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MIR Summer 1986: Editori
Paris took control of their city in the Paris Commune in 1871, Marx and Engels described their efforts as an attempt to "storm heaven' • Similar discriptions can be applied to the movement in South Africa of the last two years. On May Day and 16 June 1986 (despite the State of Emergency), there were general strikes which surpassed any of the achievements of struggle in South Africa previously. It should be remembered that the "unrest' was spurred on by the regional strike in the Transvaal in November 1984. Since that time the confidence of the working class has grown to make national strikes, embracing 2 million workers as 16 June did, a possibility.
The force of the state
On 16 June, the streets of Johannesburg were deserted. An eerie quiet hung over what is the busiest city in all of Africa. The workers were giving notice of their power in society, a unity demonstrated in empty streets and silence. However the other side of the class equation was also present in these same streets on that day.
Troops in groups of two and three, machine-guns or rifles in hand, were stationed on every street corner in the centre of town. The suburbs were patrolled by troops in vans and lorries in two-hourly intervals. The townships, especially Soweto and Alexandra, were cordoned in steel, surrounded by armoured lorries, the Casspirs and Hippos, caged by hundreds of troops, literally dressed to kill.
The State of Emergency declared on Thursday 12 June should serve as a grim warning to the workers of South Africa. In a matter of days the police and army were capable of laying siege to all of the major townships throughout South Africa, restricting completely the flow of information nationally and internationally and detaining more than 3,000 leading activists from the trade unions and major political organisations. The cold callous brutality of the ruling class of South Africa should never be underestimated. At this stage they do not have the strength or the political will to implement the "soccer stadium" liquidation of the revolution. The events leading to 16 June demonstrate that they do have the organisational means for such Pinochet-type "solutions"'
What sets this State of Emergency apart is the attack on the trade unions. As many as 1,000 leading COSATU activists have been detained, many of whom will be charged with serious offences. Union offices have been ransacked and closed down, activists' homes turned over from top to bottom and undoubtedly, by now, many will have been interrogated with the usual
brutal methods of the political police.
In these circumstances, it is a matter of historic disgrace that the leadership of the TUC has remained passive and inactive. Even after meeting the President of the SA NUM James Motlatsi and the General Secretary of the NUM Cyril Ramaphosa all Norman Willis could say was, blithely, "we should do more" . A crusade for worker solidarity should be mounted to implement sanctions through trade union action now, with the TUC giving the lead and declaring that any worker sacked for solidarity action will have the full force of the TUC behind them to force reinstatement. Instead, the workers languishing in Botha's jails have to wait for the next International Committee meeting at Congress House which will probably resolve to "do more'" and little else.
'''Up the wall' his interrogators would then command when his answers failed to satisfy. This was the signal for him to stand on a trunk so that he could be handcuffed to the bars on a window, with his face to the wall. Then, the trunk would be removed leaving him dangling. In that position he would be swung like a pendulum and beaten, not once but every day for three months."
Detail of the detention of a trade unionist from Joseph Lelyveld Move Your Shadow.
"I wish this were a police state. Then I would have more influence'
General Coetzee, commander chief, South African police, quoted Move Your Shadow.
in
in
The ideas, strategy and tactics of Marxism provide the labour movement with the ability to assess, at each decisive juncture, what stage the movement is passing through and, to use Lenin's phrase what is to be done. The State of Emergency, the deten-
4
tions, the confusion at the top of the labour movement mean that the balance of class forces has swung temporarily away from the workers towards Botha and the bosses.
Trade union rights of assembly and calling strike action have been legally restricted, leaders arrested, and access to the press and media severely curtailed. This represents a temporary setback to the workers' movement. This should not be overestimated however. Botha does not have the power at this stage to break the local and regional structures of the unions.
The present situation is a result of the previous battles. The struggles of 1985/86 were fought to a stalemate. The workers and youth did not break the power of the regime but neither were they defeated. The workers' movement may have been bloodied but it was unbowed even though the white state machine remained intact.
In the last months of 1985 the Marxists of the ANC suggested that the flow of the movement may turn to an ebb. In some parts of the country, especially the Western Cape, this turned out to be the case, but in general the tremendous capacity of the workers and youth to struggle was demonstrated by a renewed surge in the opening months of 1986. The key lay in the inspiration given to the masses by the founding of COSATU and the division and temporising of the ruling class at the top. Botha's promises of concessions on the Pass Laws were seen as a sign of weakness and the workers pushed ahead. By mid-April the youth and workers were working together in township and factory to ensure that on May Day a new peak was reached with 1 ½ to 2 million workers taking strike action in the stayaway called by COSATU.
Where
are two
decides
Botha conceded the reforms on the Pass Laws because he was forced to make concessions by the movement of the youth and the unions. He was forced to give, lest COSATU, together with the youth, openly demonstrated their power, by taking. But reform is only a part of the general process of counterreform as the regime is forced to zig zag its way from one crisis to the next. Botha has therefore been preparing the ground to exploit the shifting balance of class forces to his own advantage.
Reaction stalked its prey carefully. Botha manoeuvred between the workers and youth on his left and the extreme reactionaries of the AWB on his right. As a prelude to the declaration of the State of Emergency the AWB were allowed to run riot in Pietermaritzburg to show how difficult things
were for the government and its reform
there force
[page 4]
commitments. Botha allowed this, in a
De Gaulle like gesture, to show "Après
moi, le deluge". • (Atter me, the deluge).
