[Comrade Purdie's letter combines two useful correctives to…]

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Comrade Purdie's letter combines two useful correctives to the original Socialist Press article with what we would regard as a wrong method of approach to the question of working class leadership in Scotland.

First of all, comrade Purdie is right to say that we should have stated clearly that Scotland is not simply an area of England, but is a nation.

This does not mean in our view, however, that the problems which have prompted the flow of support towards the Scottish National Party are "national" problems in anything like the Marxist sense.

Rather they are problems which Scottish workers and middle class people face in common with their counterparts in England, and which flow from the crisis of British capitalism as a whole.

DEMAGOGUES

It is the reactionary demagogues of the SNP, assisted by their "left" counterparts in the Scottish Labour Party and objectively helped by the trail of carnage left by the Callaghan and Wilson governments who have been able to build from these problems the illusion that there is a "Scottish answer"

Secondly, comrade Purdie is right to take issue with our article's statement that the Scottish people should have the right to secede only after a Soviet system had been established. This is certainly wrong.

Its incorrectness flows from an extension of one of the main themes of the original article-the defence of the political independence of the working class Scotland from the nationalist petty bourgeoisie.

In pushing the argument too far the article ended up with what comrade Purdie aptly describes as an "ultra-left posture"

However we feel that this error must be set against the wholesale concessions to nationalism made by the IMG and all those on the left who want to take opinion polls, statements by nationalist leaders and the current mood of Scottish workers as their starting point.

''NATIONAL FEELING"

The concluding paragraph drew the line between the free choice of the Scottish people and today's conditions:

"Until such time as the workers themselves are free to express their opinions on the matter [of devolution] without the dominant influence of the bourgeois media and capitalist exploitation, we can only call on Scottish and Welsh workers alike to reject the fraudulent moves of the Labour government towards "Devolution" , and to join the common struggle for revolutionary leadership in the labour movement."

Nobody can dispute that the tub-thumping petty-bourgeois demagogues of the SNP want us to believe workers in Scotland want devolution as part of the growth of "national feeling"

But it is up to us as Marxists not simply to latch on to what workers may or may not feel, but critically to examine those sentiments. And where wrong positions are held, we must expose them and oppose them.

NO SOLUTION It is indisputable that devolution will solve absolutely none of the problems now faced by Scottish workers. Any "revolutionary" leadership that seeks to soften or avoid this harsh reality can only stoke up massive problems for itself in the coming period.

Comrade Purdie concedes we that devolution is "impracticable" under capitalism. His second quotation is a long way wide of the mark.

What we said was that the Labour leaders had brought forward the Devolution Bill as part of their attempts to preserve capitalism and to help divert the legitimate hostility of Scottish workers to their own economic policies.

Comrade Purdie offers no evidence for his assertion that the IMG's line does not separate the political struggles in Scotland from those of the British working class as a whole.

NO CHALLENGE He does not challenge any of our assessment of the IMG's adventure in the Scottish Labour Party, or question • the accuracy of the quotations from Red Weekly which substantiated our position.

Instead he merely informs us, again without any real evidence that the growth of support for the SNP is not 'in the same order of things as the "Tory vote by former Labour voters in Workington' "

There could be two reasons for such a statement.

Either the SNP is being credited as not such a reactionary party-not so bourgeois-as the Tory Party. and that therefore adopting some of its line of argument in order to win away its supporters is permissable. We hope that this is not comrade Purdie's position.

Or comrade Purdie is referring to the scale of the problem: Workington was only one seat, whereas in Scotland the Labour Party faces annihilation in the next election.

We do not think either view is valid. In particular the loss of the Stechford by election-with Tories

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..and "Scottish' Stalinist McGahey been threatened. But that does not alter the fact that the SN threatens to engulf the strongholds of the Labour Party in the main industrial cities of Scotland, and to eliminate that Party as a future British government.

To state that this is in the same order of things as the Tory vore former Labour voters Workington' is, to say the least, myopic.

The disaffection reflected in the SNP vote can be met by a degree of legislative autonomy for Scotland, and an Assembly could provide a focus of struggle for socialist policies geared to the particular problems of the Scottish working class; without such an extension of bourgeois democracy, and especially if the right wing Tories and left-wing" Labour Unionists scuttle it, the Scottish workers will be swept into the maw of the SNP.

It is only in this context that separation, and a division of the working class, would become a real danger, and it is comrade Lister, not the IMG, who wants to increase that danger.

