[Barry Haslam (secretary of Rochdale Constituency Labour Party)…]

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Barry Haslam (secretary of Rochdale Constituency Labour Party) reviews David Mara LAL. AGAINST THE Join LABOUR AGAINST THE WITCH HUNT FoR CLPs and unions [3, mards E5, indirichuals & no: :J1-JÉ:: E3. 11 Widerton Rd, N16. WITCH-HUNT!

and indivichats. efforts of the working class itself. The same outlook determined his attitude to the industrial struggle.

During the national rail strikes of 1907 and 1911, in which the union was fighting for the right to negotiate, MacDonald spent his time talking to the company and the government side in an attempt to "bring harmony to our nation by finding a solution"

It was the same later, during the General Strike. MacDonald had always opposed all "that syndicalism stuff", and used all (secretary of his energies to try to call off the "calamity of the General Strike"

On May 5, the second day of the strike, he journeyed to the country house of Winston Churchill, who was editor of the government's 'British Gazette' and master-mind of government strike-breaking policy, for dinner and a chat.

For MacDonald there was nothing out of order in the Labour leader, quite arbitrarily and off his own bat, dining with the leader of the class enemy in such circumstances.. He noted: "Besides the miners' issues, we had a pleasant dinner talk on superstition and ghost topics"

"'The notion that socialism has anything to do with the mad scramble for the extra penny a week is nothing but an illusion" MacDonald warned Party members in 1913.

"It is the job of the trade un. ions to negotiate for better conditions for the workers, not the Labour Party. Our goal is to unite the country and take it towards progress"

Trespass

And in MacDonald's view, the other 1 main component of the Labour Party, the Independent Labour Party (whose place in the Party corresponded roughly to that of the constituency activists today, had the job of painting a moral vision of socialism.

It should not trespass on the territory of the trade unions, or get its hands dirty by leading struggles against capitalism, but "follow the teachings of Jesus and point the way to the Promis. ed Land" by general moral enlightenment.

In 1931 he was to say: 'T am the representative of the whole nation and not just one region or class. The King expects me to do my duty by himself and the country. Not to form a National Government would be the highest treachery to them both".!

This desertion of the labour movement in the name of loyalty Rochdale Constituency to 'the nation' was only the logical conclusion of long-held views. In 1910 he had argued for distancing Labour from the "Labour needs to be an independent party — not just a caucus for implementing TUC decisions"

Class war

In MacDonald's view, "the Labour Party should have no class consciousness. Our opponents, they are the people with a class consciousness. Instead of this we wish to advance the consciousness of social solidarity.

The class war is not the work of our hands. It was created by capitalism"

And when young militants fought for a genuine socialist programme for the Party, he told them: "You speak of revolution - but look at nature. How wise is the worthy tortoise, and you will find in its movement the natural rhythm for the transformation of society. Learn from nature"

Trotsky was to comment:

'English pigeon-fanei-- by - a method of artificial selt-won, have succeeded in producing a variety by the progressive shortening of the beak. The beak of the new stock is so short that it is incapable of breaking through the shell.

The English bourgeoisie's political skill lies in shortening the revolutionary beak of the proletariat and thus preventing it from breaking through the shell of the capitalist state. This beak is the Labour Party.

A single glance at MacDonald, Thomas, and Mr and Mrs Snowden, is sufficient to convince us that the work of the bourgeoisie in the selection of short-billed and aoft-billed вресimens has been crowned with immense success, for these ladies and gentlemen are not only not fit for breaking through the shell of the capitalist system, but are good for nothing whatever"

reviews David Marq In 1915, however, MacDonald was forced to resign the leadership of the Labour Party. The Labour Party had supported World War 1. Arthur: Henderson, with majority TUC and Labour backing, joined the Liberal Government as Minister of Education.

It was a small minority of Labour leaders, including MacDonald and Clynes, who remained opposed to the War.

No doubt MacDonald recalled the career of Lloyd George. In 1900 the Liberal MP had vocally opposed the Boer War. It did his career no harm at all. Lloyd George rocketed from anonymity to the centre-stage of British politics.

Why could Ramsay ald not do the same?

Pacifism

Lenin called MacDonald's position 'social pacifism. MacDonald deplored war and slaughter - "violence in any form is unthinkable and unacceptable" - but confined himself to appealing to the capitalist governments to stop it. He made no effort to mobilise the working class to take power from the hands of the warmongers.

