to bury it. Or, as its one-time 'patron saint' perhaps I should offer to conduct its funeral service.
Revolutionary unity Indeed it is a good idea. But there is no real prospect of it happening. Of those who were interested in a broad-based unity a year or so ago, Big Flame now rejects any practical moves at the present time.
The International Socialist Alliance, which I helped to launch, has faded due to lack of enthusiasm others for the unity perspective which was its foundation.
The International Marxist Group, formally committed, has turned its attentions — more in despair, one imagines, than from conviction back to the Socialist Party, which in turn partner.
Fragments The problems revolutionary designed to solve are surfacing in new forms. Much of the far left is discussing Beyond the Fragments, a useful book but one which should be renarned 'Beyond Lennism — Back to the Fragments', if the title were to reflect the contents.
The discussion has, in any case, a largely timeless quality. Thereal problem is that there is no prospect of the far left with any strategy -Leninist. quasi-Leninist, anti-Leninist — in the forseeable future.
Let's face the facts. The best opportunity was a good idea. both on its own part and that of still Workers remains an Of course, independent socialist alternative policies Labour and its left. and the means are not to band.
labour political but for paralysis.
got we can still be active in the movements of the left; in that sense vive the fragments! But what are the political options?
I have fought for the last 13 years for an to Labour.
But, however necessary this may still be in the long run, I cannot see any good reason for socialists to hold aloof from the Labour Party at the present time; and by that I mean, at least for the period of this Tory government.
The failure of the far left (and the CP) means that the popular opposition to Tory • in so far as it finds political as opposed to sectoral or trade union expression is bound to be reflected in the growth of Or to put it another way: a revolutionary left that could not pull itself together to grow under the last, appalling Labour government is not likely to prosper when the Tories offer the Labour left its present golden opportunity.
The recent record of the far left is dismally different from that of the late '60s and early '70s. There is no point looking for a repetiten of that period, when the situation is differen The real questions of the present time, ne ! see them, are how to develop and advance th politics of internationalist socialism — in the many movements of the left, yes, but also within the rising left in the Labour Party.
And how socialists like us, who have been through the experiences of the late '60s and "70s, should organise ourselves for such a new perspective in the first half of the 1980s.
Indecision led the ISA to virtual Even the very modest proposal of the IMG for a joint discussion journal response practice.
Demoralisation set in, and militants dropped out of activity.
In our view all this was the