On the other hand reaction was
prepared in the townships. The routing
of the "comrades" by the "fathers" or "witdoeke'' in Crossroads was part of a national plan in which the strength of the comrades and the unions was put to the test. In Crossroads the witdoeke
were armed and aided openly by state forces. More than 50 comrades were killed and at least 50,000 former shack dwellers made homeless.
Crossroads was only the major set piece in a chain of state-sponsored reaction promoted over a period of weeks. Similar actions to Crossroads, on a smaller scale, took place in townships across the country, as vigilante gangs, armed by the state, took reprisals against the radical youth. Buthelezi's Inkatha gangs were used to mount a 'trade union' counterrevolution to the formation of COSATU, by the creation of UWUSA In early June, armed Inkatha mobs were used to break an NUM strike at the Hlobane mine, where NUM members were driven out after between 30 and 40 NUM mineworkers were murdered.
These events were part of a deliberate chain of reaction which received no adequate check from the leadership of the trade union movement. Then, the COSATU leadership, misjudging the forces at their disposal, retreated on the commemoration of 16 June. This was to have been a threeday stayaway called in memory of Soweto 1976 when more than 500 youth were killed in three weeks. On 9 June, without explanation, it was announced by COSATU, the UDF, and the National Education Crisis Committee that the three-day stayaway had been called off in favour of a one-day strike on 16 June only.
This hesitation emboldened the forces of the state and a ban on all public meetings was announced. COSATU, the UDF and the NECC should then have responded by recalling a three-day strike but when this counter-move was not forthcoming the state pressed home its advantage by declaring the state of emergency.
Leon Trotsky, the leader of the Russian revolution along with Lenin, once defined Marxism as the advantage of foresight over astonishment. It should not have come as a surprise to the labour movement in South Africa that it would face repression, at some stage, from the Botha regime. In this regard some of the leaders of the trade unions who suffer from reformist misconceptions have made serious errors of judgement. They have cherished dreams that the trade unions would be allowed years and years of uninterrupted social democratic-type growth.
The writers of the South African Marxist journal, Inqaba ya Basebenzi, have suffered from no such illusions. They have consistently warned that because apartheid is essentially a system for cheap labour any attempts to breach it, in the formation of trade unions, would inevitably be challenged by the ruling class. These predictions have been starkly borne out. The arrests and detentions are not an attempt to smash the trade unions from top to bottom but to behead the movement and thus emasculate it. In the long term these actions will prove to be no more successful than beheading the Greek hydra.
Nonetheless it is imperative that all the necessary lessons are learned from this experience. Nothing can be taken for granted again. Preparations have to be made in every union, from top to bottom, to prepare for future assaults. Precautions must now be taken to ensure that structures can be preserved underground if necessary.
Foresight and
astonishment
the future when the state moves on to the offensive the leaders of COSATU must show no hesitation in being prepared to counter attack. They must make preparations in advance, to ensure that they can undertake such action with complete confidence. Never again can it be the case that posing the question, "can we organise the workers to strike back?' has any substance. Serious points of detail need to be considered at the level of every shop stewards' committeedetail from safe houses with safe telephones to hidden printing machines, etc, etc. These lessons will be learned by all serious activists however. The dialectic of class struggle will have its way in all of this.
5
But it has to be recognised that at the present time the initiative has passed from the leaders of the workers' movement. Day by day the regime has grown more confident, arresting recently Elijah Barayi, the President of COSATU and Moses Mayekiso, the General Secretary of the Metal Workers' Union as testimony of this.
Into the current vacuum of bewilderment have stepped the bombers. If the bombs blasted in Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town are the work of the offical cells of the ANC then the leaders calling such actions deserve outright condemnation. These futile gestures can do nothing to alter the situation, add only further confusion to it and provide the regime with more excuses to take additional repressive action.
The real power capable of building a counter-offensive is the organised working class. When Moses Mayekiso was arrested during the last state of emergency the metal workers secured his release by rank and file action, which disrupted the industry for days and culminated in a one-day national strike.
It is wrong to suggest that the current detentions mean the demise of COSATU. The regional and local union structures remain intact and cannot be broken by the current level of assault. One COSATU national meeting on 1 July calling for action caused Botha to exhibit equivocation the next day. The actions of the rank and file shopworkers, from the first day of the emergency, and then later those of MAWU and NUM show that the spirit of the workers is far from being crushed.
The initiative taken by the leadership of the NUM to call for strikes and disruption on the mines, so building towards the national stoppage on 14 July, is the sort of action that needs to
Photo: Morris Zwi (Reflex)
[page 5]
MIR Summer 1986: Editoria
be generalised in all unions, suited to
the strength and capacities of different
unions in different locations. The call
for a one-day strike should be seen as
part of an extended campaign of action, by workers and youth, to force the regime to retreat.
Botha will be seen to have miscalculated in unleashing the dogs of war on the unions. Although repression, the naked rule of the sword, has the appearance of strength, in essence, it is a sign of weakness. The ruling class can no longer guarantee its rule by the old methods.
Botha and the ruling class were petrified by the spectre of 16 June. These actions will succeed in strengthening and radicalising the ranks of the trade unions and firming the bonds between them and the youth as the remaining illusions in anything other than a fight to the finish are crushed by brutal realities. The regime now faces serious dilemmas. The state of emergency cannot be maintained forever. They will be forced to make concessions at a later stage. They are trapped in a vicious circle of 'reform' and repression from which there is no lasting escape because of the social and organic crisis of South African capitalism.
A negotiated
settlement...
