Preparing the fightback
Socialist Outlook magazine1980sPhil HearseScanned print read by OCR, and not yet proofread: expect run-together words, dropped letters and, where a piece began partway down a page, a few lines of its neighbour. The printed page is the authority.
VICTONY TO TITTERS
70
TIMENS
The socialist left is under siege, as the prospect of a third term of Thatcherism looks more and more likely. JOHN LISTER and PHIL HEARSE argue that the time has come for a strategic re-think for the
hard left in the Labour Party and 1
rubbish Kinnock, the weaknesses c
examined.
e unions — it is not enough the Labour left must also be
DISMAY AND DEMORALISATION are running rampant through the labour movement even before the general election campaign begins. Disconsolate Labour activists comb mise- rably through glossy party handouts, looking for something to campaign on in the local elections; others hide from news broadcasts and papers, dreading the next embarrassing retreat or gaffe by Kinnock or his team.
The 'dream ticket' leadership installed by the union bureaucracy in the aftermath of Foot's 1983 debacle has turned into a living nightmare. Fond hopes and illusions that a re-elected Labour government might ride to the rescue of the working class and roll back the tide of Thatcherism have faded: in the crucial areas of the country for the next election the party and its leadership languish at 1983 levels of popularity and credibility. Kinnock himself — a cut-price Judas - has not even waited for the cock-crow of an election victory before rushing to renounce thrice over every 'radical' party policy.
The Tories, their press, and even the Alliance are left to make all the running: their every attack brings yet another embar- rassed Kinnock retreat. Only recently: • We have seen him try to out-do Thatcher on gagging the Zircon film and upholding 'national security'; • We have witnessed his capitulation on cruise and his cringing pilgrimage to be humiliated by the popularly-reviled Ronald Reagan; • We have heard Kinnock's team attack the Tories for insufficiently chauvinist reprisals against Japanese capital; • The same gang of MPs have joined in the Tory onslaught on so-called 'loony left' councils; • Now they have opened fresh public at- tacks on black sections - even attempting to unseat Sharon Atkin as prospective can- didate for the "crime' of fighting for black people to vote Labour!
The list is unending: the results disastrous. Four years of witch-hunts, whingeing and weaselling have produced a manifesto less radical, less convincing and less popular than the one which helped Michael Foot lead the party to a crushing defeat in 1983. Those — including some misguided forces formerly on
·1007 Kinnock's leadership has been a disaster for the labour movement
the left — who gave Kinnock their grudging support, believing that unity benind "dream ticket' was the only way to return a Labour government 1A7 fruits of their efforts.
the
While at the time of writing it is impossible to tell either the date of the general election or its precise outcome, one thing is becoming increasingly clear — a Labour victory is the least likely outcome. Between the other two alternatives — a Thatcher victory or a hung parliament leading to a coalition, the former seems more likely.
Of course Labour's dismal showing in the polls is not Kinnock's work alone. A political lightweight, he was only ever the creation of the key union bureaucrats determined to avoid a repetition of the Foot fiasco, but seeing the answer in a move to the right. They needed a suitably left' figure to push through a further dilution of the 1983 mani- festo: Kinnock seemed the ideal choice. While he has chopped away at Labour's skimpy list of promist- - ditching sucn 'liabilities' as renationalisation, repeal of the anti-union laws, restoration of cuts in the NHS and social services, and now unilateral- ism — the union leaders have sat back or even assisted the employers' attacks on the power of the unions themselves.
Since 1979, dispute after dispute has been
•DOE
E alla espute nas been
cynically isolated by the TUC; almost every
major fight has been betrayed. Since 1983 we
have seen the TUC consciously allowing the
miners to go down to a defeat which many
right wing union leaders welcomed as a
body-blow to the class struggle line argued by
Arthur Scargill. Worse, the blatant scabbing
of the EETPU in the Wapping dispute has
gone unpunished - with Hammond and the AEU right wing now established as the pace-
3E- setters of the TUC
1
The upshot is that while Kinnock's bland grey men have deliberately thrown over- board any kind of class politics in courting
middle class "public opinion', union leaders
too have done their best to crush class
struggle methods under the bureaucratic
roller of the 'new realism' — a pretentious
inock soland hrow i Over inion
title for the old class collaboration.
