[page 5]
Nov 1983 MIR Editorial
The only reason why the old, discredited leaders of the right managed to cling to positions of power and influence in the Party at this conference was because of the helping hand which they received from a section of the former Tribune group of MPs, now generally referred to as the "soft" left. The chief representative of this group, Neil Kinnock, has now been elected leader of the Labour Party.
There is no doubt that the election of Kinnock has aroused considerable expectation, not only in the rankand-file of the Party and the unions, but also among the broad mass of Labour voters, as indicated by the boost in Labour's popularity in the opinion polls following the conference. The majority have the impression of a new and youthful leadership, with the energy to "get the show together" and begin to get on with the real job of fighting the Tories.
Nevertheless, it is not the "image" which counts, but the substance which lies behind it. What policies will the new leadership defend? Will they be prepared to stand by conference decisions? Or will they attempt-as has already been hinted-to undermine such important gains as re-selection, the election of the leader and the democratic control of the manifesto?
It is clear that Neil Kinnock will be under heavy pressure from the right to try to pull the Party in their direction. His previous attitude to the witch-hunting of Militant and his backsliding on the issue of unilateral nuclear disarmament at Brighton are bad omens for the future, and this has to be said clearly.
But what about the left? The Brighton conference saw the Tribune left in complete disarray. The campaign for Meacher was dismally organised. Once again, this tendency showed its inability to take seriously the vital task of work in the trade unions, where Hattersley swept the board, quite unnecessarily if the left had done its homework. What is even more incredible is the support which Hattersley got in the CLPs. Here the Tribune tendency, theoretically, has a big majority. Yet their candidate, Meacher, got less votes than Hat-
tersley in the constituency Why?
It is perfectly clear that a significant section of the Tribune left voted for Hattersley. Like fair-weather mariners, they were quite happy to tag along with the crowd when the left was obviously in the ascendent. Now many of them have run for cover at the first sign of difficulties. They have simply caved in to the pressure and blackmail of the millionaire press and the right wing.
This undignified retreat is the inevitable result of the ideological confusion and amorphousness of left reformism, which does not take politics and the class struggle seriously and, to judge from Brighton, does not take itself too seriously either. The Marxists in the Labour Party are part of the left-the most consistent and intransigent part—but we will not and cannot remain silent when the "soft" left and even the so-called "hard" left fail to act in consonance with the principle of Socialism and the interests of the working class.
The arguments in favour of the socalled "dream ticket" carried a certain weight when put forward by the trade union leaders, in a situation where many Labour and trade union activists were anxious to achieve a formula for unity at all costs. But, unfortunately, this barrage of propaganda was not countered in any sense, shape or form by the Tribune left who failed to come up with a viable alternative.
The Marxist wing of the Labour Party, represented by Militant, always gives critical support to the left's candidates against those of the right wing. On this occasion, in the interests of gaining a left majority on the NEC, two of the candidates, Pat Wall and Terry Fields MP, both Militant supporters, chose to stand down, rather than split the vote. And yet, the Tribune supporters were not even able or willing to reach agreement on this, and actually stood against each other!
The real explanation for the sorry showing put up by Tribune at Brighton was not organisational but political. While many honest rank and file Labour activists have supported Tribune in the belief that its policies would bring socialism, it is perfectly clear that section of its
4
tendency—a middle-class, "trendy" section with no roots in the working class whose ideas are more akin with Liberalism than Socialism-are moving to the right at a velocity approaching the speed of light.
The spokesmen for this wing have privately-and even publicly—placed the blame for Labour's defeat on the working class (who else?). Professor Hobsbawm of the "Communist Party" has thrown in his three ha' pence, trying to give the semblance of a "theoretical" justification to this shamefaced retreat and ending up, inevitably, on the side of the extreme right of the Labour Party, in openly advocating an electoral alliance with the Liberal-Social Democratic Alliance.
Unfortunately for the learned professor, and his admirers in the Labour Party, the bottom was knocked out of this argument by the collapse of the Alliance in the opinion polls immediately after the Brighton conference. Rather a feeble crutch to lean on! Yet these university wiseacres prefer to clutch at any straw, rather than accept the elementary truth that Labour must base itself on the organised strength of the working class to transform society.