It is true that the state's offensive may lead to a certain period of ebb in the actions of the youth and the readiness of the mass of workers to fight politically - at least compared to the titanic struggle of the last two years. However, even if this is the case, lessons will be learned which will prepare the way for a new, even bigger forward movement at a later stage. The spirit of struggle can no longer be cordoned in the chains of apartheid. Canute did not succeed in turning back the tide, neither will Botha.
The leaders of the ANC who have suggested that apartheid would crumble by 1987 have made serious errors of theoretical judgement. There will be no Zimbabwe-type settlement in South Africa. The events of recent months should be ample testimony of that, for those with eyes to see. The truth is that this mountain of struggle would probably have broken any other capitalist regime on a world scale. But this state machine still remains. They still have the sjamboks, the tear gas, the helicopters, the Hippos, the Casspirs and... the guns.
This is not to say that there will not be many attempts to negotiate a settlement, many attempts to strike a deal. Botha would like to negotiate a compromise which preserves South African capitalism and the leaders of the ANC have not demonstrated
resolutely that they would never enter
into such discussions. The problem is
that the white government cannot give
what the black majority seeks-one
person, one vote, and the leaders of the blacks cannot settle for anything less and preserve their position as leaders.
Despite these facts, there are those who say a settlement is possible and point to Zimbabwe as proof. The argument runs that a negotiated settlement was reached there when that seemed impossible in the light of the circumstances existing before the Lancaster House deal was struck, so why not the same for South Africa?
There are critical material differences which need to be understood. In Zimbabwe, the whites were outnumbered by the blacks in a ratio of 20 to 1, a social factor which determined they had no hope of holding onto power by force once the floodgates of black revolt opened. In contrast, the five million whites in South African society constitute a much more powerful bulwark, being outnumbered only five or six to one. This factor, combined with the knowledge of the power of their police and army, means they will stay and fight. In any case, unlike Rhodesians, a large percentage of the whites in South Africa have nowhere else to go.
These realities cannot be underestimated in calculating longterr perspectives. The emergence of the reactionaries gathered in the paramilitary AWB, the HNP and CP is an indication of the nature of the Custer's last stand mentality which initially seizes a large section of the whites where no clear class alternative is posed.
Besides, the full force of the police state has yet to be unleashed in South Africa. Pinochet butchered 10,000 in two months between September and December 1973, to save Chilean capitalism. The South African ruling class, in desperation, will be capable of such heights of atrocity. The fact that Captain Astiz, of the Argentinian army, who masterminded the "disappearance" of tens of thousands of Argentinian militants from Buenos Aires during the dark years of the junta, is a current military adviser to Pretoria, should not be overlooked when contemplating the possible future course of events.
But, there are also issues about the strength of the working class in South Africa which have to be taken into account when contemplating a Zimbabwe-type settlement. The revolution in Zimbabwe was based largely on a guerrilla war waged in the countryside, which scarcely involved the relatively small working class. The leaders could call off the war and disarm the forces of ZAPU and ZANU at the agreed assembly points.
6
Things are less convenient in nature
for the ruling class in South Africa. The
South African revolution is based on
the most powerful proletariat in Africa
which has already demonstrated a
disturbing propensity to disregard the soothing words of its leaders! No amount of pleading can persuade these masses to accept less than equal rights. Things are too far gone.
Further, a capitalist negotiated settlement carries with it the idea that the current white state machine would be preserved; that a black ANC government could rule using the current police and army forces, retained largely intact. This is a situation which could never be maintained - the brutal white reactionaries at the top of the police and army would never tolerate orders from a "kaffir" government and the mass of black workers and youth are not fighting for a revolution that maintains the same hated forces of law and order.
Lastly, all the arguments for a Zimbabwean negotiated settlement can be seen as the expression of a "two stage" theory for the South African revolution. This is the concept that a period of liberal capitalist democracy will replace the current military-police dictatorship before the ushering in of a socialist South Africa at some future stage. There is no material base in South African capitalism to provide for such an enlightened period of reform.
Or a fight to the finish?
All of history demonstrates that in the former colonial world, according to the principles of the permanent revolution, there can be no halfway revolution. In reality, the leaders of the Communist Parties across the globe who argue for two stages invariably play the role of braking and consequently aborting movements for socialist revolution. The two stage theory of revolution never passes the first capitalist stage in reality and therefore prepares the ground for counter-revolution. Revolutionary workers who are asked by their leaders to wait for the revolution generally do so in coffins prepared for them by reaction. That is the lesson of this theory put into practice, from China in 1927 to 1929 to Iran in 1979, Indonesia in 1964 to Sudan in 1969 to name only a very few examples.
Nevertheless, despite the hesitations and mistaken conceptions of the leaders of the ANC, international capitalism is desperately worried by the process of events in South Africa. This is what explains the pleadings of the members of the Commonwealth EPG. But the ladies and gentlemen of the EPG are not terrified by poverty and injustice. They are terrified by the prospect of socialist revolution.
The visit was an attempt
[page 6]
Botha see reason. Sanctions may now follow to increase pressure on the regime to compromise. But the words of the EPG themselves, show that a real solution is not up for negotiation. The democratic demands for national liberation embrace the ideas of equal rights for all, one person, one vote in a unitary South Africa. In their conclusions the Eminent Persons Group state, 'In the government's thinking there were a number of non-negotiables; the concept of group rights— the very basis of apartheid-was sacrosanct; the homelands created in furtherance of that concept would not disappear, but be reinforced by Kwa Ndebele; the principle of one man one vote in a unitary state was beyond the realm of possibility; the Population Registration Act would continue; and the present Tri- Cameral Constitution which institutionalises racism must be the vehicle for constitutional reform" (EPG Report). These are their words not ours. Nothing fundamental can change.