Yet class conflict has if anything increased in
the work places, with the bosses'
drive towards speed-up throughout manu-
facturing, service industries and the public sector, and the related attacks on shop-floor
union organisation. Though workers - such
as the printworkers, the fighters of Silent-
Socialist Outlook No 1 May/June 1987
night, the Hangers strikers, the Caterpillar occupation — again and again fight back in defensive battles, a further electoral defeat for Labour, threatening the imposition of still further Tory anti-union laws, would deal a new body-blow to embattled shop floor militants.
Likewise, a further period of Tory rule or a Tory-led coalition can only pile on the agony for millions of unemployed; for countless poverty-stricken families on social security; for pensioners; for millions of low-paid, part- time and unorganised workers — especially women; for black communities and every section of the oppressed. The class divide between rich and poor has been deliberately widened under the Tories. A Labour defeat would mean that the exploited and oppressed would lose even the chance to put real de- mands on a government which claims to represent their interests.
A Labour defeat at the election will be a political defeat for the working class as a whole. But it will also be a defeat for the Labour left. To put it another way, while an electoral defeat for Labour will be a defeat for Kinnockism, it will also be a defeat for that range of politics known as "Bennism'.
All political forces in the labour movement are being forced to re-assess, and this will especially be true if Thatcher gets back. In
alism is a pret title for the old class collaboration'
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The Kinnock catastrophe:
Wrong answers from 1983 After the 1983 electoral defeat, the conclu- sion drawn by the labour bureaucracy, and especially the union leaders, was that Labour had lost, and the split of the SDP had taken place, because Labour policy was too radical. The choice of Kinnock as the leader to replace Michael Foot was very precise: he was selected as someone With a retr background, who could move party policy to the right gradually, and make the party's image a 'moderate' one. Stripped of its marketing and public relations verbiage, this means something explicit in wass terms: making Labour 'fit to govern' in the opinion of the ruling class, and its flection in bourgeois 'public opinion'. Even in its own terms, this project was misconceived
et went off cack-handed because the bureaucrats could not see something in front
lu-
ship, is delivering the goods — with the help of a docile TUC. Of course the process has been uncomfortable: individual employers, even whole industries have gone to the wall, and some bosses would like some more elbow-room for their own vested interests. But the key sections of capital are more than happy to see profits soaring, banks coining in billion-plus profits, privatisation handing an extra bonanza to the well-heeled, tax cuts, and of course a formidable battery of anti- union laws imposed. That is why there is no serious split in the Tory ranks parallel to the political crisis in the labour movement: as the miners' strike showed, the ruling class as a whole - its confidence restored by eight years of Thatcherism - is largely united
is largely united around policies designed to hammer down the strength of the working class, and pre- pared to invest in this strategy.
After all, if the whole TUC leadership will
this article we want to pose three basic questions which are vital for the left of the workers movement: • Why has Kinnockism bellyflopped? • Why has the implicit project of the La- bour left - winning the party to left policies, and then winning an election - also come up against major obstacles? • And what must we do, in a period of growing reaction to resist attacks on the working class, to redress the situation and prepare for a new working class surge for- ward?
In posing these questions we want to refute one response straight away - that of merely saying that there is nothing basically wrong with the Labour left's approach, and that we must stick to our principles, battle away and wait for better times" • Tony Benn often sounds as if he is saying this. But this response, while having the merit of sticking out for basic socialist principles, is wide open to attack from the right wing and the Euro- communists. It is open to attack because it cannot bring success: the fact is that if the hard left in the party and the unions don't grasp the inadequacy of their own approach, then more and more defeats will accrue. The hard left cannot passively wait for "better times': it has to create them.
Socialist Outlook No 1 May/June 1987
Andrew Mooe/Reflex
A bobby being trained for community policing
of their eyes: the ruling class don t wallı a Labour government!
One reason they don't want a Labour government is obviously their fear of the strength of the left in the Labour Party, reinforced by the comparatively recent up- surge of Bennism culminating in the hair's breadth victory by Denis Healey in the deputy leadership election in 1981. It is towards proving itself in these terms 'safe' for capitalism that most of Kinnock's efforts, and those of the union bureaucracy, have been devoted since 1983. Hence the readi- ness to witch hunt even the not-so-left 'loony councils and any left wing opponents of the leadership line. However a Labour govern- ment is only ever seen as a second choice by the ruling class, if for some reason its own party cannot hold the reins.
reason the capitalists don't want a Labour government is because their own party, under Thatcher's leader-
'hatch.
swallow all its previous policies, and shame- lessly grovel on its hands and knees to the employers for nothing — in line with the 'new realism' - what employer needs the messy formulae uf class compromise and the machinery of collaboration under a Labour government?
