The Transitional Programme of 1938 contains a sentence that is often overlooked. is an admonition to the sections of the Fourth International to ".. work out with all possible concreteness a programme of transitional demands concerning the peasant and urban petty-bourgeoisie". In this sentence can be found the important idea of elaborating series of demands to win over allies side of the working class in the struggle for socialism.
The importance of this idea has received added relevance in the developments over the past decades which have resulted in the emergence of different forms of class struggle; in particular, that by women and Blacks for engaged in struggles for their specific rights, have to be convinced by socialists - both in theory and. practice - that the internal logic of fight leads in an anti-capitalist direction.
Many left groups, such as the WRP, totally neglect this question of drawing up a programme of demands for such layers. In doing so, they alienate these layers who can become convinced, after experience with such groups, that socialism has nothing to offer them in the struggle for their sexual or racial liberation. The disillusion of wide layers of the Black or women's movement with the left is concrete proof of this.
In refusing to draw up such a programme for these layers - often the most oppressed and under-privileged sectors of the working class - the left implicitly capitulates to the backwardness of the labour movement which itself often manifests sexist, racist & chauvinist prejudices. The 'Militant! grouping in the Labour Party is the clearest example of this, with its refusal to support the struggle for abortion rights led by NAC, to pioneer the issue of self-determination for Ireland or to popularise the fight for Black liberation.
Drawing up a programme for these sectors means elaborating a series of demands - both democratic and transitional - which challenge the various forms of inequality that capitalism imposes on them. It is by struggling around such demands (on various issues) that ever -wider layers will progressively grasp that the source of racism and sexism is class society and can only be uprooted along with that The women's movement today - which has thrown up struggles as diverse as that for abortion rights to equal pay - is a concrete casé in point. The demands that the movement has developed all challenge the subordinate role women are forced into within the family unit. This is as true for demands such as the 'right to free abortion' to more extensive ones such as 'free nursery facilities. In challenging this role, in challenging their position as ¡child-breeder! and 'child-minder', they come increasingly into conflict with the family as a class institution supported by all the forces of class society. It is in this way that ever-more will begin to see that the fight against sexism is inter-related with the fight against class society, and will begin to grasp the necessity for socialism.
Pioneering the struggle against racist and sexist oppression can be of decisive importance in two ways. First of all, it can lead thousands to see they have a direct stake in socialism and, thereby, render them allies of the labour movement. Secondly, it can be instrumental in breaking down the prejudices
that exist inside the labour movement - prejudices which the ruling class seize upon to divide workers as they are presently doing over the question of racism.
Unfortunately, whereas the ultra-right has astutely played upon these prejudices to gain increased support, the left has virtually ignored them. They have refused to combat the mass anti-abortion rallies pioneered, over the last years, by SPUC by building the NAC into a mass movement. They have refused to challenge the growing right-wing propaganda over immigration by building a movement to repeal the racist 1971 Immigration Act, and they have refused to systematically oppose growing anti-Irish sentiment by viewing the Troops Out Movement as a priority.