On Sunday, April 2nd, at the Stoll Theatre, London, a conference of delegates from various working class organisations was organised by the Daily Worker, It was proclaimed as a tremendous success in the Daily Worker the following day—in the words of Mr. William Rust, the "Conference has spoken the will of the people."
Here we might well question whether the conference was representative of the people as it has been claimed. The Daily Worker (April 8, 1944) giving details of the representation states that there were 1762 delegates present, (we have totalled up the figures as given and make it 1803, but that is by the way!)
The vast majority of these represented trade union branches, district committees, shop stewards' committees, etc. The Communist Party sent 73 delegates, the Co-operative movement 66, Common Wealth 32, and local and divisional Labour Parties 17. The Labour Party had officially boycotted the conference, the Liberal Party was not represented although Mrs. Corbett Ashby, late Vice-President, claiming to speak for an enormous number of the rank and file of that party, was present as an independent, neither was the I.L.P., nor, needless to say, the Socialist Party of Great Britain.
It would seem, therefore, that Mr. William Rust has been tempted to exaggerate a little, like a proud father, perhaps over the achievements of the baby he had helped to bring into the world, especially in view of the fact that his paper claimed that the delegates represented only 2,000,000 of "the people."
Passing over this doubtful claim of speaking the will of that nebulous entity "the people," let us examine the "will" that was expressed. The conference was called to face the "urgency of unity for victory in the war, for overcoming all obstacles to the mobilisation of resources and power in the war effort, and for laying the foundations for victory in the peace, too."
In the morning session the problem of winning the war was dealt with, the chief bone of contention being picked by the Common Wealth (Mr. Tom Wintringham) and the Communist Party (Mr. W. Gallacher) on the question of the Coalition government. Wintringham wanted to see the ending of the coalition whilst Gallacher stated that it was futile to discuss getting national unity by breaking up the National Government yet at the same time we should not have a Tory-dominated coalition.
In the afternoon session dealing with post-war problems, however, more diversity of opinion was expressed. Sir Richard Acland wanted nationalisation of the mines; Krishna Menon wanted Amery sacked and the Indian leaders freed;- somebody else wanted better education; another wanted to build houses after the war; R. G. McKay of Common Wealth said that "it would not worry him which progressive M.P.s got in —so long as we got a Socialist majority in the House of Commons;" and so forth and so on.
Amidst all the welter of diverse opinions there was, however, agreement on the fact that "Unity and progress are possible only by the united action of the great mass organisations of the Labour movement—the Labour Party, the trade unions and the Conservatives."
It was stressed throughout the meeting that nothing could be done without the Labour Party, but we want to know what they want to do. We doubt whether the words "unity" and "progressive" have been used so frequently in one day before, with so little regard for what unity was wanted for or to what it was wanted to progress.
As a generalisation of the speeches made it is our impression that all the delegates were concerned with was getting rid of the Tory domination of Parliament and substituting a United Progressive Left Front Government in its place and this would appear to be the intention behind the resolution which was passed, viz.,
"This Conference greets the decision of the Executive Committee of the Amalgamated Engineering Union calling on the Labour Party to convene a conference to formulate a common policy for the working class movement in readiness for the next general election and pledges itself to do all in its power in support."
It will be noted that the conference pledged its support for a "common policy" not yet decided upon at a conference to be called by the Labour Party which officially banned this one!
Thus we see that the result was that nobody got very far although everybody was in a hurry to get somewhere. The trouble was that nobody knew exactly where to go.
How much longer will the S.P.G.B. have to point out to the working class that as long as they make these futile attempts at unity simply on the flimsy basis of getting rid of the Tories or some such specious plea they will still have to travel the same old capitalist road. Unity for Socialism alone is what the working class should bother about—when this is achieved all these other pettifogging problems will disappear like chaff before the wind.
N.S.
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