Cooking the Books: In or Out - Who Cares? (2013)

The Cooking the Books column from the October 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists sometimes talk of ‘the capitalist class’ doing this or wanting that as if they were a monolithic whole with a single interest. In fact different sections of the capitalist class have different interests. Their attitude to the EU is a case in point.

Cameron has rather foolishly promised an in/out referendum on the issue; rather foolishly because (as the vote in parliament on bombing Syria shows) he cannot be sure that the result will be the one he wants, which will be to stay in with reforms, also the position of the Confederation of British Industry, which represents the biggest capitalist corporations operating in and from Britain.

One of the export-oriented big boys put the case for staying in to the Evening Standard (9 August):

‘Britain should stay in the European Union to safeguard exports to the Continent, the boss of Hitachi’s train operations in the UK urged today.… Mr Dormer… said exporters wanted Britain to have warm and stable relations with Europe. ‘Europe is potentially our biggest market and we would not want anything to happen that would create barriers or damage the relationship,’ he said.’

The previous day, the Times had reported ‘Business leaders press for single market withdrawal’:

‘Business for Britain will call for the nation to downgrade its relationship with the EU and become part of a customs union instead… The plans would allow Britain to avoid tariffs when trading with Europe, while not having to sign up to various rules which harmonise business conditions across the 28 member countries. If a future government managed to negotiate such a change, it would put Britain in a similar trading position to Turkey.’

Business for Britain, the Times explained, ‘claims to have the backing of 500 influential figures, including FTSE 100 directors and the owners of smaller businesses. They include Sir Stuart Rose, chairman of Ocado, Richard Burrows, chairman of British American Tobacco, and Ian Cheshire, chief executive of Kingfisher, parent company of B&Q.’ Other backers are Lord Wolfson, CEO of Next, John Caudwell, founder of Phones4U, Sir Rocco Forte, executive chairman of Rocco Forte Hotels, Tim Martin, chairman of pub group JD Wetherspoon, and Charlie Mullins, managing director of Pimlico Plumbers.

It is easy to see what these have in common: they are all bosses of firms producing for the home market. The exception is BAT but they want to push their risky product in developing countries where restrictions on its sale are less than in Europe.

The same relationship to the EU as Turkey? The CBI has already rejected the even less distant relationships of Norway and Switzerland. Its director-general, John Cridland, had an article in the Times (4 July) headed ‘In or out, Britain has to play by Europe’s rules. Norway and Switzerland pay the costs of membership with no say over EU laws. That’s a bad deal for UK businesses.’

This dispute within the British capitalist class has no class interest for workers. Whether British capitalism is in or out of the EU will make no difference to their position as a class forced to work for a wage or a salary and won’t affect the problems they face either way.

So, if the referendum ever comes, you won’t find us joining with the xenophobic right and the xenophobic left to line up behind Ocado, B&Q, Next, Phones4U, Wetherspoons, Pimlico Plumbers and other firms producing for the home market in saying No2EU. We’ll be advising workers who understand their class position to write ‘World Socialism’ across their ballot paper.

Between the Lines: Distorting Marx (1988)

The Between the Lines column from the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Distorting Marx

You will notice that whenever a TV company chooses to make a film about the meaning of Christianity it hires a Christian to do the explaining. Likewise, when we see TV programmes about motor cars they tend to be introduced by car drivers, not by cyclists who are fundamentally opposed to motor transport or pedestrians who have never sat behind a car steering wheel. Not so when it comes to discussing Marx. To speak about this subject on TV requires different qualifications. Marx is usually spoken about by ex-"communists" who used to belong to the non-communist Communist Party, or by anti-Marxists, or by academics who think that Marx might have been right - about some things - but then again - he might have been wrong - perhaps. In short, the one qualification which is certainly not required when it comes to discussing Marx on the telly is agreement with what the man said, less still, commitment to do anything about it.

So, the new Channel Four three-part series, The Faith of Marxism (Saturdays, 6.30-7pm) came as no great surprise. It is presented by Professor David McLellan who is described - wait for it, now - as "the world's leading Marxologue" and a "practising Roman Catholic" who was training to be a Jesuit priest and now serves as advisor to the British Catholic bishops. And who are the guests whose assistance has been solicited by this mixed-up academic to help him make his point? Firstly, Denis Healey, whose claim to be interviewed is that he used to a Marxist in the 1930s when he joined the Stalin-loving Communist Party while at Oxford University. He decided to leave because "Marx said nothing about the arts". Also interviewed in the first programme in the series (4 June) was Sir Alfred Sherman (ex-CPer and now zealous Thatcherite), a Roman Catholic ex-CPer, Ken Gill of Tass who left the CP because it didn't accept the Tass (as in Tass News Agency) line sufficiently, and Bea Campbell who is a member of the Communist Party's Marxism Today-Young Liberals tendency.

McLellan contends that Marxism is a new religion. In common with religion it has elaborate symbols (banners) and rituals (rallies); it has its Bible (the works of Marx); it settles disputes all too often by reference to the doctrinal texts; and it has its heretics, that is, those who interpret Marxism differently from the leaders. This is a fair criticism of most people who claim to stand for Marxism. It is true that Marxism has been turned into a dogmatic religion which has little to do with the intellectually dynamic and doubting approach of Marx himself. But then, as a Roman Catholic, McLellan is in no position to attack those Leftists who have made a secular religion out of fragments of Marxist thinking. Either one is opposed to religion and to dogma - as The Socialist Party is - or none favours it - as McLellan, the supporter of the Catholic catechism does. There is no particular reason why Professor McLellan, together with his invited interviewees, should not use up three programmes spouting their anti-Marxist prejudices. But when such distortion is all that TV puts out about Marx it is time to ask whether there is not a clear policy that Marx will only be represented on TV on condition that his essential ideas are distorted beyond recognition.

A few years ago McLellan was invited to debate with the present writer on the subject of what Marx really meant. He admitted then that he had learnt a lot and that he respected The Socialist Party as the only true Marxists in Britain. Not long after that the same Professor McLellan debated ina large hall in Islington against another member of The Socialist Party on the question of the relationship of religion to Marxism. In that meeting he was presented with a clear explanation of the materialist conception of history, which is the basis of the non-religious outlook of this party. Given that those two events occurred (both tape-recorded), why did McLellan not consult for interview the one political party in the country which he regards as truly Marxist and which he knows is coherently anti-religious? If he failed to call upon The Socialist Party because he knew that, unlike his chosen guests, we would shatter to pieces his thesis that Marxism is a religion, then McLellan is dishonest. If, on the other hand, he did wish to interview us - to hear our side of the argument, as good academics are taught to do before intoxicating themselves with the soundness of their own certainties - and his producers at Channel Four would not allow him to do so, we shall expect him to have the courage to admit that. This column will be sent to Professor McLellan and by his response can our readers judge him.

On the same night as McLellan's three-parter commenced, another epic of distortion, Reid About the USSR (C4, 8pm) began a series of three hourly programmes. The presenter is one Jimmy Reid, ex-Communist Party member and hero of those gullible enough to make heroes out of strike leaders. Reid now writes a column in The Sun, Murdoch's scab paper. Most of the first programme showed Reid rushing around the Russian Empire admiring the new entrepreneurial spirit of perestroika. It seems they are soon to be opening private clinics for those who can afford to buy superior health treatment, and the government is giving grants to "co-operative" businesses which are out to make profits. Reid was quite happy to describe all of this as Marxism in practice. Why not? It seems that any old fool with any old illusion is free to stand in front of a camera and describe any old dictatorship as Marxist, as long, of course, as he is an ex- pr a non-Marxist.

