uncritical eulogy of Robinson and that very same abortive mass meeting, describing it as 'A Match to fire the Mersey' "From that point onwards as the seli-out took shape Socialist Worker virtually dropped the issue.

"So wretched is the SWP's record in the Speke struggle that an article by John Deason in the July Ist Socialist Worker had to attempt a cover-up. had to attempt a cover-up.

Blaming the 'ruthlessness' of the company, "the .. media; the Prime Minister: and the offers of redundancy pay .." Deason nowhere mentioned Robinson's role, or the lack of any call for occupation!

Deason writes "Nothing saps the workers' confidence more than the blind faith in union officials or even in convenors and combine committees'..

But if anyone peddled such illusions it was the SWP, with its talk of the brilliant' mass meeting at which Robinson successfully derailed any real fight!

The Right to Work bulletins at no point called for occupation and Deason himself advised stewards not to call for too much 'all at once' but to go 'first' for a general statement of opposition to closure. That was as far as they got".

SWP members should compare the approach of Socialist Press to that of Socialist Worker. We fought to get the stewards to give a positive lead.

Socialist •Worker started instead from the supposed backwardness of the workers and helped actually foster backwardness and pave the way for defeat.

In the struggle to come under the Tories the lessons of Speke must be understood and the disaster there not repeated.

There was of course no discussion of Speke at the Rank and File Conference.

Ivany speecnes, nowever, aid La ~ did refer to the defeat of the Garners strike. In Socialist Press 154 we reported at length on the Conference held June 9th to discuss the lessons of this dispute and the points at issue there between us and the SWP.

On June 16th Socialist Worker printed a report of the Conference which gave no report on the discussion and no comment whatsoever on the resolution passed by the delegates there.

Socialist Worker reported the Conference as follows:

"The 120 delegates (...) approved a strike committee's • • • report and passed a resolution calling for the removal of both TGWU Regional Organiser and Secretary.

The delegates demanded action in future recognition disputes which will ensure a full timer under the controi of the strike committee, effective picketing and blacking and special strike pay.

All trade unionists, especially TGWU. were urged to branches . Io.W. 10.0./9)

f resolutions along these lin LAUND being put by SWP members. We would gladly cooperate in branches where both our organisations have members.

But if the comments about "going round the officials" which were continually voiced at the Rank and File Conference are to be taken into account, then we can expect no such co-operation from the SWP.

In our opinion the Rank and File 'code of conduct is so rudimentary as to be automatic and completely insufficient to meet the needs of the struggle against the Tories.

But of course its minimalism allows the SWP to approach the Stalinist dominated LCDTU for 'unity' a call scandalously echoed by the IMG in the pages of Snialiet Challenno The SWP are obviously working on the basis that a simple re-run of the 1970-74 Tory government is on the agenda.

Their scenario is one of a massive campaign against Tory anti-union laws in which the SWP will grow at the same rate as it did during the last Tory They have forgotten the problems which simple trade union militancy got them into under the succeeding Labour They still do not recognise the need to elaborate programme which will give the working class a perspective for struggle against the effects of capitalist crisis.

As during the last Tory government they will no doubt tail after the militancy of the working class.

To a certain extent the IMG do recognise some of these things and after dwelling on the 'strengths' of the Rank and File Conference Socialist Challenge Issues Torovin tentative will come up against a number of political problems which the conference with its 'rally atmosphere and harking back to 1972-74 tended to gloss over."

Workers' solution

The article finishes with a call for a workers' solution to the crisis after suggesting that Thatcher and Co might have learnt more from the experience of the last Tory government than the SWP has.

There is, however, nothing in the article to suggest what the IMG's 'workers' solution' might consist of.

The most substantial criticism which the IMG do have of Rank and File is the lack of demncrary at the conference. MUTILI UNY something they compare-in the most fraternal way, of coursewith the behaviour of the LCDTU.

What the IMG do not understand is that the SWP's stagemanaging of the Rank and File conferences parallelled by the internal regime of the SWP itself, reflect both the inability of the SWP to deal with political criticism, but also, and more importantly, the vast gulf which separates the politics of the SWP from the struggle for a of transitional demands.

All the transitional demands -the sliding scale of wages, work sharing on full pay, sliding scale of public expenditure, and demands for a programme of public works, are ways of saying concretely 'no reduction in living standards; jobs, and social services' Workers The fight for the development of workers' controlcommittees lo ativesticale orices the books of capitalist firms and Toppled-Heatt local authorities which ar carrying out cuts-all prepar the way for an understandin by workers of the need t replace capitalism by socialism.

The WL of course argue for militant action. Fc example, we argue-ofte against the SWP-for strik action and occupation again! cuts: but unless that is take further then workers will nc know how to go onto th offensive.

VILIIDIVU.

For us unity of the class wi come around specific struggles. and we will work for it.

But within that unity a shar fight for programme will b necessary.

Of course the attacks of th Tory government will pose th need to remove it in struggle.

When that is posed • revolt tionaries must be ready wit clear demands.

In 1972 the jailing of th dockers led to a spontaneol move towards a general strike.

The correct demand fc revolutionaries to put forwar was for the removal of th Preparation The • Is however, only belatedly came out with the general strike call and in no way connected it with bringing down the government.

In directing towards the Labour leaders out of office we are preparing for the situation in which mass action will force the removal of the Tories and the Labour leadership will step forward to do its dirty work again.

The precise slogans which will be necessary in relation to the Tory government and its removal will have to be worked out as the struggle unfolds.

We will be preparing for that. The SWP will not.

Members of the IMG will we hope consider the vast gulf between Trotskyism and the SWP. Which way do you wish to go?

In the final part of this series we will examine the joint declaration of the IMG and the International Socialist Alliance and review the IMG Central Committee debate on unity with the SWP.

Continued