Indrasural Spiercziaal Revive the roots, renew the politics

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Reformism is bankrupt. Éven at his most 'left' Neil Kinnock does not dare commit himself, or the next Labour Government, which he hopes to lead, even to the full restoration of the Tory cuts. That's the measure of the bankruptcy of reformism, and of how well its representWe need to commit the Labour Party to a fight for socialism, now -for socialism as our immediate answer to Toryism and our immediate Organisationally, too, the Labour Party must renew itself. The Labour Party is the mass party of the working class, but its branches are not mass organisations, and frequently they do not have much to do Union representation on GCs has, of course, sustained the links between the local parties and the workplaces. But all in all, working class involvement in the Labour Party has declined alarmingly - for decades.

To renew itself the Labour Party needs to revive its roots in the The 1982 decision to start Labour Party workplace branches can be the starting point for a tremendous organisational renewal of the Labour Party, and for the revival of the Labour Party as a force in working By way of Labour Party workplace branches, many industrial militants can be drawn into activity in the political wing of the labour The influence of factory branches can help turn the rest of the Party outwards towards workers' struggles, at the same time as the tactory branches bring anti-Tory and socialist policies into the workplaces.

Middle class ward members and single-issue activists in the Party may be forced by the activity of factory branches to think througe the fundamental problem of how to relate the Party to the mainstream working class - without which no radical socialist transformation is The characteristic division of the British labour movement between narrow trade unionism - including militant rank and file trade unionism - in industry, and old-fashioned Labour reformism outside it, can The SDP's drive towards a continental-ștyle political split in the unions makes this tremendously important, and urgent.

Left wing Labour Party workplace branches could help change the balance in the unions - and take the fight into the walled-off domains of the trade union leaders who have intervened so brutally into the Factory branches alone, in and of themselves, cannot, of course, guarantee anything other than a degree of closer Labour Party involvement in the workplaces. The right wing and soft 'left' was able to win political control before, when the Labour Party was closely integrated into working class life. It subverted the potential for socialism, and In this, as in every other area of the labour movement, the intervention and activity of Marxists will be of decisive importance in determining what happens. But factory branches will help Marxists defeat the right wing and its soft-left allies, and win people to our ideas about socialism - at the heart of which is the mainstream working class and We produce this supplement to help Labour Party the urgent work of building workplace branches. THE renew die.

The renewal must in the first place be political renewal. It is the Party's politics - its real politics as distinct from politics to which mere lip-service is paid - which determine what it is and what it can hope to achieve.

The environment in which the old Labour Party flourished and achieved some retorms for the working class is changed and gone beyond recall.

atives know that they are bankrupt!

alternative to Thatcherism. / Working-class roots with the working class.

working class.

class life such as it has not been for decades.

movement. possible - as it actually is.

be overcome.

affairs of the Labour Party in the last period.

The intervention of Marxists squandered the credit of the Party.

its struggle. ' Become a supporter of the Socialist Organiser Alliance -. groups are established in most large towns. We ask £1.50 a