War and censorship

In its relentless urge to emulate the Gestapo, the British state put pressure on the BBC not to show the TV film Tumbledown (Monday, 31 May, 9.30pm, BBC1). The film, written by Charles Wood, was based upon the reminiscences of an army officer who had been disabled in the Falklands war. In the end the BBC succumbed to pressure and censored 12 seconds of the film - a part in which a British officer was shown to act in a reckless and cowardly fashion. Interestingly, the censors did not choose to remove the really offensive moment of the film where the officer is shown beating to death an Argentine soldier, who lay on the ground pleading for his life. This murder did actually place. The British state obviously is not ashamed of such vicious killing: indeed, the Prime Minister invited us at the time to "rejoice" in such actions, and she went on to win the 1983 election on the strength of the corpses of that slaughter.

The point of the film was to invite sympathy for this killer officer who, after having 40 per cent of his brain blown out and being disabled for life, felt cheated when he returned to Britain was was treated as an embarrassment. Such a murderer will receive no sympathy from these quarters. The film depicted him as a loathsome Hooray Henry when he was in the officer corps before the war began and as a foolishly indoctrinated state thug when he was out there. That he is now treated as a leper by those who paid him to blow people up and beat them to death is his problem. If you don't want to end up as a cripple, you don't join the war forces. Our sorrow is reserved for those wage slaves killed and maimed when they did not choose war, but have had no alternative but to fight as conscripts or fall victims as innocent bystanders. The censors of Whitehall will never succeed in stopping the horrors of war from being shown, as long as the cause of war exists the relics of war will be walking, hobbling and lying in hospital beds as living monuments to the madness of the system which the censors serve.

Neil tried his best

On This Week, Next Week (Sunday, 5 June, 1pm, BBC1) the Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, said that there is nothing wrong with the profit motive, that Labour could run capitalism well and that of course Labour is in favour of the market because it's the only possible way to distribute goods. He did not imply these ideas, he stated them, as explicitly as is possible when you are incapable of saying anything simply. He also said - quite explicitly - that there has never been anyone who has seriously advocated the abolition of the market. The Socialist Party stand for precisely that, and has shown why the abolition of the buying and selling system is the only way to achieve socialism in ways so simple that even Kinnock should be able to understand. If he would like to find out about the case for free access he should write to us and we will contribute to the early stages of his socialist education. Kinnock locks increasingly like an apprentice at the Stock Exchange - a working-class kid who's made it to an apprenticeship and is trying to impress his elders and betters that, although he still eats his peas with his knife and only went to a provincial university, he really is just the lad to run their errands and do their bidding. Neil Kinnock really is a pathetic sight - a reformist without even the rhetoric of radicalism; a jabbering repeater of Stock Market slogans. He and his party and its policy review are pathetic, intellectually empty and equipped with principles which give second-hand car dealers a bad name. In fact, has anybody thought of asking him to make a series of programmes about Marxism?

Steve Coleman

Winstanley (2013)

Book Review from the April 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Gerard Winstanley: The Digger’s Life and Legacy, by John Gurney. Pluto Press, 2013 £12.99

This is an excellent new book providing a brief history of the life and times of Gerard Winstanley, the seventeenth century utopian communist. Enough historical context and biographical detail is provided to get to grips with the subject without becoming too immersed in academic debates and a sense is given of the contested nature of Winstanley’s legacy.

One of the points raised by Gurney is that Winstanley was virtually unheard of for over two centuries after his digger writings. British political radicalism up to the latter half of the nineteenth century emphasized the contribution of the Levellers and the defender of parliament against the crown, John Hampden, to political democracy. Winstanley’s legacy was mainly focused on his possible contribution to Quakerism. This all changed, however, with the rise of Marxian revolutionary socialism which led to an interest in Winstanley’s communism and his rise from historical obscurity. It was the German social democrat, Eduard Bernstein who, in 1895, revived Winstanley’s reputation as an early proponent of ‘communistic utopia’ in his Cromwell and Communism. 

Today the situation is somewhat reversed and Winstanley is probably the most celebrated radical figure of the English Civil War period. In fact, he is probably emphasised beyond his historical importance – the subject of numerous academic studies and celebrated as a ‘forerunner’ of socialism, anarchism, libertarianism and back-to-the-land activism.  Winstanley’s legacy is disputed ground but he cannot with any seriousness be regarded as an early proponent of any of these later social movements. Winstanley responded to the world around him with the intellectual tools available to him. He suffered financial misfortune during the turmoil of the Civil War and his angst was expressed through visionary, millenarian, religious mysticism. The social function of religion was fiercely criticized and future salvation rejected in favour of a religion of conduct on earth. Reason, for Winstanley, was synonymous with God and covetousness, competition and false dealing resulted from private property and money. The solution he proffered was a social transformation based on the abolition of private property and money and their replacement with common ownership and working in common. Remaining a mystic, social and political experience led him to a materialist conclusion cloaked in religious language – material equality would not come from spiritual enlightenment but precisely the reverse; true religion could only emerge from material equality on earth. After the Civil War period Winstanley withdrew from activism and became a settled and respected local landowner, tradesman and Quaker. 

One of his most repeated quotes is: ‘Words and writings were all nothing, and must die, for action is the life of all, and if thou dost not act, thou dost nothing.’ Ironically his actions came to nothing and it is his words and writings that have survived for posterity. His practical efforts, which involved cultivating common land with fellow Diggers near Cobham in Surrey, failed to attract support. Instead of sympathy, the Diggers faced extreme opposition and violence from the local population on two fronts. First, they were attacked several times whilst at a site on St. George’s Hill by locals who used the common to graze cattle and sheep.  Second, when they had moved closer to Cobham, they were attacked by the lackeys of the local gentry and they were again subject to violence, including the destruction of houses built by the Diggers. They were forced after just over a year of strenuous effort in the face of vitriolic hostility to give up their practical activity. Their plight is summed up by another of Winstanley’s oft-quoted writings: ‘For freedom is the man that will turn the world upside downe; therefore no wonder he hath enemies…’

It is possible to see in Winstanley’s writings the rudiments of the Marxian concepts of alienation and the labour theory of value. This is, though, to see him through the lens of future developments. He was not a forerunner of Marxian socialism but the turbulence of the English Revolution did lead him to lay down writings which offered up a communistic utopia as the solution to the social and economic challenges he faced.  The historical turn away from celebrating constitutional political radicalism and towards Winstanley’s communism is interesting and positive. Unfortunately many of the most vocal celebrants of Winstanley, such as The Land is Ours and other land reformers, do not do justice to the depth of the ambition of his communism. A recent interesting development is an annual Digger’s festival in Wigan (Winstanley’s birthplace). This year is the third such event, to be held on 7th September (wigandiggersfestival.org).

Colin Skelly

Broken glass (1986)

A Short Story from the November 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Trevor was in the office, standing by Eileen's desk. He was giving her the detailed costs of the glazing in the shop extension that the company had just finished building. Through the windows he could see into the glazing shop where his men were working. Old Len was tidying the racks of glass at the back of the shop, moving large sheets around with the speed and safety which came as second nature after years in the trade. Jack, helped by young Adrian, was trimming large sheets of plate glass on the cutting table for a set of shop windows.

Although they must all have heard the small street door open, none of them looked up at the head that peered inside.