The youth in the townships or the workers who have struggled to build COSATU did not need visits from Commonwealth dignitaries to explain this to them. In the first six weeks of its operation in 1893 the Johannesburg Mining Company made £13 million for the shareholders. Ninety-three years later night soil is still collected in the mornings in many of the Atrican townships and the masses live in poverty. Who owns and controls the gold mines still determines how people live. 50,000 white farmers own 12 times as much cultivable land as 14 million rural Africans. Can these statistics of inequality be negotiated out of existence?
Since September 1984 nearly 1,800 have died fighting to break apartheid, 531 alone in the first four months of the year. Did these people give their lives for a capitalist South Africa where the whites still own all the land and the bosses all the gold? The stark reality is that the youth and workers of South Africa are not fighting to create better conditions for a capitalist settlement. They are not struggling to share power, but to take power.
The ANC leaders met the leaders of COSATU in Lusaka in March this year. They provided the union leaders with the argument- that there would come a time when they could negotiate a settlement. There will be many attempts to achieve this, many deais offered but no lasting solutions. The irreconcilable cannot be reconciled.
All the reforms offered are transparent in what they seek to achieve. On the same day that the pass law concessions were put before parliament a bill increasing the already draconian powers of the Minister of Law and Order and allowing detention without trial for 180 days was moved. The English and Afrikaner ruling class
will fight when it comes to it. The AWB and the forces of reaction will fight when it comes to it. So will the blacks.
Whilst the leaders of the ANC may dream of power being ceded the masses of workers assembled at the May Day rally in Ovlando stadium, in Soweto, suffered no such illusions. 30,000 sang, danced and chanted- "Uyabaleka u Botha; Sizobashaya Nge- AK" — "Botha is on the run, we will get him with the machine guns." The Rubicon for revolution has been crossed.
Oliver Tambo.
"If you are telling me that some day Oliver (Tambo) will sit down with PW Botha and PW will say 'Oliver, here is the power', I'm telling you that will never happen. Power has to be taken not shared." Black youth, South Africa, 1986.
Build the ANC-for
socialist South Africa
The struggle for national liberation in South Africa is not an abstract struggle for the right to vote. The fight for one person, one vote in a unitary South Africa is a struggle for a black majority government. A government which will change the living conditions of the blacks of South Africa. A government which will give homes, jobs, decent wages and a future for all. The struggle for national liberation is thus a struggle for social liberation. These material needs cannot be met in a capitalist South Africa. They can only be provided in a socialist South Africa.
To achieve a socialist South Africa the power of the white state machine has to be broken on class lines. The workers' movement based overwhelmingly on the blacks has, to develop a programme capable of appealing to the working class whites. This can only be a socialist progrämme explaining the benefits for alfinvolved in the socialist transformation of society. This is a critical task in the long-term aims of the struggle for a socialist South Africa, It is an essential task because the white workers lead to the white soldiers;
7
Many will point to the racism of white workers and the pour scorn on these ideas; the AWB and the sharp move to the right of the white workers indicating the impossibility of such developments. But apartheid, as time goes by, will seem to be a cruel trap for white workers. They do not have a guaranteed future under capitalism either. They will change.
The intrinsic realisation of the importance of such class unity being developed in the advancing phases of the South African revolution can be seen in the COSATU constitution. There is not one shred of racism in it, not one restriction on any worker on the basis of colour.
Recent weeks have given an indication of the tensions developing in South African society; black reaction, black on black violence, white reaction, white on white violence. Events have began to give a form to a future based on two stark alternatives-racial civil war or socialist revolution.
For the workers of South Africa to build the socialist revolution their organisations will have to be equiped with the weapon of argument but also the argument of weapons. The guns, tanks and armoured lorries of the state cannot be defeated with words and policies alone. The need to prepare the movement for a mass armed socialist revolution is the task of tasks facing the workers of South Africa.
Monumental advances have been made by the black workers and youth in the last years. The insurrection of the black youth and the formation of COSATU represent enormous steps forward. But they are not enough. The concentrated forces of the proletariat have to be fused politically into a single revolutionary whole. The ANC has to built as a force for socialism in every township, every city and every village. A mass ANC pledged to the struggle for power, to mass armed insurrection, has to be created as a reality not in words but in deeds. This has to be done by the workers and the youth, no matter what it takes and no matter how long it takes.
Many years ago, Nelson Mandela warned, "No easy walk to freedom' The experience of the last two years makes these words ring in our ears again and again. However this Everest of struggle is an inspiration to workers across the world. The courage, sacrifice and unbreakable spirit that it represents can scarcely be contemplated without feelings of emotion.
There may be no easy walk to freedom but this glorious storming of heaven shows that a socialist South Africa will be created. Nothing can stop the will of the South African workers to change society now
3 July, 1986
[page 7]
As Labour's right wing revive McCarthyite methods to expel Liverpool socialists, Rob Sewell studies the witch-hunts of the 1950's.
The Bevanites: How they 1 were framed
'Bevanism is and only is a conspiracy to seize the leadership for Aneurin Bevan. It is a conspiracy because it has the three essentials of a conspiracy, a leader in Bevan, an organisation run by Mikardo, and a newspaper run by Foot.
