Workers Review 1

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The latest price increases are part of the conditions laid down by the bankers of the IMF for a loan that is vital to keep the crippled Sudanese economy ticking over. The repayments on such loans are part of the profits squeezed from Sudanese working people by the imperialists.

At the same time, the imperialists - and particularly the US imperialists -up their military power in the region.

In return, Reagan has sent huge shipments of weapons, on the pretext of helping Sudan defend itself A Loraract I:======= 25 2:

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the jobs in the next Labour government? Kinnock and Healey at Brighton.

Socialist Organiser Alliance SOCIALIST Organiser fights to act as a real campaigning paper which can organise workers in the struggle for new leadership.

To do so we need consistent support and money. Socialist Organiser Alliance groups have been established in most big towns.

Why not join with us? Supporters are asked to undertake to sell a minimum of 6 papers per week and contribute at least £1.50 If there is no group in your area why not To 'Get Organised", write at once to us at Socialist Organiser no.68 January John O'Mahony charts the retreat of the Left THE ANCHOR-line argument of a section of the Left now 18 that, really, the Marxists don't care about defeating the Tories and returning a Labour government, and that therefore they are disinclined to seek compromise with the Right.

Jumping into line in response to the blackmail and threats of the Right, the trade union bureaucrats, and the Foot-Kinnock centre, these left wingers throw this accusation over their shoulders at the Marxists: It is what the Right and the Kinnock faction say to them, and by slanderously passing the accusation on to us, they disguise from themselves what role they are now playing.

Buckling under pressure, they present what they are doing as a free choice made to secure a respect-worthy objective - a new Labour goverment.: Naturally, they argue, only those who reject this goal can fail to follow such a lead.

Thus those who set out to make sure that 'never Callaghan's, now reach the verge of witch-hunting the Left which refuses to forget it.

Most disturbing is the rationalisation for their own capitulation to the blackmailers used by some of the Left.

Overthrow

They are serving a higher goal. Things will turn out for the best — although we have had serious setbacks since the Party conference, although we have had a limited defeat.

per month (20p for unwaged). help us to build one? 28 Middle Lane, London N8. Carving up Instead of realistically facing up to the facts and proceeding to change them, we have self-consoling cant and venom for the Marxist Left.

Twenty: years ago the leaders of the then quite imposing Left retreated before tha kmadgeon of ahe right wing, and its furious fightback against the 1960 conference decision for unilateral nuclear disarmament. Acting on Nye Bevan's dying advice against underestimating the Labour Party's ,desire for unity, the Left leader of that time, Michael Foot, sought compromises. In the process he surrendered bit by bit to the Right, which overthrew unilateralism at the October 1961 conference.

Consoling cant about unity played its role then too. So did 'investigation' (by the Tribunite Victory For Socialism group) and witch-hunting of the Marxists by the Right and sections of the Left. (We were not really unilateralists, you see, not pacifists).

git.

It has taken almost 20 years for the Labour Left to recover the ground light•mindedly and cravenly surrendered without a serious fight by Foot and Co. in 1961. The labour movement does not have 20 rears to squander again To kick out the Torie would be a great achievement even it the ghost of James Callaghan or Harold Wilson were to be the replacement for Thatcher. We want to kick out the Tories and we want a Labour government.

Crippling

But where did Thatcher come from? From the failures of the Wilson-Callaghan government. Another such government will inevitably fail, resoundingly and probably messily.

It will be certain to rat on, disappoint, and disillusion its supporters. And then what? After a new Wilson-Callaghan type government may come not a new Thatcher but worse.

The decay and crisis of British society continues y2RY and accelerates. We don't have all the time in the world. If we don't make decisive changes in the politics and structure of the labour movement now, then the chance may go again for decades.

With it will go for the foreseeable period ahead the chance that the labour movement will be able to carry through a socialist transformation of Britain. If that goes, then the probability in the medium term is for the destruction or drastic crippling of British democracy and with it the British labour movement.

There will be no miracles. If we don't secure the future of the working class and the labour movement, no-one will. The present trajectory of British society and the British labour movemen then ther don't movement is towards a avert it, will certainly be a smash-up.

A new Callaghan-type Labour government will be a stage on the road towards smash-up - possibly the last stage - not the discovery of the brave new road we have been talking about for 2½½ years.

That is the issue now -to continue the struggle to remake the labour movement or to accept the right wing's definition of the situation and abandon that irreplaceable fight, adopting instead the goal of a Wilson/Callaghan type Labour government. new Those who say that winning the next election on the right wing's terms is the supreme goal now, to which everything else is subordinate, adopt for practical purpose the operational politics of the right wing.

It's not that we forget about fighting the Tories, but that those who are now parting company with us 'forget' about the need to have something to replace them by.

We must combine the job of kicking out the Tories and returning a Labour government with a continuing struggle to change and transform the Labour Party and labour movement. UNTIL last Wednesday, the basic issue was how the Left would go forward from the Benn campaign in the fight against the Right. After Bishops Stortford, the debate is now about a deal with the Right - and a deal that is apparently already signed and delivered.

The stand-pat decisions at the NEC Organisation Sub-committee on Monday 11th show that something was agreed at Bishops Stortford. What? The rank and file are the last to know.