"Bloody 'ell! Excuse my French," Trevor said to the two women in the office. "It's one of them."

The head was certainly unusual - old-fashioned even. It belonged to a man about thirty-five years old, but he had long blond hair down around his shoulders. It did not look very clean or tidy, and it was made worse by the large brown bloodstain on the cotton scarf he wore as a headband. And Trevor had seen him only the evening before.

Eileen did not get up to look. She said, "What do you mean, 'one of them'?"

"Oh, sorry, that convoy of hippies, or whatever they are, that went along the bypass yesterday. The police broke them up - didn't they just!"

The manager came out of his office looking redfaced.

"Trevor!"

"Yes, sir?"

"Have you got an estimate for me on that Collinson job yet?"

"That's the factory rooflights? I gave you an estimate last Thursday."

"You know I can't give that to head office. They made it clear that it's got to be a cheap job. Old man Collinson's a friend of our Company Chairman. He wants to do him a favour. Can we do it?"

"The only way we can cut the price any more is by underpaying the men. You know that."

"I'm not concerned how you do it. Can it be done? Can I tell them yes - or not?"

Trevor was used to being cornered like this, and he had evolved his technique for getting out of trouble. Even so, he began to sweat slightly as he tried to respond coolly. 

"Well, I'll ask them, of course."

"All right, but time's getting short. He wants to know today."

"All right! I'll ask 'em."

"If you want my opinion, you 'ask 'em' too much. You should try telling 'em. You're the foreman!" He turned back into his office and shut the door.

"Yes, sir." said Trevor quietly, narrowing his eyes slightly  as he looked at the blank door. He could have given vent to his anger in front of Eileen, the accounts clerk. She was a mature woman of about forty-five, and she had no more love for the boss than Trevor had. But young Caroline, the manager's secretary, shared the office, and she would tell him every wood.

The hippy was standing inside the door, waiting for someone to notice him. He was wearing wide bottomed blue jeans, faded almost white, but yellowing on the thighs, and an embroidered blue jean jacket with the sleeves torn out and the torn edges fringed. His bare arms were almost covered in tattoos.

After several quick glances in the direction of the office, Len turned round and came forward. "Yes?" he said.

"What's the cheapest glass you sell?"

"Horticultural - greenhouse glass."

"How much is it?" The man's accent sounded to Len like Tyneside.

"Well," he puffed, rather impatiently, "it partly depends on how you want it cut. But it works out about fifty pence a square foot."

The hippy nodded thoughtfully. Then he asked, "Do you sell any flexible sort of putty? Y'know - stuff that stays a bit rubbery."

Len was frowning and making little grunting noises in the back of his throat. "What's it for?" he asked.

"Well - a bus."

"A bus! Oh, no! You want rubber mouldings for that. And safety glass."

"Yes, I know, but . . . " He looked very embarrassed.

From inside the office, Trevor could not hear what was being said. It was obvious, however, that this was another messy problem and he wanted to avoid it if possible. He checked a sudden urge to go out and get rid of the man. He would probably have been rude to him - just because the manager's spite still rankled. The man looked embarrassed, on the defensive. He probably would not have fought back. Trevor had taught himself not to pass these things on to his men. but he realised that he was still capable of doing it to a customer, a perfect stranger.

Eileen got up and went over to the filing cabinet, only  so that she could see into the workshop. "What a scruff!" she said. Len was coming towards the office. There was no escape. Trevor struggled to decide what his attitude towards the man should be, in front of his own workmen, when in the next few minutes he would have to ask them to do several hours of unpaid work.

"Trev, would you have a word with this chap, please? Apparently, he's got broken windows in a bus." Len would not look Trevor in the eye. He was ready to slip away, once Trevor had accepted the problem, but Trevor would not let him. As he walked slowly across towards the hippy, he turned Len with him, asking, "Has he been to a windscreen firm?"

By now, the man could hear the question. By now, Jack and Adrian were hardly pretending to work at all. They wanted to see  - and particularly to hear - what was going to happen. As Trevor looked at him, the man answered the question.

"They won't do it. It's out of date. The bus is twenty years old. And it would have cost an arm and a leg." He looked round at their expressionless faces, his body getting ready to leave, defeated. Then he added, "Anyway, it's not just the bus - all the vans - eighteen windows, side windows, all together."

"You're from that 'peace convoy' aren't you?" Trevor said. He frowned round at the others. They were frowning, puzzled.

"I saw your windows get broken - yesterday, wasn't it - up on the Common?"

"What happened?" Adrian asked.

"The police wrecked us," the hippy said.

"I don't believe you!" said Adrian. He looked to Trevor for support.

"It's true," Trevor said. "A lot of people besides me stopped and watched it."

"Where was this?" Jack asked curtly, groping for the reasonable explanation which, he was sure, was there, somewhere.

"On the bypass - Bentley Common," said Trevor.

"Oh, well, that's it, isn't it?" said Jack. "There's no camping allowed on the Common. There's always trouble over that."

"We weren't camping," said the hippy. "We weren't even going on there. We were heading south. The police diverted us on to that piece of land. We didn't know what for, to begin with. They just blocked the road and directed us on to the grass. Then the Transit van opened up, and they all jumped out with their truncheons and smashed everything they could get at."

"Including your head, by the look of it," said Len.

"Yeah," he said, looking at the floor and scraping it with the toe of his boot. "They were dragging the babies and the girlfriend out. And I thought I could stop them."

Adrian was incensed. He turned on Trevor. "Why didn't you people try to stop the bastards?" The older men looked at one another, knowing that his question was unfair, but unable to answer it properly because they felt a certain amount of guilt.

"Anyway," said the hippy, beginning to turn away at last. "I won't waste your time. I can see that it's nothing like shop windows." He nodded towards the cutting table where Jack and Adrian had been working.

"Well . . . " Jack said loudly, making the hippy pause, but not quite knowing what he was going to say next. All three men looked at Trevor, and he looked from one to the other with a worried expression on his face, remembering the Collinson job again. " . . . where's your bus now?" Jack asked eventually.

"Up on the Common. Where else? We can't really move. I think we shall be breaking the law if we take the vans on the road in that state."

"You're breaking the law by stopping overnight there," said Jack.

"What did you do last night?" asked Len. "It poured with rain about two o'clock, didn't it?"

"You can say that again!" said the hippy. "We just kept mopping up."

"Have you got the dimensions of these windows?" Trevor asked. The man pulled a piece of paper from the breast pocket of his jacket and handed it to him.

"Christ almighty!" Trevor said. "This is about two hundred quid's worth!" He stared at the paper for a minute. Then he refolded it and put it into the top pocket of his khaki overall. Then he said to the hippy, "You realise that ordinary glass just won't do for this sort of job, don't you? It's got to be safety glass - which we don't stock - or else perspex, which is damned expensive". Trevor continued to look him straight in the eyes. The hippy did not know quite what to do. His eyes searched Trevor's face for a clue to what was in his mind.

"You've got a bank account, of course," Trevor said, nodding.

"I've got a cheque book, but  . . . "

"That's what I meant," said Trevor. "So if we could manage to find some off cuts of plastic and some sealant filler and could come out, say, this evening, you could pay on the spot by cheque, couldn't you?" He raised his eyebrows to encourage an affirmative answer.

"Well - yes."

Trevor looked at Jack and Adrian and Len. Their faces were totally devoid of expression. They were going along with it.

