of the Labour Party and the trade unions offer solutions that are in the interests not of the workers but of the capitalist class.
Socialist Chalienge helieves that the lw0 vital tasks confronting revoratonary socialists are:
• lo huild broad-based race siruckle lendencies in opposition class-collaborationism In labrur morement. These should he non-exclusive in character.
grouping logether militants holding a wide range ot political viems.
democratic revolutionary socialist begin to be seen ay seeks to unite the fight of "i pomer and defeating with all with full of 'sociation in the LNSR and lishling for ancialist democrace.
don a world scale. C'apitalism politics. Thar se fight for warhing El better leedle Darf the imperialist regimes in the West in Bumidite ple dramanding immediate wilhdrawal Brilish Iroop, Irom Ireland and letting the Irish people determine their own tuture.
In dommunie parties in rope dit in crisis. beither 'Herecommunis' wings hase ans miraninghul the arthrow or the captail state. dry resolutionar, somals! partle HOLLY.
Pretere. finition.
Proprate than wer dire preceding three arcades. Bad wisch partic mris buil sering I sens spree vard dese principles d1i4l interested literal balders needless ded acts dies or sons • seruld boke additional literature "Holete if and appleber Name.....
Address.
sid to serialid d hallenge. 128 * I peer al. London dI Socialist Challenge 20 September 1979 Page 2 Socialism, Cape, £5.95) consists essentially of his and other people's old ideas. The fact that it is Labour conference since Thatcher's victory means discussion both in the bourgeois media and at the.
not his ideas. For he goes out of his way to stress that what he is saying is not new, but part of the traditional aspirations of Labourism - including its addiction to Methodism and preachers and its division between politics and economic struggles.
The experience of the Wilson and Callaghan governments has convinced Benn that the reason. they failed was their inability to carry social, economic and political reforms. He accepts tensions between Labour and the ruling class, but argues that with working class support Labour would have won. We shall return to some of these arguments later. Let us first consider why the fact that Benn is saying all these things is different from What is happening is that for the first time in nearly two decades a new current is emerging in the Labour Party and the unions. This is not the same as the politics of Tribune, which offers nothing to most activists and whose main supporters were constituency parties and in the unions. It's true that the defection of Scanlon and Jones left Benn book (Argument What makes Benn a figure of some interest is who that all his support evaporated as a result. remains the only leader of the Labour Party who still has some credibility with Labour's base This is a remarkable achievement. For Benn lay low while in office. There was not one major clash with Wilson or Callaghan. Benn refused to resign from the Cabinet despite the vicious, anti-working class policies pursued by the Labour government. He publicly defended Owen's support for the Shah of Iran, refused to disassociate himself from Labour's atrocious record in Northern Ireland, and spoke very infrequently on the cancer of racism at homeand abroad. Helacks Bevan' sability to arouse or Powell's audacity The latter is not meant as ar insult. If Benn had done for the labour movement what Powell seeks to do for the ruling class, the Labour left would have had a much higher standing inside the factories.
Despite all this he remains a opposition. It would be true, trite, to point out that there is no-one else; that in the land of the blind the one-eyed person is the one rules The fact remains that constituency parties and a section of trade unionists (largely a secondary layer of full-time officials influenced by the Institute for Workers Benn is the solution. The Labour Co-ordinating Committee (LCC) was set up last year in an attempt to organise support for Bennite politics. nembership of 350 (including people like Stuar Holland MP, Geoff Hodgson, Peter Hain etc.) an‹ is organising a rank-and-file conference on 3-4 November in Manchester. The conference obtained the backing of the TGWU and NUPE and clearly represents an important initiative which it would be foolish to ignore.
Edited by Chris Mullin dominated He focus of though somewhat for most Control)
It has a appear democratic parliaments.
The precarious conditions workers movement. radicalisat an reforms possible ascendancy?
The central question Lots of workers Bennites have created the basis for his DUBOUILEID - It rings tor him The Labour Party conference this year will be democratisation measures proposed by the Bennites. Despite their limitations these should obviously be supported. The right wing of the party (including Callaghan!) have said that the whole debate is a diversion as the central task iș to tight the Tories. While this is obviously a ploy to avoid discussion on the structures of the party, it does reveal a flaw in the Bennite offensive.
Would it not have been more effective to fight on inner-party democracy as well as propose a plan of action to fight the Tories? Would it not have been more practical to organise a national conference of Labour councillors and the public sector unions to discuss a fightback on a national level against the The bulk of Benn's book is a collection of his old essays and speeches, skilfully edited by Chris Mullin. All his ideas are in this book. In sum total they amount to a souped-up Fabianism, a radical reformism which seeks to shift the balance of class forces in favour of working people. And yet even this reformism claims as its patron saint not the young Bevan but the old Attlee. The point Benn makes is fair enough. The drift to the right has been so pronounced that the writings of Tony. Crosland sharply reformist. In other words, the eagerness with which Wilson and Callaghan sought to make managing agencies for capitalism automatically Dell al guts lar us mas ico lo une growing isolation of Labour from ordinary working people Labour has been seen to slash living standards and increase unemployment. Nor does he underestimate the importance of ideology. The Bennites are behind the campaign for a daily paper under the control of the labour movement, and for the setting up of a national printing corporation which would provide facilities to those groups not in the good books of the Tory millionaires who control Fleet Even within a reformist framework he misses structures. The electoral system is undemocratic. Surely proportional representation would compel the Labour Party to politicise its base, apart from being more democratic. The only Benn supporter to defend such a proposition is Arthur Scargil!. Where does Benn stand on this question? Similarly, Benn's affinity with the demands of the old Chartists does extend to their most radica demand: the for annual The problem for the Bennites is the following capital necessitate a restructuring at the expense of the Thatcher is determined to carry it through to the end. The last thing that British capital needs is reforms of the sort that Benn Proposes. It is not that they cannot be conceded within the boundaries of capitaten. But capital will only make concrssions if it it treatened by a gigantic mass m. ement. It will be fear of mass will make most of these ut then those agitating for them will realise that they do not go far enough. And if they want to go all the way, will Tony Benn play Cromwell to the Levellers of a mass movement in which confronts the Bennites today is the following: should British workers wait five years before they can expect to defeat the Tories? Is it not necessary to start fighting the Tories now? And under what banner?
are beginning instinctively that syndicalism is not enough. What they need are arguments for socialism. Our task is to provide these, while realising that the arguments will be understood best in the context of debates inside the mainstream of the labour movement. The • ich debates to take place, Shrill denunciations on ar part will be treated with the contempt they deserve.
In the coming weeks and months this newspaper will be discussing in detail every single argument for reforms which has been put forward by Benn and In any event, despite the disagreements that have and will continue to exist between us and the Bennites, we are absolutely clear about one thing: we are for unity of action in every. sphere where a struggle is possible against the Thatcher government, against unemployment, the Cub Caucuous on aborton was cenocrac rights, etc. For not only is such unity in action vital to take the workers movement forward. It creates the most healthy basis for a continuing debate Meanwhile at the Labour Party conference it now appears that the Engineering and Transport Union delegations will vote for Benn's proposals. Callaghan should ask not for whom the Benn tolls