The drive for a deal was clearly signalled by Chris Mullin in Tribune of January 1.

Call a halt "Several members of the NEC", he wrote, "are prepared to contemplate a deal along the following lines.

'The Right would be asked (1) to call a halt to the purge: (2) to support the endorsement of all properly selected parliamentary candidates; (3) not to tamper with reselection or the electoral college at least until the next election is out of the way. "In return for this the Left would be asked (1) to undertake not to contest either the leadership or deputy leadership until after the next election; and (2) to concentrate on campaigning for policy rather than internal constitutional reforms.

•A face-saving formula would also have to be found to enable Peter Tatchell to remain a candidate for Bermondsey without unduly embarrassing Michael Until then most of the 'Bennite' hard core had wanted to fight. In mid-December they played a major role in the two-to-one defeat at the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy AGM of Vladimir Derer's argument that retreat and compromise were necessary.

Crippled

Sometime over Christmas, presumably, these 'Bennites' changed their minds, and accepted the basic argument which has crippled the Left again and again: that Labour must sink its differences to win won't give ground on essentials, the Left must.

"If they are able to put together a package acceptable to both Left and Right" , Mullin wrote, 'there may still be some hope for Labour at the next Peter Tatchell Left Delegates from many groups of the Labour Left will meet on January 23 at 'Labour Liaison • John Bloxam reports.

Was Mullin's package agreed? We don't know. Certainly a serious pledge by Dennis Healey to stick to conference policies like unilateral nuclear disfight for real trade union armament is as likely as a rights by General Jaruzelski.

A slowdown on the witchhunt has probably been agreed. Certainly the witch hunt is not off.

The inquiry into Militant is going ahead. The rightwing union leaders are still clamouring for expulsions, once the inquiry reports. "Aller the Militant Tendency are found to be a party within a party."', one NEC member is quoted by the Sunday Telegraph saying, "then under Labour's constitution they have expelled themselves.

'Yes, it will mean proscription and expulsion, but I'm not prepared to make concessions'' With the Left demobilised by deals done over our heads, and being told that nothing must disturb Party unity, it will be difficult to stop this.

More alarmingly, the move fur a deal goes together with a move by sections of the reformist Left to isolate the Marxists and legitimise a selective purge of us as splitters allegedly not caring for the interests of the Party as a whole.

Tribune of January 7 called in an editorial for a permanent tribunal to investigate (and probably expel) "some of the more secretive sectarian organisations... ". A large section of the Labour Coordinating Committee has been pushing similar ideas. LCC secretary Nigel Stanley appeared on a witch-hunting TV 'probe' into Militant.

Whatever deal has been agreed, the Right and the soft centre still hold all the positions of power.

Since the deal is not public, and when they feel confident enough they can twist it or tear it up at will.

Some Labour left-wingers apparently see the left wing of the Trade Unions for a Labour Victory people like the TGWU leadership - as the reliable guarantors of the deal. But the short shrift cedi. the TGWU leadership gave to militants fighting to commit the union to a Benn vote at its 1981 conference shows how far on them.

In reality the only strength of the Left is the activity of the rank and file. But that cannot be switched back on at will.

Indeed, an acceptance by the Left now that unity demands we call of some of our legitimate struggles is bound to dampen all our struggles.

The 600 resolutions of protest on the Tatchell affair show that the rank and file is still ready to fight for democracy.

But in any case, instead of presenting the deal as something forced on the Left by weakness, its supporters are dressing it up as a reasonable agreement to satisfy everyone Impatience by the Right, or equally an eruption ot direct action against the Tory government, with the consequent pressures inside the Labour Party, could blow the whole deal sky high.

But in any case the Left must reorganise on a fighting basis. What does this mean?

• Labour Liaison 1982 must decide practical measures (like, e.g. the open conference favoured by CLPD) to ensure the widest involvement of the rank and file in discussions and decisions on the Left's tactics.

There is no justification for secret deals.

• Continuing the fight to democratise the Party and replace the right wing leadership. This is a necessary condition for a Labour Party that really fights the Tories, and a Labour government that at last begins to attack capitalism.

We should campaign for the proposals approved at the CLPD AGM, including local government reform, PLP reform, and more power for the women's conference. If possible, an agreed slate for the NEC should be drawn up at Labour Liaison 1982, and openly campaigned for, with a view to recapturing this committee from the right/soft-centre bloc.

• The fight to make reselection work must continue. There must be no compromise over the question of endorsement or the 'shortlist of one' Unequivocal opposition to any witch hunts of the Left, or any bans or proscriptions. 'Inquiries' - which merely prepare witch-hunts - must equally be opposed, and the right of Marxists to fight inside the Party defended.

• The Left cannot give leader elections. The exist ing leadership does no fight for Party policies, anc must be replaced. Thi:

truth remains, even if let candidates judge that thi balance of forces is agains an immediate challenge.

As much of the Left a possible must be puller together to campaign ol these lines - and to pre vent Bishops Stortfore being the end of the roar for the renewal struggl in the Labour Party whic began in 1979.

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Socialist Organiser no.68 January 14. 1983 Page 7

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elections, and that there- fore, since the right wing

up the right to contest the Party leader and deputy