When the hippy had gone, still not quite certain what had really been agreed, Trevor told them about the Collinson job.

"They've got a f***ing cheek!" said Jack. "They want the 'favour' to come out of our pockets, not theirs. That's about twenty hours unpaid overtime each in that."

"Yes, it will be," Trevor agreed, "but, in these circumstances, you'd be prepared to do it for the basic pay, would you?" He looked round at their reactions. Jack opened his mouth, blinked, and then shut it again. A wry smile dawned. Then he clapped his hands together and said, "Right! Let's get that van loaded up and get out to Bentley Common. We've got an emergency job on."

Adrian looked at his face, trying to be sure what line he was taking. Jack looked the young man in the eyes and said, "I don't know what the company will do if that cheque bounces."

"Now that would be very unfortunate," said Trevor.

"It's your arse they'll kick, Trev," said Len.

"Yes," said Trevor thoughtfully, "it usually is."

Ron Cook

Labour and the Trotskyists (1982)

From the February 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

So the NEC of the Labour Party has decided to investigate the so-called Militant Tendency, a group of Trotskyites who have been boring from within the Labour Party for years; fairly successfully it seems in that they have managed to get a number of their members adopted as official Labour parliamentary candidates. Socialists normally would not get involved in this argument and couldn't care a damn whether or not the Militant Tendency is expelled from the Labour Party. We are however compelled to intervene when both sides argue about the right of "Marxists" to belong to the Labour Party.

The Labour Party is, and has always been an open-house organisation prepared to accept all comers provided they agree to vote and work for the election of Labour candidates. Which Trotskyites, even those not in the Labour Party, have always been prepared to do. But Marxists? A genuine marxist would not even think of joining a reformist, anti-working class outfit like the Labour Party, which has always supported capitalism and has many times participated in its administration, inevitably to the detriment of wage and salary earners. Which is why membership of, or voting for the Labour Party is incompatible with membership of the SPGB. They are on our list of proscribed organisations and we would consider it an honour to be on their!

The fact that Trotskyites are prepared to vote for and join the Labour Party is one of the many reasons we are opposed to them too. At one time in the 1950s and 1960s, all the Trotskyite groups in Britain - including the predecessors of the SWP and Vanessa Redgrave's comic opera "Workers Revolutionary Party"- were in the Labour Party. They defended it on a number of grounds, particularly that it was supposed to be the "mass party of the working class" and would enact a few more reforms than the Tory Party. Then, after the 1968 General Strike in France had appeared to show that students could have direct access to "the workers" without belonging to traditional reformist parties, most left to set up their own independent parties (for doing which we used to be accused by them of "sectarianism"). Most, but not all. Ted Grant and his group stayed in and, freed from their rivals, were eventually to grow relatively influential. The others, as the application of Tariq Ali to join the Labour Party shows, are beginning to think that the time may be right to start fishing again in Labour Party waters.

The Militant Tendency are Trotskyists, and of the most orthodox variety. They are ardent defenders of the absurd theory that Russia is a "workers' state", albeit of the degenerate kind. Their conception of the "socialist" revolution is a re-run of the Bolshevik coup d'etat of November 1917 with a vanguard party leading the "masses" in a violent insurrection against the government (it is not clear whether Ted Grant is to play the role of Lenin or trotsky). Thus when they proclaim a loyalty to the Labour Party they are being thoroughly deceitful. They have nothing but contempt for the Labour Party and its policy of gradual reform through Parliament. But, as we have said, that is the Labour Party's problem not ours.

As to the claim that the Militant Tendency is Marxist, we have already pointed out that the mere fact of being in the Labour Party is alone sufficient to disqualify them from the description. This also applies to their other views, from the one that the workers need leaders (a Leninist Vanguard Party - them) to their admiration for the alleged economic achievements of state capitalist Russia (whose side they would be prepared to take in any future war with the West). Needless to say, they don't know what socialism is either. This writer once heard Ted Grant say that wages would exist in socialist society. As their admiration for aspects of the Russian system indicate, they stand for a kind of state capitalism. Since the Labour Party, with its so-called "Alternative Economic Strategy" is also moving (at least on paper and for the time being, while they are out of office) in this direction, perhaps there is a place for the Militant Tendency in the Labour Party after all.

The final irony of the situation is that the Trotskyite policy of boring from within "the main party of the working class" seems to have achieved its greatest success at the very moment the workers are deserting the Labour Party in droves. The question now is: if they are expelled from the Labour Party, will they start trying to bore into the SDP?

Adam Buick

Between the Lines: Gobbledegook Time (1987)

The Between the Lines column from the April 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Gobbledegook Time

It is hard to understand quite why Question Time (BBC1, Thursdays, 10pm) is so called. It should, if accuracy ever became in fashion at the BBC, be called Non-Answer Time or Evasion Time or Any Cliches or, perhaps, just plain Idiots' Hour. The format of Question Time well reflects all that is undemocratic in capitalist politics. At the front sit an invited team of "experts", all accomplished in various ways in screwing up workers' lives. The night I watched (5 March) there was Baker for the Tories, Clwyd for Labour, Carlisle for the Liberals and a journalist whose name I was not only unaware of before the programme but cannot recall a week after it.

The role of the team is to answer "questions" posed by the invited audience. The questions are selected in advance by the producer, so what is really happening is that instead of a presenter asking BBC questions to a panel of speakers the BBC is choosing the questions which the presenter would have asked anyway and allowing them to be posed by an unpaid audience whose function is to ask, not answer. The presenter  of the programme is the self-important Robin Day, a man whose pomposity is only exceeded by his stupidity.

A few years ago The Socialist Party received some tickets for Question Time and a group went along. The programme is recorded an hour in advance, so any serious dissident comment can be edited out. One of us got in a question about war which was then consumed and twisted and evaded and played with by the experts. Later in the programme the panel had reached the dizzy excitement of discussing Britain's membership of the Common Market -  arguably one of the dullest issues in twentieth century history.

Now, members of the audience are allowed to make short one - or two-line comments after the founts of wisdom at the front have had their say and on this occasion the microphone landed in front of one of our members. "I'm not in favour of the Common Market. I'm in favour of abolishing all markets" said the socialist while Day scratched his head. Abolishing all markets? This was too much of a question for Question Time to contemplate and away went the microphone as Day pointed to a well-dressed fellow at the back who looked like he could be relied upon to get us back on to the straight and narrow. Tough luck, BBC, for it was another member of The Socialist Party who got in some first-class socialist points before the microphone danced away, taking with it the chance to address millions of viewers. Back to the panel went the sound and vision: normal service had been resumed.

So what is this freedom of speech which capitalism takes such pride in? The freedom of capitalism's defenders to monopolise the means of mass communication while the advocate of the socialist alternative is given the sacred constitutional liberty to stand on a platform in Hyde Park and address those who have not been persuaded by the media that the case for socialism is not worth stopping to hear.

Pioneers of Reformism

The Saturday-night series on Channel Four, Pioneers of Socialism, was a study in failure. It told the story of four Scottish reformers - Ramsay MacDonald (Labour leader who later joined forces with the Tories), Keir Hardie (who, despite the myth in the programme that he opposed the First World War, actually offered support to recruiting workers for the army), Jimmy Maxton ( who built a career out of promising workers reforms of the wages system which were never and could never be realised) and John Maclean (whose perceptions about capitalism were swamped in 1917 by the illusions of Leninism).