Their question is simple: why spend public money on job creation, reflate the economy, and risk restoring the confidence of the
working class - when there are still vast working crass profits to be made from Thatcher's waste- land Britain? The irony is that every defeat and setback for the working class brought about by the politics of the TUC and Labour leadership serves only to reinforce this ruling
class confidence in Thatcher, and to under-
line the irrelevance of the Labour option.
Treachery takes its toll
In this respect the miners' strike was a watershed. Starting only eight months after
7
8
Kinnock was elected as Labour leader, it posed the Labour and trade union bureau- cracy with a choice: they could either fight to make the strike victorious and thus bring down Thatcher, or they could try for a face-saving compromise designed to ensure defeat while not revealing their scabbing role too openly. For the 'new realist' right wing of the TUC bureaucracy the prospect of a victory for Scargill's stand was far more frightening than a Tory victory over the miners.
Kinnock - recognising the dynamic that would be unleashed within the workers' movement and the demands that could be focussed on a Labour government if Thatcher was brought down - was at one with the TUC and the hard-line right. To- gether they consciously worked for the defeat of the strike; and by doing so they paved the way for a deepening of reaction in British politics, the isolation of other groups of workers engaged in struggle, and ultimately for Labour's own defeat at the polls. If Thatcher, strengthened by the defeat of the miners, does win a third term, she can thank Kinnock, Willis and the TUC for their assistance.
As a general election has approached, the ruling class has cranked up an enormous reactionary offensive. Almost daily the gov- ernment announces new reactionary mea- sures to compound its attack on the working class if elected to a third term of government. Key to this was the struggle at News Interna- tional, a mini re-run of the miners' strike, with the same hopeless showing from the Labour leadership. And after the failure of the fight against ratecapping and abolition of the Met-counties, the Tories launched their offensive against 'loony lefties' in local gov- ernment, again with no counter-attack from Kinnock.
Handing votes to the Alliance So rapid and complete has been the collapse of the Labour leadership in front of the ruling class offensive that it has had the dramatic consequence of strengthening the Alliance at Labour's expense. This is a heavy indict- ment of Kinnockism, because, despite all its support from the majority of the media, the Thatcher government is still basically unpo- pular. Its electoral support is dangerously confined to the more prosperous parts of the country and sectors of the population — those sectors and areas where mass unemployment have not hit so hard, and where industrial decline has not immediately led to lower living standards.
Under Kinnock's leadership, Labour has suffered the fate of losing out to the Alliance because its leadership is 'neither fish nor fowl', neither capable of providing the image of a safe bourgeois alternative to the capitalist class, nor of galvanising the mass of workers, women, black people and youth behind a socialist alternative they could have confi- dence in.
No one should underestimate the extent to which the witch hunt in the Labour party since 1983 has worsened this situation. What was conceived by some in the party leader- ship as a 'surgical operation' in 1983 -
aimed at laying the ghost of the hard left by expelling the Militant editorial board - has turned into an unending cycle, in the hands of the Tory press and the labour right. The more the NEC disciplines the left, the more the Labour leadership denounces the hard left, - leading to more disciplinary cases, and so the cycle goes on - playing straight into the hands of the Tories. Such is the right wing domination of the NEC, that Kinnock couldn't stop this diabolical vicious circle if he wanted to.
This then is the situation as we approach the general election. The Labour and TUC leaders have created a situation of working class defeats, which have weakened Labour. Kinnock's political collapse has further un- dermined Labour and strengthened the Al- liance. The situation is being set up for a likely return of a Tory government with an even harsher anti-working class programme to implement, or at best for a hung parlia-
Planning the next five years?
ment with a greatly strengthened Alliance contingent, in which the Tories will most likely be the largest party.
The crisis of the Labour left Readers of this magazine will be familiar with the growth of the Bennite left after 1979, and the way in which after 1983 it split up between the hard left, including the Cam- paign group of MPs, and the soft left includ- ing Tribune, the LCC and Ken Livingtone One clear expression of this division was the fact that the Campaign Group and the hard left gave support all the way to the miners' strike, wanted a fight to the end over rate capping, and have stood out against Kin- nockism. But the hard left has to recognise its own inadequacies if it is to prepare for the next period. This is not a matter of factional hairsplitting: it is vital that a new strategy is seriously debated if victories are to be secured.