He stumped the country calling for peace initiatives with Germany and an immediate ceasefire, and also chastising the Coalition Government for its military incompetence.

As the war ended, the Clyde, Sheffield, Manchester and elsewhere became smouldering cauldrons of industrial militancy. The centre of gravity King George V: "Mr MacDon indeed about the singing of the Commons and elsewhere".

Ramsay MacDonald: "Do 1 but a small group of ruffians well in hand".

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aDonald (right) with Tory coalition partner Baldwin (centre): 'a pariah figure' The 1935 general election: Labour's Shinwell ousts the renegade MacDonald ei Kinnock msay MacDonald uand's book, 'Ramsay Macl shifted to the left in the TUC and the Labour Party.

In this period MacDonald produced all manner of left talk. No doubt he found it morally uplifting. Besides, it could help his career. -Workers' councils diers thed Sailors Workers on in diers' and Sailors Convention in Leeds in July 1917 he hailed 'the great achievements of our comrades in Russia" - and called for soviets (workers' councils) in Britain! In 1920, he loudly backed the action of London dockers who refused to load munitions for use against Soviet Russia onto the ship Jolly George' But revolutionary rhetoric was one thing, revolutionary conclusions were another. MacDonald denounced the Third International and the new (then revolutionary) Communist Party, at the same time as he tried to ingratiate himself with the Clyde Shop Stewards' movement. He defended the doctrine of Parliamentary democracy as the central motor of change, while also calling for social revolution.

The General Election of 1922 produced a radical break with the past. The Liberal Party was eclipsed, taking third place. Labour became a major force, with 142 seats. (The Conservatives had 347 seats and formed the government).

MacDonald was re-elected leader of the Party, beating Clynes by a whisker - 61 to 56 - in a Parliamentary Labour Party vote.

Id, I am very worried *Red Flag song in the nald' (Jonathan Cape. £15 That the mass of ordinary workers had illusions in MacDonald and his crew cannot be doubted. The 'New Leader' wrote at the time:

'He is the focus for the mute hopes of a whole class. When he entered his constituency of Aberavon, it took his car one hour to move two miles. It is enough for us to know that rarely, if ever, in English political history has such a scene been witnessed - who could be a pessimist after this!"

The 1924 election tilted the balance even more. The Conservatives had 259 seats, Labour 191, and the Liberals 159. No Overall majority for anyone. The King sent for MacDonald. and the first Labour Government in history was formed.

Trotsky wrote:

'If MacDonald walked into Parliament, laid his programme on the table, rapped lightly with his knuckles, and said, 'Accept it or I'll drive you all out' ' if he did this, Britain would be unrecognisable in two weeks.

- Reverence MacDonald would receive an overwhelming majority in any election. The British working class would break out of its shell of conservatism with which it has been so cleverly surrounded; it would discard that slavish reverence for the law of the bourgeoisie, the propertied classes, the church and the monarchy"

Bu: Mac Donald had different ideas 'Socialist measures are not on the agenda. We have to prove that we can govern as competently as Baldwin. We must not alienate the middle classes"

No measures were car== zzainst Capital. No weta: = social policies were introducet This government did not eve= deserve the name 'refurmist'.

For MacDonald that was unfortunate, but secondary. What mainly impressed him was this:

'Who would ever have thought that MacDonald the starveling clerk, Thomas the engine driver, Henderson the foundry labourer, and Clynes the mill-hand would one day form the King's Cabinet"

MacDonald enjoyed himself:

•'The left wing people have been criticising me again for wearing Court Dress. They are a dull-witted lot. In their view, if I was to give sixpence a day from public funds to the poor, then I would be a socialist. What rot!

I do not care a fig for the argument that Court Dress is part of royal flunkeyism. The King has been cordial and friendly, and that is important to me"

Nine months later the Labour Government was bundled out of office, with the help of the forged 'Zinoviev letter' scandal.

But by the late '20s, with unemployment climbing steadily, Baldwin's Tory government lost popularity. In 1929 Labour won 287 seats in the General Election, with the Conservatives taking 261 and the Liberals 59.