Apart from the enduring historical legend about Hardie opposing the 1914-18 world war, the programmes were well-researched and made clear just how much more the pioneers of the Labour Party understood about the capitalist system than do the pathetic Kinnocks, Hattersleys and Healeys of our time. At least the men who set out to form the Labour Party thought that something vaguely radical needed to be done, even if their vagueness overcame their radicalism. But they were reformists and the great failure of this century has been the reformist claim that capitalism could somehow be humanised from the point of view of the working-class majority.

If these "pioneers" returned today what might they conclude? After well over half a century of reforms supported by their party and seven Labour governments the working class has not had even a taste of socialism. But back in the days when these "pioneers" were active there were some other pioneers, the men and women of the working class who formed The Socialist Party of Great Britain in 1904 - two years before the Labour Party was formed.

Like those other pioneers before them, Marx and Engels, the early members of The Socialist Party  were young people in a hurry, certain that the awakening of their class to the need for emancipation from wage slavery was not far off. Socialists today are still in a hurry, still pioneering new and better ways to win our class to a recognition of what needs doing. It is a pity that our efforts are obstructed, not helped, by those who stand in the tradition of those bogus Pioneers of Socialism remembered on our TV screens.

Steve Coleman

Blogger's Note: See Also:

March 1961 Socialist Standard - 'The Keir Hardie Myth'

Music Review: Capitalism on vinyl (1986)

Album Review from the January 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our Favourite Shop (The Style Council)

The latest long player from the Style Council is of interest because of its political lyrics and poignant social comment. Themes on the album include the break-up of pit communities, the rise of new towns, the coercive force of the state, and youth training schemes. It is Paul Weller, the chief lyricist, who is responsible for placing some of the tragedies of capitalism on vinyl.

The political stance of the album is foreshadowed in the opening track Homebreakers, which describes the power of capital to break up human relationships. It tells the story of a family whose father is made redundant and whose sons are forced to move away to look for work. The next song, All Gone Away, tells of the situation in many mining communities after the strike. Businesses shut down and move out, leaving unemployment in their wake. For the owning class, however, the situation is different:

But somewhere the party never ends,

And greedy hands rub together again,

Shipping out the profits they've stolen.

In Come to Milton Keynes Weller attacks the idea of creating a rootless new town in the countryside and then trying to sell it to businessmen and employers. In the next track Internationalists, Weller puts down nationalism, racism, and the so called need for leaders, ending with a powerful verse:

If you see the mistake in having bosses at all,

You will also see how they all must fall,

For under this system there is no such thing

As democracy, our leaders would have us sing,

No time for lies now as only truth must persist,

Rise up now and declare yourself - an internationalist! 

My personal favourite on the album is The Lodgers which is a resounding attack on the idea that the top can be reached by hard graft:

There's only room for those the same,

Those who play the leeches' game

It's all thrown on end, the lies come free,

And you can be all that they want you to be

There's room on top - if you dig in low,

And the idea is what they reap you sow.  

 Appropriately, Weller ends the album with a call to working class unity:

When are you going to get to realise,

The class war's real and not mythologised?

 The misguidedness of Weller's personal political activity should not be overlooked however. Instead of working for the abolition of capitalism he in practice campaigns for the Labour Party and its programme of reforming capitalism. The Style Council have appeared at concerts with other singers, such as Billy Bragg, to raise money for reformist causes and to try to popularise the Labour Party among young people. Labour governments have always failed to solve problems such as unemployment, war, poor housing, racialism and pollution. Time after time their promises at elections have been shown to be hollow slogans to get their politicians into power. By supporting the Labour Party Weller actually damages the socialist cause. It is not the people at the top of the structure that need to be get rid of, but rather the structure itself.

Gareth Thomas

"Liberty and Peace" in Canada. (1919)

From the May 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recently the writer received several copies of "The Red Flag," a journal published, as it announces, "when circumstances and finances permit, by the Socialist Party of Canada." Their previous organ, the "Western Clarion," was suppressed by the authorities some months ago.

The first number of "The Red Flag" (Jan, 11th, 1919) contains in its editorial evidence of the freedom-loving nature of the Canadian government. It says: "The official organ of this party has been suppressed, and representations to Ottawa (chief press censor) are so far without results. Leaflets mailed have been confiscated and complaints ignored. Almost every letter which arrives at this office bears unmistakable signs of having been opened, though no censorship mark to that effect is on them. All such letters are unduly delayed, being some four, five and six weeks in the mails before delivery. Most of such letters contain remittances for dues or for literature, etc."

"Moreover, letters and parcels which we have despatched have failed to reach their destination. The mail of individual members of the party also suffers from the same despicable secret censorship. Our protests and complaints to heads of departments result only in officially equivocal and evasive replies. The greeting the writer received from the postmaster in Vancouver on making a personal representation to him was, 'You are a Bolshevik,' and that was all he would vouchsafe of definite character in his replies to questions."

*    *    *

By an "Order in Council" the Canadian Government has made it an offence punishable with 5,000dols. fine, or five years' imprisonment, to be in possession of any of the Socialist (or, other) literature published by C. H. Kerr and Co. of Chicago.

*    *    *

I take the following from a letter of a Winnipeg comrade, dated Jan. 31st: "Two Sundays ago our Local pulled off a meeting, took in 80dols. collection and sold 35dols. of literature . . . We decided to hold another meeting last Sunday, but owing to threats by returned soldiers could not rent a theatre and had to try the market square. We were to start at 2.30, but at 2 o'clock a parade of veterans started out to see that no meeting was held. We refused to allow our speakers to try to talk as we smelt trouble, so they cleared out our headquarters, threw our furniture out of the windows, etc., and stole all our literature - which, I hope, they read."

Then, under the pretext and cry of "Down with Bolshevism," the mob of deluded fools raided and looted all the German and Austrian clubs and "murdered about half-a-dozen foreigners by the simple expedient of beating them to death."

The following incidents are related in the report of the "Winnipeg Telegram" (Jan. 28th, 1919): "One German was captured in Main Street, broke away, and ran into a store. Both the storekeeper and the fugitive were dragged out and given a warm five minutes. The German refused to kiss the flag, and broke away again. He was outdistancing a soldier - who yelled to an officer who was out for a stroll, 'Stop him'; the officer immediately swatted the fugitive with his cane, felling him to the sidewalk. 'I guess that'll hold him Scottie,' coolly remarked the officer, who then proceeded on his stroll quite as though he had accomplished the most matter-of-fact thing in life. Ten minutes later the fugitive picked himself up from the devilstrip of Main Street, and like the Arab, silently stole away, leaving behind a large pool of blood." Several similar incidents are recorded.

R.W. Housley

The Green Party's Basic Income Scheme: could it work? (1988)

From the September 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

In their manifesto for last year's general election the Green Party proposed to "guarantee economic security to each person as a right" by instituting a Basic Income Scheme involving "an automatic weekly payment to everybody, throughout life, regardless of sex or marital status, non-means tested and tax free, at different rates for different age-groups". No figures were mentioned but the manifesto stated that "the payments would guarantee an income adequate to live on, higher than current welfare benefits".

This is a scheme, then, to give every adult in Britain, whether in work or not, an income high enough to allow them to live appreciably above the official poverty line. The idea behind the scheme - guaranteeing everybody security from material need - is entirely laudable. But could the scheme work within the present economic system?