The Tribune left, while it is more sensitive to the aspirations of the rank and file on most issues than the right or "soft left", has no really worked out position, and offers no global alterations to the reformist leadership. They criticise the right, but do not draw all the necessary conclusions from their criticisms. Above all, they do not consistently raise the need for a thoroughgoing socialist transformation of society as the only way out for the working class. Maybe 'half a loaf is better than no bread." But in the harsh world of the class struggle, half a policy is sometimes worse than none at all. After Brighton, many supporters of Tribune, will be seriously examining the role of this tendency, and looking for a serious political alternative.
Tories in Turmoil
In reality, those Labour and trade nion leaders who have been hypotised by the "dazzling successs" of hatcher have entirely missed the
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point. Only months after their electon victory, the Tory government is coming apart at the seams. The real significance of the 'Parkinson affair" was that it showed up the depth of the divisions existing within the Tory Party.
Hegel once said that "Necessity expresses itself through accident." Long before Mr.Parkinson's toings and froings had ever been heard of, the frictions between Tory Ministers had already acquired an alarming character. The kept Tory press was already beginning to grumble about 'this accident-prone government." And even the "Iron Lady" was beginning to creak a little at the joints.
What is the underlying cause of this strange malaise in the Tory Party? They cannot be unduly worried about the right wing of the Labour Party and the TUC who, instead of fighting them, spend all their time trying to "build bridges" —or, to put it in plain english, trying to do a deal with the enemy. If they have not succeeded to date, that is not their fault, but because the Tories see no need to make serious concessions to an opponent who surrenders without firing a shot. "Weakness invites aggression," as Len Murray discovered in his dealings with Tebbit, and, despite his high hopes, will re-discover with Tebbit's successor.
It is not the individual minister who decides, but the crisis of the system. The Tories will be forced to cut state expenditure, lose the nationalised industries and attempt to hand them back to the monopolies, begin to dismantle the NHS and try to take away trade union rights—not because of the whims of Thatcher and Tebbit, but because they see no other way out on the basis of capitalism. From a capitalist point of view, there is a certain logic in their arguments. There is no logic whatsoever in the position taken by Len Murray and the TUC.
Only mass action by the trade union and labor movement can halt the Tories' plans to destroy what is left of the welfare state, cripple the unions and drive down workers' living standards. That is the position of the supporters of Militant and one which will be borne out by events.
The doubts and vacillations in the
Party of a section of the Tory "wets" is not because they are more
'humanitarian" or "reasonable"
than the others (as Len Murray
believes), but because they are more
far-sighted. They understand that the
present policies are a recipe for social convulsions and class struggle in Britain. And in that they are undoubtedly correct-far more correct than
Hobsbawm, and his ilk—people who have lost all faith in socialism and the working class and whose only message for Labour is one of despair, reaction and abject surrender. Fortunately, there is no chance whatever that the working class of this country will go down that road. Unlike the drawing-room philosophers, the workers, the unemployed and the youth have no option but to fight. Those who have no stomach for a fight will just be thrust aside.
The mood in the factories and working class estates today is not at all like the despairing mood that existed at the time of the Social Contract. There is a sobre-minded desire to take stock of the situation, to draw a balance sheet of recent experience. There is, perhaps, an element of confusion also. But things will rapidly become clear, as the workers-and the middle class—realise the true meaning of Thatcherism. This can generate violent swings of public opinion by which the basis of Thatcher's support can be swiftly undermined.
The speed with which the situation can be transformed is shown by the way in which the psychological effects of Thatcher's victory on the working class have already been shaken off. The few months since the general election already seem like an epoch. Despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth of the middle class "lefts" , the workers have already passed on to the next item on the agenda. They have swung from a setback on the electoral front, to struggles on the industrial front, which could easily develop in the next period, into a general strike, or a situation of general strike proportions.