- Hugh Gaitskell,
Labour Party Leader 1955-63
"If every organised effort to change Party policy is to be described as an organised attack on the Party itself then the rigidity imposed by Party discipline will soon change into rigor mortis"
- Nye Bevan MP, at the time of his expulsion in 1939
THE PRESENT witch-hunt against Militant and the left in general is nothing new. The parallels with the attacks on the Bevanite left are striking. Every argument and slander thrown against the Bevanites are today vehemently used against Militant and its supporters. In the 1950's it was Bevan and his supporters who were denounced as "communists", "parasites" and "disrupters", etc. They were also directly accused, as is Militant today, of creating a "party within a party", undermining Labour's electoral chances, and devoid of any loyalty to the leadership of the party. With the full backing of the capitalist press, they were systematically hounded by the right wing trade union and parliamentary leaders.
1951 election defeat
Towards the end of the 1945-51 Labour government, the Labour leaders, after introducing a programme of reforms such as the Welfare State, the NHS, the nationalisation of some basic industries, ‚began to carry through anti-working class policies under the pressure of deepening economic difficulties. As a result of the failure of the Labour government to use the massive 1945 victory to put an end to capitalism, they were forced to bend the knee to big business. By 1948, austerity measures were on the order of the day.
The ex-left, Stafford Cripps was appointed Chancellor by Attlee, who used his previous left credentials to carry through a policy of wage 'restraint'. The following year a financial crisis
brought a major devaluation of the pound. Labour also presided over an increase in arms spending. On foreign policy, the government toed the line of US imperialism by supporting their military intervention in Korea.
On a world scale, the deterioration in diplomatic relations between the superpowers of the USA and the USSR ushered in the period of "Cold War' • The political spin-off was the development of the McCarthyite witch-hunt in America with the grotesque public show trials of the Un- American Activities Committee. Thousands of radicals, socialists and communists were hounded out of their jobs for their left-wing sympathies. In Britain, in the spring of 1948, the Attlee government took measures to remove communists and fascists from certain Civil Service posts. Arthur Deakin, right-wing leader of the TG WU, likewise introduced a ban on communists holding union office the following year.
The retreat over policy by the Attlee government gave rise to big opposition in the labour movement. The mounting discontent culminated in the resignation from the government by three lefts, Nye Bevan, John Freeman and the young Harold Wilson in April 1951. The resignation was sparked over the introduction of NHS charges by the new Labour Chancellor, Hugh Gaitskell. The effects of the revolt, however, were cut across by the announcement of a General Election in October of that year. Despite Labour gaining the biggest vote of any party in British history (48.8 per cent of the vote) Labour, due to unfair boundary changes, lost 21 seats allowing the Tories to return to power.
Issues were now posed point blank: What went wrong? The result was a growing radicalisation amongst the rank and file, particularly in the Constituencies. The very same process developed after the electoral defeat of 1931, 1970, and 1979 where party activists reviewed the record of Labour governments.
In 1951, however, the Party and unions were firmly in the grip of rightwing leaderships. The main trade unions were dominated by such right wingers as Arthur Deakin (TGWU), William Lawther (NUM) and Tom Williamson (NUGMW). These "Big Three", , as they were known, sought to prop up the Morrison-Dalton-Attlee leadership in the Party by the undemocratic use of their bloc votes. They were the 1950's equivalent of to-
8
day's Eric Hammond of the EETPU, or Ken Cure of the AEU. Between them they ruthlessly controlled the twelve union seats and five women's places on Labour's National Executive Committee.
Fearful of the radicalisation developing from below, these conspirators met in October 1951 at the St Nicholas Hotel, Scarborough to decide on their bloc votes and organise an "Expel Bevan" movement. Nye Bevan, schooled in the working class movement of South Wales and influenced by Marxist ideas, became the figurehead of opposition to the policy of right wing reformism.
He had many weaknesses politically, as were shown towards the end of the 1950's, but nevertheless he stoodout to all those who genuinely wanted socialist change. To the right wing he personified militant socialism and a direct threat to their privileged positions in the leadership of the movement.
organ
Expelled in 1939 for supporting the Popular Front campaign of Cripps, Bevan was soon readmitted into the Party. First elected to the NEC in 1944, such was his popularity that ever since the 1945 conference he had topped the poll in the constituency section.
At the Scarborough Party Conference in 1951, Bevan once again secured first place with an increased vote. Other successful Bevanites- Barbara Castle, Ian Mikardo and Tom Driberg • also increased their votes substantially. The shift to the left was unmistakable. The right wing were aghast. The Bevanites had to be exterminated at all costs.
To achieve their aim in transforming the party, the Bevanites began to organise themselves into a more effective opposition. By early 1952 they had established a parliamentary group. This however, was met with a massive campaign in the capitalist press: "Bevan crisis week-end. He has two plans to grab the Socialist leadership", , screamed the Sunday Express on 3 February. The plot was traced to Bevan's home. Deakin denounced the Bevanites "who seek a short cut to the leadership". The Tribune newspaper, which became their organ, asked Deakin why he popularised the tittletattle of the Tory press. Not unexpectedly, he ignored the point and continued with his tirade.
Bevanites oraanise
[page 8]
In March, the issue of defence expenditure raised its head. Previously the Labour government had shameful. ly increased arms spending to such a degree that even the Tories found it necessary to reduce this planned expenditure. The PLP were on very thin ice to press for further reductions least they look foolish.
The constituency and trade union activists had no such inhibitions.
Through rank and file pressure, 57 Labour MPs defied the Labour Whip in the Commons and, instead of abstaining as directed, voted against the Tory proposals. This was the last straw. The right wing sharpened their knives. It was reported that the party leaders were to demand that each rebel sign a "loyalty oath" —on pain of expulsion. Bevan replied head on: "If that means a recantation of what we did the • answer is, we won't".