John Maynard Keynes had begun to put forward his theory that the government could use budget deficits to reflate the capitalist economy by launching public works programmes. The Liberal Party entered the 1929 General Election with a Keynesian platform, 'How to Conquer Unemployment' Bu: the Labour Party manifesto, 'Labour and the Nation' was cautious, conservative, and monetarist. It made only vague hints about expansien, and repudiated the 'wild adventurism' of Lloyd George's claim that unemployment could be brought down to 500,000 within a year.

While Keynes and the Liberals hac the confidence to chal:=-== che shibboleths of ortho: i =: = mies and to propose :=".: : .:arges within capital.. MsD at. Scunden, and 5.== nere concert •a a= := = : Dat= inemseives respectie " ie gres or ihe CURSIE :S 2 The first act of the new Labour government was to preside over the sentencing of Wal Hannington, organiser of the National Unemployed Workers' Movement, to 12 months for sedition:* Its second act was to reduce the pay of civil service clerks, dockers and railworkers by 5%.

Then the Wall Street finance empire blew up.

In January 1930 unemployment was 1,533,000; by March 1,731,000; by June 1,946,000. By December 1930 it was 2,735,000 The crisis split the government down the middle. Philip Snowden, the Chancellor, demanded strict adherence to monetarist orthodoxy. There would have to be cuts all round in order to keep sterling on the Gold Standard, he said.

Oswald Mosley (later to go over to fascism, but then still Labour) proposed a Keynesian alternative. MacDonald was unmoved: ''There is no more socialism in that than there was in the cup of tea I had for breakfast this morning"

Snowden placed a statement before the Cabinet calling for a cut of £67 million in unemployment benefit.

For three weeks the government prevaricated. Henderson, who had the closest links to the trade unions, led the opposition to MacDonald and his Chancellor. Finally, the vote was 11 to 9 in favour of cuts. Immediately the nine résigned.

Expelled MacDonald, Snowden and Thomas formed National Government with the Tories, and were promptly expelled from the Labour Party. Henderson became Labour Party leader; and was backed by the TUC.

MacDonald's daughter, Sheila, noted in her diary:

"Daddy spoke to Mr Thomas, 'We cannot shirk our responsibilities' ', he said. 'All this sentimentality about the workers is trash. The unemployed must make sacrifices too'.

'But what about Henderson. Mr Thomas said.

'Bugger him! We've gor a National Government, to form'. said Daddy® Rainsay MacShadess :=mained prime minis::. so: mas a mere prsoner of ise Tir Baldwin gro sears • isra figure for the rest of his days.

In the 1935 election, when the National Government was . reelected with a 247 seat major. ity and Labour was reduced to 46 seats. MacDonald nonetheless lost his own Parliamentary seat to Labour's Emmanuel Shinwell.

MacDonald became an increasingly pathetic figure, and died in 1937, aged 71.

Reflex response Why did it all happen?

The working class movement in Britain was formed organisationally and ideologically long before Marxism became accessible. The trade unions, the bedrock upon which the Labour Party came into being, had grown through piecemeal CREDENTIALS JUST THE MA on poster spasmodic lurches forward, as a reflex response to Capital's attempts to increase the exploitation of labour.

The labour movement's leading cadres were often imports from the reforming wing of the Victorian middle class. Trotsky put it well:

'At bottom the English Labour Party has thus far been living without a head on its shoulders, while the party of the English bourgeoisie has a head — a head with a high and mighty brow, supported by a robust and powerful neck"

It is only by understanding this history that we will be able to fight for a socialist leadership of the labour movement today.

GENERAL*

MANAUCK WANTED ONE WHO CAN RUN A LARGE CONCERN IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST APPLY JOHN BULL L° T: 6АД00R 22623 LABOUR

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Many socialists and unilateralists in Britain see the official peace movements in Eastern Europe as their allies. Yet these 'movements' are tightly controlled by the bureaucratic states - which ruthlessly suppress the unofficial, independent peace movements which Whatever differences we may have with their policies, shouldn't socialists support the democratic rights of these dissident peace movements against the Socialist Organiser no.149 October 6 have developed recently.

repressive Stalinist bureaucracies?

Stan Crooke reports on one Germány.

"Straight Left'; whose editorial' advisory panel includes four members of the TUC General Council and three Labour MPs, whilst, praising the official "peace movements" has described the independent ones as "groups of dissidents with a logistics base in the West" "criminals who want to avoid punishment and so declare themselves victimised" and "not peace organisations in any recognisable sense."