When Benn was defeated in the deputy leadership election in 1981 he lost because of the weight of the trade union bureaucrats and the parliamentary party in the electoral college. This election underlined the fact that the labour movement is dominated by a bureaucracy, comprising trade union, par- liamentary and Labour Party functionaries. Of these it is the trade union bureaucracy which is overwhelmingly the most powerful. This is the bureaucracy which crowned Kin- nock, defeated Benn, fuels the witch hunt, and betrayed the miners, the healthworkers, the printworkers, ASLEF and a string of other groups of workers in struggle. This means that any left wing which wants to organise to defeat the right wing, in the unions and in the Labour Party, has to organise its forces for a political fight with this bureaucracy.
This may not seem a particularly original or profound point to make, but it is far from common coin in the Labour left or even the
Marxist movement. On the one hand we find the leadership of the Campaign Group relat- ing to the trade unions largely at the level of establishing links with a few more or less sympathetic bureaucrats, and evading the question of organising forces at the base of the labour movement to fight for a class struggle programme against the bureau- cracy. On the other hand we find widespread ultra-left conceptions of seeking only to or- ganise the trade union 'rank and file', con- ceptions which belittle or deliberately ignore the political fight agamst D- union bureaucrats, leaving workers in struggle vul- nerable to manoeuvres and sabotage from their own leaders.
The fact is that any successful political fight against Kinnock and the TUC bureau- cracy must base itself upon systematic work at every level in the trade unions - embrac- ing the organisation of oppositional broad lefts' and rank and file groupings as well as a
ale
cau- read
Socialist Outlook No 1 May/June 1987
fight inside the official movement itself.
One example illustrates this clearly: 'Campaign Forum', which was to be the vehicle of a left wing fight-back, does not exist. It is a formula in someone's head, not a fighting reproupment of the left. This is not an omission of forgetfulness or bad organisa- tion. It stems, in our opinion, from the failure to understand that the alliance created around the Benn deputy leadership cam- paign, which included a section of the left bureaucracy, cannot be repeated. It was the product of a very particular conjuncture. It will not be repeated, outside of a massive working class fightback.
The move to the right inside the unions is savage. NUPE, which opposed the the expul- sion of Militant in the early stages, is now, under the leadership of Tom Sawyer, leading the pack of witch-hunters. Ron Todd, despite having thrown in his lot with the witch-hunters is losing control of the TGWU
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uine mass support. This is exactly what the Campaign Group has failed to provide or even recognise as necessary. We must go beyond the old 'Bennism' to get it.
ne or
Facing the left's crisis Everyone admits that there is a 'crisis of the left'. But different people mean different things by this all-embracing term. So what and who are in crisis? From an historical point of view, the crisis of the Kinnock leadership is not a crisis of socialism or socialist perspectives, but a further stage of the crisis of social democratic reformism in Britain. It is precisely because the capitalist crisis is so advanced in Britain that the political crisis of social democratic reformism is so marked
If the Labour left is also in crisis, it is because Labour's precarious electoral posi- tion puts in question the strategy used to fight for the traditional aspiration of successive
If Labour were to win If the political situation drastically changes and a Labour government is elected, then a Kinnock government would be a right wing government which would pursue many of the attacks on the working class which the Tories have initiated. The trade union bureaucracy would attempt to create 'unity' around this government and head off workers' struggles. The task of the left would be straightforward enough - to counterpose socialist policies to those of the government, to champion the struggles of the working class and the op- pressed, and to break up any attempt to impose a new 'social contract. It would also mean fighting for the implementation of radical Labour Party policies - like nuclear disarmament - now ditched by Kinnock. However, a Labour government is the least likely outcome of the next election.
If Labour loses If Labour loses, whatever government emer- ges, either a coalition or more likely a Tory government, then this will give rise to two inter-linked processes. First, the attacks on the working class will be dramatic and vi- cious. Anti-trade union laws will be streng- hened, the welfare state will be further dismantled, privatisation will proceed apace. Linked to that, the right will go on a huge new offensive in the labour movement, at- tempting to scapegoat the left for the electoral defeat, and witch hunt socialists both in the unions and the Labour Party. The left must develop a strategy which simultaneously deals with both these attacks.
Our starting point has to be the fact that with trade war and global recession in the wings, British capitalism is still in enormous crisis: any incoming government will need to launch major new attacks on the working class, to further weaken working class organ- isation, cut public spending and boost the rate of exploitation and profit.
In the aftermath of a general election which Labour did not win, a wave of demo- ralisation would sweep through the labour movement; the perspective of 'wait for a Labour government' would have gone out of the window, and many workers would see no credible political perspective. Would workers fight against the new ruling class attacks? It is of course impossible to work out in advance the precise line of development. But in our opinion there would be one major factor in the situation - without the perspective of a Labour government in the near future, sec- tions of the working class would be in a situation in which they either struggled against redundancy, speed up and cuts - or they would face immediate defeat. Despite the odds this could lead, in the medium term at least, to major new working class struggles.
