abstract debate. Since its inception, ary party in national terms.
method & approach to the building of such a party.
Women's Liberation Movement.
Over the past period, however, erences between the two organisations were decreasing. to be growing agreement on the nature of the Transitional and its tactical application in Britain, common recognition of, for example, of the fight for socialism;
a mass Troops Out Movement);
er question) and the struggle for Gay rights.
with unity in action in the class struggle - is a correct for the building of a mass revolutionary party.
Nevertheless.
radely fashion within a common organisation.
scale radicalisation of the 60s has, sibility of fusing the two organisations. At its conference late last year, one of the central areas of discussion was the relation of the LSA to the Fourth International. This was not an the LSA has always had an internationalist perspective, publically identifying with both the programme & The LSA has always rejected the 'insularity' prevelent among wide layers of the British left who see the task of building a mass revolutionWhile identifying with the FI, however, the LSA had many differences with the IMG (its British section) which seemed to reflect a different tended from an orientation to the Labour Party to an evaluation of the the LSA has considered that the diffThis seemed to be reflected in a * the need to build a class struggle left-wing in the labour movement, around democratic and transitional demands, as a central task;
* the need to see the struggle for women's liberation as a key aspect * the need to elaborate a programme for youth and set up a youth organisation capable of drawing thousands of rebel youth into anti-capital* the need to combat racism both by supporting Black Power & fighting, within the broader labour movement. against racist Immigration * the need to defend the right of the Irish, Scottish and Welsh people to self-determination (by building, particularly in the case of Ireland, There has also been a common approach to newer issues thrown up by the class struggle, such as Ecology (particularly on the nuclear powThe LSA believes that the growing political agreement has been paralleled by agreement around the nature of the revolutionary party. IMG's attempt to create an internal democratic atmosphere - combined of 'democratic centralism' and corresponds with what the LSA has The LSA considers that the tradition the IMG is trying to establish is an object lesson to the left on the application of Leninist party building. Allowing for common programmatic agreement, tactical differences should be comradely debated out without the need for splits or expulsions which have helped cause the present 'fragmentation' of the It is only by fighting for a true concept of democratic centralism that this fragmentation can begin to be overcome and the foundations laid This is not to say, of course, that tactical differences do not still while supporting the IMG's non-sectarian attitude to regroupment of the left, would not necessarily agree that the tactic of 'Socialist Unity' is the best way of accomplishing this task.
Moreover, such a move could be seen as cutting across a serious orientation towards the Labour Party which will increasingly become the focal point for opposition to Callaghan's pro-capitalist policies in the LSA is convinced that the programmatic agreement between the two groups - and the coming together on many tactical issues - means that remaining differences could be debated out in a comThe LSA believes that the possibilities opening up for Trotskyism in Britain - and internationally - are greater than ever before.
more recently, been given a central thrust by the deepening struggles in the labour movement which drawn thousands into conflict with their reformist leaders.
Moreover, the Communist Party is unable to 'take advantage' of the situation since it has become rent with internal divisions stemming from the contradictions facing Stalinism as a world movement.
The possibility for building a pole of attraction to the left of the reformist and Stalinist organisations is clearly posed. Overcoming the fragmentation on the left - by regrouping those forces who share common programme - is the first step in this direction, It is for this reason that the LSA has written to the IMG for discussions on the posions facing socialists century.
to offer support to Labour.
a clear alternative to it.
socialists have taken question past.
such as Labour, were An Infantile Disorder.
revolutionaries today.
the following article last year in engel.
of Lenin Communist instructions without an they decide.
The widehave parties.
politics.
What attitudes should relatively small groups of revolutionary socialists take towards reformist and bureaucratically- run mass workers parties, such as the British Labour Party? This has been one of the major questthis The SWP, for instance, holds that it is completely wrong They view Labour and Tory as being policies. essentially the same in practice. The SWP run in elections against the Labour Party and pose as City. Again, This current line stands In sharp contrast to positions on this at various times in the It also stands completely challenge opposed to the ideas of Lenin. Lenin's attitude towards parties and the question unable of participating in elections, clearly set out in his achieve. classic "Left-Wing Communism:
We believe these ideas continue to provide a clear compass for Lenin's ideas are outlined in ment. by Ian Angus. This article was originally part of a series published the Canadian Socialist paper 'Labour ChallMany of the British supporters The Communists who oppose d any support to the Labour Party were quite aware that Lenin disagreed with them. The Communist International, under the leadership and Trotsky, was profoundly different from what it became under Stalin's control.
Where Stalin insisted that the parties obey his question, Lenin and Trotsky wanted to build International of intelligent, thinking revolutionaries. These men and women were not to be dictated to - if they were wrong, would have to be convinced.
As William Paul said at the founding convention of the CPGB:
"There is no one in this audience to whom I yield in admiration for Lenin, but as we said yesterday, Lenin is no pope or god..... On local circumstances, where we are on the spot, we are the people to The local Communist leaders were the people on the spot - but that did not mean that their decisions would be correct. Many of be?
them were inexperienced; others had been miseducated by involvement in sectarian or opportunist The Bolsheviks had gathered the most dedicated militants into a new International.
Now they faced the far more difficult task of educating these militants in the artof revolutionary What was at stake was not just a difference over affiliation to the Labour Party, but a much more of the Russian Revolution took a sectarian attitude to the British Labour Party and elections. Angus points out that it was only the intervention of the leaders of the Third International, particularly Lenin, which brought unity to the warring factions of British Communism and won the majority away from their ultra-radical and sectarian The British CP made zig. zags and took many wrong positions because of its political immaturlargely due to Lenin, the party corrected its course and, as a result, increased its size and influence. They were beginning to provide a real to the status-quo policies of the Labour leaders.
Unfortunately the party was to benefit for long from the clarification Lenin helped The bureaucratisation of the Soviet state, culminating in the consolidation of the Stalinled ruling clique after Lenin's death, led to the degeneration of the world communist moveThe various parties became pawns in Stalin's foreign policy deals. As a result the CPGB, for instance, helped the Labour Party and top trade union leaders betray the 1926 General Strike.
important question: What kind of party would the Communist Party J.T. Murphy, a former leader of the Socialist Labour Party, expressed the essence of the question in his account of his experiences atthe Second Congress of the International, held in Moscow from July 23 to August 7, 1920:
"My experience in Russia..
had shown me the real meaning of the struggle for political power.
Instead of thinking that a Socialist Party was merely a propaganda organisation for the dissemination
March 79 you must be unity of all workers.
a Labour candidate. to the masses in practice that the Labour leaders prefer their close relations with the capitalists to If Labour refused an electoral alliance, Lenin suggested, the Communists should run candidates only in constituencies where their candidacy would not cause defeat of was a wrong with the Labour Party and its programme. The revolutionaries would, in effect, be saying to the British working class: "You believe that the Labour Party can satisfy your needs - we disagee, and here's why. Lets work together to put Labour in power and then we'll see which ofus is right.
The Communist Party ought,
In April last year, a demonstration of over 3000 mobilised in central by Anne Williams Socialist Action
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The L.S.A. and the Fourth International