European Nuclear Disarmament is accused of 'blind anti-Sovietism" , and its support for the independent peace movements in East Germany is equated with "campaigning for the right of people in the German Democratic Republic te refuse to defend socialism"

Straight Left is part of the new Stalinist network which has developed in the Labour Party, and a representative journal of this current.

Clear-cut

Others are less outspoken and clear-cut in their politics. But Stalinism in the form of attitudes, prejudices, double standards, and a basic commitment to solidarity with the rulers in the Stalinist states, not with those they oppress, is a growing force on the Labour Left, and even the Labour centre.

Its influence extends from Clause 4 to the new secretary of the Labour Party, Jim Mortimer.

But what do the official and unofficial: peace movements actually consist of in reality? The question can best. be answered by. taking a specific example: that of the German; Democratic Republic (GDR).

As in other Eastern European countries, the state itself in the The classic Marxist analy of Stalinism is Leon Trotsky's 'Revolution Betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and Where example - East GDR is officially regarded as a force for peace: 'The Republic ¡as a whole is service in the cause bf peace" runs one of the slogans of the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SUPG), whilst another of its slogans claims "Military service and service in the cause of peace are identical."

All activities carried out within the boundaries set by what is in fact an extremely repressive state apparatus are therefore construed as activities in furtherance of the cause of peace: "Our whole Republic, its citizens, our economy, science and culture, the workers and farmers are one great peace demonstration" , claimed one East German writer recently.

Taken to its logical conclusion, this argument means that the stronger the repressive state apparatus is in the GDR, the stronger is the cause of peace. And the GDR ideologues do not shrink back from this logic.

''The stronger socialism is, one mot the mare official rans " runs of the GDR (in which 'socialism' actually means 'Stalinism'), whilst more recently the state apparatus has revived the slogan first raised when military service was introduced in 1962. 'Peace must be defended -peace must be armed."

The result of all this is to enable the bureaucracy to define as a "legitimate" peace movement only that which conforms to the norms which it itself lays down: 'the peaceful policies of the state and the people's desire for peace are two sides of the same coin :.. the policies of the state are identical with the objectives of the peace movement."

That the policies of the state on Stalinism Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin: Is state movement should be idenSoule tical" is hardly surprising -both are, atter all, run by the same people.

Official "peace" demonstrations and other initiatives for "peace" in the GDR are called by the Peace Council of the GDR. This Council consists of representatives of the official "trade unions" the official "youth movement" , the official 'women's movement" and so on.

But the point here is that such movements are not genuine ones, independent of the state bureaucracy: In fact, they are merely extensions of the latter and transmission belts for its policies. The Peace Council does not therefore consist of democratically elected representatives of a mass movement. It consists of a collection of Stalinist bureaucrats who run a variety of anti-working class state organisations.

(And since "peace must be armed" , one of the bodies with a key role in the official "peace movement" is the NVA ÷ the National People's Army. Thus, at the present time, the NVA, in conjunction with the official "youth movement", , is running a series of rallies under this slogan. One of the main purposes of these "peace rallies' is to win "volunteers" to undergo training to be an officer in the NVA).

The nature of the Peace: Council also explains the size of the official "peace demonstrations" in the GDR. The bureau,cracies of the different Stalinist mass organisations represented on the Council take responsibility for ensuring a full mobilisation of the membership of the organisations they run.

Thus, for example, the leadership of the official "trade unions" or the official "youth movement" will order a turnout by their members. But, given the direct links between such organisations and the STASI (State security police), trade unionists or youth who fail to respond to the call to demonstrate know that this can lead to harassment both at work and at home. There is thus nothing diplomacy the way to peace? voluntary about the mass turnouts for the official "peace demonstrations" in the GDR.

The official "peace movement", therefore, is not a voluntary organisation of mass individual membership. In fact, it has no individual membership at all. It is merely a committee of Stalinist bureaucrats taking decisions without being accountable to anyone for taking them, and using the various Stalinist transmission belt mass organisations to ensure the implementation of these decisions.

And it goes without saying, the "peace initiatives" of the Peace Council are directed solely at Western imperialism. Imperialism's nuclear arsenal and its acts of aggression towards the Third World are condemned. The Kremlin bureaucracy's possession of nuclear weapons and its acts of aggression - e.g. Afghanistan, the threat to invade Poland -are, at best, passed over in silence.