The fear of the ruling class at the prospect of a big battle on the industrial front is shown by the behaviour of the press. In the past, the papers played up every little strike, exaggerating its importance in
5
order to depict the British workers as "strike-happy". Now a curtain of
silence has descended. Only the big-
ger disputes are reported, because
they cannot be hushed up. Yet in the
recent months, there has been a rash
of strikes, particularly in small firms,
which is a warning of what can be ex-
pected in the next period.
In the scale of history, an election victory or defeat is only a passing event. It is a snap-shot which shows the transitory state of mind of the masses frozen in a given moment of time. But history moves on, and the moods of the masses-especially of the middle class-are as changeable as the shifting sands of the desert. That is why it is so absurd to base everything on the single idea "the Tories have a big majority for five years". The position of this government, despite the size of its majority will be increasingly shaky as time goes on. Splits and fissures will open up in the ranks of the Tory Party, and these, in turn, will have a radicalising effect upon society, pushing the labour movement once again firmly to the left. That is why the apparent advance of the right at this year's Labour Party conference also has a purely ephemeral character.
The Labour right and their allies on the "soft" left are, in reality, swimming hopelessly against the tide of history. The new waves of workers and young people who will come into the Labour Party as a result of the general radicalising effect of the capitalist crisis will want clear policies, and not half-hearted solutions to their problems. People like Healey, Hattersley, Shore and Mitchell represent the outmoded past of Labour, not its future.
The rising new generation of class fighters, trade union activists and young shop stewards will not join the Labour Party looking for jobs and careers, like the old right. But neither will they join it merely to "do good" to people. They will join the Labour party in order to effect a fundamental change in the social order, an order which has become an intolerable obstacle in the way of progress and which threatens the very existence of the most elementary rights and conquests of working people.
The ideas of Marxism will have a
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Nov 1983 MIR Editorial particular appeal to these fresh layers of working class recruits. These, in turn, will re-kindle the fighting,spirits of the older generation of Labour workers, who have, in their heart of hearts, not abandoned the ideas of socialism. This is the only message of hope for the future of mankind. It is a banner which, whatever may happen, we shall never surrender. D Grenada Invasion Trial Run for Nicaragua?
Grenadian Prime- Maurice Bishop, Minister 1979-83 THE CHRONIC INSTABILITY flowing from the world crisis of capitalism was starkly revealed by the sudden invasion of Grenada by US forces.
On the eve of World War Two, Leon Trotsky predicted that US imperialism, as a result of its participation in the war, would gain a position of world dominance, but only at the cost of incorporating into its very foundations all the explosive material accumulated by capitalism on a world scale.
Now, four decades or so later, the strategists of capital are beginning to come to the same conclusion. At the present moment, the United States finds itself embroiled in the Lebanon, in Nicaragua-where it is fighting what is, for the moment, a proxy war against the revolution and now also in the Caribbean.
Clearly, the idea of Reagan is to carry out a rapid "police" operation, and quickly to withdraw his troops from Grenada, leaving behind a stooge government, propped up by "reliable" forces from other Caribbean states. He has undoubtedly been helped in this strategem by the blundering and bloodthirsty antics of the Stalinist clique which carried out the coup, provoking widespread indignation throughout the Caribbean. But that was merely the excuse. There is ample evidence to show that the invasion was planned many months before the coup. In reality, however, history shows that it is far easier to get into a situation like this than it is to get out again.
Reagan's indecent haste to trample the Grenadan revolution underfoot, despite the effect which it will undoubtedly have on the rest of the Caribbean and Central and South America, and despite the cracks which it has opened up in the Western Alliance, with immediate and negative reactions from France, Mexico, Canada, and even Britain, in the jittery shows Washington at the prospect of the of revolution, albeit in a spread deformed way, in its own "backyard".
The invasion of Grenada makes a joke of all the pious hypocrisy of the western politicians and the mass media about the Russian "aggression" in Afghanistan. It shows beyond doubt that what moves the imperialists is not love of democracy, freedom or peace, but naked class interest, and unbridled lust for profits, power and privilege.