' And later, a socialist in danger of being expelled from the Labour Party because he voted against the Tories?" No doubt the Liverpool councillors could ask the same today.
Yet under pressure the right backtracked. However, from now on the PLP Standing Orders would be rigorously applied.
According to Michael Foot's biography, Deakin believed "to expel 57 would disrupt the party; to expel five or six might be its salvation".
The real intention of the reimposition of Standing Orders was made perfectly clear by Charles Pannell at the following PLP when he attacked the existence of "a special group within the party, organised, secret, and with their own whips on" The Tory press took up the hue and the Bevanites'
cry over secret organisation. The News Chronicle accused Bevan of operating "a party within a party" with whips, officers and secretaries. "Their ready-made propaganda organ is Tribune. Other MPs joined in the witch-hunting atmosphere, including George Brown «The and Patrick Gordon Walker.
Bevanites were accused of every form of machination" records Foot, "it was the nearest Britain of the 1950s got to a MiCarthyite essay in character assassination"
Of course, the Bevanites were organised to get their views across to the rest of the party. In the words of "It is not a new policy we want, Bevan, we've got one. What we want is the victory of one tendency in the Party " There had been groups over another.
organised in the Party in the past. The Keep Left Group was one, but nobody suggested they be expelled or disciplined. It was the Bevanites' growing support amongst the rank and file that created panic amongst the right wing. Meetings were held up and down the country-the Tribune Aneurin Bevan, and right, a younger Michael Foot at Aldermaston, 1959. Brains Trusts--getting larger and larger audiences.
At the 1952 Party conference in Morcecombe, Deakin, the TUC fraternal(!) delegate created a storm by denouncing the "Tribune Organisation" and demanded: "Let them get rid of their whips, dismiss their business managers and conform to the party constitution..
The onslaught begins In the debate calling for industrial action to defeat the Tories, Deakin rushed to the platform and in effect announced "I call the tune because I hold the money bags"! When Lawther was interrupted by a heckler he made the immortal retort "shut your gob"! However, when the votes for the were announced, two more Bevanites were elected: Wilson and Crossman and the right wing Morrison and Dalton were off! To top it all the other Bevanites increased their votes substantially. The heavens broke. The gloves were off. On 5 October, Hugh Gaitskell-Deakin's chosen successor to the ailing Attlee-gave a speech "A most disturbing stating that:
feature of the conference was the number of resolutions and speeches which were Communist-inspired, based not even on the Tribune so much as the Daily Worker...I was told by some observers that about one-sixth of the constituency party delegates ap. pear to be Communist or Communist inspired. This figure may well be too it it should be one-tenth, or even onetwentieth, it is a most shocking state of affairs to which the National Executive should give immediate attention". And later: "It is time to end the attempt at mob rule...
This McCarthyite slander was the signal for an onslaught on the left and the destruction of the Bevanites. Demands for the immediate "disbandment of privately organised factions" came from the Party Secretary Morgan Phillips. An orchestrated campaign demanding similar action began. Tom Williamson in his GMWU paper wrote how "a disgruntled group of ambitious individuals have been organising within the party and have succeeded in organising a recalcitrant faction..its ultimate objective is the usurpation of power". Attlee finally succumbed to the pressure and moved a resolution at the PLP for the abandonment of all organisations within the party other than those officially recognised. Of course the right wing still continued to meet and organise freely: the Deakinites in the St Ermin's Hotel and the Gaitskellites in their own clubs.
The whole atmosphere in the party became poisoned.
The distasteful methods of McCarthyism were pursued with a vengence by the party bureaucracy. Ian Mikardo in 1982 was to recall the situation:
"I find it difficult to describe the atmosphere at those appalling meetings of the NEC in the 1950s. Tom Driberg, a sensitive and fastidious man, who was revolted more by vulgarity than by crime, used to come out of those Wednesday morning sessions, wrung out like a dishrag and desperate for a large drink to get the taste of it out of "On the NEC in those days we had a solid phalanx of world-class haters: Jim Matthews, Bessie Braddock, Alice Bacon, Jean Mann, Alice Horan, with Edith Summerskill as the undisputed Olympic gold-medallist. From 1951 onwards there was never a meeting without some violent attack against the left... and after 1951 Michael Foot was regularly attacked for denigrating the outgoing Labour government: how doth the whirligig of time bring in its The intentions of the right #g
[page 9]
Summer 1986: The
were clear-they wanted to destroy freedom of speech and criticism within the party as a step to expelling the Bevanites completely. When in early 1953 the Tribune criticised the steelworkers' union leader, Lincoln Evans, for accepting a knighthood from the Churchill government which was pledged to denationalise steel, the TUC itself intervened and sent a protest letter to the NEC!
After a bitter shouting match at the NEC, Evans's deputy, Harry Douglas said, "the next logical thing to do is to examine the Tribune Brains Trusts and see if they are a party within a party". Edith Summerskill persisted that it didn't go far enough and what was wanted was "expelling those who are suspected of fellow travelling" Michael Foot later explained their intentions: "first suppress the left-wing press, then forbid us all to speak, and you will get the sort of monolithic party which some people want"
MIR
Bevanites fed in by the regional organisers...
...Ron Haywood (LP General
66 Secretary until 1982) has told me (and others) that on the day he took office as national agent he found a fourdrawer filing cabinet full of these dossiers, and burned the lot of them."
