Benn's followers: forward to revolution or back reforms?

Scan page 8

Benn prides himself on the openness of the Labour Party to all strands of socialișt thought.

It is true that one of the strengths of the British working class has been its ability to create a unified trade union structure and a unified political organisation.

But one is tempted to ask whether this is not due in large measure to the spinelessness of' the socialist wing of the movement.

In other countries where socialists have fought in determined way for an anticapitalist programme in the labour movement, the open bourgeois agents have lost no time in splitting the movement:

And even within the Labour Party movements which have really fought the right wing, like the SLL Young Socialists in the 1960s, have been unceremoniously expelled.

In the period of British imperial strength, the benefits of exploiting the peoples of Africa and Asia could be used by the capitalists to provide some reforms, and this provided a material basis for the programme of the pro-capitalist leadership of the Labour Party:

But that basis does not exist any more. So the right wing must now resort to open Torystyle attacks on the working class, and demands for them to accept sacrifices with nothing in return.

Their only role in the Labour Party is now to sabotage the efforts of the working class to defend itself. The Labour Party's "broadness" has become just a cover for the right.

No demand Benn refrains from any demand to drive them out, although it is likely that if Benn's reforms were carried most of them would walk out.

The struggle to democratise the Labour Party is important in itself because for Labour Party members to gain more control over the manifesto and the election of the leader, forces a more rapid development of their political ideas.

Practice will quickly expose the incorrectness of the left reformist policies which they themselves voted for, and the incompetence of leaders they chose.

Even more important are the questions raised by the opposition of the right wing.

It shows up clearly how these people are just using the mass support of the Labour Party to implement policies which ate against the interest of Labour Party memvers.

And since this is the case, why won't Benn and the other lefts fight to kick them out? The task of carrying the "broad church" has become an intolerable burden for the working class.

Decline

This leads on to the question of the future of the Labour Party. We would agree with Benn that the present period is one of the decline of capitalism, and that halfremedies are no good.

But if the reform of capitalism is out of the question, how is the power of capitalism to be broken?

Benn devotes a chapter to the need to democratise the army, and discusses the possibility of a future NATO intervention against. British defiance of the Treaty of Rome.

Is the Labour Party the kind of party which could defy such threats or organise armed workers' resistance to military intervention?

Benn warns now of the lessons of Chile; but are his politics not the same kind of 'left' sounding confusion as that peddled by Chilean Popular Unity leader Allende?

Another problem to be confronted is the fact that the Labour Party was created by the trade unions which by their very nature are organisations devoted to the betterinent of workers within the framework of capitalism.

Callaghan Could this link-which is now mediated by the trade union bureaucracy-survive the adoption by the Labour Party of a revolutionary perspective?

The union bureaucrats like Labour's right wing leaders see their power and privileges as bound up with the continuation of capitalism. They will not endorse revolutionary politics. But what importance would the Labour Party have without its trade union links?

These questions cannot be answered immediately. They can only be answered in the course of a struggle for correct policies and principled leadership. What is certain is that the ongoing struggle to transform the Labour Party will be a decisive part of the political education of the present-day supporters of Tony Benn.

One thing they will have to break with is the chauvinist tradition of the British labour movement. Benn is in many ways a supreme example of this.

He assumes that the history of the British socialist movement is superior to all others. Look for instance at the following passage:

socialist philosophers, have been read by British socialists as we have developed our own' home grown beliefs in freedom, democracy and equality, and this is reflected in the constitution of the Labour Party"

The implicit assumption is that into our superior tradition we absorb a few useful ideas from outsiders. If the British working class is to achieve a socialist society, it will need to break with this outlook.

Such questions as the Russian Revolution, the tragic lessons of Allende's Popular Unity in Chile and the power of the workers' mass movement in Poland are not just matters of academic interest.

They contain the essential experience on the neçessary programme, organisation and leadership of the working class for the achievement of sociálism, experience entirely lacking in the British tradition.

It is also necessary for the British working class to break from the policy of occupying Ireland. Benn does not mention the question of Ireland at all in his book.

This is a grave omission. Benn has now signed the limited programme of "Charter 80" concerning, political prisoners in Ireland and has agreed to speak at the Labour Committee on Ireland fringe meeting at the conference.

But the main question is the withdrawal of British troops and on this Benn has made no commitment.

A last question concerns the future of Tony Benn himself. Many of Benn's policies in the 1970s seemed designed to deflect his followers from the struggle against capitalism.

Planning agreements For instance, the widespread movement for greater control over industrial policy was directed by Benn towards planning agreements for the strengthening of ailing capitalism, and worker "participation" without power (as in British Leyland).

In the present book there are formulations about free collec-tive bargaining over wages, prices, investment, " products, exports, manpower forecasting, and product development which Benn basis In mean believes could provide the for a new social contractcapitalism.

Wage freeze

other words it would ioint union/management decisions to freeze wages, raise prices, cut jobs, etc.

Benn also suggests planning agreements should be made between combine committees and management. But this is less likely to strengthen the combines than to act as yet another way of absorbing harmlessly" a possible source of opposition to capitalist rationalisation.

Benn does appear to be at a crossroads, which is no doubt because his followers are at a crossroads too.

Which path they take-towards the dead-end of reforms or the road to revolution-will determine the immediate future of the socialist movement in Britain. Benn

----- pull-quotes -----

"Marx and Engels,' Rosa togeme with a whole rangeor