Likewise, the mumblings of Thatcher and Howe are not motivated by concern for the "sovereignty" of Grenada, but by fear of losing markets in the Third World if they openly supported the invasion. This pathetic attempt at influencing Washington only served to prick the bubble of "Britain's greatness", assiduously inflated by Thatcher since the Falklands conflict. Reagan simply brushed aside the British objections with all the attention of a man contemptuously flicking away a troublesome flea. By this humiliating blow to the prestige of its main representative, British imperialism stands exposed in the eyes of the world for what it truly is—a third rate client state of America, whose views count for less than nothing in the important forums of world opinion. The long-term effects of the American intervention will be incalculable. Even in the short run, Reagan's illusions in the possibility of "re-establishing stability" (i.e. US domination) in the Caribbean will be rudely dissipated. The revolutionary ferment in the Caribbean and Central America, of which Grenada is one of the clearest expressions, is not caused by foreign "conspiracies", but by the terrible conditions of mass misery, want and unemployment described in another article in this issue. This brutal action of the Pentagon was meant as a warning to the workers in other Caribbean states not to go down the road of the overthrow of capitalism, and not to push too hard for democratic and social rights. But these bully-boy tactics will be in vain. The invasion of Grenada will usher in a new and stormy period of unrest throughout the Caribbean. New explosions will be inevitable. There is, however, a wider dimension to the problem. This was a trial run by the United States to test the reaction of the people and Congress to military intervention in the Caribbean. It is a preparation for a far more serious, bloody and protracted action, the aim of which is no less than the overthrow of the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, where the Americans are already waging an undeclared war through the agency of the "Contras".
In spite of the harsh lessons of Vietnam, American imperialism sees no other way out than to attempt to stamp out the revolution in Central America by armed force. The convulsive reactions of Reagan are determined by the crisis of capitalism and the instability of the situation throughout the entire area of the Caribbean and Central America. The United States, in effect, now regards the Caribbean as an American lake, and Central America as an American colony. They will have to relearn the lessons of Vietnam the hard way. The world has changed drastically since the days when Teddy Roosevelt could order the making and breaking of small countries in the South by picking up
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a telephone. It is impossible for a power even as mighty as the USA to oppress and dominate a people which is prepared to fight for national and social emancipation.
The impending events will have earth-shaking consequences within the United States itself, as Trotsky predicted long ago. The explosions being prepared in the Caribbean, Central and South America will have far more profound repercussions even than the Vietnam War, which, after all, took place in a period of general economic upswing, whereas the present conflicts are unfolding in a period of world recession. White The failed actor in the House, who appears to be attempting to imitate the feats of John Wayne, using the whole world for a stage, is a grotesque and caricatured reflection of the convulsions of American capitalism. His escapades in the future will only serve to provoke an movement of the enormous American working class which will draw in its train the blacks, the "chicanos", the youth and large sections of the intellectuals, repelled by the brutality of US imperialism. If the revolution in Nicaragua had been led by conscious Marxist internationalists, it would be impossible for US imperialism, despite all its powers, to trample underfoot the peoples who are fighting for national and social liberation throughout the zone. They would have eliminated the 60 percent of the economy which remains in private hands, established a healthy democratic workers' state and made a class appeal to the oppressed masses of the Caribbean and Central America to rally to their supand port overthrow their taskmasters. The example of a genuine workers' democracy would have an enormous effect on the hearts and minds of the working class and all the oppressed layers of society in the United States and throughout the world.
Even on the present basis, the Nicaraguan revolution represents a gigantic step forward, which must be defended with might and main by the labour movement in Britain and all countries. The international workers must give unconditional support for the workers of Grenada to drive out the invaders and raise all the material means of assistance to defend the Nicaraguan workers and peasants in their struggle to defeat the oppressor and fight for their emancipation from imperialist and capitalist slavery. O Argentine elections "Arrival of the dream ticket"
THE ARGENTINE elections of 31 October mark a new and decisive phase in the developing prerevolutionary situation in that country.
The victory of the Radical Party of Raúl Alfonsín has been widely acclaimed in the bourgeois press as a victory for "moderation". In reality, it represented the first, confused movement of the masses in the direction of the socialist transformation of society.
Alfonsín, a shrewd and skilful bourgeois politician, stood on a "left" platform, making demagogic promises of increased living standards, improved welfare benefits, the democratisation of the unions and a clear-out of the Army.