How should the 'hard left' respond? Over the past five years the Labour Party hard left has responded with financial solidarity and general political support. This is important but not enough as a strategy. The left has to broaden its horizons towards political inter- vention giving a lead to workers' struggles, and an extension of its organisation inside
9
GROUP
SPORT WINETEE
SPORT SCTORY TO MINER * VICTOIN TO MINERS
MiSt 1g
losur
Philip Gordon/Reflex
The miners' strike of 1984-5 changed the political landscape
to the hard right wing. Arthur Scargill is fighting for his survival in the NUM against a line-up including the old-guard right wing, the Communist Party and the so-called 'soft left'. 'New realism' is sweeping the board as the new orthodoxy: the EETPU and AEU leaderships have become pace-setters rather than pariahs inside the TUC.
As a result, any strategy based on attempt- ing to fight back against the right wing through manoeuvres inside the union bureaucracy, or by organising inside the Labour Party alone, is doomed to defeat. The hard left has to find forms of organisa- tion able to take forward class struggle and socialist politics inside the unions. What is needed is a forum of socialist education and organisation spanning both the Labour Party and the unions in the knowledge that this will come straight away into conflict with the bureaucracy. The fight must be aimed at securing rank and file participation and gen-
Socialist Outlook No 1 May/June 1987
labour lefts — a 'left Labour government' introducing bold socialist measures. This whole perspective has now come slap up against its main contradiction - the sabot- age of the bureaucracy and the right wing, who would rather plunge the party into turmoil and lose elections than allow a rad- ical Labour government. The fight for a Labour government which introduces social- ist measures has to combat that sabotage.
Despite Marxism Today and the 'new revi- sionists' of all stripes, in our view there are still tens of thousands of activists in the unions, Labour Party and mass campaigns who seek a socialist way forward. Their crisis, if crisis it be, is one of perspective, of seeking a practical way forward. The answer to that crisis is only secondarily at an ideolo- gical level: it is mainly a question of strategy. In order to give the outlines of what such a working class socialist strategy might be, we have to look at the situation we face.
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the trade unions. We return to this point
below
After an clection which Labour loses, in
-. loses, in
addition to groups of workers who will have
no alternative but to struggle, there will be
other important social sectors under attack from whom we can expect prolonged res- istance. Sharper attacks on democratic rights, and fresh attacks on the black popula- tion, women's rights and the lesbian and gay communities will continue. Equally, there is a trend in Britain today towards the creation of a huge section of the population, maybe 20-25 per cent, whie is being completely impoverished. this includes of course the unemployed, many sections of black people, youth, single parent families in all sectors of the working class and other groups. The anger and despair in these groups, especially among black youth, often takes the form of explosive outbursts of anger, and we can expect this to continue.
The left has to find the means to reach out to these groups, to link their struggles to those of the labour movement, and to demonstrate that it is the militant section of the labour movement which is in fact the best fighter for the rights and interests of the oppressed. Special emphasis in this must be put on the fight for fundamental democratic liberties, which are under attack. The use of the police and the courts, to stifle freedom of expression and to baton down on workers struggle, black people and youth is becoming all pervasive in our society. Recent events, from the Broadwater Farm frame-up trials, to the Zircon events, show the extent of this. The left must be prepared to take bold initiatives in response to this, including link- ing up on specific issues with broad sectors of liberal democratic opinion who are alarmed by these developments.
The crisis inside the Labour Party will proceed apace if Labour loses the election. We can expect a frenzied attack on the left, more severe than auything we have seen. Maybe the political polarisation will lead to some of the 'soft left' breaking away from Kinnock - but the main feature of the situation will be a sharp polarisation to the right. A response to this could well be for some sections of the hard left to lose heart in the fight inside the Labour Party and to seek solutions outside the party. This will be more of a problem as more and more radicalised layers of workers, youth and especially black people refuse to join the rightward-moving Labour Party, and build their struggles and campaigns outside it.
The onus is on the hard left to fight within the organised labour movement for the kind of politics and initiatives that can attract and. win the confidence of these radicalised forces, whose energy and committment are essential to the fight for class struggle and socialist policies against the ruling class offensive.