The prices-wages-profits system
The basic feature of capitalism is that wealth is proposed for sale and that people's incomes - whether wages and salaries, profits or benefits - derive ultimately from the receipts obtained from selling what has been produced. In fact the incentive to produce under this system is monetary profit, the difference between sales receipts and the amount of money originally laid out in purchasing the elements necessary to production (materials, buildings, machinery, power, labour, and so on). Maximising monetary profit is the primary objective of production and what makes the economic system function.

Out of sales receipts - or rather, to strictly accurate, out of that part of sales receipts representing the new value added in production - are paid both the work incomes (wages and salaries) on which most people now depend and the property incomes (dividends, interest, ground rent) that accrue to those having ownership rights in the means of production.

Wages and salaries correspond more or less to the cost of bringing into being and maintaining the working skills which employees sell to employers (cost of training plus the cost of housing, food, transport, and so on which employees must incur to maintain themselves and their families), while profits are the part of the newly added value left after wages and salaries have been paid. The government obtains the money to pay out social benefits from taxes which ultimately fall on profits or incomes derived from profits. Taxes on wages and salaries, by increasing the cost of maintaining employees and their skills, are eventually passed on, through the operation of economic forces, to employers in the form of increased money wages.

Where will the money come from?
What, then, would be the effect of introducing the Green Party's Basic Income Scheme into this prices-wages-profits system? If everybody, whether in work or not, is to be paid "an income adequate to live on, higher than current welfare benefits", we are talking about a massive increase in government expenditure. Which makes the question"Where is the money to come from?" wholly relevant.

We have just seen that the ultimate source of government revenue is profit made in productive industry. But if the money paid out as "basic income" is to be taken from profits -  the fuel on which the present economic system runs - there is a serious risk of reduction in economic activity and a knock-on effect leading to a slump and growing unemployment; in short, of provoking an economic crisis. In other words, the increased taxes on profits needed to finance the Basic Income Scheme would risk killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

Drastic fall in wages
In reality, however, all the money to pay the "basic income" would not be generated from existing profits, since a large part would come from the drastic reduction in wages and salaries that the introduction of the scheme would bring about. Employers would be provided with an extra income to compensate in part for the extra tax burden they would have to bear.

For it should not be imagined that wages and salaries would remain at their present levels if everybody, including those in employment, were paid a basic income of, say, £100 a week by the government. Such a payment would result in a fall in wages and salaries of an equivalent amount because, as we have seen, they are fixed by the operation of economic forces at around a level sufficient to maintain the employees in question and their skills.

If wage or salary earners are paid £100 a week by the government, they can use this income to maintain themselves; which means that the employer will be relieved of having to include an amount to cover this expenditure in the wage packet or salary cheque. Economic forces will therefore tend to ensure that wages and salaries fall to a level which, when added to Basic Income, will allow the employee to maintain him or herself. In other words, wages or salaries would become sufficient only to top up Basic Income to the economically determined level. Or, put the other way round, Basic Income (like Family Allowances today) would be a subsidy to employers, and a massive one at that.

Growth of voluntary unemployment
Employers, however, would not welcome the scheme because it would completely upset the wages system, under which people are forced by economic necessity to sell their skills to an employer. If people received an adequate income from the government, what would be the incentive to find employment?

This problem would be particularly acute for paid work at and immediately above the Basic Income level. The manifesto used a peculiar argument in this respect, stating that

The "unemployment trap" is created by the withdrawal of benefit when a person finds work. Perhaps more than any other measure the Basic Income Scheme would stimulate employment, since it would always be financially worthwhile to work.

It is not clear exactly what this means, but it appears to be accepting the common slur that many of the unemployed don't work because it's not financially worth their while; in other words, that much unemployment is voluntary. But this is clearly far from being the case. Most employment today arises because, for the time being, it is unprofitable for employers to invest in full production. The jobs are simply not there, and merely providing a financial incentive to work won't make them reappear.

As a matter of fact, and contrary to what the manifesto suggest, the Basic Income Scheme would probably lead to a massive increase in voluntary unemployment (not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that, but that's another question). Imagine a situation where people went to work for an employer only when they needed extra money to pay for some special item or, say, a visit to friends or relatives abroad. Imagine too what would happen to discipline at work if people were not there through economic necessity: they would (quite rightly) refuse to be bossed around or do unpleasant jobs. Profit motivated industry just couldn't function under such circumstances.

So, once again, the result of introducing the Basic Income Scheme would be an economic crisis. (Of course the whole scheme might be a subtle way of destabilising the present economic system, but I think rather that its architects really imagine it to be feasible.)

What's the alternative?
Our purpose in criticising the Basic Income Scheme and showing it to be impracticable has not been to defend the existing prices-wages-profits system but rather to suggest that some other way will have to be found of guaranteeing people basic material security.

The socialist answer would be to allow people free access to the common store of wealth set aside for personal consumption, according to what they themselves judged to be their reasonable needs. Other needs would be satisfied on the same basis. Houses and flats would be rent-free, with heating, lighting and water supplied free of charge. Transport, communications, health care and education would be organised as free public services. There need be no admission charges to museums, parks, libraries and other places of entertainment and recreation.

Such free access would be a much more direct way of ensuring that people were freed from material insecurity than the impractical Basic Income Scheme proposed by the Green Party. It would also involve, as a corollary, the transformation of work. Instead of working for wages to produce profits for an employer, people will be able to co-operate to produce what they really needed.

In fact such direct production for use, replacing production for sale and the profit motive, is the only possible framework within which we can satisfy our needs in an ecologically acceptable way. For, with the end of production for sale will go also the pressure for blind economic growth generated by the competitive struggle for profits. If production were geared directly to supplying needs it would eventually tend to platform off at a level sufficient to provide for current needs and repairing and maintaing the existing stock of means of production.

Adam Buick

Nowt to look forward to (2012)

Book Review from the August 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Road to Wigan Pier Revisited, by Stephen Armstrong. Constable.  £11.99.

In 1936 George Orwell travelled to Wigan and wrote a classic account of the extent and effects of poverty. Now Stephen Armstrong has gone not just to Wigan but also to other towns in the north of England to report his findings.

There are many similarities between the thirties and now: a recession, high unemployment and cuts in government spending, for instance. Above all, there is destitution, as many people are barely able to survive on what little they earn or the pittance they receive from the state. It is the personal accounts Armstrong provides that bring this home far more than any statistics could do.

One nineteen-year-old woman in Manchester was pregnant but she overslept and missed her first scan.  As she had no proof she was pregnant, the Job Centre sanctioned her for being late for an interview: she was taken off Jobseeker’s Allowance and had to make do with hardship payments of £28 a week. Job Centre staff are given a target of referring three people a week for sanctioning (their jobs supposedly consist of helping people into employment).

Another woman was made redundant, and now she cannot afford to heat her house in winter. She cuts Brillo pads in half before using them, has stopped buying butter since it went up 5p and uses her old clothes as cleaning cloths. One twelve-year-old sometimes eats only a bowl of cereal a day. He has never been outside Wigan. Another woman gets about £8 a day in benefits and is reduced to sleeping on her daughter’s sofa. She says, “It’s horrible, there’s nowt to look forward to, there’s nowt to fetch kids into this world. I’ve worked all my life and I’ve got nothing to show.”

Most of the poor are not on benefits, however, but are employed. A particularly nasty development is zero-hour contracts, which do not actually guarantee paid work during slack periods. One man interviewed had a four-hour contract at Argos in Warrington, which made him ineligible for unemployment benefit. Things were OK when he worked 36 hours a week, but during a period of heavy snow there were few shoppers and most staff were sent home with four hours pay at minimum wage: £28. These and many others are part of the ‘precariat’ (a blend of precarious and proletariat).