Yours fraternally, Bob Purdie.

knocking down a 12,000 majority -shows that nowhere is the Labour Party safe. ' And we do not think its lost support can be won back by opportunist adaptations along the lines of the IMG's Scottish policy.

SAME METHOD

Finally we should note that though comrade Purdie is not in the IMG both he and they display the same characteristic method of approach. editorial office of the Militant group.

The coalition deal between the Healey-Callaghan Labour leadership and the failed second string businessmen who head the Liberal Party is now several weeks old.

And as the dust settles the Militant group leadership obviously feel that they can revert to their customary stand of aiming abstract demands at the world in general while avoiding any conflict with rightwing or 'left' bureaucrats.

WRONG STATEMENT

Only in the edition immediately after the Lib-Lab coalition deal did the Militant rouse itself from its usual lethargy to headline the demand "NO DISGUISED COALITION"

The article began with a wrong statement:

"The attempted overthrow of the Labour government by Mrs Thatcher and her sorry crew of Tory "extremists" has failed"

Of course this is only partially true. The Tories did not obtain a general election. But on Wednesday March 23 the Labour government fell.

es, Report It was replaced by a coalition deal between the Labour and Liberal leaderships in which the independence of the Labour Party is subordinated to the Liberals.

While Callaghan and Steel both had their reasons for not openly declaring this a coalition-Callaghan wanted to avoid splitting the Labour Party, and Steel did not want to be too closely tied to the election jinx carried by the Labour Party-it is a coalition in all but name.

LAME

Militant only halt concedes this, telling readers it is "half way to an open coalition"

But the writer continues throughout the article to refer to "the Labour government" • and never anywhere calls for the pact to be broken. As a result he blithely informs us that:

"Only socialist policies the Labour government"

But he never tells us now socialist policies can be adopted without a break from the Liberals. And he concludes with one of the lamest remarks that could be made on the issue:

... capitulation to the Liberals shows no way forward for the Labour movement"!

While we can easily see the gross inadequacies of this line, at least we can concede that the Militant saw the issue as important.

But a mere one week later they ::al Callaghan with Tribunite Sedgemoor had apparently almost forgotten the whole business. The front page article on Healey's budget gave only one fleeting reference to the coalition deal. And it included no demand for a break from the Liberals in its pious "programme" of reformist and utopian demands.

PHOTO: Labour Weekly Steel Only in their editorial column did Militant speak out on the Lib-Lab deal, making the correct call for an emergency recall Labour Party conference to "discuss the pact"-but omitting to tell readers what policy this conference should adopt!

There was certainly no hint of a call on 'left' Labour leaders to take any action to break the coalition.

By April 4, the Militant group was drawing back even further from a fight.

At a news conference announcing the final agenda for the Labour Party Young Socialists conference at Blackpool, well-known Militant supporters reiterated over and over again their support for the "Labour government" and their reluctance to see it brought down.

DAYDREAMING

And in the April 8 edition of Militant the editorial line reverts to the age-old daydreaming that always decorates the group's abject opportunism.

"The introduction of an Enabling Bill to nationalise the monopolies with minimum compensation on the basis of proven need-backed up by a mass campaign involving the whole of the labour movement ... would transform the positior of the Labour government"

So it might! But who going draft and introduce this Bill"? Militant is silent.

Do the Militant leaders retain illusions in 'left' cabinet minister Wedgewood Benn, now a devoted hireling of the Callaghan-Steel gang show?

LIMP

Or do they cherish hopes that the limp and wretched Eric Heffer will at long last turn up trumps and arrive at Parliament one morning with a draft Bill in his pocket? Heffer's attitude to the coalition was "as long as we haven't given too much away, maybe this is a temporary expedient"

More than likely the Militant leaders have not begun to consider who is supposed to carry out the policy they proclaim as the answer.

Because for them the central point is simply to equip themselves with phrases, while Marxists look for a road to practical intervention.

And an armoury of phrases is vital for a grouping like Militant, determined to cling on doggedly within the Labour Party whatever principles have to be swallowed in the process.

Benn This is why as the LPYS conference meets this weekend Militant supporters will be airing all kinds of "left" sounding demands and phrases-but not calling on the 'left' MPs to vote against the coalition in Parliament, not calling on the "left' ministers to resign from the coalition câbinet and not challenging their grovelling capitulation to Callaghan.

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'Business as usual' signs have apparently gone up in the