However to turn to these forces at the expense of continuing the essential political fight inside the unions and the Labour Party would be a tremendous mistake, which should be combatted: it would do nothing to resolve the fundamental problems of leader- ship facing the working class as a whole. The
trade unions. We return to this point
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right wing would like nothing better than for the hard left to walk out of the Labour Party, leaving the field free for unfettered control by the bureaucracy. The stifling of the left - or its voluntary desertion from the fight - would be an enormous turnaround in British politics and a blow against the working class which still shows no willingness to break in any numbers from the Labour Party to any of the self-styled left alternatives. It would be quite wrong to abandon any ground to the right wing while a fight can still be carried through.
The unions To continue its fight, the hard left has to re-evaluate its whole strategy of fighting the bureaucracy. So long as the major trade unions remain bastions of the right wing, the left in the Labour movement will continue to be on the defensive. That doesn't mean that the fight for socialist policies in the Labour party should be abandoned, but it does mean that it has to be linked with the struggle to organise and build a fighting left inside the trade unions.
'the more one defends basic socialist ideas today, the more
we create the basis for
advance in the future?
Serious work in the unions must include:
• attempts wherever possible to build left opposition currents inside the unions (in some cases this will mean broad lefts or rank and file bodies like the Yorkshire Miners campaign group; in others more developed political groupings like the Socialist Teachers Alliance); • a more rigorous and determined attempt to intervene in workers' struggles, raising demands, tactics and policies which can ass- ist workers to win struggles and combat the capitulation and betrayals of their bureaucratic leaders; • taking the day-to-day struggles for jobs, union rights and against speed-up into the discussions inside the Labour Party.
The News International dispute, following on the bitter lessons of the miners' strike is a warning here. It took place in the centre of London, where the Labour left is strong; but although some sections of the left supported the dispute and even turned up on the picket lines, there was little systematic attempt to link up politically with those printworkers who were looking for alternative tactics and politics from those offered by Dean, Dubbins and the Morning Star wing of the Communist Party.
Such a link was not a far-fetched idea: there were increasing numbers of prin- tworkers who became critical of both their national and London leaderships and could have been drawn into serious debate through joint work with local support groups. They were looking for allies and alternatives: they found precious few.
The necessity of confronting the right wing
trade union leaders is something which has to be carried into all the debates in the Labour left. The Campaign Group leadership in the last analysis has dithered about real organisa- tion at the base, both in the party and in the unions. Of course, the left would come under sharp attack if it began really organising at every level of the labour movement - but it cannot evade or deflect that attack by refus- ing to organise.
The policy of manoeuvering for support from 'left' union leaders and avoiding break- ing links with the bureaucracy by not invad- ing 'their' territory is no longer viable. The situation in the NUM, where the CP and the semi-Kinnockites are besieging Scargill, shows the weakness of relying on attempting to win positions without building up left organisation at the base. A concerted appeal by tne Campaign Group for a real co- ordination of the left in the whole labour movement could meet an enormous res- ponse. In the absence of such an appeal the hard left must get on and organise in the unions the best it can.
Fighting the ideological battle Finally, there are two aspects of the left's approach which cannot be ignored. The ideological fight throughour the labour movement against the right wing cannot be given up. We have to continue to refute the whole gamut of right wing ideas, from Kin- nock to Marxism Today, through stepping up socialist propaganda and education at every level of the movement.
The 'new' revisionists who attack basic socialist ideas such as class struggle, nationa- lisation, workers control, and international- ism, are not 'new' thinkers at all, but people who rehash very old ideas - the ideas of social democratic, and even liberal, reform- ism. Yet the left often gives the impression that it is unconfident about fighting for basic socialist ideas, or appears apologetic for men- tioning the 'old' ideas of class struggle and socialism.
The more we defend basic socialist ideas today, even against the stream and the "fashion' of leftish academic circles, the more we create the basis for socialist renewal and advance in the future
Secondly, the struggle for a political alter- native to Kinnockism in the labour move- ment cannot avoid the task of fighting for the most consistent ideas which guide the struggles of the working class and the op- pressed - and these are the ideas of Marx- ism. The continuity, coherence and clarity of the fight for a socialist alternative depends on forging a serious Marxist current, rooted in the labour movement and embracing the struggles and most militant of the oppressed At a time of retreat and crisis in the left, this has to be said loud and clear.
Our magazine aims to provide a political focus and to discuss the essential politics for such a current. We intend to provide the kind of analytical and political approach that is vital to equip militants in the trade unions and the Labour Party for the coming battles against the various wings and layers of the bureaucracy.
Socialist Outlook No 1 May/June 1987