RTY Benn cannot be achieved by denouncing Benn sectarianly from the sidelines. Such ultra-lett antics merely separate the SWP from those thousands of workers who are beainnina to listen to his arauments and who see in the LCC a torum tor debatina out an alternative socialist strategy.
If the SWP believes that Benn is a 'reformist trap', then they should be a part of the labour movement fighting shoulder to shoulder with wider forces around concrete policies that can put Benn to the 'test.
The sectarian attitude of counter-posing themselves to the Labour Party reveals, at the same time, a curious retusal to be involved in real struggle. If the SWP believes that Callaghan - and Benn - are leading working people aown a prina aney, do tney tnink they can solve the problem by abstaining from the fights against them in the Labour Partv? Isn't their attitude towards the Labour rarty telling botn tne ngnt and in their terms - the Benn left 'off the hook'?
LEFT-WING The key place for socialists is not out in the wilderness proclaiming the need for a 'revolutionary party'. It is in the Labour Party fighting to build a class-struggle left-wing which can unite the widest torces aroune an action programme opposed to the rightwing. Such a lett does not have to be confined to passing 'pious resolutions in party wards.
On the contrary, such a left should be active on the streets building the anti-Corrie demonstrations, the CARL rallies and the actions to detend union riahts. it is only by rooting the struggle in the Labour Partv around mass actions outside that it will be possible to build a serious opposition to the right-wing around living policies.
The sectarian antics of groups like the SWP - turning its back on the mass party of the working class and counterposing itself to it - will increasingly lead to its cutting itself off from radicalising layers in the period ahead. Its already declining membership will decline still further and lead it into growing isolation.
UNITY Surprisingly enough, it is only by adopting a serious orientation to the Labour Party that the potential will be laid for overcoming the disunity that already exists among the left.
It is only by charting a nonseclarian course lowaras une caboul Party that socialists, in a common organisation ana Inrougn comradely debate, can begin to work together and build up unity in action. In cooperating to build a class-struggle left-wing, with all different forces on concrete issues, the potential will be created for a more lasting unity.
Certainly by remaining on the fringes of the labour movement -isolated from the ongoing radicalisation - the fragmentation that currently exists will deepen rather Inan decin to be overcome.
TEST In the years ahead, the left will face an acid test. will depend on whether they can cain o break oul or une seclarlari links witn ine past - ine links witn the student vanguard which still linger on - and develop a mass orientation towards the labour movement.
The attacks the Thatcher government is now launching will escalate in the coming years. The radicalisation this creates -as wide layers seek to derend their living standards and democratic rights - will increasingly be reflected in the Labour Party as part ot an attempt to hammer out and test out all the leaderships.
For socialists to stand outside inal process will not lead to a step forward. It will ead to a deepening crisis in which more forces will be lost, the divisions will deepen and the confusion increase. Terry Viney (NUT)
Everything Last February, the Rotherham headquarters of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation were firebombed. For once, Bill Sirs — General Secretary when he put the blame for the arson attack fair and square at the government's door.
people to beliere that we are evil when we are only trying to find a reasonable way to get our just demands". Sirs' comment is dead on target.
up by the Tory government against the steelworkers in particular and trade unions in general. Arson attacks have gone hand in hand police brutality on the picket lines.
CONFRONTATION Such a witch-hunt is clear proof of how desperately the Thatcher government needs to win the steel strike. Originally, they chose the steelworkers for a 'confrontation' because they were convinced they would provide no obstacle to pushing through their "rationalisation' plans.
had shown its weak-kneed attitude in the past, agreeing to plant closures and erosion of working conditions that had already led to drastic cuts in the workforce.
than in steel to implement their industrial strategy of making workers pay for the crisis? Fearful of taking on the miners - who had THE STEEL WORKERS STRIN - got it right As he put it, Thatcher and her cronies were behind it for "leading SUPPORT The arson attack is the direct result of the hysteria being drummed with denunciations in the press and into action.
next.
Atter all, the union leadership Where better - they calculated -WEAKNESS the EEC as a means of 'delaying closures and who refused a "reappraisal' of the f450 million offered in the pay area.
The reasons for Joseph's actions are crystal-clear: the Tories were planning a confrontation with the steelworkers from the beginning. They calculated that, having defeated them, this would serve as a precedent to demoralise other workers destined to feel the Tory axe in the years to come.
But, as did Heath with the miners in 1974, they miscalculated. Far from crumbling before the Tory offensive, the reaction among steelworkers up and down the country was so strong that they forced their vacillating leadership Not only has the strike been 100% solid - among public sector steelworkers - but it has also drawn behind it the support of thousands of other unionists aware that defeat for the steelworkers places their heads on the block Railway workers have refused to transport steel and dockers to handle it. Miners have instructed the NCB not to buy steel during the dispute and have (in South Yorkshire) held pit-head collections. Most important of all, thousands of workers - from the mines of South Wales and South Yorkshire - have manned the picket lines of private steel corporations as at Sheerness and Hadfields.
Any weakness in the strike so far doesn't come from the rank and file whose determination to see it through has grown and which has encompassed ever-wider layers -as last February 28th when over 250,000 workers in South Wales downed tools in solidarity.
Any weakness that has emerged can be placed at the door of the leadership of the union movement. There can be no doubt that the TUC, if it had swung behind the steelworkers earlier, could have ended the dispute within the month. But instead of backing the steelworkers, it has attempted to undermine their struggle and prevent solidarity actions by other Isn't this what happened in South Wales when the Welsh TUC called for a general strike from January 28th onwards to oppose general job loss as a result of plant closures? Far from backing this. the British TUC called on its Welsh cousin to postpone the call. More recently, it has declared a 'day of action' of its own on May 14th. But this is too little, too late. What the steelworkers need is solidarity action now.
DETERMINATION Despite the lack of support, however, the determination of the rank-and-file steelworkers is strong The longer the strike goes on, the more resolute they become that the Tories will not succeed in 'rationalising' steel at their expense. The original demands of a decent wage have begun to exiend to jobs.
As Brian Molyneux (Stockbridge and Tinsley Park Strike Cttee) put it: "We are for 20% index linked with no productivity strings at a national or local level, and no redundancies". If rank and file steelworkers stand firm on this they will cut the ground out of any compromise Sirs may be tempted to make with the government For us, in the wider trade union movement, our task should be to fight within our unions to get the maximum solidarity possible. Such solidarity should range from fighting for financial contributions to the strike funds to supporting the pickets wherever possible. The steelworkers strike is our strike. If they lose, we're next in line. FOR 20% INDEX-LINKED! NO REDUNDANCIES! WORK-SHARING WITH NO LOSS OF PAY!
CAPITALISM: A BALANCE SHEET?
"What threatens mankind -and it is as large a peril as that - is a lethal and unpredictably volatile mixture of starvation, inflation, escalating unemployment, international monetary disorder, protectionism, major tension between countries competing for energy and food and raw materials, advancing deserts, over-fishing, pollution of the air and water, and the arms race".
(Sunday Times: 17.2.80)