As Armstrong says, ‘the poor make a lot of people very, very rich’. If you pay for gas or electricity using a prepayment meter or cards, you pay a much higher rate than those who get a regular bill. Payday loan companies and doorstep lenders such as Provident Financial exploit this ‘non-standard credit market’ and do very nicely out of it (Provident made pre-tax profits of £62 million in the first six months of 2011). Rent-to-buy companies like BrightHouse sell TVs and other goods via weekly payments which can add up to well over twice the straightforward purchase price. They have vicious late-payment charges and are not above shouting to the whole street that you owe them money. A New York hedge fund has a majority stake in the company.

Unfortunately, Armstrong spends too much time criticising MPs for fiddling their expenses, and does not look into the real reasons for the poverty he depicts, class ownership and the profit motive.

Paul Bennett

The Founding of the Trades Union Congress (1968)

From the June 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Trades Union Congress was founded in the Mechanics Institute, Manchester, on June 2 1868 by thirty-four delegates who had responded to an invitation sent out by the Manchester and Salford Trades Council. In every way the aims of the founders were strictly limited, and in some important respect those limitations are still to be found in the TUC to-day, in spite of its vastly greater representative capacity and the widening of its activities.

This was not in any sense a revolutionary body and even its structure reflected a falling away from earlier attempts to form a unified National Trade Union body with power to act in strikes. The delegates came together only to discuss matters of mutual interest. It was, as George Woodcock describes it in the recently published History of the TUC 1868-1968, no more than "a small debating society".

In the letter of invitation sent out by the Manchester and Salford Council it was called a "Proposed Congress of Trades Councils and other Federations of Trades Societies". This form of organisation was preferred because it would cost less to have delegates from Trade Councils than to have delegates from from separate unions.

Its aims were to enlighten public opinion about trade unionism, and to try to influence Parliament in the matter of trade union legislation. It was to be modelled on the area meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, with the reading and discussion of papers on trade union problems, "with a view of the merits and demerits of each question being thoroughly ventilated through the medium of the public press". Twelve subjects for papers were suggested in the letter of invitation, ranging from trade union law and the Royal Commission on Trade Unions then sitting, to "the effect of trade unions on foreign competition", "Limitation of Apprentices", "The Regulation of the Hours of Labour" and "Arbitration and Courts of Conciliation".

The immediate background of the formation of the TUC was provided by three events then much discussed. The first was a short trade depression in 1966-7 which gave rise - as it does to-day - to complaints by business men and politicians that British goods were being priced out of markets by "high" British wages - hence the proposed discussion of foreign competition at the Congress.

The second was the blowing up of a non-unionist's house in Sheffield in 1866 which led to a storm of abuse of trade unions generally. The unions were anxious to present a collective view repudiating violence, in evidence to the Royal Commission which was considering this and other aspects of trade unionism. (Actually the evidence was presented by the group of trade union officials in the London Trades Council, most of whom were no more than lukewarm about what they regarded as a rival movement from Manchester).

The last event which stirred the unions into activity was a ruling by the High Court in the case of Hornby v Close, which meant that trade union, though not criminal organisations, were still illegal and consequently not protected (as they had thought they were) by the Friendly Societies Act 1855. In particular they could not take court action to protect their funds from defaulting branch officials.

It was in these fields that the TUC claimed to have been successful in the early years of its history, in the shape of a series of amendments of trade union law, growing acceptance of the "responsibility" of trade unionism, and the extension of the franchise.

The early TUC can be seen in perspective by comparing its outlook with, for example, that of the Chartist Labour Parliament held in Manchester in 1854, attended by trade union delegates from all over the country. Marx and Louis Blanc were elected honorary delegates. They did not attend but Marx sent a message in which he expressed the view that the proceedings should be aimed at organsing the working class for the conquest of political power and taking over ownership of the means of production by the workers. The letter was read at the conference.

The TUC did not even try to put into practice what had been attempted unsuccessfully by the Sheffield Association of Organised Trades in 1866, who had called a conference to form a National Trade Union organisation to give financial and other support to workers locked out by their employers.

The early attitude of the TUC is largely to be explained by the fact that the dominant unions represented only part of the working class. B. C. Roberts wrote of this:

The TUC . . . was representative of little more than half a million skilled artisans. The remainder of the working class the millions of unskilled workers, were, with the exception of the cotton industry and a few other rare exceptions, unorganised, and for the most part barely taken into consideration by the Parliamentary Committee. Its policy reflected the philosophy of unions whose members were crafts,en, conscious of their skill, and standing in the community as worthy, respectable and independent citizens. (The Trades Union Congress 1868-1921.)

Marx referred to this in a letter to Bebel* (28 Oct. 1885), pointing out that the craft unions in the TUC deliberately kept the "unskilled" workers outside their ranks.

But do you suppose the unions ever dreamt of doing away with this silly bunk? Not in the least. I can never remember reading of a simple proposal of the kind at a Trades Union Congress. 

If anything else was needed to mark the contrast between the socialist outlook and that of the founders of the TUC it is only necessary to recall the paper Marx submitted to the Geneva Congress of the First International in 1865 (Value Price and Profit) in which he called on the unions to give up the motto "a fair day's work for a fair day's pay" and adopt instead "abolition of the wages system".

Edgar Hardcastle 

*In fact, it was actually Engels who referred to this in a letter to Bebel.

Left Unity - for Socialism or for Reformism? (2013)

From the October 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

In March, following the relative success of his nostalgic film about the post-war Labour government The Spirit of 45, Ken Loach launched an appeal for the formation of a new left-of-Labour (not to say Old Labour) party. The ball was picked up by others and a new Left Party is to be founded at a meeting in London on 30 November.

Loach’s appeal brought in some 9000 replies, though well under  a thousand of them seem to have followed this up by getting involved in local ‘Left Unity’ groups. An appeal published in the Guardian (12 August) sets out the general aim of those calling for the new party:

‘We urgently need a new party of the left. Labour will not provide the opposition to coalition politics that the situation demands. We need to provide a genuine alternative to the austerity policies which the three main parties support. A party that is socialist, environmentalist, feminist and opposed to all forms of discrimination.’

A meeting in May of those who had responded to Loach’s appeal decided that the new party should be an individual membership organisation. This was in deliberate contrast to a previous attempt to form a new left-of-Labour party in the early years of this century – the ‘Socialist Alliance’, which was in effect an electoral alliance between the SWP and Militant and which eventually fell apart because of rivalry between these two Trotskyist groups.

The individual membership decision was, and was meant to be, a rebuff to such groups, though their members are still free to join as individuals. Some Trotskyist groups – ‘Socialist Resistance’ and ‘Workers Power’ – have accepted this. This is likely to cause the new party problems in the future as it is a well-known tactic of such groups to ‘enter’ a bigger party, form a ‘faction’ (whether open or clandestine) within it, and breakaway away at some point with, they calculate, more members than they went in with.

But why another Left party? Aren’t there already a number of left-of-Labour parties which contest elections? Scargill’s SLP, Galloway’s Respect Party, the SWP, Militant (now calling themselves SPEW), TUSC and even the Communist Party of Britain (who run the Morning Star). The aim seems to be to form a party of a different type, one that is neither dominated by a single individual nor organised on Leninist lines; an open, more or less democratic party like, in the British context, the old ILP. Supporters of the new party cite existing European parties such as the Party of the Left in France, Die Linke in Germany and Syriza in Greece as examples they want to follow.