Today, in the witch-hunt against Militant and the Liverpool councillors all the old policing methods have been revived. We have the return to the paraphernalia of inquistions, dossiers, spying, disciplinary hearings and expulsions of the 1950s.
The NEC itself took legal advice in May 1954 to gag all members. The only course the lawyers could suggest was to amend the party constitution to make the NEC deliberations secret. It was felt that this was going too far for the moment so the right wing instead demanded adherence to "collective responsibility" to silence the Bevanites.
In this atmosphere the right wing took action against the left wing journal Socialist Outlook. At the May 1954 NEC the paper was proscribed by 14-9, with the Bevanites fighting a rearguard action. Michael Foot declared that those who had received letters from Transport House demanding loyalty oaths should refuse to sign them. "We cannot allow this to go on" ", he said, "and free controversy and free newspapers to be stamped out of existence... the great men who built this movement would be ashamed of documents such as this". Despite rank and file opposition the NEC proceeded to expel those who refused to repudiate the paper. Tribune and its Bevanite supporters were clearly next in line.
In mid 1954 Greenwood, the party treasurer died. Speculation about Gaitskell standing became rife. Despite being defeated repeatedly for the NEC constituency section, with the backing of Deakin and the bloc vote he could easily secure the treasurership.
Bevan had resigned from Shadow Cabinet earlier, but sought to challenge Gaitskell Treasurer and take the left's case the trade unions.
By the October conference the election had become a foregone conclusion: 4,338,000 for Gaitskell and 2,032,000 for Bevan. After his expected defeat Bevan pledged to campaign amongst the trade union rank and file to challenge their right wing leaders. "We are not going to be intimidated by he dividual trade union leaders... said. At the Scarborough conference, 2,000 filled the Floral Hall to hear him speak. When Deakin heard about it he
was determined to have him expelled
within 12 months.
In the new year 40,000 London dockers took unofficial strike action.
Deakin denounced the strike as
"MI5-style dossiers'
Shortly after the meeting, Sir William Lawther weighed in by accusing the Bevanites of attempted "to undermine the leadership in the same way as Hitler and the Communists did. There is no difference whatever between them"
However the attempted purge rebounded on the right wing as all the publicity helped to attract larger audiences- in fact bigger crowds than anyone else. This drove the right wing into a frenzy. One of their spokesmen the young Roy Jenkins, blurted out: «Well, they-. mean we-feel that every speech, every action must now be considered as part of the power fight within the party. That's why we hate Bevanism. Before it began, one could have free speech. Now one can't afford to"
The NEC minutes tor 1953-94 are a long catalogue of investigation, enquiries, disciplinary hearings and expulsions at every level of the party. Ian Mikardo observed how the party machine was used to carry out the witch-hunt:
"No applicant for a job in Transport House or in the regional offices had any chance of being appointed if he were suspected of being anywhere left of centre. A large part of the work of the national agent's department, first under Len Williams and then even more under Sara Barker, was devoted to compiling exhaustive MI5-style dossiers on all the prominent left members of the party. Those dossiers contained clips of our articles and speeches, and McCarthy-like guilt-byassociation information on our relations and friends and associates. Some of this material was put together in Transport House, and a lot of it was
the now
for into
George Brown, a leading figure on the right. "Communist-inspired" • When the Tribune criticised him and the TGWU leadership for not supporting the docks strike, the NEC passed a censure motion on the paper and sent the editorial board-Jennie Lee, JPW Mallalieu and Michael Foot—a letter demanding: "How do you reconcile your attacks on the leadership of the TGWU with your membership of the party?" The noose began to tighten.
In March 1955 the Tory government sought parliamentary approval to begin the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb. Labour's amendment to the Defence White Paper, while critical, approved the proposal in principle. Despite a three-line whip, 62 Labour MPs, including Bevan, abstained from voting for the opposition amendment. In the debate Bevan asked Attlee to make Labour's position absolutely clear. Such action was used as a pretext to point to the Labour leader's embarrassment and demand-with the notable support of Jim Callaghan-the expulsion of Bevan from the PLP. The right wing then looked to the NEC to expel the • rebel from the party altogether. "If the party tolerates this behaviour any longer" , stated George Brown, 'it will connive at its own destruction"
Bevan faces expulsion
Despite protest resolutions and letters inundating Transport House, the bone-headed right however were determined to see the execution through to the end, no matter what the price. Against this conspiracy, Bevan thundered defiantly: "Very well, I am 57 years of age. I have devoted myself exclusively to the party for 45 years. My fundamental loyalites are with this party. Whatever you do now, I am not going out to form a new party. But nothing can deny my right and the right of others to help shape the future of the party and make it the instrument we want it to be".
On the eve of the NEC Gaitskell
[page 10]
stated sharply: "It's got to be clear-
ed up. There are extraordinary
parallels between Nye and Adolf
Hitler. They are demagogues of exact-
ly the same sort"
At the Executive, Percy Knight of
the Seamen's Union moved and Jack
Cooper of the GMW seconded the mo-
tion for Bevan's expulsion from the
party. Apart from others, Attlee mov-
ed a delaying amendment to establish
an enquiry to interview Bevan and
seek assurances for the future. After
a long and bitter debate the amend-
ment was passed 15 for and 13
against. Ian Mikardo returned from
Israel especially for the meeting, and
later recalled:
"Edith Summerskill was so raving-
ly angry with me for denying her a
casting vote that she couldn't bring
herself to pronounce my name, and
when, later, she called me to speak, she
called me as "that man over there in
the brown suit". . From then on, and for
as long as Edith remained on the ex-
ecutive, I always wore a brown suit at
every NEC meeting."