(At worst, they are supported: "A major bulwark of peace has been developed in the shape of the Soviet Union... the further strengthening of the socialist world system (i.e. Stalinism) provides the real possibility... of banishing world war from the life of society," explains the Stalinist manual, "A Pocket Political Dictionary" ).

The unofficial, autonomous peace movement, on the other hand, stands in a very different relation to the state and its policies. By definition, it comes into conflict with both.

Outside

The GDR's constitution permits the formation of organisations only if they are 'in accordance with the principles and aims of the Constitution" Since the autonomous peace movement. rejects the notion that "peace" can be equated with the policies of the GDR's state apparatus, it automatically falls outside of what is permitted by the GDR's constitution.

But to talk about a peace "movement" as such in the 20i-:0 GDR is inaccurate. Given the level of repression, it has hitherto proved impossible to draw together the local groups and initiatives into a national campaign. The unofficial peace movement in the GDR, therefore, is not a single, unified organisation, but an umbrella term used to cover various local groups, and activities, which often have no contact with each other.

And the GDR's unofficial peace movement is also different from West European peace movements. Unlike the latter the former does not concentrate on unilateral nuclear disarmament as a major issue, for two main reasons.

Firstly, it is unclear whether or not nuclear missiles are stationed in the GDR anyway. Officially - though this is not necessarily true - the USSR claims that "only" nuclear delivery systems are stationed in the GDR, not the nuclear warheads themselves.

Secondly, campaigning for unilateralism, even in relation to the delivery systems, immediately poses the issue of self-determination. Constitutionally, the GDR is "allied for all time and irrevocably with the USSR" , a polite way of saying that the GDR's policies are subordinate to those of the Kremlin bureaucracy. To call for withdrawal of the delivery systems would be a direct challenge to the touchstone of the GDR's entire sub-existence as a satellite state.

wven sc has begun to gain an increasing prominence within the campaigning of the genuine peace movement. The "Berlin Appeal" of January 1982, tor example, called for: " ... first of all - away with nuclear weapons. The whole of Europe must become a nuclear-weapons free zone.."

when audiat of to do and the 73 initial signatories to the Appeal were also taken in for interviewing by the security police. All were, however, later released).

To be concluded next week THE MASS strike movement of 800,000 public sector workers in Belgium ended on Friday September 23. The right wing coalition government had made some concessions on its projected cuts, but managed to force through most of its plans.

This means the strike movement achieved much less than its potential. Responsibility for that lies with the leaders of the two trade union federations involved, Christian and Socialist.

The concessions were offered the weekend before the return to work. The strikers contemptuously rejected them, and the movement grew.

But the union leaders proceeded by basing themselves on the weakest sections of workers.

The union leaders convened each group of workers separately to discuss a return to work, and pushed the strongest groups back to work by telling them they were isolated.

Yet this is how the Financial Times (September 23) described the development of the strike movement.

'Early in September] there were consultations in the Walloon industrial town of Charleroi about the special problems of the railwaymen who looked as if they would be particularly affected by the public sector cuts... The local union leaders said they would think about a strike in October.

But when the raiwaymen themselves heard about how they might be affected by the cuts, they took the matter into their own hands. That was September 9.

The strike spread throughout the rail network and out into the civil service and the state agencies... Within a week the state machinery was seizing up..

[Previously] the Government (bad] remained secure against the unions because the Socialist and Christian Democrat groupings could not agree on a combined approach.

The public sector strike changed that, at least for a time. It was not that the union chiefs were in special alliance.

Rather, pressure from the strike came up from underneath. To regain control of the strike union leaders were forced to cooperate more closely than they have done in the past...

The initial spark for the strike was concern mostly about the details of bonuses and rises [etc] ... By this week [the second week of the movement} though the Christian Democrat and Socialist unions were listing much broader demands.

Generalised, these demands embodied the theme that ... the public sector and the workers have made sufficient sacrifices, the wealthier should pay more in taxes and there should be more action to reduce unemployment...

The British working class has that power, too. It could beat the Tories.

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•Socialist Organiser no. 149 October 6 1983 Page 11

----- pull-quotes -----

#worry, Your Matesty, It's id miners. We have tbem

SHINWELL 38,380 MACDONALD 17,882

THE NATION •International ne Bureaucrats or dissidents: who fights for peace?

It Going?' Available via Socialist Organiser, 28 • Middle Lane, London N8: I £2.50 plus 50p postage.

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