The general orientation of the new party has yet to be decided. That’s going to be settled at its founding conference at the end of the November. In the meantime three ‘platforms’ for discussion at the conference are circulating amongst those who signed up to Loach’s appeal.

One – the Left Unity Platform – is that of those who took the initiative to call for setting up the new party. They want a broad party that will attract any and every one to the left of Labour. In other words, an opportunist, catch-all party. They have the support of one of the Trotskyist groups, ‘Socialist Resistance’, which claims to be the genuine ‘Fourth International’ and is the successor of the old IMG of the 1970s of which Tariq Ali was a prominent member.

More interesting is the second one, called the ‘Socialist Platform’. It seems to be the initiative of one of the constituents of TUSC – the ‘Independent Socialist Network’, which caters for individuals who support TUSC but are not members of SPEW or of the RMT union. In fact the ISN seems to be on the brink of defecting from TUSC to the new Left Party.

The third – the so-called ‘Class Struggle Platform’ – can be dismissed fairly quickly. It has been put forward by another Trotskyist group, ‘Workers Power’, and just reproduces their programme. These people are nothing if not brazen. The new party has not yet been formed and they have already founded a ‘faction’ within it.

The ‘Socialist Platform’ is reproduced opposite. As can be seen, it is written in the same sort of language that we use; in fact we can agree with a large part of it, especially that ‘capitalism does not and cannot be made to work in the interests of the majority’ and clauses 6, 7 and 9. There are of course differences. For instance, clause 2 could imply that a ‘state’ will continue to exist in socialism. Clause 3 does not say explicitly that socialism has to involve the complete ending of production for the market. Clause 5 ends with a peculiar formulation on Europe (even though this is an advance on the No2EU embraced by most of the Left). Clause 8 is the real stumbling block from our point of view as it opens the way for the party to campaign for reforms.

Others, too, have noticed its similarity with what we say. A supporter of the Left Unity Platform has offered the following criticism of it:

‘There is no acknowledgement that fighting for reforms in the short term is entirely compatible with aiming for socialism in the longer term. Absent is any idea that a fight for reforms can raise people’s self-activity and point towards escalating demands; instead we are offered something approaching impossibilism. Current struggles are played down in favour of visions of a utopian future.’

If you follow the link from the word “impossibilism” it takes you to a Wikipedia page which explains that the main current exponent of this in Britain is us (see: leftunity.org/which-way-for-left-unity-the-case-for-the-left-party-platform). The author, Tom Walker, is a member of a breakaway group from the SWP. So this is a case of a Trotskyist criticising the ‘Socialist Platform’ for being too like the SPGB, a damning argument amongst Trotskyists.

One group of Leninists who have signed it are not satisfied with it, but because they see it as non-Leninist. This group, calling itself the ‘Communist Party of Great Britain’ (even though they have nothing to do with the old, now defunct CPGB) and publishing the Weekly Worker, have proposed a series of amendments intended to turn it into a Leninist statement.

For instance, where the original version says:

‘The Left Unity party is a socialist party. Its aim is to bring about the end of capitalism and its replacement by socialism’

they want to change this to:

‘It seeks to bring about the end of capitalism and its replacement by the rule of the working class. Our ultimate aim is a society based on the principle of ‘from each according to their abilities; to each according to their needs’, a moneyless, classless, stateless society, within which each individual can develop their fullest individuality.’

On the face of it this seems more explicitly socialist and of course we too want a ‘moneyless, classless, stateless society’, but what this is actually doing is introducing the Leninist distinction (which we reject and which was never in Marx’s writings) between ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’. We call a moneyless, classless, stateless society ‘socialism’ (or, occasionally ‘communism’, as the two words mean the same) and this may well be the view also of some of those who have signed the original platform. For us, this is the immediate aim, but for those behind the amendment it is only a far-off ‘ultimate aim’, just as it was for the government of the old USSR. Their immediate aim is a so-called ‘workers state’ in which money, classes and the state will continue to exist.

There is no chance of the ‘Socialist Platform’ being accepted at the founding conference of the new party. The Left Unity Platform will be adopted and a new wishy-washy, leftwing reformist party will come into existence.

The trouble, for them, is that such a left-of-Labour party already exists in the Green Party. The only difference is that the Green Party does not claim to be ‘socialist’, only ‘environmentalist, feminist and opposed to all forms of discrimination’. Apart from that, the policies that the two parties will be advocating will be the same, for instance, defence of the welfare state, bringing the utilities back into ‘public’ ownership, failed Keynesian policies as a supposed alternative to austerity, against overseas military action… So, to succeed, the new party will have to replace the Green Party. Which hardly seems likely.

Then there are the other smaller left-of-Labour parties competing on the same ground. They are not going to go away. Nor will the Trotskyist groups that have decided to ‘enter’ it. So the new Left Party is likely to be a non-starter and will probably end up as just another such small party, so adding to the confusion as to what socialism is and how to get it.

The only positive thing that could come out of this is for some of those who signed the ‘Socialist Platform’ to realise that a socialist party, on sound socialist principles, already exists and is already campaigning for socialism and nothing but.

Adam Buick

Statement of Aims and Principles for the [Left Unity] Party (‘Socialist Platform’)

1. The [Left Unity] Party is a socialist party. Its aim is to bring about the end of capitalism and its replacement by socialism.

2. Under capitalism, production is carried out solely to make a profit for the few, regardless of the needs of society or damage to the environment.  Capitalism does not and cannot be made to work in the interests of the majority. Its state and institutions will have to be replaced by ones that act in the interests of the majority.

3. Socialism means complete political, social and economic democracy. It requires a fundamental breach with capitalism. It means a society in which the wealth and the means of production are no longer in private hands but are owned in common. Everyone will have the right to participate in deciding how the wealth of society is used and how production is planned to meet the needs of all and to protect the natural world on which we depend. We reject the idea that the undemocratic regimes that existed in the former Soviet Union and other countries were socialist.

4. The [Left Unity] Party opposes all oppression and discrimination, whether on the basis of gender, nationality, ethnicity, disability, religion or sexual orientation and aims to create a society in which such oppression and discrimination no longer exist. 

5. Socialism has to be international. The interests of the working class are the same everywhere. The [Left Unity] Party opposes all imperialist wars and military interventions. It rejects the idea that there is a national solution to the problems of capitalism. It stands for the maximum solidarity and cooperation between the working class in Britain and elsewhere. It will work with others across Europe to replace the European Union with a voluntary European federation of socialist societies.

6. The [Left Unity] Party aims to win support from the working class and all those who want to bring about the socialist transformation of society, which can only be accomplished by the working class itself acting democratically as the majority in society.

7. The [Left Unity] Party aims to win political power to end capitalism, not to manage it. It will not participate in governmental coalitions with capitalist parties at national or local level.

8.  So long as the working class is not able to win political power for itself the [Left Unity] Party will participate in working-class campaigns to defend all past gains and to improve living standards and democratic rights. But it recognises that any reforms will only be partial and temporary so long as capitalism continues.

9.  The [Left Unity] Party will use both parliamentary and extra-parliamentary means to build support for its ultimate goal – the socialist transformation of society.

10. All elected representatives will be accountable to the party membership and will receive no payment above the average wage of a skilled worker (the exact level to be determined by the party conference) plus legitimate expenses.