It was discovered however that Mrs
Jean Mann had hesitatingly defected from the right's camp. Once found out,
Deakin pronounced: "that's the end of that woman".
But Bevan was not in the clear. He still had to face the investigation
which demanded answers to three alleged crimes: (a) the attacks made upon leaders of the party and trade unions; (b) the repeated refusal to accept majority decisions; and (c) the existence of an organised group within the party with its own press.
After the interrogation a report was delivered to the NEC. Under pressure from below the majority backed a motion condemning Bevan and warning of "drastic action against future violations of party discipline". • The expulsion resolution was withdrawn. However the left-as today with Blunkett, Meacher, Sawyer-caved in under the attacks, with a "soft" ex-left around Crossman, Wilson and Freeman distancing themselves from Bevan. For instance, Crossman had invited Gaitskell for a secret drink to "build bridges" to the Deakinites before the NEC. Bevan pulled no punches with Crossman: "In moments of crisis when the knives are out, equivocation is tantamount to treachery".
In December-after Attlee's retirement-Gaitskell defeated Bevan for party leader by 157 to 70. Despite this consolidation of the right's control, some of the trade unions began to be more responsive to the rank and file. The death of Deakin gave rise to a left-winger Frank Cousins, becoming TGWU general secretary and NEC member. Nevertheless, the Party bureaucracy continued to hound the
left in the constituencies. According to
Foot, "Everywhere he (Bevan) went he
put the case against the expulsions
and proscriptions which were taking
place in so many local parties or the
talk of fresh discipline against him—
and for a new birth of freedom in the
party"
Labour's defeat in the 1955 election
together with Gaitskell's election as
party leader signalled the attempt to
revise the party's commitment to
socialist policies.
A similar process has taken place
since the 1983 defeat and the election
of Neil Kinnock as party leader. The
radical policies have been abandoned
in favour of old discredited ideas of
wage control, "New Dealism" and
moderation.
Bevan-despite his disorientation
and shift to the right politically in
these years-remained at least in
words on the left. "The Labour Party
must have as its aim the establish-
ment of a socialist society." Its cen-
trepiece must be a massive extension
of public ownership so that "the com-
munity should own the commanding
heights of the economy"
Clause Four attacked
The right wing's attempt to silence the Left and crush all dissent within
the party was put to the test after the
1959 election defeat. Gaitskell and others conspired to ditch Clause 4, erase the "working class" image of the party, and transform it into a Social Democratic-Liberal Party. The rank and file exploded. Protests rained down on Transport House and the Gaitskellites retreated.
The election of Bevan as Deputy Leader led him tó propose that the PLP's Standing Orders should be abandoned, as a step in liberalising the party. Despite resistance from the right, the proposition was carried However, according to Foot "both the spirit and the letter of the idea of abandoning Standing Orders were broken by Gaitskell, Brown and other leaders of the party". The right wing were prepared to bend, break and invent rules when it suited their interests. The same is true today. Together with a number of ex-lefts, around the LCC, Labour's right have conspired to frame-up Militant supporters in Liverpool. The Majority Report was cobbled together from gossip, malicious tittle tattle and pure fabrication, as the basis for expulsions. These base methods and foul means are the same as were used against the Bevanites.
Michael Foot himself had the whip withdrawn in 1961. However, as he says in 1964 • and 1966 a more democratic regime was introduced "with the result that the parliamentary inquisitions, bannings and auto-
da-fés of the Gaitskell era now seem
almost as distant as the Spanish In-
quisition itself"
With the victory of the left on the
NEC, in 1973 the hideous LP "pro-
scribed list" was finally abolished.
Even as late as April 1982 Ian Mikar-
do could write in New Socialist: "but
we have no secret-police dossiers, we
don't try to prevent members from
writing or saying what they think, we
don't withdraw the whip, and we don't
witch-hunt and expel"
How things have changed in four
years! The growth of Marxist ideas in
the Labour Party and trade unions
have alarmed the ruling class and their
shadows within the labour movement.
The struggle by Liverpool City Coun
with its Marxist leadership,
mobilised tens of thousands against
the Thatcher government. Such a
development terrified the bourgeois
and its strategists. For them, the
Labour Party and trade unions in
reliable hands give stability to the
capitalist system. The loss of these
organisations to Marxism in the future
would be unthinkable. Their strategy,
therefore, is to witch-hunt and hopeful-
ly crush the forces of Marxism before
it gains a mass influence.
The prospect of a Labour
government-which is the most likely perspective-that is hoping to patch-up capitalism by orthodox measures will provoke a massive radicalisation of the labour organisations. The bourgeois fear that Marxism would become the focal point of the opposition like the ILP between 1929-31. Such a development is a nightmare for the serious strategists of capital. It is for that very reason that they are orchestrating a witchhunt in the present period
The difference with past purges of the left within the party is the tactics and approach of Militant with its iron determination not to be driven out under any circumstances. The attacks on Marxism, far from intimidating its supporters, have given them great courage and inspiration.
The crisis of capitalism, combined with a crisis of reformism, is providing the objective basis for a rapid growth of Marxism within the labour movement and working class generally. The attempts to suppress these ideas by organisational means are inevitable given the political bankruptcy of its reformist opponents. They will try to maintain their leading positions at all costs, including political repression of the opposition. However, ideas when they represent a material force are far stronger than any bureaucratic measures or apparatus. That is why Militant is confident of the future and in the ability of the working class to change society. That is why Marxism will triumph.