In contrast, the Peronist leaders— whose programme in all essentials was the same as that of the Radicals--hopelessly compromised themselves by their wheeling and dealing with the murderous army generals, whom they were prepared to let off scot-free. This, in addition to the murky past of a large part of the Peronist leadership-especially in the unions-caused a heavy loss of support to the Radicals, mainly among the middle class, professional people and students, but also among a significant layer of the traditionally Peronist working class.
Alfonsín skilfully exploited the weakness of the Peronists, putting forward a "left" image. The fact that he alone had criticised the Junta's invasion of the Falklands, in addition to his demagogic attacks on corruption enabled him to present himself as "Mr. Clean". The vote for the Radicals was in no way a vote for capitalism, as is being implied by the capitalist press.
The majority of the middle class people and workers who voted for 7 Alfonsín have compared him to Felipe Gonzalez in Spain.
He has presented himself as all things to all men. Nevertheless, the real position of the Radicals has been clearly understood by the serious Argentine press which has aptly described them as "the dream merchants".
Under conditions of economic chaos, with mass unemployment and inflation of 500%, the Radicals' election promises will be an albatross around their necks. They have already begun to backtrack on their commitment to punish those members of the armed services guilty of atrocities during the "dirty war" against the Argentine labour movement. This will cause a rapid loss of support and inevitably provoke a crisis in the ranks of the Radicals and big splits at a certain stage, beginning with the youth, many of whom are really looking for a socialist solution.
Once the reality of the situation becomes clear, the Argentine working class will react violently against the new government. In spite of themselves, the Peronist union leaders will be pushed into opposition to the Radicals. Under the explosive conditions of Argentine society, a general strike is implicit in the entire situation. It is higly unlikely that the Radicals will even run their whole term of office, and the stage will be set for a massive Peronist landslide at the next elections.
The immediate result of the election defeat has been to provoke a big crisis in the ranks of Peronism. Even during the election campaign, the representatives of the most corrupt and degenerate right wing, the unions, were booed and shouted down by the workers. In many districts Peronist workers have moved to take over the headquarters of the unions and even the party in order forcibly to eject the hated bureaucrats. In this way the workers are attempting to carry out the internal transformation of their traditional mass organisations.
The victory of the Radicals, and the complete shattering of the Junta, will serve to accelerate the pace of the revolutionary process. The Argentine working class, with its magnificent traditions of struggle, will move from
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Nov 1983 MIR Editorial below to attempt to solve its problems on the industrial front. The middle class, students and others who voted Radical this time, will be swept behind the movement of the workers. A Peronist victory is inevitable in the next period, despite the illusion engendered by the temporary success of the Radicals.
The Peronists will come to power under dramatically different conditions to those of the past. The hold of the union bureaucracy is infinitely weaker. The workers are tired of being manipulated and are no longer prepared to accept anything on trust. That is precisely the lesson of these elections.
A Peronist government would come to power under enormous pressure from the working class. It could be pushed further than the leaders would wish. But under conditions of catastrophic crisis in Argentina there is no possibility of returning to the "good old days" when Perón gave the workers big concessions in wages and conditions. Very quickly, the Peronists would begin to split along class lines. At this moment in time, the Army is divided, and demoralised. All talk about a possible right-wing coup is absolutely unrealistic in this situation. With correct Marxist leadership it would be possible for the working cluss to take power without violence and bloodshed. However, this extremely favourable situation will not last. Reaction will regroup, behind the stage-show of bourgeois democracy. Within the next few years, an open confrontation between the classes is inevitable.
Sections of the Left Peronists, especially in the youth, grouped around the Montaneros, who regard themselves as Marxists, are already raising the perspective of civil war, and calling for the creation of a mass workers' militia. Armed with correct Marxist ideas, methods and tactics, the Argentine working class would be A repetition of the invincible.
mistaken tactics and policies of the past would pave the way for a new disaster. Either the greatest possible victory for the working people, or the greatest possible catastrophe—-that is the only perspective for Argentina now. There is no going back. The Argentinian revolution has begun. - World Socialist Books Taaffe .
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